The High Commission of Sri Lanka in New Delhi on Friday (Feb. 4) named its Chancery Building after Sir D.B. Jayatilaka, Sri Lanka’s first representative to India, coinciding with the event to mark the 74th anniversary of Independence of Sri Lanka, held at the High Commission premises.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) sending Sir D.B. Jayatilaka as its first Representative to India in 1942. Naming of the Chancery Building after Sir D.B. Jayatilaka comes as the first of a series of activities organized by the High Commission of Sri Lanka in New Delhi this year to mark the important anniversary.

In a simple ceremony attended by the staff of the High Commission, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India Milinda Moragoda unveiled the plaque containing the new name of the Chancery Building on Feb. 4 morning.

Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka, Statesman, Buddhist Educationalist, Barrister, pioneering literary figure of his era and one time Home Minister of Ceylon, had graduated from the Universities of Calcutta and Oxford. Sir Baron had first come to India to negotiate food shipments to Ceylon by the Government of India, and was later appointed as the first Representative of the Government of Ceylon to New Delhi.

His appointment as Ceylon’s Representative to India, which pre-dates the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between independent India and Sri Lanka in 1948, stands testimony to the very special bond and close relationship that the two countries have been enjoying since time immemorial, a news release from the High Commission said.