A lot has happened since American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin was first published in 2005. The book set off ripples after it won a Pulitzer, but created a tidal wave of interest after Christopher Nolan adapted it for his 2023 blockbuster movie Oppenheimer which is dominating this award season. American Prometheus is a nuanced portrait of a scientist ‘whose brilliance was matched only by his internal conflicts’, and by retelling its protagonist’s life and times the book is a call for rationality in the nuclear age to contain the fearful threat posed by weapons of mass destruction and terror.&nbsp; The book took 25 years to research and write and is a sobering reminder that the doomsday clock is closer to midnight today than at any time since the end of the Cold War. It has been ticking ever since the world’s greatest scientific minds got together in Los Alamos in New Mexico in 1943 to build an atom bomb before the Germans did.&nbsp; Germany surrendered, but that did not stop hawks in the US military to use it to kill 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The Americans justified this by saying that a long-drawn assault on the Japanese mainland would have cost a lot more lives. And Oppenheimer himself felt that the first military use of atomic weapons should be so spectacular and destructive that its ferocity would deter future use. The book reminds us that he opposed the detonation of the second bomb over Nagasaki, and the development of the hydrogen bomb. The fact that nuclear weapons have not been used in war for the past 80 years shows the reasoning could have some merit. But it has not stopped nuclear proliferation, and countries like Pakistan, India and North Korea now own atomic warheads as well.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-nuclear-weapons-story-is-not-over">The nuclear weapons story is not over</a>, Nepali Times Speaking with Nepali Times ahead of his session at the Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara on 17 February, Kai Bird emphasised that the nuclear story is not over, and it could still end very badly: Vladimir Putin’s threat to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, Israel's strategic ambiguity, and Iran's impending nuclear arsenal. Closer to home, Nepal is surrounded by nuclear-armed countries which are not exactly friendly with each other. India has frequent border skirmishes with Pakistan and China, and Nepali soldiers serve in the Indian Army.&nbsp; Amitav Ghosh in his 1999 book Countdown following the Indian nuclear test wrote that even tactical use of nuclear weapons could result in fallout carried by prevailing winds to Himalaya glaciers that could turn Asia’s rivers radioactive and contaminate aquifers. &nbsp; If Middle East tensions escalate into a nuclear confrontation, it will endanger 2 million Nepalis who work there and most will have to return home for safety. Nepali students were killed by Hamas in Israel, and continue to die for Russia in Ukraine.&nbsp; The staunchest critic of nuclear weapons was the architect of the first atomic bomb himself. The book recounts how after the Japanese surrender, Oppenheimer met President Truman and said he felt he had “blood in his hands”. Truman told aides later he never again wanted to see that “son of a bitch … cry-baby scientist”. &nbsp; Oppenheimer used his newfound fame as a celebrity scientist to slow the nuclear arms race. ‘He tried valiantly to divert us from the bomb culture by containing the nuclear threat he helped to set loose,’ the authors write in Prometheus.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-the-movie-oppenheimer-missed">What the movie Oppenheimer missed</a>, Katsuhiro Asagiri But at the height of the anti-Communist McCarthy purges in the 1950s, Oppenheimer was singled out for his peace initiatives in &nbsp;hearings designed to silence and humiliate the scientist.&nbsp; “Oppenheimer became the chief celebrity victim of the McCarthyite witch-hunts. And today around the globe we seem to be experiencing similar xenophobia about immigrants, ethnic and religious minorities and workers disrupted by technology and globalisation,” Bird says in his interview (overleaf).&nbsp; The dense 700-page biography reads like a political thriller that starts with Oppenheimer’s precocious childhood. He is so fascinated by rocks and minerals that the New York Mineralogical Club invites him to deliver a lecture not knowing he is only a 12-year-old boy. He is miserable at Harvard and Cambridge, his mental well-being is put to a test and he is diagnosed with schizophrenia. But he flourishes in Göttingen in Germany where he learns quantum physics. Back in America, his Berkeley department becomes the centre of fundamental research into atomic physics. He supports leftist causes but never joins the Communist Party.&nbsp; Today, there is a theoretical debate about which is worse: all out nuclear war, or climate breakdown. &nbsp;One has more immediate and irreversible implications than the other, but the fact is that both are manmade threats and we have it in our power to remove them.&nbsp; Read : <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/ukraines-lessons-for-sandwiched-nations-like-nepal">Ukraine's lessons for sandwiched nations like Nepal</a>, Bhaskar Koirala Harnessing atomic energy was always a double edged sword. Besides the bomb, many energy planners are pushing for nuclear reactors to be climate-friendly. But atomic reactors have a problem with radioactive waste disposal, and the dangers of Chernobyl or &nbsp;Fukushima type meltdowns.&nbsp; The future may be in fusion reactors, the same physics that drove the thermonuclear bomb that Oppenheimer so staunchly opposed. Fusion is cleaner energy with water as the only by-product.&nbsp; “It is becoming increasingly likely that the problem will not be resolved with renewable energy – which is growing too slowly to make a significant difference – or expensive technologies like carbon capture and sequestration and green hydrogen,” says Nouriel Roubini of New York University’s Stern School of Business. “Instead, we may see a fusion energy revolution, provided that a commercial reactor can be built in the next 15 years.” Oppenheimer said that the only defense against nuclear terrorism was the elimination of nuclear weapons, and in the age of nuclear arms race he was also worried about mankind’s moral survival. His friend, a fellow theoretical physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi said, ‘You drop a bomb and it falls on the just and the unjust.’ In Japan, surviving hibakusha and their descendants continue to suffer genetic defects. In the South Pacific, Kazakhstan and other nuclear test sites, many still suffer devastating health consequences from fallout. The Los Alamos site itself led to inter-generational sickness from radioactive fallout for 15,000 Navajo people living downwind. They were not warned before the test, and they have been forgotten since.&nbsp; American Prometheus reminds us of the urgent need for nuclear arms control in a volatile world. Bird and Sherwin have narrated the moral dilemma and persecution of the inventor of a fearful weapon, coming generations will have to grapple with ways to keep prevent its use. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/year-of-reckoning">Year of reckoning</a>, Editorial  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024021515028_d560d5d86980d0c3493c75fd1e4e7e2bb3a91c490d2641329aea2901d6564482.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2024021515028_d560d5d86980d0c3493c75fd1e4e7e2bb3a91c490d2641329aea2901d6564482" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="669" loading="lazy" alt="American Prometheus NT"> </figure>

