<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd3479c7e80680e08f95cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Kathmandu sees the biggest protest so far against Prime Minister KP Oli’s dissolution of the Lower House. All photos: SUJAN SHRESTHA</figcaption></figure>More than a month after Prime Minister K P Oli <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/i-had-no-other-option-pm-oli/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dissolved the Lower House</a> and called for interim elections in April-May, the biggest protest so far against the move was held on Friday in Kathmandu by a rival party faction.Ironically, the rally was not held by any of the opposition parties, but the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-outraged-by-pm-oli-move/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">anti-Oli faction of the ruling</a> Nepal Communist Party (NCP) led by Madhav Kumar Nepal and former Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal.Groups of NCP cadre marched from various parts of Kathmandu and congregated at Bhrikuti Mandap, where top leaders of the party singled out Prime Minister Oli for blistering attacks, using strong language, calling his move anti-democratic and unconstitutional.“K P Oli is not a man of his word, he promises everything just to keep his prime ministerial post, but he immediately breaks them,” Dahal thundered.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/step-back-from-the-brink/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Step back from the brink</a>, Editorial<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd34b9c7e80680e08f95djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd34e9c7e80680e08f95ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd3519c7e80680e08f95fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd3549c7e80680e08f960jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd3579c7e80680e08f961jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption>Anti-Oli faction of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) led by Madhav Kumar Nepal and former Maoist leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal hold mass rally in Kathmandu.</figcaption></figure>The streets on the east side of Tundikhel were filled with people under a hazy afternoon sun. Because this main artery was cordoned off for the rally, Kathmandu suffered massive traffic jams all day as buses and cars had to be rerouted.In his speech, Nepal said: “We have removed K P Oli from party chair and asked him for an explanation. Depending on what he says we will take action against him. But if he says he is sorry and accepts his mistake, we can set him free after some time in jail.”The leaders, most of them male, sat on sofas on a temporary stage erected on an intersection next to the City Hall.“K P Oli is a traitor. He is a traitor to the party, and he is a traitor to the Communist movement,” said Jhalnath Khanal, a former prime minister, now loyal to the Dahal-Nepal camp.The organisers of the rally had mobilised cadres from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-1-party-2-central-committees-system/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Dahal-Nepal faction</a> from Kathmandu and surrounding districts, but it was not clear how many of the public joined the rally to listen to the speeches.While exhorting the NCP student union this week in an aggressive speech, Dahal had said that “vegetarian protests were not working” and called for “non-vegetarian” agitation. This was taken to mean the use of violence, and the remark was criticised by a section of civil society.However, in his speech to the rally on Friday, Dahal sounded conciliatory, and mockingly self-critical. “We knew K P Oli was making mistakes, but we failed to bring him back in line. That was our shortcoming.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd35a9c7e80680e08f962jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption>NCP leaders Madhav Kumar Nepal and Pushpa Kamal Dahal preparing to address the massy rally on Friday.