<figure><img width="1800" height="1350" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b91fe9c7e80680e06f121jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>A landslide in Jajarkot last year. Photo: RSS</figcaption></figure>By any measure, the past year has been disastrous for Nepal. The Covid-19 lockdowns devastated the economy, the 2020 monsoon killed a record number of people, and this year the second wave hit with full force even as governance was paralysed by a prolonged power struggle in the ruling party. Now, Nepalis are bracing themselves for their <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/preparing-for-floods-during-a-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">second monsoon season during the pandemic</a>, one which meteorological modellers say could dump above normal precipitation over most parts of the country.The other difference with last year is that the second Covid-19 wave is even more virulent and widespread. This means crowded shelters after a flood or landslide will be hotspots for new infections at a time when only 4% of the population is vaccinated.“Covid and floods are contradictory in nature, as one needs physical distancing while the other makes it impossible to do so. This will add to the existing burden,” says epidemiologist Lhamo Yangchen Sherpa.She adds: “We can’t prevent floods, but we can reduce its impact. We must concentrate on identifying risk groups and their emergency evacuation, set up shelters with physical distancing, stockpile tents, food and emergency medicines including oral rehydration salts and water purifiers.”Even though last year’s southwest monsoon was said to be 'normal' in Nepal, it <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/deadly-monsoon-in-nepal-turns-deadlier/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">triggered numerous flash floods and landslides</a>, killing at least 400 people and destroying over 1,000 houses. Entire villages in Sindhupalchok, Jajarkot, Myagdi, Baglung, Kalikot and Bajura districts were buried. The South Asian Seasonal Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF) has forecast ‘above normal’ rainfall for most of Nepal this year, with more than usual precipitation in most of the Mahabharat and Himalaya, and slightly deficient rainfall in the eastern Tarai. <figure><img width="2081" height="1260" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b92019c7e80680e06f122jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>"There is a possibility of floods, landslides and other water-related disasters occurring together during the third and fourth week of July this year when the second wave of the pandemic will still be peaking,” states the government’s National Monsoon Preparedness and Response Plan 2021. The probability of flash-floods and landslides are even higher this year because of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the wildfires</a>. There were 7,000 fires affecting 75 of Nepal’s 77 districts from November 2020 to May 2021, the highest number ever recorded.  The fires reduced forested slopes to ashes, incinerated the undergrowth, thus reducing the absorptive capacity of the soil. When the rains come, the water will therefore rush down the slopes instead of seeping into the topsoil. “This year’s rainfall is forecast to be higher than last year's average. Based on this analysis, it can be estimated that there will be a significant increase in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/in-nepal-either-too-much-or-too-little-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">landslides and floods</a> during this year's monsoon,” says meteorologist Shanti Kandel at the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. She adds: “Forecasting is preparedness in some ways. But it has to be effectively communicated, so if we are to wait until landslides have occurred to act, it’s too late and there is no point.” <figure><img width="1050" height="701" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b92049c7e80680e06f123jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In the past, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/disastrous-management-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the government has faced criticism</a> for prioritising relief over prevention. This could change with the formation of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), which works primarily on preparedness and mitigating risk, while delegating more rescue responsibility to first-responders in local governments.“In earlier years landslides were not discussed as part of our monsoon preparedness plan, only floods were, and this year we set landslides as a priority for preparedness and response also looking at the intersection of wildfires, Covid-19 and the monsoon,” says Anil Pokhrel, who heads NDRRMA that has produced a workplan for monsoon preparedness and response. The NDRRMA with DHM recently trained officials in 36 municipalities in nine of the most high-risk districts (Myagdi, Gorkha, Kalikot, Rasuwa, Sindhupalchok, Bajhang, Jajarkot, Syangja and Dailekh) on Impact Based Forecasting which predicts extreme weather events so that at-risk groups can be ready. “We are dealing not just with floods and landslides this time, but also Covid-19. Local communities are setting up rapid response teams to best prevent an outbreak in shelters and maintain health protocols, and spreading awareness through FM radio in local languages,” says Liladhar Adhikari of the NDRRMA. Despite the ‘above normal’ forecast in the models, climate scientist Ngamindra Dahal expects the monsoon to even out unless Nepal experiences cloudbursts over the Mahabharat and Chure ranges. These sudden heavy showers have been the cause of the deadliest floods and landslides in recent years. “We now have the technology to predict localised cloudbursts through Impact Based Forecasting which is crucial in saving lives, all we need now is real-time action so local communities get advance warning,” says Dahal.But predicting and determining the impact of floods and landslides only from the perspective of weather gives us an incomplete picture. The climate crisis has changed precipitation patterns and made extreme weather events more frequent and destructive. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dont-just-blame-god-for-floods-and-landslides/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Poorly designed and built roads, bad engineering</a>, and unplanned settlements have disturbed fragile mountain slopes, making them more disaster-prone.“We have in recent times recorded 105mm rain per hour in Surkhet, 100mm in Bajhang and 73 in Kulekhani which is a clear indication that the monsoon is getting more intense, but we are only now trying to understand this trend,” says Dahal. “We need to see whether there are indeed more frequent cloudbursts, or if the disasters are more noticed because they affect new settlements in floodplains and roads that follow river banks.” <figure><img width="1174" height="770" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b92079c7e80680e06f124jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>At the NDRRMA, Liladhar Adhikari agrees that in addition to rapid response and rescue, a new development model is crucial in preventing multiple hazards in the long term. “New infrastructure has to adhere to environmental safeguards so that they do not drastically alter the rural landscape and make them more vulnerable to disasters.”Unfortunately, Nepal’s approach to development has been at the expense of nature preservation. The annual budget announced last week <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-nature-of-pandemics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">will allow quarrying</a> on the already-unstable slopes of Himalayan foothills to export stones and aggregates to India.Epidemiologist Lhamu Yangchen Sherpa has been to several emergency shelters recently, and points out that there is an <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/uneven-pandemic-impact-on-nepali-women/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">additional burden on women during disasters</a>.  She says: “Like before and during this coronavirus crisis, women are especially vulnerable in the aftermath of a disaster, we must support them with security in shelters, physical and mental health care during this monsoon in the middle of a pandemic.”

Sonia Awale

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Nepal braces for monsoon-pandemic double hit

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba64b9c7e80680e073711jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1122" height="810"/><figcaption>Aftermath of the landslide that occurred on Friday morning in Lidi of Sindhupalchok district. All photos: RSS</figcaption></figure>This year’s monsoon season has been disastrous for Nepal, in the past two months 301 people have been killed in landslides all over the country. The death toll has now overtaken 2018 during which 292 people were killed in landlsides.The worst-hit has been Sindhupalchok district, which has seen its most grievous loss of life since the 2015 earthquakes which killed 3,570 people. This was the district with the highest death toll with 40% of all fatalities.Sindhupalchok received a doubly whammy: first from the 7.8M quake on 25 April 2015, and then the 7.3 aftershock on 12 May. Eighty percent of all homes in the district were destroyed.The deadliest landslide in Nepal this year was in Lidi of Sindhupalchok, where a landslide on the night of 14 August sliced through the village killing at least 36 people. Twenty-two bodies have been retrieved so far, the others are presume buried under the rubble.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba64e9c7e80680e073712jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1766" height="1165"><figcaption>So far 22 bodies have been recovered but search is still on going for 17 people still missing from Lidi landslide.</figcaption></figure>Most of the houses had been destroyed in the 2015 earthquakes, and had only recently been rebuilt with government grants. The villagers killed were all from the Tamang community, who represented a third of all fatalities in the 2015 earthquakes as well.Ward officials in Lidi said they had sent a written appeal to the district administration a week before the landslide asking for the village to be relocated because of the danger of landslide. Engineers from the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) had included the village in a Category 1 list of villages vulnerable to landslides.However, the NRA has said the landslide occurred because of inappropriate drainage in the terrain above the village.“The post-earthquake survey did say the village was at risk, but engineers had concluded that there was no need to relocate,” said the NRA’S Chandra Bahadur Shrestha. “They had suggested that an embankment wall be created to deflect a possible landslide.”Shrestha said water was seeping through cracks that had appeared during the earthquakes, and there was no proper system to drain the water to the nearby stream. “The landslide occurred because the local government did not take steps to drain the water,” Shrestha added.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6529c7e80680e073713jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1350"><figcaption>Landslide in Jajarkot district following heavy rainfall last month.