Submit your Article

The ‘second wave’ of covid had us shutting ourselves for months again. Now that everything around us is opening, including restaurants and cafes, we still advise you to exercise caution and try to limit your excursions to outdoor venues only.

Talking about outdoor venues, we highly recommend our favorite ‘Calm’ at Tangalwood. The host for two editions of ‘The Annapurna Express Music Festival,’ Calm is now a redesigned restaurant under new management that offers a unique selection of food, drinks and desserts. The multicuisine restaurant has been exploring fusion food and by the reviews we’ve read, it seems to be working.

The best part, almost 70 percent of its seating arrangement is outdoors and it has plenty of parking space to accommodate your rides even on the busiest days.

Not open for breakfast yet, Calm is an excellent choice for brunches, afternoon snacks and even late-night dinners.

Calm, Tangalwood
Tangal, Kathmandu
Cards: Accepted
Opening time: 12pm to 12am
For reservations: 014443904
Meal for two: Rs 2,000

Chef’s Special:
Sambal Prawn Pasta
Buff Sukuti Risotto

Cultivating and protecting our well-being is deeply personal. It requires us to check in with ourselves regularly and be open to whatever we may need to feel less stressed, more fulfilled, and generally at ease. In this guide to well-being, you’ll explore nine habits to integrate into your daily life that will serve as helpful tools in sustaining emotional wellness.

Meditation 

Meditation is exploring. It’s not a fixed destination. Your head doesn’t become vacuumed free of thought, utterly undistracted. It’s a special place where each and every moment is momentous. When we meditate we venture into the workings of our minds: our sensations (air blowing on our skin or a harsh smell wafting into the room), our emotions (love this, hate that, crave this, loathe that) and thoughts (wouldn’t it be weird to see an elephant playing a trumpet?).

Mindfulness meditation asks us to suspend judgment and unleash our natural curiosity about the workings of the mind, approaching our experience with warmth and kindness to ourselves and others.

Meditation does not take any single form. Instead, meditation is a term that describes an array of practices designed to cultivate well-being. Most of these practices fall within three broad categories:

• Focused-attention meditation: The aim here is to train the mind’s capacity for concentration and awareness of the present moment by focusing on a single point of attention (such as the breath). If you are new to meditation, this is a good place to begin.

• Open awareness meditation: Rather than focusing on a specific object of attention, in this form of meditation you keep your field of awareness open, allowing you to simply observe your thoughts and thereby become less reactive to emotions and sensory experiences. This is a more advanced practice, as it requires a certain level of mental stability to watch thoughts, emotions, and sensations move through the mind without getting hooked by them.

• Loving-kindness meditation: The aim of this practice is to cultivate deep compassion for all beings, starting with oneself and then extending compassion to friends and family, to people you find difficult, and eventually to all beings. 

Benefits of meditation

1.       Increased resilience: Meditation is associated with a reduction in activity in the part of the brain (the amygdala) that reacts to stress. This enhances our ability to stay calm and responsive in the midst of stressful situations.

2.       Increased focus: Meditation activates additional circuits in the brain that allow for sharper and more efficient concentration.

3.       Decreased mind wandering: Meditation reduces moments when our attention wanders away from what is happening here and now.

4.       Enhanced pain tolerance: From a practical standpoint, mindfulness for pain relief could be a cost-effective option that doesn’t rely on potentially harmful or addictive drugs, and that doesn’t appear to have a plateau point.

5.       Enhanced immunity: Meditation has been found to reduce markers of inflammation in the body and to strengthen the response of the immune system.

10-minute guide for meditation

1. First, feel your bottom on the seat, and your feet on the floor or the ground, flat, touching the earth. Your eyes can be open or closed, head tilted slightly down. Your shoulders are relaxed, your hands are resting on your thighs and your upper arms are parallel to your torso. Just take a moment to feel that posture. 

2. Now we’re going to use the breath as an anchor for our attention. We don’t concern ourselves with trying to adjust the rate of the breath, we just come with whatever breath we have.

3. One of the first things we notice naturally as we try to pay attention to breath coming in and out is our mind is filled with thoughts. It’s like a waterfall of thoughts. And in mindfulness practice, just notice the thought. Touch it, and go back to the breath.

