<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161144/636d1c609c7e80680e0af356jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1200"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>K P <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/oli-sweeps-uml-party-polls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Oli’s re-election as leader</a> of his CPN-UML party has been portrayed by critics even within his own party as just the latest example of his authoritarian streak, but Nepal’s former prime minister has not done anything other party leaders have not done to consolidate internal power.Oli did try to get himself and his supporters appointed unopposed into leadership positions in the central membership and Central Committee. But after a rival faction led by Bhim Rawal pressed for a vote, he agreed and went on to win hands down.But had the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/unconventional-party-conventions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">much-delayed UML general convention</a> been pushed back only three months more, Oli would not have been allowed to stand for party chair since he would have crossed the age limit of 70 for executive positions.Oli, who has undergone two kidney transplants, will therefore be leading the country’s biggest party till 2025. But this is the trend in all of Nepal’s main parties which are led by elderly male politicians who have clung on to power by sidelining rivals and bending rules.Oli beat <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/making-up-is-hard-to-do/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">his main rival Madhav Kumar Nepal</a> in the previous general convention seven years ago by a slim margin, and relations between the two were never good. When the UML united with the Maoists to form the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) after the electoral victory in 2018, things started to sour between Prime Minister Oli and  Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who found a convenient ally in Nepal.Cornered by the Nepal-Dahal faction, Oli used all the tricks in the book to stay on as both party chair and prime minister. But running out of trump cards, he dissolved the Lower House not once but twice, both times reinstated by the Supreme Court which also ruled earlier this year that the UML-Maoist party alliance was null and void.Nepal then <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-post-breakup-politics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">split from the UML and set up his own Unified-Socialist party</a> and teamed up with the ruling five-party alliance with Dahal and Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress (NC).It is with this background that the UML party election this week has to be analysed – Oli has placed himself as the helmsman to steer the UML towards victory in the 2023 elections. The criticism against him from the other parties (by calling him authoritarian, and one cartoonist even portraying him as Adolf Hitler) is because they see him as a formidable foe.As it turned out, 2,153 votes fell at the UML general convention for various party positions, so whatever give-and-take happened behind the scenes, the outcome was democratic.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161144/636d1c639c7e80680e0af357jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1040" height="550"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Among the candidates for senior party functionaries, Asta Laxmi Shakya with 1,976 ballots for deputy chair, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/blood-sweat-and-tears/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gokarna Bista</a> with 1,974 for secretary topped the list of those with the most votes from delegates. Surendra Pandey for the second largest number of votes for deputy chair with 1,925 votes and Yogesh Bhattarai came second for secretary with 1960.Needless to say, Shakya, Bista, Pandey and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/unusual-appointment-extraordinary-tasks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bhattarai</a> were all Oli’s critics and in fact were once in the Madhav Nepal faction. Neither Thakur Gaire and Ushakiran Timsena who were elected to central membership used to be pro-Oli, either.It was even more symbolic for Oli to try to get former Maoists into the top echelons of his party, which is why he fully backed the candidacies of Ram Bahadur Thapa for deputy chair, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi and Lekhraj Bhatta as secretaries.On 28 November, the close door meeting of an 11-member committee drew up a list for the 19 member Secretariat high command and candidates for the central membership. Questions can be raised about Oli having manipulated the process in his favour, but even if he did it, it did not go against party rules. And the fact that his candidates got the most votes makes the point moot now.With his <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-rudderless-political-leadership/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">eyes firmly set on elections</a>, he deliberately promoted the Nepal-faction candidates and ex-Maoists to top party positions. Even his detractors within the party understood that strategy and went along with it.And by not allowing Oli to elevate his candidates to the central membership and Secretariat unopposed, Bhim Rawal and Ghanshyam Bhusal actually helped him gain legitimacy, and earn credit for upholding internal democracy. That Oli and his supporters would win was a foregone conclusion, which is why Rawal and Bhusal actually ended up strengthening the UML.To be sure, Oli pushed his own blue eyed boys as well: Ishwar Pokhrel as senior deputy chair, Shankar Pokhrel as general secretary, as well as Bishnu Rimal as deputy general secretary and Padma Aryal as secretary.Ironically, the most dissatisfied with Oli were his close allies Bishnu Poudel, Subhas Nembang, Lalbabu Pandit, Binda Pandey, Radha Gyawali, Goma Devkota, and Bishal Bhattarai who did not get the positions and seniority they thought they deserved.

