Six new mothers, a murderer and a resigned PM

Some people are campaigning for constitutional monarchy and the revival of the 1990 constitution of Nepal. Here's a statement issued by a group of people who believe that the 1990 constitution had the provision of constitutional monarchy and should be reactivated should the constituent assembly fail to bring out a constitution on time that is acceptable to all Nepali people.





New dead line for the constitution writing, another year of suspence. Not a big surprise that the political parties(or whomever we should hold responsible)did not meet the dead line of the interim constitution writing on May 28. The rumour though is that four days after Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal tendered his resignation(which was last week), the outgoing prime minister´s move came after a secret agreement with Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal on the basic principles of the new constitution and the peace process. What this might entail is yet to be seen. UML Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal is a named candidate as a future PM. As is Maoist Vice Chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai. And Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the chairman of the largest party in the Constituent Assembly. Or anybody else really. Which is what seems to be the only consensus around here. In Nepali politics, anything can happen type of thing.

Still trying to wrap my head around that I am in a develping country and that things are done differently here. Nepal has for instance, not yet managed to buy the passport reading machines that are required these days according to international security standards. The hand written passports can still be found but today it seems that the bidding is at least back on track.

KATHMANDU, July 5: An initial evaluation by the committee formed to judge bids for a multi-million dollar machine-readable passport (MRP) project of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has found three out of four bidders meeting all criteria set in bidding documents.
Altogether four international bidders -- De La Rue, Oberthur Technologies, PERUM PERURI and 3M Technologies -- are in the race for the project. But the evaluation committee headed by Chief of Protocol Mukti Nath Bhatta has found 3M Technologies not meeting the set criteria.

Not sure if hand written passports would go down well if used to travel overseas. Somebody need to make a decision so international travels can happen smoothly for the local population over here.

Some good news: ANFA awarded Rs 50,000 and a 21-inch Samsung color television set to each member of the Nepali women´s football team. A tv? Sure, why not? This news was followed by the this snippet of news though:

Coca-Cola, the official sponsor of the World Cup, has also been providing support to the All Nepal Football Association, says Saumindra Bhattacharya, managing director of BNL. “Football is a core passion in Nepal. It is progressing in multiple dimensions,” he said, and added, “This year we have also sponsored football for girls in Nepal.”


Ah, this is where the tv comes in! Progress.

And finally, I don't know what to make of this piece of journalistic work, but this is what from todays Republica newspaper:

CHITWAN, July 3: Two hundred and eighty-one Maoist combatants, including six new mothers and murderer of businessman Ram Hari Shrestha Govinda Prasad Batala, from Shaktikhor cantonments have passed this year´s SLC exams.

Six new mothers and a murderer? Eh........