<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beef44b0ad905ca02ef7ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Photos: BNMT</figcaption></figure>Drone therapy for tuberculosis diagnosis in Nepal’s remote and hard to reach mountains has won at the <a href="https://tiaca.org/tiaca-press-release/pelican-biothermal-and-nepal-flying-labs-win-2020-tiaca-air-cargo-sustainability-awards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2020 International Air Cargo Association (TIACA)</a> Sustainability Awards and will receive $10,000 in prize money as a start-up category winner.The winning project, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-tests-and-treats-tb-with-a-flying-pharmacy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Drone Optimised Therapy System</a> (DrOTS) by Nepal Flying Labs links rural health posts with high-end diagnostic tool via drones to improve the accessibility of tuberculosis diagnostic tests.“In a year marked by a global pandemic which disrupted our industry, problem solving and forward-thinking companies like Nepal Flying Labs bring hope that air cargo can come out of this crisis stronger and more resilient,” says Céline Hourcade of TIACA, which celebrates and encourages outstanding industry initiatives driving sustainability in air cargo.Under DrOTS, drones fly from a central district hospital to health posts in the mountains to collect sputum samples and deliver both diagnoses and treatment to patients living in up-country villages. The samples are tested using a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/for-nepal-a-game-changer-in-tb-control/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">high-end GenExpert kit</a>.If they are positive, patients are given DOTS (directly observed treatment short course) treatment using smart pill boxes, which keep electronic records of whether or not patients have taken the antibiotics regularly.The highly competitive award evaluated humanitarian projects based on three aspects of sustainability -- economic social and environmental -- as well as innovation and practicality of the applied solution. The winners were announced online on 10 December.The project had also won the prestigious industry award from the <a href="https://www.auvsi.org/industry-news/winners-2020-xcellence-awards" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Association for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles</a> – the AUVSI XCELLENCE Award 2020 in Humanitarian and Public Safety category in October.The goal of this project is to assist Nepal’s Ministry of Health in generating data on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tuberculosis</a> and support it in its efforts to reduce the prevalence of the infection. This perfectly curable medieval disease is the biggest infectious killer in the world today, more than HIV or malaria.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf4OpwoblRc&amp;feature=emb_logoWhile Nepal is a role model in the community-based DOTS treatment, which ensures index patients are taking their medicines, this alone will not suffice in the battle against TB, since a patient would often have already infected others in the household and workplace. Which is why active case finding and early treatment is the key.The first comprehensive national TB prevalence survey 2018-19 in Nepal showed that the burden of TB in Nepal is much higher than previously estimated. There are now known to be 245 TB cases per 100,000 people – which means there are 69,000 new cases each year. Some 6,000 people in Nepal die every year because of the infection while every other Nepali is a carrier of TB.“Tragically over 35,000 cases of TB are not due to difficulties reaching the basic health services. To accelerate progress towards the end of TB in Nepal we must increase efforts to reach remote and disadvantaged populations with high quality TB services,” says Maxine Caws, epidemiologist with BNMT. “The drone project project represents one such approach to solve this problem, and also has the potential to address many other health challenges facing rural populations of Nepal.”The DrOTS test flight was conducted successfully in Piuthan district in western Nepal last year. Since then, over 106 flights have been carried out, collecting and delivering more than 742 sputum samples, with a result of 26 positive cases from eight remote health facilities. The technology has also been used for TB control in Zimbabwe and Papua New Guinea.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beef84b0ad905ca02ef7bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption>Locals wait for drone to arrive.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beefb4b0ad905ca02ef7cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption>Using the drone interface.</figcaption></figure>The drones weigh 9kg when empty and can carry another 7kg in a cargo hold designed to protect against biohazards; they can be airborne for 30 minutes. The craft flies at speeds of up to 1km per minute, and is controlled by a pilot at the take-off point who coordinates with a health worker at the destination.The DrOTS project is a multidisciplinary consortium of Birat Nepal Medical Trust (BNMT Nepal), DroNepal, Nepal Flying Labs, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK and WeRobotics, Switzerland working in partnership with the Nick Simons Institute, National Tuberculosis Centre, and Stony Brook University, USA.Says Biplav Pageni of Nepal Flying Labs: “We hope to scale our drone cargo technology to other rural locations and establish networks of medical cargo drones to help more people in the coming days. Drones are said to be the future of air cargo but I believe they are the present and we are using it to save lives in Nepal.”

