Ranked 8th in the world in the 100km race, Nepal’s Sunmaya Budha is taking long strides in the international trail running circuit. In March, the 24-year old from Jumla was at the <a href="https://itra.run/Races/RaceResults/Wenling.Golden.Coast.Trail.70KM/2024/91759">Wenling 70km in China</a>, a trail race on paper but with a route that was about 70% road. On her first time, she set a record for the course, beating the number two ranked female trail runner in the world. It was a 70km road race all on a road surface, something Budha is less used to, since almost all of her training is on trails. Budha hit a roadblock at 30km, when her leg started cramping up, but she fought through it. Soon after winning Wenling, she traveled with her manager to Spain to race a 75k at the Transvulcania La Palma Island 2024. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/change-on-a-himalayan-scale">Change on a Himalayan scale</a>, Kunda Dixit&nbsp; Budha was apprehensive about her chances, because she was coming back from an injury and the field was strong. In a pre-race interview, she thought she could not even finish in the top ten. She ended up third. Now, she is eying the world trail running championship in France in September. &nbsp;Sunmaya started running while in Grade 7 in Jumla, and did well at school tournaments. She came to Kathmandu to take part in 3 and 5Ks. “My very first race was 1,600m, and I came in second only because I had no clue that the finish line was a little further than where we had started from,” she recalls, laughing. The next year, she won the race. “There was no tv, no internet in my village. The only way to get any kind of news or information was the radio,” remembers Budha of her childhood. Her parents (pictured below) were not educated and initially did not understand this passion for running, insisting instead on an arranged marriage for her.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240808100852_f9969d45346d1c6ef2dbc074fc2a3ae5c8c7f0279e30197146e645ef9d1b9cc2.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240808100852_f9969d45346d1c6ef2dbc074fc2a3ae5c8c7f0279e30197146e645ef9d1b9cc2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1492" height="1118" loading="lazy" alt="Sunmaya Budha family NT"> <figcaption>Sunmaya back home in Jumla in t-shirt with her family.</figcaption> </figure>  “They weren’t too persistent about marriage, but were a little concerned with how thin I was getting from all the training,” she says, “they let me know that they could not support me financially.” She moved to Khalanga and started training at the Karnali Sports Club under <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3102">Hari Bahadur Rokaya</a> who was Nepal’s Olympic marathoner in 1988 and 1992, and the fastest in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/been-there-not-done-that">Everest Marathaon</a>. Throughout it all, her parents thought she was in school. Budha benefited from Rokaya’s mentorship as she could train for free and he took her to races. “My parents only figured out I was running when they heard that I came third in a national-level race in Dharan,” recalls Budha. She won a cash prize of Rs15,000. Budha kept improving and was invited to her first trail race, a 12km course organised by British trail runner Richard Bull, who co-founded trailrunningnepal.org. In July 2021, Sunmaya was signed to Asian Pacific Athlete’s The North Face Adventure Team and she had professional management, coaching, financial support, and equipment.&nbsp; Budha’s first win came in December 2021, when she won the Doi Inthanon UTMB &nbsp;in Thailand, finishing ahead of other renowned Nepali female trail runner <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/mira-rai-racing-to-help-other-runners">Mira Rai</a>. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/mira-rai-racing-to-help-other-runners">Celebrating the Himalayan Outdoors</a> Sunmaya has since left the team and signed with Kailas, a Chinese company that produces climbing and trail running gear. “Sponsorship is vital because it is enough for me to live, eat and train. And I can get all the equipment, shoes, clothes that I need from them, as long as I only wear their clothes during races” says Budha. In Hong Kong, Budha heard about Andy DuBois, an Australian trail running coach that she wanted to work with. She messaged him on Facebook, and after DuBois grilled her meticulously about her previous training, nutrition, and coaching, took her on. DuBois is still Budha’s coach, and meets with her once a week online to check in and give weekly training plans for times and distances to run.&nbsp; Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/trail-running-trail-blazer"> Trail-running trail blazer</a>, Sanghamitra Subba “Three days a week I do speed work and two days I run uphills. On Wednesdays I do a long run, and one day a week I’m at the track doing many sets of 200s, 400s, 800s,” details Budha. “Full body strength training is very important for athletes too, I hit the weights about four times a week.” Sunmaya currently lives a nomadic running lifestyle, living and training wherever the next race is, although she is often in Kathmandu or Hong Kong. She stresses the importance of being flexible and mobile, as trail running can lead to a stiff, locked up, injured athlete very easily because of the amount of stress on the body, especially on a downhill. “Every trail runner is a serial ankle sprainer,” says Budha, who loves yoga and follows the Olympics avidly. She keeps her diet organic, avoiding ‘bazar’ foods. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/struggles-successes-of-south-asian-women-athletes">Struggles, successes of South Asian women athletes</a> The International Trail Running Association (ITRA) recently released a statement with a commitment to making trail running a part of the Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics in 2032. There is a chance that Budha will get to participate in<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-to-win-nepal-s-first-olympic-medal"> future Olympics</a>.&nbsp; What Budha likes most about trail running is that it puts her in nature, where the focus is always on how the route will change next, allowing her to remain completely in the present. She likes Europe the best. “The landscape there seems like it was built for trail running,” she says.&nbsp; Budha was also impressed by the development of the sport when she raced in China. She contrasts that with Nepal where she says the few races we have are not promoted well.&nbsp; “Nepalis just don’t want to pay to run in a race,” she adds. Budha is not very optimistic, nor does she expect support from her government. She says, “Of course it would be nice to have them care, but at the end of the day what can I tell them? You have to take control of your own life.”&nbsp;

