Pradip (Letters, #285) sounds so very authoritative when he says 'one could literally hand over the plate called Nepal to India just to realise how much of a burden that would actually be to the southern neighbour'. Should that be the current foreign policy stance of our southern neighbour, then we could for once heave a sigh of relief and expect an end to the following torments: 13-year-old Bhutani refugee crisis thrust upon us, safe haven to Nepali rebels, regular inundation of Nepal's villages by Indian dams on the border against all international norms, endless hassles in trade and transit facilities against established international convenants, using Nepali politicians as surrogates for regime change in Nepal (as in 1951 and 1990 and not in- between 1960 and 1990) including no peacetime embargo against the landlocked neighbour. Pradip should also look around in India's immediate neighbourhood such as Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, not to mention Pakistan and Kashmir, to gauge whether it is only Nepal that is complaining. We know that democracy will definitely flourish in Nepal and deliver its people from chronic and abject poverty as long as our own politicians behave more responsibly. India could do an immense turn to Nepal by not using the latter's corrupt, unscrupulous and unprincipled leaders for its own ulterior ends.

Bihari Krishna Shrestha,
Lalitpur