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Nepal anti-TB drone project awarded

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be7f69c7e80680e087831jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Photos: BNMT</figcaption></figure>Drone therapy for tuberculosis diagnosis in Nepal’s remote and hard to reach mountains has won at the <a href="https://tiaca.org/tiaca-press-release/pelican-biothermal-and-nepal-flying-labs-win-2020-tiaca-air-cargo-sustainability-awards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2020 International Air Cargo Association (TIACA)</a> Sustainability Awards and will receive $10,000 in prize money as a start-up category winner.The winning project, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-tests-and-treats-tb-with-a-flying-pharmacy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Drone Optimised Therapy System</a> (DrOTS) by Nepal Flying Labs links rural health posts with high-end diagnostic tool via drones to improve the accessibility of tuberculosis diagnostic tests.“In a year marked by a global pandemic which disrupted our industry, problem solving and forward-thinking companies like Nepal Flying Labs bring hope that air cargo can come out of this crisis stronger and more resilient,” says Céline Hourcade of TIACA, which celebrates and encourages outstanding industry initiatives driving sustainability in air cargo.Under DrOTS, drones fly from a central district hospital to health posts in the mountains to collect sputum samples and deliver both diagnoses and treatment to patients living in up-country villages. The samples are tested using a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/for-nepal-a-game-changer-in-tb-control/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">high-end GenExpert kit</a>.If they are positive, patients are given DOTS (directly observed treatment short course) treatment using smart pill boxes, which keep electronic records of whether or not patients have taken the antibiotics regularly.The highly competitive award evaluated humanitarian projects based on three aspects of sustainability -- economic social and environmental -- as well as innovation and practicality of the applied solution. The winners were announced online on 10 December.The project had also won the prestigious industry award from the <a href="https://www.auvsi.org/industry-news/winners-2020-xcellence-awards" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Association for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles</a> – the AUVSI XCELLENCE Award 2020 in Humanitarian and Public Safety category in October.The goal of this project is to assist Nepal’s Ministry of Health in generating data on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tuberculosis</a> and support it in its efforts to reduce the prevalence of the infection. This perfectly curable medieval disease is the biggest infectious killer in the world today, more than HIV or malaria.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf4OpwoblRc&amp;feature=emb_logoWhile Nepal is a role model in the community-based DOTS treatment, which ensures index patients are taking their medicines, this alone will not suffice in the battle against TB, since a patient would often have already infected others in the household and workplace. Which is why active case finding and early treatment is the key.The first comprehensive national TB prevalence survey 2018-19 in Nepal showed that the burden of TB in Nepal is much higher than previously estimated. There are now known to be 245 TB cases per 100,000 people – which means there are 69,000 new cases each year. Some 6,000 people in Nepal die every year because of the infection while every other Nepali is a carrier of TB.“Tragically over 35,000 cases of TB are not due to difficulties reaching the basic health services. To accelerate progress towards the end of TB in Nepal we must increase efforts to reach remote and disadvantaged populations with high quality TB services,” says Maxine Caws, epidemiologist with BNMT. “The drone project project represents one such approach to solve this problem, and also has the potential to address many other health challenges facing rural populations of Nepal.”The DrOTS test flight was conducted successfully in Piuthan district in western Nepal last year. Since then, over 106 flights have been carried out, collecting and delivering more than 742 sputum samples, with a result of 26 positive cases from eight remote health facilities. The technology has also been used for TB control in Zimbabwe and Papua New Guinea.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be7fa9c7e80680e087832jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption>Locals wait for drone to arrive.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be7fe9c7e80680e087833jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption>Using the drone interface.