<figure><img width="1777" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636cccc99c7e80680e08bc40jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>All photos: NABIN BARAL / www.thethirdpole.net</figcaption></figure>Plans to build Nepal’s biggest hydropower project was been delayed by politics and compensation issues for 10 years, but is now held up because the Chinese contractor is incommunicado.The 263-m high dam on the Budi Gandaki River will be the world’s tenth tallest, and impound a reservoir 45km long displacing 50,000 people, to generate 1.200MW of electricity. But the $2.5 billion project is in doubt because of delays and doubts about its viability.The project, situated 60km northwest of Kathmandu, was supposed to be completed by 2022. It had been cancelled and revived several times by successive governments, but has been stuck for the past year because of the pandemic.The China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) was awarded the main construction contract in 2018, but has not shown up for the past year.  “We have repeatedly tried to communicate with the company, but it has not responded clearly. We cannot say whether they are in or out, it is between somewhere and nowhere,” said Gokarna Raj Panta at the Ministry of Water Resources, Energy and Irrigation in Kathmandu.‘Between somewhere and nowhere’ is also a fitting description of the lives of the people of the Budi Gandaki Valley whose homes, farms and livelihoods will be submerged by what will be Nepal’s largest reservoir.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F22pmtP1Q4M&amp;feature=youtu.beHowever, at the project office in Siurenitar near the proposed dam site there is frantic activity. Phones are ringing constantly, and staff are busy taking calls from those asking about their compensation claims.  “The first priority is land acquisition and we have already paid out Rs33 billion as compensation,” said Krishna Bahadur Karki who heads the project’s compensation and resettlement unit. Another Rs20 billion is earmarked for reimbursement for homes, livestock, trees and other assets.The government froze land dealings in 2013 along the valley, but in anticipation of jobs and economic activity new roads and towns have sprung up in a district tht has seen dramatic depopulation due to outmigration.Ghare Gurung runs a roadside metal workshop outlet 40km north of the dam site. He bought this small patch in Arkhet using money saved from working in Malaysia. He got Rs120,000 compensation for it.“Now they have been saying that a 10% depreciation cost would be applied for our infrastructure. If it happens, then I need to pay them instead of receiving money,” he said.Besides submergence of the main valley, the reservoir will put another 22km of land along the Aankhu Khola tributary under water.   <img width="1777" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636ccccc9c7e80680e08bc41jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="1777" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636cccd19c7e80680e08bc42jpeg.jpg" alt="">Gyanu Maya Shrestha sells snacks from a small stall by the Aankhu Khola in Hepne of Dhading district, and is worried about her future.  The April 2015 earthquake destroyed her home and her animal shed, killing her buffaloes, oxen, and goats. Before the quake, officials from the project had assessed both structures. “After the earthquake, they inspected it again, and now say they will reduce the compensation,” says Shrestha.The response from project officials was that the pre-earthquake inspection was for the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report, not compensation. While many other quake-hit communities have built new houses, people along these two rivers have not. Krishna Majhi lives in unregistered land at Gumti village, 10km from the proposed dam. In 2017, the government had agreed to compensate structures on unregistered land. Till now, no payments have been made.Krishna uses part of his earthquake-damaged house as a kitchen but has spent five years living in a makeshift structure. “Even a small earthquake would now be enough to kill us, and we cannot dismantle it because we need to show it to the project for compensation,” he said. <img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636cccd49c7e80680e08bc43jpeg.jpg" alt="">Many promises were made to locals to persuade them to hand over their land, including of resettlement. They were asked to fill forms saying where they wanted to be resettled and what facilities they needed. “We were told that new villages will be built in the slopes above the reservoir we would be provided all facilities. But we have heard nothing since, all these years they tricked us,” said Sushil Dharel, from Khahare on the Ankhu Khola.Back at the compensation office, Karki says he can understand the frustration of the people, but adds, “The compensation amount is many times higher than the government rates, and there are rules. There are also people who have received millions in compensation and bought houses in Kathmandu.”Indeed, while some have done well from compensation payouts, the majority are from poorer communities without political clout or access. They resent the way the authorities downplay their problems.