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The Nepal Digest Wednesday 8 March 95: Falgun 24 2051 BkSm Volume 36 Issue 5
Today's Topics:
Aplogoies for no headers due to time constraints.
******************************************************************************
* TND Board of Staff *
* ------------------ *
* Editor/Co-ordinator: Rajpal J. Singh a10rjs1@mp.cs.niu.edu *
* SCN Liaison: Rajesh B. Shrestha rshresth@black.clarku.edu *
* Consultant Editor: Padam P. Sharma sharma@plains.nodak.edu *
* TND Archives: Sohan Panta k945184@atlas.kingston.ac.uk *
* Book Reviews Columns: Pratyoush R. Onta ponta@sas.upenn.edu *
* News Correspondent Rajendra P Shrestha rajendra@dartmouth.edu *
* *
* +++++ Food For Thought +++++ *
* *
* "If you don't stand up for something, you will fall for anything" -Dr. MLK *
* "Democracy perishes among the silent crowd" - Sirdar Khalifa *
* *
******************************************************************************
**********************************************************************
Date: 07 Mar 95 09:30:54 EST
From: Rajendra.P.Shrestha@Dartmouth.EDU (Rajendra P. Shrestha)
Subject: News3/4-5
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
March 4
Radio Nepal to Curb Beer, Tobacco Ads
Excerpts from UPI report
Radio Nepal will no longer accept some beer and tobacco
advertisements, the broadcaster said Saturday. The radio station has
stopped prime time ads for beer adjacent to popular morning religious
programming. The state-owned radio station also will impose a 100
percent surcharge on adveretisements for alcohol and tobacco products,
and will require such ads to mention that ''tobacco is injurious to
health.'' According to the the World Health Organization, Nepal ranks
third among all countries in per capita tobacco consumption.
March 5
Government gives go-ahead to Arun
Excerpts from DPA and AFP reports
Nepal has finally given the go-ahead for the construction of the
controversial Arun hydroelectric project, a top official said
Saturday. The government has approved a slightly modified version of
the 800 million dollar project, subject to approval by the scheme's
main contributor, the World Bank, a senior Water Resources Ministry
official told AFP.
"The project is planned to be started early next year and it's
hoped it will be completed by 2000 in order to meet the acute power
shortage," he said.
The UML government approved the project with certain conditions
after a lengthy debate, a Finance Ministry source said, refusing
however to reveal the conditions.
The source added that the government had written a "positive
letter" recommending the project to the president of the World Bank.
The 201-megawatt project to be sited 300 kilometres (187 miles)
northeast of here was first conceived by the officials under the
former partyless Panchayat system in 1986, at a cost then estimated at
around 450 million dollars.
But after an eight-year delay caused by opposition and alleged
scandals surrounding the project -- which will be able to generate
more than 1000 megawatts of sorely-needed electricity -- its price-tag
has almost doubled.
Millions of dollars have already been spent on environmental impact
studies, and compensating and resettling displaced families.
The power plant, to be located in the foothills of the Himalayas,
has become the most intensly studied project in this tiny country's
history and has been the subject of heated debate and harsh criticism
over the years.
It was bitterly opposed by environmental groups, who said the
proposed 65-metre-high dam in the Arun Valley faced an imminent danger
bursting as upstream glacial lakes melted.
In addition, allegations surfaced in the Nepalese press claiming
the then Nepali Congress (NC) government and others concerned in the
project would reap huge commissions if the project went ahead.
Also, the NCP-UML oppposition alleged that the government had
received underhand payments from overseas agents with huge financial
stakes in the project, in return for backing it.
Critics of the Arun scheme said the power generated from it would
be among the most expensive supplies in the world, making it a luxury
item for most Nepalese, whose per capita income stands at just 200 US
dollars.
The scheme is essential to alleviate Nepal's critical power
shortage and to boost its economic development, experts said.
Nepal's current power output stands at less than 300 megawatts,
but the kingdom has an awesome potential of 83,000 megawatts of
hydro-electric power, with its numerous rapid white water rivers,
experts said.
