Commitment Reiterated

PRIME Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, speaking at a mass meeting organised by Nepali the Congress Jhapa Disrict Committee, in Birtamod Saturday reiterated his commitment to the constituent assembly (CA) polls. Prime Minister Koirala also said that the government wold not hesitate to take harsh measures to strengthen law and order without which the CA polls cannot be held within the given timeframe. This is an indication that every measure will be taken so that the polls will be held as per the agreement of the eight parties. Koirala without mincing words made it clear that the mandate given by the people for the polls will be held in time. However, the recent spate of violence has to be controlled so that a conducive environment could be created to hold the said elections in a fair, free and impartial manner. Much hope is pinned on the polls as it will have the responsibility of drafting an all-inclusive constitution of the country. Premier Koirala was stern in his speech and said that he would not waver from stringent measures to restore peace and order. What the country needs now is stability, complete democracy, human rights, freedom and prosperity. But for all this to be realised, national unity and conciliation are very necessary. The question of lasting peace is also equally important.

On the question of declaring a republic right now, Prime Minister Koirala said that some people had been pressing him on this issue, but he revealed that he would speak in its favour through the right course. When the eight parties had agreed that the first meeting of the constituent assembly would do the needful, it is futile to talk of it at this moment. The first and foremost focus should be on creating the right environment for the CA polls to be held within a set timeframe. For this, the eight party leaders must sit down and thrash out the solutions so that the date for the polls could be announced as soon as possible. Consensus must emerge among the top leaders on issues over which the eight party meetings have been pondering. It is the duty of all the leaders to remove any confusion or doubt that exists regarding the polls. As the future of the country rests on holding the polls, the leaders need to be serious instead of bickering over petty issues. Meanwhile, the other issues regarding the demands of the agitating groups must also be looked into by the government so that the right atmosphere can be created for holding the polls. Also everyone must behave responsibly instead of trying to create situations that are not in the interest of the people and the country.

Source: The Rising Nepal, June 4, 2007

Rambling Through Kol-Kath Cultural Similitude

Vinay Jha

If you ever toured or lived in both Kolkata and Kathmandu, you would, most probably, find it difficult not to deem yourself lucky and privileged on having had some of the best experiences of your life, especially with reference to their cultural grandeur. Separated by about 75 minutes' flight, or about 25 hours' drive, Kolkata and Kathmandu are counted among some of the most beautiful cities in the world. Situated in the eastern region of South Asia, these two places are richly endowed with unique natural panoramas and man-created cultural landmarks. The serene mountainous surroundings of the city of Kathmandu, and mesmerizing Bay of Bengal coastline of the city of Kolkata, both silhouetted against the bewitching blue sky, are ravishingly seducing in their appeal to travellers and tourists around the world.

Hindu way of life

Even though these two wonderful cities belong to two nations of South Asia, India and Nepal, they share between them immense cultural similitude, primarily because of the fact that both are rooted in the mainstream Hindu ways of life, of course, always open to and assimilative of other religo-cultural influences. Both cities are capital cities; the former of an Indian state (West Bengal) and the latter Nepal's capital, and, interestingly, both are historic. Is it merely fun to think of the co-incidence that they share the same initial sound in their names or something else, too? When we talk about the rich cultural heritage of a place or society, we talk about the underlying and abiding features of things that please, delight, sustain, unify, challenge, encourage and, most importantly, connect the whole of the material world with the whole of the spiritual world. In my opinion, no culture, worth its essence, can ever exist or appeal that is devoid of spiritual dimension. No society, irrespective of its geographical location, could be called culturally rich and inspiring, unless it is capable of looking beyond all barriers and limitations, even beyond what is comprehended as 'infinity'.

Higher and richer a culture, the deeper and stronger its appeal, its wisdom, its foresight, its integrative capacity, its cosmic vision, and finally its faith in the eternity of the existence of body and spirit in one form or the other. The two cities - Kolkata and Kathmandu - rejoice in the upkeep of this faith in eternity. Beautifully dotted with hundreds of temples, shrines, domes and stupas, related not only to one faith but to different faiths, graciously astir with pilgrims, travellers, tourists and local devotees, tastefully decked and fragrant, especially during the festive seasons, such as Vijaya Dashami, Diwali, Shivaratri, Christmas and Holi, variously flavoured with: dash and dynamism, fun and frolic, determination and expectation, contemplation and expression, and all these strung intimately through the unbreakable thread of passion and flair for life, Kolkata and Kathmandu present an example of superb homogeneity, in spite of being places apart. What strikes the visitors to both these places the most is the pristine ambience of their temples, shrines and meditation centres, evocative of the lives and hermitages of the ancient saints and sages.

