It was a bitterly cold night in January 1980, and I was guarding the family's gilded Dipañkara Buddha image at Kathmandu Darbar Square. The white palace wall was defaced with political graffiti, a sign of the anti-Panchayat street demonstrations that were going on at the time. It was also the occasion for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/samyak-mahadan">Samyaka Mahādāna</a>, a 12-yearly mega alms-giving Buddhist festival usually graced by the head of state.&nbsp; I was supposed to collect the money offered by devotees who thronged there to pay homage to Dipañkara, and the coins made a bulge in my right pocket (pictured below).  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080852_a2cba433bd4fdc7566ca6b0dc4901a19febf06256b98da4195e9e9a9bd18c2d6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250807080852_a2cba433bd4fdc7566ca6b0dc4901a19febf06256b98da4195e9e9a9bd18c2d6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1013" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> <figcaption>Samyaka Mahādāna in Kathmandu Darbar Square in 1980. Photo: PADMADHAR TULADHAR</figcaption> </figure>  Many <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/traders-barter-tradition-for-modernity">Newāḥ traders</a> of Kathmāndu Valley spent some of the riches they earned from the profitable trans-Himalayan trade with Tibet organising these grand Samyaka Mahādāna festivals.&nbsp; In 1882 CE, one such trader who was my ancestor, Gyān Bir Singh Tulādhar of Wonemā, had funded an exclusive Samyaka Mahādanā festival. All Newāḥ Buddhist priests in Nepāla Maṇḍala are invited to receive alms, and at the end it is obligatory for the patron to commission a large idol of Dipañkara, usually of gilded copper, with an abundance of ornaments bedecked with <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/written-in-stone-swayambhu-sila-lekh,1596">precious stones</a>. The fire-gilded statue is then consecrated so that it is elevated to the status of deity, worthy of worship. The god is handed down from generation to generation as a living testimony of one’s ancestors having paid for the elaborate Samyaka ceremony. Succeeding generations proudly display the Dipañkara image every year along with other religious and<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=604"> ritualistic artefacts</a>, such as a long, narrow scroll painting (Bilañpau) that depicts life stories of legendary figures. The exhibit is put up for several days during the holy month of Guñla, especially on the full moon and the day after, which this year fall on 9 and 10 August.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080852_0910828ee66c9d74d1ff1319e417c910c87c9debb8e787a188aad75c30da576c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250807080852_0910828ee66c9d74d1ff1319e417c910c87c9debb8e787a188aad75c30da576c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1511" height="1497" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> <figcaption>The idol of Dipañkara Tathāgata of Kvābahāh being exhibited at the house of the eldest member of the clan upon completion of communal feast which is part of the Itilahnè Samyaka. Photo: BAJRARAJ SHAKYA</figcaption> </figure>  The practice of communal recitation of hymns and prayers in front of the image of Bahi Dyo, known as Tutaḥ Bwonegu, adds tranquillity and humbleness to a festival that otherwise flaunts wealth. Entire neighbourhoods throng to pay homage to the golden Dipañkara Buddha, propped up on a wooden frame, behind latticed wooden windows in a room on the ground floor of a house in the sacred courtyard to which the family belongs.&nbsp; The exhibition is known as Bahi Dyo Bwoyegu (bahi = sacred courtyard; dyo = deity; bwoyegu = to exhibit). The day after the full moon, scores of religious Dhāḥ and Khiñ drum ensembles parade around town, visiting the colourful Bahi Dyo exhibits. Bahi Dyo Bwoyegu essentially is the age-old practice of publicly showcasing the religious, artistic, and economic heritage of Newāḥ Buddhist families of Kathmandu Valley.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080856_848190d0fcd785e80d8422f444f5dd233b60ddbdf4c91b7b78b01ab9120a8fe8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250807080856_848190d0fcd785e80d8422f444f5dd233b60ddbdf4c91b7b78b01ab9120a8fe8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1501" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>  According to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-script-of-the-scriptures">Buddhist scriptures</a>, a Samyaka Sambuddha – an all-knowing supreme being – makes his appearance on earth after the passage of an eon. Twenty-eight such Buddhas have taken birth so far, the latest one being the Śākyamuni Gautama Buddha born in Lumbini in the 6th Century BC.&nbsp; One of the earliest in the series was the Dipañkara Buddha, a great proponent of the merits of giving alms, and the one who forecast the coming of Siddhārtha Gautama, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/telling-the-story-of-buddha-s-lumbini">the historical Buddha</a>. Legend goes that while on his way to receive alms at a magnificent ceremony organised by a affluent king, Dipañkara stopped en route to receive offerings of a handful of grain from an impoverished elderly woman who had made it a habit of keeping aside a portion of her meagre income for giving away. When asked by the puzzled king about the reason for stopping to receive such a scanty handout, Dipañkara gave a lengthy discourse about the virtue of selfless charity and the demerits of giving away riches collected by unscrupulous means. Suitably convinced, the king took up a menial job with a blacksmith, using his earnings to organise another alms giving ceremony at a later time, albeit on a much smaller scale.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080856_3cadf664097a8594ebb8cdd207f030ac123c1d279ef7d455f12f4549be314d11.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250807080856_3cadf664097a8594ebb8cdd207f030ac123c1d279ef7d455f12f4549be314d11" data-rendition-name="original" width="1503" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>  This lore has been venerated to this day by the Newāḥ Buddhist community by virtuously perpetuating the tradition of giving alms on several occasions throughout the sacred month of Guñlā. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Legends-of-pragya-paramita,3281">Guñlā </a>means the month (lā) that you spend in the nearby forest (guñ) engaging in meditation and devotional activities. Also known as Varśāvās, it is the period of the annual retreat of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/monsoon-culture">the monsoon</a> (Varśā = rain in Sanskrit) and coincides with the month of Śrāvan in the solar calendar when followers of Śaivism perform special prayer rituals and weekly fasts in reverence of Lord Śiva. As part of the Guñlā celebrations, during the Pañcadāna festival all Newāḥ Buddhist households in Kāthmāndu offer alms of grain, money, and rice pudding to members of the Śakya and Bajrācārya priest clans, who go from house to house seeking alms as required by religious duty, regardless of their financial status. The Pancadāna festival is held in Pātan on the eighth day of the bright half of Śrāvan.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080856_b669c26806561dd032840fd6aa04ee8096e9d46786efc7ce3d9d9b4e5caa2fd5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250807080856_b669c26806561dd032840fd6aa04ee8096e9d46786efc7ce3d9d9b4e5caa2fd5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1503" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080856_097db9c053352e79919afaf6557bec2067d1497fbeeeb793c1c3f4a3ec2c4ab3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20250807080856_097db9c053352e79919afaf6557bec2067d1497fbeeeb793c1c3f4a3ec2c4ab3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1503" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>  In line with the same philosophy, the monumental two-day alms-giving festival Samyak Mahādāna is held every 12 years in Kāthmāndu, where hundreds of Dipañkara images are paraded through the city thoroughfares and assembled at Bhuikhyaḥ, a large open public space at the base of the sacred hill of Swoyambhu. This important event is now several years behind schedule because of the encroachment of Bhuikhyaḥ, where the alms-giving ceremony takes place. A downsized version of the Samyaka festival takes place in Pātan every five years. Predictably enough, this display of affluence and opulence comes with its share of risks. A large gilded Dipañkara image was found missing from a reputed monastic complex in Pātan several years ago, together with many smaller images and other accessories. Later, most of the stolen items, including the Dipañkar image, surfaced at an auction house in Europe.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080856_1c40d5fcc3b3735acbb9c9d21bf6c488904a89573d2c578d9c7b3e45d4a35520.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20250807080856_1c40d5fcc3b3735acbb9c9d21bf6c488904a89573d2c578d9c7b3e45d4a35520" data-rendition-name="original" width="1503" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>  GODS IN SAFEKEEPING Continuous efforts by the local community in Pātan, the Nepal government, and the ‘host’ government helped bring back the image safely to its original place of residence two years after it was stolen. But some of the pieces of the Bahi Dyo set are yet to come home. This case has alerted other Bahi Dyo owners about the very real threat of theft, leading to many of them exhibiting the image privately in their residences only for a day or two. But while this allows for their family members to pay homage to Dipañkara, the public gets no access to them, a practice that is becoming increasingly common. Some families have resorted to entrusting the safekeeping of the deity to one of the government museums in the city for the rest of the year after the exhibition is over.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080856_fd81e4fb96e06ef8ffe48e0502f6846fb83994b876b781bf035119bd9f32b5ed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20250807080856_fd81e4fb96e06ef8ffe48e0502f6846fb83994b876b781bf035119bd9f32b5ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1503" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080852_8b464cc3a2746f76dd0ee9a4cef6b5371bc1dfce319a7dd436cdfe0d4e94d9c7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20250807080852_8b464cc3a2746f76dd0ee9a4cef6b5371bc1dfce319a7dd436cdfe0d4e94d9c7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1066" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>  However, some families which held the Bahi Dyo Bwoyegu ceremony privately earlier are now putting together resources and security measures to display their god openly in the courtyard for all to venerate. Conditions governed by changing times have forced Bahi Dyo owners to adopt newer and more pragmatic practices. The Bahi Dyo Bwoyegu festival is the proudest moment of the year for communities — an opportunity to showcase the achievements of their ancestors with full religious endorsement.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080856_095a1b99ac4b37b4b02664ff62ca92890c526bd287255d52ce4b645a42bff4cc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20250807080856_095a1b99ac4b37b4b02664ff62ca92890c526bd287255d52ce4b645a42bff4cc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1503" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807080856_da11420b61e4ba204b7eafea878cf2ebbbd545f8a265f4d6fb2ecf7c6b197800.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="20250807080856_da11420b61e4ba204b7eafea878cf2ebbbd545f8a265f4d6fb2ecf7c6b197800" data-rendition-name="original" width="1503" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Alok SIddhi Tuladhar NT"> </figure>  This event is also a reflection of the deep devotion of the people, their uncompromising social values, and extraordinary artistic skills. The razzmatazz of the Bahi Dyo Bwoyegu tradition may seem in sharp contrast with the merits of philanthropy preached by Dipañkara Buddha, but it has survived for centuries. In fact, this glorious intangible heritage is thriving again. &nbsp; Alok Siddhi Tuladhar is a cultural preservation activist and documentary filmmaker.

Kathmandu’s religious opulence

Bottom

Turkish Airlines has commemorated 12 years of continuous service between Kathmandu and Istanbul, reinforcing its role as Nepal’s sole European airline connection. Since its inaugural flight to Kathmandu in September 2013, the airline has actively supported Nepal’s tourism sector, participating in global travel expos to spotlight the country’s attractions.
The carrier is increasing the frequency of flights between Istanbul and Kathmandu to six per week starting November to cater to increasing demand from tourists and Nepali travelers.
In a separate milestone, Turkish was recognized with the 2025 Skytrax World Airline Awards in the Best Airline in Europe category for the tenth time, along with World's Best Business Class Catering, and Best Business and Economy Class in Europe.
Turkish is also launching a new connection to Seville, which will be useful to the 40,000 Nepalis currently residing in Spain. The carrier has also resumed its Misrata flights, as its third destination in Libya following Tripoli and Benghazi as the country returns to normal.
The airline also expanded its TKCONNECT platform by teaming up with global content aggregators such as Travelfusion, Verteil, DRCT, Mystifly, Nuua, Nuflights, and Theta. This initiative aims to empower Nepali travel agents with tools to craft personalised travel packages, unlock exclusive offers, and simplify booking processes—bringing a new level of efficiency and customization to the local travel industry.
Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines and British Council Nepal have partnered for the 3rd edition of ‘IELTS Upahar Campaign,’ under which three lucky winners will win one-way tickets to the USA and the UK, aiming to make study abroad dreams even more accessible. The offer is open to the British Council IELTS test takers between 15 August to 31 October 2025.&nbsp;

Turkish Airlines 12 Years

The 102MW Bhotekosi Hydropower Project in Sindhupalchok has completing testing, and will soon be feeding electricity to national grid through the Barabise substation. The project was started in 2013, and faced delays due to Covid and other construction complications along its 7.5km headrace tunnel. The project is operated by the NEA’s Chilime Hydropower Company and cost Rs16 billion. &nbsp;

Middle Bhote Kosi

The Department of Immigration Tuesday announced a new mobile online system to track foreigners in Nepal from visa application, movement within the country, hotels and departure. The Nepali Post Traveller Tracking Module is supposedly to make the visa application system less cumbersome, and ensure security, safety and rescue if needed. However critics on social media said the procedure to get a QR code seemed too complicated, and raised questions about privacy and surveillance.
&nbsp;Meanwhile, there was a 22% increase in tourists entering Nepal in August compared to July with 88,680. Most were from India, followed by Chinese and US nationals. Since January-August, 736,562 tourists visiting, which means Nepal may be on track to cross 1 million tourists in 2025.

Tracking tourists

The past, the present, and the future are really one: they are today. -Harriet Beecher Stowe  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024122609120_5c63a3201a7231b9334f98a3a1af867acfc1264e29fc3081810a565a270bde6f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024122609120_5c63a3201a7231b9334f98a3a1af867acfc1264e29fc3081810a565a270bde6f" data-rendition-name="original" width="2700" height="2700" loading="lazy" alt="Miss Moti #1241"> </figure>

The past, the present, and the future are really one

The videos are everywhere. K P Oli is lifted to safety by an Army helicopter as protesters amass at the gates of Baluwatar. The Deuba couple is bloodied by an angry crowd. Stashed with cash, homes of party leaders were were <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/kathmandu-burns-despite-pm-resignation">ransacked and set ablaze</a>.
Nepal went from an Oli-garchy to a youth-led caretaker government in two days. The idealistic anti-corruption GenZ campaign was penetrated by an array of forces intent on inflicting <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-day-justice-died">maximum damage on state institutions</a>.
Whatever their motivation, these disparate groups were all enraged by the kleptocracy. The state had looted the people for so long, many felt it was ok to loot the looters.
Prime Minister Sushila Karki has vowed to go after the corrupt, confiscate their ill-gotten wealth and confiscate property. As a former Chief Justice, Karki is known for her no-nonsense attitude and zero tolerance for corruption. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-interim-government-faces-first-hiccups">three ministers appointed </a>so far also have impeccable records for delivery and performance.&nbsp;
Young turks like Gagan Thapa of the Nepali Congress and Yogesh Bhattarai of the UML have <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-next-for-nepals-big-3-parties">pledged to clean up their own parties </a>with generational change in leadership. There are similar, but more subdued, voices within the Maoists and even the RSP.
For a spectacularly successful movement against corruption and for good governance, there could not have been a better outcome — even though in the public perception the GenZ revolt has been tainted somewhat by the infiltration and wanton destruction of government installations. Still, there is hope this catharsis will shake up the system and clean it up.
PARTNERS IN CRIME
Nepal’s development was systematically hollowed out by malfeasance for the past decades. But it was not just politicians and senior party leaders who were corrupt, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/slapping-democracy">usually they were hand-in-glove</a> with the civil service. Bureaucrats largely escaped the wrath of the people last week although many were partners in crime.&nbsp;
The debate in Nepal for many years has always been, who is more corrupt: politicians or bureaucrats? Or, who corrupted who? Padmini Pradhananga, who headed Transparency International Nepal, says the two complement each other.
“Politicians and bureaucrats are two sides of the same coin,” she told us. “In fact, the bureaucracy, political parties, the judiciary, security apparatus, and government agencies were all colluding in state capture.”
The Land Revenue Office, the Departments of Survey, the Department of Roads and Tax Offices were all seen as dens of thieves, so protesters torched them all. The Department of Transport Management, long seen as being in the grip of middlemen, has shut all services.
To be sure, burning down a building does not reform make. It will take much more to uproot corruption because its tentacles have burrowed deeply into every sector of the state. When the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/protest-grows-against-nepal-s-social-media-ban">government banned social media </a>earlier this month, Elon Musk posted on X that he would not register to pay taxes to a corrupt country like Nepal.
Corruption had undermined development,<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/relocate-reallocate-recover"> hurt Nepal’s investment climate, and contributed to the cost of doing business</a> which was passed down to consumers in terms of higher prices.&nbsp;
Diksha Kandel, a corporate lawyer, has seen it all. “Government offices created unnecessary hurdles every step of the way in everything from getting FDI approval to setting a date for a hearing. Everything has a rate,” she says. Even minor chores like share transfers and company address changes have taken her team months.
She adds: “The level of corruption at all levels of bureaucracy was frankly terrifying. At least with local political representatives, they are accountable to the people and get things done, even if it is to get re-elected.”
There is no shortcut to ending corruption, it has become a way of life. It was the main factor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-8-september-massacre">fuelling youth rage</a>, and added to the increasing outmigration of Nepalis.
Pradhananga says impunity was institutionalised because the guilty never got punished because of corruption in the judiciary. She says: “If judges were to honestly prosecute criminals, corruption would go down by 75%.”&nbsp;
Pradhananga thinks if corruption is under control, it will only take two years to kick start development, for Nepal’s international image to improve, and foreign investment to start flowing in. “But for that we need to be run by efficient managers, not career politicians who have mistaken politics for a profession instead of a public service.”
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/crime-and-or-punishment-in-nepal">Political interference</a> has defanged the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA). The Special Court that presides over corruption and money laundering arising from public procurement cases also needs to be overhauled.
Revolutions often start with an agenda to eradicate corruption, only for it to be further entrenched with regime change, eroding public trust in democracy. The outcome of Nepal's GenZ protest, especially after the March election, should reward candidates with demonstrable efficiency and integrity.&nbsp;
Sonia Awale

