“I’m standing by the post office. You won’t miss me,” promised Alok Vaid-Menon over the phone. Sure enough, there he was. 
At the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, where temperatures dip so low even the red carpet is sometimes a parade of cosy sweaters, — the US-based gender non-conforming performer was dressed in cold-defying femme fashion. Indigo pumps, a blue-and-yellow frock ending in a cloud-shaped skirt, swirls of the same colours lining the eyes.
“I want to show that it is possible to look good here,” said Alok cheekily. 
Words from one of Alok’s own verses seemed apt for the moment: “They will say that femininity is not powerful, but I have stopped traffic simply by going outside.” 
On the day we met, the 32-year-old stopped traffic for another reason too. They were the face of a short documentary ALOK, directed by Alexandra Hedison and produced by Jodie Foster, which had just premiered at the festival.
For over a decade, Alok has combined art and activism. They tour the world with poems about queer and trans experiences, self-acceptance, and love. 
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/eleganza-extravaganza">Eleganza Extravaganza</a>, Sahina Shrestha
They will be in Kathmandu presenting a blend of poetry and comedy at the Spoken Fest on 16 February. “I haven’t been to Kathmandu since 2017, so shout out to Nepal,” Alok shared, with a beam.
The film ALOK spent two years in the making, after photographer Hedison chanced upon Alok’s work online and asked if she could trail them — as a “professional groupie” or “consensual stalker”.
The deep dive that followed, she said, “didn’t just inspire me intellectually, it moved me emotionally”. The 18-minute film, Hedison’s first, features Alok’s questioning of the gender binary, their imaginative force, and glimpses of their family and friends. 
Quoting Greta Lee, star of the Oscar-nominated Past Lives, Alok said: “For so long I’ve been cast as the best friend but this is my first time as the main character and now I don’t know if I can go back.” 
“The mainstream needs to move beyond token diversity. We deserve to have our stories be centered.”
Alok was born into a family of thinkers and academics, with roots in Kerala, Delhi, Malaysia, and the US. Although the Texas milieu they grew up in was conservative, the film shows their home was conducive to queer expression. 
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/a-mother-celebrates-pride">A mother celebrates Pride</a>, Durga Rana Magar
The poet’s aunt Urvashi Vaid, a noted LGBTQ activist in the US, became their protector: “Because of that I was able to articulate myself and be taken seriously from a very young age.”
Where most media representations of South Asian families tend to be opposed to queer and trans kids, Alok noted their South Asian family grew up and transitioned with them.
Approaches to queer rights on the eastern side of the globe are quite progressive, in the poet’s view. “LGBTQ rights are often framed as just recognition in the US, but in India, for instance, there is actually an acknowledgement that there needs to be reparations, there needs to be economic support.”
What is the creative process like? “Procrastination is my process,” Alok chuckled. “It starts out like I’m writing for the first time every time and that’s so daunting. But if it was easy, it wouldn’t be as rewarding.”
As a performing poet, the writing is woven with sound, considering the music that lives within individual words. “Poetry is a kind of spell-making, you have to think about how to pitch and tune each word.” 
So the poet reads aloud as writing progresses and edits based on the listening experience. Language is constantly evolving, Alok reflected, but people get upset when LGBTQ communities evolve it. 
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/right-to-marry-in-nepal">Right to marry in Nepal</a>, Aastha Dahal
Many object to the use of non-binary pronouns. “It is interesting when people say ‘Oh this stuff is all so new’, then why have you always had slurs for us in your languages? So there’s always been a context with which you acknowledge us, it’s just been pejorative.”
In several US states, disapproval of trans people is at risk of being written into the law. Our conversation took place in Utah where the House recently passed a bill seeking to criminalise trans adults for using bathrooms inconsistent with the sex on their birth certificate. 
“Hopefully it’s not going to pass the Senate and get approved into law but the fact that they’re even indulging it is obscene.”
Through art, Alok would like to loosen the hold people have over gender. “Me and my friends are finding a way of looking at each other as individuals, not as categories. So this is not some idealistic future, it’s something that’s being lived right now.”
Equity will depend on people’s willingness to feel a sense of community with everyone around them. That is why Alok opened the film saying: “The most controversial pronoun I have is ‘we’. It’s not ‘they’, it’s ‘we’.” 
Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-is-ahead-of-many-countries-in-lgbtqi-rights"> "Nepal is ahead of many countries in LGBTQI+ rights"</a>, Nepali Times
Alok Vaid-Menon will perform at Park Village Resort on 16 February.

