Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala with foreign diplomats at Tribhuwan International Airport before leaving for New Delhi on Tuesday. Pic, first published in eKantipur, by Bikas Rauniar
After American President George W. Bush, it was today the turn of Nepal’s Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to be received by the Indian Prime Minister at the New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport in the recent memory [Bill Clinton was received in 2000 by Foreign Minister Jashwant Singh]. “You are the greatest leader in South Asia,” said Man Mohan Singh, the Indian leader, while shaking hands of his Nepali counterpart. “We respect you and we are proud of you.”
Koirala is officially visiting India as a Prime Minister of a government formed by the historical Peoples’ Movement that forced an autocratic king to give up the power and restore the House of Representative that was dissolved four years in mysterious circumstances. Koirala was demanding the restoration of the House from the very beginning and the 84-year-old president of Nepali Congress party was the leader of the Seven Party Alliance that organized the April Revolution with the direct help of the Maoist party. Koirala, as the head of the (new) Nepal government, genuinely deserved that respect from India, our closest neighbor. This response of Prime Minister Singh has been interpreted as Indian peoples’ salute to the Nepal’s historical peoples’ movement and its achievement.
But those were the words from India; we are yet to see those beautiful words turned into action. India can turn those words into actions by providing assistance and offering help to us without adding strings and hidden fees. Koirala is in New Delhi with a mission: to get as much help and assistance from India as possible. Nepal is in need of all kinds of help- from budgetary to bilateral- from India but not at any cost. We feel that India has done enough harm and taken things away from us already. This is the time India pays back. So far the signals have been encouraging. Results will be seen pretty much soon. Koirala will be holding formal talks with Man Mohan Singh Wednesday.
Based on reporting by Kantipur senior reporter Balaram Baniya and special correspondent Surendra Phuyal in New Delhi
Nepal to seek Rs 75b for five years
PM’s India VisitBy Prem Khanal in the Kathmandu Post. (here is the original article)
KATHMANDU, June 5 – Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who is beginning a four-day official visit to India from Tuesday, will request the Indian government for development aid worth Rs 75 billion for the next five years.
The government’s ‘wish list’, which was presented in the cabinet today by Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, mainly aims to seek Indian assistance in infrastructure development, said a government source. The proposed aid volume is far higher than what India has been extending to Nepal annually. Currently, India provides about two billion rupees worth of development aid.
Apart from budgetary support, the government will seek Indian assistance in hydropower, roads and aviation sectors, said officials and added that the ‘wish list’ has received positive signals from India.
During bilateral negotiations, the government is proposing special Indian assistance for the development of at least one big hydropower project to tackle the worsening power crisis in the country.
Sources said the government is planning to propose three mega projects – 600 MW Budigandaki, 400 MW Arun III and 300 MW Upper Karnali for Indian assistance.
However, Indian officials have shown interest in developing the 300-MW Upper Karnali, which is estimated to cost US$ 500 million, said the source.
The government is also proposing financial support of four billion rupees for construction and maintenance of 600 kilometers of road particularly in the hilly region, and construction of 23 bridges along the East -West highway. The construction of bridges alone is estimated to cost over one billion rupees. The request for road construction would be in addition to the 1500 km road construction in the Terai region, to which India is already committed.
The visiting delegation will also request the Indian government to extend budgetary support of one billion rupees to address the liquidity problem likely to arise in the next
fiscal year starting from mid-July.
Likewise, the government will also request deferment of payment of huge outstanding dues by state-owned Nepal Oil Corporation to Indian Oil Corporation. The accumulated dues have crossed five billion rupees and the government wishes to convert the dues into a long-term loan, said the official.
The government will also propose a waiver of Rs 1.6 billion worth of arms and ammunition dues. India had supplied arms, ammunition and military equipment worth over seven billion rupees between 2003 and 2005.
The government will also request the Indian government for support in establishing a polytechnic institute in the far western region. With regard to other infrastructure development, Nepal will ask for a detailed survey of East-West railway, while India has shown interest in constructing at least one airport in the hilly districts.
Likewise, the government will request the Indian government to scrap the four-percent additional duty slapped on imports from Nepal.
