Submit your Article

The concept of the zebra crossing is generally credited to British Member of Parliament James Callaghan, who later became Prime Minister. The first official zebra crossing was introduced in Slough, United Kingdom, on 31 Oct 1951. Following this, the British government adopted the design for pedestrian crossings nationwide.

A safe walking environment not only ensures protection for pedestrians but also promotes a sense of comfort and friendliness. It encourages social and physical activities such as walking, running, and cycling. Pedestrian crossings are marked by different textures, surfaces, or colors to make them easily visible to both drivers and pedestrians. Roads also carry various signs for safety, including speed limits, school zones, hospital areas, no horn zones, humps, turns, and other necessary traffic control devices. Additionally, traffic FM radios regularly announce safety tips and traffic updates.

Zebra crossings are pedestrian facilities used worldwide, including in Nepal. They are designated as safe zones for pedestrians to cross and help alert drivers to reduce their speed. The horizontal line before the zebra crossing marks where vehicles must stop and wait until pedestrians have fully crossed. However, studies suggest that many pedestrian casualties occur at unsignalized zebra crossings.

In my observation, traffic police often focus more on managing vehicles than on protecting pedestrians. Even in major traffic junctions, pedestrians are frequently overlooked. Some traffic lights are non-functional, forcing people to cross without signals. Occasionally, volunteers or police are seen helping pedestrians cross, but this is not consistent. Many pedestrians, especially those new to the city, are unfamiliar with zebra crossings or the meanings of green, yellow, and red lights. Although schools and awareness programs may teach road safety, these lessons are often not practiced.

Road safety is further compromised by noisy motorcyclists and reckless drivers who merge onto main roads without slowing down, forcing others to brake suddenly. While the speed limit in city areas ranges from 25 to 50 km/h, many drivers treat public roads like racetracks. It’s common to see young riders, especially those with a passenger behind, recklessly weaving across lanes. The roar of their modified exhausts is not only disturbing but terrifying.

Stray dogs also pose a serious risk, often chasing motorcyclists and cyclists, leading to accidents. Municipalities have shown little concern for managing stray animals. Public buses and microbuses routinely stop in the middle of the road instead of designated stops, and drivers aggressively overtake using the wrong lanes to pick up more passengers. Ambulances struggle to navigate traffic during emergencies, with other drivers showing little urgency to give way.

While drivers are expected to pass a licensing test, their on-road behavior often shows a lack of responsibility. Though violators are fined and required to attend traffic awareness classes, these measures don’t seem to be effectively implemented. Even educated drivers, including those in private vehicles, government cars, diplomatic vehicles with blue CD plates, and INGOs, frequently ignore basic rules—such as stopping for pedestrians at zebra crossings.

Drivers often follow the rules only when traffic police are visibly present. Otherwise, chaos prevails. Honking is constant, even in sensitive zones like schools and hospitals. Parents, senior citizens, and people with disabilities are left terrified while trying to cross. Some pedestrians move slowly, either out of fear or carelessness, even when physically capable. Others cross outside designated zones, further increasing risks. Ironically, in Nepal, it’s often the pedestrian who must wait for vehicles to pass before daring to cross the zebra.

Today, many pedestrians and drivers are distracted by phones, smoking, eating, or listening to music while crossing or driving, putting themselves and others in danger.

According to Nepal Police Headquarters, in fiscal year 2024/25, there were 28,692 road accidents and 2,377 fatalities nationwide. Kathmandu Valley alone reported 7,164 accidents and 186 deaths. Additionally, 216 road incidents involved four-footed animals, with 172 dying and 44 injured.

Pedestrian crossings should be installed in areas with high foot traffic such as schools, hospitals, offices, markets, and city centers. They should be equipped with pedestrian signals, audible beeping for the visually impaired, and clear lighting. Some pedestrians have multiple disabilities, and drivers must be patient and compassionate. At times, bending the rules for humane reasons is justified.

