Monday, October 5, 2015
Indian Aggression
The following opinion piece was published in Republica on September 29, 2015 with the title "Great Indian Game." The direct link to Republica is here.
Great Indian Game
By: Mukesh Khanal
India has imposed an economic blockade on Nepal to please Madheshi leaders who believe a blockade would cripple Kathmandu. They are right. A blockade would cripple not just Kathmandu, but the entire country.
This is not the first time India has openly supported sectarian movement in its neighborhood. However, those happy with Indian support through the blockade have to understand that India often switches sides in such confrontations. A refresher in the sub-continent's history provides several examples.
In Bhutan, the Lhotsampas—the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese population who lived in southern Bhutan—had started a serious movement for democracy. Years earlier, in 1971, Bhutan had irked India by registering itself as a member of the United Nations. That soured the Indian plan to annex the country. Therefore, years later, supporting the Lhotsampas was an opportunity for India to hurt the Bhutanese monarch. So, India supported the democratic movement. Buoyed by the Indian support, the democratic movement gained further strength.
However, the Bhutanese monarchy was able to secure its longevity by brokering a pact with India. So, India switched sides. The Bhutanese monarch was able to subdue its people's democratic aspirations, and deport them out of their own country. India allowed the Lhotsampas to exit Bhutan and enter Nepal. Those who successfully re-entered Bhutan would be rounded up by Bhutanese soldiers, and put on Indian buses escorted by armed Indian security forces. They would be driven up to the Nepal border, and asked to walk into Nepal while the Indian security force aimed guns at their backs.
Although Bhutan remains an independent country today, and was able to foil India's plan to annex it, India effectively rules the country today by proxy—a price that the monarch was willing to pay to deny its people democracy.
In Sikkim, India came up with a grander plan. Although people in Sikkim had harbored democratic aspirations since 1947, the movement gained a boost in the late 1960s with funding and open support from India. Again, it was the majority Nepali-speaking Sikkimese population that was fighting for democracy in Sikkim. Lhendup Dorjee was the leader of the democratic movement at the time. Decades later, closer to his death, he would recount to several reporters how he received cash from the Indian government to fuel his movement.
While funding the democratic movement, India was also promising Palden Namgyal—then King of Sikkim—that India would not let the Namgyal monarchy end. Palden Namgyal took Indira Gandhi—then Prime Minister of India and daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru—at her word. Namgyal believed Nehru's daughter would never compromise a neighbor's sovereignty. He could not be more wrong. On one hand, Indira Gandhi had been promising to the Namgyal that the monarchy was there to stay. On the other hand, she had been funding the anti-monarchy movement.
The Indian establishment convinced Namgyal to hold elections in Sikkim to hand significant power to the parliament. Lhendup Dorjee's Sikkim National Congress party won 31 out of 32 seats in the 1974 election. Immediately, Lhendup's parliament voted to "merge" with India. The 300-year old Namgyal monarchy officially ended in 1975 when India annexed the Kingdom in broad daylight. Despite earlier jubilations at the ousting of monarchy, it did not take long for the Sikkimese people to realize that Lhendup had duped them. The result: Lhendup's party won zero seats in the 1979 election. However, the damage that had been done was irreversible. Sikkim's identity as a sovereign nation was forever erased.
In Sri Lanka, when the ethnic Tamils started their fight against the Sinhalese establishment, India felt a sense of obligation towards the Tamils, who had close relationship with the Indian Tamils in the South. Does this roti-beti relationship sound familiar? However, nationalistic politics took over—helped by increasing criminal activities by Sri Lankan Tamils in Indian soil (a charge that the Sri Lankan Tamils refuted)—and India switched sides. Sri Lankan Tamils felt betrayed.
Often history repeats itself. And, this time it is our turn. The Madheshi leaders and opinion columnists argue that India has played no role in the current struggle in Tarai. Yet Indian aggression through the blockade and pro-Madheshi sentiment speaks otherwise. However, history suggests the Indian support cannot be enjoyed for long. Pawns get used, and then discarded. Lhendup's career never recovered after the 1979 defeat. It is one thing to be called the "Father of the Sikkim Democracy," but another to have nobody attending your funeral. Lhendup Dorjee lived the remainder of his life in disgrace, and died in misery.
The South Asian experience shows that India's neighbors have to be cautious. We recently witnessed an overenthusiastic support for the current Indian Prime Minister from the Nepali public and polity. However, the Indian PM comes from a political history of oppression against minorities, and leads a political party that has used nationalism, jingoism and violence as political tools in the past.
A few analysts claim that India's current support of Nepali Madheshis is a tool to win the upcoming Bihar election. Let us hope they are right. If they are wrong, there is no question that Indian aggression in the border and involvement in a communal conflict in Nepal is a direct threat to Nepal's sovereignty and a direct question on our ability to resolve our own problems. Let us hope we don't have a Lhendup Dorjee among us to help them carry out their agendas smoothly.
Labels: Bhutan, blockade, deja vu, India, Lhendup Dorjee, nepal, Sikkim, Sri Lanka
Thursday, June 20, 2013
SLC and suicides
The following opinion piece was published in Republica on June 17, 2013 with the title "Fatal error".
Fatal Error
But there is an ugly side of the SLC story too. Soon after the SLC results were announced, national media started carrying stories of students who had committed suicide after learning they had failed. Sunita KC from Rukum, Pratikshya Sharma from Nepalgunj, Phul Kumari Kurmi from Parsa, and Anish Amgain from Chitwan ended their lives hours after learning of their failure. Why was it that these teenagers felt the need to kill themselves for failing? After all, they were not the only ones who failed. Of all the students who took the SLC exams this year, a whopping 58.43 percent did.
While it is too soon to say anything about these teenagers’ motives, all Nepalis know at least a few reasons behind their actions. We burden our children with too many expectations. Ever since we are kids, our parents, relatives, teachers, friends, family, and entire society forces us to strive towards excellence in a manner that is just not possible. We forget that not every kid in the classroom can become the “First boy” or the “First girl”. The fact that Nepali children kill themselves when their parents’ expectations are not met speaks not of their character, but of the cruelty of their high-expecting parents.
I have a niece who is not the best student in her class, but is a promising athlete and wins every single sporting event she participates in. I had friends in school who could never learn how to throw a cricket ball or kick a football, but they could explain to me how atom bombs were made, complete with diagrams of atomic fission chambers and radioactive decay equations. Every one of us is unique, we have special abilities and special disabilities. Diversity of skills, knowledge, thoughts, philosophies, and actions is what has made human beings the superior species on this planet. We have been able to send people to the moon, robots to Mars, and build telescopes that let us see galaxies forming and dying billions of light years away.
