The first Vice-President of the USA John Adams once wrote to his wife, “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office than even the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived”. Analogically, back home our first Vice-prez Parmananda Jha said to opt for home secretary and finance secretary to vice-presidency, stating the latter would hold no power. Conversely, unlike Adams he said it for a particular section of his origin. Well, by them we understood that they lack power to execute but for a Vice-prez how significant  is it to be region specific? “Veep Jha says state not treating Madhesis fairly” (THT, July 5, Page 6). At a time when the nation is confronting a visionary leadership crisis his comments have sprinkled salt on the wounds. From his oratory I came to infer that he is

Vice-prez made only for Madhesis. Should he have felt that he is liable and responsible for all Nepalis why he claimed that particular caste should be in particular ministries. What about other officials working in other ministries except those two? Don’t they deserve equal respect and dignity for their unwavering efforts to make a nation better place to live in? If you say that being Vice-prez is less important than being in home and finance ministries then, I request you to manage some time out and pay a visit to the hilly districts. By doing so, first you might understand that not only Madhesis but the Pahadis  also face the same fate.

Jay Bahadur Shah, Jajarkot

Tourism flow

Apropos of the news story “Barcelona struggles” (THT, July 6, Page 11), the second largest city in Spain is suffering from the surge in tourism prompting the locals to write graffiti: “Tourists go home”.

Apparently, the 1.6 million residents in the city are overwhelmed by 27 million tourists annually, which is pie in the sky for us, really. In Japan, too, 1.7 million foreign tourists in April and 1.6 million in May are creating headaches for Japan. Meanwhile, we are getting despondent with tourists drying up in the

aftermath of the April 25 quake.

We need to do more and do it right if we want to replicate a fraction of success that Spain and Japan have achieved. From the media reports I have a feeling that we have the tendency of treating the tourist season as monsoon that automatically lands in Nepal on June 10 every year. While monsoon occurs naturally, tourist flow is dependent upon human ingenuity. There are other parallels between the monsoon and tourism. Just as low and high monsoon causes problems, tourism drought or flood can cause problems as well. We in Nepal have not experienced the havoc created by tourist flood yet, and all of us are praying for it. However, this will not happen unless we make it happen. It is time that we realized tha the tourism season is not a natural phenomenon.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu