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The events of March 28, 2025 at Tinkune remain shrouded in uncertainty. What started as a pro-monarchy demonstration quickly spiraled into a violent confrontation between protestors and police. Protestors claim the situation escalated when police fired teargas shells while they were assembling for a peaceful demonstration. On their part, police officials argue they had no choice but to intervene after some commanders allegedly urged crowds to advance toward the airport and the parliamentary building.

In the aftermath, police arrested Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) leaders Rabindra Mishra and Dawlshamsher Rana for their alleged involvement in inciting a mob that vandalized multiple office buildings and private properties in the Tinkune area.  Authorities are now collecting evidence to file cases against them, while Durga Prasai—reportedly named as a protest commander—remains on the run. 

The Ministry of Home Affairs and Nepal Police are under fire for their handling of the protests. Reports indicate that officers used live rounds on demonstrators, with at least 20 people injured in the shootings. Tragically, two individuals—including a journalist—lost their lives, while dozens more sustained injuries. The police have admitted to the shootings, claiming they aimed to defuse tensions.

Adding to the chaos, misinformation and disinformation have flooded social media. Fake videos falsely linked to the Tinkune incident have been widely circulated, making it even harder to determine the truth. Protestors also launched a targeted attack on media houses, vandalizing the offices of Annapurna Media Network and Kantipur Television and even attempting to set them on fire.

Surprisingly, international media rights organizations and democratic nations—including the United States and the European Union—have remained silent. This marks a stark departure from their usual strong stance on press freedom violations in Nepal. The silence raises questions about whether human rights and freedom of speech are still priorities for the global democratic community. Some analysts even speculate that the shift could be linked to Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency.

Amid the growing controversy, there is mounting pressure on the government to establish an independent commission to investigate the Tinkune incident. Such a body could uncover the truth, ensure justice for victims, and hold those responsible accountable. However, Nepal’s major political parties have shown little interest in forming such a commission.

The incident has also exposed serious flaws within Nepal’s security apparatus. First, there was a lack of coordination among agencies. Second, security forces failed to gather intelligence on Prasai’s plans in advance. Lastly, Nepal’s law enforcement faces severe shortages of essential equipment, with no significant procurement in the last decade.

The government has pointed fingers at former King Gyanendra Shah, alleging that he played a role in orchestrating the protests by appointing Prasai as a commander. On March 27—just a day before the demonstrations—Shah met with Prasai, further fueling suspicions. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has publicly stated in Parliament that the former king was involved and "will not be spared." However, it remains unclear what legal actions, if any, will be taken against him.

Meanwhile, political leaders are busy countering the pro-monarchy narrative that the republican system has failed Nepal. Nepali Congress General Secretary Bishwa Prakash Sharma has sought to shift the debate by presenting comparative data on development under monarchy versus republican governance. Kathmandu Mayor Balendra Shah’s move to fine the former king for the environmental damage caused by protestors has also drawn mixed reactions. Major political parties who criticized Mayor Balen’s activities in the past are now praising him, while pro-monarchy forces have decried the mayor’s action.

Despite their shared goal of restoring the monarchy, pro-monarchy factions remain divided. Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) leaders Rajendra Lingden and Kamal Thapa, while supporting the broader movement, chose not to participate in the March 28 protests. In contrast, Mishra and Rana did, despite warnings that Prasai’s involvement could lead to violence.

Leadership changes have also added to the instability. With Nava Raj Subedi placed under house arrest following the protests, Jagman Gurung has taken over the movement’s leadership. However, internal conflicts continue to plague the royalist forces, threatening their momentum.

India’s influence has also been a topic of debate. Last week, the CPN-UML had to issue a formal statement clarifying that it never accused India of backing the pro-monarchy movement. Despite this, some communist leaders continue to push the narrative that India is supporting the royalist cause. Meanwhile, Nepal’s Ambassador to India, Shankar Sharma, recently met with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, sparking speculation about whether India—or at least some of its political figures—has a stake in the unrest.

The pro-monarchy movement shows no signs of slowing down, with protestors vowing to continue demonstrations despite the setback on March 28. However, the movement faces internal fractures, wavering political support, and government crackdowns. Whether the former king himself will break his silence remains an open question, but his close aides insist that he does not take sides in political matters.

The tourism industry is struggling to reach the pre-covid numbers, with tourist arrivals via air dropping by 2.01 percent in the first quarter of 2025. 

According to the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), a total of 298,558 international visitors arrived between January and March 2025, down from 304,693 in the same period of 2024. The decline, particularly pronounced in March, has been attributed to multiple factors, including a nighttime shutdown of Tribhuvan International Airport, Nepal’s primary gateway, from November to March. The airport’s reduced operations to facilitate runway upgrades limited flight schedules during peak travel months, resulting in shortage of flights, lengthy transits and exorbitant ticket prices. Industry people say this forced tourists to divert to other destinations. 

While January 2025 showed a slight improvement in arrivals compared to January 2024, the momentum faltered in February and March. The most significant decline occurred in March when international arrivals fell to 121,687—a 5.05 percent drop from the 128,167 recorded in March 2024. This figure also fell short of the pre-pandemic benchmark of 127,351 visitors in March 2019.

