Nepal and China have agreed to build a strategic rail link between the two nations. Thanks to the Chinese might, determination, financial muscle and unbridled desire to expand their influence, the mighty Himalayas, once considered impregnable, seem no longer so. For India, this must set the alarm bells ringing. Constant mishandling of the situation in Nepal by us has played a role in no uncertain terms in pushing the nation that we almost ruled by proxy once, into the waiting hands of their powerful neighbours across the Himalayas. That their PM, who is currently on a week-long visit to China where this rail-link agreement has been signed, almost didn’t visit us before visiting China, had already sent a strong message. While Nepal has every right to do what it feels is good for itself, one feels pained at how we have mismanaged the situation in that nation, especially given the fact that PM Narendra Modi has made more than a few trips to the country, and even wowed their parliamentarians, and indeed the common man, with his honest analysis of what we should do to come closer. The sensitivity displayed by him while talking about Buddha, for example, was not lost on the Nepali people. While the world talks of India as the land of Buddha, Modi’s repeated assertions that Nepal was in fact the birth place of Buddha was not lost on the Nepalese, something a number of my friends there acknowledged and appreciated.