Nepal to send the updated map to India, UN, and the international community

A minister has said that by the middle of August, the Nepal government will send its recently revised map to India, the United Nations and the international community. The revised map contains areas of Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura which appear on the Indian map.

“We will be sending the updated map including Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura to various UN agencies and the international community including India. The process will be completed by the middle of this month,” Padma Aryal, Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation told news agency ANI.

Department of Measurement has been requested by the Ministry to print 4,000 copies of the revised edition of Nepal ‘s map in English and give it to the international community. It distributed at least 25,000 copies of the updated map across the nation. The map of Nepal is part of its symbol and is used by that country on all official documents, just as the letterheads of the Indian government have Ashoka’s Lion Flag.

However, the development comes amid a bitter internal feud in Nepal’s ruling Nepal Communist Party. A rival faction led by party executive chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” have demanded Oli’s resignation, saying his recent anti-India remarks were “neither politically correct nor diplomatically appropriate.”

In June, Nepal’s Parliament cleared a Constitution Amendment Bill that endorses the country’s new map that includes territories with India. India termed the move untenable and said it was not based on “historical facts or evidence”. “This artificial enlargement of claims is not based on historical facts or evidence and is not tenable. It is also violative of our current understanding to hold talks on outstanding boundary issues,” Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said.

After Defense Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated an 80-km strategically important road connecting the Lipulekh Pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8, relations between India and Nepal came under strain. India controls Lipulekh, Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and its maps show the area as part of its territory-Nepal challenged this. Although Nepal reacted sharply to the road’s inauguration, saying it passed through its territory, India dismissed the argument.