Here in Dho Valley, in the arid mountains of northwestern Nepal, the only sounds used to be tinkling yak bells and the flapping of wind on prayer flags. Now, there is another one: the throb of internal combustion engines.
Chinese motorcycles roar down the dusty trails of once quiet Dho, and the growl of an excavator can be heard from across the valley. It will not be long before the Sumo pickups arrive from the district headquarter in Dunai, which itself was recently connected to Nepal’s road network.
During his <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/president-xi-in-kathmandu/" target="_blank">state visit to Nepal last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping</a> said Nepal would go from being landlocked to‘land-linked’, and promised to help build better road access across the Himalaya from Nepal to China. This is what ‘better connectivity’ looks like here at ground zero in Dolpo.
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One of Nepal’s priorities for trans-Himalayan connectivity is the Kali Gandaki Corridor from the Tarai, through Mustang to the Korala checkpoint at the Chinese border. The new road from Marim Pass on the Tibet border to Dunai has now reached Dho and Chharkha.
On parts of the road that are already motorable, motorbikes &nbsp;noisly overtake trekking groups spewing clouds of dust as they climb the trails. Neither the trekkers nor lodge owners are happy.
“They go so fast, they are noisy and irritating. It is dangerous for school children and older people — it will kill someone one day,” grumbles Tenzin Gurung, a monk at the Sitcho gomba.
Across the road however, a younger trader is excited about the road since it will provide easier access to the market and bring down the cost of food.
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Such ambivalence has accompanied Nepal’s rapid road-building spree in other parts of the country like <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nation-road-from-nowhere-to-nowhere,549" target="_blank">Tsum</a>, Manang and Mustang. But perhaps nowhere has the change from no-road to road been as dramatic as here in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dazzling-dolpo/" target="_blank">Dolpo,</a> which was the last district in Nepal &nbsp;not linked by road.
Over on the other side of Mo La pass, at 5,021m, an excavator is clearing a switchback down the rocky slope that follows the trekking trail, which itself followed the ancient trading route from Dolpo to Mustang.
Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/bon-voyage/" target="_blank"> Bon voyage,</a> Sonam Choekyi Lama
“The weather is challenging, it is windy and cold on the pass, and we have to bring the diesel up by mule from Mustang,” says excavator operator Padam Bahadur.
Those who own lodges and depend on trekking groups for income are opposed to the road. Even if it is built, they say it should not destroy the traditional trading routes and trekking trails.
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Says Sonam Lama, an architect who fought a losing battle to prevent the road to his native Tsum Valley: “These hiking trails should not be replaced by roads. We should try to find an alternative motorable road.”
The dozers are also ploughing across holy chorten and mani walls. The excavator driver, who is from Piuthan, says he had to “relocate” a mani wall because it was obstructing the road alignment determined by the surveyor.
Read Also: &nbsp;<a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/stairway-to-heaven" target="_blank">Stairway to Heaven</a>, Kunda Dixit
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Villagers in Chharkha ask why Dolpo should not follow the example of Kagbeni, where the road to Lo Manthang bypassed the old cobble-stone streets of the town to preserve its heritage. Indeed, Dolpo seems to be making the same mistake as other parts of Nepal.
With little oversight by local or national governments, it looks like change is too big and too quick for Dolpo to handle.
“There is no reason why the road had to follow the trekking trails, go through the villages and destroy our holy shrines,” says Ramprasad Sherchan, owner of the Muktinath Hotel in Kagbeni. However, Sherchan now sees potential for more trekkers going to Dolpo via Mustang since the district will be more accessible.

