<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121156/636ce7899c7e80680e0967ccjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360"/>Active cases of Covid-19 in Nepal have soared to over 30,000, from approximately 600 in February. 5% of those infected have been requiring hospital admissions.Hospitals in major cities are already starting to feel the pressure. Nepal has a total of 18,917 general beds, 1,486 ICUs and 634 ventilators.Health Minister Hridayesh Tripathi in an interview with Nepali Times on Wednesday warned that our health system cannot contain the pandemic at the rate people are getting infected.Excerpts:Nepali Times: Covid-19 patients are not getting hospital beds. How often do you get calls from people asking you for help?Hridayesh Tripathi: The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/first-signs-of-the-second-wave/">second wave</a> is more contagious and lethal, often times symptoms appear towards the end when patients require ICU or ventilator support. As a result, there is higher demand. We have increased the number of beds but they are still not enough. This is the case also in the world’s most developed countries.We are already working on our plan to build 5-15 beds capacity hospitals in each municipality. We are the first in South Asia to adopt such an ambitious program.The decision to connect 2,000 HDUs (High Dependency Units with oxygen) across the country with 50 beds in each province have fallen by the wayside, however.The ministry has already completed all the procedures and distributed 2,000 HDU connections. It has been installed successfully in few areas but for the most part, it has not happened due to negligence and delay.You warned that cases will peak in July in Nepal. At the rate people are getting infected, will our infrastructure be enough?We might be reporting <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-covid-tsunami/">11,000 new cases a day by July</a>. But our health system is already saturated.When I made that point based on the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/its-not-over-yet/">projections</a> by the ministry and WHO, I was ridiculed, some joked that I should become an astrologer, and others accused me of fear-mongering. At the time new variants had not even been identified in Nepal. This is to say that the total infections might be more than what we forecast previously.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5eroEP1AG4&amp;t=5sYou pointed to the need for vigilance before New Year. District administration offices have just started to enforce restrictions. Why it was not implemented on time?Our effort has been on not to impose nationwide lockdown if possible taking into account its impact on our economy. We tried to find an alternative but the public didn’t take the latest surge seriously despite the government’s repeated appeal to follow safety measures.Both political parties and communities are responsible for the second wave. I request everyone to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/masks-and-vaccines-to-stop-nepals-2nd-wave/">adhere to health standards.</a>Why did the government then impose a lockdown for 15 days? If the number of active cases in hill and mountain districts exceed 200 and 500 in urban centres, the Chief District Officer may issue a restraining order in those areas on the recommendation of the District Covid-19 Crisis Management Center (DCMC).It takes at least 10 to 14 days to break the chain of the infection, which is why we have placed prohibitory order for two weeks.Will we have lockdown for an extended period like last year?Not if everyone follows the order. But if <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/unmasking-the-second-wave/">people neglect it</a>, I can’t say how long it will last.What has the government done to prevent rapid community spread as it happened last year when Nepali migrants from India returned home?We have arranged to send returnee Nepalis home after antigen tests. Foreign nationals must have a negative PCR test to enter Nepal either via road or air. Everyone must quarantine.We have received over 3 million doses of vaccines from India and China. One million doses of Covishield from Serum Institute of India that you paid for haven't arrived. What is holding things up? Only a small number of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-braces-for-new-wave-with-vaccine-drive/">vaccines</a> have been approved for use and we lack storage infrastructure for some of those shots. So we have limited options and the Department of Drug Administration has approved some vaccines accordingly. After the initial <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-gift-of-the-jab/">donation from India</a>, we even bought 2 million doses of Covishield from the Serum Institute.We then offered to buy 5 million more. But the local agent here in Nepal of the manufacturing company asked for 10% in commission, forcing us to step back. The involvement of middlemen, who were also present when we bought the vaccine for $4 per dose complicated the procurement for 27 days. By then, infections began to soar in India and thre were restrictions on export.If so, will everyone who received the first dose also get their second within the prescribed period? People are getting a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-fights-infodemic-to-push-vaccine/">second dose</a>. Everyone who got the first one will also receive the booster shot.We have used all the options to bring the vaccine. We even asked the private sector but no one applied. The government has decided to approve no more than 10% profit for importers, which seems to have demotivated them.We have also approved the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/sputnik-v-vaccine-mystery-in-nepal/">Sputnik V</a> vaccine and the Russian government is manufacturing vaccines in Nepal with selected private companies.The British Ambassador has committed to providing additional 2 million doses to Nepal. The US ambassador gave us his word that he will also help with the vaccine.Of the 14.8 million doses we pledged under the WHO’s COVAX initiative, we have received only 348,000 doses. Vaccines may seem like a health and commercial product, but, fundamentally, we are at the mercy of vaccine politics.What about the availability of oxygen?Patients of the new variant require three times more oxygen than those infected by the original strain. But we should be more concerned about cylinders than oxygen because they are occupied as long as patients are undergoing treatment. We are planning to buy 40,000 cylinders, and are talking with the UAE and the Korean ambassadors.Who should people struggling with lack of hospital beds contact?Kathmandu has the infrastructure, treatment won’t be a problem as of now. We can’t say the same for Nepalganj. I also see challenges in Birganj.We are working tirelessly to develop the infrastructure required, which is why we are building hospitals with HDUs in all municipalities. We have already deployed skilled human resources and budget across the country.  We are evaluating the situation as the second wave spreads.

