<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79ac9c7e80680e064717jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="388"/><figcaption>American Red Cross volunteers carrying a Spanish Flu victim in 1919. Photo: RED CROSS</figcaption></figure>The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/what-is-novel-about-the-novel-coronavirus/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/what-is-novel-about-the-novel-coronavirus/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585031842556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNER7BK9EfiZTZ7HAcrRW7TMnI6jKg">current COVID-19 pandemic</a> has forced many to Google other historic outbreaks, and the search usually brings them to the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed between 20-40 million people – half of them in South Asia.Just over 100 years ago, as Europe was coming out of a ruinous four-year trench warfare, American soldiers brought the flu to the front lines from where it had spread like wildfire across Europe.Although it is called the ‘Spanish’ Flu, the virus first appeared in North America and crossed the Atlantic on US troopships bound for the front lines. It is called Spanish Flu because the virus was making people sick in the Pyrenees long after it had subsided elsewhere.After the war, British Army soldiers returning to India (some of them could very well have been Gurkhas) brought the virus to Bombay from where it spread along India’s vast railway network. 50 in every 1,000 Indians died of the virus.There were two waves of the influenza epidemic. It was probably transferred from returning migratory waterfowl to humans in Kansas in spring of 1918 before jumping across the Atlantic to Europe. The spread slowed over the summer, but returned with a vengeance in the autumn that year.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79ae9c7e80680e064718jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1816"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Although there are many books about the Spanish Flu in Western literature, in South Asia there is no properly archived documentation about the tragic pandemic that took many lives.Even Mahatma Gandhi was stricken by the bug, and bodies were piled high along river banks in India as cremation sites ran out of firewood. Unlike COVID-19, the 1918 influenza virus struck people in the 20-40 age group.While it affected 28% of all Americans, killing 675,000 – of the US soldiers killed in World War I, half died of influenza. But surprisingly, the pandemic had very little effect on China.Many viruses have an animal reservoir, and the Spanish Flu was associated with ducks and pigs as is usual for influenza viruses. The <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/index.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/index.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585031842556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE-MAzB2oWqzXngSV-qeu_vZW781w">MERS coronavirus</a> that affected the Gulf region in 2012 is associated with camels, and the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2664" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D2664&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585031842556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFPL8LEypjMiL-Zq9OumVczJ63a9w">SARS coronavirus of 2003</a> transferred from civet cats. While the COVID-19 probably originated in bats like the other coronaviruses, its host is believed to be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/coronavirus-outbreak-may-curb-wildlife-trafficking/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/coronavirus-outbreak-may-curb-wildlife-trafficking/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585031842556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGdAGDJ3BCYbsOftkHyaOipIJecdw">the pangolin</a>.As the ‘Spanish’ flu clearly showed, there is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/covid-19-nepal-and-the-hygiene-hypothesis/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/covid-19-nepal-and-the-hygiene-hypothesis/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585031842556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFhpeCjNw-lYwjui_QOmW3PKMnd3g">no evidence to show that we in South Asia have better immunity</a> towards the novel coronavirus COVID-19. So, what can be done?First thing is to increase tests for COVID-19 in suspected patients even without a travel history to affected areas. The more tests we do, the more we will know about the spread of  the actual disease.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/this-is-a-test/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This is a test</a>, EditorialIt is also crucial to do cross-sectional serological studies in communities to see if the virus has been introduced there. This test (unlike the RNA-based diagnostic test for a patient) can be done on asymptomatic people in the community to check for COVID-19 antibodies in the blood, and could give us an idea about the extent of the exposure to the community.Many of these antibody tests are new, and the Chinese have vast experience with them in treating COVID-19. The Nepali government would be well advised to seek Chinese help with antibody testing so that we are better prepared in the days and months ahead. Without more diagnostic and serological tests, we may continue to have a false sense of security as the virus continues to sneak up on us in South Asia.The silver lining (if there is one) in this unfolding COVID-19 pandemic is the attention that it has attracted to the importance of rapid diagnostic tests for other neglected infectious diseases in South Asia like <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tb/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tb/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585031842556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEq-c2ak8GqLj2idm1BOUPOOAk46A">tuberculosis</a>, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18178#.XnhYpkAza70" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D18178%23.XnhYpkAza70&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585031842556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHZKfS0Lv_GE4wqJrQaZ6OSfqTgdg">typhoid</a>, typhus, or leptospirosis.The tests need to be accurate, simple, affordable, and quick. Rapid diagnostics will not just help find infected people, but also to decide on specific therapy so that unnecessary antibiotics and other treatment are not administered. Proper diagnosis will lead to control of antimicrobial resistance, another medical crisis affecting the world today.At present, diagnostic tests take many hours if not days, so hopefully, after the dust from COVID-19 settles, there will be more work on rapid tests for these still-rampant ‘biblical’ afflictions that plague us.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79b19c7e80680e064719jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="803"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Another positive effect of the COVID-19 pandemic may be the restoration of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-shot-in-the-arm-for-vaccines-in-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-shot-in-the-arm-for-vaccines-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585031842556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEk_tK3eXW25A_sGyzoFrJsJEBxww">people’s faith in effective tried and tested vaccines</a> in the western world.Rumours about side-effects of vaccines going viral on social media have convinced many parents not to inoculate their children, leading to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like diphtheria, polio and whooping cough in the West. If successful, the COVID-19 vaccine would set the record straight for the proliferation of ‘anti-vaxxers’.Pandemics are like earthquakes, they cannot be wished away. It is best we prepare for a potential COVID-19 outbreak as best and resourcefully as we can. This is not optional, since there will be more pandemics in future.Buddha Basnyat is a clinical researcher at Patan Academy of Health Sciences and a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/what-is-novel-about-the-novel-coronavirus/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/what-is-novel-about-the-novel-coronavirus/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1585631034431000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE0aoyspsOeHIBjtexE2rB8xE3KOw">frequent health columnist</a> for Nepali Times.