As much as 80 percent cost of the project is to be met with foreign
grants and loans carrying nominal interest rates. The Nepalese
government and the autonomous Nepal Electricity Authority will bear 20
percent of the cost.
Other major contributors are KFW Bank of Germany, Asian Development
Bank, Japan and Sweden.
Nepali Congress Meeting Starts with 715 expulsions
The general council (Mahasamiti) meeting of the Nepali Congress
Party started today in Pokhara.
Inaugurating the meeting, nc president krishna prasad bhattarai said
that it is time to dispel all kinds of doubts about socialism to which
nepali congress has so much emotional attachment and define it
comprehensively. general secretary mahendra narayan nidhi observed
that the party should oust those people who cannot abide by the party
discipline.
The central working committee of the party, which met in Pokhara on
Saturday, decided to take disciplinary action against 715 party
members for joining rebel activities. 23 mahasamiti members were also
among those being disciplined for their anti-party activities. Among
those expelled was Jagan Nath Acharya, a former minister.
The members were being expelled on the charge of either engaging in
activities against the party by forming parallel organization "the
public awakening campaign" or contesting mid-term election as rebel
candidates or supporting the rebel candidates, said Taranath Ranabhat,
a spokesman for the party. Reports said that the expelled members
staged a peaceful protest outside the premises of the meeting in
Pokhara.
regarding former supreme leader ganesh man singh who had openly
declared to withdraw nc, ranabhat said that "the name of ganesh man
signh holds a highly respected place in party history and all party
workers respect him as supreme leader." "in the present
circumstances, the nepali congress needs the blessings and strong
patronage of the respected leader and the nc expects that he will
continue to provide guidance as always for giving continuity to the
party mainstream," he added.
The general council meeting is being attended by about 600
members. It is expected to approve the disciplinary actions taken by
the central committee.
*********************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Mar 1995 14:17:22 EST
To: The Nepal digest Editor <nepal-request@cs.niu.edu>
From: "Pramod K. Mishra" <pkm@acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Of Guilt and Glory
Dear Editor,
Ever since I had the pleasure to read the passionate end-of-the-year
"recapitulation" of TND issues by your "Consultant Editor" (TND, January3,
1995), I have been thinking whether he spilled his editorial passion as a
"recapitulation" or as a summary dismissal of some of its articles,
particularly mine on women in Hinduism. I went back and reread the
comments and derived the same pleasure as before but with a difference.
This time I felt that the summation was written not only in the editorial
spirit (let's give him or her a carrot or a hand) but in that of a
pugnacious adversary's mean punch (lash him with a stick). So I write
this letter partly as a reply to the "Consultant Editor's" ire and partly
to explore some issues that this editorial seemed to have raised.
The editorial on my fragments on women in Hinduism has focused on three
primary issues: 1) My perceived attack on "aristocrat-bureaucrat-landlord and
imitating-bourgeois" brahmans; 2) Oppression of women by women; 3) and the
editorial insight into and speculation about my motive for writing these
fragments on Hindu women.
The very term "editor" evokes a position of tremendous power, power in
controlling and regulating materials readers should or should not read.
Although TND has adopted the path of non-censorship, its Consultant Editor has
nonetheless spoken for the whole of the TND readers ("whether the reader gives
a damn or not, you are welcome"). Had there been a policy of censorship, one
can infer here, the editorial club would have fallen well before those poor
fragments occupied the bytes of cyberspace.
The idea of a poor brahman even today sounds oximoronic if you go by the
Hindu scriptures. All the rishis, from Sanakadi to all those by whose gotra
(genealogy) the high castes identify themselves, dwelt in the solitude of the
forests or some caves or the mountains, and only from time to time wandered
among the worldly humans, including the kings--blessing, cursing, procreating.
