Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a visit to Lumbini, Nepal on Monday on the auspicious occasion of Buddha Purnima. PM Modi will attend all the cultural events organized there. He will be present in Nepal from 10 am till 3 pm. The main purpose of the bilateral meeting is to bolster cultural ties between the two countries. He will also attend the stone lay foundation ceremony of the Buddhist Cultural and Heritage Centre. India has helped Nepal to build this Centre.
PM Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Nepal. Eventually, this will be his fifth visit to Nepal since 2014.
Talking about his route plan, PM Modi first landed at Khushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, and then reached Lumbini, Nepal. Khushinagar marks an important religious space as it is believed that it is the place where Gautam Buddha took Nirvana. Lumbini is where he was born.
PM will visit Mahamayadevi temple to offer prayers and will address the crowd on the occasion of Buddha Purnima. This meet signifies the cultural ties that both the countries are trying to strengthen. It was presented that a local bus will be arranged from Ayodhya to Janakpuri in Nepal. Janakpuri is considered as the birthplace of the goddess Sita. But nothing has been officially implanted in this plan because of the lack of clarity and concrete roadmap to travel from India to Nepal via road.
During the tenure of KP Sharma Oli’s as Prime Minister of Nepal, bitterness has been developed between the two nations as Nepal thought that India is interfering in their internal issues.
Nepal’s PM Sher Bahudur Deuba visited India for three days in the last month to boost diplomatic relations with India.
Nothing has been made official as of now but it is expected that 5 MOUs (Memorandum of Understanding) will be signed on this visit, as per the sources. One MOU will be signed between the Indian Educational and Cultural Foundation each with the Lumbini Buddhist University and the Tribhuvan University and the rest three with the Kathmandu University.
Nepal is also seeking India’s support in its trade, transmission, and power generation sector.
