Nepal, Feb. 19 -- It was three decades ago last week that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) launched the 'People's War' with armed action in four different parts of the country. The main source of news was still the printed word back then, and the attacks in the late evening and night of February 13 were reported only in the edition of the 15th. News of what appeared to be law-and-order incidents merited only brief mentions in the media since obviously nobody had any inkling that a purported 'armed struggle' by a splinter of a splinter of one strain of Nepal's communist movement would ultimately consume the country for the next 10 years.

Though I may have missed it, it was odd to hear nothing on the 30th anniversary from Pushpa Kamal...