Diversity calls for celebration, not confrontation: PM Modi in Sri Lanka

India to assist Colombo in improving living conditions of minority Tamils in Sri Lanka

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said Sinhala and Tamil communities in Sri Lanka should strengthen unity and harmony as he assured India's full support to the steps taken by Colombo to improve the living conditions of minority Tamils in the country.

"Diversity calls for celebration and not confrontation. Sinhala and Tamil people and languages existed harmoniously," Modi told the Tamil community members in Dickoya town in the tea growing Central Province of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is still recovering from the wounds of a nearly three-decade long bloody civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which fought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and the east of the island.

The war caused significant hardships for the Tamils and resulted in deaths of an estimated 80,000-100,000 people.

"We need to strengthen, not separate, (these) threads of unity and harmony," Modi told thousands of Tamils during a public rally in the presence of Lankan President Maithripala Srisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.