The Indian Vice President had very cordial discussions with President Chandrika Kumaratunga lasting over half an hour immediately after the funeral and interment of late Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, In the talks the Vice President recalled the traditional ties between the two countries which have been very close and friendly over the centuries. In particular, the Vice President referred to the links between the leaderships of the two countries and made special mention of the fact that the late S. W. R.

D. Bandaranaike had attended the Asian Regional Conference which had been inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi himself in 1947 before India’s Independence. This interaction, the Vice President said, had continued over the subsequent decades and obtains today in multi faceted areas of cooperation. The Vice President paid rich tributes to the vision of social unity which President Chandrika Kumaratunga has been working for, He linked India’s independence struggle and ethos of pluralism with the initiatives being taken for social cohesion in Sri Lanka. The Vice President recalled a Tamil poem by national poet Subramania Bharathiar in the course of which Bharathiar referring to Mother India has said "my mother speaks in 18 languages.’.

The President of Sri Lanka appreciated and reciprocated the sentiments expressed by the Vice President of India. She expressed her sincere thanks both as the daughter of the late Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and as President of Sri Lanka for the Vice President’s visit and participation at the funeral. Vice President said that this visit at the time of late Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s funeral was only natural as India and Sri Lanka are linked by very close ties.