Nepal's Maoist insurgency in Nepal is likely to spill over to India's northeast, warns the Washington-based think tank, Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS). It said in a report that instability in Nepal is already aggravating the security situation in India's northeast. CSIS says Nepal's security forces are unlikely to be able to defeat the Maoists, even with US military assistance, and the only sustainable solution lies in a negotiated settlement.

"The prospect of a confrontation between the king and political parties while the Maoist insurgency continues is a dangerous one," said South Asia experts Mandavi Mehta and Nisala Rodrigo in their paper in the CSIS magazine, South Asia Monitor. The authors say US assistance is increasing from $27.5 million in fiscal 2002 and the administration has requested over $37 million for 2003. And for the first time, the US government allocated an additional $12 million for military hardware. financing. Britain has extended 6.5 million pounds for the Royal Nepal Army.

Mehta and Rodrigo argue that India has the most to lose from the Maoist threat in Nepal. Maoist collusion with insurgents across the porous Indo-Nepal border, as well as the assistance they receive from India's large Nepali population, make it even more difficult to act effectively against them, they say.