As a young girl, Jaysara Baral remembers trying to gently catch bumblebees buzzing around flowers at springtime, curious to know what they would feel like in the palm of her hand. Decades later, clad in her beekeeper overalls and hood, she looks out towards the rows upon rows of beehives stretched across her land, ready to start another day of work. &nbsp; Baral is one of several women beekeepers in Surkhet, and she is among the local entrepreneurs leading the charge in her district and the province. She has tended the land ever since she was young, and began her career in agriculture as a mushroom farmer before she discovered beekeeping seven years ago.&nbsp; Soon after, she participated in a short training at the Karnali Province Beekeepers’ Federation, and officially began her business with five hives. Seven years later, she has 100 hives, 42 of which she added in the last year. She does most of the work herself.&nbsp; “Beekeeping is a more involved profession than other jobs,” she explains. “You need to know bee behavior intimately and be trained in handling them.” When Nepali Times spoke with her last week, Baral had just returned to Surkhet after transporting all of her hives to Bardia, where her bees will graze on the nectar-rich mustard fields this time of year. &nbsp;While her bees are away, Baral is busy packing the latest round of harvested honey to send it off to waiting customers. As her beehives increased, Baral went from selling jars of honey to her neighbours to supplying hundreds of kg at a time to customers in Pokhara, Kathmandu, and as far as Jhapa. She earns a profit of up to Rs600,000 every year despite challenges like market access.&nbsp; “The personal and professional struggles of women are universal. We are just as capable as anyone to build and sustain businesses, or achieve whatever they aspire to,” she says.&nbsp; Last year, her bees produced 2,500kg of honey. This year, with more hives, she expects that she will have a supply of up to 3,000kg. “I have all this supply, but not enough market,” she says. “Our greatest need as entrepreneurs is to be connected to the markets so that local products have nation-wide reach. Bees produce honey for up to six months a year, feeding on flowers and ripening crops, pollinating them along the way.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025112011114_2444040321d3c4ce6365e812cd89c4ceda9d7485765ab3bac8194161f47674d0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025112011114_2444040321d3c4ce6365e812cd89c4ceda9d7485765ab3bac8194161f47674d0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1512" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Jaysara Baral"> </figure>  POLLINATION Baral has been keeping Apis mellifera European bees so far, and just this year has started with a single hive of Apis cerana Asiatic bees. &nbsp; The bees pollinate more than ten types of trees and crops, and contribute to healthier harvests, stronger community forests, biodiversity expansion and more resilient local food systems. But bee populations are at risk due to urbanisation-induced habitat loss, climate change, and the use of pesticides. “If there are no bees to pollinate, there are no flowers, no forest, no people, no planet,” she says.&nbsp; In October, on the International Day of Rural Women, Baral received the Women’s Creativity in Rural Life Award from the Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) in Switzerland. But the biggest reward is that her hardworking bees have given the single mother the income to educate her daughter who has graduated college and is preparing for a job in the banking sector. With her business having gained solid footing, Baral has also shifted focus to sharing her beekeeping knowhow to the younger generation. Through her partnership with Kopila Valley Sewa Samaj, Baral at present teaches students at Kopila Valley School about bees and their role as pollinators for the environment and agriculture. She is also actively mentors women farmers in her community and promotes sustainable agricultural practices. “Jaysara’s hard work and creativity are an inspiration to all of us,” said SP Kalaunee of the BlinkNow Foundation, which funds Koplia Valley programs in Surkhet and supports Baral’s local entrepreneurship. “Her leadership shows the power of women to build sustainable and thriving communities.” &nbsp;

