<img width="2211" height="1541" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161152/636d1ea99c7e80680e0af421jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>A <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mcc-ball-in-nepals-court/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$500 million American grant</a> to upgrade Nepal’s infrastructure appears at first glance to be delayed because of domestic politics. But the real reason seems to be Beijing’s opposition to the project, and its pressure on politicians not to implement the project.Sources say the Chinese government has been showing unusual interest in the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project as Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba prepares to present it for approval by the winter session of Parliament, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/mcc-row-rocks-nepals-ruling-coalition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">despite opposition from coalition partners</a>.On 22 December, Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi made a hasty trip to the Balkot residence of former prime minister KP Oli of the opposition UML. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/knowing-whats-good-for-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Oli and Deuba back the American project</a>, and some see this meeting of minds on the MCC even <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/just-do-it/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">triggering a breakup of the governing coalition</a>.On 13 December, Vice Minister Chen Zhou of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a video conference with the newly-elected UML General Secretary Shankar Pokharel.Pokharel is said to have assured Zhou that his party would not allow activities that could damage Sino-Nepal relations. The UML’s Bishnu Rijal confirmed that Zhou’s call was about the MCC, but added ambiguously: “He must have had queries about development projects that China’s neighbouring country is undertaking.”<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/missing-links-in-nepals-mcc-debate/">Missing links in Nepal’s MCC debate</a>, Jeevan R Sharma and David SeddonZhou had a similar chat with Madhav Kumar Nepal of the Unified Socialists who is also reported to have reiterated that he opposed anti-China activity in Nepal. Nepal has publicly stated he would reject the MCC if it could affect ties with neighbouring countries. CPC officials also held virtual meetings with Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist Centre, who has not hidden his opposition to the MCC.A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “There is no doubt that China does not want the MCC to go ahead, it has already conveyed as much to the top political leadership.”Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota of the Maoist Centre, who is close to Beijing, has said the MCC would not move forward under his watch. His predecessor Krishna Bahadur Mahara publicly admitted to stopping MCC ratification because it was anti-Chinese.“China has already sent the message that it will not sit idly if the development activities in Nepal undermine its interests here,” Nepal’s former ambassador in Beijing Mahendra Bahadur Pandey told Nepali Times. “China has been concerned about the MCC from the very beginning, and views it with suspicion.”<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/mcc-damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-dont/">MCC: damned if we do, damned if we don’t</a>, Nepali TimesChina’s objection to the MCC is most noticeably expressed through op-eds. Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at the Renmin University, in one interview with <a href="http://nepalkhabar.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://nepalkhabar.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640329948769000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1-5zGkO7r9layvLRxbBfav">nepalkhabar.com</a> last October called the MCC ‘an American ploy’.Diplomatic affairs expert Geja Sharma Wagle says that besides the Americans, Nepal needs to balance the interests of its neighbours India and China as well. He says, “It is in Nepal’s best interest to implement both the American MCC and Chinese BRI projects based on our national needs.”Many analysts see the MCC as America’s response to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bri-and-trans-himalayan-connectivity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Beijing Belt-Road Initiative (BRI) </a>which promotes connectivity and infrastructure in order to benefit China’s influence and trade in the region.Apart from Dahal’s CPN (Maoist Centre) and Nepal’s CPN (Unified Socialist), other coalition members Janata Samajwadi Party and Rastriya Janamorcha are also against the American grant. Even the Hindu-Right Rastriya Prajatantra Party recently spoke against it. Deuba called an all-party meeting this week to discuss the MCC, but Oli did not show up. Representatives of other parties reiterated their opposition to the compact in its present form. Jhala Nath Khanal of Unified Socialists was once more named to a committee to further study the MCC agreement.Dahal and Nepal used KP Oli’s support for the MCC against him in a<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/mcc-row-damages-nepals-credibility/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> bitter power struggle</a> that did not just split the Nepal Communist Party, but also the UML. They were so successful in generating public opinion against the MCC, saying it was an American strategy against China, that they find it difficult to back it now, especially with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/all-eyes-on-2023/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">elections a year away</a>.  Dahal is also concerned about his Maoist Centre general convention.At the height of political infighting last year, Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi lobbied unsuccessfully to keep Nepal’s communists united. Now that KP Oli is in the opposition, he is not as openly pro-MCC, but sees it as a weapon to get back at Deuba and Dahal by splitting their coalition — even if it means forging an alliance with the NC.Nepal signed the MCC agreement in Washington in 2017 when Deuba led a similar NC-Maoist coalition. The US has repeatedly said that the project is a grant that Nepal qualified for, and has no strings attached. MCC Vice President Fatima Sumar and US Deputy Secretary of State Donald Lu <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-stuck-between-rock-and-hard-place/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visited Nepal recently</a>, and reportedly gave Deuba an ultimatum to have Parliament ratification by the end of this year. <img width="1142" height="868" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161152/636d1eac9c7e80680e0af422jpeg.jpg" alt="">Experts say the MCC is important to expand Nepal’s power grid into the future with 400kVA transmission lines that can also allow Nepal to export more surplus electricity to India. Nepal will be generating 4,500MW of hydroelectricity in the next three years, and over 12,000MW by 2030, and much of it risks being wasted if it cannot be supplied to load centres. In monetary terms, Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-precious-electricity-going-waste/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">power producers could lose</a> at least Rs142 billion annually. Which is why energy experts say Nepal should start work immediately on transmission lines even if the MCC does not go ahead.Although most of the $500 million project is for upgrading transmission lines, it will also improve highway connectivity in central Nepal to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/generating-electricity-and-cash-for-nepalis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">boost economic growth</a>.  Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-cost-of-no-mcc/">The cost of no MCC</a>, Nepali Times

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China lobbying against MCC

<figure><img width="640" height="893" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07139c7e80680e0a5f9cjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI</figcaption></figure>At 75, Sher Bahadur Deuba is Nepal’s prime minister for the fifth time in 26 years -- joining the ranks of other serial prime ministers Surya Bahadur Thapa and Girija Prasad Koirala. That fact alone shows that the structural defects in Nepali politics remain intact, so politicians can keep returning to power without learning from, and atoning to, past mistakes.Deuba first became prime minister of a coalition government under similar circumstances in 1995 after the Supreme Court overturned the decision to dissolve Parliament by Manmohan Adhikari, who was leading a minority UML government.Since then, Deuba has led the country through key moments in Nepal’s history: during King Birendra’s reign, after King Gyanendra’s coup, in interim governments after the peace accord in 2006, and during the first federal elections in 2017 under the new Constitution.But Deuba’s long political career is replete with mis-steps and controversy.He must have had a sense of déjà vu as he challenged K P Oli’s leadership, since he himself dissolved Parliament during his second term in 2002, after which King Gyanendra sacked him for being ‘incompetent’.Deuba was then dismissed by his Nepali Congress (NC), which led him to found a breakaway faction. The same kind of power struggle that brought down the UML also plagued his party: first with GP Koirala and currently with Ram Chandra Paudel as the NC prepares for its convention.Deuba was in power when he waged war on the Maoists, who had placed a bounty, dead or alive, on his head. The fact that he now shares power with Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist Centre proves the adage that there are no permanent enemies in politics.In 2005, after his third tenure, Deuba was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for corruption, but was released after the court dismissed the case.After the 2017 election, Deuba handed over prime ministership to K P Oli. But even while Oli fought off the leadership challenge from the Dahal-Nepal combine, Deuba did not join them till earlier this year. It must have been Deuba’s destiny to bookend Oli’s term as Prime Minister and succeed him.Deuba’s fifth term is already off to a shaky start, and the choice of Pampha Bhusal and Janardan Sharma from the Maoist Centre in powerful ministries shows the kind compromises he has made with Dahal.Deuba also has a month to face a floor test in the House. If he can get 136 votes out of 271 seats, he can govern till elections in 2023. If he cannot, then Nepal has to go for early elections in six months. In May, the anti-Oli alliance under Deuba’s leadership had the support of 149 lawmakers — 61 from his own NC, 49 from the MC, 23 members of the UML Nepal faction, and 12 from the Yadav-Bhattarai faction of the JSP. The 23 votes of the Nepal faction will be crucial for Deuba, and some Nepal loyalists know that the UML will split if they vote for Deuba. But party insiders say there is now too much bad blood for Oli to offer Nepal the olive branch.Most Nepalis, while glad that the uncertainty in the UML has ended, are dismayed that the parties could find no one more promising than Deuba to lead the country. Deuba’s first task is to bring his disparate Cabinet members to make up for time that the Oli government squandered in dealing with the Covid-19 health and economic emergency, obtain vaccines to prevent a third wave, and deal with a disastrous monsoon season.They do not have high hopes.

