<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111140/636b83c69c7e80680e067756jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800"/><figcaption>Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>The second wave of Covid-19 is breaking across Nepal with devastating effect. Fueled by new and deadly variants, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/microcosms-of-a-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">virus is replicating faster here than in India</a> (when adjusted for population) and arguably anywhere else on the planet. Our health systems are already overwhelmed and the economy is fracturing. We have reached the point of no return.At current mortality rates, we need to be prepared for up to 285,000 deaths across the country.We are deeply grateful for the $8.5 million recently pledged by the US Government to support Covid relief efforts in Nepal. These funds are allocated to crucial activities like increasing testing capacity, treatment, infection control, and community level assistance. While extremely valuable, these activities alone will not slow, nor will they stop, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/this-is-war/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the spread of the virus</a>.Like the wildfires that have burned with unprecedented intensity across the country, Covid is spreading at a rate that is hard to fully comprehend. In a number of major population centers, 75% of all Covid tests are coming back positive, as are 47% of tests nationwide. We anticipate that within two months, ten critically ill patients will be vying for every single available ICU bed. Access to ventilators and medical oxygen face the same constriction in supply.Nepal also depends upon manufacturing in India for the majority of our medical supplies -- including basic items like PPE and oxygen cylinders. As India is neck-deep in its own disaster, these materials will cease to be available for import into Nepal soon. Like during the earthquake, our challenges were compounded by a devastating blockade.This needs to be said directly: it is now impossible to upgrade Nepal’s healthcare infrastructure at the speed and scale necessary to meet the overwhelming demands posed by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-covid-tsunami/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Covid crisis</a>. The only option to save lives is to stop the virus at the source, to extinguish the fire. The only way to do this is through a robust and immediate vaccination campaign.In March, the US Government pledged 4.5 million doses to support vaccination programs in Mexico and Canada. In the last week of April, it pledged to share up to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine stockpile. Twenty countries are currently being considered as potential recipients – the list does not include Nepal.We cannot let Nepal disappear into the darkness: there is simply too much at stake. We have written an open letter to the US Ambassador Randy Berry urging him and his colleagues to pursue any means possible to secure an immediate supply of vaccines for Nepal.The bright and free days of winter are already a distant memory as we enter <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandu-valley-lockdown-till-12-may/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the second week of lockdown</a>. Inevitably, these extreme measures will again slow the spread of the virus and save countless lives. But we also all know this is not a permanent solution.Research shows that, on average, each month of lockdown costs the country approximately 1% of GDP, and this rate grows exponentially over time. Our tolerance for the lockdown will only last so long, and inevitably, despite the exorbitant price tag, this measure of last resort has a very short shelf life.We cannot squander this opportunity again. Nepal has a well-proven ability to distribute crucial public health benefits, including vaccines, to people in every corner of the country, no matter how remote. Our Vitamin A and measles vaccination programs serve as examples for the world.The current lockdown gives us a short window to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/1-6-million-vaccinated-20-million-to-go/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">inoculate the population</a> against the inevitable third and fourth waves of the virus. After this, we will yet again cross the threshold into crisis and death.Almost immediately after the dust settled following the deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake on 25 April, 2015 the international community sprung into action to support Nepal. The US government alone has provided $130 million for life-saving relief and reconstruction projects since.Unlike the earthquake, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/how-nepal-can-survive-2nd-covid-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">this current disaster</a> is entirely preventable. With help from our longstanding development partners like the US government, we have the opportunity to save tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives across Nepal. Providing surplus vaccine doses to Nepal is an opportunity to reduce unnecessary suffering and death.Unlike with natural disasters, how Nepal manages the coronavirus has profound implications across South Asia and the globe. Stopping the virus here is crucial for the health of our families, the region, and the world.--The Covid Alliance for NepalTo view the open letter to Ambassador Berry, follow this link:Vaccines4nepal.comTo get involved, follow @covidalliancefornepal on Facebook and @alliance4nep on Twitter and Instagram.

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Vaccines are the only solution

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7699c7e80680e092dd9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1955" height="1304"/><figcaption>The US Ambassador to Nepal, Randy Berry. Photo: US EMBASSY IN NEPAL</figcaption></figure>T<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/us-museum-returns-stolen-nepal-god/">he figure of Laxmi-Narayan</a>, stolen from a shrine in Patan’s Patko Tole in 1984 and recently traced to the Dallas Museum of Art, US, is to be returned to Nepal. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has taken possession of the 70kg figure and will deliver it to the Nepal Embassy in Washington on 5 March. The holy androgynous composite of the two deities had been worshipped for 800 years before it disappeared, and the local people had replaced it with a replica. The image of the 15th-century deity was first published in Indian historian Krishna Deva’s book, Images of Nepal in 1984, followed by Nepal’s art historian <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/lain-singh-bangdels-legacy-lives-on/">Lain Singh Bangdel</a>’s book, Stolen Images of Nepal.  On the sidelines of the handover of the Lakshmi-Narayan statue Nepali Times spoke to the US Ambassador to Nepal, Randy Berry about the US government’s role in supporting Nepal to protect its cultural heritage and art. Excerpts:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJNecZPPyVUNepali Times: What is the role of US Embassy in repatriating stolen arts?In this case, our Regional Security Office – staffed with special agents from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security – played a critical liaison role between the Nepal Police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was conducting the investigation in Texas. Being able to bridge the communication gap between Nepal and American law enforcement agencies and ensuring harmony in the efforts of all involved in the recovery of the Lakshmi-Narayan statue are key strengths of our Regional Security Officers.Overall, helping to protect cultural heritage is an important and unique aspect of our foreign policy. For more than 50 years, the US Department of State has had a Bureau dedicated to education and cultural affairs. Its mission is to foster mutual understanding between Americans and the people of other countries through people-to people exchanges, such as the Fulbright and IVLP programs, and through sports, arts, and cultural programs.One of the programs which I am most proud of is our Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP). This is a US government program that provides direct grants for preserving cultural heritage by enlisting community members and local and federal governments in partner countries. Since 2003, there have been 25 AFCP projects just in Nepal, including Kathmandu’s Gaddi Baithak, investing more than $3.8 million. That’s incredible. Even more so, as part of our AFCP projects, our grantees also ensure artisan training to transfer knowledge and job skills to younger generations. So it is not just a program that ends when the work on a particular project is complete.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd76c9c7e80680e092ddajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1002"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd76e9c7e80680e092ddbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="428"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd76f9c7e80680e092ddcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="428">How important of a precedent is the homecoming of Lakshmi-Narayan statue? It has huge importance. First, this is an idol that dates back to between the 12th and 15th  centuries, and it speaks to Nepal’s rich cultural heritage. The homecoming also reflects the unique friendship between Nepal and the United States. It is a collective effort of the Dallas Museum of Art, the Embassy of Nepal in the United States, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m thrilled the Laxmi-Narayana will finally be back where it belongs – in the hands of Nepalis.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-gods-return-from-exile/">Nepal's gods return from exile</a>, Alisha SijapatiThere are thousands of Nepali artifacts in the United States, will the Embassy help in identifying them and cooperate with the Nepal government in the future?Whenever possible, we intend to collaborate with the concerned stakeholders to identify the artifacts and facilitate their return. I hope that this is the beginning of these pieces coming back to Nepal. They are not only in the United States, but in many places around the world.  I hope other governments and museums follow suit.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7719c7e80680e092dddjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1554" height="954"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>What are America’s policies on restoration of antiquities of Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Cambodia?I can’t speak to a broad policy for those pieces from those countries. However, the Department of State has incredible programs that demonstrate the United States’ commitment to art and cultural preservation as I discussed above.To my knowledge, we are one of the few foreign affairs ministries that has an entire bureau that is in part dedicated to the art and culture of our diplomatic partners. That is because we consider cultural heritage vitally important – not only as a matter of foreign policy, but because we recognise the commonality in wanting to preserve cultural and historical pieces, art, and property for future generations.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/">Replicating Nepal's stolen gods</a>, Alisha Sijapati<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7739c7e80680e092ddejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4096" height="2663"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>How can the US Embassy help Nepal in restoring it cultural heritage and idols?The US Embassy in Nepal has been promoting the conservation of cultural heritage for a long time. A recent example is the restoration of Gaddi Baithak of Basantapur, which was damaged by the 2015 earthquake. We feel honoured that we were able to help restore it to its original grandeur. We also support preservation of Nepal’s temples and monasteries through the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, as I’ve just mentioned.Could you tell us something about your personal interest in preserving art?I’ve had an enduring interest in art as a means of communication, art history, and art preservation throughout my life, and my Masters’ level studies focused on Art History. I also had the opportunity as a young man to live and work in North Africa, and study the ancient architecture, statuary, and hieroglyphs from Cairo (in Egypt) to Meroe (in Sudan) and all points in-between. Art has been a vital form of human communication since prehistoric times. It is a reflection of who we were, what we believed, and how we lived. When we preserve historic art, we embrace and conserve history, and honor those ancient storytellers who used form and texture, rather than words, to express cultural value.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bringing-our-gods-home/">Bringing our gods home</a>, Sahina Shrestha

