The week that the capital's traffic cops started arresting jaywalkers, towing away illegally parked cars, and demolishing hooch shops along the Ring Road, they also inducted radar guns. Problem was that while testing the contraptions on Tundikhel's perimeter the other night, the only vehicles found to be speeding were APF pickups escorting ministers. Reminds the Ass of the time they got those fancy emission testers, then stuck the probe into the rear end of the prime minister's chariot, which promptly failed the test.

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Speaking of radar, the airport's radar is kaput again, so airline schedules have gone haywire this week. This time it looks like the malfunction was caused by the invasion of rhesus monkeys at Tree-baboon International Airport (courtesy Nomadgal). The Simian Attack follows the Earthworm Terror some time back, which was followed by a Wild Boar Incursion on the runway. The donkey has alerted folks about all kinds of monkey business at the airport in this column, but nothing like what is happening now. Question is whether all the monkeying around with radar is going to delay Karin and Samrat's flight out this weekend.

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As UNMIN lowers its flag for the last time at the Conventional Centre on Friday, the Mule has finally figured out why no one seems unduly panicked about the monitors packing their bags and scattering off to bring peace and tranquility to other world hotspots. The reason is that everyone knows that the real guns and the real guerrillas were never in the UN-monitored camps. Most battle-hardened fighters were converted into YCLs long ago, and they rampaged all over the place in the past three years. They kept their M-16s, GPMGs and RPGs in barracks in towns and cities scattered across the country.

Everyone else knew this, but played along with the charade because the Junglis threatened to go back to the jungles. NC knew, UML knew, even the Maoists knew, and they knew we knew. What the UN was monitoring, therefore, was a recruitment centre where teen cadre went through military training and got an allowance for three years, and the UN monitors monitored all this through CCTV cameras.

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That reminds me: Chinese state television should change its acronym so it doesn't sound like the Communist Party has its entire country under closed circuit surveillance. Besides UNMIN, the other people with CCTVs in Nepal are the folks at the Department of Transportation, which installed the devices to monitor the driving test process after reports that even a vision-impaired person managed to bribe officials to get a license. The number of people who passed their driving tests dropped by half after the closed circuit cameras were installed. This was a source of worry for everyone up and down the line who got a cut from kickbacks. Including, it seems, the Transported Minister who recently got the department head removed for not removing the CCTV camera.

Just a passing thought, if the cameras were so effective in reducing corruption why not install them in all the ministerial chambers in Singha Darbar also?

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The 'red' carpet treatment BRB got in Delhi had nothing to do with his commie convictions. South Blocked was obviously sending a msg to Brother Number One back in KTM by lavishing all kinds of state honours, including audiences with movers and shakers. It worked brilliantly because PKD's hypertension shot through the roof of the Pistachio Palace. Now that BRB is flying off to Mumbai next, El Caudillo is reportedly angling for any invite from any Injun thinktank so he can also come back and say that India has nothing against a Maoist-led govt. But where it sort of backfired on BRB was that the India visit only confirmed what PKD has been saying all along to his cadre: that his deputy is an Indian lackey.

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The caretaker govt has proved once again that it has its priorities right by declaring Friday a horriday on the occasion of the launch of Nepal Tourism Year. Another government-declared bund, way to go. An idea to make Friday a grand success would be to turn TIA into an even bigger zoo than it already is by inducting more fauna to complement monkeys already in residence. How about translocating some rhinos into the arrival concourse, crocs would love to sun themselves in the drainage ditch near the apron, and we could replace the human hyenas at immigration with real hyenas. We don't need vultures because there are already lots of them at the pre-paid taxi stand. This way arriving tourists in 2011 could get a glimpse of Nepal's amazing biodiversity in a microcosm.