Protests

Words Matter

Pahadi/Madhesi
Pahade/Madhese
Pahadwasi/Teraiwasi
Pahariya/Madhesiya
Pakhe/Madisey
Thepche/Kale
Topi/Dhoti
Sikkime/Indian
Bahadur/Khali-Shishi
Mercenary/Madey

When Kunda Dixit was in town, I got to meet a lot of people who really struggled to understand how the word "madisey" was offensive. I am trying to make a point here that words matter.

It is a vertical split, if you think about it.

Kunda Dixit In Jackson Heights

In The News

• We had no other choice: Koirala He further added that the demand for ‘total democracy’ being demanded by the alliance of seven opposition parties was a ‘borderline’ with republicanism...... ‘Now it is up to people to decide whether they want the institution of monarchy or not’ ....... Amik Sherchan said how could the parties believe that the king had kept open the doors for dialogue when the doors of the Birendra International Convention Centre (BICC) had been shut.......... Leaders of major Indian political parties, who had arrived Kathmandu at the invitation of the NC, expressed their solidarity and support towards Nepal’s pro-democracy movement. A senior leader of ruling Congress (I) of India, Anil Shastri, said there was a wave of democracy flowing around the world and that Nepal could be no exception.
• SC issues stay order on RCCC probe; Rawal released Rawal who was arrested this morning by plainclothes security men sent by the RCCC, was released following the court decision this afternoon...... The SC in its statement said that at a time when the constitutionality of the RCCC was being questioned, its actions on a case which already decided by a constitutional body - the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) – could not proceed until a final court verdict came....... for the first time the Supreme Court mentioned about the constitutional ground of the RCCC formed by the King.......
• NC General Convention Kicks Off Representatives of political parties of India and Switzerland also addressed the inaugural function, stressing that multiparty democracy should be restored in Nepal at the earliest.
• SC Order On Petro Hike The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday ordered the government to be present before it in a hearing to discuss whether or not to issue an interim order in the case against the government’s petro-price hike decision....... Besides, the court also issued a show cause notice to the government on the matter..... A single bench of justice Arjun Prasad Singh issued the order following a hearing on a petition filed by advocate Chandra Kanta Gyawali against the price hike........ Similarly, the apex court ordered the government to be present before it on September 7 to discuss the issuing of an interim order regarding the government ban on union of civil servants.
• Defensive About Democracy The 1990 People’s Movement brought unprecedented political and economic freedom to Nepalis, but democracy died young. This book is Mahat’s attempt to figure out what went wrong, what went right, and an effort to trace the structural stresses that contributed to the country’s present state...... The road network more than doubled between 1990 and 2002, the proportion of Nepalis with access to electricity went up from nine percent to 40 percent, and those with access to safe drinking water nearly doubled. The average life expectancy of Nepalis rose six years to 59 within a decade........ Mahat sounds defensive, and the reason is that there is such a concerted offensive now to uproot democracy....... ex-minister gives us a peek behind the scenes at the struggle to craft policy reforms necessary to make change happen...... the nation is being dragged back not just to pre-1990 but pre-1960...... dictatorship was worse: just look back at the 1960-1990 period, the two and half centuries before that, or post-October 2002..... the rise of Maoism, but argues that much more of a factor was the entrenched feudalism and the traditional disregard of Kathmandu for the rest of the country....... after 1990 power was transferred from Kathmandu’s oligarchs to a new breed of rural middleclass Nepalis. Many of them turned out to be hill bahuns, so what we saw was parliament, politics and the bureaucracy more bahun-chhetri dominated since 1990 than ever before........ devotes an entire chapter to rake up Arun III and thinks its cancellation was a ‘national loss’........ Ten years after the $1 billion project was cancelled, he is convinced the two Aruns would have delivered the cheapest firm energy. What Mahat doesn’t point out is that in place of Arun III we have dozens of smaller plants that generate nearly twice the energy built in half the time for less than half the cost of that mammoth project......... Subsequent chapters are on corruption (graft in Nepal was blown out of proportion by a newly-free press)...... Kul Chandra Gautam of UNICEF argues in the foreward, ‘democracy tends to be a self-correcting system, and given a fair chance the distortions can and will have been rectified’.
• RCCC Takes Rawal Into Custody As per the order of the Commission, police arrested Rawal from his residence at Ghattekulo at around 9:45 a. m...... legal community in the country were dismayed at the RCCC’s act of `detaining’ Rawal after he had approached the Supreme Court for protection against ‘illegal detention.’.... The constitution of the kingdom of Nepal, 1990, guarantees the citizen’s right against illegal detention...... executive committee member of Nepal Bar Association and advocate Tikaram Bhattarai said the RCCC’s act of arresting Rawal in a sub-judice case was clearly a contempt of court. He even alleged that the RCCC was trying ‘to take law in its own hand by spreading fear and intimidation.’....... The Commission on Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had investigated twice in the CSWA case in the past and ordered to send the file against Rawal into pending saying that it did not find any evidence of irregularities committed by the former Civil Aviation minister in the episode.
• Maoist suspect released after 7-years The Supreme Court (SC) Monday released Bishal Khadka, after seven years in preventive detention...... Khadka was released in the presence of a SC registrar. He was arrested on suspicion of being a Maoist seven years ago. A division bench of justices Kedar Prasad Giri and Ram Prasad Shrestha ordered the released of Khadka.