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“Our health system can’t contain the pandemic”

<img width="957" height="551" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121152/636ce60a9c7e80680e096745jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>On Wednesday, Nepal’s positivity rate was 24.5%. On 21 October 2020, when the country recorded its highest daily Covid-19 cases, the figure stood at 28.5%. At the pace the virus is spreading, it will not be long before one-third (or more) of daily tests turn positive.
Neighbouring India with 315,802 new cases and 2,102 deaths on Thursday is a shocking reminder of what is next door, across an open border. People are dying waiting for oxygen, hospitals are filled to the capacity, and drugs are in short supply.
It is too late for India to vaccinate its way out of this surge, and major cities have resorted to lockdowns and curfews again. This is not a second wave anymore, it is a tsunami. And, as we saw last year, the wave is lapping at our border.
Yet, here in Nepal, people are going about their lives as if there is no public health emergency. One might even say <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/unmasking-the-second-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepalis are going out and about with vengeance</a>, unmasked and crowding in markets.
The government has more or less surrendered to the virus, and is putting the onus on citizens to protect themselves. It has shut down schools for a month, but there are still <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/muscle-vs-muscle-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">political rallies</a> and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/biska-celebrations-begin-in-bhaktapur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">festival throngs</a>. Even king Gyanendra coming back from the Kumbh Mela with the virus, and celebrities like Madan Krishna Shrestha testing positive, does not seem to deter the public.
Looking at the numbers, it might look like current active cases are far below the daily average back in October. But the rate of infection is much steeper in the second wave.
We have all but forgotten how during lockdowns, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/birth-and-death-during-a-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pregnant women couldn’t go to hospitals</a> and how there was <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/1-in-5-nepal-families-lack-food/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food insecurity</a> and the crushing <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-prepares-for-economic-fallout-of-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">economic fallout</a>.
Lack of preparedness at the border checkpoints, minimal contact tracing and chronic limitation of health institutions persist.
Health Minister Hridayesh Tripathi has reassured the public that there will not be another lockdown if people are more careful. Prime Minister K P Oli in his New Year message said if the public took precautions, a new lockdown could be avoided.
Nepal’s economy was just beginning to recover from the impact of the earthquake and blockade six years ago when the pandemic hit. The tourism sector will now need at least five years to recover, joblessness is at its peak, manufacturing is still seeing negative growth, and agriculture yield will likely decline after a prolonged winter drought.
Nepal will conclude its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-fights-infodemic-to-push-vaccine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">vaccination drive</a> this week after administering the second dose for those inoculated in the first phase. There are no vaccines left for the rest.
<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/1-6-million-vaccinated-20-million-to-go/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Close to two million Nepalis have been vaccinated</a> with either Covishield or China’s VeroCell shots. But the fate of the rest of the 19.6 million Nepalis that the government had targeted to inoculate remains uncertain. The Russian Sputnik V was recently granted conditional emergency use in Nepal, but through a private supplier.
The reasons for the new surge are the late arrival of vaccines in India and Nepal. But even the limited vaccination drive made both the government and the public complacent. Contact tracing has all but ceased, and many people stopped wearing masks. The other reason is that Covid-19 and its variants had a much higher infection rate.
There are now questions about whether the herd immunity building up that was probably keeping us safe so far, is not effective any more. What is new with the second wave is that it is affecting younger people and making them sicker. Unlike in the previous surge, patients in the 30-50 age group are arriving at hospitals with entire families infected.
Doctors are now faced with the unique challenge of treating children with Covid-19. This might mean a new set of health professionals, infrastructure and equipment as well as therapy and drugs.
Major hospitals in Kathmandu are already starting to feel the pressure with a steady inflow of patients requiring ICU and ventilator support. There is now a real danger that Nepal will face the same shortage of vaccines, oxygen and essential drugs that India is suffering.
This week marks the sixth anniversary of the devastating 2015 earthquake in which nearly 9,000 people were killed. The pandemic has so far killed 3,100 people. Most of those deaths in both disasters were preventable.
The Nepal government, meanwhile, is too busy with a power struggle in the ruling party, rendering the measures to control the new surge ad-hoc and haphazard.
The second wave is already here. Hospitals are soon going to be of no help. There are no more vaccines. The only way to deal with this is by adopting our own precautions: mask up, wash hands, and avoid crowds.
Sonia Awale

