Ma Chameliji, Thank you for your kind word. However, trust me I share your skepticism. It's only that I prefer to look at things not in absolute terms, but in terms of options, chances and probabilities. So my optimism is kinda a sum of what I could view as the options and chances we had/have and likelihood of various possibilities I best could vision. As for our political leaders, I am not trusting them individually. It is the collective wisdom of few hundreds of them and the right condition the history has created are what I am trusting. We are now in an interim period. So most of the things that are going to happen will be of that nature. Election of CA and disarmament of the Maoists will be two major tasks for this period. If GP Koirala did not do any stupid thing (anything against popular sentiments), this should go smoothly. Popular sentiments is for republic democracy and that's also what Maoists really believe. So they are happily going to take part in the election of CA with their weapons supervised/stored by some mediator. Theoretically we can have a single election dual for both CA and parliament. However, that looks less likely because the issues for CA and parliament are too widely different in our case. CA will primarily be a referendum on monarchy. Other issues are already in consensus. Maoists will accept the verdict of CA on monarchy. I am pretty sure republic will win. Even if somehow "ceremonial monarchy", which we already de facto have, wins, Maoists will accept it. Not because Prachanda has said so in his interviews, but because there has been a new development. Today's "Magna Carta" makes it unlikely for monarchy to retain significant power in future constitution. Before Jana-andolan and today's proclamation, the form of "ceremonial monarchy" we were debating was less clear and uncertain. The election of parliament under new constitution is going to bring dramatic changes. Our voters are much more mature than before. So, unpopular politicians are not going to be elected. There will always be some exceptions. That's life. Then, one of electoral reforms in new constitution that I have seen consensus among our intellectuals is a direct election for the head of the state. That is going to bring widely respected and loved individual instead of one narrowly worshipped by party karyakarta and supporters. Candidates like GP who is worshipped by very limited people will have much less chance to win such election. This and other reforms will also make our governments more stable. So, I see a much brighter future than we ever had before. It certainly is not darker than our past and we certainly are not missing any better options that we have now. That's reassuring enough. *** *** *** भउतेजी, जनआन्दोलनको सफलताप्रमाणक यो ऐतिहासिक निर्णयमा मेरो प्रथम संकिर्तन (celebration) को लागि बधाई भए स्वीकार गर्छु । अन्यथा यो बधाई दुई करोड भन्दा बेसी स्वदेशी, प्रवासी सबै नेपालीहरुको हो । नेपे