{"id":82117,"date":"2018-10-19T23:02:26","date_gmt":"2018-10-20T05:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=82117"},"modified":"2018-10-19T15:39:04","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T22:39:04","slug":"the-hindu-stands-by-its-report-presidents-raw-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/10\/19\/the-hindu-stands-by-its-report-presidents-raw-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hindu stands by its report President\u2019s RAW claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The Hindu newspaper yesterday stood by its report on President Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s remark at the last Cabinet meeting on an alleged RAW\u2019s plot to assassinate him.<\/p>\n<p>The Sri Lankan government has so far issued three denials of the story and President Sirisena, in a telephone conversation, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also assured that he never made such a remark.<\/p>\n<p>N. Ram, the Chairman of Kasturi and Sons Limited, the publisher of The Hindu and the former Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper said yesterday morning that \u2018The Hindu\u2019 told the truth when the newspaper said that President Sirisena had accused RAW of plotting to kill him.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.island.lk\/modules\/modPublication\/article_title_images\/1930108742the.jpg\" alt=\"article_image\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ram tweeted: &#8220;Another case of saying something wild and bizarre, expecting it to remain within a closed room, and then blaming the media for the furore caused. The Hindu did its job \u2014 truth-telling.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our Sri Lanka Correspondent verified what she had learnt with multiple independent sources before publishing her report. Let them issue their lame denials, try to wriggle out of what was said \u2014 but we stand by our Correspondent\u2019s meticulously fact-checked story.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>President Sirisena\u2019s controversial statement was also followed by an intense argument with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe when the subject of development of the Colombo Port came up for discussion.<\/p>\n<p>A news report by Meera Sirinivasan published by The Hindu newspaper said President Sirisena had vehemently objected to any Indian involvement in upgrading its east container terminal \u2013 a project that New Delhi has been keen to take up.<\/p>\n<p>The Hindu report said: &#8220;However, Mr. Wickremesinghe is said to have countered by saying Colombo had already promised New Delhi on collaborating on the project, and it was important to rope in India at the terminal, given that about 80% of the cargo handled at the transhipment hub was meant for India. He reportedly sought a week\u2019s time to sort out the issue, since he would be meeting Mr. Modi soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The Island The Hindu newspaper yesterday stood by its report on President Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s remark at the last Cabinet meeting on an alleged RAW\u2019s plot to assassinate him. The Sri Lankan government has so far issued three denials of the story and President Sirisena, in a telephone conversation, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}