Nepali parents need to realize that not everyone grows up to become an Einstein. When a Nepali boy asks his parents what he should do in the future, the parents reply, “You can be anything you want. Either a doctor or an engineer.” The kid is never allowed to aspire to become an Amrit Gurung, a Ganeshman, a Buddhisagar or a Haribansha. In addition to not giving their children any choices, parents make them bear the burden of upholding family prestige and societal bragging rights. The father may come home drunk every night, the mother may have an affair with the next-door neighbor, but it is their son not securing a distinction in SLC that “brings shame” to the family.
In addition to Nepali parents, the Nepali education system is also to blame. In the name of meritocracy, we reward rote learning. How can an end of the year exam like SLC determine whether a student is good or bad? I have been teaching for a number of years now, and my personal observation throughout these years has been that results of final exams are not good indicators of student quality. For all we know, the student who gets only 60 percent in Biology exam is the biggest admirer of Jonas Salk, and wants to grow up and find cures to diseases. Our promotion and rewarding of rote learning has been killing our children’s creativity, originality and passion.
The events of the last few days have shown that we need to make two immediate changes to our school system. First, we need to get rid of the SLC system. If the government is mandating that all Nepali schools have +2 level classes, it makes no sense to give the SLC exams so much hype and importance. Second, the percentage system fosters unhealthy competition between students about who gets the highest percentages, and schools about how many students secure distinction. We should abolish the percentage system and replace it with the Grade Point Average (GPA). It will help minimize negative competition. Of course, there are many other important changes that are necessary in our school education system, but these two changes alone will help save many Nepali children from suicides.
Labels: education, nepal, SLC, suicides
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
English language instruction in public schools: A good idea
The following opinion piece was published in Republica today, 22 May 2013, with the title "English Vinglish".
English language instruction in public schools: A good idea
My father teaches in Pokhariya Higher Secondary School, one of the many public schools in Biratnagar. Beginning this academic session, the school is planning to have separate sections in which all subjects, except Nepali of course, will be instructed in English. Those who wish to be instructed in English are being encouraged to join, with additional fees charged for the luxury. This novel approach is being tried out not only in Pokhariya but in many government-run public schools across the country.
The obvious question, then, is whether this is necessary. Government run public schools have always used Nepali language as the medium of instruction. Is instruction in English going to change anything, for better or worse? Will learning everything in English improve the grades of public school students? Or is this only a fad that will fizzle out over the next few years? There are questions aplenty, but no precedent to fall back on for answers. I do not know what the result of this experimentation is going to be. However, I believe this is an excellent idea that will revolutionize our education system.
Many of us still remember how the world panicked over Y2K crisis as the year 2000 approached. In order to avert the crisis, all computer programs in the world would have to be fixed to make sure important financial and economic software installed in those computers did not go haywire once the year 2000 started. So, the world needed computer engineers and programmers on a massive scale. Both China and India had those in large numbers, but most companies and businesses in the world used Indian computer firms and engineers to get their problems fixed. Was that because Chinese software engineers and programmers were less adept? No. The world came to India because Indian engineers had an advantage over Chinese engineers: English language, in which the Indians were fluent and the Chinese were not.
We sit between those two economic powerhouses—China and India. By 2020, around 40 percent Chinese are expected to be in the middle-class, and over 700 million have been lifted out of poverty so far. India still has some way to go to attain the level of growth that China has experienced. But it has also grown spectacularly since liberalizing its economy in the 1990s. Millions have been lifted out of poverty, and India’s middle-class today boasts a population larger than the entire population of the United States.
China has grown on the basis of its manufacturing prowess because of an abundance of cheap labor and great economic leadership of its rulers, especially that of Deng Xiaoping. However, the history of previous economic powerhouses of North America and Europe shows us that manufacturing growth does not last long. In order to create a sustainable economy that keeps growing, it is important to make sure that the workforce transforms itself from low-skilled to high-skilled. That looks more likely in India than in China. India’s economic growth has been led by high-skilled sectors like IT and R&D. A workforce with good English skills has meant that demand for high-skilled work has kept coming to India.
It would be naïve to imagine Nepal growing as fast and as far as India if we can somehow become more fluent in English. That is not my contention. However, the world has become smaller with the workforce of today not constrained within a nation’s boundaries. We need not look far. Hundreds of thousands of Nepalis leave each year to work overseas. We have migrated to work in Dubai, Qatar, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, India and many other countries. None of these countries speak the same language, but most understand English.
However, most Nepalis who go to work in these countries know neither English nor the local language of the host country. This creates problems for Nepali workers ranging from something as harmless as miscommunication to as serious as outright exploitation. A lot of the problems that Nepali workers face overseas could be reduced if we knew English. We need to realize that English is not just another language we can learn, but an important tool that can empower Nepali workers in the global job market.
Because of their British legacy, and because their natives speak thousands of languages, Indians have resorted to English as a means of communication even among themselves. This knowledge of English language has helped Indian workers go everywhere, from North America to Europe to Africa, and succeed as laborers or businesspeople. Other countries such as Poland and Ireland, where a significant population has command over English, have been able to grow not only because of their own domestic economic demand but also because of outsourcing of jobs and demand from other English speaking countries. Even in Nepal, most students from English-medium schools find better opportunities, whether in going abroad for studies or in getting a job within Nepal. English is no longer a language but a required ‘qualification’ in getting good jobs in today’s Nepal.
The experiment that has started in public schools is in the best interest of the country. I do not believe that instructions in English will make students any smarter than if they are instructed in Nepali language. However, English is a dominant language spoken and understood in almost every country in the world. Nepali workers of today have been competing in the world marketplace for jobs. English language instruction in all our schools—public and private—is a worthy cause because being able to read, write and speak English has become a very important skill that a ‘global worker’ of today and the future needs to possess.
Labels: English, instruction, nepal, public schools
Friday, May 10, 2013
Does Nepali bureaucracy not want elections?
On March 25, 2013 Republica's opinion columnist CK Lal wrote an opinion piece titled "The system triumphs (click for direct link to the piece)" in which he accused the Nepali bureaucracy of not wanting elections. I disagreed with Mr Lal's views, and wrote the following opinion piece published in Republica on May 2, 2013. The direct link is here.
Critics of the newly formed interim council were quick to attack the council for being slow and not striving harder to hold elections in June. The current state of discussions suggests that it will most likely happen in November. In addition, some opinion makers were quick to blame state bureaucrats of being happy with current status quo, and accused them of trying to postpone elections for as long as they can. The implicit suggestion was that local bureaucrats tend to benefit significantly in absence of elected officials. The dread created amongst political activists in Tarai-Madhesh has been cited as an example of how this bureaucratic status quo results in despondency in the system. However, not many have actually bothered to ask the bureaucrats how they feel.
