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

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In a state of disillusionment

<figure><img width="1400" height="762" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a406b9c7e80680e04a61cjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Pic: Sneha KC</figcaption></figure>There was great hope among Nepalis that the first local government elections in two decades, in 2017, would finally improve accountability and help raise living standards, but a recent public opinion poll shows that their optimism has faded.Two years after the local governments were formed and a year after provincial and federal governments took office, most Nepalis say they are disillusioned with their elected representatives in all three tiers of government.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=26316&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Outward Bound</a> <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=26317&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Can't get no satisfaction</a>, EditorialThere is a yawning chasm between slogans and performance. The Nepal Communist Party (NCP) government that promised ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepalis’ and ‘Zero Tolerance of Corruption’ is seen to not be walking its talk. Public disdain for politicians and their parties has never been greater.There appears to be a correlation between widespread media coverage of the executive, legislature and judiciary being under the control of vested interest groups and the public’s negative perception. For example, when asked if they trusted President Bidya Devi Bhandari’s office, only 7.8% said yes while 14.6% said they did not trust it at all. This is likely due to press coverage of profligacy of her office, and frequent traffic snarls caused by presidential motorcades.The survey results, carried out by <a href="http://www.sharecast.org.np/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sharecast Initiative</a> Nepal among a sample size of 4,129 respondents in 42 districts, reveal that disillusionment is greatest in areas and among groups with greater access to the mainstream press and social media. <img width="1400" height="326" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a406e9c7e80680e04a61djpeg.jpg" alt="">While most of the results indicate growing public dissatisfaction with the government, 41% agreed that the country was headed in the right direction, while 27% felt it was going the wrong way. This is a slight decline compared to last year’s Sharecast survey, when 43% of respondents felt the country was on the right track.This result corresponds with findings of A Survey of the Nepali People, carried out by Inter Disciplinary Analysts and Kathmandu University among a much larger sample size (7,056) in 73 districts in 2018. That poll showed that overall 51% of the people felt the country was headed the right way.Responses to the question broken down by province are identical in the Sharecast and KU/IDA surveys even though they were taken a year apart.The highest percentage of those who think the country is headed in the wrong direction is in Province 3 (34%), while 4.9% of respondents in Far-Western Province say Nepal is on the right track.It is not unusual that Province 3 is so cynical, since it includes Kathmandu Valley, whose citizens are most exposed to media reporting of corruption and the lack of accountability. Residents of the Far-Western Province and Province 2, by contrast, still seem to hope that things will get better. Indeed, overall the people of the Tarai seem more convinced than those living in the mountains that the country is moving in the right direction.Read also:<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/nepalis-do-not-trust-present-crop-of-leaders,2509" target="_blank" rel="noopener">None of the above</a>, Kunda Dixit<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/people-care-more-about-inflation-joblessness-corruption,2510" target="_blank" rel="noopener">It's governance, stupid</a>, Om Astha Rai <img width="1400" height="329" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a406f9c7e80680e04a61ejpeg.jpg" alt="">A cross-tabulation of the responses shows that the more educated Nepalis are, the more they seem to think the country has drifted off track. And among ethnic groups, the Newa population seems to be the most cynical about where the nation is headed.The Sharecast survey also shows that the Nepali people were at best apathetic and at worst negative about the work of the federal government in the past year. Only 4.2% were satisfied, 35% were dissatisfied and nearly 61% said they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.The greatest discontent about the conduct of the federal government in Kathmandu is in Far-Western Province – indicating that despite devolution people living in the periphery still feel neglected. But even the centre is not impressed with the centre. Most respondents in Province 3 had a dim view of the federal government’s functioning.Amid allegations that political power today is centralised among advisers in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the level of distrust of the PMO (16.2%) was much higher than those who trusted it (10%), with 36% rating it ‘so-so’.The national Parliament also suffers a trust deficit, with more than a quarter of respondents saying they lack faith in the federal legislature.  