<figure><img width="1000" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101124/637209a29c7e80680e0b5553jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Devi Sunar and her adopted daughter Maina in front of the picture of Devi’s late daughter Maina who was only 14 when she was tortured and killed by the Royal Nepal Army. Photo: GULIGO JIA.</figcaption></figure>These days, every other day seems like an anniversary of one of the more famous crimes committed during the insurgency years. Today marks 18 years since 14-year-old Maina Sunar was <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/02/17/remembering-maina/">detained and murdered by the Royal Nepal Army</a> in Panchkhal of Kavre District.At the peak of the Maoist War, Maina’s case became a symbol of the human rights violations perpetrated by both sides in the decade-long conflict. Nearly two decades later, her mother Devi is <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2013/02/16/still-waiting/">still fighting for justice</a> for the extrajudicial killing of her daughter.Unable to access official channels, Devi has written an open letter asking Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to uphold rule of law and respect the Court’s decision.'My daughter would have been 33 this year. I had many dreams for her, as I am sure you do too about your son. Everything was robbed from me and my family. Although I won’t be able to bring my daughter back, and nothing could repair that loss, I want to see those responsible brought to justice,' the letter reads.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-unpunished-war-crimes/">Nepal's unpunished war crimes</a>, Sabita AdhikariShe continues: 'This will give a sense of security and hope, not only to me and my family, but also to hundreds of victims who suffered from similar losses during the armed conflict.'On 17 February 2004, an army patrol looking for Devi detained Maina and her brother for interrogation as a suspected Maoist. Soon after, she disappeared, never to return. Her brother was however sent back. For three years, Sunar’s family kept looking for Maina, having known that she was taken by the soldiers. <img width="400" height="406" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101124/637209a49c7e80680e0b5554jpeg.jpg" alt="">It was later revealed that Maina was <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/313/FromtheNepaliPress/12418#.Yg5Dse5Bz0s">electrocuted to death</a> on the same night as retribution for her mother Devi’s vocal criticism of the Army’s involvement in the murder of her niece, Reena Rasaili, accused of being a Maoist supporter.Under pressure from international rights groups, the Army set up a <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9966#.Yg5DxO5Bz0s">court of inquiry</a> to investigate the incident and the accused Colonel Bobby Khatri, Captain Sunil Prasad Adhikari and Amit Pun were sentenced to six months imprisonment, fined Rs50,000 and faced a ban on future promotions.But Devi did not think the punishment was commensurate with the crime and filed a case in the civil court. During this time, with help from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR), Maina’s body was exhumed from Panchkhal barracks.On 16 April 2017, after a thirteen-year-long legal battle, the District Court Kavre found three army officers guilty of murdering Maina but they have not been arrested or punished.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/still-missing-but-not-forgotten/">Still looking for dad missing in Nepa</a>l, Anita BhetwalIn her letter, Devi has questioned the existence of two commissions set up to investigate war crimes, the Disappearance Commission and the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/conflict-victims-fear-TRC-only-serves-interests-of-state,2042">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> that have little to show in the way of delivering transitional justice.In fact, successive governments made up of former enemies the state has used the commissions to do their bidding and cover up their war crimes. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s order to amend the Transitional Justice Act mechanism is yet to be implemented.'Dear Prime Minister, I have promised my daughter that unless I bring those perpetrators to justice, I won’t rest. The remains of my daughter are still in the Teaching Hospital, and I am not able to perform her last rituals pending the implementation of the court’s decision,' concludes the letter. 'I am waiting to see your commitment to protecting victims instead of perpetrators and respecting court orders to ensure the rule of law in the country.'Read more: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16781#.Yg5HPu5Bz0s">Open Wounds</a>, Mallika Aryal

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'She would have been 33 this year'