Buddha Basnyat

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Remembering a pandemic 100 years ago

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101148/636b779f9c7e80680e064648jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="997"/><figcaption>Eco Soap Bank Nepal's Nicky Lama teaching a student about hand hygiene. Photo: ECO SOAP BANK NEPAL</figcaption></figure>Many Nepalis woke up on Wednesday to an early-morning SMS from the Ministry of Health and Population: ‘Let’s wash our hands with soap and water regularly and if possible refrain from going to crowded places to be safe from coronavirus disease. Cover your mouth and nose while coughing or sneezing.’The public service announcement was aimed at stopping the spread of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-nepal-must-watch-about-coronavirus-but-not-panic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID-19</a>, but will revive Nepal’s hand-washing drive to control other infections like diarrohea and typhoid that kill mainly children.COVID-19 has now hit 78 countries. New infections and fatalities are tapering off in China, but the outbreak is spreading in Iran, Europe and the United States. Visit Nepal Year 2020 has been shelved, the Sagarmatha Sambaad postponed, and the US Embassy has put off its Independence Day celebration at Phora Darbar.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-panic-goes-viral/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">When panic goes viral</a>, Editorial“There is still widespread lack of awareness about hand-washing, even right here in Kathmandu among marginalised communities,” says Diwakar Acharya, principal of Pulchoki School in Godavari. “Schools play an important role in educating children, their families and the community as a whole. This becomes especially important with the rise of new emerging diseases like coronavirus.”Nicky Lama of <a href="https://ecosoapbank.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Eco Soap Bank</a> Nepal, which supplies recycled hotel soap to schools, has been visiting government schools in Kathmandu to train children in hand hygiene. “We have been training students and teachers so parents are also sensitised. It is a protective measure against not only coronavirus but already existing seasonal flus and common infections like typhoid,” says Lama.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nature-calls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal was declared free of open defecation last year</a>, and is a model for the region. While this is dramatic progress from 1990 when only 6% of households had toilets, public health experts have raised questions about poorly maintained toilets and lack of water supply.In a 2018 study, the Global Sanitation Fund Programme found that 3% of households in communities declared ‘open defecation free’ did not in fact have toilets, and that in 5% of families who had a toilet at home, at least one member continued to defecate outdoors.“Despite declaring open defecation free, toilet infrastructure is not always optimum, septic tanks are now filling up and availability and quality of water is questionable, particularly in urban slums,” says Sandhya Chaulagain, Hygiene officer at WaterAid Nepal. “But most  health workers are focused on curative measures and often wait for the outbreaks to happen instead of preventing them.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/do-not-fail-students-in-wash/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Do not fail students in WASH</a>, Marty LoganThe additional challenge for the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) campaign in Nepal comes from the lack of clarity about  jurisdiction and roles of each tier of government in the new federal structure. A new bill on WASH is undergoing review at the parliament.Good news is that some municipalities have started collecting household-level sanitation, hygiene and water data using the GIS-based app NWASH. Says Govind Shrestha, policy specialist at the NGO WaterAid Nepal, “Moving ahead we need to find and then reach all the areas that do not have proper water and sanitation facilities yet. The challenge is to reach all 753 local bodies and as soon as possible.”<h2>Recycling soap</h2><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101148/636b77a29c7e80680e064649jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1068">Nicky Lama was volunteering at a hospital in Cambodia when she met Samir Lakhani, of Eco Soap Bank fame and Top Ten CNN Hero of 2017. She was so moved by his commitment to improve child health that she decided to return to Nepal and bring with her the campaign of collecting used soap from fancy hotels and recycling it to improve hygiene in schools.Thousands of children die unnecessarily or fall sick due to diarrhoeal dehydration and <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17306#.XmGoynIzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">typhoid</a>. These illnesses have faecal-oral transmission, which can be easily prevented through regular handwashing.Lakhani founded Eco Soap Bank in 2014 with the aim of saving, sanitising, and supplying recycled hotel soap for the developing world. The soap bank is currently operating in ten countries: Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzinia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and now Nepal.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/virtuous-cycle/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Virtuous cycle</a>, Yuvaraj ShresthaThe Nepal branch works independently from the network and was set up three years ago. It networks with 23 hotels in Kathmandu including the Hyatt Regency, Hotel Annapurna, Soaltee Crowne Plaza and Kathmandu Guest House. Women in its Swayambhu workshop process the soaps to produce 7,000 bars of recycled soap per year, most of which are distributed in government schools in parts of Kathmandu Valley.“At the moment we are a small set-up, but we plan to expand to hotels in Chitwan and Pokhara, set up workshops there, employ many more disadvantaged women and help spread hand-hygiene awareness in schools,” says Lama, who is now country director of Eco Soap Bank Nepal.After finishing high school in Kalimpong, Lama went to the UK to study International Development. She then worked in Zambia, introducing tablet computers in community schools. Later, in Cambodia, she volunteered at a children’s hospital.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Alcohol,276" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alcohol to the rescue</a>, Buddha Basnyat Eco Soap Bank Nepal is looking to collaborate with agencies working on the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) campaign. “We want to not only promote eco soap banks but also create employment and spread the message about handwashing with a focus on the prevention side of healthcare,” says Niall Kavanagh, an adviser to the Nepal operation.The added benefit of the Eco Soap Bank concept is that it promotes a cost-effective hygiene product that also reduces waste generated by the hotel industry. Says project coordinator Narendra Lamichhane: “There is a misconception that recycled goods cannot be used. We need to change that, while at the same time creating jobs for women.”