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Comments
61 responses to “India Welcomes Nepal: Koirala Greatest South Asian Leader”
It would be a great surprise if India likes to support nepal without taking anything from Neapl. I don’t believe it.
Girija’s stand to have supreme parliament seems to have washed his tainted past and mediocre performance of PM. As the longest serving PM, its his responsibility to solve the maoist problem.
Lets hope that Nepal will get all support from India for its peaceful transition and all support to avoid another dictatorial communist state in the himalayas.
Without hope you cannot live through the day-let’s hope this visit, more than anything else, solves the Maoist problem for once and all. Then we can concentrate on the real issues like development and proper governance.
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Let us not talk about what koirala did for 9 years as PM before. His record is worst. May be Indian Pm was impressed by the Nepalese Janaandolan II. But Koirala was the leader of SPA but it is not “only” Koirala by whom Jana Andolan was possible. It was Maoists and other parties as well as general people who hated the behaviour of the killer KG.There is a lot of difference between Jana Andolan I and Jana Andolan II. We must not forget that if Koirala undermines the expectations and mandate of Jana Andolan II, the people will not forgive him.He must be sincere to the people.
When KG took power on Feb Ist 2005, people gave some benefits of doubt because parties were corrupt. People had already seen different forms of Govt. like one party govt., Coaltion of all sorts and UML Minority Govt. people so much frustrated that they were saying that the development of the country and honesty from these leaders were impossible for them.
But we have still to see how they govern this time. i think was the stupidest person in whole of Napal. About 100,000 articles were written and all the countries as well as international communities were for the talks between King and the SPA.But he vehemently ignored it.At that time he could have saved lot of things for him and Paras. there are two sayings in Nepali; CHAUTA KHANA GAYEKI BUDHI JHOL MA DUBERA MARI and KINA ROYIS MANGALE AFNAI DHANGALE. These sayings can be applied to KG.
He did not know the level of intelligence of the Nepalese people in the beginning of the 21st century.
Now let us eagerly wait for the performance of the leaders of the political parties. I suggest them not to run the govt. as Thekdaars for commission from each and every activity.
Very intresting tradition to see that all kinds of foreigners wave HIM.
Wander if we can also do this in other countries. Good for relations, hihi.
Dr Krishna Dixit
I certainly hope that Man Mohan Singh did not say that Girija is the greatest South Asian leader.
Anyway let’s see what happens in the day ahead.
” Nepalnews.com and Kantipur ”
Biggest threat to Nepali Nationalism.
Recently both the sites are acting as an Indian Government Official Website.
Manmohan welcoming Girija is no news.
India successfully controlling the Nepali media over the internet, is a news.
Rest is all bande mataram.
well said…….Mukti . I think he is aware of these facts this time around. In my opinion, he is the one who started the dirty games in Nepalese Politics by bringing his own Govt. down.
For Coke….
I think something is wrong with this dude……we should book him a bed in hospital for through inspection. He is kinda of mental and retarted……….
but i like neps who swing the oppotunist way…..and like coke says…sing bande mataram…….and u know the paradox…the ones who are retarded are inteeligent…and the ones that claim to be intelligent are retarded…..bande mataram…..
C’mon guys…Don’t be cynical. What the Indian PM did is to respect nepal and nepali people for their bravery. I feel like floating when I read that news. He did not give respect to Girija, it was given to nepali people.
I think PM Singh was being sarcastic. If not, maybe he is going senile. If anyone, Mr. Singh maybe the greatest South Asian leader alive. If we count the leaders that are dead, I am afraid putting GP in that category is an insult on the great leaders that South Asia has produced.
I agree that GP is a very cunning leader, but so are the likes of Lalloo Yadav.
Manmohan Singh is a nice guy, he’s just being nice. We Nepalis are also generally quite forgiving, so we need this GP for the time being. He created the mess, he can mend it. When he finally dies, I for one will celebrate, a beginning of a new era for us and the end of a very dark one. The maoists are not the problem, they are part of the solution. It has always been people like Girija who have been the problem. When he’s gone, it will be good riddance and we have to make sure his gene pool do not take over the mantle of chaos, because yes GP has been a chaos maker.
