<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd48e9c7e80680e0d30afjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="591" height="431"/><figcaption>Using oxen to plough a field in 1979 and in 2010 (right). All photos: ZDENĚK THOMA AND TOMÁŠ BERÁNEK</figcaption></figure>The Prague Spring democracy uprising had just been crushed by Soviet troops in 1968, and many Czechoslovaks fled the country. Photographer Zdeněk Thoma also left, but not as a refugee – he travelled overland to Istanbul, Tehran, Kabul and Kathmandu to discover the world.He went on to Calcutta, and in Singapore hitched a ride on a Polish cargo ship to Osaka. Thoma’s life-long love affair with Japan began then. He has been to the country 12 times and has since published three photo books, the latest on Japanese gardens.But after Japan, it is Nepal that Zdeněk Thoma is most fond of, and especially the valley of Manang which he first trekked to in 1979. He spent three weeks photographing the scenic trans-Himalayan valley and on return to Prague, held a photo exhibition ‘Village in the Shadow of Annapurna’.Czechoslovakia was still one country then, and the Communist regime had made it difficult for citizens to travel abroad. Which is why the dramatic photographs from an exotic corner of the Nepal Himalaya was an instant hit, were exhibited in galleries and museums in Czechia and Slovakia, inspiring a generation of mountaineers.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd4919c7e80680e0d30b0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="919" height="686"><figcaption>Three self confident girls Thoma encountered while trekking Manang Valley in 1979. Right: Nearly 40 years later the women are now in Kathmandu.</figcaption></figure>If it was any other photographer, that would have been the end of the story, and Thoma would have gone on to explore and photograph other parts of the world. But in 2008, he got his son Michal to retrace his steps to Manang, carrying with him an album of black and white photographs taken thirty years earlier.“The idea was to document and interpret the changes that had happened in Manang in the intervening years,” Zdenek Thoma, now 84, said during another visit to Nepal this week. Thoma went back to Manang on this trip, and the transformation has been even greater. In 1979, he had to walk for two weeks from Dumre up the Marsyangdi to Manang, today there is a road right up to Manang village.The road is rought, but has further altered the livelihoods and architecture of this once-quaint valley at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Even so, a lot of things have also remained the same.“When my father first came to Manang in 1979, I was just six months old,” says Michal. “I grew up listening to his stories about Nepal instead of fairytales. The photographs were imprinted in my mind, so when I finally got to Manang myself in 2008 I was already familiar with the place.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd4949c7e80680e0d30b1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="501" height="409"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Michal went house-to-house in Manang and surrounding villages trying to locate some of the people in his father’s photographs. A young Dalit girl carrying her baby brother on her back in 1979 was a young woman. Already in 2008, there were a couple of motorcycles in Manang that had been carried over since the road to Besisahar had not yet been built.Before the road (and concrete) got there, the terraced houses of villages like Braga, Chame, Humde looked unchanged in 30 years. But it has been 14 years already since 2008, and that is not the case anymore. In 2008, mobile phones had already got to Manang and Michal has a photograph of women carrying a load of buckwheat on their back, and one of them is texting while she walks.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd4979c7e80680e0d30b2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="525" height="760"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The mountains seem eternal, and do not change much. But the impact of the climate crisis are now visible. The Gangapurna Lake at the terminus of the glacier did not exist 50 years ago. By 1979 it was a large pond. In another 30 years, the lake had expanded and the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Repeat-photography-of-Gangapurna-glacier-shows-glacial-retreat-over-32-years-A-A_fig5_281320415">glacier has retreated</a> up the north face of Mt Gangapurna. Today, the lake is gone -- covered by debris after heavy monsoon rains in 2000 washed down fragile glacial deposits no longer held together by permafrost.When Michal returned to Prague in 2008, he organised another exhibition ‘Manang: 30 Years Ago’ with before and after pictures by his father and himself. In 2010, Zdenek and Michal exhibited the photographs at the<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd49c9c7e80680e0d30b3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="460"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF), and after that father and son <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18132#.Y3mbqnZBy3A">took the photographs to Manang</a> where the photos were entrusted with a family to be exhibited.“When I first came to Manang, the people I photographed said they felt like the yaks that tourists took pictures of,” recalls Zdenek. “So we wanted to give the photographs to the people there. People there could see how much their villages had changed, sometimes for better sometimes for worse, so that Nepalis could decide how its remote mountains valleys should be developed in future.”<h2>Kathmandu Calendar</h2>1979 – 2023<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd4a09c7e80680e0d30b4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3372" height="2619"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Czech photographer Zdenek Thoma first visited Kathmandu in 1979 in his overland travel from Prague to Singapore. But that brief visit to Kathmandu Valley fascinated him, and he returned several times after that.The photographs he took of Manang are part of a father-son exhibition with his son Michal of the transformation of the HImalaya (see main story). But the Kathmandu photographs represent a valuable archive of the Valley then and now. The changes in the architecture, the skyline, the people’s attire and livelihoods is documented in black and white photographs.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd4a69c7e80680e0d30b5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1415"><figcaption>Bhaktapur’s skyline in 1979 and today. Tile roofs have been replaced with concrete, terraced farms with terraced roofs.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd4ac9c7e80680e0d30b6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1422"><figcaption>Nyatapola Temple Square in Bhaktapur has not changed much in 43 years, on the dresses of people.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd4b09c7e80680e0d30b7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1415"><figcaption>An all-purpose pond in Bhaktaphur in a span of nearly half-a-century.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230112100136/63bfd4b69c7e80680e0d30b8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1421"><figcaption>An ancient Hiti in 1979 and today where the water still flows.</figcaption></figure>Now, Thomas has brought out a 2023 calendar where he has juxtaposed some of the photographs with more recent colour images of the same places or street scenes by Tomáš Beránek and Jan Zalud. Proceeds from the sale of the calendars will go to <a href="https://www.namastenepal.cz/kontakt/">Namaste Nepal</a>, a Czech non-profit that focuses on development aid to Nepal and helps underserved children with education. It has also helped with rebuilding primary schools after the 2015 earthquake.

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Back to Manang after 43 years

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131156/63723bc89c7e80680e0c95e1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2296" height="1384"/><figcaption>Satellite radar image showing position of the heaviest rainfall on Thursday morning. The system is now moving north, and will bring more rain to the central Himalaya.</figcaption></figure>Unseasonal late monsoon rains across Nepal are causing floods, damaging paddy fields ready for harvest, and early snowfall in the Himalaya has stranded trekkers and festival travellers.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; min-height: 16px; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">Relentless rain battered Kathmandu and other areas in the middle of the Dasain festival season, when many people are on the road or at airports travelling to their home districts.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; min-height: 16px; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">A highway accident in Bara on Thursday morning which appears to have been caused by the bus brakes failing due to aquaplaning in heavy rain killed 18 people. Landslides and muddy roads cut off other areas of the country. There have been no flights to and from Pokhara since Tuesday.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology Early Warning Centre forecasts more rain for at least two more days, mainly concentrated in western and central Nepal. The monsoon front that brought this precipitation is being pushed back by a westerly, bringing more snow to the central Himalayan areas.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">Kathmandu got 70mm of rain on Thursday, with the heaviest in Rupendehi and Chitwan which recorded 200mm in 24 hours, and 80mm in Dang. Kathmandu is expected to get more rain by mid-day Friday and into the evening.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131156/63723bcb9c7e80680e0c95e2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="450"><figcaption>Manang on Thursday afternoon was blanketed in unseasonal snowfall, trapping trekkers on their way to Thorung La and Tilicho. Photo: RSS</figcaption></figure>The Babai and West Rapti Rivers were flowing above the danger mark on Thursday evening, while the Narayani in Devghat was rising up to its 9m danger threshold. The Department has warned people living close to the Narayani in Nawalparasi and Chitwan to take extreme care.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">Meanwhile, the monsoon depression dumped more than 2m of snow in the Himalaya, forcing mountaineers on Manaslu, Dhaulagiri and Mt Everest to cancel their expeditions. Two Nepalis were killed in avalanches on Manaslu, while an American extreme skier was killed after she fell to her death from near the summit of the world’s eighth highest mountain.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">Humla, which had got the first unseasonal snowfall of the season at the end of September, got more of it on Thursday. In Manang, the blizzards this week blanketed Ngisyang and Narpha, trapping yak herders and trekkers.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">"There was only snow from Wednesday night, now it is sleet and snow in Humde,” said  Kancha Ghale, Chairman of Manang Ngisyang Rural Municipality.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131156/63723bce9c7e80680e0c95e3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2406" height="1502"><figcaption>Rainfall map of Nepal with heaviest precipitation on Thursday reported in Nawalparasi, Rupendehi and Chitwan, where rivers are flowing above the danger mark.</figcaption></figure>The head of Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) Area Office in Manang, Lekhnath Gautam, said 60 trekkers headed up to Thorung La (5,416 m) and Tilicho Lake (4,919 m) were stuck in the town waiting for the snowfall to stop.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">Another 150 trekkers are at Yak Kharka, Ledar, Thorung Phedi and High Camp on the way to the Thorung pass. There are also trekkers in  Khangsar and Srikharka on the trail to Tilicho.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">Manang’s Chief District Officer Rabindra Prasad Acharya said that trekkers have been asked to stay where they are as there are risks of landslides and avalanches due to heavy rain and snowfall higher up the mountains.<p style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-stretch: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 8.05pt 0in;">Floods have also damaged the Besisahar-Chame road, which was rough even at the best of times. Landslides at Khotro, Dharapani, and Timang had blocked traffic since Wednesday.