Only 7% said they trusted Parliament, while 43% were ambivalent.Views of the track records of local governments and municipalities are also not encouraging. More than a quarter of respondents were ‘completely dissatisfied’ with their work, and only 7.4% were pleased. Again, the highest level of discontent with local government is in Province 3, while people in Province 1 seem to be most content with the performance of local municipalities.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepals-media-landscape-is-being-transformed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal’s changing media landscape</a>, Sharecast Initiative<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepalis-are-drifting-to-digital-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepalis are drifting to digital media</a>, Madhu Acharya and Bhumiraj Chapagain <img width="497" height="821" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a40719c7e80680e04a61fjpeg.jpg" alt="">General dissatisfaction with all three tiers of government appears to be linked to confusion within infrastructure projects, corruption in sand mining and quarry contracts, obsession of elected representatives with their own perks and privileges, and poor governance.When asked how much they trusted political parties, nearly 45% said they did not trust them at all, while in Province 2 more than half said they had no faith in the parties. This figure has gone up: in last year’s survey 38% said they did not trust the parties. Nationwide, leaders of parties do not fare much better: 54% of respondents did not trust them, and it was a whopping 63.4% in Province 3.In a wakeup call for journalists, a full 47.2% said they did not have much faith in the media. Politically-slanted content and the over-commercialisation of the media appear to be behind this. Lawyers fared even worse, with 63% saying they don’t trust them much. But the most untrustworthy profession seems to be contractors, with 57% saying they do not trust them. This figure is even higher for Karnali Province, which is plagued by delays in infrastructure projects.Read also:<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/himalmedia-public-opinion-survey-outcome,1947" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The people matter</a>, Editorial<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/what-federalism-himal-media-poll,4162" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What federalism?</a>, Om Astha Rai <img width="650" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a40739c7e80680e04a620jpeg.jpg" alt="">MethodologyNepal Media Survey 2019 is the fourth in a series by the research group Sharecast Initiative Nepal. It was administered in January-February 2019 through face-to-face interviews among 4,129 respondents in 42 randomly selected districts spread over seven provinces. Data was collected using mobile devices with ONA software, indicated by grey dots in map (above). Respondents were 18 years or above, residing in the same household for at least 6 months. All data is weighed back to the Nepal Census 2011 and data quality-control measures were employed. <img width="1280" height="769" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a40759c7e80680e04a621jpeg.jpg" alt="">Social IndicatorsThe Sharecast Initiative Survey conducted in January also included questions about socio-economic development and migration.The most encouraging sign is that the government's emphasis over the past decades on rural electrification, water and sanitation appears to have yielded results. Of the 4,129 individuals surveyed in 42 districts, 94% had electricity, 95% had latrines and 74% (which is still low) had a drinking water supply. However, it is a sign of development that 75% now live near some kind of road, while 70% of Nepalis seem to use LPG for cooking.With four million Nepalis working outside the country at any given time (half of them in India) responses to survey questions on migration and remittance show just how dramatically society is changing.A quarter of respondents had a household member working abroad, highest in Muslim (36%) or Hill Dalit (34%) families. Tarai Caste and Tharu households had the fewest members abroad. The proportion of families with at least one member working abroad was highest in Far-Western Province.Asked how overseas workers sent money home, most now use bank transfer (48%) while a third still use the informal hundi channel, while only 1% say they send money home with friends. Province 6 tops the rest in bank transfers — 81%.Asked to name the top three items that they spend remittance money on, 60% say they use it to buy food, 42% for clothing, 36% for medical treatment and 35% for children’s education. Some 10% used earnings to buy land, while only 6.5% saved it in a bank.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-lottery-of-migration/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The lottery of migration</a>, Editorial<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/changing-the-headlines-on-migration/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Changing the headlines on migration</a>, Upasana Khadka

