By P. Kharel
Train of drought
For a government that has abandoned everything else for dreaming of railway connectivity with (Raxaul-Kathmandu and Rasuwagadhi-Kathmandu) in about a decade, it is no surprise that Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli mentions the projects-in-the-making whenever he has an opportunity to talk to especially leaders and delegates of the two giant neighbours. Captains of Nepalese commerce and industry are bored to death when the presiding lord of Baluwatar brings up the topic, including waterway projects, as if he does not have anything to unveil by way of offering short-term relief to the people, with ample hint of delivering yet bigger relief package in the ensuing times.
In the meantime, complaints crop up here and there regarding the issue that “fast track” mechanism is set in motion that enthusiastically responds to the slightest of movement from the Indian side and goes slow when it comes to processing and responding to any initiative from the Chinese side. At least, China-friendly lobby says so. The inner story is to be confirmed but “progressive intellectuals” complain in such manner, which should sound music to the confrontationist main opposition Nepali Congress’ ears. Government officials press their lips in reaction saying, “There is no clear vision about it.”
But then dreaming alone is supposed to be the first step to achieving success, no? By the way, I, too, have a dream to reach the Mars some day. When Nepal or Nepalese acquire some semblance of success in the next century at the earliest, I, even if no more breathing in Planet Earth, would stand to acquire the distinction of having publicly dreamt such dream in print. However, the hitch is: would the future generations bother to approve of such dream as something illustrious or would they simply dismiss it as a fool’s paradise? The answer rests in the womb of the future.
Mahendra Path
A group of leftists belonging to the UML faction of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) not long ago were speaking in low tones in admiration of Prime Minister and (NCP) President Oli’s secret readings. One of them said: “He is clearly reading the life and works of King Mahendra and adapting the same to suit the present times!”
They did not elaborate what were the leaves their comrade-president borrowed from King Mahendra’s book. But the manner in which Oli has been goading civil servants to work doubly hard rings very familiar exhortations of the monarch who passed away in early 1972. One of the well-known exhortations of King Mahendra’s reminded Nepalese in general of need to “achieve in ten years what others accomplished in 100 years”.
In any case, will the prime minister’s latest exhortation energise the bureaucrats, known for lethargy and red tape, into action and double their load of work and with it improve their performance twice? Improbable, if not impossible.
Dream Rs 30,000!
Working Journalist Interest Promotion Committee under the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) last fortnight staged a sit-in at the office of the chairman of the Minimum Wage Fixation Committee, Gangdhar Parajuli. Ram Prasad Dahal, the committee coordinator and FNJ secretary, led the delegation on September 9. The key demand: minimum wage of Rs 40,000 for all working members of the Fourth Estate. The wage committee quickly decided to jack up the minimum wage under three slabs for “national media” Rs 24,500 to 29,500.
Given the skyrocketing market prices and the requirement of having to work at odd hours, the wage is just about an average South Asian journalist with less than three years of experience. The question is whether it is a fair demand. The issue is one of implementability. The big question concerns with the prospect of its implementability, against the background that half the journalists did not receive the minimum wage fixed at Rs 10,008 three years ago, followed by a worse case when the minimum pay was revised and raised to nearly double the previous minimum. Hence, there may be no real harm in placing a demand, with the full knowledge that it will not be applied by most news media organisations any time soon.
American embassy, too
A comment the other week on India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi not being given much deference during his short sojourn in Kathmandu before and after his week-long trip to Mansarobar in Tibet did not seem to bother the India Embassy staff at Lazimpat much. For, except for the bare minimum, they would not dare go out of the way in rolling out VVIP treatment to the man the main opposition in India is projecting as their prime ministerial candidate in next spring’s general elections.
A career diplomat, Ambassador Manjeev Singh knows which way the wind blows. Or should one say, knowing which side the bread is buttered?
A mole, however, confessed that the American Embassy at Mahargunj, too, has undergone the throes of ideological division. Apparently, the previous dominant group was Democratic Party-dominated and the Republican side was restless to having their due share in whatever leeway the Embassy staff members were given by any given administration. Things now are reported to have tilted toward the Republican sway. “You can’t have it both ways,” says a Republican stripe at the Maharajgunj-based embassy expanse.
NOTE: Nepalese (rather, South Asians in general) are not the only ones who get polarised even when functioning as government employees, though their penchant far outstrips their American, or Western, counterparts.
Without comment
Yubaraj Ghimire: “After the 12-point agreement [between seven party alliance and Maoists in 2005 in Delhi] leaders have handed over to India the key to Nepal’s domestic politics.”
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