Equitable land distribution PM Prachanda has stated that food security would not be possible without an equitable distribution of agricultural land. No developed country has equitable distribution of agricultural land. Most of the developed countries have 4 or less than 4 per cent of the population who own all the agricultural land and no one has scarcity of food. It seems that inequitable distribution of agricultural land would completely obstruct industrialisation of agriculture and increment of food production. Food security would be possible only by a drastic increment in food production. Equitable distribution of agricultural land would torpedo all the attempts in industrialisation of agriculture and would always keep the country a food hungry starving nation. I would like to opine that the Land Reform Committee should find all the land that were converted into private land without paying any cost to the state. Such vast tracts of agricultural lands should be brought back to public ownership and converted into state owned scientific agricultural farms. All the landless who want to engage themselves in agriculture should be given the opportunity to work in these state owned farms. VP Sayami, via e-mail

Missed calls I am proud owner of a mobile phone and have the good habit of keeping my mobile phone on the profile silent if I am busy with something or sleeping. Later on when I’m free, looking at the lists of missed calls, I do bother to call back on these numbers. Yes, I’m sometimes unlucky as the calls I missed are important, but most of the time they answer “dude it was the missing u call”. “Was missing you. “Thought about giving you a missed call” or “rather missing u call”. Sometimes the missed call is from a new number. I call back thinking it must be an important call, but again it’s lucky me discovering the same old story, an old friend got my number so s/he wanted to say that s/he was missing me. I really don’t know when the ring ends up in less than 1 second, whether the telecom has the network problem or ny friend with athlete fingers has discarded the call only within a fraction of seconds. What I’m supposed to assume is my friend missing me or s/he had called me or… Oh! no I missed a very important call. So this thought occurs in my mind about giving an appropriate name to these two kinds of calls. If it is a full ringed but not answered then it is a missed call, and if it ends within fraction of seconds then a “missing u calls”. Whether it is really somebody missing me desperately but without wanting to spend money on mobile bill or me being unlucky missing some calls of true importance must be known if possible. Even giving missed calls brings loss of certain amount to telecom companies. I’m also still in a dilemma to make a choice between making a free missed call or typing a message worth of Rs.1.25 to convey the same message but in a better way saying “Missing U”. Bisal Subedi, St.Xaviers

Promotion This is reference to the news item “Foreign tour operators explore market (THT, April 23). No doubt, Nepal has a vast potential for tourism which has to be tapped. However, not much has been done about promoting tourism. The country now has the infrastructure to accommodate more than the number of tourists who opt to visit. However, we find that the tourism market is not being exploited to the full and hotels and other tourism infrastructure remain largely unutilised. Since tourism is an industry that directly benefits thousands of people besides contributing to the states coffers, something concrete must be done to promote it. That some foreign tour operators are here to explore the tourism market on how to go about promoting tourism here augurs well. Such visits by tour operators and writers could help make Nepal known as one of the ideal tourism destinations in the world. The travel operators in the country should facilitate these foreign tour operators in the promotional activities. We should learn from other countries where the tourist flow is in millions. Considering the huge tourism market in the international sector, a fraction of it could work wonders for Nepal. For this, the country needs more publicity as a tourism market, which it is not getting at present. B L Tuladhar, via e-mail