When he was a teenager years ago during the war, the Maoists who held sway over the Dalit village of Muktikot in western Nepal promised Man Bahadur Bishwakarma liberation and prosperity. Many like Man Bahadur believed in that utopia, and took up arms like others from the downtrodden Dalit community here. They even renamed the village Muktikot (Fort Freedom) from its original Dumkot. ‘Dum’ is a derogatory term used to address the Dalit community. Muktikot is spread across a steep mountainside with unirrigated terrace farms. Most of the men migrate to India for seasonal work, others never come back. The women left behind had to walk hours for water, and since there were no roads then, travelling to town for government subsidised rice took at least a week. “The Maoists told us that we would find jobs right here in the village, that every household would have tap water, they promised an end to caste discrimination,” recalls Man Bahadur. “That is why I joined the revolution in Grade 10.” He is talking while walking up a steep trail three hours from Muktikot, where his family has been living in a cattle shed after a landslide damaged his house in 2021.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024051804058_bc4d26d047714332fcdd2242229a1227d207a972439e02e3c822aaa118066b3f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024051804058_bc4d26d047714332fcdd2242229a1227d207a972439e02e3c822aaa118066b3f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Muktikot"> <figcaption>Th remote village of Muktikot in Bajura district in far west Nepal.</figcaption> </figure>  Most of Muktikot’s young population joined the Maoists, convinced that changing the name of the village was proof this was going to be a real revolution. Eighteen years after the end of the conflict, the only thing that has changed for the nearly 2,300 Dalits in Muktikot is the name of their village. Not that there has not been some progress. There are now motorable roads and residents do not have to walk as far as Kalikot or Dailekh to get a sack of rice. More essentials are available in local shops for those with cash. Man Bahadur himself migrates to India to earn money, and had just returned for a break when we talked to him. “I fought for the Maoists in the hope that I would not have to go to India for work, but there are still no jobs here,” he says. “The Maoists promised a mirage.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024051804058_fcd64c34f689e7a4d44f285bb6a7b6b28329941e2766440ab208c9039a855d31.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024051804058_fcd64c34f689e7a4d44f285bb6a7b6b28329941e2766440ab208c9039a855d31" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Muktikot"> <figcaption>Men in Muktikot preparing to migrate to India for work.</figcaption> </figure>  Birth and death Manbuja Bishwakarma has just turned 20, the minimum legal age of marriage in Nepal. But she has been married since age 13, giving birth to five children, three of whom died. “The babies just died one after the other,” recalls Manbuja, who just had to have more babies in the hope that some would survive. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/how-the-climate-crisis-adds-to-child-marriage-in-nepal">How climate crisis adds to child marriage in Nepal</a>, Sonam Lama Her neighbour, 30-year-old Lalkala Bishwakarma has given birth eight times, and only four babies survived. There are women in Muktikot who gave birth to as many as 14 children, and there is not a single mother in Muktikot who has not lost a baby.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024051804058_dd4d62e65cc4ac88cd46a91a62b9c60bcb2d43bbc5cb5455dc7efe4a7d2ff1b2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2024051804058_dd4d62e65cc4ac88cd46a91a62b9c60bcb2d43bbc5cb5455dc7efe4a7d2ff1b2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Muktikot"> <figcaption>Lalkala Bishwakarma</figcaption> </figure>  Tilakhuni Bishwakarma, 40, had 10 children, and eight of them survived. Sitting outside her home, she is now surrounded by her grandchildren. Despite Nepal’s total fertility rate now dropping to near replacement level, here in Muktikot infant mortality is still high and this means women have more babies in the hope that some will survive. Child marriage and low female literacy contribute to the high rate of maternal and infant mortality. Community health records show that even in 2021, eight out of 45 infants born in Muktikot died. While Nepal’s average infant mortality rate dropped to 33 for every 1,000 babies born in 2022, &nbsp;the rate was 178 in Muktikot. “The most prominent among the many reasons for the high maternal deaths are early marriage and frequent pregnancy,” says Janaki Neupane, a community nurse in Muktikot. &nbsp; Four years ago, Bachchi Bishwakarma died of a hemorrhage while giving birth to her second child at home. Her husband Gorkha says she had barely survived giving birth to their first child. “I was home alone that day, and I took care of her,” Gorkha recounts. “Our child was born, but my wife bled to death.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518040512_4718183318c77de8bb9b719346b9b19c96bef0984055585b00884f741f905c2e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20240518040512_4718183318c77de8bb9b719346b9b19c96bef0984055585b00884f741f905c2e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Muktikot"> <figcaption>Tilakhuni Bishwakarma</figcaption> </figure>  Birthing centres were opened in Muktikot last year to address high infant and maternal deaths, but Nurse Neupane says it still lacks basic equipment and budget. Nirmala Bishwakarma got married when she was 13 and was &nbsp;pregnant soon after. She had her first baby, but soon got pregnant again. “Birth brings death here,” Nirmala, now 20, says simply. Nirmala and her children all look emaciated and she weighs only 33kg. Bajura’s district headquarters in Martadi provides nutritional allowance, but Nirmala cannot afford to travel that far to get it. &nbsp; Nepal’s development indicators, including lifespan (page 1) and poverty rate have shown dramatic improvements over the past three decades. But here in Muktikot, hunger stalks the land. In fact, a recent survey showed that 95% of women, children and young adults in Muktikot are undernourished. Most men, on the other hand, look well fed because they are mostly away in India for work. &nbsp; Only 12% of the land in Bajura is arable, but even then there is lack of irrigation, frequent droughts, and now climate breakdown contributing to the lack of food. “The harvests are just not enough to sustain the families,” says Bharat Bahadur Rokaya, chair of Swamikartik Khapar Rural Municipality where Muktikot is located. Here in the rugged mountains of northern Bajura bordering Humla and Mugu, the families grow millet, maize, and wheat, but Nirmala Bishwakarma says the harvests hardly last a month. “If it was not for the subsidised rice we would have empty stomachs,” she says. Hindrances to hygiene Down the mountain from Muktikot, the green waters of the Karnali River are visible. But the 400 Dalit households here have to share just three community taps for drinking water. Half the households do not have toilets, and defecation in the open is common. Donor agencies have helped build toilets, but these are mostly used to store fodder because there is no water. “How can we use water for the toilets where there isn’t enough for drinking?” asks Ward chair Ajay Bishwakarma. &nbsp; Families have to walk for four hours to bathe and do washing. “We do not wash our clothes for months on end,” says Kushi Bishwakarma, 40.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518040516_e234d5b4fac4fa24e62e65a35f2eafbfb044a32a5f8ef8172932eca96eeaa17b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20240518040516_e234d5b4fac4fa24e62e65a35f2eafbfb044a32a5f8ef8172932eca96eeaa17b" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="733" loading="lazy" alt="Muktikot hygiene"> </figure>  The lack of water has compromised hygiene and sanitation in the village, resulting in diseases like diarrhoea, allergies, and other health issues, especially among children. Lack of water in the village has also led to uterine prolapse among the women in Muktikot since they primarily face the task of ferrying heavy jars of water from the communal taps to their houses The ‘One house, one tap, one toilet’ campaign introduced by the rural municipality this year hopes to solve water-related issues for Muktikot residents. But that is yet another election promise. Testing times This underserved village is not just affected by structural inequality and state neglect. In 2021, a landslide swept away 54 houses in Muktikot, and most families lost homes and what little arable land they had. “Earlier, we at least had a house to live in, now we don’t even have that,” says Muktikot resident Asal Bishwakarma. “We have been living with relatives since. How will we survive?” More than two years after the landslide, not a single house in the village has been rebuilt. Each family was allocated Rs500,000 in relief on an instalment basis, with aid from all three tiers of government.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518040516_26ebf9b2f52722180b1b403b1410f19ea5c7d0321047b099a574a35519706914.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20240518040516_26ebf9b2f52722180b1b403b1410f19ea5c7d0321047b099a574a35519706914" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="1433" loading="lazy" alt="Muktikot landslide"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240518040516_bbe50221dca556ac0e798843d672f1190abafacb82fa792bfec289eeb31ad013.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20240518040516_bbe50221dca556ac0e798843d672f1190abafacb82fa792bfec289eeb31ad013" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Muktikot landslide"> </figure>  Asal has only received Rs35,000 so far, and has spent it all on buying food. No one knows where the promised money went. Muktikot residents now want their entire village relocated somewhere safer. &nbsp;The local government agrees that resettlement is necessary, but it was unable to find a suitable alternative. “It is not possible to resettle such a large number of people at one go,” says Bajura MP Badri Pandey. “We also cannot create jobs for all of the population at once.” Muktikot might have been declared liberated on paper during a war fought in the name of Nepal’s downtrodden, but this Dalit village is emblematic of promises not kept. Looking around the landslide scarred village he has spent half a century of his life in, Muktikot’s Dhanajay Bishwakarma laments, “We are not even considered humans by the state.”