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The destroyer of worlds

I watched the film Oppenheimer in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan where I was going to cover a regional conference to commemorate the International Day against Nuclear Testing. The movie is still not released in Japan due to its sensitive nature. &nbsp; For countries like Japan and Kazakhstan where there are still severe health after-effects of nuclear bombings and testings, the film is disturbing because it only hints at the mass deaths and radioactive sickness that the bombs unleashed. Christopher Nolan does a remarkable job in laying bare the politics behind the making and detonation of the first atomic bomb, and the moral dilemma faced by physicist J Robert Oppenheimer. I only wish he had done more to describe the human dimension of the effects of nuclear weapons ever since the Trinity Test in 1945, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the danger of an unthinkable global nuclear conflagration that persists to this day.&nbsp; The movie does not even address the health impacts and suffering from radioactive fallout on 15,000 Americans living downwind from Los Alamos in the Nevada desert after the tests. The US government’s official explanation remains that the test site was in the middle of nowhere, a narrative the movie chooses not to delve into. Remarkably, the Soviet Union employed a similar justification, dubbing the Semipalatinsk test site in the Kazakh steppe as being 'in the middle of nowhere' to rationalise its 456 nuclear tests, many of which were conducted atmospherically, despite the presence of nearby towns. Intriguingly, the Soviet Union's thermonuclear test, Tsar Bomba, conducted in the Arctic in 1961, led its chief scientist, Andrei Sakharov, down a path of dissent and persecution by the state, mirroring Oppenheimer's own trajectory. Today, the tragic aftermath of nuclear testing persists in northeastern Kazakhstan, near the vast Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, a testing area equivalent in size to Belgium. Children continue to be born with health issues, including cancer and deformities, offering harrowing proof of the inhuman consequences of nuclear weapons. Over 1.5 million Kazakhs endured fallout exposure from 1949 to 1989. On 29 August, 1991 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semipalatinsk_Test_Site" target="_blank">the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site</a> was permanently closed by Kazakhstan, even though it was still a part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan subsequently became independent and the first country in the world to voluntarily turn itself to a non-nuclear weapons state from a nuclear weapons state by abolishing its nuclear arsenal, the fourth largest in the world at the time. In 2009, at the initiative of Kazakhstan, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution, designating August 29 as <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-nuclear-tests-day" target="_blank">the International Day Against Nuclear Tests</a>, emphasising the significance of this historic closure. The nuclear tests have had a serious impact on the lives of the Kazakhs to this day. The famous painter <a href="https://www.theatomproject.org/en/about/nuclear-weapons-testing-effects/" target="_blank">Kalipbek Kuyukov</a> was born without hands after being exposed to radiation in his mother’s womb. Kuyukov is involved in the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement, which played a vital role in closing down the site and conveys the horrors of nuclear tests through his paintings.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230915120948_577d57e5a2754ad22f86ece9bccb114d8f539ba37032136c7d6713861e70f9f4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20230915120948_577d57e5a2754ad22f86ece9bccb114d8f539ba37032136c7d6713861e70f9f4" data-rendition-name="original" width="3024" height="4032" loading="lazy" alt="Oppenheimer"> <figcaption>Oppenheimer poster in Kazakhstan. </figcaption> </figure>  Dmitriy Vesselov, a third-generation survivor of Semipalatinsk's nuclear tests, carries the scars of his family's exposure. He suffers from a physical deformity in which his hands are connected by only a few ligaments due to the absence of collarbones. His poignant words serve as a stark warning against those who advocates for the use of small tactical nuclear weapons and limited nuclear war, echoing the collective hope of nuclear victims worldwide. The cumulative power of nuclear detonations at Semipalatinsk dwarfed the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima by a staggering 2,500 times. Against the backdrop of the Ukraine conflict and Sino-U.S. tensions, the ominous tick of the Doomsday Clock edges closer to midnight. It is imperative that humanity remembers the grave consequences of military nuclear use and testing.&nbsp; It is worth reminding ourselves that the threats posed by an all-out global nuclear confrontation will be much more serious for life on the planet than the projected impacts of the climate crisis. The regional conference in Astana, organised by Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with international partners, participants delved into the humanitarian aftermath of nuclear weapons. This dimension, conspicuously missing in Oppenheimer, took center stage, alongside disarmament discussions among nuclear-armed nations at the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) held in Vienna. Hirotsugu Terasaki, Director General of Peace and Global Issues at Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a co-host of the regional conference, emphasised the ongoing discussions within the international community surrounding Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). These articles call for state parties to provide aid to nuclear victims, remediate affected areas, and promote international cooperation. Kazakhstan has been appointed, alongside Kiribati, as a co-chair of the working group at the heart of these crucial discussions. While the nine nuclear-armed nations continue to disregard the TPNW and attempt to convince the public of the necessity of nuclear deterrence, it is imperative to recognise that that no matter who may use a nuclear weapon next time, it will be ordinary people like us who will be at the receiving end of this inhumane weapons with inter-generational after-effects. We have to pay attention to the human dimension of the effects of nuclear weapons on the 'Global Hibakusha', or victims of nuclear use, testing and productions including the USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, Australia, Algeria, South Pacific Islands, China, North Korea, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As the second Meeting of States Parties of the TPNW approaches, set to convene at the United Nations Headquarters in New York between November 27 and December 1, the world faces the looming threat of nuclear weapons use. State parties, joined by NGOs and representatives of global Hibakusha, are poised to advocate for a world free from nuclear weapons by endorsing and ratifying the TPNW. Katsuhiro Asagiri is a Japanese journalist with International Press Syndicate (INPS) Japan and project director of 'Towards a World without Nuclear Weapons' and 'SDGs for All'.&nbsp;

What the movie Oppenheimer missed

