<img width="640" height="406" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b92269c7e80680e06f130jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>More than half of Nepal’s employed people have lost their jobs in the past month,  according to the result of a nationwide survey announced on Friday.Agriculture and tourism were the two sectors most seriously affected by job losses, while those depending on daily wages incurred significant economic losses which ultimately affected the socio-economic wellbeing of children and their families.‘Most families may have been forced to reduce food intake and essential expenses, including nutrition and education for children.  About 99% of the families reported receiving no support to stave off the hardship,’ says a report on the results of the rapid assessment survey. The poll was conducted by <a href="https://www.sharecast.org.np/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.sharecast.org.np/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1623497861769000&amp;usg=AFQjCNELzVZ5PBDi3rMCvpqYOBcU46kjJw">Sharecast Initiative Nepal</a> with support from <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/sites/unicef.org.nepal/files/2020-08/UNICEF%20Child%20and%20Family%20Tracker%20Survey.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.unicef.org/nepal/sites/unicef.org.nepal/files/2020-08/UNICEF%2520Child%2520and%2520Family%2520Tracker%2520Survey.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1623497861769000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFAObkn8Qv1H-WLNyjjF7ndt_tUlA">UNICEF Nepal</a> during end-May 2021, and involved interviews with 3,000 households with families. The survey showed that job and income losses were most severe in Bagmati and Karnali Provinces.Over the past year, UNICEF has been monitoring family income and its impact on children through <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nepal/reports/covid-19-child-and-family-tracker-findings" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.unicef.org/nepal/reports/covid-19-child-and-family-tracker-findings&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1623497861769000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFMkcf85-LnMV9T93GMB2nO8lNTTA">Child and Family Tracker</a> which has shown that over 60% of households with children experienced economic and livelihood losses in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-impact-on-food-and-school-in-nepali-children/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/covid-19-impact-on-food-and-school-in-nepali-children/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1623497861769000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG2nmzuOmaE8mv0jK8tJDIJrrjTwQ">first two months of last year’s  lockdown. This had impacted children within those households most directly.</a>Two months into the lockdown in May 2020, more than half the families polled last year had already reported a loss of jobs or earnings, resulting in one-third of the households facing shortages of food, medicines and other necessities. <img width="640" height="358" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b92299c7e80680e06f131jpeg.jpg" alt="">While the political parties are preoccupied with an intense power struggle for the past year, the state has left Nepalis, especially its most vulnerable citizens like children and the underserved and excluded, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/pandemic-of-poverty/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/pandemic-of-poverty/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1623497861769000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEeeNtrZ1h8sQzWF3vpQXAIPJFXaQ">to fend for themselves</a> in dealing with the health and socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis.Although most families with children were able to recover economically since then, 40% of them remained at risk of falling into poverty. The overall income distribution did not catch up to levels before lockdowns<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/new-nepal-lockdown-may-cancel-gains/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/new-nepal-lockdown-may-cancel-gains/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1623497861769000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGLax_opoosvU0K6a3ca_FMD3nhGg"> even by end-2020</a>. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/new-nepal-lockdown-may-cancel-gains/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/new-nepal-lockdown-may-cancel-gains/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1623497861769000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGLax_opoosvU0K6a3ca_FMD3nhGg">previous survey results</a> had shown that the loss of jobs and livelihoods was down from 61% in July 2020 and 55% in May 2020 to 19% in January 2021. However, the job losses appear to have climbed steeply again, corresponding with the Covid-19 second wave peak in Nepal <figure><img width="640" height="363" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b922c9c7e80680e06f132jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Support from any level of government has been non-existent despite the well-documented economic fallout of Covid</figcaption></figure>The latest survey results show that one in every five families had to reduce the quantity of meals their children ate, or had to change the variety of food intake. Children in only one-third of households had access to distance learning. Most children belonging to low-income households or under-served communities did not have access to distant learning for the past year. The lack of work has also reduced child labour. While 31% of households said their children worked before lockdown, this dropped to 8% during the closures. Last year’s surveys showed, however, that in 20% of households children were back to working to augment family income after the lockdown ended.‘This implies that while the lockdown contributed to a significant reduction in child labour, children are most likely to start work to help their families cope with the economic struggles,’ Sharecast says.   Using the results of the tracking survey, UNICEF Nepal is implementing an emergency cash transfer scheme in response to the emerging needs of more than 10,000 children. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are many more children in need.The surveys show that the health, education and nutrition of children in families depending on daily wages and those who have lost incomes and jobs are being most adversely affected. UNICEF Nepal has welcomed the government’s decision to expand its Child Grant Program to 33% of vulnerable households. The survey shows that the lockdown has been a serious setback for a vast segment of society, and there has been little or no government response. It shows the need for universal state assistance to citizens for jobs and income. Read Also: '<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/jabs-for-jobs/">Jabs for jobs',</a> Shristi Karki

