Rape has been used...

brains in Nepal. Interpretations may vary, however, our own analysis is that the “land exchange scheme” is a sponsored one with a defeated mentality floated only to divert the attention of Nepali academia from claiming Kalapani area legally back to Nepal, its original owner.

To recall, around 19967, India (under Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral) had already agreed officially to allow Nepal to use the FULWARI route to Bangladesh for trading purposes.

The said Fulwari route is very close to the Chicken Neck of India.

A grand ceremony, I recall, was held at Kakarvitta (Nepal’s Eastern Border) in 1996/7 wherein the sitting Nepal’s Foreign Minister Kamala Thapa too witnessed the opening of the Fulwari route granted to Nepal by India.

This scribe is the eyewitness who had gone to Kakarvitta together with the thenIndian Ambassador Shri K. V. Rajan and the Bangladesh Ambassador Mohuddin Ahmed. Ambassador Ahmed had beamingly said at the ceremony that Nepal is no more landlocked but is now a landlocked country.

Given these facts at hand, the idea of Mr. Shrestha which has come with a high rapidity is simply mystifying. This scribe has intimate relations with the internationally acclaimed Nepal’s Border expert.

The fact is that the Chicken Neck is of high importance to India security-wise as this small strip is apparently very close to India’s rival China so no question arises that this belt shall be awarded to Nepal by India for trading purposes with B’desh.

The border expert has so far not elaborated on his “exchange scheme” in detail as to how it would benefit Nepal. He has also not said why he is insisting on a land exchange scheme.

Yet some sane-minded commentators prefer to award the border expert the liberty to express his somewhat surprising ideas that obliquely tend to be taken as Indian singing.

It may not be at all though.

It is Shrestha’s democratic right to float his conceived ideas.

But what is for sure is that India shall never allow Nepal to use this Chicken Neck for trading purposes for a variety of political and security reasons. That’s all.