The Covid tsunami

Nepal’s Gurkha soldiers have a well-deserved reputation worldwide for uncommon valour and loyalty. However, what happened in Hawaii in 1986 and the long struggle for fair pay and pension shows that the formidable fighters from Nepal also do not tolerate injustice. The Hong Kong-based 1st Battalion of the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles was in Hawaii for jungle warfare training exercises at the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center when they beat up their commanding officer, Major Corin Pearce. &nbsp;&nbsp; The Gurkhas said Pearce had insulted them, and 111 soldiers were dismissed. Pearce suffered broken ribs and a head injury, and was himself also discharged. The incident got worldwide publicity and enforced the belief that the Nepalis were not treated fairly in the British Army. It also led some retired soldiers to begin a decades-long struggle for compensation at par with their British peers.&nbsp; Retired British Gurkha soldier Shankar Rai in his book Triumph and Tears revisits the Hawaii incident which he witnessed, and also his experience in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas war in 1982.&nbsp; He has lots of grievances: unequal treatment and injustice from the British Army towards himself and his comrades. This is an indignant and disillusioned account of the good, the bad and the ugly of being a British Gurkha, which he says let him down despite his service and belief in it.&nbsp; The book could also be a cautionary tale of how one person on a power-trip can tarnish two centuries of the shared history of Nepal and the UK, as well as ruin the lives of those involved. It also is proof that loyalty should never be taken for granted. Four years after defeating the Argentinians in the Falklands, several companies and platoons of Gurkha rifles were stationed in Hawaii in 1986 for joint US-UK ‘Exercise Union Pacific’ military exercises. The goal was to ‘perfect the art of marine warfare in collaboration with the US Marine Force’. The rules were that a British Gurkha company commander needed to have the rank of major and pass a Nepali language test. Captain Pearce was the son-in-law of a British Brigadier on extra-regiment employment, and this rule was waived. He was appointed Acting Major. Pearce didn’t bother to learn Nepali language or culture, and from Rai’s account took every chance to belittle and embarrass the Gurkhas as poor, stupid, rude, backward, and lucky to be there. He writes: ‘After Captain Pearce reached Hawaii, he began to project himself as a master and the Gurkhas as servants, to show off to the Americans.’ The author also recounts other slights, such as only receiving a fourth of the rations they were due during hard training, being forced to train even when some of the soldiers had high fever, and claims to have ‘civilised’ the Nepalis.