Dual character

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala is depicting a dual character in chastising the Young Communist League (YCL) for “abducting” Sitaram Prasain, who has allegedly caused crores of rupees of loss to a development bank while he was its chairman, and subsequently handing him over to the police. In his speeches, Koirala commits himself to fighting corruption and taking action against the bank defaulters. But the government under him seemed totally incapable of arresting Prasain even when he was roaming about the capital freely. And now that the YCL has helped arrest Prasain, the prime minister has vowed to punish it.

Pranav Dhakal, Battisputali

Brit identity

In his perceptive article on immigration and race relations in the UK “Blair has left UK more fearful and divided” (THT, June 5), Gary Younge quotes Labour Party’s Peter Mandelson as saying “[The bulldog] is an animal with a strong sense of history and tradition. The bulldog is a metaphor for Britain”. If that be so, the bulldog may be seen as a metaphor of British identity as well as for being trained to chase out Asian immigrants.

Madhukar SJB Rana, Jawalakhel

No criminals

PM Koirala has dubbed YCL as the “Young Criminal League”. But I prefer to call the Maoist-affiliated outfit “Young Creative League” as it has been successful in doing things that no political party could do till date. YCL’s bid to bring the corrupt to justice is laudable. How can the top political leaders whose partymen have been busy attending parties of bank defaulters point a finger at the YCL while the latter has only helped punish the people who have been making merry at the taxpayers’ expense?

Rajendra Gurubacharya, New Baneshwor

Insecurity

The prevalence of insecurity in the country is reflected in THT relegating the news regarding looting of five million rupees (“Property worth Rs 5m looted”, June 4), to the third page. It seems we are now getting used to such “petty” crimes. At a time when we have a full portfolio of ministers, a “functional” parliament and a large amount of national funds is being spent on “security”, people are left to look after their own security. The state machinery has completely failed to protect common people.

However, both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister have expressed commitment in recent weeks to improve the security situation. But for the general people, those speeches have no meaning as nothing concrete has been done. In most countries, people in responsible positions quit when they fail so miserably to carry out their responsibilities, but not in Nepal.

Sunil Sharma, via e-mail

Upgrade it

Weather forecasting in Nepal seems to be serving no good purpose. The forecasting agencies are sometimes right by chance. The agencies make the same kinds of mistakes again and again. This highlights the lack of good forecasting technology in Nepal. Our neighbouring countries have left us far behind in this regard. The country should upgrade its weather forecasting technology.

Aashish Pradhan, Kathmandu University