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The price of gold has dropped by Rs 500 per tola in the domestic market on Tuesday. According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the yellow bullion is being traded at Rs 105, 800 per tola today. The yellow metal was traded at Rs 106, 300 per tola on Monday. Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 105, 300 per tola. It was traded at Rs 105, 800 per tola. Similarly, the price of silver has remained unchanged and is being traded at Rs 1,365 per tola today.

Three police personnel have been suspended after six detainees escaped from a detention room of the Mahendranagar Area Police Office in Dhanusha district on Monday. The Madhe Province Office, Janakpurdham suspended the police personnel including a custody management officer for negligence in surveillance. The District Police Office, Dhanusha said that Assistant Sub-Inspector Ashok Mandal, senior Head Constable Saroj Regmi and Constable Rohan Magar have been suspended. The District Police Office, Dhanusha and Madhes Province Police Office, Janakpur have been carrying out investigations by forming separate committee.  

Rastriya Swatantra Party Chairman Rabi Lamichhane held a meeting with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal at the latter’s official residence in Baluwatar on Tuesday. The Prime Minister’s Secretariat said that the duo discussed by-election, Home Ministry and other contemporary political issues. Lamichhane had reached Baluwatar to meet Prime Minister Dahal on Monday evening also. Earlier on January 29, journalist-turned-politician Lamichhane reacquired Nepali citizenship after the Supreme Court scrapped his status as a lawmaker saying he did not have valid Nepali citizenship. After reacquiring the Nepali citizenship, the party’s Central Committee meeting appointed Lamichhane as the party Chairman. Though the Rastriya Swatantra Party has been claiming the post of Home Ministry again, Prime Minister Dahal is not in a mood to give the post to the party.  

The development of cross-border transmission lines tops Nepal's agenda as the country's top energy officials sit down with their Indian and Chinese counterparts next month for bilateral meetings. Energy sector officials of the government are planning to discuss constructing two new high-capacity cross-border transmission lines during the meetings of the joint secretary-level Joint Working Group and the secretary-level Joint Steering Committee, both scheduled to be held in New Delhi on February 17-18. According to Madhu Prasad Bhetuwal, Spokesperson of the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation (MoEWRI), the ministry is currently working on the agendas to be presented by Nepal in the 10th meeting of the JSC. A ministry source close to the matter said that Nepal will propose to construct two more cross-border l transmission lines between Nepal and India in the meeting. Currently, the 400KV Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur Cross-border transmission line is the only high-capacity power line for power trade between the two countries which can transmit around 1,000MW of electricity at a time. Nepal and India have already moved ahead to develop the New Butwal-Gorakhpur Transmission Line which will have a capacity of transporting power as much as 3,500MW. Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) and Indian Power Grid Corporation have established a joint venture company in India to construct this transmission line in the Indian territory. According to the MoEWRI official, Nepal will propose the construction of two additional 400 KV cross-border transmission lines - Inaruwa-Purnia and New Lamki-Bareli, in the upcoming meeting. With more power coming to the national grid in the current fiscal year and next fiscal year, there is an urgent need to initiate the construction of more cross-border transmission lines between the two countries to enable more power export from Nepal to India. "As Nepal will have more power to sell to India during the wet season, reliable infrastructure for cross-border transmission of power has become necessary," said the official. According to NEA, over 700MW is expected to be added to the national grid in the current fiscal 2022/23 while over 550MW is expected to be added in the next fiscal year 2023/24. Officials said it was necessary to export more power in the upcoming days to prevent power from being spilled. India has allowed Nepal to sell 452.6MW of power generated by eight hydropower projects in India’s energy market. NEA exported electricity worth Rs 11.16 billion to India beginning June last year until it stopped the exports in the third week of December last year owing to falling production. Similarly, Nepali and Chinese officials will be holding a third round of discussions regarding the development of the Nepal-China Cross Border Transmission Line in the last week of February. According to Energy Ministry, the Chinese side has already proposed a visit by a Chinese team to Nepal in February. The meeting of the Joint Technical Group will discuss the Ratamate-Rasuwagadhi-Kerung Transmission Line Project. The NEA has already completed a feasibility study of the 400 KV transmission line connecting Nepal and China. According to Komal Nath Atreya, Chief of the transmission line project, currently, an environmental study of the transmission line is being carried out. NEA Engineering Company, a subsidiary of NEA, is taking charge of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project. Officials said the 70km project which can carry 5,000MW of electricity would open the door for power trade between Nepal and China. The proposed 400 kV transmission line from Ratamate (Nepal) to Kerung (China) will form a basis for power trading between Nepal and China in the years to come, according to NEA. “As India does not buy electricity generated by projects where Chinese investors and contractors are involved, this project will be vital for attracting Chinese investment with the objective of selling power to the northern neighbor,” said the NEA official. Atreya said the upcoming Nepal-China meeting will discuss various issues regarding the cross-border transmission line including the DPR of the project, modality of investment, and other issues. The Nepal section of the trans-Himalayan transmission line will have a length of 70 km and 212 towers. The feasibility study of the project has shown that an investment of Rs 13 billion is required to build the transmission line of the Nepal section.

