<figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7a9c7e80680e0a0be7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Aunohita Mojumdar on right talking to farmers in a field in the village of Haibat Khel in Parwan province in 2008. Photo: ANNE FEENSTRA</figcaption></figure>Gut-wrenching images and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stories</a> have flooded the media sphere over the last few days. Hundreds flocking to the airport, clinging to the undercarriage of aircraft in desperation,<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/call-to-evacuate-afghan-journalists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> journalists in hiding</a> or seeking visas to leave, people in streets and in camps fleeing the violence that has preceded the fall of province after province to the Taliban. The rapidity with which the Taliban have been able to take control over the entire country has surprised everyone including the Taliban themselves. However, while the speed may not have been foreseen, the collapse of the government had seemed inevitable for some time, especially after the steps taken by the US in rapid succession since the Doha deal they struck with the Taliban in 2020. Ironically called the ‘Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan’, the deal ensured the unconditional withdrawal of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-rome-statute-and-the-hague/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">American troops</a>. Desperate to leave, the US administration acceded to the Taliban insistence of talks without the presence of the elected Afghan government -- thus de-legitimising the leadership that President Joe Biden is today blaming for the collapse of the government.So what of the 20 years of international support? The entire nation-building project led by the Americans, regardless of what President Joe Biden now says, was based on an American view of what a liberated Afghanistan and Afghans should look and sound like, often with little understanding of the ground reality. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-and-the-talibans-second-coming/">Nepal and the Taliban’s second coming</a>, Kanak Mani DixitUnfortunately, American military and financial power outstripped that of other nations several times over and coupled with the belief in American Exceptionalism this ensured their overweening dominance. More nuanced approaches were run rough-shod and complex perspectives that could address the complicated realities were jettisoned in favour of the black-and-white you ‘are with us or against us’ approach. While there is much to blame on the Afghan government and the leaders, it is worth looking at how the security paradigm and the political leadership were instituted. In the initial period following the 2001 invasion, the US prevented the expansion of NATO in order to keep complete control of the security sphere, and subsequently blocked all attempts at allowing even the negotiated surrender of the Taliban leadership, thus driving them underground. Over the years, international forces killed a large number of civilians, an unacceptably high rate of ‘collateral damage’ that turned a significant portion of the Afghan population against them as well as against the Afghan government they were supporting. While ‘introducing democracy’ to Afghans, the US railroaded Afghans into accepting a governance structure that concentrated all powers in the presidency -- far more extreme than any presidential style of governance in existence -- and also forced an electoral system that kept out political parties -- the building blocks of any democratic polity.  <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7c9c7e80680e0a0be8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Leaders of militias were rearmed and empowered despite the fact that some of them had a track record of extreme brutality and predation on the local population. In later years, groups directly under the control of the US --and outside the ambit of the local army and police forces -- were armed, often with little checks and control resulting in more for violence against civilians. Finally, in order to meet an artificial timetable of ‘Afghan owned’ security, an Afghan army was built in a hurry despite obvious evidence of its weaknesses: the lack of adequate command and control structures, and inadequate training. Reports of high rates of recidivism, and drug addiction in the ranks were ignored in pursuit of the goal of filling the numbers. Over the years the Taliban regrouped and began to expand its footprint, enabled in some measure, by local discontent, access to safe spaces across the Pakistan border and the ‘live and let live’ deals struck in many areas.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/farewell-danish/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Farewell, Danish</a>, Navesh ChitrakarIn the past several years large parts of the country have been under the control of the Taliban or only nominally under the control of the government. In many areas, deals had been brokered for a holding pattern whereby neither side would engage in operations, thus leaving the local population the space to lead relatively peaceful lives. All of this was known to the US administration as it prepared to leave. What they had not counted on perhaps was the speed with which the government would fall. A more convenient gap would have allowed them to distance themselves from the disastrous political fallout a little better, and made their efforts to gas-light an entire country appear a little more tenable.As it is, the rapidity of events has left the emperor with no clothes, its usurpation of Afghan airspace to remove its own citizens while holding Afghan civilians at bay at gunpoint is now the last lingering image.What nextThe uncertainty that has come with the Taliban taking power is fearful, and the fears very real. But the truth is that no one yet knows what kind of governance will emerge under Taliban 2.0 Will women be allowed in the public space? Will they have to adopt diktats on a dress code that will force them back into burkha? Will independent media be allowed to function? Will the Taliban seek to replicate the image of the state that they created between 1996 and 2001 when they controlled almost the entire country? Will they, as they have stated publicly, respect the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/i-may-not-be-alive-by-the-time-i-am-evacuated/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rights of women </a> ncluding their right to education? Already these rights are being caveated by talk of ‘within Islamic law’ which is open to wide interpretation. What will the Taliban attitude be towards the minorities, especially the Shi’a Hazara communities some of which were massacred when they were last in power? <figure><img width="480" height="640" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7f9c7e80680e0a0be9jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>For a section of the media, ‘the terrorists have arrived’. And while the desperate images from the airport tell an important part of the story about the arrival of the Taliban in power they do not tell it in its entirety. Most Afghans did not want the return of the Taliban, but many urban, educated Afghans used to freedoms are staying on, deliberately and consciously, willing to consider and find ways and means of navigating the new realities. They are willing to unpick the issues and tackle them to try and create the space for living their lives, and all of us should be doing that too rather than treating Afghanistan and its people as a lost nation, or the situation as ‘game over’. The Americans have abandoned Afghanistan and the Afghans. It is time we in the region abandon the American approach towards Afghanistan as a nation to be lost or won, to be inducted into the empire of allies or rejected as an ‘enemy’ country.With the fall of the Afghan government and the takeover by the Taliban, much of the strategic discourse in the national media of the neighbouring countries has been an accounting of winners