<figure><img width="1330" height="1500" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141156/636d03469c7e80680e0a36c3jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photos: KEV ELKINS/PETA</figcaption></figure>UK-based Nepali fashion designer <a href="https://www.sanyuktashrestha.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sanyukta Shrestha</a>’s eponymous sustainable bridal brand has won a sustainable fashion award from the animal welfare organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
Shrestha’s designs are known to infuse traditional Nepali craft, and are made from sustainable materials like hand-spun and hand-loomed bamboo, banana, hemp, organic cotton, and wild nettle. She won the Luxury Award at PETA’s  2021 Vegan Wedding Awards.
“Winning the PETA Vegan Wedding award was an emotional moment that left us in tears,” said Shrestha, noting that the award marked an important milestone for the brand’s value and vision. The award was announced on her label’s tenth anniversary.
Shrestha, who was born and raised in Nepal, volunteered at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) in Kathmandu two decades ago. This experience eventually led her to pursue a career in design, and she graduated from the London College of Fashion, and launched her bridal collection in 2011.
Shrestha’s work is internationally acclaimed, with one of her sustainable couture creations having been preserved at The Fashion Museum in Bath, England. Her designs have been worn by public figures including supermodel Candice Swanepoel, American band Fifth Harmony as well as actors Natalie Coyle and Amy Nuttall from the television series The Sopranos and Downton Abbey respectively.
The climate conscious designer had previously won ‘Editor’s Choice Award’ at the Bridal Buyer Award in 2020.
The PETA Vegan Wedding Awards had 12 categories and high-profile participants and collaborators, with global figures such as British singer Leona Lewis winning the Vegan Wedding Influencer Award.
The global fashion industry with its fleeting trends and substantial carbon footprint has long been critiqued as wasteful and unsustainable. In fact, the cotton and textile industries are the second largest users and polluters of freshwater resources worldwide, and the increasing use of synthetic material in clothing is adding to the waste.
“Because true luxury is kind, high-end designer Sanyukta Shrestha received the accolade for her collection of gorgeous wedding gowns made from high-quality vegan fabrics… allowing brides to walk down the aisle in style while being kind to the planet and the animals we share it with,” PETA Director Elisa Allen said in a statement.
Nepal,<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/mountainous-regions-face-catastrophic-impacts-without-urgent-climate-action/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> one of the countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change</a>, also has a nascent sustainable fashion movement, most recently with the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/fashion-statement-from-the-roof-of-the-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2nd edition of the Mt Everest Fashion Runway </a>event this year in Gokyo.
The fashion event aimed to encourage post-pandemic eco-tourism, and turn the Himalayan nation into a global hub for sustainable fashion.
The designs included in the fashion show were made of biodegradable fabric such as <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/info-age-boost-for-nepals-pashmina/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pashmina</a>, wool felt, and cruelty-free silk in a bid to promote renewable and ethically sourced fabrics.
Proceeds from the sale of the Everest event is set to be donated to the Himalayan Climate Initiative (HCI), a youth-driven, Nepali non-profit that promotes climate resilience and supports the Himalayan communities.

