I would like to make two points on your editorial "Un-United Nation" (#118). At this juncture it would be more appropriate to focus on solutions rather than on the few too-obvious weak points of the average Nepali citizen. Broader analysis on the regional level may be an eye-opener, especially for our political leaders who are there to solve all our national problems. A layman might ask, for instance, why five Asian countries-Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka-could not achieve significant economic and social growth compared to other five countries-South Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand? If it is the character or mentality of the citizens, why can\'t our so-called political leaders change it? If education or culture is the main hindrance, who prevented the governments of the past 13 years from doing something about it?

One distinct difference between these two groups of countries is that in the latter group, they all had legendary and strong leaders like Lee Kwan Yu, Deng Xiaoping, Mahathir Mohammad, Park Chung-hee and King Bhumibol. Nepal doesn't need stronger political parties or a group of leaders, or a better constitution, or numerous debates about interpretation of a stupidly simple sentence of an Article of our constitution, or a signature campaign in a distant country to defend a few incapable politicians. What we need is a single leader who can force our 23 million citizens to change their "Nepali character". All political parties should first change their party constitution to make it possible to select or elect a new visionary leader instead of sticking to the old so-called 'jail-returned-stalwarts'.

Sugat Ratna Kansakar
Kamaladi