Two sides of the same coin

This is the first instalment in a new limited series in Nepali Times on the historic transportation infrastructures of Nepal. Nepal’s Forest Railways As<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/india-s-border-trains-that-connected-nepal"> India’s railway network </a>expanded in the 1890s and 1900s, the demand for wooden railway sleepers, called ‘ties’ in America, likewise increased. The <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/the-rana-reign-a-recap-of-history,3751">Rana regime</a> realised that western Nepal’s dense forests, from which sal trees could be extracted and sold, represented a valuable source of revenue. There was a problem of accessing large tracts of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-tarai-s-shrinking-forests">Tarai forests</a>. However, once Indian railway lines are extended to Nepal’s border in several places, this issue could be resolved by constructing logging railways, also known as ‘tramways’ or ‘light railways’. The Nepal Government awarded a contract to Punjabi timber contractors to supply 15,000 sal sleepers to Chandan Chauki station of India’s Oudh &amp; Rohilkhand State Railway in 1908. The contractors also received a concession to construct a steam tramway to run 48km into <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/reviving-nepals-community-forestry-success-story">Nepal’s forests</a> for cutting and transporting trees. The author found no records, however, indicating that such an ambitious tramway was built in 1908. The hewn logs were probably carried into India by bullock carts or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/elephants-become-white-elephants">elephants</a>. The earliest known forest railway in Nepal was built in 1914 in the southwestern corner of the present-day Parsa district. A British engineer went to the Indian border town of Bikna Thori to plan a 4-mile portable light railway for the transport of timber from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/on-the-tri-junction-of-wildlife-conservation-conflict-and-co-existence">the forest of Chitwan </a>to the Thori depot on the Bengal &amp; Northwestern Railway. This short line was laid upon wooden sleepers, and its rails could be taken up and repositioned when logging in one section of the forest was completed. This forest railway was in operation at least through 1917.&nbsp; A few year down the line in 1923, J V Collier of the Indian Forest Service built a narrow-gauge railway in Kailali district also to export of timber to India. This line, the Nepal Government Forest Railway, departed Chandan Chauki in Uttar Pradesh and ran 48km northwest into Nepal.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250824150820_84ddef57433c2f847b2c7e56c2d9c924084b6e6a504bbca905d2c593fac8eabd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250824150820_84ddef57433c2f847b2c7e56c2d9c924084b6e6a504bbca905d2c593fac8eabd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1130" height="689" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's little railways"> <figcaption>A Nepal Government Forest train in Kailali District hauling sal sleepers in 1925. Photo: DAVID CHURCHILL </figcaption> </figure>  It was a 2-foot railway supported by 11kg rails. The line was ‘temporary’ in that as sal trees were thinned out in one area, railway tracks were shifted to uncut areas of the forest. The railway crossed seven small <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-what-is-left-of-himalayan-rivers">rivers</a>, but the bridges were taken down during the summer and monsoon. Trains ran only from November to April. This forest railway purchased four 4-6-0T ‘tank’ engines built in Leeds, England. Each bogie could carry 100 broad-gauge sleepers, and two engines were needed to haul a 21-car train loaded with 2,100 sleepers. This huge commercial forest operation once employed about 14,000 men, most of them Indians. During one season, nearly 800,000 broad and metre-gauge sleepers were exported to India. When India suffered a depression in 1930, large scale operations came to an end. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rust-in-peace?fbclid=IwAR1_eg88TCOS6RGRW1af7WvaWx5mzh_rY8-vT1MnJxSs41QtCpaA988oXk8">Rust in peace</a>, Daniel W Edwards  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250824150828_13a0b894b9ea0c478904d358028f0c976d84f284432ee25106787366598d38e5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250824150828_13a0b894b9ea0c478904d358028f0c976d84f284432ee25106787366598d38e5" data-rendition-name="original" width="6000" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's railways"> <figcaption>Rails extended north from this spot into the virgin sal forests of Bardia in western Nepal 100 years ago.  DANIEL W EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  A third railway was built in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-big-bulls-of-bardia">Bardia </a>where some scattered rails and signs of an old roadbed were seen in the 1960s. It ran from Nishangada in India to Khairbhatti in Nepal. From there, stations heading south were Ranipur, Karmak, Taratal and Madhuwan. Collier likely <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-train-project-struggles-to-stay-on-track">built this railway </a>as well in the 1920s. An elderly man in Bardia in 2022, whose father had worked on this forest railway, was interviewed for this account. Kathmandu Valley’s Motor (Trolley) Railway Merchants importing goods from India via the<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/business/ropeways-connecting-nepal,1749"> ropeway</a> Chandra Shamsher built in 1927 had to go to the ropeway’s terminus at Matatirtha near Thankot to claim their goods and then haul them 6km to the customs house Bhansar Adda at Teku for clearance and payment of customs duties. The Motor Railway was built to carry goods from the<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16839"> ropeway station </a>directly to the customs office, making it cheaper and more convenient for merchants to receive their shipments. In December 1931, Prime Minister Bhim Shamsher issued an order (sanad) putting Lt Gen Singha Shamsher Rana in charge of building this rail line to Teku and on to ‘Nabalak Khana’ in Tripureswar, a distance of 10km. The project was subdivided into four sections or ‘phant’, and for each, budgets and timelines were established. There was bato phant (constructing the roadbed), lik sleeper and jordne phant (laying sleepers and joining the rails), culvert phant (installing culverts) and pul phant (building bridges). Colonel Kishore Narsingh Rana was put in charge of the sleeper and rail section, while Colonel Dilli Jung Thapa, an engineer at Ghar Kaj Adda, also was involved. The Motor Railway was completed by the end of 1933. In the beginning, the railway’s small wagons may have been pulled and pushed by men and bullocks. However, in 1938 a British railway manufacturer sent Nepal a four-wheel, 5½ ton, 2-foot narrow-gauge diesel-powered locomotive with mechanical transmission, hence the name motor railway. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-railways-janakpur-test-drive?fb_comment_id=3554227181262227_4263866616964943">Nepal Railways Janakpur test drive</a> Leaving Matatirtha, the trains passed Satungal, Naikap, the Bishnudevi Temple, crossed an iron bridge over Balkhu Khola, then to Ghattepakha, Sunagau, through what is now a section of Kuleshwor (‘Lik Marg’) to the Customs Office at Teku.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250825020852_033f0cee9775d7dadde7811132f84da876f614c386e3677e560ba7aed79909d9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20250825020852_033f0cee9775d7dadde7811132f84da876f614c386e3677e560ba7aed79909d9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="railways in Nepal"> <figcaption>Lik Marg in Kuleswor, the former route of the Motor Trolley Railway. Photo: DANIEL W EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  In 1945, Motor Trolley had four engines, but spare parts was badly needed. The charge for transporting one maund (about 40kg) of cargo from Matatirtha to Teku was 50 paisa. Even though the trains ran slowly and only for a short distance, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/fatalism-and-fatalities">accidents were not unknown</a>. A train loaded with rice, salt and cotton derailed on a curve in July 1946, and two railway employees were crushed under the cars and killed, five others were injured. Besides the driver and a brakeman, guards rode the trains to prevent theft of goods.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250824150836_63a327d4db3b067a23dd5c6cf17a31ffe811ffd4a8429bc31011d62298a90060.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20250824150836_63a327d4db3b067a23dd5c6cf17a31ffe811ffd4a8429bc31011d62298a90060" data-rendition-name="original" width="6000" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's railways"> <figcaption>The author by the remains of the Balkhu Khola bridge built in 1932 with American steel. Photo: JEEVAN NEPAL</figcaption> </figure>  By 1953, government budget estimates indicated the Motor Railway would break even with an income of Rs70,000 against Rs71,000 in expenditure. It appears the railway stopped service around 1957 with the opening of the Raj Path and the extension of the ropeway from Matatirtha to Bhansar Adda. Bent steel beams of the bridge across Balkhu Khola and two plaques recovered from the river a few years ago are the only remains of this railway today. Photos of the Motor Trolley Railway in operation are hard to come by.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250825020848_3a7cd17d0ffc36bbf5fdad404f5f6e91c7aa0e4f4ed729ed2c7e9c186f32ca9b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="20250825020848_3a7cd17d0ffc36bbf5fdad404f5f6e91c7aa0e4f4ed729ed2c7e9c186f32ca9b" data-rendition-name="original" width="5189" height="1979" loading="lazy" alt="railways in Nepal"> <figcaption>Steel plaque commemorating the construction of a Motor Trolley bridge across the Balkhu Khola. Photo: DANIEL W EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  The Kosi Project Railway (KPR) As early as 1941, India and Nepal considered building a dam on<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-kosi-s-sorrow-and-scope"> the Kosi River</a> to prevent destructive floods caused by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/when-it-rains-it-pours-ksqprbu3">monsoon rains</a>. Floods in 1950 inundated 500 villages in Bihar and left 500,000 people homeless. The two governments signed an agreement in 1954 to build a barrage on the Kosi, and King Mahendra and Prime Minister Nehru laid the foundation stone in April 1959. To transport stones from a quarry near Dharan to use in mixing concrete at the construction site, the Indian government, in charge of building the barrage, made plans to build a narrow-gauge railway linking Bihar and its border town of Bhimnagar with Nepal’s settlements at Chakraghatti, Chatra and Ghopa, the outskirts of Dharan.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250824150816_fc5e13b01022c63c64f1e83589da0015eee7ecd002bdd3d97b88c98c1f3d45b7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="20250824150816_fc5e13b01022c63c64f1e83589da0015eee7ecd002bdd3d97b88c98c1f3d45b7" data-rendition-name="original" width="4011" height="2645" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's railways"> <figcaption>Steel plaque commemorating the construction of a Motor Trolley bridge across the Balkhu Khola. Photo: DANIEL W EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  The section of the KPR in Nepal totaled 66km — the country’s longest railway to date. The stations south of Chakraghatti were Rajabas, Maduhuwan, Kushaha, Haripur and Bhantabari. The line built, operated and owned by the Indian Government, was opened in 1958 and known locally as Dhunge (stone) Rail. Procuring locomotives, wagons and other materials was a challenge. India’s Railway Board searched the country for old 41 lb rails, and located steam engines, most built around 1910, in poor condition, and stored in ‘retirement’. These decrepit locomotives were later cannibalised for parts to keep the remaining engines running, and six newer locomotives built in Yugoslavia were sent to the KPR in 1960 to prevent the railway from shutting down and halting construction of the barrage.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250824150832_fd644f9e2674c5047a531de5dfeb2c8860b0f93dddc7a2df3db867bf31b2c94b.bmp" data-media-id="editor_22" data-image-id="20250824150832_fd644f9e2674c5047a531de5dfeb2c8860b0f93dddc7a2df3db867bf31b2c94b" data-rendition-name="original" width="3171" height="2069" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's railways"> <figcaption>KPR locomotives, water tank and staff at Chakraghatti in Nepal. Photo: JOHN BENSON</figcaption> </figure>  Used bogie-wagons (gondolas) came from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/india-nepal-rail-diplomacy">Indian railways</a> that had been converted to metre-gauge, others were manufactured in Muzaffarpur without couplers due to the non-availability of steel. A hundred new wagons arrived from Japan, but only half could be put in service, as couplers from the other 50 were removed and attached to the Muzaffarpur wagons. This smorgasbord of equipment kept shop mechanics and work crews busy, but now-abandoned railways in Nepal always operated under less-than-ideal conditions. Although the purpose of the KPR was to transport gravel, stones and boulders to the site of the barrage, photographs show people riding in loaded wagons. Excluding Dharan, there was no bus service through the wild animal infested jungle between Dharan and Chakraghatti or along the dusty paths linking other small villages on the KPR, so patient locals sat in wagons at Dharan, waiting perhaps for hours for trains to depart.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250825020852_7d011dcc8e9b8cb0fe745b352486ebc4a84dac99419eadb35875333db20837c6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_24" data-image-id="20250825020852_7d011dcc8e9b8cb0fe745b352486ebc4a84dac99419eadb35875333db20837c6" data-rendition-name="original" width="3965" height="2659" loading="lazy" alt="railways in Nepal"> <figcaption>Ticketless riders on a train of gravel and stones in the forest between Dharan and Chakragatti in 1966. Photo: JOHN BENSON</figcaption> </figure>  Sons of former railway workers in Chakraghatti say that there were no fixed schedules, three or four trains ran both ways daily in the early 1960s. Southbound trains carried gravel, stones and boulders, while northbound trains would carry coal, cement and provisions, including sacks of coins to pay the workers. Trains even ran at night, and the crews worked long hours. Workers received free housing in project-built tenements but had to buy food supplies and items for personal use. The Babu Saheb or the superintendent lived at Chakraghatti, and at one time supervised more than 1,000 employees, nearly all of them from India. The barrage was completed in 1964, but by 1970, the Kosi Project Railway had passed into history. Daniel W Edwards was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 and is the author of several books on Nepal.

Nepal’s five little railways

One night last week, Asabir Tamang was awoken from his sleep by the grumble of the nearby Trisuli river. He alerted his family and neighbours in the village of Khalte, and in the dark they scrambled up the slope to safety as the waters rose. It had been pouring all night, and the villagers thought it was a replay of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rasuwa-flood-likely-a-glof">the 8 July flash-flood on the Bhote Kosi</a> that killed 12 people, washed away a vital trade bridge connecting Nepal and China as well as a dry port with electric cars, damaged four hydropower plants and an electric substation. The Chinese had warned the authorities in Nepal of another flood, and the Uttargaya Municipality was on high alert. Both floods are believed to have been triggered when <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mapping-kangchenjunga-glacial-flood-risk">supra-glacial lakes</a> in the catchment of the Lengde River in Tibet overflowed due to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-climate-crisis-is-a-water-crisis-in-the-himalaya">global warming</a>. The flood on 28 July was not as destructive as the earlier one, but Tamang’s family climbed to safer ground just in time before the flood swept away his tin-roof hut and those of his neighbours last week.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807090848_f573652291798dad5aba2b9db23b82e2bebc30ca21321371735674018554f925.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250807090848_f573652291798dad5aba2b9db23b82e2bebc30ca21321371735674018554f925" data-rendition-name="original" width="2222" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="From one disaster to the next NT"> <figcaption>NEITHER HERE NOR THERE: Survivors of the 2015 earthquake in Mailung, Tiru and Gogane, were resettled in Khalte on the low-lying banks of Trisuli, but have suffered two damaging floods in July (left) caused by climate breakdown. All photos: SABINA DEVKOTA</figcaption> </figure>  Fifty-eight year old Tamang, his family and 276 other households relocated themselves to the river-side settlement of Khalte after<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/building-back-not-better-after-2015-kxble6c6"> the 2015 earthquake </a>destroyed their villages Mailung, Tiru and Gogane up in the mountains.&nbsp; According to the locals, they intially took temporary refuge in Satbise along with other displaced families from Haku. They stayed in an open area provided by the municipality chairman for five months. Later, they rented a place in Naubise for 27 thousand per month, only to be evicted by the landowner after seven months. Eventually, they settled on the public land in Khate where they continue to live today. Tamang himself lost nine members of his family in Mailung, including his wife, five grandsons and three granddaughters. Repeated <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/seismological-Centre-2015-earthquake,2230">aftershocks</a> triggered rockfalls, and it was too dangerous to go back to rebuild homes in their ancestral village. But while relocating to a new place that would be safe from a seismic disaster, the inhabitants of Khalte have become victims of recurring climate calamities.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807090852_24b0bab16ce2fdd5dc1c64a91d869e16bfec1130d880eb376faf4dffa6ac58ba.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250807090852_24b0bab16ce2fdd5dc1c64a91d869e16bfec1130d880eb376faf4dffa6ac58ba" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="From one disaster to the next"> <figcaption>(Clockwise) Asabir Tamang, Sukmaya Ghale, Norsing Tamang, and Sanchamaya Ghale</figcaption> </figure>  “We left the place we were born in, and have been living in fear for the past ten years,” Tamang told us, surveying what used to be home for 17 members of his extended family in Khalte. “But it is just as dangerous here.” The 2015 earthquake not only displaced, but also divided families. Sanchamaya Ghale, 40, still lives with her husband in her home village of Tiru which was devastated in 2015, while her children are with relatives in Khalte because their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/patan-school-built-back-better">school was destroyed in the quake</a>. Sarita Tamang, 40, is from Gogane, the other village that was destroyed in the earthquake. She and her husband decided to stay back to tend the family farm, while her five children are in Khalte for studies. Meanwhile, Mingma Tamang took a risk to rebuild his family home in Gogane for Rs1 million. He says, “I spent everything I had earned in Malaysia before the earthquake to rebuild the house.” Tamang lives with the grief of losing his youngest daughter and son who were crushed in their home in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/reviewing-lessons-of-the-2015-nepal-earthquake">2015 disaster</a>. A 2021 research in Gogane and Tiru shows that the earthquake did not just destroy homes, but the traditional community bonds of the Tamang community which provides support in time of need. With families divided and split into groups, that collective spirit of self-help is lacking, and this has also led to socio-psychological distress. Glan Bahadur Tamang, 60, also moved down to Khalte because it is too traumatic to go back to his ancestral village of Gogane. He does hike up occasionally to sow millet and maize, but does not linger there. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-unseen-wounds-of-climate-disasters">The unseen wounds of climate disasters</a>, Anek Rajbhandari Even before last month’s floods destroyed their sheds, the highlanders found Khalte too hot and many who were moved here fell sick to <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16988#.XnMUhagzbSF">water-borne diseases </a>and other infections. Today, the villagers only gather in their ancestral homes at funerals of their relatives and friends because their ancestral burial grounds are near the villages that the earthquake forced them to abandon.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025080710080_6805bc25bc91eb7cedbbdc585ae52deec5cf67f41105901627a71794de7dddef.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="2025080710080_6805bc25bc91eb7cedbbdc585ae52deec5cf67f41105901627a71794de7dddef" data-rendition-name="original" width="1486" height="1352" loading="lazy" alt="From one disaster to the next"> </figure>  For many villagers like Sukumaya Ghale, 57, the idea of going back up to Tiru, Gogane or Mailung is fraught with fear. But Khalte offers no real safety, either.&nbsp; “The river can take everything at any time,” says Lalmaya Tamang, 29, recalling the fear that gripped the resettled families on 8 and 28 July.&nbsp; There have been efforts to lure the families back to their villages in the mountains from the heat and danger of living in the deep valley of an unpredictable river. In 2020, the Hong Kong-based Kadoorie Foundation, in coordination with the then National Reconstruction Authority built an integrated settlement of 119 houses in Tiru for 152 beneficiaries.&nbsp; However, disputes over fair allocation halted the distribution of new homes. They are all locked and vacant, and some are being used for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/be-kind-to-buffaloes?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1jWdEuifITwezF3twa8iMAHlbFRifK8hdt70jG44Ty7O8AgAZbfK8mp8I_aem_AaofDjDS71K5FWxwfN9qp9F0GjG6xapjL1QIf_69QspE2lglwHdqvGXHY8PFxdJESkauMyr47dSVBiq6OnonU9k9">livestock</a>. “We could have considered moving, but there are no basic facilities like toilets and water taps,” says Norsing Tamang, 58, pointing at a row of empty houses in Tiru. The Dhading District Level Project Implementation Unit actually bought the land to build the homes for the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/memories-of-the-great-earthquake">survivors of the earthquake</a>, but it was not enough for everyone. Says Bam Bahadur, Tamang former chair of Ward 1 of Uttargaya.&nbsp; “We didn’t know how to decide who gets what,” he says, “there was no option for further land acquisition.” The government did acquire additional land in Pahirebesi in 2021 to resettle 125 survivor families, but that also turned out to be sufficient for only 103, halting distribution once again.&nbsp; Another land plot purchased in Shantibazar in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/kathmandu-s-waste-is-making-nuwakot-sick">Nuwakot</a>, by the then Dhading-DLPIU for 24 displaced people, also became unviable when a 200KV high-tension line from the Upper Trishuli hydropower project was routed through it.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250807090852_95c11b2d364f37d3f6be99008a8c7f0d64f51df6eaf796ab1ac8fe56131f770b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20250807090852_95c11b2d364f37d3f6be99008a8c7f0d64f51df6eaf796ab1ac8fe56131f770b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2222" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="From one disaster to the next"> <figcaption>The government developed integrated resettlement of 119 houses for the villagers in Tiru, but they lie empty due to a lack of basic facilities.</figcaption> </figure>  The government’s resettlement plans all look good on paper, but here on the ground there are many stories of well-meaning but failed attempts. This year the Ministry of Urban Development has allocated Rs70 million to acquire land for the 86 remaining displaced people in Khalte. But residents are unhappy because there are still not enough housing and the elderly refuse to move into the buildings because they lack basic <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/do-not-fail-students-in-wash">water and hygiene facilities</a>.&nbsp; Experts criticise the one-size-fits-all approach of government and charities. “Integrated settlements post-earthquake have become failures,” says Associate Professor of Rural Development Department, Tribhuvan University, Ratnamani Nepal. “Just building a 2-room house is not a shelter. Livelihoods, access to water, education, and roads, all should be part of the plan.” Elsewhere in Barpak and other integrated <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/moving-after-shaking,3792">re-settlement in Sindhupalchok</a> the government has overlooked the community needs, cultural sentiments and social networks in the name of construction of integrated settlement.&nbsp; ‘A settlement is a cultural and social space, without it there is no sense of community,’ explains Nepal. A 2021 research published in ScienceDirect Journal, referring to Khalte, Tiru and Pahirebesi settlements recommends that resettlement and relocation should be <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/participating-to-save-kangchenjunga">community-driven </a>reflecting the priorities of affected people.&nbsp; The World Ban’s Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for reconstructing after Natural Disasters notes why relocation after disasters often does not succeed, identifying key problems such as poor site selection, culturally insensitive designs, lack of community input, distance from jobs and network and insufficient funding. According to the Central Level Project Implementation Unit, post-quake 97 integrated resettlements have been completed and 6 are still under construction in Nepal. The need for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-to-build-back-better">proper housing</a> is far greater than relocation. Chegu lama, 40, still lives in Khalte, and dissuades people from moving there. “There are no basic amenities: &nbsp;no road, no hospital and no school. We go back and forth to keep up with culture and survival.” But not everyone agrees. Chiring Tamang, 65 and Yangchen Tamang, 60, make occasional visits from Tiru to Khalte to meet their four sons and daughter-in-laws insist: “They are scared to live here, but at this (old) age we won’t abandon our ancestral home.”

From one disaster to the next

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The<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rasuwa-flood-likely-a-glof"> flood on the Bhote Kosi</a> on Tuesday morning was a timely reminder about the risks Himalayan communities face from melting permafrost and glaciers, as well as the need for transboundary early warning. In the spring of 2024, I visited the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area (KCA) again. While in the village of Kampuchen (4,145) I visited Nupu Sherpa, friend and owner of the Kampuchen White House Lodge, to share <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/18/711/2024/">a new paper we had just published</a> about a massive ice-debris avalanche that had occurred in 2022 in the upper Nupchu valley. Although Nupu was interested in the results and implications of the avalanche, he was even more concerned about the recent and rapid development of several large, pro-glacial lakes upon the terminus of the Kanchenjunga glacier, an hour walk north of Kampuchen and across the seasonal yak pasture of Ramdang Kharka (4,375m).&nbsp; Like many high altitude, low gradient glaciers in the Himalaya, those in the Kanchenjunga region had shrunk to mere shadows of their former selves during the previous 125 years, leaving behind debris-covered remnant ice and small meltwater ponds.&nbsp; Nupu’s fear was that the lakes might soon coalesce to form a large and potentially dangerous glacial lake. Given a large enough trigger, such as a massive landslide or avalanche, a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) could result that could damage Kampuchen, Ghunsa, Phale, the Kangchenjunga Base Camp trail, and even beyond to the lower Tamor into India.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071204070_31e28d1fd0f5a976ad96fc5597cc386586d7de5b7d9714835d5b479104209fed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025071204070_31e28d1fd0f5a976ad96fc5597cc386586d7de5b7d9714835d5b479104209fed" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1635" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools in the Himalaya"> <figcaption>The Kanchenjunga Conservation Area (KCA), eastern Nepal.</figcaption> </figure>  Since I was on my way to the village of Lhonak (4,792m) I stopped to take a look at the new lakes. Sure enough, from a lookout point on the lateral moraine of the Kanchenjunga Glacier I could see as many as ten newly formed and growing meltwater ponds upon the terminal moraine region of the glacier.&nbsp; The prospect was reminiscent of early satellite images taken of Imja Glacier in 1962 by the French, showing a number of meltwater ponds that within 15 years had grown and merged into a glacial lake half a square kilometer in size and containing 45 million cubic meters of water. Ten years after that Imja had grown to more than a square kilometer in size, was at least 120 m deep, and contained an estimated, and growing, 90 million cubic meters of water. Would the same scenario play out for the lower Kanchenjunga Glacier? To try and understand the situation better, glaciologist Sonam Wangchuk of ICIMOD put together a time series composite of lake development over time, from 2016 to 2024, where it was clear that the majority of the new lakes had only formed since 2019.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071204078_c65a5ec574a251489c502f3efdf842033e0d238fd57947f7eee2c5793aac2a29.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025071204078_c65a5ec574a251489c502f3efdf842033e0d238fd57947f7eee2c5793aac2a29" data-rendition-name="original" width="602" height="686" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools in the Himalaya"> <figcaption>Time-lapse satellite images of glacial lake development from 2016 to present. Animation of the process can be seen at https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/w17101457/s1.</figcaption> </figure>  Sonam Rinzin of Newcastle University estimated the potential depth and volume of the future glacier lake using standard procedures based upon the surface slope of the Kanchenjunga Glacier combined with volume-area curves for similar glacial lakes, estimating that the future lake would have a volume of approximately 33 million cubic meters of water and depth of more than 116 m. Other modeling methods enabled the mapping of probable ice, debris, and/or rock avalanches into the lake that could trigger a GLOF.&nbsp; A third model was then used to simulate four different avalanche scenarios that could trigger a GLOF: from small (debris avalanche of 3 million cubic meters) to the worst case (15 million cubic meters) of fast-moving debris. Even under the small magnitude scenario, avalanche-triggered outburst floods would travel distances of almost 120km downstream, and under the worst-case scenario the floods would reach the Indo-Gangetic Plain and cross the border into India, damaging or destroying up to 90 buildings and 44 bridges. The prospective triggers of a future GLOF, however, are not limited to a nearby rock avalanche. A <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/11/443/2017/tc-11-443-2017.html">sudden release of water</a> from water-filled caves further up the glacier could trigger a surge wave capable of breaching the terminal moraine complex holding in the lake water.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250712040716_20ed87368a9ac416b5d0232cf8e02211195ca6bc9fff960a1f7e43a95bdfbbf9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250712040716_20ed87368a9ac416b5d0232cf8e02211195ca6bc9fff960a1f7e43a95bdfbbf9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1621" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools"> <figcaption>Theoretical Kangchenjunga glacial lake of the future (blue) contained by a front moraine (purple) with a flood possibly triggered by a massive rock avalanche (red).</figcaption> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-not-so-permanent-frost">Weakening permafrost</a> at the highest altitudes could result in massive ice-debris avalanches, such as those believed to have triggered recent and catastrophic floods in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-the-seti-disaster">Seti River</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-mountains-are-melting">Barun Khola</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/non-climate-cause-of-nanda-devi-flood">Chamoli</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/sikkim-flood-is-warning-to-nepal">South Lhonak lake</a>, and Tuesday’s Bhote Kosi flood in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rasuwa-flood-likely-a-glof">Rasuwa</a>. Weakening and eventual collapse of the terminal moraine complex through sub-surface piping could also result in an outburst flood. And a range of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-mountains-are-melting">cascading processes</a> currently unknown to scientists could trigger a flood as well.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250712040712_76336a4597c08dd735e57b09ae9840b6bd3d89c85907bb39424d9e6f3163581e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20250712040712_76336a4597c08dd735e57b09ae9840b6bd3d89c85907bb39424d9e6f3163581e" data-rendition-name="original" width="740" height="565" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools in the Himalaya"> <figcaption>Jannu glacier in 1899. Note how the level of the debris-covered glacier reached the top of the lateral moraines over a hundred years ago. Photo: V. SELLA</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250712040712_707dd365923a002e889c64a88796b445695ea9ca692ec639179bc70217ed63c5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20250712040712_707dd365923a002e889c64a88796b445695ea9ca692ec639179bc70217ed63c5" data-rendition-name="original" width="5184" height="3888" loading="lazy" alt="Meltpools in the Himalaya"> <figcaption>Jannu glacier in 2022. The remaining debris-covered glacier is now several hundred meters below the crests of the lateral moraines. Photo: E. BYERS</figcaption> </figure>  But will a large and potentially dangerous glacial actually form at the Kanchenjunga glacier? There’s really no way to tell at this point, although the rapid development of lakes since 2016 is a strong indicator that a large lake is in the process of forming. And rather than wait and see, our current uncertainty does not diminish the need for a more proactive approach to the development of a large glacial lake at some point in the near future. For example, the lower Kanchenjunga Glacier clearly needs to be regularly monitored over the coming years to keep track of glacial lake growth and potential hazards. This could be done by the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), ICIMOD, or Kathmandu University with results regularly shared with local people and local governments.&nbsp; In fact, such a service could be developed into a program that is offered to other communities throughout highland Nepal who experience similar situations of glacial lake development, growth, and prospective danger, especially since most communities presently feel that they have no one to turn to for similar information. Inexpensive, locally appropriate, user-friendly early warning systems (EWS) need to be developed for the Kanchenjunga region now, instead of waiting for a tragedy to happen. While the different options and costs are being assessed, the installation of new cell towers in the upper Ghunsa Khola would assure that local residents have access to one of the most effective and proven EWS systems available: cell phones, combined with a lake level monitoring device that broadcasts data and connects to cell phone alarm systems.&nbsp; For example, hundreds of lives were saved when upstream witnesses called their family and friends downstream to warn them of the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Anatom-of-a-Himalayan-tsunami,1330">Seti River flood</a> near Pokhara in 2014. New zoning policies that prohibit the construction of lodges and other infrastructure in high-risk floodplain regions need to be developed now. Where the infrastructure already exists, villages should be encouraged to install gabion rock-filled wire cages along susceptible river channel or river interfaces to divert the flow of water during a flood event, a method used successfully in both highland and riverine Nepal. Local and national hazard training and response programs need to be developed now. Several examples of excellent programs developed by different organisations in the upper Khumbu region exist that provide excellent models, such as those tested by the US Agency for International Development <a href="https://www.hillarymedal.com/Khumbu-Nepal-Local-Adaptation-Plan-of-Action-%20report.pdf">(USAID) and ICIMOD</a> between 2011 and 2015. Glacial lake reduction&nbsp; Nepal was recently awarded a $36.1 million award by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to directly confront many of hazards from glacial lake outburst floods jointly implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the DHM building on past successes at Tso Rolpa and Imja Lakes. There are some lessons learned over the past decades of field work based in Nepal and Peru: 1. The DHM wants to use the project to reduce GLOF risks in Kosi and Gandaki basins and glacial lake reduction programs are planned for Thulagi, Lower Barun, Lumding Tsho, and Hongu 2 glacial lakes.&nbsp; However, the planned lowering depth for Tso Rolpa in 2000 was 20m, with the project ending once 3m lowering was achieved due to lack of funds. Imja lake, which scientists also determined needed to be lowered by at least 20m, was in fact lowered by 3m in 2016 ‘because that’s what they did at Tso Rolpa’.&nbsp; If glacial lake reduction programs are to be implemented under the GCF program they should be based upon good science, and lowered to an effective depth, otherwise the activity will be a waste of funds. <a href="https://sinia.minam.gob.pe/sites/default/files/siar-%20ancash/archivos/public/docs/usaid_glacial_lake_handbookrfs_0-ilovepdf-%20compressed_0.pdf">Peru offers experience</a> for glacial lake lowering. 2. Although large glacial lakes (more than 1sq km) will always command the most media and even scientific attention, it has become abundantly clear in recent years that even small glacial lakes can be just as deadly, given the correct sequence of cascading events, rainfall, snowmelt, and/or other triggers.&nbsp; The 2017 <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10346-018-1079-9">Barun flood</a> and September 2024 <a href="https://www.stimson.org/event/the-%20thame-glof-disaster-climate-related-disaster-risk-management-in-the-high-himalayas/">Thame flood</a> are two excellent examples. Methods for assessing the flood risk of glacial lakes will need to be revised accordingly to include many of these smaller glacial lakes as well, in addition to the 21 large lakes already considered to be dangerous. 3. Existing and expensive EWS might benefit by some consideration of cheaper, more local, and possibly more effective alternatives. In 2015, for example, <a href="https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol37/iss2/7/">villagers</a> living below Tso Rolpa complained that they had no idea how the recently installed EWS worked, what it sounded like, and what to do in the event that it went off. With improved cell service and real-time lake level monitoring apps, local people could check on the lake whenever they wished, as opposed to waiting for some kind of communication from Kathmandu. 4. The GCF grant has the opportunity to become the ‘go to’ place for communities throughout highland Nepal to report any of their concerns related to glacial lakes and/or other observed cryospheric processes. This service could facilitate local people’s ability to adapt to, mitigate, or prevent a range of climate change-related hazards largely unknown to previous generations. Alton C Byers is a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) University of Colorado at Boulder and has visited the KCA including a six-month residency in Ghunsa supported by the Fulbright Nepal Scholar Program. This article is largely based on Evolution of a Potentially Dangerous Glacial Lake on the Kanchenjunga Glacier, Nepal, Predictive Flood Models, and Prospective Community Response. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/w17101457">Water</a>, 2025. (Byers AC, Rinzin S, Byers E, Wangchuk S.)