Survey is wakeup call for Nepal government

The daily 10-hour curfew at Tribhuvan International Airport from 8 November that will last five months has affected tourism during Nepal’s peak season, with some hotels and trekking agencies here reporting cancellations into spring next year. The reduced hours at Nepal’s main aviation gateway till 31 March means that a third of all flights have been cut. This has also caused ticket prices to surge by up to eight times of normal fares. For example a Kathmandu-Delhi ticket that used to cost Rs12,000 is now listed at Rs50,000, and even then seats are not available.&nbsp; “Especially if they are here to trek, change in flight dates can cause tourists to miss their connections,” says Jagan Timilsina, who runs a trail running and outdoor education business. &nbsp; Pokhara is feeling the brunt as hotels report last-minute cancellations for November because of flight disorders. Some hoteliers also say although there have been some cancelled trips, most itineraries have been rescheduled.&nbsp; Hari Prasad Sharma Gaire of the local chapter of the Hotel Association of Nepal says the Kathmandu airport closure should have been timed for the off-season. He told us: “Starting construction during the peak tourist season was a mistake and will cause the tourism industry to lose a lot of business. The upgrade could have been spread out over a longer time but closed for fewer hours at night so that disruption was minimal.”&nbsp; Nearly a third of the 1.2 million tourists who visit Nepal annually come to Pokhara, which is also the gateway to Mustang, the Annapurna treks and pilgrimage tourism to Muktinath. Located by scenic lakes with a range of adventure sports like hot air ballooning, paragliding, canyoning, bungee and ziplines, Pokhara is also popular among diaspora Nepalis. “Besides its own attractions, Pokhara is really the hub for central Nepal, and we have been trying to get visitors to extend their stay here,” says Timilsina, who started out as a trekking porter and rose up the ranks to be an expedition guide and entrepreneur. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111603114_0e071ce63ea9b0a9a7ee76f8c3cea0ff08c6767c41dd09f6bc4413d2db067a60.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024111603114_0e071ce63ea9b0a9a7ee76f8c3cea0ff08c6767c41dd09f6bc4413d2db067a60" data-rendition-name="original" width="3500" height="2333" loading="lazy" alt="Pokhara's tourism woes NT"> <figcaption>Tourist arrivals in Pokhara have slumped since the disruptions at Kathmandu airport due to upgrading work. Photo: KRISHNA MANI BARAL/NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE</figcaption> </figure>  Even without the Kathmandu airport closure affecting tourist arrivals, Pokhara was already suffering from a decline due to many factors like the poor state of the Prithvi Highway, the shortage of luxury accommodation for high-end tourists, and the reluctance of international airlines to start direct flights to Pokhara despite an expensive new airport that was inaugurated two years ago.&nbsp; “There was a lot of initial excitement on the construction of the international airport,” says Timilsina, “but it hasn’t delivered as expected due to politics. People have invested in nearby businesses, and have faced losses.” India has blocked direct flights from its cities to Pokhara because the facility was built by a Chinese company. Although tourists and pilgrims from India hit record levels this year, the poor state of the highways and the Indian bus accident on the highway to Kathmandu in July that killed 27 pilgrims from Maharashtra state dampened arrival figures. Gaire says, “While tourist arrivals to Pokhara are now approaching pre-Covid levels, we haven’t seen the improvement we were expecting. We need a better marketing strategy. What are our embassies abroad doing?”&nbsp; Indeed, Pokhara used to be a favourite destination for Chinese tourists. There was a boom in arrivals from China before Covid, especially after a popular Chinese tv serial was shot on location here. But arrivals from China have not really recovered since the pandemic because of the economic slowdown there. Promoting Pokhara airport to handle direct flights from Chengdu or Kunming could revive Chinese arrivals.&nbsp; Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAAN) has used the Kathmandu airport closure as an excuse to arm-twist international airlines to start flying to Bhairawa, which has barely been in operation for two years since it was inaugurated. So far, Fly Dubai, Thai AirAsia, Jazeera and Qatar are flying to Bhairawa, but most use it as a hop before flying on to Kathmandu, which does not reduce congestion at Kathmandu.&nbsp; An ideal situation could have been to get Pokhara to run to full capacity while Kathmandu is partially out of action. Pokhara entrepreneurs are puzzled why the CAAN and the national government have not taken more interest in promoting Pokhara as an alternative to reduce the congestion in Kathmandu. Nepal’s football team that was flying to Dushanbe this week couldn’t get tickets via Delhi, and took a domestic flight to Bhadrapur, crossed over to Bagdogra and flew on to Delhi to catch their flight to Tajikistan.