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd35d9c7e80680e08f963jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd3619c7e80680e08f964jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd3649c7e80680e08f965jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd3679c7e80680e08f966jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd36a9c7e80680e08f967jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption>“We knew K P Oli was making mistakes, but we failed to bring him back in line. That was our shortcoming,” says NCP leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal.</figcaption></figure>On the eve of the protests on Thursday, Dahal-Nepal cadre took out torch rallies at various intersections and let off black balloons to protest the prime minister’s move.For now, however, the confrontation of the two factions has been limited to a war of words. In a speech to a media group in Kathmandu on Wednesday, Oli accused the Dahal-Nepal faction of wrecking his plans to take the country to prosperity through stability by unifying the UML and the Maoists.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/instability-to-cost-nepal-dear-in-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Instability to cost Nepal dear in 2021</a>, Ramesh KumarHe also attacked the press for being overly critical and not looking at his government’s achievements in the past two-and-half years. “Journalists who sell their souls and are always negative will end up going to hell,” he said.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd36d9c7e80680e08f968jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Meanwhile, the opposition Nepali Congress (NC) is also split between Sher Bahadur Deuba who has hinted that an early election would be in the party’s interest and Ram Chandra Poudel, who says elections should only be held after the Lower House is reinstated.On Wednesday, the NC held protest rallies at 6,743 local ward levels all over the country. But the protests and speeches by leaders sounded more like the party was already on the election campaign trail. Analysts have said that the NC will benefit if the Supreme Court restores the Lower House, or if elections are called. The party is expected to have the necessary swing votes no matter which faction forms the next government.The Janata Samajbadi Dal (JSD) has also been holding rallies all over the country, trying to project itself as not just a Madhes-based entity but a national one. Addressing a rally in Butwal on Thursday, former Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai accused <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/zero-sum-game-for-nepals-ruling-communists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Prime Minister Oli</a> of trying to influence the Supreme Court justices to rule in favour of house dissolution.“We should not be fooled, Oli has no intention of holding elections,” Bhattarai said. “All parties should unite and launch a third People’s Movement if the house is not restored.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111132/636cd3719c7e80680e08f969jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has continued its hearings on the 13 writ petitions against <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/step-back-from-the-brink/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Lower House dissolution</a>. The depositions have had to be limited to half an hour each because there are so many lawyers who need to be accommodated.Petitioners at the Constitutional Bench on Wednesday said the prime minister’s move was not just illegal, but he did not even follow proper procedures by bringing out a Gazette notice. Interestingly, after the Bench asked the Attorney General to forward the Nepal Gazette, a notice back dated to 20 December was published on Friday, more than a month later.

