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Rita Pandey has been selling panipuri in Patan for the past three years. The recent ban on streetfood sale in response to the cholera outbreak has put her in a fix.  

She has no business right now and she doesn’t know how long the ban will stay. 

When I met her on a recent afternoon, she was sitting on a pavement talking to a group of people. Her cart was nowhere to be seen. Pandey is 24 but she looks old for her age, deep frown lines run across her head and just looking at her face, one can say she worries a lot. 

She has been living alone with her daughter after her husband left   to work in Kuwait in 2019. Pandey started selling panipuri two years ago in order to pay the rent and send her daughter to school.“I don’t know how long this ban will last. My livelihood depended on selling panipuri. Without business, it is getting difficult to survive,” she says.

Although her husband sends money, it hardly covers the cost of living in the city. Every month, Pandey pays Rs 7,000 for rent and another Rs 4,500 for her daughter’s school fees. “On good days, I make a profit of Rs 1,500 a day,” she says.Pandey was born and raised in Arghakhanchi 

district and came to Lalitpur for the first time after her marriage in 2017. She was just 19 at the time and didn’t know anything about city life, how unforgiving it could be if you have no source of income.

Panday’s husband was planning to go abroad at the time. While he frequented one manpower agency after another, she stayed at home. “My husband got a job in Kuwait and left in 2019. Our daughter hadn’t been born yet; I didn’t even know I was pregnant at the time,” Pandey says.

She got through the pregnancy alone and gave birth to a baby girl. This was during the initial days of Covid-19 pandemic. Life was getting increasingly hard for Pandey, a new mother. That was when she decided to start a panipuri business. 

“My daughter was just seven-month old when I started this business, but soon Covid-19 hit Nepal and I couldn’t put up my stall for several months,” she says. When the country went under a lockdown, Pandey didn’t know what to do. She had already made the investment and backing down was not an option. 

Once the lockdown was lifted, she set up her business on the roadside of Patan. In the initial days, Pandey says she didn’t earn much. “I spend around Rs 2,000 daily and some days I couldn’t even break even, but I pressed on,” she says.

Her business really took off last summer. More people started visiting her cart and she has made many regular customers. “I was making good progress until Lalitpur Metropolitan City imposed this ban,” Pandey says. “I didn’t even know about the ban until a random person told me about it.”

Asked if she has thought of an alternative should this ban were to last for months, she says selling panipuri is all she knows and is good at.  “I am comfortable doing this business. I don’t know if I’ll be able to shift to something else,” adds. If the ban is not lifted or continues for a long time, Pandey says she will have to think about getting a proper shop space. “I don’t even know how much that is going to cost me. But mostly, I’m worried about losing my customers.”

Kajalkali, a safari elephant who gave fun memories to many visitors who came to holiday in Sauraha, Chitwan, succumbed to old age-related maladies on June 26. She was around 60.

Kajalkali was a reason for joy for many people whom she carried on her back and took on safari of Chitwan National Park, but her own life was not a happy one. She was after all a captive elephant, without a herd or even a natural habitat. She led a domesticated life among humans, who dictated what she did and where she went.

Not much is known about Kajalkali’s early life other than that she was born in India and brought to Sauraha in 2017. For an Asian elephant, she was already in her twilight years when she was put to work as a safari elephant.

“Despite her old age and poor health, she was used for jungle safari for three and a half years,” says Babu Ram Lamichhane, senior conservation officer at the National Trust of Nature Conservation (NTNC). 

Although Kajalkali was privately owned, the trust monitored her health and well-being. Kajalkali’s previous owner had last year abandoned her when she started showing signs of illness. He had sold her to an Indian buyer even though the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), as well as the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1973, bans elephant trade. 

Kajalkali never made it to India. Authorities intercepted the truck that was transporting her to the south and she was returned to Sauraha.

Shri Lal Pariyar, a hotel owner in Sauraha, took Kajalkali in, as her previous owner wanted nothing to do with her. She was given shelter and fed by the hotel, while the NTNC looked after her medical needs. 

“Two caregivers were attending to Kajalkali as she had gotten too feeble,” says Lamichhane.

Kajalkali was showing many signs of aging. For instance, she had lost several teeth, which made it difficult for her to chew. 

