Received: from mp.cs.niu.edu (mp.cs.niu.edu [131.156.1.2]) by library.wustl.edu (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id OAA07946 for <huestis@library.wustl.edu>; Mon, 11 Jul 1994 14:28:07 -0500 Received: by mp.cs.niu.edu id AA02529 (5.67a/IDA-1.5 for nepal-dist); Mon, 11 Jul 1994 12:42:01 -0500 Received: by mp.cs.niu.edu id AA18336 (5.67a/IDA-1.5 for nepal-list); Mon, 11 Jul 1994 12:41:57 -0500 Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 12:41:57 -0500 Message-Id: <199407111741.AA18336@mp.cs.niu.edu> Reply-To: The Nepal Digest <NEPAL@mp.cs.niu.edu> From: The Editor <nepal-request@cs.niu.edu> Sender: "Rajpal J. Singh" <A10RJS1@mp.cs.niu.edu> Subject: The Nepal Digest - July 10, 1994 (28 Ashadh 2051 BkSm) To: <NEPAL@cs.niu.edu> Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 22
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The Nepal Digest Sunday 10 July 94: Ashadh 28 2051 BkSm Volume 29 Issue 2
Today's Topics:
1. Letter To The Editor
2. TAJA_KHABAR:
News from Nepal : PM Resigns!
3. KURA_KANI:
I. Social Issues
Women in Hinduism III
Free Food for the third world
II. Education
Comments on SLC
4. JAN_KARI:
Lukla Flight
5. TITAR_BITAR:
Address change
*****************************************************************************
* TND Board of Staff *
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* +++++ Food For Thought +++++ *
* "If you don't stand up for something, you will fall for anything" - Anon. *
* "Democracy perishes among the silent crowd" - Sirdar_RJS_Khalifa *
* *
*****************************************************************************
**********************************************************************
From: rajendra@coos.dartmouth.edu (Rajendra P. Shrestha)
Subject: News: PM's resignation
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 12:52:34 -0400 (EDT)
KATHMANDU, Nepal (Reuter) - A political crisis in the
Himalayan kingdom of Nepal deepened Sunday when Prime Minister
Girija Prasad Koirala resigned after his ruling party lost a
crucial vote in parliament.
The official Radio Nepal said Koirala had an audience with
King Birendra, tendered his resignation and suggested the
dissolution of parliament.
The Nepali Congress party led by Koirala suffered a
parliamentary defeat when it failed to secure a vote welcoming
Birendra's address outlining government policies.
The Nepali Congress has 113 deputies in the 205-member
Pratinidhi Sabha (House of Representatives) but 38 dissident
members abstained and the party could muster only 74 votes in
favor while 86 deputies voted against.
A Nepali Congress leader said Birendra was expected to ask
Koirala to continue as caretaker prime minister to oversee
elections expected in the next six months. But other party
leaders said the king could ask the Nepali Congress to find
another leader.
``As the Congress continues to command a majority, the king
will have to give the party a chance to offer a successor to
Koirala,'' party president Krishna Prasad Bhattarai told
Reuters.
Bal Bahadur Rai, a minister in Koirala's government, and
Mahendra Narayan Nidhi, the party secretary, were possible
candidates to replace Koirala, Congress sources said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala,
Nepal's first democratically elected leader in three decades,
resigned Sunday after losing a vote in parliament.
His resignation set the stage for new parliamentary elections
that will test the 3-year-old democracy.
The political crisis was rooted in factional fighting within the
governing Nepali Congress Party, but it also reflected frustration
with Koirala's failure to make headway against Nepal's poverty,
illiteracy and underdevelopment.
Koirala, 70, submitted his resignation to King Birendra after
members of his party helped vote down the government's annual
policy statement. The prime minister recommended that parliament be
dissolved and elections held Nov. 13. A general election had not
been due until 1996.
There was no immediate statement from the palace.
Koirala came to power in 1991 in this Himalayan kingdom's first
multiparty elections in 30 years after street demonstrations forced
Birendra to become a constitutional monarch.
Though he took some measures to modernize and liberalize the
economy, Nepal remains one of the world's poorest countries, with a
per capita income of $180 and an infant mortality rate of nearly
one in 10. Nearly three people in four cannot read or write.
The opposition Communists accuse Koirala's government of
complicity in the death of two of its most charismatic leaders in a
car accident in May 1993.
Tensions in his own party also were building this year over the
old rivalry between Koirala and former Prime Minister Krishna
Prasad Bhattarai, the party president.