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Muktikot still waiting for liberation

<figure><img width="2002" height="1452" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205409c7e80680e0b28a7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: UNICEF NEPAL</figcaption></figure>While ‘long-Covid’ has come to mean lingering symptoms among survivors of Covid-19 infections, in Nepal it connotes the long-term socio-economic impact of the pandemic on children.Even as the Omicron third wave spreads across Nepal, the government is struggling to vaccinate children down to age 12 and protect this vulnerable and unvaccinated age group from the virus. No vaccination has been announced yet for those below 12.Side by side with that threat, more than one in five Nepali households continue to struggle for food due to lack of money and disruptions in supply caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest findings of a nationwide survey.The survey showed that in November, 21% of households struggled to obtain enough food, and nearly 10% of them had to reduce the dietary intake of children. However, while 60% of households surveyed in July 2020 said <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/half-of-nepalis-lost-jobs-in-past-month/">they had lost jobs</a>, this number had declined substantially to 33% by November last year. Still, this means one-third of Nepali families are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/pandemic-of-poverty/">at risk of poverty</a>, and this undermines Nepal’s steady success in reducing the rate of absolute poverty over the past two decades.The tracking survey has been conducted periodically by <a href="https://www.sharecast.org.np/">Sharecast Initiative Nepal</a> with support from <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/media/15281/file/Assessing_Secondary_Effects_of_COVID_on_Families_and_Children_In_Nepal_-_CFT_Endline_Report.pdf">UNICEF Nepal</a> since May 2020 to monitor household income, health and education during the pandemic. The <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/media/15281/file/Assessing_Secondary_Effects_of_COVID_on_Families_and_Children_In_Nepal_-_CFT_Endline_Report.pdf">Child and Family Tracker</a> has so far conducted 8 nationwide surveys to monitor and gauge changes in the livelihoods of more than 7,000 households. It tracks their access to jobs, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and children’s access to education, including food intake and health, breastfeeding and pregnant mothers. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/new-nepal-lockdown-may-cancel-gains/">Nepali Times</a> has partnered with Sharecast Initiative in analysing some of this data over the past two years. The latest survey shows that nearly one in three families are in need of financial assistance, and many families continue to be indebted. Disaggregated data shows that Dalit families are still more likely to incur debt, require food and financial support as an immediate need.The number of families reporting loss of jobs worsened in surveys conducted between <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-impact-on-food-and-school-in-nepali-children/">May and July 2020</a> (climbing to as much as 60%) but has now come down to 19% in the latest survey conducted in November last year.A similar situation is seen for other parameters like <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-impact-on-food-and-school-in-nepali-children/">food shortage</a> and children out of school, with the impact of the lockdowns extending till late 2020, before improving in the past year. The most dramatic impact is seen in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/learning-during-the-pandemic-in-nepal/">proportion of children who were not studying at all</a>, which came down from a high of 41% in May 2020 to only 3% in November 2021. (See graph below). <figure><img width="2318" height="618" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205449c7e80680e0b28a8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Overview of Child Tracker Survey data for various parameters between May 2020 - November 2021.</figcaption></figure>Similarly, families which have members with disabilities, as well as female-headed households have said they have been reaching out for financial support, food, and money. Children of such families predominate in most deprivation indicators. The results in education are a bit more uneven. While 60% of parents polled were confident about sending their children back to school, 80% felt that their children are falling behind in their studies. Only six in every ten households said their schools had handwashing facilities, and only a quarter confirmed their children's classrooms practiced physical distancing.  As expected, the survey showed that children with disabilities were far more likely to face challenges with virtual learning, which has again returned to being the norm as schools stay closed after winter vacations due to the ongoing Omicron surge. Reports of domestic violence have gone up with 15% of households interviewed witnessing violence against women and children, including intimations, threats, insults and yelling. Girls are facing increasing pressure to marry early, and face discrimination in school enrolment.  One positive trend seems to be in the number of households that said they witnessed children working. Before the pandemic, a full 30% of families said child labour was present, this had gone down to 8% during the first lockdown in April 2020 and decreased further to 2% in the latest survey conducted in November 2021. Another positive trend was a higher level of awareness about Covid-19 transmission and precautions. Most families appeared to be taking the necessary precautions with 84% reporting that they wore masks during the holiday season, and 71% of those surveyed had already been vaccinated as of November 2021.  The rate of hand-washing and use of sanitisers also remain high. Together masking, distancing and hygiene could also have an impact on reducing other common water- and air-borne infectious diseases in Nepal like diarrhoea, typhoid, tuberculosis, measles, etc. <figure><img width="1190" height="1200" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205479c7e80680e0b28a9jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Awareness about Covid precautions May 2020 and November 2021.</figcaption></figure>Unrelated to Covid, the survey also showed that among more than 7,000 households approached there appeared to be a high percentage of them with disabled members, with the highest proportion (21%) being in Karnali Province with Madhes Province and Bagmati at 16% each. (See graph below). <figure><img width="1604" height="1242" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/6372054a9c7e80680e0b28aajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Households with disabilities. </figcaption></figure>Similarly, the survey also gives a glimpse of male out-migration with data showing one third of households in Gandaki Province being female-headed families. Madhes Province had the lowest proportion of women-led households (12%), with all other provinces showing about a quarter of families being female-headed. (See graph below) <figure><img width="1810" height="1092" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/6372054d9c7e80680e0b28abjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Female headed households by Province.</figcaption></figure>Interestingly, the survey also showed that female-headed households had a disproportionately higher number of children living with them. Children made up 38% of the total members in households led by males, while in female-headed households children made up 43% of the members.  <img width="936" height="1324" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205509c7e80680e0b28acjpeg.jpg" alt="">Full report: <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/media/15281/file/Assessing_Secondary_Effects_of_COVID_on_Families_and_Children_In_Nepal_-_CFT_Endline_Report.pdf">‘Equity Focused Assessment of Secondary Effects of COVID-19 on Families and Children in Nepal’ by Unicef and Sharecast Initiative’.</a>

Nepal’s ‘long-Covid’ impact on children

<figure><img width="1500" height="1125" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13ad9c7e80680e0a9935jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Newly constructed public toilet in Patan Dhoka is being inagurated on 19 November, World Toilet Day. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>The tactile pavement leads into a reception area inside a cylinder-shaped red brick building. The user pays Rs10, and the staff hands out a token for turnstiles that lead into the male and female lavatories. Visitors do a double take. This looks more like the entrance to the London Underground than <a href="https://www.aerosantoilets.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a public toilet in Kathmandu</a>. The shiny new facility has motion-detector flushes, taps with sensors, a diaper-changing station, turbo-fan ventilation and a menstrual hygiene dispenser for tampons. The effluent goes into a biogas digester, rainwater from the roof is harvested in this new toilet plan that is being built across the Valley. The design was selected among top five projects at the Sarphati Sanitation Challenge during World Water Week this year. <figure><img width="721" height="960" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13b19c7e80680e0a9936jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Photo: PRAKASH AMATYA</figcaption></figure>“Our priority is to operate public toilets sustainably and hygienically, and making latrines comfortable, especially for women and people with disabilities,” says Prakash Amatya of Aerosan Sustainable Sanitation that has built six model public toilets ‘hubs’ in Baneswor, Mangal Bazar, Buddha Park, Tripureswor, Ratna Park. In 1980, only 2% of Nepali homes had toilets. By 2018, 97% of Nepalis had <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/toilet-trained/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">latrine facilities</a>, and this improved hygiene and sanitation leading to a dramatic decrease in gastric infections, typhoid and other diseases, especially among children.Last year, amidst much fanfare, Nepal was declared ‘Open Defecation Free’, but the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Toilets-for,250" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">problem of sanitation and water-borne diseases</a> persist.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/do-not-fail-students-in-wash/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Many schools</a>, for example, have toilets but no water for hand-washing. The facilities are poorly maintained, and so dirty that students prefer the outdoors.Functioning <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/where-to-take-a-dump/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">faecal sludge treatment</a> plants are limited and with overflowing septic tanks and mismanaged household sewage systems, the waste often ends up in rivers.Across villages in Nepal, latrines built by local governments have been turned into storage space for neighbourhoods. Many in the Tarai still prefer to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">defecate in nearby fields</a>. The problem is even more pronounced in the case of public toilets. Only a third of the 84 public toilets in Kathmandu are operational and even those remain <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nature-calls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unhygienic and poorly maintained</a>. Most of the waste is left untreated and is often overflowing from septic tanks. <figure><img width="1500" height="1125" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13b39c7e80680e0a9937jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>A menstrual hygiene dispenser for sanitary pads at the Patan Dhoka 'hub'.</figcaption></figure>Now, the municipalities in the Valley are out to change that with the new model toilets. Aerosan’s designs incorporate an underground anaerobic bio-digester tank which turns the effluent into methane. The biofuel generated by the public toilet in Swayambhu, for example, is used by a nearby tea stand. The interior design is made as touch-free and hygienic as possible, and <a href="https://www.aerosantoilets.ca/copy-of-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Aerosan</a> has installed flushes that use minimal water. The facilities are also women and disability-friendly, conforming to international safety and cleanliness standards. The ‘hubs’ now sees 500 customers a day, of which 59% are women compared to 13% in other public toilets. Amatya is aware that maintenance and sustainability are key for any public facility in Nepal, which is why the toilets pay for themselves, and are managed with strict protocols for operations and hygiene.“The major reason public toilets are not maintained or are dirty in Nepal is because cleaning and sanitation jobs are frowned upon and are reserved for those from the so-called lower castes. We are trying to change that outlook by dignifying the job,” adds Amatya.  <figure><img width="960" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13b79c7e80680e0a9938jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Budhha chok</figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1600" height="1200" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016114/636d13b99c7e80680e0a9939jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Mangal bazar</figcaption></figure>The company employs 20 people at its six ‘hubs’, with each facility assigned three cleaners who are provided with gloves, personal protection equipment, work shoes, and other necessary equipment. Trained in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/covid-19-revives-nepals-wash-drive/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sanitation</a>, each staff member is also ensured paid leave, medical insurance, a smartphone, and a monthly salary starting from Rs15,000. Aerosan has also established the Sanitation Workers’ Cooperative to help staff and marginalised communities through work placement programs. The government provides the land for the hubs, and the construction is financed through local municipal taxes. For now, Aerosan relies on grants to pay for the toilet fittings staff salaries. Aerosan is now working to mobilise more public finance to build the model hubs outside Kathmandu, and is looking at locations in Pokhara, Biratnagar, and on highway waypoints which are notorious for the lack of proper latrines.Says Amatya: “We need legal frameworks to maintain standards and norms in all public toilets, incentivise their use, and monitor management. Only then will we achieve sanitation and health for all in Nepal.”