Elephants can lose and regrow their teeth six times at most. After that, they do not grow back, which was the case for Kajalkali, says Lamichhane. “She wasn't eating properly and became emaciated, which resulted in a severe digestive issue," he adds.

Kajalkali was getting weaker by the day and there came a point where she couldn’t even bear her own weight. She collapsed on May 23 and had to be lifted with an excavator.

“Veterinarians administered her with saline drips to nurse her back to health,” says Lamichhane. 

Kajalkali recovered but not fully. She collapsed for the second time on May 31 and then again a few days later, and this time never to get up on her feet. 

Kajalkali stopped eating entirely; she couldn’t even drink water. People who witnessed her in her last days reported seeing her drawing water with her trunk and putting it in her mouth, but she was unable to swallow. Every now and then, she would move her feet and trunk but other than that there was barely a movement.

Kajalkali died on the afternoon of June 26 and she was buried on the spot where she took her last breath.  

High inflation has squeezed the budgets of Nepali households. The year-on-year consumer price inflation was 7.87 percent in the 10th month of the fiscal year 2021/22 compared to 3.65 percent the same month a year ago, Nepal Rastra Bank data show. Prices of ghee and oil; fruits; milk products and eggs; and pulses and legumes rose by 24.86 percent, 12.61 percent, 11.30 percent, and 10.53 percent, respectively.

While the grocery list for each household varies, ApEx here considers 10 essential daily items in order to compare their prices in Kathmandu and New Delhi.  Of these items, only two—basmati long grain rice and ghee—are cheaper in Nepal than in India. 

Per kilo potato and wheat flour price, for instance, are Rs 12 dearer in Nepal than in India. The biggest price difference is on peas, at a staggering Rs 127. Prices of sugar, pulses, tomatoes and sunflower oil are also higher in Nepal.   

Nepal’s low agricultural production means most of these grocery items have to be imported from India, driving up their prices. The consumer price inflation in an import-reliant country like Nepal is also heavily influenced by transport cost, which in turn is determined by fuel prices. With oil prices skyrocketing due to the Russia-Ukraine war, imported goods have become costlier than ever. 

Rising trade deficit and import bills are not good for Nepal—and certainly not for its people who earn in a currency that is also fast depreciating against the dollar, the international benchmark. 

We should brace ourselves for long-haul inflation 

Bishal Chalise, economist 

As we import most of our food items from India, higher prices are to be expected here. But there are other reasons for high inflation as well, like the Russia-Ukraine war and our low production and productivity. 

Because of the war, the price of petroleum products has gone up globally, which contributes to price inflation of goods. There is a fear of a possible food crisis, and countries with high agricultural production have started stocking up on food as a backup plan. 

The likes of India, Vietnam and China have significantly lowered export of food items and yet their production has not fluctuated.

But the scenario is different in Nepal. Even though we produce little and are heavily import-reliant, the government has no plans on curbing soaring inflation. Our monetary and other financial policies are ad hoc. We cannot drastically increase our production  as well. This lack of effort augurs a long inflationary phase in Nepali economy. 

Further, we do not have the capacity to use only clean energy and do away with petroleum products. We need fossil fuel for mobility, to transport goods, and to sustain our economy. But a petro-dependent economy is getting increasingly difficult to sustain, what with the global oil prices soaring due to the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Amid this unstable global climate and lack of preparation on the part of our government, we should brace ourselves for long-haul inflation. 

The best way to minimize the crisis is by controlling consumption. Only necessary items should be imported, while consumption should be monitored as well to prevent the wastage of imported goods. Or else, the crisis will get much worse.

Inside the studio of Claé Creatives, one notices the minimalist interior, an open plan wood-themed workspace. The place is spacious and the furniture sparse. The word ‘elegance’ comes to mind—and elegance is what this branding agency at Kathmandu’s Naxal is all about. 

A subsidiary of the Century Group of Companies, Claé Creatives was founded by Ayushi Dugar in 2020. The studio offers software development, branding, digital marketing, and graphic design services. Their products are simple and ergonomic and without any flash and frills.