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US support to restore stolen Nepal gods

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7ae9c7e80680e087817jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1112"/><figcaption>Charge d' Affaires L. Douglas welcomes BP Koirala to the US Embassy inaguration in 1959.</figcaption></figure>On 15 December 1960 (पुस १) exactly 60 years ago, King Mahendra ordered the jailing of Prime Minister BP Koirala and other political figures, many of whom the Nepali people had put in power 18 months earlier in Nepal's first-ever election.Ending a decade of democratic experimentation, Mahendra decided to rule the country directly. After his death in 1972 his son Birendra took power. Many of today's top political leaders cut their political teeth in years of underground opposition to the monarchy.The U S government at the time noted that Mahendra's coup was accomplished ‘with great secrecy and superb organisation’. After 1960, the US slowly shifted its approach in Nepal, embracing the monarchy and moving away from democratic reform.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7b19c7e80680e087818jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="719">Ten years earlier, the globalisation of the Cold War had forced the US to pay more attention to South Asia. After China turned Communist in 1949 and war broke out on the Korean peninsula in 1950, Asian nations, particularly those near China, became hot spots for Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and China on one hand, and the US led capitalist democracies on the other.During the 1950s, believing economic progress and expanded political freedoms would inoculate Nepal against communist influence, the U S offered aid programs and supported democratic reforms. As part of this vision, Washington promoted health and agriculture programs but also, in part to counter populist Communist Chinese programs, pushed for economic leveling programs such as land reform.In the late 1950s, the US grew increasingly concerned as China and the Soviet Union expanded activities in Nepal. A November 1960 National Security document warned that Nepal had become ‘a particularly vulnerable target’.But the US believed that Nepal's 1959 election had strengthened the country. Nepal, the National Security document noted, ‘currently enjoys greater internal stability than heretofore, following the introduction of popularly-based parliamentary government’.The US also thought highly of B P Koirala. A 1960 memo explained, ‘Koirala is intelligent, forceful, respected by his party, and popular with his people.’ He was ‘basically pro-Western and anti-Communist’ and didn't underestimate the communist threat, showing ‘grave concern’ about it.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7b39c7e80680e087819jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="465" height="578">The US had a less positive view of Mahendra. He was seen as anti-communist and as a ‘stabilising and unifying force’ but seemed less forceful, and less consequential. An internal memo discounted him as ‘a conscientious man of simple tastes and austere habits … rather naive politically and not particularly forceful as a ruler … awkward socially, and indecisive’. It noted he had advanced some reforms but that ‘he is firmly convinced that a strong monarchy is necessary to insure stability’.The last lines of an April 1960 US memo raised the possibility of a royal takeover in Nepal, saying the king was not ‘irrevocably committed’ to representative government. But it discounted the possibility: ‘Such a drastic step is not anticipated.’A week after the coup, on 20 December, 1960, CIA Director Allen Dulles told the National Security Council that the King's ‘strange coup’ owed to two reasons: Koirala was ‘too progressive’ and had too ‘close relations’ with India. He warned of a more ‘archaic form of government’.US Ambassador Henry Stebbins met with Mahendra on 21 December, 1960 and cabled Washington to say that the King professed a strong belief in democracy, which he claimed he himself had brought to Nepal. He said he dismissed the Koirala government and imprisoned its leaders because they were guilty of corruption and of aiding and abetting Communism. In a letter to US President Dwight Eisenhower a couple days later, he also blamed poor administration.Stebbins did not buy it. He wrote: ‘Mahendra is guided less by the issues of corruption and Communism than by a growing fear that his own personal position and prestige were dwindling and that if he did not act soon, it might be too late." Stebbins thought the coup might yield ‘disastrous’ results.President Eisenhower addressed the Nepal coup at a 11 January 1961 meeting, just 10 days before handing over the office to John F Kennedy. He was reminded of ‘intensive Bloc efforts to detach Nepal from India's sphere of influence’. The choice was to support the Nepali Congress or create some kind of accommodation between the NC and the king. The US chose accommodation, pointing to ‘the inevitable chaos which would be exploited by the Communists … and the Nepali Congress’ presumed inability to establish a viable government’.But this didn't mean giving the king full legitimacy. As a later document put it, for a short time after the coup, the US maintained ‘correct relations’ with Mahendra but didn't openly back him ‘for fear of alienating the exiled NCP (Nepali Congress Party)’.Things began to shift a year later, by early 1962, even before the dramatic events of later that year on the Sino-Indian border. ‘State is considering a new emphasis in our Nepal policy,’ reported a February memo. Department officials ‘now believe the King will probably stay in power despite the recent sharp increase in NCP-sponsored dissident activity’. They showed new concern the King would turn to the Communist bloc. ‘State feels now may be the time to move closer to him, lest he look increasingly to the Bloc for support.’Democratic values seemed less a concern than power politics. ‘Our chief problem is to keep Nepal from becoming too dependent on Bloc aid, especially from Red China, and to preserve her strong economic ties with India. In the past, we’ve tuned our policy to New Delhi’s.’At first, though, coming round to support the King did not mean the abandoning US efforts at democratic reform within Nepal. Instead, the US hoped Mahendra could be the source of reform. Mahendra, it said, ‘is probably making almost as much progress with economic and social reform as the NCP did’. He appeared to embrace land reform as well.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7b59c7e80680e08781ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="379">Everything changed in the fall of 1962 when China and India came to blows over disputed Himalayan territory. Catching the Indians flat footed, Chinese incursions spurred a reversal of India's hardline stance toward Mahendra. India abandoned support of Koirala and the Nepali Congress dissidents, and moved to win back Mahendra's favour. The U S lost leverage in Nepal, and land reform lost momentum.Mahendra continued to back भुमी सुधार land reform, but only outwardly. By March 1963, an American Ford Foundation official had noticed a new ‘spirit of complacency’ in Kathmandu on the issue. He wrote: ‘The desire to move ahead with the measures of unquestioned importance for the welfare of Nepal, so evident in September is hard to find now.’A sea change in Nepal politics had occurred. Observers began to see the 1950s as a restoration, not a revolution. The monarchy had returned to full power, not the people. The US, once a strong voice for democracy in Nepal, now supported the king and gave up on programs such as land reform.America's Reform Push in 1950s NepalVisiting Kathmandu in 1953, US Ambassador to India and Nepal Chester Bowles confronted a tricky issue: As an outsider working in a starkly hierarchical society, how much should you work with the existing power structure and how much to push for change?Nepal's land ownership patterns, some of the most unequal in Asia, spurred Bowles to ponder this question. He had come to Nepal to meet with Nepal's King Tribhuvan to discuss land reform. How hard should the U S push?Many foreigners in Nepal do not see the country's harsh hierarchies. Or they see parts, such as class and gender divisions, but miss more unfamiliar caste and ethnic divisions. I still remember my disappointment visiting Dang a few years ago after the end of the Maoist war, and learning that, of the many foreign volunteers working in the district, all of whom lived with local families, not one lived with a Tharu or Dalit family.But Bowles had an unusual background, and the early 1950s were a special moment. He had emerged from a progressive tradition, connected to the Great Depression of the 1930s, that had emphasised structural poverty and social reform. And because of family relations, he possessed a much deeper understanding of America's history of racial discrimination than many white Americans. In the 1950s, he pioneered opportunities <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/african-americans-in-cold-war-nepal/">for African Americans as diplomats</a>, including in Nepal.In February 1953 Bowles <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/land-reform-in-cold-war-Nepal,4192">travelled from New Delhi to Kathmandu</a> to meet with Nepali government officials, including King Tribhuvan, to discuss new American development programs for Nepal. In the previous year the US had started mineral surveys, agriculture, and health programs. But most of all Bowles wanted to discuss land reform.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7b79c7e80680e08781bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="357"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Few Asian countries had starker disparities in land ownership than Nepal. A UN report as far back as 1952 highlighted that fully one-fourth of Nepal's cultivable land was tax-free birta and that the jamindar landlord class held most of the other land. ‘The illiterate peasants,’ the report said, ‘are always exploited by Zamindars and used for state labour.’ Rents ate as much as 50% of each crop.Unequal land distribution seemed to hold Nepal back economically and politically. But it was a tricky issue. How much should Bowles push? Would he alienate powerful Nepalis he hoped to win over to the US side?The early 1950s saw new worlds emerge. In the previous five years, three huge earthquakes had shaken South Asia's political landscape: Indian independence from Great Britain (1947), the Chinese communist party's takeover of China (1949), and war in Korea (1950).<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7b89c7e80680e08781cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="422"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Both Nepal and the US stood at the crossroads. In Nepal, after the Rana regime that had ruled for a century collapsed in 1950, a new coalition government promised democracy and development.The U S had emerged from World War II Asia's most dominant power. The British departed. War between North and South Korea had intensified Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and its communist allies and the United States and its democratic capitalist allies all over Asia, particularly those, like Nepal, near China's borders. ‘The invasion of Tibet by Chinese Communists,’ Bowles wrote in 1952, ‘has catapulted Nepal into the front line of the cold war.”To bolster Nepal, the U S relied upon India’s security umbrella, but also economic development programs. The US gave taxpayer dollars for health and agriculture programs in Nepal for altruistic reasons, but also for geopolitical gain. But would these programs succeed without more equal access to the single most essential resource in Nepal's rural society: land?On one hand, pushing for land reform could be seen as a kind of internal interference, an overreach that smacked of imperialism. Even if in the name of greater equality, what gave the US the authority to judge right and wrong and to decide the path for change? And didn't the US have its own huge problems of inequality?On the other hand, the US was giving hard-earned resources for programs desperately needed in Nepal. Bowles wanted those programs to be effective. It might be convenient to partner with the castes, classes, and genders that ran Nepal, but wouldn't that just reinforce them? Today, especially in the wake of Acemoglu and Robinson's influential 2012 book Why Nations Fail, ideas of ‘inclusive institutions’ and ‘inclusive development’ have become conventional wisdom among development professionals. Wasn't Bowles simply pursuing an early variant of this?In a candid letter from early 1953, Bowles reflected on exactly this dilemma: how much should an outside country like the US press for internal reforms in Nepal. Bowles noted that the year before he had proposed that US foreign aid be denied to any country not making sincere progress at land reform and other internal reforms. He also noted that many diplomats and policymakers strongly disagreed, seeing his proposal as inappropriate internal meddling.In the end, he decided that donor countries must insist upon certain ‘basic reforms’ within recipient countries or else ‘our aid is wasted’. Pressure for reforms should not be dismissed as interference, as he saw it, because development aid would fail without those reforms. To not push for serious reforms would be not just nonsensical but also counterproductive; it would mean ‘wasted’ aid.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7b99c7e80680e08781djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="693" height="847">In the early 1950s, several factors made it easier for Bowles to make these arguments in Nepal. Prominent Nepali Congress leaders like B P Koirala also called for land reform. And it seemed that such efforts would help counter the appeal of Chinese and Soviets calls for resource redistribution. So Bowles wasn't really going far out on a limb.In his 1953 meeting with Tribuvan and his advisers, including some of Nepal's wealthiest men, Bowles pushed hard for land reform. Many American programs in the 1950s, including its flagship program in Chitwan, featured strong land reform programs. In the end, they often failed to deliver much social levelling, but not for lack of trying.American programs in Nepal in the 1950s reflected the reformer hopes of Bowles. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/how-chitwan-was-opened,4159">Paul Rose</a>, the top US official actually based in Nepal from 1952 to 1958, described U S programs in Nepal as a ‘prescription for revolution’.On 15 December 1960,  Tribhuvan's son Mahendra seized absolute power. For a couple years, the US government continued to push for land reform in Nepal but the push for such reform would not last long. In the early 1960s, people and politics would align in a very different pattern than in the early 1950s.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/african-americans-in-cold-war-nepal/">Tom Robertson</a>, PhD, is author of  Notes from the Archive: U.S. Ambassador Chester Bowles’s 1953 Letter to King Tribhuvan, about Land Reform and U S Development Programs in Nepal, Studies in Nepali History and Society, December 2020.