“Our field is irrigable, there is a market nearby and we can produce three crops a year. I can’t buy a piece of land in the city with our project compensation, how do I make a living there?” asks Pampha Khadka from Khahare, bursting into tears.  Government officials in Kathmandu do not have any clearer answers on resettlement, but say the details need to be ironed out.“We have drafted a resettlement policy, but there isn’t clarity on the modality of project implementation. Unless it is finalised, resettlement is not possible,” said Gokarna Raj Panta at Nepal’s Ministry of Water Resources, Energyand Irrigation.Botched resettlement policies are not new in projects in Nepal. And in Budi Gandaki, too, there are problems. Some families have spent the money they got on parties, which means they will be homeless and landless if not resettled. Many have used payouts to meet their daily needs or pay debt, buy motorbikes or educate and marry off their children.“I received about Rs100,000 for a piece of land. I spent Rs10,000 on my grandchildren and sent Rs 80,000 to my daughter in Kathmandu for her studies,” said Purna Bahadur Ale Magar from Arkhet.According to the <a href="https://bghep.gov.np/images/category/EIA-Final-Report-2016.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://bghep.gov.np/images/category/EIA-Final-Report-2016.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613840507629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEZ6Lul1s1B_1d91EBJUQE6RtCeUA">environmental impact assessment</a>, the reservoir will submerge 2,400 hectares of forests with 3.5 million trees of 38 species. The forests are home to 19 mammal species, 9 reptiles and 54 birds. They include 15 protected species, and there are five fish species on the IUCN red list, whose habitat will disrupted.  There has not been much interest from environmental activists and civil society groups in Nepal.  “There was interest in the 1990s about the social and environmental costs of large hydro projects, but Budi Gandaki shows that there is no concern anymore,” says  water resource expert Ajaya Dixit.  There is also cultural impact. Much of life in rural Nepal revolves around rivers, which are considered holy. The Budi Gandaki reservoir will submerge 44  cremation sites, 74 religious and 29 places of historic and cultural importance.   <img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636cccd89c7e80680e08bc44jpeg.jpg" alt="">“Even if you raise genuine and serious concern, you are tagged as being anti-development. I think this has helped to instill fear at all levels and civil society has fallen prey to it,” he added.The project will also undermine the region’s achievements in forest conservation. Some 1,500 hectares of community forests managed by 62 communities will be impacted bny the reservoir. The Pashupati Community Forest in Majhitar is one of them, where locals are cutting trees before the waters start rising.About 200m above the riverbank, Suresh Shah pointed out freshly cut tree stumps. “When I try to stop them, they say why do you care about these trees, we have lost everything,” he said. “Feelings of ownership had helped conserve the forest, but that is gone now.”  Karki, the project office manager, was unable to answer any questions on environmental issues, and his engineer was equally at a loss. “This is an issue which will be dealt with when construction starts. We have not thought about it and have not been advised on how to deal with it,” Karki said.After the deadly flood on the Alkananda River in India this month that destroyed two hydro power projects and killed at least 100 people, concerns about the impact of the climate crisis also loom large. The Budi Gandaki watershed drains the eastern flanks of Himalchuli and Manaslu and the Ganesh Mssif to the east, which has many glacial lakes in danger of bursting.Experts say it is very risky to build such a large and expensive projects directly downstream from mountains that are melting rapidly due to the climate emergency.In Kathmandu, three successive governments in the last three years have made as many decisions to award