Monday, January 16, 2012

A Directly Elected President Is Not Going To Be A Dictator

English: leaders of CPN maoist of Nepal.Image via WikipediaI am not talking electoral college. In America the president is not elected directly or Al Gore would have won in 2000, not George Bush. I am talking electing the president directly in Nepal.

President Or Prime Minister?

Let's imagine a scenario. We have a new constitution and now it is time to head towards elections. The Maoists and the Madhesi Morcha might form an alliance again and Prachanda might be the Maoists' candidate for president. There would be a strong chance Prachanda would get elected.

He would have a four year term. If he does a good job, and the alliance holds, and if he wins again, he might get a second four year term. There would not be a third four year term for him after that. After that he could choose to retire, or he could contest elections to become a member of parliament, it would be up to him.

As Commander In Chief of the Nepal Army his most important tasks might be to (1) democratize the Nepal Army, and (2) to rightsize it, to bring it down to something like 30,000 soldiers and in the process have it reflect Nepal's ethnic and gender composition.

The annual budget for the country would originate out of the president's office, but unless it is passed by the two houses of parliament, that budget would not come into effect. That is called check and balance. That right there is power for the parliament. And it is very likely the Maoists would not have a majority in the parliament. No one party would. A president who could not pass a budget without the parliament would not be a dictator.

The president would have a cabinet. The president would appoint ambassadors.

The parliament would have a Speaker, the head of the legislative branch.

A Maoist might end up president, but the Maoist party likely will not have a majority in the parliament. And there will be elections to the local bodies. It is going to be interesting to see which parties form governments in the various states in the country. And there are going to be local elections. There is going to be a great diffusion of power thanks to federalism.

We might opt for parliamentary style Chief Ministers for the states just to keep the Nepali Congress happy, and to not end up with too many elections.
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Monday, January 02, 2012

President Or Prime Minister?

English: Sketch portrait of Pushpa Kamal Dahal...Image via WikipediaI was super engaged in 2005, 2006 and half way through 2007. I have been rather disengaged from the middle of 2008. But I just came across this article by Kanak Mani Dixit that gave me a glimpse into some of the work that is being done into the new constitution.

He seems to be opposed to the idea of a directly elected president. I have supported the idea. And I don't think my support has been an attempt to copy the American way. In America they don't elect the president through direct vote. I think Nepalis should elect their president directly, one person one vote counted nationwide. If no one person gets at least 50% of the vote there should be a runoff election within a month among the top two candidates.

A directly elected president with a four year term and a two term limit might not be such a bad idea.

(1) It will force a bipolarization of parties, only an alliance of parties could put forth a winning candidate.
(2) After victory the president would become sort of detached from the party.
(3) There would be stability.
(4) A two term president would be out of party and politics for good.
(5) There is something to be said of direct democracy. Forget electoral college. Let people vote for the presidential candidate directly. The idea has to be to vote for the person, not party. This will bring down the parties in importance. The attempt would be to forge a direct relationship between the president and the people.
(6) Don't make it a five year term, and do have term limits.

I am not sure Pushpa Kamal Dahal is a shoo-in for the job. Democracy has a way of surprising you. The Maoists would have to forge an alliance with either the Madhesi Morcha or one of the other two big parties - the Congress, or the UML - to ensure a victory for their candidate. But that coalition building is what happens in the parliament that elects a Prime Minister, does it not? Why not let that coalition building happen out in the open? For all to see?

I am for a directly elected president with a four year term and a two term limit. That president of course would be Commander In Chief of the Nepal Army.
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Monday, November 14, 2011

Ye To Had Ho Gayee

This video clip has been making the rounds right now among some Nepalis.



Some people are rightly offended. But those same people were okay when artists like Santosh Pant made fun of the Madhesis on TV. This particular clip does not have it, but the program did.



And then there is this.



An American getting offended that Nepal's Kumari got stripped of her spiritual status because she visited the US is not insulting, I don't think it is. Really though, why would you strip Kumari's status just because she visited some country? And I don't think Colbert is acting offended, I think he is trying to act funny.

People have a right to burn flags. It is called free speech.

And this offended some Indians, take this.


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Sunday, November 06, 2011

Baburam Compared To Barack


Haaretz: The audacity of hope in Nepal
It is hard to think of two cultures more dissimilar than those of America and Nepal. The first glorifies an individual's ability to change in order to get ahead and overcome the many obstacles in his path. Therefore there is no story more beloved than a "Cinderella" tale: Against all the odds, thanks only to their abilities, a poor person breaks through and achieves amazing things. Nepalese culture, however, sanctifies the individual's ability to accept and come to terms with the way things are in a way that will not damage the purity of his soul. You're in distress? Don't fight it; learn to live with it. Change will come only in the inner realm of the soul.

