A report published by the website of the Times of India on Wednesday, indicated that Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, chairman of Nepal’s Maoist party and Paras Bir Bikram Shah, the former crown prince, are sharing a common platform. Both, who were sworn enemies during the “People’s War” that sought to abolish monarchy in Nepal, are co-chairs of the Asia Pacific Exchange and Cooperation, a little-known organisation from Beijing that hit the headlines worldwide this month after coming up with a $3 billion grandiose plan to develop Lumbini, the Buddha’s birthplace, into a Buddhist “Mecca”.
The website has asked what common does Prachanda has with Paras. The party leading by Prachanda has fought a 10-year war ending in the death of over 17,000 people and the Paras is known for for letting fly with his gun and fists first and asking questions later? And the unexpected answer, according to the website, is: the Buddha, the apostle of peace and the Middle Path.
The website citing to the China Daily, further, listed out the joint chairmen as: Steven Clark Rockefeller Jr, a fifth-generation member of the Rockefeller family; Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress, Leon H Charney, a real estate tycoon and former US presidential adviser; Prachanda and Paras.
The ways of the Foundation have been mysterious. According to a local media report and the Chinese web site, Paras left Nepal in a huff for Singapore in 2008 and in March, Prachanda went on a clandestine visit to Singapore, ostensibly to attend a programme hosted by the Foundation. The visit led to speculation that he had gone there to meet Chinese authorities over the fluid political situation in Nepal. The previous year, Prachanda had gone to Malaysia on the invitation of the same organisation.
The Foundation has claimed to build hotels, railway tracks, a Buddhist university and an international airport at Lumbini, but, the Nepal government no inklings about this.  According to the Times of India, the Chinese appearance in the Buddha’s birthplace comes during India improving the Indian cities associated with the Buddha that is trying to mislead the world into believing that the Buddha was born in Nepal.