In addition to bringing devastation to the people of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/ukraines-lessons-for-sandwiched-nations-like-nepal">Ukraine</a>, the war has had severe impacts on the global scale, even raising the spectre of a nuclear weapon exchange. As the conflict drags into its second year, there have been urgent calls for its resolution, and the matter will come up at the G7 Summit of leading industrial nations in Hiroshima from 19-21 May. In February, an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the early realisation of peace in Ukraine. Among the operative paragraphs of the resolution was one that urged the ‘immediate cessation of the attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine and any deliberate attacks on civilian objects, including those that are residences, schools and hospitals’. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/90-seconds-to-midnight">90 seconds to midnight</a>, Daisaku Ikeda With that as a first essential step, all concerned parties must come together to create a space for deliberation toward a complete cessation of hostilities. I would like to propose that, as negotiations advance through the cooperative efforts of the concerned countries, they be joined by representatives of civil society, such as physicians and educators who work in schools and hospitals to protect and nurture people’s lives and futures, participating as observers. In March, the leaders of Russia and China issued a joint statement following their summit meeting which read in part: ‘The two sides call for stopping all moves that lead to tensions and the protraction of fighting to prevent the crisis from getting worse or even out of control.’ This is aligned with the resolution adopted by the emergency special session of the UN General Assembly. The <a href="https://www.g7hiroshima.go.jp/en/summit/about/">G7 Hiroshima Summit </a>next week is an opportunity to build on these commitments and develop concrete plans for negotiations that will lead to a cessation of hostilities. I also urge the G7 to commit at the Hiroshima Summit to taking the lead in discussions on pledges of No First Use of nuclear weapons. The Ukraine crisis is without parallel in the length of time that the threat of use and the fear of actual use of nuclear weapons have persisted. Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the hibakusha of those cities, in coordination with the larger civil society movement, have stressed the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons. Non-nuclear-weapon states have engaged in continuous diplomatic efforts, and the states possessing nuclear weapons have exercised self-restraint. As a result, the world has somehow managed to maintain a seventy-seven-year record of non-use of nuclear weapons.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230509090512_43ed50f0f0bbdd477bc52a0aba3313079bdaf26cdcbedec4f6e9439da3576221.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20230509090512_43ed50f0f0bbdd477bc52a0aba3313079bdaf26cdcbedec4f6e9439da3576221" data-rendition-name="original" width="1207" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="G7 summit"> <figcaption>Karipbek Kuyukov (left) at a gathering of anti-nuclear weapons activists in Tokyo ahead of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima. The Kazakh painter was born without arms because of exposure to radiation from the former Soviet nuclear testing site in Semipalatinsk. Photo: Katsuhiro Asagiri, Multimedia Director of INPS Japan.</figcaption> </figure>  If international public opinion and the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons were to fail to provide their braking function, nuclear deterrence policy will compel humankind to stand on the edge of a precipice, never knowing when it might give way. Since the start of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/ukraine-crisis-hits-nepal-economy-hard">the Ukraine crisis</a>, I have drawn attention to the joint statement by the five nuclear-weapon states (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China) made in January 2022, which reiterated the principle that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’, and called for it to serve as the basis for reducing the risk of nuclear weapons use. Also of important note is the declaration issued by the G20 group in Indonesia last November, which stated: ‘The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.’ The G20 member countries include nuclear-weapon states as well as nuclear-dependent states. It is deeply significant that these countries have officially expressed their shared recognition that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is ‘inadmissible’ — the spirit underlying the <a href="https://disarmament.unoda.org/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/#:~:text=The%20Treaty%20on%20the%20Prohibition,threaten%20to%20use%20nuclear%20weapons.">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a> (TPNW). It is vital that this message be communicated powerfully to the world from Hiroshima. As the G7 leaders revisit the actual consequences of a nuclear weapon detonation and the bitter lessons of the nuclear era, I urge that they initiate earnest deliberations on making pledges of No First Use so that their shared recognition of the inadmissible nature of nuclear weapons can find expression in changed policies. If agreement could be reached on the principle of No First Use, which was at one point included in drafts of the final statement for last year’s NPT Review Conference, this would establish the basis on which states could together transform the challenging security environments in which they find themselves. I believe it is vital to make the shift to a ‘common security’ paradigm. Commitment to policies of No First Use is indeed a prescription for hope. It can serve as the axle connecting the twin wheels of the NPT and TPNW, speeding realisation of a world free from nuclear weapons. Soka Gakkai International (SGI) has continued to work with the world’s hibakusha, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which arose from its parent body IPPNW, and other organisations first for the adoption and now the universalisation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. As members of civil society, we are committed to promoting the prompt adoption of policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons, generating momentum to transform our age. <a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sokaglobal.org%2Fabout-the-soka-gakkai%2Flives-of-the-founding-presidents%2Fdaisaku-ikeda.html&amp;data=05%7C01%7C%7C530ac282429b4975602d08daf631f280%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638092991631893918%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=wxDtf2a8bAHpXRQsESarxm6r2OMbqQQ2Yn9cdYklX2A%3D&amp;reserved=0" target="_blank">Daisaku Ikeda</a> is a peace builder and Buddhist leader, and President of the Soka Gakkai International (<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsgi-peace.org%2F&amp;data=05%7C01%7C%7C530ac282429b4975602d08daf631f280%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638092991631893918%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=sAZGJhUq0jZ6zvwMxPxPP5%2FT6fKkD%2FPoZhyzUI9IFko%3D&amp;reserved=0" target="_blank">SGI</a>). <a href="https://www.daisakuikeda.org/" target="_blank">https://www.daisakuikeda.org/</a>&nbsp; Read <a href="https://www.daisakuikeda.org/sub/resources/works/lect/2023apr27-g7-hiroshima-stmt.html" target="_blank">full statement</a>.