or scrap the contract with China Gezhouba Group Corporation. After pre-feasibility study in 1984, the project was sidelined till 2006, when it was opened to international bidders. No expressions of interest were received.It was next revived in 2011, when Nepal’s power outages exceeded 12 hours per day. Once again, international companies showed no interest, so the government opted to make Budi Gandaki into a ‘national pride project’ – a development priority with a bigger budget from domestic resources.In 2016, the Belgian multinational <a href="https://tractebel-engie.com/en/the-history-of-tractebel" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://tractebel-engie.com/en/the-history-of-tractebel&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613840507629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH6UKIRE1xX87FdmFnCa5KUg3vVAw">Tractebel</a> completed a detailed design. The project was set to move ahead with local funds and management when China entered the picture in 2017.A few days before leaving office, the Maoist party Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s cabinet awarded the project to China Gezhouba Group Corporation, without any bidding.In November 2017, the incoming Nepali Congress-led government promptly scrapped the contract stating irregularities and lack of transparency. A court action followed. Nepal got another new government four months later, and K P Oli became prime minister who returned the project to China Gezhouba in September 2018.Now the problem is that China Gezhouba is showing little interest and failing to respond to Nepali government requests for information.“It's not that Chinese are less interested now. They are just waiting for a favourable time as there is political chaos in the country,”said Nepali hydro-economist <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327182585_Power_Paradox_Growth_of_the_Hydro_Sector_in_Nepal" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327182585_Power_Paradox_Growth_of_the_Hydro_Sector_in_Nepal&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613840507629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFUZgWsCJNS8MFxLk3h6ib6tsjtCw">Ratna Sansar Shrestha.</a> In his view, China’s interest in Nepali hydro projects is limited to making money from construction contracts. “India has more interest in Nepal's water as it depends on water that flows from the mountains for irrigating vast swathes of land in the Gangetic plains,” Shrestha explained.   <img width="1778" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636cccdb9c7e80680e08bc45jpeg.jpg" alt="">Geopolitical friction The Budi Gandaki feeds into the Gandaki, one of Nepal’s four main rivers. It flows into India’s Bihar state and eventually empties into the Ganges.  Nepal and India signed the 1959 <a href="https://www.moewri.gov.np/storage/listies/May2020/aggrement-on-nepal-and-india-gandak-river-1959.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.moewri.gov.np/storage/listies/May2020/aggrement-on-nepal-and-india-gandak-river-1959.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613840507629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFnWToLZflbwMZONfOd4NCCvNXDzA">Gandak Treaty</a>, which bars Nepal from upstream activities that would impact water flow in Bihar, where millions of hectares of farmland depend on waters from the Gandak (as Gandaki is known in India). However, China’s growing influence in Nepal as the largest provider of foreign direct investment could lead to geopolitical friction, according to a <a href="https://asiafoundation.org/2018/08/15/the-price-of-power-the-political-economy-of-electricity-trade-and-hydropower-in-eastern-south-asia/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://asiafoundation.org/2018/08/15/the-price-of-power-the-political-economy-of-electricity-trade-and-hydropower-in-eastern-south-asia/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613840507629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGJXMeATWXJ7aUlNj-_Ex9ogLOAGw">2018 report by the Asia Society</a>. Chinese firms recently built two other hydro projects in Nepal at Upper Marsyangdi A and Upper Madi, with a combined capacity of 75 MW. But both are run-of-the-river schemes, unlike Budi Gandaki which would be a gigantic reservoir. Indian state owned and private firms have not built a power project in Nepal since the mid-1980s, although one is involved in large projects on the Arun River. However, India is promoting cross-border trade in electricity as part of the nascent BBNI (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) regional sub-group in its sphere of influence. Both Nepal and Bhutan have objected to the Indian power ministry’s statement in December 2016 that electricity was a ‘strategic commodity’ so non-BBNI foreign powers could not be involved in the supply chain.    