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When Alisha Basnet* visited the cyber bureau of Nepal Police to register an online harassment complaint, the officer in charge went through her phone and then proceeded to question her character. The reason was she had many guys on her social media and contact list. 

“The police officer thought I was the one who was deliberately drawing boys’ leering attention,” says the 21-year-old. “I was in a state of utter terror and yet the officer found the whole thing funny.” Basnet returned home without filing the complaint.   

Niharika Rajput was 17 when she was drugged, raped and blackmailed. She was impregnated by the rapist and subsequently disowned by her own family. The mother of the now 22-month-baby has since been fighting for justice alone.      

She has demanded a DNA test to establish the relation between her baby and its father, her rapist. Over the last two years, Rajput has reached out to the authorities for help and staged a hunger strike pleading her case. But legal help has not been forthcoming as her rapist continues to walk freely. 

The 2018 rape-and-murder of 13-year-old Nirmala Panta in Kanchanpur district had sent shock waves across Nepal. Protests erupted for proper investigation after suggestions of police tampering with the evidence to allegedly protect the culprits. Those protests and clamoring for justice for Panta have, over the years, died down and with them the underlying investigation too. 

Nepal’s legal system has time and again failed the victims of sexual assault and murder. Without compunction, authorities and the society at large are quick to question the victims’ character whenever there are reports of sexual crimes.  

Rajput, too, says the police in a roundabout way suggested that she was asking for it because she had showed up at the station in pants and a t-shirt, a ‘provocative’ dress. 

Advocate Samikchya Baskota says victims of sexual crimes do not feel either safe or comfortable with the police. 

“The authorities themselves are not welcoming,” she says. “They start by judging the woman because she carries and dresses herself a certain way. No wonder victims are reluctant to report.” 

Deputy Inspector General Tek Prasad Rai, Nepal Police spokesperson, claims to have a zero-tolerance policy for such misconduct from officers. 

“Every police station has at least one woman officer to forestall such incidents,” he says. 

But despite Rai’s claims, there are plenty of incidents whereby law enforcement officers have questioned the character of rape survivors based on their appearance. 

Even the first step to justice is traumatizing for girls and women who have been raped or sexually abused, says sociologist Meena Uprety. “How can the survivors hope when they are humiliated for speaking up?” 

In some cases authorities refuse to file complaints outright. 

Chamila Bhattarai, spokesperson of the National Women Commission, says most such complaints are related to domestic violence. 

“We get many domestic violence survivors asking for help after the police refused to register their complaints,” she says. 

Advocate Baskota says Nepal’s legal system itself is an obstruction for survivors of sexual crimes and violence. 

Even if a complaint is filed and it reaches the court, the justice process is tedious and traumatizing for the survivors, she adds. “Everywhere they go, they are required to explain the incident, which is mentally and emotionally draining for survivors and their families. This is one reason many survivors retract their statements. They feel the justice system is not meant to serve them.” 

Advocate Bimala Khadka suggests a fast-track approach in rape cases. She says it is one way to ease the mental and emotional trauma of the victims and reduce the chances of perpetrators influencing the case. 

She says perpetrators with money and political clout can wield such undue influence. “Our corrupt judicial system has left many survivors helpless.” she adds. 

Baskota agrees. “If the accused has a powerful social status, it is easy for him to prove his innocence.” 

The statute of limitations for rape and sexual violence is another reason many survivors cannot get justice. 

There have been rallying cries for removing the one-year statute, as many rights activists and women feel that survivors are too traumatized to talk about their harrowing experiences. But nothing has come of it yet.   

“Many child victims don’t even know they have been sexually assaulted until much later when they grow up,” says Baskota, while arguing the statute for rape and sexual violence, which used to be just three months until a couple of years ago.

But Rai says incidents of sexual violence survivors coming forward has increased: the number of actual complaints increasing from 1,469 in the fiscal 2017/18 to 2,395 in 2021/22. 

“It is a good sign that many survivors are choosing to speak up rather than hiding their trauma because of societal pressure.” 

Rai says the earlier the survivor files a complaint, the easier it is for the police to catch the accused. 

“Physical evidence plays a major role in identifying the accuser. The bodily trauma and the vaginal swab are essential for investigation,” he says. 

