Do ‘homework’ before talking
He has done it again. We are talking about our illustrious Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, who has slashed the price of petroleum products, the price of which was raised just about a week ago. It is nothing new that he has gone back on many decisions made by his government.
His brother-in-arms, a senior minister Dilendra Badu had just said to reporters that this price hike was ‘beyond the hands of the government. But yet the price of petrol was decreased by twenty rupees and that of diesel and kerosene lessened by twenty-nine rupees!
How was this possible? And who were the culprits who made profits even as the poor people had to pay a heavy price? As this writer has said before, the Finance Minister and the Supplies Minister have to tender their resignation on moral grounds. But to expect that, is like daydreaming, even for this author, who has been in the media business for over three decades and has seen the lies of the politicians time and again!
But to come back to the present perils of the nation, virtually every sane person knows that the time is ticking away even as our politicians and others are pointing out the fact that the national economy is going downhill.
It is especially very upsetting to hear prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his alliance mates Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) and people like Madhav Nepal speaking absolutely rubbish while not talking about the crisis at hand. PM Deuba is acting as if he is in a trance at having been able to lead a government for the fifth time when, if the Leftist parties had stayed together, an impossible task for the Nepali Congress to come to power. But he is not only feeble in mind, but he can hardly be understood while speaking as well. Forget about him dribbling from his mouth, he can hardly be kept upright by his security personnel. But perhaps this is what our benefactors in foreign lands want, a person who they can manipulate at any time.
What can we expect from him going to the United States or anywhere else, and putting Nepal first, which is facing such economic and political hardships, How can America or other sympathetic countries, do something, instead of only putting Nepal under its wings in a military pact. He won’t be able to say that he took the wrong step when he aggravated Nepal’s foreign status, which is being a nonaligned state in almost all international confrontations.
As said by a political leader in the parliament, the country is in total chaos and unless we can give the helms of the nation’s reign to the younger generation, nothing can be done. “We need to discard the older generation before we expect any change” one person succinctly pointed out in a TV talk programme.
The sad thing is that we are seeing bad leaders in the frontline of young leaders as well.
Take for example former minister Ram Kumari Jhakri, a very volatile leader in her student life, and she was brought into the limelight by an equally opportunistic vernacular daily by showing her kicking a bicyclist during a ‘bandh’ organized by her party. Now she herself goes around in a very luxurious vehicle with guards opening her car doors and giving her protection, but we still don’t know from where the security threat comes and from whom.
The country is going through a delicate period, both economically and politically. Both these sectors are vital pillars, which make a stable nation with a happy populace.
But now, economically, we have a very low reserve of foreign currency and even the Governor of the Rastriya Bank (Central Bank) has made forecasts about the bleak future of the economy of the nation and said that we could become another Sri Lanka, where no less than the prime minister of that nation has said the country has become bankrupt.
Meanwhile, the markets don’t have the necessary liquid funds to enhance themselves and boost the economy of the nation, almost exactly like Nepal is right now. This is an alarming situation, where again it is certain that the ordinary citizens will suffer the most, while the rich people can just leave the country and go abroad with their ill-gotten wealth.
Here this author would like to say that firebrand young politicians and other people who say that the ordinary citizens are losing big amounts because of the downward trend of the stock market are simply something which any sensible citizen of this country would not believe in. A brilliant young politician like Gagan Thapa should understand that the stock markets cannot be controlled by the government. If the government intervened, then it would be the end of the same free market which still is supported by the development of the country.
Furthermore, even the Americans, who strongly supported a free market economy, themselves could not intervene, when they saw a stock market crash, and that made many Americans go bankrupt and also put them out of their jobs. This happened almost a century back when it not only threatened a free market policy there but which left citizens of that country in very dire states. Yet the government could do nothing as it followed a free-market policy. But with sound policies, both from the government and the private sector, America bounced back and thus they have a healthy economy where all the people became rich, and the people also got employment opportunities more. This trend continued till the time when at the same time the American government started to concentrate on being a world power militarily while it should have been happy with a thriving economy which is coveted by citizens of other countries. Meanwhile, there is absolute chaos in the political scenario with even those who have formed a coalition government against KP Oli of the CPN (UML) and at the same time the nation is facing a serious crisis in its economy and also rising inflation that has badly affected the majority of the people. It is high time for politicians to do some serious reading and also consult experienced individuals and not only party cadres and party supporters who parrot what the leaders like to hear. They should work with such suggestions before they speak before a now more ‘aware’ public.