Shrestha says India is not concerned about China’s involvement in the Budi Gandaki project, whose power is solely for domestic use, and it views the reservoir positively.  “In general, India is not happy with Chinese companies being involved in Nepal's hydropower, but in Budi Gandaki they are more than happy as India would get lean-season augmented flow for free,” he added.   India had said it was not interested in investing in or building the Budi Gandaki project, and withdrew from bilateral talks in the late 90s. Another water expert, Dipak Gyawali says that the irrigation aspect has been completely ignored in designing Budi Gandaki.   Gyawali headed a review committee formed by the government to look at the design, and says: “About 100,000 hectares of land in Nawalparasi and Chitwan districts downstream could have benefitted in Nepal. The water that flows in dry months from the reservoir is not flowing water, it's produced by submerging our land and through our investment. If India uses this water then we should get financial returns.” Another problem Gyawali sees in this project is that it is located close to the epicenter of the 2015 earthquake and may not be able to withstand a future megaquake. “For a seismically active region like Nepal, rock filled dams are better than concrete double arch dams as proposed on the design,” he said. But Laxmi Devkota, the former Chair of the Budi Gandaki Development Committee, claimed that it has been designed with a serious consideration for earthquake impacts and is within international seismic resistance parameters. The many delays risk making the Budi Gandaki project financially unviable. Costs are plummeting for other renewables, such as solar and wind power, and emerging hydrogen energy technology. According to the Asia Foundation <a href="https://asiafoundation.org/publication/the-price-of-power/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://asiafoundation.org/publication/the-price-of-power/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613840507629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHA-718IXF7L4V8YODxQxVtc-crlA"> report</a>, solar electricity tariffs in Rajasthan, India, fell from more than 19 cents per unit in 2010 to 3.6 cents, and wind energy was  around 3.7 cents. Nepal’s hydropower costs 7 cents per unit to produce. India, which is Nepal’s expected energy export market, is ramping up renewable energy capacity fast with 37 gigawatts of solar and 38 gigawatts in wind by 2020. However, Budi Gandaki’s output is planned for domestic use so need not compete directly in the regional market. Nonetheless, the technical costs are making its value questionable, even for domestic use. “If we can develop this project within five years then we will definitely save some money, but if it is the next 20 years then it would be a hotpot of corruption for politicians and bureaucrats. It looks like this project is losing its technical strength in terms of cost already,” said Dipendra Bhattarai, an energy expert. <a href="https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/04/09/nepals-hydropower/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/04/09/nepals-hydropower/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613840507629000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG8pzipmFIljVwAHCiTObtvXl5OUg">Who will buy Nepal’s hydropower?</a> Finally, the daily power cuts that drove Nepal's policymakers to revive the project in 2011 have ceased.  Nepal doubled its electricity production from 700MW in 2010 to 1400 MW in 2014. Another 700MW is likely to be added in the next couple of years. However, Nepal has been importing about 600 megawatts from India in the dry, winter months (November to April) to meet peak demand as the smaller run-of-the-river projects struggle when water levels are low-- one motivation to build a big reservoir.  The Budi Gandaki hydropower plant should have been completed by 2022. In 2015, the project cost was estimated at 2.5 billion— more than one fourth of Nepal’s total budget that year. Says Laxmi Devkota of the project: “We have already lost about half a billion dollars in the last four years if we consider just 10% inflation rate. Another one and half billion dollars could have been gained by selling electricity in the four years that were delayed. We are already on loss at total project cost amount.”  The story was first published on <a href="https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/">The Third Pole</a>. Accompanying video by Nabin Baral.

