NEPAL: CAUGHT BETWEEN CHINA AND INDIA
Jyoti Thottam
Time, March 2, 2010
Nepal may be most famous for its majestic Himalayan peaks, but much of the country is a vast stretch of plains, the terai, that have long been underdeveloped and largely ignored by the two powers on either side. No longer. India has just launched a plan to spend $361 million over the next several years on roads and rail links in the terai, announcing the grants just before Nepali President Ram Baran Yadav made his Feb. 15 official visit to New Delhi. China, meanwhile, recently increased its annual aid to Nepal by 50% to about $22 million.
The money is certainly welcome in Nepal, which has the lowest per capita income in South Asia. But the jockeying for influence between China and India may be undermining Nepal's fragile democracy, as the country's 24 political parties trade charges of being pawns of one or the other. Even a tiny royalist party, supporters of Nepal's deposed King Gyanendra, have gotten into the act, staging a rally in Kathmandu on Feb. 22 that shut down the capital for a day. Meanwhile, the parties are debating complex constitutional issues, including a proposed federal system of 14 ethnicity-based states. Nepal's interim constitution will expire on May 28, and if its politicians cannot agree on a new one by then, the constituent assembly will be dissolved, new elections will be called and and, many observers fear, the country will enter a period of deep uncertainty. Says Nihar Nayak, a researcher with the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses: "They are moving toward a political crisis."
Jyoti Thottam
Time, March 2, 2010
Nepal may be most famous for its majestic Himalayan peaks, but much of the country is a vast stretch of plains, the terai, that have long been underdeveloped and largely ignored by the two powers on either side. No longer. India has just launched a plan to spend $361 million over the next several years on roads and rail links in the terai, announcing the grants just before Nepali President Ram Baran Yadav made his Feb. 15 official visit to New Delhi. China, meanwhile, recently increased its annual aid to Nepal by 50% to about $22 million.
The money is certainly welcome in Nepal, which has the lowest per capita income in South Asia. But the jockeying for influence between China and India may be undermining Nepal's fragile democracy, as the country's 24 political parties trade charges of being pawns of one or the other. Even a tiny royalist party, supporters of Nepal's deposed King Gyanendra, have gotten into the act, staging a rally in Kathmandu on Feb. 22 that shut down the capital for a day. Meanwhile, the parties are debating complex constitutional issues, including a proposed federal system of 14 ethnicity-based states. Nepal's interim constitution will expire on May 28, and if its politicians cannot agree on a new one by then, the constituent assembly will be dissolved, new elections will be called and and, many observers fear, the country will enter a period of deep uncertainty. Says Nihar Nayak, a researcher with the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses: "They are moving toward a political crisis."
(...) [artículo aquí]
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