He will die his natural death, and it will finally save many innicent lives. Let the count down begin. Till then GP, do what you can to gain some of your morality (your credibility is already too far gone) back and work for the nation.
Jai Nepal and Jai the people of Nepal!
It is like fattening up a pig for the slaughter- I mean the glorification of Leadership of GPK.
India knows, Maoist cannot be stopped unless they physically intervene and so does US. But the ramification of such action will reverberate, mostly negatively in Nepal and in this sub continent. It’s a fools dream to expect India to solve Nepali’s Maoist problem. Read Manmohan’s statement in regards to “India’s naxalas”- Biggest concern and threat to India. So people, lets all be pragmatic rather than expect India or any other country to solve our problem as if by magic.
This is how I see it. GPK will give Karnali to Indians & Indians will start the project. And, in pretext of defending or for security reason India will deploy a battalion into Nepal- and start of Indianization of Nepal will start.
On relations with India, Nepalese have always a defeates mentality. We always think that India is very big and it will take Nepal one day. When our leaders or delegations go to New Delhi we always suffer from this mind set.If they propose something, we say OK/OK and sign it without analysing what will be the interest of Nepal. When the delegations return to Nepal, they say that we saved Nepal because Indians had a lot of unequal proposals but they proposed us this very liberal one because we resisted the unequal ones.And the Nepali are happy. This is the scanario always with India visit.
This reminded me of a joke about how an Indian can decieve the Nepalis. Two Nepalese went to Kolkata and they are amazed to see a 25 storey building. They started coonting the floors and when they were about to finish couting, one Indian came and asked them that how many they have counted ? Nepalese were “very smart”, they replied only ten, but they had already counted 23. Indian said you have to pay 10 Rs. for each floor counted. Nepalese paid immediately Rs. 100 and left.
When Nepalese reached back to Nepal, they boasted that they had cheated the Indian of Rs. 130. This is exactly the scenario of Nepal-India relations.They take more benefit out of us and we think that we have got more from them. Or our leaders pretend so.
All planted men!
What cynicism!
We do not trust the SPA … We do not definitely like or trust the King…We love to dislike Indians…Army is feudal and untrustworthy …We are wary of the Maoists… And we are not sure of other Nepalese… So who the heck do we trust !
Shaman- said it right. from the read I get, it looks like we have noone to trust, do we trust ourselves ??? We are all a good candidate for outfits like Maoist, Cult, and autocratic political parties. Amen, finally it has dawn on me, no wonder we follow a person, walk with the herd, and defend as a tribe- no getting out of the box yet for us!!!
How come Girija Greatest South Asian leader?
He is the one for all these messes. This Andolan was also lost by his leadership, just in between maoist gave 75% support to win this andolan. If they praise this andolan then Prachanda should be the greatest leader of South Asia. Neither he is as well democratic in his own party.
…We are givning more to India rather than taking, don’t make/get confused…we are giving multi billion rupees of water for many years…we are giving business with deficit balance..what they want more than that from us…we are giving more than USA to India..we are giving them water from where they are farming even in off season..they are farming millions of hectars with our water in off-season and our farmers are just looking our own water to irrigate in their farms…what else India want more than that from us…..so we shouldn’t be in lower hand, but should be in upper hand..
This is just a advice to our leaders no biasness… and not anti-India feelings but fear dealings..
lets watch and wait…..who knows maybe giriza can browbeat indi-bhaiyaas…
.if he doesn’t we may be singing bande mataram soon….
….also now that we have a variety of gods…we can choose one and trust him…her ??
At the same we ar of the feelings that Kantipur is just a MUKHAPATRA of RAW….