</figcaption></figure>The drones weigh 9kg when empty and can carry another 7kg in a cargo hold designed to protect against biohazards; they can be airborne for 30 minutes. The craft flies at speeds of up to 1km per minute, and is controlled by a pilot at the take-off point who coordinates with a health worker at the destination.The DrOTS project is a multidisciplinary consortium of Birat Nepal Medical Trust (BNMT Nepal), DroNepal, Nepal Flying Labs, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK and WeRobotics, Switzerland working in partnership with the Nick Simons Institute, National Tuberculosis Centre, and Stony Brook University, USA.Says Biplav Pageni of Nepal Flying Labs: “We hope to scale our drone cargo technology to other rural locations and establish networks of medical cargo drones to help more people in the coming days. Drones are said to be the future of air cargo but I believe they are the present and we are using it to save lives in Nepal.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf4OpwoblRc&amp;feature=youtu.beProblem: Some 70% of Nepalis are carriers of the tuberculosis bacillus and many of them have full-blown versions of the disease. Although diagnosis and treatment is available, the sick cannot travel to hospitals. How to test the sputum of patients, and deliver antibiotics in remote and road-less parts of Nepal?Solution: By drones.Nepal has been acclaimed for its directly observed treatment short course (DOTS) for treating tuberculosis, which demands a combination of antibiotics that are administered under supervision. However, TB is difficult to diagnose and treat in remote parts of this country.That is why the Britain Nepal Medical Trust (BNMT) is taking a big leap in treating TB with a pilot project in a remote part of Piuthan district in the mountains of central Nepal. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TB</a>, Sonia Awale<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/tb-or-not-tb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TB or not TB</a>, EditorialThe Trust has cleverly recycled the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=294#.XPkeWBYzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DOTS</a> acronym to DrOTS, this time to mean Drone Optimised Therapy System, and is running test flights in the district to collect sputum samples and deliver both diagnoses and treatment to patients living in up-country villages.The drone flies to health posts in the mountains, and returns sputum samples to the district hospital in Swargadwari Municipality and the public health centre (PHC) in Piuthan Municipality. The samples are tested using a <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17747#.XPkeaxYzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GenExpert kit</a>. If they are positive, patients are given DOTS treatment using smart pill boxes, which keep electronic records of whether or not patients have taken the antibiotics.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a44c69c7e80680e04d34djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Photo: RAMU SAPKOTA</figcaption></figure>“We are using the drones experimentally to ensure that we can reach the hidden cases of tuberculosis, since every untreated patient is a potential carrier of the disease and can spread it,” explains Shraddha Acharya, BNMT coordinator in Piuthan.During the pilot phase, drones will be used only to collect sputum samples from remote settlements. If the tests are successful, the Trust hopes to use the unmanned craft to also deliver medicine.Thanks to the initiative, health personnel will no longer need to walk for days to deliver sputum samples from health centres in the villages to the district hospital and PHC for testing, and then return with medicines for those who test positive. The current system results in delays in getting medicines to patients, and also lack of supervision administering the antibiotics.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/for-nepal-a-game-changer-in-tb-control/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">For Nepal, a game-changer in TB control</a>, Buddha Basnyat and Maxine CawsCommunity Health Worker Sita GC (pictured above) says the drones are god-sent because they can deliver samples in 25 minutes, where earlier it took 2-3 days. “Logistics was a huge problem because of unreliable transport; now it is easy to diagnose and treat quickly,” she adds.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a44ca9c7e80680e04d34ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427">Maxine Caws (pictured above) of BNMT, an epidemiologist with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, says the drones are being tested in Piuthan because it is the mountain district in Nepal with the highest TB prevalence. Last year, the district treated 379 patients for tuberculosis, but 335 new cases were detected in the same period.The remote-controlled craft are handled by drone specialist Nepal Flying Lab. “We found this to be an exciting project because the drones are ideal for bridging distances to remote areas and the sputum samples and medicines are not too heavy,” says the lab’s Uttam Pudasaini, who adds this is the first time such deliveries are being tested in Asia.The drones weigh 9kg when empty and can carry another 7kg in a cargo hold designed to protect against biohazards; they can be airborne for 30 minutes. The craft flies at speeds of up to 1km per minute, and is controlled by a pilot at the takeoff point who coordinates with a health worker at the destination. In future, the project plans to train health workers to fly the drones themselves.