<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141152/636d02ea9c7e80680e0a36a7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: SONIA AWALE</figcaption></figure>Nepal is going beyond just counting its population in its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/everybody-counts-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">12th National Population and Household Census</a>, and this is throwing up issues of identity and citizenship. Postponed from June to November because of the second Covid-19 wave, this is the country’s first census under a federal system. But Nepalis without citizenship have launched a campaign refusing to participate, encouraging others like them to deny census officials from entering into their homes.“Those of us raised by single mothers have become stateless,” said Indrajit Safi, a civil engineer and national coordinator of the activist collective Nagariktabihin Nepali (Nepalis Without Citizenship). “If we are denied citizenship despite our parents having been Nepali citizens, what is the point of participating in the census?”Stateless Nepalis have been mobilising across various social media groups to urge others without citizenship to boycott the census, saying that the foundation of the national count was built on ‘a violation of the Constitution that has made Nepali youth stateless’.In 2013, the Forum of Women, Law and Development (FWLD) conducted a study <a href="https://fwld.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Acquisition-of-Citizenship-Certificate-in-Nepal-Estimating-Prevalence.pdf">Acquisition of Citizenship Certificate in Nepal: Estimating Prevalence</a>, to conduct its own ‘census’ of the number of Nepalis who did not have citizenship documents. It used data for the number of Nepalis aged 16 and above from the 2011 census as well as the number of citizenship certificates issued by the Home Ministry from 1952 until 2010 as the main parameters.  The <a href="https://fwld.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Acquisition-of-Citizenship-Certificate-in-Nepal-Estimation-and-Projection.pdf">result of the study</a> estimated the number of Nepalis without citizenship at 4.6million, and projected that at the rate of population growth at the time the number of stateless Nepalis would increase to 6.7 million by 2021."If the Citizenship Act is not amended, we will also obstruct the upcoming elections," Safi added at a meeting on Wednesday. “This discriminatory Constitution must be amended as soon as possible.”Activist Deepti Gurung, who raised her two children as a single mother recalled how a school teacher tore up her daughter’s SLC registration form because it did not mention the name of the father, and another where her younger daughter’s birth certificate included श्रिमान ठेगान नभएको (Husband not known) as the name of her father.“I was introduced as an unwed mother in front of the CDO officials,” Gurung says. “And I would be constantly asked to detail the story of what ‘actually happened’ with regards to the father, as if officials were more concerned with keeping records of such incidents. What I experienced is that women must provide a narrative of being pure of character who have been victimised by bad men who led them to their circumstance— to appeal citizenship for their children.” Gurung eventually filed writ petitions in the Supreme Court to get her daughters birth and citizenship certificates. She was able to win both the cases. And while Gurung hoped that the court ruling in her case would be a precedent she was informed that this was being done in a "case-by-case basis".  “So we have not really won,” she says.Activists point to articles in the Constitution related to citizenship that <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/stateless-daughters-in-nepal,863">treat women differently from men</a>, and are discriminatory. Under Article 11(5), for instance, children born to a Nepali father and a foreign-born mother are eligible for citizenship by descent, while those born to a Nepal-born mother and a foreign-born father will be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/patriarchy-in-an-oligarchy/">granted naturalised citizenship</a>, with less privileges.Politicians have used nationalism to justify this, saying that allowing offspring of foreign men citizenship would lead to a surge of Indians marrying Nepalis. Activists and politicians, especially in the Tarai, say this is absurd.The other thorny issue in the November census is how to conduct the census in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/politics-and-history-of-nepals-kalapani-claim/">disputed border areas of Kalapani and Limpiyadhura</a>. Rival claims to the territory strained relations between India and Nepal after Prime Minister K P Oli got Nepal’s Parliament to unanimously pass an amendment bill to include the territory in its national emblems and its own political map.Now, the question is how to conduct a census in the remote mountainous region at the northwestern tip of Nepal that is occupied by India. In 1961, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/remembering-the-1961-census/">journalist Bhairab Rijal</a> was one of the enumerators who was assigned to conduct the census in Kalapani, and says it was within Nepal’s boundary then.Risal and his team reached the villages of Gunji, Nabi and Kuti in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/politics-and-history-of-nepals-kalapani-claim/">disputed Kalapani and Limpiyadhura territory</a> which is now claimed by India.