G7 in Hiroshima must defuse Ukraine nuclear risk

“Let's have another cup of tea,” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/ujwal-thapa-s-light-shines-on-n0tfurod">Ujwal Thapa</a> of the alternative Bibeksheel Nepali party told the young activist Pukar Bam ten years ago. The two had 12 cups of tea that day, discussing ways to get Nepal out of its political deadend. Thapa contested the Constituent Assembly election in 2013 as an independent from Kathmandu, and formed Bibeksheel Nepali to galvanise youth impatient for change, fielding candidates in the first federal election in 2017.&nbsp; Ujwal Thapa was a political guru who was way ahead of his time, and his protégés were among the RSP’s winning candidates in last week’s election. Pukar Bam was a core member of Bibeksheel Nepali until its dissolution, and won the Kathmandu-4 seat this time. Other former Bibeksheel members who won the election from the RSP in Kathmandu include Ranju Neupane from Kathmandu-1, Sasmit Pokharel from Kathmandu-5, and Biraj Bhakta Shrestha in Kathmandu-8. As votes were counted and the results from Kathmandu began to come in, the candidates paid fulsome tribute to Ujwal Thapa’s mentorship and in inspiring idealistic youth to become a part of an alternative political force.&nbsp; Today, as RSP members of Parliament, they are no longer an alternative, but a part of Nepal’s new mainstream politics. Thapa returned to Nepal after finishing his undergraduate computer science degree in the US at the peak of the Maoist insurgency. His foray into politics began when he traveled to Nepal’s western mountains to train communities in mediation. After the war, he started a computer design company for young entrepreneurs entering the workforce. But he became frustrated with the inability of the second Constituent Assembly to promulgate the Constitution, and the power struggle between political parties played out in the streets that led to frequent shutdowns paralysing the country.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260313120348_d18647d53a3b2927328067c35b2e3e6eecf9aefe13f23384e73a2c17211cd9cb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260313120348_d18647d53a3b2927328067c35b2e3e6eecf9aefe13f23384e73a2c17211cd9cb" data-rendition-name="original" width="823" height="682" loading="lazy" alt="The RSP's activist DNA"> <figcaption>Thapa with Pukar Bam, who was elected to Parliament last week from Kathmandu-4. Photo: PUKAR BAM / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  PROTEST TO POLITICS Ujwal Thapa had had enough, and rallied people from across walks of life, leading peaceful, silent demonstrations proclaiming 'नेपाल खुल्ला छ' against prolonged, violent strikes. Citizens fed up with the main political parties organised to defy the shutdowns. Thapa’s activism and vision for a new Nepal drew disenchanted and previously apathetic youth into politics and to join the Bibeksheel Nepali Party in 2013.&nbsp; Thapa was the pioneer of alternative politics in Nepal, and was leading a youth force long before the GenZ became synonymous with Nepal’s September Storm. He mentored and guided social activists who are today influential youth leaders engaged in non-traditional politics. “Ujwal Thapa, with his entrepreneurial spirit, wanted to address people’s pain-points, and believed that activism was the starting point to alternative politics,” explains <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-loses-rare-purpose-driven-leader">Ashutosh Tiwari</a>, former member of Bibeksheel Sajha party. “He sought to build confidence, motivate, and build a community for young people, which drew a lot of people into Bibeksheel.” He adds: “ And while people might say that Bibeksheel never got big, that was never its point. Its function was to be an early talent incubator, which is what it did as evident by the result of this election.” Thapa died in 2021 of complications related to Covid-19, and Bibeksheel had two mergers with Rabindra Mishra’s Sajha Party before being permanently dissolved in 2021. But many of its idealistic members joined Rabi Lamichhane’s RSP, formed just four months before the 2022 federal election. Such was the groundswell of support for change that the RSP became the fourth-largest in Parliament. In 2017, Ranju Neupane (then Ranju Darshana) was the youngest mayoral candidate for Kathmandu at age 21, and contested the federal election in 2022. Pukar Bam himself lost the 2022 election in Kathmandu-1 as an independent.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260313120348_6302a9b534f57191d9a2cb2c31b31449873c6cc27d375344a248dd90847921dd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260313120348_6302a9b534f57191d9a2cb2c31b31449873c6cc27d375344a248dd90847921dd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1729" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="The RSP's activist DNA"> <figcaption>Photo: SOCIAL MEDIA</figcaption> </figure>  Sashmit Pokharel also ran an unsuccessful campaign as an independent candidate in Kathmandu during the 2022 provincial election. Later, he was a member of the City Planning Commission under Balendra Shah when he was elected mayor of Kathmandu in 2022.&nbsp; Last week, the RSP swept the election with a supermajority of 182 seats in Parliament. Voters placed their trust in the party and its leaders to steer Nepal in a new direction after the youth unrest in September.&nbsp; In many ways, Nepal’s youth have decided, just as Ujwal Thapa once did, that enough is enough with corruption, malgovernance, nepotism and dynastic politics.&nbsp; In the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-man-who-shook-our-minds">documentary</a> about his life, Dimag Ghochne Manche, released earlier this year, some RSP nominees who previously worked with and were mentored by Thapa spoke of the impact he had on their lives, career, and activism. Among them is Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, former minister of Youth and Sports who is now a second time RSP parliamentarian. “I tell everybody that if it hadn’t been for Ujwal Dai, I would not have gotten into politics,” he says in the film.&nbsp; It would be unfair to attribute all the success of the hard-fought campaigns entirely to Ujwal Thapa’s protégés and former coworkers.&nbsp; But his ethos and vision for Nepal was what inspired them, and will in the coming years be reflected in national politics through the young idealists he mentored. Says Ashutosh Tiwari: “There are many Bibeksheels outside of RSP in constant and open communication with their old friends who have been elected. They will be keeping the lawmakers in check so that they do no stray too far from the values that they grew up with.”

