Kathmandu Valley, once known for its bumper harvests of rice, has seen declining production because urban expansion is devouring once fertile rice fields.&nbsp; There are still some terraces on the outskirts of the city that have rice fields, but even these are threatened by new settlements. The same is true of Pokhara Valley, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/pokhara-tries-to-save-its-famous-paddy" target="_blank">home to Pokhreli, Jetha Buda</a> and other brands of indigenous rice. The middle of Asar is time for rice planting, and 29 June was the supposed to be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/not-so-soon-monsoon/" target="_blank">National Paddy Plantation Day</a>. It is a festival not just for transplanting paddy seedlings on water-logged fields, but also for jubiliation and merrymaking. This year, there was not much to celebrate on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-celebrates-paddy-planting-day/" target="_blank">Paddy Planting Day</a>. Only 10% of farms across Nepal have transplanted paddy seedlings, whereas the normal figure for end-June is double that.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630100624_89fa0f1ab01aa249120c080bda65230d98bfd9799adf6f066b16c56cc1bae611.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240630100624_89fa0f1ab01aa249120c080bda65230d98bfd9799adf6f066b16c56cc1bae611" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Rice plantation Nepal"> <figcaption>An excavator makes way for land plotting even as a child prepares to plant rice saplings in Bhaktapur's Sipadol this week. </figcaption> </figure>  The monsoon has been starting weeks later than its usual arrival in Nepal in mid-June, which many experts <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/climate-change-hits-himalayan-rice" target="_blank">blame on climate breakdown</a>. This year, the rains actually arrived a week early in the aftermath of Cyclone Remal, and unleashed floods and landslides in eastern Nepal in mid-June, while the western half of the country was enduring a prolonged drought. The clouds did advance up to central Nepal, but the rains fizzled out. When the monsoon did arrive in Kathmandu Valley on 27 June, it had been too little too late. Kathmandu Valley usually received 250mm of rain in June, this year the figure so far has been only 125mm. The chronic lack of subsidised fertiliser during the planting season due to an inefficient government procurement and delivery mechanism also meant that many farmers were not ready to transplant paddy even if the rains came. Rice is grown in Kathmandu and other mountaion valleys, in the Tarai and up to 3,200m in Jumla, which is famous for its nutritious <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/himalayan-red-rice-is-red-hot" target="_blank">red Marasi rice</a>.&nbsp; The Tarai is <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/nepals-rice-economy" target="_blank">Nepal’s rice basket</a>, producing most of its paddy. Although the plains cover 15% of Nepal’s area, 53% of the population lives there. Here too, settlements along highways and major intersections are eating into rice fields.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630100632_051ccb4df85ee10f1f44fc67a32b3d6666bf438c00b9f5a51ef2df5fab5a0b01.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20240630100632_051ccb4df85ee10f1f44fc67a32b3d6666bf438c00b9f5a51ef2df5fab5a0b01" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Rice planttion in Nepal"> <figcaption>Kathmandu's unrestrained growth as seen from Halchok in 2020.</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630100632_68dff2295cf039e50ad743ece4bb1473fd55e9c36e571f92259a882a073b558e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20240630100632_68dff2295cf039e50ad743ece4bb1473fd55e9c36e571f92259a882a073b558e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Rice production in nepal"> <figcaption>In this photo from 2021, hills in the outskits of Kathmandu Valley have been cleared for land development. </figcaption> </figure>  So far this year, rice planting has started in only 3% of the area of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/grain-drain" target="_blank">Madhes Province</a> because of the delayed rains and a prolonged heatwave. The province produces a quarter of Nepal’s rice in a normal year. The western Tarai has been particularly badly hit by a heatwave that lasted into June with daytime temperatures soaring to 45°Celsius and staying there. Rainfed farms have not planted rice, and those that used to pump water from tubewells have not been able to do so because of a falling watertable.&nbsp; Outmigration from rural areas and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/agroecology-nepal-s-answer-to-climate-change" target="_blank">falling rice production</a> has become a chicken-or-egg story: is rice production falling because people are turning away from farming, or is declining paddy production driving people away from agriculture? The annual Rice Day has therefore become not a time for celebration, but a reminder of how much <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/are-nepalis-really-eating-more-rice/" target="_blank">Nepal is more dependent on the import</a> of rice than before. Nepal spent Rs35 billion last year to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-agro-imports-at-all-time-high/" target="_blank">import rice and paddy</a>, which was a slight decline from the previous year, but is still more than all its exports. Nepalis are <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/are-nepalis-really-eating-more-rice" target="_blank">eating more rice</a> than ever before as people turn away from traditional grains like millet and buckwheat, and because of a falling poverty rate as well as the spread of the road network.&nbsp; Still, the country’s population growth rate is outpacing increase in rice harvests. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-price-of-rice" target="_blank">Rice productivity</a> has hit an all-time high of 3.8 tons/hectare with <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nepal,2378" target="_blank">irrigation and mechanisation</a>, but total production is not increasing as much because of a decrease in area under rice cultivation. Nepal once used to be a rice exporting country. If current trends continue, Nepal will be spending nearly everything it earns from remittances in importing petroleum products and rice.

