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On paper, the Nepali Congress is in the pink. The party is a key piece in the coalition government in Kathmandu, leading vital ministerial portfolios, such as finance, defense, health and industry. It is also heading three of the seven provincial governments and 295 out of 753 local governments. 

But there is a sense of unease among many leaders and cadres concerning the party’s future. They say the Congress is confronting multiple challenges which if left unremedied could risk the very existence of the party. This sense of anxiety is also widespread among the district-level leadership of the party, which they made clear when they met at the NC headquarters in Sanepa, Lalitpur, last week. 

A word of assurance from NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba would calm the nerves of the party rank and file at this moment, but that has not happened—and is unlikely to happen. The alarm bell ringers in the party represent the rival factions, and Deuba has so far managed to shrug off their grievances. 

Right after the general elections held in November last year, party leaders have been calling for a Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting to discuss the intra-party and national issues, but Deuba has been postponing it. 

The meeting of the party’s executive committee has finally been set up for Wednesday, which is likely to witness a verbal war between the rival factions. For a long time, Deuba had been avoiding the CWC meeting in an apparent bid to avoid criticism and confrontation. The rival factions are prepared for a showdown with the establishment faction. 

There are multiple issues related to the party and the government that the CWC will have to delve into. The first is holding the party's policy convention which should have taken place immediately after the party's general convention held in 2021. The objective of the policy convention is to review and rework the party's ideological standing in the changing context. 

The second issue is about managing the party's sister organizations torn asunder by the intra-party infighting.  

Madhu Acharya, a CWC member, says they are presenting a detailed report on party reformation prepared on the basis of consultations held in all seven provinces and diaspora community. 

“Our first priority is to fix the date and venue of the policy convention and Mahasamiti meeting. If party leadership does not heed to our request, we will launch a signature campaign to hold the party's special general convention to change the leadership,” Acharya says.

It is no secret that the rival factions do not see Deuba’s leadership in a favorable light. Part of the resentment comes from the fact that Deuba holds a significant sway in all party committees, including the CWC and the Parliamentary Party, and almost no decision can be made without his say-so.  

For example, several appointments are pending in the party's sister organizations due to Deuba’s reluctance. Factional feud inside the NC has spread to the local level, and is eating away at the party and its organizations. There are at least four clear factions in the party: the establishment camp led by Deuba, and others spearheaded by Gagan Kumar Thapa, Shekhar Koirala, and Gururaj Ghimire.

Last week’s meeting of district-level presidents of the party was convened by the Thapa camp. Likewise, the Ghimire-led group also recently sent its representatives to all seven provinces for the “NC resurgence campaign”. The Deuba fold is not pleased with the latest activities of the rival groups.   

“It is inappropriate to call a meeting of district presidents when the whole party mechanisms are unaware about it,” says Nain Singh Mahar, a CWC member and a leader close to Deuba, of the district-level leadership meeting organized by the Thapa camp in Sanepa.

Observers say the growing factional rift in the NC will not help the party’s future. While the party may have the largest share of seats in parliament, they say the strength of the Congress party is waning away. Today’s NC cannot fight elections on its own. In the last year’s general elections, the party had to forge an electoral alliance with the CPN (Maoist Center) and other fringe left parties.  

Despite emerging as the largest party, the NC is currently playing second fiddle to the third-place Maoist party as part of a pre-election power-sharing deal. There is a general dissatisfaction inside the Congress over the performance of the current government. Some leaders are of the view that the party will fail to secure its political base if this government fails to deliver. 

Revelation of corruption scandals involving senior party leaders are also not helping the NC. While the government led by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has won acclaim for prosecuting “high profile” individuals, there is a fear that the Maoists could weaponize these corruption cases to ultimately disrepute and weaken the Congress party.   

Many NC leaders are not in favor of joining forces with ideologically opposite communist parties just for the sake of securing parliamentary seats. 

The meteoric rise of the newly formed Rastriya Swatantra Party has also rattled the Congress, along with other traditional mainstream political forces of Nepal. 

The NC youth leaders and members in particular seem tired of Deuba’s leadership.  