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Nepal’s mega-dam is a mirage

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21e89c7e80680e041761jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Dam site of Upper Karnali hydropower (900 MW) in Daab in Dailekh district. Indian company GMR is in final stage to start construction of the project. Photo: NABIN BARAL</figcaption></figure>Dal Bahadur Shahi lives in Tuinkuna, in Dailekh district of western Nepal. This is the proposed site for Nepal’s largest hydropower project, the 900 megawatt (MW) <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=6689#.XDSJuFUzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upper Karnali</a><a href="http://www.ibn.gov.np/project/upper-karnali-hep">.</a> He was in his 50s when he first heard that electricity would be produced from the river he used to cross it several times a day. “My arms could conquer the strongest waves of the river back then, but now I don’t dare to go near it,” he said. “Even if the project is built, I won’t be able to see it. But I hope that our sacrifice of leaving this place for the sake of the nation will not be forgotten.” Read also: Part 1: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/faith-to-reality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Faith to reality</a>Part 3: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-denial-in-the-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Climate denial in the Himalaya</a>Part 4: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dancing-with-the-river/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dancing with the river</a> Part 5: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-karnali-portrait/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Karnali portrait</a> <img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21eb9c7e80680e041762jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Dal Bahadur Shahi in Twinkuna in Dailekh district in the bank of Karnali river where the biggest hydropower is about to kick off. Shahi's family will be displaced once the dam construction starts. Photo: NABIN BARALIn the late 1990s, when the first project survey began, an engineer advised Dal Bahadur to buy more land so that he would receive compensation when the dam was built. But Shahi did not heed the advice, he did not have enough money anyway. There have been numerous surveys after that, but the locals were unaware of the wider water and electricity politics at play. In 2008 an Indian company, <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://www.gmrgroup.in/hand-shake.aspx">GMR</a> got the deal to carry out a detailed study, but a decade later the project is yet to take off. The company signed the project development agreement four years ago but has not yet managed to attract investors. “I don’t think this company has money. It looks like it will sell the license at higher price to another company and it will be delayed,” says another resident, Lokendra Rawat, who left his village in 2008 when the company set up a project office. “I came here to operate a hotel as the construction work would bring a lot of people. But it looks like I will be too old when it will be implemented,” he smiled. <img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21ee9c7e80680e041763jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1061">Map: STEFANO WROBLESKIRecently the company said it had provided compensation for the 250 families whose land will be submerged, but only a few people have received it. Dal Bahadur’s two sons were lucky to get compensation a few months ago. The company has now halted the compensation process and no one knows when it will resume. There is talk that the company is only paying compensation to influential and politically powerful people. The Upper Karnali has always been a high profile political project. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and Nepal’s then Prime Minister Sushil Koirala signed a deal for the project during Modi’s visit to Nepal in 2014. But investors have not been convinced and it is unclear who will buy the electricity. The project is designed to generate power for export to India, but there is no power purchase agreement. Frustrated by the lack of progress in India, last year the company signed a memorandum of understanding with Bangladesh, which could buy the electricity. Later in August this year Nepal signed a <a href="http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2018-08-11/nepal-bangladesh-sign-power-cooperation-deal.html">cooperation agreement</a> with Bangladesh aimed at facilitating power trade. Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/reservoirs-of-suspicion/hydropower-geopolitics%20,3991" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reservoirs of suspicion</a>, Om Astha Rai<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/storing-water-reservoir-Nepal,1042" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Storing water</a>, Bishal Thapa <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21f09c7e80680e041764jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>In Rabalde, power house site of Upper Karnali hydro project is seen through fish net hung in Roshan Buda'a home in Accham. Zinc sheet roofed buildings in the field is the office of GMR company which is building the project. Photo: NABIN BARAL</figcaption></figure>Nepal needs permission from India to take electricity across India to Bangladesh so all three countries need to agree on a deal. But experts say it’s not easy given the complex geopolitics of the region. Even so, India recently indicated that it’s open to trilateral trade by amending its earlier cross border trade regulation.Some speculate that this move to ease the trade of electricity was only to help the Indian company GMR to secure financing for Upper Karnali. Nevertheless the amendment is also good news for Chinese and other companies who have been eyeing bigger projects in Nepal. The project on the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18119#.XDSEGFUzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Karnali</a> Bend was first envisaged as a 240 MW project in the 1990s, but has grown in scale over the decades. GMR agreed to build a 900MW plant in 2008, but some technocrats and activists have blamed Nepal’s government for selling the project short. The feasibility study identified the possibility of developing a 4,180 MW project a little further upriver from where the current 900 MW project is planned. Whether this is really possible or not, given the fragile geology of the region, is another matter.