Needless to say, the hallmark of any glorious culture is its natural inclination towards creativity, scholarship, art and music and all that is universally associated with Apollonian ethos. This natural inclination constitutes the core around which other invigorating and progressive ingredients keep on interacting and intermingling to sustain and sharpen the organic whole. As the one who has been fortunate to live in and who has curiously and creatively observed the cultural aspects of both the cities, I have no hesitation saying that these are the cities of joys, because the dwellers and lovers of both these places are creative sufferers; they enjoy absorbing the woes and worries of life in their stride; they are doggedly unbeatable, their sense of future is exemplarily strong. And above all they are steeped in broad human compassion.

Both Kolkata and Kathmandu are vibrant hubs of higher education and cultural activities. For the whole of Nepal, Kathmandu is not only the political capital, but also an unrivalled seat of higher education and cultural pursuits. Most of the useful world languages are taught and learnt here as it is done in Kolkata. Dance, drama, music, festivals and art exhibitions are regular cultural happenings in both these places. Various international seminars and conferences are organised in these places that help the people know more and more about global affairs, and promote among them a sense of global brotherhood and cosmopolitan attitude to life in general.

Appreciation

My observation and study of the ways of life of these two cities, I must say, is like that of a zealous self-proclaimed and self-believing explorer or journalist. My informal brief chats with people in both these cities, particularly with the pilgrims and tourists, over a considerable period of time, at various intervals, and on different occasions, have revealed to me that most of them carry a very deep appreciation of the cultural heritage of both these places.

Source: The Rising Nepal, June 4, 2007

Debating International Trade And Aid

Lok Nath Bhusal

Despite alarming methodological limitations, evidence uncovers that benefits of economic openness and incursion of globalisation have been skewed. Precisely, economic openness has been costly for economies with weak domestic markets, negligible support for domestic producers and in which a significant proportion of the population is engaged in subsistence production. Additionally, despite more than a quarter of a century of extensive research and evaluation on trade liberalisation experiments affecting billions of people across the developed and developing world, there remains little consensus about the effects of neo-liberal policies on most macroeconomic and social indicators. For instance, trade has always accounted for a relatively small percentage of GDP, and the relative underdevelopment of Nepal's agricultural and industrial base has so far badly impeded the potential profitability of trade liberalisation. Obviously, there cannot be a fight between a tiger and a cat; globalisation is clearly unfair.

Global village

UNDP states that, although enthusiasts who have been trying to quantitatively emphasise the positive aspects of globalisation and increasingly use the language of global village to describe the new order, the global village appears deeply divided between the streets of the haves and those of the have nots, when viewed through the lens of human development. However, policies that encourage investments in human and physical capital, and support technological change, are more likely to promote export-growth and, thus, the wealth of a nation.

Henceforth, FDI (foreign direct investment) and aid for trade is likely to offset the inequalities emerging from globalisation. The common development strategy should recognise the sheer importance of foreign aid in our development efforts. The development partners who have funded development in Nepal have had their own agenda and interests other than solving the overdue structural problems of the country.

Up until the present time, Nepal received funds only when it has been in accordance to the plans of the donors. The agenda and interests of the latter have obtained easy entry into the national development discourse, as the country's own political parties and bureaucratic structures have blindly supported them and have themselves failed to come up with a commonly-shared agenda of a pro-people's development process led by the poor themselves. Indeed, the concept of "aid for trade" should be materialised to sustainably benefit from foreign aid as aid for trade enhances trade-related capacity, expands exports and creates new jobs.

At the international level, the eighth Millennium Development Goal ? develop a global partnership for development ? aims at altering aid, trade, business and debt-related policies in the developed countries that now obstruct poverty reduction efforts in developing countries like Nepal. More specifically, the targets under Goal Eight aim at increasing developed countries' commitments to relax trade restrictions to enable market access, especially for developing countries' agricultural commodities and labour-intensive manufactures, along with expanded provisions of debt relief and transfers of technology.

