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-By Deependra Bickram Thapa Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has
already come into effect from 31st Dec 1998. CAAN completed its first year of operation on
31st Dec 2000. The very important and long awaited personnel rules containing service
terms and conditions of CAAN have been approved by the cabinet on 4th Nov 1999. However,
other important CAAN rules pertaining to finance, fees and charges, and Nepal Civil
Aviation Regulations are still under government consideration were already approved by the
CAAN Board eleven months ago. CAAN is expected to provide not only safer, more
economical, more efficient and more reliable services to clients but also become
commercially profitable. This is one of the most important rationales for creating the
autonomous entity like CAAN. This simply means that a great change has been introduced in
Civil Aviation sector whereby a typical governmental organisation is destined to produce
results as that of a more or less private entity. For a multidimensional and
multidisciplinary organisation like CAAN, it is experienced that change of this nature is
not a neutral word. It has produced some emotional reactions and resistance among some
employees which need proper addressal. What is there as a resistance to change? The foremost concern is to do with the working
style or habit. Normally people who are accustomed to work and behave in one particular
pattern always feel eased to work in that pattern. The very rationale of establishing CAAN
demands a change of work habit on the part of employees. The unproductive work habit
associated with the government’s bureaucracy is to be replaced by a business culture
with a strong drive for result orientation. It is a fact that CAAN possesses a number of
dedicated, dynamic and positive employees yet there are also people who still hold
bureaucratic hangover, the change in work habit and mentality is really a challenge for
CAAN. Apart from this, although bureaucracy is charged of
being non-responsive, rigid, unproductive and so on the prestige and job security
associated with a government job are also the prime sources of resistance to a change.
Obviously, former government employees i e employees in transition in CAAN, who are yet to
be converted to CAAN employees, are feeling a threat to their prestige as if they are
going to be socially degraded from a governmental employees to that of CAAN. For example,
a CAAN officer can not attest a photocopied certificate like a government employee.
“Privilege to attest” bears a significant social prestige in our Nepalese
society. People also feel secured and stable when they do
not have to deviate from the earlier established and accepted norm. Introduction of a
business culture in place of a bureaucratic culture, as discussed, earlier is certainly a
deviation from our established norm. Thus, this can also be attributed as one of the
factors of resistance to change from the employees in transition. For example, CAAN
service conditions have introduced a revolutionary provision of six years’ tenure
system for 12th level senior executives. This provision although is commendable as it
gives an excellent opportunity for career advancement but for young middle managers and
executives, the provision threatens their job security. Obviously, for any person promoted
or, adjusted to the 12th level, the count down starts from the very day first of her/his
promotion. It is natural that in every emerging organisation,
misunderstandings on the expected intentions and outcomes are becoming a major problem.
CAAN is not an exception to this. Employees in transition to some extent have
misunderstandings regarding CAAN. CAAN obviously is not a management dogma. It’s
rather with a pragmatic approach. Commitment, devotion and hard work on the part of
employees are fundamental to the success of CAAN. It is a fact that a majority of the
staff is committed for the successful performance of CAAN, while for some nothing is going
to happen in “this society, this system and this environment.” This is totally a
misunderstanding and negative perception which also prevails side by side with CAAN. How to manage a change? Keeping in view of the above scenario, management
of change particularly the human factor in CAAN, should be treated strategically at two
levels-one at the ministry level and the other at an enterprise level. Past experiences
have revelled that the employees working at the parent ministry normally possess a
superiority complex. They consider themselves superior to that of the employees of
autonomous and corporate bodies. Keeping in view of this point, the government employees
in the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, (MOTCA) should realise that CAAN is neither