“The fact that we actually conducted a census there 60 years ago is irrefutable proof that Nepal extends all the way to the main channel of the Kali River,” Risal says. But given the sensitivity of the issue, Nepal is unlikely to provoke India by forcibly sending census enumerators there this time.For its part, by Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) maintains that it is ready to conduct the census anywhere in Nepal. “If the administration, our security forces, and concerned authorities determine that the situation is feasible and give the go-ahead, our census officials are trained and ready to conduct the census in Klapani, Limpiyadhura, and Lipulekh,” says Tirtha Raj Chaulagain of the CBS.The census had<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-postpones-census-amid-covid-19-surge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> been planned for June 2021</a>, but now with the daily caseload and fatalities falling, it will be conducted 11-25 November.This marked the second time that Nepal’s census is not being held as scheduled in the 110-year old history of the exercise. During the upheaval after the fall of the Rana regime, the 1951 census had been postponed.The 2021 census will comprise of three separate questionnaires: House and Household Listing, the main questionnaire, and the Community Questionnaire.This first phase before the census, during which officials conduct the House and Household listing, began on 15 September and is set to end on 4 October. At present, 8,500 census supervisors trained by the CBS in April are conducting the House and Household listing before the main census activities begin.In early November, 39,000 enumerators from across the country will be trained to approach, interact with, and interview people and fill out the main questionnaire. After that, enumerators will be deployed across the country to fill up the main census questionnaire while the census supervisors fill the Community Questionnaire during two weeks from 11-25 November.“By now, census supervisors should have conducted the listing for approximately 2 million households across the country,” says Chaulagain of CBS, speaking to Nepali Times from Siraha, where he is overseeing census-related activities.The 2011 census put the number of Nepali households at 5.4 million, but CBS officials say the number is expected to go up to 7 million in 2021. The three questionnaires, which are comprehensive and will include new questions, combined with the changed modality of data collection that allows officials in the Kathmandu Valley to conduct a ‘paperless’ census are expected to provide more detailed <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">data</a> and to reflect the country’s changing socio-political and demographic landscape more accurately.Nepal’s distinct ethnic compositions, cultures and religious communities are also expected to be reflected in the data as the country goes through a socio-cultural shift. In fact, data from the previous census shows that rising ethnic awareness and openness have resulted in a sharp population increase of some ethnic communities like the Kami and Badi that previously went underreported. Meanwhile, census data shows that the percentage of Nepalis who identify as Hindu has declined over the years after the country became secular. However  royal-Hindu-right parties at present have attempted to cash in on increasing public disillusionment by flagging secularism as being unsuitable for Nepal, and even leaders like Rabindra Mishra of the alternative Bibeksheel-Sajha party called for a referendum.Initial reaction shows that many people are reluctant to disclose their true household income, and share other personal details related to property and assets. Census supervisors and enumerators, unlike government school teachers in the past, will be educated young Nepalis who will have better knowledge and context about their local communities.The CBS has adopted the motto, ‘My Census, My Participation’ for this iteration of the census, and publicising the census through mobile ringtones for citizens to get up and be counted.