Democrats Rebuff Maoists And Monarchists

Prachanda wants to talk. The king wants to talk. But the democrats are rebuffing both. This has to be seen as the new found confidence of a group that has been in disarray for long.

It is remarkable that the Nepali Congress has made the changes it has in its documents. The NC otherwise has been a sloth.

Now only if they could "cure" Girija!

In The News

• Nepal Political Party Opens Convention Guardian Unlimited, UK ...... ``If the king does not need political parties, then political partied do not need the king either,'' said Madhav Nepal...... ``It has been proven that even if the king is left with little power or role, democracy will never be safe,'' said Narhari Acharya, a candidate for the party's presidency......The tug-of-war within the party has been blamed for slowing down the campaign to restore democracy ..... Koirala has also been accused of nepotism within party ranks, and many of his former supporters have quit to join rival parties.
• Nepal PM ready for talks with parties Times of India, India ...... Admitting that the gap between him and Nepal's political parties has "widened" ...... "The political parties must possess crystal-clear views on four issues- terrorism, good governance and corruption, politicisation in bureaucracy and financial discipline - for talks," he said adding "if they make clear views on these issues then there will be room for dialogue"........ "there have been squabbles between the political parties and the King as between husband and wife, which is natural when we are too close"....... Admitting that some of the Maoists' demands were "justifiable," he said the 21 point programme announced by him attempted to address the issues raised by the guerillas.
• Nepal king's offer of dialogue rebuffed Radio Australia, Australia ....... The leaders of two parties, the Nepali Congress and Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist say they are no longer committed to having a monarchy in the Himalayan country.......
  