Two persons died when a car and a taxi collided with each other near Satdobato, Lalitpur on Sunday. Police identified the deceased as Saroj BK and Dhan Bahadur Basnet. Both were traveling in the car. The taxi (Ba 2 Ja 3420) heading towards Satdobato from Koteshwar collided head-on with the car (Ba 4 Cha 1) last night. Six passengers traveling in both vehicles sustained injuries in the accident, said SP Yagya Binod Pokharel, Chief at the District Police Office, Lalitpur. They are undergoing treatment at the B&B Hospital.  

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 41. 16 points to close at 2, 127.37 points on Monday. Similarly, the sensitive index dropped by 7. 33 points to close at 402. 98 points. A total of 8,836,488 unit shares of 256 companies were traded for Rs 3. 30 billion. Meanwhile, Lumbini General Insurance Co. Ltd and Adarsha Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited were the top gainers today with their price surging by 10. 00 percent. Likewise, United IDI Mardi RB Hydropower Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 7. 14 percent. At the end of the day, the total market capitalization stood at Rs 3. 06 trillion.

Dr Anil Sigdel is a US-based foreign policy expert. He closely follows world politics with a special focus on South Asia. Kamal Dev Bhattarai of ApEx speaks to him about great power rivalry and its implications for South Asian countries. How do you evaluate Xi Jinping’s neighborhood policy since he came to power in 2013? Once he took the helm, President Xi Jinping began to launch regional and global initiatives one after another, elevating China’s external outreach to an unprecedented level. Now as he moves on with his third term, China’s traditional peripheral countries policies have been already institutionalized into a full-fledged neighborhood policy. China’s proactive neighborhood diplomacy is here to stay. As great powers do, China, with its policy of economic assistance as a tool of foreign policy to increase influence, has tried to ensure that its neighbors will not align with its adversaries, for instance the US or India, in a way that would create unfavorable conditions for China’s strategic objectives. China, therefore, says it wants an amicable and secured neighborhood for China. In the words of Chinese state councilor and foreign minister Wang Yi: “China supports countries in the region (Asia) in distancing from the geopolitical trap.” While President Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao had also emphasized such policies—common development of China and its neighbors—and worked on them, Xi has substantially boosted that assistance mechanism to achieve clear results. China now has a long-term neighborhood policy, that is its outreach will not have a character of highly generous economic package or surprise deals as seen in the beginning but a more matured engagement with a graph slowly and steadily moving upward. These priorities also emanate from the Chinese thinking that in order to become a regionally influencing power—or even globally—China has to become influential in its own neighborhood first. Moreover, Xi’s thoughts that talk about “new type of international relations” are enshrined into the party constitution. In any case, Xi will continue to push his policies as he sees fit in his third term. We have seen recently that China has been strengthening its ties in the broader South Asia as well – China invited Indian Ocean region countries, excluding India, for a meeting in which Nepal had also participated. As China and India have consistently struggled to find a common understanding along their borders, the importance of South Asian neighbors will remain for China. As seen in the past, to what extent China’s policy in South Asia matters also depends on what type of governments are in place in South Asian countries. In addition, the US is an important player in South Asia, which fuels further frustration to the Chinese Communist Party. How do you see the growing US-China rivalry in South Asia, and where does India stand on it? US-China rivalry in South Asia has led China to go beyond its own traditional red lines by visibly and vocally interfering into domestic politics and foreign policy matters. China has engaged in a war of words with the Americans in Nepal over the MCC grants. It has made controversial statements on Bangladesh’s likelihood of joining the Indo-Pacific policy of the Americans. Similarly, China-India borders have seen frequent skirmishes in recent years, while even the strongest of Chinese partners like Pakistan or Sri Lanka have felt the pressure of balancing their foreign policies. But on the flip side, due to this great power rivalry, the importance of these South Asian nations has clearly increased. It is obviously not easy to balance, but if played well, it can certainly bring opportunities. As far as India is concerned, US-China rivalry in South Asia gives both challenges and opportunities for India. The US policy of bringing more regional