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New High Way to Dolpo

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e709c7e80680e04fcb6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Dozens of trucks carrying imported Chinese goods cross the Bhote Kosi into Nepal this week. The Nepali border town of Rasuwa Gadi (pictured below) on the Bhote Kosi river. Photos: NABIN BARAL</figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e749c7e80680e04fcb7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="933">Till not too long ago, a trans-Himalayan railway sounded like science fiction. Now, with the proposed 100km long tunnel under <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-reincarnation-of-a-holy-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Langtang National park</a>, it sounds even more futuristic.The rapid strides China has taken in extending its national railway network makes drilling under the world’s highest mountains seem no longer technically impossible, but is it economically viable?Read also: <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 Bhushal <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=29408&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trilateral Trains</a>, Editorial A pre-feasibility study of a railway into Nepal from Tibet carried out by a Chinese team in 2018 suggests that it would be an engineering feat and very expensive, but not an impossible task.“Technically this will be one of the world’s toughest railways to construct,” says Paribesh Parajuli, the only train engineer at Nepal’s Department of Railways, who was educated in China and is a consultant for the study.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e779c7e80680e04fcb8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="826" height="680"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Despite Nepali politicians making wild promises about the imminent arrival of a Tibet train and ensuing public anticipation, because of the technical and cost factors the Chinese have sought to dampen some of the enthusiasm.Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/the-tibet-train" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Tibet Train</a>, Om Astha RaiThe feasibility study has not yet been made public, but is said to list ‘six extremes’ that will be challenging: topography, weather, hydrology, tectonics, and cost.And despite speculation that the railway alignment will follow the Bhote Kosi River across the Himalaya to Nuwakot, the study actually lays out a much more adventurous course under Langtang National Park, below Gosainkunda and Shivapuri National Park to enter Kathmandu Valley at Tokha. Stations will be located at bridge points where the tunnels emerge at Langtang Khola and Pati Bhanjyang.The gradient required to descend from 4,000m on the Tibetan Plateau to 1,400m above Kathmandu is so steep that engineers have proposed drilling through the mountains with 98% of the tracks on the Nepal side inside tunnels.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCrriCNMqoSays Parajuli: “If the railroad follows the proposed tunnel route under the mountains, the towns along the existing highway to Rasuwa will not even be seeing trains.”Although drilling under the mountains will minimise environmental impact in two national parks, the tunnels will traverse the Main Central Thrust faultline of the Himalaya. Mitigating earthquake risk will push the total cost even higher than a normal tunnel project.Preliminary estimates put the cost of just the 170km Kerung to Kathmandu section of the railway at 38 billion yuan ($5.5 billion). Even though only 30% of the length from Menbu to Kathmandu is in Nepal, it will account for almost half the cost of the project because of the required tunneling.Despite these challenges, Nepal’s railway dream moved closer to reality after the project was listed as one of the 64 to be considered under China’s BRI during the <a href="https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11212--Green-Belt-and-Road-in-the-spotlight" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second Belt and Road Forum</a> in Beijing in April.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e7a9c7e80680e04fcb9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="933"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e7d9c7e80680e04fcbajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Nepal is now seeking a grant from China to construct the railway, but Beijing is <a href="https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/nepal-china-railway-project-will-be-executed-chinese-ambassador-to-nepal-hou-yanqi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reticent</a>, hence recent comments by Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi urging Nepalis not to jump the gun.The Nepal government has not allocated any money for the Tibet railway in this year’s budget. But officials at <a href="http://www.mopit.gov.np/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal’s Infrastructure and Transport</a> ministry say just a detailed engineering study for the Kerung-Kathmandu section of the railway will cost an <a href="https://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/printedition/news/2019-03-19/rs-35b-and-two-years-cost-of-detailed-project-report-of-kathmandu-kerung-rail.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimated </a>five times the Nepal’s total railway budget for next year.Even so, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada seems upbeat. He has even announced the date of the start of construction: “We will complete the detailed project report and feasibility study and start construction work on the Kerung-Kathmandu railway in the next two years.”The Chinese do not seem to be in such a rush. The Qinghai-Tibet railway reached Xigatse in Tibet in 2014. At the pace of construction, it was  scheduled to arrive on the border in Kerung by 2020, but the Chinese have reportedly pushed that back to 2025.Both the Chinese and Nepal governments have denied that loan financing for the project will push Nepal into a debt trap, as the Americans have been warning.“The main thing is how projects are selected, whether that is done on the possible rate of return, and the pay back plan,” says Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX-C2_E-AQMWhile the minister could not answer questions about what Nepal would export to China by train, Prime Minister K P Oli once speculated it could be mineral water, for which he was widely ridiculed. Mineral water is already a multi-billion dollar <a href="https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/2015/10/29/chinas-bottled-water-industry-to-exploit-asias-water-tower-4/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">industry in Tibet</a>, so it would be like coals to Newcastle.Economic analysts say the railway makes sense only if Nepal can fill the wagons with its goods for the return trip. While imports from China increased by about 40% in 2018, exports from Nepal to China fell by 30%, with the country’s trade deficit reaching about US$12 billion last year – equal to nearly half of the country’s total GDP.Ambassador Hou has tried to allay fears. “The BRI is not a ‘debt trap’ that some countries may fall into, but an ‘economic pie’ that benefits the local population,” she wrote in a recent <a href="https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/new-era-new-opportunities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opinion piece</a> in the Nagarik newspaper.The real question is not just who will pay for the railway, but also whether it will pay for itself. The tunnel alignment will push up costs, and because it misses all major urban areas along the way like Trisuli and Syabrubesi, it is unlikely to benefit local populations.