RSP’s activist DNA

The Bell that rang in the new A daughter stands in her family's living room, frantically ringing an actual घण्टी at her father. He is a lifelong Nepali Congress (NC) voter. She tells him his party loyalty is as humiliating as a daughter eloping.&nbsp; He looks visibly defeated, and because of RSP’s landslide sweep in this election, he has no reply. She is not a party member. Nobody told her to do this.&nbsp; Multiply this actual family scene by hundreds of thousands of households across Nepal and you find the reason for the RSP tsunami. Children ringing bells at parents over dinner. Aunties shaking bells at legacy party candidates on their morning walks. Taxi drivers, lifelong UML supporters, cheerfully announcing they have switched.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_096f980a799b4f80118863174ed629680cc6c21b02e226a899ce1dc5268b4b72.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026031014038_096f980a799b4f80118863174ed629680cc6c21b02e226a899ce1dc5268b4b72" data-rendition-name="original" width="364" height="662" loading="lazy" alt="RSP Flag prank"> </figure>  And overseas, Nepalis in Dubai and Doha, Sydney and Seattle, calling home to deliver just one instruction: “चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप”।&nbsp; How did an election symbol like the Bell jump off a ballot paper and become weaponised for generational shame?&nbsp; The RSP's 2026 campaign is a case study in how a symbol becomes so participatory and instinctive, that citizens start campaigning on behalf of a party they never formally joined. It may look like a cult, but it is a phenomenon no political party in Nepal has ever pulled off. The ghost in the machine&nbsp; The 3-year-old RSP entered the 2026 race without the campaign infrastructure that legacy parties considered essential. It has no sister organisations, no vanguard student unions, no established cadre networks.&nbsp; In a country where ground reach and organisation wins elections, this looked like a fatal handicap. Established parties had spent decades building a top-down machinery: youth wings that mobilise on orders and unions within government. But it was all hollow and manufactured.&nbsp; That is why when the NC or UML posted a policy manifesto, it got barely 200 shares. When a 19-year-old posts an <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/spot-ai-generated-election-videos">AI video on TikTok </a>of Balendra Shah swinging a bell like a Kung Fu Hustle weapon, it gets 5 million views.&nbsp; The RSP’s very absence became its strategic advantage. Without a chain of command for content, every post felt peer-to-peer. Supporters built communities instead of following orders. Network effects took over: one person posts, three friends remix it, their followers adapt it for their own local context, and the message multiplies without a single directive from party headquarters. A TikTok from Kathmandu featuring Balendra Shah gets remixed by someone in Birganj who <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@bhojpuriyasuppor0/video/7596686360111484178?q=bhojpuri%20dub%20balen&amp;t=1773115199365">dubs it in Bhojpuri</a>. A supporter in Pokhara takes the same “अबकि बार बालेन सरकार” audio and films it over footage of the city’s broken road.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_56090217f5b3482fad934c4f76fc872047571b3c86331a4eda1ac19ae389c2fc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026031014038_56090217f5b3482fad934c4f76fc872047571b3c86331a4eda1ac19ae389c2fc" data-rendition-name="original" width="375" height="646" loading="lazy" alt="Balen Bhojpuri remix"> </figure>  A Nepali worker in Dubai films himself shaking his phone at the camera, captioning it “I can't vote but my family can”. The content stays structurally the same (bell + emotion) but the surface changes every time. The format is the constant. The context is the variable. A single post multiplies into a thousand pieces of local content without anyone coordinating it. Legacy parties spent money on reach. RSP's strategy built reach for free, because participation itself was the product. The Bell, blazer and brand&nbsp; Run the sensory test. The UML's Sun symbol is only visual. You see it on a ballot, on a flag. You cannot hear a sun. You cannot perform a &nbsp;sun. Nobody walks into a room and ‘suns’ at an opponent.&nbsp; The NC’s Tree symbol is also only seen. It communicates nothing as a verb. Nobody ‘trees’ the father across the dinner table. Ujyalo Nepal's lightbulb was the most passive symbol of all, it just sits there being always on. The Bell had rare resonance as an election symbol. It is a verb (to ring), a sound (tintinnabulation), a physical action (shaking), and a metaphor (wake-up call). घण्टी is participatory by design. You do not just see it, you perform it.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260310140312_c5580164e1f11a8466f591c4d514420bb5313a34b559554db05364065486c3b7.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260310140312_c5580164e1f11a8466f591c4d514420bb5313a34b559554db05364065486c3b7" data-rendition-name="original" width="368" height="654" loading="lazy" alt="Classroom ghanti NT"> </figure>  It works as a metaphor: wake up. It works as a taunt: we are coming (“हामी आयौँ”). It operates across sensory channels a meme can travel through. The other party symbols are logos. The घण्टी is a multimedia verb in active voice. Poets on the frontline Politics has always been about performance. Murray Edelman wrote decades ago that political actions are symbolic acts: what politicians do matters less than what their actions represent.&nbsp; Guy-Ernest Debord argued that spectacle replaces lived experience. But the stage has changed. The social media feed is the new stage, and the algorithm is the casting director. It does not select for policy depth, but for recognisability, emotional charge, and remix potential. Poets have always been at the frontlines of political rupture. The French Revolution had its pamphleteers. The Bolsheviks had Mayakovsky. The Black Panthers had Gil Scott-Heron. Nepal's own political history is full of writers who paid for their words with prison or exile.&nbsp; Rap is rhythm and poetry. Balen Shah did not cross from entertainment into politics, his art was always political. “सडकबालक" in 2012 was already a protest song. The diss tracks against corruption were manifestos set to beat.&nbsp; So, if घण्टी was the sound, Balen was the voice. Supporters rang Bells to perform, projecting their hopes on Balen. One is participatory (anyone can ring it), the other is aspirational (representing what you want the country to become). Together, they form a complete symbolic system: an action and an icon, a thing you do, and a person you believe in. Both are algorithm-native. The sunglasses are instantly recognisable in a thumbnail at any size. The bell sound action is identifiable within half a second of a video starting. The confrontational attitude generates the emotional charge that the algorithm rewards.