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Post-convention, UML eyes set on elections

<figure><img width="1040" height="550" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d14b79c7e80680e0a998fjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The main opposition UML’s leader K P Oli has been sworn in again as party chair after elections on Tuesday, and he in turn has sworn in 14  central members who are all his supporters.Oli and his loyalists all got elected by a comfortable margin, or were unopposed in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-rudderless-political-leadership/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lavish convention in Chitwan’s Sauraha</a> where 2,152 delegates have been in attendance for the past five days.Oli had tried to make the process of getting new party functionaries unanimous, but was challenged by a rival faction led by Bhim Rawal. In electronic balloting that started at 4AM on Tuesday, Oli got more than 95% of the votes. His loyalists Shankar Pokhrel (General Secretary), Ishwar Pokhrel, Pradeep Gyawali, Prithvi Subba Gurung and Bishnu Rimal (deputy General Secretaries) have either been voted in, or won uncontested.Oli had beaten <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/making-up-is-hard-to-do/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Madhav Kumar Nepal</a> with a slim margin in the previous party convention in 2016. Nepal split off from the UML earlier this year and set up his own party, the Unified Socialists, which is part of the ruling 5-party coalition with the Nepali Congress. Seven of the leaders elected as secretaries of the UML are also all Oli supporters, including Yogesh Bhattarai, Gokarna Bista, Chabilal Biswakarma, Parma Aryal, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Lekharaj Bhatta Raghubir Mahaseth. Rayamajhi and Bhatta are former Maoists. Besides those two, former Maoist leader Ram Bahadur Thapa who <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-post-breakup-politics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">defected to the UML</a> was elected vice-chair of the party, defeating Ghanshyam Bhusal. All three former Maoists were in Oli’s panel. Meanwhile, four UML leaders who were not supported by Oli all lost — they are Bhim Rawal for chair, Ghanashyam Bhusal for vice chair, and Bhim Acharya and Tanka Karki as party secretaries.  <figure><img width="1238" height="708" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d14b99c7e80680e0a9990jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Oli had been grooming the former Maoists to also show that the Maoist Centre party of Pushpa Kamal Dahal is a spent force. Even after the united Nepal Communist Party (NCP) returned to its former UML and Maoist parties after a Supreme Court order in April, the Thapa, Bhatta and Rayamajhi had stayed loyal to Oli, who rewarded them with his crucial support in Tuesday’s party election.So much so that Oli sidelined Bhim Rawal to make Bhatta the party incharge for the Far-west Province. One of the reasons for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/political-expediency-trumps-nepal-constitution/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Madhav Nepal splitting from the UML</a> was Oli’s induction of the former Moaists into the party in place of Nepal’s supporters.If <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/unconventional-party-conventions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the UML general convention</a> looked like an election rally, that is also what it was. In fact, the elevation of the former Maoist to senior party positions appears to be Oli’s careful calculation for local and federal polls ion early 2023.Among the 301 Central Committee members elected on Tuesday is Ishwari Gharti Magar (pictured) who defied the Maoists during the insurgency to be a staunch UML party member in Rolpa’s Nuwagaun. She has now become the youngest member of the UML Central Committee.She started her political career while a student leader in the Arnico High School, and became a journalist for a few years before being a party cadre. Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress is getting ready for its own party convention in Kathmandu next week. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/deuba-5/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba</a> is expected to win the party chairmanship just like Oli did in the UML — despite a challenge from Ram Chandra Poudel and Bimalendra Nidhi.RThe Hindu-right Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) is also heading for a convention, and current leader Kamal Thapa is facing a challenge from Rajendra Lingden for the top party post.

