BIKRAM RAI
Just like the Tihar palette (top), the country’s top leaders are trying to find a way to craft a new constitution that will embrace all identities without undermining national unity. Senior leaders of the three main parties meeting at Gokarna Resort (above) over the holidays have so far failed to come up with a compromise between single-identity based federalism and the territorial model. But if the ruling NC-UML coalition agrees to increase the proportional representation ratio in future elections to make them more inclusive, it could convince the Maoist-Madhesi opposition about the rationale for fewer federal units based on geography.