<figure><img width="960" height="640" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141148/636d012f9c7e80680e0a3619jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>On 31 July this newspaper carried a report titled ‘<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandus-flash-floods-are-4-decades-in-the-making/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kathmandu’s Flash Floods Are 4 Decades in the Making</a>’. The analysis by Tom Robertson stated that there was nothing ‘sudden’ about floods in Kathmandu Valley, and they would get much worse.
We derive no satisfaction in saying, ‘we told you so.’ On the night of 5 September the capital received over 100mm of rain in just 3 hours early on Monday morning. The rain was heaviest recorded in the Valley for decades.
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1631072070032000&amp;usg=AFQjCNECbm6803Ead3PaypG73hCO2ZkjXA">Monsoon modelling</a> by the South Asia Climate Outlook Forum had predicted 20% higher than normal rainfall in most of Nepal this year, but the total precipitation has been even heavier than that in many places causing death and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-valley-suffers-quadruple-disaster/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">destruction</a>. The rains have been sustained and relentless, and we saw nearly as much rain as Kathmandu gets in the whole of September falling on just Sunday and Monday. 
Scientists are much more categorical than they have ever been in drawing a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-villages-learn-to-cope-with-climate-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">correlation between such extreme weather events and the climate crisis</a>.  A warming atmosphere means more water vapour in the air, which translates into more than normal rain. 
This year saw record-breaking downpours in the Ahr Valley of Germany, floods in China’s Henan province in July killed 300 people, and remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped 80mm of rain in just one hour on New York, leaving 50 people dead across northeastern US, including three Nepalis.
Meanwhile, Siberia, the Canadian Arctic and California baked in unprecedented heat waves and droughts, with wildfires sweeping across them for a second northern summer in a row. Nepal itself had a five month drought last winter which sparked historic forest fires that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1631072070032000&amp;usg=AFQjCNErZlFXbqeguXo0dcRfMdE1jflNBg">engulfed the whole country</a> in smoke. 
Nearly 80% of Kathmandu’s<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> annual rain </a>falls in just four months: June-September. People in Nepal and the Indo-Gangetic plains have learnt to live with the annual floods, and need them to replenish their farms with nutrients valuable for next year’s crops.
Kathmandu has seen cloudbursts before. The destructive floods of 1981 dumped 170mm of rain in 24 hours on Godavari, unleashing floods on the Bagmati’s tributaries. Makwanpur saw an unimaginable 540mm of rain in 24 hours, and the resulting debris flows filled up the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-cost-of-light/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kulekhani reservoir</a> and wiped out half its life-span. 
Such <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/first-drought-then-downpour/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">extreme events will be more intense and frequent</a> as the atmosphere warms up. That is a given. But instead of preparing for them, we are making them even more disastrous by impounding water with new housing, perimeter walls, or garbage blocking drains. 
Blaming just the climate for this week’s inundation of Kathmandu is a copout. Though heavy, the Valley’s natural drainage system of the Bagmati and Bishnumati would have been able to absorb the excess water by letting it spill over what used to be wide floodplains. 
As Robertson notes, those areas are now built over, natural drainage has been blocked and impermeable concrete and asphalt prevent water from seeping into the ground. In the past 40 years, Kathmandu’s population grew four times. More houses were built, and as land got scarce they encroached into the flood plains. The rivers have been constricted into narrow channels.
Bulldozers are clawing at the Valley rim, removing the slopes that used to store rainwater like gigantic sponges, and let it out slowly. Now, with the buffers gone, even moderate intensity rainfall leads to direct runoff and flooding. 
The problem is the same in the Tarai. Sand mining and logging of the Chure has increased flash floods downstream, sedimentation raises river beds, and new highways and embankments in Nepal and across the border in India act as dams, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/flood-of-recrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">inundating towns and farms</a>. 
The problem is slightly <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/human-face-of-a-himalayan-climate-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">different in the mountains</a>. Haphazard road construction has increased landslide danger, but as we are seeing with Melamchi this year, there is rain where snow used to fall on loose glacial deposits and this is washing them down in deadly debris flows.
Glaciologist Rijan Bhakta Kayastha in a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-needs-weather-stations-in-the-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-needs-weather-stations-in-the-himalaya/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1631072070032000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH2R2E1tTCK-vfKOuVtERCgpW-OfA">recent Nepali Times op-ed </a>made a case for more weather stations in the high mountain catchment areas to measure the intensity of rainfall in real time, communicate the data to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority so settlements downstream can get early warning. 
All that is well and good, but as long as we continue to block the natural drainage of rivers, floods will get worse. And there is no point blaming climate change for that.