Shristi Karki

Deuba.5

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cec219c7e80680e09ad49jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHHETRI</figcaption></figure>Nepal's prolonged political deadlock has not just affected the country’s response to Covid-19, it has also delayed the implementation of an American-aided project to upgrade Nepal’s electricity transmission grid.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/knowing-whats-good-for-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">controversial</a> Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project is the biggest single bilateral grant for a specific project in Nepal by a foreign country, but <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-millennium-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has become the focus of an intense power struggle </a>rival parties, and is tangled in regional and global geopolitics.A big part of the $500 million MCC grant is ear-marked for the Kathmandu-Hetauda-Butwal 400KVa transmission line which will eventually evacuate electricity generated from existing and new <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/decentralising-hydropower/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hydropower plants</a> on the Budi Gandaki, Trisuli, Kali Gandaki, Marsyangdi, Kosi, and Tamakosi corridors, and link it to Gorakhpur in India. A smaller component of the project will upgrade arterial highways. The Nepal government is putting up another $130 million as a counterpart fund.However, critics in Nepal see the MCC as America’s strategic counter to China’s Belt Road Initiative. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/knowing-whats-good-for-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comment by US Under Secretary of State David J Ranz</a> in 2019 that the MCC was indeed a part of the US <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/between-two-oceans/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indo-Pacific Strategy</a>added fuel to the fire.Sandwiched between India and China, Nepal was already in a strategic tight spot, but a recent flare-up in Sino-Indian tension and US-China rivalry have caught Nepal in the crossfire. In addition, opponents of Prime Minister K P Oli have weaponised the MCC and used the project to weaken his position.But Nepal’s energy planners say that even if the MCC is delayed or cancelled, the country will have to find alternatives to build the transmission lines.“We cannot afford this uncertainty we must have a Plan B in place, otherwise we will face a huge problem. There will be all this electricity being generated in the next few years, but no way to take it to consumers,” says Hitendra Dev Shakya, who heads the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). “We have to build the transmission lines with or without American aid.”The reason behind the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-millennium-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">transmission line being prioritised</a> is to send the electricity produced from throughout Nepal, and any future monsoon surplus can then be exported to India and the same lines can be used to import power in winter if required.New projects with a generation capacity of 330MW are under construction on the Bhote Kosi in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. A further 500MW will be generated from other hydropower schemes whose construction was delayed due to the pandemic.New 220KVa transmission lines are ready to bring that electricity to Kathmandu Valley, but they only have the capacity to carry the new load from projects now under construction. But the NEA has already made Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) to buy about 6,000MW of electricity from private operators, and the distribution of that power will depend on the MCC-funded distribution system. The NEA says it urgently needs another transmission link to bring power from plants on the Tama Kosi to Kathmandu and to eastern Nepal via Hetauda.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cec259c7e80680e09ad4ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="880" height="840"><a href="https://www.mcc.gov/where-we-work/country/nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The MCC</a> was set up in 2004 by the US Congress during the George W Bush presidency to help developing nations reduce poverty through financial aid. Since then, as Sino-US tensions grew it has taken on a strategic dimension as the two powers compete for global connectivity. The $500 million MCC grant to Nepal was sanctioned in 2017 to improve Nepal’s energy and road infrastructure.Nepal was suffering 18 hours of power cuts a day when the agreement was signed, and after much deliberation, Nepal’s planners, politicians and bureaucrats decided that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-millennium-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">transmission lines were the most urgently needed</a> since powerplants were already under construction. The generated electricity need to be taken to load centres, this would increase the renewable component of Nepal’s energy mix by replacing imported petroleum, and finally, to export any surplus to India.Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/post-truth-politics-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Millennium Challenge Authority Nepal (MCA-Nepal)</a> has been set up and the office has already finalised the design of the 315km transmission line of 400KVa capacity with three new sub-stations. But the delay in Parliament’s ratification of the project means it cannot issue tender bids, and this will put 2,600MW of electricity at risk of being wasted in eh coming two years.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17959" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Khadga Bahadur Bista</a>, the CEO of MCA-Nepal estimates about it takes up to five months to select a contractor even if the project is ratified by Parliament, and after that, it will take another nine months to start construction.“We are all set to kick start this project and are ready to call for international tender bids, but due to it still pending in the Parliament we have not been able to make progress,” Bista told Nepali Times. Just Do ItThe NEA says that Nepal is now generating 1,400MW of electricity, and this is set to more than triple in the next three years to 5,000MW, with the largest hydropower project so far in Nepal, the 456MW Upper Tama Kosi coming on stream in July, if it is not delayed again by the lockdown.Other hydroelectricity projects totalling 2,500MW are planned are in the financial negotiations stage, they are set to come into operation by 2026.But the more urgent need is power transmission to accommodate the new projects in the next three years as Nepal struggles to keep up with demand. The current peak demand is 1,150MW, which drops to 700MW at night. Generation capacity also fluctuates during the monsoon and dry season between surplus and scarcity because most of the hydro projects are of the run-of-river type without large reservoirs.To avoid electricity from going to waste during the monsoon, Nepal can export the surplus power to India, and import in winter. The agreements are in place with India to facilitate power trade, but current transmission lines cannot bear future load. The MCC-funded transmission lines are also required for domestic distribution and grid management.The present Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur crossborder transmission line connects India and Nepal but can only handle 1,000MW each way, but practically it can only bear 800MW. This means by late next year, Nepal’s new surplus monsoon electricity is sure to go waste.This will not just be a wasted opportunity for Nepal to reduce its trade imbalance and partly pay for its winter power import from India, but also affect private hydropower investors in Nepal. This scenario can be avoided if the proposed 400KVa Butwal-Gorakhpur transmission line.The catch here is that the NEA has signed an understanding with the private hydropower investors that it will buy electricity they generate only if the surplus can be exported to India. Any delay in building the Butwal-Gorakhpur transmission line to India, therefore would ultimately impact Nepal’s own private power producers. This put their investment at risk, affect the banking sector, and ultimately Nepal’s overall economy.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cec279c7e80680e09ad4bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="946" height="526"><figcaption>Illustration: BHANU BHATTARAI</figcaption></figure>Critics of the MCC have pointed out that exporting power to India is not a priority, and Nepal should use power from the new projects to foster value-added energy-intensive industries in Nepal itself. However, the MCC transmission lines will be needed even to feed power within the country.In addition, at the rate power demand is rising in Nepal, even if 5,000MW is generated in the monsoon, the capacity of the run-of-river schemes will drop to one-third in the dry season – as it has done during this year’s winter drought. The higher capacity transmission lines are therefore required to import power from India until such time as Nepal’s generation capacity in winter is augmented with storage projects like Budi Gandaki.NEA’s Shakya says the MCC project will form a backbone of Nepal’s electricity grid, and by linking it to the Indian grid it will be more robust and flexible, allowing load sharing and management. The MCC-funded transmission lines are also critical for meeting Kathmandu Valley’s future demand growth, to transfer power generated in eastern Nepal to the western half of the country during the monsoon, and from west to east in the winter.Fortunately, electricity supply and demand in Nepal and India complement each other. In summer, when demand rises in India Nepal has surplus power, and in winter when Nepal’s supply cannot meet demand, it can import from India.The same is true within Nepal. There is a nearly one month lag between the time the monsoon arrives in eastern Nepal in early June, and by the time it starts raining heavily in western Nepal in mid-July. This means projects in eastern Nepal are already operating at full capacity, and the surplus electricity can be sent to western Nepal where it is still dry – if there was the necessary east-west transmission system.“The risk that we will have to face in the coming years if this project does not materialise will be unimaginable,” Shakya warns. “If these transmission lines are not built through the MCC grant, we have to immediately start moving towards an alternative.”Good connectivityNepal signed the MCC Compact Agreement in September 2017 which allowed the MCC Board in Washington to release the grant amount of $500 million (Rs59 billion) for the development of Nepal’s electricity transmission line and road infrastructure. But everything has been stuck for more than a year because a provision in the agreement that required ratification by Parliament.The Americans insisted on this clause so that the project would be valid no matter which government was in power in Nepal, but that is also the reason that the MCC has become a punching bag for those against Prime Minister Oli—even though his predecessors in other parties opposing the project were in government when the agreement was signed. The NC leadership which is now in the opposition, as well as NCP leaders that included the Maoist Centre and UML, who are vehemently getting the MCC scrapped today were involved in approving and planning the project.Foreign affairs experts explain that the MCC has been caught up in domestic oneupmanship between Nepal’s leaders and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/covid-19-and-the-new-great-game/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">international geopolitics</a>. Nepal’s politicians have a tendency to be north-facing or south-facing, or both, and are generally not able to work together for the national interest. This is made worse by the absence of trust, and a lack of dignity.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131116/636cec2a9c7e80680e09ad4cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="1000"><figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>The US side has informed the government that the MCC grant is not open-ended and the deadline is looming. However, the MCC has also suffered collateral damage as Prime Minister Oli dissolved the Lower House on 20 December, and then ended the winter session on 19 April. The Special Session has been called for 10 May as Prime Minister Oli seeks a confidence vote. If he loses, the country will go for early elections in six month’s time. The budget session of the House could pass the MCC, but with the intense political polarisation, it will not be easy.Despite the agreement being signed by both governments, therefore, it is languishing because of Nepal’s internal dynamics. The main objection from the detractors is that it is a part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States, and that several provisions of the agreement undermine the sovereignty of Nepal.Bhim Rawal, a staunch anti-Oli UML leader, as well as Pushpa Kamal Dahal and other Maoist Centre leaders are against the agreement being ratified by Parliament, more because of their opposition to a project Oli is pushing than other reasons. A committee constituted under the convener of UML leader Jhalanath Khanal and others had recommended last year that the agreement be passed with amendments.Though the project has still not got off the ground, it has already spent about $3 million for preparations, which the US and Nepal government have shared half-half. It was used for the mapping and design of the transmission lines, the pylons, sub-stations, and preparing tender documents.The EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report of the overall project is in the final stages. The task of acquiring the land under the project in Ratmate of Nuwakot, where the sub-station will be constructed is nearing completion. The Nepal government has allocated Rs10.3 billion this fiscal year for MCC, but till mid-December only Rs140 million had been spent.

