Born in Khandbari in eastern Nepal, Parashuram Pathak helped his family around the farm, sold what they grew in the market and lent a hand in the kitchen.&nbsp; After working as a chef in Dubai, San Francisco, Denmark, Australia, and on cruise ships, Pathak has now brought back what he has learnt to the Tusa Restaurant in Bhaktapur that opened on Nepali New Year on 13 April. Tusa uses fresh indigenous ingredients from various parts of Nepal, and fuses them with international methods to produce unique dishes. Pathak is a global Nepali, and is introducing global Nepali cuisine to his homeland. Pathak left an executive chef job to intern at three-Michelin-starred Noma in Denmark, named the best restaurant in the world five times. Noma runs on a philosophy of foraging to rediscover wild local ingredients, and Tusa’s mission is similarly noble: preparing dishes with Nepali ingredients using modern techniques and equipment. “We are taking Nepali food beyond dal-bhat and momo, we are taking it international,” Pathak said on the phone from Sydney. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-baker-rises-to-the-top-in-denmark">Denmark’s best baker is a Nepali</a>, Vishad Onta  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240419180424_1312bc016cbb2fe59c6d4a78d1f8b463af4a10b3f79559a2405fd54ea5b3197a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20240419180424_1312bc016cbb2fe59c6d4a78d1f8b463af4a10b3f79559a2405fd54ea5b3197a" data-rendition-name="original" width="801" height="802" loading="lazy" alt="The return of the natives Page 12 NT #1208"> <figcaption>Photo: PARASHURAM PATHAK/FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  Pathak’s team in Nepal includes chefs Rupesh Bohara and Sagar Shrestha who have also worked extensively in Dubai and Australia, and share his vision. The three realised they shared the same dream, and over the past five years have travelled across Nepal to research their menu, collecting ingredients and ideas from homestays, food carts, and nature. The team then scouted for Nepal’s best architect, and zeroed in on Bhaktapur-based heritage conservationist Rabindra Puri who designed the Malla-era house for Tusa in the Nag Pokhari neighbourhood. Bohara and Shrestha have moved back to Nepal for good, and Pathak arrives in September. “I made dishes from all over the world, but when someone asked what Nepali food was like, I had no answer,” says Bohara, “I came back to find out.” &nbsp;“You can get citizenship, a green card, big houses and cars, but where is the self-satisfaction?” asks Shrestha, who has a red-and-blue chef’s knife with the sun and moon of the Nepali flag tattooed on his right forearm.&nbsp; Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/diaspora-diaries/the-return-of-a-master-baker"> The return of a master baker</a>, Raju Pakhrin  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240419180424_c601264463e5a28d4e71a46781f340a53619a08d00949a7aaebfef84e75a319d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240419180424_c601264463e5a28d4e71a46781f340a53619a08d00949a7aaebfef84e75a319d" data-rendition-name="original" width="6000" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="The return of the natives Page 12 NT #1208"> <figcaption>Photos: TUSA</figcaption> </figure>  Bohara and Shrestha passionately recount stories of their trips across Nepal, speaking of generous lodge owners who introduced them to local ingredients. Tusa can seat 28, and dining here is a sensory experience with a live kitchen. The chefs cook and place dishes on a large granite countertop with induction sections built in. Behind the counter is a grill on an indoor fire with pulley control to adjust the fire. Everything that can be made in Nepal — chairs and tables, ceramic dishes, the grill — is locally sourced. The executive kitchen/laboratory is downstairs. It is spacious, spotless, and contains appliances rarely seen in restaurants here: a sous vide machine that cooks vacuum-sealed packets at consistent temperatures, and a dehydrator for sisnu nettles. A fresh batch of deep purple kimbu (mulberry) muffins has just come out of the oven. Fridges have dry-aged fish and marigold kombucha. Fermentation seems to be the theme at Tusa, and Pathak explained: “Fermentation takes away the natural sugars in food, leaving behind a true, umami taste.”&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/vikings-khukri-passion">Viking's khukri passion</a>, Alisha Sijapati  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240419180424_c59e2b4230864f646bc36108adb951e95ec85da6156740294b1ec715b86acf89.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20240419180424_c59e2b4230864f646bc36108adb951e95ec85da6156740294b1ec715b86acf89" data-rendition-name="original" width="5895" height="3930" loading="lazy" alt="The return of the natives Page 12 NT #1208"> </figure>  Tusa itself means ‘shoot’ in Nepali, and can be a dish of fermented bamboo shoots. The restaurant serves a tasting menu with six courses, plus surprises. It starts with a fermented potato and millet roti with charred green garlic and tomato chutney. The bread tastes like a mix of alu paratha and kodoko roti with a satisfying, mild flavour. The chefs do not show off, and overdo it. Dishes are tastefully simple and faithful, a theme that runs through the meal. The second course is a filet of fish charred on one side and placed in a broth. It is delicate and smokey, and does not mask the character of the fish.&nbsp; The next is Batuk Chukauni, a Magar dish with a lentil snack and a yoghurt-based potato achar. The batuk, made of lentil batter, is light and the chukauni has potatoes and peas. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/money-is-not-everything-but-you-need-money-for-everything">"Money is not everything, but you need money for everything"</a>, Rohit Shrestha  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240419180424_e3f51228ff792e8d4297f81f8e67d138584e922ae035d131977494219e5e85c5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20240419180424_e3f51228ff792e8d4297f81f8e67d138584e922ae035d131977494219e5e85c5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="The return of the natives Page 12 NT #1208"> <figcaption>Batuk Chukauni. Photo: VISHAD ONTA</figcaption> </figure>  Next is a skewer of jackfruit with a tamarind and mustard glaze that has the texture of a slice of sausage and melts in the mouth. Then comes the first off-menu item: a steak of watermelon, glazed and grilled, tasting sweet, sour and smokey. After that a palate cleanser sorbet made with laligurans syrup adorned with a frozen candied rhododendron petal. Finally the main course: barbeque chicken and chyakla coarse corn grits. The chicken has been brined, marinated, cooked sous-vide and seared on the grill. The delicate consistency of the chicken stands out. Desert is a smooth, creamy cheesecake that uses the local juju-dhau yoghurt. And the last course is a moist, moss-green sisnu cake laced with mulberry jam and cream.&nbsp; There is nothing gimmicky about Tusa. It is the coming together of skilled Nepalis with international exposure who have mixed what they have learnt abroad with the flavours of home.&nbsp; The tasting menu is Rs3,500, and it may take some time before Nepalis develop a predilection for some of its items. The chefs are excited, vindicated, and relieved. Coming back to Nepal, uprooting successful careers abroad to take a chance on Nepal must not have been easy.&nbsp; Tusa had a soft launch on New Year’s day with Kathmandu-based diplomats. Australian Ambassador Felicity Volk was one of them, and wrote on a Facebook post: ‘Chefs who honed their skills in Australia and returned to Nepal to give back. We call it fine dining, they call it #cominghome.’ Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-baker-of-barpak">The baker of Barpak</a>, Tara Aryal Pandey

Vishad Raj Onta

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The return of the natives

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114121116/637223779c7e80680e0c0352jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>Finance Minister Janardan Sharma’s budget last month unveiled a plan to increase domestic agricultural production by one-third. On paper it sounds like a good way to reduce the country’s food imports. But upon closer inspection, the decision is too ambitious,and unrealistic.Given the trends in falling agricultural productivity over the decades due to a chronic lack of irrigation, improved seeds, fertiliser and most recently, the climate crisis, domestic farm output is not expected to increase much..The government wants to boost paddy productivity from the current 5.13 million metric tons to 6.69 which is a 30% increase in just a year. Two years ago, Nepal had hit a record high yield of at 5.62 million metric tons only for it to come down by 8.74% last year due to unseasonal rains at harvest time.“This is a very ambitious target and even as we are making an action plan on how to achieve it, it looks very challenging,” admits PrakashSanjel of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.In 1961, Nepal used to grow only 1.9 metric tons of paddy per hectare. This was before the green revolution and the use of modern technology in agriculture and paddy productivity. But improved seeds, chemical fertilisers and new farming techniques in the last decades have revolutionised agriculture.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-change-affects-himalayan-rice/">Climate change hits Himalayan rice</a>, Erica WuHybrid seeds that mix varieties of rice with different qualities, capacity to adapt to soil and climate, have significantly increased the yield. In China, hybrid paddy, now grown in more than half of the total rice area, yields an average of 7 metric tons per hectare. Bangladesh has similarly reached productivity of 5 metric tons per hectare with the use of hybrid seeds.Nepal on the other hand took 60 years to double its productivity. It went up from 2.7 tons per hectare in 2001/02, 2.9 10 years later and now it is 3.47. As per the budget target, this has to increase to 4.5 tons per hectare in a year. In the past, it had taken Nepal nearly 20 years to increase its productivity by one ton a hectare.At present, about 10% of the total paddy cultivation in Nepal is estimated to be from hybrid varieties and three-fourths of the area has used improved seeds. The National Rice Research Center has recommended hybrid seeds of two varieties namely Hardinath-1 and Hardinath-3, but farmers also use hybrid seeds imported from India.Government agro scientists first recommended improved seeds in 1966, a CH-45 ChaiteDhan seed that produces 3.5 tons of rice per hectare. Since then, 97 varieties (22 of which have been removed from the recommended list) of improved seeds have been delivered to the farmers.But the acceptance of hybrid and improved seeds in Nepal has been slow. Paddy seeds should be replaced every 3/4 years, but most farmers the same seed over and over again. In Nepal, the replacement rate of paddy seeds is only about 24%.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114121116/6372237a9c7e80680e0c0353jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1271" height="802">The increase in productivity has not kept pace with population growth over the last decades.A decrease in cultivable land due to rapid urbanisation has also reduced production. While the government estimates that 1.477 million hectares of land is used for paddy plantation, the figure is based on the census conducted 10 years ago and does not take into account changing land use patterns.“When much of the cultivable land in the Tarai districts are being turned into housing, how can we expect the paddy production to grow?” asks one frustrated official at the ministry.Similarly, in the lack of a proper irrigation system, farmers are still dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Which is why yields every year are determined by the monsoon. Only a third of Nepal's total cultivable land has irrigation facilities throughout the year.Irrigation or lack thereof is also the reason farming communities have been so affected by the climate crisis.Moreover, farmers across Nepal face chronic fertiliser shortage every year, and less than half the demand of 900,000 tons is met. Failure to fertilise paddy plants on time reduces the yield by one-third, and applying 1kg of fertiliser increases harvests by 10kg.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/can-nepal-be-self-sufficient-in-rice,3598">The price of growing rice</a>, Sahina Shrestha“Irrigation, improved seeds and chemical fertilisers are the main prerequisites for increasing productivity. Once they are met, Nepal can become self-sufficient,” says Ram BaranYadav of the National Rice Research Program, adding that the country needs a total of 7.2 million tons of paddy production or 5 tons of rice per hectare to feed itself.At present, Nepal imports 1.6 million tons of paddy to meet demand. In the last 10 months, it imported rice worth Rs42.19 billion. Experts say one way to improve productivity is to prioritise Chaitedhan over the annual paddy as the former’s yield is up to 30% higher.But it is near impossible to improve agriculture productivity after decades of state neglect. The government can however immediately invest more in procuring chemical fertilisers on time while also promoting organic manure generated domestically at industrial-scale biogas plants.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114121116/6372237d9c7e80680e0c0354jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">The finance minister in his budget speech claimed to have significantly increased the budget for agriculture, but it is up just to 6.68% from 6.25% the year before. Added to other pre-existing challenges, this is highly unlikely to meet the government’s production target in a year.Says Yadav: "It is not possible to leap in production in a single year. It requires long preparation and political will."Much like paddy, maize and wheat production has not seen any significant growth in recent years. Maize production 30 years ago was 1.62 ton per hectare, today it is 3.15.The Ministry of Agriculture estimates maize harvest at 3.1 million metric tons this year, up from 2.179 million tons 10 years ago. Even then, this is an increase of just 1 ton in 10 long years. But the budget has outlined additional production of 931,000 metric tons this year alone.“Sure, it is possible to increase production as per the targets but make sure the farmers have enough fertiliser, seeds and irrigation facilities,” advises ChitraBahadurKunwar of the National Maize Research Program in Rampur.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/agroecology-nepals-answer-to-climate-change/">Agroecology, Nepal’s answer to climate change</a>, Zachary BartonLike rice, productivity of maize lies in the use of improved seeds. The Maize Research Program has recommended 7 hybrids and 24 improved varieties to farmers. But according to Kunwar, high-yielding hybrid seeds are planted by only 5% of the farmers, most do not even have access to improved seeds.The chronic lack of fertilisers also applies to maize, directly affecting its domestic production. An increase in consumption of poultry has meant that farmers are having to meet the deficit by importing an increasing amount of maize for chicken feed.In the last 10 months, Nepal has imported wheat worth Rs.15.83 billion. The government aims to increase wheat production from 2.145 million metric tons to 2.78. This means an additional production of 643,000 tons in a single year. Earlier, it took Nepal nearly a decade and a half to increase its yield by that much.The productivity of wheat has reached about 3 tons per hectare, twice as much as 30 years ago but is nowhere close to what is required to be self-sufficient.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/corruption-and-nepals-chronic-fertiliser-crisis/">Corruption and Nepal’s chronic fertiliser crisis</a>, Kaustubh Dhital