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLURhJkDeVcNarayan Das Dongol, 76, plays with his granddaughter in Tokha village on the northern rim of Kathmandu Valley. His house will be near the proposed terminal of the Kerung-Kathmandu railway, and he has heard rumours about a train coming. There is still confusion about the exact route the tracks will take, but land prices here have already soared six-fold to Rs3 million for a 32 sq m patch in anticipation.In Bidur of Nuwakot, Mayor Sanju Pandit insists the train should go through his town, adding: “I have heard that the railway will cross our town, but we have not been consulted or informed about it at all.”One worry is that regular cargo trains between China and Nepal will increase wildlife trafficking not just of endangered species from Nepal, but also India. Nepal would be even more of a transit for contraband like tiger skins, rhinos horns, pangolins, sandalwood.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e819c7e80680e04fcbbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="933"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>On the Nepal side, there are zero preparations in place for the Tibet railroad, but even the proposed east-west Tarai railway does not seem to be going anywhere. In the decade since it was set up, Nepal’s Department of Railways has yet to hire a fulltime railway engineer.The new 34km railway from Bihar to Nepal is supposed to start operations next month with a hired train and driver from India. But you cannot fault Nepal for dreaming big: the government plans to construct 4,000km of railways in the next two decades.This article was originally published by <a href="https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/2019/06/18/china-nepal-railway-fantasy-or-reality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Third Pole</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e849c7e80680e04fcbcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131140/636a4e879c7e80680e04fcbdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Timeline: Nepal’s BRI railway2017 – Nepal and China sign MoU on the BRI in Beijing.2018 – Nepal forms two committees headed by the foreign secretary and finance secretary to propose projects for China to fund under BRI.2018 – Nepal’s prime minister, K.P Oli, visits China and signs on 14 projects including in cooperation in railways.2018 – Pre-feasibility study for the Kerung- Kathmandu rail by a Chinese team.2019 – The Nepal-China railway listed as part of the Trans-Himalayan connectivity network at the second BRI Forum in Beijing in April.2019 – In budget speech, government declares construction will start in two years without allocating appropriate budget for a detailed study.

Which way will the Tibet-Nepal railway go?

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a40e49c7e80680e04a648jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="544"/>One of the most prominent changes we see while travelling across Nepal these days is the presence of earth movers, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/bulldozing-democracy-in-nepal,4184">bulldozers</a>, tipper trucks and excavators. They dominate the highways, gouge out riverbeds, claw at mountainsides and rip through forests.There may be many planners in Singha Darbar who claim to be the drivers of development. But out in the hinterland, we know who is really making development ‘happen’.Ask Nepalis in the districts what they want the most, and the answer will be “a road”. For them ‘road’ is synonymous with ‘development’, and they are going to get them by any means possible. If anyone still had any doubts, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/trickledown-corruption,4176">Kathmandu is no longer in charge</a>, thanks largely to the devolution of decision-making in the new Constitution.The road-building spree is now fuelled by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/uncategorized/elected-contractors/">local governments</a>, which get to spend money quite indiscriminately. Yet, with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/survey-is-wakeup-call-for-nepal-government/">three-fourths of the population now having access to some kind of road</a>, public demand for any old road is now being superseded by an insistence on black-topped roads that will not be washed away in the next monsoon. Quality is slowly taking precedence over quantity.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18019#.XNpIyuUza70">Roads are a two-way</a> street. They may be designed and built to take local produce to market, but roads also bring the market to remote villages. This can have a huge <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Nation-road-from-nowhere-to-nowhere,549">negative impact</a> on the local economy if competitiveness is lost. Roads can also become an incentive to produce more, or disincentive to pack up and leave for the city or go abroad.Socio-economic and environmental studies are conducted before a road is built, but there is little to show that these recommendations have been studied, much less implemented. Roads may take local trout, strawberries and vegetables to the market, but they also enable human trafficking and the spread of HIV, and push land prices beyond the reach of the poor.On 13 May, Himalayan TV, Dooshan, Facts and V-chitra gave out excellence awards to projects that met new, higher standards. One surprise award went to the restoration of the historic Pim Bahal neighbourhood of Patan.The second surprise was that no one was awarded in the large project category: sending a message that there was plenty of room for improvement. Such due diligence to select winners will in future ensure that the quality of construction will improve. As the saying goes, when everyone stays average, the average goes down – this is what has long plagued the infrastructure sector in Nepal.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=12390#.XNpJtOUza70">Dozers are literally changing the face of Nepal</a>. Mountains are no longer the barriers they were, which may be the necessary first step toward prosperity through connectivity. However, this process must ultimately deliver the kind of prosperity that can come with easier movement of value added goods and services. The cost of transport must go down over time.To attain such results, maintenance, management and upgrading of infrastructure must be a continuous process. Roads can not only pay for themselves, they can generate huge revenue in the longer term. Building infrastructure is not expenditure, as is currently perceived, but an investment.Many construction projects today are undertaken through a flawed public procurement regulation that awards the contract to the lowest bidder. This has resulted in many destructive projects and a waste of taxpayers’ money. In future, many projects will be designed, resourced and implemented by the private sector. Competition will help improve things in general.The government can collaborate with the private sector, as we are seeing in hydropower, hotels, schools and hospitals. There could even come a time when development partners will buy back well constructed social infrastructure built by the private sector as their contribution to Nepal’s development.During a recent trip up the Trisuli River, it was heart-warming to see dozers expanding the road to Kerung. Dozers are for development, it just depends on who is driving them.

