UN’s Role In The New Century
For A New World Order

By Dr. Mohan Lohani

THE UN millennium Summit that met for three days in the first week of this month in New York is now over with a declaration of historic significance. The summit’s opening was overshadowed by the tragic murder of 3 UN workers in West Timor by the pro-Indonesian militia opposed to the independence of East Timor last year. Reacting to this, many wondered whether the UN could effectively, and efficiently conduct its peacekeeping operations without adequate resources, trained staff and, above all, armed forces of its own. Nevertheless, the Summit will go down in history as the largest ever gathering of national leaders from all over the world. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan personally worked hard to ensure that the Millennium Summit would be looked at in a way different from the past and treated accordingly as a working summit rather than a celebration marked by high sounding speeches and statements.

Purpose

Each summit or conference, if it is not a routine annual affair, has a purpose behind it. The Millinnium Summit was conceived and convened to chart a course for humanity in the new century. The UN, as we are aware, was established in the aftermonth of the end of the Second World War which caused widespread devastation and inflicted untold suffering on millions in different parts of the world. The primary objective of the UN, among others, was and has been to save succeeding generations from the scourage of war and to maintain international peace and security. It is to the credit of the world organisation that it has succeeded in averting another world war, mostly through its peacekeeping apparatus, despite the outbreak, from time to time, of a numerous inter-state and intra-state wars and conflicts in various regions of the globe.

The largest ever gathering of national leaders from all over the world, apart from its symbolic value, proves in unmistakable terms that the UN is an indispensable instrument, to borrow Kofi Annan’s phrase, for tackling our shared problems. The Millennium Declaration also describes the UN as ‘the indispensable common house of the entire human family.’ The significance of the UN as a representative world forum for debating and discussing wide ranging issue of global concern and finding solutions to them through consultations, canciliation and consensus needs no overemphasis. It may be noted that far from being a supra-national body, the UN is an inter-governmental forum designed by common consent to prevent war, to promote peace and development and to ensure freedom and justice in keeping with the noble ideals and objectives enshrined in the UN Charter.

Reflect as it does the hopes and aspirations of mankind the UN embraces within its fold practically all issues of human concern ranging from poverty to population growth, terrorism to traffic-king in drugs, growing indebtedness of Third World countries to ecological disaster and disarmament to international cooperation for development. The agenda is indeed long. Global issues call for global solutions. The decline or increase in the credibility and effective-ness of the world body depends on the political will and determination of member States to support the UN declarations and programmes of action. Support from other quarters at different levels is no less vital and crucial. As Secretary General Annan has rightly pointed out, governments by themselves cannot solve multimentional problems confronting humanity. In other words, concerted efforts of governments must be supplemented and backed up by the active involvement of civil society organisations, NGOs, representatives of the private sector and conscientious citizens in each country.

While addressing the summit, leaders of the world highlighted burning problems of the day and reviewed, albeit briefly in their plenary statements, the performance of the world body, its successes and failures, its strengths and limitations, during the last 55 years of its existence. While African leaders pleaded for international help to combat HIV/ AIDS in Africa,the chiefs of Arab delegations urged the UN to get involved in the Middle East peace negotiations. It may be recalled that the recent Camp David peace talks sponsored by the US got stalled because of conflicting positions on the issue of sovereignty over East Jerusalem. PM Koirala, Head of the Nepalese delegation to the summit, touched on the problems of the LDCs and called upon the international community, in particular developed countries, to help economically weaker countries alleviate their problems of poverty, backwardness, debt burden and other constraints such as their lack of competitive ability to benefit from globalisation.

PM Koirala also called upon the transit countries to provide increased facilities to land-locked countries so that they could join the global economic mainstream. Needless to mention, land-lockedness has been and continues to be a major geographical handicap for Nepal in accelerating the pace of developmental activities geared towards bettering the lot of the people. That Nepal is in favour of comprehensive reforms in the UN system was also reflected in the Prime Minister’s statement: "The UN General Assembly, Nepal believes, should be allowed to play a more decisive role in world affairs. Likewise, the Economic and Social Council, one of the principal UN organs, can play a catalystic role in dealing with glaring social and economic problems that have generated economic backwardness and fuelled social unrest in a majority of Third World countries.

The Millennium Declaration, eight pages long, issued by world leaders at the end of the three-day summit is a significant achievement reaffirming once again the firm commitment of member States to the objectives, principles and purpose of the United Nations. The declaration encompasses prominent issues of global concern such as commitment to eradication of extreme poverty, measures to fight AIDS and global warning and strengthening the UN. It is encouraging that the declaration sets a time frame of 2015 for reducing poverty by half in the world. Poverty is indeed a formidable challenge to the international community including world statesmen and leaders who looked pleased to issue a vision statement in the form of a declaration at the Millennium Summit. The target can be met if international commitment based on a concrete Plan of Action is effectively and expeditiously implemented.

Expectation

While the Security Council has agreed to increase the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations, particularly in Africa, the UN is expected to play a more effective action-oriented role to overcome manifold challenges facing humanity in the new century. A declaration of intent or a statement of principles is, however, not enough. Such declarations on a wide range of issues of global concern such as population growth, environmental disaster, women empowerment and social development have been adopted in the past by UN conference during the last 50 years. People of the world ask whether pious wishes reflected in UN declarations have transformed their lives, improved their standards of living and created congenial conditions for a New World Order.

PM Koirala’s UN Visit : Meaningful & Fruitful

By Jagadish B. Mathema

DURING U. S. Television CNN Network’s Q.A. programme, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has stressed on eradicating poverty from the world. Poverty is a great curse to the developing countries in particular and the whole world in general. If the global community ignores to act poverty, it would soon pose a great security threat in the near future.

Problem

Bhutanese problem is a vexing problem for Nepal. Without India’s support, this problem will remain unsettled. Premier Koirala has said that he will be holding talks with the delegates from India and Bhutan both to reach an amicable settlement of this one-decade-old problem in the interest of peace and goodwill in the South Asian region. There is no denying that without India’s involvement, participation and good will, repatriation of approximately 100,000 Bhutanese refugees, who have been settling in Jhapa and Morang will be a difficult problem for Nepal. Koirala has further stressed in connection with Bhutanese issue that provided this annoying and irritant issue cannot be solved shortly, this will have dangerous impact in case the Maoist insurgents get involved with the Bhutanese refugees both for Nepal and India. It is an encouraging fact this issue had been discussed with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during Koirala’s recent visit to India.

The meeting of the heads of State of SAARC is already overdue since it was scheduled to be held in Nepal in last September. This issue had also been discussed with Indian Premier Vajpayee by Premier G.P. Koirala and it is hoped that the 11th SAARC Summit would be held in Kathmandu at the earliest date.

Nepal is very sensitive towards the issue of ISI activities in Nepal. Nepal cannot afford to have given a place to both "RAW" and "ISI" to make a playground to initiate beligerant activities towards both our friendly countries. It is a very sensitive security issue that will certainly have far reaching consequences for all of our friendly countries such as India, Pakistan and Nepal. Premier Koirala has stressed on the fact that such actions must be stopped.

There have been mixed reactions on P.M.’s visit to U.N. among politicians, intellectuals and experts on foreign policy. However, the participation of the Head of the Government, where the Heads of the 150 countries in this first Millennium Conference of the United Nations should not be minimised. The Prime Minister is the leader of the country and as a leader of the nation he can achieve a lot by holding mini summits with other Heads of the Government during this millennium conference of the United Nations held in New York. Premier Koirala had the opportunity to meet the seven Heads of SAARC nations and try to convince them to revive the SAARC process, which has remained in abeyance at present.

P.M. Koirala’s participation in this Millennium Summit is very much justified because of the fact that he would certainly have the opportunity to meet and to develop friendship at the personal level with the innumerable world leaders, which will have far reaching beneficial impact for Nepal.

Premier Koirala’s visit to U.N. is certainly a public relations triumph, where he addressed the gathering of 150 Heads of States of the world. This itself is a significant achievement.

As we have entered the Third Millennium we must make an effort to make the United Nations more effective, influential, strong and efficient. Focus should be made towards the elimination of poverty in the world, conflicts that have cropped up in various parts of the world related with ethnic cleansing, religious conflicts, allocating much resources’ on weapons and armament of mass destruction including proliferation of nuclear arms, efforts for elimination of dreadful disease like AIDS, protection of environment and other herdis of problems.

This Summit has planned to divide five various conferences with demarcation of issues divided into five groups in a regional basis, where in-depth inter-actions will be taken and appropriate recommendations as well as conclusions will be made.

It is believed that this Millennium Summit will take into consideration to identify the positive issues with regard to the implementation of gobalisation and liberation of international trade.

Britain has stressed on the issues such combatting global terrorism and violence and to make effective and strong the U.N. troops assigned on such assignments and if necessary, United Nations should intervene and take control in such cases.

