Well, India, or anyone else for that matter, is not going to give anything to Nepal on a platter. If we have failed to take advantage of India's growing prosperity, it has largely been because of our own incompetencies and failures. Fortunately, it isn't too late and we can still try and take better advantage of our close location to India, a country which increasingly has become Nepal's gateway to wealth creation and economic prosperity. -- I agree with it with some reservations. You are right, we have to be able to take advantage of India's economic growth and for that we need people/scholars/bureaucrats/diplomats who know and understand India. Its kind of sad that in Nepal we have no genuine India scholar, i.e., someone who has studied India and who can analyze the events in India and or India's position on Nepal from the Indian perspective. What we do is, and there are some examples of this in this thread , we are still locked in our "nationalist" mindset and we derive immense pleasure by bashing India. What we should do now is study India. We can't understand India or claim to understand India based on Bollywood movies and our short trips (or long Mbbs-Engineering study experience there). Its time that we move on to the next stage and study the Indian policy making process, history, economics, traditions and even philosophy. That way we will be able to accurately (or near accurately) predict what our next door neighbor is up to. Too sad, we don't have an area studies department in TU. Now, Is it in India's best interest to let Nepal develop? Rephrase: Will India let Nepal take advantage of its growing economy? A weak, poor and dependant Nepal is in India's strategic and political interests. This is why our development plans have failed again and again. Don't get me wrong, I am not blaming India for our underdevelopment. It has to do what it has to do to preserve its national interests as one maxim of IR states that foreign policy is out of necessity, not out of sympathy. The problem is on our side: We haven't been full able to assert our national interests and the worst of all, we don't even have a policy to deal with India. India is either our Big Brother and its OK to depend on it or its a pure villian and should be c riticized whenever you get the chance to do so. Our leaders depend on India for everything. And this gives India an "strategic" upper hand when dealing with Nepal. Since strategic interests now include economic interests, it is in India's interests to exploit the Nepali market, i.e., sell its products from soap to cars in Nepali market. As a result, we will not industrialize and even for small consumer goods we will depend on India, and as a result, we will not be able to rise up economically. In my opinion, and I don't claim to know much about India or Nepal's dealing with India, we have to have a clear policy on how to deal with India. We have to have India scholars/sp[ecialists, and we have to learn to deal with our problems by ourselves. Maybe then, maybe in the long run, we will be able to take advantage of India's growth.. but now, talking about taking advantage of India's growth is like.. a good dream.