The motion Sunday in parliament lost 86-74 in the 205-seat
legislature when 36 Congress Party members abstained. The party
dissidents, Bhattarai loyalists, claimed they were excluded from
key positions and that party spoils were going to Koirala's camp.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Agence France Presse
July 11, 1994
Headline: Nepalese PM finally yields to presure from every corner
Byline: Susham Shrestha
Dateline: Kathmandu, July 11
Body:
Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's political balancing
act came to a crashing halt at the weekend when he was forced to
resign and call for mid-term polls after losing a parliamentary vote.
For the last few months he had battled against dissident MPs
calling for his ouster, accusations by a parliamentary subcommittee of
using his personal influence to ram through a financial deal and
accusations that his government was incompetent.
The axe finally fell on Koirala's administration Sunday when he
lost a crucial parliamentary debate on his government's annual
programme, a defeat which prompted him to step down after more than
three turbulent years in power.
After tendering his resignation to the country's king, he asked the
monarch to dissolve parliament, and call for mid-term polls on October
18, the state radio announced earlier.
The king accepted his resignation but has yet to make a decision on
calling elections, which were not due until May 1996.
Eighty-six MPs in the 205-seat house of representatives voted
against Koirala's socio-economic and political programme, while 43
others, including 36 dissident members of the ruling party, abstained
a parliamentary source said.
Only 74 legislators voted in favour of the programme, a result
which left the prime minister visibly shaken.
Koirala has faced major threats to his position, both from the
opposition and from within his own party over recent months. His
resignation came as a relief to many of his opponents after he failed
to live up to their expectations, observers here said.
On Sunday night, more than 2,000 youths from various political
parties took part in a victory march celebrating Koirala's
resignation, chanting slogans like "Democracy hi-hi, Girija bye-bye."
In February, Koirala found himself at the centre of a fierce
political row after he allegedly undermined NC Party President Krishna
Prasad Bhattarai during a parliamentary by-election in Kathmandu in
which Bhattarai was defeated.
The charge prompted the 36 dissident NC law-makers to call for his
resignation, while public demonstrations against his rule became a
regular occurrence here.
He has been also accused in a recent report by a subcommittee of
the powerful parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of
involvement in a ticket sales controversy with Royal Nepal Airlines
(RNAC).
The report alleges he used his influence to get the
London-registered firm Fare Limited appointed as RNAC's sales agent
for Europe, leading to massive losses by the flag carrier, a PAC
source said.
The subcommittee claimed Koirala had met with RNAC directors to
pressure them into providing Fare Limited with the lucrative deal, a
charge he has denied.
"Constitutionally Koirala has been proved anti-public,
anti-national and moreover, he had acted against the interest of
democracy," Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Lenninist
(NCP-UML) party Secretary-general Madhav Kumar Nepal said.
"Koirala had to step down apparently because of his failure in all
aspects," he added.
The premier has frequently been accused by both opposition and NC
MPs of incompetence for failing to run the government efficiently,
maintain law and order and safeguard democracy, and for not providing
economic relief to the people.
"We gave Koirala an ultimatum to solve the current political crisis
by Sunday but he failed to do this, so we decided to boycott the
voting," Chiranjibi Wagle, spokesman for the dissident NC group said.
The king held discussions on the formation of a new government with
NCP-UML party leader Man Mohan Adhikari and secretary-general Nepal
and would decide whether to dissolve parliament, a party source said.
Nepal said Adhikari had urged the king not to agree to mid-term
polls and the dissolution of parliament, saying Koirala had no right
to seek fresh elections.
The king was expected to meet other opposition leaders for talks
Monday, while the NC officials were also to meet to recommend a
successor to Koirala.
*****************************************************************
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 1994 16:17:55 EDT
To: The Nepal digest Editor <nepal-request@cs.niu.edu>
From: "Pramod K. Mishra" <pkm@acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Women in Hinduism III
Dear Editor,
In my last letter, I talked about how a woman's father himself becomes an
enemy and promised, or seemed to promise, an enquiry into love marriage.
But my business about the upbringing of a girl is not yet finished. So I
begin this letter with a further consideration of how a Hindu girl in
Nepal reaches the ripe, crucial marriageable age.
