<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720ec19c7e80680e0b7938jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1001"/><figcaption>All photos: JUN CHIYABARI</figcaption></figure>The all-purpose Nepali greeting “चिया खानु भो?” literally means “have you had your tea?” But it can mean anything from ‘Good Morning’, ‘How are you?’, or any other greeting.Now, mundane tea-drinking is being replaced by a new breed of beverage aficionados who savour and grade sophisticated teas as if it were champagne.For the untrained palate used to morning tea with milk and sugar, the subtle aroma and flavour of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/chiampagne/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">High Mountain Tea</a> brings out the wholesomeness and simplicity of the leaves. Once hooked, many in Nepal and around the world do not want to slurp anything else.And slurp it you must, as a recent elaborate tea-tasting ritual showed. Speciality teas of the High Mountain have been quietly gaining a loyal international following, proving to be a premium export from Nepal.“There is no one way of drinking tea but we have completely rebranded Nepali tea, not just in taste but in our mindset and marketing,” says Lochan Gyawali of Jun Chiyabari, a family-run tea garden 2,000m high up in the mountains of Dhankuta.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17890" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepali tea</a> is often mistaken for the more popular Darjeeling variety because of similar taste and production methods. Historically, whole-leaf tea grown in Nepal used to be sold in India to be exported and blended into Darjeeling while the rest was processed into cheaper broken-leaf CTC black tea for domestic consumption.But Nepali growers are now consciously moving away from British and Indian influences, carving a unique Asian identity for tea from Nepal with refined taste.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720ec49c7e80680e0b7939jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="790" height="503">Speciality tea or ‘orthodox tea’ as it is commonly called, uses the wholeness of the leaf to create a diverse range of flavours. The leaves are not torn or crushed as they are in Darjeeling teas, but carefully rolled to create the desired taste and tang.Starting this month until December, tea pickers in <a href="https://junchiyabari.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jun Chiyabari</a>'s 90-hectare plantation on the slopes near Hile in eastern Nepal will be busy, carefully plucking young leaves before they go into processing.“From the beginning we brought experts from Japan, China and Taiwan to train our staff to unlearn what Darjeeling has been doing,” says Gyawali, who himself grew up among tea gardens next to his school in the hill station.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720ec69c7e80680e0b793ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1503" height="1000">Unlike the usual tea production, High Mountain goes through withering, rolling and drying with specialised equipment designed to retain the organic compounds that give tea its essence.“You change the machine, you change the taste. Our teas have become different because of the way we pick them, process them, and the equipment,” explains Gyawali who started Jun Chiyabari with brother Bachan Gyawali after dabbling in the tourism and electronic export sectors.Jun Chiyabari today produces up to 20 different types of tea, each with its own distinctive flavour. It is exported to the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe where connoisseurs compare the teas to the sophistication of fine wines. The popularity of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=14781#.Yj50Ky2B2b8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">High Mountains </a> s also growing amongst Nepal’s urbanites, where it is often called ‘chiampagne’.“If you want to sustain a market like Japan, mediocrity will not sell, you need perfection. Japanese buyers tell us our tea is unlike anything they have tasted from South Asia,” says Gyawali proudly.Indeed, High Mountain is described in Japanese as having the ‘flavour of the mist of the mountains’ — an accolade of the highest order.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=767#.Yj50MC2B2b8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Speciality tea</a> production is not without challenges. Nepal has not even scratched the surface of the potential in the domestic and world market. There are no studies into cultivars suitable for Nepal’s topography. Growers have to rely on trial and error methods.This means raw material is limited. With additional challenges posed by climate breakdown, growers are having to cope with increased demand and maintaining a delicate balance between quality and quantity.“We already knew global heating was going to impact us, so the selection of plantation sites was important. We couldn’t do anything about rising average temperatures and precipitation patterns, but we could, and did, go higher up the mountains,” says Gyawali.The pandemic has also affected <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=12018#.Yj50Mi2B2b8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal’s tea industry</a>, but enthusiasts have discovered the health benefits of High Mountain during this time and boosted online sales. More and more growers are now interested in this niche market.Jun Chiyabari’s motto has remained the same over the years, to grow unique leaves to put Nepal on the world tea map. If the praise it has received internationally (see above) so far is anything to go by, it has already achieved this.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t8HoNNwsJE<h2>Tea Talk</h2>“Jun Chiyabari is a mark of trust and artistic creativity in Japan. All its various types of tea come in amazing quality and with an unmistakable sense of purity that captures the heart of tea connoisseurs. This is the fruit of constant effort trying to understand tea itself and the market. They are one of the very few producers who have tried and also succeeded in adapting a part of themselves towards the Japanese market.