Toilet-trained in Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b92f49c7e80680e06f17bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2550" height="1429"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Nepal has had one emergency heaped on top of another for more than a year now. The Covid-19 emergency, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires</a>, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">now floods</a>.Political flux in Kathmandu continues to undermine the state’s ability to respond adequately. But this is nothing new. The most glaring governance failure of Nepal’s rulers for the past decades has been their incompetence in being able to ensure nutrition for its youngest citizens.Be it during the absolute and constitutional monarchy days, the post-democracy period or now, in the new federal system, the state has failed abjectly in its primary responsibility to fulfil the most basic of all human rights – access to adequate food.Nepal did reduce childhood stunting from 57% to 36% in the two decades after 1990. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nearly-half-of-nepali-children-still-malnourished/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">But progress stalled</a> because of the conflict and political upheavals. Nearly a third of Nepali children are still stunted due to lack of adequate food, 12% are wasted, and 24% low weight.The statistics are shocking. Nepal’s hunger hotspots are Far Western Province where 41% of children are stunted, and in Province 2 where 34% of children have low height due to lack of food. A survey in May by Sharecast Initiative and UNICEF shows that one in five families across Nepal <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-eating-less-due-to-lockdown-hardships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reduced the quantity of meals</a> their children ate during the lockdown.Children have so far been largely spared by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants, but they have become <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/children-are-collateral-damage-in-nepal-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">collateral damage in the pandemic</a>. Schools have been closed for most of the past year, and half the students had no access to distance learning. Immunisation drives against pre-existing killer diseases have been disrupted.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/half-of-nepalis-lost-jobs-in-past-month/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">More than half of Nepalis lost their jobs</a> in the past month amidst the second wave, and loss of household income has led directly to insufficient food for children.Hunger is Nepal’s real national epidemic and rampant malnutrition pre-dated the Covid-19 outbreak. The pandemic has undermined the country’s past gains in battling childhood malnutrition.To meet its UN sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets, Nepal has to reduce stunting well below 15% and wasting and low weight to less than 5% in the next nine years. At the present rate, we will not meet those goals.Horrific as the statistics are, zooming down to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ground level in Dhanusha and Mahottari districts</a> of Province 2, our Saglo Samajtv magazine report this week shows how much worse things have got during the lockdowns.Despite Nepal being declared open-defecation free amidst much fanfare, Dalit and other marginalised communities in Dhanusha and Mahottari do not have toilets. If they do have one, there is no running water or soap. They use the same village pond for both humans and cattle, for cleaning and drinking. Things are not much better in pockets in the western mountains. Gastric infections compound malnutrition.The least the government could do is equitably distribute the ‘nutrition allowance’ allocated for the Dalit families and educate the communities on the basics of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/toilet-trained/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sanitation and hygiene</a>.Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres for severely malnourished children must be set up closer to the communities so that the neediest can access the service. The annual budget on nutrition should be increased so that local health posts have sufficient supplements and micronutrients for new mothers and their children.The government’s Multi-Sector Nutrition Plan has not delivered as expected, tangled up over jurisdiction under the new federal structure. But it could just as easily deploy Female Community Health Volunteers, and local representatives to discourage <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/child-marriage-in-nepal-eloped-at-13-mother-by-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">child marriage</a> that feeds the vicious cycle of malnutrition and high maternal and child deaths.Malnutrition is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/junk-food-is-making-nepali-children-shorter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more than the availability of food</a> and access to clean water, it is also confronting patriarchy, casteism and gender discrimination. It is a result of poor governance, lack of accountability and corruption.But nothing is stopping newly-empowered local governments with technical and financial backing from the centre to now achieve results that Kathmandu’s past centralised governments could not. Training of farmers on climate-smart agriculture, and leasing land to the landless is a good place to start.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/the-face-of-hunger-debt-malnutrition,3604" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Children are hungry</a> because of poverty. Their families are poor because of state neglect. We must draw that causal link between lack of food and failure to deliver it by elected representatives. That is the real scandal the evening news bulletins should be highlighting.

Hunger for governance

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd90c9c7e80680e092e78jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: KARUN DEWAN</figcaption></figure>When NASA explores other planets, the test of whether there is life, is to detect the presence of water. Here on Earth, however, this critical natural resource is often undervalued.Even though 71% of the planet’s area is covered in water, only 1.2% of this is available for human use.An average person requires 50 litres of water per day for basic use. However, two-thirds of the world’s population is currently experiencing <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/h20-shortage,3456" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">severe water scarcity</a> for at least one month of the year-- many more people will be at risk by 2050.Some of the most serious challenges facing the world – floods, droughts, famine, health and sanitation, and pollution, all involve water. Nine of ten natural disasters are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/flood-of-recrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">water-related</a>.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd90f9c7e80680e092e79jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360">By 2050, the number of people at risk from floods is expected to rise to 1.6 billion from the current 1.2 billion, whereas half the global population is projected to be living in areas of severe water stress. Alterations to the natural water cycle therefore poses major risks for global food security, energy production, human health, economic development, and more. The consequences of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-water-emergency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">water stress</a> will be disproportionately felt by the poorest and most vulnerable people.Nepal may be landlocked, but it lies astride the Himalaya, the water towers of Asia that irrigate vast areas downstream. The annual monsoon water cycle recharges thousands of lakes, ponds, and other wetlands. These water bodies are vital for life, bio-diversity, agriculture, medicines.Nepal’s rivers drain 225 billion cubic meters of water annually, providing irrigation to 1.43 out of the country’s 2.6 million hectares of agricultural land. The water cycle also recharges 12 billion m3 <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/water-table-of-kathmandu-valley-falling-fast-recharge-to-replenish,4100" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">groundwater</a> in the Chure-Bhabar zone of Nepal, habited by 60% of the population.While the journey of water from the Himalaya to the Tarai is life-giving, it also takes lives away every year in floods. Landslides triggered by deforestation, cultivation in steep slopes, haphazard road construction and earthquakes add to disruptions in water supply. With the climate crisis melting glaciers, lake outburst floods have added to the risk.A recent World Bank report ‘South Asia’s Hotspots’ warns that climate change could sharply worsen living conditions for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/28/climate/india-pakistan-warming-hotspots.html?module=inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/28/climate/india-pakistan-warming-hotspots.html?module%3Dinline&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1616465347450000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGdFJ0LiJ2mHiRP2Mcz3OHmf4vcGA">up to 800 million people in the Subcontinent. </a>The World Resources Institute ranks Nepal 40thamong most water stressed countries, and with increasing demographic pressure the crisis is set to get worse.Even the water that is available is now polluted, and Nepal has yet to effectively address domestic, urban, industrial and agricultural sources. Riverbanks are used as landfill sites, or the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/crushing-tale-of-Chure" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">river beds dredged for sand and boulders</a>.The water availability per capita per year in Nepal is 8,000 m3 which suggests that the country need not face a water scarcity. Rather, it is poor management of water resources that has led to the curse of too little or too much water.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd9119c7e80680e092e7ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Inadequate physical infrastructure, rapid population growth and climate change impact access. Rise in demand for electricity, pressure on surface and ground water for irrigation, industrial development, rapid urbanisation with <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18976#.YFgBci2B0b0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">encroachment of wetlands</a> and increased use of water for sanitation during Covid-19 are factors driving demand. Meanwhile, new water schemes are mostly based on ground water aquifers which are being depleted because of inadequate recharge.Beyond natural and socio-economic value, Nepal’s freshwater resources also hold cultural importance. For instance, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/chitwans-bote-people-in-a-changing-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">indigenous communities like the Bote</a>, Musahar, Kumal, Chepang, Danuwar, Darai, and Tharu settle along rivers and have a rich cultural attachment to water bodies.Investment in water can have a catalytic effect on other areas such as health, education, agriculture and job creation. Poor water quality halts economic progress, limits human potential and reduces food production.Much of the supply-demand issue around water can be solved by giving economic value to water, and making it affordable. As the manager of a water supply scheme in Nawalpur once said: “In the beginning people readily paid as much as Rs300 per month for cable tv, but a minimum payment of Rs100 for drinking water was a big issue.” Pricing water at its full marginal cost can reduce demand, just as payments and incentives for water conservation can increase water availability.Payment for ecosystem services to forest users, farmers or landowners in exchange for managing their land must be developed since <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4663#.YFgCFi2B0b0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">freshwater wetlands</a> have five times the economic value of tropical forests.To change the future of water, we must rethink how we understand, value, and manage water as a precious resource, making every drop count. If the water cycle is not managed prudently from source to tap, and back to source, the present crisis will grow worse.Organization like the World Wildlife Fund, Nepal we are working to manage and restore critical freshwater habitats, maintain, and protect the freshwater ecosystem health and increase community access to and right over water through good water governance.Conserving water is not the responsibility of only the government, but needs a broader coalition of new partners to find holistic solutions so water is socially and culturally equitable, environmentally sustainable, and economically beneficial.Karun Dewan is a Program Associate, Freshwater at the World Wildlife Fund, Nepal (<a href="https://www.wwfnepal.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wwfnepal.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1616465347451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFxBOTd3YD-xNe5JEcM7zkdBtQQhw">WWF Nepal.)</a><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111156/636cd9149c7e80680e092e7bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="153">