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A flood of recrimination

<img width="1000" height="772" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141136/636cfe849c7e80680e0a0c42jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Nepal’s economy has hit the iceberg, but you wouldn’t know it from the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-post-breakup-politics/">politicians fighting it out</a> on the deck.
A serial prime minister <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/what-is-delaying-nepal-cabinet-expansion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cannot form a functioning coalition government</a> even after 6 weeks of assuming office, his coalition partners are too faction-ridden to be a countervailing force, and the main opposition has just split.
All this is nothing new, of course. It has been the way things have been ever since the 1990 changes when democracy was supposed to unleash prosperity. Three decades of political infighting, neglect, conflict, a rent-seeking state and governance failure have left the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/instability-to-cost-nepal-dear-in-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">economy in tatters</a>. And now <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/behind-the-masks/">we have the pandemic to contend with</a>. 
If the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/old-wine-in-old-bottle-in-nepal-politics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">political battles being played out</a> in the parlours of power were inter-generational or about ideology, something good might have come of it. But such personality driven one-upmanship means that the current crop of ageing politicos has neither the time nor competence to deal with the emergency at hand.
The malaise runs deep. Despite gains in literacy, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=lessons+notlearned" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">poor quality of education</a> drives young Nepalis to seek salaried jobs. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/first-drought-then-downpour/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">yield from agriculture</a> is so low it does not make sense to farm. Government investment and market support for agriculture are ineffective. Every year, 700,000 youth join the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/mayday-mayday-mayday/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">labour market</a> but there are jobs in Nepal for only 15% of them. The rest seek their fortunes abroad by selling ancestral property, fallow farms, lower food production, increasing poverty, and completing the vicious cycle. 
Nepal’s trade deficit has averaged $10 billion a year for the last three years. It only went down in 2020-21 because lockdowns reduced fuel imports. Newly released Nepal Rastra Bank trade figures show that the country is, to put it bluntly, bankrupt. The only reason we have not gone completely belly-up is because of remittances, which pumped $8 billion into the economy this year. 
Nepal’s biggest import item by far is petroleum and in the past fiscal year it hit Rs175 billion — compared to Rs90 billion the country earned from all other exports combined.
You could say that we are buying oil with the sweat of Nepali <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/job-seekers-now-also-jab-seekers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">migrant workers</a>  With tourism receipts and fees from mountaineering and trekking nearly zero, the economy’s reliance on remittances is even greater than before.
This is obviously unsustainable: economically, politically and environmentally. Nepal needs to make good on its target to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=lessons+notlearned" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">switch to renewable energy</a> for transportation by 2030 — not just to do our bit to save the planet, but to reduce our economic and political dependence on the outside.  
Other interesting things stick out of the NRB trade data. Curiously, Nepal’s biggest item of export is soybean oil when the country is not any major grower of soya. The answer can be seen in the graph for imports: the fifth largest item there is raw soyabean oil. So, we import soyabean oil in bulk from Argentina, Brazil and Malaysia and re-export it to India.Even more interesting is that the money Nepal earned from exporting refined soybean oil (Rs53.6 billion) is exactly what we spent on importing the stuff (Rs53.3 billion). Our entire foreign trade system seems to be based on a product that we do not even manufacture ourselves. There is almost no value addition, it does not create jobs, and only provides the government about Rs5 billion a year in tax revenue.The government’s neglect of agriculture means that imports of staple items, vegetables, and fruits have soared in the past decade. The country spent Rs130 billion on importing food items in 2010-11, but Rs323 billion this fiscal year. Of this one-third was spent on rice imports alone.Partly, this is due to agricultural productivity not being able to keep pace with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/everybody-counts-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">population growth </a>and growing demands of the middle class. Two-thirds of Nepal’s 30 million people are theoretically engaged in agriculture, but they are not producing enough to even feed themselves.We are living way beyond our means, and the only reason we can do that is because of those remittances. The buck stops at Singha Durbar.

