Heartiest felicitation

Today is the most auspicious occasion of the 56th birthday of His Majesty the King Birendra Bikram Shah Dev, the only constitutional monarch in South Asia. We, the Nepalese, have every reason to rejoice on this moment and wish His Majesty our heartiest and devoted felicitation on the health and life of our beloved monarch.

It has been a decade since His Majesty King Birendra chose to become the constitutional monarch as per the wishes of his subjects. This was a clear example of His Majesty’s commitment to democracy. Besides, it also served to underscore his deep love and respect of the wishes of the Nepalese people. His choice to keep himself within the framework of the constitution has further enhanced his stature as the true king of the people. The people’s wish for a pluralistic form of governance was the result of His Majesty’s humility and responsiveness. Despite some negative comments on this free system, the country has benefited immensely in terms of freedom of speech, press and the guarantee of human rights. The accountability of the government towards the people is no less an achievement. Besides, His Majesty has been more accessible raising the possibility of being closer to common people.

His Majesty King Birendra has always facilitated in the all around development of the country. His messages concerning development, education, health and poverty alleviation have been so much meaningful that these aspects can always serve as effective guidelines for the development of the country. These, in a nutshell, portray His Majesty’s intricate understanding of the problems and challenges faced by the nation. Even in the present time, when His Majesty does not govern the nation himself, he has been sensitive enough to point out to the shortcomings of the present system in his proclamations.

The Nepalese monarchy is an institution, which goes back to the difficult times of the period of the unification of Nepal. The monarchy in Nepal is the symbol of the nation’s sovereignty and national unity. The Crown of His Majesty is the point of unity within the diversity of different castes and ethnic groups that constitute the nation.

His Majesty King Birendra has also made an important contribution in an effort to enhance the prestige of Nepal abroad, amongst the international community. His Majesty has not only visited various countries to strengthen bilateral and multilateral ties as the representative of Nepal, but has also attended various international forums and seminars. He has given his support to Nepal’s policy of pursuing friendly relations with all the countries in accordance with the Non-Aligned Movement. His Majesty’s request to other countries to declare Nepal a Zone of Peace is valid even today. His Majesty supports and facilitates the effort to bring Nepal on the forefront of progress and prosperity.

His Majesty King Birendra has made us feel proud as Nepalese, thanks to his deep love and respect of his country and his people. We, as noble citizens of Nepal, also feel indebted to His Majesty for the concern for the wellbeing of the country and people. We, again, wish His Majesty a very happy birthday and pray for his better health.

International multimodal transport of goods

By Bhubaneshwor P Daibagya

In 1961, the United Nations General Assembly, through one of its resolutions, recognized that "international trade is the primary instrument of economic development". This recognition led to various steps and actions within the United Nations (UN) to bring about world order in the area of international trade. One of the attempts was the convening of the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964. Since the international trade and development- related problems were neither easily solved nor were these problems properly studied, UNCTAD was institutionalized as an organ within the UN’s system to deal with this issue.

The next major achievement, to attempt to regulate international trade relations among nations, was the establishment of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) by the General Assembly, through its resolution 2205 (XXI) of 17 December 1966. In other words, UNCTAD was institutionalized to play its dual role: as a negotiating forum for major problem areas of world trade and as a seed bed for new ideas for the furtherance of international trade. And UNCITRAL was established to play a pivotal role in reducing or removing legal obstacles to the flow of international trade by progressive harmonization and unification of the law of international trade -- for orderly development of mutually beneficial international trade and trade relations among nations.

Convention on the carriage of goods by sea (Hamburg Rules 1978): This convention, which is otherwise known as the "Hamburg Rules", was done at Hamburg on 31 March 1978. An attempt towards drawing up the convention was first initiated within UNCTAD, and was later taken over by UNCITRAL, primarily to revise and amplify, as appropriate, the rules and regulations pertaining to the contract of ocean carriage, more, the rules contained in the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading (the Brussels Convention 1924) and in the Protocol to amend that Convention (the Brussels Protocol 1968), which are commonly known as the Hague/Visby Rules -- with a view to removing any uncertainties and ambiguities within the Hague/Visby Rules and to establishing a balanced allocation of risks between the cargo owner and carrier.

It was felt that there were imbalances in the allocation of risks between the cargo-owner and ship-owner. The working of international maritime laws and practices have retained a ship-owner orientation -- developing countries are predominantly ship-using and cargo-owning countries -- international law for the carriage of goods by sea was more of ship-owner interest biased. This convention was, therefore, conceived, worked out and finalized to bring about an equitable distribution of responsibilities and liabilities and a balanced allocation of risks between the cargo-owner and the carrier in the international commerce. It is designed to update and eventually replace the Hague/Visby Rules of 1924 and 1968.

