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By Our Reporter

Within a few days, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visited Nepal and met the high profile leaders including the President and Prime Minister and Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources of the United States Richard Rahul Verma’s Nepal visit, Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba reached India.

Like Misri, Verma also met high-profile leaders during his stay in Nepal.

The US Deputy Secretary visited Nepal a few days after the political upheaval in Bangladesh and held a meeting with Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Friday.

In India, Arzu Rana also managed to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was a rare opportunity for ministers of Nepal. Political observers remark it a red-carpet welcome performed by the Indian government.

Although Minister Rana went to India for a health check-up, she managed to give it a political form by meeting Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar on Monday afternoon and Prime Minister Modi in the evening.

She managed to meet the Indian PM on her own initiative and Modi also recognised her as a powerful leader of Nepal, as she is not only the Foreign Minister but also a former first lady and wife of a waiting Prime Minister (Sher Bahadur Deuba).

The audience granted by Modi to Dr. Rana looks meaningful. Although she handed over an invitation for Modi on behalf of Prime Minister KP Oli to visit Nepal, Modi may not visit Nepal during Oli’s term as the former had applied his strength to prevent Oli from becoming the prime minister of Nepal.

Surprisingly, India announced its decision to purchase an additional 251 MW of power from Nepal when Rana reached India.  India will buy the power for Haryana and Bihar. These all show that India wants to maintain good relations with Nepal when India’s relations with other South Asian countries have turned sour in recent years. Even India which has very good relations with Bangladesh for the past two decades is now not on good terms with Bangladesh with the latest political developments there.