They definitely frowned upon material gains, as the whole Hindu spiritual
system expounded. Material gains were fit only for the Kshatriyas, the
warrior caste, who became kings, and from time to time these kings not only
went to the dreadlocked, bearded rishi's door for blessing to win a war
against some demon, but also to beget sons and, sometimes, invite the rishi to
the palace for procreation so the royal lineage could continue (as in the case
of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata). These rishis, the purest form of the
brahmans, by virtue of their supernatural power, power of knowledge, both
worldly and heavenly, enjoyed both the fruits of the forest and the flowers of
the palace. They could not even think of the manual labor that sustained
those palaces and festivals and battles.
But the brahmans, alas, as the Consultant Editor attests, are no longer
the rishis of yore. The Muslims invaded, the Buddhists challenged, and the
British colonialists plundered, leaving behind an unsettling terrain of power
and economic hierarchy. So I agree with this attestation that not all
brahmans belong to the "aristocrat-bureaucrat-landlord and imitating
bourgeois" paradigm. To be sure, many brahmans are share-croppers, small
farmers, and poor emaciated village priests. When I studied in India, most of
the cooks in the hostel mess were brahmins from the Mithila region of north
India. Many rich Indian college kids made jokes about these extremely poor,
dhoti-clad, humble brahman cooks. They said that the most easily available
occupation for a poor brahman is ICS (Indian C.. Service). The members of the
ICS (Indian Civil Service) used to be the most privileged administrators
during the British Raj in India, but now ICS meant Indian Cooking Service. So
to say that a brahman is poor should sound oximoranic, because by definition a
brahman is supposed to be poor (Brahman janati asau sah brahmanah--one who
knows Brahma is a Brahman; not who knows how to take a bribe or do accounting
is a brahman).
The same more or less stands true in Nepal. More or less, because in
India, the British, after 1857 when the British Government took over the
governance of India from the East India Company, the British strengthened the
existing feudal structure and gave away land-owning privileges to those (a
conglomerate of all kinds of brahmans, Rajputs, business castes, even other
lower castes, and Muslims) who were powerful in different regions, whereas the
Ranas and the Shahas in Nepal gave away Birtas to the brahmans in various
locations in the country, particularly in the Terai. These land-grants were
given precisely because of the necessity of maintaining and strengthening the
Hindu social order in which feudal economic structure aligned itself
seamlessly with the brahmanic religious order. In tribal areas, the zamindari
privileges were given to the local chieftains, such as the Rajbanshi, Khabas,
and Dhimal zamindars in eastern Teras and Tharus all over Nepal in the
foothills. But in those regions in the Terai where the Ranas could find upper
caste non-Nepali speaking Hindus (such as the Rajputs and and Terai brahmans,
and even some lower castes), they were made the zamindars and given all the
privileges that went with being a zamindar. Now it is a historian's job to
investigate how this religious and feudal order mutually reinforced and
strengthened each other. As a layman, I clearly see a link here, and I'm
going to show how.
Of course, the Ranas never wanted the people from the Terai to come to
Kathmandu. In fact, it is well-known that even those who came from outside
the valley but from the hills had to obtain permission to enter the Kathmandu
valley. But tribal and lower caste people from the Terai became a special
case, because they were never considered more worthy than a source of
collecting land revenues. The same, however, cannot be said even about those
tribal people from the hills who became a martial race before and particularly
after the Sugauli Treaty of 1814?, joining the British army. Their status can
be taken as an in-between status, neither so unprivileged as the Tribal and
lower caste groups from the Terai nor so privileged as the upper castes of
the hills, who occupied most of the privileged posts in the army, the civil
service, and the palace.. (It's a different matter that many who inhabit the
Terai now either came down from the hills or across the border from India; but
there were inhabitants in the Terai even when there was no such entity as
present-day Nepal or India).
