The news headlines this week said: ‘The House of Representatives passed the Nepal Citizenship (Second Amendment) Bill that now makes <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-unequal-citizenship-law">acquiring citizenship through the mother</a> as equal as through the father.’&nbsp;
Could it really be true? There is genuine confusion or deliberate misunderstanding in the public about the Bill. Here is an explainer:
What is the Bill?
The Second Amendment to the Nepal Citizenship Act 2006 was tabled by the government on 11 March, 2024. The lengthy list of amendments underwent a detailed discussion within the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the HoR which presented a shortened list of agreed amendments.&nbsp;
The HoR passed this amended list of amendments on 28 June. While the original Bill contained eight amendment proposals, only three major amendments were presented by the Committee, and approved by the HoR.
Has it become law now?
No. It is yet to be passed by the National Assembly and endorsed by the President.
What exactly is contained in the amendments?&nbsp;
<ol>
 <li>Addition to Section 5 of the Act: ‘For citizenship applications, a father’s identity is deemed unknown if the applicant and their mother both provide a self-declaration stating that the father is unidentified, as per Section 5, even if his name is listed on the person’s birth registration, educational qualifications, or other certificates, yet his other identity is not available and is currently out of contact.’</li>
</ol>
This simply provides a definition to what the Act means by ‘father unidentified’ or ‘father untraceable’. Section 5 derives its authority from Article 11(5) of the Constitution that grants citizenship by descent to children whose mother is a Nepali citizen, but father is unidentified or untraceable.&nbsp;
The Nepal Citizenship Act 2006 and Regulation 2006 (both promulgated prior to the present 2015 Constitution) was amended in 2023 to incorporate the provisions of the new Constitution. In doing so, it included the procedural rule requiring both the applicant and their mother to sign a self-declaration form.
The result: a lot of people who claimed citizenship under this provision were still denied access, simply because their educational or other documents mentioned the name or address or some information about their father. The officials interpreted the presence of such information as father’s identity being known and assumed the applicants were hiding facts.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/no-state-for-women">No state for women</a>, Neha Gurung
The Supreme Court in one of such cases had clearly interpreted the meaning of ‘father unidentified’. In its overarching decision, the court stated the following:
‘It seems neither lawful nor just to compel an individual to accept someone as an identified father merely because their biological father’s name, surname, or address is claimed to be known or mentioned in educational or other documents. It would be just to consider the father’s identity as “unidentified”; if the individual has not received paternal affection or care, and the alleged father has never taken any responsibility, borne any obligation, or been physically present before the children, leading to a situation where the children haven’t even seen their face. Such an alleged biological father should remain “unidentified” for these children until they formally acknowledge them as their son or daughter, or, in their absence, their family provides reasonable proof to confirm the fact and identifies the relationship through a process acceptable to the children, or until such a confirmation becomes impossible.’
Based on this decision, multiple implementation challenges, and growing advocacy around this concern, the government included the above-mentioned addition in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-citizenship-amendment-bill-explained">the Bill</a>.
Is it new?
The proposed addition is neither an introduction of the new right, nor does it provide anything beyond what the Constitution mandates. Since the Constitution itself uses the term ‘father untraceable or unidentified’, the most a legislation can do is to ensure that the constitutional provisions are interpreted and implemented in its true meaning. Therefore, the current Bill only serves to clarify the existing misinterpretation of the phrase ‘father unidentified’.
In a country where about 17% of the population are <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/stateless-daughters-in-nepal,863">single mothers</a>, this clarification may provide certain relief for those whose fathers name was mentioned in the document and the father is now unidentified. However, the addition does not grant anything new.
The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/are-women-not-nepali-enough">gender discriminatory citizenship </a>where the citizenship or legal identity of a person is always dependent on one’s husband or father still remains.