Power politics delays MCC in Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b84009c7e80680e06776cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHHETRI</figcaption></figure>Nepal's prolonged political deadlock has not just affected the country’s response to Covid-19, it has also delayed the implementation of an American-aided project to upgrade Nepal’s electricity transmission grid.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/knowing-whats-good-for-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">controversial</a> Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project is the biggest single bilateral grant for a specific project in Nepal by a foreign country, but <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-millennium-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has become the focus of an intense power struggle </a>rival parties, and is tangled in regional and global geopolitics.A big part of the $500 million MCC grant is ear-marked for the Kathmandu-Hetauda-Butwal 400KVa transmission line which will eventually evacuate electricity generated from existing and new <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/decentralising-hydropower/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hydropower plants</a> on the Budi Gandaki, Trisuli, Kali Gandaki, Marsyangdi, Kosi, and Tamakosi corridors, and link it to Gorakhpur in India. A smaller component of the project will upgrade arterial highways. The Nepal government is putting up another $130 million as a counterpart fund.However, critics in Nepal see the MCC as America’s strategic counter to China’s Belt Road Initiative. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/knowing-whats-good-for-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comment by US Under Secretary of State David J Ranz</a> in 2019 that the MCC was indeed a part of the US <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/between-two-oceans/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indo-Pacific Strategy</a>added fuel to the fire.Sandwiched between India and China, Nepal was already in a strategic tight spot, but a recent flare-up in Sino-Indian tension and US-China rivalry have caught Nepal in the crossfire. In addition, opponents of Prime Minister K P Oli have weaponised the MCC and used the project to weaken his position.But Nepal’s energy planners say that even if the MCC is delayed or cancelled, the country will have to find alternatives to build the transmission lines.“We cannot afford this uncertainty we must have a Plan B in place, otherwise we will face a huge problem. There will be all this electricity being generated in the next few years, but no way to take it to consumers,” says Hitendra Dev Shakya, who heads the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). “We have to build the transmission lines with or without American aid.”The reason behind the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-millennium-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">transmission line being prioritised</a> is to send the electricity produced from throughout Nepal, and any future monsoon surplus can then be exported to India and the same lines can be used to import power in winter if required.New projects with a generation capacity of 330MW are under construction on the Bhote Kosi in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. A further 500MW will be generated from other hydropower schemes whose construction was delayed due to the pandemic.New 220KVa transmission lines are ready to bring that electricity to Kathmandu Valley, but they only have the capacity to carry the new load from projects now under construction. But the NEA has already made Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) to buy about 6,000MW of electricity from private operators, and the distribution of that power will depend on the MCC-funded distribution system. The NEA says it urgently needs another transmission link to bring power from plants on the Tama Kosi to Kathmandu and to eastern Nepal via Hetauda.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b84039c7e80680e06776djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="880" height="840"><a href="https://www.mcc.gov/where-we-work/country/nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The MCC</a> was set up in 2004 by the US Congress during the George W Bush presidency to help developing nations reduce poverty through financial aid. Since then, as Sino-US tensions grew it has taken on a strategic dimension as the two powers compete for global connectivity. The $500 million MCC grant to Nepal was sanctioned in 2017 to improve Nepal’s energy and road infrastructure.Nepal was suffering 18 hours of power cuts a day when the agreement was signed, and after much deliberation, Nepal’s planners, politicians and bureaucrats decided that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-millennium-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">transmission lines were the most urgently needed</a> since powerplants were already under construction. The generated electricity need to be taken to load centres, this would increase the renewable component of Nepal’s energy mix by replacing imported petroleum, and finally, to export any surplus to India.Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/post-truth-politics-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Millennium Challenge Authority Nepal (MCA-Nepal)</a> has been set up and the office has already finalised the design of the 315km transmission line of 400KVa capacity with three new sub-stations. But the delay in Parliament’s ratification of the project means it cannot issue tender bids, and this will put 2,600MW of electricity at risk of being wasted in eh coming two years.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17959" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Khadga Bahadur Bista</a>, the CEO of MCA-Nepal estimates about it takes up to five months to select a contractor even if the project is ratified by Parliament, and after that, it will take another nine months to start construction.“We are all set to kick start this project and are ready to call for international tender bids, but due to it still pending in the Parliament we have not been able to make progress,” Bista told Nepali Times. Just Do ItThe NEA says that Nepal is now generating 1,400MW of electricity, and this is set to more than triple in the next three years to 5,000MW, with the largest hydropower project so far in Nepal, the 456MW Upper Tama Kosi coming on stream in July, if it is not delayed again by the lockdown.Other hydroelectricity projects totalling 2,500MW are planned are in the financial negotiations stage, they are set to come into operation by 2026.But the more urgent need is power transmission to accommodate the new projects in the next three years as Nepal struggles to keep up with demand. The current peak demand is 1,150MW, which drops to 700MW at night. Generation capacity also fluctuates during the monsoon and dry season between surplus and scarcity because most of the hydro projects are of the run-of-river type without large reservoirs.To avoid electricity from going to waste during the monsoon, Nepal can export the surplus power to India, and import in winter. The agreements are in place with India to facilitate power trade, but current transmission lines cannot bear future load. The MCC-funded transmission lines are also required for domestic distribution and grid management.The present Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur crossborder transmission line connects India and Nepal but can only handle 1,000MW each way, but practically it can only bear 800MW. This means by late next year, Nepal’s new surplus monsoon electricity is sure to go waste.This will not just be a wasted opportunity for Nepal to reduce its trade imbalance and partly pay for its winter power import from India, but also affect private hydropower investors in Nepal. This scenario can be avoided if the proposed 400KVa Butwal-Gorakhpur transmission line.The catch here is that the NEA has signed an understanding with the private hydropower investors that it will buy electricity they generate only if the surplus can be exported to India. Any delay in building the Butwal-Gorakhpur transmission line to India, therefore would ultimately impact Nepal’s own private power producers. This put their investment at risk, affect the banking sector, and ultimately Nepal’s overall economy.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b84069c7e80680e06776ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="946" height="526"><figcaption>Illustration: BHANU BHATTARAI</figcaption></figure>Critics of the MCC have pointed out that exporting power to India is not a priority, and Nepal should use power from the new projects to foster value-added energy-intensive industries in Nepal itself. However, the MCC transmission lines will be needed even to feed power within the country.In addition, at the rate power demand is rising in Nepal, even if 5,000MW is generated in the monsoon, the capacity of the run-of-river schemes will drop to one-third in the dry season – as it has done during this year’s winter drought. The higher capacity transmission lines are therefore required to import power from India until such time as Nepal’s generation capacity in winter is augmented with storage projects like Budi Gandaki.NEA’s Shakya says the MCC project will form a backbone of Nepal’s electricity grid, and by linking it to the Indian grid it will be more robust and flexible, allowing load sharing and management. The MCC-funded transmission lines are also critical for meeting Kathmandu Valley’s future demand growth, to transfer power generated in eastern Nepal to the western half of the country during the monsoon, and from west to east in the winter.Fortunately, electricity supply and demand in Nepal and India complement each other. In summer, when demand rises in India Nepal has surplus power, and in winter when Nepal’s supply cannot meet demand, it can import from India.The same is true within Nepal. There is a nearly one month lag between the time the monsoon arrives in eastern Nepal in early June, and by the time it starts raining heavily in western Nepal in mid-July. This means projects in eastern Nepal are already operating at full capacity, and the surplus electricity can be sent to western Nepal where it is still dry – if there was the necessary east-west transmission system.“The risk that we will have to face in the coming years if this project does not materialise will be unimaginable,” Shakya warns. “If these transmission lines are not built through the MCC grant, we have to immediately start moving towards an alternative.”Good connectivityNepal signed the MCC Compact Agreement in September 2017 which allowed the MCC Board in Washington to release the grant amount of $500 million (Rs59 billion) for the development of Nepal’s electricity transmission line and road infrastructure. But everything has been stuck for more than a year because a provision in the agreement that required ratification by Parliament.The Americans insisted on this clause so that the project would be valid no matter which government was in power in Nepal, but that is also the reason that the MCC has become a punching bag for those against Prime Minister Oli—even though his predecessors in other parties opposing the project were in government when the agreement was signed. The NC leadership which is now in the opposition, as well as NCP leaders that included the Maoist Centre and UML, who are vehemently getting the MCC scrapped today were involved in approving and planning the project.Foreign affairs experts explain that the MCC has been caught up in domestic oneupmanship between Nepal’s leaders and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/covid-19-and-the-new-great-game/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">international geopolitics</a>. Nepal’s politicians have a tendency to be north-facing or south-facing, or both, and are generally not able to work together for the national interest. This is made worse by the absence of trust, and a lack of dignity.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b84089c7e80680e06776fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="1000"><figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>The US side has informed the government that the MCC grant is not open-ended and the deadline is looming. However, the MCC has also suffered collateral damage as Prime Minister Oli dissolved the Lower House on 20 December, and then ended the winter session on 19 April. The Special Session has been called for 10 May as Prime Minister Oli seeks a confidence vote. If he loses, the country will go for early elections in six month’s time. The budget session of the House could pass the MCC, but with the intense political polarisation, it will not be easy.Despite the agreement being signed by both governments, therefore, it is languishing because of Nepal’s internal dynamics. The main objection from the detractors is that it is a part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States, and that several provisions of the agreement undermine the sovereignty of Nepal.Bhim Rawal, a staunch anti-Oli UML leader, as well as Pushpa Kamal Dahal and other Maoist Centre leaders are against the agreement being ratified by Parliament, more because of their opposition to a project Oli is pushing than other reasons. A committee constituted under the convener of UML leader Jhalanath Khanal and others had recommended last year that the agreement be passed with amendments.Though the project has still not got off the ground, it has already spent about $3 million for preparations, which the US and Nepal government have shared half-half. It was used for the mapping and design of the transmission lines, the pylons, sub-stations, and preparing tender documents.The EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report of the overall project is in the final stages. The task of acquiring the land under the project in Ratmate of Nuwakot, where the sub-station will be constructed is nearing completion. The Nepal government has allocated Rs10.3 billion this fiscal year for MCC, but till mid-December only Rs140 million had been spent.

