<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

Many of us former Nepal Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) would agree that our time in Nepal changed in significant but very different ways our perspectives on life if not the future paths we chose to follow. Of no one was this truer than Dorothy Mierow. Dorothy was born in 1920, in Colorado Springs. Her father Charles C Mierow was a classics scholar and Latin professor, who served for ten years as president of Colorado College.&nbsp; Dorothy developed an interest in animals as a child, graduated with a BA degree in natural history from Carlton College in 1942, a Master’s in biology from the University of Pittsburgh, and another Master’s in geography from the University of Minnesota.&nbsp; As a young woman, Dorothy traveled with her father throughout Europe, including a visit to ancient Greek ruins, and took a Magellan Tour by cruise ship around the world in 1958.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_0bad133ab22aada319e74bbad95d563e191371db291c08f373839fbd15440262.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025071901074_0bad133ab22aada319e74bbad95d563e191371db291c08f373839fbd15440262" data-rendition-name="original" width="903" height="1178" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>HOME AWAY FROM HOME: Dorothy Mierow as a college student in her native Colorado.</figcaption> </figure>  She was a college teacher during much of the 1940s, also teaching at a girls’ school in Hawaii. Then back to her native Colorado in 1953, where she became a curator and later director of the Colorado College Natural History Museum. She taught geography classes, and in her free time, Dorothy climbed 22 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks. Traveling in India in 1960, Dorothy decided to spend two weeks in Nepal. In late 1961, she filled out an application to join the Peace Corps and specified that she wanted to go to Nepal, ‘because I admired the people so much when my father and I were there on our trip’.&nbsp; Dorothy reached Kathmandu in September 1962 as the first group of American Peace Corps volunteers in Nepal. She stood out from the others: one of the few women in that group, surely the oldest at age 41, a world traveler, and a woman who already had established a professional career.&nbsp; One doubts if Dorothy had had a husband and children whether she would ever have gone to work and spend much of the rest of her life in Nepal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901078_68e84ade1ffb0f6c83c7f8fa5c1e7315b5f6c543217f96cde012e4d86f171515.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025071901078_68e84ade1ffb0f6c83c7f8fa5c1e7315b5f6c543217f96cde012e4d86f171515" data-rendition-name="original" width="1259" height="910" loading="lazy" alt="How th Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life NT"> <figcaption>Pokhara Bazar in 1962.</figcaption> </figure>  The Peace Corps assigned Dorothy to teach geography at Tri-Chandra College. After the school closed in the winter due to lack of heating, USAID and the College of Education asked Dorothy to help train general science teachers.&nbsp; She taught for two months and became involved in a textbook-writing project, commenting: ‘I would like the children to know something about public health, conservation (the trees are going fast and so is the soil), and learn the names of some of their common birds, trees, and flowers. They are more impressed with electricity, airplanes, and cell structure.’ When a new college opened in Pokhara in 1963, Dorothy was transferred there and lived with a Nepali family. The college boasted 30 students and no permanent buildings.&nbsp; In October 1963, Dorothy wrote: ‘Pokhara is a town of almost 5,000 people … We are in a fertile valley surrounded by foothills … There is a small Mission Hospital … a Leper Hospital and Tibetan Refugee Camp started by the Red Cross and now run by the Swiss. With winter approaching, more Tibetans are appearing in town, often with pack horses or donkeys. Some have been carrying large boxes of powdered milk,donated (by USAID) to the camp from the airport … There is no electricity, and the transportation problems make many items scarce and expensive. I am really a sort of a museum. The landlord brings all kinds of people in to see how I live and count my shoes and dresses. They express amazement at my books, pictures, tin oven, Nepali dolls from Kathmandu, screened food shelves and curtained closet.’ The standard term for Peace Corps volunteers was two years, but Dorothy extended her term and was still at Prithvi Narayan College at the end of 1965, when she wrote that she had 20 Geography students in the first-year class and 6 in the second year preparing for the IA Examination. The college enrollment was 125 students, and the foundation for a new science building was being excavated.