Listen up! Podcast time

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My new podcast, Nepal Now, is up and running. Please take a listen (above), on the website or in your podcast player.

So far it includes a short introductory trailer that explains my motivations for starting this project. A longer episode features an interview with NayanTara Kakshapati Gurung, a Nepali artist, community activist and organiser.

Nepal Now has been online since 30 June only so it will be a few more days before it appears on some players like Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, but I know it’s already available on Anchor, Spotify (though not available in Nepal) and PocketCasts.

Please listen. If you like what you hear, subscribe or favourite the programme in your podcast player. You can leave a review if you’re feeling really animated by what you heard.

Does Nepal deserve 2nd term at UN Human Rights Council?

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A general view during the 23th Session of the Human Rights Council. 27 May 2013. Photo by Jean-Marc Ferré

Here’s a comprehensive article by Nepali Times. Nepal has been a member of the UN Human Rights Council since 2018 and is now running for a second term; the vote will likely take place at the General Assembly in October. However, many people in the human rights community argue that Nepal shouldn’t be re-elected because of its poor record, both in respecting human rights in Nepal itself and in its work as a council member. This is one issue to follow:

Nepal is running for re-election at the UN Human Rights Council, but has not done enough to protect rights

On 20 June 2019 Kumar Poudel was found dead, reportedly shot in the head, in Lalbandi-1, Chandranagar Forest in Sarlahi district, in what Nepal Police said was a shootout. He was in charge of the Netra Bikram Chand (‘Biplab’)-led Communist Party of Nepal in Sarlahi, and a probe by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) called it an extrajudicial killing, recommending criminal charges against three police officers.

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Don’t mourn the death of internationalism — look harder

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A shorter version of this article was published in the Nepali Times, but this one includes the role of the media, a point I had to cut from the published version because it was too long. Please let me know if you agree.

© Diwakar Chettri

COVID-19 is laying waste to international cooperation as well as health systems. Countries have retreated into themselves, barring makers of medical equipment from exporting goods and in some cases hijacking shipments en route to other countries. The Trump administration has exited the World Health Organization (WHO) and is leading an attack on the organisation’s credibility. Internationalism is on its deathbed.  

Or is it?

It’s a conclusion you can easily draw from media reports, which thrive on drama and conflict. “During this global pandemic there’s been precious little sign of intergovernmental collaboration and collective leadership. Instead the worldwide response has been characterized by national self-interest, mutual suspicion and recrimination,” intoned Stephen Sackur, host of BBC’s HardTalk, while interviewing former UK Foreign Minister David Miliband recently.

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Covid-19 cases soar in Nepal as migrant workers return from India

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People returning from India, line up at the border point in Birgunj, on Wednesday, 27 May 2020. Photo: Ram Sarraf/THT

The wait-and-see is over. Many of us living in Kathmandu have speculated during the past four months about where and when multiple cases of Covid-19 would finally appear after Nepal confirmed its first infection on 23 January, a student from from the disease’s epicentre in Wuhan. Small numbers of infected people have been sneaking across the Indian border despite it being closed since 24 March, but this week the trickle became a surge.

As many as 7,500 people are now crossing into Nepal daily, according to media reports. Some are not being screened for the coronavirus or put into quarantine, and of those who are being confined, some say conditions are not safe or comfortable and that they are not being provided food.

The returnees are some of the roughly 2 million Nepalis forced to migrate to India for months and even years at a time because they can’t earn livelihoods at home. Many are daily wage earners, whose work dried up soon after India went into lockdown on 24 March and have been making their way homeward ever since. Some have been forced to wait for weeks at the Indian border.

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‘We have failed’ new mothers

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Members of a mothers group in Banke district, Nepal, 2018. © Marty Logan

When will a Nepali leader apologise for the 1,200-plus women who die giving birth yearly?

The headline of this story refers to Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli, who a couple of weeks ago admitted in Parliament that his government had failed to prevent COVID-19 deaths. (As I write this Nepal has four COVID deaths). When the article was published on the Nepali Times website the headline was changed, removing that point. Regardless, too many women, and other Nepalis, continue dying because of the broken health system.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Nepal’s first COVID-19 death was that of a new mother. It was startling to learn that Prime Minister Oli admitted in Parliament on Tuesday that Nepal’s two coronavirus deaths to date represent a failure of his government. This raises the question: when will a leader apologise for the more than 1,200 women who die every year giving birth? Continue reading →

Providing better food might be easiest part of tackling malnutrition

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Two men heading home with rice delivered by the World Food Programme to Kolti, Bajura in 2006.

Two men heading home with rice delivered by the World Food Programme to Kolti, Bajura district, in 2006. ©Marty Logan

In this article I tried to stress how complex it is for Nepal to tackle malnutrition because its causes are tightly linked to other factors such as education status and poverty. Despite great progress in the past couple of decades it looks unlikely that the government will meet the global malnutrition targets for 2025. 

The article was published on Nepali Times as Food for thought for Nepal’s nutrition planners.  

‘Young children suffering from undernutrition have poorer school achievement, diminished cognitive and language ability, and more behavioural problems… Adults who were malnourished in childhood have less economic productivity and increased incidence of health problems.’