Mohna Ansari says this is where the authorities miss the point. 

“As important as it is to persecute the criminal, it is as important to protect the survivors,” she says. “The very approach of putting a victim through the ordeal of a vaginal swab and other physical examinations is traumatizing.”  

Ansari is of the view that the survivor’s statement alone should be enough to pursue an investigation. “It should be up to the accused to prove his innocence.” 

Sociologist Uprety says the ultimate responsibility of preventing crimes against women and delivering them justice, however, lies with the society.  

The instances of rape and violence survivors being humiliated in police stations, she says, are the result of the society’s patriarchal mindset. 

“We live in a society where the survivors are forced to drop the charges and retract their statements by their own families and communities,” she says. “This has to change.” 

(*Name changed to protect privacy)

Basobaas is a digital marketplace for real estate. It works as a medium for those looking to buy a house or rent an apartment. 

The company founder and CEO Rajan Adhikari started Basobaas in 2016 to make the process of buying/selling of a house and finding a flat easy and systematic.  

“It is hard to find a flat or a house to suit your needs and budget these days. That’s where Basobaas comes in,” he says. “We list properties on sale or rent on our website and mobile app and connect the clients and owners.” 

The company currently has more than 20,000 listings from different parts of Nepal. Adhikari says most of the listings are for rental and from Kathmandu Valley. 

“Kathmandu has many students and professionals who have come from other parts of the country. They need affordable flats and Basobaas can help them,” he adds.    

The company is among the foremost online realtor agencies that also offer consultation service to its clients. It has a team of experts to help property sellers appraise the building or land they wish to sell. Basobaas also offers guidance to buyers in the house selection and new home building process.    

“Buying a house is an important decision in a person’s or family’s life,” says Adhikari. “We are here to offer the right investment advice to our clients.”  

Adhikari sees a lot of scope in real estate business, particularly in the apartment and housing market segment. “Everyone wants to own a property in urban centers like Kathmandu but there are not enough space. The solution for this is housing colonies and apartments.”

He also expects that the burgeoning online business model will soon take over the traditional real estate business. When Basobaas started out six years ago, an online real estate company was fairly a new concept in Nepal. It took some time for the company to gain trust of its clients.   

“Even my family members were not pleased with my decision to start this company,” says Adhikari, who is an engineering graduate. “They thought realtor is not a proper job.     

Adhikari is proud that he stuck to his gun. He and his team persevered for years to build clients and the network of real estate agents. “We even visited people at their doorsteps to explain what Basobaas was all about,” adds Adhikari. 

That Basobaas would one day become a successful venture was never a doubt for Adhikari and its team. 

“We roped in a few clients and the properties enlisted on our site started selling, some within a matter of a week,” says Adhikari. 

Once the company started doing business, it also started attracting agents. So what’s next for the company? Adhikari says he wants to make Basobaas the “go-to” agency for buying, selling and renting of properties. 

Most of the younger generation got to know her as the bold and feisty judge of the reality show, Himalayan Roadies, but Deeya Maskey is an accomplished dancer and a critically acclaimed actor.

She has time and again proved her acting chops on TV, theater and big screen. Now she is returning to acting with the film ‘Prakash’, a social drama set in western Nepal.  

In an acting career that goes as far back as 15 years, Maskey has acted in only a smattering of movies, which is odd given the talent she possesses. 

But Maskey’s yardstick of success is different; quantity is not what she is after.  She wants to do memorable films and play memorable roles. “I personally do not have a certain preference or role I would like to play,” she says. “But I have to find the right script, or rather the script finds me.” 

Maskey stumbled into acting by accident. Her aim in life was to become a dancer. She entered showbiz as a music video model. Her first modeling job was for the song ‘Bhijyo Sirani’ by Manila Sotang while she was studying dance. “I had gone against my parents’ wish by deciding to become a professional dancer and I needed to support myself financially.”

Maskey had never imagined that modeling for a music video would open the doors for her to other exciting opportunities. Her first acting gig was in the TV series ‘Dalan’ about the life of Dalit community set in the 90s. The show’s director Nabin Subba had asked Maskey to audition for a role after seeing her in the music video.   

“That seems like forever ago,” says Maskey. “I am so bad at remembering dates.”