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a44cd9c7e80680e04d34fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a44d19c7e80680e04d350jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a44d49c7e80680e04d351jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="359">The technology has been used for TB control in Zimbabwe and Papua New Guinea. In Nepal, the pilot project is funded by the Nick Simons Institute till December. “Further extension will be determined by whether it is successful and cost-effective,” says Caws.Sita GC says so far up to 35 positive cases of TB have been detected from sputum samples in Piuthan this month. However, many people refuse to give samples, and others do not follow instructions on taking antibiotics.The ministry of health is also involved in the drone trials. Spokesperson Mahendra Shrestha says that if the tests are successful the government will take over the program and try to replicate it for TB control in other remote areas.“If this project is successful, Piuthan and Nepal will be famous worldwide. But the biggest challenge is to first make the tests work,” says Shrestha.<h2>TB or not TB</h2><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a44d79c7e80680e04d352jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>There are 10 million new cases of tuberculosis every year, and the medieval disease still takes the lives of 1.5 million people annually worldwide.South Asia accounts for 40% of the global TB burden, with over 4 million cases as well as 40% of total fatalities, a third of them patients who succumbed after they failed to respond to treatment. But worsening air pollution, smoking and alcoholism are big risk factors for TB infection in the region.Some 11 Nepalis die every day from the highly contagious infection.There are 40,000 new cases of TB here every year, and Nepal also has a very high rate of latent TB infection. Despite antibiotics, it is often difficult to reach patients in underserved parts of the country and Nepal’s harsh terrain makes it hard to access diagnosis and treatment on time. Experts say there is huge under-reporting of cases.Nepal is a role model in the community-based DOTS (directly observed treatment short course), with its supervised administration of antibiotics to patients. Yet, experts say much more aggressive <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/for-nepal-a-game-changer-in-tb-control/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">case detection and an early treatment system</a> should be in place if the country is to meet the UN target of reducing TB mortality by 95% and cutting new cases by 90%, by 2035.This means developing techniques to reach the poorest in the remotest parts of the country, and also requires increases in Nepal’s TB control budget and prioritising the infection otherwise known as the ‘poor man’s disease’.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/resistance-to-live-saving-drugs-threatens-to-set-back-progress-in-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MDR (multi-drug resistant) TB</a> is also spreading, as patients develop resistance to commonly used drugs for treatment. The last survey in Nepal showed that among previously treated cases, anti-microbial resistance was found in 15.8% of cases, against the world average of 18%.Nepal also has the added challenge of an open border with India and migrant workers continue to bring infections home, while many patients from India come to this country for treatment.The UN General Assembly held its first-ever, high-level meeting on tuberculosis last year to draw attention and generate investment for TB research, treatment and diagnosis. The SAARC TB Centre located in Kathmandu focuses on prevention and control of tuberculosis and TB/HIV co-infection. Research is also needed for non-resistant drugs with shorter regimen.Sonia Awale

Nepal tests and treats TB with a flying pharmacy

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

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

Nepal needs to enact and enforce animal law

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.

drots

Nepal anti-TB drone project awarded

Nepal anti-TB drone project awarded

Nepal tests and treats TB with a flying pharmacy

Air pollution killing season starts early

Digitising the savant calligrapher

Nepal needs to enact and enforce animal law

Think locally, invest locally