Submit your Article

For the Nepali OTT audience, the most talked about topic besides Dashain for the past couple of weeks has probably been Netflix’s South Korean thriller series “Squid Game.” An average Nepali Netflix subscriber has probably talked about the series and its eccentricities on social media, at least once. So, I chose not to review it because i) You’ll probably have talked about it too much for my review to make any impact, and ii) The series is too mind-boggling for me to review in the limited space I get.

So instead of the Korean survival drama, I decided to go even darker and watch/review an American supernatural horror series called “Midnight Mass.” But first, let me reiterate how much I love mini-series because of their brevity and because they end in the same season, without leaving loose ends and making you wait another year for the next season.

Created and directed by Mike Flanagan, the miniseries Midnight Mass centers on Crockett Island—a small, isolated fishing village with a sparse population where everyone knows everyone else. The tight-knit community on the island is devoutly Catholic, except for its new sheriff, Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli), and his son Ali (Rahul Abbur), who are Muslims.

In a town without many violent incidents in the past, Sheriff Hassan does have to deal with a bit of racism and also religious discrimination initially, but not for long. Bigger problems await him and the islanders. After the arrival of Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater), as a sudden replacement for the town’s aged Monsignor Pruitt, things start getting eerie. For starters, hundreds of dead cats—murdered—are discovered along the beach, the very next day of Father Hill’s arrival. Some island residents also start seeing a mysterious creature lurking in the shadows at night.

Also read: Ankhon Dekhi movie review: Underrated and under-watched

Quickly, incident after incident leads the townsfolk to believe there is something religious happening. Leeza Scarborough (Annarah Cymone)—who has been paralyzed after a hunting incident and has to use a wheelchair—starts walking at the behest of Father Hill at the church on Sunday Mass. This leaves the town of devout Catholics in a frenzy as they start believing in a religious revival.

Led by the church’s fervent parishioner Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan), the residents of Crockett Island rejoice in religious fervor, only to find that they’ll soon be visited by a figure from the Bible, someone they never expected. That’s when the whole town is immersed in horrors of biblical measures, followed by deaths and grievances.

The seven episodes of Midnight Mass are named after the respective books from the Bible, starting with Genesis and ending with Revelations. Each episode unfolds systematically, in coherence with its name. The miniseries is the brainchild and reportedly a ‘passion project’ of Mike Flanagan, who has had a proven track record of scaring the audience with horror stories like “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” both available on Netflix.

Although both his ‘Haunting’ horror series had some religious connections, with Midnight Mass, Flanagan directly enters the realm of the Christian Bible. For someone not so acquainted with the inner workings of Christianity, deciphering the conversations in the series could be a problem though. It was the same for me and I had to use Google to get some of the references. And the film also shattered my lifelong belief of what an ‘angel’ would be like. A bit of a spoiler because it’s necessary—Midnight Mass’s angel is no friend of humanity and has no feathery wings and a halo around its head. 

Who should watch it?

With each episode around the one-hour mark, Midnight Mass is slow and even snoozy at times. But that’s only when you stop paying attention to every detail and projection. Otherwise, the series gives you all the expected thrills and chills. So, for lovers of the genre, some Catholic horror right after Dashain would be a good watch.

Midnight Mass 

Rating: 3.5 stars
Genre: Horror
Actors: Rahul Kohli, Rahul Abburi, Samantha Sloyan
Director: Mike Flanagan
Run time: 7hrs 40mins

YouTube is a strange place. Here, a video of someone eating a bowl of noodles (mukbang) can get over two million views while a gem of a movie, made using a considerable amount of time, resources and artistry fails to get even a fraction of that attention. Viewership is unpredictable and were it not for its algorithm that leads the user towards videos based on their past preferences, I for one would not be spending as much time on it.

On the long list of works of art that have not gotten the attention they deserve is the 2015 Hindi-language drama “Ankhon Dekhi.” Released on Shemaroo Movies’ official YouTube channel more than a month ago, the film has just over 80,000 followers while the channel itself has over 17.8 million subscribers. So criminally undiscovered.

Written and directed by Rajat Kapoor, who has an amazing filmography of offbeat, unorthodox, low-budget treasures, Ankhon Dekhi is another feather in the cap of the filmmaker as well as its entire cast of talented actors. Unlike most Bollywood movies banking on their lead actors, the film is a team-effort of an ensemble cast who won many awards and accolades for the film when it released.