Meltpools in the Himalaya

In 2023, northern India suffered record-breaking heat. In 2024, it broke its own record. In 2025, the Indo-Gangetic plains and the Nepal Tarai suffered a prolonged pre-monsoon heat wave and humidity, forcing closure of schools and workplaces. This week, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/europe-heat-wave-intensifies-as-fresh-warnings-issued/live-73108302">southern Europe is suffering the worst heat wave</a> since temperature records began. Football matches, tennis tournaments have been affected, and tourist sites have been closed off. Qatar has ordered a midday work curfew for Nepali and other migrant workers are the maximum temperature this week touched 45°C.&nbsp; Kathmandu Valley experienced its highest temperature in 25 years in May 2024 at 35.3°C. This year, the maximum temperature exceeded 30°C on many days — heat that till a decade ago would be considered unusual. Rains in early June also meant that towns in the mountains sweltered under high heat plus humidity.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250703090748_6975cfc2ad573f3a09ca301a299a9e92a420da7f1c5c90b8e4d061a2053dcd3e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250703090748_6975cfc2ad573f3a09ca301a299a9e92a420da7f1c5c90b8e4d061a2053dcd3e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1935" height="801" loading="lazy" alt="maximum average temperature in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Source: DHM</figcaption> </figure>  Measuring just temperature does not give a true picture of how hot it is. When humidity is factored in, the heat index this summer has been much higher in northern India and Nepal. Also, the hotter the air temperature the higher the concentration of water vapour in it. “We feel it is getting hotter, and our statistics back that up,” says Shanti Kandel at the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, which issued two heat wave warnings this year, compared to 11 last year. “We need more research to analyse how humidity is make this situation worse.” <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-faces-alarming-30-rise-in-moist-heat-stress-over-40-years-affecting-wide-swath-of-country-imd-study/articleshow/109376863.cms?from=mdr">A recent analysis</a> by the Indian Meteorological Department has found that heat stress in that country has increased by nearly 30% over the past 40 years. Similarly, India’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) noted that cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, and Lucknow have experienced a 6-9% rise in relative humidity in the last decade.&nbsp; It also states that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/majority-indian-districts-face-high-heatwave-risk-study-shows-2025-05-20/#:~:text=%22About%2057%20per%20cent%20of,usual%20number%20of%20heatwave%20days.">60% of Indian districts</a>, home to three-quarters of the country’s 1.3 billion people face a high to very high risk from extreme heat, with rising night-time temperatures and humidity. The heat index is also called ‘<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/north-indian-heat-wave-hits-nepal">wet-bulb temperature</a>’ and is a measure of how hot the human body feels when humidity levels are also high — usually much hotter than the recorded temperature. For example, a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C is considered the maximum limit of heat and humidity that humans can handle, beyond which the body cannot cool by perspiration, leading to death. One indicator of increasing humidity is a rise in average minimum temperature, and Nepal recorded the highest figure since 1981 last year, with a peak of 15.8°C. Higher minimum temperature denotes warmer nights, which in turn is an indication of heat stress caused by increasing humidity, which in turn is a result of global warming. Aside from higher average temperatures worldwide this year, what makes heat and humidity more unbearable is that cities are always hotter than their surroundings. This is due to the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/preparing-for-kathmandu-s-heat-waves">urban heat island (UHI) effect</a> – for example the temperature inside Kathmandu’s Ring Road can be hotter by <a href="https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/what-are-heat-islands">up to 4°C during the daytime and by 1 to 3°C in the evening</a> compared to the outskirts. “Climate change is one reason for rising temperature, but there are other factors like increased heat in urban spaces due to concrete buildings and infrastructure, emissions from vehicles, industries, and home appliances,” explains urban planner Bhushan Tuladhar. He adds: “Much of this comes down to how we have developed our cities, not just our roads and buildings but also our water system, waste management, culture and customs as well as economy.” There is a feedback loop at work: as it gets hotter, more energy is used for fans, coolers, and air-conditioners which in turn add to the urban heat bubble. The way to reduce the UHI effect is to have more parks, tree-lined streets and water bodies to cool cities down.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212095525002093">A recent study published in the journal Urban Climate</a> by Nepali researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Tribhuvan University, University of Groningen, etc showed that even within Kathmandu, urban forests cooled neighbourhoods by as much as 1.2°C while ponds reduced the temperature by up to 0.85°C compared to nearby houses.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250703090748_e4de75dbdfb5fcfdeb0935eda364dc16b5dca8857ba335ab0f4586ebdc5093a9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250703090748_e4de75dbdfb5fcfdeb0935eda364dc16b5dca8857ba335ab0f4586ebdc5093a9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2580" height="1038" loading="lazy" alt="urban heat island in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Source: URBAN CLIMATE et al.</figcaption> </figure>  ‘Our results demonstrate that blue-green spaces provide significant cooling benefits across the Kathmandu Valley, with distinct patterns by type, size, design, and urban context,’ concluded the paper, whose lead author is Saurav Bhattarai at Jackson State University in the United States. The old towns in Kathmandu Valley with traditional brick and tile architecture, ponds and trees managed hot summers better. Compact houses around a courtyard gave people just the right amount of sunlight, and use of clay mortar and bricks insulated houses in winter while cooling them in summer. There were open spaces, fertile land along the floodplains for farming, and brick pavements that allowed for seepage. “Our cities were planned taking nature into account,” says Sangeeta Singh, a professor of urban planning at the Institute of Engineering. “Kathmandu Valley is now built up, but we can still reintegrate blue-blue spaces into town planning with vertical gardening, urban forestry, using local material and harvesting rainwater.”&nbsp; Kathmandu’s municipalities have by-laws controlling building design and structure, but strict enforcement of land use and zoning are missing. Extreme heat disproportionately affects the urban poor who may not have access to fans or air-conditioners, exacerbating poverty.&nbsp; Cities in the plains have it even worse. As heat and humidity rise simultaneously, it could <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/garmi-se-behal-chalo-nepal">reverse the current mass migration</a> of people from the mountains to the Tarai, where 53% of Nepal’s population lives. <a href="https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/92fbbbc6180238e18e7b239fad83e38a-0280032024/original/12-DHNT-Temperature-poverty-inequality-September-2024.pdf">A World Bank study</a> put the cost of a 1°C rise in temperature at 17.1% increase in poverty globally. Estimates put the total number of urban poor in developing countries exposed to the worst heat extremes at 26 million presently, this number is bound to grow to 215 million by mid-century, an over eight-fold increase. Meanwhile, 489,000 health-related deaths occur each year, 45% of them in Asia alone. “Heat has to be seen from a class perspective,” says Singh. “Those with money can afford gadgets and appliances to keep their homes and offices cool, but not day labourers or poor families living in cramped housing with poor ventilation.” Climate breakdown is going to widen the class divide in cities, as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/unthinkable-in-the-current-climate">summers become unliveable</a>. Says Singh: “We need policy intervention to address this class injustice. Our building by-laws and new town development must urgently integrate climate and energy efficiency elements.”

In the heat of the moment

On the afternoon of 28 May, a massive glacier avalanche destroyed the idyllic village of Blatten in the Valais region of Switzerland. Footage of the disaster rapidly circulated around the world, sparking renewed conversation about the increasing instability of the mountain cryosphere and climate-related risks. The population of nearly 300 people had been evacuated a week prior due to concerns that unstable slopes above the glacier could trigger a catastrophic event. This is remarkable, and a testament to the value of hazard monitoring and anticipatory action. Shocked by the intensity of avalanche impacts and devastating loss, people struggled to comprehend the alternative: what if the village had been full? In Nepal, the people of the Langtang Valley, survivors of a massive glacier avalanche that killed over 300 people in April 2015, know exactly what it feels like for an entire village to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/17/nepal-earthquake-langtang-village-everyone-was-dead">‘wiped off the map’</a> in a little more than a minute. The avalanche that buried the village of Langtang was similarly catastrophic, as the avalanche fell over 3,000m and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/asia/nepal-avalanche-langtang.html">carried nearly as much force as the Hiroshima atomic bomb</a>. Unfortunately, the people of Langtang had no warning. While these two disasters are quite different, there are some important connections between them. As the world contemplates the threat of increasing climate-related glacier hazards and wonders if and how Blatten will rebuild, I would like to draw attention to the ever-present risk of similar disasters in the Himalayas, where the scale of the problem is (arguably) larger and resources are (inarguably) more limited. As events like these become increasingly common, we need to build monitoring and <a href="https://www.undrr.org/implementing-sendai-framework/sendai-framework-action/early-warnings-for-all">early warning systems for all</a> at-risk communities. We also need more comparative analysis of the ways mountain people make sense of climate-related risks, particularly around wicked questions like hazard zoning and resettlement or relocation. How do institutions determine where to invest in hazard monitoring and early warning systems? Who gets to decide where people can rebuild, what kind of risks are ‘acceptable’, or whose uncertainties matter? As a survivor of the Langtang disaster and an applied anthropologist, this is not a thought exercise for me. I spent more than two years working with the Langtangpa community as a volunteer, and the last ten years conducting research focused on the aftermath of the Langtang avalanche and the ways people cope with disaster and climate risk in the Himalayan region. Since late 2022, I have been <a href="https://www.stimson.org/project/early-warning-systems-for-cascading-disasters-in-nepal/">working with the Stimson Center </a>to consider how we might build systems to assess and monitor the changing risks of cascading hazards in the Himalayan region. As the Swiss and a range of international organizations consider how they might provide warning for other Alpine villages living beneath glaciers, we need to expand the conversation to consider the many Himalayan villages that are similarly at-risk. The question of climate causality currently haunts the Blatten disaster -- just as it has for other similar events in recent years, including the Langtang avalanche. While attribution is incredibly complicated, many scientists have already highlighted the ways that melting permafrost and loss of seasonal snowcover and glacial mass created instability in the overall system above the Birch Glacier on Kleines Nesthorn. Not all glaciers are receding. In Blatten, recurring slope failures had also been piling debris on the glacier slowly over the years, pushing the ‘glacier tongue’ forward and weakening its integrity – and this acceleration attracted attention and focused monitoring. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7334623807573278721/">A recent post from Christian Huggel, a leading cryosphere scientist based at University of Zurich</a> examined these details and clearly stated: “Considering all these processes it would be absurd, ignorant or dishonest to state that anthropogenic warming has not played any role in the ice-rock avalanche disaster in <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23blatten&amp;origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED">Blatten</a>. Interestingly, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/01/this-is-ground-zero-for-blatten-the-tiny-swiss-village-engulfed-by-a-mountain">other scientists have indicated that “exact attribution is almost beside the point.”</a> Tellingly, it took almost ten years for formal scientific recognition (see <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01624-z">this Nature paper published in 2024</a>) in part because it was seismically triggered, overshadowing the climate-related signal.That said, many Langtangpa highlighted these connections immediately after the disaster, as many are doing in Blatten right now. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-courage-and-endurance-of-the-langtangpa">My friends in Langtang have spent the last ten years rebuilding their lives</a> while wondering if another event of this magnitude might be possible.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250607140612_5ccfd4786416a151e1c2d44f79add3c196da34e1c30af9188de10982b45d72f8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250607140612_5ccfd4786416a151e1c2d44f79add3c196da34e1c30af9188de10982b45d72f8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1250" height="885" loading="lazy" alt="Blatten NT"> <figcaption>Copernicus statellite image of the avalanche that buried the village Blatten in Switzerland on 28 May, 2025.</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250607140616_306112d2eb5330d0a5117bae3fc372861afce5137b52f793285e6b1cf89ca31a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250607140616_306112d2eb5330d0a5117bae3fc372861afce5137b52f793285e6b1cf89ca31a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1733" height="1053" loading="lazy" alt="Langtang NT"> <figcaption>The deadly earthquake-triggered avalance that destroyed Langtang village in Nepal on 25 April, 2015.</figcaption> </figure>  Like the people of the Swiss Alps, the Langtangpa have been living with avalanches for centuries, and they have used both situated knowledge and practical systems to adapt to changing risks. But, in Langtang as in Blatten, the scale and impact of this singular tragedy was both unprecedented and unforeseen. Tellingly, Langtang was not a scientific hinterland: groups from a dozen different countries were conducting glaciological, hydrological, and climatological research there prior to the disaster. Blatten is a case where the scientists knew where to look. But even in relatively well-studied places like Langtang, disasters can emerge in our blind spots.&nbsp; <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lives-on-the-line-in-the-himalaya">Last year’s Thame glacial lake outburst flood</a> (GLOF) also began in an overlooked and understudied area – <a href="https://www.stimson.org/2024/rethinking-himalayan-cryosphere-risk-assessment-in-the-wake-of-nepals-thame-disaster/">prompting scientists to rethink the ways we assess glacial lakes</a>. Issues related to <a href="https://www.icimod.org/mountain/permafrost/">melting permafrost</a>, which seems to have been a factor for both the Blatten disaster and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tashi-lhazom-5a433b22b_rebuildtil-limifloodrelief-fromtearstohope-activity-7332420946013691904-N0sH?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAAADxlvsBK3zQKg0X2xPLPS94HyMEettoSU4">the cascading ‘thermokarst lake outburst flood’ that recently occurred in the Limi Valley</a>, are increasingly recognised as a pervasive risk but it is difficult to monitor and the science is young. A multitude of different cryosphere-related disasters are possible across the Himalaya, and background risk is increasing. How do we triage between these different kinds of hazards? How do we know where to look? While it might not have been possible to monitor the glaciers and cryosphere features that contributed to the Langtang disaster, we need to be actively looking for other places where monitoring systems and early warning is possible in Nepal and the broader Himalayan region. Of course, we do need to be precise in our analysis and communication around climate attribution, but consensus does exist on some general trends: climate change is driving new hazard interactions that can generate extreme flows. Therefore, we also need to recognise the undeniable: that background risk is undeniably rising, that lives are at risk, and that we need to invest in building systems that can help anticipate events like Blatten (which takes time, time that others don’t have) immediately. The fact that Langtang has been fully rebuilt and community leaders were effective in determining the shape of their own future and ‘building back better’ their way (as complicated as that may be), demonstrates that a future can be possible, amid uncertainty. But the future of many other communities in the Himalaya, who should never have to go through what the Langtangpa went through if we can avoid it, still remains at-risk without more scientific attention and investment. Meanwhile, the monsoon is arriving in Nepal and another disaster could happen any day now. Coverage of the Blatten disaster has been rightfully robust. Praise for the scientists and authorities who identified these risks and correctly analyzed the situation is also deserved, for that is difficult work. A wider call to learn from this event and use insights to inform policy on climate risk assessment or questions of managed retreat is also exceedingly necessary and urgent. As many scientists are saying: events like this will happen again. This is a scary time in the mountains, in the Alps, in the Himalaya, and many other regions. That said, not all places are equally exposed or vulnerable. To reiterate a core question that I have been asking for years: <a href="https://dialogue.earth/en/climate/opinion-climate-disasters-integrate-local-knowledge/">Whose uncertainties matter</a>? When and why? We know that climate-related loss and damage will not be equally or equitably distributed, and that is one of the core reasons for the UN’s Early Warnings for All program. Blatten is being talked about this week <a href="https://globalplatform.undrr.org/2025/preparatory-days/global-ew4all-multi-stakeholder-forum">while the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction is going in Geneva</a>, from where some of my Nepali colleagues posted photos of them posing with a sign that speaks to the justice issue: ‘Early warnings work. They must work for everyone.” Working toward this noble goal will require a concerted and committed global effort. -- Austin Lord, PhD is a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and an environmental anthropologist who has been conducting research in Nepal for the past 13 years on disaster and climate risk management, water and energy policy, infrastructure development, and environmental governance.

Blatten, Langtang, and Disasters Yet to Come?

