<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410110/637203c99c7e80680e0b2827jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="906" height="819"/><figcaption>Photo: UMA THAPA MAGAR</figcaption></figure>Nepal created a <a href="https://mocit.gov.np/application/resources/admin/uploads/source/EConsultation/EN%20Digital%20Nepal%20Framework%20V8.4%2015%20July%20%202019.pdf">Digital Nepal Framework</a> a few years ago, sparking conversations about the digitisation of services.Investments in digital businesses, such as fintech, by startups and <a href="https://www.nepalitelecom.com/2021/12/worldlink-invests-in-khalti-to-take-financial-services-to-rural-areas.html">established businesses</a> has accelerated inline with the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?locations=NP">massive increase in connectivity and internet penetration</a> over the last decade. In the social sector, NGOs are also working to integrate digital technologies into their existing programs.This drive to digitise must, however, occur alongside concerted efforts to think about and shape digital transformation, this is the social consequences of digital technologies. This is the job of practitioners and thought-makers including journalists, policy makers, social actors, researchers, and civil society organisations.Researcher and futurist Roy Amara writes: ‘We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.’ The is perhaps most visible when historians often organise the distant human past around dominant technological tools of the epoch -- the stone age, the iron age, the bronze age.Closer to our time, we forget that the widespread adoption of electricity <a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2015/06/19/access-to-electricity-is-linked-to-reduced-sleep/">changed our sleep</a> and socialisation patterns. The availability of affordable household appliances impacted household power dynamics and brought <a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/how-appliance-boom-moved-more-women-workforce">women into the workforce</a>.Even before Tinder, anthropologist Laura Ahern’s work on Nepal shows that adoption of the technology of literacy and letter writing <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9675">shifted courtship and marriage patterns</a>.Yet, telling the story of technology and society in this way suggests that technology is always the driving force, overwhelming social institutions. Instead, there is <a href="https://blogs.uww.edu/kugleram18/2018/02/15/making-new-media-make-sense-summary/">ample evidence</a> that economics, politics, law, and cultural norms have a significant bearing on the development and adoption of technologies.Consider the case of electric vehicles in Nepal. There was a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-takes-3-steps-back-on-e-cars/">massive slowdown</a> in the rate of EV adoption a few years ago, but in the last year, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-reduces-tax-on-electric-cars/">rate has accelerated dramatically</a>. Both slowdown and acceleration were direct consequences of tax laws rather than any technological factor.As with previous technologically powered disruptions, digital transformations are likely to leave some better off and leave some behind. The manner in which we implement digitisation (both how we set up the technology and how we design the laws, practises and cultures that govern them) will at least influence, if not determine, these consequences.How do we assess the possible consequences of our choices? What ethical and moral system do we use to guide our debates and decisions? These are questions philosophers will debate over lifetimes. Practitioners should take inspiration from the old saying that ‘perfect is the enemy of good’ and find a ‘good enough’ system.A human rights based approach is a good enough solution that will make a positive impact in the shortest possible time for three reasons. First, governments and other powerful institutions in the developing world are familiar with and notionally bought into the framework of human rights. Human Rights, while not always realised in practice, do carry both moral and legal weight in negotiations with the powers-that-be.Second, there are a large number of civil society organisations and activists who have long advocated for their causes through a human-rights based framework. Adding digital transformation as one element of their work will be quicker, cheaper and more effective than seeking new frameworks and new advocates.Third, the various international human rights treaties to which governments are parties can be used as both legal and moral leverage. These legal instruments provide a framework for multiple actions including public interest litigation, public advocacy and the production of model policies.A good enough approach to digital transformation would also prioritise securing existing rights in light of the digital rather than emphasising the creation of new rights. Seeking to respect, protect, and fulfil existing rights, such as that to a free and compulsory basic education, is sufficient to undertake critical debates about digital transformation.Take for example the ongoing debates, in public and in closed forums, between educators in response to extended school closures during the pandemic. Pointing to the GoN’s constitutional and international commitment to free basic education, some have argued that state-driven digital learning initiatives are  inherently problematic in a society where digital access is limited.Pointing to the same commitments, others, including me, specifically critique the poor design and inaccessibility of digital learning platforms that result in the exclusion of those at the digital margins - people with some internet access but limited digital literacy.This debate demonstrates that new rights, such as that to internet access, are already implicitly captured within the existing framework of an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil extant rights.The digital education debates triggered by the pandemic also illustrated a major gap in human-rights based approaches. In Nepal, most of the rights-based arguments emanate from organisations funded by bilateral and multilateral development agencies who push ideas representing the consensus reached by the global development industry.This industry primarily funds work on closing the equality gap within countries. This funding limits Nepali thought-makers and practitioners compelling them to tackle in-country issues such as the differences in internet access between Kathmandu and Kalikot. An exclusive focus in-country marginalisation obscures us from the increasing divergence in power, wealth and digital infrastructure between countries and societies.That digital infrastructure, such as technological platforms, are instruments of power is evident in that the Trump Administration chose to apply pressure on China specifically through Huawei to curtail its dominance of the platforms enabling a new generation of telecommunications technologies.Superior digital engineering abilities and facilitative investment policies have allowed the Global North and China to design digital platforms that capture disproportionate amounts of wealth and power from the global economy. Even in more mundane digital services, for example the ability to deploy cloud computing applications at scale, the average 'privileged' engineering student in Kathmandu faces a meaningful digital disadvantage in comparison to their peers in Oslo, Helsinki, or London. This divide has significant economic and social implications.Yet, these forms of divergence and inequity at the global scale get very little space in the national discourse in Nepal. Practitioners and thought-makers taking a right-based approach to influence digital transformation should be aware of this glaring gap in the worldview of their funding agencies. Undoubtedly, specific interventions and structural policy changes are needed to close the in-country differences in access to basic services.Undoubtedly, these matter immediately and in the long term. But without changes to Nepal’s position in the global economy, the best we can hope for is to bring people up to some ‘basic’ level. The experiences of South Korea, Taiwan, and China demonstrate that investing in closing the gap between nations can, and perhaps must, run in parallel with ensuring access to health, education and economic opportunities for all citizens.Sakar Pudasaini, Founder at Karkhana, explores innovation, technology, education, and their social consequences in Makeshift, a new monthly column in the Nepali Times.