&nbsp; Balen was already trained in the language of the algorithm: hooks, rhythm, timing, and audience retention. While legacy politicians are just now trying to learn the language of the algorithm, Balen grew up speaking it. The folk song brand kit: The slogans wrote themselves. While legacy politicians are just now trying to learn the language of the algorithm, Balen has grown up speaking it. The folk song brand kit The slogans wrote themselves. “चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप” spread through tea shops and bus parks like a folk proverb. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-ai-generated-election">AI-generated Mahabharat edits</a> positioned Balendra Shah as a warrior-hero fighting K P Oli in golden armour.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_cd7fbb8b4a97628757977b55d1244b192c233566dad268e894c7132d16cf180c.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2026031014038_cd7fbb8b4a97628757977b55d1244b192c233566dad268e894c7132d16cf180c" data-rendition-name="original" width="369" height="667" loading="lazy" alt="Ghanti Chhap NT"> </figure>  The entire package, partly by accident, partly by instinct, was built to be remixed. Every element is modular: the bell, the sunglasses, the slogan, the attitude. Take any piece and make your own version. Like a ‘Deusi re” song, the melody is fixed, everyone knows it, but anyone can change the words to fit their occasion and mood. It survives across generations precisely because no one controls it.&nbsp; The घण्टी ecosystem works the same way. The melody is fixed: the bell, the sound, the slogan, the sunglasses, the attitude. But the lyrics can be anyone’s. Shoot it in your neighborhood. Dub it in your language. Film your grandmother's reaction. Set it to your local context. That's why it spread faster than any IT cell could manufacture.&nbsp; The generational pincer The standard narrative is that digital movements stay digital, and that memes are a GenZ thing. RSP broke both assumptions. Its content operation executed a pincer movement across generations, capturing not just the youth vote but used youth as a delivery mechanism into households where no party organiser could reach. The Generational Pincer Flowchart Three vectors of pressure, all converging on the same target: the living room and the dinner table, where votes in Nepal are actually decided. Downward: children trolling parents by ringing bells at dinner, turning family meals into campaign arenas. A bell rings as a prank, then as a joke, then as a political statement. By the third night, it's not funny anymore. It's a conversation.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260310140316_446e465f60994532e53b1786368dd025e9ad99a387b4121493f8826c46921cb7.png" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260310140316_446e465f60994532e53b1786368dd025e9ad99a387b4121493f8826c46921cb7" data-rendition-name="original" width="364" height="669" loading="lazy" alt="Ghanti prank"> </figure>  Lateral: the diaspora pipeline. Nepalis in Australia, the Gulf, Japan, could not vote, but they turned every Viber call home into a campaign touchpoint.&nbsp; Upward: the bell pressured power itself. No RSP organiser gets a meeting with a UML ward chairman or a NC MP. But those people go home. And at home, they have teenagers, nieces, nephews, and staff whose kids are on TikTok.&nbsp; A party boss's son rings a bell at dinner and asks uncomfortable questions. A NC donor's daughter shares RSP content on her Instagram story, visible to her father's entire social circle. No political structure, no matter how hierarchical, is sealed off from its own household. The bell did not need to breach the gates of Singha Durbar, it walked in through the kitchen window. The result crossed every demographic line analysts thought was fixed. Memes didn't just stay in the feed. They colonised the living room, the kitchen, the long-distance phone call, the taxi ride. Content nobody commissioned&nbsp; What the RSP's organic content looked less like a political campaign and more like a football fan club. People were not posting because they were told to. They were posting because they belonged. Trace the trends as they accumulated: <ul> <li>“<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@rameshmahto065/video/7610784878174424338?q=chup%20chap%20ghanti%20chap&amp;t=1773115568686">चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप</a>” started as a TikTok post, then showed up on motorcycle stickers, WhatsApp statuses, AI-remixed songs, and in tea-shop conversation as a folk proverb.</li> <li><a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@rajjimond_18/video/7612570510508969236?q=ma%20ta%20balen%20ko%20fan&amp;t=1773115129539">Original songs composed by supporters</a>, not the party, gained millions of views. People danced to them at rallies and in the streets. People at polling booths created TikToks to RSP anthems to show their support.</li> <li>AI spectacle videos of Balen as a Mahabharat hero, filmy dialogue, stylised Nepal flag. Slapstick clips hitting 200K+ likes and 5M views. All made by random accounts, none traceable to party infrastructure.</li> <li>Supporters built Bell apps and websites on their own. One site, <a href="https://ghanti.website">ghanti.website</a>, was registered by a random supporter in January. Open it on your phone, shake it side to side, and it rings. Within weeks, crowds of supporters were walking through neighborhoods shaking their phones in unison, producing a wall of digital bell sound.</li> <li>The intimate content. A husband-wife vlog filmed inside a car, casually discussing what a lawmaker should actually do. Just two people talking, and it resonated more than any campaign ad.</li> </ul> None of this was centrally coordinated. Parties across Nepal spent money on polished graphics that looked like professional advertisements. RSP supporters spent nothing and made content that felt like conversation. The algorithm doesn't reward production value, it rewards emotional resonance. And nothing resonated more than the feeling that you, personally, could participate in this movement without anyone's permission. Now what? The RSP has a supermajority. The Bell rang louder than anyone predicted. But a movement built on open-source energy now has to deliver closed-source results: budgets, legislation, diplomacy, institutional reform. Balen built his brand by bypassing institutions, Prime Minister Balendra Shah has to run them. He communicated through Facebook posts and rap lyrics. Now he needs to communicate with India, China, and multilateral lenders.