Blood, sweat, tears

<figure></figure><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-68177" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce34a9c7e80680e096645jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1323" height="991"/><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-68176" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce34e9c7e80680e096646jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1326" height="993">Kathmandu before and after the wildfires. The second picture was taken on 29 March. Photos: PRABIN RAJBHANDARIThere is political miasma suffocating the country, and like the smoke shrouding Nepal for the past week, there is no immediate end in sight.An environmental crisis is never just about the environment: climate change has political-economic antecedents in energy policy, hazardous air pollution is caused by regulatory failure, political neglect leads to health crises. Poor governance turns rivers into sewers, and policy miscarriage makes pesticides poison the soil.Disasters, too, have political roots. There is nothing natural about ‘natural disasters’. An earthquake does not kill people, corruption that allows building permits for illegal, sub-standard construction does. Floods cannot always be blamed on heavy rainfall, they become human disasters because of poor drainage in new infrastructure.Disaster preparedness is all about foreseeing risk, putting preventive measures in place, and when a calamity does strike, having search, rescue and rehabilitation exercises on standby.The newly-formed Disaster Preparedness and Risk Management Authority has a long list of the dangers that this country is cursed with: earthquakes, landslides and rockfalls, floods, droughts, wildfires, lightning strikes, glacial lake outburst floods, avalanches. And this does not even include disease outbreaks, road traffic accidents and deaths due to preventable causes.More than 7,000 children still die in Nepal every year from diseases that can easily and cheaply be prevented with vaccines, clean drinking water, or smokeless kitchen fireplaces. That breaks down to 20 children who die every day across the country, mainly in poorer, remoter parts of Nepal. They do not make the news because they are not all killed suddenly in one place where there is a tv camera to record the tragedy. But it is an unacceptable crime that should garner banner headlines in the media: ’20 More Children Died Today’.But the media does not because that is the nature of this voracious beast. It only responds to a narrow definition of ‘all the news that is fit to print’. The news business is not geared to predicting disasters, it responds nearly always after a disaster strikes, and then there is a mad scramble to chronicle the carnage.The media is also not so good at covering slowly unfolding disasters, the ones that get worse bit-by-bit and are difficult to measure—like the increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the air, or the winter fog in the Tarai that is worsening every year.‘No news is good news’, and journalists are not primed to cover positive trends, improvements, solutions, or progress. We take our adversarial role so seriously that most reporters think it is not their job to cover development.In a democracy, media is the essential feedback loop to highlight problems, preferably before they become unmanageable, or to cover individuals or communities that have surmounted obstacles and save lives by being prepared for known hazards.The media’s lapse in serving this essential public service function lets governments, policy-makers and politicians off the hook. They can shrug and pretend they had no idea disaster would strike.It is because Nepal’s politics is a disaster in itself, that we had the unprecedented wildfire catastrophe this week. In satellite pictures, we saw the entire country in flames, and the smoke haze was so thick it was off the charts. No one remembers it being so bad for so long. And it will happen again if the root causes are not addressed.Those in government knew all along that this was the fire season. Every year, there are devastating fires that take a toll on lives, property and forests. This year, it should have come as no surprise that fires would be worse because winter precipitation was only 10% of normal in Central Nepal.The Met Dept could have sounded an early-warning, but didn’t. Sure enough, the wildfires started as early as November, and soon spread to different parts of the country, until last week it became just one nationwide bonfire.Nepal’s leaders are too busy in political firefighting to fight actual fires that are ravaging the country. It took some rain to douse the flames, when will it rain on Nepal’s desiccated politics?

