Uproot Corruption

AS a developing nation, Nepal has a plethora of problems that it should address. Building roads, reaching health facilities, providing education, ensuring hygiene and sanitation and many other such works, which will contribute in enriching the standard of living of the common masses. This is a situation faced by other developing nations of the world too and like the governments of those countries, His Majesty’s Government is also striving to meet the challenges in the different sectors. However all the efforts of the government are severely affected because of a social malaise that is constantly eroding the economy of the nation. This national problem is nothing else but corruption. Yet, the government alone cannot tackle corruption, which has spread its roots to the different echelons of society. Like pointed out by Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel, who is also looking after the portfolio of the Prime Minister, while inaugurating a talk programme titled "Elemination of corruption and other evils in development works: whose responsibility?" at Damauli the other day, the development of a democratic political culture and also awareness in the civil society are very much essential to combat corruption.

However, it is also true that the government bodies formed to control corruption, must be given sweeping powers so that they can be more effective in their work. In this regard, it is encouraging that the government is reforming different laws in its effort to make the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the top governmental agency combating corruption, to be more competent and efficient in its monumental task. At the same time DPM Poudel pragmatically advised the CIAA, that it should be able to exercise the powers given to it to eradicate this social ill. Quite naturally, only formulating laws will not be enough to control corruption. The laws must be stringently implemented and all the bodies responsible for checking corruption must sincerely dedicate themselves to their tasks. Meanwhile, there is also the necessity to make all government works transparent and at the same time an ongoing effort must be made to create awareness about the negative aspects of corruption and how it is destroying the economy of the nation. With the combined efforts of the government and the civil society, there is no reason why corruption cannot be controlled to a great extent, for the betterment of the whole nation.

World Literacy Day

INTERNATIONAL Literacy Day, the very first of this new millennium, was observed worldwide the other day. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Development Ram Chandra Paudel—who is also looking after portfolios of the Prime Minister—in a message on the occasion of the International Literacy Day, pledged to raise the literacy rate to 70 per cent from the current 53 per cent during the Ninth Five-Year Plan by launching a national literacy drive. He also observed that education should be linked with our social and economic reforms to make it more useful and result-oriented. Undoubtedly, education and development always go hand in hand. In the absence of education, for any nation, including Nepal, to think of development is just impossible. A mere glimpse of the history of development is enough to vouchsafe this intricate linkage between education and development. Those nations which are now termed as highly industrialised countries have been giving topmost priority to avail education facilities to all their people while those that are bracketed in the developing or least developed nations’ categories have yet to avail education opportunities to all their people. The net result is that if all such countries having highly literate citizens are not only socio-economically robust and healthy but also growing stronger by the year, then those that are saddled low or very low literacy rates are still having to face numerous obstacles in their efforts to develop their economies due to, among others, the glaring lack of skilled manpower to fuel their economic development drives.

The education scenario of Nepal, one of few least developed countries of the world, cannot be termed as satisfactory. Nearly 47 per cent of the Nepalese people are still denied the light of education even in the 21st century. Worse still, 30 per cent of children have yet to get schooling opportunity in the country. All this, despite the government’s huge investments in education sector every year, should a matter of serious concern to all. For, without highly literate population, the government’s development initiatives and programmes could flounder due to the lack of skilled and knowledgeable citizens to translate them into tangible benefits. As such, if the nation is to find its worthy place in the comity of nations, then it looks to reason for the government to not only pursue its literacy campaign vigorously, but also to come up with necessary measures to impart the required fillip to its national literacy drive.