<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bade89c7e80680e077fbdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1496" height="1146"/><figcaption>Min Bajracharya’s iconic photograph of Durga Thapa, 22, as she leapt up during a victory rally on 9 April 1990 to shout “Long live democracy!” All photos: MIN RATNA BAJRACHARYA</figcaption></figure>The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/one-moment-30-years-ago-today/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">People’s Movement in 1990</a> erupted because for three decades of partylessness, Nepalis could not let off steam and socio-political pressure had been building up.We got a constitutional monarchy, the parties were unbanned, the mass media was unshackled. And soon enough, we started using our newfound freedoms to complain about the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/nepal-from-royal-to-republic,3736" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">king and queen</a>. When the Maoists took the country to war, we complained about the violence.After the ceasefire of 2006, we were not happy about the restoration of peace – we started complaining about the political transition. Our constant moaning and groaning probably prolonged that transition.Then the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2015/05/27/a-month-that-felt-like-a-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">earthquake struck in 2015</a>, and even as the aftershocks rocked us, we whined about the relief being poorly distributed, and the slow pace of reconstruction. We then had the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/autopsy-of-a-blockade%20,2863" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indian blockade</a> to complain about. And as soon as the 2017 election was over, we started criticising the very leaders we had just elected to power.We were about to run out of things to complain about when there was the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/nepals-new-normal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">COVID-19 pandemic</a>, and we could complain about <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/reduce-harm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the lockdown</a> and the corruption in the procurement of medical supplies and the government’s general incompetence.It is human nature. Like most people around the world, Nepalis are never happy with the state of affairs. In fact, we do not score very high in the Happiness Index. That itself is a positive thing because it means we know there is plenty of room for improvement. Things can always be better. That is the whole idea behind the need to see the world as half full.Remember the days when there were 16 hour power cuts every day? <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-electric-shock-to-nepals-energy-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Now that there is surplus power</a>, we are complaining that the electricity we generate is going waste. What to do with it? Where to sell it?There was a time in the 1980s when the proponents of the Himalayan Degradation Theory predicted that Nepal would be a desert by the turn of the century. Here we are four decades later, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tree-mendous/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal has doubled forest cover</a>. We have almost a quarter of our area designated as national parks, and 15% of Nepal is covered in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/who-now-owns-nepals-forests/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">community-managed forests</a>.Enrollment in school is nearly 100%, infant and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/who-will-save-nepals-poor-new-mothers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">maternal mortality</a> have seen dramatic reductions. Absolute poverty has been halved in 25 years. The education we got and the remittance economy has exposed many Nepalis to jobs all around the world, and the quality of life for many have improved with the money sent home.Yet we complain that our youth are away. But that is also good because the end goal should be to create jobs for them at home.There are many products in the market that require energy to produce. If Nepal is to select a few of these and manufacture them near our many <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/decentralising-hydropower/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hydropower</a> plants, we could become productive and competitive.In Birganj, for example, there are truck loads of metal sheets coming in from India. They are rolled into pipes and poles, and sent back out. This is the value added for Nepal’s abundant, clean, reliable energy.Entrepreneurs will begin to look for energy production sites where goods can also be produced. We will then see how education will be valued in these areas because it means jobs at the local level. We will no longer have the debate about exporting energy, and sending Nepali youth abroad to prop up the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/remit-for-remittances/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">remittance based economy</a>. Local agriculture will have a local market. Nepalis will also understand the true meaning of Value Added Tax.We can use spilled hydropower at night to pump water for to irrigate farms and boost food production, and during the day use the water to generate power. This is the chance for an entrepreneur to set up a factory to manufacture rice cookers and electric kettles so we <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/look-whats-cooking-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reduce our reliance on imported LPG</a>.Nepal’s poverty related problems can be solved with political will. Nepal’s problems are simple and so are their solutions. Unfortunately, we like to complicate things so we can seek complicated solutions. It is almost as if we want to remain poor so we keep getting grants for poverty alleviation, so our experts and consultants have jobs. It is precisely because we have only complained and not implemented solutions over the past seven decades that we would rather export manpower than value-added good and services.Historically we have always described Nepal with what we do not have. For example, we do not have access to the sea. Or the terrain is not easy. These were always top reasons given for why we remain poor, rather than look at poor governance and mediocre leadership.More and more Nepalis now live in comfortable homes, drive fancy cars, send their children to the best schools. And yet we complain. Human progress is about not being content and wanting things to improve. There is so much to do as we move ahead whether you see the glass half empty, or half full. It is time to take the lead and move ahead.Anil Chitrakar is President of Siddharthinc. This is his last written column, he will now be hosting a fortnightly Anil’s Walkabout video program on the Nepali Times YouTube channel.

Anil Chitrakar

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1/2 Full

Stop complaining, start contributing

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141132/636bac0d9c7e80680e077f10jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1840" height="1228"/><figcaption>Photo: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH NEPAL CAMPAIGN/TWITTER</figcaption></figure>As the<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-plans-to-open-in-five-stages/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> lockdown enters its fourth month with no sign of any letup</a>, many people (even city-dwellers) seems to be taking up roof gardening and food production because they have time to kill, and the need to stock up on food during the pandemic.Indirectly, the lockdown has helped promote an activity we should have engaged in anyway. It has forced us to re-learn the experiments and projects from high school biology class.As eager students we all studied germination by dropping a seed into the soil, and found out that no matter which side is up, the first green shoots shoot up to the surface to catch the sun. The roots instinctively fan out downwards to gather vital nutrients.Plants cannot be convinced or corrupted to do things differently. In politics, however, everything and anything is possible. It really depends on how many votes can be mobilised to say and do anything a politician seeks.In a country with a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/bow-out/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">self-described communist party in government with a two-third majority</a>, the opposition has become irrelevant. Question time in parliament is just a formality, and a video op for those who want to show off oratorical skills.Biology is a science of all forms of life. Politics, it seems, is the art of manipulation and the end goals are to stay in power and accumulate wealth at any cost to perpetuate that power. Politicians study neither biology, nor political science.Then there are political scientists who can tell us ten ways to run the republic with examples from all corners of the globe. They have almost no say in how Nepal manages the pandemic or how our country is governed. They can be seen in heated debates on political talk shows on tv, or pontificating away on the op-eds -- but are never consulted when politicians have to make decisions based on science or expertise.The current global crisis offers us a chance to explore and understand these issues, adopt best practices from elsewhere so we do not end up making the same costly mistakes others have made. South Korea and Singapore believe in science and make policies based on it, but the USA and Brazil patently do not. New Zealand’s prime minister looks like someone who understands the interface of politics and science, the German chancellor is a biologist herself.With over 140,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, should that country still be arguing over masks? Should that decision even be left to politicians? All around us we hear and read the works of amazing biologists and political scientists who are angry, and often frustrated because they are not taken seriously by politicians.In Kathmandu there is a push to open up new roads and expand or widen existing ones so that the price of land will continue to go up. Land is limited in the valley, but an even more limiting factor is the air we breathe. If there is one take-away from the current pandemic it is that the virus attacks those body parts that are most vulnerable. Our respiratory system in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-lockdown-proves-air-quality-can-be-improved/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the polluted valley</a> was already at risk, the virus has increased it.The science may be clear but we would rather buy oxygen cylinders and ventilators than clear the air, because it is good for the economy. Biologists tell us we need to protect remaining forests, cut emissions. This science needs to be translated into political policy.George Floyd was gagged by a policeman’s knee and could not breathe. We are gagged by policies that are also killing us. Even without the coronavirus.Young Nepalis get it. They are out in Patan Darbar Square on hunger strike with ‘Enough is Enough’ placards. Essentially their message is that we have wrong policies, and even when we have the right ones, corruption, mismanagement and apathy gets in the way. They have had enough.We have all had enough, but these <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/social-movement-through-social-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">youngsters are making their voices heard</a> in creative ways to save the future. Nepal’s obsolete politicians better sit up and listen.Biology is a science, and political science or politics may be more of an art form. All three need to come together to fundamentally change the way we run our societies and pursue progress. A new post COVID-19 world is one in which humans co-exist with other species on the planet.If we destroy the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/crushing-tale-of-Chure" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chure Hills</a> by removing its forests and extracting construction material from it, Birgunj, Janakpur and other cities in the Tarai will be inundated every monsoon. Local governments should be ready to spend all their tax revenue on flood relief and recovery for a long time if we keep electing politicians who do not understand the science of floods.The past three months have displayed that neither the biology of a virus nor the political science of good governance took centre stage. Nepal needs to brace itself for worse to come because we did not.Anil Chitrakar is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/">Siddharthinc</a> and writes this fortnightly column 1/2 Full in Nepali Times.