Shristi Karki

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The beekeeper of Surkhet

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110815110/636a61059c7e80680e056eadjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1012"/><figcaption>Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>The first thing one notices these days while travelling by road in the Tarai are hundreds of cattle blocking the East-West Highway, mainly at intersections like Atariya or Kohalpur.The ‘cow emergency’ hit the headlines in September, when 24 cows were found dead below the highway in Surkhet and hundreds of others were wandering in the jungles. Police investigation revealed that the cattle were being transported from Nepalganj to Dailekh as part of an effort by the municipality to reduce the population of street livestock.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35036&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Creatures of culture</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35062&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In an animal farm,</a> EditorialWhat few people know is that dozens of cattle had died earlier this year when Sukla Phanta Municipality near Dhangadi spent Rs5.5 million to round up cattle and put them in shelters, where most of them died of starvation and lack of care.There is no estimate of the number of cattle on the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/east-west-city/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">highways near border towns of the western Tarai</a>, but on a recent trip reporters counted hundreds just on the stretch between Dhangadi and Atariya. Locals said there were a lot more street cattle previously, and the numbers had actually gone down.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF0y09GnNVwLocal officials said the main reason for the cattle crisis was the ban on beef in north Indian states, especially after the election of high priest and Hindu nationalist politician <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/saffron-surge-politics,3619" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yogi Adityanath</a> as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Media reports of lynchings by religious extremists of Muslim traders suspected to be transporting cows put a stop to the unofficial ‘export’ of cattle from Nepal to India.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35133&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saving Nepal's last wild dogs,</a> Yadav Ghimirey<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=35155&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A dog with altitude,</a> Sonam Choeyki LamaThere used to be a thriving crossborder trade in aged oxen and cows that had stopped giving milk. But sensitivity about cow slaughter in India after the rise of the BJP, as well as the new border fence on the India-Bangladesh border, has meant that the cattle are abandoned on the streets.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/rana-regime-restored-in-nepalganj/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepalganj Mayor Dhawal Rana</a> thought he had solved the problem by finding communities in the mountains willing to take the cows, however the transporter contracted to take the cattle to Dailekh let the cattle loose in the jungle near Surkhet in September.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45vQlWqfPW8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD4iyOyafOcThere are other factors at play: increased <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/productivity-empowerment-and%20job-with-mechanization-and-cooperative-in-agriculture,2378" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mechanisation of agriculture</a> and the use of threshing machines, disc ploughs and the replacement of ox carts with tractors means that bulls are no longer in high demand in the Tarai.“Ten years ago I sold my bulls for Rs50,000 — now there are no buyers. I can’t even pay someone to take the bulls away,” says Biru Ram Chaudhari of Lalitpur village of Kailali.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/guy-jatra/">Guy Jatra</a>, The Ass<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/kathmandu-traffic-faqs/">Kathmandu traffic FAQs</a>, The AssThe <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-and-malaysia-rewrite-rules-for-migrant-labour/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">outmigration of Nepali youth</a> to India, the Gulf and Malaysia has meant that <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/back-to-the-land" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agriculture</a> in general has seen a downturn, and there are fewer households keeping water buffalos and cattle at home. The urban expansion of Dhangadi and Nepalganj municipalities has also forced households to abandon home dairies.The stray cattle are now grazing in jungles by the highways, munching away at the undergrowth. Forests planted for flood control have also been affected. Sugarcane and paddy farmers have lost their entire crops as the cattle move through the fertile farms of the western Tarai.Says local farmer Gayadin Chaudhari: “It used to be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-humans-can-live-with-wild-elephants/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">elephants and wild animals</a> that destroyed our crops, now it is the cattle. In Mohanpur they lost 8 bigha (1.5 hectares) of sugarcane to stray cows.”In Attariya, police say there has been an increase in highway accidents and fatalities because of collisions of vehicles with stray cows at night. They say the only solution is to tag cows so that they can be traced back to their owners, who will then be forced to be more responsible.