“Why was the best and cheapest project to build handed over to a foreign company who will export the energy, while we have a shortage of power? It should be developed for us,” said Ratan Bhandari, a water rights activist from the region. <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21f39c7e80680e041765jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>A kayaker paddles in the Karnali River in Accham district of Nepal. Photo: NABIN BARAL</figcaption></figure>The current project will still be the biggest hydropower project in Nepal worth $1.5 billion. The Upper Karnali has rare <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/what-in-it-for-us,3994" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hydropower</a> potential, where water can be pushed through a 2.5 km tunnel over a drop of 130 metres, creating a huge generating capacity. This project is often called ‘jewel in the crown’ of Nepal’s hydropower. “Our jewel has been sold at the rate of coal,” says Ratna Sansar Shrestha, a hydro-economist. Nepal’s move towards big dams has come at a time when scientists warn that more extreme weather events like floods and landslides will increase in the already fragile mountains in the region. “The changing probabilities and magnitudes of extreme events can place additional risk on power generation infrastructure (dams and hydropower plants) as well as secondary infrastructure (roads and transmission lines). Further, hazards associated with shrinking glaciers, such as glacial lake outburst floods, can jeopardise large infrastructure investment,” says a <a href="http://lib.icimod.org/record/32006/files/StatKraft_Review_final.pdf">report</a> by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development. A <a href="http://lib.icimod.org/record/29591">study</a> in 2014 also revealed that Nepal’s glaciers have shrunk by 24% and its ice reserves by 29% over the past three decades.  <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21f69c7e80680e041766jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Mount Kailash in Tibet. Four large rivers of Asia originate from four sides of Mount Kailash-- the Brahmaputra (called Yarlung-Tsangpo) from the east, the Karnali from the south, the Sutlej from the west and the Indus from the north. Photo: NABIN BARAL</figcaption></figure>However, developers say that current knowledge about impacts of climate change in hydropower is inadequate and does not help better planning. While reports say that the hydropower projects will be impacted, they lack the details as to what degree, and what precisely to take into consideration, says Kumar Pandey of the <a href="http://www.ippan.org.np/page/ippan-committee/">Independent Power Producers Association Nepal</a> (IPPAN). “Investors need accurate information with evidence at micro scale so that they can use it while developing the project so there is need of specific knowledge about the impacts,” adds Pandey.  There are other dangers. Seismologists like Roger Bilham of the University of Coloradio say that a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/preparing-for-future-shocks,3472" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mega earthquake is long overdue</a> in western Nepal. “There are two dangers lurking beneath the Himalaya: one is the unfinished business of 2015, and the other is a looming megaquake in western Nepal,” <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/past-disasters-foretold/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">he told Nepali Times</a>. If built, the project will be the first hydropower plant on the Karnali, the country’s longest river which originates near Mount Kailash in Tibet and becomes Ghaghara in India before it meets the Ganga at the border of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.  Megh Ale, team leader of the Karnali expedition, believes the main stream of the Karnali should be left free-flowing, “We can bring millions of tourists here while other tributaries could be used for electricity,” he says (see below). Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/rivers-fighting-back,993" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The rivers are fighting back</a>, Megh Alehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns7jytSwpngBesides tourism, hydropower development would also <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/project-dragonfly/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">endanger aquatic species</a>. “Aquatic life has been threatened by hydropower across the country and if it continues many species will go extinct,” says Deep Narayan Shah, a researcher from Nepal’s Tribhuvan University’s Central Department of Environmental Science. Nepal’s hydropower policy has a mandatory provision for developers to maintain 10% flow of water downstream around the year, but this has not been implemented and monitored. Chief minister of Karnali Province Mahendra Bahadur Shahi says there has to be greater understanding about river ecosystems and suffering of people, who are critically dependent on the river and its resources, like fish. “We may revisit the agreement done with GMR and I have told them that it won’t go ahead as agreed,” he says as he joined the expedition on the banks of Karnali recently. However a few weeks later Shahi told journalists that he was willing to waive taxes for the developers, adding that without large hydroelectric projects, Karnali Province would remain poor.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1a6JHJufKgIt is common practice for companies to hold licences for years and then sell them to another company. Late last year, GMR (the same company that holds the licence for Upper Karnali) pulled out of the 600MW Upper Marsyangdi project after holding the licence for years.  A consortium of Nepali and Chinese investors bought shares from GMR just as work was due to start. The parliamentary committee of Nepal has <a href="http://setopati.net/market/134280">formed a probe committee</a> to investigate further.China is becoming a new but important player in Nepal’s energy politics, dominated by India for decades. There are two big projects in pipeline, the $2.5 billion <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/08/06/building-budhigandaki/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Budi Gandaki</a> and the $1.8 billion West Seti – both reservoir projects, and both controversial. Earlier last year, the Nepal government announced that the 750 MW <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19084#.XDSL01UzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">West Seti project</a>, on one of the tributaries of the Karnali in western Nepal, would be built by Nepali firms while the license of the project had already been given to China's Three Gorges Company (CTGC). Negotiations then failed, resulting in the Chinese withdrawing from the project.The 1,200MW Budhi Gandaki in central Nepal has also had a series of setbacks as the Nepal government awarded the project to China’s Ghezhuoba firm, only to scrap it a year later, and then re-awarding the contract to the same company.This has increased doubts among locals that Karnali will ever be built. “The most productive time of my life has gone waiting for this project to kick off,” says Bal Bahadur Shahi at Ramaghat, 3km downstream from the project site. Frustration is growing and locals are in a mood to fight back. Says Shahi: “We will wait at least for one more year. If the project is still not implemented, we will ask the government to take it over.” The story is jointly published by Nepali Times and <a href="https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/">The Third Pole</a>. Subsequent installments of this five-part series will appear from 8-11 January.

