From Nepal: Tragic Twist and Troubled Waters

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 Himalaya City Centre, a shopping centre, on Saturday.

Along with some other staff of the revenue office, Shrestha was accused of forging papers to transfer ownership of the land that government had acquired after payment of compensation about 55 years ago to land mafia.  

The same report, quoting DSP Hobindra Bogati, spokesperson, Metropolitan Police Complex, said an investigation is ongoing to establish whether it was a case of suicide or of suspicious death.

Bogati, quoting eyewitnesses and staff of the centre, said (as per the report): We saw (Shrestha) heading straight to the topmost floor of the shopping centre, the eighth floor, and jumping off.

It appears that Shrestha died while being rushed to People’s Hospital, Bogati said.

Water crisis

A report in the Republica daily covers the shortage of water in Surkhet, the provincial capital of Karnali, pointing that the concrete jungle continues to expand despite this shortage.   

Till 2008, as per the report, Surkhet Upatyaka Khanepani Sanstha (SUKS) was able to manage to supply drinking water to 9,000 families of Birendranagar with the estimated population of 52,000. The population has reached two lakh now, but the capacity of the supply system remains the same.

The report, quoting Kulman Devkota, SUKS chairperson, points that authorities have not been able to meet the demand for water that has gone up with new settlements coming up and population growth. 

Probably, this line sums up the crisis facing Surkhet the best: SUKS is currently supplying water only once a day.

Surkhet is just a test case that shows the water crisis facing Nepal. In many parts of the country, schoolchildren have to trek for hours to fetch a pale of water, that too contaminated. In cities, young children and women have to wait for hours at stone spouts to fetch water that's barely enough. Groundwater is getting scarce, wells are drying up and taps are running dry. 

This is because largely because subservient political leadership has already gifted our lifelines, our rivers and streams like the Koshi, the Mahakali, the Gandak, the Arun and the Rapti, among others, to the southern neighbour through very controversial treaties and deals, at the cost of Nepal and the Nepalis. This has tremendously weakened our national sovereignty and water sovereignty.  

Instead of learning from the past, recent buzz in the social media like Twitter indicate that the regime may be wanting to hand over total control of the Koshi river to India by letting it build a high dam project in the Eastern Region. 

High dams are most likely to have huge environmental costs as Nepal lies in a highly seismic region and is vulnerable to natural disasters like quakes, landslides and flooding. 

Here's hoping that better sense will tread with caution to prevent the further weakening of Nepal's water sovereignty by not falling into the trappings of a low-cunning and scheming neighbour.