The overdue and keenly awaited visit of the Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to India has provided a fresh lease of life to the Indo-Nepal bilateral relations. The nucleus of the week-long official visit of the neighbouring Prime Minister certainly is the security threats arising out of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operations from the Himalayan Kingdom. After the IA hijacking episode, security issues have dominated the Indo-Nepal relations. New Delhi had expressed its grave concern about the use of Nepali soil by the ISI for subversion in India. Katmandu had accepted the deep links between sections of Nepali elite and the ISI smuggling network, and reported funding of religious schools. India and Nepal have agreed to collectively and closely fight terrorism and pledged that their respective territories would not be used by the terrorists.

The two nations have also agreed to speed up settlement of outstanding problems, including the question of the ownership of the tiny enclave of Kalapani at the tri-junction of India, Nepal and Tibetan region of China, reviewing of the 1950 Friendship Treaty and implementation of the Mahakali River Treaty. Back in Nepal, the PM’s visit has been criticized by the Opposition, mainly Communists and the Government’s decision to relax citizenship rules before Shri Koirala’s visit has been described as a “ move to please New Delhi”.

 Given the closeness in religion, culture and traditions between the two nations, New Delhi had always appreciated high level visits and interactions to boost the relations and had already indicated so this time by waiving the four per cent Special Additional Duty on imports from Nepal which had been a major point of discord in the bilateral relations. Keeping the security lapse that lead to the hijacking of the IA plane from Katmandu, and the wide-spreading of the ISI base in Nepal, the Nepalese PM’s “good will and confidence-building mission” should yield fruits in terms of checking the ISI activities at the border and influx of militants and smugglers in India through Nepal, and keep his promise “to connect the missing links in the relations”.

Brigand's Business

 Kidnapping of Kannada film icon Dr Rajkumar has revealed the kind of internal security system we have. One journalist of a weekly is doing the running about to negotiate a deal with Veerappan while the guardians of law are finding themselves helpless. Strange it may seem, but in this country outlaws freely roam about and keep their contact with the public but the police fails to nab them. The alleged killer in the Graham Staines case appeared on a tv programme and was easily available to the media but not to the police. Millions are made in the illegal and environmentally disastrous trafficking of sandalwood and ivory that Veerappan presides over.

 The real question is not why Veerappan can walk in and out of Bangalore kidnapping matinee idols with no more apparent trouble than involved in a shopping trip, but who will call the camouflage of those sections of the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu administration that connive with and protect him. There will be much discussion about Veerappan's demands and agonising over finer points of ‘negotiation’, official busybodies calling off search operations that were never launched and, this time round, the extra public interest that the victim is an icon of southern popular culture. But whatever happens in the Rajkumar episode, for Veerappan it will be another show of his invincibility; the fifth, in terms of high profile abductions, in the last six years.