Rajesh aka Bauji (Sanjay Mishra) is a patriarch of a big, extended family living in congested confines of a small house in old Delhi. An event in his life leads him to decide that from then onwards, he would believe only what he sees. But the figurative “believe only in your own eyes” becomes literal and his new-formed eccentricity starts making life difficult for him and his family.

Bauji takes his family and friends on a new adventure in life with his only-believe-in-what-you-see theory as he starts denouncing God and everything he previously believed in. Basically a summation of comedy of errors, the film has its darker sides and an ending left to the audience’s interpretation.

Also read: Kate movie review: Old wine in new style

Veteran actors Sanjay Mishra, Rajat Kapoor, Seema Pahwa and Saurabh Shukla join a lesser-known ensemble of actors to create magic. The storyline gets absurd and abstract at times but the natural performance of actors and honest storytelling do not let the film lose its realistic shape. Every character is given a specific role and their combined contributions culminate in what has to be one of the finest Hindi movies.

Ankhon Dekhi is not only a film that entertains but also a visual treat that shares an idea with the audience. As a society, we have been so used to taking small bits of information for granted that we do not even question the integrity of the source. For us to believe someone is good or evil, we do not even need to see the person for ourselves. We are fed this information by the people and society around us and nurtured to believe in collective thoughts and opinions. Bauji, our protagonist, tries to break this shackle of mis/information and finds himself in all kinds of troubles, at the same time liberating himself from what he sees as lies he had been believing all his life.

Another factor that adds to the charm of Ankhon Dekhi’s unorthodox storytelling is the music which is melodious yet unique and again, criminally undiscovered. Composed by Saagar Desai, lyrics written by Varun Grover and sung mostly by Kailash Kher, the film’s score is based on Hindustani classical music but with a fusion of modern rhythms. Composer Desai takes the storytelling knack of Rajat Kapoor to create music that co-narrates the story of Ankhon Dekhi. Granted that the songs are not catchy, but they were not meant to be. Not all good music is supposed to be consumed like cookies by the masses and Ankhon Dekhi’s score is a prime example of that.

Who should watch it?

Ankhon Dekhi is a beautiful film that deploys comedy to deal with an existential question. The storytelling, acting, cinematography and music are top notch, and typical of Rajat Kapoor and his team. So for anyone who’s enjoyed Rajat Kapoor’s works, it’s a must-watch. For the unacquainted, you will still thoroughly enjoy the film and go on to explore more of his works.

Ankhon Dekhi

4 stars
On YouTube
Drama
Cast: Sanjay Mishra, Seema Bhargava, Rajat Kapoor
Director: Rajat Kapoor

It’s a bit like “Kill Bill” mixed with “Salt” and “Lucy” and a dozen other Hollywood productions that have femme fatales as their central characters. And like most Hollywood flicks that feature female assassins, Netflix’s latest release “Kate” is stylish, fast, violent and centers on betrayal as its main theme.

Such a cliché if you ask me, when some of the most dangerous women on earth have to be scorned at first to unleash their wrath upon men. It’s like they have to be brutally betrayed every time to find a purpose in life. Personally, I find this approach to filmmaking crudely reductionist and overused. 

Still, the American action thriller Kate is a fast-paced visual delight that’ll keep you entertained much more than the Hindi-language anthology “Ankahi Kahaniya” which was my initial choice for the review. But as its name suggests, the stories in “Ankahi Kahaniya” would have been best left untold. It’s a yawn-fest!

Now coming back to Kate, the movie is a commercial production that at times feels like one of those ‘fan-made’ trailers on YouTube which are created by cutting scenes from various movies and joining them in a sequence. So formulaic and unoriginal is Kate that you know who the actual villain is even before half-time. But there are elements that keep you entertained and not make you feel like you’ve not wasted your time. 

Also read: Shikara: Visually engaging but sans vision

Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a deadly assassin who has been groomed from early childhood by her handler Varrick (Woody Harrelson). Even though she is a ruthless assassin, Kate and her agency have one understanding, one rule—they never kill a target with children nearby. But on one mission, Kate is forced to assassinate a high-ranking yakuza boss who is with his teenage daughter Ani (Miku Martineau).

