A few years ago, at a training workshop in Janakpur for political parties to deepen their internal democracy, an LSP leader openly declared that he was a member of Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Indian group promoting <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/volatile-mix-of-politics-and-religion">political Hindutva</a>.
The RSS is notorious for its anti-Muslim rhetoric, and some elements of Nepal’s political class have since been influenced by the inflammatory rhetoric and ideology, as well as by its political front the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).
Fast forward to 2024, and the dust is beginning to settle after India’s ‘festival of democracy’ in which the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP lost 63 seats compared to the previous election in 2019. Yet the BJP still has 240 seats, and with its alliance partners, 293 seats in the 543-strong Parliament.
INDIA (the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) led by Rahul Gandhi’s Indian National Congress (INC) has recovered from a dismal performance in 2019 with 231 seats, and the INC itself bagging 99 – up from 52 last time.
Most India-watchers have concluded that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/demodification-of-india">Indian voters have stopped the BJP’s Hindutva juggernaut in its tracks</a>. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party had ruled India since 2014 with an increasingly authoritarian style, imprisoning two chief ministers in the run up to elections, and gagging India’s once-vibrant free media.&nbsp;
During the last 10 years, India’s Muslims were bulldozed, sometimes quite literally as the<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/from-nepali-press/After-Adityanath,3617"> Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of the BJP</a> used heavy earthmovers to raze Muslim homes and businesses.
Farmers in Punjab and Haryana repeatedly marched on Delhi to protest the BJP’s agriculture policy. The Covid-19 pandemic caused millions of unacknowledged deaths and it is accepted that the official death toll was a gross undercount. The youth, especially in rural India and the working class have not benefited from India’s impressive economic growth. The Ambanis, Adanis and other corporates used their BJP connection to amass wealth.&nbsp;
More than anything else, this election result showed the BJP a red line: the party has coalition partners who do not share its ideology and it cannot anymore bulldoze its way over India’s social and political opposition anymore.
As soon as the election results were clear, pundits in Nepal have been trying to analyse what a downsized BJP means for the country. Officially, Indian ex-diplomats have said that no matter which party is in power in India, its neighbourhood policy maintains continuity.
But it was transparently clear that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/india-s-hindutva-politics-influencing-nepal">Nepal’s royal right parties got a boost</a> in their effort to roll back secularism from the Constitution. UP’s BJP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the high priest of the Gorakhnath shrine, openly backed the restoration of monarchy in Nepal.
But it was in UP that the BJP suffered its most humiliating defeat, its candidate losing even in the constituency of Ayodhya where Modi had inaugurated a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-sita-ram-corridor">Ram temple built on the ruins of a mosque</a> as a part of his electoral campaign. The BJP lost 29 seats in UP alone.
A weaker BJP in India, and particularly UP, could mean that the influence of political Hindutva will wane in Nepal as well. This may mean a less aggressive RSS/BJP presence in Nepal.
This major shift in Indian politics also means Nepal’s ruling class cannot continue to do what it has been doing since 2014. Our leaders when in Delhi had been ignoring opposition leaders in the past ten years while kowtowing at Modi’s feet.
This continued when Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal was invited to New Delhi last week to participate at Modi’s third oath taking (pictured below). While there were photo-ops of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh hugging Sonia Gandhi, Dahal and his daughter Ganga did not bother to meet any opposition leaders. It was as if Nepal’s prime minister did not even bother about the outcome of India’s election result.
Ideologically, Nepal’s liberal and leftist political parties are supposed to be closer to the INC and its allies. After all, Nepal’s 2015 Constitution was written at a time that spanned regime change in Delhi ten years ago. &nbsp;
When it rains in Delhi, Nepal's leaders unfurl their umbrellas. Indeed, our political leaders have resorted to performative Hindutva rituals during India visits, making it a point to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/red-to-saffron">worship at temples and don saffron robes</a> just to appease the Delhi Darbar. But the political class now needs to revive its close ties with the Indian opposition.
Back at home, the saffron flags, angry Hanuman stickers, and sword-wielding Hindutva demos in Janakpur, Birganj and Kathmandu do not really showcase Nepal’s more tolerant brand of Hindu culture. After all these are the symbols of the proponents of ‘Akhanda Bharat’, the mythical greater South Asia that includes Nepal, maps of which the BJP leaders display on their walls.