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_c6a80e5e0db0c705b2f8733c6d30dc0386fe3abbd2238ea9d947b7d746f94a29.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025071901074_c6a80e5e0db0c705b2f8733c6d30dc0386fe3abbd2238ea9d947b7d746f94a29" data-rendition-name="original" width="902" height="605" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow and friends at Phewa Lake.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy noted that she ate one meal a day at the (Shining Mission) Hospital but otherwise lived on dal-bhat, momo, and potato curry at local shops. However, she had developed a new passion: to build what she initially called the Pokhara Museum of the Himalaya. In commendable Peace Corps fashion, Dorothy always worked with Nepalis and respected the culture. ‘The greatest joy and satisfaction I have had has been from the building of a Museum-Library in memory of my parents … It has been possible to feel like a wealthy benefactor with the money saved by father for the family’s education and now available for the education of others… (Father) would have loved to be in on the founding of a new college and be able to plan a library. Several hundred of the books to be in the museum-library came from his collection and were carefully selected to be of use for students in Nepal…’&nbsp; ‘The museum part is to satisfy my own inclinations and was thought of when I found how little diversion there was for the people of Pokhara… It is part of the University requirements for the college that it should have a geography and biology museum. The museum building is small but adequate.&nbsp; I have tried to design it in harmony with Nepalese architecture and decorate it with some of the art of the best artists or woodcarvers… Posts holding up the porch roof are carved by Cottage Industries to represent different peoples of Nepal in typical costumes. The door was carved by a local wood carver and has typical birds of Nepal around it. Inside are 10 roof-support carvings designed by the retired Director of the National Museum in Kathmandu, Mr. C.M. Maskey.&nbsp; They were carved by the best wood carvers in Patan very skilfully. The building has three rooms: the library, the exhibition room, and a smaller workroom which can be used by our newly formed Woman’s Club as well as other groups or classes.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_03d3359c65389d30a0134e9a4862778994121e7e833b7d28b18e06e36fc76ff8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025071901074_03d3359c65389d30a0134e9a4862778994121e7e833b7d28b18e06e36fc76ff8" data-rendition-name="original" width="629" height="599" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow with local women in Pokhara in 1969.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy promoted her project to influential Nepalis connected with organisations whose support she solicited: The Department of Archaeology, the Department of Agriculture, the Godavari Botanical Gardens; Tribhuvan University’s Science and Education Department, Nature Conservation Society.&nbsp; The museum was opened officially in early 1967. The Annapurna Natural History Museum, the building Dorothy designed and had constructed, is still open and features some exhibits which she created many years ago.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_54326a8a0685e980e782378076de2f5cd02d2426e9b0d94eed972d3dbe83af26.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025071901074_54326a8a0685e980e782378076de2f5cd02d2426e9b0d94eed972d3dbe83af26" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>The Annapurna Natural History Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy returned to America in 1967, but she longed for Nepal. In the spring of 1969, she again tried to enroll as a Peace Corps volunteer but was told that as she had spent more than four years, she would not be eligible for another assignment. Undeterred, she persuaded the college in Pokhara to invite her to return as a teacher.&nbsp; UNICEF and the Forestry Department sponsored Dorothy to prepare charts on trees, birds, animals and flowers in colour for distribution to the schools of Nepal. Dorothy, back in the Peace Corps, returned to Pokhara and the Museum in 1972. She formed a friendship with her former geography student from Sikles, Chandra Prasad Gurung, and in 1974, she brought Chandra to America, where he enrolled in Colorado College and studied cultural anthropology.&nbsp; Chandra subsequently earned his PhD in geography from the University of Hawaii and returned to Pokhara to become director of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project. Gurung actively promoted ecotourism, landscape conservation, and biodiversity conservation in Nepal. His life was cut short along with those of 23 other Nepalis and foreigners who perished in a helicopter crash near Taplejung in September 2006.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_322d3c3ac6f1b08ffa07c44a19998b937a7db9eb43527f7539cf6481e1546314.