What Maskey remembers, though, is that playing the role of Kali in the show gave her the acting bug. To prepare for the role, she visited several parts of Nepal and attended several acting workshops. It was both fascinating and educating for her to discover the many aspects of acting, the research and work that went goes into creating a character. 

“All the traveling and research I did for my role and the acting workshops I attended stoked my passion for acting,” says Maskey. 

She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed ‘Kagbeni’ in 2008 and went on to play in other memorable movies like ‘Soongava: Dance of the Orchids’ and ‘Saanghuro’. A pattern emerges if one were to judge Maskey’s filmography. Her movies generally fall in the indie genre and have some kind of social commentary; they are not catered to mainstream crowds.

While Maskey acknowledges that most of her films are unconventional, she says there is nothing intentional about it.

“Maybe because I started out with a TV show with a social message, most of the movies I am offered are in the similar vein,” she says. “As for not doing many mainstream films, I don’t consider myself the right fit.”

Maskey is more of a character actor who revels in playing unconventional roles and we all are better off for that. Her kind is rare in Nepali film industry.  

Slumping foreign reserves have raised fears that Nepal could be another Sri Lanka in the making. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has increased the cost of imports, saddling Nepal’s economy with galloping inflation.

According to the World Bank, exporting countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Mexico are seeing significant decline in their manufacturing capacity, particularly in energy-intensive sectors, as a result of the war. Crop exporters such as Turkey, Brazil, and India, as well as fossil fuel exporters like Nigeria and Middle-East countries are also facing difficulty with exports.

Analyzing the data from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, Nepal gets almost two-thirds of the goods—from petroleum to cereals—from India. With India itself grappling with the economic jolt dealt by the Russia-Ukraine war, Nepal is not just importing goods but also inflation. Currently, every exporting country that Nepal relies on has been facing a price hike, which automatically drives up the import rates. 

Looking at the data, Nepal’s import bill seems to be increasing in the alternate years we tracked, starting from the fiscal year 2009/10. The increment started well ahead of the Russian-Ukraine war. The war only acted as a catalyst to push Nepal towards an economic crisis.

The government has enforced restrictions on the import of luxury goods to maintain the country’s dwindling foreign currency reserves, but it continues to import the essentials like petroleum and cereals, as well as raw materials like iron and steel at increased rates. 

Easier to import goods than manufacture them in Nepal

Pabitra Bajracharya, President, Nepal Retailers Association 

Although we can see that the import cost has reduced significantly in 2020, it was a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The import rate, without a doubt, will escalate in the coming years. One of the solutions to reducing imports is promoting domestic goods. But the policy for domestic production is not favorable for investors as well as industry owners. 

Our policies have made it easier to import goods rather than manufacture them within the country, increasing the country’s dependency on foreign goods. The reason for this is the higher cost of manufacturing in Nepal. 

Moreover, importing raw materials, ensuring the manufacture of final goods and hoping to make profit out of them are tedious processes. It is far easier to import, which also ensures profit for a lot of businesspersons. 

There is also the insecurity of not being able to attract an adequate number of buyers. This insecurity is driving up imports and discouraging local manufacturing. 

The constant increase in the import cost seen over the last decade might be pushing Nepal towards a devastating economic crisis. The Russia-Ukraine war has hugely affected the import rate. 

If we do not proceed with caution, Nepal will become the next Sri Lanka before we know it. 

One of Bipana Sharma’s earliest memories is seeing girls of her age working while she was going to school. She remembers asking her father who was supposed to send them to school. To this she got a terse reply: ‘Sarkarko kaam ho’ (it’s the government’s job).

“I was just a little girl then and I thought ‘sarkar’ was a person,” says Sharma, who is now 23.

She later found out the meaning of the word. Indeed, the government must ensure all children get the opportunity to go to school. But that was not happening in  Sharma’s hometown of Sunwal, Parasi. The situation was far worse in fact. Girls barely in their early teens were getting married off or worse, getting trafficked.

Sharma was a precocious child. It didn’t take her long to figure out what was going on. Children in her community had no say in their future. They were not safe and had no rights.

So Sharma decided to set things right. In 2010, at the tender age of 11, she founded Ekta Child Club Sunwal. Getting children in her community to join the club was difficult. “Most parents wouldn’t consent to the idea,” says Sharma. She visited every house in her neighborhood, convincing adults to allow their children to be part of the club.  

