Basking in a golden sunset reflected off Machapuchre, guests gather in the courtyard of Hita Sharma’s house in Ghandruk for a party. In the kitchen, Sharma is sorting through a nanglo filled with freshly picked niguro fern as strips of mutton sizzle away in a pan. Cucumber, radish, and greens from her vegetable garden have been chopped neatly, and laid out.&nbsp; Sharma lost her husband when she was 23, and overnight became a single mother raising two children and an elderly father-in-law. All she knew was how to farm the terraces on the steep slopes nearby.&nbsp; Her family has lived here in the Gurung village on the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/trekking-in-the-time-of-climate-change">Annapurna trekking trail</a> for generations, she speaks the local language and is familiar with the community’s customs. But unlike her Gurung neighbours, she was not involved in the tourism industry in a town that gets 175,000 Nepali and foreign trekkers every year. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111044_7b6b49e2257264a87add62ccdd2a3d528096b934acd7154f9f51ec89efa50387.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241004111044_7b6b49e2257264a87add62ccdd2a3d528096b934acd7154f9f51ec89efa50387" data-rendition-name="original" width="4160" height="1972" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki Pronince prosperity NT"> </figure>  “Everyone ran hotels, homestays or businesses, while I was alone with two young children,” says Sharma, who was also convinced by her neighbour Harimaya Gurung to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/home-away-from-home-in-nepal">start a homestay</a>. Ghandruk had just been connected to Pokhara by road in 2016, and the flow of tourists was increasing.&nbsp; A decade later, Sharma’s homestay is a thriving. The loans are paid off, her son is a chartered accountant in Pokhara, and her lab technician daughter is settled in Japan. “They have made me forget all the hardships I faced to get here,” beams Hita Sharma.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111044_2e59e9200b7fdb74ff993777e15a2e0fab0ec38b0b41436d5b9ddbaabc4ba434.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241004111044_2e59e9200b7fdb74ff993777e15a2e0fab0ec38b0b41436d5b9ddbaabc4ba434" data-rendition-name="original" width="6000" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki Pronince prosperity NT"> <figcaption>Hita Sharma</figcaption> </figure>  Gandaki is number one among Nepal’s seven provinces in the Human Development Index, even higher than Bagmati, where Kathmandu is located. But even more surprising is that rural parts of the province, like here in Ghandruk, are even more prosperous than towns like Pokhara. Only 12% of the population of Gandaki is below the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/not-rising-nepal">poverty line</a>, much lower than the national average of 21%. In total, Gandaki has only 5% of Nepal's poor, lowest among the seven provinces.&nbsp; Just a decade ago, the story was different. In 2011, the poverty rate in Gandaki was higher than the national average at 28%.&nbsp; “We recalculated the results of the survey to see if there was a mistake, but the data was sound,” says Hem Raj Regmi of the National Statistics Office. “The rural areas of Gandaki province have leapt ahead in prosperity.” TOURISM  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111044_f72ee29e5b82e52b3aa8d253e31436a551fb6a75e3d8b26f2d3bb357d839f39b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241004111044_f72ee29e5b82e52b3aa8d253e31436a551fb6a75e3d8b26f2d3bb357d839f39b" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="523" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki Pronince prosperity NT"> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/how-nepal-can-avert-an-economic-crunch">Tourism and remittances</a> from those abroad are the main factors. The incoming cash has had a multiplier effect on downstream sectors like vegetable and poultry farming, manufacturing and schools. “The villages of Gandaki have always been more prosperous than elsewhere,” notes Nepal’s former finance secretary Rameshore Khanal. “But tourism definitely played a prominent part.”&nbsp; Apart from 656 hotels in cities like Pokhara, there are 342 rural homestays across Gandaki, and the provincial government provides Rs1 million subsidy to open new homestays benefiting many families who have rooms empty because so many members are abroad. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241005031032_973542d98efc075f5e9e6d5ddd8f0c42ada74bbbd1d2ff7124c4e9aab9a1d5bc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20241005031032_973542d98efc075f5e9e6d5ddd8f0c42ada74bbbd1d2ff7124c4e9aab9a1d5bc" data-rendition-name="original" width="985" height="669" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki province map"> </figure>  More than half of Gandaki’s tourism-centered businesses are in rural areas like Ghandruk, Ghorepani and other villages along the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/peak-season">trekking trails</a>. Nearly three-fourths are female-owned. “The villages of Gandaki are famous tourist destinations, and domestic visitors kept most homestays in business when foreign arrivals fell during and after Covid. This has maintained employment and income levels,” says Krishna &nbsp;Chandra Devkota of the Gandaki Province Policy and Planning Commission.&nbsp; Although tourism has now become the main source of income, the backbone of Gandaki’s rural economy has always been farming.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111044_4f6d6a79280fc85a91b9c2528d8816983f543760c781fbfb1d58ebcd2fe8e039.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20241004111044_4f6d6a79280fc85a91b9c2528d8816983f543760c781fbfb1d58ebcd2fe8e039" data-rendition-name="original" width="3000" height="1688" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki Province prosperity NT"> </figure>  “Agricultural prospects were always good in Lamjung, Tanahun, Kaski and Syangja districts because of community irrigation systems,” explains Khanal. Indeed, while a little over 60% of Nepali households are engaged in agriculture, in Gandaki it is 64%.&nbsp; A robust irrigation system means that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/helping-farmers-who-help-themselves">Gandaki’s farms</a> are insulated from droughts and the impact of climate breakdown. Unlike other provinces Gandaki produces enough rice, maize, and wheat to wholly meet its own demand.&nbsp; REMITTANCE  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111044_44b122c3bbff125b4eb3137f74b327c403d38786549707d5a51f1932e47e99b2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20241004111044_44b122c3bbff125b4eb3137f74b327c403d38786549707d5a51f1932e47e99b2" data-rendition-name="original" width="2976" height="1984" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki Pronince prosperity NT"> </figure>  Gandaki’s literacy rate is 83.4% (nationally it is 77%) and has always been historically higher than elsewhere in Nepal, except Bagmati. Better education has increased employment prospects both domestically and abroad, and higher earnings means greater inflow of remittances.&nbsp; Gandaki Province has always been the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/in-the-line-of-fire"> recruitment centre for soldiers in the British and Indian Armies</a>, and many families of Gurkha veterans have settled down in the UK and send money home to their villages. &nbsp;Maya Timsina, a member of the Provincial Planning Commission in Pokhara, says: “I would put remittances as main factor in reducing poverty in Gandaki.”&nbsp; On average, each household in Gandaki receives Rs215,000 in remittances every year, compared to the national average of Rs145,093. Villages in other provinces are far behind Gandaki in inflows.&nbsp; Former Finance Minister Surendra Pandey says that Gandaki’s ‘Lahure’ tradition of joining foreign militaries has contributed greatly to higher remittances. “Today, soldiers have been largely replaced by migrant workers, but even they earn more than workers elsewhere because of better education and skill sets.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111044_7f6bcf53b00b963b02ad78b8bda739941a82f66644e6f9c7b7c1b68167b5f533.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20241004111044_7f6bcf53b00b963b02ad78b8bda739941a82f66644e6f9c7b7c1b68167b5f533" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="533" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki Pronince prosperity NT"> <figcaption>Photo: SALUTE GORKHA TRAINING CENTER</figcaption> </figure>  Daily wages are also higher in Gandaki at Rs711, when in the rest of Nepal the average is Rs511 per day. The province has traditionally been more entrepreneurial because of its location astride the Kali Gandaki trading route. &nbsp;&nbsp; Residents of Gandaki went to India for seasonal jobs until the 1990s, after which industries evolved in cities like Birganj, Butwal, Bhairawa, Nepalganj, Kathmandu, and Biratnagar.&nbsp; But while there is an industrial park in Pokhara, Gandaki province still does not have a major <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/post-lockdown-comeback-for-nepal-s-industries">manufacturing sector</a>. Experts say people living in the province have been able to achieve poverty reduction despite a lack of industrial development because of the importance of the service sector. COMMUNITY&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111044_c6fec6f4427b41025f7dc5fb322077b028e1f7da6c023b06928404c11dbbe3d2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20241004111044_c6fec6f4427b41025f7dc5fb322077b028e1f7da6c023b06928404c11dbbe3d2" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki Pronince prosperity NT"> </figure>  Homestays have not improved living standards in other parts of Nepal as much as it has in Gandaki Province. For example, only few of the Tharu homestays in the Tarai have done well because of the lack of facilities and promotion.&nbsp; Gandaki has thrived because it has a cohesive community spirit in rural areas. Explains Khanal: “The tradition of coming together, exchanging pleasantries, and discussing problems of the community to find solutions is much more pronounced here.”&nbsp; True, few other places in Nepal are endowed with such <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/pokhara-six-decades-ago">stunning scenery</a> as the mountains near Pokhara and that is the main draw for homestay guests. &nbsp; “While individual and community efforts have played important roles in lifting people out of poverty in Gandaki, the state must do its part to help,” says Devkota of the Gandaki Province Policy and Planning Commission.&nbsp; “Private sector investment must be encouraged in the mid-hills, and tourism, agriculture and water resources should all be developed.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111044_a48197944613ffd2b960e34a32c8e00c10b3fa643825790bcb750f94eee285fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20241004111044_a48197944613ffd2b960e34a32c8e00c10b3fa643825790bcb750f94eee285fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1024" height="615" loading="lazy" alt="Gandaki Pronince prosperity NT"> <figcaption>Community homestay in Kailali's Bhada village. Homestays in other parts of Nepal have not been as successful as they have in Gandaki.</figcaption> </figure>  Nepal was a country of villages until a decade ago, but the categorisation of local units including the introduction of new municipalities has made it mostly urban, at least on the paper.&nbsp; In 2021 a third of Nepal’s population lived in rural municipalities, and 66% in urban areas. In comparison, 83% of Nepalis lived in rural areas, and only 17% lived in municipalities in 2011. However, there has been no infrastructure development in many newly-announced municipalities, which means such local units are essentially still villages. One way to curb the high outmigration rate would be to improve basic facilities in rural municipalities.&nbsp; Some of this is already happening in Gandaki. Because of added income from tourism, and better connectivity, many youth are returning to their villages. This model could easily be replicated elsewhere in Nepal and reduce the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/brain-gain-into-brain-drain">outmigration of young people</a>. Meanwhile in Ghandruk, Hita Sharma’s son urges her to join him in Pokhara, but she has no desire to leave her scenic village where the air and water are clean, and the food is fresh. She tells us: “I have lived here all my life through joys and hardships. Now that things are finally looking up, I will not leave. In fact, it is time for all those who have left their villages to return.” &nbsp;&nbsp; This report was punlished in collaboration with the Centre for Investigative Journalism Nepal (CIJ).

Prosperous Gandaki is thriving

Bottom

<a href="https://www.buddhaair.com/">Buddha Air</a> has announced the launch of an additional third weekly flight between Kathmandu and Varanasi. The new Wednesday flights brings the total number of weekly flights to three, complementing the existing services on Mondays and Fridays.
The expanded frequency is part of Buddha Air's strategy to cater to the increasing demand for travel between Nepal and India, particularly for religious pilgrimage and tourism. Buddha Air is Nepal’s largest domestic airline with 18 aircraft serving 12 destinations.
Travelers now have greater flexibility for Nepali pilgrims planning visits to sacred Hindu and Buddhist sites in Varanasi and Sarnath, and for Indian pilgrims visiting Pahsupati, Janakpur, Muktinath and Lumbini in Nepal.&nbsp;
The new flight also facilitates easier access to Ayodhya, a major pilgrimage site 220 km from Varanasi, known as the birthplace of Lord Ram. In Nepal, Janakpur is the birthplace of Sita and Lumbini is the birthplace of the Buddha.
The increased flight frequency allows pilgrims from Nepal to also better organise their trips to Ayodhya, reducing time constraints and enhancing travel arrangements for group tours, especially during peak pilgrimage seasons.
In conjunction with the new flight, Buddha Holidays, the airline's tour division, is offering special holiday packages to Varanasi and Ayodhya. These packages include flights, accommodations, guided tours, and visits to key religious sites, providing a comprehensive travel experience that allows pilgrims to focus on their spiritual journeys without logistical concerns.
The Ayodhya Darshan packages feature visits to prominent sites such as the Ram Janmabhumi Temple and Hanuman Garhi, while the Varanasi packages include guided tours of the Kasi Vishwanath Temple and the famous ghats along the Ganges River. Designed for travelers with limited time, these packages streamline the travel process and enhance the overall experience.
Buddha Air continues to expand its services within Nepal and is planning connections from Indian airports to Pokhara as well. Says Buddha Air’s founder Birendra Banset: “The Nepal-India route is expected to see increased popularity, fostering stronger ties between the two countries and promoting greater tourism and cultural exchange.”
Making travels to India more accessible, Buddha Air has added a third weekly flight to Varanasi, India. The new flight, introduced for every Wednesday, complements the existing flights regularly scheduled for Mondays and Fridays. This expansion aims to provide greater convenience and accessibility for travellers visiting the religious and cultural sites of Varanasi.
The newly added Wednesday flight to Varanasi shows the airlines’ continued effort to meet the growing demand for travel between Nepal and India, particularly for pilgrimage and tourism purposes. With the third flight, travellers now have more options and flexibility.
This expanded schedule also makes it easier for travellers to visit Ayodhya. Located about 220 kilometres from Varanasi, Ayodhya is one of the most significant pilgrimage sites for Hindus, known as the birthplace of Lord Ram. With three weekly flights, travellers from Nepal now have more options to plan their pilgrimage to Ayodhya. This allows for better connections and reduces the time constraints for those looking to visit Ayodhya for religious purposes.&nbsp;
The new schedule also caters to easy management and travel arrangements for group tours, especially during the pilgrimage season when demand for travel to Ayodhya peaks.
In addition to the added flight, Buddha Holidays, the tour division of Buddha Air, is offering special holiday packages to Varanasi and Ayodhya. These packages are designed to take travellers to a complete experience, including flights, accommodations, guided tours, and visits to key religious sites. The packages aim to offer hassle-free travel for pilgrims, ensuring that they can focus on their religious journey without worrying about logistical details.
The Ayodhya Darshan packages include visits to key religious sites in Ayodhya, such as the Ram Janmabhumi Temple, Hanuman Garhi, and other significant locations. Similarly, the Varanasi packages offer guided tours of the famous Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the ghats of the Ganges River, and other culturally significant sites. These packages are especially beneficial for those with limited time, as they streamline the travel process and offer comprehensive services, from transportation to accommodation.
As Buddha Air continues to expand its services, the Nepal-India route is expected to grow in popularity, strengthening the ties between Nepal and India while nurturing greater tourism and cultural exchange between the two countries.

Buddha adds Kathmandu-Varanasi flights

Turkish Airlines and British Council Nepal are collaborating for the second edition of their IELTS Upahar Campaign. Two winners will be selected to receive one-way tickets to the UK and the USA, courtesy of the Turkish flag carrier. Eligible participants have to book and pay for the IELTS with the British Council. The offer is valid for all IELTS on paper and IELTS on computer registrations paid between 26 September-30 November, for any test dates starting from October 2024 onwards.&nbsp;
“We hope to contribute to the dreams of many Nepali students and professionals aiming to reach international destinations like the UK and the USA,” says General Manager of Turkish Airlines Nepal Serkan Basar. Adds Pratistha Thapa Rayamajhi of British Council Nepal: “The dedication of our partners and stakeholders to empowering young Nepalis open doors to transformative opportunities, and together, we are building a brighter future.”

TK-British Council

Sipradi, through its Sahayata and Auto Parts branches, is distributing relief materials to survivors of recent floods, especially mechanics with shops that were directly impacted. With many travellers leaving Kathmandu for Dasain, Sipradi has also set up passenger help desks at 15 busy locations in the Valley with route information and safety.
Sipradi will also check, for free, the condition of all Tata buses leaving with Dasain travellers from Gongabu bus park. Sipradi also runs a 24 hour Highway Breakdown Assistance service.
Tata is also providing an emergency service for cars damaged in the recent floods. Customers can call a hotline to have a service team come to their house. The team will take the car to a Tata service centre and deliver it after repairs.

Sipradi Relief

Energy flows where attention goes. -Michael Beckwith  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011031020_ec64d697950177f845b7d083edf29c118b0257aa37d17397de47cc0fa094bc43.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241011031020_ec64d697950177f845b7d083edf29c118b0257aa37d17397de47cc0fa094bc43" data-rendition-name="original" width="2700" height="2700" loading="lazy" alt="Miss Motivation Dasain"></figure>

Energy flows where attention goes

This late monsoon storm was not a surprise. Weather forecasts had warned of heavy precipitation a week before, the Met Office predicted heavy rain on 27-28 September, SMS warned people to take precaution, radio stations issued bulletins, and night buses were banned in 56 districts.&nbsp; The tragedy was compounded because we knew what was coming, and did not do enough to prepare. The accurate weather forecast made no real difference on the ground. When it started raining on Thursday morning and did not stop till Saturday, there was no sense of the scale of this emergency. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/60-dead-64-missing-in-nepal-floods">More than 200 people lost their lives, dozens are still missing.</a> Thousands of homes were swept away, Nepal lost nearly half its electricity generation capacity because of damage to power plants, Kathmandu has been nearly cut off with bridges and sections of highways swept away. Yes, this was primarily a natural disaster. Kathmandu Valley and its surroundings got half the average annual precipitation in just 40 hours, the heaviest rainfall measured since records started being kept in 1972. But the high death toll was totally manmade.&nbsp; Three buses were buried by a mudslide in Dhading, killing at least 35 people. This was an eerie reminder of the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/100-101-102-hh5uvzf9">Simaltal accident on 12 July </a>when two intercity buses were swept by a mudflow into the Trisuli River at night, killing 62. The buses have still not been found.&nbsp; In both cases, heavy rainfall on a poorly engineered local road up the mountains triggered the initial landslide that swept debris to the highway below. This was manslaughter, not an ‘accident’.&nbsp; We said it then, and we are saying it now: most mountain roads follow no reason or science. It is a corruption-fed activity in which local governments and their cronies plan roads ad hoc and rent their own bulldozers. Debris accumulated during construction is dumped over the edge, where monsoon rains wash them to settlements, farms and highways below. Last weekend’s disaster is a warning that accurate weather early warning is just the first step – it is not enough to prevent a huge loss of life. After the warnings, there should have been door-to-door miking along hazardous river banks urging people to move to higher ground, shelters should have been in place, rescue equipment and rafts pre-positioned, live monitoring of precipitation in the catchments. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) was just posting situationers on social media. The Home Ministry became a Ministry of Condolences and Empty Promises.&nbsp; This disaster is a reminder of the 1993 Central Nepal cloudburst that hit the Lothar Khola in Chitwan, the Kulekhani areas, and highways blocked highways marooning Kathmandu for weeks. More than 1,300 people were killed.&nbsp; The death toll in Kathmandu this time was compounded by the fact that the city has spread into the floodplains of the Vishnumati, Manohara and other tributaries of the Bagmati. Natural waterways have been hemmed in by streets. The rivers were just reclaiming what was theirs.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240930150944_1221b4fb442a21e8d2dbf1aeeca61b7a8d791c117d6a93401f15ba2a95d49a69.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240930150944_1221b4fb442a21e8d2dbf1aeeca61b7a8d791c117d6a93401f15ba2a95d49a69" data-rendition-name="original" width="1949" height="1299" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal floods"> <figcaption>Kathmandu Valley, especially its southern fringes looks like an epicentre of a major quake following the rains. Photo: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption> </figure>  Urban pressure has also forced settlements to move up the Valley’s rim, below steep hillsides with topsoil already saturated in the late monsoon. The torrential downpours caused the slopes to fail. The damage to Upper Tamakosi and dozens of other hydropower plants also is a warning not to put all our eggs in one basket. The Sikkim disaster exactly this time last year was proof that these are at high risk from glacial lake floods and landslide dammed rivers suddenly bursting. More logical would be to build smaller, better designed, plants on many rivers. The Himalaya is also the youngest and most fragile mountain range on earth, Nepal has always had either too much or too little water, and climate breakdown is making this contrast more extreme. Combined, this means we in Nepal live in a multi-disaster prone country with seismic, hydrological and climate risks.&nbsp; After multiple floods in early 1990s, a Japanese grant helped set up the Disaster Prevention Technical Centre (DPTC) in Pulchowk, which was later renamed the Department of Water Induced Disaster Management. We have not heard much from them lately. With the government AWOL, it is ordinary Nepalis who have shown extraordinary courage in saving those being swept by flood water, rescuing babies on canoes (pictured), or digging for passengers trapped in buses buried by landslides. The Nepal Army and the Police rescued thousands, but there was an absence of coordination.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240930150944_cb55edb93eb3aad169b22bc4dec06b5478746fbe75417c628bf671ec698f7912.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240930150944_cb55edb93eb3aad169b22bc4dec06b5478746fbe75417c628bf671ec698f7912" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal floods"> <figcaption>Photo: SOCIAL MEDIA</figcaption> </figure>  Now, the attention must focus on urgent relief and rehabilitation. But that might be a tall ask just before everything shuts down for Dasain, and when governance fails, lack of accountability and transparency is the norm even without holidays.&nbsp; Sonia Awale

