Stop taking advantage

This is in reference to the news titled “Nepal air deal with Croatia” published on March 28. It is not surprising that our “all-mighty” Civil Aviation’s top brass including seven-member government delegation left for a useless trip only for their sojourn in Europe at the expense of tax payer’s money and hard earned revenue of the ailing national flag carrier despite the government’s recent announcement against such foreign trips. It is well known that the Air Service Agreement (ASA) with a country like Croatia, a remote East European former Yugoslav Republic, is not of any significance as there is not even a remote chance of

operation of air traffic from both sides. It is also proved from the fact that Nepal has made ASA with more than three dozen countries but only a handful of agreements are in operation. Such corrupt and shameful practice at these critical times should be stopped immediately.

Dipankar Shrestha, Patan

Show respect

Discrimination towards women is still prevalent in our society. Men dominate women because they think they are superior and stronger than women in every way. This is totally wrong. Women are also capable of reaching high posts if they have similar educational opportunities like men have. The general feeling is that women are for household works. Men are themselves responsible for such attitudes towards women. We must learn to respect women.

Suman Shrestha, Kalanki

Cheating

As we all know that the government of Nepal is working hard to enhance tourism sector. But few thugs at the airport in Kathmandu are looting the innocent people and the tourists. Taxi drivers do not put the meters down while taking the passengers and demand unreasonable charges. If you ask them to start the meter they are sure to say that it is not working.

During late hours the charges gallop tremendously. The travellers are being regularly cheated. The authorities must try to stop this sort of activity if they want to improve tourism.

Sonal Tyagi, via e-mail

Missing

I am a regular reader of The Himalayan Times and have formed good impression about it. Regarding the Forex rates, I have a suggestion. The foreign exchange rates, name of the country and currency put in this column is not at all complete as per the Nepal Rastra Bank. Information on popular currencies like dollar, Euro and others are missing. Either you should provide detail information or forget about this topics altogether. But, please don’t continue in the same way.

Mukunda Pathik, via e-mail

Not practical

I don’t know how familiar is Rakesh Wadhwa with the economic policies of Nepal. He will be surprised to discover that we have one of the most open economies although our implementation might not be perfect. Many Nepalis have faced the challenges of free market due to unfair trade practices imposed by other countries. Now how does Wadhwa explain the ability of Nepalis to face luxury tax on tea, special tax on ghee and even tax on brooms. Despite all these, Nepali economy is rolling. He is theoretically right but out of touch with the reality. His articles are good for studies in the university or for few to hold discussion on free market. But for Nepalis who face the reality of real business, his weekly column “Taking stock” is just a copy and paste writing and hard to digest.

Dipak Ratna, Kathmandu