Repenting at leisure

If it was a sincere repentance by Madhav Kumar Nepal as quoted in the news report “Madhav Kumar Nepal laments historic blunder” (THT, March 20) about the blunder made by the major political parties by bringing the Maoists into the political mainstream, it is still not too late for them to mend matters.

Did they knowingly ignore the process of political reconciliation with the then so-called autocratic regime? Like me, there are many who are neither political activists nor royalists, but they have strong belief in people’s democracy where everybody has a space to exercise their democratic rights.

Why were they in such a hurry to sign a twelve-point agreement with the Maoists in New Delhi knowing that the Maoists had a parallel army? Would it be wrong to say that they were desperate to get rid of the autocratic regime for their petty

political interests? Had they decided to join hands with the Maoists to escape from their own wrongdoings? Now they blame the Maoists for being a party with weapon-oriented

ideology, as if they were not aware of it.

Rai Biren Bangdel, Maharajgunj, Kathmandu

Shameful

Our political leaders seem to be interested in every type of problem, but when there is difficulty they tend to escape the issue rather than solving it. They forget their responsibility. I wish they cultivated the sense of duty towards the people.

Pushkar Bhusal, Butwal-9 For apology When the British PM can apologise to the African

nations for all the atrocities the British rulers inflicted centuries ago, why can’t the Nepal government apologise to the residents of Tarai-Madhesh for its similar behaviour?

The media is equally guilty of remaining dumb on the issue of demographic change brought in the Tarai, particularly in the last 58 years. Such an apology will help bridge the divide that has appeared between the Madhesis and the Pahadis.

Bharat Shah, Birgunj

Grave error

I recently found a blunder in “Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary”. It has been mentioned therein that the Buddha was a holy person from a certain

country (other than Nepal) and Buddhism too is a religion from that country (not from Nepal).

Every year many foreigners visit Lumbini in Nepal but where is the publicity for our land? This dictionary is used by millions of people around the world, and giving wrong information like this should be corrected as soon as possible, or the government of Nepal should file a legal case against the dictionary publishers. This is a very great offence against Nepal and the Nepalese people.

Prasun, via e-mail

Agreement

This is in support of “Socio-cultural solidarity for economic development” (THT, March 23). Nepal is a multi-language, multi-cultural and multi-caste land. Therefore, emphasis has to be given to create an environment of tolerance among all during this transitional phase of

the nation. And, the nation is now under pressure from different ethnic and racial groups. This makes it necessary for solidarity to be established among the people.

Ishwar Acharya, Khotang, Diktel