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025071901074_322d3c3ac6f1b08ffa07c44a19998b937a7db9eb43527f7539cf6481e1546314" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow's four books on Nepal and its biodiversity. </figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy worked with several well-known Nepalis to publish her paintings and photos in beautifully illustrated books. She and Hemanta Mishra of the National Parks and Wildlife Service wrote Wild Animals of Nepal (Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1976). More than 400 photos Dorothy took on treks to the Everest region, Gosaikunda, Muktinath, Jumla and Rara Lake, as well as travels in the Tarai, appeared in Himalayan Flowers and Trees (Sahayogi Prakashan, 1978).&nbsp; The botanist Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha identified the species. Dorothy and Kesar Lall published This Beautiful Nepal (Sahayogi Press, 1981). Birds of the Central Himalayas (1988) contained Dorothy’s paintings of 250 species of birds found along the areas of the Kali Gandaki River, Pokhara, Chitwan and the central Tarai. Dorothy summed up her life and work in Nepal in Thirty Years in Pokhara (Pilgrims Book House, 1997). Dorothy returned to Pokhara and her adopted Gurung family several times during the 1980s and 1990s to celebrate festivals and meet old friends. Her final years were spent at her mountain cottage in Green Mountain Falls north of Colorado Springs. She died at the age of 79 in August, 2000. Nepal gave new meaning and purpose to Dorothy Mierow’s life. Daniel W Edwards was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 and is the author of several books on Nepal. The author thanks Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College.

How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer’s life

· On the night of 15 May, two glacial lakes burst in Tharka in Humla and the debris flow washed away homes and bridges.&nbsp; · Last week, a slurry surge on the Kali Gandaki in Upper Mustang caused at least Rs15 million in damage, and was traced to a melting glacier. · Dozens are feared dead after <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rasuwa-flood-likely-a-glof">an expanding glacial lake in Tibet overflowed</a>, sweeping down into Nepal and damaging four hydropower plants generating 230MW, nearly 8% of the country’s total grid supply.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250718060748_45225dc707c1e9c2968ca8dbf6e564e01e4eb6e2ff254fb8eb940cf62cdd910b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250718060748_45225dc707c1e9c2968ca8dbf6e564e01e4eb6e2ff254fb8eb940cf62cdd910b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2667" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Rasuwa flood"> <figcaption>Miteri friendship bridge connecting Nepal and China was swept away in the Rasuwa flood. Photo: PRAKASH CHANDRA TIMILSENA / NPL</figcaption> </figure>  And those are just in the past month. Climate scientists say Himalayan glacial lake outbursts are becoming more frequent and destructive, and a warning for Nepal not to put all its eggs in the hydropower basket.&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-it-rains-it-pours-ksqprbu3">Record precipitation last September</a> unleashed floods that killed 200 people, and temporarily slashed Nepal’s total generation capacity of 3,000MW by nearly half. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-valley-suffers-quadruple-disaster">Melamchi flood of 2021</a> caused by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-not-so-permanent-frost">permafrost melting</a> on a glacier upstream nearly destroyed a $800 million water supply scheme, Nepal’s largest infrastructure project which four years later still has not resumed full operation. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sikkim-flood-is-warning-to-nepal">glacial lake overflow in Sikkim</a> caused by record rainfall in September 2023 that destroyed the $1.2 billion Chungthung Dam and caused catastrophic damage to infrastructure on the Teesta River. This was a warning to the cascade of hydropower plants on the Arun and Marsyangdi river basins.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250718060736_6f61797a6be308321e3bae26e55d2f64cba4b9e5eb262adacb9e92fb5f3c6152.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250718060736_6f61797a6be308321e3bae26e55d2f64cba4b9e5eb262adacb9e92fb5f3c6152" data-rendition-name="original" width="919" height="549" loading="lazy" alt="hydro disasters and hydropower plants"> </figure>  Nepal has set a target of generating an additional 28,500MW by 2035 -- out of the feasible 48,000MW -- but how viable is an energy strategy that is exposed to heightened risk due to climate breakdown? &nbsp; “As extreme weather events increase, we must design and build infrastructures respecting river flow and topography,” says former Energy Secretary Dwarika Nath Dhungel. “We must make the best use of our water resources, but not by letting excavators loose everywhere mining riverbeds and building haphazardly where we shouldn’t.”