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More rain and snow forecast for Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131124/637234459c7e80680e0c4925jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>A typical landscape of yarsa, alpine meadow above treeline and below snowline. Pictured here is Manang’s Chuli Peak. All photos: ACHYUT TIWARI</figcaption></figure>A young girl in the Ray-Ban sunglass is singing along to the tune of a song playing on a portable woofer she is carrying. She has just come out of Yak Kkharkha lodge in Upper Manang and is on her way to collect yarsagumba for the day.Throughout the yarsa-picking season from March to June, Tashi Gurung has been going to the meadows daily to pick the valuable caterpillar fungus. She is happy about how much she has collected this season.“I feel energised and happy when I manage to gather 50 or more pieces a day but when we pick only a few, me and my friends have to go hungry,” says Gurung.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mushroom-trekking-in-the-himalaya/">Mushroom trekking in the Himalaya</a>, Sarah Watson<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131124/637234489c7e80680e0c4926jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1126"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine, yarsagumba is supposed to have health benefits and can fetch up to $110,000 per kg in Beijing. It is extensively hunted across the Himalayas and in Nepal, caravans of people from rural villages move to the higher elevations to follow the pre-monsoon yarsa gold rush every year. Demand has gone up during the pandemic due to the belief that the fungus has therapeutic properties.They do not get anywhere near international prices, but the lucrative hunt has largely lifted many parts of rural Nepal from poverty, allowing them to afford food, healthcare and education.This year the price of yarsa at the collection site is Rs300-350 per piece depending on the quality, but the caterpillar fungus can get harvesters up to Rs1,000 if it’s larger and golden yellow in colour.Local contractors usually buy the fungus from collectors as soon as it is picked. This rids collectors from having to clean and dry it as well as prevents theft and bargaining.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/eastern-nepals-mundum-landscape/">Eastern Nepal’s Mundum landscape</a>, Achyut Tiwari and Ramesh Kumar Rai<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131124/6372344b9c7e80680e0c4927jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="624"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“We have more than 1,000 collectors this season in this area and over half of them are from Gorkha,” says another collector Dhan Bahadur Gurung.Dwindling harvests of the 'Himalayan viagra' can lead to conflict. In 2009, seven pickers from Gorkha were killed in Manang's Nar Phu region in a dispute with locals. Six local people were convicted of the murders.Tashi Gurung of Manang’s Nagawal is among more than 20 local contractors involved in Yarsagumba trade from Upper Manang and has a target of trading 10kg of yarsa worth Rs20 million this season.But over-harvesting and rapid environmental change in higher elevation areas of the Himalaya have meant that this unique Himalayan fungus is in steep decline.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-yarsa-picking-time/">It’s yarsa-picking time</a>, Alton C Byers<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131124/6372344f9c7e80680e0c4928jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1126"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131128/637234539c7e80680e0c4929jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1998"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As it is, very little is known about the life cycle of this composite species which is a fungus that grows out of a caterpillar hibernating underground. Now, intensified human activity during collection such as digging and trampling, and increasing day temperature and early melting of snow have affected the regeneration of the fungus.Unseasonal spring blizzards due to climate change could also be affecting the life cycle of the fungus, which is sensitive to the duration and extent of snowfall.For example, heavy snowfall on the last week of May at Upper Manang earlier this year was unusual for the season and halted the yarsa hunt of over a thousand local collectors who were stranded in their shelters.Yarshagumba Ophiocordyceps sinensis is commonly called the Chinese Caterpillar Fungus. The formation of Yarsagumba is due to the parasitism of larvae of swift moths, resulting in the development of fruiting bodies which is a highly popular herbal remedy.After the germination of larvae by a fungus, the latter kills the insect and mummifies it. From the fruit body, a dark brown colour emerges from the dead insect and stands upright, taking the form of yarsagumba.Yarsagumba is found at 3,500-5,000m above sea level in Himalayan meadows of Nepal, Bhutan, India and Tibet. In Nepal, it is collected from more than 12 districts including Darchula, Dolpa, Jumla, Mugu, Bajang, Rukum, Myagdi, Manang, Gorkha, Rasuwa, Sindhupalchok and Sankhuwasabha.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-is-it-vital-to-protect-the-chure/">Why is it vitall to protect the Chure?</a>, Achyut Tiwari<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131128/637234579c7e80680e0c492ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="751" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Yarsa from Nepal is exported to the high demand countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Burma, Thailand, Singapore, and Japan.Harvesting and selling of yarsagumba was banned until 2001 in Nepal. But the government later re-allowed it as long as collectors paid a royalty. it can now only be collected and traded after getting annual local and national approval.This year there was a steep increase in the number of registered collector in the Annapurna Conservation Area Project with 1,000 permits issued. The steep increase in the numbers is due to a pause during the last two years of the pandemic.Achyut Tiwari is plant ecologist at the Central Department of Botany at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu

Giving yarsagumba a chance for regrowth

https://youtu.be/etwE_snoB7AWhile Nepal’s Members of Parliament are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-human-cost-of-nepals-political-deadlock/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">squabbling among themselves</a> chasing contracts and lobbying for ministerships in Kathmandu, Polden Chopang Gurung is busy tending to his apple orchard in Ngisyang village of Manang district, and arranging relief for flash flood survivors in the region.Gurung is the chairperson of the Manang chapter of the UML and was elected to the House of Representatives after he broke into the district’s Congress stronghold during the 2017 elections.“I am a representative of the people of Ngisyang, so there is no reason I have to be in Kathmandu in order for me to do my job,” says Gurung with a shrug, “I can serve my constituents from right here.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11b89c7e80680e0a989djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3073" height="2048"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Gurung’s home district of Manang has been plagued by disasters of late, with the region seeing a seven-month winter drought last year, followed by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires</a> in the spring that burnt entire mountainsides near Chame for three months. Then the monsoon hit the semi-arid district in the Himalayan rain shadow with 300% above average precipitation resulting in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/himalayan-floods-a-sign-of-worse-to-come/">devastating floods and landslides</a> in mid-June.In the wake of the disaster, Gurung has been actively involved in helicopter rescues of his constituents trapped by the landslides, as well as in the rebuilding of Manang’s disrupted road infrastructure.But even during more normal times, when Parliament is not in session in Kathmandu, Gurung can be found tending to his apple orchard at his home in Ngisyang. “I use whatever free time I have to take care of my apple orchard,” he says.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11bd9c7e80680e0a989ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3073" height="2048">Gurung credits his father for inspiring him to come back to Manang despite having the opportunity and reason to stay in the capital. Like him, his father Pema Chhiring Gurung was an MP and an Assistant Minister for Local Development during the Panchayat era.But Pema Chhiring was first and foremost a farmer, and had started an apple orchard in Manang 45 years ago.“My father always told us that he had tried his best to raise us and to be of help in his community,” recalls Gurung. “He asked that we continue to do the same for our village that he had devoted his entire life to.”Pema Chhiring had built his apple orchard out of land collectively owned by seven Manang villages. Residents of the villages worked in the orchard and distributed the profit amongst themselves.Eventually, the work ceased to yield any profit, and the land was rented out.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11c29c7e80680e0a989fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3073" height="2048">Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/growing-apples-on-a-war-footing/">Growing apples on a war-footing</a>, Mukesh PokhrelNow, his son’s apple orchard is spread over 37 hectares of land in Manang. Gurung obtained the plot when his Manang Agro Company won an open competition six years ago that allowed him to lease the land by paying a yearly sum of Rs5.8 million.Gurung’s orchard is crammed with apple trees, saplings of which were brought from Italy and Serbia. And the yield is plentiful, with 600,000 kgs of apples expected to be harvested this year. Over the next three years, Gurung’s target is to produce 1.7 million kgs of apples annually.Nepal spent Rs243 billion in food imports in the fiscal year 2019/20, an increase of Rs19 billion from the previous fiscal year. Two-thirds of Nepalis depend on agriculture, but Nepal’s annual food imports are increasing exponentially due to a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-less-and-less-able-to-feed-itself/">growing population and rising income</a>.Of total food imports, Nepal spends upwards of Rs13 billion annually on apple imports. Which is why Gurung believes that there is a huge domestic market for Manang's apples, provided supply can meet demand and there is access to markets. If the fruits themselves do not sell, there is significant demand for products like apple juice, wine and candy.In fact, the demand for apple seedlings from other mountain districts of Jumla, Huma, and Mugu has gone up ever since Gurung began buying better quality saplings that resulted in higher yields.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11c59c7e80680e0a98a0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3073" height="2048">Gurung tells us that he would rather be recognised as an apple farmer from Manang than an MP in Nepal’s political arena.He adds: “My father told us not to forget our roots, and that individual wealth and happiness held little meaning in the grand scheme of things. So I decided to return home, and build on his legacy.”Translated by Shristi Karki from <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/126267">the Nepali original</a> published on himalkhabar.comRead also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mixed-blessings-in-mustang/">Mixed blessings in Mustang</a>, Mukesh Pokhrel

