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Actor Saruk Tamrakar, who passed away on July 6, was a man with many feathers in his hat. Before he entered the world of Nepali cinema, he had already made his name as a model, photographer and filmmaker.   

Tamrakar was known for his charismatic personality that he exuded effortlessly both on and off screen. He made his acting debut in 2017 with ‘Raani’ before working on other projects such as ‘Meri Mamu’ and ‘Intu Mintu London Ma’. Tamrakar’s role as a military officer in ‘Intu Mintu London Ma’ was his breakthrough performance, which won him many accolades. He was working on the film ‘Hashtag Maya'’ at the time of his passing. 

Along with movies, Tamrakar was also featured in several music videos like ‘Timro Muskan Ley’, ‘Prasna’, ‘Namari Baachey’, and ‘Batash Jhai’. He also directed  and worked on a variety of short films like ‘Aasha’, ‘Trans15sion’, ‘The Rickshaw Carpool Ride’, ‘Hide’  and more.

Tamrakar’s main passion in his life was photography and filmmaking. Through photography and videography, he enthusiastically imparted his knowledge, experiences and skills to younger generations. In a 2019 interview with ApEx, he had said that he would have been a filmmaker had he not gotten into acting. 

In a short time, Tamrakar made an enduring impression in the entertainment world by appearing in a number of well-known movies, playing various roles that resonated with audiences. He was a true artist and an inspiration to many.  

Off the screen, Tamrakar was a cherished friend, a devoted family member, and a compassionate human being. He had always wanted to leave a legacy by making films that were meaningful and impacted the lives of people. 

After his demise, Miss Nepal Earth 2018 and his friend, Priya Sigdel posted her first interaction with Tamrakar in the Paradygm TV set on Instagram. “This was indeed the best time of my life because I have always admired him so much and I am glad I always shared this with him. Saruk is still with us in his spirits, his positivity, his smiles and his energy that made everyone feel so good,” wrote Sigdel about Tamrakar and his infectious charm. 

Malina Joshi, Tamrakar’s close friend and co-actor from the film ‘Raani’, also paid tribute to her dear friend on Instagram. “He chose a very difficult path towards Moksh. Let us all pray collectively for his departed soul to rest in peace in heaven,” she wrote.

Tamrakar was only 31 at the time of his passing and in his three decades on this earth, he loved—and was loved by—his family, friends, colleagues and admirers. 

Birth: 19 Sept 1992, Kathmandu

Death: 6 July 2023, Kathmandu 

Sending Nepali nurses to the United Kingdom will worsen Nepali medical sector, affecting the health services, health experts have warned.  

The shortages of nurses in the country will have an adverse effect in the health sector as patients will face delays in emergency departments and in other health services. 

 Critical care will be affected and there will be scarcity of nurses to take care of patients after surgery. Also it increases the workload of the nurses and makes them fatigued.  

Nepal and the United Kingdom though have signed a bilateral agreement on health partnership opening the door for Nepali nurses to work in the UK. 

There are already international concerns over the UK’s plan to take nurses from developing countries. The International Council of Nurses (ICN), said that such wealthy nations recruiting nursing staff from some of the world’s most fragile health systems was extremely hard to justify and perhaps should be stopped entirely. 

The ratio of nurses to the British population is around 80 to 10,000 while in Nepal it is nearer 20. The government run hospitals where there are a large number of the patients are facing an acute shortage of nurses. 

Consider this case. Recently 245 nurses have been appointed in Bir Hospital and 50 nurses have been appointed to work in federal governmental hospitals. These newly appointed numbers however are still insufficient to deliver quality health care to patients.  The ICN has said seven or eight wealthy countries—notably Britain, the United States, and Canada—were driving around 80 percent of international nurse migration, to try to address their domestic shortages.

Situation of nurses in the country 

The country is already facing an acute shortage of nurses. The shortage of nurses affects health care services, posing a threat to patient’s lives. It affects patient satisfaction rate, increases medication errors and makes them fatigued. 

One nurse should serve only six patients in a general ward, four in a pediatric unit, and one in an intensive care unit with a ventilator, according to the government. It is also ideal to have at least two nurses for a single operation table and during delivery.

Nepal produces around 5,000 nurses per year and this number is insufficient to the country. The number of nurses in the health centers in the rural areas are lesser than the urban areas.  According to Nepal Nursing Council there are 1,352 specialist nurses, 73,889 nurses, 51 midwives, 37,236 auxiliary nurse midwives and 848 foreign nurses registered with the council.

The World Health Organization estimates that at least 2.5 medical staff (physicians, nurses and midwives) per 1,000 people are needed to provide adequate coverage with primary care interventions as per its World Health Report 2006.

There is a need for 70,000 nurses in the country itself. 

The country however has not been able to meet the WHO estimates. Nepal is currently on the red list of countries according to the Code of Practice. The Code of Practice for the ethical international recruitment of health and social care personnel bans active recruitment from countries with the greatest workforce shortages unless there is a government-to-government agreement in place.

“When the government is not concerned about the shortage of nurses in the country and is sending the human resources to foreign countries it’s a shameful situation,” said Sarala KC, president of Nepal Nursing Council.

She said that this decision will be counterproductive as it affects the health care system. “Its effect will be seen in the citizens as they will not be able to get healthcare. When there is a shortage of the nurses the hospitals will be closed,” KC added. 

Who is eligible? 

Though the two governments are still working to prepare an implementation protocol Nepali citizen aged between 20 and 45 and who have completed either Staff Nurse, Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSc), or Bachelor of Nursing (BN), or Master’s Degree in Nursing, holds an active professional license from the Nepal Nursing Council plus at least two years of experience in a registered hospital in Nepal is eligible for the application. The applicants can fill up an online application on the Department of Foreign Employment’s website. 

Details on the recruitment process, the initiation date for the application process, as well as other related information will be posted on the Ministry’s website. The ICN has said that international recruitment focused largely on experienced, specialized nurses, rather than the “myth” that only newly-qualified nurses were being targeted.

“That creates a serious deficit in expertise in countries that cannot afford to lose their more experienced nurses. That has really been a serious concern,” ICN president Pamela Cipriano, had said during a press conference organized by the UN correspondents association in Geneva. 

British ambassador to Nepal Nicola Pollitt after signing the agreement on 22 Aug last year had then tweeted that the deal will benefit the health sectors of both countries.  Successful Nepali nurses will not need to pay anything for the recruitment and will enjoy the same benefits as British nurses, Pollitt, she had said.

The medical experts however are of the view that sending the Nepali nurses will worsen the condition of the already ill health sector. They say that the number of nurses is already decreasing in the country as the number of nursing colleges and the number of students joining nursing education is declining. “We must increase the number of nursing students if we are to run the medical sector,” said KC. 

Over 250,000 medical resource needed 

The Medical Education Commission (MEC), a national regulatory body for medical education in Nepal estimated that more than 250,000 human resources related to the medical sector will be necessary in the country till the fiscal year 2030/31. The projection has been made on the basis of a study based on fiscal year 2020/21. 

The commission has said that a total of 358,938 human resources including female health volunteers and office assistants in both the government and private health institutions would be needed across the country. It has also said that there is a demand of 257,091 doctors and health workers in the Nepali medical sector. 

“The number of human resources are projected on the basis of the retirement and migration of the health practitioners along with the construction of health institutions in the country,” said Dr Shree Krishna Giri, vice-chair of the commission. 

With the emergence of agile development approaches, the software delivery landscape has transformed dramatically. Gone are the days of monthly or bi-monthly releases; now, mobile apps and softwares undergo weekly or bi-weekly updates. To keep pace with these frequent releases, continuous testing has become the norm, aided by automation suites for sanity and regression testing. However, as digital transformation takes centerstage, the need for scalable and predictive systems that anticipate market requirements becomes paramount. This shift necessitates a move beyond continuous testing and toward leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance quality assurance practices.

Quality management methods have undergone significant changes over the years to adapt to changing software development and delivery approaches. Today, continuous testing, driven by Agile and CI/CD methodologies, dominates the Quality Assurance (QA) landscape. However, this approach presents its own challenges, including siloed automation, lack of end-to-end requirements visibility, and managing a high volume of tests. To overcome these hurdles, the industry is now embracing autonomous testing, which ensures zero-touch QA.

