Their names are so unpronounceable for Nepalis that Gereltungalog Erdenetsogt has the nickname ‘Ge’, and Giovanni Viradi calls himself ‘Gio’. The two world travellers have been stuck in Nepal since March because of the COVID-19 lockdown, but like it so much here that they have <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/many-foreigners-stay-put-in-nepal/" target="_blank">decided not to be repatriated on evacuation flights</a>.
Ge and Gio met last year in Laos, and were immediately drawn to each other by their passion for the martial arts. They came to Nepal on a trek, have been here ever since, teaching children karate and taekwondo.
“We considered going back, but Nepal made us feel at home and there are really good people who have been helpful,” says Ge, who is from Mongolia. Gio is from Italy and says it did not make sense going back to his country at a time when the coronavirus pandemic was at its peak.
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/many-foreigners-stay-put-in-nepal/" target="_blank">Many foreigners stay put in Nepal</a>, Sonia Awale and Marty Logan
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/travellers-stuck-in-nepal-help-locals-in-need/" target="_blank">Travellers stuck in Nepal help locals in need</a>, Sonia Awale
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Despite their different cultural backgrounds, the two are united by their zeal for martial arts. Besides giving martial arts tutorials to children in an orphanage in Panauti, the two have also been regularly recording a ‘Quarantine Self-defence Series’ on the terrace of their house in Swayambhu and posting it on the Internet.
“Karate can have a social focus and can be used as a powerful took for the empowerment of women and for anti-bullying campaigns,” says Ge, who adds that the lockdown period in Nepal has given them time to train, meditate and reassess their lives.
Ge, 32, was brought up in a nomadic lifestyle in the Mongolian steppe, got tired of a sedentary career in Shanghai and quit for a backpack life. On the other side of the world, thirty four-year-old Gio also quit his job as a chef in England and also headed out into the world.
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/girl-gurkhas/" target="_blank">Girl Gurkhas</a>, Monika Deupala
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Their separate trajectories brought them together in Laos last year, and they decided to explore Asia, pursue their interest in the martial arts. and are known by their Instagram handle, Karate Travellers.
“I was hooked to Bruce Lee movies when I was a kid, and did not like cartoons,” recalls Gio. “Dad even took me to a karate dojo and encouraged me to take part in tournaments.” Ge is also sporty, is experienced in taekwondo and nunchaku, and the two are a perfect fit.
The two put on their dobok karate robes every morning, set their tripod on the terrace to &nbsp;record their choreographed karate tutorials with a backdrop of the stupa on the hill, and post them online.
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Every Asian country has its own karate tradition, and the two train with locals to learn the nuances, and add to their repertoire. Gio explains: “We started to use karate as cross-cultural bridge, travelled different countries used martial arts as language to communicate with people from different cultures, and for self-improvement.”
For free-spirited travellers like Ge and Gio, the lockdown could have been like prison, but they have turned it to their advantage. Says Ge: “We decided to make lemonade out of sour lemon by keeping our minds busy and our body fit.”
With Nepal’s international flight ban set to be lifted in three weeks, the two may not have to wait much longer to go out into the world again.
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandu-airport-gets-facelift-during-lockdown/" target="_blank">Kathmandu airport gets facelift during lockdown</a>, Raju Banskota

Monika Deupala

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Karate Travellers in Kathmandu

<h2>The first step in reducing air pollution is to let the public and governments know how bad it is</h2>		
		https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mW7YmSSnes&amp;feature=youtu.be999: that was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/15/delhi-blanketed-by-smog-so-toxic-it-cant-be-measured" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reading in air pollution monitoring stations in New Delhi</a> on 15 June. Adding to the city’susual vehicular emission pollution was a sand storm blowing in from the Thar Desert (see picture below). Usually, even on bad air days, the Indian capital’s Air Quality Index (AQI) is usually less than 160 – so last weekend was literally off the charts.The dust was blown over by westerly winds into Nepal, where residents of Kathmandu saw trees, plants, parked cars and houses all covered in the muddy rain that fell for three days over the weekend.This was proof that <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/air-quality-data-to-figire-out-what-to-do,841" target="_blank" rel="noopener">trans-boundary air pollution from India</a> is a serious concern for Nepal. Fortunately the dust particles are bigger and are relatively less harmful than the more toxic smog also blanketing the north Indian plains that also gets blown over.Atmospheric scientists say more than a third of the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/every-breath-you-take-air-pollution" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pollution in Nepal</a> in winter is blown in from across the border. The rest is local dust, vehicular exhaust, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/brick-factories-still-using-old-polluting-technology,2078" target="_blank" rel="noopener">soot particles from brick kilns</a> and open garbage burning in Nepal itself. Air pollution is the reason for 250 out of every 100,000 deaths in Nepal.		