Sakar Pudasaini

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Addressing Nepal's digital divide

Who is accountable for teacher-student relationships?

Early on Monday morning, a bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu plunged off the highway in Dhading killing 19 passengers. Two weeks ago, another bus fell into the Tama Kosi in Manthali, killing 12. A few days before that a bus crash in Baitadi killed 13 people.&nbsp; In just the month before Nepal's election, more than 50 people have been killed in road traffic accidents. Most of these cannot be called 'accidents'. They are a direct result of poorly maintained highways and lack of enforcement of traffic discipline. Political parties in Nepal have rolled out their election manifestos, and voters are once again presented with a flood of promises. Page after page, these documents list megawatts and microcredit, highways and airports, jobs and investment. In these manifestos, growth is quantified, projects itemised, revenue forecast — and there are even threats to beat up contractors who do not finish their jobs. But when everything is declared a priority the stale promises are empty. The voter is left confused as to where the party’s loyalties really lie. Will any of these plans and pledges actually ever materialise and help Nepalis live longer, safer, healthier lives? The main job of any accountable government is to protect its citizens, not so much from foreign enemies but from domestic mismanagement. And this means the most basic test the new government should be made to pass is whether it can ensure basic well-being and protection for all its people. The problems of safety, health, and survival remain unresolved for most Nepalis, and are quietly eroding their lives. In the past year alone, the country’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/roadkill">roads and highways claimed more than 2,300</a> lives. An estimated 41,000 Nepalis die each year directly because of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-is-invisible-is-more-dangerous">air pollution</a>, and their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/air-pollution-killing-season-starts-early">lifespans are lessened by 3.4 years</a>.&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/poor-health">Non-communicable diseases</a> now account for well over half of total deaths in the country. And even where survival has improved, deprivation remains. Chronic malnutrition continues to haunt communities in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/mass-migration-from-muktikot">Nepal’s western mountains</a> despite progress in maternal and child health.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223130240_4f4ef83a31c3c4ae36ecdffb33a355e2fa3de9e98244b840a895af2d95c35ac0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260223130240_4f4ef83a31c3c4ae36ecdffb33a355e2fa3de9e98244b840a895af2d95c35ac0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1024" height="683" loading="lazy" alt="A life-first manifesto for Nepal NT"> </figure>  These are the lived realities of most Nepalis, and it is here that development can deliver its most immediate returns. A rising GDP, in and of itself, does not make roads safer, clean polluted air, or provide enough nutrition to children. Such outcomes demand intentional, granular policies that confront the specific, everyday problems shaping people’s lives.&nbsp; Macroeconomic growth, trade and investment are important, but these alone cannot guarantee improvements health and safety. The word ‘growth’, after all, is also synonymous with malignancy. Economic progress and human protection are correlated only when governance deliberately links them. Impact on life is the unit in which ordinary Nepalis calculate progress. What is needed, then, is a governing philosophy measurable in these same terms: a ‘life-first’ standard where every policy, budget, and reform can be understood and judged by its impact on protecting and extending human life. Such a ‘life-first’ approach would scrutinise three aspects of every policy. First, whether the policy prevents loss of life. A death is termed preventable if better, more coordinated response systems and regulations could have avoided it (vaccines, drugs, road safety, clean drinking water). A newly built six-lane highway <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/highway-accidents-are-no-accident-in-nepal">can be a death trap</a> due to poor design or lax enforcement of safety rules. If neonatal deaths continue in a district despite hospitals being present, or if malnutrition claims lives in predominantly agricultural regions, they too are failures. Preventable deaths also cluster where accountability is less direct. Just last year, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/suicides-a-pandemic-within-a-pandemic">Nepal recorded 6,866 suicides</a>, with nearly 20 lives lost every day, yet these deaths fail to prompt any serious examination of governance. The same holds for fatalities linked to domestic or communal violence, alcohol and substance misuse, or ‘natural’ disasters, which register as ‘tragedies without remedy’ rather than as outcomes policy can influence. But when avoidable loss of life recurs at scale, isolated incidents become patterns, and patterns reveal systemic neglect. Saving lives, however, is only the first step, and what matters just as much is the quality of years lived. Nepal’s life expectancy now stands at 71 years, yet many citizens spend years in avoidable disability, untreated chronic illness, or mental distress. A life- first government must ask not only whether people live, but whether they thrive. Are citizens able to pursue education, work, and family life without fear of preventable harm? Do communities have access to clean air and water, nutritious food, and basic healthcare? Can a teenager anywhere in Nepal imagine a future not foreclosed by premature marriage, or untreated depression?  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223130240_157d72b80b82a07699b6bffbb30036b86f0f767a5674cc3db3d5c20343442940.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20260223130240_157d72b80b82a07699b6bffbb30036b86f0f767a5674cc3db3d5c20343442940" data-rendition-name="original" width="2529" height="1427" loading="lazy" alt="A life-first manifesto for Nepal NT"> </figure>  Thriving requires policies that prevent suffering and promote well-being in addition to ensuring survival.&nbsp; Finally, governance must consider graceful aging. Elderly Nepalis should not be left to navigate disease, poverty, or isolation alone. Social systems, healthcare, and community support must enable their continued participation and dignified well-being. Adopting this three-layered standard would gradually reorient how success of any new government is defined. Transportation would be judged by fatalities reduced on the roads. Electricity generation would be measured by whether households can switch from firewood dependence to smoke-free electric stoves.&nbsp; Increase in annual rice harvest must translate into better nutrition, reducing the prevalence of chronic diseases like diabetes. Accountability must follow problems rather than stop at Singha Darbar. Only then will politicians and bureaucrats eventually recognise that their work converges on the same human endpoint. Critics will argue that economies are complex, trade-offs are inevitable, and that governance cannot be reduced to a single metric.But, as Acemoglu and Robinson show in their book <a href="https://ia801506.us.archive.org/27/items/WhyNationsFailTheOriginsODaronAcemoglu/Why-Nations-Fail_-The-Origins-o-Daron-Acemoglu.pdf">Why Nations Fail</a>, the key difference between prosperity and poverty lies in inclusive institutions that empower citizens and create broad incentives for well-being.&nbsp; Extractive institutions concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few while keeping the majority trapped in neglect. Nepal’s governance has remained a striking example of extraction. If lawmakers in the new Parliament continue to resist changes that would save and improve the lives of ordinary citizens, the same systemic rot will persist for generations to come. A life-first mentality can cut through this inertia by clarifying the moral centre of governance and reminding policymakers that behind every policy failure lies human cost. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/epicentre-of-hunger">Every mother in Bajura</a> with a child going hungry at night, every farmer in the Madhes unable to afford medical care, and every family that has lost <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/saving-kidneys-to-save-nepal">a migrant son to kidney failure</a> understands the true <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/dirty-dangerous-difficult-and-dehydrating">value of a life saved</a>. Life is the one metric that transcends ideology, ethnicity, and region. Centering governance on this single, focused metric, can shift an election from a contest of rhetoric to a contest of evidence. Which party ensured access to safe water and basic healthcare? Which made work at home and abroad safer and less exploitative. Which measurably extended healthy years of life for ordinary citizens? Health is wealth. By improving the healthy lifespan of citizens economic prosperity would follow naturally. A ‘life-first’ governance model would therefore compel Nepal to address the underlying structural failures across all sectors, rather than merely alleviating their symptoms. The GenZ protest that toppled the government last September was, at its core, a demand for accountability and a rejection of politics as usual. But as the country edges closer to the polls, that clarity has started to dissipate. Parties are now echoing the language of reform, but the public discourse remains dominated by promises that feel disconnected from Nepal’s most immediate and basic priorities. Every preventable death, every hungry child, and every neglected elder becomes a direct failure of governance and a moral debt the state must answer for. It is how we can make sure we keep the next government in check. The writers are Nepali GenZ students of biomedical engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Nepal’s life or death election

