#420 3 - 9 October 2008 20 pages Rs 30 Weekly Internet Poll # 420 Q. Was the finance minister right to cut ’Tis the budget for festivals? the Total votes: 5,089 season Weekly Internet Poll # 421. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q.Do you expect next year’s Dasain- lear skies, fabulous mountain Tihar to be better than this year’s? C views, festivals, smiles. Those characteristics of the Dasain-Tihar holidays make the autumn season popular for tourism and trekking. With the peace process on track, elections over and a new government in place, visitor arrivals have picked up. Hotel rooms and airline tickets are scarce. But there are still places to go in this vast country that are off the beaten track, like Upper Dolakha (p 8-9). Nepali Times has compiled all its travel writeups over the past eight years into a Special Destination package. See: www.nepalitimes.com.np/ special/travel_nepal.php Editorial Time is running out p2 GUEST COLUMN Karna Shakya p2 PLAIN SPEAKING Prashant Jha p4 Dolakha’s hidden charm p8-9 Cars cars cars! p10-11 Maoist movies p15 College fashion p16 HAPPY HOLIDAY Nepali Times wishes all its readers and partners a happy Dasain, Chhat, Eid. Because of the holidays, there will be no BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY: issue of Nepali Dentistry student Times on 10 Sunaina Palikhe and October. The next hotel management hardcopy edition student Monita Pun of this paper will trekking in Dhampus come out on 17 amidst a spectacular October. Log on to backdrop of www.nepalitimes.com Machapuchre on for regular news Saturday. updates. KIRAN PANDAY 2 EDITORIAL 3 - 9 OCTOBER 2008 #420 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: 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 Unseen heroes here are two kinds of home district of Myagdi to set in Chitlang which has an histories: one is written up a world-acclaimed effort to exclusive clientele in T and the other is unwritten. bridge the digital divide in local Kathmandu. Thakuri buys goat TIME IS RUNNING OUT Written history is found in schools with wireless internet milk from surrounding villages, The most frustrating thing about the pre-Dasain political mood in books, unwritten history is found for education. There are many which have set up the Chitlang Kathmandu is the utter lack of urgency. in the good deeds of people. Mahabirs in Nepal, contributing Chandragiri Cheese Production Since he was sworn in five weeks ago, Prime Minister Pushpa Throughout our country there to society without much fuss. Society, raising cash incomes of Kamal Dahal has been in Nepal for just eight days. Last week, a are unseen heroes who don’t get Then there is Sanduk Ruit hundreds of families. dozen cabinet members were in various parts of the world. Now, written about, don’t compete for who has restored the gift of sight They are everywhere, these we go into the lethargic Dasain-Tihar break. headlines, but work quietly to to tens of thousands of Nepalis creative and independent What will it take to inject a sense of urgency in our elected help their communities and the with cataracts. Every day at his Nepalis. You just have to look for rulers about pressing domestic issues? When will they start nation. Tilganga eye centre there are them. They don’t sit on their focussing on the people’s immediate needs and stop disrupting miracles as people see again after hands complaining that the Assembly proceedings so that it can get on with the work of decades of darkness. Ruit takes government doesn’t give them constitution-building? GUEST COLUMN his mobile clinics to remote this or that, they are enterprising On Tuesday, the Constituent Assembly went into a 20-day Karna Shakya Dasain recess. Four months after the CA was installed, the parts of Nepal, and even to and implement projects that legislature is still bogged down in politics over the draft of the Tibet, North Korea and Ethiopia. provide self-esteem and income Rules and Procedures. There are four main challenges ahead: Ram Shrestha left the He has made Nepal a major to fellow Nepalis. gaps in governance and delivery comforts of an affluent life in production centre for corneal This country’s future lies in stability and keeping the peace process on track Europe and mobilised his transplants. We in Nepal were the combined efforts of hundreds safeguarding freedoms during the transition community to set up a world- drafting the constitution class hospital in Dhulikhel. Also The most urgent issue is to ensure law and order, in Dhulikhel, Suresh Raj Sharma Let’s applaud Nepalis who have relief and service delivery. The coalition government used his experience in education needs to show that it is a government that cares for the to set up a university that is quietly contributed