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce4829c7e80680e0966b3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="369"/><figcaption>Residents of the Musahar settlement in Baluwa Tol of Siraha's Dhangadhimai Municipality.</figcaption></figure>The fervour of the local elections three years ago had taken sway over the eight districts of Province 2. Sangihya Samajbadi Party and Rastriya Janata Party had eclipsed the dominant Nepali Congress and Communist forces, during the polls.Out of the 136 local constituencies in the province, the two Tarai-based parties had claimed 51 of them, Rastriya Janata Party had turned victorious in 14 while the Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum had swept 24 municipalities.The upward trend of supporting the Madhesh-based parties continued into the election for the House of Representatives as well as the provincial assembly elections. Of the 32 constituencies contested, the parties had won more than half, claiming 19 seats. Similarly, they won 55 of the 107 seats in the provincial election.But three years after the elections, the people of Province 2 feel let down and have started to lose faith in the home-grown parties, as they have failed to perform and deliver.The parties representing the Tarai have always blamed the centre for not taking their issues seriously, and for a sluggish development of the region.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce4849c7e80680e0966b4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="346"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The Madhesh-based parties had rejected the constitution because their demands had not been met. India had thrown its weight behind the bloc, imposing a border blockade on Nepal that lasted for six months.Tarai has seen sporadic protests calling for the rights of the Madheshi communities. During the different political movements that took place after the peace process, 124 people lost their lives.Nepali Congress General Convention representative, Bajrang Nepali says that compared to the older established parties, the Tarai-based parties have been more successful within a short period, with the foundation laid by a series of movements.But it is only during the times of demonstrations and elections that the people matter to the politicians, locals complain.“When the polls arrive, politicians come with the promise of land and shelter,” says Shreeram Sada of Dhangadhi Municipality, Siraha. “It’s been three years since the elections took place, they haven’t fulfilled their promises. The wells are drying up, water is scarce.”Mahadev Saha, who has a PhD in Political History of Nepal and is currently the Head of Softech College based in Lahan, says that the people had participated in the Madhesh movements with certain aspirations, but that they’re frustrated over how things have turned out.“There were some legitimate interests of the Madhesh that have not been provided in the Constitution. The desires of Madhesis have not been addressed in any way,” he says.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce4859c7e80680e0966b5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="287" height="260"><figcaption>Mahadev Saha, PhD</figcaption></figure>Saha adds that Tarai-based parties had an opportunity to prove themselves, but they squandered it, and the corruption and red tape at the Singha Darbar have trickled down to the provincial governments.The leaders of the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP)— formed after major Madhesh alliances, Samajbadi Party and Rastriya Janata Party merged—concede that they have not been able to meet the people’s aspirations.JSP’s Central Committee Member Manish Suman admits that even though his party was elected to power, the problems of the people have remained intact.“In the past, when Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Girija Prasad Koirala, Lokendra Bahadur Chand, Surya Bahadur Thapa or KP Oli was Prime Minister, there was no impact in the rural areas. The context is the same even today when we are in the government,” says Suman. “There’s no point berating the others. The onus was upon us to live up to the commitments made to the people.”About one year from now, the local level elections are due and in just 12 months, the provincial and federal parliament elections are to be held.It is too early to predict which party will dominate in the upcoming polls in Province 2. But cadres and intellectual groups are steeped in political conversations.While JSP is seen as a unified bloc representing the Tarai by Kathmandu, wandering through the streets of Province 2, one is likely to observe a different picture. Even though the two parties did merge, locally, they continue to operate as two different parties, much like the Nepal Communist Party, which has now disintegrated.Suman agrees that even though an official merger has happened, the party is yet to become one ‘spiritually’. Executive member of JSP, Shailesh Chaudhary echoes similar thoughts. The unified party continues to experience polarisation over the details of forming a federal government.In the past elections, the Tarai-based parties raising Madhesh-centric issues were a draw for young voters. But unable to perform, the parities now suffer from an erosion of public trust.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce4879c7e80680e0966b6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">According to political analyst, Mahadev Saha, despite leading the provincial government, the parties have failed to deliver the people’s mandate. He alleges their politics have been confined to supporting allies and gaining personal benefits.Journalist Chandra Kishore, from Birganj says that Madhesh-based parties have been unable to maintain their rapport with the public and that the centre had cashed on it. “The leaders of JSP themselves have become redundant. They have ideological conflict, which is unattractive to the public.”Former Treasurer of Federation of Nepali Journalists, Sheetal Sah agrees. “The political parties within JSP did not win the election because they were pro-active, it was just that the political atmosphere was in their favour. And now that they haven’t delivered on their commitment, they have become unpopular.”It is still too early to analyse how the rift within the UML will potentially impact the Madhesh-centric parties. Critics of PM Oli have pointed out in the past that he had lost his hold over Tarai because of his prejudices during the Madhesh movement.“Oli is making an effort to revive his image in Madhesh,” says Gangalal Yadav of Siraha. The Oli-led UML faction is wooing local leaders and thinkers from other parties into their fold, who have the potential to lure the voters.Other than that, the construction of postal roads, connecting the highways to the district headquarters, and the Kosi-Marine Diversion Irrigation Project are some of Oli’s attempts to influence development in the Tarai.Before 2007, Province 2 was a Nepali Congress (NC) stronghold. With the rise of the Tarai-centric parties, the NC fortress was stormed and influential leaders from Madhesh, like Mahantha Thakur, JP Gupta, Sharat Singh Bhandari quit Congress to join the regional parties, which chipped away at the Nepali Congress ‘vote bank’.With the lure of the Madhesh-based parties waning, is NC likely to revive its influence once more? The perspectives remain divided.JSP Executive Member Shailesh Chaudhary views the internal tussle within NC as the fundamental problem even though it could be an alternative to JSP. He says, “People do not have anger towards [Nepali] Congress. The internal conflict and groupism are what is concerning.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce48a9c7e80680e0966b7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="541" height="476"><figcaption>Bajrang Nepali</figcaption></figure>However, NC leaders themselves do not appear confident. NC leader of Jaleshwor Mahottari, Bajrang Nepali says that despite voters turning towards NC, the party has no mechanism to attract the new generation, the group that forms the biggest chunk of voters.“People are positive towards [Nepali] Congress, but have they been able to attract the new generation? [Nepali] Congress has to find a way out to resolve this,” says Nepali.Journalist Chandra Kishore says self-sabotage is nothing new within the party, “Congress is a threat to itself,” he says, adding that Prime Minister Oli will attempt every possible way to win over the Madhesh vote bank.“The government has already started to deploy the state mechanisms to Madhesh, its impact might be reflected in the election,” he adds.Nepali Congress may, however, benefit from the fissures within the Communists. “If the Communist had not broken up, they would have been a tough competition for Nepali Congress. The fraction within the Communists has made them vulnerable, and [Nepali] Congress will benefit from it,” says Sah.And there are others hoping to reap benefit from the situation. CK Raut had won nationwide popularity, and a strong backing in the Tarai before signing a deal with the Oli government in March 2020 to honour Nepal’s sovereignty. He has been busy building his political influence in the region since, it will be interesting to see how his presence will tip the voting scales.But political analysts say Raut might not be able to garner much attention given the relatively new presence of his party. “Raut was capturing the attention of the youth who were losing interest in the Madhesh-based parties,” Sah says. “ But after he signed the pact with the government against his secessionist movement, he might have lost much of his fan-following in Madhesh.”

