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As the deconstruction of Kathmandu moves into high gear, parts of the city look like the aftermath of an eight Richter earthquake. Demolition along Lazimpart was delayed for a month because powerful people who live there got a stay order to stay on. But one has to hand it to the Babu government for going where no government dared go before in its pursuit of a Flat Earth Policy. The latest walls to be brought down are at Nirmal Niwas and the message has gone out that no one is more equal than the ex-Kingji. But now even BRB's bulldozer juggernauts have been brought to a grinding halt by the Japanese, French, American, and Russian embassies which have refused to move their Great Walls citing diplomatic impunity under the Vienna Conventions and Amendments Thereof in which nations agree to guarantee and protect the property of diplomatic missions in each other's countries. Which means the only solution to the bottlenecks along the new Lazimpart-Maharajgrunge Boulevard is for the municipality to tunnel under the embassies. Don't think the Vienna Convention says anything about embassies also having underground diplomatic rights.
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So tourists to Nepal have also joined the relay hunger strike to demand a new airport in Pokhara. They must be on a tight budget and skipping meals. But thanks, anyway.
The Maobaddies are so confident that the $305 million project will go ahead that the Financial Minister signed an MoU with the Chinese contractor even before the bidding documents were opened, and now ex Baddie CA member from Kaski, Raj Kazi, has publicly admitted that he received a 50 lack palm grease from three construction companies to get the project going. "I took it for the party, what's wrong with that?" he told a public hearing. The Baddies may be thoroughly corrupt, but at least they are honest.
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The Brave Lion is on an African Safari this week, but before leaving he extended an open invitation to all the top leaders for a weekend of fun and frolic at Chapali Heights. An insider tells Donkey, SBD's plan is simple: get Jhusil-Da and Puka-Da high on single malt and agree to reinstate the CA, so that Ram Babu will have to resign before the NY General Assembly trip. But what is making this donkey scratch his backside is: how is the Loin King going to reconcile his ambition to be PM for the fifth time with PKD's ambition to be PM for the second? Another sign that Chairman Ferocious is itching to get back into Balu Water is that he has now shed his flowery Hawaiian shirt for an embroidered Dhaka east-a-coat.