Cut to almost a year later and Kate, haunted by her memories of terrorizing a young kid, decides to retire from her job. She discusses her retirement with Varrick, who is not very pleased with the decision but still agrees with her choice. But on her final mission to kill another yakuza boss Kijima (Jun Kunimura), Kate finds she is poisoned with a deadly substance called Polonium-204 which has no known antidote and she will die in the next 24 hours. What she does to find out who betrayed her and how she extracts revenge makes up the rest of the film. 

As reluctant as we are to give out spoilers, we’re sure more than half of our dedicated movie watchers have already guessed the finale. Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan and written by Umair Aleem, Kate is rummaged into an old Hollywood mold and then adorned with modern glitters to make it acceptable for the current audiences.

The cinematography, editing and background score of the movie combine to make it an exciting package. Together, they make the action sequences, which make up almost 70 percent of the film, seem fresh and captivating. Actor Mary Elizabeth Winstead seems to have trained herself well to pull off the hand-to-hand fight sequences as well as sword- and gun-fights. As the titular character, Winstead gets the most screen time in the 1hr 46mins movie and is impressive for most parts. But there are times, mostly during emotional scenes, when the actor feels like she’s too tired to act because of all the action sequences she had to perform.

When the titular character gets the most screen time, the supporting actors, no matter how talented, lose their presence. This happens in Kate to veterans Woody Harrelson and Jun Kunimura. The characters performed by the two seasoned actors do not get much thought in writing and are underwhelming to say the least. The potential they carry as actors and the impact their characters could have had are somewhat lost in the fast-paced sequences and linear storytelling of Kate.

Who should watch it?

Kate is a Hollywood masala film and we know by experience that masala films always tend to get good audiences. So for people who don’t mind watching a repetitive storyline in return for some eye-catching action sequences, Kate is definitely an entertainer.

Rating: 2.5 stars
Genre: Action, thriller
Actors: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Woody Harrelson, Jun Kunimura
Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

After steadily declining for almost three years, Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse)’s index showed strong resistance around the last week of November 2019, when the market started bucking the strong down-pull.

Experts believe Nepal's lone stock market has been on a bull run since January 2020. The exchange’s index, which stood at 1,182.31 points on 5 January 2020, surpassed the previous record of 1,881.45 points set on 26 November 2020, and then started steadily climbing upwards.

Any bull run, although considered the most conducive time to invest in a stock market and make money, is invariably accompanied by periods of ‘corrections’ when a large group of investors sells its holdings to book profits. The first major correction during this bull run was observed in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic forced the country into a lockdown.

The market was ill-prepared to take its business online immediately and many traders/investors did not have online trading accounts. Also, confusion prevailed over the market’s future, resulting in panic-selling. In this period, the index, which had reached 1,670 points, soon fell to 1,150.

The index started creeping up from June-end but witnessed another correction at 1,561 points, before reaching a bottom of 1,368 points in mid-July 2020. From then on, there were multiple minor week-long corrections and the index moved sideways. Only in the third week of February 2021 did the market see a multi-week correction of four weeks with a top of 2,676 and a bottom of 2,369 points.

After that, corrections have been regular. Mid-April saw a two-week correction with a high of 2,760 points and a low of 2,500 points. The market is currently going through another correction with a 3,227-point high and 2,779-point low.

With the government announcing a ‘budget holiday’, there is fear of a liquidity crisis in the market. At the same time, Nepal’s private banks have started offering higher interest rates on deposits from September 17, adding to speculations over a brewing liquidity crisis, which could have a direct adverse effect on Nepse. The average interest on fixed deposits growing to nine percent from around 5-6 percent, investors might switch to the safer option of putting their money in the banks rather than in the stock market, analysts fear.

Given these conditions, we asked some experts how long they thought the bull run would last. As expected, we got varied answers.

“Irrational exuberance,” entrepreneur Karma Tenzing uses the famous phrase coined by the former US Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s. The phrase can be interpreted as a warning that the stock market is overvalued.

“We see a massive overvaluation of stocks right now. Everyone is getting high on the stock market. Companies making zero profits or even losses have high share values. The market is overheated and fundamentals or technical analysis make no sense,” Tenzing says.

An active trader with a substantial investment, Tenzing has now quit the market; for him the Nepse bull run is over. He believes the market has already reached its highest point and will not go beyond that for another year. “Irrational thinking” and also increasing interest rates on deposits will lead to the market’s continued downfall for now, Tenzing says. He looks forward to reentering the market after a year when “saner minds prevail.”

