1. Who is he and whats the news?

#1

Ans.: Retired Argentina soccer striker Gabrial Batistuta. He has now switched sports and made his formal debut as a polo player alongside his friend and compatriot Adolfo Cambiaso.

2. Who is he and what is his claim to fame?

#2

Ans.: Ali Hassan Al Majeed better known as “Chemical Ali”, Saddam Hussain’s top henchman, recently awarded death sentence for his crimes.

3. Identify the MAN and the Occasion

#3

Ans.: Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King. He was in India recently seen here lighting a candle at the memorial of Mother Teresa.

4. A print advertisement by whom? Put Fundaez.

#4

Ans.: Ad by Bajaj Electricals Limited. They engineered and manufactured the tallest flag pole built in India recently. It is located in Kaithal, Haryana with a height of 63m.

5. Identify and Why was she in news last week?

#5

Ans.: Nirmala Venkatesh, ex-member National Commission for Women, She was recently sacked post her rejection of interim report on Mangalore Pub Attack on women.

6. What is the Occasion?

#6

Ans.: First ever foreign visit as commoners by the now ousted Royal Family of Nepal. King Gyanendra and wife Komal seen here on their visit to India.

7. This breed of dogs was in news last week. Put Fundaez.

#7

Ans.: Portugese Water Dog, recently reported to be the new First Canine of the United States as the Obama Family has zeroed on this breed of dogs for themselves.

His former travesty, King Gyanendra, grew a tad bored in his forest palace among the Rhesus monkeys and decided to take a break in lovely Pokhara where he still has a palace retreat right smack at Lakeside.

Since being out of smoggy Kathmandu he has totally changed his life style. He’s gone fully macro-biotic in terms of food, Omega-3 is the raga of the day, then lots of berries which he collects himself in the forest (true, the monkeys sometimes give him a hard time, but, hey, we’re talkin’ stamina here), high-fibre/low cholesterol stuff and only French mineral water Eau de Pussy Fussy.

King Gyanendra passes his days usually riding the motor boat that, ehem, Dipendra so much loved to fool around with when he was not masturbating. Then in the afternoon Gyanni goes on some motorbike jaunts. He’s having a great time, especially so since he left his home bitch in Kathmandu. Evenings he passes reading the Count of Monte Cristo and Honey, I shrunk the Pork Chops.

In The Telegraph, UK, Thomas Bell reports from Kathmandu:

In his last act before leaving his palace last week, Nepal’s former king, Gyanendra, tried something he never attempted during his disastrous experiment with autocratic rule.

He decided to call a press conference – and for dismayed royalists the ensuing scene encapsulated the fall of an ancient institution that had collapsed from within.

Excited journalists climbed on the palace furniture. They posed for pictures in the chair where Gyanendra would sit, flanked by two stuffed tigers. When the ex-king arrived they heckled him with the rudest words in the Nepali language.

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Charles Haviland of BBC eports from Kathmandu:

I seriously thought my rib-cage was about to be crushed as I waited outside the palace gates to get into the former king’s news conference.

After two years of living under virtual gagging orders, it was not surprising that Gyanendra Shah would attract considerable interest with his unprecedented statement to journalists.

But the sheer level of curiosity, the pushing and shoving from the hundreds of reporters and others behind them trying to force their way in, was extraordinary.

In the end I was catapulted in by the crowd behind me, leaving me in a no-man’s-land between two gates, facing the brief wrath of police and palace staff demanding to know why I had forced my way in.

[Photos: Top, the former king and his wife Komal leaving the palace in a black Mercedes. Below: Nagarjun palace, the future residence of ousted king.]

More here and here

Of head without a crown, jungle retreat and solitaire

C.K. Lal in Mail Today:

WEDNESDAY afternoon, Gyanendra must have felt the unbearable lightness that comes from being released from the burden of history as he prepared to leave Narayanhity palace. He had ascended to the 240- year- old Serpent Throne of the Shah Dynasty under extremely tragic and somewhat suspicious circumstances. In comparison, his departure from the palace and the end of the Shah line has been peaceful to the point of being listless. In the first week of June 2001, King Birendra, and everyone of his family in the line of succession, save Gyanendra and his son Paras, had been killed in a gruesome palace massacre. Almost everybody in the kingdom believed that the survivors had somehow conspired to become the inheritors of the Shah crown, tiara and spectre that traditionally belonged to the slain king, queen and crown prince respectively.