to the nation welfare of the people. That alone will give it legitimacy, not the electoral victory in April. helping build the country’s Good governance will also ensure the stability that is human resource base. Lili Thapa’s slow to recognise and honour of thousands of Nepalis like needed for economic growth, which in turn will keep the husband was killed in the war, people like Pun and Ruit, who these who combine appropriate, peace process on track. Instability, discord and youth but she turned her grief into are both Ramon Magsaysay human-level technology and vigilantism threaten law and order. The proposed helping other women affected by awardees for public service. sheer hard work to achieve integration of the armies can only happen in an the conflict by setting up the Ujalata Subba of Myaglung tangible results. atmosphere of political consensus. Single Mothers’ Society. Sita started an embroidery unit after There is plenty to find fault Recent statements by the Maoists have raised fresh Pokhrel in Biratnagar invested her her husband died and now with in Nepal, but if we just doubts about their commitment to democracy and press husband’s entire inheritance and employs 100 women. A student complained about them we freedom. This ambivalence is dangerous. The Maoists pension to set up an orphanage. from Pulchok campus went back would be stuck. This Dasain, let need to clearly and publicly renounce violence once and Neighbours think Sebailal to his village in Lamjung and us recognise and reward the for all and reassert their commitment to pluralism and democracy. Only when these conditions are fulfilled will there be the right Tharu is slightly mad. Any barren built a 3.5MW hydropower unit. efforts of these unsung heroes all conditions to work undisturbed on drafting the new constitution. plot of land he finds, Tharu Today, while the capital has six over Nepal. There is no need now to go out onto the streets. Issues must be plants trees. All his life, he has hours of power cuts every day, discussed and thrashed out in the assembly chambers. You can’t been walking half-naked in his Lamjung’s Besisahar and Karna Shakya’s latest book, Khoj, write a new constitution while cremating tyres. bare feet, planting saplings which surrounding villages have 24- was launched on Monday. We have traditionally let Pashupatinath take care of things, but have now grown into tall trees all hour electricity. there is a limit to what even Pashupatinath can do if we don’t over his home district. Ashok Thakuri is a trained Khoj (in Nepali) make a serious effort ourselves to overcome this paralysing Mahabir Pun gave up an IT cheesemaker. Instead of staying Karna Shakya ennui. career in the US to come back, not on in France, he returned and Page 374 just to Kathmandu, but to his has set up a goat cheese factory Price Rs 275 Witch hunt hits wrong target There are worse things to worry about than a beauty pageant he Miss Nepal 2008 beauty pageant, way involved in the entire process? slated to be held at the army The ANWO-R has said that beauty T headquarters last weekend, was contests do nothing to improve the lot of postponed again—for the fourth time. The women. In case they had missed it, a new women’s wing of the Maoist party, the All constitution is being written. Instead of Nepal Women’s Organisation- these groups threatening contestants with Revolutionary said the contest physical violence, they could be pressing discriminated against certain ethnic groups lawmakers to make the new constitution and against shorter and darker women. more gender-sensitive, ensuring that They claimed it demeaned women by using women’s causes are better represented, them to advertise toothpaste and shampoo. and campaigning for more money from the budget to be directed at helping women. They should be trying to rescue INTERESTING TIMES thousands of Nepali women who are Mallika Aryal MIN RATNA BAJRACHARYA trafficked to the red light districts of but we are willing to overlook that because parental consent. Does the Maoist-led Nepali and Indian cities. they do get international exposure and government think that suddenly these Nightclub owners are out on the Hours before the event was scheduled return to Nepal more confident. And the young women could not make informed streets demanding their right to engage in to take place the organisers got a notice winner, apart from becoming the face of the decisions about how to live their own lives? far sleazier business than beauty from the DAO asking them to cancel the sponsor and brand ambassador for a few The current political leadership seemed pageants, but we don’t hear ANWO-R show as the event threatened to create ‘a organisations, doing a few modelling to have no problem using 18-year-olds to condemning them.