Sonia Awale

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COVID-19 revives Nepal’s WASH drive

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101136/636b74e09c7e80680e0623b9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="900" height="600"/><figcaption>Photo: BIKRAM RAI</figcaption></figure>Nepal has restructured its polity and installed local, provincial and central governments. People have been promised economic prosperity and happiness by a Communist majority government at all three tiers of government.Though there is confusion on the devolution of rights and responsibilities to local government, urban and rural municipalities have created plans for the benefit of the local populations.Many elected representatives have also gone abroad on study tours to see how other ‘municipalika’s around the world serve their people. There are examples of recognized good work: The mayors of Seoul and London have gone on to become President and Prime Minister of their respective countries. And in the US a Democratic Party candidate for president is also a mayor.Many of Nepal’s local governments have made tourism a key pillar of their economic development agenda. Tourism appears as low-hanging fruit until a deadly virus strikes, reminding us of the risks of dependence on visitors, and how having a beautiful landscape and monuments is not enough.Many municipalities are in a Catch 22 situation because the things that they must do are not popular with their voters. How can an elected official start taxing the informal economy, fraudulent businesses and net tax evaders when these very people are his/her voters or party funders? This is the dark flip side of the democratic system that we have chosen. The right thing to do may not be the popular thing to do.Local governments need to clean up the air and water, clear litter and manage waste if they are to make urban spaces more liveable, and if they are to benefit the local population from tourism income.There were simpler times when we could drink from the neighbourhoodwater spout, well, or street-side tap. As water became polluted and spread disease, we were forced to buy and drink bottled water. We are not alone in this unfortunate trajectory. The world-famous brand Evian started selling bottled water in Switzerland in 1929 because of the fear of cholera.What will we do if the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/air-pollution-is-more-dangerous-than-smoking/">air is as polluted</a>? Breathe bottled air? That is already happening in some bars across the world that offer piped oxygen. The day may not be far away when we start seeing tourists at Darbar Square not just carrying bottled water but also oxygen cylinders in their backpacks. With the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-from-hubei-quarantined-in-bhaktapur/">Covid19</a> scare, we are already seeing them masked.If, god forbid, a disease outbreak were to occur in Nepal, could our elected officials impose a strict quarantine of the kind we have seen in Hubei? Can they clear illegally occupied land or river banks? Will they stop breweries from polluting rivers upstream from national parks? Or shut down an illegal asphalt factory in the middle of a residential area in the capital?China can build a 1,000 bed hospital in two weeks because it never had free and fair elections. This is not the path Nepal has chosen, but something is not working if officials elected to protect the public only protect those who fund them.The government wasted tax rupees to ‘train’ rivers by building gabion embankments which did not even last the next monsoon due to poor design and bad engineering. Local governments now make a fortune allowing corrupt contractors to extract of sand and boulders from rivers. Tipper trucks mine river beds and have killed the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/The-economy-needs-oxygen,459">Trisuli, Sun Kosi and Indrawati rivers</a>. They are not done yet: now they are moving upstream to damage watersheds and water sources.Nepal needs a national compact to protect air, water sources, springs, wells, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/crushers-of-justice/">watersheds like the Chure Hills</a>. Timber, sand and boulders will allow <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/crushing-tale-of-Chure">contractors to make a fortune</a>, and government officials to strike rich with kickbacks. But the people need water tomorrow for drinking and irrigation, and not so much that it <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/monsoon-2019-deluge/">floods the downstream Tarai</a>.Governments were elected to ensure development that can sustain us into the future, not to irreversibly destroy it. We must all work together to get our elected governments to protect open spaces for the next disaster, our monuments and cultural assets for the next generations, and plants, birds and animals for the sake of humanity. In a federal Nepal, these responsibilities are greater at the local level.Anil Chitrakaris President of <a href="http://www.siddharthinc.com/">Siddharthinc</a>.

Anil Chitrakar

What next for Kathmandu: bottled air?