&nbsp; Although no project can be disaster-proof, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-smarter-himalayan-infrastructure">climate smart design</a> can minimise damage from flash floods and landslides. Recent disasters have driven up insurance premiums for energy projects in Nepal, and smaller ones cannot even afford them. The 456MW Upper Tamakosi hydroelectric project which is still not fully functional after the September floods has claimed insurance worth Rs1.8 billion. The alternative to high risk high investment hydropower projects is <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-s-cooking-in-nepal-besides-politics">energy diversification</a> to other renewables such as solar, wind or biogas. Nepal gets annual sunlight of 300 days with 6-7 hours on average to total 50,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250718060744_4acd452b4117180ca9bb5d3be839ff46dfd5464e4d507f5ad3704cef6253bc48.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250718060744_4acd452b4117180ca9bb5d3be839ff46dfd5464e4d507f5ad3704cef6253bc48" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="solar power"> <figcaption>Farmers in Tarai using solar powered water pump. Photo: GHAMPOWER</figcaption> </figure>  The Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA) calculates that Nepal could source 3,000MW from wind energy alone, considering 10% of the area with more than 300W/m2 wind power density. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/people-power/decentralising-power-in-nepal">Solar energy</a> stations are cheaper and quicker to build, and would be an ideal alternative to reliance on hydropower.&nbsp; “There has been some investment in solar power, especially from the state sector,” says water expert Madhukar Upadhyay. “But there is an issue of land acquisition since the arrays need a lot of space. It is comparatively easier to get a permit to put up a hydropower plant on a river.” As for biogas, there is simply no incentive to build on past success with household level plants to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/more-bullshit">promote industrial-scale production</a>. Scaling up biogas by integrating it with urban biodegradable waste would still be a viable alternative to LPG.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250718060744_715d44afd5eb4ba8dafa209b0ad0f19400665797b5f078f5636821e600f96684.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250718060744_715d44afd5eb4ba8dafa209b0ad0f19400665797b5f078f5636821e600f96684" data-rendition-name="original" width="1419" height="954" loading="lazy" alt="windmill"> <figcaption>A wind mill in Hapsikot in Nawalpur. Photo: WINPOWER NEPAL</figcaption> </figure>  Nepal’s public sphere is buzzing with excitement over the discovery of potentially 430 billion cubic metres of methane gas beneath Dailekh district that, if properly harnessed, would meet the country’s energy demand for the next 50 years. Even though a feasibility study is awaited, politicians from the prime minister down see this as a petro bonanza that will make Nepal rich. But drilling, storage and distribution of CNG in the country’s current kleptocratic state make that unlikely. If Nepal was to get rich solely on its hydro-energy potential, it could have done so in the past 50 years. Says Dhungel: “This is not exactly a new discovery, but it is premature to celebrate until its extraction is proven to be cost effective. And let us hope it does not get <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/balance-of-power">tangled in geopolitics</a>, since China is involved in the prospecting and drilling, which could make India uneasy.”&nbsp; The country suffers from the Dutch Disease curse even before its resource is fully exploited. And the same cronyism, corruption and rent-seeking structure cannot deliver the riches we expect from Dailekh’s methane discovery. Now, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/right-climate-for-nepal-s-energy-transition">with hydropower in jeopardy</a>, Nepal’s planners will have to evolve a new strategy for energy security into the future. But first, governance needs to be cleaned up with long-term strategic planning that takes climate risk into account. For example, do we need to mine fossil gas when there are renewable options? Will Dailekh take Nepal away from its climate commitments? Says Madhukar Upadhyay: “Nepal has always been resource rich and management poor. And the larger the resource, the bigger our management incapacity. It is a societal malaise.”&nbsp;

Nepal’s Resource Curse