A few days ago, NC rival leader and general secretary, Thapa, made his intention known about his plan to unseat Deuba as the parliamentary party leader. 

“I am pretty clear that the same leader should not become prime minister again. So I am trying my best to change the parliamentary party leader,” he said at a public program.

Thapa had contested and lost against Deuba in the PP election held after last year’s general elections. He was defeated by a huge margin despite getting the support from Koirala, another rival leader in the NC.  

Thapa and Koirala are no longer together, as both of them are vying for the post of Congress president. Koirala has been working hard to improve his ties with Deuba.  

In Wednesday’s CWC meeting, Koriala is expected to restrain himself from criticizing Deuba’s leadership. But the same cannot be said for rival leaders Thapa and Ghimire, who could launch an all-out attack on Deuba.

The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police on Sunday arrested three more people in connection with the Lalita Niwas land grab case, taking the number of arrestees to seven. The case has caught a lot of public attention, as several high profile individuals, including former prime ministers, are said to be involved in it. Here is an overview of the key details you need to know in order to understand the scandal.

What is Lalita Niwas?

During the 1920s, Bhim Shumsher, a Rana prime minister, acquired around 300 ropanis of land situated a few kilometers north of the center of Kathmandu, near the present-day location of Baluwatar. He constructed the Subarna Mahal on this land, which was named after his grandson, Subarna Shumsher. There are reports indicating that Bhim Shumsher forcibly seized farmland from numerous individuals to set up the palace compound. This area later came to be known as Lalita Niwas. Although the exact origin of the name remains unclear, some believe that the property was named after Subarna Shumsher’s mother, Lalita.

Who owns—or owned—Lalita Niwas?

Subarna Shumsher, who was a member of the Nepali Congress, served as the finance minister of the interim government formed in 1951 following the end of the dictatorial Rana regime. Despite being a member of the Rana family, Subarna Shumsher had joined the Nepali Congress, which later formed a government in May 1959 after securing a majority in the country’s first general election. 

However, in 1960, the then King Mahendra Shah staged a coup against the democratically elected government, banned all political parties, and established a partyless Panchayat rule that lasted for another 30 years. It was during this period that the royal palace seized 14 ropanis of land from Lalita Niwas. The remaining 284 ropanis of the land from Lalita Niwas were acquired according to the Land Acquisition Act of 1961, with compensation being paid to Subarna Shumsher’s family. 

However, Subarna Shumsher’s childrens have argued that the entire land was seized by the government without any compensation. But, a government committee that investigated the case discovered that the government had issued a notice requesting them to claim compensation for the land.

Furthermore, the government’s probe committee found evidence that Subarna Shumsher’s eldest son, Kanak Shumsher, who was serving in the royal army in 1965, acknowledged in a letter to the government that the 284 ropani of land had indeed been legally acquired by the authorities.

Official records indicate that the Panchayat government sold eight ropani of land from Lalita Niwas. The remaining 292 ropani of land, however, remained under government ownership until 1990.

What happened post-Panchayat?

Following the reinstatement of democracy in 1990, the Cabinet led by Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai made the decision to return the land to the rightful owners that had been seized by the Panchayat regime. However, the Cabinet clarified that a significant portion of Lalita Niwas would not be transferred, as the government had already designated different sections of Lalita Niwas for Nepal Rastra Bank, the residences of the prime minister, chief justice, and speaker of parliament. 

According to the Cabinet decision, only the 14 ropani of land that had been seized by King Mahendra at that time should have been returned to Subarna Shumsher’s family. But in 1991, Rukma Shumsher, the grandson of Subarna Shumsher, submitted an application to the Land Revenue Office, requesting the return of an additional 112 ropani of land. The Land Revenue Office, without informing the government and other stakeholders, transferred the 112 ropani of land to Sunita Rana, Shailaja Rana, and Rukma Shumsher Rana as inheritors of Subarna Shumsher’s property.

However, the transfer process faced complications when the tenants (Mohi) who had been working on the land for years claimed their share. In 1997, they filed a case at the Patan Appellate Court. The court ruled in favor of the tenants in 2000.

