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Turkish Airlines flies to 301 cities in 121 countries around the world. The Star Alliance Member started flying to Nepal in September 2013 and has been continuously ferrying people, to and fro, between Nepal and multiple global destinations. The airlines currently has five flights a week from Nepal, and is planning a daily flight starting this September.

Abdullah Tuncer KECECI, General Manager of Turkish Airlines Nepal office, talks to APEX about the presence of Turkish Airlines in Nepal, and about its future plans and possibilities.

As a representative of one of the biggest international carriers in the world, what do you make of the state of the Tribhuvan International Airport?

We are positive about the airport extending its opening hours from 18 to 21. And we hope it will be open for 24 hours soon. But at present, we would like the airport to open earlier.

Right now it opens at 6 am. Our flights are scheduled at 6:20 am, which creates many problems. We want the airport to open at around 4 am. That will also motivate other European carriers to come and will also decrease peak load. It will help everyone.

Also, there is too much traffic for a single-runway airport. There are upcoming airport projects all around Nepal and we are hopeful that they will increase the productivity in aviation sector. But as of now, air traffic in Kathmandu airport is a problem. It is not a good prac­tice to hold planes on air for 40-50 minutes. I hope the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal resolves this issue and help Nepal reach its vision of tourism development.

Turkish Airlines is known for promoting the countries it flies to. What is it doing to promote Nepal abroad?

We have a few plans to promote Nepal. We fly to global tourist des­tinations like London, Berlin, Stutt­gart, Helsinki, Moscow, Paris and Lisbon, to name a few, and our mis­sion has been to promote Nepal in all those destinations.

Nepalis are spending more on outbound travel than what the country is earning from tourism. As an international carrier, how do you evaluate the Nepali tour­ism market?

Nepal has a lot more capacity on tourism than what it is currently utilizing. You don’t have the sea but you have everything besides the sea, like mountains, rivers, cul­tural heritages, historic cities and natural beauty. Unfortunately, the country is being promoted in seasons like March/April and September/October.

What about people not interested in hiking to the mountains? Moun­tains were a strong theme for Nepal but then they became the weakest link at some point. We can’t afford to have only seasonal tourists coming here. So we have to promote Nepal for its people and places besides the mountains, and create an all-season tourist flow.

Also, the spending on outbound travel is not only because more peo­ple are travelling. It is also because of the labor flow.

How does Turkish Airlines con­nect with the people of Nepal? Why should Nepalis travelling abroad choose your airlines?

Most international flights started in Nepal to cater to the labor mar­ket here. But for us, from the day we started, we have been treating Nepal as one of the popular tourist destinations in the world. We even encourage other carriers to do that, and believe this well get a positive response from the people of Nepal.

We are trying to reach every peo­ple, not only who can travel. Our main target is to build a cultural bridge between Turkey and Nepal, and between Nepal and other coun­tries. For that reason we support other areas like sports, women empowerment, youth and children. If it was in our hands, we would support all those who want to do something for the country.

We want to make this earth­quake-affected Kathmandu city lively through our events. When the city is alive, people have more reason to come to Nepal. This in turn will empower Nepalis and create an intelligent movement of people. We’re also trying to build trade ties between Turkey and Nepal, which has increased significantly since we started operations.

The Turkish Airlines World Gold Tournament was held in Nepal this year. How was the response?

We did it for the first time in Nepal and got a warm response. Turkish Airlines has been hosting international golfing events in other countries over the past six years, mostly in golf destinations. This year we decided to increase the num­ber of destinations and included Nepal too.

We had a chance to host one leg of the tournament here in May. With this, Nepal is now in the golf net­work, which covers 64 countries around the world and more than 100 flight destinations. All in all, we are promoting Nepal as a golf desti­nation as well.

Besides that, we are planning to host other events in Nepal. Around our upcoming fifth anniversary in Nepal, we’re planning more events including a Turkish food festival.

Tiji is a fascinating annual three-day festival consisting of Tibetan rituals that celebrate the myth of a son who had to save the Mustang kingdom from destruction. The festival, which falls on May 22-24 this year, is indigenous to Lo-Manthang, Upper Mustang. "Tiji" the name is an abbreviation of the word "Tempa Chirim" which means "Prayer for World Peace". This festival commemorates the victory of Lord Bud­dha's incarnation Dorjee Sonnu over a demon called Man Tam Ru, a vicious creature feeding on human beings and causing storms and droughts. The Tiji festival dances are all organized by the Choedhe Monastery, which belongs to the Sakya sect of Buddhism.