Traditional software testing is time-consuming and prone to human errors. A growing number of tests and the need for comprehensive code coverage add to the complexity. AI offers a solution by accelerating the testing process and automating test suite generation. AI agents can learn and adapt throughout the testing process, identifying errors and bugs that may be missed by traditional tests. AI-powered visual verifications enhance testing accuracy, and techniques like image-based testing, AI spidering, and API monitoring further augment QA efforts. The benefits of incorporating AI automation into quality assurance practices are manifold. Firstly, it significantly reduces testing time, enabling faster time-to-market. AI-powered testing tools provide enhanced test coverage, delivering accurate results with expedited turnaround. By automating repetitive tasks, QA teams can focus on more complex and strategic aspects of testing. Moreover, AI-based testing ensures better code coverage, improved accuracy, and reduced costs compared to manual testing.

AI is revolutionizing the field of quality assurance, enabling organizations to navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of software development. From automating testing processes to enhancing test coverage and accuracy, AI-powered tools and techniques are reshaping the QA industry. As the future unfolds, the role of AI in quality assurance will continue to grow, enabling experimentation-driven testing and empowering QA specialists to deliver high-quality software with efficiency and precision. Embracing AI in quality assurance is not just an option but a necessity for organizations aiming to stay competitive in the digital age.

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, businesses are increasingly turning to AI to optimize their QA and testing processes. AI-powered testing tools offer a range of benefits that enable testers to transition from manual testing to automated, efficient, and accurate continuous testing. This article explores the advantages of utilizing AI in QA and testing, highlighting how it can expedite timelines, facilitate well-researched build releases, streamline test planning, expand the role of testers, enable predictive analysis, improve the writing of test cases, enhance regression testing, and revolutionize visual user interface testing and defect tracing. One of the key benefits of using AI in QA and testing is the significant reduction in testing time. AI-powered tools can swiftly scan codes, log files, and databases, identifying errors and discrepancies in seconds. Unlike human testers, AI does not experience burnout and consistently delivers precise and accurate results. Additionally, AI can adapt to code changes and identify new functions, distinguishing between new features and bugs resulting from code modifications.

By leveraging AI in QA, companies can analyze successful apps and software in the market, gathering insights into what contributed to their success. This knowledge can be used to create new test cases that ensure the app or software meets specific goals and remains stable under different scenarios. Traditional test planning involves significant manual effort, with QA experts spending considerable time creating test case scenarios for each new version release. AI QA automation tools simplify this process by automatically analyzing the app or software, crawling through every screen, and generating and executing test-case scenarios. This automation saves valuable planning time and improves efficiency.

AI in QA and testing necessitates testers to acquire new skills in neuro-linguistic programming, business intelligence, math optimization, and algorithmic analysis. As AI takes over repetitive tasks and data analysis, testers can focus on higher-level tasks such as interpreting results, making strategic decisions, and ensuring optimal user experiences. AI-driven QA enables the analysis of existing customer data to predict evolving user needs and browsing patterns. Testers, designers, and developers can proactively anticipate user expectations and deliver better-quality support. Machine learning algorithms enable the AI platform to continuously improve and provide increasingly accurate predictions based on analyzed user behavior. AI improves the quality of test cases for automation testing. With AI, developers can quickly analyze project data and identify new approaches to test cases. Traditional methods often overlook additional possibilities for test cases, while AI-driven analysis enables the discovery of new and efficient ways to test software.

The rapid deployment of software necessitates thorough regression testing, which can become overwhelming for manual testers. AI can be employed to handle tedious regression testing tasks, utilizing machine learning to create test content and identify changes in UI elements, such as color, shape, or size. AI ensures that even minor UI modifications are thoroughly validated. AI facilitates better user interface design and visual approval of website pages. AI testing tools can analyze different elements on the user interface, enabling tests that would typically require human intervention. Machine learning-based visualization tools can detect minute differences in images that humans might miss, simplifying tasks such as updating the Document Object Model and reducing the risk of errors.

In traditional manual testing, bugs and errors can go unnoticed for extended periods, creating challenges in the future. AI in software testing automates defect tracing, quickly identifying and pinpointing flaws. AI-based bug tracking detects duplicate errors and recognizes patterns of failure, allowing the development team to operate smoothly.

The benefits of incorporating AI in QA and testing are numerous, revolutionizing the way companies approach software quality assurance. From expediting timelines and enabling well-researched build releases to facilitating effortless test planning and enhancing defect tracing, AI-driven tools and platforms empower testers to deliver high-quality software efficiently. By embracing AI in QA and testing, businesses can optimize their testing processes, improve customer experiences, and gain a competitive edge in the dynamic digital landscape.

