HELLO NEPAL

The Himalayan Times 26 September 2019 Politics for development The number of political parties that mushroomed during the transitional phase got completely downsized following the three tiers of general elections held in accordance with the new constitution. The then UML and the NCP-Maoist fought the elections under an alliance and won almost two-thirds majority seats, pushing the Nepali Congress to the opposition bench. Other political parties also suffered heavily. However, some of them survived, securing lesser seats than they had gained during the CA elections.    But to the common people, it does not make difference which political party reaches the political helm, provided that they democratically run the nation, give good governance, abide by the constitution, respect human rights, punish the corrupt, maintain social and cultural age-old harmony, provide equal equity of the fruit of development, maintain proper law and order, generate job opportu...

Enjoying a short term consultant job with a research project initiated in Nepal by the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention (CPSP) formed under the auspices of the University of Edinburgh. Its aim is to identify the highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) currently responsible for the majority of pesticide suicides in selected sites in Nepal. Had a wonderful opportunity to interact with a number of pesticide vendors in Banke, Chitwan, Kavre and Kathmandu and to know about the pros and cons of pesticides. Nepal government has banned until now 21 HHPs which were very harmful to human health. There are still two more toxic pesticides, namely: Zinc Phosphide and Aluminium Phosphide, which are easily accessible and available in the pesticide shops and are being used for committing suicide. Hope the government will ban these two toxic pesticides in near future which will definitely help to reduce the number of pesticide suicide.

The Himalayan Times 19 September 2019 Improve performance Nepal should have been at this time politically strong, considering the presence of a two-thirds majority government in place in its almost seven-decade-long political history. None of the past governments had such a powerful mandate. This government has completed almost fifteen months with not much to show the people as critics are frequently putting forward their opinions. What is preventing this strong government in running the country with good governance? Why has this government been widely criticized? Why has this powerful government not been able to deliver even the minimum level of services to meet the people’s expectation? It is natural for the people to have high expectation from the government of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which was able to garner almost two-thirds of the votes in the last general election. However, it is losing its credibility day-by-day for its poor performance in ...

The Himalayan Times 12 September 2019 Worrying social problems People are worried by the increasing number of suicide cases in the country. Little effort is being made by the concerned department of the government to address this burning social issue. Worrying and talking about this burning issue is one thing, however, unless necessary and appropriate measures are taken, the number of suicide cases in Nepal will continue to rise. Nepal is among the top 10 suicide-prone countries in the world and ranks seventh in terms of suicide cases.   Suicide is an act of taking one’s own life which is very painful for the family members, relatives and friends. It is not see or know what a person is feeling inside. So, it may not be always easy to identify when someone is having suicidal thoughts . There can be several reasons someone decides to take his or her own life. For this, I think, timely identification of the reasons and appropriate treatment may be helpful in prev...

The Himalayan Times 5 September 2019 Who is responsible? Nepal has been enjoying federalism for the last one and half years. All the people had a high hope of seeing “New Nepal” as promised by the major political parties before and after the promulgation of new constitution. But, there does not seem to be seen any sign of it until now. It might be that at that time, how the “New Nepal” would like was not properly categorized or defined. Due to that reason, may be people had high expectation from the new structure, bearing in their mind that the major political parties would be sincere to them and fulfill their promises.  Now, almost every-day, we watch, read and hear about people from every walk of life showing and expressing their grievances and dissatisfaction over the poor governance, be it at the federal, provincial and local levels. Almost all the government institutions, political institutions, educational institutions, health institutions and so on ar...