While the Americans glorify deeds, the Nepalis believe in miracles. Acceptable behavior is also entirely different: If the American is extroverted, the Nepali is introverted. If the American extravagantly shares all his troubles and achievements, the Nepali hides them. In many senses, these two cultures operate in parallel universes.

"There, in the university's fine library, I encountered a small book about a person I had never heard of before," Bhattarai said, "and it shook up my life. This was the biography of Che Guevara, and after I read it I swore to do everything in my power to help my people live in real economic and social freedom."

The hopes attached to him compete only with those pinned on his colleague on the other side of the globe, United States President Barack Obama. It is with good reason he is called "the Nepali Obama" here. Like Obama, Bhattarai is a rare combination of a man of the book and a man of deeds. And like Obama, he too attributes importance to symbolic measures. When he was elected, he preferred to do without an official car and instead continued to travel in a locally made car, without air-conditioning.

...... the idea of a "first lady" is also foreign to Nepalese culture.

...... nearly 60 percent of Nepalese people live below the poverty line.

Traditional agriculture is still the main source of employment for more than 80 percent of the citizens and added to this is the difficulty in recruiting foreign investment because of the small size of the economy, the geographic remoteness, the absence of infrastructures within the country and the considerable exposure to natural disasters.
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Sunday, September 18, 2011

NRN Event At Thakali Kitchen


I happened by the NRN event at the Thakali Kitchen yesterday. I was out and about taking pictures when two people from out of town - Ratan Jha and Mukesh Singh - showed up on my camera's screen.

I show up for events. I don't join organizations. That has been my style. That was my style also when I was doing full time work for Nepal's democracy and Madhesi movements.

It was good to see people like Temba Sherpa do a major membership drive for the NRN organization in the city recently. Nepali organizations in the diaspora tend not to be mass based. And Nepalis in the city are light years away from even wanting - let alone achieving - voting rights in this city. That probably is my number one reason to not become a formal part of the NRN movement, and to stay put with my limited involvement at the city level in mainstream politics.

The NRN movement has fundamental deficiencies. The urge for "consensus" instead of going for democratic, competitive elections hinders progress. Getting along is more important than getting things done. And so you end up with an organizational culture of homesick people who pour enormous energies to put together events so they can meet each other in person. Nothing wrong with all that bonding, but if that ends up the primary purpose of the organization big things are not attempted.

Another major deficiency is the lack of use of social media. People should not have to travel nationally and globally to get active with the organization. This was not the first time Ratanji had suggested his ability to travel was his number one claim to a leadership position. It ought not be that way.

Everyone took turns to speak. I made the shortest of comments. I welcome all those who are here from outside the city, I said. And that is all I said.

The dinner was nice. I got to meet a relative who I did not even know was in New Jersey. I got to sit next to someone with whom I had an email exchange a year ago. I had never met her, never seen her picture.

The NRN movement lacks bigness of vision, and that comes from its lack of grassroots spread, and the stifling of basic democratic processes. There ought be vigorous debates and voting, not "consensus."
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Sunday, August 28, 2011

Baburam Bhattarai: Good News


May 29, 2011: Where To From Here?
March 20, 2005: Doing Business With Baburam Bhattarai

The guy is honest. He is smart. He is a communist, but he is not dogmatic. He is socially progressive. A few years back he compared the plight of the Madhesis in Nepal with the blacks in South Africa during the apartheid regime.

For the first time I am feeling like the peace process in Nepal might finally pick up pace. This alliance between the Maoists and the Madhesi parties also makes sense politically on the ground. The Maoists rule the hills and the western Terai, the Madhesi parties hold sway over the rest of the Terai. The Maoists compete with the Congress and the UML in their strongholds, the Madhesi parties compete with the Congress and the UML, but primarily the Congress in their strongholds. This Maoist-Madhesi alliance might prove relevant also after the parliamentary elections after the new constitution. The Congress and the UML are the parties of the 1990 constitution. The Maoists and the Madhesis are the parties of the constituent assembly. The Congress and the UML disliked the idea of a constituent assembly for as long as they possibly could. They both came to the idea of federalism kicking and screaming.

This prime minister and this alliance could see a full four year term after the next parliamentary elections. But first the work on the constitution.

The Madhesi parties' primarily tussle continues to be with the Nepali Congress. It is not with each other.

