India-Nepal Relations




Seems vloggers from Mithilanchal Bihar are more excited about this development than Nepalis themselves. There must be at least 50 videos + on this minor incident.
 
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Row in Nepal after R&AW chief meets KP Oli, party seeks details​

Nepal’s embattled Prime Minister, K P Sharma Oli, came under fresh attack Thursday, including from three former Prime Ministers and his own party leaders, for meeting Indian R&AW chief Samant Kumar Goel without keeping them in the loop.

Calling it “improper” and “objectionable”, former Prime Ministers Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, who is also executive chairman of the ruling Nepal Communist Party, Jhalanath Khanal and Madhav Kumar Nepal, former Deputy Prime Ministers Bhim Bahadur Rawal and Narayan Kaji Shrestha held separate group meetings, and some took to social media to criticise Oli. They asked him to provide details of the meeting with the R&AW chief that lasted more than two hours, almost till midnight Wednesday.

Goel and team had flown to Kathmandu on a special flight. They were said to have also met Leader of Opposition Sher Bahadur Deuba, former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai and Madhes-based leader Mahantha Thakur separately during their nearly 24-hour stay in Nepal where there is fresh political turmoil.

The R&AW chief’s visit, ahead of Indian Army chief General M M Naravane’s scheduled visit next month, comes at a time when India and Nepal are attempting to repair ties, severely strained following escalation of the boundary dispute and Nepal’s publication of a map this summer to include areas of the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Prachanda, it is learnt, told his followers that though he has the responsibility to keep the party unity intact, Oli’s “misdeeds” may compel him to take the government to task.

“Such a meeting, keeping the party and the ministry concerned in absolute dark, calls for an explanation from the Prime Minister,” Prachanda told a gathering that included two ministers.

Khanal and Madhav Nepal, it is learnt, also said such a meeting between the Prime Minister and the R&AW chief “in a clandestine manner was detrimental to national interest”.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s press advisor, Surya Thapa, said Goel had a “courtesy meeting” with Oli. He said Goel had underlined smooth Nepal-India relations, resolving pending problems through dialogue, and continuation of mutual cooperation. He did not elaborate further.

Former Foreign Affairs Minister and NCP central secretariat member Narayan Kaji Shrestha wanted to know the nature of Goel’s visit – if it was in personal or official capacity – and the agenda of the discussion with the Prime Minister.

Bhim Bahadur Rawal, former Defence Minister and member of the party’s standing committee, said the timing and manner of the meeting was “not appropriate”.
 
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Frankly, I'd give whatever this reporter prints a wide berth. She's the most stupid analyst I've ever come across. I used to think the same about Burkha. Not that she didn't disappoint me but she had her redeeming qualities however much in short supply & her own hidden agenda which got disclosed courtesy Radia tapes. But this female is pure dumb. A true blonde, if ever there were such a category in India.
 
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India’s multi-pronged line to right Nepal ties​

India is making calculated moves to rebuild relations with Nepal that were damaged by a border dispute earlier this year, while at the same time sending a subtle message to Kathmandu not to cosy up to China.
After ignoring Nepal’s overtures for talks to resolve a thorny border dispute, New Delhi has been dispatching to Kathmandu a slew of intelligence, military and diplomatic emissaries – in that order.

First came the head of India’s external intelligence agency on 21 October, followed on 4 November by its army chief. Now, Indian foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla is scheduled to arrive on 26 November.
Nepal’s media commentators have said the choice of the first two interlocutors have actually been counterproductive to normalising relations, and they raised even more suspicions in Kathmandu about the kind of message New Delhi was sending Nepal.

“It is quite natural for Nepalis to be taken aback by India selecting the head of its spy agency as the first visitor, after all it is quite clear that it was not an ordinary visit,” wrote Surya Nath Upadhyay, a member of the Indo-Nepal Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG), in the Nagarik newspaper on Tuesday.

Modi has been sitting for the past two years on the EPG’s report on revising the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty and other bilateral issues. But Upadhyay had even more serious objections about Indian Army Chief Manoj Mukund Naravane’s three day visit to Nepal to be conferred the ceremonial title of honorary general of the Nepal Army.

Gen Navarane is the same person who caused a ruckus in May after Nepal strongly objected to the Indian road to Lipu Lek, insinuating that Nepal was being put up to it by China. There was an uproar in Nepal, and Naravane was criticised even in India for a remark many saw as being insensitive.

Upadhyay went on to speculate if the real reason Samant Goel of R&AW met for three hours late at night in Baluwatar with Prime Minister K P Oli on 21 October was to undermine his nationalist image among Nepalis. This theory carries some credence since although Goel also met other political leaders in Kathmandu, those were kept under wraps.

Indeed, the prime minister immediately came under fire from other leaders, including his rivals in the Pushpa Kamal Dahal faction of his own party, for having met an Indian spy-in-chief. Oli had to then clarify that he had agreed in his phone conversation on India’s Independence Day in August with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to receive an emissary, but that he did not know it would be the head of R&AW.

