This refers to the news story “Reports stresses need for effective voter education” (THT, May 18, Page 2). There is no doubt that time constraint was an affecting factor for the Election Commission for this election, resulting in no-voters education carried out on the part of the EC.

A door-to-door campaign is a must in the country like ours for any election, especially when it is conducted after a long gap.

In the meantime, there were no such campaigns carried out by the political parties as well. Regarding the size of the ballot paper which is found to be a subject of talk, obviously size would be bigger to accommodate the required number of symbols.

However, what I personally feel is that the symbol should not be printed based on the size of a political party; rather it should be printed in an alphabetical order as per the name of the political party, no matter whether small or big. All such symbols must be of same good quality on bold print to ease voters to find their candidate, which was not so in this election as only the four parties symbols on top were in bold print compared to others.

These small things must be taken into account while preparing for any election and the EC should not be under influence of any political party. Less voters’ education can be attributed to the large number of invalid votes cast.

Suman Raj Sharma, Kathmandu

Be friendly

Apropos of the news story “End discrimination against LGBT people” (THT, May 18, Page 2), Nepal has done a lot but still needs to do more to ensure that the nation transforms into a truly utopian gender-friendly society.

Who would have thought even a few years ago that we would have a woman president, a woman speaker, both from  humble backgrounds, and a woman CJ, gender achievements that we share with our other SAARC heavyweights like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Just short of having LGBTs in high public offices, our society in general is far more advanced and tolerant than many countries in the world in matters of gender equality. There are countries in the world whose public at large and state agencies  target and hound females and LGBTs for their sexual orientation. Our society today has no problem in our daughters’ live-in relation, or teenagers indulging in public affection.

We also seem to have good security for our young girls - while I go on my daily round of feeding dogs in the evening I come across many young girls with heavy makeup trundling down the road in the dark without anyone so much as looking at them. This is a far cry from what girls can experience in the cities of our neighbouring countries.

So, gender discrimination is on the wane but more can be done to make us a Nordic country or Holland.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu