CIAA Decision
Positive Note Struck

By Prem N. Kakkar

THE filing of cases in the Patan Appellate Court, last Friday, by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority against ten individuals who were involved in the irregularities and corruption in the Lauda Air deal has come as a reminder that the corrupt cannot escape howsoever hard they may try. It is, of course, an important action initiated by CIAA though the matter is in the court now and the decision has to be awaited.

The ten persons against whom charge sheets have been filed include Tarini Dutta Chautat, the then Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, then executive chairman of RNAC Hari Bhakta Shrestha, three board members and three department heads of RNAC, and two officials of
Lauda Air. However, the Prime Minister has been given a clean chit only being told to be alert to decisions made by the cabinet.

It is of importance here to go back and look at the way the demand for Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s resignation was made by CPN(UML). The background to this is the Lauda Air deal for leasing a Boeing 767 aircraft from the Austrian air company Lauda Air. UML has been alleging all along that financial irregularities had taken place and it was done with the Prime Minister’s complicity. This allegation has been refuted by Prime Minister Koirala. Premier Koirala is right in saying that unless there is evidence, words alone do not count.

With CIAA coming into the picture, there was every reason for the people in general to expect that something concrete would materialise from its investigations. And true to the nature of the Commission, it has meticulously studied the relevant documents and interviewed the concerned people before coming out with charges being filed in the court.

According to CIAA, about Rs. 390 million was incurred as loss to the national flag carrier. UML’s allegation has proved to be baseless as CIAA has not found any evidence whatsoever to show that the Prime Minister had any role to play in the said deal. Yet, the three-day bandh has come about with the six leftist parties supporting it.

At a time when the country is facing challenging times, the frequent disruption of normal life cannot be in the interest of the nation. Such tactics does not pay in the long run. For the past several months this fact has been proved time and again.

It is the bandhs that have led to a loss of many working days. The closure of educational institutions is a great loss to the nation. The industrial sector cannot bear the burden of remaining closed. What we see here is that the bandh organisers are interested only in the promotion of their interests and do not have the cause of the people in their minds. The scene of having no work on such closures of all activities, in fact, greatly affects the majority of the people belonging to the hand-to-mouth existence group. Make it a dayer or for three days, it does not benefit anyone.

UML’s present comments on the cases filed against the people involved in the Lauda Air deal is seen by its putting the three day bandh on the days for which they had been declared that is May 27, 28 and 29.

In an earlier attempt to force Prime Minister Koirala to resign, UML even went to the extent of disrupting House proceedings. The 19th session of the House ended without conducting any business. This was a sad chapter in the past one decade of democracy. After all, democracy does not give freedom to do whatever one likes to without thinking of the interest of others.

Now when Prime Minister Koiral has not been accused in the said deal by CIAA, UML sees something fishy while Public Accounts Committee(PAC) sees something else in the China South West Airlines lease. By saying that the PAC decision on CSWA was faulty, UML seems to be trying to rectify its wrong footing on what CIAA had to say on the Lauda Air issue. It does not behove on a responsible party to say the decision was biased or something like that. It must accept what the parliamentary committee has arrived through its studies and investigations.

The messages of both CIAA and PAC must be taken in the right light. Being vehement should not receive priority. The nation has already suffered very much. It boils down to building national consensus on wide ranging issues for greater benefits to the people and the country. Stalling House meetings or bringing national life to a standstill cannot be curative in nature. It is in the best interest that UML take a positive attitude and not increase the state of tussle.

What the country needs most at present is an attitude of compromise to which all the political parties including the major ones like Nepali Congress, CPN(UML), RPP, etc. If there arises an understanding or a common platform to chalk out national strategies, it would be most useful. All must join heads to improve the law and order situation, make efforts for poverty alleviation and so on. The "let’s work together" must be uppermost in mind.

Nepal Bandh: Muscle Vs. Wisdom!

By Prakash Dahal

MONDAY, morning, the vegetable vendors’ makeshift stalls around the Bhimsengola corner remained deserted. It seemed as if an epidemic had broke out or they sighted some extraterrestrial creature and fled. The vegetable vendors were no where to be seen; their stalls remaining empty except the narrow opening of a plastic roofed bamboo stall- a hive of the industry, so to say. Crowded by the morning-walkers, everyone was busy exploring a little fresh stuff through the heap of withering vegetables.

The Pashupati walkers all pass through the dirty, dingy vegetable market by the road side- the overflowing drainage fringing the land on one side, and the slaughtering of buffalo, on the other. The filthy surrounding doesn’t affect the neuron-theologians, I suppose, they pick and hold vegetables in a polythene bag and have them tottered away.

Hari Lal Joshi, 32, the jolly, usually frisky vendor, appeared unusually slothful that day. His everyday gimmickry wasn’t there, nor his wit, neither those of his epigrammatic expressions he gleefully made to entertain his customers. His somber mood was suggesting something ominous had happened. It was little later only he disclosed that he lost Rs. 300 that day. Was it some burglar that broke into his house and robbed him, or he lost them in gambling?

Visibly irritated, the usually cheerful vendor dismayingly asked, ‘ Don’t you know that today is Nepal bandh?’ ‘No vegetable supply for three days means I am losing Rs. 900 by just idling away my time, he lamented. ‘And if they go on like this for another couple of days, I should join the lepers of Pashupati with a begging bowl, the man from Hariban, sarlahi uttered his frustration.

Joshi may or may not hold a begging bowl around Pashupati, but the vegetable vendor is surely going to lose Rs. 900 which under no circumstances this man could afford. The loss wasn’t his own
making but he could do nothing about it. All he could do was to stoically bear the pain. He couldn’t speak them out or
lodge any complain with anyone in the kind of mobocracy he was caught in. All he could do is curse them or grumble in private.

