Clear the rot

The degeneration of moral values and the manner in which the country’s political establishment appears to be functioning have indeed become serious concerns. Many political leaders of the day, including at least one leader from the Nepali Congress (NC), have not only undermined the ethical values of our society but also led to abuse of authority. Absence of legislation that would have helped to book those who indulge in immoral behaviour is also another reason for the rank moral corruption pervading the political leadership. One example of the rot that has set in among the political leadership can be found in the disclosure the other day of extra-marital relations between Indira Thapa and Minister for Labour, Housing and Physical Planning Bal Bahadur KC.

Last September, KC hit the headlines after he broke into Indira Thapa’s house at midnight. There, he not only misbehaved with the woman but also manhandled her two children. This apart, he vandalized her house and disturbed the peace of the locality when she demanded that he pay back 1.1 million rupees that he had taken as loan from her to contest the May general elections. She had then reported the incident to the police but KC’s security men convinced her to withdraw the case a day later. What surprised many then was that the prime minister refused to initiate any action against KC although there was no dearth of evidence. The police too did not question him although she had filed a verbal complaint at Hadigaon police station. All this not only smacked of moral and ethical rot in public life, but it also became clear that the prime minister was protecting someone whose behaviour made him unfit for the high position he occupied.

Now with the disclosure from the mouth of KC’s victim herself, it remains to be seen whether KC will continue to receive the prime minister’s protection. A man of an immoral character, be it a Khobari Raya or Bal Bahadur, should not be allowed to occupy the responsible post of a minister. The time has now come for both the prime minister as well as the president of ruling party to take the necessary action to clean both the government as well as the party of such shameful characters such as KC. He has also become an embarrassment for the country. If the Prime Minister and President of the NC treat his misbehaviour lightly, they will only be encouraging the degeneration of moral values among the political leadership. Therefore, the sooner he is removed from cabinet the better it will be.

Role of media in guiding policies

By Nishchal Nath Pandey

The two-day national conference of editors organized by the Editors’ Society of Nepal (ESON) in Chitwan recently highlighted the role to be played by the people in the media. One of the 4 themes that the seminar extensively delved upon was the issue of ‘media’s role in the shaping of foreign policy’, a subject that has obviously come under wide public inquisition in recent days.

The growth of the press with elaborated discourse arising from the various national and international developments has allowed the building of a complex structure of analysis, reporting and comments that sometimes has gone beyond the parameters acceptable to the government.

Naturally, under a democratic polity and with the Constitutional right to exercise the drive of the freedom of opinion, journalists have no doubt contributed to the heightening of political consciousness in an era of governmental inefficiency, widespread corruption and the dearth of dynamism to control these social maladies. This has resulted not only in furthering the interest in buying and reading newspapers but has also drawn attention of the people in power and in influential positions.

However, political news and comments are no longer the only essentials. The coverage of sports events, business and financial news and of course the glitzy layouts of the glamour world are getting prominence. With the expansion of the middle class and with the exposure to cinemas and international TV channels, this can only be held apparent and obvious. The tendency towards motivated reporting and thrashing irresponsible comments solely with the intention of character assassination or with the scheme of blackmailing has also gone on the rise, as some journalists remarked during the seminar.

Newspapers with political party affiliation or those that want to further their publication to gain status, power and advance their political interests have in fact done more harm than good. Interface press or yellow journalism especially by weeklies at a time of competitiveness both from the foreign media and from daily papers has to be tackled firmly but responsively.

As far as the foreign policy of the country is concerned, the meet categorically and candidly stated that it was only the Nepali press that stood firmly and determinedly in presenting facts of information without twisting and bending events as they happened in the hijacking crisis.

"The approach of the concerned authorities and people in big posts during the hijacking episode was that of avoiding and escaping the local press", said one participant, "but despite that clumsy handling it was we that stood resolutely and gave the truth of the matter despite all odds."

With prominent scholars like Former Ambassador to India Prof. Harsha Narayan Dhaubadel and former MP Hiranya Lal Shrestha along with some writers on foreign affairs, the editors also laid out a list of suggestions to the government, especially to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), for effectively executing the country’s interest and for carrying out the directions of the government vis-a-vis the electronic, print media and the internet.

"Foreign ministry officials need to regularly brief the press and should give priority to the local press", they opined and hoped that other departments too will get the habit of taking journalists into confidence even at times when there is not much happening.