The interface of politics and science

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112911110/6385d8579c7e80680e0cc75ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="900"/>After every global crisis in history, human society has been able to come up with big breakthroughs that improve lives, and turn the world into a better place.This could be another such time, but only <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/thinking-out-of-the-box-to-rescue-nepal/">if we think outside the box</a>.The crisis has telescoped time, and brought forward the adoption of innovations and trends that would otherwise have taken decades. It is a watershed moment to address other global challenges like the climate crisis, North-South inequity, over-exploitation of natural resources, air pollution, etc.At more local levels, drones are being used to deliver medicines during the lockdown, and they fly into the hospital wards to disinfect beds using ultra violet light. Restaurants have brought forward plans to use robotic are waiters.It is all about our willingness to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/change-dont-just-adapt-to-covid-19/">re-imagine the world</a> we want to live in and the world we want to leave behind for the future. Here in Nepal some still believe that the solution to the country’s woes is to launch a pop song for any crisis. Others still try to convince us that importing more chocolate is good for the economy, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-post-pandemic-green-revival/">electric cars are bad</a>.Nepal’s health workers lack personal protective gear, but policemen seem to have access to plenty of gowns and masks. For governments, nurses are clearly less important than policemen. While states have no problem spending on ‘law and order’, public health usually takes a back seat. The Army has been deployed for medical imports and quarantine services, not the Department of Health. This could also explain why health sector needs foreign assistance while Home Ministry does not.Some local governments like Minneapolis in the US now want to disband their police departments altogether, and create a whole new system for safety and security. The idea is to end the kind of policing the world is used to. Defunding the police is another idea that is being taken up seriously and could change the way protection of people will look like in future. We simply cannot rely on the police for everything from crowd control to solving crimes and enforcing physical separation. Even more radical: go the Costa Rica way and cut the military as well.The challenge has always been to get people to open their minds, explore their own creativity and capabilities, and above all launch their new big idea. World history has shown us again and again that there is nothing more powerful than the will of a free person.Recent demonstrations, all over the world against racism have seen the power of the camera in our phones and the ability to upload images of police brutality on a real-time basis. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/social-movement-through-social-media/">Nepal’s youth, driven by outrage</a> over government incompetence, have taken to the streets. These are really big ideas.Last week, inventors unveiled a new battery that could operate for 16 years and power vehicles for over 1million km. The cost is only 10% over batteries currently available in the market. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-takes-3-steps-back-on-e-cars/">Electric cars and mass transit</a> are the future of mobility, and between utility level solar stations like <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-biggest-solar-power-plant/">Nepal’s biggest in Nuwakot</a>, better battery, COVID-19 and Zoom, the world is changing for many.The good thing about big new ideas is that they can come from anywhere in the world, no place has a monopoly on them. During the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale is credited with starting a whole new profession called nursing. She did not go to nursing school, but saw the need and came up with a new big idea. During the COVID-19 pandemic peak in London, the UK government built a new temporary hospital and named it after Florence Nightingale.Pasteurisation is another great idea that came from the need to protect and increase the shelf life of food for soldiers during war. We take many of these big ideas for granted today without realising that each was the result of human creativity when faced with a global crisis. Necessity is the mother of inventions, after all.The demand for electric power has gone down significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. USA oil at one point last month was being sold at minus $37 a barrel. The UK has stopped using coal for over two months. This monsoon, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-electric-shock-to-nepals-energy-future/">Nepal will have surplus hydropower</a>. These are all signs of things to come that may become big idea to change our common future for the better.Photocopiers replaced carbon paper, 4G replaced 3G, the fax machine was replaced by digital attachments. During times of crisis many people are in a state of denial and sit back hoping everything will become ‘normal’ again. There will be a new normal, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepals-future-normal/">but will it be a better normal</a>?  Will it include the products and services you use? How many will become obsolete like a Kodak film roll.Barbers have to worry about their jobs, now that we have learnt how to trim our own hair. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-lockdown-chance-for-self-sufficiency-in-veggies/">Kitchen gardens and roof top vegetables</a> are here to stay. All these changes also mean that the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-chance-to-green-its-budget/">Ministry of Finance</a> will have to think new and think big to get over this crisis by expanding the economic pie with incentives to invest in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/saving-energy-to-survive-post-pandemic-nepal/">renewable energy</a>, sustainable growth, and stop relying on taxing the destruction of nature.With tax revenue plummeting, how is the government going to pay civil service salaries, more expensive vehicles for itself, new carpets for the president? It must learn that taxing people to please political masters is no longer a viable option. Anil Chitrakar is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/">Siddharthinc</a>

Our uncommon future

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112911110/6385d8539c7e80680e0cc75djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1336" height="806"/><figcaption>Illustration: Bhanu Bhattarai</figcaption></figure>Albert Einstein is attributed for defining insanity as repeating the same process again and again, but expecting a different result. By this logic, we human beings are stark raving bonkers. But excelling even more on Einstein’s madness scale would be us Nepalis.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-electric-transport-future-is-here/">President Bidya Devi Bhandari</a> recently recited a two-and-half hour long speech about the government’s plans and policies. In parliamentary systems, this is just a formality. But Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada proceeded to deliver his <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-unveils-covid-19-budget/">budget speech</a> from the same podium that completely contradicted what she had laid out a few days previously.As usual, the budget speech is a cut-and-paste job that repeated ad nauseum a wish list that has been repeated ad nauseum before.  Wonder if the same person has been writing the speech for decades, with minor edits to suit the political masters of the day.The budget cannot just be a menu followed by ad-hoc allocations and some vague source of revenue. It needs to give the people a clear direction – especially at time when it is clearly headed to the edge of the coronavirus precipice.Traditional wisdom says that if you want to make God laugh, tell him/her/it that you have A Plan. Nepal always seems to have a plan for every situation. The only problem with these plans is that they never get implemented.Some donor-funded projects do get some work done because the agencies doling out the money are accountable to tax payers back home. But even here, Nepalis have to watch from the sidelines because the way contracts are awarded and the method with which the government, its development partners and lenders procure services, is opaque and restricted.One of the goals is ‘capacity building’. It always has been. The hidden costs of doing business in Nepal is on the rise, and unless you have an inside track nothing moves. No wonder the poor always end up paying more for almost everything.So, chocolate is going to be cheaper and electric <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-takes-3-steps-back-on-e-cars/">vehicles are going to be more expensive.</a> That is what the average person on the street has concluded about the budget. Nepal will generate 1,300MW more power this year, doubling its generation capacity.But the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-electric-shock-to-nepals-energy-future/">Finance Minister does not want to create a market for surplus power</a> by encouraging electric vehicles. Everyone gets it. A senior government official says  government drivers, administrators, and accountants will never allow us to replace diesel and petrol vehicles because they still have not figured out how to pilfer from electric vehicles. Once this problem is solved, you can be sure electric vehicles will become a normal part of our life.So we will have plenty of cheap chocolate, a lush new carpet at the presidential palace, and cabinet ministers who look really fit because they are getting a new gym. Now that foreign hospitals and treatment are not an option due to the lockdown, it makes perfect sense. Someone has also figured out that Nepal’s donors will pay for almost anything in the wish list, but a carpet and gym maybe a bit of a push. We know how to work these systems.Many thinkers and writers have taught us that the problem with the present application of capitalism is that all the profit goes into private pockets or bank accounts, but all the costs and risks are ultimately socialised. No one can tell us where and how our politicians became so good at condemning capitalism, but they do not quite seem to get the idea for the need to replace imported fossil fuels, which are paid for by precious foreign currency earned by our young migrant workers.They do not seem to get the link between the cost of imported vehicles, imported fossil fuel, declining jobs in foreign lands, numerous Indian blockades and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-lockdown-proves-air-quality-can-be-improved/">air pollution that makes all of us vulnerable to COVID-19</a> which seems to prefer to attack the respiratory system. Then there is climate change, but that was dealt with on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/build-back-greener/">World Environment D</a>ay. The budget should be the platform that establishes these linkages.COVID-19 has demonstrated that our vulnerability depends on our health and also our wealth. Many rich people do not work in the essentials services sector, have health insurance and access to the best services. The poor, who should be more concerned, demand an end to the lockdown and the need to go back to the old normal that was, all said and done, working in their favour. Change is easy to demand but very difficult to implement.The poor, who have neither health nor wealth, get sick, die and leave their families poorer than before. Breaking this vicious cycle is what the budget needed to address. It is this systemic poverty that keeps many politicians in power.The poor become the vote bank, and the poverty card is played every four to five years to get into positions of power. The budget making process forgets who and how they got into power in the first place.Anil Chitrakar is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/">Siddhartinc</a> and this is his fortnightly column ½ Full in Nepali Times.