Anil Chitrakar

Dozers and Nepal’s development

It was pure drama: the political transition in Madhes unfolded by the dawn’s early light. At around 4AM on Monday, Province Head Sumitra Subedi Bhandari quietly departed Janakpur saying she was headed to Kathmandu for health reasons.&nbsp;
Outgoing Chief Minister Jitendra Sonal, whose coalition had begun to unravel, even saw her off, asking supporters to clear the road for her motorcade.
But an hour later, instead of continuing on to the capital, Bhandari stopped in Bardibas on the East-West Highway. There, as the sun started rising over the misty plains, she administered the oath of office to Saroj Kumar Yadav of the CPN-UML, invoking Article 168(3) of the Constitution.&nbsp;
Bhandari is also a member of the CPN-UML. The provision she invoked is typically used only after coalitions fail under Article 168(2), and the timing and location of the swearing-in have since drawn scrutiny.
Bhandari was subsequently relieved of her duties, and former National Planning Commission member Surendra Labh Karna was sworn in as the new Madhes province head on Tuesday.
Sonal had formed his government barely a month ago, with the backing of 56 provincial lawmakers but it became evident he would not secure the 54 votes needed to survive a confidence motion.&nbsp;
Several lawmakers in his coalition publicly signalled they would abstain. Still, the seven-party alliance that opposed Yadav’s appointment argues that the Province Head, who is the highest constitutional rank in the provincial structure, acted prematurely and under pressure from central UML party command.&nbsp;
A coalition of seven parties, including the Nepali Congress (NC), had been urging the Province Head to invite them to form a new government under Article 168(2). At the same time, the UML, which had been holding demonstrations outside the Province Head’s office in Janakpur, was calling for the formation of a minority government under Article 168(3).
The alliance of the seven parties that included the NC and Maoist Centre took to the streets. By mid-morning, protests had escalated outside Madhes Bhawan with cadre vandalising both the Chief Minister’s office and the Province Head’s office.
This was the third government in Madhes to fall since the 2022 provincial elections, and it follows a similar pattern. The previous Chief Minister Satish Kumar Singh of the Janamat Party, resigned before a scheduled confidence vote after losing the support of his own party and others including NC and LSP.&nbsp;
His resignation unfolded amid nationwide GenZ protests against corruption, demanding accountability and reform. The recurring instability points to a structural tension in Nepal’s federalism.&nbsp;
Provincial politics remain closely tied to alliances shaped in Kathmandu. The withdrawal of support by parties like the NC and Maoist Centre in provinces often reflects national-level calculations rather than provincial priorities.
As a result, the Provincial Assembly is repeatedly consumed by survival of the coalition instead of governance. Development work stalls. Budget execution slows. Public frustration grows. In a province that was at the forefront of the movement for federalism to counter what is seen as neglect, apathy and discrimination by Kathmandu, the sense that the system may not delivering on its promise is becoming increasingly pronounced.
If federalism is to be strengthened, provincial governments must be able to function with a degree of autonomy that currently exists more in principle than in practice. Otherwise, the perception that federalism is costly, unstable, and ineffective will continue to expand, providing fertile ground for anti-federal sentiment that is already gaining traction.
Earlier examples such as the NC General Secretary Bishwo Prakash Sharma in January calling for a new government in Madhes led by his party demonstrates how the central party leadership deliberately intervenes in provincial affairs. His remarks came during campaigns for bi-elections in Madhes when former CM Singh had been in office for six months only.&nbsp;
Likewise, in early June 2024, the federal coalition in Kathmandu shifted from a Maoist Centre and NC to form a new alliance between the NC &nbsp;and the UML. Within a day, coalition negotiations in Madhes changed to mirror this.
UML leaders publicly stated: “The issues at the federal and provincial levels will be resolved together.” This indicated that the realignment in Madhes followed national party decisions rather than provincial deliberation.
The events that unfolded in Madhes are a reminder that federalism in Nepal is still in transition, and that its success depends on political actors honouring the constitutional framework.

Chronic instability in the Madhes

New and old, businessmen and former diplomats, engineers and academics — they have all been trooping to the Election Commission to register political parties ahead of the Sunday deadline.
Till press time Thursday, five new parties had been registered and 21 new parties were in the process of applying. Behind the scenes, new parties are head-hunting, well-known figures are shopping for parties to join, while older parties are splitting or uniting to form new united parties.