Another component worth mentioning was the reference to a dreadful need of an informal mechanism so that the press and government officials can come up in a single place and interact informally. Taking the example of the Indian press club where Indian journalists and top level bureaucrats share their feelings candidly, such a mechanism could help break the ice between the two pillars of statecraft that are mostly seen locked in horns.

To go beyond this in institutionalizing the rapport between the media and the government there was also a mention of the necessity of a Publicity Division inside MOFA comprising bureaucrats as well as non-bureaucrats. The Division would ease the works of the HMG, do the necessary media PR and would also establish a better harmony with local and foreign media persons.

"Foreign Affairs is too much of a grave subject to be left to fresh reporters and therefore as in Indian newspapers, Foreign Affairs Correspondents have to be trained and groomed if we are to have best of international affairs reporting and news analysis", said former MP Hiranya Lal Shrestha. With the escalation of foreign TV channels via various satellites, the need for Nepal Television going into the satellite era was also discussed. "But not in the form and style of the current state and quality of the national channel," pointed one participant.

With these notable suggestions, the meet also embarked upon important propositions. For instance, it was resolved: "The government, while formulating policies and programmes about the foreign policy, should think of long-term national interest and work within the parameters of the Constitution and its directive principles and it is not appropriate for political parties or individuals to publicly contest the government’s foreign policy".

"It would be better if the government gives due respect to the views of the intellectual community, foreign policy experts, academia and other political parties in the conduction of foreign policy," the declaration adds.

Hopefully, the recommendations will be appreciated and implemented by the concerned authorities but at the same time it is a significant move in the right direction that while living in a region of confrontation and conflict with a paucity of definitive conclusions about the current and future trends of events, it is certainly wise for both the media and the government to introspect and lay out plans in furthering national interest. And nobody stops us to do just that.

Br@in & money.com

By D L Bhandari

The advent of computer prodigies, information technology revolution and oodles of money issuing out indicates time is running out for traditional generation of entrepreneurs who bank on heavy engineering, petrochemicals and textiles as money-spinning avocation at the global level.

While they are slogging it out with bloated bureaucracy, diminishing returns and litanies of nondescript ills including long-standing bank loan, the dotcom generation of entrepreneurs are laughing their way to the bank investing far low in comparison.

Isn’t it a case of brain power having prevailed over legendary entrepreneurship of the yore? Few may differ.

There was indeed a time when computer was considered something akin to an electronic typewriter, at best. Some billed fiddling with computer as an avocation of a polytechnician who might somehow have failed to do something more productive!

But neither were the pioneers in the field of computer engineering in the Big Apple, that is the US, aware that world may need more than four computers! As has been said, they had only counted upon former USSR, Great Britain and France and Germany as likely buyers of one apiece!

But the world has come a long way since, as traditional industrialists have found out to their annoyance (they have been left behind in the stock market and in the global Who’s Who list).

Days are not so far away when the Brain Box, as the computer is known, become as trivial a possession as a fountain pen (it is already one at places). Its multiple use too will permeate beyond fertile imagination.

More than the fact that legendary entrepreneurs have been overhauled by highly inspired college drop-outs, it is the less of money that came in as initial investment but which soon ensured dizzying returns and sounds as other-worldly phenomenon to the beholders.

All this has happened in this very world and with breathtaking effect. Millionaires have been kicked out of the stock exchange windows by billionaires. Soon, it increasingly appears, billionaires will be graduating to zillionairehood and then on to centillionairehood and on and on.

A day will come when linguists will find it hard to coin fitting titles for the increasingly rich software entrepreneurs.

As a story of any modern day billionaire around suggests, wealth seems to be something which comes along with a required degree of dedication and, of course, brilliance to imagine, see through things and, of course, more importantly --- excel in juggling with circuitry.

One of the co-founders of Apple Computer was into apple-farming before switching to computer to herald, what we find, an altogether different world corporate-wise. The wide schism between cell and circuitry is fast diminishing out of existence.

However, it is tantamount to day-dreaming in our own context to talk of anything like this when the system we have in place is least likely to favour brilliance, or innovation, to expect the least.

Before we come to this, it’s time we answer a big question: Can we expect miracles from the system we have in place at all?

Speaking on a broader canvas, we have schools but no real teachers; we pay to individuals who don’t work; we vote for politicians who don’t deliver and we have entrepreneurs who look for short cut to affluence and
entering into nexus with bureaucracy is the shortest cut. I bet even that Yankee, Bill Gates, would too have remained a hapless and nameless man here.