Nepal at the edge of the COVID-19 precipice

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112911110/6385d8509c7e80680e0cc75cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1604" height="1128"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI</figcaption></figure>A country of 30 million is not small. A country that cannot spend 70% of its development budget is not cash poor.Nepal is big enough to need systems in place and use them to manage the country. It cannot muddle through on ad hocism, and especially during a crisis like the one we are going through now.As we begin to emerge hopefully soon from the impact of the lockdown, we must shed the practices and habits that have characterised governance in Nepal: the attitudes of ke garne, afno manche, bholi, chali halchha.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/ke-garne-attitude-kills-people/">Ke garne attitude kills people</a>, Laxmi BasnetMeritocracy will have to replace nepotism, goal-orientation has to replace fatalism, and we have to do yesterday what could have been done tomorrow if anything is going to change for the better in Nepal. If Nepal does not get remittances from those employed abroad in the post-COVID-19 era, how will we pay for the country’s fossil fuel imports? We need to think systems.No matter who comes to power, there is an underlying belief that being in power means the freedom to make ad hoc decisions. The god kings and oligarchs ruled made decisions on a whim, and those bad habits seem to have been inherited by our federal, republican democratic strongmen.Once in power, they do not like to put in systems because that will mean decisions have to be consultative, accountable and transparent. The problem with making ad hoc decisions is that they may offer short term benefits, but you do get into trouble at some point or other in future. How many times can you use the excuse that you did not know what was going on?In a country with seven provincial and 753 locally elected governments, systems have to be in place if people are to feel the impact of Nepal’s political evolution over the last seven decades – after all what were those changes for if not to improve governance, service delivery and spur development?<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/thinking-out-of-the-box-to-rescue-nepal/">Thinking out of the box to rescue Nepal</a>, Prem Jung ThapaThe COVID-19 crisis is a watershed moment. It offers Nepal a unique chance to digitise government services that will do away with ad hocism and corruption that comes from human to human contact. You cannot grease a palm if it is virtual, and wrongdoers leave digital footprints.Making transactions cashless and physical distancing could be the best ways to fight corruption in Nepal. If we can introduce contact tracing and ensure it is meticulously enforced, we could make fighting crime and corruption very useful by-products of this pandemic.The global pandemic has offered Nepal and the whole world a chance to re-imagine and re-build the health sector. The lockdown was meant to be a strategy to buy time for the government, health professionals and related businesses to ramp up capacity and ability to respond. These include everything from the manufacture and distribution of masks and PPE to developing tests and vaccines.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepals-accidental-leaders/">Nepal's accidental leaders</a>, Anil ChitrakarIn Nepal, the pandemic has felt more like a paid holiday for many. There was no attempt by the government, development partners or professionals to convince and bring the sectors together to use this opportunity for the future. Health for all, insurance, research and development, supply chain management, trainings, up gradation of hospitals and health facilities, formalising pharmacies ... so much could have been done. But it is still not too late.We have a whole generation of people who have grown up watching Hollywood movies where Superman and Wonder Woman track down the bad guys making lethal viruses, killing them and destroying their labs in the nick of time. What we have not seen is a movie which picks up after the virus has been contained, and society has to chart a new path of revival, learning from the mistakes of the past.Watching a movie passively knowing that there will be a happy ending is one thing, but today we are individually all players in the unfolding plot and ‘I’ could very well be the next victim, or hero. This reality show is as real as it gets. Lives and livelihoods are being lost, and the virus is quick to pounce when it detects weak leadership, denial, or a lack of systems.We in Nepal must use this opportunity to address inequality and discrimination. It is a chance to clean up Mt Everest, dredge Phewa Lake, prevent sewage from flowing into the Bagmati, repair trails and trail bridges, upgrade the seven major monument zones in the Kathmandu Valley, Janakpur and Lumbini.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-chance-to-green-its-budget/">Nepal's chance to green its budget</a>, Kaustubh DhitalCities across Nepal need to create dedicated sidewalks for <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18714#.Xs8-4i8w0Wp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D18714%23.Xs8-4i8w0Wp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1590728839126000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHxlOT3jvY5ynKVoUN1rJGyvWJZKw">pedestrians and bicycle lanes</a>, make sure that Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandus-road-ahead-post-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandus-road-ahead-post-covid-19/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1590728839126000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFYtjsavcqI8-QRcuslUQKmLbdzqA">transport system moves to clean hydroelectricity</a>. Nepal has no oil and we need to plan for energy security by reminding ourselves how many times <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/autopsy-of-a-blockade%20,2863" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/autopsy-of-a-blockade%2520,2863&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1590728839126000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGT0WYt8o-kUKJrkmksf9ccwh1uNQ">India has cut off our petroleum supply</a> in recent history.Once again, the government may not take the lead here because it does not have the systems in place. We have to collectively step up as a people. Time calls on us to move away from sound bites and photo ops. After all, the first fatality in Nepal attributed to COVID-19 required <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bhaktapurs-covid-19-heroes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bhaktapurs-covid-19-heroes/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1590728839126000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFSx32lHPgjO5bbfDf_VkJwwITp_w">young volunteers from Bhaktapur</a> to quietly step up and enable the cremation.Anil Chitrakar is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.siddharthinc.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1590728839126000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFDqReoEgvFMX6gIWVxJPTwSpVSOg">Siddharthinc.</a>

Nepal is too big for ad hocism

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112911110/6385d84d9c7e80680e0cc75bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI</figcaption></figure>Whenever Nepal’s political ‘leaders’ ask us what they should be doing, our response is usually: “When you were in jail, what did you resolve to do when you were released and came to power?”Over the years the reaction from those leaders has always been a sheepish smile. Let us give them the benefit of the doubt: they simply do not remember. In fact oral tradition says that when people get to the corridors of power, they forget how they got there in the first place.The debacle in the health sector in trying to come to grips with a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/has-nepals-lockdown-just-postponed-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">global pandemic</a> is that it needs to ask the country’s military to step in to procure medical supplies. Kathmandu’s lip service to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/lines-on-a-map/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">India’s land grab in Kalapani</a> is another symptom of the deeper moral malaise that plagues Nepal’s accidental political leadership.One popular politician once related how he came to be a ‘leader’. His college was organising a blood donation program which was disrupted by the police. The officer who beat him up said, “You want to spill communist blood in Nepal? Let me help you.” The pain of the beating and having to sleep in a cold cell turned him into a Dear Leader. Even today he reminds others that they went on to become engineers and doctors because they did not have the luck to be beaten up and detained like him.These accidental leaders missed hygiene class, hence do not know about virus. They  missed geography class, and therefore cannot draw a map of Nepal, especially of its northwestern tip. They also know that the Nepal Army cannot be investigated and hence pushed it to build fast tracks and import masks.One accidental leader was recently asked, “Now that the Army is importing medicines, should we not send the Ministry of Health to defend Lipu Lekh?”Many Nepalis believed these accidental political leaders when they were blaming the mysterious Foreign Hand for anything that was wrong with Nepal. But today we have turned into a country that waits for India’s Republic Day to get free ambulances. We need the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/swiss-pcrs-for-nepal-covid-19-testing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Swiss to buy us COVID 19 test kits</a>  and UNDP to connect ministries to Zoom.The building in which the Nepal’s Parliament sits for the budget session is a birthday gift from the Chinese government to King Birendra – and it was supposed to be a convention centre. Our parliamentary democracy couldn’t even build its own Parliament.Nepalis are finally beginning to ask what happens to all the taxes we pay. There never seems to be a shortage of money <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/driving-nepal-deeper-into-debt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">when politicians and bureaucrats need the latest SUVs</a>  but we cannot afford a Zoom account?The people of Kathmandu, many of whom have sold their homesteads in the districts to buy a tiny patch in the Valley, have started roof gardens to grow vegetable and rented remaining floors. The market is full of vegetables grown on roof terraces. In fact, 52 days into the lockdown, there is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-lockdown-chance-for-self-sufficiency-in-veggies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">no visible shortage of vegetables</a> or black marketing in Kathmandu.With the global economic downturn there is a real possibility of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-grapples-with-bringing-workers-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepalis coming home from all over the world</a>  Many countries want to protect jobs for their own citizens, and hence Nepal may experience brain gain sooner than many would have predicted. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/overseas-nepalis-on-the-covid-19-frontlines/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">We may have doctors</a>  nurses, builders and service providers who are now second to none due to the experience they have received in the world’s most advanced economies.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-prepares-for-economic-fallout-of-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">post COVID-19 economy in Nepal</a> could do really well if they are given the incentives to start businesses and create jobs. They always told us they would return one day and rebuild and develop Nepal. We all know that good human resources are the most critical variable to develop a country and not just its natural resources endowment – just like Japan or Korea.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/pandemic-is-a-chance-to-rethink-development/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">COVID-19 crisis could be turned into a chance</a> for a Great Leap Forward. Nepalis returning to Nepal should not be seen as a problem but an opportunity for growth.Our accidental leaders will get due credit because if it was not for their mismanagement, Nepalis would never have left Nepal in the first place. The glass is indeed half full.Anil Chitrakar is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.siddharthinc.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1589691492058000&amp;usg=AFQjCNESqOnoQwq3KbH89NK9XOAj4v0_cA">Siddharthinc</a>.

Nepal's accidental leaders

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112911110/6385d84a9c7e80680e0cc75ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1499" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo: MANISH POUDEL</figcaption></figure>Who would have thought that a time would come when the price of oil would be below zero, once mighty countries would crumble, and humankind would be brought to its knees? And all because of a microscopic strand of RNA.The contagion has provided individuals, communities, countries and the world a chance to mend our ways, to live more frugally and sustainably, to be humble about our inventions and gadgets, and realise how ephemeral our preoccupations are in the eternity that is nature.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/pandemic-is-a-chance-to-rethink-development/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pandemic is a chance to rethink development</a>, Ivan G SomlaiWe naturally appreciate doctors and nurses knowing that we may have to see them some day, but <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/save-farms-empower-farmers-nepal-citizens-appeal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">we need farmers</a> to grow our food in all seasons. One way to change after this crisis would be to bless our grandchildren to become farmers. Not just engineers and doctors. The other way to transform ourselves and the nation would be to go back to the village and change our attitude towards the land and natural resources.There is cash in the city, but not much else. This crisis has woken up urban consumers to the fact that there are producers of food and essentials in a supply chain that they took for granted. The cheese for the pizza that was home delivered came from Jiri or Langtang or even Gujarat’s Amul cooperative. The walnut is from Jumla, the large beans from Khumbu, the mutton is from the hills, and rice from the Tarai.This pandemic gives us a chance to identify where the supply chain is weak and what we need to do to secure them for the future. Not just for a future crisis, but for a future normal. Where is food we consume grown? How do we pay for its import? What is the real cost of producing it? Where are the warehouses, the cold stores, aggregation, processing plants, management of wholesale markets. Who are the ‘middle men’ who control the supply and prices?The world is now learning from people like Kamal Tuladhar that Newa traders who went to Lhasa 150 years ago had to be quarantined for 14 days upon their return to Kathmandu because of the diseases that they might have brought back. Our ancestors survived famines and knew the value of sun dried and fermented food for difficult times. Gundruk, sinki, churpi, achar, tama, lentils and beans were literally life savers during food shortages following epidemics.  We need to protect these recipes, and the processes to make them. Food does not grow in a supermarket. Milk does not come out of a carton. Chicken does not live in a freezer.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=33901&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Much more than dal bhat,</a> Anil ChitrakarNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo has become wildly popular for daily press show where he mixes his warnings with hope. He appeals to people to take this opportunity to re-imagine the future. This applies as much to New Yorkers as to Nepalis: every crisis provides us a chance to do things differently. At least one member of the family henceforth should be a farmer. Or a barber.The butcher, the grocery store keeper, the dairy and bakery have all become mini-Amazons overnight, doing home delivery. This resilience in the Nepali is what makes us confident about the future. Classes on Zoom, homework and grades on line, and even virtual heritage tours have become normal in just one month. If we can bridge the bandwidth divide of mobile telephony so the digital economy is accessible and affordable, we can leapfrog into a future normal.Once again, missing in this future is government. Yes, we get electricity and (occasionally) water, but little else. The way the government distributed relief to the needy was a farce, no one believes the numbers they claim to have served. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/feeding-1000-a-day-in-kathmandu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Volunteer groups</a> did a much better job. The way the district administration gave out passes for ‘essential service providers’ and emergencies is a joke.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/philanthropy-in-the-time-of-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Philanthropy in the time of pandemic</a>, Shristi KarkiThe opening of supermarkets while arresting the neighborhood Mom and Pop store owners has once again reminded Nepalis that some are still  more equal than others.  After all these years of ‘capacity building’ the government has only built its capacity for kickbacks, and increased dependency on outsiders. It bungled procurement on test kits and equipment, ordered the wrong kind of kits and colluded with businessmen to inflate the cost.Once more, citizens rose to the rescue by improvising PPEs in Nepal from plastic sheets and transparencies. But just count of number of ICU beds in the country, minus the number of politicians and you can decide for yourself why you need to self isolate.A theory says that if you want an easy solution to problems, find a lazy person for the job. It makes sense: work from home, online orders, online payments -- they all look like innovations that have invented by the lazy for the lazy. It could be that Nepalis have come up with ways to cope with the COVID-19 because we are inherently laid back. If that is the case we will survive the post-pandemic world as well.Introverts have flourished in the age of physical distancing, so that artists, writers, poets, chefs have been spending the most creative weeks of their lives. Cooking, baking, design work will all flourish in the future normal. The fact that we all wear masks means we do not need to smile at anyone we do not want to, and thank goodness those messy handshakes and awkward hugs are a thing of the past.And, oh yes, the rains have come. Happy farming.Read Also:<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/work-for-food/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Work for food</a>, Anil Chitrakar <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/back-to-the-future-of-farming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Back to the future of farming</a>, Nepali TimesAnil Chitrakar is the President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.siddharthinc.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1588658806327000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFL28qyHi-uf8Ff-kXWjsXm3xnvuA">Siddharthinc</a>.

Nepal's future normal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121116/636b8c449c7e80680e06b2ebjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667"/><figcaption>Photo: BIKRAM RAI</figcaption></figure>It is the fifth anniversary of the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/04/25/massive-earthquake-rattles-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/04/25/massive-earthquake-rattles-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587528460883000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFDg91oBtAFbB4wJmaL6S1ymRNwzQ">big earthquake that shook us all on 25 April 2015</a>. The rebuilding process has been slow, but contrary to public perception it has been steady.Many first-time visitors to Kathmandu are quite <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/rebuilding-five-years-after-2015-quake/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/rebuilding-five-years-after-2015-quake/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587528460883000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGQaBIWkaWS4LrrCnRk8skOwWQS-g">impressed with the recovery</a>, and often ask me where all the damage is. It is also noteworthy that in the last five years since the disaster, we promulgated a new Constitution, survived a Blockade, held <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/10/23/november-polls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/10/23/november-polls/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587528460883000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEoWQIb2TWUCsXrINwycwVJHH9tgg">elections to all three levels of government</a>, and we hoped that with political stability there would be development.Infrastructure, energy, health, tourism and education sectors were finally getting the attention they needed. World class school buildings and health facilities come up across the earthquake affected areas. Women have been trained in masonry and carpentry, information technology applications have spread across Nepal’s remote locations.Traditional artistans have done us all proud by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/learning-from-nepals-past-to-rebuild-its-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/learning-from-nepals-past-to-rebuild-its-future/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587528460884000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHjGoVpvnYAijcTp6hINygyenUjKQ">reviving the craft and skills</a> to restore our monuments. The restoration of Boudhanath set the pace and the rest followed. The flow of resources assured us that Nepal still has many friends all over the world.But just as we were getting over the aftermath of the upheavals of the past five year, we have been hit by an unforeseen and unprecedented disaster. Once again, we are confronting some of the challenges we overcame after the earthquake.The pandemic has exposed societal inequities, state inaction, lack of transparency. We still do not know who the poor are in this country.  We tout poverty numbers and percentages all the time, but is that true picture? Who are the most vulnerable, and how do we help them?We are bombarded by heart-wrenching videos of families who have run out of cash and food on the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/long-road-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/long-road-home/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587528460884000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFqxkzi3t3uHcAiah8-OD59DOLZeQ">long march home from Kathmandu</a>. These are the underserved: they were in Kathmandu because of state’s inability to provide rural jobs, and they are victims of state apathy after the lockdown. The meagre belongings on their backs, and being forced to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/walking-3-days-to-get-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/walking-3-days-to-get-home/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587528460884000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGNeH47elS6hZ4rWfkBOWIsgVr_Pw">walk hundreds of kilometeres in flipflops</a> are symbolic of the state of governance.When the earthquake hit Nepal, we did not have elected local governments and identifying the poor and vulnerable took time. We started to define them, but now we may have to redefine vulnerability. This time it is frontline health workers, food and medicine store keepers, taxi and bus drivers,  are most vulnerable. Even a month after they returned, there is stigmatisation against migrant workers who have returned from abroad.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121116/636b8c469c7e80680e06b2ecjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="252" height="128">Then there is the catch-all phrase: capacity building. In the 1980s, the Hetauda cloth factory did well in Nepal and the neighborhood with high quality textile products. Then, like in other spheres of national life, a combination of political interference, mismanagement, low productivity and inability to compete, the factory closed.In the post-earthquake and post-COVID economy, why not revive the Hetauda factory to produce cloth for the army and police and design it to produce masks and PPE? In an earthquake, it makes tents, and soon in the monsoon it can produce rafts and rain gear.The new normal is where a textile factory needs to quickly become a PPE and mask maker. How do we train the staff, and what kind of skills will workers need? In the next cold wave this winter, we will need sleeping bags and jackets.Pharmaceutical companies in Nepal have to gear up to acquire the license to produce a vaccine or drugs for COVID-19. Which companies have the capability? Capacity building has a whole new meaning in the post-pandemic, post-earthquake, and during the climate induced disaster-prone Nepal.Another aspect of capacity is related to leadership at the centre, the provinces and local governments. Leadership, we have seen, is about who can keep millions of people to stay the course, lay out clear plans and communicate clear instructions at times of crisis.It is about trust, transparency and accountability. The next election is less than three years away, that would be the perfect time to reward the do-ers. The earthquake was a great teacher, and COVID-19 is an exam for those who want to rule over us. Can they pass the test?Anil Chitrakar writes this fortnightly column ½ Full in Nepali Times, and is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.siddharthinc.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1587528460884000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHjwi6pFkZf10UOhHSJVl2Z0Z-QXA">Siddharthinc</a>

