Nepal Strikes to Protest Constitutional Assembly

<p>Businesses closed up and traffic disappeared in the capital of Kathmandu on Tuesday as minority parties enforced a city-wide&nbsp;<i>bandh</i>, or shutdown, to protest the drafting of Nepal’s new constitution.</p><p>The Constitutional Assembly, the 601-member body tasked with drafting Nepal’s constitution, failed to reach a consensus on key issues this week. Most leaders have lost hope of seeing a constitution by the January 22 deadline. On Monday, a committee tasked with settling disputed issues reported that they had failed to reach a consensus.</p><p>“This time the parties reached closer to consensus on the contentious issues than during the previous meetings. But we could not reach consensus in a package,” Baburam Bhattarai, who chaired the committee, said.</p>
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