The three-day spring <a href="https://www.facebook.com/554072576/videos/pcb.10161634359657577/7637840289564071">celebration of Pāhāñ Charey</a> पाहाँ चःह्रे of the indigenous Newāh people of Kathmandu, last week is the second in importance only to the autumnal ten-day festival of Mohani (Daśain). The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/1260288977714117">annual festival </a>reminds people about the vital role of women in society — from matriarchal gods who have protected the Valley since prehistoric times to married daughters who come home to their parents for a special time of bonding and enjoyment.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130348_debde6edc22c28759ed6cc30e66d22784a3f38c254d4ee764a98e863c3f8fd3b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260325130348_debde6edc22c28759ed6cc30e66d22784a3f38c254d4ee764a98e863c3f8fd3b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1499" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Image of Nyeta Bhulu Ajimā above doorway of her temple at Nyeta.</figcaption> </figure>  According to popular legend, Pāhāñ Charey commemorates the day when Lord Śiva, a stringent vegetarian, agreed to go carnivorous and drink alcohol at the behest of his wife Pārvati. For this ‘disgraceful’ act of eating meat, the Lord was demoted to the rank of a Pisācha — a lowly spirit of the underworld.&nbsp; Hence, the festival is also known as Pisācha Chaturdaśi. Revellers indulge in a lavish feast serving generous quantities of meat and homemade alcohol after paying homage to a nondescript stone that is dug up for this occasion from a small, unremarkable pit in the ground that represents Lord Śiva.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130344_159cee260587537810d930b0ba22ac0a867595aba5335e8954fa08cdda71197c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260325130344_159cee260587537810d930b0ba22ac0a867595aba5335e8954fa08cdda71197c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1227" height="1841" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Neighbourhoods in the inner core of Kathmandu come alive with decorated palanquins parading images of local deities including Ajimā.</figcaption> </figure>  Equally important in the Pāhāñ Charey family banquet is the variety of seasonal dishes that offer high nutrients and balance. Specials of the day are broad-leaf mustard and radish, lovingly addressed as ‘gold flower’ and ‘silver flower’ respectively. Fresh green garlic is another essential item in the day’s menu. Octagenarian Mahalaxmi Rajkarnikar of Tangaḥ, Pātan recalls her younger days, “After the ritual worship of Śiva in the sunken pit, we made eyeliner with soot collected over a ritual oil lamp on a clay container and applied it to our eyes. It gave us women a sense of fulfilment of having initiated the annual fete in a joyous manner.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130340_3b2681cb1be58004fa3598f3ec3974b30970c538cab4043210f39301719b1161.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260325130340_3b2681cb1be58004fa3598f3ec3974b30970c538cab4043210f39301719b1161" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Acrobatic display of Dhunyā pole at Kanga Ajimā temple on day 2.</figcaption> </figure>  Pāhāñ Charey observances start on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight of the month of Chaitra, according to the lunar calendar. Seekers of Tantric knowledge believe that it is rewarding to perform ritual worships and engage in devotional activities on the night of Pāhāñ Charey. The festivities, however, kick off a week earlier. On the eighth day of the dark fortnight of Chaitra, a small Śivaliñga in Paśupatināth in the outskirts of Kathmandu, is paraded through the core areas of the city, formally announcing the arrival of Pāhāñ Charey.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130336_d8201c71aee8cae5c2bc1791326074038f7a2a0774ee264346f901ca26c1922a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260325130336_d8201c71aee8cae5c2bc1791326074038f7a2a0774ee264346f901ca26c1922a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1499" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Shrine of Nyeta Bhulu Ajimā where the procession congregates.</figcaption> </figure>  “This festival beautifully showcases the living heritage of Newāh culture, where devotion, art and community spirit blend seamlessly,” explains culture expert Sandip Maharjan. “Kathmandu comes alive with masked dances, ritual processions, and offerings made at different shrines, as devotees seek protection, purification and blessings.” On the first night of the festival, the elaborate ritual dance sequence of goddess Nyeta Bhulu Ajimā and her sacred ensemble of colourful deities is performed at a major street intersection on the ancient trade route that connected Tibet with India through Kathmandu.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130348_4ea027d45f9f50404fd5bdc9d938de859aa836a21dddc15a4a4049af348a401a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260325130348_4ea027d45f9f50404fd5bdc9d938de859aa836a21dddc15a4a4049af348a401a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1365" height="2048" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Kumāri</figcaption> </figure>  The Tantric performance takes place all night, and throughout the next day, on a raised stone platform across the street from the majestic three-tiered temple of Nyeta Bhulu Ajimā in Nyeta (Naradevi).&nbsp; The graceful, rhythmic masked dance is enacted primarily by the the ancestral protectress Ajimā and her daughter Kumāri, along with an entourage including the eight mother goddesses (Aśtamātrika), to the tune of musicians who play ritual drums, small cymbals and piped instruments.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130336_2d918f175d07841dfd86bde7dd64e2416198eb95f3879d3acc8cfc92edabac5d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260325130336_2d918f175d07841dfd86bde7dd64e2416198eb95f3879d3acc8cfc92edabac5d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1711" height="1141" loading="lazy" alt="Paha Charey NT"> <figcaption>Some of the members of the ensemble of masked dancers.</figcaption> </figure>  Nyeta Bhulu Ajimā, also known as Śweta Kāli Devi, has an emaciated body, three eyes and a sunken belly. She wears a munda mālā (garland of skulls). Standing on a row of human skulls, she brandishes an array of weapons and a kapālā (skull-bowl) in her hands.&nbsp; The abundance of human skulls in her imagery testifies to Ajimā’s Tantric nature. Her fearsome appearance helps ward off enemies, mortal and otherwise.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130340_5bdbb7b6a431c0bd486089930bd4c8c1bf850b16b05ea83eba2c908002021222.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20260325130340_5bdbb7b6a431c0bd486089930bd4c8c1bf850b16b05ea83eba2c908002021222" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Palanquin of Ganeś from Kilaghaḥ neighborhood on day 2.</figcaption> </figure>  Legend goes, when the Kathmandu Valley was still a dense jungle, a king from a faraway land came here on a hunting expedition. Chased by a frightening elephant, he finally took refuge at the base of a large tree at the spot where the Nyeta Bhulu Ajimā temple is now, and prayed to goddess Ajimā. The elephant then left, leaving the king unharmed. Since then, the Newāh community, regardless of its religious affiliation, have worshiped Ajimā as their protectress and female ancestral divinity.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130344_f07317047b747dff6e526e27185db043dbaa748620922da29d6437b620566ef4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20260325130344_f07317047b747dff6e526e27185db043dbaa748620922da29d6437b620566ef4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1365" height="2048" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Decorated umbrella of Ajimā.</figcaption> </figure>  The tantric deity Kankeśori or Kanga Ajimā is one of the eight mother goddesses located at strategic points along the ancient boundary of Kathmandu. The city’s sword-shaped frontier was drawn by King Gunakāma Deva 1,000 years ago to protect its inhabitants from harmful forces. The ornately decorated Kanga Ajimā temple complex, revered by followers of both Śaktism and Newāh Buddhism, lies next to the Vishnumati River, adjacent to the cremation grounds of some Newāh communities of Kathmandu.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130340_5bdbb7b6a431c0bd486089930bd4c8c1bf850b16b05ea83eba2c908002021222.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20260325130340_5bdbb7b6a431c0bd486089930bd4c8c1bf850b16b05ea83eba2c908002021222" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Palanquin of Ganeś from Kilaghaḥ neighborhood on day 2.</figcaption> </figure>  On the third and final day, devotees take the image of the Kanga Ajimā to the ancient market square of Asan on a palanquin in a gala procession. In this reverberating, high-energy ritual known as Dyo Lwākegu, she exchanges greetings with her two Ajimā sisters from other parts of town — Tebahā Ajimā and Wotu Ajimā — amidst a colorful, chaotic crowd in a trance-like atmosphere. Throughout Pāhāñ Charey, neighbourhoods in the inner core of Kathmandu come alive with vibrant parades featuring decorated palanquins carrying images of local deities including Ajimā, her spouse Āju Dyo and Lord Ganeś (known by the Newāh people as Ināe Dyo), accompanied by traditional music bands.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130340_062d67d4465955aaa8e0a55df527f435d4e996b22095794d193763bc8bd280f8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20260325130340_062d67d4465955aaa8e0a55df527f435d4e996b22095794d193763bc8bd280f8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Palanquinn of Nyeta Bhulu Ajimā being readied for Pāhāñ Charey parade on day 3.</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;Married women reconnect with their childhood roots through special worship, while families bond over grand feasts with their married daughters and grandchildren. Pāhāñ Charey is largely regarded as the daughters’ festival. Daughters, grandchildren, other close relatives, and even friends are invited to the feast as guests. In Nepāl Bhāsā, Pāhāñ means guest, and during the festival guests are invited to home to have a good time with fervent ritual worship, food and drinks. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260325130340_9ce8736816da2f86746c7ec6c3d9b6308f4a79f49f7772247ac82330af51d3f8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20260325130340_9ce8736816da2f86746c7ec6c3d9b6308f4a79f49f7772247ac82330af51d3f8" data-rendition-name="original" width="3024" height="4032" loading="lazy" alt="Pahan Charey NT"> <figcaption>Palanquin of Kanga Ajimā at Nyeta neighborhood during Pāhāñ Charey processio non day 3.</figcaption> </figure>  See more photos in our gallery. Alok Siddhi Tuladhar is a cultural preservation activist and documentarian. <a href="mailto:alokstuladhar@gmail.com" target="_blank">alokstuladhar@gmail.com</a>

Pāhāñ Charey पाहाँ चःह्रे

Bottom

There is widespread outrage on social media over the APF enforcing the government’s decision to tax any item worth more than Rs100 that people bring back from India. Videos of Nepalis being harassed by Nepal’s own police have gone viral. &nbsp;

Customs enforcement

Civil servants will now get paid every two weeks instead of every month to ease financial pressure on public employees. The Financial Controller General Office has already started on setting up the technical and administrative preparation needed to implement the system.

Bureaucracy pay

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) registered 166,520 corruption complaints over the past five years in Nepal, reflecting a steep rise — from 12,496 complaints in early FY 2021/22 to over 37,000 in FY 2024/25. Despite the surge only 55 individuals were proven guilty out of 4,662 defendants brought before the Special Court.&nbsp;

Corruption complaints

The past, the present, and the future are really one: they are today. -Harriet Beecher Stowe  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122609120_5c63a3201a7231b9334f98a3a1af867acfc1264e29fc3081810a565a270bde6f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024122609120_5c63a3201a7231b9334f98a3a1af867acfc1264e29fc3081810a565a270bde6f" data-rendition-name="original" width="2700" height="2700" loading="lazy" alt="Miss Moti #1241"> </figure>

The past, the present, and the future are really one

This week, discourse in Nepal’s public sphere has been dominated by numbers and net worth of ministers in the new government following their asset-disclosures.
The inventories revealed the considerable wealth of a majority of the new ministers. This unleashed a deluge of comments and opinion — mostly on social media.
Many considered that Nepal just replaced the old rich with a new rich and that nothing has changed.&nbsp;
Others see it as anti-RSP hysteria. Wealth accumulated when the leaders were private citizens should not be the business of the public, that their financial security will make them less inclined to corruption.
The argument is: plutocrats are less likely to be kleptocrats.
For most Nepalis who voted for the RSP, this has been a new reality check. Most had taken to the streets in September in large part due to outrage over the wealth gap between ordinary Nepalis and those who benefitted from and flaunted wealth and privilege gained through corruption, nepotism, and political connections.&nbsp;
Nepalis saw the nation’s new elected officials as a reflection of themselves — identifying with their youth, their social and professional backgrounds, their disillusionment with the entrenched power structure, their shared struggle. Nepal’s leaders finally seemed approachable and accessible.&nbsp;
The fact that most Cabinet members are well-off, in particular the fact that many of them have generational wealth— even though it might be honestly earned— has made them significantly less relatable to most Nepalis now.
This has also served as another reminder that the political hierarchy is still largely dominated by the privileged class.
Home Minister Sudan Gurung's defensive statement on social media which read, in part, ‘It is not your fault if you are born poor, but it is your fault if you die poor’ (a quote by Bill Gates) did not help.&nbsp;
Gurung later deleted this statement. It drew criticism because it framed poverty as a lack of initiative. This was reductive and unfair to the millions of Nepalis who work their entire lives, often venturing far from home in search for better opportunities. Many faced with unemployment and lack of capital, savings do not have the cushion of inherited wealth to fall back on.&nbsp;
This also serves is a reminder that Nepal does not just need competent leadership, it also needs empathetic leaders.
In any case, perhaps, the depth of scrutiny into how the ministers earned their wealth outside of politics might be unwarranted at this early point in many of their careers.&nbsp;
But on the issue of politico-administrative patronage, cronyism, and nepotism on which the RSP built its institutional and electoral platform, the leadership must be answerable to the public.&nbsp;
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Last week, Prime Minister Balendra Shah relieved Labour Minister Dipak Sah of his portfolio after the RSP found him to have misused his position to ensure his wife’s appointment to the Health Insurance Board, an action for which Health Minister Nisha Mehta was also given an official warning.&nbsp;
But do the same rules apply to other leaders? The newly-appointed Attorney General Narayan Kandel was previously legal counsel to Rabi Lamichhane, and will now have to prosecute Laichhane’s pending cases, representing a clear conflict of interest.&nbsp;
Lamichhane himself has become a member of the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee, which oversees the very law enforcement agencies that are tasked with looking into his cases.&nbsp;
An analysis on Ukaalo this week also exposed how newly-elected RSP lawmakers, many of them influential business owners with direct stakes in the business, finance, tourism, and infrastructure sectors— now sit in Parliamentary Committees that would directly benefit their interests.&nbsp;
Meanwhile, after criticism of its directive that official notices be published or broadcast only on state-run media— police this week arrested a content creator for posting a derogatory video of political leaders including the Prime Minister. &nbsp;
This is the same rule-by-fear tactic thin-skinned leaders of the past have employed to restrict freedom of expression. A Prime Minister who previously publicly criticised the arrest of another rapper over his lyrics as ‘the police having nothing better to do’, who in his own music did not mince his words or shy away from epithets, and who was generous with expletives to lambast legacy parties and neighbouring nations on social media, cannot now countenance similar rhetoric by ordinary citizens.&nbsp;
The Prime Minister is yet to address Parliament let alone the nation. His reputation as a doer-not-a-talker, leader of mystery will only pacify the public for so long.&nbsp;
All this to prove that digital platforms are double-edged swords: the same network that propelled some to power also has the power to speak truth to it.&nbsp;

