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Nepali Congress General Secretary Gagan Thapa has claimed that the party will not contest the upcoming elections to the House of Representatives under the signature of the current President Sher Bahadur Deuba.

Stating that a new leadership will emerge from the special general convention, he said that the Congress will contest the elections under the signature of the newly elected president.  

Nepali Congress has registered the party for the House of Representatives and National Assembly elections under the signature of President Sher Bahadur Deuba. Therefore, there are speculations that Deuba, who had entrusted Vice President Purna Bahadur Khadka with the responsibilities of acting party president, had returned to active politics with an intention to influence ticket distribution.

Meanwhile, he said that there is no alternative to special general convention in the Congress.

Thapa further said that the signature of Deuba submitted in the Election should be replaced once the new president is elected.

The word, ‘feminism’, has its origins in the Latin word ‘femina’ meaning ‘woman’. It emerged in the 19th century, as a belief and movement that supports empowering women to ensure gender equality in an androcentric society. However, even with its widespread belief, its attempt to dismantle the entrenchment of patriarchal systems remains slow and scarce in Nepal and South Asian countries in general.

With the rise of social media, feminism is slowly becoming an infamous topic. It is now frequently associated with misandry. However, in simple words, it has always stood for gender equality and giving women the chance to be treated as equally and unquestionably as men are, in whichever path they choose in their lives.

The growing openness to women engaging in paid employment, entrepreneurial ventures, and generally any pursuits once dominated by men, reflects the growing independence of women. However, persistent disparities in society continue to keep the need for feminism alive. Rekha Pande’s research reveals that workplace inequality remains deeply rooted. Women often earn less than men for the same work, about 82 cents for every dollar, despite having equal education, experience, and family situations. 

Even women in leadership face bias; when Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced her pregnancy, many questioned her ability to lead. Society still idealizes the “good” mother as one who prioritizes home and children, while fathers face no such scrutiny. This double standard hinders women’s career growth.

The most significant indicator of the need for feminism in South Asian countries is the alarming prevalence of gender-based violence and crimes against women. Nepal reports 23 percent of women reporting physical violence and eight percent reporting sexual violence since age 15, and higher rates in Madhes Province. 

Systematic reviews identify ecological risk factors: husband’s alcohol use, low education, early marriage, controlling behavior, caste/region marginalisation, and entrenched patriarchal norms. Furthermore, cultural practices such as chhaupadi, child marriage, deuki and kamlari legitimize women’s subordination and amplify vulnerability in our country. 

A counterargument that attributes such violence solely to Nepal’s underdevelopment is weak, as gender-based violence is pervasive across South‑Asia, manifesting as intimate‑partner abuse, dowry‑related killings, street harassment, and technology‑facilitated abuse. In Bangladesh, two‑thirds of women experience some form of violence, with patriarchal customs driving dowry deaths, rape, acid attacks and trafficking. Pakistan’s surveys show roughly one‑third of women suffer domestic violence, especially in rural areas where education and economic dependence are low. 

South Asia has long tied their familial and societal honour to women, which obstructs their independence to make their own choices about their sexuality and reproductive decisions. Alongside this, the core construction of families assigns the senior-most authority of decision-making to the male member, instead of working together towards a happy life. This authority gives the males a perceived right to control the women and the younger ones of the family. This is a practice of gender inequality disguised under the impression of ‘traditions’, simultaneously undermining years of oppression. This pattern also results in violent crimes such as marital rape, wife-beating and denying women access to money, education, or employment. 

Feminist scholars specifically argue that ‘violent patriarchal constructions’ are what legitimize both honor crimes and domestic control. Furthermore, feminist economics highlights a complex relationship where economic empowerment, by unsettling established gender norms, can unfortunately lead to a heightened risk of intimate partner violence. 

It is common to raise women to adjust and ‘keep the peace’ through silence, mediation or clothing that covers the body completely. Even though people of urban areas are practicing the opposite, rural areas still find veiled women caged in their homes, fiercely dominated by their husbands to resort to only housework with no say in household decisions of any kind whatsoever. It is evident that these actions stem from fundamentalist beliefs in countries like ours, with strong orthodox backgrounds and diverse bases for establishment of thought patterns. 

