FirstPost – Bharat ki bahu’: Seema Haider pleads President Murmu for mercy, Indian citizenship by way of marriage to Sachin

Umang Sharma

Greater Noida – Uttar Pradesh – India, 21 July 2023. As the Indian authorities including Uttar Pradesh’s anti-terrorism squad (UP-ATS) have intensified their probe of the possibility of whether Seema is an agent of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), she has now filed a mercy petition with the President through a lawyer.

Seema Haider demands Indian citizenship

According to reports, in her mercy plea to the President Droupadi Murmu, Seema has appealed the she should be granted Indian citizenship

Seema’s lawyer AP Singh said she married Sachin, a resident of Greater Noida in Nepal, so now she is India’s daughter-in-law. On this basis she wants Indian citizenship.

Seema along with her four children came to India via Nepal to stay with Sachin. She entered the country without a visa and was arrested on 04 July.

Sachin was also put behind bars for sheltering illegal immigrants. They soon got bail and have been living together in Greater Noida.

Seema, who has been claiming that she was not a spy, has also requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to not send her back.

According to a report by India Today, Seema allegedly posed as ‘Preeti’ when she boarded a bus from Pokhara in Nepal to enter India illegally.

The report quoted Prasanna Gautam, manager of Shrishti Bus Service, saying Seema confidently claimed she was an Indian national and had an Aadhaar card when she was asked to show an ID card.

Seema fell short of Nepalese currency to pay for the bus tickets for herself and her four children after which she called a friend in India to transfer the balance amount through UPI, claimed Gautam.

Her friend allegedly paid the remaining 6,000 Nepalese Rupees through UPI, he added.

Seema and Sachin first got in touch in 2019 while playing the online battlefield game PUBG.

With inputs from agencies

https://www.firstpost.com/india/bharat-ki-bahu-seema-haider-pleads-president-murmu-for-mercy-indian-citizenship-by-way-of-marriage-to-sachin-12897012.html

FirstPost – After global criticism over mistreating Gurkhas, UK stalls deportation

Abhishek Awasthi

In a dawn raid on their west London hotel, where they had been living and working in the restaurant, serving food to Afghan refugees, ten of them were arrested in handcuffs the previous week. The first aircraft was scheduled to depart on Thursday

London – UK, 05 April 2023. After huge public attention and a possible threat of criminal action made against UK, Security guards from Nepal and India who were employed by the British mission in Kabul have been informed that their impending deportation from the UK has been postponed.

Since being saved from the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the Gurkhas have resided in the UK.

Some of the men were arrested after a search of their hotel was conducted in accordance with papers that had been issued ordering their removal to Nepal and India.

The Home Office, however, claims that their transfer has now been stopped.

A spokesperson informed a local radio that “Removal of this cohort has been paused, pending further review.”

The Home Office faced backlash from South Asian countries for ordering deportation of these Gurkhas even after once giving them an infinite right to live in UK in form of a biometric permit.

Detained, Handcuffed & Deported: UK disowns Indian, Nepalese guards who risked lives to protect Brits from Taliban

There were 13 Nepalese military veterans working as security guards at the Kabul high-security compound containing the Canadian and British embassies.

In a dawn raid on their west London hotel, where they had been living and working in the restaurant, serving food to Afghan refugees, ten of them were arrested in handcuffs the previous week.

The first aircraft was scheduled to depart on Thursday, and they were being held in immigration removal facilities close to Gatwick and Heathrow airports.

Following the reversal, Jamie Bell of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, a lawyer representing some of the group, expressed his delight for his clients that there would be no imminent removal.

He said on The World Tonight that it “raises the question about why this has happened to begin with.”

“Why couldn’t this review and consideration take place before there was a lot of public attention and before a threat of legal action needed to be made?” he told BBC.

According to Bell, new concerns have been voiced about the plan put in place after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

FirstPost

The Pioneer – Need to revive Saarc

Saarc must be revived to counter China’s influence in South Asia

OP/ED, 16 February 2023. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) was formed in 1985 as a platform for promoting economic and cultural cooperation among countries in the South Asian region. Its member States include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

While the organisation has had some successes in the past, its future prospects are somewhat uncertain. But in the wake of Chinese inroads into South Asia, it is imperative that India takes initiatives to revive Saarc at the earliest. One of the main challenges facing South Asia is the longstanding tension between India and Pakistan.