their competitor nor inferior to them, it is just a delegated mode of governance. The fact
is that the inception of CAAN, in this context, has created an excellent opportunity to
work in a collaborative and integrated approach for better results. CAAN is just an
extended but independent hand of HMG/N in general and MOTCA in particular. Strict adherence to designated work areas is
another point that both MOTCA and CAAN should consider. Air Service Agreement and Accident
Investigations are the two distinct areas of paramount importance that MOTCA has to
discharge. This is exactly in line with the contemporary concepts of limited government
and good governance which have provided theoretical basis of creating CAAN. Hence
functional line of actions to be performed by MOTCA and CAAN are crystal clear. However,
in a transitional situation like this, special caution should be taken whereby designated
responsibilities are ensured being discharged without any overlapping. This will certainly
encourage CAAN to achieve its predetermined goal while ensuring good governance on behalf
of MOTCA. At the enterprise level, it is felt that a range of
development interventions need to be adopted so as to change CAAN towards a customer
friendly and client oriented organisation with strong drive for result. At this juncture,
conduction of regional seminars regarding CAAN, its objective, its vision, its state of
affairs and expected role of employees seem to be in a dire need of the hour. Besides,
training interventions at all levels are also required to be organised. This will
definitely help reduce the misunderstanding and wrong perceptions about CAAN as mentioned
in above paragraphs. Participative/consultative style of management
could be another viable tool to reduce resistance to change. Those who feel that they are
being affected by change can feel that the change is not imposed, rather it is a joint
endeavour. After all management is a partnership. Again, release of news letters, bulletin and other
publications could be also feasible tools which acts as a linch pin between the management
and the employees, resulting to an enhanced understanding between them. What next? Attitudinal change resulting in a change in the
work ethics and business culture are expected and an inseparable part of the corporate
culture of CAAN. The objective of this nature can not be obtained over night. There is
also a need to educate people about recent improvements, including any other future
improvements, in salaries and other facilities must be justified by a change in their work
ethics and better results. Employees must keep in mind that CAAN is required to generate
its own revenue in order to meet operational as well as investment costs. As change is a human desire, it has actually
resulted in many creations and innovations. However as discussed above, it is also a fact
that there is always resistance whenever change is introduced. The discussion made so far
clearly indicates that attitudinal change is required both at the ministry and enterprise
levels. Change is for result and result can be attained only by a strong commitment
towards goal with a customer friendly and visionary management. Rhyme, feet and metre are no longer in
poetry. Two decades ago or so, Narmadeshwar Pradhan had composed verse which he did
not publish. He has, however, come up with his first ever published book of Modern Poems. Titled Jigu Gadhya Kabita is a compilation of 63
poems Pradhan has composed mainly after the 1990 movement. Poems are uncensored expression
of a suppressed mind that could do almost nothing against the crumbling political
establishment, degrading environment, clumsy urbanization and deteriorating cultural
values. Being tired of what has been shown in the name of
freedom and democracy, he seeks a revolution within and against revolution itself.
Because: We know And he says: So, he is in search of unlimited liberty which is
finite, open and there is no boundary to express or explore or absorb. Poverty in the country has been beneficial only to
those who have vested interests. That is the reason the country has become so poor despite
foreign assistance. He knows that poverty is not a bane for all. He concludes: This poverty of my country Therefore, he complains political leaders: In the same way, the poet is in search of his
Nepal, which is free from contaminated mundane affairs, conspiracy and blindfolded
freedom. He is wounded by those who “have turned his rhododendron’s country into
a Red Light Area” and rape his brain in the bright sunlight. Being desperate, he
declares: There will be eruptions Images and metaphors are modern and we have been
used to them. But his poetic diction presents them with some unusual contexts and