Hari Lal Joshi is certainly not one and the only everyday earner whose boat has been rocked by the bandh. Hundreds of Joshis are forced to become a silent spectator of their own ruins due to the politicians’ locking of horns together for their personal or partisan gains.

The lingering question is why should people like Hari Lal Joshi suffer for causes which, either way it swings, is going to produce no miracle in their lives?

If the country’s politicians were fighting to reduce power tariff, or lower transportation cost, or bring down the health and educational expenses, or ensure clean drinking water so on, they could have reason in willingly enduring couple of days of suffering.

But, they know that neither the Prime Minister’s resignation nor his retention going to transform their lives. It will neither lower the price they pay to buy vegetables, nor will ease the hassles they face in procuring and transporting the vegetables from Kalimati to Bhimsengola.

Either way, they see no gains. Neither the bandh organizers ever try to make them see anything worthwhile doing so. They don’t deem it necessary. All what they think as important is to create fear psychosis in their mind by vandalizing their shops or flattening the tyres of their bicycles or burning them. Because, it is a muscle-flexing game in which they need to demonstrate their strength, not by convincing the mass but by scaring them away. The politicians know by now that people won’t agree to swallow any pills of promises for staying back home for three days. They know that they have had enough of bandh and Chakka jams. But then, the common mass who hate bandhs and those who suffer due to these bandhs can do nothing. They can’t take the risk of being manhandled, their shops burnt and their transport destroyed.

The opposition talk of democracy. They say they fight to strengthen democratic values. They say, their street fight is to safeguard the democratic gains of 1990. The question now is, who are they fighting against for what they call strengthening democracy or safeguarding democratic gains? Who do they see as threat to democracy? They are surely not fighting against the political system, are they? All who they are fighting against is Prime Minister, Girija Prasad Koirala. It is to remove one man from Singhdurbar, they are holding the nation at ransom! Who they see as threat to democracy is Prime Minister Koirala. Who do they want to safeguard democratic gains from and strengthen democratic values, is again Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala? The question now is, is Prime Minister Koirala a undemocratic Prime Minister? Did he come to power undemocratically? Did any of the communists who are alleging him of being undemocratic sacrifice as much as he did in restoring democracy in the country?

Even having said so, Prime Minister Koirala may step down if he thinks he should. However, Koirala shouldn’t do so under pressure or coercion from the street agitators. If he does so, then he will surely be committing crime against democracy.

The likes of Hari Lal Joshi are already paying the price for a fight which they don’t own. And if the Bandh wallahs win, thousands of Hari Lal Joshis will be forced to dig their own grave. In democracy, the muscle must lose and wisdom win. The day muscle wins, democracy will lose.

Money Can’t Buy Education

By JKM

IF one were to ask what is the most glaring and visible development that has taken place in the country after the restoration of multiparty democracy eleven years ago it can be said without any doubt or hesitation that it is in the field of education, especially in the higher education sector.

The opening of innumerable private campuses all over the country guaranteeing quality education to the SLC pass outs and the rush towards them during admission time is a testimony to it.

Not to be lagged behind are the wings of ten plus two in science, commerce and arts streams. It would be very difficult for the students as well as their parents to check the temptation of being enrolled in these campuses due to their aggressive and attractive style of advertisements, which not only boast of excellent results, sound infrastructures and plenty of job placements after the courses are over.

There was a time when getting higher education meant enrolling themselves in one of the campuses under Tribhuvan University whether one liked it or not. It is a matter of great satisfaction that the students now have a wide range of options to pursue their higher education in the chosen fields.

In fact, the true meaning of decentralisation can be seen and observed in the field of education, or especially the higher education in the real sense after the restoration of the multiparty system. Gone are the days when the students desiring for higher education belonging to the affluent families had to go to various Indian Universities particularly in Patna, Varanasi, Kolkata, Allahabad, Luknow etc. when they passed their SLC examinations.

However it is to be noted here with great grudges that the number of students going to or trying to go to Indian Universities as well as to numerous overseas universities especially in the USA, Australia, Canada to name just a few of them have not lessened due to the uncertain academic calendar of the University in the country.

Strike sponsored by the students themselves, closing down of educational institutions for one whole week due to one reason or the other and the call for Bandhs at the drop of a pin which becomes ‘successful’ according to the organisers, had forced them to go to other countries for higher education.

But it cannot be said with certainty that those who go or are sent by their parents to foreign institutions have the sole intention of gaining knowledge or degree. They openly say that they are trying to go to overseas institutions simply because after one semester they can start working to earn money .

It is not surprising that the concerned embassies have tightened their visa regulations for the aspiring students and it is not a surprising act on the part of these embassies to do so since they know very well how many Nepali parents can afford to finance their wards educational expenditure for three or five years depending on the course they choose to pursue.

And to fulfill the desires of the less fortunate students who could not go to the land of opportunities due to one reason or the other these newly opened ten plus two colleges and the numerous colleges running Bachelor courses, which claim to meet the demands of educational standards of any institution in the world are trying very hard to lure them by charging exorbitant fees of nearly thirty to fifty thousand rupees per annum.

The parents too have the misconception that the higher the charges the better the education imparted. But what they seem to forget is the fact that money cannot buy education. But the whole blame cannot be put on the students and the parents only for aspiring to go out of the country if the bleak situation of the last few years in the education sector is any indication. The time is definitely ripe for the government, students as well as the parents to think seriously whether it is going towards the bright future or not and some drastic measures should be taken or not.