These two nuclear powers have a history of conflict and mistrust, and their disputes have often derailed Saarc meetings and initiatives. But India must take the initiative to work with Pakistan to put Saarc back on track as it would provide a mechanism to counter China’s influence.

Saarc can be effective in meeting the growing influence of China. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to promote infrastructure and trade links across Asia and beyond, has drawn many Saarc countries into its orbit. Some experts worry that this could lead to a situation where China becomes the dominant player in the region.

There are reasons to be optimistic about the future of Saarc. For one, there is a growing recognition among member States of the need for greater regional integration. This has been reflected in initiatives such as the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), which aims to create a free trade zone among Saarc countries.

While progress on SAFTA has been slow, there is still potential for it to be a significant driver of economic growth and cooperation in the region. There is rising interest in the Indo-Pacific among global powers such as the United States and Japan.

These countries have been looking to deepen their engagement with countries in the region, and Saarc could be a valuable partner in this effort. This could lead to increased support for Saarc initiatives and a greater focus on regional integration.

Though Saarc’s future is uncertain, there are reasons to be hopeful as there is growing recognition of the need for greater regional integration. The rise of global interest in the Indo-Pacific region could also provide an opportunity for Saarc to increase its relevance and influence. Ultimately, its success will depend on the ability of the member States to put aside their differences and work towards a shared vision of economic and cultural cooperation.

https://www.dailypioneer.com/2023/columnists/need-to-revive-saarc.html

ThePrint – Melting glaciers, water scarcity, exodus: How climate change reality is biting Ladakh villages

Global warming has been leading to melting glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Range, where Ladakh’s located. This has caused a water crisis in the region.

Simrin Sirur

Kulum, Leh – 12 September 2022. “There’s no water,” said Sonam Chondol, an erstwhile resident of a ghost hamlet in Leh district, flatly. “There’s no grass to feed our livestock, not enough to irrigate our fields. Why would we go back?”

Chondol, along with 6 other families from her village of Upper Kulum, decided to leave their homes over 10 years ago and migrate to the nearby town of Upshi – about 5 km away – for a better chance of securing their livelihoods.

Chondol set up a confectionary shop on the road that takes tourists towards the Puga hot springs, and ekes out a living from the footfall her shop receives.

Small as the number of residents that left is, the experience of water scarcity in Kulum has been enough to alarm Ladakh’s district authorities and NGOs, serving as a warning for what the future of the region could hold if measures to mitigate climate change are not immediately put in place.

Like most of Ladakh, Kulum is glacier-fed, depending on the water that dribbles down the mountains from snow-melt. But over the last few decades, the source of this water has been waning because of global heating.

The Hindu Kush Himalayan Region – in which Ladakh is located – is also called the third pole because of the volume of glacial ice it stores. These glaciers, which are the source of 10 major river systems, are warming much faster than the global average.

According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the mean retreat of glaciers in the HKHR is 14.9-15.1 metre per annum.

Shakeel ul Rahman is a sub-divisional officer of agriculture in Leh district working on increasing climate-resilient agriculture in the region to cope with changes in the water supply.

“There is a lot of stress on Ladakh’s water sources, and the melting or erosion of glaciers is going to become a huge challenge. If we don’t act now, there will be more out-migration, more abandoned villages,” he told ThePrint, gazing at Leh’s snow-capped peaks from his office window.

To read more about this important issue click on the link below:
No water from the Himalaya glaciers, no water in the Panj -ab (Five waters = five rivers)

https://theprint.in/india/melting-glaciers-water-scarcity-exodus-how-climate-change-reality-is-biting-ladakh-villages/1123797/

FirstPost – SAARC foreign ministers’ meet cancelled after Pakistan insists on Taliban participation

India along with some other members objected to the proposal and due to lack of consensus or concurrence meet has been cancelled

Asian News International, 22 September 2021

New Delhi – India, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) foreign ministers meet slated to be held on Saturday in New York has been cancelled.

It is learnt from reliable sources that Pakistan wanted the Taliban to represent Afghanistan in the SAARC meet.