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Pouring concrete on rice fields

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151112/636bb5fc9c7e80680e07bc36jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>It is nothing new that Nepal’s farmers this year faced an acute fertiliser shortage. That there were kickbacks involved is also not a revelation. This will not be the first time there is a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-rise-of-rice-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paddy production shortfall</a> because of the lack of fertiliser.More importantly, it is bound to happen again next year because there is no political will to tackle the root of the problem --  collusion between government officials and their cronies to siphon the allocated budget and profit from payoffs.This year, the companies hired to import fertiliser, Shailung Enterprises and Honiko Multiple, defaulted on their contracts, citing the lockdown as an excuse. That the powerful owner of one of these companies is the landlord of NCP chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal has not gone unnoticed.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-rise-of-rice-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rise of rice in Nepal</a>, Krishna Dev Joshi and Santosh Upadhyay<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-agro-imports-at-all-time-high/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal agro imports all time high</a>, Ramesh KumarLast week, the Patan High Court stayed an order by the government’s Agriculture Inputs Company Limited (AICL) to confiscate the Rs50 million deposit of Shailung and Honiko for failing to supply imported urea in time.Despite a healthy monsoon this year, Nepal’s rice production is not expected to rise because the consignment of chemical fertiliser did not arrive at the start of the paddy season. India has frozen export of fertiliser, and Prime Minister K P Oli made an SOS call to Bangladesh Presient Sheikh Hasina on 1 September to “loan” Nepal 50,000 tons of fertiliser.By the time the fertiliser arrives, the rice will be ready for harvest. Besides, Nepal’s annual fertiliser demand is up to 800,000 tons. Failure to apply urea layering on time worried farmers across the country as the transplanted paddy fields did not receive required nutrients.Critics say the lockdown is not an excuse. Because after March, the government made no visible effort to have the consignment released from Kolkata’s customs warehouse, did not have adequate buffer stock, and failed to line up alternative sources in time for paddy transplanting in late June. Farmers therefore crowded fertiliser distribution centres for the limited supplies available, risking Covid-19 infection.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/back-to-the-future-of-farming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Back to the future of farming</a>, EditorialDespite lofty promises made by the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) to aim for agriculture self-sufficiency, the fertiliser scandal tells a different story. Nepal’s chemical fertiliser output is negligible, leaving it completely reliant on imports, mostly from India.The government’s singular focus on chemical fertiliser also means that alternatives with organic nutrients have been side-lined (see box, below). Farmers are trapped because they have abandoned traditional seeds for imported hybrids which require chemical inputs to yield optimum harvest.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/pandemic-offers-chance-to-revive-farming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Covid-19 crisis</a> has exposed this alarming reliance on imported chemical fertiliser, and Nepal’s inability to manufacture its own. This week, a Parliament committee instructed the government to set up plants to make Nepal self-sufficient in urea.However, feasibility studies carried out by the Investment Board Nepal with Infrastructure Development Corporation Karnataka (IDECK) show that Nepal’s domestic demand does not have the economy of scale to produce fertiliser.  A third-party evaluation of the IDECK report led by Dil Bahadur Gurung calculated that it would cost upwards of Rs72 billion to set up even a small fertiliser factory.“The reliance on natural gas piped from India or Bangladesh to these factories would add to the cost, and it would be viable only if it could produce up to 2 million tons of fertiliser a year,” says Gurung. However, talks with Bangladesh and China regarding natural gas pipelines broke down, while a proposed pipeline from Gorakhpur in India has been sidelined due to frosty bilateral relations.Using electricity to fix nitrogen from the air will be even costlier, with estimates to set up such factories tagged at upwards of Rs144 billion. It would need a new hydropower plant dedicated just to supply the fertiliser factory.“Such electricity-powered fertiliser factories are only found in some countries and are not understood to be cost-effective,” Gurung explained.The small amount of domestically-produced chemical fertiliser is 25% costlier than the imported product, and India’s planned construction of a urea plant at Gorakhpur with an annual output of 800,000 tons would not make it viable for Nepal to even export its surplus fertiliser.The chronic shortage of fertiliser in Nepal is due to a government duopoly controlled by the parastatals Salt Trading Limited and Agricultural Inputs Company Limited (AICL) with an import ratio of 30:70 of the total stock. With the freeze in Indian imports, AICL is now inviting bids for the transport of the chemical fertiliser on loan from Bangladesh. Nepal’s market is also diluted by smuggled fertiliser and informal imports through the open border.Former secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Uttam Kumar Bhattarai says the surest way to prevent a fertiliser crisis in the coming years is to stockpile it so that it can meet demand during times of shortage and until Nepal become self-sufficient.https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&amp;v=yOc1AmgWreM&amp;feature=emb_logoWhy not go organic?The ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) government has often proclaimed its commitment to organic agriculture. But it is just rhetoric, the government has made no policies to favour organic fertiliser and regulation of pesticides. In fact, it continues to subsidise imported chemical fertiliser to the tune of Rs11 billion this fiscal year.Farmers who use high-yield hybrid seeds are dependent on chemical fertiliser for higher yield and the subsidy. Many say organic fertiliser would not give the same yield.This is disputed by organic fertiliser manufacturers like Gandaki Urja in Pokhara, which say the right kind of organic fertiliser and nitrogen-fixation intercropping can improve paddy yield.With its daily production of up to 5 tons, Gandaki Urja is the largest producer of organic fertiliser in the country. Its founder Kushal Gurung says the government subsidy has made organic fertiliser less attractive to farmers.“Even when the market faces a severe shortage, demand for our fertiliser has not changed,” says Gurung. “Organic fertiliser remains limited to rooftop farming and gardening because the government has made agro-chemicals cheaper.”Despite the subsidies, cartelling, middlemen and customs charges cause a sharp markup in price to Rs1,500 per kg of chemical urea. Gandaki Urja sells directly to farmers at a uniform price of Rs30 per kg, yet it struggles for a foothold in the market.Gurung says government subsidy has “ruined the habit” of farmers, driving them away from organic products even during this crisis. Meanwhile, Gandaki Urja’s stockpile has grown to 200 tons after failing to find buyers, and has even been forced to scale down on production despite the fertiliser demand.Another entrepreneur Sitaram Pahadi has invested Rs5 million to set up a plant to make organic fertiliser from animal waste in Sindhuli district. The raw waste is collected from many Tarai districts and goes to collection pits where it stays for 30 days until ready. All of Sitaram's activities have been people-run, with no real assistance from any governing body.Kushal Gurung says the government could have easily bought up the stock of organic fertiliser and distributed it to farmers to meet the shortfall. That would have cost only Rs300 million – a fraction of what the government is spending on chemical fertiliser import this year.He adds: “Organic fertiliser has long-term environmental benefits as it increases the fertility and productivity of soil, while harvests are healthy and safe to consume. Organic fertiliser also encourages local production and consumption.”Pahadi agrees that organic fertiliser would be cheaper, reduce Nepal’s import bill and bring financial and ecological benefits to farmers. He adds: “There are no specialized skills to learn when making organic fertiliser, so realistically anyone can work”.