defamiliarizes the whole lexical as well as contextual values according to the traditional
stands. The dissatisfaction to present atmosphere and
exploration of experiences are his inspirations. He is craving for a better tomorrow and
has some tints of Romaticism too. Still, he does not want to be enlisted amongst other
progressive poets of Nepalbhasa. He contradicts the tendency of a group of critics who
endeavor to present both modern and progressive as one. On the other hand, he opposes
those poets who at times present themselves as Marxists and at other, shows disregard to
the progressive notion by calling themselves simply modernists. The poet himself believes,
“So far possible, I have remained neutral to both extremes and tried to open up my
heart being indifferent to the worldly trends,” In the context that Nepalbhasa literature,
nowadays, is becoming almost a formality and way of being in the limelight among Newar
readers, Pradhan’s attempt of coming on the stage with a well-looking book is
laudable. He himself is a critic and possesses enough knowledge of Western literary
movements. So contemporary trends of writing poems to match today’s readers can be
spelt here. Nepalbhasa literature was once-upon-a-time glory of
nation. But as the time passed, the people of the concerned community had to work very
hard especially between the 40s and 70s to keep the legacy burning. But today, an unseen
fatigue has crept inside. Pradhan’s poetry could be an inspiration to many bewildered
youth. He has chosen this collection of newer poems instead of the unpublished one, which
gave him Shrestha Award fourteen years ago. This must be his inclination toward setting
himself free from classical bondage. Nevertheless, the poetry book, printed on smart
paper that costs 100 rupees for 116 pages, would have been reasonable in the present book
market, had there not been so many grammatical mistakes and spelling slips. Reviewed by -By Bimal Rawal Paedophilia is not a new issue. Since the arrest of
Lucas and the release of Hayward, an accused on paedophilia charges about three years ago
has been an issue of public debate. It is interesting to note that about five years ago
our then honourable Minister of Social Welfare had proudly proclaimed in the Stockholm
conference that Nepal is about to enact laws against paedophilia. And five years down the
line we release a paedophile because we do not have a law to charge sheet him.
Congratulations! Who takes the responsibility for the ministers
remarks in an international conference. It is obvious that she was speaking off the cuff.
Should not the party take responsibility for the remarks that their ministers make?
However it is evident that most of the concerned party members are not even aware about
the issue. The general belief is that they are neither concerned. Why has a law not been passed as yet? Many
concerned Nepali citizens are convinced that the delay has been because it does not
involve commissions and kickbacks. The truth was aptly summed up by Ashok, a ex-street
boy, in a recent meeting when he said that the law has not been implemented because of the
infightings amongst the organisations working for children. Another issue is why is it
that even though millions have been pumped in on grounds of children issues, all it has
done is bring in new Pajeros and improve the status - social and economic - of the
individuals running such organisations and the plight of the children continue. The recent arrest of Jean Jacque and Christopher
Jenkins has raised a storm, albeit in a tea cup, amongst the organisations working with
children. These people are social workers working with street children. They have been
abusing children in Nepal for decades. Chris has been accused before and Jean has always
been a suspect. It is surprising how these paedophiles can be allowed to work with
children? Anne, yet another suspect was a volunteer working with children. In a recent meeting it was discovered that there
are hundreds of shelter homes operating in Nepal both registered and unregistered with no
criteria laid down for people who should be allowed to run such shelter homes. In some
homes the children are compelled to live in pathetic conditions and are sexually exploited
- both by Nepali and foreigners. Strict criterias should be laid down but not at the
expense of frightening the prospective workers and donors or creating a monopoly of the
people who are already working in this field. Will anything ever be done? It is doubtful. The
police first makes all the citizens feel obliged for following up a case which does not
have any legal basis. To further elaborate the point there is no law against the sexual
exploitation of a minor boy. This makes Nepal a haven for paedophiles all over the world.