Vishad Raj Onta

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Run, Sunmaya, run

<figure><img width="1406" height="1106" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c099c7e80680e0b784ajpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: WE United</figcaption></figure>Lhakpa Bhuti Lama has been into sports since she was four years old. She was part of India’s Tibetan Women Soccer Team, received her formal training in Dehradun and is qualified to participate in the Vancouver International Soccer Festival in Canada. When the <a href="https://theweunitedproject.com/">WE United Project</a> called for applications to its coach program in 2021, she immediately applied. She had been playing in WE United’s futsal tournaments for some years and now wanted to be a coach to help change people’s perception of girls and women in sports. “I want to empower girls from the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-female-guides-prepare-for-trekking-season/?fbclid=IwAR0_RzDh5-tZZAQ0Hkavmvavd7IfQ3_XqW9q_0WRgean8NjB-zLt46zQaxI">Himalayan region through sports</a>,” says Lhakpa. “And help them be good examples for future generations.”Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/women-of-substance/?fbclid=IwAR2a0WxwoJnyB0e0XxuNjrs6e5xUWlI8D0cfnYshL2fO9_v7GaeYAHDCPlA">Women of substance</a>, Nepali TimesLhakpa, who faced discrimination in the field from an early age, recalls that the school grounds were occupied mostly by senior male teams. And when she and her friends used the basketball court, the boys would run away instead of joining them. Even when she took her coaching initiative to a Tibetan school, eyebrows were raised. Teachers insisted that studies were of utmost priority, and sports was a distraction. They could not understand why she wanted to coach girls anyway, despite the interest from female students. “Even my own elder brother would discourage me from playing, saying it would affect my studies,” says Lhakpa. “But my academics only improved as I continued to participate in sports.” <figure><img width="6000" height="4005" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c0d9c7e80680e0b784bjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Punam Regmi from Dhangadi has a similar story. A go-getter from birth, she held eclectic interests from academics to dancing. A student of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-scientist-returns-to-pinpoint-hazards-of-dirty-air/">environmental science</a>, she had started her own menstrual awareness campaign when she came upon the WE Coach program on Facebook, she jumped at the opportunity. “I am new to football, I hadn’t really got the opportunity to learn about it until I joined the program,” she says, “Now I want the girls in my village to play, too. That is why I decided to become a coach.”After the training, she reached out to schools to see if they would let her coach their female students but there was some resistance. They eventually gave in after learning that Regmi would coach for free.“Most schools didn’t want to involve their <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/female-footballers-take-on-nepals-win/">female students in sports</a>. They thought the girls would be unwilling to participate, but everyone came,” says Regmi, who wants to join the Nepal Army and maybe even become the Army Chief one day.Only half the students were coached at first, but the initially skeptical teachers were soon in awe when they saw the girls play.  <figure><img width="6016" height="4016" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c119c7e80680e0b784cjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>There are fewer than five <a href="https://the-anfa.com/">ANFA</a> certified <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5492#.Yh4kXO5Bz0s">female coaches</a> in Nepal. Even the Nepal women football team is led by a male coach. This is why the WE Coach Nepal program was launched in 2018. The program completed its third edition in 2021, training twelve young women from Dhangadi, Surkhet and Kathmandu to be football coaches.WE United Project was started in 2014 by American expats Amanda Cats-Baril and Anne McGuinness to address the lack of playing grounds and women participation in sports in Kathmandu. This was back when there was only one futsal at the Godavari Alumni Association in Thamel, but that too was exclusively used by men. “Initially the project looked to foster a sports culture amongst women,” says the project's Arpana Pradhan. “Now the focus is also on building leadership and skills development. We want to change the way women view themselves and other women.”Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-female-guides-prepare-for-trekking-season/?fbclid=IwAR0_RzDh5-tZZAQ0Hkavmvavd7IfQ3_XqW9q_0WRgean8NjB-zLt46zQaxI">Nepal’s female guides prepare for trekking season</a>, Sonam Choekyi Lama The project began as a weekly friendly <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Hall,380">futsal</a> session every Saturday, welcoming players from all levels of skill and backgrounds. Only a few women participated at first. On top of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/struggles-successes-of-south-asian-women-athletes/">stigma attached to women in sports</a>, even an hour of futsal meant restructuring one’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/female-guides-juggle-work-and-home/">family and home priorities</a>. There were babies to take care of, in-laws to look after, children to bathe and clothe, and guests to serve. But gradually, the number picked up. In 2017, WE United organised the first annual futsal league for women, the Mahila Premier League. However, while everyone involved (referees and players, organisers) the coach was still male.  <figure><img width="1406" height="1106" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c169c7e80680e0b784djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Enter the WE Coach program. The objective was not just to train coaches, but also fostering an environment where transformative change-makers can thrive. The girls are taught about gender equality and equity, women empowerment, and creating safe spaces. Lhakpa recounts the annual Lhosar football tournament in her village where, originally, only male football teams were allowed to play. When Lhakpa took the issue up with the organisers, they finally allowed her and the girls to form two teams after much demurral. “It started with two teams,” she adds. “But every year the number only grows, and more girls participate.”Lhakpa feels proud to see the girls passionate about playing sports. “Their attitude towards the game has changed,” she says. “And they have learnt to prioritise enjoying and learning over the outcome.”Punam says perceptions are changing and her father has learnt to cook and no longer asks her to stay back to take care of the chores when she goes out to play. Program director at WE United, Silika Shakya, adds: “If my daughter grows up seeing me play, she will learn that she can too. A woman playing sports should not be something out of the ordinary, it should happen in every household.”Arpana Pradhan says, “We are not competing with men, but with ourselves. If they have the right to play, why not us? We are also playing to have fun. Women playing and coaching creates positive role models across many careers. All <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/women-leaders-set-example-for-rest-of-nepal/">women can be leaders</a>, sports is just a tool.”Read  also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/celebrating-the-himalayan-outdoors/?fbclid=IwAR3Hp2WAouUhMqj9lCo2XfHWKBs-tCZsHpy_-d3xYbq-fTqiA-bipIfEpOU">Celebrating  the  Himalayan Outdoors</a>, Sikuma Rai

