KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 28
The government today recommended new ambassadors for India, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. According to Minister of Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, a meeting of the Cabinet held today, decided to nominate Shankar Sharma, Gyan Chandra Acharya, and Shridhar Khatri as Nepal’s ambassadors to India, the UK, and the USA, respectively.
Ambassadorial nominee Shankar Sharma is an economist who has already served as vice-chair of the National Planning Commission and Nepal’s ambassador to the USA; Acharya is Nepal’s former career diplomat who is also a former United Nations under-secretary-general and Sridhar Khatri is a security expert.
The new ambassadorial nominations come on the heels of the Sher Bahadur Deuba government’s decision to recall all the ambassadors appointed by previous governments, mostly by the KP Sharma Oli government on political quotas. The government will have to nominate ambassadors for 20 more diplomatic missions. Nepal has its diplomatic missions in 36 destinations, including six consular missions.
As per the constitutional provision, ambassadorial nominees will have to face the parliamentary hearing.
Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal Chair Upendra Yadav, who is a partner in the five-party ruling alliance, said the ambassadors would be appointed through regular process after conducing parliamentary hearing. He said the issue of ambassadorial nominations would be discussed after Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s return from the UK tour.
The Cabinet also announced relief measures for farmers who lost their crops due to recent floods across the country.
Minister Karki said the government would cover up to 65 per cent of the losses suffered by farmers in its relief package.
While small landholders who lost their crops in recent floods will get 65 per cent compensation, medium land holders will get 30 per cent compensation, and big land holders will get 20 per cent compensation.
A version of this article appears in the print on October 29, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.