Where did the scam happen?

Subsequent investigations revealed that the tenants involved in the case were fraudulent and had colluded with the Rana family in a scheme to occupy all the land of Lalita Niwas, which was later sold to the ‘land mafia’.

The issue remained relatively unnoticed for a considerable period of time. However, the controversy resurfaced when Advocate Yubaraj Koirala presented documents related to Lalita Niwas that had gone missing from the Land Revenue Office. 

According to Advocate Koirala, as a practicing lawyer in 2000, he came across the documents pertaining to Lalita Niwas during court proceedings. Sensing something suspicious, he initiated an investigation and began gathering evidence and relevant documents related to Lalita Niwas. He released the documents a couple of years later after he started finding evidence of the scam.

By that time, officials from the Land Registration Office, who were also involved, had already destroyed the original copy of the document in an attempt to get rid of the evidence.

Mukunda Prasad Acharya, director general of the Department of Land Revenue, was the main person to facilitate the scammers with forged documents and stamps. It is believed the Lalita Niwas scam as we know today started in 1991. The Nepal Police discovered that land revenue official Dharma Prasad Gautam had prepared all the necessary documents to facilitate the transfer of ownership. It has been found that the Rana family had bribed the officials with some portion of land of Lalita Niwas as ‘gifts’.

Formation of probe panel

Advocate Koirala researched the case for around a decade and constantly pressured the concerned parties to take action. As he had revealed the names of ‘high profile’, he says that he is still receiving death threats. 

The case caught the attention of the media and public which compelled the KP Oli-led government to form a special probe committee under former secretary Sharada Prasad Trital on 28 May 2018. In its report, the committee highlighted that the Cabinet led by Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai had specifically directed that only the land seized during the Panchayat era should be returned to the rightful owners. However, officials at the land revenue office acted in violation of the Cabinet’s decision and unlawfully transferred ownership of legitimately acquired land to individuals in exchange for bribes.

According to the findings of the committee, Subarna Shumsher’s family had illegally occupied 112 ropani of land, which the government had already acquired and compensated for. The committee also concluded that the ‘land mafia’ and those in possession of the land successfully seized it through controversial Cabinet decisions in 1990, 1992, 2005, 2010, and 2012.

Furthermore, the probe committee’s report revealed that it was not only Lalita Niwas land that was misappropriated. A total of 1,859 ropanis, 14 aanas, 3 paisas, and 3 daams (approximately 95 hectares) of land, valued in billions, which had been legally acquired by the Panchayat regime, was unlawfully seized by the ‘land mafia’ in collaboration with political leaders and government officials.

Involvement of ‘high profile’ people

Madhav Kumar Nepal, Former prime minister

During the Madhav Kumar Nepal government, Bijay Kumar Gachhadar of the Nepali Congress served as a Minister of Physical Infrastructure and Deep Basnyat was the secretary at the ministry. It was during their tenure that they decided to fraudulently register plots of land in the names of numerous individuals and fake tenants.

The Nepal Cabinet had made a decision to expand the prime minister’s residence and construct a road within Lalita Niwas by compensating individuals who had illegally occupied the land. This agenda was brought by Gachhadar in the Cabinet. It has been found that the Nepal Cabinet made three different decisions in three separate meetings, providing an opportunity for the accused parties to engage in the scam. 

All of the decisions were against the law. Several members in the Nepal Cabinet have stated that Lalita Niwas-related matters were never discussed during meetings, indicating the potential direct involvement of former prime minister Nepal.

The probe committee identifies Shova Kanta Dhakal and Ram Kumar Subedi as key individuals involved in the scam, labeling them as ‘land mafias’. From the early stages of the scam, these individuals have been implicated, as they still hold over 15 ropanis of Lalita Niwas land in their names, even after selling 30 ropanis of land to others.

The proprietor of Bhatbhateni Supermarket, Min Bahadur Gurung, and his family are owners of more than 29 ropanis of Lalita Niwas land. They acquired the land from Dhakal and Subedi. Furthermore, the duo also sold approximately five ropanis of land to former election commissioner Sudhir Kumar Shah.