***********************************************************************************************
***********************************************************************************************
The end of the Rana rule, particularly the imposition of the Panchayat
system, heralded a new era in Nepali feudal, religious structure. During the
zamindari system, the tribal zamindar, even though nominally literate,
collected land revenue and arbitered petty disputes in the absence of any
firm penal structure. But the important and intricate paper-work---
registration, transfer, and auction of cultivable land--was carried out mostly
by Kayastha Patwaris. The Panchayat system by abolishing zamindari and
imposing land reform through newly recruited bureaucrats and founding village
panchayat units radically introduced a new form of administration that had all
the making of a modern state with all its ideological structures--- language,
bureaucracy, dress codes, cultural symbols, and, of course, schooling. Autai
bhasha, autai bhesh (one language, one dress) became one of the battle cries
of the Panchayat political system, and through texts books and school prayers
in Nepali language in public schools (I'm curious if those who went to English
medium schools has to shout similar slogans and prayers) and the political
appointments and civil service examinations (whose major component was the
Nepali language), ethnic Nepali identity was unprecedentedly established,
strengthened, and imposed.
Was this new imposition of national consciousness good or bad? One can
say that it was both good and bad. Good, because with the awakening of
national consciousness in India against the British empire, some form of
national consciousness was important in Nepal as well for the safeguard of its
political national sovereignty. Bad, because of two new factors. First of
all, the temper of the democratic impulse of 2007 B.S. was smothered and a
skewed national consciousness was imposed from above in which people speaking
one language and dressing in one way were defacto recognized as ture Nepalis,
although the constitution had other provisions. In fact, those who didn't
speak Nepali and dressed the way the hilly upper castes dressed were
positively discriminated not only in civil and military services but at the
givernment offices from the newly established police stations to the district
offices. A few token appointments to a chosen few were a different matter.
The people of the Terai experienced, and this feeling has only hardened over
the years, tremendous alienation from Nepali nationhood. So instead of
looking up to Kathmand for solution, many look up to Delhi or Patna and
Luckhnow for inspiration.
Second, the funnelling of cold-war foreign aid made matters worse, not
better. It did not allow the internal cultural and political dynamics to play
out and give shape to home-grown politics. The worst effect of foreign aid
was to create a new class of Nepalese who didn't so much exploit the poor but
became rich nonetheless and developed a skewed world view--honesty is the
worst policy; bungling of office budget is not the same as taking bribe became
the money came from foreign countries; hard work is not going to accomplish
anything (I don't know if Dor Bahadur Bista has included foreign aid as an
ally of his quite common sensical fatalism theory).. And my observation is
that the beneficiary of this new economic structure was the upper castes in
Nepal, particularly the brahmans, who filled the bureaucracy by virtue of
their religious stature, proficiency in the language, and connection with
overall political and religious ideology of the nation. It is not so much the
individual brahmans (Paudel baje is a case in point), but the Brahmanic
ideology--the language, the politics, the bureaucracy, the national religious
structure---in which the brahmans happened to be the prime occupants that made
the difference.
So I don't think anybody who makes a fearless, greedless study of
Nepalese history (even a person like me who has not undergone academic
training in the discipline) should have any problem in seeing this simple
fact. Should one be proud of it or guilty about or just shut one's eyes,
ears, or mouth like Gandhi's three monkeys from China? I don't know. I leave
it for every individual to decide.
Now, do I think that there are poor brahmans who are "small farmers and
sharecroppers"? Of course, I do. Why do you think most of the top ranking
leaders in Nepal's ruling Communist Party are caste brahmans? But these
people don't believe in nor do they practice (I hope) the Brahmanic ideology.
They are the fierce defenders of, many of them themselves, working class
people. But a working class brahman and a working class lower caste person do
not occupy the same social status nor do they have the same opportunity of
intellectual and economic advancement. And the overwhelming number that form
the working poor who plough the land, sow the seed, weed the crop and harvest
it come from various tribes and lower castes.