Gold standard

The dawn air in Muktikot is dewy as the sun sets over the horizon in the mountains of western Nepal. A sad farewell song drifts across the village from a mud plastered house.&nbsp; Rani BK sings a half melody, half lament: “I feel like my own hands are being cut off as you leave.” She is bidding farewell to her youngest brother, 37-year-old Ranne, his wife Akashe. They are going to Bangalore in India to find work. Neighbours gather quietly in the gathering light, some wiping their eyes, others joining in song. “Please, don’t cry,” Ranne says softly. “These tears will haunt us on the journey.” Migration is not new to Muktikot, but the tears are. For decades, nearly every household here has sent its men to India every winter to work. They return in spring to plant their crops.&nbsp; What is new is that women like Akashe BK are now also going, and for longer periods. The couple is leaving their two of their children behind, and will be away for at least five years.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260203130224_f8d2d5980da1f3c1e22944003969d64cffd10f280c523ab207f983ef42b4cb9b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260203130224_f8d2d5980da1f3c1e22944003969d64cffd10f280c523ab207f983ef42b4cb9b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1067" loading="lazy" alt="women migrating"> <figcaption>Daughter and son left behind with Rani BK after departure.</figcaption> </figure>  Ranne has been a daily wage labourer since he was 17, moving across Nepal and different parts of northern India. This journey is different — it will be to southern India.&nbsp; He had borrowed Rs50,000 from a local lender to cover the travel cost, hoping to recoup it from his earnings as a security guard. Aakashe plans to work as a household helper.&nbsp; “We would not go if we have a choice,” Aakase says quietly, her eyes fixed on “We are forced to leave our children. We cannot afford to educate them, there is little to eat here, no water, no work, no electricity.” Their daughter Sitala, 12, and son Dipson, 10, put auspicious red tika on their parents’ foreheads. Aakase sobs as she asks relatives to look after their children and their house.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260203130224_a6316df8ff8a7f95d963396f2a01a7549dca3dcc1ac0364763eecd9f29b7bed7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260203130224_a6316df8ff8a7f95d963396f2a01a7549dca3dcc1ac0364763eecd9f29b7bed7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1067" loading="lazy" alt="women migrating"> <figcaption>Departure of Ranne BK.</figcaption> </figure>  “We may return by the time you finish school,” Ranne tells Sitala, who is in Grade 6. Sitala stands forlorn by herself, not saying anything. Across Muktikot, women who once stayed back to raise children and manage households now join their husbands in India to support families in these remote mountains of western Nepal.&nbsp; Unnati BK, 30, and her husband Barune BK decided to migrate to India after their home was damaged by landslides in 2021 and the family was nearly killed. The arid farms did not produce enough food as rains failed. “Nothing grows here,” says Unnati, who is also leaving for Bangalore with her husband, along with Ranne and Akashe.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260203130228_50db0f2d1827584bc9aa6d19d7d79b385ea1211192ccfc1f1147b245c941912e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260203130228_50db0f2d1827584bc9aa6d19d7d79b385ea1211192ccfc1f1147b245c941912e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1067" loading="lazy" alt="women migrating"> <figcaption>Unnati BK</figcaption> </figure>  After 54 families lost their homes in landslides four years ago, the district administration has set aside Rs500,000 for families including Unnati and Barune. But although nearly complete, they have received only Rs175,000 each. Unnati had realised and told her husband that if they stayed in the village, their sorrows would multiply. So they planned to leave, hoping that a little extra hardship in India would allow them to pay for the education of their three children, who are 11, eight, and six years old. “We chose Bangalore because relatives told us it is easy to find jobs there for both men and women,” Barune says. They plan to leave their children with Unnati’s parents for now, and later send them 250km away to Kailali to attend school.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260203130228_3ee37136e936fe7dba7d1320452c83a17f08805663a7cbb4b6efa986c79147ed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260203130228_3ee37136e936fe7dba7d1320452c83a17f08805663a7cbb4b6efa986c79147ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1067" loading="lazy" alt="women migrating"> <figcaption>Landslide four years ago caused 54 families to lose their homes.</figcaption> </figure>  More than 75 couples from 350 households in Muktikot have left for cities like Mumbai and Bangalore in the past three years alone, leaving behind their children either with their in-laws or in the Tarai cities where they go to school. Ajay Kumar BK, chair of the rural municipality of Muktikot says, “There is a clear intention to leave the village altogether.” &nbsp; Diksha BK, 25, has three sons aged six, three, and one. Her husband Dhirjan works in Surkhet. She and her husband have given up on Muktikot, saying they see no future there. DISASTER-PRONE Muktikot is populated mostly by Dalit families, and used to be named Dumkot after a derogatory term used by higher caste people for Dalits. During the Maoist conflict, many Dalit boys joined the guerrillas and the rebels renamed it Muktikot, meaning ‘freedom’.&nbsp; The village clings to a steep mountain flank wrinkled with rain-fed farm terraces. Many of the men who have left for India have never come back, and now even the women are leaving. The 2020 Disaster Preparedness and Response Plan of Bajura identifies Muktikot as a disaster-prone area, making its rain-fed agriculture vulnerable to droughts. The denuded slopes above are at risk of landslides.&nbsp; The 2021 International Migration in Nepal report counted 13,482 people migrating to India from Bajura alone that year. There are an estimated 3.5 million Nepalis living and working in Nepal — mostly from the western mountains.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260203130228_df4f333c7a5bc0b0a7fd75ae6c2e9f02444a097fc5b13c24dc61a276ea6ac3ff.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260203130228_df4f333c7a5bc0b0a7fd75ae6c2e9f02444a097fc5b13c24dc61a276ea6ac3ff" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1067" loading="lazy" alt="women migrating"> <figcaption>Houses being built under resettlement plan.</figcaption> </figure>  National Environment and Equity Development Society (NEEDS) Nepal found that 70% of households in Sudhurpaschim Province have had at least one member migrating to India at some point in their lives. “Female migration used to be low, but there is now an observable trend of women migrating for work from Sudhurpaschim,” says Prakash Madai of NEEDS Nepal. However, anthropologist Jeevan R Sharma says female migration is not new, what is different is the scale and duration of women migrants. Increasing demand for part-time household help in India makes it a pull-factor for Nepali women from the rural west to enter the informal workforce. “Women used to go only when opportunities arose, working for half a year to maximum two years, and frequently going back and forth,” says Sharma. “The potential rise is likely due to the need for greater income driven by rising cash-based expenses for health, education, food, and purchase of consumer goods.” COST OF LEAVING “Previously people struggled for basic needs, and we did not have the money or the roads to travel to Kathmandu, which is why most people went to India for manual work,” says Kartik Kami, 60, of the rural municipality. “Migration trends have changed because both men and women can make money washing, cooking, and cleaning in cities. Soon, there will be no one to conduct weddings or funerals, only children will remain.” While women from other parts of Nepal began participating in foreign employment three decades ago, women from traditional Sudurpaschim families are only now venturing into the Indian labour market. “This surge is filling a labour vacuum in India created when its domestic migrants shifted their focus to Gulf countries,” explains historian Yadab Devkota. Yet, research paints a social cost. A 2020 study found that children of migrant parents suffer loneliness and neglect due to the absence of parental care and love. Children fall back in studies, and girl children are burdened with excessive workload managing the household and siblings.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260203130232_e1e02cd082e7cbb77243103b2197fd1dfca75531bb9d6f518763afccb9ed452c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260203130232_e1e02cd082e7cbb77243103b2197fd1dfca75531bb9d6f518763afccb9ed452c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1067" loading="lazy" alt="women migrating"> <figcaption>Sitala BK, daughter of Ranne and Aakashe.</figcaption> </figure>  The emotional toll is manifested in anxiety, stress, depression, and in some cases, suicide, especially for those whose mothers have migrated.&nbsp; “The significant shift towards couple migration is driven by families making difficult and high-cost decisions in the hopes of breaking the cycle of poverty,” says Arjun Kharel at the Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility (CESLAM ). “Migration remains primarily a strategy for subsistence rather than development, it is a calculated family decision made in the absence of local opportunities.” Migration to India remains largely invisible to the Nepal government. The country’s foreign employment framework does not extend to migrants going to India. And because they travel through the open border, they are not regulated by formal systems.&nbsp; There is no accurate count of how many Nepalis are working in India, or of Indians in Nepal. According to the Indian Population and Housing Census, there are 600,000 Nepalis working in India, but this is a gross underestimation.&nbsp; A study by Aapti Institute describes Nepali migrants in India as ‘liminal’ neither fully protected as citizens nor recognised as foreigners there, exposing them to exploitation and risk.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260203130232_14a613729f6ebb1db0bec63032cc78abe3087341680b2f88bc0ab4456621b012.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260203130232_14a613729f6ebb1db0bec63032cc78abe3087341680b2f88bc0ab4456621b012" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1067" loading="lazy" alt="women migrating"> <figcaption>Ranne and Aakashe's last night at home.</figcaption> </figure>  “Nepali migrants in India are not covered by compensation if they fall sick and or if die, unlike migrants to other overseas destinations who can receive compensation of up to Rs700,000,” notes labour migration expert Saru Joshi. The recent draft National Labour Migration Policy 2025 of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, and Social Security offers a flicker of hope for migrants to India with provisions for welfare, social security, and mental health support for families left behind. The draft also mandates better data collection of the movement of people.&nbsp; It is unlikely that these initiatives will make any difference to the people who remain in Muktikot. Many like Ranne and Akashe are likely to go to India for work. “If I had only two or three children, I would take my wife to India too,” says Jaya BK, 46. But he has seven children, including newborn twins, whom he has stayed behind to help his wife look after this time, rather than leaving for Uttarakhand in winter like he usually does.&nbsp; With the support of Internews' Earth Journalism Network.

Mass migration from Muktikot

There is one particular wall in Thimi that catches the attention of every passerby. Many stop to look, even those in cars slow down to catch a glimpse of the 2 stories high mural. It is titled झी (pictured below), the Newa word for ‘We’ and it is by artist Pooja Duwal, 27, who admits she had always been afraid of heights before she got on ladders to do these wall paintings. “I was doing paubha painting and thought I should learn a new skill,” says Duwal, who took a training in mural art, and there is no stopping since.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031907034_23a290f14ac22f9cfb9c315876cd93841abbe95c046bb2929c1b27995605bb45.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026031907034_23a290f14ac22f9cfb9c315876cd93841abbe95c046bb2929c1b27995605bb45" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Women mural artists NT 1"> <figcaption>झी by Pooja Duwal. All photos: ANITA BHETWAL</figcaption> </figure>  Murals are different from other art forms -- the canvas is not on an easel but on brick walls or ceilings and have become the preferred medium for social messaging about feminism, democracy or press freedom after Nepal’s GenZ movement. At Kathmandu University’s fine arts department, most of her colleagues chose canvas or sculpture. But Duwal found the the scale of mural paintings irresistible despite the challenges. The main message in her murals is women’s empowerment and झी, for example, depicts the collective identity and solidarity of women in Bhaktapur. Women are shown worshipping at a temple, while others are busy sewing, weaving or farming – showing the diverse roles played by women. &nbsp; “Women would gather around while I worked and ask why I was painting on walls,” she says. “But then they would start telling their own stories. They were proud that they could participate and contribute to my art.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260319090340_b7fe1ba8e59e1004a026ac939a70cb9988125d896911a30d3a62d8483268aa35.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260319090340_b7fe1ba8e59e1004a026ac939a70cb9988125d896911a30d3a62d8483268aa35" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="women mural artists"> <figcaption>Pooja Duwal</figcaption> </figure>  Mural is not an easy art form, Duwal had to overcome her acrophobia climbing rickety ladders on a high wall with her paint can and brush.&nbsp; Over in the nearby town of Sankhu, the mural artists are playing an important role in connecting their ethnic, religious and cultural heritage to people who have forgotten tradition and ancient folklores.&nbsp; Subidha Lama, 20, painted a mural at the Sankhu bus park of women weaving sweaters. This resonates powerfully with Radhika Prajapati who knits sweaters herself and feels her work is being valued and recognized. “It is a great pleasure for us women see our work displayed on the walls, it makes me feel that what I do is important for society,” a beaming Prajapati told us.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031907034_af2ab7e8110b98fc5b078b27081864345d2f4f5ea222fce1ac6289281070d8ef.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026031907034_af2ab7e8110b98fc5b078b27081864345d2f4f5ea222fce1ac6289281070d8ef" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Women mural artists NT 1"> <figcaption>Subidha Lama</figcaption> </figure>  Lama recalls that the first time she climbed a ladder to start her mural, local were puzzled. “Our society still believes that such things are done by foreigners,” she says. “And they are especially surprised that women are painting.” &nbsp; Lama has now gathered some experience, including in the Philippines, where she was commissioned by local communities to paint murals.&nbsp; “If you can invest and commit yourself to it, it can earn you aliving,” says Lama, who is continuously working to inspire and empower women towards this art form. Murals are nothing new in Nepal. Refugee monks fleeing persecution in the Pala Empire in the 11th century brought the traditional Buddhist artform to Kathmandu. The technique peaked during the Malla period, considered the ‘golden age’ of Nepali art.&nbsp; But compared to woodcarving, sculpture, and traditional architecture, the contribution of mural art in preserving local history and tradition has been overlooked. Murals are not just creative outlet, but documentation of our past and present, and how we want our future to be. In the town of Khokana in Lalitpur, Saru Prajapati also started out as a paubha painter, but found the grand scale of wall painting more stimulating. She consults local women to decide on the content of the mural and tells the stories of the everyday lives of local women.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031907034_64cbd675d6f9a89e5ba2b54c8351e3d41e099a81f02c6c0c02d8116978f2b77c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026031907034_64cbd675d6f9a89e5ba2b54c8351e3d41e099a81f02c6c0c02d8116978f2b77c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Women mural artists NT 1"> <figcaption>Saru Prajapati</figcaption> </figure>  People used to poke fun at her while she worked high up on a ladder, but now they are impressed with her work. Prajapati is now encouraging a new generation of women artists to join the field.&nbsp; Samudraman Singh, an artist with experience in both paubha and mural art, says the expansion of art education in universities means more women are taking up mural art, but adds: “Many more women would have joined, but they have family commitments.”&nbsp; Pooja Pant, director of VOW Media that is conducting mural training, says female artists are reclaiming of the physical space in their neighbourhoods. That it is an exercise, making narrative space one’s own, and becoming a means of resistance and transformation through art. “These murals are not just pictures on the wall, they are centres of power,” adds Pant. “They bring women’s history and future to public view. And the streets and walls become a platform for collective empowerment, and helps to inspire other women.”

Painting walls to bring down walls

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Money may not grow on trees, but much of our prosperity does.
Forests quietly support trillions of dollars in economic activity, millions of jobs, and essentials like the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the climate we depend on. In reality, the global economy cannot function without healthy forests.
Forests are far more than timber. They stabilise soils and regulate water vital for agrifood systems and industrial productivity, supply energy and a wealth of forest products, and create space for recreation and ecotourism.
The formal forest sector alone <a href="https://openknowledge.fao.org/items/4c8bd12f-d6b8-4755-a82f-1284c41bf012" target="_blank">contributes an estimated $1.52 trillion annually to the global economy</a>, while <a href="https://www.weforum.org/publications/nature-risk-rising-why-the-crisis-engulfing-nature-matters-for-business-and-the-economy/" target="_blank">more than half of the world’s gross domestic product – some $44 trillion – relies on nature</a>, including forests.
For more than 2 billion people, wood fuel is essential for cooking and heating, and hundreds of millions of people depend directly on forests for their livelihoods. Beyond wood, forests provide foods, medicines, resins, fibers, animal feed and ornamental plants that <a href="https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cd6709en" target="_blank">support around 5.8 billion people worldwide</a>. These non-wood forest products are <a href="https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cd6709en" target="_blank">worth at least $9.41 billion annually</a> and could grow much further.
By storing carbon, forests help protect economies from climate impacts that can cost billions. In Brazil, for example, converting tropical forests to farmland has reduced evapotranspiration – the movement of water from land to the atmosphere – by 30%, raising local temperatures and putting rainfed agriculture at risk. Without forests, global food production simply cannot sustain.
Forests are also part of the natural solution as the world starts to transition towards a bioeconomy based on climate‑friendly alternatives from more emission‑intensive materials such as steel, concrete and plastic. As populations grow, renewable, sustainable wood used in construction for housing can become a cornerstone of a low-carbon economy, while innovative products such as wood-based textiles, food packaging and even transparent ‘glass’ are already a reality.
This will mean increased demand for forest products which is already at record levels. For example, by 2050, the world may <a href="https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/897149ba-87f1-43e8-9514-e7adb6729d57/content" target="_blank">need 1 billion cubic metres of industrial roundwood, </a>more than the 4 billion cubic metres currently being produced each year.
As it is, forests are already under pressure. They are home to up to 80% of biodiversity on land, yet they continue to be cleared for other economic uses, even if <a href="https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cd6709en" target="_blank">deforestation and forest degradation are slowing around the world</a>.
As climate change intensifies, the global economy of the future must look different: more sustainable, more circular, and more closely linked with nature. To get there, we need to bring protection and production together rather than treating them as opposites.
The <a href="https://www.fao.org/home/en/" target="_blank">Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations</a> (FAO) is working to promote the concrete steps needed to realise this vision of healthy forests that support livelihoods and deliver ecosystem services, including through sustainable products.
First of all, meeting rising demand does not have to mean taking more from nature than it can regenerate. Using wood more efficiently, smarter recycling and reusing wood products can reduce pressure on forests.
Long‑lasting uses, such as timber buildings, store carbon for decades, “stretching” each harvested log further. Sustainable forest management is vital to ensure that harvesting of timber and non-wood forest products stays within ecological limits and that forest ecosystems remain healthy.
International trade can also help balance global supply and demand, allowing regions with abundant forest resources to support those with fewer. But trade must be anchored in strong sustainability standards and governance to prevent deforestation and overharvesting of non-wood forest products and to ensure local communities benefit.
Incentive schemes and innovative financing can also help by rewarding those who protect forests and manage them responsibly, from smallholders to larger producers.
The growing bioeconomy, built on renewable materials like wood and bamboo, is ready to be scaled up and offers a promising path forward – as long as it remains firmly grounded in sustainable forestry. To that end, safeguards, clear rules and good governance are essential.
As we celebrate <a href="https://www.fao.org/international-day-of-forests/en" target="_blank">the International Day of Forests</a> on 21 March, one conclusion stands out clearly: without forests, there are no economies. The decisions made now will determine whether we can protect forests and, at the same time, build strong, resilient economies for generations to come.
Zhimin Wu is Assistant Director-General and Director of the Forestry Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

No forests, no economies

The wide <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-river-of-life">Karnali River</a> looks like the sea here in the Tarai, and thick fog makes it impossible to see the other shore. Farmers melt into the mist as they head off to their farms. A weak sun filters through by mid-morning. Pigs nap in their pens, goats are dressed in cardigans fashioned out of jute sacks for warmth, hens peck listlessly at the mud courtyards. Ducks waddle across the country roads, and cars swerve to avoid them. The indigenous Tharu and Sonaha communities here have deeply-rooted socio-cultural ties to the river. They have fished in it for generations, and fish is associated with births, deaths, and weddings. As their name suggests, the Sonaha have also traditionally panned for gold in the sand along the banks. But in recent decades, over-fishing, pollution and infrastructure have led to a decline in the Karnali’s fish population. Last week, near the Satti bridge connecting Sudurpaschim and Lumbini Provinces, the fog lifted to reveal the blue-green Karnali glimmering in the sun. Hundreds of people from Kailali’s Tikapur and Bardia’s Rajapur gathered for the inauguration of the Sakhi Fish Sanctuary — the first conservation effort of its kind in Nepal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260116130120_ef2493a1124a33e90ca39f3a0b861ffef4a8bde6b5d3839f96e2fe7f583d0de8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260116130120_ef2493a1124a33e90ca39f3a0b861ffef4a8bde6b5d3839f96e2fe7f583d0de8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali aquatic reserve"> <figcaption>The Sonaha community have traditionally panned for gold in the sand along the banks of the Karnali River. Photos: GAYATRI PRADHAN / WWF NEPAL</figcaption> </figure>  The sanctuary covers nearly 4 sq km of the Lower Karnali that falls within the two municipalities, and is ecologically significant since it serves as critical breeding, spawning, and nursery habitats for endangered fish, reptiles and mammals.&nbsp; Here are found the rare Gangetic River Dolphin (Platanista gangetica), the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/crocodile-chronicle">Gharial</a> (Gavialis gangeticus) &nbsp;fish-eating crocodile, and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-the-karnali-otters">Smooth-coated Otter</a> (Lutrogale perspicillata). In addition, there are 197 species of fish in the Karnali, of which 136 are found here in the Tarai section of the river. The pebbled riverbed is a breeding ground for fish when the river is low, while the oxbow lakes and loops created by the nearby Satti bridge are nursing grounds for fish. This is what makes this section of the Karnali ideal to be declared a sanctuary. But what makes the conservation effort really unique is that it is an initiative of the two local municipalities, the local Tharu, Sonaha and other indigenous communities. The sanctuary will support the river’s aquatic biodiversity, and is supported by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Dolphin Conservation Centre, Freed Kamaiya Women Development Forum, Small Mammals Conservation and Research Foundation, and the Sonaha Bikas Samaj.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260115110116_f844434e0191df09ad6d6d7887a69491eaf15f0ff1b093c7866ab22cfb0c6c95.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260115110116_f844434e0191df09ad6d6d7887a69491eaf15f0ff1b093c7866ab22cfb0c6c95" data-rendition-name="original" width="1358" height="1312" loading="lazy" alt="6-7 map"> </figure>  MEKONG LESSONS The mayors of Tikapur and Rajapur visited fish conservation zones in Laos along the Mekong River to learn about their conservation practices. &nbsp; “We have indiscriminately killed the fish in the Karnali during the breeding and nursing season,” said Rajapur Mayor Dipesh Tharu at the inauguration. “We felt that if this continued there would be no fish left.” Tharu is aware that some locals are wary of conservation initiatives, fearing that it will ban fishing altogether. The sanctuary will allow sustainable fishing but ban the use of dynamite and poison to kill fish.&nbsp; “The sanctuary will contribute to the conservation of not just fish species, but also the mammals and reptiles that live here,” explained ichthyologist Suresh Wagle. “It will protect the spawning and nursing grounds, restore the natural habitat of fish and ensure their genetic continuation.” Tikapur’s mayor Ram Lal Dangaura Tharu recalled his own childhood spent fishing in the Karnali: “Even two decades ago there used to be plenty of fish here, we used to bring baskets full of them home. Now, it is looking like there will be no fish left. This is why the sanctuary is important.” Local governments taking the lead in conservation allows them to have ownership, and help citizens understand the importance of protecting the riverine ecosystem better.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260116130120_fddc696800b9b38d02736195af2b3535667cde365d56151ccf85eb0756f1ad8f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260116130120_fddc696800b9b38d02736195af2b3535667cde365d56151ccf85eb0756f1ad8f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali aquatic reserve"> </figure>  “The commitment of the local government towards resource conservation, management and sustainable development is what makes this sanctuary so unique,” says Ghana Gurung of WWF Nepal. “In Nepal and across the world, we are seeing indigenous culture and traditions disappear with the biodiversity. This initiative will not just protect freshwater aquatic species but also the culture and heritage of indigenous groups linked to the river.” Komal Sonaha grew up fishing and panning for gold along the banks of the Karnali. The fish provided food, and the gold brought additional income. Sonaha also remembers Karnali brimming with fish when she was young. “But now, there are hardly any left,” she said. &nbsp; Sonaha is also a WWF Otter Champion, and part of the community-run river conservation groups that mobilise local communities for awareness. “Initially there was anger and suspicion among local communities, but now, there is a realisation that the sanctuary is the best thing that could have happened here,” Sonaha added.&nbsp; Sonaha and her family still pan for gold, but with the fish scarce, their primary means of livelihood has shifted to livestock like many other families in Tikapur and Rajapur, supported by national and local institutions.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260116130120_23d679da5c49f22342b4fd80f0d0ec5a1fb4c38fb4ac379d276a959f435b4f68.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260116130120_23d679da5c49f22342b4fd80f0d0ec5a1fb4c38fb4ac379d276a959f435b4f68" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali aquatic reserve"> <figcaption>Local communities whose livelihoods are linked with the Karnali river have been supported by organisations like WWF Nepal and other national and local organisations to set up alternative means of income generation.</figcaption> </figure>  Ashmita Tharu and Pratima Tharu also used to depend on fish, but now have shifted to vegetable farming in Rajapur. This time of year, there is spinach, cucumber, and cauliflower ready to be sold to nearby markets. The women are now financially independent and actively contribute to their household expenses and their children’s education. Said Pratima: “We used to fish in this river without thinking about the consequences. We had no idea how important conservation was.”&nbsp; Ashmita nods in agreement. “Now, we are self-employed and so busy with our vegtables that we do not even have time to fish anymore,” she said. With Tikapur and Rajapur municipalities leading the charge, conservationists hope that other local governments and communities along other rivers in Nepal will follow suit to preserve aquatic biodiversity.&nbsp; “This initiative from the two municipalities is a milestone in conservation,” said Bijay Shrestha of the Dolphin Conservation Centre. “This will serve as a model and can be replicated across the country to conserve our freshwater habitat and the people who rely on them.” Local officials also hope that the sanctuary will provide an opportunity to explore options like fishing tourism. &nbsp; Said Tikapur Mayor Ram Lal Dangaura Tharu: “The Karnali, with its biodiversity, is a river of opportunity and possibility, we are determined to protect it, and make what this river has to offer known to Nepal and the world.” &nbsp; 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/20251224141220_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20251224141220_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758" data-rendition-name="original" width="680" height="103" loading="lazy" alt="SDG"> </figure>