Perhaps it is time to rethink <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/southerly-winds">what Hinduism means to us</a>: an inclusive religion that seeks to bestow liberation to believers, not a political campaign to gain state power and marginalise other religions.
The Indian election results have also sent a message to Nepali liberals and leftists that mixing politics with religion does not work, nor does <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/democracy-s-discontents">hollow populism</a>. Sooner or later, the voters will see through it all.&nbsp;
Shreya Paudel is Program Manager at the Centre for Investigative Journalism- Nepal.&nbsp;

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Hindutva juggernaut hits a speed bump

Nepal and India are both Hindu-majority countries, but there is a difference between the Hindutva nationalism playing out in India’s ongoing elections and the Hindu faith as practiced in Nepal.
Most Nepalis are too busy trying to get by in hard economic times to be too engrossed with elections across the border. Some do harbour strong views about Narendra Modi’s brand of Hindu revivalism, and the RPP in particular seems to want to imitate the BJP’s ability to set a national Hindutva narrative.
Still, a majority of Nepalis look at Narendra Modi with something between indifference and fondness. The Indian Prime Minister has visited Nepal five times since he was first elected in 2014, and many here still remember his address to Parliament which he began in Nepali during his first state visit to Kathmandu.
There is a section in Nepal that supports a non-secular Hindu state, and Nepalis have noticed that every time Modi comes to Nepal he makes it a point to visit Hindu and Buddhist sacred sites. But in contrast to his BJP’s Hindu exclusionist policies in India, Nepal has traditionally enjoyed a syncretic blend of Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/the-south-wind-blows">The south wind blows</a>, Chandra Kishore
For most Nepalis, therefore, the affinity for BJP and Modi could be characterised as cultural rather than political. Most Nepalis still have memories of the hardships they suffered during the 6-month blockade that New Delhi imposed just after the 2015 earthquake because it did not like the contours of Nepal’s new draft Constitution.
The poor showing of the Hindu-monarchist Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) in last month’s by-elections in Ilam and Bajhang shows that at least in the mountains, Nepalis are not so impressed with the polarised electoral politics on display in India. Interestingly, Bajhang is close to the Indian state of Uttarakhand which has declared itself to be a Hindu-only ‘Devbhumi’ and with which it has close cross-border cultural ties.
Although factions of the other four main parties in Parliament, the NC, UML, Maoist-Centre and the RSP, do flirt with the Hindu-monarchy line from time to time, there is not much public support for it yet and none of the four largest parties in Parliament has officially voiced its support for such an agenda.
When (and if) Modi does win a third term in India’s elections there could inevitably be ripple effects in Nepal — especially if the BJP’s mentors in the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) adopt an even more radical agenda, abolish secularism from the Indian Constitution, or push the Greater India idea of ‘Akhanda Bharat’.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/india-s-faith-in-politics">India’s faith in politics</a>, Shrijan Pandey
Even so, rousing radical religious passions will not be as easy in Nepal, which is South Asia’s oldest nation-state and does not carry with it the historical baggage of Partition. Nepal’s Muslim minority which forms 5% of the population has for the most part lived in harmony with Hindus and Buddhists, although there are politically-instigated local flare-ups from time to time mainly along the southern border.&nbsp;
Though Nepal’s Hindu population is more than 80% (2021 census), Nepal as a whole is a country of minorities. The Hill-Brahmin and Chhetri may dominate the political and economic spheres, but they form less than 30% of the population. Nepal’s ethnic and indigenous groups have been asserting themselves, as seen in the recent Ilam by-election, where the UML’s Suhang Nembang comfortably beat the NC’s Dambar Bahadur Khadka by close to 6,000 votes. However, an independent candidate, Dakendra Singh Limbu, with no political affiliation, but who campaigned on a platform of assertive Limbu identity, made a strong showing, finishing third with 11,457 votes.
Such identity politics is more a response to ethnic exclusion and a demand for regional autonomy than pushing a religious agenda. Indeed, Nepal’s political parties have so far desisted from mixing religion with politics, even though some individual leaders in the parties sometimes seem to appear to be sorely tempted.