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Half of Nepalis lost jobs in past month

<figure><img width="1440" height="960" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121156/636ce7419c7e80680e0967b2jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: UNICEF NEPAL</figcaption></figure>Just over a year of living with the pandemic, Nepalis were just starting to get back on their feet, their income and nutrition status was improving, when <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/kathmandu-locks-down-again/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">another lockdown was announced this week</a> to contain the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/unmasking-the-second-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">second wave</a>.According to the latest round of the nationwide poll, the loss of jobs and livelihoods was down from 61% in July and 55% in May 2020 to 19% in January. However, 40% of Nepali households are at risk of falling back into poverty with earnings less than Rs10,000 per month.The recovery however is uneven, families where members have lost jobs, that have persons with disabilities and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepali-women-survive-pandemic-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">headed by the females</a> are earning none or less than 10K. <figure><img width="1318" height="1070" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121156/636ce7439c7e80680e0967b3jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>All graphs: UNICEF and SHARECAST INITIATIVE</figcaption></figure><img width="2194" height="1078" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121156/636ce7469c7e80680e0967b4jpeg.jpg" alt="">This was the sixth in a series of periodic household surveys conducted by Sharecast Initiative Nepal on behalf of UNICEF to track the socio-economic multi-sectoral impact of Covid-19 on children and families in Nepal, and was conducted before the current surge. Nepali Times has been tracking the outcomes of these surveys which were previously conducted in May, July, August and October and December.The latest survey in December also found out that 97% of the children were going to school with 89% of them taking classes online. Only 5% were being homeschooled. Bagmati and Gandaki provinces had most schools offering distance learning facilities.  Even as more parents gain confidence to send their children back to physical classrooms, up to 61% from as low as 38% back in October, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/learning-during-the-pandemic-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">remote learning will continue to be the norm</a> as schools close again following the latest surge in new cases and the new lockdowns from Thursday in 10 of the most populous districts, including Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur.  <figure><img width="856" height="1054" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121156/636ce7499c7e80680e0967b5jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Increase in parents' confidence levels to send their children back to physical classrooms.</figcaption></figure>In another decreasing tread, only 8% of households reported not getting <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/quarter-of-nepalis-still-hungry-during-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sufficient food</a> in January down from 19% back in<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/1-in-5-nepal-families-lack-food/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> August 2020</a>. The improvement is visible across all income groups, but less so for those in lower quantiles.On the nutrition front, 6% of respondents reported that their children were eating only 2 meals a day. These are mainly families struggling for food, with job losses, or from lower-income groups.Another 70% said their children were eating three meals a day, and a quarter of families said they could afford more than 3 meals a day. <img width="2398" height="1056" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121156/636ce74c9c7e80680e0967b6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="980" height="968" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121156/636ce74f9c7e80680e0967b7jpeg.jpg" alt="">How are Nepali families doing in terms of <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/free-soap-to-fight-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">safety measures against Covid-19?</a>The survey showed that 52% practised handwashing for 20 seconds or more all the time. Only 37% wore a mask in public at all times while only 10% practised 2m safe distancing every time they were out. Province 2 respondents scored lowest on all the fronts.There is a decreasing trend in the share of respondents reporting all the time or most of the time, with increases in those saying 'rarely' and 'never'. Lack of infrastructure and jobs were the main reasons given for not being able to practise protective measures. <img width="1050" height="970" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121156/636ce7519c7e80680e0967b8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/in-nepal-lockdown-a-domestic-violence-spike/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Violence against women and children</a> on the other hand has steadily picked up with 6% witnessing violence against women and/or children in January.Interestingly, the top income group is the most likely to witness domestic violence against women while the lowest two income groups are more prone to abandon a child.Some 6%of respondents also noticed or heard of children being trafficked, the number went up to 26% with regards to child marriage and 6% for child labour or migration. Respondents from Province 2 were most likely to report all three.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-economic-downturn-1-year-after-lockdown/">Nepal’s economic downturn, 1 year after lockdown</a>, Ramesh Kumar

