"Chip" is right. The author is Dipta Shah, not Dipta Prakash Shah. It is rather ironic that Dipta Shah's father was in the army, isn't it? But irrelevant. But back to Swarnim's piece. I read Dipta Shah's piece with keen interest and while I do not agree with all of his underlying assumptions, he's certainly got some valid points. One of his valid points was also that "there are two sides to the story" which "swarnim" has kindly highlighted for us again. To be honest, Dipta Shah's piece is the only credible story I've seen from the other side on cyber space. The rest of it is overflowing with news on how bad our situation in Nepal is. Nonsense. Swarnim is absolutely correct that the "root causes" (development jargon) must be addressed. But this is the story of whether the "chicken comes before the egg." How does Swarnim, with his complete lack of faith in the security forces, assume that there will one day be stability in Nepal? Should the Maoist militia provide a security detail for swarnim's development work in addressing the "root causes?" Swarnim has added a dangerous dimension to this debate. He speaks of class, caste and contacts being the only determining factors in the army's hierarchy. I would definitely that swarnim do his homework before making such claims. There is no need for assumptions here, the army's current hierarchy speaks for itself. If this is "swarnim's" strongest argument, I would suggest he also dissect the ethnic composition of all political parties (Maoists included) and come out to say that Nepal's politics isn't dominated by one single caste/class. Not very wise to make an argument based on class or caste "swarnim." After all, is it your goal to unite or divide Nepalis when we are facing the greatest threat of our time?