“It is reason for optimism that people are enthused to form new parties,” notes political analyst Indra Adhikari. But, she adds, this does not mean that despite the celebrity status they will win votes and succeed in politics.
The outlier in all this are the Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, which are still licking the wounds after being swept out of power by the GenZ protests in September. Neither are too keen on elections because of the prospect of losing badly.
Former prime minister K P Oli is the most recalcitrant, and seems to want to scuttle elections so Parliament will be reinstated. After announcing that he was stepping down, the NC’s Sher Bahadur Deuba has had a change of heart in Singapore and is gunning to restore Parliament.
Neither party and their leaders have shown any remorse for the 8 September massacre, or understood the outrage on the streets against their decades-long incompetence and corruption. &nbsp;
Among those registering parties are various GenZ youth groups and family members of those killed during the September protests. Notable among the new parties certified this week was Gatishil Loktantrik Party (गतिलो) backed by Buddha Air founder Birendra Basnet and led by sociologist Dinesh Prasai. Dharan Mayor Harka Sampang’s Shram Sanskriti Party is also registered.
Energy and Infrastructure Minister in the interim government Kulman Ghising has backed the Ujyalo Nepal with former secretary Anup Kumar Upadhyaya as its chair. Ghising has been playing coy about his political ambitions, and is planning to resign from his cabinet post before elections.&nbsp;
Ghising had been talking to Rabi Lamichhane’s RSP about joining, but that negotiation failed. Former RSP lawmaker Sumana Shrestha was supposed to join Ghising, but pulled out following Ghising’s reluctance to resign from government.
Ghising has much public support because he is credited with ending power cuts as head of the Nepal Electricity Authority, but is now getting flak for being unwilling to give up his ministerial portfolios while still wanting to contest elections. &nbsp;
Ujyalo has hit other snags. GenZ activist Tashi Lhazom, who was considered for a Cabinet position last month but was dropped by Prime Minister Sushila Karki, has said she is not in Ujyalo despite being listed as a Central Committee member. Another member has said that he will not be a part of Ujyalo due its “a lack of political culture”.
Even though Nepalis from across backgrounds and professions are eager to participate in the country’s new political landscape, there are doubts about the structure of their parties, ideology and electoral platforms.&nbsp;
Hurriedly set up parties without a shared philosophy have less chance of political influence and longevity. For example, the RSP was formed just months before the 2022 polls to become the fourth-largest party in Parliament, has lost its momentum, and its leader is in jail.
“Parties like the RSP, which did some positive work after being elected, have still not been able to establish a clear ideological roadmap or organisational structure,” Adhikari says. &nbsp;“It is easy to form parties, the real work goes into building an institution, which is the hard part”
Meanwhile, despite expectations of increased and inclusive youth participation not just at the polling booths but also on the ballot, only a few GenZ-led parties are applying at the Election Commission. They include the Rastriya Pariwartan Party and the Rastriya GenZ Party Nepal. Most other parties are led by men in their 40s, even in their 70s.&nbsp;
Analysts note that despite hopes of young blood in politics, Nepalis are still inclined to trust those with experience, as evidenced by GenZ’s choice of Sushila Karki to succeed KP Oli as Prime Minister after the September protests.&nbsp;
“So it will be difficult for young Nepalis without prior political experience to lead parties and it will be even more difficult for them to cultivate enough public trust to get votes,” says Adhikari.&nbsp;
Then there are the old political players, who have been breaking up and making up new alliances. Resham Chaudhary quit his Nagarik Unmukti Party and registered a new one.
Last week, Puspha Kamal Dahal’s Maoist Centre, and Madhav Kumar Nepal’s Unified Socialists merged along with smaller leftist parties to form the Nepali Communist Party (NCP). Disgruntled former UML members like Bhim Rawal have also joined the NCP. On the other hand, Janardan Sharma has fallen out with Dahal and is going his own way.&nbsp;
Even though the NC, UML and NCP show little sign that they have learnt their lesson and will be turning a new leaf, they still have the party organisation and vote banks to fall back on at election time in the runup to 5 March. &nbsp;
Says Adhikari: “At the end of the day, Nepali society remains hyper-partisan. And although the newly-formed parties and their popular candidates may give older leaders a run for their money, established parties will still benefit from their solid vote base.”

