When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sri Lanka this week, two of India’s aid projects were in the spotlight—the Northern Railway Rehabilitation project in the north, as well as the housing project for displaced Tamils in the Jaffna region. These projects have once again highlighted the importance of aid in India’s engagement with its neighbours.
Aid has for long been an effective but under-the-radar foreign policy tool, and Modi too projected the aid projects in Sri Lanka in the best light. The projects have indeed been a challenge that India has met under difficult post-civil war conditions.