Nepal sets ambitious target for food sufficiency

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218ee9c7e80680e0baa70jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"/><figcaption>Photos: NABIN BARAL AND GAGAN THAPA</figcaption></figure>Growing up in a family composed of two cultures, I learned to juxtapose the differing cultures of my parents through food, and understand and appreciate their contrasts. My mother’s Newa community reveres alcohol and buffalo meat, which are integral to the culture and even offered to the gods. But my father’s Brahmin community abstains from alcohol and buffalo meat as these are considered impure and socially unacceptable. The two societies celebrate festivals and rituals in different ways and have varied food traditions.Despite these differences, my family embraces both cultures. I grew up blending the two food cultures and traditions together. Food is the epitome of culture, and in Nepal it has deep cultural and religious significance, being the defining feature of cultural identity.Nepal has over 100 different castes and ethnicities, each with its own food culture deeply rooted within its own socio-ecological milieu. Because of its geographical variance, Nepal has a great variety of flora and fauna, including crops and animals that are raised for food, which in turn has led to variegated cuisine.Many indigenous communities in Nepal have their own culinary practices that are largely defined by the environment they live in, the availability of resources, the state of the economy, and centuries of history.But little is written about the wonderful variety of food cultures across these ethnicities, and Nepali cuisine is largely represented by a handful of recipes.In addition to indigenous practices, migration, trade, and cross-border influences have also shaped Nepal's gastronomy. For centuries, Nepalis have engaged in trade between the Tibetan Plateau and the Gangetic Plains. While many of Nepal’s valleys and mountains appear isolated, traditional recipes are a testament to the movement of people and cross-cultural exchanges.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218f19c7e80680e0baa71jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Tarai’s food culture relates to North India as it is historically, geographically, and culturally contiguous. The food in Nepal's northern hinterland is closer to Tibet. Over the years, many Tibetan and Indian communities have also migrated to Nepal, bringing along their recipes.Muslim communities, some of which came from Kashmir and Central Asia, have also blended their cuisines with local practices, customs, and ingredients.In Nepal, food practices are linked to one’s religion, caste, and ethnicity. Hindus from supposedly 'upper-caste’ households categorise foods according to chokho (pure) and bitulo (impure).<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218f49c7e80680e0baa72jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>For instance, kodo (finger millet) is considered impure and abstained during religious ceremonies. Whereas for other groups, millet is a staple and also made into alcohol that is offered to ancestral deities. Alcohol and pork consumption is a defining feature of non-Hindu ethnicities and the 'lower-castes’.In a society stratified by caste and class, some food practices are used as a tool for discrimination and social exclusion. The upper-caste not only dictate the supremacy of their social norms but also their food culture. They look down upon those who eat pig and buffalo, and drink alcohol. What you eat has historically defined class and vice versa. The Dalit are considered the 'lowest’ in the caste hierarchy.As with most cultures around the world, the social practice of eating together is at the centre of festivities and celebrations in Nepal. Kathmandu’s Newa community celebrates numerous festivals and jatras (chariot processions or carnivals), and for each celebration, a bhoye (feast) is an indispensable element.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218f79c7e80680e0baa73jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218fa9c7e80680e0baa74jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The largest Hindu festival Dasain, the Sakela festival of the Kirats, and many others are celebrations of planting and harvesting of crops that follow the monsoon cycle. In fact, monsoon shapes the ways of life in Nepal. Yomari Punhi, a Newa festival that involves eating yomari (a steamed rice flour cake filled with sweet molasses), and Nwagi, a festival offering the new harvest to ancestral deities before consuming in many communities, are essentially harvest celebrations.At times, precise delicacies are designated for specific festivals and they pay close attention to seasonally available produce. During the winter festival of Maghe Sankranti, varieties of tubers such as sweet potato, yam, and taro are consumed alongside ghee and processed jaggery in the belief that they prevent colds.In recent decades, dal-bhat-tarkari, commonly referred to as khana (also the word for ‘food’), has become a staple meal across Nepal. Dal is lentil or bean soup, bhat is cooked rice, and tarkari is cooked vegetable. The meal is at times accompanied by a meat curry and often eaten with a fermented or freshly-made achar as relish.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218fd9c7e80680e0baa75jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637218ff9c7e80680e0baa76jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637219029c7e80680e0baa77jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>However, many mountain communities traditionally did not eat rice as a staple. Buckwheat, barley, and naked barley once made up the daily diets of the Sherpa, Tamang, and Thakali. The Newa, Magar, and Gurung consumed millet and maize as their primary staples. Apart from rice, maize, buckwheat, millet, and other grains are usually ground into flour and made into roti (unleavened flatbread) and dhindo (thick porridge). In the Himalayan region, tsampa (roasted barley or naked barley flour) is a staple and is usually eaten with su-cha (salty butter tea).As rice has become more mainstream and commercially available, it has displaced other traditional and nutritious staple grains such as millet, buckwheat, barley, sorghum, and amaranth. Unfortunately, even many of the local rice varieties are being replaced by commercial varieties.Foraging and hunting still contribute a significant portion to diets. In the mountainous regions where less fertile soil and harsh climates mean crops cannot support residents all year round, foraging is essential to meet local needs.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637219059c7e80680e0baa78jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The food culture of the Tharus is inextricably linked to rivers, ponds, canals, and swamps. In the mid-hills, along with fishes, paha (freshwater Himalayan frogs) are delicacies of the Magar and Gurung.Insects, on the other hand, are only sparsely consumed now. Such indigenous foraging practices are regrettably disappearing.Until recently, Nepalis ate meat occasionally, generally during festivals and celebrations. Buffalo meat is of particular importance to the Newa community. Many hill communities have a variety of pork-based recipes. Yaks, mountain goats, and sheep are reared for meat in the mountainous region. Khasi (castrated goat) and chicken are common and consumed by most communities.Some indigenous groups traditionally ate beef, but cow slaughter was outlawed in the early 19th century by the Hindu monarchy, and it remains proscribed today.Milk and dairy products such as ghee, yoghurt, and buttermilk are essential in the cuisines of Hindu Khas-Pahadi, Maithil, Sherpa, and other mountainous communities, which historically followed pastoral traditions.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637219079c7e80680e0baa79jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/6372190a9c7e80680e0baa7ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Fermenting, smoke-drying, and sun-drying are common in Nepali food culture, which probably came from the need to preserve food. Fermented achar is also an attempt to preserve food. Vegetables such as radish, cauliflower, lapsi (Nepali hog plum), bamboo shoots, and chillies are pickled and stored.The Rais and Limbus ferment soybeans to make kinema and then dry it for later use. Gundruk (sun-dried fermented greens) and masyaura (sun-dried black lentil paste and taro leaf nuggets) are widely prepared for preserving greens for the dry season.The Thakali sun-dry buckwheat greens and ground them to make dhopra, which is consumed as a soup.  The Tharu preserve greens for the monsoon season when the fields are flooded and greens are scarce.While in some communities, their economic prosperity and agricultural abundance have added richness to food; in others, limited crop diversity and the necessity for preservation have led to the development of unique delicacies and flavours.A wide variety of spices, herbs, and flavouring ingredients used in cooking also reflects the richness of Nepali flavours. Mustard oil, ghee, and preserved animal fat have been used as cooking mediums and flavouring ingredients since ancient times. But today, the use of industrially processed sunflower and soybean oil is widespread.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/6372190d9c7e80680e0baa7bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/6372190f9c7e80680e0baa7cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Spices such as garlic, ginger, onion, coriander, cumin, turmeric, and chilli are commonly used across Nepal, but there are also many lesser-known spices and flavouring ingredients distinctive to communities or regions. The Sherpas use the whey dregs of buttermilk, known as serkam. They also ferment it to make somar, and milk cream to make shosim, both of which add a sharp pungent flavour to soups and achar.In Nepal’s western parts, bhang (hemp seeds) is widely used to make achar. The Tharu of the eastern Tarai use aalash (flaxseeds) to flavour curries and achar. Timmur and jimbu (aromatic wild Himalayan allium) are among the important flavouring ingredients in Thakali cuisine, and also commonly used by hill communities. The Kirat burnt ash from a rooster’s inner feathers to use as flavouring to make a delicacy known as wachipa or wamrik.Nepali cuisine is characterised by the one quality that distinguishes almost every facet of Nepali life: its diversity. With wide geographic variance, ethnic diversity, rich culture and heritage, Nepali food culture is intricately and extraordinarily unique. Nepal has managed to carve out a unique niche for itself, borrowing not just from its neighbours, but also cultures farther afield.The identity, culture, religion, ethnicity, and beliefs of the communities are connected to food, it is imperative to understand and preserve Nepal’s food culture.Excerpt from Prashanta Khanal's book Timmur: Stories and Flavors of Nepal<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111128/637219129c7e80680e0baa7djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640">Timmur: Stories and Flavors of NepalBy Prashanta KhanalFine Print 2022297 pagesRegular hardback Rs2,500Special hardback with slipcase Rs3,000Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/getting-high-on-high-mountain-tea/">Getting high on High Mountain Tea</a>, Sonia Awale

