Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Kathmandu: Those who have had nurtured an illusion in their minds that the insurgents were a force with meager strength could all have come to their senses June 2 nd, last week when they could see for themselves the sea of men who had converged in the main heart of the city to make the Maoists sponsored convention a grand success.

Analysts presume that the Maoists' show-of-strength right here in Kathmandu on that particular day must have jolted many a countries around the globe when they would have received information about the Maoists strength through their Kathmandu based emissaries.

The fact is that, let us admit, the strength that the Maoists exhibited on that day was unprecedented and the local Kathmanduites have had never seen such an organized, well disciplined and well managed communists' gathering.

Had they wished to bring about a sort of disturbance to the freshly restored peace in the valley, they would have done so easily. However, they did not do so for they amply exhibited that they were a "disciplined" lot and could not dare to do any thing without having told to do so by their Commanders.

Thanks, the Maoists cadres did not collide with the government security agencies thus the restraint seen in both the sides saved Katmandu from being pushed to the precipice.

The strength that the Maoists' exhibited last week had two special messages. Analysts presume that the first message was for those forces who could yet might be thinking in their inner hearts that the present volatile situation could be used for yet another regime change, to dump their schemes for good because the Maoists have already taken the control of Nepali politics and hence no such schemes could be materialized.

The second message, analysts presume, was directed towards the seven political parties to indicate them all that look "we made you what you are today" and thus follow our instructions and act accordingly. The corollary of the second message concurrently is that the insurgents perhaps amply hinted the parliamentary parties that "should we so desire, we can capture the seats of the Government any time and thus to avoid any such eventuality, act fast as per we dictate you".

The logic furnished here appears to be not that "illogical".

Or else what could have been the message of the Maoists other than what have been forwarded by our own analysts?

The third message that the presence of the ocean of the rebels in the capital district could have been directed towards some foreign countries, near and far, who "do not want to see the radical communists capturing power in Kathmandu ".

Even if some countries like it or not, the Maoists have already shown their massive and gigantic strength which dwarfs the strength of the parliamentary parties combined.

Even one liked it or not, the Maoists have made it abundantly clear that they can overthrow the present government within a minute or so should they desire so. However, so far the Maoists have exhibited full restraint and have kept their boys in discipline that could, if ordered by the high command, can shake the country's politics within no time.

The government and the political parties in the parliament understand that the last week's convergence of the Maoists do well speak of that the rebels could do any thing under the sun and hence appear to have acquired a policy of not "disobeying" the Maoists ambitions to the extent possible. What else they could do other than to live under the mercy of the Maoists? No wonder then the rumor that the Maoists militias too have begun patrolling Kathmandu and other important towns during the nights like what Nepal 's security agencies' have been doing as a matter of routine. This well speaks of their firm determination to finally turn Nepal to a republican state, which is what is their ultimate goal.

The parties in parliament are aware of the fact that it will not be an easy task for them to put a barrier to check the tide attached with a sort of blizzard that the Maoists have brought of late in the country's politics. The deep blue ocean will gulp those who will dare to check the said tide.

Perhaps it is in this context, both Koirala and his Indian counterpart will have some minutes in private today on how to control the Maoists tide that appears to plunge the nation, sooner than later, whose splashes could well easily be felt and perceived in the vicinity-read the bordering provinces of the Indian Republic.

Nevertheless, both the leaders know that they can only change the route of the tide for some time to come and that's all. So if in New Delhi , Koirala manages to convince Comrade Prachanda in the presence of Dr. Singh appealing Prachanda to decrease the velocity of the tide will not be any surprise. Prachanda, sources claim, has already reached Delhi via Siliguri , India .

No "gratis lunch " for Koirala in New Delhi

Kathmandu : The Indian haste in inviting Nepal 's "frail and ailing" Prime Minister Shri Girija Prasad Koirala for an India visit demands thorough analysis.

The excitement seen in summoning Koirala for a trip there in itself is not only surprising but also frightening as well if one were to speak in terms of politics.

Those who understand Indian leader's inner psychology better as far as Indian "Exclusive Interests" were concerned on how should the arms of the neighbors be twisted as and when the latter were in troubled times. India more often than not enjoys sadistically when she is allowed or even invited to twist the arms of her smaller neighbors by its leaders.

If past experiences were any guide and indication, Prime Minister Koirala will have a very appalling time in Delhi and the Nepali false impression that Koirala was going for a trip to Delhi virtually with no "agenda" will fall flat when the hosts will begin "seeking" justifiable "rewards" for whatever they overtly and covertly did recently that served as a catalyst which culminated in the grand success of the April Movement. Albeit the Maoists gave a final shape to the said movement.