The title shouldn’t be like a beggar….it should be like giver because Girija is also discussing about Karnali and Arun project which are their dire need to recover power- shortage..Why not the title got that place of those projects…the analysis should be what are the advantages and disadvantages in that dealings….what advantages India is getting from Koshi,Gandaki, Tanakpur and Mahakali..what disadvantages Nepal is getting from that what are the solution to minimise the disadvantages and gain economic advantages…
.Kinyo..kinyo sabailai kinisakyo ra magne ra guard ko darja ma nepali lai rakhyo india le…
They are using the same formula as British who are praising Ranas to get support for the wars and to suppress India…
M. Singh might have said it, just wait and watch what he’ll take in return for those words
Men are the most complicated and difficult animals in the planet.So now we should not oppose SPA but we have to cooperate and help them so that they can bring peace.But we have evry right to show them the right path. I wish GPK a most successful offical visit to India. But
fanta,
why don’t you go and bang your head on some wall… or go running down the streets yelling out your frustration… it’s amazing- just about everything you say is cynical… india this, india that… girija this, girija that… give the old man a chance- and do you really think that one country will help another without wanting anything in return- it’s rather sad, but that is the geopolitical reality that we have to brace ourselves for… most of us seem to have done it, but your tamasha just goes on and on.. a suggestion- read the first few lines of my post again..
prakashji,
What geopolitical you are talking about? Switzerland is landlock, Geneva is landlock but they know how to bargain? Aren’t they develop countries? Are you suggesting these leaders to give everything what we have? You just go and bow your head in their leg not suggest to all Nepali people..ok..
When we talk about what we lost in our deal with India, why people like you get upset? What is the reason behind it?
And we have right to analyse everything in democracy not to bang our head in the wall for not supporting the things that we are not convinced. Only sympathy with this government is that they trust in democracy but it doesnot mean we have to support their every step which are against the country and Nepales people.
soryy Austria not Geneva
lets watch and wait….
hope our group doesn’t sing bande mataram…..
Actually Man mohan Singh may be a sincere guy….and may say things sincerely…….but the wolves behind him are the indi-beaurocrats who have their policies defined and everything thought out a priori….they are just waitin to pounce……after that they will even carry him on their back to the airport………
I write about South Asian business and I cover Nepal too. I wish that Nepal now can have better condition and the economy can turn around. Nepalese people deserve something better.
Fanta – you make no sense by comparing Austria and Nepal. I agree with Prakash that both Coke and Fanta need to stop being so suspicious and cynical. Sure India is not our baw, kaka or mama … they are not going to give us anything for free but its up to us not to just bend over like we have done in the past. For all the unfair treties in the past I have more contempt for our own political leaders then those Indian beaurocrats.
dear admistrator
i see a lot of mandalay comments in this site. this is a blog site and here we blog for democracy so i believe that we should not give place for mandalay comments. they should have their own forum. this is not a news site so any one who does not believe in democracy should stop looking at blog sites.
almighy:
this is a free blog site. in other words people can write/post whatever the hell it is they want. you are asking the administrators to not post comments you don’t like and at the same time you are saying this site is for democracy – errrr… do i smell an irony perhaps?
Ya right, for india girija is south asias greatest leader coz he has presented lots of beneficial treaties in favour of india than to Nepal.
Lets just check girijas corruption KANDAS it just proves he is one of the greatest.
Mr.Bhudai Pundit
Who told you i am suspicious?
I am dead sure of what i am talking since ages in this forum.
You guys keep on vibrating here and there.
You are a confused lot as you dont know if Dhotees are our Friends of Foes.
I stick to what i have said since long long time. I consider than as our enemies.
But now i am happy that many of you here who now started saying what i have been talking on “Indian Plan on Nepal”.
I am happy!
But the sorry tale continues as our leaders keep on repeating the same mistakes.
??? ????? ?? ???? ??? ????? ?? ????? ????? ????? ,,??? ???????? ? ?? ???? ??? ?? ?
?????? ? ????? ?? ????? ??? ??????? ?? ???? ???? ????? ?
Coke:
Who has started agreeing with your plan here? Show me a response that agrees with your plan.