Tom Robertson

America, Nepal and the Royal Coup

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beeb34b0ad905ca02ef60jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1112"/><figcaption>Charge d' Affaires L. Douglas welcomes BP Koirala to the US Embassy inaguration in 1959.</figcaption></figure>On 15 December 1960 (पुस १) exactly 60 years ago, King Mahendra ordered the jailing of Prime Minister BP Koirala and other political figures, many of whom the Nepali people had put in power 18 months earlier in Nepal's first-ever election.Ending a decade of democratic experimentation, Mahendra decided to rule the country directly. After his death in 1972 his son Birendra took power. Many of today's top political leaders cut their political teeth in years of underground opposition to the monarchy.The U S government at the time noted that Mahendra's coup was accomplished ‘with great secrecy and superb organisation’. After 1960, the US slowly shifted its approach in Nepal, embracing the monarchy and moving away from democratic reform.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beeb64b0ad905ca02ef61jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="719">Ten years earlier, the globalisation of the Cold War had forced the US to pay more attention to South Asia. After China turned Communist in 1949 and war broke out on the Korean peninsula in 1950, Asian nations, particularly those near China, became hot spots for Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and China on one hand, and the US led capitalist democracies on the other.During the 1950s, believing economic progress and expanded political freedoms would inoculate Nepal against communist influence, the U S offered aid programs and supported democratic reforms. As part of this vision, Washington promoted health and agriculture programs but also, in part to counter populist Communist Chinese programs, pushed for economic leveling programs such as land reform.In the late 1950s, the US grew increasingly concerned as China and the Soviet Union expanded activities in Nepal. A November 1960 National Security document warned that Nepal had become ‘a particularly vulnerable target’.But the US believed that Nepal's 1959 election had strengthened the country. Nepal, the National Security document noted, ‘currently enjoys greater internal stability than heretofore, following the introduction of popularly-based parliamentary government’.The US also thought highly of B P Koirala. A 1960 memo explained, ‘Koirala is intelligent, forceful, respected by his party, and popular with his people.’ He was ‘basically pro-Western and anti-Communist’ and didn't underestimate the communist threat, showing ‘grave concern’ about it.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beeb84b0ad905ca02ef62jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="465" height="578">The US had a less positive view of Mahendra. He was seen as anti-communist and as a ‘stabilising and unifying force’ but seemed less forceful, and less consequential. An internal memo discounted him as ‘a conscientious man of simple tastes and austere habits … rather naive politically and not particularly forceful as a ruler … awkward socially, and indecisive’. It noted he had advanced some reforms but that ‘he is firmly convinced that a strong monarchy is necessary to insure stability’.The last lines of an April 1960 US memo raised the possibility of a royal takeover in Nepal, saying the king was not ‘irrevocably committed’ to representative government. But it discounted the possibility: ‘Such a drastic step is not anticipated.’A week after the coup, on 20 December, 1960, CIA Director Allen Dulles told the National Security Council that the King's ‘strange coup’ owed to two reasons: Koirala was ‘too progressive’ and had too ‘close relations’ with India. He warned of a more ‘archaic form of government’.US Ambassador Henry Stebbins met with Mahendra on 21 December, 1960 and cabled Washington to say that the King professed a strong belief in democracy, which he claimed he himself had brought to Nepal. He said he dismissed the Koirala government and imprisoned its leaders because they were guilty of corruption and of aiding and abetting Communism. In a letter to US President Dwight Eisenhower a couple days later, he also blamed poor administration.Stebbins did not buy it. He wrote: ‘Mahendra is guided less by the issues of corruption and Communism than by a growing fear that his own personal position and prestige were dwindling and that if he did not act soon, it might be too late." Stebbins thought the coup might yield ‘disastrous’ results.President Eisenhower addressed the Nepal coup at a 11 January 1961 meeting, just 10 days before handing over the office to John F Kennedy. He was reminded of ‘intensive Bloc efforts to detach Nepal from India's sphere of influence’. The choice was to support the Nepali Congress or create some kind of accommodation between the NC and the king. The US chose accommodation, pointing to ‘the inevitable chaos which would be exploited by the Communists … and the Nepali Congress’ presumed inability to establish a viable government’.But this didn't mean giving the king full legitimacy. As a later document put it, for a short time after the coup, the US maintained ‘correct relations’ with Mahendra but didn't openly back him ‘for fear of alienating the exiled NCP (Nepali Congress Party)’.Things began to shift a year later, by early 1962, even before the dramatic events of later that year on the Sino-Indian border. ‘State is considering a new emphasis in our Nepal policy,’ reported a February memo. Department officials ‘now believe the King will probably stay in power despite the recent sharp increase in NCP-sponsored dissident activity’. They showed new concern the King would turn to the Communist bloc. ‘State feels now may be the time to move closer to him, lest he look increasingly to the Bloc for support.’Democratic values seemed less a concern than power politics. ‘Our chief problem is to keep Nepal from becoming too dependent on Bloc aid, especially from Red China, and to preserve her strong economic ties with India. In the past, we’ve tuned our policy to New Delhi’s.’At first, though, coming round to support the King did not mean the abandoning US efforts at democratic reform within Nepal. Instead, the US hoped Mahendra could be the source of reform. Mahendra, it said, ‘is probably making almost as much progress with economic and social reform as the NCP did’. He appeared to embrace land reform as well.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beeb94b0ad905ca02ef63jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="379">Everything changed in the fall of 1962 when China and India came to blows over disputed Himalayan territory. Catching the Indians flat footed, Chinese incursions spurred a reversal of India's hardline stance toward Mahendra. India abandoned support of Koirala and the Nepali Congress dissidents, and moved to win back Mahendra's favour. The U S lost leverage in Nepal, and land reform lost momentum.Mahendra continued to back भुमी सुधार land reform, but only outwardly. By March 1963, an American Ford Foundation official had noticed a new ‘spirit of complacency’ in Kathmandu on the issue. He wrote: ‘The desire to move ahead with the measures of unquestioned importance for the welfare of Nepal, so evident in September is hard to find now.’A sea change in Nepal politics had occurred. Observers began to see the 1950s as a restoration, not a revolution. The monarchy had returned to full power, not the people. The US, once a strong voice for democracy in Nepal, now supported the king and gave up on programs such as land reform.America's Reform Push in 1950s NepalVisiting Kathmandu in 1953, US Ambassador to India and Nepal Chester Bowles confronted a tricky issue: As an outsider working in a starkly hierarchical society, how much should you work with the existing power structure and how much to push for change?Nepal's land ownership patterns, some of the most unequal in Asia, spurred Bowles to ponder this question. He had come to Nepal to meet with Nepal's King Tribhuvan to discuss land reform. How hard should the U S push?Many foreigners in Nepal do not see the country's harsh hierarchies. Or they see parts, such as class and gender divisions, but miss more unfamiliar caste and ethnic divisions. I still remember my disappointment visiting Dang a few years ago after the end of the Maoist war, and learning that, of the many foreign volunteers working in the district, all of whom lived with local families, not one lived with a Tharu or Dalit family.But Bowles had an unusual background, and the early 1950s were a special moment. He had emerged from a progressive tradition, connected to the Great Depression of the 1930s, that had emphasised structural poverty and social reform. And because of family relations, he possessed a much deeper understanding of America's history of racial discrimination than many white Americans. In the 1950s, he pioneered opportunities <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/african-americans-in-cold-war-nepal/">for African Americans as diplomats</a>, including in Nepal.In February 1953 Bowles <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/land-reform-in-cold-war-Nepal,4192">travelled from New Delhi to Kathmandu</a> to meet with Nepali government officials, including King Tribhuvan, to discuss new American development programs for Nepal. In the previous year the US had started mineral surveys, agriculture, and health programs. But most of all Bowles wanted to discuss land reform.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beebb4b0ad905ca02ef64jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="357"><figcaption>Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library</figcaption></figure>Few Asian countries had starker disparities in land ownership than Nepal. A UN report as far back as 1952 highlighted that fully one-fourth of Nepal's cultivable land was tax-free birta and that the jamindar landlord class held most of the other land. ‘The illiterate peasants,’ the report said, ‘are always exploited by Zamindars and used for state labour.’ Rents ate as much as 50% of each crop.Unequal land distribution seemed to hold Nepal back economically and politically. But it was a tricky issue. How much should Bowles push? Would he alienate powerful Nepalis he hoped to win over to the US side?The early 1950s saw new worlds emerge. In the previous five years, three huge earthquakes had shaken South Asia's political landscape: Indian independence from Great Britain (1947), the Chinese communist party's takeover of China (1949), and war in Korea (1950).<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beebc4b0ad905ca02ef65jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="422"><figcaption>The cover of Bowles’ book, Ambassador’s Report, 1954</figcaption></figure>Both Nepal and the US stood at the crossroads. In Nepal, after the Rana regime that had ruled for a century collapsed in 1950, a new coalition government promised democracy and development.The U S had emerged from World War II Asia's most dominant power. The British departed. War between North and South Korea had intensified Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and its communist allies and the United States and its democratic capitalist allies all over Asia, particularly those, like Nepal, near China's borders. ‘The invasion of Tibet by Chinese Communists,’ Bowles wrote in 1952, ‘has catapulted Nepal into the front line of the cold war.”To bolster Nepal, the U S relied upon India’s security umbrella, but also economic development programs. The US gave taxpayer dollars for health and agriculture programs in Nepal for altruistic reasons, but also for geopolitical gain. But would these programs succeed without more equal access to the single most essential resource in Nepal's rural society: land?On one hand, pushing for land reform could be seen as a kind of internal interference, an overreach that smacked of imperialism. Even if in the name of greater equality, what gave the US the authority to judge right and wrong and to decide the path for change? And didn't the US have its own huge problems of inequality?On the other hand, the US was giving hard-earned resources for programs desperately needed in Nepal. Bowles wanted those programs to be effective. It might be convenient to partner with the castes, classes, and genders that ran Nepal, but wouldn't that just reinforce them? Today, especially in the wake of Acemoglu and Robinson's influential 2012 book Why Nations Fail, ideas of ‘inclusive institutions’ and ‘inclusive development’ have become conventional wisdom among development professionals. Wasn't Bowles simply pursuing an early variant of this?In a candid letter from early 1953, Bowles reflected on exactly this dilemma: how much should an outside country like the US press for internal reforms in Nepal. Bowles noted that the year before he had proposed that US foreign aid be denied to any country not making sincere progress at land reform and other internal reforms. He also noted that many diplomats and policymakers strongly disagreed, seeing his proposal as inappropriate internal meddling.In the end, he decided that donor countries must insist upon certain ‘basic reforms’ within recipient countries or else ‘our aid is wasted’. Pressure for reforms should not be dismissed as interference, as he saw it, because development aid would fail without those reforms. To not push for serious reforms would be not just nonsensical but also counterproductive; it would mean ‘wasted’ aid.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beebd4b0ad905ca02ef66jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="693" height="847">In the early 1950s, several factors made it easier for Bowles to make these arguments in Nepal. Prominent Nepali Congress leaders like B P Koirala also called for land reform. And it seemed that such efforts would help counter the appeal of Chinese and Soviets calls for resource redistribution. So Bowles wasn't really going far out on a limb.In his 1953 meeting with Tribuvan and his advisers, including some of Nepal's wealthiest men, Bowles pushed hard for land reform. Many American programs in the 1950s, including its flagship program in Chitwan, featured strong land reform programs. In the end, they often failed to deliver much social levelling, but not for lack of trying.American programs in Nepal in the 1950s reflected the reformer hopes of Bowles. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/how-chitwan-was-opened,4159">Paul Rose</a>, the top US official actually based in Nepal from 1952 to 1958, described U S programs in Nepal as a ‘prescription for revolution’.On 15 December 1960,  Tribhuvan's son Mahendra seized absolute power. For a couple years, the US government continued to push for land reform in Nepal but the push for such reform would not last long. In the early 1960s, people and politics would align in a very different pattern than in the early 1950s.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/african-americans-in-cold-war-nepal/">Tom Robertson</a>, PhD, is author of  Notes from the Archive: U.S. Ambassador Chester Bowles’s 1953 Letter to King Tribhuvan, about Land Reform and U S Development Programs in Nepal, Studies in Nepali History and Society, December 2020.

