Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa Flees To Maldives

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What’s happening?

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo demanding Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation as news emerged that he has fled to the Maldives.
Security Forces were seen using water cannons to disperse the crowd.
President Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards boarded a Male-bound military aircraft from Colombo international airport last night.
Reports suggest that his younger brother and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa has also left the country.

Defence officials of the island nation have told that Mr Rajapaksa requested them for a plane last night and that they were “obligated” to provide him one.
Mr Rajapaksa continues to be the supreme commander of the defence forces as President.

“On government request and in terms of powers available to a President under the Constitution, with complete approval from the ministry of defence,
The President, his wife and two security officials were provided a Sri Lanka Air Force plane to depart from the Katunayake international airport for the Maldives in the early hours of July 13,“ the statement said.

On arrival in the Maldives, President Rajapaksa, his wife and bodyguards were driven to an undisclosed location under police escort, an airport official in Male said.

The Indian High Commission in Colombo on Wednesday dismissed media reports suggesting that India facilitated the travel of embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa out of the island nation.

As president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa enjoys immunity from arrest, and he is believed to have wanted to go abroad before stepping down to avoid the possibility of being detained.
He had promised to resign on Wednesday and clear the way for a “peaceful transition of power”.
Sri Lanka’s political parties have stepped up efforts to form an all-party government and subsequently elect a new President on July 20.

But why July 13?
Why did Gotabaya choose that date, which was on July 9 still four days away, even though it had become clear as daylight that he could no longer continue in office?

Although there is no official word, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s choice of the date may be linked to it being a full moon day.
This day in the lunar cycle carries great religious significance for Buddhists.
In Sinhalese, it is called ‘poya’. Every ‘poya’ day is a public holiday in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka follows Theravada Buddhism.
In Theravada Buddhist calendar, the full moon of July is observed as ‘Esala Poya’, which commemorates The Buddha’s first sermon, and the founding of the Buddhist Sangha.
The Buddha delivered his first sermon in the Deer Park in Sarnath near Varanasi, an event that is dated to c. 528 BC, when he was 35 years old.
In the sermon, which he preached to five ascetics, The Buddha “set in motion the Wheel of the Law”, laying down the Four Noble Truths, a foundational principle of his philosophy.
Gotabaya is a staunch Buddhist, and knows that it was only the Sinhala-Buddhists who voted for him in the 2019 presidential election.

July has always been an extraordinary month in Sri Lanka’s history. For the minority Tamil community, the month has been observed for nearly four decades as “Black July” after the July 24-30 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who fought Sri Lanka for three decades, observed July 5 as Black Tiger Day to commemorate its first suicide bombing,
Killing 40 soldiers with an explosive-laden truck that was driven into an Army camp by an LTTE bomber called “Captain Miller”.
On July 29, 1987, India and Sri Lanka signed the India-Sri Lanka accord, which failed in its objectives within three years, and led to huge losses for the Indian Army.
More recently, it was on July 29, 2017 that Sri Lanka signed off on a deal to hand over the Hambantota Port to the Chinese to settle money owed to the Chinese construction company.

If Gotabaya does keep his word, July 13 will be another addition to the month for Sri Lanka.
And July 9 will be remembered as the day of the people of Sri Lanka.

Q) Which among the following Island of the Andaman & Nicobar islands contains the only known examples of mud volcanoes in India?