Marriage, a mythologically and culturally respected union for centuries has also functioned as an anti‑feminist agenda. When marriage institutionalises and reproduces gendered hierarchies that limit women’s autonomy and reinforce patriarchal power, it acts as a catalyst of gender inequality and thus births a number of social disorders. By framing the union as a “natural” pairing of a male breadwinner and a female caretaker, marriage normalises a binary division of labour that privileges men’s public roles and confines unwilling women to private, domestic spheres, even through use of force. 

Social identity theory, which refers to one having a strong sense of belonging to one’s own gender group, makes individuals more inclined to uphold that group’s norms. Therefore, in cultures where a woman’s settlement in life is tied to being married, women who do not wish for marriage are judged severely and socially excluded. 

However, it is necessary to understand that feminism is not inherently against marriage. At its core, it’s an idea that no person, regardless of their gender, should be judged or pressured for choosing to marry, or not to marry, at the age or life stage they deem appropriate, entirely out of their own free will and personal choice. It is a movement and revolution for choice and equality. Feminism challenges the expectation that a woman’s value or identity is defined by her marital status which is the principle most South Asian societies run by. It is also a doctrine that advocates for the equal rights of individuals of every gender to define their relationships, identity and structure without facing social penalty. 

In South Asia, feminism remains an essential movement, not as a threat to tradition, but as a call for gender equality, personal choice, and the dismantling of patriarchal structures that limit women’s autonomy and opportunities.

Meghana Saud

BA IIIrd Year

St Xavier’s College, Maitighar

India’s neighborhood policy is often described in shorthand: “relative decline,” “looking beyond South Asia,” “losing the periphery.” That lens misses something important about the last four years. In Afghanistan and Myanmar, India has been dealing not with normal neighbors but with collapsing or radically transformed states. The question, then, is not whether India has expanded its influence, but whether it has managed to stay engaged, protect its basic interests, and avoid strategic paralysis. On that narrower, but more realistic, metric, India’s record since 2021 in both theaters looks more constructive than the declinist narrative suggests.

Afghanistan is the sharper break. When the Taliban took Kabul in August 2021, India essentially lost a twenty-year investment in the Islamic Republic and had to evacuate its missions. For almost a year, New Delhi kept a formal distance, while routing limited assistance through multilateral channels and the UN. That phase ended in mid-2022. In June 2022, India sent its first official delegation to Kabul under Joint-secretary JP Singh, who met with the acting Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, and reviewed India’s humanitarian projects and security concerns. Shortly afterwards, India deployed a “technical team” to Kabul, re-establishing a minimal diplomatic presence focused on aid delivery and the safety of Indian projects and personnel. 

Humanitarian assistance became the main language of engagement. Between 2021 and 2023, India transported large consignments of wheat, medicines and COVID-19 vaccines to Afghanistan. By mid-2022, New Delhi had already shipped 33,000 metric tonnes of wheat against a commitment of 50,000 MT. Subsequent statements and reports show that this was not a one-off gesture, but a sustained effort: budget documents for 2023–24 earmarked fresh aid for Afghanistan, and Indian officials emphasised that assistance was being coordinated with international agencies to reach ordinary Afghans, despite political complications. 

Shipments of wheat, essential medicines and winter supplies continued through 2023 and 2024, with Indian media framing this as part of a broader humanitarian posture. In 2025, when earthquakes hit western Afghanistan, India again sent emergency consignments of food, tents and medical kits, reinforcing a pattern where India presents itself not as a patron of any faction, but as a consistent responder to Afghan crises.

Alongside aid, there has been a slow but deliberate upgrade of political contact. After the initial 2022 visit, Indian officials made at least two more trips to Kabul; in March 2024, JP Singh again met Muttaqi in Kabul to discuss economic cooperation, including Afghan use of the Chabahar port. In January 2025, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra met Muttaqi in Dubai, signaling that Afghanistan had been moved back up to the higher levels of India’s diplomatic bandwidth.  

