United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal

For the record: Nepali Congress “will not let the integration happen if the Maoists continued their criminal activities.”

Nepali Congress (NC) President Girija Prasad Koirala today said he is not in favour of integration of the Maoist combatants into the Nepal Army (NA). He said that the NC, the opposition party in the Constituent Assembly, will prevent the army integration to save the NA from politicisation. “The NC is against the army integration now since the Maoists have continued violence,” he added. Addressing the National Awareness Campaign of the NC in Nepalgunj today, the former prime minister referred to the killing of two youths in Dhading by the Maoist youth wing Young Communist League (YCL), and said, “I will not let the integration happen if the Maoists continued their criminal activities.” He further claimed that the YCL will eventually put an end to the Maoists and party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Read more »

Filed under: Security 2 | 9 Comments »

Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” and Mohan Baidya at loggerheads

By Renu Kshetry

The central committee (CC) meeting of CPN (Maoist) held on Monday (yesterday) saw party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and leader of the hard-line faction Mohan Baidya present separate political documents. Prime Minister Dahal presented three options on republicanism - the federal democratic republic, people’s republic and transitional republic. It is the first time the party chairman has presented the idea of “transitional republic,” which, some analysts said, could be a middle-of-the road approach. Dahal has now offered to bring together the two factions - proponents of People’s Republic and Democratic Republic. Read more »

Filed under: Maoist Politics | 23 Comments »

Fundraising literature ditches efforts to portray the complexity, diversity and positive signs in Nepal in favour of a plethora of statistics that prove the extent of Nepal’s poverty and backwardness.

By James Sharrock in The Kathmandu Post

Around this time just before Christmas INGOs and development organisations across Europe are gearing up for their big Christmas fundraising appeals. Christmas has always been a time for fundraising and ongoing global economic problems won’t alter that. So, right about now, potential donors in the West will be reading newsletters and e-mails all about the work of charities or NGOs which help the poor. In the development industry Africa is widely seen as the centre of world poverty. After annual TV reports of droughts, flood and civil war, Africa, for the Western TV viewer, now feels instinctively poorer than anywhere else too. Nowadays, the marketing process for funds in the top INGOs has moved on and caught up with these TV viewers. Images of starving children have now been replaced by catalogues of goats and chickens, ready for you to buy for a poor villager. Oxfam’s Unwrapped catalogue, to take one example, now offers an amazing range of feel-good Christmas gifts for you to choose for the underprivileged; from ’safe water for 12 people’ to a genuine ‘build a bog’ (toilet) option!

Amongst all of this, jamboree fundraisers for Nepal have, as charity appeals might say, ‘a mountain to climb’. Oxfam and many others fundraisers for and work in Nepal too but their major focus is on Africa. How can Nepal ever compete with a whole continent for Westerners charitable donations? It is, after all, not often that the rest of the world see images of Nepalis starving or (except this year, sadly) suffering from floods. And being well-known in the West as the home of Everest, trekking and as a spiritual playground doesn’t necessarily help development organizations raise money for Nepal either. However there are ways of getting around this visibility problem, namely by selling Nepali poverty in certain unique ways. In this way foreign NGOs and INGOS can, in the process, help create false perceptions and make Nepal appear as another Africa.

Read more »

Filed under: Guest Column | 21 Comments »

By Dinesh Wagle

Congratulations America! Thanks for electing Barack Obama the president of your country. Wish I was in Chicago. This is time for celebration. History has been made, in a spectacular fashion. Yesterday evening when TV was showing black people standing in lines to vote, my mom asked: America ma pani kala hunchhan ra? [Are there blacks even in America?]. Before we saw on TV the likes of Williams sisters and Tiger Woods rocking their respected fields we were brought up learning that only Gora (whites) are the Amrekane (Americans). A gora from anywhere would be the Amrekane for us. That’s why I didn’t find anything surprising in my mom’s question. There is some sense of disbelief thinking a black man has risen to the presidency of the United States. Read more »

Filed under: American Elections | 41 Comments »

The UN Secretary-General will visit Nepal latter this month, is spokesperson said Thursday. While in Nepal, the Secretary-General will meet with the President, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and members of the Constituent Assembly. The Secretary-General will also visit Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, the spokesperson said.

Ian Martin, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal, held a press conference at the Reporter’s Club, Kathmandu today. Here is the transcript as provided by the UNMIN. (Note: the questions in some cases are summarised)

Ram Kumar Kamat, The Himalayan Times: I read in today’s newspaper that Girija Prasad Koirala asked you that if Maoist army is integrated into Nepal Army, it will tarnish its image internationally. Apparently you agreed to this when he asked you. Do you want to say anything on that?

Ian Martin: First, let me say that neither I nor UNMIN have ever been an advocate for or against integration. We have never taken a position on this issue. We have always made clear that like other aspects of the peace process, this is for Nepalis to decide and the political actors reached agreements as to the process by which they would decide it. And that’s the special committee that I have referred to and that’s the place where the discussion about integration and re-integration has to take place. And if the United Nations is asked to make international experience available to the special committee then we will be happy to do so, but not with any United Nations proposal or any United Nations model to offer from elsewhere. Read more »

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A press statement issued by Nepal Rastra Bank said that food and beverage prices shot up by 13.4 percent while non-food and service rates were up 12.7 percent.