• Nepali Congress to choose new leadership: NewKerala.com, India ....... four-day convention to choose a new leadership...... four-time former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala ..... The differences between the two leaders reached a head in May 2002 when Deuba, who was then prime minister, ignored his party's advice not to extend a state of emergency and asked for the dissolution of parliament....... the octogenarian leader who rules over his party with an iron fist had the party statutes changed so that he could continue as chief for another term..... the party will severe its ties with monarchy.
• Debating on constitutional monarchy Kathmandu Post, Nepal ..... Constitutional monarchy is practically dead. It is no longer a burning issue....... The main political parties are showing strong signs of vacillation on the theory and practice of monarchy. They go one step forward to threaten it but move two steps back to retract or reform it. ...... alternatives of constitutional monarchy and monarchical constitution..... Till now, every one is playing a soft and relatively safe game. The political parties and the palace have not pushed each other to the wall. The parties are free to agitate peacefully and express their views in public. The palace is not hard on them in their oppositional activities....... Neither the Maoists nor the government security forces are in a decisive and desperate situation. Even a casualty over a hundred lives in Kalikot conflagration has not made any visible difference to their strategic or military strength, let alone their thinking pattern. They are run-ning their business as usual...... the days of soft decisions are over. What we look forward to is the time of hard choices especially when a new Krishna (Pahadi) cult of republicanism is emerging on the horizon.
• Beware parties Kantipur ...... there is news report in the Maoist web-site as well as rumors that the king may reinstate the dissolved parliament ..... A ploy to divide the 7-party coalition's struggle for democracy and continue to rule by discrediting the leaders and political parties by making them agree to another compromise....... all political activities should be transparent..... the people, political parties and civil societies demanded reinstatement of the dissolved parliament in order to democratize Nepal with a representative government to reform the constitution by the two thirds majority to pave the way to evolve a new constitution through an elected constitutional assembly, to put all security structures under the parliament, to dissolve all supra or extra constitutional bodies and to declare a cease-fire in order to have successful dialogue with the Maoists........ mainstream the Maoists with the formation of an interim government ...... I hope that the parties will act wisely and refrain from shady deals with regressive institutions.
• Dirty politics for NGO purification Kantipur ...... Because of the diversity of NGO constituencies, sizes, strategies, structure, ideologies, specialization, sources of funding, agenda and power, it is not possible to describe an average NGO. They may be religious, secular or affiliated with political and social groups; be funded by businesses, foundations, private citizens and governments; specialize in a technical field or operate for multiple purposes......... The government has regarded very few human rights NGOs that have mortgaged their conscience by overtly supporting the regime in the wake of February 1 move as non-partisan, nonsectarian and non-political......... The promulgation of the ordinance and the code of conduct in pipeline are basically directed towards curbing front-line human rights NGOs which have been enormously critical to the new regime. Thus, the exercise to introduce the Ordinance is politically motivated and the conspiracy has been calculated behind the curtain in a clandestine manner......... concerns over the dissenting political behavior of NGOs...... NGOs can not function independently except for the GONGOs (government sponsored non-governmental organizations) in an undemocratic and brutal society. Political freedom is a prerequisite to operate any voluntary sector without state's dictation and encroachment to its jurisdiction....... Another major concern of the government which is circuitously reflected in the Ordinance is the question of the 'covert' objectives or agendas which are perceived to have negative political consequences or are in contradiction to the regime's new political doctrine.
• Guerrillas abduct 130 civilians in mid-western Nepal Xinhua, China
• Guerrillas abduct 200 civilians in far-western Nepal People's Daily Online
• UN alarmed by disappearances in Nepal conflict Reuters AlertNet, UK ...... "The problem of disappearances continues to be a serious concern," Ian Martin ......The condition of 888 people reported to have disappeared in state custody has not been made public so far," the commission said in a statement. There was no information about another 98 people reported kidnapped by the rebels ...... civil rights groups were being harassed for trying to find missing people. ...... Last year, the United Nations Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances urged the army to keep a national register of detainees and stop incommunicado detentions...... "There is still much to be done on implementing those recommendations"
