Category Archives: governance

my experiences with the governance in Nepal and how I have dealt so far. Plus my critique on the state of affairs.

Looters as Rulers

governance

नेपालीमा यहाँ पढ्नुहोस्
A movie is playing in the cinema hall near you. The plot goes like this:

डाकुहरु (looters) are taking turns looting and pillaging a village. The village is getting sucked high and dry repeatedly. A serious fight has broken out between these gangs of looters over the issue of who gets to loot the most and for how long this season!

Meanwhile, villagers are on their knees, pleading to the looters to leave their starving village alone. But No! The looters brush them aside with their “who are you to even plead?” mentality. They are busy negotiating hard on “भाग बन्डा” i.e who gets what amount of the spoils. The helpless villagers are left muttering yet quiet, frustrated yet with fear, undignified yet divided and praying to the 330 million gods and goddesses to come rescue them at once!

The movie cuts into another scene where gangs of looters are locked in intense negotiations with each other on how to divide the loot. They never seem to be able to agree until the very last moment… Even the villagers,their eternal victims, are urging them to agree on SOMETHING.  There is an message stamped in each of their faces. “यस्तै हो के गर्ने Yestai ho. ke garne”

Scene changes again.
Lo! A decision has been made. The gangs of looters have finally come to some sort of (soon to be broken) agreement! They jointly come out and read this statement before the village.
“We have decided to let this village live but on ONE condition only. That is we Gang A, B, and C be allowed to rule the village in turn, unconditionally and with impunity, for one more year. (Otherwise we will violently fight with each other to wrest control of the village and make this into a war zone with murder and mayhem).

The villagers look frantically at each other’s helpless faces,then at their children’s faces, and agree right there and then with the looters demands! “Better slavery than this possible lingering chaos and possible scenes of murder.”

Sighs of relief is heard everywhere, some are even clapping at this discovery! Some are seen thanking their looters for saving the village from “a certain possible” disaster! A large quiet majority sit mute, maybe out of fear or hopelessness or just loss of dignity with “ke garne”  के गर्ने ? on their mouths.

The Final Climatic scene: One gang of Looters are ruling the village again while another gang in the background are soon scheming for their downfall so that THEY can rule instead. A close-up shot of lines of villagers faces that show a bewildered look of “Will I survive another year?”

THE END. (This Film repeats again…and again…and again in a cinema hall near you.) The audience loves the movie.”what a moving tragedy-comedy”, some one shouts! Claps are heard across the hall ! A hit in the making definitely !

Wait ! Doesn’t this scenario sound like our Nepal now?

Yes, It certainly does! And if so, wouldn’t we all like to change the ending of this movie?
Wait, are you saying, you can’t ? that we 27 million Nepali’s can’t change our fates?
Look, one person is more than enough capable of changing the environment around her. If Gautam Buddha showed us right here in Nepal, 2500 years ago, what are you waiting for ? If Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teressa have shown us this in neighboring India, what are you waiting for in Nepal? If Deng Xiaoping in China showed how to bring millions of Chinese from abject poverty to prosperity, then there you go, what are you waiting for! If they can do it, we sure can do it!

Right now, we are all afraid, frustrated and it seems our dignity is fading, day by day. But the day we decide to face our fears, we start winning, each one of us.

Start today! Worried on how to get started ? Here are some possible ways to help you to start your own creative initiatives to do it in your own ways)

  • You are unique. Experiment with your own way! We are all capable of leading in our own circles. So lead the way in your own way one step at a time!
  • Don’t be afraid to take sides but stay true to your own views. If your views change over time, this is fine. It is just natural. Just don’t stay under any obligations that contradict your morals! You are here to lead your community, not to follow it.
  • Practice convincing your views to your friends and near circle. If you can’t convince your group, you cannot convince the mob that is out there. This is the hardest hurdle ! Start a group based on your views on say Facebook, to test your ideas out. Experiment now!
  • Write, Write, Write  (first an anonymous comment in a local news paper or blogs, then a small opinion, an analysis, then write a comprehensive article proposing your solutions to problems. No one was born a writer or a problem solver. Your pen influences more people than you could ever imagine.
  • All students and researchers out there, do pointed research on the community around you. For example, how do your local authorities respond to citizen complaints? (Do a survey). research on where the money of your local club is spent. Publish them on the Internet so that everyone in the world notices sooner or later. (Even the Nepali media is hungry for materials like this). Aim big, start small.
  • Start a group or a club in a cause you belief in। If you are worried about your generation’s future, open or join an group who cares about the future. Similarly for clean politics? clean neighborhood? clean environment? clean minds ? Find like-minded people around you and build a platform.
  • Take a stand. Be pro-active (not passive). Any change begins very small! Build it one person at a time. (Mass following will come in time, have patience, be persistent). In time you will have built a platform for others to come together for change.
  • And If you want to follow, follow only your conscience!

So what will you start today towards changing the ending of our movie?

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This article appeared in Myrepublica daily March 30

Organize the unorganized. Build platforms for them. Transform Nepal !

change, common sense, governance, ideas, , , ,

Nepal today has  ‘syndicates’ of the so called ‘incompetent’ people, while the ‘nation builders’ amongst us are bitterly divided, isolated and looking for someone to unite us.
Here is an excellent opportunity for you to organize and unite the unorganized, this huge mass of Nepali talents, “potential nation builders” !

