Barrage of sorrow 

Quite oblivious to Nepal’s sensitivies, India has done it again. Our big southern neighbour’s unilateral decision to construct the Russiyal-Khurda-Lautan barrage and a supporting embankment just 6 km southeast of Lumbini threatens to submerge that world heritage site and over 200 villages. Lumbini is just two meters higher than the water level at the barrage site. The six meter barrage is being put up across the aptly named Danav river only 200 meters from the border. Once completed it will affect some 100,000 people living in border villages. India’s unilateral move has rightly been described as an unfriendly act and an attack on Nepal’s sovereignty since the outward flow of Nepalese rivers is a natural phenomenon that should be allowed to run its course. Lawmakers across party lines have taken HMG to task for not doing anything about it. Mainstream political parties including some ruling Nepali Congress members have also condemned the Indian action.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives issued a ruling requiring HMG to come up with details about the offending barrage within a week. This issue may well become the very first test of the new government’s mettle, apart from the Maoist insurgency. The question now taking shape in the public mind is will Sher Bahadur Deuba be able to stand to the Indian government which seems to have an inborn tendency to take smaller neighbours like Nepal for granted and carry out activities that have a direct impact on them without so much as bothering to consult them before hand.

India has a track record of throwing up barrages and bundhs in the border areas knowing full well they will cause inundation in up-river Nepal. It is hard to give the decision makers in Delhi the benefit of the doubt and assume that they know not what they do. All the more so since India has been instrumental in blocking a number of Nepalese irrigation project that could have reduced the flow of water into downstream India. Nepal in the past had timidly agreed to Indian coaxing and desisted from such projects. The Deuba government might now have to rethink the whole water strategy vis-a-vis India if what we get in return is a series of dams like the one across the Danav. India is obviously turning a blind eye to the Helsinki Convention and other international law under which such structures cannot be put up unilaterally within eight kilometres of an international border. Rather, their attitude seems to be that some borders are more international than others. The Indian attitude is not hard to devine as it is the same mentality that envisages throwing up high dams in Nepal to tame north India’s rivers of sorrow. The little detail about the havoc it will mean for Nepal’s own living space does not seem to matter. Some three years ago also construction of a barrage by India in the Kakrahawa area near the border submerged parts of Rupandehi district. Over 1,700 families from five VDCs close to the Rapti river in eastern Banke district remain displaced after India unilaterally constructed the Laxmanpur barrage. The barrage is just 300 meters south of the international boundary. This kind of Indian attitude towards what are Nepal’s genuine concerns can only sour the otherwise good ties between the two neighbours. While wishing in vain for wiser council to prevail among Indian policy makers, our own government must do all in its powers including seeking the help of the International Court of Justice to prevent the progressive negation by India of Nepal’s natural and international rights.

Is decentralization a solution to bring peace ?

By Dr Alok K Bohara

The corruption perception index 2001 (CPI) published by the Transparency International (TI), a non-governmental organization, puts countries such as, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Russia, Cameroon, Bolivia, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, just to name a few, at the bottom tier, representing the corrupt and mismanaged regimes, whereas many western countries top the chart as having clean governments. Of the more than a hundred countries ranked, the data for Nepal and some other developing countries are not included in the publication, but it may not be unrealistic to assume that the ranking for Nepal may be somewhere at the lower tier. Can we then conclude that there is moral superiority among the western countries? Absolutely not, and in fact, as the IT appropriately points out, every society is as corrupt as its institutions and practices allow. Simply, the western democracies have generally been successful over the years in developing stronger institutions and practices to control the menace of mismanagement and corruption. Also of note is that many of these aforementioned countries have been experiencing political violence and mass discontent. At least, a potential correlation seems to exist between the two phenomena that may help us understand the
current situation in Nepal in coming up with some solutions to curve violence and save democracy.

The adverse effects of corruption and mismanagement on efficiency, growth, and the resource allocation have been well-established in the public choice literature, and scholars have studied its public policy implications. The latest political upheavals in countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Nepal and the changes in Mexico and Nigeria should also serve as a lesson, in that, indifference toward pervasiveness of corruption and mismanagement of national resources have far-reaching consequences. Consequently, the World Bank has begun to push for reforms in the area of civil service, budget, financial management, tax and revenue collection, government procurement, decentralization, legal and judicial branches special anti-corruption bodies, civil society and the media, national coalitions, and open and transparent government.