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Political smokescreen

<figure><img width="1540" height="994" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be27c9c7e80680e083eaejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Illustration: DIWAKAR CHHETRI</figcaption></figure>Kathmandu’s cognoscenti suffer from low esteem about Nepal’s geostrategic importance. However, the international community also does not give the Nepali state due recognition.
It is time to change the narrative. True, Nepal’s world standing suffered during its internal conflict, which unfortunately got dubbed a ‘civil war’ by ill-informed foreign journalists and scholars. The United Mission to Nepal (UNMIN) painted an exaggerated picture of the Kathmandu establishment as regressive, oppressive and status-quoist. That vision still colours the West’s outlook.
While this bias is distressing, it is the role of our colossal northern and southern neighbours that have a direct bearing on Kathmandu’s self-perception and its sense of agency. Unfortunately, escalating tension between Beijing and New Delhi constricts the wriggle room for Nepal’s diplomacy, with its two major political parties required to take sides.
New Delhi’s nervousness regarding Beijing’s plans in Nepal is leading to a dumbing down of foreign policy in Kathmandu as well. And Beijing’s intentions to become a player in Nepal’s domestic politics needs to be checked by Kathmandu’s commentators, diplomats and politicians.
Much of Nepal’s politics of the modern era has been spent trying to ward off New Delhi’s interventionist arm. Faced with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/two-takes-on-the-nepal-india-nexus/">India’s overwhelming presence</a>, Kathmandu over past decades has leaned over backwards to exaggerate China’s importance. But things have changed in the past five years, as the influence of a rising China becomes palpable.
The arrival of the <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/the-tibet-train">Tibet Train</a> in Kerung and the prospect of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/which-way-will-the-tibet-nepal-railway-go/">cross-Himalaya connectivity</a> have suddenly brought mainland China closer. At the same time, Beijing has jettisoned the Himalayan spheres of influence policy that had existed since Chou En-lai, who sagaciously told Nepali leaders to maintain good relations with New Delhi.
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/is-china-now-micro-managing-nepal-politics/">China’s current ambassador in Kathmandu Hou Yanqi</a>, obviously acting upon instructions, is on overdrive trying to convince leaders of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) to stay together, and the Nepali polity has been lax in alerting her that this activism is inappropriate. If such direct political involvement continues, Beijing is sure to face a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-india-nepal-china-geopolitical-tri-junction/">backlash similar to the one New Delhi has had to deal with</a>. China should learn from India’s mistakes in Nepal.
For its part, Kathmandu should appreciate its own international standing because it may be surprised to learn that there is little to be embarrassed about. We just need to abandon our constant social media-led self-flagellation about how inept and feckless we are.
Look where we are at: Nepal has managed a peace-process that is more or less homegrown. In all likelihood, the country will get its first full-term prime minister since the Rana regime ended in 1950, and this relative stability had a healing effect, even if Prime Minister K P Oli’s government keeps goofing badly on governance.
Nepal is one of the few countries in the modern era which has succeeded in adopting a progressive Constitution through a Constituent Assembly, with the main challenge lying not in its provisions but in its implementation. Figures tell us that the quality of representative democracy is better in Nepal than in the neighbourhood, though it will take stringent watch-dogging to keep it so.
Nepal is deeply engaged in international peacekeeping, and in a region with so many ongoing and just-past internal conflicts, it is the only country which has an ongoing truth and reconciliation process – even though transition justice remains a mirage. Nepal’s ‘soft power’ potential is as yet un-recognised by its own citizens, let alone deployed for the good of self and others.
Commentators tend to look at the sudden downturn in relations between global and regional powers as a zero-sum game, as if Kathmandu can do nothing but be trampled. There is another way to look at it. Nepal is a country to be reckoned with as the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-india-us-nepal-china-quadrangle/">US, China, India and others</a> at the global high table seek to carve out their spheres of influence.
Nepal’s position amidst this push and pull must be one of self-confident independence – publicly rejecting demands to take sides, refusing to accept that an enemy of an enemy is a friend. Through its long history of non-colonised independence and geopolitical neutrality, Nepal is capable of charting a course of geopolitical equidistance and socio-economic engagement.
Indeed, resisting both Beijing’s and New Delhi’s urgings to take sides, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/political-geography-of-india-nepal-china-ties/">Kathmandu must take the lead on the true ‘middle path’</a>, emanating not from frightened neutrality but a disavowal of the need to prove loyalty to any one power. 
While we should be happy about the flurry of visits to Kathmandu from the North and South, not all the arrivals have been welcome. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi might have sought to embarrass Prime Minister Oli by sending the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/covid-19-and-the-new-great-game/">head of his spy outfit as a special emissary</a>, but the overture ended up insulting the Nepali state and people. The Indian Army Chief who arrived for the traditional courtesy visit had <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/gorkhas-on-the-frontline-between-india-and-china/">earlier implied that Nepal’s stance on Limpiyadhura was at the ‘behest’ of China.</a>
Not to be outdone, on 29 November the Chinese are sending State Councillor and Defence Minister Wei Fenghe to Kathmandu. What was wrong with sending State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi? To both New Delhi and Beijing, Kathmandu’s message should be: ‘We have had enough of being perceived only through your security lens.’
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/new-delhis-new-dealings-in-nepal/">After dispatching a spy and a general</a>, India is finally sending its Nepali-speaking Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringhla to Kathmandu this week. New Delhi will find a trustworthy friend in Kathmandu when it ends its trail of intervention. Nepal can and will never be part of any anti-India cabal, but Nepal’s foreign policy is its own.
The newfound confidence in Kathmandu despite the ongoing political shenanigans within the ruling NCP means that Nepal is able to stake its position. The message that Harsh Shringla can take back from Kathmandu is that it is time for Prime Minister Modi to make a conciliatory visit to Nepal to start mending the frayed relationship. Beijing is invited to take notes.