A parliamentarian’s apple grove

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18a39c7e80680e0ac7d8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="464"/>Nepal’s trans-Himalayan district of Manang is located in the rain-shadow, and is a high altitude desert. Its average annual rainfall is barely 300mm, but it got nearly double that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rain in just one week</a> in June.The region had seen a seven-month winter drought, and was <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ravaged by wildfires this spring</a> that burnt for three months. Then came the monsoon: dumping 300% more rain than the average for June-July.The steep slopes scorched by wildfire could not absorb the heavy rain, and a wall of water, mud, boulders and logs washed down the Marsyangdi River, washing away highway, bridges, settlements and other infrastructure.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18a59c7e80680e0ac7d9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="639">Three and half months later, the scars of that devastation are still seen everywhere in the towns of Chame and Taal. Residents are still waiting for help from the government, while charities and activists have provided relief material.Scientists are reluctant to blame a single weather event on the climate crisis, but there is a growing consensus that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/human-face-of-a-himalayan-climate-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a hotter Himalaya </a>is leading to more erratic monsoons, droughts, floods and wildfires. The 2021 monsoon was proof of that.Minrasi Gurung and his family in Naso village of Manang used to have his hands full all year round growing vegetables in a large patch by the river. Income from selling potatoes, chilli and tomatoes to trekking lodges supported the entire household.But the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/drones-to-the-rescue-in-melamchi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">flood on the Marsyangdi River</a> on 15 June swept away the family’s farm, and the river is now flowing through a boulder-strewn debris field where the farm used to be.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18aa9c7e80680e0ac7dajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1368" height="912"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18ad9c7e80680e0ac7dbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18b19c7e80680e0ac7dcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">“We have been tilling this land since the time of my great grandfather, never before has there been such a disaster,” he says.Minrasi has now moved with his wife Masini to Myagdi River on the border of Lamjung and Manang districts to open a tea shop. “The floods and landslides displaced us,” they say.The scenic town of Taal used to be a popular stopover for trekkers on the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-other-abc-trek/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Annapurna Circuit</a>, and there were many lodges on a ledge overlooking the Marsyangdi. The water rose so high on 15 June that it washed away the lodges, and seven of the 57 houses in the village are still liveable. None of the hotels survived however, one would be hard-pressed to even locate their ruins.Keshav Gurung of Taal spent much of his life in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/where-have-all-the-guides-gone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tourism business</a>, and he ploughed his earnings to upgrade his hotel, never thinking of investing elsewhere because trekking brought good income.But the flood swept away his Rs40 million hotel, and he is now living in a tent in a plot owned by his neighbours. He used to make Rs1.6 million a year in profit from the 21-room hotel.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18b59c7e80680e0ac7ddjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Golamaya Gurung in Sirantal had a 10-room hotel, a house and half a hectare of land. All of this is now gone, she barely managed to save her own life as the floodwaters rose.A helicopter rescued Golmaya and her neighbours two days after the disaster from a cave they had fled to. Since then, she has not been able to return to what used to be her home.“There is no way I can get there at the moment. From a distance, I can see the river flowing where my house once stood, I can identify the general location of my house because of a tree that is still standing,” says Golmaya.The floods on the Marsyangdi River and its tributary, Thada Khola, caused the most damage in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Off-the-road,237" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Taal</a> and Dharapani municipalities. The district headquarter at Chame is still cut off because the road was washed away by the flood and numerous landslides.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18b89c7e80680e0ac7dejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Kamarkali Gurung owned Hotel Heaven in Dharapani, popular with trekkers. There is no sign of it now. She put in all her savings and spent Rs20.5 million on the hotel, and had been running it for eight years.“I invested everything in that hotel, what happened is so unexpected, so shocking, I still cannot believe that I have lost it all,” she says.Bhuturam Gurung of Chame had also been running a hotel for 15 years, but both his house and hotel were washed away by the Marsyangdi that fateful day. “I had never seen an angry river like that in my life,” he recalled. Bhuturam’s families and three others are now living in Manang’s district prison, which has been converted into a shelter.There is no exact estimate of the damage wrought by the 15 June flood yet. But according to Chief District Officer Bishnu Prasad Lamichhane, the disaster cost at least Rs1.1 billion. A municipality investigation showed a much higher number.“The government observation doesn’t match the ground situation, we estimate over Rs4 billion in damage,” says Palden Chopang Gurung, MP from Manang district. “Chame and Naso alone suffered over Rs3 billion in damaged private buildings, schools, electricity lines and roads. But that is just two municipalities, more bridges and roads have been affected.”A recently completed track from Manang to Bhartang is badly damaged with a 2km-long stretch washed away by the floods. While a new route is under construction, the terrain poses a challenge and the progress has been slow. The landslide-damaged road between Dharapani and Chame also poses risks for travellers.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18bc9c7e80680e0ac7dfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1440" height="664"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18bf9c7e80680e0ac7e0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1440" height="664">“It’s impossible to resume smooth transport like anytime soon, we have settled for a temporary road for now,” says Chairman of Chame Village Municipality Lokendra Ghale.Following the floods, the chief minister of Gandaki Province Krishna Chandra Pokhrel has visited the disaster site three times in a helicopter, he also announced Rs200,000 in relief for each family. But three and a half months later, locals are yet to receive any help.Earlier this year,<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-govt-fills-cabinet-after-3-months/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s government</a> declared Manang as a high-risk district, following which Home Minister Bal Krisha Khand and Energy Minister Pampha Bhusal also choppered in to make more promises that have not been kept.“We haven’t received any help from the central government, the only relief has been from Manang people living in Kathmandu or abroad,” adds Ghale. “All these experts in Kathmandu who have linked the disaster to climate change are also all talk and no action.”Located in the Himalayan rainshadow, Manang gets only about 300mm of rain a year. But on 15 June, it got 212mm of rain in just 24 hours. The average rainfall for March-June in Manang is about 40 mm, but this year it got 135 mm in that period.“The soil in high mountains can be easily washed away by the rain as they are not as firm,” says geography professor Subodh Dhakal at Tribhuvan University. To make matters worse, Manang saw fires burn continuously for three months last winter. Monsoon cloudbursts then hit slopes where the soil’s absorptive capacity had been reduced by previous wildfires. The runoff disgorged itself into the Marsyangdi River.“Due to the rise in average global temperature, there is more moisture in the monsoon system, and these have managed to find their way to the other side of the mountains, this is a clear link to global warming,” says climate scientist Ngamindra Dahal.The average increase in temperature in Manang is also higher than other districts at lower elevations, and is 0.09 Celsius higher than elsewhere, according to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology.This is in line with the finding that the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-hotter-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Himalaya is getting 0.3-0.7 Celsius warmer </a>than the global average, and is a warning for a much hotter Subcontinent and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/weve-seen-fire-and-weve-seen-rain/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more frequent disasters</a> in the coming days.

Himalayan floods a sign of worse to come

<figure><img width="1200" height="675" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636cca709c7e80680e08bb68jpeg.jpg" alt="Snowfall in Jajarkot"/><figcaption>Photos: RSS</figcaption></figure>After suffering a four-month drought since the end of the monsoon last year, a westerly front finally dumped snow in the higher reaches of the Nepal Himalaya on Friday.At lower altitudes, farmers greeted the welcome rain which moistened wheat, mustard and other winter crops. The rain also cleared the thick fog that had engulfed the Nepal Tarai for the past month.The precipitation was not heavy, but it doused some of the devastating wildfires that had ravaged forests across central and western Nepal since December. A forest fire in Manang had been raging for two months.  There was nearly 1m of snow overnight in Khaptad National Park, and the flurries down to 2,800 m in Mustang, Manang and Kaski. Ghorepani viewpoint on the Annapurna Trek also got heavy snowfall overnight. Humla started getting snowfall on Thursday evening itself, and it continued all night and into Friday. <img width="800" height="450" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636cca739c7e80680e08bb69jpeg.jpg" alt="Snowfall at Ktaptad National Park"><img width="966" height="711" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636cca759c7e80680e08bb6ajpeg.jpg" alt="Snowfall at Myagdi"><img width="991" height="718" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636cca779c7e80680e08bb6bjpeg.jpg" alt="Snowfall in Simkot">The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology has predicted more precipitation over central and eastern Nepal into Saturday, with the weather clearing up after that.  The frontal system is moving eastward, and is expected to bring rain to Kathmandu Valley by evening. The rain had not arrived in the capital while Prime Miniter K P Oli’s political rally was going on in Darbar Marg on Friday afternoon, although there was a stiff breeze. <figure><img width="640" height="452" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110101152/636cca799c7e80680e08bb6cjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Satellite radar image of the subcontinent traken on Friday at 1500 local time showing precipitation over Nepal in green.</figcaption></figure>Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/">Wildfires ravage Nepal mountains,</a> Nepali Times

Rain ends 4-month Nepal drought

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111124/636cd20e9c7e80680e08f8edjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1200"/><figcaption>The fire in Manang started on 26 November and is still raging as seen in these pictures taken on Tuesday. Photos: NABIN LAMICHHANE/RSS</figcaption></figure>A three month drought in central and eastern Nepal has sparked <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-sees-drop-in-wildfires-during-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires</a> across the Himalaya which has shrouded the mountains in smoke, adding to the urban and crossborder pollution.The big forest fires <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kangchenjunga-wildfire-visible-from-space/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in Pathibhara in eastern Nepal</a> and below Mt Machapuchre in Kaski raged for a week, and spent themselves. But major fires are out of control in Manang, Rasuwa, Lamjung and Sindhupalchok, destroying huge tracts of high montane forest.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111124/636cd2119c7e80680e08f8eejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="720"><figcaption>An entire forest in Gatlang of Rasuwa was reduced to ashes in a wildfire on Monday-Tuesday. The fire only extinguished itself after there was no more forest left to burn. Photo: BIBI FUNYAL</figcaption></figure>The most serious and widespread are the fires in Manang Valley around Chame. The vegetation on the slopes and undergrowth in the forests are tinder dry, and the authorities say they have caught fire accidentally because of people grazing livestock, or gathering firewood.The fire in Manang started as far back as 26 November, and has since spread into the Marsyangdi and Dudh Khola valleys.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111124/636cd2139c7e80680e08f8efjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1200"><figcaption>Under-equipped Nepal Police and Army officials have been largely unsuccessful in controlling the fire, which is whipped up by high winds.</figcaption></figure>Efforts by local volunteers, Nepal Police, Nepal Army and Nepal Armed Police have been largely unsuccessful in controlling the fire whipped up by high winds because of lack of equipment, and because the blaze is fanned by strong up-valley afternoon winds.Forest fire in Manang has been raging for over a month, after an unusually dry and warm winter.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111124/636cd2169c7e80680e08f8f0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1200"><figcaption>Part of the rapidly spreading forest wildfire near Chame on Tuesday. In the past months it has destroyed over 700 hectares of forests rich in endangered wildlife and Hiamalayan plant species.</figcaption></figure>The fire has destroyed over 700 hectares of forest rich in endangered wildlife and Himalayan plant species.The effect of the fires is visible even in satellite images. This NASA image (pictured below) taken at noon on 12 January shows <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/kathmandu-air-pollution-hits-record-high/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">smoke shrouding</a> the river valleys of the Marsyangdi, Budi Gandaki, Bhote Kosi, Sun Kosi and the Arun.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111124/636cd2199c7e80680e08f8f1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="824"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The above image is a composite based on <a href="https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=73.05432164103755,20.9895954810804,96.86111430117901,34.3528423044617&amp;l=Reference_Labels(hidden),Reference_Features(hidden),Coastlines,VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedRe" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v%3D73.05432164103755,20.9895954810804,96.86111430117901,34.3528423044617%26l%3DReference_Labels(hidden),Reference_Features(hidden),Coastlines,VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedRe&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1610539171776000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHyjBHjdeFLoVx52Le4KkM9CE8xXw">NASA Worldwide</a> image and the <a href="https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2021-01-11..2021-01-12;l:noaa20-viirs,countries,protected_areas,protected_areas_regional;@132.8,15.7,3z" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/%23d:2021-01-11..2021-01-12;l:noaa20-viirs,countries,protected_areas,protected_areas_regional;@132.8,15.7,3z&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1610539171776000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGx9Lq-WrX2bhCV-0g0j3oTHn-5mw">Fire Information Resource Management System (FIRMS) both from 12 January.</a>The smoke is also blowing into Kathmandu Valley and it combined with the city’s own pollution and cross border smog on Tuesday afternoon to send <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dirty-politics-dirty-air/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Air Quality Index soaring</a> to above 200 in the ‘Very Unhealthy’ zone.The satellite images also show ground fog covering the Tarai and Chitwan on Tuesday morning.