</figcaption></figure>Geologists point our several factors for this year’s monsoon being so deadly. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heavy-monsoon-rains-forecast-for-nepal/">Heavy pre-monsoon showers</a> had already saturated the top soil on steep slopes when the main rains arrived in mid-June. The monsoon itself has been more vigorous than usual with precipitation 30% above average in most places.In additional there has been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dont-just-blame-god-for-floods-and-landslides/">haphazard and poorly engineered road construction,</a> which has disturbed drainage on slopes. The landslide and flood on tributaries of the Bhote Kosi that killed 23 in Jambu village of Sindhupalchok in June started out as a slope failure next to a newly-built road.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6559c7e80680e073714jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1050" height="591"><figcaption>Locals and rescue party search for missing people in Jajrkot landslide last month.</figcaption></figure>Heavy rainfall and roads have made the slopes <a href="https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2020/07/24/nepal-2020/">already destabilised by the earthquakes five years ago</a> even more fragile. Sixty-six of Nepal’s 77 districts have been affected this year by landslides and floods, and the worst-hit is Sindhupalchok, east of Kathmandu.One year before the earthquakes, the district suffered <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2014/08/02/a-flood-of-floods/">a massive landslide</a> that wiped out three villages near Jure and blocked the Bhote Kosi River, killing 145 people and causing huge damage to roads, bridges and hydropower plants.Myagdi in central Nepal has also been badly hit, with three landslides on 10 July killing 27 people. Tanahu and Parbat districts have also suffered numerous landslides.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6579c7e80680e073715jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="426"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba65a9c7e80680e073716jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="426">Landslide in Myagdi in central Nepal.“There is light to moderate rain forecast for the rest of the week, but because the slopes are already saturated the danger of landlisdes will persist throughout Augusts,” says meteorologist Shanti Kandel.She adds: “There is a low pressure system over the Bay of Bengal that is moving northwestwards and this could bring more rain later this week.”The NRA has listed 4,829 settlements in the 14 districts affected by the 2015 earthquakes that are in high risk zones, and although the landslide risk has been mitigated in most of them, 500 villages are still in vulnerable slopes.It says villages on slopes more than 30 degrees are relocated, but even in villages with gentler gradient irrigation water and storm drainage needs to be properly managed to reduce landslide risk.

Nepal’s deadliest monsoon in recent times

Recent outrage in Sikkim over an Indian Army expedition climbing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-kangchenjunga">Kangchenjunga</a>, the world’s third-highest peak, has spiked attention to the need to balance mountaineering jobs with indigenous reverence for sacred landmarks. Kangchenjunga (8,586m) is not a peak as much as it is a mountain range with 16 peaks above 7,000m on the border between India and Nepal -- the word itself means ‘five treasures of the snows’ in Tibetan. Some of the highest prominences like Kangchenjunga West and Kangbachen are in Nepal, while the Main, Central and South Peaks are on the border. Climbing the peak from the Indian side has been banned since 2001 because the indigenous Lepcha community there regard the mountain as the abode of Dzoe-nga, the patron deity of Sikkim, which was an independent Himalayan Kingdom until it was annexed by India in 1975.&nbsp; Buddhists in Sikkim say their saint, Padmasambhava, recognised the mountain as a protective spirit. The state has declared the base of the mountain Kangchenjunga National Park, which covers an area one-third of Sikkim. ‘The act of scaling this sacred peak is not only a matter of serious concern but also a violation of both the prevailing legal provisions and the deeply held religious beliefs of the people of Sikkim,’ read a letter from Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang (Golay) to Amit Shah, India’s Minister of Home Affairs and Cooperation.&nbsp; Tamang continued: ‘We further request Your Honour to take up the issue with the Government of Nepal to ensure that no future expeditions are permitted on the sacred mountain, in deference to the deeply held beliefs and cultural values of the people of Sikkim.’ Kangchenjunga was climbed for the first time exactly 70 years ago by a British team who told King Tashi Namgyal, the Choegyal of Sikkim, that they would not set foot on the summit. Since then, there have been about 532 successful climbs of the peaks and 52 have died while trying.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250628060616_5c268e08cf49f36b79ef9b31933fc2d9bf9a6f65414e7ca06dd028bf04e7ccc1.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250628060616_5c268e08cf49f36b79ef9b31933fc2d9bf9a6f65414e7ca06dd028bf04e7ccc1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1782" height="1178" loading="lazy" alt="Kangchenjunga: too sacred to climb NT"> <figcaption>Indigenous communities in Sikkim held purification ceremonies following the Indian expedition to Kangchenjunga. Photo: THE VOICE OF SIKKIM / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/peak-climbing-season-2025-s4abrxny">This spring climbing season</a> alone, there were 70 climbing permits for foreigners issued for Kangchenjunga by the Nepal government, and made it to the top while one French climber died.