Pokhara’s tourism woes

An excerpt of a conversation between an anthropologist and linguist Mark Turin, PhD and Lava Deo Awasthi, PhD, the first Chairperson of the Language Commission of Nepal. Nepali Times: What is the role of Nepal’s Language Commission and when was it formed? Lava Deo Awasthi: The Constitution of Nepal (2015) created a Language Commission (LC) with the following four core mandates: (a) to develop eligibility criteria for gaining status as an official language and offer recommendations to the Government of Nepal about the official language(s) in each province; (b) to offer recommendations to the Government about measures to be taken for the conservation, promotion, and development of languages; (c) to suggest possible ways of using mother tongues in education by assessing their stage of development; and, (d) to conduct studies, carry out research and perform monitoring functions about the response to the constitutional provisions for the federalisation of languages in Nepal. The Commission was founded in 2016 and I was appointed as the Chairperson of the Commission in September of the same year by the Cabinet of Ministers. What in your own professional and educational background helped to prepare you for the role? I have worked with the Government of Nepal for about 30 years, alongside holding teaching appointments at universities in Nepal. Prior to assuming the role of the Chairperson of the Commission, I served as permanent Secretary to the Government of Nepal and worked as the Chief Administrator of the Central Development Region. I was appointed as Director General of the Department of Education and completed my assignments as Joint Secretary at the Planning, Monitoring and Educational Administration Divisions of the Ministry of Education.&nbsp; In addition, I have taught courses as a visiting professor at Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University for more than three decades. Later, I also started supervising MPhil and PhD students at the Far Western University in Mahendranagar, Kanchanpur. My PhD project from the Danish University of Education was dedicated to making sense of Nepal’s social construct and commitment to multilingualism, exploring the persistence of monolingual school practices in the face of constitutional promises and state commitments to multilingualism. I conducted a survey of Nepal’s languages and carried out a qualitative study of the Tharu language in the district of Bardia. I analysed language policy statements and explored classroom pedagogies in schools. I documented how teachers showed a tendency to resist change and maintain the status quo because they were not consulted when new educational language policies were introduced. Teachers also exhibited a deeply-held adherence to the Gurukul education system which appears to have been harnessed as a way to resist newer pedagogical ideologies imported from the West. Recognising how engrained these rich traditions of knowledge transmission are, I wanted to know how students’ engagement in the learning process appeared to have dwindled, creating a gap between children’s home languages and the language(s) of the school. Whilst statutory provisions for education in the mother tongue were oriented towards promotion, classroom pedagogies remained resolutely monolingual and exclusionary. The result was that multilingual education policies that had been introduced in Nepal did not result in meaningful changes in classroom practices. My research was also a reflection of childhood traumas I had experienced at the earliest stage of formal education. My home language, Baitadeli, has a strong oral tradition and no written literature. English is my fifth language in terms of exposure and competence, and my home district of Baitadi is well-known for its loyalty to the local language. I had to drop out of school after completing my sixth grade. Staying at home, I received much attention from my family and had much greater exposure to my native language, culture and environment. My overall impression is that dropping out of school had a surprisingly positive impact on my life. The opportunity offered a surprising dividend for me as I gained mastery in my mother tongue and received extensive exposure to folk literature and Indigenous knowledge and survival skills, cultivating my interest in language, culture, literature and local cosmologies.&nbsp; Now that I reflect on it, I appreciate how language has always played a key role in my life. I grew up in a multilingual environment: brought up with Baitadeli, Hindi, Sanskrit, Nepali and English. Language played a major part in my decision to leave school and my later success is closely linked to my competence in several languages. It was rewarding to be at home with my family as I deepened my understanding of native language and culture, which in turn helped me to harness and refine my art of living. Languages matter so much to me because they are both software and hardware. Later, when I was in secondary school, I realised that my command of my home language contributed significantly to enhancing my Nepali and English. I used my mother tongue as a form of linguistic capital to strengthen my competence in both English and Nepali.