The fact that a status quo situation with no elections stands to benefit a handful of corrupt bureaucrats does not mean the entire bureaucracy is hell-bent on ensuring the postponement of elections. In the past few months, I have had opportunities to observe local and national level bureaucrats speak their opinions on popular public and political perception of Nepali bureaucracy. Contrary to popular belief, the bureaucrats stressed that they want elections just as badly as everyone else. They want local elections to be held before national elections. And many of us thought that they were happy with their current hold on power—handling local level duties of 22 different ministries and 58 different elected officials.
The perception of local bureaucracy being mired in corruption stems from a number of instances of corruption that have occurred and been reported. However, local bureaucrats suggest that transparency and accountability in municipal or VDC level governments is much higher when compared to other line agencies of Nepali government. Therefore, when local bureaucracy honestly reports and disseminates its transparency and accountability findings, Nepali media is quick to pounce on the few ‘negative’ instances in the overall transparent and accountable governance scenario. In other words, much of the perception about corruption in local bureaucracy is a creation of the media, according to local bureaucrats.
Although Nepali bureaucracy, especially VDCs and municipalities, get bad press for occasional instances of corruption, their role in keeping the country functioning during the absence of stable political government has to be lauded. Local elections have not happened in over 14 years, and elected representatives in local bodies have been absent for over 10 years now. In this entire duration, the fact that Nepali state has been functioning, and Nepal has not become a failed state, is a miracle with much credit going to our well oiled bureaucracy.
While accusing the local bureaucracy of mismanagement in decision-making, we have to take into account three kinds of pressures that local bureaucrats have to bear. First, decision-making in local level has to be done in a manner that appeases all sections of local society. Therefore, whether a VDC secretary or municipal executive officer likes it or not, he/she has to seek suggestions from local political actors while making decisions on complex problems. Any complex decision has to be taken with a political buy-in from all local political actors from all parties to ensure that they help in containing any possible public outburst against such decisions.
Second, although all party mechanism (APM) has been officially disbanded by the Nepali government, it still operates as the de-facto decision-making body in the local level. Earlier, when the APMs were created, they only had members from seven different political parties. Therefore, it was easier to come to a consensus in decision-making. However, the de-facto APMs of today consist of dozens of political parties—large and small—which has made decision-making very difficult in local government. Since each party wants a share of the pie, decision-making at local level has been obstructed incessantly in recent times, and productivity of local bureaucrats has fallen due to this obstruction.
Third, when the de-facto APM comes to a consensus and takes a decision, it is the local bureaucrat who has to take ‘ownership’ of that decision and abide by it, because the APM does not ‘technically’ exist in the eye of the law or national government. When questions are raised by activists and media about how budgets are allocated and how projects are undertaken, VDC secretaries and municipal executive officers are thrown under the bus by these de-facto APMs who do not come to the bureaucrats’ assistance in defending those allocations and undertakings.
It is very easy to accuse the entire bureaucracy of being corrupt and opposed to elections. However, the ground realities and interactions with local and national level bureaucrats provide a different understanding. Contrary to popular belief, local bureaucrats recognize that politics of opposition is necessary to make local decision-making process more transparent and accountable. They also realize that bureaucracy is an apolitical mechanism, and that is how it should be. Therefore, they demand local elections as much as the public. It’s just that nobody has been listening to what they have to say, because opinion makers are preoccupied with their own biases and opinions on how much the Nepali bureaucracy opposes elections.
Clearing the air
by: Mukesh Khanal
Critics of the newly formed interim council were quick to attack the council for being slow and not striving harder to hold elections in June. The current state of discussions suggests that it will most likely happen in November. In addition, some opinion makers were quick to blame state bureaucrats of being happy with current status quo, and accused them of trying to postpone elections for as long as they can. The implicit suggestion was that local bureaucrats tend to benefit significantly in absence of elected officials. The dread created amongst political activists in Tarai-Madhesh has been cited as an example of how this bureaucratic status quo results in despondency in the system. However, not many have actually bothered to ask the bureaucrats how they feel.
The fact that a status quo situation with no elections stands to benefit a handful of corrupt bureaucrats does not mean the entire bureaucracy is hell-bent on ensuring the postponement of elections. In the past few months, I have had opportunities to observe local and national level bureaucrats speak their opinions on popular public and political perception of Nepali bureaucracy. Contrary to popular belief, the bureaucrats stressed that they want elections just as badly as everyone else. They want local elections to be held before national elections. And many of us thought that they were happy with their current hold on power—handling local level duties of 22 different ministries and 58 different elected officials.
The perception of local bureaucracy being mired in corruption stems from a number of instances of corruption that have occurred and been reported. However, local bureaucrats suggest that transparency and accountability in municipal or VDC level governments is much higher when compared to other line agencies of Nepali government. Therefore, when local bureaucracy honestly reports and disseminates its transparency and accountability findings, Nepali media is quick to pounce on the few ‘negative’ instances in the overall transparent and accountable governance scenario. In other words, much of the perception about corruption in local bureaucracy is a creation of the media, according to local bureaucrats.
Although Nepali bureaucracy, especially VDCs and municipalities, get bad press for occasional instances of corruption, their role in keeping the country functioning during the absence of stable political government has to be lauded. Local elections have not happened in over 14 years, and elected representatives in local bodies have been absent for over 10 years now. In this entire duration, the fact that Nepali state has been functioning, and Nepal has not become a failed state, is a miracle with much credit going to our well oiled bureaucracy.
While accusing the local bureaucracy of mismanagement in decision-making, we have to take into account three kinds of pressures that local bureaucrats have to bear. First, decision-making in local level has to be done in a manner that appeases all sections of local society. Therefore, whether a VDC secretary or municipal executive officer likes it or not, he/she has to seek suggestions from local political actors while making decisions on complex problems. Any complex decision has to be taken with a political buy-in from all local political actors from all parties to ensure that they help in containing any possible public outburst against such decisions.
Second, although all party mechanism (APM) has been officially disbanded by the Nepali government, it still operates as the de-facto decision-making body in the local level. Earlier, when the APMs were created, they only had members from seven different political parties. Therefore, it was easier to come to a consensus in decision-making. However, the de-facto APMs of today consist of dozens of political parties—large and small—which has made decision-making very difficult in local government. Since each party wants a share of the pie, decision-making at local level has been obstructed incessantly in recent times, and productivity of local bureaucrats has fallen due to this obstruction.
Third, when the de-facto APM comes to a consensus and takes a decision, it is the local bureaucrat who has to take ‘ownership’ of that decision and abide by it, because the APM does not ‘technically’ exist in the eye of the law or national government. When questions are raised by activists and media about how budgets are allocated and how projects are undertaken, VDC secretaries and municipal executive officers are thrown under the bus by these de-facto APMs who do not come to the bureaucrats’ assistance in defending those allocations and undertakings.