To understand as to how the April movement forced the King to come to his size one need not be a political scientist or for that matter a political animal of high caliber. The fact is that India was everywhere.

It was with the King which got reflected when she sent Dr. Karan Singh to convince the King to reconcile with the political parties and wear the constitutional monarchy's dress.

India was with the political parties through the kind courtesy of Foreign Secretary Syam Saran who overstepped his own government's statement of the appreciation of the Nepal King's proclamation and made a separate statement in order to encourage the Nepali people to come heavily down against the monarch, which is what in essence happened.

India was and is still with the Maoists for a variety of political reasons. This is now an open secret, which perhaps the Indian authorities too admit. Indian authorities must admit that they managed a sort of rapprochement of the Maoists and the Nepali leaders in New Delhi wherein India 's Left leader Sitaram Yechuri acted as a facilitator.

To believe or to conclude that a country, which made such Himalayan efforts for a quick regime change in Kathmandu would welcome Nepal 's adhoc prime minister for free will be a sheer joke indeed. ( India has already greeted Nepali Prime Minister with a basket of agenda, reports leaking from Delhi have said).

The fact is that Koirala will have no "free lunch" in Delhi , analysts conclude.

But then to expect that Koirala can "accommodate" the entire Indian demands (not disclosed yet) alone will also be a foolhardy thinking. He will have to seek permissions from all other constituents housed in his cabinet prior to making any commitments to India whether it is on matters of "security issues" or for quenching the ever-increasing Indian "thirst for water".

And above all, now Koirala cannot make any tangible decisions on his own unless the "daddy of them all"-the-all powerful Maoists provide a nod. Reading the Maoists mood as of now it can be safely said that they will not provide such a favor unconditionally.

Reports leaking from New Delhi say that India is all prepared to have discussions with Nepal on a variety of issues, namely, security matters, the economic package; the possible preconditions of the Nepal government with the Maoists prior to the negotiations with the insurgents; the extent and the limit of the UN involvement of the UN system in the management of the arms; providing of direct cash on the eve of the declaration of Nepal's new fiscal budget; and above all the expansion of bilateral ties.

According to the Economic Times dated 3 June, the Indian establishment is pretty anxious over the absorption of the Maoists in the mainstream politics of the country. She would want the Maoists to disarm first and then enter into politics.

Naturally this piece of news is disturbing for the Maoists who in the mean time have been expressing that the new Nepal government must maintain a distance with her neighbors. To quote Dr. Bhattarai, he recently said that his party was against the "hegemony" of certain countries over Nepal 's exclusive matters. Without naming India , Dr. Bhattarai very cleverly hinted that let the Maoists come to power things would automatically come to order. His was an indirect signal to India that enough had been enough.

It should have been these changed political overtures of the Maoists vis-à-vis India in the recent days that appears to have jolted the otherwise double-standard brains seated in the South Block. Is it that the Indian leadership is trembling with fear much in advance when the Maoists were yet to enter into the mainstream politics?

If the Maoists' entry into the mainstream POLITICS reduces the Indian hegemony in Nepali affairs, so be it, conclude the analysts.

All in all, Koirala's much publicized agenda less tour to Delhi has coincided with the unfortunate date when Nepal's Interim Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai as back as in 1990 returned from Delhi to his home country with the "national burden" contained in the most infamous "June 10 th" MoU with India wherein it had been tentatively agreed that Nepal will be more than willing to be under the security umbrella of India.

The people instantly disproved the MoU and no body knows the fate of that Understanding.

Let's presume that Koirala will take care of the interests of his own motherland or else the Maoists will at a later date take a befitting care of him as well. But then yet to conclude that India will allow Koirala to return to Nepal without handing over some "tangible" benefits of the sorts of the most (in) famous Tanakpur and the Mahakali treaty to her will equally be a paranoid affair.

Don't dream that the Nepali team will have a free lunch in Delhi ! Be it known to all. In the conduct of relations between countries, there is no such word as a "gratis lunch".

Prachanda's fury against India and the US

Kathmandu : Comrade Prachanda appears to be in a fresh mood to wage a fight in three fronts and that too all at a time.

How he will fare with these struggles only time will tell. However, what is for sure from the fresh utterances and explanations of the Supreme Maoists' leader, Comrade Prachanda, that he would wage an inexorable struggle with both America and the Indian Republic if the situation so demanded.

His first front appears to have been his fight with the American administration. He sees the US as an Imperialist state.

Regarding America , his comments are not unusual. Every now and then he sees America as number one villain in the success of his and his party's ultimate goals.