Kunda Dixit

Waiting till the cows come home

https://youtu.be/TjoXT_Pu2koWith its new highway to the north, Surkhet has become the gateway to the Karnali and is morphing into a boomtown. But 10 minutes out of the dusty, bustling city nestled amidst a terraced landscape, the Kopila Valley School (KVS) is a functioning model for the rest of Nepal on how schools should be built and administered.At a time when progress is marked by the rise of glass and concrete structures, the school employs rammed-earth technology with an ecofriendly philosophy that uses local materials for construction, harnesses the sun and sewage for energy, harvests rainwater and minimises waste.But even founder Maggie Doyne at first needed convincing by architect Prabal Thapa to accept a mud design for the buildings. Her vision of an environment-friendly school was one made of bamboo, like the Green School she had seen in Bali.“Look, we’re not in Bali,” Thapa told her. “We are in Nepal, and Nepal is known for mountains. With rammed earth, you’re making mountains.”Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/quake-was-a-learning-experience-for-nepals-schools/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Quake was a learning experience for Nepal’s schools</a>, Prakriti Kandel<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/lowest-common-denominator/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lowest common denominator</a>, Editorial<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41ae9c7e80680e04a68cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1049"/><figcaption>All photos: SHEILIN TEO</figcaption></figure>Rammed earth provides excellent thermal mass to keep temperature stable indoors, it uses local material and labour, the structure is durable and easy to maintain. The walls are nearly 0.5m thick, and reinforced with steel and concrete banding for seismic resistance.“We wanted the school to feel Nepali through and through, to stay true to local architecture that is so stunningly beautiful,” explains Doyne, showing us around the campus.The two-storey school blocks are simple and rectangular, with gabled roofs, breezy stairwells, and are connected by corridors on one side, much like traditional farmhouses in Nepal. The buildings are designed as modular blocks that can be arranged in various ways to suit the landscape and functions required by the school. The simplicity and repeatability of the modules were important considerations to allow ease of building by unskilled local labourers, many of them women trained on the job.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41b19c7e80680e04a68djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="5000" height="1784"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Standing within the grounds, it becomes clear why buildings were sited as they were: they form a protective coterie around a central sports court and create ancillary terraces where children play. The topography creates opportunities for passive surveillance from the administrative block that sits towards the top of the sloping site, and plenty of gathering and resting places along stone-lined steps that double as bleachers overlooking play areas and gardens. When children pour out of their classrooms, they tumble across the sports court and down the stairs, bobbing along ramps that slice across the school’s terrace walls brightly coloured in house colours of reds, blues, yellows and greens.Read also:<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19495#.XOah1BYzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bhaktapur</a>, Lukas Grimm<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=12450#.XOahzhYzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mud, glorious mud</a>, Nripal Adhikari“Construction was so difficult, and the only thing that got us through the really hard moments was knowing that one day there would be kids in these classrooms,” Doyne says, explaining that complications in scheduling, budgets and differences of opinion about expectations and work values of intercultural and international teams proved to be challenges.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41b49c7e80680e04a68ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2500" height="2174"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The project is not just a simple school. Strengthened with steel, stabilised with cement and concrete, fitted with high performance, durable windows, the school buildings called for experience and skills beyond those required by a traditional project. More advanced, outside-the-box technology gives the campus an edge of self-sufficiency, ease of maintenance and durability.Green technology comes at a cost, with lengthy payback periods that are possibly out of reach of most other schools in Nepal, but are easily adaptable to the local context: filtration systems, biogas, rainwater harvesting by Smart Paani, and solar systems by Sun Farmer. At Kopila, all these design elements are integrated in the school’s new buildings, their functions and terrain, giving the school its green edge.“I feel that this campus has so much integrity. Every step of the way, we made decisions that were sometimes hard, or that had cost implications, or we had to forgo certain things in order to have others, but there’s nothing I would change,” says Doyne.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/learning-from-nepals-past-to-rebuild-its-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learning from Nepal’s past to rebuild its future</a>, Prakriti Kandel<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lost-in-reconstruction/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lost in reconstruction</a>, Shiva UpretyThis approach is not limited to the physical design of the school; its curriculum is also grounded in place-based learning that adapts Nepal’s national curriculum to the school’s philosophy. Principal Naim Chaudhari explains: “It is about trying to integrate what we find in the community, what we can learn from and what we can give back to it. After all, when the children graduate they go into the community and they will live there. That is where they will grow further.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41b89c7e80680e04a68fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050">The school has a farm and a vocational focus, and the students learn at least one skill each year from among cooking, washing, cleaning, driving, farming, agro-forestry, animal husbandry, horticulture, welding, woodwork, machine work and electrical skills.“When our children graduate from here, they should either go for further studies or be able to find a job,” says Chaudhari.The school includes Grades 1-10 and an Early Childhood Village that focuses on self-learning through play and exploration. The older ‘plus-two’ students are still in an old bamboo school by the highway, but there are plans to bring them into the new buildings.The school’s design allows the new classrooms to blend into the greenery, preserving the productive fruiting trees on site. Just as village life still clings to the fringes of Surkhet, the school’s program extends to the students’ families, farms and the community.“We are a full service community school,” Doyne explains. “It is not just for the kids who study here — we want to bring the community in. This buildings belong to them, and I hope it makes them think about what they ultimately build someday. Just like Bali inspired Kopila, I hope that there will be other schools like this in Nepal, because this one existed.”Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/class-struggle/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Class struggle</a>, Prakriti Kandel<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/building-back-cheaper-and-stronger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Building back cheaper and stronger</a>, Sapana Shakya and Aman Raj KhatakhoMaggie's missionIn 2005 when she was 19, Maggie Doyne was trekking in Nepal when she met Hima, a child worker. That started Doyne's Nepal journey, and her efforts to help children go to school eventually expanded to setting up Kopila Valley School and its sister initiatives in Surkhet.Doyne was named the 2014 Unsung Hero of Compassion, awarded by the Dalai Lama, and won the 2015 CNN Hero of the Year Award. Kopila is funded by The BlinkNow Foundation, a non-profit Doyne founded in 2007 as part of a network of initiatives comprising a children’s home, housing for at-risk girls, a training centre for women and a health clinic. KVS admits primarily children from disadvantaged backgrounds, providing for their education and welfare needs. It also runs a Futures Program to teach life skills, and provides vocational and academic support for senior students.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41bb9c7e80680e04a690jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="400"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41bc9c7e80680e04a691jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1602"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121144/636a41c09c7e80680e04a692jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="961">Sun roofConcentrated solar panels on the roof of the canteen, by Sunworks Nepal, power cookers in the kitchen and replace Rs60,000 worth of LPG per year. Gas is still used as backup, but it is methane from a digester hidden under the artificial turf of a sports court, fed by effluent from the toilets. Irrigation for the school’s vegetable garden and landscaping comes from black and grey-water filtration beds. Rainwater from the roofs is harvested into a 300,000l water storage tank under the school canteen, designed to fill all water needs for a year. Arrays of solar photovoltaics power the school, backed up by a diesel generator. Compost from black-water waste is used to grow the KVS’s organic produce.

