Long time no see !!!!

The latter part of April I really got very busy. Normally I write during the weekends, but past two weekends I had few parties to attend. Also, I was busy at my work too, sometimes even brought work to home.

I remember talking with my mom, couple of months back, when she forgot her purse in a bus. She got off at the bus park (the last stop) and there were only 4 other people in the bus. She rushed back to the bus park and found empty bus but no one (driver or conductor) present, guess they were done for the day. With help of police, she got in touch with the conductor (it might have been anyone who took that purse, but that’s the least she could do). When asked about the purse, he blatently replied that he has no idea, which might be true, but his other statement suprised me. He said to my mom “Didi tapai le malai chor dosh lagauna khojnu bhayo, ma ko ho thaha cha? Ma Prachanda ko bhanja ho”.

When I go through the news of Nepal, I see Young Communist League (YCL) doing stuffs, many times above the law. Some of them might be good too, but there shouldn’t be unlawfulness. Coming back to the conductors statement, if he can say those things I wonder how many more people are riding on that now. This is simply not acceptable!!!!!!

I am begining to hate March

I am still showing no signs of recovery from my subdued ness. Most of the time I don’t even bother to sit down and write, even if I do so, I am running out of words. I guess there is something wrong with this month.

Places I lived before had rich veins of Nepalese Community, so I decided to bring Nepalese in South Louisiana to a common forum by opening a yahoo group called NEPLA. It’s still early days with only 10 members (will add on to that fairly quickly). I had planned a Nepalese New Year 2064 celebration on April 14 in one of the state park close to the Gulf Coast. The place was great, lot’s of water sports as well as fishing opportunities; and there were cabins next to the sea for accommodation. However, I only received apologies, not even a single person willing to go. I guess I would have to call off that plan; nothing is going right for me this month.

Reading news about Nepal isn’t helping either. I remember a bank (I guess Rastriya Banijya Bank) was handed over to a foreign company for the management and now it’s much better in shape, currently they are also talking about leasing Nepal Water Corporation too. Governance is so bad in Nepal, wish we could lease the whole country to Japan for 10 years (I know it’s very unpatriotic to say that).

However, late next month I have some exciting stuffs lined up. I am going to San Antonio for a long weekend. Some of my friends from Grad school have planned a reunion there. There, we will also be going to Schlitterbahn, one of the largest water parks in the world. For that, I had decided to shape up my tummy and get something close to six packs, but my efforts are going nowhere as my tummy is turning up like a keg every day. I have quit drinking beer and soda, and still there’s no effect. May be that has to do with month of March too, perhaps beginning April I can see some effects for my effort.

I am begining to hate March

I am still showing no signs of recovery from my subdued ness. Most of the time I don’t even bother to sit down and write, even if I do so, I am running out of words. I guess there is something wrong with this month.

Places I lived before had rich veins of Nepalese Community, so I decided to bring Nepalese in South Louisiana to a common forum by opening a yahoo group called NEPLA. It’s still early days with only 10 members (will add on to that fairly quickly). I had planned a Nepalese New Year 2064 celebration on April 14 in one of the state park close to the Gulf Coast. The place was great, lot’s of water sports as well as fishing opportunities; and there were cabins next to the sea for accommodation. However, I only received apologies, not even a single person willing to go. I guess I would have to call off that plan; nothing is going right for me this month.

Reading news about Nepal isn’t helping either. I remember a bank (I guess Rastriya Banijya Bank) was handed over to a foreign company for the management and now it’s much better in shape, currently they are also talking about leasing Nepal Water Corporation too. Governance is so bad in Nepal, wish we could lease the whole country to Japan for 10 years (I know it’s very unpatriotic to say that).

However, late next month I have some exciting stuffs lined up. I am going to San Antonio for a long weekend. Some of my friends from Grad school have planned a reunion there. There, we will also be going to Schlitterbahn, one of the largest water parks in the world. For that, I had decided to shape up my tummy and get something close to six packs, but my efforts are going nowhere as my tummy is turning up like a keg every day. I have quit drinking beer and soda, and still there’s no effect. May be that has to do with month of March too, perhaps beginning April I can see some effects for my effort.

