Girija Koirala, Bamdev Gautam In Delhi

Looks like they have been making the rounds.

June 10

• Nepal rebels abduct journalist Sydney Morning Herald (subscription), Australia
• Comrades in Delhi Nepali Times
• Hydropower in Nepal Kathmandu Post, Nepal
• ‘Abandoning Arun III a mistake’ Kathmandu Post
• Time Expresses Solidarity With Nepali Press Kantipur
• Winning A Peace From Global Perspectives Pressbox.co.uk (press release), UK
• King Gyanendra to visit Qatar and UAE Zee News, India
• King Gyanendra’s Promises Are Waning Fast World Press Review Even as the king was in the Indonesian capital promising a “strengthening of democracy in the country, sooner than later” on April 22, his men back home were running amok arresting pro-democracy activists and tightening the screws on democratic institutions....... A day after the king addressed heads of state of 52 nations in Jakarta, masked revolver-wielding men — later known to be policemen — stormed a meeting organized to mourn the death of a veteran communist leader and arrested some of the mourners...... the backdrop of such lawlessness ...... Over two-thirds of 37 central committee members of the Nepali Congress, Nepal’s largest political force, are still languishing in detention or are in exile. Likewise, three-quarters of the central leaders of the People’s Front Nepal, a communist party, are still in detention........ given the present atmosphere, the democratic forces are likely to go for head-on confrontation with the king .....
  
• FM radios on warpath Nepali Times, Nepal The stations have already been broadcasting silence, blowing of conch shells and reading the news through loudspeakers from impromptu ‘studios’ at the main squares of all major towns...... nearly 60 non-government radio stations throughout the country employing 10,000 people and representing Rs 100 million in capital investment by businessmen, NGOs, district and village councils and ordinary citizens. Most stations are on the verge of bankruptcy because of a fall in ad revenues
• Nepali security forces nab India's supplying arms to guerrillas Xinhua, China
• 72,000 Nepali students without textbooks People's Daily Online, China
• India and Nepal Maoists deny mutual ties Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran Bhattarai earlier had been accused by the Maoist hardliners as being soft on New Delhi after he insisted on fighting the king first before taking on India in the wake of February 1 palace coup.
• Maoists loot ADB Bardia for the third time Kathmandu Post, Nepal ..... robbed Rs 398,000
• Amnesty asks Maoists to probe landmine explosion Gorkhapatra, Nepal
• Apology notwitstanding, Maoist excesses continue Kathmandu Post, Nepal Prachanda had issued a similar statement on November 16 after a passenger bus in Dolakha hit a Maoist-laid landmine on November 13, 2002, killing two civilians. In his statement, Prachanda had said such an attack was "beyond their imagination". At that time too, he had pledged to probe into the incident and had said the outcome of the probe would be made public. However, that never happened....... And yet another "beyond-their-imagination" incident occurred in Sarlahi on April 9 where a public bus hit another land mine in which five passengers were killed........ Likewise, when the Maoists went on a rampage attacking leaders and cadres of the People's Front Nepal (PFN) in September-October last year, Prachanda, in a statement on October 6, had said that the attacks were against "party policy". However, attacks on PFN members continued unabated for several months even after this...... The first ever public apology from the Maoist leadership came during the 2001 cease-fire when Prachanda had said the "forceful collection" of donations by Maoist cadres was against the party policy. That, however, didn't stop the Maoists from extorting common men and women.
• Nepalese influx up The Statesman, India
• Rising insurgency, economic hardship causing exodus into India Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran There have been "large population transfers" from the Himalayan Kingdom into India in the past few weeks....... Tourism is dead. Many factories have been shut down. Even as large population transfers are taking place, and villages are getting empty.
• Choice for Nepal: People’s Government or Dictatorship United We Blog, Nepal The current royalist regime is busy churning out propaganda in books and film festivals; an essay competition on ‘The monarch’s role in Nepalese films’ being a perfect example......