It is very easy to accuse the entire bureaucracy of being corrupt and opposed to elections. However, the ground realities and interactions with local and national level bureaucrats provide a different understanding. Contrary to popular belief, local bureaucrats recognize that politics of opposition is necessary to make local decision-making process more transparent and accountable. They also realize that bureaucracy is an apolitical mechanism, and that is how it should be. Therefore, they demand local elections as much as the public. It’s just that nobody has been listening to what they have to say, because opinion makers are preoccupied with their own biases and opinions on how much the Nepali bureaucracy opposes elections.
Labels: bureaucracy, election, local government, nepal
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Long road ahead: Occupy Baluwatar's 100 days
The following article was published in today's (April 6, 2013) Republica with the title "Long road ahead".
Today, the Occupy Baluwatar movement celebrates its 100 days. It began with the twin agendas of ending gender-based discrimination and all forms of gender-based violence. Although some news media had reported that the movement would end on January 14, government inaction meant that the movement continued, and will celebrate a milestone on April 6.
There are two schools of thought on Occupy Baluwatar’s demand of justice for women. The first comes from organizers of the movement who feel that justice for women has been very slow to come by. Their movement is hinged on the demand that punishments be meted out quickly and swiftly to perpetrators of gender violence and discrimination. The second comes from outside observers, especially bureaucrats and politicians, who believe that laws are already in place to punish the offenders. They believe that everyone should just calm down, register cases and—in due course of time—the judicial system will punish the perpetrators.
These two arguments are similar to those that classical and Keynesian economists routinely engage in. Classical economists argue that in the long run a market takes care of itself. Therefore, government intervention is unnecessary and undesirable for proper functioning of markets. Keynesian economists, to the contrary, argue that markets take a long time to correct themselves if left to their own devices. Sometimes, the public has to suffer eternally for the market to correct itself. Therefore, to minimize public suffering, government has to intervene and hasten the market correction process.
The second school of thought on Occupy Baluwatar movement, like the Classical economists, is not wrong in itself—that the state judiciary will sooner or later provide justice. But justice in Nepal for gender violence victims has been noted for its absence. What Occupy Baluwatar people are demanding is the Keynesian equivalent of involvement of government in expediting the course of recourse. However, if the tepid response from state level mechanisms and government are any gauge, the Occupy movement’s demands are falling on deaf ears.
Delay in justice is not even the main problem for gender violence victims. If cases were registered duly, and were proceeding smoothly, duration of justice would not be a problem in itself. The main problem we have in Nepal is that there has been no concentrated effort from our government to address gender violence, to support victims, help in registering cases, provide protection and other benefits to victims necessary to fight cases against perpetrators, and ensure that wheel of justice keeps moving.
Violence against Nepali women will continue because of state-sponsored impunity. If our government truly feels guilty for the frequency with which Nepali women are being raped or assaulted, announcing an immediate monetary compensation is not the way to show that remorse.
Even the party and leadership that encouraged women to carry guns and fight alongside men in the name of equal rights and responsibilities—to organize a revolution for a “New Nepal”—has abandoned them. Majority male Maoist leadership considered women its equal as long as it needed to show a force in numbers in its army. Women were equal to men as long as it served their purpose. Now that the revolution has ended, women’s issues and concerns are no longer their priority because having women in numbers, rank and file no longer serve their purpose. The Maoist Party today looks like a typical male-dominated mainstream party.
The Maoist party’s failure to keep promises that it made to minority groups during the decade-long insurgency has resulted in many minorities coming together to form the Janajati Party. Some female leaders have mentioned that only a Woman Party will be able to serve women’s interests. However, these “Woman Party” campaigners have been missing from the frontlines of Occupy Baluwatar movement. They’re not even visible in the periphery of the movement. To assume that simply opening a Woman Party ensures votes from women is an assault on the intelligence of Nepali women. They aren’t stupid to not see through the charade. Trust and loyalty are two important things that are completely missing in today’s political discourse.
The one consistent political regurgitation in Nepal is “we will make sure policies and laws are put in place”. Our leadership, present and past, has always been proactive in signing any new international treaty, law and agreement. We already have national laws that combat gender violence and promote equal rights. However, implementation of those laws is lacking. Our police officers send rape cases for mediation in the community. There is a clear gap between law on paper and its implementation on the ground.
Unless our political and bureaucratic system is sincere about enforcing existing laws and rights that protect Nepali women in private and public space, the Occupy Baluwatar movement will have to continue. However, the aim of the movement should not be to draft more laws but to force our government to put in practice the laws in existence. Practice of what is on paper will then create fear of punishment in the mindsets of would-be offenders. Friedrich Nietzsche once said that fear is the mother of all morality. Until and unless our society starts fearing the consequence of its discriminatory and criminal actions against women, it will remain amoral.
Long Road Ahead
by: Mukesh Khanal
Today, the Occupy Baluwatar movement celebrates its 100 days. It began with the twin agendas of ending gender-based discrimination and all forms of gender-based violence. Although some news media had reported that the movement would end on January 14, government inaction meant that the movement continued, and will celebrate a milestone on April 6.
There are two schools of thought on Occupy Baluwatar’s demand of justice for women. The first comes from organizers of the movement who feel that justice for women has been very slow to come by. Their movement is hinged on the demand that punishments be meted out quickly and swiftly to perpetrators of gender violence and discrimination. The second comes from outside observers, especially bureaucrats and politicians, who believe that laws are already in place to punish the offenders. They believe that everyone should just calm down, register cases and—in due course of time—the judicial system will punish the perpetrators.
These two arguments are similar to those that classical and Keynesian economists routinely engage in. Classical economists argue that in the long run a market takes care of itself. Therefore, government intervention is unnecessary and undesirable for proper functioning of markets. Keynesian economists, to the contrary, argue that markets take a long time to correct themselves if left to their own devices. Sometimes, the public has to suffer eternally for the market to correct itself. Therefore, to minimize public suffering, government has to intervene and hasten the market correction process.
The second school of thought on Occupy Baluwatar movement, like the Classical economists, is not wrong in itself—that the state judiciary will sooner or later provide justice. But justice in Nepal for gender violence victims has been noted for its absence. What Occupy Baluwatar people are demanding is the Keynesian equivalent of involvement of government in expediting the course of recourse. However, if the tepid response from state level mechanisms and government are any gauge, the Occupy movement’s demands are falling on deaf ears.
Delay in justice is not even the main problem for gender violence victims. If cases were registered duly, and were proceeding smoothly, duration of justice would not be a problem in itself. The main problem we have in Nepal is that there has been no concentrated effort from our government to address gender violence, to support victims, help in registering cases, provide protection and other benefits to victims necessary to fight cases against perpetrators, and ensure that wheel of justice keeps moving.