In Nepal, based on past trends, a bull run typically lasts for four years followed by a three-year bearish market. When the bull began in January 2020, most traders and investors had speculated the same. “But this belief is based on the concept that history repeats itself,” says Manil Shrestha, a veteran investor, and ApEx’s former share market analyst. “But the main factor that drives the share market is interest rates.”

Shrestha explains that if interest rates increase by small percentage points, it supports the market. But rapid growth in rates will hit the market hard. The market had already anticipated the hiked interest rates from Asoj 1 (September 17), and hence saw a decline in aggressive buying and the selling pressure increased.

But even with both the volume of trades and the index falling steeply, Shrestha does not see this as the end of the bull run. Once the government spending begins and there is a flow of remittance and the Dashain businesses boom, the liquidity situation might quickly improve. “It's too early to predict the end of the bull run,” Shrestha says. “The market might go sideways for a while. But if the interest rates do not increase or decrease substantially in mid-November, the market will become positive again.”

Mukti Aryal, another veteran trader and financial analyst, is more positive about the market’s trajectory. Although making predictions is difficult, Aryal feels the bull run will last for another year or year and half. And even after that, the market will not decline, unlike during the past bearish markets. The market will gain balance due to the high volume of investors plus the increased number of institutional traders.

About the frequent corrections in the market, Aryal believes they will only help sustain the bull run. “When there are frequent corrections, the market can sustain longer bull runs,” Aryal explains. “The share market is like a rubber band. The more you stretch, the more it will contract.”

Aryal believes the market is underpinned by strong fundamentals. So if the companies listed in the stock market grow and can give decent dividends to their stakeholders, Nepse will grow accordingly. 

As for the current bull run, Aryal sees the index reaching around 4,000 (plus/minus 5 percent) by the end of this fiscal. “The liquidity crisis like the one we are seeing now is to be expected when banks are investing heavily before the financial year’s close. Soon, the banks’ investments will start giving returns and interest rates might decrease. There will also be plenty of cash flow in the financial system during Dashain,” Aryal adds. “This correction is temporary. The bull run will continue.”

For Ashim Lamichhane, a tech professional who makes maximum use of technology to trade in the stock market, the bull is not over yet. “Computer-generated data do not work accurately all the time in the Nepali market but they do give us a good idea,” Lamichhane says. “We can establish target levels based on market theories but can’t swear by their accuracy.” As per Lamichhane’s calculations, the index will remain around the 3000-mark for some time. “There is an immediate support zone for the Nepse index at 2,910-2,920,” he adds.  

However, this depends on the volume. If strong resistance is met around the said figure, 3,400+ is achievable. “I expect the market to go up after the festive season. Till then, it will stay within a fairly stable range,” Lamichhane says.

The 2015-2020 period in the Nepali film industry was all about anthemic songs. Filmmakers spent a substantial chunk of the whole budget on one song and its music video, which would then go on to be bigger hits than the films themselves. Songs like “Purba Paschim Rail” from Chakka Panja, “Ye Daju Nasamau” from Chhakka Panja 2, “Parkha Parkha Mayalu” from Mangalam, “Thamel Bazar” from Loot 2, and many others became instant hits with millions of views on YouTube and thousands of airplay on radio and television.

The 2017 movie “Dui Rupaiyan” met with a similar fate. The movie’s OST “Kutu Ma Kutu”—with music by Rajan Raj Shiwakoti, and sung by Shiwakoti himself along with Melina Rai and Rajan Ishan—featuring actor Swastima Khadka, created history as one of the highest played Nepali music videos, with YouTube views crossing 150 million. The film, however, got the opposite response and blew cold.

Directed by Asim Shah of G21 Production, Dui Rupaiyan is an action-comedy that follows two friends Jureli (Nischal Basnet) and Dari (Asif Shah) and their adventures with a two-rupee note. The small-time crooks take up a smuggling job from Boss (Tika Pahari) who hands them a marked two-rupee bill which they are to exchange with illegal gold on the India-Nepal border.

On their way to the mission, the duo stops by for lunch at a local restaurant where Dari indulges in a chance tête-à-tête with the owner Maya (Menuka Pradhan). Unfortunately, their encounter is interrupted by Maya’s husband Bom Bahadur Tamang (Buddhi Tamang), a sub-inspector of police. They do manage to escape from the strict policeman and reach the rendezvous point on the Indo-Nepal border only to realize they have lost the two-rupee note and cannot get the goods in exchange. The duo then find themselves in deep mess with ASI Bom Bahadur on their tail and the Boss’s trusted aide Juddha (Prateek Raj Neupane) also looking for them, seeking blood. How Jureli and Dari manage to get themselves out of trouble makes up the rest of the film.

