<figure><img width="1982" height="1162" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111015114/636d05af9c7e80680e0a5f1fjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and Prime Minister K P Oli enjoying a view of Kathmandu from the 11th floor of the Marriott Hotel on 21 April, in a failed attempt to patch up their differences and unite the UML party. Both now need each other, but neither is willing to compromise. Photo: SURYA THAPA / PMO</figcaption></figure>It was one of the defining images of the past year of internecine warfare among the two top leaders of the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party. 
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/its-broke-fix-it/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Prime Minister K P Oli</a> (KPO) and former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal (MKN) are seen looking out over Kathmandu Valley from the 11th floor window of the Marriott Hotel on 21 April. Nepal is pointing southwards in the general direction of Singha Darbar, and the two appear to be enjoying the view together.
But the message the photo was trying to convey was deceptive. “Of the four hours over two days they were together in the hotel, they spent three-and-half hours blaming each other,” confided a Nepal aide.
KPO needed MKN’s support to save his government, but that meeting and another one on 11 May mediated by helicopter tycoon Capt Rameshwar Thapa failed to bring the two together. 
A close KPO adviser admits that the quarrel is a “जुँगाको लडाईँ”, an ego-clash between two UML alpha males which goes back two decades. When MKN led the party and was prime minister 2009-11, he would not give KPO the time of day. KPO is returning the favour.
After the UML united with the Maoist Centre in May 2018 to form the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) following their election victory, Prime Minister Oli was caught up in a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-communists-on-verge-of-split-again/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">power struggle with Pushpa Kamal Dahal</a>. Nepal’s support for Dahal bolstered his strength within the NCP, allowing him to challenge Oli’s leadership of the party and government.
“There is a trust deficit between the two leaders that has built up over the years, but essentially it is not ideological,” says a UML member in the mediation group. “It can easily be resolved if the two sit down together and find a middle ground.”
KPO has worked up rage over MKN siding with Dahal, and even supporting <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/2-ex-pms-vie-to-be-nepal-pm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sher Bahadur Deuba of the opposition</a> Nepali Congress to replace him as prime minister. Nepal was among 126 MPs to file a writ at the Supreme Court to challenge Oli’s dissolution of the House on 21 May, and to make Deuba prime minister for the fifth time.
MKN’s main gripe is that KPO was intransigent, behaved like a dictator, never listened to anyone in the party, sidelined his supporters, and even tried to overturn the constitution to get his way.
Increasingly isolated, KPO sent MKN an olive branch in May with a six-point proposal to return to a pre-unification UML Central Committee. “But even that letter had ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ambiguous language that aroused suspicions that Oli was out to pull a fast one again,” said Ghanshyam Bhusal of the Nepal camp.
MKN and KPO supporters met again on Thursday in a last-ditch <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/efforts-to-cobble-back-the-uml/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">attempt to patch up differences</a> with a compromise centered on whether Oli is willing to go back to the composition of the 203-member UML Central Committee before he had diluted it with 38 of his own loyalists on 16 May 2018.
This should be fairly straightforward, but KPO’s single-mindedness does not allow it. Some of Oli’s own trusted advisers admit privately that they are increasingly exasperated by the prime minister surrounding himself with yes men, and spewing out increasingly vitriolic abuse at MKN. 
A day after MKN told reporters this week that KPO has offered him prime ministership, an angry KPO retorted that he had not been bitten by a mad dog to do such a thing. The prime minister’s remark was cheered by those present, but was mocked on social media.
Pushed to the edge, and with the prospect of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-supreme-court-restores-house/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a restored House</a> or elections, both Oli and Nepal find that they now need each other. But at the personal level, there seems to be just too much bad blood accumulated between the two for dozens of senior party cadres to get them to make up. 
MKN’s group was also in consultation all day  and decided not to take up KPO's invitation to join the Central Committee meeting on Friday. Said MKN loyalist Raghuji Pant: "We will not attend a meeting that was called unilaterally without consultation. But our efforts for party unity will continue. We haven't given up yet."
With <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/court-debates-nepal-pm-olis-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Supreme Court</a> deciding next week on the writ petitions, KPO is working on Plan B to cobble a majority in the House in case it is restored. For that he needs the UML to remain united with support of MKN.
Oli’s most loyal advisers Subhash Nembang and Pradeep Gyawali had opposed the prime minister’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-outraged-by-pm-oli-move/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">first dissolution of the House</a> on 20 December, and since then he has not hesitated to use extreme non-constitutional methods to keep MKN out. 
Says a member of the UML mediation group: “The party will not function if we stay united, and it will be weakened if we split — either way, we are doomed. The body language of the two leaders does not indicate a desire for accommodation to save the party.”

