As we get ready to celebrate new year 2025, it is also a time for us as a nation to take stock of how far we have advanced since the early part of this century when we were lost in the political wilderness of the Old Regime.

In hindsight, it seems ridiculous, almost comic, how we blundered around aimlessly burning tyres in the streets in those na?ve days of the new millennium. But today, as we get ready to usher in 2025 and celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Regression and 40 Years of the Great People's War we pay tribute to the political myopia and official narrow-mindedness that has made Nepal what it is today.

Sometimes it feels like we are caught in a timewarp as we remember how in 2005 we willingly and whole-heartedly agreed to sacrifice our individual freedoms that we had misused for so long in return for the peace and silence that we have today under the Dear Helmsman. The last 20 years have shown that however low a country sinks, however chaotic its past, as the Carpenters said, tomorrow will always be brighter than today and yesterday all our troubles seemed so far away. Or was it the Beatles?

Anyway, to mark the anniversary, we reprint with permission a selection of news items from the front page of the 1 January, 2025 edition of The Still Rising Nepal daily:

Far-Out Ring Road To Be Built
The government is leaving no stone turning over to start construction of the Far-Out Ring Road under grant assistance from the government of the Faroe Islands.

Officials at the Department of Potholes said the Far-Out Ring Road was not a luxury but a necessity because the Outer Ring Road completed in 2007 had now become too congested. The new ring road will connect the satellite housing colonies that have come up on the summits of the mountains peaks on the valley rim, including Phulchoki, Shivapuri, Nagarjun and Chandragiri.

Said the official, "It is going to be a highway in the true sense of the term and a marvel of civil engineering."

Helmsman Felicitates Kim Jong Il
On the occasion of the National Day of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Helmsman has sent a message of felicitation to Dear Old Leader, Kim Jong II. In the message, the Helmsman has extended warm wishes for the personal happiness and continued prosperity of the people of the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. He further stated that Nepal and North Korea had a lot in common these days, and hoped that the bonds of amity and cooperation between the two great nations would be further strengthened in the years to come as they embarked on joint nuclear weapons tests while battling imperialism and hunger.

Girija To Stand Again
The Nepali Congress Central Committee meeting today decided unanimously to allow 102-year-old Girija Prasad Koirala to stand for Party President for the Tenth Term.

"He is going to stand but in consideration of his advanced years, we are going to allow him to sit," said his cousin, Sushil Koirala, 99. He added that Mr Koirala had convinced them that the NC would splinter again for the 14th time in as many years if he didn't once more take up leadership of the party that is synonymous with democracy. He added: "Considering the regression has lasted 25 years, we must carry on burning effigies in Ratna Park. If we don't who will?"