Rock Yatra: Rocking
Like Never Before!

By Khagendra Bikram

HAD I speculated that it was going to be like mob at Pashupati on Shivaratri or Teej, I, by no means, would have made plans for that Saturday evening to join Rock Yatra. No, not even a flash of thought appeared in my mind which was overjoyed with the thought of rocking in masti with the beautiful numbers to be sung live at the Dasharatha Stadium by 1974 AD, an upcoming band getting popular very quickly among the youngsters.

Don't ask me, how much I exercised to fetch tickets for some of my friends and me. At first, I thought that there would be ample number of tickets but later I got wind of all the tickets finishing up. I hurried and in the last, the tickets were in my hand with much sweltering and toil.

On the much-awaited day, we started by 3 pm to reach the venue earlier. Hundreds of people were seen swarming when we reached Maitighar. While we moved forward, we confronted crowd trying to head towards the Stadium. We found it very difficult to pass through the jam-packed road and footpath. However, we reached the stadium gate finally but to get through the gate, it seemed, would be possible only for body builders or wrestlers!

I usually don't like to be a part of the crowd and so do my friends. We tried a lot to enter the stadium but all our efforts went in vain. One of my friends suggested we had better return. But I and another friend were much interested to get into and enjoy the programme. Only with my maximum possible strength did I succeed in entering the gate but my friends were left behind. I was cheerful thinking that I would sit somewhere in cozy place and enjoy the programme.

But no sooner I was inside the stadium, I was bewildered to see the human sea extending all over the stadium. The programme had already started. I hurriedly looked for the area secluded for a 500 - rupee ticket holder but in that human sea I thought it would be like scaling Mt. Everest. Then I wandered for a place with maximum visibility of the podium. But, I could not make out where the podium was. The music was coming like buzzing of bees. Overall the programme was like a 'mela'!

After half an hour, I thought I would rather return home. At the gate, I felt pity to the rock and roll fans who were being lathicharged. The poor police personnel who were never trained to control such a large mob were trying to take control of the mob. I found nowhere to go until the programme finished at about 6 pm.

I reached home exhausted and was cursing the organizers for poor management and sound-system.
Next day one of my friends said, 'I had never attended such a well-managed and beautiful program!' I knew he was being sarcastic. He further added- 'I nearly got my bones broken as bonus in addition to music concert with a bare payment of five hundred bucks."

Nepal-Finland: On Road Of Lasting Friendship

By Reijo Härkönen

THE founding of the Finland-Nepal Association in Helsinki over twenty years ago was a landmark in the development of relations between Finland and Nepal.

Were it not for the numerous activities of the association, contacts between the two countries would not have been formed so quickly.

Important

Tourism has always been an important field for development in the work of the Finland-Nepal Society. So far, twenty journalists and representatives of travel agencies have visited Nepal under the Association's programmes. And many other professionals including journalists have also taken part in the various other activities of the Association.

As early as in the mid-80s two members of the board of the Association, photographer and academician Matti A. Pitkänen and myself, published a photograph book which illustrated the lives of Nepalese children. Later the same book was published in the USA in English under the name "Children of the Himalayas".

Over the years, hundreds of articles have appeared in the press and Nepal has been well to the fore on radio and television. Nepal is less well-known in other northern European countries than in Finland, partly as a result of official co-operation.

At the beginning of the 1980s the Finns still knew little about Nepal apart from Mount Everest, while the name Kathmandu had a hippy ring to it. Four journalists talked about Asia especially Nepal's obscurity. And on the spur of the moment it was decided to found a friendship association in order to improve knowledge about Nepal and make it more familiar to the Finns.

In addition to myself, the other founding members were Markku Hurmeranta, who is now editor of the "Taloussanomat" financial paper; Hannu Leinonen, now editor of the "Kauppalehti", another financial paper, and Tuula Kyren.

There have been many memorable moments during the history of the Association in some with the cooperation of Nepalese business institutions. A Nepalese food week was organised in Finnish capital Helsinki coinciding with a large travel fair.

Hundreds of Finns thus discovered the food of the Himalayan area for the first time as at that time there was only one Nepalese restaurant; in Helsinki. Today there are seven.

Thousands of visitors to the travel fair saw Nepal's own stand and were able to see Nepalese folk dancing.

The Sur Sudha music group gained much popularity on both of its visits to Finland who performed in schools, colleges of music and took part in a large development co-operation event. The group also had an hour-long broadcast on Finnish radio.

There has also been a wide interchange of the visual arts. Nepalese art has been on show many times in various cities of Finland. Finnish artists have made contacts with Nepalese artists as well.
The highest-level visit to Finland was of course the state visit of the late King Birendra in 1989.
A short while before the King's arrival in Finland His Majesty had granted interview to me at the Narayanhity Royal Palace where I had been the first European journalist to be allowed an interview with His Majesty.

The interview was published in Finland's largest daily paper Helsingin Sanomat, which has a circulation of half million, on the day on which His late Majesty King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah along with late Queen Aishwarya Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah's State Visit to Finland began.

Financially, the greatest effort has been the four-year-long village development project in Southern Lalitpur. The project, costing about 100,000 dollars, was possibly a bit too ambitious for a small friendship association, but other participants in the project included the development co-operation of the Department of the Finnish Foreign Ministry and the prestigious co-operative retail group Elanto.
We believe that this project, which has concentrated on improving water supplies, women's literacy, means of communication and offering additional means of livelihood, has had a positive effect on those villages in the Kathmandu Valley.