Will politicians pass the COVID-19 test?

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110912118/636b8ac89c7e80680e06b25ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1132"/><figcaption>Photo: SEAN SHOEMAKER</figcaption></figure>We must all look beyond these times of fear and uncertainty and plan forward to Dasain, Tihar and Chhat festivals. This year Dasain is 24-27 October, Tihar 13-16 November and Chhat a week later.These are family and community festivals, a time for get-togethers at a time when we should be careful about getting together. Last week’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandu-festivals-muted-amidst-coronavirus-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandu-festivals-muted-amidst-coronavirus-lockdown/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1586401491095000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFN1T5Zvz9lLICCoU6kUWIhcOMxqg">Bisket Jatra in Bhaktapur was cancelled</a>, Machindranath chariot pulling is unlikely and even Indra Jatra looks iffy. WE will be locked in our homes for Nepali New Year Day on 13 April.So far, Nepal has been lucky. But to keep the virus from spreading in our communities we need to take steps today. Keep strictly to lockdown rules, maintain physical distance even within the family, not so much to protect ourselves but to protect others.These actions have to be at the level of the individual and community, as well as at all three levels of government. The idea is simple. You plant marigold, you harvest it after the monsoon, make garlands, sell it and pay for the family to have new clothes and sweet dishes. If you do nothing now, it will be a miserable festival. And Nepal’s festivals are intimately tied to our crop cycles.The rains have been good to Nepal this winter, and we have to believe that the monsoon will arrive on time and stay strong. The current maize-planting season and the upcoming rainy season are opportunities to ensure that no Nepali goes hungry and ensure food security for Nepal at these difficult and uncertain times. The government should be proactively telling farmers that the lockdown does not include them, as long as they maintain physical distance.Oral lore tell us that Kathmandu Valley once suffered a 12-year drought and the Boudhanath stupa was built with dew drops and hence called <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-temple-by-another-name/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-temple-by-another-name/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1586401491096000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGAZ2rG7ExMZR72XvcYslGH8dfKUQ">Khasti – the dew drop stupa</a>. Droughts are nothing new, but they may get more severe and frequent in future with the climate crisis.Rice seedlings and the terrace farms must be prepared for the monsoon paddy planting season. But this year, we must also prepare for a possible shortage of workers. The COVID-19 slowdown will drive wages up, and increase <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-price-of-rice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-price-of-rice/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1586401491096000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF-WfeKKwM0QWw2JS4lBBbCyk_JVw">the price of fresh vegetables and staples</a>. For farmers this is not necessarily bad news, but we have to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/back-to-the-future-of-farming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">adapt to a new post-coronavirus economy</a>.Communities across Nepal have built and maintained irrigation canals for centuries. The government and its foreign partners have also paid for thousands of kilometers of irrigation canals across this country. Some are working well, others need to be repaired and upgraded. The time is now to do that.That way, we create jobs, workers get wages, and agriculture production goes up. We are then able to pay people for the work they do and also ensure that all have plenty of food for the coming year, and something to celebrate during the harvest festivals this autumn.This is not food for work, it is work for food. The upkeep of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/save-farms-empower-farmers-nepal-citizens-appeal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/save-farms-empower-farmers-nepal-citizens-appeal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1586401491096000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGaX3n-ffj50XjcqEcfWCxcA9FB0Q">Nepal’s agricultural infrastructure during the lockdown</a> will yield dividends far into the future, keep us fed, make us more self-reliant and resilient.Water is the most important input for us to be food secure. Yet, three-fourths of Nepal’s farms are still rain-fed, but this can change with a nationwide campaign to extend irrigation. Water sources need protection, watersheds need to be managed, depleted groundwater tables need to be recharged by reviving ponds.Many communities now have seed banks, a thriving seed production business and there are technologies that help with crop resilience. There is even a variety of rice that can live through weeks of inundation, or paddy that survives droughts.Change in human behaviour requires incentive. The thought of enjoying the autumn festival could be what we need to get us all to get up and prepare the soil, get the seeds into the ground, spread the fertiliser and then look at the sky for the first signs of the monsoon.We survived a ten year armed conflict, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Nepal-agriculture-disaster-even-before-earthquake,2256" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/Nepal-agriculture-disaster-even-before-earthquake,2256&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1586401491096000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHsjXloFPKCTBfyVFHHe-JBWshKFg">the earthquake</a>, the Blockade and now we must outlive a pandemic. Waiting and doing nothing, and even worse, hoping that the government and political parties will bring us out of this crisis is no longer an option.Many countries that took in able bodied Nepalis as labour in the past may be sending them back. We have to welcome them, not as extra mouths to feed, but extra hands to get Nepal back on its feet to feed itself.Anil Chitrakar is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.siddharthinc.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1584429126566000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHlGpjXdetcUvuOgKB-EOTHzU-evQ">Siddharthinc</a>.

Work for food

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110911110/636b7a519c7e80680e064753jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"/><figcaption>Photo: BIKRAM RAI</figcaption></figure>The whole world is now using vocabulary that we assume everyone, everywhere, will understand in the same way: pandemic, lockdown, self-isolation, quarantine, flatten the curve, exponential spread, COVID-19. In a country with low adult literacy rate, really poor health infrastructure, Nepalis need to be careful with these terms and how we explain it to the public.Although the country’s economy is ruined, Nepalis themselves have so far has been relatively less affected. Once this pandemic dies out, as it will one day, we have a change to rethink development, revamp our economic development model and update the school curriculum to make it relevant, timely and useful to both the student and society at large to deal with future health scares.How soon should our young be learning about pandemics and epidemics? Nepalis have lived through an armed conflict, became a republic, written a new constitution, lived through an earthquake and Indian economic blockade – all within a generation.We have restructured the state, and now we are coping with a global pandemic. That is a lot of content for a whole set of new text books. High school history books in Nepal still do not mention the war. Now, we really have to work on how development, environment and health issues are taught in our schools so that the students grow up to be able to respond individually and collectively to future crises.Education is the key to preparedness. We also cannot end up in a situation where people know, but do nothing because students just regurgitated memorised passages in exams.  We need to create an education system that focuses on action, results and impact. This will be challenging because the facts are changing rapidly, and knowledge itself comes with an expiry date.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/pandemic-is-a-chance-to-rethink-development/">Pandemic is a chance to rethink development</a>, Ivan G SomlaiThe bigger challenge is to change people’s behaviour based on the information they receive, and the education they have had. Policemen do not need to beat people walking on the streets, they need to be able to stop them explain what a lockdown is, and the costs and benefits of compliance to society.Lockdowns are cruel, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/lockdown-fallout/">they bring societal inequities to the surface</a>. Just as the virus targets the vulnerable, the measure used to control it by enforcing a lockdown also disproportionately impact on the poor, elderly or those far from home. In a situation where people do not trust the government and black marketers are politically protected, we cannot blame a public that is skeptical of government moves.What is the use of buying insurance only to be told that it does not mention COVID-19 in the fine print? How is anyone supposed to know? For teachers and students of economics, there should be a chapter on how to deal with unprecedented global disasters like pandemics.Businesses in Europe and North America show profit, give shareholders their dividends, and then use government subsidies to buy back stock to keep share prices high. Is this the advice multilateral and bilateral agencies give us? If it is, we really need to rewrite our economics text books.The pandemic is a real teacher if we are willing to learn. How do we explain to college students why the US stock exchange rose over 6% on the day 3.3 million eligible citizens filed for unemployment benefit and the number of COVID-19 infections kept rising. How do hospitals choose which patients to treat and which ones can be left to die because there are shortages of equipment and medicines?We shall also need the best minds working on the experiences of other countries so we know what works and what does not in a federal political system like the United States. The pandemic is unfolding in real time on our tv screens and monitors, and the challenge is to stay ahead of the curve – for which communicating with the public is key.The fact that we are teaching people how to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/covid-19-revives-nepals-wash-drive/">wash their hands </a>in 2020 does not speak a whole lot about where we are and where we need to be. Nepalis have been through a lot and have paid a heavy price for not being prepared for disasters, for being poorly governed, and for over-dependency on foreign aid. Experience and education should provide us the common sense needed to take collective action. After all, common sense is not very common.Anil Chitrakar is President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.siddharthinc.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1584429126566000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHlGpjXdetcUvuOgKB-EOTHzU-evQ">Siddharthinc</a> and writes this exclusive fortnightly column ½ Full for Nepali Times.

