News, Views From Nepal

By Yuba Nath Lamsal Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal’s much anticipated visit to India is finally going take place from August 18. It is a routine affair of the Nepalese prime minister as any new head of the government embarks on foreign trip beginning with Delhi sojourn. According to officials, the visit of the Nepalese Prime Minister is basically a good will trip. The official visit of the Prime Minister Nepal at the invitation of his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh is definitely a goodwill one which would seek to further consolidate the bilateral relations existing between the two countries. But this visit is more than just the goodwill one. This is an official visit which will have to focus on some longstanding problems that have caused irritants on several occasions between the two countries. There are certain issues which cannot be solved easily at the bureaucratic level and they need to be dealt at the highest political level between the two prime ministers. Our Prime Min...

By Yuba Nath Lamsal The meeting of the jumbo central committee of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) concluded recently. It came out with a set of decisions, which include, among others, the change in the organizational structure and leadership pattern of the party. The party of the ex-rebels has created multiple positions in the central leadership. Earlier, the party had one-man leadership in which the chairman was the most powerful. Now, the party had created several positions including three vice-presidents, general secretary, secretary and treasurer. The reason to adopt the new leadership pattern is not clear but one can guess, as reported by the media, that this decision was taken under compulsion. Ever since the unity between the Maoist party and the Unity Center- Mashal was held, there had been a tough debate about the share in the leadership. Moreover, the factions within the Maoist party as well were bitterly fighting for the positions. The new leadership structure ...

By Yuba Nath Lamsal A common perception among the general public in Nepal is that politicians often lie and they are not sincere to the country and the people. This should not be generalized to all the politicians because there might be some honest, sincere and value-based leaders. But their number is small and they have been outnumbered by the crowd of leaders and politicians whose words and works never match. Gone are the days when politics was value based. This is a general tendency not only in Nepal but in the world. The credibility of politicians has plummeted deep down in recent years. Politics is viewed as the business of the crooks. There were the days of Karl Marx, Fredrik Angels, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin and Willy Brant. In our own neighbourhood, were born Mahatam Gandhi who preached and practiced non-violence in politics. His simplicity, truthfulness, honesty, patriotism, self-less sacrifice and principled politics was well appr...

By Yuba Nath Lamsal On the surface, parties seem to be focused on the writing of the new constitution and concluding the peace process to ensure peaceful and stable democracy in Nepal. However, deep into their inner heart, they are paying only the lip service to this main political agenda. Their behaviors have illustrated that they are, instead, busy in extracting partisan gains out of the present political equation. If that was not the case, much would have been accomplished to this direction in the last sixteen months since the election to the Constituent Assembly was held. This is not to say that the achievements made during the last one year were by no means small by any standard. The successful and peaceful election and formation of the Constituent Assembly in itself was a huge task. The abolition of more than 240 year old institution of monarchy and declaration of republic in Nepal is yet another gigantic task that would always be written down in Nepal’s history with golden lette...

By Yuba Nath Lamsal Nepal has already decided to adopt a federal structure. The interim constitution has defined Nepal as a federal democratic republic, which means there is no going back to a unitary state. Most of the political parties have also committed to go for the federal way. Why federalism? Ever since Nepal was created, it remained a unitary state. Nepal was created by physically assimilating different tiny principalities that had their unique culture, language and system of governance. The unification was a historical necessity. Right after the unification, the approach and policies that the rulers in Kathmandu adopted were based on the strategy of consolidating the newly created unified country. But the later rulers adopted wrong policies that left the many communities and regions in a state of destitute politically, economically, culturally and linguistically. Despite physically unified, some communities did not feel emotionally assimilated. The state power was controlled b...