<figure><img width="1500" height="900" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be79b9c7e80680e087810jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Lo Khyi now lives in Haymarket, Virginia in the US (right) with the DeLisi family, on the other side of the Planet from his birthplace in a remote village of Mustang in Nepal (left).</figcaption></figure>The story begins with a tiny <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-dog-with-altitude/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-dog-with-altitude/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH9CEZG4bpq66y4XoTU_SIampvcGg">Tibetan Mastiff</a> pup, cold, hungry and alone as an icy wind blows across a mountain trail in Tsarang of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2012/09/07/monsoon-in-the-rainshadow/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2012/09/07/monsoon-in-the-rainshadow/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHUmrOgNZKbL4fGYxruaeWemr63aw">Upper Mustang</a> beyond the Himalaya.A boy named Karchung scoops up the shivering ball of fluff. “Little brother, this won’t do,” says the boy, tucking him inside his fleece jacket and taking him home.The puppy slurps up the tsampa, and as the days go by the little pup gets stronger and dreams of a warm home and family by night, an innocent wish that the high Himalayan winds carry across the land.When he wasn’t chasing after chicken and prancing around the goats, he was restlessly roaming the village, exploring every corner of Saukre. Villagers recognise pretty early that this handsome blue-eyed Tibetan Mastiff pup has a wandering spirit. But Karchung, his family and most of the village had never left the mountains.So, the story goes, the pup waits for his true family, perched on his rock overlooking the trail until one day a man with a white-beard and white shirt comes puffing up the trail.This is not just any other trekker, it is <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18512#.X9Mx3lUzaUk" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D18512%23.X9Mx3lUzaUk&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH6VHgrM1MfgVEkc8QcCpaHyedqWA">Scott DeLisi, at the time the American Ambassador to Nepal</a>. He and his team were heading up to the fabled walled town of Lo Manthang. <figure><img width="330" height="381" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be79e9c7e80680e087811jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The piercing blue eyes and dignified self-confident air immediately drew him to the pup. If it was not for the eyes, His Excellency may have walked on by since the dog’s blue-grey coat was the colour of the land itself, and perfectly camouflaged him in Mustang’s arid terrain.Then, their eyes met, and, for the first time, the puppy spoke… and Scott heard him, and that day, the world changed for them both.The Ambassador’s Dog is a tale of Lo Khyi (Lo for Mustang, and khyi, which fortuitously means both ‘dog’ and ‘happiness’ in Tibetan), a pup that dared to dream big and who went on to become the source of happiness for Scott, who took the dog to America after his tenure in Nepal.‘Scott’ in the book is Scott H. DeLisi himself, who <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18847" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D18847&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHwNbBtI9s4hrNMwwqTlYyVqbvZlQ">served as ambassador</a> in Kathmandu from 2010-12. Now retired, DeLisi is a career diplomat who spent 35 years from one embassy to the next roaming the world with multiple postings in Asia and Africa. But it was Nepal and Nepalis that touched his heart like no other place. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19388" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D19388&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFeyBVhxB3sPk81x1ya0vxrPz9CcQ">DeLisi is an avid birder</a>, and made a rare sighting of Spiny Babbler during his tenure in Nepal.DeLisi worked on <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17850" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D17850&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG2yKUAA_XLWay95dcTe2tW0f17pQ">preparing Nepal for disaster risk reduction</a> as ambassador, and after retiring had just established <a href="http://www.soarway.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.soarway.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH8QFf7_rRLWN7JlSZwIDj_WhRhRA">Soarway Foundation</a> in April 2015, when a major earthquake rocked Nepal.  As an Executive Director of the Foundation and <a href="https://www.engagenepal.org/team" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.engagenepal.org/team&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEdLY3uo_YYXlzooQSTlPVtOuyixA">Engage Nepal,</a> he continues his effort to help Nepal with child nutrition and education, public health, employment generation and rebuilding. Part of the proceeds from this book will go to his charitable organisation.The Ambassador’s Dog has a dream-like quality to it, but at its heart is a story of optimism and positivity. Lo Khyi is a canine medium for an important message: set goals for yourselves and believe in them. And somehow (stars will align, or you will find avenues) your dreams will come true.Every word in this short tale reveals DeLisi’s attachment to his bhote kukur, a harbinger of hope and happiness. This book will surely grip many young readers and inspire them, and they will be particularly drawn by Jane Lillian Vance’s exquisite illustrations.Vance is an acclaimed American artist, her thangka painting of amchi healer in west Nepal resulted in the award-winning 2010 documentary A Gift for the Village. She has worked as an art therapist for children with special needs for 20 years and is a vice-president at the non-profit Help Save the Next Girl.The illustrations on every page are symbolic, but detailed works of art that are intimate portrayals of the Land of Lo, its Buddhist faith, and its people, animals and birds.Lo Khyi now lives in Haymarket, Virginia with DeLisi’s loving family, on the other side of the Planet from his birthplace in the remote wind-blown village of Tsarang in Nepal.Lo Khyi is the true hero of the The Ambassador’s Dog, a short, uplifting ageless read for this dreary Covid winter, and a perfect magical gift of hope for the upcoming holiday season -- especially for families with children and dogs.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llARsJ8R1DYThe Ambassador’s Dog Scott H. DeLisi Vajra Publications 2020 Pages 40 Rs1,600 Available at Vajra Books, Patan dhoka Bookshop and Architect's Books in Patan. Vajra is offering Christmas discount at Rs1,400 and home delivery. Can also order online through Laibary.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be79f9c7e80680e087812jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="791" height="995">

A Tibetan Mastiff pup who dares to dream

<figure><img width="1500" height="900" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bee9d4b0ad905ca02ef59jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Lo Khyi now lives in Haymarket, Virginia in the US (right) with the DeLisi family, on the other side of the Planet from his birthplace in a remote village of Mustang in Nepal (left).</figcaption></figure>The story begins with a tiny <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-dog-with-altitude/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-dog-with-altitude/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH9CEZG4bpq66y4XoTU_SIampvcGg">Tibetan Mastiff</a> pup, cold, hungry and alone as an icy wind blows across a mountain trail in Tsarang of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2012/09/07/monsoon-in-the-rainshadow/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2012/09/07/monsoon-in-the-rainshadow/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHUmrOgNZKbL4fGYxruaeWemr63aw">Upper Mustang</a> beyond the Himalaya.A boy named Karchung scoops up the shivering ball of fluff. “Little brother, this won’t do,” says the boy, tucking him inside his fleece jacket and taking him home.The puppy slurps up the tsampa, and as the days go by the little pup gets stronger and dreams of a warm home and family by night, an innocent wish that the high Himalayan winds carry across the land.When he wasn’t chasing after chicken and prancing around the goats, he was restlessly roaming the village, exploring every corner of Saukre. Villagers recognise pretty early that this handsome blue-eyed Tibetan Mastiff pup has a wandering spirit. But Karchung, his family and most of the village had never left the mountains.So, the story goes, the pup waits for his true family, perched on his rock overlooking the trail until one day a man with a white-beard and white shirt comes puffing up the trail.This is not just any other trekker, it is <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18512#.X9Mx3lUzaUk" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D18512%23.X9Mx3lUzaUk&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH6VHgrM1MfgVEkc8QcCpaHyedqWA">Scott DeLisi, at the time the American Ambassador to Nepal</a>. He and his team were heading up to the fabled walled town of Lo Manthang. <figure><img width="330" height="381" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beea14b0ad905ca02ef5ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The piercing blue eyes and dignified self-confident air immediately drew him to the pup. If it was not for the eyes, His Excellency may have walked on by since the dog’s blue-grey coat was the colour of the land itself, and perfectly camouflaged him in Mustang’s arid terrain.Then, their eyes met, and, for the first time, the puppy spoke… and Scott heard him, and that day, the world changed for them both.The Ambassador’s Dog is a tale of Lo Khyi (Lo for Mustang, and khyi, which fortuitously means both ‘dog’ and ‘happiness’ in Tibetan), a pup that dared to dream big and who went on to become the source of happiness for Scott, who took the dog to America after his tenure in Nepal.‘Scott’ in the book is Scott H. DeLisi himself, who <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18847" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D18847&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHwNbBtI9s4hrNMwwqTlYyVqbvZlQ">served as ambassador</a> in Kathmandu from 2010-12. Now retired, DeLisi is a career diplomat who spent 35 years from one embassy to the next roaming the world with multiple postings in Asia and Africa. But it was Nepal and Nepalis that touched his heart like no other place. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19388" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D19388&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFeyBVhxB3sPk81x1ya0vxrPz9CcQ">DeLisi is an avid birder</a>, and made a rare sighting of Spiny Babbler during his tenure in Nepal.DeLisi worked on <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17850" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D17850&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG2yKUAA_XLWay95dcTe2tW0f17pQ">preparing Nepal for disaster risk reduction</a> as ambassador, and after retiring had just established <a href="http://www.soarway.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.soarway.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH8QFf7_rRLWN7JlSZwIDj_WhRhRA">Soarway Foundation</a> in April 2015, when a major earthquake rocked Nepal.  As an Executive Director of the Foundation and <a href="https://www.engagenepal.org/team" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.engagenepal.org/team&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607763910021000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEdLY3uo_YYXlzooQSTlPVtOuyixA">Engage Nepal,</a> he continues his effort to help Nepal with child nutrition and education, public health, employment generation and rebuilding. Part of the proceeds from this book will go to his charitable organisation.The Ambassador’s Dog has a dream-like quality to it, but at its heart is a story of optimism and positivity. Lo Khyi is a canine medium for an important message: set goals for yourselves and believe in them. And somehow (stars will align, or you will find avenues) your dreams will come true.Every word in this short tale reveals DeLisi’s attachment to his bhote kukur, a harbinger of hope and happiness. This book will surely grip many young readers and inspire them, and they will be particularly drawn by Jane Lillian Vance’s exquisite illustrations.Vance is an acclaimed American artist, her thangka painting of amchi healer in west Nepal resulted in the award-winning 2010 documentary A Gift for the Village. She has worked as an art therapist for children with special needs for 20 years and is a vice-president at the non-profit Help Save the Next Girl.The illustrations on every page are symbolic, but detailed works of art that are intimate portrayals of the Land of Lo, its Buddhist faith, and its people, animals and birds.Lo Khyi now lives in Haymarket, Virginia with DeLisi’s loving family, on the other side of the Planet from his birthplace in the remote wind-blown village of Tsarang in Nepal.Lo Khyi is the true hero of the The Ambassador’s Dog, a short, uplifting ageless read for this dreary Covid winter, and a perfect magical gift of hope for the upcoming holiday season -- especially for families with children and dogs.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llARsJ8R1DYThe Ambassador’s Dog Scott H. DeLisi Vajra Publications 2020 Pages 40 Rs1,600 Available at Vajra Books, Patan dhoka Bookshop and Architect's Books in Patan. Vajra is offering Christmas discount at Rs1,400 and home delivery. Can also order online through Laibary.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beea34b0ad905ca02ef5bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="791" height="995">