Of the nearly 19 million eligible voters in next week’s election in Nepal, an estimated 5 million are abroad and cannot cast their ballots. Many others within Nepal must travel to their home districts, and might decide not to because of the cost.
Flights into Kathmandu these days are full of global Nepalis returning just to vote, but almost as many are leaving for overseas jobs. Most of those coming or going are in the 20-40 age group, and a majority want Nepal to see a change in leadership.
Bangladesh held an election this month in which citizens overseas could vote by mail.&nbsp;
“Bangladesh made maximum use of technology not just for campaigning but also for polling itself. We could have also managed this, so people within Nepal did not have to travel to their home districts to vote,” says Mohna Ansari, former head of Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission who was an election observer in Bangladesh.
A 3-day holiday has been declared so people can travel to their home constituencies to cast ballots. Even if there was not enough time to manage ballots for overseas Nepalis, it could have been done for Nepalis within Nepal.
Former Chief Election Commissioner Bhojraj Pokharel reckons that physical voting in countries with a large Nepali diaspora would have been a logistical nightmare, but in the PR system, using electronic voting machines or paper ballot could have been piloted in some places. It is not possible to manage the entire voting process until we introduce the internet voting system.
“First of all, there needs to be political will to bring the policy and be ready to undertake that level of investment and it is not a one-time cost,” Pokharel says. “A government formed by the GenZ could have atr least issed an ordinance ensuring this right, piloted out-of-country voting where possible, which could have built pressure for the future Parliament and the government. It would have given people hope. It is a lost opportunity.”
All major political parties called for voting rights for global Nepalis in their manifestos, but these very leaders blocked legislation allowing it despite a 2017 Supreme Court ruling out of fear that it would be anti-incumbent.&nbsp;
<h2>Why so late?</h2>
Bangladesh delivered election results in just one day, but the final results of Nepal's last local polls in 2022 including that of Kathmandu constituencies took nearly a month.
Acting Chief Election Commissioner Ram Prasad Bhandari said this week that the results of the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) ballot counting would “likely” be published within 24 hours of the poll closing at 5PM on 5 March. But many are skeptical.
“I wonder if we lack the capacity or know-how to announce results as quickly as possible,” says Mohna Ansari.
Former Chief Election Commissioner Pokharel says manual ballot paper counting in Nepal is inherently slow because of the large numner of political parties and/or candidates on the ballot, the counting mechanism, the political behaviour of the candidates/parties and some managerial issues during counting.
“Our present policy is to count all the ballot papers at the returning officers' officies, located at the district headquarters. It requires collecting ballot boxes safetly first. This takes time, and there have been cases of ballot boxes being damaged or stolen during transport. In a few highly difficult, geographically remote polling centres, we use a helicopter or transport. But sometimes, accommodating the party and candidates' representatives remains challenging,” explains Pokharel. A solution could be counting ballots at the very booths where they are cast.
Another reason for the delay is simply the number of political parties, and the need for each ballot paper to be examined by booth representatives for consensus. In close races, the smallest difference can lead to tense situations, further delaying results, even though counting centres are protected by metal fencing so there is no disruption.
After this, then it is the turn of Proportional Representation (PR) ballots to be counted. Weeks pass by the time the results of candidates and parties are tallied and verified. But the most common delay is because election officers think ballot counting is a nine-to-five job.&nbsp;
“The efficiency of poll station officers is most important, and they are incentivised for this,” says Ansari, adding that counting can even start within an hour after voting closes.
In remote areas, local resources could be mobilised to make counting quicker, but there is a crisis of trust, adds Ansari.&nbsp;
That could be easily solved with electronic voting which the EC implemented in the 2008 polls but discontinued because political parties felt the machines could be hacked or manipulated.