New Nepal lockdown may cancel gains

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67909c7e80680e0599e4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo : MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>Much more than today, in the next decade smartphones will become the primary means of accessing the internet in Nepal, making social media an even greater influence in society. At the same time, financial technology, AI and e-commerce will transform the economy.Already, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepals-media-landscape-is-being-transformed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">96% of households in Nepal have at least one mobile phone</a> and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepalis-are-drifting-to-digital-media/">more than half of those were smartphones</a>. A survey this year showed that nearly everyone here who accesses the internet does it through a smartphone — and almost everyone who is logged on also has a<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/facebook-nation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Facebook account</a>.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/so-you-want-to-quit-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">So, you want to quit Facebook?</a>, Reeti KC<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/face-to-face-with-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Face-to-face with Facebook</a>, Editorial“Once you are introduced to the smartphone and the features that come along with, it is very difficult to go back, and this trend is growing exponentially,” says Madhu Acharya of Sharecast Initiative, which conducts the annual social media survey. He forecast that the digital divide between urban and rural is going to narrow in the coming decade.“More older people will be accessing the Net through smartphones, which will get cheaper,” adds Acharya. He gives the example of his father, who used to own a feature phone but switched to a smartphone to communicate with grandchildren and relatives abroad through Facebook.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-is-becoming-a-nation-of-net-addicts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal is becoming a nation of net addicts</a>, Sabina DevkotaThe trend of using the internet to access media sites is going to grow in coming years, as digital portals replace television to become the key source of national and international news for Nepalis. People will get more and more used to watching content whenever and wherever they like rather than wait for the 7 o’clock news bulletin.In terms of online finances, Sumana Shrestha of Fusemachines says that the latest algorithms will provide a larger section of the population access to financial technology in the coming decade. AI has been making progress in Nepal, and possibly the biggest change will come when the technology that digitises handwritten application forms, through Nepal’s AI Office of Civilian Requirements, will be smart enough to produce an editable document both in English and Nepali.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/bringing-silicon-valley-to-kathmandu-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bringing Silicon Valley to Kathmandu Valley</a>, Sonia AwaleNepal has a wealth of software talent in information technology, and this need to be converted to work with AI, Shrestha says. Fusemachines and other AI-centred companies are already collaborating with local engineering colleges to build a critical mass of AI expertise in Nepal.Kai-Fu Lee, the former president of Google China and an AI expert, wrote the book <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/the-ai-super-powers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order</a>. He predicts that in the coming decade a country will forge ahead if it has ‘an army of well-trained engineers and entrepreneurs, AI scientists ... with abundant data and a supportive policy environment’.‘China is able to apply skilled AI in various areas, like healthcare, finance, safety systems and systems for smart houses,’ Lee writes, adding, ‘poor countries will stagnate while the AI superpowers take off.’Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/can-nepal-invest-in-the-cloud/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Can Nepal invest in the cloud?</a>, Ganesh AcharyaShrestha thinks Nepal has not done enough in AI adoption compared with other countries. “Nepal has a very young population, which means we can incorporate AI in the curriculum to reach a huge segment of the population, and we are hoping to be able to develop talents within a year or two on a mass scale. There is a tremendous opportunity for Nepal to lead and make a huge impact,” says Shrestha, who sees immediate applications of AI in the tourism industry.“Nepal can zero in on the right kind of tourist and make sure our ads and messaging is getting to them. That will increase the volume of tourists coming to Nepal and will make sure tourists have a good quality of experience,” she adds.Nepal will also have to catch up with its immediate neighbours in opening payment gateways on the Internet and promoting e-commerce. For example, China has already moved beyond phone-based payment with AI-based face recognition systems on Alipay, in which people pay their bills by scanning their faces at a checkout point without having to use their mobiles.Although online payment gateways such as eSewa and IMEPay have been established here, Nepal is still miles away from having a mature <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-budding-e-commerce-ecosystem/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">e-commerce system</a>. The government’s 2019 Digital Nepal Framework admits: ‘The growth of e-commerce in Nepal is inhibited due to the lack of a supporting ecosystem such as limited digital payment options.’While others have already taken a leap in device-free commerce, if Nepal can at least make internet payment through mobile phones secure and convenient during the coming decade, that will already be an achievement.<h2>What do you think will be the most popular IT advancement in the next 10 years in Nepal?</h2><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67949c7e80680e0599e5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1050" height="846"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67979c7e80680e0599e6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1050" height="846"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h2>The media is the medium</h2>Despite the migration of eyeballs to digital portals for news, Madhu Acharya says it is too early to declare print media dead. “People still prefer to read news holding a physical paper and there is an archival value that digital doesn’t always have,” he says.A Reuters report found that worldwide, across 38 markets, increasing concern about misinformation is undermining trust in media. Yet in Nepal, Sharecast found trust of traditional media is still high with less concern about disinformation online, especially <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/04/india-misinformation-election-fake-news/586123/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in comparison to India</a>. Nepalis believe they know what is and isn’t ‘fake news’, but often without verifying links and checking sources.This could hold implications for Nepali politics in the coming decade, especially in federal elections scheduled for 2022 and 2027.“The ideas that float around on social media and digital platforms are extreme,” Acharya tells us. “If politicians decide to listen to these extreme opinions and stop meeting people face-to-face, learning about them and what problems they have, then I think they will be tempted to address fake needs.”