-Sayaka Nakanoji, Silver Pot Inc, TokyoOur connection to Jun Chiyabari tea garden dates back more than seven years. We purchased our first batches in 2014, which was one of the best decisions we have made. Since then our business has flourished and Nepali tea sales are increasing in our region.We consider Jun Chiabari to be the most progressive tea company in Nepal. In my opinion, they bring Nepali tea to a very high level and bring much fame to the country. Their attitude and care towards co-workers and the surrounding natural environment is a model to be followed in other parts of the world. We are proudly selling the carefully selected batches from the Jun Chiyabari tea garden to various restaurants and cafés in Budapest, Central Europe, including the finest Michelin star restaurants. -Gábor Tálos, Zhao Zhou Tea, Budapest<h2>History of Tea</h2>Tea dates back to ancient China 5,000 years ago. Legend has it that Chinese emperor Shen Nung in 2737 BC was sitting beneath a tree with his servant boiling drinking water when some leaves from a tree were blown into it. A renowned herbalist, Shen Nung, decided to taste the infusion. The tree was Camellia sinensis, which came to be known as 'tea tree'.Over time, tea established its medicinal properties helping reduce stress and fatigue. Before long, tea travelled across Asia via Buddhist monks to Japan, Korea and beyond.It was only in the 17th century that tea became popular among the British who then introduced tea plantations in India, specifically Darjeeling, to end the Chinese monopoly.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720eca9c7e80680e0b793bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="915">It is only natural that neighbouring Nepal would be the next place to be ‘tea-fied’. The beverage soon took off, influenced by British and Indian preferences for mixing in milk and sugar, and lately, other spices.But the history of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15185#.Yj54Di2B2b8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tea in Nepal</a> is not linear. In 1863 the Daoguang Emperor of China gifted tea plants to Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana. Tea plantations in Ilam district began shortly after the British set up theirs across the border ridge in Darjeeling.But tea was consumed in Kathmandu long before that. Newa traders in Tibet had already brought tea drinking to Kathmandu – not with milk, but black tea with salt and butter.<h2>High Himalayan</h2>Harvesting: Young leaves are plucked by tea-pickers between late March and December. Tea makers can decide which type of tea to make depending on their look, the area where they are from and the time when they were plucked.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720ecd9c7e80680e0b793cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1001">Withering: Leaves are spread on vast trays to wither, are gently fluffed, rotated and monitored to ensure even exposure to the air. Before withering, some teas go through the sun, wilting out in the open.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101148/63720ed09c7e80680e0b793djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1001">Rolling: The leaves after they become limp are rolled either by hand or a machine. This is to break cells and mix together a variety of organic compounds found naturally within the leaves to bring out its flavour.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101148/63720ed49c7e80680e0b793ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="534">Oxidisation: The clumped leaves are broken up and set to oxidise, laid out to rest for several hours depending on the style of tea being produced. Oxidisation greatly influences flavours.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101148/63720ed79c7e80680e0b793fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="534">Firing/drying: Finally, the leaves are heated or fired quickly to dry them to below 3% moisture content and stop the oxidation process. The leaves can then be stored safely.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101148/63720eda9c7e80680e0b7940jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1203" height="803"><h2>Tea Types</h2>Broadly speaking, there are five main varieties of tea in the market:Black: The most common type of tea, this is fully oxidised, is darker in appearance and has higher caffeine content. It is characterised by a strong flavour and is typically consumed with milk and sugar. Think Darjeeling and English Breakfast.White: Simply withered and dried, this is the least processed of all teas. Has a high level of antioxidants but the lowest caffeine content. Best consumed without any additives. The infusion is very light-coloured and has a mild flavour. Originally from China.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101148/63720ede9c7e80680e0b7941jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1026">Green: The unoxidised tea that has retained its natural green colour with a high level of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. It produces a pale greenish-yellow infusion with a light and grassy taste. Popularised as a healthy tea, it can be taken with lemon, but not milk.Oolong: Semi-oxidised tea mainly produced in China and Taiwan with flavour resembling neither black nor green. The aroma depends on how long the leaves are allowed to sit before halting oxidisation. Produces golden or light brown infusion.Pu-erh: Exclusively from Yunnan province of China known for its distinctively earthy flavour. Made from wild tea leaves rather than cultivated ones, it is fermented by pressing raw leaves together, often stored underground for several years for maturity. Can be either black or green depending on the level of oxidation allowed.

