<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2f09c7e80680e083ed8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="533"/><figcaption>All photos: DOUG BINGHAM/US EMBASSY NEPAL FACEBOOK PAGE</figcaption></figure>Pokhara is arguably the most well-known and popular destination for international and domestic tourists alike. Nestled beneath the towering Himalayas, the scenic valley is the base point for trekkers and climbers looking to take on the Annapurna circuit, or the casual traveller seeking to spend time relaxing near the Phewa lake and revel in the vibrant nightlife. As such, Pokhara gets over a million tourists every year.Tourism business operators in the city were hoping for a boom of visitors with Visit Nepal 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/survive-2020-revive-in-2021-and-thrive-in-2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">brought tourism to a standstill</a> as much of the world hunkered down at home. However, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/pokhara-tourism-lifted-by-nepali-footfalls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">domestic visitors have begun to compensate</a> for the absence of foreign tourists in Nepal's foremost destination, flocking to the city during the festival season in October-November.Even so, the streets and shops of Pokhara are not busy this year, bringing to mind how the tiny city bustling with tourists might have looked a few decades ago.  These photos, taken between 1962-1963 by Doug Bingham--a US peace Corps volunteer who taught mathematics at Prithivi Narayan Campus--show the timeless appeal of Pokhara’s sights, culture, and its people.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2f29c7e80680e083ed9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="526"><figcaption>Pokhara Airport</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2f59c7e80680e083edajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="837"><figcaption>Doug Bingham teaches maths to his students at Prithivi Narayan Campus.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2f89c7e80680e083edbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><figcaption>Locals at a welcome program organised for the arrival of King Mahendra.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2fb9c7e80680e083edcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="960"><figcaption>Kahun Danda</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2fd9c7e80680e083eddjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><figcaption>A view of the mountains from Mahendra Pul tole.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be3009c7e80680e083edejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><figcaption>Locals walk by Pokhara's main market.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be3039c7e80680e083edfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="642"><figcaption>The main building of Prithivi Narayan Campus, founded in 1960.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be3059c7e80680e083ee0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><figcaption>A student performs in a programme at Prithivi Narayan Campus.</figcaption></figure>