Nepal in the decade of AI

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121140/636a40469c7e80680e04a60fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="861" height="688"/>On the face of it, when 41% of Nepalis in a public opinion poll say the country is headed in the right direction it could be taken as a decent level of approval of the government’s performance. Indeed, the way the question is framed in the Nepali language gives broad leeway for interpretation: if we should be going north, any course bearing between 270 degrees to 90 degrees would mean we are more or less on the right track.The question was part of a public opinion survey carried out by Kathmandu-based <a href="http://www.sharecast.org.np/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sharecast Initiative</a> in January among a statistically representative sample of 4,129 respondents in Nepal’s 42 districts. The survey takes the pulse of the nation, showing the general mood of Nepalis two years after local governments took office, and a little over a year after the federal and provincial governments were formed. In all three tiers of government, it is mostly the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) that holds sway – only Province 2 and a handful of municipalities are with other parties.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=26348&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Survey is wakeup call for Nepal government</a>, Rameshwar BohoraAs with Himalmedia <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/hoping-against-hope-himalmedia-poll" target="_blank" rel="noopener">polls in previous years</a>, the results show that the Nepali people are alert and aware of what is going on – they also seem to be short-term pessimists and long-term optimists. Even if 41% of respondents felt the country was on the right course, a full 27.1% felt Nepal was headed in the wrong direction, and 22.6% were undecided (see chart above).One of the more positive outcomes of the survey was the response to a question on which facilities people have in their homes. The government’s initiatives over the past four decades on safe drinking water, sanitation, rural electrification and infrastructure appear to be yielding results. Well over 90% of Nepalis now have access to electricity and latrines. Three-quarters live near a road, or use gas cylinders for cooking. Although the 74% with access to safe drinking water is still quite low, and only 5% of mountain dwellers live near a black-topped road, overall the country is making progress. Which may be why so many seem to think that Nepal is headed more or less in the right direction.However, there is growing public dissatisfaction with the government: only 4.2% were happy with the functioning of the federal government, 35% were dissatisfied and nearly 61% said they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. The greatest discontent is in Province 3 and Far-Western Province. People in the centre and the periphery both give Kathmandu failing grades.People do not seem to have faith in the federal Parliament either: more than a quarter of respondents said they did not trust the legislature, only 7% said they trust it, and 43% were ambivalent. Neither was there much approval of the performance of local governments: more than 26% were dissatisfied, and only 7% satisfied with the way provinces and municipalities were going about their business; 66% were apathetic.Read also:<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/himal-poll-expectations,4153" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Great expectations</a>, Editorial<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/himal-media-public-opinion-survey-2015-outcome" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Himalmedia Public Opinion Survey 2015</a>, Ayesha ShakyaThe survey also proves just how important migration for work overseas has become for Nepalis. More than a quarter of respondents said they had a family member working abroad, with the highest percentages among Muslims and Hill Dalits, and in Far-Western Province. Tarai 'High Castes' in Province 2 and Tharu households had the fewest members abroad. Most of the money sent home by overseas workers goes into subsistence (food, clothing, children’s education and medical treatment), and very little of it is invested in land, saved in banks or ploughed into productive sectors.Opinion surveys are a way for a democratic country’s rulers to gauge the public mood between elections. They should also be a wake-up call so course corrections can be made. They are a tool available to politicians, the bureaucracy and other agencies of the state to see if their actions fulfil the aspiration of citizens. Many of these checks and balances in a country are performed by democratic institutions and the mass media, but when the performance of other sectors of the state (legislature, judiciary, executive, bureaucracy and the security agencies) is not at an optimum, opinion surveys directly reflect the public’s frame of mind.It is clear from some of the results of the survey in this edition that citizens’ faith in government is faltering, that a large section of the public does not trust politicians and that they are unhappy with the slow pace of development. Yet, they have not given up hope and hold out the expectation that things will get better. It is still not too late for the NCP government to go beyond slogans, deliver more than rhetoric, and walk the talk.