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Nepali designer awarded

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a589f9c7e80680e054846jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681"/>Although one of Nepal’s best-known exports, the success of the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17448#.XYiNZfAza70">pashmina industry</a> unravelled in recent years. From a peak of Rs5 billion in 2000-1, <a href="s.php?id=8846#.XYiNffAza70">exports fell to Rs1.8 billion in 2004-5</a> because of a surge in cheap counterfeit, lack of processing facilities, shortage of skilled labour, over-production and under-cutting.The launch of ‘Chyangra Pashmina’ brand has helped the industry <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=10367#.XYiNmvAza70">recover</a> slightly, with exports earning Rs2.2billion in 2017-18. But there is another tool that could revive Nepal’s fine wool product and <a href="ws.php?id=5659#.XYiNuPAza70">boost exports</a>: open data.Information that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone for any purpose is called open data. The information can be used to innovate, improve business efficiencies and performance. In Nepal, the availability and use of open data has been restricted because it relies heavily on government websites. Still, private businesses have slowly started using open data to identify customers, pricing and assist in product development.Yet most businesses involved in the pashmina industry still restrict themselves to using internal data, for example, analysing past years’ revenues and expenses to set targets for following years, when they could be doing much more.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a58a29c7e80680e054847jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="981">Producers could use data on imports of processed raw materials and exports of finished goods to set specific financial targets. Through data released by the Department of Customs or the Trade and Export Promotion Centre, producers could find niches for items that are most exported and generate more revenue. All this information can help them invest time and effort where it is more profitable, increasing organisational efficiency.The pashmina sector could also take advantage of such data to understand markets of importing countries, including trends, pricing style and seasonal demands, which they can use to better respond to those countries’ needs.Despite the industry’s shortcomings, Nepali pashmina still enjoys a strong international reputation and a variety of pashmina items, such as shawls, mufflers, scarves, blankets and sweaters, are exported to over 60 countries.Hari Chandra Aryal of the Nepal Pashmina Industries Association (NPIA) notes: “We have taken steps to start using from open data and developed a tracking system that includes labels with a bar codes and a hologram that can be scanned, enabling suppliers to track exports.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a58a59c7e80680e054848jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="709" height="615"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>However, Aryal admits that the database is not being updated as employees either overlook the task or are too busy to update details of each sale. The NPIA could also use data to tackle the shortage of skilled labour by better understanding their employees’ strengths and weaknesses, then organising targeted training to address workers’ skills gaps.According to research by FACTS Research and Analytics, 68% of businesses in Nepal believe that better access to government data can help them identify new customers. Likewise, 61% believed data could help them do market research, 59% said the information could be used to develop new products, and 49% make better pricing decisions.A sustained commitment is required from businesses that wish to profit fully from open data. Despite demonstrable benefits of investment in data sharing, stakeholders in Nepal’s pashmina industry are not investing in awareness and application. It is time to change that.Aakriti Shrestha is researcher at FACTS Research &amp; Analytics.