Bishnu Paudel, Former finance minister

Nabin Paudel, son of CPN-UML Vice-chairperson and former finance minister Bishnu Paudel, along with sitting Supreme Court Justice Kumar Regmi, purchased land within the Lalita Niwas premises from Dhakal and Subedi in early 2005.

It is learnt that Paudel and Dhakal have close relations as they had been into financial connection earlier also. Justice Regmi has stated that he acquired the land as a legal consultation fee during his time working as an advocate.

There are speculations that Bishnu Paudel, as a close hand of former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, had potential involvement in requesting favorable Cabinet decisions for the scammers.

Baburam Bhattarai, Former prime minister

When Bhattarai was prime minister, his Cabinet decided to transfer around three ropanis of land of Nepal government to ‘Pashupati Tinkinchha Guthi’ but the Trital-led committee had been unable to find about this Guthi. Neither the ministry officials nor the Guthi stakeholders know about the existence of this Guthi, raising suspicion against Bhattarai in the land grab case. 

CIAA’s charge sheet

The government in 2019, asked the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) and CIB of Nepal Police to promptly investigate the case of Lalita Niwas after the Trital committee summoned their report to the then prime minister, KP Sharma Oli. 

After a year-long investigation, the CIAA filed a charge-sheet against 175 individuals at the Special Court in Feb 2020, accusing them of participating in the illegal registration of Lalita Niwas land under various individuals. 

Former deputy prime minister Gachchhadar, former ministers Chandra Dev Joshi, Chhabi Raj Pant, and Dambar Shrestha, former secretary Dinesh Hari Adhikari, and former CIAA chief Basnyat were among those charged.

Notably, the anti-graft body did not file corruption cases against former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Baburam Bhattarai, despite the fact that Cabinet-level decisions to legitimize the transfer of government land to individuals were made during their terms. The CIAA has said that as Cabinet decisions do not fall within its jurisdiction, it cannot charge the former prime ministers.

Nabin Paudel and Kumar Regmi were also not included in the charge-sheet, as the CIAA said, they had expressed willingness to return the land. To distance themselves from the scam, Paudel and Regmi quietly returned the land they owned within Lalita Niwas to the government.

The case is currently pending in court. It seems like the Special Court has not taken this case seriously as there has been minimal progress.

Two separate cases have also been filed at the Supreme Court against former prime ministers Nepal and Bhattarai, but the court has kept both the cases on hold. There are speculations that the ruling parties at that time, Congress and the Maoists, initiated an impeachment motion against the then Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana after they became aware that he intended to investigate the land grab scam involving Nepal and Bhattarai..

CIB reopens the file

As the CIAA was investigating the Lalita Niwas scam focusing on corruption, the CIB of Nepal Police took a different approach. Starting in 2019, the CIB began investigating the case for forged documents and fake governmental stamps related to the scam.

In Jan 2022, the CIB concluded its investigation and submitted a report to the Public Prosecutors Office, urging further action against around 300 individuals involved in the scam. However, a week later, the government attorney returned the report, stating that additional investigation was necessary.

The CIB acknowledged the attorney’s directive and expressed its intention to conduct further investigation accordingly, but there were no updates until the CIB nabbed Bhatbhateni Supermarket owner Gurung along with six others on June 27. 

Present situation

The Nepal Police has issued arrest warrants against 406 individuals, including several high-profile officials, implicated in the Lalita Niwas scam. On June 28, the CIB obtained warrants from the Kathmandu District Court to arrest these individuals.

Currently, the CIB is holding 15 individuals in its custody. CIB chief Additional Inspector General Kiran Bajracharya has said that the accused individuals have committed organized crime in relation to the Lalita Niwas scam. 

“Given the nature of the crime, it appears that numerous individuals collaborated in an organized manner to carry out fraudulent activities. Therefore, we are working closely with the public prosecutor to establish whether this can be classified as an organized crime,” she said.

What next?

Under the provisions on Forged Documents (Fogery), if a person forges the seal of a government office or seal or signature of a government employee in the course of the government business, or any document with such seal or signature, the person shall be liable to the punishment of imprisonment for a term of seven years.