  
• Republicanism: How About A Real Public Debate? Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand In the aftermath of King Gyanendra’s February 1 takeover of full executive powers, the Nepali Congress, too, has signaled that its support for constitutional monarchy is, at best, driven by expediency...... Girija Prasad Koirala has been warning that the king’s political ambitions would compelled him to contemplate an alliance with the Maoist rebels to abolish the monarchy ..... Koirala’s one-time deputy, Ram Chandra Poudel, has gone a step further by asserting that King Birendra was not satisfied with the powers granted him under the constitution...... Fifteen years later, the palace stepped in to claim a role it believed it never had relinquished under the tripartite agreement........ Among the leaders still detained by the royal government after the lifting the state of emergency on April 30 are leading proponents of a constituent assembly. This is a key demand of the Maoists, who expect the elected body to transform the kingdom into a republic. The detentions indicate that the palace is ready for a showdown regardless of the quarter it emanated from........ Advocating a “fight to the finish for full democracy”, he may be contemplating some kind of alliance with the Maoists, who have acknowledged opening their own contacts with key Indian leaders. It remains unclear, though, whether the latest consultations would help clarify the republican agenda....... The current discussions on a constituent assembly remain superficial. Worse, they presume that the popular verdict is already known........ Will voting be conducted along the present first-past-the-post system or proportional representation? How can traditionally underrepresented groups expect their voices and concerns to be heard? Would the people’s representatives elected on diverse platforms assemble to vote on a future model? Or would the issue be put directly to a referendum? Considering the deep divisions in the electorate, how would each of the alternative outcome scenarios be addressed? Who exactly will be drafting a new constitution? Discussions have focused too narrowly on how the palace might react to an adverse result. How would the mainstream parties and the Maoists respond to an outcome not to their liking? ......... In the case of a republican victory, how would the ambiguities contained in the Maoists’ commitment to their ultimate goal of establishing a communist republic be addressed? ....... The Maoists, who have carefully calibrated their postures in keeping with the exigencies of the moment, may be ready to shed some of their doctrinaire policies and rhetoric in exchange for legitimacy ......... As for India, extreme left-wing insurgencies grip some 40 percent of the country’s 593 districts...... the Indian establishment might be willing to contemplate a Maoist-dominated republican Nepal under the presidency of, say, the Nepali Congress. ......... To further the goal of status quo in Tibet, China is integrating Nepal into the Tibetan economy, and laying a highway that will connect the two. Chinese President Hu Jintao, who served as Communist Party secretary in Tibet from 1988 to 1992, perhaps best understands the importance of this integration...... Publicly, Washington continues to emphasize policy coordination with New Delhi and London. Behind the scenes, Washington has engaged with Beijing ...... “In looking toward the longer term, the United States definitely wants as much of a presence on the border with China as possible” ....... “The U.S. military has bases in Pakistan, throughout Central Asia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and it has relations with Mongolia, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand. Nepal is another link in the chain” ..... “Many in India's foreign policy circles are concerned that Washington may replace India as the dominant power in South Asia, assuming that Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan prefer the freedom that comes with casting their allegiance with a distant giant rather than one close to home.” ...... has dampened India’s hope of becoming the dominant power in the Indian Ocean and interacting with Washington as a near equal. ....... “The power that stations its space-linked surveillance, intelligence and navigation systems on Nepal's high mountains gets geo-strategic leverage over several Asian regions, from Central Asia to South-East Asia” ...... that King Gyanendra in this day and age is bent on reviving autocracy is an insult to the intelligence of the Nepalese people.
• Koirala meets Vajpayee, Shyam Saran Kathmandu Post, Nepal Visiting CPN-UML leader Bam Dev Gautam is also continuing his consultations in Delhi...... On Sunday evening he met CPI leader D Raja. On Tuesday, he met former prime ministers V P Singh and I K Gujaral. Gautam is also meeting key cabinet ministers, PM Singh and UPA leader Gandhi later in the week........ During his meetings "he has been thanking all these leaders for their continued support to the peaceful democratic movement in Nepal," an aide to Gautam told the Post.