Violence against Nepali women will continue because of state-sponsored impunity. If our government truly feels guilty for the frequency with which Nepali women are being raped or assaulted, announcing an immediate monetary compensation is not the way to show that remorse.
Even the party and leadership that encouraged women to carry guns and fight alongside men in the name of equal rights and responsibilities—to organize a revolution for a “New Nepal”—has abandoned them. Majority male Maoist leadership considered women its equal as long as it needed to show a force in numbers in its army. Women were equal to men as long as it served their purpose. Now that the revolution has ended, women’s issues and concerns are no longer their priority because having women in numbers, rank and file no longer serve their purpose. The Maoist Party today looks like a typical male-dominated mainstream party.
The Maoist party’s failure to keep promises that it made to minority groups during the decade-long insurgency has resulted in many minorities coming together to form the Janajati Party. Some female leaders have mentioned that only a Woman Party will be able to serve women’s interests. However, these “Woman Party” campaigners have been missing from the frontlines of Occupy Baluwatar movement. They’re not even visible in the periphery of the movement. To assume that simply opening a Woman Party ensures votes from women is an assault on the intelligence of Nepali women. They aren’t stupid to not see through the charade. Trust and loyalty are two important things that are completely missing in today’s political discourse.
The one consistent political regurgitation in Nepal is “we will make sure policies and laws are put in place”. Our leadership, present and past, has always been proactive in signing any new international treaty, law and agreement. We already have national laws that combat gender violence and promote equal rights. However, implementation of those laws is lacking. Our police officers send rape cases for mediation in the community. There is a clear gap between law on paper and its implementation on the ground.
Unless our political and bureaucratic system is sincere about enforcing existing laws and rights that protect Nepali women in private and public space, the Occupy Baluwatar movement will have to continue. However, the aim of the movement should not be to draft more laws but to force our government to put in practice the laws in existence. Practice of what is on paper will then create fear of punishment in the mindsets of would-be offenders. Friedrich Nietzsche once said that fear is the mother of all morality. Until and unless our society starts fearing the consequence of its discriminatory and criminal actions against women, it will remain amoral.
Labels: #occupy, GBV, maoists, nepal, Occupy Baluwatar
Monday, February 25, 2013
Deja-vu: Nepal's liquidity crisis returns
On January 31, I wrote an opinion piece in Kathmandu Post with the title "Lessons in finance" (that is the KPost link. Link to my blog piece is here). I wrote:
...[the] number that the NRB and BFIs report as the contribution of the financial industry to our economic growth is false. The actual contribution is much less.
This misleading figure is the reason why we suffer through liquidity crises every now and then. In our recent liquidity crisis, the level of profit and savings that BFIs showed to their shareholders was distorted due to the above mentioned fudging of facts. They actually did not earn the profit that they claimed to have earned.My concern is that Nepal's financial industry is not doing as great as it projects in its balance sheets. They have been busy fudging numbers and facts to appear "healthy" so the shareholders remain "happy". I ended my article saying:
If the current trend of high risk-taking in the Nepali financial sector continues, soon there will be another liquidity crisis worse than the last one. The reason the Nepali financial market has not yet fully recovered from that crisis is that the same risk-taking behavior continues even today.And, only a month later, today, the Kathmandu Post reports that there is now a "liquidity crisis" in progress, and banks are rushing to the Nepal Rastra Bank for cash. KPost writes:
A tight liquidity situation in the banking sector has prompted a number of banks to obtain standing liquidity facility (SLF) from the central bank for the first time in a year.
.........
“The first to obtain SLF was H&B Development Bank which has been hit hard by fraud committed by its employees,” said an NRB official. “Last week, Nabil Bank and the Bank of Asia also obtained the facility.”As I mention in my opinion piece, the crisis that is now brewing is the result of poor management in our BFIs. But, do the BFIs care? No, they don't because however they screw up, the central bank is there to help them with "public" money from retirement funds, pension funds, etc. I will let the central bank's representative explain it:
“Although the government should not give the money meant for pension distribution immediately, we released the amount now to address the recent tightness in the liquidity situation,” said finance secretary Shanta Raj Subedi.I have a phrase for that: moral hazard. As long as they face no punishment for their risky behavior, and instead get rescued by the hard-earned money of the public, the CEOs in our BFIs will continue to engage in risky behavior.
Labels: BFIs, liquidity crisis, nepal, NRB
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Local elections ahead of national elections
Yesterday (Feb 8, 2013) the American ambassador in Nepal wrote an opinion piece in Kathmandu Post with the title "Nepal deserves elections" about the immediate need for national election. However, in the article published today (Feb 9, 2013) in Republica with the title "First things first", I argue that people in the ground demand local elections more than national elections. The unedited version of my article is below.
Local
elections before national election
By: Mukesh
Khanal
In 2056 BS, the Nepali government came up with a 14-step procedure for
devising local level development plans. Steps 1-8 occur at the village
development committee (VDC) level where local level stakeholders meet and
propose development plans. Steps 9-14 occur at the district development
committee (DDC) level where district level authorities assess the plans
forwarded by VDCs. This 14-step procedure is followed by government bureaucrats
regardless of whether the VDC or DDC have elected officials or not.
My interactions with local citizens, political actors and local
bureaucrats in Dhading, Gorkha and Chitwan this month has shown that in absence
of elected officials, VDC secretaries fulfill the roles of 57 different elected
officials while handling local level duties of 22 different ministries. In
addition, not every VDC has an appointed VDC secretary. So, the reality is that,
a VDC secretary has been burdened with duties of multiple VDCs in the district.
Sometimes, the VDCs are on opposite ends of the district, making the work of
the VDC secretary even more difficult. Given these, to say that many of our VDC
secretaries are overworked and overburdened would be an understatement. In
addition, the VDC secretaries have been blamed for incompetence, corruption and
enjoyment of excessive power. Some blames are justified while others aren’t.
To help these overburdened local level bureaucrats, in 2063 BS, the
national government devised a policy of All Party Mechanism (APM) in the local
levels. As a result, all 3915 VDCs and 58 municipalities got an APM under the
direction of central government. The basic idea of APM was promising. It would
fulfill the void of locally elected officials through mutual cooperation among
political parties at the local level. Political parties at VDC and municipality
levels would send their representatives to APMs, which would listen to people’s
demands and make decisions—budgetary and allocation—of local development.
Nepali citizens at local levels agree, in general, about these roles played by
APMs, except “listening to the people” part.