While countries globally try to enact and strengthen their laws about paedophiles we
continue to ignore the issue or at best indulge in debates and seminars. In the latest episode the foreigners involved were
arrested with documented proof. The street children spoke openly about the abuse. The
guilty were kept in police custody for a certain period of time charge sheeted under the
public offence case for a lack of a better law and then released on bail. One of them went
back to running his old shelter home in Pokhara. He was to be deported but could not
because he has a pending case on the one hand and on the other he cannot be quarantined so
the best option as seen by the bureaucracy was to let him loose in the streets to abuse as
he desires!!! Chris the main culprit was arrested once again, in
a lodge with children, in a compromising position and yet he is released. What message are
we sending to the international community. Are we not inviting all the paedophiles to
visit Nepal and do as they choose? When these children will grow up to be criminals and
paedophiles we will have enacted our laws by that time and then we will put them behind
bars. Is this fair? What initiative is the government and the various
NGOs working with children presently doing. There is a furry of activities and even the
politicians joining the bandwagon for they feel that they can now get some political
mileage out of it. Disoriented and disorganised there are various groups working
simultaneously to enact a law. Why cannot there be a concerted united effort? Tragically
it is difficult to get all the organisation working in this field to sit together under
the same roof. Secondly, unless we get over the “what is there in for me”
mentality nothing can happen. Thirdly all of us have to rise above our petty political
interests. We have to realise that the issue is most important and cannot or should not be
sidelined. Whatever is presently happening is too little too late. Some concerned individuals (not organisations)
based in Thamel, or their own initiative, have stated winning the confidence of the street
children and interviewing them and they are horrified at the state of abuse that is
rampant. A substantial majority of the street children have been and are continuing to be
abused. They do not even realise that they are abused. Some even take pride in keeping
count of their partners. One even has a tattoo on both his arms to depict the ladies he
had sex with. This group also recognises over thirty foreigners
who are either residents here or frequent Nepal who have been identified by the boys. Sex
tourism they believe is on the rise and if the stories of the street children is to be
believed the local influential and the rich are involved. They complain that if this is
not correct then why did their signature campaign with over 30,000 signatures bore no
results and realistically speaking, in such crimes locals have to be involved. The children are probably too small to realise that
they are the victims and once they grow up to realise this, will they not become the
predators? Even now the bigger children are abusing the smaller ones in the group. Fro
them it is fun and also a means of making ends meet - to survive. What cost the society
will have to pay for turning a deaf ear today can only be answered with the passage of
time. Topics in Nepalese linguistics -By Kamal Poudel Nepal, a Himalayan Kingdom, comprises of at
least four language families consisting of more than hundred languages and dialects; hence
a rich land of linguistic clusters offering different outstanding linguistic features.
This fact has always been demanding the attention of linguists. Topics in Nepalese
Linguistics, edited by Prof Yogendra P Yadava and Dr Warren Glover and published by Royal
Nepal Academy, brings this obvious fact into light collecting the work by over thirty
Nepali and international scholars whose indepth study of the language in the Himalayan
Kingdom has undoubtedly achieved the privilege of a worthy contribution in the field of
linguistic studies. The works collected in this book cover quite different fields of
linguistics and are grouped accordingly, namely field description, phonology,
morphonology, morphology and syntax, historical and comparative linguistics,
socio-linguistics and phycholinguistics and contrastive studies. Here, this review
endeavours to yield an overview of the contributions in the book. In the area of field description, Ross
Coughley’s paper deals with the relationship and differences found between Bhujeli
and Chepang, spoken in the south and southeast of Kathmandu, presenting sufficient data
with clear description. He comes to the point that the verbal affixation differs
considerably between Chepang and Bhujeli, enough to make communication difficult, although
these are closely related dialects with high lexical similarities as well as cultural
affinity. In her paper on Dhimal, giving a brief introduction about the people and
language, Kathrin Cooper makes an assessment that the organized teaching of Dhimal
literacy should replace or complement the Nepali literacy classes. In his study of Gurung,
a Tibeto-Burman language, Warren Glover enters the subject asserting that the verbal
activity is respective to its social setting and the cultural situation which the speakers
and hearers involve in. Tone or tonal contrast characterizes many
Tibeto-Burman languages. Stephen Watters presents the acoustic analysis of the Sherpa
language. Sunil Kumar Jha’s paper also deals with acoustic analysis of Maithili