Too little, too much, or too polluted

<figure><img width="1509" height="1098" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141144/636baf439c7e80680e07803fjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>It's business as usual at the Behaliya checkpoint in Rupandeni district near the Indian border. Photo: MUKESH POKHREL</figcaption></figure>As the number of cases and fatalities rose in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heightened-covid-19-risk-at-india-nepal-border/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heightened-covid-19-risk-at-india-nepal-border/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596011798028000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEDbXktgmxVbWUiksaw34QaJjjakQ">central Tarai districts</a> this week, the big debate is whether Nepal has now progressed from cluster to community spread of the disease. The Ministry of Health maintains that we are still in the cluster stage, as per the WHO definition. However, the hospitals in the Tarai say SARS-CoV-2 is now spreading in the community, and some cities have gone back into lockdown.Whether we are in the cluster or community spread stage is a moot point. This is an unfolding pandemic, total caseloads are still rising exponentially in neighbouring India and around the world, Southeast Asia and Europe are being hit by a second wave. The only thing we know for certain is that there is still a lot we do not know about the virus.But we do know that this is one super-intelligent strand of RNA. It  understands human behaviour and exploits it ruthlessly. Initially, after jumping the species barrier it spread human-to-human. Then it piggybacked on global mobility through asymptomatic infections, ensuring that carriers of the virus were not too sick to be bed-ridden. The virus has now figured out a way to lie low, allow people to get complacent, so it can make a comeback. It might even have mutated into strains to take advantage of different behaviour patterns and climatic conditions. The virus takes advantage of countries whose leaders are in denial or have underestimated it. After older people started taking precautions and started staying home, it is now inflicting the youth.From the experience of countries that have done well to keep the virus in check, we know only three things work: limited mingling, acceptance of masks, and physical separation. That message has to go out, and there has to be behaviour change in the population.But when Finance Minister <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-ends-covid-19-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-ends-covid-19-lockdown/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596011798028000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG11Q9HQzbBVN6RoSJGjcxqeOhMVg">Yubaraj Khatiwada inexplicably announced</a> on 21 July that the lockdown had been lifted, he made a boo-boo. It was not even true — long-distance buses and regular flights had not yet resumed, bars, restaurants and schools were still closed, hotels would open only at the end of the month. But Nepalis itching to get back to business after four months of confinement only heard that ‘the lockdown is lifted’. It gave them a false sense of security, shops opened, and there was a rise in the daily number of returnees from India. The government’s announcement was premature, and it now threatens to undo the time we bought from the lockdown to put safeguards in place.On 28 July, Nepal recorded the highest number of daily cases in nearly a month with 319 new COVID-19 positive people out of 5,032 tested. For the past weeks, the daily total has been less than 200 out of 4,000 tests.  The government announcement that the lockdown was lifted coincided with record daily cases and fatalities in India, especially in states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh which re-imposed restrictions. India has now seen 1.5 million cases and 35,000 deaths, third highest after the US and Brazil. More worryingly, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=covid19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3Dcovid19&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596011798028000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEx3-jfQePFsUpj3ZPFEpIWH6yIwg">it is now affecting rural India</a> across the Nepal border where health and hygiene conditions are poor.In Nepal, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heightened-covid-19-risk-at-india-nepal-border/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heightened-covid-19-risk-at-india-nepal-border/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596011798028000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEDbXktgmxVbWUiksaw34QaJjjakQ">increased crossborder mobility</a> led directly to a surge in cases in border districts, and since long-distance buses will start operating again from 30 July it is only a question of time before the virus spreads up into the mountains. Let us not forget how the Spanish Flu spread in India in 1918, killing tens of millions — the virus travelled by train from the sea ports, carried by soldiers returning from World War I.Because it bungled the messaging, the government now needs to act on two fronts urgently: <ol><li>Launch a massive nationwide awareness campaign: ‘The lockdown may be over, but the pandemic is not. Take these precautions.’ </li><li>Mass testing in the community, quarantining and tracing, to keep infections within clusters. </li></ol>Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heightened-covid-19-risk-at-india-nepal-border/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Heightened COVID-19 risks at India-Nepal border</a>, Mukesh Pokhrel

Lockdown may be over, but pandemic is not

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b796c9c7e80680e064700jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="335" height="490"/>Nepal has had three months of lead time to study the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/wait-and-watch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coronavirus pandemic</a> and behaviours that have been associated with flattening the curve of the COVID-19 infection. Every cultural circumstance has the potential to contribute a different solution, and we should attempt to link our own common practices with the pandemic to come up with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/all-nepal-flights-cancelled-22-31-march/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">novel ways of dealing</a> with it.One such behaviour could the Nepali habit of blowing the nose hard (seee-seee!) and the deep, loud, clearing the throat (haak-thoo!).The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/global-thinking-and-local-action-on-coronavirus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID-19</a> spreads through droplets transmitted though the air from sneezing and coughing. If two people have not maintained social distancing, virus particles from an infected person may land on an uninfected companion and enter the latter’s body through her eyes, nose, or mouth. The particles then travel to the back of the nasal passages and to the mucus membrane at the back of the throat.The spiked protein of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/this-is-a-test/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coronavirus</a> particles hook on to cell membranes at the back of the throat, and it is here that the virus’s genetic material enters the cells of the human body, resulting in infection. The symptoms of dry cough and sore throat start with this. The genetic material of the virus then uses the cells as the virus’s carriers and multipliers and starts to move down the bronchial tubes towards the lungs, where it does the most damage.If <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/what-is-novel-about-the-novel-coronavirus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coronavirus</a> particles travel to the back of the nasal passage and the back of the throat to infect the individual in question, could it be that the loud Nepali habit of blowing the nose hard and clearing the throat can contribute to reducing the numbers of infected?If this is indeed the case, all that blowing and spitting must be done in an appropriate place. Doing it in public and where others are present risks spreading the virus even more widely.Given that the coronavirus resides at the back of the nose and throat before making its way to the lungs, could it be that our first line of defense – if we should get the virus – would be to wash our faces, including our eyes, and to blow our noses and clear our throats?We should <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/covid-19-revives-nepals-wash-drive/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wash our hands several times a day</a>  as we have been instructed. Our hands can transfer the virus from one place to another. They can infect us if they bring the virus in contact with our own eyes, nose, or mouth, and if we are infected, they can pass the virus on by bringing the virus into contact with things that others will touch.But if the virus has in fact already found its way on to our bodies, then we will want to get it off of our bodies, and perhaps washing our faces and ejecting it from our noses and mouths – as so many Nepalis do – is the way.Once again, it is critical that we never spit or blow our noses in public places. Avoiding this restricts the spread not only of coronavirus but of major killers that have been around for much longer, such as <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/tb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TB</a>  If we must blow our noses or clear our throats in public, we should blow our noses into a handkerchief which we later wash, and we must swallow our saliva. If swallowed, the virus particles would be killed by the juices in the digestive tract.Perhaps, in addition to frequent hand-washing, we should wash our faces, blow our noses and cough out several times a day as part of an anti-coronavirus regimen.Shanta Basnet has a PhD in public health from Columbia University.

Keeping nose and throat clean

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b70ea9c7e80680e0600a3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2000"/>One of the best and nearest hiking trails from Kathmandu is the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-walk-back-in-time-chandragiri-hatiban/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Champadevi-Chandragiri walk</a> – it offers a splendid view of the Himalaya as well as the city sprawled below.But as the path through thick forests teeming with wildlife turns into an ever popular attraction for town-bound Nepalis seeking solace in nature the area is marred by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/industrial-scale-litter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plastic trash</a>.Now, a community effort led by the <a href="https://miraraiinitiative.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mira Rai Initiative (MRI)</a> has started a clean-up and awareness campaign of the trail, and hopes to set an example for locals here and other nature walks in Nepal.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/mira-rai-racing-to-help-other-runners/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mira Rai racing to help other runners</a>, Duksangh Sherpa<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b70ed9c7e80680e0600a4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Started by international champion <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/mira-rai-trail-running,1776" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepali trail runner Mira Rai</a>, the Initiative last month mobilised 65 volunteers who hiked through the forest path picking up litter and placed 30 doko and 20 signs.MRI worked with Dakshinkali Municipality and local garbage recyclers to ensure regular collection and disposal of the trash from the doko bins. Altogether, the volunteers collected 80 bags of glass, paper, papers from food wrappers, beverages, and straws.The Initiative promotes trails and trail running in Nepal while empowering the female trail runners across the country. Rai has said she wants to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/mira-rai-racing-to-help-other-runners/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">give young Nepali women the same opportunity she had</a> to become world-renowned racers.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b70f29c7e80680e0600a5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="2000">Nepal has some of the most exquisite natural and geographical features, and holds enormous possibilities and potential for trail-running which is yet to be realized to a fuller extent.Because of the trail’s natural scenery, accessibility, and proximity from the city, it is gaining popularity amongst both tourists and locals. There has been a rapid growth in the number of visitors, hikers and picknickers which means it also suffers from rubbish, plastic and other waste throughout the trail.The pollution has also negatively affected the beauty and appeal of the trail which could subsequently result in a decline in the number of visitors. The reason behind this is a lack of awareness, and inadequate instructions in school and family against littering.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b70f69c7e80680e0600a6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1440" height="1440">In the absence of bins and containers for waste collection, people tend to dispose and throw the waste on the trail itself. This is why MRI focusses on awareness, and help preserve and maintain the upkeep of the trail.The cleanliness of the trail would also motivate more runners to train in this trail, and enjoy the enormous possibility ahead of them.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijZ4DIyzIn8&amp;feature=youtu.be“If we can create a wonderful playground for enthusiasts, we can help create more Mira Rais, who can be torchbearers of our nation on the international stage,” says <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/mira-rai-trail-running-nepa,2014" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mira Rai</a>, who has taken part in 20 international ultra-marathons to date, setting a new world record on the Mont Blanc 80km race. The former Maoist was also <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/celebrating-the-himalayan-outdoors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year</a> in 2017.She adds: “By undertaking such community efforts aids in the promotion of tourism and the ongoing national campaign for Visit Nepal 2020.”<h2>The Champadevi Trail</h2><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b70fa9c7e80680e0600a7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="2000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Located along the southern rim of Kathmandu valley, Champaddevi is the third highest ridge with an average elevation of 2,300m. It is named after the forest protector goddess, Champadevi, whose shrine is on the summit.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-walk-back-in-time-chandragiri-hatiban/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A walk back in time: Chandragiri-Hatiban</a>Apart from its natural appeal, the peak holds significant religious value. In recent years, the trail’s popularity as a destination for day hiked, trail running, cycling, picnicking, and other outdoor activities.The hike to Champadevi goes uphill through planted pine forest towards new growth oak, rhododendron and uttis community forests. The summit can be gained from Dhandragiri, from Hattiban, or through direct climbs from Kirtipur via Deurali and Machhegaun.The ridge offers unparalleled views from Annapurna to Numbur with Ganesh Himal, Langtang, Dorje Lakpa being the nearest ranges. Far in the distance, even Mt Everest is visible if the weather is clear.