Nepal’s next general election is more than three years away, and India-style Hindutva politics could still be whipped up. For now, it seems more likely that it will be Nepali nationalism that will be a more potent vote-mobiliser.
This already seems to be happening, with the government minting Nepal’s new 100-rupee note that depicts the country’s ‘pointy map’ (‘chuchhe naxa’) showing a 350-sq km strip of territory in its northwestern tip which is also claimed by India.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/crimson-saffron-and-green">Crimson, saffron and green</a>, Chandra Kishore
Akhilesh Upadhyay is former Editor-in-Chief of The Kathmandu Post and a Senior Fellow at the think tank, IIDS.

Southerly winds

The daily 10-hour curfew at Tribhuvan International Airport from 8 November that will last five months has affected tourism during Nepal’s peak season, with some hotels and trekking agencies here reporting cancellations into spring next year. The reduced hours at Nepal’s main aviation gateway till 31 March means that a third of all flights have been cut. This has also caused ticket prices to surge by up to eight times of normal fares. For example a Kathmandu-Delhi ticket that used to cost Rs12,000 is now listed at Rs50,000, and even then seats are not available.&nbsp; “Especially if they are here to trek, change in flight dates can cause tourists to miss their connections,” says Jagan Timilsina, who runs a trail running and outdoor education business. &nbsp; Pokhara is feeling the brunt as hotels report last-minute cancellations for November because of flight disorders. Some hoteliers also say although there have been some cancelled trips, most itineraries have been rescheduled.&nbsp; Hari Prasad Sharma Gaire of the local chapter of the Hotel Association of Nepal says the Kathmandu airport closure should have been timed for the off-season. He told us: “Starting construction during the peak tourist season was a mistake and will cause the tourism industry to lose a lot of business. The upgrade could have been spread out over a longer time but closed for fewer hours at night so that disruption was minimal.”&nbsp; Nearly a third of the 1.2 million tourists who visit Nepal annually come to Pokhara, which is also the gateway to Mustang, the Annapurna treks and pilgrimage tourism to Muktinath. Located by scenic lakes with a range of adventure sports like hot air ballooning, paragliding, canyoning, bungee and ziplines, Pokhara is also popular among diaspora Nepalis. “Besides its own attractions, Pokhara is really the hub for central Nepal, and we have been trying to get visitors to extend their stay here,” says Timilsina, who started out as a trekking porter and rose up the ranks to be an expedition guide and entrepreneur. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111603114_0e071ce63ea9b0a9a7ee76f8c3cea0ff08c6767c41dd09f6bc4413d2db067a60.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024111603114_0e071ce63ea9b0a9a7ee76f8c3cea0ff08c6767c41dd09f6bc4413d2db067a60" data-rendition-name="original" width="3500" height="2333" loading="lazy" alt="Pokhara's tourism woes NT"> <figcaption>Tourist arrivals in Pokhara have slumped since the disruptions at Kathmandu airport due to upgrading work. Photo: KRISHNA MANI BARAL/NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE</figcaption> </figure>  Even without the Kathmandu airport closure affecting tourist arrivals, Pokhara was already suffering from a decline due to many factors like the poor state of the Prithvi Highway, the shortage of luxury accommodation for high-end tourists, and the reluctance of international airlines to start direct flights to Pokhara despite an expensive new airport that was inaugurated two years ago.&nbsp; “There was a lot of initial excitement on the construction of the international airport,” says Timilsina, “but it hasn’t delivered as expected due to politics. People have invested in nearby businesses, and have faced losses.” India has blocked direct flights from its cities to Pokhara because the facility was built by a Chinese company. Although tourists and pilgrims from India hit record levels this year, the poor state of the highways and the Indian bus accident on the highway to Kathmandu in July that killed 27 pilgrims from Maharashtra state dampened arrival figures. Gaire says, “While tourist arrivals to Pokhara are now approaching pre-Covid levels, we haven’t seen the improvement we were expecting. We need a better marketing strategy. What are our embassies abroad doing?”&nbsp; Indeed, Pokhara used to be a favourite destination for Chinese tourists. There was a boom in arrivals from China before Covid, especially after a popular Chinese tv serial was shot on location here. But arrivals from China have not really recovered since the pandemic because of the economic slowdown there. Promoting Pokhara airport to handle direct flights from Chengdu or Kunming could revive Chinese arrivals.&nbsp; Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAAN) has used the Kathmandu airport closure as an excuse to arm-twist international airlines to start flying to Bhairawa, which has barely been in operation for two years since it was inaugurated. So far, Fly Dubai, Thai AirAsia, Jazeera and Qatar are flying to Bhairawa, but most use it as a hop before flying on to Kathmandu, which does not reduce congestion at Kathmandu.&nbsp; An ideal situation could have been to get Pokhara to run to full capacity while Kathmandu is partially out of action. Pokhara entrepreneurs are puzzled why the CAAN and the national government have not taken more interest in promoting Pokhara as an alternative to reduce the congestion in Kathmandu. Nepal’s football team that was flying to Dushanbe this week couldn’t get tickets via Delhi, and took a domestic flight to Bhadrapur, crossed over to Bagdogra and flew on to Delhi to catch their flight to Tajikistan.