Oli sweeps UML party polls

While the streets of Kathmandu were erupting violent GenZ protests that brought down the government, Nepal’s athletes were achieving different kinds of breakthroughs on Spain’s mountain trails and in the cricket qualifiers in the UAE.&nbsp; On 27 September, two weeks after the uprising back home, Nepal's cricket team stunned the sporting world with their first-ever victory against a full member nation — defeating two-time World Cup champions West Indies by 19 runs, then crushing them by 90 runs two days later to seal a historic 2-0 series victory. On that very day, 5,000km away in the Spanish Pyrenees Sunmaya Budha stood on a podium alongside American and European champions, clutching a silver medal from the 3rd World Mountain and Trail Running Championships. No Asian athlete had ever finished this high in the Long Trail competition at the World Championships. While youth back home showed they would not tolerate injustice and could carve their own future, young Nepalis were securing it on the global sports stage even in moments of national crisis.&nbsp; The Long Trail event at the 2025 World Championships was designed to break even the strongest athletes. Stretching 82km through the Spanish Pyrenees, the course features an unrelenting 5,413m of elevation gain and descent.&nbsp; Athletes faced everything from steep scree slopes to narrow ridge lines, from boulder fields requiring scrambling to precipitous descents demanding total concentration. One misstep could mean injury, one lapse in focus could cost precious minutes.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_81152b4754331c4858ed2d0d28204e6a92559faf089fea9ebc84156766ff228a.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025101909108_81152b4754331c4858ed2d0d28204e6a92559faf089fea9ebc84156766ff228a" data-rendition-name="original" width="977" height="731" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>The Nepal team at the World Championships 2025 with the final four: Sangge Sherpa, Sunmaya Budha, Suman Kulung, Man Kumar Roka Magar. Photo: PREETI KHATTRI</figcaption> </figure>  WOMEN'S COMPETITION Katie Schide (USA) - Winner • Time: 9:57:59 • Average pace: 7:18 per km&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sunmaya.budha.942">Sunmaya Budha </a>(Nepal) - Silver Medal • Time: 10:23:03 • Gap behind winner: 25 minutes and 4 seconds • Average pace: 7:36 per km Most recreational trail runners need 18-24 hours to complete this course, if they can finish it at all. Budha's pace means she was running at a speed that most casual runners could not maintain on a flat course, let alone while constantly climbing and descending mountains. MEN'S COMPETITION Jim Walmsley (USA) - Winner • Time: 8:35:11 • Average pace: 6:17 per kilometer (10:07 per mile) &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/runnersumankulung">Suman Kulung (Nepal)</a> - 32nd Place • Time: 10:06:25 • Average pace: 7:24 per km • Finished 1 hour 31 minutes behind the winner • Best performance by an Asian male athlete &nbsp; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rokamagarmankumar764">Man Kumar Roka Magar (Nepal)</a> - 37th Place • Time: 10:10:53 • Average pace: 7:27 per km • Finished just 4.5 minutes behind Kulung <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Yetimannnnn">Sangge Sherpa (Nepal)</a> - 116th Place • Time: 12:33:09 • Average pace: 9:11 per km  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_2255845b43e68b14d3b111099124f9c98898bbe9016299b9af278aca8b4377f7.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025101909108_2255845b43e68b14d3b111099124f9c98898bbe9016299b9af278aca8b4377f7" data-rendition-name="original" width="977" height="904" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Sangge Sherpa organising himself post gear check in Can-Franc.</figcaption> </figure>  The men's winner averaged about 6:17/km on a course where elite mountain runners were struggling. Kulung and Roka Magar maintained a 7:24-7:27/km pace—faster than many recreational runners' easy flat road pace. They were faster than dozens of European athletes who train in the Alps. Even Sherpa's 9:11/km average pace over 12+ hours represents an extraordinary feat of endurance, maintaining forward progress on some of the most challenging mountain terrain in competitive trail running. “What set Budha apart was her exceptional descending ability. She recorded the fastest downhill speed among all women in the competition—a skill honed through years of training on Nepal’s steep mountain trails,” said her team director Ryan S Blair.&nbsp; Sunmaya Budha, ranked world 8th for 100km category events and 17th in the world by the International Trail Running Association (ITRA), entered the race having recently recovered from injuries to both legs.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_38d8bee04beaa6443480ecf4765e6b34f91d2d105128f292f73702072a820d25.