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

Galaxy A series

Know your Ministers

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

Nepal’s new government springs into action

In a classic arc of political sociology, a revolutionary figure takes several decades to complete their cycle: mobilisation, institutionalisation, and finally governance. 
However, the timeline of this trajectory has been telescoped in the case of Home Minister Sudan Gurung, who in 2025 described himself as a social activist and volunteer, has gone from the barricades of the GenZ protests to the mahogany desk of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Gurung is a personal pick of Prime Minister Balendra Shah, and played a pivotal role in getting him to join the RSP by mediating with Rabi Lamichhane. His journey serves as a real test bed for the ‘Outsider-to-Insider Transition’, raising a fundamental question about someone who now leads the very apparatus that he once fought against: the police, intelligence service, and the bureaucracy.
Social capital can indeed be built during a crisis exacerbated by state failure, and that is where we first see Sudan Gurung — expediting relief delayed by systemic corruption and red tape. Gurung’s delivery aid through a social-media-driven volunteer network bypassed the government. 
Whether or not he really rushed a dying child to hospital after the 2015 earthquake does not matter, it has become an urban legend. 
His work evolved into the non-profit Hami Nepal in 2020, serving as a ‘parallel state’ mechanism that would later become central to his public identity. Later, his group sprang into action during the Covid crisis, organising oxygen cylinders and beds . He was there after flood disasters in Manang and Sidhupalchok, and even organised Rs15m worth of aid to Turkey after the 2023 earthquake. 
Moral Legitimacy became his primary source of power, and he strategically positioned himself as an alternative emergency response system. But the real rupture happened on 8 September 2025 when years of frustration, corruption scandals, lack of transparency and state accountability culminated in a rally that the next day descended into anarchy. 
There was no single leader. The movement was fully decentralised, but as elsewhere such upheavals produces a recognisable face. Among them was Sudan Gurung. Who despite being a millennial himself, became the most visible interlocutor of the GenZ movement. 
He negotiated with the state’s key actors, including the president and the Chief of Army staff, during the period of uncertainty When the country was on the brink. This led to the dissolution of parliament and the formation of the interim government under Sushila Karki, paving the way for the election on 5 March.
Since then, Sudan Gurung’s role has become contradictory. Within days of touching Prime Minister Karki’s feet after her swearing in, he was at the gates of Baluwatar spearheading midnight demonstrations calling for her resignation. He accused her and Home Minister Om Prakash Aryal of not consulting the youth over Cabinet appointments and not arresting the previous government officials.
This oscillation became a hallmark of Gurung’s own version of the ‘Radical Flank Effect’ — erratic behaviour to force the establishment to make concessions. 
On 18 January Gurung formally joined the RSP, and started campaigning from his home constituency of Gorkha-1. He won decisively and was appointed home minister by Balendra Shah. The transition was complete. 
As minister his role spans core security areas: overseeing internal security through the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and the intelligence bureau. The man who took part in anti-government rallies is now in charge of the riot police that aresupposed control anti-government protests.
His portfolio also handles state administration matters such as citizenship, immigration, and border security, coordinates with the judicial system on prisons, detention, and policies related to punishment and clemency. For example will be overseeing the fraud case against his own party’s chair, Lamichhane.
In his book Power in Movement, political scientist Sidney Tarrow observes that social movement leaders encounter ‘institutional capture’ upon entering government. In a sociological paradox, the man who previously denounced the police for killing youth protesters is now the person who issues directives to those same forces.
Preventive detention, surveillance, and the control of public festivals are the same instruments that the former old guard employed to stifle his movement. The activist who demanded transparency at the B P Koirala Institute now manages the state’s most secretive security apparatus.
In this arc, Gurung is not alone, there are parallels around the world for leaders emerging from the ashes of revolt. It is not so much a prediction, but for Gurung the challenge is even more acute because youth expectations are so high.
The bar for performance has been raised by citizens demanding change and quicker, more efficient service delivery. He is under constant public scrutiny, which is why he has to take YouTubers every time he goes on inspections of the airport, the BP Highway, police stations, picking trash on the sidewalks or meeting the Swiss ambassador to ask about repatriating the ill-gotten wealth of politicians.
Sudan Gurung is facing intense public glare. There have been calls to reveal the truth behind Hami Nepal’s finances, the alleged links to Free Tibet, and lately not paying five years of rent for an illegal lakefront property in Pokhara. 
As minister, he will find that moral legitimacy alone is no longer sufficient, it must be reinforced by transparent and consistent institutional accountability. Sudan Gurung’s ascent is evidence that the public mostly trusts ‘outsiders’ during times of crisis. However, history also cautions us that the state only permits ‘insiders’ to operate. 
Gurung will have to organise systemic reform to inject the transparency of his volunteer days to the Home Ministry’s traditionally secretive disbursements. If he fails, he runs the risk of validating Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy, which would serve as a warning about how revolutionary energy is dissipated by the very structures it was intended to overthrow.
Nepal is watching the man who said he once held a dying child in his arms after an earthquake. The volunteer has become the Warden.
Nischal Raj Gautam is a student of Media Studies and Mass Communication at St. Xavier's College, Maitighar. He is a member of the EU Delegation's Youth Sounding Board (YSB), and a journalist for TheirWorld's The Education Issue 2026.

maina

'She would have been 33 this year'

Galaxy A series

Know your Ministers

Nepal’s new government springs into action

He said no to politics. Now he runs it.