Colombo, February 23 (newsin.asia): The Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena will be attending the International Solar Alliance (ISA) Founding Conference and the Solar Summit to be held in New Delhi on March 11, an Indian High Commission statement said on Friday.
An invitation to grace the conference, jointly signed by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and the President of France Emmanuel Macron, was handed over to President Maithripala Sirisena jointly by the High Commissioner of India Taranjit Singh Sandhu and the Ambassador of France Jean-Marin Schuh.
Around 500 delegates from all over the world are expected to participate in the conference including around 30 Heads of State/ Government.
Sri Lanka signed the Framework Agreement on ISA on January 31, 2018 in New Delhi.
With the completion of the ratification process, Sri Lanka has now become a full-fledged member of the ISA. As on date, 54 countries have signed or ratified the ISA.
President Sirisena had attended the launch of ISA at the COP-21 in Paris on 30 November 2015. The ISA was launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and the then President of France Francois Hollande.

The ISA is a coalition of 121 solar resource rich countries (lying fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn) to address their energy needs, through a common platform for collaboration, for achieving speed, scale and skills for deploying available solar technologies; facilitating strategic and collaborative solar R&D; and lowering the cost of finance for solar projects and capacity building.
The ISA aims to mobilize more than US $ 1 trillion of investments needed by 2030 for massive deployment of solar energy.
The ISA is committed to contributing significantly towards the global efforts for achieving Sustainable Development Goals and objectives of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
The ISA is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana. the ISA became a full fledged legal entity on December 6, 2017.
(The featured image at the top shows President Maithripala Sirisena receiving the invitation from Indian High Commissioner Taranjit Singh Sandhu and the Ambassador of France Jean-Marin Schuh).