The Politics of Province 2

<img width="800" height="436" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce44d9c7e80680e0966a0jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>There are just so many layers of party and factional interests, alliances and dalliances, marriages of convenience and messy divorces, egos, ambitions, and personal vendetta involved, that it is difficult to delve beyond daily headlines about who stabbed whom in the back today.We must start with the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-1-party-2-central-committees-system/">central protagonist</a>, the man everyone seems to love to hate, Prime Minister K P Oli. He has proved all pundits wrong by surviving both medically and politically. This does not look like a man who has two kidney transplants—he appears stronger than ever.  He has outlasted <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/i-had-no-other-option-pm-oli/">relentless pressure</a> from the combined strength of rivals within the NCP and a constant media broadside, to unseat him. When cornered, he has used nationalism,  divided and ruled, used and discarded former comrades, and even dissolved the House and threatened elections to get his way.Oli is wily, but a statesman he is not. Had he been, he would have found other ways than <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/muscle-vs-muscle-in-nepal/">full-frontal attacks on rivals</a>, concentrating instead on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/its-broke-fix-it/">providing leadership</a> on issues that really matter to Nepalis – <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-a-state-of-disillusionment/">jobs, inflation, education, health and Covid impact</a>. He has spent all his time and energy running circles around <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dahal-nepal-hold-anti-oli-rally/">Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal.</a>If anyone wanted to dismantle Nepal’s Communist movement, no one would have done a better job than Prime Minister Oli. He <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/unity-with-the-maoists-did-not-work-out/">cracked open the NCP,</a> then he got to work on his own UML, weeding out the disgruntled Nepal faction. Oli might have been seeking revenge on Nepal, but by sidelining him, he has effectively splintered the UML as well.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/efforts-to-cobble-back-the-uml/">Efforts to cobble back the UML</a>, Mukesh Pokhrel <img width="640" height="343" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce44f9c7e80680e0966a1jpeg.jpg" alt="">Oli has become such a central figure that as factions of the four main parties jostle to find coalition partnerships, they are all divided depending on whether they support the prime minister or not. First, his UML itself is divided, with the Nepal faction behaving like an opposition party. Oli’s strategy now is to woo away Nepal loyalists like Jhalnath Khanal, whom President Bidya Devi Bhandari went to meet at his home last week.The Maoist Centre has also lost its senior comrades to Oli’s Cabinet: Ram Bahadur Thapa, Top Bahadur Ryamajhi and others. The party removed them from MP-hood on Tuesday, but cannot seem to decide what to do next. A Nepali Congress (NC) Central Committee meeting this week called for the resignation of Prime Minister Oli. But the meeting started five hours late because of a disagreement between Sher Bahadur Deuba and Ram Chandra Poudel on whether or not to join a coalition government led by Oli.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-crucible-of-fragile-coalitions/">A crucible of fragile coalitions</a>, Shekhar Kharel <img width="640" height="322" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce4529c7e80680e0966a2jpeg.jpg" alt="">This indecision in the main opposition NC has put the third and fourth parties, the Maoist Centre and the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP), in a bind. They do not have the numbers by themselves to challenge Oli. However, there is discord within the JSP also. And the cause is, once again, whether to support Oli or not. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/jsp-as-nepals-king-maker-party/">Party chair Mahantha Thakur</a> and Rajendra Mahato have publicly stated that they are inclined to work with Oli’s UML. But the JSP’s other leaders Upendra Yadav and Baburam Bhattarai are vehemently opposed.Because of the JSP’s swing vote in the House, Thakur has emerged as the kingmaker in coalition negotiations. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/oli-vs-dahal-1-upmanship/">Maoist Centre</a> and the NC need the JSP to unseat Oli, and Oli himself needs the JSP to form the next government if the UML loses the support of the Maoist Centre.   <img width="640" height="399" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121144/636ce4549c7e80680e0966a3jpeg.jpg" alt="">However, even though Dahal threatened last week to pull the rug from under the UML, his Maoist Centre’s Standing committee meeting decided that time was not ripe to do so. The Maoists have 54 MPs, and if they withdraw support for the UML, which has 121 seats, Prime Minister Oli will have to seek a vote of confidence in the House. Oli will need 138 MPs on his side to win the vote, and will court the JSP with 34 seats or the NC with 63 seats. Dahal knows that if he withdraws support there is every likelihood that either Deuba or Thakur will side with Oli to form an election government. And Maoist leaders know that early elections will be disastrous for them.With all four parties tangled over their support and opposition to Prime Minister Oli, therefore, Nepali politics is hopelessly knotted up.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/house-of-cards/">House of cards</a>, Editorial

