From Himal Southasian, Volume 13, Number 1 (JAN 2000) King Birendra of Nepal, who just turned 55, should be more actively involved in the development concerns of his long-suffering subjects. His constitutional position would allow such a role. During Nepal’s successful People’s Movement of 1990 against the absolutist Panchayat system headed by the king, there were many
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From Himal Southasian, Volume 12, Number 10 (OCT 1999) Every piece of ancient religious statuary from Kathmandu Valley that sits today in the West is stolen property. The gods must be returned from their exile, and until such time, those who presently hold them are merely custodians. For 900 years, a sculpture of Uma-Maheshwar, showing
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हिमाल खबरपत्रिका (१-१५ साउन,२०५६) बाट श्रीलङ्काका राष्ट्रपति चन्द्रिका बन्दरनायक कुमारतुङ्गा नेपाल आउनुभयो, जानुभयो । नक्सामा दक्षिण एसियाली उपमहाद्वीपको पुछारमा तप्किन लागेको पानीको थोपा जस्तो देखिने यो राष्ट्र अर्थतन्त्र, भूराजनीतिका कारणले धेरै हदसम्म नेपालसँग मिल्दोजुल्दो छ र कुमारतुङ्गा नेपाल आएको बेला पारेर सायद नेपलीहरूले आफूभन्दा अलि बढी विकसित यो मुलुकबाट सिक्ने मौका लिनुपर्ने थियो । तर
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From Himal Southasian, Volume 12, Number 3 (MAR 1999) The new Secretary General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) spoke to Himal editor Kanak Mani Dixit soon after assuming office. Do you feel confident about taking up this new South Asian assignment? Reasonably so. I have handled South Asian and multilateral work
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From Himal Southasian, Volume 11, Number 9 (SEP 1998) I.A. Rehman is journalist and chair of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan as well as of the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy. He was interviewed by Kanak Mani Dixit. Who is to be blamed for the continuing distance between South Asian peoples? The
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From Himal Southasian, Volume 11, Number 6 (DEC 1997) Kathmandu is closer to Beijing than to Lhasa. Till as late as the first decade of this century, the government in Kathmandu paid tribute to the Chinese court. Once every five years a party would head out of Kathmandu overland across Tibet, bearing gifts, taking three
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From Himal Southasian, Volume 10, Number 6 (DEC 1997) There are people who make films that can make a difference in the lives of the Subcontinent´s millions. They produce in a particular genre which the mass public hardly ever gets to see. Which is a pity, for unlike all other media, this kind of film
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From Himal Southasian, Volume 10, Number 1 (JAN/FEB 1997) When Harish Kapadia’s businessmen friends think he is attending a dealers’ conference in Kanpur, he may well be melting ice for tea on a pass up at 18,000 feet in Kashmir Harish Kapadia, as his name suggests, is a kapada merchant. Sitting crosslegged in his shop,
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From Himal Southasian, Volume 10, Number 1 (JAN/FEB 1997) By Kanak Mani Dixit, with research by Ganesh Khatri, Ramyata Limbu and Sangeeta Lama. It does not seem to shame nor needlessly bother Kathmandu´s ruling classes that highland peasants by the hundreds of thousands leave the country every year to work the most wretched jobs in
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From Himal Southasian, Volume 9, Number 4 (JUNE 1996) by Sevanti Ninan Penguin Books India, New Delhi ISBN 0-14-025631-8 INR 125 Since the satellites began bearing down on the Subcontinent, television has displaced many household activities, “notably sleeping”, says the author of a book on India and the tube Sevanti Ninan, a Delhi-based journalist following
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