Common sense is uncommon in fighting COVID-19

The newly-formed Himalayan Art Council is set to launch Nepal’s National Art Protection Platform that seeks to preserve <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-history-of-heritage">Nepal’s unique cultural heritage </a>using<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/artificial-censorship"> AI-powered tools</a>. The Council seeks to safeguard <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-art-going-places">Nepali art works</a> from neglect, theft and counterfeiting as well as preserve existing artwork and celebrate living masters by giving them a cultural space to continue the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/sacred-survival">sacred art traditions</a>. "We are introducing a new digital platform designed to preserve, verify and elevate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-new-generation-of-alternative-artists">Nepal’s art for generations to come,</a>” says a statement from the Council, adding that the digital platform will use AI told for authentication and blockchain to keep track of works of art. Artists can now be protected by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/ayo-ai?fbclid=IwAR1uwmTVq4gUB70ljfRezjzukD9ArWXPuMnUikopeQ8PoiZMjicToPSwhKE&amp;=1">AI tools</a> that detect forgeries, identify their work even when unsigned, and ensure they receive proper recognition and credit. The archives will be searchable with translated inscription and interactive guides. Says curator Meena Lama: “AI and blockchains are tools that give us the power to detect fakes and identify unsigned paintings and track every piece. With these tools we can restore trust, secure authorship and give artists the dignity they deserve.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53" data-rendition-name="original" width="1300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum."> <figcaption>Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  The Council is also holding an exhibition of Nepali cultural masterpieces with 50 historical <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Buzz-the-art,671">thangka and paubha </a>by past masters and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/between-the-sacred-and-everyday">contemporary works by current artists</a>. This curated collection is a living tribute to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">Himalayan culture</a> with economic depictions of deities, mandala and sacred narratives. The exhibition at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-portal-into-patan-s-past-and-present">Patan Museum</a> also provides an opportunity to meet painters and custodians of art and culture. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/golden-deities">Golden deities</a>, Sewa Bhattarai ‘The exhibition is only the first step in a long journey to ensure that Nepali art is no just seen but fully understood, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987">protected and remembered</a>,’ the Council says. Artist Kailash K Shrestha of Artudio has spent decades promoting thankha and paubha traditions because of their beauty and devotional meaning. But he also says artists are underpaid, exploited and ignored. He adds, “AI and blockchain are not just buzzwords, they are powerful tools that can protect Nepal’s artists from fraud, verify authenticity and build a permanent record of provenance.” Traditional Art Exhibition Till 17 May Patan Museum

Digital protection for Nepal’s art

In the black and white photograph, General Wangdu smiles broadly in front of the dusty cactus garden in Kathmandu’s Annapurna Hotel. With an ill-fitting jacket and shaggy hair he looks benign enough, but this was the last leader of the Tibetan freedom fighters who led the resistance against the Chinese from their remote mountain hideouts in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/comings-and-goings-in-mustang">Mustang</a>. Five months later, Wangdu was dead. Snapped in March 1974, I had only recently arrived in Nepal. How did I meet this legendary fighter? Possibly with his devoted camp follower, Lynne Klapecki, and probably in the Om Restaurant near Freak Street which was the preferred <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/hippie-trail-nostalgia-in-kathmandu">hippie hang-out</a>. Om Lobsang and his brother Yeshe were <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/earthquake-brings-back-memories-of-camps-for-tibetan-refugees">refugees from East Tibet </a>whose cafe offered a friendly welcome and<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/momo-loco"> the best momos</a> - they became my in-laws after I married their eldest brother Tenzin, but that was a decade later.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1583" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption> </figure>  Wangdu’s English was enthusiastically rudimentary, but even riding around town with him on the back of an aging <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-new-motorbike-museum">motorbike</a>, he was a commanding presence. Always flanked by armed outriders, impressive scars marked his forearms and a pistol hung from the cord around his neck. A charismatic guerrilla leader, Wangdu was celebrated by his followers for his tough commitment and respected for his measured pragmatism. He seemed so young to have shouldered such a responsibility of command, leading hundreds of hardened <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/50-years-after-the%20raid-into-Tibet,1012#google_vignette">Khampa combatants </a>through what had been a particularly <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/heavy-snowfall-over-nepal-himalaya">brutal winter in Mustang</a>, the last bastion to hold out against the Chinese invasion of their Tibetan homeland.&nbsp; The freedom fighters of Tibet, known as the Chushi-Gangdruk, had emerged to resist the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism">Chinese takeover</a> of Tibet during the 1950s. Estimated to be 80,000-strong at the time of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-or-who-after-the-dalai-lama">the Dalai Lama</a>’s final escape to India in 1959, the sheer number of Chinese deployed into Tibet eventually forced the Chushi-Gangdruk to retreat to Mustang, From this high Himalayan stronghold, they continued cross-border raids on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) throughout the 1960s.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="676" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Guerrillas known as the Chushi-Gangdruk emerged to resist the Chinese annexation of Tibet during the 1950s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>  Their Kathmandu base was a small discreet lodge in a back lane near Rani Pokhari. Sipping sweet tea from a blue mug with a chipped lid, I sat bemused in a corner of the Mustang Hotel room whilst Wangdu and his cohorts received a battered brown suitcase from their CIA connection, a tousle-haired American in a leather jacket. Heaved onto the dingy bedspread that covered the thin mattress, it was clicked open to reveal piles of neatly stacked dollar bills.&nbsp; I cannot think why Wangdu allowed me to witness this handover but I was clearly no threat, a newly arrived world traveller with no understanding of the stakes nor any Nepali or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/tibetan-music-in-nepals-sacred-valley">Tibetan language</a>. Despite armed guards in the corridor,Wangdu radiated confidence and bravado, and there was a practiced familiarity to the tense transaction. This deadly dance for many years had been funded by the Americans, tolerated by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-kingdom-within-a-republic">Mustang’s residents</a>, and permitted by King Mahendra and the Nepali authorities who it suited to turn a blind eye.&nbsp; But Mahendra died in 1972, and times were changing. Richard Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy thawed the cold war and signalled a fresh entente with China. Nepal’s yet-to-be-crowned <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">King Birendra </a>was under pressure to curb the irritating incursions against the PLA launched from the Nepali territory of Mustang. Keen to appease his northern neighbour, on several occasions the King summoned Wangdu for peace talks but, despite increasingly overwhelming odds, Wangdu refused to surrender.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1055" height="885" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>General Wangdu flanked by two Tibetan resistance fighters in Mustang in the 1970s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31" data-rendition-name="original" width="1044" height="792" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>King Birendra with General Wangdu (right in dark glasses) taken in 1974 possibly in Mustang after one of their few attempts at negotiation. Photo courtesy: RAJRNDRA KUNWAR</figcaption> </figure>  While I naively rode pillion around Kathmandu in the spring sunshine, Wangdu was in the midst of what turned out to be his final round of negotiations with the Nepal government. Refusing to cease hostilities with the Chinese, Wangdu must have suspected the cost of his decision, making his cheerful smile in the photograph all the more poignant and brave. It was only much later that I appreciated the significance of the moment. Wangdu had been sent to replace the first resistance leader in Mustang, Baba Gen Yeshe, a much derided corrupt character who stole money meant for his troops and exploited fleeing refugees by seizing their treasures. Baba Gen Yeshe never forgave Wangdu,and sought revenge in May 1974 by betraying him and his commanders to the Nepal authorities. Renewed Chinese incursions from the north, active PLA collusion with the Nepali forces under the new King, and treachery from within the Chushi-Gangdrukranks combined to seal their fate.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1400" height="769" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>British television journalists George Patterson and Adrian Cowell embedded themselves with Khampa guerrillas and accompanied them from Tsum Valley on a cross border raid on a Chinese Army convoy in 1964. Photo: ESSAYS ON NEPAL / SAM COWAN</figcaption> </figure>  Mikel Dunham, renowned author of Buddha’s Warriors, writes: ‘It is possible that Wangdu was waiting for some cue from the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. It is equally possible – during that last, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-human-cost-of-nepal-s-yarsa-gold-rush?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR31-Cqw8oyIwMPzf_35e4Skr0ululJvLf3_vDkzHn-AYG2h8uPw2rqqErg_aem_tGVn5coY1-jA7fze_xqhew">desolate winter </a>– that he made the decision to go out in glory rather than admit defeat. Over the last fifteen years, Wangdu had experienced Tibet’s organized resistance being squeezed and shoved around by every conceivable outside force.&nbsp; First they had been pushed out of their own country by the PLA; then they had been refused sanction while on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/nepal-india-trans-boundary-bonds?fbclid=IwAR0PpJ5zUEbwdug3g_U3ar6FUugngRY0S8Tl2v_7wqzrsHmXWcXsKjvL4t4">Indian soil</a>; then they were abandoned by the Americans because, apparently, Nixon wanted to make friends with Wangdu’s mortal enemies, the communists; then they had been betrayed by the vampiric Baba Gen Yeshe – a Tibetan and, even worse, a fellow Khampa; and now, finally Wangdu’s army was being evicted by the Nepalis. One thing was certain: Wangdu was a warrior. To imagine Wangdu simply giving up and settling down in the pacific squalor of a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp">refugee camp </a>was unthinkable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49.jpg" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="746" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>The much derided Baba Gen Yeshe, the first Tibetan resistance leader in Mustang, who betrayed Wangdu for personal gain. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="656" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Aditya SJB Rana of the Royal Nepal Army whose team ambushed Wangdu and his cohorts at the top of Tinker Pass in Darchula, West Nepal. Photo courtesy: GAUTAM SJB RANA</figcaption> </figure>  By August 1974 the game was up. Wangdu and six of his exhausted party were killed on their horses by <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7270">the Royal Nepal Army</a> on the brink of escape. The officer in charge, Aditya SJB Rana, cleverly predicted their route into India after they failed to silence a police radio in Yari. A carefully laid ambush trapped them near the summit of the Tinker Pass in Darchula,at 5,000 meters the highest military operation of its time. Wangdu’s body was helicoptered to Kathmandu, and a big show made of the royal Nepal victory.&nbsp; The Tibetan armed insurgency against China had reached its end.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> </figure>