Flavours from Nepal

<figure><img width="4875" height="3768" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101140/63720d909c7e80680e0b78d1jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>All photos: L’ITALIANO</figcaption></figure>It may not be part of the famous artisanal food and beverage marketplace chain, but a new Jhamel restaurant comes closest to being Kathmandu's own version of Eataly. <a href="https://vespercafe.com/">L'Italiano</a> opened its doors this week for Kathmanduities to indulge in Italian fine dining with authentic cuisine from Italy that ranks second only to Chinese in popularity worldwide. One might think the Nepali palate is used to Italian food -- after all, the ease of preparing pasta dishes have meant that it has started replacing <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/exploring-nepals-culinary-diversity/">dal bhat tarkari</a> in many households, and the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15241#.YjBxhO5BxH0">pizzas</a> are hot favourites after <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/wow-binod/">momos</a> in restaurants. Thamel’s <a href="https://www.fireandicepizzeria.com/">Fire and Ice</a> and <a href="https://roadhouse.com.np/">Roadhouse pizzerias</a> have been consistently popular for decades in Kathmandu. Establishments specialising in Italian food are aplenty, perhaps only behind Indian and Chinese restaurants. So what does one new Italian restaurant add to Kathmandu's growing food culture? Much like momos are a variation of Tibetan dumplings, but with a wide range of types, ingredients and spices, Italian food has gone through alterations in Nepal. So much so that locally served pizza, pasta, risotto and lasagne do not taste anything like they are supposed to, says Italian chef Andrea Cannalire who was recently in town. <figure><img width="1694" height="917" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101140/63720d959c7e80680e0b78d2jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Cannalire is a Michelin star chef based in Ostuni in Italy, close to Francavilla Fontana where he grew up. While he was working in Phuket in Thailand last year, he found out that a restaurant in Kathmandu was looking to rebrand itself.Through a common friend, Cannalire agreed to visit Nepal and was here for over a month training Nepali chefs before the grand opening of L’Italiano this week.“Italian cooking that has evolved in Kathmandu has gone through some major transformation. It has reached a point where I’m having to introduce the traditional way of doing Italian cooking,” says Cannalire, who has over a decade-long experience in gourmet cooking. “Chef as well as the clientele, have to be educated on what authentic Italian is.”During his month touring various restaurants in Kathmandu and Pokhara, Cannalire got to like the Nepali Thali and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/benefits-of-barley,1924">Phaparko</a> Dhido. However, he noticed that many eateries overdo spices so that it is difficult to savour the true flavour of food, for example in preparing mutton curry. This is why he has taken special care to train Nepali chefs in L'Italiano to use spices in moderation.  <figure><img width="5760" height="3840" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101140/63720d989c7e80680e0b78d3jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="5760" height="3840" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101140/63720d9c9c7e80680e0b78d4jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>A big part of the mutated taste of Italian food in Nepal is the lack of genuine ingredients. Kathmandu markets do not have anything close to real mozzarella, and the prosciutto is not the genuine ham from Parma.Similarly, lasagne is traditionally made with ragu that has beef mince in it, which means most restaurants would have modified it."Nepalis seem to love chicken topping in pizza, but you would never do that in Italy," quips Cannalire, who got interested in cooking from a young age.“Every time I went to restaurants with my family when I was a boy, I used to wonder what went on behind the doors that lead to the kitchen,” recalls Cannalire. “This extended even to the games we played as a child, I used to be fascinated even with a play kitchen my cousin had.”Cannalire first started working in restaurants around his hometown, but he started exploring and interning at different places, improving his cooking skills. Before long, he found his calling in gourmet cooking and returned home to southern Italy to work in a hotel restaurant nearby. <figure><img width="5760" height="3840" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101140/63720da09c7e80680e0b78d5jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="5760" height="3840" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101140/63720da59c7e80680e0b78d6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The newly launched L’Italiano is housed in the same space and is owned by some of the same people behind The Vesper House. The establishment itself has gone through several alterations in both décor and food over the years.<a href="https://www.vesperhouse.com/">Vesper Café and Restaurant</a> had carved a niche in Patan's Jhamel restaurant neighbourhood. After its quaint red mud-brick house was damaged in the 2015 earthquake, it reopened almost immediately next door to continue to cater to wine and cheese lovers.Post-pandemic, it has reinvented itself into a fine-dining Italian restaurant with new décor, and with inputs from Cannalire, will specialise in pasta dishes, hand-cooked and in genuine Italian al dente style, so that the pasta has a little bite to it.Ashank SJB Rana of L’Italiano realises the challenge of maintaining the high-quality set by the Italian chef, and plans to bring Cannalire back every year for refresher training for his chefs.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/exploring-nepals-culinary-diversity/">Exploring Nepal’s culinary diversity</a>, Kedar Sharma and Kiran Sharma“To have good quality food, you don’t always need to import ingredients, you should know how to play with locally sourced produce as well,” says Rana who studied wine management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “Our goal is to give our clients an authentic taste of Italy. But this does not mean it will be an uber-sophisticated space."The Vesper House suffered much like any other establishment during the initial days of the pandemic. But as the impact of the Covid-19 declined, people started dining out, its usual expatriate clientele was largely replaced by Nepalis.The Vesper House is one of the biggest importers of fine wine in Nepal, where Merlot and Chardonnay remains popular. Its extensive wine cellar with large collection from Australia, Spain, Germany, Italy and France will continue to be a part of the new establishment. Vesper also has its own wine label appealing to a wide variety of palates, and works with restaurants to advise them on their wine menus.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/food-of-the-royals/">Food of the royals</a>, Nepali Times

Sonia Awale

Kathmandu's own 'Eataly'

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016110/636d12189c7e80680e0a98bajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="664" height="450"/>Nepal Rastra Bank’s report last month was badly timed — it was a bad idea to sound a warning that Nepal is going belly up just as the country was grinding to a halt for a month of Dasain-Tihar-Chhat festivals.The indicators were ominous: Nepal’s foreign currency reserves fell to $11.1 billion in September, much below the figure for last year and only enough to pay for 8 months of imports. There has been a 76% increase in the import bill to a record Rs352 billion last fiscal year — despite a pandemic slowdown.In the first two months of this fiscal year, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/defying-predictions-nepals-remittances-still-high/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/defying-predictions-nepals-remittances-still-high/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1636429484700000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHKGPEf-eEDtwjn0f_p_HMzrqYQGw">overseas remittances that had held steady despite the pandemic</a> went down by 6.3% to Rs155 billion.One of the holy days of Tihar last week was dedicated to Goddess Laxmi, and many prayed for individual wealth and prosperity. We should have been praying for the country’s economic survival.Just those two figures for falling remittances and rising imports should have been enough to sound the emergency alarm. But fatalism is so steeped in Nepal’s governance culture that we hope things will sort themselves out.After all, if things go really wrong, Pashupatinath will come to the rescue. But the Lord Protector of Nepal must be shaking his head at the disarray of the state.We have come to expect lack of accountability in self-dealing politicians and elected officials, but the judiciary used to be relatively untainted and independent.The violation of the principle of separation of powers by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/what-is-happening-to-nepals-supreme-court/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/what-is-happening-to-nepals-supreme-court/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1636429484700000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG-raVzHQQBlpr5oUCza97BMC7wkA">Chief Justice Cholendra SJB Rana</a> and the mutiny in the Supreme Court has dragged the judiciary also into dysfunction.With the court system paralysed, Rana has been reported to be looking for a ‘graceful exit’, and apparently proposed a leave of absence until his term expires. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-wants-early-elections-and-why/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-wants-early-elections-and-why/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1636429484700000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHWRzSQmjSbl2C65i3KvLsEqN0uUA">top leadership</a> of the main parties have been silent about the fate of Chief Justice Rana, who after all was instrumental in overturning K P Oli’s dissolution of the Lower House which <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-court-orders-deuba-to-succeed-oli/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-court-orders-deuba-to-succeed-oli/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1636429484700000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHI-krjS3d3YX690askSFTe2LB0vA">put Deuba in office</a> on 14 July.They also have all kinds of pending cases in the Supreme Court, and do not want antagonise a Chief Justice in case he survives this crisis. Rana has reportedly used the holidays for intense political lobbying through emissaries. That would likely entail a quid pro quo over not starting an impeachment process in Parliament in return for future favours.Whether Rana remains chief justice or is forced to step down is mixed up with politics — after all it was the failure of politicians to sort out their power struggles in Parliament that allowed the judiciary to have such a magnified role in who gets to be in government and who doesn’t. There is so much corruption and vested interest in the political nominations to the Supreme Court that just removing Chief Justice Rana will not stem the rot.Besides, the real emergency Nepal faces today is not about who succeeds Rana or if the coalition remains intact till elections, but the fate of the economy.Remittances pay for imports, and inflows are down and imports are up. Hard currency reserves to finance <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/blood-sweat-tears/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/blood-sweat-tears/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1636429484700000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH52fe2VOfxxaDWmxbqr8rkJcg-Hg">Nepal’s imports, mainly of petroleum</a>, food and other items are falling. Exports did go up, but the trade deficit rose to Rs270 billion in the past two months.Besides, Nepal’s main item of export is processed palm and soya oil that depend on massive imports of raw material. A <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-less-and-less-able-to-feed-itself/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-less-and-less-able-to-feed-itself/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1636429484700000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHt2gsBj5b0itg1RhxrL9unH8Y3-Q">growing asymmetry between imports and exports</a> means the balance of payments is now Rs83.4 billion — double what it was in July.Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba pledged at COP26 to reduce Nepal’s carbon footprint, and Energy Minister Pampha Bhusal is pushing for a transition to electric transport. They seem to have finally realised that having a petroleum import bill more than all exports combined is not sustainable.Destructive post-monsoon rains will reduce rice harvests by 20%, which means increased food import. What will we use our remaining foreign exchange reserves for: to buy food or fuel? It might to be an either/or.There does not seem to be a sense of urgency about this emergency in the Finance Ministry. It must act immediately to increase taxes on luxury items, encourage local agriculture production and invest heavily in infrastructure to create local jobs.The economic crisis is a result of political neglect and disarray. Trouble is: we cannot wait for the politics to sort itself out to fix the economy this time.