&nbsp; Pearce had been to eastern Nepal before the training and seen the grinding poverty. He kept telling the Gurkhas how lucky they were to be in the job, and that they were making ‘more money than Nepal’s prime minister’. During the final farewell party in Hawaii, Pearce set up tables to form a saluting platform, and asked the Gurkha pipe and drum band to march around him while playing. The enraged soldiers could not take it anymore, and after the party an inebriated group ran Captains Pearce and Chandra Kumar Pradhan out of their tents and beat them up. Both officers broke ribs, and the major needed 15 stitches on his head. ‘This sorry and unseemly episode is considered to have been entirely at odds with the Brigade of Gurkhas’ tradition of loyalty and gallant service in the British Army. It is regarded as an isolated and untypical event, which will not be permitted to detract from the high esteem in which the Brigade is held,’ reads the report of an investigation. Most of the 1/7 company soldiers were dismissed whether they had been involved in the assault or not. The author describes the shame that followed, with dismissed soldiers returning to Nepal with lost face.&nbsp; ‘I burned with humiliation, and life scared me,’ writes the author, whose father told him that he was ashamed to call him his son. ‘Many of my friends’ girlfriends left them and married other people. Rifleman Khem Gurung (21162015) of Itahari committed suicide,’ writes Rai, adding that those dismissed were blacklisted, and could not get other jobs.&nbsp; They tried to pursue legal action against the British Government, but backed down when they could not afford expensive hotshot lawyers, and would not have the money to cover the British government’s legal fees in the likely case of a loss in court. Gurkhas who had served for four years in the UK were allowed to move there, an option that many of those dismissed in the Hawaii incident took, including the author, who now lives in Oxford. Rai pours out his hurt and emotion in the book. Towards the end, he writes: ‘I depend on small jobs for livelihood. In the remaining time, I actively raise the issue of the victims of the Hawaii incident. We are burdened with insults, hatred, and contempt for a lifetime. It was harsher than a court martial, too heavy to bear.’ The is a slim book, and is a quick, engaging read of an incident 30 years ago, and Rai writes with a soldier’s precision. Even though the anger shows even after all these years, there is no over-dramatisation in the narrative.&nbsp; The first part of the book is about sailing across the South Atlantic in the QEII, which had been converted into a troop ship to take the Gurkhas to war. The soldiers from landlocked Nepal were mostly sea-sick, but were happy to get two cans of beer a day. Barclays Bank even had a branch on board. Rai’s descriptions of the friendships he developed in the Company and on the battlefield are poignant. They braved Argentinian bombs, dug trenches and fought through the rain in the Southern Hemisphere winter. There are vignettes of sharing tea with fellow Nepalis, seeing comrades fall, and finding pictures of wives and children in the pockets of dead young Argentine soldiers. Behind the prestige, honour and myths of being a Gurkha soldier, it seems this is just another job with nepotism, horrible bosses and bad pay. But such is the desperation that up to 20,000 young Nepalis still apply for 300 openings in the British Army every year. &nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251227041256_694a253e782c83b0bf89fc1b9840b0ade3f7beca2d0b01dbc4fcd3e63c207f50" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Triumph and tears book details NT"> </figure>

