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Nepal-India Chamber of Commerce & Industry (NICCI) welcomed newly appointed Nepali Ambassador to India Shankar Sharma at NICCI Secretariat, Narayanchaur, Naxal today.

Shreejana Rana welcomed Ambassador Sharma and briefed about the formation of NICCI in 1993 with the objective of promotion and facilitation to Nepal-India Investment and cooperation for the economic development of the country, read a statement issued by the NICCI.

Rana further informed Ambassador Sharma that NICCI has been working on Coffee Table Book and website for the promotion of Nepal-India Cross-border Religious Circuits and very soon it will be published and launched.

Rana requested Sharma for support on this so as to have ownership as it is the promotion of the tourism of both the countries.

Secretary General RB Rauniar also shared the issues related to Nepal-India Trade & Transit in which Sharma could play and important role to resolve the issues like, documents to be presented in custom on import via transshipment and via road transport where there is no uniformity, development of infrastructure in Indian side custom (especially at Panitanki custom at Indian side). Another issue is to connect rail connectivity to Kathmandu from Birjung which may cut down the logistic cost while importing the goods, the statement further read.

NICCI Treasurer Ghanendra Lal Pradhan, also put his suggestion to Ambassador Sharma that since Hydropower is the area where big investment could come as now the investors from both the countries have interest in water so it won’t be an issue to convince big investors there in India. That is why, Pradhan requested Ambassador Sharma to look into this and if could convince 4-5 big investors there in India that would be a great help for the development of the Hydropower sector of the country, according to the statement.

NICCI Vice President Sunil KC also briefed newly appointed Nepali Ambassador Sharma about the programs being planned by NICCI like Partnership Summit to bring investors in Nepal as an annual event so as to develop Nepal as an investment destination like in 90’s era and Kathmandu-Kolkata Forum (K2K Forum) as to bring stakeholders from both the countries and discuss on issues so that the way forward could be identified.

Saibal Ghosh, Convener of Indian Business Forum and Vice President of NICCI also shared his views that Investing in Nepal is good enough even today compared to other countries as there we have low corporate tax and cheap labor available here in Nepal though there has been few bottleneck like repatriation issue, re-investment issue and IPR and Trademark issues.

Ukraine has rejected a Russian ultimatum offering people in the besieged city of Mariupol safe passage out of the port if they surrender, BBC reported.

Under Russia's proposal, civilians would be allowed to leave if the city's defenders laid down arms. 

But Ukraine has refused, saying there was no question of it surrendering the strategic port city. 

Around 300,000 people are believed to be trapped there with supplies running out and aid blocked from entering.

Residents have endured weeks of Russian bombardment with no power or running water. 

Details of the Russian proposal were laid out on Sunday by Gen Mikhail Mizintsev, who said Ukraine had until 05:00 Moscow time (02:00 GMT) on Monday morning to accept its terms.

Under the plans, Russian troops would have opened safe corridors out of Mariupol from 10:00 Moscow time (07:00 GMT), initially for Ukrainian troops and "foreign mercenaries" to disarm and leave the city, according to BBC.

After two hours, Russian forces say they would then have allowed humanitarian convoys with food, medicine and other supplies to enter the city safely, once the de-mining of the roads was complete.

Russian Gen Mizintsev admitted that a terrible humanitarian catastrophe was unfolding there - and said the offer would have allowed civilians to flee safely to either the east or west. 

In response to the offer, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine would not stop defending Mariupol.

"There can be no question of any surrender, laying down of arms," she was quoted by Ukrainska Pravda as saying.

Earlier on Sunday, Pyotr Andryushenko, who is an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, vowed the city's defenders would fight on.

"We will fight until the last of our soldiers," he said, BBC reported.

He told the BBC's Newshour that Moscow's humanitarian promises could not be trusted, and repeated unconfirmed claims made by Mariupol officials in recent days that Russian forces have been forcibly evacuating some of its residents to Russia.

"When they [Russian forces] say about humanitarian corridors, what do they really do? They really force evacuate our people to Russia," Andryushenko said.

The BBC has not been able to verify these accusations.

Mariupol is a key strategic target for Russia and has seen some of the invasion's deadliest fighting.

Russian troops have encircled the city over the past few weeks, trapping its residents inside without access to electricity, water or gas. 

Communication with civilians unable to leave is limited but food and medical supplies are believed to be running out and Russia has blocked any humanitarian aid from getting in.

Since the invasion began the port city has witnessed some of the most intense fighting in all of Ukraine, with Russian forces so far failing to take the city from its defenders, according to BBC.

According to one estimate, 90% of the city's buildings have been damaged or destroyed in attacks since the war began three weeks ago, and authorities say at least 2,500 people have been killed although the true figure may be higher. 

After last week's destruction of a theatre where more than 1,000 people were sheltering, on Sunday authorities in Mariupol said that an arts school with 400 people inside has also been attacked, BBC reported.

As it continued its barrage of the besieged city of Mariupol, Russia demanded that Ukrainians put down their arms and raise white flags on Monday in exchange for safe passage out of town, Associated Press reported.

