A Movie, Assassination of the Nepalese Royal Family, to be made

After 10 years of the royal mishap in which, almost all of the members of the Royal family were killed, a movie is going to made on the story. Nirak Poudel, the son of the owner of Gopi Krishna Theater and TV Filmy television channel, Uddav Poudel, has told that the investigation on the subject was going on for the last one and a half years.

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Rameshore Prasad Khanal asks to take action against corruption

In a Facebook note by recently resigned Finance Secretary, Rameshore Khanal, calls for action action corruption. He says, corruption being disease like cancer, is one of the major hindrance of economic growth of the country. He requests everybody to stop giving bribes or commissions, starting Baisakh 1, 2068 and start doing fair businesses. (I have copied and pasted the whole article for everybody to read below)

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The Valentine Hero, Ex-minister Rabindra Shrestha

Former General Administration Minister, Rabindra Shrestha, has eloped with a college girl before the new cabinet was formed. Shrestha was missing since Sunday after new prime minister took oath of office and secrecy.

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12 sex scandals involving CPN Maoist leaders

A lot of internal matters, within the CPN Maoist party during it’s ‘People’s War,’ never came out in public. Some of the best kept secrets were sex abuses and scandals by the leaders at various levels. Only the cases that went out of hands were known to the general public. Journalist Netra Panthi has collected some of the well known sex scandal within CPN Maoist party and in which, the leaders involved were punished for their crime. Detailed, Nepali version, is published by Vishwanews.

1. Ram Bahadur Thapa and Pampha Bhusal

In 2053 BS a sex scandal between the top leader of CPN Maoist, Ram Bahadur Thapa (Cm. Badal) and another top leader, Pampha Bhusal caused the party to punish them. The issue was widely talked about at that time.

2. Haribol Gajurel and Nir Kumari Darlami

Central committee member Haribol Gajurel (Cm. Shitalkumar) and current CA member, Nir Kumari Darlami (Cm. Shila). Nir Kumari’s husband was killed by the army in 2061 BS.

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Dirty politics – Constituent Assembly membership sold for 1.6m per year

It was an open truth that the political parties had made the Constituent Assembly (CA)a very profitable business with the seats on sale during the 2008 election. The one who pays the most got the ticket in the poll and others "purchased" the nomination seats later. At least a dozen businessmen had managed to get in the CA to do their business there.

An example on how those people could get the ticket from the political parties surfaced when one of the CA member refused to pay the agreed sum to one of the political parties.

The CA member representing Nepal Janta Dal, Prof. Dr. Bishwanath Prasad Agrawal had agreed to pay 91% of all the remuneration and bonus received from the CA to the party. Apart from that, he had also agreed to pay the party Rs. 1 million every year. Nayapatrika has published the agreement document (attached) between the party and Agrawal. The party president of Janta Dal, Haricharan Sah released the agreement letter after the relationship between Sah and Agrawal became sour.

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What can we expect when Bhuwan KC becomes a Prime Minister?

Bhuwan KC made news when he joined a political party, Nepal Communist Party United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML). Almost every media had their own reasoning on the this political gamble of Bhuwan KC. As Bhuwan has a track record of doing something controversial before the release of his movies, many assumed it to be a promotion tool for his upcoming Saathi Ma Timro. But, when asked, he denied the allegation.

Views of various insiders of the Nepali movie industry were also published in the media. Many of those think politics is out of the scope for the artists. Movie artists should serve the country by being a politically neutral person. Few others say that in a democratic country, artists are free to choose whether they join political parties or not. In our neighboring movie industry, Bollywood, and Hollywood there are many examples of actors taking top posts after winning elections.

I called Bhuwan KC to know his version of the story on what caused him to join that particular party.

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Thanks Piracy, Yash Kumar might quit movie sector

Maile Choyeko Pani Chaldaina…

Yash Kumar is popularly known for the sweet song in which he expressed his frustration on the traditional Nepali society in which certain ‘lower cast’ can’t touch the water used by ‘higher cast’ people. And, now he has felt as if the distributors are indirectly telling him not to touch the ‘movie sector’.

Yash, a renowned singer, entered to the film industry with his self-produced movie Bato Muni Ko Phul in which, he is also the lead actor. At the time before its release, I asked him, “Why are you entering the film industry? Are you attracted towards the name and fame of an actor?”

Yash replied with a smile, “I am no less than an actor in terms of name and fame. I don’t need that. I want to contribute the industry with a better movie and address the present social scenario.”
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DCN and Movie piracy – is it a conspiracy?

Nepali film industry is really amazing industry in the world. I think our film industry should submit name in Guinness World Record. Reasons? Here you go…

• Only around 4% of the total population of Nepal watches Nepali film. It is natural for people to like their own movies but, Nepali watch more Hindi and English movies than Nepali movies.
• At least 2-3 movies are released every week.
• Only 2-3 movies become successful (hits) per year and other 2-3 movies get their investment back from the market. And rest of the movies are flops.
• But, all the producers says that their movie were super hit.

Those were only a few of the amazing and interesting things in our movie industry. A recent similar incident was equally shocking to film makers and medias: Piracy of Nepali movies.