A female Hindu child's life before marriage becomes, with the benign help
of his father and the society of which her mother also becomes an
accomplice, a panorama of injustices and disguised conspiracies. While
her brother is allowed every privilege--like talking loud and clear,
chasing the skirts of lower-caste women and girls, falling violently in
love, tasting the pleasures of the flesh, bragging about his
conquests--she, on the other hand, is not allowed even to have a hearty
laugh. Do you know what is said in the villages? Well, the saying goes
among the disciplinarians: Pahile chchori hansche, tes pachi fansche
(first the daughter laughs, then falls prey to male desires.) Falling prey
to male desire is of course true, not by having a hearty laugh but
by not having a hearty laugh. Moreover, she falls victim to the
invisible, benign-looking conspiracies of the male world by emulating the
thirty two (I checked my memory on the numbers and found that it was not
thirty six, as I had written in my previous letter, but thirty two)
virtues. By the time she masters her thirty-second virtue (I don't think
in reality even in that restriction many girls are as dumb as the
male-dominated world wantes them to be but most follow the instructions
for fear of dire consequences and try their best to internalize the
virtues), a young female teen can barely produce enough sound so that even
her interlocutor can clearly understand. And what about laughter? Well,
she forgets to laugh after so much effort, so much practice, and so much
admonition not to laugh. To have a hearty laugh becomes her mortal
sin, laughter that is one of the most precious drug-free medicines for
the human psyche. She begins to doubt her physical and psychological
instinctiveness to laugh. Human beings are born crying because of the
stress of birth--first-time breathing the air of the mad world, first
separation from the cosiness of the mother's womb, first need to depend
helplessly on the outside world for everything--but soon after life
instinct produces the most wornderful of the wonderful gifts of nature,
laughter. Of course, every parent laughs to see the dimpled smile and
toothless laughter of the child, male or female. But if the child
continues to laugh and if the child is a female and continues to laugh
even after the age of five or six, the elders in the family begin to warn,
ever so slightly, ever so symbolically with the help of frowns and
unpleasant twitch of the face. But these subtle hints do not remain
subtle after a certain age, when the red scare begins. The trauma of the
first menstruation and the shock accorded to a female teen forever
snatches away her laughter, and whatever residue of gaety remains begins to
disappear once the family members, well wishers, and the village priest,
on his occasional visits, start their uninformed lessons in the thirty two
virtues: walk like a duck, talk like a parrot, hide like a shy cat in the
zoo at the sight of a stranger.
Call it a training? Call it a preparation? It is indeed a preparation,
if it is a preparation, for doom, for a dumb, anguish-filled life,
devoid of any conscious decision-making opportunity so crucial for
a thinking being. The girl thus instructed and trained and forced in
the thirty two virtues becomes so helpless and emotionally,
psychologically, politically, philosophically crippled that any new
situation, away from (or even in) her father's family and village, comes as an
invitation for self disaster. There is neither freedom taught nor its
concommitant virtue, responsibility, instilled in the minds of these young
women. What is taught is bondage and the instinctive effort of a human
soul in some to break the bondage results in chaos and
self-destruction. Yet they are blamed in the name of "triya charitram"
for any lapse or assertion of freedom.
Have you seen young Nepali women going crazy about films, particularly the
garbage that is produced in Bombay, Mr. Editor? No wonder that some the
extremist political thinkers in Nepal these days have begun to think about
banning Hindi films. But that is not at all the solution. That at best
is a superficial ploy to arouse the ultra-nationalistic feelings among the
people and get votes like Vladimir some one (I don't know how to write his
name off hand) in Russia. The solution, Mr. Editor, lies in education,
political, aesthetic, secular, democratic edcation, not only what these
young ones learn at school and college but at home, in the village, among
the family members. In the absence of freedom's enlightening effect,
these teens, particularly female, in Nepal think Bollywood's
illusion-inducing drugs, originally produced for the poor richshaw pullers
and such, to keep them in thrall for life, as holy as the village priest's
explication of the Shree Madbhagwat Puran. Accordingly, they emulate both
these sources of irresistible learning as though both the drug and the
Puran were examples of real living. Because the faculty for critical
thinking and analytical ability to place any sensory impression in proper,
broader perspective is stifled and stunted by the thirty two virtues,
these young ones begin to entertain the dream of drugged life as shown in
the cheap Hindi movies as the ideal life, the best kind. The consequences
that Hinduism's this habit of shutting the minds and hearts of young women
by thirty two virtues produces are disasterous. I'll show how.
Most upper and middle class women among the Nepalese have indegenous
sources of entertainment: no book reading, no poetry writing, no hot
debate about contemporary and life issues. And there is no freedom to
test ideas and impressions and learn. The only source of entertainment
for most is those movies, but the consequences become disastrous for want
of any critical understanding of those movies. You can naturally ask, Mr.
Editor, "Then what disastrous effect Indian women face?" Well, in the
first place I'm not concerned here with what Indian women do nor do I have
much time to elaborate on that. But I'll say this: that in India there
are many safety devices, such as the close nature of its Hindu social
structure, bloody caste wars, communal intolerance, and so on. Although
negative, tendencies force the worst kind of imprisonment for women and
compel them to realize (it does not take long for an Indian girl) that
there is a huge abyss between what happens on the screen of a movie
theater and how she lives in the real society.
