News, Views From Nepal

 Yuba Nath Lamsal Nepal is a test case in South Asia where democracy always remains fragile and frequently suffers due to the authoritarian behaviour of politicians who often tend to cross the constitutional red line. Once in power, leaders consider themselves the boss and the people their subordinates. In principle, democracy is a system where people are the boss while the leaders and parties are there only to serve the people. As Rousseau said in The Social Contract, the government is the contract between rulers (in the modern sense, parties) and the people. Parties or politicians make contract with the people to act in the larger interest of the people.  Recently, a debate has been raging on in the political circle of Nepal and at the citizenry level on the role and authority of the President, especially when the President refused to authenticate the citizenship bill passed by the Parliament a second time.  The Article of the Constitution of Nepal...

 Yuba Nath Lamsal European countries have witnessed rising a right-wing trend. However, Nordic countries are different. Nordic trend is left-centric. In other words, it is called social democratic model. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland are Nordic countries and these countries are always seen differently as they have unique political model distinctly different from both Western capitalist countries and the communist or socialist model. The model Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland have adopted is called the Nordic model. The East European countries, until 1990s, used to be satellite states of the Soviet Union. These countries followed Soviet path and adopted rudimentary type of regime which they called socialism, fundamentally inimical to Western European political model. The communist regimes in East Europe collapsed like a house of cards following what Samuel Huntington’s said the ‘ third wave of democracy’ and disintegration of the Soviet Union...

  Yuba Nath Lamsal. "We, the people, are the rightful masters of the Congress and the court, not to overthrow the constitution but to overthrow the men who try to pervert the constitution," said former American president Abraham Lincoln, signifying the value and sanctity of the constitution. The constitution is, thus, the soul of democratic governance. It specifically says what a government should or should not do in the defence of people’s rights, freedom, and well-being. All countries in the world have their constitutions, but not all are democratic ones. In the constitutions of authoritarian or non-democratic countries, the government tells the people what to do and what not to do. In democratic countries, constitutions are made by the people, and the people tell the government what to do and what not to do for the safeguard of the rights of the people. Democratic Charter Nepal’s present constitution, by all accounts, is the most democratic one with some unique features. T...

 Yuba Nath Lamsal The 2002 census report of England and Wales came as a shock to many British people as it indicated that if the same trend continued white Britons would soon be in minority in their own capital city. The 2012 census further stunned them as only 44.9 per cent residents in London identified themselves as white British. These two events agitated the right-winger British politicians to take up the nationalist bandwagon blaming the liberal immigration policy. The far rightist hardliners in the Conservative Party took it an opportune time to hit the liberals in both sides of aisles of British parliament and come into the leadership spotlight.  The liberal immigration policy was linked with UK’s association with the European Union and the hardliners often called it as British government’s policy capitulation to the European Union. They unleashed a crusade demanding tight immigration policy and exit from the European Union finally forcing the British gove...

 Yuba Nath Lamsal ( Published in nepalminute.com on September 4, 2022) The concept of democracy originated in the ancient Greek city of Athens in 500 BCE. Since then democracy has undergone continuous evolution both in form and substance. The ancient Athenian system was direct democracy in which all eligible city dwellers would assemble in the city centre and participate in the decision-making on every issue concerning them. However, with the development of complex societies, direct democracy and the system of seeking consent of every individual citizen on each issue and subject is not possible. Thus, the idea of representative democracy emerged which is now in vogue worldwide. In representative democracy, people elect their representatives who make decisions on behalf of the citizens. "… of the people, by the people, for the people" Former American president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) didn’t know his Gettysburg speech would be so immortal. In his tributes to...

 Yuba Nath Lamsal In his maverick style, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar recently said, “The Asian Century will be difficult if India and China don’t come together”. Soon after Indian minister’s remarks, Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said: ‘If China and India do not advance, there cannot be an Asian century’. This convergence of opinion of the two Asia’s giants signifies the necessity of closer cooperation between India and China for peace, stability and common prosperity of Asia.  Asia is the earth’s largest and most populous continent consisting of 30 per cent of earth’s landmass and 60 per cent of world’s population. In a way, even Europe may not be called a separate continent as there is no water separating Europe from Asia. Europe is an extension of Asia or vice versa. The word continent originated from Latin word terra continens, which means continuous landmass. It would, thus, be wise to call Europe and Asia as a...