Starting Nepal’s green school movement

Child marriage in Nepal: eloped at 13, mother by 17

Everyone in the world is running some kind of race. Some chase recognition. Some chase money. Others run simply to stay ahead of others. But there are some who run for others. They are not trying to overtake anyone, they do not do it for fame, they are not getting paid to do it. But they run to pay for the upliftment of those less privileged. Bal Joshi, 41, is originally from Surkhet. His father was involved in the democratic movement during the days of absolute monarchy and he remembers frequent police searches of the house. And with his father in hiding, the young Joshi had to take care of the family. When the family’s small shop failed, his mother took the young Bal and his brother back to the village, and that is where he completed his education, walking four hours roundtrip every day between home and school. He ran most of the way, and without realising it he has been running ever since. Life was hard. Rent, food, education. His mother struggled constantly. There were days when there was no money even to buy kerosene for the stove. At one point, he sold his calculator, worth Rs 300, for just Rs 80 to get by.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251229031252_edb16b64a3d362a8dc86870bfa5deaad03a84e67d47f37cfd0bb5a8e584691fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251229031252_edb16b64a3d362a8dc86870bfa5deaad03a84e67d47f37cfd0bb5a8e584691fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Running for dear life NT"> </figure>  At 15, Joshi moved to Nepalganj to continue his education. He initially stayed with his uncles, but eventually began living on his own. The transition to city life was difficult, and he experienced significant economic hardship while trying to pursue his studies. There were times when he struggled to meet basic needs, and at one point he sold his calculator just to get by. When he was 17, after hearing that his father was seriously ill, Joshi travelled to Gujarat to bring him back home. His father died soon after, and Joshi took on responsibility for supporting his family. It was his mother who taught him that despite scarcity, life had to be lived with dignity. Joshi started working at a newspaper at the age of 16 as a proofreader, and later became a journalist. During the Maoist war when children were being orphaned as a result of violence by both sides, he became active in the Sahara Group, and at 19, he began managing an orphanage that took in conflict-affected children. In Bajhang, after the army killed a man on suspicion of being a Maoist, his wife jumped into the Seti River and ended her life. Their two children were taken into army custody. During the rescue process, Joshi met Sunaina Adhikari of the ICRC and back in Nepalganj they decided to get married. The conflict was still raging in western Nepal in 2005, when Joshi went to the United States. In Maryland, he initially worked at a Bengali-owned Subway outlet, spending long hours on his feet behind the counter. He changed jobs frequently, financing his education along the way, and ultimately graduated with a degree in finance in 2008. He joined Hancock Whitney Bank in Texas, and has risen up the ranks to be Senior Vice President. A colleague inspired him to run as a way to stay healthy. But it soon turned into something more meaningful — running more than a dozen 50km marathons for charity.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251229031252_165a6d935860cf6707178aa2ac7395733883158f425bbe0ebed125529d601f61.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251229031252_165a6d935860cf6707178aa2ac7395733883158f425bbe0ebed125529d601f61" data-rendition-name="original" width="999" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Running for dear life NT"> </figure>  Last year, Joshi returned to Nepal to run the Everest Marathon, and raised $42,000 which he donated to <a href="https://onestepfoundation.org/" target="_blank">One Step Foundation</a> which works on health care, child welfare and cultural preservation in Nepal and around the world. In June this year, Joshi and his family climbed Kilimanjaro, raising $19,000 for 80 HIV-affected orphaned children in Tanzania. During the Diwali festival he ran 220km in Nevada’s Red Canyon and raised $25,000 for cataract surgeries through the the <a href="https://www.theruitfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Ruit Foundation</a> in Nepal for cataract surgeries.&nbsp; Joshi does not run competitions, and is not trying to break any records. His motto is: “My race, my pace.”&nbsp; Turning his childhood scarcity into helping others, he says: “We all share sunlight, rain, air, and soil, nothing is truly just your own. I grew up without shoes, and I am fortunate to be able to distribute shoes to those who walk barefoot.” We ask Bal Joshi what (and where) next? His answer: the <a href="https://www.worldmarathonchallenge.com/" target="_blank">World Marathon Challenge</a> that will go around the world to run seven marathons in seven continents in seven days beginning in Antarctica at end-January.&nbsp; Joshi aims to run wearing the daura suruwal and Nepal’s flag as to show where he comes from, and how far in life he has come.

