Every year in the first month of the Tibetan calendar, devotees observe the ritual of Lo Monlam Chenmo within the holy month of Saga Dawa to mark the birth, enlightenment, and parinirvana of the Buddha. Lo Monlam Chenmo literally translates into the Great Prayer Festival of Mustang and earlier this month was observed for a week during which devotees chanted mantras over a million times for the long life and wellbeing of all sentient beings, for the continuation, survival and spread of Dharma, and for world peace.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250612090640_4d20d5af25d55ea83e6ee9784a53e689b683172433678fc9cdf1566f53a08013.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250612090640_4d20d5af25d55ea83e6ee9784a53e689b683172433678fc9cdf1566f53a08013" data-rendition-name="original" width="2222" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="A million mantras in Mustang NT"></figure>  The annual prayer vigil drew 578 monks and nuns and hundreds of local people to the monastery town of Jharkot near Muktinath. The festival has been observed for over 600 years, but saw a decline in the second half of the 20th century when Monlam Chenmo was used to pray for the long life of the Dalai Lama. “Lo Monlam Chenmo was revived in Nepal seven years ago with much donation from the locals, many of whom have migrated overseas,” says Kunjon Thakuri of the Norbusum Foundation in Jharkot supporting traditional culture, local education, and the preservation of Mustangi heritage. “The festival will be held in Upper Mustang next year and again in Lower Mustang the year after, as the two regions take turns every other year.”  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250612090640_d71a82b0d6f523a482d329177d8c477ec41ead13b23fab9fa96d558a85a0b003.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250612090640_d71a82b0d6f523a482d329177d8c477ec41ead13b23fab9fa96d558a85a0b003" data-rendition-name="original" width="2222" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="A million mantras in Mustang NT"></figure>  The festival is also celebrated in Tibet, parts of Nepal including Kathmandu, Ladakh and Sikkim in India as well as Bhutan. The Monlam Chenmo festival was first conducted for two weeks at the start of the new year in Tibet in 1409 by Lama Tsongkhapa to commemorate the miracles performed by Shakyamuni Buddha. The final day is the full moon which was on 11 June this week, is also called the Day of Miracles when several festivals and rituals are held.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250612090640_f46dd6637308bec26b0d9416defe9173d40b2580734b1a9b76421715d19a48bd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250612090640_f46dd6637308bec26b0d9416defe9173d40b2580734b1a9b76421715d19a48bd" data-rendition-name="original" width="2222" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="A million mantras in Mustang NT"></figure>   <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250612090640_c96c61cd0bd46b66f28eb1f436dcee2cd95a6b368b35c3ea1a44cb131e3e17bd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250612090640_c96c61cd0bd46b66f28eb1f436dcee2cd95a6b368b35c3ea1a44cb131e3e17bd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1607" loading="lazy" alt="A million mantras in Mustang NT"></figure>  “The grande finale is considered an auspicious day for prayer and practice, and good deeds on this day are multiplied exponentially,” adds Thakuri. “As such, all major Buddhist shrines including Swayambhu and Boudhanath see prayers gather from midnight on the last day. Many attempt a 21 kora clockwise circumambulation of Swayambhu on the very day, a gruelling 30km on foot. Others do a 108 circumambulation of a sacred site during the month of Saga Dawa as a way of purifying one's karma and gaining spiritual merit.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250612090640_a8f518e680714a0a2f7227ffed1c321cfa4e424a150c09c1a9ed7ec90c2ef486.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250612090640_a8f518e680714a0a2f7227ffed1c321cfa4e424a150c09c1a9ed7ec90c2ef486" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="A million mantras in Mustang NT"></figure>  Throughout the festival, devotees can also choose to perform their own puja including श्राद्ध, a Hindu ritual to honour deceased ancestors. Jharkot’s proximity to Muktinath also means that the festival is observed by Hindus and Buddhists alike. Devotees also abstain from killing and harming living creatures as well as practice vegetarianism for the whole month of Saga Dawa, in line with the Buddhist principle of non-violence (अहिंसा). People can also choose to make donations (दान) including drinks and food to participating monks and monasteries in acts of compassion.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250612090640_db8325c332b9f794fa84748bbfac0b59a5061f042ab6eac592f74ae6074b9835.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250612090640_db8325c332b9f794fa84748bbfac0b59a5061f042ab6eac592f74ae6074b9835" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="2217" loading="lazy" alt="A million mantras in Mustang NT"></figure>  In many ways, the festival bears similarities to another month-long celebration observed by Newar Buddhists, primarily in Kathmandu. Gunla, which translates into the month of merits, is the tenth month in the Nepal Sambat calendar which typically falls during the monsoon. Gunla is a time for spiritual reflection on the Dharma by reciting the scriptures, fasting, playing devotional music, going on pilgrimages and attaining the five moral precepts known as the (पञ्चशील) -- abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and taking intoxicants.

A million mantras in Mustang

Bottom

Turkish Airlines is financing an Airbus A350 aircraft in Swiss francs (CHF) with Dubai Islamic Bank on an Islamic finance structure. The ‘halal Ijarah’ deal, nearly a year in the making, features a rent-to-own interest-free Sharia-compliant type agreement. “This transaction demonstrates our commitment to financial innovation and strengthening our fleet while also marking a new chapter in our cooperation with leading institutions in the UAE and the broader Gulf region,” stated Turkish Chairman Prof. &nbsp;Ahmet Bolat.

Turkish Airbus 350

The United Nations is relocating its headquarters from New York to Nairobi, Kenya by 2026. The move marks a significant strategy shift aiming to decentralise its presence and bring decision making closer to the Global South, particularly Africa. The global offices of UNICEF, UNFPA, and UN Women will also move to Nairobi, a statement said.&nbsp;

UN relocating

Seats are being installed at the Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur. The Rs1 billion project aims to add more than 10,000 seats and six floodlights for night matches.&nbsp;

Seats at TU Stadium

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

People who were 25 in 2000 when Nepali Times was launched are now 50.
Nepal has gone from monarchy to republic, from war to peace, but a lot has remained the same — same politicians in the same politics.
Our 25th anniversary Rewind Supplement (page A-L) in this edition shows that the more things change in this country, the more they remain the same. Nepal languishes and muddles along despite its enormous human capital and natural resources.
Nepali Times content has adapted to new English reading habits: it is less text-heavy, more visual, with better graphics. But issue #1271 does not look much different from #1: the same masthead and design, the same comprehensive coverage, and high quality printing and production values have been maintained for 25 years.
An entire generation has grown older reading this paper, joined now by a new cohort of younger readers. They are assured of consistently high quality journalism on Fridays and online to explain, interpret and analyse what is happening and what to expect. It is content with context.
<div class="embed-block"><iframe width="750" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7QCo5X_fTyA?si=k4G-OlT_loIG1exG" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
Journalism is history in a hurry, and this is even more true in the age of social media, the great amplifier. Marshall McLuhan's 'the medium is the message' has never been truer.&nbsp;
Social media is an important tool for dissemination, significantly increasing access to information for everyone. But it is also a breeding ground for disinformation, online bullying, and hate speech.
In countries around the world, populist leaders have weaponised social media to silence critics to the point where the truth is drowned out by lies, disempowering people and paralysing democracy. We are better informed than ever before, but this has not resulted in knowledge and wisdom, &nbsp;tolerance and understanding.&nbsp;
In the midst of all this, there is growing public distrust of the media itself as it is slandered on the social web, pressured by political and corporate interests. You would expect this in authoritarian states, but it is now happening in democracies with elected rulers.
When journalists should be the vanguard to protect freedom, the media industry itself is in crisis with falling revenue and distraction from devices. The independence of a financially fragile media is being further compromised, its public service mandate undermined.
There is no choice but for newsrooms to reinvent ourselves: experiment with new revenue models, reorient content to engage and involve the new generation. This does not mean leaving it up to the algorithm to give them only what they like and agree with, but equip citizens with the information they need to make informed choices.
We journalists are creatures of habit. We like our facts, but we like our routine more. Journalists, mainstream or otherwise, need to be constantly updating themselves, not only on matters of the state but adapt to the new tools and technologies. We have to be on the platforms where our readers are, and learn to use the same tools that they are using.&nbsp;
Instead of fearing for our jobs because of AI, we have to learn to harness its ability to do repetitive or time-saving newsroom chores. AI is not and should not be about content generation, but finding ways to reach our target audience.
This frees up time for journalists to do journalism: investigate, hold power to account, call out malpractice and wrongdoing, while commending good work. This will help us maintain credibility and trust, our most valuable assets. Fact-checking should not be a fad, it is part and parcel of journalism.
For us at Nepali Times, this 25th anniversary is a milestone and a time to plan for the decades ahead. It is time to look back at the last 25 years, and to look ahead at where Nepal could be (or should be) in the next 25.&nbsp;
As we report on page 1 and 4-5, the prognosis for 2050 is not very good unless governance, accountability and transparency are improved. There is no silver bullet for this, it will come from the political will of a new generation of young leaders with the vision to overhaul the way this country is ruled. And that will depend most importantly on electoral reform — informed citizens electing representatives who show integrity and vision.
It has been a turbulent journey in Nepal for the last 25 years, and Nepali Times has tried to chronicle the highs and lows with honesty and fairness.&nbsp;
As the current Editor, I would like to thank all my predecessors and current colleagues for bringing us to this point.
Sonia Awale

Moving with the times

25 years of journalism

Sagar Tamang first met Laxmi Tamang in video calls between Malaysia and Pokhara. He was working as a security guard in Malaysia, and had sent her a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/facebook-nation">Facebook </a>request. Before long, between messages and calls, they were in love and planning a future together. Laxmi could see it clearly: after six years Sagar would <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/diaspora-diaries/migrant-worker-returns-to-create-work-at-home">return home</a> to Sankuwasabha, they would get married and have children, live in the home that Sagar had built, and she would open up her tailoring shop with Sagar’s savings from abroad. But Sagar revealed that he was experiencing shortness of breath and his legs had begun to swell. She pleaded with him to come back, but he would only return after his roadside property back home was built. Sagar’s parents had already built a new house with his income and were planning another nearby. The symptoms worsened over time, prompting Sagar to eventually consult a doctor. Both his <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/A-mysterious-rash-of-kidney-failures,3639">kidneys had completely failed</a>. A seemingly healthy, energetic 28-year-old suddenly turned into a dialysis patient. Sagar lived with his mother, father, five sisters and four brothers in Sankuwasabha, and the family depended entirely on a piece of land they farmed. An older brother left home to seek work elsewhere but that was not enough. So, after just finishing Grade 10 Sagar decided on an <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/overseas-job-seeker-now-creates-jobs-in-nepal">overseas job</a>. He arrived <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-malaysia-nepal-migrant-scam-nexus">in Malaysia</a> at just 20, saddled with loans, and an immense pressure to raise the economic status of his family. But upon arrival, he found that he would be working in agriculture, not as a security guard as per his contract. Toiling for 11 hours in the sun every day, he felt worn down and disillusioned with the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/push-factors-driving-nepalis-out?fbclid=IwAR0Og_Lv1SMmn69MAkgqu1Ywu8IoLuB_v9KpnjG2F8PR-OAOCDvL6kLoKlk_aem_AX_Vm0Bo8vLUzR_RAr8GpJ8dDX53u8v0zPMP1GzR590UiMfz5jHkg7k14WF5cAQOHwY"> promise of life abroad</a>. His living situation, made up of a tightly regulated, crowded compound with other migrant workers, was no better. Only when he heard the distorted voice of his mother through his flip phone did Sagar find a sense of solace. Over the next two years, Sagar developed friendships with other Nepalis working with him, and eventually accepted that his life abroad was nearly permanent. He planned to stay aboard at least 10 years. And after writing a letter to his company, he was able to successfully switch to security guard work. Although the hours were longer, it beat the difficult manual labour Sagar was previously forced to complete for a meagre salary. Sagar fell into a routine he thought he would follow for the next eight years: get ready, go to work, return to the compound, and call Laxmi before going to sleep. But two years ago, his health reached a breaking point, and he had to return to Nepal for dialysis. Upon his arrival, he was rushed to Bir Hospital for immediate treatment. To this day, Sagar has never stepped foot inside the houses his family built with his overseas earnings. Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/dirty-dangerous-difficult-and-dehydrating"> Dirty, Dangerous, Difficult ... and Dehydrating</a>, Pinki Sris Rana <h2>Dialectics of dialysis</h2>  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025051509054_5b8972cf42e1d1ae531b7d32c0492380964f065432a8dd0a7e41674b7160b266.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2025051509054_5b8972cf42e1d1ae531b7d32c0492380964f065432a8dd0a7e41674b7160b266" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Dying to work overseas NT"><figcaption>HARD LABOUR: Sagar Tamang in a dialysis session at the National Kidney Centre in Kathmandu (right) after both his kidneys failed while working abroad in harsh conditions.</figcaption></figure>  It is estimated that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/dirty-dangerous-difficult-and-dehydrating" target="_blank">one in four </a>Nepali kidney patients is a returnee migrant. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/A-mysterious-rash-of-kidney-failures,3639" target="_blank">Factors </a>such as excessive heat, dehydration, and unhealthy diets can lead to chronic kidney disease, including kidney failure. Many returnees head straight to a dialysis bed in Kathmandu instead of taking the first bus home. In dialysis wards across the country, scores of young men under 40 sit in hospital beds, unable to work or earn for their families anymore. Many remain in debt for treatment, or have had to relocate to seek care. For patients with no source of reliable income, even finding a willing landlord to rent out a room in the capital can be almost impossible without the right connections. However, Sagar’s cousin, who had also developed chronic kidney disease while working abroad and had moved to Kathmandu from Sankhuwasaba for dialysis, took him in. Laxmi finally met Sagar two months later. She found it hard to hold back tears whenever she saw his face. She was able to stay with her brother in Bhaktapur for some time, but eventually the couple decided to marry. Laxmi’s mother and sisters urged her to put off the marriage until Sagar had completed a kidney transplant. The couple eloped. Two days after their marriage, Laxmi’s family called them to come to their home in Nagarkot to celebrate. Now, the couple lives in a rented house near the National Kidney Centre with other dialysis patients and their families. Sagar walks to his dialysis session three times a week. In this house, there is a sense of solidarity among patients, and Laxmi especially feels a comfort knowing that her neighbours understand her position as the wife and caretaker of a dialysis patient. Members of the house cook for each other, help with transport to the hospital, and sometimes even <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-disaster-strikes-home">lend money</a>. So far, Sagar has used his savings from abroad to pay for the direct and indirect costs of his treatment. However, the money is running out as the couple grapples with the city’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/is-free-health-care-possible-in-nepal?fb_comment_id=3363039693768713_5667191770020149">cost of living and medical bills</a>. The government offers free lifetime haemodialysis for patients, but the Rs5,000 monthly allowance does not come consistently, in full, or just never comes at all despite repeated requests to the patient’s municipal office. Those receiving treatment in the Kathmandu Valley also access medicine through Bhaktapur’s Shahid Dharmabhakta National Transplant Centre (SDNTC), but under the hospital’s insurance are required to pay for 10% of the cost.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025051509058_2001d2b6d07ca8406575bd1c89f714b5b224d64bf25437b55bda0e21475fdbc4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="2025051509058_2001d2b6d07ca8406575bd1c89f714b5b224d64bf25437b55bda0e21475fdbc4" data-rendition-name="original" width="2773" height="4160" loading="lazy" alt="Dying to work overseas"><figcaption>Sagar with his wife Laxmi in Pokhara.</figcaption></figure>  Once his family’s primary earner, Sagar can no longer make or send money due to his condition. His family runs a goat and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/are-you-sick-of-chicken">poultry farm</a>, but has been forced to take loans to stay afloat and cannot send money for Sagar’s treatment. Until recently, Laxmi worked 12 hours a day as a tailor and house cleaner. Sagar, his mother and Laxmi, have been making trips to SDNTC in preparation for his transplant. In Nepal, only relatives or the spouse of the patient are allowed to be donors for their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/saving-kidneys-to-save-nepal">kidney transplant</a>. This can be debilitating for patients whose families are unwilling or unable to donate due to pre-existing health issues such as hypertension or diabetes. Wives and mothers are the most likely demographic to donate to a male patient. Due to Sagar’s inability to come home and officiate his marriage it is yet to be recognised by the municipality, making Laxmi an ineligible donor. After finding out his father’s blood type did not match and refusing his younger sister’s offer to give her kidney, he and his mother decided that they could start the transplant process together. Even Nepal’s prime minister K P Oli has had a double kidney transplant, but for those who cannot find a donor within the family, the remaining years of life is measured by the humming and erratic beeps of a dialysis machine three times a week. It is going to be a lengthy and expensive process, but it is the only hope for Sagar. And what are his immediate plans after a successful transplant? To return home, to finally see his siblings, father, neighbours and friends, he tells us. He has seen his father once since his <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/searching-for-a-homeland-away-from-home">return to Nepal</a>, but has not seen his siblings since he left for Malaysia. They have not visited him in Kathmandu yet, but he hopes that they will before his transplant. The couple believes that after his transplant, anything is possible: finally getting their marriage recognised, opening up a tailoring shop, having children, building a life in Sankuwashaba. Laxmi strongly objects to Sagar ever leaving Nepal again, but he remains open to the idea.

