TASK CUT OUT FOR PRACHANDA-MUKT NEPAL COALITION GOVERNMENT

WHEN two polar opposites of Nepal's politics came together last week, they ended the spectacle of the tail wagging the dog and threw up a new coalition government that on paper appears sturdy.

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That Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', 69, with just 32 seats in parliament where the simple majority figure stands at 138managed to stay as PM for so long was a testimony to his skills in alternatively playing the two biggest parties in the House against each other. With the two-cats-and-a-monkey story manifesting, the loaf of bread to be shared equitably between the felines invariably ended in the wily Prachanda's mouth. While the Nepali Congress led by Sher Bahadur Deuba, 78, has 88 seats, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist with KP Sharma Oli, 72, at the helm has 77. Taken together, they add up to 165 seats-comfortably pas