698 14 - 20 March 2014 20 Pages Rs 50
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#698 14 - 20 March 2014 20 pages Rs 50 TOH EE MING political score-keeping and the CART BEFORE THE HORSE immediate goals of sticking to the power than anything else. EDITORIAL CLEAR THE CLUTTER For a nation writing its PAGE 2 constitution, we don’t display our months after the technical expertise needed gridlocks have once more the level of enthusiasm or MISSING THE POINT elections, the committee in the CA to write a proper spread disillusionment and ambition to discuss larger issues BY RUBEENA MAHATO Fset up to draft rules of democratic constitution. hopelessness among the that will determine the socio- PAGE 4 the House is deadlocked and Because the parties are in the voters who showed up in political and economic direction its term has been extended habit of buying and selling CA large numbers last November of the country. If we need long- BELLY-GAZING twice. The next hurdle is the membership, this is expected to to elect this body. As always, term resolutions of problems nomination of the remaining delay things further. the leadership of this country plaguing us, we have to start BY SUNIR PANDEY 26 members to complement These prolonged is more concerned with here and now. PAGE 16 2 EDITORIAL 14 - 20 MARCH 2014 #698 CART BEFORE THE HORSE t has become the hallmark of political horse- CA debates. As expected the parties were divided trading in Nepal that the protagonists put the according to perceived advantage certain rules would Icart before the horse. It happens over and over give them. The disagreement over the formation of again, just after the people have taken tremendous caucuses of women, Dalit or Janajati members is risks to reassert their trust in the democratic slightly less whimsical. Here, the NC and UML were polity in 1990, 2006, 2008 or 2013 the honourable on the same side and it was the UCPN (Maoist), members of the elected House proceed to fritter it Madhesi, and smaller parties who were for caucuses: all away. not for any grand ideological reason, but because cross- It is happening again. At a time when they party alliances would weaken the two main parties. should be working overtime to finish writing the The NC and UML were also in favour of parties being constitution in eight months time, ruling party’s allowed to issue whips to CA members to vote along CA members are taking to the streets to free cronies party lines. The UCPN (M), quite hypocritically, in the guise of ‘students’ who were caught red- said no whips because its members vote en masse handed with weapons in a taxi at 3am on the streets anyway. It has now been agreed that there will be of Kathmandu. provisions for neither caucuses nor whips in the When they should be debating state structure, House. type of government, election rules, justice for Needless to say, these prolonged and chronic wartime atrocities, and citizenship they waste three gridlocks have once more spread disillusionment weeks in haggling over who should take credit for and hopelessness among the voters who showed up promulgating the new constitution. Write the damn in large numbers last November to elect this body. thing first! There was much hope that Sushil Koirala was Because the last Constituent Assembly ran When they should be busy a behind-the-scenes consensus builder. He is aground largely as procedural issues weren’t sorted out supposed to be clean and has no hidden agenda besides beforehand, this time the parties in their wisdom decided drafting a constitution, honourable the protection of democracy. But three weeks after being that they should first agree on the rules. Oh boy, did they members wasted three weeks sworn in and one foreign junket later, the man is being underestimate their ability to find compromises. haggling over who should take defied by dissidents within his own party and openly Four months after elections, the committee set up credit for promulgating it disparaged by the UML and the opposition. to draft rules of the House was deadlocked and needed After the rules committee delay, the next hurdle is the to have its term extended twice. The most egregious nomination of the remaining 26 members to complement disagreement was between the NC and UML over who ‘upstairs’ for a political resolution and announced on the technical expertise needed in the CA to write a should formally authenticate the new constitution with Wednesday to allow the chair to certify the constitution, proper democratic constitution. Because the parties are the NC insisting that it is President Ram Baran Yadav’s job, while the president will make a public announcement in in the habit of buying and selling CA membership, this is while the UML wanted its very own House Chair Subhas this regard. expected to delay things further. Nembang to do it. It is hard to believe that this was such The stalemate in the rules drafting committee also It’s time the prime minister showed statesmanship, an intractable problem that it needed weeks and weeks to concerned whether or not cross-party caucuses can hitched the horse to the front of the cart, and started resolve. The committee finally decided to send the matter be formed and if party whips should take effect during cracking the whip. DIWAKAR CHETTRI ON THE WEB www.nepalitimes.com NOT JUST HALF THE SKY individual level. First empower your the service sector are far better than and what more she is an Arab, which is perpetrators behind bars for crimes sisters and daughters and give them what is available in Nepal. Secondly, so inspiring. they committed during the war would The Nepali state has devised several the opportunity to excel. Never make there is a two way fl ow of women Oumaïma Gannouni not help anybody, not even Krishna’s methods to discriminate against them feel that their achievements and across the border for marriage and parents. The couple has infl icted women (Not just half the sky’, dreams are any less important than the demographic implications of Why use the term ‘lady’ enough pain on themselves. They Editorial, #697). Although acquiring those of your sons or brothers. If they providing equal rights in Nepal would excellencies? I didn’t realise that should break their fast and live the citizenship has always been a long grow up in a family where they realise be minimal. The concept of having to excellencies denoted the male gender remainder of their lives in peace. battle for children without fathers, women are only different but not inferior be interviewed by the CDO who has by default. Ram getting hold of birth certifi cates is to men, they’ll change the world in ways the sole right to decide whether to give Namah also becoming increasingly diffi cult we men can’t. citizenship is absurd, and perhaps How ironic; fi rst the writer says, for children who cannot submit their Ajit Jung Gurung emerges from the vestiges of a feudal CABIN 16-17 ‘In the end, it is the Nepali people father’s details. And it doesn’t end past, which allowed elites within the For the love of Pashupatinath, someone who should be up to the fi ght for there. Starting this year, children who MACHO NATIONALISM bureaucracy can use their personal please convince Nanda Prasad and justice’ and goads the 601 CA do not have birth registration may Mallika Aryal’s piece is a well argued power to control access to state Ganga Maya Adhikari to end their fast members into action. Then the very not be allowed to sit in district level case for issuing citizenship cards to resources. (‘From Cabin 16-17’, Kanak Mani Dixit, next paragraph he begs Western examinations in grade eight as well children who are born to a Nepali MS #697). I know they are sacrifi cing their embassies and aid agencies to arm as for their SLC. How much do we mother and foreign father (‘Macho own health so that their son’s murderers twist our leaders to begin the Truth mothers and our children have to pay nationalism’, #697). However, the When the whole world is debating are punished, but if they pass away and Reconciliation mechanism. This for our fi ght for justice? arbitrary number of 4.3 million without dual-citizenship, Nepal is lagging so their pleas to know the truth will also die was a war we started, that we ended Deepti Gurung citizenship card is not sourced to any far behind that we still don’t believe alongside them. We need to keep the on our own, so justice too needs to data. It used to be the political slogan women are worthy of passing on their couple alive. come from within. It will take a long Let the next Nepali prime minister before the citizenship act was passed citizenship to their children. Mote time, but it needs to be Nepali-made. be a woman. All the men who came in 2006. Through that act, around 2.5 Sweta Renu Shrestha before Sushil Koirala were either million people received citizenship Very well-written article, I feel sad very corrupt, gutless or both, which cards, some of them not Nepali as well LADY EXCELLENCIES that Krishna Adhikari’s elderly mother is why Nepal is in such a sorry state. (which is another issue that I do not One of the reasons why these seven and father have had to take such a We should ask the Koiralas, Nepals, intend to argue here). And the estimate women have been appointed to head drastic step in their search for justice.