Sonia Awale

<img width="675" height="849" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bee754b0ad905ca02ef48jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>It was a hazy winter afternoon  when without warning at exactly 1PM, soldiers appeared on the streets of Kathmandu. Singha Darbar was cordoned off. Politicians, including Prime Minister B P Koirala who had been elected a year-and-half previously, were picked up simultaneously from their homes or offices, and hauled off to prison.   On Tuesday, 15 December it will be exactly 60 years since that fateful day which would determine the course of Nepal’s history for decades. King Mahendra and Prime Minister BP Koirala met at the palace for dinner a few days before the putsch. The King had just returned from a four-month trip to Japan, the United States and UK, and top secret plans were already in place for the coup d'état. Years later, Koirala related how towards the end of that meal, Mahendra (wearing trademark shades even though it was dark inside the room) gestured to Queen Ratna to leave and told him: “There cannot be two lions in a cage.”BP writes in his memoir that he had a ‘love hate’ relationship with Mahendra, who appreciated his work ethic, but was increasingly jealous of his popularity. The King’s aversion to political parties was well known, zamindars hated BP’s new land reform bill, and Mahendra sensed that Nehru’s India and Mao’s China, for different reasons, could live with a coup, as long as it did not make Nepal unstable.So, on पुस १, २०१७ (first day of the month of Pous 2017) the King made his move. In a speech he accused the Nepali Congress government of “failure to maintain law and order, being anti-national, corrupt and unaccountable”. The Swiss Ambassador was visiting Kathmandu from New Delhi on 15 December, and wrote a long cable to Berne about how BP Koirala had earlier talked about the difficulty of maintaining Nepal’s neutrality amidst Cold War tensions.US Ambassador Henry E Stebbins had met King Mahendra on 9 December in which he was given no hints of what he was planning, even though preparations must have been at an advanced stage. After the coup, Stebbins wrote to President Eisenhower: ‘…we feel that the King’s motives in taking the precipitate action he did were guided less by the issues of corruption and Communism than by a growing fear that his own personal position and prestige were dwindling and that if he did not act soon, it might be too late . . . the real motive behind the move was the preservation of the monarchy and the Shah dynasty in its absolute form.’However, just as Mahendra reckoned, Nepal’s two giant neighbours went along. China’s annexation of Tibet had spooked the Indians and Americans, and the British were focused on continued Gurkha recruitment. In fact, Queen Elizabeth was in Kathmandu on a royal visit within two months of the coup, and even went tiger hunting in Chitwan. History repeats itself repeatedly in Nepal. In 2005, King Gyanendra staged a carbon copy royal-military coup. Like his father and Stebbins, Gyanendra hoodwinked British Ambassador Keith Bloomfield into thinking that a coup was the last thing on his mind. Gyanendra’s speech on 1 February 2005 was identical to Mahendra’s in 1960. The son followed his father’s footsteps. On the 60th anniversary of पुस १ Nepal comes another full circle as supporters of a return to a Hindu monarchy exploit the political disarray, infighting, governance failure and corruption, to march on the streets demanding the secular republican constitution be scrapped. Some of the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War in 1960 are also playing out again as Washington and New Delhi align against Beijing. Hindutva politics  in India may also be pushing the pendulum back to the right in Nepal. Tune in to Tom Robertson's article on Nepali Times Weekend Longreads on Saturday 12 December with declassified papers with new revelations about the US response to King Mahendra's coup.

Kunda Dixit

‘Putsch Ek’

<img width="675" height="849" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7739c7e80680e0877ffjpeg.jpg" alt=""/>It was a hazy winter afternoon  when without warning at exactly 1PM, soldiers appeared on the streets of Kathmandu. Singha Darbar was cordoned off. Politicians, including Prime Minister B P Koirala who had been elected a year-and-half previously, were picked up simultaneously from their homes or offices, and hauled off to prison.   On Tuesday, 15 December it will be exactly 60 years since that fateful day which would determine the course of Nepal’s history for decades. King Mahendra and Prime Minister BP Koirala met at the palace for dinner a few days before the putsch. The King had just returned from a four-month trip to Japan, the United States and UK, and top secret plans were already in place for the coup d'état. Years later, Koirala related how towards the end of that meal, Mahendra (wearing trademark shades even though it was dark inside the room) gestured to Queen Ratna to leave and told him: “There cannot be two lions in a cage.”BP writes in his memoir that he had a ‘love hate’ relationship with Mahendra, who appreciated his work ethic, but was increasingly jealous of his popularity. The King’s aversion to political parties was well known, zamindars hated BP’s new land reform bill, and Mahendra sensed that Nehru’s India and Mao’s China, for different reasons, could live with a coup, as long as it did not make Nepal unstable.So, on पुस १, २०१७ (first day of the month of Pous 2017) the King made his move. In a speech he accused the Nepali Congress government of “failure to maintain law and order, being anti-national, corrupt and unaccountable”. The Swiss Ambassador was visiting Kathmandu from New Delhi on 15 December, and wrote a long cable to Berne about how BP Koirala had earlier talked about the difficulty of maintaining Nepal’s neutrality amidst Cold War tensions.US Ambassador Henry E Stebbins had met King Mahendra on 9 December in which he was given no hints of what he was planning, even though preparations must have been at an advanced stage. After the coup, Stebbins wrote to President Eisenhower: ‘…we feel that the King’s motives in taking the precipitate action he did were guided less by the issues of corruption and Communism than by a growing fear that his own personal position and prestige were dwindling and that if he did not act soon, it might be too late . . . the real motive behind the move was the preservation of the monarchy and the Shah dynasty in its absolute form.’However, just as Mahendra reckoned, Nepal’s two giant neighbours went along. China’s annexation of Tibet had spooked the Indians and Americans, and the British were focused on continued Gurkha recruitment. In fact, Queen Elizabeth was in Kathmandu on a royal visit within two months of the coup, and even went tiger hunting in Chitwan. History repeats itself repeatedly in Nepal. In 2005, King Gyanendra staged a carbon copy royal-military coup. Like his father and Stebbins, Gyanendra hoodwinked British Ambassador Keith Bloomfield into thinking that a coup was the last thing on his mind. Gyanendra’s speech on 1 February 2005 was identical to Mahendra’s in 1960. The son followed his father’s footsteps. On the 60th anniversary of पुस १ Nepal comes another full circle as supporters of a return to a Hindu monarchy exploit the political disarray, infighting, governance failure and corruption, to march on the streets demanding the secular republican constitution be scrapped. Some of the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War in 1960 are also playing out again as Washington and New Delhi align against Beijing. Hindutva politics  in India may also be pushing the pendulum back to the right in Nepal. Tune in to Tom Robertson's article on Nepali Times Weekend Longreads on Saturday 12 December with declassified papers with new revelations about the US response to King Mahendra's coup.

Fenerbahçe Beko won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague finals in Abu Dhabi, held 23-25 May, defeating Monaco 81-70 in the final. Olympiacos, who defeated Panathinaikos 97-93, finished the series in third place. The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final match, Nigel Hayes-Davis from Fenerbahçe Beko, received a prize of 1,000,000 Miles&amp;Smiles from Turkish Airlines’ Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmuştur. The carrier has been the title sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, a top tier tournament, since 2010.

