Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba will be visiting India from April 1 to 3 for his first foreign visit after taking over charge. Deuba will be meeting PM Narendra Modi on April 2, and will also tour Varanasi besides attending to official engagements, sources said. The aim of his three-day visit is to review and further strengthen bilateral ties.
Deuba became the PM of Nepal in July 2021, but he has visited India during each of his previous four stints. He last visited India in 2017, making this a record fifth visit as PM. According to sources, the visit is in line with periodic high-level exchanges between the two countries and will give an opportunity to review bilateral relations, including development and economic partnership, trade, cooperation in the health sector, power, connectivity, people to people links and other issues of mutual interest.
An aide of the Nepalese PM had earlier said Deuba had been invited by Prime Minister Modi. Earlier in January, he was scheduled to travel to India to take part in a business summit in Gujarat. The trip, however, was cancelled after the summit was rescheduled due to growing cases of Covid-19.
Deuba and Modi had met in Glasgow, Scotland, in November last year on the sidelines of the UN climate conference and had “fruitful talks” on many aspects of India-Nepal friendship. Deuba had thanked his Indian counterpart for providing support to Nepal in essential medical supplies and vaccines in its fight against Covid-19 pandemic during their first meeting in Glasgow. During the meeting, overall matters of the bilateral relations were discussed.
