<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112916110/63861ea79c7e80680e0ccddajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="799" height="536"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>There have been few days without rain this April and May in Kathmandu. That means more disease for Kathmandu. Not COVID-19, but the virus we used to talk about -- last year's scary unknown disease, dengue.The year 2019 saw Nepal's worst ever outbreak of dengue, with 15,000 people infected, many times the previous high. Dengue was particularly bad in the Kathmandu Valley. At least six people died.The medical journal The Lancet has warned that Kathmandu could see a dengue ‘explosion’ because it has become ‘an ideal breeding ground’ for the mosquito that carries dengue -- the notorious Aedes aegypti. Already in 2020, four cases have been reported in Kathmandu, and four in Lalitpur.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/big-story-of-small-pox-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Big story of smallpox in Nepal</a>, Tom Robertson<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/viruses-past-present-and-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Viruses past, present and future</a>, Tom RobertsonDengue spiked in 2019 with outbreaks around the developing world. In recent years, Delhi, Dhaka, Ho Chi Minh City, Senegal and Singapore have faced bad outbreaks. A dengue outbreak in Delhi in 2015 inundated hospitals and clinics across the city.Dengue likes warm humid conditions. Before corona, dengue was the world's fastest growing dangerous virus, increasing four-fold in just over a decade. Two of every five people around the world, nearly 3 billion people, live in dengue risk areas where it is a leading cause of illness. Each year approximately 100 million people contract the disease, and over 20,000 die.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112916110/63861eaa9c7e80680e0ccddbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="961" height="540"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Like malaria, dengue is actually several different diseases that we give a single name. There are four dengue viruses: Dengue 1, 2, 3, and 4. A person can catch each one, and get sick as many as four times.A first infection generally brings only mild flu symptoms, if any at all. But a second infection can cause ‘severe dengue’ with plasma leakage, bleeding, and shock. This can kill. No treatment exists for dengue, but generally symptoms can be managed.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/climate-health-emergency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Climate health emergency</a>, Sonia Awale<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mosquitoes-move-up-mountains-as-the-earth-warms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mosquitoes move up mountains as the earth warms</a>, Sonia AwaleDengue's main mosquito host, Aedes aegypti, is no ordinary mosquito. In a species known for death and deviousness, it has few rivals. Not many mosquitoes have so successfully defied human efforts at control, including in recent decades.Long before dengue, Aedes aegypti carried a far deadlier disease: yellow fever. During the 16th and 17th, slave ships brought yellow fever carrying A. aegypti from Africa to the Americas, devastating indigenous populations and reshaping the region's balance of power. In the early twentieth century, the A. aegypti -- yellow fever combination almost blocked the construction of the Panama Canal.Most wildlife avoid humans. Not A. aegypti. It loves us, particularly the ecological disorder we often create. The more humans, the more disturbed ecosystems, the more A. aegypti. Cities, especially disorganised cities, create ideal habitat: lots of standing water for breeding and lots of humans for feeding.Dengue's other mosquito carrier is A. albopictus.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112916110/63861eac9c7e80680e0ccddcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="463"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022112916110/63861eaf9c7e80680e0ccdddjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="635"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Lancet points to dengue's major causes: climate change, relentless and haphazard urbanisation, brisk trade and transit from dengue-infested areas, and poor health infrastructure. As Kathmandu grows and gets more connected to other parts of Asia, dengue spreads.Climate change has been overrated as a cause. Warming temperatures can extend the range of Aedes carriers but other causes deserve more attention. ‘Last summer’s explosion of dengue in Kathmandu Valley was <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mosquitoes-move-up-mountains-as-the-earth-warms/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mosquitoes-move-up-mountains-as-the-earth-warms/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1590920172779000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHqCreNEFDji4GDyS_wUW1JkpUOGA">blamed on climate change</a>,’ the Nepali Times recently noted, ‘but it was actually a perfect storm of crowded and squalid living conditions, poor drainage, greater mobility of people, and a particularly wet monsoon.’The real problem is disorganised urbanisation. The A. aegypti carrier thrives in small collections of clean water in flower pots, old car and truck tyres, uncovered water containers, and even puddles. It bites people early morning and at dusk.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-is-a-microcosm-of-all-of-the-changes-in-world-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">"Nepal is a microcosm of all of the changes in world health"</a><a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/ke-garne-attitude-kills-people/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">K garne attitude kills people</a>, Laxmi BasnetNepal, like much of the developing world, has witnessed dramatic and disorderly urban growth in recent years, much in the lowlands along highways. ‘Nepal's Tarai," Mukesh Pokhrel recently wrote also in this newspaper, "is turning into one endless elongated metropolis.’Kathmandu itself grew four-fold between 1980 and 2010, and is one of the fastest growing cities in one of the world's fastest urbanising regions.'<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mosquitoes-move-up-mountains-as-the-earth-warms/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mosquitoes-move-up-mountains-as-the-earth-warms/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1590920172779000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHqCreNEFDji4GDyS_wUW1JkpUOGA">Cities like Kathmandu are perfect breeding grounds</a> for the Aedes mosquito,' says Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust in an interview with this paper. 'Kathmandu’s climate is changing, the city is growing exponentially in a haphazard way and the mosquito loves highly dense populations of people.'<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/east-west-city/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">East-West City</a>, Mukesh Pokhrel<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19301#.XtI_7y2B3-Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dengue fever</a>, Buddha BasnyatThe Lancet highlights what might happen in a dengue explosion in Kathmandu. ‘A tug-of-war might occur between the worried well and the truly sick,’ it says. ‘Hospitals might be overwhelmed and many needy patients with other diseases could be turned away.’Doctors inexperienced with the disease pose a particular worry. They could misunderstand its dynamics and cause unnecessary deaths by over-treating with unneeded antibiotics, transfusions, and excessive intravenous fluids. This has happened elsewhere.The dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito is difficult to control. Brazil eradicated it twice, in the 1950s and in the 1970s, and twice it returned. Several factors explain why: a lack of sustained careful epidemiological surveillance, insecticide resistance, the high costs of materials and wages, insufficient community participation and coordination with the health sector, and, crucially, the spread of haphazard urban development. Narrow control programs inevitably run into trouble.The World Health Organisation (WHO) stresses both micro and macro efforts to fight dengue. Individual families can put tight lids on water containers. They can eliminate breeding spots such as empty cans, bottles, and tires. It also says community engagement and building country capacity for environmental management and disease surveillance is important.“Locally adapted vector control measures such as household water storage management and, more importantly, engaging individuals and communities to manage their immediate environment are essential to controlling the spread of the disease,” says Raman Velayudhan, head of WHO’s Vector and Ecology Management Unit.School-based awareness programs, The Lancet authors noted, can help block dengue's spread. ‘Students are good learners and can be taught to effectively use repellents and mosquito nets and get rid of water collections near their homes and schools; students will then spread this information to their parents.’ Several countries have implemented successful school programs.Historian Frank Snowden sums it up: "Dengue takes full advantage of societal neglect and the absence or cessation of vector control programs."Tom Robertson, Ph D, is an environmental historian who writes about the history of malaria in Nepal. And just wrote a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/big-story-of-small-pox-in-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/big-story-of-small-pox-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1590920172779000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFk193f6QnfjiWqivawrVZt2FPA4A">five-part series on smallpox</a> for Nepali Times as part of his History of Disease column.

Tom Robertson

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The dangers of the dengue virus

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151124/636a66f29c7e80680e0599b1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1062"/><figcaption>Photo : SONIA AWALE</figcaption></figure>Nepal is stepping up preparations for its 10-year census in 2021, which is slated to be the most hitech in history and will go beyond simply counting the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nepals-changing-demography-is-having-profound-impact-on-politics,2693" target="_blank" rel="noopener">country’s population</a> to surveying households in order to chart the country’s path in the coming decade.Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=38051&amp;preview_nonce=38f8426e6c&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal in 2030</a>, Sanghamitra Subba<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=38046&amp;preview_nonce=d2d7129548&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A future written in the stars,</a> Sanghamitra SubbaEnumerators from the <a style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://cbs.gov.np/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Central Bureau of Statistics</a> (CBS) will be using tablets to enter data during a pilot census in 14 districts next month. The actual census in June 2021 is expected to give an accurate picture of Nepal’s demography and how it has progressed in <a style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/this-is-how-to-upgrade-nepals-rural-health/">health</a>, <a style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/after-quantity-nepals-education-needs-quality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">education</a> and development.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=38023&amp;preview_nonce=024823c344&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Towards 2030</a><a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=38038&amp;preview_nonce=e8166bf726&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Another decade to get it right,</a> Editorial<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=38073&amp;preview_nonce=5c5e53a600&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How will Nepal develop in the next decade?,</a> Sonia AwaleFor the first time, data will be collected at the lowest administrative unit, the ward, and also include information on housing, migration, jobs and income. The census will cost Rs4.5 billion and employ 43,000 enumerators.“Previous censuses only went down to the district level, and enumerators used two forms: a short form for every household, and a long form used on every eighth household,” says Bijay Thapa of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which is collaborating with the government on the census. “After federalism, local governments also want disaggregated data and we will have detailed information on every household.”Next year’s exercise will also count the number of old and new buildings and note whether they are residential, official, commercial or unused. It will include a community survey, one of the first in the world, to assess availability of government services, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/disastrous-management-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">disaster preparedness</a> and access to natural resources.“This will help us determine if people are making the best use of government services,” says CBS Director Dhundiraj Lamichhane. “Nepal has categorised 276 municipalities as urban, but we do not know if the resources available match the international criteria for urban municipalities. This survey will help us determine that. If successful, it will be a model for other countries.”Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=38051&amp;preview_nonce=38f8426e6c&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal in 2030,</a> Sanghamitra Subba<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=38051&amp;preview_nonce=38f8426e6c&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A future written in the stars,</a>Sanghamitra SubbaLamichhane said the questions enumerators will ask have not yet been finalised, but there are demands from various communities to include ones on mother tongue, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-right-of-passage/">disabilities</a> and sexual orientation. Activists say there are 900,000 <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Night-and-%20Day,3145">LGBTI people in Nepal</a>, but the 2011 census showed only 1,500 so the figure was not included in the results.“This time they want more detailed questions to reflect their diversity, but we think it is better to do a separate survey,” says Lamichhane. “Various castes and ethnicities are also demanding to be included, but we will only do so if recommended by relevant government bodies.”Going by past trends and other sample surveys, experts have already projected results of the 2021. Nepal is expected to continue showing improvements on most indicators, including birth rate, population growth, health and education. However, they say some indicators, like the sex ratio and migration, may not show progress.One of the reasons Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/migrating-males-and-population-decline/">population growth rate is low is because of the absentee population</a>: 1.92 million according to the last census. And there is no reason to believe that the percentage of migrants will decrease or even stabilise in next year’s count. However, internal migration is expected to slow because of more education and employment opportunities at local levels.Nepal’s current sex ratio is 94 males per 100 females,<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151124/636a66f59c7e80680e0599b2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="461" height="500">and the sex ratio at birth is 106 males per 100 females. This is considered normal, since there are usually slightly more male children born than females, but females tend to live longer.