Sonia Awale

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Getting high on High Mountain Tea

Frustrated with revolving door <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-geopolitics-of-nepal-s-politics">politics</a> with the same <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/tried-tested-and-failed">tired, tested and failed </a>leaders, Nepal’s cybersphere is harking back to the good old days when we had strongmen rulers like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/jung-bahadur-s-destitute-descendants">Jang Bahadur Rana </a>or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/king-mahendra-didn-t-pay-hunting-bill-in-us">King Mahendra</a>. The<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/inside-story-of-nepal-s-rana-dynasty"> century-long Rana oligarchy</a> ended 74 years ago this week, and the Shah kings airbrushed <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-insect-that-changed-nepal-s-history">Nepal’s history</a> to downplay their achievements and glorify their own dynasty. After <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">the monarchy</a> was abolished in 2008, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-role-of-rituals-in-royalty">the Shah kings</a> were similarly vilified. But Nepali society is mature enough to realise that the truth is not all black and white. Jang Bahadur may have usurped power in a ruthless coup, but he was a geopolitical strategist way ahead of his time. Whatever you may say about King Mahendra’s efforts in quashing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/is-democracy-too-expensive-for-nepal">democracy</a> and pushing a unitary state, he defended <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/nepal-should-recognise-palestinian-sovereignty">Nepal’s sovereignty</a> and projected its international image right through the sensitive Cold War period. Jang Bahadur in England is a new Nepali language book by journalist Gajendra Budhathoki about the visit in 1850 by Nepal’s prime minister to England and France, the first by a South Asian potentate. He met Queen Victoria and by all accounts was able to establish Nepal’s presence on the world stage. Historians have long mulled why a devout Hindu like Jang Bahadur would want to break the taboo and cross the Black Waters. Budhathoki recounts the incident upon his arrival at Southampton on 2 May 1850, when British customs officials tried to check the belongings of the Nepali entourage. Furious, Jang Bahadur threatened to sail right back to France if they opened any of the bags. Jang had three main reasons for his trip. Essentially he was on a spy mission to assess <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-forgotten-gurkha-rebellion-e8z403ab">British military</a> might to decide if it was worthwhile for Nepal to try to militarily take back territory ceded to British India in the Sugauli Treaty of 1816. So, Jang asked his perplexed hosts to show him cannon factories, artillery and naval yards. He even visited Woolwich Arsenal (now the Royal Arsenal) not once, but three times.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/looking-back-at-the-1923-nepal-britain-treaty">Looking back at the 1923 Nepal-Britain Treaty</a>, Santa Gaha Magar Suitably impressed, Jang decided to be Britain’s BFF, and even rode down to Lucknow with 3,200 Nepali troops to rescue the British from the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. As a reward, the British gave back the Tarai districts of Banke, Bardia, Kailali, and Kanchanpur (Naya Muluk). This close relationship continued with Jang’s descendants right till the time the British left India in 1947. Jang Bahadur was also fed up with the Governor General Lord Dalhousie in Calcutta who tended to bully Nepal, and wanted to build direct contacts with his bosses in London. The British told him Dalhousie was their man in India, and Jang should deal with him. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-way-we-were">Jang’s visit to France</a> does not get as much attention in the book, but he was also trying to gauge France’s strength and to see if its military was more powerful than Britain’s. At that time, France was Britain’s main rival and was trying to make inroads in India. At the Louvre, Jang Bahadur was drawn to exhibits reflecting French military prowess. Later, when he met Louis Napoleon III, he asked if he could see a parade of 900,000 troops to assess France’s military might.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/nepal-france-ties-in-photos">Nepal-France ties in photos</a>, Reeti KC Freshly returned from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-long-way-to-europe">Europe</a>, an emboldened Jang Bahadur Rana led Nepal in a war against Tibet in 1855 which ended with the Treaty of Thapathali a year later. This was the third time Nepal and Tibet had fought, the first time being soon after <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/guest-editorial/Prithvi-Narayan-Shah-a-visionary-leader,1102">Prithvi Narayan Shah</a> in 1788.&nbsp; The Qing Dynasty came to the rescue of Tibet, and while both sides claimed victory, the Sino-Nepalese War ended essentially as a stalemate with the Treaty of Betrawati.&nbsp; All of this is detailed in Axel Michaels’ book, Nepal: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present which is a recent English translation of his German Kultur und Geschichte Nepals published in 2018.&nbsp; Michaels is a Professor of Classical Indology and Religious Studies at Heidelberg University, and writes that Nepal mattered little to China. Proof of this is that while both Nepal and Tibet agreed to accept the suzerainty of the Qing emperor following the war, Nepal managed to retain its autonomy but Beijing asserted its control over <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/himalaya-to-lhasa">Lhasa</a>. And despite a clause in the treaty which stated, ‘if a foreign power attacks Nepal, China shall support Nepal’, China never did so during the1814–16 war with the East India Company.&nbsp; This practice has continued to this day. Aside from token petroleum shipments, Beijing did not help out Nepal during the Indian Blockade of 2015. Even though Nepali leaders have tried to play India off against China, the two do not find Nepal important enough to fight over and prefer to leave it as a buffer state between them.&nbsp; In that sense, Britain also did not press home its victory after 1816 and left Nepal alone. The malarial jungles to the south, rugged Himalayan terrain and the lack of marketable products (except soldiers) may have persuaded the traders at the East Indian Company that it was not worth the effort. There is a lesson from history here for Nepal: the country must look out for itself, and this requires deft diplomacy to understand what our giant neighbours really want and leverage it for our gain. This may require strategies like the ones made by Jang Bahadur and King Mahendra after all. Michaels is not a fan of either the Rana or the Shah dynasties. He says that although the Rana era is characterised as ‘a century of tyranny’, the description holds true for the Shah period as well.&nbsp; Michaels does not mince his words about Gurkha recruitment into the British and Indian Armies (another legacy of the Sugauli Treaty). He calls the mercenaries ‘cheap labour’ and Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘represents a continuation of the King-Brahmin alliance’. In fact, he goes at length to discuss how the Khas-Arya used ‘Hindu state’ to homogenise a country that couldn’t have been more diverse. But democracy has not served Nepal well either. Corruption, impunity and lack of transparency are rife. And so, Michaels asks if Nepal is a failed state. No it is not, but it is a fragile state. He leaves us with these parting words: ‘If Nepal succeeds in continuing down this road, preserving its ethnic and cultural diversity, leaving the ethnic populations with a certain degree of autonomy, while at the same time integrating them into political decision-making processes, and if it manages the reforms needed for land-ownership, labour, education, infrastructure, then the country can become a model for unity in diversity, even in the age of leveling globalisation.’&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222070248_a32db0a1e39c4a3a5158af81bbcf927aeb96524bcbc6b41086a223685642b367.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20250222070248_a32db0a1e39c4a3a5158af81bbcf927aeb96524bcbc6b41086a223685642b367" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Jang Bahadur in England "> </figure>  &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222070252_e2fa5309f10d36f963243c24ea06d7d354d3dfaf24c7ef283d70369fbeabd02e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="20250222070252_e2fa5309f10d36f963243c24ea06d7d354d3dfaf24c7ef283d70369fbeabd02e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal Book"> </figure>  &nbsp;

