Demonstration Effect

Sep 17th 2009 | KATHMANDU
From The Economist print edition

LIGHTING Kathmandu with torches by night, protesters have been darkening it by day. Wherever Madhav Kumar Nepal, the prime minister, and his cabinet go, they are greeted by angry Maoists brandishing black flags. A political stand-off is worsening, threatening the fragile peace that has prevailed in Nepal since the end in 2006 of the Maoists’ ten-year insurgency.

September 11th saw the biggest demonstration since May, when Pushpa Kamal Dahal (formerly known as Prachanda), the Maoist leader, resigned as prime minister and took his party into opposition. In a speech to a flag-waving crowd of about 15,000, many in red bandannas, he recalled the 40 demands he made in 1996 to the then government. Its mistake, he said, was to ignore them. Now he has 45.

The implied threat of renewed insurrection may be a bluff. But it shows how bad the Maoists’ relations with Mr Nepal’s ruling coalition have become. Mr Dahal had two objectives: to placate restive party activists still waiting for a revolution; and to leave room for a negotiated outcome.

The Maoists have been protesting ever since May. Mr Dahal resigned when he was thwarted in his attempt to sack the army chief, General Rookmangud Katawal, over his refusal to accept the integration of some 20,000 former Maoist fighters into the national army. General Katawal, who has since retired, was reinstated by the president. The Maoists allege this was unconstitutional and have been demanding a parliamentary debate about it.

The chances of a return to war remain slight. But Mr Nepal’s fragile 22-party coalition is running out of time to find a compromise, as the Maoists, who have blockaded parliament since May, step up their protests, and demonstrate at every government event. In some districts they have begun to set up parallel local governments. This week a Maoist-affiliated trade union shut some private secondary schools across the country for four days. In Kathmandu riot police have responded to protests with bamboo sticks and tear-gas.

Having marginalised themselves, the Maoists now want to lead the government again. They won more seats than any other party in last year’s elections for the constituent assembly. Many analysts believe their inclusion in government is essential for the peace process. But they are not satisfied with a partnership in the coalition, which is all Mr Nepal’s ruling centre-left party has offered them so far. Mr Nepal has also accused the Maoists of trying to split both his party and the coalition. It is just possible that the Maoists will agree to join the coalition under a leader other than Mr Nepal, and that talks due as The Economist was going to press, between the Maoists and the two biggest parties in the ruling coalition, break the deadlock.

Despite the political stalemate, some ground has been made in recent weeks. The constituent assembly, which is supposed to write a constitution for the young republic, has managed to elect a new chairman for the main drafting committee, suspended since May. And the Maoists, who say they will not block the peace process, have agreed to sit on the committee responsible for merging the armies, which intends to complete the job in six months. But it has yet to agree on if or how the former fighters are to be integrated into the army. Until it does, and until a way is found to bring the Maoists back into government, a durable peace will remain elusive.

Thousands Cheer On The Fierce One At Maoist Rally

More than ten thousand turned up at a mass meeting in Ratna Park to listen to Maoist leader Prachanda make an address. It is the largest demonstration since the protests in May following his resignation as prime minister.

Prachanda (his nom-de-guerre, meaning “the fierce one”) wants his party to lead the next government and has made a 45-point set of demands, but his tone today was also somewhat conciliatory.

He told the audience that they would not fight now, but said that the strength of the party should not be underestimated. We have thousands of guns and thousands of soldiers, so “don’t think of the Maoists as a joke,” he said.

“If we are not allowed to lead a national government again we’ll create a storm of popular movement,” he said. “If we want to we can stop the whole nation, we can hold a strike for a month”.

Stressing that now was not the time to return to arms, he said now was a time for the government to listen to their party and for a peaceful resolution.

He joked about Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who was defeated in Consitutional Assembly (CA) elections last year.

“He was defeated twice and he is prime minister. If he was defeated three times he would be president,” he said, to cheers and laughs.

Analysts have been saying for four months now that it is essential that the Maoists are brought back into the government.

M.K. Nepal has told media that he is willing to offer them cabinet posts, but has said he would not step down to allow them to lead the government again.

