New Delhi, June 6 (IANS). India’s Foreign Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar held a meeting with his Nepalese counterpart Shishir Khanal on Saturday. External Affairs Minister Jaishankar virtually handed over 72 health facilities and 12 cultural heritage projects to Nepal as part of the reconstruction program after the 2015 earthquake.
After the meeting, Foreign Minister Dr. S. “After a good meeting with Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal, 72 health facilities and 12 cultural heritage projects were virtually handed over under the reconstruction program after the 2015 earthquake,” Jaishankar said on social media platform X.
“To ease cross-border personal remittances, the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) linkage was jointly launched between India and National Payments Interface of Nepal,” he said.
The two leaders exchanged a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Digital India Bhashani and Kathmandu University to jointly create a National Digital Infrastructure for a ‘Voice First’ Language Translation Platform for Nepal.
The External Affairs Minister also reiterated India’s promise to work with Nepal for mutual progress, prosperity and well-being of the people of both the countries.
The leaders discussed in detail the India-Nepal partnership, covering development cooperation, engagement, energy, especially hydropower development, education, health, capacity building, digital, culture and sports.
In his opening remarks during the meeting with Khanal, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said, “India and Nepal have a very special relationship, built on a strong foundation of good people-to-people relations, cross-border connections and shared cultural and religious traditions. It is underpinned by shared trust, goodwill and mutual benefit. Our mutual trade relations have grown steadily in areas such as commerce, investment, energy, development cooperation, education, disaster response and culture.”
He said, “Today we have the opportunity to take this forward in many other areas as well, such as startups, AI, information technology, renewable energy and other new domains. We work together to maintain security along our long and especially open border.”
Emphasizing the long-standing unity between the two countries, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said India has ensured uninterrupted fuel supply to Nepal amid the ongoing crisis in the West Asian region.
–IANS
KK/ABM