Info age boost for Nepal’s pashmina

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107121148/6368f0d89c7e80680e0359f7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photos: Bikram Rai</figcaption></figure>After the 1990 restoration of democracy, and at the cusp of a new millennium, globalisation arrived in Nepal with a bang. Call centres catering to international clients sprang up, travel and tourism boomed, Nepalis started migrating overseas for work, and made-in-Nepal carpets, garments and pashminas started being exported all over the world. Weavers, tailors and workers needed for the factories flocked to Kathmandu Valley, feeding its rapid urbanisation.Nepal seemed to be living the prediction of Francis Fukuyama, who declared capitalism to be the end of history. It was also the end of geography.But Fukuyama was proven wrong, the global economy was hit by multiple economic crises and recessions, and Nepal’s export market collapsed. In her book Death of an Industry, Mallika Shakya traces the history of the rise and fall of Nepal’s garment industry.It all started in 1974 with the American Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) which allocated quotas to garment imports from developing nations. Its actual intent was to protect its domestic industry, but it suited Nepal well and a garment manufacturing industry materialised almost overnight, becoming the country’s fourth-largest export at one point.When the MFA finally lapsed in 2004, Nepal’s garment industry collapsed. Shakya takes issue with how this demise was considered natural, even inevitable, by the state, and how workers were left to fend for themselves. Most opted to migrate to the Persian Gulf, fuelling another industry.‘The state felt well grounded, technically in its assertion that the industry collapsed because it could not compete in the global market. It was felt that if it was not good enough, it did not deserve to live, and the state felt legitimacy in ignoring the plight of millions employed by the industry,’ Shakya writes.For Shakya, the garment saga epitomises ‘the hegemony of neoliberalism’, which became mainstream in Nepal in the 1980s with World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), and after 1990 with the free market principles.An industry once made up of 1,200 firms now has only 50, and survives on orders that have no other takers. Apparel exports from China, India and Bangladesh flourished even after the MFA because cheap labour made them more competitive. Nepal’s products were up to 30% more expensive in comparison.Also Read: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Economic-Class/waiting-for-an-industrial-revolution,784" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Waiting for an industrial revolution,</a> Manish Jha<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/07/13/who-is-killing-public-enterprises/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Who is killing public enterprises?</a>, Om Astha RaiHowever, for Chandi Prasad Aryal of the Garment Association of Nepal, it was not just a question of free market competition. “We need state support to make our products competitive in the world market.Governments in India and China give 11-16% export subsidies to garments, and that makes their products cheaper. Without that, our products will always be more expensive,” he explained.Avinash Gupta, an apparel-industry researcher with Kathmandu based think tank SAWTEE, agrees that countries like Bangladesh benefitted from state support. “There was credible effort from the state through duty refunds, tax concessions, back to back Letter of Credits, bonded warehouse, training trips among others,” he says. “No manufacturing sector in the world has expanded without technological learning, and this almost always has been a function of industrial policies.”History also shows that industries have not developed with just a laissez-faire policy, and the state always has a role to play in industrialisation of now-developed countries like Korea, China and Taiwan. In Nepal though, the garment and carpet industries went through boom and bust cycles, but were left to fend for themselves.“In our neighbouring countries, such industries get state support in the form of land on lease and bank loans at low rates. Such support, and economic diplomacy to secure the right of seaport access for a landlocked country are necessary to make us competitive,” says Ram Bahadur Gurung of the Central Carpet Industries Association Nepal.Nepal’s pashmina export is another industry that boomed, then collapsed. It is still relatively well placed with its trademarks registered in 47 countries, but struggles to raise annual sales above Rs5 billion."Our sales are based on fashion, and we cannot predict the ebb and flow of fashion in our markets. The state needs to help us send our young designers abroad to study, so that we are able to break into the design sector,” says Durga Bikram Thapa of the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17448#.W1qrw9UzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal Pashmina Industries</a> Association.In her book, Shakya cites how one garment factory tried to climb the supply chain hierarchy by sending a young scion abroad to study design. He realised that gauging global fashion trends set by a handful of influential European designers was beyond him, and declared his years of learning wasted. That is still the case in Nepal’s garment industry, where the design, size or fabric are all decided beforehand.Also read: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/privatisation-failed-khatiwada/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Privatization failed: Khatiwada</a>, Nepali Times<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17447#.W1qyO9UzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Weaving a bright future</a>, Paavan MathemaWorkers in Nepal’s garment industry were desperate enough to accept extremely low pay for arranging cut cloth, sewing the main body or the hands or the neck parts, quality checking by measuring against the size specifications as much as six times, and cutting the extra threads off the finished product. Shakya calls this the ‘penultimate satanic mill of faceless proletarianisation’.Workers had no creative inputs, no share of the profits, and their highly specialised skills were useless elsewhere. So, they had nothing to fall back on when the industry collapsed and western buyers simply gathered up their profits and took their orders elsewhere. They had no inkling as to why the industry came and went, or how it left Nepal’s environment polluted and increased urban poverty.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107121148/6368f0db9c7e80680e0359f8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="652">Shakya returns to this theme of the<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18674#.W1qr3dUzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> helplessness of the Global South</a> again and again in her book. Nepal is small fry on the world stage with no clout in matters affecting its citizens. Even while the US government and the World Trade Organisation decided the MFA’s time was up, factory owners in Nepal fell back on fatalism and conducted religious rituals to ward off the curse.Nepali businessmen did try to lobby for an MFA extension, but could not even find someone to table the bill in the US Congress. After the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 in Bangladesh in which nearly 3,000 workers were killed, all of South Asia suffered from the negative western media coverage of exploited workers in dangerous sweat shops. The international media fell back on an orientalist view to blame lax building standards and corruption, ignoring that it was the end of the MFA had forced countries to be competitive by cutting corners.Shakya denies her book is angry or pessimistic in tone, and says she offers alternatives. Since the garment export business was created by global economic factors, the feeling here was that it was beyond Nepal’s control. Hence, its loss meant nothing to Nepal. Although the industry initially attracted Indian investors using Nepal’s quotas, over time the factories were populated by Nepal’s poor, and owned by Nepalis – and they suffered when the MFA lapsed. The alternative to this outlook, Shakya says, lies in policies that take ‘human economy’ into account, where the welfare of workers is priority.Nepal’s prolonged political transition is now replaced with ruling Communists who have promised economic prosperity through political stability. The country’s planners should read Shakya’s book to learn lessons from the recent past – the main one being finding alternatives to pervasive global neoliberalism that she says has done more harm than good to Nepal.Asked what she hopes her book can achieve, Shakya told us: “Agencies like the WTO, World Bank and countries like the US are powerful, but the bigger problem is our own lack of imagination, in believing in the supremacy of market forces over state regulation, competitiveness over social justice. It is about time we in Nepal questioned the hegemony of neoliberalism in global economic policies.”Also Read: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17279#.W1qtJ9UzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ecosystem Nepal</a>, Ashutosh Tiwari

A post mortem of Nepal’s garment boom

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