• Koirala to India: Don't arm Nepal till democracy is restored Newindpress, India
• Truth beyond self Kathmandu Post, Nepal There was a time when most of the agitating political parties had opposed even the idea of amending the 1990 Constitution. Now, they are demanding for an election to the constituent assembly..... Until February 1, striking an alliance was almost impossible...... the party leaders, who were seeking reconciliation with the monarch and who once hesitated to talk about a republic Nepal, are now listening to their young cadres..... Misunderstanding politics has always been the habit of losers...... The younger generation is becoming increasingly republican. The voice for a republican Nepal will be louder if the process of the reinstatement of democracy is further delayed...... all those who once defended constitutional monarchy, now watch helplessly at the growing number of people raising their voice for a republic...... our nation is growing younger and our society, politics and perception are ever changing. The hope, anxiety, power and the confidence of the young generation are beyond our comprehension. Anyone who is aware of the shifting paradigm should advise the King and his henchmen to act before it is too late...... what is not yet written in textbooks is written on the walls. And, if not on the walls, it is written on the angry faces. Read them.
• Innocents lose in fight for Nepal Newsday, NY .... Feb. 1 in what most diplomats in Nepal privately call a coup...... Privately, some people here Tuesday raised the possibility that the Nepali army had planted the bomb that blew up the civilian bus to score a huge propaganda coup against the Maoists, who have suffered recent military defeats and a patched-up split in their top leadership. Why, some wondered, would the Maoists make such an obvious blunder when they are so vulnerable right now? ..... Tejbahadur V.K., 35 ..... He did not want to say what his last two initials stood for because his name reveals his low caste in this highly stratified society...... the reason for the fear even to be quoted in a faraway newspaper that the hill-bound Maoists are never likely to read ...... The Maoists had called a ban on motor vehicles traveling in the region. And when they do that, anyone found driving in the countryside is likely to be stopped, ordered out of their vehicle and made to watch while it's torched. The charred skeletons of cars on the roads of southern Nepal bear witness........ Monday's bombing is a public relations disaster for the Maoists ...... they want never again to experience the kinds of things that seem to happen every day in places like Iraq, and instead happened on a rural road here Monday morning...... "All of a sudden, the bus jumped and was thrown in the air and it landed on the ground," Gurung said. "There was smoke all over. I couldn't see anyone or anything. People around me were falling apart, gasping for air. I tried to walk but I couldn't so I crawled seven meters [about 23 yards]. It was very hot and there was too much smoke to see anything. It smelled like gunpowder.... "Everyone started screaming after the bus collapsed. Nobody knew what had happened. They were all shouting, 'What happened? What is wrong? Is the driver responsible? What is going on?' "
  
• Cowardly Attack Kantipur ...... when a dog goes mad it gets scared of water, and when a government goes mad it gets scared of the press ...... The shameless government does not even care that the whole world is watching the unfolding brutality of the government against the press.
• In A Debt Trap? by Ram Sharan Mahat A well-orchestrated campaign has been unleashed to smear the twelve years of democracy as failure. But facts speak otherwise...... improvements in the socio-economic status across all regions and ecological belts during a period of eight years ending in 2003/04. Poverty declined and common masses have higher income. They are better educated, consume more and live longer. The infrastructure has multiplied. Access to facilities such as roads, banking services, irrigation, schools, health services and improved drinking water has gone up dramatically...... The production and income structure has shifted away from being based on traditional agriculture..... democracy creates pressure to work more for public welfare. It is true more could have been done with better resource management and control of leakages, and with single-minded commitment to economic agenda...... The national debt increased from a level of Rs 80 billion in 1991 to Rs 304 billion in 2003....... As the country's investment requirements far exceed the internal savings and the revenue base, tapping into external savings, in the form of loans or grants, is inevitable....... loan is the principal form of development assistance ...... The apparently sharp growth in external debt is not due to over-borrowing, but largely due to depreciation of Nepali rupee vi-a-vis the international reserve currencies against which the borrowings were made. For example, one US dollar was equivalent to 74.75 rupees in 2003 as against 42.70 rupees in 1991...... the total outstanding external debt rose from US $ 1.39 billion in 1991 to approximately US $ 2.98 billion in 2003, an increase of 114 percent. During the same period the GDP in dollar terms increased by 117 percent....... The total national debt as percentage of GDP in 1991 was 66.8 percent of which domestic and external debts accounted respectively for 17.3 and 49.5 percent. This ratio has remained generally constant since then ...... Nepal's external debt stock is composed of concessional loans with long maturities and nominal interest charges. Some of the bilateral loans, like those from Japan and some Western countries, are eventually converted into grant..... At present, the international climate for poor and indebted nations is very congenial. .... demand for debt relief to poor countries like Nepal is increasing. The UK government has already agreed to pay back 10 percent of Nepal's total debt to the WB.