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111811110_5400ba54792bf9e4854e1c1effde8bf09804e99647f23513700b450cc49adc4a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024111811110_5400ba54792bf9e4854e1c1effde8bf09804e99647f23513700b450cc49adc4a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Dr Lava Deo Awasthi"> </figure>  In your term as the Commission’s first Chairperson, what were your strategic goals and objectives? My first strategic goal was to create an environment conducive to implementing the provisions of the Constitution of Nepal in relation to language. My priority was to prepare a detailed action plan for my six-year tenure in consultation with language stakeholders, including language experts, professionals, activists, Indigenous community members and representatives of relevant national and local-level institutions. The Commission formed a body of high-level advisors to ensure that the Chairperson’s work was well-informed and credible. The advisors to the committee had highly visible professional and social reputations in Nepal and had much experience in the field of language conservation, promotion, research and development. Another strategy we adopted was to establish close institutional linkages with federal, provincial, and local level governments for collecting opinions and disseminating information widely.&nbsp; What critical issues did you have to consider while discharging your duty? When Nepal’s new Constitution was drafted, a number of concerns could not be adequately addressed. These related to the conservation of languages, the recognition of official languages at the provincial level, and the use of mother tongues at federal, provincial, and local levels. These unresolved issues and matters pertaining to the federalizsation of Nepal’s languages were passed on to the Language Commission to address and resolve.&nbsp; Regarding the recommendations for official languages, a five-year timeline had been set by the Constitution. With great effort, we succeeded in having all provinces agree to recognise their official languages as per the recommendations of the Commission.&nbsp; What were your greatest achievements during your term? One of the greatest achievements was that we succeeded in setting a language agenda at all levels. Nepal’s language communities and other stakeholders expressed the view that this was the first time their languages were recognised and their voices heard by the state. People participated in debates and discussed issues relating to language that in all likelihood had never before happened in their lifetimes, at least not in ways that were supported by the state. We encouraged people to speak in their own language(s) and provided translators during plenary sessions and group discussions. Another major achievement was developing criteria for the status planning of languages at federal, provincial, and local levels, and to recommend 11 province-level official languages, in addition to the Nepali language. Similarly, a notable achievement was recognising Indigenous languages spoken by smaller communities, all of whom faced ongoing marginalisation and high levels of endangerment. The Commission identified 9 new languages that had not been reported in the 2011 census, and provided a framework for recognising official languages within a municipality. The commission emphasised the need for documentation and digitisation of languages for developing corpora and archives at national and sub-national levels.&nbsp; Languages of historical importance as well as classical languages were given recognition for their protection, growth, and development. Recommendations were made for the conservation, promotion and development of Nepal’s marginalised languages that are threatened by majority languages and for those languages that hold particular power at local and global levels. Recommendations were also made for how best to safeguard Nepal’s languages from the ever-growing spread of English and other powerful, globalising languages.&nbsp; A further important aspect of the Commission’s work was to emphasise mother tongue medium instruction in schools across the nation. Recognising the role of language in children’s cognitive, socio-emotional and academic development, the Commission suggested strategies for linking schools with ward-level language clusters for use in the classroom. The importance of nurturing and respecting a child’s first language was reiterated in the Commission’s recommendations for children’s learning and all-round development. By the end of my term, a remarkable change could be observed in terms of building trust within and across Nepal’s diverse language communities. A network of language groups and stakeholders across the country proved to be a powerful way of bringing all language communities under one roof for a collective review of and response to the process of federalising language policy. The many language stakeholders across Nepal appreciated the opportunity to work within a coordinated framework, and—feeling empowered by this—seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the initiatives taken by the Commission.