BY MR JOSSE

Not surprisingly the 1 July 2006 inauguration of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway (QTR) has spawned a flood of both unrealistic hype as well as deep-seated phobia. As Chinese Ambassador Sun Heping disclosed at a lecture on 14 July 2006 organised by the China Study Centre, it is 1,956 km long with 960 km of track located 4,000 metres above sea level, the highest point being at 5,072 metres above sea level. It also runs through a 1686-long tunnel in the Kunlun mountains. ....more

Goodbye August 2006

BY BHIM NARSINGH

Approximately 80,000 Nepalese workers and staunch Maoist supporters in India are planning to return to Nepal in the pretext of Dashain and Tihar festivals. It is rumoured that they have been instructed by Maoists to go to Nepal with intention to carry out street movement after festivals....more

Vaidya conferred HON. DOCTORATE by Philippine University

BY OUR REPORTER

Vijaya Gajananda Vaidya, the prominent businessman, industrialist and who has also made long-standing contributions for environment and conservation, has been conferred with honourary doctorate (Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa) by Central Luzon State University of the Philippines...more

Creativity is next to impossible without self-discipline: Sarubhakta

BY LBTHAPA, POKHARA

Pokhara English Literary Forum (PELF-NEPAL) organized an Inter-School Poetry Recitation Competition the other day in Pokhara, amid a colorful programme. The poetry recitation competition was participated by thirty three private schools of Pokhara. The students vied with each other for clinching the coveted prizes set aside for the winners of first, second and third places respectively...more

My kind of party

BY COCKTAIL MAN

Though the afternoons are still hot, the evening temperature has started to drop to pleasant levels, pleasant, specially to have a nice outdoors party. Last Wednesday, a foreigner friend invited Cocktail Man to a dinner party, which he had hosted in the lawns of a hotel near Jawalakhel. Was impressed by the immaculately looked after garden and specially a row of roses, that seemed to give extra enjoyment to the cool, amiable evening. .... more

Shrinking Options

Of what may be gleaned from Maoist statements after last week’s Kamidanda meet is that there are likely to be three ‘mainstreams’ in the coming days. Political talks the coming days with government may allow for direct participation in government of a section, another will continue their ‘third’ agitation, this time their urban agitation and a third will hold arms claiming the lack of accord. .. more

Nepal-India relations

One among the bad actors as far as Nepal is concerned -- unfortunately a key actor – Shyam Saran, will complete his term as secretary in the External Affairs Ministry of India by September last. Shiv Shankar Menon, the Indian high commissioner in Islamabad has been appointed as the new secretary in the Ministry. He is to take charge of his new office from 1 October. Sharan has been appointed as Prime Minister’s special envoy on India–US negotiations on the civil nuclear deal... more

By PR Pradhan

Clash of Ideologies: Congress and Maoists in Disarray

SHASHI P.B.B. MALLA & RALF NARENDRA B.B. MALLA

It is becoming quite apparent that beside the various agreements and understandings hastily signed between the Congress (as part of the 7-party alliance) and the former Maoist terrorists, there is very little love lost between the two parties. On many substantial issues, the gap between them is widening at an alarming rate. Comrades-in-arms during the short-lived agitation (romanticized as Jan Andolan II or People’s Movement), fueled principally by Maoist man-power, are falling out with each other... more

Speak up, Your Majesty !

BY MAILA BAJE

With the Rayamajhi Commission determined to question King Gyanendra on the "excesses" his government committed against the April Uprising, the next logical question becomes relevant. Will Nepalis finally get to see their citizen king in full public view, perhaps even live on national radio and television, offering answers the commission couldn't get from ex-ministers and officials? ... more

Plans junket to revive NAMUPA does left turn

(Editorial in The Pioneer Daily, India)

On the face of it, the only objection that can be raised about the proposed inclusion of Left MPs in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's delegation to the 14th Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Cuba is that our comrades will be junketing in the garb of promoting out-of-fashion Third Worldism at the... more

WHY KOIRALA?

Representatives of the UN normally present credentials to the foreign minister. But Ian Martin, now promoted inside the UN system and a personal representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, presented his appointment letter to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala when Deputy Prime Minister Amik Serchan was deputizing for KP Sharma Oli who is away in China. Pray, why? Martin's Nepal status has apparently.... more

"India Doctrine"

BY ISHA KHAN

Excerpts from vernacular weeklies and dailies

"United States has never given any opinion in favour of ceremonial monarchy."

(US Ambassador James F. Moriarty, Kantipur, 29 August)

"If either of our countries or friends and allies were threatened at some number of years into the future with a weapons of mass destruction or a capability that was that lethal, I think any president, whether of Russia or the US, would like to have available a conventional weapon that could attack that target swiftly and accurately and not feel that the only thing they had might be a nuclear weapon, which they would not want to use."

(US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on proposal to replace nuclear warheads on ICBMs to hit terrorists, Times of India, 29 August) ... more