The new government of Mr. Deuba now has a golden opportunity to inject a renewed sense of hope for the country, and he should seize this opportunity to make the issue of accountability and transparency his number one priority— in deeds not just words. But first, we must understand the underlying arguments behind the economics of corruption that involves the roles played by the following players: policy makers (politicians and bureaucrats), special interest groups (lobbyists), voters, and, to some extent, the press. Subsequent arguments and one important proposal such as, a constitutional amendment to institute a power-sharing mechanism through regional decentralization, may even provide a potential solution to break the current political deadlock and end violence. More about that later.

But first, the basic dynamics of this political economy model works as follows. The policy makers (politicians) make promises to the voters to implement programs for their benefits, and the voters in return promise to reelect the policy makers. This is a simple, idealistic, and a naive model showing democracy in action. But, the failure of the politicians or their unwillingness to deliver results become the common occurrences instead. Public choice theorists point to the informational gap between the policy makers and the voters (principal-agent problem) as a possible source of these phenomena, in that, during the campaign the policy makers do not reveal to voters their true intentions –selling services to the special interest groups rather than being the representative of those who elected them. With no accountability required, once the elected policy makers take the office, personal interest not the ethics dominates their behaviour. With expensive elections in the near future, it pays to focus more on projects for the special interest groups (e.g., enacting anti-environmental laws to benefit a segment of the business lobbyists, imposing import regulations, creating quota systems to generate revenue through selling licenses, opening public lands for drilling, instituting regulations to prevent new entries). That is, with a very low probability of apprehension, it is only rational for the policy makers to maximize their profits by being at the service of those who can generate revenues. After all, they need money to run expensive election campaigns. It also explains why the law makers get involved in self-indulging activities such as, giving themselves import privileges, pay-raises, and pensions. On a bigger scale, scandals like Bofors, Lauda, and the China deals were simply accidents waiting to happen. The low detection rate comes from the fact that the pair engaged in the transaction finds it mutually beneficial to remain silent and has no incentive to report or protest. Similarly, involving more players in the scheme provides a shroud of protection. The problem is made much worse when a layer of well-intentioned regulatory checks and balances are instituted to break the monopoly of the centralization of bribery, in that, the clients now have to face a more expensive multiple veto power system (e.g., bribing more than one bureaucrat).

Furthermore, it has been argued that the policy makers have incentives to run large deficits, proposing programs to benefit them and the special interests, not necessarily the voters. As a result, inefficient programs (incurring costs larger than benefits) pervade and the national resources deplete (e.g., timber licenses, import licenses, relaxed immigration laws, water rights). Nationalization of enterprises and the active government control of economic activities or the increased entrepreneurial spirit of free market present opportunities for personal benefits for the rent seekers (creators of such opportunities). The additional cost attached to the bloated inefficient projects are financed by the public through higher prices and/or taxes or by wasting the national resources. The special interest groups simply collect the over budgeted moneys and share with the policy makers.

Many internationally sponsored projects (e.g., IMF and the World Bank) became easy targets for such abuses. Tired of such practices, the donors began to impose tougher lending standards. Consequently, many mismanaged and debt-ridden developing countries began to adopt unpopular austerity measures, resulting in political violence and mass uprising. Many governments began to collapse. Amid chaos, even the anarchists were successful in taking a centre stage at the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Western democracies have tried to alleviate the influence of the special interest groups by adopting various measures such as, making public all the information regarding contributions to candidates and limiting contributions by corporations, or even constitutionally forcing them to balance the budget. Some even argue for providing government funds for elections, so that the politicians do not have to be beholding to the special interest groups for election expenses. Still, many special interest groups succeed in buying favours from the policy makers by utilizing the loopholes. Just over the last couple of years, the pharmaceutical industries in the US spent more than $200.00 million dollars in lobbying activities and recruited numerous former political officials and government bureaucrats to lobby on their behalf. There is a growing movement in the US to put pressure on the lawmakers to close such a revolving door policy. Fortunately, a relentless media and some honest reform-oriented politicians keep this issue alive in front the public for their scrutiny. I have no doubt in my mind that, given an appropriate political climate in Nepal, many political individuals and intellectuals will want to become successful reformers. This article proposes two types of incentive-corrective mechanism, one focusing on the accountability and the other on decentralization of economic and political power.