Running for dear life

A day after Rabi Lamichhane and Balen Shah <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/old-vs-new-in-nepal-in-2026-z6l4fgrd">came together to form an electoral alliance</a>, Kulman Ghising has also joined forces with the two leaders, merging his Ujyalo Nepal Party with the RSP.&nbsp; Following last-minute negotiations before Monday’s midnight deadline for parties to file their list of candidates for the Proportional Representation (PR) seats, Lamichhane and Ujyalo Nepal chair Anup Kumar Upadhyay signed a seven-point agreement to unify the two parties, with Balen Shah as witness.&nbsp; Per the deal, Ghising will be the vice-chair of the RSP, joining DP Aryal and Swarnim Wagle as the party’s seconds-in-command. The earlier agreement between Lamichhane and Shah retained Lamichhane as RSP chief, and promised Shah prime ministership if the party wins a majority in Parliament in March.&nbsp; Ghising’s team reportedly has a 17% share on the list of PR candidates filed by the RSP at the Election Commission. Balen has also fielded his own picks, and together the party has the likes of cricketer Gyandenra Malla, actress Reema Biswokarma, rights activist Mohna Ansari, climate activist Tashi Lhazom, and singer Prakash Saput as PR candidates. Ghising had held multiple rounds of talks with the RSP chair and the Kathmandu Mayor to discuss possible collaborations, but had failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. On Monday, Ghising had met with Lamichhane heeding a last-ditch effort from GenZ leaders, in particular Sudan Gurung, as they tried for the final time to get the interim Minister on board with Lamichhane and Shah before the PR list submission deadline.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025123004128_99e23ae7b6a042e71d271e3e74f7527086a7bb55779e6781bc9e7b711c8303e7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025123004128_99e23ae7b6a042e71d271e3e74f7527086a7bb55779e6781bc9e7b711c8303e7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1595" height="1087" loading="lazy" alt="Sudan Kulman Balen"> <figcaption>Photo: SUDAN GURUNG / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025123004128_d9f530704ab4c6e27eebf51f8e9fb55fed1d4281c99d089d06455cc7448bfda7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025123004128_d9f530704ab4c6e27eebf51f8e9fb55fed1d4281c99d089d06455cc7448bfda7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1026" height="1084" loading="lazy" alt="Balen and Sudan NT"> <figcaption>Photo: BALEN SHAH / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  The three are now set to make a formidable team to challenge mainstream parties at the polls. News of this alliance has been welcome to Nepalis who are looking for any alternatives to break the stronghold of the Oli-Deuba-Dahal trio over Nepali politics in recent history.&nbsp; But they will also carry each other’s baggage.&nbsp; Lamichhane, who was jailed for defrauding cooperatives depositors last year, was welcomed back as RSP party chair with open arms after he was released on bail last week. And while he has maintained his base of loyal supporters, he was subject to widespread criticism after he walked out of detention amid the jailbreak during the September protests, prompting his eventual voluntary return to prison.&nbsp; His party’s silencing and expulsion of critics within the RSP has also drawn direct comparison with the leadership structure of Nepal’s mainstream parties. Prominent leaders like Sumana Shrestha have left the party over disagreements with leadership.&nbsp; Meanwhile, Balen’s impassioned campaign resonated with Nepalis disillusioned with establishment leaders during the 2022 election and made him mayor of Kathmandu. The mayor’s direct, no-holds-barred style of communication and commentary has attained him much support beyond his constituency.&nbsp; But his unyielding, often unempathetic leadership style and policies— like his dismissal of street vendors and informal businesses during his drive to free up Kathmandu’s footpaths— have also earned him detractors. His recent outburst on social media in November that included expletives against both of Nepal’s neighbours and the US, as well as Nepal’s three main parties and the RSP was also widely criticised.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251230041212_fc2088daf32bac93541ebf25ca07725d75a721ae83440749ac8fa09d8fe308f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251230041212_fc2088daf32bac93541ebf25ca07725d75a721ae83440749ac8fa09d8fe308f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="890" height="1255" loading="lazy" alt="Agreement NT"> <figcaption>The seven-point agreement between RSP and Ujyalo Nepal Party.</figcaption> </figure>  Ghising, credited with ending Nepal’s prolonged load-shedding during his tenure as the chief of Nepal Electricity Authority, has a reputation of getting the job done. His public goodwill earned him a seat on Prime Minister Sushila Karki’s interim Cabinet following the youth protest.&nbsp; But he has also been under scrutiny for funds misappropriation as well as controversial power purchase agreements during his tenure as NEA chief. Ghising had foregone the leadership position at his Ujyalo party, preferring to play the role of patron until closer to the election date, but was nonetheless criticised for his political and electoral aspirations while being a member of the transitional government. It now remains to be seen if and when Ghising will step away from his position in the interim Cabinet and begin campaigning with his new partners.&nbsp; As it stands, the involvement of prominent GenZ figures in bringing together Ghising, Shah, and Lamichhane has established youth leaders as major players in Nepal’s post-September political landscape. These leaders will have significant pull with young and first-time voters. But not all young leaders are impressed with this new triumvirate. Some have pointed out that the unity between these three leaders is no different from the political opportunism and quid-pro-quo power-sharing culture established and followed by Nepal’s mainstream leadership for the last three decades which culminated into the GenZ movement of September.