		<img width="1200" height="681" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107111152/6368e3749c7e80680e033383jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Data this winter showed that Nepal’s mountain cities and the Tarai had some of the worst air quality in the world – sometimes dirtier than Beijing and Delhi. On 23 April this year, the AQI for Kathmandu was nearly double that in Beijing (153) and New Delhi (167) measured at that the same time.Christa Hasenkopf, atmosphere scientist and co-founder of <a href="https://openaq.org/#/?_k=9nb7wc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">OpenAQ</a>, world’s first real time air pollution data platform, was in Nepal this week for a series of workshops on ensuring that air pollution measurements has an impact on policy formulation and decision-making by raising public awareness and sensitising government officials.Hasenkopf had previously worked in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, which also has high levels of pollution, and says making real-time pollution data available to the public can move governments to act.“Nepal has had more political will for air pollution than many places I’ve visited before,” she told Nepali Times in an interview. “By no means has the issue been solved, but what’s happening here in terms of engagement and passion for air quality and how it has evolved is phenomenal.”For the past two winters Kathmandu has been blanketed by dust raised by post- earthquake reconstruction, endless road widening and pipe-laying work for the Melamchi project. This added to vehicular pollution, smog from the Indian plains that also included heavy smoke from crop residue burning this year.Kathmandu was shrouded in a perpetual pall of dust and smoke. Hospitals reported record numbers of patients with respiratory illness including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases, bronchitis, asthma, emphysema and lung cancer.Moreover, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/110/32/12936.abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener">findings from a study</a> conducted by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago last year showed that worsening air pollution is decreasing life expectancy of South Asians, and of Nepalis <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/air-pollution-decreases-life-span,3999" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by up to four years</a>.All this has provoked a public outcry, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/air-pollution-survey-kathmandu,3998" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increased awareness about health implications of poor air</a>, but the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/polluted-politics-cartels,3533" target="_blank" rel="noopener">government has been slow to act</a>. It just revoked a law banning vehicles more than 20 years old, and emission tests and green stickers can be easily bypassed. Even so, change is in the air since local governments were elected last year after 20 years.“There has been a very visible change since last year’s local elections,” noted Sara Litke, Science, Technology and Health Officer for South Asia based at the US Embassy in Kathmandu, "people in cities like Kathmandu and Pokhara are well aware about hazards of air pollution and are speaking out."While public awareness has spurred private institution and the government to monitor air quality, battling pollution requires a long-term effort along with public engagement and political will, and Nepal lags far behind on the policy front, unlike neighbouring China that is switching to electric vehicles and green energy.“Nepal has limited access to air quality data. This gap in information is a major problem when advocating for policy change,”said Hasenkopf, adding that while access to open data and its dissemination to the community through media, academic papers on public health and social networking sites can have a huge impact, the next step is to ensure clean air at the policy level.Read also:<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/every-breath-you-take-air-pollution" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Every breath you take</a>, Sonia Awale<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/air-quality-data-to-figire-out-what-to-do,841" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Figuring out what to do</a>, Arnico K Panday<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/air-pollution-decreases-life-span,3999" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Breathing is hazardous to health</a>, Sonia Awale<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/air-pollution-survey-kathmandu,3998" target="_blank" rel="noopener">#BreatheFree</a>, Ayesha Shakya

Open air

