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If Daniel Kahneman struggles every day to overcome his biases, there isn’t much hope for the rest of us. All of us like to validate our preconceived notions, inserting selective reasons to justify our ends. That’s how we are built. Yet it is possible to spot biases, if after the fact, and to resist from making the most egregious errors of judgment. Social science would otherwise be pointless, and all news and views useless. This is why curtailing free speech is never a good idea as well. Even from seemingly discordant cacophony of biased voices, a sliver of nuance can—and does—often emerge. 

Yet what we see is creeping danger to free speech, around the world, and increasingly in South Asia. Perhaps the situation is the worst in Bangladesh, where 13 journalists have been killed in their line of duty since 1992. India is catching up. The Modi government has effectively bought off or co-opted India’s most major media houses. With the new laws on online media and social media, even the few remaining critical outlets could be silenced. To hit home its point, celebrities who have criticized the government have been framed for crimes. 

The situation in Nepal is troubling as well. Existing or proposed laws curb the freedom of online media outlets and criminalize social media posts the government deems inappropriate. Another troubling trend is also taking hold. If you write or broadcast something that doesn’t chime with biases of social influencers, the latter often go into a rabid attack-mode. The goal becomes not to engage in vigorous debates on important topics, but to shame and silence those they disagree with. In the end, what ends up happening are not so much informed debates as shouting matches over social media. This, of course, only gives the illiberal government an added excuse to regulate unruly online outlets and views.

But whatever the case, functioning democracy and regulated speech just don’t go together. Principally, freedom of speech should be absolute. Once you start regulating it, you are on a slippery slope. Practically, only the speech that overtly promotes violence, disturbs inter-communal harmony, and dehumanizes people of certain class, faith and gender should be out of bounds. Monitoring ‘foul language’ and ‘sensitive content’ is, in a way, dehumanizing people. Strong emotions and biases are part and parcel of being human—and you cannot regulate human nature.    

What was your biggest childhood career dream?

Getting into some technical field, like engineering.

What three things could you never live without?
Music, family and my dreams. 

What is your proudest accomplishment yet?
I have lots. Like my first national level award—the Hits FM Music Awards, then representing Nepal as a gymnast at the 16th Asian Games, and getting appointed as a TU lecturer.

If you could go back in time, what year would you travel to?

2060 BS. There are many things I could change from that year.

If you could win an Olympic medal for any sport, real or fake, what would it be?

Gymnastics, of course.

What is your favorite thing about someone in your family?

My mother’s passion and determination in whatever she does.

Do you believe in love at first sight?
Yes. But it hasn’t happened to me yet.

How old were you when you had your worst hair-cut, and what style was it?
Recent one during the lockdown. I had to go bald. Not giving out my age though.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Nepal, anytime, but with a better political scenario.

If you had to choose a perpetually cold or hot place to live, what would you choose?
“Hot” is more tolerable in my book.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Nepal pulled the country back from the brink when it deemed unconstitutional Prime Minister KP Oli’s decision to dissolve the federal lower house. Now it has undone that historic decision by dissolving the merger between the erstwhile CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center), by going beyond its jurisdiction. The forced unravelling of the communist merger could have all kinds of unforeseen consequences, most of them undesirable.  

Nepalis were buoyed by the apex court ruling reinstating the dissolved house, forestalling a constitutional vacuum. They applauded the judiciary which, despite pressure from the executive, had stood its ground: they were reassured that at least one state organ was politically unsullied and functioning in line with democratic norms.

No more. There is hardly a lawyer or constitutional expert who thinks the apex court made a sound decision this time. The overwhelming view among the legal community is that the court went beyond its jurisdiction in ruling the communist merger illegal, when all that it had been asked to do was decide if the name Nepal Communist Party (NCP) belonged to one Rishiram Kattel, and if the unified communist party jointly led by Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal had unjustly appropriated it.

In these troubled times when the executive has lost its mandate and the legislative has been in limbo, the apex court had the all-important role of keeping alive the flames of democracy. But its questionable verdict will add to public skepticism, not just of the judiciary but of the whole democratic apparatus. The verdict also opens up a political can of worms. The ruling is sure to be challenged. Erstwhile leaders UML leaders Jhalanath Khanal and Madhav Kumar Nepal have said they will return to the UML fold. There are also ex-Maoist leaders in Oli’s UML. Their fate is unclear. Nor is that of the Speaker of the House as well as those appointed to the National Assembly, the federal upper house.

Worse, if all the important decisions the NCP took are to be rendered invalid retrospectively, as now seems possible, just about everything the party-led government did over the past three years would be open to questioning. It will also set a dangerous precedent of largely political questions being settled by the judiciary.

The iconic Dharahara at Sundhara in Kathmandu, which collapsed during the April 2015 earthquake, is now in the final stages of its rebuilding. Prime Minister KP Oli has shown special interest in the ‘Historic Dharahara Reconstruction’ project that is being undertaken by the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA). During his first term as prime minister, Oli had in February 2016 announced the Mero Dharahara Ma Banaunchu (‘I will construct my Dharahara’) fundraising campaign. Oli, during his second stint as prime minister, laid the foundation stone for the new Dharahara on 28 December 2019. The project is a rare work of government undertaking making rapid progress. Construction continued even during the lockdown. Previously a nine-story tower built by Bhimsen Thapa in 1832 as a watchtower, the new Dharahara will have 22 stories, but the architectural style will be the same as the old one. The new tower will have a bigger diameter and a height of 72 meters, and have two elevators along with traditional stairs leading to the top. Being built at an estimated Rs 3.48 billion over 2.8 acres, the reconstructed Dharahara will have a garden, a museum, a color fountain, an exhibition hall, a parking lot, and shops inside its premises.

