End of an era?

I don't want to say too much about politics in this blog, but it is difficult to ignore the subject completely at the moment in Nepal. Tomorrow is the first meeting of the new constituent assembly (CA) - when the Maoists are expected to come out leading some kind of coalition government, and to declare the country a republic.
I feel a bit sorry for the Nepali people just now. What they need is a Mandela or a Gandhi kind of figure - and they seem to have ended up with a pretty tawdry bunch instead.
But the new lot can hardly do much worse than the outgoing team. As an example, the new school term has been under way for 6 weeks - but schools all over the country still haven't received the text-books which should have been distributed weeks ago. As a result, students have been protesting and the government has now announced that all state schools will be closed for the next two weeks. The Namuna School is a rare exception. The streets are full of school-kids today trying to raise money for their studies by selling pens for 60 rupees. I've bought two so far. The other new big street presence is the army and armed police, just to make sure there are no big demonstrations from one side or the other. The atmosphere isn't particularly threatening though, and life is otherwise going on as normal.
Expect Nepal to feature somewhere in the news in the next couple of days as the "New Nepal" begins to emerge.