Pokhara’s tourism woes

An excerpt of a conversation between an anthropologist and linguist Mark Turin, PhD and Lava Deo Awasthi, PhD, the first Chairperson of the Language Commission of Nepal. Nepali Times: What is the role of Nepal’s Language Commission and when was it formed? Lava Deo Awasthi: The Constitution of Nepal (2015) created a Language Commission (LC) with the following four core mandates: (a) to develop eligibility criteria for gaining status as an official language and offer recommendations to the Government of Nepal about the official language(s) in each province; (b) to offer recommendations to the Government about measures to be taken for the conservation, promotion, and development of languages; (c) to suggest possible ways of using mother tongues in education by assessing their stage of development; and, (d) to conduct studies, carry out research and perform monitoring functions about the response to the constitutional provisions for the federalisation of languages in Nepal. The Commission was founded in 2016 and I was appointed as the Chairperson of the Commission in September of the same year by the Cabinet of Ministers. What in your own professional and educational background helped to prepare you for the role? I have worked with the Government of Nepal for about 30 years, alongside holding teaching appointments at universities in Nepal. Prior to assuming the role of the Chairperson of the Commission, I served as permanent Secretary to the Government of Nepal and worked as the Chief Administrator of the Central Development Region. I was appointed as Director General of the Department of Education and completed my assignments as Joint Secretary at the Planning, Monitoring and Educational Administration Divisions of the Ministry of Education.&nbsp; In addition, I have taught courses as a visiting professor at Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University for more than three decades. Later, I also started supervising MPhil and PhD students at the Far Western University in Mahendranagar, Kanchanpur. My PhD project from the Danish University of Education was dedicated to making sense of Nepal’s social construct and commitment to multilingualism, exploring the persistence of monolingual school practices in the face of constitutional promises and state commitments to multilingualism. I conducted a survey of Nepal’s languages and carried out a qualitative study of the Tharu language in the district of Bardia. I analysed language policy statements and explored classroom pedagogies in schools. I documented how teachers showed a tendency to resist change and maintain the status quo because they were not consulted when new educational language policies were introduced. Teachers also exhibited a deeply-held adherence to the Gurukul education system which appears to have been harnessed as a way to resist newer pedagogical ideologies imported from the West. Recognising how engrained these rich traditions of knowledge transmission are, I wanted to know how students’ engagement in the learning process appeared to have dwindled, creating a gap between children’s home languages and the language(s) of the school. Whilst statutory provisions for education in the mother tongue were oriented towards promotion, classroom pedagogies remained resolutely monolingual and exclusionary. The result was that multilingual education policies that had been introduced in Nepal did not result in meaningful changes in classroom practices. My research was also a reflection of childhood traumas I had experienced at the earliest stage of formal education. My home language, Baitadeli, has a strong oral tradition and no written literature. English is my fifth language in terms of exposure and competence, and my home district of Baitadi is well-known for its loyalty to the local language. I had to drop out of school after completing my sixth grade. Staying at home, I received much attention from my family and had much greater exposure to my native language, culture and environment. My overall impression is that dropping out of school had a surprisingly positive impact on my life. The opportunity offered a surprising dividend for me as I gained mastery in my mother tongue and received extensive exposure to folk literature and Indigenous knowledge and survival skills, cultivating my interest in language, culture, literature and local cosmologies.&nbsp; Now that I reflect on it, I appreciate how language has always played a key role in my life. I grew up in a multilingual environment: brought up with Baitadeli, Hindi, Sanskrit, Nepali and English. Language played a major part in my decision to leave school and my later success is closely linked to my competence in several languages. It was rewarding to be at home with my family as I deepened my understanding of native language and culture, which in turn helped me to harness and refine my art of living. Languages matter so much to me because they are both software and hardware. Later, when I was in secondary school, I realised that my command of my home language contributed significantly to enhancing my Nepali and English. I used my mother tongue as a form of linguistic capital to strengthen my competence in both English and Nepali.