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Pokhara, six decades ago

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110811114/636a29b29c7e80680e0458e0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3456" height="2592"/><figcaption>All photos: DAMIEN FRANCOIS</figcaption></figure>Mountaineers have been asked why they climb mountains for as long as big mountains have been climbed. But for Himalayan and other Native peoples around the world, the question is ‘<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Climbing-to-the-divine,2111" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Which deity lives up there</a>?’Many mountaineers are not as spiritual anymore, and their relationship with high mountains is more ambiguous. The ancestors of Western civilisation in ancient Greece imagined that gods lived on <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=6215#.XIibbiIzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mountain</a> tops. Alas, sacredness today is a bit outdated.Although traditions linked to mountain spirits are still alive, many of us have lost the connection to that specialness of what some call ‘Creation’, or ‘Nature’, and its powers which humans used to personify in the form of deities. Hence, disenchantment with the material world pushes many of us mountaineers to the Himalaya to reconnect with Nature.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110811114/636a29b69c7e80680e0458e1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3456" height="2592">Ever since Nietzsche wrote ‘God is dead and we killed him’, everything pertaining to the divine and the mystical has become a bit complicated. Could it be that the earth's highest elevations have now somehow become the playground of not just alpinists and geologists but also of philosophers?After all, Nietzsche wrote: ‘Philosophy, as I have understood it hitherto is a voluntary retirement into regions of ice and mountain peaks’. Being a philosopher and mountaineer, I attempt perilous climbs that lead to Julius Evola’s ‘meditations on the peaks’. Jack Kerouac and the Beat generation's ‘urgency of life’ comes to mind where ‘It’ is the world within this phenomenal world I am living in, body and mind.That is what I'm looking for, up there: a world-ambience made of simple things that stand in contrast to the sublime majesty of the surroundings. A gigantic natural theatre, where I feel every fibre in my body like nowhere else. Granted, what I feel is mostly pain. But no pain, no elevation, and no gain. The physical and mental efforts I have to make up there are intense, magnified by hypoxia, exhaustion, varying temperatures from super hot to super cold. Yes, I actually turned around at 7,800m on Everest on 17 May last year because of the heat.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110811114/636a29b99c7e80680e0458e2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3456" height="2592">But it is not just the body that suffers, but the mind which is on edge. Yet, as much as climbing at the highest elevations is physically excruciating, it is equally rewarding mentally. The higher you get the more a certain torpor brings out deep feelings. A paradox? No, this sluggishness leads not only to a simplicity of actions -- one foot in front of the other -- it is also a mental simplicity, or reduction.‘When I'm up above 8,000m … all desires vanish, the anxiety, the dissatisfaction that I experience down there are gone,’ writes Marco Bianchi. A state of zen not through meditation but action.The more fear and danger are part of the experience, the longer the feelings will remain. Robert McFarlane in Mountains Of The Mind: A History Of A Fascination: ‘We had talked about how much pleasure the fear had brought afterwards. And we talked as mountaineers always do, about how strange it is to risk yourself for a mountain, but how central to that experience is that risk and the fear it brings with it.’Then, this song by Luc van Acker: ‘I want to feel the fear that's in my heart, the fear in my heart that keeps telling me which way to turn.’ It is the good fear, the one that makes me do the right thing at the right moment.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110811114/636a29bd9c7e80680e0458e3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3456" height="2592">Mountaineers are not enamored with danger, we are not suicidal. High-altitude mountaineering is actually the art of moving through danger and avoiding it. But sometimes it goes wrong. I survived the big 25 April 2015 earthquake at Everest Base camp that killed 18 people.‘Time doesn't stop or slow down when you are in danger. Everything happens as fast. It's just that – provided we survive them – we subject these periods of time to such intense retrospective scrutiny that we come to know them more fully, more exactly. We see them in freeze-frame,’ writes McFarlane.Yes, everything is more intense, up there, especially the hardships. Yet, the body ‘uplifts’ the mind, and vice-versa. Body and mind, this is what the humanimal really is. The paradigm may be defined by the human ability to displace oneself mentally in space and time, but it is ‘conquistadors of the useless’ (Lionel Terray) who are actually climbing where no other will venture. Only the fiercest animal on the planet, the infamous <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/tv/phantom-wolverine/;">wolverine</a> (gulo gulo), seems to share this passion for climbing big hills for no other reason than hard-earned pleasure.Unlike speed-climbers I do not seek to set up new records and certainly do not climb to deconstruct the laws of elementary physics. I rejoice in the simplicity of life and of what I do, but I am not interested in faster, faster, faster. This is a Western illusion which is rooted in the false notion that ‘progress’ is linear and always leads to something ‘better’.Maybe the real reason why we venture up there is to ‘systematically rearrange the senses’ to paraphrase Rimbaud. Fear and danger dynamise existence, you live more consciously where there are no machines and buttons, no double clicks. It is back to fundamentals, as Friedrich Nietzsche, wrote: ‘To live at all means to live in danger.’<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/profiting-from-tragedy-in-Everest,2590">Damien Francois</a> is a climber and author of The Holy Mountains of Nepal. His Everest climb this spring will be his 19th expedition in Nepal.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/climbers-help-clean-everest-after-earthquake,2228" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Climbers help clean Everest after earthquake</a><a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Climbing-to-the-divine,2111" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Climbing to the divine</a>, Stéphane Huët<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110811114/636a29c19c7e80680e0458e4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2340" height="1974">

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Why we climb mountains

Fenerbahçe Beko won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague finals in Abu Dhabi, held 23-25 May, defeating Monaco 81-70 in the final. Olympiacos, who defeated Panathinaikos 97-93, finished the series in third place. The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final match, Nigel Hayes-Davis from Fenerbahçe Beko, received a prize of 1,000,000 Miles&amp;Smiles from Turkish Airlines’ Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmuştur. The carrier has been the title sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, a top tier tournament, since 2010.