Dying to work overseas

Featured videos

The<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rasuwa-flood-likely-a-glof"> flood on the Bhote Kosi</a> on Tuesday morning was a timely reminder about the risks Himalayan communities face from melting permafrost and glaciers, as well as the need for transboundary early warning. In the spring of 2024, I visited the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area (KCA) again. While in the village of Kampuchen (4,145) I visited Nupu Sherpa, friend and owner of the Kampuchen White House Lodge, to share <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/18/711/2024/">a new paper we had just published</a> about a massive ice-debris avalanche that had occurred in 2022 in the upper Nupchu valley. Although Nupu was interested in the results and implications of the avalanche, he was even more concerned about the recent and rapid development of several large, pro-glacial lakes upon the terminus of the Kanchenjunga glacier, an hour walk north of Kampuchen and across the seasonal yak pasture of Ramdang Kharka (4,375m).&nbsp; Like many high altitude, low gradient glaciers in the Himalaya, those in the Kanchenjunga region had shrunk to mere shadows of their former selves during the previous 125 years, leaving behind debris-covered remnant ice and small meltwater ponds.&nbsp; Nupu’s fear was that the lakes might soon coalesce to form a large and potentially dangerous glacial lake. Given a large enough trigger, such as a massive landslide or avalanche, a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) could result that could damage Kampuchen, Ghunsa, Phale, the Kangchenjunga Base Camp trail, and even beyond to the lower Tamor into India.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071204070_31e28d1fd0f5a976ad96fc5597cc386586d7de5b7d9714835d5b479104209fed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025071204070_31e28d1fd0f5a976ad96fc5597cc386586d7de5b7d9714835d5b479104209fed" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1635" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools in the Himalaya"> <figcaption>The Kanchenjunga Conservation Area (KCA), eastern Nepal.</figcaption> </figure>  Since I was on my way to the village of Lhonak (4,792m) I stopped to take a look at the new lakes. Sure enough, from a lookout point on the lateral moraine of the Kanchenjunga Glacier I could see as many as ten newly formed and growing meltwater ponds upon the terminal moraine region of the glacier.&nbsp; The prospect was reminiscent of early satellite images taken of Imja Glacier in 1962 by the French, showing a number of meltwater ponds that within 15 years had grown and merged into a glacial lake half a square kilometer in size and containing 45 million cubic meters of water. Ten years after that Imja had grown to more than a square kilometer in size, was at least 120 m deep, and contained an estimated, and growing, 90 million cubic meters of water. Would the same scenario play out for the lower Kanchenjunga Glacier? To try and understand the situation better, glaciologist Sonam Wangchuk of ICIMOD put together a time series composite of lake development over time, from 2016 to 2024, where it was clear that the majority of the new lakes had only formed since 2019.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071204078_c65a5ec574a251489c502f3efdf842033e0d238fd57947f7eee2c5793aac2a29.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025071204078_c65a5ec574a251489c502f3efdf842033e0d238fd57947f7eee2c5793aac2a29" data-rendition-name="original" width="602" height="686" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools in the Himalaya"> <figcaption>Time-lapse satellite images of glacial lake development from 2016 to present. Animation of the process can be seen at https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/w17101457/s1.</figcaption> </figure>  Sonam Rinzin of Newcastle University estimated the potential depth and volume of the future glacier lake using standard procedures based upon the surface slope of the Kanchenjunga Glacier combined with volume-area curves for similar glacial lakes, estimating that the future lake would have a volume of approximately 33 million cubic meters of water and depth of more than 116 m. Other modeling methods enabled the mapping of probable ice, debris, and/or rock avalanches into the lake that could trigger a GLOF.&nbsp; A third model was then used to simulate four different avalanche scenarios that could trigger a GLOF: from small (debris avalanche of 3 million cubic meters) to the worst case (15 million cubic meters) of fast-moving debris. Even under the small magnitude scenario, avalanche-triggered outburst floods would travel distances of almost 120km downstream, and under the worst-case scenario the floods would reach the Indo-Gangetic Plain and cross the border into India, damaging or destroying up to 90 buildings and 44 bridges. The prospective triggers of a future GLOF, however, are not limited to a nearby rock avalanche. A <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/11/443/2017/tc-11-443-2017.html">sudden release of water</a> from water-filled caves further up the glacier could trigger a surge wave capable of breaching the terminal moraine complex holding in the lake water.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250712040716_20ed87368a9ac416b5d0232cf8e02211195ca6bc9fff960a1f7e43a95bdfbbf9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250712040716_20ed87368a9ac416b5d0232cf8e02211195ca6bc9fff960a1f7e43a95bdfbbf9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1621" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools"> <figcaption>Theoretical Kangchenjunga glacial lake of the future (blue) contained by a front moraine (purple) with a flood possibly triggered by a massive rock avalanche (red).</figcaption> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-not-so-permanent-frost">Weakening permafrost</a> at the highest altitudes could result in massive ice-debris avalanches, such as those believed to have triggered recent and catastrophic floods in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-the-seti-disaster">Seti River</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-mountains-are-melting">Barun Khola</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/non-climate-cause-of-nanda-devi-flood">Chamoli</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sikkim-flood-is-warning-to-nepal">South Lhonak lake</a>, and Tuesday’s Bhote Kosi flood in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rasuwa-flood-likely-a-glof">Rasuwa</a>. Weakening and eventual collapse of the terminal moraine complex through sub-surface piping could also result in an outburst flood. And a range of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-mountains-are-melting">cascading processes</a> currently unknown to scientists could trigger a flood as well.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250712040712_76336a4597c08dd735e57b09ae9840b6bd3d89c85907bb39424d9e6f3163581e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20250712040712_76336a4597c08dd735e57b09ae9840b6bd3d89c85907bb39424d9e6f3163581e" data-rendition-name="original" width="740" height="565" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools in the Himalaya"> <figcaption>Jannu glacier in 1899. Note how the level of the debris-covered glacier reached the top of the lateral moraines over a hundred years ago. Photo: V. SELLA</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250712040712_707dd365923a002e889c64a88796b445695ea9ca692ec639179bc70217ed63c5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20250712040712_707dd365923a002e889c64a88796b445695ea9ca692ec639179bc70217ed63c5" data-rendition-name="original" width="5184" height="3888" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools in the Himalaya"> <figcaption>Jannu glacier in 2022. The remaining debris-covered glacier is now several hundred meters below the crests of the lateral moraines. Photo: E. BYERS</figcaption> </figure>  But will a large and potentially dangerous glacial actually form at the Kanchenjunga glacier? There’s really no way to tell at this point, although the rapid development of lakes since 2016 is a strong indicator that a large lake is in the process of forming. And rather than wait and see, our current uncertainty does not diminish the need for a more proactive approach to the development of a large glacial lake at some point in the near future. For example, the lower Kanchenjunga Glacier clearly needs to be regularly monitored over the coming years to keep track of glacial lake growth and potential hazards. This could be done by the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), ICIMOD, or Kathmandu University with results regularly shared with local people and local governments.&nbsp; In fact, such a service could be developed into a program that is offered to other communities throughout highland Nepal who experience similar situations of glacial lake development, growth, and prospective danger, especially since most communities presently feel that they have no one to turn to for similar information. Inexpensive, locally appropriate, user-friendly early warning systems (EWS) need to be developed for the Kanchenjunga region now, instead of waiting for a tragedy to happen. While the different options and costs are being assessed, the installation of new cell towers in the upper Ghunsa Khola would assure that local residents have access to one of the most effective and proven EWS systems available: cell phones, combined with a lake level monitoring device that broadcasts data and connects to cell phone alarm systems.&nbsp; For example, hundreds of lives were saved when upstream witnesses called their family and friends downstream to warn them of the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Anatom-of-a-Himalayan-tsunami,1330">Seti River flood</a> near Pokhara in 2014. New zoning policies that prohibit the construction of lodges and other infrastructure in high-risk floodplain regions need to be developed now. Where the infrastructure already exists, villages should be encouraged to install gabion rock-filled wire cages along susceptible river channel or river interfaces to divert the flow of water during a flood event, a method used successfully in both highland and riverine Nepal. Local and national hazard training and response programs need to be developed now. Several examples of excellent programs developed by different organisations in the upper Khumbu region exist that provide excellent models, such as those tested by the US Agency for International Development <a href="https://www.hillarymedal.com/Khumbu-Nepal-Local-Adaptation-Plan-of-Action-%20report.pdf">(USAID) and ICIMOD</a> between 2011 and 2015. Glacial lake reduction&nbsp; Nepal was recently awarded a $36.1 million award by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to directly confront many of hazards from glacial lake outburst floods jointly implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the DHM building on past successes at Tso Rolpa and Imja Lakes. There are some lessons learned over the past decades of field work based in Nepal and Peru: 1. The DHM wants to use the project to reduce GLOF risks in Kosi and Gandaki basins and glacial lake reduction programs are planned for Thulagi, Lower Barun, Lumding Tsho, and Hongu 2 glacial lakes.&nbsp; However, the planned lowering depth for Tso Rolpa in 2000 was 20m, with the project ending once 3m lowering was achieved due to lack of funds. Imja lake, which scientists also determined needed to be lowered by at least 20m, was in fact lowered by 3m in 2016 ‘because that’s what they did at Tso Rolpa’.&nbsp; If glacial lake reduction programs are to be implemented under the GCF program they should be based upon good science, and lowered to an effective depth, otherwise the activity will be a waste of funds. <a href="https://sinia.minam.gob.pe/sites/default/files/siar-%20ancash/archivos/public/docs/usaid_glacial_lake_handbookrfs_0-ilovepdf-%20compressed_0.pdf">Peru offers experience</a> for glacial lake lowering. 2. Although large glacial lakes (more than 1sq km) will always command the most media and even scientific attention, it has become abundantly clear in recent years that even small glacial lakes can be just as deadly, given the correct sequence of cascading events, rainfall, snowmelt, and/or other triggers.&nbsp; The 2017 <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10346-018-1079-9">Barun flood</a> and September 2024 <a href="https://www.stimson.org/event/the-%20thame-glof-disaster-climate-related-disaster-risk-management-in-the-high-himalayas/">Thame flood</a> are two excellent examples. Methods for assessing the flood risk of glacial lakes will need to be revised accordingly to include many of these smaller glacial lakes as well, in addition to the 21 large lakes already considered to be dangerous. 3. Existing and expensive EWS might benefit by some consideration of cheaper, more local, and possibly more effective alternatives. In 2015, for example, <a href="https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol37/iss2/7/">villagers</a> living below Tso Rolpa complained that they had no idea how the recently installed EWS worked, what it sounded like, and what to do in the event that it went off. With improved cell service and real-time lake level monitoring apps, local people could check on the lake whenever they wished, as opposed to waiting for some kind of communication from Kathmandu. 4. The GCF grant has the opportunity to become the ‘go to’ place for communities throughout highland Nepal to report any of their concerns related to glacial lakes and/or other observed cryospheric processes. This service could facilitate local people’s ability to adapt to, mitigate, or prevent a range of climate change-related hazards largely unknown to previous generations. Alton C Byers is a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) University of Colorado at Boulder and has visited the KCA including a six-month residency in Ghunsa supported by the Fulbright Nepal Scholar Program. This article is largely based on Evolution of a Potentially Dangerous Glacial Lake on the Kanchenjunga Glacier, Nepal, Predictive Flood Models, and Prospective Community Response. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/w17101457">Water</a>, 2025. (Byers AC, Rinzin S, Byers E, Wangchuk S.)