Convention on international multimodal transport of goods (MT Convention, !980): The work towards the establishment of an international legal regime for the contract of the international multimodal transport of goods was initiated in the 1930s. To this effect, steps were considered and actions taken within the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), The then Inter-Government Maritime Consultative Committee (IMCO -- presently WMO: World Maritime Organization) and within various fora of UN.

Finally, in 1973, the task for drawing up an international instrument on multimodal transport was entrusted to UNCTAD, which, in turn, through the Intergovernmental Preparatory Group (IPG) established under its Trade and Development Board (TDB), completed the assignment and on 24 May 1980, concluding the convention on International Multimodal Transport of Goods.

It also should be stated here that this convention is the end result of many years of hard work within the international organizations, mentioned ,and of persistent and tough negotiations among all interests involved in the operation and management of multimodal, or intermodal and combined transport. Without going into the historical and other details leading to the conclusion of the convention, it would be sufficient here to state that there were two dominant reasons underlying for drawing up this . First, "the desire to simplify documentation", so that one document would serve for several stages of the carriage of goods where more than one means of transport was used and the goods were transferred from one means of transport to another as a single unit without being unpacked for sorting or verification.

The second reason was the desire to ensure that, in case of loss, damage or delay of the goods involved in such multimodal transport, the shipper or consignee need to pursue the claim against only one person, who would be responsible for the overall transport, rather than against the several unimodal carriers involved.

Talk of the nation: Not Manisha, but Hrithik

By Pooja Shrestha

As usual, I left home at 9:00 for office, but today was a different scene- a busy traffic jam at the Chabahil-Dhumbarahi road. There, I saw Gopi Krishna ,crowded with all sorts of people - people in uniforms (school kids as well as the police), some were stunned and shocked, others with the mixed feelings. Gangs of people reaching high to tear every bit of Hrithik on the poster Mission Kashmir.

As I reached the office, the talk of the office was just about the macho-guy- Hrithik, Hrithik and only Hrithik.

In the office, we all expressed our feelings about him and read the newspaper aloud. Some said that people are doing the right thing by banning his movies, some even said that all Hindi movies should be banned, but my boss had a different opinion. My boss said that Hrithik did the right thing by making derogatory comments on Nepal and her fellowmen. "At least due to such propaganda people will become more patriotic and enhance our national unity," he said.

I fully agree to the statement. Why should we be under the mercy of Indians? Don’t we have our own identity? Why don’t we watch Nepali movies and become crazy about our Nepali heroes? The Nepali movies are in fact improving, consider the historical ones like Basanti, which is free from the influence of Hindi movies.

Is it a compulsion that we must watch Hindi movies?

Why don’t we watch Nepali and Hollywood movies, instead? In fact, the Hollywood movies are much superior in terms of quality of acting, plot and cinematography. It would be wise to master the intellectual and technical challenges of Hollywood movies and incorporate them in the Nepali movies. Why should we follow the hollow and sentimentle themes and plots of Hindi movies?

Then, thumps up! Let us ban the Hindi movies and dump into the gutter.

Forget the incident of Hrithik- he is an Indian who would never perceive the sentiments of Nepalese people, but what about our own Manisha? She is a Nepali, isn’t she? But, why can’t she love and accept our people? She should have done social service, wasn't she supposed to? She seems to be a pukka madame from Banaras, and even pronounced Jai Hind on the show- Sawaal Dus Crore Ka.

FM radio and urbanscape

By Pratyoush Onta

We have become so accustomed to a wide range of FM radio broadcasts in Kathmandu that we tend to forget that till as late as October 1995, Radio Nepal was the only radio station that used to broadcast programs from within Nepal. In November 1995, Radio Nepal started FM Kathmandu (100 MHz) with its own programs. After some months, its programmes slots were sold to private operators and this arrangement continues with Classic FM.

