Kanak Mani Dixit's thought-provoking article "Yasser Arafat, Govinda Mainali and us" (#88) is one of the best pieces that I have read in the Nepali Times. I have myself authored not one, but several articles on the impact on Nepal of state elections in India and the peace process in Sri Lanka in The Rising Nepal and The Kathmandu Post. After staying in Jhapa for two months, I prepared a voluminous report on the status of the Lhotsampa refugees.

On the issue of the 1950 Treaty revision too, several committees have submitted their report and recommendations ultimately culminating in then Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa presenting a draft of the treaty to the government of India. But Dixit is right that our academia has never thought it important to focus on these issues by seriously pondering their impact on Nepal. We must really make a departure from the mindset that relishes the closed assumptions of the past.

Nishchal N Pandey
Bishalnagar

Kanak Mani Dixit is right. We lack scholars and intellectuals to comment on issues close to home like Tibet, Bihar, Bangladesh, and Gorkhaland, for instance. The lack of intellectuals and scholars means all we do is depend on foreign media to analyse events going on in our own backyard. Our own media isn't very analytical and investigative. All they do is make opinion based on propaganda.

We need more scholarly journalists and specialists who can analyse and give the public different views and opinions through an unbiased media. Only then can we have a flow of knowledge, opinions and people who will be more open to ideas and can be educated.

Kailash Thapa,
Minneapolis, USA