Under the provisions of the Organized Crime Act, those found guilty of organized crime may face imprisonment for up to five years or a fine of up to Rs 500,000. Since organized crime involves multiple interconnected criminal activities, the police believe that the Lalita Niwas land case falls under the purview of the Organized Crime Act. The severity of the punishment will be determined based on the level of involvement of each individual implicated.

Former Nepal Police DIG Hemanta Malla Thakuri has said that no matter how much the police try to nab the so-called big fishes, without the support of the government, it is going to be difficult. “Nepal Police is just a small unit of a large system of Nepal which is driven by politics, bad politics actually,” he said. “All the political parties and media should pressurize the government for a better probe.”

Though Paudel and Regmi are not under CIAA’s radar, Nepal Police spokesperson Deputy Inspector General Kuber Kadayat has said that the CIB is investigating the case for forged documents and fake governmental stamps, not solely relying on the CIAA’s corruption investigation. “We will nab everyone found involved in forgery.” 

What happened when?

• 1920: Bhim Shumsher acquired 300 ropanis of land and built Lalita Niwas for his grandson Subarna Shumsher 
• 1960: King Mahendra seized and acquired the land of Lalita Niwas
• 1990: Krishna Prasad Bhattarai-led Cabinet decided to return 14 ropanis of seized land of Lalita Niwas to rightful owners
• 1991: Land Revenue Office, without informing the government, transferred 112 ropanis of land to inheritors of Subarna Shumsher;  then director general of Land Revenue Department Mukunda Prasad Aryal played a key role
• 1997: Fake tenants (Mohi) filed a court case claiming their share in Lalita Niwas
• 2000: The court ruled in favor of tenants; however, advocate Yuvraj Koirala smelled something fishy and started investigating quietly
• 2005: Advocate Koirala started talking about the scam but didn’t get much limelight; by the time, ‘land mafias’ Shova Kanta Dhakaland Ram Kumar Subedi had made larger share of Lalita Niwas to their names and had sold it to others like UML vice-chair Bishnu Paudel, sitting SC justice Kumar Regmi and Bhatbhateni owner Min Bahadur Gurung
• 2010: The Madhav Kumar Nepal government, through its decisions, helped the scammers to continue their involvement; then Physical Infrastructure Minister Bijay Gachhadar and secretary Deep Basnyat played a key role 
• 2012:The Baburam Bhattarai government endorsed decisions that helped the scammers
• 2016: The Lalita Niwas land-grab scam started grabbing national headlines
• 2018: The KP Oli government, due to public pressure, formed a probe panel to investigate the case
• 2019: The probe committee submitted their report and the Oli government asked CIAA and CIB to investigate the case
• 2020: CIAA filed a case against 175 individuals including Nepali Congress leader Gacchadar at Special Court; the case is still awaiting final verdict
• 2022: CIB submitted its investigation report to Public Prosecutor’s Office, but was returned citing need for additional investigation
• 2023: CIB issued arrest warrant against 406 individuals and nabbed nine including Bhatbhateni promoter Gurung in connection with Lalita Niwas land-grab scam 

Almost every Nepali has swiped through the videos on TikTok at least once. The videos are short and do not need a lot of your patience. TikTok has also become a good place to promote businesses as well as one’s own talent. Most content creators want to go viral and make money out of the views they receive. But several TikTok users ApEx spoke to say that the platform is being misused at the same time, especially when it comes to Nepali contents.

“People make videos just for the views, and most of them are downright disgusting,” says Pooja Subedi, a 29-year-old from Dhapasi, Kathmandu. One of the most disturbing aspects of Nepali content on TikTok, she says, is parents using their children to get more views. A few months back, Subedi came across a video where a mother filmed her daughter not older than six years on a song called ‘Anaconda’ by Nicki Minaj, which explicitly sexulizes women’s bodies. “What was the purpose of that video?” questions Subedi. The mother in question later apologized for posting the video, but did not take it down since the video had gone viral. 