Frontpage topic

Social media has long been more than entertainment for young Nepalis. It has become a civic space where they stay informed on national issues, challenge authority, demand accountability, and organise for change.
In early September, TikTok, Reddit, and other platforms were flooded with a 'naming and shaming' campaign aimed at so-called 'nepo babies' in Nepal. Echoing similar movements in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the campaign resonated deeply with disillusioned Nepali Gen Z. &nbsp;
Frustration escalated when the government banned 26 social media platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, for failing to register within Nepal. The ban shut down the civic space Gen Z relied on. What began online spilled onto the streets, sparking nationwide protests now known as the GenZ protests. Young Nepalis voluntarily marched, demanding two urgent reforms: lifting the social media ban and rooting out corruption.
For many, the anger runs far deeper than digital restrictions. Public trust in politicians has withered after decades of power struggles between Sher Bahadur Deuba, Pushpa Kamal Dahal and K P Oli. Tired of the endless game of musical chairs who promise change but deliver betrayal, GenZ insists that politicians are not divine power to be worshipped but public servants who must answer to the people.
On 8 September, GenZ protesters marched peacefully, carrying artistic placards and singing patriotic songs. Police responded with deadly force firing live rounds, deploying tear gas, and beating protesters with batons and water cannons, resulting in the mass killing of our fellow protesters. What began as a citizen’s duty to hold the government accountable turned into a tragedy because the government forgot that it is the guardian of its people, not their murderer.
On 9 September, rage engulfed the nation. People from every corner joined the protests, responding to the government’s failure and the brutal mass murder of young people. Taking advantage of the situation, some vested groups infiltrated the demonstrations, which escalated into violence, including arson, vandalism, and attacks on property and individuals holding political power.
Following the incident, the government was overthrown, and GenZ formed a citizen’s Government. Our primary demand to this new government is a full and impartial investigation into the mass murder. GenZ has specifically identified former Prime Minister K P Oli, former Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak, and the former Inspector General of Police Chandra Kuber Khapung who must be investigated free from political interference.&nbsp;
Those found guilty must be held accountable under national law. Additionally, GenZ demands a transparent inquiry into the vandalism and arson that occurred on 9 September, emphasising that attacks on public property undermine the true spirit of their movement.
GenZ’s second demand is the conduction of fair elections on 5 March 2026. The true measure of this interim government’s success lies in fulfilling that commitment.
The third demand is the establishment of a high-level, independent anti-corruption mechanism to investigate graft since the restoration of democracy in 1990. GenZ argues that existing watchdog bodies are toothless, filled with political appointees loyal to ruling parties. The new body must be free from political influence and empowered to investigate and prosecute even the most powerful. These demands are not negotiable.
While united on these core demands, GenZ activists hold different views on the political system’s future. Some advocate for a directly elected prime minister, while others favor reforms within the existing parliamentary structure. Even young members within ruling parties share this frustration, calling for internal reforms and urging long-entrenched leaders to step aside and pass the mantle of leadership to a new generation. This is not a formal demand but a discussion taking place within GenZ circles.
Debates over the Constitution of Nepal 2015 have also surfaced. While some anti-democratic actors have called for its nullification, GenZ protesters firmly reject this. This Constitution was achieved through nearly a decade of struggle. Although it is rare for a Constituent Assembly to fail in delivering a Constitution, Nepal became an exceptional case when the first assembly collapsed without producing one. This failure led to the formation of a second Constituent Assembly, which ultimately delivered the 2015 Constitution.
GenZ continues to uphold the principles of a Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. They emphasise that the Constitution must be implemented in its true spirit ensuring accountability, transparency, and rule of law.
At the same time, no Constitution is perfect. Society is constantly evolving. Space for amendments should always exist, as in any healthy democracy, to address shortcomings and strengthen its foundations. However, this remains a background discussion, not a central agenda of the GenZ movement.
Though triggered by the social media ban, the GenZ protests represent something deeper. This generation demands strengthening the pillars of good governance. For Nepal’s GenZ, this movement is reclaiming democracy, reclaiming their space.
Eight September is embedded into GenZ’s collective memory as a trauma that will continue to haunt Nepal unless the nation changes its course. And if it does not, GenZ will keep rising up, not only as the greatest leaders but, more importantly, as a most formidable opposition. 
 
Tanuja Pandey is a lawyer and climate justice activist.

A new dawn for democracy in Nepal

Although instability is endemic to South and Southeast Asia, it is becoming increasingly dangerous both for India’s neighbors and India itself. This was reflected most recently in the violent unrest in Nepal. But that crisis is hardly an isolated case. In Bangladesh, directly to India’s east, the same tensions that led to the overthrow of the government in 2024 remain unresolved. And to the southeast, Thailand is reeling from the court-ordered removal of its prime minister and a series of recent border clashes with Cambodia. 
According to the Armed Conflict Location &amp; Event Data project, Myanmar’s civil war has claimed at least <a href="https://acleddata.com/report/war-sky-how-drone-warfare-shaping-conflict-myanmar" target="_blank">80,000 lives</a>, both civilians and combatants, since 2021, following the military coup that ended Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratic government. To India’s west, a perpetually volatile Pakistan wrestles with the zombies of its history: Islamist extremist groups and poor economic and governmental performance. 
To the south, Sri Lanka may have settled down following the ouster of its president three years ago, but its economy shows few signs of mounting a sustained recovery. And to the north, China’s quest for regional hegemony is another source of instability. 
For India, these crises are not distant concerns. Refugee flows from Bangladesh are causing social unease and disruptions in India’s eastern states; the never-ending threat of cross-border terror from Pakistan nearly incited a war in Kashmir this summer; and now, Nepal’s volatile politics have given China another opportunity for meddling. Since this arc of fragility is too large to ignore, the question for India’s leadership is how to absorb and minimize the shockwaves, and how to steady the region.
One can start with Nepal, which has struggled to live by the ambitious constitution that was forged to end a long Maoist rebellion two decades ago. Nepali state institutions remain fragile and contested, and hopes of stability have been repeatedly dashed by factionalism, corruption, and political leaders’ inability to consolidate a system that everyone can trust. The recent spasm of shockingly brutal violence is a symptom of these deeper fault lines. 
India cannot be indifferent to such instability. Our long, open border with Nepal makes us vulnerable to refugee flows and cross-border crime, and our deep cultural, ethnic, religious, and economic ties mean that the government in Kathmandu will always look over its shoulder at the government in New Delhi. Moreover, China’s increasing influence in Nepal’s domestic politics has, as a matter of necessity, made the country a major strategic concern for India. 
In Bangladesh, the interim government that has ruled since <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/sheikh-hasina">Sheikh Hasina</a>’s ouster is failing in its efforts to restore law and order or safeguard human rights. The economy, a bright spot for decades, is under pressure from domestic political jitters and US President Donald Trump’s punishing tariffs. The febrile political environment has left the country’s minorities feeling increasingly insecure. The stakes for India are high, because its own efforts to manage the border, migration, and counterterrorism depend on the regime in Dhaka maintaining order. 
At first glance, Thailand’s turmoil and the border clashes with Cambodia may seem less urgent. But India, under its Act East policy, has been pursuing deeper economic and strategic ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ ten member states and their 600 million-plus people. Any instability within that bloc will complicate this outreach. 
Moreover, Thailand has long served as a bridge between South and Southeast Asia. If its institutions falter, or if disputes with Cambodia escalate despite Malaysian Prime Minister <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/anwar-ibrahim">Anwar Ibrahim</a>’s best efforts to broker a resolution, India’s vision of a connected, secure Indo-Pacific corridor could become untenable. 
To describe Pakistan as chronically troubled may sound dismissive, but it is an unfortunate truth. The country’s civilian authorities have been consistently undermined, as when <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/imran-khan-1">Imran Khan</a>’s elected government was ousted in 2022 at the military’s behest. Extremist groups thrive when politics becomes a blood sport, and Pakistan’s fragile economy only exacerbates this dynamic. 
From India’s perspective, Pakistan’s troubles are more than a domestic issue, because they regularly threaten to spill across the Line of Control in Kashmir, fueling terrorism, destroying any prospect for regional peace, and even introducing the specter of a nuclear catastrophe. This continuous instability chains India to the sub-continental chessboard, even when it wants to look outward. The Pakistan-China axis further complicates the status quo, which is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. 
All these stories point to a larger worrying trend: democracy in India’s neighborhood is in retreat. Constitutions are being rewritten, and courts politicized. Sensing weakness, too many army generals see themselves as free to intervene, including by jailing or exiling political leaders.
For India – the world’s largest democracy – responding to this trend demands a more assertive regional strategy. Of course, for most of South Asia, barring Pakistan, India is the first responder when crises hit. But during periods when India’s neighbors do not think they need its help, they tend to shrug off its security concerns. 
And as if India’s neighborhood were not dangerous enough, the wider world adds its own layers of uncertainty. Trump’s policy toward the region has been arbitrary in the extreme, leading smaller states to hedge their bets. In Japan and South Korea, debates are underway about the wisdom of acquiring nuclear weapons, now that China is flexing its muscles and the US security umbrella has been called into question. 
Although India has stood its ground in the face of the storm, the regional and Trump-induced volatility is making it harder to maintain the country’s treasured strategic autonomy. The task now is no longer to deepen ties with America, but to maintain the strategic, technological, and economic core of the partnership while building resistance against sudden shifts in US policy. 
India is not seeking dominance in South Asia. Its goal is to build an inclusive, rules-based, and connected region – and thus transform a history of recurring crises into a future of enduring stability. © <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/">Project Syndicate</a>
Nirupama Rao is a former foreign secretary of India and former Indian ambassador to China and the United States.

India’s reckoning with its dangerous neighbourhood

I keep asking myself the same question over and over: why is it always the ordinary people who pay the heaviest price? Those who call themselves leaders, those who stand at podiums and later claim the glory of victory, almost always walk away untouched.&nbsp; The ones who never asked for such a burden-the bystanders, the children, the men and women just trying to live through an ordinary day-are the ones who never return home. The names and faces of 8 September are still fresh, and they will not leave me. Shreeyam Chaulagain was walking on the road that afternoon. He was not throwing stones, not giving speeches. He was clapping, curious, watching history unfold before him. And then, without warning, a bullet struck him right at his head. His life was over before he could even grasp what was happening. That same day, a police officer in civil clothes was brutally beaten to death. He was mistaken for someone of higher rank. His killers did not ask who he was, what he believed, or whether he deserved their rage. They decided his fate in seconds, and in seconds he was gone. And then there was Mohammad from Saptari. He had stopped at a small tea shop in Baneshwor, the kind of place where countless people gather for a short break in the middle of the day. He was not there to fight, not there to chant. He was there for tea. When the crowd surged, he ran. But the bullet still found him.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250916070932_18d8cc1a9ccfcf3ddcf20bbb41e5e0cd96548675ca268f2ea55e41739882fbed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250916070932_18d8cc1a9ccfcf3ddcf20bbb41e5e0cd96548675ca268f2ea55e41739882fbed" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="GenZ protests"> </figure>  None of these people were leaders of a movement. None of them had asked to be part of a revolution. They were swept up by forces beyond their control, and now they are remembered in funerals and obituaries rather than in life. People tell me this is how revolutions have always been. That every struggle demands sacrifice. That change does not come without blood. I have heard these explanations repeated so often they sound rehearsed. But I cannot accept them.&nbsp; I cannot agree that the lives of strangers should be considered an acceptable price for political theater. Sacrifice cannot be imposed. It cannot be demanded from those who never chose it. When I think of these deaths, I think of the families who must now live in silence and absence. A mother who waits for a son who will not come home. A child who will grow up without a father. A wife or a husband who replays those last words, those last smiles, wondering if there was anything they could have done differently.&nbsp; The grief will follow them for the rest of their lives. And it will not be eased by slogans, nor will it be erased by talk of revolution. I have never lived through past revolutions. I do not carry the scars of 1990 or 2006, nor do I share in the pride that others claim from those years. I only carry the questions of today. And my question is simple: if leaders can claim the credit for a movement, why can they not also claim the mistakes? Why can they not say, clearly, that lives were lost unjustly? Why can they not apologise-not in the shallow way that circulates on social media to save face, but in the kind of apology that carries weight, one that acknowledges human life and responsibility? One of the most responsible things this generation-the one that fills the streets, that carries the banners, that calls itself GenZ - could do over the next six months is to demand a full investigation.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250916070932_d8be401ce532df250c2e794fdd65f4262edad526900328dad720ed57ebca07b6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250916070932_d8be401ce532df250c2e794fdd65f4262edad526900328dad720ed57ebca07b6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="GenZ protests"> </figure>  We need to know who gave the order to fire on protesters on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-8-september-massacre">8 September</a>. We need to know who directed the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/kathmandu-burns-despite-pm-resignation">arson and destruction on 9 September</a>. These answers cannot be allowed to slip into silence.&nbsp; If we do not seek them, if we let the questions fade, we will have accepted a dangerous message: that violence is permissible, that lives can be discarded without consequence. The stakes are higher than they may appear. This is not only about justice for the dead. It is about what kind of country we are willing to live in. If impunity remains the rule, it will not stop here. The lesson will be learned, and repeated, and repeated again.&nbsp; The next protest will end the same way. The next group of bystanders will face the same fate. Unless we demand accountability now, history will not change its course. I write these words not because I have easy answers, but because I am haunted by the questions. I imagine Shreeyam’s last glance at the crowd, Mohammad’s unfinished cup of tea, the officer who thought he was going home to his family.&nbsp; I imagine their families waiting in disbelief, telling themselves it cannot be true. I imagine the silence that follows, the silence that will stretch across their lives. If there is ever a next time-and there always is a next time-when people think of bringing children and students to the front lines, I hope they will remember these names. I hope they will remember that innocence should never be used as a tool, because innocence always suffers most. Revolutions are not measured by how many lives are lost, but by whether they create a future where life is valued. If we cannot say with certainty that those lives mattered, that those deaths were unjust, then we will have betrayed not only the memory of Shreeyam, Mohammad, and the officer who died, but also the generations yet to come. Ishika Panta is the founder of Project Abhaya, an organisation leveraging technology to advance civic engagement and political literacy among youth and marginalised communities.

Questions That Won’t Leave Me

On September 9th, Dashrath Rai from Kantipur TV was reporting from the Lalitpur Satdobato area, when the station’s van with the camera crew, was stopped by protesters twice. “Kantipur Murdabad” the men shouted, and some other men in the crowd showed up to lead them away to make way for the TV van. As someone who spent about 14 years at KTV, I worried for my former colleagues. On September 8, cameraman Shyam Shrestha Dai had been injured during the shooting at the parliament, where 19 protesters were killed. The death toll would rise later to 72. As the reports of arson from different parts of the city came in, I texted my former colleague Rupesh Shrestha, Deputy News Chief at KTV, who was reporting from the streets. Stay safe! He said: Huss, didi. Three hours later, he was injured in an attack at KTV. The station was preparing for the 2PM bulletin when the attacks began. First, they pelted stones, then stormed the office. “We had been alerted of an imminent attack, but we were busy working and didn’t have the time to get away,” Sabina Karki, Presenter and Reporter, says. “I didn’t panic at first and thought we would be able to leave.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250915150928_94e82aa9ccb550abce0f8f6b50c2f29c592cd7fdf51adaf4113b6e9dffc780c9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250915150928_94e82aa9ccb550abce0f8f6b50c2f29c592cd7fdf51adaf4113b6e9dffc780c9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Kantipur TV’s September storm"> <figcaption>All photos: RUPESH SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  Soon after the attacks began, the staff tried to get out of the building. By the time they arrived on the ground floor, it was in shambles. “I thought of hiding in the toilet on the ground floor, but my colleague Surendra Kattel said, if this floor is gutted, we’ll never get out. So we went back upstairs and to the studio building [using the bridge that connects the two buildings]. We alerted colleagues at the News Control Room (NCR) who had no idea what was going on outside,” Sabina says. The staff looking for cover, converged outside the NCR and tried different exit doors but the doors didn’t give. News Chief Bijaya Poudel had to smash the glass door of the studio building so everyone could get out. He was hurt in the process. “Once outside, we saw people had big sticks, knives and someone even had a gun. I felt like I was in a movie scene or perhaps a war zone. We were so helpless. We didn’t know what they would do to us. We stood still,” Sabina recalls. “And then a stranger grabbed my hand and said get out of here and dragged me by the hand and left me outside the office gate.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250915150928_5554643519fe1870bbd2852a9fa233f3dcee5a0ba74db4140550dca6f3358610.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250915150928_5554643519fe1870bbd2852a9fa233f3dcee5a0ba74db4140550dca6f3358610" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Kantipur TV’s September storm"> </figure>  Some others were able to leave with Sabina. They pushed and jostled past protesters to get away from the building but when they tried to check on colleagues, armed men stopped them and made them leave. They ran past Kantipur Hospital and escaped into the inner lanes, navigating scenes of vandalism on the streets. A police station had been attacked. They sought shelter at a random, private home where Sabina waited for almost two hours and then shifted to a colleague's house to shelter for another couple of hours, before she was able to get home that night. “I couldn’t process anything. After I reached home, I felt scared.” Rupesh, who was working on a special editorial when the attack happened, was one of the last to leave the station building. As someone who had been on TV a lot, covering some major political events in the recent past, he became an easy target. “I had been doing live TV, so I was still wearing my studio attire and that might have made it easy for them to identify me,” Rupesh explains. “I was leaving through the gate when they started to hit me. My glasses fell and punches rained down on me. Some colleagues put their palms together and asked the vandals to let them go. They also told me to say sorry. And I said, why must I apologise when I haven’t done anything wrong? They hit me some more. I raised my arms in surrender.” They pulled his studio jacket off him, then yanked off his tie and dragged him away from the building, from where he was finally allowed to go. Rupesh found safety at someone's private home, from where he tried to contact colleagues, who had all fled in different directions. His phone died and it was 7:30PM when a colleague was finally able to help him get home. The attackers kept returning until midnight in installments, destroying more property and torching the building. Rupesh has a fractured nose from the attack and his face was swollen for days. His body is sore. His car was reduced into a skeleton. For the first two days, he did not want to speak to the world. He could not wrap his head around the violence. “At first we weren’t sure whether to transmit or not. Everything was gone and it felt like an impossible task. I had no confidence, I felt scared. How do we broadcast from the ashes, a masan? But then I thought, if we don’t do our jobs, who will?”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250915150928_a4d508f9f974663a72b13c90c834e650b9a1b9fbde121de87b2f587a7edce45b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250915150928_a4d508f9f974663a72b13c90c834e650b9a1b9fbde121de87b2f587a7edce45b" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Kantipur TV’s September storm"> </figure>  The team sat down and worked out what they needed to get on the air again. Since the news studio building had been damaged, they decided to transmit from the scene of the wreckage. They retrieved just enough UPS batteries for one operation. Four devices with a newsroom network system support the current function. Battery back up goes out as soon as bright lights use them up and the teleprompter does not work. When KTV started broadcasting from the debris, some called it a stunt, and others called it cool. “Currently, salary and insurance issues persist but the owners have said they will address them,” Rupesh says, who has spent 19 years with Kantipur, punctuated by two brief departures and has seen many incidents of vandalism. “We hope incidents like this will not repeat.” During the April 2006 street protests, hundreds of people had stopped outside the Kantipur complex in Tinkune to clap and show gratitude for the good journalism it had done. I worked there at the time and I remember looking out the window, tears of gratitude streaming down my face. The same establishment received a different kind of treatment this time. Attack on the media is an attack on democracy and this calls for probe followed by action.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250915150932_90fe8832022207cc856bfa9fe2525605f05f13594f9ecadbe5f47b0e84e0d4bb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250915150932_90fe8832022207cc856bfa9fe2525605f05f13594f9ecadbe5f47b0e84e0d4bb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Kantipur TV’s September storm"> <figcaption>Sabina Karki and colleagues retrieving their belongings. Bijay Poudel, far left, in the photo.</figcaption> </figure>  While media houses are also about their owners and their advertisers, they are mostly about the journalists who run them, giving up their lives to uphold high journalism standards. Kantipur Media Group has had many journalists over the years, who have taken stands for the nation and its people. “We already know this wasn’t an attack by GenZ. This is the handiwork of people with personal vendetta. We already know the protest was infiltrated. This is the work of those who didn’t understand journalists are also people just doing their jobs,” Sabina says. When Sabina came back to the office after the curfews were in place and things had calmed down, she wanted to sit down on the rubble and weep. “Journalists operate on a small salary. Some of us have lost our life’s savings in this attack.” The KTV staff is traumatised. Sabina says she is frightened of loud sounds and strangers. “But at times like this, it’s better to work than to just wait in distress.”

Kantipur TV’s September storm

While protesters were torching the Special Government Attorney Office at Mandala on Tuesday, they shouted slogans <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-gen-z-protest-turns-deadly">denouncing government corruption</a>. They did not seem to know that in reality the Government Attorney’s office was carrying out active investigations and prosecuting multiple cases of government corruption. Their case files have now been reduced to ashes. While attackers ransacked the building room by room and and burnt it down, they said they were protesting the government’s inability to catch the person who raped and murdered of 13-year-old <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/justice-delayed-and-denied">Nirmala Panta </a>in Kanchanpur seven years ago.&nbsp; In reality, the District Government Attorney’s Office has been carrying out and directing<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/justice-eludes-many-rape-survivors"> investigations against rapists and abusers</a> whose victims were even younger than Nirmala. As an ordinary Nepali citizen before joining the Government Attorney’s Office, I had read about &nbsp;Nirmala’s story in the media. It was a major case that shook the nation, and the biggest rape case I had heard about.&nbsp; But once I was behind my desk as a Government Attorney myself, not a day went by when there was at least one new rape investigation file. This was a serial horror on a nationwide scale. The <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/incest-sex-abuse,2547">rapists were not faceless strangers</a>: many were fathers, brothers, stepfathers, teachers, drivers who knew the survivors. I found all age groups from all parts of Nepal on those charge sheets. And every file I carried to the courtroom was in the hope of at least someone who wanted the crime against them recognised and the perpetrator punished. Now, all those files are gone. The news from Singha Darbar that the government’s data centre was saved from arsonists this week was a relief. But we lost all our records. The evidence was never digitised, there were no backup files. They lived only on paper, in ink, in fragile white file folders with green strings.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250914120920_353c6e03fa2f4cea8992c5c02ede101b4ad9ccc102f5af8407f333f518ef7200.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250914120920_353c6e03fa2f4cea8992c5c02ede101b4ad9ccc102f5af8407f333f518ef7200" data-rendition-name="original" width="5000" height="3333" loading="lazy" alt="The day justice died"> <figcaption>Photo: HEMANTA SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  When the building burned, so did the only record of those crimes and the identity of the criminals.&nbsp; Imagine entire basements filled with such files: each representing a victim, a face, a life. More than 10,000 such cases are now smouldering heaps of ash. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/kathmandu-burns-despite-pm-resignation">Kathmandu burns despite PM resignation</a> Singha Durbar can be rebuilt brick by brick, just as it was after the earthquake. Who is going to rebuild these case files?&nbsp; The social media is cruel: it shows homes of politicians stashed with cash and charred dollar bills. But the media did not show an entire building full of criminal case files going up in flames. The smoke that filled Kathmandu’s sky on Tuesday carried away with it the hopes of<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-chance-on-transitional-justice"> justice of thousands of victims</a>, mostly young women. Our duty as Government Attorneys is to direct criminal investigations, prosecute criminal cases, plead in courtrooms, make appeals. On a normal busy day we prosecute at least five criminal cases involving survivors and perpetrators. THAT DAY On <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-s-8-september-massacre">8 September</a>, when the GenZ protesters were gathering at the Mandala outside, we were at the Police Club, attending the first ever Women Government Attorneys’ Conference. We wore our brightest blue sari uniforms and pressed blouses. Our heads held high, we celebrated our success as government attorneys who had led the prosecution of the highest number of cases involving <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/not-just-16-days-against-gender-based-violence">violence against women</a>. But the day had other plans for us. By 4 pm the program was halted after protesters were shot outside Parliament. The Attorney General directed us to go home immediately. As the hall emptied, a small group of us young women officers and one senior female advocate walked together through Bhadrakali towards our office. There was an angry mob approaching us. The moment they saw us in our official dress, they turned on us with verbal abuses — words so horrendous that it would have been enough to prosecute a slander suit.&nbsp; Heads and eyes lowered we walked on. They started spitting on us. Obviously, they were pouring out their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/genz-and-aragalaya?amp=1">anger against the government</a> on us civil servants. But they had no idea that the senior female advocate on whose coat they spat had pioneered the law granting Nepali women equal property rights. To us, she was not just a lawyer, she was a hero and a figure we had worshipped in our law books. Her name appears across Supreme Court documents for setting a precedent.&nbsp; We ran to save ourselves from their wrath and reached our Special Government Attorney Office. The mob stayed outside. We waited two hours in silence, praying fervently until the street was calm enough for us to slip away and find our way home. The next day, 9 September, was much worse. The protesters had already torched Parliament, Singha Durbar and the nearby Supreme Court. Then they came to set the Government Attorney Office alight. As a Nepali, I can understand the anger. But as a Government Attorney, I carry a deep scar. There is an immense void and sorrow. This is not about the loss of a building, or being spat at. It is about the silent victims whose stories were stored in all those thousands of files. Many of the survivors do not even know that their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/hunger-for-justice">struggle for justice</a> has ended.&nbsp; We are government employees never affiliated with any political party, doing our work honestly and independently. In the name of demanding justice, they destroyed the very place that delivered it. Mamata Shrestha is an Assistant District Government Attorney.