Ukraine angrily rejected the offer, which came hours after officials said Russian forces had bombed an art school that was sheltering some 400 people.

While the fight for control of the strategically important city remained intense, Western governments and analysts see the broader conflict shifting to a war of attrition.

Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said it would allow two corridors out of Mariupol, heading either east toward Russia or west to other parts of Ukraine.

Mariupol residents were given until 5 a.m. Monday to respond to the offer. Russia didn’t say what action it would take if it was rejected.

But Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said no, according to the Associated Press.

“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this,” she told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda. “I wrote: `Instead of wasting time on eight pages of letters, just open the corridor.’”

Mariupol Mayor Piotr Andryushchenko also rejected the offer, saying in a Facebook post he didn’t need to wait until morning to respond and cursing at the Russians, according to the news agency Interfax Ukraine. 

The Russian Ministry of Defense said authorities in Mariupol could face a military tribunal if they sided with what it described as “bandits,” the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported. 

Previous bids to allow residents to evacuate Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities have failed or have been only partially successful, with bombardments continuing as civilians sought to flee.

Speaking in a video address early Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 400 civilians were taking shelter at the art school when it was struck by a Russian bomb, Associated Press reported.

“They are under the rubble, and we don’t know how many of them have survived,” he said. “But we know that we will certainly shoot down the pilot who dropped that bomb, like about 100 other such mass murderers whom we already have downed.”

Tearful evacuees from the devastated Azov Sea port city have described how “battles took place over every street.”

The fall of Mariupol would allow Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine to link up. But Western military analysts say that even if the surrounded city is taken, the troops battling a block at a time for control there may be too depleted to help secure Russian breakthroughs on other fronts. 

Three weeks into the invasion, Western governments and analysts see the conflict shifting to a war of attrition, with bogged down Russian forces launching long-range missiles at cities and military bases as Ukrainian forces carry out hit-and-run attacks and seek to sever their supply lines.

Ukrainians “have not greeted Russian soldiers with a bunch of flowers,” Zelenskyy told CNN, but with “weapons in their hands.”

Moscow cannot hope to rule the country, he added, given Ukrainians’ enmity toward the Russian forces.

The strike on the art school was the second time in less than a week that officials reported an attack on a public building where Mariupol residents had taken shelter. On Wednesday, a bomb hit a theater where more than 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering, according to the Associated Press.

There was no immediate word on casualties in the school attack, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 people had been rescued and another 1,300 were trapped by rubble.

Ukrainian authorities said Sunday that Russia’s military bombed an art school sheltering some 400 people in the embattled port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine’s president said an unrelenting Russian siege would be remembered for centuries to come, Associated Press reported.

It was the second time in less than a week that city officials reported a public building where residents had taken shelter coming under attack. A bomb hit a Mariupol theater with more than 1,300 believed to be inside on Wednesday, local officials said. 

There was no immediate word on casualties from the reported strike on the art school, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 had been rescued. 

Mariupol, a strategic port on the Azov Sea, has been under bombardment for at least three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrorsof the war in Ukraine. At least 2,300 people have died, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves, and food, water and electricity have run low.

“To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. “The more Russia uses terror against Ukraine, the worse the consequences for it.”

In recent days, Russian forces have battled their way into the city, cutting it off from the Azov Sea and devastating a massive steel plant. The fall of Mariupol would be an important but costly victory for the Russians, whose advance is largely stalled outside other major cities more than three weeks into the biggest land invasion in Europe since World War II, according to the Associated Press.

In major cities across Ukraine, hundreds of men, women and children have been killed in Russian bombardments, while millions of civilians have raced to underground shelters or fled the country.

In the capital, Kyiv, at least 20 babies carried by Ukrainian surrogate mothers are stuck in a makeshift bomb shelter, waiting for parents to travel into the war zone to pick them up. The infants — some just days old — are being cared for by nurses who cannot leave the shelter because of constant shelling by Russian troops who are trying to encircle the city.

In the hard-hit northeastern city of Sumy, authorities evacuated 71 orphaned babies through a humanitarian corridor, regional governor Dmytro Zhyvytskyy said Sunday. He said the orphans, most of whom need constant medical attention, would be taken to an unspecified foreign country, Associated Press reported.

Russian shelling killed at least five civilians, including a 9-year-old boy, in Kharkiv, an eastern city that is Ukraine’s second-largest.

The British Defense Ministry said Russia’s failure to gain control of the skies over Ukraine “has significantly blunted their operational progress,” forcing them to rely on stand-off weapons launched from the relative safety of Russian airspace.

A rocket attack on the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv early Friday killed as many as 40 marines, a Ukrainian military official told The New York Times, making it one of the deadliest single attacks on Ukrainian forces.

In a separate strike, the Russian Defense Ministry said a Kinzhal hypersonic missile hit a Ukrainian fuel depot in Kostiantynivka, a city near Mykolaiv. The Russian military said Saturday that it used a Kinzhal for the first time in combat to destroy an ammunition depot in the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine, according to the Associated Press.