India and Nepal

A feeling of unprecedented relaxation and deep understanding seems to prevail among the people in the South Asian region in matters of inter-state relationships. This has opened up prospects for a reduction of irritants in mutual relationships among the countries concerned in this region. While following their own foreign-policy objectives the leaders of the various countries are visibly anxious to make efforts, as neighbours should, to improve bilateral relations by dispelling the mist of tension created by misunderstanding, misconception, and mistrust regarding one another in the past. This in its turn has strengthened the hope that the hostility manifested by the leaders of the various countries in dealing with one another in the past would be replaced by a cool and sober stock-taking of the changing national or international situation and that there would be cordiality not only in the conduct of bilateral relations on a reasonable and perfectly reciprocal basis but also in the implementation of joint or multilateral co-operative enterprises in areas of common interest for the all-round development of the region. The policy followed by the Janata Government in India, particularly in regard to its immediate neighbours, since its assumption of power in 1977 is a promising start in that direction.