Did you know? Using timber is an environmen­tally-friendly way to build a structure because timber is considered carbon-negative. Something is “carbon-negative” if it removes more carbon dioxide than it adds in the atmosphere. That’s good news too, as over 70 percent of the devel­oped world’s population lives in housing framed by timber! And someone needs to build those houses. Do you know how they do it? Join the Woodworking Session at Nepal Communitere and learn to work with wood and machines your­self. You can then make your own masterpiece. The woodwork event will be held at the Nepal Communitere premises in Pulchowk on May 20, Sunday, from 4 to 6 pm. So, gear up in your mask and gloves and DRILL IT!

Registration fees: Rs. 700 (professionals)

For students: Rs. 500

*Parental supervision is required throughout the session for participants below 18.

Mithu Karki has not had a chance to attend a beauty pageant so far. At least not the kind involving pretty women. But on May 12 she was involved in another kind of beauty contest: the one for buffalos. When Kar­ki reached Hawaai Chowk in the south-eastern Nepali town of Itahari early on the morning of May 12, she was accompanied by Hira, the buffalo her family has had for six years. Several other buffalos had been brought there. There were 38 of them to be precise, all cleaned up and adorned. The occasion was a beauty pageant of sorts. For buffa­los. There were some onlookers too.

The judges of the ‘Buffalo Beauty Contest’ were veterinarians and oth­er technicians from the District Live­stock Service Office. The assessment criteria were the buffalos’ height, gait, udders, the amount of milk they produce, etc. Hira won the first prize and bagged Rs 11,000. Her nearest competitor was a buffalo belonging to Nara Bahadur Karki.

A resident of Rajdevi Tol, Mithu and her family have been rearing buffaloes for the past 10 years. For the most part, Mithu looks after Hira; she gives 12 liters of milk daily. “We manage our household expens­es from the money the milk fetch­es,” said Mithu’s husband Bharat. “We also invest part of the earning in taking care of Hira.”

“We organized the contest to encourage buffalo farmers,” said Tanka Dahal, chairperson of the organizing institute, Batawaran Ra Paryawaran Samrackchan Kend­ra Nepal, an NGO. “It’s relatively easier to rear cows than buffalos, so the number of cow farmers has increased in recent times. But cows yield less milk than buffalos. So we want to incentivize farmers to rear buffalos,” said Dahal.

By  HIMAL DAHAL | Itahari

Everest is not only the tallest mountain in the world but also has great sanctity. But this sanctity is being defiled. Every year, during the expedition season, around 700 climbers and guides spend nearly two months atop Ever­est. When they climb down, they leave behind large amounts of feces, urine and other pollutants. Such pollutants are piling up in areas above 5,000 meters. At the base camps, wastes are collected in drums, and disposed of when the drums are full. But, from 5,300 meters on, there are no toilets and human waste is directly deposited in the snow. New climbers report that the route to the top of Everest is not just crowded but terri­bly polluted too. The area is covered with empty oxygen cylinders, food wrappers, broken tents, batteries, mountain gears and other accesso­ries including clothes and backpacks of climbers and guides.

Worse still, there are around 200 dead bodies in Everest, including that of George Mallory after his disappearance in 1924. Pollution in Everest is a threat to human civilization too, as the whole Himalayan range including Everest is a source of fresh water for South Asia and beyond.

However, there are still those who argue that survival of the climbers and supporting staff in a ‘death zone’, coupled with supporting the local economy, should be the first priority, while bringing back the abandoned moun­taineering gears should be a distant second priority.

There have been some efforts to clean up Everest. But they are inadequate to deal with the scale of the pollution on such a harsh terrain. Dawa Steven Sherpa and his clean-up team, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee and Tara Air have been carrying out Everest clean-up expeditions on their own. Likewise, the govern­ment has obliged the climbers to bring back the garbage in order to get their deposits back. But, again, such efforts, even though made in good faith, are not enough.

In the absence of effective monitoring, government actions are no more than rituals as the focus is still on generating more revenue, as if Everest is a cow that can be milked endlessly.

The first thing we should do is reduce excessive commercialization of Everest and preserve its sanc­tity. The flow of climbers cannot continue indefinitely unless we clean up our mountains. Everest should be a perennial source of income for Nepali tourism, not a short-lived tourism product. This is why our primary focus should be on promoting expeditions that produce less pollutants.

For this, wind power can be harnessed in Everest so that the climbers need not carry cooking gas. Likewise, the climbers can be encouraged to carry solar panels with them, for cooking and other purposes.

But the focus right now should be on removing garbage from Everest through innovative ideas. Recent­ly, the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (better known by its French acronym UIAA) has given some financial support to a project designed to produce gas from human waste on Everest. The next step could be fixing sim­ple ropes at certain locations with which to send down garbage to the base camps. Such innovative, and mass-scale, measures are desper­ately needed.

