November 19, 2013

NEPAL’S ELECTION MAY NOT LIFT COUNTRY’S PERMANENT SENSE OF CRISIS

Posted by The Himalayan Voice:
[And while the political turmoil unfurls, the socioeconomic condition of Nepal has gone from bad to worse with constant fuel and water shortages and more than 14 hours of power cuts a day. Millions of Nepalese have voted with their feet, leaving the country for often dangerous migrant-worker jobs in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. According to World Bank data, Nepal’s annual GDP growth tumbled from 6% in 2008 to 5% last year. Economic growth dipped to 3.6 % in 2013. “Preoccupation with the prolonged political transition,” a World Bank overview on Nepal says, has meant not enough has been done to “improve the investment climate, stimulate growth, and create more private-sector jobs.” There are few signs, as of yet, that Nepal’s tortuous political transition — and the funk that it has set in place over this corner of the Himalayas — is about to end.]

By Nilanjana Bhowmick   


For the second time in five years, Nepal went to the polls to vote for a new government that many hope will end the political stalemate that has kept the former Himalayan kingdom in gridlock since 2008. The signs, though, point to more of the same dysfunction of the past five years.
Hopes were high when the impoverished Himalayan nation staged landmark elections in 2008 that led to the abolition of its centuries-old monarchy and saw the conversion of a Maoist guerrilla rebellion into a mainstream political party that took a leading role in what was the country’s first elected democratic government. But five years and several failed governments later, Nepal’s elected representatives have dithered and bickered, unable to find the necessary consensus to draft a new republican constitution to govern the country’s 27 million people. There has been a power vacuum ever since lawmakers failed to meet a May 2012 deadline to draft the constitution — a deadline that was, in recent years, extended time and time again.
Now, more than 100 parties that contested today's general elections, with analysts anticipating a jumbled, inconclusive outcome. Along with the prospect of a hung parliament, there are also fears of widespread Maoist unrest. The Maoists’ political party — led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who goes by his nom de guerre Prachanda — splintered last year. The offshoot Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which many in Nepal call the real Maoists, are boycotting the elections and have called for a 10-day strike until Nov. 20. They demand the dissolution of the present interim government — formed earlier this year — and elections at a later date. Before they came out of the cold, the Maoists had waged a decadelong insurgency against the Nepal’s long-ruling Hindu monarchy, spurred in part by the stultifying social inequities brought about by royal rule from Kathmandu. Some now see their revolutionary ambitions to be at odds with the country’s fledgling democratic project.
“No party is going to get a simple majority even this time. It’s just going to be a repeat of 2008,” Surendra K.C., a Kathmandu-based independent political analyst, tells TIME. “Moreover the offshoot of the Maoist party, staying out of the elections, is going to be a problem. If this continues another Maoist insurgency cannot be ruled out.”
And while the political turmoil unfurls, the socioeconomic condition of Nepal has gone from bad to worse with constant fuel and water shortages and more than 14 hours of power cuts a day. Millions of Nepalese have voted with their feet, leaving the country for often dangerous migrant-worker jobs in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. According to World Bank data, Nepal’s annual GDP growth tumbled from 6% in 2008 to 5% last year. Economic growth dipped to 3.6 % in 2013. “Preoccupation with the prolonged political transition,” a World Bank overview on Nepal says, has meant not enough has been done to “improve the investment climate, stimulate growth, and create more private-sector jobs.” There are few signs, as of yet, that Nepal’s tortuous political transition — and the funk that it has set in place over this corner of the Himalayas — is about to end.
@ Time
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INDIA’S ONION PRICES SOAR, CAUSING TEARS, RAGE

[“The Great Indian Tearjerker,” as one local newspaper dubbed the saga, began in August, when the price of onions nationwide inexplicably began to rise. In the weeks that followed, onion prices in the capital and other major cities have at times topped 70 cents a pound, a 278 percent increase.]

By , 

Onion prices, often volatile here, have soared in recent weeks, sending a country that views the vegetable as a culinary staple into a tailspin.
Cable news reporters do breathless stand-ups from local markets. Special onion vans have been dispatched to affected areas. Onion jokes pepper Twitter and Facebook. Protesters have taken to the streets wearing garlands of the pungent vegetable.
The governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, was even asked about onions during a recent news conference.
“We have no immediate capacity to bring down onion prices,” he said with a slight smile.
“The Great Indian Tearjerker,” as one local newspaper dubbed the saga, began in August, when the price of onions nationwide inexplicably began to rise. In the weeks that followed, onion prices in the capital and other major cities have at times topped 70 cents a pound, a 278 percent increase.
The reason for this is as multi-layered as the veggie itself. Rajan has suggested that rising consumption may be a factor. Weather — a drought followed by an overlong monsoonseason — is also an issue.
Other public officials have blamed darker forces, suggesting that traders at the big vegetable markets are fixing prices or that hoarders are keeping the bulbs tucked away in cold storageuntil the prices rise. (One blogger nicknamed these folks “onionnaires.”)
Delhi’s chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, who rose to power during a previous onion crisis, in 1998, has held news conferences in recent days to ask for patience and plead for the black-marketing to stop.
“We are trying our best to see that prices come down,” Dikshit said. (She later told reporters that she had eaten onions with her bhindi, or okra, for the first time in many weeks, prompting the opposition party to send her a condolence basket of the bulbs.)
Indians have grappled with rising inflation for months, with food prices up 18 percent this year over last — a major contributor to the country’s slowing economic growth. Even if the economy rebounds next year, as many analysts predict, high food prices are likely to remain a central campaign issue ahead of parliamentary elections in the spring. Prices of tomatoes and potatoes are rising, as well.
Recently, billboards have popped up around New Delhi showing Narendra Modi, the opposition party’s prime ministerial candidate, posed before a heap of onions and tomatoes, shaking his fist in indignation at the “waist-breaking inflation.”
“We will change India!” the poster declares.
In the meantime, many of India’s poor and even middle-class citizens have been forced to cut down on onions or stop eating them altogether, which has been a tough change for some. In farming communities in the northern states of Haryana and Punjab, many of the field workers come to work with nothing more than a roti (Indian bread), a raw onion and a green chili pepper. That’s lunch.
Narendar Singh, 47, a gas station employee, said he has not been able to buy fruit for his family of five for four months and has cut down on vegetables, buying the cheapest gourds and chickpeas available.
“We cannot afford to buy onions to spice up the meal, either,” he said. “Instead of tomatoes, we now use tamarind pulp to sour the curry.”
His dream, he said, is to educate his three children so they can afford fresh fruit and vegetables — and motor scooters.
Indian officials say they expect onion prices to drop in the coming weeks because of increased imports and other measures.
One recent morning in Delhi’s vegetable market, as a cool November rain began to fall, a group of onion farmers who sell to wholesalers said they had bought about half as many sacks of onions this year as they did last year because the extended monsoon had spoiled their crop. Even now, they were nervously monitoring the weather back home in the eastern state of Rajasthan via their cellphones; it was raining again, they said, and if it didn’t stop, the rest of the onions would rot in the field.
They said that they would get a fair price for their wares but that they were not to blame for the rising prices, pointing the finger at the middlemen and wholesalers.
“They buy it from us for 30 rupees and sell it for 100 rupees. What can we do about it?” lamented Nizamuddin Khan, 30, one of the farmers.
He said onions had been unfairly singled out in the country’s ongoing debate about rising food prices.
“Everybody’s talking about onions — why can’t they talk about tomatoes and potatoes?” Khan said. “Their prices are also touching the sky. Onions have become a political issue.”
Suhasini Raj contributed to this report.