When it rains it pours

“यहाँ वाग्नर कोदाली खनिरहेछन्, शेक्सपियर हलो जोत्ता हुन्, टिसियन र टर्नर भेडा चराउँदा हुन्, सोक्रेटिज गुफामा घोत्लिरहेका होलान्... यहाँ कति साहित्य छ, जो लेखिएकै छैन, न लेखिनेछ।” Wagners and Shakespeares could be ploughing fields here, Tissiens and Turners may be shepherds, Socrates must be living in a desolate cave ... there is so much literature here that is not written and will never be written. This excerpt from the essay के नेपाल सानो छ? (Is Nepal Small?) by poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota that most Nepali students have to learn in school, alludes to treasures of Nepali literature that remain hidden because people are too busy trying to survive.&nbsp; While Devkota’s dialectic may still be true, Nepali writers like Samyak Shertok are taking their literature to international platforms and giving it global recognition. Samyak Shertok is the recent recipient of the 2024 <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fawpwriter.org%2FAWP%2FAWP%2FContests%2FAWP-Award-Series%2FDonald-Hall-Prize%2FOverview.aspx%3Ffbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2rtN6pn1xy9O42GhznnQekY96bavYGwHz6pDtNaSGh4qaKXsZKSyvCKDU_aem_bsY7bnUoJoSxEpfxw1UdVQ&amp;h=AT0QnfORyOboQ6xeVZYe-r4CLjYIjtZwIcEsR3r54yeHGbMqiMHTjcoT3CP2CD7VXUn9jytxX4FtFmLhINdF8UwGvLy9urNtzxIeUNLOuwLVhSH6hmbVx3oA8rZIY3WNkMani8g6I1c">Donald Hall Prize for Poetry</a>. His poem collection ‘No Rhododendron’ is being published next year by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Pitt Poetry Series. His poems have also appeared in top literary journals and publications in the US, such as Best of New Poets, Iowa Review amd Kenyon Review.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241013131056_630058ef31163af4def47cbcc247089ee3df925ff6c1bd2014f1008db515f9c0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241013131056_630058ef31163af4def47cbcc247089ee3df925ff6c1bd2014f1008db515f9c0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1365" height="2048" loading="lazy" alt="Samyak Shertok"> <figcaption>Photo: CHANDRA S MAGAR</figcaption> </figure>  ‘If poetry is, as has been defined, a species of magic, Samyak Shertok has conjured an elegant and sophisticated collection that is full of hybridity in form and subject…’ writes Donald Hall Prize 2024 jury member Kimiko Hahn, an American poet. ‘We are given a view into the conjuring, his view on how language expresses and depresses, how language as noise can mix into cacophony or clarify home.’ Hahn goes on to add, ‘There is abiding grief and, in that, surviving to tell and retell stories. This debut collection is an absolute marvel.’ Shertok’s poems immerse themselves in the idea of a mother language, of motherhood, home, ongoingness and his relationship with them, leaving behind a part of himself in each poem. His poems have a haunting grief and memories, and leave food for the soul to dwell upon. “Poems are a permanent home that I can always return to,” Shertok told us in a zoom call. He moved to the United States to pursue a psychology major as an undergraduate which he completed in 2011 from Brigham Young University, and has been there since. Samyak was born Shertok Lama, the youngest child in a Tamang family from Yurung village of Sindhupalchok district. He had always thought a poet had to be someone senior with a PhD, or a long white beard like Nepali poet Lekhnath Paudyal or the Bengali Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore. ‘Samyak’ means the Buddha’s middle way and ‘Shertok’ is the Tamang word for a golden steeple. Nepaliness is a recurring theme in Samyak’s verse, but he has a fraught relationship with his motherland. As someone from an indigenous community, Shertok grew up feeling stereotyped and judged which is why he opted for a surname that would not denote his ethnicity. He was eight when his older brother recited the poem he had written himself while walking to their school, an hour across mountain paths from his home. “The poem my older brother wrote was about love and destiny. I don’t remember the lines now, but the seed was planted sometime there,” Shertok recalls.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241013141012_e562220a7461f09924480bb991319bfc420ba275b672885815382bb526833301.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241013141012_e562220a7461f09924480bb991319bfc420ba275b672885815382bb526833301" data-rendition-name="original" width="1100" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Samyak Shertok"> </figure>  Shertok has frequent references to his mother who played a part in shaping his career as a poet. He explains: “I believe my Ama is a lived poet. She doesn't know about poets, or how to write poems, but she naturally comes up with her own phrases that are poetic and deeply meaningful.” By Grade 11, Shertok was writing poems mostly in Nepali, but also English. He was prolific, penning short stories, essays, ghazals and managed to impress another <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/writing-about-nepal-from-afar">US-based Nepali writer Samrat Upadhyay</a> and publisher <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/a-novelist-talks-to-his-translator">Ajit Baral of Fineprint</a> when he won the Writing Nepal competition organised by Lalit. "Samyak Shertok is a poet of great nuance and emotional depth," says Upadhyay who was the judge of the Lalit contest. "Even then I had been wowed by the poetry in Samyak’s prose, and it’s no wonder he’s emerged as a poet of considerable power now." He adds: "The fact that Samyak’s poetry is speaking to a diverse and international audience is evident in his numerous publications and awards. The Donald Hall Prize is a big deal. It boasts of many illustrious poets as its previous winners, such as Angela Ball and Reginald Shepherd. Samyak’s win is a win for Nepalis all over the world." Shertok struggled to adjust to a new culture and milieu. He did not feel like he belonged, and strived to feel appreciated. He finally had a MFA in poetry, but no job. “Poetry as a career is never fully secure, there is a compulsion to financially depend on something else,” says Shertok who now teaches poetry to students in Hendrix College in Arkansas. While he has been reading and writing poetry for most of his life, writing still does not get any easier for Shertok. “With practice, devotion and dedication, one might get better at techniques but writing a poem means starting from nothing,” adds Shertok, who is now working on his second book collection. “Something more challenging is to not repeat what I’ve already done in my previous poem.” While he still likes to explore different literary forms, poetry provides him ample room to explore life, living and longing. Even Shertok’s spoken words, carried over from the other side of the planet over Zoom is versified: “Each poem is a being. A poem begins with a haunting, and ends when you are able to release the haunt.”&nbsp;

Finding a permanent home in poetry

Shyam Lama had just fallen asleep on the early morning of 28 September when he heard a loud bang outside his shop on the side of the highway in Dhading, 15km from Kathmandu. It had been r<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/60-dead-64-missing-in-nepal-floods">aining incessantly for two days</a>, landslips and fallen trees had blocked the Kathmandu-Mugling highway. Many buses were stranded, and some of them were parked at a bend on the road in Jhyaple Khola, waiting for the debris to be cleared. The bang that Lama heard was another landslide from the mountain above falling near his shop and covering the highway with 4m of mud and stones. Some of the buses were damaged, and injured passengers were running for safety in the darkness and pouring rain. In the light of dawn, they could see the damaged buses heading to Kathmandu from the west. But it was not till later in the day that Lama and some of the other rescuers saw the top of another bus sticking out of the mud.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241008141044_a0b528829a4230da6b7b26102a42f0a061de6c26a4fb1d1e201dabfcfc647519.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241008141044_a0b528829a4230da6b7b26102a42f0a061de6c26a4fb1d1e201dabfcfc647519" data-rendition-name="original" width="5726" height="3817" loading="lazy" alt="jhyaple khola landslides"> <figcaption>Photos: SUMAN NEPALI(Photo: suman)</figcaption> </figure>  They dug through the slush to find 11 bodies. But then they spotted the tyre of another vehicle, then a van. Altogether 35 passengers perished that night in the three buses heading to Kathmandu from Chitwan, Butwal and Gorkha.&nbsp; “The buses were all stuck because the highway was blocked, and the landslide fell and buried them with the passengers sleeping inside,” Lama says. “If the debris up the road had been cleared in time, the buses would have been able to continue on to Kathmandu.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-flood-of-tears-on-the-rosi">A flood of tears on the Rosi</a>, Archana Darji Archana Koirala runs a convenience store nearby, and was also awoken by muffled shouts for help almost drowned out by the sound of the rain on the tin roof. “In the darkness, I saw people escaping from two buses, some of them injured and covered in blood,” recalls Koirala. “I gathered up my little girls and ran for my life.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241008141044_ec79cc7198b54bad77c3f03bc1420ea64cb6776eaaec29581209614194b862fa.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241008141044_ec79cc7198b54bad77c3f03bc1420ea64cb6776eaaec29581209614194b862fa" data-rendition-name="original" width="5680" height="3787" loading="lazy" alt="jhyaple khola landslides"> </figure>  Another shop owner Ajita Tamang, heard the landslide coming down and nearly burying her house. She ran with her mother to the nearby woods. Her shop did not survive. Krishna Tamang heard the sound of a bus windshield shattering, and went outside to check. &nbsp;He saw one of the buses half-buried in debris before it disappeared before his eyes, swallowed up by a fresh wave of mud. Unable to do anything to help, he ran up the mountain to save his own life.&nbsp; Shop owners and residents in Jhyaple Khola say that the landslide was so massive and came down so suddenly that the passengers in the vehicles probably did not even know what hit them. A week later, the mangled mass of the three buses are all that remain on the roadside, and excavators were trying to open the road for the expected heavy Dasain traffic on the arterial highway that connects Kathmandu to western Nepal. A visit to the site shows the mountain above scarred by open red wounds of landslides. The biggest slope failure originates in a local road about 100m above the highway and has brought down debris that was just dumped over the edge by bulldozers. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/flood-of-despair">When the record-breaking rain came</a>, the mud turned into paste and raced down the mountain carrying tree trunks and large stones. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241008141044_64f6af7e300ed517f6bd161491a69d85706caed35839cfeee7c87e6671a8fdc3.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241008141044_64f6af7e300ed517f6bd161491a69d85706caed35839cfeee7c87e6671a8fdc3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1320" height="1346" loading="lazy" alt="jhyaple khola landslides"> <figcaption>The bend on the highway where the landslide, triggered by a sub-standard road up the mountain buried three buses, killing 35 people on the night of 28 September. Other buses also blocked by another landslide further up the road were also damaged. Photo: SOCIAL MEDIA(Photo: Sonia Awale)</figcaption> </figure>  Typically, Dasain is the busiest time of year for businesses along the highway in Jhyaple Khola as people leave Kathmandu by busloads to get home for the festival. “We do not stay here for long anymore, we are already home before the sun sets,” says Krishna Tamang. “We fear another landslide will hit us at any time.” In July, a debris flow <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/100-101-102-hh5uvzf9">swept two intercity buses into the Trisuli River</a> along the Mugling-Narayangad Highway 60km west of here. Of the 62 passengers on the two buses, only three were able to swim to safety. Search and rescue teams recovered 27 passengers from the river in the aftermath of the landslide, but neither the buses nor the rest of the passengers have been found.&nbsp; A committee formed by the government to investigate the Simaltal disaster concluded that a new local road constructed farther up the mountain was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/managing-the-monsoon">mainly responsible for the debris flow</a>. The Jhyaple Khola mudslide was a repeat of the July disaster. Locals in Dhading say that the Department of Roads had just completed the retaining wall, and the debris from the excavation done to construct the road had piled up, which the rain swept down to the highway below.&nbsp; Similar unplanned roads constructed further above in Nagdhunga have also clogged up the culverts, which remain uncleared.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241008141044_d46e7f612ce53b0c3133219a36ab81c5ef8f7494dc002452580c086d70028652.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20241008141044_d46e7f612ce53b0c3133219a36ab81c5ef8f7494dc002452580c086d70028652" data-rendition-name="original" width="2340" height="1560" loading="lazy" alt="jhyaple khola landslides"> <figcaption>Photo: SUMAN NEPALI(Photo: Sonia Awale)</figcaption> </figure>  “This disaster occurred because of the locally elected representatives, the Road Department and the contractors,” says local business owner Shyam Kumar Lama. “<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-it-rains-it-pours-ksqprbu3">You cannot blame it on a natural disaster</a>." “They keep tearing down the retaining walls to build haphazard roads, and replace them with brick walls,” adds Lama. “How is a barely one-foot-thick wall going to stop a landslide?” Geologist Sri Kamal Dwivedi says that the Department of Roads has not heeded the geological risks in excavations for road expansion across the country. “The soil above Jhyaple Khola was loosened by torrential rain, causing a high-speed debris flow onto the highway below,” &nbsp;explains Dwivedi. “Additionally, the possibility of disasters like landslides increases when slopes are cut to make way for road expansion.” Transport expert Kamal Pandey says that disasters like the ones in Simaltal and Jhyaple Khola happen frequently because environmental risks are ignored during investments in road expansion. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-revenge-of-the-rivers">The revenge of the rivers</a>, Shamshad Ahmad “New roads are dug up like it is some kind of competition,” says Pandey. “But as long as unmanaged excavation continues without plans in place to mitigate landslides, disasters like the one at Jhyaple Khola will continue to happen.” Indeed, this is not the first time a disaster of this scale has struck in Jhyaple Khola. In 2001, a similar debris flow from higher up the hill buried a vehicle on the highway below, killing nine people.&nbsp; Landslides of smaller scales occur in the area every monsoon, but they do not make it to the news. But even as they are used to the frequent landslides, there is now a new kind of fear among residents.&nbsp; “I am overcome with terror every time I look up to the overcast sky,” says Shyam Lama. “We will never be safe in this place as long as the mountains keep falling on top of us.” &nbsp;

"The mountain fell on top of us"

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I was a teenager when I was first exposed to the impact of climate breakdown, while staying with a family in Phakding in the aftermath of<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lessons-not-learned-from-2015-o2etq6zu"> the 2015 earthquake</a>.&nbsp;
The communities living along the river were so scared of the Imja Tso glacial lake bursting that they hiked a few hours up the mountain every night for safety. During the day, they came back down to run their tea houses for volunteers and tourists still up in the Khumbu.
There is a clear correlation between livelihoods and the climate crisis. Seeing first hand, ten years ago, how the impact of climate change deepens poverty profoundly shifted my perspective, and motivated me to take up a career on climate finance.
I learnt everything about the subject, worked on projects to mobilise millions of dollars for climate action so that those most vulnerable would be safe.&nbsp;
Yet, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/60-dead-64-missing-in-nepal-floods">this weekend’s floods</a> have shown me that on the ground, absolutely nothing has changed. Those most at risk from climate hazards are at even more risk.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-it-rains-it-pours-ksqprbu3">When it rains it pours</a>, Sonia Awale
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandus-flash-floods-are-4-decades-in-the-making?fbclid=IwY2xjawFrHMtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRth_4qOARkJl9oz8RSAdrfer4ox2p7uQH28wKYa0SOe1ZNXaS-Oa1qj9g_aem_9kYwBCg8maslUNwV0Dn_Uw">Kathmandu's ‘flash floods’ are 4 decades in the making</a>, Tom Robertson
It is dreadful to realise that the worst is yet to come. We in the climate finance sector are lost in words, actions and false promises of organisations purporting to help vulnerable countries, communities and families.&nbsp;
There are lofty climate targets and hopeful speeches on net-zero ambitions prepared by people who have no idea of the ground reality. Young people I used to respect proudly demonstrate their saviour complex and exoticise the poor to advance their brand image on social media to gain brownie points.&nbsp;
This week, early-rising <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-trail-running-champions">trail runners</a>, youth groups, and local communities became first responders on the muddy banks of rivers in Kathmandu Valley for rescue and recovery. From agencies claiming to work on 'disaster risk reduction', we heard only words and media campaigns.
Am I the only one losing hope in us collectively responding to what the future requires us to do? &nbsp;
Disasters are now increasingly normalised as Nepal crosses the tipping point on climate breakdown. Elitism and inequality has never been more apparent.&nbsp;
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/act-now-on-climate">Act now on climate</a>, Manjeet Dhakal
This week’s tragedy showed how the high and mighty were safe, and the lowly forced to live along river banks were not. Those who are thinking of moving away from flood-prone areas, buying home insurance and protecting themselves from future impact are perhaps the very people abetting the destruction of the natural environment.
The two rivers that saw the most devastation this week, Rosi Khola and Nakkhu Khola, had <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-struggles-to-balance-nature-and-industry">unregulated sand mining and rampant quarrying</a> upstream — all happening in the name of ‘development’.
I spoke with a dairy farmer in Hatiban whose home and 13 cows were swept away by a stream that had turned into a raging mudflow. He is out in the streets now, with just the one cow that survived. He teared up telling me this. So did I.
A carpenter who lives in a small tin hut near the Karmanasa River told me he has had enough and is now headed back to his village. A neighbourhood garbage recycler has spent the past week living inside a stack of large concrete pipes meant to improve Kathmandu's drainage.&nbsp;
A decade after starting to work on climate change, I know nothing about what to actually do to adapt to the impact of the climate crisis like this one. The 800mm of rain in two days was caused by global warming, but the death toll was higher because of corruption and state negligence.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/climate-damage">Climate damage</a>
There are thousands of tragic stories from this flood, most of them will never be heard. Many are already forgotten.&nbsp;
The guilt coming from the privilege of even being in a position to help in times like these eats me up from the inside. I have spoken to many friends this week working tirelessly, without recognition or organisational support, to help with relief and rescue. Many share the same sentiment: the disaster swept away what little optimism we had.
Yet, there is also hope in the way we have all come together knee-deep in mud, carrying relief supplies and cash to those marooned, destitute and homeless. It is clear that top-down <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/cash-for-climate">response from the government</a> or large relief organisations is always too little, too late and too ineffective. Those who lost everything do not know how to work the system.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/climate-breakdown-magnifies-western-nepal-s-woes">Climate breakdown magnifies western Nepal’s woes</a>, Unnati Chaudhary
In such situations, we must take matters into our own hands. We need to be aware of the impending impact of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-climate-threat-multiplier">climate change</a>, and make our own decisions to build and rebuild resilience among those forced to live in harm's way. &nbsp;
The passion to tackle the climate crisis will not come if we do not have personal stories of how we ourselves are affected. Almost everyone in Kathmandu Valley, Kavre, Dhading and elsewhere now has a personal experience of this climate-induced calamity. The question is, what are we going to do about it?&nbsp;
As I write this on Thursday morning on 3 October, it is raining heavily again. &nbsp;
Rastra Raj Bhandari is a co-founder and fellow at the Himalayan Water Project, where he leads the research on climate finance opportunities for the Himalaya. He contributes regularly to Nepali Times on climate change. rastrarajbhandari@gmail.com
<h2>HOW TO HELP</h2>
· Civil society action is filling gaps in relief and rehab until bigger players take over. 9858000000
· Sudan Gurung, <a href="https://www.haminepal.org/">Hami Nepal</a>
· Saurav Rimal, <a href="https://karmayogfoundation.org/">Karmayog Foundation</a>, 9851139412&nbsp;

