India, being a large country in the South Asia region had decided to adopt unilateral concessions to make relationships stronger with the neighbors and not insist on reciprocity, India’s Minister of Rural Development and Drinking Water & Sanitation Jairam Ramesh has said.Minsiter Jairam Ramesh who is visiting Sri Lanka from 11-13 July 2012 on an invitation extended by Sri Lanka Minister of External Affairs Prof. G.L. Peiris, has highlighted India’s desire for the whole region to grow with India and the need for a larger role for cross-investments in the region.During his visit, the Indian Minister called on the Sri Lankan President and had meetings with Prof. Peiris, and Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development. During the discussions the Ministers acknowledged the shared experiences between Sri Lanka and India especially in the fields of poverty alleviation and rural development, a statement released by the Indian High Commission said.Minister Ramesh Thursday (July 12) delivered the keynote address at a Joint Seminar on Poverty Alleviation organized by the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS), Colombo, and the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi. Welcoming the Indian Minister, Prof. Peiris, has underlined the need for action towards poverty alleviation and drew an analogy between “Divi Neguma” programme of Sri Lanka and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) of India which provides mandatory 100 days of rural employment.He has highlighted that the Seminar would assist in comparative assessment of strategies adopted by the two countries for poverty alleviation.In his keynote address, Minister Ramesh highlighted the lessons drawn from India’s efforts in poverty alleviation through major flagship programs and underlined the importance of a legal rights based approach to development and highlighted the important role being played by the Right to Information Act in ensuring transparency and good governance.A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) and the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi, establishing a formal link between the two institutions for future cooperation to promote academic cooperation in the areas of bilateral and regional economic cooperation and international economic and development issues. The RIS, an autonomous think-tank under the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, specializes in policy research on international economic issues and development cooperation.LKIIRSS under the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of Sri Lanka, is a multi-disciplinary research forum dedicated to analyzing Sri Lanka’s strategic interests in the realm of international relations, within the contemporary domestic and global contexts.The MoU signed envisages strengthening of academic cooperation between the two institutes through collaborative research projects, capacity building programmes, joint conferences/seminars, exchange of research faculty, knowledge dissemination through joint publications and exchange of research publications.Minister Jairam Ramesh also delivered an address titled “Changing Role of India in South Asia” at the Bandaranaike Institute for International Studies (BCIS) in a session chaired by Senior Minister for International Monetary Cooperation Dr. Sarath Amunugama.