Not taking loyalty for granted

After a week of to-and-fro that culminated in all-night bargaining, two populist young figures in Nepali politics agreed at 4AM on Sunday to join forces ahead of elections in March. Rabi Lamichhane of the RSP, who came out of jail a week ago, has forged an alliance with Kathmandu mayor Balen Shah. Both are keen to ride on the GenZ wave that radically changed the direction of Nepal’s politics that has been dominated by three mainstream parties for the past three decades. Under the 7-point deal, Lamichhane will still head the RSP, while Shah has been promised prime ministership if the party wins a majority in the federal elections. Shah will also be the parliamentary party leader. The RSP will keep its name and election symbol. “Agreements must be made not on the basis of what leaders want, but on what the country needs,” Lamichhane wrote on social media announcing the alliance. The RSP chair is said to have put his own prime ministerial aspirations on hold to ensure the Kathmandu Mayor's support for the March polls. This is an alliance of convenience. Lamichhane requires the backing from Shah’s youth voters to face the legacy parties, while the mayor needs a political platform. Ultimately the prospect of leading not just Kathmandu but Nepal itself appears to have been the deciding factor for Balen Shah. The Kathmandu mayor is reportedly keen to contest the election from Jhapa against former prime minister K P Oli in his constituency.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251228041212_1b26fd7f14e418a9bdb827a7b733914c08183c36b4a93694fc1aefda9f45d85a" data-rendition-name="original" width="900" height="900" loading="lazy" alt="Balen-Rabi alliance"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH, RABI LAMICHHANE / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The two have much in common. Lamichhane, a former tv anchor, returned from the United States and launched the RSP as an alternative party four months before elections in 2022. He served as Home Minister twice in Pushpa Kamal Dahal's coalition government before being jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositers. He made a jail break during the September protests, returned to prison voluntarily, and was released on bail last week. Balen Shah stood as an independent candidate for mayor of Kathmandu in local elections in 2022, and was catapulted to victory because of anti-incumbent protest votes among urban youth.&nbsp; Both campaigned on social media, pushing a populist anti-corruption agenda and against the governance failure of the three establishment parties — the same logic that drove the GenZ protests in September that escalated into violence and brought down the UML-NC coalition. Even as government buildings smouldered on 10 September, GenZ members were strongly urging Balen Shah to be the interim prime minister, but when he declined they voted on Discord for former chief justice Sushila Karki.&nbsp; With just over two months to go for elections on 5 March, Prime Minister Karki has been trying desperately to get the mainstream parties on board. She has met twice with the top leaders of the UML, NC and the NCP. All three parties have been dealing with internal power struggles, and the UML appears to be the most reluctant to face elections.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251228051212_d42944e014b278d6864270b74f924ac842d6f7a68d5bd6817148d120522ba60b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Sushila Karki with political leaders"> <figcaption>Prime Minister Sushila Karki has been meeting with leaders of the mainstream parties to get them on board for the election. Photo: PMO</figcaption> </figure>  The UML’s former prime minister K P Oli has refused summons by the Judicial Inquiry Commission charged with investigating the massacre of protesters on 8 September and the arson and vandalism the next day. Then home minister Ramesh Lekhak is scheduled to give his deposition to the Commission this week. The legacy parties appear to be taking the threat from the Rabi-Balen partnership strongly, and have been trying to forge an electoral alliance so they do not compete against each other.&nbsp; They are relying on traditional vote banks among the rural electorate, and calculate that alternative forces will cancel themselves out. They could also be hoping that Balen Shah’s erratic behaviour and Rabi Lamichhane’s prison conviction will put voters off. A total of 837,094 first-time voters have been registered in Nepal ahead of the elections.&nbsp; The Kathmandu mayor is an engineer and rap artist, and had till now been reclusive, preferring to post on social media rather than face the press. His late-night online posts have been impulsive: like the one urging that Singha Darbar be burnt down, or another one recently in which he used the f-word against the US, China, India and the mainstream parties. He later deleted both posts.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251228041212_a2f87881e36fb40b82bf77e1b07003aaf36b91e2a9eb5da096f1e562654c31e3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1112" height="1440" loading="lazy" alt="Balen Rabi agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between Shah and Lamichhane. </figcaption> </figure>  Lamichane and Shah had also been negotiating with Energy Minister Kulman Ghising’s newly-forced Ujyalo Nepal Party, but the bargaining did not go well because Ghising refused to fight elections under the RSP banner. If the three had been successful in coming together, it would have been a formidable alliance. There are misgivings about the RSP-Balen Shah deal, even among some GenZ who see the two prominent men dividing up the power structure as just the kind of political culture they wanted to reform. Many are already predicting exactly the kind of clash of egos between the two alpha males that characterised Nepali politics since the restoration of democracy in 1990. In the coming days, as with most political change in Nepal, there will be much speculation about the geopolitics behind the Rabi-Balen deal. Balen Shah’s angry post against India-US-China as well as his past nationalistic pronouncements on Nepal’s territorial dispute with India over Kalapani will be recalled, while Beijing has misgivings about the antecedents of some GenZ figures. Dharan-mayor Harka Sampang, who has also formed his own political party, has already pronounced the Rabi-Balen deal as being “foreign backed”.