Urgency about Nepal’s economic emergency

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18c69c7e80680e0ac7e2jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>Although the undernutrition<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/food-for-thought-for-nepals-nutrition-planners/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>rate in Nepal has dropped dramatically in the past two decades, a quarter of its children still go to bed hungry every night.
Yet, food waste makes up 66% of garbage in Kathmandu. The gap between poverty and plenty is even more glaring during Dasain, when bingeing on masu-bhat is the norm.
This week’s <a href="https://www.globalhungerindex.org/ranking.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Global Hunger Index 2021</a> by the UN’s <a href="https://www.fao.org/platform-food-loss-waste/resources/detail/en/c/1378978/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Food and Agriculture Organisation</a> (FAO) ranks Nepal 76th among 116 countries – better than India (101) and Pakistan (92). However, that is no comfort for thousands of Nepali families who are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">struggling to feed themselves</a> due to income loss caused by the pandemic.
On the other hand, with rising living standards, Nepalis are also over-splurging, leading to an increase in food waste. Much of this is processed and packaged food, which adds to the plastic in urban garbage.
The problem has gotten so bad that cooking oil brand Siddha Baba took it upon itself to communicate the seriousness of food waste in Nepal ahead of the festival via tv and social advertorials with comedy duo Madan Krishna Shrestha and Hari Bansa Acharya.
<a href="https://dokorecyclers.com" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Doko Recyclers</a> that manages and upcycles dry waste in Kathmandu, has seen a significant increase in consumption and wastage during the festival season. 
To be sure, the problem of food waste in Nepal is not specific to festival time. Nearly 4.6 million people are categorised as ‘food insecure’ in Nepal, and 40% of children under five are stunted. Childhood malnutrition has been made worse by pandemic-induced economic fallout.
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-affecting-food-security-in-nepal-wfp/">The pandemic</a> has also disrupted the market with tons of vegetables and fruits left to rot without proper transport during the lockdowns. Which is why despite a favourable monsoon this year, many were discouraged from planting maize and paddy, fearing more wastage.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/ipcc-report-and-nepals-food-security/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">IPCC report and Nepal’s food security</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-pandemic-of-hunger/">The pandemic of hunger</a>, Medha GelliIn a recent panel examining the food crisis in Nepal, environmental scientist Uttam Babu Shrestha said that up to 40% of vegetables are wasted daily during their transport and handling.“Although there is plenty of anecdotal evidence pointing to a large degree of food waste in transit and households, there has been no comprehensive study done in Nepal examining food waste post-harvest,” added Shrestha.A study in January of 2014 surveyed wholesalers and retailers to determine the primary cause of food waste in shops. Many of the respondents said it was because they did not have refrigeration facilities to extend the shelf life of farm produce. Others said poor handling and packaging contributed to food waste.Food is generally to be packed in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-covid-19-plastic-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">polythene bags</a> which are significantly cheaper than crates, the expensive alternative that is the industry standard for protecting produce. The use of polythene bags, paired with tightly packed produce with minimal airflow in a vehicle on uneven roads, leads to a significant waste of produce even before it reaches market.Food waste at home can easily be minimised, but the extent of the problem is much larger in hotels and restaurants. Nabin Bikash Maharjan of the company <a href="https://bw2v.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Blue Waste to Value</a> has been working with clients like Hotel Yak and Yeti and Hyatt Regency and has seen first-hand the amount of food waste establishments like that generate.“Before the pandemic, we used to get some 1.5 tons of waste from one single 5-star hotel in a day, 60% of which would be food. In large part, this waste is from banquets and events they host,” says Maharjan.Blue Waste to Value turns the food waste into animal feed, and the rest for organic composting. Most larger hotels and restaurants in Kathmandu now have similar tie-ups with pig farms.Actually, an average Nepali household produces much less food waste. Blue Waste to Value found that only about 20% of the waste generated in private homes is food. Even so, a study by the Solid Waste Management Technical Support Centre (SWMTSC) estimated that in Nepal, 65% of household waste is organic which means it can be turned into compost instead of being dumped in landfill sites.Food waste is adding to Kathmandu’s growing problem of solid waste management. The capital's only landfill in Nuwakot’s Sisdole has already reached <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-load-of-rubbish/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">its maximum capacity</a>, and every monsoon the rains damage the access road to the site obstructing the movement of garbage trucks.Some 1,000 tons of solid waste is dumped at Sisdole every day, 60% of which is organic. Almost all of the waste remains unsegregated and adds to the pollution, further worsening the health of the people.Says Pankaj Panjiyar of Doko: “Food waste at home can be largely reduced if all of us practice in-house waste segregation and composting, this in time will help with our overflowing landfill.”

Nepal’s glaring food gap

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfdb39c7e80680e0a0bfcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2000"/><figcaption>Photo: WWF NEPAL</figcaption></figure>As the Covid crisis pushes <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-real-cost-of-nepals-second-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">millions of Nepalis back below the poverty line</a> affecting their nutritional status, the UK government is funding supplemental food for mothers and children affected by the monsoon and Covid-19 pandemic in Nepal.The additional £788,000 (Rs130 million) will allow the World Food Programme (WFP) to support 100,000 mothers and children with specialised nutritional supplement 'super cereal' for two months in eight districts in Province 2, Sunsari in Province 1, Jajarkot in Karnali and Kanchanpur in Far West. Mothers in target areas will also receive counselling on Covid-19 and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/hunger-for-governance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">nutrition</a>.“Natural hazards affect marginalised communities disproportionately, including women and children. Protecting the health of the Nepali people is a top priority for the UK Government,” says Nathanael Bevan, Director of Development at the British Embassy in Kathmandu. “The UK is glad to be supporting WFP’s efforts to make sure vulnerable Nepalis, especially mothers and children, receive proper food and nutrition.”The Covid crisis has reversed Nepal’s gains in poverty reduction and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">childhood malnutrition</a> achieved in the past ten years.Children as well as pregnant and breastfeeding months in rural Nepal are among the hardest hit by the pandemic. Currently, over 15% of households in Nepal are food insecure, while around 39% of children between 6 to 23 months do not meet minimum dietary requirements.A WFP report earlier this year found that Nepal had up to 1.84 million pregnant and lactating women who were malnourished. This in turn affects the growth of their children as they receive <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-pandemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">inadequate nutrition</a> even before they are born.And as newborns they get mothers’ milk lacking in nutrition, leading to a greater risk of dying before the age of five. More than one-third of children under five face stunted growth.Many of the older children also relied on school lunches for a nutritious meals but <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/lessons-not-learned-from-the-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">prolonged school closure</a> means that they are also deprived of this.In addition to reduced food intake, children and young mothers have been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/children-are-collateral-damage-in-nepal-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unable to access health services and immunisation facilities</a> for the better part of the last year and a half due to restrictions of the movement.“The pandemic and its socio-economic impact have put unrelenting pressure on Nepali families’ food security. Between December 2020 and June 2021, the number of households experiencing income loss has doubled – from 21 to 45% – making food increasingly out of reach for many,” says WFP Nepal Country director Jane Pearce. “This aid will enable us to reach the most vulnerable mothers and children whose lives have been made harder by Covid and now the monsoon.”Since the start of the first nationwide lockdown on 24 March 2020, and the subsequent widespread disruption to normal economic activity, Nepalis have faced increased strain on household income, directly <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/quarter-of-nepalis-still-hungry-during-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">impacting their food intake</a>.In fact, they have reported increased job losses and a reduction in income over the past year and a half. While in December 2020, 5% of households reported job loss, it was nearly 14% in June 2021. Similarly, 21% of households reported a reduction in income in December 2020 while it was 45% in June 2021.But most families have received <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/half-of-nepalis-lost-jobs-in-past-month/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">little to no support from the government</a> to tide them over the long months of pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.Moreover, Nepal is one of the most vulnerable countries to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/disasters-in-nepal-come-in-waves/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">natural calamities and the impacts of climate change</a>, tens of thousands of people are displaced by the floods and landslides every monsoon in lack of timely preparedness.A part of the contribution will also go to help WFP conduct a new round of cross-country household food security surveys. This funding is in addition to the £4.49 million (Rs678 million) WFP received from the UK Government in December 2020 towards the agency’s response to Covid-19.

UK aid for Nepali mothers and children

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d08ac9c7e80680e0a602fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2172" height="1076"/>With a reduction of the country’s poverty rate, Nepalis are eating more meat and eggs per capita than ever before, improving their nutrition levels and driving a rapid growth of the meat and poultry industry.Much of this new spending on food was a direct result of remittances being sent home to their families by Nepali workers abroad. Middle class families that ate meat only on weekends, now have it almost daily. Many Nepalis no longer have to wait for Dasain or other festivals to have a meat dish in their diet.“Meat is no longer a luxury food item for festivals, now it is an everyday item in the household,” says Saksham Ghimire of Valley Cold Store in Kathmandu, which used to sell only 15kg of chicken when it first opened 40 years ago. Today, the store sells more than 10,000kg of chicken daily.Nepalis consumed 552,000 tonnes of meat in 2020, up from 357,000 tonnes the year before. Average per capita consumption of meat in Nepal has reached 18kg per year — up from 6kg per year in the 1970s. The UN has set 14kg annual per capita meat consumption as the minimum requirement for a balanced diet.Most of the increase in meat eating has occurred in parallel with the growth of the commercial poultry industry. The first modern farm was set up in Bara in 1960 with the import of new breeds. Since then, the poultry industry has grown exponentially with chicken production rising from 5,200 tonnes in 1981 to 255,000 tonnes today.About 700,000kg of chicken meat is consumed daily throughout Nepal, and half of it is sold in Kathmandu Valley alone. Poultry meat that used to make up only 5% of national meat consumption in the 1980s has now reached 46%, with Nepalis eating 1.62 billion chickens annually.There has been a parallel increase in the consumption of eggs, with per capita consumption now 55 eggs per year, compared to the UN threshold of 48 eggs per year for an average person.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d08af9c7e80680e0a6030jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2174" height="1432">Besides improving the dietary intake of Nepalis, the phenomenal increase in the poultry industry has also been a boon to the economy. There are now at least 340 modern hatcheries across Nepal with more than 100 plants that provide feed for the poultry farms.“The poultry industry has contributed vastly to the country's economic growth and provided employment to at least 500,000 people who would otherwise have to migrate abroad for work,” says Tikaram Pokhrel of the Nepal Hatchery Industries Association. “Requiring little investment and having very few barriers to entry, poultry farming provides opportunities for self-employment.”Nepal’s poultry industry, however, does face the challenge of reducing production cost to make meat even more affordable, and to compete with cheaper Indian imports. One main reason for chicken meat to become so popular is its affordability — chicken is at least three times cheaper than goat meat and nearly at par with the cost of vegetables.The contribution of remittances to the reduction of poverty in Nepal is the other driver increasing consumption of poultry products. Till as recently as 15 years ago, one in four families in Nepal received remittance income, and this has grown to one in two households who have family members sending money home from abroad.Remittances has brought down the proportion of Nepalis living below the poverty line from 42% in 1995 to 18% today — although experts say the pandemic has pushed more people into poverty because of the loss of income.The annual per capita income of Nepalis was only Rs27,227 in 2005, but this has gone up to Rs166,000 in the last fiscal year. Even factoring in the fall in rupee value, this represents a dramatic increase in disposable income which has contributed to a richer diet among Nepalis.It is not just the poultry industry, the production of goat meat has also increased to 71,000 tonnes per year after the government tightened quarantine rules for the import of goats from India which has saved the country Rs3 billion annually.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d08b29c7e80680e0a6031jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1996" height="1330">Nevertheless, chicken is still king. Poultry meat contributes over 46% of the total annual meat consumption in Nepal, with buffalo making up 33%, goat meat 17% and pork at 4%.There has been a direct correlation between the increase in meat consumption with better nutritional levels among Nepalis. The rate of malnutrition among children has dropped significantly over the past two decades. Stunting in children went down from 56% in 1996 to 36% in 2016, and has fallen further to 31% in the latest multi-indicator survey by the Central Bureau of Statistics.Similarly, the proportion of underweight children is down to 27% from 42% in 1996. Protein intake from meat and eggs have played a part in the reduction of malnutrition over the past few decades.“The protein-rich diet of meat and eggs has improved average nutrition levels,” says Aruna Upreti, who however points out that the gains are uneven. “In the Karnali, among Dalit families and across the Tarai, stunting and anaemia are still common.”Despite improving Nepal’s self-sufficiency in meat production, the growth in the industry has also increased imports of maize, soybean and grain that are needed to produce feed. Imports of these ingredients reached Rs23 billion last year.The other disadvantage is that the consumption of meat also has a complex and largely detrimental relationship with the environment. Meat consumption and production are large contributors to the emission of greenhouse gases, and livestock rearing is also resource-heavy, with 4,300 litres of water required to produce 1 kg of chicken meat and 10,400 litres of water for 1 kg of goat meat.Translated by Aryan Sitaula from <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/124463" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/124463&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1627457885279000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHw6QkywdBqaa4UMVcsJaJuaJBD9Q">the original in Himal Khabar</a>.