No binary foreign policy

<figure><img width="1500" height="1125" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2a69c7e80680e07baf5jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>A <a href="https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/this-is-how-the-government-is-failing-education/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/this-is-how-the-government-is-failing-education/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599106575183000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGqoopIXsdCYs-Ctd44AsChaPmyng">columnist</a> recently described the state of education in the country as being characterised by the government's neglect of public schools and disdain for private schools.This is nothing new. Those in power have always paid lip service to helping the poor, while doing everything in their power to ensure that the poor have no recourse. The added tragedy of the Covid-19 pandemic is that this dangerous populist proclivity has exacerbated the education crisis, creating an even bigger chasm between private schools and government ones where 80% of students are enrolled.The government has used the excuse of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/online-classes-may-widen-digital-divide/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/online-classes-may-widen-digital-divide/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599106575183000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEmjAzru8cBDcL32pkhzDg0nmWdxA">‘digital divide’</a> to discourage private schools from thinking out of the box on online classes. Vague and ambiguous policy decisions have not helped clear the confusion.Now that it is clear that the pandemic here to stay, the Ministry of Education has finally finalised a plan to grant formal recognition to remote learning classes. However, if not planned properly, this will further widen the inequity in Nepal’s education system.A <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-impact-on-food-and-school-in-nepali-children/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-impact-on-food-and-school-in-nepali-children/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599106575183000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFmPvte291xwmwk4iUd6cz7ILYL3g">recent survey</a> showed that 95% of households said their children had stopped going to school, and 52% were not even studying at home. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/digital-divide-exposes-class-divide-in-nepal-schools/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/digital-divide-exposes-class-divide-in-nepal-schools/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599106575183000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH4g2MExFt6ZFTGQpkQ8mnF2d5v_A">Only 29% had access to distance learning</a>, but that only half were using it. <img width="1046" height="580" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915110/636bb2a99c7e80680e07baf6jpeg.jpg" alt="">The attitude of the Ministry towards government schools which fall directly under its own purview is even more grievous. While the government school teachers, administrators and the entire education super-structure have remained fully salaried throughout the nearly six months of lockdown, they have nearly nothing to show in terms of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/face-to-face-classes-online/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/face-to-face-classes-online/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599106575183000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEYCXAumkU_7dKJWPwdu3amiDkP8A">remote teaching.</a>The government's inability and unwillingness to address the lack of education for nearly 6 million students that attend government schools is tantamount to criminal negligence. The ministry’s dynamism has long been eroded by the politicisation of the education sector, neglect by the education establishment from the federal minister downwards, and lack of accountability and institutional memory among  donors who have practically guided the Education Ministry with its 'basket fund' over the past decade.Even today, the ministry seems to be mainly concerned with passing the buck when it comes to pandemic response. This is a ministry that has over the past few years made school exams so lenient in grading as to be meaningless. And today it has done nearly nothing to end the inertia of the lockdowns.Better-off private schools have access to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lockdown-gives-distance-learning-a-boost-in-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lockdown-gives-distance-learning-a-boost-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599106575183000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHihnP63dLNDsz2uqOv73NXiP2q4Q">internet learning</a>, but most government school children have neither computers nor connectivity. The  government’s response has been more fatalism and populist rhetoric about helping the poor.The most underserved mountain districts have negligible Covid-19 spread, and schools there are so sparsely populated that attendance is possible with physical distancing in the classrooms. Yet, it has been five months and the Ministry of Education has not acted on the basis of this simple reality.For government schools in urban clusters and the densely-populated Tarai, the federal government had enough time to implement an emergency plan to let local governments ensure wifi availability and remote radio/tv classes. Some of these online classes could have been centralised, while the individual schools that had the capacity should have been encouraged to start their own. The lassitude is unbelievable, yet sadly predictable.Minister of Education Giriraj Mani Pokhrel deserves an ‘F’ for not using the Covid-19 crisis to improve government school education. But the buck stops with his boss, Prime Minister K P Oli. They should both re-read the Constitution, which relegates the responsibility for school-level education to municipalities. Local governments most likely would do a better job.It is well known for decades that while Nepal’s enrollment rate rose, literacy went up, and we have numerically more schools, there was abject failure on the part of the government in raising the quality of instruction. We had hoped that handing over education to the local governments was a way to improve quality. But alas, like everything else, education is still tightly centralised.The Covid-19 crisis could still be turned into an opportunity if the federal Ministry of Education were to wake up and support urban and rural municipalities to restart remote and in-person classes, and raise the standard of instruction in government schools where it is most needed.