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111811110_5400ba54792bf9e4854e1c1effde8bf09804e99647f23513700b450cc49adc4a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024111811110_5400ba54792bf9e4854e1c1effde8bf09804e99647f23513700b450cc49adc4a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Dr Lava Deo Awasthi"> </figure>  In your term as the Commission’s first Chairperson, what were your strategic goals and objectives? My first strategic goal was to create an environment conducive to implementing the provisions of the Constitution of Nepal in relation to language. My priority was to prepare a detailed action plan for my six-year tenure in consultation with language stakeholders, including language experts, professionals, activists, Indigenous community members and representatives of relevant national and local-level institutions. The Commission formed a body of high-level advisors to ensure that the Chairperson’s work was well-informed and credible. The advisors to the committee had highly visible professional and social reputations in Nepal and had much experience in the field of language conservation, promotion, research and development. Another strategy we adopted was to establish close institutional linkages with federal, provincial, and local level governments for collecting opinions and disseminating information widely.&nbsp; What critical issues did you have to consider while discharging your duty? When Nepal’s new Constitution was drafted, a number of concerns could not be adequately addressed. These related to the conservation of languages, the recognition of official languages at the provincial level, and the use of mother tongues at federal, provincial, and local levels. These unresolved issues and matters pertaining to the federalizsation of Nepal’s languages were passed on to the Language Commission to address and resolve.&nbsp; Regarding the recommendations for official languages, a five-year timeline had been set by the Constitution. With great effort, we succeeded in having all provinces agree to recognise their official languages as per the recommendations of the Commission.&nbsp; What were your greatest achievements during your term? One of the greatest achievements was that we succeeded in setting a language agenda at all levels. Nepal’s language communities and other stakeholders expressed the view that this was the first time their languages were recognised and their voices heard by the state. People participated in debates and discussed issues relating to language that in all likelihood had never before happened in their lifetimes, at least not in ways that were supported by the state. We encouraged people to speak in their own language(s) and provided translators during plenary sessions and group discussions. Another major achievement was developing criteria for the status planning of languages at federal, provincial, and local levels, and to recommend 11 province-level official languages, in addition to the Nepali language. Similarly, a notable achievement was recognising Indigenous languages spoken by smaller communities, all of whom faced ongoing marginalisation and high levels of endangerment. The Commission identified 9 new languages that had not been reported in the 2011 census, and provided a framework for recognising official languages within a municipality. The commission emphasised the need for documentation and digitisation of languages for developing corpora and archives at national and sub-national levels.&nbsp; Languages of historical importance as well as classical languages were given recognition for their protection, growth, and development. Recommendations were made for the conservation, promotion and development of Nepal’s marginalised languages that are threatened by majority languages and for those languages that hold particular power at local and global levels. Recommendations were also made for how best to safeguard Nepal’s languages from the ever-growing spread of English and other powerful, globalising languages.&nbsp; A further important aspect of the Commission’s work was to emphasise mother tongue medium instruction in schools across the nation. Recognising the role of language in children’s cognitive, socio-emotional and academic development, the Commission suggested strategies for linking schools with ward-level language clusters for use in the classroom. The importance of nurturing and respecting a child’s first language was reiterated in the Commission’s recommendations for children’s learning and all-round development. By the end of my term, a remarkable change could be observed in terms of building trust within and across Nepal’s diverse language communities. A network of language groups and stakeholders across the country proved to be a powerful way of bringing all language communities under one roof for a collective review of and response to the process of federalising language policy. The many language stakeholders across Nepal appreciated the opportunity to work within a coordinated framework, and—feeling empowered by this—seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the initiatives taken by the Commission.