BIKASH DWARE

If there was any doubt that Nepal's Maoists are inspired from El Norte, then Comrade Supersonic's statement to the Stand-up Committee the other day should dispel all doubts. The chairman said: "The party has now taken a one party two systems approach." This could either signal PKD's inability to rein in Baidya Ba, or it could mean that the party is deliberately playing good-cop-bad-cop and keeping both options open (take to the house, or take to the streets) in case things fall apart on 27 May. And if figuring this out wasn't complicated enough, comes word that the Hardline Faction has itself split between those who want to split (Radical Hardliners) and those who want to just pressurise the Baddie Brass (Moderate Hardliners). If the party does split, the Ass has come up with a cunning way for the UCPN-M to retain its acronym by calling itself the Un-united Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist.

Shh, don't tell anyone that Awesome's most-trusted former guerrillas are now part of his intelligence apparatus, and his spies have infiltrated other party headquarters and even gone undercover into the hardline faction. In sting operations with hidden cameras, they record what is said in closed-door meetings and the recordings are at the disposal of Comrade Almighty by evening. Wonder if PKD himself is being spied upon by anyone else during his hush-hush meetings with kingG and the secret confabs with Comrades Sitaula, Gyawali, Amreso, Jayant and Laldhoj & Co?

This Tweet just in: It was bound to happen sooner or later, the price of a litre of petrol in #Nepal has now caught up with the price of beer. This probably means motorcyclists will be driving less, and drinking more.

And it looks like the Traffic Police's crackdown on drunk drivers is yielding dividend: literally. At a press conference that other day to demonstrate the efficacy of the newly-acquired breathalyser sets during which "volunteers" were requested to imbibe alcohol and then blow into the tube, police said fines from tipsy drivers have now overtaken fines from illegal parking and other traffic offences. Together, the alcohol and seat belt fines have now become the single biggest source of revenue for the police. Advice to drunk drivers: don't stop doing what you're doing, otherwise the police may be forced to stop its crackdown on drunk drivers.

Considering the whopping chunk of government revenue that comes from the booze tax, it is conceivable that the fall in alcohol consumption could soon bankrupt the country. Bars and restaurants in The 'Mandu have reported up to 90 per cent drop in business since the anti-drink-and-drive campaign took off. There are rumours, hitherto unconfirmed, that the restaurant and bar association (Rayban) collected four million in cash and passed it on to the political powers-that-be to ease the ban, but without effect. Over Coke the other day, a Rayban member asked the Ass rhetorically: "They took our bribe money and they didn't lift the ban. What is this country coming to? Nothing works anymore."

This week's 'Only In Nepal Award' goes to the news item which reported that a Slovak woman who had been kidnapped by a cult has been slapped with $1,650 fine for "overstaying" in Nepal by the Department of Immitation.