India along with some other members objected to the proposal and due to lack of consensus or concurrence meet has been cancelled.

Nepal was the host of the meet, which is annually held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Taliban has not been recognised by India to date. The new regime in Kabul is still not recognised by the world and top cabinet ministers are blacklisted by the UN.

Amir Khan Muttaqi is the acting foreign minister of the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan and he is unlikely to attend any UN and affiliated meetings.

In fact, last week Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meet said that the Taliban is a non-inclusive government, the world must think before accepting or recognising the regime in Afghanistan.

He also pointed out that women, minorities have no representation in the government in Kabul.

The SAARC is the regional intergovernmental organization of eight countries of South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

It is learnt that the majority of members in SAARC agreed that empty chair can be kept for Afghanistan during the meet. However, Pakistan did not agree and the meet was called off.

SAARC Secretariat told ANI that the meeting was cancelled due to the lack of concurrence from all member states as of today.

https://www.firstpost.com/world/saarc-foreign-ministers-meet-cancelled-after-pakistans-insists-on-taliban-participation-9985341.html

The Asian Age – New Delhi tries to reset its ties with neighbours

K C Singh

The writer is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry. He tweets at @ambkcsingh

Multiple events with geopolitical impact are compelling diplomats to scurry for meetings

New Delhi – India, 30 November 2020. The six months of lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic followed by a gradual reopening of international travel has seen diplomacy transition from virtual meetings on e-platforms to calibrated in-person contacts.

Multiple events with geopolitical impact are compelling diplomats to scurry for meetings.

One, the new US President assumes office on 20 January 2021, despite the misleading fulminations of incumbent Donald Trump. Pending this, all major nations are reassessing their policy options.

Two, China is trying, after signing a confidence-boosting 15-nation trade agreement (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), to wean away or pressure America’s allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and Europe before the Joe Biden administration fills the strategic vacuum.

For India, the first is a lesser hurdle than the second.

While continuity is expected in the positive trajectory of India-US relations under President Biden, a renewed emphasis on human rights and democracy may present the Indian government with a challenge as it maintains or even sharpens its majoritarian agenda in coming state elections.

But Chinese actions require close monitoring as the military standoff at the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh persists into winter.

Senior Chinese diplomat and state councillor Yang Jiechi was in South Korea in August and then in Myanmar, Spain and Greece in September.

He arrived in Sri Lanka on 09 October, promising Chinese assistance for infrastructure, including building of the Colombo Port City and upgrading of Hambantota port.

Meanwhile, the Imran Khan government in Pakistan in September decided to elevate Gilgit-Baltistan to a full province, signalling to China that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) running through it had a more assured legal status.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi swung through Japan and South Korea on 24-25 November apparently to woo them before President Biden unveils his Indo-Pacific strategy.

South Block naturally also stepped up its diplomatic engagements to respond to these two and other developments.

While external affairs minister S Jaishankar was on a six-day tour of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Seychelles on 24-29 November, foreign secretary Harsh V Shringla was in Nepal on 26-27 November.

Separately, national security adviser Ajit Doval was in Sri Lanka on 27-28 November for the fourth Trilateral Maritime Security Cooperation meeting of India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Relations with Nepal have been testy since India inaugurated in May a new road in the Kalapani sector, providing easier access to Mansarovar in China.

Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli, while beleaguered in an internal political battle with a rival Communist Party group, picked the territorial issue to rally his party and nation.

China was no doubt delighted by the friction as it ratcheted up its military posture in Ladakh.

Indian Army Chief General M M Naravane visited Nepal to maintain the old tradition of close relations between the two militaries.

In a peculiar follow-up, the head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, made a high-profile visit, including a call on the Nepalese PM and the Opposition leader.

The foreign secretary’s visit was thus well prepared and expected to further soften the Nepalese.

A border working group meeting, which the Nepalese sought as a condition precedent to resumed bonhomie, was conceded.

Mr Shringla also proposed an infrastructure and connectivity plan to counter the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative from the north.

Nepal is a vital buffer between India and China and geographically and culturally more integrated to the Indian south than the Chinese north.

In Colombo the NSA, Mr Doval, had the more complex task of balancing Chinese gains in Sri Lanka after the recent electoral triumph of the wily and nationalistic Rajapaksa clan, with the brothers occupying the top two posts.