Aria Shree Parasai

Girls just want to have fun

<img width="1614" height="874" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d08a59c7e80680e0a602cjpeg.jpg" alt=""/>With the Tokyo Olympics underway and Indian women winning medals, South Asia’s female athletes have been talking about the struggles they face at home and in society to take up sports as a profession.From Afghanistan to Nepal and Sri Lanka, women athletes in a webinar this week shared experiences of harassment, discouragement and lack of support, as well as inspiring stories of solidarity and success.“War has taken away everything from us,” said Khalida Popal, former captain of the Afghanistan Women’s National Football Team. “Someone had to take a step. I was harassed, criticised and attacked but didn’t give up. My fight was not just for myself. It was for my sisters and for all other women in my country.”The interaction of South Asian athletes ‘Women in Sports: Challenges and Wins’ was organised by the <a href="https://southasiapeace.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">South Asia Peace Action Network (Sapan)</a> and South Asia Women in Media (SAWM) on 25 July and came up with ideas for collaboration, including a book project and an association of South Asian women athletes. “South Asia is like our home,” Popal said. “Our pain is the same. What is missing is unity.” <figure><img width="652" height="516" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151120/636d08a89c7e80680e0a602djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Khalida Popal, former captain of the Afghanistan Women’s National Football Team.</figcaption></figure>Payoshni Mitra, a prominent activist advocating athletes’ rights and director of the Geneva-based Centre for Sport and Human Rights athletes, anchored the discussion and said that in a region where even access to education can be a challenge for girls, training for sports is even harder.Squash champion Noorena Shams, the first-ever international female athlete from Pakistan’s north-western region grew up in a conflict zone. “I can still hear the bombs,” she said, “I expected to die at any moment, and never thought I would play squash, especially at this level. I used to disguise myself as a boy to play cricket in Peshawar.”Shams adds that it is not about the trophy, or who wins medals. “We have to do it together, be there for each other,” she said.Bangladeshi basketball player Ashreen Mridha said that the responsibility for getting girls into sports was not with just the federations and sports bodies but also with friends, families, uncles, aunts and brothers, who all need to step up. “Gender inequality is not just a women’s problem to solve,” she said.The captain of Bangladesh’s cricket team, Ruhmana Ahmed, said female athletes faced greater challenges in fund-raising. Sana Mir, former captain of the Pakistan women’s cricket team, agreed:“Women must prove themselves in order to get funds, while men are financially supported even if they don’t win.” Even when women athletes outperform men in terms of medals, as in India, they still don’t get the same share of the limelight or funding. Participants also spoke about the importance of breaking gender stereotypes. Olympian swimmer Nisha Millet from India, her little twin daughters by her side during the webinar, urged women to get back into the game even after leaving competitive sport to contribute to raising the next generation of sportswomen through coaching, mentoring and promoting.Other athletes who spoke at the event included Ayesha Mansukhani, athlete and sports investor, from India, Caryll Tozer, activist and former netball player from Sri Lanka, Bangladeshi cricketer Champa Chakma, Mabia Akhter Shimanto, an award-winning weight-lifting champion from Bangladesh, Indian coach and cricketer Roopa Nagraj, and Preety Baral a national tennis player from Nepal.Besides the issues of leadership, funding, discrimination and fighting stereotypes common to women athletes around the region, there were concerns about the objectification of women and sexual harassment, which deserve more attention.Differently-abled athletes face an even more difficult struggle. “No one wanted to sponsor a blind runner,” said partially blind athlete Gulshan Naaz from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.Participants at the webinar proposed working on a book project as well as setting up a South Asian women athletes’ association to promote female athletes in the region.<a href="http://www.southasiapeace.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SouthAsiaPeace</a>