Nation of uncertainty

None of the citizen can remain uninfluenced by politics, but one should learn to live above the sway of politics. I have tried to shun away from writing political stuffs in my blog, but I couldn’t help myself writing this. I was thinking about visiting Nepal coming December after a long time but such is uncertainty in Nepal that I can’t finalize my itinerary this early. I remember one of my friends had planned his wedding in Nepal, bought his ticket and one way ticket for his bride too, but his wedding coincided with the “Jana Andolan II”. Poor guy had to cancel his ticket and defer his marriage date. These problems of ours are very trifle compared what normal people of Nepal have to go everyday. Isn’t it a basic human right of every citizen to live in peace and have opportunity to do whatever he/she wants (without hampering others)?

One of my friend compared Nepal with a very sick person who just had a major surgery and now is in life support system. Everyone is waiting for that person to get better, but one infection affects after another so there is no progress in health.

Who gives right to some jerks to call ‘Nepal Bandh’, do they think they have people support? No, never. It’s pretty obvious that ‘Nepal Bandh’s’ are successful because of threat to personal belongings than by people support. So how are they different from a terrorist? The people movement of 1990 or last April’s movement were the genuine uprising, where no one asked someone riding a motorbike to get off, no one asked a shopkeeper to shut down his store. Every body whole heartedly came out in street, for the cause of nation, defying curfew. I personally feel declaring ‘Nepal Bandh’ should be made a federal felony.

On the other hand, authorities are such a dumb characters that unless and until some obliteration is done they won’t pay any attention. So what would a group do to make themselves heard? There is a saying ‘too much of a sweet is bitter’ as well as increased exposure to antibiotics will lead to lack of immunity and requires higher dose next time around. Same is the case of ‘Bandh’s’ in Nepal, normal people are fed up with it while authorities wont give a shit to days of ‘Bandh’ unless there is a major violence. The mainstream parties, the so called advocates of democracy and ‘new Nepal’, are fully responsible for it. They used ‘Bandh’s’ simply for their publicity stunts, establishing a culture that everyone is following now.

I am not royalist nor do I believe some group can get allowance from tax payers’ money just by virtue of their birth. However, I can’t accept the leaders blaming the monarchy for their entire letdown. Didn’t they mock Maoist about constitutional assembly and republic set up? Now they are proudly advocating Maoist’s slogans, if they have even an atom of ethics or dignity they should wrap up their political career and head to Kashi. And my dear Prachanda Uncle, do you think constitutional assembly is some kind of magic wand that you wave and all the misery of Nepal is gone? You are not Harry Potter and Nepal is not Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am well educated person with Master’s degree and I still don’t know how constitutional assembly is going to work, how we can impart significant changes that we are dreaming of in constitutional assembly election. If I can’t figure it out how can we believe that a layman in Nepal will understand it?

Like all the Nepalese, all I can do is give my best possible contribution and hope for the best. Unlike after 1990, this time around even after Constitutional Assembly, I won’t be carrying any big hope. I at least hope for democratic, structured and transparent governing body and all the citizens living in peace and harmony.

Corruption in Nepal

Transparency International (TI) recent report on most corrupt countries in the world ranked Nepal in 121st position (Rank 1 refers to least corrupt). Though the ranking seems alarming but I was glad to see that it was not the worst. Bangladesh and Nepal both declared democracy at almost the same time and now Bangladesh is ranked 156th while Haiti concludes the list at 163rd.

My previous Blog gave an example of one of the indicators of corruptions in Nepal: “Dalal’s”. There have been many committees’ and council’s formed to wipe out the corruptions, but without a strong legal procedure and implementation it’s of no use. I won’t be surprised if one of the listed corrupt unveils this TI report in Nepal. I strongly believe government alone cannot obliterate the corruption; it needs the help of the citizens. Why the citizens should help, as the history reveals no concrete actions against the culprits.

I would like to propose a new plan to settle this corruption issue in Nepal, which might as well be applicable to other developing countries. A plan which is sustainable and will have definite involvement of the citizens. I know getting a legal action against the corrupt has been very hard to come by, so why not use people to defame them. Media is very powerful; I believe it can be more powerful than the government itself; as “Kantipur” displayed during the ‘Regression’ period. I propose a plan to defame the culprits red-handed in front of the media.

