The Trump administration’s decision on January 20 to pause all US foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and the USAID, along with the recent halt in Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) payments, has sent ripples across the world, with Nepal feeling the impact particularly hard. Initially, only aid from the USAID and State...
It is too early to declare definitively whether it is dawn or dusk on the Sino-Indian borders. But latest signs since last summer narrate a story of the earliest signs of thaw in Nepal’s two giant neighbours, China and India, whose combined population represents 35 per cent of the world’s total. The thrust is on...
Nepal awaits an invitation for its Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli to visit India, Nepali Foreign Minister Arzu Deuba Rana said on Saturday, February 22, 2025. Speaking to The Hindu, she expressed her hope that Mr. Oli and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet on the sidelines of the upcoming BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok in...
Of all the outraged comments that have exploded across media following last week’s tragedy of a student suicide and protests by Nepali students at Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in Odisha, this one on Facebook, made by an Odia person, stood out for me: “The most pathetic situation is that Nepal has a century...
The United States of America is undergoing a seismic shift under its new President Donald Trump. His series of executive orders has/have rattled both allies and adversaries alike. These sweeping policies seek to overcome internal crises precipitated by the so-called global liberal order. Low growth, lingering recession, rising debt and unemployment, among others, have weakened...
Giving aid is not purely an act of kindness or responsible duty. It has seen and unseen motives. This rule also applies to most of the foreign aid. This does not mean that all aid is self-interested. There are also good donors, who donate selflessly. However, in most of the cases, foreign aid is also...
President Donald Trump has reversed climate action, vaccine funding and research and in a move that directly impacts Nepal, cut US funding for gender rights and reproductive health. Pulling out of the Paris climate accord and increasing fossil energy production and use will further accelerate melting of Himalayan glaciers threatening food production and increasing flood...
In the first two weeks of 2025, Vice-Minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (IDCPC) Sun Haiyan met with the Bangladeshi and Nepali ambassadors to China. This was in line with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deploying an increasingly sophisticated party-to-party diplomatic strategy across South Asia, revealing...
The fountains of liberal democracy are thought to have emerged from the West, particularly during the American, European, and French Revolutions in the late 18th century. The US has been a leading advocate for democracy, pluralism, and human rights ever since. The very “champion of democracy”, under its current president, assumes that its crusader is...
An executive decision by the Trump administration in Washington, D.C. to freeze foreign aid for 90 days and a potential shutdown of USAID has created ripple effects in the faraway Himalayan republic of Nepal. The decision will impact Nepal’s development, diplomacy, and geopolitics. On January 25, USAID formally contacted Dhaniram Sharma, the head of the...