News, Views From Nepal

Yuba Nath Lamsal News reports in some Chinese media concerning China-Bhutan relations gave ground for speculations and analysis to foreign policy watchers and security and strategic analysts both in South Asian region and beyond. This news also hit newspaper headlines of some international media as well. The media reported that China and Bhutan had in principle agreed to establish diplomatic relations. This news report came following the meeting of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley on the sidelines of the UN conference on sustainable development or Reo+20 in Rio de Jenerio of Brazil in June this year. As and when this news hit the newspaper headlines, it was taken with pleasure and satisfaction by Beijing but with indignation, caution and delighting interest by other powers and countries both in the region and outside. China and Bhutan so far do not have diplomatic relations despite being the close neighbors and having shared common borde...

Yuba Nath Lamsal It is said that good leaders are born out of crisis. In the normal circumstances, everything goes smoothly, which does not require any special quality of a person as a leader. But the quality of leadership is tested only at the time of political crisis. One who can steer the country out of the quagmire of crisis taking the people along is a genuine leader who may ultimately turn out to be a statesman. There are various kinds of people in the political helms. The first category of the people includes the people that work at the local and grassroots level. They are community mobilizers and organizers.   They work in the community and groups, for whom politics is something that is to be obeyed. They receive orders and instructions from above and their duty is just to implement it, whatever their implication and ramifications are. They are concerned more with their own local group from which they obtain legitimacy. They have little concern over what goes on i...

Yuba Nath Lamsal The year 1955 was a turning point in the modern history of Nepal-China relations. This is the year Nepal and China formally established diplomatic relationship and reconnected the link that had virtually broken for sometime especially after the Sugauli Treaty with the British colonial rulers in India. The Sugauli Treaty that was concluded after the Anglo-Nepal War in 1816 marked a significant shift in Nepal’s foreign policy. Nepal then suddenly changed its long-cherished foreign policy of equi-distance with both of its northern and southern neighbors. Prithivi Narayan Shah, the founder of modern Nepal, had first spelled out Nepal’s foreign policy priorities. In his wise counsels, Prithivi Narayan Shah had suggested his successors to keep vigil on the southern power (British colonial rulers) and trust the northern empire (China), which is evident of China’s good neighborly foreign policy. However, Nepal became, too, dependent on the south and its foreign polic...

Yuba Nath Lamsal The seventh extended central committee meeting of the Unified CPN-Maoist or the plenum is underway in Kathmandu, which is expected to come up with a new ideological and tactical tools to cope with the newer challenges that have cropped up in the contemporary Nepal and also in the international arena. The seventh plenum is being held first time after the party split. A section of the party headed by Mohan Vaidya broke the relationship with the mother party and announced a separate party called the CPN-Maoist. After the vertical split in the party, the UCPN-Maoist has faced a real political, ideological and organizational challenge. The Vaidya faction has accused the principal leadership of the UCPN-Maoist of being deviated from the fundamental philosophy of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that the party championed as a guiding principle since it was created. Now the UCPN-M leadership has to prove the Vaidya group wrong and give continuity to its earlier image among the...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Nepal is currently passing through a political transition. All political transitions are difficult. But the present political transition in Nepal is unique and more difficult. Unlike all other transitions of the past, the present transition is not a mere change of regime but a systemic transition that has marked a transformation from a feudal monarchical system to republican set up and from unitary state to federal model. The present transition of began six years ago when a peace accord was signed between the Maoist insurgents, who had been waging a guerilla war against the feudal monarchy, and the government comprising seven parliamentary parties. This accord formally marked an end of the decade long armed insurgency that had claimed life of more than 13 thousand people. With the initiation of peace process, a new chapter of Nepal’s history began providing hopes for a better, peaceful and prosperous Nepal. Nepal has been in perpetual transition right from...