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2025101909108_38d8bee04beaa6443480ecf4765e6b34f91d2d105128f292f73702072a820d25" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1070" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Sunmaya storming in 2nd position. Photo: WMTRC2025 CANFRAC </figcaption> </figure>  While American Katie Schide dominated from the front, Budha found herself in an intense battle for second place with Italy's Fabiola Conti, a specialised skyrace and mountain marathon runner. The two runners remained locked together through much of the course, running side-by-side at key checkpoints and pushing each other through the mountain wilderness. In ultra-trail racing, where climbs are often win by fractions of minutes, the ability to descend fearlessly and efficiently can make the difference between podium positions. Budha's technical prowess on the descents gave her a advantage over her European competitors. The decisive moment came in the final 20km. At the 65km mark, Budha held a 90-second lead over Conti. By 71.5km she had extended her advantage to eight minutes — a commanding gap she maintained to the finish. In a powerful display of national pride, she approached the finish wrapped in the Nepali flag, showing the world what Himalayan athletes can achieve on the global stage. Said Preeti Khattri, team lead for Nepal: "Standing right beside the USA and European peer. Proud. No Asian athletes have ever made it this far.” MEN, TOO While Budha captured headlines with her silver medal, the performances of Suman Kulung and Man Kumar Roka Magar were equally significant. Both athletes topped Asian athletes and numerous European competitors. Suman Kulung delivered a performance that demonstrated extraordinary mental toughness and racing intelligence. What makes his 32nd place finish even more impressive is that 1.5km he encountered a severe bottleneck on narrow technical trails.&nbsp; This critical delay pushed him back to around 92nd position—a devastating setback in a world championship race where every second counts. Many athletes would have been demoralised by such an early disaster.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025101909108_e2f358723ea8abaa262e749a4c6afb0a179cf9f3e0bb4eab1d973e25b9b00f09.png" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2025101909108_e2f358723ea8abaa262e749a4c6afb0a179cf9f3e0bb4eab1d973e25b9b00f09" data-rendition-name="original" width="668" height="445" loading="lazy" alt="World Mountain and Trail Running Championships"> <figcaption>Suman Kulung coming through 65km Assisted Checkpoint. Photo: DR SIGRID FOUNDATION</figcaption> </figure>  But Kulung showed why he is Nepal's top-ranked trail runner: he launched a spectacular comeback. By the 30km mark, he had charged through the field to reach approximately 20th position — recovering over 70 places in less than 30km.&nbsp; His final time of 10:06:25 placed him ahead of runners from traditional mountain running powers including Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, and was the highest-finishing Asian male athlete in the competition.

Nepali runners score breakthroughs

In 2004, Poet Durga Lal Shrestha asked me to translate 223 little poems from Newa into English. They were each written as sestet-- terse in their form but heavy in imagery and sentiment. The novice translator in me struggled to find the best way to convey his poetry in English-- but the process became a tour as I discovered my mother tongue anew. The highlight, however, was Shrestha’s handwriting. His calligraphy is immaculate. He had given me photocopies from the notebook he had written the poems in and each page looked as though they were freshly out of the press. The letters bore a consistency, unswayed by the emotions of his poetry. Sometimes, I would just stare at the handwriting in admiration.&nbsp; Someone else had been similarly besotted by his writing: “I met him 25 years ago in the UK when he was the chief guest at a Mha Puja event organised by Pasa Pucha,” recollects Ojesh Singh, writer and engineer. “We were roommates. I noticed he couldn’t stop writing.”&nbsp; Shrestha, an octogenarian now, was a teacher at Kanya Mandir School for many years, where his writing was admired by colleagues and students. Known as Janakavi or People’s Poet, a title bestowed on him by the Nepal Bhasha Parishad, Shrestha is also the recipient of the Jagadamba Shree Puraskar for his contribution to literature.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071052_b109f2ee6dbac911fb8002e8e8bb33a50a8f755d26662f333535d32c8573e782.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251021071052_b109f2ee6dbac911fb8002e8e8bb33a50a8f755d26662f333535d32c8573e782" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="900" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> <figcaption>From left to right: Suman Shrestha, Ananda Kumar Maharjan, Durga Lal Shrestha, Ojesh Singh, and Arbindra Man Singh. Photo: SUCHITA SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  “He would write on anything he could lay his hands on. On tissue paper, envelopes, cigarette boxes. It struck me how neat and tidy his writing was,” says Singh. “The structure and size were perfectly in sync-- and as an aspiring graphic designer then, I fell in love with his writing. Later, whenever I read his books, I thought it would be nice to read them in his writing.” After sitting with the notion of turning Shrestha’s writing into a digital font for years, in 2024, he reached out to a small group of people who he thought might be allies.