SUMMER CROPS PARCHED, NO RELEASE OF WATER BY INDIA Kathmandu, 22 June: The summer paddy cultivated on nearly 15,000 hectares of land here has started drying up as India has not released water in the west canal of the Kosi dam since a month now, RSS reports. The farmers here are facing great difficulty irrigating their fields as the Indian side refuses to release water in the Kosi West Canal as per the agreement. The Kosi West Canal is under the control of India. As per the Kosi Agreement, 60,000 hectares of land in Saptari district is to be irrigated from the water of the Kosi West Canal. However, it is stated that not all the structure of the Kosi West Canal is constructed and only 12,000 hectares of land is irrigated by the main canal. The Kosi West Canal is the only source of water for irrigation in Saptari. The summer paddy is mostly cultivated in Bhardaha, Hanuman Nagar, Yoginiya, Koiladi Madhepura, Itahari Bishnapur, Madhawapur, Kochabakhari and adjacent villages near the Kosi Main Canal in the district. nnnn DETAILS OF PM’S ADDRESS AT RIO CONFERENCE Rio de Janeiro, 22 June:: Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai has stressed that the current global challenges of protecting and conserving environmental goods and services, improving livelihood opportunities with greener growth and resilience in mountains should be a priority agenda at the local, national, regional and international levels, RSS reports. Such a need is more acute among the mountainous countries because of their fragility, high level of poverty, and disproportionate impacts of natural and human induced disasters. Prime Minister Dr. Bhattarai said this while addressing a high-level meeting of the Mountain countries (Mountains and Rio+20) co-organized by Nepal, Peru and Switzerland on Thursday. ‘Poverty in mountains is at a much higher level than in any other regions around the world, so adaptation and sustainable natural resource management will be an important means of promoting sustainable livelihood in the mountains’, said the Prime Minister. Presenting the fact that more than 12 per cent of the world population directly depends on the mountains for livelihood and over half of the global population for fresh water, the Prime Minister further said the conservation and promotion of mountain ecosystems is to shape the common future of the whole of humanity. 
 ‘Research, learning and exchange of information and the best practices to promote interface among traditional knowledge, science and policy, capacity building, technical expertise and innovation are critical for sustainable mountain development’, Prime Minister Dr. Bhattarai further explained, calling for enhanced level of collaboration and networking among specialized regional and international institutions. In his address to the representatives of mountainous countries across the globe, he asserted mountains have to be an important and integral part in setting the stage for a new development agenda beyond 2015, as well as for defining sustainable development goals. The Prime Minister also pledged to regularly follow-up the outcome of the Rio+20 on mountain issues and effectively implement plans and programmes in the days ahead. He said the event would help share the best practices and lessons learned among ourselves in the context of sustainable development and garner necessary support for the mountain countries from the international community in a more coherent manner. As a chair of the event, Minister for Environment Dr. Keshav Man Shakya expressed the commitment to work together with others to promote mountain agenda at all international forums. ‘Human being and mountains are inextricably linked and therefore they need to be looked at in an integrated manner, which requires coordinated efforts from all sides’, he further said. nnnn PM MEETS RAUL CASTRO Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 22 June: Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai held separate meetings with the President of Cuba, Raul Castro, and Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdgan, on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 Conference), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday, RSS reports. During the meeting with the President of Cuba, the two leaders dwelt on the matters of mutual cooperation and expressed commitment to strengthen the persisting friendly ties further to promote the best interests of the two countries. 
 On the occasion, the President Castro invited the Prime Minister to pay an official visit to Cuba and the Prime Minister reciprocated the invitation, said Secretary at the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Leelamani Poudel. 
 Likewise, in a meeting with the Turkish Prime Minister today, they held discussions on the issues of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and agreed to enhance relationship between LDCs to have their voice heard in the global community. The Turkey government has shown interest to move ahead together to explore technical, economic and trade cooperation between the two countries, Prime Minister Dr. Bhattarai quoted Prime Minister Erdgan as saying. The Prime Minister thanked the Turkish government and Prime Minister Erdgan personally for taking initiatives to make the Istanbul Conference a huge success. 