NepalNews

Bhattarai elected new Prime Minister of Nepal: Bhattarai received 340 votes while Poudel received 235 votes. .... In addition to his party UCPN (Maoist) which has 237 lawmakers in the 595-member Constituent Assembly, United Democratic Madhesi Front with 65 lawmakers and few fringe parties had also supported Bhattarai. ..... Bhattarai was born in a village called Belbas in Khoplang VDC of Gorkha District on May 26, 1954. He was born in a low - middle class peasant family .... He scored the highest marks among total examinees in SLC examination conducted in 1970 and topped the I.Sc board again in Amrit Science Campus, Kathmandu.

SC trashes petition challenging legality of CA tenure extension
Baburam Bhattarai’s profile: Bhattarai was elected from Gurkha-2 in the CA elections held in 2008 with the 80 percent of votes cast in his constituency
Peace, constitution and relief to people are top priorities, Bhattarai says after getting elected as PM
Dahal heaps praise on Bhattarai: "A-one candidate". .... Dahal also said that his party was in favour of consensus to take the peace process and constitution-drafting even as the government is formed on the basis of majority. ..... Speaking in the House before Dahal, Bhattarai said he was not in favour of majority government personally.

Madhesi Front declares support to Bhattarai; UML goes with NC: five UDMF leaders ..... both sides agreed to negotiate to determine the ranks of Maoist combatants going for integration and to reduce the number for integration up to 7000 from the proposed 8000. .... They also agreed to make the public services inclusive and start inclusion of Madhesis in Nepal Army by fixing a certain number.

Republica

Small cabinet to be sworn in Monday: an agreement has been reached to give 11 ministries to the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF). The new cabinet is also likely to get four deputy prime ministers. .... Bijaya Kumar Gachchhadar from the MPRF-Democratic, Upendra Yadav from MPRF-Nepal, JP Gupta MPRF-Republican and one from the Maoist party are the strong contenders for the deputy prime minister. .... The Maoist party is likely to send its Vice-chairman Narayankaji Shrestha into the cabinet as the deputy prime minister .... there is a tussle between Upendra Yadav and Bijaya Kumar Gachchhadar over who gets to become senior in the cabinet. Yadav may send another party leader into the cabinet if he doesn´t get a position senior to Gachchhadar in the cabinet.

Madhesi alliance to decide its vote Sunday: the Madhesi leaders proposed to the Maoist leadership that a directorate under the Nepal Army should be formed to accommodate 6,000 personnel each from the security agencies, the Maoist combatants and the Madhesi community. That means the directorate will have 18,000 personnel. ..... the alliance has proposed that such a directorate should be mandated to work in the field of development and industry. They have clearly stated in their proposal that such a force will not have any mandate for border security and any combat role. The Maoists, in their proposal made public Thursday, sought to give a general military mandate to such a directorate. ...... Madhesi leaders Jitendra Dev, Laxman Lal Karna and Hrideyesh Tripathi prepared the amended proposal. .... the Madhesi parties have also sought from the Maoist party an agreement on sharing constitutional appointments and other governmental appointments.

Maoists, Madhesis ink four-point deal: no citizen will be deprived of their land ownership, besides agreeing on giving "special" relief for those affected by the Maoist insurgency, Madhes movement and Janjati movement...... "All the court cases against those involved in the Maoist insurgency, Madhes movement, Janjati movement, Tharuhat movement and Dalit and Pichadabarga movements will be dropped and they will be given general amnesty," the second point of the agreement reads. ..... uphold universal fundamental rights, constitutional supremacy, rule of law, press freedom, accountable judiciary, inclusive democracy autonomous states with right to self-determination and competitive politics

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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Bits And Pieces



Wormholes And The Dollar A Day People
The Most Powerful Scene In Interstellar
My New Startup
How Will America Benefit?
BNKS' Gift To Me
Chinatown: My Favorite Part Of Manhattan
$100 Billion Plan To Save The World

The Google/Facebook Of Microfinance
Seeking Head Of State Like Powers
My Web Diagram
Social Concentric Circles
Wearing Black
Black Friday
My Failures
Larry Ellison's 1995 Network Computer Vision
Eric Schmidt's Cloud Computing And My IC Vision
Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures
Permanent War
54 Followers On Angel List
The Significance Of Eating An Apple
The Subway, The Mobile Phone: NYC, The Global South
Top Influencer During Social Media Week? Moi

Me In The New York Times
Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC
Netizen Has Arrived: A Link From AVC

New York City
The White Male Conundrum
White Male Conspiracy To Drive Me Homeless
Truly Disruptive
Race, Gender, Tech (2)
So I Did It
At The Buspark (2)
At The Buspark (2), Kentucky Blues
At The Buspark
1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997, 2007

Hitting The Road
Big Rig
My Hurricane Story
Driving Coast To Coast
My 9/11 Story

So Much For The Butterfly Effect
One More Immigration Court Date
Kentucky Blues
Southern Hospitality
Third World Guy
Enemy Of The State
The First Time I Heard The Obama Name
Larry Shinn
Larry Ellison
Larry Insane
Larry Ellison's Personal Life
Tim Berners-Lee: The Internet Is Not A Country
DL21C: Enemy Organization
What Is Racism?