चौतारा rest stops have long been an integral part of scenic touristic town of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/pokhara-six-decades-ago">Pokhara </a>but are now rarely seen as the city bursts at the seams. They say inhabitants of Pokhara saw a plane before they saw cars. Indeed, the grass airfield was built in the 1950s, while the Kathmandu highway 20 years later. Before roads, people walked to get around, pausing to rest or even nap under the shade of banyan-pipal trees. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/pokhara-s-desperation-and-hope">Pokhara airport’</a>s ‘terminal’ in those days was a shady chautara where passengers waited for their flights. The chautara bore silent witness to daily life, whether it was travellers seeking a brief respite from the summer heat or villagers gathering for a chat in the mornings and evenings. But with the roads came vehicles, and then houses started filling up spaces, even farmlands. Pokhara began transforming from a serene village to a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/pokhara-comes-alive-at-night">bustling city</a>.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250719010724_d101fa482441ce67afdf5bc4e4547b334e7662c1cf0a20e9d31a0e8dff66f04b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250719010724_d101fa482441ce67afdf5bc4e4547b334e7662c1cf0a20e9d31a0e8dff66f04b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2147" height="1581" loading="lazy" alt="Trees of life and living NT"> <figcaption>Photo: DURGA RANA MAGAR</figcaption> </figure>  The banyan-pipal trees were chopped down to make way for wider intersections and buildings. The once-iconic rest stops that carried Pokhara’s identity had all but vanished. “Building chautara was once considered a religious duty, which is why so many of them were constructed across Pokhara,” says archivist Sunil Ulak. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10927">Ekai Kawaguchi</a>, a Japanese Buddhist monk, who visited Nepal 120 years ago en route to Tibet, documented <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/no-visitors-in-pokhara-to-admire-view">the landscape of Pokhara</a> and its surroundings. In his book, Three Years in Tibet, he reflects on the natural beauty of the town and its shady trees. A chautara used to be surrounded by ponds, where shepherds would bring their cattle to drink from while they took a nap under the shade. The gentle rustling of leaves in the cool breeze lent a soothing melody as did the chirping of birds, while the insects took refuge in the branches and leaves. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/pokhara-800-years-ago">Pokhara 800 years ago</a>, Kunda Dixit This ‘nature’s breeze’, as botanist Kalyan Panta puts it, is now history due to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/cost-of-living-in-a-big-city">haphazard urbanisation</a>. “When the wind strikes against one leaf, it creates a domino effect and other leaves start waving as well,” he explains. There were 632 chautara in the city until 1977, and by 2000 the number had fallen to 278. But in some wards the number of trees fell from 55 in 1984 to only five now.&nbsp; The gradual loss of these resting places has meant habitat <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal">destruction of birds and insects</a>, it has also damaged the environment and natural beauty of the city.&nbsp; Researcher Jagannath Adhikari’s study showed that infrastructure projects ignored the environment, and concluded that that urbanisation in Pokhara was unsustainable.&nbsp; The destruction continues to this day. Recently, old chaurata in wards 6, 13 and 14 were cleared to make way for a sacrificial ritual. In fact, ward 6 got a permit from the local government to clear its remaining trees.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250719010724_cee1d4faf8376e7ba18b9c7012ea4215b7c3fbf7e0983b0c97005df5567d6de0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250719010724_cee1d4faf8376e7ba18b9c7012ea4215b7c3fbf7e0983b0c97005df5567d6de0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Trees of life and living NT"> <figcaption>Photo: DURGA RANA MAGAR</figcaption> </figure>  But in wards 13 and 14, the Human Service Foundation cut down some 33 trees for which it is in a dispute with the metropolitan city as there is no unclear jurisdiction regarding who gives the permit. The Kaski Division Forest Office is currently investigating the matter. Elsewhere in ward 19, the ward office had launched ‘मेरो रूख, म काट्छु’ campaign due to an alleged chaos caused by monkeys in the area. The decision was rescinded after an all-around opposition.&nbsp; To be sure, there are policies in place to protect trees such as the Gandaki Province Forestry Act, 2080, and the Regulations, 2081. The province government also introduced an act in 2019 per which no tree, including pipal, silk cotton and other <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/trees-trees?