Kulman follows Balen to RSP

Koreana Coffee Guff begins with a scene where Narayan Wagle, the editor-turned-farmer, appears in reverse cameo, as a character in a novel. He has just landed at Incheon in the dead of winter.&nbsp; The opening premise reminds one of Tolstoy’s saying about how stories begin either when someone goes on a journey, or when a stranger comes to town. ‘The winds of each city are its original inheritance, shaped by its local language, its specific topography and the buffets of the airborne wings of birds and airplanes,’ Wagle writes.&nbsp; The author is both on a journey and a stranger to the town. The word ‘stranger’ might need to be redefined here, as he has visited Korea several times before. But if every journey is new, then he is a stranger of sorts — stranger to the people he meets for the first time in the book, stranger to the reader who will encounter him for the first time like I did in high school reading the English translation of his 2005 Madan Puraskar winning novel Palpasa Cafe.&nbsp; Koreana is non-fiction, and was first published in 2017 in Nepali, and recently rendered into English by Prawin Adhikari, who specialises in translating Nepali works into English in such a way that they do not read like translations at all.&nbsp; Even so, I turned to a few chapters from the original text, curious to see how ideas have morphed. Take Wagle’s journey to Ansan Mountain. It is the same mountain, but something different happens in the two languages. The inexplicable feeling is that the translation has to conquer the mountain itself. At its best, the book gives the reader a peek into Wagle’s mind, his internal monologues, his writing ideas, his thoughts on the people around him, his deep yearning and respect for nature, his exploration of Seoul and Korea, where he is attending the Asian Literary Creative Writing Workshop in 2017.&nbsp; BACK TO THE LAND ‘All cities appear the same everywhere,’ he writes of Seoul, speaking of how ‘development’ has masked the original charm of a city rebuilt after war. In recent years, Wagle has moved on from being the editor of Kantipur, to activism, and has now returned to his ancestral land in Tanahu to farm.&nbsp; Clues to this metamorphosis can be detected in this book, which was written nearly ten years ago and before his transition. Wagle used to write a column called Coffee Guff, and the book carries that conversational style.&nbsp; But not all monologues land. Thoughts rooted in a specific time and space like the hike to Ansan where the author reflects on buildings, birds, and trees feel connected with a context and background. Then there are those that bring in a new metaphor, a new reflection, a new connection in almost each new sentence which make it difficult to follow the author’s stream of consciousness.&nbsp; Halfway into the book, we finally meet the writers who have come from different parts of Asia for the workshop. Not speaking a common language, the writers have to rely on interpreters and Google, which turns their exchanges into quirky moments of laughter.&nbsp; Writers are an important part of the book, the lens through which Wagle invites us to see the world. Poets Manjul from Nepal and Shiva Ryu from Korea make guest appearances. Through two Korean writers who share the surname Kim, we get a glimpse into Korean history and society, and how writing is intertwined with politics.&nbsp; This Korea is different from the Kpop idols and skincare routine that has dominated recent imagination of the divided peninsular nation. Wagle writes, ‘Literature attempts to unite, politics impedes it. They are being continuously thwarted by the conflicts ongoing in the nation’s politics.’&nbsp; One of the Kims is Kim Min-jung (김민정), author of The World’s Most Expensive Novel, that explores what it means to be a writer in Korea.&nbsp; Reading Koreana feels like a hike through a jungle. If one is able to move past the tangled and stretched monologues, the book can hold moments of awe and wonder. But there is always a desire for a clearer trail to follow. &nbsp;&nbsp; Narayan Wagle’s characteristic witticism is there aplenty, his observations are astute. Writers exploring their craft and readers curious of what is churning inside Wagle’s mind will find treats -- sometimes well-crafted, other times to be searched between the lines. &nbsp; Alfa M Shakya is a writer, researcher, and podcaster. She runs and hosts ‘How’d You Create That?’, an art podcast about the creative process.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251230071252_5503c9fb08d62adb328d8f817b353604429559d3d9c6542edf3663c3f8c554e5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251230071252_5503c9fb08d62adb328d8f817b353604429559d3d9c6542edf3663c3f8c554e5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Korean coffee guff English translation review"> </figure>

