Emergency extension

King Gyanendra, acting at the recommendation of the Council of Ministers, ordered a fresh state of emergency in a bid to give continuity to the same, which was initially clamped down on November 26. The announcement came in a royal palace press communiqué on Monday following a Cabinet meeting. The fresh order provides legal validity to emergency for three months until August 27. Although most civil liberties will remain suspended, the continuation of the extraordinary decree will allow the security forces to keep the momentum of the current military campaign against Maoist terrorists. The developments are consequences of the unilateral decision of the Maoists to break the ceasefire and launch an attack on security forces, and more recently, on development infrastructure. The emergency was extended for a full six months after Parliament overwhelmingly voted in its favour. That mandate expired on May 25, but major political parties changed their mind and opposed the move as Parliament was summoned to renew the measure allowing the security forces to crush the Maoist insurgency, once and for all. The main opposition to the proposal came from a faction of the ruling Nepali Congress party led by party president Girija Prasad Koirala, who surprised everyone by joining hands with the CPN-UML to oppose the emergency.

What followed is there for everyone to see. The ruling party’s opposition to the proposal forced Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to dissolve the lower chamber of Parliament and to seek a fresh popular mandate. The political parties that lent an overwhelming support of the emergency only a few months ago have not adequately explained why they opposed the move now. Koirala, once an ardent champion of a military solution to the Maoist problem, is now arguing that the Terrorist and Destructive Activities (Control and Punishment) Act is more than adequate to deal with the situation. But without emergency, which suspends press freedom and allows soldiers and police to detain people on suspicion, the security forces cannot do their job properly. Many also argue that all that has been achieved in the fight against terrorism thus far would be lost if the emergency is discontinued. This does not mean that the suspension of civil liberties should remain suspended for a long time because without these liberties the society will stop growing. Hopefully, these rights would be restored as soon as the security forces complete their job of quelling the rebellion, apart from disarming them. The Royal Nepal Army and other security wings need all the political, financial and moral support so that law and order is restored in the country and the forthcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for November 13 are held in as peaceful manner as possible.

Poor people’s profile

Many national, regional and international programmes and projects are going in tandem in Asia these days, indicating concerted efforts in addressing the pertinent issues at hand. UNDP Nepal is one example, its Nepal human rights index being formulated for inclusion in Nepal’s 10th Plan. In the same spirit has emerged SAARC’s regional poverty profile in which UNDP also has participated as an active player, thus creating a SAARC-UNDP joint venture for a South Asian regional profile. Other regional and international institutions operating in South Asia will also converge in chalking out a regional profile and identifying poverty-related indices.

South Asia’s poverty situation is unique in many ways. Much of South Asia’s poverty problems arising out of pestilence, famine, natural calamities, man-made turmoil and disturbances have remained from its distant colonial past, and have in fact been aggravated more with the passing decades symbolised by fewer and lesser efforts, increasing population and the resultant quantum leap in illiteracy, decreasing standards in health and sanitation and other basic human needs being unmet. These truths attest to such facts that accounting for only 23 percent of the world’s population, South Asia nonetheless has 40 percent of the world’s poor; and its absolute figures of poor people exceed the combined poverty-stricken populace of the Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab countries, Latin America and the Caribbean.

On the other hand, South Asia possesses excellent universal credentials. It is advanced in education – many of its universities being hundreds of years old – applied and appropriate technology, information technology, development in practical medicine and treatment, world renowned academia, developed literature, ancient cultures, traditions, religions. Its varied manpower have been qualified enough to be accepted in many parts of the world in medicine, information technology, financial bourses, and other sought-after activities. South Asia also abounds in natural resources: Its hydro-power potentials, alluvial soil and enriched fauna and flora forming a veritable Garden of Eden. Yet the region’s burgeoning and unchecked population growth and the attendant poverty and allied ills remain a thorny irony in its landscape. Addressing one issue of poverty alone, in isolation, does not suffice, and many online priorities must be dealt with in tandem.

India looms as the largest chunk in South Asia and SAARC. India is the largest in area, coastal lengths, diversities, population density, development indices, political maturity, economic scales, market dimensions, consumerism, awareness and astuteness. Next in line is Pakistan in the same indexes. Both India and Pakistan are now nuclear powers – an added important dimension to South Asia. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives are the other proportionate players as coastal and sea-locked nations while the landlocked Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan have their own unique contributions to South Asian initiatives. All these various factors should in fact influence the SAARC-UNDP joint effort in profiling the poor peoples of South Asia.