%2F">trees of natural and historical importance</a> shall be damaged, eroded or removed. But the local government, responsible for implementing the Act, is doing the opposite. “If this rapid rate of tree felling continues, neither trees nor chautara will survive for the future generation,” conservationist Ram Bahadur Poudel tells us, adding that old trees are being cleared under the pretext of pruning branches. Interestingly, Ulak notes that Pokhara-8 was called सिमलचौर in the past because there were so many majestic silk cotton trees, but there are very few left, if any, and hence altering the identity of a place. With modernisation, people have questioned the significance of chautara in this day and age. But they still have relevance. Urban centres in Pokhara and Kathmandu are much hotter than the outskirts because of the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/in-the-heat-of-the-moment-5xcycyot">urban heat island effect</a>. Says archivist Ulak: “While their original purpose was to provide rest, today they continue to play a crucial role in regulating temperature, beautifying the city, and preserving our environment.”

Trees of life and living

Nepalis are living longer than ever. By 2028, the country is set to join the ranks of other <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepals-demographic-window-is-closing">ageing societies</a> around the world, and by 2054, 1 out of every 7 people in Nepal will be over 65. Life expectancy at birth has risen dramatically from just 55 in 1990 to 71 today, &nbsp;thanks to improvements in public health and access. But as more people live longer, the country must also prepare for a parallel rise in age-related illnesses and the complex social and medical needs that come with an <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/need-to-prepare-for-ageing-society,3624">ageing population</a>. Extended families have always acted as a safety net for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/home-sweet-home-for-older-nepalis">the elderly</a>, with children and grandchildren shouldering most caregiving duties. But with more than 1,600 <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/migration-not-a-wish-but-necessity-for-nepalis">Nepalis migrating </a>every day, older parents are left behind with no one to care for them. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-new-equaliser">Remittances</a> from migrating youth, which account for nearly a third of Nepal’s GDP, have kept the economy afloat. But money sent home cannot make up for the chronic departure of kin and caregivers, who are often the first to catch the signs and symptoms of disease in elders. In rural areas where over 85% of Nepal’s elderly live, the absence of this daily vigilance means early signs of illness often go unnoticed until they become debilitating. As a result, chronic conditions like hypertension, diabetes, and depression are left unmanaged.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250720130748_213f2c65f2638872e9ac0550a7ac251e4960c3726dc5c76215962a23ba71dff1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250720130748_213f2c65f2638872e9ac0550a7ac251e4960c3726dc5c76215962a23ba71dff1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1064" height="701" loading="lazy" alt="Smart ageing is Nepal’s next frontier"> </figure>  Geriatric medicine is largely absent from medical curricula and there is no national plan in place to manage cognitive decline, memory loss and confusion. These are often mistaken for signs of normal ageing, instead of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/dementia-brings-new-problem-that-families-have-little%20knowledge-of,2151">dementia</a>, delaying care until it is too late. The same pattern plays out with strokes, osteoarthritis, and vision problems — conditions that could be managed early but are instead allowed to spiral into <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/changing-disability-to-this-ability-h68f6sq2">disability</a>. Nepal is not ready for an older future. It needs a strategy for ‘smart ageing’ where the focus is not adding years to life, but enhancing years lived through the intelligent application of policy, infrastructure, and crucially, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/tech-and-transition-in-nepal">technology</a>. Many models of smart ageing, however, are sculpted around modern societies where independent living in later life is the norm. Furthermore, eroding traditional family care and an underdeveloped formal care system means there is a large gap that can’t simply be filled by copy-pasting from foreign models. Nepal must shape its own version of smart ageing. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/healthcare-moving-from-hospitals-to-homes?