Naturally, some brahmans, like those whom the TND Consultant Editor got
to observe, may not have practiced the patriarchical order that the Brahmanic
ideology prescribes (They must have been deviant or enlightened; in either
case, they don't belong to the mainstream). But when I talked about some
incidents, I tried to give examples of some practices that I had seen and that
anyone can go to Nepal and make a study of. I'm sure some anthropologists (I
wouldn't like to mention their names here even if I knew for fear of
jeopardizing their professional field studies in Nepal in the future) must
have studies some aspects of Hinduism I talked about. The difference is I
talked in a kind of raw language whereas a professional anthropologist couches
his or her studies in some academic and intellectual framework and jargons
fashionable at any given time to make a meaning and understand more deeply the
particular aspect of a culture.
So, I don't criticize an individual, flesh and blood generic brahman,
but the Brahmanic ideology that saturates and sustains the structure in which
of course some flesh and blood upper castes find their scale tipped in their
favour.
2) As for women-to-women oppression, I don't think this is a very difficult
problem to understand. Those who have gone to prison or have gone to see
their relatives and friends incarcerated for some reason must have noticed
prisoners as enforcers of prison laws under the overall guardianship of the
prison superintendent. The case of Nazi concentration camps is quite well-
known. In Hitler's camps, the supervisors who came from the ranks of the
prisoners themselves became at times more cruel than even the Nazis. A woman
who has undergone deprivation can either understand others' deprivation or
become an enforcer of deprivation. It all depends on how she has understood
and internalized the mechanism of the religious norms and codes. I agree with
the TND Consultant Editor that education is the solution. But we may differ
regarding the kind of education. The kind of education that we had in Nepal
during the Panchayat system is not going to do much in understanding the
various forms of oppression and liberations.
That is why, more and more jargon-free exposition of Nepalese culture
and Panchayat and Rana political and cultural systems is needed so every
Nepalese can understand these otherwise tabooed matters. That's why, a new
kind of educational system is needed in Nepal, where emphasis is given not
just to the cramming of information contained in books written by God knows
who but a new kind of educational system that encourages interpretation and
production of knowledge, not necessarily in the form of published books or
articles but in the form of writing, any form of writing.
And here I whole-heartedly support and admire the raising of books in
the United States and sending them to Nepal. In fact, I'd go so far as to say
that instead of foreign aid in the form of development dollars, which has
ended up either in the pocket of donor officials as salary and perks or in the
pockets of some corrupt Nepalese policy maker and official from top to bottom,
we need libraries, libraries of Nepalese, Newari, Hindi, English, Maithili
books, and books in other local languages for adults and children,
particularly children in every Nepalese village, whether in the hills or in
the Terai. If we have a right kind of educational system, in one generation
Nepal will be a different kind of country. Its sovereignty, identity,
nationalism, development, democracy depend on the kind of educational system
we'll have in Nepal in the coming years.
3) Now the most personal and most difficult point that the Consultant Editor
has raised in his summation. He has branded my motive in writing those pieces
on women in Hinduism as "therapeutic sessions of accepting the guilt of being
a brahman" in which I used the "therapeutic tool to dump" my feeling about
Hinduism, "whether the reader gives a damn or not."
I don't know whether the reader gives a damn matters or not, but I do
know that I give a damn, and I'm one of the readers of TND, if the Consultant
Editor would allow this privilege. Besides, from a look at the pro and con
responses about those fragments of mine, including the Consultant Editor's
summation itself, I cannot but disagree with him on this score and say that
TND readers do give a damn. In fact, I'd say that at times, some TND readers
gave too much a damn, and that was fine, too.
But the more serious, and gnarling, question that got me thinking was
one of guilt. Did I write those fragments as part of my "therapeutic
sessions" and did TND proved to be a therapeutic tool"? What about "dumping
your feelings"? I give credit to the Consultant Editor for figuring out long
distance my deep-seated guilt.
I could easily recognize these terms and concepts as psycho-babble.
