The 1.9-square-kilometer (0.7-square-mile) Katchatheevu land strip is situated in the Palk Strait, an oceanic rift separating Sri Lanka and India. It is located southwest of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, and northeast of Rameswaram, a town in the Tamil Nadu state of India.
There is no access to potable water on the island, and its sole building is a church that hosts a three-day festival every year that attracts worshippers from both India and Sri Lanka.
Rulers in the British territories of India and Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) had claimed fishing rights in the waters surrounding Katchatheevu since 1921. However, India put a stop to the conflict in 1974 when it gave up all claims to the island; two years later, Sri Lanka and India inked a deal that forbade fishing in each other’s territorial waters.
Now, that decades-old decision is in the headlines again after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the country’s opposition Congress party, which was in office at the time, of “callously” giving away the island to Sri Lanka. In a harsh reaction, the Congress charged that Mr. Modi was acting in desperation by bringing up the matter so close to the elections.