For many decades it was an accepted truth that Nepal’s main public health threat was from infectious diseases, and the most cost-effective way to address that was through prevention. In other words, the first line of defence against communicable diseases was communication.Whether it was gastric infections caused by contaminated water, respiratory ailments due to cold and pollution, or diseases spread by insect vectors like malaria – the goal was to spread public awareness about prevention. Radio jingles about oral rehydration salts or acute respiratory infections in children indirectly helped save millions of lives over the years.Many of these challenges remain. Despite dramatic progress, many Nepalis still lack safe drinking water – not just in the roadless hinterland but right here in the heart of the capital. There are frequent <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/%20jajarkot-open-defecation-free,2023">cholera</a> epidemics. Children’s lungs are still affected by indoor smoke from wood fires. Malaria is on the comeback due to resistance and there is an annual epidemic of dengue and encephalitis.Yet, compounding these endemic infections, there is now an <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Communicati-about-non-communicable-diseases,1153">increasing burden of non-communicable diseases and injuries</a> (NCDI). New lifestyle-related cardio-vascular afflictions, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) caused by <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/every-breath-we-take-air%20pollution,3536">pollution</a>, or <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/stigma-and-silence-mental-health-nepal,3486">mental health disorders</a> have added to the burden of disease and disability. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/diabetes-in-south-asia,3018">South Asians are already genetically susceptible to diabetes</a>, and now there are new risk factors due to migration to urban centres. While the world average for prevalence of both types of diabetes is 8%, more than 14% of people in urban centres like Dharan have diabetes – even though the prevalence for rural Taplejung, for instance, is only 1%.A study by The Nepal NCDI Poverty Commission released this week shows that the burden of NCDIs has doubled in the last 25 years. More than half of all death and disability today are caused by NCDIs, with nearly 15% caused by injuries in conflict, natural disasters or highway accidents. <img width="900" height="802" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221104141144/636517699c7e80680e02c275jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Being afflicted with an NCDI (or chronic disease) is more fatal in Nepal than in developed countries because of affordability and restricted accessibility to adequate medical treatment. The poor are disproportionately vulnerable. The NCDI burden in Nepal is also different than in other parts of the world – there is a higher incidence of ischemic cardiac conditions, asthma, neurological disorders, cancers caused by untreated infections and injuries, for instance.For us, the report’s main finding, and most damning inference, is about how <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/national-health-insurance-not-as-easy,4028">treatment of NCDIs is driving Nepalis into indebetedness and penury</a>. The survey shows that half of all medical expenditure of families is out-of-pocket, and 60% of that is for treatment of NCDIs. This is because the government spends only 11% of its budget on health care, and only 6.4% of that is for treatment of non-communicable diseases.Despite the proven link between chronic ailments and poverty, donors still allocate only 1% of their development assistance for NCDIs.Treatment of injuries, gastro-intestinal infections, heart diseases, cancers, kidney and liver diseases are the most impoverishing NCDs for households. The report’s main conclusions are corroborated by our <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/state-of-the-art-rural-hospital/">field report</a> from Achham and Kavre this week  about how the lack of even basic surgical facilities in district hospitals and health posts is forcing Nepalis to undertake expensive and extended trips to private hospitals in the cities.Another recent study of 39 government hospitals commissioned by the Nick Simons Institute (NSI) showed a huge unmet need in remote areas for basic surgery like caesarians, orthopaedics, and abdominal operations. Nepal’s surgery rate is well below the Lancet Commission’s target of 5,000 operations per 100,000 population. Only one-third of patients currently can reach an orthopedic surgeon within two hours of travel. <img width="640" height="456" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221104141144/6365176b9c7e80680e02c276jpeg.jpg" alt="">The public-private partnership models that NSI and Possible are carrying out in remote government hospitals are ways to plug this gap: ensuring minimum staffing of a MDGP physician, anaesthesia assistant, staff nurse and biomedical technician in each hospital can offer basic treatment and surgery in remote areas, reduce the need for referrals, and save household income. At present Nepal’s density of hospitals with such staffing and equipment is at 0.4 per 100,000 population, as against the Lancet Commission’s recommendation of 20/100,000.The Nepal NCDI Poverty Commission report suggests additional measures: national health care delivery should respond to the increasing burden of NCDIs by decentralising.Impoverishment of households due to the high cost of treatment should be addressed through disease-specific policies for high-cost conditions and expansion of insurance coverage.It is often said that health is wealth, but in Nepal wealth is health. That can only be changed by making treatment of chronic conditions and injuries accessible, affordable, inclusive and equitable.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/state-of-the-art-rural-hospital/">State of the art rural hospital</a>, Marty logan <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/national-health-insurance-not-as-easy,4028">A national health insurance scheme is not as easy as it looks</a>,  Sonia Awale<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Communicati-about-non-communicable-diseases,1153">Communicating about non-communicable diseases</a>,  Elina Pradhan and Bigyan R Bista

Poor  health

Home Minister Sudan Gurung resigned on Wednesday following increasing coverage of and criticism over his investment in companies linked to controversial Nepali business figures Sulav Agrawal and Deepak Bhatta, who are currently under investigation for money laundering.
‘I am resigning from the position of Home Minister effective today to ensure impartial investigation into matters associated with me, and to make sure that there is no conflict of interest,’ Gurung wrote, saying that morality and public trust mattered more to him than office.
Gurung ended his message to the nation in English as he invoked the security forces, writing: &nbsp;‘For my country and For the respect of our security forces and For the youths of Nepal.’
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Gurung has become the second member to depart the Cabinet, serving for less than a month, despite the Nepali electorate’s hopes that Nepal would finally get a stable government after the RSP’s sweeping victory in the March elections.&nbsp;
Prime Minister Balendra Shah had sought clarification from Gurung on Wednesday after new details emerged about his shares in two micro-insurance companies, Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life, which are said to have been issued their licence by the Nepal Insurance Authority at the behest of Bhatta and Agrawal.
Gurung denied financial misconduct, saying that his investment in the two companies was included in his asset disclosure and insisting the misunderstanding is because of how the shares have been categorised.&nbsp;
Leaders within the RSP had called for an internal investigation into Gurung as they sought to maintain the party’s platform of clean governance and transparency. As such, Gurung’s position had become increasingly untenable, especially since former Labour Minister was sacked without being given an opportunity for clarification over a disciplinary breach involving his wife’s appointment to the Health Insurance Board.&nbsp;
On social media, Sah on Tuesday seemed to express dissatisfaction over the PM’s request for Gurung’s clarification.&nbsp;
Judging by the comments under Gurung’s resignation post, a significant part of the Nepali public seems to be firmly on Gurung’s side, blaming the mass media and what they call mouthpieces of old parties for driving him out of the Cabinet.&nbsp;
This is a reflection of his meteoric rise and the continued support he has maintained since he stepped into the spotlight as the leader of Nepal’s youth movement in the aftermath of the September protest.&nbsp;
Gurung has made headlines constantly ever since he burst onto the national stage, which includes questions over the degree of his and his organisation Hami Nepal’s involvement in the September 9 unrest, calls to divulge details behind Hami Nepal’s finances, and not paying five years of rent for an illegal lakefront property in Pokhara.&nbsp;
There have also been unsubstantiated claims, despite Gurung’s denial, about his ‘ties’ to the Free Tibet movement, which has made the Chinese— as well as Nepalis— wary.&nbsp;
As Home Minister, Gurung cultivated an image of a tough but approachabe leader, overseeing a series of high-profile arrests of previous political leadership and business figures even as he posted photos of sleeping in a sofa in his office, and engaged with the public on the streets and on social media.&nbsp;
As it stands, the Home Ministry was a bone of contention between Shah and RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane before it was awarded to Gurung, who is a close ally of PM Shah. Analysts had noted that with Gurung in charge, the Home Ministry would be a hook for Shah if Lamichhane, with his share of controversies, stepped out of line.&nbsp;
Following Gurung’s resignation, the Prime Minister’s secretariat has said that the PM would take charge of the portfolio for the time being. But it will be interesting to see if and how fresh negotiations for the Ministry unfold within RSP.&nbsp;
And with his supporter base largely intact, it remains to be seen how much of an impact this setback will have on Sudan Gurung’s political aspirations.&nbsp;