These can be seen on the brand designs of companies like Ecoponic Agri Tech of India and Pelvic PT of the US. Clae Creatives is also behind the logos of Cucu Cuddles of India, and Incré of Nigeria.

The studio has offered its services from startups to well-established businesses in Nepal and abroad.

One of the reasons Dugar started the company was to give designers a proper platform to showcase their talents. “I see many designers not being given the recognition they deserve, and this is particularly true if you happen to be a woman” she says. She wants to create a gender-balanced environment for designers, where everyone is encouraged to learn from each other.

Dugar majored in graphic designing and marketing as an undergraduate and did her postgraduate in UI (user interface)/UX (user experience) design.  She feels that the design industry in Nepal needs to grow to put out better products and services.

“There is a misconception in Nepal that designing is an easy task, but there are many aspects and processes to it,” she says. 

From coming up with logo designing to product packaging to marketing, there are many areas the studio works in. It takes a lot of research and brainstorming to create a unique brand identity.

Claé Creatives helps businesses understand how to brand themselves and shift towards digital marketing.

In terms of software development, the company creates everything from scratch. The entire software is designed around what best suits a particular company and its profile. Also accounted for are how the potential customers are going to interact with the software and how to make their experience enjoyable and engaging.

Many businesses in Nepal do not realize the importance of design and digital marketing, but this is slowly changing, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic when online stores and sales took off.

Asked if it is difficult to get clients willing to invest in branding and digital marketing, Dugar says the answer is both yes and no. While there has been an uptick in the number of companies willing to take the risk and invest in their brand designs and marketing them through digital platforms, she says “there is still a huge gap a studio like ours can fill.”   

Claé Creatives itself uses digital platforms like Instagram to inform and educate the people about digital marketing and how it works, and this approach has succeeded to some extent. It has managed to gain several domestic and foreign clients.  The studio is already planning to expand internationally, starting from India, to make their services more convenient and accessible for the clients abroad.

The overall goal of Claé creatives is to promote the designing industry of Nepal. Dugar says there are a lot of creative people in Nepal who are reluctant to join a company and put their talent to use. She envisions a comfortable and encouraging working environment for such talents, especially women, so that they will not have to give up on their passion due to lack of a better platform.

“It is much better to work in a team, since it presents more opportunities and learning experience,” she says

Kajol Jha believes in the power of youth. She believes young people can change the world if they are given the right platform. The 29-year-old has been leading Glocal Private Limited, a consulting company that educates, engages and inspires youths to give them the much-needed leg-up in their career.  

“Young people, especially teenagers, are so much more capable than what society believes them to be. My goal has always been to offer them a platform to enhance their talents and skills,” she says.

Jha was a driven individual with a strong sense of self from a young age. She joined the company in her early twenties as a blogger for Glocal Khabar. As a writer, she wanted to promote start-ups and young achievers, while encouraging the readers to pursue their own ideas.

“There was a dearth of platforms and information for talented enterprising youths at the time,” she says of her days working as a blogger for the company. “Most stories and articles on youths were negative ones. They rarely featured their achievements, small or big.”

So Jha set out to change that with her write-ups on young and skilled entrepreneurs and their success stories.

Her own personal success came when her company asked her to lead its flagship project ‘Glocal Teen Hero’ in 2015. The project was all about recognizing the ideas and creativity of teenagers from various sectors.

Jha was required to oversee the project’s business and management side, in which she excelled. Her undergraduate study in business administration also came in handy. 

But as great as the idea was, it was equally difficult for Jha and her team to find collaborators to start the project.

She says Nepali society is by and large reluctant to place their trust on young people, let alone teenagers with innovative ideas out of which they could build a career. Many prospective collaborators dismissed the project upon learning that it was about teenagers. Parents were also reluctant to allow their children to participate.

But Jha was determined to make the project happen at any cost—if anything, the pushbacks galvanized her. After much convincing, she and her team were able to rope in five collaborators for the project.

“We had 98 participants in the first iteration of Teen Hero project. The number has gradually increased over the years, reaching 611 in 2021” Jha says proudly.

Glocal Teen Hero is held annually where young talented minds are awarded for their works. While the cash prize helps winners improve and expand their enterprises, it is the business network and opportunities that open up that is more important.    

