#371 19 October - 1 November 2007 20 pages Rs 30 HOT AND COLD: The Imja Glacier in 1956 and again HAPPY DASAIN in 2006. As global Nepali Times takes next week warming melts the ice, off. There will be no issue on many new glacial lakes 26 October, and the next THE BIG THAW have emerged in the hardcopy edition will come out Himalaya, posing an on 2 November. Tune in to unprecedented threat of www.nepalitimes.com or The mountains are melting flashfloods downstream. www.himalkhabar.com in Nepali for updates on the news. From all of us here at Nepali Times, a Happy Dasain, Id and Chhat. Weekly Internet Poll # 371 Q. What is your opinion of the activities of the Maoist leadership? Total votes: 5,386 Weekly Internet Poll # 372. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. Compared to last Dasain, what is your feeling about the country? FRITZ MULLER/JACK IVES, ICIMOD GIOVANNI KAPPENBERGER/ALTON C BYERS/ICIMOD cientists are still trying to easy peaks like Cho Oyu and of glacial lakes in Nepal and by carbon emissions from human measure the rate of retreat Chomolungma has become harder Bhutan are in danger of bursting activity and vegetation loss since S of Himalayan glaciers, but because previously snow-covered their banks, and in an earthquake the start of the industrial age. The climbers have known for years ridges are now bare rock . there could be multiple outburst world’s biggest emitters of carbon that the mountains are melting. Glaciers like the Imja below floods on Himalayan rivers. dioxide have not signed up to the Glacial retreat, receding Lhotse are shrinking by up to Besides the dangers to human Kyoto Protocol to cut back on snowlines and expanding lakes 70m per year. There is now a lake settlement, thinning snow cover emissions. z has become much more rapid 3 km long where there used to a in the Himalaya threatens water since the 1980s. Climbing even frozen glacier 50 years ago. Dozens supplies to rivers like the CLIMATE CLIMAX Yangtse, Mekong, Brahmaputra, Himalayan meltdown p9 Ganges and Indus on which more Too little, too late p10 than a billion people depend. An inconvenient prize p11 There is a near consensus in Receding glaciers p11 the scientific community that Global warning p12 global warming is caused mainly 2 EDITORIAL 19 OCTOBER - 1 NOVEMBER 2007 #371 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit Design: Kiran Maharjan Director Sales and Marketing: [email protected] Nepalis outside Nepal are ashamed Sunaina Shah Circulation Manager: Samir Maharjan [email protected] Subscription: [email protected],5542525/535 Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur about the state of Nepal GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5543333-6, Fax: 5521013 [email protected] Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 5547018 www.nepalitimes.com DASAIN WISH Uncertain no more ow does Nepal look from things uncertain. ransacked by those same powers. If things go on like this, Nepal will have only nuisance value for abroad for people of Nepali Extended periods of They must try to recognize the the international community. The reason foreigners interfere so much with our politics is Horigin? For some time uncertainty give forces that new modern avatars of because our rulers are such serial delinquents. If they were more now, it has been looking like a benefit from it the chance to rise colonialism. united, possessed with some vision for the future, and were country cursed with chronic up again. We can see that this is Today, Nepalis outside Nepal committed to the national interest, Gen Mehta wouldn’t be ranting uncertainty. already starting to happen in see Nepal as a poor, backward away again, European ministers wouldn’t be dispensing To be sure, instability is not Nepal, and those who thrive in country. Just as a son may unsolicited advice and Shyam Saran wouldn’t be airdashing to unique to Nepal. Most countries uncertainty are sure to try to disown a mother dressed in rags, Kathmandu. go through periods of prolong it. If there is one big goal Nepalis outside Nepal are trying At the rate things are going, there is a danger of a catastrophic cascade of events that will unravel the peace process. If that uncertainty. And among that the Nepali nation has in to cut themselves off from happens we would probably wish the foreigners would interfere to front of it, it is to end this period Nepal’s history, language and rescue us from the brink of chaos. If we want less outside of uncertainty. After all, is the culture. meddling, we better to put our own house in order, and quickly. GUEST COLUMN country meant for its inhabitants Even if Nepalis can’t remove The trinity of high priests that have taken it upon Tanka Subba or are the