UPDATE SINDHUPALCHOWK BUS ACCIDENT TOLL REACHES THREE Kathmandu, 6 Dec.: Three members of a family were killed Thursday morning When a bus veered 500 meters off a road in Sindhupalchowk district on Thursday morning. Tekendra Gurung, his wife, Sarkine and son, Kancha were killed. Gurung (3) of Fulping Kot. Nine were injured. Nnnn TWO-DAY INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY MEET GETS OFF Kathmandu, 6 Dec.:: A two-day International Conference related to universities has begun here from today [Thursday], RSS reports.. The conference is jointly organised by the Tribhuvan University (TU) and International Universities' Federation (an umbrella organisation of universities). Office-bearers of the renowned universities of SAARC countries as well as from Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, among others, have been participating in the conference. The TU is the member of the Federation. The Conference is focused on the role of the universities to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) "Education for all by 2015' is organised for the first time in Nepal. Vice-Chancellor, Rectors and Registrars of all the universities of Nepal are participating in the Conference. The participating countries will present working papers on easy access to higher education and co-work with other stakeholders, among others. Inaugurating the Conference, Minister for Education Dinanath Sharma said that Nepal has focused its programmes to achieve the goal of "Education for All" by formulating special policies. Minister Sharma said training to teachers has been launched as a campaign to increase the number of girls in school level and to make adult education more effective. Similarly, member of the National Planning Commission (NPC), Dr Shiva Kumar Rai said there is a challenge to achieving the millennium development goal and added that no remarkable achievement was made as per the investment in the education sector. Member of the organizing association, Dr Bijan Panta expressed the view that the conference would be important for sharing experiences of the universities of the different countries. Likewise, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. Hira Bahadur Maharjan, Rector Prof. Gunanidhi Neupane and former Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kedar Bhakta Mathema of the TU, pointed out the need of coordination for the implementation of the 'Education for All' project of the universities. Nnnn OPNION TRILATERAL REALITY CHECK Kathmandu, 6 Dec.: So we now have it on sound authority that China is in regular contact with India on ways to stabilize the situation in Nepal. The fact that the man making that assertion happens to represent the government that has traditionally been the most circumspect in its public posture provides added significance of some kind, Maila Baje writes in Nnepali Netbook . True, sections in the Nepali media have dismissed the comments Chinese Ambassador Yang Houlan made at the Reporters’ Club the other day as the surliness of someone whose tenure in Kathmandu has not lived up to his stature in Beijing’s diplomatic establishment. Others tend to see the remarks as an admission by China that its recent activism and assertiveness in Nepal has, for all practical purposes, failed. Maila Baje, however, thinks the kind of trilateral cooperation that Yang expressed a predilection for is credible harbinger of things to come. This is because it is a culmination of a process – viewed in retrospect – that has driven Nepal’s post-2006 change. After the royal takeover of February 1, 2005 – which the rest of the world was busily portraying either as a Chinese-backed coup or a power-hungry monarch’s brazen flaunting of the ‘China card’ – Nepal was trying to regain the geopolitical equilibrium it had lost after the first People’s Movement. As Nepali opposition parties veered closer to the once-pariah Maoist rebels over several phases, New Delhi remained in consultation with Beijing on developments in Nepal as part of their formal strategic dialogue. The reality that India proceeded to take a hard line against the monarchy after the palace assiduously backed China’s entry into the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as an observer was interpreted exclusively as a demonstration of New Delhi’s thinning patience. Prominent Indians, at least in public, tried to portray precisely such an image. Deeper down, however, the move was likely a culmination of consultations between Beijing and New Delhi. Tang Jiaxuan, a former Chinese foreign minister who was then a State Councillor, provided enough indications during his March 2006 visit to Nepal, which have acquired greater clarity with the passage of time. The collapse of royal rule and the ascendance of the Seven Party Alliance-Maoist combine did not seem to have assured New Delhi, notwithstanding the reality that the Indians actively drove that change. Privately, leading Indians with an abiding interest in Nepal still wondered how the Maoists – whom their country had more than sheltered – might proceed to redefine Nepal’s geopolitical identity vis-à-vis the north. The overall realignment had gathered such a pace that then-premier Girija Prasad Koirala, at the New Delhi SAARC summit in 2006, pushed for China’s inclusion as a full member of SAARC. The fact that China moved to step up its influence in Nepal at a time when Nepalis were almost exclusively focused on India’s stifling hand turned out to be a superficial reading of events. When India and China agreed to UNMIN, the United Nations peace mission in Nepal, you were generally dismissed as a cynic for thinking that the Asian giants might have wanted the world organization to fail so miserably in Nepal that it would never dream of hovering around issues like Tibet and Kashmir. Cynicism has proved too contagious for critics to chuckle today. Through an adroit admixture of cooperation, competition and confrontation, China and India have succeeded in maintaining basic stability in overall bilateral relations. Their carping and caviling has not stopped them from collaborating where they can. They have used similar prudence in addressing their historically overlapping spheres of influence. Even while warning the Indians against the folly of joining the Washington-led containment bandwagon, Beijing tends to laud India’s foreign policy tradition of strategic autonomy. Although the Indians continue to voice anxiety over China’s growing inroads in South Asia’s smaller states, New Delhi also seems more sympathetic to Beijing’s insistence on these states’ right to chart an independent foreign policy. When the Indians choose not to react too uncharitably to Bhutan’s reminder that China has become a reality in our region, you get a sense that great power ambitions do require a public demonstration of some – authentic or artificial – humility. Simply put, there are far too many pressure points in the Sino-Indian bilateral relationship to allow room for third-country/party collusions. Paradoxically, Ambassador Yang, given his vaunted diplomatic skills, might choose to become even less circumspect in the days ahead. nnnn THE UNDERDOG AMONG THE CORRUPT Kathmandu, 6 Dec.:A report in an English newspaper the other day had it that Nepal’s Local Governance and Communication Development Program (LGCDP) decided to go up in arms against the misuse of more than $161 million, Trikal Vastavik writes in People’s Review. . A ten-point proposal was submitted to the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development concerning the anomalies in the utilization of funds and leakages of the scarce resources available to this landlocked and one of the world’s least developed nations. The complaint and the move sound very familiar considering that corruption has been a major issue since many decades. The change in this regard after major political changes is that corruption and slush money have spread and swollen in intensity. The 1980 national referendum on the political system best suited between the panchayat with suitable reforms and multiparty system was the occasion when corruption took a new, upward swing. The 1990 restoration of the multiparty system of polity fuelled the vehicle of corruption, nepotism and favoritism. There is no dispute over the rampant corruption that has eaten into the very vitals of our economy, development pace and prospects of better quality of life for an average Nepali. Empty talk about “pro-people” agendas that in practice mock at the people in flesh and blood has bored people to painful levels. “People” in the term of political leaders are those close to them, loyal to them and belong to their groups. Others are crowds to be ignored except during voting time. Every political movement in four decades made mounds of promises, and each and every time the ones in power let the people down. Yet they had the audacity to claim having ensured “significant achievements.” For an incorruptible Sailja Acharya, there is a Sujata Koirala; for a less tainted Sahana Pradhan, there is, oh!, a Hisila Yami. All prime ministers, with the exception of Tanka Perasad Acharya during Nepal’s first tryst with multiparty democracy, Marich Man Singh Shrestha during the near 30 years of partyless panchayat, and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Manmohan Adhikary in the decades after the restoration of multiparty system, have been regularly attacked for corruption. The exceptional four did favor a few hangars-on through appointments here and there but public opinion and their personal lifestyles before, during and after they became prime minister did not differ much. The array of others who took the prime minister’s chair for different durations never shared such traits. The ones who became prime minister most often were those who attracted the highest volume of public wrath. Girija Prasad Koirala, Surya Bahadur Thapa and Sher Bahadur Deuba between them became prime minister for more than a dozen times. Public perception is that they never landed themselves unscathed. They spoke the lauded about autocrats and democracy; they fleeted in and out of office several times each and they unfailingly failed to deliver what they publicly pledged. Disgustingly they never apologized for their misdeeds; instead they had the cheek to go about town as if they were great leaders always engaged in the service of the vast mass of people. Where does corruption start? Surely at the top. If the person at highest echelon of decision-making mechanism put his foot down when it comes to bending the rule-book to have his own way through, the subordinates would find it very difficult to pocket almost all the funds ostensibly allocated for the welfare of general public. Studies have shown that less than ten per cent of money allocated for development activity actually reached the intended group in Nepal. In many cases, not even five per cent reaches the target. In India, political leaders in power, including the late Rajiv Gandhi, rued that not even ten percent of the money meant for the “aam admi” actually reached the intended group. In Nepal, the “Sudan scandal,” in which more than 60 percent of the funds went into the pockets of officials and probably their political patrons and bosses, is a case in point. Whenever an occasion arises to approve a file and sanction funds, corrupt eyes and tongues have the habit of planning to warm the pockets, whatever the consequences for the general people, society as a whole and the nation. Without a powerful backing from influential people, high-stake corruption does not take place. When the unanimity among Nepalese is that corruption has reaches a new peak in the Loktantra years, why is it that no pressing charges are made against political bigwigs? Because it affects the politically big and boastful who make loud claims and have the power to queer the pitch of the governors of the day. The current anti-corruption drive is a farce. Don’t add insult to the sufferings of the public by creating pretences and taking actions in fits and starts. The big sharks are let off the hook far too often to make any significant dent in the corruption scale. Except for the Sudan scandal, no new major corruption case has been pursued in the past six years. In the past seven years, the biggest scandal would be the “3000 ex-combatants” of the Maoist mould that never were at the cantonments supposedly placed under the supervision of the now-discredited United Nations Mission in Nepal. The money lost from the state exchequer amounts to over Rs. 6 billion. A few individuals collecting the salaries and allowances of all the inmates at the cantonments itself was wrong. The Nepali Congress and the CPN (UML) are the most to blame, for they had their men as finance ministers for most of the time. No senior political leader in the Loktantrik years has faced any inquiry into the sources of their new lifestyles. No one dare investigate the Maoists. Much of the funds grossly misused come from foreign donors who have been exercising influence through proxies with hardly any restraint on their public statements and access to decision-makers in the government of Nepal. The merry-go-round makes the promises aimed at corruption control a farce. Only smaller fries are investigated. In terms of cases investigated, the Maoists would appear to be incorruptible. But would the Nepalese people believe so? The organized groups of politicos have thus held the vast majority of the people hostage. Without a culture of sane voices speaking the truth without being prodded exclusively by calculations aimed at promoting their own individual agendas, things are bound to grow worse. (The writer can be reached at: trikalvastavik@yahoo.com) nnnn