The Embassy of Japan in Kathmandu is providing Bayalpata Hospital in Achham district to install up-to-date medical equipment as part of its effort to improve healthcare in remote parts of Nepal. The contract for the assistance was signed on Friday between the new Japanese Ambassador Maeda Toru and Kunda Dixit, the Chair of Nyaya Health Nepal which runs the hospital at Bayalpata.&nbsp; Nyaya Health Nepal was set up in 2008 to improve rural healthcare, and has since provided free world class treatment with specialised care free of cost to 1.3 million patients in the far west region of the country.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250131100116_0c4fea12fa18ebd1952dde7abe53e9de7a6371b8364b6a7ad00ec72267935eb8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250131100116_0c4fea12fa18ebd1952dde7abe53e9de7a6371b8364b6a7ad00ec72267935eb8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="667" loading="lazy" alt="Japanese aid for Bayalpata Hospital NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250131100116_898086105d50414e81d5a78bf4b436f8ee1005b876fa7deb28988a9bbf625948.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250131100116_898086105d50414e81d5a78bf4b436f8ee1005b876fa7deb28988a9bbf625948" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="667" loading="lazy" alt="Japanese aid for Bayalpata Hospital NT"> </figure>  In that time, the medical need of the region has changed from mainly infectious diseases to lifestyle-related chronic ailments as well as an increase in trauma patients.&nbsp; "I have learnt that Nyaya Health Nepal is improving access to healthcare for underserved communities in rural Nepal, including providing free medical services at Bayalpata Hospital in one of the most remote areas of the country,” Ambassador Toru said at the signing ceremony. “The hospital is the core medical institution in the Achham district and surrounding areas, especially for critical surgeries."  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250131140128_6307d1200c5eecb01964be3a6d6428719d8eee30b801a48c201ad9efe8ae875d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250131140128_6307d1200c5eecb01964be3a6d6428719d8eee30b801a48c201ad9efe8ae875d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1179" height="1159" loading="lazy" alt="Japanese aid to Bayalpata Hospital NT"> <figcaption>Photo: EMBASSY OF JAPAN</figcaption> </figure>  The $66,263 contract is under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Project (GGP) of the Japanese government, and will finance the purchase of a Digital X-ray flat panel unit, USG Machine, &nbsp;and C-arm imaging device that produces high resolution x-ray images of patients in real time.&nbsp; “The grant will help our surgeons and doctors at Bayalpata provide more timely diagnosis, more reliable surgeries and treatment,” Dixit said. "In the last 15 years, the need of the people of Sudurpaschim Province has changed from infectious diseases to chronic ailments and trauma, and the hospital has tried to adapt accordingly in these underserved parts where access and affordability of quality healthcare is a big challenge." &nbsp;&nbsp; Nyaya Health Nepal runs Bayalpata under its Integrated Municipal Healthcare model where community nurses go house-to-house to monitor the status of family members and record it all under its Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. Patients then have to spend money to go to hospital only if it is really needed.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250131100112_bddac95af4869c0cfe696e2f1d804466f956cfe4f8afe8f6da73d444d638b8e4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250131100112_bddac95af4869c0cfe696e2f1d804466f956cfe4f8afe8f6da73d444d638b8e4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="667" loading="lazy" alt="Japanese aid for Bayalpata Hospital NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250131100112_ec263a04c02ee334986bda08910632e8f1795f7bbfc4cfe5a0b74c6df672696c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250131100112_ec263a04c02ee334986bda08910632e8f1795f7bbfc4cfe5a0b74c6df672696c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="667" loading="lazy" alt="Japanese aid for Bayalpata Hospital NT"> </figure>  Nyaya Health Nepal has deployed its EHR in district hospitals in Karnali Province as well, and handed over Charikot Hospital in Dolakha after the 2015 earthquake before handing it over to the Bagmati Province in 2019.&nbsp; Toru, who has been in Nepal for only three weeks, said that the project will provide better medical services to the people of Sudurpaschim and Karnali provinces through trauma care and orthopedic surgeries at Bayalpata hospital.&nbsp; Added Dixit: "This support will go a long way in strengthening our hospital care. Medical equipment are extremely important, especially digital x-ray, as more and more patients come in for trauma care and emergencies."

