HELLO NEPAL

The Himalayan Times 21 July 2022 People’s frustration Political changes in some parts of the globe are disturbing and worrisome, considering the social and economic impacts being faced by the common people. The visual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and bad governance are among other factors destabilizing nation, resulting in the collapse of the government. Growing dissatisfaction among the people towards the performance of their governments, who failed to address their hardships, could be disastrous for the democratically-elected government. That was what happened in Sri Lanka where the highly influential leaders, who were democratically elected and responsible for running the government, undermined the accumulated frustration of the common people over the last one decade, resulting in thousands of people coming out to the streets to express their frustration.   Crises like these do not just happen overnight, they are the result of decades of mal-governance by leaders w...

  The Himalayan Times 14 July 2022 Missed opportunity One might be surprised to know about the government’s capital spending capacity dramatically increases towards the end of any fiscal year. All the government ministries, departments and their subordinate offices become very active in spending their annual budget allocated for the development projects with the approach of the end of the fiscal year. We see this trend continuing every fiscal year despite the Auditor General Office’s (ADG) repetitive objection while auditing their annual operations. However, the government and its bodies have failed to abide by this financial rule and continue to disburse the budget haphazardly in the last month and week of the financial year. In accordance with the Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO), the government had spent Rs 1.238 trillion (75.81 %), out of the total allocated budget of Rs 1.633 trillion, for this fiscal year. As per the existing financial rules, the capital b...

  The Himalayan Times 7 July 2022 NOC :state owned sinking entity It is not surprising to hear that the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has again raised the prices of petroleum products effective Monday midnight citing losses of billions of rupees due to lack of price adjustment as per the price hike in the international market “NOC hikes price of petroleum products” (THT, July 5, Page 1). It buys petroleum products from India and claims that it has incurred a loss of Rs47 billion in the last 10 months, and this is expected to reach Rs60 billion in the next month. If it fails to clear its outstanding dues within the next month, which does not seem possible by any means, the supply of petroleum products to Nepal might come to a halt or reduced to a meagre volume. NOC management must have developed a market selling pricing system after topping-up its operational costs plus taxes to be paid to the government for different purposes and commissions to be paid to the petroleum dealer...

The Himalayan Times 1 July 2022 No more political parties Nepal and its people continue to suffer miserably in many aspects, including the current sky rocketing market prices of consumable foodstuffs and goods due to irresponsible, insensible and unaccountable government. All political parties, who had formed the government and run the nation in the past, also failed to prove their capabilities to lead the nation towards prosperity. Even the two-thirds majority government of the then NCP could not survive its full five-year term owing to its internal political feud. It seems now that the country is gradually losing its sovereignty due to seen and unseen political interference of external powers, owing to the unprincipled and indecisive political behavior of the senior leaders of the major political parties. I have nothing to do with any political parties. Being a staunch supporter and believer in constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy, considering the historical, t...

  The Himalayan Times 23 June 2022 Listen to people’s voices The universal definition of democracy is a rule of the people, for the people and by the people. It means that democracy is a form of government in which the rulers are elected by the people. In fact, the citizens of the country elect their representatives, who, in turns, form the government to rule the country and such government is to work for the welfare of the people. I am not so sure whether any past or the present government is aware of these universally accepted norms and values of democracy, looking at the way they run the country. I know for sure that our political leaders, especially senior ones, never hesitate to claim to be the champion of democracy, but in practical terms they have always failed to perform accordingly. For a democracy to function properly, it is essential that any government should respect the people and take them seriously, not only those who have voted them, but all other people. Fu...

NEPAL-ZONE OF PEACE NEPAL-Zone of Peace (ZoP) was a proposition made by Late King Birendra during his coronation ceremony in 1975. His Majesty had formally asked the international community to endorse his proposal that the United Nations should declare Nepal a ZoP, so as to give a new dimension to the Nepalese non-alignment. More than 130 countries had accepted and endorsed “Nepal –Zone of Peace”. However, our southern neighbour never felt comfortable to endorse this proposal because of its hostile political thinking towards its neighbours. The seven-point definition declaring Nepal a Zone of Peace included: 1. Nepal will adhere to the policy of peace, non-alignment and peaceful co-existence and will constantly endeavor to develop friendly relations with all countries of the world regardless of their social and political systems and particularly with its neighbors on the basis of equality and respect for each other’s independence and sovereignty. 2. Nepal will be seeking peac...

The Himalayan Times 16 June 2022 Source of commission Chemical fertiliser was introduced into Nepal in the early 1950s with the introduction of a small quantity of ammonium sulphate from India, imported by private traders. Chemical fertiliser has become a political commodity for many years which has been creating havoc among the farmers when they need it the most during rice plantation seasons. This situation has been hitting hard to both the farmers and the country’s economic growth which largely depends on agriculture. It normally takes six months to procure chemical fertiliser following a global tender call under the Public Procurement Act. If so, why don’t the government and its concerned ministry begin the process on time so that the fertilizers reach farmers field on right time?    According to the Agriculture Ministry, Nepal's annual requirement of chemical fertiliser stands at more than 700,000 tonnes. Demand for chemical fertiliser has increased enormously in...