Can't get no satisfaction

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111152/636a358a9c7e80680e0482b6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="1200"/><figcaption>Pic: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>With 91% of individuals now owning at least one mobile device and almost half of them smartphones, the number of Nepalis using the Internet is rising exponentially. Among them, Facebook and its Messenger app is the most popular, according to the Nepal Media Survey 2019 conducted by Sharecast Initiative.There are now more than 8 million Nepalis with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/face-to-face-with-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook </a>accounts, and almost 88% of 4,129 respondents to the survey say they use Facebook, while 45% are on Messenger.Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=24697&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New news</a>, Editorial<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=24646&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepalis are drifting to digital media</a>, Madhu Acharya and Bhumiraj ChapagainFacebook and Messenger are far ahead of the second most popular social media app, IMO, used by 35% of respondents, while 34% regularly access YouTube. The Nepali app HamroPatro has now notched 4%.Facebook is also increasingly the preferred source of news and information about local, national and international happenings. Almost 5% of respondents use Facebook to learn about local events, and 9% rely on it for national and international news. Despite that, the level of trust for Facebook content is low (2%) compared to mainstream <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/amateur-radio-as-vital-source-of-info-for-future-disasters,2816" target="_blank" rel="noopener">radio</a>, tv and newspapers. This indicates that Nepali Internet users do not necessarily trust the most popular Internet sites.Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=24724&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal is becoming a nation of net addicts</a>, Sabina DevkotaUser-generated content appears to be lower in Nepal than in other countries, meaning most respondents appear to be only consumers of information. Nearly three-quarters of those questioned say they have never posted about local issues on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-new-reality-of-nepals-virtual-celebrities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">social media</a>, and only 1% actually post local happenings on their walls.Another Facebook-owned platform, Instagram, is used by a much lower proportion (4.2%), although it appears to be more popular among urban educated youth. Twitter usage is almost negligible (1.2%).Inevitably, growing access to mobile phones and the Internet has increased the use of Facebook and other media. 95% of households now own mobile phones, on average 2.5 devices per home. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/mr-province-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Province 2 </a>has the highest mobile phone ownership – 96.8% at the household level – followed by Gandaki province at 94.6%.  Even though use of broadband and wifi has not reached rural areas, mobile data services from telecommunication companies like<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-telecom-or-go/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> NCell and NTC </a>have facilitated social media usage in rural Nepal. Mobile data usage is highest in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-superwomen-beat-superstition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Far west</a> at 80%.