Meltpools in the Himalaya

In 2023, northern India suffered record-breaking heat. In 2024, it broke its own record. In 2025, the Indo-Gangetic plains and the Nepal Tarai suffered a prolonged pre-monsoon heat wave and humidity, forcing closure of schools and workplaces. This week, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/europe-heat-wave-intensifies-as-fresh-warnings-issued/live-73108302">southern Europe is suffering the worst heat wave</a> since temperature records began. Football matches, tennis tournaments have been affected, and tourist sites have been closed off. Qatar has ordered a midday work curfew for Nepali and other migrant workers are the maximum temperature this week touched 45°C.&nbsp; Kathmandu Valley experienced its highest temperature in 25 years in May 2024 at 35.3°C. This year, the maximum temperature exceeded 30°C on many days — heat that till a decade ago would be considered unusual. Rains in early June also meant that towns in the mountains sweltered under high heat plus humidity.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250703090748_6975cfc2ad573f3a09ca301a299a9e92a420da7f1c5c90b8e4d061a2053dcd3e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250703090748_6975cfc2ad573f3a09ca301a299a9e92a420da7f1c5c90b8e4d061a2053dcd3e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1935" height="801" loading="lazy" alt="maximum average temperature in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Source: DHM</figcaption> </figure>  Measuring just temperature does not give a true picture of how hot it is. When humidity is factored in, the heat index this summer has been much higher in northern India and Nepal. Also, the hotter the air temperature the higher the concentration of water vapour in it. “We feel it is getting hotter, and our statistics back that up,” says Shanti Kandel at the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, which issued two heat wave warnings this year, compared to 11 last year. “We need more research to analyse how humidity is make this situation worse.” <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-faces-alarming-30-rise-in-moist-heat-stress-over-40-years-affecting-wide-swath-of-country-imd-study/articleshow/109376863.cms?from=mdr">A recent analysis</a> by the Indian Meteorological Department has found that heat stress in that country has increased by nearly 30% over the past 40 years. Similarly, India’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) noted that cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, and Lucknow have experienced a 6-9% rise in relative humidity in the last decade.&nbsp; It also states that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/majority-indian-districts-face-high-heatwave-risk-study-shows-2025-05-20/#:~:text=%22About%2057%20per%20cent%20of,usual%20number%20of%20heatwave%20days.">60% of Indian districts</a>, home to three-quarters of the country’s 1.3 billion people face a high to very high risk from extreme heat, with rising night-time temperatures and humidity. The heat index is also called ‘<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/north-indian-heat-wave-hits-nepal">wet-bulb temperature</a>’ and is a measure of how hot the human body feels when humidity levels are also high — usually much hotter than the recorded temperature. For example, a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C is considered the maximum limit of heat and humidity that humans can handle, beyond which the body cannot cool by perspiration, leading to death. One indicator of increasing humidity is a rise in average minimum temperature, and Nepal recorded the highest figure since 1981 last year, with a peak of 15.8°C. Higher minimum temperature denotes warmer nights, which in turn is an indication of heat stress caused by increasing humidity, which in turn is a result of global warming. Aside from higher average temperatures worldwide this year, what makes heat and humidity more unbearable is that cities are always hotter than their surroundings. This is due to the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/preparing-for-kathmandu-s-heat-waves">urban heat island (UHI) effect</a> – for example the temperature inside Kathmandu’s Ring Road can be hotter by <a href="https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/what-are-heat-islands">up to 4°C during the daytime and by 1 to 3°C in the evening</a> compared to the outskirts. “Climate change is one reason for rising temperature, but there are other factors like increased heat in urban spaces due to concrete buildings and infrastructure, emissions from vehicles, industries, and home appliances,” explains urban planner Bhushan Tuladhar. He adds: “Much of this comes down to how we have developed our cities, not just our roads and buildings but also our water system, waste management, culture and customs as well as economy.” There is a feedback loop at work: as it gets hotter, more energy is used for fans, coolers, and air-conditioners which in turn add to the urban heat bubble. The way to reduce the UHI effect is to have more parks, tree-lined streets and water bodies to cool cities down.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212095525002093">A recent study published in the journal Urban Climate</a> by Nepali researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Tribhuvan University, University of Groningen, etc showed that even within Kathmandu, urban forests cooled neighbourhoods by as much as 1.2°C while ponds reduced the temperature by up to 0.85°C compared to nearby houses.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250703090748_e4de75dbdfb5fcfdeb0935eda364dc16b5dca8857ba335ab0f4586ebdc5093a9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250703090748_e4de75dbdfb5fcfdeb0935eda364dc16b5dca8857ba335ab0f4586ebdc5093a9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2580" height="1038" loading="lazy" alt="urban heat island in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Source: URBAN CLIMATE et al.</figcaption> </figure>  ‘Our results demonstrate that blue-green spaces provide significant cooling benefits across the Kathmandu Valley, with distinct patterns by type, size, design, and urban context,’ concluded the paper, whose lead author is Saurav Bhattarai at Jackson State University in the United States. The old towns in Kathmandu Valley with traditional brick and tile architecture, ponds and trees managed hot summers better. Compact houses around a courtyard gave people just the right amount of sunlight, and use of clay mortar and bricks insulated houses in winter while cooling them in summer. There were open spaces, fertile land along the floodplains for farming, and brick pavements that allowed for seepage. “Our cities were planned taking nature into account,” says Sangeeta Singh, a professor of urban planning at the Institute of Engineering. “Kathmandu Valley is now built up, but we can still reintegrate blue-blue spaces into town planning with vertical gardening, urban forestry, using local material and harvesting rainwater.”&nbsp; Kathmandu’s municipalities have by-laws controlling building design and structure, but strict enforcement of land use and zoning are missing. Extreme heat disproportionately affects the urban poor who may not have access to fans or air-conditioners, exacerbating poverty.&nbsp; Cities in the plains have it even worse. As heat and humidity rise simultaneously, it could <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/garmi-se-behal-chalo-nepal">reverse the current mass migration</a> of people from the mountains to the Tarai, where 53% of Nepal’s population lives. <a href="https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/92fbbbc6180238e18e7b239fad83e38a-0280032024/original/12-DHNT-Temperature-poverty-inequality-September-2024.pdf">A World Bank study</a> put the cost of a 1°C rise in temperature at 17.1% increase in poverty globally. Estimates put the total number of urban poor in developing countries exposed to the worst heat extremes at 26 million presently, this number is bound to grow to 215 million by mid-century, an over eight-fold increase. Meanwhile, 489,000 health-related deaths occur each year, 45% of them in Asia alone. “Heat has to be seen from a class perspective,” says Singh. “Those with money can afford gadgets and appliances to keep their homes and offices cool, but not day labourers or poor families living in cramped housing with poor ventilation.” Climate breakdown is going to widen the class divide in cities, as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/unthinkable-in-the-current-climate">summers become unliveable</a>. Says Singh: “We need policy intervention to address this class injustice. Our building by-laws and new town development must urgently integrate climate and energy efficiency elements.”

In the heat of the moment

On the afternoon of 28 May, a massive glacier avalanche destroyed the idyllic village of Blatten in the Valais region of Switzerland. Footage of the disaster rapidly circulated around the world, sparking renewed conversation about the increasing instability of the mountain cryosphere and climate-related risks. The population of nearly 300 people had been evacuated a week prior due to concerns that unstable slopes above the glacier could trigger a catastrophic event. This is remarkable, and a testament to the value of hazard monitoring and anticipatory action. Shocked by the intensity of avalanche impacts and devastating loss, people struggled to comprehend the alternative: what if the village had been full? In Nepal, the people of the Langtang Valley, survivors of a massive glacier avalanche that killed over 300 people in April 2015, know exactly what it feels like for an entire village to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/17/nepal-earthquake-langtang-village-everyone-was-dead">‘wiped off the map’</a> in a little more than a minute. The avalanche that buried the village of Langtang was similarly catastrophic, as the avalanche fell over 3,000m and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/asia/nepal-avalanche-langtang.html">carried nearly as much force as the Hiroshima atomic bomb</a>. Unfortunately, the people of Langtang had no warning. While these two disasters are quite different, there are some important connections between them. As the world contemplates the threat of increasing climate-related glacier hazards and wonders if and how Blatten will rebuild, I would like to draw attention to the ever-present risk of similar disasters in the Himalayas, where the scale of the problem is (arguably) larger and resources are (inarguably) more limited. As events like these become increasingly common, we need to build monitoring and <a href="https://www.undrr.org/implementing-sendai-framework/sendai-framework-action/early-warnings-for-all">early warning systems for all</a> at-risk communities. We also need more comparative analysis of the ways mountain people make sense of climate-related risks, particularly around wicked questions like hazard zoning and resettlement or relocation. How do institutions determine where to invest in hazard monitoring and early warning systems? Who gets to decide where people can rebuild, what kind of risks are ‘acceptable’, or whose uncertainties matter? As a survivor of the Langtang disaster and an applied anthropologist, this is not a thought exercise for me. I spent more than two years working with the Langtangpa community as a volunteer, and the last ten years conducting research focused on the aftermath of the Langtang avalanche and the ways people cope with disaster and climate risk in the Himalayan region. Since late 2022, I have been <a href="https://www.stimson.org/project/early-warning-systems-for-cascading-disasters-in-nepal/">working with the Stimson Center </a>to consider how we might build systems to assess and monitor the changing risks of cascading hazards in the Himalayan region. As the Swiss and a range of international organizations consider how they might provide warning for other Alpine villages living beneath glaciers, we need to expand the conversation to consider the many Himalayan villages that are similarly at-risk. The question of climate causality currently haunts the Blatten disaster -- just as it has for other similar events in recent years, including the Langtang avalanche. While attribution is incredibly complicated, many scientists have already highlighted the ways that melting permafrost and loss of seasonal snowcover and glacial mass created instability in the overall system above the Birch Glacier on Kleines Nesthorn. Not all glaciers are receding. In Blatten, recurring slope failures had also been piling debris on the glacier slowly over the years, pushing the ‘glacier tongue’ forward and weakening its integrity – and this acceleration attracted attention and focused monitoring. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7334623807573278721/">A recent post from Christian Huggel, a leading cryosphere scientist based at University of Zurich</a> examined these details and clearly stated: “Considering all these processes it would be absurd, ignorant or dishonest to state that anthropogenic warming has not played any role in the ice-rock avalanche disaster in <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23blatten&amp;origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED">Blatten</a>. Interestingly, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/01/this-is-ground-zero-for-blatten-the-tiny-swiss-village-engulfed-by-a-mountain">other scientists have indicated that “exact attribution is almost beside the point.”</a> Tellingly, it took almost ten years for formal scientific recognition (see <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01624-z">this Nature paper published in 2024</a>) in part because it was seismically triggered, overshadowing the climate-related signal.That said, many Langtangpa highlighted these connections immediately after the disaster, as many are doing in Blatten right now. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-courage-and-endurance-of-the-langtangpa">My friends in Langtang have spent the last ten years rebuilding their lives</a> while wondering if another event of this magnitude might be possible.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250607140612_5ccfd4786416a151e1c2d44f79add3c196da34e1c30af9188de10982b45d72f8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250607140612_5ccfd4786416a151e1c2d44f79add3c196da34e1c30af9188de10982b45d72f8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1250" height="885" loading="lazy" alt="Blatten NT"> <figcaption>Copernicus statellite image of the avalanche that buried the village Blatten in Switzerland on 28 May, 2025.</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250607140616_306112d2eb5330d0a5117bae3fc372861afce5137b52f793285e6b1cf89ca31a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250607140616_306112d2eb5330d0a5117bae3fc372861afce5137b52f793285e6b1cf89ca31a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1733" height="1053" loading="lazy" alt="Langtang NT"> <figcaption>The deadly earthquake-triggered avalance that destroyed Langtang village in Nepal on 25 April, 2015.</figcaption> </figure>  Like the people of the Swiss Alps, the Langtangpa have been living with avalanches for centuries, and they have used both situated knowledge and practical systems to adapt to changing risks. But, in Langtang as in Blatten, the scale and impact of this singular tragedy was both unprecedented and unforeseen. Tellingly, Langtang was not a scientific hinterland: groups from a dozen different countries were conducting glaciological, hydrological, and climatological research there prior to the disaster. Blatten is a case where the scientists knew where to look. But even in relatively well-studied places like Langtang, disasters can emerge in our blind spots.&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lives-on-the-line-in-the-himalaya">Last year’s Thame glacial lake outburst flood</a> (GLOF) also began in an overlooked and understudied area – <a href="https://www.stimson.org/2024/rethinking-himalayan-cryosphere-risk-assessment-in-the-wake-of-nepals-thame-disaster/">prompting scientists to rethink the ways we assess glacial lakes</a>. Issues related to <a href="https://www.icimod.org/mountain/permafrost/">melting permafrost</a>, which seems to have been a factor for both the Blatten disaster and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tashi-lhazom-5a433b22b_rebuildtil-limifloodrelief-fromtearstohope-activity-7332420946013691904-N0sH?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAAADxlvsBK3zQKg0X2xPLPS94HyMEettoSU4">the cascading ‘thermokarst lake outburst flood’ that recently occurred in the Limi Valley</a>, are increasingly recognised as a pervasive risk but it is difficult to monitor and the science is young. A multitude of different cryosphere-related disasters are possible across the Himalaya, and background risk is increasing. How do we triage between these different kinds of hazards? How do we know where to look? While it might not have been possible to monitor the glaciers and cryosphere features that contributed to the Langtang disaster, we need to be actively looking for other places where monitoring systems and early warning is possible in Nepal and the broader Himalayan region. Of course, we do need to be precise in our analysis and communication around climate attribution, but consensus does exist on some general trends: climate change is driving new hazard interactions that can generate extreme flows. Therefore, we also need to recognise the undeniable: that background risk is undeniably rising, that lives are at risk, and that we need to invest in building systems that can help anticipate events like Blatten (which takes time, time that others don’t have) immediately. The fact that Langtang has been fully rebuilt and community leaders were effective in determining the shape of their own future and ‘building back better’ their way (as complicated as that may be), demonstrates that a future can be possible, amid uncertainty. But the future of many other communities in the Himalaya, who should never have to go through what the Langtangpa went through if we can avoid it, still remains at-risk without more scientific attention and investment. Meanwhile, the monsoon is arriving in Nepal and another disaster could happen any day now. Coverage of the Blatten disaster has been rightfully robust. Praise for the scientists and authorities who identified these risks and correctly analyzed the situation is also deserved, for that is difficult work. A wider call to learn from this event and use insights to inform policy on climate risk assessment or questions of managed retreat is also exceedingly necessary and urgent. As many scientists are saying: events like this will happen again. This is a scary time in the mountains, in the Alps, in the Himalaya, and many other regions. That said, not all places are equally exposed or vulnerable. To reiterate a core question that I have been asking for years: <a href="https://dialogue.earth/en/climate/opinion-climate-disasters-integrate-local-knowledge/">Whose uncertainties matter</a>? When and why? We know that climate-related loss and damage will not be equally or equitably distributed, and that is one of the core reasons for the UN’s Early Warnings for All program. Blatten is being talked about this week <a href="https://globalplatform.undrr.org/2025/preparatory-days/global-ew4all-multi-stakeholder-forum">while the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction is going in Geneva</a>, from where some of my Nepali colleagues posted photos of them posing with a sign that speaks to the justice issue: ‘Early warnings work. They must work for everyone.” Working toward this noble goal will require a concerted and committed global effort. -- Austin Lord, PhD is a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and an environmental anthropologist who has been conducting research in Nepal for the past 13 years on disaster and climate risk management, water and energy policy, infrastructure development, and environmental governance.

Blatten, Langtang, and Disasters Yet to Come?

