Radio Free Nepal

Communications are still cut off. And the future of the country, people and our journalistic career look glum.

India has strongly come against the move as well as US, UK and UN. India’s PM Manmohan Singh’s decision to cancel the SAARC meeting starting Sunday, we believed, would hit the King hard. Despite the Foreign Secretary of India Shyam Saran quoted two reasons (the other being deteriorating situation in Dhaka, Bangladesh where the meeting has been scheduled), we were all unanimous that India do not want to share the same dais with the King as it would mean ‘support of coup’.

Indian newspapers, although were not available here, called the move coup, according to AFP and urged their government to go strongly against it. The UN, UK, Amnesty International all condemned the move in strong words as well as United States.

One of my friend at Kantipur daily told me, when we met on the road, that his office looked like a military barrack with army vehicles coming and going frequently and army men roaming around freely. They had made a visitor room in the TV building their office and are censoring everything. He called it a ‘psychological warfare’ against the biggest publishing house of the nation. Continue reading…

(Written at 10:30am, immediately after King Gyanendra finishes his address to the nation)

King Gyanendra on his ‘historical decision’ took all the executive power dismissing the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government in his address to the nation broadcasting by the Nepal Television at 10am NST today.

The 31-minute long recorded (and edited) address to the nation, the King criticizes the government, political parties and politicians; dismissed the Deuba government taking the executive power and promising ‘activation of multi-party democracy’ in three years; asked Maoists to lay down weapons and warned them of harsh consequences if they continue the terrorism and promised end of terrorism; end of corruption and sustainable development. Continue reading…

Morning shows the day: but it went all wrong today. Morning went fine before the King addresses to the nation and the whole day was spent amidst confusion.

At 9:30, I checked the internet for anything latest. KantipurOnline had a brief news about the address which was posted in Sajha.com’s Kurakani board, where somebody had also posted about the house-arrest of top leaders (I thought it might be true). NepalNews.com didn’t open up.

At exact 10:00am, the King’s address began. I had already known the government would be dismissed so wasn’t surprised at all for that. But was not prepared for his takeover of the executive power. It was as for many people a bit surprising.

I tried to connect to the Internet immediately after the speech but the dial-up networking said that there is no dial tone. I then looked at my cell phone which was saying no network and I understood that I have been cut off with rest of the world.

I went outside my home and saw the school children returning home as the schools were closed due to curfew rumors. I met a few people who were not let to cross the district border. Continue reading…