Word: kathmandu
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...into power, transformed the kingdom into a republican democracy and abolished the monarchy altogether last year. Yet the current government, headed by the former rebels, still indulges in periodic bouts of royal-bashing, often to paper over the increasingly apparent shortcomings of its own rule. As fuel lines in Kathmandu stretch more than 2 km and power cuts ravage the country, the Maoists announced last month their intention to form a commission to revisit the massacre eight years after it happened, tightening the screw on the lingering survivors of the 250-year-old monarchy. (See pictures of Nepal's Maoist...
...party of "young professionals and bankers." But it seems unlikely the deeply unpopular 37-year-old - an embodiment, for many, of royal excess - would gain much from such a venture. "That's what everyone in Nepal is laughing about," says Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times, a Kathmandu-based weekly. "It's remarkable how quickly people here have otherwise forgotten the monarchy," he says...
...Those failings include the nine-month-old government's inability to provide much-needed development, from infrastructure to energy. This year, Kathmandu has suffered routine 17-hour power cuts, which have led to a drying up of foreign investment. Enduring fuel shortages have sent commodities' prices soaring, and the financial downturn has led thousands of overseas workers - whose remittances comprise some 16% of the national GDP - to return home unemployed. National security has also deteriorated, partly as a consequence of the government's failure to integrate the roughly 30,000-strong Maoist rebel army, still quartered in remote camps throughout...
...toughest battle ahead for the Gurkha tradition may lie in Kathmandu. In the augury of events since the Maoists seized power in Nepal last year, marking an end to a decade-long armed struggle, rebel leader turned Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has openly expressed his antipathy for the practice of young Nepalese men serving in foreign armies as mercenaries for hire. Once in office, he announced that he would discontinue Gurkha recruitments, an undignified and degrading legacy in his eyes. (See pictures from Nepal's elections...
...small office in Kathmandu, the Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen's Organization, which has been campaigning for pension parity between retired Gurkha and British soldiers, says it is ready to "declare war" with the government should the Prime Minister change his mind again. About 3,500 Gurkha soldiers are now serving Queen Elizabeth II, but tens of thousands apply to serve each year from Nepal's poverty-stricken Himalayan hills. Candidates, scrambling for a few hundred spots, have been known to try to fake their way; in 2008, nearly 500 false applications were detected, and dozens of candidates - required...