Ironically, since the initiative’s creation, domestic politics in Sri Lanka and the Maldives has brought to power governments closer now to China and India respectively, the reverse of the earlier situation.

Thus, while in the Maldives the Solih government is more than thrilled to welcome Indian investment even in lieu of Chinese offers, in Sri Lanka the Rajapaksa clan is leaning towards the Chinese, opportunistically balancing Indian and American overtures as that allows it freedom to pursue its nationalistic and majoritarian agenda domestically.

It may find Mr Biden and his team is less tolerant of its domestic politics than the Trump administration.

The BJP’s desire to make a dent in Tamil electoral politics would also have to be balanced against majoritarianism at home and reticence over how minority Tamils are treated in Sri Lanka.

Before Mr Jaishankar arrived in the Gulf, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo was making his farewell visits to Israel, the United Arab Emirates and finally Saudi Arabia, where he arranged a meeting between Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Red Sea town of Neom on 22 November.

I had tweeted at the start of his visit that hopefully no adventurous move was being planned against Iran, to create a diversion, as a desperate President Donald Trump ran out of legal and populist tricks to overturn the US presidential election results.

On 27 November, in an apparent Israeli operation, endorsed perhaps by the US and even the Saudi-UAE alliance, Dr Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a top Iranian nuclear scientist and high-level officer of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, was killed.

This was an attempt to limit the Biden administration’s options in dealing with Iran. Hopefully, the Iranians are smart enough not to be immediately provoked.

But their pent-up anger over the earlier killing of Geneneral Qasem Soleimani in a US drone attack and now this provocation can explode at some stage.

Mr Jaishankar’s visit to the Seychelles was important as the new LDS government of President Waud Ramkalawan, the priest-grandson of an immigrant from Bihar, has been opposed to Indian naval concessions.

However, it was surprising the external affairs minister chose to visit only nations aligned to the US in the Gulf and those with recently established relations with Israel.

In the case of Bahrain, there was some justification as the death of long-serving Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa needed condoling.

But overall, the optics seemed insensitive to the fissures in the Islamic world caused by Trumpian diplomacy. It would limit India’s options with Iran and other Islamic nations opposed to US-Saudi-Emirati actions.

It would perhaps have been better to wait till the Biden administration had begun fixing the Trumpian mess.

https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/301120/k-c-singh-new-delhi-tries-to-reset-its-ties-with-neighbours.html

The Hindu – Foreign Secretary’s Nepal visit likely next week

Both sides are trying to cool down rhetoric regarding territorial issues

Kallol Bhattacherjee

New Delhi – India, 20 November 2020. Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla is likely to visit Nepal next week, a highly placed source has confirmed.

The source however did not elaborate on the agenda but a Foreign Secretary-level interaction will address a key concern expressed by Nepal which has been demanding such an interaction.

Mr Shringla and his Nepalese counterpart Bharat Raj Paudyal are leading members of the Foreign Secretary-level mechanism that is tasked with the job of discussing the territorial disputes like Kalapani in Pithoragarh and Susta in the Uttar Pradesh-Nepal border.

The visit is the third in a row of high-level exchanges that took place in the last few weeks as both sides are trying to cool down the rhetoric regarding the territorial issues.

In the first week of November, Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane paid a three-day visit to Nepal which was preceded by the visit of R&AW chief Samant Goel. Both officials met Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli.

The Ministry of External Affairs has not yet made a formal announcement though the Indian side has communicated that the visit is on track as of now.

Earlier reports in sections of the media on both sides suggested the visit of Mr Shringla is expected on 26 – 27 November.

The highly placed source did not provide the exact date.

Apart from the border disputes, the visit may also examine the status of the report by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) which is at present lying unreleased in Kathmandu.

The EPG report has made recommendations for border management by both nations. The recommendations however are yet to be discussed by the two sides officially.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/foreign-secretarys-nepal-visit-likely-next-week/article33136409.ece

Scroll.in – India’s chest-thumping BJP seems surprised that Nepal too has resorted to nationalist politics

Sulking is a diplomatic approach that is unlikely to pay dividends for New Delhi.

