<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d08ac9c7e80680e0a602fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2172" height="1076"/>With a reduction of the country’s poverty rate, Nepalis are eating more meat and eggs per capita than ever before, improving their nutrition levels and driving a rapid growth of the meat and poultry industry.Much of this new spending on food was a direct result of remittances being sent home to their families by Nepali workers abroad. Middle class families that ate meat only on weekends, now have it almost daily. Many Nepalis no longer have to wait for Dasain or other festivals to have a meat dish in their diet.“Meat is no longer a luxury food item for festivals, now it is an everyday item in the household,” says Saksham Ghimire of Valley Cold Store in Kathmandu, which used to sell only 15kg of chicken when it first opened 40 years ago. Today, the store sells more than 10,000kg of chicken daily.Nepalis consumed 552,000 tonnes of meat in 2020, up from 357,000 tonnes the year before. Average per capita consumption of meat in Nepal has reached 18kg per year — up from 6kg per year in the 1970s. The UN has set 14kg annual per capita meat consumption as the minimum requirement for a balanced diet.Most of the increase in meat eating has occurred in parallel with the growth of the commercial poultry industry. The first modern farm was set up in Bara in 1960 with the import of new breeds. Since then, the poultry industry has grown exponentially with chicken production rising from 5,200 tonnes in 1981 to 255,000 tonnes today.About 700,000kg of chicken meat is consumed daily throughout Nepal, and half of it is sold in Kathmandu Valley alone. Poultry meat that used to make up only 5% of national meat consumption in the 1980s has now reached 46%, with Nepalis eating 1.62 billion chickens annually.There has been a parallel increase in the consumption of eggs, with per capita consumption now 55 eggs per year, compared to the UN threshold of 48 eggs per year for an average person.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d08af9c7e80680e0a6030jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2174" height="1432">Besides improving the dietary intake of Nepalis, the phenomenal increase in the poultry industry has also been a boon to the economy. There are now at least 340 modern hatcheries across Nepal with more than 100 plants that provide feed for the poultry farms.“The poultry industry has contributed vastly to the country's economic growth and provided employment to at least 500,000 people who would otherwise have to migrate abroad for work,” says Tikaram Pokhrel of the Nepal Hatchery Industries Association. “Requiring little investment and having very few barriers to entry, poultry farming provides opportunities for self-employment.”Nepal’s poultry industry, however, does face the challenge of reducing production cost to make meat even more affordable, and to compete with cheaper Indian imports. One main reason for chicken meat to become so popular is its affordability — chicken is at least three times cheaper than goat meat and nearly at par with the cost of vegetables.The contribution of remittances to the reduction of poverty in Nepal is the other driver increasing consumption of poultry products. Till as recently as 15 years ago, one in four families in Nepal received remittance income, and this has grown to one in two households who have family members sending money home from abroad.Remittances has brought down the proportion of Nepalis living below the poverty line from 42% in 1995 to 18% today — although experts say the pandemic has pushed more people into poverty because of the loss of income.The annual per capita income of Nepalis was only Rs27,227 in 2005, but this has gone up to Rs166,000 in the last fiscal year. Even factoring in the fall in rupee value, this represents a dramatic increase in disposable income which has contributed to a richer diet among Nepalis.It is not just the poultry industry, the production of goat meat has also increased to 71,000 tonnes per year after the government tightened quarantine rules for the import of goats from India which has saved the country Rs3 billion annually.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d08b29c7e80680e0a6031jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1996" height="1330">Nevertheless, chicken is still king. Poultry meat contributes over 46% of the total annual meat consumption in Nepal, with buffalo making up 33%, goat meat 17% and pork at 4%.There has been a direct correlation between the increase in meat consumption with better nutritional levels among Nepalis. The rate of malnutrition among children has dropped significantly over the past two decades. Stunting in children went down from 56% in 1996 to 36% in 2016, and has fallen further to 31% in the latest multi-indicator survey by the Central Bureau of Statistics.Similarly, the proportion of underweight children is down to 27% from 42% in 1996. Protein intake from meat and eggs have played a part in the reduction of malnutrition over the past few decades.“The protein-rich diet of meat and eggs has improved average nutrition levels,” says Aruna Upreti, who however points out that the gains are uneven. “In the Karnali, among Dalit families and across the Tarai, stunting and anaemia are still common.”Despite improving Nepal’s self-sufficiency in meat production, the growth in the industry has also increased imports of maize, soybean and grain that are needed to produce feed. Imports of these ingredients reached Rs23 billion last year.The other disadvantage is that the consumption of meat also has a complex and largely detrimental relationship with the environment. Meat consumption and production are large contributors to the emission of greenhouse gases, and livestock rearing is also resource-heavy, with 4,300 litres of water required to produce 1 kg of chicken meat and 10,400 litres of water for 1 kg of goat meat.Translated by Aryan Sitaula from <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/124463" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/124463&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1627457885279000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHw6QkywdBqaa4UMVcsJaJuaJBD9Q">the original in Himal Khabar</a>.