“More than the cash award, Glocal Teen Hero is about giving winners the recognition among business leaders and entrepreneurs,” Jha says. “Being recognized among these individuals opens several doors of opportunity that helps them pave their career path.”

Over the years, the Teen Hero project has also gone international, with its own version in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

“We want to turn this into a global community of change-making teenagers. This would provide a space for creatives from all over the world to share and work on their ideas,” say Jha, who is currently fulfilling the role of associate director at Glocal Private Limited.

Besides promoting the works and ideas of young people, Jha is also involved in the company’s e-learning platform, Glocal After School, where young individuals are given opportunities to upskill and taught to sharpen their skillsets.

It is important for Jha to make learning methods more effective and practical, particularly in the context of Nepal where many youths are traveling abroad for jobs and training.

“The vision is to promote an ecosystem of skilled youths through these trainings, ensuring the availability of jobs as well as skilled human resources within Nepal,” she says.

Jha works with equally talented and driven team members who share the passion for fostering youth entrepreneurship. They have helped many individuals on their career path at a very young age.

“If anyone can change the world, it’s the young generation. All they need is a proper platform where they can learn to hone their skills,” says Jha.

Dr Bhampa Rai, a leading figure in the Bhutanese refugee repatriation movement, passed away on June 19. He was 72.

Rai was born and raised in the Bara village of Samchi district in southern Bhutan. His ancestors, originally from Nepal, had migrated to Bhutan during the 17th century.

A surgeon by profession, Rai worked for the Bhutanese royal family before tens of thousands of Nepali speaking Bhutanese fled the country in the early 1990s.

Unlike other Nepali-speaking Bhutanese, Rai and his family were not chased out of the country. As a surgeon to the royal family, the Bhutanese government in fact urged him to stay. Rai left as he could not tolerate the government’s persecution of his people. The stateless people, he felt, needed him more than the royal family.   

Rai and his family first made their way to West Bengal, India, where they spent a few months with the other refugees. There he met Ram Karki, a Bhutanese human rights activist now based in the Netherlands.

“He was straightforward and selfless and he wasn’t against any group or community, only against the regime that had evicted his people from their homes,” says Karki of Rai.

After the homeless Bhutanese refugees were chased away by the Indian authorities, they came to Nepal and camped along the Mechi River in eastern Nepal. Life became increasingly hard for them. There were crises of food, water and sanitation, and the people started getting sick.

Rai volunteered medical care to the sick, and he continued his practice even after the refugees were moved to the camps run by the UN High Commission for Refugees. 

“He had a clinic in Damak from where he used to offer free healthcare to Bhutanese refugees as well as non-refugees,” Karki says. “He used to get hundreds of calls every single day and he helped everyone.”

As a qualified surgeon, there was no shortage of well-paying job offers for Rai. But he declined them and decided to devote his life for the care of his people.

Rai hoped to one day return to Bhutan and led a repatriation movement to find a rightful place for his people in their native land. He didn’t give up even when the majority of refugees opted to migrate to other parts of the world as part of the UN's third country-resettlement program.

Rai's parents as well as his wife died in Nepal as refugees. He had been living alone in his rented flat.

In May this year, Damak Municipality had honored Rai for his tireless service to the refugees as well as to the local community. He was offered free housing, but for him home was always Bhutan.

“On the day he was honored, he had shared with me his wish to live out the last of his days in Bara, Bhutan,” Karki says. “That wish never came true. Now it is upon us to walk on the path he has shown.” 

Rai had been suffering from liver and kidney problems for a long time. On June 14, he underwent operations for hernia and piles and later died of complications from the surgery at Noble Hospital in Biratnagar.

Nepal’s installed power capacity is expected to exceed 15,000 MW by 2030, according to the Electricity Demand Forecast Report 2017.  

By 2040, electricity demand is projected to climb to 82,000 GWh, with a corresponding installed capacity requirement of over 35,000 MW. 

Hydropower plants are believed to be Nepal’s most reliable energy-source. In theory, the country can produce 50,000 MW of electricity by harnessing its water resources. But there are challenges galore to turn this theory into practice. For one, cost is a big concern. 