Propelled by a remarkable rise in the prices of food and non-food commodities, the rate of inflation during the first month of the current fiscal year climbed to an alarming 13.1 percent from 6.3 percent recorded during the same period last year. A press statement issued by Nepal Rastra Bank said that food and beverage prices shot up by 13.4 percent while non-food and service rates were up 12.7 percent. Of the items showing a double-digit price rise, the price indices of oil and ghee increased by a whopping 36 percent in mid-August 2008 compared to an increase of 11.4 percent a year ago, said the release. Likewise, the sub-group of grains and cereal products witnessed a rise of 23.5 percent in mid-August 2008 while the prices of rice and rice products increased by 27.8 percent compared to an increase of 7 percent a year ago. Read more »

Filed under: nepali economy | 19 Comments »

By Bishnu Pathak and Neil Horning

The reactions to the budget from the nation’s policymakers and critics are often guided by four motives. Those who made the budget in the past regard it as imbalanced and untenable and heap praise on their own budget. Others who suffered defeat in the CA polls from the Maoists are scared of the perpetual marginalization that stares them in the face and wish to see their Maoist rivals failing and faltering on all fronts and to stand thus vindicated. Another group of intellectuals, those affiliated to political parties other than the Maoist, appear inordinately critical in expounding their techno-statistical expertise on the budget and dub it as overtly ambitious and populist. The Maoists and the intellectual professionals close to them, however, claim the budget as a historical document, regarding it to be achievable, pro-poor, and growth-oriented, and blame their critics as feudal-minded. The donors, in general, remain neutral, at present, and the people are waiting for the budget to deliver in the field. For, that is where its ultimate test will lie. Read more »

Filed under: nepali economy | 28 Comments »

By Krishna Giri

I do not know much about Tanka P Acharya, who broke the traditional trend by visiting China, and hence can not speculate on the facts of media coverage then. However, when Maoist supremo followed Acharya’s footsteps, many Nepali and Indian tabloid have covered the news as ‘first time’ adding historic, challenging, brave etc. Keeping the tradition of ‘Baleko Ago Tapne’, media and civic societies never bother to compare the trip in its core terms. The purpose of Achary’s trip to China was to show the integrity and sovereignty of an independent nation, when India was trying to swallow the region after freeing from multiple generation of colonisation. Where as, Prachanda’s trip to China was to visit the Mao’s home, a shrine for communists, and to appreciate the success of a totalitarian regime. In Hindu traditions, when people start to do some ‘Subhakarya’, they visit some temple and Prachanda did exactly the same by visiting the Mao’s home to initiate his mission to establish Nepal as People’s Republic. His mission has started from China but it will not be completed without getting blessings from India. And he is back after having mysterious blessings from India. We do not know the contents in that package of blessings but he had illustrated to the world a lucid picture of a Nepali executive head while hugging Indian PM. His posture, gesture, facial expression, and body language were by no means a representation of a PM and if I have to compare that event with some one, I would compare that with a 5 year old hugging an uncle who offers him/her heaps of lollies. Nevertheless, I do respect him as a leader but not his ideology. Read more »

Filed under: Maoist Politics | 36 Comments »

In their first ever budget speech, the Maoists promise to build the infrastructures and propel the economic growth that they mercilessly destroyed and pushed back in the name of revolution during the decade-long insurgency

By Prem Khanal
the Kathmandu Post

The first fiscal-year budget of the Democratic Republic of Nepal unveiled yesterday by the Maoists-led government was extraordinarily ambitious both in mobilization of resources and in expenditures.

The budget for fiscal year 2008/09, which vows to start building a solid platform for putting the economy onto a double-digit growth track in two years, proposes to spend Rs 236 billion - almost Rs 647 million per day. However, experts say that the budget, which plans to raise expenditure by 45 percent in a single year, lacks concrete plans for improving the poor capacity for implementation of development projects, a key factor in the low absorption of allocated budgetary amounts. Read more »

Filed under: nepali economy | 25 Comments »

Impact of Koshi’s devastation

The Koshi River breached on the nose of spur 12.90 and 12.10 on the eastern embankment, 12 km north of the barrage near midnight on August 18, 2008. Immediately, five Village Development Committees (VDCs) — West Kushaha, Haripur, Sripur, Laukahi, and Bokraha of Sunsari District — of Nepal and 14 Districts in Bihar, India were inundated by severe flooding. About a dozen people were killed in Nepal and 42 in India as of now. There are several reports that many more are missing. In the initial days, displaced persons were compelled to drink unsafe (Koshi flooded) water which resulted in 20 deaths due to cholera and other water borne illnesses. Many people have suffered eye disorders such as conjunctivitis. Children are suffering from pneumonia. About 60,000 inhabitants in 10,530 families of Sunsari district have been evacuated, whereas one million have been in Bihar. Koshi is also called Sapta Koshi – which includes seven major tributaries (Sun Koshi, Tama Koshi, Dudh Koshi, Indrawati, Likhu, Arun and Tamar) and 125 small tributaries in Nepal. Read more »

Filed under: Announcements | 28 Comments »