UH-OH. Bad timing to set fire to a hydropower plant. Which means we have to invent even more creative ways to generate electricity to cope with increased power cuts this week. The Ass brought together Nepal’s best scientific minds for a brain-storming session and here is what we came up with:
1. Implement weekly load-shedding by zones. For example: Eastern Development Region (Mon, Wed, Fri), Central Development Region (Tue, Thurs, Sat), Western Development Region (Thu, Sun, Tue) etc. The beauty of this plan is that the schedule can be immediately transferred to future ethno-federal provinces.
2. Add a power plant to the new electric crematorium in Pashupati. Heat generated from burning bodies will be fed into boilers to steam turbines to generate 15MW of peak electricity. This power can be recycled to power the crematorium during load-shedding hours.
3. A lot of methane generated by the Bagmati is going to waste, we can tap the un-natural gas and pipe it to a multifuel generator.
4. Cars stalled in traffic can hook up to road-side power sockets to pump electricity into the grid
5. Idle rickshaws can be commandeered to generate pedal power to feed Kathmandu’s peak demand.
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On the week that Nepal entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest tv broadcast in world history, another Nepali is trying to unseat North Korean tv by transmitting the most boring news and current affairs program ever. Which shouldn’t be difficult since we now have a government led by bureaucrats cutting ribbons. With the 24-storey high rise in Purano Bus Park getting the go-ahead we can also soon claim to have the world record for the tallest building in the world without a functioning lift.
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Yet another feather in Nepal’s cap this week as the country’s Maoists were recognised as the inventors of the pressure cooker bomb, a design used by the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing. If they had bothered to patent the design, the Maoists could have raked in millions in licence fees by now from terrorist groups around the world.
Since Nepal is now known as probably the most crooked country in the world, it behoves us to ensure that title by opening a School for Scoundrels. Our institutes of higher learning are steeped in old-fashioned values like ethics, integrity, and hard work and do not prepare young Nepalis to survive in the dog-eat-dog world out there. The School of Scoundrels (affiliated to the Charlatan Heston University in the USA) will produce the necessary manpower so that the country will not have a future shortage of kleptocrats, arsonists, kidnappers, and street-smart pickpockets.?
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Competition is fierce for wannabe crooks desirous of pursuing higher studies in hooliganism since everyone wants to be a ruffian these days. The institute has a strict screening policy that shortlists only the scum of the earth and from that group carefully selects outstandingly evil geniuses with a demonstrable ability to break the Fourth Commandment (or is it the Third?).
Freshers immediately get down to serious academics with a specially-designed four-year postgraduate course under a special Rascals-in-Residence program. This is followed by an interdisciplinary PhD course in pursuance of a Doctorate in Dacoitry. Post-docs will have to complete a compulsory one-year internship in a hotbed of corruption so they garner valuable real-life experience in ransacking the treasury.
Full descriptions of the courses on offer:? Introductory Course for Smugglers Course guide: Prof Dr Tusker Level: Intermediate Nepal has run out of Indian currency as a result of a balance of payments crisis, so there are tremendous job opportunities in this field as we try to fill the shortfall. This course allows students to explore creative new ways to conduct border crossings for their precious cargo and invites them to view this practice within the broader framework of SAFTA.?
Extortion as a Force in Nation-Building Faculty Supervisor: Comrade Johnny Cash of the Dash Baddies Level: Junior This course offers students an extensive and intensive experience in all kinds of extortion, including purloining, kidnapping for ransom, graft, and blackmail. It is also an expensive course, which in itself is an example of extortion. Partial scholarships available for deserving candidates and free firearms training.