THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

VOTING FOR THE ANT AND OTHER NEPALI VOTING STORIES Sushma Joshi I rolled out of bed this morning specifically to vote for the Dog. The Dog is the sign of the Bibeksheel Nepalis—a group of young Nepalis who threw their hats in the ring of politics, with the aim to bring about the some real change in Nepal’s troubling political scene. It was about 10 am perhaps when I got to my voting site. The area was full of people—quiet, respectful and completely engaged, it appeared, in the process of putting in their votes. There was no tension, no violence, no sign of anything but the greatest of engagement and respect for the election process. Which was refreshing, after all the news of violence, threats and intimidation on TV. I had a sense Khil Raj Regmi’s address to the Mantriparishad the night before had something to do with this. For those who saw Mr. Regmi for the first time, they would have been struck first by his complete lack of political savvy. The first thing he did w...

I had a nice long walk in the Baluwate/Chundevi/Maharajgung area in the bandh quietness yesterday. The squalor of the broken, dusty and given-up-for-lost main road gave way to nice winding lanes with trees, neighbourhoods where people had still left space for some bouganville and a jackaranda tree or two, and group of young men discussing the upcoming elections. Women, true to the nature of this election, were not in evidence in public, or in private.  Reading the signs of the election candidates, I realized they were riffing off the main Nepali song. One offered to pursue a republic without federalism. The other offered federalism without a republic.   There seems to be other variations on this theme—federalism with certain features. Federalism without certain features. Republic with this and that. Republic without this or that. Et cetera. There were posters of a few candidates, primarily young women (and one young man), promising to bring about an improvement of ...

ONE MORE ROUND OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY Sushma Joshi I just saw a camel go by in Baluwatar. More precisely, it was a jeep (no doubt one of the 700 diesel emitting vehicles so kindly donated by friendly nation India for our second round of the Constitution Assembly) with a camel plastered on the side. Just like the camel, there’s a lot of unknown parties out there, throwing their hats in the ring. In my own Chetra Number 5, I’m thinking of voting for an independent candidate. It feels like the disillusionment with big party politics has made a large number of unknowns descend on the political playing field, and surely some of them are going to win. I am sick and tired of the old candidates—the UML still has Ishwor Pokharel, who ran last time, and the NC still nominated Narahari Acharya, to run in Number 5. These two men won last time, but   I didn’t see any significant work from their side. Besides a rather forceful bulldozer that arrived and took down two doze...

The most shocking thing about the USA, where I went as a wide-eyed undergraduate at the age eighteen, happened to me on an empty road. A car slowed down as it saw me, and stopped. As I dithered by the pavement, it took me a few minutes to realize—“this car is stopping so I can pass.!” I was stunned. I was stunned because in Nepal cars do not stop for people. In fact, when they see people crossing the road on a zebra crossing, they put their pedal down on the accelerator and speed up so other pedestrians will be scared to cross. In Nepal, the automobile culture of bigger, faster and more expensive has rapidly caught up with the rest of the world, with truck-like SUVs piling into tiny lanes meant for pedestrians. But while the latest SUVs crowd our street, rules and regulations that govern driving in the rest of the world has not caught up. Civility and civic sense is a set of rules that doesn’t come automatically to people, unless it is taught. In the USA, regulations like pa...

My essay "Cheli-Beti" gets quoted in "The Quest for Root Causes of Human Trafficking: A Study on the Experience of Marginalized Groups, with a focus on the Republic of Serbia", a dissertation submitted by Sasa Pouki to the Graduate School-Newark in Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. To read her thesis, as well as for the exact spelling of her name, with the marks that accompany Eastern European alphabet, please open this link to Rutgers University's library. It appears Blogger--at least the version I am using--can't handle Eastern European alphabets. 

“First of all, there is a “fake prosperity” in many China’s cities. Typically, this is a result of over-exploitation of natural resources and blind capital investment. In some cities, borrowing money and selling land to property developers are the only effective ways to raise funds. But this is not sustainable…” the report added." Read the Hindustan Times article , from which the quote above, and below, is taken: “Ordos is the most extreme example of a Chinese housing bubble bursting, with unsold flats, unlet shops and empty office blocks. Most of the new buildings are empty or unfinished,” the report said. While China's government has finally realized that building and building and building can be a destructive act, when will the Nepali government come to the same conclusion? Turning on the nightly news in Nepal is like looking at a horse race amongst cement companies. Each is eager to give gift vouchers, assurances of patriotism, and now free cash. It appears th...

With increasing numbers of Nepalis working in the Gulf in low paying jobs, the dream of every returned migrant is to make a house that mimics the architectural “grandeur” (some could call it tacky ostentation and bad taste) of Gulf architecture. What most Nepalis don’t realize is that the houses they want to build—with blue glass completely enclosing boxlike structures—may be suitable for the deserts of Arabia but is unsuitable for the temperate climate of Kathmandu. Along with the glaring blue glass that is popping up everywhere all over Nepal has come the need for air conditioning, which was not necessary in Kathmandu where the mercury hovered at a moderate temperate climate. Now we have a city that has more waterless desert architecture and less of the lovely architectural wonderland which was set besides lush forests and sparkling rivers. One the temples that is affected by the roadbuilding in Kathmandu. I looked up from New Road , a dense commercial dis...