Dams and dreams a journey down the Karnali

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

Air pollution killing season starts early

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

Think locally, invest locally

Nepal needs to enact and enforce animal law

Public anxiety about immigration has become a powerful political currency across many liberal democracies. In Australia, as elsewhere, legitimate concerns about housing and economic fairness can be, and increasingly are exploited by anti-democratic actors who frame migration not as a policy issue but as a cultural threat.&nbsp;
When these narratives move from online spaces to public rallies, they do more than divide opinion; they erode the social trust and pluralism on which democracy depends. Understanding how populist and far-right movements weaponise migration debates is crucial to recognising the early challenging signs of liberal democracy.
Immigration has become one of the most politically charged issues in Australia, not only because of the numbers but because of its entanglement with cost-of-living pressures, housing shortages, and rent spikes.&nbsp;
The latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) <a href="https://www.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2025/september/how-we-live-latest-hilda-data-gives-insight-into-a-changing-australia">data</a> shows rising household financial stress as Australian households spending more on rent and income tax. These changes likely reflect a mix of economic and policy factors but create a lot of room for people to hold inaccurate and occasionally contradictory attitudes on these issues.&nbsp;
While net overseas migration has started to decline from its post-pandemic peak, public concern remains high, amplified by populist rhetoric. Some surveys have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/04/australians-want-less-migration-but-oppose-cutting-international-student-numbers-study-finds">revealed</a> a nuanced picture: most Australians want lower migration overall but oppose cutting international student numbers, and support targeted skilled migration to address workforce gaps.&nbsp;
As former Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil <a href="https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/ClareONeil/Pages/how-australia-broke-its-migration-system.aspx">argued</a> in 2023, Australia’s migration system is “broken and un-strategic”, not delivering for business, for migrants, or for the larger population. This is a situation that frustrates both sides of the debate and makes immigration an easy political flashpoint.
The recent <a href="https://marchforaustralia.org/">March for Australia</a> rallies turned these anxieties into street-level mobilisation. Tens of thousands <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjmre371l1o">protested</a> at what they called ‘mass immigration’, while far-right groups seized the opportunity to inject xenophobic slogans and calls for ‘remigration’ into the public space. These demonstrations were not only about visa caps or housing and jobs; they became performances of who is entitled to belong.&nbsp;
When immigration is framed not as a policy question but as a cultural test of Australianness, it risks shrinking the demos, the very community that democracy is meant to represent.
What made the March for Australia so striking was not only its size but its composition. Recent investigative reporting <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/don-t-mention-hitler-and-you-re-sweet-the-great-march-for-australia-deception-20250909-p5mtlc.html">revealed</a> that neo-Nazi groups were not merely present at the March for Australia rallies but played a role in covertly organising them. They amplified messaging online, coordinated attendance, and sought to mask their involvement to broaden appeal.&nbsp;
This highlights that democratic erosion is rarely spontaneous; it requires actors who deliberately exploit social grievances, mistrust, and polarisation to mobilise anger for their anti-democratic ends. The banners reading ‘<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/01/how-do-i-feel-safe-after-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-protest-ntwnfb">Stop Immigration</a>’ revealed that public hostility towards migrants, <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pressure-mounts-for-price-to-apologise-to-indian-australians-20250908-p5mt7x">particularly</a> from the Indo-Pacific, is growing.