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Making up is hard to do

<figure></figure> <img width="720" height="480" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636ccd429c7e80680e08bc68jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>The Dahal-Nepal faction of the Nepal Communist Party, stage rallies in Ratna Park, Kathmandu, welcoming the SC decision to reinstate the Lower House of Parliament. Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI/NEPALI TIMES</figcaption> The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-supreme-court-restores-house/">Constitutional Bench of Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday</a> that a prime minister with a majority in Parliament did not have the authority to dissolve it, ending two months of speculation about whether it would back Prime Minister K P Oli’s dissolution of the Lower House. The five-member Constitutional Bench also ruled that Parliament be restored by 8 March, thus moving the focus of attention back to the legislature where there could be a struggle to form the next government and find a prime minister since the ruling party is now as good as split.Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali and Oli loyalist has said his faction of the party would honour the Court verdict because it believed in the Constitution and the rule of law.Analysts have welcomed the Bench’s decision, saying it sets a precedent for the future, and also firmly established the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary despite attempts by political factions to try to influence it.Both factions of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) had argued that the other side had leaned on the Supreme Court justices to make a ruling in its favour, with dire warnings about unleashing street unrest. <img width="909" height="453" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636ccd449c7e80680e08bc69jpeg.jpg" alt=""> Indeed, the verdict read out by Chief Justice Cholendra SJB Rana spelt out clearly why Oli’s step was unconstitutional. It said: ‘Prime Minister Oli’s recommendation to dissolve the House and its assent by the President lacked legal backing and went against the spirit, principles and values of the Constitution ... the decision is overturned.”The 15-page decision now reinstates the Lower House to its previous state. The verdict states: ‘The House will now be restored to its status quo before the unconstitutional dissolution because it is capable and empowered to do so.’Although the Constitution requires that a House session be called within six months of the dissolution of Parliament, the Supreme Court has directed the President’s Office, the Prime Minister’s Office and prime minister, Speaker Agni Sapkota to reconvene the House within 13 days. The decision has over-ruled the argument by the government’s lawyers that since the House dissolution was a political matter between factions of the ruling party, it did not need the intervention of the judiciary. It has also removed the need for an expensive snap election. With the dissolution of the House on 20 December, Prime Minister Oli had also called for early elections in April and May. The Election Commission had also started preparations for the polls. Elections will now be held as scheduled in 2022.The Supreme Court decision now sets a precedent that it is the responsibility of the judiciary to have a say in matters that deal with constitutional matters, especially its provisions and interpretation. It said: ‘If the boundaries laid by the Constitution have been crossed, and this Court is not allowed to rule on it because it is deemed to be political, then it will not have fulfilled its responsibility granted by the very Constitution.” In fact, the justices ruled that a precedent had been set by previous Supreme Court rulings based on the 1991 Constitution in which it had said that earlier dissolutions of the House were a constitutional matter within the jurisdiction of the apex court. It said such matters of constitutional importance could not be brushed aside because they are deemed to be ‘political’ in nature. Prime Minister Oli himself had submitted a written justification to the Court arguing that it was within the prerogative of the head of government to dissolve the House, as in other parliamentary democracies. The Bench argued that Nepal’s federal democratic Constitution was different from other parliamentary democracies, and the prime minister did not have the authority under the Constitution to dissolve the House.‘The Constitution clearly lays out the conditions under which the House can be dissolved, and it does not allow dissolution based on someone’s personal whims or fancy, or when there are other alternatives for government formation to have expensive elections that would burden the people,’ the verdict further notes. There were 13 writ petitions against the Prime Minister’s move, and they accused him of dissolving the House with ill intent. However, the Court said it did not see the need to decide on the prime minister’s motive at the present time.Meanwhile, Pushpa Kamal Dahal who leads the faction opposed to Oli said he would now start talking with the smaller parties to try to establish a majority in Parliament. He said he would not make a bid for prime ministership, but admitted that if the other parties wanted he would be willing to take the job. Dahal and his loyalists have ruled out reuniting with the Oli faction, saying there is now there is too much bad blood between the two. This leaves the possibility of the Dahal faction allying with the opposition Nepali Congress and smaller parties to form the next government.