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Meat, money, and the middle class

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141156/636a60d99c7e80680e056e9ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1337"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHHETRI</figcaption></figure>As befitting a country whose patron deity is The Lord of Animals, Nepal’s autumn festival cycle is about offering buffaloes, goats and fowl to the goddesses, and worshipping cows, dogs and even crows.But our reverence for animals does not carry over into our day-to-day treatment of the animals in our midst. Owners are unmindful of how firecrackers frighten pets, municipalities lynch dogs, abandoned cattle roam the highways, buffalo calves die of suffocation in the backs of lorries, and the ultimate in cruelty: Gadimai Mela. How a country treats its animals tells us a lot about its culture.All this fatalistic brutality hardens us as a society, and translates into abuse of fellow human beings. State neglect condemns many to die due to lack of health care, and decrepit roads kill 2,000 people every year. No one has atoned for war crimes committed during the war. For a decade, Mohamad Aftab Alam got away with burning dozens alive in a brick kiln. An excavator driver in Baitadi last week swung his boom at people, injuring eight.For festivals to be really about the triumph of good over evil, we have to fall back on what all religions teach us: compassion, tolerance, non-violence against sentient beings and a reverence for nature.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35062&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In an Animal Farm</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35114&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Waiting till the cows come home,</a> Kunda Dixit<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35133&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saving Nepal’s last wild dogs,</a> Yadav Ghimirey<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35155&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A dog with altitude</a>, Sonam Choekyi Lama