On 18 May 1997 Radio Sagarmatha FM 102.4 became the first independent station to get a licence. It started its regular broadcast in March 1998. Then, the others followed: Kantipur FM 96.1 (October 1998), Image Channel owned K.A.T.H. FM 97.9 (January 1999), Kathmandu Metropolitan City owned Metro FM 106.7 (September 1999), HBC FM 94 (September 2000). Hence, residents of Kathmandu can choose from six FM stations, and the number will soon reach seven when Hits FM 90.4 goes on air from its own station in January 2001. Three FM ,outside , started broadcasting regular programs in the year 2000: cooperative owned Radio Lumbini FM 96.8 in Manigram (near Butwal), village development committee owned Radio Madanpokhara FM 106.9 in Palpa, and the commercial Manakamana FM 92.9 in Hetauda. Apart from Radio Madanpokhara, all other FM stations are located in urban areas. What has all this radio activity added to our knowledge urbanscape?

Based just on the experience from Kathmandu, we can say that first of all, FM radio has increased the amount of news available in radio to urban listeners. Since these FM stations are not supposed to broadcast their own official news bulletins (as per one of the conditions mentioned in their licence), none of the stations call their news-oriented programmes "news". In terms of content, these programmes vary a lot: they include the reading of headlines and some main news from major newspapers, economic reports, sports results, and reportage about literary activities, institutional events, art exhibitions and other happenings in the society at large.

First, by focusing mostly on the ‘non-political’, these FMs have already stretched our erstwhile definition of news. Second, FM radio has increased the amount of what can be called "everyday life" information. This includes information about special events, traffic flows in the city, weather forecast, flight schedule, bus schedule, market prices for vegetables and fruits, air pollution readings, health tips and horoscopes (for those who believe in them). In addition, FM radio has provided ‘live’ information about events such as elections, religious gatherings, and national celebrations.

Third, FM radio is assisting the formation of a new knowledge in our urbanscape. This is being done through programmes designed to cater to various curiosities - about contraceptives and careers, music and movies, stage and sports, language and literature, health and hobbies and so on. Some of the urban new knowledge is executed through ‘quiz’ formats, while others come in the form of chat programmes and music. Some of this new knowledge is superfluous, but its being on air is a kind of knowledge democratization at work. Music production has received a shot in the arm due to FM radio (this needs a separate essay!).

Fourth, FM radio has increased the amount of social analysis available in radio through various programming formats. In the form of a monologue, it has come as anonymous or attributed response from persons walking on the streets ("vox pop" in radio parlance) or as commentary from noted social critics such as Rhituraj, Chatyang Master, D. P. Bhandari and Kishor Nepal (alas, they are all males) As a dialogue, such social analyses have come in the form of one-to-one interviews between the host and his/her guest, or in the form of multiple dialogues between the host(s), guests and listeners who call in by phone (e.g. "Dabali"). Frequently, others have participated in such discussions by sending in their queries by mail, fax or email before the programs go on air. Such analyses can also be found in feature , focused on a specific theme, as innovated by the early team of "Hamro Khaldo" in Radio Sagarmatha. Some of the subjects covered by these programs have never been discussed on radio before, and others have received critical treatments, impossible to find in Radio Nepal. This kind of analysis is being done in Nepali and Nepal Bhasa already and will emerge in other languages as the FM revolution spreads across Nepal.

Fifth, FM radio’s interactions with government officials and politicians have added to the collective knowledge of urbanites regarding (mis)governance in our society. Similarly, discussions with practitioners of other professions have demystified specialist knowledge, intellectually empowering the community of listeners.

Sixth, FM radio has increased the amount of oral history available on the radio. This has been achieved through programmes that present the life history of a ‘big’ person in his own voice ("Mero Katha") or through a profile of a ‘subaltern’ made by a reporter. Alternatively, personal history, often related to love tragedies (but occasional successful romances), has become very popular in the form of letters to host Kalyan Gautam (‘Dear Kalyan’ is how these letters begin in "Mero Katha, Mero Git"). Interviews by Bhairab Risal with older folks in "Uhile Bajeka Palama" are also of this genre.

Seventh, FM radio programmes have encouraged cross-media reference as a routine practice of urban knowledge. While newspaper contents have been read on FM radio, programs aired have influenced the print media as well. For example, since FM reports highlight local sports events, broadsheet dailies have to increase their coverage of local sports. Additionally, radio programme hosts are bringing Internet contents to listeners who do not have a direct access to the Net, and more radio programmes are increasingly becoming available on the Internet.

These seven points hardly exhaust the new knowledge urbanscape FM radio has helped to generate. But my intention is not to be exhaustive. Rather, it is to argue that we have not made any serious effort to understand how FM radio is contributing to a new kind of urban public sphere in our society. Our commentary on FM has been a boring reiterating of how it will "destroy our culture". It is a good indicator of how we are, intellectually speaking, unprepared to analyze the fast changes occurring in our society.