Nepali ultra-marathoner’s anti-litter drive

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a450d9c7e80680e04d364jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1002"/><figcaption>No Privacy Photo taken by Sushma, 15, from Sindhuli, in a WaterAid UK participatory project She said: “This is the girls’ toilet at our school. It doesn’t lock properly. If someone is inside, someone else has to wait outside, pushing the door. This is why we need more girl-friendly toilets.”</figcaption></figure>By the numbers, Nepal’s progress in water, sanitation and health (WASH) is encouraging. More than <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/survey-is-wakeup-call-for-nepal-government/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">90% of people now have access to toilets and 74% enjoy safe drinking water</a>, a recent survey found.But as usual, facts and figures alone don’t tell the full story. <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/media/1026/file/A%20CONCEPTUAL%20FRAMEWORK%20FOR%20RESOURCE%20MOBILIZATION.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to Unicef</a>, just 25% of water supply systems in the country work properly, 36% require minor repairs and 39% need either major repairs, rehabilitation or reconstruction.<a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/media/1026/file/A%20CONCEPTUAL%20FRAMEWORK%20FOR%20RESOURCE%20MOBILIZATION.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Schools are also reporting progress</a> — 82% now have toilets and close to 80% can boast an improved water source — but in only 47% of schools was water supply available during a recent survey.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a45119c7e80680e04d365jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="844"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Nationally, two-thirds of schools have separate toilets for girls. That is supported by <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/media/336/file/ANALYSIS%20OF%20MENSTRUAL%20HYGIENE%20PRACTICES%20IN%20NEPAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research done in 12 schools</a> in Achham, Bajura and Parsa in 2016. It found that all schools had toilets, with 10 having separate ones for girls. Yet only 3 toilets in all 12 schools had a water tap that children could reach and just 1 toilet in all the schools was disabled-friendly. Nineteen toilets had a door that locked while 33 lacked a door; no toilets had soap and water nearby for hand-washing.Girl students especially are sensitive to the availability of toilets, and if they have to share facilities with boys, or if there are no locking doors or if no water is available, some girls will choose to stay home instead.Given that enrolment of girls in schools is already lower than boys because of traditional beliefs that educating females is simply not a smart investment, effort is needed to ensure they remain in class. When girls are menstruating equipped private toilets are even more important.The number of examples is growing country-wide of <a href="https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/sanitary-pads-bring-down-girl-students-absenteeism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">schools where the administration and students are overcoming traditional barriers</a> to together manage girl students’ menstruation so that they don’t miss classes. There was good news in the recent budget too, the government promising to supply all community schools with sanitary pads and also allocating Rs43 billion for water supply and sanitation projects.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110813110/636a45149c7e80680e04d366jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="366">While implementation will be key, such initiatives should be praised. WASH is not a luxury or an add-on like a science lab or a football pitch; it is a necessity. Having working toilets does not equate to equipping schools with fancy facilities but of taking pains to create healthy environments, and habits, for Nepali children.Advances in water supply will undoubtedly be challenged by growing shortages as the climate crisis deepens. Water quality also remains a priority concern in this country. <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/media/1026/file/A%20CONCEPTUAL%20FRAMEWORK%20FOR%20RESOURCE%20MOBILIZATION.pdf">Surveys have found</a> that 71% of households in Nepal are at risk from E. coli contamination of source water, and 82% from E.coli at the household level. <a href="https://www.wateraid.org/uk/where-we-work/nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">700 children die from diarrhoea yearly</a>.If we want our girls to have the same opportunities as boys, and if we want all children to be healthy enough to attend school every day, it’s time that we took building — and maintaining — toilets as seriously as we do building roads.To mark World Environment Day (5 June) a WASH Mela is being held 8-9 June, 8AM-5PM, Basantapur, Kathmandu