Supreme Court puts Nepal politics back on track

While the streets of Kathmandu were erupting violent GenZ protests that brought down the government, Nepal’s athletes were achieving different kinds of breakthroughs on Spain’s mountain trails and in the cricket qualifiers in the UAE.&nbsp; On 27 September, two weeks after the uprising back home, Nepal's cricket team stunned the sporting world with their first-ever victory against a full member nation — defeating two-time World Cup champions West Indies by 19 runs, then crushing them by 90 runs two days later to seal a historic 2-0 series victory. On that very day, 5,000km away in the Spanish Pyrenees Sunmaya Budha stood on a podium alongside American and European champions, clutching a silver medal from the 3rd World Mountain and Trail Running Championships. No Asian athlete had ever finished this high in the Long Trail competition at the World Championships. While youth back home showed they would not tolerate injustice and could carve their own future, young Nepalis were securing it on the global sports stage even in moments of national crisis.&nbsp; The Long Trail event at the 2025 World Championships was designed to break even the strongest athletes. Stretching 82km through the Spanish Pyrenees, the course features an unrelenting 5,413m of elevation gain and descent.&nbsp; Athletes faced everything from steep scree slopes to narrow ridge lines, from boulder fields requiring scrambling to precipitous descents demanding total concentration. One misstep could mean injury, one lapse in focus could cost precious minutes.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_81152b4754331c4858ed2d0d28204e6a92559faf089fea9ebc84156766ff228a.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025101909108_81152b4754331c4858ed2d0d28204e6a92559faf089fea9ebc84156766ff228a" data-rendition-name="original" width="977" height="731" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>The Nepal team at the World Championships 2025 with the final four: Sangge Sherpa, Sunmaya Budha, Suman Kulung, Man Kumar Roka Magar. Photo: PREETI KHATTRI</figcaption> </figure>  WOMEN'S COMPETITION Katie Schide (USA) - Winner • Time: 9:57:59 • Average pace: 7:18 per km&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sunmaya.budha.942">Sunmaya Budha </a>(Nepal) - Silver Medal • Time: 10:23:03 • Gap behind winner: 25 minutes and 4 seconds • Average pace: 7:36 per km Most recreational trail runners need 18-24 hours to complete this course, if they can finish it at all. Budha's pace means she was running at a speed that most casual runners could not maintain on a flat course, let alone while constantly climbing and descending mountains. MEN'S COMPETITION Jim Walmsley (USA) - Winner • Time: 8:35:11 • Average pace: 6:17 per kilometer (10:07 per mile) &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/runnersumankulung">Suman Kulung (Nepal)</a> - 32nd Place • Time: 10:06:25 • Average pace: 7:24 per km • Finished 1 hour 31 minutes behind the winner • Best performance by an Asian male athlete &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rokamagarmankumar764">Man Kumar Roka Magar (Nepal)</a> - 37th Place • Time: 10:10:53 • Average pace: 7:27 per km • Finished just 4.5 minutes behind Kulung <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Yetimannnnn">Sangge Sherpa (Nepal)</a> - 116th Place • Time: 12:33:09 • Average pace: 9:11 per km  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_2255845b43e68b14d3b111099124f9c98898bbe9016299b9af278aca8b4377f7.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025101909108_2255845b43e68b14d3b111099124f9c98898bbe9016299b9af278aca8b4377f7" data-rendition-name="original" width="977" height="904" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Sangge Sherpa organising himself post gear check in Can-Franc.