But the case is quite different in Nepal. Have you heard of a story,
about six seven years old, that a rich young woman from Kathmandu ended up
at the door of a notable filmy star in Bombay, following the pursuit of
her dream? The kind star eventually called the police and handed over the
girl to them and the police sent her back to Nepal.
This incident brings me to the heart of the matter I want to talk about
today. You have heard that these days AIDS is spreading in Nepal like
monsoon water that there are many recruiting gangs active in Nepal, not only
for the mythical gorkha army in England and India but for the brothels
of Bombay and other cities of India. These girls born in the villages,
blinded by thirty two virtues (many of these girls may come from hill
tribes but their training is not very different) and strangled in dark,
odorous space of bondage, jump into marriage with the recruitors in the
hope for a colorful life in Bombay as portrayed in the Hindi movies: dance
and song, palace and extravagant life style, life begun amidst thorns
always ending in a bed of roses. Or the reason these women jump
headlong into with such men without knowing them is that Hinduism's
restriction leaves no room for knowing the partner, no room for
companionship, but only for chance, clandestine encounter and neat sex.
These women eventually end up in the brothels forced to sell their meat.
And when epidemics like AIDS strike, they are turned out into the streets,
forced to flee to their villages in Nepal, like Gorkha soldiers, who, when
they oppose injustice and discrimination, are sent home packing and their
regiments disbanded in the name of trimming down.
And what does the Nepali patriots do? Well, Mr. Editor, they give a lot
of speeches about this problem and give away a lot of prizes and attend a
lot of functions and international seminars in elite hotels whose carpet
lack even a speck of dust, whose wine tastes unlike anything made in Nepali
homes, the dirty stuff. The outrageous thing is: for the accidental
killing of a cow, or a calf or a bull, many human beings are at the moment
rotting for life in Nepali prisons. For aborting an unwanted
child (the result of a rape or accidental transgression), many a woman is
serving life imprisonment; in fact, most women prisoners in Nepal (if my
memory serves right) have been sentenced for life for abortion. The first
time I heard about it was when some one, politically imprisoned himself for
some time, wrote about it in a Kathmandu weekly. But no one cares to pass
stringent laws to deter these predators from snuffing the life out of a
young Nepali village woman, the victim of thirty two virtues, illiteracy,
poverty, and Bollywood drug! Yet many a high and mighty in Nepal never
tires of giving speeches about patriotism, nationalism, imperialism, and the
newspapers never tire of printing these speeches. Doesn't it seem that a
woman's life is worse than that of a cow in Nepal? We must think about it,
Mr. Editor.
But the fathers and brothers of these women, like their middle and upper
class counterparts, would say on these occasions when one of their female
flesh and blood disappear for one reason or another, whether to seek a
better life, choose a life partner, exercising their own blind judgement,
or to fall into the abyss, forever irretrievably doomed: Ke garne chori
cheli dimma jastai huncha, ekchoti futepachi, futyo futyo (What to do?
unmarried girls are like eggs, once broken they never join; you cannot
join them)--never for a moment realizing that the unfortunate fate for
these women comes from their own blind loyalty to male dominance and the
imposition of thiry two virtues that packs the bodily passions in a
brittle pitcher without letting a whiff of freedom's fresh air sharpen the
mind to understand the pitfalls of life. Dimma jastai, indeed! Doesn't
Hinduism, Mr. Editor, makes a woman worse than a cow, as brittle
and vulnerable as an egg? We must think about it, Mr. Editor; we must
think about it.
**********************************************************************
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 1994 11:27:20 PDT
To: a10rjs1@cs.niu.edu
From: or5043@rccvax.ait.ac.th
Subject: Objection
Dear Editor:
Namaskar. This is in relation to a posting that appeared in 28 june
1991 issue of TND under my name. I have a strong objection on this posting
because of the following reasons:
1. The content of the posting was a part of my personal letter to
a friend in USA.
2. It was sent to the TND by "shrestha@vax.lse.ac.uk" with a title
on it and my name at the bottom. I don't know this person with this
address.
3. Don't you (mr\mrs shrestha) think this is the violation of
copy-right ? You could have inform me before sending to TND. Are
you responsible to the damage (if any) done to me by this posting?
4. My suggestion to the TND is, in the future we should be careful
to publish a message sent by a third party in the name of some other
people.
Thanks.
