The President of Nepal has given her assent to a coat of arms bearing a new map with three territories held by India, formalising a change that has taken bilateral relations to an unprecedented low at a time New Delhi is preoccupied with China.
President Bidya Devi Bhandari gave the assent hours after Nepal’s upper House of Parliament cleared a constitutional amendment.
Soon, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s media adviser Surya Thapa tweeted out not only an image of the new coat of arms but also images of a cloud shaped like the new map floating above Mount Everest.
India did not comment immediately. The new Nepal map includes Kalapani, Lipu Lekh and Limpiyadhura.
PTI reported from Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand that Nepal had converted its border outpost at Changru near Kalapani into a permanent one manned by armed police. The post used to be manned by lathi-wielding policemen and it had been closed during the winter.