voiced aspirates and comes to the point that aspiration in both voiced and voiceless
speech sounds consists of glottal width and timing factor locating the peak of the width
near the consonant release, which leads him to propose the inclusion of aspirations, like
the distinctive features of Chomsky and Halle (1968), in distinctive feature theory, since
it has its foundation in phonetics. Phonesthetic correlations between sounds and
meanings are found in many languages including Indo-Aryan languages, and Nepali appears to
be especially rich, asserts Ballav Mani Dahal and calls his readers for further
investigation in the fields like compiling an exhaustive dictionary of phonesthetic bases
and derivative phonesthetic words, a thorough phonological and grammatical analysis of
phonesthetic words. Esther Strahm and Anita Maibum’s paper explores that Jirel, a
Tibeto-Burman language, possesses quite an extensive system of verb pairs which display
various degrees of transitivity, and the oppositions involve not just transitive versus
intransitive but encompass rather a whole range of pairings. Gill Boye’s contribution
is an account of Nepali verb morphology. He proposes a phonological analysis to give a
simplified description of Nepali verb conjugations. Subadhra Subba inspects the major
morphophonemic alternations in Magar, a Tibeto-Burman language, and asserts the
application of a rule will derive the correct phonetic representation from the underlying
phonemic form. The process of cliticization in Maithili is
investigated by Ram Awatar Yadav with the remark that e and o alone should be described as
clitics, and that he, ho and hi hu as affixes. Verb compounding, known as an areal feature
of South Asia, is examined through Madav Pokharel’s article, which discusses the
different shades of meaning of the compound verb while topicalising or permuting. George
van Driem’s article presents a revisited morphological analysis of verbal agreement
in the Limbu. Scott DeLancey goes through the relativisation in Tibetan and states that
central Tibetan shows a complex relativisation system, which bears a numbers of
characteristics of particular typological interest. Yogendra P Yadava’s paper
postulates that the ‘Maithili rule raises the subject of a tensed embedded caluses,
whereas the Subject-to-Subject raising rule raises to the matrix subject position the
subject of a tenseless embedded clause’, and arrives at the conclusive remarks that
Maithili ‘seems to violate (I) the case theory and (ii) binding theory,’ which
leads the author to propose a redefinition and modification of government binding theory
to resolve the problem. The paper by Balthasar Bickel puts forward the fact that
morphological convergence of syntactic functions is prominent in some eastern
Tibeto-Burman languages and goes ahead stating that focus marking appears to be the
functional core of main clause nominalization. The phenomenon of conjunctive participle,
which spreads across many South Asian languages, is brought into light by Austin Hale and
Kedar P Shrestha’s article providing the evidence that the ‘Newar conjunctive
participles -a: occurs as clause final relator linking the clause to its host clause in a
variety of ways.’ John Peterson’s article is dedicated to Nepali subordinated
verbs and concludes that Nepali subordinated verbs appear in either five or six different
levels of inflection. Karen H Ebert studies Kiranti languages offering an
areal perspective on non-finite verbs and discusses the common traits found between the
southernmost Kiranti languages and the northernmost Munda languages. Michael Noonan’s
study is addressed to the converbal construction in Chantyal, a Tibeto-Burman language in
the midwestern Nepal. Tej R Kansakar brings ahead the issues of
historical linguistics dedicating his article to the comparison of the verb agreement of
the Newar dialects spoken at two different points of history: classical and modern. Kamal
P Malla’s study points out the linguistic significance of tribal hillock names, that
bear different transformation in their history. Mark Turin offers an extensive and rich
data of historical ethnography of Thami. He concentrates solely on the Thami verb
morphology. Boyd Michailovsky’s postulation of the evidence from the Limbu is to
account for the Tibeto-Burman dental suffixes. Gerard J Tolsma presents the internal
reconstruction and comparative evidence of the long vowels in Kulung. Tej Man Angdembe
examines the anomaly in the Magar and contends the anomalous conjugation of the copulas
resulted from the development of the copulas as tense morphemes. Murari Regmi and David Watkins talk about the
‘possible influence of the use of English as the language of instruction as the
approach to learning of Nepalese students’. The diction of lexical item or pronoun
(for the different addressees) marks the significance of social stratification and
linguistic behaviour. It is investigated by Churamani Bandhu with the illustration from
Sinjali society, the western part of Nepal. Carol Genetti examines ‘variation in
gender and number agreement in Nepal.’ Taking a case study from Limbu, Jeff Webster
sees the ‘language development’ activities in post-democracy-restoration period
in Nepal. Shishir Kumar Sthapit’s article presents a
contrastive study of linguistics positing the phonemic, phonetic and distributional
differences found between the sounds of English and Nepali, while Shanti Basnyat’s
article brings out a comparative componential analysis of Nepali and English verbs.
