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Hiding their head in the sand

<figure><img width="1000" height="666" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/6372052b9c7e80680e0b28a0jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: SHAURYA CEMENTS</figcaption></figure>Nepal’s economic planners are proud of the fact that Nepal is now self-sufficient in cement. Indeed, domestic production has expanded greatly to meet <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/A-concrete-future,2251" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">demand that has sky-rocketed since the 2015 earthquake</a>.The boom is seen in any drive along Nepal’s highways — the wall of every other house is painted in glaring signs of various cement companies. Nepal’s cement market is so lucrative that two Chinese joint venture companies <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/going-is-tough-for-chinese-investor-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hongshi and Huaxin are among the biggest in the sector</a>.As recently as 45 years ago there was only one cement factory, Himal Cement on the outskirts of Kathmandu. There are now some 72 plants operating across Nepal that can produce 15 million tonnes of cement a year.Together, 21 of these factories with mining capacity extract 12 million tonnes of limestone from 46 quarries in the country. There is so much <a style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=6674" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">limestone in these mountains</a> that geologists estimate there is enough to sustain cement production in Nepal for another 100 years at least.However, Nepal’s cement boom is coming at enormous environmental and social cost. Investors and shareholders have gotten richer while the land and people poorer. Unregulated quarrying, lack of safeguards, and overexploitation have led to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/weve-seen-fire-and-weve-seen-rain/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">worsening floods and landslides</a>, as well as air, water and soil pollution. <figure><img width="1077" height="600" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/6372052e9c7e80680e0b28a1jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>50 years ago a Panchayat-era minister proudly said that Nepal needed more smoke stacks to develop. Today, Dhruvaraj Thapa of the Nepal Cement Manufacturers' Association echoes the same mindset.“We cannot overlook the benefits, including employment opportunities, provided by the cement industry,” says Thapa. “We will limit our possibilities if we constantly bring up environmental protection.”The government would like to think that the cement industry is helping the economy boom and earn revenue. While it is true that domestic production has reduced the need to import, what local and national governments get in terms of royalty fee is small change compared to the enormous environmental cost. Nepal’s cement companies pay only Rs60 for each tonne of limestone in royalty fee compared to Rs140 across the border in India. Yet the market price of cement is twice as high in Nepal as in India.In the past eight years, the government has collected only Rs2.84 billion in royalty from cement industries. On the other hand, the yearly turnover from the industry, says Thapa, amounts to Rs150 billion.For example, Sarbottam Cement extracted 371,000 tonnes of limestone from its quarry in Palpa district in the fiscal year 2019/2020. The company earned a profit of Rs1.17 billion, but paid royalty worth only Rs20.2 million — a mere 1.9% of its earnings.Similarly, Shivam Cement distributed Rs1.4 billion (24% of its total profit) to shareholders in the fiscal year 2020/2021, but the company paid just Rs26 million in royalty to the government.At the Department of Mines and Geology, director general Ram Prasad Ghimire advocates raising the fee for limestone extraction from quarries to a more realistic level, taking into account the environmental cost. Thapa at the Cement Manufacturers' Association counters, saying this could only make cement costlier for builders.   <figure><img width="1077" height="315" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205319c7e80680e0b28a2jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Nepal’s annual per capita cement consumption is 303kg, which is higher than India (195kg), but much less than China (1,716kg) and even Bhutan (734kg). At the present rate of growth spurred by infrastructure projects and housing, domestic cement demand could reach 25.8 million tonnes by 2025.  This means an unsupervised cement industry would end up not just affecting ground water, disturb fragile mountain slopes to trigger landslides, but also increase Nepal’s carbon footprint at a time when the country has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/post-cop26-nepals-real-work-now-begins/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">committed to net-zero emissions by 2050</a>.Environmental impact is not just something that concerns city-based activists or non-governmental organisations. Mahendra Pandey, a local in Dobhan of Palpa, knows all too well what having a cement quarry in the neighbourhood can do to agriculture.“Everyone talks about the benefits of the cement industry, but no one cares about how it affects us farmers here,” says Pandey, who has to deal with the impact on groundwater supply, soil and air pollution from the nearby Sarbottam Cement plant. “The government is no help, it does not care about what the people here on the ground face.”It is not that the government is unaware. All new cement factories have to complete an environmental impact assessment (EIA), but this can be easily circumvented, while report after report submitted to the government have been warning about the need for harm reduction in the cement industry. In a <a href="https://www.nrb.org.np/contents/uploads/2021/05/2078.01.25-Final-Draft-of-Cement.