Air India planes stand parked at IGI Airport in New Delhi. File photo/PTI
By Rezaul H Laskar | Hindustan Times
NEW DELHI, India, 10 December 2020
India and Nepal have decided to start flights under a bilateral air bubble arrangement, people familiar with developments said on Thursday, marking another step by the two sides to normalise ties hit by a border row earlier this year.
“Initially, we are starting with one daily flight from each side between Delhi and Kathmandu. From the Indian side, it will be Air India which had a daily flight between the two capitals in the pre-Covid-19 period,” one of the people cited above said on condition of anonymity.
Flights between the two countries and cross-border movement of people through several checkpoints were suspended following the outbreak of Covid-19. The movement of essential supplies and cargo, however, had continued as Nepal is largely dependent on imports from India.
The move follows a string of visits to Nepal by senior Indian officials to reset ties that were hit after Kathmandu issued a new political map in May that included Indian territories, including the strategic Kalapani region.
Following visits by Research and Analysis Wing chief Samant Goel and Indian Army chief Gen MM Naravane, foreign secretary Harsh Shringla travelled to Kathmandu last month for wide-ranging talks with the Nepalese leadership to take forward bilateral ties, especially in connectivity and trade. The two sides also agreed to respect each other’s sensitivities and handle the border issue through existing mechanisms.
The people cited above said the creation of a bilateral air bubble arrangement had been proposed to Nepal by the Indian side some time ago, and Kathmandu had cleared the move after Shringla, during his recent visit, highlighted the importance of people-to-people connectivity in the special relations between the two sides.
“We are starting the air bubble arrangement with Indian and Nepalese nationals and holders of Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) and Person of Indian Origin (PIO) cards of all nationalities, and all valid Indian visa holders, except tourist visas,” said the person cited above.
The air bubble arrangement will follow all medical protocols as is done with other countries that have similar arrangements, and this includes reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test report of 72 hours prior to the travel, the people said.
India currently has air bubble arrangements with 22 countries, including the US, the UK, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Tanzania, the Netherlands, the Maldives, Japan and Bangladesh.
Some will die due to covid. But what if you don’t resume flights? More people will die or lose their livelihood due to lack of business.
I think it is better to let some people Die due to covid than stop the economy and let more people die. In Delhi, rickshaws from MT to Vidhan Sabah metro station earns 20 INR. If Tibetans don’t travel and cease to travel from a to b, these rickshawa walas will starve along with their families and children.
Therefore I feel Modi shouldn’t shut down the economy. If I were him, I will readily let few people to die of covid than the whole civilisation suffer in the teleological journey towards better living standards. Often justice doesn’t go together with happiness for people. Look at European history.
Greatest political Mindanao of this century such as Henry Kissinger, Obama, Christopher Hitchens, Salman Rushdie were more concerned about individual liberty than the overall good of a given society (Pakistani society) or American society (championed by an Indian).
However, in the light of various books I read from leftwing or rightwing such as Plato, Thomas Paine, VS Naipaul, Mark Marx, Susan Sontag, Tsering Sakya, Namkhai Norbu, Jamyang Norbu, I noticed one drawback – they all have limited interaction with white people […], and all the conversations were pretentious.
I don’t think anyone in this planet who knows the ins and outs, pros and cons, of the fate of 250k Tibetan exiles than me. And I live on minimum wage atthrsMe level as dishwasher. Despite my poverty in India, I have glorious tales of my forebear’s wrath in pre 1959.
You’re not pretentious at all.
The relationship between India and Nepal has turned sour after Home ministry of India released a new edition of the Indian political map which showed Kalapani as being Indian territory. This was published after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution.
Nepal in its protest unanimously passed the second constitutional Amendment Bill guaranteeing the legal status of the updated political map of Nepal which included Kalapani as Nepalese territory. Kalapani sits at the far corner of the Tri junction of Tibet, India and Nepal in Uttarakhand.
It is believed that China was responsible in nudging Nepal to openly challenge India’s claims even though China made no protest in the 1962 war when Indian troops were based in Kalapani. China had recognised Kalapani as part of India so Indians claim but Nepal had also held elections in 1959 and collected revenue in 1961.
At the heart of this sad saga is the occupation of Tibet by China which has created security threat to both India and Nepal. The pro-China Oli Government has created concern in the minds of many Nepalese citizens that he is too close to the CCP.
He has deported an innocent Tibetan from Tribhuban Airport at the behest of China. Introduced teaching Xi Jinping thoughts to Nepalese School children. He has ruffled the feathers of its closest cultural cousin India. As a result of such craven surrender of Nepal’s sovereignty, the pro-Monarchists are coming back with a vengeance to protect Nepal’s sovereignty and its traditional Hindu culture.
Oil’s closeness with the CCP coupled with the wrangling among the two communist parties gave China to interfere in Nepal’s internal affairs when the Chinese ambassador to Kathmandu Hou Yanqi acted a mediator to the two warring parties.