&nbsp; One of the expeditions this year was an Indian Army team led by Col Ranveer Jamwal, who has summited the highest peaks on all seven continents, and Mt Everest thrice. Jamwal’s team was on the final leg of a ‘<a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/nimas-summits-mt-kangchenjunga-concludes-historic-har-shikhar-tiranga-mission-successfully/articleshow/121341315.cms?from=mdr">Har Shikhar Tiranga</a>’ (The Tricolour on Every Peak) mission to plant the Indian flag at the highest points of each of India’s 28 states. Kanchenjunga was the last peak they had left, and the hardest, but the expedition put five climbers on the summit. What seems to have incensed the Sikkimese is that while it has banned climbing the mountain from its side, it was an Indian military expedition that went to Nepal to climb the mountain. After news broke of the climb in May, the Sikkim Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association asked people to observe purification ceremonies in temples across the state. Mayalmit Lepcha of the association acknowledged that the Sikkim government was also partly at fault: “I don’t think such an expedition could have gone forward without the state government being informed, so it could have done something to intervene. It shows weakness. What’s done is done, all we can do is carry out these sanctification ceremonies.”&nbsp; In 2000, one year before Sikkim’s ban, the state allowed an Austrian team to attempt Kanchenjunga’s northeast face for a fee of $20,000, on agreement that they would stop 10m before the summit. Despite this, there was outrage over the expedition on the grounds that it violated Indian laws regarding the defiling of religious sites and Sikkim’s rights to maintain its culture after merging with India. The Indian Army expedition was also seen to have circumvented Sikkim’s law and violated religious sensibilities by going through Nepal. While the team may have thought they were respecting Sikkim’s beliefs by finding a way to complete the mission, the people of Sikkim saw it as defilement.&nbsp; The somber mood of the Sikkim people at the ritual contrasts sharply with Jamwal’s sense of accomplishment. “Without a doubt, the most difficult summit of my life,” he told reporters after the climb. “It tested every ounce of our will.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250628060616_ccfe079c78dab788d19fe2080ee8a5d5dcb11de4157316f6d94e5964da097157.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250628060616_ccfe079c78dab788d19fe2080ee8a5d5dcb11de4157316f6d94e5964da097157" data-rendition-name="original" width="787" height="377" loading="lazy" alt="Kangchenjunga: too sacred to climb NT"> <figcaption>Prayer flags along the Sikkim-Kangchenjunga trekking route. Photo: TREKKINGININDIA.COM</figcaption> </figure>  The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">controversial Nepali-British mountaineer Nirmal Purja</a> was also on Kangchenjunga this spring the mountain, on a mission to summit all 14 8,000m peaks for a third time. He echoed Jamwal about the tough conditions: “The conditions above camp were extremely tough, with deep snow and challenging terrain—more crevasses than usual.” Nepal’s government has not said anything publicly, but it is unlikely that it will ban climbing on Kangchenjunga, since it is becoming popular with expeditions because of its technical challenges, and overcrowding on Mt Everest. Nepal does have bans in place for some of its mountains out of respect for local beliefs. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/to-open-machapuchre-for-mountaineering-or-not">Mt Machapuchre</a> (6,990m) the imposing pyramid that looms over Pokhara, for example, is seen as an icon of purity by the Gurung people and a symbol of Vishnu by the Hindu communities who live at its base. A strict climbing ban has been in place since 1957, when a British expedition led by Col Jimmy Roberts stopped 45m short of the summit – either because the last bit was too difficult or out of deference to local sentiments.&nbsp; Khumbila that stands above Namche Bazar is only 5,761m high, but like Kanchenjunga is considered the protector deity of the Sherpa people. Gauri Shankar on the Nepal-China border, called Chomo Tseringma by the local community, was off-limits between 1965 and 1979 due to its association with Lord Shiva and Gauri, his consort. Although expeditions are now allowed, there are not too many takers. In Tibet, climbing Mount Kailash is prohibited by the Chinese government because it revered by the Hindus, Buddhists and followers of the Bon faith. Even Mt Everest is regarded as sacred, and its Sherpa name is Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the Earth.&nbsp; Economically, climbs on Kanchenjunga bring in decent revenue. This climbing season, the 41 permits, at $1,800 each, brought in $73,800. This is somewhat comparable to Makalu, Lhotse, and Annapurna I, but these numbers are dwarfed by the $4 million in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-everest-industry">Everest permits</a>. Revenue from Kanchenjunga climbing permits is something Nepal could potentially forgo if necessary, but the expeditions also provide jobs to hundreds of high altitude guides, porters, base camp support staff and other logistical costs.&nbsp; As the third highest mountain in the world and the tallest in India, there will always be significant motivation to climb it from the Nepal side, especially as climbers are drawn by the technical climbing at high altitude.