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Dahal-Nepal hold anti-Oli rally

<figure><img width="854" height="601" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181152/636be9899c7e80680e0878c6jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>After reports appeared in a section of the India media (pictured above) that Prime Minister K P Oli may be making a visit to New Delhi on 4 January, officials in Kathmandu are neither confirming nor denying it.Not rejecting the reports outright may mean that there is some truth in a possible visit in the new year. If it happens, it would coincide with an embattled prime minister fighting for his political life as a rival faction of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-1-party-2-central-committees-system/">intensifying a campaign to unseat him.</a>The report appeared in India’s <a href="https://www.abplive.com/news/india/kp-sharma-oli-will-be-on-india-visit-in-january-1693953?fbclid=IwAR28CJN3ozKgpQSUZTATspQqdvvSVd2BN-y9J8w6JA4YDcyUhTcEw0CjVJA">ABPLive.com</a> which had also reported that Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali’s trip to New Delhi on 17 December was to work on the details of the visit.   What gives some credence to the report is that Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had also visited Kathmandu on 27 November in a fence-mending exercise after a year of strained relations. Many saw Shringla’s trip  as laying the groundwork for an exchange of visits by the prime ministers of the two countries.“We had discussed a high level exchange of visits during Mr Shringla’s trip to Kathmandu, and it is on the priority list, but no decision has been taken yet,” Foreign Minister Gyawali told Nepali Times on Friday. <figure><img width="1151" height="732" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181152/636be98c9c7e80680e0878c7jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal led a rally to the Election Commission on Friday to stake their faction's claim to the NCP name and election symbol. Photo: BIKRAM RAI</figcaption></figure>Even if Oli’s visit does go ahead,  the plans have been overtaken by the fast-paced events of this week, when Prime Minister Oli <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/i-had-no-other-option-pm-oli/">dissolved the Lower House and announced dates for new elections</a> in April-May 2021, leading to a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/president-endorses-parliament-dissolution/">virtual split</a> in the NCP. The two factions now have rival claims at the Election Commission as well as a dozen or so writ petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the dissolution. The Speaker of the Lower House, Agni Sapkota, is also said to be preparing to convene the Lower House, even though there is no clear provision for that in the Constitution, just as there was not for the House dissolution by Oli. If Oli does go to Delhi, he will likely to not be in a position to make any major agreements. He will try to use the possible visit more for domestic consumption to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/over-the-edge-again/" style="font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;">shore up his strength</a> to tackle the rival faction. But analysts say this is a double-edged sword because a visit to India will be seen by his critics as an effort to get New Delhi to meddle in an internal NCP squabble. It will also undermine Oli’s nationalist credentials, which he used to gain an overwhelming win for his UML-Maoist alliance in the 2017 elections. The two parties then merged in 2018 to form the NCP, but Oli has had a running feud with his party co-chair former Maoist Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who also took away some of Oli’s erstwhile party colleagues like Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalnath Khanal. On Friday, Oli added nine ministers after seven Dahal-loyalist ministers resigned from the Cabinet on Sunday. He has appointed former Maoist Top Bahadur Rayamajhi as Energy Minister to replace Barsha Man Pun, Mani Thapa has replaced Dahal's daughter-in-law Bina Magar as Water Supply Minister.  Two other ministers have been reshuffled. Health Minister Bhanubhakta Dhakal has been given the Tourism portfolio, while Hridesh Tripathi has been transferred to the Health Ministry. The Dahal-Nepal faction and the Oli group have been holding <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-1-party-2-central-committees-system/">separate Central Committee meetings this week.</a> Although Oli has not ousted Dahal from the party, it has restructured the hierarchy and also kept former Maoists like Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa in its fold. The Dahal-Nepal faction, meanwhile has made Nepal the party Chair and the Dahal the head of the Parliamentary Party. This means that for all intents and purposes the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-1-party-2-central-committees-system/">NCP is already behaving like two parties</a>. India has so far not been drawn into this fight, describing it as an “internal matter”, and its diplomats in Kathmandu are keeping a low profile. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/is-china-now-micro-managing-nepal-politics/">Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi</a>, meanwhile, has been meeting leaders from both factions to once more try to keep the party from splitting, as she has done twice in 2020. <figure><img width="948" height="581" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181152/636be98f9c7e80680e0878c8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>A CCTV image of the full Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court issued a show-cause notice on Friday to Prime Minister Oli's government to justify its dissolution of the Lower House. </figcaption></figure>In a day of high drama on Friday, a rally led by Dahal and Nepal marched to the Election Commission to demonstrate that it had signatures of the required two-third majority in its Central Committee to claim the NCP party name and election symbol. Dahal and Nepal both wore signs on their heads that read हामि याहाँ छौँ (We Are Here) and submitted 297 signatures of Central Committee members. Seven members of PM Oli’s Cabinet who were Dahal-loyalists resigned on 20 December after the prime minister dissolved the Lower House. There are 13 writ petitions at the Supreme Court asking for the House dissolution to be revoked, and the hearings began on Friday in the Constitutional Bench which included Chief Justice Cholendra SJB Rana, Justices Hari Krishna Karki, Biswambhar Shrestha, Anil K Sinha and Tej Bahadur KC. The Bench issued a ‘show cause’ notice to the Government to explain why it dissolved the Lower House, and to provide all documents relating to it to the Court by 3 January so that it can continue the hearing on 6 January. If the prime minister does make his New Delhi trip, it will be in between those two court dates.

PM Oli to India?