Karnali Aquatic Reserve

The pale green ice on the top of the lake gleams in the pale January sunlight. The dark waters beneath are visible through the translucent frozen surface. This is Thulagi Glacial Lake at the foot of Mt Manaslu in central Nepal, classified as one of the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/danger-nepal-s-glacial-lakes-are-filling-up">most dangerous lakes </a>to appear in the Himalaya due to climate heating.&nbsp; The place is breathtaking not just because of its 4,050m altitude, but the scenery all around. The beauty belies the threat this expanding lake poses downstream along the Marsyangdi Valley. &nbsp; The lake lies at the terminus of the 4.5km long Thulagi Glacier. The local Gurung inhabitants call it Dona Tal. They say it started appearing in the 1960s. Local guide Chandra Bahadur Gurung, 47, has been ferrying trekkers to the spot for about 20 years.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260122100136_a34407fbb58b41554f08d392933ea32360649deaf712e2221686533f81507f58.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260122100136_a34407fbb58b41554f08d392933ea32360649deaf712e2221686533f81507f58" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi glof"> <figcaption>MELTING MOUNTAINS: Thulagi Glacial Lake in Manang has been identified among 47 lakes in Nepal at risk of an outburst flood because of climate breakdown. All photos: DURGA RANA MAGAR</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260122100136_4d3c25c9b4f6eaff3e538b36346471c301d38338514bfdfa9ee63ccd77d20489.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260122100136_4d3c25c9b4f6eaff3e538b36346471c301d38338514bfdfa9ee63ccd77d20489" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi glof"> <figcaption>Yaks graze below Thulagi Himal (7,059m) and Mt Manaslu (8,163m) along the Dona Khola that drains the lake.</figcaption> </figure>  “Dona used to be small, but it has now grown bigger,” he says, gesturing to how the glacier has receded and shrunk. Trekkers used to be able to go to the other side, but now the glacier is riddled with ponds and boulders falling off the moraine that make it dangerous.&nbsp; Gurung adds rather matter-of-factly: “The lake will burst sooner or later.”&nbsp; Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has been studying Thulagi for the past two decades. Topographic maps from the 1960s and early satellite images show the lake being much smaller.&nbsp; When the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-resource-curse">Marsyangdi Hydropower Project</a> project was being built in 1994, the German Institute of Geology and Natural Resources with the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology measured the lake to be already 2km in length. More recent surveys show the lake has increased its size since then to more than 1 sq km. &nbsp; The lake is among 47 <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/meltpools-in-the-himalaya">dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal and Tibet </a>&nbsp;identified by ICIMOD in 2020 due to its size, the risk of landslides and avalanches, and the gradual collapse of the lake’s ice-core moraine dam.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260122100136_9b9fea3665494614c2d89e4202c735fd642a13552d67ca2be3da5c390320ca9b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260122100136_9b9fea3665494614c2d89e4202c735fd642a13552d67ca2be3da5c390320ca9b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi glof"> <figcaption>Local guide Chandra Bahadur Gurung has been taking trekkers up to Thulagi Lake for 20 years.</figcaption> </figure>  In 2018 a team of glaciologists led by Umesh K Haritasya <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/5/798">published a journal article</a> about the evolution of three glacial lakes including Thulagi, Lower Barun, and Imja. Even back in 1976, Thulagi was twice the size of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/from-nepali-press/Diverting-danger,3172">Imja glacial lake</a> in the Khumbu and six times the size of the Lower Barun. The team measured the lake’s depth at 79m, and calculated that it held 36.1 million m3 of water. Since then, Thulagi has been growing at a slower rate than the other two lakes because it is shielded by shadows of mountains. There is also not as much glacial calving in the narrow valley.&nbsp; Nonetheless, scientists and experts have long warned that a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) from Thulagi poses a big risk to four hydropower projects on the Marsyangdi and settlements like Besisahar and Dumre (map).  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260125130136_eac3ccf38d2f91619825ab977bb21ea3eee84d6e87939721f9a8dbb7f0f22504.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20260125130136_eac3ccf38d2f91619825ab977bb21ea3eee84d6e87939721f9a8dbb7f0f22504" data-rendition-name="original" width="2076" height="1444" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi map"> </figure>  The lake feeds into Dona Khola, a tributary of the Marsyangdi where the 49.9MW Dona Khola hydropower project is being built at a cost of Rs10 billion. Another 42MW Super Dona Khola project is planned on the river. “One of the trigger points that could lead to a glacial lake outburst could be the steep lateral moraine, which might be weakened by rapidly melting permafrost,” says Scott Watson, a University of Leeds researcher who was part of the team that conducted the 2018 study. Locals are already witnessing what Watson describes. They say that it was easy to reach Thulagi’s headwaters even until a few years ago, but that is now dangerous because of ice and rockfalls.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260122100136_217a1951a620e8efe11e5936600be172874976a0c04a1031495cf6687ce8f82c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20260122100136_217a1951a620e8efe11e5936600be172874976a0c04a1031495cf6687ce8f82c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1426" height="1070" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi glof"> <figcaption>The 50MW Upper Marsyangdi Hydropower Project station in Lamjung. A Thulagi Lake outburst would damage four hydropower projects on the Marsyangdi and its tributaries.</figcaption> </figure>  GLOF WARNING&nbsp; Glaciologist Rijan Bhakta Kayastha has been studying Thulagi since 1994, and was part of a team that discovered that the lake’s terminal moraine was made up of rocky soil on top and ice at its core.&nbsp; In 2020, Kayastha's team published a study that modelled the route of a possible GLOF. They found that if the lake burst, it would take 2.5 hours to reach Dharapani, and 4 hours to reach Bahundanda 39km downstream. The surge would be 13.7m high at Dharapani and 15m by the time it reached Taal, the village most at risk because it is situated only a few metres above the Marsyangdi. ‘Considering the size of the Thulagi glacial lake and its dam, it seems unlikely that a rock fall or avalanche would cause the lake to breach the moraine dam,” concluded the study. “But an earthquake or climate change would require a separate study. At present, there is no immediate or imminent threat of this glacier bursting.” MEMORIES OF 2021 Across Manang valley, residents are haunted by the memories of the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/himalayan-floods-a-sign-of-worse-to-come">2021 flood on the Marsyangdi</a> that swept away parts of Chame, Dharapani, Naso, and Taal villages.&nbsp; Kamarkali Gurung, grew up on the banks of the Marsyangdi in Dharapani, and had never imagined that the tranquil river she knew could become such a monster. She had saved up to build her own three-story property with 17 rooms.&nbsp; Her family was away that June evening when the flood swept away her hotel. “Not even a spoon remained, everything was gone,” says Kamarkali. “Losing the hotel hurt like losing a loved one. The Marsyangdi flows through my house now, I can never go back.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260122100136_925087c286f18a0374f5d2fae5cc528b6e8b5a55e02813e470c49b923b4f193a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20260122100136_925087c286f18a0374f5d2fae5cc528b6e8b5a55e02813e470c49b923b4f193a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi glof"> <figcaption>SURVIVORS: Kamarkali Gurung's hotel was swept away by the 2021 flood on the Marsyangdi. She now operates her hotel from a rented house in Dharapani.</figcaption> </figure>  Surendra Gurung, also a hotelier, was in Dharapani the night of the flood, and can still remember the fear as the river roared towards the village. “I did not know if I would live or die,” he says.&nbsp; Sirantal village was merely 10m above the Marsyangdi, and was completely destroyed by the flood. Thirty-two people were rescued by army helicopters, and most of the families have now relocated to Taal.&nbsp; One of them is Singha Bahadur Gurung who also ran a lodge for 20 years. “We did not have to buy anything except rice, the soil in Sirantal was so fertile,” he remembers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260122100136_9da9290e59a6d565ae9cb81a850f725ccd937fd658d0adfabccfe4114ec94bed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20260122100136_9da9290e59a6d565ae9cb81a850f725ccd937fd658d0adfabccfe4114ec94bed" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi glof"> <figcaption>Singha Bahadur Gurung operated a lodge in Sirantal before the flood swept it away in 2021.</figcaption> </figure>  Marsyangdi now flows through where Singha Gurung’s village used to be. “Ever since the flood, I am terrified every time it rains from June to August,” he says.&nbsp; The 2021 flood was during the monsoon, and was caused by unusually heavy rainfall in the catchment. A GLOF on the Marsyangdi would be much more destructive. Roshni Ghale, 46, runs a hotel in Taal, and escaped with her family to a nearby cave as the flood engulfed nearby homes.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260122100136_7a6b74a4c33b597e2815b035ec5d56ffea35923016518f0fb35bcc4fc925dccd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20260122100136_7a6b74a4c33b597e2815b035ec5d56ffea35923016518f0fb35bcc4fc925dccd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi glof"> <figcaption>Roshni Ghale spent six months after the 2021 flood rebuilding her hotel in Taal. Tourism has steadily picked up in the four years since the flood. </figcaption> </figure>  “We spent the next six months after the flood rebuilding our lives, going to bed hungry many a night,” she recalls. In the four years since, tourism has picked up again, but the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-unseen-wounds-of-climate-disasters"> community is still traumatised</a>. In the wake of the floods, the government had begun talks to rehabilitate and repatriate the community, but until now, they have been <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/from-one-disaster-to-the-next">empty promises</a>. In any case, the people here, most of them experienced hoteliers whose livelihood depends on tourism, are unwilling to uproot their lives and start over elsewhere.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260122100136_9a13c863422806eefdcd826ed12f9906e2372bd8f60f83c5351652eccf050384.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20260122100136_9a13c863422806eefdcd826ed12f9906e2372bd8f60f83c5351652eccf050384" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="844" loading="lazy" alt="Thulagi glof"> <figcaption>Most of the survivors of the 2021 flood on the Marsyangdi from villages like Sirantal have relocated to the upstream village of Taal, which itself was hit by a monsoon flood in 2021.</figcaption> </figure>  DISASTER PREPAREDNESS Even though studies have assessed the risk of GLOFs in Manang and across Nepal, and warned about the damage that such floods could cause, it took until 2021 for early warning systems to be installed on the banks of the Marsyangdi and in the town of Taal.&nbsp; But beyond that, there has been little preparedness. Early warning systems and disaster preparedness are necessary not just along the Marsyangdi but also at and around Thulagi itself, say experts. Locals here are becoming increasingly aware of the risk posed by the expanding lake up the valley, but are reluctant to leave homes and communities that they have lived in for generations. The hydropower projects on the Dona Khola promises jobs, and the local government is upgrading the hiking trail to Thulagi Lake which has become a tourist attraction. “Manang now gets <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/too-little-snow-too-much-rain">too little snow and too much rain</a>, and the Marsyangdi charts its own course,” says Min Rashi Gurung, chair of Ward-1 of Naso rural municipality, where Thulagi is located. &nbsp; But help may be on the way.Last year, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) approved a $36.1 million grant to help Nepal reduce risk of GLOFs in Thulagi and four other glacial lakes. The project is managed by the government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The project is set to begin next fiscal year, and will reduce the water level in the four glacial lakes including Thulagi, similar to what was done in Imja and Tso Rolpa, says Dinkar Kayastha at the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. &nbsp; Centre for Investigative Journalism - Nepal

Hotter Himalaya melts glaciers

Frontpage topic

Even 11 years later, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/disaster-journalism">25 April 2015</a> is etched into the psyche of every Nepali who lived through it.&nbsp;
Some remember the first crack on the walls. Others recall the low, deep rumbling. Many flash back to the silence that followed, when phone lines were jammed, and how the time stood still between aftershocks.&nbsp;
Many remember waiting for news, for help, for certainty that never came. April 25 did not just shake buildings, it exposed some harsh realities of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/disastrous-preparedness">Nepal's disaster management system</a>.&nbsp;
Disasters in Nepal are not isolated events, they are what medicine would call an 'acute on chronic' crisis. They reveal the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/it-better-be-better-next-time">deeper, long-standing weaknesses</a>: in our road network, our hospitals, governance, and most critically, our lack of preparedness.&nbsp;
Nearly 10,000 lives were lost, entire districts were flattened, thousands of livestock and homes were lost. While attention was drawn to Kathmandu Valley and surrounding areas, most of the devastation was in hard to reach rural areas.
The first responders were not professionals. They were our neighbours who dug through rubble with bare hands. They were mothers who pulled children from collapsed homes. They were communities who organised themselves without training, without equipment, without formal leadership structures.&nbsp;
The first 48-72 hours after a disaster determines who lives and who dies. In Nepal, those hours often pass before outside help can arrive, especially in areas where geography and infrastructure delay response.&nbsp;
If 2015 is too far back to remember, let us look at the 2023 Jajarkot earthquake: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/poverty-killed-a-mother-not-the-quake">a pregnant woman dying from the cold</a>, supplies bottlenecked in district offices instead of reaching villages, and rubble cleared days later.
All of this means that survival depends on communities. And yet, despite having disaster response frameworks on paper, there was no meaningful implementation of community-level preparedness in 2015.&nbsp;
Plans spoke of training, simulations, and local capacity building, but these were not translated into action where they were needed the most. When the earthquake struck, communities responded with courage and improvisation despite their own losses.
But now we have evidence that things can be different. In places like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/devolution-for-development">Ramaroshan village in Achham district</a>, community responders have been trained to recognise emergencies, control bleeding, splint fractures, and stabilise patients after road accidents and falls. They are showing us that when communities are equipped, they can deliver emergency care.&nbsp;
This is crucial not only during disasters but every single day. A bus goes off the road, a child is injured, a woman falls from a tree, a landslide cuts off access, and so on. In these moments, the difference between life and death is often what happens before a patient reaches a hospital.&nbsp;
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/building-back-not-better-after-2015-kxble6c6">Preparedness</a> is not just about earthquakes. It is about building a system that works during everyday mishaps that quietly define our health outcomes.&nbsp;
Sooner or later, there will be another earthquake in Nepal. It is a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/past-disasters-foretold">geological certainty</a>. The 2015 disaster did not release all the energy and there has not been a major quake in western Nepal in over 500 years.&nbsp;
Besides, we also have to be prepared for floods, landslides, and fires, all of them made worse by the climate crisis.&nbsp;
Community-based responses should not be treated as a backup plan, we need to scale it up. We must build local disaster leadership, conduct real drills, and equip communities with basic tools, first aid, and communication systems.&nbsp;
After a disaster event, people also need reassurance that they have not been abandoned, that their lives matter whether they live in Kathmandu or Jajarkot, and that the system sees them. Because when communities feel neglected long enough, the consequences are not only humanitarian but political.
Rural neglect, lack of opportunity, and absence of state presence have contributed to instability and conflict in the past. The Maoist armed insurgency is an example.&nbsp;
Disasters do not create these fractures, but they deepen them. Hence, preparedness is not just about saving lives, it is also about building trust in a state.
25 April should be a day of remembrance, a day where we hold ourselves accountable. It should also be a day of possibility. Disasters, painful as they are, create opportunities for countries to change their trajectory.&nbsp;
The 2015 earthquake was one such moment. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/demographics-of-disaster-in-nepal-quake">Jajarkot was another reminder</a>. We cannot keep letting these moments pass.
This is a call to our new government to invest in systems that start from the ground up, and to take what has worked in places like Achham and scale it nationally. The government has a real opportunity to build communities, not just for them.
This is also a reminder to communities that preparedness is not a privilege, but a right. As we mark the 2015 disaster and mourn the lives lost, we should honour them through action, through real preparedness.&nbsp;
The next disaster is just waiting to happen, and when it does, it will once again test us and our systems. We can either choose to confront it the way we did in 2015 or with communities that are trained, equipped, connected, and ready.
25 April is not over. But our preparedness will vastly differentiate the outcome. &nbsp;
Ramu Kharel is an emergency medicine specialist and Assistant Professor at Brown University in the USA. Hefounded the non-profit <a href="http://www.hapsaglobe.org/" target="_blank">HAPSA Nepal</a> that works to strengthen community based emergency and trauma care in Nepal.