Meat, money, and the middle class

<figure><img width="1500" height="1191" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d079f9c7e80680e0a5fcfjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: MARTY LOGAN</figcaption></figure>The Covid-19 pandemic has affected the livelihoods of the most neglected communities in Nepal, with a direct impact on the food intake of family members, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/pandemic-of-poverty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">especially children</a>.
Household loss of income means mothers also have inadequate nutrition, which again affects their children. A recent report by the World Food Programme (WFP) states that Nepal had up to 1.84 million pregnant and lactating women who were <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">malnourished</a>. 
Babies are affected even before they are born when women lack adequate nutrition while pregnant. Newborns get mother’s milk lacking in nutrition,  leading to greater risk of dying before the age five. 
More than one-third of children under five face stunted growth, and with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/lessons-not-learned-from-the-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">prolonged school closure</a> many of the older children who rely on school lunches for a nutritious meal are also deprived of adequate nutrition. 
“To ensure food security, governments must clearly define the principles and framework to provide food support to those in need,” says Bishow Parajuli, the World Food Programme (WFP) Representative and Country Director in India. “It must be contextual and linked to the needs of the citizens and its food systems. Targeting food support to focus on at-risk groups is at the heart of any need-based safety net.” 
Neighbouring India has allocated an additional 5kg cereal free of cost to 813 million people under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana. And although there are doubts about the food reaching the most vulnerable, it shows a bold attempt to address the food-pandemic nexus. Nepal has no such state-run program.
A study in the Front Public Health journal states that ‘despite some efforts in the 8 months since the first case was detected, the [Nepali] government's response so far has been insufficient’. 
Parajuli says that instituting a dynamic food support program that continually assesses the needs of communities most at risk from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nearly-half-of-nepali-children-still-malnourished/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">malnutrition</a> and is led by local leaders will help reach marginalised and underserved individuals. 
“Such programs allow food support to be built into disaster and humanitarian responses and which also reduce the food insecurity impacts of Covid-19,” Parajuli explains.  
State intervention on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/1-in-5-nepal-families-lack-food/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food security</a> must take into account reliable distribution that reaches the most vulnerable, but also deliver a balanced nutritious diet – especially for children. 
“Food aid must include a wide variety of food groups as well as specific supplementary nutritious food for children, pregnant and lactating women. And it is preferable if these are locally available foods and food preferences,” adds Parajuli. 
To begin sourcing more food locally, Nepal’s agriculture-based economy which employs roughly 66% of the labour force in Nepal, will be relying on this year’s monsoon season more than ever. Although the monsoon has unleashed floods and landslides, it has been on time and vigorous, raising hopes of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/are-nepalis-really-eating-more-rice/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/are-nepalis-really-eating-more-rice/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1626759869540000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH5oMU-2S63uhx7ndTjXOqLzbt-cg">a good rice harvest</a>.
The India Meteorological Department  increased its 2021 monsoon forecast to ‘101 percent of the Long Period Average (LPA), meaning most parts of the country can expect to get normal to above normal rainfall’. In June, Nepal on average got up to 30%  more rain than normal. 
Faced with the prospect of widespread hunger due to loss of income during the pandemic, this is good news for food security. In the 2020-2021 fiscal year, India saw surplus production enabling the export of 19.8 million tonnes of rice and wheat. 
Elsewhere in the world, Covid-19 has exacerbated <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-affecting-food-security-in-nepal-wfp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food insecurity</a>, leaving roughly 155 million people acutely food insecure in 2020. On a global scale, the WFP estimates that the number of people living with acute hunger will increase from 130 million to 270 million in 2020-21. 
Children in developing countries facing a food crisis are most vulnerable to food insecurity. The 2021 Global Report of Food Crises (GRFC) report stated that last year, 15.8 million children under 5 years old were wasted and 75.2 million children under 5 years old were stunted in the 55 food-crisis countries. 
"For these children the situation is especially grave. More than one in three of all wasted children – 16 million – and just under one half of all stunted children – 75 million children – live in these 55 countries,” says UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “The pandemic has deepened this crisis, disrupting diets, services and practices that protect children and their families from under-nutrition.” 
The report lists the main drivers of global acute food insecurity: conflict, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-real-cost-of-nepals-second-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">economic shock including those resulting from Covid-19</a>, and weather extremes caused by climate change. These problems often amplify each other. 
For its part, Nepal is coming out of lockdown and economic activities have picked up. But inflation is high in urban areas because of transport bottlenecks, and a recent survey showed that a third of families had cut back on food items.
UNICEF surveys conducted in May 2020 to determine the impact of Covid-19 found that almost two-thirds of interviewed households <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/half-of-nepalis-lost-jobs-in-past-month/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lost a significant portion of their income</a> and roughly one-fourth of them had inadequate access to food. 
A more in-depth analysis in WFP’s April 2021 report revealed that 46% of families who were getting money from family members working abroad lost income along with 33% of labourers in agriculture and cash crop producers. 
Additionally, 25% of non-agriculture daily wage labourers reported having a loss of income as well as workers in other job sectors such as traders.

The pandemic of hunger

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b92f49c7e80680e06f17bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2550" height="1429"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Nepal has had one emergency heaped on top of another for more than a year now. The Covid-19 emergency, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires</a>, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">now floods</a>.Political flux in Kathmandu continues to undermine the state’s ability to respond adequately. But this is nothing new. The most glaring governance failure of Nepal’s rulers for the past decades has been their incompetence in being able to ensure nutrition for its youngest citizens.Be it during the absolute and constitutional monarchy days, the post-democracy period or now, in the new federal system, the state has failed abjectly in its primary responsibility to fulfil the most basic of all human rights – access to adequate food.Nepal did reduce childhood stunting from 57% to 36% in the two decades after 1990. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nearly-half-of-nepali-children-still-malnourished/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">But progress stalled</a> because of the conflict and political upheavals. Nearly a third of Nepali children are still stunted due to lack of adequate food, 12% are wasted, and 24% low weight.The statistics are shocking. Nepal’s hunger hotspots are Far Western Province where 41% of children are stunted, and in Province 2 where 34% of children have low height due to lack of food. A survey in May by Sharecast Initiative and UNICEF shows that one in five families across Nepal <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-eating-less-due-to-lockdown-hardships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reduced the quantity of meals</a> their children ate during the lockdown.Children have so far been largely spared by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants, but they have become <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/children-are-collateral-damage-in-nepal-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">collateral damage in the pandemic</a>. Schools have been closed for most of the past year, and half the students had no access to distance learning. Immunisation drives against pre-existing killer diseases have been disrupted.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/half-of-nepalis-lost-jobs-in-past-month/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">More than half of Nepalis lost their jobs</a> in the past month amidst the second wave, and loss of household income has led directly to insufficient food for children.Hunger is Nepal’s real national epidemic and rampant malnutrition pre-dated the Covid-19 outbreak. The pandemic has undermined the country’s past gains in battling childhood malnutrition.To meet its UN sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets, Nepal has to reduce stunting well below 15% and wasting and low weight to less than 5% in the next nine years. At the present rate, we will not meet those goals.Horrific as the statistics are, zooming down to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ground level in Dhanusha and Mahottari districts</a> of Province 2, our Saglo Samajtv magazine report this week shows how much worse things have got during the lockdowns.Despite Nepal being declared open-defecation free amidst much fanfare, Dalit and other marginalised communities in Dhanusha and Mahottari do not have toilets. If they do have one, there is no running water or soap. They use the same village pond for both humans and cattle, for cleaning and drinking. Things are not much better in pockets in the western mountains. Gastric infections compound malnutrition.The least the government could do is equitably distribute the ‘nutrition allowance’ allocated for the Dalit families and educate the communities on the basics of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/toilet-trained/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sanitation and hygiene</a>.Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres for severely malnourished children must be set up closer to the communities so that the neediest can access the service. The annual budget on nutrition should be increased so that local health posts have sufficient supplements and micronutrients for new mothers and their children.The government’s Multi-Sector Nutrition Plan has not delivered as expected, tangled up over jurisdiction under the new federal structure. But it could just as easily deploy Female Community Health Volunteers, and local representatives to discourage <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a> that feeds the vicious cycle of malnutrition and high maternal and child deaths.Malnutrition is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/junk-food-is-making-nepali-children-shorter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more than the availability of food</a> and access to clean water, it is also confronting patriarchy, casteism and gender discrimination. It is a result of poor governance, lack of accountability and corruption.But nothing is stopping newly-empowered local governments with technical and financial backing from the centre to now achieve results that Kathmandu’s past centralised governments could not. Training of farmers on climate-smart agriculture, and leasing land to the landless is a good place to start.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/the-face-of-hunger-debt-malnutrition,3604" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Children are hungry</a> because of poverty. Their families are poor because of state neglect. We must draw that causal link between lack of food and failure to deliver it by elected representatives. That is the real scandal the evening news bulletins should be highlighting.