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221104141140/6365167d9c7e80680e02c219jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"/><figcaption>Photos: Lisa Choegyal</figcaption></figure>"I don’t think we get many tourists at this time of year.” The Mongolian airline official looked doubtfully at the lines of stocky Mongols lined up at the Hong Kong airport check in desks.“Mostly only foreigners coming for business. Winter in Mongolia. It is cold.” In <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19519#.Wqo9bnzBXIU">Ulaanbaatar</a> it is dark when we land but the roofs and streets are white, and pavements packed with snow and ice. In the gloom, plumes of horizontal smoke gush from tall chimneys beyond the highway– the city is heated by coal, and there is an acrid taste in the back of my throat.Actually it is almost always cold in Mongolia. “We have such a short summer -- the tourist season is only a couple of months in July and August.” says Shatra, swathed in cashmere fleece and fur as we head out of the city in the early morning dark to drive two days, yes two days, to the remote Mongolian town of Khankh, on the northern border adjoining Russia. Our task for the week is to train locals to help them improve ecotourism in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh%C3%B6vsg%C3%B6l_Nuur">Khuvsgul Lake National Park</a>. This settlement on the Siberian end of the lake is best accessible in winter when the lake freezes solid.Our Mongol team, in a convoy of three warm SUVs, take their equipment seriously. They do not venture outdoors without layers of high tech clothing, big jackets, hats, gloves and scarves. Soon I discover why. The unforgiving temperatures are never less than 20C below zero and one night it reached up to minus 47C. Cold enough to send shooting pain through a carelessly ungloved hand and make my track-shoed feet ache.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221104141140/636516809c7e80680e02c21ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>From then on I wear lined hiking boots and our leader Badral, indulging me with his impish smile, gives me some serious gloves to supplement my wool mitts. Even the vehicles wear blankets on their bonnets at night, and one diesel jeep had a brazier fire lit underneath to thaw the engine.The huge wide open spaces of Mongolia release the soul and make the heart sing. The white snowy steppe reveals intricacies of shadows and colour as the low winter sun traverses the amphitheatre of the vast blue Mongolian sky. We drive north and west for 12 hours on a good road lined with packed snowdrifts, flurries of spun silver blowing across the surface and black ice lurking in treacherous corners. A frozen veil lines the inside of the car windows.Our cavalcade stops for a snack –- boar and horsemeat -- and three well-kept mastiffs appear out of the empty landscape to politely beg for titbits. In the monochromatic landscape, a man in a crimson deel and turquoise sash pushes his car back from the ditch into which it had skidded. A flock of sheep pick their way through the snow, herded by a boy huddled on his brown pony. Herds of horses with shaggy winter coats fend for themselves, pawing at the unpromising ground to find something to eat.The short days are framed with an insipid dawn and a lingering rosy sunset that sucks all colour from the countryside. As we pull into Murun with headlights blazing for the overnight stop, a sliver of new moon rises above the harsh black outline of the hills.The swirling steam, bulky silhouettes and tooth-aching cold remind me of my winter journey the long way home from Nepal in 1974. By rail through Siberia, only 20 km  north of Khankh, testing my personal limits by travelling defiantly alone on boats and trains -- from Japan to Scotland.Next morning we offer prayers to the lake with sprays of vodka, then gingerly drive onto the frozen, glittering surface. Badral explains: “It’s early in the year and the lake is only just driveable – the ice is only 50cm deep now, but next month it will be one meter thick and safer to drive.” This is a massive body of water measuring 135 by 45 km, and in places is 240 m deep. Mongolia’s sacred ‘Mother of Oceans’ contains two thirds of the nation’s fresh water and is linked by a meandering river to Lake Baikal.As we venture away from the shore, the texture of the lake ice keeps changing. We ride the smooth black, fractured white with cracks, sometimes frozen ripples as though a wind has suspended the ruffled surface, and then clouded waves like circular lily pads. We slide to a halt and get down to dance on the ice, pausing at a shaman shrine amidst pine trees on the lake’s largest island.