Additionally, the current addition does not completely incorporate the Supreme Court’s decision which is broader and more comprehensive, requiring that the father be considered unidentified irrespective of the knowledge of the father’s name, surname and address, if the applicant/person has not felt the paternal affection or care, and the alleged father has never taken any responsibility, or borne any obligation or been physically present before the children.
The Bill only takes ‘father’s name’ into consideration. It does not recognize the mention of surname or address in the applicant’s certificates, nor the absence of emotional and physical presence, and responsibility in their life.
2. Addition to Section 18 of the Act:
i. Unless otherwise provided in this Act, a person dissatisfied with an order or decision made by an official under this Act may file a petition with the Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs within thirty-five days from the date of such order, through the District Administration Office or directly through Nepal Government.
ii. Upon receiving the report pursuant to sub-section (1), the Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs shall (must) issue their decision or order after obtaining the report from the official who issued the order or made the decision, within 30 days from the date of appeal, and such decision or order made by them shall be final.’
This provision is already present in the Act itself, and the Bill simply amends or adds the parts that are in bold letters. The positive part is that it makes the right to redress mandatory. Meaning, it not only ensures the right to appeal against the unsatisfactory decisions made by the local authorities, but also the right to receive the decision.
Earlier, it depended on the government's discretion to hear the appeal, but if this amendment is passed, it now becomes the State's obligation to ensure this as a due process of law.
This makes it easier for individuals denied citizenship, by the Chief District Office (CDO), to register an appeal in the higher office, which is the Home Ministry. However, in cases concerning a certain category of naturalised citizenship that falls under the jurisdiction of the Home Ministry, its decision becomes final and cannot be appealed.
This means that Nepal has two categories of naturalised citizenship. One that falls under the jurisdiction of CDO, such as naturalised citizenship to foreign women via marriage relationship. Another that falls under the jurisdiction of the Home Ministry, such as naturalised citizenship to persons born to Nepali mother and foreign father or foreigners who intend to acquire citizenship via stay requirement.&nbsp;
While the former can be appealed if the applicant is not satisfied with the decision of the official, the former, which is the government's decision, cannot be appealed.
3. Addition of Section 22(a) to the Act: ‘Shall provide a minor’s identity card to a person who is under 16 years of age, if either mother or father is a Nepali citizen.’
This provision can be considered as a positive extension of the child’s constitutional right. The Constitution of Nepal in Article 39 (1) states that ‘every child shall have the right to name and birth registration along with his or her identity’. The current Bill extends this right to a minor's ID card.
However, a minor ID card does not guarantee a citizenship certificate, which in Nepal, a person is eligible to apply only at the age of 16. This means: even though the child has the minor’s ID card and perhaps also a passport based on it, while applying for citizenship at the age of 16 or beyond, the person is bound by citizenship laws — which as we have seen is heavily dependent on the father's identity.
The conclusion?
The current amendment does not ensure any dramatic legal reform nor ensure a complete <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-right%20-to-have-rights,2656">gender equality in nationality laws</a>, simply because it technically and legally cannot.
When the Constitution itself uses gendered language such as ‘mother’, ‘father', ‘Nepali citizen man’, and ‘foreign citizen woman’, a legislation cannot override it. Nevertheless, recent amendments to the Act, including the first amendment, shows the government’s leniency towards gender equal citizenship laws.
Additionally, Article 49 of the Constitution also recognises equal lineage right of women, meaning that the family descent is legally recognised to be carried on by both genders. Hopefully in the nearest future, Nepal will carry this same principle to shape its citizenship law as well.&nbsp;
A transformative reform by ensuring gender equal nationality rights through constitutional amendment is still possible. Nepal, a member state to the CEDAW and CRC, is still in the list of 24 countries in the world that have gender unequal citizenship laws. &nbsp;It has the obligation as well as potentiality to become a pioneer in recognizing<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/quality-of-equality-for-women"> women’s equal rights </a>to confer citizenship to their children and spouse in par with men.
Neha Gurung is a human rights lawyer dedicated to advocating for equal citizenship rights, and co-founder of the Citizenship Affected People's Network. A Fulbright scholar, Gurung obtained LLM from the Washington College of Law.

