Vital but doubtful

Finally, the Ministry of Science and Technology has implemented the much awaited Information Technology (IT) Policy 2000, effective from 23 October 2000. This, no doubt, is a step in the right direction since it aims to place Nepal on the global IT map within the next five years. The policy, as most IT experts have claimed, attempts to avoid difficulties that crop up during the process of implementation. The fact is that it took a considerably long period to prepare this after studying the policies of three different countries.

The introduction of this policy is definitely a positive step towards the development of IT industry and IT enabled services. However, there are a few questions: Will the government be able to implement effectively the policy it has introduced? Will it achieve the goal of placing Nepal on the global IT
map? What has been the success rate of policies and programmes it implemented? The past experiences certainly show that the government failed to implement the policies and programmes effectively. In most cases, policies have been nice but it is the implementation aspect that
has marred the spirit of those policies. So the possibility of a poor implementation of this policy,
too, cannot be ruled out at this juncture.

The present IT policy aims to make IT accessible to the general public, apart from increasing employment, creating knowledge-based society and industries. Though the policy confines the role of the government to a promoter, facilitator and a regulator, it cannot be taken for granted that there will not be any political interference. The provision for forming a PM-led National Information Technology Council (NITC) raises doubts over the effectiveness of NITC since it consists of more government representatives than private ones. Nonetheless, the policy vows to legalize e-commerce that is expected to generate substantial revenue.

Another good aspect of it is the construction of an Information Super Highway, a North-South Information Highway and linking Nepal with the world through broadband information network. This will not only keep the country abreast of the fast changing technology but also provide computer education to all by 2010. But, is this a possible task that can be achieved within a decade? The policy, no doubt, underlines a number of aspects that certainly appear less possible. The arrangement for exporting software and legalizing the transaction made on-line does bring some hope. But it has to waive import duty levied on all IT related imports, irrespective of their nature of business and location; just as India and Bangladesh are doing. The government’s plan of injecting Rs 100 million as the seed money to the Venture Capital Fund to be jointly run by the public and the private is commendable.

The policy has a provision of making amendment to it in every two years, which shows government’s liberal attitude but in keeping with the nature of the technology, it needs frequent and unseen changes. Despite its shortcomings, the policy is good in toto.

International concern on Bhutanese refugees

By Rakesh Chhetri

Much water has flown down into Thimphu Chu (river) since the first Bhutan-Nepal Joint Ministerial Level Committee Talk (JMLCT) on repatriation of Bhutanese refugees was held in 1993.
For the last seven years, nine rounds of JMLCT and three rounds of official (bureaucrat) level talks have been held without any hope of finding solution to the refugee imbroglio.

The ninth round of talk held May last, also ended without any breakthrough.. Both sides had agreed on naming the verification team within 15 days and starting the verification process within two months. The request for the 10th round of the JMLCT scheduled for 25 December came from Bhutan, facing a mounting international pressure. Many Bhutanese believe that Bhutan’s gesture is phony and, as usual, intended to hoodwink an international community. Some significant developments have taken place concerning refugees since the ninth talk.

Nepal’s stand: Nepal has been advocating for the constitution of a verification committee. It wants all Bhutanese refugees to go back home with dignity and honour. It says that it does not want non-Bhutanese refugees, if found any in the camps, during the verification, to impose on Bhutan. It has been demanding that the verification team visit camps in order to interview the head of families to determine their status as Bhutanese citizens. It is a right approach since Bhutan keeps the record of its citizens on the basis of the head of the family.

Nepal has let India and international community know its stand on refugees. Finally, Nepal’s patient diplomacy has made the international community, including the US, to understand and appreciate the integrity, sincerity and righteousness of Nepal’s view point and its stand on the verification process. For a long time, Bhutan has been using its malicious propaganda against refugees and Nepal regarding the resolution of refugee problem among the members of international community.