Nepalis Select Who To Elect

The series Nepal Made profiles Nepali products and the people who make them possible.&nbsp; In the lap of Langtang lie misty meadows that are carpeted with alpine flowers during the monsoon. It was here that Gyalbu Tamang (pictured, right) spent his childhood accompanying his father Pasang Norbu to high pastures, to milk nak and make cheese. Norbu himself was taught to produce Emmentaler cheese by two Swiss experts in the 1950s. Switzerland and Nepal are marking the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties this year, and the cheese plant in Kyangjin was one of the first the Swiss were involved in.&nbsp; Langtang had surplus milk, and the idea was to turn it into cheese to raise nutrition levels. “The Swiss were very hard-working, and were not used to the laid back attitude of Nepalis,” remembers Gyalbu Tamang, now 50. “The children in Langtang were scared of the tall blonde foreigners, but I got along with them.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260221070240_dd47ceaf71a505e075f4a3628baf70161a40ebd21bcec1b1a2ebe03b28da4293.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260221070240_dd47ceaf71a505e075f4a3628baf70161a40ebd21bcec1b1a2ebe03b28da4293" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="Langtang cheese"> </figure>  Gyalbu remembers sleeping outdoors with his father, under the stars and gazing at Langtang Lirung luminescent in the moonlight. After the milk was boiled, he helped carry it down in 40 litre churns to Kyangjin for processing.&nbsp; The plant was handed over to the state-run Dairy Development Corporation (DDC). Norbu Lama retired, but cheese making was too ingrained in him. So he bought a dozen yaks and Gyalbu helped him sell the milk. At 18, Gyalbu joined the cheese plant, and 32 years later, he is still there – now manager. “I had learnt everything from my father, so it was easy for me,” Gyalbu recalls. “Trekking boomed in Langtang and there was high demand for cheese. It raised the income of farmers.” 2015 EARTHQUAKE&nbsp; But all that came crashing down just before noon on 25 April 2015 when the earthquake triggered an avalanche that buried Langtang &nbsp;village. More than 300 people, many of them trekkers, were killed. “My father was grazing yaks, and we found him five days later, thrown off by the avalanche. My mother was buried in the ruins of her home,” Gyalbu says. Fortunately, his wife and three children in Kyangjin were safe in their damaged house.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260221070240_7c0d512514280965aa72511100a2bda4e515c52c6e6428665dc7dd88c62c7ebf.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260221070240_7c0d512514280965aa72511100a2bda4e515c52c6e6428665dc7dd88c62c7ebf" data-rendition-name="original" width="882" height="661" loading="lazy" alt="Langtang cheese"> </figure>  Twenty-seven herders and 400 yaks also perished. The cheese plant was flattened. Even before the disaster, an ageing population, out-migration, and better education meant that fewer Langtangpa were interested in cheese-making. The DDC’s mismanagement also took its toll, and at Rs80 / litre, it was not feasible to herd yaks anymore. The Swiss stepped in again to help rebuild the plant on condition that the price of milk be raised. The DDC agreed to pay up to Rs110/litre depending on fat content, and that price has remained the same.&nbsp; Gyalbu Tamang was in Kathmandu this week, trying again to convince the DDC to raise the price of milk to make cheese-making a worthwhile occupation for the younger generation.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260221070240_61f302b28a3051006fedba92ac1a88ffab13a1ffb3154603bfc6693aee8fca5d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260221070240_61f302b28a3051006fedba92ac1a88ffab13a1ffb3154603bfc6693aee8fca5d" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="Langtang cheese"> </figure>  There are only three yak ranches left and the numbers of yak, nak and dzo have shrunk. In its heyday, Langtang used to produce 5,000kg of cheese per year. Today, it is down to 800kg. The cheese is sold in Kathmandu for about Rs2,000 per kg, but the plant has no savings to upgrade its 80-year-old equipment. “We are on our own, there is not much help from the government or Langtang people overseas,” laments Gyalbu. “I do not know what the future holds, but I will keep making cheese as long as there is milk, and as long as I am able.”&nbsp;

internet-access

Addressing Nepal's digital divide

Who is accountable for teacher-student relationships?

Nepal’s life or death election

Nepalis Select Who To Elect

Langtang Emmentaler