Prakash
People like Coke & Fanta are born victim of Indo-phobia. They are sick of Koiralas like all Nepalese Royalists and actually they are royalists by birth. If you followed their blog comments within last three/four months, you can identify their colour. Why you are argueing with them ? Just leave them alone.
remember when gpk was the PM long time back….he went to india on a mission like this….came back having sold tanakpur to india….whass he gonna sell this time???karnali?/
I do not understand why he needs to do all this drama at this hour. The only goal of this Government is to talk with the Maoists and form a constituent assembly. The talks have not proceeded much. I do not know why Girija has to get assistance from India at this time. If he just focuses on his goal and conducts the election within a year peacefully, then Nepali people will forgive him for his checkered history. Why is he trying to do more than he is asked to? If he tries to do too many things, he will fail miserably.
Also, who will give assistance with no strings attached? I do not. Banks do not. Why should India give such assistance to Nepal? India is short of funds to build infrastructure to keep up with it’s growth projections and why should it help Nepal. Nepalis should try to make better use of resources within the country and not look outside for help.
So the man who brought down his majority government four times, who twisted and turned our constitution up side down, the most corrupt politician who should have been in jail, has become not only the supreme leader revered by the Maoists, UML, Jana Morcha in but also labeled as on of the greatest leader of South Asia. So now we have take this shit not only from our politicians but from the Indian Prime Minister Man Mohan Sing as well. What a future for Nepalese.
And then the howling by some MPs in our parliament for Surya Nath Upadhya’s blood for investigating him and clearing him. Does GPK stand cleared in our conscience?
Have not we heard a saying that ‘once a thief, always a thief’?
Girija, and rest of the SPA constituents, suffer from the same predicament.
raiji,
if we say you are born to become INDIA KO CHAMCHA then what happened???you have right to comment on my words not to blame. There are many people commenting about the treaties why you are so upset? Regarding king, he is already gone so what is the use of going after him…we are not saying that Girija’s effort toward democracy is bad but we are of the logic that his most of the deals with India are not fair…if you agree with his deal with India then I have to say nothing except.. go to hell….
We have SPA just going after a King, it has no other business but just curtail King’s prerogatives. Now, the funny part is Maoist are saying “how can they make Assembly Supreme?” And if that is the case then “more bloodbath..” I just do not know where to put my feet in.
So I say- never say never.
Friends, I know Girija has created a mess in Nepal more than other SPA leaders and king. But only thing Girija stands out from others is his commitment towards democracy. We see how much other leaders including king are desperate to have chair e.g. UML(half-corrected regression), don’t talk about Deuba (not worthy of mentioning). If we can exercise what Girija stands for, we can throw him one day.
One other thing, as I wrote above, I feel like floating when I read the news of respect given to Girija. It was undoubtely a respect to Nepali people. Girija was just a carrier. You guys perhaps noticed the respect given to Indians here in US and how proud these indians are here. But what about us? If you think the respect should not be given to Girija because he is unpopular in Nepal, president Bush is not popular in US as well. I am enjoying the respect from Indians and I urge you all enjoy it.
Deepak:
What the hell are you talking about. The only reason anyone is supporting Girija is not because of his commitment to democracy. It is just because right now we are all desperate and he is the only man who is capable of some leadership. Imagine how low we have stooped when we have rely on Girija for leadership.
Coke and Fanta you two should consider getting a room somewhere. You would make an awesome couple.
if girija is the greatest leader in south asia, then all of south asia should bow down their head in shame. when he comes back, he’ll be like, “? ? ?????? ??????? ???????? ???? ????? ???? ?????? ?????? ?? ???? ? ?? ?????? ??????” and then girija will be the same old girija.
Pundit jee,
You are elaborating my point. At least we need somebody to turn to in the time of crisis like this. And that person as you say is Girija, though we both agree that he’s created lots of mess. I don’t know what are you seeing on Girija except than commitment toward democracy which has given him the capability of being a leader.
GIRIJA has to be watched…SOMEONE must TRACK the COMMISSION MONEY he will hide in India….
KG is no longer the issue….Nepali politicians including Prachanda are greedily looking at the tricks of Indian Politicians like Laloo, Mayawati,Indira, Sonia etc etc(long list..)to AMASS MONEY from DEALs with foreign countries..Remember Indira Congress and Leftists got money from former USSR…
As of now GIRIJA is the best bet of course…