The day justice died

In the heart of Nepal, amidst the breathtaking beauty of the Himalaya, a very different story is unfolding. It is not one of towering peaks and serene landscapes, but of a young generation that dreams of a brighter future while being trapped by decades of political instability and entrenched corruption.
For many young Nepalis, life is a constant struggle with poverty and unemployment. In a country where the per capita income is only about $1,400, a youth unemployment rate of 20% has forced more than 800,000 people each year to leave their homeland in search of work abroad.&nbsp;
This exodus is not just an economic decision — it is a profound disillusionment with the government, a ‘silent referendum’ on its ability to lead the country toward prosperity.
In the months leading up to the recent uprising, social media platforms were filled with posts exposing the extravagant lifestyles of the so-called #Nepokids, the privileged children of politicians. These images revealed the stark gulf between the political elite and ordinary citizens, deepening the frustration of Nepal’s youth.
That anger finally exploded after 5 September, when the government banned 26 social media platforms — including Facebook, YouTube, X, and WhatsApp — claiming it was a necessary move to curb hate speech and fake news. For nearly half of Nepal’s population who are active on social media, the ban felt like nothing less than an attempt to silence their voices.
Massive street protests followed. What began as peaceful demonstrations on 8 September quickly escalated into violent clashes with police, leaving more than 20 people dead. Protesters stormed the Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, Singha Darbar, and attacked the residences of the president and prime minister. It became one of the largest uprisings in Nepal’s history.&nbsp;
Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli resigned, the GenZ is negotiating with the Nepal Army and President Ram Chandra Paudel. It remained unclear till Thursday press time if the unrest will subside as rival GenZ groups put forward their own candidates for interim prime minister.
SRI LANKAN PARALLELS
Young Nepalis no longer want the same leaders who they see as having deceived them for decades. They demand renewal and a brighter horizon. Still, how realistic is such a demand? As history reminds us, every polity gets what it deserves.
Most of the Communist parties that claim to represent the oppressed have themselves been central players in fragile coalition governments by partisan clannishness, personal selfishness, and unaccountable leaders, locking the country into cycles of weak and unstable rule.
As a Sri Lankan political activist, I cannot help but notice the striking parallels between Nepal’s trajectory and ours. Nepal had left-wing governments well before Sri Lanka, where the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)–led National People’s Power (NPP) only came to power in 2025. Nepal has been under left-leaning governments since 2008.
Yet, despite the rhetoric of Marxism, both our countries face very limited economic and political options. In Sri Lanka, the economic policies pursued by capitalist President Ranil Wickremesinghe were almost identical to those later followed by Marxist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
In our case, the 2022 ‘Aragalaya’ movement was much like Nepal’s GenZ struggle. It ended after President Ranil Wickremesinghe assumed power. In the aftermath, the JVP gradually brought the Aragalaya forces under its control.&nbsp;
Their sweeping electoral victory in late 2024 was powered by the hopes of these protest forces. But today, the same question hangs over Colombo as it does over Kathmandu: can a new government really meet the impatient and ambitious expectations of young people?&nbsp;
Already in Sri Lanka, doubts abound — about broken promises, lack of real progress, one-party dominance, and even the risk of yet another national bankruptcy.
Traditionally, governments in South Asia have changed through elections. But recent years show another pattern: pre-electoral uprisings, sudden eruptions triggered not by slow build-up but by specific events.
In Sri Lanka, it was the energy crisis during bankruptcy. In Bangladesh, it was a law granting privileges to war veterans. In Nepal, the crackdown on social media was the trigger.
Social media has become central to all these movements. Those who manage the platforms at the country level hold immense power. Their ability to manipulate algorithms, combined with the small size of their teams, makes their influence even greater.
I personally witnessed Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya closely. From the creation of the #GoHomeGota hashtag to the dramatic ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on 9 July, 2022, social media shaped the very reality of our political struggle.
Certain moments in crisis politics prove decisive. In Sri Lanka, the events of 9 May 2022 was one of the most destructive days in the country’s recent history, with the greatest property damage in a short span of time. Mobilisation, arson, violence, and killings were coordinated primarily through social media.
Ordinary people, not usually powerful, became decisive actors thanks to social media. By midday, the momentum of the Aragalaya was fading whereas Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa had agreed to resign. The turning point came when a pro-government rally held at Temple Trees, the Prime Minister’s official residence to bid him farewell turned into a march toward Galle Face.&nbsp;
This procession, which could have been stopped by then-Deputy Inspector General Deshabandu Tennakoon, instead broke into the protest site, attacking Aragalaya activists. The violent attack as well as the counterattacks that followed were all broadcast live on social media and television, electrifying public opinion, which had been lukewarm until then, redirecting anger toward counter-violence.&nbsp;
The role of media in this transformation demands deeper analysis. There were clear patterns in social media content in those critical hours, much of which has since been removed by service providers. Even those who originally streamed Facebook Live videos cannot retrieve them today.&nbsp;
One peculiar detail stays with me. A military-experienced friend pointed out that in many of the burned houses, toilets had been deliberately smashed. He explained the symbolic nature: destroying sewage systems could render entire cities uninhabitable. How such symbolism wove itself into the protests remains an unresolved mystery, like many other secrets.
At times, literature steps in to fill the gaps history leaves behind. Fiction can serve as a symbolic mirror of reality. With my novel Arunodakaruwo (Dawnbreakers), I attempted to imagine the political undercurrents of such decisive moments.
Arunodakaruwo has since been published in Sinhala. Its English translation, #Dawnbreakers, was recently long-listed for the Vidarshana Literary Awards. I believe this form of literature — blending political memory with imagination — is an essential intervention.
Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe is a Sri Lankan political activist and writer.&nbsp;

GenZ and Aragalaya

Nepali Times #1279

A cosy art space in Thamel comes alive this month with soft light filtering through glass windows and settling gently on ceramic works that radiate both silence and strength. Much like specks of dust shimmering in a sunbeam, fragments of uneven mirrors scattered at the centre of the exhibition catch fleeting reflections of passersby that force visitors to reflect on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-fabric-of-society">life and society</a>. From a distance, the mirrors resemble playful, anime-style sunny side ups in bright shades. It may look random, but on closer inspection the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/hari-the-potter">meticulous craftsmanship</a> reveals itself in every curve, giving more permanent shape and form to the artist’s fingers on the original clay. Alongside are cups, vases, and plates adorned with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/facades-and-flowers-from-nepal-to-italy">delicate sketches</a> of animals, houses, and trees. Some have inscriptions drifting across surfaces like floating letters. The vases rise in varying heights, dressed in muted greens, while some are blended with soft browns and yellows.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025082711084_3ccb0e0e002bee9521867cbca82d56a1dc1e3ed799c5159fc07adc6f674325ab.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025082711084_3ccb0e0e002bee9521867cbca82d56a1dc1e3ed799c5159fc07adc6f674325ab" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="810" loading="lazy" alt="Firing her imagination"> <figcaption>Photo: DALAI-LA ART SPACE</figcaption> </figure>  “Ceramics have taught me patience in unpredictability,” says ceramic artist Aishworya Shakya, 26, whose work is currently on display at Dalai-la gallery in Thamel. Shakya began with simple drawings, but as she delved deeper into her studies of fine arts, she began exploring new concepts and methods of idea formation. She found herself increasingly drawn to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/take-to-pottery-during-the-pandemic">the expressive potential of ceramics</a>. “Clay is flexible and transformative, and the process of turning it into a hardened form is cathartic,” she explains. “For me, it’s about free forms, feelings, and the intangible, which often take shape in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/kiran-manandhar-in-the-abstract">abstract ways </a>through ceramics.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250827100812_4e2efcf1284d6589d5eafb34b276b8d4c69ebba9453efe4af9a70c51b2e31d6f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250827100812_4e2efcf1284d6589d5eafb34b276b8d4c69ebba9453efe4af9a70c51b2e31d6f" data-rendition-name="original" width="739" height="985" loading="lazy" alt="Firing her imagination"> <figcaption>Photo: DALAI-LA ART SPACE</figcaption> </figure>  The writings on her finished ceramics are deeply rooted in her academic explorations of personal history. Shakya contemplated family relationships, and transformed them into patterns and inscriptions on clay — giving her private meditations an extension on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/an-ode-to-the-ordinary">life and lessons</a>. “It is never fixed what I want to make when I begin,” says Shakya. “There might be a frame, but never anything too specific. My forms come through an intuitive process. If I try to meticulously plan everything, it never works out, so I just let it flow.” What begins as an imagined idea often transforms through the process, shaped by the unpredictability of clay and fire, keeping her grounded and open-minded. Shakya’s works usually undergo three rounds in the furnace: beginning with bisque firing, followed by layers of engobe underglaze mixed with pigments, which she applies in three coats before the second firing. Finally, she adds the glaze before the final firing. The most demanding part is actually in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13617">preparing and mixing the clay</a>, removing bubbles, and refining it so the final product has at least some predictability, she says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025082711080_d4856f6f195e9b2ad06144832121da0068aaf0f94800c483b278a204fbf3865e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="2025082711080_d4856f6f195e9b2ad06144832121da0068aaf0f94800c483b278a204fbf3865e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1280" height="960" loading="lazy" alt="Firing her imagination"> </figure>  The title Burned and Being comes from the ceramic-making process itself. “But more than just the process, it is an embodiment of my existence. As a person learning to take up space, I am filling my surroundings with things that inspire and align with me to create a sense of being and take a stand for myself,” Shakya explains. The artist is now looking ahead to expand her art beyond vases and mirrors to explore more sculptural forms. Burned and Being Till 30 September 11am to 7pm Dalai-la Art Space, Thamel

Firing her imagination

One of the most powerful recent examples of hyperlocal conservation in the Himalaya is the effort by two sisters from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/time-catching-up-with-timeless-dolpo?fbclid=IwAR2B6FetDVAJWvgdfdSjZMmfqm8HkNhs9111d-rxaMyDHDKU_SiVsgjQ0ew" target="_blank">Dolpo</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-leads-in-snow-leopard-study" target="_blank">Tshiring Lhamu Lama</a> and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/trekking-to-save-nepals-snow-leopards" target="_blank">Sonam Choekyi Lama</a>, to protect Nepal’s snow leopards. Their decade-long work to save the endangered and elusive Himalayan cat in this distant district of Nepal is now featured in a compelling new documentary. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31034190/" target="_blank">The Snow Leopard Sisters</a> has been doing rounds of film festivals in North America to critical acclaim since its world premiere at <a href="https://www.sxsw.com/" target="_blank">SXSW</a> in Austin in March, and has been screened at <a href="https://www.mountainfilm.org/festival/" target="_blank">Telluride</a> and other festivals. The documentary received much praise for its many-layered depiction of the struggle between ecology and economics, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/image/Lucky-number-7,1036" target="_blank">tradition and modernity</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/new-high-way-to-dolpo" target="_blank">indigenous and mainstream</a>, spiritualism and materialism, gender equality and entrenched patriarchy, and <a href="https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_879.pdf" target="_blank">conservation versus livelihoods</a>. The sisters in the Snow Leopard Sisters are actually not <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Shey-Phoksundo-may-soon-become-a-bus-park,3975" target="_blank">Tshiring Lhamu</a> and Sonam Choekyi. Tshiring is the documentary’s main protagonist, and her sister Sonam is the film’s co-director currently based in New York. Sisters refers to Tshiring Lhamu and 17-year-old Tenzin Bhuti whom she takes on as an apprentice for snow leopard research in Upper Dolpo. Tenzin’s women-led household had just lost 40 of its goats to a snow leopard attack, and Tshiring knows that snow leopards cannot be saved unless the Dolpopa learn to live with the cats. The nocturnal predators have this cruel habit of entering livestock corrals and killing for the sake of killing many more goats and yaks than they can possibly eat. But snow leopards are also regarded as sacred <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/ghosts-of-the-himalaya" target="_blank">‘pets of the gods’</a> in the Buddhist regions of northern Nepal. There are only about 400 snow leopards in Nepal, 90 of them in Shey-Phoksundo National Park in Dolpo where their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/guarding-the-guardians-of-the-himalaya" target="_blank">numbers are shrinking</a> because of retaliatory poisoning by herders to protect livestock and climate breakdown. Ever since she was growing up, Tshiring Lhamu harboured a deep spiritual affinity for snow leopards. At the beginning of the film, we see Tshiring playing back a camera trap clip of the trail above Phoksundo Lake when she sees a pair of snow leopards ambling past the field of vision.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250812140852_e844fff70ec3adf236b224b5ef343bc0a2435e00815479df3a95a6aa3d9b67b2.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250812140852_e844fff70ec3adf236b224b5ef343bc0a2435e00815479df3a95a6aa3d9b67b2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1068" height="1498" loading="lazy" alt="Snow Leopard sisters"> </figure>  She lets out an ecstatic shriek, and narrates: “The first time I saw snow leopards, I fell in love.” Tshiring Lhamu quit her job with the national park and struck off on her lonely quest to find ways to save the cats from revenge attacks of herders. The film follows a parallel plot of Tenzin, who has just lost a sister she was close to, the family’s goat herd has been massacred by snow leopards, and her father is jailed. She is under pressure from her grandfather to get married “because it is our culture and karma”. The stories of the two women then converge: Tshiring Lhamu takes Tenzin under her wing as a trainee. Because her family is angry with snow leopards, it will help if she can convince Tenzin about the importance of conservation which she can then pass on to her community. But the family gives Tenzin a two-week ultimatum, she will have to get married to a cousin after the apprenticeship is over. Directors Ben Ayers, Andrew Lynch and Sonam Choekyi Lama have used Dolpo’s stunning landscape as a backdrop for a nuanced and sensitive portrayal of the bond between the two women in their quest to find snow leopards — with Tshiring’s baby son Sontse strapped to her back. There are spectacular drone shots of the three as they cross the high passes to Komang and Shey Gompa. The cinematography evokes the sweeping scenery of films shot in Dolpo like <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=8861" target="_blank">Éric Valli</a>’s 1999 documentary <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13437" target="_blank">Caravan</a>, and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/min-bahadur-bham-s-cinematic-quest" target="_blank">Min Bahadur Bham</a>’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2EXOwDgrIg&amp;t=25s" target="_blank">Shambhala</a> last year. The snow leopard is up there in the crags somewhere, sleeping. But in the mornings and evenings, they are so well camouflaged they are invisible. All this is also reminiscent of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/peter-matthiessens-the-snow-leopard-in-the-age-of-climate-change" target="_blank">Peter Matthiessen</a>’s 1974 book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Leopard-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143105515" target="_blank">The Snow Leopard</a> about his unsuccessful quest with zoologist George Schaller to sight the animal in Dolpo. The snow leopard becomes a spiritual and existential symbol of something much greater than just the cat. There is a similar transcendental undertone in Snow Leopard Sisters, as the camera follows the two scouring the jagged horizon through binoculars. Tshiring patiently mentors Tenzin about data-keeping, analysing tracks in the snow, sniffing urinary markers, deciphering fresh scat, finding fur stuck to rocks, and installing cameras.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250812140848_62407d923f1d10bc5021b7a89ba1f6293aa2365ee650a49528e9b132b31704ae.jpg" data-media-id="editor_19" data-image-id="20250812140848_62407d923f1d10bc5021b7a89ba1f6293aa2365ee650a49528e9b132b31704ae" data-rendition-name="original" width="675" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Snow Leopard Sisters"> </figure>  Tshiring Lhamu and Tenzin Bhuti pin their hope on monks, hoping that they can convince their congregation not to kill the predators. But in Shey-Saldang, monk Tondup Lama tells the two women the snow leopard is a “demon, possessed by the devil … it has only sin its heart”. The dejected women and baby press on over the 5,010m Shey Pass to where head monk Lopan Dawa Tenzin in Tsakang Monastery has declared Dolpo a haven for all animals. “Everywhere people are violating the rights of animals, we destroy forests, we hunt, we set fires, fight wars, and drive animals away,” the monk says. “People have too much greed.” It is karma that has brought the two women together, he tells them, and their karma is now intertwined with the karma of the snow leopard. As the two-week internship nears its end, the prospect of marriage looms for Tenzin. But it is clear that the time with Tshiring has empowered her, she is now more confident and is determined not to get married. She visits her father in the prison in Dunai, who does not insist on marriage anymore. In an abrupt change of scenery, we see Tshring walking down a street in San Francisco with Sontse in a baby carrier on her back. Instead of towering mountains there are skyscrapers, and a sad snow leopard in the zoo. She is at a <a href="https://wildnet.org/" target="_blank">Wildlife Conservation Network </a>conference to speak and fundraise for her work in Dolpo. The Snow Leopard Sisters Impact Campaign is building new leopard-proof corrals for herders in Dolpo made by assembling light weight metal frames and gabion wire designed by Tshiring and Tenzin. This feature-length documentary needs to be screened in cinemas across Nepal not just to spread awareness about snow leopards, but the essence of what nature conservations mean for a society marching mindlessly in the pursuit of ‘development’. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE_l098CFIc" target="_blank">Snow Leopard Sisters</a> 90 min Cinematography: Sonam Choekyi Lama, Andrew Lynch Producers: Joanna Natasegara, Ian Davies, Tshiring Lhamu Lama, Torquil Jones Directed by Ben Ayers, Andrew Lynch and Sonam Choekyi Lama

Sisterhood of the snow leopard protectors

American artist Peter Makela was in Nepal in 2022 on a Fulbright scholarship when he experienced the Matya festival in Patan in which devotees made the rounds of the city’s shrines.&nbsp;
He joined the procession, walking through 2,600 stupa and 140 bahal of the town. That immersion left a lasting impression.
As part of Gallery Mcube’s international residency program in Patan, he put his inspiration to canvas in the exhibition Yala Yatra: Walking, Working, Worshipping. The exhibition also coincides with this month’s Matya festival.&nbsp;
Makela has visited Nepal often in the past 11 years but he mostly stayed in and spent his time around Boudha. “This time I stayed in Patan, put the sites I wanted to visit on my map, and off I went,” he tells us. “Each of my artwork is inspired by the stupas and shrines in Patan that I visited.”
The stupa and Ganesh are recurring motifs in his watercolours, and the elephant gods are located in chaityas — reflecting the interplay and blending of the Hindu and Buddhist faiths in Kathmandu Valley.&nbsp;
The stupas and Ganesh are painted in vivid red, yellow, blue and green against abstract backgrounds meant to represent the sky.
“I use the sky as a backdrop because the sky has no border,” says Makela. “The four colours represent the four elements, the different Buddha families and also lights bouncing off of a rainbow.”
The use of just four colours for all the artwork stands out, and combined with the absence of heavy canvases, frames or stands render Makela’s art striking in its simplicity.&nbsp;
The Ganesh is always holding something and the art also portrays the elephant god’s sacred vehicle, the mouse.
While his vibrant stupas and Ganesh reflect the tangibility of Patan’s tradition and heritage, it is as if the backdrops with their shades of grey and red and yellow capture the soul of the city’s shrines.
“If you look closely, there is a sense of form and formlessness at the same time,” he says.&nbsp;
Makela walked 108 kora around the shrines during his exploration of the town, and in the process developed a spiritual connection with Patan’s heritage and traditions.&nbsp;
The exhibition connects with visitors on a deeper, more spiritual, level as well. And with it, they feel a sense of pride as well as the need to urgently preserve Patan’s heritage for future generations.
“Peter’s inclination and approach towards Nepali art and culture is fascinating, and it reflects in his work,” says Mcube curator Manish Lal Shrestha, whose international artist residency program promotes Nepal’s cultural heritage. &nbsp;&nbsp;
Yala Yatra: Walking, Working, Worshipping
1-5 August&nbsp;
10AM-7PM
Gallery Mcube, Patan

Walking, working, worshipping in Patan

Harry Jackson was on an epic adventure ‘from Thailand to the UK on 2 wheels’ when he ran into the ultimate sidequest. Having just visited Zangla in Ladakh, Jackson had only landed in Kathmandu when he found himself in the middle of GenZ protests earlier this month. ‘<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slq6zWu9o9w">Arriving in Nepal - Chaos, Protest &amp; Curfews</a>’ is the title of his first video (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@wehatethecold/videos">wehatethecold on YouTube</a>) about the protest. He shoots police as they shoot at protesters outside Parliament. Jackson is riding a Honda CT125, a retro lightweight motorbike with off-road capabilities. Strapped to the bike is his sparse luggage, flute, and a faded Union Jack. People are rioting on the streets and there is a heavy armed police presence as he makes his way to his hostel in Thamel. His vlog the day after on 9 September has 29 million views. In ‘<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyxSqeFrlp0">The side of Nepal the media won’t show you</a>’, Jackson rides his bike straight at the crowd just past the Parliament building into Old Baneswar.&nbsp; He parks it and walks among the protestors, documenting it all: from the police firing capsules of tear gas into the crowd to the burning Parliament building as well as the jubilant, victorious crowd in the premises as they destroy police vehicles and dance. “I’m shocked at the scenes I’ve witnessed here today. I have truly witnessed history on a stupid trip from Thailand to England on a f***ing moped!” exclaims Jackson as he leaves the scene for the day, heading back to his hostel to edit the footage. The hostel is in direct contrast to the raucous scenes of the protest, as tourists and Nepalis sit and lounge at tables. ‘KUIRE VLOGGER’ Nepalis quickly called him the ‘kuire vlogger’, and attribute his skin colour to his popularity. Objectively, the videos are well made. Jackson goes full gonzo journalist, putting himself right in the heart of the action, talking directly to the people, all while narrating the events as they unfold. Despite being cut together in an entertaining way, the footage retains a raw, unpolished quality that outdoes what most professional journalists with a heavy duty camera crew could do. At a time when legacy media has been seen to be pushing biased narratives, Jackson wants to see for himself what happened, and make up his own mind.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250925120956_f7141e06c72655502fc4b2e56120d084b0f5ae111078d66df4fd0415adf8d376.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250925120956_f7141e06c72655502fc4b2e56120d084b0f5ae111078d66df4fd0415adf8d376" data-rendition-name="original" width="2880" height="1604" loading="lazy" alt="WehateTheCold"> </figure>  This kind of video journalism takes a lot of skill and a certain personality. Many people, almost everybody, had their phones out at the protests, but only a handful were like Jackson. He interviewed people firsthand, edited the clips and uploaded them the same day. Jackson continued his vlogging over the next few days as the curfew was first put in place and then lifted. He explores the city as the Valley rebounds. By this time, Nepalis recognise him everywhere he goes. Jackson had achieved moderate fame as a 23-year old DJ in Birmingham, but what he has done in Nepal is something else. Almost everyone he talks to has already seen his vlog, and they are all eager to interact. He has been on multiple podcasts in Nepal too, and most videos online on the protests reference his vlogs. Before his Nepal blogs, Jackson had a modest 16k subcribers on YouTube, but after Nepal figure is now almost 700k, gaining over 100k each through 11-13 September. Most of them are Nepali viewers. “I’m just a regular dude who just did what he wanted to do,” says Jackson on a podcast. “I wanted to go on an adventure, learn about history, and learn languages. And I wanted to film it, document it, and have a wicked film for my life to show future generations.” &nbsp;