Issues

The South Korean President has requested the U.N. to discuss on the issue of the integration of both South and North Korea. The issue of the repression on democracy by the military government in Myanmar and the ill treatment by the military Junta in Burma towards the popular democratic leader also came up for discussion during this U.N. Millennium Summit.

In consideration of the above facts, the U.N. Millennium Summit held in New York beginning September 3 was quite timely and the participation of Nepal, led by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, was very relevent, which will have reaching impact in the days to come.

Ayurveda: The Art & Science Of Life

By Bhuwan Poudel

AYURVEDA is the science of life. It is the traditional medicine of Indian subcontinent including Nepal. Ayurvedic details with the physical, mental and social health of an individual Ayurvedic presents a helpful alternative to the technical and mechanical model of modern medicine, the limitation of which are gradually becoming evident through time.

Ayurveda is not only the folk machine, but it is the science which covers both philosophical and clinical aspects of life Ayurveda posses longest clinical experience, with a history of Ayurvedic hospitals and colleges going back for over three thousands years. The root of Ayurvedic can be treated to the beginning of cosmic creation. It is believed that Ayurvedic originates from Brahma, the creator of this universe. The first writen literature of Ayurveda is the Veda. The magic-religious aspect of medicine in the Veda was gradually supplemented by observation based on scientific thinking.

Ayurvedic scholars from subsequent generation gave a sound and logical footing of philosophy to Ayurveda. The material scattered in Vedas was systematically collected and arranged. Such complications were called Samhitas. These Samhitas or bookos are backbones of Ayurveda. Although these books have undergone some sort of modification by various commentators in subsequent period.

Western medicine has focused upon pathogenis, and how to control disease through balancing the life forces. Ayurvedic treatment is based upon the ascertainment of individual constitution. This is the unique power of system in that it treats the living individuals as the most important factor. Ayurveda does not regard disease as a factor in itself but only as a complication of constitutional imbalance. However, it regards disease more as a production we live than as an attack from outside.

The drug employed in modern medical sciences have been changing rapidly, while the basic nature of the human body has remained the same. When drugs used for a period of time become ineffective, it indicates that something is fundamentally wrong with our entire approach to healing. As against this, the principle and methods of Ayurveda romain the same. The Ayurvedic drugs which mainly based upon plant sources are free of side effects.

Ayurveda, the ancient human medical science for human civilisation in Hindu philosophy written in unkown time period described several crude medicinal plants and herbs of human therapeutic value which grow wild in high belt of Nepal. Rigveda depicts of 67 plants of medicinal importance. Atharvaveda enumerates about 290 medicinal plants. Ajurveda depicts about 81 medicinal plants. The Ayurveda written in-unknown historic time period describes 1600 medicinal plants and aromatic plants of therapeutic value.

The wealth of medicinal plants in Nepal may be considered as one of the important natural resources for the economy of this Himalayan Kingdom Nepal that ties in the south east sector of Asia. It stands at a latitude of 26 degree 22 minutes to 30 degree 27 minutes month and longtitude is 80 degree 4 minutes to 88 degree 12 minutes east. The east west length is 885 Km and average width is 193 km. Its total area is about 147,181 square kilometer and varies 60-22 meter in the south rising to 8848 meter at north.

The diversity in the geography and interaction between the prevailing phytogeograhic elements have virtually lodged the country as the center for origin and distribution of diverse floristic composition.

Nepal is botantically very rich. About 7,000 belonging to vascular plants and 4,500 of non-vascular plants are reported to be found in Nepal. About 20,000 species of plants are reported to be medical uses around the world. The recorded list of medicinal plants found in Nepal is 700 species consisting 10 the of flowering plants. Experts of concerned field claimed that there are more than 1,500 species of medicinal plants consisting of high valued Himalayan herb. Nowadays, there is a great demand of medicinal plant in the international market. If we can export these plants in proper way for eg by making an Ayurvedic medicine, there is no doubt that it would become a source of foreign exchange.

Beyond being merely a curative system, Ayurveda, as it is called covers the entire existence of individual in both the natural and supernational spheres, addressing him or her both as a single entity and as a component of the continues flow of existence. Ayurveda identical and that man is the miniature (individual) and macro (universe) are identical and that man is the miniature of nature. Hence, Ayurveda is concerned with the theories of evolution and the creation of universe. Ayurveda accept the Aristotelian concept of common origin for universe and man-that events in the natural world mirror of some extent the events in the supernatural one-is also present, with direct inter-connection between individual and universal wellbeing. As a result we can say Ayurvedia is an "Art of life" for maintenance of both physical and mental health.