I have seen many Blogs in Nepal carrying out the online journalism and they all have video Blogs too. If these people can use hidden camera and micro phone to catch a scene then it will be a hit show. A television channel needs to step up to start a program like this. If they can manage five episodes using their own crew and televise it, I bet there will be hundreds of freelancers willing to follow it up. The channel can pay the freelancers handsome money based on the quality of the material. Looking at the unemployment rate in Nepal this freelancing job will be a hot cake, good income as well as daring. There will be high interest among the viewers so the channel can generate enough revenues to pay the freelancers. I know “Tahalka.com” did this in India and fished even ministers, but in Nepal there is no need to set it up like Tahalka did, everything is so obvious. If this plan works, then there will be a temporary increase in unemployment rate, but this time it’s the thugs who will be out cold.

Knowing the situation of Nepal and the perception of Nepalese viewers I am very positive about this plan. I don’t know what Nepalese law says about the privacy (I doubt if there is anything like privacy act) and what kind of logistic and technical constraints a TV channel has to face to broadcast this sort of show, but if there are no problems with those issues then its worth trying. Normally a successful show will have more episodes running over a decade, but with this show the more popular it gets, fewer episodes will be required; which in turn is very good for the country. Maybe one day we could say Nepal is ranked top ten in TI list.

Dalal Rule in Nepal

In the near future I might have to go back to Nepal and get visa stamped on my passport. This time though, I need to get labor certification from Ministry of Labor in Nepal as my visa status has been changed from F1 (student) to H1 (Working). The visa procedures in embassy is straight forward so only thing I need to worry is to get labor certification from sluggish Nepalese government agencies. I contacted my friend Bikram Shrestha who recently had to undergo all these processes in Nepal. I was very upset to hear what he had to do to obtain the certification. May be staying here in US and not having to face government office hassles of Nepal I might have forgotten that its way of life there.

He contacted one Dalal (broker), via one of his contacts, outside Labor Office, which is near Municipality Office in Teku. That dalal started filling out the labor permit form from his bag and took all Bikram’s documents. Bikram had already prepared medical document from a doctor stating his health condition. Now as per the law, labor office has to make sure that the employee has a health Insurance and in a bad event abroad, the families in Nepal are compensated. Bikram will definitely have health insurance as laws in US are strict about that. But the dalal made a fake insurance and the paperwork was ready. Bikram finally did get the labor certification but had to pay NRS 1,500 to dalal. In one way that doesn’t sound bad as his work was expedited. But what happens to all the Nepalese blue collar workers in Gulfs, if they die in work, their families won’t be compensated. Even a dalal can prepare a fake insurance and fool the law.

Although I don’t have many rough experiences in government offices in Nepal, there is one notable experience that I would like to share. I and my friends, fresh graduates from KU, wanted to register a firm so that we can independently set up an office. We wanted to bid on a proposal for Biodiversity project. Our proposal was eventually selected among the top five among hundreds applied, but we lost the race at the end. Nevertheless, registering our firm was more trouble than writing the proposal itself. We had to register our firm (in CDO office) before the proposal due date and incidentally that was the opening month for registration and renewal window. The constitution of the firm has to be approved before it can be registered and the clerk responsible for reading and approving the constitution was flooded with constitutions from prospective firms and surrounded by their representatives. I could see my file way down in the stack but was hopeful that it would be done within a day. Suddenly from nowhere there were other files brought by a peon with a chit, and the clerk started reviewing those first. People there protested but it was useless. I was adamant that I will go by the rule and make my work done; if I would have hired a dalal my work would have been swifter. Finally, around 5:30, one hour after scheduled office time, there was no one but me and the clerk in the room, all other people left in frustration. He was supposed to leave early at 4:30 but he received some more files accompanied by a chit. Once he was done with those files, he looked at me and asked for my file, I took it out from beneath the stack and then he reviewed and approved it. Then he started to share his frustration about those chits, his job will be on line if he disregarded it.

At that moment I had time and patience, but people don’t always have those. So they will have no option but seek help from dalal. I have thought about its possible solution which I will write in my next blog. I believe, at present, it won’t be unfair to say that ‘Dalal Rule in Nepal’.