But while consensus continues to allude the leaders of the three main parties, stalemate persists.

Geri Stirs Up Controversy After Prime Minister Kiss

The Times of India has reported that the kiss that Geri Halliwell gave to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has roused up controversy among Nepal’s more conservative citizens.

Whatever gossip there was, it wasn’t reported in the English language Nepali papers. But apparently the Naya Patrika tabloid had questioned whether it was appropriate or not for Geri to grasp Nepal’s hand and peck him on the cheek.

While the normal greeting in Kathmandu is Namaste and either a bow or a handshake, cheek kissing is not uncommon among some circles in the capital, so I’m not sure what the fuss is about. But I’m sure Geri doesn’t want the same publicity as Richard Gere got in India not that long ago.

My favourite quote in the Times of India is the medical perspective on the kiss.

“Kissing and hugging a foreigner is not exactly the right way to spread awareness [of swine flu]”, says Ram B Kumar, a lecturer at Kathmandu Medical College.

Too right. He might set off a really bad trend of cheek-kissing and hugging, infecting everyone in Nepal.

Prachanda To Address Kathmandu Rally

Maoist leader and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) will address an audience of supporters at Ratna Park in central Kathmandu on Friday afternoon.

The party, which holds the highest number of seats in the constitutional assembly, has been protesting since Prachanda resigned following a failed bid to sack the former army chief, General Katawal. However their protests have so far been relatively small or held away from the capital.

Commentators, such as Prachant Jha in the Nepali Times, says the Maoists are trying to push the pressure points of the government using a number of tactics. They have not held mass protests in Kathmandu or imposed bandhs (strikes) because such loud measures could lose them support.

Instead they are working behind the scenes, strengthening their party internally, as well as holding small meetings and protests. In some areas, local governance structures have been reportedly created by the Maoists, similar to their parallel government during the insurgency.

The party got itself in hot water last week when Indian priests at the holy Pashupatinath temple were attacked during a Maoist-led protest of their appointments. It has not aided relations between the party and India, which has always held suspicions of the left-wing former rebel group.

Meanwhile, they are trying to indicate they are aiding the peace process by allowing the integration committee, in charge of the fate of the former Maoist cadres currently held in camps, to resume.

They are also agreeing, at an official level at least, to the discharge of disqualified combatants. The decision was made to rehabilitate and release 4,008 minors and disqualified cadres from the camps in July, but the process has not made much progress.

Let’s see what happens at today’s event.

Ginger Spice Visits Rural Nepalese Villages

The 37 year old former spice girl is in Nepal to raise awareness of women’s rights and maternal healthcare as part of her role as a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

During her four day trip, Geri Halliwell said she had visited remote villages in Nepal and met with women in a safe-house who had been raped or rescued from being sold across the border for prostitution.

She also met women suffering from ailments such as uterine prolapse, a painful medical condition where a woman’s uterus slips from its normal position during or after childbirth.

In Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, women have little access to maternal healthcare and have a 1 in 31 lifetime risk of maternal death.

“We have come a long way but there is a lot to do as far as bringing women into the twenty-first century,” she said at a press conference in the capital, Kathmandu, looked on by her boyfriend Henry Beckwick, 30.

Maternal health issues, she says, do not receive widespread attention because they are viewed as “too clinical”.

“Some of the topics concerning maternal health care are not the most glamourous, they are not the most cute, they are not the most cosy, they are not the most media-friendly,” she said. But, she added, “Is it fair that a woman should die giving life?”

“I live in Britain I have to say I am absolutely privileged and grateful to have a national health system and if anything goes wrong, there is a safety net.

“But when I see women out in the fields that are beyond the base line of poverty that can’t get to a hospital, and they have to walk 60 miles to receive any maternal health care when they are heavily pregnant, my god my heart goes out to them,” she said.

She praised the Nepali women she had met in the Kapiluvastu district as “full of courage”.

The star, who has a two-year old daughter called Bluebell, has been involved with the campaign for more than ten years.

Around 1 in 10 women in Nepal suffer from uterine prolapses, struggling with basic activities and living in constant pain, according to the UNFPA.

Left untreated, the uterus can slip completely outside the body. Many require surgery but cannot afford the operation, which costs US$350. One third of Nepal’s population live on less than one dollar a day.

See Joanna Jolly’s coverage for the BBC here

Boy Genius Makes Solar Panel Using Hair

I did this story last week for Barcroft media agency and today it made the Daily Mail in the UK.

Nepalese teen Milan Karki has invented a cheap solar panel using human hair instead of expensive silicon bridges and says it is the answer to the developing world’s energy crisis.

The eighteen year old is clearly a genius. In my interview last week, he told me he was inspired by Stephen Hawking’s books and wanted to be Thomas Edison.

Personally, I would definitely put bets on him being the next Edison.

He wants to upscale his model and sell it commercially, perhaps with the backing of a technology for development NGO.

Links to the story
Daily Mail
Gizmodo
Inventor Spot
Nine MSN

Behind the science: Climate change and the Himalayas

Kathmandu was swamped with scientists last week as climate change experts from around the world gathered at the Hyatt hotel for a regional conference ahead of the UN Copenhagen summit in December.

But what is the effect of climate change on the Himalayan region? We’ve all heard of global warming and melting glaciers and most of us understand the basic physics linking plastic bags and petrol to sinking islands and increasing natural disasters. But exactly how will global warming have an impact on South Asia’s poor?

The issue is more complex than many realise. Myself included.

Here is a beginner’s guide:

– Temperatures are rising in Nepal and the Himalayas at a higher rate than the global average. Studies show an increase of 0.6 degrees per decade in Nepal compared to 0.74 degrees globally over the past one hundred years. Research shows that temperatures rise increasingly as elevation increases.

– As could be expected, therefore, glaciers are retreating. As glaciers are not all the same, they are not all retreating at the same rate. Their volume, location, etc, all contribute to the rate of retreat, which can be between 0 and 70 metres per glacier per decade. In case you are wondering, ‘retreat’ basically means how far a glacial terminus has moved.

– It should also be noted that some glaciers have been found to be expanding but this could also be due to global warming.

– As glaciers melt and the snow line moves up, hazards such as debris fall, landslides and avalanches may increase. Mountain communities will be highly vulnerable.

– Increased pressure could cause glacial lakes to ‘burst’, which would cause a tsunami, devastating surrounding villages.

– Studies show increased variations in precipitation, meaning some areas will become drier and others wetter. It also means there will be more extremes, in other words floods and droughts.

– Due to this, agricultural produce will be affected. The Asian Development Bank forecasts agricultural yields will decrease significantly. Maize, for example, will fall by 17% by 2050s. Obviously this will impact those who rely on agriculture for their livelihoods (which include more than two thirds of Nepal)

– Agriculture will also become more susceptible to new insect infestations and changing seasons

– Dry spells mean forest fires will increase and a large number of species will be threatened

– Water comes from rainfall, snowfall and glaciers; how much glaciers contribute to river volume (streamflow) remains unknown. Therefore, as glaciers melt, no-one knows what will happen to rivers. Most projections estimate the contribution from glaciers to streamflow as between 2 and 50 per cent.

– Therefore there is not enough research to be able to accurately predict what these changes will mean with regard to water resources, but scientists say it will have a profound impact

– Many say, as glaciers melt, there will be a period of plentitude followed by a period of scarcity of water. Such changes could happen remarkably quickly, with the water drying up over a matter of decades.

– On the ground, Nepalese famers say groundwater is depleting, weather is more unpredictable than ever, and seasons are changing; these are in line with what the science is forecasting, but there is no direct evidential link

But please note the caveats:

– So far, research on glaciers has mainly used satellite imagery to measure the fluctuations of glacial areas. They are all saying much of the same thing, but such studies fail to account for the complexity of the glaciers in terms of volume (mass-balance), location and so on

– There is a huge knowledge gap in terms of what has and has not been researched

– With the highest peaks in the world, physical terrain makes research difficult and costly

For more information, visit the website of International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)