At length the club managed to get 40 members. It was the beginning of Sharma’s journey in child rights activism.

“You need the mass if you want to be heard and make a change,” says Sharma. Survival, development, protection and participation were the four things the club wanted for all children. Sharma and her club friends were a hardy bunch, determined to address the social ills afflicting their peers. Their primary area of work was putting a stop to child marriage.

Sharma and her club friends were the gatekeepers and whistleblowers that saved many girls from early marriage. They worked closely with the local authorities to break up many weddings with underage brides.

In several cases, they intercepted the groom’s family and friends on their way to get the bride. They also rescued young girls who had been married off and reunited them with their parents. The club’s goal was to stop child marriage from happening in the first place, but it was not always possible, says Sharma. “We had to intervene and disrupt things.”  

Ekta Child Club started gaining a reputation for its work. What began as a small cohort of children working for the rights of children started amassing many members. It also inspired other children to form similar clubs.

Sharma has become a role model for many youths across the country. Samir Pariyar, a fellow club member, describes Sharma as an inspirational figure and a born leader.

“We find her drive and courage inspirational,” he says. “She has a strong sense of right and wrong. She treated everyone equally.” The proudest moment of Sharma’s life, she says, was when Sunwal was declared Nepal’s first child-friendly municipality in 2015. She is pleased the club she founded also had a contribution to achieve that status for her hometown. 

“Our club played a part in making Sunwal a child-friendly municipality,” Sharma says. “I wear this as a badge of honor.” In 2015, Sharma was feted with Asian Girl Human Rights Awards as well as first Glocal Teen Hero award for her contributions to child rights. 

Sharma left her beloved club after she turned 18, but she still works closely with it and mentors its leaders and members. She is deeply invested on the issue of child rights. From making change at the community level, she has now moved on to the national level.  These days Sharma’s mission is ensuring child-friendly local governance. She serves as a board member of National Level Child Governance Forum.

There is still a long way to go for Nepal to become a child-friendly country. While some municipal wards are making impressive progress, others lag far behind. “We will just have to try harder,” says Sharma. With her determination and belief, she will try.

Ram Kumar Bhaukaji, a painter who chose to remain away from the public eye all his life, passed away on July 21. He was 71. 

Born in Ramechhap district, Bhaukaji was drawn to art from an early age. He had an innate instinct for art, says his brother Bimal. “He liked to draw and paint anything and everything around him.” 

Bhaukaji was an introvert and expressed himself largely through his paintings. “He was different from everyone else in the family. Art was his escape and his only companion,” adds Bimal.     

It became apparent that Bhaukaji was destined to become an artist when he held his first exhibition in his hometown of Sanghutar, Ramechhap, on March 7 and 8 in 1973. Six years later, he went on to exhibit his painting collection titled ‘My Nepal’ at Nepal-Bharat Pustakalaya (then known as Nepal-Bharat Sanskrit Kendra) in Kathmandu—an event which was inaugurated by BP Koirala. 

In the 1980s, he went to Moscow, Russia, to study fine arts and returned with a doctoral degree in 1987. He continued to paint and exhibit his works after coming back to Nepal.

Despite gaining considerable renown as an artist, Bhaukaji was never comfortable with fame. He never sold his paintings and left behind nearly 3,000 of his works to his family.

“He used to give away his paintings as gifts but he simply refused to sell them,” says Bimal. “Art for him was the purest form of passion and expression. It was never about making money.”

Bhaukaji lived his life doing what he loved the most and never expected anything in return. He even rejected awards and positions. He had famously turned down Araniko Puraskar and the position of chief of the Nepal Academy of Fine Arts.

Bimal calls his artist brother “the most authentic person” he has known.

During his lifetime, Bhaukaji also wrote numerous articles on art, culture and history. In 2021, he published three books, ‘Juddhakala Pathsala’, ‘Shrasta Kulmansingh Bhandari’ and ‘Nepali Kalakar Ko Samasya’.

Bhaukaji led a carefree life and remained a lifelong bachelor. Painting was all he cared about. “He survived on just tea and biscuits for days, all the while transfixed in his work,” says Bimal.  

