HELLO NEPAL

The Himalayan Times 24 May 2013 Disaster in the making The question of whether another CA election will be held or not has been the people’s concern. It was known to everybody that the first historical CA election failed to draft the new constitution just because of some of the contentious issues those had to be first sorted out first were never properly addressed. The so called senior leaders of major political parties are repeating the same mistakes by not making consensus over the contentious issues before going to the second CA. What they might be doing instead has been the talk of the town as reported in “What parties are doing to ensure CA election” (THT, 22 May, Page 1) They appear in no mood to sort out the contentious issues of CA election such as, the question of thresh-hold for CA seat under the Proportional Representation (PR) system, strength of the CA, eligibility criteria for CA candidates and formation of constituency delimitation commissions. Lo...

The Himalayan Times 17 May 2012 No mercy to them Kudos to Kavre Police team for making public some kidney racketeers as reported in “Kidney racket busted in Kavre; 10 arrested” (THT, 15 May, Page 1). It was really a commendable job. Thank God, this time the victims who were lured into selling their kidneys in India made bold to knock at the police doors for help. Otherwise, the kidney racketeers would have continued their business as usual. All the culprits who commit such heinous crimes should be severely punished so that they cannot prey on innocent people in future. This incidents clearly shows that the racketeers might have been involved in such crimes for long luring the poor people into selling their precious kidneys without knowing the consequences. However, it is not a new case that has occurred in Kavre. There were other such cases reported in the past also. But, it was not known whether the culprits were lawfully punished and the victims were properly...

It is sad to know that the political parties have again started playing foul game of retaining the same huge size of CA members (601) of the dead CA who had most unproductively finished billions of rupees in the name of drafting new constitution. It should be widely opposed by every sensible citizen of Republic Nepal. We should not again let them enjoy our hard earned tax paid money from the state coffer for their perks and benefits. I have already started opposing their ill thinking wherever and whenever I get the opportunity. How about you?  

I am not so sure what is cooking behind the curtain in Nepal . In spite of tremendous objections from every walk of life, Constitutional Council nominated widely criticized Lokman S Karki to the top post of CIAA. What made the senior political leaders and CC helpless? The ball is now in the President’s court. Constitutionally, it is difficult for the President to say “ No” to the CC nomination. Let us wait and see how he is going to act.

The Himalayan Times 3 May 2013   This is in reference to the news report “BPKIHS stops admitting patients amid doc’s protest” (THT, 1 May 2013 ). It was quite painful to know that hundreds of visiting patients have been deprived of receiving medical treatments just because of the immoral and insensible acts of the hospital management and the agitating junior doctors. There should be other alternatives to give pressure to the hospital management to be responsible for fulfilling their demands (if the demands were genuine ones) rather than depriving the patients from their rights of receiving basic treatment. Is this not completely against medical ethics of the agitating doctors who were supposed to be guided by their professionalism (taking an oath of serving the people while graduating)?   Both the hospital management and the agitating doctors should sit on the negotiating table and try to amicably settle the burning issues keeping the rights of the patient...

The Himalayan Times 19 April 2013 It was not surprising to read the news report “Books shortage hits students in mid-west” (THT, 17 April, Page 6) that becomes one of the prime news on national dailies every year towards the beginning of new session of schools situated in the remote hill districts of Nepal. However, none of the concerned authorities seem(ed) serious. Their gross negligence have been hitting hard to the students who suffer much from not getting the textbooks on time. All the schools and stationery sellers in these districts which are unable to bring and provide textbooks to their students on time do seem equally responsible for not being responsible. The actual demand of the textbooks in the districts is 3.7 million, whereas, so far, only 1.1 million books have reached 10 districts of Rapti and Bheri Zones. The other districts of Banke and Dang are yet to purchase the textbooks from the regional office of Janak Education Materials Centre (JEMC) Ltd. W...

Recently, I was invited to a political event where the birth of a new political party, “United Peoples Party, Nepal ”, was announced. It was very encouraging to see the young members of the party who seemed optimistic and promising to play crucial and productive political roles in the ongoing political uncertainty. Looking closely at the irresponsible and insensible political activities of the four major parties, there seems an urgent need of a new political force that speaks the voice of the people and acts as per the needs and wish of the people. I wish this new party all the best in its new venture.

The Himalayan Times 5 April 2013 Listening to the Election Commission (EC) officials over the radio talk program, I found them to be indirectly conceding that the next CA would not be possible in June if the outstanding issues (such as the issuance of citizenship certificates to the eligible voters, the compilation and completion of voters registration, and amendment to some laws related to the election) were not be addressed immediately. Now, the EC has started officially considering deferring the poll date from June to November as reported in “EC mulling over Nov poll date” (THT, 3 April, Page 1) All the senior leaders had, until a few days ago, been saying that the next CA election would be held in first week of Asad (i.e late June). Now, they have started changing their tune, publicly saying that the November is the right time to hold the polls as reported in “CA polls in November, says UML Chairman” (THT, 3 April, Page 5). However, the people had already envisag...