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Full equality vs status quo

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111413118/637230849c7e80680e0c256ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"/><figcaption>Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI / NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVES</figcaption></figure>Last Friday, The House of Representatives, through a majority vote, endorsed the amendment to the <a href="https://moha.gov.np/en/post/citizenship-act-2063" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Citizenship Act 2063 (2006)</a>, and on Thursday the Nepal Citizenship (First Amendment) Bill, 2022 was passed by the National Assembly.Since the Citizenship Act came into effect before the promulgation of the <a href="https://lawcommission.gov.np/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Constitution-of-Nepal.pdf">Constitution of Nepal</a> in 2015, it was necessary to amend it to make it compliant with the provisions regarding citizenship in the Constitution.While a bill to amend the Act was registered in the Parliament back in 2018, it never moved ahead as the State Affairs Committee could not build a consensus among parties. The government then withdrew the amendment earlier this month, and registered a new one. The new bill clears the way for the thousands of children of parents who got citizenship by birth to become citizens by descent, and allows Non-Resident Nepalis to acquire citizenship. However, legal experts and activists say that it is blatantly discriminatory towards women.“It still pushes the notion that men are the supreme beings and women are merely second-class citizens,” says senior advocate Meera Dhungana.Nepal citizenship is based on the principles of jus sanguinis or bloodline. While there are neither clauses attached or self-declaration needed when conferring citizenship by descent to a child of a Nepali man, the same is not true in case of a child born to a Nepali woman.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/history-of-female-immobility-in-nepal/">History of female (im)mobility in Nepal</a>, Upasana KhadkaA Nepali man does not even have to mention the name or nationality of the mother for their child to get citizenship. But the mother still needs to navigate the loops of the legal system to ensure their child can obtain Nepali citizenship.The bill does pave the way for a child born to a Nepali woman in Nepal whose father is unidentified, to get citizenship by descent. But there is a catch: the woman must make a self-declaration that the father cannot be identified and if the claim turns out to be false, she can be jailed and/or fined.“The provision itself is an insult,” says senior advocate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWhV0U5cBMQ&amp;feature=emb_logo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Satish Krishna Kharel</a>. “In a society like ours where children whose fathers are not identified often face stigma and abuse, that requirement is demeaning.”Likewise, a foreign woman married to a Nepali man can easily obtain naturalised citizenship once she starts the process of renouncing the citizenship of her country of origin. However, there is no such provision for foreign men married to Nepali women to get Nepali citizenship.Granting naturalised citizenship to foreign women married to Nepali men has been highly politicised, with the UML along with the Maoist Centre and other fringe parties demanding an interval of a few years before foreign women married to Nepali men are eligible for naturalised citizenship. But the Maoists backtracked, and supported the Nepali Congress and Madhes-based parties to remove that interval period.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18401#.YuNBD-xByrc">Stateless in their motherland</a>, Kunda DixitTo be sure, ever since the first Citizenship Act in 1952 and the others that followed, foreign men married to Nepali women have not been able to obtain Nepali citizenship through their wives. The bill simply continues that tradition.“Whatever the decision, whether to have a wait-period or not, shouldn’t it be the same for the spouses of both Nepali men and women? When a Nepali man can ensure citizenship for their spouse, why can’t the same be true for Nepali women?” asks Dhungana.Moreover, a child born to a Nepali man married to a foreign woman can obtain citizenship by descent, but a child born to Nepali mother and a foreign father will only be eligible for naturalised citizenship — that too at the discretion of the state.“It is more or less like saying that only a father is a true parent, and the role of a mother does not matter,” she adds. The argument against providing naturalised citizenship to foreign men married to Nepali women has always been that if it is allowed, Indian men will flood into Nepal. But that nationalist reasoning is dismissed as absurd by most experts.Says Kharel: “Rather than evidence-based arguments, views on citizenship are based on nationalist paranoia.”Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-waits-for-an-unequal-citizenship-law/">Nepal’s unequal Citizenship Law</a>,  Ajay Pradhan

Sahina Shrestha

Are women not Nepali enough?