The extent to which Prachanda is angry and annoyed with the Americans becomes clear from what he recently revealed in RAMITE Village some where close to BELBARI, a small town located in the Northern belt of Morang district.

He says, " some ministers in the present cabinet were brokers of the American administration and that they have been concentrating their entire energy in making the talks a total failure".

However, he did not reveal as to which ministers in Koirala's cabinet were the known brokers who had been working for the United States .

How the Americans will take this fresh Prachanda's political overtures will have to be watched.

Secondly, Prachanda at the same congregation in the village also did not spare India . Look what he says of India .

"The parliamentary parties who have been representing their parties in the incumbent cabinet were acting as per the wishes of the "Indian Expansionists" and thus he sees the possibility of the talks again going to the dogs this time as well".

According to Prachanda, some ministers in the cabinet were hell bent on derailing the talks and that they were doing so for fear of the Maoists coming out with flying colors after the elections to the constituent assembly.

A word of stern warning was also served by the Maoists leader to the parties in government: " If you be determined to weaken the Maoists movement, you will be wiped out".

He was of the firm view that the talks will not take a definite shape unless the present parliament and the constitution were scrapped and an Interim Government formed.

This means that Prachanda will not settle for less than what he considers to be logical in order to gear the talks towards a positive direction.

The tragedy has been that the parliamentarians who have just come to power do not want to relinquish power as demanded by Prachanda. This is the crux of the matter.

Prachanda has appealed the parliamentary parties to come to terms with him and accept to the formation of a republication state by realizing the very spirit of the freshly concluded movement. Or else, adds Prachanda, "we are ready to fight the last battle".

Analysts presume that Prachanda's resolve that he was ready for yet another "battle finale" with the parliamentary parties must have sent Tsunami like waves in the minds of the parties now in government and in all probability should have alerted the international community as well for a variety of reasons.

All in all, for Prachanda two factors were presumably ailing him in the present day context; firstly America's possible role in derailing the talks; secondly, the Indian factor which according to him have been dominating the country's political scene and hence could also pose a sort of hurdle in the settlement of the issues in his party's favor; thirdly, the government's dilly-dallying the talks by undermining his party's demand for the annulment of the constitution, the parliament and the formation of a fresh interim government.

The tussle thus is on which bodes ill for the next round of talks with the Maoists.

Finally, one question yet remains: How can Prachanda sustain the three front struggles? Will it be wise of him and his party to go in for that concurrently? What if both the annoyed US and the Indian republic form yet another powerful "axis" against the Maoists would be struggle with the countries concerned? What if the annoyed parliamentary parties' now in government retaliate and decide to go in favor of the axis thus formed? The possibility is there.

The second round of the talks have already been slated for next week, reports say. (Based on a reporting published by the Nepal Samachar Patra Daily dated June 6, 2006-ed ).

Media Network to work for Consolidation of Loktantra

Kathmandu: Kabir Rana, the chief editor of the DESHANTAR Weekly who is concurrently the Founding Chairman of the "National Network of the Weeklies/Fortnightlies" says that the Network's recently concluded convention took various decisions aimed at consolidating the gains of the freshly concluded Loktantraic movement and charted various measures on how to energize the Network in the days ahead through the effective use of the media men dedicated to democracy.

The Network's convention has also decided, says Rana, to allot its membership to only those who were committed to democracy or Loktantra for which a special task force has been constituted.

The national convention of the Network has amended the 15-point charter of the code of conduct 2063 and has also constituted a five member team under Mr. Kishor Shrestha who will look into the details as to whether the present constitution of the Network demanded any amendments or not.

The convention has also passed several resolutions pertaining to the institutionalization of the Loktantric movement and safeguarding of the freedom of the press together with the betterment of the media men engaged in the journalism profession.

In the mean time, a team of the Network the other day met with the new communications minister and apprised him with the issues confronting the Nepali media men.

The team was led by Chairman, Kabir Rana.

During the meeting, the team members demanded, among others, a law guaranteeing the right to information; formation of an Independent Media Council; doubling the sum being now provided by the government to the regular newspapers as against government sponsored advertisements; allocation of a sum of ten thousand rupees to the newspapers being printed from Mofussil on a monthly basis; provision of insurance schemes for the nepali media men and the likes.

The organizers of the national convention claim that no less than 85 editors and publishers participated in the jamboree from across the country and thus it was a grand success.

Nevertheless, some anti-democratic elements tried to split the Network for a variety of reasons but then yet the mother institution, the Establishment side, remains intact, added Kabir Rana.

In the mean time, some rumors have it that the Network has seen already a vertical split. However, according to what Rana claims, some ten members who provided a formal shape to the Network in the very days of its inception a year ago were with the establishment even now. "The Network remains intact", Rana claims.