Home Minister Sudan Gurung resigns

Sudan Gurung is dancing. It is 2009. He has an emo fringe falling over one eye and is spinning on a polished floor. His dance shows dedication — moves that take years of bruised elbows to land. The clip is 16 years old, and had been sitting in the dead archives of YouTube and old Facebook pages, watched by almost nobody. This month <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@4gr4j/video/7621892206902725909">it has 1.9 million views</a>. Gurung became Home Minister on 27 March and resigned on Wednesday, barely a month into office. His<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@aayvik/video/7626069452177542408"> pre-political life had been put back into circulation</a> at industrial speed -- the b-boying, the DJ sets, and the YouTube video of him dancing in a music clip.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026042202040_71df4d531423e7c941abde95fb8106346c70ab0afb71bbeb520cc570f14ba178.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026042202040_71df4d531423e7c941abde95fb8106346c70ab0afb71bbeb520cc570f14ba178" data-rendition-name="original" width="2300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit"> </figure>  The youth of Nepal, well-versed in snappy TikTok edits and aura compilations, turned the archive into a meme economy almost overnight. TikTok remixed the footage to trap beats. The comments settled on a nickname that crossed into everyday speech within days: 'Homie Minister'. <div class="embed-block"><blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@yalexthwreal/video/7622325255792512276" data-video-id="7622325255792512276" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;" > <section> <a target="_blank" title="@yalexthwreal" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@yalexthwreal?refer=embed">@yalexthwreal</a> <a title="sudangurung" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/sudangurung?refer=embed">#sudangurung</a> new home minister of Nepal😎 <a title="fyppppppppppppppppppppppp" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyppppppppppppppppppppppp?refer=embed">#fyppppppppppppppppppppppp</a> <a title="sudangrg" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/sudangrg?refer=embed">#sudangrg</a> <a title="home" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/home?refer=embed">#home</a> <a title="minister" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/minister?refer=embed">#minister</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - •⪨н є α я т ❤н α ¢ к є я ⪩• - Music Universe 🎧" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-•⪨н-є-α-я-т-❤н-α-¢-к-є-я-⪩•-7308733170064231170?refer=embed">♬ original sound - •⪨н є α я т ❤н α ¢ к є я ⪩• - Music Universe 🎧</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script></div> As Home Minister, Gurung was in charge of the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, Department of Immigration, and the country's internal security apparatus. Calling him 'homie' collapsed the distance between that office and the Discord server where the movement that brought him into power had organised itself. What is harder to explain is why the nostalgic clips did the narrative work for Gurung's political standing right up until the moment the paperwork did not. A teenager on a dance floor in a Thamel club, filmed before smartphones had decent cameras, was functioning as political currency for a powerful home minister, while a share registry was quietly filling the other column. The footage was not an argument. Gurung was not doing anything in it that related to home affairs. He was just dancing. The comments compared him to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@4gr4j/video/7621892206902725909">Korean film heroes</a>. A separate <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@tandavyt7/video/7622151050128018708">48,000-like edit</a> was captioned 'Our New Home Minister Aura'. The replies were full of people saying they got chills listening to him speak. Even after his resignation, most comments on his Facebook page were supportive, saying he had been punished for pursuing truth and justice.&nbsp; Political legitimacy in Nepal has been built out of many things over the last 70 years, but it has never been built out of this. The question was always: what happens when the job starts demanding things his style, boldness, and swag cannot provide. Political aura in Nepal used to be a slow harvest, now it isn't. B P Koirala spent eight years in prison under the Panchayat. He wrote fiction at Sundari Jal. The writing survived, the prison sentences survived, and that experience became the template for what a serious Nepali politician looked like: someone the state had tried to break and failed. Legitimacy was accumulated by having their lives taken away, and refusing to bend the knee. The old mechanics of legitimacy produced politicians who could be audited. The record was made of words, dates, votes, and years behind bars. A voter who wanted to know what a leader stood for read his writings. A journalist digging for inconsistency could find it. The system was slow, often corrupt, and frequently boring. But boring was part of the job description. A minister was supposed to be slightly dull — evidence that the person was doing the unglamorous work of reading files and sitting through committee meetings. Today, boring is a disqualification. The attention economy rewards velocity and visual charge, and a politician who cannot generate either does not exist in the feed, and that means does not exist at all. The legacy parties are still issuing press statements criticising the new guard in the grammar of paper trails and procedural failure. But the audience has stopped reading, users scroll for their next viral bite. Sudan Gurung, unlike the old parties, understood exactly which grammar the feed rewarded. On his first evening as Home Minister, he posted a photo of himself sleeping on a sofa inside the ministry. Caption: creation cannot be greater than the creator, government is not above the people. The image travelled further in 12 hours than any ministerial press release has ever done.&nbsp; A minister napping on a sofa, phone-shot, zero production, read by the public as evidence of a minister who had skipped the motorcade and got straight to work. Gurung used Facebook to announce the names of former ministers and businessmen he intended to arrest. The feed was used to pre-announce state security action.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260422010456_2fa1918e1dd031d01f38b4001ee306d9414073cec0b795fa43a75cb5a8deb8c7.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260422010456_2fa1918e1dd031d01f38b4001ee306d9414073cec0b795fa43a75cb5a8deb8c7" data-rendition-name="original" width="926" height="868" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit"> </figure>  INFLUENTIAL INFLUENCER This is not how the Ministry of Home Affairs has ever operated. It is how a YouTuber releases a series. Sudan Gurung was a political content creator. As home minister, he was an influential influencer kinetically doing something in the visual medium. Much like Prime Minister Balendra Shah's sunglasses, Gurung's aura, authenticity and swag were a brand asset, instantly recognisable at thumbnail size. Balen's rap career supplies a pre-political archive that authenticates him the same way Gurung's DJ sets and b-boying clips authenticated him. The aesthetic is doing the work a manifesto used to do. The work is authenticity, and the strategy is auramaxxing. The emo fringe predates the ministry. The DJ sets predate Hami Nepal. The b-boying predates the earthquake, the NGO, the September uprising, the interim cabinet, all of it. Whatever Gurung is now, he was already that person before the office existed. This was the real spectacle of the Homie Minister: authenticity. Nepal's youth have grown up watching heavily-polished, talking-point ministers speak in a language aimed at nobody in particular. But that grainy archival clip of the Home Minister from 2009 was honest.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260422010456_5d6dff3a09e8b7e77dc60c3aa567c9e02b6bd5f90f94e20737ec05cc9a09023b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260422010456_5d6dff3a09e8b7e77dc60c3aa567c9e02b6bd5f90f94e20737ec05cc9a09023b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1800" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="When aura meets audit NT"> </figure>  The effect transcended GenZ. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ektapokharel/video/7623242573481561365">A TikTok trend</a> captioned NOT ONLY OUR HOME MINISTER, WE ARE ALSO FROM THAT ERA <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@sonykhadka/video/7624106790266948872">has millennials posting their own</a> archive photos from the same period, aligning themselves with Gurung's pre-political aesthetic. The aura did <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@_thakuri/video/7623397397556645141">cross-generational work</a>. It was a shared legibility, spanning at least 15 years of Nepali youth culture, with the Home Minister standing at its centre.&nbsp; The traditional politician's entire adult life is a performance of identity. Every photograph is lit for the media, every statement is vetted. The persona is the product, and the product has been in development for 30 years. This makes the old guard legible but suspect in the attention economy. A generation raised on authenticity-as-currency reads the decades of careful performance as evidence of something to hide. The polish is the problem. The nostalgic Sudan Gurung party clips inverted this. The polish was absent. The footage could not be performance aimed at the viewer, because the viewer did not exist in 2009 and neither did the political stakes. The clip was therefore read as real, in a way a press conference can never be. It was just a kid dancing, and he happened to grow up to be the Home Minister. But Sudan Gurung's job was never to go viral. The Ministry of Home Affairs requires the person running it to file a complete asset declaration and to avoid holding financial interests in crony entities.&nbsp; None of that work is content. A correctly filed asset declaration does not get remixed into a trap beat. A functioning immigration database is not a TikTok. The paperwork that constitutes actual governance is structurally boring in exactly the way the old parties are structurally boring, and for the same reason. It is the slow, procedural, checkable apparatus that the old system was built to produce and that the new system has not yet learned to replace. And it is painstaking follow-the-money paper trail investigative journalists in the legacy media who uncovered the evidence. You cannot auramaxx your way out of a share registry. You cannot post your way past a conflict-of-interest statute. No amount of fire outfits and wild DJ transitions does anything for you when a journalist pulls the initial shareholder list of Star Micro Insurance and finds your name at number 49, with Rs2.5 million in shares alongside investors linked to Deepak Bhatta and Sulav Agrawal — two men currently at the centre of a Rs 3.7 billion money laundering investigation. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@blox.drop/video/7622173520981658900">Auramaxxing was engineered</a> for the mechanics of reaching office. It is the reason Sudan Gurung became Home Minister and Gagan Thapa did not. The question that had not yet been tested, until this week, was whether the same weapon works when the terrain changes. The terrain does change when you assume power. This week, the answer arrived. TWO CLOCKS Two clocks had been running, and they did not sync. The first clock was built for auramaxxing. A clip posted at eight in the morning peaked by noon. A sofa photo was remixed before the minister had left the building. The feedback loop is fast and legible, and a politician playing this clock gets real-time data on what to post next. The old guard never learned to read it, which is a large part of why they lost the election. The second clock was the one the ministry actually runs on. It measures in quarters, court calendars, and the slow grind of investigation files moving between offices. A share registry takes weeks to pull. A money-laundering case moves at the speed of the prosecutor's office, which is to say, it often does not appear to move at all, until one morning it does. The legacy mass media is fed leaks, and the second clock does not care whether the minister is currently trending. The two clocks collided this week, and the second clock got there first. Faster than anyone expected. The first clock put Gurung in the Home Ministry in weeks. The second clock put him out of it in less than a month. On Sunday evening, Diyopost and Janaastha published documents showing Gurung as a founding shareholder in Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life — companies licensed by the Nepal Insurance Authority in 2022 following what reporting identified as political lobbying by Bhatta and Agrawal. A photograph also surfaced of Hami Nepal, the NGO Gurung chairs, honouring Bhatta as a donor on 21 December 2021. Gurung's first response was auramaxxed. A Monday Facebook post distinguishing ‘rumours’ from ‘facts’, insisting the shares were disclosed within his broader Rs20 million securities portfolio, promising to cooperate with any investigation. "Allegations and truth are not the same thing," he wrote. "Decisions should be based on evidence, not sentiment." It was a coherent clip, but it did not stop the clock. By Wednesday, Prime Minister Balendra Shah had sought written clarification. Leaders within the RSP itself were calling for his resignation. The opposition Nepali Congress had framed the question as one of democratic transparency.&nbsp; Gurung resigned, posting his decision to Facebook as he did everything else. Ethics, he wrote, hold more weight than any position. There is no power greater than public trust. He ended in English, invoking ‘my country … the respect of our security forces … the youths of Nepal’. Even the exit was content. And this is the asymmetry the office exposed. A politician whose legitimacy is built on fast 30 second videos is structurally exposed to a process that runs slower than the news cycle, because the archive of aesthetic proof was not engineered to answer documentary evidence.&nbsp; It was engineered to displace the demand for documentary evidence in the first place. When that demand returns, as it always does once a politician takes office, the digital archive keeps performing, but the documents keep getting uncovered. And the two tracks do not communicate. The old guard knew this clock because they had no other clock to know. What they lost in charisma they gained in durability: a politician built over 20 years of parliamentary record is harder to dislodge with a single document because they have already survived thousands of documents. The new guard has not been stress-tested against its own paper trail. Sudan Gurung has now been tested, and the test is over, and the template has been written in his exit rather than his survival.&nbsp; A politician can enter office on the strength of a dance clip, and the same class of evidence — share registries, company filings, founding-shareholder lists at number 49 — that would have ended the career of a politician in a previous era of Nepali politics has ended his. The second clock got there. The feed did not save him. Or not entirely. Because the resignation itself is now in the feed. The Facebook post. The 46 brothers and sisters. The epic sign-off. Within hours of stepping down, Gurung had already re-enrolled his exit into the same register that put him in office. The clip of the Home Minister dancing in 2009 is still in circulation. The sofa photo still reads as sincerity. The investigation into the micro-insurance shares will move at the speed of Nepal's prosecutor's office, which is to say, at a speed the feed has long since outrun. The movement that installed Gurung in the name of ending elite capture has had its answer about whether its own hero is subject to the same audit it demanded of everyone else. He walked — or was walked — before the audit ran its course. The resignation was framed as moral choice rather than forced exit, and the framing is already winning. Whether that framing holds is the next test. Auramaxxing, it turns out, is a weapon that works in one direction only: it got him the job, and when the documents arrived, it did not save him. But it may yet save the person. These are not the same thing. If the technique is wounded, it is not yet dead. The next Nepali politician with a pre-political archive and a phone is watching how Gurung exits, not just how he entered. And the answer is: you exit the same way you entered: on Facebook. In your own voice. Before anyone else writes the caption. Whether he comes back is the thing to watch. Whether the technique does is already decided. &nbsp; &nbsp;