Frontpage topic

As the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) looms, Nepal faces a major challenge in monitoring its progress. With 446 indicators revised in June 2023, the list of SDGs in federal Nepal shoots up sevenfold at the provincial level and <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/485591576101383264/pdf/Nepal-Development-Update-Envisioning-a-Future-Data-Ecosystem-in-Federal-Nepal.pdf">a hundredfold</a> when all 753 local bodies are taken into account. This massive reporting burden, along with overlapping data collection authorities, can erode the quality of data (Figure 1).  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250804140844_d0ed347ce29b627497fe075066d0c9cd0e9f9d5bb3658c7dcf485d22d4e1898d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250804140844_d0ed347ce29b627497fe075066d0c9cd0e9f9d5bb3658c7dcf485d22d4e1898d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1593" height="729" loading="lazy" alt="Data and delivery figure 1"> <figcaption>Figure 1: Mapping of authorities. Source: The World Bank (2019) – The figure depicts the mapping from unbundling report. After 2022, the statistical system is now under leadership of NSO.</figcaption> </figure>  Furthermore, <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/485591576101383264/pdf/Nepal-Development-Update-Envisioning-a-Future-Data-Ecosystem-in-Federal-Nepal.pdf">the World Bank report</a> on envisioning a future data ecosystem in federal Nepal states that ‘The data governance should be institutionalized in such a way that data coming from different sources would ‘complement’ rather than ‘compete’ with each other and abide the ‘cooperation’ ‘coexisting’ and ‘coordination’ principle enshrined in the Constitution of Nepal’. However, the challenge is to ensure reporting efficiency and quality, especially as the statistical regulation of 2080 B.S. allows independent data collection, but the localisation of SDG indicators creates a huge administrative ordeal. As such, it is important to map the overlapping SDGs indicators, and explore the scope for minimising redundancies by reducing the number of repeating indicators and duplication of efforts, as well as identifying complementing indicators.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250804140844_539aa390889c971940a4cd28d6d9709485a4f37a06e3fa022fa4b0e14a5a9110.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250804140844_539aa390889c971940a4cd28d6d9709485a4f37a06e3fa022fa4b0e14a5a9110" data-rendition-name="original" width="1149" height="824" loading="lazy" alt="Data and delivery figure 2"> <figcaption>Figure 2: 75% text or conceptual overlap. Source: Author’s calculation.</figcaption> </figure>  There are 15 indicators with a 75-100% text match or conceptual overlap across different goals (Figure 2). For instance, SDG 4, Indicator 1.4.3 “Households within 30 minutes travel time to health facility (% of total)” is conceptually identical to SDG 3, Indicator 3.8.9 “i. Percent of households within 30 minutes travel time to health facility”. In another example of duplication, “Number of deaths, missing persons and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population,” is reported in both SDG 13 Indicator 13.1.1 and SDG 11 Indicator 11.5.1. The count of “local levels that adopted disaster risk reduction strategies,” appears in both SDG 11 Indicator 11.b.2 and SDG 13 Indicator 13.1.3. The problem is not just duplication, but also conceptual overlaps: 55 indicators have more than 35% text similarity (Figure 3). For example, SDG 5, Indicator 5.5.3 “Women in civil service decision-making positions (% of total employees)” and SDG 16, Indicator 16.7.3 “Proportions of decision-making positions held by women in public institutions” are complementary. Technically, it should be possible to calculate indicator 16.7.3 if data is available in SDG 5.5.3, eliminating the need for separate reporting.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250804140844_070dc2c1f2f07b1b80938274bd2f440ccb60b5fc723509d87be388ce7d4e8cf5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250804140844_070dc2c1f2f07b1b80938274bd2f440ccb60b5fc723509d87be388ce7d4e8cf5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1145" height="836" loading="lazy" alt="Data and delivery figure 3"> <figcaption>Figure 3: 35 to ~100% text match or overlap. Source: Author’s calculation.</figcaption> </figure>  Furthermore, inherent interlinkages between indicators, such as SDG 1’s “Households having access to market center within 30 min walk (% of total)” and SDG 8’s “Access to Cooperatives (% of households within 30 min walk),” should complement each other, highlighting opportunities for data integration. Cooperatives operate within the proximity of the market, the existence of data in cooperatives and data gaps in access to the market or larger variation in statistics should flag the possible disconnect. Meanwhile, there are more than three Goal Areas (SDG 11, 16 and 17) where the data gap is 50% or higher. In contrast, Health (SDG 3) and Education (SDG 4) have the highest number of indicators and the lowest data gaps, primarily due to well-established administrative systems like the Health Management Information System (HMIS) and the Education Management Information System (EMIS). These systems contribute approximately 38% of all data, with an overall data gap of 35%. Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education have the highest proportion of budget followed by Ministry of Infrastructure. The granularity of data is high in the SDGs 2, 3 and 4. These are the goal areas where MIS contributes the most. Overall, 18% of data is disaggregated at the local level, and approximately 28% at the provincial level (Figure 5).&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250804140844_bca4fc150516a469c8d6b13a19c8559f1bb1daafe4d9fa5e3796b64aa4ed359a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250804140844_bca4fc150516a469c8d6b13a19c8559f1bb1daafe4d9fa5e3796b64aa4ed359a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1106" height="847" loading="lazy" alt="Data and delivery figure 5"> <figcaption>Figure 5: Disaggregation and data gap. Source: Author’s calculation.</figcaption> </figure>  Interestingly, indicators with matching text or conceptual overlaps often have no apparent data gaps and are highly disaggregated. This suggests that these indicators are often derived from administrative systems, and thus, a key opportunity exists to minimise redundancies by integrating these siloed systems (Figure 6).  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250804140844_67f8345023f322ab8db4c6e320745c6e4b1f8b8155691087b20bb3bbe79d504f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250804140844_67f8345023f322ab8db4c6e320745c6e4b1f8b8155691087b20bb3bbe79d504f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="844" loading="lazy" alt="Data and delivery figure 6"> <figcaption>Figure 6: Matching and data sources. Source: Author’s calculation.</figcaption> </figure>  However, it is easier said than done. Institutionalising interoperability across different administrative systems requires harmonised coding and coordinated data collection timelines. This task is made more difficult by the need for a sustained vision to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-crisis-can-spur-digitisation">push for digitisation</a> with strong financial support, and a dedicated effort to identify indicators that do not share the same spelling or coding conventions. While the revised SDG indicators now have unique identifiers, these must be consistently mapped across thematic areas and with existing administrative systems and ‘<a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/485591576101383264/pdf/Nepal-Development-Update-Envisioning-a-Future-Data-Ecosystem-in-Federal-Nepal.pdf">coding of newly established government units, including but not limited to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Survey Department, and the High-Level Commission for Information and Technology (HLCIT) codes</a>’. A lack of standardisation is a major obstacle. For instance, of the 753 local governments, only about 500 use the same spelling convention. The Government of Nepal in 2022 graduated the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) to the National Statistics Office (NSO), making it a statistical arm to coordinate with federal units on the data collection, management and reporting process. The NSO is mandated to coordinate data collection and management in federal Nepal and to create a coordination committee for this purpose. As per the regulation, the data coming from administrative services feeds into the unified statistical system. However, a critical gap exists: the mandate does not include representatives from the Ministry of Information and Technology (MoIT), where the integrated data management centre is hosted. Mandate requires data to abide by the existing laws and practices in Nepal, and commensurate with the framework and definition laid out by the UN or its higher authorities. Furthermore, while the NSO's mandate calls for consistent frameworks and guidelines, it fails to mention the harmonisation of codes and identifiers—a basic requirement for a unified statistical system (section 2, sub-section 3 and sub-section 4). One crucial step the government can take is to create a metadata that includes an exhaustive list of all the spelling conventions and coding used in the administrative systems of Nepal. This list should be reviewed by technical experts and think tanks to identify redundancies and overlaps in the SDGs indicators. This would be a foundational move toward a more efficient and integrated data ecosystem. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashutosh-mani-dixit-92aa3a2a4/">Ashutosh Mani Dixit</a> co-authored the special focus section Envisioning a future data ecosystem in federal Nepal. He worked with the World Bank from 2018 to 2021, and the Government of Federal Nepal in SDGs agenda and localisation of the SDGs indicators. The coding used for matching the text and spelling in the analysis is uploaded on <a href="https://github.com/AMD2019/Python-for-Data-Science/blob/932a48e9a842254ed6ee69488d67b2a3d55856bc/SDGs_revised.ipynb">GitHub</a>. The data used in the analysis is available <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FPipYVtXU2kskA6QMPORvrhr9LZ_cMGz/view">here</a> for further discussion and feedback.

Data and delivery

I was asked to give a presentation at the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-present-and-future-of-news">Himal Media Mela</a> on 25 July on the ethical and productive use of AI in journalism. I am using the first of this new monthly Technocrat column in Nepali Times to say what I did not have time for at my session about real dangers, real potentials, and hard-won lessons about AI, journalism, and ethics.
I’m not a natural public speaker, and a member of the audience last week told me I sounded like I was chewing gum. True, I mumble, and often lose my train of thought. But one does not need to be a great orator to get the message across. You just need to care deeply and speak the truth.
Nepali Times readers will have seen the supplement in last week’s edition in both print and online that carried a year-by-year summary from 2000 to 2025. I am told the five-member newsroom staff took weeks to put it all together.
They did a great job, but I used ChatGPT’s plus feature Deep Research to crawl 25 years of archives to produce similar content in a few hours with workable links and all the right references.&nbsp;
True, the text needed some fine tuning, but if this sort of normally exhausting human work can save time and energy then AI can be an amazing asset. &nbsp;
But many AI enthusiasts are dumbing down by using image and video generators, and wasting their credits. This is causing AI fatigue among young people on digital networking sites.
Before using AI effectively, we must first understand its true cost. The glossy marketing of AI tools hides the dark side of the deep learning machine underneath, a system built on a foundation of our work, often taken without our knowledge or consent. And you thought, all those words and sentences were AI magic!
AI is a hungry beast voraciously devouring whatever you post. Every article, every photograph, every personal post, every comment you make is raw material for training the next generation of AI models. It does not matter if you gave permission. Nobody is asking.&nbsp;
AI does not need permission to train itself using my sentences from the digital version of this column.
This is not 'fair use'. It is exploitation on an industrial scale. The very soul of our work is being strip-mined to build a technology that profits from our labour without credit, compensation, or consent.
And then there is the danger from deep fake that has moved from a niche experiment to an everyday threat. It is easy if you know the tricks for anyone to clone a voice, fake a video, or create a false event so realistic it can fool even experts.&nbsp;
Content Scrapers
AI is not a neutral force. It is a tool for scammers, a weapon to deny crimes, erase real incidents, and destroy reputations overnight. Teenage girls have been blackmailed with fake videos. In India and Bangladesh, politicians have seen their words twisted to incite chaos.
The scariest outcome is not just the production of individual fakes, it is the erosion of all trust. When ‘anything can be faked’, who can prove if they are telling the truth? The greatest risk is not that people will believe fake content, but that they will stop believing any content, undermining our shared foundation of reality.&nbsp;
As journalists, we risk becoming unwitting amplifiers of these falsehoods if we are not equipped to detect and expose them. AI is a stereotyping machine that amplifies our worst biases.&nbsp;
Prompts on platforms are sexualised, gendered, or reinforce harmful ethnic stereotypes. Many women participate in this cycle, sometimes out of curiosity, unconsciously reproducing the very biases inherent in patriarchal societies.
The faces of children are now circulating in AI-generated images worldwide, stripped of context, consent, or protection. A simple search for ‘Nepali or Indian or White girl’ on an AI image site brings up content no parent would ever want to see.&nbsp;
This is not just a privacy issue, it is a violation of dignity and safety. We make it easy for ‘content scrapers’ by posting photos and videos of our children on Tiktok.&nbsp;
Faced with these realities, we cannot afford to be silent. Indifference is not an option, it is complicity. Fortunately, there is a quiet but growing resistance among artists, musicians, and photographers. But journalists, the very people who create the facts and narratives that train AI, have been too slow to join the fight. &nbsp;
Naresh Newar is a writer on strategic communications and Artificial Intelligence and content specialist.

Being intelligent about journalism

Nepali Times celebrated its 25th anniversary on 25 July, and this piqued my curiosity about how the paper covered migration in the early days. Things must have been so different back then. Or were they? If we look at restrictive emigration policies that disproportionately impact women, contributors have changed, protagonists have changed, but the message <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/two-decades-of-debate-on-female-migration" target="_blank">remains</a> more or less the same. Many aspects of what we write today about bans are no different from what was written back then, and it is timely to revisit this issue today on World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. Trafficking can only be addressed when people have access to safe and legal migration pathways, not with bans. In an article in 2000, the year this paper was born, correspondent Hemlata Rai wrote an article called ‘<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4816#.YDxjOFUzaUk" target="_blank">Misplaced Chivalry’</a> that criticised the ban on women migration. Back then, it was not a ban on just domestic work but on women migration altogether. Excerpt from the article: What the prohibition has done is make women more vulnerable to economic and sexual exploitation. Since the women now use illegal channels to reach their destinations, they remain invisible in official books and therefore unprotected by laws that ensure workers’ rights…. The government has simply not been able to put an end to this trafficking, and by its across-the-board ban on women workers going to the Gulf has only succeeded in pushing an employment channel underground. Twenty-five years later, I could just reuse this paragraph, and it would still be relevant, albeit the current ban is on domestic work that disproportionately impacts women and not all women migrants. In a 2003 <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4627" target="_blank">news piece</a>, there was a hopeful government announcement that the ban on women working in Gulf countries was lifted, provided a recruiter and embassy could guarantee safe working conditions, after ‘activists criticised the restriction as discriminatory’. In 2006, Dambar Shrestha <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=12746" target="_blank">noted</a> that the remaining restriction on women migrating to the Gulf for domestic work would also likely be repealed after the introduction of the Foreign Employment Act in 2007:&nbsp; ‘There was a general consensus (among Government and advocates) that the ban should be repealed, as a way to monitor overseas employment, and ensure women have legal recourse if mistreated.’ Indeed, the ban was lifted but its aftermath. Mallika Aryal’s 2009 article ‘<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15584" target="_blank">The Invisible</a>’ and Rubeena Mahato’s ‘<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19120#.YDxpbVUzaUl" target="_blank">Womanpower</a>’ noted that women still struggled to migrate because of the bureaucratic challenges:&nbsp; ‘Despite being legally allowed to go abroad to work, government rules make it as difficult as possible for them to do so.’ (Mallika Aryal) or because of the perception of the ban, ‘After the Foreign Employment Act 2007 was passed, the ban has officially been lifted, and there are no restrictions on women migrant workers going abroad. But the perception of a ban remains, and this has led many women to continue using illegal routes.’ By the time people become aware that bans have been lifted or get a grasp of how to navigate the post-ban recruitment system, another iteration of the ban is introduced whether it is conditional (age-specific, country-specific) or blanket bans bringing us back to square 1. See the flipflopping I attempted to trace in a 2021 article, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/history-of-female-im-mobility-in-nepal?amp=1history" target="_blank">History of Female Im-mobility in Nepal</a>. Just like the ban is a reactionary policy, this article was a reaction to a bizarre proposal to require consent from a guardian and local government for women under the age of 40 travelling to the Gulf or Africa which fortunately got quashed. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025073014074_064a69c6ac6a432d6fabb6ca38989186ca6f730e59c20c0c0f182c5e0f6d9dc0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2025073014074_064a69c6ac6a432d6fabb6ca38989186ca6f730e59c20c0c0f182c5e0f6d9dc0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1005" height="672" loading="lazy" alt="migration in Nepal"> </figure>  But <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/lift-the-ban-on-domestic-workers" target="_blank">bans</a> don’t work, have never worked, given irregular <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/ban-the-ban" target="_blank">options</a> via open borders and visit visas, as has been extensively covered in this paper since its first year. The latest <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/history-of-female-im-mobility-in-nepal?amp=1history" target="_blank">ban</a>, imposed in 2017 after a Parliamentary committee visited the Gulf and decided it was unsafe for domestic workers, regardless of gender.&nbsp; Any promise for change such as a 2020 Parliamentary trip after which the committee instructed the government to revisit the ban considering country-specific policies and several preconditions, which were still deemed restrictive, has stalled. A proposal around lifting the ban starting with a pilot agreement with the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/ban-on-female-migrant-workers-to-be-lifted" target="_blank">UAE</a> submitted by the Labour Ministry has also stalled. One would think that 25 years is a long enough time horizon for progress that would bring us to a point where we would look back and gasp at how bans were imposed to curb migration that disproportionately impacted women.&nbsp; What on earth was the Government thinking, we could have wondered? On the contrary, this is still our reality and we are in fact in the midst of a fresh, high profile <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/labour-mobility/revisiting-visit-visas" target="_blank">visit visa</a> scandal that has become a core public contention issue. The misuse of visit visas is inevitably linked to deployment bans and profit motives.&nbsp; These scandals cast doubt on the claim that the bans are really for ‘protection’ of women. To be sure, domestic work remains one of the most vulnerable sectors with women disproportionately affected. Excessive working hours, payment issues such as non-payment or underpayment, verbal, physical and even sexual abuse are prevalent. Countries including in the Middle East have increasingly adopted regulations protecting women but there are severe limits in both the protections they offer or their implementation. These abuses are very much present, prevalent and cannot be ignored. But Nepal has not taken the steps to proactively address these issues because the bans alone take centre focus despite their ineffectiveness. The restrictive policy has not been overhauled despite decades of progress since Hemlata Rai first reported on this subject in this paper in terms of better databases for recordkeeping, stronger international conventions, laws and standards governing this sector, better developed curricula on domestic work, stronger regulations for recruiters deploying domestic workers, social media that keeps domestic workers connected. There are developments from the last two decades that can be utilized to make the sector safer should there be a willingness to do so. Because the reality is, these opportunities are <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/homes-away-from-home" target="_blank">life-changing</a> for many <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/every-day-is-closer-to-pay-day" target="_blank">migrants</a> and their families. If and when we get to celebrate the lifting of the ban, it will be just that: a celebration of the ban being lifted, which is not a lot to begin with. A low bar. Because it will only clear the way to begin real work to tangibly make this sector safe.&nbsp; What is needed past the ban will be a lot of work: stronger embassies, better recordkeeping, enforceable bilateral labour agreements, monitoring, pre-departure training and awareness campaigns. Perhaps that is another reason why there is such slow progress because imposing a ban does give the semblance of doing something in the name of protection without really doing much? Twenty-five years of reporting in Nepali Times on bans on women migrant workers has one lesson: they still don’t work -- just as the paper reported back in 2000.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025073014070_90a876eb706f8dca38e738c0f470f88d798d8ebe4be1893c9af5867fba3e0b24.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025073014070_90a876eb706f8dca38e738c0f470f88d798d8ebe4be1893c9af5867fba3e0b24" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="World Day against Trafficking in Persons"> </figure>  In this spirit of lazy policymaking and the lackluster progress on addressing deployment bans, here are five endings from previous articles covered in the paper on this issue. Please choose as per your liking; ‘The government has simply not been able to put an end to this trafficking, and by its across-the-board ban on women workers going to the Gulf has only succeeded in pushing an employment channel underground.’ (Hemlata Rai, 2000) ‘How can the government be so apathetic towards this problem when women make such a significant contribution to the national economy?’ (Dewan Rai, 2009) ‘Unless the government is serious about enforcing the provisions of the Foreign Employment Act and creates a safety net for migrant workers, these statistics and the lives of countless Nepali women will only get worse.’ (Sushila Budhathoki and Mina Sharma, 2012) ‘The ban needs to be lifted, but this is also an opportune moment to address other less-explicit but enduring factors that are holding women back, both literally and figuratively.’ (Upasana Khadka, 2020) ‘Undocumented domestic workers are citizens too, and it is the duty of the state not to abandon them.’ (Ayushman Bhagat and Sunita Mainali, 2025) Upasana Khadka heads <a href="https://www.migration-lab.com/">Migration Lab</a>, a social enterprise aimed at making migration outcomes better for workers and their families. Labour Mobility is a regular column in Nepali Times.

