JOGIMARA

It is such a sad and terrible thing to hear about the bereaved people of Jogimara 'I weep at night' (#364). I felt so moved after going through the column and hearing that the government, instead of compensating the bereaved families, have tagged them as terrorists. Don't they feel sorry for the families of the dead? Are those who were killed not Nepali citizens? Can't the dead rest in peace? Thanks to Mohan Mainali and Nepali Times for a great job in covering the plight of these innocents.

Ravi Lama,
email

YOGI IS RIGHT

Yogi Adityanath is right ('Nepal should be a Hindu rastra again', #365). Only then will there be peace there. Hindus are naturally secular, and as long as there was King Birendra there was peace in the Himalayan kingdom. Secularism is unsuitable, because we know the kind of sham secularism being practised in India for vested interests.

G V,
email

MADHES
The articles and interviews by Prashant Jha ('The Gorakhpur Connection', #365) are brilliant, with well weaved-in analysis and insights. Great work.

Ruhit Tewari,
email

jai nepal

I am in total agreement with Maura Moynihan ('Jai Nepal', #365). Compulsive optimism like this is in short supply. We need more reminders like this to infuse ourselves with well-deserved pride that our history, heritage, and uniqueness rightfully affords us. In contrast to nations around the world, patience and tolerance is still plentiful in our Nepalese society. And these characters will ultimately help us through the process of re-inventing Nepal. Let the bouts of dysentery only cripple those Kathmandu cocktail circuiters who dampen our optimism.

Arun Neupane

. Looking at the events of recent weeks (beating up UML cadres, coming up with absurd preconditions) makes it clear that Maoists are the major obstacles to the election. How absurd that they blame the king as the numero uno problem when they are creating havoc. What mechanisms are there to punish those who derail elections? UNMIN, these things are more important than your innocent sounding adverts on the FM. Somebody needs to discipline the Maoists or anyone for that matter, or else it will be ganglords running the election instead of the election commission.

Name withheld,
email

. Someone should do an audit of how much cash and valuables were looted by the Maoists from the banks during the decade long insurgency. Nepal Telecom should tell us how much they lost when telephone towers were bombed. How many teachers were murdered? If the Maoists think they will have easy passage in future, they are dead wrong. Nepalis will never support terrorism. The root cause of political instability in Nepal is not poverty, illiteracy, or corruption, but rather an utter lack of a democratic mindset among Nepal's politicians. Who gave Prachanda, Girija Koirala or Madhab Nepal the right to decide whether the country should be a republic? Who gave Upendra Yadav the right to sign a deal regarding an autonomous state for the tarai? Don't we need to ask these questions to the Nepali people and find out what that they think? Isn't that what democracy is about? The elections are an opportunity for the people to speak up. Nepal Times hasn't written enough on how to make the constituent assembly free and fair.

Anand Jha,
by email

GOBAR

Naresh Newar's article 'GOBAR' (#364) mentions that it will benefit Nepal if forest-protection is included in carbon-credit mechanism as a COP-13 outcome of Bali-December 2007. Getting benefit is good but caution is needed. We should not leave any room for too much excuse by industrialised nations in the name of preserving forest in developing countries and shying away from reducing actual in-country emissions. Less emphasis on cutting in-house emissions but zeroing on carbon sequestration (which is uncertain and controversial) is cheating. Remember, the key goal is to reduce carbon concentration in air.

Shobhakar Dhakal,
Tsukuba, Japan