Shristi Karki

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Nepal holding census despite Covid and boycott

<figure><img width="1400" height="1120" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110811118/636a2a8e9c7e80680e045922jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI</figcaption></figure><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-constitution-3-years-later/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal’s 2016 Constitution</a> may be seen as the preeminent in the world by its framers, but there are still some design defects in it that need to be fixed.Among the most glaring are provisions about citizenship that directly contradict the preamble proclaiming all Nepalis to be equal whatever their gender, creed, caste or class. Chapter 2 of the Constitution makes the sweeping promise: 'No citizen of Nepal may be deprived of the right to obtain citizenship.’However, clauses on the requirements for citizenship have been deliberately left vague. This was probably done to fast-track the Constitution at a volatile time, but the provisions on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-suffragette-moment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">citizenship in the name of the mother</a> has been left to interpretation.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/stateswomanship/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Statewomanship,</a> Editorial<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-suffragette-moment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal's suffragette moment</a>, Om Astha Rai In a society steeped in patriarchy and a male-dominated bureaucracy, this means single mothers are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/stateswomanship/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bullied, ridiculed, humiliated</a>, and given the run around when trying to obtain citizenship papers for their offspring. Many children therefore remain stateless, depriving them of education, jobs and other state facilities.The debate has surfaced again this month because the Citizenship Amendment Bill tabled last year is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/3-4th-of-the-sky/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now being discussed</a> in the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of Parliament. While some lawmakers have tried to fix flaws that discriminate against women, others (and a surprising number of them are female MPs) have argued against making the Bill fairer and less discriminatory towards women.  The Constitution says a person whose father or mother is a Nepali citizen will get citizenship by descent, but this is <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Between-the-lines/citizenship-clause-should-be-national-issue-not-just-gender-issue,517" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not applicable</a> if the mother is married to a foreigner. Mothers with children whose fathers are absent, divorced, unknown cannot automatically get citizenship for their children.If a Nepali man marries a foreign woman, he can get Nepali citizenship for her and their children automatically. However, if a Nepali woman marries a foreigner, the husband does not immediately get citizenship and their children cannot be Nepali by descent.Even while the debate rages in the Parliament Committee, there are women facing obstacles at CDO offices across the country while trying to get citizenship papers for their children. Many are referred to the Home Ministry which has the final say. Some with husbands who have left them are asked to prove Nepali citizenship of parents who are long dead.Women who marry foreigners are also made to produce proof that they have not already obtained the citizenship of their husband’s country, which Nepali men who marry foreigners are not asked to do.There is a surprising number of women across party lines who support this <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/citizenship-in-the-name-of-the-mother,2076" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discriminatory provision</a>, and their argument is that if it were allowed, Nepal would be flooded with Indian men marrying our women. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-right%20-to-have-rights,2656" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Falling back on nationalism</a> is a lazy way to justify gender discrimination, but what is surprising is how pervasive this <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/no-to-the-ugly-nepali/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">xenophobia</a> is. As if Bihari men are lining up across the border to marry Nepalis. One MP even justified the discriminatory law for single mothers: "Making it is easy for children of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/four-fold-increase-in-reported-rape-in-10-years/">rape</a> to get citizenship will encourage rape."Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/corrosive-conduct/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Corrosive conduct</a>, Editorial The Bill is a manifestation of the paranoid <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/national-interest-or-nationalism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nationalism</a> that has plagued Nepal’s politics. Nepal’s sovereignty will be stronger if we strengthen our women, it will be weaker if we disenfranchise the children of Nepali mothers, and by extension, half the population.At the root of this deep-seated insecurity about nationhood is an entrenched vulnerability of some Nepali men. They feel that empowered women will erode societal privileges they have enjoyed within families, in the community and from the state. A patriarchal state refuses to accept women as socially, politically, economically equal.Even if the regressive clauses in the Bill are corrected after the debate in the Parliament committee, it will take time for the administration to treat women as equals. But changing the law is a start for changing attitudes and behaviour. The real proof that Nepali women and men are equal will be when a mother can obtain citizenship certificates for her children without having to prove her husband’s citizenship. Her own citizenship should suffice. It is none of the government’s business who the father is.   <h2>10 years ago this week</h2> If you thought the state of drift in the country today is bad, then just read this excerpt from the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15762#.XJSF0yIzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">front page analysis</a> by J B Pun in the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/443" target="_blank" rel="noopener">#443 issue of Nepali Times</a> from 20-26 March 2009:Six months after coming to power, many political analysts agree that the state of drift in the country looks too systematic to be happening by chance.It is as if the Maoists in the ruling coalition are allowing things to fall apart, or at least not doing anything to stop it. There are only eight hours of power a day, the inflation rate is irrationally high, there is anarchy on the highways and businesses are on the verge of mass-closure.Baburam Bhattarai said in Butwal last week: “We have 40 per cent (in the CA) so not one word in the constitution can be written without us. Either it will be the kind of constitution we want, or there will be no constitution.”<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/443"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110811118/636a2a919c7e80680e045923jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="509" height="812"></a>

Patriarchy in an oligarchy

Fenerbahçe Beko won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague finals in Abu Dhabi, held 23-25 May, defeating Monaco 81-70 in the final. Olympiacos, who defeated Panathinaikos 97-93, finished the series in third place. The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final match, Nigel Hayes-Davis from Fenerbahçe Beko, received a prize of 1,000,000 Miles&amp;Smiles from Turkish Airlines’ Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmuştur. The carrier has been the title sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, a top tier tournament, since 2010.

Turkish Basketball

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

The Last Days of the Khampa

Starting 17 September Turkish Airlines will fly daily to Seville, one of Spain’s major tourist draws. This is Turkish’s sixth destination in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, and Bilbao. Seville is in the Andalusia region on Spain’s south coast with a rich Moor history. There are approximately 30,000 Nepalis living in Spain.&nbsp;

Turkish to Seville

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

citizenship-through-mothers-name

Nepal holding census despite Covid and boycott

Patriarchy in an oligarchy

Turkish Basketball

The Last Days of the Khampa

Turkish to Seville

Digital protection for Nepal’s art