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221104141140/636516849c7e80680e02c21bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="404"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Snow is blown into icy ridges and glittering blocks where the great sheets of ice have melted then collided and overlapped, crashing into uneven joined gullies of anxiety for the drivers. Long cracks have formed into a frozen furrow, sometimes several metres wide. These cause the most concern and have to be inspected before our cautious convoy dare proceed -- some are still soft but narrow enough for us to splash across. The trusty Toyotas forge through in a fog of steamy confidence, but other fissures require long detours. 13 13 Toktor, our stolid and highly skilled driver, has stopped singing Mongolian songs, his broad brow creased into a frown. Most alarming are the gunshot booms as the ice expands, cracks, and ricochets in the unusual cold. The thermometer on the dashboard reads minus 29C and it is midday. Toktor adjusts his brown fur hat and radios to his colleague in the car behind. “I’m so frightened I can hardly speak,” comes the reply. Toktor sighs when we reach the end of the lake. “Landed!” He grins, his big face wrinkles with relief.The Khankh lodge door opens in a dramatic swirl of vapour, like a pantomime entrance of dry ice as the frozen air condenses in the warmth, frost crystallises inside the door frame, and big boots clump inside. It was late that evening, nursing milk tea by the stove with flame patterns flickering on the cabin’s wood ceiling, that Shatra tells me the real story. A pony whinnies outside.“The drivers were unusually nervous because last night the Khankh school van ended up at the bottom of Lake Khuvsgul. In the reckless dark, the driver hit an unseen crack. There was plenty of time for him and the ten teachers to get out unharmed, but now the school has no transport.”Read Also:<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/bardiya-beginnings-Lisa-Choegyal,1085">Bardiya beginnings</a>, Lisa Choegyal<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/the-hippie-era-in-kathmandu,837">The unsuccessful hippie</a>, Lisa Choegyal

Lisa Choegyal

Wintering in Mongolia

The winter air pollution season started early this year with emissions, Diwali firecrackers and crop residue burning making the air unbreathable across north India. Much of the pollution was transboundary, with prevailing winds carrying the suspended particulates from Pakistan, across India to Nepal and beyond. All this pollution and domestic emissions killed 41,300 in Nepal in 2023, and 85% of all deaths were because of noncommunicable diseases such as heart and lung disease, lung cancer, diabetes, and dementia, according to the State of Global Air (SoGA) 2025 report released Thursday. With the onset of winter, Kathmandu Valley’s own emissions are trapped in a surface inversion layer and as in previous years will have some of the worst air quality in the world.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131016_7c42a4e8b0dce01dfeeaaf89dbb10dbfa036b41163f3ebada88c7ce17dbded49.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251023131016_7c42a4e8b0dce01dfeeaaf89dbb10dbfa036b41163f3ebada88c7ce17dbded49" data-rendition-name="original" width="921" height="850" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  The SoGa report says air pollution has now become the leading risk factor for deaths in Nepal, ahead of tobacco and high blood pressure. Interestingly, while the health impacts due to environmental risk factors such as unsafe water and sanitation have reduced significantly since 2000, the opposite is true for ambient PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 microns). Globally, 7.9 million deaths were attributable to air pollution– about 1 in 8 deaths – in 2023. Of this total, 4.9 million deaths were attributable to PM2.5 exposure, 2.8 million were from household air pollution, and 470,000 were from ozone. Similarly, dementia attributable to air pollution resulted in 626,000 deaths and 40 million healthy years of life lost. And 95% of air pollution attributable deaths in adults over the age of 60 are due to noncommunicable diseases. The burden of noncommunicable diseases in relation to air pollution is rising worldwide and in Nepal. The SoGA report shows that nearly nine of ten global air pollution deaths are from chronic ailments, and half of all respiratory disease deaths are attributable to air pollution.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131020_8577f464b4a73007de5dd018b8ac91dae3a9c732dbb81a44b6aa5a0ced7df3df.