In absence of locally elected officials—and before the formation of
APMs—VDC secretaries were designated decision makers for local bodies. However,
once APMs came into existence, ensuring accountability at local level became
difficult. APMs deflected accountability issues to VDC secretaries, and vice
versa. One blamed the other for poor decision making regarding local projects
and needs. As a result, local budgets got misused and misappropriated with
nobody being held accountable for poor results. Budget allocated for women and
youth activities were spent on roads and teej
parties. This misuse has resulted due to a lack of clear breakdown of how
and where the allocated budgets can be used.
Local journalists report that even some supposed members of local
development committees are unaware of project and budget decisions made by such
committees. They also claim that a number of VDC secretaries have been found renting
rooms in district headquarters instead of staying in the VDCs that they serve.
This has continued despite government efforts to curb the practice by paying an
extra allowance of Rs 1500 each month to VDC secretaries as an incentive for
staying in their respective workplaces. These abuses, misuses and lack of
responsibility from local political actors and local bureaucrats show that
absence of locally elected officials has hurt local level progress in Nepal.
The most recent local level elections were held in 2054 BS, and tenure
of those elected officials ended in 2058 BS. So, there have been no local level
elected officials in Nepali VDCs and municipalities for over 11 years. Since a
bureaucrat is only interested and obliged to follow rules and regulations
specified by national government, local level bureaucrats may not be very
interested and invested in hearing the voices and identifying critical needs of
local citizenry. Local level bureaucrats are accountable not to the local
citizenry but to higher level officials in respective Ministries. The
government had hoped that formation of APMs would take care of this
bureaucratic hurdle by providing a mechanism at local level that actually
listened to what local citizenry had to say about local development needs and
formulated plans accordingly. However, when it was evident that there was
rampant corruption in the APMs, the government dissolved all APMs in 2068 BS.
It has become evident that we need locally elected officials to listen
to public concerns and needs, and to guide planning and decision making in local
level development processes. However, both local and national level political
actors today do not want local elections. Although APMs have now been
dissolved, local political actors from different parties—large and small—are
still informally engaged in local level development planning and decision
making processes. These local political actors, especially ones from smaller
political parties, stand to lose their share of corruption money that they
currently enjoy through informal APMs if there is an elected official handling
planning and decision making duties.
National level political leaders do not want local elections because
current system of informal APMs allows them to appoint handpicked local
political individuals into these APMs. This ensures that these individuals in
APMs are accountable and obedient to national level political leaders and not
to local citizenry. This system has allowed national level political leaders to
have a firm grip in local development process, the kind of grip that they have
never enjoyed before in their lifetime. If local elections are held, local
citizens could elect somebody unapproachable or a rogue politician not in
cahoots with national level leaders. That would disrupt the power stranglehold
that today’s national level political leaders enjoy at local levels. This fear has
made national level politicians not want local elections.
Locals blame that local bureaucrats do not hear the cause of locals and
do not worry much about local issues because most bureaucrats are not local
residents themselves. Add to that the nature of their tenure at a particular
locality—which varies from six months to a year—and locals feel that government
bureaucrats are not invested and interested in resolving local issues. However,
if there were locally elected officials present as decision makers, local
development process and planning would improve significantly because of
increasing accountability that locally elected officials are subjected to due
to the nature of their appointment through popular elections.
My interaction with locals in Dhading, Gorkha and Chitwan this month
suggests that Nepalis care more about local elections than national elections.
They believe that their access and reach to national level government and
policymakers have been lacking due to absence of locally elected officials.
They also believe that the level of corruption that has occurred in absence of
locally elected officials—and in APMs under the aegis of national level
political leaders—will reduce significantly if local citizens regain their
right to elect local officials.
Labels: election, nepal, peter bodde
Monday, January 21, 2013
Today’s Nepal and its missing morality
Political leaders who led and participated in the democratic movement
of 2046 BS are still referred to as “freedom fighters” in our daily parlance. There
was one who had been jailed by the Panchayat government. His best friend, a
fellow freedom fighter, would frequently visit his family during that period like
any good friend would. When the one in jail went home after being released, his
wife ran away with the best friend. The two best friends went on to become
ministers in the post-Panchayat pro-democratic government at the same time. In
any function one attended, the other would be absent in order to avoid any
confrontation. This continued until one died recently.
In another incident, another freedom fighter was caught jumping out of
a prostitute’s window not very long ago. There were a few who, when denied a
ministership by their respective political parties, ran as independents and
lost. These incidents and examples illustrate a lack of ethics, character and
morality in our political leadership. This lack of ethics, character and
morality then seeped into our bureaucracy and the larger civil society.
I know a few civil servants who are the best fathers, husbands, sons
and uncles for their children, wives, parents and nieces. One of them was an
officer who extracted money from Sita Rai in the now-infamous airport
immigration extortion and rape case. That civil servant is still in hiding. What
makes these best fathers, husbands, sons and uncles leave the confines of their
own homes and turn into the sleaziest of civil servants and the vilest of human
beings? I believe that this is replication, in civil service, of our Hindu
tradition of sweeping and mopping our own homes clean every morning while
throwing our filth and garbage right outside our boundary walls with complete
disregard of how our actions affect others in the society.
How else can we, otherwise, explain our public officials in immigration
and customs stealing two lakh rupees from a bruised and battered female worker
returning from Saudi Arabia? On top of the extortion, the female worker is,
then, handed over to a police officer who proceeds to rape her multiple times.
What kind of safety and security should our mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces and
grandmothers expect in this country where a police officer—entrusted with the
duty to protect and serve—systematically and methodically rapes them?
Our police and army perform excellently while earning dollar salaries
as UN peacekeeping forces in Africa. Why can’t these same police and army
personnel show same kind of dedication and duty while serving in Nepal? Why
can’t they fulfill their duties of “serve and protect” without unzipping their
pants to rape a Maina Sunuwar or a Sita Rai? In addition to committing gender
based violence crimes by themselves, our security forces are responsible in
aiding and abetting such crimes, too. Human rights organizations have reported
that—in most of Terai region—police officers have been mediating cases of
gender based violence instead of registering the cases and bringing the
perpetrators to justice. Police officers have been found conducting negotiations
between victim’s family, perpetrators and local political actors.
Amidst all these, our national government remains not only a meek
observer but actually contributes to the impunity. Murderers of journalist
Dekendra Thapa have taken responsibility for their crime and have asked to be
punished to the maximum extent allowable by the law. So, why is then the prime
minister of the country asking the investigation officers to drop the case
against the murderers who have confessed to their crimes and seek punishment?
The government has filed very few charges against the rapists, and has
doled out even fewer punishments. Instead, immediately after a rape case
becomes public news, the government announces monetary compensations to
victims. Why is the government paying compensation to rape victims? A monetary
compensation is not the first thing that victims of rape have in their minds
when they ask their government to hear their case. The perpetrator of rape
should be brought to justice and punished according to the law. In the event
that the law decides to award compensation, it should come from perpetrators,
not from the tax revenue that the government collects from hardworking everyday
Nepali like me.