Finally, Sueyoshi Toba’s article talks about the typological similarity between
Nepali and Japanese languages, descendants of two different families. The book will certainly be successful in enriching
the linguistic studies with innovative exploration, since this land still awaits to be
explored more. To sum up, this volume may serve as a classical reference material in the
field of Nepalese linguistics and languages. -By Parag Bhattarai Greenhouse is nothing but a house made of plain
glasses. In such a house sun rays can enter, but cannot escape because the glasses
hold back rays. This happens, because, the temperature inside the house is be more than
outside. Likewise, imagine a giant glass sphere has
encircled the earth. The heat of the sun penetrates through the glass. The earth absorbs
some heat, and some is radiated back towards space. The radiated heat reaches the glass
sphere and is prevented from dispersing any further. This giant glass sphere is nothing
but a blanket of gases known as Green House Gases, which hold back sun rays to the earth.
Temperature of the earth, therefore, becomes hot, which we call global warming.
Consequences of global warming and climate change could well include: - The eradication of the entire ecosystem; - Increased frequency and intensity of storms,
hurricanes, floods and droughts; - Rising of the sea level; - Spread of tropical diseases due to insects
proliferation. The green house gases include naturally occurring
gases — primarily water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide — as well
as industrial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons. Global emissions of carbon — which comes in
the atmosphere from carbon dioxide, the most important green house gas released by human
activities. A chief culprit in recent emissions growth is transportation sector, the
fastest growing source during the past two decades. The total carbon pool, estimated at about 49,000
metric gigatons, is distributed in organic and inorganic forms. Fossil carbon accounts to
22% of the total pool. The oceans contain 71% of the world’s carbon mostly in the
form of bicarbonate and carbonate ions. An additional 3% is in dead organic matter and
phytoplankton. Terrestrial ecosystems, in which forests are the main reservoir, hold 3% of
the total carbon. The remaining 1% is held in the atmosphere, circulated, and used in
photosynthesis. Human activity is not only producing more carbon
dioxide, but is also severely damaging the ability of the earth to absorb carbon - via its
carbon sinks — the forests and oceanic plankton. Growing forest absorbs carbon
dioxide. Massive worldwide deforestation results in much fever trees to soak up
carbon dioxide, and releases the stored carbon dioxide from the trees into the atmosphere. Similarly, the destruction of the ozone layer by
human made chemicals, like chlorofluorocarbons, is allowing increased level of harmful UV
rays to reach the surface of the earth. This could reduce the density of plankton in the
ocean. Since plankton is the primary carbon, reduction in the density could result in less
carbon dioxide being absorbed from the atmosphere. Thus, the main effect of this is climatic changes.
Climate models show that atmospheric temperature will increase between 15 and 450c by the
year 2100. The bottom line is that the emission of green house
gases must be reduced. We must develop industrial practices and means of transportation
which are less dependent on fossil fuels, and ultimately, manage completely without them.
It is becoming apparent that the world may not be able to survive with fossil fuels. This
means that we must develop renewable sources of energy which are environmentally
sustainable. Renewable systems include solar photo voltaic power system, wind turbines,
bio—fuel plantation, hydroelectric system and so on. These energy sources are
sustainable because they never run out. |
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