Friday, May 22, 2015

Urbanization Is A Good Thing

List of Prime Ministers of Nepal
List of Prime Ministers of Nepal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Big cities, done right, are good for the environment.

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But unless Baburam Bhattarai leads the national unity government, this massive tragedy will get turned into yet another farce in the long list of farces in Nepali politics. He is the only one with the vision. And I am basing my comments based on his publicly shared thoughts since the tragedy hit.

Bamdev Gautam is PC Sorcar. His idea of relief work is to create a major distraction in the Terai to hide his incompetence, gross corruption, and open mafia links. That guy is beyond cynical, he is criminal.

A national unity government has to be a response to the national tragedy. It can not be ruled by logics like (1) maybe it is KP Oli's turn now, or (2) let's see how the political arithmetic works out. I respect the logic of political arithmetic, and that is why I am proposing one berth also to Kamal Thapa's party, even though the only feeling I have for him and his party is utter, total disgust. I worked full time for the 2006 April revolution. I respect the logic of political arithmetic, and that is why I am saying, if Baburam Bhattarai is to lead the new national unity government, his party should get less than the number of berths it otherwise might get, to even it out. I am even suggesting his party should give up on the idea of states with ethnic names and a directly elected president as the price for his leadership in this current time of unprecedented national tragedy.

Continuing with Sushil Koirala is better than bringing KP Oli in. And no, I am not letting my bitterness towards his anti-Madhesi racist sentiments rule my logic. Time for that will come later. I just don't think KP Oli can do good for the relief and reconstruction work. Baburam, on the other hand, will bring the kind of zeal and vision that he brought to the politically complex task of widening the roads in Kathmandu.

Forming a national unity government in Sushil Koirala's leadership is out of question. It is better to continue with the current formation than to do that.

You bring KP Oli in, and that will be a cocktail of Sushil Koirala's incompetence ("deer in the headlights") and Bamdev Gautam's mafia ways. You can accuse Sushil of many things, incompetence and ethnic prejudice among them, but mafia links are not one of them.

There is a reason why Bijay Gachhedar is rooting for KP Oli, that is another joker who believes in open mafia links. That was a guy sent into the Forum by the Nepali Congress to destroy the afterglow of the Madhesi Kranti. And now he has been working to successfully destroy whatever little aura Prachanda has left in him.

Political criticism has to be taken to new heights at this moment of tragedy because so much is at stake.

Baburam should be brought in at the helm, and he should be allowed to bring in some non political people into his cabinet, as he might see fit.

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संघीयता पछि के?

Talking about big cities, this earthquake has given Nepal an opportunity to attempt a new wave of urbanization. New cities should be built along the Arniko Highway, along the Kathmandu-Pokhara highway, along the Kathmandu-Nijgadh route, in Chitwan, and several Terai districts. I don't see how anyone in the three parties except Baburam can even grasp the concept of it.

A true need of the hour is to have the guts to see the national capital needs to be shifted, and to imagine a megacity in Chitwan that might go on to be home to fully one third of the Nepali population down the line. Kathmandu does not need to shrink. But Chitwan can grow massively. A city of 10 million residents in 10 years. It is easier to provide for infrastructure when people are amassed like that. It can also help ease people from the agriculture sector to the non-agricultural sector.

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Foreign Aid Truths

English: The United Nations Development Progra...
English: The United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Where is Nepal aid money going?
a country where corruption is seen as "endemic"? Britain is already the biggest national donor to Nepal - but what has happened to this aid? ....... The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) has spent more than £20m ($30m) in the last four years on an earthquake resilience programme. So what has it achieved? ....... One focus has been on improving building regulations and enforcing them. But walk through downtown Kathmandu and you see hundreds of new buildings that are unsafe, badly built and have clearly flouted these building laws. ...... "Nepal suffers from poor governance, and corruption is endemic. ....... "If Nepal is to become less corrupt, improvements in governance and a change of culture have to be made to state institutions." ..... Part of DFID's programme was carried out by the United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP) which received more than £5m in funding from the UK for its comprehensive disaster risk management programme (CDRMP). One senior aid insider told me the project was "a disaster from start to finish". ......

Over five years, the UN spent £1.3m of its original £10m budget on two international employees.

...... Millions more went in what the public project document lists as unspecified "professional services". ...... the UNDP had "poor financial controls, weaknesses in payment processes and misreporting and recording of payments". .... Because of the widespread corruption and bureaucracy within the government of Nepal, international donors like DFID have channelled their money into the big NGOs and UN agencies to deliver their programmes. ...... Dr Govind Pokharel, vice-chairman of Nepal's National Planning Commission, admits the system is weak and corrupt but says the huge salaries on offer in NGOs and the UN means they are causing a brain drain in Nepal's civil service.

"A government guy gets $200 for a month, whereas you are paying $2,000 per month at an NGO or agency, it is damaging," he says.

....... "The Nepal police didn't like it. I was paid $300 (£190) a day but for the international consultants it was £1,200 a day." ..... "There's a strong case to say we should use national consultants before we go international. There will be a wave that will come - whether it's a helpful wave remains to be seen."


If the corruption culture is not remedied, and if somehow magically you get to cut down on the huge fees for foreign consultants, then most of the money will then go to corruption. Foreign consultants might be ridiculously expensive, but domestic corruption should not be getting a free ride in the process. There are two problems.