A recent decision by the new US administration to pause all American assistance funded by or through the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has sent ripples across the globe, including Nepal. With uncertainty looming over whether ongoing funding will continue after the 90-day pause—during which the US government will “reevaluate...
Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s decision to visit China before India after assuming office in 2024 had reignited speculations about the trajectory of India-Nepal bilateral ties. While some analysts see this as a shift in Kathmandu’s diplomatic priorities, New Delhi has downplayed concerns, maintaining that relations between the two South Asian neighbours remain strong....
China’s government on Sunday denounced the Trump administration’s imposition of a long-threatened 10% tariff on Chinese imports while leaving the door open for talks with the U.S. that could avoid a deepening conflict.Beijing will challenge President Donald Trump’s tariff at the World Trade Organization – a symbolic gesture – and take unspecified “countermeasures” in response...
Ambivalent discourses about Nepali political parties are emanating from various sources. More emerge in news portals and ideas published in the columns. Some appear as cogent analysis and others as jeremiads, mere lamentations about the existence of political parties and their perennial failures, which I brand as extremist views. We see the expressive dimension of...
he dominoes fell really fast. On Monday, Jan. 20, shortly after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that called for a 90-day pause on new foreign-aid programs for efficiency and “consistency with U.S. foreign policy.” The order got less attention than some of the others he signed that day but may have...
President Donald Trump’s push to implement his large-scale deportation plan has sent shockwaves through immigrant communities, including the Nepali diaspora in the US. Nearly 3,000 Nepali nationals are at risk of deportation within the next six months, leaving the future uncertain for thousands more. According to data from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),...
Sandwiched between the rich Gangetic plains of India to the south and the majestic Himalayan Mountain chain along its borders with China to the north, Nepal holds a special place in South Asia. This landlocked country has always struggled to use its own resources, natural beauty, and rich cultural legacy due to its landlockedness. Nonetheless,...
The recent turn in the India-Bangladesh relationship is the latest among a string of changes in New Delhi’s neighborhood that can be traced to a fresh trend of “nation first” rather than “neighborhood first” foreign policies in the Indian subcontinent. A nation first foreign policy is driven by domestic nationalism and is based on an...
Sweeping policy changes marked Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States. Following his inauguration at the Capitol Hill on January 20, President Trump signed several Executive Orders that included the withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), tighter immigration rules, exit from the Paris Climate Agreement, increased tariffs on Mexico and Canada,...
In the heady mountain air of Davos last week, away from the parties and the back-slapping tech bros, another, more beleaguered crew touted their wares: the multilateralists. On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, representatives of aid agencies, development banks and multilateral lenders grabbed a moment with the many world leaders present, vying for...