Despite the commitment to the eighth goal - the critical area of financing and sustaining development in poor countries - it is neither time-bound nor measurable by the kinds of indicators specified for the other goals. The World Bank states that aid has rarely been a simple transfer of resources from the affluent to the deprived economies. Rather it comes along with a number of conditional ties. These conditions explicitly or implicitly fulfil the interests of the donors; donors use aid to advance their values, their commercial interests, their cultural aspirations and their diplomatic and political objectives rather than the developmental needs and priorities of developing countries.

Furthermore, in 1970, the world's rich countries agreed to provide 0.7 per cent of their gross national income for development assistance, but only five have met or surpassed the target ?Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Consequently, coupled with this, Nepal is unlikely to meet several MDGs targets, in part because of the poor economic growth rate limited to the urban areas, poor implementation of public services and support mechanisms, and low agricultural productivity.

Not only the economies of the low-income bracket, even the middle-income countries have been arguing for increased support, mainly for enhancing their trade-related capacity from the developed countries. The G-11 has identified four areas where international support can help consolidate the gains and move forward. The first is promotion of investment, which supports higher productivity and trade-based growth. Second is trade development, including market access and technical assistance. Third is debt-burden alleviation, to reduce pressures on financial and budgetary space. Fourth is targeted grant assistance, to address global crises such as poverty and health, but just as urgently, to support education, infrastructure and other initiatives that enable developing countries to maximise the impact of knowledge, technology, innovation and economic liberalisation.

Aid for trade

Since expansion of trade leads to sustainable growth, the World Bank and the IMF have jointly proposed an aid for trade package for the provision of financial and technical assistance to developing countries to address supply side constraints and to assist them in copying the adjustment costs raised from the liberalisation of economies. Therefore, there is a growing need to assess the benefits of global trade more holistically through rigorous intellectual exercise, particularly for serving national interests. Nepal and other developing economies should focus on aid for trade for development rather than relying on conventional aid.

Source: The Rising Nepal, June 4, 2007

Maoist message with raid in village

Giridih, June 1: Two villagers in Dumerjhahri village were killed and six injured when the Maoists raided the village bordering Bihar last evening.

The Naxalites also burnt houses of at least five villagers in an attack reportedly to send a message to former chief minister Babulal Marandi. “Around 7 pm, they came in hundreds with women outnumbering men. They challenged us and said that on the instigation of Babulal Marandi, we stand against them. ‘Now call him to save yourselves’.

Thereafter, they started firing bullets, hurling bombs and throwing arrows,” said Sahdev Bhulla, the father of Govind Bhulla (17) who was injured from one of the arrows.
Those killed were identified as Kuwar Bhulla (18) and Narayan Pandit (22).

“As part of the gram suraksha dal,we had retaliated but soon they took control and the rebels killed two people while the women members beat several women, including Hulia Devi, Lilavati Devi and Horil Devi,” Sahdev added. The condition of the women is stated to be serious.
A police team led by superintendent of police A.K. Singh visited the village and assured the villagers of police co-operation to the villages in Tisri.

Source: The Telegraph, June 1, 2007

Uncertainty of CA Elections and the Republic Question

Dr. Bal Gopal Shrestha

It is bizarre to see the failure of the ruling eight parties to meet even a month after the deferral announcement of the elections to constituent assembly. A country in transition cannot afford such a delay in the political process. In addition these parties are also openly accusing each other for the deadlock. Especially, the head of the state and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala proved himself most irresponsible by not taking the initiative to end the uncertainly.

We know that the sole basis of the present eight-party interim government is the 12-point agreement that they signed in November 2005. The first and foremost agenda of the agreement was to bring to an end to autocratic monarchy and to establish absolute democracy. To institutionalize this purpose the agreement proposed to hold an election to a constituent assembly. The massive people's movement in April 2006 forced king Gyanendra to relinquish his power, which paved the way to implement the road map of the seven-party alliance. A year has passed since the seven-party alliance came to power, but it failed to hold constituent assembly elections as they had agreed with the Maoists. Already it was very late when they announced the interim constitution and interim parliament on 15 January 2007. After that, things could have moved more rapidly if the parties had shown sincerity and realized their responsibility, but apparently they miserably failed in this regard.

The Maoists' demand to let the interim parliament announce Nepal a republic did not come all of a sudden. The eight parties agreed to held elections to a constituent assembly on 20 June 2007, but the postponement of elections came amidst heavy national and international pressure. Especially, we saw James Moriarty, American envoy to Nepal, extremely reckless in his wish to postpone the elections. Until the last minute, he tried to use his influence to postpone the elections and to keep the Maoists out of the interim government. For a year, the Maoists waited patiently for the elections. When the deferral announcement came, the Maoists' outburst can be imagined.