Struggles, successes of South Asian women athletes

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96e09c7e80680e05dc91jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/>Eighty women enrolled in the Nepal Mountain Academy’s training for trekking guides this year, more than double the number last year. No doubt some had heard that the demand for female guides is so high that they can earn more than men.Till now, female guides have been a rare sight in trekking and mountaineering, even though Nepal’s first female-run trekking company, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9452#.XX90kvAza70">Three Sisters</a>, was founded 20 years ago in Pokhara. Of the total 17,164 licensed guides in the country only 886 are female, but their numbers are growing faster than male guides.Lhakpa Bhuti Sherpa, President of the Nepal Mountain Academy (NMA), remembers when male colleagues asked what was the point in training women as trekking guides when they couldn’t obtain a license. “Why not?” she recalls replying.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96e39c7e80680e05dc92jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Indeed, as women get more educated and travel more, they see opportunities in being guides. Many trekking groups are all-female or have many women among their members and <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16195#.XX92XvAza70">they prefer women guides</a>, who seem to understand their needs better.Today, guide training draws women from all walks of life. “We have women here who have climbed Everest, conservationists, financial managers, graduate students and even homemakers. I feel very proud to see them getting the confidence to join,” says Sherpa, who adds that having a course dedicated for women makes participants more empowered and motivated.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96e69c7e80680e05dc93jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Besides 35 days of intense training, prospective guides must complete field work and classes. Some of the practical training includes <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2698#.XX92LPAza70">rock climbing techniques</a>, emergency response, environmental awareness, and learning about the cultures and habits of the various countries their trekking clients come from.“I cannot wait to lead my first trek,” says Sunita Dahal, 28, who is married and has just finished her guide training.Shanti Rai was awarded a fellowship in 2018 for Solo Women Travellers, and the experience convinced her about what she should do with her life. “After my 90 days travelling alone through Nepal, I felt what I had seen and experienced was so authentic that I wanted to share these stories and journeys with the rest of the world, and to inspire other travellers like me,” says Rai. She adds that being a licensed trekking guide is a perfect way to combine her love for Nepal’s great outdoors with earning a living.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96e99c7e80680e05dc94jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Deurali Chamling, 35, climbed Mt Everest in 2018, but says society is always putting limits on what women can and cannot do. She thinks being a trekking guide gives her both the freedom to travel and economic independence. She says: “I can travel to places, earn and meet a whole range of interesting people from all over the world -- there are so many advantages.”The government has now allocated Rs1 million yearly to promote female guide training, in part to prepare women guides for Visit Nepal 2020.“Today female guides are in high demand. This is the only sector where females can earn more than males because they are so few and the demand is high,” says Lakpa Bhuti Sherpa of NMA, who started our as a porter, kitchen worker and then a guide. She says the number of trekking agencies run by women is growing, and so are the number of female guides they hire.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96ec9c7e80680e05dc95jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Phunjo Jangmo Lama, a resident of Tsum Valley, is the first female helicopter long line rescuer and an Everest summiteer and is convinced she is now more <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18972#.XX92FPAza70">confident and independent</a>, adding that women guides can understand the needs of clients better than male ones.She says: “Mountains and trekking know no gender – it is the strength of an individual that matters. If female are given any opportunity they can perform any kind of strength work.”

Nepal’s female guides prepare for trekking season

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

Pokhara’s tourism woes

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

Languages are both software and hardware

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

Turkish amenity kit

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

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