Facebook nation

<img width="1500" height="1125" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111152/636a35829c7e80680e0482b3jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Until a few years ago, Nepalis were forced to consume whatever the mainstream media disseminated. Radio, tv and newspapers thought that they knew what their audience wanted and needed.All this is changing. Nepalis today are increasingly in control of what media content they like. Media preference is now not only dependent on our socio-economic status, age, geographic location or education, but personal choice, context and content.  Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/facebook-nation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook nation</a>, Madhu Acharya<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/new-news/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New news</a>, EditorialThere is now a proliferation of mobile devices, internet connectivity and the choice of new traditional and new media platforms. As this 4th edition of the Nepal Media Survey by Sharecast Initiative shows, the Nepali audience is catching up with the global trend. Affordability is no longer an issue for media device ownership. Sixty percent of Nepali household now own tv sets whereas only 28% of households have a functioning radio, as mobile phones are increasingly used as radio receivers. Radio repair shops have converted to mobile maintenance. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-is-becoming-a-nation-of-net-addicts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal is becoming a nation of net addicts</a>, Sabina DevkotaAccess to regular electricity, increased urbanisation, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-living-beyond-its-mean/">remittance income</a>, as well as the purchase of tv and mobile phones being the first choice of migrant workers are reasons why tv ownership has overtaken radio. A tv set is no longer a status symbol, but is seen as a necessity.  A surprising 95% of households now own <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19421#.XK84FzAzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mobile phones</a> (average of 2.5 devices per home) whereas ownership of landline telephone has fallen to only 4%. Ownership of media devices is higher among those with better education and jobs, as well as among those with so-called higher caste and ethnic backgrounds. The illiterate, unemployed, daily wage labour, traditional agriculture farmers, Muslim and Tarai Dalit household have lower ownership of any media devices. Province 3 and Gandaki Province have about 73% tv ownership at household level whereas the Far west Province has the lowest tv ownership at home. Though Province 2 has the highest mobile phone ownership (96.8%) at household level, only 86.6% of individuals have their own phones. In Gandaki Province mobile ownership is 94.6%.  The survey shows that tv has the highest device ownership and is the highest accessed mass medium. More than 60% of respondents said they had watched tv in the past six months: 42% watching it daily, while 40% had not watched tv at all in the same period. Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/face-to-face-with-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Face-to-face with Facebook</a>Television is the key source of national and international news and also tops the list of media for reliability with 32% saying they trust tv content. More than 76% in Province 3 and more than 73% in Gandaki Province access tv regularly, and it is highest among the educated. While 43% in Province 3 and 39% in Gandaki Province prefer tv as the main source for national and international news, only 19% of respondents in the Far west Province prefer tv. Tv is regarded as the second preferred source for local news and information at all demographic variables, and radio is still king. Among the tv viewers, 91% percent watch during evenings. Surprisingly, 20% of tv viewers never watch Nepali channels, 60% never watch local channels and 27% never watch international channels. 65% watch Nepali channels for up to 2 hours and 61 percent respondents watch international channels for 2 hours or less every day. Among those who watch local channels, only 30% watch local channels for less than 2 hours duration. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepals-media-landscape-is-being-transformed/">Nepal's changing media landscape</a>, Sharecast InitiativeHalf the survey respondents say they have listened to the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/radio-sagarmatha-the-radio-wave,3718">radio</a> in the past six months, and only 24% listen to it daily. Listenership is highest in Karnali Province with 70%, and the figure is only 40% for Province 2 in the eastern Tarai. Radio is popular in the 16-24 age group, and less so among those 55 and above. Radio is more popular among the more educated.Radio is the more dominant medium than tv to access local news and information, and the exception again is Province 2 where only 11% access local news from radio.For national and international news, radio is the second-best choice (23%) compared to tv (29%). Nationwide, more than a quarter say radio is the most reliable medium for news, and the figure was 55% in Karnali Province. More than a quarter of respondents found radio the most reliable medium, and that proportion goes up to 55% in Karnali Province and 40% in Far West Province.Radio listenership spikes up during national events like elections, or natural disasters. It is a go-to medium during crises, but during normal times Nepalis seem to prefer other media that they can access through mobile phones.Most radio listeners tune