Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s visit to New Delhi continues to remain the most-talked-about issue on op-ed pages of broadsheet dailies published in Kathmandu on Wednesday.
Prime Minister’s visit and the issue of water resources
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba arrives in the Indian capital on Wednesday morning a few days after the southern part of the country was inundated following monsoon rains. Many fingers have been raised at the dams built by India along the Indo-Nepal border, following the floods. Similarly, mega projects such as Pancheswor and Laxmanpur have also not gathered momentum.
In this context, Ram Raj Sharma and Umesh Pathak, in their piece for Nagarik, say the Prime Minister should talk to his Indian counterpart about New Delhi’s recent policy change under which Indian companies can only import power from Nepal produced by projects that have Indian shareholders. They say that Nepal should tell India that it is not acceptable that Nepali territory is flooded during the monsoon and all the water in the rivers is used by India during the dry season.
The other water and power-related issues they have raised are: trade in electricity and building of transmission lines. Similarly, they have called on the Prime Minister to talk to New Delhi about various hydro projects that have been stalled by Indian companies.
Devendra Gautam, in his piece for Republica, says that for Nepal, any high-level visit to India should be used to focus on asserting its water sovereignty that remains largely on paper due to controversial agreements with India on three major river systems. He argues that in light of the growing tensions between India and China, it would be foolish for Nepal to build high dams as they could become soft targets for various state and non-state actors.
Som P Pudasaini, in his piece for The Kathmandu Post, says Deuba’s visit is untimely as India and China continue to trade hostilities over the Doklam issue. He says that while Xi is looking at the 19th Party Congress in October, Modi has his eyes on the 2019 elections, and because of this, the two leaders do not find the idea of truce appealing. He says that in this context, Nepal needs to define a clear agenda to work towards implement past agreements with India and China. It should be wary that the Nepal-China-India trijuncture in Taplejung does not become another flash point between the two giant neighbours. He says that a Prime Minister elected by the new Parliament would have been in a better position to go on a visit to India.
Kantipur has dedicated almost all of its op-ed page to the visit. Sujeev Shakya, in his piece, says that Nepal should not engage in petty issues like the Doklam standoff. It should look at India and China after 20 years and look at ways to promote economic cooperation with the two countries.