Marty Logan

Do not fail students in WASH

<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

One smoggy winter morning in February 2019, Ekta regretted coming to her sculpture class. It was the first day of her period, and the 19-year-old wished she was home, curled up in bed with a hot water bag to soothe her cramps.
Her class was at Kalapremi Ceramic Studio, a dark room on the ground floor of a house in Maharajganj, and Ekta’s teacher was the artist Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’, a noted sculptor.
Two other students were already there, using all their muscle strength to knead the sculpting clay. Ekta, now 24, recalls how Kalapremi asked her if she was feeling all right. She avoided him, as she did not want everyone to know she was menstruating.
Kalapremi repeatedly asked Ekta what was wrong. She finally muttered that she was having her period, after which he grabbed her hand and led her to a partitioned corner of the studio and sat her on a chair. Before she could stop him, he slid his hand under her dress, and started massaging her abdomen.
“I was horrified,” Ekta recalls. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen, asking me not to be shy, saying he knew how to relieve my pain. He stopped only after I protested furiously.”&nbsp;
The art tutor then said, “You’re like my daughter. I’m doing it out of love to make you feel better, but you’re so stubborn.”&nbsp;
“Instead of saying sorry he acted like I was the one having crazy thoughts,” remembers Ekta, adding that from April 2016 to August 2020 beginning the time she was 16, the artist sexually abused and harassed her on several occasions. &nbsp;
Now, Ekta and the artist’s other former students are finally sharing their experiences and some are pressing legal charges against him, hoping that others do not have to endure what they did.&nbsp;
Award-winning artist and teacher Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’ (the name means ‘Art Lover’) is known for his ceramic art, sculpture, and contemporary pottery. He was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-house-of-kalapremi">profiled in Nepali Times after a collaborative exhibition</a>, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ at the Siddhartha Art Gallery three years ago.&nbsp;
His pieces, titled Gaalis, featured sculpted female figures with the heads of dogs, sheep, and donkeys (pictured) to depict derogatory terms for women. Some critics said the collection was a satire on feminists.
Kalapremi started his artistic and teaching career in 1983 and over the years taught at Bhanubhakta School, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Lalitkala Campus and at his private Kalapremi Ceramic Studio. He has also lectured at Jeonju University in South Korea and recently at Tabor Academy in the United States.
Seven of Kalapremi’s former students were interviewed for this story. Five female students said he touched them inappropriately in his studio or at Kathmandu University. Two male students said they witnessed him abuse and harass the women. In all cases, the students struggled to recognise the abuse when it occurred, and the lack of reporting systems left them to cope on their own for years.&nbsp;
Earlier this year, students shared a social media post hinting at Kalapremi’s history of abusive behaviour following which more students of the artist reached out sharing similar experiences. Some students spoke of abuse that happened as long as 20 years ago.
Kalapremi, 60, has denied the allegations. He told Nepali Times: “Some years ago, there was a movement encouraging people to hug and kiss. I used to do it purely out of friendship and love. But after seeing posts on social media last year calling out my behaviour, I realised my actions may have hurt some people. I understand now that I should have been more mindful.”
He added: “I am also an auxiliary health worker, so I know the exact points to massage to relieve menstrual pain. It’s not just menstruation, I take anyone who is ill to the hospital.”
Sexual abuse is much more rampant than reported given how difficult it is to prove it in court. The law defines sexual abuse as occuring when someone touches another’s private parts, coerces them into touching theirs, uses vulgar language, shows degrading images, or behaves indecently towards them without consent.&nbsp;
Ekta and her fellow students are consulting lawyer Suneeta Regmi Pokhrel, who says they know that even if the court decides in their favour, it is difficult to survive after speaking up, and influential men defend themselves saying they are being framed.&nbsp;
“They are in a lot of pain and weep when recalling how he abused them,” Regmi Pokhrel told us. “They are angry and have filed a case against him, but they are also terrified. They know he is a powerful man and they have seen how our society treats women who speak up against abusers. Unless people speak up, perpetrators will be emboldened.”
Art and academia in Nepal simply reflect the power imbalances in society where people with intersecting identities experience worse forms of abuse. Theatre actors Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Rajan Khatiwada, and Sunil Pokhrel were called out during the #MeToo movement in the Nepali theatre scene in 2019. Even after the allegations Pokhrel went on to receive national awards, while others continued to work without repercussions.
“If you speak up against abusers, you gradually get sidelined from projects,” explained a theatre artist who wished anonymity fearing professional setbacks. “The theatre scene in Nepal is quite small, you just have to make peace with the perpetrators and work with them if you want to sustain yourself.”&nbsp;
In academia there is a history of faculty members sexually harassing students and getting away with it. After Tribhuvan University (TU) lecturer Krishna Bhattachan was accused of harassing women students, the university said it would follow Nepal’s sexual harassment law and set up a reporting mechanism. But nothing happened to the professor, who had already retired. Instead, he counter-accused the students of 'attacking the indigenous people’s movement with baseless allegations' as <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/letters/2019/01/29/bhattachan-responds">he told the Kathmandu Post in 2019</a>. He continues to be featured as a prominent speaker including at TU.
Other faculty members previously accused of sexual harassment include Jagadish Murti Koirala from TU, Bishnu Prasad Acharya from Ratna Rajya Campus, and Bodha Raj Tripathee from Lalitpur Madhyamik Vidhyalaya. A woman staff member from TU also filed a sexual abuse complaint against Dambar Chemjong from TU.
Prominent figures like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">mountaineer Nims Purja</a> have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/sports/mountaineering-sexual-harassment-abuse-nims-purja.html">accused of sexual assault</a>, and cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane, actor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/celebrity-rape-case-spotlights-nepal-laws">Paul Shah</a>, and former speaker of Parliament <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mahara-arrested">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> have been accused of rape, but society-at-large has let off the alleged perpetrators amdist a larger debate about justice for survivors and punishment of perpetrators.&nbsp;
‘Gaushala-26’ is the court name given to the 18-year-old who accused Sandeep Lamichhane, former captain of Nepal’s national cricket team and skipper of Biratnagar Kings in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/here-comes-the-nepal-premier-league">ongoing Nepal Premier League</a>, of rape. She left the country citing society questioning her character affecting her mental health while Lamichhane got an outpouring of support. In May, the Patan High Court overturned a prior verdict that found Lamichhane guilty of rape and had sentenced him to eight years in prison. During the 23-month legal battle to pursue justice, Gaushala-26 faced threats of gang rape and acid attacks.&nbsp;
Exhausted by the struggle, Gaushala-26 sought to “move to a new world” where she could live free without hiding her identity.
Actress Samragyee Rajya Laxmi Shah in an Instagram video now deleted detailed the harassment she faced from a filmmaker during a movie shoot. She did not name any name but veteran actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against Rana, but the court ruled that the charge lacked sufficient evidence.&nbsp;
Former Kathmandu mayor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo">Keshav Sthapit also mocked the #MeToo movement</a>, calling accusations against him by journalists Rashmila Prajapati and Ujjwala Maharjan “a rape of men’s rights”.
Serial Abuse
Back at the Kalapremi Ceramics studio, another former student, 24-year-old Rajiv, says he felt the need to speak out after seeing his female classmates being abused.&nbsp;
“He frequently kissed them on their cheeks,” he told Nepali Times. “Whenever they walked into the studio he flailed his arms like a child asking for a hug. They awkwardly hugged him from the side, but he pulled them closer, held their chin, and kissed their cheeks.”&nbsp;
Rajiv says he also saw Kalapremi pull the women’s bra straps, touch their breasts, and slap their buttocks. The young students would freeze, not knowing how to react, and if they protested, he would say it was “normal in art”. Rajiv, 19 at the time like his classmates, remembers thinking perhaps the well-respected artist was right after all.
Another student, Luna, who took lessons at Kalapremi’s studio from 2020 to 2022 did try to confront the tutor after he made an obscene proposal to her. She recalls: “One day when the other students had left the studio and it was just the two of us, he told me that God had given him special artistic talent and he could transfer those powers to me. But to do that both of us will have to be naked, inside a dark room, and have sex.”
Luna, who was 18 then, was livid and told him she did not want any of his powers, but she says he laughed at her as if he was joking. She did not tell her family about the incident because she thought no one would believe her.&nbsp;
“They were all in awe of this famous artist and felt I should be grateful that to be learning sculpting from him,” she says. “I was scared to be alone with him in case he talked about sex again. My coping mechanism was to be rude so he wouldn’t try to come close to me.”
Seeing how some classmates were standing up to Kalapremi, Ekta too tried to push back against his advances, but she said he found ways to coerce her. Since Ekta, Rajiv, and Luna could not afford Kalapremi’s Rs30,000 monthly fee for lessons, he had offered them all a stipend to assist him in the studio.
“He had spondylosis and took me to his therapy sessions to learn massage techniques, then he often made me and other students massage him,” says Ekta. Whenever she refused, he would feign pain to make her feel sorry for him. “He would insist that I put my hands under his shirt so that I could massage him better,” she adds.
The art tutor often tried to “seduce sympathy” from Ekta by sharing how he had never been loved as a child and was “sexually frustrated” as an adult.&nbsp;
“At 7PM, he would pour himself Signature whiskey and immediately go off again about how he was sex-starved. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me time to realise alcohol was just an excuse to talk about sex,” Ekta says.
If convicted, Kalapremi could face financial penalty and/or a prison sentence of up to three years according to Section 224 of National Penal (Code) Act 2017.&nbsp;
Data suggests that victims of child sexual abuse on average take nearly 24 years to tell someone about their trauma, and some may never disclose it at all.&nbsp;
“In our culture, children are rarely taught about boundaries. They often react, show anger when adults pinch their cheeks. But adults insist they did it out of love, and force the children to accept it,” says Sita Lama, a psychotherapist at Manka Kura. “And even when someone touches them inappropriately they struggle to identify and verbalise it.”
When perpetrators claim to be “acting out of love”, Lama says survivors are likely to perceive it as something safe, rather than recognising it as abuse.&nbsp;
“It may take years for them to realise they were abused,” she explains. "And even when they become aware, the power imbalance with the abuser and the associated shame often prevents survivors from speaking up."
Other former students from the School of Art at Kathmandu University have also come forward years later, saying Kalapremi sexually abused them. As young adults, they felt his behaviour was off but were uncertain if it was inappropriate, illegal, or they did not know how to respond. After having understood that it was indeed abuse, they say they are speaking out now to protect others.&nbsp;
Amina Singh, a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, says there is no clause against sexual abuse in contracts of teachers, and there is no formal grievance handling mechanism for the students.&nbsp;
“So the only way students can to deal with sexual abuse is approach someone they trust,” she says.
Eight other former art students of Lalit Kala Campus and Srijana College of Fine Arts of Tribhuvan University and other private art studios in Kathmandu say they were also sexually abused by their art teachers. Three faculty members interviewed from these institutions said they saw the abuse, but felt it was futile to report it given how powerful the teachers were.
In the absence of a formal system, some longtime women artists warned each other about “problematic” artists. They shared &nbsp;a “heads-up” to be more cautious when collaborating with them, and avoided responding to their calls and texts after work hours.
To ensure art institutions are safe for all, galleries, museums, artist studios, and smaller art spaces need to develop policies on sexual harassment. This would include a code of conduct or studio policies that hold the leadership accountable and outline the principles of professional ethics.&nbsp;
Students and employees should inquire about accountability mechanisms for raising concerns, both formally and informally, advocates say.
Three years after Ekta left the ceramics studio, she learnt that Kalapremi had harassed many other women. Still trying to get a footing in the art industry, she attended a workshop in Kathmandu where women artists discussed ways to stay safe in the art sector.&nbsp;
Since it was a close-knit group Ekta opened up about how she felt violated and realised she was not alone, he had been abusing underprivileged students for years, and this was common knowledge among artists in Nepal.
Ekta says that even after she quit, Kalapremi continued sending her text messages like ‘I am thinking of you’, ‘Why have you stopped speaking with me’, or ‘I am waiting for your call’.&nbsp;
But what really forced her to act was when Ekta found out that he was sending similar texts to her younger sister.&nbsp;
“I’ve had enough,” she told us. “He abused me all these years but I won’t let him abuse my sister.” &nbsp;
Ekta, Rajiv and Luna are not the real names of the students.&nbsp;