Nepal’s unchanging domestic worker saga

The dramatic story of Israel’s birth in 1948 following the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/holocaust-memorial-sara-atzmon,1986">Nazi Holocaust </a>captured the wonder and admiration of the world. Its founders claimed that Israel would be a light to the nations. But the Jewish state’s identity has now gone from being the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-loss-of-an-identity">victim of genocide</a> to perpetrator in less than two generations. Israel’s Likud government stands accused of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/crime-against-humanity-in-gaza">genocide in Gaza </a>by a UN Special Committee, the World Court’s admission that the accusation is plausible, and recently by 28 nations acting in concert to declare Israel in violation of International Humanitarian Law. What happened? Rather than face the truth of 75 years of injustice to Palestinians that led to the terrible slaughter and hostage-taking by Hamas in 2023, most Israelis support the daily overkill in Gaza, now nearly two years long. After <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/mortality-in-the-gaza-israel-war">more than 100,000 casualties</a> under constant bombing of the civilian population with no one shooting back, famine has begun. Israel as a society and government have performed exactly the opposite of what David Ben Gurion declared: The State of Israel will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace … Israel lost its soul by becoming racist, then racialist, with the doctrinaire view that Jews are by nature and divine right superior to other races. This has led to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-world-s-moral-failure-in-gaza">suppression of the Palestinians</a>, and, if given the opportunity, to their extermination, as is now evident in Gaza. Why under its decades-long military occupation of Palestine, have Arabs been killed, imprisoned, wounded, neighbourhoods bombed, houses destroyed, streets ploughed up, families imprisoned behind concrete walls, and an entire population denied the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/history-of-female-im-mobility-in-nepal">right to travel</a>?&nbsp; The Zionist’s answer to these questions may be that the Palestinians under decades of military rule are not actually citizens of Israel. That is a distinction without a difference, because the occupying authority has legal responsibility for the population under occupation, including the West Bank and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/saving-what-is-left-of-gaza">Gaza</a>. True, there are areas declared to be administered by the Palestinians alone, but no one pretends that the Palestinian territory is truly free and independent. The occupied territory and its people remain wards of the Israeli state. Even though the UN created Israel, its various governments have long denied any right of the UN to curtail its expansionist aims and war-making powers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250730090744_f0e965da3702f8d2cea081e607d40a09249dceedf4e6fd725f9fd139c2132ecf.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20250730090744_f0e965da3702f8d2cea081e607d40a09249dceedf4e6fd725f9fd139c2132ecf" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="805" loading="lazy" alt="How Israel lost its soul"> </figure>  Jewish Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin coined the word ‘genocide’ and made it his lifelong task to see it implemented in international law. The Genocide Convention was ratified by the United Nations in 1948, but is being deliberately flaunted by Israel in Gaza. Genocide is a serious charge, but its terms in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/un-faults-nepal-s-war-crimes-bill">international law</a> are clear: no killing or setting up conditions for the destruction of a people group just because they are members of that group, no forced expulsion or transfers of that group, and no public advocacy to do so, which is a key provision already violated by Messrs Netanyahu, Trump, Galant, and others. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/the-international-order-is-dying-in-gaza">The International Order Is Dying in Gaza</a>, Mohamed ElBaradei In January 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ), joined by an Israeli ad hoc Judge, Aharon Barak, voted to urge punishment of those advocating expulsion or transfer of the population of Gaza. The citizens of Israel bear collective responsibility for the actions of their government, but not as individuals unless they specifically vote for or advocate genocidal actions. Israeli opposition figures, of which there are very few, are courageous and deserve praise. What about the citizens of the United States where both Democrats and Republicans have long aided and abetted Israel’s violence toward those under its protection? Governments and citizens everywhere must join forces to prevent famine from claiming more children in Gaza.&nbsp; Citizens must raise our voices now or be forever classed with those who allowed and abetted today’s Genocide. (Inter Press Service) James E Jennings PhD is President of <a href="http://www.conscienceinternational.org/index.php" target="_blank">Conscience International</a>, and Leader of US Academics for Peace delegations to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, and other countries. He taught Middle East History, Archaeology, and Religion at US universities. <h2>Bearing Witness</h2> The Associated Press, AFP, BBC News and Reuters this week issued this joint statement:&nbsp; We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families. For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering. &nbsp;&nbsp; Journalists endure many deprivations and hardships in war zones. We are deeply alarmed that the threat of starvation is now one of them. It is essential that adequate food supplies reach the people of Gaza.

How Israel lost its soul

Every year, up to 15 people are killed by tigers in and around Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, famous for its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/is-wildlife-conservation-a-victim-of-its-own-success-in-nepal">conservation success story</a>.&nbsp; But this was not always the case — elders say there used to be many more tigers but fewer deaths. What changed? Long before <a href="https://chitwannationalpark.gov.np/index.php">Chitwan National Park</a> was established in 1972, the indigenous Tharu people and tigers coexisted, fostering a centuries-old relationship based on an understanding of each other’s behaviour. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-tarai-s-shrinking-forests">the Tarai </a>plains, especially Chitwan, gained fame for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-tarai-s-shrinking-forests">tiger hunting</a> and proved useful as Nepal’s rulers employed hunting diplomacy by inviting British royals to extravagant hunting parties. Hunting expeditions would descend from Kathmandu in winter months to avoid malarial summers. The Tharu supplied rice, vegetables, goats, and constructed access roads.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250729160752_c9998ffdaa27ff3c251556bd472945bf6e648fdb4016d3b152cbef86f321c7f7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250729160752_c9998ffdaa27ff3c251556bd472945bf6e648fdb4016d3b152cbef86f321c7f7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1146" loading="lazy" alt="Tharu people"> <figcaption>A US-supported DDT spraying campaign against malaria in Chitwan in the 1950s that opened the valley to trans-migration of farmers from the hills. The Tharu people were partially immune to malaria. Photo: USOM RECORDS, US NATIONAL ARCHIVES, COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND</figcaption> </figure>  Rana rulers also relied upon Tharu mahout expertise in handling elephants, navigating the jungle, and tracking wildlife for hunting. The Ranas and their guests killed an astonishing number of tigers. During a hunting expedition in 1850, Rana Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana personally shot dead 31 tigers. In 1876, during two weeks, British King Albert Edward VII shot 23 tigers.&nbsp; In 1911 King George V killed four bears, eight one-horned rhinoceroses, and 39 tigers. Rana Prime Minister Juddha Shumsher is said to have killed 433 tigers from all across the Tarai between 1930 to 1940. At the time, 90% of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/chitwan-s-bote-people-in-a-changing-world">Chitwan’s population </a>were indigenous Tharu, Bote, Musahar, with the Kumal making up the rest. While people were worried about their crops and food sources, they were also mindful of tigers, rhinos, and other forms of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/human-animal-interface-in-nepal-wildlife-corridor?%2F">wildlife</a>.&nbsp; The Tharu trapped tiger prey such as wild boar and deer for their survival, also understood that predators like tigers sometimes hunted their buffalos, goats, and cows — especially when they grazed in or near the jungle. To Tharu, this seemed only fair. “In 1973, just before the establishment of the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/on-the-tri-junction-of-wildlife-conservation-conflict-and-co-existence"> Chitwan National Park</a>, my family owned between 200 and 300 cows, oxen, and buffaloes,” says Keval Chaudhary, 95. “Tigers killed four to five of my cattle each year, but we never hated tigers and never felt like killing them. It was coexistence — we shared the same land.”&nbsp; Shukhlal Chaudhary of Bachauli once told us there used to be significantly more tigers before malaria eradication in the 1950s, but that did not mean there was more conflict with humans. “We used to go into the forest every day, and were familiar with the routines of the animals that lived there,” he used to say. “The tigers rarely ventured into our village or killed anyone who lived there.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250729160756_e39f7bdb451f752b753b1d8fc4e590196afd5cd21e2456443557c2eafb6c5c82.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250729160756_e39f7bdb451f752b753b1d8fc4e590196afd5cd21e2456443557c2eafb6c5c82" data-rendition-name="original" width="1915" height="1443" loading="lazy" alt="Tigers in Nepal"> </figure>  In the days before the National Park, the tiger population in Chitwan was probably bigger. The Ranas had laws against hurting rhinos and tigers, but more importantly, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/unsung-heroes-of-nepal-s-tiger-recovery">the Tharu also cared for the animals </a>and the jungle. This respect for nature runs deep in our tradition. The Tharu worship through the Gurau spiritual healer and honour the forest deity known as Bandevi. Says Aasha Ram Mahato, an 85-year-old resident of Madi: “हमरा पुजा करइ खुनिय जम्मा देवी देउता जससनेकी सोमेसोरबाणि, कल्की माइ, बिक्रम बाबा सब थारु देवी देउता क नाउ लेके हमरा सन्सारी बर्ना कर्साहु इय जेठवा नत एसार्ह महिनावमा हमरा इअ बाली बिर्ही बचावके, बनवका चिजुवा बिजुवा बचावके कहके हमरा बरसमा ३ चोटी पुजा कर्साहु एसार्ही बर्ना, लेरुवा पैठ हसे चैत पैठ बर्ना।” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/5-myths-about-the-tharu">The Tharu </a>take the names of all the gods they worship — such as Somesor Baani, Kalki Maai, and Bikram Baba, and perform Sansaari Puja, a traditional ritual to protect crops, wild and domestic animals, insects, and everything in nature. This ritual reflects the community’s deep respect and spiritual bond with the natural world and is performed three times a year. Bikram Mahato, 65, recalls an incident six years ago when 10 people entered Chitwan National Park to cut fodder grass. A tiger was 50m away, silently watching them and preparing to attack. The group quickly decided not to run or scatter. Instead, they stayed close together.&nbsp; This smart and immediate decision prevented a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/close-encounters-with-tigers-in-nepal">tiger attack</a>. It also depicts the Tharu indigenous community’s understanding of nature and wildlife, as well as their choice of coexistence and protection. The Nepal government and foreign aid organisations have mostly forgotten the history of Tharu–tiger coexistence and the community’s silent but c<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/conservation-at-the-crossroads">rucial role in tiger conservation</a>. Nevertheless, let us hope that the state will eventually acknowledge and pay tribute to the contributions of the Indigenous Tharu in protecting the forests and wildlife, especially the tigers, that currently make up Chitwan National Park. Birendra Mahato is an elected member of the Ratnanagar Municipality Ward 6 and Founder Chair of the Tharu Culture Museum Research Centre in Sauraha.

Nepal’s Tharu are tiger protectors

Year 2000. The world was gripped by the Y2K panic, The Millennium Bug that many feared would wreck global computer networks. The US waged punitive wars following 9/11. Google was launched in 1998, and its search engine and Gmail soon overtook AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo! The EU floated the Euro, and China was asserting itself on the world stage. Nepal was still a monarchy. The country’s population was only 23 million. Most people got their news on community radio. Evening news bulletins on tv channels had higher ratings than entertainment. Amidst political turmoil, readers bought national daily broadsheets at news-stands. Content was politically top-heavy. The Maoist conflict was entering its fifth year, and there was sporadic news of the government’s Kilo Sierra 2 operation which killed more civilians than guerrillas, adding fuel to the insurgency. The Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML were at each other’s throats, calling for national shutdowns and squandering the hopes of renewal from a democracy their leaders fought to restore in the 1990 People’s Movement. Hardliners in the royal family were getting restless. Scientific proof about global warming, erratic weather and media coverage spread public awareness about climate breakdown. Dire predictions about what was going to happen during the course of the century proved to be optimistic -- we are already seeing today what climatologists said would happen in 2100. Back then, facts still mattered, the mainstream press swayed opinion, investigative journalism exposed wrongdoing and held power to account. In Nepal, editors and foreign correspondents were opinion-makers, some as well-known as political figures, and sometimes as powerful. <h2>Nepali Times</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250724110720_468fead795119919172c5f87adedc9524d3d1c687c481beb0c67136be80ff801.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250724110720_468fead795119919172c5f87adedc9524d3d1c687c481beb0c67136be80ff801" data-rendition-name="original" width="457" height="666" loading="lazy" alt="NT #1"> </figure>  Himalmedia Pvt Ltd was launched in 1998 with the flagship fortnightly Himal Khabarpatrika, and Nepali Times started in April 2000 with online content hosted on nepalnews.com. A practice issue was printed in May, and the #1 edition debuted in the week 19-25 July 2000 at the dawn of a new century and new millennium. We chose the ‘midi’ size between broadsheet and tabloid, also called the Berliner format. Indian graphic artist Rustam Vania did the design of a paper convenient to hold and read, an easy and visually rich digest of happenings around the country in lively, stylish English. But why English? We explained in the very first Editorial: ‘In the heyday of the Panchayat in the early 1980s, we were often asked why we worked for The Rising Nepal. Our stock reply: “Because His Majesty reads it.” Those were the days when few outside the charmed circle of Kathmandu expatriates and local elite read English. So what changed? First, the number of people who read English has grown … English is a global lingua franca. There is a class of Nepalis who want more than just make-do English, they want to be fluent in it. English has another advantage: it is easier to be rational in it. One is expressive and effusive in one’s mother tongue, feelings are stronger in the colloquial … In a language that is learnt formally and among readers of an international language, there is less tolerance of intolerance.’ Today in the age of trolling and hate speech, maybe English is not so ‘rational’ after all. The social web has changed so much: readers are drawn to entertainment on digital platforms that mine their personal data and preferences, the political views of users are entrenched and radicalised by algorithms, there is less space for coherent give-and-take to find the middle ground in disputes. The media’s business model has failed under the predatory onslaught of Big Tech. At a time when a free and independent press is needed more than ever to counter populism, resolve wars, or find solutions to the climate crisis, the media is on mute. There is overt political and corporate control of content, and intolerance of tolerance is increasing. Journalism has had to reinvent itself to balance disinformation and falsehoods in cybersphere. At the moment Nepal is a relatively open society, with one of the freest environments in Asia for media. There are efforts to curb that freedom by the other three branches of the state, but solidarity among journalists is strong. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="750" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LJX9JHqgMdU?si=2ZSlPWN6YqPSbOY9" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> Nepali Times itself survived the digital transition with an agile strategy that straddles both print and online for content dissemination and revenue. Those who started reading Nepali Times straight out of university when they were 25, are now 50 years old. We have kept a loyal readership, while welcoming a new generation of users – some of them, surprisingly, preferring the print edition. We have emphasised multimedia content, preferring to show rather than tell through interactive digital infographics and a well-visited YouTube channel. The hardcopy and online editions complement each other.&nbsp; Nepali Times has 150,000 unique visitors per month on its website, and over 38% of you come in through the front door in organic searches, 39% through search engines, and the rest click links to stories on our social media posts. The average duration a reader spends on a Nepali Times article is relatively high compared to other media: 2 minutes. Despite the perception that the content is read by older people, it is still mostly popular in the 25-40 age group. Readers of the online pages are divided roughly 30:70 between Nepal and the rest of the world. &nbsp; In an age of mobile phone saturation, &nbsp;endless scrolling on a small screen, there is still something to be said about the impact of high quality photographs on a 30 inch spread in the centerfold on this paper.&nbsp; Which may be why despite print media worldwide either shutting down or in crisis, the number of subscribers buying the print edition delivered to their homes or offices every Friday morning in Kathmandu has been constant over the past 25 years. Nepali Times is also available as an e-paper on www.nepalitimes.com as well as a weekly newsletter emailed to about 4,000 subscribers through Substack every Sunday. Himalmedia has now been repurposed as a non-profit company. Its Himal Khabar magazine and Nepali Times will remain dedicated to fostering a national conversation of issues before they become problems.&nbsp; Media consumption is shifting, readers are fragmented by algorithm and devices, but it is good, old-fashioned reporting that keeps society informed of trends affecting their lives. Journalism that is fair and balanced provides perspective to make sense of the cacophony.&nbsp; We thank all readers, partners and well-wishers in Nepal and the rest of the world for being with us for the last 25 years. We look forward to the next 25 with a fresh and youthful newsroom team.&nbsp; Kunda Dixit Former Editor, now Publisher