Individuals ApEx spoke to have come across numerous videos where adults are filming their children for no apparent reason other than to attract viewers’ attention, no matter what the consequences. There is one video of a child crying for not knowing the answers to his/her homework, calling it cute and adorable.
“I don’t think a child crying is something that needs to be publicized,” says Asmita KC, a 29-year-old living in Hattigauda, Kathmandu. “Imagine how traumatic it’ll be for the child when he/she gets recognized just for crying on a video that his/her parents decided to post.”

Several videos don’t take people’s privacy into consideration either. People start filming videos everywhere, without thinking about timing or location. Sweksha Karna, a 22-year-old currently studying in Australia, says she came across a dance video of a woman who was filmed in Basantapur, Kathmandu, which she thought was quite inappropriate. “There was a blood donation program going on in the background. Those people did not ask to be on the video,” she says. 

Not just that, but many restaurants, in the name of promoting their business, film their customers without asking. Videos are being taken without permission, hurting the sentiments of several people involved. The same happened to the parent’s of Monika Thakuri, a TikToker who died by suicide. Her father was filmed crying at the hospital bed after his daughter’s death. The video went viral. No one wants to relive moments like that, but now it’s all over TikTok.

Also, people frequently spread misleading information just for the sake of views. For instance, if there is an accident or a fire, users post videos with a different audio from some other accidents to raise concerns among people. It creates confusion and panic when the situation might not even be serious. “I have also seen videos where people film their neighbors and add a different audio, misleading viewers into questioning if it’s domestic violence,” says KC. 

Everything that happens on TikTok comes down to the number of views and likes. The more engagement they have, the more money they make. Good contents don’t get views while the problematic ones go viral

Rekha Shah, a 40-year-old woman who runs a cosmetics store in Shankhamul, Kathmandu, feels that TikTok has made people quite inhumane. Wherever someone sees an individual suffering, she believes that their first instinct is to film the victim rather than help them out. “People are after increasing the number of viewers and likes out of someone else’s misery. I find that quite scary,” she says. 

People are going above and beyond to increase engagement in their contents. “I have seen vidoes where people stand on the edge of a cliff, pretending to commit suicide, just to match a song’s lyrics,” Shah says. “It’s promoting unhealthy behavior. I find that scary since people and children on TikTok try copying that.”

Sexual and derogatory comments circulating throughout TikTok is another huge problem. Many content creators are being harassed every day, and people are starting to normalize those activities. Meena Uprety, sociologist, says that most individuals on TikTok are the ones who enjoy negativity. “They like to argue or bring someone down through comments or videos,” she says. 

Shristi Prasain, a 36-year-old shopkeeper from Bhaktapur, says she faced the same scrutiny once when her video accidentally went viral. It was a video of her and her husband in a swimming pool. “It was supposed to be a romantic moment, but people turned it into a disgusting one,” she says. It made her quite conscious on what to post and what not to. “I was disturbed after reading the comments for several days. People chose to harass me just because my husband held my hand in the video,” she says.

These types of comments are also seen on videos posted by minors. Since the platform is not properly regulated, several individuals below the age of 18 have gone viral, exposing them to sexual harassment, including inappropriate text messages from strangers. 

“My 10-year-old daughter sometimes says she wants to post videos and go viral too. I don’t allow that but she’s quite influenced by the videos she sees online,” says Shah. She is worried that her daughter might have to face the same kind of harassment if exposed to the platform. 

“Parents are also quite ignorant on what their children are doing. Some are even promoting this type of attention their child is receiving,” says Subedi, recalling the mother-daughter duo (Sumitra Bartaula and Bibika Bartaula) who live on TikTok all the time. 

The mother frequently asks her daughter to talk to strangers, as well as sexualize the daughter. People start defending the duo if anyone points out that it’s wrong. “The mother sometimes says statements like ‘Give that uncle a kiss’ on live videos to her daughter, and frankly, I find that quite disgusting,” says Subedi.

Without proper monitoring of the online contents, sociologist Uprety believes that TikTok will do no good. The first priority would be to filter the contents and place strict regulations on what can or can’t be posted/commented on every social media platform, which should be looked over by respective agencies like cybercrime bureau. “But if this continues, we will have no choice but to ban TikTok,” she says. 

