2015 Nepal blockade

The Indian prime minister Narendra Modi called Sushil Koirala on 25 August, and later sent S. Jaishankar as his personal envoy to discuss the concerns.

[11][better source needed] On 24 September, the day that the fuel blockade began, Indian Express newspaper reported that India had demanded specific changes to the new Nepali constitution.

[12][10] According to commentator Amitava Mukherjee, personnel from the Indian Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) "confirmed that at least till the third week of September, they had orders from above to intercept fuel shipments to Nepal".

[15] The blockade has caused the only international airport to deny foreign carriers fuel,[16] contributing to isolating the landlocked nation from the outside world at a time when the country is still reeling from ongoing landslides blocking border trade with China following the devastating 2015 Nepal earthquake.

The fuel shortage caused the public to be angry due to not getting products like petrol, diesel, cooking gas (LPG), kerosene from the state oil corporation, despite standing in line for days.

The government of Nepal had imposed a rule to provide fuel to the public as well as private transportation on the basis of odd and even number plate system.

A black market arose, with individuals bringing fuel from the border points with India and selling it in Kathmandu and other places for threefold prices.

[citation needed] While in Kathmandu, the government had asked for International help to solve the fuel crisis, which was hitting daily Nepalese life very hard.

[citation needed] As Nepal faced big energy problems and power cuts, using induction cookers would not be a permanent alternative to cooking gas.

India's Ministry of External Affairs stated that the border obstructions were a result of "unrest, protests, and demonstrations on the Nepalese side, by sections of their population.

[32] An editorial in the Nepali Times has claimed the Indian blockade is no longer about the Madhes and the constitution, but rather that India also seems to be opposed to KP Oli replacing Sushil Koirala as prime minister, and has a whole host of demands on security and other issues that we haven’t even heard about.

Some 14 Nepali pharmaceutical factories remain shut, causing widespread shortages in medicine, including for infectious diseases such as Tuberculosis that do not respect borders, some 90 percent of raw and packaging materials usually enter from Birgunj customs point (India).

The most acute shortages of medicines in Kathmandu are for Intensive Care Unit such as high blood pressure, diabetes, anesthesia, injectable antibiotics, and hyperbaric oxygen.

The poor South Asian monsoon and chemical fertilizer shortage, improper seeds from post-quake international donations not suited to climate account for some 10% of the expected crop (half of the crop failure), however due to the fuel crisis the figure is expected to worsen sharply as machinery and fertilizer are affected,[47] manpower is limited due to mass overseas migration of young males,[48] disproportionately leaving elderly and children behind to tend to farms.

[49] More than 3 million children under the age of 5 in Nepal are at risk of death or disease during the harsh winter months due to a severe shortage of fuel, food, medicines and vaccines.

—UNICEF media press release, 30 November 2015[50][51] As issue of post-quake vulnerability became lost in the increasingly vocal information war between Kathmandu and New Delhi,[52] a major humanitarian crisis has erupted at a time when international agencies are stretched very thin due to El Nino related agricultural disasters as well as exploding conflict in Syria, Yemen, and their spawned refugee crises.

UNICEF has followed with a warning echoing US embassy statements about the looming humanitarian disaster, citing 3 million children at risk of disease and death in Nepal alone.

[53] On a separate note, while governments focus on immediate needs and politics, misanthropes take advantage of the situation, in particular Human trafficking; some 400 girls who have entered India from Nepal have gone missing.

[54] Nepalese residing in the UK demonstrated against the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 10 Downing Street, London during his visit on 12 November 2015.

The demonstrators included ex-military families (the so-called "Gurkha Regiment" and "non-Gurkhas"), Sikh extremists and various other individuals dissatisfied with the Indian Prime Minister.

Some reports claimed that as soon as Modi arrived back in Delhi, he ordered an assessment of the power that the Nepali people have in Great Britain and other places overseas[55] On 17 November, the "Non-Resident Nepali Association USA" protested against what they refer to as the Indian Government's so-called "economic blockade of Nepal" in front of United Nations Headquarters in New York.

[57] On 21 November, Nepalese police clashed with protesters led by Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) in the district of Saptari who were blocking vehicles from entering Nepal.

[65] According to Nepali officials, the youths were trying to bring food and fertilizer into Nepal, and the shooting took place at Bhantabari, Sunsari District on the Nepalese side of the border.

[69] India has also been stepping up its control of information in late December, with Sashastra Seema Bal wanting to install radio stations along the border.

It has also been pointed out by India that the “blockade” is taking place on Nepal's side of the border, where protestors have attacked Indian drivers who were trying to transport food and facilitate trade between the two neighbors.

"[75] Kishor Bikram Malla, a student leader of the CPN (UML) party opined, "The new generation of Nepalese can go without fuel for months but we are not ready to bend before India.

[92] United States – On 5 November, the US expressed deep concern over the critical shortages of essential supplies in Nepal resulting from a volatile situation along the Nepal-India border.

Acute shortages in fuel supplies continue to impede planned deliveries to earthquake-affected villages in Nepal," said spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

"The Secretary-General underlines Nepal's right of free transit, as a landlocked nation as well as for humanitarian reasons, and calls on all sides to lift the obstructions without further delay.

"[94][95][96][97] In 2016, during Oli's visit to China, the two countries signed a treaty on trade and transit, including a plan to build a high speed railway from Kathmandu to the Chinese border.