Publisher's Note

Nepali Times #1272

American artist Peter Makela was in Nepal in 2022 on a Fulbright scholarship when he experienced the Matya festival in Patan in which devotees made the rounds of the city’s shrines.&nbsp;
He joined the procession, walking through 2,600 stupa and 140 bahal of the town. That immersion left a lasting impression.
As part of Gallery Mcube’s international residency program in Patan, he put his inspiration to canvas in the exhibition Yala Yatra: Walking, Working, Worshipping. The exhibition also coincides with this month’s Matya festival.&nbsp;
Makela has visited Nepal often in the past 11 years but he mostly stayed in and spent his time around Boudha. “This time I stayed in Patan, put the sites I wanted to visit on my map, and off I went,” he tells us. “Each of my artwork is inspired by the stupas and shrines in Patan that I visited.”
The stupa and Ganesh are recurring motifs in his watercolours, and the elephant gods are located in chaityas — reflecting the interplay and blending of the Hindu and Buddhist faiths in Kathmandu Valley.&nbsp;
The stupas and Ganesh are painted in vivid red, yellow, blue and green against abstract backgrounds meant to represent the sky.
“I use the sky as a backdrop because the sky has no border,” says Makela. “The four colours represent the four elements, the different Buddha families and also lights bouncing off of a rainbow.”
The use of just four colours for all the artwork stands out, and combined with the absence of heavy canvases, frames or stands render Makela’s art striking in its simplicity.&nbsp;
The Ganesh is always holding something and the art also portrays the elephant god’s sacred vehicle, the mouse.
While his vibrant stupas and Ganesh reflect the tangibility of Patan’s tradition and heritage, it is as if the backdrops with their shades of grey and red and yellow capture the soul of the city’s shrines.
“If you look closely, there is a sense of form and formlessness at the same time,” he says.&nbsp;
Makela walked 108 kora around the shrines during his exploration of the town, and in the process developed a spiritual connection with Patan’s heritage and traditions.&nbsp;
The exhibition connects with visitors on a deeper, more spiritual, level as well. And with it, they feel a sense of pride as well as the need to urgently preserve Patan’s heritage for future generations.
“Peter’s inclination and approach towards Nepali art and culture is fascinating, and it reflects in his work,” says Mcube curator Manish Lal Shrestha, whose international artist residency program promotes Nepal’s cultural heritage. &nbsp;&nbsp;
Yala Yatra: Walking, Working, Worshipping
1-5 August&nbsp;
10AM-7PM
Gallery Mcube, Patan

Walking, working, worshipping in Patan

Duthik: Stories from Dolpo at The Kala Salon is Chering Gyaoo Gurung’s ode to his homeland of Dolpo using its native textiles and jewelry. It is also an urgent call to preserve the region’s culture, eroded by encroaching modernity, migration, and a changing climate. ‘I have always loved the textiles of my home, and these, along with the lapis, coral and other minerals used in our jewelry, have inspired my art,’ writes Gurung in his artist’s statement. The famous Dolpo blankets, weighty, richly coloured with linear patterns, hang alongside his paintings in the Salon, on the top floor of the Chhaya Center in Thamel. One of the blankets is his grandmother’s. “It almost still smells smoky, since we only use firewood,” says the soft-spoken 25-year-old. Dolpo in the trans-Himalaya is to the north of the Dhaulagiri range. Most people, incluyding the artist’s family are pastoralists, herding 100 yaks, goats and sheep. Many families also collect yarsagumba, and at one point that would make enough money to last the year, but not anymore. “From Dolpo, it is pretty unheard of to pursue art,” says Gurung, who is not traditionally trained in thangka like other Himalayan artists like Tsherin Sherpa or Dorjee Karmarong. But his passion for art showed early, when he came to Kathmandu at five to study.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250723080712_be467c0e9b9f2fd01148efb464a1c785b8c9ba66f09dd8308c311859a3682a9d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250723080712_be467c0e9b9f2fd01148efb464a1c785b8c9ba66f09dd8308c311859a3682a9d" data-rendition-name="original" width="667" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="The fabric of society"> </figure>  “In Dolpo, we used to go to school for six months and work with our parents for six months. An aunt suggested that I might as well get some tuition during this time off. Once I came to Kathmandu, we found French sponsors and I stayed here to study,” recounts Gurung. Gurung lived in a hostel and studied under that sponsorship until grade ten. He got support from home for further studies until a bachelor’s in art, which he only finished two years ago. In the meantime, for him, art was a hobby he was good at, he would often win at competitions that this school took him to. Following graduation, many of Gurung’s peers did a lot of commission work and got burned out, while he received residencies, allowing him to stick to his own process and ideas, subsequently developing a style and a voice of his own. Gurung was the first of his family to move to Kathmandu like he did, and while that has led to a blossoming art career, he is wistful about the life he left behind. “The people I left behind lived sort of a perfect life in the village,” he says, even as it is clear herding yaks would not have been enough for his independent spirit. And migration is a big theme in his work, six of the paintings at the exhibition are named as much. Two of them show a mother walking with a baby on her back, and one depicts a snow leopard on the move with its cub.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250723080720_a916959c5a945e9d8c147219a094a548d9a08c8eb93d554a5e62105551a86592.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250723080720_a916959c5a945e9d8c147219a094a548d9a08c8eb93d554a5e62105551a86592" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="667" loading="lazy" alt="The fabric of society"> </figure>  “People migrate in generations, and because of this, they lose culture,” notes Gurung. Three others under the theme are spirals of clothes and masks, seemingly saying that migration causes deep changes in, and confusions about, one’s identity. The fabric of Dolpo and the outfits are prominently featured in almost every painting. “The women, in particular, are complete in how they dress up,” says Gurung. His women wear bhakkus and belts, and blankets and a complete set of necklaces and jewelry. An important detail is the vajra, traditionally a powerful Buddhist and Hindu mythical object and weapon, that the women use as a clip to hold the hems of their shawl together. “Note how the colours of the fabric are dull,” points out Gurung, explaining that these cloths are dyed naturally with ‘stone’ colours but fade quickly in the sun and the dust storms of Dolpo. To Gurung, the fabrics signify the Dolpo culture that he is so fond of, but disappearing. He laments that people would rather buy similar but cheaper blankets from Kathmandu or Tibet, and are abandoning traditional occupations, instead running hotels. “His feeling for Dolpo really shines through, and makes the paintings feel very warm,” says curator Sophia Pande. “I think the exhibition shows the unique style Chering has developed, and his range.” Another Dolpo detail that features heavily is bhoj patra, or birch bark paper which is used to write on as well as roofing material, given that it is waterproof. The sap of the birch tree is so sweet that it is also tapped and boiled for sugar. “People also carry it on yarchagumba trips, to use as light plates or cups. They can be washed and reused too,” adds Gurung.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250723080716_84ceef8066260cbe271158790e77bfc867dbab9cbaf23d13dc39202ef2a949f1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250723080716_84ceef8066260cbe271158790e77bfc867dbab9cbaf23d13dc39202ef2a949f1" data-rendition-name="original" width="667" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="The fabric of society"> </figure>  Like the Dolpo blankets, reams of this bhoj patra and a bowlful of yarcha are also displayed and give a nuanced understanding of the Dolpo way of life. Gurung also has a series of paintings on the bark paper, the first of which is a sky blue ‘DHARMA MASK’ or ‘MUKUT’. &nbsp;“I mixed acrylic paint with glue and diluted it to use like watercolour on the bhoj patra, and I was very happy with how it turned out,” he explains of the piece. Gurung works out of White Yak studio in Lalitpur, a name he chose for the rare and revered version of the animal. “I plan to carry on with this subject matter as I haven’t exhausted all my ideas,” he says, “and I can still get better with my colouring.” Duthik: Stories from Dolpo By Chering Gyaoo Gurung The Kala Salon Chhaya Centre, Thamel 11am-8pm Until 17 August

The fabric of society

Georgia O’Keefe, a foundational modernist painter most known for her floral and landscape paintings once said: “One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.” O'Keefe's residency in the city occurred during its extreme architectural expansion. Her lesser known body of work is entitled ‘My New Yorks’ and the series of paintings are a bird's eye perspective of New York City. The ongoing exhibition ‘Under the Same Roof’ at Siddhartha Art Gallery by Subodh Bhandari and Sambridhi Ratna Shakya resembles O’Keefe’s ‘love letters to New York’.&nbsp; Bhandari, a Patan newcomer and Shakya, a Patan native, work together to honour their architectural surroundings using mixed media. ‘A Walk Through the City’ is a conglomeration of miniature window replicas.&nbsp; The duo took snapshots of rapidly changing communities, and both styles are similar in their directness. The two artists reconstruct observations through stylistic fabrication, and capture the sensation of traversing a street, suddenly making ordinary objects artistic.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025072210078_3297b124286d188c641120c0742ced23ea15d75906d4454135f758dde501b0fe.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025072210078_3297b124286d188c641120c0742ced23ea15d75906d4454135f758dde501b0fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="2150" height="1438" loading="lazy" alt="From the outside looking in"> </figure>  ‘Under the Same Roof’ centres around Patan’s doors, powerlines, and most notably windows. The two artists roam alleyways looking for features that pique their interest, committing them to memory with photography.&nbsp; Bhandari and Shakya do not allow the objects to go unnoticed, forever examining details which others frequently overlook. For the artists, rendering everyday entities creates unification through relatability. Their overall message focuses on coexistence and interconnectedness. Specifically how easily accessible, recurring items, visible to all, establish familiarity and speak volumes via silence.&nbsp; The artists inject bits of lived experiences into their reproductions, concealing personal artefacts such as bed sheets or posters within windows. They place humanity upon inanimate objects, allowing for exploration of a unified history.&nbsp; Each window represents a personal memory rather than something imagined, as they are constructed from photographs the artists themselves took. Walking into the gallery feels as if you are entering a collective memory. The approximately 500 wooden windows, with photo transfer and acrylic details, engulf the first floor.&nbsp; The incredible amount of small windows establish an immersive experience, prompting the viewer to question, whose homes are attached, what type of people have lived there and for how long? The diversity of each piece astounds the eye. With so much repetition, how can the individual elements be entirely unique?&nbsp; Windows are a common occurrence, present in any building. Viewing this commonality clustered together reveals the personal rather than architectural elements which make them individualistic.&nbsp; Their quaint Patan studio is on the second floor of a residential building with a blindingly mint green room, slightly dusty from the drills and grinders used for constructing and polishing sculptures.&nbsp; Bhandari says he has always yearned for an artistic lifestyle, whereas Shakya picked up a knack for it after a classroom quarrel regarding his artistic abilities at Kathmandu University where both had the same motivation to capture their surroundings.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250722100712_b1d54221ed9e3806a48a98943e9fd4c80c535957144ce6d94b20e788f4a9a4b7.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250722100712_b1d54221ed9e3806a48a98943e9fd4c80c535957144ce6d94b20e788f4a9a4b7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1078" height="1430" loading="lazy" alt="From the outside looking in"> </figure>  The two differ in being native and new to the Patan area. So, is this exhibition about new vs native? Bhandari replied: “The idea of new vs native is no more about new vs native, it’s more about new and native, both the things coexisting together.” This is a metaphorical representation of their windows: what can you know about someone from outside appearances? Each window represents a specific period in time, whether it was constructed yesterday or 20 years ago, whether it houses a young family or one which has lived there for generations. The message is to understand how these elements help us coexist, by placing these varying periods of life centimetres apart from each other. It creates a space in which being surrounded by others is inevitable regardless of differences.&nbsp; Star Ross is an undergraduate at Princeton University studying Medical Anthropology alongside Visual Arts and Climate Science.

