Hot on the heels of the news that Rastriya Janashakti Party chief Surya Bahadur Thapa will be meeting almost everyone that matters in the Indian National Congress (INC) during his 'health trip' to New Delhi, reports indicate that Maoist supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal will be heading north for a tête-à-tête with President Hu Jintao and other luminaries of the Communist Party of China.

Nepal has drowned in a vicious circle of corruption, crime, poverty, illiteracy, violence, and above all lack of guidance and leadership. We have become victims of poor governance, lack of accountability, and devoid of responsibility.

Thanks to our politicians, national level lawmakers, bureaucrats and the executives and lately, the Maoists, the so called social levelers, who made us to earn all these bad reputation. We can’t make any sense when our Prime Minister attends the United Nations’ high tea party and returns to tell us that the US visit was a success. I wonder what objectives he had that he had achieved to claim the visit as a success.

Whatever debate may be in the intellectual circle, whatever may be the status of the Gurkhas in the public domain, they are certainly not mercenaries.

If the absence of war alone can be considered a sign of peace, then Nepal could provide a basis for optimism. But ground realities here suggest otherwise.

Food prices are alarmingly ruling high. The monetary values of food items such as rice, wheat, sugar, pulse, meat, fish, egg, restaurant meal, milk, milk products and edible oil among others are rising steeply.  It is getting hard to maintain the living standard due to the dire impact of unprecedented inflation. Inflation refers to the rate at which the general level of prices for goods and services rises. It is generally measured by the consumer price index. People have to pay more than before to consume the same goods and services. The earning of the majority is not indexed to match the rising inflation. Rising price of essentials push down the living standard of people as their earning is unable to cover up even essentials of life like food.  The income of people is extremely inadequate to meet monthly expenses on their children’s education, house rent including expenses on fuel, light and water, health and other contingencies.

In recent times Non-resident Nepalese abroad have demonstrated immense interest in contributing their knowledge and resources to the prosperity of New Nepal. Nepalese are migrating to overseas destinations in millions every year, and commensurate to this trend, the country has started receiving dividends from this new breed in terms of hefty remittances and support to numerous social welfare programs in Nepal. The coming of global network of Helping Hands, Help Nepal and NRN Associations are some of the positive outcomes. Since its inception 6 years ago, NRN has done a great job in providing high value remittance to the country, uniting NRN population worldwide for investing money in Nepal and forging strong linkage of NRN to Nepal. But these initiatives, though commendable, are not enough. The Non-resident Nepalese domiciled in overseas countries should now think of expanding the scope of their participation as global players with capacities of using their human resource, knowledge and skills in more productive areas of national priority than being confined to short-term sporadic activities, of limited impact.  The purpose of this article is to focus on some major parameters of NRN strategies and prospects in global perspective. The innovative thrust of the new concept converges on the rationality of undertaking certain national flagship schemes having potentials for S&T investment and education.

The basics of Nepal’s flag have had a much longer life than the past Shah and Rana periods combined. The Maoist argument that "the sun and moon symbols in the existing flag signify the Rana and Shah regimes" is flawed. These regimes cover relatively a short period (1776-2007), whereas the origin of Nepal's flag stretches much farther back into history.