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251023131020_8577f464b4a73007de5dd018b8ac91dae3a9c732dbb81a44b6aa5a0ced7df3df" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  In Nepal, air pollution is responsible for three out of four COPD deaths, one out of three heart deaths and one out of five diabetes deaths. More than one third of lower respiratory infection deaths were due to air pollution. “The data presented in the State of Global Air report highlight the significant impacts of poor air quality on the health and well-being of billions of people around the world, especially those living in Asia and Africa,” says Pallavi Pant of the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI) that released the report in collaboration with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the NCD Alliance. She adds: “Growing momentum on air quality management across those hard-hit locations, including expansion of air quality monitoring, adoption of air quality regulations, and sector-specific interventions are yielding improvements for those most impacted.” Low- and middle-income countries stand to gain most by reducing air pollution, with particularly strong impacts on children, older populations, and people with pre-existing health conditions. Indeed, of the 41,300 air pollution deaths in 2023 in Nepal, 31,600 were in adults over the age of 60 years and 3,500 in children below five years. Death rate for air pollution in Nepal, which is 178 per 100,000, is more than 10 times higher than high-income countries, which is at 17 per 100,000.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131020_604e852aed4ffde0dc7d1df72fcd3e73d904136dfb1bb2407e53b7445f3ef72c.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251023131020_604e852aed4ffde0dc7d1df72fcd3e73d904136dfb1bb2407e53b7445f3ef72c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1078" height="423" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  “Win-win solutions for air pollution and NCDs exist, with added benefits for climate, physical activity, nutrition, and many other global development priorities,” says Alison Cox, Policy and Advocacy Director at the Geneva-based NCD Alliance. “These policies are effective and deliver a strong return on investment - for the sake of our people and the planet we need to implement them faster.” Fine particle pollution (ambient PM2.5) is the largest driver of air pollution’s burden of disease worldwide as kit attributed to 4.9 million deaths and 124 million healthy years of life lost in 2023. Vehicles, power plants, factories, and homes, as well as agricultural and industrial activities, waste burning and wildfires are some of the biggest sources of pollutants. South Asia is among the regions of the world with the highest exposures to ambient PM2.5 , while more than 36% of people around the world live in areas where PM2.5 levels do not meet even the least stringent interim target. As per the report, 78% of Nepal’s 30 million population lives in areas where annual PM2.5 exposure exceeds the least stringent WHO Air Quality Interim Target of 35 µg/m3. Meanwhile, exposure to household air pollution due to the use of solid fuels for cooking remains an important driver for the disease burden in the country. “Ongoing efforts to meet global development goals are not achievable without directly addressing air pollution,” says Maria Neira, Commissioner of Our Common Air. “Countries and cities must focus their efforts toward reducing air pollution emissions, including household air pollution, which has particularly severe impacts on young children and older people across Asia and Africa.”

Air pollution killing season starts early

Nepal needs to enact and enforce animal law

This year, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/quo-vadis-un-80-9vthn7mg">United Nations is marking its 80th anniversary</a> and it is being celebrated with special events across the world to commemorate its establishment on 24 October 1945. It has also been 75 years since the first UN adviser, the Swiss geologist Toni Hagen, was sent to Nepal to explore development opportunities. In 1950, there were no roads and Hagen walked on foot across the length and breadth of Nepal’s mountains, valleys and plains. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Nepal, and much of Hagen’s work laid the basis for the UN’s involvement in education, health, and connectivity in Nepal’s future development. Despite frequent changes in government and political system, Nepal has made remarkable progress. The poverty rate has gone down by half in the past 30 years to 20.27% of the population. Much of it has to do with remittances from Nepalis working overseas, but it is also a result of the Nepal government’s investment in education, health care and social welfare.&nbsp; There have been special initiatives like the Prime Minister’s Employment Program that have provided jobs to nearly 800,000 people in the country’s 743 municipalities — especially in those areas with lower Human Development Index (HDI) like the far-west and the Tarai.&nbsp; This year’s HDI report by UNDP shows that Nepal’s score had risen to 0.622, whereas it was only 0.404 in 1990. In the past 33 years, the average lifespan of Nepalis has risen by 15.6 years to 70.4 years, whereas it was only 54.8 in 1990. However, the country’s HDI ranking is still 145 among the world’s 193 countries. “Yes, there has been significant improvement in living standards in the past 60 years, road connectivity has improved, the maternal mortality rate has gone down dramatically, almost everyone has phones, there are schools,” says Saru Joshi of the thinktank Nepal Policy Institute. But, she adds: “It is still difficult to get citizenship papers, especially in the name of the mother, and this has excluded many women from banking services, inheritance. After all our progress in physical infrastructure, Nepal now needs to prioritise inclusive social development.”