From the outside looking in

Kamala Auji’s family moved from the mountains of Achham to the Kanchanpur plains in search of an easier life.&nbsp; They bought a patch of farm and built a one-storey mud thatch house, and a smaller shed beside it. Kamala her husband then left for India to work as labourers in Mumbai, earning enough to upgrade their little house into a concrete structure. When the house was finally ready in April, Kamala returned to the village to raise her children while her husband stayed behind in Mumbai. But despite the family having moved into a new house, the dingy shed was still there. This was the छाउ गोठ, the menstrual hut in which Kamala spent nights during her periods every month. Despite laws against it, menstrual banishment is still practiced and it is proof that cultural mores take longer to eradicate. It has also followed people as they migrate from the mountains to the plains. Kamala was spending a rainy night in the shed last month when its roof started leaking. She shifted to her relative’s menstrual hut next door where shortly after midnight she was bitten by a snake. The family and neighbours rushed Kamala to the Seti Provincial Hospital, but Kamala died the next day in hospital at age 30. “We did not have to practice chhaupadi when we were in Mumbai, but here in the village, we had no choice but to follow the custom,” says Kamala’s sister-in-law Ashmita. “Superstition took Kamala’s life.” The majority of people in the plains of Kailali and Kanchanpur are from the indigenous Tharu community, where chhaupadi is not the norm. But as Nepalis move from the mountains to the plains, their traditions are also migrating south.&nbsp; In spite of the government ban on the practice, and frequent campaigns to demolish chhaupadi sheds, there are 120 of such huts just in Ward 2 of Krishnapur Municipality alone.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250806080828_a99fa4b07af0bf3d1152fad11173167ea7ff1b0b47c5b3091524ba81a1f02bdb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250806080828_a99fa4b07af0bf3d1152fad11173167ea7ff1b0b47c5b3091524ba81a1f02bdb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="Menstrual banishment moves to the Tarai"> </figure>  “Until some years ago, chhaupadi and menstrual huts were a problem in the hills that we would only hear about,” says ward chair Arjun Saud. “Now they are in our own backyard.” Parbati Chaudhary was born and raised in Kailali and says women from her Tharu community never had to isolate themselves in the sheds while menstruating. “We never practiced chhaupadi, but some of our sisters are following a practice that was never a part of our tradition,” says Chaudhary. The Tharu had their own customs in which the eldest son and daughter-in-law would together be custodians of the main religious shrines. The daughters-in-law used to sleep in the temples even during menstruation. But now some Tharu women have taken on the superstition of their neighbours from the mountains and avoid religious events while menstruating — believing that doing so will anger the gods. The nights that women in rural western Nepal are forced to spend in menstrual sheds exposes them to risk of rape, robbery, fires and attacks by wild animals.&nbsp; In January, a woman in Kailali was injured in a tiger attack as she slept inside a shed. Snakes are rampant during the monsoon in the Tarai.&nbsp; Last year, a teenager in Achham was raped by her relative as she spent a night in a menstrual hut. Most cases of rape and sexual violence go unreported. “The safety of women is increasingly compromised due to this practice, but most people do not seem to understand these threats in their adherence to customs,” says Dammar Bahadur BK, &nbsp;Deputy Inspector General of Sudurpaschim Provincial Police. The government issued a directive to eradicate menstrual huts in 2006, but it took another decade for Nepal to criminalise the practice. The National Penal Code imposes a three month prison term and a fine of up to Rs3,000 for individuals who force women into menstrual huts.&nbsp; A slew of deaths of women in menstrual huts prompted the government in 2019 to search-and-destroy all sheds used for menstrual banishment across 19 districts in the Sudurpaschim and Karnali provinces. Subsequently, 7,545 structures were razed. Days after Kamala Auji’s death in her village of Nigali the Kanchanpur District Administration Office wrote to all local governments in the district to demolish all menstrual huts they could find.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250806080832_3e5d148f0b899d1cc7df6306a4177ba0bf89e2a18ee655b1b5022ae431a56892.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250806080832_3e5d148f0b899d1cc7df6306a4177ba0bf89e2a18ee655b1b5022ae431a56892" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="Menstrual banishment moves to the Tarai"> </figure>  Says Mayor Hemraj Ojha of Krishnapur Municipality: “Any individual or family which does not demolish their menstrual hut will be fined Rs10,000 and face further action." But despite laws, cases related to menstrual hut have not reached the courts, preventing legal action against perpetrators.&nbsp; “The problem is we do not receive any complaints because people consider it a tradition and not criminal,” says advocate Shrestha. “We cannot blame this on weak implementation of the law.&nbsp; Sudurpaschim Province has introduced its own policy to eradicate the practice, and has conducted awareness campaigns in Achham, where the custom is most rampant, to promote safe menstruation. “But awareness campaigns are not enough when people still fear divine wrath,” says Meghraj Khadka, Sudurpaschim’s Minister for Social Development. Women’s rights activist Sabitra Ghimire says it is not enough to demolish menstrual huts: “People must see it as an unlawful, violent and criminal act.” So far, communities in western Nepal have been known to rebuild the sheds as soon as they are demolished. Even women from educated families practice the custom every month. Ved Awasthi of the Single Mother’s Group here says she and her daughter do not practice chhaupadi, and she adds, “Our children learn whatever we teach them.”&nbsp; Dhangadi-based sociology teacher Tikkeswori Joshi says that while students who lived with their parents still practice chhaupadi, those who live on their own do not.&nbsp; Says Joshi: “Our culture and customs are a way of life passed down from generations, they live on through us and go where we go. Chhaupadi will be difficult to eliminate unless lessons against cultural malpractices begin right at home.”

Menstrual banishment moves to the Tarai

French citizen Louis arrived in Nepal for the first time earlier this year, planning to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-abcs-of-a-winter-trek-in-nepal">trek the Annapurna Circuit </a>before heading down to Bardia to hopefully catch a glimpse of some<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-counting-its-tigers"> tigers</a>. Before he began his journey from Besisahar, Louis (who only revealed his first name) had imagined breathing crisp mountain air, and following the melodious gurgle of the Marsyangdi.&nbsp; Instead, he had to breathe fumes and dust all the way to Chame. Louis says he masked his face with a handkerchief: “It was not what I expected, this is not right.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080304080_f03fce1527cf8a63178e4e82589a1a7096c8cfa28893ca4a5f7fe82d91a6e38a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025080304080_f03fce1527cf8a63178e4e82589a1a7096c8cfa28893ca4a5f7fe82d91a6e38a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2419" height="1814" loading="lazy" alt="Manang trails NT 1"> </figure>  Many other trekkers are similarly disappointed as roads have been built along what used to be <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/a-walk-back-in-time-chandragiri-hatiban">walking trails</a>. Manang and Humla are the last remote regions in the Himalaya to be connected to the national road network. &nbsp;Construction of the 87km Besisahar-Manang road began in 1994, but was stalled during <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/14-years-after-conflict-no-closure-in-nepal">the Maoist conflic</a>t, and finally finished in 2012.&nbsp; Most of it has not yet been blacktopped, and sections have been carved out of vertical cliff faces, making them treacherous. But it has allowed road access to Manang, a journey that previously took a week on foot.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080304084_32b3ca875a0df9f1dd42dbe915e6f6a2cd4f2e53f1cf2d3ee5cbdb3435905000.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025080304084_32b3ca875a0df9f1dd42dbe915e6f6a2cd4f2e53f1cf2d3ee5cbdb3435905000" data-rendition-name="original" width="2400" height="1505" loading="lazy" alt="Manang trails NT 1"> </figure>  While the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-road-out-of-nepal">road has improved access</a>, it has impacted on<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/trekking-in-the-time-of-climate-change"> trekking tourism </a>— the mainstay of Manang’s economy. The number of tourists visiting the scenic valley behind the Annapurnas grew from 21,245 in 2023 to 30,866 in 2024. The Annapurna Circuit is known for unique sights like <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9194">Tilicho</a>, one of the highest lakes in the world, the Thorong La pass that connects Manang to Mustang, and the valley’s own rich cultural heritage. Thorong La at 5,416m is the highest hiking pass in the world, and was used by locals for trade with Mustang before it became a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/lift-restrictions-on-upper-mustang">popular trekking route</a>. &nbsp; “For guests, the excitement of reaching Thorong La is now overshadowed by their disappointment of having to journey through dusty roads to get there,” says Manang lodge-owner Ongma Gurung. “That is the complaint we get the most.” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tourism-that-treads-lightly-on-the-land">Local tourism </a>operators are trying to get the government to build alternative foot trails. But there have been delays due to a lack of budget.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080304084_c5f76e398182785bb17846a148e3ca89de5687b4623580f8e2d725a7a287edfa.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="2025080304084_c5f76e398182785bb17846a148e3ca89de5687b4623580f8e2d725a7a287edfa" data-rendition-name="original" width="2419" height="1762" loading="lazy" alt="Manang trails"> </figure>  The Naso Rural Municipality has identified other routes along the Annapurna Circuit in Chyamche, Tal, and Khotro so trekkers can bypass heavy vehicles involved in the construction of the Manang-Marsyangdi Hydropower Project. “But the local government cannot do everything,” admits the chair Dhan Bahadur Gurung. “And for leaders in Kathmandu, Manang is out of sight and out of mind.” Munindra Jung Gurung represents Manang in the Gandaki Provincial Assembly, and says he has raised the issue in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/pokhara-s-tourism-woes">Pokhara</a>. He is hopeful there will be a hearing. To be sure, the road is not all bad news. Locals benefit, the number of visitors has grown, and trekkers can now also save time and use it to explore <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5960">side valleys in Manang</a>, visiting the villages like Nar and Phu. Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA) chief Rabin Kadariya concedes that the road to Upper Manang was crucial to connect the remote region with the rest of Nepal, but adds: “We have built an alternative trail connecting Talgaun, and we will consult local communities about their priorities on other hiking trails.”&nbsp;

Trailing off in Manang

The monsoon has got bad press because Nepal’s tourism operators actively told visitors to avoid <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/managing-the-monsoon?%2F">the rainy season</a>. It is time to change that. The reason can be found right here in the vast alpine meadows of Central Nepal where this time of year you can walk on velvet grass of pastures abloom with delicate pink, red and yellow flowers as the mist rolls up the valley. There is no sound except the hum of bumble bees. &nbsp;&nbsp; There are dozens of places across high Nepal called Chaurikharka, which means yak pasture. But this particular Chaurikharka in Rukum East located at an altitude of 4,000m stands out for its serene beauty, rustic charm and bucolic setting. There is just the occasional chime of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">yak bells</a> in the distance, and the sharp whistle of herders corralling sheep. &nbsp;&nbsp; The grass shoots are so fragile that one hesitates to step on them, the rounded ridges appear and quickly vanish in waves of mist. With the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/before-the-next-monsoon"> arrival of monsoon</a>, these meadows are a soothing shade of green dotted with millions of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-anatomy-of-a-flower?%2F=">multi-coloured flowers</a>. Until very recently, it took a week or so to hike up to places like Chaurikharka, but with the expansion of the road network even to these far-flung mountains in the lap of Dhaulagiri, they are much more accessible. It is just a three-hour uphill from the Mid-Hill Highway on the border between Baglung and Rukum East.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250802130828_a0b06b494d751b2144ffbbf10894ea64b29e8aed844bc8c66171783abfaf4e16.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250802130828_a0b06b494d751b2144ffbbf10894ea64b29e8aed844bc8c66171783abfaf4e16" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon"> </figure>  Purists would say that such easy access devalues the sanctity of these remote high meadows, but it also means more people will be moved to treasure the experience, appreciate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/natures-fragile-gift-to-nepal">the value of nature </a>so they can take steps to protect it.&nbsp; To be sure, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/deadly-monsoon-in-nepal-turns-deadlier">monsoon season can be challenging for road travel</a>. The roads are rough even at the best of times, and in the monsoon they become muddy and treacherous, often blocked by<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/monsoon-deluge-in-nepal"> landslides</a>. But that could be precisely the kind of adventure that the more intrepid visitors crave. Improved road connectivity has already made Chaurikharka and places like Badimallika &nbsp;and other sacred lakes in the mountains of western Nepal popular with domestic tourists. What is driving this traffic is the urge to go to exotic new places and share videos and selfies on social media. Several of Nepal’s travel vloggers have visited Chaurikharka and popularised the place, enticing followers on TikTok or YouTube to retrace their footsteps. But even as they become more popular, these fragile and once-remote places should be protected from over-tourism.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250731110736_f97110b7cdc3e7f80d5877690948fc9f4c95a09c583deb23b07355491e6c5446.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250731110736_f97110b7cdc3e7f80d5877690948fc9f4c95a09c583deb23b07355491e6c5446" data-rendition-name="original" width="1083" height="699" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon NT"> </figure>  <h2>INCREASING FOOTFALL</h2> Chaurikharka is located in Bhume Rural Municipality of East Rukum, near the scenic valley of Dhorpatan in Baglung district. Even in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/monsoon-culture">middle of the monsoon</a>, there is a steady stream of Nepali hikers trooping to these high pastures – especially during festival days like Saune Sankranti which this year was on 17 July and actually marks the auspicious beginning of the monsoon here. “This year the rains have not been as heavy and there have been some clear mornings when we could see everything from Dhaulagiri to Machapuchre,” says Khageswar Bhandari, who trekked up here from the road. “The flowers, the greenery and the snowy mountain views make this an incredibly unique place.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250802130824_1b9e26f2e9853fdfe69154bb42a7c9ea6da4bf4940efc1da99b304dcfbd7d3d9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250802130824_1b9e26f2e9853fdfe69154bb42a7c9ea6da4bf4940efc1da99b304dcfbd7d3d9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1152" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon"> </figure>  Chaurikharka is worthwhile to get to in any season, but it has a different charm during the monsoon. Word has spread and because it is now easy to get to from Baglung or even Pokhara, people have been flocking here.&nbsp; “Holidays and Saturdays see the largest crowds, with up to 500 visitors every day,” says ward chair Mankaji Pun of Bhume.&nbsp; There was a time not too long ago when local herders brought sheep, goats, cows, buffaloes, horses, and mules to graze here during the monsoon. Although there are still livestock around, animals have been replaced by visitors taking selfies. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-monsoon-and-nature-s-arithmetic">The monsoon, and nature’s arithmetic</a>, Tom Robertson Ward Chair Pun says infrastructure development is his main priority. A foot trail to Chaurikharka was built last year by the Tourism Division Office in Kohalpur, but access via the Raniwas-Koipa road section still remains challenging.&nbsp; “If we get more budget, we can improve the road and facilities to make Chaurikharka the main tourist attraction of this region,” says Bhume Municipality Chair Hom Prakash Shrestha. “After that, we hope to promote Chaurikharka as a top tourist spot.”&nbsp; Economic activity is also picking up with the arrival of visitors, but there seems to be a need to manage the makeshift sheds made of corrugated sheets that spoil the beauty of the place. Tea shops and lodges are also available but facilities are basic. Kuldeep Neupane took a three-day trip from Ghorahi in Dang to visit Chaurikharka recently, and says: “This is an ideal trip to make a quick getaway and let nature recharge your mind and body. And it is much more fun with a tent, to watch the sunrise over the Himalaya or the mist blowing in.”

