Prime Minister Balendra Shah on Monday held his first one-on-one meeting with a Kathmandu-based foreign ambassador since taking office, ending a self-imposed rule of avoiding individual diplomatic engagements.

Shah met Indian Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Srivastava at the Prime Minister’s Office in Singha Durbar. The meeting covered Nepal-India bilateral relations, mutual interests, development partnership and areas of cooperation, according to the prime minister’s secretariat.

Srivastava congratulated Shah and expressed his commitment to further strengthening relations and cooperation between the two countries.

Shah emphasised the need to deepen Nepal’s “historic relationship” with India and work together in areas of shared interest, his secretariat said.

The meeting comes as Shah has begun moving away from his earlier policy of avoiding one-on-one engagements with foreign ambassadors and senior visiting officials.

Shah is also scheduled to meet Chinese Ambassador Zhang Maoming separately on Monday, while US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Scott Urbom is expected to meet him on Tuesday.

The decision to meet the ambassadors of Nepal’s two immediate neighbours on the same day appears intended to underscore their equal importance to Nepal, although the scheduling retains the government’s stated foreign policy priority of engaging India first, followed by China.

The meetings with the Indian and Chinese ambassadors were originally planned two weeks ago but were deferred following communal violence in Sunsari and other districts.

Since becoming prime minister on March 27, Shah had avoided individual meetings with Kathmandu-based ambassadors. Instead, he held joint meetings with foreign ambassadors on April 9 and May 26.

The approach was welcomed by some Nepali diplomats and foreign policy observers, who viewed group meetings as a more transparent and equitable way of engaging with Kathmandu’s diplomatic community.

Shah had also declined requests for meetings with several senior US officials visiting Nepal, including US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Samir Paul Kapur and President Donald Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia Sergio Gor. US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah B. Rogers also did not meet the prime minister during her visit to Nepal.