Hunger for governance

One smoggy winter morning in February 2019, Ekta regretted coming to her sculpture class. It was the first day of her period, and the 19-year-old wished she was home, curled up in bed with a hot water bag to soothe her cramps.
Her class was at Kalapremi Ceramic Studio, a dark room on the ground floor of a house in Maharajganj, and Ekta’s teacher was the artist Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’, a noted sculptor.
Two other students were already there, using all their muscle strength to knead the sculpting clay. Ekta, now 24, recalls how Kalapremi asked her if she was feeling all right. She avoided him, as she did not want everyone to know she was menstruating.
Kalapremi repeatedly asked Ekta what was wrong. She finally muttered that she was having her period, after which he grabbed her hand and led her to a partitioned corner of the studio and sat her on a chair. Before she could stop him, he slid his hand under her dress, and started massaging her abdomen.
“I was horrified,” Ekta recalls. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen, asking me not to be shy, saying he knew how to relieve my pain. He stopped only after I protested furiously.”&nbsp;
The art tutor then said, “You’re like my daughter. I’m doing it out of love to make you feel better, but you’re so stubborn.”&nbsp;
“Instead of saying sorry he acted like I was the one having crazy thoughts,” remembers Ekta, adding that from April 2016 to August 2020 beginning the time she was 16, the artist sexually abused and harassed her on several occasions. &nbsp;
Now, Ekta and the artist’s other former students are finally sharing their experiences and some are pressing legal charges against him, hoping that others do not have to endure what they did.&nbsp;
Award-winning artist and teacher Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’ (the name means ‘Art Lover’) is known for his ceramic art, sculpture, and contemporary pottery. He was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-house-of-kalapremi">profiled in Nepali Times after a collaborative exhibition</a>, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ at the Siddhartha Art Gallery three years ago.&nbsp;
His pieces, titled Gaalis, featured sculpted female figures with the heads of dogs, sheep, and donkeys (pictured) to depict derogatory terms for women. Some critics said the collection was a satire on feminists.
Kalapremi started his artistic and teaching career in 1983 and over the years taught at Bhanubhakta School, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Lalitkala Campus and at his private Kalapremi Ceramic Studio. He has also lectured at Jeonju University in South Korea and recently at Tabor Academy in the United States.
Seven of Kalapremi’s former students were interviewed for this story. Five female students said he touched them inappropriately in his studio or at Kathmandu University. Two male students said they witnessed him abuse and harass the women. In all cases, the students struggled to recognise the abuse when it occurred, and the lack of reporting systems left them to cope on their own for years.&nbsp;
Earlier this year, students shared a social media post hinting at Kalapremi’s history of abusive behaviour following which more students of the artist reached out sharing similar experiences. Some students spoke of abuse that happened as long as 20 years ago.
Kalapremi, 60, has denied the allegations. He told Nepali Times: “Some years ago, there was a movement encouraging people to hug and kiss. I used to do it purely out of friendship and love. But after seeing posts on social media last year calling out my behaviour, I realised my actions may have hurt some people. I understand now that I should have been more mindful.”
He added: “I am also an auxiliary health worker, so I know the exact points to massage to relieve menstrual pain. It’s not just menstruation, I take anyone who is ill to the hospital.”
Sexual abuse is much more rampant than reported given how difficult it is to prove it in court. The law defines sexual abuse as occuring when someone touches another’s private parts, coerces them into touching theirs, uses vulgar language, shows degrading images, or behaves indecently towards them without consent.&nbsp;
Ekta and her fellow students are consulting lawyer Suneeta Regmi Pokhrel, who says they know that even if the court decides in their favour, it is difficult to survive after speaking up, and influential men defend themselves saying they are being framed.&nbsp;
“They are in a lot of pain and weep when recalling how he abused them,” Regmi Pokhrel told us. “They are angry and have filed a case against him, but they are also terrified. They know he is a powerful man and they have seen how our society treats women who speak up against abusers. Unless people speak up, perpetrators will be emboldened.”
Art and academia in Nepal simply reflect the power imbalances in society where people with intersecting identities experience worse forms of abuse. Theatre actors Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Rajan Khatiwada, and Sunil Pokhrel were called out during the #MeToo movement in the Nepali theatre scene in 2019. Even after the allegations Pokhrel went on to receive national awards, while others continued to work without repercussions.
“If you speak up against abusers, you gradually get sidelined from projects,” explained a theatre artist who wished anonymity fearing professional setbacks. “The theatre scene in Nepal is quite small, you just have to make peace with the perpetrators and work with them if you want to sustain yourself.”&nbsp;
In academia there is a history of faculty members sexually harassing students and getting away with it. After Tribhuvan University (TU) lecturer Krishna Bhattachan was accused of harassing women students, the university said it would follow Nepal’s sexual harassment law and set up a reporting mechanism. But nothing happened to the professor, who had already retired. Instead, he counter-accused the students of 'attacking the indigenous people’s movement with baseless allegations' as <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/letters/2019/01/29/bhattachan-responds">he told the Kathmandu Post in 2019</a>. He continues to be featured as a prominent speaker including at TU.
Other faculty members previously accused of sexual harassment include Jagadish Murti Koirala from TU, Bishnu Prasad Acharya from Ratna Rajya Campus, and Bodha Raj Tripathee from Lalitpur Madhyamik Vidhyalaya. A woman staff member from TU also filed a sexual abuse complaint against Dambar Chemjong from TU.
Prominent figures like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">mountaineer Nims Purja</a> have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/sports/mountaineering-sexual-harassment-abuse-nims-purja.html">accused of sexual assault</a>, and cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane, actor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/celebrity-rape-case-spotlights-nepal-laws">Paul Shah</a>, and former speaker of Parliament <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mahara-arrested">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> have been accused of rape, but society-at-large has let off the alleged perpetrators amdist a larger debate about justice for survivors and punishment of perpetrators.&nbsp;
‘Gaushala-26’ is the court name given to the 18-year-old who accused Sandeep Lamichhane, former captain of Nepal’s national cricket team and skipper of Biratnagar Kings in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/here-comes-the-nepal-premier-league">ongoing Nepal Premier League</a>, of rape. She left the country citing society questioning her character affecting her mental health while Lamichhane got an outpouring of support. In May, the Patan High Court overturned a prior verdict that found Lamichhane guilty of rape and had sentenced him to eight years in prison. During the 23-month legal battle to pursue justice, Gaushala-26 faced threats of gang rape and acid attacks.&nbsp;
Exhausted by the struggle, Gaushala-26 sought to “move to a new world” where she could live free without hiding her identity.
Actress Samragyee Rajya Laxmi Shah in an Instagram video now deleted detailed the harassment she faced from a filmmaker during a movie shoot. She did not name any name but veteran actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against Rana, but the court ruled that the charge lacked sufficient evidence.&nbsp;
Former Kathmandu mayor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo">Keshav Sthapit also mocked the #MeToo movement</a>, calling accusations against him by journalists Rashmila Prajapati and Ujjwala Maharjan “a rape of men’s rights”.
Serial Abuse
Back at the Kalapremi Ceramics studio, another former student, 24-year-old Rajiv, says he felt the need to speak out after seeing his female classmates being abused.&nbsp;
“He frequently kissed them on their cheeks,” he told Nepali Times. “Whenever they walked into the studio he flailed his arms like a child asking for a hug. They awkwardly hugged him from the side, but he pulled them closer, held their chin, and kissed their cheeks.”&nbsp;
Rajiv says he also saw Kalapremi pull the women’s bra straps, touch their breasts, and slap their buttocks. The young students would freeze, not knowing how to react, and if they protested, he would say it was “normal in art”. Rajiv, 19 at the time like his classmates, remembers thinking perhaps the well-respected artist was right after all.
Another student, Luna, who took lessons at Kalapremi’s studio from 2020 to 2022 did try to confront the tutor after he made an obscene proposal to her. She recalls: “One day when the other students had left the studio and it was just the two of us, he told me that God had given him special artistic talent and he could transfer those powers to me. But to do that both of us will have to be naked, inside a dark room, and have sex.”
Luna, who was 18 then, was livid and told him she did not want any of his powers, but she says he laughed at her as if he was joking. She did not tell her family about the incident because she thought no one would believe her.&nbsp;
“They were all in awe of this famous artist and felt I should be grateful that to be learning sculpting from him,” she says. “I was scared to be alone with him in case he talked about sex again. My coping mechanism was to be rude so he wouldn’t try to come close to me.”
Seeing how some classmates were standing up to Kalapremi, Ekta too tried to push back against his advances, but she said he found ways to coerce her. Since Ekta, Rajiv, and Luna could not afford Kalapremi’s Rs30,000 monthly fee for lessons, he had offered them all a stipend to assist him in the studio.
“He had spondylosis and took me to his therapy sessions to learn massage techniques, then he often made me and other students massage him,” says Ekta. Whenever she refused, he would feign pain to make her feel sorry for him. “He would insist that I put my hands under his shirt so that I could massage him better,” she adds.
The art tutor often tried to “seduce sympathy” from Ekta by sharing how he had never been loved as a child and was “sexually frustrated” as an adult.&nbsp;
“At 7PM, he would pour himself Signature whiskey and immediately go off again about how he was sex-starved. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me time to realise alcohol was just an excuse to talk about sex,” Ekta says.
If convicted, Kalapremi could face financial penalty and/or a prison sentence of up to three years according to Section 224 of National Penal (Code) Act 2017.&nbsp;
Data suggests that victims of child sexual abuse on average take nearly 24 years to tell someone about their trauma, and some may never disclose it at all.&nbsp;
“In our culture, children are rarely taught about boundaries. They often react, show anger when adults pinch their cheeks. But adults insist they did it out of love, and force the children to accept it,” says Sita Lama, a psychotherapist at Manka Kura. “And even when someone touches them inappropriately they struggle to identify and verbalise it.”
When perpetrators claim to be “acting out of love”, Lama says survivors are likely to perceive it as something safe, rather than recognising it as abuse.&nbsp;
“It may take years for them to realise they were abused,” she explains. "And even when they become aware, the power imbalance with the abuser and the associated shame often prevents survivors from speaking up."
Other former students from the School of Art at Kathmandu University have also come forward years later, saying Kalapremi sexually abused them. As young adults, they felt his behaviour was off but were uncertain if it was inappropriate, illegal, or they did not know how to respond. After having understood that it was indeed abuse, they say they are speaking out now to protect others.&nbsp;
Amina Singh, a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, says there is no clause against sexual abuse in contracts of teachers, and there is no formal grievance handling mechanism for the students.&nbsp;
“So the only way students can to deal with sexual abuse is approach someone they trust,” she says.
Eight other former art students of Lalit Kala Campus and Srijana College of Fine Arts of Tribhuvan University and other private art studios in Kathmandu say they were also sexually abused by their art teachers. Three faculty members interviewed from these institutions said they saw the abuse, but felt it was futile to report it given how powerful the teachers were.
In the absence of a formal system, some longtime women artists warned each other about “problematic” artists. They shared &nbsp;a “heads-up” to be more cautious when collaborating with them, and avoided responding to their calls and texts after work hours.
To ensure art institutions are safe for all, galleries, museums, artist studios, and smaller art spaces need to develop policies on sexual harassment. This would include a code of conduct or studio policies that hold the leadership accountable and outline the principles of professional ethics.&nbsp;
Students and employees should inquire about accountability mechanisms for raising concerns, both formally and informally, advocates say.
Three years after Ekta left the ceramics studio, she learnt that Kalapremi had harassed many other women. Still trying to get a footing in the art industry, she attended a workshop in Kathmandu where women artists discussed ways to stay safe in the art sector.&nbsp;
Since it was a close-knit group Ekta opened up about how she felt violated and realised she was not alone, he had been abusing underprivileged students for years, and this was common knowledge among artists in Nepal.
Ekta says that even after she quit, Kalapremi continued sending her text messages like ‘I am thinking of you’, ‘Why have you stopped speaking with me’, or ‘I am waiting for your call’.&nbsp;
But what really forced her to act was when Ekta found out that he was sending similar texts to her younger sister.&nbsp;
“I’ve had enough,” she told us. “He abused me all these years but I won’t let him abuse my sister.” &nbsp;
Ekta, Rajiv and Luna are not the real names of the students.&nbsp;

