India open to talks on 1950 Indo-Nepal treaty: Mukherjee

KALIMPONG: With the Maoists in Nepal demanding the scapping of the 1950 Indo-Nepal Peace and Frienship Treaty, India on Sunday said it was open to talks on the issue. This was stated by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. In reply to a question from reporters here, he said the question of participating in a dialogue, however, would arise only if an initiative was taken by the Nepalese side. Mukherjee, who inaugrated a ground water reservoir here, said most countries were placing importance on potable drinking water, the sources of which were limited. The union government had given adequate stress to potable drinking water in the 11th Five year plan, he said. The Centre, he said, was concerned over presence of arsenic in water in some parts of West Bengal and was doing everything possible to help the state government. Mukherjee, also a senior Congress leader, termed the violence in panchayat elections in West Bengal as "unfortunate".

We want a new relationship with India: Prachanda

New Delhi: Chairman of the Nepalese Maoist party Prachanda has said that he wants better ties with India and feels that the Indo-Nepal treaty of 1950 should be reviewed. Speaking exclusively to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate he discussed about the policy of maintaining equal ties with India and China.
He said that there should be some sort of special relation between Kathmandu and Delhi.
“We want a new relationship with India, which means better relation, better understanding and better cooperation," he added.
The Maoist leader, believed to be Nepal's prime minister-in-waiting, said he wanted each and every provision of the treaty to be reviewed in the new changing context for better relationship between two countries.
"I don't think reviewing the treaty will sabotage the relation," he said.
Watch video: http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/65494/we-want-a-new-relationship-with-india-prachanda.html(IBN live)

'Treaty review will not sabotage Indo-Nepal ties'

Kathmandu: Allaying fears that reviewing the 1950 Indo-Nepal Peace and Friendship Treaty will "sabotage" bilateral ties, Maoist chief Prachanda has said he wanted a "close" and "special" relationship with India on the basis of a "new" understanding.
"There should be some sort of special relation between Kathmandu and Delhi.... We want a new relationship with India, which means better relation, better understanding and better cooperation," Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also kinown as Prachanda, said
The Maoist leader, believed to be Nepal's prime minister-in-waiting, said he wanted "each and every" provision of the treaty to be reviewed in the "new changing context" for "better" relationship between two countries.
"People feel that that it (treaty) is not benefiting them, there is some kind of inequality in it, so people have, time and again, raised concern for reviewing the 1950 treaty," he told Karan Thapar in an interview for CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate programme.
"I don't think reviewing the treaty will sabotage the relation," he said. (IBN live)

Pragmatism: India-Iran,US-Nepal’s Maoists

ENTHUSIASMS & FOREBODINGS By Rene Q. Bas

THE Times of India’s report had the headline: “US warms up to Nepal Maoists.”
Most neutral observers expected the stunning victory less than a month ago of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists)—which must be distinguished from the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist). CPN (M) got the most seats in the constituent assembly elections of the world’s only remaining Hindu kingdom. The Maoist party’s Chairman Prachanda (whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal) will soon form a government in coalition with other leftist parties and some centrist parties.
More astonishing to leftists (than to centrists and rightwingers) is the news announced on Friday that on May Day (a very important symbol of the Left) the American Ambassador to Nepal, Nancy Powell, met with Chairman Prachanda at his residence.
“US Ambassador Nancy Powell met on Thursday with CPN (M) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal to discuss the outcome of the April 10 elections, CPN [M] plans for the Constituent Assembly, and the future of US-Nepal relations,” the US Embassy statement released on Friday said. “This was their first meeting. The meeting occurred in advance of Powell’s return to the United States for consultations on US-Nepal relations.”
As Times of India reports it, “Powell provided an overview of current US government assistance to Nepal and sought Prachanda’s assurances that the new government led by his party would respect current donor agreements and ensure the safety of those implementing them.”
She also urged the Maoist leader to make sure that “all Maoist organizations illustrate their commitment to the political process through their words and actions.”
TOI quoted Prachanda as saying that the meeting was “extremely positive” and that his party would remain committed to multi-party democracy.
The US State Department still has the Nepal Maoists on its watchlist of terrorist organizations even if the CPN (M) is now an important member of the outgoing ruling coalition. But in April, once it became certain that CPN (Maoists) would lead the incoming government, Washington announced that it was going to continue supporting Nepal.
This is a big change in US policy. The US normally freezes all assistance to governments that include any individual leader or political party identified as a terrorist or a supporter of terrorism.
Powell and Prachanda had encountered each other at a meeting hosted by the UN. Times of India asked Prachanda “if she warded him off as a terrorist” and “a smiling Prachanda” replied, “She neither said anything negative nor asked any question. She just listened. We hope she would ask her government to create a conducive environment and lift the terrorist tag on us.”
Former US President Jimmy Carter who, with his wife, is known to be old friends of India (which has been the protector of the Nepalese monarchy), gave the Nepal Maoists his endorsement. Times of India said Carter had described the Maoists as “more the victims of violence during the election than the aggressor.”
Carter criticized the Bush administration for cutting off “all channels of communication with the Maoists, even after they had laid down arms and joined the peace process.” He “advised Washington to do business with the former rebels.”
I wonder if Ka Satur is hoping for a development like this here?
Business with Tehran
Pragmatism is also the policy in New Delhi, though it caused some friction with the US last month. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahma­dinejad visited the Indian capital last week (April 29). Earlier in April, President Bush asked New Delhi to urge Ahmadinejad to comply with what the UN requires of Iran in it’s nuclear program. India’s foreign office, said the Press Trust of India, replied to the White House saying it needed no guidance on the way it conducted its bilateral relations.
The publicized Indian reply to President Bush would appear to be unpragmatic, considering that the USA and India have a nuclear cooperation agreement and India wishes to continue to sell its products and professional services to Americans.
But it was deviously pragmatic to let Iran hear that New Delhi is not America’s errand boy. For if India is to keep its economy growing the way it has in the past decade, it must triple its energy supply, at least.
Iran’s strategic importance, its own quest for energy stability and security makes it necessary for New Delhi to continue being its friend and partner.
The energy cooperation India wants with Iran includes laying down a $7-billion pipeline through Pakistan. India’s need for more and more energy as it progresses to First World status, just like China, drives it to have deals and close connections with odious contacts.
Indians, just like the Chinese, are big investors—$2.5 billion—in the land of the genocidal Sudanese. India is competing with China over Burma’s oil and natural gas.
The Indian military buys a lot of arms from the United States. India has a lot of American BPO clients.
I’m sure American Harvard Business School types love India’s pragmatism.(Manila Times)