“Female foeticide is growing even though it is illegal. The next census may show a greater ratio of male babies born to female ones, and we estimate the sex ratio at birth to rise to 110 males to 100 females. Additionally, the national average may hide greater discrepancies in certain districts or cities where female foeticide is more rampant, and we need to watch out for that,” explains Tirtha Tamang of UNFPA.Demographic indicators like birth, fertility and death rates are all set to decrease, which means that Nepal’s population growth rate will continue to slow. The 2021 census is likely to show a wider ‘youth bulge’ in the population pyramid. Although this provides a ‘<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/editorial-reaping-demographic-dividend,3621">demographic dividend</a>,’ with a bigger workforce that could lead to a development boom, Nepal must be able to cash in on this window of opportunity in the next 10 years. Given the current quality of governance, experts doubt it will happen.Nepal’s youth advantage will last till 2047. After that, the country will be grappling with the complications of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/need-to-prepare-for-ageing-society,3624">an ageing society</a>. In fact, Nepal will start losing some of its youth power about 2028, when the population over 65 will be more than 7%. The next decade is key for Nepal to use its demographic dividend to provide jobs at home and boost economic growth.Despite improvements in education, health, life expectancy and income, the country may not be in a position to make the best of its demographic dividend because of the skewed sex ratio caused by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/irresistible-forces-wage-differentials-and-demographic-trends/">outmigration</a>. According to a report by the National Planning Commission, the country sorely needs to invest in policies that make the best of the potential of youth.Says Lamichhane at the CBS: “If young Nepalis at the peak of their abilities <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/migration-certificate/">continue to leave the country</a>, then Nepal will not make great strides in development. In the next decade we need policies to modernise agriculture and improve infrastructure if we want to retain our youth and have them contribute to the country.”<h2>21 of Nepal’s most endangered languages</h2>When Nepal’s last census was published in 2011, language became one of the most hotly-debated indicators. Many doubted that the census accurately reflected the status of Nepal’s languages. This time, the Language Commission is working with the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) to make a more comprehensive tally.The 2011 census counted 123 languages spoken in Nepal, including foreign languages like English, French, Spanish and Chinese. Also, there was a belief that many people who had forgotten their ancestral language nevertheless registered those languages as their mother tongue, leading to higher numbers of speakers of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Mind-your-languages,133" target="_blank" rel="noopener">endangered languages</a> registered than in reality. The Kusunda language, for example, has only two speakers left, but the census records 28.“The languages should be categorised as foreign and native to Nepal, so that we don’t count European languages as our own,” says Bharat Tripathi of the Language Commission. “Also, the last time there were only two questions asked about language: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13412#.XftV_JMzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mother tongue</a> and second language. This time we want to change that to: mother tongue, second language and ancestral language.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151124/636a66f79c7e80680e0599b3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="947">While the CBS is still debating these suggestions, it has agreed to include six more languages newly catalogued by the Language Commission, bringing the total to 129. “We investigated Rana Tharu, Narafu, Chum, Nubri/Lharke, Poike and Serake languages in the past year. Through linguistic methodologies, we have established that they are distinct languages,” says Tripathi. “This year we have received claims from speakers of Marek Yakhya and Walung languages in Taplejung — we are in the process of investigating them.”These languages are usually spoken by very few people, and are added to the list of endangered languages. The commission has identified 37 languages spoken by fewer than 1,000 people, and placed 21 of them on that list, but there may be many more hidden among less populous communities. The commission is working to document these 21 languages by collecting their grammar, determining their alphabets, writing their language histories and documenting the available folklore.It is doubtful if all of the 129 languages will survive even till the census in June 2021. But most certainly many will be gone by the 2031 census.