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

It was 8:15 in the evening of 25 March 1968 when everyone in the village of Batulechaur near Pokhara heard a deafening sound like thunder as a bright flashing object hurtled down to land in a field.&nbsp; That field belonged to Kul Timilsina, and the next morning he retrieved a sheet of metal about 2m by 1m and carried it home with the help of a few others, thinking it would be useful for his buffalo shed.&nbsp; Before he died at age 83 three years ago, Timilsina had told photo archivist Sunil Ulak that the black metal sheet was not rectangular and had rounded corners. There are a few witnesses still alive who have a clear recollection of the object that fell from the sky that night.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="601" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>The field in Batulechaur belonging to Kul Timilsina where fragments of a flying object fell from the sky in 1968.</figcaption> </figure>  One of them is Timilsina’s wife Gyanu, who was 22 at the time. She had been at home, and remembers hearing the big bang and the sky becoming very bright. “We saw the thing in the field in the morning,” she told us. “It looked like a lid, a covering of some sort. The way it was stuck in the ground, it must have fallen from the sky. We thought we could use it to dry clothes on, and took it home.”&nbsp; Another witness is Kul Narayan Paudel. “I was only eight then. We ran to the field to see what had fallen. It was a four-sided metal sheet. The elders took it away, and I don't know what happened to it.” &nbsp; Ram Bahadur Baniya, a teacher at the local school, says he had heard the sheet had been brought to the school, and later handed over to the Zonal Commissioner at the time, Nanda Prasad Malla. “But that is all hearsay,” he says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="610" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Gyanu Timilsina, wife of Kul Timilsina.</figcaption> </figure>  There are two versions of what happened to Kul Timilsina’s metal sheet. One is that an American Peace Corp Volunteer teaching at the nearby Bindyabasini School took it, and another is that it was handed over to the government. Recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US State Department documents from the time say that the US Embassy in Kathmandu tracked down the object two years later and had it shipped back to the US. A telegram from the Department of State and Department of Defense tagged as ‘MOON DUST / Space Fragments’ dated 1 March 1972 stated: ‘1. Restored space fragment will be on board Embassy support flight 115 arriving Kathmandu on or about March 10. Fragment is packed in shipping crate (cargo no. 72-33365) marked in care of DAO.&nbsp; 2. State and Defense representatives examined fragments prior to shipment finding restoration acceptable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df" data-rendition-name="original" width="856" height="568" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Declassified CIA documents about the investigation into the object sighted in Pokhara. </figcaption> </figure>  The documents show that the US government, military and intelligence agencies investigated this incident thoroughly when it occurred, and have continued to revisit it ever since, as recently as five years ago. What is even more intriguing is that the object that fell in Pokhara was not the only unidentified space object that fell to earth that year. There were similar sightings of objects falling from the sky in Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968.&nbsp; These mysteries were the subject of a CIA investigation in 1968 titled ‘<a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81R00560R000100070007-8.pdf">Sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan</a>’, and the report is part of the recent online declassification of 800,000 top-secret documents from the period.&nbsp; &nbsp;Although unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a connotation now of being alien craft, it could be pieces of satellite, missile, rocket or even aircraft. The CIA report documents six sightings in 1968 and quotes local sources as describing all of them having similar characteristics: bright blue or red streaks in the sky accompanied by loud sounds like lightning and thunder and objects falling to the ground. Aside from the metallic object that was found in Batlechaur, there were other items also found nearby in Tallakot, Tureypasal, Armalakot and Maidan. Whatever the object was, it seems to have disintegrated even before it hit the ground.&nbsp; The CIA report records the first sighting on 19 February 1968 in various parts of Sikkim and Olangchung Gola and Ghunsa in eastern Nepal. The light was said to be ‘long and thin’ and giving out ‘green and red light’. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="892" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara "> </figure>  Two days later on 21 February, a soundless blue object was seen traveling fast across the sky above Thimphu in Bhutan. Then on 4 March there were multiple daytime sightings or white streaks in the sky at Chang La Pass, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh. There were more sightings in Ladakh on the very day fragments fell near Pokhara on 25 March 1968.&nbsp; After the sightings in Pokhara, rumours started flying in Kathmandu that these were aliens trying to land on Earth, it could be Russian or Chinese spy planes or satellites, and some even say it as a sign from heaven that the end of the world was near. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Russians and Americans were testing their thermonuclear devices as well as intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems. The Washington-Beijing rapprochement had not yet happened, and China was making quick progress testing atomic bombs. Within two years after its first atomic test, in 1966 China exploded its first hydrogen bomb at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, 3,000km to the north from Nepal. After neary six decades, what is still intriguing is that all the sightings within a few months of each other in 1968 were along the Himalayan arc bordering Tibet: from Bhutan, Sikkim Nepal, to Ladakh. The US military intelligence seems to have concluded that this was not a coincidence and there were frequent research trips to the site in Pokhara by American officials in the months after the incident. With the help of the Royal Nepal Army, the region north of Pokhara was thoroughly searched.&nbsp; A confidential memo dated 25 June 1968 by Jerry C Trippy to a ‘Mr Farley’ mentions that the US Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division had decided that the debris could be important because it may be related to a Chinese missile test or a Soviet ‘Vehicle Venik’ rocket.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  On 28 August 1968 the US Embassy in Kathmandu sent a letter to Washington DC saying that the object could be of Soviet origin, possibly from when the rocket carrying the ‘Kosmos 208’ satellite re-entered the atmosphere. But why were the fragments falling to earth several weeks apart, and in the same region? No one knows where the metal sheet that Kul Timilsina recovered is now. It was definitely packed in a crate and taken to the US, and although it is rumoured that it was returned that is not very likely. Archivist Sunil Ulak heard from the Timilsina family that CIA officials had returned to the site five years ago. &nbsp; Interest in UFOs peaked in the US in the 1950s, with the Cold War space race and tests of atomic weapons and delivery rockets. CIA and scientists were being sent to investigate sightings, both publicly and privately. Could the Pokhara fragments as well as the sightings in Ladakh and Bhutan actually be alien craft falling to earth? The renewal in interest in space travel in large part due to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, UFOs and sightings are again subjects of public interest.&nbsp; Even 57 years later, even if there was definitive proof about whether the Batlechaur fragment was from a Chinese missile or a soviet rocket, it has not been made public in documents declassified so far. We may never know.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598" data-rendition-name="original" width="642" height="320" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  Sunil Ulak speculates if the debris actually came from an American aircraft, perhaps on an intel mission upon China. “Which could explain why they were so thorough in collecting the fragments in Pokhara,” he says. But that still does not explain the multiple sightings weeks apart in 1968.&nbsp; Indeed, US military aircraft were at that time flying frequent night-time missions from air force bases in India to supply weapons to Khampa guerrilla camps in Nepal located north of Pokhara in Mustang. It could very well be that the Chinese shot down one such aircraft. The other sightings could have been contrails of US spy planes, or Chinese anti-aircraft missiles.&nbsp; There were quite a few developments regarding UFOs in 2024. In a US congressional hearing in July, former intelligence officer David Grusch claimed that the government had long been involved in a program to investigate and retrieve non-human craft crashes, and then try to reverse engineer them. However Grusch did not show any evidence.&nbsp; The UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 was signed into law by Joe Biden in December 2023. It plans to oversee the public disclosure of UFO information. However, there is a clause in it that prevents disclosure if it would cause threats to military defense, intelligence operations or foreign relations.&nbsp; It is unlikely that the declassified documents about sightings in the Himalayan will cause any real surprise about definite evidence of alien life even if it was found. It seems humanity will continue, at least for now, to wonder about curious lights in the sky and whether there is anybody out there.&nbsp;