The Last Days of the Khampa

India and Pakistan are twins separated at birth. Tensions between them have been at a hair trigger ever since independence and has erupted into full scale conflict at least four times in the past 80 years.
The 22 April terrorist attack in Kashmir that killed 25 Indian tourists and a Nepali citizen, threatens to escalate tension between the two nuclear-armed nations. India has squarely blamed Pakistan for the attacks, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given his military “operational freedom” to respond. Pakistan has said it has credible intelligence of an Indian military strike and its officials have promised a “full spectrum” response — a code for a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/thinking-the-thinkable">nuclear retaliation</a>.
For Nepal, the killing of its national in the Pahalgam attack comes as another stark reminder that in conflicts from Afghanistan to Iraq, from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/how-to-agree-an-armistice-in-ukraine">Ukraine</a> to Israel, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/10-nepalis-from-one-town-fighting-in-ukraine">Nepalis are getting caught in the crossfire</a>. The last time full-scale fighting broke out between <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/peacemongers-at-india-pakistan-border">India and Pakistan</a> on Kargil in 1999, at least 22<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/india-s-trial-by-fire-for-soldiers-from-nepal?%27%5C%22="> Nepalis fighting for the Indian Army</a> were killed in action.
Three of Nepal’s immediate neighbours (China, India, Pakistan) have nuclear weapons, and they do not have good relations. With China supplying weapons, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/war-and-warming">missile technology</a> and other support to Pakistan, this triangular friction could set off a regional conflagration.&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0" target="_blank">Research at Rutgers University</a> has calculated that even a week-long tactical nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would throw up so much smoke and debris into the atmosphere that it would block out the sun for years, and lead to a collapse of the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/grow-nourish-sustain-together-world-food-day">global food system</a>. This does not take into account the radioactive fallout that prevailing winds would blow up to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lives-on-the-line-in-the-himalaya">the Himalaya</a>, contaminating glaciers that are the sources of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-what-is-left-of-himalayan-rivers">Asia’s main rivers</a>.
The impact of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/climate-breakdown-linked-to-thame-flood">climate breakdown </a>on High Asia was already ringing alarm bells about its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/himalayan-icecap-melting-faster-than-thought">shrinking ice cap</a> reducing the dry season flow of water downstream. Water was going to be the next strategic commodity, geopolitical experts warned, and the next wars in Asia would be over water.
That water war is already happening. India retaliated to the Kashmir attack by suspending the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/world/asia/india-pakistan-indus-waters-treaty.html" target="_blank">Indus Waters Treaty</a> of 1960 mediated by the World Bank that has withstood at least three wars between India and Pakistan. The treaty gives India control over the three eastern tributaries of the Indus (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beas_River" target="_blank">Beas</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_River" target="_blank">Ravi</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutlej" target="_blank">Sutlej</a>), while Pakistan got water from the Indus and two of its western tributaries (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River" target="_blank">Indus</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenab_River" target="_blank">Chenab</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jhelum_River" target="_blank">Jhelum</a>.
Pakistan was assured of 70% of the annual flow, and India could use a reasonable amount of water for<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15231"> irrigation and hydropower</a>. &nbsp;Within days of its threat, India stopped water flowing down to Pakistan from the Chenab river and is reportedly preparing to do the same on the Jhelum.
The sabre-rattling has reached a crescendo. Besides threats and counter-threats there are also symbolic drills, with the Indian Air Force practicing landing on an expressway in Uttar Pradesh by its Rafale, Su-30 and Jaguar fighter jets to demonstrate ‘operational readiness’. In response Pakistan test-fired its Abdali ballistic missile that can carry a nuclear warhead and has a range of 450km.&nbsp;
The danger is that with ultra-nationalist rhetoric and the beating the war drums by both sides, India’s government and Pakistan’s military may have to ‘do something’ to appease domestic public opinion. But any tactical strike, an artillery exchange, or territorial incursion could quickly escalate out of control.
Expecting an Indian retaliation for the Pahalgam killings, Pakistan is using<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/interfaith-collaboration-for-nuclear-disarmament"> nuclear deterrence </a>and warning of “catastrophic consequences”. The two neighbours came close to a nuclear exchange in 2019 after an attack on the Indian military in Kashmir, and prompt international intervention led by the United States cooled tensions.&nbsp;
This time, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/trump-shock-wave-hits-nepal">Trump administration</a> is too distracted and not as engaged. Pakistan has denied it was responsible for the terrorist attack and called on Washington to stop a possible Indian retaliation. India and Pakistan have stopped overflights by each other’s airlines, and some international carriers have even stopped flying over Pakistan fearing an air war.
Washington, Beijing, the UN and the EU have all urged restraint. Iran, which has good relations with both India and Pakistan has sent its foreign minister to urge both countries not to go into a tit-for-tat war. Iran has its own nuclear flashpoint to worry about with tensions in Israel, &nbsp;Yemen and Syria.
India and Pakistan both share similar problems of joblessness, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/why-nepal-s-poverty-rate-is-stuck">poverty </a>and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/climate-change-new-threat-to-nepal-s-rhinos">environmental threats</a>. Neither side needs the threat of a senseless war, and we in the neighbourhood do not need it either.&nbsp;
Kunda Dixit
This Editorial 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.

