ADOPTION

As a regular reader of the Nepali Times, I had been dismayed by your front page article ('On sale' #339) which was incredibly unbalanced. The more recent followup 'Kids in Limbo' (#359) is a bit more balanced, but the biases of the journalist are perpetrated in many of the same allegations. Where are the facts? Here are some data: one in 20 children under 18 is an orphan, according to the 2006 Demographic Health Survey for Nepal. This is a huge number given that Nepal's population of 27 million is very young, 41 percent are under 15. In Nepal, children are often sent, lent, or 'given' to relatives or wealthier families to try to make sure they will have sufficient food and, perhaps, an education. At best, these children become 'second-class family members'. Mostly, however, they are treated as little more than domestic servants, fed and maybe provided the opportunity of a little education. In a very small minority of cases, abandoned children and orphans are adopted internationally. International adoptions have increased to about 400 cases per year over the past two years, but this is a fraction of an orphan population of at least 500,000 children. These children are taken into loving families, provided full inheritance rights, and treated exactly as if they were biological children. Yes, there are some irregularities in the adoption process, but they are not as extensive or widespread as your articles imply. Instead of exaggerating the 'market' for international adoptions, and claiming that all of these children are being stolen, the Nepali Times should investigate the kinds of child-labour abuses that continue to be perpetuated on children through 'domestic absorption'. The lack of opportunity, unequal treatment, and reservation of care and love are the norm in these situations - and this is in marked contrast with the love, devotion, and opportunities provided orphaned children in international adoptee families.

Name withheld,
email

. 'Kids in limbo' (#359) quotes Joint Secretary Vinod Adhikary as saying that the new terms and conditions for international adoptions are ".in the best interests of the child." and for this we are all grateful and encourage the new terms and conditions to come into effect as soon as possible. However, for the more than 400 orphaned children waiting 'in limbo' who have been proposed to, and accepted by international adoptive parents around the world under the current or 'old' adoption rules, it is hard to understand how waiting for the new terms and conditions to be passed, before their final paper work can be processed, is in their best interests, especially when some of them had been proposed and met their future parents as long ago as July 2006.

While these proposed children with waiting parents, continue to live in orphanages it means that other orphaned children of Nepal are not able to get into these orphanage beds. Is this in their best interest? After signing their initial paperwork in Nepal, and meeting their proposed child, families around the world wait, their hearts filled with love, yet the child's bed in their home remains empty, is this in the best interest of the children?

The minister now needs to act in the best interest of these children, and process the pending files under the laws and rules that were in place when the four hundred plus children were proposed and accepted.

Name withheld,
email

. I commend Mallika Aryal on her article about intercountry adoption, which brings up the issue that there have been indefinite delays since April in the processing of over 440 adoption files in progress. In fact, the delay has been in effect since February, when the adoption committee at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare last met to review adoption files. In every single one of these cases, the adoptive parents have developed a strong bond over many months of waiting (usually years of waiting and preparing for a child) and in the majority of cases, one or both parents have been required to travel to Nepal to meet their child and submit their file to the CDO in person. Minister Biswokarma and others are to be commended for identifying the need for additional stringent procedures that will improve the system and bring it closer to new international standards for intercountry adoption. However, an important fact must be mentioned. The Ministry of Law and Justice has determined that the old files must be processed under the current adoption law, which has never been dissolved and therefore is still in effect. The statement by Minister Biswokarma that the new regulations must be passed in order to resume the processing of adoption files is inaccurate and misleading. What then is the use of making all these children and their waiting adoptive families hang in the balance? If the minister truly wishes to "improve the plight of orphans and unwanted children in Nepal," he needs to immediately finalise the current pending adoption files ahead of the approaching Nepali holidays.

A parent,
email

FLAG CARRIER

Re: 'Insult to the Flag' that you translated from Samaya (#360). Nepal's national airline is not the insult to our unique sun and moon flag. What brings the insult to the flag and the country is the degradation of our national economy and unstable politics. Our economy is remittance based, and we think negotiating better working conditions is enough. When will we start making investment friendly laws so jobs will be created in Nepal? We still only take the tourists who land in our laps, there is little effective promotion. Agriculture has never gone beyond subsistence because irrigation, extension, and microcredit has lagged behind. Domestic industrialists are so greedy, they're out for the fast buck. We are proud to have a FNCCI president who thinks it's not necessary to resign on moral grounds even though he is a prominent bank defaulter. But, being an optimist, I think this country can easily be put on the right track. All it needs is some vision, integrity and good managerial skills.

Pravesh Saria,
Slovenia

TARAI

Frederick Gaige (1975) was right in saying that the criteria for the nationality determination is not limited to the geographical difference between hill and tarai. He correctly pointed out for the first time that, while Nepal's economic power was generated along the plains, political power was in the hills. This asymmetric distribution of economical power has disappeared with the flow of remittance money. Economic dependence has decreased since 1975, altering the original ecosystem of political power.

At the same time, as CK Lal points out ('The revolt of the aristocrats', #360) political awareness in the tarai has increased with the spread of education and media. It is to be seen how much soon the gap between the privileged (Thakur, Goit, Jha, Yadav, Singh) and the less privileged (Chamar, Dushad, Dhanuk, Halkor) of the tarai are bridged.

This could come sooner rather than later because of the continued discrimination and negligence of the pahadi administration. Add to this decreasing productivity and fragmentation of land-holdings, floods, food shortages and frustration in the tarai and there is only one way it can go.

Ram Manohar Sah,
email

MAOIST RIFT

The fissures that have emerged in the Maoist movement during their current convention ('Prachanda vs Kiran', #360) shows that Prachanda is now left with a Hobson's choice to accept the proposal from the Mohan Baidya faction or get damned by his own party leaders. The way YCL is carrying on with its threats and extortion clearly proves the Maoists couldn't care less whether the elections are held or not. Their veiled attacks on the press are premeditated, despite a Maoist being the minister of information. Maoism has failed and has been abandoned in the very country where it originated, when will our Maoists learn from that?

Prabin Jung,
email

. The current discord within the Maoist party is but natural. They started with an impossible task at present: establish a communist regime based on armed rebellion and with the premises that the parliamentary system was a forum of the oppressors. Now? It looks like the grapes are sour, comrades.

With the weakening of the party, it was a question of time that those who had less say in the party would try to gain more power. Even so, Prachanda is so powerful it is unlikely that the challenge will bear fruit. So, this week a drama will be staged to gain back the support of the dissidents and make the party look democratic.

Kumari Sarala,
email

COMPUTERS IN SCHOOLS

I am not against initiatives like the One Computer Per Child or the Linux Terminal Server Project (#360). My concern is sustainability. Where is the technical staff to maintain the systems, or the electricity to run them? What is the socio-economic environment? Every project makes it look like it has all the answers. In rural Nepal recently I saw the plight of schools and their very basic facilities. Where do computers fit in? Are we just after publicity, donor funding, and awards? Nepalinux also started with a bang, and now it is going woo.

M Merdini,
email