Wildfires ravage Nepal mountains

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171140/636bd8bb9c7e80680e0801d8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="900" height="1200"/><figcaption>Binod Gurung outside Yeti Hotel in Manang which has not seen a single guest since March.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171140/636bd8be9c7e80680e0801d9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="1600"><figcaption>And empty trail in Manang on Thursday at a time when it used to be full of trekkers. Photos: BINOD GURUNG</figcaption></figure>Although the Nepal government is allowing foreign trekkers to fly to Kathmandu from 17 October, some mountain districts along the trekking trails are sealing themselves off for fear it will bring in Covid-19 infections.Manang and Mustang districts on the Annapurna Circuit have announced restrictions for outsiders, which may also affect many Nepalis planning to head out to the mountains for the Dasain Holidays after months of lockdown.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Manang-will-prosper-from-its-new-road,2749">Manang</a> has decided to seal itself off completely, and will only allow Nepali and foreign trekkers if they have PCR negative tests, and the district has made it mandatory for them to spent two weeks in quarantine at Nishang.“We decided that since there were only a few weeks left in the autumn trekking season anyway, there was no point opening ourselves up to the risk of bringing in the virus,” said Binod Gurung, Chair of the Tourism Entrepreneurs Association of Manang, and owner of Hotel Yeti.At a stakeholder’s meeting in Manang last week, some lodge owners had hoped that Nepali hikers could salvage what has been a ruinous year for trekking in the region, but a majority felt it was not worth the risk. The meeting decided to open up Manang only in March 2021.This time of year, there would be up to <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4995#.X3WV9MIzaUk">700 trekkers in Manang</a> every day, acclimatising before they went climbed on to Tilicho Lake or crossed the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/annapurnas-avalanche-and-blizzard-early-weather-warning-systems">Thorung La</a> to adjoining Mustang district.In Mustang itself, there was also a meeting this week between district administration,  municipality office bearers as well as local lodge owners which recommended PCR tests for outsiders coming into the district, however there is confusion about the guidelines.“In the absence of public health experts, the local government has not been able to balance the need to revive tourism with the health risks,” explains Tripple Gurung of Om’s Home in Jomsom. “We are being flooded with inquiries for reservations, but for the moment we cannot take bookings, we just have a wait-and-see approach.”Gurung hopes that the protocols will be made clearer so that Mustang can at least see some foreign and Nepali visitors for the remainder of the year. The shrine at Muktinath remains closed as per the order of the federal government putting all religious sites out of bounds for now. For the past few months, Mustang has been cut off not just because of the lockdown, but also a massive landslide at Rupse and flight cancellations during the monsoon.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109171140/636bd8c29c7e80680e0801dajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4032" height="3024"><figcaption>The Everest region is open for trekking, but visitors need PCR negative reports for their Lukla flights. Photo: NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE/POOJA RIJAL</figcaption></figure>Over in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/more-trekkers-more-trees/">Everest region</a>, a meeting of hoteliers in the Khumbu had decided to restrict outsiders, but changed its mind and is now allowing foreigners and Nepali trekkers to land at Lukla as long as they have a RT PCR negative tests report not older than 72 hours for themselves and their guides and porters.“Many lodge owners are hoping that in the absence of foreign trekkers the loss of business will be somewhat compensated by Nepali hikers, some of whom have already started flying into Lukla,” says <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/saving-gokyo-from-itself/">conservationist Ang Rita Sherpa</a>. “The lodges are mostly open in Lukla, Namche, Tengboche and Pheriche, but not those near the high passes.”Solu Khumbu district in the Everest region has reported 13 cases of Covid-19 so far, and there is only one active case there at the moment. Manang had four confirmed cases, and Mustang had one – neither district now has any active cases.The Annapurna region received 70,000 trekkers last year, while another 50,000 went to the Everest trail. Trekking and mountaineering were closed in March as Nepal went into lockdown and tourists hurried to Kathmandu to catch the last flights out.Trekker traffic had just started picking up in Langtang Valley after the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-reincarnation-of-a-holy-valley/">earthquake and avalanche in 2015</a>, with 15,000 visitors last year. But this year it is nearly zero. Many families which had taken large loans to rebuild their lodges are now deep in debt because there have been no trekkers since March.There have been 19 Covid-19 cases in Rasuwa district near the Chinese border, and none of them have been in Langtang Valley. Rasuwa now has only one active case.“The ward office had decided last week to keep Langtang Valley sealed to protect people from the pandemic, but locals have now decided to allow trekkers in so there is some income,” <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-story-of-langtang-cheese/">Gyalbu Tamang</a> at the Langtang Cheese Production Centre in Kyangjin told Nepali Times in a phone interview. “Even if foreigners do not come, we home domestic tourists will visit from Kathmandu.”

Hiking in the Himalaya during Covid-19?

