PRAGOTI

 Nepal Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai visited his alma mater, Jawaharlal Nehru University and addressed a gathering of students and teachers, explaining to them his and his party's understanding of the changes that are taking place in his country. The audio recording (a relatively poor quality one) of the speech can be found here. 

The Nepali polity united in the republican cause against the monarchy. They have to unite again for a Constitutional cause against anarchy. This is an edited transcript of a public talk I gave at the South Asian University, New Delhi recently. 

After months of petty mindedness, crass oneupmanship and the impossibility of forming a national consensus government, a Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) leader has been elected to the role of prime ministership in Nepal in a two round process. UML chairman Jhalanath Khanal was supported by the Maoists in his bid to become the premier, marking an end to a tortuous process of electing a new prime minister after UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned as part of a three point formula worked out to extend the deadline for writing the Constitution by the Constituent Assembly. In many ways, a UML leader has been re-elected to power, but with a difference.

A blog post expressing frustration at the political developments in the Republic of Nepal, as its Realpolitik driven political class still struggles to formulate a Constitution despite the deadline of two years  for the Constituent Assembly passing by.