25 April is not over

EVs in Nepal have come a long way since the micro-segment Reva was first introduced in the early 2000s with 2-seat occupancy and giving no more than 80km of range.&nbsp; Mahindra acquired Reva and introduced the upgraded e2O which was well-suited for city driving, but alas they are no longer made. Now, <a href="https://youtu.be/nXFjV_YJiZg?si=B5N4PB2Exoup6JV4" target="_blank">Mahindra’s latest flagship the BE6 </a>crossover EV is a whole new breed, evolving leaps and bounds with its jet fighter-inspired cockpit design and a boatload of futuristic tech. But with such an impressive history of EVs in Nepal and the whole range of models to choose from, it seems we are still addicted to fossil fuels. Not everyone has, or wants, to make the transition to battery-powered locomotion just yet.&nbsp; Even though range anxiety may not be as much of an issue anymore, drivers may not want to wait a whole hour for a fast DC charge to 80% on their EVs, when a quick 5-minute pit stop at a gas station allows them to hit the highway again quickly.&nbsp; But Nepal was second only to Norway last year in the proportion of new cars being battery-powered. And this has to some extent cushioned us from the full impact of the fallout on fuel prices due to the Strait of Hormuz blockade. The uptake of EVs in Nepal was a direct result of tax rebates. As Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle prepares the annual budget, it could be an opportunity to extend tax breaks to public vehicles to further reduce Nepal’s petroleum import bill. Even if the war ends and the strait is opened to tanker traffic, however, energy experts say it will take months for oil prices to stabilise. This means petrol in Kathmandu will stay at Rs219/l or thereabouts for some time yet. It was only Rs160/l before the war. Nepal is 100% reliant on imported fuel from India, which in turn relies mostly on imports from the Gulf states. We are directly affected by the escalating conflict and geopolitical tension. Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) usually <a href="https://noc.org.np/retailprice" target="_blank">publishes</a> a new fuel price every 15 days, for petrol, diesel and kerosene at the beginning, and another at the middle of the English month.&nbsp; But departing from the 15-day rule, NOC has made large out-of-schedule overnight revisions to the fuel prices in the pst month to accommodate global fuel fluctuations. The two-day weekend may help, but the higher prices have already forced consumers to travel less. There are rumours that if supplies from India are further constrained, the government may implement an even/odd number plate rule. Driven by relentlessly rising fuel prices, the willingness to transition to electric mobility, whether two-wheelers or four-wheelers, has never been higher. Your columnist has also observed a surge in inquiries from both new and old EV owners, reflecting a clear shift in consumer sentiment, and recently took out the BYD Atto 2 on a test drive (review below). This growing demand for EVs has its own set of challenges. Global supply chains are already under severe strain, and as demand for electric vehicles accelerates worldwide, production bottlenecks are inevitable.&nbsp; The question then arises: will Nepal have sufficient EV stock to meet this surge, or will consumers be faced with longer waiting periods and limited choices? For the time being, Nepalis must look beyond quick fixes and begin actively reducing fuel dependency in more ways. While switching to EVs offers an immediate alternative, it is not a complete solution.&nbsp; The current oil shock is not just about fuel, but about the future economic model this country will have to adapt to.&nbsp; <h2>Versatile e-vehicle</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260421130444_0ad98a38fd48172bec5d5e83005b0a2f6c06ef5f4d6672d27777b429a70a3848.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260421130444_0ad98a38fd48172bec5d5e83005b0a2f6c06ef5f4d6672d27777b429a70a3848" data-rendition-name="original" width="1784" height="1004" loading="lazy" alt="BYD Atto 2"> </figure>  I got into the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRG23MQKPcY&amp;t=879s" target="_blank">BYD Atto 2 </a>knowing that it met almost all the requirements on my checklist:&nbsp; <ul> <li>Muscular-looking SUV design</li> <li>Decent size battery pack (51kWh Blade Battery) that gave over 300km range (345km WLTP claim)</li> <li>Powerful enough motor with good acceleration (100kW motor producing 290Nm torque)</li> <li>Healthy amount of features and space on the inside&nbsp;</li> <li>Above all, an abundance of ground clearance (200mm) greatly needed for our roads.&nbsp;</li> </ul> The cherry on top was that all this came at a sub Rs5 million price tag. But one nagging question on my mind was: will the Atto 2 drive as well in real life, as it sounded on the <a href="https://www.byd.com/np" target="_blank">BYD website</a>?&nbsp; Getting in, the almost all-black cabin felt premium. Shifting in my seat and turning on the seat ventilation with a push of the accelerator pedal, I found the vehicle had more pull than anticipated.&nbsp; The <a href="https://www.byd.com/np/car/atto2" target="_blank">Atto 2</a> turned out to be a jack of all trades, it had something for everyone. Whether you need to drive from Kathmandu to Nepalganj, rough it to West Rukum, or get stuck in Kathmandu traffic, this was one versatile vehicle. Arnav Upadhyay is a content creator who reviews automobiles and promotes road safety for his Nepali Times column, Drive Line. He is also on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@casuallyannoyeddriver">Youtube</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@casuallyannoyeddriver">Tiktok</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/casuallyannoyeddriver/">IG</a> under the handle Casually Annoyed Driver.

Petrol panic to plug-in promise

When Nepal decided to mark the annual National Yak Day on 20 April 2025, it celebrated an animal that has been the backstay of mountain livelihoods for centuries.&nbsp; The sure-footed yak is more than just an iconic bovine. It is the guardian of the high Himalaya and integral to the identity of pastoralist communities. Yaks provide a lifeline: hauling goods across treacherous trails, providing milk, butter and warm wool for clothing, and providing dung that serves as fertiliser and fuel.&nbsp; (In English, yak is used to refer to both the male and female, while in Himalayan languages it refers strictly to the male, while females are called dri or nak. A dzo or chauri is a crossbreed between a yak and a domestic cow.)  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260420130436_8d828e6e87963b6be7efbf6752f708d06ac026f8b212de382f24d6ce8e023da3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260420130436_8d828e6e87963b6be7efbf6752f708d06ac026f8b212de382f24d6ce8e023da3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1750" height="1313" loading="lazy" alt="Yak"> <figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  At above 3000m, where the air is thin and cold, yaks and chauri have made mountain agro-pastoralism coexist. This transhumance herding and livelihood system, practiced by the Sherpa, Tamang, Thakali, Rai, Limbu and other communities shapes pastoralist identities.&nbsp; The yak also holds deep cultural ties, often featuring in folklore and festivals. Their presence has led to a rich indigenous pastoral knowledge of the alpine ecology, embodying a unique harmony between people and nature. But despite their value and reverence, the animals and the customary practices around them are in peril. Nepal's yak population has plummeted from around 200,000 in the 1960s to just 53,000 today.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260420130436_6684dbdf0990c5f0a4dd8ac353f3ab3c803ad77d99f45b62ec4793ecbe9c55e0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260420130436_6684dbdf0990c5f0a4dd8ac353f3ab3c803ad77d99f45b62ec4793ecbe9c55e0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="National Yak Day 2026"> <figcaption>Photos: FAO NEPAL</figcaption> </figure>  Climate change has led to the degradation of alpine pastures, increasing temperatures, while prolonged winter droughts and unseasonal snow have reduced nutritious pastures. Traditional grazing areas have shrunk, or claimed for other uses. Nepal’s highland youth are migrating to cities or abroad, leading to a decline in second-generation pastoralists as well as a loss of traditional knowledge in yak husbandry. Those who remain face rising losses from predators and disease outbreaks, compounded by scarce veterinary services.&nbsp; At present, fewer than 10,000 households across Nepal still rear yaks, endangering an important cultural heritage.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260420130432_7098ab71303f70ab82c665d1038da8bd28a173b08183d4ec1599021a1fcdffb5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260420130432_7098ab71303f70ab82c665d1038da8bd28a173b08183d4ec1599021a1fcdffb5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="National Yak Day 2026"> </figure>  National Yak Day, therefore, marks an important step in Nepal’s effort to revitalise the yak economy, focusing national attention to its role in food security, livelihoods, ecology and culture.&nbsp; The UN's Food and Agricutlure Organization (FAO) in Nepal is also integrating yak development into its agricultural investment programs, market facilitation, and support for high-mountain communities.&nbsp; Yak herders from 25 districts across five provinces have formed a national federation, uniting to advocate for their needs from grazing rights and market accessibility to better veterinary and extension services.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260420130432_088d493721e598e01e5fed3b5cffaabf85f3267839b50358898edcc3403177c3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260420130432_088d493721e598e01e5fed3b5cffaabf85f3267839b50358898edcc3403177c3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="National Yak Day 2026"> </figure>  National Yak Day has become more than symbolic: it has evolved into a collective platform to drive policy support and cooperative action to keep yak pastoralism alive. The conservation of Nepal’s yak populations is important for the rights, mobility, and the preservation of highland cultures, but it also presents an economic opportunity. The most effective way to sustain yak herding and retain the communities that depend on it is to make it a financially viable livelihood. What has long been practiced as a subsistence activity can, through innovation and value addition, evolve into a driver of economic growth and resilience for herding communities.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260420130436_1fa5a1b49c6171a7f6b1b89661f060c5fabaec8d3364e6bd0a2834f7e4acdca7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260420130436_1fa5a1b49c6171a7f6b1b89661f060c5fabaec8d3364e6bd0a2834f7e4acdca7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="National Yak Day 2026"> </figure>  Yak-based products ranging from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-story-of-langtang-cheese">Himalayan yak cheese in Langtang</a> to churpi and yak wool already secure premium value in niche markets. With enhanced processing, improved cold-chain systems, stronger branding, and greater recognition of the collective rights of herding communities, these value chains hold considerable potential to further increase income. Herder-led homestays and tourism also presents promising avenues for diversification. But <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/langtang-emmentaler">yak herding </a>is inherently dependent on seasonal mobility across highland pastures, yet access to traditional grazing routes is becoming increasingly constrained, and land tenure arrangements remain insufficiently defined.&nbsp; The long-term viability of yak herding systems needs to be addressed. Access to rangelands and recognition of transhumance practices are not secured, the foundations of the yak economy will continue to erode.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260420130432_efc69e496af84a5904b3e101929e2a8124a02f525ac9cc137dbd303d6e0cb724.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260420130432_efc69e496af84a5904b3e101929e2a8124a02f525ac9cc137dbd303d6e0cb724" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="National Yak Day 2026"> </figure>  Revitalising this sector, therefore, requires more value chain investment and private sector coordination; it will also need policy reform and state support.&nbsp; Highland communities need pastoral grazing rights, and strengthened claims on the lands of which they have long been the custodians. Targeted subsidies, transport support, and tax exemptions for high-altitude enterprises can help offset the structural disadvantages of remoteness.&nbsp; With investment, Nepal can create green jobs, curb out-migration from mountain areas, and give young people a reason to carry forward a livelihood that is their heritage. The yak is a climate-resilient animal, and its economy could yield high returns across social, economic, and environmental dimensions.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260420130436_529793aac7a8497a9fefd35a054f256ee611ee2dad09d53a7ba9af91dbb7bec3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20260420130436_529793aac7a8497a9fefd35a054f256ee611ee2dad09d53a7ba9af91dbb7bec3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="National Yak Day 2026"> </figure>  The second annual National Yak Day on 20 April arrives as the world prepares for the UN’s International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) 2026, a global initiative to safeguard pastoralist communities and the fragile rangeland they nurture.&nbsp; By aligning National Yak Day with IYRP themes, Nepal has amplified its message and tapped international partnerships. The shared goal is the economic empowerment of yak-herding families. With secure livelihoods and a voice in policy, Nepal’s mountain pastoralists can continue as stewards of the high mountains, protecting nature as they have for generations. FAO is leading this momentous effort, calling for stronger support for pastoralists from the Andes to the Himalayas. Nepal’s yak herders have been the bedrock to food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate adaptation through their traditional livelihoods.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260420130436_3ed4e181a51ab8beef1dbd84e19d19040e7de39448a07fc4242971d9d69feea8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20260420130436_3ed4e181a51ab8beef1dbd84e19d19040e7de39448a07fc4242971d9d69feea8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="National Yak Day 2026"> </figure>  In Nepal, FAO has been working with the government and national partners to co-host a forum to strengthen Nepal’s Rangeland Policy, aiming to ensure herders have better access to pastures and support services. FAO Nepal is also engaged in the value chain and digital innovation to support yak pastoralists. National Yak Day 2026 is an opportunity to promote a development model that builds on, rather than replaces, traditional livelihoods. Supporting yaks and pastoralists is not just about preserving their past, it is a pragmatic approach to supporting climate-resilient mountain livelihoods.&nbsp; This means recognising pastoral mobility, securing grazing rights, investing in value chains, and ensuring highland communities are not sidelined in national development. The moment for Nepal to act is now by enabling policies, targeted investment, and greater recognition, yak herding can serve as a foundation for a future where economic opportunity, ecological sustainability, and cultural continuity are mutually strengthened for better livelihoods across Nepal’s mountain communities.&nbsp; Ken Shimizu has been the FAO Country Representative for Bhutan and Nepal since 2021.

Nepal’s yak economy

In a swift and decisive move, US forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife to the United States. The current government in Caracas has little choice but to largely submit to Washington’s dictates.&nbsp;
Trump’s motives for the war against Iran remain unclear, partly because the US president has cited various reasons: to finally destroy the Iranian nuclear program, to end the Iranian threat to the Middle East, to support the Iranian people, and to overthrow the terrible regime in Tehran. He remains vague about his reasoning and seems to make off the cuff suggestions for regime change.&nbsp;
Trump had a lofty idea at how he envisions the end of this war. He has suggested “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/03/why-iran-regime-wont-surrender/686422/" target="_blank">unconditional surrender</a>,” followed by his personal involvement in the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/03/05/iran-leader-trump-khamenei" target="_blank">selection of a successor</a>: I must be involved in picking Iran’s next leader.
The swift victory against Iran failed to materialise, an end to the war is not in sight, and a new leader has been chosen without Trump’s involvement. The structures of the mullah regime appear so entrenched that the anticipated regime change following the rapid decapitation of the leadership did not occur. Yet Donald Trump had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/magazine/iran-trump-regime-change-history-eisenhower.html" target="_blank">proclaimed</a>: “What we did in Venezuela is, in my opinion, the perfect, the perfect scenario.”&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-venezuela-hostile-takeover/686469/" target="_blank">The Atlantic</a> calls this attitude a “hostile corporate takeover of an entire country”. Now the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/17/politics/video/trump-cuba-honor-ldn-digvid" target="_blank">US government</a> expects Cuba to surrender. “I think I could do anything I want” with Cuba, Trump declared, now that the island is virtually cut off from energy supplies and its economy is in ruins. He is demanding the removal of Cuban President Diaz-Canel.
In the business world hostile corporate takeovers sometimes work, sometimes they fail. Similarly with Trump’s idea of swift government surrenders. In the case of Iran, he was misguided by the Wall Street playbook. Irresponsibly, he called on Iranians to overthrow the government before the bombing campaign started. Regime change in Iran has now been forgotten and Trump is agnostic about democracy. He is interested to get the oil price down and the stock market up.
Lessons from the past
The concept of regime change—replacing the top of the government to install one more agreeable to the US—is not new to US foreign policy. Proponents of regime change usually point to Japan and Germany as positive examples of successful democratisation. Often, however, the goal is not, or at least not primarily, democratisation, but rather the installation of a government that is ideologically close to the US or amenable to them.&nbsp;
But the “Trump Corollary”, as explicitly stated in the National Security Strategy to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, is not new either. In reality, it was already the Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush doctrine.
Both Trump’s idea of ​​regime change and his rigorously pursued territorial ambitions (Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal) are reminiscent of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, particularly the version of this doctrine expanded by President Roosevelt in 1904.&nbsp;
This doctrine legitimised American interventions in Latin America. At the beginning of the 20th century, the US intervened in numerous Latin American countries in ‘its backyard’, using military and intelligence means: in Colombia, to support Panamanian separatists in controlling the Panama Canal; repeatedly in the Dominican Republic; they occupied Cuba from 1906 to 1909 and intervened there repeatedly afterward; in Nicaragua during the so-called ‘Banana War’, to protect the interests of the US company United Fruit; in Mexico, as well as in Haiti and Honduras.
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/magazine/iran-trump-regime-change-history-eisenhower.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> recently suggested that Trump’s current enthusiasm for regime change is most comparable to that of Dwight D. Eisenhower. During his two terms in office from 1953 to 1961, the once coldly calculating general allowed himself to be seduced into a downward spiral from one coup to the next.&nbsp;
In 1953, the US succeeded in overthrowing the elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh with Operation Ajax. Mossadegh wanted to nationalise the British-owned oil industry. The coup succeeded with CIA support. The US installed the Shah as its puppet. He ruled with absolute power until the so-called Iranian Revolution and the dictatorship of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.&nbsp;
After the successful overthrow of the government in Iran, Eisenhower decided to intervene in Guatemala. The elected president, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, who initiated far-reaching land reform laws, was overthrown in a coup d’état in 1954 and replaced by the pro-American colonel, Castillo Armas.
During this period, the US government also formulated the so-called domino theory, which aimed to prevent governments, particularly in Asia, from aligning themselves with the Soviet Union. The assumption was that if one domino fell, others would follow. It was during this time that the costly war in Korea ended in an armistice. Therefore, countries like Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, and others were on Eisenhower’s domino list.&nbsp;
However, the destabilisation campaigns carried out by the CIA sometimes had the opposite effect. Governments in Indonesia and Syria emerged strengthened from the interventions. Eisenhower left Kennedy with the loss of American influence in Cuba. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, intended to overthrow Fidel Castro, was the starting point for the decades-long blockade of Cuba, which Trump is determined to end now through regime change.
The most dramatic example of failed regime change in recent history is undoubtedly the Iraq War, which began in 2003 under President George W. Bush. The stated goal was to remove Saddam Hussein from power and destroy his weapons of mass destruction. The war led to the overthrow of the regime.&nbsp;
The United Nations and US teams found no weapons of mass destruction despite intensive on-site investigations. Attempts to establish an orderly state in Iraq failed. These experiences, and especially the disastrous outcome of two decades of military intervention in Afghanistan, discredited the concept of regime change.
What are the implications?
The most important lesson taught by efforts to affect externally forced regime change is that interventions often lead to crises that were ostensibly meant to be prevented or solved. The temptation was too great for Trump to miss the opportunity to depose the despised Maduro government.
Scholarly studies of the numerous attempted regime changes and democratisation efforts reveal three key findings. First, simply removing the government from power (whether through assassination, as in the case of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or now in Iran, or through kidnapping as in Venezuela) is insufficient, as such actions often lead to chaos, state collapse, or even civil war. Thus, it will be interesting to watch further developments in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran.
A second lesson from empirical studies of regime change is that democratisation is more likely to succeed if democratic experience already existed in the country. However, this is often not the case.
Finally, if the real goal is democratisation (and not just to secure spheres of influence or oil supplies etc.), it is far more promising not only to hold elections (as in Afghanistan, for example), but to renounce violence and initiate a long-term program with development aid and support for civil society.
Whether the US government will be impressed by these findings, or even acknowledge them, is doubtful. Currently, the American president is euphoric, despite the strong reaction from the Iranian government which he, surprisingly, did not expect. His promises to end the senseless wars and not start any new ones, however, seem to have been forgotten.
Herbert Wulf is a Professor of International Relations and former Director of the Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies (BICC).
This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and has been republished from <a href="http://toda.org/global-outlooks/regime-change-sometimes-it-works-often-it-doesnt/">the original</a> with permission.