Bhutan has obviously employed delaying tactics to avoid the formation of a verification committee. Diametrically opposed to Nepal’s stand, Bhutan insists on the verification of individual refugees. If Bhutan gets its way, then more than half of the refugees will be disqualified to go home. Bhutanese children of below five years age, who got evicted along with their parents (those below 20 years of age now) before 1995, will not find their names recorded in the census record of Bhutan, and hence automatically disqualified, if refugees are individually verified. The number of this age group refugee is quite high. Over 17,000 children born in the camps will also be disqualified. Refugees will get justice, if only they are identified through their family heads.

UNHCR formula: The UNHCR head visited the refugee camps in May and assured them that all of them will go back home. As usual, it never happened that way and Bhutan once gain deceived the high UN functionary. UNHCR subsequently put forward a compromise formula aimed at bridging a gap. It suggested that the unit of verification should be the nuclear family, including unmarried young people up to the age of 25, and elderly relatives and identification through family heads. Nepal agreed, but Bhutan rejected it. The UNHCR chief was also reported to have noticed that Bhutanese authorities are not interested in resolving the festering refugee issue with Nepal.

The bone of contention between the two sides has been ‘differences over the verification process’. It must be noted that Bhutan keeps census records (Dhadda) of its all citizens on the basis of the land records kept in the name of the head of households. No Bhutanese can own land in Bhutan. All children get their citizenship certificate on the basis of the land ownership and record kept in the name of family heads.

Therefore, the identity and verification must be done through the head of a family and not on the individual basis. There is no justification in interviewing every refugee when the census record, that is maintained, is not in his name but in the name of the head of the family.

This refugee issue is an international issue and beyond the scope of bilateralism. The refugees can return only when the international community make it happen. The right to return is claimed on this basis that an individual’s attachment and allegiance to a particular territory in which he was born is a basic human right as per international norms. International community is now fully aware of the refugee situation, Bhutan’s motives and delay tactics and appreciate Nepal’s efforts. The latest international lobbying by Nepal, for an immediate repatriation of refugees, has put Bhutan at the receiving end and has, instead, improved Nepal’s position.

Despite Bhutan’s uncooperative and unaccomodative attitude, it is under an increasing pressure from an international community to resolve the refugee impasse. That Bhutan is under increased international pressure is evident from the recent resolution of the European Parliament (EP), concerns expressed in the RTM and the recommendation of the US. EP passed two resolutions on the refugee issue in March 1996 and September 2000.

EP, denouncing the deplorable situation of Bhutanese refugees living in Nepal, called on the governments of Bhutan and Nepal, in cooperation with all other parties involved, speed up the process of repatriation of refugees to their country of origin. It urged the Bhutanese authorities to accept the UNHCR compromise for a speedy verification and time-bound repatriation.

It recognised the goodwill of Nepal in accepting the refugees "who are the victims of arbitrary deprivation of nationality and forcible eviction , who came to Nepal through India, and also urged Indian authorities not to consider the Bhutanese refugee issue as one of the bilateral matters and help resolve the refugee issue.

The Seventh Round Table Meeting (RTM) of development partners for Bhutan was held in Thimphu on 7-9 November 2000. Some donor nations and agencies made statement on discrimination against Lhotshampas and on the refugee issue.

The Danish delegation said that the Nepalese speaking Lhotshampas reported to have been treated as second class citizens, were retrenched from the government service, are not being provided citizenship or identity cards and are being denied education, government employment or trade licenses due to the lack of security-clearance. Several other allegations of discrimination are being mentioned. He said that Bhutan should eliminate discriminatory laws and practices so that all permanent residents of Bhutan can be fully integrated into Bhutanese society. The Austrian diplomat said "commercial refugees" in the context of Europe should not be confused with the ‘status of minorities’ (Lhotshampas), residing in the country for many years and respecting its leadership and the government. Austria supports the cause that refugees in Nepal should go back home. Only a policy of inclusion of all groups in the development of Bhutan will produce long -term sustainability in economic, social and political field of Bhutan, he said.

