Nepal witnessed several ups and downs in its political environment for the last 67 years. The country was declared Republic in April 2008 by the first Constitutional Assembly meeting, abolishing the 240-year-old monarchy.

The new constitution was promulgated by the second Constitutional Assembly in September 2015 and is now in a full swing in its implementation soon after the completion of three tiers of elections. Local level elections were held in a gap of 20 years.

Accordingly, local governments have started functioning for the last nine months despite of limited budget, human resources crunch and inadequate infrastructure. Provincial governments are in a process of taking their full shapes. Likewise, federal government is on the way to lead the country.

Finally, both the UML and CPN-MC signed a seven-point deal on Monday to unify their parties as promised just before the provincial and federal level elections “UML, CPN-MC pen pact for sharing power” (THT, February 20, Page 1).

In fact, they had fought the elections as the left alliance and were able to woo the voters with the promise of a prosperous Nepal. Both Oli and Dahal will take turns to lead the government by evenly splitting the five-year tenure. Among other deals, UML will take the posts of the president and deputy speaker of the parliament and the posts of speaker and the vice president will go to CPN-MC. It is yet to be seen how long it will take to adjust the cadres and leaders from village to the central level of both the parties in one single party.

However, it should be taken as a positive step towards minimising the number of political parties in Nepal and making a strong party to play active and productive role in making the democratic process more effective and stable which will ultimately contribute to the betterment of the country and its people.

Rai Biren Bangdel, Maharajgunj

Conservation

India and Myanmar have been negotiating a memorandum of understanding with respect to conservation of big mammals like tigers and elephants in protecting regional biodiversity. They are also planning to work jointly in protecting forest products by curbing illegal timber harvesting and curbing poaching as well as illegal wildlife trafficking. India has bilateral agreements on conservation with Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Nepal and

Russia too.

A joint coordination between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal will greatly contribute to critical evaluation of the tiger range in South Asian region. Such close-knit cooperation is a perfect example of Joint Conservation Initiative (JCI) between adjacent nations sharing common international border. India currently hosts the largest population of wild Bengal tigers in the world.

Through this process, India has established and gained great knowledge in conservation of wildlife and should thus stand by other neighboring nations and work together on a common platform to facilitate the conservation of wildlife and forests.

Saikat Kumar Basu, Canada