Play privatization card with caution

By Aditya Baral

Liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG) are the fad words for the day. Laypersons to professionals pronounce these words in many occasions. LPG here, if not misinterpreted in terms of petroleum products, is tantamount to be more inflammable and explosive, especially for the economy of under developed countries. These words are spreading economic radiation astoundingly more than the threat posed by the nuclear evolution. With myriads of positive and adverse interpretations, today’s economists overridingly emphasize the mere word "P" as a panacea of all the ills performed in yester years. However, performance or the practice of the past holds no faith for the future. Privatization is simply a means, not an end in itself.

Maybe, keeping this belief in mind, many of the politicians are treating "LPG" as a "mantra" of prosperity. Out of the many white elephants transitioned so far, more than a few are successful. Why? Maybe time wished the government to act as a watchdog more than a bride’s parents. Because it is the government who should look back and review the performances of the handed over institutions, prior to initiating further negotiations. The negative "word of mouth", is actually pervading the common people’s mindset about the privatization syndrome. Now, many of us have come to conclude that this would merely help the government to free itself from recurring loses, over
pouring subsidies, employees pressures and threats.

Knowingly or unknowingly, we all are still in a great quandary, about our minister’s assertion and assurance about the privatization of corporations under the helm of their affairs. The phenomenon is not about any particular chairing minister but the practice of all the Nepalese ministers, past and present. If privatization is contemplated as a pain reliever, then it holds an untrue notion. "LPG" in a broader sense, is a binding compulsion to grapple with the changing world trade order and regimes. Thus, the architect of privatization should be backed by a genuine policy, core zeal, consistency, devotion, rationality and wisdom, if it is their one and only noble thrust to head toward the new era.

Maybe, inspired by Michael Gorbachev, the then President of erstwhile USSR, whose mere two words Glasnost and Perestroika physically disintegrated the super power Soviet Union in many CIS countries, our leaders too may have similar intention to play with the explosive words in a media savvy way by throwing tall promises disproportionate to their known capacity.

And with a wish to step into the shoes of Gorbachev to gain the iron fist amidst a time when our septuagenarian leaders are on the verge of fallout, the ministers duo in charge of Industry and Tourism every now and then keep on deliberating about privatization in whatever platform they get to stand -- be it an inauguration of a hospital or an NGO; a party office in a remote village or a cassette or a book fair. I do not see any relevance to deal with the outcome of all the privatized institutions falling under the Ministry of Industry, for their woes are conspicuously expressed almost every alternative day in our national and local dailies. However, analyzing the pros and cons related to Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC) would be of some interest to many.

If conceiving privatization of our national flag carrier is indeed not influenced by the mere LPG vogue, it might be the best thing that could have happened especially to RNAC, despite the grumbling of a section of unproductive employees. RNAC still has ample room for improvement, if it tries to prosper in this new era. However, prior to privatization, we should be able to answer the question that may creep in the process of transformation. To start with, who is to bear the accumulated losses of millions of rupees? The government has no money to write these off due to extreme financial stringency. Unless the government offers a fresh infusion of capital, no investor may wish to pay a worthwhile price for RNAC. Initially, Royal Nepal Airlines should be made fully viable before privatization. They have not had any access to the tax payers’ money so far, except for loans either from public sector banks or government. Once they are privatized, they can even spread their tentacles to such loans, excepted purely on the merits of their case. With their heavy accumulated losses, they would be starting their new life in the private sector with a built-in disadvantage. Still, RNAC is a respected company and the strategic partners (if any), financial institutions, the public or the private big houses and the employees may all want to invest if the terms are right.

It is also possible that the government will get better value for its shares if RNAC’s finances are first placed on a sound footing rather than by offering it to the investors on an "as is where is" basis. Importantly there is no way that RNAC can overcome these losses through internal accruals alone. The government should clarify its role after privatization. Also, the participating partner may not want to invest as long as the government has the opportunity to interfere with its day to day management, or to enforce populist policies on the airline. They will insist on hands-on control of the airline, and will want to run it along a purely commercial line. The government will have to signal its willingness to let go completely.

Above all, the airline industry is a labour intensive one where emolument grabs the lion’s share of disbursement. Lastly, competition within the airline industry tends to be fiercer than for most other industries. Until and unless productivity is gained through enhanced discipline and pro-active approach and orientation towards the market responsiveness is practised today, the "P" would pose more hurdles than solution. This means that organizations should focus on building long term customer relationships in which the initial sale is viewed as a beginning step in the process, not as an end goal. As a result, the customer will be more satisfied and the firm will be more profitable. So, learn to play the cards with caution.