Party Time

The very first frame in The Lama’s Son starts with a vision of Shangrila and the quest of a mythical utopia in the Himalaya when the rest of the world is crumbling away. It is also the personal search of filmmaker Kesang Tseten, but what he finds there are adherents of the Bon Po faith clinging to the last remnants of a culture as it erodes away like the sandstone cliffs of Mustang. “It was while editing the documentary that the story became distilled: how does what we see in the high Himalaya relate to the notion of the Shangrila idyll that especially the West ascribed to them,” asked Tseten during a recent trip to Kathmandu from Berne where he now lives. He continued: “Often and perhaps rightly criticised as an orientalist construct, I wondered if there was any basis at all to the Shangrila notion, and I hung the film on that idea.”&nbsp; Tseten takes us to the vast vistas of Mustang and Dolpo, a landscape of his Tibetan ancestors. This is as much an intimate documentation of families on Nepal’s Himalayan rimland torn between remoteness and globalness as it is about Tseten’s own quest for rootedness.&nbsp; We start from Lubra, a 3,000m village in Mustang the 15 households of which follow the Bon faith. Lama Tsultrim is from a 900-year-old lineage of the animist faith and an exponent of the tradition that is slowly being subsumed first by Buddhism and now modernism. For Tseten, the material is familiar, and not at all exotic as it is for non-Nepalis and indeed for many urban Nepalis. Bon, founded in Tibet, predates Buddhism, but over time, the two religions have come to resemble each other.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113111156_ecf8148fbaa17b93c81ddfa3ed244bed266e3ef6af0cd5e6ca7b64c181b97d45.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251113111156_ecf8148fbaa17b93c81ddfa3ed244bed266e3ef6af0cd5e6ca7b64c181b97d45" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="The periphery cannot hold NT"> </figure>  ‘Both believe in karma, rebirth, and that humans can become enlightened. Nature and spirits are predominant in Bon, and rituals are what keep them benign and alight,’ says Tseten, who rarely narrates in his documentaries. “This is not really a personal film as such, but it has a point of view,” Tseten said. “I decided to have a voice-over on this one and cast my presence in the film.”&nbsp; Lubra's Lama Tsultrim is called upon to perform rituals from Kagbeni and other villages, but there is no one to continue the tradition after him, which is passed from father to son. Lama Tsultrim’s son (hence the title of the film) is a sushi chef in New York and has been gone for 20 years. “The Lama is like a setting sun, his son should come back and take over his father’s responsibilities,” says a local youngster chatting with friends. “If he dies tomorrow, where do we go? We can’t just light butter lamps ourselves to the gods.” It is not only the Lama’s son who has left. The village is nearly empty, and more are planning to leave. One of them is Chimi, a teacher who will be joining her fiancé who is an Uber driver in New York. Her brother is already in Hong Kong. In Lo Manthang a local is back home for a three-month vacation after being in New York for 12 years. A shopkeeper was in Japan for several years, and has returned. “Everything has changed, our language, our tsampa, our religion. We used to work and live together, now the children live separately,” says a middle-aged woman. “There are roads now, and vehicles stop right outside our house, but what’s the point? No one stays home.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113111156_47b4c4984fa33e42791b16dba1f078aaa7f9d8bd51ca3bfd5415b436c3a0bf2c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251113111156_47b4c4984fa33e42791b16dba1f078aaa7f9d8bd51ca3bfd5415b436c3a0bf2c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="The periphery cannot hold NT"> </figure>  Like most of Tseten’s films, The Lama’s Son is an honest documentation of a place and people whose lifestyle, culture and heritage cling precariously to the past. In Dri village we come across local women filling their buckets with water. Tseten asks them why the village is so empty: “Where is everyone?” The women reply that they are “here, there and everywhere”. Then it is their turn to ask Tseten about where he lives and what he is doing in their village. Migration is a recurring theme in Tseten’s documentaries from We Corner People, In Search of the Riyal, or Saving Dolma. His previous film Diversity Plaza documented the lives of Nepali and Tibetan emigrants in Jackson Heights in the borough of Queens in New York.&nbsp; Diversity Plaza was shown at DOC NYC in 2023, and The Lama’s Son will be one of only two Asian films shown next week at one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world.&nbsp; “The Lama’s Son is not loud, not attention grabbing but intimate, so I was surprised they chose a quiet film for a big, flashy event,” Tseten told us. In Lama’s Son, we also see how climate breakdown is impacting Nepal’s trans-Himalayan regions. Lama Tsultrim shows us the aftermath of a recent glacial flood that swept away houses and fields. The debris-covered farms are as hard as cement.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113111156_c82126a3c2dc4577b99beb9bef20aafa16f532a3f41e59caea17c93914c59fff.