Flood of despair

A warming atmosphere also warms perennially frozen mountains. The stability of frozen rocks decreases with increasing temperature similar to how butter just taken out of a fridge &nbsp;becomes softer and less resistant to &nbsp;the cutting force of the knife. Thawing frozen mountains means softening them, making them less resistant against gravity, leading to breakage of small to large sections, resulting in rock falls, rock avalanches, and landslides. There is growing concern about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/for-destruction-ice-is-also-great-and-will-suffice">the impact of global warming</a> on the stability of icy peaks in mountain ranges around the world, which several recent events in the Himalaya well illustrate. Permafrost is a technical short form of ‘permanent frost’ for frozen ground which remains at temperatures below zero degrees throughout the year.&nbsp; Permafrost is below the surface, is not directly visible, and therefore often escapes the attention of scientists and political authorities. Sophisticated methods must be used to explore it, such as drilling, geophysical soundings, or climate-related modelling.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240907160944_bbe43b730a10b861f318285a1999a1f6f4d245287618ff49ebfc8e51d154f573.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20240907160944_bbe43b730a10b861f318285a1999a1f6f4d245287618ff49ebfc8e51d154f573" data-rendition-name="original" width="4108" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="The not so permanent frost Page 6-7 #1228 NT"> <figcaption>Even small glacial lakes, such as these currently forming near the terminus of the Kangchenjunga glacier in eastern Nepal, can be dangerous. Photo: ALTON C BYERS(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>  Generally, temperatures at surface level and directly below match the temperature of the air immediately above it. Polewards to around 60°N and S latitude, mean annual air and ground temperatures are mostly below 0°C. Permafrost is widespread in Alaska, northern Canada and Siberia. The lower limit of negative mean annual temperatures is at &nbsp;2,000-3,000m at mid-latitudes such as the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/in-high-places">European Alps</a> or the Southern Alps of New Zealand, to 3,000-4,000m in the Himalaya, and to 5,000m near the equator in the Peruvian Cordilleras. Above these elevations, permafrost affects peaks. In high mountains the permafrost area is often far larger than their glacier-covered regions. In Nepal, the permafrost-affected area is about 2 to 3 times bigger than the glacier area, while in China with the perennially frozen Tibetan Plateau this factor is about 30. Temperatures decrease by 6-7°C for every 1,000m of altitude increase, and the coldest and most deeply frozen rocks are found in the highest parts of the peaks. The frozen zone inside mountains can reach depths of hundreds of metres. It is not just the ice on peaks in the European Alps or the Himalaya that is frozen throughout the year, but so are the rocks.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240907160944_b75f78e4ee6d146e797f06536491c445891fbeb578f60105f57247a8dc066bbd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240907160944_b75f78e4ee6d146e797f06536491c445891fbeb578f60105f57247a8dc066bbd" data-rendition-name="original" width="916" height="674" loading="lazy" alt="The not so permanent frost Page 6-7 #1228 NT"> <figcaption>Mt Chamlang (7,319m) with creeping frozen debris (rock glaciers, yellow arrows) and Lakes 464 and 465 (blue arrows) from glacier retreat at its foot. Mt Makalu (8,485m) is in the background.(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>  The sunny side of mountains are warmer, and the permafrost is thinner there than slopes in mountain shadow. Temperatures are not constant throughout the year, so a thin surface layer up to a few metres on top of permafrost that thaws in summer and freezes in winter. This seasonal freezing and thawing surface layer on permafrost is called the ‘active layer’. Deep, long-term freezing influences geomorphic processes inside mountains, drastically changing their properties. Growth of ice in cracks and fissures within solid rock tends to expand already existing openings, and even create new ones. The related weakening of bedrock, however, is compensated by strong adhesion and increasing strength induced by the ice fillings and related cold temperatures. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tracing-past-glacial-floods-in-kangchenjunga">Tracing past glacial floods in Kangchenjunga</a>, Alton C Byers Not only the ice itself, but also rocks, rock-ice, and rock-rock contacts increase their strength with lower temperatures. Perhaps most important is the effect of freezing and ice filling of cracks between rocks containing water. Deep frozen rocks are essentially impermeable to water as an often-decisive factor of stability inside mountain slopes. In the abundant debris masses at the foot of high mountains, deep, long-term freezing causes even more spectacular changes. Formation of ice inside and beyond the pores can create a mixture of ice and debris with ice lenses, enabling such ice-rich frozen masses to slowly creep down the slopes of mountains. Landforms resulting from permafrost creep over past millennia look like lava streams and are called ‘rock glaciers’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240907160944_dc86dc2e254de22afefcd3f6c2df76af6c0aab87555f702dc853992987dcb3fc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20240907160944_dc86dc2e254de22afefcd3f6c2df76af6c0aab87555f702dc853992987dcb3fc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1072" height="625" loading="lazy" alt="The not so permanent frost Page 6-7 #1228 NT"> </figure>  Thawing out From long-term temperature measurements in deep boreholes, we know that global temperature increase of the atmosphere during the past about 100-150 years has warmed up mountain slopes down to depths below the surface of about 100m. The effect of this deep warming is the reversal of the freezing and cooling effects. It reduces the strength of rocks or debris with ice and makes them ‘softer’ and more permeable to water. Over the past decades, creep rates of frozen debris in rock glaciers have markedly increased, and the frequency of large rock-ice avalanches from high-mountain permafrost has accelerated. In the Peruvian Andes, two major events from mountain permafrost occurred in 2020 and 2023. Both had volumes of 1-1.5 million m3, reached lakes at the foot of the slope, and produced flood waves. The 2020 Salkantay flood caused loss of lives and heavy damage at Santa Teresa, 35km down valley. The flood wave at Rasac was fortunately retained within the lake at lower altitude. On 5 May 2012, a massive rock, ice, and debris avalanche from Annapurna IV <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-the-seti-disaster">cascaded into the Seti River gorge</a>, plummeting into a rockfall-dammed lake. The impact triggered an air blast that levelled thousands of hectares of forests, a dust cloud covered the countryside in fine white rock powder, and a hyper-concentrated slurry flood that killed 72 people downstream.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240907160944_81860cf5896090449c7fd074796f683c164e2bff782a46390cd43eee6202f19b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20240907160944_81860cf5896090449c7fd074796f683c164e2bff782a46390cd43eee6202f19b" data-rendition-name="original" width="780" height="539" loading="lazy" alt="The not so permanent frost Page 6-7 #1228 NT"> <figcaption>Rock failure from Annapurna IV led to a series of cascading events that resulted in the Seti River flood of 2012 that killed 72 people. Map: J  KARGEL / D REGMI(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>  On 20 April 2017, a high altitude breakage of solid rock from the east face of Saldim Peak (6,388m) in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-mountains-are-melting">Barun Valley turned into a 1.1 million m3 debris flow</a> of ice and sediment that plummeted 1,200m down to the Langmale Glacial lake below. Although the lake was less than 0.01km2 in size, the combination of lake water with melting ice from the ice-debris flow triggered a massive hyper-concentrated flood that destroyed forests, pastureland, and trekking lodges for several dozen kilometres to the Barun’s confluence with the Arun. In India’s Uttarakhand state bordering Nepal, the Chamoli event of 7 February 2021 was catalysed by the detachment of 20 to 30 million m3 of rocks and ice from a frozen, ice-clad peak. The ensuing avalanche developed into a rapidly flowing mass of rocks, ice and water, killing 204 people and heavily damaging an under-construction hydropower infrastructure 35km downstream.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240907160944_c7284846f8a571d8d1f5596b7731e7c4c2521f764aaf9e5df23ad9d0ad41d986.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20240907160944_c7284846f8a571d8d1f5596b7731e7c4c2521f764aaf9e5df23ad9d0ad41d986" data-rendition-name="original" width="798" height="462" loading="lazy" alt="The not so permanent frost Page 6-7 #1228 NT"> <figcaption>This massive breakage (below) of solid rock from Saldim Peak in 2017 fell on a lake and unleashed a flood downstream on the Barun River. Top photo is of the peak before the collapse. Photos: ALTON C BYERS(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240907160944_6e686f290b44e89cce8a1b822a74895c8d6a4ac4122572223ba3c4160b88879f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20240907160944_6e686f290b44e89cce8a1b822a74895c8d6a4ac4122572223ba3c4160b88879f" data-rendition-name="original" width="799" height="470" loading="lazy" alt="The not so permanent frost Page 6-7 #1228 NT"> </figure>  On 3 October 2023, the collapse of about 15 million m3 of debris from a perennially frozen moraine into <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sikkim-flood-is-warning-to-nepal">South Lhonak Lake in the Sikkim</a> Himalaya produced a flood wave and debris flow which killed 14 people with over 100 missing, destroyed a hydropower reservoir at Chungthang, 60km downstream, and caused destruction of houses, roads, and agricultural land. Similar processes may have been involved in the Birendra Tal glacial lake flood of 21 April 2024 and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lives-on-the-line-in-the-himalaya">the Thame flood of 16 August 2024</a>. Each of the above cases show the potential hazard over long distances related to process chains, especially in connection with impacted mobile water bodies in glacial lakes and artificial reservoirs.&nbsp; <h2>12 TIPS: Awareness and Protective Measures</h2> Changes in high altitude permafrost, and the devastating geomorphic events they cause are still poorly understood by Nepal’s scientific community and government. Earthquakes and heavy rainfall are usually reported by the press to be the primary causes of catastrophic events, both of which are impossible to predict. However, climate change and gravity, the two major forces at work on Himalayan permafrost, are constants. As permafrost continues to destabilise at the highest altitudes in the Nepal Himalaya, more and more devastating events can be expected to occur.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240907160944_dd2d77fb090fb2f5c836411d61bd6e7bb4e2e40ea2abae3d8eee8a686e9457dc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20240907160944_dd2d77fb090fb2f5c836411d61bd6e7bb4e2e40ea2abae3d8eee8a686e9457dc" data-rendition-name="original" width="977" height="733" loading="lazy" alt="The not so permanent frost Page 6-7 #1228 NT"> <figcaption>Gabions installed near Chukung in 2015 protected the village from a similar flood from the Lhotse Glacier in 2014. Photo: ALTON BYERS(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>  The question is, what can we do about it? Based on our collective experience in the European Alps, Peruvian Andes, and Nepal Himalaya over the past several decades, we offer the following suggestions: 1. Encourage more permafrost and hazard research. Nepal’s scientists and practitioners need to better understand and acknowledge the role of permafrost change in the growing list of climate change-related impacts in the high mountain environment, and more research of an applied nature is indicated. Interdisciplinary approaches that include and involve local people usually yield the most promising and effective results. 2. Standardise glacial lake risk assessment methods. Currently, scientists use various methods to assess a lake’s potential danger of flooding, with predictably mixed and widely differing results. Imja glacial lake in Khumbu, for example, is considered by some scientists to be extremely dangerous, and by others to have a low to moderate risk. The result is confusion among local people, local governments, and scientists alike. 3. Update and revise the current list of potentially dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal. The inventory should incorporate the changing permafrost factor, including smaller lakes less than 0.01km2. Even very small glacial lakes, such as those above Thame and the Langmale glacial lake in the Barun, can be as destructive as large lakes under the right conditions and cascading processes. 4. Develop new feasibility study protocols for large hydropower projects. These guidelines must incorporate the changing permafrost factor as well as the heightened threat of glacier floods. The potentially disastrous impacts of climate change upon major hydropower projects in Nepal have been predicted by scientists for decades, and yet the construction (and destruction) of major, multi-million-dollar installations continues. Hundreds of lives, and millions of dollars of infrastructure, stand to be saved through the use of more detailed, comprehensive evaluations of permafrost and glacier-related risks prior to project implementation. 5. Develop zoning policies. These should discourage the location of farms and infrastructure (homes, tourist lodges) within known and active floodplains. Some scientists believe that most of the deaths from the 2012 Seti flood could have been prevented had settlements not been located directly in the floodplain. 6. Simple is beautiful. Rock-filled wire cages (gabions) can be engineered to effectively divert floods and should continue to be promoted in high mountain regions. In the village of Chukung located directly in the floodplain of the Lhotse Glacier in the Sagarmatha National Park, for instance, the installation of gabions after a glacier flood in 2015 protected the village the following year when a second similar flood from the same glacier occurred.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240907160944_ce975f82275c7936c7948fbf7fd7231b61adecc01d5510760144a8f3d0467859.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20240907160944_ce975f82275c7936c7948fbf7fd7231b61adecc01d5510760144a8f3d0467859" data-rendition-name="original" width="1005" height="695" loading="lazy" alt="The not so permanent frost Page 6-7 #1228 NT"> </figure>  7. Build higher bridges. This can effectively address the growing frequency and magnitudes of glacier floods in the high mountains, eliminating the need for continuous rebuilding. 8. Increase awareness. Nepal’s mountains will continue to destabilise and become even more dangerous in future. Exercising extra caution while crossing a landslide, an active torrent, or a debris-covered glacier is a fact of life in today’s high Himalayan regions. Likewise, constructing a lodge, school, or community building beneath a small and seemingly harmless glacial lake should be discouraged. 9. Promote simple and effective early warning systems. In spite of their much-touted role in disaster mitigation, early warning systems installed to date at potentially dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal have proven to be expensive disappointments. They are typically installed by a remote and distant government agency, little training in their use by local villagers is offered, and local people say they have no idea what the warning sirens sound like nor what they should do if one goes off. Thus far the most effective and proven EWS tool has been the cell phone. Hundreds of lives were saved during the Seti River flood of 2012 when upstream witnesses phoned warnings to their downstream family and friends. 10. Improve mechanisms that allow scientists to communicate. The results of their permafrost and glacier hazard research should directly, quickly, and effectively be communicated to decision-makers. This has proven to be easy to recommend but difficult to implement in most of the world but is nevertheless in need of our constant efforts to achieve. 11. Encouraging transboundary permafrost research. Increased cooperation between scientists and researchers in Nepal, China, and India is needed to help identify potentially vulnerable crossborder rockfall, avalanche, and catastrophic flooding risk. 12. Develop and implement adaptation planning. Continue planning and training programs targeted at permafrost-related floods and other highland-lowland hazards. Local Adaptation Plans for Action (LAPA) have proven to be an effective tool for increasing local awareness of climate impacts as well as planning for mitigation measures. Dr Wilfried Haeberli is with the University of Zurich and Dr Alton C Byers University of Colorado at Boulder.

The not-so-permanent frost

Chandra Basnet started walking from Jajarkot and five days later after climbing passes more than 5,300m high, she reached the desolate tent camp of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19381">yarsagumba harvesters in Upper Dolpo</a>. The 21-year-old joined the seasonal migration with 40kg of supplies on her back and a baby daughter wrapped around her front with a shawl. Her husband carried an additional 20kg of supply. “Bringing my baby was the toughest part, it is hard to carry her,” says Chandra, who is on the third week of her stay. “There are no hospitals around here, so if she falls sick we have to pack up everything and walk back.” The Basnet family is among tens of thousands who move to the high mountains on the Tibet border in the pre-monsoon <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/its-yarsa-picking-time">yarsa gold rush every year</a>. Yarsagumba (Cordyceps fungus) is a fungus that grows on caterpillar larvae at between 3,500-5,000m elevation, and is prized in traditional Chinese medicine fetching up to $110,000 per kg in Shanghai.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024083018080_212fa6dfb8c231d21a6af7b7e87e0ffe9028c1feeabb22f833a19e7dfa4cc443.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2024083018080_212fa6dfb8c231d21a6af7b7e87e0ffe9028c1feeabb22f833a19e7dfa4cc443" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="The human cost of Nepal’s yarsa gold rush NT"> <figcaption>All photos: Shrijan Pandey</figcaption> </figure>  The Shey-Phoksundo National Park in Dolpo issues harvest permits every year for a month starting mid-May. This year, there were 8,584 entries – double last year’s total. But climate breakdown and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/overharvesting-yarsa-and-income,1546">overharvesting means that yarsa pickings have fallen</a> in quantity and quality. The Basnet family spent Rs500,000 to come here, expecting high returns but were able to make only Rs200,000. Says Chandra, “We went through a lot of hardships, but hoped we could at least make up the cost of coming here to help raise our daughter, but it was not worth it.”&nbsp; Until recently, yarsa was a lucrative albeit risky undertaking in Nepal’s highlands where subsistence farmers depend on it to <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18321">supplement their income</a>. But it is a dangerous occupation. Just this season Karnali Province reported the death of 12 harvesters. Conditions are tough. Most pickers cannot afford proper tents and clothing to cope with the harsh weather. Most bring their children along, and they are the first to fall sick. The health post at Dho Tarap was open, but there was no staff.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024083018080_dea884b9a059c76cbbecc3cf6cae70d7de5e08b069e87637c0ad297446661546.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024083018080_dea884b9a059c76cbbecc3cf6cae70d7de5e08b069e87637c0ad297446661546" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="The human cost of Nepal’s yarsa gold rush NT"> <figcaption>Chandra Basnet walked from Jajarkot to Upper Dolpo with 4okg of supplies and a toddler daughter.</figcaption> </figure>  Jamuna Bista, 22, died on her way back down to Rukum because she could not get medical care in time. Her family cremated her by lighting a pile of shrubs and roots gathered from the arid slopes.&nbsp; Apart from the difficult terrain, yarsa harvest is getting riskier because of higher temperatures, winter drought and unseasonal rain caused by climate breakdown. This affects the yarsa which needs a temperature of between -15°C &nbsp;to -5°C during the winter and pre-monsoon rain to grow properly and emerge partially from the ground.&nbsp; “Looking at the declining yarsa harvest and climate change, we are forced to question if yarsa will soon be extinct,” says Bishwo Babu Shrestha, warden of Shey Phoksundo National Park.&nbsp; This means a major source of livelihood for underserved families in the lower valleys of western Nepal will be in jeopardy, exacerbating the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/brain-gain-into-brain-drain">outmigration trend</a>. As more pickers return empty-handed or with losses that have driven them into debt, the families struggle to support their children.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024083018080_b6e6cb98c55696a49569229554a59686ec32e39096e1a03c37857e6e2940e34e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2024083018080_b6e6cb98c55696a49569229554a59686ec32e39096e1a03c37857e6e2940e34e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1416" height="877" loading="lazy" alt="The human cost of Nepal’s yarsa gold rush NT"> </figure>  Kunsang Dorje Gurung, 38, of Tinje in Upper Dolpo harvested his first yarsagumba when he was 12. “It was like finding a gold nugget,” Dorje recalled. “I felt an intense energy.”&nbsp; However, in 26 years since, he has noticed a steep decline in the pickings, and the few yarsa that are collected are of poor quality. “I used to make up to Rs300,000 a season back in the day but now, I barely earn Rs30,000,” he says. Gurung blames this on a prolonged drought that also sparked wildfires across the mountains. Some families even performed rituals, praying for rain and a good yarsa harvest. “I don’t have any other job,” says Gurung. “The only thing I know is collecting yarsa. If I find enough, it’s a good year. If not, I have nothing.” Researchers have also plotted the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/giving-yarsagumba-a-chance-for-regrowth">decline in yarsa harvests</a> in the past five years. A kilogram of high-quality yarsa would have between 2,500-2,900 pieces, but now even 4,000 yarsa pieces do not make 1kg.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024083018080_daa088be0c5fa992dc5bba26be84e9ee89f66b161cdc9134cb7113992f71ddf2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="2024083018080_daa088be0c5fa992dc5bba26be84e9ee89f66b161cdc9134cb7113992f71ddf2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1043" loading="lazy" alt="The human cost of Nepal’s yarsa gold rush NT"> <figcaption>A local woman prepares cooking fuel at 4,500m in Upper Dolpo.</figcaption> </figure>  “Yarsa has been a huge source of income, but its ecological, economic, and social impacts are far-reaching,” says Suraj Upadhaya, of the School of Agriculture, Communities and the Environment at Kentucky State University.&nbsp; There is also a tax of Rs31,000 for every kg of yarsa, which pickers often avoid paying. Shey Phoksundo National Park also collects a Rs500 yarsa fee from every resident and Rs2,000 from those outside, making it easy to track the number of harvesters. Last year, Rs85,000 was collected in fees, whereas this year the figure jumped to Rs10.86 million, hinting at enormous overharvesting. Trampling is also another cause of low harvests, researchers say, increased human activity on the slopes means the top soil is compacted, preventing the next cycle of growth.&nbsp; All this means that the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19382">poorest Nepalis </a>are losing an extra source of income that was allowing them to survive.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024083018080_df7b151ecb439ead56150934aba4b65786b946d46383f4ba542a61008ac6984e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="2024083018080_df7b151ecb439ead56150934aba4b65786b946d46383f4ba542a61008ac6984e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="The human cost of Nepal’s yarsa gold rush NT"> <figcaption>Harvesters look for yarsa in steep slopes of Upper Dolpo.</figcaption> </figure>  Warns Warden Shrestha: “This is going to unleash an economic crisis in the region, families will not have the money to buy food leading to starvation.” &nbsp; The desperation is already apparent in the rise in crime. Robbers loot pickers on their way down from the mountains, stealing their yarsa or money, or both. There are also territorial disputes between locals and pickers from outside. In 2009, seven people were killed in Manang in a fight.&nbsp; Overharvesting of yarsa also impacts on many other species in the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/saving-shey-phoksundo-in-nepal,3596">Shey Phoksundo National Park’s fragile high altitude ecosystem</a> where plants take a lot longer to grow. The endangered animals here like the snow leopard, Tibetan wolf, and blue sheep are also affected by the human impact on their food chain, as well as poaching. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024083018080_4a3c0997036eec9fee4cf561f2afdbf8a42a80996d3c7f42b1a92847ce065dda.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="2024083018080_4a3c0997036eec9fee4cf561f2afdbf8a42a80996d3c7f42b1a92847ce065dda" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="The human cost of Nepal’s yarsa gold rush NT"> </figure>  “We have not been able to manage this systematically,” admits Shrestha, adding that despite funding from the government, royalties, and tariff collection from locals, many of the security posts lack staff to enforce regulation. “Dolpo used to be a self-sustaining barter economy, but now everything has to be bought,” says Upadhaya whose research suggests that alternative crops like olives can provide a good source of income in the region. Yarsa’s instant reward, however, means local people cannot wait for returns from such long-term investment.&nbsp; Worryingly, much of the income generated from yarsa hasn’t been diverted to productive sectors either. Most of the locals have spent their money on renovating their houses and on consumer items. &nbsp; As Nepal’s road network expands and snakes up through Dolpo, the remotest corners of the Himalaya are being connected. This <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dazzling-dolpo">can open up new opportunities </a>including the region’s potential for religious and eco-tourism that can provide an alternative livelihood for yarsa pickers. <h2>Easy pickings</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024083018080_bebf6aaf638cf8ffeed7ac09ae1a3eb93ff4a4f206e39e291c4654d73711ea3c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2024083018080_bebf6aaf638cf8ffeed7ac09ae1a3eb93ff4a4f206e39e291c4654d73711ea3c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="The human cost of Nepal’s yarsa gold rush NT"> </figure>  Pratap Rokaya, 48, is a social studies teacher at Shree Shelri Drugdra School in Saldang in Upper Dolpo, and like his students, started collecting the fungus when he was 17. Despite having a government job, Rokaya says he needs the additional income.&nbsp; Such is the economic significance of yarsa that schools in the region are shut during the harvest season, allowing children to tag along with their parents so that they can also help pick with their keen eye-sight and nimble fingers. &nbsp; “Even though such long breaks are not good for students, their guardians are left with no choice,” Rokaya adds. “We are heavily dependent on yarsa because traditional farming is not enough to support families.”&nbsp; Dhanbir Bista is in Grade 5 but has not been to school for more than a month because he is up here scouring the steep slope on his hands and knees. “I feel bad for leaving school but I have to come here to support my father,” he tells us. Dhanbir’s father, Bhim Bahadur, adds, “It’s very risky to bring young ones, especially after I heard that people from my own village have died. But we need the extra pair of hands.”&nbsp;

The human cost of Nepal’s yarsa gold rush

Frontpage topic

Samjhana and I landed together at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport one afternoon in December 2009. Samjhana was greeting everyone as “Sir” or “Madam”, and I started to do the same. However, when she called the taxi driver “Sir”, I could not help but ask why she was using those titles for everyone, making it feel like she was addressing government secretaries back home in Nepal.&nbsp; She explained that Nairobi was colonised by the British, who like the Sir/Madam form of address. It was the first time I realised that learning a language involves more than just memorising new words, pronunciation, idioms, and phrasal verbs. I understood that it also includes learning about the culture associated with the language. I went to Kenya as a participant in the FK Exchange program (now known as Norec Exchange) for a year. Initially, there was a preparatory course which introduced us to the culture, food, and communities of the African continent.&nbsp; During the preparatory course, I was accompanied by Samjhana. It was the first time for both of us to be constantly surrounded by the English language. Throughout the day, we made an effort to speak in English and even tried to speak English like the Kenyans did. But at night we relaxed by speaking in Nepali until late. Since I was hosted by a Kenyan organisation, Association of Media Women in Kenya (AMWIK) we visited their office where an Ethiopian woman also joined us. Lillian, who would be my manager, introduced us to the Director of AMWIK. During the introduction, she pointed out that the Ethiopian woman’s English was excellent even though Ethiopia was never colonised by Britain. I mentioned that Nepal also was never colonised, but Lillian ignored that remark. In fact, she gave me a strange look, as if to say directly to my face: “No wonder your English is not fluent.”&nbsp; This made me even more determined to improve my English language skills. When our exchange program started in January, Samjhana went to Uganda. I was left on my own. I needed to become better at both English and Swahili because we were going to the outskirts of Nairobi. I realised that not all Kenyans speak English, even in Nairobi. Although my teacher, Chacha, was a good language instructor, there were times when I wanted to escape the city where I was supposed to master Swahili in English simultaneously.&nbsp; I have to admit that I was not very serious about learning Swahili. Instead, I took advantage of Chacha’s excellent English. He pointed out that I struggled to distinguish between ‘sh’ and ‘s’ sounds, which I knew was a challenge for most native Nepali speakers. Chacha also used English to educate me on topics like different sexualities, why Kenya still upheld the polygamy law, the ethnic conflict of 2008, and the cultural influences left behind by the British.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241015151024_7d49c7be36a8e99f3d1a89d35f6835b3778d075111b992863fb8e8bcc91454bd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241015151024_7d49c7be36a8e99f3d1a89d35f6835b3778d075111b992863fb8e8bcc91454bd" data-rendition-name="original" width="4000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="Nepalin in Kenya"> <figcaption>Giri by the beach in Mombasa, Kenya. Photo courtesy: ANBIKA GIRI</figcaption> </figure>  As I was assigned with media monitoring for the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), Chacha assisted me in understanding key terms such as rule of law, impunity, reconciliation, and grievances. I could see he had given up on my Swahili. Even though I made mistakes, I stopped being embarrassed by it. One day I was stuck in traffic for almost two hours, and I texted Lillian: ‘I am jammed. I will be late.’&nbsp; She responded: ‘Great, we have it with some bread.’&nbsp; By the time I reached the office I knew I had made a language gaffe, and Lillian taught me how to say ‘stuck in traffic’, and not ‘jammed’. Such language mis-steps happened regularly in a country where English was not the mother tongue for any of us, but it was the only common language we had.&nbsp; Once, when we were out in the field, it was 3PM and we had not had lunch yet. We walked to the restaurant, and Lillian said she was “starving”. There was starvation in parts of Africa, but I found out that was not what she meant, and I asked her why she was not hungry.&nbsp; She laughed aloud at my lack of vocabulary, and joked: “I am hungry enough to eat a horse, Anbika.” I once believed that all Africans and white people only spoke English. But when I arrived in Kenya, I realised that not all Kenyans speak English. It took me a while to also realise that not all white people speak English, either.&nbsp; An Italian documentary maker yelled at me for not following his instructions. “Anbika, I is telling you, listen to what I is saying,” he said in a thick Italian accent that bulldozed through English syntax. &nbsp; Whether or not I was fluent in English, I had to speak it because I had no other choice. This encouraged me to learn from them and take risks with the language and not be worried about making mistakes.&nbsp; Coming from a country that was not colonised, most people were understanding and supportive of my effort to speak English. They would not make fun of me if I made mistakes, and instead help me get the grammar or pronunciation right.&nbsp;