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2021 survey</a> conducted by Nepal Rastra Bank, 92% of respondents said that cement industries caused air, water, noise and soil pollution in their communities, severely impacting their livelihoods.But in a country where an overwhelmingly high number of mayors and ward chairs are <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/from-nepali-press/Elected-contractors,4182" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">contractors</a>, and big companies have political protection, awareness is insufficient for corrective action. <figure><img width="1200" height="700" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205339c7e80680e0b28a3jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>It took two decades of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11399" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">relentless activism for the government to close down Himal Cement Factory</a> in Chobhar which had affected the health of Kathmandu Valley’s population. But that was because it was the capital.Since then, the government has allowed two private cement factories to operate in Dhading’s Naubise which is situated in a narrow Valley that traps suspended particles.Locals living near mining sites in Palpa and Dang have long opposed the operation of cement factories in the districts due to increased pollution in the region. Residents in Makwanpur have also held protests against the limestone mines operated by Shivam Cement, citing environmental pollution.In fact, not even World Heritage Sites like Lumbini are protected: there are now a dozen cement factories within the 10km-radius from the birthplace of the Buddha.  Just last week, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed a case against nine cement companies, their operators as well as officials of the Department of Mines and Geology. They have been accused of exploiting more limestone than permitted without considering the environmental consequences and for evading royalty fees.There is no government monitoring on place to check the amount of limestone being extracted. The royalties are determined based on the documents submitted by the companies themselves. As such, there is every possibility that more limestone is being extracted than permitted.Cement factories transporting limestone and raw materials from quarry to factory have also destroyed road surfaces in many parts of the country. Ironically, an industry that is supposed to be the backbone of infrastructure is ending up destroying infrastructure.In a <a href="https://www.karmaquest.org/journal/index.php/ILGDI/article/view/85/59" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">research article</a> on waste management of limestone quarrying in Nepal published in the Journal of Development Innovations in July 2021, authors Birendra Sapkota and Kumar Khadka directly link soil erosion to poor management and monitoring of Nepal’s limestone mines and harmful excavation practices.Shivam Hongshi, one of the largest cement companies in Nepal, obtained the EIA approval in 2017 after the project was already half-completed. Huaxin Cement Industry was up and running in 2019 without EIA approval, concerns over which were even raised in Parliament. Moreover, in May 2021, the Ministry of Forests and Environment made amendments to the Environmental Protection Regulations 2020 such that development projects will now be allowed to use up to 25 hectares of forest land after conducting only a preliminary environmental assessment. Previously, an EIA was mandatory for all projects requiring more than five hectares.  <figure><img width="1200" height="700" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205379c7e80680e0b28a4jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Read also:  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/drawing-a-line-in-the-sand/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Drawing a line in sand</a>, Bhrikuti Rai <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/drowning-in-sorrow/">Drowning in Sorrow</a>, Mukesh Pokhrel Meanwhile, even as Nepalis living and working in proximity to mining sites and cement industries bear the brunt of resulting environmental and health crises, they receive few financial benefits. Ghimire of the Department of Mines says that the government has not yet tried to ensure that the benefits of the industry are more equitably distributed, as is the case with investments in hydroelectric schemes. “Stone, gravel and sand mining are controlled by a select few Nepali companies who reap the financial benefits while the locals incur damages to their livelihoods and the environment,” says former finance secretary Rameshore Khanal. Indeed, the excavation and sale of aggregates, boulders and sand from riverbeds have become so lucrative that local governments depend on them for revenue for development work. An estimated Rs100 billion worth of riverine products are traded annually in Nepal, with at least 600 ‘crusher’ industries converting them to raw materials for infrastructure. Meanwhile, the contribution to local governments is negligible compared to the huge profits made by the contractors who usually have local political leaders as partners or in their payroll.  Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/who-now-owns-nepals-forests/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">community forestry</a> program is internationally acclaimed, and it doubled the country’s tree cover in 25 years to nearly 45%. This is mainly because the responsibility of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/mini-forests-to-make-kathmandu-more-liveable/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">forest management</a> was handed over to local consumer groups which have expanded to over 22,000 all over the country.  At <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/copout-at-cop26/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">COP26 in Glasgow</a>, Nepal pledged to increase its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-can-up-forest-cover-to-45-by-2030/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">forest cover to 45%</a> of land area. But the overexploitation of natural resources, such as the government-owned forest areas and vacant lands for infrastructure, with hotels, cable car ventures, hydropower plants, haphazard housing colonies now threaten these gains.   Economist Pushkar Bajracharya is studying how benefits of natural resource exploitation accrues to Nepalis. He says: "When natural resources are managed in a way that benefits the people, it can reduce poverty and increase income." But Nepal clearly has not found that balance as it hurtles headlong down an unsustainable growth path. Translated from the <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/127559" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepali original</a> in the December 2021-January 2022 issue of Himal Khabarpatrika.