</figcaption> </figure>  The men's winner averaged about 6:17/km on a course where elite mountain runners were struggling. Kulung and Roka Magar maintained a 7:24-7:27/km pace—faster than many recreational runners' easy flat road pace. They were faster than dozens of European athletes who train in the Alps. Even Sherpa's 9:11/km average pace over 12+ hours represents an extraordinary feat of endurance, maintaining forward progress on some of the most challenging mountain terrain in competitive trail running. “What set Budha apart was her exceptional descending ability. She recorded the fastest downhill speed among all women in the competition—a skill honed through years of training on Nepal’s steep mountain trails,” said her team director Ryan S Blair.&nbsp; Sunmaya Budha, ranked world 8th for 100km category events and 17th in the world by the International Trail Running Association (ITRA), entered the race having recently recovered from injuries to both legs.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_38d8bee04beaa6443480ecf4765e6b34f91d2d105128f292f73702072a820d25.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2025101909108_38d8bee04beaa6443480ecf4765e6b34f91d2d105128f292f73702072a820d25" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1070" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Sunmaya storming in 2nd position. Photo: WMTRC2025 CANFRAC </figcaption> </figure>  While American Katie Schide dominated from the front, Budha found herself in an intense battle for second place with Italy's Fabiola Conti, a specialised skyrace and mountain marathon runner. The two runners remained locked together through much of the course, running side-by-side at key checkpoints and pushing each other through the mountain wilderness. In ultra-trail racing, where climbs are often win by fractions of minutes, the ability to descend fearlessly and efficiently can make the difference between podium positions. Budha's technical prowess on the descents gave her a advantage over her European competitors. The decisive moment came in the final 20km. At the 65km mark, Budha held a 90-second lead over Conti. By 71.5km she had extended her advantage to eight minutes — a commanding gap she maintained to the finish. In a powerful display of national pride, she approached the finish wrapped in the Nepali flag, showing the world what Himalayan athletes can achieve on the global stage. Said Preeti Khattri, team lead for Nepal: "Standing right beside the USA and European peer. Proud. No Asian athletes have ever made it this far.” MEN, TOO While Budha captured headlines with her silver medal, the performances of Suman Kulung and Man Kumar Roka Magar were equally significant. Both athletes topped Asian athletes and numerous European competitors. Suman Kulung delivered a performance that demonstrated extraordinary mental toughness and racing intelligence. What makes his 32nd place finish even more impressive is that 1.5km he encountered a severe bottleneck on narrow technical trails.&nbsp; This critical delay pushed him back to around 92nd position—a devastating setback in a world championship race where every second counts. Many athletes would have been demoralised by such an early disaster.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_e2f358723ea8abaa262e749a4c6afb0a179cf9f3e0bb4eab1d973e25b9b00f09.png" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2025101909108_e2f358723ea8abaa262e749a4c6afb0a179cf9f3e0bb4eab1d973e25b9b00f09" data-rendition-name="original" width="668" height="445" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Suman Kulung coming through 65km Assisted Checkpoint. Photo: DR SIGRID FOUNDATION</figcaption> </figure>  But Kulung showed why he is Nepal's top-ranked trail runner: he launched a spectacular comeback. By the 30km mark, he had charged through the field to reach approximately 20th position — recovering over 70 places in less than 30km.&nbsp; His final time of 10:06:25 placed him ahead of runners from traditional mountain running powers including Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, and was the highest-finishing Asian male athlete in the competition.

Nepali runners score breakthroughs

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

Digitising the savant calligrapher

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

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