The chief election officer (CEO) said that he needed 120 days before he could prepare the elections, but his announcement came only when he had less than a hundred days. Why the CEO did not come with this fact when he still had more than 120 days is unexplained. Since he failed to hold the elections in a stipulated time, it is but logical that he himself and his team had resigned but that did not happened. The prime minister also did not feel it necessary to hold an urgent meeting of the eight parties to find an amicable solution without delay. Given the uncertainty that prevailed after the deferral of the elections, the Maoists’ move to declare Nepal a republic from the parliament is not unreasonable.

At present, there is no party in Nepal that can speak in favour of any form of kingship, except Kamal Thapa's National Democratic Party, which supported king Gyanendra's February 2005 coup. Now and then, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala talks about retaining a ceremonial king, but he could not stand firm on his words as a large section of his own party, the Nepali Congress appeared against retaining the monarchy. We also noted even Prime Minister Koirala himself advised king Gyanendra and his son Paras to voluntarily abdicate before declaring Nepal itself a republic. On 7 May 2007, Prime Minister Koirala, though, managed to pacify Congress district presidents, and had to tell them that by gradually stripping away all the powers of the king then would Nepal be finally declared a republic. Not only members of civil society but also a vast majority of people are in favour of declaring Nepal a republic straight away. Family members of the martyrs of the April 2006 people's movement and those injured in the movement have also been demanding Nepal to be declared a republic immediately.

During the April 2006 people's movement, defying brutal suppression, hundreds of thousands of people spontaneously took to the streets of cities and villages throughout the country for 19 days chanting slogans against the autocratic king Gyanendra. More than two dozen people sacrificed their lives and thousands were injured. Their single demand was to declare Nepal a republic by ending the monarchy instantly. On 23 April 2006, however, the leaders of the seven-party alliance hastily agreed to let king Gyanendra reinstate the parliament instead of removing the king himself. The Maoists who also actively participated in the people's movement denounced that act of the seven-party alliance, but yielded at Prime Minister Koirala's persuasion of holding an early election to a constituent assembly. Already the general people blamed power hungry leaders of the seven-party alliance for deceiving the people by ending the movement in a secret compromise with the king. Now with the deferring of elections, they feel that these leaders are conspiring to retain the redundant monarchy in Nepal.

In fact, the relevance of the monarchy in Nepal was lost after the 1 June 2001 palace massacre. The palace massacre was the death of monarchy as it wiped out the traditional line of succession to the throne. Although, the official prove-commission put the blame on crown prince Dipendra, who himself was killed in the incident, nobody in Nepal is ready to accept it. Of course, there is no evidence since no proper investigation was carried out, but the Nepalese people have openly been blaming king Gyanendra for staging the palace massacre to achieve the throne. The Nepalese people never gave the same respect to king Gyanendra as to his late brother Birendra because of Gyanendra's image as a notorious businessman and his scandalous son Paras. On top of all this, his autocratic acts against democracy made him the most detested king in the history of Nepal. The February 2005 coup was his final step, which left the people with no option than to take to the streets against him.

Soon after the success of the April 2006 people's movement, the House of Representative (HoR) stripped the king of all powers. On 18 May 2006, it declared Nepal a secular state and scrapped the Supreme-Commander-in-Chief post of the king, and changed the Name of the Royal Nepalese Army to Nepal Army. The 2007 interim constitution again completely deprives Gyanendra of any administrative rights and rejects his rights to the properties of the deceased royal family members. Further it also declares to nationalize all properties he obtained by virtue of being king, such as the palaces, forests and national parks, historic important heritage sites, etc.

At present, the king holds no formal position. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala himself is working as the head of state. Practically the country is already functioning as a republic without declaring itself a republic. If the present interim parliament can strip the king of all powers and passes so many important bills, it can declare Nepal a republic at any time. Rightly, the speaker of the house Subhash Nemang said that he was ready to declare Nepal a republic a minute after the leaders of the eight-party agree for the same. Only we have to see if they will indeed be able to come to an agreement or remain undecided on the issue. It is needless to say that the people are eager to see Nepal declared a republic at the earliest.

Source: The Kathmandu Post, May 16, 2007