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024111811114_b45297fdd2fedf17bdb6313e495a1062c0d87f1a19fa5349f871f220b75f93ab.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024111811114_b45297fdd2fedf17bdb6313e495a1062c0d87f1a19fa5349f871f220b75f93ab" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Dr Lava Deo Awasthi NT"> </figure>  What were the most significant challenges for you as Chairperson? One of the major challenges was winning people’s trust in advocating for the mission of the Language Commission. I faced considerable resistance as I sought to emphasise the use of native languages in families and communities. While the Commission advocated for multilingualism and promoted linguistic diversity, the prevailing policy circles and central level institutions had been deeply influenced by a one-language discourse and ideology of Nepali only. The spread of English also poses a huge threat to Nepal’s languages. However, people in power do not seem to see this as a problem. They tend to abandon their own languages in preference for English. The way that Nepal’s municipalities are increasingly introducing English as a medium of instruction at the earliest stage of a child’s school-based education has proven to be detrimental to their cognitive development, socio-emotional wellbeing and academic success. Most of Nepal’s elites have been heavily influenced by the spread of English and remain unaware about its impact on their home languages as well as on the inter-generational transmission of Indigenous languages in the country. I wish that we could have produced more compelling evidence to show the consequences of making poor policy choices for our children’s education. Demystification calls for a collective response. To make change happen across this entire, complex and federalising country was daunting work and left like a race against time. I feel that I could have done more to offer concrete examples in favour of using the mother tongue as a medium of children’s education at the earliest stages of a child’s education. What do you see the Language Commission achieving in the next 5-10 years? The Language Commission will have to ensure that all of its key recommendations are implemented at all levels of government. In 10 years’ time, all seven of Nepal’s provinces will have their official languages in place. These languages will also be recognised as languages of federal business, alongside Nepali. I anticipate that all official languages in the federal and provincial systems will have a national portal for inter-language corpora using machine translation to fulfil their federal, provincial and local level language functions, and that all languages spoken in Nepal will be represented through a digital database in the national archive. The Office of Statistics will monitor the status of Nepal’s languages over time. By the end of the next decade, each municipality in the country will have recognised one or two official languages at the local level, based on speech populations. Other local languages will have received community-level legal recognition and official status to fulfil their functional roles. Languages that are highly endangered or at risk will be entitled to receive state grants for enhancing local level capabilities to encourage families and young learners to speak the language. Incentive schemes will be introduced in municipalities that promote language within the family and at home. Inter-generational transmission of languages will have received welcome and timely attention across Nepal. It is my hope that all schools—public and private—will have introduced mother tongue medium instruction at the earliest stage of school education, at least up to class five. Nepali, English and other national as well as classical and foreign languages will be taught as subjects. The existing policy of English medium education at the early stage of education will be abolished. The Government of Nepal will be held accountable if the number of speakers of any language decreases or if local communities face language loss and greater endangerment. Under the aegis of the Language Commission, a Centre for Language Research and Innovation will be created with world-class facilities for language documentation and archiving in collaboration with Tribhuvan University’s Central Department of Linguistics and other relevant institutions. Harnessing the vastness of Nepal’s linguistic diversity, the Language Commission will morph into a centre of excellence for national and international communities to engage in collaborative language research, to share experiences and document best practices at in service of global linguistic diversity and Nepal’s many Indigenous languages.

