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There were unmistakable signs during US President Don­ald Trump’s recent India visit that the two countries are keen on closer collaboration to contain China’s rise in the region. Speaking in New Delhi, Trump said he was “revi­talizing” the QUAD initiative with the help of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The QUAD—composed of Australia, Japan, India, and the US—is a platform, just like the Indo-Pa­cific Strategy, aimed at countering the Chinese BRI. Trump said among the goals of QUAD revival is “ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific.”He reaffirmed the American commitment to fighting radical Islamic terrorism. As if the message was lost on the Indian audience he wanted to woo, he added that the US is also working with Pakistan to confront terrorists who operate “on its soil.” This was also music to the ears of Modi and members of the Hindu nationalist government he leads. Although the gargantuan trade deals Trump likes to trumpet did not materialize during his India sojourn, he could nonetheless boast of selling to India around $3 billion worth of American military hardware. His larger-than-life reception in Ahmedabad will also place him in good stead with the Indian-Americans in the year of the presidential election.

For Nepal, there was a clear message that the Americans are intent on consolidating their ties with India via the Indo-Pacific Strategy to give China a run for its money in South Asia. The American President and the US security establishment are one on this. In the days ahead, expect more pointed US references to Chinese interference in Tibetan affairs in Nepal, more swipes at China’s debt-trap diplomacy, and more Kathmandu visits of top American military officials to cement bilateral security ties. But with the government of its choice in Kathmandu, China won’t hold back either.

Whether the MCC compact is good for Nepal, the Amer­icans will not be pleased at the way PM Oli has appeared helpless in ensuring its smooth passage through the parlia­ment. They were ready to give the communist prime minister benefit of doubt, partly because they had zero trust in the ex-Maoists, including Prachanda. But what if Oli can’t secure their interests? The Indians have been unhappy with him since the blockade days. It makes perfect sense for the Indians and the Americans to join hands to secure their increasingly converging interests in Nepal.

The security establishments in both India and the US are obsessed with China. Minimizing the Middle Kingdom’s footprints in South Asia is their end goal. Towards that end, no tactic, however dirty, will be off limits. As PM Oli slowly loses his grip on power, they espy an opportunity. They will have seen how top Nepali leaders can easily be enticed to compromise on national interests, via amending the national charter if need be. When the three big outside powers here start playing dirty, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen to the country that has barely been able to achieve a semblance of stability after long.

We recently celebrated the Valentine’s Day, or the so-called love day. Many of us expressed love through every available means. We could have done that on other days also—there were 364 at our disposal. Maybe we didn’t realize then.

That particular day, Feb­ruary 14, gave us an occa­sion, a reason, a reminder, to express love. It’s easy to overlook, but it brought our minds to that particular day. We were reminded to think: ‘Today is a special day’.

Habitually, we are either living in the past or in the future. Past means memo­ries and future means pro­jections based on those memories. Memories are often good or bad, causing us to either cling to or loathe them. And projections too can be good or bad, causing us to either fancy or fear what would come next. In all this, our present moment slips away. Always.

Most of the festivals and ‘days’ around the world bring people’s minds to that day. These days enable people to live in the moment. They lift people’s minds out of mem­ories and projections, and drop them to the ‘here and now’. Without realizing, peo­ple enjoy the ‘here and now’.

Lost in memories and pro­jections, we lose our pre­cious moments. By habit, we cannot enjoy ourselves. We cannot accept ourselves in the moment as we keep remembering the good or nasty things of the past. We are too busy coveting or fear­ing what comes tomorrow or the next year. Slaves to past and future, we have lost our freedom to live ‘here and now’.

What happens if we were in a situation to love? Imag­ine your possible love is next to you. Or a friend, a kid, or your pet, it doesn’t matter. You cannot accept them when you are ruminat­ing the past and worrying about the future. You had a pleasant love affair in the past, or a horrible one. As a slave of habit, you start judging—‘this girl is worse than my ex’ or ‘this guy is no match to my prince’ or ‘this is great, but it will also pass and leave me in pain’. And whoops! Love vanishes. Mind oscillates between the past and future. Your moment of love is lost.

When you live in the pres­ent moment and accept things and people as they are, two things happen: you become peaceful and you better connect with people. It will clear your love-jam. You are then able to love.

 The government attitude to one of the three pillars of the economy, the private sector, has been disappointing. There are efforts to limit the role of the private sector even though there is a need for effec­tive partnership between public and private sectors to achieve our larger economic goals. Even government estimates show that the private sector’s contribution is crucial to the timely achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Full liberalization of the econ­omy and enhancement of the capacity of the private sector have failed due to policy inconsisten­cies of the past three decades. The expectation that a stable gov­ernment would result in policy clarity and a consistent approach in dealing with the private sector has not been met. Riding on a capitalistic horse to reach the des­tination of ‘sound communism’ is questionable. The Nepal Commu­nist Party (NCP)-led government clearly doesn’t consider the pri­vate sector a formal partner for economic development.

A Swedish Finance Minister was once asked by Joseph E. Sti­glitz, a Nobel Prize winner econo­mist, why his country’s economy was doing so well. The answer: “Because we have high taxes.” What he meant, as Stiglitz inter­prets, is that Swedes know that in a prosperous country there is a high level of public expendi­ture on infrastructure, education, technology and social protection, and that the government needs revenues to sustainably finance these expenditures.

Many of these public expen­ditures complement private expenditures. Advances in gov­ernment-financed technology can help support private investment. Investors rely ever more on edu­cated labor force and good infra­structure. Central to rapid growth is an increase in knowledge, and the government has to support the underlying basic research. But no such effort is seen in Nepal although the tax rate here is much higher compared to other coun­tries in the region. A huge amount of revenue collected goes in recur­rent expenditure and there is a dearth of quality investment in education let alone in research and development.

I cite this example as it comes from an economist who recom­mends increasing the size of the public sector with higher taxes. But even such scholars agree on the basic premise that the mon­ey collected by the government should be spent to advance key aspects of the economy. Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada, con­sidered a champion of the wel­fare economic model, issued a White Paper at the start of his tenure to show the pathetic state of the economy back then, and promised that he would attempt course-correction. Many trust­ed him, including this scribe. But two years down the line, the economy has not found its way and the private sector has lost its confidence.

Forty years ago, when China began its transition to a market economy, no one could have imagined that the impoverished county would have a GDP com­parable to that of the US in under half a century. The Communist Party of China (CPC) didn’t just sit by idly deregulating the market. It also devised well-crafted policies to incentivize the private sec­tor to grow and compete against their counterparts from other developed countries.

In the context of Nepal, the NCP government should be mindful that the referees them­selves do not end up playing the economic game. Nor should the game’s rule surprise the players. A formal private sector always looks for policy reforms to gen­erate growth and job opportu­nities. It is the government’s job to facilitate a public-private dia­logue and draft policies to boost private sector enthusiasm in nation-building

Holeri of Rolpa, the place of genesis of the Maoist ‘people’s war’, wore a deserted look on February 13, the 25th anniversary of the start of the decade-long war that ended in 2006. Follow­ing the merger of the warring mother Maoist party with the erstwhile CPN-UML to form the Nepal Communist Party, the country’s current ruling party, the celebrations this year were rather muted. On 13 February 1996, the Maoist party had started its insurgency by attacking a police post at Holeri. To mark the occasion, Energy Minis­ter Barshaman Pun, who had led the attack, was in Rolpa to address a media conference on the war anniversary.

“With the end of the people’s war, the country has ventured forth on the path of economic prosperity,” he claimed. “The war that started under my com­mand at Holeri has brought about drastic changes in the country.” Pun expressed his satisfaction that the Maoist hotbed of Rolpa is now bet­ter known as a place of peace and prosperity.

The Nepal Communist Party had decided to celebrate ‘peo­ple’s war day’ by organizing dif­ferent events in all districts of Province 5. But these functions turned out to be small indoor affairs resembling government meetings. The former Maoist warriors and family members of the martyrs did not even know of these meetings.

Biplob faction carries the torch

In comparison, the banned communist party under Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplob’, a break­away Maoist outfit, celebrated the day with much fanfare in Thawang, Rolpa. They started the celebration of the 25th anniversary of ‘people’s war’ on the open ground at Thulo Gaun. Posters with the red sick­le-and-hammer flags were seen plastered all around the town. The party says it is trying to keep the spirit of the ‘people’s war’ alive. The party organized weeklong sports and cultural events, according to a district leader. “We hoisted party flags on almost all of the 400 houses of Thawang,” he told APEX over the phone. “Residents of this place made huge contribu­tions to the war. Many became martyrs. We are celebrating the day to respect their sacrifice.” Altogether 23 residents of Tha­wang had died in the decade-long war.

“We continue to celebrate the people’s war day,” the leader said. Celebrations included men’s and women’s volleyball tournament, kabaddi, badmin­ton, dohori song competition, among others. The winning teams of volleyball under both men’s and women’s categories were given cash prizes of Rs 50,000, Rs 30,000, and Rs 20,000 for the first, second and third place finishers. The party said local patrons and well-wishers had generously donated the prize money.

Security agencies that had stopped the party from dis­playing flags and banners in the past had now relaxed the restriction, the leader said.

Meanwhile, jailed lead­ers of the Biplav faction also celebrated the war anniver­sary in Rolpa District Jail by smearing vermillion powder on each other and exchang­ing greetings. Twelve members of the party including Rapti bureau in-charge Kesh Baha­dur Bantha Magar ‘Subhas’, Santosh Subedi ‘Prayas’, and Pusta Man Gharti are serving prison terms there