During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka in March 2015, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the construction of the Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Auditorium at the University of Ruhuna, Matara in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka was signed between India and Sri Lanka. The project was an India-Sri Lanka Development Partnership Project with Indian grant assistance of Rs. 300 million. The construction of the auditorium started in 2016 and is now complete. President Maithripala Sirisena is expected to inaugurate the newly-built auditorium on 3 September. The state-of-the-art auditorium, with a 1500 seating capacity, is the largest in any of the universities in Sri Lanka. The auditorium is designed to conform to the philosophy of “Tropical Modernism” by famous Sri Lankan Architect Geoffrey Bawa, equipped with all the modern facilities. The buildings of the Ruhuna University, celebrating its 40th anniversary, have been designed under the guidance of Geoffrey Bawa himself. The auditorium adds to the university landscape with a characteristic and aesthetically tiled roof. The auditorium is to be named after Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and would act as a symbol of cultural links with India while upholding the lasting legacy of Tagore, the great Indian poet and Nobel laureate who has left behind enduring aesthetic and intellectual heritage for the whole of South Asia and the world. It would address the needs of students and the public of the Southern Province for cultural and academic activities. This auditorium is a shining example of the India-Sri Lanka people-oriented development partnership. The overall development portfolio of the government of India in Sri Lanka is close to $ 3 billion. Out of this, around $ 550 million is purely grant assistance, with the rest being concessional credit. The largest grant project is the Indian Housing Project with a total commitment to build 60,000 houses in Sri Lanka. Out of these, 46,000 houses have been already completed in the North and the East; 14,000 houses are currently being built in the plantation sector for the estate workers. The second largest grant project is the Emergency Ambulance Service which was successfully completed in the Western and Southern Provinces initially, and then expanded to all provinces. India has completed close to 70 small development projects across the island in all the provinces in almost all areas including health, education, capacity building, livelihood assistance, women empowerment, skill development, industrial and vocational training, and infrastructure development, among others. Currently there are around 20 such ongoing people-oriented development projects under the grant assistance of India, including construction of rainwater harvesting units, construction of toilets, the upgrade and construction of schools including the trilingual school in Polonnaruwa, and the construction of buildings for universities.   [foogallery id="2935"]