Nepal is not a failed state, but it is a fragile one

Throughout human history, civilisations have been named after the rivers along which they flourished: Indus Valley, Nile, Tigris-Euphrates. Many of these cultures later collapsed, partly because they could not manage their water needs properly. Three recent books about Himalayan rivers look at their history and geography, and how they nourished civilisations downstream. The rivers gave birth to the world’s major religions, their waters and the mountains from which they sprang were revered. Mythology and geology converge in High Asia. Mt Kailash is holy to the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Bon faiths as the centre of the world and the abode of the gods. Indeed, from its vicinity emerge Asia’s great rivers: the Indus and Sutlej, Ganga and the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) and Karnali (Mapcha Tsangpo).&nbsp; Legend has it that Kathmandu Valley was once a primordial lake drained by Manjushree who cut a mountain with his flaming sword. There is scientific evidence that the paleo lake was indeed emptied in stages starting 40,000 years ago after a tsunami unleashed by a major earthquake epicentred in Langtang. The Bon faith describes the Tibetan Plateau being pushed up from a roiling primeval sea, confirming current evidence about the orogenesis of the Himalaya. In local lore, supernatural lha (animal deities) and lu (serpents, naga) moved from sea to land, just as the theory of evolution explains the emergence of early amphibians and land creatures. In <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Rivers-of-the-Asian-Highlands-From-Deep-Time-to-the-Climate-Crisis/Gamble-Tan-Xu-Beavis-Maurer-Pittock-Powers-Wasson/p/book/9781032490595?srsltid=AfmBOopjkpgcN1_7t1jTI_Z1_27yRthBTbdHA15OWcE9Ge3S409jhUX3">Rivers of the Asian Highlands: From Deep Time to the Climate Crisis</a>, Himalayan historian <a href="https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/rgamble">Ruth Gamble</a> and co-authors begin by tracing the genesis of the Himalaya, citing evidence that the Tibetan Plateau pre-dated the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates 50 million years ago. Asia’s main rivers co-emerged with the mountains, their waters cutting canyons through rocks as they were uplifted. The gigantic pileup acted as a moisture trap for the proto-monsoon, the rain and ice sculpting peaks as they rose. But so strong were tectonic forces that the uplift outpaced erosion on the Tibetan Plateau. These dynamic processes are still at work, but in many places across High Asia there is a new factor at play: modern infrastructure (like haphazard road-building in Nepal) is increasing erosion faster than the uplift rate.&nbsp; ‘This is an example of human action overcoming tectonics,’ write the authors in Rivers of the Asian Highlands, in which the chapters look at Himalayan rivers from a planetary scale, their socio-cultural histories, to present-day engineering to regulate them. An ongoing dam-building spree and anthropogenic climate breakdown combine to bring about the most rapid change the Himalaya and their rivers have seen for millions of years. One example is the Medog Hydropower Station being built on the Yarlung Tsangpo at a bend on the Brahmaputra before it enters India. The river drops 2,000m within a 50km stretch, the gradient allowing it to generate 60,000MW — the biggest single hydroelectric plant in the world. Gamble and the authors of Rivers of the Asian Highlands highlight the Gravitational Potential Energy (GPE) of the Himalaya that allows falling water to be converted into electricity. But GPE also unleashes landslides, rockfalls, avalanches, Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) and Landslide Lake Outburst Floods (LLOFs), the risks posed by them magnified by climate change and seismicity. <blockquote>The Asian Highlands’ abundance of Gravitational Potential Energy (GPE) can support the region’s energy transition, but it needs to be produced in much less hazardous and less environmentally and socially impactful ways. The best means of doing this is through off-river, pumped-storage hydropower stations that back up solar and wind energy generators. Smaller projects such as this would also involve less risky tunneling and displacement.</blockquote> Rivers of the Asian Highlands: From Deep Time to the Climate Crisis by Ruth Gamble, et al. There is geological evidence that megafloods on Himalayan rivers are more responsible than mass wasting in weathering down the mountains. One big LLOF, for example, could ‘move 1,000 times more sediment than would otherwise be transported over millions of years’. Permafrost melting in the Tibetan Plateau and inside moraines caused recent back-to-back GLOFs in Chamoli in the Indian Himalaya, Melamchi in Nepal, and the South Lhonak in Sikkim — all deadly disasters that together destroyed billions of dollars worth of infrastructure downstream. Rivers of the Asian Highlands travels from deep time to the present climate crisis, taking readers through neatly divided chapters titled Mountain Rivers, Climatic Rivers, Frozen Rivers, Living Rivers, Human Rivers, Territorializing Rivers, Agricultural and Pastoral Rivers, even NGOs and Rivers.