ISO and other skeptics of democracy in Nepal, First, on a personal note: Despite growing calls for Republicanism in Nepal in the past few years, I personally have never subscribed to Republican agenda, and I still have doubts that wiping out the royal institution in it's entirety from the Nepali political scenario is neither beneficial, nor feasible. For one thing, among others, given Nepal's extremely fragile ethnic diversity, I have always supported instituting a GENUINELY constitutional monarchy in Nepal, wherby the the King can play a major symbolic role of national unity. However, the moves by the king like that of February 1st makes me wonder if my tacit support for the monarchy is worthwhile at all. I have yet to renounce my little support for the King, but only what further actions the king might take in the days to come will determine if moderates like myself should simply allign with the Republicans and call for a total abolishment of monarchy in Nepal. For the starters, the complete and unprecedented ban on telecommunications and the formation of the cabinet filled with [exepmt a neglible few] old crooks who have proven themselves to be not only incompetent, but primitive and tyrannical in their ideals, have only fueled my desire to re-think my position. Now, a general comment on democracy vs. tyranny vis-a-vis development and peace: ISO, we had had an extensive discussion on this many months ago right here in Sajha. However, since it has been so long, and the timing of the subject is so impeccable, that I do not mind repeating myself here again. First of all, if you notice my comment above on development regarding India vs. Pakistan, I have said: "...how far Pakistan lags behind India now, which, among other factors, of course, can be partly attributed to India's committment to democracy ever since it's inception. You see, several factors play varying degrees of importance in a country's development. To name the few, they are: geography, history/anthropogy, and social, cultural and political aspects. Therefore, I think it is meaningless to juxtapose different countries' development process without first carefully studying what those achievements can be attributed to, depending on their respective ideosyncracies. I think is only fair to juxtapose India and Pakistan because they both are more or less similar in terms of race, geography, and their anthropological history. Of course their respective peoples enagae in diffrent religions, but then again, as I said above, Pakistan's underdevelopment can also be attributed to tyranny that she has experienced BOTH from military and religious rigidity. On the other hand, many people, like yourself, seem to enjoy bringing up Asian Tigers' success as an example of successfull development under distatorships. I think it's a misconception that Asian Tiger's remarkable success in development can be attributed to their respective dictatorships. First of all, one of the Tigers, Hong Kong (besides Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea), prospered remarkably under an umbrella of democracy. Therefore, the only common link between the tigers that I can find is STRATEGIC GEOGRAPHY, not their POLITICAL SYSTEMS. With or without dictatorships, I think Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, like Hong Kong, would have prospered anyway because they were right in the middle of booming trade between Asia and the rest of the world, particularly North America. Hence, I cringe a bit when someone compares Nepali dictatorship to 3 of 4 Asian Tigers' and predicts that autocracy will bring prosperity in Nepal. More on Nepali perspective on my theory of development later. China's economic prosperty too, I believe can be largely attributed to it's geography: The entire pacific coast of China benefits immensely from trade with North America. Nevertheless, in the context of China, I also doubt that without SOME form of tyranny, they'd have had unfathomable problems controling over a billion population, making it impossible to achieve the kind of prosperity it has achieved. Democracy vs. tyranny on peace in the next post...