Movies distributed by Digital Cinema Nepal (DCN) were pirated at the eastern part of Nepal. That has caused a wave of worries among  producers who had entrusted DCN to distribute their movies. The producers whose movies were pirated are asking compensation from DCN for their negligence.

Two of the victims of piracy were producers Yash Kumar and Krisha Chaulagain. Yash Kumar’s movie Bato Muni Ko Phul and Krisha Chaulagain’s movie Kasam Hajurko were told to be pirated and were found in the DVD shops of eastern Nepal. Bato Muni Ko Phul, produced and presented by Yash Kumar, was released for only a month and was still running in many theatres in the eastern part of Nepal. And, Kasam Hajurko by Krisha Chaulagain, was released a bit earlier and had also done a good business.

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Sujata Koirala says, she can publish anything in media

This is my second post about Sujata – and second time I am telling "I don’t like writing about politics." But, Sujata has such an ability that I can’t help without writing about her.

Sujata challenged the media to prove the allegations that her son-in-law Rubel Choudhory and also told that she can publish anything in newspaper.

Sujata told, "Anybody can write anything. Even I can write anything against you."

Well, can she? Isn’t that a serious issue – a serious allegation to Nepali media?

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Reverse trend – now it's not Wikileaks that goes offline

MasterCard was forced offline for hours by an online assault, led by a group of hackers, to protest against MasterCard’s decision to block WikiLeaks donation. After temporarily taking offline the websites of Post Finance, the Swiss bank which closed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s account, the same group was responsible to the DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack on MasterCard website.

In contrast to that, with numerous mirrors, Wikileaks now is highly unlikely to be taken offline as before. Some researchers suggest that it has grown in such a scale that, it is nearly immune to takedown. 14 different name servers across 11 different networks make wikileaks.ch a lot less vulnerable than wikileaks.org. In addition to that, about 1000 mirror sites all over the world are mirroring the whole of its content, making it difficult to censor the contents.

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Julian Assange – Secret, Suspense, Thrilling, and they have added SEX to make it more interesting

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in the UK and he was refused a bailout. He was arrested over sex crime allegations in Sweden and it has nothing to do with the release of secret documents by his organization. Wikileaks has told that the arrest will have no impact on the release of the secret documents.

In a BBC report, Australia’s foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, has blamed the US in the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on Wikileaks. He told that its Australian founder, Julian Assange, has done nothing wrong.

The Australia’s foreign minister, in an interview with Reuters said, "Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorized release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network. The Americans are responsible for that."

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Does Nepal need Indian Investment ?

Foreign investment plays a critical role in the development of a country. In the current age of ‘global village,’ foreign investment is a key to the economy. But, does the foreign investment always bring "good fortune" to a country? Let’s analyze two incidents in Nepal, related to Indian investments.

No Nepali movies in "Big Cinema"

A theater constructed and managed through Indian investment, Big Cinema – considered to be one of the most sophisticated theaters in Nepal, has decided to boycott Nepali movies. The theater located in Kathmandu, Nepal, now onwards will only feature Hindi or English movies. 

According to a film news site, merocinema (screenshot attached), the theaters halted the release of a Nepali movie after receiving a directive from its New Delhi office. The theater management in India told the local management to stop screening Nepali movies in the future too. In a separate news report the theater management was quoted saying – Nepali movies don’t have quality for the theater.

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Americans block internet too; Julian Assange featured in TIME cover

If you were in the illusion that internet is only blocked in countries like China or Nepal, you are wrong. USA, the world’s largest democracy also block internet if they don’t like contents of some website.

In a latest news, the Library of Congress has blocked access to the Wikileaks site on its internal and wireless network for visitors. I is told that the Department of Education has also blocked Wikileaks. It is also reported that the State Department and the Commerce Department have told their employees not to look at the Wikileaks cables.

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WikiLeaks domain terminated, moves to Swiss domain, prepares for Twitter ban

The domain name provider of WikiLeaks, EveryDNS.net, has said that it has terminated the wikileaks.org domain as the domain has come under massive cyber attacks. As the website started releasing more than 250,000 diplomatic cables, the pressure against the whistle-blowing organization has been increasing from all over the world. The website is renamed wikileaks.ch (a Swiss domain).

The website now features a message "Keep us strong help wikileaks keep governments open," beside a photo of its founder Julian Assange.

Yesterday, the US server, Amazon.com had pulled the plug of the website and it had to move to European servers.

WikiLeaks Twitter response accuses the Amazon’s blog post response a ‘lie’ :

Amazon’s press release does not accord with the facts on public record. It is one thing to be cowardly. Another to lie about it.

Prepared for Twitter ban ?

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WikiLeaks – Amazon has come-up with an explanation

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has come up with an explanation on why they kicked WikiLeaks off its servers after a day of the event. Amazon claims that it has stopped providing service to WikiLeaks as it was breaking rules designed to ensure websites use their own content and that it won’t injure others. Amazon in a blog post explained how the decision was their own and, not taken due to the pressure from the U.S. government. Amazon says, the terms of service clause that was in clear violation by WikiLeaks was:

…you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content… that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.

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