Upadhyay is right:

One can’t but notice the utter silence of the lambs, as it were, when it comes to assessing our civil society’s ‘activism’ over the legitimate Madhesi demands. In this context, it was nice to read Shailendra K Upadhyay’s article “Peace process” (THT, Mar. 14), where he primarily calls for a roundtable conference. The unelected, restored parliament is conveniently ignoring the fact that people’s sovereignty is not quite parliamentary sovereignty. Upadhyay is for undiluted proportional representation and referendums to make the people truly sovereign. Beyond this, I would propose that the suggested roundtable be open to the idea that Nepal’s federalism should be structured along the lines of ‘village republics’ — set up along ethnic, linguistic or religious lines — that allow self-governance and self-determination and freedom to chose one’s faith. In addition, a genuine Truth and Reconciliation Commission could assist the much-desired state remodelling and re-engineering in order to galvanise the peace process with endogenous ideas, creativity and innovations.

Madhukar SJB Rana, Jawalakhel

Make it free:

This refers to your editorial “A smile like yours” (THT, Mar. 13). I don’t believe that only amendments in the equality bill will help build an egalitarian society. Male domination is not only the result of inequality and discrimination, but it also stems from wide disparity in education level. Unless the country is able to provide free education at least up to the Bachelors level to women from remote places, equality will never be achieved. Amendments and reservations will only benefit a handful of women with political connections.

Suresh Subedi, Kupondole

Misconstrued:

This is in reference to my article “CA polls” (THT, Mar 13). The two paragraphs in the article beginning, “The Maoists showed their sincerity...” should have been published as: “The Maoists showed their greatness by depositing 3,000 arms. They could have deposited only 300 in place of 3,000, and claimed to have carried out their armed revolution for 12 years on the strength of fire-crackers. It is the magnanimity of the political parties that they are not telling the people that they do not favour election to CA in the near future. The government is not coming out openly that if the Home Minister resigns, the whole country may go to dogs. Therefore, people should understand that they are being fooled by their own leaders”.

In the published article, the original words “greatness”, “magnanimity” and “fire-crackers” have been changed to convey a very different meaning. I wanted to show the lack of sincerity in the words and actions of the politicians towards holding CA polls by ridiculing the number of arms deposited by the Maoists and the verbal commitment of the parties.

Birendra P Mishra, via e-mail

Biased:

The government is right in asking the King to declare his properties, but what is highly objectionable is that the government doesn’t decree that the ministers, MPs, top-ranking officials and the government appointees do the same. The need for this is made amply clear by the country’s high rank in the global corruption index.

Ramesh B Shrestha, Lalitpur