A Statement For My Next Immigration Court Date

Family, Internet, New York City
The Democratic Party Died For Me In 2008
Berea College Died For Me During Five Minutes With Virgil Burnside
Budhanilkantha School Died For Me On The Kanchenjunga Balcony
Budhanilkantha School (2)

March 8, 2012: Next Immigration Court Date
Using Political Contacts To Beat The Immigration Beast
Questions Prepared By My Lawyer For Immigration Court Date Tomorrow
Immigration Court Date: June 6, 2011: Prepared Statement
June 3 Immigration Court Date
Immigration Mess/Humiliation And Window Shopped Tech Entrepreneurship
My Non Personhood Of 2009, 2010
A Life Of Poverty
April 22 Immigration Court Date
Immigration Is Today's Civil Rights Movement
June 3 Immigration Court Date
An Event Invite From DL21C: This Can't Be Real
A MLK Style Death Awaits Me In Nepal
Jail Time
A Political Immigration Detention
Letter To The Department Of Homeland Security
Freedom, Finally

Robin Hood: My German Nickname

"Do You Have An Email Address?"
"Can You Understand This?"
"Bring Home An African Next Time"
Padgurum
Hawai Chappal
Deaths In The Family
How My Grandfather Became Mayor The First Time
Gonu Jha
Hum Jayega Burnt His Ears
"Thanks For Asking"
Prax
मोदी के चाय दोकान पे चर्चा
पप्पु यादव: Persona Non Grata?

Raksha Bandhan 2011 In Boston
Madhesi Self Hate

Friday, July 22, 2011

At The Buspark (2)


At The Buspark (2), Kentucky Blues
At The Buspark

The legend has it I got beat up at the buspark and that is where it all started.

The truth is nobody laid hands on me. My classmates who plotted the whole thing were so scared of me they did not bother showing up themselves. They knew they had to come back to school once the vacation was over. Where were they gonna go?

Another meme has it that my grades nosedived because I started chasing girls. It was an all boys boarding school.

A third story line says I was not a math and science guy. I was an English Literature person. And so I did not do well for the A Levels Physics, Chemistry and Biology. The truth is that for the nationwide exam I sat for at the end of the year my score for science was the highest in class. I failed O Levels English Literature.

But let's start with the bare facts. I never hit anyone. No one at any point ever hit me. I never got into any fight. I never feared anyone while at school, before, during and after. I was always this natural leader type person with plenty of friends. Until people with a combined age of a few centuries ganged up on me.

Something big did happen at the buspark. My sports captain, someone who shared my ethnicity, was chased to be beat up. A student from my hostel a few years junior to me was humiliated at the buspark. The guy's reaction to the incident was that he lost his mind over the years.

Something very wrong happened at the buspark. Something much worse happened at the school before and after. And it was not from the students. It was from the motherfucking Pahadi Bahun teachers who ran the place.

It is important for me to bring this up. Students/classmates I had beat year after year for seven years to that point a few years later went to Harvard, Stanford and everything in between. My solace is that many of them ended up with brand names like Apple, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, but not one ever thought in terms of creating one. It is called the road less taken. I have not created one either, but I have said I will. I got time. I am only now getting started. You could go work for Apple, or you could create an Apple.

Like I say, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, I never went to Harvard. That makes me one better than Bill Gates in the out of the box thinking department. A Nepali - not a grad of that high school - who is a Harvard MBA now living in Seattle recently reported to me that some of my friends describe me as "the smartest person ever to have attended Budhanilkantha School."

The housemaster of the red house - this motherfucking Bahun by the name of Jiwan Raj Wagle - was the original mastermind of the buspark incident. During the weeks prior he apparently told his students, "Do what you have to do outside of the school compound!"

And so some of his students volunteered to orchestrate the buspark incident. My vice captain, who was from Kathmandu valley, tricked the perpetrators into writing an apology letter to the school authorities not long after it happened. They promptly owned up to the whole thing.

So now the school authorities had everything they needed to take action.

Instead they suspended my sports captain. A few weeks later they suspended me. Then they suspended my vice captain.

I have immense hatred for the Bahuns like Jiwan Raj Wagle and Sudarshan Risal. What those motherfuckers started was a family feud. And they found a ready ally in the white male headmaster.

First they wanted to kick me out of school. Then they said let him finish the school year and then let's kick him out. Finally they suspended me from my office of House Captain.

It was the strangest experience. I had not participated in any fight. I had not hit anyone. No one had hit me. I had not organized any protest later. I had felt bad about the injustice later, but I had kept my feelings to myself. I was gearing up for the end of year exams instead. And they still did what they did.

What happened was the entire establishment, the Pahadi/Bahun establishment started seeing me as a future Prime Minister, and they decided it was best to nip the bud early. And so they came after me full force. Nepal has never had a Madhesi Prime Minister.

It was a nexus of the Pahadi Bahun and the White Male. One Britisher once called me "Napoleon" a year or two later. Apparently my year as House Captain had threatened the White Male order in the world. He also compared me to Maradona. Maradona was relentlessly fouled on the soccer field. He suggested it was like that.

"Don't you miss it when we used to rule India?" he asked another Britisher in my presence months after I was done with school. This was in Thamel, Kathmandu.

I only came to America after he left Nepal. He was the college counselor. Before the final exams for A Levels, there were the trial exams. It was grades from these that went to the US and UK colleges. When you scored a BCC, the school gave you ABB since it was thought you would improve two months later and people did. I scored CDD. Everyone else's grades got jacked up by one, this guy left my grades at CDD. The day before the finals began he yelled at me so hard he woke up people asleep one floor up. He spoiled my week. I graduated with EEE. After school I did political work and wrote a 100 page book and applied. I got myself admitted to the top Economics department in the world, "not for your numbers, but your actions and words." The school awarded five seats and three scholarships. One of the five declined because he wanted to go to India. One guy readily took the scholarship and went to Chicago. One Bahun took the offer, went to Chicago, and came right back to go to medical school in India. He invested in round trip airfare to spoil it for me. If the Pahadi Bahun White Male nexus had not spoilt it for me yet one more time I might have met Barack Obama at Chicago. And he might never have become president. (The First Time I Heard The Obama Name)

There was this guy Anil, classmate. If I were as good at soccer as he was, I thought, I would not spend as much time as he did at the Computer Center, I'd be out on the soccer field. I mean, this guy was our Bill Gates. He was the out of the box guy, passionate about computers and electronics. This white guy once yelled into his ears so bad Anil went to Japan for college, the rest of the crowd headed west.

That yelling was child abuse. Anil was not legally an adult yet.

It was like they stabbed a dagger into my thigh with the buspark incident and I reeled for the rest of my time there. I might have been depressed at some level. It is this experience from where I derive my intense political affinity for women. The illogic of the injustice made me feel very out of place in the logics of Physics, Chemistry and Biology. I went through the motions of my science classes like Galileo going through the motions of church services. He instead focused on the swinging pendulum. I saw water but did not have the vocabulary for it, so I did not know what it was that I was seeing. I took the emotional hits but it was long years before I had the words to articulate what might have happened.

I have thought in terms of political warfare. If I had the mind to do so well in academics and in group dynamics, the positive kind, maybe I can apply that same mind to political warfare and drive home the message to those Pahadis, those Bahuns. It is still not too late. This fight could go generations. I could fucking colonize their backyards.

This was also my introduction to the White Male. I was reintroduced to the White Male later in Kentucky.

One line of attack was that I was an out of the valley guy, I did not have connections in Kathmandu, and so the mishap fell in my lap. That was not the case. My vice captain was from the valley. There were as many connected Kathmandu valley people in my blue house as there were in the red house.

And a prince classmate threw his weight behind me. His father was brother to the king. The country was no democracy. In many ways his father was the most powerful man in the country. This prince got a body builder type to show up at school and go scare the people in the red house.

The white male headmaster suspended the prince. This prince, son to the most powerful man in the country, was not too connected to not be suspended, but the minions in the red house were too connected? That argument flies in the face of logic.

They came after me, they came individually after me. They formed an alliance of the Pahadi Bahun and the White Male because both felt their places in the world threatened by an under age guy who had just given them the best year any House Captain ever in school history.

And so I say nuke that high school. My idea of nuking would be to see a day when every page in every textbook is online, accessible to anyone and everyone. I think I already have seen that day. It is called the Wikipedia.