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End of Hindu rashtra

Subhash Gatade in Countercurrents:

Jaswant Singh, the exforeign minister of India, who also handled the finance portfolio for quite sometime, rather could not hide his displeasure in the recently held meeting of the BJP executive.

Of course the immediate provocation for the ex-Army man was neither because of any fresh move by his bete noire in state politics namely Ms Vasundhara Raje Scindia. It also had nothing to do with the manner in which L.K.Advani had flatly denied any knowledge of his not so famous sojourn to Kandahar after the plane hijacking incident.

In fact he shared his piece of mind over recent developments in Nepal. He called it a ‘negative development’ and a ‘danger to India’s security’ and said that ‘as a believer in sanatan Dharma he feels humiliated and as a Hindu, he felt diminished over the ouster of a Hindu king.’

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The decline and fall of Nepal’s last king

From Reuters:

Not long ago he was revered by some as a Hindu god, waited upon by thousands of royal palace retainers. His face adorned banknotes and the national anthem sang his praises.

Now Nepal’s former King Gyanendra is vilified, has lost his crown and is being forced out of his palace.

A specially elected assembly voted overwhelmingly to abolish the 239-year-old monarchy two weeks ago, leaving Gyanendra to go down in history as the last king of Nepal.

Gyanendra will now move to an old royal hunting lodge just outside the capital until he has a chance to find a permanent home.

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Former Nepalese king’s elderly mistress to remain in palace

From Associated Press [via IHT]:

For more than half a century, few Nepalis knew of the mysterious elderly woman living in Katmandu’s royal palace.

They found out Wednesday about Sarala Gorkhali when authorities announced the frail 94-year-old could stay in the palace even though Nepal’s recently deposed king was being forced to move.

The reason: she was the youngest mistress of King Tribhuwan, who ruled the Himalayan kingdom from 1911 until his death in 1955, and has no house to move to or any relatives to take her in, interim Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula said.

So as Nepal’s last monarch, Gyanendra, leaves his family’s one-time seat Wednesday, Gorkhali will remain, a final member of the royal court and a reminder of a dynasty that reigned over the Himalayan nation for 239 years.

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KATHMANDU: While Nepal’s dethroned king Gyanendra has just 72 hours to vacate the royal palace, former queen mother Ratna Shah will stay on. She has wrested permission from the government despite growing public anger against the privileges of the erstwhile royal family. Gyanendra’s 80-year-old stepmother, once the most powerful woman in the kingdom and a resident of the Narayanhity royal palace through the reign of four kings in succession, will not have to quit her quarters inside the sprawling palace, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s government said. [Inset: The former King Gyanendra escorting the Queen Mother. Source Day Life]

Ratna Shah, the iron-fisted second wife who late king Mahendra married despite the disapproval of his father, and who is reported to have been a staunch supporter of Gyanendra’s coup in 2005, will continue to stay in Mahendra Manzil, the mansion inside the palace built by her husband. Not just the former queen mother, but a former royal mistress will also be allowed to stay in the palace, the council of ministers decided on Sunday.

Sarala Tamang, in her 90s, who was the concubine of Gyanendra’s grandfather Tribhuvan, will also be allowed to continue living in the separate house inside the palace. Meanwhile, the fabled crown of the Shah kings, studded with priceless gems and easily identifiable by the long bird of paradise feather rising from the apex, is missing, as well as the royal sceptre. The crown was last worn in public by Gyanendra, the last king of Nepal, on June 4, 2001 when he ascended the throne a second time following the assassination of his brother Birendra.

Though a high-level committee formed by the government to make an inventory of the priceless heirlooms in the secretive palace has been repeatedly asking about the two erstwhile symbols of power, but no one had complied till Sunday. Last month, Nepal’s newly elected constituent assembly, that replaced its interim parliament, formally declared Nepal a federal, secular democratic republic, ending the Shah dynasty of kings’ stranglehold over the country for more than two centuries.

The assembly ordered the deposed king to leave the palace by June 12 so that it can be turned into a national museum. While the proclamation was hailed by the people, days later, the Koirala government was accused of betraying the pro-democracy movement that ended Gyanendra’s authoritarian regime, when it conceded the sacked king’s request to find him suitable accommodation and let him move to a summer palace on the outskirts of Kathmandu valley.