Nepal struggles to balance nature and industry

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b713c9c7e80680e0600bfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1340"/><figcaption>Photo : MANISH PAUDEL</figcaption></figure>On 10 January, 24-year-old Dilip Mahato was killed for opposing the ‘Crusher’ industry in Dhanusha that was illegally mining sand from a river. This week, another Dhanusha native, former president Ram Baran Yadav, spoke to Nepali Times about the Chure conservation program he initiated.Nepali Times: Dilip Mahato was murdered in your home district, and your former constituency. What does his killing tell us?This is a grave crime. Dilip had been mobilising the villagers and talking about Chure conservation. The people were responding to it positively. Those who were earning millions from illegal mining of the river beds were alarmed. So they murdered him.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/crushers-of-justice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crushers of Justice</a>, EditorialWhy does the trade in boulders and sand have to lead to murder?The price of aggregate and sand for construction is sky-high right now. The materials are even exported to India. Money is at the crux of the matter. Everyone wants to become rich quickly by selling natural resources. Businessmen, mafia dons, police, local administration, and elected representatives are all complicit. One river is contracted out for Rs50-70 million. Malpractice increased after the practice of allocating money for Chure development shifted to the local administration.The crusher industry is also influential in politics: many have parliamentarians on their pay roll, and some owners are even MPs themselves. They do not care what the exploitation of rivers will do to the environment, or what kind of earth we are leaving behind for future generations. Dilip was fighting to protect our future, and he paid for it with his life.What environmental impact does this river extraction have on the Tarai? More than half of the Chure’s forests have been destroyed in my lifetime. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/flood-of-recrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rivers and wetlands are drying</a> in the Tarai, and the groundwater table has receded. Water scarcity is increasing in the eastern and central Tarai. In summer, people come to the highways carrying drums on bullock carts to fetch water. Fewer migratory birds winter here now. Human-wildlife conflict is increasing. The Tarai used to be our breadbasket, and we used to export grain till 40 years ago. That is no longer the case.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/crushing-tale-of-Chure" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crushing tale of the Chure</a>, Sameen Raut and Dinesh PanthiWhile you were President, you established the President Chure Conservation Program, and there is also a Chure Conservation Master Plan. But the present government has not heeded the reports.The 20-year Chure Conservation Master Plan outlines activities to conserve the Chure. The government has included it in its National Pride Projects, but Parliament has not made any laws pertaining to it. That shows that the government is not serious about it.All the construction projects in the Chure negatively impact its natural resources, for example the East-West Highway that was built right across the jungles. An east-west railway is being constructed at a distance of 20-30 km from the highway. The proposed mid-hill highway runs parallel to it, and the postal highway is under construction too. Another proposed highway, the Madan Bhandari Road, is being built from Jhapa to Dadeldhura. The impact of these 4-lane highways on the environment was not considered. That shows the government is not serious about the environment.What do you say about the proposed Nijgad airport? The government just wants to destroy our last remaining jungles. It wants to chop down the forest to build a new capital in Kailali. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/does-nepal-need-a-4th-international-airport/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Do we need a fourth international airport</a> when international airports are already under construction in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/sick-airport/">Bhairawa</a> and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/pokhara-nepals-new-aviation-gateway/">Pokhara</a>? This is just immature. If we don’t listen to conservationists, the Tarai will become a desert in a few decades.Laws should be made to implement the Chure Master Plan, and an environment-friendly policy drawn up. But this subject is never raised in the federal Parliament. All three levels of the government should be active, and the government should understand that once you tamper with nature, the effects are irreversible.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19811" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Help save the Chure Hills</a>, Tirtha B Shrestha

“Business, bureaucracy and politicians all plundering the Chure”

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.”