<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141124/636cfc3c9c7e80680e0a0b79jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Coalition politics brings out the best in a democracy. The five-party anti-Oli alliance has been in grabberment for less than a month and it already has a three-member Cabinet. That is quite an achievement, and confirmation that Prime Minister Dubya adheres strongly to the Common Minimum Program by having the minimum number of ministers.However, Parkinson’s Law will sooner or later manifest itself and the Cabinet’s workload will expand to fill the time allotted to it. How will the wealth ever get spread around with such a small Cabinet? The PM will have to be prepared to expand his Cabinet for stability and prosperity (of ministers).With five parties in the governing coalition, including a disgruntled faction, it will be a challenge to ensure a division (if not multiplication) of the spoils. It will not have only three full ministers, one minister of state, and a couple of others lying in state.It is a shame that for a country with so much potential and kinetic energy, the government is so critically understaffed. GONe has to be an equal opportunity employer that believes in levelling the playing field by giving every citizen a chance to hit the jackpot.The PM needs to be more decisive to immediately deploy an army of ministers, not just the pathetic squad he has right now. It is a skeleton Cabinet with skeletons in its closet.We also need more ministers because that will kick-start the economy after the pandemic slowdown, and have an immediate downstream impact on the labour market. A larger council of ministers will have a multiplier effect by unleashing Nepal by creating more jobs in the civil service, manufacturing, and the service industry.Every new minister will need a 15-member security detail, personal assistant, valet, peons, cook, driver, chamchas, power brokers, gundas, extortionists, and wives. Every new member of the Cabinet will also be transacting with quarry contractors, sand mining mafia, and medical school tycoons. Besides jobs, each minister will also need a new SUV, half a dozen pickups for bodyguards, a new sofa set with mini bar and attached bathroom, towels to drape on their chairs, and a large closet to store skeletons in.That is just one minister. With the constitutionally-mandated size of the Cabinet, multiply all that by 25 and imagine the effect on the economy. It will create thousands of new jobs, and increase Nepal’s per capita GDP so we can attain middle-income status ahead of schedule.Having been PM five times previously, Dubya has plenty of experience with splitting ministries to appease coalition partners. For example, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Tourism and Culture can be divided into The Ministry of Civil, Ministry of Aviation, Ministry of Tourism and Nepotism, and the Ministry of Vermiculture.The Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens can also be split into the Ministry of Married Women, Ministry of Unmarried Women, Ministry of Singleforeverwomen, Ministry of Teenagers, the Adolescent Ministry, Ministry of Infants and Babies and the Ministry of Wild Asses.

The Ass

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Skeletons in the Cabinet

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d09149c7e80680e0a6056jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Nepal is serious about democracy, and that is why we have to keep restoring it every decade or so because we believe in government for the people, by the people, and for the people in government.We also put our faith in reincarnation, and that explains the pressure from some quarters to put the resurrection of the monarchy to a referendum vote, and await His Majesty’s Second Coming.It is a sign of a well-functioning and mature democracy that parliamentary affairs are run by committees. When a dispute cannot be settled without comrades coming to blows, they set up a Special Committee which immediately forms a Sub-Committee to address grievances, and which decides to form a Task Force that will oversee a Working Group made up of members of an Expert Panel.This being Nepal, even the membership of the Special Committee will be challenged in the Supreme Court, and that is when they will have to establish a Dispute Resolution Caucus made up of Caucasian males.And when there is a dispute in the Dispute Resolution Caucus, Nepal’s leaders can fall back on extra-Constitutional means to resolve ego clashes and malcontent members ticked off because they did not get to be made Minister of Midwifery and Animal Husbandry as a reward for helping topple the previous regime.And that is exactly what Prime Minister Dubya has gone and done. To balance both disgruntled and gruntled factions of the five-party alliance, he has constituted a three-member High-level Political Mechanism to decide who gets to be minister of what.This Unholy Trinity is made up of individuals who think they should be in power but aren't. PKD was PM twice, and sorely misses it. MKN is still grumpy even though he toppled KPO. And SBD has found out that one can be prime minister five times in this country even if one loses an election.Maybe we do need new mechanics to fix this mechanism called Nepal. Could it be that the three leaders are so high-level that they need supplemental oxygen just to climb up the stairs at Paris Danda? Soon, there is going to be a power struggle about who is the highest among the high-level members of the Mechanism, the Grand Ayatollah of the Mechanists.Our best bet may be to set up a Not-so-high-level Non-political Mechanism (NSHLNPM) to appoint ministers by lottery to a Jumbo Cabinet. We are on the right track, though, going by making the owner of a hospital chain the Health Technocrat. In the same manner, the Educationist Minister should be none other than the Chair of PABSON, the Hydropowerful Minister can be the CEO of IPPAN, the Physical Infrastructure Minister should go to the Chairperson of the Federation of Tipper Truck Owners of Nepal.Nepal’s problems are so intractable that thank goodness we have a fall back option: an Even-Higher-Level Political Mechanism that includes India, China and the G7.