The cabinet decision to let the former king and his wife Komal move from the Narayanhity into the Nagarjuna summer residence nestled in forested hills triggered severe criticism with people asking why Gyanendra, a billionaire, could not find alternate accommodation on his own. Now the plan to allow the former queen mother and the royal mistress to linger on in the palace is also likely to stoke public resentment. Ironically, the decision was supported by the Maoist ministers, whose party fought a 10-year war to overthrow the royal dynasty.

The first note of dissent came from a fringe communist party, People’s Front Nepal. Its representative in the cabinet, Health and Population Minister Girijaj Mani Pokhrel, was the lone dissenting voice, saying that the decision would send a very negative message about the government’s commitment to the cause of a democratic republic. Earlier, Pokhrel had also opposed the move to allow Gyanendra to move into Nagarjuna.
Though Gyanendra said he accepted the decision of the critical election in April that decided his fate, the palace has continued to go its own way, refusing to take instructions from the government. – IANS

Nepal’s deposed king is refusing to cooperate with a government committee set up to audit royal property and has still not handed over his crown, an official source told AFP yesterday.

“We realise it’s hard for some people to accept change,” a member of the committee told AFP as he recounted various ways in which ousted king Gyanendra has been trying to stall the dismantling of his 240-year-old monarchy.

“We have not been allowed to look in the residence of the former king. He is not helping us very much in the audit of the crown jewels, valuables and property,” the source told AFP on condition he not be named.

Nepal’s monarchy was abolished on May 28 by a constitutional assembly, which was set up following a peace deal with Maoist insurgents and mainstream political parties.

Gyanendra has until Thursday to vacate the sprawling pink palace in central Kathmandu. The residence will then be turned into a museum.

But the committee member said key items, including the diamond- and ruby-adorned crown — last seen in public during Gyanendra’s coronation in 2001 — had yet to be recovered.

“We have been told informally that the crown and sceptre are still in the palace, but no one has formally given us the location,” he said, adding that palace staff were throwing up “a lot of restrictions in the name of protocol” — even though the last of the king’s privileges were revoked in May.

Nepal’s Maoists, who fought for 10 years to topple the monarchy, said the ex-king was clearly having trouble coping with his fall from grace.

“Creating obstructions… show that he is not enthusiastic about the change,” said Dinanath Sharma, a senior Maoist leader. “But despite this delay, we are going to retrieve the crown.”

Unless the deadlock over government formation is broken soon, the constitution writing process will be compromised, writes Siddharth Varadarajan in The HIndu:

Nearly a week after the abolition of the monarchy in Nepal, a democratically formed coalition government still eludes the world’s youngest republic. Instead of introspecting over the reasons for their defeat in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Nepali Congress and the Unified Marxist-Leninists are behaving like victors. And the Maoists, who came first but still lack a majority, have yet to master the art of compromise without which there can be no coalit ional politics. At stake is not just the question of governance but something much more fundamental. For unless the deadlock over government formation is resolved quickly, the political atmosphere in the country will get so vitiated that enormous and perhaps irreparable harm will be done to the prospects of writing the country’s new constitution.

Nepal’s voters want the Maoists to lead the government and process of constitution writing, but only on the basis of power sharing. That is why they gave the former rebels 220 out of the 575 elected seats in the Constituent Assembly (CA) but withheld the two-thirds majority needed to allow them to run a single-party government under the terms of the interim constitution. Of course, the Maoists have never said they wanted to run the government by themselves. As soon as the election results became known six weeks ago, Chairman Prachanda extended an invitation to the others to join a government under his leadership. The terms of power sharing had been clearly spelt out by both the text of the interim constitution and the spirit of its working over the past 18 months and it was assumed that these arrangements would carry over.

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The Fountains were switched on. The water danced. The white-clad military band stood to attention.

And waited. And waited.

After 239 years of rule by the Shah royal dynasty, perhaps it was inevitable that the last few hours of waiting for the monarchy to be abolished and a republic set up should also be long and drawn-out.

When the announcement came, it was greeted with cheers.

Three bombs had gone off earlier in the day Yet all things considered, the decision, momentous as it was, sparked neither bitter complaint nor intense celebration.

Perhaps the long period of violence and uncertainty beforehand had something to do with it.