Languages are both software and hardware

Earlier this month, Nepal received Rs1.6 billion from the World Bank as part of its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/will-nepal-ever-be-paid-for-saving-trees">Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF)</a>, rewarding the country for increasing its carbon sink capacity. Nepal is the first in South Asia to benefit from this facility, and it is specifically to recompense the country for increasing forest cover in 13 Tarai districts between 2018-2024. “We are also trying to get another Rs13 billion from the facility while also preparing for free market-based carbon trading in the international market,” says Nabaraj Pudasaini of the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) Implementation Centre. Big emitters of greenhouse gases are under pressure to reduce their carbon emissions, and many have signed agreements to do so by investing in decarbonisation projects in developing countries. Countries that emit more than a specified amount of carbon would be able to buy emission rights from countries that emit less. Nepal is internationally known for its community forestry program which has been largely credited for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/tree-mendous">increasing tree cover to over 45%</a> in less than three decades. But this achievement had not been adequately recognised or rewarded internationally before. Forests, especially in the tropics, absorb and store large amounts of carbon while releasing oxygen in a process known as photosynthesis. <a href="https://www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/en/">Preventing deforestation</a> and increasing canopy cover is considered a much more achievable goal than reducing emission in the scale necessary to limit global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. COP11 in Montreal in 2005 first proposed reducing carbon emissions by improving forest quality by halting degradation. By 2015, a new mechanism of financial assistance was created to help less developed countries with sustainable management of forests <a href="https://www.un-redd.org/">(called REDD+)</a>. Under this new mechanism, countries receive aid based on their efforts to prevent forest degradation and increase carbon sink, and in 2021 the World Bank was entrusted with implementing it. Nepal’s FCPF receipt this month was calculated on the basis of 2.4 million tons of carbon stored at a rate of $5 per ton. In the second phase, Nepal will receive more than Rs4 billion within the next year for storing an additional 7 million tons of carbon. Eighty per cent of this amount obtained from carbon trading needs to be spent on local beneficiaries and indigenous communities.&nbsp; But carbon trading is not easy, Nepal needs to prove that protected forests will not be destroyed in future.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241121091132_c8a381c9a95aa86fec558951650d97bb87914741f01766982ba2b086af001f16.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241121091132_c8a381c9a95aa86fec558951650d97bb87914741f01766982ba2b086af001f16" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="Greenbacks for greenery NT "> <figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  Explains carbon trading expert Yugan Manandhar. “Forests should be handed over to the community and shown that they are managed sustainably. Proving this will be particularly challenging; forest encroachment and degradation is rife in the Tarai.” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke">Deliberate forest fires</a> have also added to the challenge because they increase carbon emissions and reduce the sink capacity of forests. The basis for the amount that Nepal received was set five years ago by calculating the carbon reserves of forests in the 13 Tarai districts. In the meantime, sustainable forest management, tree plantation, forest destruction and erosion control were prioritised to increase carbon reserves in those forests. Nepal is signing another carbon trading agreement during the ongoing Baku climate conference. The <a href="https://www.leafcoalition.org/">Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF Coalition) </a>proposes to sell the carbon stored in the forests of Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini provinces. For this, Nepal signed the letter of intent three years ago at COP26 in Glasgow. The target is to store 70 million tons of carbon in 32 million hectares of forest in the three provinces per which Nepal will receive Rs13 billion in four years at $10 per ton with provisions to increase the rate if various conditions are met. However, the agreement in itself doesn’t guarantee the amount. According to the targets set by Nepal, forest degradation should be stopped and carbon reserves increased by protecting tree cover. Preparations are also underway for clean air carbon trade because it has offset fossil fuel use by introducing 30,000 electric vehicles. Nepal has been selected for the first round to receive $40 million within one and a half years through the Clean Air System of the World Bank. Given that most of Nepal’s energy mix is from biomass, replacing them with electric stoves can significantly improve health by reducing indoor pollution as well as strengthen the country’s capacity for carbon trade. “Nepal's goal now is to sell carbon in the free market where carbon credits are bought and sold based on supply and demand in an open and transparent manner,” adds Pudasaini of the REDD Implementation Centre. “Nepal can now set its own price and bargain with interested buyer countries and organisations.” Lately, India has been discussing setting up a carbon market. Nepal has exported Rs12.72 billion worth of electricity to India so far this fiscal year, which can be traded under Nepal’s carbon market. “Carbon trading can create significant economic benefits for Nepal, which will help reinvest in development and environmental protection projects,” says Manandhar. “But we must prioritise sustainable management of forests, cutting older trees and allowing regrowth as well as promoting electric stoves and electric vehicles.”

Greenbacks for greenery

Turkish Airlines has introduced a new amenity kit collection designed in collaboration with French fashion house Lanvin for international business class passengers on flights more than five hours. It consists of five pieces designed for sustainability and elegance. Bags are reusable and will consist of Lanvin cosmetic products like hand and body lotions and lip balm. Eye masks and socks are made from recycled materials, earplugs are packaged in paper and the toothbrush is bamboo.

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