I read your paper every week but try to avoid reading Mr Lal's column. I can't figure out what he is writing or for whom, and it is impossible to reach any conclusions from his writing. In his last column ("No time for games," #83) he makes the vague statement: "An army that had virtually no experience in fighting an insurgency was doing so in a terrain designed to favour guerrillas." Who did he expect to bring to fight-Indians? Americans? Most of our army's training is done in such terrain. A less informed person might imagine from Mr Lal's article that the Nepali army trains in farmlands in the tarai. Mr Lal seems to be the one expecting quick results.

Does Mr Lal try to please all political parties by repeating in every column that the elite have hindered democracy? Twelve years of multiparty democracy, and we haven't yet seen development. How many more years before we have land, liberty and the right to live? Mr Lal may not be aware but time is the one thing our country does not have. Democracy has failed us terribly. We need a newer system devised by our people and for our people. If that too doesn't work, we shouldn't hesitate to throw it out. That
for me is the definition of democracy.

Arun Khadka
By email