By Dr Ganesh Gurung

The author is a former member of the National Planning Commission and currently an advisor to Nepal mountaineering Association (NMA)

Najir Hussain, who has acted in various Nepali movies like Bir Bikram, Hostel Returns, Punte Parade, etc, is back in theater with his debut directorial venture ‘The Ugly Duckling’. Khan previously performed as a theater actor and has featured in over 20 plays.‘The Ugly Duckling’ is a fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen, who is best known for writing children’s sto­ries. Andersen’s stories like the ‘The Princess and the Pea’ and ‘The Ugly Duckling’ are classics of the genre.

The Ugly Duckling is about a jour­ney of a bird that differs in appear­ance from others in its flock, which makes it an outcast. Confused about its identity, the ugly duckling goes through a difficult phase. But with hope and self-belief, it eventually overcomes the hardship and discov­ers its inner beauty. The play depicts the ways in which people tend to discriminate against those who are different to them. It’s a timeless theme, so although the original sto­ry was written in 1843, the contem­porary audience can easily relate to the plot.

The cast includes Hussain, Bikram Shrestha, Milan Karki, Vijaya Karki, Binita Gurung and Kiran Shrestha. The play is being staged at Mandala Theater in Anamnagar and will run till June 3. The showtime is 5:30 pm every day of the week (except Mondays). There is an extra show on Saturdays at 1 pm. APEX BUREAU

Weekly Editorial Cartoon

Forty-eight rural municipalities in 37 dis­tricts remain unconnected by roads. As many as 259 Village Development Com­mittees (no longer administrative units after last year’s local level restructuring) are uncon­nected. (It’s from these VDCs that the centers of the 48 rural municipalities were fixed. The remaining VDCs were converted into 211 wards.) The government hopes to connect every ward at the local level with a road network. The government, through the Department of Local Infrastructure Development and Agri­cultural Roads (DoLIDAR) and the Department of Roads (DoR), has so far constructed roads spanning 70,000km throughout the country. Still, two north-eastern districts—Dolpa and Humla—are not connected by roads. Humla has seven rural municipalities; Dolpa has eight.

Altogether seven rural municipalities and 37 wards in Province 1, four rural municipal­ities and 17 wards in Province 3, 24 wards in Province 4, eight wards in Province 5, 26 rural municipalities and 107 wards in Province 6, and 11 rural municipalities and 66 wards in Province 7 are without a road connection. All the rural municipalities and wards in Province 2 are connected by roads.

Jeevan Guragain, chief of DoLIDAR’s Rural Agricultural Road Branch, informed that the government, with the aid of donors like the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the DFID, has been investing more and more in rural roads. “In the current fiscal, one billion rupees has been allocated for rural roads. Of this, Rs 550 million has been invested in roads constructed with public participation and the remaining Rs 450 million in roads built to con­nect rural municipalities and wards,” he said.

Dinesh Thapalia, a Secretary at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, said that in the past, the roads to connect rural municipalities and wards were not a priority as there would have been few users of these roads. “But the ministry is now strongly lobbying the government to connect each rural municipality and ward of the country to a road network,” he said.

Disconnected

According to a recent master plan that DoLIDAR took three years to prepare, in Province 1, three rural municipalities and 16 wards in the district of Taplejung, two wards in Bhojpur, four rural municipalities and 14 wards in Solukhumbu, and five wards in Khotang are not connected to a road network.

In Province 3, two wards in Ramechhap, one ward in Dolakha, two rural municipalities and seven wards in Kavre, one ward in Nuwakot, two wards in Rasuwa, one rural municipality and three wards in Dhading, and one rural municipality and one ward in Chitwan are not connected.

In the same vein, in Province 4, eight wards in Gorkha, three wards in Lamjung, one ward in Tanahun, two wards in Kaski, two wards in Manang, six wards in Myagdi and two wards in Baglung are not connected. Similarly, in Province 5, one ward in Pyuthan, one ward in Rolpa, and six wards in Rukum are not connected.

In Province 6, four wards in Salyan, three wards in Surkhet, three wards in Dailekh, two rural municipalities and 10 wards in Jajarkot are without road connections. In the same province, two wards in Jumla, eight rural municipalities and 21 wards in Dolpa, seven rural municipalities and 24 wards in Kalikot, two rural municipalities and 13 wards in Mugu, and seven rural municipalities and 27 wards in Humla are not connected.

And in Province 7, three rural municipalities and 10 wards in Bajura, one rural municipality and seven wards in Bajhang, five wards in Doti, four wards in Achham, one rural municipality and three wards in Kailali are sans road links. Besides these, four rural municipalities and 23 wards in Baitadi and two rural municipalities and 14 wards in Darchula are not connected.

By Gopi Krishna Dhungana | Kathmandu