&nbsp; Some of this is also happening. Eighteen years ago, Nabaraj Subedi, 49, of a village in Baglung decided not to join his peers &nbsp;fleeing the Maoist conflict to find work overseas. He invested Rs500,000 to buy a diesel generator and start a small furniture business.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024071044_eeef308e19a73de507a425b2c6afc47269884549cf4c8fac07ca9a4898c8e031.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251024071044_eeef308e19a73de507a425b2c6afc47269884549cf4c8fac07ca9a4898c8e031" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Nawaraj Subedi"> <figcaption>Nawaraj Subedi, 49, proprietor of Tarakhola Furniture Factory. </figcaption> </figure>  Today, with the installation of the 380 kilowatt small hydroelectric plant, he does not need to depend on his unreliable generator to power his equipment anymore. There is now a road connecting his village, and Subedi has generated local jobs, opened a sales branch in the city, and gets orders from as far away as Pokhara and Chitwan. “My costs have gone down drastically because of the electricity, and sales have gone up because of the road connecting my furniture to markets. My business has expanded,” Subedi says. Back in 1960 in a report he prepared for the Nepal government on behalf of the United Nations, Toni Hagen had emphasised just this: investing in electricity generation and connectivity to uplift the remote rural areas of Nepal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024081024_188ab121dc3cf2816ee71a72cb3687493eda37ab99ecc04802d647c8c9b4cd2d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251024081024_188ab121dc3cf2816ee71a72cb3687493eda37ab99ecc04802d647c8c9b4cd2d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Tarakhola Furniture Factory"> <figcaption>Subedi's staff at the Tarakhola Furniture Factory.</figcaption> </figure>  Subedi’s furniture factory gets its electricity from the nearby Tarakhola Hydropower, a company set up eight years ago with financial and technical support from UNDP’s Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood (RERL) project. &nbsp; “The project completely transformed living standards in this village,” says municipality chair Dhan Bahadur BK. “It has helped create jobs locally, there is now money to invest in education and healthcare. Households can pay their electricity fees electronically through smart billing.”&nbsp; After working with the government on rural electrification, UNDP is focussed on using that power for local employment creation. A women’s group, for example, has bought an electric-powered potato processing machine that can produce chips.&nbsp; “We are 12 of us mothers, daughters, daughters-in-law who process, package and market the potato that we grow ourselves, and it has raised our income,” says Sukmaya Roka, 57, who chairs the group.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024071044_70b22418699178bcdd0abb0aa308796980ecd29634bcda6ff113a7624e709751.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251024071044_70b22418699178bcdd0abb0aa308796980ecd29634bcda6ff113a7624e709751" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Sukamaya Roka"> <figcaption>Sukamaya Roka, 57, chair of Sipa Aalu Chips Utpadan Samuha from Tarakhola Rural Municipality, Baglung. </figcaption> </figure>  Today, 6.1 million households in Nepal (92.2% of total) have electricity in their homes, up from 17.9% 30 years ago. Access to electricity has not just brought lights to homes, but improved everything from productivity, quality of education, healthcare and phone connectivity.&nbsp; “To see what electricity and roads can do, just look at our municipality,” says chair Dhan Bahadur BK, “citizens have become more self-reliant, more aware of the outside world.”&nbsp; NETTLES INTO CASH&nbsp; Just a little bit of training, resource backup and local empowerment can uplift the living standards of Nepalis. The progress made in harvesting abundantly-available allo (nettles) and turning it into household products is an example. When a landslide swept away his home and farm in a flood 40 years ago, Buddhi Purja of Parbat became destitute. But he took part in a government training program supported by UNDP and Australia to harvest the wild nettles that grew on mountain slopes and turn the fabric into bags.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024071048_56c440c478dffbc13911369b6f4133baf658cc3667773cdb44b7c40e006463ce.