&nbsp; “It was during Ojesh Ji’s book launch that we met and talked about the possibility of turning Durga Lal Shrestha’s writing into font,” recalls Ananda Kumar Maharjan, who has designed the Durga Lal Shrestha font and is affiliated with Callijatra, an organisation promoting Newa calligraphy.&nbsp; For Singh, the desire to immortalise the poet's handwriting wasn’t only coming from personal admiration, it was also about preserving the writing of a language and literature leader and activist. He offered to fund the font project, which meant paying for Maharjan’s time and dedication. He also drew into the conversation Shrestha’s son Suman, who has been an integral part of the process.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071056_372dc34ac3ce3b70445128131a11ade8f321756c6cc7615825c4451e85f56374.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251021071056_372dc34ac3ce3b70445128131a11ade8f321756c6cc7615825c4451e85f56374" data-rendition-name="original" width="616" height="728" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  The others involved in the process were journalist Arbindra Man Singh, who had been scanning Shrestha’s writing for the book Hastakshar, a collection of poems printed in the author’s handwriting. Also an enthusiast of converting Shrestha’s writing to a font, Singh provided help in bringing together the scans, based on which Maharjan picked the best letter for each alphabet to create a complete set.&nbsp; “Doing this was different from other font developments I have done in the past,” explains Maharjan, who has also digitised his own handwriting into a font, called Anand. “To create Durga Lal Shrestha’s writing as font, I had to analyse his writing archive and pick the best.”&nbsp; He adds: “There was a book published in his writing, so there were scans and digital archiving done by Arbindra Ji, which became the foundation for my work.” He had to find a prototype for each alphabet based on the scans. He traced the letters on Illustrator and copied them to a MAC software called Glyphs where he had to enter each letter, using a traditional Devanagari keyboard instead of Unicode.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025102108100_2f6b8c0f3cf91682707ac356e11ad50b342a4198f56490ab68d041e875b15edb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025102108100_2f6b8c0f3cf91682707ac356e11ad50b342a4198f56490ab68d041e875b15edb" data-rendition-name="original" width="818" height="766" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  “I had to be very careful to keep it accurate. Conjunctions need attention,” Maharjan says. “There are half letters, saint letters, ligatures and open type features to pay attention to, this is more advanced than the fonts I’ve created in the past.” &nbsp; Maharjan has designed this font in three different variations that users can play with. “Writing changes with age. While young, people write better, but with age, it starts to change. Since Durga Lal Shrestha hasn’t been very well lately, his hand shakes when he writes. So, we had to pick the best of his writing from the records,” he adds. “People also tend to write in different styles depending on their mood so we took the best four of every letter and traced and picked one.”&nbsp; Handwriting is deeply intimate and in this day and age of tech, becoming lost.&nbsp; What bothers me about the day of phones is that I no longer know what the writing of those close to me look like. I no longer know how you press the pen between our fingers or how you tilt it against the paper or how you pause to write periods or how the nib makes a perfect tiny orb before you drag it just so, to turn it into a comma. The familiarity of the nuances of someone’s writing is lost on us.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251021071056_2c83ab2c3ed4cfa42e6a6a637d88fd879218fb5b7391e086ab5db1a8ec173654.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20251021071056_2c83ab2c3ed4cfa42e6a6a637d88fd879218fb5b7391e086ab5db1a8ec173654" data-rendition-name="original" width="992" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Digitising the savant calligrapher NT"> </figure>  Ojesh Singh agrees with me. He says it’s important to keep handwriting alive as people become more and more tech-dependent. People are likely to interact even less with letters on paper, but at least we can have fonts, he says.&nbsp; A set of six books by poet Durga Lal Shrestha is set to be launched on 31October. One of them, entitled, Kawa, is typeset in the Durga Lal Shrestha Font. The font will be made available to the general public after the books have been released. In July, I had visited Shrestha, who I also call Durga Lal Taaba, as many Newa people in my generation do. Seated in the quiet of his home, he conversed about literature and language with my father and my uncle. Coming out of Taaba, Newa, which has a utilitarian function for me to communicate with my parents, sounded more like a lyric.&nbsp; I asked him what he thinks about his handwriting being archived as a font. He replied: “This body is going to be gone eventually, so I thought maybe my handwriting could live on.” Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people in Pratibha’s life.