4. No matter what’s been going on in the session, you don’t need to evaluate it, just let it go. As the session ends, open your eyes, and enjoy what’s coming next.

Mindful.org

French national Arnaud Cauchois has been appointed the new country director of Asian Development Bank (ADB) for Nepal.

Cauchois will lead ADB operations in the country and participate in policy dialogue with the government of Nepal and other development partners. He will also oversee the implementation of ADB's country partnership strategy for Nepal that focuses on the country's long-term development needs through improved infrastructure for private sector-led growth, improved access to devolved services, and environmental sustainability and resilience.

Cauchois has almost three decades of professional experience, including over 15 years with ADB. He joined ADB in 2005 as a rural development specialist and has since held numerous leading positions. Before this appointment, he served as principal water resources specialist for India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and was posted in ADB's India resident mission.

Sajjan Raj Vaidya finally released his new single Parkhaai on Friday, July 9, and the response so far has been overwhelming. Within two days of the release, the official teaser for the song’s music video has garnered over 120,000 views on his Instagram. 

Following its release on YouTube, Vaidya’s video has received more than 300,000 views, with most of the feedback being positive. For fans, this has been a much-awaited release. 

In the teaser of Parkhaai, Vaidya writes, ‘This song is about making promises, in full awareness and consciousness, and withholding those promises against all odds and amidst full uncertainty, with one’s voice within himself that says, ‘Keep waiting!’”

Shining in the rain: The newly completed 51.45m-long and 12m-wide arc bridge at Bijuli Bazar, Kathmandu, is reflected on a puddle nearby, following a heavy rainfall on the night of July 13. According to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) the monsoon this year arrived on July 1, a week earlier than usual, and is expected to leave the country only on September 23 | Pratik Rayamajhi 

Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd contributed a ventilator, 20 oxygen concentrators, 10,000 N95 surgical masks, and 2,000 gloves to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) to support the government’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

The medical and health equipment was handed over by CEO Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar to Dr Roshan Pokharel, chief specialist at MoHP. Pranu Singh, head of corporate affairs brand and marketing; Asim Thebe, health and safety coordinator; and Alka Pant, manager of corporate affairs, were also present at the event. The bank had earlier contributed Rs 57.50 million to the fight against Covid-18 through various projects during the first wave of infections in Nepal.

Nepal Telecom was once one of the highest tax paying organizations in the country. Now, the same organization has dropped to the bottom of the list. The failure of Managing Director Dilliram Adhikari, who was appointed to improve the service and quality of the Telecom, to work as per the performance agreement is reportedly causing havoc at the organization.

“There is an unholy alliance between the top-level Nepal Telecom officers and the private sector telecommunication providers. That is why telecom services are disrupted from time to time,” a senior Telecom source told ApEx. “Instead of working to disrupt the alliance, Adhikari is instead protecting those directly involved.”

Due to the lack of optical fibers even in the main areas of ​​the capital, many people have been deprived of high-speed Telecom services. As MD, Adhikari has failed to make Telecom’s relatively cheap fiber FTTH accessible to all. As fiber service is not available even around Singha Durbar in Kathmandu, users who have shown interest in using Telecom internet are now connected with other service providers.

Adhikari had also planned to reduce internet charges, expand 4G services nationwide and expand the access to as well as upgrade 2G and 3G services. “Most of his work is unfinished,” a senior telecom official says. “Due to Adhikari’s weak leadership and what looks like a deliberate attempt to sabotage Telecom’s operations, there have been many problems in the past month.”

With Telecom services being disrupted time and again, users complain of multiple problems when using Telecom services. 

Nepal Bank recently launched its credit card service. The minimum limit has been fixed at Rs 20,000 and the maximum at Rs 500,000, the bank informs. The credit card service launched in association with Visa International will be used for the payment of various goods and services through POS and ATM terminals as well as on online banking systems.

Up to 10 percent of the approved loan limit can also be taken out in cash from the ATM terminals of the bank and other banks affiliated to Visa International. The card can be used in Nepal, India, and Bhutan.