Bharat Rakshak

Visiting Nepalese home and defence minister BK Gachhedar has formally submitted a list of military hardware to India and conveyed Baburam Bhattarai's government request to resume arms and weapons supplies to Kathmandu. New Delhi on its part has activated the process to supply arms to
Kathmandu barring perhaps Lancer counter-insurgency helicopter.

During his meetings with Indian defence minister AK Antony and top officials, Gachhedar apparently gave a feedback of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's whirl-wind trip to Kathmandu last Saturday.

Wen promised $120 million aid to Nepal for police training and border check posts with an eye towards Tibetan refugees.

It is understood that Wen asked Nepal to maintain good relations with India but at the same time asked that Tibetan refugees be handed back to Chinese PLA instead of UN humanitarian bodies like UNHCR in Nepal.

Erstwhile Nepal King Gyanendra had already closed down the Tibetan Bureau office catering to refugees crossing over from Tibet to Kathmandu after he declared emergency in February 1, 2005.

Since then, India has also not supplied lethal weapons to Nepal.

The government sources said while the arms list was handed over to Indian defence ministry on Wednesday by Gachhedar, Kathmandu wants New Delhi to revive the government Ordnance Factory at Sundrijal, 15 kilometers away from the capital.

The Bhattarai government wants Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to repair an advanced light helicopter gifted by New Delhi one-and-a-half-years ago.

Bogged down in the Indian bureaucracy, the ALH is lying in Kathmandu with HAL asking for repair amount.

Given the salience of China in Nepalese calculus, New Delhi wants the grounded chopper to be replaced.

Among other items on the Nepalese list are: mine protected vehicles; ammunition for 81 mm mortar, 5.56 mm INSAS rifle and 7.62 mm rifles.

New Delhi had already geared for deliveries and the arms supplies would be resumed soon.

While Nepal has also asked for the armed Lancer helicopters for its counter-insurgency operations, New Delhi has to take a final call as it does not want Indian platforms to be used against Nepalese people.

A severe shortage of gas cylinders, essential for heating and cooking in a country with no mains supply, has increased the hardship for Nepalis already enduring seasonal daily powercuts of up to 14 hours.

Exacerbating the problem, a shortage of petrol and diesel means people have to queue for many hours or turn to the black market to run cars and the generators which light their shops when the electricity goes out.

Students have raided gas depots, queues of cars and motorcycles snake back hundreds of metres (yards) from petrol stations, fuel trucks require police escorts and restaurants have reduced menus in an effort to save on gas.

Experts say Nepal's huge mountain river system could be generating up to 83,000 megawatts of power, allowing it to sell surplus electricity to other countries.

But development of infrastructure ground to a halt during the civil war and the nation produces a paltry 688 megawatts a year.

As a result it has to import petroleum products worth 80 billion rupees ($1 billion) a year.

The government-run Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), which provides subsidised fuel to consumers, has fallen behind on its payments to India and in January the NOC hiked petrol, diesel and gas prices, leading to angry protests.

The demonstrators blocked traffic and shut shops across the country, withdrawing only after Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai pledged to address their demands.

The government has since given the NOC two billion rupees to pay off the Indian Oil Corporation, but the crisis continues unabated.

With Nepal now overrun by Maoists and the Nepal side border areas becoming muslim majority slowly( with ISI money being pumped for that), does the India-Nepal dharmic irrelevant border scenario hold?

shyamd wrote:Threat is not new sum ji. Put it this way, security guys are confident that gaps have been plugged. This border was a major concern a few years back.

Hard-core leftists broke away from Nepal’s biggest political party and announced a new faction Tuesday in a split that further complicates the country’s messy political crisis.

Nepal has been without a legally sanctioned government since late May when its Constituent Assembly expired without agreeing on a new constitution for the post-monarchy era, although Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has continued on, as caretaker, and called new elections for November.