[caption id="attachment_54080" align="alignnone" width="900"]<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2b09c7e80680e07baf9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="900" height="501"/> Panoramic view of Manang Village and the Gangapurna and Annapurna III Glaciers that have retreated dramatically since 1980. Photo: SolundirWhen Swiss geologist Toni Hagen arrived in Nepal, the Ranas were still ruling the country. Throughout the 1950s, Hagen traversed the country on foot from east to west, from north to south, examining rock strata to probe the orogenesis of the Himalaya.Along the way, he took thousands of photographs and film clips that remain a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/time-capsule-of-kathmandu/">valuable visual archive of a time</a> when Nepal was emerging from historical isolation. Today, the photographs are a treasure trove for climate researchers to measure the extent of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/human-face-of-a-himalayan-climate-crisis/">glacial retreat in the Himalaya</a>.[caption id="attachment_54105" align="alignleft" width="250"]<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2b39c7e80680e07bafajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="248"> Shalik Ram Sigdel, the Nepali scientist who conducted the study of melting glaciers and new forest cover in Manang.Repeat photography has allowed Nepali climate scientists like <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shalik_Sigdel" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shalik_Sigdel&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599194307732000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGLU7cCjeTpgUDbnMntpnJqDDySKg">Shalik Ram Sigdel</a> of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences to plot the rapidity of Himalayan melting due to global warming in the past century.When Toni Hagen trekked through Manang in 1957, he climbed a slope above the village to take photographs of the northern flank of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-abcs-of-a-winter-trek-in-nepal/">the Annapurnas</a>. Even at that time, the Gangapurna Glacier was already debris-covered, meaning that it had lost most of its surface ice.But when Sigdel visited the area and compared it to more recent photographs, he found the glacier snout had receded 900m up the mountain, leaving a lake at its terminus bracketed by sharply defined lateral moraines. The Marsyangdi River has found a way around this feature.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2b49c7e80680e07bafbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1196" height="778"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2b79c7e80680e07bafcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="786">Toni Hagen’s photograph in 1957 of the debris-covered Gangapurna Glacier termius with a few supraglacial ponds, and the same view in 2010 by Nabin Baral showing the growing glacial lake and vegetation on the terminal moraine. Photos: Toni Hagen and Nabin Baral/<a href="http://thethirdpole.net/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://thethirdpole.net&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599194307733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH20EkAK7tiS1QEO-2v8kjshrdqFw">thethirdpole.net</a><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2ba9c7e80680e07bafdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1199" height="768"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2bc9c7e80680e07bafejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1199" height="797">Before-and-after photographs by Nabin Baral from Manang village of the Gangapurna Glacier and the glacial lake in 2007 and 2018 showing the dramatic retreat of the glacier and increased forest cover on the slopes. Photos: Nabin Baral/<a href="http://thethirdpole.net/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://thethirdpole.net&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599194307733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH20EkAK7tiS1QEO-2v8kjshrdqFw">thethirdpole.net</a>In a paper titled Retreating Glacier and Advancing Forest Over the Past 200 Years in Central Himalayas published on last week in the <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020JG005751" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020JG005751&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599194307732000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH_R19ErZEJGj-6qI6IxagxD87Z8w">Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences</a>, Sigdel with co-authors <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorStored=Muhammad%2C+Sher" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorStored%3DMuhammad%252C%2BSher&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599194307732000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFez6UmtBUzucmh0dOKYcsDUeIvWA">Sher Muhammad</a> of ICIMOD, <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorStored=Zhang%2C+Hui" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorStored%3DZhang%252C%2BHui&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599194307732000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFRmO-B5dlg03-1zEr0mvuMYO6YYA">Hui Zhang</a>, <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorStored=Zhu%2C+Haifeng" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorStored%3DZhu%252C%2BHaifeng&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599194307733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH8qC5kAyRJfSST0IRACWK8reH1mw">Haifeng Zhu</a> and <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorStored=Liang%2C+Eryuan" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorStored%3DLiang%252C%2BEryuan&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599194307733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEHCDgbGGXh_niT1k2YRRv-DKelwA">Eryuan Liang</a> present data on the analysis of glacial debris deposits and tree-rings on the Gangapurna and Annapurna III glaciers in Manang.[caption id="attachment_54081" align="alignright" width="600"]<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2bf9c7e80680e07baffjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="375"> Google Earth images (south is up) of the Annapurna III Glacier (left) and the Gangapurna Glacier (right).The paper presents the first detailed evidence of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-third-pole-is-warming-faster-than-expected/">fluctuations in Himalayan glaciers</a> over the past 200 years, and concludes that snowlines have been rising and forests advancing higher, and they did so in spurts since 1790s with the process intensifying since 1980.While <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tracing-past-glacial-floods-in-kangchenjunga/">glaciers have been shrinking and snowlines have been naturally receding</a> ever since the Last Glacial Period 12,000 years ago and the Little Ice Age 700 years ago, this process has amplified with fossil fuel burning after the Industrial Revolution.The researchers used remote sensing satellite imagery and field research to find that as the Gangapurna and Annapurna III glaciers shrank and receded, birch, pine and juniper have been moving up the mountain since 1808.For instance, in 1988 the Gangapurna Glacier was 9km long and 17.74km2 in area, and by October 2019 its length had receded to 8.05km and area was down to 17.5km2. They also found that the thickness of the ice in the glaciers had also shrunk considerably.“Just in the past 60 years, the Gangapurna glacier has receded by more than 900m,” Sigdel said in an interview. “And the speed at which they are receding has accelerated.”[caption id="attachment_54098" align="alignleft" width="500"]<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2c29c7e80680e07bb00jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="515"> Satellite imagery of the Gangapurna Glacier (top) and the Annapurna III Glacier in 1988, 2008 and 2019 showing that the rate of glacial retreat is accelerating.Indeed, the paper says that while the length of the Gangapurna Glacier reduced by 386m at 17.5m per year between 1957 to 1979, the speed picked up to 24m per year from 1979 to 2016 – receding by a full 903m in that time. The Annnapurna III Glacier receded at a slower pace and was smaller by 500m in the past 65 years due to the different gradient and size of the catchment.As the ice melted, vegetation started creeping up the mountains. Sigdel, who specialises in understanding treeline response to a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-terrifying-assessment-of-himalayan-melting/">changing climate in the Himalaya</a>, examined tree-rings and the vegetation that have colonised the moraines in the past decades.As shown in the before-and-after photographs of Toni Hagen’s images as well as through remote-sensing data, older moraines and those that were deposited after the Little Ice Age are already covered by dense forest, presenting evidence of forests replacing glaciers in the Himalaya.[caption id="attachment_54082" align="alignnone" width="1000"]<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2c59c7e80680e07bb01jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="882">Repeat photography of the Gangapurna Glacier terminus in 1957 by Swiss geologist Toni Hagen, in 1979 by Czech photographer Zdeněk Thoma. And a view of the glacier from Manang village taken by Zdeněk Thoma in 1979 and the same view in 2016. Contour map of Upper Manang showing the location of the glacier terminus in those years.Being darker, the forests also absorb more sunlight than snowfields that earlier reflected light, and together with transpiration, this feedback loop in turn could amplify <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/climate-for-change/the-great-himalayan-thaw/">the warming trend in the Himalaya</a>, the paper concludes.While the warming may favour timber and agriculture production in Nepal, Sigdel says they threaten the dry season water flow in Himalayan rivers that will have consequences downstream.He adds: “Our research confirms that the climate crisis has been seriously impacting water resources in the Himalaya. The Gangapurna and Annpurna III glaciers feed the Marsyangdi River, and their melting will affect the entire basin, endangering water supply and affecting hydropower generation and irrigation downstream.”

Forests replace glaciers in the Himalaya

Here in Dho Valley, in the arid mountains of northwestern Nepal, the only sounds used to be tinkling yak bells and the flapping of wind on prayer flags. Now, there is another one: the throb of internal combustion engines.
Chinese motorcycles roar down the dusty trails of once quiet Dho, and the growl of an excavator can be heard from across the valley. It will not be long before the Sumo pickups arrive from the district headquarter in Dunai, which itself was recently connected to Nepal’s road network.
During his <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/president-xi-in-kathmandu/" target="_blank">state visit to Nepal last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping</a> said Nepal would go from being landlocked to‘land-linked’, and promised to help build better road access across the Himalaya from Nepal to China. This is what ‘better connectivity’ looks like here at ground zero in Dolpo.
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One of Nepal’s priorities for trans-Himalayan connectivity is the Kali Gandaki Corridor from the Tarai, through Mustang to the Korala checkpoint at the Chinese border. The new road from Marim Pass on the Tibet border to Dunai has now reached Dho and Chharkha.
On parts of the road that are already motorable, motorbikes &nbsp;noisly overtake trekking groups spewing clouds of dust as they climb the trails. Neither the trekkers nor lodge owners are happy.
“They go so fast, they are noisy and irritating. It is dangerous for school children and older people — it will kill someone one day,” grumbles Tenzin Gurung, a monk at the Sitcho gomba.
Across the road however, a younger trader is excited about the road since it will provide easier access to the market and bring down the cost of food.
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Such ambivalence has accompanied Nepal’s rapid road-building spree in other parts of the country like <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nation-road-from-nowhere-to-nowhere,549" target="_blank">Tsum</a>, Manang and Mustang. But perhaps nowhere has the change from no-road to road been as dramatic as here in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dazzling-dolpo/" target="_blank">Dolpo,</a> which was the last district in Nepal &nbsp;not linked by road.
Over on the other side of Mo La pass, at 5,021m, an excavator is clearing a switchback down the rocky slope that follows the trekking trail, which itself followed the ancient trading route from Dolpo to Mustang.
Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/bon-voyage/" target="_blank"> Bon voyage,</a> Sonam Choekyi Lama
“The weather is challenging, it is windy and cold on the pass, and we have to bring the diesel up by mule from Mustang,” says excavator operator Padam Bahadur.
Those who own lodges and depend on trekking groups for income are opposed to the road. Even if it is built, they say it should not destroy the traditional trading routes and trekking trails.
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Says Sonam Lama, an architect who fought a losing battle to prevent the road to his native Tsum Valley: “These hiking trails should not be replaced by roads. We should try to find an alternative motorable road.”
The dozers are also ploughing across holy chorten and mani walls. The excavator driver, who is from Piuthan, says he had to “relocate” a mani wall because it was obstructing the road alignment determined by the surveyor.
Read Also: &nbsp;<a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/stairway-to-heaven" target="_blank">Stairway to Heaven</a>, Kunda Dixit
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Villagers in Chharkha ask why Dolpo should not follow the example of Kagbeni, where the road to Lo Manthang bypassed the old cobble-stone streets of the town to preserve its heritage. Indeed, Dolpo seems to be making the same mistake as other parts of Nepal.
With little oversight by local or national governments, it looks like change is too big and too quick for Dolpo to handle.
“There is no reason why the road had to follow the trekking trails, go through the villages and destroy our holy shrines,” says Ramprasad Sherchan, owner of the Muktinath Hotel in Kagbeni. However, Sherchan now sees potential for more trekkers going to Dolpo via Mustang since the district will be more accessible.