Rohan Venkataramakrishnan

New Delhi – India, 16 June 2020. For a government that relies so heavily on muscular nationalism and rhetoric around territorial sovereignty as well as the freedom to take independent foreign policy positions, the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled India seems oddly surprised that another country might resort to the same strategy.

New Delhi has known about Nepal’s claims on Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura, which fall in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, since the 1990s. It was alerted to Kathmandu’s current concerns in November 2019.

Yet the Indian government appeared to be taken aback when its virtual inauguration of a road that travels through this territory into China provoked a nationalist response in Nepal, with hashtags like #BackOffIndia trending on social media.

The Nepal Parliament on Saturday passed an amendment to its Constitution that would alter national maps, showing the territory claimed by India as its own. A statement from New Delhi called this move “violative” and “not tenable”.

Yet the fact that it had even come down to a Constitutional Amendment, passed with two-thirds majority in Nepal’s Parliament, reflects a serious diplomatic failure. India is now reportedly trying to reach out to Kathmandu, asking it to undo the changes.

Kathmandu is undoubtedly being belligerent here.

Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli’s government, which appeared beleaguered just a few months ago, has latched on to this perceived slight from India, even though the construction of the road was hardly a secret and New Delhi has built infrastructure in the region before.

The issue appears to have put wind into Oli’s sails, which may explain why he was so willing to rush a Bill before Parliament, despite the risk this poses to what is undoubtedly Nepal’s most important international relationship, even if it is no longer a “special” one.

It is extremely unlikely that any Nepali politician or bureaucrat believes that India is actually going to concede any ground, even if Kathmandu tries to play the China card or attempts to take the matter to a multilateral forum.

India knows this, and may have even expected some mild concern from Nepal following the inauguration of the road. Yet the vehemence of the domestic anger against India also seems to have surprised New Delhi, which responded by sulking.

“India’s silence is the greatest cause for concern for the future of bilateral relations and is creating natural uneasiness in Kathmandu,” wrote Constatino Xavier of the Brookings Institution.

“After indirectly indicating its displeasure at the politically charged environment in Nepal, India has largely remained silent.

Silence speaks volumes and the relationship may now be in for a deep freeze. We do not know the exact reasons why, but it certainly transpires that Delhi does not feel comfortable to address the issue at this point or in the current context.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Neighbourhood First approach, a policy objective of addressing India’s immediate sphere of influence, brought a new sense of urgency to ties that had been in various states of disrepair earlier.

The policy has led to significant achievements on the connectivity front, yet the growing influence of China in the neighbourhood and India’s usual implementation failures have meant that the efforts are still well below their potential.

Meanwhile, the muscular nationalism that the BJP-run government promotes at home has risked endangering India’s political ties with neighbourhood nations, even as other arms of the Indian state push South Asian cooperation as the way forward.

New Delhi will have to recognise that even as it seeks to assert itself in its traditional sphere of influence, particularly with Beijing’s money being showered all around it, it cannot ignore that each country has its own domestic constituency and that pushing back against Indian hegemony will be a powerful motivator for many.

This does not mean India should give in. But its diplomatic corps and strategic planners should take into account how its moves, and the belligerent rhetoric of the BJP, will affect these ties, so that they are not surprised by similarly vehement reactions from neighbours.

https://scroll.in/article/964780/indias-chest-thumping-bjp-seems-strangely-surprised-that-nepal-has-resorted-to-nationalist-politics

The Hindustan Times – India had offered dialogue to Nepal on row over map. Why PM Oli ignored it

Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli has let self-preservation trump national interest

Shishir Gupta

New Delhi – India, 14 June 2020. On Saturday, the lower house of the Nepali Parliament passed the constitutional amendment bill updating the so-called “political map of Nepal”.

The “updated map” includes territories that are parts of the Indian states of Uttarakhand and Bihar. The bill will now go through Nepal’s upper house before receiving presidential assent. According to experts, that is a mere formality.

In Nepal, a question that continues to be raised among the intelligentsia, public, politicians is why India has been silent on diplomatic dialogue. But first, lets focus on the ongoing political context in Nepal

A screen shot of public debate within Nepal would reveal a widespread belief that the constitutional amendment was being used by Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli to hold on to his position within the Nepal Communist Party, which was highly shaky in early May when pressure on him to vacate the Prime Minister’s post had become unbearable.