UFO over Pokhara

When Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Rabi Lamichhane was arrested in October on charges of defrauding depositors of cooperatives, the party’s vice president Swarnim Wagle gifted him Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions.
Since then, Lamichhane has been shunted around from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Chitwan and back to Pokhara to attend police investigations and court proceedings. He was being flown to Birganj via Kathmandu on Buddha Air on Monday. There is another pending case in Janakpur.
Human rights groups and civil society have criticised the government for hounding Lamichhane with inhumane treatment that borders on physical torture. The two parties in the coalition, Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, see Lamichhane’s RSP as a potentially formidable challenge to their power.
Even if the fraud charges against Lamichhane are true, the Nepali public is increasingly looking at the government’s actions through the police and courts as political vendetta.
Despite all the travelling, sometimes by plane and often by road at night, Lamichhane appears to be in high spirits, waving to supporters who often gather if they know he is going to be driven around. A social media video shows him giving high fives to fellow passengers on a recent flight to Pokhara.&nbsp;
In the past weeks, streets in Pokhara have erupted with parallel protests by Lamichhane’s supporters as well as depositors of cooperatives who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp;
Although family visits are allowed, prison officials in Pokhara told Nepali Times that not many people visit Lamichhane these days. He added, “When he does get visitors, he asks them to bring him books.”
Lamichhane is currently Nepal’s most high-profile public figure in custody, and highlights the stark difference between how influential prisoners are treated compared to ordinary inmates.
There are six prison cells at Kaski District Police Office’s two-story detention centre, three on each floor. And while authorities pack prisoners into already overcrowded cells, Lamichhane has an entire room on the second floor to himself.&nbsp;
He has also been allowed to call his family every few days. Other prisoners are not permitted phone calls except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s former business partner Chhabilal Joshi, an ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police with whom he established his Gorkha Media Network, is in custody under the same charges in the prison cell next to him.
Lamichhane is accused of siphoning off depositors' money to the tv network in which he was part-owner and anchor. &nbsp;
Both Lamichhane and Joshi are able to buy food from the police canteen instead of being served the regular meal like other prisoners. Joshi has also given his statement to authorities in Rupandehi and Kathmandu for his alleged role in the scam. Lamichhane is yet to be presented in Kathmandu for questioning.
While he was in custody at the Kathmandu District Police Complex, Joshi expressed his desire to sleep in a police officer’s office, reportedly assuring authorities that he would not run away and he was entitled to certain facilities as a former officer of the law.
“He seemed to be under the impression that he is still a police officer,” says a source at the Kathmandu District Police. “We made it clear to him that as someone accused of a crime, he was not entitled to special treatment.”
Former ministers Balkrishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, and ex-home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who were arrested in connection with the fake refugee scam last year, were similarly housed in the offices of law enforcement officials instead of prison cells. Khand has since been released after six months in jail.
While there is no legal provision to keep high-ranking officials in separate detention centres when they are arrested, authorities granting them special facilities is not uncommon. Law enforcement officials say VIP detainees expect preferential treatment while in police custody.
Among those is former Kosi Province minister Lila Ballav Adhikari, who was arrested from Biratnagar on 10 November over his alleged involvement in human trafficking and brought to Kathmandu. Adhikari had flown to Japan without government approval with three individuals on 29 October to attend a cultural conference, but had been sent back to Nepal from Narita.&nbsp;
His three companions were arrested at Kathmandu airport upon their arrival, but Adhikari was able to exit unscathed from the VIP lounge. Adhikari had resigned as the Kosi Province Minister for Internal Affairs and Law when it became public that his companions had been taken into custody, and was himself arrested shortly after. He has since been cleared by the courts.
Throughout his detention, Adhikari was kept separately from other inmates. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basant Rajouri, head of the Bhadrakali complex, says that while there is no separate detention area for VIPs, some detainees are kept separately depending on the nature of their crime.
However, sources say that arrangements were made for retired judges and others to visit Adhikari frequently worked at the office of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) during his time in custody.&nbsp;
“He used to constantly pester the authorities to let him sit outside in the sun, and to be able to use the police officer’s shower area,” added an officer.
Adhikari was released on 25 November after the government prosecutor’s office decided not to charge him in a move that was seen to expose the government’s double standards.
Over at Kathmandu’s Dilli Bazar Prison, former Kist Bank CEO Kamal Gyawali emerges from his prison cell into the courtyard of the prison’s ‘Ka (क)’ block every morning with a thick book in his hands, ready to give his daily sermon.
With his long beard, Gyawali, who is serving a prison sentence for banking fraud, looks the part of a religious guru as he implores his rapt listeners to “walk the right path, abandon bad thoughts and turn to scripture and spirituality”.&nbsp;
Afterward, the attendees gather to discuss politics and current affairs. Inmates at his daily sermons at the prison include other high-profile detainees, including former MP Ichchha Raj Tamang, who is in jail for money laundering and cooperatives fraud, former joint secretary Chudamani Sharma, who was convicted of corruption, as well as NC leader Chandra Bahadur Lama and Krishna Bahadur Upreti of the UML both of whom are on trial for embezzling billions of rupees.
Victims of the cooperatives scam that former lawmaker Tamang was involved in have made trips to the prison and requested visits, but he has refused to meet with any of them.
“Tamang often complains that the state has prevented him from returning the money to the victims by locking him up,” says a police officer at the Dili Bazar jail.
“All you hear every day from the VIP prisoners is that they have been framed,” adds the officer. “No one admits that they were involved in misdeeds.”
But while most high-profile prisoners complain about prison conditions, one exception is former provincial lawmaker Deepak Manange, who is serving a sentence at Dilli Bazar Jail for attempted murder.
“He is the happiest prisoner here,” says a warden. “Unlike the others, he doesn’t claim to have been framed, in fact he doesn’t seem to care that he is in prison.”
Manange is detained in the ‘Kha (ख)’ block of the prison complex, which he renovated at his own expense. The block previously housed female prisoners, but Manange used his influence to transfer them elsewhere. He faces no shortage of visitors, who range from political leaders to people from the underworld.
Along with Manange, other well-known prisoners in this block include Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Poudel, and former executive director of the Surakshan Printing Centre Bikal Poudel, who are serving time for corruption.
Former prisoners at Dilli Bazar prison include ex-ministers Khum Bahadur Khadka and Shyam Sundar Gupta, NC leader Ganesh Lama, Maoist MP Balkrishna Dhungel, Nagarik Unmukti Party leader Resham Chaudhary, as well as former IGs Ramesh Chand Thakuri, Om Bikram Rana, and Hem Bahadur Gurung.
Section 54 of Nepal’s Prison Act assigns each prison’s internal administration the
responsibility of governing its prisoners, which means the more favourable the jail management is, the more comfortable it is for prisoners.
Dilli Bazar prison has been the prison of choice for many high-ranking prisoners, especially those convicted of white collar crimes, due to its more accommodating administrators. The prison, which has the capacity to house 700 inmates, is also less crowded than other jails.
Anuj Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Department of Prison Management, says that there is no legal classification in Nepal for felons to be assigned prisons based on the nature of their crimes.
“That Dilli Bazar Jail has a higher number of prisoners convicted of crimes like corruption is most likely a coincidence,” says Bhattarai. “There is no provision for influential people to be able to choose where they will be incarcerated.”&nbsp;
Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published in himalkhabar.com

What Nepal’s VIP prisoners do in jail

If you were raised in Nepal, you must have picked up its unique set of vocabulary: आन्दोलन, चक्का जाम, बन्द, राँके जुलुस, आफ्नो मान्छे, हाम्रो दल, कर्फु and many more words connoting political protest.
We became familiar with the acrid smell of burning tyres, and eyes smarting from tear gas. And yet, everyone speaks of another revolution in the making. Not by desire, but by suffocation.
We heard speeches about नयाँ नेपाल, but the New Nepal never arrived. The governance system changed, but it did not reflect on people’s lives — except for those close to centres of power. The state is still unreachable and is not bothered about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/matter-of-life-and-debt">victims of loan sharks</a>, cooperative scams and other injustices.
Politicians continue to speak in sound bites, but fail to deliver. They have mastered the game of pointing fingers towards an external enemy and convincing people that they are never at fault. The political narrative is so disconnected from the actual analysis of the problem that suffocation doesn’t go away after every revolution.
No genuine effort has been made to deliver at all, which is why there is a palpable sense of disillusionment in the air forcing us to seek another revolution, even if Nepal may not be able to afford it.
How has the current system successfully held power, even if the public is deeply frustrated? How is it that for three decades we continue to be led by the same faces, who have time and again, proved to us that they may be great politicians but not national leaders?
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/improving-internet-governance-in-nepal">My experience at the epicentre of politics</a> has led me to identify three cultures that have enabled political parties to keep a tight hold on power: acceptance, silence and dependency.
We accept things the way they are. We use fatalistic phrases like “नेपालमा यस्तै हो” or “नेपालको कानुन दैब जानुन”. While this resilience enables us to rise back up from devastating calamities, it is also a reason for our compliance with the status quo.
Despite so many ‘revolutions’ that have led to significant reforms, these phrases keep getting reinforced, to the point that the upcoming generations have made it their lingo.&nbsp;
This acceptance is not a symbol of law-abiding citizens, but citizens living in fear of those in power, unable to ask the whys and why-nots.
Innovation suffocates in this culture of acceptance of the status quo. This is manifested in remarks like “but we don’t have any laws for this,” or “we don’t have the capacity to implement this”. An innovator or entrepreneur therefore has to spend that energy to become a political lobbyist, often educating and convincing the bureaucracy.&nbsp;
Remember when locally assembled <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/designed-and-made-in-nepal">Yatri motorbikes</a>, despite having willing customers, had to suffer to secure license numbers because of a lack of regulations? Instead of creating new laws, the government kept chanting the “We will promote Nepal-made goods” mantra, leaving entrepreneurs in a labyrinth of bureaucracy. The weight of acceptance of the law lies heavily on innovators. Fatalism is a tactic used by those in power to generate mass fear in society.
When we accept, we become silent. This is a pervasive phenomenon. We are trained to keep quiet, lest we ruffle feathers, burn bridges, or not get the help we need in future. We know, yet we don’t speak.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bureaucratic-hurdles-in-researching-nepals-bureaucracy">Bureaucratic hurdles in researching Nepal's bureaucracy</a>, Daniel W Edwards
Here is one example: the 2021 census shows that the number of baby boys born for every 100 baby girls is 112. This is a clear indication of female foeticide because of boy preference in society.
Despite such horrifying realities, there is finger-pointing within the government between the Ministry of Health and Population with the Ministry of Home Affairs. At the citizen level, we know those who are involved in killing girls. Yet, we don’t speak up. The Nepal Medical Council reports state that despite this gender imbalance at birth, there is no indication of any action.
But why would anyone speak against one's own fraternity, no matter how vile the act is?
When we accept and keep quiet, we become dependent on those who yield power. From getting our government procedure completed on time to getting transfers, to accessing any of our legally protected rights as well, we are forced to depend on our networks of चिनेको मान्छे people we know by blood, village, relations, political affiliation.
The culture of dependency has been the established way in Nepal. If you drive a two-wheeler or four-wheeler, and you get into a small accident, you will be asked to sort it yourself, dialing up the most powerful person you know. It becomes a competition of who knows who.
Recently I was told that there were calls from the Ministry of Health and Population and another from the Prime Minister's Office for just one medical position in a private hospital. Each was pushing its own candidate. Guess which candidate got the position.&nbsp;
The dependency of people is not on the laws or the state, it is with people in power, a reliance on the network of somebody who knows somebody, including those not officially in power.
These cultures are deeply ingrained in our heads, and in society. Collectively they form a vicious circle that helps those in power to retain power. This is not the society we want to live in.
Then, what do we do as a collective to break away from this? How do we break away from the cultures of acceptance and silence that have created this dependency? What can we do to ensure that our children do not have to learn the jargon of आन्दोलन before they learn about the state?
These are the cultures political parties need to shed rather than use them to perpetuate their power. This is what <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/an-alternative-to-alternative-politics-in-nepal">alternative politics</a> needs to be about.
Sumana Shrestha is a member of Parliament’s Education, Health and Information Technology parliamentary committee and represents the Rastriya Swatantara Party.

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