<figure><img width="854" height="601" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191124/636bf0704b0ad905ca02f00fjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>After reports appeared in a section of the India media (pictured above) that Prime Minister K P Oli may be making a visit to New Delhi on 4 January, officials in Kathmandu are neither confirming nor denying it.Not rejecting the reports outright may mean that there is some truth in a possible visit in the new year. If it happens, it would coincide with an embattled prime minister fighting for his political life as a rival faction of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-1-party-2-central-committees-system/">intensifying a campaign to unseat him.</a>The report appeared in India’s <a href="https://www.abplive.com/news/india/kp-sharma-oli-will-be-on-india-visit-in-january-1693953?fbclid=IwAR28CJN3ozKgpQSUZTATspQqdvvSVd2BN-y9J8w6JA4YDcyUhTcEw0CjVJA">ABPLive.com</a> which had also reported that Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali’s trip to New Delhi on 17 December was to work on the details of the visit.   What gives some credence to the report is that Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had also visited Kathmandu on 27 November in a fence-mending exercise after a year of strained relations. Many saw Shringla’s trip  as laying the groundwork for an exchange of visits by the prime ministers of the two countries.“We had discussed a high level exchange of visits during Mr Shringla’s trip to Kathmandu, and it is on the priority list, but no decision has been taken yet,” Foreign Minister Gyawali told Nepali Times on Friday. <figure><img width="1151" height="732" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191124/636bf0734b0ad905ca02f010jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal led a rally to the Election Commission on Friday to stake their faction's claim to the NCP name and election symbol. Photo: BIKRAM RAI</figcaption></figure>Even if Oli’s visit does go ahead,  the plans have been overtaken by the fast-paced events of this week, when Prime Minister Oli <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/i-had-no-other-option-pm-oli/">dissolved the Lower House and announced dates for new elections</a> in April-May 2021, leading to a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/president-endorses-parliament-dissolution/">virtual split</a> in the NCP. The two factions now have rival claims at the Election Commission as well as a dozen or so writ petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the dissolution. The Speaker of the Lower House, Agni Sapkota, is also said to be preparing to convene the Lower House, even though there is no clear provision for that in the Constitution, just as there was not for the House dissolution by Oli. If Oli does go to Delhi, he will likely to not be in a position to make any major agreements. He will try to use the possible visit more for domestic consumption to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/over-the-edge-again/" style="font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;">shore up his strength</a> to tackle the rival faction. But analysts say this is a double-edged sword because a visit to India will be seen by his critics as an effort to get New Delhi to meddle in an internal NCP squabble. It will also undermine Oli’s nationalist credentials, which he used to gain an overwhelming win for his UML-Maoist alliance in the 2017 elections. The two parties then merged in 2018 to form the NCP, but Oli has had a running feud with his party co-chair former Maoist Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who also took away some of Oli’s erstwhile party colleagues like Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalnath Khanal. On Friday, Oli added nine ministers after seven Dahal-loyalist ministers resigned from the Cabinet on Sunday. He has appointed former Maoist Top Bahadur Rayamajhi as Energy Minister to replace Barsha Man Pun, Mani Thapa has replaced Dahal's daughter-in-law Bina Magar as Water Supply Minister.  Two other ministers have been reshuffled. Health Minister Bhanubhakta Dhakal has been given the Tourism portfolio, while Hridesh Tripathi has been transferred to the Health Ministry. The Dahal-Nepal faction and the Oli group have been holding <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-1-party-2-central-committees-system/">separate Central Committee meetings this week.</a> Although Oli has not ousted Dahal from the party, it has restructured the hierarchy and also kept former Maoists like Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa in its fold. The Dahal-Nepal faction, meanwhile has made Nepal the party Chair and the Dahal the head of the Parliamentary Party. This means that for all intents and purposes the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-1-party-2-central-committees-system/">NCP is already behaving like two parties</a>. India has so far not been drawn into this fight, describing it as an “internal matter”, and its diplomats in Kathmandu are keeping a low profile. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/is-china-now-micro-managing-nepal-politics/">Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi</a>, meanwhile, has been meeting leaders from both factions to once more try to keep the party from splitting, as she has done twice in 2020. <figure><img width="948" height="581" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191124/636bf0754b0ad905ca02f011jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>A CCTV image of the full Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court issued a show-cause notice on Friday to Prime Minister Oli's government to justify its dissolution of the Lower House. </figcaption></figure>In a day of high drama on Friday, a rally led by Dahal and Nepal marched to the Election Commission to demonstrate that it had signatures of the required two-third majority in its Central Committee to claim the NCP party name and election symbol. Dahal and Nepal both wore signs on their heads that read हामि याहाँ छौँ (We Are Here) and submitted 297 signatures of Central Committee members. Seven members of PM Oli’s Cabinet who were Dahal-loyalists resigned on 20 December after the prime minister dissolved the Lower House. There are 13 writ petitions at the Supreme Court asking for the House dissolution to be revoked, and the hearings began on Friday in the Constitutional Bench which included Chief Justice Cholendra SJB Rana, Justices Hari Krishna Karki, Biswambhar Shrestha, Anil K Sinha and Tej Bahadur KC. The Bench issued a ‘show cause’ notice to the Government to explain why it dissolved the Lower House, and to provide all documents relating to it to the Court by 3 January so that it can continue the hearing on 6 January. If the prime minister does make his New Delhi trip, it will be in between those two court dates.