&nbsp; Although the book’s title is about the ‘Asian highlands’, it <a href="https://www.himalmag.com/comment/eastern-himalaya-cradle-ethnogenesis">focuses mainly on the Dri Chu (Yangtse)</a> and Yarlung Tso (Brahmaputra). Readers looking for references to Nepal’s rivers will be disappointed, although there is quite a bit about Bhutan. This is surprising because 70% of the annual flow in the Ganga is from tributaries in Nepal, some of them rivers like Karnali, Arun or Bhote Kosi that traverse the Tibetan rimlands. As demand for water and energy grows in the large and increasingly affluent population of north India, and climate breakdown melts Himalayan glaciers, storing monsoon runoff on reservoirs in Nepal is going to be the geopolitical issue of the next decades.&nbsp; The chapter on NGOs and Rivers also fails to cite the work of Nepal’s civil society groups like the Alliance for Energy that built international solidarity in 1995 against the Arun III project on a river that starts in Tibet and flows into Nepal. Ultimately, the World Bank pulled out of the project and the Nepal government invested in smaller decentralised plants. Today, a cascade of power plants are being built by Indian companies on the Arun which do not seem to have taken into account the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads2659">2023 Sikkim GLOF</a> that swept away the $1 billion dollar Teesta III and destroyed other infrastructure. The World Bank itself is back with the Upper Arun project located directly below expanding glacial lakes in Tibet.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222020256_f2b33e60e6b386308bdf59b58b59e116e90e2e4466a06200faf76fd851f53505.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250222020256_f2b33e60e6b386308bdf59b58b59e116e90e2e4466a06200faf76fd851f53505" data-rendition-name="original" width="5712" height="3213" loading="lazy" alt="Teesta"> <figcaption>The Super Trisuli project in Nepal has ruined the most scenic and ecologically sensitive part of the river to generate just 100MW of power. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  Despite geographical gaps, Rivers of the Asian Highlands reads like an encyclopedia of Himalayan rivers. The authors look at them not in isolation but as interconnected systems which need a multidisciplinary approach to study the geological, religio-cultural, infrastructure, climate and ecosystem services aspects of catchments.&nbsp; Mt Kailash (Kang Rinpoche) is a case in point. It is fascinating to think that it was part of a mountain range even before the collision of the continents that formed the Himalaya, and was probably buried in ice 3km thick till 15,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203020_23c02ec4671f5c3c561fa6b450c1f209720a25794e067b9bb5db0f4649b1b6dc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025022203020_23c02ec4671f5c3c561fa6b450c1f209720a25794e067b9bb5db0f4649b1b6dc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Mt Kailash"> <figcaption>Mt Kailash. Photo: NABIN BARAL</figcaption> </figure>  Lake Mansarovar and Mt Kailash are also the subject of the new Nepali language book छालबाटो (Road by the Waves) by environmental journalist <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-and-china-to-study-trans-himalayan-railway">Ramesh Bhushal</a> in which he walked, rafted and drove from the source of the Karnali in Tibet, right through 500km of western Nepal, and on to India <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dancing-with-the-river">where the river meets the Ganga</a>. In his entourage is activist, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/rivers-fighting-back,993">Megh Ale</a>, who is on a campaign to stop dams and infrastructure on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dams-and-dreams-a-journey-down-the-karnali">Nepal’s longest and only free-flowing river</a>. The book profiles his lonely upstream struggle to conserve the country’s rivers. “We worship rivers, but we don’t love them,” laments Ale. Bhushal’s book is as much about the landscape of this transboundary river as it is about the people he meets along the way, and their relationship with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-denial-in-the-himalaya">a river that most regard as a curse </a>keeping them poor because they believe it flows out of Rakshas Tal (Lagngar Tso) in Tibet, regarded as a lake of demons, unlike the sacred Mansarovar nearby. The expedition is out to prove that the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/a-karnali-portrait">Karnali River</a> actually starts in the mountains 50km southwest of the Mansarovar (Mapamyu Tso) at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ9Za5QDkvY">Peacock Falls (Mapchu Khambap)</a>. The Indus is called Sengge (Lion), Sutlej is Langchen (elephant) and the Brahmaputra is Tamchok (horse), all starting within 60km of Mansarovar but flowing out in different directions. <blockquote>“I have visited hundreds of rivers around the world, but for some reason I have never seen a river as beautiful as the Karnali. One day I would like to visit its source.”</blockquote> River conservation activist Megh Ale quoted in छालबाटो by Ramesh Bhusal. But all this reverence for the mountains and rivers may not be enough to save the region from the impact of climate breakdown. Heat stress in the Subcontinent will coincide with a shortage of water in the coming decades.