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251113111156_c82126a3c2dc4577b99beb9bef20aafa16f532a3f41e59caea17c93914c59fff" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="The periphery cannot hold NT"> </figure>  The nearby village of Dhey at 3,900m is a high and dry cold desert. Farmers get one crop in a year, but the springs have gone dry and there is no snow in winter. So they are relocating to New Dhey, closer to the road. We follow Kesang Tseten to Samling in Dolpo, which at 4,200m is another Bon village. Locals are preparing for the Walchu festival in which Lama Sherrab carries out elaborate rituals to appease spirits that can turn malevolent. But unlike Lama Tsultrim in Lubra, Lama Sherrab has a community of lamas to help him, including two sons, one of whom will eventually take on his role. We move on to the adjacent village of Bicher and listen in as locals talk about how despite being dirt poor, they thrive in scarcity and are resilient. “We wear sheepskin, eat stew and yak meat, and drink wine. But we are very poor, we have nothing. Look at how dirty our clothes are. We may be dirty, but we have few illnesses,” says one. But even here in Upper Dolpo, a week’s walk from the nearest road, things are changing. There are mobile phones, readymade clothes and instant noodles.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113111156_d1472165cfa9ffa6edbf72de59167e8cbddcc2bf4a7928f7830e099966259a78.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251113111156_d1472165cfa9ffa6edbf72de59167e8cbddcc2bf4a7928f7830e099966259a78" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="The periphery cannot hold NT"> </figure>  At the Walchu ritual, Tseten watches men and women with hand-woven blankets and down jackets sing and dance after the main ceremony. He narrates: “Bon is sustained by a way of life that fosters a fine but fragile balance between nature and people, where humans come before gods. This is what lies at the heart of Shangrila if there is such a thing.” The film then takes us half-way around the world to a Bon centre in New York, but (spoiler alert) the eponymous Lama’s son never appears. He did not want to be filmed, but it makes for a more powerful portrayal of the life of emigrants forever trapped between two worlds. “Bon villages may be in danger, but the Bon has spread widely across the world,” narrates Tseten, a director who likes to call his storytelling ethnographic, and avoids coming to an apt conclusion. Lama Sherrab’s words after the Walchu ritual is a perfect segue:&nbsp; “Whether you say om mani padme hum (in Buddhism) or matri mi yu (in Bon) they are the same. When you go up, it’s the same heavenly realm. If you go down, it’s still the lord of death who awaits. There isn’t a separate heaven and hell for Buddhists and Bon, it has to be the same for both.” &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025111312110_82817ef48840bb6baa1732d5b0b90c90ead2f9bd9eb0c289940fa61d8058de8d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025111312110_82817ef48840bb6baa1732d5b0b90c90ead2f9bd9eb0c289940fa61d8058de8d" data-rendition-name="original" width="7087" height="10004" loading="lazy" alt="The Lama's Son NT"> </figure>  The Lama’s Son by Kesang Tseten, 2025 Shunyata Films To be screened at DOC NYC 16 November at 2:05PM local time, Online: 17-30 November Details <a href="https://www.docnyc.net/film/the-lamas-son/">here</a>.

The periphery cannot hold

You do not have to be a climate expert or atmospheric pandit to claim that Nepal is not pulling its weight on the grand narratives of the Anthropocene. As a heavily populated ‘country-on-an-incline’ from the Tarai to the Himalaya, Nepal is a thermometer of global warming.&nbsp; Its people are human witnesses to environmental and climate breakdown, but remain mute observers to the unfolding crises. Nepal should be leading the pack at the COP30 climate conference in Belém, backed by science and lived experience. But it is doubtful that two of the most crucial climate-related subjects central to the culture, economies and human wellbeing in the Himalaya and South Asia will be discussed at the summit that started this week in Brazil.&nbsp; The first topic that should be raised at COP is Black Carbon or the South Asian Brown Cloud, made up of tiny suspended particles in the air. This is not just a transboundary health hazard, there is now enough science to make the case that Himalayan snowmelt is accelerated significantly by the albedo effect that makes ice melt faster because of reduced reflectivity. But Kathmandu has not been able to make governments near and far listen. In 2014, I wrote a short piece published in Outlook magazine explaining why India’s Prime Minister Modi looking northward from a SAARC Summit retreat in Dhulikhel was unable to see the Jugal Himal range barely 30km away. His view was obscured by the pollution layer arriving from as far away as Lahore with substantial contribution from the Delhi region. That summit itself was an opportunity for Nepal to inform the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers that much of the haze, smog, dust and soot that settles on our slopes was generated in Sindh, Punjab, Punjab, Haryana, Western UP and Delhi NCR, carried by prevailing westerly winds up to the Himalaya. The forest fires within Nepal as well as Kathmandu Valley’s pollution contribute to the haze, but the shroud that suffocates the region through autumn, winter and spring is mostly transnational. Last year, these anthropogenic fine aerosols actually curled over the Bay of Bengal and invaded the airspace of Sri Lanka and Maldives.&nbsp; Even as the soot particles accelerate glacial melt and impact everything from infrastructure to public health, the most visible effect is on tourism. Nepal’s economic future is based on tourism, and much of this relies on being able to see the snow mountains. Why should travellers go to Pokhara if they cannot see the Annapurnas?