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141136/636bad589c7e80680e077f8bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Nepali Times issue #1</figcaption></figure>The <a href="http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_001.pdf">#1 print edition</a> of Nepali Times of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/1">19-25 July 2000</a> shows that even though much has changed in Nepal in the past two decades, a lot has remained the same. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Reports and op-eds published in that very first hardcopy issue are as relevant today as they were then. Most of the protagonists are the same.The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10979#.XxAi8KEza70">front page analysis</a> of the first edition looked at the impending state visit to India by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. Among the contentious issues he was going to take up with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee: the Kalapani territory occupied by India. The dispute flared again this year, and sank bilateral ties to a new low.Then, as now, the Indian media had been primed before Koirala’s visit with official leaks about alleged infiltration by Pakistani agents to ‘turn the Tarai into Taliban territory’. The allegations were included in an Indian intelligence report ‘Nepal Gameplan’, and our report said that Koirala’s challenge would be to use his personal chemistry with Vajpayee to convince him that Nepal would not allow any extraneous threats to India from its territory.Both Koirala and Vajpayee are long gone, but India-Nepal relations are still strained —this time over suspicions of growing Chinese influence. The same issue of Nepali Times had an <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10983#.XxAjfqEza70">interview with UML General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal</a> on page 3 in which the opposition leader said: “What is surprising is that Koirala is the same person who said he would not visit India until Indian troops are withdrawn from Kalapani, and he is rushing there.”<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10980#.XxAjxaEza70">The Editorial</a> of the first print edition of Nepali Times laid out what would be the new paper’s mission statement: ‘A newspaper does more than hold a mirror to society. It becomes a mirror itself. There is a belief that literature is generally not read, and journalism is often unreadable. This newspaper will seek to be informal, lively, clear and direct.’In his column <a href="http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_001.pdf">‘State of the State’, C K Lal</a> lamented the cynicism in Nepali society: ‘Despair hangs as thick as diesel exhaust in the Kathmandu air. Nepal’s nabobs of negativism hold forth in their nay-saying nooks. Cynicism is at least a reflection of exaggerated self-worth. Despair is much worse, it is a state of having lost all hope.’ Locked down for four months, Nepalis are once more drifting from cynicism to despair.The first issue also included <a href="mes.com/news.php?id=10990#.XxAk86Eza70">an investigation</a> into a scandal at the Kathmandu office of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in which an expat official was secretly sacked for embezzlement. Reporter <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10992#.XxAlC6Eza70">Hemlata Rai</a> wrote about how grassroots democracy was beginning to deliver health, education and other services.Another <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11001#.XxAlLqEza70">intriguing story</a> was about reports that underground Maoist leader Prachanda had visited UK on an Indian passport to attend a meeting of the Revolutionary International Movement (RIM). Water resources expert <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11082#.XxAlSKEza70">Dipak Gyawali</a> argued in a commentary that it made more sense for private power producers in Nepal to design projects to sell electricity for domestic value-added use than exporting it to India.COVID-19 is the main global health issue today, but 20 years ago it was HIV/AIDS, and the paper carried a report on anti-retrovirals not being affordable to people in poor countries.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11090#.XxAmmqEza70">Manjushree Thapa</a> started her column Nepaliterature in which she profiled writers in the Nepali language with translated excerpts of their work. The July 2000 issue had these lines from Bimal Nibha:Comrade Baburam Bhattarai is busy leading the People’s WarI, dragging along my broken slippersAm wondering —as are many othersI’m an ordinary person who writes the news who writes poemsWho drinks tea and rushes offA worker who delights and weepsWith ardor and effort (nothing exceptional about me)Am I not also engaged in a people’s war, Comrade?Nepali Times also got rights to serialise chapters from <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11089#.XxAlmqEza70">Desmond Doig’s</a> book In the Kingdom of the Gods, and the first installment carried his description of Jang Bahadur’s Mughal-style Kal Mochan temple, which a western visitor once said was ‘too ugly to describe’.The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11099#.XxAmBKEza70">Funny Side Up</a> satire column became a fixture on the back page with the first one on legalising corruption. Taxing bribes and slapping 13% VAT on baksheesh, it was suggested, would be a good way to raise government revenue.From this week, the ‘10 Year Ago’ column in Nepali Times will be ‘20 Years Ago’. It will look at Nepal from two decades ago, and how the country was getting mired deeper in conflict, political disarray was eroding democratic gains, tourism was being affected by the uncertainty.The COVID-19 lockdown is a fitting time for a retrospective – when the media itself is facing a crisis of survival. The media in Nepal has historically been threatened by the extreme right and the extreme left. It had survived the economic crises during the earthquake and Blockade. Legacy media was trying to cope with the digital transition. But never  has it had to face such an existential crisis.  There are serious implications for journalism as well as for an open society.As the past two decades show, journalism is indeed history in a hurry. And those who do not learn from it are doomed to repeat it.The content of the past 20 years of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-grapples-with-bringing-workers-home/">Nepali Times</a> is available in a searchable archive. The ePaper can also be accessed by issue through the <a href="http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/journals/nepalitimes/">Digital Himalaya</a> site.