One can argue much about the use and abuse of psychoanalysis in today's
society--how psychoanalysis, like many educational systems, function
(Focault's language has become too common even to cite him) to normalize
people so they can become the productive members of their society. Then the
second association the word "guilt" evoked in me was that of certain brand of
politicians using this term as a most convenient tool to dismiss the ideas and
good will of the liberals and others on the left, those who recognize others'
oppression and want to do something, to be part of the rest of the humanity;
those who want to get out of their narrow, selfish, sheltered cocoons and see
the wide world and identify with it. But what they did was easily branded as
a "guilt trap." I understood then how quickly one can pick up this psycho-
politico lingo and enjoy the bliss of the world.
Here is what I think about guilt and glory. Human existence itself is
such that needs a constant therapy, although we may not call it such. The
separation from mother's womb itself occasions the first trauma, first psycho-
shock. Breathing becomes a therapy. As time advances, the body grows, and in
one sense it grows toward adulthood, but in another, it diminishes. For every
fraction of an inch toward the tree, we pay by taking a giant step toward the
ditch, a journey toward decay. But the body resists; it makes one walk, talk,
run, exercise all the muscles. The biceps and forceps swell as a result; the
red blood glows redder. The psycho-neuro mechanism spurs one to form
association, make friendship, have special feelings for parents and siblings
and offsprings; a different kind of special emotions for those with whom one
forms coupling relationships. All these are therapeutic, I'd like to claim.
Just think if one had nothing to do; no opportunity to move any muscles even a
tiny bit. The condition of non-action itself would become a disease against
which all other activities from eating to sleeping become therapeutic tools.
That's why, a bird flutters in its cage; a baby kicks the sky; a prisoner
jumps in his cell.
I'd argue that those who are utterly trapped in themselves are, on the
other hand, sick, not able to reach out to the rest of the people. Hitler and
Idi Amin, I'd argue, were sick beyond repair, because they had no feeling of
guilt, their conscience made of naked stone. All the members of Neo-Nazi
groups are sick, because they have no feelings of guilt. They are trapped in
their own selfishness, self-centered, complacent arrogance. That is why,
instead of letting them rule a society, they should be subjected to guilt
therapy, administering them small doses of guilt medicine, so they could be
humans back again, so their stone could have the cover of grass---do a month's
community service, polishing others shoes, cleaning the crossroads, wiping the
wounds of the lepers in Mother Teresa's camps. A pinch of guilt every morning
with breakfast would do wonders to their mental health. The world is bad not
because some people reach out to others because they feel guilt, but because
there are too many selfish people, too many unscrupulous people, too many
people who in their blind arrogance consider themselves either artificially
superior or divinely superior to their brethren, whether in matters of race,
caste, or sex or any other way. Because they don't feel a trace of guilt.
A pinch of guilt a day would do wonders for their emotional, mental, and
spiritual health like walking or talking. So don't believe in what a
psychoanalyst says (even one says so), what a certain brand of politicians
says, what our TND Consultant Editor says, about lending a hand to others so
they can rise and demand their own rights, speak for themselves and for us,
too. If we have everything, if we can speak for ourselves, if we can fight
for our own sake, that's good. Isn't that called self-dependence, self-
dependence? But that's not enough. And what do you think propelled Buddha to
leave his palace? Gandhi to forsake his modern lifestyle and clad himself in
a loin-cloth and drink goat-milk and survive on his spinning? Marx his rich
aristocratic life? The numerous Nepalese martyrs to sacrifice their lives?
All of them were materially comfortable and high born. And there is our
comfortable neighbor who comes running to our rescue when misfortune strikes
us numb.
You know Buddha's story, don't you? What made him leave his palace,
leaving behind a lovely wife and a loving son? Three rides on three days to
the town outside his palace where he saw three humans in three shocking
conditions: the sick, the old, and the dead. When he saw his Indian
compatriots being humiliated and beaten by the white South Africans, this
meek, shy India-failed barrister Gandhi put his head under the oppressor's
batten and became a lion in a beggar's garb that shook the British empire on
which the sun never set. And plagued by the guilt of sleeping with his wife
while his father was dying, he took on lifelong Brahmacharya.
