“There may be occasional hiccups, but we are joined at the hip” – that’s how Nepal’s Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle described Delhi-Kathmandu ties.
“It was not just in the recent disaster, the flash floods. On India’s support in the aftermath of the flash floods that devastated the Himalayan nation in August this year, the minister recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s prompt phone call to Nepal PM Balen Shah. “Prime Minister Modi called Prime Minister Balen Shah and pledged support. In our own official channels and exchanges there’s always been this forthcoming helping hand from India saying that whatever Nepal needs, we are there. This cements the ties that we have,” he noted.
Even in the last major disaster that we had in 2015, it was India which was the first responder.
Describing the relationship as “exceptionally close”, the minister pointed out that no other two countries are bound together in the same way as India and Nepal. I remember in the earthquake there was a cargo flight that landed in Kathmandu within a few hours of the earthquake and this was similarly replayed this time too,” Wagle said.
Describing the new leadership of Nepal as different from the earlier ones, Wagle insisted that Balen Shah’s government seeks better ties with India.