This is not to say nothing has been done. Traffic police are trying their best. However, unsignalized crossings remain prone to crashes, and pedestrian behavior significantly influences outcomes. Drivers must learn to anticipate how pedestrians behave when crossing.

I’ve seen parents carrying newborns and up to five children on a motorbike, without helmets. This is dangerous and should be strictly prohibited. Like in Western countries, children should not sit in the front seat of a car; they should have proper child seats and seat belts.

I drive both a scooter and a bicycle, depending on the need. I love cycling to the market or office, but I’ve stopped recently because cycling in Kathmandu feels unsafe. There’s no dedicated bike lane, and other drivers behave as though cyclists don’t belong on the road.

Can education alone make pedestrians safer? In Nepal, that’s an open question. The problem lies in the mindset. Drivers often forget that they, too, are pedestrians when they’re not behind the wheel. Many follow rules abroad but revert to chaos once back in Nepal. Why?

Traffic education and awareness programs seem ineffective. What's missing is consciousness, empathy, and accountability. Traffic police cannot be stationed at every zebra crossing. Drivers must be self-aware, patient, and compassionate, not just rule-followers, but responsible road users. Let’s strive for compassion and care on the road. That’s the only way a society becomes truly civilized.

The Buddhist civilization of Gandhara (3 BCE onwards), now cradled primarily in the northern areas of Pakistan, beckons the world to visit its grand sites and study its unparalleled and magnificent past.

And it seems that almost every few years, an archaeological find of epic proportion in Gandhara brings renewed attention to this historic culture. One such find has been dubbed the Buddhist equivalent of the Jewish “Dead Sea Scrolls” of Gandhara. It is a coincidence that they both date from roughly the same time period in history.

Recently, I was fortunate to meet an extraordinary individual, Dr Mark Allon, of the University of Sydney. Whereas many of us have been promoting Gandharan heritage of Pakistan to the world, focusing on the historic sites, stupas, monasteries, art and sculptures, etc., unbeknownst to us, there is an even more unique facet of this heritage which is unparalleled and cannot be overstated.

This facet is the focus of the work of Dr Allon and his colleagues and it has to do with the preservation and translation of Buddhist manuscripts discovered in the recent past in Pakistan. 

Notably, these manuscripts are in Gandhari and Sanskrit. Sadly, the earlier discoveries of these historic manuscripts found their way into collections in Britain, Europe, North America, and Japan via the antiquities trade, a terrible loss of cultural heritage to the descendants of ancient Gandharans who produced them (Allon 2022). It should become a national endeavor to have these returned to Pakistan, or at a minimum, have them electronically documented and preserved in a library focusing on Gandharan literature. There are many well-wishers who would support this including the visionary Abbot MV Arayawangso of Thailand, and the incomparable Chief Abbess, MV Jue Cheng of Malaysia. But I digress.

The aforementioned manuscripts that Dr. Allon et al are working on are birch bark scrolls containing texts in Gandhari language and Kharoshthi script. They date from 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE. Hence they represent the oldest Buddhist and South Asian manuscripts yet discovered. Long have Taxila and Gandhara been touted as the first seat of learning – the first university - in the world! Now, we have proof that Gandhara indeed gave birth to the oldest Buddhist writings and manuscripts. More importantly, these scrolls appear to be of local compositions rather than texts translated into Gandhari from works composed elsewhere. So these stories, texts and scripts are wholly and truly from this region—original thoughts and verses of Gandharan Buddhism.

Beyond conservation and translation of the manuscripts, Dr Allon’s initiative is also creating curatorial facilities for the conserved manuscripts at the Islamabad Museum. They will also train local conservators which will enable Pakistan to conserve other manuscripts. Finally, the collection will enable Dr Allon and his colleagues to train Pakistani students to study these ancient languages by establishing full Gandhari and Sanskrit language teaching programs at local universities. Imagine, young Pakistanis learning the languages of their forefathers from 2000 years ago!