This newspaper had supported the ban on the Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplob’-led Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) after the group orchestrated a couple of blasts in the national capital at the start of 2019. The outfit was behaving less like a political party and more like a terror group. Its political existence should be recognized and formal negotiations for its mainstreaming should begin only when it unconditionally laid down arms, we had argued. The government seemed to agree. Today, the party is still to formally renounce violence and yet the same government that banned the outfit has started talking to it.

Whatever our earlier reservations, we would be happy if these talks led to a peaceful settlement of the CPN’s misguided armed revolt against the state. And in politics you can never rule out any outcome. Yet the timing of the current talks suggests the KP Oli-led government reached out to the armed group as the Nepal Communist Party faction Oli leads was running out of options. The Supreme Court put paid to Oli’s plans for snap polls. Now he is looking to shore up political support from anywhere he can get it, including from the radical left and the radical right.  

The NCP’s Oli faction has sent feelers to the pro-royalist Rastriya Prajatantra Party as the prime minister seeks to project himself as a savior of all Hindus in Nepal. The faction, meanwhile, is also courting disqualified Maoist fighters and now Chand’s outfit. If Oli wants to join hands with these forces under the status quo, he risks putting the country’s recent progressive gains in jeopardy. His government must also explain why it banned Chand in the first place if talks were to be later held with no change in the CPN’s violent modus operandi. 

If the armed comrades want to join peaceful politics, they should be welcomed with open arms. After all, the long and bloody Maoist insurgency would not have ended had the then insurgents not been given a space in mainstream politics. Yet right now many suspect Oli’s goal could simply be to use the muscle-power of Chand’s militia to hound and harass the leaders and cadres of the NCP’s rival Dahal-Nepal faction. If so, the already worrying state of criminalization of Nepali politics could get worse, and even as the victims of the Maoist war await justice, the use of violence will once again be legitimized.  

What’s something you’d like to talk about but no one asks?

May be about my long-lost hobby, i.e. indoor gardening.

Where would you travel if you knew you would have to stay there for up to a year?

New Zealand. After watching Falling in Love (1984), I am so tempted to experience its rural lifestyle.

In one word, what is the greatest challenge you have faced in your career?

Undermined.

Do you like surprises?

Of course I like surprises but only pleasant ones. Who doesn’t like momentary excitement?

Who would you want to be stranded with on a deserted island?

Obviously with my daughter.

If you could go back in time to change one thing in your life, what would it be?

I won’t. I own all my imperfection and mistakes. They have helped me be a better person.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of love?

Giving up sleep...

If you were the ruler of your own country what would be the first law you would make?

Free health care access for every citizen.

What is the favorite part about your career?

Meeting people from diverse walks of life and learning from them.

If you could win an Olympic medal for a sport, real or imaginary, what would it be?

I donno. I can’t think of real games but if there were medals for marathon talking, I can bag at least a bronze.

These are nearly hopeless times. Our lives have been thrown asunder by the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic and health crises. Perhaps millions of Nepalis have lost their jobs or are making do with a fraction of their pre-Covid pay. There is uncertainty and misgivings about vaccines: are all the real and rumored side-effects worth the trouble? In these otherwise gloomy times, the Supreme Court verdict on the evening of Feb 23 restoring the dissolved lower house of the federal parliament provides a rare ray of hope.

The verdict suggests at least one of the three main organs of the state is still functional and above partisanship. More than that, the verdict has prevented the country from plunging into a serious constitutional crisis. Had the apex court vetted the decision to dissolve the parliament on dubious constitutional grounds, the country’s rulers would have been given a carte blanche to abuse the national charter; and the barely five-year-old constitution would have lost most of its legitimacy.

The current government has done precious little to institutionalize federalism, the bedrock of the new constitution. Instead, the focus has been on centralizing powers by impinging on the jurisdictions of provincial and local-level governments. Appointments to top constitutional bodies were made arbitrarily. A culture of demonizing political opponents was recklessly promoted. Meanwhile, civil liberties were progressively curtailed. Things only got worse without a parliament to check government excesses.

The Supreme Court has put the derailed political and democratic process back on track. The five judges who issued the verdict on Feb 23 must be lauded for upholding rule of law. But wasn’t it their job? It was. Yet their brave, principled stand must be lauded in these partisan times when nearly every state organ has been thoroughly politicized.  

Due process must now be restored and the next course of action left to the sovereign parliament. We already hear rumors of dirty horse-trading as the jockeying to form the next government has started. Complicating the picture will be the uncertainty of the NCP’s status as a single party. Yet we can all take heart from the restoration of Nepali people’s supreme representative body, and from the message that no one, however powerful, is above the law.

Getting people to take Covid-19 seriously has been tough right around the world, and it’s no different in Nepal. Even during the four months of rather strict lockdown from March to June 2020, you could spot plenty of people milling about as if things were perfectly fine. Not only did they abjure masks, they crowded public places and spat with impunity.

Things have only gotten worse following the end of the official lockdown. Most government, business and education establishments have reopened, as have public transport services. With every passing day, fewer and fewer people can be seen in masks, even as our public buses and microbuses are again brimful with passengers.

Perhaps the availability of vaccines makes them doubly complacent. But then as of this writing under five percent of the country’s population had gotten the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, of around 500,000 registered vehicles in Kathmandu valley, most are back on the road. Social distancing and masks are mandatory on public transport and yet hardly anyone seems to be following these anti-corona norms.
In this photo story, we try to capture the unruly and crowded state of Kathmandu valley’s public transport, which is perhaps the biggest spreader of the virus.