The author is a leading consultant on Data Analytics, QA Testing. Views expressed are personal

Udita (name changed), who often works from home, had an important work presentation on the first day of the week. She was both nervous and anticipative about the meeting. She had 25 minutes before logging in to the video conferencing app when her mother showed up in her room and asked her to join her for lunch. Udita told her mom she would eat later since it was almost time for her meeting. Her mom got upset no sooner and said, “It seems like all the other people at my home have important work to do; only I am the free and useless one here.” Those words got to Udita’s nerves, and she frowned, “Not again!” before turning to her presentation. Her mom stormed off.

In situations like these, acting from a self-focused mindset can be easy, which drives us to see other people as objects. Perhaps, Udita’s mom must have other commitments to look into after finishing lunch, so when Udita didn’t agree to join her, she started seeing Udita as an obstacle in her way of getting things done. As for Udita, she had an important presentation, so when her mom didn’t take her request positively, she possibly started perceiving her mom as an irrelevancy to ignore.

Udita had a few minutes before the presentation, but her mind constantly flashed back to her interaction with her mom. She, in fact, quickly realized that she was slipping into a self-focused mindset toward her mom. She knew she couldn’t continue if she wanted her presentation to go well and not worsen the relationship with her mother.

Udita soon recalled what she had learned about the three modes of applying the impact-focused mindset, instead-Self-Connection, Honest Self-Expression, and Empathic Connection.

Self-Connection

Self-Connection is about connecting with our feelings and needs rather than getting stuck in a cycle of blaming and justifications. Through this mode of Impact-focused mindset, we hold space to acknowledge what’s going on for us.

We can ask the following questions to connect with ourselves:

-What really happened?
Udita separated her judgments from what happened in the situation factually. She redirected her thoughts to what she heard and saw in the interaction with her mom. She recalled that her mom told her, “It seems like all other people at my home have important work to do, only I am the free and useless one here,” to which she responded, “Not again!”

-How do I feel?

Udita checked in with herself and realized she felt annoyed and discouraged upon hearing her mom’s words.

-What do I need?

With a self-focused mindset, it might have been easy for Udita to believe that her mother caused her feelings of annoyance and discouragement. The truth is that her mother’s words and actions only triggered those feelings in Udita. Her feelings emerged from her unmet needs for support and understanding, which she sought in the relationship with her mother.

-Do I have a specific request for myself or someone else?

Udita then realized she perhaps needed to focus on doing the presentation well for now. After the presentation, she decided to have a conversation with her mother. 

Empathic Listening

After Udita got off her meeting, she approached her mom and invited her to share how she felt. Although it did seem that the earlier incident still gripped her mom, she shared how she was disappointed and overwhelmed by her family members’ overlapping schedules. She expressed how she felt disconnected and all over the place. Udita could sense and understand that perhaps her mom had unmet needs for connection, certainty, and order. Instead of just assuming her mom’s needs, Udita asked if she had identified her needs correctly. Her mom confirmed and felt slightly relieved upon being understood.

Honest Self-Expression

After listening to her mom, Udita told her mother how she felt and what she needed (which she identified through Self-connection). She explained why she couldn't promptly act on her mom’s request. She had an important work presentation, and there was no way she could miss it. She requested her mom to have lunch without her on similar days ahead, which would help Udita meet her needs for support and understanding. She also promised to reheat and serve lunch for herself on such days without requiring her mom’s assistance in the kitchen. Udita also addressed her mom’s needs for connection, certainty, and order and assured her that she would inform her about her everyday schedule when she worked from home, so they could try to have lunch together whenever possible.

Based on Marshall B Rosenberg’s Compassionate Communication Model, Self-Connection, Empathic Listening, and Honest Self-Expression are three modes through which we can apply an impact-focused mindset. None of these modes or processes are a precedent to each other. In any given situation, not necessarily difficult ones, we can resort to either or all of these three modes to understand ourselves and others better beyond the playfield of who’s right and who’s wrong. An impact-focused mindset is about overcoming the rigidness of being the correct/better one, being curious about each other’s feelings and needs, and building concrete strategies together to meet those needs on any given day.

The author is the Linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com