Old vs New in Nepal in 2026

Everyone in the world is running some kind of race. Some chase recognition. Some chase money. Others run simply to stay ahead of others. But there are some who run for others. They are not trying to overtake anyone, they do not do it for fame, they are not getting paid to do it. But they run to pay for the upliftment of those less privileged. Bal Joshi, 41, is originally from Surkhet. His father was involved in the democratic movement during the days of absolute monarchy and he remembers frequent police searches of the house. And with his father in hiding, the young Joshi had to take care of the family. When the family’s small shop failed, his mother took the young Bal and his brother back to the village, and that is where he completed his education, walking four hours roundtrip every day between home and school. He ran most of the way, and without realising it he has been running ever since. Life was hard. Rent, food, education. His mother struggled constantly. There were days when there was no money even to buy kerosene for the stove. At one point, he sold his calculator, worth Rs 300, for just Rs 80 to get by.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251229031252_edb16b64a3d362a8dc86870bfa5deaad03a84e67d47f37cfd0bb5a8e584691fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251229031252_edb16b64a3d362a8dc86870bfa5deaad03a84e67d47f37cfd0bb5a8e584691fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Running for dear life NT"> </figure>  At 15, Joshi moved to Nepalganj to continue his education. He initially stayed with his uncles, but eventually began living on his own. The transition to city life was difficult, and he experienced significant economic hardship while trying to pursue his studies. There were times when he struggled to meet basic needs, and at one point he sold his calculator just to get by. When he was 17, after hearing that his father was seriously ill, Joshi travelled to Gujarat to bring him back home. His father died soon after, and Joshi took on responsibility for supporting his family. It was his mother who taught him that despite scarcity, life had to be lived with dignity. Joshi started working at a newspaper at the age of 16 as a proofreader, and later became a journalist. During the Maoist war when children were being orphaned as a result of violence by both sides, he became active in the Sahara Group, and at 19, he began managing an orphanage that took in conflict-affected children. In Bajhang, after the army killed a man on suspicion of being a Maoist, his wife jumped into the Seti River and ended her life. Their two children were taken into army custody. During the rescue process, Joshi met Sunaina Adhikari of the ICRC and back in Nepalganj they decided to get married. The conflict was still raging in western Nepal in 2005, when Joshi went to the United States. In Maryland, he initially worked at a Bengali-owned Subway outlet, spending long hours on his feet behind the counter. He changed jobs frequently, financing his education along the way, and ultimately graduated with a degree in finance in 2008. He joined Hancock Whitney Bank in Texas, and has risen up the ranks to be Senior Vice President. A colleague inspired him to run as a way to stay healthy. But it soon turned into something more meaningful — running more than a dozen 50km marathons for charity.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251229031252_165a6d935860cf6707178aa2ac7395733883158f425bbe0ebed125529d601f61.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251229031252_165a6d935860cf6707178aa2ac7395733883158f425bbe0ebed125529d601f61" data-rendition-name="original" width="999" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Running for dear life NT"> </figure>  Last year, Joshi returned to Nepal to run the Everest Marathon, and raised $42,000 which he donated to <a href="https://onestepfoundation.org/" target="_blank">One Step Foundation</a> which works on health care, child welfare and cultural preservation in Nepal and around the world. In June this year, Joshi and his family climbed Kilimanjaro, raising $19,000 for 80 HIV-affected orphaned children in Tanzania. During the Diwali festival he ran 220km in Nevada’s Red Canyon and raised $25,000 for cataract surgeries through the the <a href="https://www.theruitfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Ruit Foundation</a> in Nepal for cataract surgeries.&nbsp; Joshi does not run competitions, and is not trying to break any records. His motto is: “My race, my pace.”&nbsp; Turning his childhood scarcity into helping others, he says: “We all share sunlight, rain, air, and soil, nothing is truly just your own. I grew up without shoes, and I am fortunate to be able to distribute shoes to those who walk barefoot.” We ask Bal Joshi what (and where) next? His answer: the <a href="https://www.worldmarathonchallenge.com/" target="_blank">World Marathon Challenge</a> that will go around the world to run seven marathons in seven continents in seven days beginning in Antarctica at end-January.&nbsp; Joshi aims to run wearing the daura suruwal and Nepal’s flag as to show where he comes from, and how far in life he has come.