‘Jammed’ and ‘starved’ in Kenya

Tech billionaires such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are not just among the richest people in human history. They also are exceptionally powerful socially, culturally and politically. While this is partly a reflection of the social status that our society attaches to wealth in general, what matters even more than simple wealth is that these particular billionaires are viewed as entrepreneurial geniuses who exhibit unique levels of creativity, daring, foresight and expertise on a wide range of topics. Add the fact that many of them control major means of communication through key social media platforms, and you have something almost unparalleled in recent history. Some individuals would always have more power than others, but how much power is too much? Once upon a time, power was linked to physical strength or military prowess, whereas now its perquisites usually stem from ‘persuasion power’, which, as explained in the book Power and Progress, is rooted in status or prestige. The greater your status, the more easily you can persuade others. The sources of status vary greatly across societies, as does the extent to which it is unequally distributed. In the US, status became firmly linked to money and wealth during the Industrial Revolution, and income and wealth inequality skyrocketed as a result. While there have been periods in which government intervention sought to reverse the trend, US society has always been structured around a steep status hierarchy. This structure is problematic for several reasons. For starters, the constant competition for status and the persuasion power it confers is largely a zero-sum affair, because status is a ‘positional good’. More status for you means less status for your neighbour, and a steeper status hierarchy implies that some people would be happy while many others are unhappy and dissatisfied. Moreover, investments in zero-sum activities tend to be inefficient and excessive compared with investments in non-zero-sum activities. Is it better to spend a million dollars on gold Rolex watches or on learning new skills? Both might have intrinsic value, the beauty of the watch versus the pride of acquiring new knowledge, but the first investment merely signals that you are richer and more capable of conspicuous consumption than others. The second, by contrast, increases your human capital and might also contribute to society.&nbsp; The first is largely zero-sum, and the second is largely non-zero-sum. Worse, the first can easily get out of hand as everyone spends even more on conspicuous consumption to stay ahead of others.&nbsp; Commentators often ask why someone with hundreds of millions of dollars would ever need hundreds of millions more. There are few things that you cannot afford if you already have $500 million, so why long for $1 billion? Because ‘billionaire’ is a rank of status.&nbsp; What matters is not the spending power, but the prestige and power that it confers relative to one’s peers. Under a ‘wealth is status’ equilibrium, a mad dash by the ultra wealthy to amass ever more wealth becomes inevitable. There are evolutionary and social bases for linking persuasion power to status and prestige. After all, it is individually rational to learn from people who have expertise, and it is reasonable to link expertise to success. Moreover, this form of learning is good for communities, because it facilitates coordination and a convergence toward best practices. However, when status is linked to wealth and wealth inequality grows very large, the foundation underpinning expertise starts to crumble. Consider the following thought experiment. Who has greater expertise on carpentry, a good, master carpenter or a hedge fund billionaire? It seems natural to choose the former, but the more that wealth confers status, the greater the weight attached to hedge fund billionaires’ views, even on carpentry.&nbsp; Or consider a more relevant contemporary example. Whose views on freedom of speech carry more weight today: a tech billionaire, or a philosopher who has long grappled with the issue, and whose evidence and arguments have been subjected to scrutiny by other qualified experts? Millions of people on X have implicitly chosen the former. The deeper we are drawn into the ‘wealth is status’ equilibrium, the more we might come to accept the supremacy of tech billionaires. Yet it is difficult to believe that wealth could be a perfect measure of merit or wisdom, let alone a useful proxy for authority on carpentry or freedom of speech.&nbsp; Moreover, wealth is always somewhat arbitrary. If the tech sector had not become so central to the economy and if it was not driven by such strong winner-take-all dynamics, today’s tech tycoons would not have become so rich. The fact that Gates and Musk have been taxed less does not make them any wiser, but it certainly has made them wealthier and thus more influential. French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps gained tremendous status in late 19th century France owing to his success in completing the construction of the Suez Canal in the face of longstanding British opposition to the project. Lesseps had foresight, and he demonstrated great skill in convincing politicians in Egypt and France that maritime international trade would become very important.&nbsp; Lesseps gained great status and prestige, but became reckless, unhinged and cocky, pushing the Panama Canal project in an unworkable direction that ultimately led to the deaths of more than 20,000 people and the financial ruin of many more (including his own family). Like all forms of power, persuasion power can make one hubristic, unrestrained, disruptive and socially obnoxious. Lesseps’ story has echoes in the behaviour of many billionaires today. While some of the wealthiest individuals do not use their wealth-derived status to influence critical public debates (think businessman Warren Buffett), many do.&nbsp; Gates, Musk, businessman George Soros and others do not hesitate to weigh in on matters that are important to them, and while it is easy to welcome such contributions from those whom we agree with, we should resist this temptation. It makes a lot of sense for society to tap into the knowledge and wisdom of those with expertise on a given topic, but it is counterproductive to amplify the status of those who already have plenty of status.&nbsp; It is not entirely the fault of billionaires that US policy is fueling massive inequality around the world. However, they should bear responsibility if they misuse the immense status that wealth affords them under conditions of rising inequality. That is especially true when they leverage their status to advance their own economic interest at the expense of others’, or to polarise an already divided society with provocative rhetoric or status-seeking behaviour. If unaccountable billionaires already wield too much undue social, cultural and political influence, the last thing we should want is to give them even bigger public forums, for example to Musk through his ownership of X. Instead, we should pursue stronger institutional means of limiting the power and influence of those who are already privileged, as well as reconsider the tax, regulatory and spending policies that created such massive disparities in the first place. The most important step would also be the most difficult. We need to start having a serious conversation about what we should value, and how we can recognise and reward the contributions of those who do not command vast fortunes.&nbsp; While most people would agree that there are many ways to contribute to society, and that excelling in one’s chosen vocation ought to be a source of individual satisfaction and the esteem of others, we have disregarded this principle and are at risk of forgetting it altogether. That, too, is a symptom of the problem. © Project Syndicate Daron Acemoglu, professor of economics at MIT is the co-winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics with Simon Johnson with whom he also wrote Power and Progress: Our Thousand Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity. The other winner was James Robinson.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241015091024_5a52f7a4b9be5c00a87113a400a503a0f3912f4146fe3054441da21818cea5ed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241015091024_5a52f7a4b9be5c00a87113a400a503a0f3912f4146fe3054441da21818cea5ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="650" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Power and Progress Daron Acemoglu"> </figure>

The rich get richer and more powerful

The fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government offers hope for a new political culture rooted in democratic values and the desire for genuine representation. However, the path forward requires much more than holding elections or restoring political processes. Healing the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2024/08/bangladesh-must-move-beyond-the-politics-of-revenge/">deep wounds</a> left by years of authoritarian rule and a longer <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/bangladesh-finding-justice-reconciliation">history of unaddressed grievances</a> must be at the forefront of the national agenda.
As the country reflects on the legacy of Hasina’s rule, more details are emerging about the covert and repressive operations that defined her regime. Disturbing accounts of a <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/bangladeshi-lawyer-recounts-sheikh-hasinas-secret-jail-where-he-spent-eight-years/article68527954.ece">secret detention centre</a>, where <a href="https://thewire.in/south-asia/sheikh-hasina-disappearances-aynaghor">torture and isolation</a> was deployed to stifle dissent, are now coming to light. These revelations expose the breadth of the Awami League government’s grip on the security apparatus of the state and showcase a network of coercive control that permeated through society.
Such <a href="https://www.omct.org/en/resources/statements/bangladesh-arbitrary-detention-and-impunity-for-torture-continues-after-elections">systemic repression</a> has left deep scars on Bangladesh’s collective psyche. The pervasive climate of fear, distrust, and vulnerability has fractured the very foundations of civil society. When state power is weaponised against the people it is meant to serve, it weakens the bonds of trust that hold a society together.
Moreover, in a system where loyalty to the regime matters more than justice, process, or fairness, citizens often feel alienated and unsure of their place. In this context, survival often trumps participation, as dissent became synonymous with danger. Many traded their voices for silence and safety, while those who dared to challenge the regime often faced severe consequences. Families of those who resisted were left to endure the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3273699/bangladesh-families-enforced-disappearance-victims-hopeful-after-hasinas-downfall">weight of uncertainty and fear</a>.
Read also: Selfies on the prime minister's bed, Guest Editorial
The Awami League, <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/bangabandhu-to-toppled-statue-mujibur-rahmans-contested-legacy-post-bangladesh-upheaval/articleshow/112802912.cms?from=mdr">once a beacon of liberation under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman</a>, transformed into an institution synonymous with oppression under Hasina. Rahman’s legacy as the hero of Bangladesh’s independence became a distorted tool, manipulated to justify authoritarian excesses. The party that had fought against domination gradually came to resemble the forces it once opposed, using Rahman’s image as a shield to silence opposition and cement its control.
Now, an <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/muhammad-yunus-heading-bangladesh-office-interim-leader-thursday-112668006">interim government</a> is tasked with the formidable challenge of steering Bangladesh through this turbulent period. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/world/asia/bangladesh-protest-violence.html">Restoring law and order</a> amidst widespread political violence is just one of the many pressing concerns. Equally important is ensuring the <a href="https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/80d038f7783e">continuation of public services</a>, addressing <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/inflation-rates-in-bangladesh-to-come-down-gradually-new-central-bank-chief-says/articleshow/112628176.cms?from=mdr">economic instability</a>, and safeguarding <a href="https://nusu-my.sharepoint.com/personal/iahmed_nus_edu_sg/Documents/ISAS%20Desktop/-%09https:/thediplomat.com/2024/08/bangladesh-must-move-beyond-the-politics-of-revenge/">social cohesion</a> in the face of growing tensions, particularly with respect to minority rights. But perhaps most crucially, this government must <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/bangladesh/bangladesh-long-road-ahead">prepare the country for free and fair elections</a> that can lay the foundation for a stable democratic future.
However, the political landscape in Bangladesh remains deeply fractured. Years of repression under Hasina have entrenched seemingly irreconcilable divisions between political factions and eroded public trust in state institutions. The judiciary, civil service, and security forces— all tainted by political interference—must be depoliticised and restored to their roles as neutral guardians of justice and governance. This task is both urgent and formidable, but without it, any political transition remains fragile, susceptible to the same forces that have plagued Bangladesh’s past.
&nbsp;
Stabilising the country, therefore, requires more than just restoring order. It demands a profound rebuilding of the <a href="https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/views/news/the-urgent-need-ombudsman-bangladesh-enhance-transparency-and-democracy-3676246">foundations of good governance, a commitment to transparency</a>, and the fostering of a political culture where dialogue, political engagement, and reconciliation can happen without fear.&nbsp;
Yet, the challenges inherent in this process are compounded by a population that has grown increasingly weary with the country’s major political parties. <a href="https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/bangladesh-student-protests-sheikh-hasina-resignation-khaleda-zia-bnp-reforms-muhammad-yunus/article68568913.ece">Corruption, political infighting, and broken promises</a> have left many sceptical of the motives and capabilities of the opposition alternatives to the Awami League.
To begin the difficult journey towards national reconciliation, it is essential to fully recognise the harm caused by Hasina’s rule. Rebuilding a democratic future for Bangladesh will require more than just a change in leadership. It will necessitate restoring the integrity of state institutions, addressing the deeper fractures in society through <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2024/08/bangladesh-needs-a-truth-commission/">truth-telling</a> and <a href="https://en.somoynews.tv/news/2024-09-10/NQNP5262">accountability</a>, and fostering a culture of democratic engagement and civic trust – values that have been long suppressed by authoritarian rule.
Indeed, reconciliation and political reform are not separate from the democratic process but essential to it. Otherwise, democratic engagement risks being superficial and short-lived. Conducting elections without addressing the deeper fractures in society may create the illusion of progress, but <a href="https://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/specials/354330/between-truth-and-impunity">unresolved grievances and a lack of justice</a> will continue to undermine trust in the political system.
Nevertheless, <a href="https://www.southasiamonitor.org/perspective/rebuild-bangladesh-interim-government-needs-reconcile-rival-ideological-camps">political polarisation in Bangladesh</a> complicates a consensus-based approach to reconciliation and reform. Ongoing violence and economic hardships also make the focus on long-term healing challenging amidst pressing concerns. Balancing immediate and longer-term issues for the current government remains a testing task. But despite these obstacles, addressing them together remains crucial for achieving meaningful and enduring progress for democracy in Bangladesh.
Imran Ahmed is a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He holds a PhD from the University of New England, and co-edited the volume Religion, Extremism and Violence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from <a href="https://toda.org/global-outlook/2024/rebuilding-trust-democratic-engagement-and-governance-in-post-hasina-bangladesh.html">the original</a> with their permission.

Building on ruins

Kanchhi, Weena Pun’s debut novel, was delivered to me by a rider on a very rainy afternoon, as Kathmandu Valley and the nation was pummeled by violent rainfall. The book revealed itself in big bold letters: KANCHHI, like someone hollering the name. The letters flank the cover bearing an illustration in shades of grey, showing a hamlet in the mountains. The cover sets the tone for the novel, as Kanchhi’s disappearance is revealed to the readers in the prologue. The story opens with 16-year-old Kanchhi leaving her home. The novel then becomes a journey the reader makes with the writer, as conduit. The narrative toggles between times tracing the days of Kanchhi’s presence and leaping ten years forward into 13 November 2005, a day in the life of Kanchhi’s mother, Maiju, as she waits for her daughter's return. As the plot makes progress, the readers get to know Kanchhi, first as a child and then as a teenager. The novel is set in the mid-western mountains of Nepal, the language landing it firmly. The storytelling is matter-of-factly as it takes us through descriptions of the village and into lives of the villagers. Unseemingly, the writer weaves in the political background of the Maoist insurgency into the narrative, which also works as signposting the timeline for the story. Weena Pun describes the writing process for the novel as “ridiculously slow”. “I struggled to understand Maiju, the mother character. But once I had her and the village down, Kanchhi just took off,” she says of the novel which she started writing everyday, in 2017. While at the core of the book are some key sociopolitical issues, there is also plenty of humour brought out through small moments. Kanchhi, as a child and later as a teenager, is a “no-nonsense” kind of person. So when there are funny moments around her, they become even more pronounced-- in some scenes they work as comic relief. Sentences are frugal, a reminder of Weena’s background as a journalist. She has written for the Himal Southasian, The Kathmandu Post and The Record. There is no meandering, the writer cuts to the chase. She uses “f***” instead of “sex” or even “love-making”. As is with the more grim aspects the book touches upon. The narrative is not lyrical, but rather deliberate, with extensive details of moments and events, including those that have no direct connection to furthering the plot. There is also the thorough description of how a girl goes through menstruation, as rarely seen before.&nbsp; If you are looking for ornate reading, this is not where you will find it. The story is told simply, smoothly, without frill or fluff. The writing is terse. The narrative softens into poetic manoeuvre every other chapter, gathering forgotten songs for the readers. And occasionally, imagery wins: “The disappeared do not disappear. Their memories drape the yard like a fog.” Kanchhi, is a story of defiance. Like every girl, Kanchhi is a rebel. When told to put aside a spoon that has just ladled ghee, Kanchhi will lick it instead. When told to stay back, she chooses to go. She is the curious explorer every girl is. She picks ‘true’ crime stories as a source of entertainment.&nbsp; She knows lyrics of filmy songs, by heart. The titles of cinemas also serve to signpost. But she also understands the poetry of Bhupi Sherchan. She attempts to tell her own stories, write her own poetry. And in Kanchhi doing so, Weena has created a repository of stray lines from jhyaure songs, and own lyrics. The chapters are strewn with Nepali songs and poetry, a respite from the heaviness of the story in some instances. The writing is replete with italicised Nepali words. The text wraps them in for meaning. Regardless, a glossary is supplied at the end of the book, which serves as a fun addition, even if not entirely accurate. One of the words that appear on repeat, is chadar (a word brought to the mountains by the men who migrate to Indian cities for work, another theme that runs high in the book).&nbsp; In the prologue, we see Kanchhi wrap a chadar around herself as she leaves home. A chadar appears every once in a while and makes it to 2005. Kanchhi’s mother, Maiju, throws one around herself, to go speak to a woman who has been battered and tied to a pole by the Maoists, and left to die. It serves as a motif. The novel does run into sections that read like banter. There are dialogues that appear to have no consequence or connection to major events. But by the time one arrives at the second half, familiarisation with Kanchhi’s life has helped build an attachment, which is important for the impact the writer wants to make. Kanchhi, the novel, doesn’t try too hard to be something, and in doing so it becomes. The story brings to attention the themes of love, loyalty, friendship, familial ties, sexuality, and a woman’s worth in Nepali society. Who is a woman besides an object of desire and a womb? Where do her own desires, aspirations, dreams, passions, figure? The book raises the question of abortion rights, by showing without telling. The double standards maintained for the sexes come across through many anecdotes in the novel. Even when both man and woman engage in a sexual activity together, and if and when found illicit, the man is only superficially reprimanded. It is the woman who really pays. And not just in cash. “I hope Kanchhi adds a perspective, tells a good story, and enriches Nepali literature as a whole,” says Weena.&nbsp; Kanchhi is not a frail girl. She is whole. She is flawed, but she is also good. Like we all are, which is why she is endearing as a character. The plot catches you unawares. It leads you to a crescendo, then abandons you, unprepared and heartbroken. Kanchhi is an ache that lingers, long after you’ve put the book away.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241006121040_70b39161504287e5283a2f04a4509e6e3afcb9efc17b73c1a27090712bec0197.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241006121040_70b39161504287e5283a2f04a4509e6e3afcb9efc17b73c1a27090712bec0197" data-rendition-name="original" width="926" height="642" loading="lazy" alt="Kanchhi book Weena Oun"> </figure>  Kanchhi, by Hachette India is set to hit bookstores in Kathmandu on 10th October. Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people.

A tale of resistance

Nepali Times #1232 (4-10 October 2024)

At the age of five, Dorjee Karmarong fell sick and his local healer-slash-thangka painter cut him a deal: in exchange for treatment, the young patient had to promise to become a painter. The shaman may have been joking, but 38 years later, Karmarong is a successful international artist, and now has a solo exhibition at the Siddhartha Art Gallery. ‘Karmarong: Hidden Valley in the Himalayas’ is a collection of 27 paintings spread across two floors that give the viewer a comprehensive feel for life among the Karmarong community in the remote Mugu district of Karnali. Karmarong has a distinctive style featuring clean outlines, vibrant colours and detailed natural landscapes. Animals, mountains, trees, and the sun and the moon appear constantly. It is a style that took 20 years to perfect, as the painter practised teaching in monasteries of Bangladesh, India, Singapore, and most recently in Vietnam. Mugu is one of the remotest districts in Nepal, but the Karmarong community of about 3,000 people live in about a dozen small villages in the remotest northern corner of the district near the Chinese border. They speak their own dialect. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-present-meets-the-past">The present meets the past</a>, Pinki Sris Rana  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111032_46339bbefd7b9007dedde289f8c4db9980a60e19ab5a7e0c11c5f1ba4817ba68.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241004111032_46339bbefd7b9007dedde289f8c4db9980a60e19ab5a7e0c11c5f1ba4817ba68" data-rendition-name="original" width="3600" height="2400" loading="lazy" alt="Dorjee Karmarong NT 1"></figure>  Some of the paintings show general goings-on in Karmarong, such as harvest time. ‘The Hospitality of Karmarong’ shows residents gathering to formally welcome an important guest. “In front is someone who is still lucky to have both parents,” explains the painter. ‘Magic of Milarepa’ is a closeup of a grey, cracked yak horn on the floor. There is water on the ground next to the horn, and inside is a green-skinned monk, meditating in robes. “Milarepa was travelling with one of his students in Tibet, who was starting to act a little arrogant. They were suddenly caught up in a storm, and the saint shrank himself and sheltered in the horn, humbling his disciple,” Karmarong explains. Yaks are a constant feature in the exhibition, and the painter Karmarong has given them sentient eyes, with emotions like anger, introspection, suspicion, and even wide-eyed and crazed. “I was once told to study as voraciously as a yak grazes,” says Karmarong. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/human-spiritual-existence-in-a-digital-ecosystem">Human spiritual existence in a digital ecosystem</a>, Kashish Das Shrestha  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111032_271aba25a6f1eb642433ef504880407a9b36fea72a85e793a6d70e12299d9274.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241004111032_271aba25a6f1eb642433ef504880407a9b36fea72a85e793a6d70e12299d9274" data-rendition-name="original" width="2400" height="3600" loading="lazy" alt="Dorjee Karmarong NT 1"></figure>  In the middle of ‘The Dance of the Elements’ is a face that is half yellow and half black holding a cigarette around which is coiled a multi-headed serpent. “Thia represents our animal impulses,” Karmarong explains. “It is about how nature makes beautiful things. But when humans tamper with it, something usually goes wrong.” Other pieces are even more abstract. ‘Mandala Fragment’ shows geometric shapes in vibrant colours. Says Karmarong: “It may seem chaotic to a viewer, but I can step back and see something different.” Behind Karmarong’s extraordinary skill and output is a rare life lived in harmony with fate. Even his birth was auspicious: Karmarong was born in a cave to parents returning from working in Himachal Pradesh in India on the eve of Buddha Purnima and Thursday. By age seven Karmarong’s father took him to a cave to learn Tibetan. At 13, the boy was sent to a monastery in Kathmandu and after six years he decided to pursue painting and became an apprentice to master thangka artist Palden. Karmarong trained intensively under the rigid rules of thangka painting. He then met Tenzin Norbu from Dolpo, who helped develop his spiritual connection to art. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/turning-legends-into-games">Turning legends into games</a>, Vishad Raj Onta  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004111032_3f2d5f809a4230bbee885a2832c2e6872b743343581a96d177fae87885759d76.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241004111032_3f2d5f809a4230bbee885a2832c2e6872b743343581a96d177fae87885759d76" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1412" loading="lazy" alt="Dorjee Karmarong NT"></figure>  As Karmarong developed artistically and spiritually, he saw art as a fulfilment of his karma. “I started feeling that, in a past life, I had been a yogi who had wanted to build a monastery but couldn’t find an artist,” he says. The yogi committed to a life of dharma to be reborn as an artist. Indeed, there are records of a yogi from Karmarong region named Jimpa Therchan, who struggled with building a monastery and was also a renowned poet and singer. Karmarong also sings, and has written ‘Turquoise Mountain: A Folktale of the Karmarong.’ The titles of the paintings are evocative: ‘Yak’s Reprieve’, ‘Echoes of the Sacred Route’, ‘The Black Yak’s Grace’, or 'The Yak and His Young Keeper.' He is also a YouTuber and his channel has singing performances, rap songs and travel vlogs. Karmarong has depicted his village as a religious, harmonious Shangri-La, although it leaves the viewer a little curious about the darker realities of the place like Milarepa’s own murky past. Karmarong has perhaps consciously or unconsciously woven his own life into the paintings: stories and destinies that translate into the real world. They show travellers leaving from or returning to Karmarong the place, or going on a pilgrimage, reflecting the artist’s own artistic, spiritual and religious journey that has taken him back to his roots. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/mask">MASK</a>, Sonia Awale ‘Karmarong: Hidden Valley in the Himalayas’ Dorjee Karmarong Siddhartha Art Gallery

