{"id":37870,"date":"2023-10-25T10:57:29","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T05:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=37870"},"modified":"2025-04-23T02:27:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T20:57:22","slug":"free-visas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/free-visas\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka offers Free Visas to Indians to Revive Tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Why in news?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Sri Lanka has waived visa fee for Indians and tourists from six other countries, as part of its efforts to boost tourist arrivals.<\/li>\n<li>This step is aimed at helping rebuild the island nation\u2019s battered economy following last year\u2019s financial crash.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Economic Crisis in Sri Lanka<\/li>\n<li>News Summary<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Economic Crisis in Sri Lanka<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/editor_images\/2023\/10\/25\/12\/0\/11\/6538b5f35a0d3d059627f1d6_OI.PNG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li>\n<li>Sri Lanka is currently in an economic and political crisis of mass proportions, recently culminating in a default on its debt payments.<\/li>\n<li>There are several reasons for this crisis and the economic turmoil has sparked mass protests and violence across the country.<\/li>\n<li>Following is a brief timeline of events which eventually led to the crisis:\n<ul>\n<li>2009\n<ul>\n<li>In 2009, a decades-long civil war in the country ended and the government\u2019s focus turned inward towards domestic production.<\/li>\n<li>However, a stress on local production and sales, instead of exports, increased the reliance on foreign goods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>2019\n<ul>\n<li>Unprompted cuts were introduced on income tax in 2019, leading to significant losses in government revenue, draining an already cash-strapped country.<\/li>\n<li>The country saw its tourism numbers take a dive in the wake of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>2020\n<ul>\n<li>Covid-19 pandemic affected the tourism industry. Prior to the pandemic, tourism was the third-largest source of foreign exchange inflows to Sri Lanka, accounting for about 5% of the country\u2019s GDP.<\/li>\n<li>It was also a major source of foreign exchange reserve.<\/li>\n<li>With supply of foreign exchange drying up, the value of Sri Lankan rupee started depreciating thereby making the imports costlier.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>2021\n<ul>\n<li>The Sri Lankan government introduced a <u>ban on foreign-made chemical fertilizers<\/u>. The ban was meant to counter the depletion of the country\u2019s foreign currency reserves.<\/li>\n<li>However, with only local, organic fertilizers available to farmers, a massive crop failure occurred.<\/li>\n<li>As a result, Sri Lankans were subsequently forced to rely even more heavily on imports, further depleting reserves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>2022\n<ul>\n<li>A severe financial crisis saw mass protests and shortages of essentials such as fuel in 2022.<\/li>\n<li>In June 2022, then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in parliament that the economy had collapsed, leaving it unable to pay for essentials.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Help Extended by India<\/h2>\n<h2>A. Four-pillar economic cooperation arrangement between India and Sri Lanka<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In December 2021, India and Sri Lanka agreed to a <u>four-pronged approach<\/u> to help mitigate Sri Lanka\u2019s economic crisis.<\/li>\n<li>The agreement included following initiatives:\n<ul>\n<li>Urgent food and health security package\n<ul>\n<li>This includes extension of a line of credit to cover the import of food, medicines and other essential items from India to Sri Lanka.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Addressing the balance of payment issues\n<ul>\n<li>It includes a currency swap agreement to deal with Sri lanka\u2019s balance of payment issues.<\/li>\n<li>In the swap arrangement, a country provides dollars to a foreign central bank, which, at the same time, provides the equivalent funds in its currency to the former.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Energy security package\n<ul>\n<li>It includes a line of credit to cover the import of fuel from India, and an early modernisation project of the Trinco oil farms that India has been pursuing for several years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Growth and employment generation by facilitating Indian investments in different sectors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>B. Other steps taken by India to help Sri Lanka<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In March 2022, India announced a $ 1 billion line of credit to Sri Lanka as part of its financial assistance to help the island nation deal with its economic crisis.\n<ul>\n<li>With this, India provided a total financial assistance of <u>$2.4 billion since January 2022<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Along with India\u2019s financial assistance, Indian made investments in renewable energy, ports, logistics, infrastructure &amp; connectivity to help Sri Lanka in repairing its economy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>News Summary: Sri Lanka offers free visas to Indians to revive tourism<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Sri Lankan foreign ministry announced Indians will get free visas to the nation as part of a pilot programme which will extend till March 31, 2024.<\/li>\n<li>This scheme is also extended to citizens from six other countries \u2013 <u>Russia, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>This step was taken to generate a target of five million arrivals by 2026.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>India: a major source of tourists for Sri Lanka<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><u>India has traditionally been Sri Lanka\u2019s top inbound tourism market<\/u>, followed by China.<\/li>\n<li>As per latest data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, India is the largest source for tourists with 2,00,310 arrivals so far this year, followed by Russia with 1,32,300.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1)\u00a0What is Pusa Decomposer?<\/h3>\n<p>Pusa Decomposer is a microbial solution that can turn paddy straw into manure in 15-20 days. It&#8217;s a capsule that contains seven fungal species that help break down paddy straw. The fungi produce enzymes that aid in the decomposition process.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2)\u00a0What is currency swap agreement?<\/h3>\n<p>A currency swap is a legal contract between two parties to exchange two currencies at a later date, but at a predetermined exchange rate.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/sri-lanka-cabinet-free-tourist-visas-india-8997593\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Sri Lanka offers free visas to Indians to revive tourism<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/world-news\/sri-lanka-approves-free-visa-scheme-for-india-china-russia-us-not-on-list-101698122192468.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Hindustan Times<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/sri-lankan-cabinet-approves-free-tourist-visas-for-visitors-from-india-six-other-countries\/article67453100.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>The Hindu<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India has traditionally been Sri Lanka\u2019s top inbound tourism market, followed by China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}