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The most controversial pronoun is ‘we’, not ‘they’

The LGBTQ+ community hailed a historical breakthrough in their rights on 28 June as Justice Til Prasad Shrestha of Nepal’s Supreme Court issued a temporary order to register same-sex marriages. Ten days later as parties applied to the District Court to register their marriage judge Madhav Prasad Mainali of the Kathmandu District Court rejected the application for marriage registration. A sub ordinate court appeared to be defying a Supreme Court ruling. The applicant Maya Gurung (legally named Ram Bahadur Gurung in court documents) filed a petition at the High Court Patan asking it to quash the District Court’s illegal order that stopped the registration of their marriage. Last week the High Court upheld the District Court’s ruling calling the refusal to register same-sex marriage legal. The High Court has predicated its decisions on legal procedure as opposed to substantive rights. There are also lawyers on both sides who believe in the human rights and equality of LGBTQ+ community but battle lines have been drawn on legal technicalities. Supreme Court Justice Til Prasad Shrestha in an ex parte hearing ordered the Government of Nepal to make temporary provisions to register no-heterosexual marriages. ‘This came out of an ex parte hearing!’ several friends who are lawyers (and vocal proponents of LGBTQ+ rights) exclaimed, ‘It might be judicial over-reach’ one observed. Their comments are based on legal principles. Ex parte hearings are hearings in which only one party to a case presents arguments and evidence to a judge. The other party is absent. An interim order through an ex parte hearing is sought when the matter at hand is urgent and there is no time to invite both parties to a case to hear the arguments and reach a decision. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/one-step-forward-two-steps-back-on-same-sex-marriage">One step forward two steps back on same-sex marriage</a> To take a hypothetical example, a person’s house is about to be knocked down by a commercial builder. The person may seek to challenge the decision to knock down her house. However, it takes time till the builder is served notice of the lawsuit and invited to court to make their counter arguments. In this instance an emergency interim order may be sought to ‘not knock down the house’ until the case is finally decided. The question is, does the registration of non-heterosexual marriage qualify as an issue of urgency that merited an interim order issued by an ex parte hearing? Marriage registration, unlike other civil matters, invites a complex web of legal repercussions. It affects laws on divorce, domestic violence, polygamy, adoption, child adoption, custody, property inheritance and property division amongst spouses. Barring domestic violence Nepali laws in all these matters only envision a spousal relationship between a heterosexual man and woman. Justice Til Prasad Shrestha is not one to shy away from activism from the bench and issue bold orders. However, his order does not appear to have contemplated any of subsequent effects of marriage on issues of children, property or divorce. His order simply directs the registration of non-heterosexual marriages until subsequent laws are amended to accommodate rights of the LGBTQ+ community. Thus his ex parte order on an issue with expansive legal scope can resonate with perceptions that it is judicial over reach. The Supreme Court order is also issued for the Government of Nepal to make provisions to register same-sex marriages. It is not explicitly issued to the District Courts that are charged with the authority to register all marriages in Nepal. It is a legal technicality but one that is important as it does not compel any courts in Nepal to follow the order. It is a pronouncement for the executive government not the judiciary was one of the arguments presented by a government attorney who defended the Kathmandu District Court’s decision at the High Court. This argument was upheld in the High Court’s ruling. If the Executive government is implementing a legal order that has wide scale impact on a large number of people such as same-sex marriage, it is a legal requirement that notice of this is published in the Raj Patra, the government’s official noticeboard. It was argued that this Raj Patra notice might have been a more compelling order for the District Court to register the marriage. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/a-mother-celebrates-pride">A mother celebrates Pride</a>, Durga Rana Magar  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023101713104_23511b683ea63cf5c3bc0d59a4c3b7ac1a0702eb308a4b3cb492b9a06e313dfd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2023101713104_23511b683ea63cf5c3bc0d59a4c3b7ac1a0702eb308a4b3cb492b9a06e313dfd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1778" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="same sex marriage"></figure>  The government attorney argued that to issue a Raj Patra notice, the Government of Nepal needs time to make requisite amendments to a host of laws pertaining to family matters in tandem with registering non heterosexual marriage. He sounded alarms of proceeding without requisite preparation by putting questions before High Court judges such as: What happens if there is polygamy in this newly registered marriage? Will we charge anybody or will we ignore it as the law in its current status criminalises polygamy by men only? How will we proceed with divorce and inheritance as men and women are treated differently by Nepali laws? Whilst there is allure of a technical argument that asks for reasonable preparation time for the Government of Nepal, it is worth remembering that the government has had 16 years to do this work. The landmark decision in the case of Sunil Babu Panta not just decriminalised same-sex marriage but also ordered the Government of Nepal to make arrangements, including enacting new laws or amending existing laws, to ensure that people of different gender identities and sexual orientations could enjoy their rights without discrimination. The High Court order states that if the government of Nepal makes required provisions same-sex marriages can be registered accordingly. An interim order is not a final decision. The case still needs to be heard in full by the Supreme Court with lawyers from the applicant’s side and the Government’s side making arguments for and against registering same-sex marriage. The constitution is unequivocal in its provision of rights to equality and special protection for gender and sexual minorities. This provides grounds to pre-empt that the court will likely uphold the constitution in the final decision though there is always a chance of surprise. However, in law the devil lies in the details. It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court manoeuvres orders towards an obstinate government and legislature to implement any judgment it issues. Within the court’s rank is Justice Hari Phuyal who was litigating on behalf of Sunil Babu Panta in 2007. There is no shortage of subject matter expertise in the ranks of judges now. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/eleganza-extravaganza">Eleganza Extravaganza</a>, Sahina Shrestha Any rights given to the LGBTQ+ community meets with resistance and controversy. The Supreme Court must ensure that if it confers any rights to this community it safeguards it against procedural and technical legal challenges. Currently the LGBTQ+ community and the country waits in suspense as this petition awaits hearing at the Supreme Court. The uncertainty of when they will get their day in court is unfair to a large population. The Supreme Court has decided cases swiftly in the past like the case of MP Rabi Lamichhane. There is no reason why it cannot do the same for this case by issuing a date for the hearing with orders that there can be no adjournment. This move would lend clarity to the status or rights of LGBTQ+ communities instead of holding them hostage to procedural arguments and delays. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-is-ahead-of-many-countries-in-lgbtqi-rights">"Nepal is ahead of many countries in LGBTQI+ rights"</a> Aastha Dahal is a Kathmandu-based lawyer with a PhD in criminology from the University of Cambridge.