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

It was 8:15 in the evening of 25 March 1968 when everyone in the village of Batulechaur near Pokhara heard a deafening sound like thunder as a bright flashing object hurtled down to land in a field.&nbsp; That field belonged to Kul Timilsina, and the next morning he retrieved a sheet of metal about 2m by 1m and carried it home with the help of a few others, thinking it would be useful for his buffalo shed.&nbsp; Before he died at age 83 three years ago, Timilsina had told photo archivist Sunil Ulak that the black metal sheet was not rectangular and had rounded corners. There are a few witnesses still alive who have a clear recollection of the object that fell from the sky that night.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="601" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>The field in Batulechaur belonging to Kul Timilsina where fragments of a flying object fell from the sky in 1968.</figcaption> </figure>  One of them is Timilsina’s wife Gyanu, who was 22 at the time. She had been at home, and remembers hearing the big bang and the sky becoming very bright. “We saw the thing in the field in the morning,” she told us. “It looked like a lid, a covering of some sort. The way it was stuck in the ground, it must have fallen from the sky. We thought we could use it to dry clothes on, and took it home.”&nbsp; Another witness is Kul Narayan Paudel. “I was only eight then. We ran to the field to see what had fallen. It was a four-sided metal sheet. The elders took it away, and I don't know what happened to it.” &nbsp; Ram Bahadur Baniya, a teacher at the local school, says he had heard the sheet had been brought to the school, and later handed over to the Zonal Commissioner at the time, Nanda Prasad Malla. “But that is all hearsay,” he says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="610" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Gyanu Timilsina, wife of Kul Timilsina.</figcaption> </figure>  There are two versions of what happened to Kul Timilsina’s metal sheet. One is that an American Peace Corp Volunteer teaching at the nearby Bindyabasini School took it, and another is that it was handed over to the government. Recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US State Department documents from the time say that the US Embassy in Kathmandu tracked down the object two years later and had it shipped back to the US. A telegram from the Department of State and Department of Defense tagged as ‘MOON DUST / Space Fragments’ dated 1 March 1972 stated: ‘1. Restored space fragment will be on board Embassy support flight 115 arriving Kathmandu on or about March 10. Fragment is packed in shipping crate (cargo no. 72-33365) marked in care of DAO.&nbsp; 2. State and Defense representatives examined fragments prior to shipment finding restoration acceptable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df" data-rendition-name="original" width="856" height="568" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Declassified CIA documents about the investigation into the object sighted in Pokhara. </figcaption> </figure>  The documents show that the US government, military and intelligence agencies investigated this incident thoroughly when it occurred, and have continued to revisit it ever since, as recently as five years ago. What is even more intriguing is that the object that fell in Pokhara was not the only unidentified space object that fell to earth that year. There were similar sightings of objects falling from the sky in Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968.&nbsp; These mysteries were the subject of a CIA investigation in 1968 titled ‘<a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81R00560R000100070007-8.pdf">Sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan</a>’, and the report is part of the recent online declassification of 800,000 top-secret documents from the period.&nbsp; &nbsp;Although unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a connotation now of being alien craft, it could be pieces of satellite, missile, rocket or even aircraft. The CIA report documents six sightings in 1968 and quotes local sources as describing all of them having similar characteristics: bright blue or red streaks in the sky accompanied by loud sounds like lightning and thunder and objects falling to the ground. Aside from the metallic object that was found in Batlechaur, there were other items also found nearby in Tallakot, Tureypasal, Armalakot and Maidan. Whatever the object was, it seems to have disintegrated even before it hit the ground.&nbsp; The CIA report records the first sighting on 19 February 1968 in various parts of Sikkim and Olangchung Gola and Ghunsa in eastern Nepal. The light was said to be ‘long and thin’ and giving out ‘green and red light’. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="892" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara "> </figure>  Two days later on 21 February, a soundless blue object was seen traveling fast across the sky above Thimphu in Bhutan. Then on 4 March there were multiple daytime sightings or white streaks in the sky at Chang La Pass, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh. There were more sightings in Ladakh on the very day fragments fell near Pokhara on 25 March 1968.&nbsp; After the sightings in Pokhara, rumours started flying in Kathmandu that these were aliens trying to land on Earth, it could be Russian or Chinese spy planes or satellites, and some even say it as a sign from heaven that the end of the world was near. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Russians and Americans were testing their thermonuclear devices as well as intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems. The Washington-Beijing rapprochement had not yet happened, and China was making quick progress testing atomic bombs. Within two years after its first atomic test, in 1966 China exploded its first hydrogen bomb at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, 3,000km to the north from Nepal. After neary six decades, what is still intriguing is that all the sightings within a few months of each other in 1968 were along the Himalayan arc bordering Tibet: from Bhutan, Sikkim Nepal, to Ladakh. The US military intelligence seems to have concluded that this was not a coincidence and there were frequent research trips to the site in Pokhara by American officials in the months after the incident. With the help of the Royal Nepal Army, the region north of Pokhara was thoroughly searched.&nbsp; A confidential memo dated 25 June 1968 by Jerry C Trippy to a ‘Mr Farley’ mentions that the US Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division had decided that the debris could be important because it may be related to a Chinese missile test or a Soviet ‘Vehicle Venik’ rocket.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  On 28 August 1968 the US Embassy in Kathmandu sent a letter to Washington DC saying that the object could be of Soviet origin, possibly from when the rocket carrying the ‘Kosmos 208’ satellite re-entered the atmosphere. But why were the fragments falling to earth several weeks apart, and in the same region? No one knows where the metal sheet that Kul Timilsina recovered is now. It was definitely packed in a crate and taken to the US, and although it is rumoured that it was returned that is not very likely. Archivist Sunil Ulak heard from the Timilsina family that CIA officials had returned to the site five years ago. &nbsp; Interest in UFOs peaked in the US in the 1950s, with the Cold War space race and tests of atomic weapons and delivery rockets. CIA and scientists were being sent to investigate sightings, both publicly and privately. Could the Pokhara fragments as well as the sightings in Ladakh and Bhutan actually be alien craft falling to earth? The renewal in interest in space travel in large part due to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, UFOs and sightings are again subjects of public interest.&nbsp; Even 57 years later, even if there was definitive proof about whether the Batlechaur fragment was from a Chinese missile or a soviet rocket, it has not been made public in documents declassified so far. We may never know.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598" data-rendition-name="original" width="642" height="320" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  Sunil Ulak speculates if the debris actually came from an American aircraft, perhaps on an intel mission upon China. “Which could explain why they were so thorough in collecting the fragments in Pokhara,” he says. But that still does not explain the multiple sightings weeks apart in 1968.&nbsp; Indeed, US military aircraft were at that time flying frequent night-time missions from air force bases in India to supply weapons to Khampa guerrilla camps in Nepal located north of Pokhara in Mustang. It could very well be that the Chinese shot down one such aircraft. The other sightings could have been contrails of US spy planes, or Chinese anti-aircraft missiles.&nbsp; There were quite a few developments regarding UFOs in 2024. In a US congressional hearing in July, former intelligence officer David Grusch claimed that the government had long been involved in a program to investigate and retrieve non-human craft crashes, and then try to reverse engineer them. However Grusch did not show any evidence.&nbsp; The UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 was signed into law by Joe Biden in December 2023. It plans to oversee the public disclosure of UFO information. However, there is a clause in it that prevents disclosure if it would cause threats to military defense, intelligence operations or foreign relations.&nbsp; It is unlikely that the declassified documents about sightings in the Himalayan will cause any real surprise about definite evidence of alien life even if it was found. It seems humanity will continue, at least for now, to wonder about curious lights in the sky and whether there is anybody out there.&nbsp;

