Kathmandu – Newly appointed Indian Ambassador to Nepal Navin Srivastava today met with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Agni Prasad Sapkota.
In the meeting at the Speaker’s office at Sinha Darbar, Speaker Sapkota believed that Srivastava’s tenure as Nepal’s ambassador, with his long experience and experience of carrying important responsibilities, would be successful in bringing the relationship between the two countries to a qualitative level.
Discussing the fundamental and multifaceted relationship between Nepal and India, Speaker Sapkota recalled the 75th year of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the fact that India is celebrating the 75th year of its independence. He discussed the social, cultural, religious and economic relations between Nepal and India for centuries and opined that the relations between the people of the two countries are deeper.
Speaker Sapkota said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Lumbini has made a great contribution to religious tourism and started a new chapter. He said that the high-level visits from both countries have further strengthened Nepal-India relations.
During the meeting, Speaker Sapkota thanked Ambassador Srivastava for showing humanity, not just that of a neighbor, by providing health supplies and vaccines to Nepal even when India was fighting against it during the Covid-19 epidemic. He opined that it would be better if both countries make a common understanding in solving the crisis that has appeared on the world political stage including climate change.
Speaker Sapkota said, “We should move forward together for world peace”. He mentioned that Nepal wants to learn from India’s democratic practices and opined that the good practices of both countries can be exchanged. Speaker Sapkota mentioned that Nepalese farmers are worried about the lack of chemical fertilizers in Nepal and said that he wanted to mention the matter of fertilizers with importance in the meeting.
In the meeting with Speaker Sapkota, Indian Ambassador Srivastava discussed India’s ‘neighbourhood first policy’ and recalled that he had visited Nepal five times in eight years at the level of the Prime Minister. Discussing that there are many possibilities of cooperation between the two countries with long and historical relations, he opined that the contact network can be further expanded. Ambassador Srivastava mentioned that the impact of climate change is a common problem of South Asia and expressed the opinion that a collective solution should be found.