Regime change – sometimes it works, often it doesn’t

In the first six days of the United States military campaign against Iran, Washington spent $11.3 billion, according to a Pentagon briefing to Senate appropriations staff. The entire annual operating budget of the United Nations stands at $3.45 billion for 2026, covering diplomacy, political missions, human rights monitoring, and the institutional machinery designed to prevent conflict. In less than a week, one country spent more than three times what the world invests in preventing conflict over an entire year.&nbsp;
Since then, the Pentagon has asked the US Congress for more than $200 billion in supplemental funding to sustain the campaign and replenish depleted munitions stocks.
This is not an anomaly. It reflects a structural feature of the international system: the consistent overfunding of war and the chronic underinvestment in prevention.
The imbalance is not primarily about scarcity. Global military expenditure exceeded $2.2 trillion in 2024 and continues to rise across regions. Over the same period, funding for multilateral institutions has stagnated or declined in real terms. The United Nations, whose core mandate is the maintenance of international peace and security, operates on a budget modest by the standards of national governments, with many member states in arrears on their assessed contributions. This pattern reflects a political economy that consistently privileges the financing of conflict over the financing of prevention.
Part of the explanation lies in political incentives. Military spending is visible, immediate, and readily justified to domestic audiences. It signals resolve and responsiveness to threat, and political leaders can mobilise support for such expenditure quickly, often with limited scrutiny once a crisis is framed in security terms.
Prevention operates differently. When diplomacy succeeds, when tensions de-escalate, when mediation holds, there is no spectacle and no clear political dividend. Success registers as absence. This asymmetry between the visibility of war and the invisibility of peace systematically distorts how resources are allocated.
Institutional dynamics reinforce this bias. Defence establishments are typically well-resourced and embedded in decision-making systems. Diplomatic and development institutions are more fragmented, more vulnerable to cuts, and often politically marginal.
In several major donor countries, development agencies have been weakened or absorbed into broader foreign policy structures, reducing their ability to act early and independently. At the multilateral level, the United Nations depends on assessed contributions that are frequently delayed or withheld, alongside voluntary funding that is unpredictable and often earmarked. Peacebuilding remains one of the least funded areas of the system, despite repeated recognition that prevention is more cost-effective than response.
The consequences are cumulative and mutually reinforcing. When preventive diplomacy capacities are under-resourced, opportunities for de-escalation narrow and conflicts are more likely to reach the point where military intervention appears unavoidable. When the United Nations is tasked with managing complex crises without adequate or predictable funding, its performance is constrained, reinforcing perceptions of ineffectiveness and further eroding political support for multilateral solutions.&nbsp;
The costs of conflict are then externalised globally: military escalation in strategically sensitive regions disrupts energy markets, trade routes, and supply chains, with the resulting increases in fuel and food prices falling disproportionately on low- and middle-income countries. A
t the same time, decisions to mobilise large-scale resources for military operations are typically taken within executive branches, with limited sustained public debate, while the underfunding of diplomacy and development is normalised as a technical constraint rather than recognised as a strategic choice.
It would be misleading to argue that the use of force is never justified. States face real security threats, and there are circumstances in which military action is deemed necessary. In the case of Iran, however, a functioning diplomatic framework had already demonstrated that constraints on its nuclear programme were achievable. The diplomatic option was dismantled, not exhausted. Senior American intelligence officials stated publicly that Iran was years away from the threat cited to justify the campaign.&nbsp;
But the current structure of incentives ensures that diplomacy is too often set up to fail: under-resourced before it begins, and then judged ineffective when crises escalate.
Rebalancing this political economy requires more than incremental budget adjustments. At the national level, it means integrating preventive approaches into foreign and security policy with corresponding investments in diplomatic capacity, development partnerships, and early warning systems, alongside greater transparency in how resources are allocated between military and non-military instruments.&nbsp;
At the multilateral level, member states need to provide more predictable and adequate financing for the United Nations, particularly in peacebuilding and conflict prevention. Addressing arrears in assessed contributions and strengthening flexible funding mechanisms would be immediate steps. Coalitions of middle powers, countries with a strong interest in a stable international order but less directly engaged in great power competition, have a particular role in advancing practical initiatives on prevention financing and institutional reform.
The issue is not whether resources exist. The scale of global military expenditure makes clear that they do. The question is whether states are willing to treat prevention not as an aspiration, but as a strategic priority.
As long as the current imbalance persists, the system will continue to produce the same outcome: rapid mobilisation of resources for war, and chronic underinvestment in the institutions that might make war less likely. This is not a failure of capacity. It is a failure of political choice.
Jordan Ryan is a member of the Toda International Research Advisory Council (TIRAC) at the Toda Peace Institute, and former UN Assistant Secretary-General with extensive experience in international peacebuilding, human rights, and development policy.
This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and has been republished from <a href="https://toda.org/global-outlooks/why-the-world-funds-war-but-starves-peace/">the original</a> with permission.

World funds war but starves peace

<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/homecoming-at-election-time" target="_blank">Pappu Mahara</a>'s campaign for RSP began in Malaysia as he came to Nepal with a suitcase plastered with PM Balendra Shah’s photo. 
Last week, after what he considers a “job well done” he was flying back to Malaysia with a suitcase without the election poster but with high hopes for his, and Nepal’s, future.
On Thursday, the day of his flight, the first session of Parliament was underway. Addressing the House, RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane made an apology to Nepal’s Dalit community. 
Pappu was traveling to Malaysia with Lalit and Abhinash and all three are members of the Dalit community working in a factory to provide for families back home. Migration is an equaliser: it connects talent which is universal with opportunities that are not. It allows people a fresh start no matter their circumstances.
What we do not talk about as much, however, is that this <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/valuing-moral-migration" target="_blank">equaliser</a> itself is not equally accessible. Access to migration requires money, networks and information – all of which are unevenly distributed.
Among the three, Abhinash was part of an initiative by Migration Lab and the group International Manpower Recruitment targeted at the Musahar community to make meaningful migration accessible to all. He did not pay a single penny. He got exactly the job he had been promised. 
Abhinash and other Dalit youth may still have migrated despite not having money, but they would have had to borrow to pay hefty recruitment fees to fraudulent agents. The Musahar cohort <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/fee-free-migration-is-possible" target="_blank">included</a> workers who were victims to passport confiscation by middlemen without any job placement. 
As they prepared to fly back to Malaysia after a 45 day break, the three workers were examples of how targeted labour mobility can be designed to ensure migration benefits the poorest.
One answer is scale: reaching more marginalised communities with ethical recruitment pathways so more people can benefit.
The other is to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/social-remittance" target="_blank">link</a> them to countries offering even higher salaries and better protections for migrant workers.
Abhinash and others would have typically gone to India, a low-cost, low-risk and low-return destination, but they went to Malaysia where returns are significantly higher. But returns are relative: a Nepali in a Malaysian factory earns a basic salary of $422. The same factory job in Korea would pay $1,500 per month. In both cases, overtime hours add to the income.
But there is a catch. Barriers to entry are higher for countries like Korea. Workers have to learn the language and pass a test, unlike Malaysia when an employer interview is sufficient. We helped youth prepare for the job interview so they could show up in the best way possible and pass. But helping workers with language preparation is a wholly different proposition.
In interactions with youth from the Musahar community, I have often asked them informally why they do not opt for Korea. Abhinash, Lalit or others could easily pass the Korean language test if they put their minds to it.
There is lack of information (even misinformation) about migrating to places like Korea. Village-based agents will not share information about the Korean labour market in the villages because it is a government-to-government initiative where brokers have no role at all. 
While not a representative sample, many youth I spoke with do not know such details: how to apply, what the benefits are and how much it can cost. Abhinash thought that it costs upto Rs800,000 to migrate to Korea, which is not true. Actually a Korea placement costs just Rs70,000 which can easily be recuperated in less than a month.
There is also a network barrier. Musahar youth I spoke with did not know a single person who had migrated to Korea or Japan. Not knowing anyone who has attempted to go to Korea or Japan makes it daunting and out of reach. 
We have witnessed this first hand in the case of ethical migration in Malaysia. Word of mouth is one of the most important sources of job information for workers. Friends of Abhinash and Lalit ask us if there are similar ethical opportunities. It takes just one cohort to change perceptions of the unknown, we have learnt.
Lalit is setting up a WhatsApp group with peers from his village who also wanted to get jobs without recruitment fees. He already has a friend that he put in a good word about, 
“My friend is very smart and educated, but has never worked in his life,” he says. It was an honest referral, but not a blind one. 
When we create labour mobility initiatives, a part of the wider goal is also to enable such knock-on effects like building networks, role models, mentors, and reliable sources of information. Only then can we eliminate fraudulent actors.
The government’s apology to the Dalit community for historic discrimination has to be followed through with concrete action. This means creating job opportunities, including for foreign employment that are transformational.
This is in line with RSP’s own manifesto. Goal number 80 states: ‘Families from Dalit and marginalised communities who wish to go abroad for employment will be provided with concessional loans through banks based on recommendations or guarantees from local authorities.’
This commitment can be realised in many innovative ways so people from marginalized communities have access to not just any migration but the most rewarding, safe and transformational ones. 
Unlike India, Malaysia and the Gulf, access to high-return markets like Korea and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-japan-jobs-deal-still-stuck" target="_blank">Japan</a> has a more rigorous preparatory and selection stage. What barriers, for example, do youth from underserved communities like the Musahar face in accessing language preparation classes? Are there gaps in finances, social networks or reliable information that can be addressed? Can they access high-quality instruction? Sometimes, the barriers may be invisible like our own limiting beliefs stemming from unfamiliarity and lack of guidance and role models.
Publicly available administrative data on outmigration is not disaggregated for caste and other factors to help who is migrating, and by extension, who is not.
Not all migration is the same, and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/labour-mobility/our-great-stories" target="_blank">Nepalis</a> understand this all too well. Some return worse off than when they left, others are engaged in “survival migration”. Some come back having built assets or to build thriving businesses. A successful <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/labour-mobility/helping-migrant-returnees-to-pivot-2urk8oo9" target="_blank">returnee</a> contributing to Nepal is inevitably a function of their migration experience: how much they earned, saved, learned, and were protected.
The earlier we become intentional through better program design, training partnerships, recruitment practices, and employer selection, the more likely it is to create positive and lasting change for migrants and their families. That we have an action oriented, proactive government gives us hope. 
We met Abhinash when he had doubts about whether he could actually migrate without paying fees. Now, back home for a break, he encouraged others to migrate ethically directly through recruiters and avoid middlemen. He has bought land, and now plans to build a house on it within the next two years.
A youth from the Musahar community or someone from Bajura should have the information and resources to migrate for rewarding overseas jobs if they wish to do so and to break out of the broker-trap that puts them in vulnerable positions. The new government should undertake measures to ensure that this great equaliser is also equally accessible to all.
Upasana Khadka heads Migration Lab, a social enterprise aimed at making migration outcomes better for workers and their families. Labour Mobility is a regular column in Nepali Times.

The great equaliser

Nepali Times #1307

A concept popularised by Richard Morgan in his 2002 cyberpunk novel, Altered Carbon — set in a future where consciousness can be transferred between bodies — ‘birth sleeve’ is the body an individual is born with.
Using that ideological framework, Jonathan Armour, currently visiting Kathmandu as a resident artist with Space A, has created a <a href="https://thearmourstudio.com/" target="_blank">series of artworks</a>.
Transhumanism can be alarming, but I could connect the idea of sleeves to my own ongoing preoccupation with deconditioning as it relates to depth psychology — ‘a therapeutic process of dismantling deeply ingrained, unconscious patterns, limiting beliefs, and automatic behavioural reactions formed by early socialisation, familial upbringing, and cultural conditioning’.
Anyone can benefit from some deconditioning, but queer and/or disabled individuals might find instant resonance with approaches that support transcendence, whether mentally from narrow societal standards or physically from one’s birth sleeve.
Armour uses numerous cameras to scan an individual’s body from multiple angles and creates 3D images on a computer. Guided by conversations with participants, he then opens up the 3D image using software to create flat portraits of their sleeves.
Before coming to Kathmandu, Armour asked to be introduced to any Nepali artist who might also be working with the human body, and he corresponded with Kapil Mani Dixit online for three weeks in order to plan an immersive collaboration during his residency.
Dixit is known for pioneering nude figurative art in Nepal, a genre still considered taboo in this country, but he had never collaborated so closely with another artist.
As an art student in Dallas, he was uninspired by the Texan flatness. Used to drawing landscapes, he was at a loss. Then a professor invited him to his first class in life drawing: ‘the practice of drawing the human figure from direct observation of a live model, often nude, to develop skills in anatomy, proportion, and gesture’.
Armour’s exploration is a departure from this more traditional, representational art practice. Perhaps, being queer himself, he is mindful of the Gaze Theory and seeking to destabilise power dynamics between subject and object.
On one of their trial studio sessions, Armour and Dixit stood on either side of a semi-transparent drafting film hanging vertically. Using each other’s bodies as surfaces, they used oil pastels to trace, creating impressions rather than clear figures.&nbsp;
In an introduction to their upcoming exhibition, they have described that the material “became a membrane, an interface, a skin between two artists, each from very different backgrounds.”
The Body: Anatomy and Neurology, featuring output from their collaboration as well as from a workshop with six other Nepali artists, will open Friday 24 April at Kathmandu Art Gallery.
Armour was keen to work with Nepali artists, and he says drafting film, “became the surface on which the collaboration played out. It was the meeting point … a synaptic metaphor where their neurons connected, communicated and responded to each other”.
“I used to be afraid of colours,” Dixit says, limiting himself to blacks and browns, but he has been expanding his palette while working with Armour.
After his Dallas exposure to life drawing, Dixit began viewing human bodies as landscapes as well. He has becoming more experimental lately. Instead of focusing solely on anatomical representation, Dixit’s recent drawings have been anthropomorphic and even surreal.
Armour’s methods are even more transgressive. In another collaborative session, a male model lay flat on the drafting film itself while the two artists rotated around the body, sketching impressions from six pre-determined spots.&nbsp;
This allowed the artist to focus on specific body parts from a very close distance within a fixed time frame, while working on the same sheet of drafting film. They used a similar methodology with the six Nepal artists.
One might be doubtful of this whole project, since painting has <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/painting-performance-era-art-reveals-2763962" target="_blank">merged</a> with performance in the social media age. But collaboration is centred in this practice, the marks are witnesses and records of exchanges between artists which were ‘competitive, cooperative and conflicting’.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <video controls src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260424080428_34d2a74ff976da0aa8c12ce69ae41d7734e05b290f9c6765d84c669bea591e4e.mp4" alt="" width="100%" height="100%"></video>
 <figcaption>Body landscape</figcaption>
</figure>

The Body: Anatomy and Neurology
by Jonathan Armour, Kapil Mani Dixit
Opens 24 April, 4PM
Kathmandu Art Gallery

Birth sleeves and synapses

An invocation is an act in which one appeals to a higher being for support and inspiration. Italian artist Sara Guberti set out to do just that with her ongoing exhibition Invocation to the Goddesses at Siddhartha Art Gallery, exploring themes of womanhood and divine femininity. Guberti trained in the mosaic medium at the Gino Severini School in Ravenna, Italy, before getting a degree in art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. While her usual medium is Byzantine tile work, she has tried out a new medium, acrylic on canvas, for this exhibition.&nbsp; Guberti explains this choice: “Each piece is a simple invitation, acrylic on canvas using only three colors: red, black, and white.” She has exhibited in both group and solo showcases across Italy, Europe, and India before arriving in Nepal. Guberti traveled across the world seeking inspiration for her work, encountering women from many different cultures. Throughout her journey, she asked the women to write a message, or simply the name of a goddess in their own culture, inviting them to call upon these figures and embrace the power of femininity.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260419060448_adf861918d14dd47f465bdab692f072c91fb0b8a5d63afdc5dc1c8eca4c2e1b4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260419060448_adf861918d14dd47f465bdab692f072c91fb0b8a5d63afdc5dc1c8eca4c2e1b4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1347" height="1796" loading="lazy" alt="Drawing divine femininity"> </figure>  Spread out across the two floors of the gallery are portraits of different goddesses spanning cultures and religions, surrounded by paintings of flowers. Each goddess’s portrait is paired with a different type of flower, from the lotus to the rose, representing a divine offering.&nbsp; In her titular piece, Guberti incorporated the messages she collected from the women she met along her travels, featuring writing in Newari, Sanskrit, Urdu, French, Italian, English, and Hindi. Many of her portraits are simply titled the name of the goddess depicted: Laxmi, the Virgin Mary, and Saraswati. One portrait, however, has a different title, Mater semper certa est, an ancient Roman principle that directly translates to the phrase ‘the mother is always certain’. The portrait features a powerful female figure with her arms curled inward toward her womb, signifying the undeniable truth of her fertility. A halo radiating around her and a crown above her reinforces her sanctity and power.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260419060452_e20c252b0ba658975c60872389d2c592a80f0f303cf3f67c1866ae263a6c1080.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260419060452_e20c252b0ba658975c60872389d2c592a80f0f303cf3f67c1866ae263a6c1080" data-rendition-name="original" width="721" height="482" loading="lazy" alt="Drawing divine femininity"> <figcaption>Photo: SIDDHARTHA ART GALLERY</figcaption> </figure>  WOMEN AND POWER Guberti chose this portrait as the promotional image of the exhibition. It was the right choice because it represents the core message of her work: that women are undeniably powerful. Guberti’s clear celebration of femininity and shared spiritual identity stands out, creating a space that feels both personal and collective. The exhibition invites reflection not only on shared expressions of devotion, but on what it means to celebrate femininity in this modern age.&nbsp; However, this exhibit is not just calling on women to embrace their power, but for men to recognise it too. “This also serves as a call to action for men to embrace femininity in the world,” Guberti explains. For her, this not only means uplifting women, but also embracing what she calls “feminine qualities” such as compassion and empathy. All audiences should feel invited to visit this exhibition, perhaps with their own invocation in mind. &nbsp; Invocation To The Goddesses Siddhartha Art Gallery Baber Mahal Revisited Until 30 April&nbsp; 11AM - 5PM, Sunday to Friday 12PM - 5PM, Saturday &nbsp;

Drawing divine femininity

‘One early morning, we heard the ambassador’s wife cry out, “Ram, Ram, Ram!” A disaster has befallen Nepal!” She had heard on the radio that a fire had consumed Singha Durbar." This is not about the arson attack on 9 September 2025, but the one on 8 July, 1973. It started in the South Wing of the then single-largest building in all of Nepal. It took two days to bring the blaze under control, requiring the use of explosives to demolish one wing to protect the imposing western facade. As Bhekh Bahadur Thapa recalls in the English translation of his memoir A Life in Public Service: Nepal from Autocracy to Democracy, he was then on leave from the Nepal government serving with the IDRC in Ottawa.&nbsp; He had already served as Nepal’s Finance Secretary at age 25, went on to be Finance Minister and Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank. He was already younger than some of the GenZ ministers in Nepal’s present RSP government. Thapa, now 89, was at the launch of the book in February which was attended by former diplomats and bureaucrats. After speeches by panelists, there was a question from the audience about how Thapa had managed to be the diplomat he was, managing Nepal’s international relations on the world stage.&nbsp; Writer and journalist Akhilesh Upadhyay, who was moderating the panel, responded by going into the section of the book where we see Thapa as an ambassador to the US, playing tennis with White House officials, cultivating a network of contacts to project the identity and welfare of Nepal, and making it possible for a state visit by King Birendra to Ronald Reagan’s America. The book is full of anecdotes that suggest Thapa was a clever and strategic diplomat, always calm and unruffled, easily making friends in high places with his maturity and engaging sense of humour. Thapa’s memoir is heavy on details about Nepal’s administrative history during the years he was active in public service, serving as minister and ambassador under three kings: Mahendra, Birendra and Gyanendra, and alongside five prime ministers.&nbsp; Aside from an insider look on how certain treaties, development deals and research projects in Nepal came into fruition, Thapa goes into great detail about his personal and professional relationships with the kings, ministers, ambassadors, foreign leaders and politicians.&nbsp; As a reader, one is struck by the level of detail around the events that unfolded in Nepal over the years during Thapa’s tenure. Was Thapa recording a journal over the years of the events and the conversations that transpired, or were they committed to his phenomenal memory? Either way, the reader gets a glimpse of Nepal’s recent history from the early days of the Panchayat, through the People’s Movement and the democracy period, the Maoist insurgency, Royal Palace massacre of 2001, and Gyanendra’s coup of 2005.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041204048_125dc8ae300a1e33124f394abe724d42727f83e067b0201d2008b58d60c459a4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026041204048_125dc8ae300a1e33124f394abe724d42727f83e067b0201d2008b58d60c459a4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1584" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="How to win friends and influence nations NT"> </figure>  Not enough is said about the political parties of the time whose presence led to the way Nepal’s multiparty democracy came to be shaped. The book keeps its focus on the administration and the key figures around it, mostly those in the Panchayat era. Towards the second half of the book, we do start to hear about political parties, but not in great depth. Another figure whose presence in the book is conspicuously less prominent is that of his wife, Rita Thapa — the person who seems to have rescued him every time financial quandary or family care became a challenge. Yet, we do not see her as a full person. Perhaps because of the personal tragedies in his life, the children are also barely mentioned.&nbsp; The book is therefore less personal and more technical. Throughout, we learn about Thapa’s thinking as he navigated the world of diplomacy to win him the trust of those who mattered. There are tips here for a new generation of Nepali officials and diplomats about how much commitment and focus is needed to be good at one’s job and serve the national interest. This book adds to tomes that have been written on Nepal’s fragile relationship with India. ‘India has always wished for Nepal to remain dependent on it,’ writes Thapa, who served as Nepal’s ambassador to India and later in the Eminent Persons Group &nbsp;on Indo-Nepal relations that has been allowed to languish. The book has several insights into the Indo-Nepal trysts with diplomacy and agency.&nbsp; China’s role is also recorded, viewed through conversations during a visit to Beijing, but all that was before Nepal’s neighbour to the north emerged as a world economic and military power. The book also has such sudden instances of quirkiness and humour. For instance, we see a young Thapa in America explaining to a government official why he would like to return to Nepal instead of settling down in the US. “Because, Nepal is beautiful,” he said. The text is immaculate and does not read much like a translation, credit for which clearly goes to the team that put the edition together: translator Prawin Adhikari, &nbsp;Anagha Neelakanthan and Bhekh Thapa’s daughter, Manjushree. As Nepal enters a new era of governance and diplomacy, A Life in Public Service: Nepal from Autocracy to Democracy should be essential reading for students of political science, economics and foreign affairs who can gain a fresh perspective on the country’s trajectory.&nbsp; There are dozens of forgotten state secrets recorded in the book, but the reader must also remember this is a story told from one person’s perspective and there may be others.&nbsp; So, what really made Thapa the diplomat he was? I met him in 2004 at the Kantipur TV studio when he was serving as king Gyanendra’s foreign minister. He was there for a studio interview, and I was just done with my English newscast.&nbsp; He surprised me at the door: “Pratibha! I’ve been reading your articles in The Kathmandu Post. You must keep writing.” I thanked him, glad to have been noticed for my work by a stranger. That was perhaps one of the things that set Thapa apart — he excelled at staying close to those in power, while also noticing those who were not.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260412040412_213e706136a038ec9f5e2b8c6d7f7c1e9ceed9479e22fe2884872ad7bd20955f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260412040412_213e706136a038ec9f5e2b8c6d7f7c1e9ceed9479e22fe2884872ad7bd20955f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Book details"> </figure>

How to win friends and influence nations

Just three weeks in, Prime Minister Balendra Shah has already shed two ministers, and is having to contend with the economic fallout of the West Asia war plus the global order that it has upended.&nbsp;
The new dispensation in Nepal has aroused interest in New Delhi, Beijing as well as Washington. The ouster of Home Minister Sudan Gurung, whose first act in office was to arrest former prime minister K P Oli, has foreign policy wonks scratching their heads.
The US sent Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Samir Paul Kapur on a special mission to figure out what is happening in Kathmandu. In town at the same time was Cao Jing, Deputy Director General of the Asian Affairs Department of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And Prime Minister Shah is preparing for an official visit to India.
For the Americans, it is mostly about containing China and looking after the welfare of Tibetan refugees, while pushing its own MCC Compact and State Partnership Program (SSP). Beijing is mindful of the post-Dalai Lama era, and does not want instability in Nepal to encourage free-Tibet activities. India lately seems more wary of American activity in what it considers its backyard.
The Chinese appear relieved to see Sudan Gurung go. Only last week, Ambassador Zhang Maoming met Gurung during which he raised the issue of Tibetan and Taiwanese activities in Nepal, seeking firm commitment that Kathmandu would not harbour activities hostile to Beijing.
“Geographically we are close to Tibet and not to the Mainland, so China remains suspicious of us, especially after the TOB and free-Tibet components that emerged from the GenZ protests,” says geopolitical analyst Indra Adhikari.
Kapur, for his part, met RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane, Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle and Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal. Although investment and infrastructure was on the agenda, the main issue seems to have been about Tibetan refugees. In nearly parallel meetings with ministers, Cao Jing warned Nepal not to be too cosy with the Americans.
For Indian academic and Nepal watcher Sukh Deo Muni, all this harks back to American activity in Nepal during the height of the Cold War. He tweeted: ‘US senior diplomat Paul Kapur's statement in Kathmandu must be understood carefully in New Delhi. He said the US does not want China or any other country to dominate Nepal.’&nbsp;
‘Any other country’ could be a pointed reference to India, and what this means is that Nepal may now have to navigate even more carefully a tri-polar world order reshaped by the West Asia war.&nbsp;
Nepali journalist based in New Delhi Akanshya Shah agrees that the United States may not be seeing Nepal through the Indian lens anymore, while New Delhi does not want heightened US activity in what it considers its sphere of influence. All this is further complicated by recent frostiness in Washington-New Delhi ties.
“New Delhi doesn’t have that familiarity factor it used to with old leadership in Nepal, but it is curious about what the young Balen Shah will do and what kind of relation he will pursue with India,” she adds. “Certain decisions of the Balen government such as ending VIP culture and delivering passport at homes have hugely resonated with the Indian people, he has in some ways become a role model among the youth in India as well.”
India has invited Prime Minister Shah for an official state visit, which will be his first foreign trip as per tradition. Shah graduated in structural engineering from a college in Bengaluru, and knows India well. Shah has injected religious elements into his public exposure as prime minister and this could help project Nepal’s ‘soft power’ in dealing with India.
But he has also been a nationalist on the Limpiyadhura map dispute, and there are other thorny issues like air connectivity, river projects and power exports that need to be ironed out.&nbsp;
Sukh Deo Muni warns that the old Indian diplomatic approach based on religio-cultural stakeholders in Kathmandu may not work anymore. He wrote: ‘India's Modi government must prepare itself well to deal with new Nepalese leadership and their empowered support base, which is self-confident, highly nationalist, aspirant and impatient.’
The RSP’s 22-page National Commitment document said Nepal should abandon its historical ‘buffer state’ identity to serve as a ‘vibrant bridge’ between regional and global powers. Much of this debate is theoretical, and there is much navel-gazing that distracts from regional realpolitik.&nbsp;
“Whether we are a buffer state or a vibrant bridge, in today’s heightened geopolitical scenario we have to have good relations with good neighbours,” explains Akanshya Shah. “What is of paramount importance is that our ties are based on the aspirations of the young generation, so that they are engaged.”
Indra Adhikari goes as far as to say that the concepts of “buffer state” and “vibrant bridge” have both failed and Nepal is neither. “We have had zero roles in mediating or de-escalating the tensions between India and China to call ourselves a buffer state. As a vibrant bridge, we cannot facilitate trade of the two countries. The new government should have researched and consulted more before proposing the same outdated and failed foreign policy concepts.”&nbsp;
What will be much more important for Prime Minister Shah is to continue Nepal’s traditional policy of ‘equidistance’ and convince his interlocutors that it is not an anti-Indian stance.&nbsp;
“At a time when there is increased interest of big powers in Nepal, we need to do a bit of our own homework for the systemic reforms we want,” says Akanshya Shah. “As for India, we first need to clearly define what we want on connectivity, energy and culture. But most importantly, we have to capitalise on the goodwill of India which we haven’t been able to in the past.”
Adds Indra Adhikari: “When it comes to fundamental aspects of foreign policy that ensures and enhances the well being of our citizens, national parties should all have one unified voice that doesn’t change when the government does. Only then the future generations can own it.”

Love thy neighbours (and America)

Home Minister Sudan Gurung resigned on Wednesday following increasing coverage of and criticism over his investment in companies linked to controversial Nepali business figures Sulav Agrawal and Deepak Bhatta, who are currently under investigation for money laundering.
‘I am resigning from the position of Home Minister effective today to ensure impartial investigation into matters associated with me, and to make sure that there is no conflict of interest,’ Gurung wrote, saying that morality and public trust mattered more to him than office.
Gurung ended his message to the nation in English as he invoked the security forces, writing: &nbsp;‘For my country and For the respect of our security forces and For the youths of Nepal.’
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Gurung has become the second member to depart the Cabinet, serving for less than a month, despite the Nepali electorate’s hopes that Nepal would finally get a stable government after the RSP’s sweeping victory in the March elections.&nbsp;
Prime Minister Balendra Shah had sought clarification from Gurung on Wednesday after new details emerged about his shares in two micro-insurance companies, Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life, which are said to have been issued their licence by the Nepal Insurance Authority at the behest of Bhatta and Agrawal.
Gurung denied financial misconduct, saying that his investment in the two companies was included in his asset disclosure and insisting the misunderstanding is because of how the shares have been categorised.&nbsp;
Leaders within the RSP had called for an internal investigation into Gurung as they sought to maintain the party’s platform of clean governance and transparency. As such, Gurung’s position had become increasingly untenable, especially since former Labour Minister was sacked without being given an opportunity for clarification over a disciplinary breach involving his wife’s appointment to the Health Insurance Board.&nbsp;
On social media, Sah on Tuesday seemed to express dissatisfaction over the PM’s request for Gurung’s clarification.&nbsp;
Judging by the comments under Gurung’s resignation post, a significant part of the Nepali public seems to be firmly on Gurung’s side, blaming the mass media and what they call mouthpieces of old parties for driving him out of the Cabinet.&nbsp;
This is a reflection of his meteoric rise and the continued support he has maintained since he stepped into the spotlight as the leader of Nepal’s youth movement in the aftermath of the September protest.&nbsp;
Gurung has made headlines constantly ever since he burst onto the national stage, which includes questions over the degree of his and his organisation Hami Nepal’s involvement in the September 9 unrest, calls to divulge details behind Hami Nepal’s finances, and not paying five years of rent for an illegal lakefront property in Pokhara.&nbsp;
There have also been unsubstantiated claims, despite Gurung’s denial, about his ‘ties’ to the Free Tibet movement, which has made the Chinese— as well as Nepalis— wary.&nbsp;
As Home Minister, Gurung cultivated an image of a tough but approachabe leader, overseeing a series of high-profile arrests of previous political leadership and business figures even as he posted photos of sleeping in a sofa in his office, and engaged with the public on the streets and on social media.&nbsp;
As it stands, the Home Ministry was a bone of contention between Shah and RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane before it was awarded to Gurung, who is a close ally of PM Shah. Analysts had noted that with Gurung in charge, the Home Ministry would be a hook for Shah if Lamichhane, with his share of controversies, stepped out of line.&nbsp;
Following Gurung’s resignation, the Prime Minister’s secretariat has said that the PM would take charge of the portfolio for the time being. But it will be interesting to see if and how fresh negotiations for the Ministry unfold within RSP.&nbsp;
And with his supporter base largely intact, it remains to be seen how much of an impact this setback will have on Sudan Gurung’s political aspirations.&nbsp;