Untangling the knots

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd9939c7e80680e092eacjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>A new nationwide opinion poll quantifies widespread public disillusionment with the political leadership in Kathmandu, but shows that people have formed a generally favourable impression of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/holding-up-the-whole-sky-in-jumla/">local governments</a> in the past three years.Of those polled, nearly 47% said they did not trust Prime Minister K P Oli, with the same level of distrust for Chief Ministers, MPs and federal ministers. There was even more distrust of the leaders of political parties: 60%.When asked which was the political party most likely to work for democracy in Nepal, a full 62% said they did not know or did not want to say-- an opinion that has been reflected in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/cant-get-no-satisfaction/">previous Himalmedia Public Opinion polls</a>.This survey was conducted by <a href="https://www.sharecast.org.np" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sharecast Initiative Nepal</a> between 21 February to 3 March, just ahead of  the 7 March Supreme Court decision that dismantled the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) into the previous UML and Maoist Centre.Asked which is the most reliable party to strengthen democracy in Nepal, the Nepali Congress scored the highest with 13.4%. The Oli faction of the NCP came second with 9.6%, and the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dahal-nepal-hold-anti-oli-rally/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dahal-Nepal</a> faction mustered only 4.1%. The JSP and RPP got less than 2%.This result correlated with responses to another question about which party represented the interests of the people most. Here, too, the NC was slightly ahead (30%) of the CPN (Oli) 28%, CPN (Nepal-Dahal) had 11%, and the JSP 5%. Now that the NCP is divided between the UML and Maoists, the support will be scattered.Surprisingly, the NC was ahead (17%) of the JSP (only 5%) in its own heartland of Province 2. Support for the NC is highest among the Tarai caste (19%) Meanwhile, the Oli vote bank seems to be among the Hill Dalit (7%).However, mayors and ward chairs leave a more favourable impression. When asked which tier of government played the most significant role in improving living standards, an average of half the respondents across all seven provinces said it was <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/it-is-now-or-never-to-devolve-power-to-local-governments/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">local governments</a>.  Significantly, the approval of local government was lowest (33%) in Province 2.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd9979c7e80680e092eadjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="727" height="908">The survey studied 5,082 households across the country, with 80% of the municipalities represented. Gender, age, profession, education level were proportionally represented in the sampling.Factional <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/oli-vs-dahal-1-upmanship/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in-fighting within the Nepal Communist Party</a> (NCP) for the better part of the past three years seems to have dashed the hopes of many Nepalis for a stable government that would look after their welfare.Despite a two-thirds majority in the 2017 election, a poll has shown that the NCP has squandered its mandate.The Sharecast Initiative Nepal, 2021 public opinion survey shows widespread disenchantment with the way the country is headed politically. More than 44% of the 5,082 households surveyed across the country felt Nepal was headed in the wrong direction with the sense of hopelessness highest in Karnali Province (54%).<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd9999c7e80680e092eaejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="933" height="421">Nearly half of all respondents said they do not trust the prime minister, chief ministers, ministers in the federal and provincial governments.In fact, the disillusionment is so great that 63% of those surveyed said they were not even interested in politics anymore. The more educated the respondents, the more disgusted they seemed to be. Respondents in the Tarai (70%) said they were put off by politics and were not interested.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd99b9c7e80680e092eafjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="957" height="408">Hill Brahmins and Newas seem to be most pessimistic about how things are going, with Tarai and Hill Janjati, less bothered. This cross checked well with responses to another question about how interested people were in politics. Nearly 71% of Hill Janjati and 65% of Tarai Janjati said they were not interested. Both Janjati groups were also the ones that felt the country was headed in the wrong direction.Most people were not as impressed with provincial governments, with the approval rating at 32%, and only 30% felt the federal government in Kathmandu was doing a good job. Lumbini Province seemed to get a consistently high approval, both at the local and provincial level.Not surprisingly, the federal government got the worst marks (30% approval) for performance in the past three years in all seven provinces.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd99d9c7e80680e092eb0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="632" height="288">The most striking result from the survey is that more than 76% said none of the political parties represented their interests. The main concern of most of those surveyed were jobs, poverty and inflation, and the parties were deemed incapable of addressing them.It is obvious that while the concern of most Nepalis is economic, they think the political leadership has failed to deliver.The Sharecast survey also tracked the response to the question about whether the country was moving in the right direction by comparing data for January 2020 with January 2021. In effect, this was useful in gauging how important Nepalis felt the 20 December dissolution of their Lower House by Prime Minister Oli was.While nearly 34% felt the country was going the right way in 2020, only 22% felt the same way a year later. And while 29% thought the country was headed in the wrong direction last year, more than 44% felt that way this January.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd99f9c7e80680e092eb1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="632" height="525">Nepal’s perpetually warring politicians should realise, if they have not already, that the people blame them squarely for the political disarray. In responses to a question about why the country was moving in the wrong direction, 50% blamed it squarely on the power struggle within and between political parties. The multiple choice question also cited political instability, weak leadership and corruption.Among their key concerns, none of those surveyed in their response to another question cited politics. Their top worries were: unemployment, poverty, shortages, inflation, health and education. It seemed as if, even though people know that governance failure is the reason for these problems, few have any faith in the current crop of political leaders to correct it.However, the trust in the judiciary and the Election Commission does not seem to have been dented despite recent events. More than 44% still trusted the justice system and 40% felt the Election Commission could still conduct free and fair elections.Himalmedia public opinion polls in the past 15 years have shown an average of 60% support for Nepal to be a Hindu state. This figure has dropped in the Sharecst survey this year, even though it is still a significant 52%, pointing to a distrust of the concept of ‘secularism’ in the Constitution. Support for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/nepal-party-reincarnating-hindu-monarchy/">Hindu state</a> is highest in Province 2 (nearly 70%).Despite everything Nepal’s politicians have done to let the people and country down, most Nepalis still believe that democracy is the best form of government for Nepal's development. Three-fourths of those polled thought so, and only a third of those in the sample group felt democracy and federalism were under threat at present.When asked who was to blame for democracy being at risk, most blamed ‘the government’, NCP (Oli) and NCP (Dahal-Nepal).

In a state of disillusionment

<figure><img width="1076" height="606" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7ce9c7e80680e092e05jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-takes-1-step-forward-2-steps-back/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">decision on Sunday by the Supreme Court</a> that effectively makes the unification of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) null and void, just hours before a crucial recovering of the dissolved Lower House, has thrown the country’s politics into further turmoil and uncertainty.This was reflected in the first session of the restored House on Sunday (pictured below) as the NCP faction led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal staged a walk out, saying Prime Minister K P Oli had no moral right to present ordinances in a House that he himself had <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-outraged-by-pm-oli-move/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dissolved on 20 December</a>.  <img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd7d09c7e80680e092e06jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd7d29c7e80680e092e07jpeg.jpg" alt="">Photos: AMIT MACHAMASIAs the House sat for the first time in two months, there was confusion about whether MPs of the NCP were in the ruling party or the opposition. Dahal called the Supreme Court decision “unexpected” and is said to be in consultations with his colleagues about the way forward.  The alliance between the erstwhile UML led by Prime Minister K P Oli and the Maoist Centre headed by Dahal had won a near two-thirds majority in the 2017 election, and promised political stability in the country. Nepal’s politics has been anything but stable — mainly because Oli and Dahal could not get along. The general impression was that Oli had pulled the rug from under his rivals, by going back to his old party and turning the clock back on unification. However, in doing this, Oli might have sacrificed his own leadership of government. Prime Minister Oli will now have to prove that he has the confidence of a majority of the members of the House. However, there is no chance that the 53 or so members of the Dahal faction will now support him.  “There are now two parties, and as soon as the rival party withdraws its backing, the prime minister has to demonstrate that he has the support of the house,” says constitutional expert Bhimarjun Acharya. The House was reconvened by a Supreme Court decision on 23 February that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-supreme-court-restores-house/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">overturned Prime Minister Oli’s dissolution</a>. However, with the Dahal faction walking out and the opposition Nepali Congress (NC) raising slogans against the ordinances being proposed, the session had to go into recess. Speaker Agni Sapkota then recessed the House till Wednesday. Another expert, Prof Purna Man Shakya said: “If he wants to remain prime minister Oli’s party will have to get additional votes for which the only way to muster support is from the Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP). Failing that, the Maoist Centre, NC and JSP could also form the government.” The House of Representatives has 121 members from the former UML, 63 from the NC, 53 from the Maoist Centre and the JSP has 34. There are four independents. To have a majority in the 275 member House, the UML will need support from one other party, while the Maoist Centre will need three parties to come together. But this arithmetic is complicated by the fact that some former UML are in the Dahal faction, while some ex-Maoists are with Oli.  Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali says the Supreme Court decision actually allows party reunification. “Now we can plan to reunite the party in a more scientific and pragmatic way,” he said.  The future of former Maoists who are ministers in the Oli Cabinet, like Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa and Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi are also in doubt. The 2015 Constitution has an anti-defection clause for MPs, so they cannot now join the Maoist-Centre. Advocate Meghraj Pokhrel says former Maoist Centre ministers cannot now go over to the UML, they have to return to their original party.  They cannot take part in a future Oli government if he manages support from other parties, and they will be in a dilemma to go back to the Dahal-led party. Members of parliament who won by-elections after the UML-Maoist unification is also uncertain. The biggest loss will be to Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalnath Khanal, two former UML prime ministers who joined up with Dahal. They may now be forced to remain in the Oli-led UML.  Constitutional expert Acharya says that the two leaders will require a 40% agreement from the Central Committee and the Parliamentary Party of the CPN-UML to join the Maoist Centre or to form a new party, which they do not have. <img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd7d59c7e80680e092e08jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111152/636cd7d79c7e80680e092e09jpeg.jpg" alt="">“Nepal and Khanal now face a dilemma whether to vote for or against PM Oli if the government tables a confidence motion in Parliament," Acharya says. “And Oli is likely to take action against them if they vote against him." The Supreme Court’s decision seems to have worked to Oli’s benefit and put the Nepal-Khanal camp in the horns of a dilemma, says Prof Shakya. "However, the Supreme Court makes decisions based on the Constitution and the rule of law, not based on who stands to gain or lose politically,” he adds. “Therefore we must analyse the decision in accordance with the constitution and the law.”