The real inflexion point, though, came in Oct 2025, when Muttaqi finally traveled to New Delhi after the UN Security Council temporarily lifted his travel ban. This was the first visit by a senior Taliban leader to India since 2021; he met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for discussions covering trade, health, terrorism and consular issues. During this visit, India announced that its technical mission in Kabul would be upgraded to a full embassy, effectively restoring normal diplomatic status, while still insisting that recognition of the Taliban government would depend on its internal conduct, particularly on issues such as women’s rights.

If you line up that chronology, from complete withdrawal in 2021 to humanitarian re-entry in 2022, to working-level political contact in 2022–24, to foreign minister-level engagement and full embassy restoration in 2025. At each step, New Delhi has been careful to frame its actions as support for the Afghan people rather than endorsement of the regime. But it has also accepted that a neighborhood policy that pretends the Taliban do not exist would only hand Afghanistan entirely to Pakistan, China, and Iran. In that limited sense, India’s Afghan engagement since 2021 appears relatively successful: New Delhi has managed to extricate itself from strategic irrelevance without compromising all of its normative positions.

Myanmar presents a unique challenge: not regime change, but a state fragmenting under the weight of a civil war. The February 2021 coup overthrew the elected National League for Democracy government and restored direct military rule, pushing the country into a nationwide conflict between the junta, multiple Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs), and the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) aligned with the national unity government. Over four years later, studies such as the International Crisis Group (ICG)’s 2025 briefing argue that the junta still controls the capital and some urban nodes but is losing ground across much of the periphery, where armed groups now hold extensive territory and run parallel administrations.

For India, this is not a distant issue. The conflict washes directly onto a 1,643-kilometer border, feeding refugee flows, arms trafficking and insurgent sanctuary, and complicating major connectivity projects like the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project. India’s first instinct after the coup was conservative: to maintain lines of communication with the State Administration Council in Naypyitaw, privately push for restraint, and try to insulate border cooperation and infrastructure projects from the turmoil. That approach reflected habits built over decades of working with Myanmar’s military on counter-insurgency along the North-East frontier and on connectivity to Southeast Asia. At the same time, New Delhi avoided endorsing the coup. Its public statements called for the restoration of democracy and the release of political prisoners, but unlike Western capitals, it did not cut off engagement.

As the conflict deepened and armed resistance spread into Chin, Sagaing, Kachin and Rakhine, that one-dimensional strategy became untenable. New Delhi has gradually moved toward a multi-vector engagement. On one track, it has continued to host and engage with junta-linked actors; for example, in November 2024, India received a delegation of Myanmar military officers and allied politicians for discussions on federalism and conflict resolution. On another front, India has begun to engage with the opposition and ethnic groups. In September 2024, New Delhi quietly invited political and military opponents of the junta, including representatives of anti-regime EAOs, to a seminar on constitutionalism and federalism, an unprecedented step for a state that has usually treated the Myanmar military as its primary counterpart.

The ICG’s 2025 analysis goes further, arguing that Indian officials have established regular channels with several border-based insurgent groups to manage cross-border security and maintain some leverage in territories the junta no longer controls. A striking example of this adaptive posture is found in the realm of critical minerals. In 2025, Reuters reported that India was exploring a rare-earth supply arrangement with the Kachin Independence Army, which controls a key rare-earth mining hub on the Chinese border, having pushed out junta-aligned forces. The Ministry of Mines has reportedly requested that Indian Rare Earths Limited and a private firm collect and test samples from KIA-held mines. This is highly unusual: India is contemplating a resource partnership not with a recognized government but with a non-state armed group that happens to control the ground. It tells you something about how far Myanmar’s internal map has shifted, and how India is willing to adjust when rigid state-centric instruments no longer work.

At the same time, India is tightening the formal border architecture in response to the spillover of Myanmar’s war into the Northeast. In 2024, the Home Ministry announced plans to fence the entire India–Myanmar border and review the Free Movement Regime that allowed hill communities to cross relatively freely within a limited radius. The aim is to reduce the flow of armed fighters, narcotics and illicit arms that have been feeding violence in Manipur and elsewhere. A Reuters investigation in late 2024 documented how Indian militants who had taken refuge in Myanmar and fought in its civil war were now returning with sophisticated weapons, aggravating ethnic conflict in Manipur. From New Delhi’s vantage point, border management is not a narrow policing issue but a core component of its neighborhood strategy in the face of Myanmar’s internal disintegration.