Sexual and derogatory comments circulating throughout TikTok is another huge problem. Many content creators are being harassed every day, and people are starting to normalize those activities

SP Pashupati Kumar Ray, spokesperson for the Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police, says that it’s not the responsibility of the bureau to monitor any social media app. 

“In case someone is harassed online, one can go through the district court and file a case for violating the Criminal (Code) Act, 2017. Only then can the bureau step in to take down the contents that are problematic, and file a case against the individual involved,” says Ray.

Advocate Santosh Sigdel, founder and executive director of Digital Rights Nepal, an organization working to protect and promote digital rights, says that the problem is on the mindset of content creators/users, rather than the platform itself. 

“I think society is also equally responsible for making the platform safe for everyone,” he says. “The authorities as well as TikTok should also closely monitor if the contents and comments posted are following TikTok’s guidelines.” 

According to him, banning the platform isn’t the solution since the same people will end up in some other online platform. 

Everything that happens on TikTok comes down to the number of views and likes. The more engagement they have, the more money they make. Good contents don’t get views while the problematic ones go viral. 

“It’s bringing the worst out of everyone and people have no decency,” says Prasain. The platform lacks regulation, and is spreading hatred, violence, and is normalizing verbal and sexual harassment. Majority of individuals ApEx spoke to say that they would rather prefer TikTok to be banned, since it’s doing more harm than good

The continuous improvement in the remittance inflow, tourism earnings, and forex reserves has put the country’s external sector in a comfortable position. The latest macroeconomic report released by the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) shows Nepal has received remittances above Rs 100bn for seven straight months.

The comfortable position of the external sector has given space for the central bank to bring a moderate monetary policy for FY 2023/24. While the central bank’s top officials have not spoken about the direction of the new monetary policy, the latest data, according to the private sector, allows the NRB to be more flexible. The central bank in the current fiscal year adopted a tighter monetary policy amid declining forex reserves and a deteriorating external sector.

NRB officials say that the policy efforts of the government and the central bank implemented a year ago, aimed at controlling imports and credit expansion, have worked as expected. According to them, the challenge now is to maintain the pace of improvement.

The NRB Executive Director Prakash Kumar Shrestha also said that the latest macroeconomic report has indicated that a flexible monetary policy could be introduced. “However, which direction the new monetary policy will take will be determined by the market and statistics,” he said. “It is not just the external sector that has become improved. Liquidity has increased while interest rates are decreasing. But we should also pay attention to how the money will be used. While the indicators are positive currently, we need to tread with caution.”

Nepal has received remittances worth Rs 107.3bn in Jestha (mid-May to mid-June). The country has been receiving monthly remittances above Rs 100bn since Mangshir (mid-November to mid-December).

With the surge in remittance inflow, the country’s forex reserves, and balance of payment both have improved, said NRB. According to the NRB report, Nepal’s balance of payment (BOP) is at a surplus of Rs 228.98bn in the first 11  months of FY 2022/23 compared to a deficit of Rs 269.81bn in the same period of FY 2021/22. In US Dollar terms, BOP remained at a surplus of 1.74bn in the review period compared to a deficit of 2.26bn in the same period of the last fiscal year.

The country’s forex reserves increased by 21.8 percent in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year. The report said Nepal’s forex reserves stood at Rs 1480.87bn in mid-June, 2023 from Rs 1215.80bn in mid-July 2022. In US dollar terms, the gross foreign exchange reserves increased by 18.5 percent to Rs 11.3bn in mid-June 2023 from Rs 9.54bn in mid-July 2022.

In the report, NRB has stated that the current level of foreign exchange reserves is sufficient to cover merchandise imports for 11.2 months, and merchandise and services imports for 9.6 months.

Meanwhile, continuously growing tourist arrivals helped the growth of the country’s tourism income by 94.3 percent. Nepal has earned Rs 58.60bn as tourism income in this fiscal year compared to Rs 29.87bn in the last fiscal year. The country’s tourism earnings nosedived in FY 2019/20, and FY 2020/21 due to restrictions on international travel as countries imposed various lockdowns to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.