Over the past week, India played host to Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani and Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, visits that marked a repair of relationships with both countries. India instead focussed on delivering on its own promises to Nepal, including hydropower and highways infrastructure projects. With Mr. Ghani, the outreach began a year ago, after it became clear that Afghanistan had lost confidence in Pakistan’s ability to bring the Taliban to book or to the table for talks. However, Mr. Ghani did give a scathing account of Pakistan’s actions at a speech at a Delhi think tank later. The Afghan and Nepali visits had another common thread, of landlocked countries in need of road and railway trade routes.

Source: The Hindu September 18, 2016 20:37 UTC