Nepal has seen a decade long civil war; two postponed elections; a massacre of the royal family; the grabbing of absolute power by the king and the handing back of it again; and most recently, victory in elections by Maoist former guerrillas. Nepalis could be forgiven for being uncertain of what lies in store.

The country’s constituent assembly voted to abolish King Gyanendra’s house by 560 votes to 4. The king’s unpopularity, among assembly members and the ordinary Nepalis who elected them in April, was well earned. In 1990, his brother, King Birendra, bowed to popular demands and became a constitutional monarch, attaining respect and affection as a result.

When the Maoists began their insurrection in the western hills in 1996, getting rid of the crown was not on their agenda. Yet Gyanendra alienated supporters by grabbing dictatorial powers in 2005, only to be forced to hand them back again after a clumsy attempted crackdown turned peaceful protests into nationwide strikes. Most Nepalis believe-without any evidence-that Gyanendra and his unpopular playboy son, Paras, were involved in the royal mas-acre of 2001 when Crown Prince Dipendra killed his immediate family, several other relatives and himself.

The royal family was once revered as the reincarnation of Hindu gods. But the massacre undermined faith in the monarchy in general, and turned Nepalis against this king in particular.

Before he ascended the throne, Gyanendra had been a successful businessman.

He will be allowed to stay in Nepal and return to commerce. His palace will become a museum.

But for the man who engineered the king’s departure, tougher choices lie ahead. This is the leader of Nepal’s Maoists, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, which means “awesome”. Prachanda has long said he would become the first president of a Nepalese republic. He stands on the brink of achieving that ambition. His problems start then.

The Maoists are the biggest party, but do not have a majority. Nepal is led by a fractious coalition, which the Maoists want to widen by including regional parties from the south and south-east.

That may make managing the coalition trickier.

The abolition of the monarchy is a first step in a much wider reform.

Laws and even customs deemed to go against the country’s status as a republic are to be repealed.

Many politicians who supported Prachanda’s demand to abolish the monarchy will not neces- sarily back proposals for what should replace it. For example, the parties of the south and south-east want extensive regional autonomy. Prachanda seems unlikely to give it to them.

He will also have to get to grips with the aftermath of the civil war. The former royal army is 90,000-strong.

Nepal also has 23,000 Maoist ex-combatants kicking their heels in temporary camps. The Maoists want to merge the two forces. The army’s high command is reluctant.

Then there are economic and social promises to fulfil. The Maoists want to push through land reform, emancipate the lower castes and seek foreign investment. With growth slowing, that would be hard enough by itself.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown-and the breast that sports a presidential sash.

[The Economist/UK]

You realized by now, we have our connections. We prefer to call them in French understatement ‘liaison’. One of our paparazzi filed this absolutely fresh pic. It was shot from our Learjet cruising at low altitude.

Looking very closely you can see the Royal Flag on the left tip of the island. The sand is supposed to be fluffy soft, just right for His Majesty’s tender feet. Om tare tu tare.

It took even us by surprise but things are speeding up in turning the royal palace into a museum. A museum for what, one may ask.

Officials of Home Ministry reach Narayanhiti palace, Sunday, to make arrangements for its security in coordination with palace staffs. The government has decided to turn the palace into national museum or use it for national interest after the implementation of republic. June 01 08. nepalnews.com/rs

Hot from the reel >>> Meanwhile one of our sleuths took this discreet photo:

It shows disguised king Gyanendra, aka Sri Saath Mahajaradiraj Bir Bikram Shah Dev, making a test run on how to vacate the royal digs.

By 560 to 4 Nepalese lawmakers voted to abolish the nation’s 240-year-old monarchy. It was a stunning victory for the Maoists who fought a 10-year insurgency before disarming under a November 2006 peace accord to become part of Nepal’s interim government. They won the most seats in elections held last month and plan to form a coalition government.

The 61-year-old King Gyanendra has been given 15 days to vacate the palace. The royal flag was lowered at the Narayanhiti palace in the capital, Kathmandu, and replaced by the national flag.

King Gyanendra’s security can’t be guaranteed if he refuses to leave the palace and live as a “common citizen,” the Communist Party of Nepal said.

The Constituent Assembly has directed the government to “take necessary measures” to vacate the king from the palace in 15 days, Jhala Nath Khanal, general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) said in an interview from Kathmandu. “I hope he has made up his mind to do so.”