But I have no palace, so I can't leave it and become the enlightened. I
have no white South Africans, nor have I slept with anyone while someone was
dying. I'm a petty mortal; I have my daily bread to earn and burn. I can't
faint in the British Museum reading some obtuse philosophical treatise and
write "Das Himalayas." A mortal with all my petty concerns, I can at least
scribble fragments on women in Hinduism. Or, at least something of that sort.
So don't heed nor be afraid of the guilt-smearing sword of the TND Consultant
Editor. If vitamins are good for the health, a small dose of guilt could be
good for the conscience. And the world will be a better place for that. Do
you think this is another of my "pontifications." So be it. Pontification
and guilt are much better than silence and greed.
**********************************************************************
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 95 13:01:32 EST
From: eknath@math.cornell.edu (Eknath Belbase - Math Grad)
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
Subject: Elephant Hunting
To the Editor, TND.
Elephant hunting is a very serious issue. Please
post the following forwarded message on TND.
Subject: elephant hunting
> >
> > **** HUNTING AN ELEPHANT ****
> >
> >MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out
> >everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever
> >is left.
> >
> >EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the
> >existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to
> >step 1 as a subordinate exercise.
> >
> >PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one
> >unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an
> >actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.
> >
> >COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm
> >A:
> > 1. Go to Africa.
> > 2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
> > 3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent
> > alternately east and west.
> > 4. During each traverse pass,
> > a. Catch each animal seen.
> > b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
> > c. Stop when a match is detected.
> >
> >EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a
> >known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.
> >
> >ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute
> >Algorithm A on their hands and knees.
> >
> >ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray
> >animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs
> >within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed
> >elephant.
> >
> >ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if
> >elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.
> >
> >STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and
> >call it an elephant.
> >
> >CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted
> >anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise
> >those people who do. OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can
> >also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the
> >efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else
> >will only identify the elephants.
> >
> >POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants, but they will share the
> >elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.
> >
> >LAWYERS don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around
> >arguing about who owns the droppings. SOFTWARE LAWYERS
> >will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look and
> >feel of one dropping.
> >
> >VICE PRESIDENTS OF ENGINEERING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT try
> >hard to hunt elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent
> >it. When the vice president does get to hunt elephants, the
> >staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are
> >completely prehunted before the vice president sees them.
> >If the vice president does see a nonprehunted elephant, the staff
> >will (1) compliment the vice president's keen eyesight and (2)
> >enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence.
> >
> >SENIOR MANAGERS set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the
> >assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with
> >deeper voices.
> >
> >QUALITY ASSURANCE INSPECTORS ignore the elephants and look for
> >mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.
> >
> >SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling
> >elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the
> >season opens.
> >
> >SOFTWARE SALES PEOPLE ship the first thing they
> >catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.
> >
> >HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell
> >them as desktop elephants.
> >
**************************************************************
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 13:16:57 -0500
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
Subject: Asian Christians Insult Hiduism at NYU
From: pqp5307@is.nyu.edu (Prasad Popuri)
Recently at NYU at series of workshops and forums were held
showcasing Asian culture under the banner of Asian Pride. On particular
event that I attended was entitled Asian religions. At this event a panel
representing four unique religions in Asia was constructed. It composed
of a Swami, a Tibetan monk, a Ch'an monk, and two Christians(one was the
President of the Asian Chriatian Fellowship and the other was one of its
members, who left the conference a short time later). This member,
however, was soon replaced by an audience member, also Asian, who seemed
proud to be Christian, whom I will call Bob since I do not know his name.
The audience was mostly composed of members of the Asian Christian
Fellowship.
The meeting started out fine until one American asked the president
of the Asian Christian Fellowship if one had to die to reach heaven. The
Presidents's answer was that one had to die in order to reach heaven. A
debate about sucide then follwed. I must point out, however, that the
persons asking the questions against the President were not Asians but
whites. In any case, this debate, l soon learned, was taken as an affront
toward the Chritian religion by some members of the Asian Christina
Fellowship.
One indication of this was the reaction they showed toward other
relgions. In their bitterness they began questioning the Swami and the
Ch'an monk on their beleifs. Intitailly these questions were inquisitive
but later took on a more deragatory tone. An example of this was the
implication made by a female member of the Asian Christian Fellowship that
the Swami's religion was false, which she started off by asking the Swami
if he has ever lied to himself. Later, yet another question was aked by a
member of the Asian Christian Fellowship toward the Ch'an monk arguing the
notion of reincarnation. The climax of this disrespect by members of the
Christian faith toward other religions occured when Bob, the audience
member who replaced the panel member representing Christianity, stated in
his final statement that the Swami's ideas were ludicrous. His words were
along the line, " I am sorry the Swami had to leave so early but I think
his ideas are ludicrous."
Clearly the actions of these so called Christians were uncalled
for and out of line. The theme of the workshop was to showcase and
appreciate the diversity of religious views among the Asian peoples.
These people, however, bastardized this by promoting Christianity to be
superior in some way.
From the questions of these people it can be assumed that they are
not knowledgeable of the Hindu or the Bhuddhist faith, since the questions
themselves were simplistic and naieve. This being the case, they showed
no honor or respect toward members of the audience who understood what the
pandits were saying. Out of their own ignorance members of the Asian
Christina Fellowship not only insluted the religious views and practices
of others but perpetuated the mispractice of Christianity.
*********************************************************
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 1995 11:15:00 EST
To: a10rjs1@cs.niu.edu
From: DGURUNG@CLEMSON.EDU
Subject: Information Requested on "Bahini Foundation" (3 lines)
Dear Netters:
Any information to contact "Bahini Foundation" will be appreciated.
We think its mission is to help women in Nepal. Thanks a bunch.
**********************************************************************
From: bhupesh karki <bkarki@lynx.dac.neu.edu>
Subject: Samachar-Bichar
To: Nepal@cs.niu.edu
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 20:53:36 -0500 (EST)
Samachar-Bichar is a quarterly news magazine published by the Greater
Boston Nepali Community. It was started four years ago and is a forum
for the expression of ideas and issues about Nepal. We are a-political
and open to a wide range thought provoking articles, essays, poems, etc.
SB was a free publication for over three and a half years. Recently, we
have decided to charge a 5 dollar subscription fee for four issues. This is primarily to
cover our mailing and printing costs. We urge all of you subscribe to SB
and participate in a thought provoking journal: to subscribe, please
send US$ 5 (CHECK WRITTEN OUT TO GBNC), to the following address:
Samachar-Bichar
P.O.Box 391251
Cambridge, Ma 02139
P.S. A new issue has just been published; to receive your copy, please
send in your subscription right away.
*****************************************************
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 23:30:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Ashutosh Tiwari <tiwari@husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Just two things
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
First: Bhushan Tuladhar, an all-Nepali Mr. Nice Guy, works at IUCN in
Jawalakhel, Kathmandu. He can be reached at:
Bhushan Tuladhar
IUCN
P.O. Box 3923
Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Second: I was quite touched by Mr. and Mrs. Pushpa Joshi's honoring their
deceased father by offering weekly Nepali classes in Columbus, Ohio. Here's
best wishes from Boston, Mass. to Mr. and Mrs. Joshis and others in Columbus
that their Nepali classes help start a sort of a revival of appreciation of
Nepali heritage (broadly defined) through the teaching of Nepali
language. Great!
namaste
ashu
************************************************
Subject: Re: The Nepal Digest - March 6, 1995 (22 Falgun 2051 BkSm)
To: NEPAL@cs.niu.edu
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 10:07:10 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: n@aberdeen.ac.uk
Dear Sir
Namaskar,
Thank you for forwarding Nepal Digest. I am enjoying it as many users of
Nepal Digest do.
I appreciate your effort of successful publication of Nepal Digest.
Thank you
Sincerely yours
B.B. Kshatri
University of Aberdeen, UK
******************************************************************************
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