Dui Rupaiyan is a film full of goofball moments, unexpected conflicts and witty escapades. The fast-paced film races through and is fairly enjoyable through its 1hr 52mins run-time. But the fast pace that works in the film’s favor also works against it, not allowing the audience to grasp the crux of the story. Nor do they get to understand their characters in-depth and empathize with them when needed. This might be one reason the film failed to get much audience in the theaters when it was released.

Still, there is more to like about the film than not. Co-writer and actor Asif Shah seems to have put every effort in trying to make the lead characters memorable. Both Shah and Basnet, in the lead roles, fit the storyline like it was tailor-made for them. Only if the writers had been able to give them some more identifiable quirks and traits and a convincing backstory, both Jureli and Dari would have become sequel-worthy characters.

The film’s background score is another noteworthy accomplishment. Rohit Shakya and Shailesh Shrestha use multiple genres in the background to match the energy of the characters on- screen. The soundscapes they use add to the film’s visuals and make the mediocre cinematography more enjoyable. Another OST of the film, eponymously titled “Dui Rupaiyan,” featuring Aid Ray and Laure rapping to Shakya’s music, is hard and gives the climax, as well as the end, credits the necessary weight. 

Who should watch it?

“Dui Rupaiyan” is a movie you watch, enjoy and forget. The film did have an opportunity to create memorable moments but besides “Kutu Ma Kutu,” there is little to remember. Still, in its entirety, the film is entertaining for anyone who loves light-hearted action comedies. Also, compared to most films released between 2015 and 2020, Dui Rupaiyan fares too well to not watch.

Rating: 3 stars
Genre: Comedy/drama
Actors: Asif Shah, Nischal Basnet, Menuka Pradhan
Director: Asim Shah
Run time: 1hr 52mins

Netflix’s latest release, the 2020 Indian film “Shikara,” based on the backdrop of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir in the late 80s and 90s, draws inspiration from many places. For one, it narrates the horrid accounts of Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to leave their homes in fear of their lives, based on the real survivors’ accounts.

The movie is also partly inspired by the book “Our Moon Has Blood Clots” by Rahul Pandita. Most importantly, the producer/director Vidhu Vinod Chopra dedicates the film to his mother “Shanti”, who left Kashmir in 1989 and never returned. Chopra, who himself was born and grew up in Srinagar, Kashmir, was a first-hand witness to what transpired there after the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) began a separatist insurgency for independence.

Debutants Sadia Khateeb and Aadil Khan play Shanti and Shiv Kumar Dhar, a young couple from Kashmir who find themselves in the eye of a cyclone during the insurgency. Shiv and Shanti meet as strangers during a film shoot in 1987 when they are asked to walk as a couple in a scene. Shanti is reading a collection of poems called “Shikara,” which is coincidentally written by Shiv.

The two fall for each other and with their parents’ consent, get married, and start a new chapter in their lives in a home they lovingly name “Shikara.” But around the same time, violence starts brewing in Kashmir. Within a year of their marriage, Shiv and Shanti have to flee from their home, leaving Shikara deserted, and spend the rest of their lives as refugees in their own country.

Despite its theme of politics gone violent, Shikara is not a harrowing political drama. It is actually a romantic film that focuses more on the lives and struggles of Shiv and Shanti than on the Kashmiri Pandit issue. Drifting from reality, the film has a lot less violence than what actually transpired and the plights of the Kashmiri Pandits have not really been voiced in the film. No wonder it got a bad rap for being soft and misrepresentative. Coming from a Bollywood veteran like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who in a way is also a victim of the insurgency, the storytelling in Shikara is criminally underwhelming.

Still, the acting, background music, and aesthetics make it enjoyable for the audience who are not looking for much depth in a movie. Debutants Khateen and Khan who play Shanti and Shiv respectively are beautiful to look at and also execute their roles convincingly. The supporting characters in Shikara do not get much significance and it's mostly Khateen and Khan projected on screen, which gives them enough time to display their brilliance.

But the actor duo also has to share screen space with the exquisite beauty of Kashmir. In Shikara, cinematographer Rangarajan Ramabadran uses almost every trick in the book to capture the mesmerizing beauty of Kashmir. And this is not just the lakes and mountains we are talking about. Ramabadran follows his characters through the narrow lanes and quaint suburbs of Kashmir, giving the audience more footage of the gorgeous valley.