Visit Nepal in the monsoon

A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/business/nepal-electric-vehicles-china.html#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%20year%2C%20electric,including%20Norway%2C%20Singapore%20and%20Ethiopia.">New York Times report this week</a> on Nepal’s electric vehicle boom was widely shared. The world is finally taking notice of the country’s energy transition.&nbsp; But the success story also brings new problems. Nepal will soon be facing a crisis in managing the lithium-ion of battery-powered cars, scooters and three-wheelers. Then there are mobile phone batteries, heavy metals and rare earths. “It used to be just laptops and mobiles, so people didn’t care so much, but one electric car can mean up to 500kg of waste, it will be beyond our control once they start piling up,” warns Pankaj Panjiyar of <a href="https://dokorecyclers.com/">Doko Recyclers</a>, an electrical and electronic waste management company in Kathmandu. He adds: “We were on track to generate 3,500 tons of lithium battery waste a year after 2027, but given the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/evs-hybrids-and-plug-ins">increased market of EVs</a> the actual figure will now be much bigger.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240411100420_bbef06f8a778f06fcd95f46764e9e5e280d8d0abb75563c7d7a0e5b1912caba8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240411100420_bbef06f8a778f06fcd95f46764e9e5e280d8d0abb75563c7d7a0e5b1912caba8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="EV year 2081 Page 1 NT #1207"> <figcaption>With 76% of new car sales being fully battery-powered, Nepal is second only to Norway. Photo: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption> </figure>  Besides lithium, there are also heavy metals such as cobalt, nickel, and manganese that can contaminate the air, soil, and water, as well as rare earths. Nepal imported nearly 1.9 million mobile phones in the past year, a 40% growth from the previous — and that was only through official channels. With 76% of new car sales<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/rev-your-car-and-charge-it-too?fbclid=IwY2xjawE-ds5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRuXixJOm8QKgTPUuBka6dm6ifd_kyvOPOVrXxCcyZxLGhn5i3O9PPY3gw_aem_RE4gaV7GYb_AUUkkYkGsrw"> being fully battery-powered</a>, Nepal is second only to Norway. Lithium-ion battery waste from electric cars, mobile phones, toys, solar panels and the 9,000 telecommunication towers all over the country already makes up a sizeable chunk of electronic waste.&nbsp; Recycling lithium-ion batteries is possible but expensive, while the recovery rate of heavy metals, including gold, is at 95% or more. China is leading the game with more than half of the global recycling capacity of heavy metals at about 500,000 metric tons a year, much ahead of the United States and Europe. Nepal does not have recycling infrastructure for lithium-ion batteries. In fact, there is no recycling plant for lead-acid batteries either: the acid is usually just dumped while lead, other metals and plastic are extracted by the informal sector or sent to India. “Battery recycling is textbook engineering, it is not difficult, we should be able to do it ourselves,” energy economist Dipak Gyawali told a recent climate discussion. “But when there is no market, the standard law of political economy is that the state has to create one, that is how it happened in the US, the UK and China.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250801040832_149b8cdfa617b9d9ad8df9da39bb0795e87f2798a7317824cabfb5af7cef46c5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250801040832_149b8cdfa617b9d9ad8df9da39bb0795e87f2798a7317824cabfb5af7cef46c5" data-rendition-name="original" width="3791" height="2527" loading="lazy" alt="e-waste in Nepal"> <figcaption>Staff at Doko Recyclers in Kathmandu working on sorting electrical waste this week.</figcaption> </figure>  Doko Recyclers had tried to set up a recycling infrastructure for lithium-ion batteries, and had nearly got a Rs40 million investment from Singapore-based Total Environment Solutions (TES). But Nepal’s lack of e-waste policy and investment guidelines meant the company was not assured of a return on investment and pulled out. Nepal also does not have Extended Producer’s Responsibility (EPR), wherein manufacturers and distributors are responsible for disposal and pay for the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/making-money-from-garbage-in-kathmandu,2055">recycling of the waste </a>generated by their product, including batteries. “It is only a matter of technology transfer when it comes to lithium-ion recycling, but it requires investment backed by government policies such as EPR,” explains Panjiyar. “But there must also be provisions for extracted raw materials like lithium. We don’t manufacture batteries in Nepal, so we have to export them. But who is going to pay for that?” Lithium, heavy metals and rare earths also draw much criticism for unethical mining and environmental cost. One ton of mined lithium emits nearly 15 tons of CO2. Lithium is either extracted from briny water or hard rock minerals, add is often associated with contamination of water as well as loss of water sources. Nickel and cobalt mining comes with massive ecological cost and labour exploitation.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250801040848_3b3fc49c554a1759f31becaca1c737a641c94ee7a0d964e5fa898b060f41dec1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20250801040848_3b3fc49c554a1759f31becaca1c737a641c94ee7a0d964e5fa898b060f41dec1" data-rendition-name="original" width="5460" height="3640" loading="lazy" alt="e-waste in Nepal"> <figcaption>Repair and refurbishing of used electronic goods can help reduce e-waste. </figcaption> </figure>  Sodium-ion batteries which are a safer, cheaper and more sustainable alternative. Battery-powered transportation could also be just a stepping stone to green hydrogen fuel of the future. “If we are using these metals, at the very least deploy them for the benefit of the larger public, like by promoting electric buses,” says Shilshila Acharys of Avni Center for Sustainability which recycles plastic and other waste. “Ultimately, it comes down to our consumption patterns. It is much easier to use one less mobile phone or a car which wasn’t even necessary, than recycling.” <h2>What happens to your phone when it dies</h2> <a href="https://ewastemonitor.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/GEM_2024_18-03_web_page_per_page_web.pdf">Nepal generated 42,000 tons of e-waste</a> in 2024, up from just 13,000 ten years ago, according to a worldwide survey by Global E-waste Monitor. The figure for Nepal is projected to reach 69,000 tons in 2026.&nbsp; While this is modest compared to most other countries, the growth and lack of recycling facilities are worrying. Household appliances such as washing machines, refrigerators, cooking stoves and ovens still make up nearly half of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/what-will-nepal-do-with-its-e-waste">electrical and electronic waste in Nepal</a>, while phones, laptops, tablets, hard drives, routers and modems come next at 9%. Consumer electronics made up 17% of e-waste, followed by lighting equipment at 14%, screen and monitors at 8% and toys at 9%.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250801040832_c271890d0cacd31b7c4e244daef81fc612b62fb40d00500f60c35aec65822390.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250801040832_c271890d0cacd31b7c4e244daef81fc612b62fb40d00500f60c35aec65822390" data-rendition-name="original" width="1267" height="649" loading="lazy" alt="E-waste in Nepal"> </figure>  “The nature of e-waste has changed in the last decade or so, we now have less CRT monitors and CFL bulbs but more devices, solar panels, optic fibre which actually has a negative recycling value and now EV batteries,” says Pankaj Panjiyar of the Doko Recyclers. The nature of e-waste is also guided by changing consumption patterns where people upgrade to newer gadgets every couple of years, not necessarily because they are at the end of their lives. The average lifespan for mobile phones in Nepal is only two years, four years for laptops, eight years for televisions and computers, and ten years for refrigerators and washing machines. Just last fiscal year, Nepal imported nearly 1.9 million smartphones worth Rs24 billion. “Businesses today, especially electronics, have exchange offers wherein customers can exchange even well-functioning goods for a newer version. By not using electronic goods to the end of their lives, we are creating a problem that wasn’t there to begin with,” says Shilshila Acharya of Avni Center for Sustainability. “<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/ev-year">Electronic use has increased dramatically</a>, but our e-waste management capacity remains the same.” When municipal governments have failed to even manage biodegradable waste, they have not even started thinking about e-waste. Which is why electronic and electrical waste is left to the informal sector. There are some 1,200 scrap dealers in Kathmandu and 20% of e-waste is thought to be recycled despite the lack of proper formal channels, and most of it ends up in India. This means limited extraction of plastic parts as well as metals such as aluminium and copper, but removal of precious and heavy elements is not yet carried out in Nepal. Liquid waste, such as acid from lead batteries, is disposed of in the dumping sites, poisoning ground water and rivers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250801040844_ccc83c1133fc54567abc93abc87a97263b3b28f9edb58450c8804526d97aeda8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250801040844_ccc83c1133fc54567abc93abc87a97263b3b28f9edb58450c8804526d97aeda8" data-rendition-name="original" width="3936" height="2624" loading="lazy" alt="e-waste in Nepal"> <figcaption>Nepal doesn't have a proper recycling infrastructure for e-waste and cannot extract precious and heavy metals as of now.</figcaption> </figure>  There is also a small but growing market to refurbish used electronic goods led by the likes of Sabko Phone which buys second-hand smartphones and reconditioning them to an almost new cheaper device.&nbsp; “It was very difficult for us in the beginning to get people behind this campaign, but over the last couple of years, we have seen a change,” says Uttam Kafle of Sabko. “The fact that they are buying a refurbished phone today means they might buy a refurbished washing machine in future.” Fourteen percent of the 1.22 billion mobile phones sold in 2023 were refurbished — that translated to 190 million fewer new phones that year. Says Kafle: “If we can associate refurbishing and upcycling with environmental gain, we will go a long way.” Indeed, experts recommend reducing the consumption of electronic goods not required as the first step to managing waste, followed by repair, reuse, and upcycling. Recycling is often the last option, also because Nepal lacks proper infrastructure as well as a legal mechanism.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250801040832_9b96a8ba5e161633e6f1341da06d0fd53c8f17b12f3dc05c4d39fc0168ee01c2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20250801040832_9b96a8ba5e161633e6f1341da06d0fd53c8f17b12f3dc05c4d39fc0168ee01c2" data-rendition-name="original" width="5879" height="3919" loading="lazy" alt="E-waste in Nepal"> <figcaption>Experts recommend reducing the consumption of unwanted electronic goods as the first step to better manage e-waste. </figcaption> </figure>  Nepal’s Solid Waste Management Act 2011 has no mention of e-waste. It has since been revised, but the document is making rounds of various ministers and is yet to be finalised. Even so, it does not have any guidelines on managing electrical and electronic waste, and has only defined the terminology. India has an Extended Producer’s Responsibility (EPR) as well as Battery Waste Management Rules 2022 which clearly outline the responsibilities of producers, recyclers, and refurbishers. “A national-level e-waste legislation with EPR is a must with provisions at municipalities such that there is a separate collection value chain, and such a policy should allow for recycling infrastructure,” says Panjiyar. “All of this should happen simultaneously and with public awareness about e-waste in Nepal.” EPR will also help remove unreliable players in the market, and in turn reduce the flow of unwanted goods. This is in line with calls to curb unchecked and uncontrolled consumption of goods as well as prioritising ethical and sustainable development. This has much relevance for the EV boom in Nepal. Of the 22,907 four-wheelers worth Rs50.88 billion that the country imported last fiscal year, 16,701 units valued at Rs41.23 billion were electric vehicles. Few of them were passenger buses, which are much more expensive than diesel ones of the same size. Until grid-to-motor technology, such as trolley and tram, are introduced, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-public-in-public-transport">government must subsidise electric buses</a> to make the best use of surplus hydroelectricity while cleaning up the air and reducing Nepal’s petroleum bill.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240315040324_95d6be14bc19ae56151d75be42d3d39d6cba00308b4159104bc6c6fe0292b39a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20240315040324_95d6be14bc19ae56151d75be42d3d39d6cba00308b4159104bc6c6fe0292b39a" data-rendition-name="original" width="3500" height="2141" loading="lazy" alt="Poor cash-rich Nepal NT"> <figcaption>An electric bus and bicycle lane in Lalitpur. Photo: GOPEN RAI</figcaption> </figure>  After all, only so many individuals can afford private EVs, and even then, they do not nearly reduce emissions as much, but add to traffic. Large electric buses also mean fewer lithium-ion batteries per person. “Our EV adoption is both a success story and a disaster waiting to happen given all that battery waste we will be faced with soon. It is like by trying to solve one problem we have created another,” says Acharya. Uttam Kafle at Sabko Phone says the concept of responsible use and circular economy which involves reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible, should be the way forward. “We must make the best use of electronics for the betterment of our lives, there are still places and people without much access to these goods. But their ethical use and management, especially at the end of their life, will help save us from a lot of future problems.” 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/20250307140328_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758.jpg" data-media-id="editor_19" data-image-id="20250307140328_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758" data-rendition-name="original" width="680" height="103" loading="lazy" alt="SDG logo"> </figure>  &nbsp;

Waste not, want not

The final investigation report on the crash of a Saurya Airlines jet on 24 July 2024 at Kathmandu airport has revealed flaws in the carrier’s technical operation procedures, poor monitoring by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and gaps in the airport’s emergency response. Eighteen people including a child were killed, and only the captain survived as the plane plunged seconds after takeoff, crashing within the airport perimeter. This was the latest in a series of aircraft accidents in previous years, and further tarnished Nepal’s already poor aviation safety record and contributed to the country being retained in the EU’s air safety list. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The circumstances in the Saurya crash were different from the Yeti Airlines crash in Pokhara in January 2022 that killed all 72 on board, and two Tara Air crashes in February 2016 and May 2022 on approach to Jomsom that together claimed 45 lives. However, all four tragedies were a result of negligence of carriers and crew, failure to follow procedures, regulatory slackness, and overconfidence. The Saurya crash, especially, was a glaring example of how an ailing airline broke its own rules to allow passengers, including non-employees, a joy ride to Pokhara on a maintenance ferry flight. CRASH REPORT The Final Investigation Report prepared by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission and released on the first anniversary of the crash last week carried a long list of rules that were ignored or broken, and of regulatory failure. The first mistake was to cram spares, tools and inflammable chemicals needed for the aircraft’s C-Check in Pokhara into the cargo hold flouting its own ground handling procedures.&nbsp; There was no check-in of passengers, some of whom were not even employees – even though regulations say only flight and maintenance crew should be on board a maintenance positioning flight. Many brought their own luggage into the plane and stored it unsecured in the cabin. There was no flight attendant to give a safety briefing to passengers. The load and trim charts given to the flight crew were rough estimates, and the total takeoff weight of the plane was 18,300kg plus or minus 200 kg. That would still have been all right, but there was a glaring mistake in the speedchart Saurya pilots were using to calculate the minimum takeoff speed (known as VR), and it had been wrong ever since the 21-year-old aircraft entered service with the airline in 2017. FAULTY DATA&nbsp; The Commission probed Flight Data Recorder inputs from previous takeoffs of the Canadian-built CRJ200-LR in 2023-2024 and found that the undetected error in the speedchart had caused the plane to pitch up at an abnormal rotation rate at least 18 times on previous takeoffs.&nbsp; Any rotation rate more than 3°/sec is regarded as unusual. But on at least two occasions, this aircraft with tail number 9N-AME had rotation rates of 5.8°/sec and 5.5°/sec, the second one was when the pilot who survived was flying in March 2024.&nbsp; On this particular day, the plane’s rotation rate was 6.5°/sec, causing it to go into a deep stall soon after takeoff, the Commission report said. Essentially, the plane was not flying fast enough down the runway to take off safely.&nbsp; It is not yet clear whether excess weight, unsecured luggage, wrong centre of gravity were also factors, but relying on a faulty speedchart for the given takeoff weight, the captain flying pulled back on the yoke before the plane had reached takeoff speed and at a pitch angle that was too steep. The investigation report says the plane then went into a deep stall and started banking right with the stick shaking. At this point, the flight officer on the right hand seat is heard on the cockpit voice recorder saying: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sir, Sir, Sir…” It then banked left before the pilot flying turned the plane sharply to the right again in an evasive action to avoid the parking aprons of the international and domestic terminals. Had he not done so, there would have been a disaster of a much greater magnitude at Kathmandu airport that day. The plane scraped the runway with its right wingtip, collided with a container having helicopter spare parts, and plunged into a gully east of the runway, exploding in a fireball. The investigation also noted that the impact forces seemed to be survivable for some occupants. The fire trucks took unnecessarily long to reach the site even though it was inside the airport perimeter. The absence of an ICAO-standard runway strip, inadequate rescue drills, lack of training, and a blocked emergency service gate leading to the crash site were cited as other factors. &nbsp;&nbsp; <h2>Timestamp of a Disaster</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250731110724_39cdd04693994ce6e55a5b302905c0fa4884fe85bed21ff0779bb1439f3a5725.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250731110724_39cdd04693994ce6e55a5b302905c0fa4884fe85bed21ff0779bb1439f3a5725" data-rendition-name="original" width="778" height="826" loading="lazy" alt="Flouting rules caused Saurya tragedy NT"> </figure>  11:10:34 - The Saurya Airlines CRJ200 on the takeoff roll from runway 02. It had a takeoff weight of about 18,300kg, but the pilot’s speedcard had a previously undetected mistake about the minimum takeoff speed. 11:10:55 -The plane with tail number 9N-AME goes into deep stall soon after takeoff because it does not have enough speed to lift its weight. The plane also has an abnormally steep nose-up attitude.&nbsp; 11:11:03 - Without enough speed to generate lift, the plane banks right, then left and right again in CCTV photos taken from the domestic apron (below). If it had not banked right, it could have hit the aprons and terminal buildings. Seen parked is Saurya’s other CRJ200 with tail number 9N-ANM.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250731110732_608132f7225c649125cca2691dd6a6bf930984c5b359e888d7ad9e5eacce3afd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250731110732_608132f7225c649125cca2691dd6a6bf930984c5b359e888d7ad9e5eacce3afd" data-rendition-name="original" width="770" height="555" loading="lazy" alt="Flouting rules caused Saurya tragedy NT"> </figure>  11:11:08 - The plane scrapes the runway with its right wingtip, and falls into the gully. The captain is thrown off the left side of the cockpit and survives. 11:11:15: Plane explodes in a fireball inside the airport perimeter. Firefighters take time to reach the site because of lack of access road and a blocked gate. Read the full investigation report <a href="https://www.tourism.gov.np/files/9N-AME%20AIC%20Final%20Report.pdf">here</a>.

Flouting rules caused Saurya tragedy

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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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