Turkish Basketball

Thousands of Nepali students dreaming of an American education have been forced to look elsewhere as the Trump administration’s visa restrictions make their future uncertain.
The US was long considered a top destination for higher studies, making Nepal the 10th biggest country of origin for international students in America.&nbsp;
However, that number has seen a significant decline with the total for Nepali students now at 16,482. Some 8,000 Nepali students obtained no-objection certificates to study in the US from the Ministry of Education in the past year.&nbsp;
India, Australia, Canada, South Korea, United Kingdom and Japan are the other popular destinations for Nepali students. There are no clear numbers for Nepalis going to India, but a slight decline was noted this year after the deaths of two female students.
The US State Department has issued a circular to its embassies not to issue new visas to applicants until further notice. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the directive stated that the department planned to expand the screening of applicants' social media.&nbsp;
While new applicants are barred including those applying for visitor visas, students with scheduled interviews are allowed to proceed.
“Many of our students are affected by the new restrictions, but those who had applied for student visas earlier have got interview dates,” one Kathmandu-based college counsellor told us.
Meanwhile, even foreign students with spotless records already in the US have not been spared, as visa scrutiny intensifies under the new policy. In a move that underscores the growing sense of insecurity, many US colleges advised international students to carry their passports and documents at all times, even when traveling locally.
“Me and my friends did not go home this summer because we were not sure we would be allowed back, so we just went to Niagara Falls,” said a Nepali undergrad in Ohio, who like many interviewed for this report did not want her name used for fear of repercussion.
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Nepali students have adopted a cautious stance, with many choosing not to return home during summer vacation due to fear of visa revocations as well as travel bans. Meanwhile, over 7,000 Nepalis with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will have to come back to Nepal by 5 August or face deportation. Thirty-seven were flown back to Kathmandu on Omni Air last week.
“The US is one of the most sought-after destinations for higher education, and the ban will definitely impact bright students,” says Narottam Aryal of the King’s College in Kathmandu.
Indeed, Nepali undergraduates admitted into Ivy League colleges for the 2025 academic year have been asked to look for alternatives. The entire Fulbright Foreign Scholarships Board resigned on Wednesday citing interference from the Trump administration on the selection of this year’s cohort. Some Nepali students already on Fulbright scholarships have noted disruptions, delays and even cancellation of stipends.&nbsp;
The student visa restrictions were initially just for foreign students admitted to Harvard University, but it was later extended to all Chinese students and now to all students. Universities like Columbia which actively recruit foreign students, face sharp enrolment declines, threatening their financial stability and diversity.
An Indian female PhD candidate at Columbia University had her visa revoked by the US State Department, and said she was targeted on the basis of her social media posts on Israeli military attacks in Gaza. Social media vetting of political activism has raised concerns about privacy and freedom of expression in a country where such rights were a given.
Many students have been informed via email that their visas have been revoked for getting speeding or parking tickets, but even others with no criminal record have been affected. The fear of deportation looms large amongst international students, including those from Nepal.&nbsp;
For most Nepalis who migrate to the US for education, the journey is a high-stakes investment. They come largely from middle-class families, often rely on a patchwork of scholarships, work-study programs, loans, or even the sale of family assets to afford fees.
Most Nepali students pursue STEM subjects which offer extended Optional Practical Training (OPT) periods that help fund their education. But with the US backsliding on education and humanitarian matters, countries like the UK and Canada are becoming more attractive despite their own recent stricter controls on student visas.&nbsp;
The UK universities saw a 63% rise in Nepali students’ admissions in 2024. Japan is another popular destination with 64,816 Nepali students enrolled as of 2024.
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Already, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia are poised to benefit from the increased scrutiny of US student visas. Several Hong Kong universities are offering unconditional admission to affected students, while Malaysian institutions are targeting previously US-bound Asian students. China and India have 330,000 and 280,000 students respectively in America, but the numbers for China have seen a sharp drop in the past year.
Elsewhere, branch campuses of American institutions such as NYU in Abu Dhabi, Georgetown in Dubai and Northwestern in Doha are getting more admission applications, and universities in the Gulf region are expanding infrastructure to accommodate those who would otherwise have gone to the US.&nbsp;
Even educational institutions in Nepal are hopeful that the US visa restrictions can be an opportunity to at least keep Nepali undergrads in Nepal, and also attract foreign students from the region.&nbsp;
“Many students might choose to complete their undergraduate degree here in Nepal and then move abroad for their Master’s degree later,” says Aryal of King’s College. “There was a need for quality higher education in Nepal anyway in terms of innovation and opportunities, so this could be the time to reduce our dependence on other countries.”
Nepal’s strategic position between India and China makes it sensitive to US policy shifts. India, a key ally, is also under US scrutiny for potential student travel restrictions. Chinese universities are already offering more scholarships to Nepali talent to capitalise on the US retreat.
American universities have challenged student visa restrictions in the courts. A federal court in Boston revoked the blanket ban on Harvard, and the State Department has ordered the resumption of processing student and exchange visitor visas.&nbsp;
Some are still hoping that President Trump will backtrack on the student visa restrictions, just like he has done with many of his more drastic executive orders.
Even so, the visa see-saw and longer-term uncertainties about living in the United States and its education system means students across the world are making alternative plans.
Says Aryal: “Policies of foreign countries change according to their needs, so excessive dependence was never a good idea. We should work to create different opportunities and choices of higher education within Nepal, so students are retained.” &nbsp;

America no longer prime destination for Nepali students