Bhaukaji’s health had started deteriorating in recent years following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. He passed away at his New Baneshwor residence after a long illness. He is survived by his family—and his priceless paintings.

Bimala Uprety, a 45-year-old homemaker, has to this date not used the induction cooker she bought years ago. She is happy with her trusty LPG stove.

“You never know when the power goes out,” she says. “At least with gas, you don’t have to worry about uncooked meals.” 

Uprety knows induction cooktops are more energy efficient than gas stoves, but she is reluctant to make the switch for a simple reason that electricity is irregular. She is not the only one who thinks so.

This reluctance, though not unfounded, stands as a barrier for embracing sustainable energy, says environmentalist Bhusan Tuladhar.

But their unwillingness is understandable in light of what happened during the 2015 border blockade when many families had switched over to electrical induction for cooking. Voltage was low and transformers often exploded. In total, 200 transformers across Nepal had to be replaced because of overload. 

The old transformers are still not equipped for high voltage distribution, leaving the public undecided about shifting to clean energy. 

The switch is even more challenging in rural Nepal, where the majority of households rely on traditional biomass. 

Although many rural households have been switching to LPG—as suggested by the research ‘LPG: The Dream Energy for Nepalese Women’ published by Center for Rural Technology, Nepal—biomass is still the dominant energy source.

Biogas technology can be used to cut down the use of biomass in rural areas. But energy experts say the government should be willing to bear greater burden of installing biogas systems. 

Most people are not interested in installing millions worth of biogas systems for which the government only covers 30-35 percent. Also, many rural households these days are moving away from farming and cattle rearing. In other words, not enough animal dung and agricultural waste—biogas ingredients—is being produced.

“As more and more people have been taking up non-farming jobs, installation of biogas plants has become even less viable,” says Prakash Lamichhanhe, executive director of Biogas Sector Partnership-Nepal. 

The reluctance to adopt sustainable energy is not limited to kitchens though. It is widespread in transport as well. Though the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on our roads has been increasing, fossil fuel-run vehicles still rule the roads.

There is little knowledge about EVs among people. Many people do not even know how the batteries work, or about their maintenance, cost and reliability. 

Take Gokul Nepal, a 53-year-old teacher. He recently bought a scooter after weighing all the pros and cons of ‘petrol v electric’ two-wheelers. He chose the former because there are not many charging stations while traveling outside Kathmandu valley. 

“I also had doubts about the battery life, pick-up and the overall reliability of the electric scooter,” he says.

It is also that electric transport is not being promoted enough. Customers don’t have a choice when most dealers are selling fossil fuel-based vehicles.  

There are only a few start-ups and a handful of well-established dealers selling EVs. But most customers buy their vehicles from popular dealers. And roads in Nepal are simply not fit for EVs. Kathmandu, the capital city, doesn’t even have proper bicycle lanes, let alone a smooth, gradient-free roads for electric cars.   

Harmita Shrestha, who drives electric buses for Sajha Yatayat, says Kathmandu’s roads are full of speed-breakers and potholes for vehicles like EVs with low ground clearance to ply smoothly. 

“Everywhere you go in Kathmandu, the road condition is the same,” she says.

While Sajha has at least tried to promote electric transport, the same cannot be said of other public transport operators.

Public transport is a lucrative business with huge investment and it has provided jobs for many. Tuladhar says existing public transport operators will naturally oppose EVs.

“They will not put their investment on the line for the sake of the environment,” he adds. “The state should offer them an alternative to protect their investment.”

Fossil fuels cannot be completely replaced. Many people’s livelihoods depend on them and they will go to any length to maintain the status quo. 

Many institutions like petroleum associations, tankers associations, and private businesses are benefiting from the increasing purchase of petroleum products. 

Shifting towards clean energy will harm them. “They are not concerned about promoting clean energy, or the degrading environment,” says Shree Krishna Upadhyay, founding chairperson of Support Activities of Poor Producers of Nepal (SAPPROS) who has been promoting the use of clean energy for the past 47 years. 

He adds that never has he seen these institutions support clean energy. “I always hear of their objections to it,” he says. 

Mukesh Kafle, former CEO of Nepal Electricity Authority, for one believes it will be hard to pin the blame without proper research. 

But several instances suggest businesses and institutions that benefit from greater use of fossil fuel won’t shy away from getting their hands dirty if need be. 