Turkish Basketball

In the black and white photograph, General Wangdu smiles broadly in front of the dusty cactus garden in Kathmandu’s Annapurna Hotel. With an ill-fitting jacket and shaggy hair he looks benign enough, but this was the last leader of the Tibetan freedom fighters who led the resistance against the Chinese from their remote mountain hideouts in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/comings-and-goings-in-mustang">Mustang</a>. Five months later, Wangdu was dead. Snapped in March 1974, I had only recently arrived in Nepal. How did I meet this legendary fighter? Possibly with his devoted camp follower, Lynne Klapecki, and probably in the Om Restaurant near Freak Street which was the preferred <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/hippie-trail-nostalgia-in-kathmandu">hippie hang-out</a>. Om Lobsang and his brother Yeshe were <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/earthquake-brings-back-memories-of-camps-for-tibetan-refugees">refugees from East Tibet </a>whose cafe offered a friendly welcome and<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/momo-loco"> the best momos</a> - they became my in-laws after I married their eldest brother Tenzin, but that was a decade later.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1583" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption> </figure>  Wangdu’s English was enthusiastically rudimentary, but even riding around town with him on the back of an aging <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-new-motorbike-museum">motorbike</a>, he was a commanding presence. Always flanked by armed outriders, impressive scars marked his forearms and a pistol hung from the cord around his neck. A charismatic guerrilla leader, Wangdu was celebrated by his followers for his tough commitment and respected for his measured pragmatism. He seemed so young to have shouldered such a responsibility of command, leading hundreds of hardened <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/50-years-after-the%20raid-into-Tibet,1012#google_vignette">Khampa combatants </a>through what had been a particularly <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/heavy-snowfall-over-nepal-himalaya">brutal winter in Mustang</a>, the last bastion to hold out against the Chinese invasion of their Tibetan homeland.&nbsp; The freedom fighters of Tibet, known as the Chushi-Gangdruk, had emerged to resist the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism">Chinese takeover</a> of Tibet during the 1950s. Estimated to be 80,000-strong at the time of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-or-who-after-the-dalai-lama">the Dalai Lama</a>’s final escape to India in 1959, the sheer number of Chinese deployed into Tibet eventually forced the Chushi-Gangdruk to retreat to Mustang, From this high Himalayan stronghold, they continued cross-border raids on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) throughout the 1960s.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="676" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Guerrillas known as the Chushi-Gangdruk emerged to resist the Chinese annexation of Tibet during the 1950s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>  Their Kathmandu base was a small discreet lodge in a back lane near Rani Pokhari. Sipping sweet tea from a blue mug with a chipped lid, I sat bemused in a corner of the Mustang Hotel room whilst Wangdu and his cohorts received a battered brown suitcase from their CIA connection, a tousle-haired American in a leather jacket. Heaved onto the dingy bedspread that covered the thin mattress, it was clicked open to reveal piles of neatly stacked dollar bills.&nbsp; I cannot think why Wangdu allowed me to witness this handover but I was clearly no threat, a newly arrived world traveller with no understanding of the stakes nor any Nepali or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/tibetan-music-in-nepals-sacred-valley">Tibetan language</a>. Despite armed guards in the corridor,Wangdu radiated confidence and bravado, and there was a practiced familiarity to the tense transaction. This deadly dance for many years had been funded by the Americans, tolerated by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-kingdom-within-a-republic">Mustang’s residents</a>, and permitted by King Mahendra and the Nepali authorities who it suited to turn a blind eye.&nbsp; But Mahendra died in 1972, and times were changing. Richard Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy thawed the cold war and signalled a fresh entente with China. Nepal’s yet-to-be-crowned <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">King Birendra </a>was under pressure to curb the irritating incursions against the PLA launched from the Nepali territory of Mustang. Keen to appease his northern neighbour, on several occasions the King summoned Wangdu for peace talks but, despite increasingly overwhelming odds, Wangdu refused to surrender.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1055" height="885" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>General Wangdu flanked by two Tibetan resistance fighters in Mustang in the 1970s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31" data-rendition-name="original" width="1044" height="792" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>King Birendra with General Wangdu (right in dark glasses) taken in 1974 possibly in Mustang after one of their few attempts at negotiation. Photo courtesy: RAJRNDRA KUNWAR</figcaption> </figure>  While I naively rode pillion around Kathmandu in the spring sunshine, Wangdu was in the midst of what turned out to be his final round of negotiations with the Nepal government. Refusing to cease hostilities with the Chinese, Wangdu must have suspected the cost of his decision, making his cheerful smile in the photograph all the more poignant and brave. It was only much later that I appreciated the significance of the moment. Wangdu had been sent to replace the first resistance leader in Mustang, Baba Gen Yeshe, a much derided corrupt character who stole money meant for his troops and exploited fleeing refugees by seizing their treasures. Baba Gen Yeshe never forgave Wangdu,and sought revenge in May 1974 by betraying him and his commanders to the Nepal authorities. Renewed Chinese incursions from the north, active PLA collusion with the Nepali forces under the new King, and treachery from within the Chushi-Gangdrukranks combined to seal their fate.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1400" height="769" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>British television journalists George Patterson and Adrian Cowell embedded themselves with Khampa guerrillas and accompanied them from Tsum Valley on a cross border raid on a Chinese Army convoy in 1964. Photo: ESSAYS ON NEPAL / SAM COWAN</figcaption> </figure>  Mikel Dunham, renowned author of Buddha’s Warriors, writes: ‘It is possible that Wangdu was waiting for some cue from the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. It is equally possible – during that last, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-human-cost-of-nepal-s-yarsa-gold-rush?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR31-Cqw8oyIwMPzf_35e4Skr0ululJvLf3_vDkzHn-AYG2h8uPw2rqqErg_aem_tGVn5coY1-jA7fze_xqhew">desolate winter </a>– that he made the decision to go out in glory rather than admit defeat. Over the last fifteen years, Wangdu had experienced Tibet’s organized resistance being squeezed and shoved around by every conceivable outside force.&nbsp; First they had been pushed out of their own country by the PLA; then they had been refused sanction while on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/nepal-india-trans-boundary-bonds?fbclid=IwAR0PpJ5zUEbwdug3g_U3ar6FUugngRY0S8Tl2v_7wqzrsHmXWcXsKjvL4t4">Indian soil</a>; then they were abandoned by the Americans because, apparently, Nixon wanted to make friends with Wangdu’s mortal enemies, the communists; then they had been betrayed by the vampiric Baba Gen Yeshe – a Tibetan and, even worse, a fellow Khampa; and now, finally Wangdu’s army was being evicted by the Nepalis. One thing was certain: Wangdu was a warrior. To imagine Wangdu simply giving up and settling down in the pacific squalor of a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp">refugee camp </a>was unthinkable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49.jpg" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="746" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>The much derided Baba Gen Yeshe, the first Tibetan resistance leader in Mustang, who betrayed Wangdu for personal gain. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="656" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Aditya SJB Rana of the Royal Nepal Army whose team ambushed Wangdu and his cohorts at the top of Tinker Pass in Darchula, West Nepal. Photo courtesy: GAUTAM SJB RANA</figcaption> </figure>  By August 1974 the game was up. Wangdu and six of his exhausted party were killed on their horses by <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7270">the Royal Nepal Army</a> on the brink of escape. The officer in charge, Aditya SJB Rana, cleverly predicted their route into India after they failed to silence a police radio in Yari. A carefully laid ambush trapped them near the summit of the Tinker Pass in Darchula,at 5,000 meters the highest military operation of its time. Wangdu’s body was helicoptered to Kathmandu, and a big show made of the royal Nepal victory.&nbsp; The Tibetan armed insurgency against China had reached its end.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> </figure>