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Japanese aid for Bayalpata Hospital

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636cccdf9c7e80680e08bc46jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: WFP NEPAL</figcaption></figure>The Government of Japan is to provide assistance worth $3.47 million to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/grow-nourish-sustain-together-world-food-day/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Nations World Food Programme</a> (WFP) Nepal, to support families worst-hit by the loss of income because of the Covid pandemic. The Mother and Child Health and Nutrition Programme will fund projects in five districts of Provinces 1 and 2.
The support is in the long line of the Japanese government’s continued assistance to Nepal to improve the health and nutrition of young mothers and children. Outgoing Japanese Ambassador to Nepal Saigo Masamichi and WFP Nepal Country Representative Susan Jane Pearce signed the grant agreement. 
“This partnership between the Japanese Government, the Government of Nepal, and WFP has the potential to improve the health and nutrition of 19,000 <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-lost-covid-generation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">children</a> aged 6 to 23 months and 49,700 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers through specialised nutritious food. Community Food Banks equipped with food storage facilities will be set up targeting 25,000 households,” said Masamichi during the signing event.
Jhapa, Morang, Sunsari, Saptari and Siraha districts, prone to annual flash floods and landslides made worse by the climate crisis, are the core project areas. The assistance will also help populations whose livelihood was disrupted by the Covid-19 lockdowns and the economic collapse, mainly in rural locations where agriculture is the primary source of income for families.
A series of surveys by UNICEF Nepal and Sharecast Initiative last year concluded that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/pandemic-of-poverty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">42% of households in Nepal have no income</a> as an impact of the pandemic. The study also showed that another 19% families have a monthly income of less than NRs10,000.
A separate study by the Ministry of Agriculture showed that nearly <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-eating-less-due-to-lockdown-hardships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a quarter of families in Nepal are eating less</a>, and 6% had run out of food following the coronavirus crisis. Province 2 is among the most vulnerable of the districts suffering the impact.
The grant will further boost the ability of 2,500 government officials and health specialists to support health and nutrition services during pregnancy and childbirth, monitor child growth, and provide nutrition counselling at 100 municipal health facilities.
Says Susan Jane Pearce of WFP Nepal: “Covid-19 has had severe impacts. By supporting the production and consumption of locally available and traditionally consumed nutritious food and through shock-responsive community food banks, we hope that this project will increase dietary diversity among the poor and food insecure households and build community resilience to climatic shocks.”

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Japan to assist Nepali mothers and children

Samsung Nepal has opened pre-orders for the Galaxy A57 5G and A37 5G. Both phones run Samsung’s One UI 8.5, featuring AI capabilities like voice transcription, Circle to Search, and photo editing. They feature a 50MP triple-camera system, a Super AMOLED display, and six years of OS and security updates.