and losers, a zero-sum game that tallies the increasing influence of one country and the reduction of another’s. One popular narrative suggests that the return of the Taliban will lead to an Afghanistan-China-Pakistan nexus and that India has lost out.It might be more pertinent from the viewpoint of strategic policy to look not just at the convergence of interests but also at the divergences. China would like to see stability that will allow it economic engagement with Afghanistan. It has already invested heavily in the country’s mineral wealth and has been waiting to reap it. Neither China nor Russia would like to see unrest on their borders/near borders. China’s boundary with Afghanistan borders Xinjiang, and China has been critical of the way the US has withdrawn troops rather than happy about the exit of its strategic competitor. Russia has been deeply concerned about the problem of drugs flowing from Afghanistan, and even collaborated with the US in counternarcotics measures. Iran and Pakistan will both bear the brunt of the exodus of refugees from Afghanistan and while Pakistan has provided safe sanctuary to the Taliban, allowing them to grow in strength and capability from the safe havens, the Taliban in power in Afghanistan may make it more difficult to operate against their own home-grown terror networks. <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd819c7e80680e0a0beajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd849c7e80680e0a0bebjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Until now, regional political power has been exercised at the behest of the Americans with countries it considers to be inimical kept out of the way. That template will have broken down with the American departure, and political change in Kabul. But a regional approach based on common interests, short, medium and long-term can be found only if the countries do not look for the zero-sum approach. And, what about all of us in the region? Can we leave it to our governments? ***Afghans and Afghanistan are us“We are not Americans,” the young Afghan man told me angrily, and, I thought, patronisingly. It was 2004 in Kabul and we were in the middle of a fierce debate on independence of media and women’s rights, the two issues which have come to the fore in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover of Kabul. The young man, R, was insistent that all this talk of rights was an American imposed program, alien to the culture of Afghanistan. “Nor am I American,” I answered, emphasising that my footprint was firmly in the region. My shift to a regional paradigm changed the tone of the conversation that day, and we were able to have a discussion based on substance rather than on stereotypes. I was to find this again and again as I navigated through the complex space of a country emerging from years of isolation, one, which seemed, then, to be on the brink of a more hopeful future. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-repatriation-from-kabul-starts/">Nepali repatriation from Kabul starts</a>, Nepali Times <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd879c7e80680e0a0becjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>To me it seemed as though the complexities of the country and the opportunities, its strengths and its problems mirrored ours, different certainly in scale and acuteness but nonetheless familiar and tractable. The problems facing Afghan women had not disappeared with the removal of the Taliban. Some areas experienced much greater freedom, and some faced more problems. The most brutal interpretation of Sharia was gone, but it still took presidential diktat to save an Afghan from execution for perceived blasphemy. Over the eight years that I lived there, I also saw a growing erosion of support for women’s rights. An Afghan woman activist was denied appointment as a minister by the parliament because her work for safe houses for women was considered immoral. Women were still being incarcerated in Pul-e-Charkhi prison outside Kabul for the crime of running away from abusive homes. They were guilty since, as possessions of the family, they were considered to have committed a theft against their family by running away. Women ran radio stations and became TV anchors. In some places they were also forced to leave the radio stations they had joined as their voices on air were considered unbecoming by their families. The space which had opened up after the removal of the Taliban was full of possibilities. It was also full of struggle. It also felt familiar, the way it did in many parts of India where many women like me had many more rights than others did. It felt familiar the way it did in the villages of Haryana where I had reported from homes where Hindu women observed deep purdah as many Afghan women continued to do. In Kabul I wore the same head covering I had worn in many villages in India on my reporting trips and received some lectures from western women journalists on how I was supposed to show the way to Afghan women by discarding it. When some of the women’s rights started being eroded under the growing clout of the ultra-conservative militia leaders they had put in power, western diplomats started to talk about cultural relativity. I found myself asserting that I came from a similar culture but that the rights to life, liberty and safety were neither relative nor negotiable. The reigning narrative of the Taliban was one of oppression of religious minorities. Except that in the popular narrative it was oppression of non-Muslim minorities - the Hindus and Sikhs. What I found in Afghanistan was different. One of the first de rigueur interviews as an Indian journalist was with the leaders of the Sikh community in Kabul’s Karte Parwan area.  <figure><img width="500" height="668" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd8a9c7e80680e0a0bedjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Sikh leader complained about the deterioration of security after the departure of the Taliban. They said their religious rights had not been impinged upon by the Taliban whose focus was on making Muslims observant of all the religious practices. I thought about that today when I heard the Indian government had decided to discriminate on religious grounds, and offered help only to the Hindus and Sikhs of Afghanistan. I thought about the outcry over independent media in Afghanistan today when I read about journalists in Srinagar being thrashed while reporting on the muharram procession.I knew about the outrage of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. When I travelled to Bamiyan valley I also saw the areas where communities of Hazaras had been massacred around the same time, with much less international comment. I had gone to live in Afghanistan in 2003. In 2002 I had marched in the streets of Delhi and organised meetings after the state-assisted massacres of Muslims in Gujarat. I would not have been working in Afghanistan had the Taliban still been there and I could see the young Afghans I worked with and met amazed at the opportunities.They would show me their ID cards from the Taliban times, long bearded and morose, laughing at how much older they had looked then – but it also felt familiar, like the struggles of much of our region against femicide and infanticide, against horrific dowry deaths and religious discrimination, against the use of state power to brutal ends. It didn’t feel like another planet the way it seemed to do to some westerners. The truth is that long before the Americans abandoned Afghanistan, we in the region, had relinquished our claims to a shared kinship based on geography, history and culture, looking at the country as a mutation of our worst fears, and one can draw a line, perhaps not straight, but jagged, from there to what we see today. But now, perhaps, it is time. It is time we in the region not leave it to our governments, and to claim Afghanistan and Afghans as one of us.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/"> Who will rescue Nepalis from Afghanistan?</a>Aunohita Mojumdar is a Southasian journalist. She lived and worked in Kabul for 8 years.

