Kathmandu, June 7: A three-point joint announcement has been issued following the meeting between Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal and his Indian counterpart, S. Jaishankar.
The announcement was released after talks held in New Delhi on Saturday evening (June 6). During their meeting, Khanal and Jaishankar discussed trade and economic cooperation.
The two sides also held discussions on enhancing cross-border connectivity, strengthening energy partnership, water resources management, and promoting people-to-people relations through sports and other avenues. The three-point announcement was issued following the bilateral talks. India stated that the announcement was a continuation of the productive discussions held with Khanal.
Under the first point of the announcement, India formally handed over infrastructure projects it had built in Nepal. As part of the post-earthquake reconstruction programme following the 2015 earthquake, India had constructed 72 health facilities and 12 cultural heritage projects. These were formally transferred through a virtual ceremony held in New Delhi.
The second point concerns facilitating cross-border personal remittances. In this regard, the linkage between India’s UPI (Unified Payments Interface) and Nepal’s National Payments Interface was jointly launched.
The third point relates to the exchange of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India’s Digital India Bhashini initiative and Kathmandu University. The MoU aims to jointly develop national digital infrastructure for a voice-first language translation platform for Nepal. The foreign ministers of both countries witnessed the exchange of the agreement.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Khanal had held meetings with senior Indian officials. Khanal, who is currently on an official visit to India, is scheduled to return to Nepal today (June 7).
People’s News Monitoring Service.
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