The rate at which luxury condos are being added to the Kathmandu skyline and the fact that the penthouses have been sold out even before they are built must mean two things: a) the World Bank is right about Nepal's poverty rate going down, or b) the rich are getting richer. Either way, it will mean a bonanza for the sales agents of generator manufacturers since the jacuzzis in those units will need plenty of power.
...
The Ass had reported recently on how some areas are getting a double whammy because when there is water, there is no power and when there is power there is no water. There seem to be numerous variations on this theme, as some of you Ass fans have pointed out. When there is power in the office, the server of the ISP packs up because it doesn't have a four hour UPS, and when the ISP has power, the office doesn't. Another observant reader postulates that there is an inverse correlation between electricity and diesel. When you have one, you don't have the other. Everyone who'd bought a 35kVA diesel generator to tide over the electricity shortage still has no power because the country has now run out of diesel.
And the iconic video image of contemporary SPA-governed Nepal is a truck filling up at the gas station where the pump is being powered by a diesel generator because there is no electricity.
Who says Nepal doesn't have oil? Nepal is actually a net exporter of fuel to India as the Ass noticed during a recent petrol patrol along the southern frontier. There is of course the firewood crossing the border, but besides that there are hundreds of bicycles with plastic jerry cans heading out every day to sell our subsidised fuel in India. The Indians should resume petrol and diesel supplies to Nepal forthwith because by stopping it they are just depriving their own citizens of fuel.
...
Ironies never cease in the New Nepal. Five Panchayat-era 'development regions' are still intact despite our deep inroads into republicanism. Each of these regions has a Radio Nepal transmission station which is under 24-hour protection by the ex-royal Army even though the Ministry of Information (MINFO) that controls the station is now in Maoist hands and the YCL produces its current affairs programs. So, who is the army protecting the transmission towers from? How about redeploying them to guard our borders against encroachment instead?
...
As we approach the mirage of elections, the big question is whether Comrade Lotus Blossom and Comrade Rambabu actually control the young commies. To get a hint, one has to listen to the directives Awesome gave his cadre in Chitwan last week in which he said: "If we don't win these elections, we will take power by force." Ahem, did you hear that, whoever-it-is-who-is-here-to-monitor-elections? Of course, when Awesome was confronted about this later he denied ever having said it-"in exactly those words".
Meanwhile, the YCL is already in campaign mode by setting fire to Indian vehicles, ransacking colleges that refuse to contribute to party coffers and closing down shampoo companies. Can all this happen without a directive right from the party leadership? The baddies are also on a recruiting spree of village goondas all over the country, and are arming them with latthis painted red. Red Sticks will be standing outside polling booths telling voters which way to vote, or else. The baddie top brass can't say they don't know since they are campaigning in various parts of the country even as we speak.
Finally Kingji breaks his silence to speak to sympathetic Nepali and Japanese media. "Is that so?" his erstwhile majesty asks, feigning ignorance, when informed by an interviewer if he knew that the interim constitution had declared the monarchy null and void. But he seems fully apprised of poll results, and as usual mistakes support for monarchy as support for him.
ass(at)nepalitimes.com