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

Afghanistan abandoned

<figure><img width="1914" height="1078" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd739c7e80680e0a0be5jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>TOLOnews female presenter Beheshta Arghand interviewing Taliban spokesperson Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad on 17 August. Photo: TOLONews</figcaption></figure>Steven Butler describes it as “mass panic.” As the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator has been fielding “hundreds and hundreds” of daily pleas from journalists asking for help to flee the country.Butler, along with CPJ Asia research associate Sonali Dhawan and the organisation’s Emergencies team, are now in the process of vetting those requests.Many Afghan journalists told CPJ they are too afraid to speak on the record. To get a picture of what’s happening on the ground, I spoke to Butler and Dhawan via video about what they have learned. Their interview has been edited for length and clarity.CPJ contacted Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid for comment via messaging app but received no response. CPJ also emailed the US State Department for comment but received no response; several calls to the US military failed to connect.When did CPJ begin getting requests for help from Afghan journalists?Butler: The requests for help from journalists who wanted to leave Afghanistan because they saw the Taliban coming started early this year. It was a trickle at the time and then it started to crescendo in July and increased by early August.We are getting hundreds and hundreds of requests for help every day now. Many of them are journalists and some of them are not journalists, they are just trying to find a way out. It has completely flooded our system. We are doing the best we can. We have four people working on analysing and looking into individual cases.We value our reputation for thorough documentation on everything we do and are applying our same standard to this — we are trying to document the cases as the best we can, because we are recommending them to the US government for emergency evacuation.What can you tell us about the <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=tAXPZ997p8VyLOXlEG5WpXOYJYccbznnQXx7atpHJ0Y9PHCkdDZJCw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DtAXPZ997p8VyLOXlEG5WpXOYJYccbznnQXx7atpHJ0Y9PHCkdDZJCw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828623000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGCqxZ-wUJ8YMOcX2o7uKDtOES31w">chaotic scenes</a> at the airport and what it means for journalists?Butler: As of Tuesday the area has been secured and there is a perimeter. Anytime you have a military perimeter you have a problem, because there is an outside and there is an inside, and the outside is going to be controlled by the Taliban in one way or another, so the challenge has been to figure out how to get people through an insecure situation on the streets of Kabul, how to get them checked in through this military perimeter including additional checks by the U.S. military, and then get them on to flights. We have had people that have failed to get through.Why are Afghan journalists so desperate to leave?Butler: As the Taliban have extended their control over the provinces, we have seen them close down media outfits and <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=3fUbZQcSQYFqWpL-dwGEB-4MS14XqK8R6sw7iAugpFl_CbEaiXS6YQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D3fUbZQcSQYFqWpL-dwGEB-4MS14XqK8R6sw7iAugpFl_CbEaiXS6YQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH3U94F5cWgjTNsQM6z8fSoaio6Tg">substitute their own personnel</a>. That hasn’t always led to people being killed or put in prison necessarily, but nonetheless journalists in Afghanistan are concerned that they are going to be pushed out of their profession — at the minimum. There are a number of very prominent journalists who have been harassed or chased by the Taliban and who have gone into hiding.What specific threats against journalists are you hearing about?Dhawan: Journalists who identify as women and ethnic minorities, specifically the Hazara, are at particular risk. The Hazara are an ethnic minority group who were <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=8nGSPAHFTNAWHtl_cNVp0Wa-r7pbWq-QxXfogE0UCQrF2RSlaPPrhA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D8nGSPAHFTNAWHtl_cNVp0Wa-r7pbWq-QxXfogE0UCQrF2RSlaPPrhA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHqhW6Cirn_7bswdFN_VSBwiX3r5g">subject to mass killings</a> during the Taliban regime in the late 1990s. Journalists who have critically covered the Taliban are also terrified.I spoke to a journalist who was covering the Taliban takeover of a northern province — the Taliban came to his home after his reporting and they chased him out of the home. He ran away and they fired shots behind him and he managed to escape and get to Kabul. In the days after he escaped, he continued to receive calls that said, “We will find you.” Another prominent female journalist told me she received threatening calls in recent days from the Taliban that said, “Your time is over.”One other case that I want to highlight is the <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=lWRvPuQPHAoqNEAFyEtUoE88mQd6fvQj2SodOxze7cJIZrvXGVTtwQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DlWRvPuQPHAoqNEAFyEtUoE88mQd6fvQj2SodOxze7cJIZrvXGVTtwQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEJ6eWfIffJYNj3zyqYdhc_iL5VZA">takeover</a> of the TOLO News compound, which is arguably the most prominent news channel in Afghanistan, a 24-hour channel that has covered a wide range of events and produced very critical coverage as part of this post-2001 media boom in Afghanistan.The Taliban have interestingly taken over the compound but are still allowing journalists to broadcast, and female journalists <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=2P3ZTjVgDO-LEkXCst0KZnzUc0h--kDD3PboiZx6h-dO7MriTtIB8A" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D2P3ZTjVgDO-LEkXCst0KZnzUc0h--kDD3PboiZx6h-dO7MriTtIB8A&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNELg6vESSGc2YbiIVZ45Td__kwZyA">actually came back</a> on the air today. But we are seeing that a number of women and ethnic minority journalists are continuing to be threatened and the Taliban are showing up at their homes. <figure><img width="2186" height="1168" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd779c7e80680e0a0be6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid addresses the first press conference in Kabul on 17 August following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. Photo: VOA News</figcaption></figure>What is the Taliban presence like at TOLO News? Butler: It looks like the Taliban have stationed armed people around the outside of the compound mainly. When they entered the premises [on August 16] they took away government issued weapons from <a href="https://tolonews.com/pa/afghanistan-174313" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TOLO</a> security but they allowed privately purchased weapons to remain.People who have watched the recent news broadcast say it is much toned down. The women are appearing with headscarves and more conservative dress. It is really unclear what is going to happen and why the Taliban have taken what seems to be a softer approach to TOLO compared to other radio or broadcast operations in the provinces.Are they trying to create a kind of appearance for the international community because TOLO is the best known? That is one possibility. Have they