When Aura meets Audit

Just three weeks in, Prime Minister Balendra Shah has already shed two ministers, and is having to contend with the economic fallout of the West Asia war plus the global order that it has upended.&nbsp;
The new dispensation in Nepal has aroused interest in New Delhi, Beijing as well as Washington. The ouster of Home Minister Sudan Gurung, whose first act in office was to arrest former prime minister K P Oli, has foreign policy wonks scratching their heads.
The US sent Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Samir Paul Kapur on a special mission to figure out what is happening in Kathmandu. In town at the same time was Cao Jing, Deputy Director General of the Asian Affairs Department of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And Prime Minister Shah is preparing for an official visit to India.
For the Americans, it is mostly about containing China and looking after the welfare of Tibetan refugees, while pushing its own MCC Compact and State Partnership Program (SSP). Beijing is mindful of the post-Dalai Lama era, and does not want instability in Nepal to encourage free-Tibet activities. India lately seems more wary of American activity in what it considers its backyard.
The Chinese appear relieved to see Sudan Gurung go. Only last week, Ambassador Zhang Maoming met Gurung during which he raised the issue of Tibetan and Taiwanese activities in Nepal, seeking firm commitment that Kathmandu would not harbour activities hostile to Beijing.
“Geographically we are close to Tibet and not to the Mainland, so China remains suspicious of us, especially after the TOB and free-Tibet components that emerged from the GenZ protests,” says geopolitical analyst Indra Adhikari.
Kapur, for his part, met RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane, Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle and Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal. Although investment and infrastructure was on the agenda, the main issue seems to have been about Tibetan refugees. In nearly parallel meetings with ministers, Cao Jing warned Nepal not to be too cosy with the Americans.
For Indian academic and Nepal watcher Sukh Deo Muni, all this harks back to American activity in Nepal during the height of the Cold War. He tweeted: ‘US senior diplomat Paul Kapur's statement in Kathmandu must be understood carefully in New Delhi. He said the US does not want China or any other country to dominate Nepal.’&nbsp;
‘Any other country’ could be a pointed reference to India, and what this means is that Nepal may now have to navigate even more carefully a tri-polar world order reshaped by the West Asia war.&nbsp;
Nepali journalist based in New Delhi Akanshya Shah agrees that the United States may not be seeing Nepal through the Indian lens anymore, while New Delhi does not want heightened US activity in what it considers its sphere of influence. All this is further complicated by recent frostiness in Washington-New Delhi ties.
“New Delhi doesn’t have that familiarity factor it used to with old leadership in Nepal, but it is curious about what the young Balen Shah will do and what kind of relation he will pursue with India,” she adds. “Certain decisions of the Balen government such as ending VIP culture and delivering passport at homes have hugely resonated with the Indian people, he has in some ways become a role model among the youth in India as well.”
India has invited Prime Minister Shah for an official state visit, which will be his first foreign trip as per tradition. Shah graduated in structural engineering from a college in Bengaluru, and knows India well. Shah has injected religious elements into his public exposure as prime minister and this could help project Nepal’s ‘soft power’ in dealing with India.
But he has also been a nationalist on the Limpiyadhura map dispute, and there are other thorny issues like air connectivity, river projects and power exports that need to be ironed out.&nbsp;
Sukh Deo Muni warns that the old Indian diplomatic approach based on religio-cultural stakeholders in Kathmandu may not work anymore. He wrote: ‘India's Modi government must prepare itself well to deal with new Nepalese leadership and their empowered support base, which is self-confident, highly nationalist, aspirant and impatient.’
The RSP’s 22-page National Commitment document said Nepal should abandon its historical ‘buffer state’ identity to serve as a ‘vibrant bridge’ between regional and global powers. Much of this debate is theoretical, and there is much navel-gazing that distracts from regional realpolitik.&nbsp;
“Whether we are a buffer state or a vibrant bridge, in today’s heightened geopolitical scenario we have to have good relations with good neighbours,” explains Akanshya Shah. “What is of paramount importance is that our ties are based on the aspirations of the young generation, so that they are engaged.”
Indra Adhikari goes as far as to say that the concepts of “buffer state” and “vibrant bridge” have both failed and Nepal is neither. “We have had zero roles in mediating or de-escalating the tensions between India and China to call ourselves a buffer state. As a vibrant bridge, we cannot facilitate trade of the two countries. The new government should have researched and consulted more before proposing the same outdated and failed foreign policy concepts.”&nbsp;
What will be much more important for Prime Minister Shah is to continue Nepal’s traditional policy of ‘equidistance’ and convince his interlocutors that it is not an anti-Indian stance.&nbsp;
“At a time when there is increased interest of big powers in Nepal, we need to do a bit of our own homework for the systemic reforms we want,” says Akanshya Shah. “As for India, we first need to clearly define what we want on connectivity, energy and culture. But most importantly, we have to capitalise on the goodwill of India which we haven’t been able to in the past.”
Adds Indra Adhikari: “When it comes to fundamental aspects of foreign policy that ensures and enhances the well being of our citizens, national parties should all have one unified voice that doesn’t change when the government does. Only then the future generations can own it.”