Abraham Lincoln once said that if you want to test a man’s character,
you should give him power. Government bureaucrats who stole from, and then
handed Sita Rai over to the police officer, lost their character when in a
position of power. The police officer, who then raped Sita Rai, did the same.
The army officers who raped and killed Maina Sunuwar did the same. Our public
officials seem to be unable to keep their characters intact when in a position
of power. They seem to be the worst of human beings when in duty and in a
position of power.
Violence against Nepali women will continue because of impunity. None
or very little consequences for committing crimes fail to deter the criminals
from further committing similar crimes. If our government truly feels guilty
for the frequency in which Nepali women seem to be raped, announcing an
immediate monetary compensation is not the way to show that remorse. It should
draft better laws and stronger punishments to prevent such incidents from
occurring in the future. However, that has not been the case.
Further rapes and other forms of violence against Nepali women have
been reported even after public outrage against recent rape cases. A woman in
Banke and one in Bara were burnt alive by family members. A housemaid in
Kathmandu has been found dead under mysterious circumstances. A woman was raped
in one of the tea estates in Ilam. It seems the Nepali polity, bureaucracy and
society has collectively decided to go down the moral drain at the same time.
All because there is impunity to any and all crimes in today’s Nepal. Friedrich
Nietzsche, the philosopher, once said that fear is the mother of all morality.
Until and unless our polity, bureaucracy and society fear the consequence of
their heinous actions, they will stay amoral.
(c) Mukesh Khanal
Labels: bureaucracy, dekendra thapa, democracy, GBV, maina sunuwar, maoists, morality, nepal, nepal army, police, sita rai, violence
Monday, December 17, 2012
Pushpa’s CNN Hero win: What does it tell us about ourselves?
The following article was published in Republica on December 16, 2012 with the title "An engaged bunch". The unedited original version is below.
Our current political struggle to unite over how the country should be
run, who should run it, and how long they should run it belie the otherwise
rarely accepted fact that, as a people, Nepalis are pretty solidly united.
Besides the purpose with which such unity occurs, there are often unintended
consequences, the likes of which we saw during the anti-Hrithik Roshan incident
years ago when a handful of Nepalis died in Nepal over something that the actor
said which has yet to be proven to this day. However, in recent years, the
unity that we have showcased as people have mostly been for the purpose of
good, except in our political sphere where we don’t seem to agree on anything.
One of the first clear strength of Nepali unity was seen when Prashant
Tamang participated in Indian Idol. Not only the Nepalis in Nepal were united
to make sure that Prashant won that contest, but Nepalis of Jackson Heights in
New York City had installed money collection booths, the collections of which
would be sent to Nepal to support the SMS voting for Prashant from Nepal. Last
year, Nepalis in droves voted for Soumya Rai and Om Chhetri—two kids of Nepali
origin—in the Dance India Dance competition. As a result, Soumya came fourth,
and Om came second in the competition. This solidarity and unity in supporting
these candidates was seen not only in Nepalis in Nepal but also in people of
Nepali origin in India.
And, now, twice in the past three years, two Nepalis have won the CNN
Hero contest—Anuradha Koirala in 2010 and Pushpa Basnet in 2012. So, what do
these wins of Nepalis in cyberspace and TVspace tell us about ourselves? Did
Nepali support for Prashant have anything to do with us wanting to shed our
“bahadur” tag in India? Did our support to Om and Soumya have anything to do with
trying to prove to the billion plus Indians that Nepali kids were as good as,
if not better than, the other Indian kids? Was our support for Anuradha and
Pushpa, and their eventual wins, our way of telling the world that we matter?
There is no doubt that the people that nominated and campaigned for the
likes of Anuradha and Pushpa are young and tech savvy. In addition, this crowd
is idealistic and holds dear the democratic value of participation. There is
also an understanding among these “voters” that online and SMS voting are
democratic and fair. So, they invest significant efforts due to the belief of
existence of these notions of fairness and democracy in those competitions.
The same cannot be said of the ground level election process in Nepal
which, in a way, is also a competition between different participants.
Constituents from two different constituencies voted against Madhav Kumar Nepal
because they decided he wasn’t fit to be a member of the parliament. Mr Nepal
lost from both of those constituencies. He ended up becoming the prime
minister. It has to be noted that he did so through a legitimate process and no
rules of the land were broken. However, making him a PM despite losing from two
different places was a slap in the faces and logic of those constituents who
thought he wasn’t fit to become an MP, let alone the PM.
We should not be expected to keep supporting a democratic process that
gives us a PM out of a two-time loser. We cannot be expected to keep believing
in democracy when the version practiced here is different from the other
western versions of democracy that we grow up watching, reading and idolizing.
We are interested and invested in online voting because we feel they more aptly
reflect our ideology of a fair democratic process.
I keep hearing and reading about people and politicians complaining
about apathy of our youths towards politics and the political process. They are
apathetic because they see the reality where constituents and their wishes are
made fun of afterwards. We participate in online polls and voting in support of
candidates like Anuradha and Pushpa because they are “apolitical”, and because
the online voting processes and results are more democratic than our “real”
elections.
Labels: anuradha koirala, DID, Indian Idol, maiti nepal, nepal, om chhetri, prashant tamang, pushpa basnet, soumya rai
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Nepal's population is 26,620,809
.
Central Bureau of Statistics has released some statistics from the 2011 national census.
Total Population: 26,620,809
Total male population: 12,927,431
Total female population: 13,693,378
Absentee population: 1,917,903 total number of Nepalis outside Nepal (was 762,000 in 2001)
Sex ratio: 94.41 males for 100 females (was 99.8 in 2001)
Annual population growth rate: 1.4 percent (was 2.25 percent in 2001 census)
Highest growing district: Kathmandu with 60.93 percent growth since 2001
Lowest growing district: Manang with 31.92 percent reduction since 2001
Population living in the Terai (plains): 50.15 percent
Population living in the Hills: 43.1 percent
Population living in the Mountains: 6.75 percent
Population living in urban areas: 17 percent (4.5 million people)
Population living in rural areas: 83 percent
Population density: 181 per square kilometer
Least dense district: Manang (3 per square kilometer)
Most dense district: Kathmandu (4408 per square kilometer)
Development region with largest population: Central region with 36.5 percent
Development region with smallest population: Far-western region with 9.6 percent
Average size of a household: 4.7 (was 5.44 in 2001)
District with largest HH size: Rautahat with 6.33
District with smallest HH size: Kathmandu with 3.71
MOST POPULATED DISTRICTS
Kathmandu: 1,740,977
Morang: 964,709
Rupandehi: 886,706
Jhapa: 810,636
Kailali: 770,279
LEAST POPULATED DISTRICTS
Manang: 6,527
Mustang: 13,799
Dolpa: 36,701
Rasuwa: 43,798
Humla: 51,008
Central Bureau of Statistics has released some statistics from the 2011 national census.
