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Thursday, 31 January 2019 01:58 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
China conferred a special award on Sri Lanka’s Deputy Ambassador in Beijing Shani Calyaneratne Karunaratne in honour of her outstanding contribution to the Belt and Road Initiative. The title conferred is ‘Silk Road Super Ambassador’ and the presentation ceremony was held on 24 January. The former Prime Minister of Italy, Massimo D’Alema, also received an award for his contribution to the Belt and Road Initiative.
Diplomats were shortlisted for this award on public nomination, after which the Evaluation Committee selected the finalists. Apart from Sri Lanka’s Deputy Ambassador in Beijing, other recipients were Pakistan – Ambassador Masood Khalid, Malta – Ambassador John Aquilina, Maldives – Ambassador Mohamed Faizal, Bosnia Herzegovina – Ambassador Anton Rill.
The Evaluation Committee, in the souvenir printed for the occasion, listed the following achievements with regard to the justification for presenting this prestigious award to Karunaratne: “Mrs. Shani Calyaneratne Karunaratne currently serves as the Deputy Ambassador at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in China, taking part in over 25 Belt and Road programs in China under Sri Lanka China bilateral relations. Mrs. Karunaratne is a bilingual professional and a career diplomat with 23 years of service of bilateral and multilateral work.”
Her achievements were recorded as follows:
Karunaratne has been a main speaker at some of the Belt and Road programs during 2018. She also co-authored an academic paper titled ‘Heuristics of the Historic Cultural Communication to the Development of Tourism between China and Sri Lanka’.
Karunaratne has been a Senior Vice President of the Commonwealth Society of Beijing since 2016 and co-initiated a charity fund donation of RMB 100,000 towards adult female education in the Gansu Province.
Karunaratne has also initiated cultural exchanges between Sri Lanka and China and submitted a Sri Lankan film to the Taizhou, Zhejiang Province Asian Film Festival, which won the ‘Best International Film’ award.
She brought a Sri Lankan youth high school delegation from Uva Province to take part in ‘Silk Road Young Dreams’ and the students won second and a third placement in the open international competition.
Karunaratne stated: “I have been a diplomat for 23 years and a public servant for 33 years. For our kind of work, this kind of an evaluation is rare and this is the first time I am receiving an award for my work as a diplomatic officer. I am very happy to receive this from the People’s Republic of China. In fact, receiving this award is a great milestone in my career.”
Daily FT inadvertently published an article on Tuesday stating that the award was presented to Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to China Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku. The error is regretted.
