Sri Lanka, Nov. 19 -- Sri Lanka's seventh Executive President Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa is an old boy of Ananda College, Colombo, the leading Buddhist boys' school in Sri Lanka. He was the Defence Secretary of the former Government led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He escaped an LTTE assassination attempt in the Piththala Junction in Colombo in December 2006.

He was born on June 20, 1949, in Palatuwa in the Matara District. He was the fifth in a family of nine children. He received his primary and secondary education at Ananda College, Colombo. He is the first President of Sri Lanka to have been educated at Ananda College. He is from a well known political family. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's father, D.A. Rajapaksa was not only a ...