Running for dear life

A day after Rabi Lamichhane and Balen Shah <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/old-vs-new-in-nepal-in-2026-z6l4fgrd">came together to form an electoral alliance</a>, Kulman Ghising has also joined forces with the two leaders, merging his Ujyalo Nepal Party with the RSP.&nbsp; Following last-minute negotiations before Monday’s midnight deadline for parties to file their list of candidates for the Proportional Representation (PR) seats, Lamichhane and Ujyalo Nepal chair Anup Kumar Upadhyay signed a seven-point agreement to unify the two parties, with Balen Shah as witness.&nbsp; Per the deal, Ghising will be the vice-chair of the RSP, joining DP Aryal and Swarnim Wagle as the party’s seconds-in-command. The earlier agreement between Lamichhane and Shah retained Lamichhane as RSP chief, and promised Shah prime ministership if the party wins a majority in Parliament in March.&nbsp; Ghising’s team reportedly has a 17% share on the list of PR candidates filed by the RSP at the Election Commission. Balen has also fielded his own picks, and together the party has the likes of cricketer Gyandenra Malla, actress Reema Biswokarma, rights activist Mohna Ansari, climate activist Tashi Lhazom, and singer Prakash Saput as PR candidates. Ghising had held multiple rounds of talks with the RSP chair and the Kathmandu Mayor to discuss possible collaborations, but had failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. On Monday, Ghising had met with Lamichhane heeding a last-ditch effort from GenZ leaders, in particular Sudan Gurung, as they tried for the final time to get the interim Minister on board with Lamichhane and Shah before the PR list submission deadline.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025123004128_99e23ae7b6a042e71d271e3e74f7527086a7bb55779e6781bc9e7b711c8303e7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025123004128_99e23ae7b6a042e71d271e3e74f7527086a7bb55779e6781bc9e7b711c8303e7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1595" height="1087" loading="lazy" alt="Sudan Kulman Balen"> <figcaption>Photo: SUDAN GURUNG / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025123004128_d9f530704ab4c6e27eebf51f8e9fb55fed1d4281c99d089d06455cc7448bfda7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025123004128_d9f530704ab4c6e27eebf51f8e9fb55fed1d4281c99d089d06455cc7448bfda7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1026" height="1084" loading="lazy" alt="Balen and Sudan NT"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The three are now set to make a formidable team to challenge mainstream parties at the polls. News of this alliance has been welcome to Nepalis who are looking for any alternatives to break the stronghold of the Oli-Deuba-Dahal trio over Nepali politics in recent history.&nbsp; But they will also carry each other’s baggage.&nbsp; Lamichhane, who was jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositors last year, was welcomed back as RSP party chair with open arms after he was released on bail last week. And while he has maintained his base of loyal supporters, he was subject to widespread criticism after he walked out of detention amid the jailbreak during the September protests, prompting his eventual voluntary return to prison.&nbsp; His party’s silencing and expulsion of critics within the RSP has also drawn direct comparison with the leadership structure of Nepal’s mainstream parties. Prominent leaders like Sumana Shrestha have left the party over disagreements with leadership.&nbsp; Meanwhile, Balen’s impassioned campaign resonated with Nepalis disillusioned with establishment leaders during the 2022 election and made him mayor of Kathmandu. The mayor’s direct, no-holds-barred style of communication and commentary has attained him much support beyond his constituency.&nbsp; But his unyielding, often unempathetic leadership style and policies— like his dismissal of street vendors and informal businesses during his drive to free up Kathmandu’s footpaths— have also earned him detractors. His recent outburst on social media in November that included expletives against both of Nepal’s neighbours and the US, as well as Nepal’s three main parties and the RSP was also widely criticised.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251230041212_fc2088daf32bac93541ebf25ca07725d75a721ae83440749ac8fa09d8fe308f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251230041212_fc2088daf32bac93541ebf25ca07725d75a721ae83440749ac8fa09d8fe308f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="890" height="1255" loading="lazy" alt="Agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between RSP and Ujyalo Nepal Party.</figcaption> </figure>  Ghising, credited with ending Nepal’s prolonged load-shedding during his tenure as the chief of Nepal Electricity Authority, has a reputation of getting the job done. His public goodwill earned him a seat on Prime Minister Sushila Karki’s interim Cabinet following the youth protest.&nbsp; But he has also been under scrutiny for funds misappropriation as well as controversial power purchase agreements during his tenure as NEA chief. Ghising had foregone the leadership position at his Ujyalo party, preferring to play the role of patron until closer to the election date, but was nonetheless criticised for his political and electoral aspirations while being a member of the transitional government. It now remains to be seen if and when Ghising will step away from his position in the interim Cabinet and begin campaigning with his new partners.&nbsp; As it stands, the involvement of prominent GenZ figures in bringing together Ghising, Shah, and Lamichhane has established youth leaders as major players in Nepal’s post-September political landscape. These leaders will have significant pull with young and first-time voters. But not all young leaders are impressed with this new triumvirate. Some have pointed out that the unity between these three leaders is no different from the political opportunism and quid-pro-quo power-sharing culture established and followed by Nepal’s mainstream leadership for the last three decades which culminated into the GenZ movement of September.

health-minister-hridayesh-tripathi

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The Covid tsunami

Not taking loyalty for granted

Old vs New in Nepal in 2026

Running for dear life

Kulman follows Balen to RSP