Respect heritage sites

Many of Kathmandu’s heritage sites are being used for political meetings, which is indeed very sad. The political parties are apparently attracted to these sites like Durbar Square

because they offer good photo opportunities for the party leaders with exotic ancient temples in the background. What other reason could there possibly be? The parties should respect

our heritage sites and holy places and hold their meetings elsewhere. Tourists hesitate to visit these sites because of the commotion caused by these political gatherings. This can only further damage our fragile tourism industry. I hope the parties become a little more

responsible.

Bhai Kaji, Kathmandu

Quagmire

This is in reference to the news “Iraq suicide attacks leave 90 killed” published in THT on July 18. The fate of the hapless Iraqis being slaughtered daily at the hands of the terrorists is

indeed unfortunate. This has been going on for quite sometime now. Though president Bush declared victory in Iraq a long time ago, that country still is marred by terrorism and bloodshed. The US administration was shortsighted in not taking into consideration the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. They put all their resources into deposing Hussein, but once he was defeated, they had no exit strategy in place. Now the American soldiers in Iraq find themselves in a quagmire. There are not enough American boots on ground and neither are there enough trained Iraqi soldiers to replace the US soldiers for the latter to pull out of Iraq. The Bush administration is solely responsible for this. It is high time the administration admitted its mistakes and took concrete steps to quell the insurgency.

Ajit Sharma, Gairidhara

Lax security

On my way from Lamjung to Kathmandu, I had to go through as many as five check-posts on the Prithvi Highway. On each stop, we had to get off the bus, walk a short distance and get on board again. From what I had heard, I was expecting the checks to be very tight. But to my surprise, I found them anything but tight. The body and baggage checks were very lax. The passengers carrying small arms could easily have entered Kathmandu. I could only rue the sorry state of our security systems in place.

Swaroop Poudel, Babarmahal

Clarification

This refers to my article “Invest in your future” published in THT on July 4. Subsequently, I met N N Singh, the managing director of Bottlers Nepal, which sells Coca Cola in the country. Singh presented me with the company’s 2003/2004 balance-sheet. Though my original article did not cast any aspersions on the quality of their management, I would still like to clarify that I regard Coca Cola as one of Nepal’s well managed companies. And its balance-sheet reflects that. Sales and profits have both increased in difficult circumstances where the company has had to face huge problems due to the internal strife. This performance further substantiates my assertions that the Coca Cola Company and Bottlers Nepal are both great ones for investors.

Rakesh Wadhwa, via e-mail