changed? They say they welcome press freedom and they are allowing women to operate in certain professional positions. I don’t think that people are taking what they say at face value. There is a lot of skepticism given the documented <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=Qm8S0bLLVJ7VWAdng49e6NWxgMgLeRu8YDifWhwF3EytCs8gDPhfBQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DQm8S0bLLVJ7VWAdng49e6NWxgMgLeRu8YDifWhwF3EytCs8gDPhfBQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHgoIizaupuirfDUabrDxt4LdLRDg">history of brutality</a> by the Taliban.What specifically did the Taliban say about press freedom?Dhawan: The Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=GTQHMjGHuQmSkAGZG2mdL8hgbEKDt4Najm_LKtnaY6TDn_wbiLITRw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DGTQHMjGHuQmSkAGZG2mdL8hgbEKDt4Najm_LKtnaY6TDn_wbiLITRw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFbY5li5mrgvjiJPdjQ-a5i3T2YNQ">conducted a press conference</a> and it really goes to show how brave Afghan journalists are because they were asking really tough questions, particularly about women in the country.He said the Taliban will allow all media outlets to continue their activities on three conditions, the first being there should be no broadcast that will contradict Islamic values, the second that they should be impartial, the third that no one should broadcast anything against the national interest. What we are seeing on the public platform is not matching the realities on the ground, because several radio stations in provinces, newspapers, and news outlets have <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=4Iz0EHIu5_DpwD3wuGtdDC-JY9cff80wRXnyIURB4EOTpk1LlP7ZbA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D4Iz0EHIu5_DpwD3wuGtdDC-JY9cff80wRXnyIURB4EOTpk1LlP7ZbA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFhf6nM1WfeS3vuyfaHKJPHmVUVLQ">shut down amid fighting</a> as the Taliban took over.What is the Taliban trying to convey with these comments about press freedom?Butler: I would look on it pessimistically. Governments use this kind of double talk all over the region and all over the world to find ways to restrict what journalists do. It could well be that the Taliban have seen what other countries are doing in terms of rhetoric and are imitating it.It is a fact that democracy and press freedom are values that are universally spoken about but only rarely fully embraced. I think that we may see that pattern repeat itself in Afghanistan. Hopefully not. Hopefully they actually believe what they are saying, but we will have to see.You mentioned that female journalists are at particular risk. What else are you hearing from women?Dhawan: Most of the female journalists I have spoken to are absolutely terrified and have left their homes and gone into hiding somewhere. This is because there are several local reports of women journalists who have had their homes searched or the Taliban have showed up at their homes. And that is a particularly traumatising experience.A lot of women journalists who work in the fields of arts and culture or education are equally terrified. I know of several women journalists that work in these fields and are actively receiving threats from the Taliban. The Taliban did show up at the home of one very prominent journalist and said they would come back to her home and are looking for her.What other journalistic beats could draw the attention of the Taliban?Butler: Journalists have a history of their own work that lives on social media. I have been told that many journalists are now trying to scrub their social media profiles and deleting articles to try to hide that past. It is hard to say going forward what are going to be the sensitive issues, but journalists who were highly critical of the Taliban in the past could face a kind of reckoning.There’s a journalist I have been in touch with quite a lot. He and his wife were able to get out. But they are desperate now to get their families out. They say that the Taliban is going to go after their families because of their highly critical reporting on the Taliban in the past. I don’t know if that is going to be the case. I hope it is not. But they are convinced that their families will be killed.You described a “media boom” in Afghanistan after 2001. Can you say more about what is at risk of being lost at this moment?Dhawan: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/call-to-evacuate-afghan-journalists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghan journalists</a> have done incredibly thoughtful and diligent work over the past 20 years to build a thriving press. They have braved the dangers of a military occupation, the presence of militant groups in the country and they have reported critically during these extremely dangerous times.The precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has led to a complete collapse of the government and security forces, leaving journalists at severe risk of violence. There are simply no avenues for journalists to seek protection from authorities and they are essentially relying on their own community, their neighbours, and family members for protection at this point.As much as there is a need for journalists to get out of the country and CPJ is doing its best to do that work, journalists who want to remain in the country must be allowed to freely report on the extent of a humanitarian crisis that is about to occur.Butler: The international community totally failed to create a stable democracy, but they did succeed in creating a thriving press. There was a lot of money – US government money, USAID, private foundation money — to support and get these operations going because of course a free press is the absolute foundation of democracy. It stuck.We had a <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=C3l9uYxO5cc-ndmCYIfcz__Str-VhI1hJJ1tFo1n3uKsDH6ZjkofdQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DC3l9uYxO5cc-ndmCYIfcz__Str-VhI1hJJ1tFo1n3uKsDH6ZjkofdQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGQBEOeZRNkd6kUMGfd-GWYKvqQQQ">case</a> a couple of weeks ago of people being forced into an interview with a Taliban local commander and made to promise that they would broadcast the interview. They came back and refused to do it because it wasn’t good journalism just to broadcast one side, so they went into hiding in Kabul.They got some of the lessons of what good journalism consists of and if you look at TOLO News, all these news outlets, a lot of it is quality journalism. And, of course, the international press relied heavily on local journalists. This is really a remarkable achievement and it would be a terrible shame for it to disappear completely. It would be wonderful for some of that spirit of press freedom and quality journalism and reporting to live on even if the previous government, the collapsed government of Afghanistan, no longer exists.Is there anything else that has struck you from this past week that you’d like to share?Dhawan: I was in contact with a journalist who is being actively threatened by the Taliban. She has been messaging me every day, afraid for her life. She is sheltered in a hotel right now and I told her we are working with the U.S. government to evacuate her and will continue to provide updates about her case as soon as we receive them. She said, “I may not be alive by that time.”Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/"> Afganisthan abandoned</a>, Aunohita MojumdarNaomi Zeveloff is Features Editor at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This interview is reprinted from Inter Press Service.