&nbsp; His midnight F-bomb post, deleted within 30 minutes but screenshotted by thousands, showed both his appeal (unfiltered authenticity) and his risk (unfiltered impulsiveness). The question is not whether the bell rang loud enough. It obviously did. The question is what happens when the supporters who posted without being asked start expecting results they did not specify. When the meme energy that won living rooms has to translate into parliamentary committees.&nbsp; For decades, the promise of democracy was that people choose their leaders. What RSP's campaign revealed is something more uncomfortable: in the age of the algorithm and remixable content, people do not just choose their leaders.&nbsp; They build the campaign, write the slogans, produce the content, convert their own families, and then show up to vote for the movement they made with their own hands. The party becomes a container for energy it didn't create and can't fully control.&nbsp; That's either the most democratic thing that's ever happened in Nepal, or the most dangerous. It might be both.

Nobody ran the campaign. That is why it worked.

Amidst the euphoria in Nepal about the RSP’s landslide victory, the party’s future government, possibly led by Balendra Shah will plunge headlong into an energy and economic crisis sparked by the war in West Asia. Nepal gets all its diesel, petrol, gas and aviation fuel from India and lacks a strategic stockpile to buffer against shortages. The United States has unsanctioned Russian crude oil to India for one month, but India will only export refined petroleum products to Nepal after meeting its own domestic demand. As it is, India has only 10 days of stockpile of cooking gas and it is giving preference to household use. Energy experts say new oil and gas supplies from Russia and elsewhere will take another month to arrive at Indian ports. “This conflict didn’t develop overnight, yet we did nothing to augment our reserves. Clearly, we didn’t manage procurement anticipating supply disruptions,” says economist Pushkar Bajracharya. The conflict has escalated, seriously disrupting global petroleum supplies. Nearly 20% of the world’s oil and gas moves out of the Strait of Hormuz which is now blocked. The Persian Gulf makes up most of the oil and liquified natural gas supplied to Japan (75%), India (50%) and China (38%). Crude oil prices have nearly doubled to $100 a barrel this week.&nbsp; “This crisis is only going to intensify, so in the short term, it means fuel prices will increase as will the cost of goods and services,” adds Bajracharya. “This doesn’t bode well for the new government, especially when people have such high expectations from it.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260315020356_e9f97cc4e8a41bab08fb9c318be887a7eef5ac674326a9a1c878fd80109c3ec7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260315020356_e9f97cc4e8a41bab08fb9c318be887a7eef5ac674326a9a1c878fd80109c3ec7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1315" height="801" loading="lazy" alt="Strait of Hormuz NT"> </figure>  Fuel stoppages from India have happened before, notably during the 2015 Blockade. But Nepal could be better placed this time to cushion the shock because of the proliferation of battery-operated vehicles, and electrification of household cooking to some extent. “The increase in electric vehicles provides some relief, but it is not enough,” says energy economist and former Water Resources Minister Dipak Gyawali. “Most critical services still run on diesel, and they cannot be replaced overnight.”&nbsp; Nepal’s expanding road network means diesel and petrol consumption is also increasing. If the war drags on, there will be a critical shortage of aviation fuel that could also hurt tourism at the start of the trekking and mountaineering season. There is already a nationwide shortage of cooking gas which is used by 62% of Nepali households. &nbsp; The fuel crisis will have a knock-on effect on the economy which the RSP government will have to tackle on an emergency footing as soon as it comes into office. The priority would be to cap fuel prices with subsidies, control hoarding, and in the longer term expedite the switch to electricity for transportation and cooking.&nbsp; MONEY IN The other impact will be on jobs in West Asia and remittances. Nearly half the $11 billion a year Nepalis send home every year comes from West Asian countries. Nepal’s hard currency reserves have hit a record high $21.09 billion, but that cash will be of no use if there is no fuel to buy. A sharp drop in remittances due to the collapse of the economies of the Gulf states if the war is prolonged will have a multiplier impact particularly on Nepalis' household expenses and the country’s economy in general. This in turn will have a knock-on effect on investment, and affect the RSP government’s main agenda which is to create jobs at home. The vicious cycle will then mean that more Nepalis will want to migrate for overseas jobs, but options in the Gulf may not be available. The RSP’s ministers in government will have to come up with innovative ways to re-integrate Nepalis forced to return because they lose their jobs, or for safety reasons. There are nearly 2 million Nepalis across the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and another 7,000 mainly women caregivers in Israel. “Other than the impact on remittances and the economy, there could be the additional challenge of rescuing over 2 million Nepalis in West Asia if it comes to that,” says Bajracharya. “We don’t have the resources, and we will have to rely on India’s logistical help.” The RSP’s main vote bank was among global Nepalis, who could not cast &nbsp;ballots themselves but influenced families and friends back home to choose the party. Social media was abuzz with slogans that promoted how choosing the RSP would bring their children back home from the Gulf. “The RSP got a majority, and that’s a good thing but voters came together to oppose UML, NC and the Maoists. But there is no clear ideology or philosophy, so while their slogan to bring Nepalis back from the Gulf sounds nice, what would they come back to?” asks Gyawali. The Nepali diaspora in the Gulf that influenced the electorate so effectively will now be looking at how the government it helped get to power in Kathmandu will help as war engulfs the region.&nbsp; There is an almost unrealistically high expectation of the RSP, and the party may not even get the customary 100-day honeymoon period. The cabinet could be put together easily enough, but the bureaucracy, judiciary, police, and the Upper House are all populated by loyalists of the old parties. Despite bad blood, the RSP will have to work together with all parties in the face of the crisis unleashed by the war. And Nepal’s politicised foreign policy must be galvanised to deal with the crisis.

