Bada Dashain Message

HIS MAJESTY the King observed that our long cherished tradition, culture and value system have always contributed a lot in the task of nation building and maintaining and promoting Nepal’s national identity in the world. In a Message to the Nation on the occasion of the Bada Dashain-2057, the biggest festival of the Nepalese, His Majesty the King further noted that remaining steadfast in our national unity, which has been consolidated by this culture and value system, all Nepalese must be able to observe their tradition and way of life peacefully in a secure environment. At present the country is facing several challenging problems. And the government is making sincere efforts to tackle these problems through various measures and programmes. Poverty, backwardness, ignorance and disease are some of the problems Nepal has been confronted with for many years. All efforts of the government have been directed towards overcoming these problems with two main objectives: to free the Nepalese society from want, disease and ignorance and to uplift the people’s social and economic status. However, off late, the government’s commendable efforts have been disrupted because of the growing violence perpetrated by some misguided people in the name of the so-called Maoist insurgency. This mayhem, in turn, has been creating a lot of problems for the people. More worrying to note is that this has led to one citizen killing another fellow citizen—and one Nepali trying to create hatred against another Nepali. The message and spirit of Bada Dashain is unity to preserve our unique identity and come up with collective efforts to fight against the evils that may threaten our long cherished traditional and cultural values. As such, this mindless activity is not only totally against the very spirit of Bada Dashain but also completely counter to the Nepalese cultural ethos which strongly believe in peaceful evolution.

As observed by His Majesty, the goal of nation building, national development and maintaining national unity and identity can be achieved only when all the problems are dealt with a clear and long-term perspective based on our national interest. Nepal’s national culture was developed and guided by the notion of ‘ live and let live’ and ‘ unity in diversity’. This national culture, over these centuries, has undoubtedly contributed to the daunting task of nation building and consolidating Nepal’s national identity in the world. Therefore, any attempt to create division within the Nepalese society and instigate one Nepali against another fellow Nepali would only weaken the national feeling, identity and unity. Hence, it is the sacred duty of all people, irrespective of ideology, caste, creed and colour, to not only work collectively for national development and resolution of country’s common problems but also to take His Majesty’s Bada Dashain to mind and work unitedly together for the common cause of nation building and national development.

Wider Horizons

POSTAL service has not lost its significance as the information technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, rather its horizons have widened as speed becomes the by-word. Communication has become the vital need of the day as the world shrinks into a global village and economic activities keep growing. Hence, the need today is greater efficiency and wider reach of the postal service world-wide. Postal service in Nepal has direct air-mail link with 29 countries and Express mail service link with 26 countries. In a country where the majority of the population are not computer literate or internet users, postal service is the life line of communication in the nooks and corners of rural Nepal. As postal service marked the 126th Universal Postal Union Day, Minister for Information and Communication J.P. Gupta has appreciated the Universal Postal Union’s contribution to improving the quality of services and building necessary infrastructure for Nepal’s postal service. As per the government’s policy of expanding postal service to every VDC and municipality, 20 ilaka and 100 additional post offices have already been established in the country. This infrastructure combined with the policy of diversification now needs a result oriented approach to greater efficiency and reliability. Postal service being directly linked to customer needs, quality of service forms the core of postal service. And needless to say, our postal service has been lacking this approach. Stories of letters reaching their destination months later after they are dispatched, or ending up at wrong destinations are commonplace. So are incidents of other irregularities. Although, it belongs to the public sector and is government owned, postal service is necessarily a service business that should be self-sufficient in resources as well as making profits. Therefore, it is important that the postal service pulls its act together if it is to prove its efficiency and credibility at par with postal services in other parts of the world. In order to provide more reliable and quality service, postal department must look into its weaknesses and change its approach to the way it does business.