Creatures of Culture

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141156/636a60dc9c7e80680e056e9fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="776"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHHETRI</figcaption></figure>George Orwell wrote 1984 to warn us about tyranny perpetuated by fear, and Animal Farm to tell an allegorical tale of the decay of communism. As history steps into the new decade of the 2020s, it looks frighteningly like 1984 has already arrived in the post-truth world.Animal Farm may have been a parody of Stalin’s Soviet Union but it has many parallels today, perhaps nowhere more so than post-revolutionary Nepal, where just about every character from Orwell’s farm has a corresponding political figure. Just fill in the blanks: Farmer Jones (……), Napoleon the pig (…..), Boxer the horse (…..) Moses the raven (…..) The 9 Dogs (…..)  and Benjamin the donkey (….). History is recurring farce.Nepal may now be a secular republic, but the country’s patron deity is still Pashupati Nath, the Lord of Animals. Paradoxically, for a country that worships animals Nepal is increasingly known as a country that mistreats animals. We love our animals to death.Animals are ascribed godlike qualities, only to be tortured and killed. All this comes into sharp focus during Dasain and the upcoming Tihar festival. You cannot eat meat without killing an animal -- we get that. But why kill in the cruellest way possible? Take a peek at the buffalo trucks that transport the animals to Kathmandu’s slaughterhouses. It is guaranteed to put you off buff momos for good. See how goats are unloaded at the Balkhu market, or how a dozen chicken tied to the backs of motorcycles are taken to the butchers with their beaks scraping the asphalt.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35036&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Creatures of Culture</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35114&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Waiting till the cows come home,</a> Kunda DixitWhen faced with criticism about blood sacrifices, Nepalis get defensive and go on the offensive, pointing at factory farms and assembly line abattoirs in industrialised countries. True, the west has perfected the art of mass killing of animals for food. But there is now a backlash: cruelty to animals and the climate impact of eating meat have led to a dramatic increase in vegetarianism and veganism in Europe in the past five years. Ten percent of Britons are vegetarian, and one-third of women there do not eat meat.This Tihar, Nepalis will worship crows, cows, dogs and bulls by garlanding and offering them treats. The festival is imbued with deep spiritual meaning, much of which has been lost. Despite this reverence of animals, Diktel Municipality last month beat dozens of community dogs to death with iron rods. In Kathmandu, dogs scalded with boiling water or acid land up in shelters every day. While we worship our pets on Sunday, hundreds will be so frightened by firecrackers they will get lost trying to get as far away from the explosions as possible.We will worship cows on Sunday even as thousands of abandoned street cattle roam the East-West Highway. A ban on cow slaughter and the lynchings of Muslim traders across the border in Uttar Pradesh has meant that cattle forsaken by their Nepali owners are now homeless.Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35133&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saving Nepal’s last wild dogs,</a> Yadav Ghimirey<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35155&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A dog with altitude,</a> Sonam Choekyi LamaSacrificing goats during Dasain is a ritual, and the meat is consumed during family feasts. But how does one explain the mass bloodletting of sacrificial animals at Kot? Or the unconscionable slaughter of thousands of buffaloes, goats, fowl and even pigeons at Gadimai? It is difficult to justify carnage on such a horrifying scale in the name of tradition, killing for the sake of killing just so the wishes of those doing the killing are granted. In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the Gadimai slaughter was indefensible cruelty, but next month organisers once more expect 6 million visitors to the temple in Parsa, and more bloodshed.It is worth pondering whether all this fatalistic brutality hardens us as a society. Forget animals -- look at how we treat fellow humans. State neglect condemns mothers and infants to die unnecessarily, corruption in the medical sector is a death sentence to many, our highways are in a perpetual state of murderous disrepair.In 10 years 17,000 Nepalis were killed at the hands of fellow Nepalis, and no one has atoned for the unspeakable crimes against humanity committed then. Mohamad Aftab Alam got away with ordering eight supporters to be burnt alive in a brick kiln to destroy evidence of bomb-making in the 2008 elections. This week, video emerged of an excavator driver in Baitadi swinging his boom at people, injuring eight of them.For festivals to really represent the triumph of good over evil, we have to go back to the basics of what all religions teach us: compassion, tolerance, non-violence against sentient beings and a reverence for nature.<h2>Ten Years Ago</h2>The front page of<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/473" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Nepali Times #473 of 23-29 October</a> 2009 reads as if it could have been written this week:At a time when India-China relations are returning to near-Cold War levels, the Maoists have been trying to play Nepal’s two giant neighbours off against each other. Having concluded that Delhi masterminded its downfall from government in May, Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has been cosying up to China. Beijing, which was happy with the way the Maoists cracked down on pro-Tibet activities while they were in power, seems to be only too happy to play along. Dahal’s visit to China last week, during which he also met briefly with Premier Hu Jintao, was either perfect, or disastrous, timing.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141156/636a60df9c7e80680e056ea0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="321" height="500">We don’t know what China’s message was, but sources say Beijing underlined the need for stability in Nepal and Premier Hu was worried about the growing political drift in Kathmandu. What Dahal’s visit seems to have done is made the Indians even more paranoid, and to conclude that the Maoists can’t be trusted.

In an Animal Farm

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

Pokhara’s tourism woes

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

Languages are both software and hardware

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

Job insecurity in security forces

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