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‘One early morning, we heard the ambassador’s wife cry out, “Ram, Ram, Ram!” A disaster has befallen Nepal!” She had heard on the radio that a fire had consumed Singha Durbar." This is not about the arson attack on 9 September 2025, but the one on 8 July, 1973. It started in the South Wing of the then single-largest building in all of Nepal. It took two days to bring the blaze under control, requiring the use of explosives to demolish one wing to protect the imposing western facade. As Bhekh Bahadur Thapa recalls in the English translation of his memoir A Life in Public Service: Nepal from Autocracy to Democracy, he was then on leave from the Nepal government serving with the IDRC in Ottawa.&nbsp; He had already served as Nepal’s Finance Secretary at age 25, went on to be Finance Minister and Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank. He was already younger than some of the GenZ ministers in Nepal’s present RSP government. Thapa, now 89, was at the launch of the book in February which was attended by former diplomats and bureaucrats. After speeches by panelists, there was a question from the audience about how Thapa had managed to be the diplomat he was, managing Nepal’s international relations on the world stage.&nbsp; Writer and journalist Akhilesh Upadhyay, who was moderating the panel, responded by going into the section of the book where we see Thapa as an ambassador to the US, playing tennis with White House officials, cultivating a network of contacts to project the identity and welfare of Nepal, and making it possible for a state visit by King Birendra to Ronald Reagan’s America. The book is full of anecdotes that suggest Thapa was a clever and strategic diplomat, always calm and unruffled, easily making friends in high places with his maturity and engaging sense of humour. Thapa’s memoir is heavy on details about Nepal’s administrative history during the years he was active in public service, serving as minister and ambassador under three kings: Mahendra, Birendra and Gyanendra, and alongside five prime ministers.&nbsp; Aside from an insider look on how certain treaties, development deals and research projects in Nepal came into fruition, Thapa goes into great detail about his personal and professional relationships with the kings, ministers, ambassadors, foreign leaders and politicians.&nbsp; As a reader, one is struck by the level of detail around the events that unfolded in Nepal over the years during Thapa’s tenure. Was Thapa recording a journal over the years of the events and the conversations that transpired, or were they committed to his phenomenal memory? Either way, the reader gets a glimpse of Nepal’s recent history from the early days of the Panchayat, through the People’s Movement and the democracy period, the Maoist insurgency, Royal Palace massacre of 2001, and Gyanendra’s coup of 2005.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026041204048_125dc8ae300a1e33124f394abe724d42727f83e067b0201d2008b58d60c459a4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026041204048_125dc8ae300a1e33124f394abe724d42727f83e067b0201d2008b58d60c459a4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1584" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="How to win friends and influence nations NT"> </figure>  Not enough is said about the political parties of the time whose presence led to the way Nepal’s multiparty democracy came to be shaped. The book keeps its focus on the administration and the key figures around it, mostly those in the Panchayat era. Towards the second half of the book, we do start to hear about political parties, but not in great depth. Another figure whose presence in the book is conspicuously less prominent is that of his wife, Rita Thapa — the person who seems to have rescued him every time financial quandary or family care became a challenge. Yet, we do not see her as a full person. Perhaps because of the personal tragedies in his life, the children are also barely mentioned.&nbsp; The book is therefore less personal and more technical. Throughout, we learn about Thapa’s thinking as he navigated the world of diplomacy to win him the trust of those who mattered. There are tips here for a new generation of Nepali officials and diplomats about how much commitment and focus is needed to be good at one’s job and serve the national interest. This book adds to tomes that have been written on Nepal’s fragile relationship with India. ‘India has always wished for Nepal to remain dependent on it,’ writes Thapa, who served as Nepal’s ambassador to India and later in the Eminent Persons Group &nbsp;on Indo-Nepal relations that has been allowed to languish. The book has several insights into the Indo-Nepal trysts with diplomacy and agency.&nbsp; China’s role is also recorded, viewed through conversations during a visit to Beijing, but all that was before Nepal’s neighbour to the north emerged as a world economic and military power. The book also has such sudden instances of quirkiness and humour. For instance, we see a young Thapa in America explaining to a government official why he would like to return to Nepal instead of settling down in the US. “Because, Nepal is beautiful,” he said. The text is immaculate and does not read much like a translation, credit for which clearly goes to the team that put the edition together: translator Prawin Adhikari, &nbsp;Anagha Neelakanthan and Bhekh Thapa’s daughter, Manjushree. As Nepal enters a new era of governance and diplomacy, A Life in Public Service: Nepal from Autocracy to Democracy should be essential reading for students of political science, economics and foreign affairs who can gain a fresh perspective on the country’s trajectory.&nbsp; There are dozens of forgotten state secrets recorded in the book, but the reader must also remember this is a story told from one person’s perspective and there may be others.&nbsp; So, what really made Thapa the diplomat he was? I met him in 2004 at the Kantipur TV studio when he was serving as king Gyanendra’s foreign minister. He was there for a studio interview, and I was just done with my English newscast.&nbsp; He surprised me at the door: “Pratibha! I’ve been reading your articles in The Kathmandu Post. You must keep writing.” I thanked him, glad to have been noticed for my work by a stranger. That was perhaps one of the things that set Thapa apart — he excelled at staying close to those in power, while also noticing those who were not.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260412040412_213e706136a038ec9f5e2b8c6d7f7c1e9ceed9479e22fe2884872ad7bd20955f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260412040412_213e706136a038ec9f5e2b8c6d7f7c1e9ceed9479e22fe2884872ad7bd20955f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Book details"> </figure>