<img width="640" height="355" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18cd9c7e80680e0ac7e5jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Legal theorists once consigned the idea of ‘statelessness’ to the realm of fiction, because they considered it to be impossible within the state system that emerged after World War I. Every human being was supposed to be assigned a nationality and a country to call his or her own. But the war had created many refugees, and as empires disintegrated and new nation-states adopted exclusionary nationality laws, not everyone was in fact included.The rise of fascism in the 1930s and 1940s further exposed the fallibility of this system and the ominous reality of the state’s power to exclude people or strip them of citizenship. Across Europe, citizenship-stripping went hand in hand with genocide for Jews and other minority groups. Following World War II, questions about the right to nationality, state power, and the limits of sovereignty loomed large in the development of human rights and international law. Could the states that were being created out of the independence movements and diminished European empires adopt nationality laws that excluded entire population groups? Did national governments hold the power to strip their own citizens of that status? Who was responsible for the newly stateless?These issues remain highly pertinent today. Statelessness affects at least 15 million people, and the nationality of millions more is under threat, owing to an <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/38/52">escalation</a> of racially discriminatory policies and rhetoric in many countries. Nationality policies remain a favoured tool of authoritarians, who sometimes use them in tandem with mass atrocities, as in Myanmar, where the Rohingyas have been denied citizenship and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=23575&amp;LangID=E">subjected</a> to genocide and mass deportations to Bangladesh. Making matters worse, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to even more <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/coronavirus-fuels-fascist-politics-by-federico-finchelstein-and-jason-stanley-2020-05">xenophobic scapegoating</a> and ethno-nationalism, with political leaders like former US President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán blaming migrants and refugees for spreading the coronavirus.The pandemic also reminds us of the enduring influence that nationality has over our lives. Last May, <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/filippo-grandi">Filippo Grandi</a>, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/press/2020/5/5eb952222ec/unhcr-warns-stateless-people-risk-behind-coronavirus-response.html#:~:text=The%20right%20to%20a%20nationality,on%20policy%20and%20good%20practices.">warned</a>: “The right to a nationality is a fundamental human right and in this time of crisis it can mean the difference between life or death.” When governments prioritise citizens over others in their public-health and economic responses, the stateless suffer. Because statelessness remains a major blind spot for the institutions charged with protecting life and livelihoods, stateless people have been left <a href="https://files.institutesi.org/together_we_can_report_2021.pdf">further behind</a> than ever.Ghosts from the pastAt a time when statelessness demands urgent attention, two recent books provide important lessons about the nature of state power, international responses to national acts of exclusion, and the consequences of failure.Statelessness: A Modern History, by Mira L. Siegelberg of the University of Cambridge, and Denaturalized: How Thousands Lost Their Citizenship and Lives in Vichy France, by Claire Zalc, Director of the Institute of Modern and Contemporary History at the École Normale Supérieure, underscore both the historic scale of the problem and its grim costs. Each takes a different but equally meticulous approach to researching the history of the problem. And both explore how people have had their citizenship denied and revoked against the background of some of the most violent periods in modern history. Together, they remind us that the history of statelessness is a history of crumbling empires, world wars, genocides, and the emergence of an interstate system based on the formal equality of states.Siegelberg’s work is a sweeping survey of international legal and political thought, covering a period that includes WWI, the rise of fascism in the 1930s, the Holocaust, the postwar reconstruction of the international legal order, and the independence movements of the postwar decades. Drawing on a wide variety of archival sources – including popular fiction, case law, correspondence from stateless people to the League of Nations, works of