Corruption and Nepal’s chronic fertiliser crisis

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21c19c7e80680e041756jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Ratna Rani Newar does not know how much longer she can keep her vegetable farm in Thimi. Photos: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption></figure>Ratna Rani Newar grew up helping her grandparents grow vegetables in the fertile farms <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=8688#.XC8OkdIza70">around Thimi</a>. Today, she is afraid her livelihood passed down through generations will be taken away.Kathmandu Valley civilisation was built on the agriculture that thrived in the alluvium of the former lakebed. But as the city expanded, the farms were steadily taken over by houses. Now, the last remaining tracts of what were once Thimi’s famous vegetable farms are also being filled over with concrete.“I have been growing vegetables in Thimi ever since I learnt to walk, but these days people don’t care about farming, they just want property to build houses,” said Newar, who is a single mother of four daughters. Her husband left her because she didn’t have a son.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21c49c7e80680e041757jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="999" height="1500"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Newar’s daughters, like most of the educated younger generation of Kathmandu’s agricultural families, do not want to work in farm. But they do visit their mother every Saturday, and help sell her cauliflowers and spinach in the local market.<a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/back-to-the-land">This type of farming</a> is one of the last of its kind in Kathmandu Valley: traditional, organic and hand-grown with no help from machinery. In a couple of years farmers carrying fresh vegetables in woven baskets down the streets of Bhaktapur, calling out to customers will be a rare sight.Agronomist Bhola Man Singh Basnet who used to be a scientist at the Nepal Agricultural Research Council says Kathmandu’s farmers had developed a very successful cycle using <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/organic-basnet-gundu-kheti-bazaar,2520">crop rotation</a> to replenish the nutrients in the  soil, and keep the land fertile.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21c79c7e80680e041758jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="999"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“People from all over the world noticed our techniques and productivity,” he says, “but farming is becoming obsolete.”Nepali farmers used a special technique to grow vegetables in tiny parcels of land to sustain their families. It fertilised the soil with organic black soil and cow manure, giving the Valley’s vegetables an amazing taste full on nutrients.But, Basnet says, “Land for farming is decreasing as the population increases, so new techniques are needed to meet food needs. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/heavy-pesticide-use-and-low-consumer-awareness-affecting-public-health,1394">Chemical fertilisers</a> and green houses are being used, but the quality of these vegetables is not the same ... quality is not even considered important.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21cc9c7e80680e041759jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="999"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Basnet says the trend of building on prime agricultural land that started in Kathmandu is now spreading to other urban areas of Nepal, and younger educated people from farming families would rather work in salaried jobs.Babu Krishna is another Thimi farmer, whose children live in Australia. He says: “Farming has been in my family for generations, I have farmed all my life, but now the fields are replaced by houses. I think my generation is the last in my family that will farm.”<h2>The smart people of Piple</h2><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21cf9c7e80680e04175ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">A Chitwan village has banned new construction in agricultural land Mukesh Pokhrel in ChitwanTwo years ago Mong Tamang sold 1.5 hectares of his farm. When the new owner built a road along the land to turn it into a new housing colony, local farmers were up in arms, and prevented it.Dhab Thapaliya sold half a hectare of his land to Kathmandu-based businessmen three years ago. But villagers again prevented houses being constructed, and Thapaliya had to return the advance he was paid.Today, 2,000 out of 3,500 households in Piple raise cattle and grow vegetables, and much of the credit goes to Nabaraj Onta, who returned from Korea after 25 years and put into practice what he learnt there working in a farm. He brought back seeds, and distributed it free among his fellow-villagers.“He has a vital role in encouraging us to take up farming and protect our land,” says Rameshwar Oli of the dairy cooperative in Piple which has a farmers’ savings and loans scheme providing low interest loans to farmers to buy seeds and buffaloes. All loans are paid in time, and the cooperative also has a livestock insurance scheme.Farmers in Piple village of Chitwan say their farms are much more valuable to grow vegetables and and raise livestock than to be converted into real estate, and have united to preserve cultivable land from being bought by developers for housing and factories.Unlike anywhere else in Nepal, they have enforced zoning criteria to classify farmlands and residential areas, and have prohibited buildings anywhere other than in areas along the road."Legally we can't interfere in decisions about private property, but there is an understanding among us to not sell cultivable land," explains Danda Raj Pandey one of the farmers who started the movement.It has been ten years since Piple people have turned to vegetable farming and animal husbandry, and turned their village into a model agricultural settlement.Pandey himself used to buy oranges wholesale in Dhading and Gorkha and sell it at the Kalimati market in Kathmandu. Today he sells vegetables and 15 litres of milk every day from his own village, and does not have to travel away from home for livelihood. He now makes Rs600,000 a year, and with his savings has expanded his farm so he can grow more.Moti Rijal was a daily wage worker until he started farming a small plot of his ancestral property. The farmer made more than Rs100,000 by selling just cabbages, and decided to expand into commercial farming. He has now leased more land from neighbours to grow other vegetable cash crops.Rama Dalakoti also grew beans in her small plot, and her farming is so intensive that in the last season she made Rs400,000 just from selling it in the market. Piple has now overtaken Gitanagar as the dairy capital of Chitwan, and local farmers sold Rs12 million worth of milk and supplied Rs10 million in vegetables to Kathmandu last year.