No winners in latest Nepal political twist

<figure><img width="960" height="640" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7c29c7e80680e092e00jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photos: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>Nepal’s political drama took another unexpected turn on Sunday as the Supreme Court ruled that the name Nepal Communist Party (NCP) belonged to another group, taking the country back to where it was three years ago when the ruling party was made up of two entities.The 12-page decision came two hours before the House of Representatives reconvened after another Supreme Court ruling on 23 February that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-supreme-court-restores-house/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">overturned Prime Minister K P Oli’s decision two months earlier to dissolve the House</a> and call early elections.Sunday’s decision means that for all practical purposes the NCP is once more divided between Oli’s moderate left Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party and the Maoist Centre led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal.Dahal had led the Maoist guerrillas in a ten-year insurgency and had forged an electoral alliance with Oli to fight the 2017 elections, which it swept and the two parties formally united in 2018. Ever since, Dahal and Oli had been tangled in a bitter power struggle within the party, and when Oli got wind that a vote of no confidence was being registered in the Lower House by the rival faction, he <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-outraged-by-pm-oli-move/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dissolved it on 20 December</a>. There was uncertainty in the Lower House when it reconvened on Sunday (pictured below) as per the Supreme Court ruling, with confusion as to whether the Dahal faction was on the ruling bench or the opposition one. <img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7c59c7e80680e092e01jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7c79c7e80680e092e02jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7c99c7e80680e092e03jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7cc9c7e80680e092e04jpeg.jpg" alt="">The political fate of many senior politicians is now in doubt, as there were former Maoists like Ram Bahadur Thapa in Oli’s camp, and many ex-UML leaders like Madhav Kumar Nepal with Dahal.The Supreme Court decision on Sunday said: ‘Since the Election Commission decision, the Nepal Communist Party (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist Centre) will revert to their previous separate status  unless they re-register themselves as a single party with a name other than Nepal Communist Party at the Election Commission fulfilling all its conditions.’In the past two months, the Oli and Dahal factions had been lobbying hard with the Election Commission to be given the party name and the elections symbol (Sun). The Election Commission had not yet recognised that the party was formally split. The two factions had also engaged in a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/muscle-vs-muscle-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">show of strength in the streets with huge rallies</a> to impress the Supreme Court that the House dissolution was unconstitutional. While the apex court agreed with that decision, it has now ruled that neither party has a claim to the name Nepal Communist Party and has effectively reinstated the previous parties before unification.

Nepal takes 1 step forward, 2 steps back

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd75f9c7e80680e092dd6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>As the struggle for supremacy in Nepal’s politics enters a new and uncertain phase with a session of the restored Lower House on Sunday, noticeably absent are the country's women politicians.Whether it is about the no-confidence vote that Prime Minister K P Oli may face in the Parliament he dissolved, or the tactics his party rival Pushpa Kamal Dahal may use, or speculation about NCP members switching sides, or even the king-maker role being played by the NC’s Sher Bahadur Deuba, female leaders are nowhere in the picture.“If the leaders of both factions had handled their disagreement in a logical and appropriate manner, the party wouldn’t have been divided in the first place,” says Nepal Communist Party (NCP) MP, Binda Pandey. “As is the norm, there is more finger-pointing than an acknowledgement of weakness from all sides concerned.”Pandey, who has been outspoken on gender rights and development matters in parliamentary committees, says that women and a new generation of leaders need to be given a chance.“It would be great if leaders had an understanding that it is not in anyone’s best interest for them to hold on to office after having already become chief executive or party chief once,” she says, in what could be an unpopular opinion for male leaders of both the NCP and NC who want to be prime minister again, despite having held the post multiple times before.Formerly Maoist and now Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) leader, Hisila Yami says both Oli and Dahal are to blame for the political turmoil. "The NCP leadership is wrangling for power like a selfish couple fighting to own a piece of property without regard for their children, which in this case is the citizenry,” Yami says in an email to Nepali Times.“When the time comes, a new alliance must be formed based on capacity and strength… which is our constitution,” she says. “PM Oli must resign for this to happen, so that the country can overcome this political crisis.”Female leaders interviewed for this report said they are often sidelined in political discourse if they disagree with the male bigwigs. Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) leader Sarita Giri says the current political crisis is rooted in infighting within the NCP, but she is not in favour of Oli stepping down.“Why should he have to resign?” Giri asks. “I have been victimised by party politics, so I understand very clearly what he is going through.” Giri had been dismissed from the then Samajwadi Party-Nepal in July last year when she refused to vote for a constitutional amendment bill following the Lipulekh dispute with India in July last year. She said she received little support from male colleagues in her party.“I had to take a stand on my principles,” she says. “Women cannot take for granted that they will be heard through regular channels. So they have to step out of the box and raise their voices.”While women’s representation in politics is a popular topic for discussion, female leaders face open and often public derision and ridicule from their male counterparts. They range from doubts about political competence to disparaging language and misogynistic attacks on their appearance. This in turn informs the public’s opinion of women in leadership, perpetuating a vicious cycle that delegitimises their social and political platform."Raghuji Panta has revealed his disgusting mindset,” NCP National Assembly member Komal Oli tweeted in response to NCP Dahal-Nepal loyalist Raghuji Panta’s recent misogynistic remarks on her career as a singer and politician. ”I want to ask Pantaji, which female leaders in your party who hold any office achieved their position at the expense of their bodies? Any woman in this country who has reached a position of power has fallen prey to regressive attitudes like yours.”Bibeksheel Sajha Party’s Ranju Darshana also weighed in on Panta’s comments, posting a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CL3m4MZHAFJ/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.instagram.com/tv/CL3m4MZHAFJ/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1615025386684000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGGr-cKWHKnNrl_zAfpj6DdBr5NCQ">video on Instagram</a> where she touched upon sexist comments that she receives regularly on social media, and discussed how female politicians and leaders experience misogyny and opposition from male leaders.“We won’t tolerate comments and attacks intended to dominate, belittle and bring women down,” said Darshana. “Everyone must get an equal chance to represent their communities in office — men, women, and sexual minorities.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7639c7e80680e092dd7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1476" height="1000"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7669c7e80680e092dd8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">According to a generally observed trend, female leaders and women’s issues are used as convenient political tools during campaigns and movements, but are relegated to the sidelines as soon as it comes to decision-making.“Women are also actively involved in politics, but female leaders are only considered dedicated so long as they agree with the positions of their respective parties. When they dare express any form of disagreement, their sexuality and femininity are questioned and they are considered to be pushing the feminist agenda,” says Pandey.Giri and Pandey acknowledge the increasing participation of women in politics set against the backdrop of an environment that is not conducive for women to air dissenting opinions. But Hisila Yami says that the future of women in politics looks promising.“The need of the hour is for different groups of women to form an alliance in order to move towards an equitable society, and this can be made possible through gender-friendly parliamentarians backed by civil-society activists that we have been seeing during recent protests,” says Yami.In 1959, Dwarika Devi Thakurani became the first female minister of Nepal, and only 137 others have joined the ranks over the years. There are currently 3 women in the Council of Ministers. That Nepal had a female president before even the United States has been cause for much back-patting, and the country may boast of having one of the largest female representations in Parliament. But, much of it is still confined to tokenism.