inhabitants meant for the pahad-madhes gap, the male- themselves to command our destiny (PKD, GPK and MKN) seems the country? If there are no female disparity or ethnic chronically incapable of thinking beyond tactical electoral inhabitants there can be no discrimination, they must at advantage. Political parties everywhere are preoccupied with electoral arithmetic, but our rulers seem bent on delaying or intellectuals, there is a great deal country, there can even be least try. They must try to abandoning elections unless they can win big. of uncertainty about uncertainty inhabitants without a country. overcome their economic, social, This week’s haggling behind closed doors between the three itself. Some think it gives society But there can be no citizens educational failures. They must bahuns at Baluwatar were deadlocked till deadline. We won’t go a certain tension that brings forth without a country. be able to stand on their own feet into gory details, but you can be sure the bargaining was not about vitality and creativity, it brings There are many ways to get and not be dependent on protecting the national interest. imagination and the possibility out of this cloud of uncertainty, outsiders. Only then can Nepalis A big portion of the blame must go to the Maoists, who keep on to begin things anew. Certitude and it seems that the efforts of be truly proud of being Nepalis. changing the rules of the game and going back on past agreements. Everyone understands this is because of their doesn’t foster these traits. Nepal’s intellectuals and leaders Instead of boasting that this internal contradictions and the dominance of a hardline faction. But a modern nation state have not been enough. They is the country where the Buddha They’ve got cold feet about the elections and the leadership fears can’t flounder in uncertainty for haven’t been able to look beyond was born, Nepalis should be able it can’t hold the party together if the party suffers a major defeat too long. A few months or a year their vested interests. They aren’t to live in peace. Instead of in polls. of instability won’t do much looking beyond their own showing off about Mt Everest The UML and NC need to understand this Maoist sense of harm, but if it persists and interests at the national interest they should be able to stand insecurity and not try to exploit it for partisan advantage. The dominates society uncertainty as they should be. above ethnic, linguistics and Maoists are not going back to the jungles, but let’s not corner them so much that hardline warlords take up ethno-regional banners will breed more uncertainties and Nepalis have always been regional differences. and go back to armed struggle. This is not so far-fetched because becomes self-perpetuating. Not complacent. We love to predict Nepalis should not panic at that is exactly what happened in the tarai with the JTMM. all countries are able to break this the future, but not prepare such a long wishlist. Obiously, The NC is also guilty of vacillating on the elections because of vicious cycle, development turns ourselves for it. We regard anyone these problems can’t be resolved its own fears of losing out in a full-proportional system. The prime into destruction. This could turn who criticizes us as an enemy. overnight. It needs time, minister and his home minister have proven themselves to be counterproductive even for those Even so, the solutions to Nepal’s patience, but above all it takes incapable of ensuring security. who are responsible for keeping problems must come from imagination. If Nepalis can The end result of all this is that a majority of Nepalis are beginning to give up on the politicians in Nepalis themselves. The imagine a future, it is not Kathmandu ever getting their act together. After solution won’t fall from difficult to draw up a blueprint. more than 18 months of ceasefire, they are still the sky, it won’t be Once there is a blueprint, the waiting for an improvement in service delivery, in wafted here from the house can be built sooner or later. job creation and relief to victims of conflict and of south or north. It must For a bright future, Nepalis recent tarai violence. Anything, in fact, that shows be from this soil, it must don’t need dreams, they need we have a government. But failure to do so is suit Nepal. If not today, imagination. spreading cynicism and increasing the influence of foreigners in our polity. then surely tomorrow. Across Nepal, ordinary people equate long- The English praised Tanka Subba is professor of term peace with elections. The constituent Nepalis for being “brave Anthropology at North-eastern assembly polls would bring closure to this period Gurkhas” and Nepalis let Hill University, Shillong, India.