Take the case of the ropeway between Gorkha and Chitwan. Kiran K. Rauniyar, a mechanical engineer, says the ropeway was destroyed in 2015 by a syndicate of truck operators whose business was taking a hit.  

The ropeway, built in 2008, had become an efficient way of transporting goods for the villagers of the two districts, and the local goods carriers were not happy. 

Ganesh Sinkemana, technical director of Ropeway Nepal who worked for Gorkha-Chitwan ropeway, says since the local truck operators were not getting any business, they decided to cut the ropeway by raising unfounded safety hazards after the 2015 earthquake.   

“I checked the ropeway myself. There was no safety issue after the earthquake,” he says.

This is one example of how beneficiaries of fossil fuels are obstructing the use of clean energy resources. “It’s only money they care about, not the environment or the society,” adds Upadhyay. 

Energy experts say Nepal’s dependence on fossil fuels is too deeply connected to its socio-economic fabric. 

Unless people are willing to make changes in their lifestyle and ways of thinking, Upadhyay says, the road to sustaining energy will continue to be bumpy. “The government too is not doing enough to help people make a conscious choice,” he concludes.

Many culinary enthusiasts may be familiar with ‘Kanchhi Kitchen’, a YouTube channel dedicated to traditional village cooking.  

The channel has over 281,000 subscribers and more than 48m views. But oddly enough, its creators, Kanchhi Maiya Bhandari and her son Prakash, never set out with the intention of creating content for the masses. 

It all started when one day Prakash, a tour guide by profession, decided to film his mother going about her daily life at their village home in Sangkosh of Dhading district. He was without a job because of the pandemic at the time, so he decided to utilize his free time taking pictures and videos of village life, featuring his mother. 

One of the earliest videos the mother-son duo made, remembers Kanchhi Maiya, was of her preparing a fish curry in her kitchen.

“I only agreed to make the video at my son’s insistence,” says Kanchhi Maiya, a self-described shy person. Her timid nature can be seen in her videos, where she rarely speaks.

Dressed in traditional Nepali attire of ‘Gunyu Cholo’, the 50-year-old is seen cooking various Nepali dishes on a traditional firewood stove in her kitchen and sometimes outdoors. But there are no voice-overs, no explaining of the recipe, no addressing the invisible audience.            

The crackling and hissing of burning firewood, the hissing and sizzling sound of ingredients hitting the boiling oil, and the weirdly pleasing noise of people eating give the videos ASMR and mukbang vibe.  

Kanchhi Maiya is doubtless a talented cook. She can rustle up anything from simple root vegetable and green leaf curry to more complex whole chicken roast and mutton ribs, all of which look mouth-wateringly delicious. 

Some of these videos are particularly endearing because they promote the communal bond and culture of the village, as they show cooking occasions during picnics and weddings and pujas.    

“I was motivated to make more of such videos after the picnic video became popular,” says Kanchhi Maiya.  

The 17 minute-long video with over one million views shows Kanchhi Maiya gathering fallen twigs and branches in a forest to make fire to cook a delicious meal served on traditional leaf plates for fellow picnickers. 

Most of the dishes she prepares on her videos are her own ideas, which she learned to cook in the village. But of late, she says, she also makes non-Nepali dishes like pizza and grilled chicken.

“My son suggests them after watching other cooking shows and I use my experience and skills to make them,” she says.  

Whatever Kanchhi Maiya cooks, she gives them her own touch and finesse. She feels her YouTube cooking journey has been both a teaching and learning experience.

For most part of her life, Kanchhi Maiya says, she spent her life in the kitchen cooking for her family. In the past, cooking was like an everyday chore for her, but now she finds it liberating and empowering.   

“I had never expected all of this,” she says “I feel very blessed and lucky.”

Buoyed by the love and support from her viewers, Kanchhi Maiya plans to start a homestay in her village one day.  “It is a request made by many of my viewers and I intend to fulfill that request,” she says.

It is not lost on her that her success at this stage of life is due to those millions of viewers who watch her videos regularly. 

“A simple gesture of support and guidance can turn a person’s life around,” says Kanchhi Maiya. 

“I have learned a lot from this journey and I wish many more women get the same level of support in their lives.”