New High Way to Dolpo

One smoggy winter morning in February 2019, Ekta regretted coming to her sculpture class. It was the first day of her period, and the 19-year-old wished she was home, curled up in bed with a hot water bag to soothe her cramps.
Her class was at Kalapremi Ceramic Studio, a dark room on the ground floor of a house in Maharajganj, and Ekta’s teacher was the artist Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’, a noted sculptor.
Two other students were already there, using all their muscle strength to knead the sculpting clay. Ekta, now 24, recalls how Kalapremi asked her if she was feeling all right. She avoided him, as she did not want everyone to know she was menstruating.
Kalapremi repeatedly asked Ekta what was wrong. She finally muttered that she was having her period, after which he grabbed her hand and led her to a partitioned corner of the studio and sat her on a chair. Before she could stop him, he slid his hand under her dress, and started massaging her abdomen.
“I was horrified,” Ekta recalls. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen, asking me not to be shy, saying he knew how to relieve my pain. He stopped only after I protested furiously.”&nbsp;
The art tutor then said, “You’re like my daughter. I’m doing it out of love to make you feel better, but you’re so stubborn.”&nbsp;
“Instead of saying sorry he acted like I was the one having crazy thoughts,” remembers Ekta, adding that from April 2016 to August 2020 beginning the time she was 16, the artist sexually abused and harassed her on several occasions. &nbsp;
Now, Ekta and the artist’s other former students are finally sharing their experiences and some are pressing legal charges against him, hoping that others do not have to endure what they did.&nbsp;
Award-winning artist and teacher Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’ (the name means ‘Art Lover’) is known for his ceramic art, sculpture, and contemporary pottery. He was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-house-of-kalapremi">profiled in Nepali Times after a collaborative exhibition</a>, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ at the Siddhartha Art Gallery three years ago.&nbsp;
His pieces, titled Gaalis, featured sculpted female figures with the heads of dogs, sheep, and donkeys (pictured) to depict derogatory terms for women. Some critics said the collection was a satire on feminists.
Kalapremi started his artistic and teaching career in 1983 and over the years taught at Bhanubhakta School, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Lalitkala Campus and at his private Kalapremi Ceramic Studio. He has also lectured at Jeonju University in South Korea and recently at Tabor Academy in the United States.
Seven of Kalapremi’s former students were interviewed for this story. Five female students said he touched them inappropriately in his studio or at Kathmandu University. Two male students said they witnessed him abuse and harass the women. In all cases, the students struggled to recognise the abuse when it occurred, and the lack of reporting systems left them to cope on their own for years.&nbsp;
Earlier this year, students shared a social media post hinting at Kalapremi’s history of abusive behaviour following which more students of the artist reached out sharing similar experiences. Some students spoke of abuse that happened as long as 20 years ago.
Kalapremi, 60, has denied the allegations. He told Nepali Times: “Some years ago, there was a movement encouraging people to hug and kiss. I used to do it purely out of friendship and love. But after seeing posts on social media last year calling out my behaviour, I realised my actions may have hurt some people. I understand now that I should have been more mindful.”
He added: “I am also an auxiliary health worker, so I know the exact points to massage to relieve menstrual pain. It’s not just menstruation, I take anyone who is ill to the hospital.”
Sexual abuse is much more rampant than reported given how difficult it is to prove it in court. The law defines sexual abuse as occuring when someone touches another’s private parts, coerces them into touching theirs, uses vulgar language, shows degrading images, or behaves indecently towards them without consent.&nbsp;
Ekta and her fellow students are consulting lawyer Suneeta Regmi Pokhrel, who says they know that even if the court decides in their favour, it is difficult to survive after speaking up, and influential men defend themselves saying they are being framed.&nbsp;
“They are in a lot of pain and weep when recalling how he abused them,” Regmi Pokhrel told us. “They are angry and have filed a case against him, but they are also terrified. They know he is a powerful man and they have seen how our society treats women who speak up against abusers. Unless people speak up, perpetrators will be emboldened.”
Art and academia in Nepal simply reflect the power imbalances in society where people with intersecting identities experience worse forms of abuse. Theatre actors Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Rajan Khatiwada, and Sunil Pokhrel were called out during the #MeToo movement in the Nepali theatre scene in 2019. Even after the allegations Pokhrel went on to receive national awards, while others continued to work without repercussions.
“If you speak up against abusers, you gradually get sidelined from projects,” explained a theatre artist who wished anonymity fearing professional setbacks. “The theatre scene in Nepal is quite small, you just have to make peace with the perpetrators and work with them if you want to sustain yourself.”&nbsp;
In academia there is a history of faculty members sexually harassing students and getting away with it. After Tribhuvan University (TU) lecturer Krishna Bhattachan was accused of harassing women students, the university said it would follow Nepal’s sexual harassment law and set up a reporting mechanism. But nothing happened to the professor, who had already retired. Instead, he counter-accused the students of 'attacking the indigenous people’s movement with baseless allegations' as <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/letters/2019/01/29/bhattachan-responds">he told the Kathmandu Post in 2019</a>. He continues to be featured as a prominent speaker including at TU.
Other faculty members previously accused of sexual harassment include Jagadish Murti Koirala from TU, Bishnu Prasad Acharya from Ratna Rajya Campus, and Bodha Raj Tripathee from Lalitpur Madhyamik Vidhyalaya. A woman staff member from TU also filed a sexual abuse complaint against Dambar Chemjong from TU.
Prominent figures like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">mountaineer Nims Purja</a> have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/sports/mountaineering-sexual-harassment-abuse-nims-purja.html">accused of sexual assault</a>, and cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane, actor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/celebrity-rape-case-spotlights-nepal-laws">Paul Shah</a>, and former speaker of Parliament <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mahara-arrested">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> have been accused of rape, but society-at-large has let off the alleged perpetrators amdist a larger debate about justice for survivors and punishment of perpetrators.&nbsp;
‘Gaushala-26’ is the court name given to the 18-year-old who accused Sandeep Lamichhane, former captain of Nepal’s national cricket team and skipper of Biratnagar Kings in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/here-comes-the-nepal-premier-league">ongoing Nepal Premier League</a>, of rape. She left the country citing society questioning her character affecting her mental health while Lamichhane got an outpouring of support. In May, the Patan High Court overturned a prior verdict that found Lamichhane guilty of rape and had sentenced him to eight years in prison. During the 23-month legal battle to pursue justice, Gaushala-26 faced threats of gang rape and acid attacks.&nbsp;
Exhausted by the struggle, Gaushala-26 sought to “move to a new world” where she could live free without hiding her identity.
Actress Samragyee Rajya Laxmi Shah in an Instagram video now deleted detailed the harassment she faced from a filmmaker during a movie shoot. She did not name any name but veteran actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against Rana, but the court ruled that the charge lacked sufficient evidence.&nbsp;
Former Kathmandu mayor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo">Keshav Sthapit also mocked the #MeToo movement</a>, calling accusations against him by journalists Rashmila Prajapati and Ujjwala Maharjan “a rape of men’s rights”.
Serial Abuse
Back at the Kalapremi Ceramics studio, another former student, 24-year-old Rajiv, says he felt the need to speak out after seeing his female classmates being abused.&nbsp;
“He frequently kissed them on their cheeks,” he told Nepali Times. “Whenever they walked into the studio he flailed his arms like a child asking for a hug. They awkwardly hugged him from the side, but he pulled them closer, held their chin, and kissed their cheeks.”&nbsp;
Rajiv says he also saw Kalapremi pull the women’s bra straps, touch their breasts, and slap their buttocks. The young students would freeze, not knowing how to react, and if they protested, he would say it was “normal in art”. Rajiv, 19 at the time like his classmates, remembers thinking perhaps the well-respected artist was right after all.
Another student, Luna, who took lessons at Kalapremi’s studio from 2020 to 2022 did try to confront the tutor after he made an obscene proposal to her. She recalls: “One day when the other students had left the studio and it was just the two of us, he told me that God had given him special artistic talent and he could transfer those powers to me. But to do that both of us will have to be naked, inside a dark room, and have sex.”
Luna, who was 18 then, was livid and told him she did not want any of his powers, but she says he laughed at her as if he was joking. She did not tell her family about the incident because she thought no one would believe her.&nbsp;
“They were all in awe of this famous artist and felt I should be grateful that to be learning sculpting from him,” she says. “I was scared to be alone with him in case he talked about sex again. My coping mechanism was to be rude so he wouldn’t try to come close to me.”
Seeing how some classmates were standing up to Kalapremi, Ekta too tried to push back against his advances, but she said he found ways to coerce her. Since Ekta, Rajiv, and Luna could not afford Kalapremi’s Rs30,000 monthly fee for lessons, he had offered them all a stipend to assist him in the studio.
“He had spondylosis and took me to his therapy sessions to learn massage techniques, then he often made me and other students massage him,” says Ekta. Whenever she refused, he would feign pain to make her feel sorry for him. “He would insist that I put my hands under his shirt so that I could massage him better,” she adds.
The art tutor often tried to “seduce sympathy” from Ekta by sharing how he had never been loved as a child and was “sexually frustrated” as an adult.&nbsp;
“At 7PM, he would pour himself Signature whiskey and immediately go off again about how he was sex-starved. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me time to realise alcohol was just an excuse to talk about sex,” Ekta says.
If convicted, Kalapremi could face financial penalty and/or a prison sentence of up to three years according to Section 224 of National Penal (Code) Act 2017.&nbsp;
Data suggests that victims of child sexual abuse on average take nearly 24 years to tell someone about their trauma, and some may never disclose it at all.&nbsp;
“In our culture, children are rarely taught about boundaries. They often react, show anger when adults pinch their cheeks. But adults insist they did it out of love, and force the children to accept it,” says Sita Lama, a psychotherapist at Manka Kura. “And even when someone touches them inappropriately they struggle to identify and verbalise it.”
When perpetrators claim to be “acting out of love”, Lama says survivors are likely to perceive it as something safe, rather than recognising it as abuse.&nbsp;
“It may take years for them to realise they were abused,” she explains. "And even when they become aware, the power imbalance with the abuser and the associated shame often prevents survivors from speaking up."
Other former students from the School of Art at Kathmandu University have also come forward years later, saying Kalapremi sexually abused them. As young adults, they felt his behaviour was off but were uncertain if it was inappropriate, illegal, or they did not know how to respond. After having understood that it was indeed abuse, they say they are speaking out now to protect others.&nbsp;
Amina Singh, a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, says there is no clause against sexual abuse in contracts of teachers, and there is no formal grievance handling mechanism for the students.&nbsp;
“So the only way students can to deal with sexual abuse is approach someone they trust,” she says.
Eight other former art students of Lalit Kala Campus and Srijana College of Fine Arts of Tribhuvan University and other private art studios in Kathmandu say they were also sexually abused by their art teachers. Three faculty members interviewed from these institutions said they saw the abuse, but felt it was futile to report it given how powerful the teachers were.
In the absence of a formal system, some longtime women artists warned each other about “problematic” artists. They shared &nbsp;a “heads-up” to be more cautious when collaborating with them, and avoided responding to their calls and texts after work hours.
To ensure art institutions are safe for all, galleries, museums, artist studios, and smaller art spaces need to develop policies on sexual harassment. This would include a code of conduct or studio policies that hold the leadership accountable and outline the principles of professional ethics.&nbsp;
Students and employees should inquire about accountability mechanisms for raising concerns, both formally and informally, advocates say.
Three years after Ekta left the ceramics studio, she learnt that Kalapremi had harassed many other women. Still trying to get a footing in the art industry, she attended a workshop in Kathmandu where women artists discussed ways to stay safe in the art sector.&nbsp;
Since it was a close-knit group Ekta opened up about how she felt violated and realised she was not alone, he had been abusing underprivileged students for years, and this was common knowledge among artists in Nepal.
Ekta says that even after she quit, Kalapremi continued sending her text messages like ‘I am thinking of you’, ‘Why have you stopped speaking with me’, or ‘I am waiting for your call’.&nbsp;
But what really forced her to act was when Ekta found out that he was sending similar texts to her younger sister.&nbsp;
“I’ve had enough,” she told us. “He abused me all these years but I won’t let him abuse my sister.” &nbsp;
Ekta, Rajiv and Luna are not the real names of the students.&nbsp;