• NEPAL: Focus on rural development in Maoist areas Reuters AlertNet, UK ...... "What choice do we have? The Maoists control 80 percent of the district and say they have the authority to know all about our activities" ...... a part of the country characterised by inadequate health facilities, water shortages, poor agricultural production, low literacy rates and widespread discrimination against women....... The NGOs are tired of Maoist demands to pay 'donations' to the movement and demands that they register with the 'people's government' for permission to launch and maintain their projects...... Several volunteers from remote community-based organisations explained that aid and development work can continue as long as it falls within strict parameters imposed by the Maoists: NGOs must be transparent and honest and must not be funded by Washington or the Nepali government........ Programmes related to women's development, irrigation, agriculture, health and water, funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DfID), Germany's GTZ and the World Bank, are all running smoothly....... "We show them all our budget expenses and they also ask local villagers if they are satisfied with our work" ...... Often NGO staff are compelled to pay a monthly 'income tax' of 10 percent of their total salary. The danger of being forced to do this is that those who pay are then vulnerable to interrogation and arrest by security personnel...... there is no consistency amongst rebel leaders..... "There are different sets of Maoist rules and policies in every VDC. The senior leaders have given the VDC Maoist in charge, full freedom to introduce any policy to suit their interests" ...... The international agencies, especially the UN, have to really put strong pressure on the top Maoist leadership to ensure that the junior cadres allow us to work without any threats or pressure....... Recently, in the remote Jaljala VDC, villagers took on the rebels after a local NGO was warned to stop work on an income generation project. They told the rebels that they would be prepared to fight against them if the project closed down........ "The Maoists agreed not to create any more obstacles for the project and it is now running successfully.... The people will do anything to protect such a project that is really helping them"
• Rebels torch bus, abduct 202 people in Nepal Daily Times
• Guerrillas torch buses, abduct security men in eastern Nepal People's Daily Online
• Parties not deterred by King’s remarks: Nepal Kantipur Online, Nepal .... called on the civil society and media to take the King’s remarks seriously and oppose it ..... “Previously, ministers used to give threats to political parties and now the chairman of the council of ministers has started doing the same”....“We will launch door to door visits at the local level to encourage the people to join the protest”
• ‘Go for constituent assembly’ Kathmandu Post On the eve of the 11th General Convention of Nepali Congress, senior leaders of the seven-party alliance on Monday urged the party to opt for a clear forward-looking political agenda that would allow the party to go for constituent assembly....... Standing Committee member of CPN-UML Jhalanath Khanal, NC (D) central committee member Bimalendra Nidhi and General Secretary of Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandidevi) Hridayesh Tripathi said that since the existing national challenges were not possible to be addressed under prevailing political structure, NC should internalize the political agenda of constituent assembly in its statute.
• NC breaks with history omitting constitutional monarchy from its party statute ..... finalized a policy paper that officially cuts off the party's relations with the country's 237-year-old institution, the monarchy..... delete "constitutional monarchy" from Clause 2 of the party statute .... The party has also amended its statute which earlier mentioned constitutional monarchy as its pride. Now the statute mentions constitutional monarchy as a past glory....... The NC decision, along with a decision by CPN-UML last week to go for democratic republic, marks the beginning of a new polarization toward republicanism in the country.......Senior NC leader Shailaja Acharya and Nara Hari Acharya wrote notes of dissent. Shailaja said she was absolutely against the idea of omitting constitutional monarchy from the party statute. "I am not in favor of deviating from our decades old middle-path," Acharya said. "It will be counterproductive not only for the party but also for the entire nation." She demanded her statement be recorded in the party and walked out of the meeting........ She also argued that dropping monarchy from the party statute meant declaring the present constitution dead....... Narahari Acharya wrote a dissenting note for a different reason. He argued that the party should have decided unambiguously in favor of establishing supremacy of parliament under people's sovereignty........ also endorsed a number of agendas including putting the army under a representative institution, socio-economic reforms and constituent assembly elections for making people sovereign in the real sense....... The party also urged Maoist rebels for clear commitment to lay down arms before the constituent assembly elections. It also urged the king to let the people decide what sort of role they want for the monarch........ More than 95 percent of the 1464 delegates (seven each from 205 constituencies and central committee members)....... the central president can nominate up to 30 representatives to the convention but he has not nominated anyone as of yet........ Girija Prasad Koirala, will contest the party presidency for a third consecutive term, though he has not yet announced his candidacy. Narahari Acharya has already announced his candidacy for the party's top post........ Late BP Koirala's youngest son, Dr Sashanka Koirala, has announced his candidacy for central committee member........ The CWC meeting has not proposed any significant changes in the party's organizational structure that gives enormous power to the party's central president......... Speaker Tara Nath Ranabhat has urged the party to take initiatives for party unity, ensure international democracy, restore collective leadership and take initiative to pave an active role for former prime minister KP Bhattarai in the party....... Existing Clause 2 Based on the principles of nationalism, democracy and socialism and within the framework of constitutional monarchy, multiparty system and parliamentary form of government, the NC aspires to achieve socio-political and economic development of the country by creating a just and dynamic society. Amended Clause 2 Based on the principles of nationalism, democracy and socialism and within the framework of multiparty system and parliamentary form of government, the NC aspires to achieve socio-political and economic development of the country and create a dynamic and just society by restructuring the state and implementing the concept of inclusive democracy