(To be concluded)

(The author is Professor of Economics at the University of New Mexico, USA)

Mission Christian

By Ritesh Shrestha

Just ask yourself if you are ruled by divinity of any form–Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism, Zen or perhaps even Maoism? Of course, any folk under the Sun can have a different God as per the ‘theological taxonomy’. But my question is..., do you truly, deeply, madly pin your hopes on your respective pantheon? Or do you disregard it as an old wives’ tale? If your answer is positive, I shall predict whether you will be successful in your life. But, before I begin, let me tell you about my qualifications. I don’t want to upset you later on you know.

I don’t hold a PhD in astrology nor I am a famous Darruwalla like or our royal astrologist for whom visitors queue as though there is a shortage of gas. Moving on down about the level of my qualifications, I am not a palmist like you see all around Tudikhel and up to Ratnapark. So I’m not here to make a sort of advertising pitch for such palmistry vendors... not to mention the demo by parrot chartikala. Finally, I’m sorry to say that I’m only a simple folk devoid of any miraculous power. I guess that you are now getting quite cross but please hold on. Let me finally speak the witty words of wisdom.

East to west... sorry, west to east; Christianity is the best! It’s the most liberal or democratic –in political jargon -- of all the religions. For instance, our signs on many temples read – "Only Hindus are allowed". Likewise, unlike the severe conflict that may erupt from any form of trespassing of Hindu custom by a Muslim or vice-versa (oh yeah, a popular plot for Bollywood films), there is no such restriction in that religion. Otherwise, how could people like Magars, Thakalis, Limbus, Rais, Sunuwars and the likes become Christians when they were Hindus first hand? Well, the second hand
religion says it all.

We still have the gene – "Untouchables" in the biochemistry of the Hindu doctrine. And you can well imagine what kind of psychological impression results upon when an "untouchable" is touched by an unknown but well suited-booted foreign national without any feeling of hatred. Well, the first impression is the last impression! The books, comics and pamphlets about the Ishu Dharma look/sound sacrosanct as the fellow in mission has a superb charisma for moulding our innocent Nepali daju, bhai tatha didi, baini. And when there is disseminating of a series of opportunities on line–sponsoring education fees, constructing schools and hospitals, getting employed just to list a few - the first hand Hindus get enlightened. They are now dead sure that Jesus is their actual God – a guaranteed path to a successful life. And as in Hindu ritual, why waste money and energy visiting Char Dham to wash off one’s sins and finally reach heaven. If the Bible guide can easily secure you a heavenly life on earth, what’s the big deal about it in heaven?

The aggressive campaign backed up by infinite dollars: let alone the city dwellers, it has christened almost all of the most backward people, who constitute more than half the population of this only Hindu nation. This means that the new census, 2058 may bring forth a sheer drop in the numbers of Hindus from what it was in the last census (80 percent). So don’t we think it’s high time we did something. It’s touching as my pal put it – "It’s better to be a second class devotee of a first class religion than to be a first class devotee of a second class religion". Hail our almighty God – Lord Pashupatinath!!

Education, an ongoing process

By Sanjiv Borbora

When the whole world is talking about professionalism and multinationals are vying with and trying to outdo each other in projecting a relatively more professional corporate image of themselves, what meaning does this word hold to the custodians of education of our country, who have taken upon themselves the supposedly noble mission of imparting quality education to the country’s present and future generation. Yes! If the number of educational institutions is anything to go by, then I suppose we are invincibly professional, because we judge our success not by the enhancement of the intrinsic academic quality and cultural refinement in our students, but by the statistical yardstick of quantitative proliferation of numbers of institutions and students added to our banner every year and, of course, the bottom line is never to be forgotten.

Any number of universities, colleges, schools and educational institutions added to the sum total of a nation’s infrastructure will desperately fail in its prime objective of raising the standard of education to the desired level of professionalism unless and until human resource possesses the required level of professional competence and skill to meet the challenges of adjusting, adopting and adapting itself to the dynamics of change, the world over in diverse areas of learning and to keep abreast of the latest developments in various branches of knowledge and education in a rapidly changing scenario.