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20251024071048_56c440c478dffbc13911369b6f4133baf658cc3667773cdb44b7c40e006463ce" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Rhitu Saugat Handicraft"> <figcaption>A worker at Rhitu Saugat Handicraft making a bag out of nettles.</figcaption> </figure>  “After the landslide, we had to go hungry if we did not get a day job,” Purja recalls, “but after this training we have found that we can turn nettles into cash.” His allo bags are now hanging in tourist shops in Pokhara Lakeside and Thamel.&nbsp; The idea that nettles can be processed into useful fabric has not spread across the country, and new ecologically conscious consumers in Europe and elsewhere now import Made in Nepal nettle products.&nbsp; Purja started out with an investment of Rs500,000, and had a Rs20 million business that employed 25 workers. The Covid crisis in 2020 affected the sales, but Purja has recovered from it, sent his daughter off to study abroad, and is thinking of diversifying his product range.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251024071044_ab6d15abcbb9a643e12a384f4bc488b7e210a8c95303fbe1b2f77716d26eede9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20251024071044_ab6d15abcbb9a643e12a384f4bc488b7e210a8c95303fbe1b2f77716d26eede9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Buddi Purja"> <figcaption>Buddi Purja, proprietor of Rhitu Saugat Handicraft in Pokhara.</figcaption> </figure>  While UNDP’s project has made successful businessmen out of people like Purja, nationwide it has created 187,000 jobs in rural medium-scale industries. Much of what has worked in Nepal has been at the community level with decentralised projects like these that use the entrepreneurship of people like Buddhi Purja, Navaraj Subedi, and Sukmaya Roka. It is tantalising to imagine how much more progress Nepal would have made if their work could be replicated nationside and upscaled to the state-level.

Think locally, invest locally

Public anxiety about immigration has become a powerful political currency across many liberal democracies. In Australia, as elsewhere, legitimate concerns about housing and economic fairness can be, and increasingly are exploited by anti-democratic actors who frame migration not as a policy issue but as a cultural threat.&nbsp;
When these narratives move from online spaces to public rallies, they do more than divide opinion; they erode the social trust and pluralism on which democracy depends. Understanding how populist and far-right movements weaponise migration debates is crucial to recognising the early challenging signs of liberal democracy.
Immigration has become one of the most politically charged issues in Australia, not only because of the numbers but because of its entanglement with cost-of-living pressures, housing shortages, and rent spikes.&nbsp;
The latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) <a href="https://www.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2025/september/how-we-live-latest-hilda-data-gives-insight-into-a-changing-australia">data</a> shows rising household financial stress as Australian households spending more on rent and income tax. These changes likely reflect a mix of economic and policy factors but create a lot of room for people to hold inaccurate and occasionally contradictory attitudes on these issues.&nbsp;
While net overseas migration has started to decline from its post-pandemic peak, public concern remains high, amplified by populist rhetoric. Some surveys have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/04/australians-want-less-migration-but-oppose-cutting-international-student-numbers-study-finds">revealed</a> a nuanced picture: most Australians want lower migration overall but oppose cutting international student numbers, and support targeted skilled migration to address workforce gaps.&nbsp;
As former Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil <a href="https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/ClareONeil/Pages/how-australia-broke-its-migration-system.aspx">argued</a> in 2023, Australia’s migration system is “broken and un-strategic”, not delivering for business, for migrants, or for the larger population. This is a situation that frustrates both sides of the debate and makes immigration an easy political flashpoint.
The recent <a href="https://marchforaustralia.org/">March for Australia</a> rallies turned these anxieties into street-level mobilisation. Tens of thousands <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjmre371l1o">protested</a> at what they called ‘mass immigration’, while far-right groups seized the opportunity to inject xenophobic slogans and calls for ‘remigration’ into the public space. These demonstrations were not only about visa caps or housing and jobs; they became performances of who is entitled to belong.&nbsp;
When immigration is framed not as a policy question but as a cultural test of Australianness, it risks shrinking the demos, the very community that democracy is meant to represent.