Chandra Giri
UNEP/GRID-Bangkok
cc. Mr. Amulya R. Tuladhar
Clark University
%%%%%Editor's Note: TND apologizes for the confusion. Rajesh Shrestha %%%
%%%%% currently in UK (TND's SCN Correspondence) usually %%%
%%%%% cross posts article published on SCN. TND %%%
%%%%% certainly, by no means, promotes to print private %%%
%%%%% e-mail or letters on TND, unless requested %%%
%%%%% specifically by the primary author. %%%
%%%%% Once again, TND apologizes and regrets the error. %%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
********************************************************************
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1994 13:40:54 EDT
To: a10rjs1@cs.niu.edu
From: Jay James <jayjames@rahul.net>
Subject: Re: Long-term Causes of Floods in Bangladesh
M Khalequzzaman (khaleq@brahms.udel.edu) wrote:
: >>
: >> LONG-TERM CAUSES OF FLOODS IN BANGLADESH?
There is one major factor in the cause of floods in Bangladesh that has
gone upreported in this fine paper-- U.S. foreign trade policy, as it
results in the prevention of free trade in farm products.
Yes, you heard correctly. As documented in Bovard's book _The Farm
Fiasco_, the policy of the U.S. is to dump "free" food on countries such
as Bangladesh, in the form of "aid" that suppresses the normal
development of their markets and decreases the incentive of farmers to
farm. Also U.S. borders are closed in textiles and other areas. As a
result people flock to the cities and nobody practices sound farming.
Erosion and perpetual poverty are the consequences. It's called
"lifeboat economics" because the U.S keeps countries ignorant until there
is a crisis and then a "lifeboat" token sop is thrown to the countries,
which receives media attention.
The solution? Form a free trading block and f*ck the US--that includes
US intellectual property rights (patents, trademarks, copyrights) which
the US finds so dear now. If the US wants to play hardball,
then so be it! Once everybody is a pirate of technology, and floods the
US with parallel (grey market) imports, the US will come back to the
negotiating table, but by then it will be too late.
Support the Developing Countries: Buy Counterfeit Products Today!
Jay James <jayjames@rahul.net>
************************************************************************
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1994 13:44:04 EDT
To: a10rjs1@cs.niu.edu
From: sshakya@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Sunil Shakya)
Subject: News from Nepal
Headline: Nepal revises account statistics
Dateline: KTM, June 24, 1994
The Nepali government has revised the national account statistics for
the period from 1984/85 to 1993/94 to accurately reflect the national
economic development. According to the revised estimate, gross domestic
product (GDP) for all the years from 1984/85 to 1993/94 are higher than
the previous one, Vice Chairman of National Planning Commission Sharan
Mahat told a press conference here this afternoon. As for the year
1993/94, particularly, 16% higher than the previous estimate, said the
NPC Vice Chairman, as a result of changes in the size of GDP, per capita
income has also increased proportionately. For example, for the fiscal
year 1993/94, the per capita income initially estimated at 8,600 rupees
(176 dollars) has been increased to 10,000 rupees (204 dollars). There
has also been a significant change in the structure of GDP in the
period, the Vice Chairman said. Previous estimate showed that the share
of agriculture and non-agriculture sector in the year 1992/93 was 49
and 51%, respectively, whereas the present estimate shows that the
contribution of the two sectors is 42 and 58%, respectively. The changes
in the structure of GDP result in changes in the real growth rate of
GDP, Sharan Mahat said. Giving the reason of the revision, the NPC Vice
Chairman stressed the major changes in the social and economic structure of th
e
national economy since the first revision of GDP estimates in 1974/75.
*************************************************************
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1994 13:45:56 EDT
To: a10rjs1@cs.niu.edu
From: rajendra@coos.dartmouth.edu (Rajendra P. Shrestha)
Subject: Some News
Source: The Independent, June 15th (paraphrased)
No to Indian Films
Spokesman of United People's Front, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, has
announced that all cinema halls in Nepal have agreed not to show
Indian movies from June 14th. The UPF had called for a boycott of
Indian movies to protest the Indian police raid in Baneswor.The UPF
has also launched a protest against vehicles plying in Nepali
territory with Indian license plates. It claims that although Indian
vehicles can freely enter Nepal, Nepali vehicles need permission from
the Indian embassy in Kathmandu - which can take months - to enter
India. "There should be reciprocity. If they come, Nepali vehicles
should also be allowed into India," said Bhattarai.
SLC results announced
The SLC results for 2050B.S. has been announced. Over 50,000
of the around 70,000 students who took the tests failed the
exams. Miss Garima Rana was declared to have acheived the top place
(board first) in the exams.
Furor over a Newsweek article
In its June 13 issue, Newsweek ran a story on the situation in
Bhutan titled "Trouble in Shangri-La". In it, the magazine claims that
"Nepal is benefitting from the Bhutanese refugee situation" because of
the outpouring of international aid to the refugees. This has created
a furor among aid workers in Nepal. Responding to the
Newsweek article, Tahir Ali, Resident Representative of the UNHCR in
Kathmandu said that he was very surprised by that sentence in the
article. "Our assessment is that Nepal is suffering from the refugee
situation. It is paying a heavy price in terms of hosting these
people, living in densely-populated districts of Nepal which do not
have the resources to sustain them. So I do not see how any detached
observer can say Nepal is benefiting from the influx of refugees,"
wondered Ali.
