Pushpa Kamal Dahal
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ will fly to India on Wednesday for a four-day official visit to meet with Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and other leaders to further deepen the country’s age-old, multifaceted, and warm connections.
This will be Prachanda’s first foreign trip since taking power in December 2022.
Ganga Dahal, Prachanda’s daughter, will accompany him. He is visiting India at the request of his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Modi, said Nepal’s foreign ministry.
According to a release, he will head a delegation of ministers, secretaries, and senior government officials.
The prime minister is set to make a courtesy call on President Droupadi Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar during his visit.
On June 1, Prachanda will meet with Modi at the delegation level. The talks will be followed by a joint news conference between the two prime ministers, according to the announcement, which also stated that Modi will throw a luncheon in honor of his Nepalese counterpart and his delegation.
“This is Prime Minister Prachanda’s fourth visit to India as Prime Minister of Nepal. The visit will further strengthen Nepal’s age-old, multifaceted, and cordial relations with India”, it stated.
“The Prime Minister will address the Nepal-India Business Summit in New Delhi, jointly organized by the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and interact with business leaders from both countries”, the statement added.
According to the announcement, Prachanda will meet with the Nepali community in India during a welcome reception held by the Ambassador of Nepal to India Shankar Prasad Sharma.
The prime minister will also visit Ujjain and Indore in Madhya Pradesh before returning to Kathmandu on June 3.
The visit, according to the External Affairs Ministry in New Delhi, follows the history of regular high-level exchanges between India and Nepal in furtherance of our ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.
The statement stated, “Bilateral relations between the two countries have significantly strengthened in all areas of cooperation in recent years. This visit demonstrates the importance that both sides place on accelerating the bilateral partnership”.
India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy is an important part of its foreign policy. The strategy aims to foster amicable and synergistic relations with India’s South Asian neighbors in a variety of fields, including the economy, science and technology, research and education, and so on.
Nepal is vital for India in terms of its overall strategic interests in the region, and the two nations’ leaders have frequently referred to the age-old ‘Roti Beti’ relationship.
More than 1,850 kilometres of the border are shared with five Indian states: Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Nepal is a landlocked country that relies significantly on India for commodities and services transit.
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