In a further phase of this project, these manuscripts will be published and made available for a worldwide audience, as well as local communities. This will include making select materials available in Urdu and Pashto. These publications will generate further interest in Gandhara and will take forward Pakistan’s ambitions to create a Gandharan pilgrimage based mega-tourism sector which could generate $30bn in income for Pakistan.

Neither an academic, nor a particularly couth individual, I was yet awestruck looking at these 2000 year old fragile pieces of bark with beautiful writing on them. The writing was delicate and flowing, and some manuscripts showed small figures of Lord Buddha used within the text as some kind of punctuation. While witnessing the painstaking work that these guests of Pakistan (Mark from Australia, Mary from Boston, and Vania from Portugal) were doing to preserve the history of Pakistan for generations to come, I wondered if we could challenge the many collectors in the world who have taken manuscripts, artifacts and arts of Gandhara into their collections.

What if they were to create proper private museums established with official assistance and display the private collections to share with the world? Otherwise, the private “collectors” would enjoy these monuments to history for a very finite time and who knows if their descendants would even care about these private collections. They will probably end up being cast aside or discarded over the years to come. 

Contemporary global discourse is saturated with calls for multipolarity. Leaders from Beijing to Brasília, from Moscow to New Delhi invoke a new world order—one where power is shared more equitably among diverse states and regions, and the dominance of any single power is curbed. Yet, despite these slogans and shifting alliances, the reality remains more concentrated than advertised. The United States continues to act—and be treated—as the primary actor on the global stage, wielding unmatched capabilities across military, economic, technological, and institutional domains. In effect, the world is staging a multipolar play, but the US remains its lead performer—a solo show on a multipolar stage.

Consider military power. As of 2024, the United States accounted for roughly 37 percent of global military expenditures, with a defense budget exceeding $1trn (SIPRI estimate)—more than the next nine countries combined, including China and Russia. Its global military footprint includes over 750 bases across more than 80 countries, reinforcing rapid deployment capabilities and sustained influence in every major region. In contrast, China, the oft-touted peer competitor, has only one overseas military base and far less capacity for power projection.

The United States continues to dominate global affairs through unilateral decisions that often override international consensus. In Ukraine, Washington has led the global response to Russia’s action with over $75bn in aid and a sweeping sanctions regime that even neutral powers like India and Turkey have had to navigate under pressure. In the Middle East, the US carried out the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020 and continues to conduct airstrikes on Iranian-linked targets in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen—frequently without international consultation. The pattern holds in Gaza, where the US has repeatedly vetoed UN ceasefire resolutions during the 2023–24 conflict, even as civilian casualties mounted and allies grew uneasy. In these arenas, global powers like China and Russia have issued condemnations, but lack the influence or institutional weight to meaningfully counterbalance American actions.

Latest examples include the US Air Force and Navy attacks on three nuclear facilities in Iran on June 22 as part of the Iran–Israel war, the US support to the Israeli war in Gaza, against Hamas who no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel, even by the standards of some 600 retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies. Prior to it in December last year, amidst the Russian warnings, the US helped bring down Syria’s Assad regime—the closest Russian ally in the Middle East. Forget the eastward expansion of NATO disregarding its own assurance to Russia that it would not do so.

This solo performance extends to East Asia, where the US continues to maneuver around its “one-China” policy by deepening ties with Taiwan through arms deals, diplomatic visits, and strategic signaling—all while China, despite its rise, remains unable to prevent these moves. In Syria, the US maintains troops and control over resource-rich regions in defiance of Damascus, as Russia looks the other way and China stays diplomatically detached. India, often seen as a rising multipolar player, has largely opted for strategic silence or hedging in each of these conflicts. Across these cases, the US not only acts without deference to global opinion—it also forces others to adjust to its decisions. The result is a world that may appear multipolar in discourse, but in practice still revolves around a single actor exercising disproportionate power with little external constraint.