The interim administration said he must pay taxes, place the army under civilian control and remove his image from the 500-rupee note, replacing it with Mount Everest.

King Gyanendra is the last king in the Shah dynasty which began in 1768 when King Prithivi Narayan Shah unified the country that was divided into principalities. He took control of Kathmandu city and drove the Malla rulers from the surrounding valley.

Gyanendra became king in June 2001, after his brother Birendra and close relatives were killed by Crown Prince Dipendra, who then shot himself. The king lost most of his powers in 2006 when he was forced by nationwide strikes to end more than a year of absolute rule and allow the return of a civilian government.

“My dream has come true,” Nepal’s interim Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala told lawmakers as the assembly met for the first time, according to the UN. “Nepal is entering a new era by overcoming all the difficulties and we have to maintain unity and collaboration between the parties.”

Nepal, the world’s newest republic, is among the world’s poorest countries, according to the U.S. government. One-third of its citizens live below the poverty line and per capita gross domestic product is about $1,100. About 80 percent of Nepal’s population of 26.4 million people is Hindu.

Nepal’s three biggest political parties, holding 433 seats in the 601- member parliament, and four other smaller parties agreed to replace the monarchy with a ceremonial president, with most authority concentrated in the prime minister’s office. There is still much work that has to be done. Talks are going on amongst the political parties to choose a candidate for president and prime minister.

Jhala Nath Khanal, general secretary of the CPN-UML said:

“The Maoists will lead the coalition government as they are the single largest party. The powers or the rights for the president are yet to be decided”. He also added “I do not think the president and prime minister will be from the same party. The method for electing the president has also to be agreed upon by the parties. The process will be completed within two weeks.”

The Maoists won 220 seats in the April 10 ballot. The Nepali Congress, the nation’s oldest political party, won 110 seats, while the CPN-UML secured 103 and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, representing the Tarai region bordering India, won 52. Maoist leader Prachanda says he wants all parties that won seats, including ethnic groups, to join a “consensus government.”

By J. Sri Raman

India figures prominently as an issue in Nepal’s forthcoming elections. The Himalayan nation has always figured in India’s politics, too, and is likely to do so in a larger manner over the next few months.

The issue, which has showed varying degrees of visibility, has been particularly important for the far right. To the Bharatiya Janata Party and the parivar (the far right family), Nepal has not been a mere neighbor to the north. To them, it was the only “Hindu state,” so long as it was a mountain kingdom under an unpopular monarchy, and it remains the only other Hindu-majority nation.

Consequently, the BJP and the parivar have been strongly opposed to the anti-monarchy or democratic movement in Nepal and its constituents, particularly the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). In the current context, they are staunchly opposed to the major section of the movement that does not trust the deposed king enough even to retain him as a figurehead in a constitutional monarchy.

The Nepal policy of India’s far right is tied to its national politics aimed at making the BJP and the parivar the representative of the country’s religious majority. The policy has an international prop as well. In terms of the US-India “strategic partnership,” inaugurated by the BJP while in power during 1998-2004, Nepal is not only a “buffer state” between India and China, but a bulwark against the latter for South and South-East Asia.

The BJP and its band, in any case, cannot remain benign observers of the Nepal scene after the CPN(M) came out with its manifesto for the elections to a proposed Constituent Assembly (CA) to be held on April 10 (if the polls are not put off for a third time). The manifesto does make a major issue of India, especially the India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed on July 31, 1950.

The manifesto says: “The non-reciprocal relations existing between Nepal and India since the days of British India must be re-evaluated in order to make the existing relations reciprocal. For this, mainly, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, 1950, signed between India and Nepal must be annulled….”

What the Maoists and many other sections of Nepal’s political spectrum oppose more than anything else is the part of the treaty that makes India-Nepal relations sound like another strategic partnership. The objection, above all, is to two of the ten articles of the pact.

Under Article II of the treaty, the “two governments hereby undertake to inform each other of any serious friction or misunderstanding with any neighbouring state likely to cause any breach in the friendly relations subsisting between the two governments.” Article V lays down: “The Government of Nepal shall be free to import, from or through the territory of India, arms, ammunition or warlike material and equipment necessary for the security of Nepal. The procedure for giving effect to this arrangement shall be worked out by the two Governments acting in consultation.”