• Madi's Mass Murder And The Future Of Maobad INSN ..... exploded a bucketful of sulphur compound under a passenger bus packed with 150 people ..... Traveling in the bus were a dozen army men in civilian clothing moving between the military posts of Baghai and Bankatta, many of them carrying weapons. For more than a year, the villagers of Madi had been warned by the Maoists not to allow this. It was impossible for the villagers to make such demands of the RNA, however ...... Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the Maoist chieftan, apologized on Tuesday via email to media houses. But it is not clear from earlier gestures of contrition how much his writ runs any more among the young men whose heads he has filled with the romance of violence and in whose hands he has placed guns and explosives....... Madi is a convenient valley for Maoist activity, surrounded as it is by jungle on three sides, and separated from Bihar by one low range....... To the north, the rebel supply line passes through the national park, across the East-West Highway, past Pithuwa, up to the Chepang Hills, into Dhading and Gorkha beyond. What is known is that the Maoist commander of Madi Valley, carrying the name of Kshitij, was replaced a month ago. It is thought this might be related to the rift that has driven the rebels from top to bottom into ‘Baburam’ and ‘Prachanda’ camps....... The week previous to the bus attack, there had been extraordinary nighttime activity on the valley’s trails, with dogs constantly barking into the darkness. The wire-guided improvised explosive device (IED) was put in place on Monday night. The rebels placed the sulphur compound – a chemical used in rock blasting – in a ten-litre bucket and buried it under sand at the point at which the bus would divert into the dry bed of the Bandar Mudhe stream to avoid a broken-down bridge. Thick intertwined red and black wires snaked away under the sand and through kaans grassland for about two hundred metres to the point at which someone holding a trigger – most likely a flash mechanism – would have watched that morning as two tractors drove over the device, followed by one bus making its way up-valley to Baghai, and finally the down-valley bus, crammed with passengers inside and on the roof....... at about 7:55 am ..... water slowly fills the gaping cavity made by the bomb, as if it were a well....... The men who had left their seats to the children, women and elderly and chosen to travel on the roof mostly survive. They are blown away and land on the sand at some distance. Those inside the main cabin do not stand a chance..... “There were writhing bodies and torn limbs everywhere” ...... buffalo carts were pressed into service to carry others. ..... Of the 12 army men who had been on board, three died, four were wounded and the surviving five had dragged their companions to a nearby knoll and waited for rescue. Their guns and magazines were collected by the villagers ...... Soldiers, as citizens, can travel by public transportation anywhere they like when they are off-duty. All over the country, however, they also do so while on patrol, sometimes in civilian clothing with their M-16 rifles under wrap. This amounts to using civilians as shields against ambush by Maoists, who are increasingly relying on landmines instead of launching frontal attacks against military positions....... There they were in the list of the departed: Tharu, Gurung, Magar, Chepang, Bahun, Chhetri, and one Shrestha; a Little Nepal of migrants who had settled this fertile, picture-postcard valley originally inhabited only by the Tharu...... Madi has a very close-knit community, because it is isolated from the rest of the country by the national park .... Each villager of Madi feels the pain of what happened on that bus, because we are a special kind of community within Nepal ......The people we pulled out of the wreckage were all people we knew ...... An eight-year-old boy’s body is found in the sand, headless and unclaimed. Already in a state of decomposition, he is buried under a foot of earth which is then covered with a straw mat extracted from the wreckage; he is left there to await a claimant.... only the carcass of the bus remains. The inside is a mass of twisted steel, protruding beams and bloodied seat cushions. The twin-beams of the main chassis are bent like putty........ Everyone crowded into the driver’s section in the front seems to have survived, including the driver himself, 21-year-old Bikram Mahato. Only his body aches, he says, but he walks about as if in a daze....... Nobody has cooked a meal here since yesterday, we are in such shock. ..... his bereaved wife stands alone, vacant-eyed and lost. Says the eldest son, Krishna Subedi, “Why do they ambush the public like this? And why does the army take public transportation?” ...... of late politics has taken a back seat in their organisation as the military-minded hardliners have had the upper hand ...... individual killings, maimings and acts of terror that force the people into shocked submission. .... more than any other person or institution, it is the Maoists who have been responsible for stealing the people’s future. They have made political killings and violence commonplace in Nepal. They have dragged the army out of the barracks. They have made the monarchy arrogant and ambitious. They have weakened Nepal internationally and vis-à-vis India. And, most importantly, they have exploited Nepal’s under-educated rural youth, tempting them with the promise of change imposed by the power of the gun, shunning the much harder but more fulfilling path of social revolution........ at this late date their leadership obviously understands that the ‘revolution’ is slipping out of their hands even though their cadre may for the moment have the run of the countryside ....... He has apologized often enough, as he did after the Madi mass-murder, but his fighters seem not to be marching to his drum. He has told them, he says, to allow political parties to function on the ground. They do not listen. He says “Do not target civilians,” and they do....... There is today a real question as to whether the fighters will heed the call of the high command. And it is quite likely that the ground-level fighters are unwilling to put down their guns because they know that they will be run out of the villages and the districts the moment they do so........ “They had some friends here. Now, they have none. Some people used to give them shelter. But now no one will.” ..... “This question is particularly addressed to Prachanda, Baburam and Mahara: Why kill the people? You may or may not want to recall spending a full month in a particular part of Madi fourteen years ago. Do you remember who looked after you then? Just try and come back toMadi now, and you will see how the folks will chase you and your cadre away. They despise you…” ....... Make sure directives from the high command get implemented on the scorched ground. Next, drop the gun.

June 9

• Nepal Puts Troops on High Alert Scotsman, UK
  
• Nepal puts troops on high alert following wave of attacks Zee News
• 14 soldiers, 6 rebels killed in Nepal clash Peninsula On-line
• Nepal wants international assistance to end conflict Expatica, Netherlands
• Nepal communist leader released Outlook (subscription)
• Nepal calls for "international assistance'' to end conflict ReliefWeb (press release)
• Security forces, guerrillas clash in far-western Nepal Xinhua, China
• Over 200 killed in far-western Nepal clash: official Xinhua
• Nepal frees 53 journalists Globe and Mail, Canada
• Protesting Journalists Arrested in Nepal Guardian Unlimited
• Arrested scribes freed in Nepal, vow to continue agitation Outlook (subscription), India
• Over 60 journalists arrested in Nepal Zee News
• Former Nepal PM Koirala calls on Sonia Hindustan Times, India
• Nepal situation bothers Delhi Calcutta Telegraph, India
• Sonia, Singh urge Koirala to initiate dialogue with King, Maoists Kantipur Online
• NEPAL: Nepal court overturns closure order of radio centre Asia Pacific Media Network, CA
• Nepal radio closure struck down BBC News ......In Nepal's second city, Biratnagar, they have begun reading 15-minute news bulletins over loudspeakers - a move others around the country are set to copy in a 17-day protest programme...... Last week, FM stations across Nepal simultaneously read out articles of the constitution relating to press freedom and also went off air for two minutes...... But the sector is struggling. Two stations serving remote areas have reportedly closed down as the government has not permitted them to buy new back-up transmitters.
• Nepal on weapon hunt Calcutta Telegraph, India
• Over 1000 Students abducted in Nepal Hindu, India
• Nepal rebels apologize for civilian deaths ISN
• RPP Rules Out Support To House Revival, Constituent Assembly Demands NepalNews.com ..... the party upholds “restructuring of the state so as to make it inclusive” rather than the demand of parliament reinstatement and the constituent assembly...... the immediate solution to the current problem was in constituting an all-party government...... RPP meet also urged the government to create conducive environment for municipal polls due this year - so that the opposition parties could join it...... eight dissident leaders including vice-chairman Padma Sundar Lawati and Kamal Thapa went out in the middle of the meeting after the majority leaders refused their demand for a special general convention to settle the policy issues. The dissident faction has been critical of the leadership for its opposition to the royal putsch of Feb 1.