March marks the beginning of the spring tourism season which is considered the best for trekking and mountaineering. The spring season sees a lion’s share of mountaineering expeditions coming to Nepal. Most of the expeditions on Mt Everest, the tallest peak on earth, are organized in this season.

According to tourism entrepreneurs, tourist numbers will continue to increase till May which marks the end of the climbing season and the beginning of monsoon rains. While tourist numbers dip during the three months of June, July, and August, it starts picking up once the autumn season begins in September. The autumn season continues through December. 

Tourist arrival figures released by NTB show March witnessed declines across most regions compared to the previous year. While arrivals from China fell by 5.4 percent, the number of visitors from South Asian (SAARC) countries fell by 13.4 percent and those from Europe decreased by 10.5 percent. India remained the top source country in the review month with 21,412 visitors, followed by China (11,443) and the United States (11,092). Other notable contributors included Sri Lanka (8,886), the United Kingdom (5,995), Thailand (4,986), Germany (4,709), Australia (4,228), Myanmar (3,754) and Bangladesh (3,576).

In terms of region, SAARC countries accounted for 35,287 tourists (29 percent), followed by Asian nations (except SAARC nations) 31,353 (25.8 percent), Europe 25,742 visitors (21.2 percent), the Americas 13,907 (11.4 percent), Oceania 4,643 (3.8 percent) and the Middle East 2,732 (2.2 percent).

Let’s look at Post-Legislative Scrutiny (PLS) as a progress report card of laws prepared after evaluating and analyzing legislation based on its performance en route to its expected objective.  It is an effective tool for probing whether the legislation is operative and effectively adapting to the socio-cultural dynamics of society. Legislation is a very precise and objective document that should not be stagnant. It needs to be dynamic and adaptive to the socio-cultural time and realities, and this is exactly why the PLS needs to come into play. Primarily, PLS helps contextualize laws and keeps them synchronized with the changing reality. While this is a substantially accepted concept, is it limited to only contextualizing the existing laws and to legislation’s harmonization to meet its objectives. Diving into granular deconstruction it is not only limited to that, PLS also accounts for reviewing the executives’ performance in ensuring the legislation’s futility and legislation meeting its objectives. PLS definitely reflects the law-making and executing body’s capacity in terms of adapting to the changing dynamics and efficiency in updating laws to stay relevant.  

Example of PLS for a larger Nepali context

To understand the poignant situation of PLS in our legislative mechanism let’s take the example of the first PLS to be ever done in Nepal which was on The Social Practices Reform Act 2033, a complacent act that was unperturbed by the social realities. The law includes provisions like criminalization of weddings hosted with more than 51 guests and bans extravagant decorations or gatherings that are a part of societal norms. This law for two decades remained free from any form of scrutiny standing with full legal authority but with zero social acceptance. 

In light of this, PLS should have analyzed the legislation’s social perception and monitored its acceptance and adaptability along with any form of reluctance way back when it started becoming irrelevant. It highlights the situation legislation might face, shedding light on the importance of PLS to track the existing laws and giving them periodic report cards of their performance along with recommendations. This would help in repairing imperfections, and contextualizing laws that have failed the test of time through amendments, repeal, and introduction of new unified codes. The legislative realm and PLS have many expectations, but they remain unaltered which is evident as laws like—The Civil Service Act 2048, and the Police Act 2012 desperately waiting to be revisited.   

Post legislative scrutiny is evolving into a global legislative bandwagon. However, PLS is in its blooming phase and navigating through to the social and legislative consciousness and is still facing challenges in implementation. To begin with, we are already falling short when it comes to prioritizing the PLS, additionally, its core being an advisory instrument, and not enforceable, highly hinders its easy adoption and giving it due consideration. A report by the legislative management committee in 2023 indicates that the implementation status of directions from PLS reports is mediocre. Similarly, the Law, Justice and Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives has not shown satisfactory execution of its PLS findings. Nepal with its not-so-impressive trajectory when it comes to listening and acting upon the ‘advisory’ reports is rather underwhelming and since PLS is all about offering input and proposing recommendations in the absence of enforcement of the prevailing laws, it is rather treated with the lack of gravity than it deserves. 

How can we bring PLS to the forefront? 

We should embrace PLS as a core element of the legislative cycle and institutionalize it. In 2018, PLS was initially only under the scope of work of the National Assembly’s Legislative Management Committee. The committee then drafted and included—evaluation, study, and research on the implementation status of the Act under its work parameters, however, up until now, the protocol has been developed and given to the speaker but hasn’t been released yet. The process for assessing the state of law implementation must be decided by the speaker of the house. Understandably, the concept of PLS is new in Nepal however our legislative framework is taking longer than expected to familiarize. 

