It is not possible to understand Jawahar Lal Nehru University (JNU) without having been either a student or a teacher here. It is a complex all-India institution where all kinds of people gather. It is true that Marxists are a majority at JNU, but there is no dearth of conservatives and neo-cons on campus. CK Lal has been needlessly disparaging about this illustrious university in ('Nepal from JNU', #185).

He has also made some factual mistakes: Parmananda is not a professor of Delhi University, he teaches at one of its lesser known correspondent colleges. Dharmadasani is an associate professor, but he does not claim to be a Nepal expert anymore. Similarly, I do not know how CK Lal got the impression that ordinary Indians support democracy in Nepal. It is quite the contrary, in fact. Indians revere the monarch of Nepal as the only Hindu king in the world. Superficial observations gathered during a two day trip may not be enough to come to such sweeping conclusions as Lal has.

Shiva Raj Sharma,
Pokhara

. I was surprised to read in CK Lal's 'Which way now?' (#186) that "the government has admitted that there are about 50 US defence personnel in Nepal. Other sources claim it may be as high as 500 at any given time". I am afraid Mr Lal has been the victim of a misunderstanding. The total permanent US military personnel in Nepal numbers three in the Defense Attache and Defense Liaison offices at the US Embassy. In addition, there is a small Embassy Marine Guard detachment which is solely responsible for security within the Embassy and has no military liaison function whatsoever. Both are normal components of any US Embassy in the world. However, Mr Lal may have mixed up recent press reports (confirmed by the US Embassy as well as by the Royal Nepali Army) about the regular Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) that is held two to three times a year.

These events have been conducted with the Royal Nepali Army since the mid 1990s and are routine, recurrent training events held also with approximately 25 other countries in the Pacific region. Examples of recent JCET events include training for medical trauma, legal matters, human rights, community health and other civil affairs skills. Nepal's altitude allows a much appreciated opportunity for the participating US military personnel to train in higher altitudes than available elsewhere. The number of US military personnel participating in these events ranges anywhere from two to 40. The US Pacific Command's budget-apart from the personnel needs in our current military engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan, do not allow for a higher contingent of military personnel to be engaged in this training. Any claims of 'hundreds' or even 500 US military personnel being present in Nepal are therefore the product of someone's overly fertile imagination.

I would also like to add that the overall US security and military assistance to Nepal totalling $17 million over the past two years, is significantly less than that provided by other countries.

Constance Colding Jones,
Public Affairs Officer, US Embassy Kathmandu

. Kudos to CK Lal for his excellent portrait of Nepalis at JNU in which the sharp-witted columnist paints the grandiose schemes of Indian academics who have just woken up from Rip-van-Winkle slumbers in their lofty ivory towers. A subtext of Lal's write-up is the age-old peril faced by similar nation states located in the shadows of emerging powers. To paraphrase an observation made in the context of another struggling nation: 'Nepal is so far away from god and so near to India.'

Ram Limbu and Murasaki Shikibu CQU,
Sydney