Painting of the week

In depth Analysis

Koirala government in disarray!

Kathmandu: Curiously, the congress media sources appear blissfully unaware of widespread ridicule and negative reaction to Prime Minister Girija Koirala’s CNN interview in their attempts to highlight it. Girija babu failed to impress. Furthermore, it appeared that his questioners were more informed than the Prime minister. This general impression, however, prompts a Nepali congress that is clearly on public defensive to launch a media campaign on the efficacy of government. This has resulted in plenty of speechifying that stress the ideals of government and leaves the public moreover making contrasts as to the prevailing reality.

Reality has it that the tangible issues of government are being so blatantly ignored that government offices are at a virtual standstill. The Maoists’ have increased their presence in Kathmandu. And, the countryside is in virtual disarray.

This has, moreover, encouraged a more aggressive Indian attitude on the security standpoints. The Indian media has been highlighting supposed security lapses threatening Indian interests in Nepal. Agreements for tax exemptions facilitating the entry of Nepali goods to India remains ignored and key service sectors have been disrupted continuously by agitation and non-policy affecting virtually the total economy.

Obviously, the festival season has hit politics hard. The opposition, the UML, appears stagnant at the moment in bringing the real issues of government to the public eye belying a strange partlthough ADB’s assistance has contributed to an expansion of the country’s physical assets and some development of human resources, many of the outputs from past investments have not been sustainable, and the overall development impact has been limited or at least more limited than it should have been’.

Richard Vokes made these remarks at the opening ceremony of the Country Seminar on Project Implementation and Administration, Monday.

The ADB and the ministry of Finance have jointly organized the seminar.

Surprising as it might appear, however, the fact is that a Bhutanese participant is also attending this seminar.

The seminar will continue for twelve days.

Welcoming the attending guests present on the occasion, Vokes said in no uncertain terms that “ apart from problems with project design, issues such as frequent transfer of project staffs, inadequate staffing of some projects, lack of compliance with loan covenants, inadequate budgetary provision for operation and maintenance budgets, and poor project implementation and management continue to limit the development impact of the portfolio”.

He, however, set conditions for future lending to Nepal.

In his opinion, the ADB’s future lending to Nepal would now be “linked to progress in addressing the major country performance issues, which include portfolio performance”.

“The government needs to play more proactive role in implementing reform measures and take a timely measure on the agreed actions to sustain the pace of improvement”, continued Vokes.

The objective of the ongoing seminar, opined ADB Nepal mission chief, was to familiarize/update the Project Managers/Project Directors/Project Staffs/Line Agencies staff with the ADB guidelines and procedures for procurement, selection and engagement of consultants and disbursements of project administration.

The ADB has been supporting the Nepal government in implementation of a number of measures to improve portfolio performance.

Telegraph adds: The Asian development Bank has granted a technical assistance-TA- to HMG/N for strengthening its national statistical system. The inception workshop for this technical assistance was held at Blue Star Hotel on 7 September, last week.

The most important activity under this project is the development of a national consolidated statistics plan, CNSP, which will identify the most critical statistics, required to support and monitor government policy formulation and decision making.

The Central Bureau of Statistics, CBS will be the executing agency of this TA that will be implemented in three years.

Polish media team visits FNJ, Gorkhapatra and NTV

Kathmandu: After a lapse of almost two years or so, the Kathmandu based Nepal-Poland Friendship Association invited a group of Polish journalists to visit Nepal.

The Polish journalists currently in the Kingdom were on a trek in the Langtang region.

The delegation of the Polish team comprises of five media men and the leaders of the team is Aleksander Lwow who happens to be a renowned mountain climber and has dared to scale some of the Nepali mountains in the past.

The team has one cameraman, Tadeusz Oscwienko, who is considered to be one of the best photographers in Poland and is associated with Polish Television in Wroclaw.

Wojtek Popkiewicz, the senior member in the team, is a veteran producer of television films and teleserials in Poland.

Dr.Kriesz. Swastfianco is a noted botanist and has come Nepal to study various plants found in the Terai and mountains as well.

The fifth member is Julia Popkiewicz, currently a student of anthropology.

The Nepal-Poland F. Association arranged various programs for the visiting Polish team. For example, the Polish journalists last Friday met the executive members of the Federation of the Nepalese Journalists. The FNJ President Suresh Acharya greeted the team. On the occasion, both the sides talked about the current stage of journalism in their respective countries.

It was agreed between the two sides to explore possibilities which allows the media men of Nepal and Poland to manage exchange trips. It was also decided to seek support in this regard from either government.

Later, the Polish team was heartily greeted by the officials of the Gorkhapatra Corporation. Chief editor of the Gorkhapatra, Ramesh Tiwari spoke about the century long history and tradition of his broadsheet daily and also gave salient features of other newspapers under private sector management. The Polish team spoke on the need to initiate contacts between media organizations of the two countries so that the people on either side benefited from such interactions.

A photograph session with the visiting media men was also held.

The last program was at the Nepal Television. The General Manager of the NTV, Durga Nath Sharma spoke of the problems faced by NTV during the initial stages of its established some fifteen years back.

The Polish team upon their return from Langtang will, if time allows, meet few more Nepalese dignitaries.

The delegation will leave to Delhi via Pokhara, it is learnt from the Nepal-Poland F. Association sources.

NPFA source adds: The Chairman of the Nepal-Poland F. Association, N.P.Upadhyaya, requested the visiting Polish team to be kind enough to send some Polish newspapers, bulletins and the likes for the use of the Polish society in Kathmandu as these materials were not forthcoming from the New Delhi Polish embassy since long many years.