Women leaders seen, but not heard

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

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

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

UFO over Pokhara

Four international names in architecture, Shigeru Ban, Rem Koolhaas, Tadao Ando and Louis Isadore Kahn, all left their mark in Nepal. But despite their best intentions, the ambitious designs fizzled out. Ban, Koolhaas and Ando won Pritzkers, the best known international award for architecture, and Kahn could have won it had the prize been given in his lifetime. But their designs fell short of transforming Nepali architecture and did not help inspire local architects.&nbsp; Why were these four ‘starchitects’ unable to pull off their Nepal projects and enrich the country with exemplary contemporary designs? The failure, especially the violation of Kahn’s design, also raises larger questions about how much contemporary architecture is valued in Nepal.&nbsp; Whereas Sri Lanka had Geoffrey Bawa and Bangladesh had Mazharul Islam, the pioneers of contemporary architecture in Nepal have had far less public appreciation. One wonders if Nepali architecture only refers to the monuments and heritage of the past. Nepal does have examples of outstanding modern architecture such as the &nbsp;पाङ्रे घर ‘Wheel House’ and खुट्टे घर &nbsp;‘House on Legs’ by Shankar Nath Rimal in the 1960s. These are the best examples of how some Nepali designers successfully tailored modern architecture to the Nepali context.&nbsp; Ten years ago, Nepal had three architecture magazines, SPACES, praXis and Business Architecture, but none of these survived. This newspaper has prominently covered contemporary architecture, and the built environment, but these are exceptions in Nepal’s media. There have been a few encouraging signs. The 2024 exhibition Modern Encounters in Architecture in Kathmandu Valley (1945-1985) at the Taragaon Museum had many visitors and its accompanying book is a seminal document.&nbsp; In 2023, the Mountain Architecture Dialogue (MAD) that focused on examples of good-practice sustainable contemporary architecture for the mountainous terrains of Nepal was a packed event with over 300 young architects, engineers, environmentalists and architecture students. <h2>Shigeru Ban</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_8bb8dde080c5698c2585966bef27ce4c08e4ee488d3432b2caac98b9de762dfe.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024122003128_8bb8dde080c5698c2585966bef27ce4c08e4ee488d3432b2caac98b9de762dfe" data-rendition-name="original" width="990" height="1074" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  Shigeru Ban had already built a name for himself in post-disaster construction when he came to Nepal following the 2015 earthquakes in which 500,000 people lost their homes. The basic design and its 3D-rendered images were reviewed in upbeat articles on DOMUS, Architectural Review, Dezeen, and Arch Daily.&nbsp; But his signature cardboard tubes could not handle the monsoon and the roof structure had to be re-designed with timber. Only two shelters were completed in Sindupalchok, and only one of them still stands at the Hyatt Regency grounds today, as Ban’s souvenir to Nepal.&nbsp; <h2>Rem Koolhaas</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_58afec9b57accfa38327af0936648c6eb2f2e11ff18f1af8ca27383dc57dc222.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024122003128_58afec9b57accfa38327af0936648c6eb2f2e11ff18f1af8ca27383dc57dc222" data-rendition-name="original" width="750" height="722" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  The designs of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas have a specific signature: bold shapes and an intriguing architectural typology that challenges standard building blocks. Some designs even seem to defy gravity, like the CCTV headquarters in Beijing: an angular, continuous geometry of glass and steel.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_a18dc8a8d6b97bc6fa9d590036cf374f9dc3709c699fe5c5787304bbd05cb17d.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241220031216_a18dc8a8d6b97bc6fa9d590036cf374f9dc3709c699fe5c5787304bbd05cb17d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1812" height="1168" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Rem Koolhaas' design for Ullen's School in Khumaltar.</figcaption> </figure>  Koolhaas was commissioned by Belgian billionaire Guy Ullens to design a new building for Ullens School in Khumaltar. The most prominent feature is its vertical glass block staircase. Some interior spaces have lowered windowsills, which provide ample views and daylight. But the school building has gone unremarked in Nepal. <h2>Tadao Ando</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031212_cc16bd6feb8be07a7198285b847a45d2126dc3a479e0cc7370331861fc544675.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241220031212_cc16bd6feb8be07a7198285b847a45d2126dc3a479e0cc7370331861fc544675" data-rendition-name="original" width="626" height="628" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> </figure>  Doctors providing aid to victims of the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 in Japan requested Tadao Ando, who had donated his Pritzker money to the victims, to also make a design for a hospital in Butwal.&nbsp; Ando’s contribution would be pro-bono and the construction was funded by the Hanshin Earthquake victims and by the popular Japanese newspaper Mainichi, as a tribute to Nepali doctors. The first block that Ando designed for the Siddhartha Children and Women’s Hospital (SCWH) was the out-patient department. He quickly realised that he would not be able to pull off structures with his typical style of smooth-finished, high-quality concrete.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_73ec0950d52320277ccc81d4a66fa6aa6acb38141e7b7633683e4cf8179dc579.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241220031216_73ec0950d52320277ccc81d4a66fa6aa6acb38141e7b7633683e4cf8179dc579" data-rendition-name="original" width="1594" height="958" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Tadao Ando's Siddhartha Children and Women Hospital in Butwal.</figcaption> </figure>  Ando wrote in the online architectural catalog Architectuul, that the two main problems with the project were costs and the availability of local technology. ‘It became a facility that has a slightly different expression from the buildings I have completed so far,’ he wrote. He designed a colonnade for the west façade that would provide shelter from harsh sunlight, and the exposed brick walls were locally manufactured bricks.&nbsp; The hospital is characterised by modernist cuboidal massing, but the outer brick façades now appear unintentionally badly weathered by monsoons. The interiors lack both sufficient natural light and natural ventilation. <h2>Louis I Kahn</h2>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122003128_612e199d62fb3e72b6b8f6a936b0fa0451d8c0aa3d831c071320bf423ee3d67f.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024122003128_612e199d62fb3e72b6b8f6a936b0fa0451d8c0aa3d831c071320bf423ee3d67f" data-rendition-name="original" width="694" height="926" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal NT"> </figure>  American architect Louis I Kahn had experience of projects in South Asia, and several were under construction when he died suddenly in 1974. Amongst these were the National Assembly complex in Dhaka, the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and the Family Planning and Maternal Child Welfare Centre in Kathmandu.&nbsp; Kahn had started the USAID funded project in Nepal by developing a master plan for the government institutional zone in Kathmandu, which included a building for the Health Ministry. The building’s façade in exposed brick has deeply recessed vertical windows for shading.&nbsp; The balancing of accentuated horizontal lines in the brickwork with the verticality of the larger composition is the work of a master. The brick walls rise up into punctured parapet walls at the roof level. These square apertures ‘frame the sky’.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241220031216_69c2e4972dbe38773e0a3a3f1129485c9c87033ee84cd454e24ae0dc772d05cf.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241220031216_69c2e4972dbe38773e0a3a3f1129485c9c87033ee84cd454e24ae0dc772d05cf" data-rendition-name="original" width="1924" height="1242" loading="lazy" alt="Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal"> <figcaption>Louis Kahn's plan for the Ministry of Health.</figcaption> </figure>  When Kahn died, only the eastern half of the building was finished. The Western part was never built and Nepal’s bureaucrats decided that without paint, the exposed brick façade was not finished. Then in 1995, citing roof leakage and a space crunch, the Health Ministry added a floor.&nbsp; The frames-to-the-sky in the roof parapet were converted into windows and topped off with a sloping roof of corrugated steel sheets, whose only virtue was that it was cost-effective.&nbsp; Kahn’s orthogonal composition, which clean horizontal and vertical lines, was desecrated despite a public outcry and legal challenges from architects and cultural organisations. A version of this article was first published in HIMAL Southasian. Illustrations by Varun S Bapu.

Forgotten international starchitects in Nepal

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

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