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POPURLS.COM is an aggregator site which lists the articles from popular web sites. The lists include digg, del.icio.us, furl, spurl, flickr, reddit, tailrank, fark, youtube, google news, yahoo news, newsvine, google video, wired and slashdot. The site has a simple and neat design. It can be a single spot to keep yourself up-to-date on what’s happening in the world of web buzz.

Mahesh Poudyal, a Nepalese blogger has written a post with very detail analysis on whether Monarchy is worth keeping in Nepal. He analyzes economic, political, and cultural aspect looking at the pros and cons of keeping monarchy in Nepal. The post is very long but it definitely is a worthwhile read.
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Freedom is not a privilege it’s a basic human right and if any individual or group denies you of this right, then you have to ask for it. If you don’t get it back simply by asking for it, you’ve to fight for it. Nepali people asked for it politely which was ignored but just got their freedom back by fighting for it!

Now the sovereignty goes back to people. People power today showed that nobody can ignore it. When the silent majority comes out saying enough is enough. Autocratic regimes fall and dictators kneel down. This is exactly what happened today in Nepal. The people of Nepal have made their voices heard and forced the king to give the power back to them

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King Gyanendra finally did what he should have done a long time ago. With the latest royal proclamation he’s reinstated the parliament which was dissolved in 2002. I think everybody; the king, political parties, maoists and royalists have learned enough lessons from the history and should be back to build the nation. This is the first right step the King has taken after misfiring so many times.

Full Text of royal proclamation from eKantipur.com:

(24 April 2006)

Beloved Countrymen,

Convinced that the source of State Authority and Sovereignty of the Kingdom of Nepal is inherent in the people of Nepal and cognizant of the spirit of the ongoing people’s movement as well as to resolve the on-going violent conflict and other problems facing the country according to the road map of the agitating Seven Party Alliance, we, through this Proclamation, reinstate the House of Representatives which was dissolved on 22 May 2002 on the advice of the then Prime Minister in accordance with the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal-1990. We call upon the Seven Party Alliance to bear the responsibility of taking the nation on the path to national unity and prosperity, while ensuring permanent peace and safeguarding multiparty democracy. We also summon the session of the reinstated House of Representatives at the Sansad Bhawan, Singha Durbar at 1 P.M. on Friday, 28 April 2006.

We are confident that this House will contribute to the overall welfare of Nepal and the Nepalese people.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to all those who have lost their lives in the people’s movement and wish the injured speedy recovery. We are confident that the nation will forge ahead towards sustainable peace, progress, full-fledged democracy and national unity.

May Lord Pashupatinath bless us all!

Jaya Nepal!

Democratic Protests in Nepal is getting unprecedented coverage in International media. Of course it is well deserved and thanks to all the media coverage, world now sees how Nepalese are fighting for their freedom. I just noticed that Boing Boing has a story about A Nepali photoblog site Phalano.com which is publishing the photos of the ongoing protest everyday. I’d mentioned about this blog in my previous entry News from Nepal .

Talking about this photo BoingBoing says:

This demonstrator has shaved a message into his head. I can’t read it. But would welcome a translation from a BoingBoing reader.

There is an excellent translation in the comment with which I totally agree:

You asked for a translation of "Loktantra". The Nepali language used "Prajatantra" to mean "democracy". "Praja" means "subjects" (of a King or monarch), so "Prajatantra" actually means "the rule of subjects", which obviously is unsatisfactory. So the new term "Loktantra" was coined. "Lok" means "folk" - so "Loktantra" would be full democracy, as opposed to a half-hearted version.

Today Nepalese living in Hong Kong marched from Kowloon Park to Star Ferry in support for full democracy in Nepal. The march turned to a mass gathering at Star Ferry and different speakers gave speeches supporting the demonstrators in Nepal and asking King Gyanendra to give up power. Hong Kong’s lawmaker and activist, Leong Kwok-hung and representatives from human rights groups participated in the march and spoke at the meeting.

Nepalese in Hong Kong come out in Support for Democracy at home

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Nepal’s King Gyanendra has finally bowed to the people power by announcing that he returns the executive power back to people. But many major issues demanded by the people are not addressed and looks like he’s playing a political game just to diffuse the tension temporarily . The major issues not addressed in his royal proclamation are:

• What about the constituent assembly?
• What about the Maoist insurgency?

Basically he’s taking things back to where they were 5 years ago. If we just go back to 1990 constitution then he effectively remains with power to dissolve the elected parliament if he wishes to do so in the future and the Royal Nepalese Army still remains under his control. So, leaders and Nepalese people don’t give up until you get the full democracy. The 1990 constitution is flawed and it basically was a compromise between the Palace and Political parties at that time.

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Things are pretty tense in Nepal. Demonstrators have defied the shoot on sight curfew that has been imposed for 18 hours. Now it’s extended by 7 more hours. More than 100 thousand people have come to demonstrate against the Royal regime. Police have fired on mass protest killing at least 3 and injuring hundreds. I’m quite sure things are going to change soon. The whole nation is awakening. King has ignored the people’s aspiration, so he’ll have to bear the responsibility for what’s coming next. I don’t know what he’s waiting for till now?! He shouldn’t be wasting time when he has so little left.

I’m so dying for the latest news from Nepal and these are the sources I’m relying upon (checking every few mins):

• Nepalnews.com
• eKantipur.com
• United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal
• MeroSansar (Nepalese Blog)
• BBC Nepali (Nepalese)
• Nepali Times
• The Himalayan Times
• Google News
• PHALANO.com (Photo Blog)
• International Nepal Solidarity Network
• Samudaya.org
• CNN Asia
• BBC News, South Asia

I think Apple keeps things simple, yet powerful and effective. I was pleasantly surprised with iDVD. The Magic iDVD is very easy to use and yet lets you create a very professional DVDs with few clicks. The most amazing experience I had was with the OneStep DVD. All you’ve to do is; connect the camcorder via firewire, insert a blank dvd disk and press OneStep DVD. That’s all. Also good thing about the MacBook Pro is that you can do other things with it as the iDVD is running. There is no noticeable delay in performance.

I’m enjoying the Mac life as a newbie. After yesterdays post Mac Applications for daily use I’m receiving a lot of comments. Thanks to everyone who’ve read, commented and sent emails with a lot of suggestions. OS X and Mac Applications are great, MacBook Pro is a very fast and sexy machine but it does have some serious problems, so we’ve finally sent it to Apple for repair. I think they’re going to repair instead of replacing it. I’ll let you know how the repaired or replaced MacBook Pro behaves.

After getting little familiar with the OS X now it’s time to plunge into the applications that are essential for daily productivity. Of course first thing is the web browser, then comes email client, office suite and other special applications. Before going into the applications I would like to mention about the installation and uninstallation process in Apple. It’s little different than windows. In windows you have an installer (install.exe or setup.exe) and an uninstaller to remove the program. Macs are little different, just drag the .app to Applications folder and it’s installed. Just drag the installed application to Trash and it’s uninstalled. Easy, straight forward and very cool indeed!

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