The vanishing land

Rivers have been the lifelines of civilisations with their dynamic ecosystems providing vital services for human survival and ecological balance through the ages.&nbsp; But accelerating anthropocentric footprints are causing severe, and often irreversible, damage to river systems across the world, including those across High Asia, a region that sustains nearly a fourth of the global population downstream. An example is the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-the-bagmati-civilisation-is-becoming-uncivilised" target="_blank">Bagmati River</a> that courses through Kathmandu, crosses the Himalayan foothills to join the Ganga in India. A river that once shaped the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/when-it-comes-to-water-pollution,3196" target="_blank">Kathmandu Valley Civilisation </a>is now a polluted and biologically dead water body constricted by urban sprawl, choked by construction debris, chemical waste and untreated sewage.&nbsp; The loss of a sacred river is tragic enough, but its hazards related to health, life and livelihoods are not limited to the Valley, nor is its enormity fully gauged by the metrics of fatality, income loss, flood return periods, runoffs, embankment failure.&nbsp; It is a systemic collapse of ecological integrity, socio-economic stability and cultural heritage, affecting its downstream users as well. The death of Bagmati is a peril for a population size way bigger than circa 5 million residents of Kathmandu Valley. The degradation started in the 1980s and has accelerated. Why has not enough been done to save this iconic river that runs through Nepal’s capital?&nbsp; The Bagmati River Basin Improvement Project (BRBIP) was designed to make headway in restoring the river with a sewage treatment plant, dams for storing water to support dry-season runoff, recharge groundwater, creation of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/resurrecting-bagmati-the-river" target="_blank">green biodiversity corridors</a> along the river bank to also serve as recreation areas, reduce the urban heat island effect, and also provide cultural continuity. The project also envisages collection of hydrological data for managing Bagmati multipurposewater systems and providing flood forecasts and early warnings aimed at protecting lives and property, among other things. Most importantly, the project takes the integrated water resource management approach, which, in principle, is a holistic and collaborative way of managing all elements of the water cycle to ensure water security, public and environmental health and amenity.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260329040336_9605240fa8c7d649ce49fbe43565130e3187e979338ccf959c4e9b8c581b7a4c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260329040336_9605240fa8c7d649ce49fbe43565130e3187e979338ccf959c4e9b8c581b7a4c" data-rendition-name="original" width="2126" height="1577" loading="lazy" alt="Bagmati NT"> </figure>  This should pave the way for managing a river as a connected ecological, social, and economic system by enabling coordination across agencies and disciplines, stimulating technological innovation and financial investment. The success of this approach depends on long-term political will and commitment that transcend political cycles, but also needs strong community and civil society in defining issues and proposing solutions, creating and sharing knowledge, taking independent action to inform practice, monitoring and evaluating policies, and participating in public decision-making. Civil society, especially, in making the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/encounter-with-bagmati-river" target="_blank">revival of the Bagmati River</a> a pressing governance issue. The Bagmati Action Plan 2009, a precursor to the BRBIP, was designed in response to lawsuits filed in 2000 and 2004 by an independent legal practitioner of Kathmandu against waste dumping in the river.&nbsp; It took him almost two decades of legal battle for Nepal’s Supreme Court to pass orders for mandatory septic tanks in all homes in Kathmandu Valley, relocation of squatters from Bagmati river banks to government-built houses, and embargo on dumping and burying garbage on the banks of the river and its tributaries. Despite court orders, however, actual results have been unsatisfactory. Restoration of Bagmati barely made it to any political debate or electoral manifesto this time. Treatment plants have not been operational for years, yet no one is held accountable. The population ignores waste segregation or single-use plastic rules to check littering.&nbsp; The current condition of the river therefore seems to have more to do with the lack of public awareness and behaviour change than the failure of various master plans. Why does the deep danger of a dead river fail to arouse widespread civil society concern, let alone action? The apathy is perhaps underlined by an innately anthropocentric understanding of the river as a mere resource to be exploited, rather than the backbone of existence.&nbsp; Such a paradigm shift is possible when river or river systems are understood to be necessary for &nbsp;a harmonious coexistence with human populations. The more pertinent question is not whether a dead river can be restored because there are many examples from around the world where that has been successfully achieved. It is whether we choose to restore our rivers for intergenerational equity. This would require a holistic perspective and political will to revive reverence for a river system so that its symbiotic relationship with human settlements can be restored. Roshni Gurung is Research Assistant, River Basins at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

A lifeline becomes liability