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Nepal in the 2020s

“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

It took the September GenZ firestorm and public anger against non-performing actors for a 35-year-old structural engineer and rapper Balendra (Balen) Shah to oust Nepal’s four-time prime minister and former revolutionary.
The UML’s KP Oli has been trounced by 50,000 votes in his home turf, an area where he has won many elections in his 55-year political career. It is the same story across Nepal, where established politicians are being rejected by voters.
A 'Balen Wave' has swept the country, dyeing it in the RSP’s Blue party colour. But the UML and NC particularly did this to themselves.&nbsp;
An apology and a retirement after the September protests would have saved Oli some dignity, and given the rebranded UML a tiny bit of hope and perhaps a few more electoral wins.&nbsp;
Maybe he could have been remembered fondly as the funny old guy who made one last fatal political error, but now he will be defined by this defeat. Maintaining control and legitimacy in his own party will be hard too.&nbsp;
Contrary to his past combativeness and blaming nefarious foreign conspiracies, Oli gracefully conceded on Saturday, congratulating 'Balen Babu' &nbsp;and wishing him 'a successful five years'.
Balendra Shah and his RSP knew what they were doing. As of Sunday, it has won 118 and leads in 7 other constituencies, a lot of them with similarly wide margins of victory. RSP candidates have even beaten well regarded candidates like Gagan Thapa of the NC and Kulman Ghising of Ujyalo Nepal.&nbsp;

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Many including this paper questioned the RSP's strategy of choosing popular candidates over competence. But the point of an election is to win it, and there was a short campaign window to put it all together and the RSP pulled it off most successfully.&nbsp;
To be sure, the party should not get too much credit. Its manifesto was broad and bland, and no different than the other older parties.&nbsp;
A big part of the RSP ballots, maybe even most of it, were people voting against the old parties rather than for it. Many seemed to feel that this was coming, and perhaps even hoped for it.
There is also a sense of lingering cynicism. Nepal has had several revolutions and many new political starts and things always seem to end up in the same corrupt hopelessness. There is every possibility that the new RSP government will also go the same way.&nbsp;
The RSP is much bigger than Balendra Shah, although it was his popularity that made this victory possible. Its victory brings with it a sense of hope as all new things do.&nbsp;
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Not all party members who were elected are going to be as accountable or have integrity. Many of them have a chequered past, saw an opportunity in joining the RSP and took the risk.&nbsp;
What changed things were the events of September. Politicians saw firsthand that 'Power to the People' is not some abstract idea. Get too loose to it, forget that you are ruling and not serving, and you get booted out.&nbsp;
The interim Sushila Karki government deserve credit for delivering on its biggest mandate of holding the election in such a short time frame. The expectation at large was that the polls would be delayed or even scuttled.
In fact, a two-thirds RSP majority is a great opportunity to rethink the country’s political culture and institutionalise change. The point of the government in a democracy is to serve the people. Appointing non-political, competent people worked, at least in the short tenure of the interim government.&nbsp;
Adding layers of bureaucracy and committees and party politics along federal, provincial and local levels heaped resistance to the simple goal of making lives easier for the Nepali.&nbsp;
Nepal is getting a reboot, and the next few months will show whether the country is on the right track with its new generation government.

Balen takes Jhapa and Nepal

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.