Kunda Dixit

20 years ago this week

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a677c9c7e80680e0599dejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2250"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHHETRI</figcaption></figure>Reverberations of 2019 are going to have far-reaching impact on Nepali politics in the coming year as <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-wait-and-wait-mode/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a tug-o-war</a>, broadly between ex-UML and ex-Maoist politicians within the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), intensifies.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-last-journey/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A helicopter crash during a blizzard on 27 February</a> in eastern Nepal killed Tourism Minister Rabindra Adhikari, entrepreneur Ang Tshering Sherpa and four others. Sherpa’s friendship with Prime Minister Oli, and alleged irregularities in his dealings with the former royal property in Gokarna and Durbar Marg, which are administered by the Nepal Trust, and Kongde Resort — which lies inside Sagarmatha National Park — have now come under intense scrutiny.The prime minister’s detractors within the NCP are using the agreements between Nepal Trust and Yeti Holdings to corner Oli through a relentless and high-profile media campaign. Some of the leaks in the media about the contracts and minutes of cabinet meetings could only have come from the highest sources.The prime minister himself <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/state-of-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">is in poor health</a>, needs weekly dialysis and has decided to carry out his impending kidney transplant in Nepal itself. But he has stubbornly <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/premier-league/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">refused to hand over the reins of government</a> to his party co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-troika/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Polarisation</a> has paralysed party decision-making, as last week’s stormy central committee meeting showed. Oli loyalists Defence Minister Ishwar Pokhrel, Information Minister Gokul Banskota, ex-Speaker Subhas Nembang and others were pitted against ex-UML dissidents like <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/heres-whats-going-on/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Madhav Kumar Nepal</a>, Jhalnath Khanal, Bamdev Gautam and Bhim Rawal, who are now with Dahal.These were the gentlemen most vociferous in pushing for Dahal’s choice of Agni Sapkota as the new speaker of Parliament to replace <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-rise-and-fall-of-comrade-mahara/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a>, who is in jail on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/mahara-arrested/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">charges of attempted rape</a> of a colleague. Oli’s man for the post is Nembang.That battle in the committee also spilled over into verbal combat over the $500 million, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-millennium-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">US-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation project</a> to upgrade Nepal’s highways and transmission lines. The disagreement between the Dahal vs Oli camps became so acrimonious that the matter was sent to the party secretariat. It is expected to be passed by the winter session of Parliament — that is if there is agreement on the post of speaker first.The two power centres in Nepal today are therefore not the opposition Nepali Congress and the ruling NCP, but two Communist alpha males locked in a power struggle. This will continue to impact directly on policy decisions, appointments and ultimately even the country’s leadership in 2020. In the past two years Oli has centralised all day-to-day decision-making in the PMO, micromanaging appointments, policy and implementation.The prognosis for 2020 is that Dahal may decide that it is not worth the risk to try to replace Oli, and content himself with being a powerful party supremo and behind-the-scenes kingmaker. And as Oli gets physically, politically and morally weak, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/power-plays/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dahal’s power is only set to grow</a>, making his supporters stronger.Political commentator Shyam Shrestha draws parallels between today and the rivalry between King Mahendra and Prime Minister BP Koirala before the 1960 coup. Mahendra is supposed to have famously told BP: “Nepal is not big enough for the two of us.”Shrestha adds: “Oli and Dahal have a similar love-hate relationship. But there can be only one winner in this race.”

