Hambantota

What is Hambantota?
It's a place.

Ok, where is it?
Srilanka.

Why we are talking about Hambantota?
We need to know about Hambantota because it's related to India.

Hambantota port is a financial disaster for Srilanka, then why the Srilankan government made this port while they are having years Colombo port, which is capable of current transportation and import-export. There was not a need for another port, then why Hambantota port was made by the huge amount of money borrowed from China.

And, why China provided 13 billion dollars to the Srilankan Government.

Well, this all started in the year 2007, when China showed their interest in Hambantota by signing a twinning agreement. So according to this agreement, Hambantota is twinned with Guangzhou ( City in China).

Twinned with Guangzhou means Hambantota will be developed like a twin town idealizing Guangzhou.

In the year 2009, the war between LTTE and the Srilankan army had ended, Mr. Mahindra Rajpaksha dominating the Srilankan government, with China, because at that time China is the only one who was ready to lend money to Srilankan government.

Over the years, Rajapaksa's ties with China grew stronger. In fact, during the 2015 presidential election, a large amount of money from Chinese port construction company helped Rajapashe's Campaign.

But it did not work well for Mr. Rajapakshe, as he lost the election.

So the newly elected President was Mr. Maithripala Sirisena.

Meanwhile, the Hambantota port weighed heavy on Srilanka's finance, as the debt grew by leaps over the year, with Srilankan officials renegotiating the financing and time limits.

So in this renegotiation, Srilankan Government had to give Hambantota on lease to China for almost like 99 years.

And here China succeed because China wanted to expand its navy in the Indian Ocean and to circle India. 

Now India came into action when Sri Lanka has announced that a joint venture has formed with India as the majority partner to operate the perennial loss-making Matttala Rajapakse International Airport which is situated in Hambantota.

Well, here we can easily guess that the joint venture has been formed so that India can keep an eye on Chinese activities in the Hambantota port.