• US considering delay of rifle shipment Kantipur Online, Nepal
• Nepal: Ominous Activism Across The Southern Border Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand Reminiscent of the pretext it used in the early 1970s to intervene militarily in what was then East Pakistan, New Delhi has started voicing concern over an increase in the number of Nepalese coming across the border, mainly due to the escalation in Maoist violence....... former Nepalese prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, the leader of the recently formed seven-party anti-palace alliance, is in New Delhi lobbying Indian leaders for support. Former deputy prime minister Bamdev Gautam, a leading member of Nepal’s main communist party, the United Marxist-Leninist, is also in the Indian capital ...... India’s decision to open direct talks with the Nepalese Maoist rebels. Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai ..... He is reported to have met Koirala and Gautam to work out a broader alliance against the monarch...... At least nine out of the country’s 28 states are experiencing strong extreme left-wing insurgencies. Some Indian analysts have described the Maoist insurgents as a greater threat to national security than Kashmiri separatists...... Alarmed by India’s annexation of the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim in 1974, King Birendra proposed that Nepal be declared a zone of peace....... Once in power, these leaders amassed wealth and invested it in property, banks and businesses in India..... In recent months, the royal regime has been working to lessen Nepal’s economic dependence on India by, among other things, seeking to expand trade and commercial relations with China........ Efforts at developing Nepal as a transit point between China and India have received a fresh impetus. Nepal expects to provide the transit facility with the objective of expanding its service sector and physical infrastructure development........ a railway project linking China with Tibet’s heartland, which Beijing plans to complete this year, two years ahead of schedule. Recent reports say the Chinese government plans to extend the railway line to the Nepalese border. Chinese officials say the railway will bring in 5.64 million tourists to Tibet over the next five years. The Lhasa-Kathmandu bus service is likely to benefit. Nepal and China have taken special interest in developing the kingdom’s vast hydroelectric power potential...... a country coveting permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council cannot be seen invading another country...... The Tamil Tiger rebels, fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lankan Hindus in the north and east, later joined hands with the government to chase out the Indian soldiers..... seems to involve the formation of a coalition government assembling the parliamentary parties and formally dividing the Maoist party, already facing serious rifts...... The next phase of New Delhi’s plan involves the mobilization of the Indian army against the Maoist faction outside the peace process....... What is being proposed, in effect, is a major Indian military intervention in Nepal
• Nepalese coup forces US to rethink shipments of rifles MSN Money
• Nepalese coup forces US to rethink shipments of rifles Financial Times, UK “Here we are supporting a military dictatorship and a feudal monarch with no prospect of a return to democracy anywhere on the horizon,” said the aide. “How does this square with Bush's rhetoric about ending tyranny everywhere?”
• The Ascendancy of Gyanendra Shah Samudaya.org, AZ Rambharosa Das Kayastha was registered in the citizenship rosters as Gyanendra Shah, born 1949 C.E., Janakpur........ Kathmandu had swelled to a population of two million souls by February of 2008—the frogs of the pond, who had lacked the courage to venture outside the valley....... Seti opened wider in Pokhara and Fewa drained to the drudge..... Cities in the terai weren’t spared either—but when cities fell, the poor rural populace dug their way out from the rubble of bamboo and straw huts and wondered what sins the city-folks had committed that the penance was so swift, so great....... In a show of brazen foolishness, dams on Marshyangdi, Kulekhani, Trishuli, Kaligandaki, Karnali and the Koshi barrage were destroyed in a concerted show by the Prachanda faction ...... There was just one such man who had survived the earthquake in Janakpur—Gyanendra Shah. Thus began the ascendancy of Gyanendra Shah of Janakpur.
• Excessive force used during campus shooting: RNA Kantipur Online, Nepal