Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Sri Lanka in May 2017, Sri Lankan Health Minister and Cabinet spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne said.

Modi will inaugurate a hospital the country and also participate in an event at Colombo, Senaratne told The Hindu, following the weekly cabinet briefing here. The events will be held around Vesak festival, one of the most important Buddhist festivals celebrated in Sri Lanka.

The hospital is being built -- with Indian assistance -- in Hatton, a town in Nuwara Eliya, in Sri Lanka’s Central Province that is home to the Tamils of recent Indian origin who work largely in the island’s famed tea estates. India is helping build a hospital there.

In March 2015, Modi was in Sri Lanka – the first bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister in 28 years. He was the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the Jaffna in the island’s Tamil-majority Northern Province.

Health Minister Senaratne said he also discussed the possible import of medicines from India with his counterpart, J. P. Nadda, who is in Sri Lanka for a summit organised by the World Health Organisation. The two health ministers held a yoga session at Colombo’s sea-facing Galle Face hotel Wednesday morning.

(The Hindu)