Coffee guff from Korea

From stone spouts to cast-iron mains, Nepal’s water system and its struggle to provide safe water tells a larger story of power, disease, dependency — and lessons for the future. From 1823 to 1891, the Nepali state made just two notable interventions in Kathmandu’s drinking water system. The first was when Prime Minister Bhimsen Thapa commissioned a stone pout (hiti) to tap groundwater within the valley’s traditional supply system. The second came nearly 70 years later with Nepal’s first industrial-era water system, the Bir Water Works in 1891 under Prime Minister Bir Shumsher Rana. Linking these two milestones was the spectre of cholera. From the 19th century on there were seven global cholera pandemics. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X19309995#bb0325" target="_blank">Originating in Asia</a>, the disease reached Europe and the Americas, the Vibrio cholera bacillus breeding in poor sanitation wherever it found it. The first wave erupted in 1817, followed by others in 1829, 1852, 1863, 1881, 1889 and, finally, in 1961, the seventh pandemic which still lingers on. London, the epicentre of the Industrial Revolution, was repeatedly stricken. In Britain ‘miasma’ foul air was blamed. &nbsp;In Nepal, cholera was seen as divine damnation. By the late 19th century, as Nepal’s relationship with Britain deepened, the Bir Water Works was inaugurated in 1891 as a defence against cholera. Whether cholera also shaped Bhimsen Thapa’s decision in 1823 is less clear. Contemporary records note the commissioning of Sundhara, but do not refer to the cholera epidemic raging at the time. The silence itself is telling: Nepal’s elites were ruling in the shadow of the disease. Bhimsen Thapa first resided in Thapathali Palace, which was built in 1802 by Nain Singh Thapa, father of Mathabarsingh Thapa, who would briefly become prime minister in the 1840s. In 1806, Bhimsen Thapa moved to Bagh Durbar, a new complex on the western edge of Tundikhel. Historians are vague about the water supply in the residences of the nobility, but wells and water hauled from rivers, ponds, canals, and other sources were likely the primary sources. A small hiti north of Bagh Durbar, near today’s Sun Dhara, may have supplied the palace. In 1823, Bhimsen Thapa had it enlarged, making it the last and largest state-built hiti in Kathmandu. Even as Bhimsen Thapa was involved in palace intrigues and border conflicts, Britain was engineering pipelines. By the late 18th century, Sir Thomas Simpson had invented the bell-and-spigot joint, making long-distance pipes viable. Fluid dynamics, dealing with pumps, pipes, and filters, was becoming a foundational discipline. In Kathmandu, the scourge continued. Cholera struck Kathmandu repeatedly, in 1862, 1867, 1872, 1874 and 1875. The 1872 epidemic, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/kathmandu-in-the-time-of-cholera" target="_blank">according to historian Tom Robertson</a>, claimed between 200 and 250 lives a day. On average, cholera killed between 1,200 and 1,500 people annually in Kathmandu Valley, an enormous toll for its small population. The summer of 1885 was especially calamitous: a cholera epidemic ravaged Kathmandu and its periphery from the beginning of June until late August. The disease even breached the royal palace, reportedly killing 23 people, mostly young girls. Records show that 909 people received treatment at the British Residency dispensary, and estimates suggest that as many as 10,000 people perished in a city of 50,000. In November that year, Bir Shumsher seized power in a coup. He inherited not only a premiership but a Valley ridden with disease. Cholera was endemic, and it was accompanied by typhoid, smallpox, goitre, syphilis, and chronic dyspepsia. The The British Residency dispensary at Lainchaur was inadequate. “In a poor country like ours, wealth means health,” Bir Shumsher remarked, an unusually pragmatic admission that epidemics were not divine punishment but structural afflictions of urban life. He soon pledged to expand health care. In 1889, he opened Bir Hospital and staffed it with Indian doctors to treat cholera, typhoid, smallpox, and other prevalent illnesses. PIPED WATER Bir Shumsher also recognised the need for safe drinking water. Between 1866 and 1872, he had served as Nepal’s ambassador in Calcutta, and he must have seen water mains already in operation there, and a filtration plant inaugurated in 1870. Madras had installed such a system as early as 1800, Bombay constructed the Vihar and Tulsi reservoirs in the mid-19th century. In Kathmandu British Residency personalities such as George Gimlette must have urged Bir’s government to quicken the construction of the hospital and water system, yet the archival traces of such exchanges still await historical scrutiny. By the late 19th century, the British had developed a technological ecosystem for water supply, intakes, pipes, fittings, reservoirs, and trained engineers. Bir Shumsher appealed to the British Government in India for engineering assistance. A British engineer named Mr Feigneur surveyed Kathmandu to prepare maps, and estimated the volume of water that could be brought from the Rudramati River. In 1889, a more experienced engineer, Lockhart Matthew Sinclair arrived. He was a Scotsman educated at Wellington College and the Royal Indian Engineering College, with prior experience in constructing waterworks in Jubbulpore and the Viceregal Palace in Shimla. Appointed State Engineer of Nepal (1889–1892), Sinclair reviewed Feigneur’s plans, updated them, and chose the Bishnumati River as the source of the city’s drinking water. Sinclair’s design included a reservoir at Panipokhari, at 1,330m elevation and 30m above &nbsp;Tundikhel, thereby enabling gravity-fed distribution in pipes. With a capacity of 7,327 cubic metres, the reservoir could store nine days of supply.