Dedicated to Daniel Pearl

The seven party-government in Nepal amended the provision to succeede only the male member as the King and the eldest child irrespective of the gender will succeede to the throne. It has opened the room for a femal as the next queen in Nepal. I think Paras is the eldest child of the current King Gyanendra. Therefore, Paras, who has earned notoriety by killing a popular singer and getting involved into numerous bad activities, is certain to become the next king, after Gyanendra. Although it is a great development in Nepal, I was envisioning my country without monarchs. The monarchs have done enough harm to people and I don’t want to see them as kings and queens. It is also the waste of our money. We pay for their clothes, food and everything and they seize our rights whenever they find an opportunity. Therefore, the parties should work to do away without the monarchy. The monarchy is the evil of all in Nepal. The amended law, which will be presented at the House of Representatives for endorsement, has provision to make the first child- irrespective of the sex - of the King as heir to the throne. Earlier, only the eldest son of the King would be entitled to the throne. As per the amended law, a Special Committee under the Prime Minister will take decisions to the accession to the throne, which will have to be passed by the parliament. The cabinet meeting held at Prime Minister GP Koirala’s residence also decided to scrap the allowances given to the relatives of the King, news reports said. Now on, allowances will be provided only to the king, queen, crown prince, crown princess and queen mother. This is another cut in the royal expenses after the government’s budget 2006/07. The government in the annual budget downsized the yearly expenditure of the royal palace by 45.8 percent, limiting it to Rs 219.6 million from Rs 405 million last year. The palace had received an extra amount of Rs 340 million last year from the previous government on different headings. The new decisions comes in line with the historic proclamation made by the parliament in May this year