Kangchenjunga: too sacred to climb?

The debate about who is less accountable to the public: politicians or bureaucrats is as old as Nepal’s democracy itself.
Some blame politicians for being beholden to the businessmen who finance their electoral campaigns, and are forced to return the favour with contracts and kickbacks when in power.&nbsp;
Others say it is civil servants who are neither civil nor servants, and know the inner workings of the system to exploit loopholes – they then teach ministers, MPs, mayors, or ward chairs which juicy projects can be squeezed. And everyone gets their share.
In reality, it is probably not a case of either, or. Both have their hands deep in the honey pot. Corruption is now such a given that yet another exposé in the mainstream press, like the latest visit-visa scam, does not raise eyebrows anymore.
We may have to edit Lord Acton’s famous quote to say that in Nepal we do not even need absolute power to corrupt absolutely. The ruling cartel has divvied up the spoils, so that no one ever faces charges. The three parties all know about the skeletons rattling in each other’s closets, and they cancel each other out.
Politicians and bureaucrats get all the blame for taking bribes, but what of the givers of bribes? In this crony capitalism, businesses invariably need political patrons in an elaborate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-only-growth-industry-private-sector-corruption" target="_blank">national network of give-and-take</a>.
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-only-growth-industry-private-sector-corruption" target="_blank">Politicians and businesses work hand-in-glove</a> so that conflict of interest in contracts, insider trading, cartelling, and non-performing assets of banks become the norm. Our survey after the 2017 local election showed that out of the 753 newly-elected local government chairs, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/elected-contractors" target="_blank">nearly 300 were contractors</a> involved in sand-mining, quarrying, or transportation syndicates.
Nepal’s tycoons have discovered that instead of donating to election war chests of politicians, it is a much surer return on investment to spend the money to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-business-of-politics-in-nepal" target="_blank">become legislators and politicians themselves</a>.
In democracies, there are checks and balances to control corruption when it becomes endemic. The Nepal Police and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are supposed to do the detective work without political interference. The courts are required to be independent in dispensing justice and punishing crooks.
But the less said about the judiciary the better. A writ petition in the Supreme Court last week accused our sister magazine <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/" target="_blank">HimalKhabar</a> of contempt of court for two stories: one about how high courts have been overturning a majority of verdicts of district courts in cases of rape, and another about the Biratnagar High Court clearing a self-proclaimed holy man, Krishna Bahadur Giri, of rape despite police presenting physical evidence.
The doctrine of the separation of powers stipulates that it is when the other three pillars in a democracy are compromised that the role of the free press becomes even more vital. The world over, as soon as populist autocrats are elected to the executive, their first order of business is to co-opt the legislature and the judiciary. Then they buy off, intimidate, or neutralise the media with Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP).
Nepal’s officialdom seems to be taking midnight Zoom lessons from other despots on how to gag the media. Last month, popular talk show host Dil Bhushan Pathak was served an arrest warrant by the Kathmandu District Court for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CntsnTrtG8" target="_blank">a YouTube explainer</a> about the alleged involvement of the son of Foreign Minister Arzu Deuba Rana in a reported purchase of Kathmandu’s Hilton Hotel.
The Lalitpur District Court ruled that Pathak could not be arrested without fair trial, but this week the Kathmandu District Court filed another case against the journalist based on a complaint by the Cyber Bureau, and put him on a fugitive list.&nbsp;
Without going into the veracity of Pathak’s explainer, it is deeply problematic that the Electronic Transaction Act has been invoked – proof that politicians are getting the courts and investigating agencies to make an example of a high profile journalist.&nbsp;
The intention is to silence media investigations into the fake refugee scandal in which the main partner in the ruling coalition is implicated, and in which one of its former home ministers was jailed last year.