&nbsp; Hoteliers in Nagarkot have started a campaign: ‘Visit Nagarkot 2025: More than Sunrise and Sunset’. While clever, the slogan is a response to the acclaimed Himalayan vista from Everest to the Annapurnas from the hill station, now obscured by the brown curtain of haze for most of the year. As the bellwether country of South Asia when it comes to the climate crisis, Nepal must build diplomatic confidence to reach out to the governments of Pakistan and India even in their present state of antagonism. Kathmandu must launch ‘haze diplomacy’ for its own sake and for the region.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251113001132_16c9941da7b31c1d4683c06dc0f8a572803240701270606848851f915140329c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251113001132_16c9941da7b31c1d4683c06dc0f8a572803240701270606848851f915140329c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1005" height="695" loading="lazy" alt="permafrost"> </figure>  IMPERMANENT FROST&nbsp; Permafrost is understood mostly as a phenomenon of the Arctic, Antarctica, Siberia and Alaska. Mountains elsewhere did not figure, though it was natural for the ground to freeze all year round at high altitudes.&nbsp; In the Himalaya, besides the snowfields and glaciers, frozen moisture binds rocks and stabilises slopes. But global warming is melting the permafrost that used to cement mountain flanks, including boulders, sand and scree slopes. Some of the debris (गेग्रान) did tumble down, but much of it remained entombed on high, thanks to permafrost. Pokhara Valley and the Seti River reaching all the way up to the base of the Annapurnas, is the best place to observe this dance of geology between gravity and the mountain range. Rubble from the collapse about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-the-seti-disaster">700 years ago of paleo-Annapurna IV </a>created the sediment field on which Pokhara is situated today. However, much of the debris from the crumbled mountain is still lodged up on and around Annapurna IV, but the binding is loosening with the warming earth. A <a href="https://www.icimod.org/event/analysing-permafrost-in-the-hindu-kush-himalaya-using-open-access-tools/">2024 report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)</a> indicates that global warming is thawing the permafrost across High Asia. Among the unintended consequences of climate breakdown is that mountains and moraines are collapsing, with <a href="https://www.icimod.org/press-release/everest-region-a-hotspot-of-cryosphere-linked-hazards-icimods-new-study-on-nepals-2024-thame-flood-confirms/">cascading impact</a> that includes glacial lake outburst floods, reduced groundwater recharge as well as winter flow in the Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra. No one has calculated the total volume of rubble locked in by permafrost across the Himalaya. Despite the increased risk, there is accelerated construction of highways, hydropower projects, housing and tourism infrastructure across the Himalaya. While the COP conferences discuss rising oceans and receding glaciers (without doing much about it), Himalayan permafrost has been melting unremarked. In their path-breaking September 2024 <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-not-so-permanent-frost">article in Nepali Times</a>, Wilfried Haeberli and Alton C Byers argued that the extreme events of the past few years that led to mountain and moraine collapses, unleashing destructive debris flows downstream, were the result of melting permafrost. Haeberli and Byers suggest that the avalanches and floods including those of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Anatom-of-a-Himalayan-tsunami,1330">Seti (2012)</a>, <a href="https://www.icimod.org/article/understanding-the-chamoli-flood-cause-process-impacts-and-context-of-rapid-infrastructure-development/">Chamoli (2021)</a>, Birendra Tal (2023), <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772883825000251">Sikkim (2023)</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/climate-breakdown-linked-to-thame-flood">Thame (2024)</a>, <a href="https://himat.org/publication/byers-rockfall-induced-2019/">Barun (2017)</a> and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/drones-to-the-rescue-in-melamchi">Melamchi (2021)</a> were the result of the thawing of frozen ground. They say that the collapse of the lateral moraine on the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sikkim-flood-is-warning-to-nepal">South Lhonak glacial lake</a> in Sikkim on 4 October 2023 that swept away more than 100 people, destroyed the $1 billion Chungthang Dam as well as houses, roads and farms far downstream, was also caused by cloudburst on a lateral moraine that had lost its permafrost adhesive. There will be permafrost sceptics, as there have been climate change deniers. But it is time to wake up to the reality that the Himalayan peaks are no longer the immutable sentinels as regarded by humanity since prehistoric times.&nbsp; Modern society has pumped so much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere that now even the mountains are giving up. And we have not even begun to think about the bacteria and viruses locked away in the permafrost up the slope.&nbsp; Loss of permafrost adds to the cumulative impact of climate breakdown, including extreme weather events, drought and cloudbursts, heat waves in the plains affecting lives and livelihoods, creating mass migration, social unrest, and upending politics and geopolitics. The government and polity of Nepal have a duty to themselves and the larger humanity to wake up to the climate breakdown. The Sagarmatha Sambaad conclave organised by the Government in May failed to emerge as a pulpit for global warming and associated ills. Our political class, bureaucracy and academia should make up for lost opportunities to rise to the occasion and take the lead.&nbsp; Kanak Mani Dixit is writer, commentator and founding editor of Himal Southasian.