<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f2c9c7e80680e0af44fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1802"/><figcaption>Manang. Photo: NABIN LAMICHHANE.</figcaption></figure>Kathmandu Valley and the surrounding areas experienced rains from Tuesday night with moderate snowfall in Chandragiri and Pulchoki in the outskirts.Heavier snow has blanketed the mountainous districts of Dadeldhura, Doti, Baitadi, Bajhang and Darchula, as well as trans-himalayan Dolpo, Manang and Mustang, while vehicular movements in different sections of the Tribhuvan, Bhimdatta and Jayaprithvi highways have been obstructed by snowfall.The Department of Meteorology and Hydrology has predicted rain into Wednesday morning.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f309c7e80680e0af450jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1600"><figcaption>Myagdi. Photo: SONTOSH GAUTAM.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f339c7e80680e0af451jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="854" height="481"><figcaption>Lukla. Photo: RAJENDRA B. SINGH.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f359c7e80680e0af452jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="816" height="612"><figcaption>Bhojpur. Photo: YUVRAJ BISTA.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f379c7e80680e0af453jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1353" height="902"><figcaption>Bhaktapur. Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f3b9c7e80680e0af454jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1304" height="870"><figcaption>Bhaktapur. Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f3e9c7e80680e0af455jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1107"><figcaption>Chandragiri. Photo: ACHYUT REGMI.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f419c7e80680e0af456jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1350"><figcaption>Doti. Photo: BIMAL BAHADUR BISTA.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f449c7e80680e0af457jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1350"><figcaption>Doti. Photo: BIMAL BAHADUR BISTA.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f479c7e80680e0af458jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="450"><figcaption>Simkot. Photo: DANE BOHARA.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f499c7e80680e0af459jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1350"><figcaption>Humla. Photo: DANE BOHARA.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f4d9c7e80680e0af45ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1834"><figcaption>Jajarkot. Photo: HEMANTA KC.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f509c7e80680e0af45bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="454"><figcaption>Rasuwa. Photo: HIMNATH DEVKOTA.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f539c7e80680e0af45cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="2112"><figcaption>Jajarkot. Photo: HEMANTA KC.</figcaption></figure>

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Nepal lashed by winter rain and snow

<figure><img width="1400" height="920" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e509c7e80680e04fcabjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Illustration: BHANU BHATTARAI</figcaption></figure>The trans-Himalayan railroad has been in the news lately. And like everything else in Nepal, it is difficult to separate hot air from a cool breeze. The Chinese cannot hide their irritation anymore about Nepal’s politicians day-dreaming. Ambassador Hou Yanqi was as blunt as a diplomat can be at a recent interaction in which she said (we paraphrase): “Not so fast.”Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=29461&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Which way will the Tibet-Nepal railway go?</a>, Ramesh Bhushal<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=29395&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dream Train</a>, Ramesh BhushalThe extension of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to Nyalam and Kerung, then onwards to Kathmandu, Lumbini and the Indian border constitutes a part of Beijing’s <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15892#.XRsdKz8za70" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Medium and Long-term Railway Network Plan</a>. But laying train tracks on the rugged terrain of the Tibetan Plateau has been a daunting challenge even for the Chinese.After the Lhasa line was connected to Xigatse and beyond, it was expected to reach <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/the-tibet-train" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kerung</a> on the Nepal border by the next year, but now it looks like it will be pushed back five more years. Yet Nepal’s hyperbolic politicians talk about it as if the locomotives will be chugging in by next Dasain.The railway to Nepal was listed as one of the 64 Belt Road Initiative (BRI) projects at the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in April. The ambitious BRI aims to improve China’s overland connectivity to countries across its western border in Central Asia and beyond to even Europe. The Nepal link is not directly on the main line, but part of a <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/05/12/nepal-joins-new-silk-road/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sub-Silk Road</a> that could, in the future, offer an alternative to two-way trade between China and India, which today follows a maritime route through the Strait of Malacca.China is India’s largest source of imports, and it is in Beijing’s geostrategic interest to find land alternatives to choke points on its sea routes to the Indian Ocean. Two-way trade between India and China is now nearly $100 billion a year and a stable land corridor would be in both the countries’ interest. Besides that, China wants to integrate its southwestern regions of Tibet and Xinjiang with central and southern Asia.  But what does Nepal get out of the proposed rail link? First of all, theoretically, we can have <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/yam-between-3-boulders/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cheap and reliable alternative access</a> to sea ports. That Nepal needs this trade bypass is a no-brainer considering the five-month Indian Blockade of our southern border in 2015. Despite its initial cost, train travel is cheaper and environmentally much cleaner. A railway track through the mountains could interlink trade and tourist travel between the two countries, and be a catalyst for other train lines within Nepal. Nepal’s politicians, including Prime Minister K P Oli, came to power riding the nationalist wave after the Blockade, and promised better access to the north. But one just has to see the slow progress of the road on our side of the Rasuwa border today to realise that it was all talk. Whatever progress there has been in upgrading the checkpoints in Rasuwa and <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/bordering-on-helplessness" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kodari</a>, or the dry port in Larcha, are being built by China in our territory.The biggest uncertainty about the trans-Himalayan railroad is who is going to pay for it, and if it will pay for itself. The 170km stretch from Kerung to Kathmandu will cost at least $5.5 billion. It is unlikely the Chinese will just gift the railroad, and a loan could be a debt trap. Unless Nepal’s exports to China rise dramatically, this railway will not make much economic sense.Nepal’s trade deficit with China is expected to grow to $15 billion this year, as imports rose by 40% and exports fell by 30%. A cargo train makes sense if we can use the wagons to send goods back to China, not just to buy more.China used its comparative advantage in the past to produce labour-intensive goods which it exported worldwide to buy knowhow. Now, China has attained an income level where some of those goods can be produced more cheaply elsewhere: like Nepal. In the 1990s, tax rebates attracted multinationals to set up manufacturing bases in Nepal for export to India. We do not have to reinvent the wheel.Greater connectivity between India and China through Nepal, however, could open a new trans-Himalayan trade corridor which can offer Nepal another chance to be a manufacturing base for specialised products to be sold to both our giant neighbours. But for that, we need a strategic vision and pragmatic policies. Nepal’s strategy should be to serve as a land bridge between India and China and get these two giant locomotives to pull in the same direction.10 years ago this weekNepali Times <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/458" target="_blank" rel="noopener">#458 of 3-9 July 2009</a> dealt with the Constitution deadline being only 11 months away, and the political parties paralysed by wrangling. Our<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16083#.XR7YWeszaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> editorial</a> blamed the fecklessness of the democratic parties and the Maoists wanting to go it alone:‘D Day for the completion of the new Constitution is now only 11 months away. The Constituent Assembly’s self-imposed deadline has been pushed back over and over again. Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal said after his Politburo meeting this week that his party will lead a national government. How that will be possible considering the non-Maoist parties are on the other side is difficult to imagine. Maybe the strategy is to split the big parties, but then domestic and international geo-politics are both against them. What the Maoists couldn’t achieve with armed struggle and elections, they will now try to do by mobilising a mass movement on the streets.’<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/458"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e539c7e80680e04fcacjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="1242"></a>