1250x600

1084x550

“I may not be alive by the time I am evacuated”

In 2004, Poet Durga Lal Shrestha asked me to translate 223 little poems from Newa into English. They were each written as sestet-- terse in their form but heavy in imagery and sentiment. The novice translator in me struggled to find the best way to convey his poetry in English-- but the process became a tour as I discovered my mother tongue anew. The highlight, however, was Shrestha’s handwriting. His calligraphy is immaculate. He had given me photocopies from the notebook he had written the poems in and each page looked as though they were freshly out of the press. The letters bore a consistency, unswayed by the emotions of his poetry. Sometimes, I would just stare at the handwriting in admiration.&nbsp; Someone else had been similarly besotted by his writing: “I met him 25 years ago in the UK when he was the chief guest at a Mha Puja event organised by Pasa Pucha,” recollects Ojesh Singh, writer and engineer. “We were roommates. I noticed he couldn’t stop writing.”&nbsp; Shrestha, an octogenarian now, was a teacher at Kanya Mandir School for many years, where his writing was admired by colleagues and students. Known as Janakavi or People’s Poet, a title bestowed on him by the Nepal Bhasha Parishad, Shrestha is also the recipient of the Jagadamba Shree Puraskar for his contribution to literature.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071052_b109f2ee6dbac911fb8002e8e8bb33a50a8f755d26662f333535d32c8573e782.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251021071052_b109f2ee6dbac911fb8002e8e8bb33a50a8f755d26662f333535d32c8573e782" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="900" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> <figcaption>From left to right: Suman Shrestha, Ananda Kumar Maharjan, Durga Lal Shrestha, Ojesh Singh, and Arbindra Man Singh. Photo: SUCHITA SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  “He would write on anything he could lay his hands on. On tissue paper, envelopes, cigarette boxes. It struck me how neat and tidy his writing was,” says Singh. “The structure and size were perfectly in sync-- and as an aspiring graphic designer then, I fell in love with his writing. Later, whenever I read his books, I thought it would be nice to read them in his writing.” After sitting with the notion of turning Shrestha’s writing into a digital font for years, in 2024, he reached out to a small group of people who he thought might be allies.&nbsp; “It was during Ojesh Ji’s book launch that we met and talked about the possibility of turning Durga Lal Shrestha’s writing into font,” recalls Ananda Kumar Maharjan, who has designed the Durga Lal Shrestha font and is affiliated with Callijatra, an organisation promoting Newa calligraphy.&nbsp; For Singh, the desire to immortalise the poet's handwriting wasn’t only coming from personal admiration, it was also about preserving the writing of a language and literature leader and activist. He offered to fund the font project, which meant paying for Maharjan’s time and dedication. He also drew into the conversation Shrestha’s son Suman, who has been an integral part of the process.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071056_372dc34ac3ce3b70445128131a11ade8f321756c6cc7615825c4451e85f56374.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251021071056_372dc34ac3ce3b70445128131a11ade8f321756c6cc7615825c4451e85f56374" data-rendition-name="original" width="616" height="728" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  The others involved in the process were journalist Arbindra Man Singh, who had been scanning Shrestha’s writing for the book Hastakshar, a collection of poems printed in the author’s handwriting. Also an enthusiast of converting Shrestha’s writing to a font, Singh provided help in bringing together the scans, based on which Maharjan picked the best letter for each alphabet to create a complete set.&nbsp; “Doing this was different from other font developments I have done in the past,” explains Maharjan, who has also digitised his own handwriting into a font, called Anand. “To create Durga Lal Shrestha’s writing as font, I had to analyse his writing archive and pick the best.”&nbsp; He adds: “There was a book published in his writing, so there were scans and digital archiving done by Arbindra Ji, which became the foundation for my work.” He had to find a prototype for each alphabet based on the scans. He traced the letters on Illustrator and copied them to a MAC software called Glyphs where he had to enter each letter, using a traditional Devanagari keyboard instead of Unicode.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025102108100_2f6b8c0f3cf91682707ac356e11ad50b342a4198f56490ab68d041e875b15edb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025102108100_2f6b8c0f3cf91682707ac356e11ad50b342a4198f56490ab68d041e875b15edb" data-rendition-name="original" width="818" height="766" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  “I had to be very careful to keep it accurate. Conjunctions need attention,” Maharjan says. “There are half letters, saint letters, ligatures and open type features to pay attention to, this is more advanced than the fonts I’ve created in the past.” &nbsp; Maharjan has designed this font in three different variations that users can play with. “Writing changes with age. While young, people write better, but with age, it starts to change. Since Durga Lal Shrestha hasn’t been very well lately, his hand shakes when he writes. So, we had to pick the best of his writing from the records,” he adds. “People also tend to write in different styles depending on their mood so we took the best four of every letter and traced and picked one.”&nbsp; Handwriting is deeply intimate and in this day and age of tech, becoming lost.&nbsp; What bothers me about the day of phones is that I no longer know what the writing of those close to me look like. I no longer know how you press the pen between our fingers or how you tilt it against the paper or how you pause to write periods or how the nib makes a perfect tiny orb before you drag it just so, to turn it into a comma. The familiarity of the nuances of someone’s writing is lost on us.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071056_2c83ab2c3ed4cfa42e6a6a637d88fd879218fb5b7391e086ab5db1a8ec173654.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251021071056_2c83ab2c3ed4cfa42e6a6a637d88fd879218fb5b7391e086ab5db1a8ec173654" data-rendition-name="original" width="992" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  Ojesh Singh agrees with me. He says it’s important to keep handwriting alive as people become more and more tech-dependent. People are likely to interact even less with letters on paper, but at least we can have fonts, he says.&nbsp; A set of six books by poet Durga Lal Shrestha is set to be launched on 31October. One of them, entitled, Kawa, is typeset in the Durga Lal Shrestha Font. The font will be made available to the general public after the books have been released. In July, I had visited Shrestha, who I also call Durga Lal Taaba, as many Newa people in my generation do. Seated in the quiet of his home, he conversed about literature and language with my father and my uncle. Coming out of Taaba, Newa, which has a utilitarian function for me to communicate with my parents, sounded more like a lyric.&nbsp; I asked him what he thinks about his handwriting being archived as a font. He replied: “This body is going to be gone eventually, so I thought maybe my handwriting could live on.” Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people in Pratibha’s life.