Total Population: 26,620,809
Total male population: 12,927,431
Total female population: 13,693,378
Absentee population: 1,917,903 total number of Nepalis outside Nepal (was 762,000 in 2001)
Sex ratio: 94.41 males for 100 females (was 99.8 in 2001)
Annual population growth rate: 1.4 percent (was 2.25 percent in 2001 census)
Highest growing district: Kathmandu with 60.93 percent growth since 2001
Lowest growing district: Manang with 31.92 percent reduction since 2001
Population living in the Terai (plains): 50.15 percent
Population living in the Hills: 43.1 percent
Population living in the Mountains: 6.75 percent
Population living in urban areas: 17 percent (4.5 million people)
Population living in rural areas: 83 percent
Population density: 181 per square kilometer
Least dense district: Manang (3 per square kilometer)
Most dense district: Kathmandu (4408 per square kilometer)
Development region with largest population: Central region with 36.5 percent
Development region with smallest population: Far-western region with 9.6 percent
Average size of a household: 4.7 (was 5.44 in 2001)
District with largest HH size: Rautahat with 6.33
District with smallest HH size: Kathmandu with 3.71
MOST POPULATED DISTRICTS
Kathmandu: 1,740,977
Morang: 964,709
Rupandehi: 886,706
Jhapa: 810,636
Kailali: 770,279
LEAST POPULATED DISTRICTS
Manang: 6,527
Mustang: 13,799
Dolpa: 36,701
Rasuwa: 43,798
Humla: 51,008
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Links for July 19, 2011
Police personnel in jail for the Sudan scam post their bails---Nepalnews
I do not know how much a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) gets paid. But, apparently, a bank trusts him enough to give a bank guarantee worth Rs 7 million to post bail. The Inspector General of Police (IGP)is still in jail for not being able to post a Rs 50 million in bail. The Assistant-IGP, though, is out of jail after posting a Rs 10 million in bail. Here's a trick question: who is the richest among the three?
Unions already against Finance Minister's "deceptive" pay hike proposal---Nepalnews
The Finance Minister (FM) announced in the budget speech a few days ago that senior level employees would receive a pay raise of 31% and junior level employees will receive a pay raise of 42%. But, employee unions smell a rat in those numbers. They accuse the FM of trying to do away with "dearness allowance" (essentially an inflation allowance). They claim that once the dearness allowance is done away with, the pay raise for junior employees will only be 25%, thus much lower than what the FM is lying to the public with (the 42% figure).
National Planning Commission urges the government to promote biodiesel---Kantipur
NPC suggests that farmers should be given subsidy to plant Jatropha plants whose seeds can produce oil that can be used as a substitute for diesel. I don't agree with the NPC because they are looking at the very short term impact. The United States did the same thing to promote bio-diesel years ago. They gave subsidies to farmers to generate biodiesel from corn (maize). The result was that, yes, the bio-diesel met some demand but it hurt the overall food supply. The same thing will happen in Nepal. In hopes of high return, farmers will stop planting essential crops and start planting Jatropha. This will hurt the already food-deficit country of ours. So, NPC is being short-sighted in this suggestion of theirs. We are a very small country. Trying to solve the petroleum supply problem is not our advantage.
195 toilets for girls built in Baglung schools---Republica
I have read reports that suggested that one of the main reasons girls did not attend schools in poor and developing countries is the lack of toilets for girls in the schools. And, that is understandable. So, it is a good thing that the Ministry of Education and District Education Office of Baglung are doing. They are building toilets for girls in the public schools of Baglung. Good for them, and good for the girls.
Nepal's 2011 Census records "third gender" but with some problems---The New Republic
The article is written by a Fulbright scholar pursuing his research in the LGBTI communities of Nepal. It has anecdotes and highlights some of the problems regarding recording the "third gender" in the census forms. Apparently, the census has two forms, and third genders are recorded only in the first, and not in the second form. This makes the data collection almost useless, almost.
Finally, the pie chart below shows the DFID assistance to Nepal for the 2009/10 period. It is clear that most of it goes to programs that support the issues of governance and growth.
I do not know how much a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) gets paid. But, apparently, a bank trusts him enough to give a bank guarantee worth Rs 7 million to post bail. The Inspector General of Police (IGP)is still in jail for not being able to post a Rs 50 million in bail. The Assistant-IGP, though, is out of jail after posting a Rs 10 million in bail. Here's a trick question: who is the richest among the three?
Unions already against Finance Minister's "deceptive" pay hike proposal---Nepalnews
The Finance Minister (FM) announced in the budget speech a few days ago that senior level employees would receive a pay raise of 31% and junior level employees will receive a pay raise of 42%. But, employee unions smell a rat in those numbers. They accuse the FM of trying to do away with "dearness allowance" (essentially an inflation allowance). They claim that once the dearness allowance is done away with, the pay raise for junior employees will only be 25%, thus much lower than what the FM is lying to the public with (the 42% figure).
National Planning Commission urges the government to promote biodiesel---Kantipur
NPC suggests that farmers should be given subsidy to plant Jatropha plants whose seeds can produce oil that can be used as a substitute for diesel. I don't agree with the NPC because they are looking at the very short term impact. The United States did the same thing to promote bio-diesel years ago. They gave subsidies to farmers to generate biodiesel from corn (maize). The result was that, yes, the bio-diesel met some demand but it hurt the overall food supply. The same thing will happen in Nepal. In hopes of high return, farmers will stop planting essential crops and start planting Jatropha. This will hurt the already food-deficit country of ours. So, NPC is being short-sighted in this suggestion of theirs. We are a very small country. Trying to solve the petroleum supply problem is not our advantage.
195 toilets for girls built in Baglung schools---Republica
I have read reports that suggested that one of the main reasons girls did not attend schools in poor and developing countries is the lack of toilets for girls in the schools. And, that is understandable. So, it is a good thing that the Ministry of Education and District Education Office of Baglung are doing. They are building toilets for girls in the public schools of Baglung. Good for them, and good for the girls.
Nepal's 2011 Census records "third gender" but with some problems---The New Republic
The article is written by a Fulbright scholar pursuing his research in the LGBTI communities of Nepal. It has anecdotes and highlights some of the problems regarding recording the "third gender" in the census forms. Apparently, the census has two forms, and third genders are recorded only in the first, and not in the second form. This makes the data collection almost useless, almost.
Finally, the pie chart below shows the DFID assistance to Nepal for the 2009/10 period. It is clear that most of it goes to programs that support the issues of governance and growth.
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