Home Minister Sudan Gurung resigns

Sudan Gurung is dancing. It is 2009. He has an emo fringe falling over one eye and is spinning on a polished floor. His dance shows dedication — moves that take years of bruised elbows to land. The clip is 16 years old, and had been sitting in the dead archives of YouTube and old Facebook pages, watched by almost nobody. This month <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@4gr4j/video/7621892206902725909">it has 1.9 million views</a>. Gurung became Home Minister on 27 March and resigned on Wednesday, barely a month into office. His<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@aayvik/video/7626069452177542408"> pre-political life had been put back into circulation</a> at industrial speed -- the b-boying, the DJ sets, and the YouTube video of him dancing in a music clip.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026042202040_71df4d531423e7c941abde95fb8106346c70ab0afb71bbeb520cc570f14ba178.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026042202040_71df4d531423e7c941abde95fb8106346c70ab0afb71bbeb520cc570f14ba178" data-rendition-name="original" width="2300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit"> </figure>  The youth of Nepal, well-versed in snappy TikTok edits and aura compilations, turned the archive into a meme economy almost overnight. TikTok remixed the footage to trap beats. The comments settled on a nickname that crossed into everyday speech within days: 'Homie Minister'. <div class="embed-block"><blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@yalexthwreal/video/7622325255792512276" data-video-id="7622325255792512276" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;" > <section> <a target="_blank" title="@yalexthwreal" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@yalexthwreal?refer=embed">@yalexthwreal</a> <a title="sudangurung" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/sudangurung?refer=embed">#sudangurung</a> new home minister of Nepal😎 <a title="fyppppppppppppppppppppppp" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyppppppppppppppppppppppp?refer=embed">#fyppppppppppppppppppppppp</a> <a title="sudangrg" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/sudangrg?refer=embed">#sudangrg</a> <a title="home" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/home?refer=embed">#home</a> <a title="minister" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/minister?refer=embed">#minister</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - •⪨н є α я т ❤н α ¢ к є я ⪩• - Music Universe 🎧" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-•⪨н-є-α-я-т-❤н-α-¢-к-є-я-⪩•-7308733170064231170?refer=embed">♬ original sound - •⪨н є α я т ❤н α ¢ к є я ⪩• - Music Universe 🎧</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script></div> As Home Minister, Gurung was in charge of the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, Department of Immigration, and the country's internal security apparatus. Calling him 'homie' collapsed the distance between that office and the Discord server where the movement that brought him into power had organised itself. What is harder to explain is why the nostalgic clips did the narrative work for Gurung's political standing right up until the moment the paperwork did not. A teenager on a dance floor in a Thamel club, filmed before smartphones had decent cameras, was functioning as political currency for a powerful home minister, while a share registry was quietly filling the other column. The footage was not an argument. Gurung was not doing anything in it that related to home affairs. He was just dancing. The comments compared him to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@4gr4j/video/7621892206902725909">Korean film heroes</a>. A separate <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@tandavyt7/video/7622151050128018708">48,000-like edit</a> was captioned 'Our New Home Minister Aura'. The replies were full of people saying they got chills listening to him speak. Even after his resignation, most comments on his Facebook page were supportive, saying he had been punished for pursuing truth and justice.&nbsp; Political legitimacy in Nepal has been built out of many things over the last 70 years, but it has never been built out of this. The question was always: what happens when the job starts demanding things his style, boldness, and swag cannot provide. Political aura in Nepal used to be a slow harvest, now it isn't. B P Koirala spent eight years in prison under the Panchayat. He wrote fiction at Sundari Jal. The writing survived, the prison sentences survived, and that experience became the template for what a serious Nepali politician looked like: someone the state had tried to break and failed. Legitimacy was accumulated by having their lives taken away, and refusing to bend the knee. The old mechanics of legitimacy produced politicians who could be audited. The record was made of words, dates, votes, and years behind bars. A voter who wanted to know what a leader stood for read his writings. A journalist digging for inconsistency could find it. The system was slow, often corrupt, and frequently boring. But boring was part of the job description. A minister was supposed to be slightly dull — evidence that the person was doing the unglamorous work of reading files and sitting through committee meetings. Today, boring is a disqualification. The attention economy rewards velocity and visual charge, and a politician who cannot generate either does not exist in the feed, and that means does not exist at all. The legacy parties are still issuing press statements criticising the new guard in the grammar of paper trails and procedural failure. But the audience has stopped reading, users scroll for their next viral bite. Sudan Gurung, unlike the old parties, understood exactly which grammar the feed rewarded. On his first evening as Home Minister, he posted a photo of himself sleeping on a sofa inside the ministry. Caption: creation cannot be greater than the creator, government is not above the people. The image travelled further in 12 hours than any ministerial press release has ever done.&nbsp; A minister napping on a sofa, phone-shot, zero production, read by the public as evidence of a minister who had skipped the motorcade and got straight to work. Gurung used Facebook to announce the names of former ministers and businessmen he intended to arrest. The feed was used to pre-announce state security action.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260422010456_2fa1918e1dd031d01f38b4001ee306d9414073cec0b795fa43a75cb5a8deb8c7.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260422010456_2fa1918e1dd031d01f38b4001ee306d9414073cec0b795fa43a75cb5a8deb8c7" data-rendition-name="original" width="926" height="868" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit"> </figure>  INFLUENTIAL INFLUENCER This is not how the Ministry of Home Affairs has ever operated. It is how a YouTuber releases a series. Sudan Gurung was a political content creator. As home minister, he was an influential influencer kinetically doing something in the visual medium. Much like Prime Minister Balendra Shah's sunglasses, Gurung's aura, authenticity and swag were a brand asset, instantly recognisable at thumbnail size. Balen's rap career supplies a pre-political archive that authenticates him the same way Gurung's DJ sets and b-boying clips authenticated him. The aesthetic is doing the work a manifesto used to do. The work is authenticity, and the strategy is auramaxxing. The emo fringe predates the ministry. The DJ sets predate Hami Nepal. The b-boying predates the earthquake, the NGO, the September uprising, the interim cabinet, all of it. Whatever Gurung is now, he was already that person before the office existed. This was the real spectacle of the Homie Minister: authenticity. Nepal's youth have grown up watching heavily-polished, talking-point ministers speak in a language aimed at nobody in particular. But that grainy archival clip of the Home Minister from 2009 was honest.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260422010456_5d6dff3a09e8b7e77dc60c3aa567c9e02b6bd5f90f94e20737ec05cc9a09023b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260422010456_5d6dff3a09e8b7e77dc60c3aa567c9e02b6bd5f90f94e20737ec05cc9a09023b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1800" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit NT"> </figure>  The effect transcended GenZ. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ektapokharel/video/7623242573481561365">A TikTok trend</a> captioned NOT ONLY OUR HOME MINISTER, WE ARE ALSO FROM THAT ERA <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@sonykhadka/video/7624106790266948872">has millennials posting their own</a> archive photos from the same period, aligning themselves with Gurung's pre-political aesthetic. The aura did <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@_thakuri/video/7623397397556645141">cross-generational work</a>. It was a shared legibility, spanning at least 15 years of Nepali youth culture, with the Home Minister standing at its centre.&nbsp; The traditional politician's entire adult life is a performance of identity. Every photograph is lit for the media, every statement is vetted. The persona is the product, and the product has been in development for 30 years. This makes the old guard legible but suspect in the attention economy. A generation raised on authenticity-as-currency reads the decades of careful performance as evidence of something to hide. The polish is the problem. The nostalgic Sudan Gurung party clips inverted this. The polish was absent. The footage could not be performance aimed at the viewer, because the viewer did not exist in 2009 and neither did the political stakes. The clip was therefore read as real, in a way a press conference can never be. It was just a kid dancing, and he happened to grow up to be the Home Minister. But Sudan Gurung's job was never to go viral. The Ministry of Home Affairs requires the person running it to file a complete asset declaration and to avoid holding financial interests in crony entities.&nbsp; None of that work is content. A correctly filed asset declaration does not get remixed into a trap beat. A functioning immigration database is not a TikTok. The paperwork that constitutes actual governance is structurally boring in exactly the way the old parties are structurally boring, and for the same reason. It is the slow, procedural, checkable apparatus that the old system was built to produce and that the new system has not yet learned to replace. And it is painstaking follow-the-money paper trail investigative journalists in the legacy media who uncovered the evidence. You cannot auramaxx your way out of a share registry. You cannot post your way past a conflict-of-interest statute. No amount of fire outfits and wild DJ transitions does anything for you when a journalist pulls the initial shareholder list of Star Micro Insurance and finds your name at number 49, with Rs2.5 million in shares alongside investors linked to Deepak Bhatta and Sulav Agrawal — two men currently at the centre of a Rs 3.7 billion money laundering investigation. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@blox.drop/video/7622173520981658900">Auramaxxing was engineered</a> for the mechanics of reaching office. It is the reason Sudan Gurung became Home Minister and Gagan Thapa did not. The question that had not yet been tested, until this week, was whether the same weapon works when the terrain changes. The terrain does change when you assume power. This week, the answer arrived. TWO CLOCKS Two clocks had been running, and they did not sync. The first clock was built for auramaxxing. A clip posted at eight in the morning peaked by noon. A sofa photo was remixed before the minister had left the building. The feedback loop is fast and legible, and a politician playing this clock gets real-time data on what to post next. The old guard never learned to read it, which is a large part of why they lost the election. The second clock was the one the ministry actually runs on. It measures in quarters, court calendars, and the slow grind of investigation files moving between offices. A share registry takes weeks to pull. A money-laundering case moves at the speed of the prosecutor's office, which is to say, it often does not appear to move at all, until one morning it does. The legacy mass media is fed leaks, and the second clock does not care whether the minister is currently trending. The two clocks collided this week, and the second clock got there first. Faster than anyone expected. The first clock put Gurung in the Home Ministry in weeks. The second clock put him out of it in less than a month. On Sunday evening, Diyopost and Janaastha published documents showing Gurung as a founding shareholder in Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life — companies licensed by the Nepal Insurance Authority in 2022 following what reporting identified as political lobbying by Bhatta and Agrawal. A photograph also surfaced of Hami Nepal, the NGO Gurung chairs, honouring Bhatta as a donor on 21 December 2021. Gurung's first response was auramaxxed. A Monday Facebook post distinguishing ‘rumours’ from ‘facts’, insisting the shares were disclosed within his broader Rs20 million securities portfolio, promising to cooperate with any investigation. "Allegations and truth are not the same thing," he wrote. "Decisions should be based on evidence, not sentiment." It was a coherent clip, but it did not stop the clock. By Wednesday, Prime Minister Balendra Shah had sought written clarification. Leaders within the RSP itself were calling for his resignation. The opposition Nepali Congress had framed the question as one of democratic transparency.&nbsp; Gurung resigned, posting his decision to Facebook as he did everything else. Ethics, he wrote, hold more weight than any position. There is no power greater than public trust. He ended in English, invoking ‘my country … the respect of our security forces … the youths of Nepal’. Even the exit was content. And this is the asymmetry the office exposed. A politician whose legitimacy is built on fast 30 second videos is structurally exposed to a process that runs slower than the news cycle, because the archive of aesthetic proof was not engineered to answer documentary evidence.&nbsp; It was engineered to displace the demand for documentary evidence in the first place. When that demand returns, as it always does once a politician takes office, the digital archive keeps performing, but the documents keep getting uncovered. And the two tracks do not communicate. The old guard knew this clock because they had no other clock to know. What they lost in charisma they gained in durability: a politician built over 20 years of parliamentary record is harder to dislodge with a single document because they have already survived thousands of documents. The new guard has not been stress-tested against its own paper trail. Sudan Gurung has now been tested, and the test is over, and the template has been written in his exit rather than his survival.&nbsp; A politician can enter office on the strength of a dance clip, and the same class of evidence — share registries, company filings, founding-shareholder lists at number 49 — that would have ended the career of a politician in a previous era of Nepali politics has ended his. The second clock got there. The feed did not save him. Or not entirely. Because the resignation itself is now in the feed. The Facebook post. The 46 brothers and sisters. The epic sign-off. Within hours of stepping down, Gurung had already re-enrolled his exit into the same register that put him in office. The clip of the Home Minister dancing in 2009 is still in circulation. The sofa photo still reads as sincerity. The investigation into the micro-insurance shares will move at the speed of Nepal's prosecutor's office, which is to say, at a speed the feed has long since outrun. The movement that installed Gurung in the name of ending elite capture has had its answer about whether its own hero is subject to the same audit it demanded of everyone else. He walked — or was walked — before the audit ran its course. The resignation was framed as moral choice rather than forced exit, and the framing is already winning. Whether that framing holds is the next test. Auramaxxing, it turns out, is a weapon that works in one direction only: it got him the job, and when the documents arrived, it did not save him. But it may yet save the person. These are not the same thing. If the technique is wounded, it is not yet dead. The next Nepali politician with a pre-political archive and a phone is watching how Gurung exits, not just how he entered. And the answer is: you exit the same way you entered: on Facebook. In your own voice. Before anyone else writes the caption. Whether he comes back is the thing to watch. Whether the technique does is already decided. &nbsp; &nbsp;

When Aura meets Audit

Prime Minister Balendra Shah sought written clarification from Home Minister Sudan Gurung following news of his investment in two companies linked to controversial Nepali business figures Sulav Agrawal and Deepak Bhatt, who are currently at the centre of a Rs3.7 billion money laundering investigation.
Home Minister Gurung's secretariat said that it has responded to the PM and submitted a written explanation. This comes after Home Minister Sudan Gurung issued a public clarification about the new developments regarding his investments on Monday.&nbsp;
Gurung is listed as a founding shareholder of two micro-insurance companies Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life, having acquired shares amounting to Rs2.5 million. The two companies are said to have been issued their licence by the Nepal Insurance Authority at the behest of Bhatt and Agrawal. Family members and close aides of both Bhatt and Agrawal have stakes in the two companies.&nbsp;
Bhatt, chairman of Infinity Holdings, is a power broker accused of using his political connections to secure and manipulate public procurement contracts, influence policy changes ass well as leadership appointments to regulatory institutions including the Securities Board of Nepal and Nepal Insurance Authority.&nbsp;
Meanwhile, Shanker Group vice-chair Sulav Agrawal was also arrested earlier this month as part of a broader money laundering probe as well as an investigation into the group’s finances. Agrawal was previously arrested during the Covid-19 pandemic after he was found selling &nbsp;67 infrared thermometers from a vehicle with diplomatic credentials. At the time, Bhatt is said to have used his connections to facilitate Agrawal’s release.&nbsp;
Critics have raised concerns the lack of detailed disclosures on Gurung’s part about investments tied to the very figures that his Home Ministry is in charge of investigating. There are also questions as to the source of his investment, which Gurung said in his clarification were raised through loans.
In his clarification, Gurung denied concealing his investments, saying that his shares in the two companies are part of in his over Rs20 million portfolio included in his asset disclosure and insisting the misunderstanding is because of how the shares have been categorised. &nbsp;
On his name and portfolio being associated with controversial figures, he responded, ‘There are hundreds to thousands of shareholders in a company. Buying shares does not constitute a partnership with anyone.’&nbsp;
He continued: ‘If that is the basis, then everyone with investments in those companies must be held accountable, which is not fair. Investments in the companies include those from media houses and banks. Are they all guilty?’
Leaders within the RSP have called for internal investigation into Sudan Gurung, to maintain the party’s platform of clean governance and transparency.&nbsp;
This comes after the sacking of Labour Minister Dipak Sah earlier this month after the RSP found him to be in breach of the party code of conduct following the reappointment of his wife to the Health insurance board. Sah was not given the opportunity for clarification prior to his departure.&nbsp;
Critics have said that the party is reverting to the patronage-driven politics of previous leadership following the appointment of figures close to RSP leadership in various key positions.
Many influential business owners elected to the House with direct stakes in the business, finance, tourism, and infrastructure sectors sit in Parliamentary Committees that would directly benefit their interests. &nbsp;
On Monday, RSP appointed Bhupdev Shah, who previously was a part of Balen Shah’s secretariat during his tenure as Kathmandu Mayor, as the party’s general secretary. Some have questioned the party’s decision to appoint Shah without going through an election process in its upcoming general convention.&nbsp;
Shah’s appointment comes as there is increased public attention over members of the Prime Minister’s inner circle being appointed to key advisory positions as well as to head governance reform committees.

PM seeks clarification from HM

At 6 feet and one inch, Hira Bahadur Ghalan was exceptionally tall for a Nepali. In 1936, when people came to his Tamang village near Tistung looking for porters, they recruited him on the spot. This was no ordinary job, Hira Bahadur would lead gangs of 30 or more porters to carry cars bought by Rana rulers from Bhimphedi to Kathmandu.&nbsp; Those were the days when the only motorable roads in Nepal were in Kathmandu, but the capital was not connected to anywhere else by road. So, before cars could carry people, people had to carry cars. More Nepalis had carried cars than ridden in one. The porters were paid Rs5 for the job, and sometimes the Rana owners gave Hira Bahadur a Rs25 baksheesh. One of the cars his community helped carry was a 1939 Daimler Benz gifted by Adolf Hitler to King Tribhuvan to woo Nepal away from the British. The rusted dusty vehicle is now in the Narayanhiti Palace Museum.&nbsp; Hira Bahadur hauled cars for 25 years until his knees gave way, he died at age 90 eight years ago — the last surviving car porters of Nepal from Chitlang Valley.&nbsp; Hira Bahadur Ghalan had three sons and three daughters, one of them is Maila Kaji Lama, who at age 68, is a chauffeur in Kathmandu. His son, Manjil Lama is a pilot with Summit Air, flying to remote Himalayan airstrips. Three generations of one family worked in professions that followed a century of transportation history in Nepal. &nbsp; After the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-long-and-winding-road-to-india">Tribhuvan Rajpath was finished in 1957</a> and the ropeway upgraded, Hira Bahadur was out of a job. He tilled the family farm, watching trucks and buses headed to and from Kathmandu on the hairpins.&nbsp; As a child, Maila Kaji was fascinated by cars and wished one day to be able to drive one. After he failed Grade 8, he came to Kathmandu in 1975 and got a Rs20/month job at a petrol station in Maiti Devi. “I watched King Birendra’s coronation and was impressed by the glamour of Kathmandu, and decided to stay here,” Maila Kaji says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041816040_a1a41e47dec8500727702f700e43af625f059043cbcd283f13b247344b3a20aa.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2026041816040_a1a41e47dec8500727702f700e43af625f059043cbcd283f13b247344b3a20aa" data-rendition-name="original" width="1974" height="1608" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> <figcaption>Maila Kaji</figcaption> </figure>  Former minister Ramesh Nath Pandey used to bring his Volkswagen Beetle to the station, and Maila Kaji started taking care of his car. Later, he drove a Russian Jeep for former minister and geographer Harka Gurung. Along the way, he fell in love with the daughter of a Brahmin colleague, and married her. “My father back in Tistung did not approve of our inter-ethnic marriage, and not speak to me for five years,” Maila Kaji recalls. Manjil Lama grew up in Kathmandu, and did well in science in school. He had wanted to go the US to become a pilot like his friends, but was denied a visa.&nbsp; “The visa officer told him I did not earn enough,” says Maila Kaji, “so I sold some property and sent Manjil to flying school in the Philippines.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041816040_e9091162840baa6d182de2d7cc6f09e43ec9cfd9a9b6e71e7e7b14bc72da3537.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026041816040_e9091162840baa6d182de2d7cc6f09e43ec9cfd9a9b6e71e7e7b14bc72da3537" data-rendition-name="original" width="1434" height="1754" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> <figcaption>Manjil Lama</figcaption> </figure>  After returning to Nepal, Manjil Lama now flies Let 410s of Summit Air to difficult air strips like Lukla and Simkot, and has logged over 2,000 hours. He has to go to the Czech Republic regularly for simulator training. Says Maila Kaji Lama: “My father worked hard carrying cars to raise us, I started from scratch to become a driver to support my family, and my son is now a pilot with experience in flying in the world’s toughest terrain.” &nbsp; Watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvT3iTi8yw4" target="_blank">video clip from S Dillon Ripley here</a>.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260419020448_40f8b1bdaace08106ca5c24819b6e7a34fb2109a9a3ec5c6ac179b3309e686ed.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260419020448_40f8b1bdaace08106ca5c24819b6e7a34fb2109a9a3ec5c6ac179b3309e686ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="900" height="1582" loading="lazy" alt="car carriers"> </figure>