in for less than two hours daily, and 56% use mobile phones while 49% use a regular radio receiver. Among listeners, 44% say they tune in to a specific station because the quality of reception is good and 54% of listeners tune in to two news bulletins a day — most of them between 6-9AM. Only 3% of radio users listen to news every hour. Newspaper publishers lamenting the loss of readership to digital media may need to heed this survey in which 59% of respondents say they did not read newspapers and magazines because they were not available in their area. The circulation and distribution channels of legacy <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/creeping-control-over-the-press-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">media</a> have remained largely the same whereas political centres have increased from 75 districts to 7 provincial capitals, 77 district headquarters as well as 753 local bodies. Among those who read newspapers regularly, 10% did so daily, and 32% of men and only 21% of women read them. Understandably, Province 3 dominates readership with 54% users, followed by 37% in Gandaki Province. Provinces 1 and 2 had the least access to print media. Only 19% of rural respondents say they have access to print media whereas more than 54% of city dwellers do so. Among those who read newspapers and magazines most read the main news (77%), news headlines only (22%), news about politics (19%), art, culture and entertainment (17%) and 15% regularly read the sports section. Interestingly, 94% of respondents who say they read newspapers do so holding a physical paper. Only 14% who access the print media read newspapers and magazines via mobile apps, and even fewer (6%) visit the home pages of newspapers for content.  One third of the respondents of the survey have accessed the Internet (Facebook, messenger, IMO and other applications) in the past six months. Among them, 21% use it daily, and 10% a few times a week. Province 3 has the highest usage rate with 48%, and Gandaki Province ranks second with 44%. Only 24% have access to the Net in Province 2.Of those who use the Internet, 99% browse using mobile devices whereas only 7% use desktops, laptops and tablets. Among Internet users 59% use mobile data whereas only 34% access it with broadband and wifi. Mobile data use is highest in Far west (80%) followed by 76% in Province 2 and 73% in Province 5. Largest concentration of broadband users are in Province 3, which includes three metropolitan cities, with over 51%. Rural internet users (72%), and Tarai Dalit (95%) use mobile data. Use of broadband and wifi has direct correlation with economic status, education and smart phone ownership. Among Internet users more than 66% claim to spend 2 hours or less while browsing internet. 
At individual level, 90% of respondents carried a mobile phone, and ownership increases with level of education. Respondents with bachelors and above have 100% mobile phone ownership.  Our enumerators requested each respondent who carried a mobile phone to take out and show us the type of phone they carried, and 53% had smart phones, and 42% carried feature phones. Respondents who carry IOS device are 2%, and 3% had both smart and feature phone. Province 3 has the highest penetration of smart phone devices (65%) whereas Karnali Province has the highest proportion of feature phones (56%). Karnali also has the lowest ownership of smart phone devices (39%). In the 16-24 age group 76% carry smart phone devices, and ownership of feature phones was found to increase along with age. This is the same trend based on level of education.  Survey administered by Sharecast Initiative Nepal.  www.sharecast.org.np @Madhu2067		
			<h2>SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS</h2>		
<ul><li>Radio is the most preferred medium to access local news and information whereas tv is the key source of national and international news. </li><li>Occupation, education and caste/ethnicity of Nepali audience determine type of device ownership. </li><li>Women lag behind in access to all media.  </li><li>The 16-24 age group and those with bachelor’s degrees are the heaviest consumers of all types of media.</li><li>The 55 and above age group and the illiterate have  the least access to media. </li><li>Tarai Dalits have the least access to tv, newspapers, Internet, mobile phones and smartphone devices. </li><li>Newars have the highest access to all media except radio. </li><li>Media saturation is highest in Province 3. </li><li>Karnali and the Far West Provinces use radio the most, listeners in Province 2 use it the least.</li><li>Mobile is least accessed in Province 5, and tv viewership is lowest in province 7. </li><li>Trust of media does not depend on size of audience. </li></ul><h2>The Method</h2>		
Nepal Media Survey 2019 is the fourth in a series by the research group Sharecast Initiative Nepal. It was administered in January-February of 2019 through face-to-face interviews among 4,129 respondents in 42 randomly selected districts spread over seven provinces. This sample size produces a +/- 1.52% error margin at 95% confidence interval at the aggregate level. Data was collected using mobile devices with ONA software. Respondents were 18 years or above, residing in the same household for at least 6 months. The five-stage sampling methodology used in this survey includes a primary sampling method to randomly select districts, rural/urban municipalities and wards. The random-walk method was used to identify households and the random-lottery method to identify individual respondents. All data is weighed back to the Nepal Census 2011 to provide a representative picture of Nepali media consumers. Data quality control measures were employed.

