Nepal’s per capita income of $ 1,500 is one half of India’s $ 3,000. Barring Sri Lanka’s $ 4,500, most of South Asia is ranged in between. Understandably, for the subcontinent’s two billion people, economic development, rise in standards of living, is the foremost priority. 2. China’s larger economy, trade and investment volumes, challenges India’s traditional approach of treating this region as its natural sphere of influence. While hedging, which India does as well, can be seen as “ playing the China card “, the governments, such as the new one in Kathmandu, anrec unwilling to make a binary choice. That comes at a high price of foregone economic opportunities. 3. Nepal as a Zone of Peace should not be viewed with alarm in New Delhi.
Nepal’s per capita income of $ 1,500 is one half of India’s $ 3,000. Barring Sri Lanka’s $ 4,500, most of South Asia is ranged in between. Understandably, for the subcontinent’s two billion people, economic development, rise in standards of living, is the foremost priority. 2. China’s larger economy, trade and investment volumes, challenges India’s traditional approach of treating this region as its natural sphere of influence. While hedging, which India does as well, can be seen as “ playing the China card “, the governments, such as the new one in Kathmandu, anrec unwilling to make a binary choice. That comes at a high price of foregone economic opportunities. 3. Nepal as a Zone of Peace should not be viewed with alarm in New Delhi.