While Nepal was hosting the Sagarmatha Sambaad international climate conference in Kathmandu this month, on Mt Everest it was pretty much business as usual.&nbsp; The signs of climate breakdown are all there: a river now runs through Base Camp in summer, the Khumbu Icefall is more unstable, and there are more &nbsp;frequent avalanches. When expeditions arrived in March, the mountains were bare: it had not snowed since September, but then blizzards dumped unseasonal snow in May. And despite climate worries, such is the pull of Himalayan mountaineering that the Everest Industry showed no signs of slowdown. More than 600 international climbers and their Nepali guides had made it to the summit of the world’s highest mountain. At one point there were an estimated 2,000 people in the tent city on the Khumbu Glacier. All the ropes and ladders on the Icefall came down on Thursday, marking the official end of the spring climbing season, and just in time to avoid a monsoon cyclone approaching from the Bay of Bengal. It has been an action-packed season. One factor could be that Everest fees will go up from September: each foreign climber needs to pay a $15,000 royalty, up from the present $11,000. The cost for a Nepali climber on the South Col route will also go up: from Rs75,000 to Rs150,000.&nbsp; The fee to climb Everest in autumn is $7,500 (up from $5,500), but most climbers still prefer spring. Winter permit fee (December-February) is only $3,750 per person and the mountain is now also open for monsoon (June-August) climbs, when the fee is ever lower at $2,750. The revised rule also makes it mandatory for every two climbers on an 8,000m peak to hire one Nepali mountain guide.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025053004050_67f856fe52714e4bdcf21ae7d45c6f18c82117b9d0a5f73ed1efa04c96de1046.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025053004050_67f856fe52714e4bdcf21ae7d45c6f18c82117b9d0a5f73ed1efa04c96de1046" data-rendition-name="original" width="931" height="732" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry graph 1"> </figure>  In addition, climbers also have to pay for porters and guides, equipment, Base Camp costs, Ice Fall and fixed rope team fees, so climbing Everest does not come cheap. But such is the draw of climbing the world’s highest peak that some say the increased fees will not diminish the crowds next year. The government has tried to spread expeditions out to other seasons and other 8,000ers, but with not much success. Earlier this year, Nepal unilaterally increased the number of 8,000m peaks to 14 by adding six more sub-summits to broaden the choice for climbers. Added were: Yalung Kang (8,505m), Yalung Kang West (8,077m) &nbsp;Kangchenjunga Central (8,473m), Kangchenjunga South (8,476m), Lhotse Middle (8,410m) and Lhotse Shar (8,400m).&nbsp; The announcement could go against the accepted topographic criteria that a stand alone peak has to be at least 300m higher than an adjoining prominence, and at more than 3km isolation from it. The UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme) still recognises only 14 mountains as eight-thousanders, and only eight of those are in Nepal, or on the border with China. Nepal’s revised mountaineering regulations also increased the insurance coverage of high-altitude workers to protect porters and high altitude guides who usually take more risks on the mountains. Rescue teams and clean-up campaigners to collect trash and remove bodies of dead climbers up to Camp IV of Mt Everest do not need permits.&nbsp; The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee is now using drones to fly down trash in 20kg sacks. Each climber is also required to bring down at least 6kg of waste and not just their own, but this rule is erratically enforced. With five fatalities on Everest and Lhotse, Spring 2025 had a historically low death toll. Another five climbers died on Annapurna, Kangchenjunga and Makalu.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025053004050_38681de22f0fefb6faa12b01755566d09c5064d0ff84e12ccc7b5d68ea9ba38a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025053004050_38681de22f0fefb6faa12b01755566d09c5064d0ff84e12ccc7b5d68ea9ba38a" data-rendition-name="original" width="665" height="740" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest industry graph 2"> </figure>  Journalist Ben Ayers who ran the Everest Live social media channel from Everest Base Camp with daily updates credited the low death rate to dramatic rescues of climbers from the ‘Death Zone’ by their Nepali guides and longline helievacs — the visuals all uploaded on YouTube.&nbsp; “Ironically, this perception of safety is bringing more and more inexperienced climbers to the mountain, and they need more rescues,” Ayers said in one of his dispatches.&nbsp; American expedition chronicler and summiteer Alan Arnette suspects there is a lot of under-reporting given that the jet stream and storms were lashing Everest even till late in the season. He told us: “I heard a lot about frostbite and rescues that were not made public. It’s become practically impossible to cover the details on Everest. All the teams report nice news, and they don’t talk about bad stuff to avoid hurting businesses.” Although trash on Nepal’s mountains makes headlines, what does not receive as much attention is the climate impact of so many expeditions. The Sagarmatha Sambaad conference sidestepped this issue, which is ironic given that the impact of climate breakdown is most evident on Himalayan peaks and their glaciers.&nbsp; <h2>Need for Speed</h2> The big stories this year have been about speed-running from their home cities to the top of Everest. Ukrainian entrepreneur Andrew Ushakov flew out of JFK on 15 May at 10:15AM Nepal time, and was on the summit 3 days, 23 hours, and 7 minutes later on 19 May at 9:22AM.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250601080640_1c5cc6fc991307861768f07037ed9d30930fb20f35dbb57dc31c9a92a9e1a885.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250601080640_1c5cc6fc991307861768f07037ed9d30930fb20f35dbb57dc31c9a92a9e1a885" data-rendition-name="original" width="1440" height="1800" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry"> <figcaption>Andrew Ushakov at the summt. Photo: ELITE EXPED</figcaption> </figure>  “I could never find the time for the traditional 40-50 days of acclimatisation,” Ushakov explained matter-of-factly. His ‘Everest Sea-to-Summit’ climb was possible because he spent 400 hours in hypoxic sleep tents over the past four years in New York. However, Ushakov did use ropes already fixed, hired four Nepali guides, helicoptered to Base Camp, and used much more oxygen than an average climber. And after the climb, Ushakov was arrested at Kathmandu airport for being in possession of $20,000 of undeclared cash and spent a night in jail and fined $60,000.&nbsp; The other speedsters were Garth Miller, Alastair Cairns, Anthony Stazicker, and Kev Godlington, all former British Army commandos. They left London and summited five days later on 21 May, and flew right back. They also used hypoxic tents to simulate the thin air high on Everest.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250601080644_90c8dd5cc07b4b43f2989b1dc0c0650ab80f10ebb06680c25a6909c519957bd8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250601080644_90c8dd5cc07b4b43f2989b1dc0c0650ab80f10ebb06680c25a6909c519957bd8" data-rendition-name="original" width="810" height="668" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry "> <figcaption>All four members of the Furtenbach team at the summit. Photo: Sandro Gromen-Hayes</figcaption> </figure>  But more controversial was their use of xenon gas therapy in a German hospital to ramp up the production of oxygen-carrying haemoglobins in their blood. Xenon is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency for being performance enhancing in sports. Expedition leader Lukas Furtenbach said this rule does not apply to mountaineering, as it is not a regulated sport like swimming. Nepal has no rules about xenon, but the Department of Tourism said it was launching an ‘investigation’ to decide on future policy since it is difficult to ban xenon, but allow oxygen. The controversy has also divided the mountaineering community, with some climbers saying they just want to maximise their chances of survival. Spending less time on the mountain could make climbing safer by reducing avalanche risk. It would also mean less trash on the mountains, but it would reduce the income of Nepal’s expedition industry. It is also unclear how much of the success was due to xenon therapy and whether the ex-special forces were already in good physical shape.&nbsp; The need for speed hides the fact that climbing in the Himalaya is dangerous business, and climbers cannot sprint to the top just by huffing xenon. But ultra-fast climbs could be charged more, and the revenue generated can be used to establish state-of-the-art rescue operations, and increase pay and insurance for guides. Two other speed chasers this season were Swiss-Ecuadorian Karl Egloff and American Tyler Andrews, both on Everest without oxygen. Andrews choppered to Base Camp to catch a weather window, but turned back from 8,500m due to high winds. Heavy snow and wind also forced Egloff to descend from 7,000m. Slow and steady climbers like Anja Blacha from Germany did make it to the summit without oxygen, while Kami Rita Sherpa broke his own record with his 31st Everest summit as he led a 26-strong Indian Army group. There were 468 permits issued for foreign climbers from 48 expeditions to Everest this spring. Nepal’s other eight-thousanders together had only 17 expeditions. Nepal has more than 1,000 peaks above 6,000m, and has opened only 476 of them for climbing.&nbsp;