&nbsp; The system was designed to serve about 70,000 residents through both private connections and public standpipes. The reservoir was a single-compartment tank with an arched brick roof covered in earth and turf. Its brick walls were bonded with lime mortar and aggregate, and its floor was dressed with fly stone. Work on the valley’s water supply began in 1888, three years after Bir Shumsher seized power. The following year, Bir Hospital and the Bir Water Works took shape. The project involved some 40km of imported cast-iron pipes, weighing 1.866 million kg and inscribed with the marks of Scottish foundries ‘Ally and McLean’ and ‘Glasgow’. Construction required 620,000 man-days of labour and cost over Rs600,000. Transport costs inflated prices: <a href="https://commons-nepal.com/the-first-kaldhara-in-the-four-cities-of-the-valley/" target="_blank">a load of cement</a> costing Rs10 in Calcutta was worth Rs33 by the time it reached Kathmandu. Bir Water Works was inaugurated in September 1891, six years after the cholera epidemic. Water flowed out of 131 taps, including eight in Lainchaur, six in the royal palace, eleven in the prime minister’s palace, sixteen around Tundikhel, thirteen in Thapathali, seven in Thamel, and two in Naxal. The system’s designation, the term ‘works’ , echoes the Chelsea, Calcutta, and Glasgow Water Works, underlining its industrial pedigree. Water was also supplied to Phora Durbar, Bir Shumsher’s palace of music and dance whose fountains sprayed rose-scented water in a display of opulence. The <a href="https://commons-nepal.com/the-first-kaldhara-in-" target="_blank">Bir Dhara Works</a> was more than an engineering scheme: it was Nepal’s first modern public-health intervention. Safer drinking water curbed waterborne disease, and the number of cholera outbreaks declined, but were not eliminated.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260103020144_d5c22de54c0eaab680a166c5a7482839fdc09b60679109021d0504252a810254.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260103020144_d5c22de54c0eaab680a166c5a7482839fdc09b60679109021d0504252a810254" data-rendition-name="original" width="865" height="535" loading="lazy" alt="Cholera and drinking water in Kathmandu"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260103020144_a46075b6d759585df56a2bb8e5a07d85de7d9a69406165c32784fe30012c9971.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260103020144_a46075b6d759585df56a2bb8e5a07d85de7d9a69406165c32784fe30012c9971" data-rendition-name="original" width="2791" height="3859" loading="lazy" alt="Cholera and drinking water in Kathmandu"> </figure>  “Now we have water to fight cholera, and I believe cholera will no longer prevail. After four years of piped water, the benefits have been greater than expected,” Bir Shumsher said in a proclamation. Despite this, the prevalence of poor sanitation, open defecation, cramped housing, and malnutrition meant that typhoid, smallpox, and dyspepsia remained endemic. The Bir Dhara system marked Kathmandu’s transition from reliance on wells, rivers, springs, and hiti to piped water, operating for several decades and laying the foundation for the expansion of drinking water services across the country in the late twentieth century. <a href="https://commons-nepal.com/the-first-kaldhara-in-the-four-cities-of-the-valley/" target="_blank">Extensions followed in Patan</a> under Chandra Shumsher, and Bhim Shumsher later added the Tri Bhim Dhara. Piped water systems were subsequently constructed in towns such as Kirtipur, Bhaktapur, Dhankuta, Pokhara, Dhulikhel, and Jajarkot which itself saw a deadly cholera outbreak in 2009.&nbsp; CHOLERA METAPHOR In 1933, Nepal’s first water bureaucracy, the Pani Goswara, was established, formalising state involvement in urban water supply. Yet even till the late 20th century, households continue to rely on a mix of sources, including public water networks, private vendors, rooftop storage tanks, borewells, wells, hiti, and household filtration. The lack of reliable water supply places disproportionate financial, physical, and psychological burdens on low-income households, underscoring how decades of infrastructure expansion have not translated into universal, reliable service. during challenges in governance, investment priorities, and regulation. Bir Shumsher also attempted to introduce <a href="https://www.ukaalo.com/news/cholera-in-kathmandu-1958/" target="_blank">basic hygiene measures</a>, such as pit latrines with squatting slabs. However, there is no record of these facilities being built in his palaces, later built palaces, or elsewhere. Sanitation conditions remained poor for both the elite and the general population. Open defecation or the use of crude pit latrines without proper waste disposal was common. With no drainage or sewer systems, human waste accumulated near homes, contributing to the spread of waterborne diseases. In 2019, Nepal declared itself ‘open defecation free’, a policy milestone, but this achievement masks the persistence of deeper problems. Urban areas generate some 867 million litres of wastewater daily, yet only 7% of it is treated before being discharged. Sewage flows untreated into rivers and streams, spreading cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and other diseases, particularly among children and vulnerable communities. Safe disposal of faecal sludge continues to be a major struggle for many communities and local governments. Besides Jajarkot, Godavari in Kathmandu Valley had a localised outbreak in 2024. This year, Birganj was struck by a cholera outbreak caused by a lethal combination of unreliable water supply, groundwater overpumping, poor drainage and hygiene, and unsafe waste disposal. And Nepal’s peacekeepers deployed after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 were blamed for spreading cholera that ultimately killed 30,000 people in the Caribbean nation. The Bir Water Works was more than a reservoir and pipes. It was Nepal’s first brush with modernity, mediated through engineering and haunted by cholera. More than 134 years on, cholera remains a threat and a reminder of Nepal’s challenges in water and sanitation governance. The issue is not merely ensuring access to safe water but also building public trust that quality essential services can be delivered equitably, sustainably, and with resilience. Ajaya Dixit is a Kathmandu-based researcher exploring Nepal’s water history since the mid-eighteenth century to inform ethical water and river management in a changing climate.

surkhet