The accidental journalist

In 2003, the death by police firing of a student protesting a rise in fuel prices pushed Nepal’s student activists to join the प्रतिगमन विरोधी आन्दोलन (Movement Against Regression), which political parties had begun after king Gyanendra’s sacking an elected government a year before. The students’ participation elevated the movement and prompted more Nepalis to join in, leading to the People’s Movement that first sidelined the monarchy and then abolished it in 2008.&nbsp; That took five years to happen. But 12 years later, this month, a youth-led protest forced the prime minister to resign within 30 hours.&nbsp; Police massacred GenZ activists, many of them students, outside Parliament on 8 September. This intensified public anger, leading to targeted attacks, looting, and burning of the homes of political leaders, private businesses, and public buildings.&nbsp; Amid the smouldering ruins of state institutions, young Nepalis chose a new prime minister to lead an interim government and deliver a fresh mandate. All of this happened in five days.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250910140912_019d62de4b62a366299a27d1276e931a7dadefcc674441e7fb3acd503970efaf.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250910140912_019d62de4b62a366299a27d1276e931a7dadefcc674441e7fb3acd503970efaf" data-rendition-name="original" width="8000" height="5760" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal in ashes"> <figcaption>Parliament building up in flames during the GenZ protest on 9 September. Photo: KAMAL PRASAI</figcaption> </figure>  Nepal’s students have been central to Nepal’s democratic and political process since the mid 20th century. In her 2018 book Making New Nepal, researcher Amanda Thérèse Snellinger traces the history of student activism and politics against a background of &nbsp;Nepal’s socio-political history and party politics.&nbsp; Snellinger examines the interplay of ideology and identity, explores how student activists fit into a political landscape continually occupied by the traditional elite, and details how student leaders have established themselves through relationships with influential actors on local, national, regional, and transnational levels. The Rana regime’s repression caused students to be politically aware. In 1947, students held the first organised protest against the Rana autocracy demanding educational reforms. The breadth of student activism expanded during the Panchayat era after king Mahendra banned political parties, which drove mainstream politicians and parties underground. &nbsp;Student activists then became proxies for multiparty democracy because they were still able to organise.&nbsp; Student politics was institutionalised, and unions emerged as vanguard sister organisations of political parties. Student activism, more so than mainstream political parties, played key roles during &nbsp;both major movements in 1990 and the 2000s, as they mobilised the citizenry to join the democratic process.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250924130940_f94cf97fb7ed98b90b48736e1aa8a76466f50337dffc36ec78e9cd5e6927deea.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250924130940_f94cf97fb7ed98b90b48736e1aa8a76466f50337dffc36ec78e9cd5e6927deea" data-rendition-name="original" width="1952" height="2928" loading="lazy" alt="1990 people's movement Nepal"> <figcaption>The iconic image of the 1990 People's Movement agaist the autocratic Panchyat regime of the king. Photo: MIN RATNA BAJRACHARYA</figcaption> </figure>  Through extensive ethnographic research between 2003 and 2015, Snellinger investigates the political coming of age of student activists during the final years of the armed insurgency and their role in and beyond the movement that ultimately abolished the monarchy. Her research revolves around the political journeys of five student activists: Akash and Rishi from the Nepali Congress (NC) student wing Nepal Student Union (NSU), Salini from the UML’s All Nepal National Free Students’ Union (ANNFSU-Akhil), Gyanu from ANNISU-Revolutionary of the Maoists, and Lagan, who began his political journey from Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party’s student wing Nepal Krantikari Bidyarthi Sangathan. The ‘movement against regression’ in 2003 served as the entry point &nbsp;for activists into national party politics. Indeed, it was their &nbsp;participation in the movement that elevated the profile of the main subjects of Snellinger’s research. In the years that followed, the paths of the five activists diverged. Some made it into mainstream politics, even becoming lawmakers. In doing so, they have had to trade idealism for pragmatism, and their attempts realise their previous vision for Nepal’s democracy have been overshadowed by their political opportunism and position. And even decades after they began their journey as student activists, the generation that the book focuses on are still considered &nbsp;‘youth’ leaders. Snellinger quotes a former student leader who joined mainstream politics as saying: “I am still a youth because &nbsp;my aspirations remain unfulfilled.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250924130944_7cca095d79fb5ce45cf92c61b77d72c31c5e0931aa744c73e264b6f91efdd29b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250924130944_7cca095d79fb5ce45cf92c61b77d72c31c5e0931aa744c73e264b6f91efdd29b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1004" loading="lazy" alt="2006 People's Movement of Nepal"> <figcaption>A student protester wearing a paper crown and ridiculing Gyanendra with an impersonation, a day after king stepped down and left his palace. Photo: AJAY JOSHI / A PEOPLE WAR</figcaption> </figure>  Meanwhile, the refusal of Nepal’s octogenarian leaders to retire (even after The upheaval this month) has created a surplus of younger adults waiting in the wings, making the word ‘youth’ relative in Nepal’s political trajectory. Other subjects of Snellinger's research have retreated from student and mainstream activism, either in disappointment over their mother party’s retreat from some of their more radical positions, or to &nbsp;continue their work at the community level through education and journalism. One of them has leveraged her political connections to further women-led initiatives after unsuccessful election bids. Nearing the end of her research in 2015, Snellinger observes the disappointment of Madhesi communities whose movement to demand more inclusive provisions of the draft Constitution had gone in vain, even after 45 lives were lost.&nbsp; As the Constitution was promulgated in 2015, TVs were switched off in the Tarai, and there were sighs of resignation. In Kathmandu, Snelllinger noted that the student leaders that entered mainstream politics protesting for inclusive democracy had little empathy for the struggles and similar demands of groups in the Madhes. Despite the students’ role in ending the monarchy, Nepal’s political status quo has remained. The institutions and people that replaced the &nbsp;monarchy have allowed one set of Kathmandu elites to be replaced with another.&nbsp; The socio-political benefits promised during the movement two &nbsp;decades ago have remained tightly controlled by leaders who refuse to give up their hold on power. The political system was overhauled, but without concrete reform. It was only a matter of time before public frustration would boil over. Indeed, Snellinger concludes her book by predicting the inevitability of future movements in Nepal.&nbsp; She writes: ‘Leaders emerge through the andolan … a new generation will emerge shaped by Nepal’s accumulated socio-political heritage, which they will mediate to shape a liveable present and future for themselves in their country, perhaps by continuing the movement.’&nbsp; And that is exactly what happened on 8-9 September. Students marched in the streets demanding an end to corruption and impunity, but this time not as proxies of political parties.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250908120948_8a9acceede487651487c2f15b65e40f900ee6cd390bbf98394eade6b95d05b28.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250908120948_8a9acceede487651487c2f15b65e40f900ee6cd390bbf98394eade6b95d05b28" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Gen Z protest"> <figcaption>A student during the GenZ protest against acorruption on 8 September. Photo: SUDIKSHA TULADHAR</figcaption> </figure>  Their desire for socio-political reform was apolitical at a time in Nepal’s history when the nation’s student organisations have weakened and lost credibility, mirroring the erosion of trust in their parent parties. Along with party-based student unions, the Free Student Union (FSU)— the umbrella body all student unions—has lost its reputation due to corruption and embezzlement. That is not to say there are no similarities in movements past and present. Whether political or apolitical, protests have been overshadowed by a lack of unity within the groups that spearhead movements. They have led to destruction of public and private institutions.&nbsp; Leaders of youth and student movements have also had to bear the brunt of the frustration of the people they represent when there is no delivery on their demands. The academics of students have suffered because of frequent lockouts of university and college administration. Youth andolan, whether political or apolitical, has been a rite of passage into Nepali democratic politics — dissensus is an integral part of political regeneration. It remains to be see how the fall &nbsp;from grace of political parties after the GenZ movement will affect their affiliated student unions. As elections approach, student unions and youth collectives will find their own footing in Nepal’s &nbsp;newly emerging socio-political landscape. The youth who took to the streets are asking for a complete overhaul for political parties. Establishmentarian leaders still have not seen the writing on the wall.&nbsp; NextGen leaders in their parties have been waiting for years for their turn &nbsp;to break through the glass ceiling. These established political actors will not go down without a fight in the run-up to March elections.&nbsp; Amanda Thérèse Snellinger perhaps needs a post-script or even a sequel to her book to see how a new generation of leaders, forged by their student activism, will compete in Nepal's new political arena.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250923190928_98d53dd49d56c92950bc34642eaee51dea458fd64312d945a358ad70e5e994bb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250923190928_98d53dd49d56c92950bc34642eaee51dea458fd64312d945a358ad70e5e994bb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Making new Nepal book details NT"> </figure>

Nepal’s historic youth dissensus

What does a journalist do when young protesters are shot in front of her? Does she do her job and stay neutral? Can you stay neutral?&nbsp; As protests engulfed Kathmandu, Nepal's journalists found themselves reporting a story that was personal. While doing their job, some of them were even targeted by mobs.&nbsp; Dart Asia Pacific Fellow <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/arunkarki/" target="_blank">Arun Karki</a> visited their newsrooms and spoke with his colleagues on their experience of reporting the GenZ protests that erupted on 8 September. These are the first-hand accounts of journalists who witnessed the turmoil in the city they call home. Sunita Karki was at a workshop in a hotel on 8 September. She saw the first waves of protests through hotel windows. Curfew alerts flooded her phone, a vehicle belonging to a human rights group sat burning across the road, young boys were taking their wounded friends on motorbikes to the Everest Hospital, and police were beating a teenager with hands raised up.&nbsp; “I cried a lot,” she said, but the tears were not out of fear -- they were because she felt guilt. “I couldn’t write the news. We were witnessing these scenes from a five-star hotel.” By evening, the death toll had reached 19. On 9 September at about 3:35 p.m. &nbsp;her outlet, the Annapurna Post's office in Tinkune, Kathmandu, was set on fire. Staff had to leave the building as parts of the newsroom burnt down.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250924040948_e1cc49c9e4fcc4bd4cd3c0163c782fc4e9956bf633cff7b53a63cf8e2dd74cff.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250924040948_e1cc49c9e4fcc4bd4cd3c0163c782fc4e9956bf633cff7b53a63cf8e2dd74cff" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Dart Centre Asia Pacific"> </figure>  When she knew her office was burning, she anxiously told her husband that she would resign from the job: "If we have to hide our identification cards in every protest, what kind of journalist am I?" she asked herself. She filed a story the next day, but her emotions kept bouncing between that of a journalist’s duty and shock. She said that in moments like this, it’s hard to feel truly neutral. After watching the police beat people, she felt a strong urge to step in, not just stand back and report. The first real calm came later, when people came to the street and lit small candles together. “This was a sort of victory procession. I felt some relief after brutal days,” she said. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/angaddhakal/" target="_blank">Angad Dhakal</a> a photojournalist who works at Kantipur National Daily, was standing outside his office building when protesters stormed in and set parts of it on fire. He had already been informed that protesters were planning to torch his office building and &nbsp;rushed to his office hoping to save his hard drives containing ten years of photography work. He failed. He raised his camera and "forcefully" pressed the shutter - more to document the scene than out of "professional enthusiasm or duty".&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250924040948_ebafaacb85c4ea045c41f2c63f1eff06fee9a4ddb5fbf419724e1a5d533781fa.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250924040948_ebafaacb85c4ea045c41f2c63f1eff06fee9a4ddb5fbf419724e1a5d533781fa" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="It is hard to feel neutral NT"> <figcaption>Photo: GAURAV POKHAREL</figcaption> </figure>  “My office was burning. What should I photograph?” he recalled. A few moments later, a protester noticed the “PHOTO” label on his yellow Press jacket. Dhakal deflected it by saying he was an early career freelancer and YouTuber. So that protesters wouldn't find out, he went to one corner and took his jacket off. When it comes to covering street protests, &nbsp;Angad usually stands near the police because it feels safer. But on 8 September, fire and gunshots made even that area unsafe. A rubber bullet hit his friend Dipendra Dhungana that badly injured him.&nbsp; He thought, “Where do we go now? If we stay here, we’ll be hit.” After witnessing two days of protests, violence, and killings, and seeing his own office burning, he couldn't sleep for days. The same afternoon that government buildings burned and Kantipur was attacked, a message in a protest Discord forum talked openly of 'attacking Kantipur'.&nbsp; Rumours spread to other outlets. Outside OnlineKhabar's office, where <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/article/edit/7376157229248528384/?author=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_company%3A79132377#" target="_blank">Gaurav Pokharel</a> works, the newsroom manager saw “very suspicious people were walking around”. They lowered blinds, avoided windows, locked the front gate and dispersed staff to other places across the city. The outlet was threatened and effectively locked down, but not torched. Pokharel hid his press ID. “ I never showed the ID card. Sometimes I had to enter the crowd shouting slogans, just to blend in among the protesters,” he said. He watched people fall under gunfire, he helped pull one surrounded journalist out of a hostile crowd.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250924040948_3b335eee57280373cb51f460534ca4476df23f89c787ba9e4a66d116a537b1a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250924040948_3b335eee57280373cb51f460534ca4476df23f89c787ba9e4a66d116a537b1a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="It is hard to feel neutral NT"> <figcaption>Photo: GAURAV POKHAREL</figcaption> </figure>  As a freelancer, Gaurav also contributed articles for international outlets. Later, while transcribing an interview of a young protest organiser, he wrote to his editor at an international outlet : “This was very hard to write. I cried many times while doing it.” He had been working at a stretch for days battling bouts of exhaustion and low blood pressure.&nbsp; Protesters vandalised and set fire within the Singha Darbar complex housing Nepal Television and Radio Nepal. They tried to disrupt public broadcasting.&nbsp; Surendra Paudyal began the day with his press ID hanging on his neck, thinking it would let him move freely. But when he reached Singha Darbar around 3:30PM, the situation felt dangerous.&nbsp; He put the ID in his pocket. When asked what mattered most, he answered without pause: life comes first. In that moment, he felt real fear and a strong duty to protect his team.&nbsp; His focus narrowed to basic things: stay calm, find exits, get everyone out safely. Later, they were able to keep the 8 pm news on air through a regional link. He felt mixed emotions and a sense of relief that the broadcast continued, but also sadness and anger that their own studio had come under attack. Reprinted with permission from the Dart Centre Asia Pacific, a regional hub that provides trauma-informed support and advice to journalists.

"It is hard to feel neutral"

Among the songs GenZ protesters were chanting at the Mandala on 8 September was Amrit Gurung’s folk-rock rendition of the Panchayat-era patriotic song, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iXnL31W93c">रातो र चन्द्र-सुर्जे जङ्गी निशान हाम्रो</a>. But amidst waving double pennants that day in Kathmandu were strands of Gopal Yonjan singing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7D8P-g3Uw4" target="_blank">बनेको छ पहराले</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57SlGf4m7R4" target="_blank">देशले रगत मागे</a>. The irony is that the message of Nepali nationalism the musician was trying to convey 50 years ago with his lyrics carries a new resolute relevance in today's context: I am a son of Nepal who will never kowtow to anyone.&nbsp; You can behead me, but I will never bend the knee. &nbsp; I can withstand fire, but will not stand injustice.&nbsp; If the nation demands blood, I will sacrifice myself. My mother will not weep, for she is the daughter of a Nepali. This was pure patriotic poetry that only someone like Gopal Yonjan could write. They are inter-generational and immortal — speaking as much for the GenZ today, as it was for the early days of nation-building when they were recorded in vinyl and broadcast over Radio Nepal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025092210094_4d5f65bf3ba2d2823e3da8aff6a77f2b9aa4eff4b1e1b6a8eeed8c0bcb58e47b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025092210094_4d5f65bf3ba2d2823e3da8aff6a77f2b9aa4eff4b1e1b6a8eeed8c0bcb58e47b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Gopal Yonjan NT 1"> <figcaption>Gopal Yonjan was an adept flautist from a young age in Darjeeling.</figcaption> </figure>  Those two songs together have over 20 million views on the Music Nepal YouTube channel, and many of the comments have been posted after the 9 September massacre and the raging conflagration at the epicentre of the Nepali state&nbsp; They attest to the emotional depth of Nepali nationhood and love of motherland in every citizen of every generation no matter how dreadful the circumstances — and especially when the future looks fragile and uncertain.&nbsp; The release of Gopal Yonjan: The Man &amp; His Music by his wife Renchin could not have come at a more momentous time in Nepal’s history to celebrate this iconic legend of modern Nepali music. Yonjan would have been 82 today, and as a poet, lyricist, singer innovated and improvised using Nepal’s folk traditions to infuse modern arrangements, meld melody with harmony, and lend them words that made the songs eternal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025092308098_76c4e4df756de0c1bea9858e1da0bcb6acb8145f27963e1679f5509a6ac2f078.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025092308098_76c4e4df756de0c1bea9858e1da0bcb6acb8145f27963e1679f5509a6ac2f078" data-rendition-name="original" width="2712" height="3900" loading="lazy" alt="Gopal Yonjan Narayan Gopal"> <figcaption>Narayan Gopal with Gopal Yonjan, the ‘Gopal Duet’ at Swayambhu circa 1963.</figcaption> </figure>  HOMECOMING Renchin Yonjan brings us an intimate family album of historic photographs of Gopal growing up in school in Darjeeling, his arrival in Kathmandu and the decision to make Nepal his home. She quotes Gopal: ‘I was deeply moved by the very glimpse of Nepal. I was enchanted by the greenery of Kathmandu, the gentle nature of the people, their pure thoughts, and their hospitality … how wonderful it would be to spend my live in such a beautiful and serene place.’ It was a kind of homecoming for Gopal Yonjan, the land his ancestors left to migrate to British India. In Kathmandu he found kindred spirits and musicians as passionate about their craft as himself: Narayan Gopal, Nagendra Thapa, Ratna Shumsher Thapa, Shiva Shanker, Pushpa Nepali  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250922100920_99a97f6cd76c130d5df91a38ac236906bcb21ba6fc2d2d693ba51e0a97c045d4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250922100920_99a97f6cd76c130d5df91a38ac236906bcb21ba6fc2d2d693ba51e0a97c045d4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1071" loading="lazy" alt="Gopal Yonjan"> <figcaption>Gopal Yonjan arriving at Kathmandu airport in 1963 and greeted by Nepali singers Pushpa Nepali, Dilmaya Khati, Shiv Shanker Shrestha, among others. </figcaption> </figure>  Gopal Yonjan and Narayan Gopal hit it off right away, complementing and inspiring each other with their shared love for meaningful music. They came to be known as the ‘Gopal Duet’, and Yonjan wrote in Nepali in his diary on 21 April 1963 about their first meeting: ‘I was immediately struck by his talent and presence. There was something in both his artistry and demeanour that drew me in. It didn’t take long for us to draw close.’ Towards the end of his life, Gopal Yonjan drifted away from themes of patriotism and unity to celebrate music in its purest form in his Gopalaya Studio in Kathmandu. It became art for art’s sake.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250922100912_f9aeec8d96049c580a4b63789664e1ae80971d3be3c7809acfe51b84e3e31cd1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250922100912_f9aeec8d96049c580a4b63789664e1ae80971d3be3c7809acfe51b84e3e31cd1" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1304" loading="lazy" alt="Gopal Yonjan"> <figcaption>Gopal Yonjan at his Gopalaya Studio in Kathmandu in 1992.</figcaption> </figure>  The words of his song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ZHg3wkvzw" target="_blank">मेरो गीत मेरै प्रतिविम्ब होइन</a> immortalised by Narayan Gopal has lines that give goosebumps to anyone who listens to them: मेरो गित भन्ने अधिकार छैन, गित को पो म हूँ मेरो गित होइन (I have no right to call this my song. This song does not belong to me. I belong to this song.) &nbsp; In Nepal, Gopal Yonjan also found a more complicated story. There were grand historical narratives of nationalism, bravery and glory, but there was an undercurrent of fear and control. Renchin writes in the chapter, Tell Me Where My Country Lies: ‘[Gopal saw] national pride slowly erode in the face of social exclusion, political silence, and economic disenfranchisement.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250922100912_57578ebebc7e405cf6ad3080611366893bee30cfc071567e6509038da866b2f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250922100912_57578ebebc7e405cf6ad3080611366893bee30cfc071567e6509038da866b2f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1043" loading="lazy" alt="Gopal Yonjan"> <figcaption>Renchin and Gopal Yonjan in their garden in Kathmandu in the late 1980s.</figcaption> </figure>  Gopal Yonjan’s song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zru8yWSuRCI" target="_blank">भनिदे नेपाली दाइ मेरो देश कहाँ पर्यो</a> is ‘as much an elegy as a manifesto’ with searing lines like ‘Where is the river that ran red with Nepali blood? Where is the battlefield where our defenders wiped their khukri?’ Gopal Yonjan sings this song himself, reminding Nepalis of the sacrifices made to forge this nation, and for us not to squander them.&nbsp; In his song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pVKpsK6Wy8" target="_blank">लाहुरे</a>, Yonjan celebrates Nepal’s illustrious history written in blood both to keep the nation free and then spilling it to defend other countries. Today, the same song takes on added meaning of Nepali lahure shedding not blood but sweat and tears as they toil abroad to send money to families back home. It evokes the pain of separation, and an anger at an uncaring state that drives them to leave. Gopal Yonjan died aged 53 in 1997 in a New Delhi hospital, leaving a legacy that still defines the Nepali nation in ageless musical compositions. The US-based <a href="https://www.gopalaya.org/" target="_blank">Gopayala</a> and the Gopal Yonjan Foundation have worked to remaster some of the tapes and recordings that are in safekeeping at Cornell University’s Carl A Koch Library.&nbsp; Renchin Yonjan has collected some of that valuable documentation in her book, Gopal Yonjan: The Man &amp; His Music. Her concluding paragraph sounds prescient because of what Nepal has just been through: ‘Gopal’s patriotic compositions remain timeless not because they repeat old slogans, but because they ask new questions, and demand that we answer not with our voices, but with our lives.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025092210090_3d0b5ecad2313b09e83e0de91bf510004f1ff836d7e66f0543ccd49432bb6386.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="2025092210090_3d0b5ecad2313b09e83e0de91bf510004f1ff836d7e66f0543ccd49432bb6386" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="518" loading="lazy" alt="Gopal Yonjan"> </figure>