Digitising the savant calligrapher

The winter air pollution season started early this year with emissions, Diwali firecrackers and crop residue burning making the air unbreathable across north India. Much of the pollution was transboundary, with prevailing winds carrying the suspended particulates from Pakistan, across India to Nepal and beyond. All this pollution and domestic emissions killed 41,300 in Nepal in 2023, and 85% of all deaths were because of noncommunicable diseases such as heart and lung disease, lung cancer, diabetes, and dementia, according to the State of Global Air (SoGA) 2025 report released Thursday. With the onset of winter, Kathmandu Valley’s own emissions are trapped in a surface inversion layer and as in previous years will have some of the worst air quality in the world.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131016_7c42a4e8b0dce01dfeeaaf89dbb10dbfa036b41163f3ebada88c7ce17dbded49.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251023131016_7c42a4e8b0dce01dfeeaaf89dbb10dbfa036b41163f3ebada88c7ce17dbded49" data-rendition-name="original" width="921" height="850" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  The SoGa report says air pollution has now become the leading risk factor for deaths in Nepal, ahead of tobacco and high blood pressure. Interestingly, while the health impacts due to environmental risk factors such as unsafe water and sanitation have reduced significantly since 2000, the opposite is true for ambient PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 microns). Globally, 7.9 million deaths were attributable to air pollution– about 1 in 8 deaths – in 2023. Of this total, 4.9 million deaths were attributable to PM2.5 exposure, 2.8 million were from household air pollution, and 470,000 were from ozone. Similarly, dementia attributable to air pollution resulted in 626,000 deaths and 40 million healthy years of life lost. And 95% of air pollution attributable deaths in adults over the age of 60 are due to noncommunicable diseases. The burden of noncommunicable diseases in relation to air pollution is rising worldwide and in Nepal. The SoGA report shows that nearly nine of ten global air pollution deaths are from chronic ailments, and half of all respiratory disease deaths are attributable to air pollution.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131020_8577f464b4a73007de5dd018b8ac91dae3a9c732dbb81a44b6aa5a0ced7df3df.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251023131020_8577f464b4a73007de5dd018b8ac91dae3a9c732dbb81a44b6aa5a0ced7df3df" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  In Nepal, air pollution is responsible for three out of four COPD deaths, one out of three heart deaths and one out of five diabetes deaths. More than one third of lower respiratory infection deaths were due to air pollution. “The data presented in the State of Global Air report highlight the significant impacts of poor air quality on the health and well-being of billions of people around the world, especially those living in Asia and Africa,” says Pallavi Pant of the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI) that released the report in collaboration with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the NCD Alliance. She adds: “Growing momentum on air quality management across those hard-hit locations, including expansion of air quality monitoring, adoption of air quality regulations, and sector-specific interventions are yielding improvements for those most impacted.” Low- and middle-income countries stand to gain most by reducing air pollution, with particularly strong impacts on children, older populations, and people with pre-existing health conditions. Indeed, of the 41,300 air pollution deaths in 2023 in Nepal, 31,600 were in adults over the age of 60 years and 3,500 in children below five years. Death rate for air pollution in Nepal, which is 178 per 100,000, is more than 10 times higher than high-income countries, which is at 17 per 100,000.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131020_604e852aed4ffde0dc7d1df72fcd3e73d904136dfb1bb2407e53b7445f3ef72c.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251023131020_604e852aed4ffde0dc7d1df72fcd3e73d904136dfb1bb2407e53b7445f3ef72c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1078" height="423" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  “Win-win solutions for air pollution and NCDs exist, with added benefits for climate, physical activity, nutrition, and many other global development priorities,” says Alison Cox, Policy and Advocacy Director at the Geneva-based NCD Alliance. “These policies are effective and deliver a strong return on investment - for the sake of our people and the planet we need to implement them faster.” Fine particle pollution (ambient PM2.5) is the largest driver of air pollution’s burden of disease worldwide as kit attributed to 4.9 million deaths and 124 million healthy years of life lost in 2023. Vehicles, power plants, factories, and homes, as well as agricultural and industrial activities, waste burning and wildfires are some of the biggest sources of pollutants. South Asia is among the regions of the world with the highest exposures to ambient PM2.5 , while more than 36% of people around the world live in areas where PM2.5 levels do not meet even the least stringent interim target. As per the report, 78% of Nepal’s 30 million population lives in areas where annual PM2.5 exposure exceeds the least stringent WHO Air Quality Interim Target of 35 µg/m3. Meanwhile, exposure to household air pollution due to the use of solid fuels for cooking remains an important driver for the disease burden in the country. “Ongoing efforts to meet global development goals are not achievable without directly addressing air pollution,” says Maria Neira, Commissioner of Our Common Air. “Countries and cities must focus their efforts toward reducing air pollution emissions, including household air pollution, which has particularly severe impacts on young children and older people across Asia and Africa.”