For many migrants, these displays are more than conceptual debates about white national identity. They are experienced emotionally. Writing shortly after the rallies, Melbourne-based writer Jafrin Kabir <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/01/how-do-i-feel-safe-after-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-protest-ntwnfb">reflected</a> that she had never felt so foreign on Australian soil. She pays taxes and inflated rents, contributes skills in the national interest, cheers for the Tillies and calls Melbourne “home”, yet suddenly felt unsafe because of the origin and colour of her skin.&nbsp;
Similarly, Chinese national interviewed by media outlet <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3325127/i-feel-insecure-chinese-nationals-australia-blindsided-anti-immigration-marches">reported</a> cancelling weekend plans and feeling “blindsided” by the scale of the marches.
Scapegoating migrants especially in times of economic stress is an age-old phenomenon and is not just limited to Australia. Across the democratic world, from the United States to the UK and parts of Europe, hostility toward migrants and minorities has become a route for anti-democratic forces. Populist actors often <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/27/peter-dutton-keeps-blaming-migration-for-the-housing-crisis-but-can-it-really-be-that-simple">use</a> cultural anxiety and demographic change to justify illiberal and undemocratic measures, claiming to restore order while actually dismantling checks and balances.
By analysing democratic decay, scholars like Lydia Khalil at the Lowy Institute, <a href="https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/democratic-erosion/">argue</a> that democracies rarely break down at once. Instead, they incrementally weaken through vicious cycles: declining trust in institutions, entrenched division based on hate, the normalisation of political violence, and the bit by bit removal of norms and guardrails.&nbsp;
Though some of the conditions are present in Australia to be exploited by anti-democratic actors, for example, almost two-thirds of Australians believe their leaders intentionally mislead them, according to the <a href="https://www.edelman.com/au/trust/2025/trust-barometer">2025 Edelman Trust Barometer</a>, &nbsp;but their presence is not determinative.
Australia’s democratic guardrails remain strong: independent courts, transparent elections run by the AEC, and a free press continue to hold power to account. Federalism and active civil society further diffuse power and create space for contestation.&nbsp;
But if public trust continues to erode and social divisions deepen, these safeguards will come under strain. Early recognition and action are crucial to ensure that today’s street-level hostilities do not translate into institutional regression.
Preventing such outcome requires a socially embedded understanding of migration, an understanding that goes beyond simplistic optimistic and pessimistic views. Policy makers should go beyond Push-Pull models, functionalist and neoclassical and historical-structural theories.&nbsp;
Consulting the work done by <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/The-Age-of-Migration/Haas-Castles-Miller/9781462542895#:~:text=International%20Population%20Movements%20in%20the%20Modern%20World,-Hein%20de%20Haas">Hein de Haas</a> et-el, migration should be conceptualised as an intrinsic part of broader processes of development, social transformation and globalisation rather than a 'problem to be solved'. We need more nuanced views that have an eye for the complexity of migration processes and the diversity of its causes and impacts.
Sohail Akhtar is a Melbourne- based researcher focusing on governance, public policy, and migration. He contributes to Lowy Institute Sydney.
This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from <a href="https://toda.org/global-outlook/2025/is-street-level-hostility-a-challenge-to-liberal-democracy-reflections-from-australia.html">the original</a> with their permission.

dam

Nepal’s mega-dam is a mirage

Dams and dreams a journey down the Karnali

Air pollution killing season starts early

Think locally, invest locally

Nepal needs to enact and enforce animal law

Is street-level hostility a challenge to liberal democracy?