HELLO NEPAL

The Himalayan Times 24 May 2018 Government’s priorities Finally, the Nepal Communist Party has come into existence following the unification of the UML and the CNP-Maoist few days ago. It took almost eight months to merge their parties giving a huge relief to their voters. There were many speculations whether these parties having two different political principles would indeed merge to become a single party. Now, some political analysts simply claim that the purpose of their merger was nothing but to be in power for long after learning the lessons from the past. However, whatever the merger means, it seems to be politically positive development when it comes to political stability needed for giving continuity to ongoing development programmes and bringing economical and social changes in the country. Following the tradition of presenting the policies and programmes prepared by the government in the past, President Bidya D. Bhandari on Monday unveiled the left gov

The Kathmandu Post 22 May 2018 HEAVEN OR HELL? After the completion of three tiers of elections, it is hoped that Nepal has been moving forward leaving behind the political uncertainty and instability. It has started leaping forward in the path of peace and prosperity as claimed by the senior leaders of big parties in the recent days. Common people have started crossing fingers keeping high hopes of seeing a developed and prosperous Nepal. They have started dreaming of their children not suffering from hunger and thirst in the days to come. They also hope that none of their kids need to go beyond Nepal for employment, as promised by the left alliance during the elections. Now, it was so encouraging to hear from PM Oli, who also co-chairs of the newly formed Nepal Communist Party (NCP), that Nepal will turn into “a heaven” in the next 10 years (“Nepal will be heaven in 10 years, says PM” May 20, Page 1). What fantastic news this is for the country and its people. Howeve

The Himalayan Times 17 May 2018 Scrap pork barrel fund In the past, governments led by big parties did not leave anything to please lawmakers -from duty free vehicles to foreign junkets to flat under the Constituency Development Programme (CDP) and Constituency Infrastructure Special Programme (CISP). Duty free vehicles were sold to business people at much higher price. Millions of rupees were spent for foreign trips in the name of observations trips. Major portion of the CDP funds were haphazardly spent for their cadres and it was never properly accounted for. Had these funds been properly spent for the development projects, they would have received public support. Now, the country has entered the federal structure. Federal Minster Yubaraj Khatiwada is doing homework for the preparation of next year’s national budget. In the meantime, lawmakers have started exerting pressure on him to continue with the CDP and CISP under which each lawmaker gets Rs 5 million and Rs

The Himalayan Times 10 May 2018 Syndicate in education There is no argument about the parents’ immense desires to give their children best education keeping in view of the ever growing challenging environment for their future no matter how exorbitant the fee is. Since, the quality of education in the public schools still questionable in-spite of government and donor organisations spending billions of rupees every year for the last several years, parents prefer to send their children to the private schools for acquiring better education in-spite of exorbitant fees. The governments in the past had completely failed to improve the teaching learning environment in public schools owing to either their short sightedness or heavy politicisation. It is known facts that every year in the past, students unions affiliated to different political parties raised their voices and even staged protests against the monopoly of private schools. They even signed several deals with th

The Kathmandu Post 6 May 2018 ENFORCE THE DECISION During the last two decades, both the country and the people had to suffer because of frequent street protests and strikes called by major political parties and their sister wings. The Essential Service Operation Act 2014 was not properly implemented in the past due to unstable governments resulting in country losing billions of revenues during bandh. They completely failed to stop such protests and strikes. Even some seriously sick people and pregnant women died on the way to hospitals owing to such unwanted acts of the irresponsible political parties and their cadres. Many protesters and security personnel lost their lives. Many four wheelers and two wheelers were burnt down by the protesters. Steps by the government to ban all kinds of strike by essential service providers with immediate effect are welcome (“Govt bans essential service disruption” April 25, page 1). Essential services include telephone, public

The Himalayan Times 3 May 2018 Buddha’s birth place Nepal has been celebrating Buddha Jayanti every year on the day of Buddha Purnima with much enthusiasm. This year, we celebrated 2,562 nd Buddha Jayanti and Lumbini Day amidst a spectacular function held in Lumbini attended by President Bidya Debi Bhandari and Prime Minister K.P.Oli among other dignitaries. Representatives from 23 countries had also attended the function. They had come to Nepal to participate in the two day International Buddhist Conference held in Lumbini, one of the UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. Buddhist devotees and followers from all over the world also observed this day in their own ways. In the past few years, confusions among the world population has arisen about the birthplace of Buddha. And, Nepal is struggling to prove that Buddha was born in Nepal. This in fact is not necessary. However, people do think that the governments in the past did not do enough to dispel this confusions and r