Air pollution killing season starts early

Nepal needs to enact and enforce animal law

This year, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/quo-vadis-un-80-9vthn7mg">United Nations is marking its 80th anniversary</a> and it is being celebrated with special events across the world to commemorate its establishment on 24 October 1945. It has also been 75 years since the first UN adviser, the Swiss geologist Toni Hagen, was sent to Nepal to explore development opportunities. In 1950, there were no roads and Hagen walked on foot across the length and breadth of Nepal’s mountains, valleys and plains. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Nepal, and much of Hagen’s work laid the basis for the UN’s involvement in education, health, and connectivity in Nepal’s future development. Despite frequent changes in government and political system, Nepal has made remarkable progress. The poverty rate has gone down by half in the past 30 years to 20.27% of the population. Much of it has to do with remittances from Nepalis working overseas, but it is also a result of the Nepal government’s investment in education, health care and social welfare.&nbsp; There have been special initiatives like the Prime Minister’s Employment Program that have provided jobs to nearly 800,000 people in the country’s 743 municipalities — especially in those areas with lower Human Development Index (HDI) like the far-west and the Tarai.&nbsp; This year’s HDI report by UNDP shows that Nepal’s score had risen to 0.622, whereas it was only 0.404 in 1990. In the past 33 years, the average lifespan of Nepalis has risen by 15.6 years to 70.4 years, whereas it was only 54.8 in 1990. However, the country’s HDI ranking is still 145 among the world’s 193 countries. “Yes, there has been significant improvement in living standards in the past 60 years, road connectivity has improved, the maternal mortality rate has gone down dramatically, almost everyone has phones, there are schools,” says Saru Joshi of the thinktank Nepal Policy Institute. But, she adds: “It is still difficult to get citizenship papers, especially in the name of the mother, and this has excluded many women from banking services, inheritance. After all our progress in physical infrastructure, Nepal now needs to prioritise inclusive social development.”&nbsp; Some of this is also happening. Eighteen years ago, Nabaraj Subedi, 49, of a village in Baglung decided not to join his peers &nbsp;fleeing the Maoist conflict to find work overseas. He invested Rs500,000 to buy a diesel generator and start a small furniture business.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024071044_eeef308e19a73de507a425b2c6afc47269884549cf4c8fac07ca9a4898c8e031.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251024071044_eeef308e19a73de507a425b2c6afc47269884549cf4c8fac07ca9a4898c8e031" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Nawaraj Subedi"> <figcaption>Nawaraj Subedi, 49, proprietor of Tarakhola Furniture Factory. </figcaption> </figure>  Today, with the installation of the 380 kilowatt small hydroelectric plant, he does not need to depend on his unreliable generator to power his equipment anymore. There is now a road connecting his village, and Subedi has generated local jobs, opened a sales branch in the city, and gets orders from as far away as Pokhara and Chitwan. “My costs have gone down drastically because of the electricity, and sales have gone up because of the road connecting my furniture to markets. My business has expanded,” Subedi says. Back in 1960 in a report he prepared for the Nepal government on behalf of the United Nations, Toni Hagen had emphasised just this: investing in electricity generation and connectivity to uplift the remote rural areas of Nepal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024081024_188ab121dc3cf2816ee71a72cb3687493eda37ab99ecc04802d647c8c9b4cd2d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251024081024_188ab121dc3cf2816ee71a72cb3687493eda37ab99ecc04802d647c8c9b4cd2d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Tarakhola Furniture Factory"> <figcaption>Subedi's staff at the Tarakhola Furniture Factory.</figcaption> </figure>  Subedi’s furniture factory gets its electricity from the nearby Tarakhola Hydropower, a company set up eight years ago with financial and technical support from UNDP’s Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood (RERL) project. &nbsp; “The project completely transformed living standards in this village,” says municipality chair Dhan Bahadur BK. “It has helped create jobs locally, there is now money to invest in education and healthcare. Households can pay their electricity fees electronically through smart billing.”