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#415 29 August - 4 September 2008 16 pages Rs 30 Weekly Internet Poll # 415 Q. What should the prime minister have worn during his swearing in? Total votes: 5,742 Love thy neighbour MALLIKA ARYAL powerplay in South Asia.’ control mode before Yadav in NEW DELHI The opposition BJP, which arrived, dismissing the has no love for Nepal’s Maoists, controversy as “pointless”. He Weekly Internet Poll # 416. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com said that now that they are in added: “Ties with India are in a Q. The Prime Minister should have: t’s an indication of just how Gone to Delhi before Beijing sensitive India-Nepal government the former rebels different category.” z Did right by going to China first relations have become that should behave more responsibly. Does it matter? I few in the New Delhi foreign “The Maoists need to change policy establishment want to their overall attitude towards speak even off the record to a India because they Nepali journalist these days. haven’t been especially By ignoring Indian concerns warm towards us,” BJP and accepting Beijing’s invitation leader N N Jha told to the Olympics closing Nepali Times. ceremony last week, Prime Prime Minsiter Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal set Dahal’s Beijing alarm bells ringing here. Indian controversy was replaced politicians and foreign policy by the Kosi embankment bureaucrats tried to play down collapse this week as Indian Dahal’s ‘China card’, but the officials realised the full extent military-intelligence of the flood crisis in eastern establishment, Bihar. The Kosi changing its the course has made 60,000 opposition homeless in Nepal, but BJP and downstream in India the some number affected has reached a hawkish staggering four million. commentators Prime Minister have voiced Manmohan Singh toured concerns about the region on Thursday, and China’s growing most of the Indian press has influence in India’s passed the blame to Nepal for neighborhood. not allowing Indian ‘Prachanda’s engineers to repair the Kosi’s Beijing sojourn east embankment in June merely confirms when the breach was first the subcontinent’s noticed. shifting balance of In Bihar, the power in China’s inundation has got worse favour,’ wrote the because railway Indian Express in embankments and an editorial on flood control levees Tuesday, a view have dammed up the echoed by other diverted Kosi as it flows influential commentators through villages and towns. here. ‘Prachanda’s departure Nepal’s new Foreign from Nepal’s natural logic for Minister Upendra Yadav, in a strong relationship with New Delhi for a meeting of the India can only be subregional group, BIMSTEC, understood in the context was likely to have been of Beijing’s new quizzed about his BILASH RAI “equidistance” remark when he met his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee on EDITORIAL Thursday. Flood of recrimination p2 Meanwhile, Nepal’s ambassador to India, Durgesh PLAIN SPEAKING Prashant Jha Man Singh, was in full damage Two Dajus p10 2 EDITORIAL 29 AUGUST - 4 SEPTEMBER 2008 #415 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit CEO: Ashutosh Tiwari Design: Kiran Maharjan Director Sales and Marketing: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Marketing Manager: Sambhu Guragain Asst Managers: Deepak Sangraula, Subhash Kumar Subscriptions: 5542535/5542525 Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur [email protected] GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5250333/845, Fax: 5251013 www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 5250017-19 Dhulikhel dispatch A to w n in search of a soul DHULIKHEL—Plus ça change, headquarters of Kabrepalanchok, Could it be that some of those A FLOOD OF RECRIMINATION plus c’est la même chose. which resulted in some new meetings helped bring an end to When the Himalaya were being formed in the past 60 million Despite all the changes this buildings and jobs. But despite the war? Today, with Pushpa years, what is now the Tarai used to be the shores of a sea called district capital has endured over the magnificent mountain views Kamal Dahal ensconced in the Tethys. Prehistoric monsoons eroded the rising mountains, the past three decades, it to be had on a clear day, few Baluwatar, the foreign tourists are filling the sea with debris. remains almost the same. Life tourists came here in the 1970s. back, and talk at Dhulikhel’s The mass wasting of the Himalaya is still going on. This still revolves around the A private language school seminars is all about security makes the Kosi the river with one of the heaviest sediment loads Bhagbati temple, where a new teaching Nepali to foreigners in sector reform, federalism and in the world. More than 100 million cubic metres of silt are Dilli