Love thy neighbours (and America)

Prime Minister Balendra Shah sought written clarification from Home Minister Sudan Gurung following news of his investment in two companies linked to controversial Nepali business figures Sulav Agrawal and Deepak Bhatt, who are currently at the centre of a Rs3.7 billion money laundering investigation.
Home Minister Gurung's secretariat said that it has responded to the PM and submitted a written explanation. This comes after Home Minister Sudan Gurung issued a public clarification about the new developments regarding his investments on Monday.&nbsp;
Gurung is listed as a founding shareholder of two micro-insurance companies Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life, having acquired shares amounting to Rs2.5 million. The two companies are said to have been issued their licence by the Nepal Insurance Authority at the behest of Bhatt and Agrawal. Family members and close aides of both Bhatt and Agrawal have stakes in the two companies.&nbsp;
Bhatt, chairman of Infinity Holdings, is a power broker accused of using his political connections to secure and manipulate public procurement contracts, influence policy changes ass well as leadership appointments to regulatory institutions including the Securities Board of Nepal and Nepal Insurance Authority.&nbsp;
Meanwhile, Shanker Group vice-chair Sulav Agrawal was also arrested earlier this month as part of a broader money laundering probe as well as an investigation into the group’s finances. Agrawal was previously arrested during the Covid-19 pandemic after he was found selling &nbsp;67 infrared thermometers from a vehicle with diplomatic credentials. At the time, Bhatt is said to have used his connections to facilitate Agrawal’s release.&nbsp;
Critics have raised concerns the lack of detailed disclosures on Gurung’s part about investments tied to the very figures that his Home Ministry is in charge of investigating. There are also questions as to the source of his investment, which Gurung said in his clarification were raised through loans.
In his clarification, Gurung denied concealing his investments, saying that his shares in the two companies are part of in his over Rs20 million portfolio included in his asset disclosure and insisting the misunderstanding is because of how the shares have been categorised. &nbsp;
On his name and portfolio being associated with controversial figures, he responded, ‘There are hundreds to thousands of shareholders in a company. Buying shares does not constitute a partnership with anyone.’&nbsp;
He continued: ‘If that is the basis, then everyone with investments in those companies must be held accountable, which is not fair. Investments in the companies include those from media houses and banks. Are they all guilty?’
Leaders within the RSP have called for internal investigation into Sudan Gurung, to maintain the party’s platform of clean governance and transparency.&nbsp;
This comes after the sacking of Labour Minister Dipak Sah earlier this month after the RSP found him to be in breach of the party code of conduct following the reappointment of his wife to the Health insurance board. Sah was not given the opportunity for clarification prior to his departure.&nbsp;
Critics have said that the party is reverting to the patronage-driven politics of previous leadership following the appointment of figures close to RSP leadership in various key positions.
Many influential business owners elected to the House with direct stakes in the business, finance, tourism, and infrastructure sectors sit in Parliamentary Committees that would directly benefit their interests. &nbsp;
On Monday, RSP appointed Bhupdev Shah, who previously was a part of Balen Shah’s secretariat during his tenure as Kathmandu Mayor, as the party’s general secretary. Some have questioned the party’s decision to appoint Shah without going through an election process in its upcoming general convention.&nbsp;
Shah’s appointment comes as there is increased public attention over members of the Prime Minister’s inner circle being appointed to key advisory positions as well as to head governance reform committees.

infections