Dipak Gyawali, former minister of water resources, says Nepal’s electricity production is three to four times more costly than it is in most other countries. “For instance, Ethiopia started producing electricity without foreign assistance and did it at $800 per kilowatt. In Nepal, we had to fork out $2,500 for the same output,” he says. 

Building hydropower plants in Nepal is both challenging and costly because of the country’s difficult hill and mountain topography, often with no road access to the project sites.   

“A power plant that takes five years to build elsewhere takes 10 to 15 years in Nepal,” says Gyawali. While technology and expertise have helped reduce both time and cost of building power stations, that is true mostly in the case of storage-type hydropower projects. In Nepal, most hydroelectricity projects are run-of-the-river, which don’t have the desired power storage capacity, or the consistency: During the dry season, electricity production of hydropower stations falls by two-thirds of their peak monsoon-time output.

According to the Department of Electricity Development, Nepal has the electricity generation capacity of 2,094.034 MW, of which 20.18 MW comes from solar sources.

Nepal has set the target of ramping up its clean energy output from 1,400 MW to 1,500 MW by 2030 as part of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But the achievement of this goal remains doubtful, given the country’s patchy record. Nepal had failed to meet its previous NDC target: to expand renewable energy to 20 percent of its energy-mix by 2020. The share of renewable energy was a mere 3.2 percent in 2019, government data show. 

According to a study carried out by the Center of Energy Studies, Pulchowk Engineering Campus, in April 2022, Nepal meets 67 percent of its energy needs from biomass, 19 percent from fossil fuels, seven percent from coal, five percent from electricity, and two percent from alternative sources.

In order to meet the NDC target, say energy experts, Nepal must prioritize clean alternative energy sources alongside hydroelectricity projects.   

Solar and biogas technologies could be cheap and viable alternatives, for instance. Solar panels can be set up in each household in a day or two, and approximately a year in case of large-scale production facilities. Likewise, a household biogas system can be installed in two weeks. Madhu Sudan Adhikari, Executive Director of Alternative Energy Promotion Center, believes it is high time Nepal prioritized energy sources other than hydroelectricity to meet its energy needs.  

“Generating solar energy is far cheaper than generating hydro energy,” he says. “The cost of building a one MW-capacity hydro plant is around Rs 200m. The same amount of electricity can be generated via solar technology for Rs 70m to Rs 80m.”

But there is a catch. Harnessing the sun’s energy may cost a lot less than generating electricity from water, but solar plants’ power availability factor—a measure of efficiency—of 18 to 20 percent dwarfs that of hydropower stations at 30 to 40 percent. There is invariably a trade-off.

Jagan Nath Shrestha, a solar energy expert, believes both hydro and solar plants can be simultaneously developed, so that energy  production does not fluctuate. 

Also, finding a large enough area to set up solar panels to support large communities is a big concern, especially in a crowded city like Kathmandu where open spaces are rare. 

But this problem also has a solution, says Shrestha. “If, say, 100,000 of the bigger, well-spread houses in Kathmandu valley install solar panels, the surplus electricity they produce can be used to offset any shortfall in the national grid,” he adds.

Better yet, say energy experts, solar technology should work in concert with the biogas systems in rural Nepal where most families still rely on traditional, polluting energy sources like firewood. 

It is more costly to install solar panels in individual rural households compared to their installation cost for urban households. But there is plenty of space available in non-urban areas of Nepal to set up small- to medium-size solar facilities to light up small communities. And for biogas systems, they already have easy access to organic materials. 

“It takes approximately Rs 100,000 for a household to set up a biogas system for cooking or heating purposes,” says Shekhar Aryal, chairperson of Biogas Sector Partnership-Nepal. 

According to Aryal, nearly 1.4m rural households in Nepal have the capacity to produce biogas (at present, only half a million do). 

Mass-produced and environmentally-friendly briquettes—compressed blocks of coal dust or renewable products such as paper, sawdust, wood chips and agricultural wastes—can also come handy as many rural areas are inclined towards traditional energy production. 

Both hydro and alternative energy sources have their benefits and drawbacks. The goal is not to choose one over the other, suggest energy experts, but to come up with the right mix so as to meet our household and industrial power needs while keeping our environment sufficiently clean.

