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Nepal Prime Minister Balendra Shah's pending visit to India is expected to take place "very soon", with both sides currently working out the details, sources in Kathmandu told ANI.
Balendra Shah, popularly known as Balen, has accepted an invitation from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit New Delhi. However, the dates of the visit are yet to be finalised. "The visit will take place very soon. We are discussing all aspects of the visit, but nothing has been finalised so far," the sources told ANI. When asked about the agenda, the sources declined to comment, saying discussions on the visit are still underway. The visit would mark the Prime Minister's first trip to India since assuming office in March 2026. Notably, he has not visited either India or China since taking office, departing from the long-standing practice of newly appointed Nepali prime ministers making one of the two neighbours their first bilateral destination. Instead, Nepal's Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal undertook visits to both countries. Last month, Foreign Minister Khanal visited India at the invitation of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. During the visit, the two sides reviewed the entire spectrum of India-Nepal relations, including development cooperation, connectivity, trade and transit, energy, and people-to-people ties. Among the key outcomes of the visit, India handed over 72 health facilities and 12 cultural heritage projects completed under its post-2015 Earthquake Reconstruction Assistance programme. The two sides also launched the cross-border linkage between India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Nepal's National Payments Interface (NPI) to facilitate personal remittances and witnessed the signing of an MoU between Digital India Bhashini and Kathmandu University for a voice-first language translation platform. (ANI)
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