%2F">tech boom</a> has led to homegrown digital healthcare apps such as Hamro Doctor, Cura Health, Jeevee and Health Yaad Ayo which offer teleconsultations, online appointments, and at-home test bookings. As <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/nepal-s-new-digital-landscape">smartphones and internet access</a> extend to the most rural fringes of the Nepali countryside, geography is no longer a barrier to the use of these digital tools. What limits their use is the lack of digital proficiency among the older generation. Others find the idea of turning to a device instead of a familiar, reassuring face unfathomable. That is why <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/addressing-nepals-digital-divide?ref=blog.togglecorp.com">digital literacy</a> efforts must be paired with guided human support to build trust alongside technical skill. Such a model of community-led digital mediation is already gaining traction elsewhere. In the UK, ‘digital health ambassadors’—often young people or even schoolchildren—are trained to co-design and advocate for online platforms that resonate with peers who might otherwise feel excluded from automated health services. A Nepali version could engage cohorts of nursing students, tech-savvy youngsters and returnee migrants to assist elders in navigating digital health platforms and troubleshooting problems, and most of all, normalising the idea of health apps being a reliable recourse.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250720130748_fcb94ab76e76b5574189757e88d76fccad4e115e78dd9eae92a3bd4c882c3431.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250720130748_fcb94ab76e76b5574189757e88d76fccad4e115e78dd9eae92a3bd4c882c3431" data-rendition-name="original" width="2246" height="1590" loading="lazy" alt="Smart ageing is Nepal’s next frontier"> </figure>  Nepal’s own network of Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs), whose credibility is rooted in long-standing relationships across rural communities, could be similarly upskilled, their roles in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/target-2030-for-maternal-and-newborn-health">maternal and child health </a>expanded and repurposed to also include geriatric tech support. However, there is a limit to how much older adults can adapt to new technologies. So, Nepal should simultaneously invest in passive technologies—tools that monitor and act for the elderly, instead of demanding active use. That is where wearables and in-home smart health devices collectively known as 'gerontechnology' come in. Picture an 82-year-old in far-flung Rolpa, away from the facilities of an urban hospital. Installed in her home are low-cost motion sensors that monitor prolonged inactivity or signs of a fall, instantly triggering alerts to the nearest health post when necessary. On her wrist, a wearable bracelet continuously tracks her sleep, vital signs, oxygen saturation, and glucose levels. This data is encrypted and synced to a digital dashboard accessible by health staff at the local post. If the system flags an acute risk—such as a potential stroke or hypoglycemia—a nearby health worker is dispatched immediately to her home. If her readings over time indicate a trend toward a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/why-do-so-many-nepalis-have-high-blood-pressure">chronic condition</a> like diabetes, community health volunteers step in. They help schedule a virtual consultation with an endocrinologist in Butwal. Based on the advice received, she gets a prescription and picks up her medication from the local community pharmacy, along with a smart dispenser to ensure she sticks to her treatment plan without missing doses. This is not as far-fetched as it may sound. Many of the individual devices forming this connected medical system called an Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) already exist in Nepal as imported commercial products. What is missing is a stronger framework for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/public-health-partnership">public-private collaboration</a>: one where health tech companies continue developing locally adapted tools, and the government actively integrates these innovations into public health delivery. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/people-power/nepal-as-an-ai-power-bank">Nepal’s tech ecosystem</a> is maturing, but policymaking must evolve in tandem, especially when it affects an older generation largely resistant to change. The backlash against the recent mandate requiring National Identity Cards for accessing social security benefits revealed the pitfalls of imposing top-down reforms without adequate preparation or support for seniors. For Nepalis to age well, community caregivers, doctors, innovators, and above all, the state, must step in where families have stepped away. The goal is not to replicate traditional care, but to build a coordinated system of support that connects everyone through technology. The future is older for Nepal, let us be wiser too. The writers are pursuing their undergraduate studies in biomedical engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

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