*********************************************************************
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 1994 10:35:49 +1200
To: A10RJS1@cs.niu.edu
From: "G.P. Rauniyar" <G.P.Rauniyar@massey.ac.nz>
Subject: PLEASE POST ON TDN AND UPDATE YOUR MAILING LIST
Dear Rajpalji,
Please update my TDN subscription address as follows:
For all who have know me, I have left the US for good and I have
relocated at Massey University, New Zealand.
I would be particularly interested in contacting Nepalese and friends of Nepal
currently in New Zealand and Australia.
Thanks
Ganesh Rauniyar
Department of Agricultural and Horticultural Systems Management
Massey University
Private Bag 11222
Palmerston North, New Zealand
TEL: 64-6-356-9099 EXT 7802
FAX: 64-6-350-5680
**********************************************************************
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:38 EST
From: ATULADHAR@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: Re: The Nepal Digest - July 6, 1994 (24 Ashadh 2051 BkSm)
To: NEPAL@mp.cs.niu.edu
Dear Editor:
I would like to comment on the SLC results.
Why did only 20,000 out of the 70,000 pass the SLC this time?
It is a clear case of social engineering. Both numbers, "20,000" and "70,000"
represent reductions from earlier figures of around 40,000 and 100,000.
The number 20,000 is easy to explain from numerous public interviews the
Vice-chencellor of Tribhuwan University has given over the last two years.
Namely, the total number of seats available in ALL the campuses of TU is
around 17,000 and this number includes multiple shifts and grossly overcrowded
lab and lab facilities and in some case no other educational facilities.
With ALL the private campuses included, the total intake capacity is 25,000
and many of these private campuses are our US community college equivalents,
the place where anybody with a second or third division lands up when he
cannot get into any of the other colleges. And although, these private
colleges are said to run on "private' resources they are really subsidized
almost wholly by TU. Most of the TU professors moonlight by running private
campuses and many of the senior professors give prestige and credibility to
such private campuses while fresh Masters who cannot get jobs because they are
not adequately tied to the congress political machine slog like donkeys to run
the private campuses.
The ostensible reason for reduction of pass rate in the SLC is to increase the
faculty:student ratio and hopefully increase educational standard. That is the
rhetoric.
The political and social agenda is different.
Politically, the reduction of students on Campus is buying political insurance
for politicians playing the status quo-power game, in the name of stability,
of course. In Nepal, college students have been the hotbed of politics and
social change and this was true in the Pancha time and it is true in
Multi-party time. Even after the establishment of multiparty democracy, the
colleges have been agitational hotbeds of conflict and questioning of the
politics of the country and this is not limited to only communist students but
also the so-called the democratic students. The powers that be have long felt
that one way to control that, other than blunt political suppression which is
no longer politically correct but an option nevertheless, is to cut off and
reduce the volatile student unrest from getting to campuses in the first
place.
This policy has resulted in reduction of students sitting for SLc from 100,000
to 70,000, stringent restrictions at the school level and more stringent
screening at the SLC exams to 20,000 so that there would be no unmanageable
political pressures to gain entry to campuses as a birth right. There are
other policies to keep the students divided and occupied so they would not
challenge the status quo.
The social implications of this political decision are interesting. Who are
the privileged who get the education? the brightest and the most deserving?
Hogwash, it is the economically, socially, and politically privileged who get
access to education thus reproducing existing power relations in our Nepalese
society. The increase of TU tuition rate by 100% to make schooling
self-reliant and serious that only the "educationally motivated" would study
is one such gesture to limit the access of high education, and high class jobs
and leadership in society and politics limited to the wealthy of Nepal.
If one visits any campus, you see the people who study there do NOT represent
the cross-section of Nepali demographics but the rarefication of the dominant
elite. In Kathmandu and the science campuses, the children invariably come
from the middle and upper middle class urban families.[the high class send
their dumb kids to India, Philipines, and US by paying hefty monies stolen
from the surplus extraction political economy of Nepal]. Outside kathmandu,
the students invariably come from the rural elite of the villages, those whose
families generate enough cash surplus to be able to afford their kids a
college education when over half of the Nepali rural families do not generate
enough production even to feed themselves for 6 months a year. Castewise,
these urban and rural elite come from Brahmin, Chettri, Thakuri, Newar and
"Madhesi" upper caste groups. Untouchables, low caste, ethnic tribes in the
hills and Terai are shut out in double whammies: schools and good teachers are
located in their areas so they do get upto SLC and if they do they have poor
grades so they are too stupid to "deserve" college education. It is ironic in
this enequitable situation that these privileged college students who get a
heavily subsidized, albiet academically worthless but politically and socially
valuable education, should clamor for more facilities in strikes.