The Last Days of the Khampa

Starting 17 September Turkish Airlines will fly daily to Seville, one of Spain’s major tourist draws. This is Turkish’s sixth destination in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, and Bilbao. Seville is in the Andalusia region on Spain’s south coast with a rich Moor history. There are approximately 30,000 Nepalis living in Spain.&nbsp;

Turkish to Seville

The newly-formed Himalayan Art Council is set to launch Nepal’s National Art Protection Platform that seeks to preserve <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-history-of-heritage">Nepal’s unique cultural heritage </a>using<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/artificial-censorship"> AI-powered tools</a>. The Council seeks to safeguard <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-art-going-places">Nepali art works</a> from neglect, theft and counterfeiting as well as preserve existing artwork and celebrate living masters by giving them a cultural space to continue the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/sacred-survival">sacred art traditions</a>. "We are introducing a new digital platform designed to preserve, verify and elevate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-new-generation-of-alternative-artists">Nepal’s art for generations to come,</a>” says a statement from the Council, adding that the digital platform will use AI told for authentication and blockchain to keep track of works of art. Artists can now be protected by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/ayo-ai?fbclid=IwAR1uwmTVq4gUB70ljfRezjzukD9ArWXPuMnUikopeQ8PoiZMjicToPSwhKE&amp;=1">AI tools</a> that detect forgeries, identify their work even when unsigned, and ensure they receive proper recognition and credit. The archives will be searchable with translated inscription and interactive guides. Says curator Meena Lama: “AI and blockchains are tools that give us the power to detect fakes and identify unsigned paintings and track every piece. With these tools we can restore trust, secure authorship and give artists the dignity they deserve.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53" data-rendition-name="original" width="1300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum."> <figcaption>Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  The Council is also holding an exhibition of Nepali cultural masterpieces with 50 historical <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Buzz-the-art,671">thangka and paubha </a>by past masters and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/between-the-sacred-and-everyday">contemporary works by current artists</a>. This curated collection is a living tribute to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">Himalayan culture</a> with economic depictions of deities, mandala and sacred narratives. The exhibition at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-portal-into-patan-s-past-and-present">Patan Museum</a> also provides an opportunity to meet painters and custodians of art and culture. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/golden-deities">Golden deities</a>, Sewa Bhattarai ‘The exhibition is only the first step in a long journey to ensure that Nepali art is no just seen but fully understood, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987">protected and remembered</a>,’ the Council says. Artist Kailash K Shrestha of Artudio has spent decades promoting thankha and paubha traditions because of their beauty and devotional meaning. But he also says artists are underpaid, exploited and ignored. He adds, “AI and blockchain are not just buzzwords, they are powerful tools that can protect Nepal’s artists from fraud, verify authenticity and build a permanent record of provenance.” Traditional Art Exhibition Till 17 May Patan Museum

mountain-climbing

Pokhara, six decades ago

Why we climb mountains

Turkish Basketball

The Last Days of the Khampa

Turkish to Seville

Digital protection for Nepal’s art