Why?
Because if you can organize this important yet unorganized group, you have the opportunity to jump-start the Bibeksheel (entrepreneurial + political + social) transformation we need to make Nepal prosperous.

Who are the ‘unorganized’ I am talking about here?
This untapped group of Nepalis are educated, have exposure and have nation building skills. They are honest, creative and daring. And they  have the right moral compass but lack the will, direction and guts to walk alone in that direction. They are the ‘nation-builders’ who WILL build our Nepal given the right environment.

How?
Build platforms where these nation builders can come together and unite. You will end up surprised at its huge impact!

Networking Platform to make Nepal prosperous

A group of progressive bureaucrats aligned with social innovators/social entrepreneurs along with the youthful common sense leaders, together would transform Nepal. But specifically how ?

Here are few ways to start.
A) Start a ‘leadership building academy‘ that brings in new generation leaders, innovators, game changers of various social-entrepreneurial-political background. Do this in your city, your region. In essence, we start organizing networks of influencers that encourages Nepali citizens to actively engage with each other to build visionary leadership in this country. I see it as a “high impact club”.  “BibekSheel Nepali” is starting this. You could too.

B) Build a “Entrepreneurs  Platform” that builds, mentors, incubate, networks and invests in social or regular entrepreneurs. This should be run by exclusively people with strictly entrepreneurship background who understand youths of Nepal today. A model could be Nepali version of http://www.acumenfund.org or http://ycombinator.com. Consider this platform an upgraded nationwide version of  “Entrepreneurs for Nepal” platform.

C) Run a Mentorship program by connect top college-going youths and recent graduates into leadership enhancing networks by mentoring them with Nepali Change makers. Finally create a motivating platform that eases them to join the government and other public services as a way to install a “servant government” form of governance. Let top public policy advisers and private sector achievers mentor them side by side. This will make our youths itchy enough to organize, network and execute public policy ideas that help govern Nepal. This effort, “Hamro dayitwo” is a an example to start with.

Platforms which build visionary leaders with common sense, who work with social innovators and entrepreneurs and are supported by progressive, up-to-date bureaucrats together would transform our Nepal into a prosperous nation.

Now lets get going !
don’t over-plan, just start a platform now and keep at it. Persistence is the key!

create wealth…stop finding out causes of poverty.

change, economy, governance, ideas, inspiration, thought provoking, , , , , , , ,

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Wealth is a something created. It is by nature dynamic, something to strive for. Poverty is an idle state. It is the state that people naturally stay put in. Don’t over-analyse it. Don’t spend too much resources find yet another root causes of it. It is a state in which people normally stay in.

Instead of “launching programs to find where poverty is coming from”, we should concentrate on creating wealth (enlarge the pie).

Instead of the multi lateral agencies and INGO’s giving “millions of dollars” to poor countries like Nepal find out root causes of poverty, put in a fund to help banks to make it much easier to give loans to small entrepreneurs and small businesses trying to scale up. Help Jump start organizations and businesses that generate wealth (social + economic ).

Concentrate on giving people opportunities to generate wealth by doing what the innovative countries did. Help incubate business, and support those young entrepreneurs who produce and supply services to generate more wealth here in Nepal.

(more wealth leads to more jobs with dignity + more opportunities to lead a dignified life).

So Lets teach each other how to create wealth. (And shun programs that calls for poverty alleviation or poverty research).

The current state of affairs in Nepal: Time to wake up

change, governance, leadership, thought provoking, , , , ,

When

►Nepali who have the ability to create jobs, are afraid to invest time, effort into it,
►Nepali who have wealth, are willing to go to any lengths to hide it,
►Nepali who have ideas and know-how, want to keep it to themselves either out of fear or lack of trust or because they are sucked dry by the negative environment around them,
►Nepali who want to improve but cannot because the  only ways to improve comes at the cost of taking some one else’s space (or rights, or wealth or territory or dignity)

Would you like to change this ?
or are you waiting for the day,

►When people with common sense, are forced to hide their “common sense” out of fear that they will be branded “anti-Nepali”?

What are you doing to change this environment ?

There are 2 kinds of people in Nepal right now. Those who are working to change the environment and the others are who want to wait for others to change it for them?

If you are the 2nd kind, I am sorry for you. I urge you to stop being lazy and for once be responsible. Pashupatinath, Buddha or Mandela is not going to change this. It is people like you and me who will transform the current state of Nepal.

Wake up!

 

 

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No taxation without the new constitution in Nepal

governance, tax, thought provoking, ,

No taxation without the new constitution in nepal

In the 9 years, I have been back and experimenting and failing through a number of start ups, I have realized that without the environment changing, we entrepreneurs have little to celebrate in Nepal now because we face roadblocks of immense scale, where we are not being allowed to work consistently. Us, job creators are slowly getting squeezed to shut shop or lower our morals or run away. This situation is turning Kathmandu into an old people’s home and Nepal as a beggar nation.

Thus I am with this new rallying shout of Nepali entrepreneurs which is “No taxation without the new constitution in nepal“.

I am a Nepali first and I want Nepal going on the right direction. And I protest.