This is in response to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s way of answering in a television question and answer programme. I am really concerned that the Prime Minister could not tackle the questions with maturity. Apart from the substance of his answers, he sounded aggressive at times when confronted with uncomfortable questions. I don’t understand why a person in such a high public position with impressive political profile does not have leadership skills or a natural affinity for handling the conversational ship to the shore. In my view a leader must have a real verbal knack to responsibly accommodate the questions that are put forward, however difficult they may be. I now realize that the then King Gyanendra was right in sacking him for being ‘incompetent’ to hold the promised elections. He does not have the needed leadership qualities to rescue the nation if he can’t rescue himself from being the butt of a national joke.

Shiva Neupane, Melbourne

Real test

Apropos of your editorial “Driving license” (THT, July 4, Page 6),   this is indeed a very progressive move if the government can implement it in earnest, that is, without money changing hands. Driving, as we all know, is as serious a business as flying.

In fact, more people die in road accidents than in air crashes. Until now aspiring drivers would take their lessons from family, friends or in driving institutes, and would sit for test for the license at National Trading Ltd ground looked upon by spectators from the road bridge at Singha Durbar.

The trail test would include repeating the set practices that the training institutes would cram them with for two weeks for a month, which most trainees would have no problem in aping. But driving in chaotic Kathmandu or wild highways is not as simple as clutching the wheel, starting the engine and flying away.

The aspirants must have real-life road experience as I went through in old Nepal. I was asked to show up with my own car at Tinkune on the way to airport.

The fact is I had been driving for years as a teenager not only in Kathmandu but to places like Nagarkot, Kakani and Hetauda on weekends without a license. The cop, just fresh from the farm, who probably had never seen a car let alone sat in one, tried to tell me after some fleeting test that I failed. So I asked him to sit in my car and took him for a wild spin that later became a hallmark of Vin’s Fast and Furious franchise. He then had no problem declaring me passed. This is important: I did not offer him bribe but a shot of whiskey not easily available in Nepal then. He also advised me not to strap myself with the seat belt! We should never have done away with the real road test in the first place.

It is good that it is back again. Just a suggestion: the aspiring drivers should be asked to drive through the crowded places like New Road, Thamel and cross-country dirt roads.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu