The Chief of Indian Army, Gen M M Naravane, reached Kathmandu on Wednesday for a three-day visit, which is being seen as a part of New Delhi’s bid to ease the strains in India-Nepal relations.
Gen Naravane will hold a meeting with Nepalese Army chief Gen Purna Chandra Thapa. He will also call on Nepalese President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, who will confer the honorary rank of general in the Nepalese Army in keeping with a 70-year-old tradition of friendly gestures between the armed forces of the two neighbouring nations.
The Indian Army chief will also call on Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli.
Gen Naravane recently visited Nay Pyi Taw along with Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla – in a move to reach out to the army and the government of Myanmar.
New Delhi’s renewed move to enhance military-to-military ties between India and its neighbours came at a time when New Delhi’s relations with Beijing reached a new low over the six-month-long stand-off along the disputed boundary between the two nations in eastern Ladakh.
New Delhi’s relations with Kathmandu came under stress after the Oli Government lodged a protest over a new 80-kilometer-long road New Delhi built from Dharchula in Uttarakhand to the Lipulekh Pass – an India-Nepal-China tri-junction boundary point.
It alleged that the road passed through Nepal – a claim dismissed by India. Kathmandu, however, went ahead, published a new map, which showed nearly 400 sq kms of India’s areas in Kalapani, Lipulekh Pass, and Limpiyadhura as part of Nepal. It also got the Nepalese Parliament to amend the country’s constitution to endorse the new map.