As a direct fallout of the Israel-American war on Iran, Nepal on Monday nearly doubled the price of aviation fuel in a move that is going to impact during the spring peak tourism season. The steep price hike of jet fuel appears to have been made to cushion the impact on the general public. The price of petrol, diesel and cooking gas were also hiked for the third time in a month on Thursday.&nbsp; Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) will now cost $2,237/ton up from $1,207. The cost of ATF in Kathmandu was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sky-high-fuel-price-hits-nepal-s-tourism-airlines" target="_blank">already one of the highest among Asian airports</a>, and this price hike will affect mostly long-haul flights to Istanbul, Seoul and Narita for airlines that need to refuel in Kathmandu.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260404130420_4ae075d1e871fc5608cf242d6e309005d30cfdb6e6d0ecfb45ca7388a851c6aa.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260404130420_4ae075d1e871fc5608cf242d6e309005d30cfdb6e6d0ecfb45ca7388a851c6aa" data-rendition-name="original" width="1784" height="1294" loading="lazy" alt="aviation turbine fuel prices"> </figure>  Domestic airlines, which paid Rs127 per litre, will now have to pay Rs251 for their turboprop planes. “We have no recourse but to pass this on to passengers as a fuel surcharge,” said one executive of a domestic airline in Nepal. As it is, Nepal Oil Corporation levied a hefty tax on petrol and ATF in order to subsidise diesel and cooking gas. Many analysts were expecting a fuel price hike, but the near-doubling of the price of ATF means the new Nepal government is trying to protect ordinary citizens from raising the price of diesel and LPG even more than it has so far. Aviation fuel in Nepal is trucked in on tankers from Indian refineries and its price is highest in Kathmandu, and less in Bhairawa and Pokhara — transportation costs being higher depending on distance. But even in Bhairawa, ATF prices have doubled for the only international airline that serves it, Thai AirAsia.&nbsp; Most airlines flying Kathmandu from nearer airports in India, the Gulf and Southeast Asia will be less impacted because they can fly in on full tanks and need minimum refuelling in Kathmandu. But carriers like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/high-cost-lays-aviation-low-in-nepal" target="_blank">Turkish Airlines</a>, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air, &nbsp;and Nepal Airlines which fly wide body aircraft on long-distance routes will be hit hardest.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026040305040_a40db74375ebe0c28e7c35477bc262df9ae392a84e7bfa4033996181d69e0209.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026040305040_a40db74375ebe0c28e7c35477bc262df9ae392a84e7bfa4033996181d69e0209" data-rendition-name="original" width="1032" height="689" loading="lazy" alt="sky high prices"> </figure>  However, ATF costs have also been raised in regional airports like Hong Kong, India and Singapore. Aviation fuel at New Delhi airport has risen to $1,698/ton. Korean Air is adopting emergency measures to reduce expenses to make up for rising fuel costs. South Korea gets nearly all its fuel from the Gulf, and the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz has been especially damaging for the country. Fuel makes up more than a third of the operating cost of airlines, and even a small increase in ATF prices can make a big difference. Crude oil prices have increased 50% since the West Asia war began on 28 February, and global ATF prices have doubled.&nbsp; Airlines in Asia, including Nepal, face a double shock. The first is the higher fuel cost, and the second is that fewer people are travelling. Nepal’s tourism arrivals fell in March compared to February. India has added up to 20% fuel surcharge on domestic flights, and has reduced flights by 12%. Chinese airlines have also been affected, with China Eastern preparing for a significant impact of the Gulf war. It has added fuel surcharges to new tickets, as have Cathay Pacific, Thai International and Air Asia. Vietnam has drastically cut the number of domestic flights, and the Philippines will ration ATF. Australia imports 90% of its ATF mainly from China which has stopped export to ensure domestic supply to its own airlines. Carriers like Qantas have curtailed flights, changing aircraft type on long-haul routes, and a fuel surcharge of up to 20% have been added to tickets. Most Asian airlines are adding fuel charges only to new tickets, and the increase will not affect the price of pre-sold tickets issued for April and May.

Fuel price shock hits Nepal aviation

It is only April, and Himalayan expeditions are already making rotations to acclimatise on Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, and will soon be making summit pushes.&nbsp; On Mt Everest, Icefall Doctors are fixing ropes and ladders into the Western Cwm as international climbers arrive at Base Camp. Spring 2026 is going to be the busiest and most crowded so far in the Nepal Himalaya. The main reason is that China has closed expeditions from the north side for eight-thousanders Everest and Cho Oyu, and also Xixapangma.&nbsp; The closure is informal, from what one can make out. The Chinese have not put out any official statement, but there are no permits either. The reason seemingly was the ‘Rising Dragon’ firework display last September by pyrotechnic artist Cai Guo-Qiang near Xigatse.&nbsp; Working with outdoor wear company Arc’teryx, Guo-Qiang set off an impressive sequence of orange and white fireworks that wound up a mountain. The spectacular display was criticised for damaging the fragile ecology of the Tibetan Plateau. But this cannot be the only reason the north side is closed. Experienced Everest blogger Alan Arnette anticipates that about 125 climbers will shift to the Nepal side of the mountains, and expects there to be up to 900 summits this spring — up from the highest spring number so far of 876 climbers on top in 2019.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260404050428_8c31812bf38f699c4faa74f25814a6ddaee397f71a629e549023f29250f05082.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260404050428_8c31812bf38f699c4faa74f25814a6ddaee397f71a629e549023f29250f05082" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="mountaineering"> <figcaption>Photo: KARMA TENZING</figcaption> </figure>  The early Base Camp arrivals are having problems with their first rotations because of heavy snow this season. Unlike previous springs, this year has seen back-to-back blizzards at high altitudes since February. The increased snow load on the slopes have increased avalanche danger right across the mountains.&nbsp; There has been an increase in numbers on Everest despite the West Asia war, flight disruptions, LPG shortage and new regulations. The permit fee has gone up for the first time since 2015 from $11,000 to $15,000 this year.&nbsp; The Tourism Bill passed by Nepal’s Upper House last year would have required climbers to have first summitted a 7,000m peak in Nepal before attempting Everest. However, the Department of Tourism has confirmed that there are no new experience requirements this season. Some want this rule changed to include 7,000m peaks anywhere in the world. That could be one reason people are rushing to climb Everest before the Nepal government changes its mind and enforces the new regulations on prior experience on Everest. “It’s probably going to encourage a lot of people that simply are not ready to go,” reckons Alan Arnette. “Once again, we may see a lot of inexperienced people on the mountain trying to get in before the rule comes into place, if it does.”