<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebb99c7e80680e09ad22jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"/><figcaption>All photos: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>As Covid-19 cases continue their record-breaking rise every day, the three district chiefs of Kathmandu Valley agreed on Tuesday to extend the lockdown announced on 29 April for two weeks till 12 May.The decision was taken with further restrictions on movement, and people not allowed to be on the roads unless for funerals or hospital treatment. Market-times have also been shortened to 7-9AM only.All domestic flights in Nepal have been suspended, although helicopter rescues and some charter flights were allowed to operate on Tuesday.From Wednesday midnight, the government has also suspended all international flights till 14 May, allowing only two flights a week between Kathmandu and Delhi.This last decision has come under intense criticism on Nepal's cybersphere, with many ridiculing the rationale for continuing flights to the world's biggest coronavirus hotspot while stopping flights to the rest of the world.Others have railed against the decision to stop outbound flights, even before other countries have banned flights from Nepal. So far, only Hong Kong and Singapore have stopped direct flights from Kathmandu. Airlines have pleaded with the government to at least allow them to bring planes in empty to fly out passengers booked on flights out of Kathmandu.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebbb9c7e80680e09ad23jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="598"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebbf9c7e80680e09ad24jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebc19c7e80680e09ad25jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="641"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebc39c7e80680e09ad26jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="748" height="499"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebc69c7e80680e09ad27jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cebc89c7e80680e09ad28jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640">Nepal recorded 7,587 new Covid-19 cases-- the highest so far in the pandemic--from 16,702PCR tests on Tuesday. There were 55 fatalities in the past 24 hours, bringing the total tally for Covid-19 deaths to 3417. Altogether 1775 people recovered from the disease on Tuesday, with the number of active cases reaching almost 60,000 nationwide.Meanwhile, in Kathmandu the city's only electric crematorium at Pashupati that had been designated for Covid-19 patients could not handle bodies even while running round the clock. It has had to arrange pyres for coronavirus dead on the banks of the Bagmati.The crematorium can only take 16 funerals a day, and the number of daily fatalities in Kathmandu have been 20 every day for the past week. In addition, one of the two incinerators at the crematory has broken down.Families of the dead are not allowed inside, and have to watch the group cremation from the other side of the Bagmati River, and often cannot tell which one is the body of their loved ones.

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Kathmandu Valley lockdown till 12 May

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83959c7e80680e067745jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"/><figcaption>All photos: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>As Covid-19 cases continue their record-breaking rise every day, the three district chiefs of Kathmandu Valley agreed on Tuesday to extend the lockdown announced on 29 April for two weeks till 12 May.The decision was taken with further restrictions on movement, and people not allowed to be on the roads unless for funerals or hospital treatment. Market-times have also been shortened to 7-9AM only.All domestic flights in Nepal have been suspended, although helicopter rescues and some charter flights were allowed to operate on Tuesday.From Wednesday midnight, the government has also suspended all international flights till 14 May, allowing only two flights a week between Kathmandu and Delhi.This last decision has come under intense criticism on Nepal's cybersphere, with many ridiculing the rationale for continuing flights to the world's biggest coronavirus hotspot while stopping flights to the rest of the world.Others have railed against the decision to stop outbound flights, even before other countries have banned flights from Nepal. So far, only Hong Kong and Singapore have stopped direct flights from Kathmandu. Airlines have pleaded with the government to at least allow them to bring planes in empty to fly out passengers booked on flights out of Kathmandu.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83989c7e80680e067746jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="598"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b839b9c7e80680e067747jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b839e9c7e80680e067748jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="641"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83a19c7e80680e067749jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="748" height="499"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83a39c7e80680e06774ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83a69c7e80680e06774bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640">Nepal recorded 7,587 new Covid-19 cases-- the highest so far in the pandemic--from 16,702PCR tests on Tuesday. There were 55 fatalities in the past 24 hours, bringing the total tally for Covid-19 deaths to 3417. Altogether 1775 people recovered from the disease on Tuesday, with the number of active cases reaching almost 60,000 nationwide.Meanwhile, in Kathmandu the city's only electric crematorium at Pashupati that had been designated for Covid-19 patients could not handle bodies even while running round the clock. It has had to arrange pyres for coronavirus dead on the banks of the Bagmati.The crematorium can only take 16 funerals a day, and the number of daily fatalities in Kathmandu have been 20 every day for the past week. In addition, one of the two incinerators at the crematory has broken down.Families of the dead are not allowed inside, and have to watch the group cremation from the other side of the Bagmati River, and often cannot tell which one is the body of their loved ones.

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7d09c7e80680e0967e2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3687" height="2458"/><figcaption>All photos: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>As a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-covid-tsunami/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">resurgence of Covid-19</a> engulfs Nepal, the two incinerators at the sole electric crematorium in Kathmandu have been in operation non-stop for the past week.The daily death toll on Thursday and Friday surpassed the highest daily rate during the first peak in October. The number of new cases detected every day is now also at about the same level as the highest point last year, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/our-health-system-cant-contain-the-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of increase is much steeper</a>.On Friday, 5,657 new cases were reported across Nepal, with nearly 3,000 of them in Kathmandu Valley. There were 33 Covid-19 fatalities on Friday, and 35 on Thursday – most of them in Kathmandu Valley. The official death toll from Covid-19 is now 3,279, although public health experts put the number at much higher.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7d39c7e80680e0967e3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3563" height="2375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7d69c7e80680e0967e4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3999" height="2666"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7db9c7e80680e0967e5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3836" height="2561"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7df9c7e80680e0967e6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4018" height="2679"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The electric crematorium in Pashupati has been set aside for Covid-19 patients, with the Nepal Army handling the bodies. Relatives are not allowed inside to perform last rites and many distraught relatives are seen outside the gate with garlands and flowers in their hands.The total confirmed cases in Nepal has now reach 323,187, with 281,095 recoveries. There are now nearly 39,000 active cases in the country, up from a low of 480 in mid-March. This means the recovery rate has dropped from 98% last month to 87%. Only 928 people were discharged from hospitals, or recovered from the virus on Friday.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7e59c7e80680e0967e7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3679" height="2448"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7ea9c7e80680e0967e8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3965" height="2646"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7ef9c7e80680e0967e9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3744" height="2496"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111013110/636ce7f29c7e80680e0967eajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3393" height="2259"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The 5,657 new cases were detected out of nearly 16,000 PCR tests in the past 24 hours, and this shows that the positivity rate has also risen sharply to more than 35%. Of the new cases in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mom-in-delhi-dad-in-kathmandu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kathmandu Valley</a>, 2,404 were in Kathmandu, 419 in Lalitpur and 133 in Bhaktapur. The Tarai cities like Birganj, Nepalganj, Dhangadi and Bhairawa also reported high rates of infections.

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Kathmandu electric crematorium running non-stop

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

Turkish Basketball

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

The Last Days of the Khampa

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

Turkish to Seville

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

electric-crematorium

Kathmandu Valley lockdown till 12 May

Kathmandu Valley lockdown till 12 May

Kathmandu electric crematorium running non-stop

Turkish Basketball

The Last Days of the Khampa

Turkish to Seville

Digital protection for Nepal’s art