From The Kathmandu Post (01 August, 2014) Inwardly shrivelled Kathmandu seems to have lost its ability to manage international relations The decade-long internal conflict and its long-lasting political after-effects have gravely impacted Nepal’s foreign policy. This state of Nepal’s international affairs is demonstrated by the palpable nervousness and evident lack of preparation in relation to …
From The Kathmandu Post (18 July, 2014) Madhesis must have unchallenged access to wealth of the hills by being part of the same federal province The definition of Nepal as a federal country is at the heart of the challenges before the current Constituent Assembly (CA), which is a sovereign entity to debate and decide …
From The Kathmandu Post (3 July, 2014) A human rights debacle is unfolding, with collaboration of a democratic government, the international community and intelligentsia Last Friday, at a meeting with Ban Ki-moon in New York City, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala apparently assured the Secretary General that the transitional justice law enacted by Parliament on April …
From The Kathmandu Post (20 June 2014) Thirty-four million years of geological heritage is being destroyed in a bout of rapaciousness Some of the mass of boulders and pebbles from the time of the formation of the Himalayan range tens of million years ago were uplifted later on to create what we call the Chure …
From The Kathmandu Post (06 June, 2014) High-tension wires are not normally something to get publicly excited about. But there is one 400 kV transmission line being drawn from Muzaffarpur in Bihar to Dhalkebar, northeast of Malangwa, that is tantalising for its promise. The 140km link will bring electricity from India’s competitive power market to …
From The Kathmandu Post (23 May, 2014) The elevation of Narendra Modi to unexpected heights and the decimation of the opposition in India has led to urgent self-appraisals by the ‘commentariat’ of Kathmandu. The same intelligentsia which was indulgent towards the royal autocracy and subservient to the Maoist momentum is being careful not to express …
From The Kathmandu Post (09 May, 2014) Ablame-the-victim syndrome has overtaken the polity, targeting the very families who demand accountability for the rape, torture, disappearance, abduction and murder of the conflict era. Because it would ‘look bad’ to attack the victims directly, the ire of the politicians and power-worshipping commentators tends to be directed at …
From The Kathmandu Post (25 April, 2014) As ultra-nationalism unexpectedly and oddly gains ground in Nepal, the remaining option is to shout louder angerous reactionaries of the right or far-left have invaded the political sphere in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, and ultra-nationalism is their blunt instrument against those who seek to keep society open …
From The Kathmandu Post (11 April, 2014) Do the democrats in the government realise that they will be historically tarred as anti-human rights? The government of Sushil Koirala has succumbed to Maoist blackmail in presenting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Disappearances bill before Parliament, as if the people who voted in November for …
From The Kathmandu Post (28 March, 2014) On two sides of the eastern border, two rivers show starkly different ‘models’ of hydropower development The hotel room in Gangtok was warmed by an electric heater and at any time I expected the machine to succumb to loadshedding and for the place to get chilly. But it …