Malnutrition has long been identified as a major barrier to development in Nepal, and other low-income countries. The solution seems obvious: ensure that children eat enough of a balanced diet so they get the needed proteins, vitamins and minerals.

Two recent projects set out to do just that. The first provided animal source foods (meat, fish, eggs and dairy), vegetables and a diverse diet to children in low-income farming households in Nepal’s Banke district, the second helped women in Bajura to grow vegetables in kitchen gardens. Both succeeded, but would have done even better if the target families didn’t face so many other obstacles to success. Continue reading →

Top court rebuffs Nepal government. Will credible transitional justice follow?

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Suman Adhikari poses with a photo of his father Muktinath,

Suman Adhikari poses with a photo of his father Muktinath, one of the 17,000 victims of Nepal’s conflict, 1996-2006. © Marty Logan

This week the Supreme Court of Nepal rejected the government’s attempt to strike down the court’s own 2015 decision directing the government to follow international standards in delivering transitional justice.

The big question now is: will the Government of Nepal finally live up to its many pledges to provide justice to survivors and families of victims of the conflict 14 years after the government-Maoist civil war ended?

In 2015 the Supreme Court directed the government to amend its Transitional Justice Act to meet global standards. Specifically, it was told to remove amnesty for those accused of the most serious crimes committed during the civil war, which killed roughly 17,000 Nepalis from 1996 to 2006. Those crimes include torture, rape and other sexual violence and ill-treatment and enforced disappearance.
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Covid-19 lockdown stretching small-scale relief efforts in Nepal

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Covid_fundraising_Workers at KAVACH who usually produce motorcycle clothing prepare PPEs ©KAVACH

Women wearing personal protective equipment make PPEs for front-line workers in Nepal at KAVACH, a maker of motorcycle gear that has completely refocused its production line to help make up the shortage of medical equipment during the pandemic. ©KAVACH

This article was published on nepalitimes.com on 24 April as Helping the helpless during lockdown. It features six organisations that are providing food and other essential items, mainly to the poorest of the poor. I’m sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, more groups in Nepal also contributing in this way. It is a bright spot in a gloomy situation as the country is far from prepared for a major outbreak of the Coronavirus.

Raj Kumar Mahato launched the Covid-19 relief campaign of BHORE with Rs200,000 from his own pocket but doesn’t know where the NGO will find money to continue providing essential items for the ultra-poor, Nita Raut has spent all but Rs4,500 of the Rs78,000 she raised and says she will donate her own salary if necessary to provide food to Kathmandu’s poorest and Sano Paila, an NGO, is dipping into its savings to continue relief work in the eastern Terai.

Budgets of small organisations providing relief to needy people in Nepal are being squeezed dry as the lockdown continues but all of them say they are determined to keep working.

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Shape up the lockdown in Nepal

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My local market in Kathmandu on 17 April. © Marty Logan

Finally in the past two weeks Nepal has started testing larger numbers of people, using so-called ‘rapid diagnostic tests’, although the total is still less than 20,000. That is one of the few bright spots in the government’s response to the pandemic since the first case was confirmed here on 24 Jan. So far the country has been very lucky but it’s time to stop taking the good fortune for granted and get serious about the ongoing lockdown.

The following was published on the Nepali Times website on 17 April:

Shape up the lockdown in Nepal

Going through the motions to quarantine people or wearing masks haphazardly will not help to prevent a devastating outbreak

When I read a few days ago that China and India were willing to provide medical equipment and medicine to Nepal I did a double-take. Surely, this isn’t news, I thought — I’m certain that the giant neighbours would have responded positively to such a request a month, or even two months ago, when it was blatantly obvious that Nepal lacked masks, Covid-19 tests and other materials needed to prevent an outbreak. Of course, what did make it headline-worthy was that the recent inquiry had come from the Nepal Army.

I have no medical training, but given the utter failure of the government to react to the shortage in a timely manner, and to get the big things right more broadly, I think that the smaller ways in which we all react to the threat are going to take on a larger dimension. Yet what I’m seeing in my neighbourhood, and in the media, does not give me confidence.

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COVID-19 limbo in Nepal

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A typical scene in Kathmandu, which has been under lockdown since 24 March. © Marty Logan

With only 16 cases detected since January, how seriously are Nepalis preparing for the pandemic?

Nepal’s long land border with India (1,800 kilometres) is usually open, so that citizens of both countries can come and go easily without visas and usually with little notice from the police posted at entry points. On March 24 India closed that border, along with all other access to the country of 1.4 billion people. The same day Nepal also declared a ‘lockdown’ and barred all entries. But it’s been estimated that there are 500 official and unofficial entry points along the imaginary line between the two countries and in the days before and after the lockdowns as close to half a million Nepalis living in India crossed home, according to the Nepali Times newspaper.

Since Nepal’s first case of COVID-19 was detected in January the country has tested just over 6,000 people. Yet only 15 other cases have been detected, and no one has died of the coronavirus. How can that be? is the question that everyone is asking, including officials in the ministry of health.

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