India worries over Nepal's future

By Sanjoy Majumder
The strong showing by Nepal's Maoists in the parliamentary elections has taken its influential neighbour India by surprise.
Diplomats at its sprawling embassy in Kathmandu, its largest mission anywhere, privately concede that it is a result that they hardly expected and least favoured.
With a strong possibility of the Maoists forming the next government, many in Delhi are wondering where it leaves relations between the two countries.
While India has nurtured some ties with the former rebels, there is growing concern over the Maoists' links with China, and also with India's own troubling Maoist insurgency.
Reports in the Indian and Nepalese media have quoted Maoist leader Prachanda talking about taking a more "balanced" approach in his country’s dealings with its neighbours.
Saying that he will develop "new relations" with India, he is reported to have said that Nepal will maintain an equal distance between Delhi and Beijing.
It is a comment that has already sent policy-makers in Delhi into a tailspin.
Special relationship
Many here are concerned that the Maoists will use their new-found electoral clout as leverage over India.
"It means that the special relationship between India and Nepal which dates back to British days and 1950 is in its terminal phase," says KV Rajan, a former Indian ambassador to Nepal.
A Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which both countries signed in 1950, defined their political and economic relationship.

Some fear Nepal's Maoists could encourage Maoist rebels in India
Under the Treaty, people living in both countries could freely travel across the border for employment, and could reside in either place.
It also granted preferential trade arrangements and, until 1969, allowed India to maintain security posts in Nepal's northern border with China, as well as a military mission in Kathmandu.
India's basic concern, say diplomats, was always China.
Delhi, which had already fought a bitter border war with Beijing in 1962 which it lost comprehensively, was paranoid about China establishing a major presence in Kathmandu.
Influence
"The 1950 treaty was basically meant to help address India's security needs," says Ambassador Rajan.
"In return, Nepal got economic benefits, such as the right to live and work in India. That was the basic arrangement."
But increasingly, many Nepalese were uncomfortable with the Treaty, believing it gave India major political and economic influence.
The Maoists have regularly raised the issue and said they want the Treaty scrapped.
They also want a review of other agreements, especially those relating to river water and irrigation – issues which are very sensitive on both sides of the border.
And there is the question of links between the Maoists in Nepal and those in India.
Security threat
India's bloody Maoist insurgency runs across a broad swathe of its territory from its northern border with Nepal down to its central tribal belt and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
It was recently identified by the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, as the country's single biggest security threat.
Security experts believe that the Maoist victory in Nepal will come as a big morale booster to Maoist rebels fighting in India.
India's problems also stem from the fact that they have traditionally backed the mainstream political parties, particularly the Nepali Congress of the outgoing Prime Minister, Girija Prasad Koirala.
They have always backed a role for the monarchy, too, albeit one that has changed somewhat over the past two years following the pro-democracy protests of 2006.
Ironically, many of the senior Maoist leaders have studied in India and would often hide in the country at the height of the insurgency.
Next government
They also have relatively close ties with India’s own mainstream Communist parties, who support the governing coalition in Delhi.
But their influence is limited, particularly after the Maoists' current political position following the election.
"We will have to accept that India will have to deal differently with the next government, and accept that Prachanda represents the sensitivities and aspirations of the majority of Nepalese," says one foreign office mandarin who wished to remain unnamed.
But there are some who believe it is time for relations between both countries to change, and reflect the new realities, rather than be mired in history.
"Our relation was one between a sovereign country and a semi-protectorate. It now needs to be one of equals," says Ambassador Rajan.
Ultimately, some believe, India’s importance to Nepal outweighs its political imperatives.
Both countries have strong cultural, economic and ethnic ties, and India is Nepal's largest neighbour. And many here think that no government can ignore that. (BBC)