I don't know the guy, never met the guy. But I have followed his career since he defeated Shailaja Acharya in Morang and came into the parliament. He went on to chair the Sadbhavana party. He went on to become Deputy Prime Minister.His public statements since 2/1 remind me of the split in the RPP. There are nine "dissidents" in the RPP who would like the party to endorse the king's 2/1 move. Interesting.
Badri Mandal beat the RPP at the game. He and the Sadbhavana faction he leads have done what not even the RPP has been able to do: the 2/1 move has been roundly endorsed.
If the current regime manages to chug along to the municipal elections, the RPP and the Mandal Sadbhavana would be in the fray. That will be quite a circus.
Mandal says 40,000 Madhesis have been denied citizenship certificates. That is such a lowball figure. Even the government claims 3,200,000 Nepalis have been denied those certificates. I would think at least two-thirds of those are Madhesis. That would mean 20 lakh Madhesis. And those are not my figures. If anything, the government figures have probably been put at the lower end.
I guess the Sadbhavana had itw own "two-line struggle" when the party split. But the Madhesi cause has not been hurt. Federalism has gained major currency. I can't think of one major party that is against it.
In The News
- Former Nepalese minister may participate in civic polls:- Webindia123, India
May 20, 2005 A former Nepalese minister, who has been charged with graft by the new government headed by King Gyanendra, has hinted his party may participate in the municipal elections scheduled to be held this year...... Badri Prasad Mandal, who heads the pro-king Nepal Sadbhavana Party, has asked the Election Commission to give voting rights to people from the plains though they don't have citizenship...... Mandal, a leader from the terai plains, was forest minister in the last Sher Bahadur Deuba government that was sacked by the king in February...... "There are about 40,000 people who don't have citizenship," Mandal told IANS. "Half of them would be above 18 and eligible to vote. We are asking the Election Commission to include them in its updated voters' list." ...... That is a clear indication Mandal's party would take part in the polls though at least seven other parliamentary parties have said they would boycott them....... In a public statement, Mandal has said the royal takeover would help to restore peace, and, instead of confrontations, the opposition parties should focus on peace....... Mandal, along with seven former ministers, including Deuba, faces allegations of graft levelled by the new government. ...... He has been accused of illegally disbursing money among party cadre from a government fund intended for the rehabilitation of victims of natural calamities and the Maoist insurgency........ While six of the accused ministers counter-accuse the king of trying to settle political scores, Mandal, however, has been holding his peace. ...... Mandal's own party was split in 2003 with the splinter group, which calls itself Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi Devi), choosing to ally itself with the opposition parties....... Before it split, the party had five MPs in the last parliament. Currently, only two of them are still with Mandal.
Royal move to consolidate democracy, restore peace Gorkhapatra, Nepal - May 27, 2005 Gandaki zonal administrator Kumar Bahadur Karki ..... Chief District Officer Tek Bir Jung Rayamajhi ..... Also speaking at the program were central member of Rastriya Janasakti Party Narendra Wagle, central member of Rastriya Janamukti Party Shiva Lal Thapa ..... Meanwhile, in Mahottari, a huge procession passed through different streets of Jaleshwor Municipality Thursday wishing for the lasting peace in country. Commenced from local Shankar Square under the organization of Madheshi Friendship Center Nepal, the rally passed round the main bazaar and turned into a mass meeting where national Chairman of Nepal Sadbhavana Party Badri Prasad Mandal said that multiparty democracy would be consolidated and peace restored in the country following the February 1 Proclamation of His Majesty the king. ...... There is the need of peace for Nepali people who have been victimized directly or indirectly by the series of murder, violence and terrorism, said Mr Mandal adding that the problem therefore should be settled through national consensus among different constitutional forces....... Former minister Kamal Chaulagain and others also spoke at the program headed by chairman of the center Kishori Mahato.- Indian TV news channels allowed in Nepal Reuters India, India
- Six Maoist rebels killed in Nepal BBC News, UK
- Nepal journalists launch street radio Indian Express, India
- Former Nepal PM to visit India:- Webindia123, India
- Koirala meets CPM leader Yechury
Chennai Online - Increase tourist flow to Nepal Kathmandu Post, Nepal
- The National Flag Carrier Amid Triumph, Hope And Despair
Gorkhapatra - I am unaware of being blacklisted: Giri Kantipur Online, Nepal
- Call NTC, get SLC results Gorkhapatra, Nepal
- Nepali Govt Secures 50,000 Jobs In Malaysia Bernama, Malaysia
- Saarc summit to take place in Dhaka: PM Gulf Times, Qatar
- Dhaka happy with new SAARC date:- Webindia123, India
- Nepali gov't approves education regulation People's Daily Online, China
