So it looks like His Majesty's Government is finally giving in to the 15-point demand of Non-resident Nepalis, and allowing them to have dual citizenship.

Good move. Although one wonders, if a Nepali passport was such a sought after item, why did they leave Nepal in the first place?

Then comes news that just this month two members of a government delegation in Oslo have vanished without trace, and three members of the Nepali Asian World Cup Qualifier football team have decided to stay on in Seoul. Put these two items of news together, we have to conclude that if present trends continue, in the not too distant future, there will be only two kinds of Nepalis left:

a. Non-resident Nepalis who want to permanently reside in Nepal, and
b. Nepalis who want to permanently reside in a non-Nepali country.

After the grand success of the first Non-Residual Nepali Conference, and seeing how smoothly it was conducted, it is pretty clear what we have to do: let NRNs run this country on a Build Own Operate Transfer (BOOT) scheme for 25 years. A NRN world headquarters is now being set up in Kathmandu, and the terms of reference for overseas Nepali subcontractors to govern this country has been drawn up.

The idea is to leapfrog the current generation of Nepali leaders who have messed things up, turn this country around in the forthcoming two decades and hand it back to the next generation of Nepalis in an as-where-is condition. Fine print: conditions apply, overseas relatives of current rulers not eligible.

But till then, HMG has shown that it is deadly serious about providing incentives to NRNs who want to invest in their ancestral domain. After all, there is an ancient Vedic saying: "NRN is God". (We checked with God, and he has no objections to the slogan.) As a first step, and in response to widespread complaints from overseas Nepalis, the Department of Immigration has decided to open a special fast-track NRN immigration desk at TIA so foreign Nepali investors don't have to queue up like ordinary Nepalis just returning from four years of hard labour in the Gulf.

"This is a major concession, we haven't extended this courtesy to anyone else, not even NRN ex-prime ministers," said one official.

However, in the national interest, a word of caution here. There are certain sensitive sectors like Defence, Aerospace and Breweries in which His Majesty's Government cannot have foreigners (even if they are of Nepali origin) investing. Other domestic sectors which need protection and should be kept out of bounds for NRN investment are strategic industries like instant noodles, brick kilns, cabin restaurants, packaging clinker and calling it cement and Rs 99 shops. These are industries where resident Nepalis have already staked their claim, and any further competition would benefit consumers and therefore cannot be allowed.

But certain exceptions can be made, and the government is now set to approve NRN applications to set up the following industries, and will assist in lining up venture capital soft-credit financing for them:

. White Elephant Technical University for Overseers and Civil Contractors,
Rato Pool, Kathmandu
"Make others drool by learning to build your own white elephant"

. Fly By Night Airlines, Pvt. Ltd.,
Sat Dobato, Kathmandu
"Bhadrapur or Bust. Fly Nepal's First Night Vision-Equipped Domestic Airline"

. Kinky Cheese Curl Industries, Banepa
"Nepal's Most-Nutritious Junk Food Manufactured in Technical Cooperation with Second-generation People of Non-Resident Nepali Origin"

. Monkey Business Export-Import, Inc., Swayambhu and Pashupati
"We provide one-way tickets and US business visas for all rhesus monkeys and their spouses for research purposes in Texas"