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111811114_b45297fdd2fedf17bdb6313e495a1062c0d87f1a19fa5349f871f220b75f93ab.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024111811114_b45297fdd2fedf17bdb6313e495a1062c0d87f1a19fa5349f871f220b75f93ab" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Dr Lava Deo Awasthi NT"> </figure>  What were the most significant challenges for you as Chairperson? One of the major challenges was winning people’s trust in advocating for the mission of the Language Commission. I faced considerable resistance as I sought to emphasise the use of native languages in families and communities. While the Commission advocated for multilingualism and promoted linguistic diversity, the prevailing policy circles and central level institutions had been deeply influenced by a one-language discourse and ideology of Nepali only. The spread of English also poses a huge threat to Nepal’s languages. However, people in power do not seem to see this as a problem. They tend to abandon their own languages in preference for English. The way that Nepal’s municipalities are increasingly introducing English as a medium of instruction at the earliest stage of a child’s school-based education has proven to be detrimental to their cognitive development, socio-emotional wellbeing and academic success. Most of Nepal’s elites have been heavily influenced by the spread of English and remain unaware about its impact on their home languages as well as on the inter-generational transmission of Indigenous languages in the country. I wish that we could have produced more compelling evidence to show the consequences of making poor policy choices for our children’s education. Demystification calls for a collective response. To make change happen across this entire, complex and federalising country was daunting work and left like a race against time. I feel that I could have done more to offer concrete examples in favour of using the mother tongue as a medium of children’s education at the earliest stages of a child’s education. What do you see the Language Commission achieving in the next 5-10 years? The Language Commission will have to ensure that all of its key recommendations are implemented at all levels of government. In 10 years’ time, all seven of Nepal’s provinces will have their official languages in place. These languages will also be recognised as languages of federal business, alongside Nepali. I anticipate that all official languages in the federal and provincial systems will have a national portal for inter-language corpora using machine translation to fulfil their federal, provincial and local level language functions, and that all languages spoken in Nepal will be represented through a digital database in the national archive. The Office of Statistics will monitor the status of Nepal’s languages over time. By the end of the next decade, each municipality in the country will have recognised one or two official languages at the local level, based on speech populations. Other local languages will have received community-level legal recognition and official status to fulfil their functional roles. Languages that are highly endangered or at risk will be entitled to receive state grants for enhancing local level capabilities to encourage families and young learners to speak the language. Incentive schemes will be introduced in municipalities that promote language within the family and at home. Inter-generational transmission of languages will have received welcome and timely attention across Nepal. It is my hope that all schools—public and private—will have introduced mother tongue medium instruction at the earliest stage of school education, at least up to class five. Nepali, English and other national as well as classical and foreign languages will be taught as subjects. The existing policy of English medium education at the early stage of education will be abolished. The Government of Nepal will be held accountable if the number of speakers of any language decreases or if local communities face language loss and greater endangerment. Under the aegis of the Language Commission, a Centre for Language Research and Innovation will be created with world-class facilities for language documentation and archiving in collaboration with Tribhuvan University’s Central Department of Linguistics and other relevant institutions. Harnessing the vastness of Nepal’s linguistic diversity, the Language Commission will morph into a centre of excellence for national and international communities to engage in collaborative language research, to share experiences and document best practices at in service of global linguistic diversity and Nepal’s many Indigenous languages.