What, then, will the future bring? The tragic incident in the Royal family in June last year the threat of violence by Maoist terrorists and the uncertainty of international affairs have dealt heavy blows to Nepal's peaceful image abroad, to the development of tourism and to other forms of co-operation with the Himalayan Kingdom.

Hope

We friends of Nepal throughout the world have not, however, given up hope for a brighter future for Nepal, although it is unfortunate that the return of balanced development may take many years.

Reijo Härkönen is the founder member of Finland-Nepal Association and has been its chairman for many years. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of a Finnish newspaper.

At present he is acting as a Representative of the Nepal Tourism Board in Finland.

Shuttle Diplomacy
Spiralling Maoists Movement

By C D Bhatta

MIDDLE East is the playground and laboratory of the late 20th and 21st century wars and its tremors are never going to disappear at least until the human civilisation ceased to exits. The tremble of the war in Afghanistan nearly lasted for two decades and it has already sowed the seeds for the future war in the world. Although there have been wars, for example, in Sierra Leone, Somalia, Congo, Ethiopia, and Sri Lanka, the war in Afghanistan will carry very significant meaning in the history of warfare of the 21st century. It is because one of the very small, very poor countries in the world had fought consecutively with two most superpower countries of the contemporary world. First, with former USSR and the second with the USA. Nonetheless, whatever the reasons and consequences of the war were, one thing is sure that on both counts the country was rumbling through crisis of governance and lacking proper leadership.

Opportunity

Paradoxically, these events of the 21st century have contributed vital strategic thinking to the scholars of international affairs and hawks of security and diplomacy. It is because most of the scholars have got an opportunity to understand the consequences of the terms frequently used in the international relations such as 'Cold War, polarisation, depolarisation, oil-diplomacy, democracy, foreign policy and human rights'. These are the terms invented in the civilised world and forcefully practised in the underdeveloped world without knowing the existing environment of the countries.

Somehow attempts have been made in nineties to embed these terminologies in the system of governance mostly in the Third World countries. On top of this, there has been a tendency and wav of democracy and free society flooding across the third world countries. In some cases, it was an imposition exerted upon to the tyrannical countries by the first world and in other cases it was just the spill over effects of the move.

Nonetheless, the consequences in both the cases have been not conducive and there have been endemic violence afterwards. Some would say the violence as the produce of democracy and excessive freedom as there was nobody to watch on both rulers and ruling classes. However, it would not be surprising to term the situation as 'politics without governance'.

Neo-democratic countries from all the continents have become victims of this phenomenon and peace has become rare in these countries Nepal could not be an exception of this phenomenon and same thing happened in the country. Democracy without control, civil society without any responsibilities has led the country into the hands of 'turmoil' and the results is today's cold-blooded war mainly the resultant factor of good guys of nineties and their gift to Nepalese where the new generation will suffer in the days to come and there will definitely be a generation gap due to this.

Since democracy came in, a lot of blood has been shed in the land of Buddha and Sita and more to drip yet before the dust settles down mainly contributed to the carelessness of the politicians. The bad guys cashed on the good guys here and vice versa. Whatever the case is, Nepalese has suffered a lot during the last decade.

Ironically, in a very short span of time, that is, just about two years time, the proportionate loss of life in Nepal is highest compared to any corresponding political incident in the world. But international community has shown little interest compared to the severity of the problem. However, despite all these there is still a light seen at the end of the tunnel. The sympathy shown by the international community mainly from the USA, UK and the European Union show that they will not let Nepal pass through the way Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan have gone through.

After emergency has been declared in the country and following the massive Maoists attacks in different parts of the world, Nepalese diplomats and security officials have undertaken this issue at the international level and made various trips abroad to garner support from the international community. The Nepalese delegation to the United Nations have also raised this issue before the UN General Assembly. However, despite all these efforts nothing tangible has been achieved in terms of raising the issue and its sensitivity at the international level from where the government could win a sort of sympathy.

In the recent years mainly after the Maoists insurgency in the country, Nepal has seen high-level delegation with hawks on foreign and security policy visiting from the western world particularly from the European Union and USA. The interest and sincerity shown by the international community towards Nepal is a testimony that how seriously they are taking Nepalese issue at national and international level. Last year Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State paid on official visit to the Himalayan Kingdom followed by other high ranking State Department officials from the USA and Foreign Office official from the UK. They came to Nepal mainly to access the gravity of Maoists insurgency in the country and pledge assistance to Nepal both in the form of monetary and arms and ammunition to build up physical infrastructures to suppress the growing Maoists uprising. Last week Christina Rocca, another high ranking State Department official who looks after the South Asian affairs paid an official visit to Nepal to follow up the progress made on the earlier visits by the state department officials, though it was not mentioned anywhere.

Choice

Despite all these shuttle diplomacies being carried out both from the international and national diplomats and politicians the solution to the Maoists problem seems far away. The recent statement of the UNDP Chief in Kathmandu and Christina Rocca's statement do give little hope that if nothing happens at the national level something definitely will happen from the international level and there are reasons to believe on it. Because whenever domestic politics goes weird we can always count on the independent commissions set up by the international approach, as is the case in Sri Lanka. Can we sincerely invite international independent bodies to access the situation and find out its solution or let the problems go its way? Choice is ours. Whether we want our nationals to be refugees in their own country or do something and give them a meaningful and dignified life.