The Kathmandu High Court has been mysteriously active in targeting journalists these days. <a href="https://bizmandu.com/" target="_blank">Bizmandu</a> and <a href="https://nepalkhabar.com/" target="_blank">Nepalkhabar</a> were served a notice last month <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/no-freedom-after-expression-y4inku06" target="_blank">to withdraw a story they did</a> on the Chair of the <a href="https://www.sebon.gov.np/" target="_blank">Security and Exchange Board of Nepal (SEBON</a>) Santosh Narayan Shrestha allegedly demanding kickbacks from hydropower investors.&nbsp;
Incredibly, the court even asked the two portals not to report on the subject anymore – a ruling so absurd that the Patan High Court overturned it a week later.&nbsp;
The allegations against Shrestha were made in a public meeting of the <a href="https://www.ippan.org.np/members/3060/bungal-hydro-ltd" target="_blank">Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal (IPPAN)</a>, and MPs demanded a <a href="https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/parliament-demands-probe-into-sebon-chairman-over-alleged-commission-demand-40-32.html" target="_blank">Parliament inquiry</a> into the regulator. <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/144523/santosh-narayan-shrestha" target="_blank">HimalKhabar</a> reported this week that while Shrestha was reportedly demanding commissions from private investors for IPOs, he cleared primary share sales in Bajhang’s 10.75MW <a href="https://www.ippan.org.np/members/3060/bungal-hydro-ltd" target="_blank">Bungal Hydro</a> in which his family members have investments, company records show.
And then just on Monday, bureaucrats hoodwinked MPs by deleting references in a bill requiring a two-year ‘cooling off’ period under which retiring civil servants could be barred from holding constitutional positions for two years.
The contest for who is more corrupt: bureauacrats, politicians, or the private sector is on.
Kunda Dixit

SLAPPing Democracy

The monsoon this year arrived on time, and brought life-giving rain — irrigating paddy terraces, recharging groundwater, reviving springs, and increasing electricity generation.
But Nepal has to deal with either too much water or too little. On a clear April day before the monsoon, the hills of Sindhuli district were parched, and there were wildfires burning out of control. There had been no rain for the past six months.
And that has been the perennial crisis for Nepal’s farmers: that 85% of the rainfall occurs during just four months of the monsoon with little rain for the other eight months.&nbsp;
The water crisis is related to the powerful changes sweeping the mid-hill region of Nepal. With better roads, higher incomes and more exposure, many residents now aspire to have the kind of water supply seen in urban homes. They want hot or cold water at the turn of a tap, showers and flush tank toilets.&nbsp;
To meet this rising demand, many local and provincial governments are investing in large water supply projects often by lifting water from rivers hundreds of metres down the mountain. But these new systems may not be sustainable in the long run.
Many villages in Sindhuli are switching from local springs to piped systems, and even in rural homes, overhead tanks are becoming common.
But this new convenience comes with big challenges. Lifting water from rivers far below requires long pipes, electric pumps, and constant maintenance. These systems are costly, and the streams themselves often shrink to a trickle in the dry months. Big water-lifting schemes look impressive, but there is doubt if they can meet growing water demand.
A much more sustainable solution would be what some communities are doing: restoring old ponds or build new recharge systems. But those villages are exceptions, in most places traditional ponds and wallows are being filled up to be turned into sports fields, or make way for buildings.
Where there are new ponds, they are sometimes in the wrong places or without proper design. Roads and drains are not engineered properly and have increased landslides and erosion. Water management in hilly areas is not just about building things, it is about building in the right way, in the right place.
Traditional water systems were based on nature. They were not perfect, but they used the land wisely. Ponds used to hold rainwater and slowly refill springs which supported families, farms, and forests.&nbsp;
Not everything worked well in the past, but we can learn from traditional water management practices. Across Nepal, some rural municipalities have launched campaigns to store monsoon runoff — either in tanks, ponds or by recharging the aquifers.