However, the predominant issue here is that laws do not have mandatory PLS clauses. It is rather inconvenient and the hitch will proceed to last as long as we do not have a blanket PLS provision covering all the acts. As of now, only a dozen of the newly drafted laws include the provision of the relevant ministries evaluating the implementation of laws after five years from their enactment. Yet, PLS will not be in full working order unless the Bill relating to management of legislation 2080 takes effect as it also has a similar PLS provision that will blanketly apply to all the laws. 

Hence, parliamentary practice in Nepal has been focused on legislating laws after a swamp of problems arose in a wholesale way with collective amendments through single acts, which is a legislative disaster on its own. If PLS were to be effectively implemented at regular intervals, this swamping legislation would be replaced by effective and proactive amendments or better laws. 

Currently, only seven of the acts have been scrutinized at the federal level including full act PLS, partial provision scrutiny, regulation, and procedure review. Karnali and Lumibni provinces have started scrutinizing their laws too. We now also need proper communication channels within the tiers of parliament for the PLS coordination. 

All three—Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary—should be involved in the PLS process and upskill all human resources engaged, especially in thematic PLS.  

We may look at the UK as an example, the cabinet office has been providing ministries with comprehensive PLS assistance since March 2008, and in 2022, the Guide to Making Legislation was reprinted with PLS-specific instructions. The laws are mandatorily reviewed three to five years after receiving royal assent. The finest feature of the UK PLS model has to be its cooperative method that involves both the government and parliament in the process. This is something that can be adopted here too. From a practical standpoint, when it comes to law-making or proposing necessary amendments, it is the relevant ministry that sets the motion. However, there should be a clear distinction between the roles of each body involved as PLS is the primary responsibility of the legislature thus, the parliament and the committees should hold the ultimate authority concerning the final recommendation PLS report. 

Similarly, the judiciary can also be involved and play a crucial role in driving the PLS efforts. The Legal Aid Act 2054 is a significant example. The act was in the shadows for a long time until judicial intervention pumped life into it but even after that, the law remains intact and there have been fewer concerns about its overall provisions. Although a notable step was taken by bringing forth the unified legal aid procedure 2078, is it monitored, and evaluated? and is the government effectively working to ensure people’s access to legal aid? A PLS could be a way to go. 

In a landmark visit—the first official trip since the establishment of Nepal-Thailand diplomatic relations over 60 years ago—Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli held bilateral talks with Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. The two leaders witnessed the signing of eight Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), expanding cooperation in tourism, culture, trade, industry, medicine, agriculture, and academia.

The visit, coinciding with the 66th anniversary of their diplomatic ties, highlighted the strong spiritual and cultural connections, particularly the annual pilgrimage of thousands of Thai Buddhists to Lumbini. 

Following the talks, the two leaders held a joint press conference, hailing the visit as a milestone in elevating bilateral relations. Prime Minister Oli extended an invitation to his Thai counterpart to visit Nepal, which she accepted, pledging to do so at a mutually convenient time.

Oli emphasized the discussions on deepening diplomatic and people-to-people ties. He highlighted Nepal’s potential in hospitality and aviation, urging Thai investors to explore opportunities in these sectors. “Nepal and Thailand share strong agricultural, trade, tourism, and cultural ties. I encourage Thailand’s business community to invest in Nepal,” he said.

Prime Minister Shinawatra noted the long-standing friendship between the two nations, rooted in shared history and culture. “This visit marks an opportunity to strengthen our partnership and explore new avenues for collaboration,” she stated. She praised Nepal’s effective management of water resources for hydropower development, which has significantly contributed to economic growth.

The Thai prime minister also stressed the importance of improving the ease of doing business, reducing trade barriers and leveraging comparative advantages. “With bilateral trade currently at $40m, we have significant potential to expand. These measures will boost trade and investment, giving Thai businesses greater confidence to enter Nepal’s market,” she added.

Connectivity emerged as another key focus. “We recognize the role of Thai airlines in enhancing ties through increased flight frequency, resuming direct Bangkok-Kathmandu routes, and expanding services to Lumbini,” Shinawatra said.

The leaders also discussed strengthening the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). “With solidarity among member-states, we will ensure BIMSTEC remains a dynamic and relevant organization,” Shinawatra said. She reiterated her commitment to advancing bilateral and multilateral relations across diverse fields for sustainable prosperity.

Nepal and Thailand also signed several agreements regarding cooperation in various sectors. Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba and Thailand’s Minister for Culture, Sudawan Wangsuphakijkosol, signed an MoU on cultural cooperation, while Deuba and Thai Tourism and Sports Minister Sorawong Thienthong inked a tourism agreement. 

Other agreements included partnerships between Nepal Netra Jyoti Sangh and Thailand’s Mahidol University, Janata Agro and Forestry Nepal (JFL) and Kasetsart University, the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Board of Trade of Thailand, and Kathmandu University and Siam University. 

Additionally, the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) and the Federation of Thai Industries, along with the Nepal Chamber of Commerce and the Tourism Council of Thailand, signed agreements to bolster private-sector collaboration.

Key areas of discussion 

• Bilateral relations 
• Trade and investment 
• Agriculture and technology 
• Development cooperation 
• Multilateral and regional cooperation 
• Connectivity