legal and political theory, and notes from negotiations on human-rights treaties – she documents how the problem of statelessness informed theories of human rights and sovereignty.Siegelberg is concerned with how notions of statelessness developed within, and then shaped, ‘the political contours of the modern interstate order’. She reminds us that the concepts of citizenship and statelessness are not static. Rather, the meanings attached to these terms are constantly being reshaped and reconstructed by historic events and shifting power relations.While Seigelberg’s book provides a comprehensive overview of international perspectives and experiences concerning statelessness and the modern state’s power to exclude, Zalc’s work focuses on Vichy France between 1940 and 1944, when Jews and others were denaturalised in increasing numbers to serve the Nazi agenda of deportation to death camps. Her detailed investigation provides unique insights into how bureaucracies in authoritarian regimes produce and reproduce violence.“The other”Siegelberg’s Statelessness shows us that the racial hierarchies that characterised early twentieth-century citizenship regimes gave way not to equal citizenship, as was envisaged, but rather to other forms of racism in Europe. At the same time, Zalc’s book demonstrates how processes of citizenship were racialised with the help of seemingly neutral and innocuous bureaucratic categories and data collection. Under the French Third Republic, Jewishness had been considered a private matter of faith and thus went largely unrecorded by the state. But as Zalc shows in fascinating detail, the categorisations of ‘Jew’ and ‘Israelite’ were deciphered and applied retroactively to stigmatise and discriminate. With a new racialised definition of ‘Jew’, and under pressure from the occupying Nazi regime to identify, count, and denaturalise Jews according to quotas, individual citizen files were scrutinised for evidence of Jewishness.Zalc’s work provides direct evidence of how state power – and sometimes state violence – functions through the routine processes of registration, categorisation, and counting. This was how discriminatory decisions by administrators and judges, on the basis of predominantly unstated racial criteria, ultimately resulted in deportation and mass murder. Denationalisation, Zalc shows, does not only result from explicit discrimination in nationality laws, but also from the misuse of administrative and bureaucratic processes.We see this today, too. National registers or citizenship-verification processes requiring excessive documentation and paperwork are used to exclude and marginalize certain groups. A case in point is the mass disenfranchisement of Muslims carried out by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in Assam – the <a href="https://www.fidh.org/en/region/asia/india/assam-the-biggest-mass-disenfranchisement-of-the-21stcentury">biggest exercise</a> of its kind in this century. An administrative act described by the government as ‘<a href="https://scroll.in/article/948969/the-nrc-is-a-bureaucratic-paper-monster-that-will-devour-and-divide-india">just a process</a>’ has pushed some 1.9 million people to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/magazine/india-assam-muslims.html">brink of statelessness</a>, and many more will follow if this ‘process’ is rolled out nationwide.Racialised categories are also still being applied retroactively to exclude people, including through proxy indicators such as name, place of origin, or one’s status as a ‘dual national’. In Myanmar, where racial hierarchies in citizenship acquisition are explicit, registration and application processes have been fully <a href="https://files.institutesi.org/Towards_an_Inclusive_Citizenship_in_Myanmar.pdf">weaponised</a> against ethnic minorities and political opposition groups. ‘National security’Siegelberg and Zalc highlight not only the potential for bureaucratic violence through the administration of citizenship, but also how this exercise of state power is put to deliberate and targeted use. The archival material examined by Zalc offers a sampling of some of the legitimising rhetoric of the day. In Vichy France, the law on denationalisation was ‘of primordial importance’. According to a 1941 letter by Prime Minister François Darlan, it was needed to ensure that ‘the morally tainted or insufficiently assimilated elements that have been allowed to infiltrate the national community be eliminated as soon as possible’.Similarly, a recent <a href="https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/70213/RSC%202021_23rev.pdf?sequence=4&amp;isAllowed=y">academic symposium</a> canvassing revocations of citizenship from the 1960s through the present (with contributions focusing on Syria, India, Nigeria, and Myanmar) identified a