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

It was 8:15 in the evening of 25 March 1968 when everyone in the village of Batulechaur near Pokhara heard a deafening sound like thunder as a bright flashing object hurtled down to land in a field.&nbsp; That field belonged to Kul Timilsina, and the next morning he retrieved a sheet of metal about 2m by 1m and carried it home with the help of a few others, thinking it would be useful for his buffalo shed.&nbsp; Before he died at age 83 three years ago, Timilsina had told photo archivist Sunil Ulak that the black metal sheet was not rectangular and had rounded corners. There are a few witnesses still alive who have a clear recollection of the object that fell from the sky that night.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="601" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>The field in Batulechaur belonging to Kul Timilsina where fragments of a flying object fell from the sky in 1968.</figcaption> </figure>  One of them is Timilsina’s wife Gyanu, who was 22 at the time. She had been at home, and remembers hearing the big bang and the sky becoming very bright. “We saw the thing in the field in the morning,” she told us. “It looked like a lid, a covering of some sort. The way it was stuck in the ground, it must have fallen from the sky. We thought we could use it to dry clothes on, and took it home.”&nbsp; Another witness is Kul Narayan Paudel. “I was only eight then. We ran to the field to see what had fallen. It was a four-sided metal sheet. The elders took it away, and I don't know what happened to it.” &nbsp; Ram Bahadur Baniya, a teacher at the local school, says he had heard the sheet had been brought to the school, and later handed over to the Zonal Commissioner at the time, Nanda Prasad Malla. “But that is all hearsay,” he says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="610" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Gyanu Timilsina, wife of Kul Timilsina.</figcaption> </figure>  There are two versions of what happened to Kul Timilsina’s metal sheet. One is that an American Peace Corp Volunteer teaching at the nearby Bindyabasini School took it, and another is that it was handed over to the government. Recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US State Department documents from the time say that the US Embassy in Kathmandu tracked down the object two years later and had it shipped back to the US. A telegram from the Department of State and Department of Defense tagged as ‘MOON DUST / Space Fragments’ dated 1 March 1972 stated: ‘1. Restored space fragment will be on board Embassy support flight 115 arriving Kathmandu on or about March 10. Fragment is packed in shipping crate (cargo no. 72-33365) marked in care of DAO.&nbsp; 2. State and Defense representatives examined fragments prior to shipment finding restoration acceptable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df" data-rendition-name="original" width="856" height="568" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Declassified CIA documents about the investigation into the object sighted in Pokhara. </figcaption> </figure>  The documents show that the US government, military and intelligence agencies investigated this incident thoroughly when it occurred, and have continued to revisit it ever since, as recently as five years ago. What is even more intriguing is that the object that fell in Pokhara was not the only unidentified space object that fell to earth that year. There were similar sightings of objects falling from the sky in Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968.&nbsp; These mysteries were the subject of a CIA investigation in 1968 titled ‘<a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81R00560R000100070007-8.pdf">Sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan</a>’, and the report is part of the recent online declassification of 800,000 top-secret documents from the period.&nbsp; &nbsp;Although unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a connotation now of being alien craft, it could be pieces of satellite, missile, rocket or even aircraft. The CIA report documents six sightings in 1968 and quotes local sources as describing all of them having similar characteristics: bright blue or red streaks in the sky accompanied by loud sounds like lightning and thunder and objects falling to the ground. Aside from the metallic object that was found in Batlechaur, there were other items also found nearby in Tallakot, Tureypasal, Armalakot and Maidan. Whatever the object was, it seems to have disintegrated even before it hit the ground.&nbsp; The CIA report records the first sighting on 19 February 1968 in various parts of Sikkim and Olangchung Gola and Ghunsa in eastern Nepal. The light was said to be ‘long and thin’ and giving out ‘green and red light’. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="892" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara "> </figure>  Two days later on 21 February, a soundless blue object was seen traveling fast across the sky above Thimphu in Bhutan. Then on 4 March there were multiple daytime sightings or white streaks in the sky at Chang La Pass, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh. There were more sightings in Ladakh on the very day fragments fell near Pokhara on 25 March 1968.&nbsp; After the sightings in Pokhara, rumours started flying in Kathmandu that these were aliens trying to land on Earth, it could be Russian or Chinese spy planes or satellites, and some even say it as a sign from heaven that the end of the world was near. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Russians and Americans were testing their thermonuclear devices as well as intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems. The Washington-Beijing rapprochement had not yet happened, and China was making quick progress testing atomic bombs. Within two years after its first atomic test, in 1966 China exploded its first hydrogen bomb at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, 3,000km to the north from Nepal. After neary six decades, what is still intriguing is that all the sightings within a few months of each other in 1968 were along the Himalayan arc bordering Tibet: from Bhutan, Sikkim Nepal, to Ladakh. The US military intelligence seems to have concluded that this was not a coincidence and there were frequent research trips to the site in Pokhara by American officials in the months after the incident. With the help of the Royal Nepal Army, the region north of Pokhara was thoroughly searched.&nbsp; A confidential memo dated 25 June 1968 by Jerry C Trippy to a ‘Mr Farley’ mentions that the US Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division had decided that the debris could be important because it may be related to a Chinese missile test or a Soviet ‘Vehicle Venik’ rocket.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  On 28 August 1968 the US Embassy in Kathmandu sent a letter to Washington DC saying that the object could be of Soviet origin, possibly from when the rocket carrying the ‘Kosmos 208’ satellite re-entered the atmosphere. But why were the fragments falling to earth several weeks apart, and in the same region? No one knows where the metal sheet that Kul Timilsina recovered is now. It was definitely packed in a crate and taken to the US, and although it is rumoured that it was returned that is not very likely. Archivist Sunil Ulak heard from the Timilsina family that CIA officials had returned to the site five years ago. &nbsp; Interest in UFOs peaked in the US in the 1950s, with the Cold War space race and tests of atomic weapons and delivery rockets. CIA and scientists were being sent to investigate sightings, both publicly and privately. Could the Pokhara fragments as well as the sightings in Ladakh and Bhutan actually be alien craft falling to earth? The renewal in interest in space travel in large part due to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, UFOs and sightings are again subjects of public interest.&nbsp; Even 57 years later, even if there was definitive proof about whether the Batlechaur fragment was from a Chinese missile or a soviet rocket, it has not been made public in documents declassified so far. We may never know.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598" data-rendition-name="original" width="642" height="320" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  Sunil Ulak speculates if the debris actually came from an American aircraft, perhaps on an intel mission upon China. “Which could explain why they were so thorough in collecting the fragments in Pokhara,” he says. But that still does not explain the multiple sightings weeks apart in 1968.&nbsp; Indeed, US military aircraft were at that time flying frequent night-time missions from air force bases in India to supply weapons to Khampa guerrilla camps in Nepal located north of Pokhara in Mustang. It could very well be that the Chinese shot down one such aircraft. The other sightings could have been contrails of US spy planes, or Chinese anti-aircraft missiles.&nbsp; There were quite a few developments regarding UFOs in 2024. In a US congressional hearing in July, former intelligence officer David Grusch claimed that the government had long been involved in a program to investigate and retrieve non-human craft crashes, and then try to reverse engineer them. However Grusch did not show any evidence.&nbsp; The UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 was signed into law by Joe Biden in December 2023. It plans to oversee the public disclosure of UFO information. However, there is a clause in it that prevents disclosure if it would cause threats to military defense, intelligence operations or foreign relations.&nbsp; It is unlikely that the declassified documents about sightings in the Himalayan will cause any real surprise about definite evidence of alien life even if it was found. It seems humanity will continue, at least for now, to wonder about curious lights in the sky and whether there is anybody out there.&nbsp;