Gopal Yonjan’s immortal songs

This text has been updated. Ten days after being nominated caretaker, Prime Minister Sushila Karki has added four more members to her Council of Ministers: Magsaysay winner Mahabir Pun, tv anchor Jagadish Kharel, former Justice Anil Kumar Sinha and Samata Foundation chair Madan Pariyar. Karki was under pressure to complete her compact Cabinet quickly. But it appears that her attempt to find professionals with non-political background, integrity, a record of professionalism while making the selection inclusive has not been easy.&nbsp; Several candidates that Prime Minister Karki had approached is said to have refused to join the interim government. Some have political ambitions and were worried that they would not be able to campaign ahead of early elections called for 5 March 2026.&nbsp; Among those who opted out for various reasons include famed ophthalmologist Sanduk Ruit who said his main responsibility was running his Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology. Also considered for the role of the Health Minister was cardiologist Bhagwan Koirala who is thought to have declined because of his association with Min Bahadur Gurung, owner of Bhat-Bhateni supermarket chain who had pledged Rs410 million to his Kathmandu Institute of Child Health. Twelve Bhat-Bhateni stores across the country were looted and set on fire during the GenZ protests on 9 September.&nbsp; The Prime Minister had finalised public health expert Sangita Kaushal Mishra for Health Minister, sending her name to the President's office along with the other Cabinet picks on Sunday evening. But the PM withdrew Mishra's name from the list on Monday after it emerged she was under a corruption investigation.&nbsp; Mahabir Pun of the National Innovation Center is the new Minister of Education, Science and Technology. Tv talk show host Jagadish Kharel who runs a popular current affairs program will lead the Ministry of Communication, while Anil Kumar Sinha seems set to be named Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. Sinha and Mishra are from the Madhes. The new ministers will be sworn in on Monday. The names of the new ministers were finalised in consultation with the representatives of the GenZ protesters. Appointments of new ministers last week, especially of advocate Om Prakash Aryal as Home Minister, was rejected by Sudan Gurung of Hami Nepal, one of the GenZ campaigners, who even demanded resignation of the newly appointed Prime Minister Sushila Karki because his group was not consulted. Last week, advocate Om Prakash Aryal was appointed Home Minister as well as Minister of Law, while former CEO of NEA Kulman Ghising as Energy Minister Urban Development Minister and Minister of Physical Infrastructure, and former finance Secretary Rameshwore Khanal as Finance Minister last week and were sworn in on 15 September. The new ministers have their work cut out as Prime Minister Sushila Karki has set elections for the House of Representatives for 5 March 2026. Electoral reform such that Nepalis outside the country could vote remains a challenge due to time limitation and because of the dissolution of Parliament. The interim government could ask for two more months beyond the initial six to prepare for voting.&nbsp; KNOW THE MINISTERS Names of possible ministers and their portfolios: Mahabir Pun, Minister of Education, Science and Technology  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921150956_5e04418c4d79e283ac66932fbe9cffa8bfdccb8973c7ba867b3a241d0a5c19a4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250921150956_5e04418c4d79e283ac66932fbe9cffa8bfdccb8973c7ba867b3a241d0a5c19a4" data-rendition-name="original" width="2365" height="3143" loading="lazy" alt="Mahabir Pun"> </figure>  He is the founding chair of the National Innovation Center which was set up in 2012 and most recently restored 484 medical devices including ventilators, dialysis machines, X-rays and autoclaves worth Rs243 million in government hospitals.&nbsp; Pun, 70, is the recipient of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2007 for his effort in connecting rural Nepal with wireless internet. Jagadish Kharel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921150956_25b90f5febc65782a3e74a288212175d075b4078802cdd1c0fe16767cf9dd95c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250921150956_25b90f5febc65782a3e74a288212175d075b4078802cdd1c0fe16767cf9dd95c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="Jagadish Kharel"> </figure>  He is a tv journalist with nearly 20 years of experience. He is currently the news head of Image Channel as well as the host of the show Hot Seat, and is known for in-depth political and government policy analysis and commentary. Kharel was previously thought to have been invited to join Rabi Lamichhane’s Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) after it emerged as the fourth biggest party in Parliament after the last elections. Anil Kumar Sinha, Minister of Industry, Commerce and Supply; Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs; Minister of Land Reforms, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921150956_ba224a8c2d4c4434ed6e08e858d798b382a06c8606583841c935f927acb5d2f4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250921150956_ba224a8c2d4c4434ed6e08e858d798b382a06c8606583841c935f927acb5d2f4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="710" loading="lazy" alt="Anil Kumar Sinha"> </figure>  Anil Kumar Sinha was appointed as a Supreme Court Justice in 2016, and retired in 2023, after reaching the age limit of 65. Home Minister Om Prakash Aryal was formerly also given the responsibility of leading the Ministry of Law. Sinha specialises in tax and corporate law. Most recently, Sinha was a member of the Supreme Court bench that issued a verdict allowing an investigation into misappropriation of government land at Lalita Niwas in Baluwatar. Sinha played a significant role in the eventual impeachment of the then chief of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) Lokman Singh Karki ion 2016 over legality of his appointment. He also resolved the dispute concerning the first dissolution of the House of Representatives by then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on 20 December 2020. Madan Pariyar, Minister of Agriculture&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921180928_83a9a885704826f04b439cf5096063a0596544a750f78b5ff02ee82df43ca0cf.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250921180928_83a9a885704826f04b439cf5096063a0596544a750f78b5ff02ee82df43ca0cf" data-rendition-name="original" width="640" height="640" loading="lazy" alt="Madan Pariyar"> </figure>  Madan Pariyar is a scholar with notable research contribution in several fields including poverty alleviation, inclusion, good governance, agriculture, industry resource management. He obtained his doctorate and master'sin enginerring from the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok and Bachelors of Science in Agricultural Engineering from the Allahabad Agricultural Institute in India. Bcck in 2011, the government appointed Pariyar the chair of the State Restructuring Commission (SRC) which was tasked with advising the Constitutional Assembly on the best possible model of federalism to be adopted for Nepal. Pariyar is also the chair of Samata Foundation that advocates for the rights of the Dalit people and their capacity building.&nbsp; OTHER NAMES Ajaya Bhadra Khanal, research director of the thinktank Center for Social Innovation and Foreign Policy (CESIF Nepal) is likely to be appointed the chief adviser to the Prime Minister. GenZ campaigners have also suggested the name of veteran Nepal Airlines aptain Vijay Lama for the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation. Rights activist Mohna Ansari, heritage conservationist Ganapati Lal Shrestha and Mansi Bhattarai, daughter of former Maoist prime minister Babauram Bhattarai have also been floated for various ministries. PM Karki has said she will limit her cabinet to 11 members for 22 ministries. Karki is likely to handle two or more ministries herself. At present, Kulman Ghising is leading three ministries while Om Prakash Aryal has two.&nbsp;

Nepal PM expands her Cabinet

Robert Redford was an A-list megastar who had dominated Hollywood throughout the 1970s, generally considered the high water mark of American cinema.&nbsp; In those days Nepal was a fashionably remote destination, so it was not unusual for us to be looking after celebrity visitors. But Robert Redford was huge by any standards.&nbsp; “Call me Bob,” was the first thing he said to me, with that wonderful embracing smile that had lit up screens and quickened heartbeats around the world throughout the previous decade.&nbsp; We met over a cosy Mountain Travel dinner in Al Read’s brick and stucco house in Dhobighat. The floors were traditional terracotta tiles, the low beams darkly varnished and a cheerful fire warmed the October chill.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921110940_32dd66ba4b578a843bbbf6a74bca7d47f9ac7083c3bf50f8213ac3e5322974fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250921110940_32dd66ba4b578a843bbbf6a74bca7d47f9ac7083c3bf50f8213ac3e5322974fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1396" height="920" loading="lazy" alt="Robert Redford in Nepal"> <figcaption>Robert Redford in 1982 at Meghauli airfield in Chitwan with young Kirsten Annapurna Read, the daughter of Al Read, managing director of Mountain Travel Nepal.</figcaption> </figure>  Our heroes often seem diminished in real life and Redford was shorter than expected, though taller than his friends and co-stars Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman. But most striking was his pock-marked skin which must have challenged makeup artists over the years.&nbsp; I was disappointed he was not wearing his trademark cowboy boots, but Bob’s fame infused the room with his gentle politeness and low-key glamour. Next morning I picked him up from the Malla Hotel for some light sightseeing around the Valley. Under strict instruction from ‘his people’ that any fuss from fans was to be minimised, I was surprised to see him wearing a Sundance tee-shirt – just in case no one recognised him.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921040916_1674398340a9501127e9f8b6b775f41b35703253f772ee05c6ab064819cd0abb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250921040916_1674398340a9501127e9f8b6b775f41b35703253f772ee05c6ab064819cd0abb" data-rendition-name="original" width="840" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Robert Redford in Nepal"> <figcaption>Robert Redford exploring the Kathmandu Valley in 1982. Photo: GALEN ROWELL </figcaption> </figure>  Unmolested, we walked the ancient streets of Bhaktapur, and Bob was duly entranced by the visual impact of Malla Newar’s enduring culture. Robert Redford’s main purpose in Nepal was to trek in the Khumbu with his friend Galen Rowell, an adventure photographer, conservationist and mountaineer who met a premature death in 2002 in a small plane crash in Bishop, California.&nbsp; There may have been some talk of a film about Everest, but nothing came of it. After the trek, Bob and Galen explored the grasslands and forests of Chitwan, staying with us at Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge to view wildlife from the back of a well-trained elephant.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921110948_7c2339d73cedfcc9e659169d1d1bc2239d3d9973f6c4b1a945bfeb74b9b74d19.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250921110948_7c2339d73cedfcc9e659169d1d1bc2239d3d9973f6c4b1a945bfeb74b9b74d19" data-rendition-name="original" width="723" height="958" loading="lazy" alt="Robert Redford in Nepal"> <figcaption>Robert Redford in Chitwan, with Tiger Tops Manager KK Gurung on 9 December 1982. Photo: GALEN ROWELL</figcaption> </figure>  Confiding that he was not much of a traveller, Bob told us Nepal was one of his first trips outside the USA. Bob preferred his homes in Malibu on the Pacific coast and the wide open spaces of Utah, which he named Sundance after his favourite role.&nbsp; SOARING GRANDEUR With his strong affinity for the outdoors, Redford’s horizons must have been significantly expanded by the soaring grandeur of Nepal's sublime mountains, untamed rivers, and tiger and rhino infested lowlands. Galen’s knowledge and enthusiasm for all things Himalayan made him the perfect person to introduce this prominent novice tourist to Nepal’s wild places. Framed photographs of Bob taken by Galen’s skilled camera still grace tourist lodges on the Everest trail, and I confess to having one hanging in our downstairs loo.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921070932_7bff2986293742e6e97c91c879f2549f2a99095f1f4a98c50e3b74c7f91f7b84.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250921070932_7bff2986293742e6e97c91c879f2549f2a99095f1f4a98c50e3b74c7f91f7b84" data-rendition-name="original" width="1076" height="1624" loading="lazy" alt="Rovert Redford in Nepal"> <figcaption>Robert Redford in snowbound Namche Bazar in 1982.</figcaption> </figure>  His movie classics that defined our youth included the iconic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, All The President’s Men and The Way We Were. With many Oscar nominations, his personal best was Ordinary People, his directing debut which swept the award board in 1980, shortly before his Nepal trip. But Robert Redford was more than just an all American action man actor and successful film director. He chose roles that highlighted his political and social outlook. He was admired as an active environmental campaigner, using his fame to fight for clean air and pure water, serving as a trustee of the Natural Resources Defence Council.&nbsp; Redford once said: “The danger of success is that it forces you into a mould. I prefer independence.” Choosing the wilds of Utah over the jungles of Hollywood, in 1981 he started the Sundance Institute to cultivate controversial and independent movie talent.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250921040916_081aa6b2c1f9f82f3ea6a550c6887d9a991f2983a0a976456d627d711ae8a2e2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250921040916_081aa6b2c1f9f82f3ea6a550c6887d9a991f2983a0a976456d627d711ae8a2e2" data-rendition-name="original" width="2448" height="3264" loading="lazy" alt="Robert Redford in Nepal"> <figcaption>Robert Redford being shown around Bhaktapur by Lisa Choegyal on 21 Nov 1982. Photo: GALEN ROWELL</figcaption> </figure>  Festival screenings and workshops gave thousands of film people a chance of artistic freedom, nurturing a galaxy of filmmaker greats. At the end of his long life, Redford’s Sundance is widely recognised as having profoundly influenced American cinema.&nbsp; I like to think that Robert Redford’s rare overseas holiday amidst the stunning natural beauty of Nepal’s high mountains, Sherpa villages, living heritage and endangered animals might have opened his eyes and perhaps even sparked his lifelong concern for social and environmental issues.&nbsp;

The Sundance Kid in Nepal

Last week’s GenZ protest in Nepal was one of the shortest violent movements to topple a government in modern times. Social media played a crucial and unprecedented role in it. It was the digital space that documented, fuelled, rallied and magnified the protests on 8-9 September, as well as the negotiations to form an interim government afterwards. Even a week after, netizens are posting memes, real and AI-generated videos and jokes. This has been a powerful display of the power of ridicule and free speech that also reflects the resilience of the Nepali people and their ability to bounce back. Last week, as the Nepal Army held negotiations with wannabe leaders, the joke going around was about people being worried to venture out into the streets because they might be caught and made interim prime minister of the country.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025092004094_5cdfca4511a64facbf6a95c62a5abfb367a60e658d68ad502213516c7943f7dc.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025092004094_5cdfca4511a64facbf6a95c62a5abfb367a60e658d68ad502213516c7943f7dc" data-rendition-name="original" width="617" height="487" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's meme revolution NT"> </figure>  Another video showed protesters making pretend calls on landline phones outside the burning Parliament. A British tourist’s clip about why his country could not defeat Nepal in 1814 went viral.&nbsp; Public disillusionment with the corrupt political parties was at an all time high, and the ban on 26 social media platforms on 5 September was the last straw. This did not just infringe on freedom of expression, but was important for business and trade, and it cut off the Genz’s vital communication channels.&nbsp; Everybody perceived the ban which apparently was not popular within K P Oli’s CPN-UML as the prime minister’s authoritarian ways. The government failed to understand that social media was also distracting the public with entertainment, and it was an effective way to let off steam.&nbsp; When apps like Instagram, Messenger, YouTube, X, and Reddit were blocked, youth banded together calling for an anti-corruption rally via TikTok which was functioning. &nbsp;&nbsp; TikTok exploded with users sharing #NepoBaby clips of the children and relatives of politicians showing off their extravagant lifestyles funded by corruption. It was there for ordinary Nepalis to see: the vacations, fancy restaurants, designer bags, and opulent villas.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250920030952_f8d7a287c3c472c67ac45089e5588a4ba6e615e19119222a130710f7ef660a65.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250920030952_f8d7a287c3c472c67ac45089e5588a4ba6e615e19119222a130710f7ef660a65" data-rendition-name="original" width="1570" height="1446" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's meme revolution NT"> </figure>  Put to Nepali music, these clips were edited to be juxtaposed with the lives of impoverished Nepalis leaving as migrant workers. Some tried to defend the children of politicians, but most were enraged. In response, one Instagram handle called genz.nepal was set up. Its bio says: ’Fu*k this system!! Let’s slay and stay woke!!’ and made its first post on 6 September. It was an AI generated poster featuring a raised fist calling for a national protest two days later under the banner ‘Youth Against Corruption.’ Despite the ban on social media, they were still semi-functional with workarounds such as VPNs. News of the time and venue of the protest spread rapidly through cybersphere. ‘Let it be clear, our fight is not against one party or another, it is against the system itself,’ said one of the posts. ‘We mean the government, the opposition, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and every structure that has betrayed the people.’ Other posts called on all to keep the protests peaceful, with no party flags or symbols, no leader, and no damage to property.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025092004094_f22baab05910305ea435045824b25b796d5630715e2e17c3f3c0991e8371843c.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025092004094_f22baab05910305ea435045824b25b796d5630715e2e17c3f3c0991e8371843c" data-rendition-name="original" width="974" height="1156" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's meme revolution NT"> </figure>  While noble, the decentralised nature of the protest also made infiltration possible, and violence inevitable. Loot and arson followed. With no clear leader, no one person could be held accountable. But perhaps if the protests had not escalated after the massacre on 8 September outside Parliament, the government would not have fallen at all. Past peaceful protests at Mandala never materialised into anything. Even the 8 September protests had started peacefully, with organisers urging participants not to indulge in violence. Outside Parliament, the commando unit of the APF were seen in wide-shared videos kneeling down to take aim at protesters with automatic weapons. With the social media ban lifted, online posts showing the dead with live round bullet wounds on heads and chests, some in college uniform, were shared widely especially through Instagram stories. Anger was boiling over at police brutality and many posts showed PM Oli with blood on his hands. All of this exemplified the brutality of the state against innocent students, and added fuel to the anger against the state. It was only a question when anger turned to revenge, and that came the next day with the targetted arson and looting.&nbsp; Social media took away any possibility of the government denying or censoring the truth as might have happened in the past at Tiananmen Square and other pre-Internet protests. Nepalis saw it all live on their phones, and the reaction was immediate.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025092004098_609488466dd350924f972b3c6bc7004bebe229d21281db2f8ca7468df5cce353.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025092004098_609488466dd350924f972b3c6bc7004bebe229d21281db2f8ca7468df5cce353" data-rendition-name="original" width="1268" height="772" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's meme revolution NT"> </figure>  On 9 September, the shocking visuals kept playing on loop. By mid-morning all three branches of the government were burning. Politicians chased and beaten, their houses set ablaze — and all this was also streamed in real-time.&nbsp; Social media was also where relatives and friends mourned the dead, came to terms with the reality, and shared their opinions about the days ahead. Nepal now has an interim government with Sushila Karki as the Prime Minister but in the days up to the announcement and even now, social media is rife with conspiracies from India’s involvement to military-royalist collusion, as well as a potential coup. DISCORD&nbsp; To the surprise of everyone, including the GenZ, the next prime minister of Nepal was being decided on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers during Covid for its ability to host large groups with stable voice communication.&nbsp; Amidst much chaos, people memed, reacted, and spoke in the server which quickly grew to almost 150,000. Social media, for better or worse, is now a way of life with far reaching implications. Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah, RSP chair Rabi Lamichanne and others appealed to their voter base using social media in the last election, but the same platform was shown to also build and destroy political careers.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025092005090_a1961c27e714ddb18b916c718724f235eb7ec3380487c7dc555c4395882d0c15.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025092005090_a1961c27e714ddb18b916c718724f235eb7ec3380487c7dc555c4395882d0c15" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal's meme revolution NT"> </figure>  False narratives that are intelligently crafted using deep fake go viral in no time, and can be more damaging than other forms of communication. With high-stake early elections announced for March next year, the campaigning will be more on the digital platforms than door-to-door. There is a strong possibility for it to be used to disinformation and hate speech to incite voters, but equally it can be an interactive medium where citizens can raise their voices. &nbsp; Some candidates with digital-savvy backrooms designing memes and AI-generated visual content will be trying to set false narratives to fan populism. Because of global connectivity, the diaspora will have an unprecedented influence on how folks back home vote.&nbsp; So far, populist candidates have managed to ride on widespread public anger against the main parties and gather protest votes. This time, they may find that you cannot fool all the people all the time.&nbsp; Candidates can no longer hoodwink an unaware, docile populace anymore. People may not be able to read, but they have smartphones. And that gives them a say, an opinion and there must be space for them all as we build back stronger.