Asian partners on board to build a coalition that would balance the massively rising power of China has been a much-needed counterweight vis-à-vis China from an Indian standpoint. Moreover, the Indo-Pacific Strategy has also created a space for India, as a major and like-minded partner of the US, to pursue its own goal of becoming a separate pole by acquiring necessary capabilities and making new partnerships and coalitions with other powers. India, cognizant of the power differential with China, had no choice but to align with the US in the broader policy of cooperation around the Indo-Pacific. India sealed deep defense agreements with the US, became a major partner of coalitions like Quad, and began cooperation in several other domains. The US granting India a Strategic Trade Authorization status, for instance, was on par with what the US did with its Asian treaty allies like South Korea and Japan or the European NATO allies. In a strong signal to China, the US made these exceptions for India to help it acquire civil and military high-end technologies. However, India and the US are not treaty allies with mutual defense. Besides, India maintains suspicion towards growing US outreach in the region of its preeminence. India would welcome the US in South Asia to the extent that it would uphold and boost Indian primacy, but not any bilateral or other cooperation between the US and South Asian countries that would not keep India in the loop. From the South Asian countries’ standpoint, this is how the US should go about, whereas for India it is naturally a matter of concern. India is very sensitive about any military or defense partnership between the US and Nepal or its other neighbors. Instead of these deep defense ties, India has not fully relied on this US-India partnership vis-à-vis China, but has pursued its own policies to keep different options open and play its cards autonomously. India’s ties with Russia have been a thorn on US-India ties. In India’s calculation, Russia is an extremely useful partner for its role in providing critical military technologies, diplomatic counterbalancing to China, and access to Central Asia, balance against China-Pakistan ties, and in the time of Russia-Ukraine war, supplies of cheap commodities from Russia. India-US also have divergences in many different issues, especially in terms of India’s security concerns in its north western periphery, which has kept India from choosing its so-called “strategic autonomy”. How do you evaluate South Asian countries’ engagement with China, particularly on BRI? Although China presents itself as a close South Asian neighbor, India has become the elephant in the room for China and South Asian countries. Unlike other regions such as South East Asia or the Middle East, where China does not see such push backs, India is a regional power in South Asia and a strong rival of China vying for its own influence, thereby posing a major setback for Chinese ambitions. These geopolitical conditions also constrain South Asian countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives to engage with China to some extent. The South Asian countries, for their part, also prefer to pursue a policy of strategic autonomy by equally engaging with and balancing out India, US and China. They want China but, at the same time, do not want China to be overwhelming and overbearing in their bilateral relationship. Such cautious policy is also manifested in the China-South Belt and Road Initiative. Although every country, except India, has signed BRI cooperation agreements in South Asia, they have carefully watched and learned from the BRI investments in other parts of the world and have become very cautious in finalizing projects with China. In the case of countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka, they were already taking large Chinese investments even before the BRI. Although President Xi seemingly stepped-up China’s role to contribute to the world economy in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, his BRI lending model repeated the same mistakes that many Western countries, companies and banks had committed before they burst in 2008. Many roads and airports were abandoned half-built or left totally empty if completed. In the BRI also, instead of pre-planning the contingencies, loans were agreed hastily and problems were being dealt with as they kept coming. Moreover, although the markets were not improving, loans were added in a hope to turn profit and recover which would not happen as seen clearly in the case of Pakistan and Sri Lanka. China’s BRI emphasized large and fast loans, but apparently less on risk assessments. China’s worsening ties with the West did not help, as countries got under huge pressure. Xi’s proactive outreach and massive investments in Maldives led many to suspect China’s “land grab” plan in the strategically vital region. As a consequence, both the US and Europe immediately decided to step up their diplomatic overtures in the island nation. India