- SAARC summit to be held in November India Monitor, UK
- More ways to look up SLC results this year Kantipur Online, Nepal
- Student leader’s detention term extended by 3 months Kantipur Online, Nepal
- Govt a coterie of corrupt people: Khanal Kantipur Online, Nepal “The King himself knows Tulsi Giri’s past”
- Kerala turns into the 'Gulf' for upcountry migrant labour Hindu, India
- Nepal, Portugal share cordial ties: Shrestha Gorkhapatra, Nepal
- Total road length reaches 17,192 KMs. Gorkhapatra, Nepal
- Crown Prince gives prizes, certificates Gorkhapatra, Nepal
- Politicians asked politicians to win confidence at home, not ... Gorkhapatra, Nepal Industrialist and businessman Mohan Gopal Khetan said that those who have gone abroad on pretexts like meeting leaders of foreign countries, for treatment or to meet the terrorists have only gone there because they have lost their credence here. ..... Khetan said that economist and former minister Dr. Devendra Raj Pandey has openly challenged the seven political parties saying if they accuse His Majesty the King of taking over power, they should first come out with their agenda ...... Khetan also rejected the so-called unity among the seven political parties ..... If they were really united why did Koirala went to meet with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress (I) president Sonia Gandhi personally ...... He came down especially on the lawyers and the press saying they have completely forgotten their professional loyalties. If not, what is the rationale of them coming down to the streets? ..... Dr. Sundar Mani Dixit ..... One of the most unfortunate thing of the Nepalese politics was that nothing is done in time. ..... Talking about the Royal proclamation of February 1, he said that it had brought a wave for peace in the country ..... Saying it will be a highly unfortunate for the country if the step taken by His Majesty the King fails, he added those who feel happy in such a situation have no love for the soil of this country.
- Deconstructing religion Kathmandu Post, Nepal Religion is the most traditional and visible force existing in Nepal. The real challenge for us is how to use this force to create democratic minds and souls. For this, religions in Nepal need to be reformed.
- Economic Diplomacy: Issues & Challenges By Ramesh Nath Pandey Kathmandu Post, Nepal Who should take charge of the country's economic diplomacy? Before that, are our diplomatic missions doing enough to pursue economic diplomacy? Before that, are they given the ways and means to do that? Before that, are they trained and oriented for the purpose? Before that, how different or similar are the concepts of foreign policy and economic diplomacy of Nepal? It would not be fair to blame the underperformance of our foreign office in areas it was never prepared and equipped for. ....... trade promotion, export promotion, tourism promotion, investment promotion, overseas employment promotion, information and communication technologies as well as inducting the role of non-resident Nepalis into Nepal's prosperity ...... There is nothing more dynamic than international economic relations in the contemporary world....... the big first question: who in fact should take the charge of economic diplomacy of the country. The one-liner answer would be that the private sector comprising business and industrial community should be the one taking the lead.... Forgive me if I hurt you, but the proposals should come with willingness to share the burden and cost as well as successes and failures. It should be a common endeavour, after all.
- 40,000 Nepalese children displaced in armed conflict Xinhua, China
- Koirala meets more Indian leaders Kathmandu Post, Nepal CPI leader A B Bardan .... former Indian prime ministers I K Gujral and Chandra Shekhar, and ex-general secretary of the CPI (M), Harkishan Singh Surjeet ..... Koirala is likely to return to Nepal on Wednesday.
- Selling kidneys for a few rupees more Kathmandu Post, Nepal He had a scar just above his left waist and Rs 50,560 in his pocket when he returned home on May 31 after a three-month stay in India..... this man, a father of six (four sons and two daughters) who owns six ropanis of land ..... I went to India to make money (by selling my kidney) so that I could buy more land ..... Since Sambar underwent surgery a-month-and-a-half ago, he suffers incessant pain. He threw away all the medicines while returning home, as others advised him to do so, fearing police intervention while crossing the border. As a result, he has no medicine to take...... I knew that the broker (agent) got Rs 300,000 from the Indian patient… Whatever had to happen, it's happened. Now I am feeling frail.... the agents try to lure innocent villagers, who are very poor financially, to sell their kidney. They frequently visit the village ..... three women have already left the village with the same intention...... Another man, in a fit of anger, says, "What difference does it make if we say this? You will earn money by selling this (news)." It was later known that this man was Mohan Sapkota, the first kidney seller of the village. However, he said he was cheated after he sold his kidney.
- ‘RCCC cannot control corruption’ Kathmandu Post, Nepal It's really good on the part of the media as they began revealing the present cabinet members' real faces.
- Qatar's human traficking report Arabic News Women and men who work as domestic servants, some of whom fall victim to involuntary servitude .... Children trafficked to Qatar for exploitation as camel jockeys ..... excessive hours, late or nonpayment of wages, physical and sexual abuse, and withholding of passports ...... Child camel jockeys are overworked, malnourished, and physically abused. Some have been thrown from the camels they rode and suffered serious neurological damages. Most no longer remember where they came from...... The government provides no shelter for trafficking victims; instead, it detains and punishes trafficking victims for immigration violations....... institute a formal system to identify, care for, and repatriate these victims, including domestic workers and child camel jockeys
- Lightening the load of child miners BBC News, UK Sudha is one of an estimated one million children who work in small-scale mining and quarrying across the globe .... 246 million children are child labourers .... 73 million child workers are less than 10 years of age ..... 2.5 million children work in developed economies ..... 2.5 million work in transitional economies .... 127 million - the largest number of working children under 14 years of age - work in the Asia Pacific region .... 1 million children work in mines or quarries .... 22,000 children die in work-related accidents each year ..... There is no way to check whether that wedding ring or bracelet in the jewellers has been produced with the help of child labour .... using children, some as young as five, as workers in mines......young workers cannot simply be removed from the equation; their families need to replace the money they would bring in, hence ongoing assistance is needed.
- True justice knows no boundaries The Observer, UK the rights to food, health and clean water are as much human rights as freedom of expression or the right to a fair trial..... In Zimbabwe, we have documented not only torture, arrests, killings and the suppression of dissent, but also the manipulation of the food distribution system by the Mugabe government to starve political opponents........ In the Palestinian Occupied Territories, we have exposed both the massive human rights abuses by Israeli security forces which shoot, detain, torture and kill with impunity, and also the severe suffering of Palestinians because of Israeli policies and practices of border closures and curfews. Children can't go to school, pregnant women can't gain access to hospitals and men can't tend their orchards....... In Afghanistan, I have heard women tell me that the best way to protect them from violence would be to give them education and employment. In Darfur and in Goma, rape survivors have spoken to me of their need for healthcare as well as justice. In Nepal, men and women have described to me how a decade-long internal conflict has destroyed their livelihoods as well as threatened their lives....... What they do understand and demand are practical results and real changes in their lives. That is why Amnesty has never hesitated to criticise the massive corruption, abuse of power and deep discrimination in Africa....... Amnesty International has never been afraid, either, of speaking the truth to power. We do not believe that by criticising human rights abuses in the context of the US-led 'war on terror', Amnesty International is holding the US Administration to higher standards, as Cohen argues. On the contrary, we apply exactly the same universal standards to all governments. It is the Bush Administration that has claimed it is above, and its prisoners in Guantanamo Bay camp outside, the rule of international law...... Amnesty International made the right decision in 2001, shortly before I joined the organisation, to expand its mandate to cover economic, social and cultural rights.
- Direction: Is Nepal safe for tourists? The Sunday Times, UK
- Bread and Buddha Times Online, UK
- Maoists bomb another bus; eight killed Peninsula On-line, Qatar
- Marriage Is Still Causing Discrimination To Women Pressbox.co.uk (press release), UK
- New SAARC dates to infuse momentum: B’desh Zee News, India
- To America With Love by Anil Bhattarai INSN ..... respected citizens and members of parliament like Ram Chandra Poudel, Narahari Acharya, Amik Sherchan, Lilamani Pokharel, Navaraj Subedi and many others and human rights defenders like Krishna Pahadi continue to languish in jail ...... Mr. Moriarty watched a documentary on Nepal in Washington ..... an amateur video documentary about human rights violations by Nepal’s security forces (especially the police) during anti-regression movement that five-political parties represented in the parliament had launched immediately after the king usurped power on October 4, 2002 ..... what Nepali people have given our kings and their families and relations in the last two and half a century? Does he know that our ancestors had to part with more than half of what they produced in land to local representatives of the king–in the form of taxes, fines, tithes and what-nots? Or does he know that until 1950 almost all the able bodied human beings in Nepali villages had to provide labour for free to the state, on top of the taxes they paid ? Does he know that all the land and forest and water belonged to kings, their family members, and their close aides during most of our history? Does he, for that matter, know that there were many times when people starved, died of epidemics, and lived not beyond their forties precisely because they simply did not have enough food to eat? ...... after 1950. ..... they were not made to do forced labour like in the past. They were even exempted from land taxes....... what happened to billions of dollors–that initially came as grant, but gradually became loan to be paid back by Nepali people? Does he know who or which and how many families pocketed it? ...... after 1990 ..... But again political parties in power and in opposition began to give bit by bit back to the king which he was made to surrender back to the people in 1990. Didn’t the parties, for example, give him the right to appoint ambassadors although in the constitution he was supposed to act strictly on recommendation of the cabinet? Or wasn’t the case same about the appointment of members of upper house? Didn’t the parties raise his salary, his allowances and his palace expenditures? Didn’t the king receive all the BMWs and Jaguars and similar other cars for his pleasure and profit at people’s expense? Does Mr. Moriarty know that the king became one of the highest paid heads of state in the world when he is already one of the richest men in the world thanks to his “business” and inheritance as exclusive heir to the fortunes of Shah dynasty? ...... on October 4, 2002 the king snatched away the power to self-rule from people again. ....... the king did it with America’s full consent (and the full consent of British, Indians, Chinese, Europeans, lest we forget), and that is not a secret any more. All of them joined the chorus of ‘corrupt party leaders’ and ’saviour king’....... then the king took even more on February 1, 2005. He swallowed everything that people had got in 1990 in one go. ...... Mr. Moriarty denied that he supported the king’s move. But then, what is it that he is supporting if not king’s direct rule when he said the king did not have any option other than to do what he did on February 1, 2005 ? ...... Your Excellency, Mr. Moriarty, what exactly do you want the Nepali people to give to the king beyond what they have already given? It would be a solace to hear your answer because, then, we would know what exactly has remained with us after the king has taken almost everything from us.
- DIG Gopalman And Chakadi In Nepal Police United We Blog .....the Police Station in-charge ordered his subordinates to take those birds. Few days after, a helicopter came and took them to Kathmandu. When the columnist reached that area he found the woman totally devastated ...... the same secretary told me that he brought a couple of young tiger on to his house. When his mood was off he used to feed meat to them. He also told me that he was aware of the act that keeping tiger at home is against law.
- Feud Within Mandales United We Blog ..... Who is the biggest Mandale Nepal has ever seen? My answer would be Dr. Tulsi Giri ..... The man who declared publicly of surrendering his wisdom and independent sense to king Mahendra decades ago is now busy spiting venom against the agitating press and lawyers and political forces. ..... recent example is Prakash Koirala. He proved his qualification for Mandale by shamelessly supporting the Feb 1 royal takeover and speaking against the seven party Mass Movement. ..... an organization called Rastrabadi Biddhyarthi Mandal that was established in the late 70s (in 1979 or 1980). ...... the remnants of that force was still alive in today’s society in the name (and to some extent in the form) of a political party: Rastriya Prajantra Party (RPP). No doubt, RPP is a gang of Mandales. And in this gang, an interesting feud is intensifying day by day. The trophy of the feud is ‘Biggest Mandale in Post-Feb 1 Nepal.” ...... Padmasundar Lawati and Kamal Thapa ... They want RPP to clearly and publicly support the royal takeover. They want RPP to formally do what Tulsi Giri did four decades ago. ..... Pashupati SJB Rana .. want to avoid the street protest against the autocracy ...... the cold/hot or any other war between Lokendara Bahadur Chand and Surya Bahadur Thapa. These both names are the biggest names in Mandale fraternity. ...... Their feud goes way back to the 2040s when a no confidence motion was tabled and passed on Rastriya Panchayat against the then PM Thapa. A notorious group of three men known as Three Ps (Padma Sundar, Prakash Chandra Lohani and Pashupati Shamser) was behind that motion and that group was managed from the background by Lokendra Bahadur Chand. ...... Recently Thapa opened new party and Chand stayed in the old. Some like Lawati and Kamal Thapa are determined to break the party and weaken the Chand faction.
- Will The King Listen? Kul Chandra Gautam Website ..... Gautam has drawn an analogy between Nepal and pre-1974 Cambodia. ...... “a failed state syndrome” term may irk those rulers of Nepal who still either underestimate the present crisis or are captivated by their own arrogance....... ..... the existing crisis of confidence and level of differences between not only the Maoists and the constitutional forces but also among the constitutional forces i.e., the King and the major political parties themselves, have been creating imperatives for “external mediation”. ...... The UN role can not be seen as a negative outside interference since Nepal is itself a member of the UN system. In fact, the current situation has been gradually providing grounds for undesirable outside intervention. The supply of arms and ammunitions, military equipment and helicopters by India, the US and the UK has already started the process of outside military involvement in Nepal. ...... “ King’s self-defeating policy” has been “threatening the future of both the monarchy and the state itself” ....... No one can justify the rationale for a dominant role of an individual power country or group of countries instead of positive role of the neutral world body-the UN- in Nepal when the situation goes beyond the control of national political actors. ...... time is running out to prevent catastrophic effect of the existing violent conflict ...... If the deterioration of the present situation is allowed to continue, Nepal either may have to face direct military intervention of individual power country or group of countries or the UN itself may come over to rescue the country from crisis ....... public statements recently made by Kofi Annan- UN Secretary General and Lalkrishna Advani- Deputy Prime Minister of India ...... the only alternative left is to deal with the Maoists by constituting an all-party government comprised of parliamentary parties. ......
- Mistakes, Miscalculations by Kul Chandra Gautam
