Nepal, Aug. 8 -- When local governments miss legally mandated budget deadlines, it affects several sectors: services stall, salaries get stuck, and development work freezes. They also begin to lose public trust. This year, 108 local bodies failed to endorse their budgets by the July 15 deadline, more than six weeks after they were required to present them by June 24. Of the 753 local governments across the country, only 645 met the obligation-meaning around 14 percent defaulted, with nearly half of them not even conducting their assembly meetings. It is a recurring problem. But its scale and persistence now raise fundamental questions about the functioning of the lowest tier of our federal system. The delay has been most acute in Madhesh ...