Mr. Upadhyaya also told the team to forward the message of the team’s presence in Kathmandu and the activities in which they themselves participated in to be conveyed to Andrzej Wawrzyniak, the chairman of the Polish-Nepal F. Association based in Solec street, Warsaw.

The leader of the delegation Aleksander Lwow has assured that he would be in touch with Wawrzyniak upon his return to Poland.

CSC Seminar on Sino-Nepalese relations

Kathmandu: The China Study Center, Nepal is organizing a daylong seminar next week.

The topic of the seminar is “Sino-Nepalese relations”.

For the first time perhaps, a Chinese scholar of international standing has been specially invited by the Center to participate in the seminar.

Professor Wang Hongwei will present his paper on the very topic of the seminar.

Prof. Wang has several books to his credit on Nepal and India.

The Chinese scholar’s paper is expected to delve on the future strategies to be adopted by Nepal and China for the enhancement of bilateral ties at all the possible levels. It is expected to focus on the need for both the traditional friends to devise mechanisms to safeguard their frontiers in the changed regional and global context.

From the Nepalese side, Dr. Harka Gurung is the distinguished personality who will present his paper on “National Minorities in China”.

Senior Journalist, Madan Regmi, currently heads the China Study Center.

The CNN interview that was…

Kathmandu: Nepal’s Prime Minister’s special attachment for Hindi language came to the fore when he uttered few words in Hindi to explain his feelings regarding the possible role of Nepal in mediating the Indo-Pak rivalry to a question of the interviewer of the CNN.

However, Prime Minister Koirala had been honest, to recall, at an Editors’ Society get together some four months back wherein he divulged that he was born in Tehri, Bihar, India. Frank admission indeed.

The poor performance of the Prime Minister during the interview session with the CNN reflected Koirala’s poor knowledge regarding his own country’s matters and affairs.

His confusion regarding the number of Bhutanese refugees stationed permanently in Nepal only added to the anxiety of the Nepali observers who were forced to chew their tongues.

That Nepal’s Prime Minister has a special coterie that heavily impresses upon the Prime minister while taking decisions of grave nature became evident when our Prime minister dubbed the question itself as a “none sense” one.

The questioner was a Vietnamese. This means automatically that the prestige and the popularity of Girija babu’s notorious kitchen cabinet has reached up to Vietnam and through that particular question at time of the interview with the CNN perhaps has now become global. Kudos!

Observers here felt that Koirala’s non-appearance at the CNN would have rather saved the prestige of the nation.

The damage has already been done to the prestige of the nation. However, the fault lay with the persons who prompted Nepal’s Prime Minister to appear on the CNN.

Problems to greet Koirala; race for congress presidency begins

Kathmandu: Nepal’s Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala will be greeted by a series of problems instantaneously upon his return from his agenda-less foreign ramble.

Apparently two sets of issues Koirala will have to confront the moment he lands in Kathmandu airport.

The first set of hurdles comes from his own party quarters who have been hoping against hope that Koirala will accommodate his dissidents in the impending cabinet reshuffle and the revamping of the party’s central committee as per the agreement reached in between the two friendly rivals, G.P.Koirala and K.P.Bhattarai.

“If the Prime Minister does not comply with the agreed agenda in toto, we might think of unseating him through proved norms”, said a congressite who understandably belongs to the group that had only recently created havoc in the party.

This notwithstanding, Prime Minister Koirala will presumably have no time to look in to the party’s hullabaloo as he will remain pretty engaged in handling the Nepal closure called by the nine minor left parties which is scheduled for September 20.

The positive nod given by the Maoists’ in favor of the September 20 Nepal closure has added a new dimension to the whole affair which perhaps will force the establishment to come to the streets in a big way only to minimize the damage, if any, on that fateful day.

 However, the patrons of the Nepal closure have assured the public that it would be completely a peaceful affair. “We will retaliate with full force if the government cracks down on us”, says a spokesman of the nine left party.

According to the nine minor left parties, prior to the day of the Bundh they will address several mass meetings in various district headquarters in order to educate the common men regarding the need to wage such protest programs.

On September 19 evening, a nation wide torch demonstration will be held.

“We do not expect that this Nepal closure would solve all of the problems of the people in whose name this has been initiated, however, we do hope that at least it would serve to impress upon the establishment to look in to the problems currently being faced by the lay men of the country”, told Sahana Pradhan to a local Monday weekly.

Mrs. Pradhan is the chairman of the Marxist-Leninist-ML party.

The government appears to have been preparing itself to meet any eventualities on that day. Police men in uniforms or even in plain clothes could be seen at main centers of Kathmandu valley.

The aim of the Nepal closure is to protest against the government’s insensitiveness towards people’s problems; non-preservation of Nepal’s national interests; ever increasing corruption at all the possible levels of government; the pushing of the anti-nationalist citizenship bill that possesses the potential of leaving the Nepalese people in minority in their own country; and the troubles created by the Indian side through the construction of a dam in Laxmanpur, India.

To recall, this dam inundated only recently a vast chunk of Nepali territory.

Summing up, the approaching days should be challenging for Prime Minister Koirala. However, major threat as such to his chair comes from his own party quarters instead from such occasional closures.

Koirala’s detractors are already on the move to capture the next congress presidency. Girija’s bete noir, Sher Bahadur Deuba , has planned a whirl wind tour of Eastern zone in order to woo his voters. Shailaja and Sushil, both close relatives of Koirala, too have jumped in the race for the presidency. However, if Koirala forwards his wish for the next presidency, it could be guessed in advance that the two “S” would pleasingly support Koirala, their close mentor and relative.

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