as the next-door power substantially stepped up its engagement as well. No wonder, Nepal and China have not started any project under the BRI under these circumstances. China, for its part, is also moving from its domestic policy of high economic growth priority to fixing China’s unbalanced and uneven growth across the nation. As a result, its external investment will also be impacted. Moreover, China’s current account surplus — which it enjoyed when Xi came to power—has fallen too. Now with the impacts of covid restrictions and lockdowns, Chinese neighbors will likely see less generous offers. Smaller countries in this region are feeling the heat of great power rivalry. What are your suggestions for small countries in the conduct of their foreign policy? First of all, it would be a mistaken policy to deny the geopolitical competition among great powers in our region and try to stay away from it. Geopolitical competitions are part and parcel of international relations, and any country in the international community cannot remain untouched by it. Therefore, accepting this reality and figuring out how to make the most of it—maintaining peace and stability but benefiting economically—is the right way forward. Especially in the case of South Asian nations, there are several weaknesses. They have a long way to go in building overall capacities and have substance in their regional cooperation. But South Asian nations may still start looking at each other in a meaningful way. Starting a consultation format grouping to promote a South Asian centrality and strategic autonomy would help. The next step would be to work on certain guiding strategic concepts to build a stronger regional bloc of these countries in the future. This in fact will also be in the interests of regional powers and great powers, as they worry that nations may be unduly influenced by their adversaries. How should Nepal engage with great powers in the coming days? What are the foreign policy challenges of the new government? India, China and the US have set their long-term policy priorities to engage with Nepal in the context of a changing geopolitical scenario caused mainly by China’s rise. As a result, any new government in Nepal is going to face a new reality of a need for a tri-lateral balancing act. Despite the hopes Nepal has had for economic growth and development by profiting from the progress of the neighbors, actual experience has been rather complicated. We have to learn a lesson that without a proper balancing of the interests of our external partners, there will not be any significant benefits. Great powers do not pursue a foreign policy of altruism, but of their strategic objectives.  Nepal has seemingly preferred continuity than change in this regard. In other words, as long as a Nepal government fails to creatively use the potential of its partners for the benefit of its own people and the nation, Nepal’s foreign policy will not matter much. And now to make matters worse, the neighborhood story is not just about India and China rising, but India and China potentially ending up in a war. Therefore, how our leaders and policymakers read this situation and formulate policies accordingly, will make a big difference.  

A suicide bomber struck Monday inside a mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least 20 people and wounding as many as 96 worshippers, officials said, Associated Press reported.

No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, said Saddique Khan, a senior police official in Peshawar who gave the latest casualty tolls, but the Pakistani Taliban have been blamed in similar suicide attacks in the past.

The bomber detonated his suicide vest as some 150 worshipers — including many policemen from nearby police offices — were praying inside. The impact of the explosion collapsed the roof of the mosque, which caved in and injured many, according to Zafar Khan, a local police officer.

A survivor, 38-year-old police officer Meena Gul, said he was inside the mosque when the bomb went off. He said he doesn’t know how he survived unhurt. He could hear cries and screams after the bomb exploded, Gul said.

Rescuers scrambled trying to remove mounds of debris from the mosque grounds and get to worshippers still trapped under the rubble, police said.

Khan said rescuers are trying to get the wounded to a nearby hospital. He said several of the wounded were listed in critical condition at a hospital and there were fears the death toll would rise, according to the Associated Press.

Peshawar is the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan and has been the scene of frequent militant attacks.

The Pakistani Taliban, are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, and are separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 15 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of their members who are in government custody and a reduction of Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal regions, Associated Press reported.