But not all efforts have been successful. Some ponds are built without any hydrological study. Some are rushed to meet deadlines rather than real needs.&nbsp;
Now, the Muhan initiative hopes to revive springs to make households more resilient and help farmings. With the financial support of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, research is being done to understand how springs work and how they are affected by changes in rainfall, land use, and development.&nbsp;
Instead of just building pipes and tanks, the project maps the entire springshed so we can understand the root cause of water shortage. In Sindhuli, the problem is not the amount of rain, but the loss of natural systems that store it and the social systems that manage water.&nbsp;
Nepal’s towns and villages now face a major challenge: how to manage water all year round as demand rises with people’s living standards. Depending only on river-lift systems is not a sustainable solution.&nbsp;
We need a mix of approaches that help store water from the rainy season to make it available for the rest of the year, whether by directly harvesting rainwater, restoring ponds, managing springsheds, or smart management of demand.
Rural Nepal is also seeing dramatic depopulation. Much of the outmigration can be stemmed if there is easier water supply for agriculture and household use. Across the mid hills, villages are emptying because springs are going dry. Government policy needs to catch up with the reality on the ground, and support solutions that work for people and nature. Every water supply plan should include recharge structures. Every road or building project should consider water flow and erosion. Local governments need more than budgets: they need training, tools, and data.
Ngamindra Dahal is with the Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Kathmandu. Hemant Ojha collaborated in this piece and is associated with the Australian National University.

Water for Life

<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-last-of-the-kusunda">The Kusunda</a> are among the last remaining hunter-gatherer communities left in Nepal, and it has only one fluent speaker left of a language that is not related to any other language group in South Asia.&nbsp; The Kusunda call themselves the King of the Forests ((गेम्येहाक़ in Kusunda,वन राजा in Nepali) and used to have a nomadic lifestyle till recently. But decades of exclusion from mainstream society and modernity have forced the Kusunda to assimilate. &nbsp; Today, most Kusunda live across Nepal’s mid-hills and western plains, choosing to identify themselves as Thakuri and adopting names like Sen, Shahi, and Khan to avoid ostracisation. Over time, inter-ethnic marriages between the Kusunda and other communities became increasingly common.&nbsp; However, the assimilation with other communities also meant that almost no one from the Kusunda community can speak their mother tongue – considered by linguists to be a ‘language isolate’ not related to any other language group in the world, and lacking set rules of grammar that are foundational to other languages. There are no words for ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in Kusunda, nor are there words to signify direction. There are 23 languages with less than 1,000 speakers listed in Nepal's 2021 census, with Kusunda being the language with the least number of speakers. The number of people who identified as Kusunda has decreased with each subsequent census. Only 253 individuals identified themselves as Kusunda in the last National Census of 2021, down from 273 in 2011.&nbsp; <div class="embed-block"><iframe src="https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/raithane-bhakha/embed/episodes/Kusundas---the-last-of-the-forest-kings-e23ge6p/a-a9peei1" height="102px" width="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div> The government’s decision to provide a social security stipend to the community for the past few years has prompted many from the Kusunda community to reclaim their identity and in the process, explore their culture and language. Kamala Sen Kusunda, who lives in Dang, is the only fluent native Kusunda speaker alive, although there are now other Kusunda and non-Kusunda people learning how to speak the language. By the time Kamala Sen Kusunda was born in 1975, her family had settled in a village in Rolpa. Although she did not experience the nomadic life of her forebears, she still roamed the forests freely as a child and many of the values and socio-cultural practices of her community were instilled in her and her siblings.&nbsp; This meant that Kamala grew up speaking Kusunda with her family. But by then, the Kusunda had increasingly begun to interact with people beyond their community, and inter-ethnic marriages had become a norm.&nbsp; Kamala herself married at 18 to a 52-year-old man from the Chhetri community. She would go on to have four children, but they were brought up with her husband’s culture and community rather than her own, and teaching them her mother tongue seemed impractical.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250628030648_afaa298bf8ea3b7086e2ed086b11eab463ef2b20a82a4aad74df3dd2e922a4c3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250628030648_afaa298bf8ea3b7086e2ed086b11eab463ef2b20a82a4aad74df3dd2e922a4c3" data-rendition-name="original" width="855" height="641" loading="lazy" alt="Kusunda NT"> <figcaption>Gyani Maiya Kusunda with Kusunda youth in 2015.