Hi-Level Mechanism

Anti-corruption antigens

Since it doesn’t have anything better to do, GONe has gone and sent an expedition to find out exactly how high Mt Everest is, despite our strong protests. Why did our grapplement have to be such a smart ass, anyways? What if the bastard is indeed knocked off, and Everest is shorter than previously thought? Imagine what that would do to our national morale, our territorial integrity and our gastroenterology as a nation if Chomolungma is no longer the Goddess Mother of the Earth, but only an Aunt?Nepal may as well commit national hara-kiri if Mt Everest is no longer the highest peak in the world. It is an unthinkable, nightmarish scenario. For one thing, what will become of all the products that are named Everest this or Everest that? Everest Bank will have to change its slogan to ‘Our Interest Rates Are Second Highest’. Everest Hotel will no longer be ‘Nepal’s Top Hotel’. Nepal Tourism Board may have to alter all its posters to say ‘Nepal: The Land of Everest. We Were Greatest Once.’ And 8848 Vodka will have to alter its bottle labels to 8488.Expedition members are now back busily crunching numbers, and will announce their findings in the next fiscal year. This leaves us enough time to cook the data, or if need be, allocate a few arabs and corrodes to ensure that the mountain maintains its stature as the highest on the planet in order to protect our fragile national ego.It is in our ultra-nationalist interest to come up with a cunning plan to retain Everest’s stature. There are now so many climbers who want to get to the top that GONe should make it mandatory for every climber not just to pay $11,000 each in royalty, but to carry 20kg of rocks from Base Camp and deposit it at the top. If my calculations serve me right, this year alone we could have added another 12m to the summit height if all climbers and guides did their bit. For this we can elicit the help of expeditions from the Chinese side, since their reputation would also be tarnished if Everest is found to have shrunk.GONe should double the number of permits, and instead of bringing down trash from the mountain as currently stipulated, climbers would have to take all the oxygen cylinders and uneaten noodle packs, and deposit them at the summit.If we do that, my back of the envelope math shows Everest’s height will cross 9,000m above mean sea level by 2025. This means the mountain will be even more popular, and to handle the bigger numbers of climbers, GONe may have to install a funicular up the Icefall, moving walkways across the Western Cwm, a cable car to the South Col, and an escalator from there to the View Tower Restaurant &amp; Bar at the summit.

Future of Mt Everest

Are we losing the fire in our bellies? Are we slacking off and allowing lethargy and ennui to erase the gains of our revolution? The answer to both questions is: “Umm, that’s a thought.”How else does one explain the sharp drop in the number of bunds, chukka jams and todfods in the past fiscal year? Ever since the Left Honourable Prime Minister assumed office there has been only one arson attack on a government car. We are keeping close count here at the newsroom, and have found there was an entire rush hour period on Tuesday evening when no Mandales in Mandala intersection incinerated tyres on the asphalt.There has even been a sharp drop in sit-ins, sleep-outs, stand-ups, pen-downs, and goof-offs in government departments. The civil service strike was a lack-lustre and half-hearted affair, with not a single effigy of the prime minister set on fire. How can this country be effectively governed if there is so little interest in creating mayhem and anarchy?Not a single royal statue was vandalised throughout this erstwhile kingdom in 2075-76 BS, but that seems to have been because there are no royal statues left to knock down. The Mahindra &amp; Mahindra Highway was actually not blocked for six hours on Sunday after a minor traffic altercation in Lahan. No one stoned any newspaper office on Thursday. This is a scandal.Are we going to let go of the gains of our revolutionary past so easily? Will we allow the euphoria of liberation to evaporate into thin air? Have human beings outlived their usefulness? What is the best cure for hair loss? Will someone stop me before I ask another rhetorical question? Thank you.As we all know, there are entire sections of society that are still not using their hard-won freedoms to reignite a class war, to take up arms against feudalism, and struggle against crony Communist rulers to bring the nation’s capital to a grinding halt for the right to fast onto death over and over again.How come no one set off a firecracker beneath the table of the Minister of Lethargy and Ennui when the government decided to cancel national holidays on all five Losars? And why are tanker drivers sitting idly by and not gheraoing the prime minister’s residence after the NOC said it would book anyone found siphoning off diesel? Have we as a nation gone soft? Have we stopped honouring the sacrifices of martyrs who defended this country against imperialism?Fortunately, we see signs of the revolutionary spirit reasserting itself. Comrade Big Plop has stepped up his extortion racket with the slogan: ‘Make Nepal Greater Again’. The Minister of Doublespeak is pushing a draft law to punish anyone who ridicules the government on social media to be sentenced to jail for five years or pay a bribe of Rs 1 corrode, whichever comes first.

Have we gone soft?

<img width="1250" height="830" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6c49c7e80680e0314a3jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Now that we have a government if the people, buy the people, and f**k the people, we can be fairly confident that there will be stability and prosperity for those in office. Trickledown economics will ensure that ill-gotten wealth will finally dribble down to the grassroots at some point in our country’s glorious future.And speaking of trickle down, the grubberment has just issued a draft National Hygiene Policy that lays down strict new guidelines about how Nepalis should conduct themselves with regards to personal and public hygiene under the new federal Constitution.Nepalis love to nitpick and can be seen doing this in public on public transport, in offices, and on sidewalks even if they don’t exist, at all times of day and/or night. Under current law, anyone can nitpick anyone else as long as it is consensual. Since looking for lice on someone else’s hair is an indication of some degree of mutual intimacy, it is frowned upon if it involves two or more individuals of the same sex.It is perfectly acceptable, however, to approach a stranger sitting next to you in an overnight flight to Sharjah, and, after necessary introductions, start plucking follicular fauna from each others’ hair. The new draft law allows nitpicking in public as long as it does not harm the national interest, or disturb Nepal’s socio-economic harmony.Like smoking, breaking wind in public places is henceforth banned in the national interest under the new guidelines. Exceptions are made for ass acoustics during emergencies but only if the perpetrator in question has a national ID card or valid visa to prove eligibility to blow his/her own trumpet in Nepali air space. However, commandos will be scrambled if stink bombs are found in Cabinet Meetings or during Parliamentary Hearings.Extricating belly button lint is now legal for all age groups, genders, and at all times. This decision has been taken to boost the pashmina industry which has been suffering from a crippling shortage of raw material. Similarly, civil servants both in federal and provincial ministries will be hereby allowed to mine ear wax during office hours, and also on national holidays, so as to make the country self-sufficient in candles.Toothpicking is another national activity and because there are no rules governing how people with advanced halitosis should pick their teeth in polite company, the new Code of Conduct has set up a surveillance mechanism under the Ministry of Homestay Affairs to apprehend those who refuse to engage in self-exploration of their oral cavities within Nepal’s territorial waters. It is in the national interest to dislodge morsels of mutton from the molars so our breath does not smell like the Bagmati.Nepalis are nosey parkers, and our ancestors risked life and limb to explore the uncharted upper reaches of our nostrils so that modern Nepalis can go boldly forth where our forebears once planted the national flag. The probe of choice for nasal expeditions is the pinkie with a nail that is designed to grow into the shape of a tiny shovel so that it can efficiently mine nuggets of nutrient-rich booty from deep inside our snouts. Because of space constraints we cannot go into the conventions of etiquette governing the grooming of other body parts. Suffice to say that the draft guideline has adopted a laissez faire attitude about expelling body fluids in public. Attending to calls from nature is now allowed anywhere along the East-West Highway where there is a mobile signal. This will curb fertiliser imports and boost organic agriculture.Under the guidelines, Nepalis are now also allowed to legally clear their throats in public. This is traditionally done with a quick intake of breath to dislodge the primary target in the oesophagus, pneumatically roll the excavated material into an aerodynamic glob, and then, with the same technology used in shoulder-fired heat-seeking Stinger missiles, expectorate this biological warhead at an innocent bystander. The favourite male Nepali past-time of rummaging through the toolbox in public is now permissible by law. Immigration officials can, in full view of arriving passengers, scratch the crotch as long as it does not violate the Vienna Convention of 1935 and its later amendments. And the Ass is gratified to note that in the spirit of Public-Private Partnership, this provision in the National Hygiene Policy also allows those with a posterior motive to attend to urgent private itches in public.

Govt issues draft guidelines for public hygiene

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