New Delhi
\nIndia and Bhutan will seek to reaffirm their friendship and review bilateral issues, foreign policy and regional focus when Prime Minister Lotay Tshering arrives on his maiden state visit to Delhi on Thursday, less than two months since he assumed office.<\/p>\n
The three-day state visit will be the first high-level exchange between the two sides since Tshering and his Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa party won surprise victory in the recently concluded third general elections in the Himalayan nation.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a conference on \u2018India-Bhutan relations-The road ahead\u2019 earlier this month, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale underlined, \u201cAt the heart of India-Bhutan friendship is the belief that we have each other\u2019s interest at heart. We have vital stakes in each other\u2019s progress and well-being and in peace and prosperity in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a goodwill visit. As a new PM he is coming to express appreciation for India. We are not working on any specific agreements per se. We receive assistance from India and are confident of assistance for our 12th plan,\u201d said a Bhutanese official.<\/p>\n
The official talks and joint statement to be issued later is expected to focus among others on issues of economic assistance, hydropower cooperation, visas, possible revival of the BBIN Motor Vehicles Agreement rejected by Thimphu, border security against backdrop of the 2017 Doklam confrontation with Chinese PLA.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Bhutan enters its 12th Five Year Plan, India stands firmly committed to partner Bhutan in its quest for bringing greater prosperity and happiness to its people,\u201d Gokhale said at the conference.<\/p>\n
The flagship 720 MWs Mangdechhu hydro-power project is expected to be commissioned during the visit. Bhutan has concerns about India\u2019s revised policy on cross-border trade of electricity that is expected to impact Thimphu\u2019s ability to sell power to India. Tshering is likely to raise the matter to seek changes in the policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi India and Bhutan will seek to reaffirm their friendship and review bilateral issues, foreign policy and regional focus when Prime Minister Lotay Tshering arrives on his maiden state visit to Delhi on Thursday, less than two months since he assumed office. The three-day state visit will be the first high-level exchange between the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51180,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51178\/revisions\/51180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}