Dutch diplomat said that encouragement of freedom of expression, press, organisation does not imply violation of Bhutan’s consensus-culture, which will be good for conflict resolution. It may be noted that Bhutan does not allow freedom of speech, expression, press and organisation in the country. Japanese diplomat said that his country believed in a fair and equitable solution of refugee problems.

US proposal: The US government has come up with a fresh proposal in an attempt to speed up the long-stalled repatriation. The Assistant Secretaries of the US State Department for South Asia and the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration Karl Inderfurth and Ms Julia V Taft visited Nepal and Bhutan recently. Ms Taft proposed to "identify the refugees and the head of a nuclear family, who would then identify the members of his/her family. Having agreed upon this, they could proceed on with an actual verification process and determine which of the four categories of the nuclear family, identified by the family head, are qualified to go home". This statement almost comes closer to Nepal’s proposal. The US Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering was also interested in the Bhutanese refugee issues. All refugees are eagerly waiting to see what Bhutan’s strategies are, as it will determine how many of them are going back home. Bhutan has not only rejected the UN proposal but it has also ignored the two EU resolutions, concerning the Bhutanese refugees. This has led to a mounting international pressure on Bhutan to solve the refugee imbroglio. Under such a circumstance, Bhutan might show some flexibility during the tenth talk. However, a there is a note of caution for refugees - the actual repatriation is still a long way off.

(The Author is a Bhutanese political analyst)

New Year, new vision

By Rishi Ram Paudyal

Happy New Year, leaders! ‘The same to you’? Are you happy, leaders? I bet you are not. You may ask me, ‘How do you know?’ I know it because I have conscience and my intuition tells me that happiness comes from serving others and contributing something wholesome to the benefit and well-being of all. You don’t need to go far to look for happiness. Search within yourself and you will know whether you have done something for the well-being of people and for the nurture of your motherland. I don’t say all of you leaders are nuts, but I describe some of you as hopeless and hopeless.

There are reasons why I have used the words that end in "less". People elected you not because they had known you closely but because they believed in your stupendous promises that you would eliminate corruption, alleviate poverty, work for the betterment of people and develop the country.

How many promises you made to people have been fulfilled so far? Ask yourself, and get the answer from yourself because you should know yourself better than anyone else.

You were not elected leader for just to be in a position of power and authority but for the service of the people. Let the public judge you and find out what they think of you. Many people have lost faith in you and many don’t even have a pint of respect for you. You have become leaders for yourselves only. And for the majority of people you have simply become a saying, "Leaders are liars". What a pity ! If leaders have become liars what will the rest of the people be? If all people start copying their leaders what will our country become? Wouldn’t it be known to the world as a country of liars? Thank God, there are still many people who don’t regard leaders as models.

It’s a selfish idea to be in power for serving oneself and one’s friends and relatives, or its own party for that matter. No country has developed without good leaders. Good leaders are action-oriented, not just good in giving speeches only. As someone said, "You can fool some people some time but you can’t fool all the people all the time", only sugar-coated words and fake promises can't do any good to common people.

Leaders should throw away the cloaks of greed and selfishness and should move ahead with a new vision. Let this new year give a new vision to our leaders so that all the Nepalese may have peace, happiness and prosperity. All the best and Namaste!

A note on democracy and development

By Khim Sharma

Democracy has been with us for almost ten years, yet it is elusive and too far away from its ideals. Devoured by western values and approaches and inconsistent with our realities, democracy in Nepal is in a confused state. The confusion is triggered by certain interest groups who are seemingly loyal to the state. They have merely helped the promotion of illusionary ideas and ideals contrary to our values and expectations. These groups even stigmatize and ostracize those who challenge their views. Democracy in Nepal is yet intolerant and has shunned novel yet practical ideas from being integrated into development programmes.