Karmarong in Karmarong

The Imadol neighbourhood of Kathmandu Valley was among the worst hit by last weekend’s devastating floods. The Manohara River, swollen by incessant rainfall, overflowed into the settlements along its banks. A photograph taken by French anthropologist Corneille Jest in monsoon 1972 shows the Manohara meandering across a wide plain, its banks lush with ripening paddy. Two farmers cross the field carrying a kharpan, a sturdy traditional bamboo basket carried on shoulders, that has almost vanished from the Valley today. It is a tranquil view of a once-emerald Valley and its unique civilisation that blended urban living with intense agriculture on the fertile topsoil. Gazing at these images shows us the life and times of Old Nepal. This and other photographs taken by Jest during his research in Nepal’s Dolpo and Kathmandu 60 years ago are a reminder of how much in Nepal has changed, and what remains the same. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-passage-of-time-in-photos">Kathmandu’s passage of time in photos</a>, Ashish Dhakal  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024100505108_e5eae5b7745301134e49b009d519326ea826f2e11c76b33aa63ea13734fa9d2c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024100505108_e5eae5b7745301134e49b009d519326ea826f2e11c76b33aa63ea13734fa9d2c" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="An anthropologist's perspective of Nepal"> <figcaption>Offering a prayer flag at a pass above Tukuche in 1963.</figcaption> </figure>  Jest visited Nepal every other year since 1960, and the exhibition itself shows us the passage of time -- it is aesthetic and evocative, a lament and sometimes deeply nostalgic.&nbsp; The exhibition is organised by Mémoires de l’Himalaya, a French association that works to preserve works on the trans-Himalayan region. Jest was a prolific photographer and out of the 45,000 negatives in his collection, &nbsp;almost 100 black and white and colour prints were selected for this exhibition at the Patan Museum. “The data researchers collect rarely helps the community being studied.. So, it was Jest's idea and ours as an organisation to give back, what we can, to the local community,” says Rémi Chaix of Mémoires de l’Himalaya, who is also one of the curators. “The field notes taken by Jest can also be accessed.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/making-nepal-s-history-colourful">Making Nepal’s history colourful</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004091020_eb98695b6253e9dde6f051b24596bc09060834bdba1219b9cff2ac080540c63c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241004091020_eb98695b6253e9dde6f051b24596bc09060834bdba1219b9cff2ac080540c63c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="An Anthropologist's Early Glimpses of Nepal NT"> <figcaption>Members of the Tarap community at Dolpo's Drolma Pass during their pilgrimage to the Buddha-ri sacred mountain in 1960.Corneille Jest - Mémoires de l'Himalaya</figcaption> </figure>  Curated by Fernand Meyer, Kunsang Namgyal-Lama and Chaix, the first floor of the museum showcases photographs of Kathmandu Valley and the second floor is dedicated to Dolpo, especially Tarap Valley where Jest spent most of his time. This curatorial choice of placing the photographs of a place in a specific floor is important, allowing viewers to keep the two worlds separate. The photographs on the first floor are exclusive and published for the first time. There is also an 11 minute documentary on loop that captures the 1968 Seto Machhindranath festival. One does not just get to see this era but even hear its sounds. Photos of Dolpo on the second floor show how little the landscape and dwellings of this remote region has changed in the past decades, although with the road now reaching the district it will inevitably undergo rapid transformation. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/memories-of-an-archivist">Memories of an archivist</a>, Anita Bhetwal  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004091020_ae632fde3aac88ac90bad7e348904446b10b793d650d7bfc4a2f7a977f6f84cc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241004091020_ae632fde3aac88ac90bad7e348904446b10b793d650d7bfc4a2f7a977f6f84cc" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="884" loading="lazy" alt="An Anthropologist's Early Glimpses of Nepal NT"> <figcaption>Attendees at a Buddhist ritual, Tarap, 1963.Corneille Jest - Mémoires de l'Himalaya</figcaption> </figure>  Some of the Dolpo photographs have already been published in Jest’s books like ‘Tales of The Turquoise: A Pilgrimage in Dolpo’. “Jest had a habit of clicking the same image twice. One would be in black and white and the other would be in colour,” explains Chaix who along with other two curators had to decide which would be a better fit for the exhibit. Jest’s photos of Dolpo are intimate and let the audience peek into the Himalayan lifestyle at the time. Researching about the Himalayan people and the culture while living in Tarap Valley, Jest developed a particular affinity for Dolpo, shares Guillaume Jest, one of Corneille’s sons, who was here at the inauguration of the exhibition.&nbsp; “I think that my father’s fondness for the population of Dolpo and their religion and culture comes from the fact that they build their way of life in a very harsh but breathtaking world of the high valleys of the Himalayas,” says Guillaume. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/adventures-of-a-lone-archivist">Adventures of a lone archivist</a>, Alisha Sijapati  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004091020_6cba26cf4cd2c38db65a4b00966f58ed87d46de3e01c8927f6ac1d8d3f5cadc3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20241004091020_6cba26cf4cd2c38db65a4b00966f58ed87d46de3e01c8927f6ac1d8d3f5cadc3" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1666" loading="lazy" alt="An Anthropologist's Early Glimpses of Nepal NT"> <figcaption>Terraced maize and paddy fields during the 1972 monsoon at Imadol, which has been built over and was submerged on 28 September.Corneille Jest - Mémoires de l'Himalaya</figcaption> </figure>  Being an anthropologist, Jest’s focus is always on the people he encounters and the landscape or architecture being props. This is a rich visual documentation of what people wore, what they ate, what the houses looked like, their daily work in the fields, the harvest process, cultural rituals and celebrations. “Corneille Jest’s photographs give us a rare insight into the everyday life, culture, and landscapes of Nepal during a pivotal period in the country’s history, just after its opening to the rest of the world. They reveal the depth and diversity of Nepali culture,” says Virginie Corteval, French Ambassador to Nepal, who opened the exhibition last week. She adds: “These represent a testimony of the important work by pioneer French researchers such as Corneille Jest or Sylvain Lévi, in studying the diversity of the Nepali civilisation.” &nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-archive-of-nepali-heritage">An archive of Nepali heritage</a>, Ashish Dhakal <h2>Lalita Niwas 60 years ago</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241004091020_72859aaf3e5f323bfce71e7adb8ba84fe1016e7e7323b4b3458570be22572146.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20241004091020_72859aaf3e5f323bfce71e7adb8ba84fe1016e7e7323b4b3458570be22572146" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="An Anthropologist's Early Glimpses of Nepal NT"> </figure>  The Lalita Niwas Land grab scandal is making headlines today, and has implicated the high and mighty of the land. But few know what the original palace of Subarna Shumsher Rana looked like. Corneille Jest’s aerial photograph in 1963 of the neoclassical palace gives us an idea of the grandeur and size of the complex that spread over a 7 hectare plot in Baluwatar. After the property was nationalised during the Panchayat, it has been fragmented, bought and sold numerous times. The scandal has put 18 of the 310 individuals charged behind bars. The building now houses the Nepal Rastra Bank.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19789#.YX-e4S8w3u0">The first photographs of us</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit An Anthropologist’s Early Glimpses of Nepal 10AM-6PM Till 18 October Patan Museum

The present meets the past

Nepali activist Radha Paudel who works on dignified menstruation through her foundation shows in her new book just how pervasive menstrual discrimination is around the world.&nbsp;
Menstrual Stories: An Anthology from Global South is replete with tales of stigma, taboo, mockery, disrespect, shame, teasing, bullying by boys that persists.&nbsp;
Radha Paudel is a nurse who has worked in government hospitals across Nepal, and wrote an harrowing account about being caught up in the Maoist attack on Jumla in 2002. She turned into a dignified menstruation activist because of the discrimination and ostracisation she herself faced while growing up in Chitwan.
She established the Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation and Radha Paudel Foundation which hosted a six-month virtual fellowship in 2023 with participants from Austria, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Malawai, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and the UK.&nbsp;
The book is an outcome of those interactions where campaigners across the world spoke about their own experiences of having their first periods, the reaction of their families, school mates and peers.
A thread running through all the stories is that no matter where in the world women are, rich countries or poor, North or South, educated or uneducated, menstrual taboos persist to a greater or lesser degree.
There are stories of girls not telling their parents because the first bleeding was “too sensitive”, the restrictions on the freedom of young women by family members, schools not teaching reproductive health with accuracy and the right values.
In one school in Dhaka, biology text books had the chapter on sexual reproduction stapled shut. Many young men in Colombia’s conservative Catholic families even refused to answer questions in a survey about menstruation, and some confused menstruation with masturbation.
In Nepal, the lack of separate restrooms for girls in schools and shame about menstruation has contributed to the high female dropout rate after Grade 5. The practice of chhaupadi in western Nepal is an extreme form of menstrual banishment.&nbsp;
Paudel does not like the word chhaupadi because it is “too neutral”, and does not convey the discrimination.
The books also has examples of women across the world resisting the stigma and taboos, and spreading awareness.&nbsp;
A marathon runner in the UK recently ran without pads and ‘let the blood flow freely’. A Chinese athlete who won a medal at an international sports event was frank in her answer to a question from the media about her performance: she said she was having her periods.
Writes Laura Contreras-Aristizabal from Colombia: “It is ironic that despite the fact that more than half of the world’s population is made up of women and menstruating individuals, menstruation is still stigmatized and a taboo subject.”
We know there are even more serious problems of female genital mutilation in some parts of the world. But for the more pervasive and persistent occurrence of menstural discrmination, this slim volume offers practical solutions in schools and society to ensure a more dignified approach to accepting the monthly biological cycle in women without stigma.&nbsp;

Menstruation is normal, period

After the relative serenity of the Dasain break, Nepali politics is in turmoil once more with the detention of the leader of the fourth largest party in Parliament. The RSP fashioned itself as an alternative to the three main parties that have taken turns to rule Nepal for the past 18 years, the NC, UML and the Maoists.&nbsp; It was going to show integrity, a vision for the future and do things differently. But RSP supporters took the streets of Pokhara and elsewhere on Monday to protest their leader’s arrest by the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) in Kathmandu last week. On Sunday, the RSP leader and former home minister <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepals-home-minister-vs-the-media">Rabi Lamichhane</a> was remanded in custody for six days while investigations continue into charges of involvement in organised crime and siphoning off the savings of depositors in several cooperatives. A multi-partisan Parliamentary investigation committee last week found evidence linking the transfer of nearly Rs650 million from two cooperatives in Butwal and Pokhara to Lamichhane’s Gorkha Media Network where he was managing director and a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/after-balen-the-rabi-phenomenon">populist talk show hos</a>t before he launched the RSP.&nbsp; Lamichhane’s supporters are convinced that the current NC UML coalition is framing him for investigations into two scandals in which the top leaders of both parties were implicated. In fact, Lamichhane himself has said the Maoist-NC coalition in which RSP was a member was dismantled in June because his investigation was getting close to leaders in the NC and UML. After his arrest in Kathmandu on orders from the Kaski District Court, Lamichhane was taken to Pokhara overnight. Senior leaders of the RSP followed the convoy, and Lamichhane’s supporters greeted him along the highway.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241021141036_2aa9325ed227be9bfc18b42079bf42392dd286f049d7ba351afb64da82e2dc8b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241021141036_2aa9325ed227be9bfc18b42079bf42392dd286f049d7ba351afb64da82e2dc8b" data-rendition-name="original" width="3600" height="2295" loading="lazy" alt="Rabi Lamichhane arrest NT"> <figcaption>RSP members gathered at party headquarters in Banasthali as party chair Rabi Lamichhane was arrested by CIB on Friday. Photo: HARI RAM BHETUWAL / RSS</figcaption> </figure>  There were parallel protests in Pokhara against Lamichhane by depositors of Suryadarshan Cooperative who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp; If found guilty, Lamichhane will not just face a jail term of up to ten years, but also be suspended from his Parliament seat and will be unable to contest the next election. Lamichhane has not presented any facts to defend himself, and has denied involvement in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/heads-roll">cooperatives scam</a> accusing political rivals of feeling threatened by an emergent alternative party. “Rabi Lamichhane cashed in on populism, and public frustration with establishment parties to become politically successful,” explains political commentator Indra Adhikari. “But he has never been a particularly moral politician.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241021141036_ef0ffab776ff38897c3977b7ee25cea471faaf0ebf7649c4e6cfa5ea9c19a9d9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241021141036_ef0ffab776ff38897c3977b7ee25cea471faaf0ebf7649c4e6cfa5ea9c19a9d9" data-rendition-name="original" width="3600" height="2021" loading="lazy" alt="Rabi Lamichhane arrest NT"> <figcaption>Rabi Lamichhane addresses party members at RSP headquarters in Banasthali before being taken into police custody on Friday evening. Photo: HARI RAM BHETUWAL / RSS</figcaption> </figure>  Lamichhane is <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-rabi-lamichhane">not a stranger to controversy</a>. Besides his citizenship caper, even before he joined politics in 2020 he was charged with abetting the suicide of a journalist by hounding him on his tv channel. He was acquitted. In early 2023, Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled that Rabi Lamichhane, who was Home Minister in the NC-Maoist coalition at the time, was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rabi-lamichhane-is-home-less">not eligible to hold political position</a> because he had failed to reacquire his Nepali citizenship after renouncing his American one.&nbsp; Lamichhane subsequently got a new Nepali citizenship and contested the by-elections, which he won by an even bigger margin than his first time at the polls. Later that year, the Office of the Attorney General exonerated him in the case of possession of an active US passport. If found guilty in the cooperatives scam, it will be the second time that he will have to renounce his Parliament seat. Earlier, Lamichhane used his party’s strength in the House to be a kingmaker and bargained for a powerful role in coalition governments. This time, such tactics will not work since the current governing alliance is made up of the two largest parties which do not see any political advantage to supporting him. Indeed, they do not seem interested in rescuing him this time around.&nbsp; Says Adhikari: “The RSP is a personality cut around Rabi Lamichhane. It is not a political party, it functions more like a private company. Without Lamichhane, the party could just wither.” The Kaski District Administration Office has issued a prohibitory order in parts of Pokhara on Sunday. Riot police used water cannons and tear gas during protests by Lamichhane’s supporters.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241021141028_daaf97ea6434b9799a78c0b1925c3f5429184da069bd5936afea1a8dd9d1df66.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20241021141028_daaf97ea6434b9799a78c0b1925c3f5429184da069bd5936afea1a8dd9d1df66" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Rabi Lamichhane arrest NT"> <figcaption>Security forces use water cannons and tear gas in a confrontation with protestors at Pokhara's Shahid Chok. Photo: KRISHNA DAWADI / RSS</figcaption> </figure>  Even though many in Nepal's cybersphere question Lamichhane’s integrity, they see leaders of the three main parties as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/nepal-s-corruption-carousel">being as corrupt</a>, if not more. They cite Prime Minister K P Oli accepting the donation of land and building from supermarket tycoon Min Bahadur Gurung to house the headquarters of the UML in Kathmandu. Even as the police investigate Lamichhane and former associates police DIG Chabilal Joshi, Gorkha Media Network chair G B Rai, and others, critics have pointed out that NC and UML leaders also involved in scamming depositors of cooperatives have got away scot free.&nbsp; The NC’s Dhanaraj Gurung and UML’s Rishikesh Pokharel, have also been implicated in the cooperatives scam, but have not been investigated even while their wives are at large.&nbsp; “We are only just beginning the process of investigating the individuals mentioned by the report of the all-party inquiry committee,” said Communication Minister Prithivi Subba Gurung on Sunday. “There is no need to create confusion by singling out names of the other people involved.” Popular RSP technocrats like economist Swarnim Wagle and IT expert Sumana Shrestha have <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/rsp-s-rsvp">taken a risk by backing Lamichhane to the hilt</a>. Analysts say there is a danger that their image could also be tarred.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241021141024_5c141b2d25cf6ce3bada82b0bdef0012b844334d992cd4203cec0ed2e6782ed3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20241021141024_5c141b2d25cf6ce3bada82b0bdef0012b844334d992cd4203cec0ed2e6782ed3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Rabi Lamichhane arrest NT"> <figcaption>RSP vice chairman Swarnim Wagle addresses a crowd of demonstrators in Pokhara on Sunday. Photo: Krishna Dawadi / RSS</figcaption> </figure>  RSP leaders have resorted to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/democracy-s-discontents">inflammatory and populist rhetoric</a> to rile up supporters in the wake of Lamichhane’s arrest. MP Manish Jha said Monday he was ready to “spill his own blood and become a martyr in the fight against the country’s corrupt”.&nbsp; Those with inside knowledge, however, say that for all this bluster, it has no solid plans to maintain its leadership in the event of Lamichhane’s long absence from political activities.&nbsp; Indeed, the party has yet to appoint an acting chair in the aftermath of Lamichhane’s arrest. Senior RSP leaders and lawmakers Dol Prasad Aryal and Swarnim Wagle are the vice-chairs of the party. &nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241021141032_70338ba3551acd1152aec265e6e27e88b5c591ef2ac7f7417a2ddde040f3d45e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20241021141032_70338ba3551acd1152aec265e6e27e88b5c591ef2ac7f7417a2ddde040f3d45e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2700" height="1552" loading="lazy" alt="Rabi Lamichhane arrest NT"> <figcaption>RSP vice chair Dol Prasad Aryal addresses supporters during a demonstration on Saturday. Photo: KRISHNA DAWADI / RSS</figcaption> </figure>  There is also question as to the future of RSP’s leadership and the party as a whole if Lamichhane is found guilty of his charges by the court, which will cut his political career short.&nbsp; Says Adhikari: “It is useless to hope that the RSP will be any kind of an alternative party and work for good governance. A political party that is relying on incendiary rhetoric to rile up crowds to impede investigation into their leader cannot be considered democratic."

Rabi’s detention churns Nepali politics

Project Syndicate: Being especially vulnerable to climate change, the Global South is open to receiving financial, technical, and other forms of support from wherever they can get it. Are America and its allies squandering an opportunity here?
Ian Bremmer: At this point, developing economies are open to climate finance support from any quarter. With simultaneous major geopolitical conflicts, inflationary pressures, and pivotal elections happening this year, America and its allies view climate partnerships with emerging markets as a lower priority. The EU’s top priority is Ukraine, and the US has been consumed with the Gaza conflict.
The Global South will therefore strengthen ties with China and Middle Eastern countries, as we’ve seen happening since the last United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28). Diversifying partnerships makes sense for these governments, since wealthy countries have made it clear they won’t significantly ramp up support anytime soon. Although <a href="https://cop29.az/en/news/letter-to-parties-and-constituencies#:~:text=The%20COP29%20Presidency's%20top%20negotiating,priorities%20of%20developing%20country%20Parties." target="_blank">climate finance</a> will be a major topic at COP29 in Azerbaijan, the $1 trillion target will go unmet, leading to frustration and even more collaboration with non-traditional partners.
The donor pool is becoming a contentious topic in UN climate negotiations, because countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and China are not currently classified as ‘<a href="https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp_current/2014wesp_country_classification.pdf" target="_blank">developed economies</a>’. The United States and some EU governments are pushing to expand this list to achieve more ambitious goals, but it won’t happen. Many emerging markets support the current list because they don’t want to antagonise China, which firmly opposes being a donor and criticises developed markets for not delivering on climate finance.
Do strategic and ‘national-security’ considerations surrounding climate policy and green technologies ensure a zero-sum dynamic?
This collaboration has historically set global policy expectations, laying the groundwork for milestones like the Paris climate agreement, COP26 in Glasgow and COP28 in Dubai. The outcome of the US election will be crucial, but under a Democratic administration, robust climate cooperation could continue, particularly with the right climate envoys.
During the first three years of <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/joseph-biden-jr">Joe Biden</a>’s presidency, US Climate Envoy <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/john-kerry">John Kerry</a> and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, demonstrated that meaningful <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00692-7" target="_blank">progress</a> can still be made despite broader tensions. After the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1115878668/china-taiwan-pelosi-climate-military#:~:text=BEIJING%20%E2%80%94%20China%20declared%20Friday%20it,Nancy%20Pelosi's%20visit%20to%20Taiwan." target="_blank">suspension</a> of climate talks following US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, Kerry and Xie’s teams were among the first to resume discussions in 2023.
Even then, separating climate issues from US-China tensions will pose a challenge. Chinese officials have stressed that climate collaboration requires “overall stable relations”.
What about under a second Trump presidency? How much damage could he do to the net-zero transition, both in the US and globally?
Donald Trump is obviously no fan of climate policies, but he supports US industry. His administration would cut Inflation Reducation Act spending, and could do so significantly with full Republican support. These cuts would then ripple through the economy. But the US would still pursue aggressive industrial policies, challenging economic trade partners. A Trump administration would favour oil and gas, but its impact would be limited.&nbsp;
On the international front, you could expect a US withdrawal from UN climate talks altogether, which could derail progress at COP30 and significantly reduce funding for developing economies. This could weaken new climate commitments from all governments by 2025, eventually pushing global temperatures higher than currently projected.
And following the strong performance by far-right parties in the European Parliament elections, should we expect Europe’s ambitions under the 2020 EU Green Deal to be scaled back?&nbsp;
The EU has temporarily peaked in its adoption of environmental policies. Looking ahead, the bloc will largely focus on implementing existing regulations. Key among these is the <a href="https://finance.ec.europa.eu/capital-markets-union-and-financial-markets/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/corporate-sustainability-reporting_en" target="_blank">Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive</a>, which will require companies to ramp up disclosures starting next year, with France already <a href="https://www.novata.com/resources/blog/csrd-unpacked-enforcement-compliance-and-penalties/#:~:text=France%20is%20the%20only%20country,not%20publishing%20the%20sustainability%20report." target="_blank">imposing</a> strict penalties for noncompliance. 
&nbsp;
Similarly, the <a href="https://green-business.ec.europa.eu/deforestation-regulation-implementation_en#:~:text=It%20will%20start%20to%20apply,Deforestation%20Free%20Products%20(EUDR)." target="_blank">EU Deforestation Regulation</a> will take effect this December, and countries around the world are already preparing for it. Seven key commodities will be barred from the EU market if their sourcing involves any kind of deforestation, legal or illegal.
Meanwhile, the recently adopted <a href="https://www.esginvestor.net/eu-approves-nature-restoration-law/#:~:text=EU%20member%20states%20have%20approved,targets%20in%20the%20bloc's%20history." target="_blank">Nature Restoration Law</a> – the EU’s flagship biodiversity legislation – requires that member states create action plans and set targets to increase their conservation and restoration efforts. The enforcement of these policies will lead to “<a href="https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Nature_Positive_Guidelines_for_the_Transition_in_Cities_2024.pdf" target="_blank">transition risks</a>.” Multinational corporations and governments that fail to comply with sustainability-related regulations will face legal action.
Another elephant in the room is India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set highly ambitious decarbonisation targets reaching <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59125143" target="_blank">net-zero by 2070</a>, but India has also been hoovering up Russian hydrocarbons at a discount and <a href="https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Indias-Coal-Consumption-and-Emissions-Hit-Record-Highs-in-Q1.html" target="_blank">increasing</a> its consumption of coal.&nbsp;
Actually, India’s net-zero target by 2070 is perceived by many as <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indias-net-zero-emissions-target-by-2070-little-too-long-term-hardeep-singh-puri/article67398684.ece" target="_blank">insufficiently ambitious</a>. But India faces a tough balancing act between long-term decarbonisation and immediate economic priorities. It still relies on coal for domestic security and is being cautious about phasing it out until renewable-energy capacity and alternative revenue sources for coal-producing regions are well established.
Energy-storage limitations, fluctuating LNG prices, and other challenges have prompted a shift toward a combination of LNG and green hydrogen for industry, and a mix of solar and nuclear power for residential areas.
Owing to capital shortages, grid instability, minimal storage solutions, and reliance on emerging technologies, India <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/india-may-miss-2030-renewable-energy-targets-as-up-punjab-haryana-lag-say-experts/articleshow/90964081.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">will not meet</a> its 2030 targets of 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel power capacity and a 45% reduction in carbon intensity from 2005 levels. It is, however, expected to build its clean-energy supply chains by 2030 (leveraging a second-mover advantage), and this should help to accelerate its energy transition.
EVs are one bright spot. India has implemented <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/india-says-high-tariffs-evs-protect-chinese-imports-2024-06-14/" target="_blank">tariffs</a> to protect its budding domestic EV sector, and earlier this year it introduced a new <a href="https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2014858#:~:text=The%20Union%20Government%20has%20approved,by%20reputed%20global%20EV%20manufacturers." target="_blank">policy</a> to encourage EV manufacturing. This could attract investments worth billions of dollars from companies like Tesla or various Japanese firms.
In the past, you’ve proposed new bodies such as a World Carbon Organisation. Where does your thinking stand today in a world increasingly dominated by zero-sum strategic considerations?
Multilateral institutions will continue to face challenges, but they remain essential in an increasingly fragmented world. Their value lies in reaching global consensus and driving coordinated action, as seen with the Paris agreement’s impact on countries, companies, and communities. In that case, there was a clear ‘before and after’.
Yes, progress has been too slow, but to be fair, expectations for these negotiations are often too high, setting them up for failure. International fora should be seen as what they are: annual stocktaking exercises that help the world assess its current position and decide on necessary course corrections.
Unilateral initiatives, such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the Deforestation Regulation, face just as much, if not more, pushback. This highlights the need to improve multilateral systems – by creating new structures or overhauling existing ones – rather than abandoning them. Doing so is ultimately in everyone’s interest. <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/">© Project Syndicate</a>
Ian Bremmer is a political scientist and founder of Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk advisory firm, and GZERO Media.

