Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India, Kshenuka Senewiratne, met with Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday, June 12, in New Delhi.
During the meeting, High Commissioner Senewiratne extended her congratulations to Sitharaman on her reappointment as India’s Finance Minister. The High Commission of Sri Lanka in New Delhi shared the news on X, stating, “Sri Lanka High Commissioner Kshenuka Senewiratne together with Deputy High Commissioner Priyanga Wickramasinghe called on Hon @nsitharamanoffc today to extend felicitations on her reappointment as India’s Finance Minister. Sri Lanka looks forward to enhancing the enduring friendship and cooperation between our countries.”
Earlier that day, Nirmala Sitharaman officially assumed her role as Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs for the second time. She was welcomed at her office in North Block by Finance Secretary TV Somanathan and other officials from the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Affairs.
Nirmala Sitharaman is one of the few leaders who have served as Union Ministers in both the 2014 and 2019 Modi cabinets. She took her oath as a Union Cabinet Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new Union Council of Ministers on Sunday evening at Rashtrapati Bhavan, along with 70 other ministers.
Sitharaman, who will soon present the full Budget for 2024-25, has a distinguished career in public service. In the 2014 cabinet, she served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs and later as the Minister for Commerce and Industry with Independent Charge. In 2017, she became the Union Defence Minister. She was first appointed as the Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs in 2019, becoming the first woman to hold this position full-time. Previously, Indira Gandhi had briefly held the finance portfolio as an additional charge while serving as Prime Minister.