The Everest Industry

While Nepal marked <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mt-everest-pvt-ltd">Mt Everest</a> Day on 29 May, on the other side of the planet in the US state of Colorado dozens of Nepalis who have climbed the world’s highest peak multiple times were busy working as chefs and Uber drivers. Among them is Nima Doma Sherpa, who climbed Mt Everest in 2019 after her husband Tshering Wangchu was among 16 crushed by an avalanche on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/on-thin-ice-in-the-khumbu">the Khumbu Icefall</a> five years earlier. A large serac broke off the West Shoulder of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-everest-industry">Mt Everest </a>and fell directly on a group of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/more-porters-sick-on-everest-trail">porters and guides</a> making their way up the Icefall at 5,800m. Their bodies were flown by helicopter to Khumjung where Tshering Wangchu was born. He was excited about climbing Mt Everest for the first time.&nbsp; In Khumjung, Nima Doma felt like her own life had also ended. This was the kind of news Sherpa wives, mothers and sisters dreaded every <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/peak-climbing-season-2025-s4abrxny">mountaineering season</a>. She stayed home for more than two years grieving, but ultimately gathered up all her emotional strength to take care of her 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. Nima had grown up in Khumjung hearing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/stories-of-nepal-s-summiteers">tales of adventure on the mountains </a>from their father, Ang Chubi Sherpa who had climbed Everest in 1993. He used to bring her and her sisters and brother European chocolates after every expedition, and used to tell them that the chocolate bars grew on the mountains. “It was only after we got older did we realise that he told us that chocolates grew in the mountains so we would not worry about him putting himself in harm's way,” Nima Doma recalled with a faraway look at her home in Boulder this week. Nima went to the school that <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/commemorating-edmund-hillary-in-nepal,4145">Edmund Hillary</a> opened in Khumjung till Grade 8, and then dropped out to help in the kitchen and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">tend yaks</a>. She was married off to Tshering Wangchu, who was also a high altitude guide. When Tshering went on expeditions, Nima also started working as a porter from Namche to Base Camp. It was perhaps her father’s tales of mountains of chocolates that had always attracted her to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/knowing-our-mountains-43v4iyvo">the peaks</a>. After her husband was killed ten years ago this month, being a widow with children was not easy for Nima Doma. But she was not alone: there were at least 200 single mothers in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/khumbu-since-1950-jaww4qn0">the Khumbu</a>, and 20 of them just in Khumjung whose husbands had been killed in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/tragic-start-to-himalayan-spring-nepal,3695">mountaineering accidents</a>. Some were not even 20 years old, and had children growing up without fathers. But there were also women in the 50s whose husbands had been killed in the 1980s. Nima found sponsors for her children’s education, and moved to Kathmandu. In the capital, Sherpa widows used to meet to help each other. Some of them had joined the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) training for rock and ice climbing. “I decided that it was no use sitting home and crying anymore, after meeting other single mothers I felt less alone,” remembers Nima, who joined the Juniper Foundation and enrolled in an NMA training camp in Manang. There she climbed Chulu East (6,584m) and met Furadiki Sherpa, whose rope-fixing husband had also been <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/on-mt-everest-s-70th-records-and-fatalities">killed on Everest</a> in 2013. They set themselves the goal of climbing Everest one day, and started a fund-raising drive.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250530090544_621be0724b9182c8e3594b2c562a71ec32ac01d985a71d0cf31646de9d51e15a.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250530090544_621be0724b9182c8e3594b2c562a71ec32ac01d985a71d0cf31646de9d51e15a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2678" height="1274" loading="lazy" alt="Everest summiteers find new life in the US"> </figure>  “We decided we had to overcome society’s stigma of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/widows-personal-happiness-comes-last-in-face-of-social-financial-hardships,1855">widowhood</a> and prove that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-junko-tabei">women could also climb mountains</a>,” Nima said, adding that she was inspired by Nepal’s first woman Everest summiteer Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, who died during her descent in 1993. Nima Doma and Furdiki climbed the technically-difficult Ama Dablam (6,812m) and then arrived at Everest Base Camp in April 2019 as part of their Two Widows Expedition with the motto, ‘So Can We’. While climbing up the Icefall Nima passed the spot where her husband had been killed. It was a jumble of constantly-shifting ice blocks bigger than houses. She closed her eyes and said a prayer. “I remember thinking, this is so difficult and dangerous. This is what my husband had to do to support our family,” Nima Doma said. “I was determined to fulfil my husband’s dream of climbing Chomolungma, and to prove to ourselves that we two women could do it.” It was 23 May 2019 when <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/world/two-sherpa-widows-scale-everest-and-smash-stigma-idUSKCN1SU0MV/" target="_blank">Nima and Furdiki stepped on the summit</a> and looked over into Tibet, and down at Tengboche Monastery to the south.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250530090544_6b822582b5d88ba5e972db084f184690b40653c6efd9901b2dd082ffba2a263b.png" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20250530090544_6b822582b5d88ba5e972db084f184690b40653c6efd9901b2dd082ffba2a263b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2700" height="1522" loading="lazy" alt="Everest summiteers find new life in the US"> </figure>  Nima Doma hugged Furdiki, took off her mask and wept. But for the first time in five years, it was not from grief but relief — relief for being free of all the sadness and sacrifices and for fulfilling her husband’s dream. They had found <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/life-after-death">life after death</a>. “I felt this immense joy to be on top of the world, it was indescribable,” Nima Doma said, “I have wept only twice in my life. Once when my husband died, and once there on top of Everest.” The tears had frozen on Nima Doma’s cheeks, as she and Furdiki headed back down the mountain.

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