At the request of the Maoist dominated Constituent Assembly, King Gyanendra and his family have left the royal palace and given up the trappings of kingship. He will live in Kathmandu as an ordinary tax-paying citizen. Nepal is now, for the first time in its history, a republic, and the palace will be turned into a museum. The ending of the monarchy, the only Hindu monarchy in the world, is largely unmourned.…
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The Nepali speaking districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, which belong to the Indian state of West Bengal, are currently being threatened with an indefinite strike (bandh) by the recently formed Gorkha Mukti Morcha party which has revived a long standing demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland. The GMM has asked tourists to leave the district, and our volunteers have felt obliged to leave too. A previous campaign in the ’80s led to the setting up of the Gorkha Hill Council, with limited autonomy for the region.…
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