Climate security and geopolitics

It took <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-it-rains-it-pours-ksqprbu3">the Great Flood of 28 September</a> for the residents of Kathmandu to finally realise how much trash they were throwing into the Valley’s sacred rivers. Even three weeks later, plastic bags wave like flags high up on the branches of trees at Teku and Sankhamul, reminding us of just how high the water level rose on that fateful day. There are pieces of cloth, styrofoam, plastic bottles and other garbage still strewn along the ruins of pavements and embankments. This was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-revenge-of-the-rivers">the revenge of the rivers</a>. The Bagmati, Vishnumati, Manohara, Nakkhu were getting back at city dwellers for treating the once sacred rivers as dumpsites. The rivers threw the trash right back where it came from. "If we do not want such garbage being washed away during the monsoon, we should prioritise waste management. We should focus on every aspect of waste generation," says Shilashila Acharya of Avni Ventures. “Dumping sites are often near the riversides. So, we might also want to rethink the locations of the dumping sites.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_6c5aa3e6e413cf39fe6e7468c34897c41ddfa676a190f248261809e4e1388746.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241020131032_6c5aa3e6e413cf39fe6e7468c34897c41ddfa676a190f248261809e4e1388746" data-rendition-name="original" width="1807" height="1206" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_8eabed5914f6cd188997ca0e38c7c53d42b31601b85dcae93929fda6e08246a0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241020131032_8eabed5914f6cd188997ca0e38c7c53d42b31601b85dcae93929fda6e08246a0" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_88cb0411a16b270393d5b9b3d3a93351a80c646cdfc586edc7e60dbaf3dd5de9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241020131032_88cb0411a16b270393d5b9b3d3a93351a80c646cdfc586edc7e60dbaf3dd5de9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1364" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_8f009f0fd28e5890a4da1077ba3bd59615c5d9c0935268ac83e918e1109a93f9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241020131032_8f009f0fd28e5890a4da1077ba3bd59615c5d9c0935268ac83e918e1109a93f9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/industrial-scale-litter" target="_blank">Single-use plastic</a> is the biggest source of trash in Kathmandu Valley which uses up an estimated 5,000,000 plastic bags a day. About 800 tons of this non-biodegradable material is dumped in the river, or in landfill sites every day.&nbsp; The thicker plastic of bottles and other discarded household items are collected by waste pickers for recycling, but plastic below 20 microns in thickness is thrown away after being used once to carry vegetables or other food purchases. One plastic bag takes 500 years to completely biodegrade, and microplastics contaminate drinking water and find its way into the human food chain. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/a-plastic-republic/" target="_blank">Plastics thrown haphazardly</a> into rivers can clog up drainage channels, harm the water cycle and poison aquatic species and wildlife. Waste collecting companies have realised that there is money in trash, and are doing good business recycling the plastic, but since thin plastic bags are not recycled it ends up being swept down the Bagmati to the plains.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131028_068e6e8d53e5687b4ce6bdb9019dd4e54d75a987e9524edab1a1389628fee105.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20241020131028_068e6e8d53e5687b4ce6bdb9019dd4e54d75a987e9524edab1a1389628fee105" data-rendition-name="original" width="1631" height="1085" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_c4c12fd8b57429ba670a9daeb824986a056add949421ada0301ad4a1cc875463.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20241020131032_c4c12fd8b57429ba670a9daeb824986a056add949421ada0301ad4a1cc875463" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_29bfdadf2b9c12b70cc025bb28364b7851e1229fdb7d92b9e6a9f96135e8efcc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20241020131032_29bfdadf2b9c12b70cc025bb28364b7851e1229fdb7d92b9e6a9f96135e8efcc" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_e84f74c0a64de669c3cb337ab29215805bf33f4aa2fdd439d94bf159d0d1288b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20241020131032_e84f74c0a64de669c3cb337ab29215805bf33f4aa2fdd439d94bf159d0d1288b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1728" height="1152" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>  Nepal’s governments tried to <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/plastic-free-new-year,2174" target="_blank">ban polythene and single-use bags</a> below 20 microns in thickness several times in the past, but these regulations were hastily withdrawn due to lobbying by importers of plastic pellets who have political connections. Hanging from railings on the Bagmati banks, and swinging from trees at its confluence with the Vishnumati in Teku are at least seven types of plastic. The lowest grade are single use thin plastic bags which have to be banned at source. But half-buried in the silt of the Bagmati’s floodplain are PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, which can easily be recycled. Waste collectors do remove most of these and other types before they are dumped, but many do find their way into the river. Without extended producer responsibility, the Nepal government does not consider it mandatory to require manufacturers to ensure recycling. “The first and foremost step of waste management starts is the segregation of biodegradable and non-biodegradable trash at source. Secondly, there should be more planned landfills within a community. While we prefer landfills to be away from the city, planned smaller landfills help better manage the waste of a community," adds Acharya. "Third is the partnership that can exist between government authorities like Kathmandu municipalities with private organisation who are already working in waste management. This collaboration can help them better manage the waste," she says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_48605d7ecf39c69de5baa2fa40884c7358a5da04d0e3cf8a6d35a5d97ca81052.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20241020131032_48605d7ecf39c69de5baa2fa40884c7358a5da04d0e3cf8a6d35a5d97ca81052" data-rendition-name="original" width="1728" height="1152" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_58c1a09be67c49863c27ad47a8c98f044c095d5f34b2376309f1e155fe4c6601.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20241020131032_58c1a09be67c49863c27ad47a8c98f044c095d5f34b2376309f1e155fe4c6601" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_43b3c1b4234be87fba985880b1f345e6d44ccccf76571771e9a56059dc1b24ce.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20241020131032_43b3c1b4234be87fba985880b1f345e6d44ccccf76571771e9a56059dc1b24ce" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1367" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>  Kathmandu Valley produces an estimated 1,500 tons of waste every day, most of this ends up unsegregated at the landfill site at Banchare Danda of Nuwakot, after another site at Sisdole got filled up in 2022. Nearly 65% of it is still organic household waste, and can easily be turned into compost and does not have to end up at the landfill at all.&nbsp; Much of the paper, plastic bottles, metal and glass can also be recycled easily if they are segregated at source — as Mayor Balen Shah promised in his election campaigning. This could reduce the volume of garbage that has to be sent in fleets of tipper trucks every day to the landfill.&nbsp; Residents living near Banchare already suffer serious health risks from water contaminated with leachate from the dumpsite.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_b209d360e5c016d6f639d5abe07c4d56aecf0fd5743a53bbec02a67b7a5cefa3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20241020131032_b209d360e5c016d6f639d5abe07c4d56aecf0fd5743a53bbec02a67b7a5cefa3" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_0d36428ba5bf27a36984dd0418d2df6cc98ac79068f1568f0d6d54fec5af01c9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20241020131032_0d36428ba5bf27a36984dd0418d2df6cc98ac79068f1568f0d6d54fec5af01c9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241020131032_826b4fca2bcad775298e2a362c6cfba1f0ff675c76a7504ed553ed145bf6dcc7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="20241020131032_826b4fca2bcad775298e2a362c6cfba1f0ff675c76a7504ed553ed145bf6dcc7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1994" height="1329" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu's garbage crisis after the floods"> </figure>  &nbsp;

Kathmandu’s flood exposes garbage crisis

When the United Nations held its Summit of the Future at its headquarters in New York in September, many world leaders, including Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Oli, highlighted the effect of climate breakdown in increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. What did not get as much attention was the long term impact of the climate crisis on food production. In fact, heat stress, weather extremes and the consequences on rain-fed agriculture is already being felt worldwide, undermining the chances of the <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/">UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</a> being met by 2030.&nbsp; The SDG’s 17 targets commit countries like Nepal to reduce poverty and inequality, end malnutrition, protect the natural environment, and ensure that citizens all enjoy health, justice and prosperity without leaving anyone behind.&nbsp; However, besides the impact of climate breakdown on agricultural production, in Nepal the area under cultivation is impacted by urban expansion, falling productivity and the need for expensive inputs like fertiliser and pesticides.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_626413c5baf4dae407ac9579231b41daeb51510aa636b75aeb7489d94cca6a62.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241019041052_626413c5baf4dae407ac9579231b41daeb51510aa636b75aeb7489d94cca6a62" data-rendition-name="original" width="999" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Kathmandu's urban sprawl is eating into its fertile cultivable lands. Photo: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption> </figure>  Now, a new study led by Nepali researcher Prajal Pradhan at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands looks at how urban agriculture may offer a solution to falling food production and meeting SDG targets. The researchers evaluated 1,450 publications exploring the contributions of urban agriculture with both positive and negative effects, and published their findings in the journal Cells Report Sustainability. Urban agriculture can help achieve 17 SDGs, positively influencing 81 targets. However, it could also undermine 51 goals.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-vanishing-land">The vanishing land</a>, Taylor Mason “Urban agriculture offers immense potential for sustainable development, but realising this potential depends crucially on adopting practices that minimise its adverse effects while maximising its benefits,” Pradhan explains. Urban agriculture can substantially enhance urban food security, provide employment to the urban poor, serve as ground water recharge in built-up areas, and preserve open spaces that can serve as safe havens during disasters like earthquakes. However, it also presents problems like the potential health risks from contamination and the need for expensive inputs. &nbsp; “Urban agriculture plays a definitive role in advancing the SDGs, but achieving this requires tailored, context-specific solutions that address the unique challenges of different regions,” says Yuanchao Hu of Wuhan University in China and who is a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “But it needs equitable access and rigorous management of environmental risks.”&nbsp; Rapid urbanisation is eating into Nepal’s most fertile agricultural land, which means farming in remaining open spaces inside cities can be a viable alternative, especially as food prices rise.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_7b7c9413086226fbdc630d45acf772cfa1ced77a8970b9056ec5ec7e5226fdf8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241019041052_7b7c9413086226fbdc630d45acf772cfa1ced77a8970b9056ec5ec7e5226fdf8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>A vegetable patch in between new houses in Thimi. Photo: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption> </figure>  “The conversion of Nepal’s most fertile land into cities is a severe problem,” Pradhan told Nepali Times. “Crop cultivation, horticulture, agroforestry, beekeeping, livestock rearing, or aquaculture can all be farming activities within and around cities.”&nbsp; The study makes recommendations for sustainable practices that build on the positive aspects of urban agriculture while mitigating the downsides, thereby promoting more resilient cities in future. Research shows that urban agriculture has been helping many countries attain SDG targets by enhancing food security and biodiversity while helping education and preservation of open spaces.&nbsp; Indeed, many farmers from the hinterland who have settled in Kathmandu Valley or other urban areas of the country have been practicing urban agriculture, leasing neighbourhood patches or cultivating roof gardens both out of necessity because of inflation and falling income to grow their own food, and also as a fulfilling hobby. Saurav Dhakal, a sustainability advocate with Story Cycle and now research fellow at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, says there are socio-economic and environmental benefits of urban agriculture. “It provides benefits to all urban dwellers, regardless of their income status,” says Dhakal, “families get fresh food, and there are many other benefits like water retention, heat regulation and biodiversity. These are all public goods, so special government incentives may be needed.” It is not unusual to see vegetable patches and even paddy fields within inner city Kathmandu where an older generation of farmers are using available fertile land and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/rooftop-gardens-kathmandu,1415">roof gardens to produce fresh, nutritious food </a>to reduce their dependence on food items that have to be bought after being trucked in from large distances.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101905100_1291ce98dbbb8caed8702ac4b1d469b3e13016d7ecaaf3bfd5f91c974d3c0c77.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024101905100_1291ce98dbbb8caed8702ac4b1d469b3e13016d7ecaaf3bfd5f91c974d3c0c77" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>An older generation of farmers are using any available fertile land to continue farming but it is getting more and more difficult. Photo: TAYLOR MASON </figcaption> </figure>  Nepal’s urban population grew rapidly from only 3.6% in 1991 to 25% today. There is large outmigration from the mountains to peri-urban areas of the Tarai, to Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara, with many young men then moving abroad for work. Kathmandu Valley’s population has swelled to nearly 3 million, and is growing at 6.5% a year. Dilip Shrestha, 71, used to work for Nepal Food Corporation, so he knew firsthand about inflation, shortages and vegetables with pesticide residue. So, when he designed his new house in Kathmandu, he built a spacious roof where he grows cucumber, ginger, garlic, coriander, onions, tomatoes, chili, beans, okra, pumpkin and lettuce. His family eats healthier, and he has reduced dependence on the market.&nbsp; The co-author of the Cell Reports Sustainability journal article, Daya Raj Subedi who is a PhD candidate at Beijing Forestry University, says urban agriculture also promotes inclusion and psycho-social wellbeing.&nbsp; He says, “A crucial finding of the study is the identification of opportunities and challenges associated with urban agriculture, it can promote sustainable transformation of society.” In Banepa, 55-year-old Bijaya Manandhar in her lifetime has watched the fertile farms of her neighbourhood that used to supply vegetables to Kathmandu, now completely built up with no open space left. The pandemic lockdown prompted her to turn to the family’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rooftop-agriculture-on-the-roof-of-the-world">ancestral livelihood by growing food</a> not on terrace farms, but on the roof terrace. Manandhar is now a part of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rooftop-agriculture-on-the-roof-of-the-world%5C%5C">कौसी खेती र करेसाबारी क्रान्ती</a> (Rooftop Farming and Garden Revolution) which has an online membership of 52,000, and awards annual prizes to women who excel in urban agriculture.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_7257f5def8f823f35a799fa6f6825e153f2ffa406ac11325d4fe74049b79e96d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20241019041052_7257f5def8f823f35a799fa6f6825e153f2ffa406ac11325d4fe74049b79e96d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="736" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Rooftop farming is gaining popularity as a form of urban agriculture. </figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_beff1a4494ce896dd8fd383ee1f518e5448bcf7ea8bb138255391c7bcb9769ed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20241019041052_beff1a4494ce896dd8fd383ee1f518e5448bcf7ea8bb138255391c7bcb9769ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="4000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> </figure>  Pradhan says the challenge now is to upscale such examples of successful urban agricultural practices so they support Neal’s efforts to meet SDG targets. He adds, “Crop cultivation around cities can be protected by land use plans and regulations. Promoting community-based agriculture, including rooftop gardens, requires community engagement and public-private partnerships across the food value chain.”&nbsp; Such support would accelerate the popularity of existing rooftop farming and community gardens in Kathmandu Valley, or kitchen garden initiatives in Pokhara, and building on traditional farming practices that are preserved and integrated into urban settings like in Bhaktapur and Banepa. In Lalitpur, the Women Entrepreneurship Facilitation Center promotes urban farming enhancing both sustainability and empowerment.&nbsp; Another co-author of the report, Yuanchao Hu from China says followup research of the team will aim to identify good practices in local urban agriculture practices. He adds, “There are examples of urban agriculture that optimise sustainability, ensuring that it remains a viable solution for cities globally while countries try to meet SDG targets.” Prajal Pradhan, Daya Raj Subedi, Kshitij Dahal, Yuanchao Hu, Prakriti Gurung, Sijal Pokharel, Sagar Kafle, Biplav Khatri, Sudeeksha Basyal, Monika Gurung, and Aruna Joshi. Urban Agriculture matters for sustainable development. Cell Reports Sustainability, 1:100217, 2024. [DOI: 10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100217] Prajal Pradhan (<a href="mailto:p.pradhan@rug.nl">p.pradhan@rug.nl</a>) This article is brought to you by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/" target="_blank">Nepali Times</a>, in collaboration with <a href="https://inpsjapan.com/en/" target="_blank">INPS Japan</a> and <a href="https://sgi-peace.org/" target="_blank">Soka Gakkai International</a>, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758" data-rendition-name="original" width="680" height="103" loading="lazy" alt="SDG logo"> </figure>

Back to the land in the cities

Nepal’s only international aviation gateway, at Kathmandu airport, will cut night-time operation hours to allow construction of taxiways, and airlines have been told to curtail flights. This is expected to lead to more than normal chaos during the height of peak autumn and spring tourist seasons at an airport that is congested even at the best of times. The airport will close from 10PM to 8AM from 8 November-31 March 2025. The taxiways will now connect to the thresholds at both ends of the runway, making the airport more efficient in handling higher frequencies of landings and takeoffs. The parallel taxiway extension will allow international flights to land every 4 minutes instead of the current every 7 minutes. At present planes have to wait to land until a plane taking off backtracks along the runway.&nbsp; Kathmandu is Nepal’s only airport with international operations, and it has only one runway that is only one way in from the south over the mountains. With the taxiway improvement, the airport will be able to handle 42 aircraft landings and takeoffs per hour — double the current capacity.&nbsp; The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has been trying to entice international airlines to also start flying to and from the other two international airports at Pokhara and Bhairawa (Lumbini) by slashing landing and handling charges. But so far only Nepal Airlines operates a weekly flight to Bhairawa from Kuala Lumpur.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241018161016_046569e53d1d66cd445cc66c697c0ef724810aec9f54bdf827481e3cd6b80c32.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241018161016_046569e53d1d66cd445cc66c697c0ef724810aec9f54bdf827481e3cd6b80c32" data-rendition-name="original" width="2356" height="1134" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu airport expansion"> <figcaption>Kathmandu Airport Expansion plan with extension of taxiways to the thresholds of runways 02 and 20 that will limit airport operations from 8 November 2024 - 31 March 2025. Areas in blue are existing structures, including the international terminal which in future will be the domestic airport, and the new international terminal near the north end of the runway,</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241018121028_6e17cc2ee87c1b02d78cb54905825b7aa15299b7a00f5eddb01a59579ab85c1a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241018121028_6e17cc2ee87c1b02d78cb54905825b7aa15299b7a00f5eddb01a59579ab85c1a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1353" height="1328" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu airport NT"> </figure>  CAAN has reportedly told international airlines to cut their flight frequency to Kathmandu citing the shorter operation hours and has told budget airlines to shift some of their flights to Pokhara or Bhairawa, or face cuts. Many airlines currently operate regular flights to and from Kathmandu between 10PM and 8AM: Air Arabia to Sharjah, Fly Dubai to Dubai, Jazeera Airways to Kuwait, Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, Singapore Airlines, several Nepal Airlines flights, and one of four daily flights by Qatar Airways to Doha. Jazeera Airways, FlyDubai, and Thai AirAsia have applied and got permission from CAAN to begin regular flights to Bhairawa’s Gautam Buddha International Airport. Starting 9 November, FlyDubai will start making a stopover in Bhairawa before flying on to Kathmandu. Immigration, customs and security are all fully functional in Bhairawa. In Kathmandu, the next phase of the airport upgrade includes converting the current international terminal for domestic operations, the construction of a new international terminal where the domestic departure area is now, as well as moving the hangars and the Nepal Army Air Wing to the eastern side of the runway. The apron area will also double its parking space for widebody jets. This is part of a Airport Capacity Enhancement Project that was initially funded through a $80 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the entire masterplan is expected to cost $800 million. This project is the latest upgrade to Nepal’s only international airport since it saw its first flight in 1949. The current international and domestic terminals are too small to handle the current annual traffic volume of 8.5 million passengers a year that is growing at 20% a year.

Kathmandu airport to cut flight hours

The 700-year-old Lakshmi Narasingha temple in Bhaktapur houses a rare half-lion and half-human incarnation of Lord Vishnu carrying the Goddess Lakshmi. The temple was destroyed in the 1934 mega earthquake that killed 10,000 people and destroyed many monuments in Kathmandu Valley. It was rebuilt by a German project in the 1980s, but as a single-storey structure instead of its original two-tier pagoda design.&nbsp; With new findings from in-depth research, Bhaktapur municipality began re-restoring the temple in 2021, preserving its original architecture.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_2fae38cce543ad7b1f6de632feb3e212e08ed1acedd747830e949d7b8e878f18.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241017131016_2fae38cce543ad7b1f6de632feb3e212e08ed1acedd747830e949d7b8e878f18" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “Our temples and heritage sites hold deep meaning. It is disheartening to witness how often they lose their original elements, whether by design or accident,” explains Kumar Chawal of the Consumer Committee of Bhaktapur. “There is a need to preserve our architecture and protect its historical value for future generations. Otherwise, we risk losing a vital part of our identity.” The Laksmi Narsingha restoration is similar to the Bhai Dega temple in Patan Darbar Square which also collapsed in 1934, but was rebuilt with a Moghul-style dome by the Rana government at the time. Only two months before the 2015 earthquake, heritage conservationists had started to rebuild Bhai Dega as the original three-tier based on early photographs. But priorities shifted when four other temples in the square were brought down by the 7.8M earthquake on 25 April 2015.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_697ea707d9ad163be5de5f2efbf5b70d3cab771adcc22f0fae6bf937c6cb0130.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241017131016_697ea707d9ad163be5de5f2efbf5b70d3cab771adcc22f0fae6bf937c6cb0130" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  This showed how damage to monuments in Kathmandu Valley spanned from one earthquake to the next. Bhai Dega restoration remains half-complete to this day because money for its restoration ran out.&nbsp; Whereas Bhai Dega restoration was done by the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust with grants from western embassies and international foundations, in Bhaktapur it is the municipality itself that allocated the Rs30.7 million needed to restore the Lakshmi Narasingha temple. The expected date of completion is early 2025. The municipality and local communities are focusing on two main aspects: preserving the past and promoting localisation. The restoration team has designed a blueprint for the temple by using historical photographs and insights from older generations.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_182882fdc393c99e70d1d0490319e415229563666c4934e3a582426ebf00ca30.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241017131016_182882fdc393c99e70d1d0490319e415229563666c4934e3a582426ebf00ca30" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="560" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “At first, the Lakshmi Narasingha temple had only one entrance, but during the demolition process, we uncovered the foundations of four doors. Now, we are restoring all of them. This is an example of how our ancient structures have changed over time, often without our knowledge,” says Chawal. “Constructing temples is not like building houses. They carry historical and spiritual values, which is why they hold a special place in our hearts,” he adds. By replicating ancient design elements and rebuilding the temple as accurately as possible to its original form, the team has stayed true to Bhaktapur’s soul. But the restoration also revived ancient techniques that were in danger of being forgotten, generating employment for woodcarvers, masons, and contractors. The community of Bhaktapur’s Gahiti neighbourhood near the famous Nyatapola Temple has also set aside specific days for locals to volunteer in the reconstruction work. This has encouraged young people to take pride in ownership of their heritage. Families have also supported the effort by donating funds for bells, the temple pinnacle, and other structural features to the temple.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_db850ec0c084cdbe54f65bee92dad2ad8122d20fd60ec87ec086fbb9d2f72bd6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241017131016_db850ec0c084cdbe54f65bee92dad2ad8122d20fd60ec87ec086fbb9d2f72bd6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “I feel at peace knowing I have contributed my sweat to restoring this temple,” said one volunteer. “It is our duty to preserve our temples and heritage. The Nyatapola area will look magical once this temple is completed.” Community mobilisation is a long-standing tradition in Bhaktapur. In the past, locals have actively participated in the restoration of other temples in the city, such as Bhairav and Nyatapola fostering a strong sense of ownership. This collective engagement has not only been crucial in preserving the city's historical monuments but also in strengthening the bond between local communities and their heritage, says officials at the municipality. While securing funding is essential, and the municipality showed it values heritage conservation, the Lakshmi Narasingha restoration is proof that active involvement and sense of responsibility of the local community is as important, if not more. Local involvement also means that the monuments will be cared for into the future, When locals take ownership of these efforts, the restored monuments are not only protected in the present but are also cared for in the future.

In with the old in Nepal

Orthopedic surgeon Anil Shrestha’s journey to medicine was laid down well before he was born. His father, noted industrialist Juddha Bahadur Shrestha, had aspired to become a doctor but was turned away from a medical school in India.&nbsp; "It became his mission that one of us, his sons, nephews, or nieces, would don that white coat," recalls Shrestha. That dream fell upon him, the youngest son, and he enrolled at Calcutta Medical College.&nbsp; Freshly graduated he returned to Nepal, where he hoped for a comfortable post at a hospital in Kathmandu. Instead, he was assigned to Jumla, a district which was even remoter and underserved than it is now. But that journey 40 years ago would prove transformative.&nbsp; "It was an eye-opener. I had no idea what rural Nepal was really like. When I reached Jumla, I asked myself why do we become doctors? It is because we have to make a difference," he recalls.&nbsp; The moment that would forever shape his approach to medicine happened at a government-run medical camp. An injured man had travelled from a remote village all the way to Kathmandu for surgery, selling his land to pay for it. He needed to remove his implants but faced a grim reality of having to sell more of his land to afford the procedure.&nbsp; "I thought to myself that we treat the x-rays, but we don’t treat the patients," &nbsp;Shrestha told us in an interview. &nbsp;"What good is a perfectly functioning hand if this man could no longer have a land to plough?" The encounter made the physician realise that healthcare in Nepal should look beyond symptoms and &nbsp;diagnoses, and consider the socio-economic realities of patients. He made it his mission to provide care that didn’t just fix bodies but addressed the underlying factors affecting people’s lives.&nbsp; He co-founded the <a href="https://noh.com.np">Nepal Orthopaedic Hospital</a> in 1998 to provide high-quality surgery at affordable prices. But when he arrived at the site near Gokarna, it was anything but promising.&nbsp; Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-surgeon-with-a-vision-for-the-world"> Nepali surgeon with a vision for the world</a>, Kunda Dixit  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101613108_1a9d74aa1c1b550ff9db42dd8092f214de353ffbb2eb48549db110201424cafd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2024101613108_1a9d74aa1c1b550ff9db42dd8092f214de353ffbb2eb48549db110201424cafd" data-rendition-name="original" width="813" height="520" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal Orthopaedic Hospital"> <figcaption>Photo courtesy: NEPAL ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL</figcaption> </figure>  "It was just two blocks of a one-story building," he recalls. "They said: Here’s the hospital. Run it. But buildings don’t make hospitals. You need doctors, you need equipment, you need patients."&nbsp; With a bold plan and support of friends and international donors, Shrestha started with 15 beds, providing care to anyone in need, regardless of their ability to pay. Initially, 93% of their operating expenses were covered by international donors but in less than 10 years, it had reversed the figures so that most of the cost was covered by internal resources. The hospital is self-sufficient today and does not turn away any patient that cannot afford the cost. Over the past 25 years, it has given more than $1 million in charity care.&nbsp; But Shrestha’s job was far from over. Realising the chronic lack of proper spinal care in Nepal, he got involved with the <a href="https://sisn.org.np/sirc/">Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Center in Sanga</a> in 2001, offering holistic treatment to paraplegic and quadriplegic patients. It was a leap of faith-started with a few friends, a handful of nurses, and no specialised doctors.&nbsp; "We just knew the need. People, especially women were falling off trees and cliffs, injuring their backs," Shrestha says, “They needed rehabilitation and physiotherapy, and we thought, why wait? You start small, and if you’re doing well, others will help you."&nbsp; Shrestha had long believed that healthcare in Nepal needed to reach the farthest corner, and after working with Nick Simons Institute (NSI) he realised that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/jim-simon-s-gift-to-nepal">partnering with government hospitals</a> can better strengthen the overall health system. Shrestha’s journey took another turn when he was asked to join the board of OneHeart Worldwide, whose mission, to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in Nepal’s most underserved areas, deeply resonated with him.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-flying-doctor">Nepal's flying doctor</a>, Kunda Dixit  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241016131020_15d6c1483ea69455b998ba6fd6ecc0ac5eafe3af6effc2214f48f148bee0b540.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241016131020_15d6c1483ea69455b998ba6fd6ecc0ac5eafe3af6effc2214f48f148bee0b540" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Center"> <figcaption>A caretaker with a patient at the Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Center.</figcaption> </figure>  Shrestha’s approach to leadership is as grounded as his approach to medicine, it was never about control but rather always about enabler-ship. He explains: "Humility is key, and treating staff equally fosters a sense of unity and trust that is essential in difficult times.”&nbsp; He recalls a time at the Orthopaedic Hospital when funds were so tight that salaries could not be paid. The trust was so great that staff worked without pay for three months.&nbsp; Shrestha has a vision to open centres for spinal rehabilitation across all seven provinces of Nepal to provide specialised care – since the number of spinally injured patients rises dramatically because of highway accidents. He wants a health system where each district's hospital is properly equipped and functional, thereby discouraging referral of critical patients to Kathmandu over long and bumpy roads. &nbsp; His message to the next generation of Nepali doctors and social entrepreneurs: "You don't have to wait until everything is perfect to get started. All you need is an idea, and if you see a need, jump into it. Start small and you will always have people to help if you’re passionate and clear about your goals."&nbsp; Shrestha avoids the limelight, and had to be convinced to agree to this profile interview. He says, "When you build an institution, don’t think it’s yours. It belongs to everyone who helped along the way." Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-barefoot-doctor-of-rolpa">The barefoot doctor of Rolpa</a>, Pinki Sris Rana

Doctor who does not just treat symptoms

Almost a quarter of a century ago, in December 2000, a group of four anthropologists and historians at the University of Cambridge set out to explore new methods for collecting, protecting and connecting historical multimedia collections relating to the Himalayan region in ways that would widen access to the materials through emerging digital platforms.&nbsp; Sarah Harrison, Alan Macfarlane, Sara Shneiderman and I named this pilot project ‘<a href="https://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/journals/">Digital Himalaya</a>’. We began by digitising older sets of ethnographic data held in European collections to protect them from obsolescence and decay, forward migrate them as new standards emerged, and share them back with originating communities in the Himalayan region and with scholars everywhere through the web and other appropriate and increasingly accessible digital platforms.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101515100_b4aedd4b922b06065357141b8989dba5f04e7adfe33d099f08e0636ae63cfb7b.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024101515100_b4aedd4b922b06065357141b8989dba5f04e7adfe33d099f08e0636ae63cfb7b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1917" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Digital Himalaya"> </figure>  The collections that we host have grown over the years, as has the geographic reach of our project and the network of partner institutions with whom we are affiliated. In all, the Digital Himalaya Project has widened and deepened over time, connecting with new audiences and users online and in person. Digital Himalaya is now, by any estimation, a ‘mature’ Digital Humanities project. It emerged before Google was a household name and long before the term Digital Humanities had much traction. The very survival of Digital Himalaya for these 25 years is an indication of its staying power and endurance.&nbsp; That <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/16-600-pages-of-nepali-times-on-digital-himalaya">Digital Himalaya is still ‘here’</a> after all these years (wherever ‘here’ is in these ambiguously-sited digital spaces) when so many other projects of a similar vintage have folded, tells us something about agility and resilience. The Digital Himalaya project has repeatedly had to make a virtue of a necessity. Born at Cambridge, the project moved to Cornell University from 2002 to 2005, where it also began its collaboration with the University of Virginia funded by a grant from the US Department of Education Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access Program. The project then returned to Cambridge until 2009 when it moved, briefly, to Yale University but without any structural and formal support. From July 2014, the project relocated to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and became engaged in a loose collaboration with China’s Sichuan University. In each case, rather like being part of a large extended and multigenerational family, these alliances helped to demonstrate to our partners, patrons and ourselves that we were mobile and could bend as new opportunities arose, and harness the particular skills and assets in each institution: Nepali language instruction at Cornell, Tibetan Studies at the University of Virginia, community engagement at the University of British Columbia.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101515100_30076d0830cc94f24deb49e84e35a789eab92cf7b382c38f48024fc490529005.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2024101515100_30076d0830cc94f24deb49e84e35a789eab92cf7b382c38f48024fc490529005" data-rendition-name="original" width="4000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="Digital Himalaya"> <figcaption>Komintal Thami scanning back issues of Nepali-language journals in the Digital Himalaya office in Patan in 2010.</figcaption> </figure>  In 2024 Digital Himalaya developed a partnership with <a href="https://www.archivenepal.org/home">Archive Nepal</a>, a non-profit entity that has taken over the day-to-day management and future developments of Digital Himalaya. I have been worrying about the future of Digital Himalaya from the moment that I helped bring it into being. I was at once delighted that we were in a position to help protect, connect and digitally repatriate these precious collections and at the same time troubled by the fact that, once again, the initiative was housed at an elite Western university far from the communities whose cultural heritage we had the honour and responsibility of managing. I was also acutely aware that I embarked on the Digital Himalaya journey long before I had a permanent job adding an additional layer of vulnerability to an already somewhat fragile undertaking.&nbsp; Over the last decade, I have been principally concerned with two matters when it came to Digital Himalaya. First, ensuring that our collections were stable, secure and accessible to communities in the Himalayan region. Second, to find a way to make myself dispensable and disposable. It was always our intention that one day the collection would either be repatriated to the Himalayan region or maintained and managed by professionals from the region. In April 2022, I was approached by Monish Singh, Founder and Executive Director of a new initiative called Archive Nepal, a non-profit based in New York and Kathmandu registered with the Social Welfare Council of Nepal.&nbsp; Its mission is to encourage the understanding of Nepal’s rich history and culture by curating, digitising, and improving accessibility to digital resources. Archive Nepal is run by an impressive collective of professional Nepalis with backgrounds in project management, software development, archives and information management, data visualisation, data analysis, and data migration.&nbsp; Our first partnership involved <a href="https://www.archivenepal.org/nepalitimes">cohosting the Nepali Times collection</a> which was such a success that we entered into a wide-ranging conversation about the Archive Nepal team taking over the management and maintenance of the Digital Himalaya website to ensure its continued accessibility. On 29 May 2024, day-to-day management of Digital Himalaya was handed over to Archive Nepal. It was always the dream of the founders that Digital Himalaya would one day be run by professionals from the Himalayan region, and in Archive Nepal, we found just the partner we had been hoping for.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101515100_4b26be64f05ac3dfb769ccf6c1be63236f280625fac9c094feae044948004888.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2024101515100_4b26be64f05ac3dfb769ccf6c1be63236f280625fac9c094feae044948004888" data-rendition-name="original" width="953" height="715" loading="lazy" alt="Digital Himalaya"> <figcaption>Using a SONY Color Film Chain Adaptor, 16mm projector and a digital camera in Cambridge 2001.</figcaption> </figure>  Digital Himalaya was established to engage in a process of ethical connection and return, ensuring that the historical documentation of Himalayan cultures, languages and publications would be available to communities from the Himalayan region itself, whether online, in print or through local databases.&nbsp; Archive Nepal’s mission is closely aligned with ours: to encourage the understanding of Nepal’s rich history and culture by curating, digitising, and improving access to digital resources. Beginnings are generally easier than endings, whether in relationships or projects. People generally don’t like to talk about endings as these are usually synonymous with death and decline, but those of us active in digital spaces must think critically about not only how we bring things into existence and life, but also how we bring them to a close.&nbsp; Creating dependencies in which projects (or children) cannot live without the people (or parents) who created them is not a position that should be fostered or cultivated, but rather an unfortunate by-product of unhealthy attachment styles and people becoming overly invested in their roles, authorities and importance. Rather like the phoenix of ancient Greek mythology, I have now come to think of Digital Himalaya as an undertaking that will be cyclically regenerated and reborn, gaining new life by rising from the ashes of its earlier incarnation, under new management, as it were, at each transition. As Kahlil Gibran so tenderly wrote, ‘You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.’ This is as true for the work we do as it is for the families of which we are part. With anticipation and excitement, I look forward to the next incarnation of Digital Himalaya under the leadership of Archive Nepal. To look at the PDF archives of Nepali Times from #0 till this week, go to <a href="http://www.nepalitimes">www.nepalitimes</a> and click on the Archive dropdown menu.&nbsp;

A homecoming for Digital Himalaya

Top news

By 2004, many Nepalis were fed up with the war, but peace talks were going nowhere. The public did not trust political parties, the Maoists or even the Palace to bring about real peace. The Peace Accord was finally signed in 2006 but 18 years later, there is peace but no stability. Last week’s deadly floods showed governance neglect and failure. &nbsp;
Excerpts of the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2083">editorial </a>published 20 years ago this week in<a href="http://archivenepal.s3.amazonaws.com/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_216.pdf"> issue #216 1 – 7 October 2004</a>:
Coalition partners in government are falling over each other pretending to be peaceniks. The UML which has staked all on crafting a truce is goading its ministers in the cabinet to call for a unilateral ceasefire. It knows fully well it won’t happen, and repeating it is a fig leaf. The prime minister has made clucking noises, but he knows his decision-making powers are severely limited on security matters. (That was the pound of flesh he paid to get himself appointed chief executive in June.) The NC-led opposition alliance is trying ever so hard to re-align its street mischief to pressure the government to get serious about peace, but everyone knows the only peace process it will support is one in which it is involved.
The Maoists are bombarding the government with statements, online interviews, and rapid-fire rhetorical questions. But how can they be taken seriously when they ambush vehicles carrying international activists campaigning for peasants’ rights, or kidnapping UNICEF workers and bombing hosptials while calling for UN mediation?
One could say that even if the calls for peace are hollow, at least it proves the powers-that-be respect public opinion that totally rejects a prolongation of the conflict. The Nepali people hear the sound of knives being sharpened, and will not tolerate warmongers.
For archived material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/"> nepalitimes.com</a>

