Nepe wrote: "Nepal Democracy Forum (nepaldemocracy google group) with 150+ members in it is a diverse group of people. It's almost as diverse and as chaotic as Sajha in terms of postings." Right. That is why, the uber-blogger Paramendra Bhagat was thrown out of your 'diverse' group -- in a true Nepali-paraa ko democratic style -- for committing no crime except, well, that of ruffling the feathers of a few of your fellow-members with his energetic, if occasionally jarringly unpleasant, postings. The lesson the rest of us are to draw from the PB episode is that in a Nepali group committed to discussions about democracy, there is NO room for unpleasantness. And that is why, I too was denied a chance to take part in a discussion about my own article, for what it was worth. And Nepe, there was NOTHING you could do -- except -- in a communist-style refer to your Politburo ko discussions and give a shrug. Mind you, these are NOT complaints or anything. Just putting the facts in order so that the other side of the story, however small, stays on public record in the TRUE spirit of Democracy, with a capital d. On another note, saving democracy from autocrats is the easy part. Saving democracy from self-described ''democratic people' is always the hard part. oohi ashu