&nbsp; Arnette has always been sceptical of Everest regulations, and points out many instances where rules have been announced but not implemented over the ten years that he has been tracking them. For example, a helicopter ban to Everest Base Camp was announced last year, but rescinded. A rule requiring climbers to bring down waste was never seriously enforced. Since there is so much money involved for the government and for the operators, any any rule that would reduce revenue is never fully implemented. This year there is another ‘High-Altitude Trash Quota’ rule requiring climbers and guides operating above Camp 2 to collect and bring down at least 2kg of waste from the higher camps.&nbsp; The Nepal government has tried to diversify peaks on offer by reducing the royalty on climbs, but the draw of Everest, Annapurna and other eight-thousanders seems to be too great. Even when the permit fees for some remote peaks like Kangri Shar, Himlung and Api, were reduced to $400, there are few takers.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260402120436_a90cd44858e97086f773aa1fbd592b3434bb07d89cd4a1843b2ca32a84e7c72d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260402120436_a90cd44858e97086f773aa1fbd592b3434bb07d89cd4a1843b2ca32a84e7c72d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Photo Damien Francois"> <figcaption>Photo: DAMIEN FRANCOIS</figcaption> </figure>  TIME LAPSE Clients and expedition operators have been trying to shorten the time needed to complete an Everest expedition from the city of origin to the top and back. Since Nepal has no rules about spending a certain number of days in acclimatisation, this has allowed some expedition organisers to use new technology.&nbsp; Austrian operator Lukas Furtenbach last May led a group of four British ex-military clients to the summit within a week of leaving London. This climb was scrutinised because the group had practiced breathing xenon gas, a substance that increases the count of red blood cells and is banned in competitive sports. The climbers had also trained for months at home in hypoxic tents, and used supplemental oxygen during the actual climb.&nbsp; The success of that expedition prompted an investigation by Nepal’s Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, but there was nothing it could do because the team had taken the xenon in Germany two weeks before their trip. But even if they had administered the gas in Nepal, it would technically not be illegal. Furtenbach is firmly in favour of speed, and of using the gas. “The only reason why we are working with xenon is to make climbing safer, to protect climbers from high altitude sickness,” he says, arguing that the less time climbers spend on the mountains, the less their exposure is to disasters, sickness, and they also generate less trash.&nbsp; His firm, Furtenbach Adventure, offers a three-week Everest South Flash expedition, at a cost of €100,000, using custom oxygen systems. Other expeditions take up to two months.&nbsp; A young American duo of Ryan Mitchell and Justin Sockett got to Everest Base Camp five days ago. They are preparing for an oxygen-free summit attempt.&nbsp; ‘ Being around these mountains for one day has already brought me so much joy. Every time I come back to the Khumbu I feel more familiar and connected,’ posted Mitchell. He and Sockett have since summitted Lobuche East (6,119m) as they continue to acclimatise and wait for the Khumbu Icefall route to be fixed.&nbsp; There are other sans-O2 trips planned this climbing season in Nepal. Norwegian Kristin Harila, the fastest in the world to climb all 14 8,000ers (in 92 days), is attempting the Nuptse, Lhotse, and Everest three-peak climb without supplemental oxygen. American Tyler Andrews and Ecuadorian Karl Egloff are continuing their race to break records in Everest. While Andrews is attempting the Fastest Known Time from Base Camp to the top without oxygen, Egloff is taking it a step further and going for a round trip: from Base Camp to the summit and back in record time.&nbsp; Both Egloff and Andrews had attempted these climbs in 2025 spring, but abandoned around 7,000m due to bad weather.&nbsp; Kami Rita Sherpa wants to extend his all-time record of total Everest summits to 32, while Kenton Cool from England is chasing 20, a non-Nepali record.&nbsp; The first summits of the season will be in late April, or early May depending on weather. Besides Everest, there are a lot of interesting climbs on lesser known peaks.&nbsp; The Japanese trio of Masayuki Takenaka, Tatsuro Sugimoto, and Ryota Nomura, for example, are attempting the unclimbed Jarkya Himal (6,473m) near Manaslu. &nbsp;&nbsp; <h2>Fake rescues</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260402120436_600c0176e24327fd3dfcfd634e4b871f3e5314aa00eb4885ad137ac6f9c4a3b6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260402120436_600c0176e24327fd3dfcfd634e4b871f3e5314aa00eb4885ad137ac6f9c4a3b6" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="519" loading="lazy" alt="Fake rescues"> </figure>  This year’s spring climbing season has coincided with Nepal’s new government taking action against alleged perpetrators in fake rescues and insurance fraud. The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) has already arrested more than a dozen trekking agency executives, hospital managers and helicopter company executives for medevac insurance fraud. Climbers are known to fabricate medical emergencies, get flown down from as high as Camp II on Everest, and then submit false insurance claims.&nbsp; Sometimes one flight is made to look like many using fake invoices. Trekking companies are also involved in fake rescues of hikers who just get tired of walking.&nbsp; Too many fake claims could lead to insurer’s losing confidence in the industry, and increased premiums, leading to delayed responses in real accidents.&nbsp; As a result of the scandal, there is now more scrutiny from the government about rescues. Already, helicopter operators have to wait for permission before carrying out rescues while their application is vetted.