With regard to development approaches, the confusion begins to surface soon after the completion of a participatory research study, geared up towards honouring local value systems and understanding communities’ problems and needs . The rural population, participants in such studies, becomes confused to find out that instead of trying to help them escape from the grip of poverty and hunger, such programmes often try to popularize concepts such as the empowerment of women and elders, and the control of girls trafficking and child labour which are considered redundant based on certain yardsticks. These programmes, instead of eliminating the crux of the problem, are often isolated and superficial. Since these programmes do not represent the pressing needs of communities, they become sustainable only so long as there is an external support. But they fail to function after the external support is terminated. Programmes based on women’s empowerment often justify themselves by projecting men as alcoholics, gamblers, wife beaters and infidels whereas portraying women as docile and living on scrap, ignoring the fact some men and women in Nepal live in perfect harmony by sharing both joys and sorrows with one another. Clearly, the women’s empowerment programmes are not gender sensitive. The implications of this offence are straightforward: a chariot with a wheel missing cannot move forward.

A few success stories, blown out of proportions to support these software programmes, cannot be taken for granted; the success of such programmes should be judged not in terms of what is being done, but in terms of the tracks they have followed and tangible effects they are able to produce in the long-run. The integration of isolated activities to make a combined effect on the lives of people, society and nation is long overdue. Also, as has been carefully noted, most development programmes in Nepal often leapfrog without giving continuity to thousands of incomplete projects. In this context, it will not be wise if the government allows this kind of software without giving continuity to the earlier programmes which were well justified. Instead of taking effective measures to pull out people from the cycle of poverty, the government has endorsed some rhetoric insular programmes. In its desperate attempt to introduce comprehensive approaches, it is becoming like a confused researcher who tries to match the cases and controls too many variables. Often starting from a faulty design, unrealistic assumptions, uncertain sources of funding, the very future of such programmes are likely to be in ruins.

It is acknowledged that software programmes such as those examined here are intended to uphold the rights of the women, children, elders and other disadvantaged groups. But this does not necessarily mean that they should be allowed to overshadow development programmes. Nepal needs to put a lot of emphasis on the development of rural infrastructure, described as ‘foundation building’. It is noteworthy that our GDP has been increasing in recent years. This increase is often associated with an increase in agricultural production. However, the increase in our agricultural production has been attributed not to our ability to manoeuvre the influence of nature, but merely to the mercy of weather. Software such as this can only be justified only if the benefits accruing from this foundation cannot be effectively felt by all segments of the population. By focusing on the software too much, we are trying to put the cart before the horse.

In addition to many examples used here, there are a number of other examples to prove that democracy in Nepal has mutilated. First, democracy has allowed the use of the terms such as privacy and transparency by people at their own discretion. Second, despite a lot of hue and cry, there still seems to be investment bias in urban areas. Democracy has, thus, failed to provide constitutional guarantees to the rural poor. Third, the approaches of the government are still centralized despite so much rhetorical concerns about decentralization. Fourth, with regard to crucial topics such as HIV/AIDS, human rights issues such as privacy and freedom of movement are allowed to overshadow certain epidemiological considerations such as isolation, quarantine and surveillance (community surveillance to be consistent with the newly introduced Local Sefl-governance Act) without offering any explanation. To our dismay, the concerned department has done nothing other than recording a growing list of the patients infected with HIV/AIDS. Counselling services to infected persons have not been established as yet. The intention of the authorities should be construction, not destruction. It is acknowledged that despite these nemeses, our democratic system has many nice things to be proud of. But they were deliberately ignored to emphasize that there are, in fact, a number of inherent flaws in our democracy and democratic approaches. If the flaws presented here sound convincing, then it is time to sit together and draft a policy that can guide us better in the future. Formation of a powerful body to coordinate the activities of NPC, the Ministry of Finance and donor communities, to make them aware of our priorities and to streamline their incoherent activities towards the making of a concrete foundation is highly recommended. Most importantly, the right to approve or disapprove our development programmes must be vested in this body.

(Dr Sharma is a freelance consultant in the areas of population, health, environment, resource and development)