How to win friends and influence nations

Prime Minister Balendra Shah on Wednesday broke tradition and met with 17 foreign envoys collectively, a move that was a notable departure from how his predecessors operated.&nbsp;
Shah had already set himself apart by talking less, listening more, and delegating to trusted friends. But by meeting all ambassadors at one go in the presence of the Foreign Ministry, he signalled a paradigm shift in how he wants Nepal to be seen: no longer just balancing India and China, but as a country confident about its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/tripolar-contestation-over-nepal">strategic importance and place in the world</a>.
In just two weeks, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rsp-dos-and-don-ts">RSP has sprung into action </a>on multiple fronts to implement its ambitious 100-point, 100-days action plan. It has taken short-term measures to mitigate the impact of the Gulf war, as well as medium- and long- term measures to streamline the bureaucracy. A few high-profile figures have been made examples of to drive the message home.
Earlier this week, the government recalled six politically appointed ambassadors, the most notable being long-serving Shankar Sharma from New Delhi. The Kathmandu District Court issued arrest warrants against former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his former foreign minister wife Arzu Rana on charges of money laundering and corruption.
Each ministry has been trying to clean up the accumulated rot from the past three decades: regulatory overhaul of microfinance, education, health and service delivery.&nbsp;
These actions widely disseminated campaign-style on YouTube and TikTok have made most Nepalis hopeful that the party they installed in power means business.
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BACKLASH
But such attempts to overhaul a long-entrenched political culture were bound to face backlash. In their impatience and enthusiasm to get things done, some of Prime Minister Shah’s ministers have over-reached.
It was common knowledge that government-paid advertising in the mainstream press was kickback-driven, but the PMO’s directive that official notices be published or broadcast only on state-run media has been denounced — especially as the media industry struggles to stay afloat.
More serious are some recent appointments by ministers of relatives and figures closely associated with the RSP to key positions. This has rankled because this party built its political plank on ending nepotism and graft.&nbsp;
News that Home Minister Sudan Gurung allegedly had not paid rent on leased land, which illegally encroached on the lake in Pokhara did not help. &nbsp;
Prime Minister Shah himself has come under scrutiny for appointing a kitchen cabinet full of male buddies from his time as Kathmandu mayor. To douse criticism he brought in as adviser investigative journalist Deepa Dahal, who has exposed corruption in high places of the previous coalitions.&nbsp;
Shah’s appointment of another political adviser Asim Shah to the head Constitution Amendment Task Force, is also seen as problematic. He is a filmmaker and former lawmaker, but does not have a background in constitutional law.&nbsp;
Even more controversial is the Cabinet’s decision to appoint RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane’s legal counsel, Narayan Kandel, as Attorney General. Kandel used to be a UK permanent resident, and does not have as much experience practicing law in Nepal.&nbsp;
Kandel’s appointment drew flak and raised eyebrows, and with the pending legal cases against Lamichhane this appointment represents a flagrant conflict of interest.
Health Minister Nisha Mehta was also accused of favouritism after reappointing Junu Shrestha, wife of Labour Minister Dipak Kumar Shah, as member of the Health Insurance Board which had earlier suspended her. The Labour Minister’s rambling rant at the Board’s meeting on Tuesday has not helped the RSP’s image.&nbsp;
(UPDATE: On Thursday, Prime Minister Shah sacked the Labour Minister after the RSP found him in breach of the party's code of conduct and discipline. He served 14 days in the Cabinet, one of the shortest tenures for a minister in Nepal )
It is hard to know what <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/ball-in-balen-s-court">Balendra Shah is thinking</a>, and how Rabi Lamichhane is going to justify some of these moves. After all, making politics, governance, and bureaucracy a meritocracy has been the core tenet of the RSP, and it risks alienating its mainly youth base if these missteps persist.
But at least for now, most RSP supporters seem to be giving the party the benefit of doubt.

japanese-aid

Japanese aid for Bayalpata Hospital

Japan to assist Nepali mothers and children

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How to win friends and influence nations

Nepal’s new government springs into action