India's new envoy to Sri Lanka flies onboard transport aircraft to reach island nation

Senior diplomat Gopal Baglay on Friday travelled from Delhi to Colombo on board a military transport aircraft to take over as India’s new envoy to Sri Lanka.

Baglay travelled onboard an Indian Air Force (IAF) transport aircraft, which also carried a 12.5-tonne consignment of essential medicines and protective gears for healthcare equipment – a gift from India to Sri Lanka to help the neighbouring country to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The consignment was the fourth of its kind gifted by India to Sri Lanka in the recent weeks.

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Baglay, who joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1992, was appointed as India’s new High Commissioner to Sri Lanka in February. Even before he could travel to the island nation to take up his new assignment, the travel and transport curbs, lockdowns and ban on arrival of international passenger aircraft were enforced in both the nations to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

He, however, flew on board the IAF transport aircraft on Friday.

India’s continued commitment to share its resources with friends and partner nations even at a time when many countries the world over the faced scarcity of medical products due to the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent supply chain disruptions, is in line with the abiding faith of India’s leadership in the dictum of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the whole world is but one family), Baglay said after arriving in Colombo on Friday.

He will observe the “health protocol” stipulated by the Sri Lankan Government in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a press release issued by the High Commission of India in Colombo.

Baglay served as Deputy High Commissioner of India to Pakistan from 2011 to 2014. He headed the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division of the Ministry of External Affairs before being appointed as its spokesperson in February 2017. He, however, moved to the Prime Minister’s Office as Joint Secretary a few months later.

He also served in India’s missions in Ukraine and Nepal.