Amulya
(opinions based on 12 years teaching in TU]
******************************************************************
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:52 EST
From: mehta@cs.sfu.ca (Manish Mehta)
Date: 3-JUL-1994 20:32:09
Description: Re: Want to Raise a Family in the US?
In article <CsBsyu.4A3@freenet.carleton.ca> ad656@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Jai Maharaj) writes:
. . . then please read this:
FACTS ABOUT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN THE U.S.
Compiled by the majority staff of the Senate
Judiciary Committee (July 31, 1990)
The most serious crimes against women are rising at a significantly
faster rate than total crimes: during the past 10 years, rape rates have
risen nearly four times as fast as the total crime rate.
Every hour, 16 women confront rapists; a woman is raped every 6
minutes.
Every 18 seconds, a woman is beaten; 3-4 million women are battered
each year.
Since 1974, the rate of assaults against young women (20-24) has
jumped almost 50%. For young men, it has decreased.
Three out of four women will be victims of at least one violent
crime during their lifetimes.
A woman is 10 times more likely to be raped than to die in a car
crash.
Only 50% of rapes are ever reported; of those reported, less than
40% result in arrest.
One third of all domestice violence cases, if reported, would be
charged as felony rape or felonious assault.
Each year, more than one million women seek medical assistance for
injuries caused by battering.
The crime rate against women in the United States is significantly
higher than in other countries -- the United States has a rape rate that
is 13 times higher than England's, nearly 4 times higher than Germany's,
and more than 20 times higher than Japan's.
Of the American women alive today, 25 million either have been, or
will be, raped at least once during their lives.
Last year, the number of women abused by their husbands was greater
than the number of women who got married.
In 1950, police caught 83% of all rapists; in 1988 police caught
only 53% of them.
Nearly 50% of abusive husbands batter their wives when they are
pregnant, making them four times more likely to bear infants of low birth
weight.
Of all those arrested for major crimes -- murder, rape, robbery,
assault, burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson --
rapists are the most likely to escape conviction.
If every woman victimized by domestic violence last year were to
join hands in a line, the string of people would span from New York to
Los Angeles and back again.
More than half of all homeless women are on the street because they
are fleeing domestic violence.
More than 40% of college women who have been raped say that they
expect to be raped again.
There were more women injured by rapists last year than marines
wounded by the enemy in all of World War II.
There are nearly three times as many animal shelters in the United
States as there are battered women's shelters.
Although campus studies suggest that 1,275 women were raped at
America's 3 largest universities in 1989, only 3 of those rapes were
reported to police.
1 out of every 7 women currently attending college has been raped.
486,000 of the girls now attending high school will have been raped
before they graduate.
The average age of a rape victim is 18 1/2 years old.
Young women 16-19 years old are the most likely to be raped.
57% of college rape victims are attacked by dates.
Girls raped before age 18 are least likely to report the incident to
the police.
Girls aged 12-15 are the most likely to be raped by strangers.
Rape victims aged 12-19 are the least likely to receive hospital care.
Since 1974, the rate of assaults against young women (20-24) has
jumped 48%. For men of the same age group, it has decreased 12%.
Half the cases of women killed in this country are victims of
domestic violence.
-=Om Shanti=- Jai Maharaj, Vedic Astrologer
++++++++
Can you give the figures on the same lines for India and Canada ?
Thanks
Manish
**********************************************************************
From: "Raj Kumar Dubey" <RAJ@caedm.et.byu.edu>
To: NEPAL@mp.cs.niu.edu
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 17:40:51 MST
Subject: Thanks to Mr. Mishra's article on Women in Hinduism
Thanks for a very touching story on the subject of Women in
Hinduism. This only shows the need to change the Nepalese society
fundamentally. There has to be a change in the evils of caste
system. There has to be change in our religiousity. We have to stop
filling our minds with bullshits of Mahadeva and Vishnu and Ganesh
and what not. The age old wisdom of self-mastery has taken a back
seat nowadays. Instead people read Swastani brata Katha. I have
no idea what people can learn from that. And there is TEEZ, in which
if a wife eats something it is like her husband's flesh and drinks
even a drop of water it is like her husband's blood. PLEASE...
Though the fasting itself may be good for health, I would not let my
wife do it because it is based on a wrong foundation. I would rather
encourage her to fast on may 25 as a nothing day.