Nepalis are drifting to digital media

<figure><img width="1400" height="1042" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108111152/636a358d9c7e80680e0482b7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Nepal Media Survey 2019</figcaption></figure>When enumerators from Sharecast Initiative Nepal fanned out across the country in January, they asked more than 4,100 respondents if they had mobiles on them — 91% produced phones. Of these, half were smartphones. Eighty-eight percent of them said they used Facebook, and 45% were on Facebook Messenger, and 35% on IMO which uses less bandwidth, many to communicate with relatives and friends working in the Gulf.Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=24696&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook nation</a><a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=24646&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepalis are drifting to digital media</a>, Madhu Acharya and Bhumiraj ChapagainInformation technology is changing Nepali society faster than many of us realise. It is rapidly transforming the ease and speed of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/landline-to-online/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">communication</a>, and where we get our news and information. The changed <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/social-media-and-democracy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">media</a> consumption pattern has created a crisis for Nepal’s mainstream media, which has found that the revenue model has collapsed. The subscription and paywall methods do not work, online advertising is limited and has low yield, and the Nepali Net has a long tail of new portals vying for the same ads. Four years ago, there were less than 4 million Nepalis with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/face-to-face-with-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook</a> accounts, today it has more than doubled. In last year’s Sharecast survey, 81% of respondents who used the Internet said they used Facebook, that number has risen to 88%. Even usage of the Nepali app HamoPatro has increased from 1.3% last year to 4% in this year’s survey. Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=24724&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal is becoming a nation of net addicts</a>, Sabina Devkota Facebook is not only used to exchange holiday pictures among friends and relatives, it is also increasingly the main source of news and information about local, national and international happenings. As the results of the Sharecast survey in this edition show, it is a one-way street. Most Nepalis do not seem to post much local news on their walls. Also, while they use Facebook a lot, they do not seem to trust the content on the platform very much. The other surprising finding is that the most trusted source of news and information for most Nepalis is not the media at all, but their neighbours, friends and family. More than 64% of respondents said they relied on that network for local news, and one-third depended on acquaintances for even national and international news. Interestingly, Province 2 ranks highest for its dependence on family and friends as a source of news, with half the respondents saying they depend on them for news and information. YouTube use has soared dramatically from almost nothing last year to 34% in this year’s survey. The Facebook-owned platform Instagram is used by a much lower proportion (4.2%), although that increases among urban educated youth. Twitter usage is almost negligible (1.2%) even though the media fraternity and some politicians seems to think it is hugely important. In response to a multiple choice question, 99% of respondents said they do most of their Interneting on mobile phones. Only 6% of Nepalis use laptops or tablets to browse the Net, and less than 1% use PCs. As smartphones and mobile data packages get cheaper, Internet use is going to grow.  Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" 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 Today, about 60% of those who use the Internet on their phones have mobile data, 34% use wifi. Despite this, there is still a yawning digital divide: asked how often in the past six months they had used the Internet, 67% of 4,125 respondents said they had never logged on. Interesting also is the number of people who said they had not read a hard copy newspaper in the past six months – over 73%. And even more revealingly, when asked why they do not read physical newspapers, an overwhelming 57% said it was because the papers never got to their area, or delivery was unreliable. Only 3% said it was because they rely on some other medium for news and information. Mainstream media owners and editors blame the Internet for the loss in readership, but maybe they should be blaming their distribution departments. Of those who said they still follow the mainstream press, 94% were still reading the paper newspaper, 14% read it on apps, and 6.4% went to their home pages online. Nearly all survey respondents found newspapers and magazines trustworthy.  The take-home message from the survey for the Nepali media and public is that the mainstream press still has a check-and-balance role in our democracy. Internet usage is growing rapidly, but that is not the reason people are not reading newspapers less.  Facebook may be omnipresent, but most users are sceptical about its content. As in most countries, <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-new-reality-of-nepals-virtual-celebrities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">social media</a> platforms will be dissemination tools, Internet sites will be more and more entertainment-driven, and it will be the portals with the higher credibility and exclusive multimedia content that will be rewarded with clicks. 10 years ago this week The page 1 item of the #446 edition of Nepali Times of 10-16 April 2009 delved into Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s thin skin for criticism: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal appears to be increasingly frustrated with the delays and has been trying to use his deft negotiating skills to try to convince the leaders of the UML and NC to smooth things along.   The prime minister has been barely able to hide his frustration. A day after returning from a week-long visit to Norway and Finland, during which he assured leaders there that he was serious about protecting democracy and the free press, he lashed out publicly using abusive language at his colleagues in the NC and UML. The next day, he turned his aim at the media, accusing publishers of being “smugglers” and under the control of “feudalists, capitalists and reactionary forces”.

New news

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

Pokhara’s tourism woes

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

Languages are both software and hardware

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

Turkish amenity kit

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

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