TRILATERAL TRAINS

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a21479c7e80680e041739jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Photos: PHURPA TAMANG</figcaption></figure>Phurpa Tamang in Himal Khabarpatrika, 30 DecemberPhurpa Dindup Tamang, 50, of Thulo Bharkhu of Rasuwa district is a yak-herder by profession. His grandfather Singi Jhankri had a big sheep farm, and his father Dawa Jhankri raised yaks. His other grandfather Tenzin Tamang was known as Tenzin Baru and was wealthy because of his large herd of yaks.Phurpa Dindup also grew up raising yaks, but when he felt it did not pay him enough, he went to Kuwait in 2003 to work for eight years as a security guard. He returned to Nepal and decided to get back into his ancestral profession in his home village, and use the exposure he had got abroad."Other places are not like your own village and country," he says, “it may not be easy to earn money in Nepal, but it is an easier life.”  The government dairy buys yak milk for Rs80 per litre, and Dindup says he can make a comfortable enough living with that.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101128/636a214b9c7e80680e04173ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">Raising yaks maybe difficult for others, but he finds it easy since he learnt it as a child. He does acknowledge that it may be really risky for those who don't know anything about it. Yaks have to be moved according to the seasons. If they are not moved to highland pastures in summer, they dies from the heat.Yak herders need to know which forests have enough water and grass in which months, and which rivers and wetlands are infested with leech. They need to stay away from poisonous plants, and treacherous cliffs and landslides. Yak herders also need to know how to save their animals from snow leopards and wolves, and what medicinal herbs to give them when they fall sick.In olden days, people who raised yaks and sheep were called 'Baru' (rich) because they earned income from selling milk, butter, cheese, churpi, wool, and calves. These days there are fewer yak farms in villages, but the products still fetch good prices."Mountain communities like ours need butter for rituals like birth, death, weddings, so the value of milk has increased because there are fewer yak farms," Dindup adds.Dindup, who now has 32 yaks, never got the opportunity to study, and says one reason he returned to his family yak farm is that he does not have the skills or the capital to start any other business. He received Rs500,000 from the Agriculture Ministry to raise yaks, and now earns Rs 700,000 a year.He is educating his children from his earnings: his eldest daughter passed Grade 10 and got married, his second daughter is in Grade 12, and eldest son passed Grade 10. His wife bought gold earrings last year from those earnings.Says Dindup: "It is good to be back. I can be with my family, and travel to the mountains, in winter I go down to Kerung. In summer I go up to Lauribina Pass. Life could not be better.

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Nepal lashed by winter rain and snow

TRILATERAL TRAINS

No need to migrate for work