common thread: ‘those targeted for exclusion are reimagined and branded as ‘aliens’ or even ‘infiltrators,’ who the state can and must uncover.”Zalc warns that the inherent ‘malleability of the notion of national interest’ can easily be used to legitimize ‘discretionary power as being exercised in the name of the higher interests of the state’. The revocation of nationality is enjoying something of a renaissance even in some Western democracies, where it is framed as a counterterrorism measure. When stateless people appealed to the League of Nations for assistance in the years following WWI, the world’s first global-governance body received so many letters that it was forced to acknowledge the issue, and to consider whether and how it could take up the refugees’ cause. But, as Siegelberg shows, the response was muted. Firm in their resolve to protect the legitimacy of states and the international state system, legal experts at the League shied away from ‘the messier world of politics’. They preferred to situate ‘the problem of statelessness within the domain of the conflict of laws and avoided addressing it as a wider international or humanitarian crisis resulting from mass denationalisation or exclusionary national legislation’.Then came the post-WWII system, which renewed the ambition to use international law to insulate the modern world against mass atrocities, statelessness, and human-rights abuses, but has proved insufficiently robust. States have maintained and adapted their powers to exclude and denationalize their own people.This is evident even in countries that harbour no doubts about their status as liberal democracies. In 2019, the United Kingdom’s then-Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, summarily revoked the citizenship of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c347vzp58nzt/shamima-begum-case">Shamima Begum</a>, a teenage girl who had run away from home to become the bride of an Islamic State fighter. Since this decision had clear political motives and was taken without any judicial proceedings, a court of appeal ruled in July 2020 that Begum should be allowed to return to the UK to fight the decision, but this ruling was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56209007">overturned</a> by the UK Supreme Court.In recent decades, important strides have been made in reframing statelessness as a human-rights issue, rather than as merely a matter of conflicting laws. Solutions have shifted from a focus on technical legal assistance (which tiptoes around the elephant in the room – state power) to approaches that challenge discrimination and states’ exclusionary powers directly.And yet, the international system still renders us powerless to temper the discretionary power of states to choose their own membership. There is no reliable, effective check against authoritarian states that set out to disenfranchise sections of their national communities. The contemporary drivers of statelessness are eerily reminiscent of the League of Nations era. Ethno-nationalism, security-related anxiety, and economic scapegoating are all contributing to processes of ‘Othering’ that, in the extreme, leave individuals or entire communities without citizenship. And, as was true of the post-WWI period, we have very few effective remedies to protect stateless people.Willful ignorance of the problem of statelessness has provided fertile ground for official abuses historically. Today, we must not look away as xenophobia is institutionalised in citizenship laws and bureaucracies. We must put aside fears of the ‘messier world of politics’ and call states to account for their exclusions – before it is too late for the excluded.© <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.project-syndicate.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Project Syndicate</a>Laura van Waas is Assistant Professor of International Law at Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands, is a founder and Co-Director of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion.Natalie Brinham, a PhD student at the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London, is Senior Programme Officer at the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. <img width="307" height="462" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18cf9c7e80680e0ac7e6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="301" height="462" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18d19c7e80680e0ac7e7jpeg.jpg" alt="">Mira L. Siegelberg, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976313">Statelessness: A Modern History</a>, Harvard University Press, 2020. Claire Zalc, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674988422">Denaturalized: How Thousands Lost their Citizenship and Lives in Vichy France</a>, Belknap Press, 2020.

