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On the cusp of a possible second wave, the country is reeling under a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines. The vaccination program for those under 60 has been suspended. Following the legal split in the ruling Nepal Communist Party, Prime Minister KP Oli is completely focused on knitting together a majority in the 275-member federal lower house. The opposition parties—Nepali Congress, JSPN and breakaway CPN (Maoist Center)—too have tried to form an anti-Oli coalition. Both the efforts have failed, and it could be some time before a majority government is formed.

Big differences separate negotiating parties. Oli’s CPN-UML wants JSPN to unconditionally join the government, perhaps in return of a handful of lucrative ministries. The nationalist prime minister won’t amend the national charter as per JSPN demands; nor will he be keen on releasing Resham Chaudhary, the alleged mastermind of the 2015 Tikapur killings, again for the fear of a nationalist backlash. As negotiations drag on, JSPN could split, if enough of its leaders get the ministries of their choice. This could be a risky course for breakaway Madhesi leaders ahead of the federal elections. 

Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba either gets to be prime minister again, or all government-formation negotiations are off the table. Biding time, he seems to have calculated, is the best course of action now. If he is offered the PM’s chair, all and good; if not, he could still emerge as the leader of the largest parliamentary party after federal elections. JSPN knows Congress too is in no position to address its constitution-amendment demands. In that case, the party should get to lead the tripartite Congress-Maoist-JSPN government, its leaders argue. Meanwhile, Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s revived Maoist party wants Oli out at any cost. 

Oli, who has not stepped down even after the court’s restoration of the house he dissolved, is no statesman. Perhaps he even feels vindicated following yet another Supreme Court verdict, this time dissolving the ruling NCP. The truth is that he has failed to govern the country in the past three years, including during the dark days of the pandemic. That there is no good option to replace him works to his favor, but to great disfavor of the nascent federal democratic republic he leads.  

Located at Baluwatar (near the Chinese Embassy), Old Mate: The Local Table was a relatively new establishment when we were forced to shut down this section in March 2020. By now, the family restaurant, which is designed with a typical Nepali theme and boasts of a lavish multi-cuisine menu, has become a popular junction in the area.

Old Mate covers a single bungalow with plenty of seating arrangements and ample parking space at the convenient location of the main Baluwatar road. Although specializing in Nepali food, the restaurant offers a wide selection of food and drinks including coffee, alcoholic beverages and the now trending hookah.

The Menu

Chef’s Special:

Jetho Budho Thaali

Chicken Gourmet Pizza

Duck Choila

Opening hours: 10 am to 10 pm

Location: Baluwatar  

Cards: Accepted

Meal for 2: Rs 2,000

Reservation: 9856031471

Birth: 12 December 1957, Pulchowk, Lalitpur

Death: 12 March 2021, Om Hospital, Kathmandu

Sushil Sharma, a prominent Nepali journalist, passed away on Friday, March 12. The 63-year-old was undergoing treatment at Om Hospital in Kathmandu for kidney-related problems when a blood clot stopped his heart.

Widely hailed for his non-partisan and liberal approach to journalism, he is perhaps best remembered for his unique interview style, bold commentaries, and to-the-point analysis.

A Dag Hammarskjöld fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, Sharma started his career with The Rising Nepal and later worked with The Kathmandu Post daily, Spotlight newsmagazine, and most prominently, BBC World Service. He was held up as a bold and fair storyteller by the news industry.

As one of the pioneering sports journalists of Nepal, Sharma had made a mark by covering 1984’s South Asian Games. He was also among the first Nepali sports journalists to observe major national and international football tournaments up close. Later, he shifted to doing political and social stories.

Of late, Sharma had taken a break from mainstream journalism to start a research project, Mission Possible Nepal, which he described as “a private initiative for public discourse on the political economy of Nepal.”  He wanted to diagnose the “real causes of the country’s backwardness and the right prescription for it.”

A lesser known side of Sharma’s later years was his spiritual quest. He was a keen follower of Paramhansa Yogananda, a 20th-century Indian yogi, who had stirred the Western world with his extraordinary teaching of Kriya Yoga and with a spiritual masterpiece, Autobiography of A Yogi. 

An inspiration for colleagues and juniors alike, Sharma was also a fine scholar, with several international papers to his credit.

Posting condolence messages on social media, the Nepali media community expressed deep sorrow over Sharma’s untimely demise. Bandana Rana, a noted journalist and a member of UN CEDAW, writes on Facebook: “There was so much more to learn from Sushil Sharma’s professional and spiritual journey!”

Posting a condolence tweet, former vice-chair of the National Planning Commission Swarnim Wagle remembered Sharma as “an exceptional gentleman, a seasoned journalist with integrity; and a thoughtful citizen who cared deeply about his country.”

Sharma is survived by wife, a son and daughter-in-law.

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.