UFO over Pokhara

When Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Rabi Lamichhane was arrested in October on charges of defrauding depositors of cooperatives, the party’s vice president Swarnim Wagle gifted him Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions.
Since then, Lamichhane has been shunted around from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Chitwan and back to Pokhara to attend police investigations and court proceedings. He was being flown to Birganj via Kathmandu on Buddha Air on Monday. There is another pending case in Janakpur.
Human rights groups and civil society have criticised the government for hounding Lamichhane with inhumane treatment that borders on physical torture. The two parties in the coalition, Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, see Lamichhane’s RSP as a potentially formidable challenge to their power.
Even if the fraud charges against Lamichhane are true, the Nepali public is increasingly looking at the government’s actions through the police and courts as political vendetta.
Despite all the travelling, sometimes by plane and often by road at night, Lamichhane appears to be in high spirits, waving to supporters who often gather if they know he is going to be driven around. A social media video shows him giving high fives to fellow passengers on a recent flight to Pokhara.&nbsp;
In the past weeks, streets in Pokhara have erupted with parallel protests by Lamichhane’s supporters as well as depositors of cooperatives who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp;
Although family visits are allowed, prison officials in Pokhara told Nepali Times that not many people visit Lamichhane these days. He added, “When he does get visitors, he asks them to bring him books.”
Lamichhane is currently Nepal’s most high-profile public figure in custody, and highlights the stark difference between how influential prisoners are treated compared to ordinary inmates.
There are six prison cells at Kaski District Police Office’s two-story detention centre, three on each floor. And while authorities pack prisoners into already overcrowded cells, Lamichhane has an entire room on the second floor to himself.&nbsp;
He has also been allowed to call his family every few days. Other prisoners are not permitted phone calls except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s former business partner Chhabilal Joshi, an ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police with whom he established his Gorkha Media Network, is in custody under the same charges in the prison cell next to him.
Lamichhane is accused of siphoning off depositors' money to the tv network in which he was part-owner and anchor. &nbsp;
Both Lamichhane and Joshi are able to buy food from the police canteen instead of being served the regular meal like other prisoners. Joshi has also given his statement to authorities in Rupandehi and Kathmandu for his alleged role in the scam. Lamichhane is yet to be presented in Kathmandu for questioning.
While he was in custody at the Kathmandu District Police Complex, Joshi expressed his desire to sleep in a police officer’s office, reportedly assuring authorities that he would not run away and he was entitled to certain facilities as a former officer of the law.
“He seemed to be under the impression that he is still a police officer,” says a source at the Kathmandu District Police. “We made it clear to him that as someone accused of a crime, he was not entitled to special treatment.”
Former ministers Balkrishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, and ex-home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who were arrested in connection with the fake refugee scam last year, were similarly housed in the offices of law enforcement officials instead of prison cells. Khand has since been released after six months in jail.
While there is no legal provision to keep high-ranking officials in separate detention centres when they are arrested, authorities granting them special facilities is not uncommon. Law enforcement officials say VIP detainees expect preferential treatment while in police custody.
Among those is former Kosi Province minister Lila Ballav Adhikari, who was arrested from Biratnagar on 10 November over his alleged involvement in human trafficking and brought to Kathmandu. Adhikari had flown to Japan without government approval with three individuals on 29 October to attend a cultural conference, but had been sent back to Nepal from Narita.&nbsp;
His three companions were arrested at Kathmandu airport upon their arrival, but Adhikari was able to exit unscathed from the VIP lounge. Adhikari had resigned as the Kosi Province Minister for Internal Affairs and Law when it became public that his companions had been taken into custody, and was himself arrested shortly after. He has since been cleared by the courts.
Throughout his detention, Adhikari was kept separately from other inmates. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basant Rajouri, head of the Bhadrakali complex, says that while there is no separate detention area for VIPs, some detainees are kept separately depending on the nature of their crime.
However, sources say that arrangements were made for retired judges and others to visit Adhikari frequently worked at the office of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) during his time in custody.&nbsp;
“He used to constantly pester the authorities to let him sit outside in the sun, and to be able to use the police officer’s shower area,” added an officer.
Adhikari was released on 25 November after the government prosecutor’s office decided not to charge him in a move that was seen to expose the government’s double standards.
Over at Kathmandu’s Dilli Bazar Prison, former Kist Bank CEO Kamal Gyawali emerges from his prison cell into the courtyard of the prison’s ‘Ka (क)’ block every morning with a thick book in his hands, ready to give his daily sermon.
With his long beard, Gyawali, who is serving a prison sentence for banking fraud, looks the part of a religious guru as he implores his rapt listeners to “walk the right path, abandon bad thoughts and turn to scripture and spirituality”.&nbsp;
Afterward, the attendees gather to discuss politics and current affairs. Inmates at his daily sermons at the prison include other high-profile detainees, including former MP Ichchha Raj Tamang, who is in jail for money laundering and cooperatives fraud, former joint secretary Chudamani Sharma, who was convicted of corruption, as well as NC leader Chandra Bahadur Lama and Krishna Bahadur Upreti of the UML both of whom are on trial for embezzling billions of rupees.
Victims of the cooperatives scam that former lawmaker Tamang was involved in have made trips to the prison and requested visits, but he has refused to meet with any of them.
“Tamang often complains that the state has prevented him from returning the money to the victims by locking him up,” says a police officer at the Dili Bazar jail.
“All you hear every day from the VIP prisoners is that they have been framed,” adds the officer. “No one admits that they were involved in misdeeds.”
But while most high-profile prisoners complain about prison conditions, one exception is former provincial lawmaker Deepak Manange, who is serving a sentence at Dilli Bazar Jail for attempted murder.
“He is the happiest prisoner here,” says a warden. “Unlike the others, he doesn’t claim to have been framed, in fact he doesn’t seem to care that he is in prison.”
Manange is detained in the ‘Kha (ख)’ block of the prison complex, which he renovated at his own expense. The block previously housed female prisoners, but Manange used his influence to transfer them elsewhere. He faces no shortage of visitors, who range from political leaders to people from the underworld.
Along with Manange, other well-known prisoners in this block include Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Poudel, and former executive director of the Surakshan Printing Centre Bikal Poudel, who are serving time for corruption.
Former prisoners at Dilli Bazar prison include ex-ministers Khum Bahadur Khadka and Shyam Sundar Gupta, NC leader Ganesh Lama, Maoist MP Balkrishna Dhungel, Nagarik Unmukti Party leader Resham Chaudhary, as well as former IGs Ramesh Chand Thakuri, Om Bikram Rana, and Hem Bahadur Gurung.
Section 54 of Nepal’s Prison Act assigns each prison’s internal administration the
responsibility of governing its prisoners, which means the more favourable the jail management is, the more comfortable it is for prisoners.
Dilli Bazar prison has been the prison of choice for many high-ranking prisoners, especially those convicted of white collar crimes, due to its more accommodating administrators. The prison, which has the capacity to house 700 inmates, is also less crowded than other jails.
Anuj Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Department of Prison Management, says that there is no legal classification in Nepal for felons to be assigned prisons based on the nature of their crimes.
“That Dilli Bazar Jail has a higher number of prisoners convicted of crimes like corruption is most likely a coincidence,” says Bhattarai. “There is no provision for influential people to be able to choose where they will be incarcerated.”&nbsp;
Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published in himalkhabar.com

What Nepal’s VIP prisoners do in jail

If you were raised in Nepal, you must have picked up its unique set of vocabulary: आन्दोलन, चक्का जाम, बन्द, राँके जुलुस, आफ्नो मान्छे, हाम्रो दल, कर्फु and many more words connoting political protest.
We became familiar with the acrid smell of burning tyres, and eyes smarting from tear gas. And yet, everyone speaks of another revolution in the making. Not by desire, but by suffocation.
We heard speeches about नयाँ नेपाल, but the New Nepal never arrived. The governance system changed, but it did not reflect on people’s lives — except for those close to centres of power. The state is still unreachable and is not bothered about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/matter-of-life-and-debt">victims of loan sharks</a>, cooperative scams and other injustices.
Politicians continue to speak in sound bites, but fail to deliver. They have mastered the game of pointing fingers towards an external enemy and convincing people that they are never at fault. The political narrative is so disconnected from the actual analysis of the problem that suffocation doesn’t go away after every revolution.
No genuine effort has been made to deliver at all, which is why there is a palpable sense of disillusionment in the air forcing us to seek another revolution, even if Nepal may not be able to afford it.
How has the current system successfully held power, even if the public is deeply frustrated? How is it that for three decades we continue to be led by the same faces, who have time and again, proved to us that they may be great politicians but not national leaders?
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/improving-internet-governance-in-nepal">My experience at the epicentre of politics</a> has led me to identify three cultures that have enabled political parties to keep a tight hold on power: acceptance, silence and dependency.
We accept things the way they are. We use fatalistic phrases like “नेपालमा यस्तै हो” or “नेपालको कानुन दैब जानुन”. While this resilience enables us to rise back up from devastating calamities, it is also a reason for our compliance with the status quo.
Despite so many ‘revolutions’ that have led to significant reforms, these phrases keep getting reinforced, to the point that the upcoming generations have made it their lingo.&nbsp;
This acceptance is not a symbol of law-abiding citizens, but citizens living in fear of those in power, unable to ask the whys and why-nots.
Innovation suffocates in this culture of acceptance of the status quo. This is manifested in remarks like “but we don’t have any laws for this,” or “we don’t have the capacity to implement this”. An innovator or entrepreneur therefore has to spend that energy to become a political lobbyist, often educating and convincing the bureaucracy.&nbsp;
Remember when locally assembled <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/designed-and-made-in-nepal">Yatri motorbikes</a>, despite having willing customers, had to suffer to secure license numbers because of a lack of regulations? Instead of creating new laws, the government kept chanting the “We will promote Nepal-made goods” mantra, leaving entrepreneurs in a labyrinth of bureaucracy. The weight of acceptance of the law lies heavily on innovators. Fatalism is a tactic used by those in power to generate mass fear in society.
When we accept, we become silent. This is a pervasive phenomenon. We are trained to keep quiet, lest we ruffle feathers, burn bridges, or not get the help we need in future. We know, yet we don’t speak.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bureaucratic-hurdles-in-researching-nepals-bureaucracy">Bureaucratic hurdles in researching Nepal's bureaucracy</a>, Daniel W Edwards
Here is one example: the 2021 census shows that the number of baby boys born for every 100 baby girls is 112. This is a clear indication of female foeticide because of boy preference in society.
Despite such horrifying realities, there is finger-pointing within the government between the Ministry of Health and Population with the Ministry of Home Affairs. At the citizen level, we know those who are involved in killing girls. Yet, we don’t speak up. The Nepal Medical Council reports state that despite this gender imbalance at birth, there is no indication of any action.
But why would anyone speak against one's own fraternity, no matter how vile the act is?
When we accept and keep quiet, we become dependent on those who yield power. From getting our government procedure completed on time to getting transfers, to accessing any of our legally protected rights as well, we are forced to depend on our networks of चिनेको मान्छे people we know by blood, village, relations, political affiliation.
The culture of dependency has been the established way in Nepal. If you drive a two-wheeler or four-wheeler, and you get into a small accident, you will be asked to sort it yourself, dialing up the most powerful person you know. It becomes a competition of who knows who.
Recently I was told that there were calls from the Ministry of Health and Population and another from the Prime Minister's Office for just one medical position in a private hospital. Each was pushing its own candidate. Guess which candidate got the position.&nbsp;
The dependency of people is not on the laws or the state, it is with people in power, a reliance on the network of somebody who knows somebody, including those not officially in power.
These cultures are deeply ingrained in our heads, and in society. Collectively they form a vicious circle that helps those in power to retain power. This is not the society we want to live in.
Then, what do we do as a collective to break away from this? How do we break away from the cultures of acceptance and silence that have created this dependency? What can we do to ensure that our children do not have to learn the jargon of आन्दोलन before they learn about the state?
These are the cultures political parties need to shed rather than use them to perpetuate their power. This is what <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/an-alternative-to-alternative-politics-in-nepal">alternative politics</a> needs to be about.
Sumana Shrestha is a member of Parliament’s Education, Health and Information Technology parliamentary committee and represents the Rastriya Swatantara Party.

sanitation