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/himalayas-mountains-dams.html">Sunil Amrith</a> in his 2019 book, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-monsoon-and-nature-s-arithmetic">Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia’s History</a> takes a broader look at how geotectonics, geopolitics, colonialism and nationalism have determined the relations between human beings and rivers. The Himalayan water cycle starts from monsoon moisture that precipitates with orographic uplift along the mountains, atmospheric rivers unleash cloudbursts, ground water emerges from springs that join up to flow down to rivers and the ocean. The Third Pole is the biggest repository of fresh water stored as ice after the polar regions. But it is a hotspot both because of the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions, which impacts on river basin cooperation, early warning data sharing, and ultimately in mitigation of greenhouse gas emission and planning for new risks faced by infrastructure. After independence, India adopted the colonial extraction model for rivers. Inaugurating the Bhakra-Nangal Dam in 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru called it “a temple of &nbsp;modern India … worthy of worship’. Gamble also alludes to this in her book about the European attitude about rivers as a resource to be ‘enclosed, extracted, scrutinised, commodified’. <a href="https://dialogue.earth/en/water/review-unrully-waters/" target="_blank">Amrith</a> profiles the work of Sir Arthur Cotton who was building canals linking rivers in British India at about the same time his contemporaries like botanist <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/republic-of-nepal-s-animal-kingdom" target="_blank">Joseph Dalton-Hooker </a>were exploring the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-kangchenjunga" target="_blank">Teesta and other rivers</a> in the Himalaya to catalogue new plant species. India's current National River Linking Project that would join 37 rivers with 9,000km of canals builds on Cotton’s early work. <blockquote>If there is one consistent lesson in Unruly Waters, it is that water management never has been, and can never be, a purely technical or a scientific question; neither can it be addressed on a purely national scale … the battle continues to understand the monsoons and mountain rivers that shape Asia.</blockquote> Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia’s History by Sunil Amrith And in Nepal, hydropower has become the holy grail as the government unveiled an Energy Development Roadmap to generate 28,500MW by 2035 at a cumulative cost of nearly $50billion. This means no river in Nepal will be left free-flowing. The Trisuli along the Prithvi Highway is being dammed for only 100MW of power, destroying the most scenic part of a river that has rapids famous internationally for white water rafters. Even before it was completed, the dam site suffered Rs200 million in damage in last September’s flood.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203020_d9610a11bccb593d32bf4d214479caa17dfbdd6cdfe5e8c38fdcb8eb752fc0ec.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="2025022203020_d9610a11bccb593d32bf4d214479caa17dfbdd6cdfe5e8c38fdcb8eb752fc0ec" data-rendition-name="original" width="4032" height="2268" loading="lazy" alt="Trisuli"> <figcaption>Boulders and sediment 80m deep were brought down by the Teesta after a GLOF destroyed the $1 billion Teesta III plant in Sikkim in 2023. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  In Sikkim, there is strong <a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2025/02/political-stir-follows-expert-panels-approval-to-rebuild-teesta-dam-in-sikkim/">local opposition to rebuild Teesta III</a> but investors are looking at the huge economic windfall from the river as it drops from 5,000m below Kangchenjunga to 300m within 80km — one of the highest Gravitational Potential Energy of any river in the world. Besides Nepal and Bhutan, the ‘watersheds’ of the Himalaya are turning into ‘powersheds’ as India and China compete for hydro-hegemony. India is said to be planning to dam the Brahmaputra to offset the disruption caused by China’s Medog Dam upstream (see map, below).&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203024_37c60bd2a45a32cd23928c900615b6c7045b2e0265050c4761c3749361181999.png" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025022203024_37c60bd2a45a32cd23928c900615b6c7045b2e0265050c4761c3749361181999" data-rendition-name="original" width="1918" height="668" loading="lazy" alt="Himalayan rivers map"> </figure>  The thread running through all three books is the need to recognise the ecosystem services that the inhabitants of High Asia provide by protecting our rivers. Not all rivers need to be monetised, conserving rivers and the cultures they retain protects a nation’s natural wealth into the future as the humans of High Asia try to survive climate breakdown. The highlands will be under even more pressure in the coming decades as people in the plains migrate en masse to higher latitudes or higher altitudes to escape deadly heat and ocean expansion.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203028_524a74bf65111db3826bfd246576329c45cd4bd0a48b15024b6a520582bbf05a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025022203028_524a74bf65111db3826bfd246576329c45cd4bd0a48b15024b6a520582bbf05a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="River of Asian Highlands cover"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203028_20c17a9b92b11c8bb33df5f2fc2781498464288533c310ccd61e1245e709d99c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_22" data-image-id="2025022203028_20c17a9b92b11c8bb33df5f2fc2781498464288533c310ccd61e1245e709d99c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Unruly waters cover"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222030212_649cc2ba02e806da2b128fccaf5de2e5c830e10646ba0b43d56da39f65a70f9f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250222030212_649cc2ba02e806da2b128fccaf5de2e5c830e10646ba0b43d56da39f65a70f9f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Chaalbato cover"> </figure>