What made the March for Australia so striking was not only its size but its composition. Recent investigative reporting <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/don-t-mention-hitler-and-you-re-sweet-the-great-march-for-australia-deception-20250909-p5mtlc.html">revealed</a> that neo-Nazi groups were not merely present at the March for Australia rallies but played a role in covertly organising them. They amplified messaging online, coordinated attendance, and sought to mask their involvement to broaden appeal.&nbsp;
This highlights that democratic erosion is rarely spontaneous; it requires actors who deliberately exploit social grievances, mistrust, and polarisation to mobilise anger for their anti-democratic ends. The banners reading ‘<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/01/how-do-i-feel-safe-after-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-protest-ntwnfb">Stop Immigration</a>’ revealed that public hostility towards migrants, <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pressure-mounts-for-price-to-apologise-to-indian-australians-20250908-p5mt7x">particularly</a> from the Indo-Pacific, is growing.
For many migrants, these displays are more than conceptual debates about white national identity. They are experienced emotionally. Writing shortly after the rallies, Melbourne-based writer Jafrin Kabir <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/01/how-do-i-feel-safe-after-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-protest-ntwnfb">reflected</a> that she had never felt so foreign on Australian soil. She pays taxes and inflated rents, contributes skills in the national interest, cheers for the Tillies and calls Melbourne “home”, yet suddenly felt unsafe because of the origin and colour of her skin.&nbsp;
Similarly, Chinese national interviewed by media outlet <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3325127/i-feel-insecure-chinese-nationals-australia-blindsided-anti-immigration-marches">reported</a> cancelling weekend plans and feeling “blindsided” by the scale of the marches.
Scapegoating migrants especially in times of economic stress is an age-old phenomenon and is not just limited to Australia. Across the democratic world, from the United States to the UK and parts of Europe, hostility toward migrants and minorities has become a route for anti-democratic forces. Populist actors often <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/27/peter-dutton-keeps-blaming-migration-for-the-housing-crisis-but-can-it-really-be-that-simple">use</a> cultural anxiety and demographic change to justify illiberal and undemocratic measures, claiming to restore order while actually dismantling checks and balances.
By analysing democratic decay, scholars like Lydia Khalil at the Lowy Institute, <a href="https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/democratic-erosion/">argue</a> that democracies rarely break down at once. Instead, they incrementally weaken through vicious cycles: declining trust in institutions, entrenched division based on hate, the normalisation of political violence, and the bit by bit removal of norms and guardrails.&nbsp;
Though some of the conditions are present in Australia to be exploited by anti-democratic actors, for example, almost two-thirds of Australians believe their leaders intentionally mislead them, according to the <a href="https://www.edelman.com/au/trust/2025/trust-barometer">2025 Edelman Trust Barometer</a>, &nbsp;but their presence is not determinative.
Australia’s democratic guardrails remain strong: independent courts, transparent elections run by the AEC, and a free press continue to hold power to account. Federalism and active civil society further diffuse power and create space for contestation.&nbsp;
But if public trust continues to erode and social divisions deepen, these safeguards will come under strain. Early recognition and action are crucial to ensure that today’s street-level hostilities do not translate into institutional regression.
Preventing such outcome requires a socially embedded understanding of migration, an understanding that goes beyond simplistic optimistic and pessimistic views. Policy makers should go beyond Push-Pull models, functionalist and neoclassical and historical-structural theories.&nbsp;
Consulting the work done by <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/The-Age-of-Migration/Haas-Castles-Miller/9781462542895#:~:text=International%20Population%20Movements%20in%20the%20Modern%20World,-Hein%20de%20Haas">Hein de Haas</a> et-el, migration should be conceptualised as an intrinsic part of broader processes of development, social transformation and globalisation rather than a 'problem to be solved'. We need more nuanced views that have an eye for the complexity of migration processes and the diversity of its causes and impacts.
Sohail Akhtar is a Melbourne- based researcher focusing on governance, public policy, and migration. He contributes to Lowy Institute Sydney.
This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from <a href="https://toda.org/global-outlook/2025/is-street-level-hostility-a-challenge-to-liberal-democracy-reflections-from-australia.html">the original</a> with their permission.