Nepal’s meme revolution

As fate would have it, Sushila Karki was nominated as caretaker prime minister just a week before she stood at Tundikhel to deliver her address to the annual Constitution Day parade on Friday. This was a milestone not just because it came so soon after the two-day GenZ uprising that toppled the government, but also because it was the tenth anniversary of the 2015 Constitution. That federal democratic, republican Constitution itself took seven years to draft, two elections to the Constituent Assembly and a ten-year Maoist-led conflict.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250919130956_1fee70b5c6a8df3307a56a38f46ad90e03c30a3f82f0308c5a1686524019860e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250919130956_1fee70b5c6a8df3307a56a38f46ad90e03c30a3f82f0308c5a1686524019860e" data-rendition-name="original" width="4160" height="2773" loading="lazy" alt="Constitution Day NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250919130952_a708227921f6a9f2cd60b43784e69045ce4b3fac233de99af48977391252dc67.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250919130952_a708227921f6a9f2cd60b43784e69045ce4b3fac233de99af48977391252dc67" data-rendition-name="original" width="4160" height="2773" loading="lazy" alt="Constitution Day NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250919130952_b1a062fdc2c2cc756eaa85a24fafb4e8e79f245b188c0be7ac1f4af3584bfa96.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250919130952_b1a062fdc2c2cc756eaa85a24fafb4e8e79f245b188c0be7ac1f4af3584bfa96" data-rendition-name="original" width="4160" height="2773" loading="lazy" alt="Constitution Day NT"> </figure>  Although it was a document that envisaged inclusion, equity and development for the Nepali people, the three political parties that have been in power for most of the last ten years failed to deliver, deepening public disillusionment.&nbsp; Prime Minister Sushila Karki’s impassioned speech spoke about the sacrifice of Nepal’s youth, and promised during her six-month tenure till elections to lay the foundations for a new Nepal. The full speech: Honourable President, Honourable Vice President, Honourable Chief Justice, Honourable Speaker, Honourable Chair of the National Assembly, Distinguished Officials Present, Heads and Representatives of Diplomatic Missions, People's Representatives, Civil Servants, Journalists, Dear Sisters and Brothers, Today, we are celebrating Constitution Day and National Day with great enthusiasm, marking the day the Constitution of Nepal, drafted by representatives elected by the Nepali people in the Constituent Assembly, was promulgated. On this proud occasion, as our federal democratic republican Constitution completes a decade, I extend my best wishes to all Nepali people on Constitution Day 2025. The current Constitution of Nepal, forged through repeated People's Movements, struggles, sacrifices, and dedication of the Nepali people, is a guiding document that reflects the destiny, future, and aspirations of Nepal and its people. The day our Constitution, with its fundamental characteristics of federalism, democracy, republicanism, inclusiveness, and social justice, was promulgated, is a day of pride for all Nepalis. Constitution Day is not merely a celebration, it is also a day to evaluate our federal democratic republic. We must seriously review what we have achieved and what we have failed to follow on the path guided by the Constitution since its implementation over the last decade, what our shortcomings have been, and what future direction is needed. The Constitution provides a foundation for the distribution of powers among the federal, provincial, and local levels, ensures swift and quality services for the public as well as empower local leadership. However, issues like equal access to service delivery, transparency, zero tolerance for corruption, optimal utilisation of resources and technology, and development management that ensures the cost-effectiveness and outcome of public services remain common challenges for all three levels of government.&nbsp; To face these challenges, the roles of not just the government, but also the private sector, civil society, community and non-governmental organisations, the international community, and every citizen are indispensable. The protests and movement led by GenZ youths on 8 and 9 September, are a reflection of the younger generation’s aspirations, the public’s rising awareness, and dissatisfaction with the corruption prevalent in the country. We must acknowledge that this movement was also born out of the shortcomings in governance, prosperity, development, and the resulting dissatisfaction, &nbsp;unfulfilled expectations, which are contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. I also view this movement as a measure of the health of our democratic system, because democracy is a system that listens to, engages with, and solves the problems of the people. The GenZ movement is also a result of our failure to live up to our commitments to democratic values including the federal republican system of governance, civil liberties, fundamental rights, human rights, full press freedom, an independent and competent judiciary, rule of law, and good governance. The dramatic development in information technology is also a factor. The issues raised by the young generation who are aware of citizen-friendly governance, open government, and virtual governance at the international level such as employment opportunities, quality of life, transparency in government actions, legal equality, the end of corruption, good governance, and development are, in reality, the common expectations and national agendas of all generations. This government is committed to embracing these agendas and working to meet public expectations. I did not become Prime Minister out of greed for power, or any position. Unable to remain silent at a time of national crisis and as per the request of the youth who aspire for change, I became the Prime Minister of this interim government to manage the transition and to hand over responsibility to an elected government through a House of Representatives election within six months, as per the Constitution of Nepal. On this Constitution Day, I offer heartfelt tributes to all martyrs who sacrificed their lives in past people’s movements and the recent GenZ movement, and I express my deep condolences to their bereaved families. I also wish a speedy recovery to all those injured in the GenZ movement and express my profound sorrow for the unimaginable and irreparable damage to public and private property, and industrial and commercial establishments during the movement. The letters of the Constitution may be static, but its spirit is always alive. The needs and aspirations of citizens change with time. State machinery must function in accordance with the people’s aspirations and expectations. We must move forward on the path of reform self-reflecting on our shortcomings. The emotions and expectations of the people are more multifaceted and dynamic than the letters of the Constitution. They cannot be ignored or rejected, only heard. Listening to the voice of the people is the soul of democracy. For this, we have to undertake necessary institutional restructuring and legal amendments so that service delivery and development is more efficient, effective, and people-oriented. The recent movement has guided us to make reforms in many areas. The younger generation wants to participate in the governance system. They want to see successful governance practices from developed countries in our nation. They want to see their ideas reflected at the policy level. Therefore, on this occasion of Constitution Day, I want to assure you that this government is committed to continuously working with a firm resolve to address the feelings and expectations of youth, women, children, people with disabilities, Dalits, Indigenous Peoples, Madhesi, Tharu, marginalised communities, and all generations. We face the challenge of rebuilding the structures damaged during the GenZ movement as well as helping the country recover from the losses to business establishments. We have to boost the morale of the private sector which is a key driver of development. We must hold elections within the stipulated time. I call upon all youth, political parties, civil servants, the private sector, development partners, and the general public to participate in this great campaign of reconstruction and development. On this occasion, I especially want to call upon the youth, as you are the true bearers of change. Your courage, innovative thinking, and unwavering commitment will take Nepal to new heights. I express my commitment to make the best use of the resources available to us in the short period of time to address the issues raised by the movement and fulfil the dreams of the martyrs, to carry out legal, institutional, and policy reforms, and to work in accordance with the expectations of the people. This government is committed to listening to your voices, embracing them, and putting them into practice. The public has numerous complaints, anger, and dissatisfaction towards the existing style of governance. While it may be difficult to address all this dissatisfaction at once, the current government will make an honest effort to solve these problems to the best of its resources and capabilities. On this occasion of Constitution Day, I express this government's full accountability to the citizens and believe that citizens will also be aware of their duties. The current Constitution of Nepal, built on the foundation of the historic people's movement of 2006, has sent a message to the world that the Nepali people are capable of shaping their own destiny. We expect actions that align with the spirit of the Constitution rather than changing it. For this, we need to hold the upcoming House of Representatives election on 5 March 2026 in a clean, fair, inexpensive, and fear-free environment, and create a sense of ownership among the youth and all classes, sectors, and communities. An election is not merely a mechanical process. It is also an important link for transferring the hopes, aspirations, and trust of citizens for the next five years. I trust that all stakeholders, political parties, voters, government mechanisms, and the general public will provide open-hearted cooperation to fulfil this responsibility. May Constitution Day inspire us to make new resolutions, may democracy be further strengthened, may our social justice be ensured, may our economic prosperity be shared, and may our nation become a common home for all citizens. I reiterate the government's commitment to fulfilling the aspirations of lasting peace, good governance, development, and prosperity through governance reforms, and I extend my sincere thanks to all the martyrs who dedicated their lives for change, the GenZ generation, and the general public. Finally, I extend my best wishes to all the Nepali people on Constitution Day 2025. Thank you.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250919130952_7d21193434b491e442b88e070069ce6491cbe9ca65099c90c0850887bda996a7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250919130952_7d21193434b491e442b88e070069ce6491cbe9ca65099c90c0850887bda996a7" data-rendition-name="original" width="4160" height="2773" loading="lazy" alt="Constitution Day NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250919130956_f46e7ef05780c8de1b53520e1d457fbe4e3357011ed4070366e16ca62766c554.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250919130956_f46e7ef05780c8de1b53520e1d457fbe4e3357011ed4070366e16ca62766c554" data-rendition-name="original" width="4160" height="2773" loading="lazy" alt="Constitution Day NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250919130952_ccf140afe6b0c9bf849a94cd61b486efa7a2c9c1b723ecfd2ecea9189b293cf0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250919130952_ccf140afe6b0c9bf849a94cd61b486efa7a2c9c1b723ecfd2ecea9189b293cf0" data-rendition-name="original" width="4160" height="2773" loading="lazy" alt="Constitution Day NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250919130956_ae9385202b22c833bf1e1f18e7c10f1038657389678203f1d9acab0969f6bc01.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250919130956_ae9385202b22c833bf1e1f18e7c10f1038657389678203f1d9acab0969f6bc01" data-rendition-name="original" width="4160" height="2772" loading="lazy" alt="Constitution Day NT"> </figure>  &nbsp;

PM Karki’s address on Nepal’s Constitution Day

A week after Nepal’s deadly protests, the country’s three main political parties whose offices were torched have been coming out in public pledging to reform themselves.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist-Centre visited his gutted party headquarters on Tuesday and said it would be rebuilt “on an even grander scale”.&nbsp;
Five-time prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress (NC) and his wife are still being treated for the wounds they suffered while being attacked at their home on 9 September.&nbsp;
In both parties, younger members have said it is time for their seniors to step down as leaders.&nbsp;
K P Oli who was ousted as prime minister last week after the GenZ protests turned violent with a loss of 74 lives, is also under Nepal Army protection in a base inside Shivapuri National Park outside Kathmandu. But his UML party has said it is not looking at a change in leadership at present.
All the main parties have offered sympathies for the lives lost in last week’s violence, and some members said it was time for a generational change within their parties as well. But all sides tip-toed around one crucial point: the GenZ demand for a change in leadership and political culture.
Former prime ministers Deuba, Dahal and Oli have been playing musical chairs taking turns to be prime ministers in 12 coalition governments in the past 10 years — despite their differing political ideologies.
What stands out in the recent statements of political leaders is not what was said, but what was left unsaid: none have raised the issue of transferring leadership to younger figures, let alone democratising their parties internally.&nbsp;
“Parties that do not appeal to the people, especially young people, will stop being relevant,” says Uddhab Pyakurel, a professor of political sociology at Kathmandu University (KU). “However, political &nbsp;parties are an integral component of our democracy.”&nbsp;
The youth wings of the main three parties do not shy away from criticising the impunity of their seniors, but have not been able to bring internal reform within their organisations.&nbsp;
Activists in the GenZ movement that toppled the regime last week say they do not follow any -isms, but Roshan Thapa Magar of the &nbsp;ANNISU (Revolutionary) that is affiliated to the Maoists says: “Ideologies still matter, the sacrifices of the parties in Nepal’s democratic struggles, and what they continue to represent, remain indispensable.”&nbsp;
He admits being taken aback by the way Maoist leaders and their relatives were portrayed in the #NepoBaby social media campaign: “It was disheartening and disappointing to see how power and position misused by our leaders in a party made up of ordinary people. It is now up to us to reform and restructure our parties to gain this trust again.”
Nawaraj Tripathee, a former Nepal Student Union (NSU) member and now the NC’s Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources says: “Only our party embodies the spirit of democracy etched into its core. But we have lost touch with democracy from within, therefore people are frustrated with us and a leadership that has acted with impunity and a tight grip on power.”
But he adds: “But this public disillusionment with us does not mean that we give up on the values of our party, it means we restructure the leadership and renew at all levels so that a new generation can lift the party up again.”&nbsp;
SHOCK THERAPY
Yet both acknowledge frustrations with their own leadership and say that the voices they raised against corruption were not loud enough to be heard. The deadly protests last week should be shock therapy to the leadership — especially if they want to recoup before early elections that have been called for 5 March 2026.
Thapa Magar says student politics has been important for the bottom-up voice of youth to be brought to the leadership level. He says, “If the GenZ organised the protests better, then we would perhaps not see the kind of looting and destruction on 9 September. We in the student wings of political parties know how to mobilise protests better.”
Over at the CPN-UML student wing ANNFSU, chair Sujan Kadariya and Abdus Miya quit their parties in dramatic fashion via Facebook following the bloodbath on 8 September, only to stage equally dramatic returns.&nbsp;
Miya justified it thus: ‘When Nepali youths fell to bullets, I believed the Prime Minister must resign. Even by 2pm the next day, he still hadn’t stepped down, and at 2:01 I declared I was quitting the party.’ KP Oli resigned shortly after that post, putting Miya in a dilemma.&nbsp;
Kadariya also deleted his post: ‘Feeling that the student politics of our entire generation has failed, I resign as President of the ANNISU Central Committee.” Later, he admitted he had posted out of fear for his life and felt ashamed for betraying the party. His final clarification: he had not officially resigned and remains committed to the party.
Miya and Kadariya expose the thin ideological fabric of student politics in Nepal. Their resignations were seen by many less as statements of principle than opportunism, and precisely what is wrong with the mainstream parties.
The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) which was the fourth largest in Parliament, also faced criticism for lacking a clear ideological foundation. The RSP’s former Education Minister Sumana Shrestha at first denied rumours she was leaving the party, but resigned anyway the next day declaring: ‘I QUIT’ on social media. &nbsp;She has also said she is not joining the interim government, it remains to be seen if she goes back on that too.
The RSP’s rapid rise is closely tied to its founder Rabi Lamichhane, whose citizenship and cooperatives scandals and his attacks on media continue to test the party’s credibility. Lamichhane’s jailbreak on the second day of the protests was on his 50th birthday, and on Monday he voluntarily went back behind bars.&nbsp;
LEADERSHIP TRAPS
In the last two decades, Nepal’s revolving door politics has seen only three protagonists: Deuba, Dahal and Oli. Earlier this month, Oli changed the UML rulebook to make way for his third term as party chief. Deuba has headed the NC since 2016. Dahal has been a permanent fixture as the Maoists’ great helmsman for the past 30 years.&nbsp;
With the exception of Youth Congress Nepal, the student bodies of UML and the Maoists have not explicitly called for a change in party leadership. ANNISU (Revolutionary)’s Thapa Magar admitted his Maoist party has not held a central committee meeting to discuss succession, but hoped that a democratic route to new leadership could secure the party’s future relevance.
Some within the NC see Gagan Thapa as a natural heir apparent to Deuba. Both rose up the ranks through the party’s student wings and were jailed during the Panchayat. Nawaraj Tripathee of the NC says: “Gagan Thapa is best suited to lead the party at this time. But leaders cannot save parties unless they have institutional frameworks in place for dissenting voices to democratically replace leaders.”
This issue extends beyond the NC. Absolute power within political parties seems to undermine intra-party institutions absolutely. Unchecked leaders have consolidated power in ways that even impact the functioning of Parliament, and hence governance.&nbsp;
Pyakurel says: “It is evident in last week’s protests and its aftermath that political literacy is not strong in the new generation. Calling politics a dirty game does not encourage meaningful participation. Corruption is corruption, it is not politics. Equating corruption with politics implies that corruption is inherent to politics, but it doesn't have to be so.”
Thapa Magar says: “A party is not just its leader, it is an ideology that its members are committed to. Political parties need to democratise their systems and allow meaningful participation of their members, as some are not in the party to climb up the ranks, but to serve a bigger purpose collectively.”
In the case of Rabi Lamichhane, repeated controversies followed by his victimhood narrative and deflections of accountability have gone unchallenged by his own party leaders, enabling him to act with impunity.
RSP founding member Bipin Acharya says criticism about the party’s ideology is unfounded since democratic governance, inclusion and equity are enshrined in the party doctrine.
“It is not fair to compare Rabi Lamichhane to other party leaders, he has not even completed one term. He is innocent until proven guilty and we trust due process in the new judiciary under the GenZ interim government,” he added about Lamichhane.
Nepal’s political parties have deep roots embedded in Nepali society through a network of institutional bodies and sister organisations,” explains Uddhab Pyakurel. “Yet their relevance now depends on whether they can adapt. To regain public trust, they will need to mobilise these structures in ways that genuinely reflect citizens’ concerns, rather than operate as brokers of political power.”&nbsp;
Ayusha Chalise is a communication and development researcher specialising in how politics is experienced in the digital space.

What next for Nepal's Big 3 parties?

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Twenty years ago this week, we reported about how malnutrition was indirectly responsible for 70% of all child mortality in Nepal, and how inadequate food increased susceptibility to diarrhoea, measles and acute respiratory infection.
In 2025, malnutrition is still one of the biggest causes of child mortality, except now it is not simply a lack of food but also too much junk food in the diet. Purchasing power has increased, but we are eating more of what we should not be eating.
Excerpt of a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=570">report </a>published in <a href="https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_256.pdf">issue #256 15 – 21 July 2005</a>:
Despite recent official statements about rising average living standards, grinding poverty and the conflict, the effects of junk food in cities have made undernourishment and malnutrition a serious national epidemic.
Protein-energy malnutrition affects 63 percent of Nepali children which means they don't get enough food to ensure normal physical and mental development. More than half of Nepali children are therefore physically stunted, and although this is reversible if the child starts eating enough after age two, they may suffer learning disabilities as well if undernourishment persists .
Hunger increases their susceptibility to diarrhoea, measles and acute respiratory infection. Diarrhoeal dehydration alone causes an estimated 30,000 child deaths every year as undernourished children are weaker and more likely to be brought down by the vicious spiral of disease and malnutrition. Combined with worms, undernourishment is seen by many as Nepal's primary health concern for children.
Malnutrition hits many Nepali children even before they are born because their mothers don't have adequate food while pregnant. Between 30-50 percent of Nepali children are born underweight, below 2.5 kg.
For archived material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/">nepalitimes.com</a>

Malnutrition

A security guard with <a href="https://www.bbsm.com.np/" target="_blank">Bhat-Bhateni Supermarket </a>pleads with attackers not to destroy the store. In the widely-shared YouTube video, the mob can be seen surging ahead to ransack and set fire to the store anyway. Twenty-one of the 28 Bhat-Bhateni outlets nationwide were vandalised and looted, 12 of them were completely gutted. The one at Boudha was smouldering for three days till 12 September. Nepal’s biggest supermarket chain is a target in just about every political upheaval in Nepal. The Koteswor branch was looted in the royalist protest in March. This time, the destruction was much more complete and widespread. What began as a youth-led protest against corrupt leaders turned escalated into widespread looting and arson last week, and Bhati-Bhateni’s prominent blue highrise stores became prime targets.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250918110952_d60fbd65ee7fc18d2d0deb74ede8eb5b5f133f32eca13c9281b869e0bd479761.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250918110952_d60fbd65ee7fc18d2d0deb74ede8eb5b5f133f32eca13c9281b869e0bd479761" data-rendition-name="original" width="1319" height="783" loading="lazy" alt="Bhatbhateni burning"> </figure>  Min Bahadur Gurung toured the ruins of his stores over the weekend, and said: “Watching the buildings burn felt painful to the core of my heart. But we will rebuild, we will rise again.” Born in Khotang, Gurung came to Kathmandu in the 1980s to open a small grocery. Gifted with a strong business sense, he expanded this into Nepal’s biggest retail empire, employing 20,000 people which became essential for consumer goods all over Nepal. Gurung was also admired as a symbol of success. A homegrown businessman who has invested in Nepal, creating jobs so people do not have to migrate, Gurung has also donated generously to many charities. He built a 72-bed emergency ward at the Teaching Hospital, funded scholarships for students from remote areas, and recently pledged Rs410 million to Bhagwan Koirala’s project to establish the Kathmandu nstitute of Child Health. But in Nepal, high profile success breeds envy, attracts threats and demands of extortion. To his loyal supporters, he’s a self-made visionary, but protester last week did not see it that way.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250918110948_1ec60e598ed202a4c4d68025707029bed12452121183433ad512d06fcb90964f.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250918110948_1ec60e598ed202a4c4d68025707029bed12452121183433ad512d06fcb90964f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1583" height="1350" loading="lazy" alt="Min Bahadur Gurung"> <figcaption>Min Bahadur Gurung</figcaption> </figure>  By the evening of 9 September, Bhat-Bhateni stores were in flames inKathmandu and cities across the country. Whatever Gurung’s faults, it is his 20,000 employees, customers, and small vendors who paid the price. At least six bodies charred beyond recognition have been pulled out of the the Boudha outlet and three in Dharan. Some are said to be employees, others could have been looters trapped in the upper floors. But why does Bhat-Bhateni always end up being in the crosshairs? Some in online discourses say it is a symbol of elite privilege and unchecked corporate power. Others say the arson and looting spree was propelled by envy and greed.&nbsp; No matter the motive, the fallout is real: cashiers, stock handlers, managers, delivery staff have lost their income. Suppliers, transporters and small vendors lose sales, the national economy is dragged down, and the attacks could also drive more Nepalis to migrate for work.&nbsp; WIDESPREAD CONDEMNATION On-site, many Bhat-Bhateni staff cleaning up the debris and ash were reluctant to speak to us. It has been too much of a shock. But online, workers have been puring out their distress.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250918110956_749cb4ae348a15cfe5f11e4b821e7aeee06d7270e6b634065da3c1e42f2f186c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250918110956_749cb4ae348a15cfe5f11e4b821e7aeee06d7270e6b634065da3c1e42f2f186c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Bhatbhateni burning "> <figcaption>Photos: SANGYA LAMSAL</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250918110956_90930fa1218b07aa8e4043cd229ca7907c074bfd152559ad2b9799b8d83e2d12.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250918110956_90930fa1218b07aa8e4043cd229ca7907c074bfd152559ad2b9799b8d83e2d12" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Bhatbhateni burning"> </figure>  From Biratnagar, store employee Smritee Joshi shared a haunting video of the outlet still burning the morning after, writing: ‘This was just a supermarket for some of you, but it was more than home for every employee out there. It sears &nbsp;me to see tears on our team members.’ A user wrote in the subreddit r/Nepal on Reddit: ‘This is going to lead to a major crisis. Yes, Bhat-Bhateni might have insurance and might take care of employees for some time, but this is massive damage. It’s not just one branch, 12 branches have been have been looted and destroyed. Most employees will lose their jobs just before Dasain, and businesses are ruined, all at the time of Dashain.’ TikTok creator SpeakUp with Sandesh rushed to Bhat-Bhateni Kalanki as it reopened, posting a video saying: ‘You managed to burn down Min Bahadur Gurung’s store, but not his fighting spirit. Bhat-Bhateni is back in business!’ In Pokhara, employee Ansu Aana posted a tearful video saying, ‘Bhat-Bhateni gives so many young people jobs. Min Bahadur Gurung gave us a chance to earn for our studies and expenses. I don’t believe Gen Z did this – just before, many were urging not to vandalise. So how could the same people set it on fire? We don’t know who infiltrated the protests.’ Aana added: ‘Ministers and politics created no opportunities for youth in this country, and the one who did give us opportunities had his spirit burnt.’ In another video, she warned looters that CCTV and online evidence were being collected, urging them to return stolen goods before facing legal action. A TikTok page called ‘BhatBhateni Chor’ has nearly 400 followers, which has since exposed those who misused the protests to rob stores.&nbsp; Ironically, some protestors chanting against corruption just hours before were also caught stealing, a hypocrisy viewers and fellow demonstrators have sharply condemned online. Hundreds have taken to Facebook and other platforms to share their feelings. Noted conservationist Shailendra Thakali recalled the supermarket’s humble beginnings, posting: ‘Nearly 30 years ago, when my family lived in Naxal, we shopped at a small kirana pasal near the Bhatbhateni temple. None of us imagined that modest shop would oneday become Nepal’s largest retail chain.’ He adds: “Many of us still see the story, the struggle, and the incredible success behind it all. And we believe it deserves respect.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025091812090_d07cb4b5681f752235727500bdd20759bc2fa6b0f8785db21f906188298bdaea.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025091812090_d07cb4b5681f752235727500bdd20759bc2fa6b0f8785db21f906188298bdaea" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Bhatbhateni burning"> </figure>  The Gurung community has rallied around Bhatbhateni. The Tamu (Gurung) Bouddha Sewa Samit stated: ‘Even after repeated attacks, the supermarket has continued its services uninterrupted. We strongly urge an immediate investigation.’ Likewise, Ekaa Kombucha, Nepal’s first GMP-certified Kombucha brand, declared support: “For countless small and medium businesses like ours, Bhat-Bhateni has been a vital platform, offering space, visibility, and the chance to reach millions across Nepal.’ ‘Amid rising unemployment and capital flight, Bhat-Bhateni has been providing employment to 22,000 youths, not only employment generation, it also significantly continues to contribute to the local economy,’ the Tamu (Gurung) Educational and Career Advancement Network (TECANET) wrote in a statement this week, urging immediate investigation into the destruction of Bhatbhateni and other public and private institutions.&nbsp; Meanwhile, newly appointed Finance Minister Rameshore Khanal visited the heavily damaged Koteswor Bhat-Bhateni on Tuesday, with Min Bahadur Gurung seen walking him through the destruction.

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