Ravi Shankar Prasad inaugurates Gigabit Connectivity with Sri Lanka

The Union Minister for Law and Justice and Electronics and It, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad is on an official visit to Sri Lanka.

• On the very first day of his visit, he inaugurated the gigabit connectivity between the National Knowledge Network of India and LEARN (Lanka Education and Research Network) network of Sri Lanka.
• This dedicated high-speed internet connectivity will help to boost the collaboration among the academic institutions of India as well as Sri Lanka.
• In order to enhance the cooperation between the two countries in the fields of IT, cybersecurity and e-governance, a MoU was signed between India and Sri Lanka.
• On this special occasion, Ravi Shankar Prasad also inaugurated the use of eOffice software developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) by the government of Sri Lanka.
• The basic objective of the National Knowledge Network of India is to connect all universities, research institutions, libraries, laboratories, healthcare and agricultural institutions across the country to improve access to knowledge and meet communication and computational need of the institutions.
• It has already connected with 1,648 institutions under various categories throughout the country. In a much similar way, the Lanka Education and Research Network (LEARN) also connects leading educational institution in Sri Lanka.
• Ravi Shankar Prasad also mentioned about the success of the Umang app which was recently launched by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a few months ago during the inaugural ceremony of Global Conference on Cyber Space in New Delhi.
• Ravi Shankar Prasad also invited experts and officers from Sri Lanka to visit India to study some of the eGovernance applications developed by the National Informatics Centre.

Test Yourself

When did Sri Lanka become independent?Answer- 4th February 1948

What was Sri Lanka formally known as?Answer- Ceylon

When did British conquer Sri Lanka from the Dutch?Answer- 1796

What is the currency of Sri Lanka?Answer- Sri Lankan Rupee

What is the capital of Sri Lanka?Answer- Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte