GP-ji wrote: "It gives me a feeling that by posting this message in sajha.com, Ashu is trying to send a message to the current govt. of Nepal, that Ashu is changing / shifting his position in favor of the current govt.: dictatorship under KG's hat." **** GP-ji, I understand your concerns. But allow me to clarify. I found the article -- published in a liberal British newspaper by a South Asia-loving liberal -- INTERESTING enough to be shared with Sajha readers. Tetti ho, just an attempt to add a different view. Personally, just on the basis of this one article, I would NOT try to draw sweeping parallels between Pakistan and Nepal to approve the system of one or the other. But citing this article as an example, I would say that: 1) All that we know about democracy (the usual mainstream liberal stuff) appears to be NOT as straightforward in practice as we assume things about it in theory. 2) It's in our collective interest to read up on South Asian history (recent and ancient) to understand how institutions have become what they have become to promote or hinder liberal democracy in these countries. At this point, it's not clear whether what they have in Pakistan is a necessary short-term measure or an alternative system or something else altogether. What is interesting is that even liberals there see what they hahave now as a BETTER alternative than what they had had in the past in the name of democracy. That, to me, is quite interesting thing to think more deeply. oohi "a non-dogmatic student of democracy" ashu