Which way Nepali politics in 2020?

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131156/636a52c79c7e80680e052315jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1017"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI/BHANU BHATTARAI</figcaption></figure>All <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-troika/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three senior leaders of the Nepal Communist Party</a> have the travel bug. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/olis-1st-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prime Minister KP Oli</a> is off for a health check-up in Singapore after his transplanted kidneys reportedly started over-performing. Although his spokesman announced that Oli was paying his own hospital bills, the presence in Singapore this week of well-known medical industrialists raised questions about <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-business-of-politics-undermines-nepals-democracy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">favours being exchanged</a>.Oli’s party co-chair, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, just returned from the UAE after another of his mysterious visits. And Madhav Kumar Nepal has also been clocking frequent flier miles.Nepal’s cybersphere bristled with irreverent criticism of leaders gallivanting around while citizens back home suffer from the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/monsoon-2019-deluge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ravages of the monsoon</a>, and contractors with political protection go unpunished for uncompleted infrastructure.Nepalis had expected the NCP, with its two-thirds majority, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/own-worst-enemy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">to deliver stability and better governance</a>, but disillusionment is growing about the paralysing <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/rift-in-nepals-ruling-party/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">factionalism within the ruling party</a>, as well as over provincial and local spheres of government being unable to deliver. An investigative report this week showed provinces spent Rs25 billion buying SUVs to travel on roads and bridges that are falling apart because of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-klepto-republic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">corruption</a>.Normally a government that faces such widespread criticism for non-performance would do a cabinet reshuffle to divert attention, but PM Oli is said to want to let the Dasain fever set in.Meanwhile, the three leaders are playing Chinese checkers, wooing each other’s loyalists — blurring the lines between former UML and former Maoists in the party. Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa and Narayan Kaji Shrestha have been neutral, saying party unity is more important than joining any one faction. Even Bam Dev Gautam, who was firmly in the Dahal camp, appears to be wavering, and there is speculation Oli offered rewards.Oli could be waiting for the Dasain hiatus to get down to brass tacks on his reshuffle. The word is that heads will roll after the holidays, and the names Oli wants struck off include Water Minister Bina Magar, Infrastructure Minister Raghubir Mahaseth, Industries Minister Matrika Yadav and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/win-win-migration/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Labour Minister Gokarna Bista</a>. Dahal has his own list of ministers to be sacked, or inducted.By bringing in Madhav Nepal loyalist <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-airlines-has-new-planes-but-no-new-plans/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yogesh Bhattarai as Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation</a> last week, Oli killed three birds with one stone: added a politician with a reputation of being honest and a do-er, placated Nepal and thumbed his nose at Dahal.Meanwhile, in an effort to address its bipolar character the party finally passed a political document clarifying its ideology. However, the statement does not completely remove the NCP’s conceptual confusion. There is no mention of the UML’s long-held principle of ‘pluralistic open society’. ‘Socialism’ is mentioned, but without the adjective ‘democratic’.In the UML’s sacrosanct principle of ‘multi-party people’s democracy’, the document has tellingly dropped the word ‘multi-party’. And even though the Constitution says Nepal will be ‘socialist oriented’, the document uses the ‘C’ word: communism.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-troika/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Troika</a>, Kiran Nepal<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/rift-in-nepals-ruling-party/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rift in Nepal's ruling party</a>, Kunda Dixit

Dangerous driving

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

Pokhara’s tourism woes

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

Languages are both software and hardware

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

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

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