Put together, India’s Myanmar policy today has three layers: continued engagement with the junta to keep projects and basic state-to-state mechanisms alive; calibrated outreach to anti-regime forces where they are the de facto authorities, especially along the border and in resource-rich zones; and a hardening of its own border in response to security externalities. None of this is pretty, and it does not resolve Myanmar’s crisis. However, it has allowed India to retain access and negotiating rights across the spectrum of actors, rather than placing all its bets on a regime that no longer controls the country it claims to rule.

A broader assessment of India’s neighborhood policy must therefore account for the conditions under which diplomacy is being conducted. Afghanistan and Myanmar are not ordinary neighbors; both are undergoing profound state fragility, contested sovereignties and intense external penetration. In such environments, the conventional metrics of influence, regime change, policy alignment or political stabilisation are neither realistic nor analytically useful. A more appropriate benchmark is whether India has been able to retain strategic access, preserve essential equities and construct channels of engagement that prevent its marginalization. Judged against this criterion, India’s post-2021 approach appears less a story of retreat and more an example of calibrated adaptation to structural volatility.

In Afghanistan, India has established a minimal yet resilient diplomatic presence, centered on humanitarian assistance and selective diplomatic engagement, while maintaining a deliberate distance from formal recognition. This approach has enabled New Delhi to remain part of the evolving regional conversation on Afghanistan, at a time when the distribution of influence is fluid and subject to shifts in Taliban-Pakistan and Taliban-China relations. In Myanmar, India has moved beyond a strictly state-centric posture and acknowledged the empirical reality of dispersed authority. Its engagement with the junta, border-based ethnic organizations and local administrative actors reflects an attempt to craft a multilayered diplomatic strategy suited to a fragmented political landscape, while simultaneously protecting its own border stability and connectivity ambitions.

These approaches do not resolve the underlying crises in either country, nor do they eliminate the normative tensions that accompany engagement with contested authorities. However, they do illustrate a broader transformation in India’s neighborhood policy: a willingness to operate within imperfect political conditions, to utilize multiple diplomatic vectors simultaneously, and to safeguard long-term interests through pragmatic, rather than maximalist, means. In that sense, India’s conduct in Afghanistan and Myanmar demonstrates that constructive engagement remains possible even in the most inhospitable corners of its neighbourhood, provided the goals are recalibrated to match the constraints of the regional environment.

The author is a PhD candidate at the School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi

As global leaders gather at COP30 in Brazil to negotiate finance, adaptation, and loss and damage, Nepal’s 2025 monsoon season offers a stark reminder of why climate-vulnerable countries need stronger recognition and support. From slow-onset droughts in the plains to catastrophic glacial floods and colossal landslides in the mountains, Nepal’s experience illustrates how climate variability is already inflicting deep human, economic, and ecological losses—despite the country’s negligible contribution to global emissions. 

According to the German Watch’s Climate Risk Index 2025, Nepal averages nearly 250 deaths annually from climate-related disasters, with roughly 75,840 people directly affected each year. The economic cost of such events is also substantial, amounting to an estimated $221.3m—or 0.258 percent of the national GDP—underscoring the persistent human and financial toll of climate-induced hazards

Nepal’s 2025 monsoon opened with extended dry conditions across Southern plains; mainly Madhes Province, where rainfall from June to mid-July fell to less than one-third of normal levels during the critical paddy transplantation period. With worsening soil moisture and visible crop stress, the provincial government declared drought on July 24. Yet only weeks later, it brought severe downpours mainly across Madhes, inundating ripening paddy fields and low-lying settlements and causing damage worth billions of rupees. The abrupt shift from drought to heavy flood within the same season is emblematic of climate-driven rapid extremes now harming smallholder farmers who lack buffers to absorb repeated shocks.

The situation intensified even after the official monsoon withdrawal. Multiple post-monsoon rain systems—amplified by two unexpected but powerful cyclones on Oct 4-5 and again on Oct 30-31—brought extreme rainfall during Nepal’s peak harvest season, destroying crops of billions rupees worth, stored grain, and essential infrastructure. These late-season events have heightened national anxiety about Nepal’s changing monsoon behaviour and the possibility of more frequent cyclone-linked hazards in the future.