Digitising the savant calligrapher

The winter air pollution season started early this year with emissions, Diwali firecrackers and crop residue burning making the air unbreathable across north India. Much of the pollution was transboundary, with prevailing winds carrying the suspended particulates from Pakistan, across India to Nepal and beyond. All this pollution and domestic emissions killed 41,300 in Nepal in 2023, and 85% of all deaths were because of noncommunicable diseases such as heart and lung disease, lung cancer, diabetes, and dementia, according to the State of Global Air (SoGA) 2025 report released Thursday. With the onset of winter, Kathmandu Valley’s own emissions are trapped in a surface inversion layer and as in previous years will have some of the worst air quality in the world.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131016_7c42a4e8b0dce01dfeeaaf89dbb10dbfa036b41163f3ebada88c7ce17dbded49.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251023131016_7c42a4e8b0dce01dfeeaaf89dbb10dbfa036b41163f3ebada88c7ce17dbded49" data-rendition-name="original" width="921" height="850" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  The SoGa report says air pollution has now become the leading risk factor for deaths in Nepal, ahead of tobacco and high blood pressure. Interestingly, while the health impacts due to environmental risk factors such as unsafe water and sanitation have reduced significantly since 2000, the opposite is true for ambient PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 microns). Globally, 7.9 million deaths were attributable to air pollution– about 1 in 8 deaths – in 2023. Of this total, 4.9 million deaths were attributable to PM2.5 exposure, 2.8 million were from household air pollution, and 470,000 were from ozone. Similarly, dementia attributable to air pollution resulted in 626,000 deaths and 40 million healthy years of life lost. And 95% of air pollution attributable deaths in adults over the age of 60 are due to noncommunicable diseases. The burden of noncommunicable diseases in relation to air pollution is rising worldwide and in Nepal. The SoGA report shows that nearly nine of ten global air pollution deaths are from chronic ailments, and half of all respiratory disease deaths are attributable to air pollution.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131020_8577f464b4a73007de5dd018b8ac91dae3a9c732dbb81a44b6aa5a0ced7df3df.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251023131020_8577f464b4a73007de5dd018b8ac91dae3a9c732dbb81a44b6aa5a0ced7df3df" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  In Nepal, air pollution is responsible for three out of four COPD deaths, one out of three heart deaths and one out of five diabetes deaths. More than one third of lower respiratory infection deaths were due to air pollution. “The data presented in the State of Global Air report highlight the significant impacts of poor air quality on the health and well-being of billions of people around the world, especially those living in Asia and Africa,” says Pallavi Pant of the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI) that released the report in collaboration with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the NCD Alliance. She adds: “Growing momentum on air quality management across those hard-hit locations, including expansion of air quality monitoring, adoption of air quality regulations, and sector-specific interventions are yielding improvements for those most impacted.” Low- and middle-income countries stand to gain most by reducing air pollution, with particularly strong impacts on children, older populations, and people with pre-existing health conditions. Indeed, of the 41,300 air pollution deaths in 2023 in Nepal, 31,600 were in adults over the age of 60 years and 3,500 in children below five years. Death rate for air pollution in Nepal, which is 178 per 100,000, is more than 10 times higher than high-income countries, which is at 17 per 100,000.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251023131020_604e852aed4ffde0dc7d1df72fcd3e73d904136dfb1bb2407e53b7445f3ef72c.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251023131020_604e852aed4ffde0dc7d1df72fcd3e73d904136dfb1bb2407e53b7445f3ef72c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1078" height="423" loading="lazy" alt="Air pollution killing season starts early NT"> </figure>  “Win-win solutions for air pollution and NCDs exist, with added benefits for climate, physical activity, nutrition, and many other global development priorities,” says Alison Cox, Policy and Advocacy Director at the Geneva-based NCD Alliance. “These policies are effective and deliver a strong return on investment - for the sake of our people and the planet we need to implement them faster.” Fine particle pollution (ambient PM2.5) is the largest driver of air pollution’s burden of disease worldwide as kit attributed to 4.9 million deaths and 124 million healthy years of life lost in 2023. Vehicles, power plants, factories, and homes, as well as agricultural and industrial activities, waste burning and wildfires are some of the biggest sources of pollutants. South Asia is among the regions of the world with the highest exposures to ambient PM2.5 , while more than 36% of people around the world live in areas where PM2.5 levels do not meet even the least stringent interim target. As per the report, 78% of Nepal’s 30 million population lives in areas where annual PM2.5 exposure exceeds the least stringent WHO Air Quality Interim Target of 35 µg/m3. Meanwhile, exposure to household air pollution due to the use of solid fuels for cooking remains an important driver for the disease burden in the country. “Ongoing efforts to meet global development goals are not achievable without directly addressing air pollution,” says Maria Neira, Commissioner of Our Common Air. “Countries and cities must focus their efforts toward reducing air pollution emissions, including household air pollution, which has particularly severe impacts on young children and older people across Asia and Africa.”

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