Grandfather carried cars, son drives cars, grandson flies planes

Only 70 years ago, Kathmandu was the isolated capital of a country that had no modern surface transport link with the rest of the world.&nbsp; The idea of building a road to connect Nepal with India actually first came up during the last years of the Rana regime, after the British had left India. Construction actually began in 1952, and the serpentine route took five years to complete.&nbsp; Named Tribhuvan Rajpath, after the reigning king who initiated it, the alignment was from Thankot (1,301 m) at the western edge of the Kathmandu Valley to Nagdunga, Naubise, Tistung, Palung, Daman, Sim Bhanjyang (2,504m), Lamidanda, and Bhainse.&nbsp; At Bhainse, the highway joined the existing road to Bhimphedi and it was another 31km to Hetauda and Amlekhganj. There was a railway line between Amlekhganj and Birganj.&nbsp; After regular bus and truck service from Raxaul to Kathmandu began in 1961, the entire road popularly became known as the Tribhuvan Rajpath.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_a11b48a75c7877a0f68634f8be07d26a3f354e78ebd9adddc7d17252fddf1d1b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026041610044_a11b48a75c7877a0f68634f8be07d26a3f354e78ebd9adddc7d17252fddf1d1b" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>The village of Chitlang on the main route to Kathmandu before the Rajpath was built. In the distance is the Chandragiri ridge above Thankot. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  <h2>Chronology&nbsp;</h2> (Based on US State Department cables and media reports) November 1945: Gen Bahadur SJB Rana asked an American official if a road could be constructed from the Indian border to Kathmandu. Nepal wanted such a road built across the mountains after first constructing an East-West artery road in the Tarai, and the government was interested in purchasing US surplus war equipment. Gen Rana inquired if there were US firms who could conduct a survey. April 1947: The Nepal government told a US official it was important to upgrade the 20-mile trail from Bhimphedi over the mountains to the Kathmandu Valley into an all-weather road and sought an estimate from the US for doing so. May 1948: Bijaya SJB Rana informed a US official that a survey for a one-lane motor road between Kathmandu and the Tarai had been completed. The road was to follow the Bagmati River to Makwanpur, then connect at Bhimphedi with the road to Amlekhgunj. The road from Tripureswor to Bhainse along the Bagmati River and via Bhimphedi would have been about 60km. (The distance from Kathmandu on the Tribhuvan Rajpath is 122 km.)  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_bb531baf5d73e00d2032814ac8abb86979a87d781abc066fcb984997aad930e6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2026041610044_bb531baf5d73e00d2032814ac8abb86979a87d781abc066fcb984997aad930e6" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>The road climbing the hills toward its destination of Kathmandu. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  July 1948: The government decided to go ahead and build a motorable road from Amlekhganj to Thankot and complete it in two years. December 1948: Construction of the motor road from Kathmandu to Amlekhgunj via the Bagmati River corridor was started. April 1949: Gen Singha SJB Rana told a US official that the motor road from Kathmandu to the Tarai and the Indo-Nepal border would be completed by the spring of 1950. February 1950: Nepal sanctioned Rs300,000 to make the 6-foot-wide road from Kathmandu along the Bagmati River to Hetauda. Of this, Rs100,000 was allocated for road-building material and machinery. Subsequently, the road would be developed into a broader motorable road at a cost of Rs7.5 million. February 1952: Nepal’s budget speech noted that a plan was underway for a road between Bhainse and Kathmandu. PM Matrika Prasad Koirala laid a foundation stone near Teku for construction of the ‘Kathmandu Hetauda Roadway’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_e66d3b81848ec19da48be8b41cacfa8b8e2bad093719b39eda27755c9616ea9a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026041610044_e66d3b81848ec19da48be8b41cacfa8b8e2bad093719b39eda27755c9616ea9a" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Rajpath winding its way north of Bhainse. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  February 1952: A party of Indian engineers came to Nepal to determine the best route for a road from Raxaul to Kathmandu. March 1952: Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru told Parliament: “So far as India’s security is concerned, we consider the Himalayan mountains as our border.” Ministry of External Affairs official (S.N. Hakar) told a US official that the Indian government was willing to proceed with constructing the Raxaul-Kathmandu road and had sent a survey party to determine the most suitable mountain route. May 1952: Swiss experts had made surveys for a proposed new road between Bhimphedi and Thankot. Nepal government requested financial help to build the road, and India was considering the project.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_35e390c1a4812f45af7892d681230e04c63727d9006b6614ed79aaa7c22c1ece.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026041610044_35e390c1a4812f45af7892d681230e04c63727d9006b6614ed79aaa7c22c1ece" data-rendition-name="original" width="4608" height="3072" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>With a constant stream of trucks, buses and jeeps, the narrow Rajpath once was Nepal's busiest highway. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  Summer 1952: Work on a new road was at a standstill, so Nepal asked India for assistance. Indian engineers surveyed two routes: one following the Bagmati River, the other road through Daman that was later adopted. July 1952: Nepal’s Ministry of Planning decided to construct a road between Kathmandu and Raxaul, awaiting Cabinet approval soon. Prime Minister Matrika Koirala said the proposed road was longer than necessary, but it was a better route ‘for strategic reasons’, because it did not require many bridges. August 1952: King Tribhuvan said road construction from Kathmandu to Bhimphedi would “begin soon”. September 1952: An Indian Military Team began construction of the Kathmandu-Bhainse road without a formal agreement being signed with the Nepal government.&nbsp; February 1953: The Indian Ambassador said the road would be hard surfaced within a year. September 1953: Prime Minister Matrika Koirala inspected the completion of a ‘jeepable track’. December 1953: The road was named ‘Tribhuvan Rajpath’. April 1954: Reports circulated that Swiss engineers criticised the alignment, arguing it would have been easier, faster, and cheaper to build over the existing foot trail between Bhimphedi and Thankot through Kulekhani. July 1954: Heavy monsoon rain damaged much of the roadway that had been built.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_b5b2a1833f1366e532f1629f47c124d877df7b6f8a34b6c83f6c21ec3e4415dd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2026041610044_b5b2a1833f1366e532f1629f47c124d877df7b6f8a34b6c83f6c21ec3e4415dd" data-rendition-name="original" width="855" height="1123" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Crown Prince Mahendra inspecting construction progress on the Tribhuvan Rajpath in October 1954. Photo: ROYAL PALACE</figcaption> </figure>  November 1954: The Indian ambassador said flood damage was so great that the road would be delayed by two years. May 1955: Twenty military trucks brought rice from Amlekhganj to Kathmandu on the Tribhuvan Rajpath. King Tribhuvan died in Zurich. December 1956: A gravel road was completed, with trucks and buses plying between Amlekhganj and Kathmandu. December 1956: Nepal government abolished regulations that required Nepali nationals to carry permits for travel within Nepal, except for women below the age of 45. 1957: Reduction in price of goods carried to Kathmandu by truck: Sugar, Rs0.13 per kg. Wheat flour Rs0.13 per kg. Kerosene Rs0.25 per litre. February 1957: An article in The Motherland newspaper in Kathmandu noted urgent action was needed to avoid Kathmandu being cut off from the Tarai during the monsoon. The correspondent wrote, ‘In a recent journey from Amlekhganj I found that almost all the bridges are in a very bad state…Now, because of the dry rivers the scores of vehicles that ply the road cross the rivers on the water level. But during monsoons… these rivers will be impossible to cross without bridges. On the road itself, landslides and big holes have made the journey a great undertaking.” April 1957: The first regular passenger bus left Amlekhganj at 12:30PM and arrived in Kathmandu completing a journey of 14 hours.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_60807e067f2d0b80bdc5e59860e9bc240b495ef606efc9301ef54ea5731d42df.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2026041610044_60807e067f2d0b80bdc5e59860e9bc240b495ef606efc9301ef54ea5731d42df" data-rendition-name="original" width="5211" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Daman, one of the highest points on the Rajpath, often saw snow in winter. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_baac4747267c751ab7b0e5ef24697fb5001c4c55e04a82d92c89282bd01a325c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2026041610044_baac4747267c751ab7b0e5ef24697fb5001c4c55e04a82d92c89282bd01a325c" data-rendition-name="original" width="648" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Travelers could view the Himalayas from a view tower at Daman. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  June 1957: Eight thousand Nepali workers and about 500 Indian Army personnel were at work on the road.&nbsp; 30 June 1957: India officially handed the road over to Nepal. India had spent INR32.5 million on the project.&nbsp; January 1958: The road from Amlekhganj to Bhainse was upgraded. July 1961: The gravel road from Raxaul to Birganj was blacktopped. Trucks began transporting goods from Raxaul directly to Kathmandu, avoiding the need for transshipment from train to truck in Amlekhganj, or use the ropeway from Bhimphedi. 1961: Passengers could travel from Raxaul to Kathmandu in a day, whereas it took a week by train to Amlekhganj, bus to Bhimphedi and then on foot. September 1962: Nepal’s 3-Year Plan aimed at broadening and black-topping the road between Bhainse and Raxaul, bypassing the Chure tunnel, and constructing several bridges along the route. 1963: Travelers going to Kathmandu by land: Road, 158,000, Nepal Government Railway, 66,500. Railway passenger service ended in June 1965.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_2a95eb144dad74271a0fa3a27fab6b45bbab0a1c4be59d21120ad14c08e258fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2026041610044_2a95eb144dad74271a0fa3a27fab6b45bbab0a1c4be59d21120ad14c08e258fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1344" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>A bus providing ‘deluxe service’ in 1963 is ready to leave Amlekhganj for Kathmandu. Note the railway tracks of the Nepal Government Railway. Photo: RON ELLIOTT</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_d02013692e84d6add7a6e0ce66c2b552cd53bb084db2aa8df0593bbcf84c2c04.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2026041610044_d02013692e84d6add7a6e0ce66c2b552cd53bb084db2aa8df0593bbcf84c2c04" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1352" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Vehicles found it difficult to pass on many parts of the Rajpath in 1963. Photo: RON ELLIOTT</figcaption> </figure>  1965: Tribhuvan Highway was considered a useful addition to Nepal’s economic infrastructure, but it could not act as a prime mover in the nation’s economic development. It did play a major role in the 1960s in transporting material and equipment needed to implement development projects in the Kathmandu Valley. September 1966: Nepal took over maintenance of the Tribhuvan Rajpath from the Indian Aid Mission.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_5488ba1e92f6395ff882392ccbaef2270622632682eccb412d8de7b128f6f397.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="2026041610044_5488ba1e92f6395ff882392ccbaef2270622632682eccb412d8de7b128f6f397" data-rendition-name="original" width="1764" height="1184" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Trees still lined the Rajpath near Thankot in 1967. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  1971: A UN-Nepal study said the best alignment for an alternative road was from Kathmandu, Pharping, Kulekhani, Bhimphedi to Bhainse. 1975: Nepal's Department of Roads’ engineer concluded: ‘The Tribhuvan Rajpath has been built without design speed consideration… The pavement was not constructed to any designed standard… irrespective of quality of material, and later the road was black topped without consideration of traffic intensity and load-bearing capacity of sub-base… utilisation of low-quality material in the Bhainse-Thankot section… Quality control was neither maintained in Bhainse-Thankot nor the Bhainse-Raxaul section. Local materials were used irrespective of their quality to complete the work in the earliest possible time and in the cheapest possible manner. Brick work was done in negligible quantity. Cement used was ordinary portland cement…’ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041610044_26c74f45991efb3dc29d616e8acafb3163661ae6573c5314538e59c54d5ca0a5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2026041610044_26c74f45991efb3dc29d616e8acafb3163661ae6573c5314538e59c54d5ca0a5" data-rendition-name="original" width="2368" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Highways NT"> <figcaption>Bhainse in 2017. The road divided here, one going to Bhimphedi on the right, the main road proceeding to Kathmandu on the left. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260416100416_4d9321abf4d912796842fe963a493501e1aceff462300ecdd9bd5e0b8ba7f294.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20260416100416_4d9321abf4d912796842fe963a493501e1aceff462300ecdd9bd5e0b8ba7f294" data-rendition-name="original" width="649" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="Highway info NT"> </figure>  Even 70 years after it was built, there is still speculation about India's security concerns vis-a-vis China, and how Indian Army engineers purposely made the road longer than it needed to be over the 2,500 Sim Bhanjyang pass instead of following the river route.&nbsp; There is also some evidence that although the Rana regime had first requested the US for help with the highway, Nehru did not want the Americans involved in Nepal. Which is why the Tribhuvan Highway became an Indian military project.&nbsp; There was similar concern from India about the Kodari Highway linking Kathmandu to China, and King Mahednra is famously supposed to have said: "Communism will not come here in a taxi."&nbsp; Geopolitics still affects Nepal's strategic highways. After decades, links to China are still rough and often blocked. Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track is delayed by years, and not expected to be completed during this decade. Trucks and buses still bypass the Tribuvan Highway with a 200km detour via Mugling because the other alternative routes like the Tika Bhairav or Chhaimale routes are not suitable for heavy vehicles.&nbsp; The shortcut through Chitlang that the Swiss proposed in the 1950s is still too difficult. And a 25km section of the Japanese-built BP Highway to the eastern Tarai has been knocked out by the 202 flood. Dan Edwards was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 and is the author of several books on Nepal. This is the fourth instalment in a new limited series in Nepali Times on the historic transportation infrastructures of Nepal.

The long and winding road to India

The series Nepal Made profiles Nepali products and the people who make them possible.&nbsp; Named after the mythical bird-like creature, GarudX is Nepal’s first precision manufacturer of UAV platforms. They offer a wide range of drone products and services.&nbsp; Last month, GarudX won first place at the US-Nepal Startup Weekend Challenge, a three-day accelerator-style program that gathered 25 of Nepal’s most promising early-stage companies.&nbsp; These include custom drones, cinematography, virtual tours, first-person-view (FPV), drone racing, 3D reconstruction, ground control software, and drone light shows. “I think they liked that we pitched the company as a Drone Enterprise System, as a company providing large-scale, integrated drone services,” says Dipawoli Malla, an AI software engineer with GarudX.&nbsp; The company sees a lot of potential in AI-based aerial computer vision, which is already used for infrastructure planning and land surveys, and could be vital in tracking wildlife poachers and assisting search and rescue during disasters.&nbsp; “Our vision for the company has always been to be the one stop solution for every drone problem,” says GarudX CEO Avash Thapa, who also oversees video production. &nbsp; Drones have gained high profile in the past five years due to their widespread adoption in war. While they do work with the Nepali army, GarudX wants to focus on the idea of drone for good. For Nepal, the potential is great for civilian applications especially because of the country’s terrain. Past efforts have been experimental, like a project to deliver tuberculosis treatment in Piuthan in 2019, and for wildlife censuses in Chitwan. Journalists now regularly use drone footage to get a bird’s-eye view for investigative stories on illegal sand-mining or delays in infrastructure projects. Drones were vital during the GenZ protests last September, in which aerial videos provided clues about what actually happened when the crowd surged towards Parliament. They also captured the dramatic aftermath of the destruction of government buildings featured in this paper. “A lot of people do not know or appreciate that drones are also made in Nepal,” notes Malla. “We export a lot of technology as software. It is a big achievement that we can also export hardware.”&nbsp; GarudX was informally started and active on social media since 2018, and officially registered as GarudX Multipurpose in 2024. Founder and Managing Director Adarsha Raj Bhusal had experience working with robotics and FPV drones when he launched the company, as an engineering group interested in custom-built high-performance aerial robotics.&nbsp; “I design our products,” says Bhusal. “We send designs to China where they are manufactured as individual parts. Costs are low when importing from China. Then we assemble and sell them here. It's a system that works well for us.”&nbsp; Among the UAVs GarudX makes include the Skyreaper, which is a long-range drone with advanced obstacle sensing; the GX8 Pyro which is Nepal’s first cinema-grade cinelifter; and the Aether Zoom which is a 4K UAV camera designed for tactical, industrial, or reconnaissance missions.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260423070452_ee600bb10eb74eedc5c9cc1ad425f201172ad987d6e0cecf1b3288220fed9b29.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260423070452_ee600bb10eb74eedc5c9cc1ad425f201172ad987d6e0cecf1b3288220fed9b29" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="GarudX"> </figure>  NO CERTIFICATION The main obstacle to GarudX's growth has been the lack of a national certification system. Permits to use drones are convoluted and require applications to various government agencies.&nbsp; “We miss out on so many international projects, for national park footage for example, since there is no way to get our drones registered — even after the army thoroughly checks our craft,” says Adarsha Raj Bhusal. GarudX says it now has the capacity to export its drones overseas at competitive prices, but Nepal does not have a registration system in place. “We can’t legally ship them,” says Avaya Pokharel, Chief Operating Officer who oversees service and repairs.&nbsp; With a new RSP government in place with an ambitious blueprint for digitisation, things could soon change. Relevant bodies are the Home Ministry, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Ministry of Defence because of privacy, aviation safety and national security issues.&nbsp; “There are meetings going on, and there is hope that progress will be made. Of course we want certification to be easy, but it is hard for the government as they have to understand the technology and what is coming in future,” says Bhusal.&nbsp; Legislation could look like a Remote ID system to register every drone. It could also specify pilot verification, placing limitations on what a pilot can do based on their skill level. It could also look at revising drone policies in the capital. Most of Kathmandu Valley is technically a no-fly zone for drones at present because of the concentration of government buildings, army bases and the international airport flight path. To comply with current regulations, GarudX has focused on lightweight FPV drones: small, nimble craft that can be maneuvered at high speed in tight spaces, operated by a pilot wearing immersive goggles. This results in exciting fast-paced footage, particularly useful for clients like Redbull or vehicle companies.&nbsp; “It feels like you are flying,” testifies Bhusal, who has flown FPV for commercials and movies, and ranks way ahead of runner ups in drone races. His work can be seen @adars_fpv on Instagram.&nbsp; The company has built a community of FPV drone racers, and is working with the government to certify it as a sports competition. It holds race events at colleges in Kathmandu and also consults for FPV events in in India.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260417150440_43b27b1b6890e47028c5e780c2ed0147a057f625d9d551221ddbd504dc03a356.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260417150440_43b27b1b6890e47028c5e780c2ed0147a057f625d9d551221ddbd504dc03a356" data-rendition-name="original" width="923" height="619" loading="lazy" alt="garudx"> </figure>  MULTIPURPOSE&nbsp; Drones can be versatile tools, but they are particularly helpful in Nepal and the Himalaya. Powerful drones have been used for the last two years to transport ropes and ladders up Mt Everest to reduce the dangers on the Khumbu Icefall, and to bring trash down. If scaled with many pilots and drones, this could be a complete solution to the Everest trash problem while massively reducing risk to human lives.&nbsp; GarudX has also tested its products in the mountains. A recent blog entry on their website is titled, ‘Flying at 6,120m: What We Learned Testing Drones on Lobuche Peak’. They document the process of using different battery tricks and propellers to see what combination allows for more flight time in the thin, cold air.&nbsp; It is refreshing to see a Nepali company making such progress in a unique industry while also documenting advances.&nbsp;

Nepal drone startup takes off

Top news

Twenty years ago this week, we reported about how malnutrition was indirectly responsible for 70% of all child mortality in Nepal, and how inadequate food increased susceptibility to diarrhoea, measles and acute respiratory infection.
In 2025, malnutrition is still one of the biggest causes of child mortality, except now it is not simply a lack of food but also too much junk food in the diet. Purchasing power has increased, but we are eating more of what we should not be eating.
Excerpt of a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=570">report </a>published in <a href="https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_256.pdf">issue #256 15 – 21 July 2005</a>:
Despite recent official statements about rising average living standards, grinding poverty and the conflict, the effects of junk food in cities have made undernourishment and malnutrition a serious national epidemic.
Protein-energy malnutrition affects 63 percent of Nepali children which means they don't get enough food to ensure normal physical and mental development. More than half of Nepali children are therefore physically stunted, and although this is reversible if the child starts eating enough after age two, they may suffer learning disabilities as well if undernourishment persists .
Hunger increases their susceptibility to diarrhoea, measles and acute respiratory infection. Diarrhoeal dehydration alone causes an estimated 30,000 child deaths every year as undernourished children are weaker and more likely to be brought down by the vicious spiral of disease and malnutrition. Combined with worms, undernourishment is seen by many as Nepal's primary health concern for children.
Malnutrition hits many Nepali children even before they are born because their mothers don't have adequate food while pregnant. Between 30-50 percent of Nepali children are born underweight, below 2.5 kg.
For archived material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/">nepalitimes.com</a>

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