Writing in Kantipur newspaper on Tuesday, strategic affairs expert Geja Sharma Wagle said Oli agreeing to meet Goel was ‘not just unfortunate but objectionable’. Wagle was also critical of Gen Navarane wearing a Nepali dhaka cap and engaging in ‘religious and cultural diplomacy’ by visiting Pashupati and the Kumari temple in Kathmandu.

‘The Goel and Naravane visits have at least ended the absence of communication between the two countries, but Modi sending a spy chief and an army general instead of a political or diplomatic emissary have raised questions about India’s perspective, policy and intentions in Nepal, especially given the border dispute,’ Wagle wrote.

Gen Naravane’s visit came a week after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Mark T Esper (since fired by Donald Trump) held a ‘2+2’ meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to sign the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA). The strategic pact is said to be aimed at countering China’s increasing military clout in the Indian Ocean.

This has raised speculation that the Goel and Naravane visits to Kathmandu had more to do with China than Nepal, because it came at a time when New Delhi’s relations with Beijing are at their worst since the 1962 war. Some analysts say there could be a realisation in Prime Minister Modi’s circle that India might have gone too far with the 2015 Blockade and the Kalapani issue, prompting Prime Minister Oli to lean towards China.

Interestingly, the visits also came at a time when Prime Minister Oli himself is on shaky ground with a vigorous challenge from the Dahal faction of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) to clip his wings. Oli ignored Dahal’s effort to call a Secretariat meeting, and spent the whole of Tuesday visiting eastern Nepal by helicopter.

Even that visit was an indication of the fine balancing act Nepal has to tread between its two giant neighbours. Oli visited Kimathanka on the Chinese border, as well as the 900MW Arun III hydropower project being built by the Indian public sector company, SJVN.

Foreign Secretary Shringla’s visit to Kathmandu later this month is expected to put India-Nepal relations on a more even keel. Although no analyst expects New Delhi to back down from its claim to Limpiyadhura-Lipu Lek, Nepal will try to allay Indian concerns about China in the Himalayan region.

Relations soured after India unveiled an official map last year that showed the Kalapani region of northwestern Nepal as a part of India, and then made a high-profile inauguration of a military road through that territory to the Chinese border.

Nepal retaliated by getting Parliament to pass a new map that included not just Kalapani but the entire east bank of the Kali River within its boundary, citing the 1816 Sugauli Treaty with British India.
 

India-Nepal launch construction of 3rd integrated check post to boost trade​

India and Nepal on Thursday launched the construction of a Rs 147.12-crore integrated check post (ICP) at Nepalgunj to streamline and boost cross-border trade, weeks ahead of a visit to Kathmandu by foreign secretary Harsh Shringla to take forward bilateral ties.

Commerce minister Piyush Goyal and Nepal’s urban development minister Krishna Gopal Shrestha witnessed the groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of construction of the ICP, which will smoothen cross-border movement of cargo trucks by bringing customs and immigration facilities under one roof.

This will be the third ICP on the India-Nepal border and similar facilities at Birgunj and Biratnagar were operationalised in April 2018 and January 2020. India has also built ICPs on the borders with neighbours such as Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Goyal announced the Indian government will take up the construction of a fourth ICP at Bhairahawa in Nepal with Indian funding. The modalities for this project and the implementing agency are under consideration, he said.

The ICP at Nepalgunj will have export and import cargo handling facilities such as warehousing, refrigerated cargo facilities, medical, plant and animal quarantine areas, and amenities for drivers and passengers. It will also have extensive security systems, including CCTV cameras, round the clock power backup, and waste water treatment facilities.

“The facility is envisaged to promote systematic approach to cargo handling and, therefore, will result in saving of time and inconvenience to visitors and reduce overall transaction costs for cross-border trade and commerce,” the Indian embassy in Kathmandu said in a statement.

The portion of the ICP on the Nepalese side will be built on 61.5 hectares by a Pune-based company under the supervision of state-run RITES International Ltd. The construction period is two years.

A portion on the Indian side is being built at Rupaidiha by Lands Ports Authority of India and the work started in May. More than 10% of the construction has been completed.

During the construction period, the Nepalgunj project is expected to create local employment and boost the economy through supply of raw materials and items from Nepal’s markets.

The creation of advanced cross-border logistics and infrastructure facilities over the past three years has boosted connectivity and mutually beneficial trade and people-to-people ties, the Indian embassy said.

Shringla is expected to visit Nepal during November 26-27, close on the heels of a two-day trip to Kathmandu last week by the Indian Army chief, Gen MM Naravane, to take forward ties that were rocked by a border row earlier this year.

Both countries had been working behind the scenes to put the bilateral relationship back on an even keel against the backdrop of the India-China border standoff in the Ladakh sector.

India-Nepal ties were hit in May after defence minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated a key border road to Lipulekh region, which is claimed by Nepal. Kathmandu responded by issuing a new map that showed Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, all controlled by India, as part of Nepalese territory. This exacerbated the border row.

This will be Shringla’s fifth foreign visit in the aftermath of pandemic-related travel restrictions. He visited the Maldives this week, and has also travelled to Bangladesh and Myanmar in the neighbourhood.