&nbsp; After working with the government on rural electrification, UNDP is focussed on using that power for local employment creation. A women’s group, for example, has bought an electric-powered potato processing machine that can produce chips.&nbsp; “We are 12 of us mothers, daughters, daughters-in-law who process, package and market the potato that we grow ourselves, and it has raised our income,” says Sukmaya Roka, 57, who chairs the group.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024071044_70b22418699178bcdd0abb0aa308796980ecd29634bcda6ff113a7624e709751.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251024071044_70b22418699178bcdd0abb0aa308796980ecd29634bcda6ff113a7624e709751" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Sukamaya Roka"> <figcaption>Sukamaya Roka, 57, chair of Sipa Aalu Chips Utpadan Samuha from Tarakhola Rural Municipality, Baglung. </figcaption> </figure>  Today, 6.1 million households in Nepal (92.2% of total) have electricity in their homes, up from 17.9% 30 years ago. Access to electricity has not just brought lights to homes, but improved everything from productivity, quality of education, healthcare and phone connectivity.&nbsp; “To see what electricity and roads can do, just look at our municipality,” says chair Dhan Bahadur BK, “citizens have become more self-reliant, more aware of the outside world.”&nbsp; NETTLES INTO CASH&nbsp; Just a little bit of training, resource backup and local empowerment can uplift the living standards of Nepalis. The progress made in harvesting abundantly-available allo (nettles) and turning it into household products is an example. When a landslide swept away his home and farm in a flood 40 years ago, Buddhi Purja of Parbat became destitute. But he took part in a government training program supported by UNDP and Australia to harvest the wild nettles that grew on mountain slopes and turn the fabric into bags.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024071048_56c440c478dffbc13911369b6f4133baf658cc3667773cdb44b7c40e006463ce.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20251024071048_56c440c478dffbc13911369b6f4133baf658cc3667773cdb44b7c40e006463ce" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Rhitu Saugat Handicraft"> <figcaption>A worker at Rhitu Saugat Handicraft making a bag out of nettles.</figcaption> </figure>  “After the landslide, we had to go hungry if we did not get a day job,” Purja recalls, “but after this training we have found that we can turn nettles into cash.” His allo bags are now hanging in tourist shops in Pokhara Lakeside and Thamel.&nbsp; The idea that nettles can be processed into useful fabric has not spread across the country, and new ecologically conscious consumers in Europe and elsewhere now import Made in Nepal nettle products.&nbsp; Purja started out with an investment of Rs500,000, and had a Rs20 million business that employed 25 workers. The Covid crisis in 2020 affected the sales, but Purja has recovered from it, sent his daughter off to study abroad, and is thinking of diversifying his product range.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024071044_ab6d15abcbb9a643e12a384f4bc488b7e210a8c95303fbe1b2f77716d26eede9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20251024071044_ab6d15abcbb9a643e12a384f4bc488b7e210a8c95303fbe1b2f77716d26eede9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Buddi Purja"> <figcaption>Buddi Purja, proprietor of Rhitu Saugat Handicraft in Pokhara.</figcaption> </figure>  While UNDP’s project has made successful businessmen out of people like Purja, nationwide it has created 187,000 jobs in rural medium-scale industries. Much of what has worked in Nepal has been at the community level with decentralised projects like these that use the entrepreneurship of people like Buddhi Purja, Navaraj Subedi, and Sukmaya Roka. It is tantalising to imagine how much more progress Nepal would have made if their work could be replicated nationside and upscaled to the state-level.

afghan-journalists

Afghanistan abandoned

“I may not be alive by the time I am evacuated”

Digitising the savant calligrapher

Air pollution killing season starts early

Nepal needs to enact and enforce animal law

Think locally, invest locally