High-altitude regions faced even more severe climate-induced damage. Amid lingering fears from last year’s catastrophic Thame incident in the Khumbu region, Nepal faced another shock on 8 July when a transboundary glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), originating in China’s Tibetan Autonomous Region, surged into Rasuwa District through Bhote Koshi river. It killed 10 people, left 19 missing, destroyed the Rasuwagadhi friendship bridge, damaged hydropower facilities, flattened the dry port, swept away cargo trucks, and disrupted cross-border trade. Losses were estimated at Rs 2.5bn, and insurance claims reached nearly Rs 1bn. For Nepal, this event underscored the country’s exposure to hazards that originate beyond its borders—a key issue Nepal continues to raise at COP30 within the global Loss and Damage framework.

Beyond infrastructure losses, climate-induced non-economic damages—psychosocial stress, displacement, health impacts, lost educational days, and erosion of cultural and natural heritage—remain largely unaddressed in national relief systems. These burdens fall disproportionately on women, elderly residents, low-income families, and indigenous communities, widening existing inequalities and undermining long-term resilience.

Despite these mounting challenges, Nepal is also making notable progress in reducing human casualties. The 2025 monsoon spanned 135 days—longer than average, with onset on May 29 and withdrawal on Oct 10—bringing near-normal rainfall yet resulting in significantly fewer deaths and injuries than in previous years. Disaster incidents fell by 32 percent, deaths by 70 percent, and affected households nearly halved. These gains reflect improved forecasting, stronger institutional coordination led by NDRRMA, and community-level preparedness also supported by the development partners at local level. 

Madhes Province demonstrated how accessible warning systems can directly reduce loss and damage. SMS alerts, radio updates, and volunteer networks enabled households to protect livestock, food stocks, and essential assets. While economic losses were considerable, no fatalities were recorded—underscoring the life-saving value of localized, people-centered early warning systems. Similarly, in the downstream areas of Karnali, flood early warning mechanisms proved crucial in minimizing both human and property losses. Development partners, under Climate Resilience Measures for Community (CRMC) projects, working with national authorities and local communities, strengthened both the hardware—such as flood and rainfall sensors—and the software components, including community awareness and emergency preparedness. Together, these interventions showed that timely information and local readiness remain Nepal’s strongest defense against escalating climate risks

Across municipalities, bamboo-based bio-dykes, riverbank reinforcement, sandbagging, and pre-positioned emergency supplies helped prevent larger-scale devastation. These low-cost, community-driven measures highlight the importance of social capital and local knowledge in resilience-building.

However, substantial vulnerabilities persist. Ilam recorded the highest fatalities (39). Rasuwa suffered catastrophic economic losses. Trekking corridors and high-altitude settlements still lack reliable communication networks, leaving residents and tourists without timely warnings. And the increasing frequency of post-monsoon cyclone-driven rain systems threatens the stability of Nepal’s agricultural calendar.

Why COP30 must acknowledge Nepal’s climate reality

Despite Nepal’s minimal emission yet timely National Determined Contribution (NDC) submission along with Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) stating its full commitment to carbon neutrality by 2045, the country continues to face severe climate-induced loss and damage. The new Loss & Damage Fund at COP30 is promising, but predictable, accessible finance is urgently needed to protect communities bearing the brunt of crises they did not create.

Key questions for COP30: Who is responsible for escalating losses? How can vulnerable nations access reliable funding for preparedness and recovery? How can non-economic losses—culture, health, education—be addressed?

Nepal’s experiences with glacial lake outburst floods, drought–flood cycles, and cyclone-linked extremes show that adaptation alone is insufficient. Policy priorities include community-based monitoring, risk-informed land-use planning with phased relocation, nature-based solutions, and integrating non-economic losses into planning.

The 2025 monsoon is a stark reminder: those least responsible for climate change are suffering the most. Ensuring Nepal’s concerns are acted upon is essential for a fair, resilient, and climate-just future.