</figcaption> </figure>  “If I had spoken my language to them when they were children, they would have learned,” she tells us ruefully. “But they were growing up in a different community, so I never pushed, and they never expressed interest.” At the time, she had other things to worry about, such as earning a livelihood and sustaining her family. To find work, Kamala and her family moved to Shimla in India, where she worked at an apple orchard for six years.&nbsp; Over the next years, Kamala and her family moved back and forth between India and Nepal for work, and Kamala was not actively conversing in the language of her people or being able to connect with members of her community now scattered across Nepal.&nbsp; Had she not forgotten her language after all those years? “How could I forget the language of my ancestors?” she replies. “Not speaking it did not mean that it ceased to be a part of me.”&nbsp; Kamala had been working at a brick kiln in Thimi seven years ago when the National Language Commission tracked her down, offered her a paid position as a Kusunda language consultant and source person for basic language training in Dang.&nbsp; It was there that Kamala met her cousin Gyani Maiya Sen Kusunda, the only other person able to speak Kusunda fluently, who had been working with the Commission to conserve Kusunda language and culture. It was also where Kamala met language researcher and lexicographer Uday Raj Ale. Ale had been in the middle of his research into the Tharu language and community 15 years ago when he met Gyani Maiya Kusunda’s son, who told him that his mother was one of the few people who spoke Kusunda, but that no one had shown an interest in studying and preserving the language and culture. Ale met Gyani Maiya, spending time with her learning and researching Kusunda. By 2017, Ale had collected enough words to put together a Kusunda dictionary. The Kusunda vocabulary currently comprises 2,000 words. His research into the Kusunda language and culture has taken him to every known Kusunda household in Nepal. Although the census puts the number of Kusunda at 253, Ale reckons there are only 158.&nbsp; “Kusunda language is endangered due to its lack of use in everyday life, literature, and religious and socio-cultural practices, as well as the prevalence of inter-ethnic marriages,” explains Ale. In 2019 the Language Commission began its language transfer programs for youth from indigenous communities. Since then, the Commission has completed multiple phases of Kusunda language classes in Dang facilitated by Uday Raj Ale. The classes have 20 students, not just from the Kusunda community, but also interested non-native students.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250626120632_c6c378bc00af450f2b7f0cf17af1c3b2b6f7b7226927c458c3e01ec389869d33.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250626120632_c6c378bc00af450f2b7f0cf17af1c3b2b6f7b7226927c458c3e01ec389869d33" data-rendition-name="original" width="1485" height="1535" loading="lazy" alt="Kusunda NT"> <figcaption>Students learning Kusunda with instructor Uday Raj Ale (second row, left)</figcaption> </figure>  Khamba Rokaya, who worked as a caretaker for young Kusunda children in Dang, became interested in learning the language as she sat in with the children during their lessons, and for the last few years has been among the few non-native Kusunda language learners in Dang. “I am not from the Kusunda community, but now that I have learned the language, I hope to do my part to carry on the work and share my knowledge with as many people as possible,” she says. “One way to ensure that we preserve this language is to extend its speaker base, both within the Kusunda and non-native communities.” Ale and Kamala have continued to work together since Gyani Maya’s passing in 2020, expanding the Kusunda vocabulary and creating appropriate curricula to fit the needs of the students as their knowledge of Kusunda expands.&nbsp; But without any documentation of Kusunda history, the community’s traditions, stories, values and language were at risk of being lost to time. “The loss of an ethnicity, language or culture in a country is akin to losing a vital organ, and a unique perspective of looking at the world,” says Ale. Which is why Archive Nepal in collaboration with the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund and the UK’s Department of Culture, Media, and Sport in February launched a book of creative writings in the Kusunda language titled पिन्डा (meaning ‘The First’ in Kusunda): A Compilation of Kusunda Literature. The book is a collection of informative essays about the Kusunda language and culture, short stories that explore themes from nomadic life to universal Nepali experiences of poverty and migration, letters to loved ones, as well as conversational pieces by five Kusunda students ranging from ages 16 to 30. The works in the Kusunda language are also translated into Nepali and English.&nbsp; “Language is an important part of ethnic identity, and our indigenous languages cannot evolve or be conserved unless they are spoken or taught,” said Ale during the launch of the book earlier this year. “But most importantly, language exists as long as there exists literature in that language.” Kamala was in Kathmandu for the launch of the book, and smiled proudly as she looked at the young writers who had contributed to the collection. She said: “I’m glad the young people have chosen to learn and preserve Kusunda. Otherwise, our language would have died with me.” &nbsp;

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Water for Life

Saving the Kusunda language from extinction