Those who have shown their continued attachment with Rana's Chairmanship in the Network were, Tej Prakash Pundit; Rajendra Dahal; Subhash Dhakal; Damodar Duwadi; P.B.Diyali; Shanta Rai; Shaligram Pandey; Namaskar Shah; Yam Pradhan and Gobinda Ghimire.

The signatories favoring Rana's chairmanship have also expressed their utter dismay over their names being attached with some other similar ad hoc committee, which was not the fact. "We are still with the establishment" says a joint press release issued Monday by the aforesaid signatories.

The so far ignored side of the Nepali media………….

Kathmandu : One weekly newspaper has revealed this Tuesday that the paper has documents to prove that some media men who claim themselves to be democrats of the Lincoln 's stature had been enjoying secret "funds" from the Home Ministry during the erstwhile Royal regime.

The newspaper, Nepal Bhoomi, claims that one newspaper man who exhibits himself as number one champion of the freshly concluded movement had been found "collecting" a bundle of rupees worth fifty thousand from none less than the monarch himself last Dashain festival. One has to admire the courage of the media man indeed!

The King is learnt to have thrown the bundle of fifty thousand rupees and the editor was found collecting the scattered rupees.

However, the paper has not disclosed the very good names of those masked democratic-journalists who were attached to the Palace and the Home Ministry as well.

Looking at the character of the Nepali media what comes to the fore is that "all were naked in the bathroom" and no one takes his or her bath with clothes. It would be nice if the Nepali media men brought to an end of the habit of slinging mud at each other for no one appeared sacrosanct.

(Based on the information printed in the Nepal Bhoomi weekly dated 6 June 2006 ).

ENBREF:

15,000 children annually killed by diarrhea

Kathmandu : In a seminar entitled "Quality Test of Drinking Water”, a government official presenting his paper revealed that at lest 15,000 children below five years die every year because of diarrhea.

The speaker also stressed that the percentage of diarrhea-affected children can be reduced by 30-40 percent through use of pure drinking water.

"A total of 20 percent of diarrhea can be reduced through safe water storage, 40 percent by cleaning hands properly and 30 percent through sanitation," he added. The seminar was held out side Kathmandu .

Government outlines five year anemia control plan

Kathmandu : The new Nepal government has launched a Five-Year Plan of Action for the control of anemia among women and children in the country. The National Micronutrient Status survey of Nepal has found that prevalence of anemia was 78 percent among under-five children, 75 percent among pregnant women and 67 percent among non-pregnant women. Alarmingly, 90 percent infants of 6-11 months old were found anemic. Anemia has health consequences including impaired growth, slowed learning and cognitive development, decreased physical activity and work output, and increased risk of maternal, prenatal, and prenatal mortality.

Agricultural growth, income, savings decline

Kathmandu : A Central Bureau of Statistics data revealed that the per capita income and gross domestic savings in Nepal declined in the current Nepali fiscal year. "Income declined by quarter of a percent for the first time in the last five years," CBS said in a press statement. More serious was the decline in gross domestic savings, the statement noted, saying "It went down to 11.1 percent of the gross domestic product, the first such major fall in the last 13 years." In the last fiscal year, the ratio was 12.43 percent.

The CBS release also added that the, Nepal's agricultural growth rate is estimated to decline 1.69 percent for first nine months of the current fiscal year compared to 2.97 percent in the same period of previous fiscal year.

Dolphins, Rhinos, and Tigers vanishing from Nepal

Kathmandu : The endangered species of dolphin is fast vanishing from Nepali rivers due to increased pollution, World Wildlife Fund study disclosed.

The study conducted in Geruwa and Mohana, tributaries of Karnali river in mid-western Nepa1 revealed that in 1986 there were 26 dolphins in the area, which has now come down to 15.

Similarly, another WWF study conducted in two years in the Bardia National Park reveal a sharp decline in tiger and rhino populations. The study says that since 1986, 70 rhinos were trans-located to Bardia National Park , but only three were found in the Babai Valley . Thirteen tigers were reported in the area between 1998-2001 but the WWF team found evidence of just three. This significant decline is due to poachers who took advantage of the absence of anti-poaching patrols in this critical rhino and tiger habitat, which was under the control of Maoist insurgents, WWF reveals.

EU resumes aid projects

Kathmandu : “We are resuming the energy project worth 13 million dollars and a project on conflict mitigation worth 9.2 million dollars," the visiting Deputy Director General of the European Commission to Nepal Herve Jouanjean said.

He also said the EU was working on the next country strategy paper and a significant amount of aid will be made available to the country.