चाेखाे माया डट कम: जन्मभूमि नेपाल र नेपालीहरूमा समर्पित

Introduced without much fanfare (ribbon cutting, coconut smashing, big promises and all that jazz), this column aims to offer a cursory reading of news reports appearing mainly in the Nepali print media. Though no big name in the Nepali media firmament, yours truly will try through this forum to offer an unbiased and insightful analysis of the stories by not discriminating against any publication big or small. The effort will be on coming up with this column daily, though yours truly admits that the task will not be that easy for a juggler. Hope you all will be with yours truly through thick and thin.  Yogesh Bhattarai is in the news today after his appointment as Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation. Bhattarai (53) looks younger than his age. Be that as it may: Even a cursory reading of his political career (from what appeared in the Nepali media today) suggests that he has come a long way from his home village in Taplejung to a position of power in th...

Introduced without much fanfare (ribbon cutting, coconut smashing, big promises and all that jazz), this column aims to offer a cursory reading of news reports appearing mainly in the Nepali print media. Though no big name in the Nepali media firmament, yours truly will try through this forum to offer an unbiased and insightful analysis of the stories by not discriminating against any publication big or small. The effort will be on coming up with this column daily, though yours truly admits that the task will not be that easy for a juggler. Hope you all will be with yours truly through thick and thin.  Too little, too late In disaster situations in Nepal, relief for the victims is too little and too late. In most of the cases, those with political clout have an upper hand in relief even when others’ needs may be greater than theirs. The Kathmandu Post daily  has run a report  portraying a sorry picture of relief distribution in Province 1 of the federal republic...

Introduced without much fanfare, this column aims to offer a cursory reading of news reports appearing mainly in the Nepali print media. Though no big name in the Nepali media firmament, yours truly will try through this forum to offer an unbiased and insightful analysis of the stories by not discriminating against any publication big or small. The effort will be on coming up with this column daily, though yours truly admits that the task will not be that easy for a juggler. Hope you all will be with yours truly through thick and thin.  Kathmandu: A team from the State Affairs Committee of Nepal's Parliament has made a kind of groundbreaking 'discovery'.  On the basis of a recent field visit conducted to different affected parts of the country, the committee has come to the conclusion that India-built dams are to blame for inundation of Nepali territories.  Apparently, this is understatement of the problem that Nepal has been facing for decades.  Ev...

Introduced without much fanfare, this column aims to offer a cursory reading of news reports appearing mainly in the Nepali print media. Though no big name in the Nepali media firmament, yours truly will try through this forum to offer an unbiased and insightful analysis of the stories by not discriminating against any publication big or small. The effort will be on coming up with this column daily, though yours truly admits that the task will not be that easy for a juggler. Hope you all will be with yours truly through thick and thin.  Tragic twist in Lalita Niwas Scam The Lalita Niwas land scam, which has already drawn some big-time politicos into controversy, is becoming more suspicious with the death of a former Nayab Subba (non-gazetted officer) of the Dilli Bazaar Land Revenue Office, in suspicious circumstances. According to a report in the Naya Patrika daily , Yukta Prasad Shrestha (54) died after falling from the seventh floor of the Samakhushi-based Himalay...

Introduced without much fanfare, this column aims to offer a cursory reading of news reports appearing mainly in the Nepali print media. Though no big name in the Nepali media firmament, yours truly will try through this forum to offer an unbiased and insightful analysis of the stories by not discriminating against any publication big or small. The effort will be on coming up with this column daily, though yours truly admits that the task will not be that easy for a juggler. Hope you all will be with yours truly through thick and thin.  Natural disasters No, they are no lead stories of our vernacular dailies today, but they surely show how vulnerable we are to natural disasters and how we should tread with caution when it comes to developing physical infrastructure. It's a pity that the government is throwing caution in the wind and thinking of even opting for high dam-based, export-oriented multipurpose projects like the Saptakoshi high dam project that will i...

Introduced without much fanfare, this column aims to offer a cursory reading of news reports appearing mainly in the Nepali print media. Though no big name in the Nepali media firmament, yours truly will try through this forum to offer an unbiased and insightful analysis of the stories by not discriminating against any publication big or small. The effort will be on coming up with this column daily, though yours truly admits that the task will not be that easy for a juggler. Hope you all will be with yours truly through thick and thin.   Lemme start with a piece of good news selected from among Nepali dailies published on July 27, 2019.  Course Correction The Naya Patrika daily writes in its front page lead story that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is opting for some sort of course correction. Indeed, it had been quite sometime since the chief of the executive had stopped his trademark tirade against the opposition and other critics. It had been days like he...