There were saner voices in Kathmandu that advised him not to bring the constitutional amendment.

On the contrary, PM Oli was told, that the constitution amendment bill would close the channels of diplomatic communication with India.

On the diplomatic dialogue to discuss the outstanding boundary issue, Nepal seems to have adopted a twin approach. A public call for dialogue combined with an active private effort to scuttle it.

In public pronouncements, including in response to questions of lawmakers in Parliament on the status of dialogue with India, Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali had expressed surprise that India was sitting down for talks with China but was ignoring Nepal’s offer for talks.

Why indeed has India not offered to sit down for talks? Has it actually snubbed Nepal’s request, as Pradeep Kumar Gyawali seems to claim.

A top foreign ministry source in Kathmandu, however, told Hindustan Times that this wasn’t accurate.

The source said India had made a clear-cut offer of a foreign secretary-level phone call; to be followed by a video conference between the two foreign secretaries and then, a visit of Nepal’s foreign secretary to India to discuss the boundary issue.

“This artificial enlargement of claims is not based on historical fact or evidence and is not tenable. It is also violative of our current understanding to hold talks on outstanding boundary issues”: MEA.

External affairs ministry sources in New Delhi confirmed that this offer was available with foreign minister Gyawali and Prime Minister Oli even before the constitution amendment bill was tabled.

This offer was made a full one week before foreign minister Gyawali stated that India has been snubbing Nepal’s requests for talks on the border issue.

Only foreign minister Gyawali can answer if an offer of a phone call, a video conference and exchange of visits a snub as he described it.

Nepal’s foreign ministry sources confirmed that Prime Minister Oli seemed disinterested in India’s offer.

For reasons best known to him, he was neither ready to halt nor take a step back on the constitutional amendment despite knowing that the constitutional amendment is viewed by India as an irrevocable step which predetermines the outcome of any future negotiations.

Indeed, according to some interlocutors, in his private meetings, Prime Minister Oli has reportedly conveyed that he would proceed ahead with the amendment irrespective of the impact it might have on people-to-people relations between India and Nepal.

What we seem to have here is a carefully crafted pattern of deceit and deception where the Indian offer is not shared with Parliamentarians; and public and lawmakers are misled, all so that PM Oli can damage the special relationship that the people of the two countries continue to nurture.

Given that PM Oli has ignored that offer of diplomatic dialogue and gone ahead with amending the constitution, it is now up to him to create, if he so wishes, a conducive atmosphere in case he is interested in a bilateral dialogue on the boundary issue.

A leader of PM Oli’s experience and wisdom would know well that the time for verbal fudging is over; he now needs to walk the talk.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/why-pm-oli-rejected-india-s-offer-for-dialogue/story-REZvZfQDb2tySTGjEMh3gL.html

The Statesman – Nepal Parliament passes controversial Bill which validates country’s claim on Indian Territory

In the house with a total strength of 275 members, 258 members were present and voting and all the votes went in favour of the Bill.

New Delhi – India, 13 June 2020. The parliament of Nepal on Saturday voted in favour of the constitutional amendment bill in a special session to update the country’s map. The updated map claims the area which comes under Indian Territory.

In the house with a total strength of 275 members, the 258 members were present and voting and all the votes went in favour of the Bill which has sparked tension with its friendly neighbour India.

Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli’s party had cleared the map last month which ignited fierce criticism from India which termed it as a unilateral move on a ‘sensitive issue’.

Now from here, the Bill will go to the National Assembly where it will go a similar process, and it is anticipated that the bill will be passed there also.

Once it moves to the National Assembly, lawmakers will get 72 hours to move amendments against the bill’s provisions, if any.

On 09 June, Nepal’s House of Representative had unanimously endorsed the Constitution Amendment Bill to adopt a new map of the country which includes Indian areas of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.

The proposal was backed by Nepal Communist Party headed by Prime Minister K.P. Oli, the opposition Nepali Congress and Madhesi – based parties.

Nepal’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shivamaya Tumbahangphe had on 30 May tabled the bill for discussions in the Parliament to update the country’s map and amend the Constitution.

Nepal Parliament passes controversial Bill which validates country’s claim on Indian Territory