Leftists within Bhattarai’s party — which is Nepal’s biggest and which represents former Maoist rebels — have grown increasingly frustrated with the top leadership, saying it has failed to secure favorable positions for former Maoist fighters or undertake promised land reform.So much for the revolution

Mohan Baidya, who led the breakaway group and took about a third of the party’s central committee members with him, said that Bhattarai and party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dalal were driving the party in the “wrong direction.’’

“They were concentrating more on staying in power than following party ideologies,’’ Baidya said. “Our new party will adopt a pro-revolutionary political course.’’

The new party will be called Nepal Communist Party - Maoist.

Dina Nath Sharma, education minister in Bhattarai’s government and senior member of his Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) party, said the split was unfortunate.

“This will only lead to further trouble for both the Maoist party and the splinter group. It will not benefit either of us,’’ Sharma said.

The Maoist rebels had fought government troops between 1996 and 2006 until they joined a peace process and contested elections two years later after the country’s constitutional monarchy was abolished.

The Maoist group emerged as the largest party in the 2008 polls, gaining about 38 percent of the seats in the Constituent Assembly, but it has struggled to effectively govern in a coalition amid Nepal’s notoriously querulous politics.

The country’s Constituent Assembly expired last month after failing to write a new constitution despite repeated extensions of the body’s self-imposed deadline, leaving the country in a political limbo. Analysts said the split among the Maoists would make the situation deteriorate further.

“This will only lead to further political instability, said Yagya Prasad Adhikari, a political science professor at the Tribhuwan University in Katmandu.

Adhikari warned that the split could even lead to violence between the factions.

Some of the conflict arises from a November agreement that Maoist leaders signed on the integration of their former fighters into the national army.

The splinter faction says the fighters were given low ranks and that the party leadership failed to secure them a better deal. It also accuses party leaders of failing to make any effort to launch promised land reforms to redistribute land from the rich to landless farmers.

Bhutan has sought China's support for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council for the term 2013-14. This was revealed by the Bhutanese government after its leaders held border talks with a visiting Chinese delegation in Thimphu on Friday.

"The talks were held in a warm and friendly atmosphere," the Bhutanese foreign ministry said in a statement. "It will provide the opportunity for the two nations to better understand each other's positions, which will facilitate an early and just settlement of the boundary issues."

The meeting discussed Bhutan's aspiration to serve as a non-permanent member of UNSC, elections for which are scheduled for October this year, said Bhutan's leading English daily, Kuensel.

An eight-member Chinese delegation led by vice foreign minister Fu Ying participated in the border talks just six weeks after the two countries established diplomatic ties for the first time. China is expected to bargain hard before helping Bhutan achieve its international ambitions in the form of a non-permanent seat at UNSC. Beijing might ask Thimphu to reduce its dependence on India, and discourage any future visit by the Dalai Lama to the country.

India was keen on strengthening, expanding and reinforcing the canvas of economic cooperation and bilateral engagement with Bhutan, said President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday while receiving Jigmi Y. Thinley, Prime Minister of Bhutan, at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

The President said India was always sensitive to Bhutanese wishes and aspirations and hoped that Bhutan would also reciprocate. Expressing satisfaction at the “excellent state” of bilateral relations marked by extensive, multi-faceted, mutually beneficial cooperation, Mr. Mukherjee complimented the government and the people of Bhutan for the democratic transition and consolidation of democratic values and institutions since 2008.

Mr. Thinley described India as its most important partner. Bhutan’s peace, stability, prosperity and happiness all depended on how it maintained its special relationship with India, he said, adding Bhutan’s future was intertwined with that of India.

He said Bhutan desired to strengthen and deepen relations with India and his mission to India was to express the gratitude of the Bhutanese people for the substantial support rendered by India for its development, for the democratic process and for the high importance attached by India to bilateral relations with Bhutan.

