Running out of time

Outgoing lawmakers are oddly rushing to pass bills after sitting on their hands for years.

The government on Thursday announced that the federal and provincial elections would be held on November 20; and with that, the Sher Bahadur Deuba administration has turned into a caretaker government limited to carrying out day-to-day administrative work. Ideally, caretaker governments, as a matter of practice, limit their roles to running the government without undertaking any major policy decisions such as introducing bills which require ratification by Parliament. But lawmakers, in the absence of an explicit clause, have decided to prolong Parliament to discuss and endorse a few pending bills.