Ministry of Education gets an F

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a40469c7e80680e04a60fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="861" height="688"/>On the face of it, when 41% of Nepalis in a public opinion poll say the country is headed in the right direction it could be taken as a decent level of approval of the government’s performance. Indeed, the way the question is framed in the Nepali language gives broad leeway for interpretation: if we should be going north, any course bearing between 270 degrees to 90 degrees would mean we are more or less on the right track.The question was part of a public opinion survey carried out by Kathmandu-based <a href="http://www.sharecast.org.np/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sharecast Initiative</a> in January among a statistically representative sample of 4,129 respondents in Nepal’s 42 districts. The survey takes the pulse of the nation, showing the general mood of Nepalis two years after local governments took office, and a little over a year after the federal and provincial governments were formed. In all three tiers of government, it is mostly the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) that holds sway – only Province 2 and a handful of municipalities are with other parties.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=26316&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Outward Bound</a><a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=26348&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Survey is wakeup call for Nepal government</a>, Rameshwar BohoraAs with Himalmedia <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/hoping-against-hope-himalmedia-poll" target="_blank" rel="noopener">polls in previous years</a>, the results show that the Nepali people are alert and aware of what is going on – they also seem to be short-term pessimists and long-term optimists. Even if 41% of respondents felt the country was on the right course, a full 27.1% felt Nepal was headed in the wrong direction, and 22.6% were undecided (see chart above).One of the more positive outcomes of the survey was the response to a question on which facilities people have in their homes. The government’s initiatives over the past four decades on safe drinking water, sanitation, rural electrification and infrastructure appear to be yielding results. Well over 90% of Nepalis now have access to electricity and latrines. Three-quarters live near a road, or use gas cylinders for cooking. Although the 74% with access to safe drinking water is still quite low, and only 5% of mountain dwellers live near a black-topped road, overall the country is making progress. Which may be why so many seem to think that Nepal is headed more or less in the right direction.However, there is growing public dissatisfaction with the government: only 4.2% were happy with the functioning of the federal government, 35% were dissatisfied and nearly 61% said they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. The greatest discontent is in Province 3 and Far-Western Province. People in the centre and the periphery both give Kathmandu failing grades.People do not seem to have faith in the federal Parliament either: more than a quarter of respondents said they did not trust the legislature, only 7% said they trust it, and 43% were ambivalent. Neither was there much approval of the performance of local governments: more than 26% were dissatisfied, and only 7% satisfied with the way provinces and municipalities were going about their business; 66% were apathetic.Read also:<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/himal-poll-expectations,4153" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Great expectations</a>, Editorial<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/himal-media-public-opinion-survey-2015-outcome" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Himalmedia Public Opinion Survey 2015</a>, Ayesha ShakyaThe survey also proves just how important migration for work overseas has become for Nepalis. More than a quarter of respondents said they had a family member working abroad, with the highest percentages among Muslims and Hill Dalits, and in Far-Western Province. Tarai 'High Castes' in Province 2 and Tharu households had the fewest members abroad. Most of the money sent home by overseas workers goes into subsistence (food, clothing, children’s education and medical treatment), and very little of it is invested in land, saved in banks or ploughed into productive sectors.Opinion surveys are a way for a democratic country’s rulers to gauge the public mood between elections. They should also be a wake-up call so course corrections can be made. They are a tool available to politicians, the bureaucracy and other agencies of the state to see if their actions fulfil the aspiration of citizens. Many of these checks and balances in a country are performed by democratic institutions and the mass media, but when the performance of other sectors of the state (legislature, judiciary, executive, bureaucracy and the security agencies) is not at an optimum, opinion surveys directly reflect the public’s frame of mind.It is clear from some of the results of the survey in this edition that citizens’ faith in government is faltering, that a large section of the public does not trust politicians and that they are unhappy with the slow pace of development. Yet, they have not given up hope and hold out the expectation that things will get better. It is still not too late for the NCP government to go beyond slogans, deliver more than rhetoric, and walk the talk.

Can't get no satisfaction

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

Turkish Basketball

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

The Last Days of the Khampa

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

Turkish to Seville

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

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