Sandeep Dikshit
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Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai calling on Bhutan Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley in New Delhi on Thursday. Photo: R.V. Moorthy

With elections nearing, Bhutan doesn’t want India to slow down its assistance

Cash, rather than China, tops the agenda of Bhutan Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley, who arrived here on a three-day visit. With elections due in Bhutan towards the middle of this year, Thimphu is keen that its development plans and hydel projects being constructed by India are not affected by the Finance Ministry’s move to reduce fiscal deficit, said government sources.

Mr. Thinley was a surprise winner in Bhutan’s maiden parliamentary polls and his group is keen to repeat the performance in the next elections as well. Showcasing ongoing road, hydel and other development projects and ensuring they are not affected are said to be one of the keys to his party repeating the showing when elections are held in June this year.

Mr. Thinley’s focus on economic ties with India is not surprising. During its years of good economic growth, India contributed generously to Bhutan’s Tenth Plan as well as maintained the flow of funds for three ongoing mega hydel projects — the 1,200-mw Punatsangchhu-I, the 1,020-mw Punatsangchhu and the 720-mw Mangdechhu.

This smooth flow of funds now appears to be in danger of being curtailed after Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram indicated his intention to take a closer look at the allocation for Bhutan as part of his overall drive to compress allocation of budgetary resources to most Ministries including the Ministry for External Affairs which channels India’s external assistance.

Mr. Thinley is also keen to know the status of seven other major hydel projects that have a generation potential of over 7,000 MW. The clearance schedule of all these projects has been pushed back by four to six months amid apprehensions that some of them involving central public sector enterprises may get further delayed.

As for China, sources close to Thimphu said the top leadership, including King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk, are kept acquainted about the situation on his country’s borders by India’s Research & Analysis Wing. So far, Beijing’s activities have not been an area of concern though middle ranking Chinese officials have visited Bhutan to test the waters on the prospect of establishing diplomatic ties.

Bhutanese sources also refer to the general aversion to the Chinese among middle level officials as one reason why the opening up towards China will not take place soon. During 10 years between the mid 60s to the mid 70s, when many of the officials were in their formative years, they were witness to the pitiful state of Tibetan refugees as they sought shelter in their villages along the route to India.

These memories still live with them and frequent reports of Tibetan monks immolating themselves has led them so far to politely stall China’s probes for a diplomatic presence in Bhutan. The dispute with China over what some Bhutanese regard as traditional grazing pastures for their cattle around the Sikkim-Bhutan-China tri-junction also dissuades them from getting too close to China.

Basically at the back of Mr. Thinley’s mind is the nervousness every politician suffers from before an election. Between now and June, when the elections are likely to be held, they don’t want a slowdown in Indian assistance for Bhutan’s budget or the hydel projects to become a factor, said official sources here.

Nepal's First-Ever Census Reveals Good News for Christians
Number of Catholics and Protestants in Himalayan nation has tripled since 2007.
Melissa Steffan

Christians now comprise 1.4 percent of Nepal's population of 26 million, according to the Himalayan nation's first-ever census.

The results show that more than 80 percent of Nepali citizens identify as Hindu. Nepali Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, who unveiled the census results, stated that "minority religions will enjoy equal status."

However, the reported 1 percent growth rate may not be entirely accurate, Asia News reports.

"We believe our population is more than the report claims," Protestant leader CB Gahatraj told Asia News. "The problem is that during the census period, many newly converted Christians were afraid to tell their religion, and so were registered as Hindu."

Nepal became a secular state in 2007, at which time Catholics and Protestants accounted for just 0.4 percent of the population. Growth throughout the last five years has occurred in spite of anti-conversion laws, although an agreement signed in May promised to protect the rights of the Christian community.

CT's past coverage of Nepal includes the end of its Hindu monarchy in 2007, as well as Christians' new role as peacemakers after the country's national crisis. Most recently, Christians demanded more burial ground in a nation where cremation is the norm.

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliv ... tians.html