Nukes in the neighbourhood

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/prabalgurung/" target="_blank">Prabal Gurung</a> left Nepal for New York in 1999 to escape years of bullying, sexism and homophobia, and to pursue his dream of becoming a fashion designer. He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqN0VaoAI5w" target="_blank">realised his dream</a>, but did not escape discrimination and racism in the new world. Propelled by passion for fashion, Gurung overcame everything America threw at him. He has attained <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/prabal-gurung-recalls-his-first-met-gala-when-zoe-saldana-was-at-his-side?srsltid=AfmBOooy-H0oGgxMit864FnW_Pmw8mUnV8rYrh-co-f6OyYK6m2ip5hP" target="_blank">fame and recognition</a> for his haute couture dress designs while remaining true to his Nepali roots, and is even more resolute in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSmNauyzACk" target="_blank">fighting prejudice</a> in all its forms. Prabal Gurung’s newly-released memoir <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Walk-Like-Girl-Memoir/dp/B0DG11HCDQ?fbclid=IwY2xjawKZfpxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHuZcIJO2OXyXcRm1oq1iG6wzeoF7VJFrQ7GXOFI0YxuZZ4id_CNvSZSZZIna_aem_pG_mOKG73RTnYvN8JaC4fA">Walk Like a Girl</a> is a saga of harrowing abuse in boarding schools in Nepal and India, only finding himself facing a different kind of bullying in the US. He prevails over it all to be where he is today: an award-winning American fashion designer with his own label. Walk Like a Girl was launched last week in New York at a time when everything Gurung fought for — tolerance, inclusion and diversity — are in retreat in his adopted country because of a president who has espoused a culture of bullying. The book is a searing, raw exposé of how cruel and abusive people can be even at a young age in school. On the other hand, it also shows that there are generous, compassionate and open-minded souls out there. In his book, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4le_uWX7YE">Prabal Gurung</a> calls out those who tormented and tried to hold him back (some of their names have been altered). The moral of his story is: resist, never stop believing in yourself, do not let others define you, never lose sight of your dream, and help those who have been kept out. “Walk like a girl” was a slur used by bullies back in school in Nepal and India for Gurung’s effeminate ways. He fought back then, and he is still resisting by turning those words into something to be proud of.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519170544_4ffc9c3f565dd2cfa754d10b224816897b82bb31ebaee91b6d79d469fc96f14e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250519170544_4ffc9c3f565dd2cfa754d10b224816897b82bb31ebaee91b6d79d469fc96f14e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1253" loading="lazy" alt="Prabal Gurung NT"> <figcaption>Prabal Gurung at home in Kathmandu in the 1990s.</figcaption> </figure>  “Living through it all was one thing, but writing about it is one of the hardest things I have done in my life,” admitted Gurung during the launch. “I broke down constantly during the six-year writing process.” He continues: “I did not want this to be a victim’s book. I did not want to burden my readers with my emotions. I wanted my struggle to be an inspiration for others facing what I faced. I am grateful to those who bullied me in school, they made me a stronger person ready to face the world.” Indeed, this book is a departure from his earlier one titled simply, Prabal Gurung (Abrams, 2019), which was a lush pictorial autobiography of his career in fashion. Walk Like a Girl is not a typical fashion book, it is an intimate tale of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16997">Gurung’s travails and triumphs</a>, and how he willed himself to succeed. Prabal pays a lavish tribute to his mother Durga Rana. We find out she is a descendant of the first wife of the eldest son of Jang Bahadur Rana who was banished to Palpa in the late 19th century. Prabal’s father served in the Singapore Police and that is where he was born before the family returned to Nepal when he was four. Gurung relates with brutal honesty about the violence his mother endured from his father. Durga raises three children as a single mother in Nepal, and Prabal credits her for his fierce determination to resist patriarchy and injustice, which in time manifests itself in his hyper-feminine and subversive dress designs. Writing the book has been a cathartic experience for Gurung, who says he is now relieved of the burdens of his past. It no longer haunts him, and he does not have to prove anything to anyone anymore. Walk Like a Girl has life lessons not just for the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DJmOcSgxdWz/" target="_blank">fashion industry</a>, but for every other profession. How can my job serve a greater cause? Gurung tells us his work is <a href="https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/why-designer-prabal-gurung-doesnt-want-just-stick-fashion" target="_blank">bigger than just making clothes</a>, it is about making the world a better place because it could do with a lot of improvement.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519170544_d75296ad8bfdc00d88935f40d23543c6fea3d4d6a10e61a99d6cfc6127f2ee5b.png" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250519170544_d75296ad8bfdc00d88935f40d23543c6fea3d4d6a10e61a99d6cfc6127f2ee5b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1516" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Prabal Gurung"> </figure>  This story of chasing the American dream may sound familiar to many immigrants: knocking on doors for jobs, rejections, trying to survive from day to day on expensive rent, and dealing with subtle racism in white America. Gurung finds racism is rife, and he is often mockingly called ‘gaysian’. He writes: ‘There was a strong hypocrisy — this idea of independence felt like a marketting ruse … and for all the talk of feminism in America, these high society women were trapped by the patriarchy just like in Nepal and India.’ After a trek to the Khumbu region in 2013, Gurung is inspired to use the colours, palette and textures of Nepal for his collection exhibited on Manhattan’s 8th Avenue. A major buyer tells him bluntly: “Stick to making pretty dresses … if I need to see a collection like this, I could buy a copy of National Geographic.” The New York Times was equally dismissive: ‘The designer tries to draw connections between blistered techo-fabric used to construct it and the topography of his homeland, Nepal. But, at the moment, he has lost his map.’ One potential investor tells Gurung he cannot design for Americana because “you do not look American”. Gurung wants to use expletives, but restrains himself. After a fundraiser in New York for the Nepal earthquake in 2015, some belittled his effort, saying: “Here comes the saviour."&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/prabal-gurung-by-prabal-gurung">Prabal Gurung by Prabal Gurung</a>, Kunda Dixit The Gurkha DNA must be dominant in Prabal Gurung’s genes because he does not take such mistreatment lying down. When asked by a fashion publicist why he was designing clothes for fat people, he snaps back: “Because of people like you.” He joins the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, launches the Shikshya Foundation charity in Nepal, and has powerful allies among celebrities who wear clothes he designed: Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Sara Jessica Parker, Kamala Harris, Deepika Padukone … it is a long list.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519150556_48a5f4211991a23fa85b64bbd5377575ca7081d97309d7542035591dda5180fe.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250519150556_48a5f4211991a23fa85b64bbd5377575ca7081d97309d7542035591dda5180fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="1534" loading="lazy" alt="Being Prabal Gurung by design"> <figcaption>Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wearing Atelier Prabal Gurung’s design for Met Gala 2025 in which the theme was ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’. </figcaption> </figure>  “I don’t dress women to look beautiful, they already are,” Gurung says. “I try to bring out their innate strength and grace.” <a href="https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17908766880140171/" target="_blank">Admirers</a> tell Gurung he makes it all look so easy, but he used to put up a strong facade to not show his own vulnerabilities in public. “I was closed because of my childhood experiences,” he says. “I was always on guard to defend myself because I never knew where the next punch would come from.” But in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPVepzPA210" target="_blank">Walk Like a Girl,</a> Gurung comes to terms with his vulnerability, and bares his soul. It has not been easy, it took sustained will power and support from his mother, sister Kumudini and a circle of close friends. “I made unbelonging my power,” he says. “Nepal is where I still have my heart and soul. Nepal grounds you. It is where people go to find themselves. But I escaped.” Recently appointed vice-chair of the <a href="https://cfda.com/about-cfda" target="_blank">Council of American Fashion Designers</a>, Gurung says: “I can’t believe I am here, it feels like it is happening to someone else. Writing this book, the healing has finally begun.” <h2>‘Everything is better in color’</h2> The Met Gala was two weeks later, and my table was an example of everything I’d been fighting for all these years as my guests represented everything I believed in: dynamic, powerful, influential women who were unapologetically original and unabashedly graceful. I was grateful to Anna for inviting me to host and dress a table that reflected my ethos—and for her guidance in doing so. I was also aware of the privilege as one of the first-­ever Asian fashion designers—not just from Nepal, but from the entire continent— to get the opportunity to do so. That fact was not lost on me. I reached out beyond the expected Hollywood celebrities and well-­known socialites to curate a table of exceptional women who inspired me. I invited Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt for their first-­ever Met Galas, as well as Michelle Yeoh, Mindy Kaling, Camila Cabello, Ashley Park, Denée Benton, KiKi Layne, Quannah Chasinghorse, and Grace Elizabeth. Together we checked many boxes: Asian, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous, each woman undeniably chic and powerful, a dazzling array of skin tones and experiences that proved my decades‑in‑the-­making hypothesis: everything is better in color. Excerpt from Walk Like a Girl Viking © 2025 by Prabal Gurung  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519170520_6b91d560e9f072c37d16876901058c073a51ffa05e7ad1b9461d19e1c9c28215.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20250519170520_6b91d560e9f072c37d16876901058c073a51ffa05e7ad1b9461d19e1c9c28215" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Prabal Gurung book details NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519170520_345240c21be400e2ce2ec629b52bd82bb53890e5bd86fe95b48340d84b5f1748.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20250519170520_345240c21be400e2ce2ec629b52bd82bb53890e5bd86fe95b48340d84b5f1748" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Prabal Gurung book details NT"> </figure>  &nbsp;