Published 7 months, 3 weeks ago
in politics.
Published 7 months, 3 weeks ago
in politics.
I didn’t think I’d be glued in front of my computer screen to get results of CA election in Nepal, but I am. And my fingers are tired hitting Refresh button a zillion times since early morning (in fact since last night). Defeats of MKN, Bamdev Gautam etc. are some notable surprises in the early stages. And it seems the Maoists will emerge as the largest party in the CA judging by early results.
And of course living afar, getting up-to-date information is sometimes frustrating to say the least. Websites are often slow, and some seem to have stopped working, like the kantipuronline frontpage (see screenshot), although its election results page is working fine as I write these lines.
Too much traffic to handle?
The most reliable website, and with most up-to-date information I am getting so far is from MySansar - worth a click if you are trying to find out what is happening in Nepal (especially in KTM).
Continue reading ‘Following CA election results from afar’
Published 7 months, 3 weeks ago
in politics.
So the Constituent Assembly election in Nepal was largely free and fair, and with very few incidences, which certainly answered many of the sceptics - and that includes myself, I must add. Not that I was thinking the election will not happen, I just was not sure it would happen in a manner that was in stark contrast to the run-up to the election - with very little violence, and with very little accusations and counter-accusations of vote-rigging. Of course, the results have yet to come, so depending on how the major parties fare, we might start to see the complaints once the results are made public. Especially seeing the UML slipping behind the Maoist and the NC in initial stages of the count, and some of its politburo leaders likely to lose (one has already lost in KTM 1), it would not surprise me if MKN and others cry foul. However, if the observers declare the process free and fair to a large extent, then the losers will have very few issues to complain about, and their complaints will not have as much legitimacy.
As for the showing at the CA election, Maoists must themselves be surprised at how well they are doing, especially when we consider some of their pre-election tactics of threat, intimidation and violence against the other parties, mainly through YCL. I bet they are now regretting not controlling YCL’s thuggish behaviour during the election campaign. YCL’s antics must have cost them a good percentage of votes, especially in closely-fought areas, where it might cost them the seats which they could otherwise have won. Of course, we just have to wait and see if that will be the case. Initial counts certainly show however that the people might have decided to give Maoists a chance, as they had asked during their campaign.
Continue reading ‘New Year, New Nepal?’
He had never cared to step on the step-on weighing scale that lay beneath the towel radiator in the bathroom until one day when he saw it out in the open with fresh marks of a pair of feet. The marks of those slender looking feet got him thinking who it was, for his house-mates definitely didn’t look like the ones with slender feet. They might have been his own feet, only that they were a couple of sizes too big. In any case, seeing the scale out in the open, he decided to step on, and to his horror found that he was 8.7 STONES!
He wasn’t horrified at his weight, he was horrified because the scale only showed the weight in STONES! Truth was he didn’t know how much 8.7 Stones was in Kilogram. He knew 1 pound was around half a kilo, but he had no idea how many pounds made a Stone! In any case, he got on with his routine, and as soon as he was back in his room, he Googled to find the conversion table. He was really horrified now that he knew his current weight in kilograms. 55 Kg! He has never been this heavy - he was proud of his 50±1 Kg body weight. Suddenly he found himself FOUR Kilos overweight.
He went back to the bathroom to confirm his weight (in stones) - took off his clothes to make sure he got the accurate measurement and stepped on the scale once more. Still 8.7 Stones. Tried again. Still 8.7 Stones. A third time. Still the same. It was clear that he had put on weight, probably for the first time in his life!
Continue reading ‘the ritual’
…that I have picked up living in England.
1. Never going to bed before Sailing By (and falling asleep while listening to the Shipping forecast!)
I don’t exactly remember when I started listening to Sailing By, but I suspect it must have been from very early days of my life in York (probably while staying late at night trying to complete essays during the first term!). It didn’t take long after I arrived in the UK to become a fan of BBC Radio 4, and my alarm-clock-radio was set to start with Radio 4 at 5:59 in the morning. I lay on bed till the end of the Today programme, and rushed through my morning routine in the next 10 minutes before arriving for class at 9:15! Like most undergraduates, I had a great morning when there was no 9:15 lecture. Of course sometimes lectures started at 8:15, so I would miss the last one hour of the programme on those days. Its not surprising then that Saturday mornings were my favourite, when I stayed in bed till 10 - till 9:00 listening to Today programme, and then listening to John Peel (one of my most favourite presenters)’s Home Truths programme. In the evenings, Radio 4 would be on as soon as I got back to my room - usually to catch 6:00pm news and the comedy or other light-hearted programmes that followed (Just a Minute, Dead Ringers and the like). World Tonight (10:00pm news programme) was another rarely-missed programmes and Book at Bedtime that followed meant that I got to know about books that I had never read, and quite a few I later had to buy because I missed a day’s reading or that I wanted to read myself in full. Well, seeing this list you’re probably wondering why not have BBC Radio 4 on the title and not Sailing By, but even when I didn’t listen to any of the other programmes on some days (because I was out with my friends or somewhere else), I usually got back home in time to catch Sailing By and go to bed 
Don’t ask me why I listened to Shipping forecast after that though (as I said I usually fell asleep while the forecast was being read) - but I probably learnt a lot about British geography from the forecast too - weird names of places like the Land’s End, Lundy, Fastnet etc., which I would check on the map the next day when I remembered what I had heard the night before.
I must say I missed this (Sailing By) routine when I went to Canada (although in Canada I would go to bed after listening to the Today programme in full on the internet - good thing about being 8 hours behind the British time!). When I got back to York again, my other Radio 4 habits didn’t stay the same (well, sadly John Peel had passed away, and I also couldn’t devote the same amount of time listening to live radio - but having podcasts for most programmes have solved the problem as well!), except one - listening to Sailing By before going to bed! Continue reading ‘weird habits’
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copylefT 2008
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