&nbsp; The worry is that this could cause unnecessary delays when time is of the essence in mountain rescue. Already, medevacs are delayed because of the bureaucracy needing permits to fly to sensitive regions bordering China. Last year, a climber died on Himlung because helicopter rescue took too long while operators ran from door to door in Kathmandu to obtain necessary permits. <h2>Mingma David Sherpa, MP</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260402120432_05c1600440327f4ae4bcae641b634714951f45702080a88d4e2628587190aa25.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260402120432_05c1600440327f4ae4bcae641b634714951f45702080a88d4e2628587190aa25" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="958" loading="lazy" alt="Mingma David Sherpa"> </figure>  Meet Mingma David Sherpa, Nepal’s first mountaineer to be nominated to Parliament. Sherpa is a self-made professional climber from Rolwaling, who rose up from an expedition porter to a record-breaking mountaineer and expedition organiser. As an insider, he is now in a position to streamline laws related to Nepal’s trekking and mountaineering sector. He is co-owner of EliteExped with Nims Purja, and in 2021 the two were part of a team of Nepali climbers to be the first to make it to the top of K2 in winter, the second highest mountain in the world in Pakistan.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260402120432_c4ec586e7a27b09a72e61925a3897d843f864563d9e82a3fd3e25293e22cbe54.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260402120432_c4ec586e7a27b09a72e61925a3897d843f864563d9e82a3fd3e25293e22cbe54" data-rendition-name="original" width="2082" height="1396" loading="lazy" alt="Mingama David Sherpa"> </figure>  Mingma David was also on Purja’s Project Possible to climb all the 14 eight-thousanders in six months, shattering the previous record of seven years. He was featured in Purja’s documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible.&nbsp; At age 30 he became the youngest climber to reach the top of all 14 eight-thousanders for which he was awarded the Piolet d’Or. Mingma David has taken part in dozens of successful rescues of fellow climber, including the highest ever long-line rescue on Dhaulagiri and saving the life of fellow-climber from 8,600m on Everest. <h2>April Fool</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260402120432_775afff27d4a2889a60730aa25bbc5f8eb8ea343528c8c031a6febbfd74814c4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260402120432_775afff27d4a2889a60730aa25bbc5f8eb8ea343528c8c031a6febbfd74814c4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1365" height="1820" loading="lazy" alt="Furtenback Adventures"> </figure>  The Austrian expedition outfitting company Furtenbach Adventures spoofed the anticipated crowds on an April First post on social media this week, showing ‘a fully galvanized, weather-resistant steel staircase, complete with a sturdy handrail’ to make the Hillary Step bottleneck on Mt Everest less dangerous.

Nepal Himalaya Spring 2026

<a href="https://www.triarchypress.net/michael-thompson.html" target="_blank">Michael Thompson</a>, who died on 18 March after suffering a stroke a few weeks earlier, was a former Gurkha officer, mountaineer, and <a href="https://soscbaha.org/lecture-series/cultural-theory-and-clumsiness-some-lessons-from-nepal/" target="_blank">founding pillar of Cultural Theory</a>.&nbsp;
His daughter Ursula said it was a peaceful end, Mike himself had asked to be taken off medical support after doctors said they could do no more.
Together with his PhD adviser, the late Mary Douglas and fellow PhD student Steve Rayner of Oxford’s Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Mike chose to generalise from years of anthropological work—unlike other social anthropologists—to filter out common traits of human behaviour across time and space, and then to apply that to modern society and its conflicts.
Cultural Theory has also been used to explain water and energy conflicts in Nepal and California, seat belt and pension fund battles in Europe, the underlying social dynamics of kibbutz in Israel, and what Mike liked to call “argumentative technology assessment” plus much more.&nbsp;
Unlike other ‘descriptive’ social sciences, Cultural Theory is ‘interpretive' in its orientation, which makes many in the ‘descriptive tradition’ rather uneasy with its ‘uncomfortable knowledge’.
A classic example is the massive almost six-year exercise that resulted in the multi-country, multi-author 4-volume study Human Choice and Climate Change led by Steve Rayner and Elizabeth Malone for the US Department of Energy and the Pacific North-West Lab.
It was, and perhaps still is, the first time that the social sciences looked seriously into climate change. However, its insights and conclusions were uncomfortable enough for it to be ignored, and only Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Center covered it as a chapter in his book Why We Disagree About Climate Change a dozen years later.
During my various lectures around the world, I myself have found younger scholars in China, India, South Asia, South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America much more welcoming and open about Cultural Theory interpretations than in Europe or America.
Mike liked to say that his own work on Cultural Theory was initially conceptualised while <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3633" target="_blank">he was in Nepal climbing mountains</a>. He was part of the British expeditions on Annapurna’s South Face in 1970 and Everest Southwest Face in 1975.
Even while working on his PhD under Mary Douglas, which was published by Oxford University Press as Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value. Mary Douglas and others having done work on the Cultural Theory of everyday goods and consumption (including drinking), Mike’s Rubbish Theory showed how unwanted trash or scrap eventually became invaluable antique.&nbsp;
Unfortunately, OUP withdrew the book after its eminent economics professor-board member objected to the book showing the limitations of economics in explaining value.
When I asked his wife Anne why Mike was not republishing it, she said it was probably because he is practicing what he preaches, hoping to see if that book can transit from discarded ‘waste’ to achieve ‘antique value’. &nbsp;It did, and was being put up on Amazon for an astronomical sum until Pluto Press republished it.&nbsp;
In line with Cultural Theory, which examines and explains everyday life, Mike’s sociology of mountaineering expeditions was published in Diadem Books’ Mirrors in the Cliffs in 1983 as a hilarious but astute piece titled Sahibs and Sherpas.