Bajar used to bring its social inclusion. deposited every year in Nepal and Bihar when the river slows STATE OF THE STATE customers—mainly American While the hotel sector has down after breaking through the mountains. C K Lal students—to the town for an bounced back, there have been This is why the river is constantly trying to find new channels immersion course in Nepali failures in Dhulikhel—among to the sea. The problem now is that the fertile banks of the Kosi culture. It was only later, with them the information technology are densely populated, and governments are under pressure to control the floods by straitjacketing the river with embankments. building has been added for the establishment of the park which lies abandoned by all When the Kosi Barrage was built in 1956, the lifespan of the devotees to sing bhajans in the Dhulikhel Mountain Resort and except wildlife. The brainchild of embankments was 20 years. Today, the Kosi in Nepal flows three morning. And come evening, a host of other hotels, that the Sharad Chandra Shah, who metres above the surrounding land. It was only a question of time most working men head for the focus of the town’s economy perhaps had hopes of seeing the before it breached the levee. The embankment started collapsing cheap eateries and bars which changed. town emerge as the heart of IT in on 15 August, locals warned the authorities, but no action as have always been here, seeking After 2001, as the Maoist Nepal, the site was too far from taken. to fill their bellies and relax insurgency intensified and the Kathmandu to succeed. Things would have been worse if the Kosi had been in spate. their minds. number of tourists visiting Kathmandu University is here, The river could have permanently reverted to the Kosi’s 1731 It’s true that the buildings Nepal slumped, the hotels on but most students and staff come channel, obliterating Sunsari and half of Bihar. are bigger, the streets wider, and the slopes around Dhulikhel from the capital. Dhulikhel So, what is to be done? The government belatedly realised the alleyways cleaner. And took whatever business they seriousness of the crisis and dispatched two ministers to Sunsari. Hospital is a beacon of hope, but They need to plan alternative routes to rejoin eastern Nepal to the Dhulikhel looks smarter than it could get—often a slow but relatives of a patient who died at rest of the country, plug the breach, coordinate relief, and resettle used to in the early seventies regular income from hosting childbirth trashed the place this 60,000 people. when it was just a sleepy Newar conferences, seminars and week—another sign of the state’s On Thursday, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh toured town where Tamang traders workshops for NGOs and statelessness. northern Bihar, where 3 million people have been displaced. There came to sell ghiu and buy salt, international donors who Like individuals, towns too are already renewed calls in Bihar to build the Kosi High Dam, kerosene, clothes and trinkets. wanted a change of scene from have distinctive identities. which will create a reservoir stretching from Sunsari to It became the district the valley. Lalitpur was conceived as city of Ramechhap. the arts and has retained some of The dam would be a solution if India and those elements to this day. Nepal had a good record in large Kirtipur continues to be the city infrastructure projects, in spreading of glory and Bhaktapur the town benefits and taking care of the displaced. But the Kosi dam will be plagued with the of devotees. Kantipur same problem that made the barrage transformed itself into unworkable: siltation. Kathmandu, but it still glitters We shouldn’t try to correct one mistake when there is no load-shedding. by making an even bigger one. India and What about Dhulikhel? Nepal must be prepared for the day when A town develops only when the Kosi makes a catastrophic course its residents own it, take pride in change, an event that will make this week’s it and wouldn’t think of living disaster look like a picnic. But we do that anywhere else. That sort of by making it easy for the Kosi and other feeling can be sensed among Nepali rivers to flow down to the sea. The residents in old Dhulikhel. more obstructions we create in their path, the more destructive future floods will be. But new Dhulikhel is turning This is what the two countries should be into Kathmandu’s suburbia, working on, not getting worked up about inhabited by a transient whether the prime minister should have population of tourists, day gone to China first or not. students and Kathmandu’s city slicker weekenders. z SOHAN SHRESTHA LLL ETTERS NEPALINESS glorious history of Nepal will be a big z Wonderful article. This is exactly what of farmers who are using their loans Narayan Khadka’s vision of a common mistake.