Rough road ahead for new Nepal rulers

The series Nepal Made profiles Nepali products and the people who make them possible While premium beauty product outlets were closing during the Covid-19 pandemic, two young women gambled on setting up a new skin and haircare brand with natural ingredients mostly sourced from Nepal and suited for the Nepali complexion. Arushree Sharma Khatiwada and Megha Agarwal were batchmates in school before they left for studies abroad, returning to set up Avani Nepal after year-long rigorous research into ayurveda-based cosmetic products. Avani in Sanskrit means ‘earth’, and as the name suggests it is committed to bringing all natural, pure and authentic range of beauty solutions.&nbsp; “We found a gap in the Nepali market demand for cosmetics, which is why we decided on a brand sourced from all-natural Himalayan herbs that are not used or explored properly,” says co-founder Khatiwada.&nbsp; Nepal is a treasure trove for medicinal plants and those with therapeutic properties. After all, legend has it that Hanuman flew right across the subcontinent from Sri Lanka to the Himalaya to find a rare medicinal plant to save the life of Lord Ram, who was wounded in battle. When he could not find the specific plant, he tore off a whole mountain and brought it down. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/looking-good-by-doing-good">Looking good by doing good</a>, Sudiksha Tuladhar  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260314120356_32323fd084540236fe4edb3b98286c131d67c73310279c8038510da1e1ae1bc0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260314120356_32323fd084540236fe4edb3b98286c131d67c73310279c8038510da1e1ae1bc0" data-rendition-name="original" width="3024" height="2012" loading="lazy" alt="Avani"> </figure>  Medicinal plants in Nepal range from yarsagumba to jatamasi and 500 other species traditionally used in the Ayurveda as well as now in the wellness industry. Avani is also trying to experiment hibiscus, Himalayan honey and other plants to eventually launch an export drive. Running a business in Nepal is no easy task, especially for small scale locally crafted products but in a few years, Avani has ammased loyal customer base and have many repeat customers. “While it was tricky initially, we were determined to launch our products with the best quality ingredients and in an affordable price range,” says Khatiwada. Following a worldwide trend and emulating the method used by Korean cosmetic brands, Avani has deployed celebrities and influencers to increase its outreach through tikTok , Facebook and YouTube. &nbsp;Actresses Barsha Shiwakoti and Shilpa Maskey and makeup artists like Lemi have reviewed their products favourably. Sutainability is a big part of the brand, and Avani uses glass bottles, cardboard boxes, paper bags for all its products. Plastic use is cut to a minimum, and where used is recycled.&nbsp; “Many people think that sustainable brands are expensive, we want to bust that myth,” Khatiwada told us. “We focus on being eco-friendly using ethically sourced materials that are paraben, silicon, and cruelty free.”&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/proud-to-wear-dolpo">Proud to wear DOLPO</a>, Vishad Raj Onta  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260314120356_da0d7d4082a9aa51c96ecbcb8a2e7a5bc60e27de202fb339a522036aa3f50b49.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260314120356_da0d7d4082a9aa51c96ecbcb8a2e7a5bc60e27de202fb339a522036aa3f50b49" data-rendition-name="original" width="1048" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Avani"> </figure>  Avani has expanded its business to get a toehold in Nepal’s tourism and wellness industry, and the products are carried by spas in leading hotels and resorts in Kathmandu and Pokhara such as the Terraces, Marriott, and Kavya resort, and is in talk with the Hideaway Resort in Pokhara.&nbsp; The skin and haircare brand that initially started with 10 products has since expanded its line to 60 with goods placed in more than 100 stores across Kathmandu. Plans are in the works to expand to India, China and in Japan partnering with Okada. Avani Nepal’s founders say that they support empowerment through employment and training opportunities for women at the company. Khatiwada herself has been engaged with organisations such as Nepal Women Chamber of Commerce, and Nepal Youth Entrepreneur Forum. Additional support from the government such as the provision of lower excise duties has helped but guidance for export and other business regulations is as crucial. Such an environment would also foster opportunities for the youth who are otherwise moving away for jobs or study abroad. “While everyone is trying to go abroad, opportunities can be created here in Nepal itself, with adequate support from the government,” says Khatiwada. “In the meantime, we are eyeing for long term benefits. We are trying to create a legacy for cosmetic brands in Nepal.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/java-in-the-himalaya-y1ilc21h">Java in the Himalaya</a>, Vishad Raj Onta