The best of organizational structure, systems, designs, processes and curriculum will fail to deliver quality if the human factor in an organization is neglected and is found desperately wanting in quality. Unfortunately, these days we see that a lot of emphasis is being given to augmenting the physical facilities and state of the art technological infrastructure of educational institutions but very little is being done to upgrade, train and develop the human resource which I feel is the core contributing factor responsible for not only continued sustenance and long term survival and growth of any professional educational institution, but also crucially instrumental in realizing a more fundamental objective of imparting quality education to the present and future generation and thereby shaping the destiny of the coming generation and the nation at large.

While on the one hand the efforts of the promoters and owners of schools and colleges in enhancing and upgrading the physical facilities and infrastructure needs to be given due appreciation and recognition, on the other hand, their utter lack of understanding or wilful neglect in developing and enhancing the quality of their Human Resource is to be strongly questioned. Bricks and mortar or a handful of electronic gadgets do not make an educational institution or organization professional. If at all we can call education a business then we must ask ourselves, what are we delivering? What is our product? Is it some kind of gross material commodity that can be picked up from a wayside Departmental Store or a Kirana Pasal? No! It surely isn’t so. We are imparting knowledge. Our product is far more subtle, non-physical and non- material in nature and substance. Education is not the physical transaction of merchandize, it is rather the mental and behavioural transference of knowledge, culture and values. And who are the parties to this subtle transaction? They are the teachers and the taught.

I am reminded of a humorous incident narrated by one of my professors in class during my post graduation days. It seems he had a teacher in school who would teach by dictation rather than explanation. One day while the routine dictation was in progress one of the students was caught not taking down notes. The teacher on noticing the student shouted at the top of his voice. "Why aren’t you taking down my notes". Maintaining a very calm and unruffled disposition the student got up and answered, "I beg your pardon sir, but I already have the notes that you are dictating.. "What do you mean?" asked the exasperated guru. "Yes sir! that’s true" said the student" these are the very notes that you had dictated to my great grandfather which was handed down by him to my grandfather who in turn keeping the age-old family tradition going passed it down to my father and now I have it."

There is a great lesson to be learnt from this seemingly insignificant narrative by the teaching class of our society as well as by those who are associated with the education sector. The quality of education and knowledge imparted to the students has an inherently direct relation to the profoundity and extent of knowledge possessed by the teacher. A healthy and well-nourished plant or tree can alone bear healthy and nourished flowers and fruits. In the same vein, it is only those teachers who are constantly nourished and updated with the manure of knowledge who can produce knowledgeable and enlightened students. You can only give that what you have. You cannot possibly impart something which you yourself do not posses. Learning is not a one-time affair but a lifetime affair, which does not stop with the attainment of some high-sounding degree or qualification earned at one point of time in the remote past. In the west, if a person has earned his doctorate degree more than five years back it is not considered a credential, worth quoting in the resume for reasons of its outdatedness. Such is the academic culture and perception there. However, here we see that no matter how distant in the past a degree may have been acquired, be it a Bachelors or a Masters or however irrelevant, or outdated may be the topic of research of a PhD holder he or she still takes unflinching pride in fluttering it around to remind the world that the ancient antique though old is still not any less golden.

Learning is a dynamic concept and so is the process of learning. It is often said that man learns till his last breath. The way a shopkeeper needs to constantly replenish his supplies to avoid a stock out situation, similarly a teacher who professes to be wedded to the noble profession of teaching but does not give himself to adequate scholastic pursuit and does not constantly update himself towards enhancing and expanding the horizons of his knowledge in the light of the changes in his respective field of discipline, faces a typical stock out situation of the shopkeeper and thus becomes professionally outdated and obsolete and intellectually impoverished and stagnated.

It is high time that the custodians of education of our country realized that investment in training and developing manpower is more vital and fundamental to the attainment of quality education than investment in physical infrastructure only. Quality doesn’t fall from the sky neither does it grow overnight. It is something which has to be developed through careful planning and proper implementation of training and developments programs for teachers in schools and colleges on a continuous basis over a long period of time. A teacher is like a reservoir of knowledge from which the students draw upon the resource of knowledge. And no matter how big a reservoir is if one goes on drawing from it without replenishing, a day will come when it will run out of supplies.