UFO over Pokhara

When Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Rabi Lamichhane was arrested in October on charges of defrauding depositors of cooperatives, the party’s vice president Swarnim Wagle gifted him Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions.
Since then, Lamichhane has been shunted around from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Chitwan and back to Pokhara to attend police investigations and court proceedings. He was being flown to Birganj via Kathmandu on Buddha Air on Monday. There is another pending case in Janakpur.
Human rights groups and civil society have criticised the government for hounding Lamichhane with inhumane treatment that borders on physical torture. The two parties in the coalition, Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, see Lamichhane’s RSP as a potentially formidable challenge to their power.
Even if the fraud charges against Lamichhane are true, the Nepali public is increasingly looking at the government’s actions through the police and courts as political vendetta.
Despite all the travelling, sometimes by plane and often by road at night, Lamichhane appears to be in high spirits, waving to supporters who often gather if they know he is going to be driven around. A social media video shows him giving high fives to fellow passengers on a recent flight to Pokhara.&nbsp;
In the past weeks, streets in Pokhara have erupted with parallel protests by Lamichhane’s supporters as well as depositors of cooperatives who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp;
Although family visits are allowed, prison officials in Pokhara told Nepali Times that not many people visit Lamichhane these days. He added, “When he does get visitors, he asks them to bring him books.”
Lamichhane is currently Nepal’s most high-profile public figure in custody, and highlights the stark difference between how influential prisoners are treated compared to ordinary inmates.
There are six prison cells at Kaski District Police Office’s two-story detention centre, three on each floor. And while authorities pack prisoners into already overcrowded cells, Lamichhane has an entire room on the second floor to himself.&nbsp;
He has also been allowed to call his family every few days. Other prisoners are not permitted phone calls except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s former business partner Chhabilal Joshi, an ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police with whom he established his Gorkha Media Network, is in custody under the same charges in the prison cell next to him.
Lamichhane is accused of siphoning off depositors' money to the tv network in which he was part-owner and anchor. &nbsp;
Both Lamichhane and Joshi are able to buy food from the police canteen instead of being served the regular meal like other prisoners. Joshi has also given his statement to authorities in Rupandehi and Kathmandu for his alleged role in the scam. Lamichhane is yet to be presented in Kathmandu for questioning.
While he was in custody at the Kathmandu District Police Complex, Joshi expressed his desire to sleep in a police officer’s office, reportedly assuring authorities that he would not run away and he was entitled to certain facilities as a former officer of the law.
“He seemed to be under the impression that he is still a police officer,” says a source at the Kathmandu District Police. “We made it clear to him that as someone accused of a crime, he was not entitled to special treatment.”
Former ministers Balkrishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, and ex-home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who were arrested in connection with the fake refugee scam last year, were similarly housed in the offices of law enforcement officials instead of prison cells. Khand has since been released after six months in jail.
While there is no legal provision to keep high-ranking officials in separate detention centres when they are arrested, authorities granting them special facilities is not uncommon. Law enforcement officials say VIP detainees expect preferential treatment while in police custody.
Among those is former Kosi Province minister Lila Ballav Adhikari, who was arrested from Biratnagar on 10 November over his alleged involvement in human trafficking and brought to Kathmandu. Adhikari had flown to Japan without government approval with three individuals on 29 October to attend a cultural conference, but had been sent back to Nepal from Narita.&nbsp;
His three companions were arrested at Kathmandu airport upon their arrival, but Adhikari was able to exit unscathed from the VIP lounge. Adhikari had resigned as the Kosi Province Minister for Internal Affairs and Law when it became public that his companions had been taken into custody, and was himself arrested shortly after. He has since been cleared by the courts.
Throughout his detention, Adhikari was kept separately from other inmates. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basant Rajouri, head of the Bhadrakali complex, says that while there is no separate detention area for VIPs, some detainees are kept separately depending on the nature of their crime.
However, sources say that arrangements were made for retired judges and others to visit Adhikari frequently worked at the office of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) during his time in custody.&nbsp;
“He used to constantly pester the authorities to let him sit outside in the sun, and to be able to use the police officer’s shower area,” added an officer.
Adhikari was released on 25 November after the government prosecutor’s office decided not to charge him in a move that was seen to expose the government’s double standards.
Over at Kathmandu’s Dilli Bazar Prison, former Kist Bank CEO Kamal Gyawali emerges from his prison cell into the courtyard of the prison’s ‘Ka (क)’ block every morning with a thick book in his hands, ready to give his daily sermon.
With his long beard, Gyawali, who is serving a prison sentence for banking fraud, looks the part of a religious guru as he implores his rapt listeners to “walk the right path, abandon bad thoughts and turn to scripture and spirituality”.&nbsp;
Afterward, the attendees gather to discuss politics and current affairs. Inmates at his daily sermons at the prison include other high-profile detainees, including former MP Ichchha Raj Tamang, who is in jail for money laundering and cooperatives fraud, former joint secretary Chudamani Sharma, who was convicted of corruption, as well as NC leader Chandra Bahadur Lama and Krishna Bahadur Upreti of the UML both of whom are on trial for embezzling billions of rupees.
Victims of the cooperatives scam that former lawmaker Tamang was involved in have made trips to the prison and requested visits, but he has refused to meet with any of them.
“Tamang often complains that the state has prevented him from returning the money to the victims by locking him up,” says a police officer at the Dili Bazar jail.
“All you hear every day from the VIP prisoners is that they have been framed,” adds the officer. “No one admits that they were involved in misdeeds.”
But while most high-profile prisoners complain about prison conditions, one exception is former provincial lawmaker Deepak Manange, who is serving a sentence at Dilli Bazar Jail for attempted murder.
“He is the happiest prisoner here,” says a warden. “Unlike the others, he doesn’t claim to have been framed, in fact he doesn’t seem to care that he is in prison.”
Manange is detained in the ‘Kha (ख)’ block of the prison complex, which he renovated at his own expense. The block previously housed female prisoners, but Manange used his influence to transfer them elsewhere. He faces no shortage of visitors, who range from political leaders to people from the underworld.
Along with Manange, other well-known prisoners in this block include Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Poudel, and former executive director of the Surakshan Printing Centre Bikal Poudel, who are serving time for corruption.
Former prisoners at Dilli Bazar prison include ex-ministers Khum Bahadur Khadka and Shyam Sundar Gupta, NC leader Ganesh Lama, Maoist MP Balkrishna Dhungel, Nagarik Unmukti Party leader Resham Chaudhary, as well as former IGs Ramesh Chand Thakuri, Om Bikram Rana, and Hem Bahadur Gurung.
Section 54 of Nepal’s Prison Act assigns each prison’s internal administration the
responsibility of governing its prisoners, which means the more favourable the jail management is, the more comfortable it is for prisoners.
Dilli Bazar prison has been the prison of choice for many high-ranking prisoners, especially those convicted of white collar crimes, due to its more accommodating administrators. The prison, which has the capacity to house 700 inmates, is also less crowded than other jails.
Anuj Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Department of Prison Management, says that there is no legal classification in Nepal for felons to be assigned prisons based on the nature of their crimes.
“That Dilli Bazar Jail has a higher number of prisoners convicted of crimes like corruption is most likely a coincidence,” says Bhattarai. “There is no provision for influential people to be able to choose where they will be incarcerated.”&nbsp;
Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published in himalkhabar.com

What Nepal’s VIP prisoners do in jail

If you were raised in Nepal, you must have picked up its unique set of vocabulary: आन्दोलन, चक्का जाम, बन्द, राँके जुलुस, आफ्नो मान्छे, हाम्रो दल, कर्फु and many more words connoting political protest.
We became familiar with the acrid smell of burning tyres, and eyes smarting from tear gas. And yet, everyone speaks of another revolution in the making. Not by desire, but by suffocation.
We heard speeches about नयाँ नेपाल, but the New Nepal never arrived. The governance system changed, but it did not reflect on people’s lives — except for those close to centres of power. The state is still unreachable and is not bothered about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/matter-of-life-and-debt">victims of loan sharks</a>, cooperative scams and other injustices.
Politicians continue to speak in sound bites, but fail to deliver. They have mastered the game of pointing fingers towards an external enemy and convincing people that they are never at fault. The political narrative is so disconnected from the actual analysis of the problem that suffocation doesn’t go away after every revolution.
No genuine effort has been made to deliver at all, which is why there is a palpable sense of disillusionment in the air forcing us to seek another revolution, even if Nepal may not be able to afford it.
How has the current system successfully held power, even if the public is deeply frustrated? How is it that for three decades we continue to be led by the same faces, who have time and again, proved to us that they may be great politicians but not national leaders?
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/improving-internet-governance-in-nepal">My experience at the epicentre of politics</a> has led me to identify three cultures that have enabled political parties to keep a tight hold on power: acceptance, silence and dependency.
We accept things the way they are. We use fatalistic phrases like “नेपालमा यस्तै हो” or “नेपालको कानुन दैब जानुन”. While this resilience enables us to rise back up from devastating calamities, it is also a reason for our compliance with the status quo.
Despite so many ‘revolutions’ that have led to significant reforms, these phrases keep getting reinforced, to the point that the upcoming generations have made it their lingo.&nbsp;
This acceptance is not a symbol of law-abiding citizens, but citizens living in fear of those in power, unable to ask the whys and why-nots.
Innovation suffocates in this culture of acceptance of the status quo. This is manifested in remarks like “but we don’t have any laws for this,” or “we don’t have the capacity to implement this”. An innovator or entrepreneur therefore has to spend that energy to become a political lobbyist, often educating and convincing the bureaucracy.&nbsp;
Remember when locally assembled <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/designed-and-made-in-nepal">Yatri motorbikes</a>, despite having willing customers, had to suffer to secure license numbers because of a lack of regulations? Instead of creating new laws, the government kept chanting the “We will promote Nepal-made goods” mantra, leaving entrepreneurs in a labyrinth of bureaucracy. The weight of acceptance of the law lies heavily on innovators. Fatalism is a tactic used by those in power to generate mass fear in society.
When we accept, we become silent. This is a pervasive phenomenon. We are trained to keep quiet, lest we ruffle feathers, burn bridges, or not get the help we need in future. We know, yet we don’t speak.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bureaucratic-hurdles-in-researching-nepals-bureaucracy">Bureaucratic hurdles in researching Nepal's bureaucracy</a>, Daniel W Edwards
Here is one example: the 2021 census shows that the number of baby boys born for every 100 baby girls is 112. This is a clear indication of female foeticide because of boy preference in society.
Despite such horrifying realities, there is finger-pointing within the government between the Ministry of Health and Population with the Ministry of Home Affairs. At the citizen level, we know those who are involved in killing girls. Yet, we don’t speak up. The Nepal Medical Council reports state that despite this gender imbalance at birth, there is no indication of any action.
But why would anyone speak against one's own fraternity, no matter how vile the act is?
When we accept and keep quiet, we become dependent on those who yield power. From getting our government procedure completed on time to getting transfers, to accessing any of our legally protected rights as well, we are forced to depend on our networks of चिनेको मान्छे people we know by blood, village, relations, political affiliation.
The culture of dependency has been the established way in Nepal. If you drive a two-wheeler or four-wheeler, and you get into a small accident, you will be asked to sort it yourself, dialing up the most powerful person you know. It becomes a competition of who knows who.
Recently I was told that there were calls from the Ministry of Health and Population and another from the Prime Minister's Office for just one medical position in a private hospital. Each was pushing its own candidate. Guess which candidate got the position.&nbsp;
The dependency of people is not on the laws or the state, it is with people in power, a reliance on the network of somebody who knows somebody, including those not officially in power.
These cultures are deeply ingrained in our heads, and in society. Collectively they form a vicious circle that helps those in power to retain power. This is not the society we want to live in.
Then, what do we do as a collective to break away from this? How do we break away from the cultures of acceptance and silence that have created this dependency? What can we do to ensure that our children do not have to learn the jargon of आन्दोलन before they learn about the state?
These are the cultures political parties need to shed rather than use them to perpetuate their power. This is what <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/an-alternative-to-alternative-politics-in-nepal">alternative politics</a> needs to be about.
Sumana Shrestha is a member of Parliament’s Education, Health and Information Technology parliamentary committee and represents the Rastriya Swatantara Party.

manang