I was a new mother trying to protect my young family from Covid in 2020, and that was when I first noticed Jacinda Ardern’s leadership. Our own prime minister was spreading misinformation about the strong immune system of Nepalis and our herbal concoctions being antidotes.&nbsp; Later in 2024, Ardern showed up after the mass shooting at mosques in New Zealand with tears in her eyes, and the strong message: “They are us.” It was refreshing to see such empathetic leadership, especially as political news was dominated by elected authoritarians, while Nepal was held hostage by repeat prime ministers.&nbsp; Ardern’s book A Different Kind of Leadership should be essential reading for all Nepalis with political aspirations, especially the new generation that wants real change. The theme that repeats throughout the book is to be human before becoming a politician.&nbsp; The book is not just about Ardern showing up for her people as one of them, it is also about why she decided to show up the way she did, and what brought her to politics to begin with — resolve, a little bit of luck, and stepping up when she had to.&nbsp; Political ambition is not a bad thing. But stepping up to lead when the situation demands it, and knowing when it is time to leave, is what makes a leader. Ardern was given the opportunity to become her party’s deputy leader at a relatively young age, and her party leader resigned — two events uncommon in Nepali politics. Ardern mentions multiple times not thinking of herself as politician material because she has a thin skin, and she talks equally often of her feelings of being intimidated in political spaces, up until she accepted the position of party leader.&nbsp; But she was accountable at a time when we in Nepal were getting used to non-reactions and non-answers from the loud, confident men who played with power. Somehow, somewhere, not least because of the malestream ideas we have been fed about politics and politicians, we imagine that leadership should look a certain way. Strong, macho, loud, confident or even better, overconfident. We imagine that empathetic leadership is soft, is scared to make people angry, is ineffective.&nbsp; LOOKING AFTER PEOPLE Ardern’s leadership was effective. New Zealand had less Covid fatalities than most developed countries, and it went in and out of lockdown with relative ease. Ardern’s approval ratings were high at a very unstable time in politics globally. A significant portion of the chapters that talk about Ardern’s time in office also delve into her struggles being a working mother. But she does not consider herself a supermom who did it all. She portrays herself as simply a working mom, one with lots of support, and discusses how common it is for parents, especially mothers, to juggle work and family. She comes across as one of us. There is a section in the book where Ardern’s daughter asks her the question she has been dreading, and which many of us working moms also face, “Mummy, why do you have to work so much?” Ardern explains that she has a “very important job” and explains it to her three-and-half-year-old as “looking after people”.&nbsp; I put down the book when I reached that sentence. I want the next prime minister of my country to read this book, and then lead. I want the next prime minister of Nepal to think that he (all the top contenders for the job are men, page 9) is looking after people, making sure no Nepali child is undernourished, that people can make a living without risking their lives, hearing the concerns of citizens and solving them.&nbsp; I want him to lead like a woman, like Sushila Karki has been leading for the last six months, with quiet determination and integrity, and without fanfare. I want him to remember that leadership is just service, and that, like Maya Angelou wrote, ‘Your legacy is what you do every day.’ It is not loud speeches and the making of some imagined, glorified history. Karki was picked to lead us back during the black days of early September when the country was in flames. The very first video of her on 9 September, the day after young people and students had been shot by the government that was meant to protect them shows her angry and emotional, her voice shaking.&nbsp; It was Karki’s actions in those days of fragility that showed us, once again, that the leader we deserve gets emotional on our behalf, but also knows how to do the work. After five years of leading her country through a global pandemic, Ardern realised that she is exhausted, that she does not have enough in her anymore to keep leading New Zealand, and she steps down.&nbsp; Towards the end of the book, Ardern tells readers like herself, sensitive and self-doubting, that if we want to be leaders, we should channel our anxieties and sensitivities to humble ourselves, to read more and seek out advice, and prepare ourselves for the challenges. Nepal’s next prime minister has to have these qualities: humility, teamwork, diligence and accountability. Good intention, ambition, university degrees, professional achievements are not enough to change the country’s trajectory.&nbsp; And when they have completed the task, or when they know they cannot do it they must have the courage to step down like Jacinda Ardern.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260308010340_b1c2a873eb640e3f10ab912c368dc9271f12f60d600bf8d5db5d2c13422a317c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260308010340_b1c2a873eb640e3f10ab912c368dc9271f12f60d600bf8d5db5d2c13422a317c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Jacinda book details"> </figure>  &nbsp;

population-growth

The dangers of the dengue virus

Nepal in the 2020s

RSP’s activist DNA

Balen takes Jhapa and Nepal

Nobody ran the campaign. That is why it worked.

Ending Nepal’s malestream politics