State with no governance

Nepal was hermetically sealed for centuries before it finally opened to the outside world only 80 years ago. Prior to that, starting in the 1830s, only a handful of British Residents and a scientists had ever visited the country.&nbsp; Among those select few was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/republic-of-nepal-s-animal-kingdom">J D Hooker</a> who travelled through the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-kangchenjunga">Kanchenjunga region</a> in 1849. A century later, Nepal’s doors were finally opened and saw a flood of mountaineers, academics and researchers. Foreign academics, from both the physical and social sciences, were anxious to make their mark in the poorly studied, but unusually rich and diverse, cultural and environmental geographies of Nepal. Many of Nepal’s own early scientists and conservationists in the 1950s began their careers as the young assistants of foreign researchers. Many went on to become internationally noted academics, field practitioners, and heads of government agencies.&nbsp; Sadly, this generation of Nepal’s scholars has now largely passed on, and many of their contributions to scientific research and conservation successes are in danger of being forgotten by present and future generations. Here is a (by no means exhaustive) selection of five pioneer scholars from Nepal who contributed unusually meaningful research some 60 years ago that advanced Nepal’s development. Today there are few scholars, conservationists, government officials, or writers in Nepal who were not influenced one way or the other by these five individuals.&nbsp; Likewise, scores of senior western scholars and practitioners continue to tell stories of their days in the field with Dor Bahadur Bista, Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha, Kazi Nepali, Upendra Man Malla, or Harka Gurung from Mustang, Dolpo, Kanchenjunga, to Chitwan.&nbsp; Their legacies are alive through contributions to Himalayan botany, social science, ornithology, and geography. DOR BAHADUR BISTA (1926-1995)  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241009081012_b039566f893c7ae0c0f58d0c89442c11d568406cc7bd2c0753f8602cd27f13b4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241009081012_b039566f893c7ae0c0f58d0c89442c11d568406cc7bd2c0753f8602cd27f13b4" data-rendition-name="original" width="442" height="470" loading="lazy" alt="Remembering Nepal’s 5 best minds NT"> <figcaption>Dor Bahadur Bista in the 1970s. Photo courtesy: K DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  Dor Bahadur Bista was a young headmaster of a girl’s high school when he was recruited in 1955 by the Austrian anthropologist <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-salt-of-the-earth">Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf</a> to work as a research assistant in Khumbu for his study of the Sherpa people. Fürer-Haimendorf discouraged him from pursuing higher degrees, Bista went on to become one of Nepal’s best-known and influential anthropologists. His book People of Nepal (1967) was the first comprehensive survey of Nepal’s remarkably diverse ethnicities. In 1991, he published the controversial <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11101">Fatalism and Development in Nepal</a> which, in addition to fame, was to also earn him enemies from the Royal Palace to his own family and friends because of its strong criticism of the caste system. Controversy seems to have been in his blood: Bista once told fellow anthropologist James F Fisher that he had written Fatalism to “shake things up”. He served three years as Nepal’s Consul General in Lhasa (1972-1975), was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Columbia University (1977), Chair of the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS) (1978), and was one of the founders and Chairs of Tribhuvan University’s newly-formed Department of Anthropology (1979).&nbsp; Always one to lead by example, in 1991 he established the Karnali Institute in Jumla with the goal of creating a caste-free, model village. This also led to criticism and even slander from powerful, high caste figures in Karnali. Bista vanished mysteriously in 1995, and his life and disappearance became the subject of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Kesang-Tseten-documentary-on-Dor-Bahadur-Bista,2176">Kesang Tsetsen’s 2015 documentary ‘Castaway Man’.</a> TIRTHA BAHADUR SHRESTHA (1937) During a career spanning more than six decades, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19150">Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha</a> traveled and worked extensively throughout Nepal with noted international botanists such as J D A Stainton (western Nepal, 1965-1966), L H J Williams of the British Museum (Arun and Tamor valleys Nepal,1969), J F Dobremez in Jumla and Saipal (1975), from Langtang to Gauri Shankar with Hirro Kanai, M L Banerjee, and Daniel Nicolson of the Smithsonian Institution (1970s). He also collaborated with The Mountain Institute in what was to become the Makalu-Barun National Park and Buffer Zone in 1992. Shrestha received intensive field-based training in Himalayan botany from the British Museum of Natural History, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and Edinburgh, and with some of the best of the world’s botanists.&nbsp; Tirtha B Shrestha received a doctorate in botany from the University of Grenoble, France in 1977. Between 1961 and 1991, he worked for HMG’s Department of Plant Resources, then known as the Department of Medicinal Plants. His collections are now housed in the Kathmandu Herbarium at Godavari, the British Museum of Natural History, the University of Tokyo, University of Grenoble, and the National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241009081012_28e114def6b2a8c6be50092a2956388c80926c24ca81566d4b9a14603db17aaa.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20241009081012_28e114def6b2a8c6be50092a2956388c80926c24ca81566d4b9a14603db17aaa" data-rendition-name="original" width="437" height="635" loading="lazy" alt="Remembering Nepal’s 5 best minds NT"> <figcaption>Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha in the early 1990s at what was to become the Makalu-Barun National Park. Photo: DAVID IDE</figcaption> </figure>  Among Shrestha’s many notable awards are the National Award on Botany (2011), World Wildlife Fund Nepal Abraham Conservation Award (2005), Balipara Foundation Lifetime Service Award (2016), and Jagadamba Sri Award (2006). In fact, he has received national awards and medals from four different heads of state of Nepal: King Mahendra (1969), King Birendra (1975 and 1986) President Ram Baran Yadav (2012), and President Bidya Devi Bhandari (2020). Since 2000, Shrestha has devoted himself to the advancement of science, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal">biodiversity, and conservation</a> in Nepal through <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4345">frequent publications in magazines and newspapers like this one</a>. He lives in Sanepa with his wife Timila Shrestha, a plant chemist who earned her doctorate from the University of London.&nbsp; HARI SHARAN NEPALI ‘KAZI’ (1934-2021) Perhaps one of the most fondly remembered of Nepali’s early scientists was the self-trained <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/remembering-nepal-s-bird-man-kazi-dai">ornithologist ‘Kazi’ Nepali</a>. He spent his early years in the 1940s studying the birds of Shivapuri, Pulchoki, and within Kathmandu when the city still had trees, green space, and fields. He started collecting and preserving bird specimens in 1952, and even organized a small exhibit for King Mahendra’s Coronation in 1955. Although the British resident to Nepal in 1833, Brian Houghton Hodgson, is reported to have collected nearly 10,000 bird specimens representing 672 different bird species during his time in Nepal, these were all sent back to the UK.&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/birding-with-jimmy-carter-in-nepal">Kazi had to start from scratch</a>, collecting 750 of Nepal’s 875 bird species that are now housed in the Natural History Museum at Swayambhu. He identified 13 new bird species in Nepal, and helped establish <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-great-trans-himalayan-bird-migration">Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN)</a> and the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/protecting-lumbini-s-rare-cranes">Lumbini Crane Center</a>. He worked with world-renowned ornithologists such as Robert Sr and Robert Jr Fleming, authors of Birds of Nepal,1964 to which Kazi made major contributions.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241009081016_ac87680a59072ae6e5ff991c72afc6ab74f8ddcdc3814dd59f1eda2051638c04.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20241009081016_ac87680a59072ae6e5ff991c72afc6ab74f8ddcdc3814dd59f1eda2051638c04" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="Remembering Nepal’s 5 best minds NT"> <figcaption>Kazi Nepali in the early 1990s (left), checking a mist net for capturing birds in the Makalu-Barun National Park and Buffer Zone. Photo: DAVID IDE.</figcaption> </figure>  Bob Fleming Jr. remembers that in the early 1970s Kazi was the only other ornithologist that he and his father trusted to lead the annual Christmas bird count in Kathmandu with three groups at different elevations on the Valley rim. A total of 186 different species were counted one year. Kazi was project ornithologist during the planning years of the Makalu-Barun National Park in the 1980s and 1990s, spending weeks collecting and identifying birds in the remote region. Although <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5755">Kazi never received an advanced degree</a>, his awards and extensive publication record on ornithology were impressive. He had an unflagging interest in all things birds, and shared what he knew generously espercially with the younger generation of Nepali birders. It is hard to forget the smile on Kazi’s face early in the morning, as he whispered the name of bird after bird calling from a distance. UPENDRA MAN MALLA (1932-2021)&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241009081020_b3e05163aedb9971ddc8c166e5ea8851d765aa6ea36e2a3e2884e56d7d02d693.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20241009081020_b3e05163aedb9971ddc8c166e5ea8851d765aa6ea36e2a3e2884e56d7d02d693" data-rendition-name="original" width="883" height="795" loading="lazy" alt="Remembering Nepal’s 5 best minds NT"> <figcaption>Prof Upendra Malla at work. Photo courtesy: Suresh Man Malla</figcaption> </figure>  One of Nepal’s foremost physical and cultural geographers known for a ‘multi-dimensional personality, Upendra Man Malla was a larger-than-life figure, both in physical appearance as well as in lifetime Having interviewed him in fall of 2019 where he seemed to have known and worked with nearly every notable personality, Nepali and foreign, in the past 70 years.&nbsp; Born in Wotu in Kathmandu in 1932, he received his MA in geography from Patna University in 1953 and was appointment to the early Ministry of Planning and Development in 1954, then to the Ministry of Commerce. He was awarded a British Council scholarship for a B Litt from Oxford University in 1957. On return, he became professor of geography at Trichandra College and Tribhuvan University in 1957. He served in a royal committee that charted the political division of Nepal into 14 administrative zones, and 75 districts, working with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/time-capsule-of-kathmandu">Swiss geologist Toni Hagen</a>. the first time that the country had been mapped and administered in such a way.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241009081020_2c6ccc887eb5b5e93a79112f1a2b59e2806407ea1027c01622186017197dd470.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="20241009081020_2c6ccc887eb5b5e93a79112f1a2b59e2806407ea1027c01622186017197dd470" data-rendition-name="original" width="1009" height="549" loading="lazy" alt="Remembering Nepal’s 5 best minds NT"> <figcaption>Members of the 1961 planning team for the division of Nepal into administrative zones and districts. Upendra Malla seated second from the left with Swiss geologist Toni Hagen (bearded) at centre. </figcaption> </figure>  In 1973 he was appointed the first dean of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Tribhuvan University. Prof Malla was the founder of the Nepal Geographical Society in 1961, serving as chair for nearly three decades. He was also chair of the UN’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) in the 1980s and this could have influenced Malla becoming the first in Nepal to advocate the integration of the social and environmental sciences into development planning. From 1979-84 Malla served in the National Planning Commission where he looked after the social sectors. He taught at the Central Department of Geography until retirement in 1995, training a range of young Nepali students who went on to work in the academic, governmental, and non-profit sectors. He heavily influenced the development of geography as an interdisciplinary field of study in Nepal and is fondly remembered for his warmth, personal interest in each of his students, and unparalleled contribution to Nepal’s academic and governmental institutions. HARKA GURUNG (1939-2006)&nbsp; Nepal’s first mountain geographer, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/remembering-harka-gurung">Harka Gurung</a> is remembered as a chronicler of Himalayan peaks as well as of early mountaineering 1949-1960, and as a “genius geographer” by others. He travelled extensively across Nepal in the 1960s and 1970s and wrote Vignettes of Nepal (1980) based on his journey. Among his mentors and associates were the famous British climber and explorer, H W Tilman, Swiss German Gunter Dyhrenfurth, and Austrian mountaineer and cartographer Erwin Schneider. Harka Gurung was born in Lamjung under the shadow of Manaslu (8,163m) and Himalchuli (7,893 m). He did his BS from Patna in 1959, and received a scholarship for postgraduate (1961) and PhD (1965) in geography at the University of Edinburgh. He was the first Nepali to receive a PhD from a European university and lectured widely at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Department of Geography at Tribhuvan University, and at the Population Institute of the East-West Center in Hawaii.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241009081016_abb43c8e6d84ea16aa27c65b7138f7ac55c28c63413cfae4fba19667d89b211c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="20241009081016_abb43c8e6d84ea16aa27c65b7138f7ac55c28c63413cfae4fba19667d89b211c" data-rendition-name="original" width="389" height="634" loading="lazy" alt="Remembering Nepal’s 5 best minds NT"> <figcaption>Harka Gurung in his Kathmandu study. Photo courtesy: SIDDHI MANANDHAR</figcaption> </figure>  He served with distinction in the National Planning Commission (1968-1975), as Minister of State for Tourism, Public Works, and Transport (1977-78), and as Director of the Asia and Pacific Development Centre in Malaysia (1993- 1998).&nbsp; He once said: “The landscape with Himalchuli on the horizon and the Marsyangdi River in the gorge below determined my choice of geography as a profession… and my political beliefs were shaped by the multicultural setting of the village.”&nbsp; Gurung was a prolific writer, publishing 15 books, 7 monographs and 675 articles and reports prior to his untimely death in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-nepal-s-conservation-heroes">Ghunsa helicopter crash in 2006</a> along with many of Nepal’s most accomplished conservationists, including Chandra Gurung, Mingma Sherpa, Tirtha Man Maskey, and Narayan Poudel. He was a strong advocate of the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for development planning. As an astute politician, he was able to move things through government that would otherwise take months or years to be approved.&nbsp; Alton C Byers, PhD, is Faculty Research Scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) University of Colorado at Boulder in the United States and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-kangchenjunga">a frequent Nepali Times contributor</a>. A longer version of this article appears in the November 2024 issue of ECS-Nepal.

Remembering Nepal’s 5 best minds

“अलि अलि अमिलो&nbsp; अलि अलि पिरो&nbsp; अलि अलि गुलियो&nbsp; अलि अलि टर्रो&nbsp; अलि अलि तितो&nbsp; तेसैले त दालभात यति मिठो ।”&nbsp; (‘A bit sour, a bit spicy, a bit sweet, a bit astringent, a bit bitter, that is what makes dal bhat so tasty.’ Inscription at the entrance of the Old Nepal Tokyo restaurant.) Right in the heart of Tokyo’s shopping district of Gotokuji is Old Nepal, a world away from Kathmandu. With an unassuming entrance lit with a dim lamp to read the restaurant’s name, one is immediately transported to the dark, narrow cobblestone alleys of Patan or Bhaktapur.&nbsp; Inside, it is pitch dark with no windows, evoking a traditional Nepali eatery during load-shedding. A narrow corridor reminiscent of Kathmandu’s backstreets leads visitors to an intimate but spacious dining room.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141040_50aa05c951621a704bc2dfadeb7022981782da1539789aae8e7ae8c30581a294.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241011141040_50aa05c951621a704bc2dfadeb7022981782da1539789aae8e7ae8c30581a294" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Photos: OLD NEPAL TOKYO</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141040_02afc769a35cf66b7deded49c6698973eada2d52cc7302394d827c30d661756c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241011141040_02afc769a35cf66b7deded49c6698973eada2d52cc7302394d827c30d661756c" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141040_fa5bcfaeee6c7ad7746605c4625d7de6e4312f9d4a0dc40a602a4d273200317b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241011141040_fa5bcfaeee6c7ad7746605c4625d7de6e4312f9d4a0dc40a602a4d273200317b" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> </figure>  The design is sparse, with earthy tones and enveloped in the scent of धुप incense. There is a घ्याम्पो clay vessel next to a wall filled with खोपा alcoves, just like in the brick and mud houses of old Nepal. The restaurant is the life's work of Ryo Honda, a chef who specialises in authentic but innovative Nepali cuisine with ingredients that he has explored in Nepal.&nbsp; “Each plate is inspired by Nepal’s diverse culture and landscape, even the colours,” explains the Kobe-native in accented Nepali. Each dish in Honda’s Mustang-themed menu is based on the colours of the rugged landscape of the trans-Himalayan region.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141044_fb7af4208db9dfc1eda5202c8d1ae01aed59950d4eb5ee70b8c9aa968eb50642.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241011141044_fb7af4208db9dfc1eda5202c8d1ae01aed59950d4eb5ee70b8c9aa968eb50642" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Ryo Honda. Photo: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141044_b354f6d850bf262f42199899c2884f03244e2d40924b205499f66910cb0ce097.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241011141044_b354f6d850bf262f42199899c2884f03244e2d40924b205499f66910cb0ce097" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> </figure>  The colour-coded dishes include ‘Shyau’ (red, like Mustang’s apples), ‘Alooko Achar’ (grey, like the pebbles on the banks of the Kali Gandaki), sautéed rock trout with green soup called Ghandhau Macha (green), Thukpa (jet black buckwheat noodles, mixed with bamboo charcoal), Bangur Ko Sekuwa (brown, like the rice) and Dal Bhat and Chamalko Kulfi (yellow desert).&nbsp; “I love Nepal because the country does &nbsp;not have only one kind of people and food culture,” explains Honda, 41, during one of his annual visits to Nepal. On this trip, he was exploring Tharu cuisine in Kanchanpur.&nbsp; Honda and his wife Mari also visited Dhankuta, sampling local mushrooms and other ingredients. Old Nepal sources a lot of its ingredients, especially spices like cumin, turmeric, cilantro, jimbu, timur, and pink Tibetan salt direct from Nepal. Some of these items are also sold separately in a spice shop called Sunya one floor above the restaurant.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141036_d61a6d6910c357f91398c48633e28cd6f73e52e3202470209b7feccd36cd10b5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241011141036_d61a6d6910c357f91398c48633e28cd6f73e52e3202470209b7feccd36cd10b5" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Dal Bhat</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141044_838e083c94b36e8de85ca3532133119d605069d27dddba0a9268202933b27be7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241011141044_838e083c94b36e8de85ca3532133119d605069d27dddba0a9268202933b27be7" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Alooko Achar</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141044_929ded9b7be75beec3295351aaee06d976869d950f70c3166eb93224e9f27c5b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20241011141044_929ded9b7be75beec3295351aaee06d976869d950f70c3166eb93224e9f27c5b" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Nepali spices in Old Nepal Tokyo.</figcaption> </figure>  “Nepali food is what it is because of its distinctive aroma,” says Honda, “and much of this has to do with spices unique to Nepal like jimbu and timur.” Honda’s love affair with Nepal began in Kobe in 2007 when he started working at a Nepali restaurant. He got so passionately involved that he wanted to dive deep into the diverse cuisine of this Himalayan nation that he hadn't even visited yet.&nbsp; “If I were to cook Nepali food better, I decided I had to visit the country,” Honda recalls. “I did, and returned to Kobe with new inspiration.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141048_b30dcf5c610d1c2cd48a21c30501deb65c3a14fabf6ce7d38f97af5d56baf41b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20241011141048_b30dcf5c610d1c2cd48a21c30501deb65c3a14fabf6ce7d38f97af5d56baf41b" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Thukpa</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141048_a0a11578723afd63f5e0079f7a8124a4ac5b8edd1333b9ab86b8d466119516bf.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20241011141048_a0a11578723afd63f5e0079f7a8124a4ac5b8edd1333b9ab86b8d466119516bf" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Chamalko Kulfi</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141048_35daaa8f7cdaa03837f2250b47865ac74aa8c90efc43982b825dc3487a321abc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20241011141048_35daaa8f7cdaa03837f2250b47865ac74aa8c90efc43982b825dc3487a321abc" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Ghandhau Macha</figcaption> </figure>  Fast forward a few years and he found himself in Osaka, working at a friend’s restaurant called Dal Bhat Shokudo, where most customers were Nepali students. Ryo and Mari continued visiting Nepal often, traversing the mountains and plains from Dolpo to Bardia, in search of special local ingredients and cooking methods.&nbsp; The trips also gave them crucial insight into Nepali society, and how cooks, many of them women and children, are looked down upon.&nbsp; That is how the idea of Old Nepal Tokyo developed – treating Nepali cuisine with dignity and respect by building a fine dining experience around it.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141048_89b216a6a67e00ea9ffbe9f9d020637237857afb48548140a2d4a50f3eb100ae.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20241011141048_89b216a6a67e00ea9ffbe9f9d020637237857afb48548140a2d4a50f3eb100ae" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Dhok Dhok, Tsampa</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141048_f69e83781ffbd4f717e54099df18cd453515a942f8d8f6437063c5b93bda3c66.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20241011141048_f69e83781ffbd4f717e54099df18cd453515a942f8d8f6437063c5b93bda3c66" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Shyau</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141048_2ce56f29c8114e57e56ceab115f53ee07c8faea79b27f127445e19d18af52cc7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20241011141048_2ce56f29c8114e57e56ceab115f53ee07c8faea79b27f127445e19d18af52cc7" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Bangur Ko Sekuwa</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;“In many ways, Nepal is my business and I was wondering what I could do to give back to the country that has given me so much,” muses Honda, sitting in the Juneli Chiyabari tea room in Patan.&nbsp; “Nepali cooks are not generally considered skilled, and do not make much money. Nepali high-end dining would change that.”&nbsp; Old Nepal Tokyo is a reservation-only, set-menu restaurant, with each course costing upwards of ¥13,000 ($90), and it is listed in the Michelin Guide.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141048_71edfab477ff1f5c4ed4878979b6134b6d25674aae0d052d060342583f198560.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20241011141048_71edfab477ff1f5c4ed4878979b6134b6d25674aae0d052d060342583f198560" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="562" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241011141052_224a388986379ccc5aac13dabae0f37e67febbf5f4b764cdb1c8c61715a1f084.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20241011141052_224a388986379ccc5aac13dabae0f37e67febbf5f4b764cdb1c8c61715a1f084" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Old Nepal Tokyo NT"> <figcaption>Photo: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption> </figure>  “Most customers here do not know much about Nepal and have never been there,” says Honda, “but after eating here, they cannot wait to visit Nepal.”&nbsp; Ryo and Mari eventually want to open a fine-dining Nepali restaurant in Nepal itself. They have published a Nepali recipe book in Japanese. One of the items in it is of a festival-themed dessert, called Tihar, that uses marigold, juju dhau and methi syrup. &nbsp; Honda also experimented with making timur beer, and is now selling it in cans at the restaurant. The reviews are good. Newari cuisine is Honda’s favourite among Nepal's cuisine. “It has similarities to the food from Kobe. We also use a lot of internal organs,” he laughs. &nbsp;

A taste of old Nepal in Tokyo

The Kosi River that flows down from Nepal into India used to be called ‘The Sorrow of Bihar’ because of the floods that historically inundated large parts of the state during the monsoon. Now, it is the Kosi’s tributary Rosi that has become the ‘The Sorrow of Nepal’. But unlike the Kosi, the floods last week on the Rosi had more to do with unregulated quarrying and sand-mining in its catchment and much less with heavy monsoon rains. The Rosi is a small stream at its source below the eastern slope of Pulchoki, which at 2,763m is the highest peak on the rim of Kathmandu Valley. By the time it reaches<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/ancient-panauti-s-french-connection" target="_blank"> Panauti</a>, the mountains flanking the river are mutilated by numerous quarries that crush stones to feed the capital’s construction boom. &nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Vacuum-in-the-villages,1296?fbclid=IwY2xjawFw0mNleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHVa26RvHf8pdcLQPxzP1wBs2aANS78zzDo7dSTleUTNxrxXIq8io6-ujPw_aem_DwMs9OcYoGReKiWJLVYjlg">Vacuum in the villages</a>, Kunda Dixit in Kavre On the other side of Pulchoki on the west is <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3743" target="_blank">Lele, quarries</a> have also scarred the mountains in the catchment of the Nakkhu Khola that flows into Lalitpur and joins the Bagmati River near Chobhar (see map).  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241007151040_a99993c5825e7faa8d0648832620d379500b4389987ccc590acce290c4d3784e.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241007151040_a99993c5825e7faa8d0648832620d379500b4389987ccc590acce290c4d3784e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="755" loading="lazy" alt="Rosi Khola flood"> <figcaption>NASA satellite image on 29 September showing new snow and swollen rivers.</figcaption> </figure>  The Pulchoki catchment received more than 800mm of rain on 27-28 September – half the annual average for Kathmandu Valley. There was no way the Rosi and the Nakkhu Rivers could handle such record-breaking rain. But whereas after previous heavy monsoons, the water just spread into the floodplain, both the rivers are now constricted into narrow channels with new settlements, warehouses, poultry farms and garages along the banks. Added to this, the quarries, sand and boulder mining in the upstream watershed have increased the velocity of the water, and added a heavy sediment load into the flood waters.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241007111016_09c6e62f9bb53ac993b0216646b0c2bc09f64c8b53420fe3d86a0bf81d58731c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241007111016_09c6e62f9bb53ac993b0216646b0c2bc09f64c8b53420fe3d86a0bf81d58731c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1334" loading="lazy" alt="Kosi Khola flood"> <figcaption>There are 22 crusher companies and stone mining operations along the Rosi Khola Valley (top). Panauti and quarries in the Rosi watershed in this Google Map image taken in May 2024 (below). </figcaption> </figure>  The main cause of the massive death and destruction in both the Nakkhu and Rosi valleys last week was because the rivers were forced to flow through narrow channels, and the debris-filled waters swept into the populated floodplains. “After two days of heavy rain, the slopes with the open stone mining were saturated and they just melted,” recalls Purshottam Adhikari, chair of Ward 2 of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/electing-better-future,3714" target="_blank">Panauti Municipality</a> where 23 people were killed. Panauti is a 13th century Newar town situated in the fertile Rosi Valley, situated 40km east of Kathmandu. The Shiva temple at the tri-junction of the Rosi with Punyamati and the mythical Lilamati is where the Makar Mela is held in January every 12 years.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024100711108_9569f6828fabd2361b12a54c16e4fbcfe10b45e7c7575de7dce85c9df68bd454.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2024100711108_9569f6828fabd2361b12a54c16e4fbcfe10b45e7c7575de7dce85c9df68bd454" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="Rosi Khola NT"> <figcaption>Panauti with the Rosi in happier times. Photo: PRASHANT SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  It appears as if the holy rivers took revenge for the desecration of the natural environment. By Saturday morning 28 September, the turbid brown Rosi had ravaged the town, taking away an entire hospital, many homes, schools, temples, bridges, and crops. “We had never such destruction before, we have not even been able to assess all the destruction,” says Dinesh Lama, chair of Panauti Municpality. Shocked residents <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/flood-of-despair" target="_blank">surveying the damage</a> murmur that the gods must have been angered. They say the river has transformed their town’s topography. Said one: “This destruction is much worse than the 2015 earthquake.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024100711108_7f8c74ba6e7dd56c29daa57082058646f7822d2dcf2f16f61aa67c308e9c269f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2024100711108_7f8c74ba6e7dd56c29daa57082058646f7822d2dcf2f16f61aa67c308e9c269f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Rosi Khola NT"> <figcaption>Tipper trucks owned by crusher companies were swept away along with homes, roads and bridges along the Rosi. Photo: ARCHANA DARJI</figcaption> </figure>  Adapted from the <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/143083">Nepali original</a> published on <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/">himalkhabar.com</a>.