Nepalese PM Sher Bahadur Deuba to visit India from April 1 to 3

New Delhi, Mar 26 (PTI) Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba will pay a three-day visit to India from April 1 to inject a new momentum in bilateral ties, especially in areas of trade, investment, healthcare and connectivity, people familiar with the development said on Saturday.

It will be Deuba’s first bilateral visit abroad after becoming prime minister in July last year for a fifth time following a spell of political turmoil in Kathmandu. Deuba is slated to hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 2 during which both sides are expected to make a number of announcements to further expand cooperation in select areas.

Besides his official engagements in Delhi, the Nepalese leader will visit Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Modi. Deuba had visited India in each of his four earlier stints as prime minister of Nepal. His last visit to India in his capacity as the prime minister was in 2017. Nepal is important for India in the context of its overall strategic interests in the region, and the leaders of the two countries have often noted the age-old “Roti Beti” relationship.

The country shares a border of over 1850 km with five Indian states – Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Land-locked Nepal relies heavily on India for the transportation of goods and services. Nepal’s access to the sea is through India, and it imports a predominant proportion of its requirements from and through India.

The India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1950 forms the bedrock of the special relations that exist between India and Nepal. The people cited above said Deuba’s visit to India is in the tradition of periodic high-level exchanges between the two countries. Ties between India and Nepal came under severe strain after Nepal published a new political map in 2020 that showed the three Indian territories – Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh – as part of Nepal.

On its part, India reacted sharply, calling it a “unilateral act” and cautioning Kathmandu that such “artificial enlargement” of territorial claims will not be acceptable to it. Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla visited Nepal in November 2020 with an aim to reset the ties. Shringla’s trip was followed by a visit to India by then Nepalese foreign minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali.

“Deuba’s visit would give an opportunity to both sides to review the entire gamut of bilateral relations including development and economic partnership, trade, cooperation in the health sector, power, connectivity, people to people links and other issues of mutual interest,” said one of the people cited above.

Kathmandu has been also pushing for an early review of the Indo-Nepal Peace and Friendship treaty of 1950 and has been flagging concerns over its increasing trade deficit with India. The two issues are expected to be brought up in talks by the Nepalese side.

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