Word: nepal
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...long ago, few in Nepal believed Pushpa Kamal Dahal actually existed. The Maoist guerrilla leader was a creature of myth - no one knew what he looked like or in which mountain fastness he hid or quite how he and his fighters, ragtag and ill-equipped, had managed to plunge Nepal into a decade-long civil war that claimed 13,000 lives. But now all know Prachanda, the nom de guerre by which Dahal is more often referred, as not only a man of flesh and blood, but of suits and expensive pens. As results filter in from Nepal's April...
...Prachanda's rise is testament to the striking political transformation gripping this Himalayan nation of 27 million. The election culminated a process begun two years ago, when Maoist-backed mass protests brought down Nepal's 240-year-old monarchy and leveraged the former guerrillas, still on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist groups, into the country's political mainstream. As the prime movers in Nepal's transition from royal rule, they will preside over the monarchy's formal abolition...
...lawlessness that has plagued parts of the country. The Maoist leader, still known by his nom de guerre Prachanda, insists they are committed to multi-party democracy, but some Kathmandu insiders believe the former rebels will balk at an election defeat. The Maoists consider themselves the chief catalysts of Nepal's transformation; recently, Prachanda declared to reporters that the path to a republic was "our agenda alone...
...Whoever the political victors are, all of Nepal's parties face far greater challenges than consolidating power. The restive lowland plains that border India still smolder with ethnic unrest. Nepal's economy is a shambles: fuel shortages routinely paralyze the country, while more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line. The country's pitiful growth rate hovers barely over 2 percent as unprecedented numbers of Nepalese are quitting the country for jobs in the Gulf, India and Southeast Asia. An estimated 10,000 women who leave each year end up as sex workers in Indian brothels...
...people of Nepal don't really care about a republic or a monarchy," says Dixit, the Nepali Times editor. Instead, they want an end to rancorous politicking. They want a concerted program for development and the creation of new jobs within the country. A new Nepalese government also must attend to the hard, yet inescapable reality of the trauma left behind by years of civil war. Reconciliation and reconstruction is the sole agenda that the voting public cares about. It'll be up to the country's garlanded leaders to deliver...