The weekly Donkey just can't figure out why we are working ourselves into a frothing frenzy about Girija and his Baby King proposal. After all he sent up that trial balloon in February which your loyal Ass had duly pricked. Putting Princess Sruti's daughter on the throne may do the trick, but even that is iffy.
This may be an opportune moment for kingji to start making alternative plans. There are plenty of examples of monarchs who have gone back to being commoners. With his significant assets, our businessman king may actually have a headstart in investing and creating jobs for Nepalis. Even as a tyrant, KingG wasn't very successful, he may actually make not a bad tycoon.
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So why does our kingmaker prime minister keep prying open his monarchist can of worms, especially in front of Pakistani journalists of all people? Our prime minister may be President Carter's hero, but he is flogging a dead horse.And what are the Paki journalists doing here, anyways, shouldn't they be back home struggling for their own freedom? Apparently they were here to lobby FNJ to make a strong statement about freedom of press (or lack thereof) in Pakistan. FNJ obliged and dashed off a self-righteous statement which brought a swift rebuke from Islamabad suggesting FNJ mind its own business.
Here, for once, the Ass's sympathies are with the Pakistanis. At a time when Nepali journalists are being internally displaced, getting death threats from criminal gangs, and newspapers have been forced by Baddies to suspend publication, FNJ's should be protecting our own freedom first.
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The Ass does give credit where it is due once in a while, and this week it must go to Comrade Hasiya who is probably the only member of the cabinet showing some strategic thinking through her Ministry of Psychological Planning and Deconstruction. She has just released a 'Vision Document' for the next two years to finish the Midhill East-West Highway, construct North-South road corridors, and push a Strategic Road Network.Ms Yummy has gone to the heart of the issue and drawn up a realistic do-able plan. The only thing left for her now is to ask various Maoist-affiliated unions to stop blockading at the slightest pretext with bunds, chucka jams, blockades, and general strikes those very highways she aims to construct.
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So what's with us ethnocentric Nepalis when we go abroad? Hanging out at the waterfront in Doha or Kowloon, exactly as we do on the Bagmati bridge. Gulf employers aren't great about labour rights, so our diaspora comrades went on strike with a 15-point demand and promptly got deported.Next time, they'll probably burn tyres, mistaking Daharan for Dharan and call for a Saudi-wide bund. Even on the US west coast a certain janajati group decided to set up its own association to differentiate it from other bahun-dominated groupings. However, the registration process had to be abandoned when the convernors found out that only three of the 400 prospective members were legally in America.
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So who cares if Unicef\'s South Asia Office in Kathmandu is thinking of moving to Bangkok? It is just following the grand UN tradition of shunting offices around the region as if it was a game of Chinese checkers. ROSA will be following in the illustrious footsteps of UNFPA, UNAIDS and various UNDP projects. However absurd, at least some of them moved from one part of the subcontinent to another. Now, they are moving a South Asia office to East Asia. What next: taking the SAARC Secretariat to Singapore?.....
Anyone planning to fly out on Formerly-royal Nepal Airlines in the coming weeks, don't say the Ass didn't warn you about humungous delays. Between the ministry, the eight-party cabinet and kNACk management no one can agree on who is going to get the cut on a new plane lease and the contract to overhaul the airline's spare Rolls Royce RB211 jet engine lying in a Hong Kong hangar. If all this sounds like the mid-1990s, you're right, our democracy is back to Square One. Time to put the flag-carrier out of its misery and start afresh. 
