Ashu,

Regarding #7 and #8:

1. I agree with #7. I think we desperately need people who are not going to be easily frustrated when they have to go and lobby with the government. It is easy said than done, but I feel tired when I see young individuals who claim they wanted to do something great but the govt didn't help them. Govt by nature is an agent for status quo, law and order, and introducing change in its attitude takes a bit effort.
I also believe, after observing liquidity crises of last few years, that we need good policymakers who can address such crises. Not sure how an individual with work experience abroad can negotiate a position for himself into our bureaucracy.

  I also see that, given how Laxman Shrestha (of Manakamana Cable Car) and Kamal Jain (Of Shiva Statue) operated, we need entrepreneurs with keen sense of seeing long term profit. I was shocked to see how some people tried to force Jain to give up his statue to public. I think as long as Kamal pays taxes, which we have to assume that he pays duly unless some contradictory evidence surfaces, he should be allowed to run the stuffs he personally paid to create. People living near his park should be thankful to him because he added value to their land and put their region in the map of the country. 

 It seems to me that our people love the parks/regions with religious theme. Cable car, for example, wouldn't have been that successful without its proximity to Manakamana Temple.

Once I was sitting with a few rich people, and people told me that the cable car guys were taking undue profit of the temple. I told them that I was not so sure of it and I proposed that we purchase a land (or do a shahakari plan) from Chitwan to Manakamana Temple and make a US-style road with vista points (one could see Chitwan, Dhading, Gorkha, Tanahu and beautiful Marsyangdi etc from there) and a nice parking lot near the temple. The road will be a toll road. The whole expenditure at the time would be less than 20 karod. I told them that it would probably be profitable (I of course can't guarantee any profit anywhere anyway), will change country's landscape and will provide more options to visitors to the temple. The project didn't go very far, but we agreed that, unlike Laxman(who put his own 40 karod on cable car), we couldn't put our own money, but a publicly traded corporation could probably do that by raising money in stock market thus pooling the risk. The lesson was very clear-- Laxman took risks, very big risks, and succeeded. 

I can see that people with clear business idea and ability to convince others and execute these plans can succeed big time in Nepal. Places like Muktinath, Swargadwari, Khaptad, Rara etc are crying out for the initiative of such leaders. A express highway linking all these tourism spots , from east to west, possibly along Hulaki Marg (this was the highway our ancestors used while they were fighting in Kumau, Gadhwal, Dehradun first against local feudal kings and finally against the British), would be an excellent gift from our govt to our future entrepreneurs as it would provide mobility among our people and reduce cost for starting business in those regions. 

I won't talk politics here. All leaders are more or less same and we should push them. My experience has  been that, though I dislike Maoists for their nondemocratic attitude, they are actually easier to convince when you approach them with these business plan. On the other hand, our US educated NC leaders are more corrupt and they are likely to seek more for themselves when you approach them with these plans.

2. I think besides Pokhara, places that are happening include Chitwan and possibly Dharan. Chitwan's growth is phenomenal. More than 20 hospitals built in Bharatpur in last few years, and serious investments in Sauraha hotel industries plus the chicken, milk, honey, chicken feed industries etc that have popped up there point to a serious growth potential. Dharan has similar potential with its colleges and a well remunerated ex-army population.

My long term bet is for Janakpur. Maithili people are smart, they also have tons of political leaders from there, and there are seriously loaded Maithili people (such as Dr Upendra Mahato). I also read that there are 14 sabhasad who call Janakpur home. Furthermore, Dhanusha sends very high number of young people to gulf. This points to a explosive growth for the city soon, if they take care of insurgency problem.