When Ken Lay, the ex-Chairman of Enron was indicted recently, TV cameras showed him actually being taken away in handcuffs. Ken Lay has said that he will appeal. **** In Nepal, even after Wagle's indictment, he is still a free man. Just the other day, I saw him on TV giving a speech to journalists at a pulic function. He was that he is an innocent man. Now, unless I have missed something, I have NOT seen him in handcuffs yet. Conceptually, after that indictment, Wagle could go to jail, post bail and then make his appeal. But nothing of this sort has happened yet. Since the CIAA and Nepal's various courts have a history of raising high expectations only to eventually disappoint all of us again and again, I wouldn't be too quick to applaud Wagle's indictment yet. We'll have to see how this whole thing plays out. Let's give this case a least a month. **** While I am on this topic, I would like to say that I have found Nepal's chapter of Transparency International to be a joke. They are busy handing out cheesy stickers and preachy posters (and they sponsor these utterly boring radio programs on corruption) that aim to -- ahem!! -- "raise awareness" about the ill-effects of corruption as if people made up their mind about whether to indulge in corruption or not by reading posters or listening to radio!! [Aside: My pet theory is: For the last 50 years, much of Nepal's development history could be written off as one long contnuous "awareness raising" exercise for edcation, health and everything else you can think of. Thanks to these various "awareness raising" programs, we have become most aware but least knowledgeable about many issues.] oohi ashu