The Koshi barrage (2015) is but just one template of unequal and not-so-friendly relations subsisting between Nepal and India for decades. Perhaps no other country has been sold down the river like Nepal, at the hands of her politicos, through unequal water treaties with its southern neighbour   Every monsoon, flooding and landslides occur in Nepal without fail. And every year without fail, our government fails to put measures in place to reduce loss of life/property during these disasters.  This year too, the monsoon has created havoc in Nepal, leaving scores already dead and causing loss of farmland and infrastructure worth a fortune.  About these losses, our own politicos with sensitivities of the southern neighbour in mind even at the cost of the well-being of Nepal and the Nepalis, can endlessly argue that mindless development works, undertaken with utter disregard for Nepal's fragile landscape, are mainly to blame for the national tragedy that rep...

  निवीड अन्धकारकाे  एकछत्र शासन चलेकाे बेला तारा टिलपिल  गरेकाे देख्नु पनि दुर्लभ हुन्छ    (गुरूपूर्णिमाकाे छेक पारेर नयाँ केही लेख्न नसकेकाेले एउटा पुरानाे लेख पुनः प्रकाशित गरेकाे छु, सन्दर्भ मिलाएर पढिदिनुहाेला पाठकगण) संस्कृत शब्द गुरूको महिमा साँच्चै अपरम्पार छ, सद्गुरूको महिमा जस्तै । संस्कृत–नेपाली शब्दकोशले यस शब्दको १५ थरी परिभाषा दिएको छ । यसैबाट स्पष्ट हुन्छ यो शब्द कति गुरूगम्भीर छ । ती पन्ध्रथरी परिभाषा मध्ये एउटाले गुरूलाई अज्ञानको नाश गर्ने व्यक्तिको रूपमा अथ्र्याएको छ, अविद्यारूपी अन्धकार नष्ट गर्ने व्यक्ति भनेको छ । इतिहास साक्षी छ, नेपाली समाजले ज्ञानलाई असाध्यै महत्व दिँदै आएको हो । अज्ञानको निविड अन्धकारबाट मुक्त गरेर समाजलाई ज्ञानले प्रकाशित गर्ने व्यक्तिलाई सम्मान गर्ने चलन हामीले विरासतमै पाएका हौँ । दुःखको कुरा हामीले यो गौरव गर्न लायक परम्परालाई कायम गर्न सकिरहेका छैनौँ । पश्चिमाहरूले नलेज–बेस्ड सोसाइटी अर्थात् ज्ञानमा आधारित समाजको महिमागान गर्नुभन्दा धेरै अघिदेखि नै हाम्रा अग्रजहरूले ज्ञानप्राप्तिका लागि जस्तोसुकै कष्ट उठ...

This past week, yours truly spent some spare time studying about about and thinking about the following things.  Orientalism: Edward W Said's seminal book points that Orientalism is a western construct. Its premise, as far as yours truly understands, is that Western scholars involved in the study of this construct take orientals as an inferior race, as peoples, who need to be saved by westerners as they don't know what is good for them and what is not.  Said's Orientalism is centred around the biased, preconceived view of the Islamic world, seats of ancient civilisation like Egypt and Syria. Said, citing Western scholars' works, points that the latter do not take oriental men and women in high esteem. In the eyes of these scholars, the Orient is far inferior in comparison to the Occident.  Edison vs Tesla: Listening to the National Geographic documentary on the two great inventors -- Thomas Alba Edison and Nikola Tesla -- was indeed enlightening for yo...

The lazy, jaundiced, malnourished baby Sun is consistently late at 'school'.  The neighbourhood shopkeeper sets a small heap of waste consisting mostly of plastics on fire. Acrid fumes from the diminishing heap mix with smog sweeping through the Nagarjun Hills, diminishing further the small pleasure of morning walk through the countryside.  On cue, the lazy, jaundiced and malnourished baby called the Sun appears, drenched in the rains, perhaps taking the soot from the shopkeeper’s heap of waste as some ancient fire ritual dedicated to him.  These days, the Sun looks like one of those schoolchildren, who always arrives late in class and is found snoozing all too often. Is it partying too much these days? Or is its chariot broken?  The Sun’s chariot? Lemme do some explaining.  As per scriptures, in those good ole days, the Sun used to thunder through the high skies, seated on its blazing chariot pulled by seven horses -- the planets. May be the...

Perhaps this striving won't last long, for yours truly has a very short memory like many other fellow Nepali nationals. Wondering what yours truly is talking about? Well, he is talking about ways to avoid vegetables and fruits imported from across the border out of fear that most of them may contain chemicals harmful for human health. With the two-third majority KP Oli government allowing the virtually unhindered entry of vegetables and fruits from the southern neighbour by buckling under pressure and relaxing their testing for residues, the onus now is on the consumers themselves to protect their health. Yours truly feels pity that the government of a sovereign country has failed to do even what the Indian state of Sikkim has done by not allowing the entry of vegetables and fruits from outside.  In these times, awareness of perils of consuming such freely-imported vegetables and fruits and exploration of healthy alternatives are a must to keep us healthy.  Keepi...