All this can be changed only by education. We should be bold and
marry intercaste if we think the person is right for us. Arranged or
love. We haaven't yet the disgusting level or casteism as the indian
society has. I personally think all the bullshit comes to Nepal
from India, because Nepalis are so simpletons. We should support the
religious leaders who are genuinely interested in giving the Sudras
their rightful place..... a place of respect.
I have always believed that first place of improvement is ourselves.
Let's not let our sisters and daughters and moms not suffer the
injustice we so easily denounce in somebody else's house.
Looking the SLC results, it seems to me that we will have to wait a
long time to acheive that beautiful day in which our sons daughters
and wives are loved and not enslaved.
The problem were well identified and points were well-made. Mr.
Mishra I whole heartedly agree with you.
Prakash Bhandari
Brigham Young University
P.S. Even here in America I have seen so called educated Nepalis
making their wives do all the house work while they are talking
bullshit with their guests. So, we definitely have a long way to go.
*********************************************************************
Date: Fri, 06 May 1994 13:09:50 EDT
To: a10rjs1@cs.niu.edu
Path: black.clarku.edu!vax.clarku.edu!atuladhar
From: atuladhar@vax.clarku.edu
>Subject: Questions about the Indian Thermals Contract with Nepal Electricity A
>Date: 3 MAY 94 16:16:13 GMT
A recent dateline said Nepal electricity Authority (NEA) had signed a turnkey
project for 21 substations in various parts of the Kingdom. I have some
questions for any knowlegeable guys:
1. Are the Indians building "thermal" plants based on somekind of fuel,
petro-products or biomass or even geothermals instead of hydro-power. If so
does this not mean more dependency?
2. Is this deal linked to the delay in ArunIII, an effort to meet the
electricity demand until the Arun iii can chrun up some watts?
3. Why is this turnkey, meaning that the Indians would be bringing
everything from India from bolts to engineers and laborers? Is this what is
meant liberalization of public corporations?
4. What about the 500 + nepali engineers who are employed and several
hundred in power and electricity subfields alone, Will they get jobs with
these Indian "turnkey" projects? Sure, a few super-rich or super-educated
engineers such as Dipak Gyawali and Bikash Babu Pandey can afford to criticize
Arun III because they do not need the jobs that will be generated but what
about those unemployed Nepali engineers whose futures are being adjudicated
out by NEA and its antagonists?
Looking for answers,
Amulya
******************************************************************
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 1994 07:48:36 EDT
To: a10rjs1@cs.niu.edu
From: paulb@jtec.com.au (Paul Butler )
Subject: Re: INFO REQUEST: Status of Lukla-Kathmandu fli
>In article yeom@delphi.com, yeom@delphi.com () writes:
>>
>> Is anyone familiar with the current conditions of the flight from Lukla
>> airstrip to Kathmandu?
>>
>> Recent experience, direct or anecdotal, greatly appreciated. Post here or
>> reply email. Thanks!
>The issue on flight availability is NOT the lack of aircraft -- it never
>really has been for that airport. The issue is the weather. If it stays clear
>there is no problem -- but if clouds roll in the flights can't go.
The Lukla airstrip is simply the most amazingly optimistic piece of human
engineering in existence. It consists of a 300 metre, 15 degree sloped rocky
runway with a cliff at each end. Landing and taking off there is the
rollercoaster ride of a lifetime. When I flew in athiests were crossing
themselves and the air hostess was clutching the arms of her seat,
white-knuckled.
On my return from the trek I waited six days in the Paradise Lodge
presidential suite (with a fine view of the runway) waiting for my flight
out. I made my international flight with ten minutes to spare. This is not
unusual.
The main problem is something that Royal Nepal Airlines has no control over.
The Lukla airstrip is in the middle of the highest mountains in the world
and the weather is entirely unpredictable. As the pilots explained, 'We do
not fly when it is cloudy, because the clouds have rocks in them'.
If you miss your scheduled flight because of cloud then you go to the end of
the waiting list. This is extremely frustrating unless you have absorbed
some of the local Buddhist culture and see it as an opportunity to practice
Patience.
Having said all that, you have got rocks in your head if you let this
difficulty put you off visiting this amazing and enchanting part of the world.
It can truly change your whole outlook on life. The scenery is simply
stunning, and as one of the last places to see Tibetan Buddhism in practice in
everyday life, the Sherpa region is a rare and precious jewel.
Just make allowances for possible delays and travel with a reputable
trekking agency like Ama Dablam Trekking in Kathmandu. Deal with them direct
by fax and save yourself hundreds of bucks.
Happy landings ;-)
Paul Butler
Sydney 2000
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