In economic terms, US financial primacy remains foundational. The US dollar still constitutes around 60 percent of global foreign exchange reserves and is involved in 88 percent of all currency transactions. US capital markets continue to serve as the world’s main liquidity pool, and American technology firms lead in innovation and digital infrastructure. Even US domestic legislation—such as the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act—has reshaped global industrial policy by incentivizing foreign firms to align with American interests and supply chains, frequently overriding WTO norms or multilateral negotiation channels. See how the US has threatened India with additional tariffs should the latter continue buying Russian oil.

Moreover, the United States retains unmatched normative and institutional leverage. It plays a leading role in NATO, the G7, the Bretton Woods institutions, and dominates voting power in the IMF and World Bank. Even when institutions falter, the US increasingly relies on ad hoc or bilateral mechanisms to maintain influence, such as AUKUS, the Quad, and security pacts in the Indo-Pacific—sidestepping multilateral gridlock with flexible but US-centered architectures.

During his second term, President Trump has intensified the use of economic sanctions and tariffs as central pillars of his foreign policy, particularly targeting Iran and China. A “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran has been reactivated, with a primary goal of driving the country’s oil exports to zero. This has involved a significant increase in sanctions, with roughly three-quarters of new designations since January 2025 aimed at disrupting Iran's revenue streams. For instance, the Treasury Department has targeted over 115 individuals, vessels, and companies across 17 countries, including a “vast shipping empire” led by Iranian oil tycoon Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani. These sanctions have also been extended to third-party entities in China, India, and the UAE for their role in facilitating the trade of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products, such as the sanctioning of six Indian companies for engaging in over $220m in trade with Iran.

In addition to targeted sanctions, the administration has employed broad tariffs to isolate and pressure nations. The average applied US tariff rate rose from 2.5 percent to an estimated 27 percent in the first few months of the second term, the highest level in over a century. A universal 10 percent tariff was imposed on all imports, while country-specific tariffs were also used to escalate trade disputes. For example, tariffs on Chinese goods peaked at 145 percent, leading to retaliatory tariffs of 125 percent from China. The administration has also leveraged weapons supply as a foreign policy tool. While not directly providing vast amounts of military aid to Ukraine, the US has authorized weapons sales through its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, committing approximately $960m and pressuring NATO allies to increase their defense spending to five percent of GDP by 2035. This strategy of combining economic pressure, isolation, and arms sales to allies underscores a transactional and unilateral approach to international relations.

What seems strange is the extreme selfish behaviour of the competitors, a phenomenon reflected in the Nepali expression hul ma jyan jogaaoo (stay safe in the crowd), an attitude that lets a rooster fight the jackal alone! It is not hard to see how the US woos one opponent when it is attacking the other, successfully bringing down the regime in question. Only the US knows the wheel rotates.

Thus, the international system is characterized less by balanced multipolar governance than by fragmented resistance surrounding a persistent unipolar core. The United States continues to act, and be perceived, as the system's indispensable actor, even as rhetorical coalitions challenge its dominance. The world may speak the language of multipolarity, but until that rhetoric is translated into shared institutions, joint rule-making, and collaborative enforcement, the global order remains a solo performance by the United States—backed by unmatched capability and strategic depth—on a stage filled with understudies.

As per the vision of King Prithivi Narayan Shah, Kshetriyas are born warriors, who are innately brave and decisive. While reading Into The Fire by Capt. Rameshwar Thapa, one senses that same warrior spirit. During the peak of Nepal’s Maoist insurgency, Thapa conducted numerous helicopter rescue missions in the name of humanity. These were not official duties, but acts he undertook as a responsible citizen. He rescues even Maoist combatants, showing that compassion can transcend political divides.

The book invites readers to ponder whether his flying was simply a job, or a deeper calling. His symbolic trials, like leaving Nepal to study in Russia, resemble the path of a hermit in search of knowledge and purpose.

The title, Into the Fire, itself is self-explanatory. It captures the experience of flying over warzones, amidst explosions and bombardments. The task was daring and dangerous. Thapa traversed Nepal from east to west, offering ‘Malham’ (relief and healing) to the wounded. Some of his missions seem unbelievable. For instance, landing in Sandhikharka (Arghakhanchi) under live fire—despite two helicopters being shot—shows the extreme risks he and his team took, continuing their mission even after being hit.

