CK Lal's column ("In a soft state," 85) is nugatory, jejune and fraught with muddled thinking. By ranting against Nepal's alleged soft state, Lal unwittingly advocates an authoritarian state. And, what is most galling, he still pontificates that change has to begin from the bottom. Since when have authoritarian states, those monstrosities of top-down models started to encourage bottom-up democratic processes? There has to be another way out of our current political stalemate, Mr Lal, for the medicine you propose is as bad as the disease, if not worse.

Heera Shrestha
Sydney