Right to marry in Nepal

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

Pokhara’s tourism woes

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

Languages are both software and hardware

Nearly 750,000 Nepalis went abroad for employment in the past year, and more than 100,000 left on student visas. Most of them were young Nepali men and women, and the number has been increasing every year. As with other sections of society, Nepal’s security agencies also face a recruitment crisis. Nepal Police opened recruitment for 64 inspectors in September, and received 2,239 applications, compared to 2,718 candidates last year. Police also invited candidates for 256 assistant sub-inspectors this year for which it received 17,756 applications – down from 19,932 last year. It is the same story in the Nepal Army, the number of applicants for the post of Officer Cadet (Second Lieutenant) went down from 6,144 for 400 open seats in 2019 to 4,390 in 2020. Meanwhile, applicants in the paramilitary Armed Police Force went down from 857 applications for 75 posts in 2021 to 536 applicants for 99 posts last year. While the number of applicants appears higher than the demand, the data shows a significant decrease in applications for vacancies in Nepal’s law enforcement agencies. Security personnel are recruited on the basis of rank and age in Nepal, and the age cutoff for entry into Nepal’s security agencies is typically 25 years. Sociologist and migration expert Ganesh Gurung says that the demographic of young, physically fit Nepalis emigrating abroad in search of better opportunities has impacted recruitment into law enforcement and the military here at home. “The returns from working in Nepal’s police and army are minimal, whereas overseas job opportunities are more attractive,” Gurung says. “The work may be physically demanding abroad, but the pay is a lot higher.”  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241116041148_a7e477e0ee2f56acf16c2559fdb24d8f0377f7bc1f9e56138bc40108fc4fa33f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241116041148_a7e477e0ee2f56acf16c2559fdb24d8f0377f7bc1f9e56138bc40108fc4fa33f" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="534" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal Police"><figcaption>Nepal Police</figcaption></figure>  Nepal Police spokesperson DIG Dan Bahadur Karki agrees that the physical and mental demands of a law enforcement job is incomparable to the income that security personnel earn. “A young Nepali who works in Dubai earns enough to build a home in the village within four years, while a Nepali with the same qualifications and physical ability in a security agency here barely makes enough to survive,” says Karki. “Obviously the youth prefer foreign employment.” Security agencies are now worried about the quality of inducted manpower. “There is a difference in work ethic between an applicant chosen from a competitive pool of 50 candidates versus one chosen from a pool of three candidates,” explains Gurung. “Unmotivated employees hamper the overall performance of the state apparatus.” Nepal Army spokesperson Brigadier General Gaurab Kumar KC says recruitment has not been hampered by outmigration: “We have still been getting more than three times the applicants than there are open posts, so we are not yet worried.” Even so, the passing rates of aspirants have gone down for security forces after the Public Service Commission began examinations for military recruitment in 2015. In fact, the Nepal Army complained about the Commission’s involvement in recruitment. Still, the number of vacant military posts tends to exceed the number of passing candidates. Nepal Army’s KC says that the military will not compromise on intake criteria even if there are fewer passing applicants. “Unqualified persons will not be admitted even if there are less-than-required passing candidates. We will re-advertise if that is the case.” But Nepal’s security forces now also have to worry about retention of existing personnel. About 900 Nepal Army, 600 Nepal Police, and 300 Armed police personnel resign every year before the completion of their tenure.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241116041148_b8cd62f70eea3aac7d3d3778615a5b70b1e20550c9bd76321f051f9c766fd2a9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241116041148_b8cd62f70eea3aac7d3d3778615a5b70b1e20550c9bd76321f051f9c766fd2a9" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="378" loading="lazy" alt="Armed police forces"><figcaption>Armed Police Force</figcaption></figure>  In 2020, Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa recalled almost 1,000 police personnel who had been deployed for the security of VIPs after long-standing criticism that security forces were being misused to cater to political and bureaucratic leadership. However, security personnel have continued to be assigned to high-ranking officials as glorified housekeepers. In December 2022, Rabi Lamichhane’s Home Ministry had instructed its offices to recall unauthorised security personnel assigned to high-ranking officials, following which 500 officers from Nepal Police and Armed Police Force were withdrawn from their details. But the Nepal Army does not have to follow such rules, and the practice of army personnel serving high-ranking active-duty and retired military personnel remains. Conditions here are dire enough that many active duty officers in Nepal’s military and police forces have chosen to leave their jobs to serve in the Russian Army to fight in the Ukraine war. The hierarchical culture and chain of command of politics, bureaucracy, law enforcement and military has also meant that abuse and mistreatment of subordinates is rife in Nepal’s security forces. “Feudalism is alive and well within our security institutions,” says Gurung. “When soldiers and security forces who swore to protect and serve the nation are made to be at the beck and call of politicians and bureaucrats, it is easy to understand why they are disillusioned with their jobs and why they choose to quit and find jobs abroad.”

Job insecurity in security forces

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

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