If you commute through Kathmandu’s Ring Road route regularly, chances are you have noticed him. A lone figure in a boonie hat and a reflective vest standing in the middle of a busy road intersection, gesticulating at motorists to stop or to move. 

I might even wager that chances are you have heard somewhere that he is from Japan. Yes, he is a traffic volunteer; and no, he is not from Japan. This I discovered (rather embarrassingly, I must admit) from a police officer at Gaushala when I asked him if he could help me contact the Japanese traffic volunteer for this piece.   

When I finally meet the man, he tells me that he gets misidentified as a Japanese national all the time, assuring me that I am not the only one. 

Shekhar Chandra Rai has been working as traffic marshal for over a decade now. The misinformation about his Japanese origin spread as a result of a news article published in 2006.

“There was this news article about an actual Japanese volunteer who handed a traffic signal violator to the authorities,” he says. “Since the article didn’t publish his picture, people started assuming I was that person.” 

Born and raised in Morang district, Rai left for Brunei to work in 1993. He worked for the royal family of Brunei for two years before returning to Nepal. 

“After I returned to Nepal, I didn’t work for a long time,” the 47-year-old says. “I used to idle my days away in the Jamal area, watching vehicles pass by.”

He used to watch traffic officers at their job, fascinated how they controlled and guided the flood of vehicles. He would assist the traffic officers when the congestions were too high. The officers were more than happy to have an extra hand, particularly during rush hours. 

Rai learned while volunteering that the task required a good problem-solving skill and a lot of patience, which made him appreciate the job of a traffic officer even more. 

In the run-up to and after the People’s Movement of 2006, street protests and rallies became fairly common in Kathmandu. Traffic jams also became frequent as a result. It was then when Rai began volunteering on a regular basis.     

“I used to stand in the middle of the Gaushala and Chabahil intersections for hours, managing the traffic,” he says. “I worked during rush hours at first, but soon I was spending more than 12 hours in some of the busiest streets of Kathmandu.” 

Rai doesn’t own a vehicle, so he hitchhikes or takes a public vehicle to wherever he feels his help is needed. He really seems to get a kick out of this volunteering gig. Otherwise, there is no explanation as to why anyone would spend hours upon hours dealing with Kathmandu’s notorious traffic —and mind you, he is just a volunteer.

His eyes widen with excitement when he talks about the old days, back when Kathmandu’s roads were narrower, overhead bridges were few and far between, and the traffic situation was absolute chaos. 

“Oddly enough, those are the days that I cherish and find the most memorable,” he says.

Rai has a fixation with fixing problems. He tells me about the time he gathered some people to unclog the rainwaters that had waterlogged a road section in order to keep the traffic moving. 

But since Rai doesn’t wear a traffic uniform, motorists do not always heed to his instructions. He has no authority to issue tickets to traffic rule violators, so he is sometimes rebuffed by motorists. There have been numerous occasions when he has come across argumentative and hostile drivers. 

“I am simply here to volunteer. I try to avoid arguments as best as I could,” he says.

This approach doesn’t always work though. He tells me he was once nearly assaulted by a motorcyclist in Tripureshwor. 

“I stopped him for breaching the traffic rule and he nearly hit me. Fortunately, at that exact moment, a police officer happened to be passing by, and he protected me from getting beat up by this motorcyclist,” Rai says.  

The difference shown by the police officer in front of the gawking motorists and passers-by at the time made a lasting impression on him. 

But not all motorists are rude to him, he says. “They understand that I am there to help and they are cooperative. I wouldn’t be doing this if my work was not being appreciated,” he adds.  

Kathmandu has changed a lot since Rai started volunteering: roads have become wider, traffic lights and other infrastructures have improved, and people’s sense of traffic rules have also improved to an extent. 

“It is a lot better now. But that also means I am a lot less busier,” he says.

Rai’s volunteering work has won him accolades from traffic officers as well as the government of Nepal. He was feted with Prabal Jana Sewa Shree, one of Nepal’s highest civilian awards, by the president in 2020. 

With more time on his hands, he divides his time between volunteering and running hotel, his family business, in Gaushala these days.  

“I still like working as a traffic volunteer but there is little to do for me nowadays. I get bored when there is no problem to solve out in the street,” he says.