Saving what is left of Himalayan rivers

The grant paralysed Nepali politics, and nearly brought down a government. After acrimonious wrangling, Parliament three years ago this week ratified the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/putting-the-mcc-in-context">$500 million US project</a> for roads and transmission lines.
Just as the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/mcc-ball-in-nepal-s-court">Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)</a> started awarding contracts this week for sections of transmission lines, substations, and highways, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/trump-s-second-coming">Donald Trump </a>suddenly pulled the plug.
The Finance Ministry said it had received an email last week from Washington that payments for contracts were ‘suspended’ by Trump’s executive order. It is not clear if the stay is only for 90 days, and the MCC has asked for a waiver for Nepal and other countries.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/trump-shock-wave-hits-nepal">Trump shock wave hits Nepal</a>, Sudiksha Tuladhar&nbsp;
“This is a temporary suspension, we believe it will eventually work out as it is supposed to,” says former National Planning Commission Chair Biswo Nath Poudel. “If not, the Americans will lose credibility around the world.”
In January, the MCC approved an additional $50 million to cover increased costs, and Nepal is chipping in its own $197 million.
“We will take loans to complete the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/a-millennium-challenge">transmission lines</a> if we have to, and Nepal is now capable of operationalising projects of that value,” Poudel told us.&nbsp;
The MCC was caught up in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sino-american-rift-impacts-climate-action">Sino-US competition</a> for dominance in the region. It was Washington’s response to Beijing’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/bri-enters-the-tenth-year">Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)</a>. Abandoning MCC will leave Nepal open for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/china-lobbying-against-mcc">China to step in</a> with its own infrastructure.&nbsp;
“I don't see the Chinese replacing the US in terms of dollar-to-dollar aid in Nepal, including on the MCC, which is also an export-to-India-oriented project,” says Amish Mulmi, author of All Roads Lead North. “But, yes, China can use the aid and investment vacuum left by the US to assist Nepal.”
The debate about whether Nepal should accept <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/power-politics-delays-mcc-in-nepal">the MCC polarised politics</a>, even splitting leaders within parties. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/inoculation-against-misinformation">Conspiracy theories and disinformation</a> spread like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/wildfire-season-starts-early-in-nepal">wildfire in Nepal</a>’s cybersphere, alleging that the MCC was a ploy to base US missiles in Nepal aimed at China. The Chinese added fuel to the fire, trying to stop ratification.&nbsp;
Not surprisingly, the suspension of MCC contracts this week was greeted with the same trolling that filled <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/no-comment">social media </a>during the MCC debate and after ratification in 2022. This time, the posts have an additional ‘we told you America was not a reliable partner’ refrain.
One self-described influencer posted on X: ‘The MCC has only been suspended, it should be entirely cancelled…(it) is an absolute military trap.’
Finance Ministry officials last week assured that the MCC would not be affected by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/how-usaid-cut-affects-nepal">the freeze on USAID supported programs </a>worldwide, including Nepal.&nbsp;
On Wednesday at Mar-a-Lago, Trump singled out Nepal, and said USAID’s $20 million to support <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/feudal-federalism">federalism</a> and $19 million for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/conversation-with-mr-conservation">conservation</a> was a “fraud”. Other US-supported government programs worth $131 million to improve healthcare, education, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/back-to-the-land-in-the-cities">agriculture </a>and inclusion are halted.&nbsp;
In 2022, USAID and Nepal signed a five-year Development Objective Agreement worth $659 million for climate adaptation, environment protection, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nail-salon-workers-say-proper-ventilation-can-protect-their-reproductive-health">gender and reproductive rights</a>. That is also now in limbo.
Slashing all this assistance has impacted over 300 consultancies and non-profits in Nepal, and threatens to undermine past successes in maternal and child health, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-goal-is-empowerment-and-independence-of-women">women’s empowerment</a>, free press and rural development. &nbsp;
Says Mulmi: “What the US withdrawal on MCC will do is further erode US credibility inside Nepal, particularly since it was such a politically charged subject. It will also signal a change in its stance on China in South Asia, as the MCC was a direct challenge to the BRI and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-love-triangle-with-china-and-india-impacts-investment">Chinese investments</a> in infrastructure.”
If there is one lesson from all this, it is that<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/missing-links-in-nepal-s-mcc-debate"> foreign assistance is rarely a free lunch</a> and often comes with strings attached. Nepal should look out for itself and be self-reliant, after all <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/is-free-health-care-possible-in-nepal">basic health care </a>and environmental protection are responsibilities of the Nepali state, not of donors.&nbsp;
This means investing in infrastructure and development to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/staying-home-to-create-jobs">create jobs at home</a>, actually spending budget outlays for capital expenditure, and making optimum use of domestic resources such as<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/pump-water-store-energy"> hydropower</a>.
Says Bishwo Nath Poudel: “The MCC was never anti-China. In fact, India and China are our most important neighbours. What is really important for us is to leverage their growth to pull us along.” &nbsp;