The camerawork is further nourished by color-grading that is mostly kept warm, and adds an almost surreal atmosphere to some scenes. The visual tone maintained throughout the film makes it akin to a picturesque work of art on canvas.

Now to another gem in the film, the background music. While the original soundtracks of Shikara are not memorable enough, the background score adds girth to the already brilliant cinematography. Interestingly, the man from down south, A. R. Rahman, with his apprentice group Qutub-E-Kripa, creates interesting soundscapes to help narrate a story placed in the northernmost part of India. The use of ethnic Kashmiri music along with contemporary sounds works well for the film’s theme.

Who should watch it?

As mentioned before, Shikara is an aesthetically beautiful romantic drama. If you do not have a problem with how this film fails to represent the many atrocities faced by Kashmiri Pandits and does not even address the underlying issues of their exodus, you will enjoy Shikara like any other Bollywood film.

Rating: 2.5 stars
Actors: Shadia Khateeb, Aadil Khan
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Run time: 1hr 58mins

As of September 6, the CDS and Clearing Ltd (CDSC)—a subsidiary company of Nepal Stock Exchange Limited (NEPSE) that provides centralized depository, clearing, and settlement services—has 3,361,171 users registered on its ‘MeroShare’ website. This means that if there is an Initial Public Offering from a company, 3.3 million users can apply for it online, without having to visit the issuing capitals.

Similarly, NEPSE informs that as of this week, there are 923,000 users registered in its Trading Management System (TMS). So on any given Sunday, all of the 923,000 users could log in to the TMS website, causing a crash. The crashing of both TMS and MeroShare, due to high user volumes, has happened before and many users have complained of ensuing losses.

Online securities trading in Nepal for both primary and secondary markets has come a long way since its beginning on 6 November 2018. The introduction of an online IPO application system reduced the need of lining up for hours in capital offices to manually fill the forms. And TMS gave the users the luxury of buying and selling stocks as well as making and receiving payments from their homes without having to visit broker offices and banks.

“Anyone who says online trading has not helped them is out of their mind,” veteran investor Nirmal Pradhan tells ApEx. Pradhan believes online trading has roped in many new investors to the market which has, in turn, contributed to high trading volumes.

Prayas Dulal, a business analyst who recently completed his first year in the market as a trader, differs. Having looked at many online videos, resources, and tutorials for trading, Dulal finds both TMS and MeroShare very basic, primitive even. “On days of IPO opening or allotment, we can’t even log in to MeroShare,” Dulal complains. “I used to panic when I had sold shares but could not complete my Electronic Delivery Instruction Slip (EDIS) on time to avoid close-out penalties.”

As a long-time investor and an active trader, Manil Shrestha’s views on the online trading system are closer to Pradhan’s. Having closely watched the market since 2003, Shrestha feels that securities trading in Nepal has progressed by “leaps and bounds.” Before TMS, traders had to depend on brokers for buying and selling stocks by either going to the office physically or through phone calls and text messages. Any lapse in communication would lead to losses and there were many human errors.

“Now with the online system, you can grab immediate opportunities and not let anything break your momentum,” Shrestha says. About the momentary failures of both TMS and MeroShare.

Shrestha does acknowledge the problems and agrees there is room for improvement. “Heavy traffic in both MeroShare and TMS causes the system to jam. This can be improved by increasing their bandwidths,” Shrestha says. “But again, these high-volume trades that crash TMS happen like 15-20 times a year. So how feasible is it going to be for NEPSE to maintain heavy bandwidths all year long?”

SEBON, the government-established regulator of the securities market, is aware that the current system is not tailored to handle a high number of users. “We have asked both NEPSE and CDSC to audit their systems and upgrade their capacities,” Ajay Dhungana, Assistant Director for Research at SEBON, informs. “We cannot build systems that cover the country’s entire population and have to upgrade based on best estimates of potential growth in the number of users.” Dhungana suspects that the various anomalies and glitches seen in the system might have been caused by unexpected growth of online users during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

“We have made some major upgrades in the past two to three months and have sorted 80 percent of our issues,” informs Kanchan Sapkota, Head of Operations at CDSC, the NEPSE subsidiary responsible for managing MeroShare. “Further, we are planning a huge upgrade of our system this year to cover the high number of users registered with us and make the system even more advanced.” Despite these upgrades, glitches cannot be completely removed, Sapkota adds. As for the issues related to EDIS, MeroShare is not solely at fault, Sapkota explains. “There are different parties involved in MeroShare including the users themselves, NEPSE, and the brokers. Failure on the part of any one of them to act properly can cause a problem in the system,” Sapkota says.