Languages are both software and hardware

Earlier this month, Nepal received Rs1.6 billion from the World Bank as part of its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/will-nepal-ever-be-paid-for-saving-trees">Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF)</a>, rewarding the country for increasing its carbon sink capacity. Nepal is the first in South Asia to benefit from this facility, and it is specifically to recompense the country for increasing forest cover in 13 Tarai districts between 2018-2024. “We are also trying to get another Rs13 billion from the facility while also preparing for free market-based carbon trading in the international market,” says Nabaraj Pudasaini of the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) Implementation Centre. Big emitters of greenhouse gases are under pressure to reduce their carbon emissions, and many have signed agreements to do so by investing in decarbonisation projects in developing countries. Countries that emit more than a specified amount of carbon would be able to buy emission rights from countries that emit less. Nepal is internationally known for its community forestry program which has been largely credited for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tree-mendous">increasing tree cover to over 45%</a> in less than three decades. But this achievement had not been adequately recognised or rewarded internationally before. Forests, especially in the tropics, absorb and store large amounts of carbon while releasing oxygen in a process known as photosynthesis. <a href="https://www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/en/">Preventing deforestation</a> and increasing canopy cover is considered a much more achievable goal than reducing emission in the scale necessary to limit global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. COP11 in Montreal in 2005 first proposed reducing carbon emissions by improving forest quality by halting degradation. By 2015, a new mechanism of financial assistance was created to help less developed countries with sustainable management of forests <a href="https://www.un-redd.org/">(called REDD+)</a>. Under this new mechanism, countries receive aid based on their efforts to prevent forest degradation and increase carbon sink, and in 2021 the World Bank was entrusted with implementing it. Nepal’s FCPF receipt this month was calculated on the basis of 2.4 million tons of carbon stored at a rate of $5 per ton. In the second phase, Nepal will receive more than Rs4 billion within the next year for storing an additional 7 million tons of carbon. Eighty per cent of this amount obtained from carbon trading needs to be spent on local beneficiaries and indigenous communities.&nbsp; But carbon trading is not easy, Nepal needs to prove that protected forests will not be destroyed in future.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241121091132_c8a381c9a95aa86fec558951650d97bb87914741f01766982ba2b086af001f16.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241121091132_c8a381c9a95aa86fec558951650d97bb87914741f01766982ba2b086af001f16" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="Greenbacks for greenery NT "> <figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  Explains carbon trading expert Yugan Manandhar. “Forests should be handed over to the community and shown that they are managed sustainably. Proving this will be particularly challenging; forest encroachment and degradation is rife in the Tarai.” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke">Deliberate forest fires</a> have also added to the challenge because they increase carbon emissions and reduce the sink capacity of forests. The basis for the amount that Nepal received was set five years ago by calculating the carbon reserves of forests in the 13 Tarai districts. In the meantime, sustainable forest management, tree plantation, forest destruction and erosion control were prioritised to increase carbon reserves in those forests. Nepal is signing another carbon trading agreement during the ongoing Baku climate conference. The <a href="https://www.leafcoalition.org/">Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF Coalition) </a>proposes to sell the carbon stored in the forests of Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini provinces. For this, Nepal signed the letter of intent three years ago at COP26 in Glasgow. The target is to store 70 million tons of carbon in 32 million hectares of forest in the three provinces per which Nepal will receive Rs13 billion in four years at $10 per ton with provisions to increase the rate if various conditions are met. However, the agreement in itself doesn’t guarantee the amount. According to the targets set by Nepal, forest degradation should be stopped and carbon reserves increased by protecting tree cover. Preparations are also underway for clean air carbon trade because it has offset fossil fuel use by introducing 30,000 electric vehicles. Nepal has been selected for the first round to receive $40 million within one and a half years through the Clean Air System of the World Bank. Given that most of Nepal’s energy mix is from biomass, replacing them with electric stoves can significantly improve health by reducing indoor pollution as well as strengthen the country’s capacity for carbon trade. “Nepal's goal now is to sell carbon in the free market where carbon credits are bought and sold based on supply and demand in an open and transparent manner,” adds Pudasaini of the REDD Implementation Centre. “Nepal can now set its own price and bargain with interested buyer countries and organisations.” Lately, India has been discussing setting up a carbon market. Nepal has exported Rs12.72 billion worth of electricity to India so far this fiscal year, which can be traded under Nepal’s carbon market. “Carbon trading can create significant economic benefits for Nepal, which will help reinvest in development and environmental protection projects,” says Manandhar. “But we must prioritise sustainable management of forests, cutting older trees and allowing regrowth as well as promoting electric stoves and electric vehicles.”

Greenbacks for greenery

Turkish Airlines has introduced a new amenity kit collection designed in collaboration with French fashion house Lanvin for international business class passengers on flights more than five hours. It consists of five pieces designed for sustainability and elegance. Bags are reusable and will consist of Lanvin cosmetic products like hand and body lotions and lip balm. Eye masks and socks are made from recycled materials, earplugs are packaged in paper and the toothbrush is bamboo.

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