The pact was, in these respects, a reworking of the Treaty of 1923 between British India and Nepal. By that treaty, too, the two sides agreed to inform each other of any misunderstanding with the neighbouring states whose territories adjoined their common frontiers.

According to Article V of the treaty, the British government agreed that the Nepal government would be free to import arms, ammunition, machinery, war-like material, and stores as may be required or desired for the strength and welfare of Nepal, and that the arrangement would continue so long as the British government was satisfied of the intentions of the Nepal government that there was no immediate danger to India from such importations.

India has always insisted on the treaty being read together with “letters exchanged” between New Delhi and Kathmandu in 1959 and 1965. These included Nepal in India’s security zone and precluded arms purchases without India’s approval.

At the height of the Maoists’ armed struggle, their supporters claimed that the treaty also contained some secret annexures, covering mutual assistance in case of an emergency such as their rebellion. Sections of Nepal’s media reported in February 2005 that General Pyar Jung Thapa, chief of the Royal Nepal Army, had hinted at King Gyanendra invoking the provisions of the treaty and seeking Indian military support against the Maoists.

The treaty came under considerable strain even during the period of monarchy, particularly on two occasions. The first instance followed the end of another unpopular monarchy in another Himalayan kingdom – Sikkim, adjoining Nepal on the east – in 1975, leading to what New Delhi described as its “integration” with India and what its critics denounced as an “annexation.” An anxious King Birendra Bir Bikram Dev Shah reacted by calling for international recognition of Nepal as a “zone of peace,” with India treating the idea backed by China and Pakistan as an attack on the treaty and the “special relationship” envisaged. The proposal was pursued, but with declining vigor and, finally, in vain.

The second time, matters threatened to take a more serious turn in 1988, when Nepal acquired some Chinese weaponry. New Delhi saw this as a flagrant violation of the treaty. The close economic relations between the two countries, governed by equally controversial treaties of transit and trade, however, gave New Delhi the clout to penalize Nepal through what even pro-India analysts have called a “blockade.” The pact did not face any substantial opposition from the palace in Kathmandu after that.

As for popular opinion on the issue, the Maoists can claim to articulate it to a significant extent when they declare that Nepal should cease to be branded a “buffer state” between India and China but should be regarded as a “dynamic link” between the two. The call to replace the present India-Nepal pact with a more “equal treaty” can also safely be presumed to enjoy majority support in the mountain state.

On the Indian side, there is talk – even in circles that regard as an encomium India’s description by the Maoists and others as an “expansionist power” – of bringing the treaty in better tune with the times. The treaty, however, provides for no revision, upgrading or updating. Article X of the document says, “The Treaty shall remain in force until it is terminated by either party by giving one year’s notice” and no more.

This may well lead to a piquant situation in the aftermath of elections. Whichever party or group of parties comes to power in Kathmandu, a long round of tough negotiations – and worse – appears unavoidable.

A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India, J. Sri Raman is the author of “Flashpoint” (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to Truthout.

With the Maoists set to dominate the new Constituent Assembly, Nepal’s king may soon loose his crown. In The Indian Express, Yubaraj Ghimire weighs the royal options:

For almost two years now, King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev has been in isolation. He has become a ‘punching bag’ of sorts for Nepalese politicians and to some extent, the international community, a symbol for everything that ailed Nepal. And, of course, everybody holds him responsible for his fate. He is hardly spotted in public these days, and when he is, it is without the trapping of royalty. He remains mostly confined to the Narayanhiti Palace. Even this could be for a short while longer, for if the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (CPN-M) does what it has pledged to, Nepal will be a republic on the first day that the newly elected Constituent Assembly sits.

The emergence of the Maoists as the single-largest party in the forthcoming Assembly, and the likelihood of a government under its leadership, has sent out the message that time and tide don’t wait for anyone. And in this tsunami of change, Nepal-which lost its status as an officially Hindu nation two years ago-looks set to lose the world’s only Hindu monarch whose forefather began the Shah dynasty 240 years ago.

Nepal is now speculating over the king’s future. Will he seek asylum in India? Will he counter the political tide? Or will he live on in Nepal as an ordinary citizen?

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Even though it is kinda late for this, here’s the letter from “His Majesty” himself on the eve of the Constituent Assembly Elections.

Feel free to make your own interpretation