 Earlier, on June 20, the Prime Minister met with Ollanta Humala, President of Peru and shared ways and means of enhancing cooperation on promoting the mountain agenda. The two leaders agreed to work together to strengthen international cooperation on mountains in all possible areas. The president proposed for an exchange of visits of experts between the two countries and the leaders agreed that such visits would help increase interaction and greater sharing of experience and best practices on mountain issues. nnnn OPINION THE PRICE OF THE ‘POSSIBLE’ Kathmandu, 22 Juue: What is the common factor among pro-monarchist Kamal Thapa and leftist party leaders Narayan Man Bijukchhe and Chitra Bahadur K.C.? The thread that links them is their nationalist lines and reluctance to knock at the gates of the Indian Embassy at the north-west corner of Lazimpat, By Trikal Vastavik.. The three leaders come from different political ideologies but they are widely respected for their consistency in what they say, whether their statement conform to the existing “popular sentiments” monitored by the powers-that-be and their sidekicks or not. Maintaining such stand is extremely rare in Nepal. Had consistency and commitment to their public statements been true of the mainstream party leaders, Nepal would not have suffered the abject poverty and bad governance for so many years. Throughout the 1990s and after, i.e. since the 30-year ban on political parties was lifted, the trio never espoused violence. They distanced themselves from politically-motivated INGOs and foreign missions in Kathmandu, who spoke of “human rights and freedom” but instigated groups that would serve foreign agendas. The sprawling embassy premises are to the Indian government what the Nepali Embassy at New Delhi’s Barahkhamba Road is. The staggering difference between the two missions is that Lazimpat forms a beehive of blatantly domineering and deliberately disturbing activity while Barahkhamba Road is always sleepy like Kumbhakarna. There was a time when, in the early 1950s, shortly after the Delhi Pact, an Indian officer used to sit in the cabinet meetings of the government of Nepal. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, for all his democratic concerns, imposed the practice that eventually was scrapped by the then Crown Prince Mahendra. New Delhi marked Mahendra and encouraged its paid agents to question any statement and activity when the latter ascended the throne following the death of King Tribhuvan in Zurich. New Delhi was relatively quiet when King Mahendra dismissed the Nepali Congress government and took over the reins of powers in December 1960 in the vain hope of the monarch compromising national interest as an obligation to the neighbor’s near silence over the dissolution of parliament. Even a cursory look at the abundant literature scattered all over the place presents a sordid picture of the state political affairs during the barely 18-month rule of the B.P. Koirala government. The Nepali Congress had two-thirds majority in Nepal’s first general elections in 1959. But the opposition, including the non-Congress leaders praised so loftily today, proved to be bitter critics of the government. Law and order deteriorated, refugees flocking to the capital from different districts. The growing perception of the Nepali people that the embassy is putting too many fingers in too many issues that are the exclusive preserve of an independent, sovereign country, will in the long term cost the emerging economic superpower dear. For all practical purposes, the resident envoy has a virtual hotline with most top political leaders, and the media find news even if the envoy sneezes. He only has to be in the mood, and the local leader in his mind will either troop in no time at the embassy premises or will welcome New Delhi’s man. Television camera crews also crowd the meeting venue for worthless bytes that makes news only in this country. The trickle of information has little meaning. Instead of the envoy making any statement, the man he meets has the media briefed on the talks focusing on “constitution making and peace-building process.” The Indian media, interestingly, do not find anything to report for weeks and even months while their Nepali counterparts lap up what they dismiss outright as nothing of significance. Going by the media coverage, anyone ruling from the Lazimpat premises has the easiest and most frequent access to most political leaders in the host country, the like of which is not found anywhere else in the whole of South Asia. Now and then, the big man is greeted with brickbats, rather a shoe or two. In the autumn of 2010, Rajkesh Sood, who figured as the ambassador from New Delhi, faced irate local Maoist activists who booed him and hurled several pairs of Chinese made shoes at his speeding car during his visit to Solukhumbu. The protest was supposed to be against “Indian interference” in Nepal’s domestic affairs. This was no civilized way of venting one’s anger or other feelings. But this happens when such practices have the precedent of being condoned. Sood fumed and fretted but nobody took notice of it. There was hardly any comment on the incident, lest the commentators be labeled “pro-Indian” or “anti-Indian.” To what extent New Delhi can unleash its ammunition against its neighbor was amply indicated during 1989-90 economic blockade clamped upon mercilessly and against international norms against a least developed, landlocked country with which India “shares long traditions of peace, friendship and cooperation.” People like Lok Raj Baral did not speak against such frontal attack of economic nature while his Tribhuvan University counterparts like Mangalsiddhi Manandhar bitterly rued that India acted in such manner. Baral would do so even today. It is no longer certain if Manandhar would take his earlier position now. For Bagmati has shrunk severely with hardly any water for much of the year. During the near thirty years of Panchayat, leftist activists used to condemn the Nepali Congress and its leaders as anti-national and pro-Indian, who had “sold out out” Koshi and Gandaki. They used to pay tribute to King Mahendra for drawing geographical divisions of zones in Nepal, and approving the construction of the Arniko highway with Chinese assistance. Pro-Congress activists opposed the Arniko highway and tried to fuel fears that communism in full force would be the next arrival, to which the king, whose education was confined to private tuition, announced, “Communism does not travel in a truck.” In 1951, many Nepali communists came down heavily on the Delhi-mediated pact between the political forces calling for reforms led by King Tribhuvan and the Rana oligarchy. During much of the Panchayat years, communists never trusted the “democrats.” In the mid-1990s through the first half of the first decade this century, the mainstream communists and the Nepali Congress wanted military action against the armed Maoists who were termed anti-nationals and terrorists. Bounties were placed on the heads of some of the leading Maoist leaders who have dominated the Nepali political scene these past five years. But the Delhi Pact II, in November 2005, brought the communists and the Congress together. The nation is paying the price for it. These leaders enjoy citing that there is no vocabulary such as “impossible” in politics. Their actions suggest they are willing to do anything, right or wrong, to make their expediency and opportunism possible. And the big boss keeps having his way, but for how long? nnnn