The statelessness pandemic

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

Visit Nepal in the monsoon

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

Flouting rules caused Saurya tragedy

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

Trailing off in Manang

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli announced jubilantly on social media that Nepal had achieved a historic annual growth of 81.8% in exports. He was right. Nepal’s trade did take a great leap forward compared to last year. But the dramatic rise was mainly due to processed soya bean oil.&nbsp; However, Nepal does not produce the edible oil it exports. In fact, the soya and palm oil that make up 44% of total exports are imported from Southeast Asia and South America, and simply re-exported, mostly to India.&nbsp; Under the SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Area) Agreement, Nepal can export products to India duty-free if it has at least 30% value-added. Nepal’s traders have taken advantage of SAFTA even though the edible oils they export do not reach that value addition threshold. “The 30% value addition requirement is often only on paper,” says former commerce secretary Purushottam Ojha. “It is clear that simply packaging edible oils in Nepal does not fulfil the terms of the trade agreement.” Prime Minister Oli is aware of this, and even called Nepal’s export figures “fake” at an earlier event. The government is relying on other iffy figures to suggest that Nepal’s economy is strong and getting stronger. For example, the value of imports rose by 13.25% in 2024-25 compared to the previous fiscal year.&nbsp; Some of it was due to a jump in electric vehicle imports worth Rs 31.76 billion, but mostly it was because more wholesale soya oil was imported to be re-packaged and sold in India. The very fact that the government boasts about increased imports is an indication of how much it relies on taxing them for revenue. Touting such trade figures cannot be the basis to claim an economic rebound.&nbsp; “A jump in the value of imports can be interpreted as an increase in purchasing power, but it is not evidence of a stronger economy,” says economist Keshav Acharya. “Even though imports have increased, Nepal's domestic production and productive capacity have not improved.” Nepal Rastra Bank's semi-annual economic activity study report shows that industrial production was down in the first six months of the last fiscal year. This despite an increase in the number of new industries registered and investment commitments. Out of the Rs70.2 billion proposed foreign investment, Nepal received only Rs17.9 billion last year.&nbsp; Meanwhile, the rate of capital formation was limited to 24% last year, which is lower than the year before, suggesting that new investment, job creation and economic expansion all declined. If domestic production does not improve in relation to this year’s inflated trade figures, the outflow will put pressure on foreign exchange reserves like it did three years ago. At that time, Nepal borrowed from the IMF under its Extended Credit Facility Program to kickstart the economy.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080710084_2cdaaa5795828c4a7de93a0604ba884ef0a8b8f24cccd939f6c24e279ab6058f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025080710084_2cdaaa5795828c4a7de93a0604ba884ef0a8b8f24cccd939f6c24e279ab6058f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1633" height="723" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's bubble economy NT"> <figcaption>Source: NEPAL RASTRA BANK</figcaption> </figure>  The macroeconomy is on firm footing with foreign exchange reserves at a comfortable Rs2,520 billion in May, up 23% from last year. This was largely due to remittances, and partly due to a falling NPR exchange rate. Real estate transactions and the stock market index have also been climbing as a result of government policies to revive the sector.&nbsp; However, former executive director of Nepal Rastra Bank Nar Bahadur Thapa cautions: “This is not organic growth, it is the result of deliberate policy decisions to relax rules on real estate and stock markets transactions.” In reality, the sharp rise in land prices have increased the cost of production, and excessive monetisation of the real estate has become the main source of Nepal’s economic woes. The central bank has announced a slew of new policies, shifting the terms of loan repayment for industrialists and entrepreneurs, reducing interest rates, and injecting more working capital — all designed to inject adrenaline into the real estate and stock market sectors.&nbsp; When he was governor, Mahaprasad Adhikari made several financial reforms during the latter half of his tenure to stimulate the economy, including tightening credit flow.&nbsp; By the last fiscal year, additional financial reforms had resulted in a credit expansion rate of around 8%. As the pace of credit expansion slows, real estate prices have started to fall. This is actually beneficial to the economy, because it lays the foundation for improvements in land-related entrepreneurship, production, and the construction sector. Just because real estate and the stock market transactions increase, it does not indicate an economic turnaround — especially when manufacturing and productive sector continues to languish.&nbsp; “It is foolish to believe that real estate and the stock market have magically revived our economy. Agriculture employs more than half of the population, but it is in decline. Investment in the productive sector has not increased, and job creation has not increased.” Two years ago, Nepal’s industrialists, business leaders, and political leadership predicted a recession amidst a sluggish business, declining market demand, large-scale job loss, and a shrinking real estate and share market.&nbsp; Still, the economy grew by 3.36% in fiscal year 2023/24. In fact, Nepal’s economy has grown nominally over the last two decades even when all sectors of the economy are in decline.&nbsp; Says Keshav Acharya: “The growth in trade, real estate, and the stock market are bubbles. The real economy remains stagnant.”