I first met Mike in April 1986 at the now famous <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/in-memoriam-jack-d-ives-1931-2024-rqpsk7eh" target="_blank">Mohonk Mountain Conference</a> in upstate New York, the conference with most of the world’s eminent mountain experts which resulted in a major scientific paradigm shift – the debunking of the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1211" target="_blank">Theory of Himalayan Degradation</a>.&nbsp;
It resulted in the book <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Sustainable-Mountain-Development-Getting-the-Facts-Right-Jack-D-Ives,946" target="_blank">Uncertainty on a Himalayan Scale</a> (with Warburton and Hatley), which was republished in 2007 by Himal book with a long updating foreword by Mike and me.
Our collaboration continued across many centres in the US and Europe starting with San Diego’s Western Behaviourial Sciences Institute in 1989/90 where I first met Mary Douglas and Steve Rayner (and became the first person in Nepal to tele-conference via landline phone connected to San Diego’s computer system).&nbsp;
We continued on to Battelle Pacific Northwest National Lab in Washington state that resulted in the monumental 4-volume Human Choice and Climate Change, and involved work with Oxford’s James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization, King’s College London, LOS Center in Bergen, places in Germany and very much at the <a href="https://iiasa.ac.at/options-magazine/summer-2022/people-profile-from-everest-to-systems-analysis" target="_blank">International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA/Laxenburg)</a> since the early 1990s.&nbsp;
During forays to Europe and transits through London, I often stayed with Mike and Anne at their London Highbury-Islington house and later in Bath when he moved there. Incidentally, they had bought the London house rather cheap before its gentrification (their neighbour was a school where Tony Blair’s young children studied).
Between <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4675" target="_blank">mountaineering </a>and Cultural Theory, Mike worked as a builder, and he single-handedly retrofitted their London home, which he later sold to buy a much bigger and better house in Bath with money to spare as retirement fund.
The idea of what was good versus bad development in the Himalaya from a perspective was further developed as an IIASA/Oxford Science and Society research resulting in our 2017 book Aid, Technology and Development: the Lessons from Nepal.&nbsp;
While he was in Nepal for that research, we did manage to get him to deliver a <a href="https://soscbaha.org/lecture-series/cultural-theory-and-clumsiness-some-lessons-%20from-nepal/" target="_blank">Social Science Baha</a> lecture on the book’s essence, <a href="https://soscbaha.org/lecture-series/cultural-theory-and-clumsiness-some-lessons-from-nepal/" target="_blank">Cultural Theory and Clumsiness: Some Lessons from Nepal</a>.&nbsp;
Sometimes our collective writings came from discussions in the strangest of ways and places. After a long meeting at the IIASA schloss, we ended up in a pub for beer, and the discussions were around what it would take for a city to be a force for good and not one bad for the environment.&nbsp;
If such a city could be designed, one could plonk it on the middle of a degraded landscape, which theoretically should then heal itself. Someone less inebriated obviously took notes and circulated it, which eventually resulted in the Engineering Sustainability paper On Governance for Re-engineering City Infrastructure.
Another time, I had to give a keynote presentation at an IIED/Sussex STEPs Center dialogue in London’s Goodenough College on re-imagining Development in LDCs. Following that talk, we sat down and produced our Restoring Development Dharma with Toad’s Eye Science.
Just before Covid struck, we (including Bruce Beck and Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer from IIASA) had been working on a Cultural Theory examination of four schools of engineering thought, our last meeting was at Steve Rayner’s Keeble College in Oxford as part of that exercise.&nbsp;
Its earlier efforts were explored in our work on transboundary risk management in the Himalaya at Bergen’s LOS Center and also dealt with in a chapter in EARTHSCAN’s IIASA publication Transboundary Risk Management edited by Joanne and others.&nbsp;
It argued that risk is socially constructed in four distinctly varied ways, where facts and values are entangled, leading to competing technological preferences. Mike desperately wanted to follow up on the Keeble meeting at IIASA, but – given the Covid fears already underway – Anne put her foot down and had him quarantined at home.
Our other on-going effort was, given that IIASA was founded during the Cold War as a place for scientists of the Euro-American West and the Communist East to work together to build confidence for peace, but after the collapse of the Berlin Wall that division (hence raison d’etre) no longer existed – to develop a global North-South axis for IIASA’s work.&nbsp;
We believed that was where the great challenges of tomorrow development debates as well as environmental concerns (including climate change) would play out. Towards that end, he was working with a range of Global South scholars and was very anxious to see if an IIASA-Nepal Social Science Baha/South Asia Institute for History and Philosophy collaboration could be developed.&nbsp;
Mike retained interest in Nepal’s developments up to his very end, even when on hospital bed, asking his daughter to find out from me what was going on with Nepal’s March elections that saw a seismic upheaval which decimated all the old political parties.&nbsp;
When Ursula described the gist to him, I am sure he was inwardly pleased that it vindicated Cultural Theory as Political Science’s contention that moral high ground activist egalitarianism not given proper place at the policy table can strike back at insensitive bureaucratic hierarchism and market individualism’s crony capitalism with swift and lethal vengeance.
Michael Thompson’s physical presence will be greatly missed, but his impact on interpretive social science – and its extremely relevant application to Nepal’s and other LDC’s developmental conflicts – will live on.
Dipak Gyawali is an energy economist with the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). He is a former minister of water resources.&nbsp;
To listen to Michael Thomson’s lecture at Social Science Baha in 2011 <a href="https://soscbaha.org/lecture-series/cultural-theory-and-clumsiness-some-lessons-from-nepal/" target="_blank">click here.</a>