Plot and structure

The book is structured in three main parts, narrating real-time events tied to Nepal’s middle class. For engaged readers, the story is both exciting and thought-provoking. Thapa draws attention in an almost Panglossian tone—an optimist through hardship.

Early life and solo dream: The story begins with a child’s journey to manhood, shaped by dreams and struggle. Thapa’s first earning, Rs. 3.5, was used to buy a pen, a symbolic gesture of his quest for education. This parallels with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, India’s former President, who used his first income to buy a pen to support his learning. It reflects how small acts can carry deeper meanings.

Enthusiastic U-turn: Thapa’s determination led him to take bold decisions. Dissatisfied with his clerical job in court, he reconsidered his path after a conversation with Sheshraj Parajuli and a transfer letter to Rasuwa district. When he appealed to Chief Justice Keshav Prasad Upadhyaya to halt the transfer, he received a counter-advice: “Why stick to a white-collar job when you have so much potential?” That moment reignited his childhood dream to become a rotary-wing pilot.

Insurgency and personal risk: Separated from his family, Thapa lived by the slogan of “do or die.” Maoist attacks in Rolpa, Rukum, Sindhuli, and Gorkha signaled an internal war. Though he could have refused to fly, Thapa’s inner voice urged him to serve a nation in turmoil. He was ready to fly into danger.

From captain to entrepreneur: The Bhagavad Gita’s principle of “perform without expectation” seems to guide Thapa’s transition into entrepreneurship. After years of risk-filled service, he expanded into media, real estate, hydropower, and tourism. His entrepreneurial journey shows he is a visionary, someone looking far beyond boundaries.

Strengths of the Book

Personal ideals: The book offers an intimate account of Nepal’s middle-class life, marked by poverty and resilience. It reflects conditions still prevalent in many least developed countries. Thapa emerges as a man of strong personal ideals and conviction.

Contribution during insurgency: Nepal was ill-prepared for warfare, and pessimism spread quickly. Maoist guerrillas executed people without hesitation. While travel on rugged terrain was difficult, air travel was the only viable option. Despite the risks, Thapa stepped in, driven more by idealism than duty. His actions embody a sense of purpose beyond survival.

Inspiration: The transition from childhood to adulthood in the book is rich with insight, courage, and hope. The story is motivational, especially for young readers. Thapa’s humility in learning, combined with his deep sense of responsibility, stands out.

Limitations

Hero-centric narrative:  Some readers may find the book overly centered on the author’s heroism. Flying into combat zones and rescuing the wounded is indeed courageous, but the tone occasionally leans toward glorification. While many autobiographies carry personal bias, this one does little to address or balance those tendencies.

Selective memory: The book focuses heavily on challenges and heroic moments, leaving out the routine or less dramatic aspects. Readers may seek a fuller psychological portrait, but instead get a highly curated narrative. Still, this selective remembrance satisfies many readers’ thirst for dramatic stories.

Matters of privacy: When covering his entrepreneurial ventures, the author avoids discussing matters like employment generation or contribution to the national economy. While it’s understandable for a memoir to stay task-focused, more detail would have enriched the narrative.

More a war diary than a memoir: Some may view Into The Fire as a war diary rather than a complete autobiography. Though it contains emotional and soft elements, the narrative remains largely event-driven and action-focused.

Conclusion

Into The Fire explores realities that go far beyond the imagination of most people. The risks, bravery, and moral clarity depicted are truly extraordinary. To enhance its credibility, future editions might include footnotes or endnotes for context. Still, the core themes of hope, justice, and patience resonate powerfully.

The bilingual format bridges local and international audiences. Technical and non-technical errors, whether in translation or print, are minimal and easily rectifiable.

This book can serve as a beacon of hope for students, educators, public servants, freelancers, researchers, aviators, and anyone who aspires to rise above limitations and serve with courage.