The Great Game, 2nd Half

At a time when there is growing concern about the carbon footprint of global aviation, countries like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/tourism-aviation-and-carbon" target="_blank">Nepal that depend on tourism</a> have started to think about how to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/carbon-neutral-yeti" target="_blank">reduce their emissions</a>. Not much can be done about the use of aviation fuel except to make engines and aircraft more fuel-efficient, or to switch to sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). But these technologies have their limits, so airlines have started concentrating on the non-flying ground activities and switching them to renewable energy. Reducing congestion at airports like Kathmandu which require planes to hold for long periods in the air to land, or in the taxiway to take off, would reduce fuel burn. Ramp buses, towing tractors, crew transport and hangar equipment, for example can be battery operated, or switched to solar energy. With the runway and taxiway upgrades at Kathmandu airport which will be completed by 1 April is expected to reduce congestion, some domestic airlines in Nepal have started using electric buses and ground transport to reduce emissions. Since 100% of Nepal’s grid electricity is hydropower or solar energy, it also means a reduction in the country’s petroleum import bill. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), aviation accounts for up to 4% of global warming, and CO₂ emissions from civilian aircraft worldwide more than doubled between 1990 and 2020. The airline industry also emits other greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide and NOx. Military aircraft are not included in these figures and are even more polluting. Other ways to reduce aviation emissions is to shorten flight paths with new GPS-based technologies, and invest in carbon offsets outside the aviation sector. IATA and ICAO members have agreed to achieve net zero by 2050. In Nepal, where domestic aviation plays a major role in connectivity, efforts toward <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/business/yeti-airlines-reduces-carondoxide-footprint,4171" target="_blank">greener alternatives have gained momentum</a> in the past few years. <a href="https://www.buddhaair.com/" target="_blank">Buddha Air</a>, Nepal’s leading domestic airline, has taken a significant step toward sustainable aviation by introducing electric Ground Power Units (e-GPUs), reducing reliance on diesel-powered systems.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022307020_37dd1d20ffeaec3a976de96dfcb71e7db29a7bd60fdf2647781bbe4bd95d8c1d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025022307020_37dd1d20ffeaec3a976de96dfcb71e7db29a7bd60fdf2647781bbe4bd95d8c1d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1991" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Buddha Air NT"> </figure>  GPUs provide electrical power to aircraft while they are parked at the airport before the engines start, to run primary aircraft functions such as lighting, avionics, air conditioning, hydraulics, and pneumatics after engines are shut down. Traditionally, diesel-powered GPUs have been the standard in Nepal, but they come with major challenges, including air and noise pollution, high fuel costs, and logistical difficulties. “When an aircraft is on the ground, the system providing power is the Ground Power Unit,” explains Diwakar Shrestha, GSE In-Charge of Buddha Air. After landing, once both engines are shut down, the aircraft still needs power, and the GPU supplies it. “Traditionally, our GPUs were powered by diesel and at Kathmandu airport alone they consumed 18,000 litres of diesel monthly.” The transition from diesel to electric GPUs is a milestone in Nepal’s aviation sustainability efforts. Shrestha highlights the challenges faced during the shift, stating, “When we initiated discussions to eliminate diesel dependency, it was a big challenge”. The team had to undertake a complete transition from diesel to electricity. “But by gathering resources, and utilising Nepali technologies and local expertise, we successfully implemented the electric GPU system.” Kaushal Bhandari, Station Manager of Buddha Air in Biratnagar notes, “Diesel-powered GPUs used to generate excessive noise, hindering communication among staff. Now, our operations have become much more efficient, free from noise pollution and diesel smoke.” The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has played a central role in expanding this technology across the country. Subhash Jha, Airport Chief at Biratnagar states, “When Buddha Air proposed phasing out diesel GPUs, CAAN took the initiative to support this transition by providing a dedicated transformer for electric GPUs, enabling the implementation of this technology at seven domestic airports in Nepal.” Seven airports in Nepal already use electric GPUs, and there are plans for expansion to other airports, as well as converting other ground-handling equipment to battery power. Video of Buddha Air electric GPU <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_EHdeG6Cmw" target="_blank">here</a>.

speciality-tea

Getting high on High Mountain Tea

Nepal is not a failed state, but it is a fragile one

Saving what is left of Himalayan rivers

The Great Game, 2nd Half

Greener flying in Nepal