Speaking on behalf of NEPSE, Murahari Parajuli, the company secretary and information officer, adds that the exchange is also working on upgrading the system. NEPSE is trying to have the brokers build and operate the TMS to shed its load. The brokers can choose from the different available modalities of TMS operation but within the requirements set by NEPSE. “We have already changed some bylaws to allow this and are waiting for SEBON’s approval for the project to go ahead,” Parajuli informs.

He further explains that although NEPSE is often blamed whenever there is a problem in the system, there is more to the story than meets the eye. TMS is a platform that NEPSE operates but the associated brokers are responsible for maintaining their individual servers. “Most brokers make thousands of clients and take commissions from them but do not increase their server capacities or improve their data center,” Parajuli says. “So in the end, everyone ends up blaming NEPSE for any shortcomings in the system.”

Cogent Health Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of the F1Soft International Group, is a health tech company that specializes in the electronic medical record (EMR)-based health information system. Cogent Health has developed and deployed proprietary products such as CogentEMR, CogentEMR Web, Smart Swasthya, and e-Appointments at dozens of healthcare institutions in all seven provinces of Nepal. An entirely homegrown company, Cogent Health is insurance-compatible and in line with government policy directives.

Daniel D Shrestha, CEO, and MD of Cogent Health talked to Sunny Mahat of ApEx about the opportunities and challenges in Nepal for health-related tech companies. 

In layman’s terms, what does Cogent Health do?

Cogent Health makes a hospital management system. We work in the digitization of hospitals, create a health care management value chain and help foster evidence-based decision making in Nepal’s healthcare systems. With our electronic medical record (EMR), hospitals and clinics can record the patients’ complete data, from the time of their admission to their discharge, on a single platform. This helps create a paperless and automated system that helps with diagnosis and treatment. In the long run, EMR can also reduce the need for patients to carry a bulk of papers from one hospital to another. It will put up everything in the system for easy access across hospitals.  

As this is a relatively new concept in Nepal, how is the market demand?

Right now, there is a lot of demand in the market but the focus is more on revenue cycle management and billing management. So, we are trying to expand the scope and develop a market for our software that goes beyond just billing and revenue management.

Our software can improve patient care in hospitals and clinics. They can help in evidence-based decision making, reduce the paper trail left of patients, and help doctors identify a new course of action for patients. EMR has already been adopted by many developed countries and the market is gradually growing here. 

Cost-wise, how affordable is your software for the Nepali market?

Right now, some big hospitals in Nepal pay tens of millions for similar software developed abroad. As a homegrown company, our EMR software will have no comparison in terms of price. At the same time, it will be more expensive than the regular billing and revenue management software because of the time and resources we have to put in.

But, since we are working on health care, our pricing is reasonable and we also have facilities like partnership models and flexible payment plans. Now the onus is on to the hospitals and medical institutions to look beyond the billing system and work with us to digitalize the health system. 

For a company working in tech and innovation, what are the challenges that you face?

The biggest challenge is that the healthcare sector here is fragmented. And even the health ministry does not have a proper database of hospitals and medical centers in Nepal. I think proper standardization and segmentation of hospitals is necessary even for policy-making.

Also, we have the challenge of developing our market. Hospitals in Nepal do not spend much on digitalization and technology. This will hinder the development of a digital ecosystem in healthcare. Just look at how far banks and financial institutions in Nepal have gone. You can now withdraw money from any ATM of any bank. We can have something similar in the healthcare system if hospitals decide to invest in technology. 

How far do you think we are from a fully digitalized healthcare system in Nepal?

Currently, we have a long way to go. But tomorrow, digitalization has to happen. It is inevitable. So Cogent sees this as an opportunity. Right now, besides in a few organized hospitals, patient experience is not so good. There are long queues for check-ups and hospitals aren’t properly managed. But the industry can’t stay stagnant like that. A change of mindset is needed and when this happens, I think we will go towards digitization at the national level. We need an interoperable healthcare ecosystem as soon as possible. By the way things are going, we might see some significant changes in the next four to five years.