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“Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done”. This is what Lord Hewart, the then chief justice of England, said while pronouncing the verdict in the case of Rex v Sussex Justices, in Sussex in 1924. A century later, this aphorism coming from a court of law in Sussex has become a law of sorts onto itself. 

With the executive and the legislative falling miserably short of public expectations by landing in one scandal after another, the sovereign people have been pinning high hopes on another vital organ of the state—the judiciary—for quite some time. In this day and age of information and communication technology, where the people have information and knowledge at their fingertips, even the hallowed chambers of law cannot escape public scrutiny. 

People and the fourth estate—the free media—split hairs over judgments coming from the court of law, which is actually good for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. If it is bad for the rule by law, then so be it. At a time when the image of the executive and the legislature has taken a huge beating, the judiciary is under tremendous strain to maintain the sanctity of state institutions. The final interpreter of the Constitution can shoulder this task of Himalayan magnitude only by keeping itself above controversies galore. 

As they say, action speaks louder than words. Talking about action, a division bench of the Supreme Court has issued a verdict in a case related to ancestral property, stating that daughters married before 1 Oct 2015 cannot lay claim to ancestral property. Through this judgment, the court has put to rest a long-pending dispute over ancestral property, at least for now.  

As indicated earlier, the onus is on the top court to remain squeaky clean by minimizing extraneous influence to the maximum possible extent. For quite some time, the judiciary has been courting controversy over the appointment of justices close to a party or the other. It is a given that such appointments increase the risk of miscarriage of justice that can lead to all sorts of unwanted consequences for the country and the people. 

Some lay people, including skeptics, predicting judgments based on the benches hearing the cases is no good tiding—neither for the judiciary, nor for the state as a whole. As the top court of the country continues to deal with piles and piles of important cases ranging from property disputes to the protection of national boundaries and more, here’s wishing that an infallible sense of justice prevails in the hallowed chambers, driven by international conventions, precedents, our customs, traditions, societal norms and values as well as our own charter. 

The latest havoc caused by the landslide and flood along the Nepal-China border in Rasuwa is a stark reminder yet again of just how vulnerable Nepal is to climate-induced disasters, particularly those that originate beyond our national boundaries. Nine deceased, 19 individuals still missing, infrastructure damaged, and critical trade routes disturbed, the nation is left scrambling to respond yet again—while the fundamentals continue to be poorly grasped and inadequately tackled.

What is particularly alarming about this incident is its suspected cause: a possible glacial lake outburst or other geophysical event in China's Tibetan area. While definitive evidence has not been established, the absence of significant precipitation in the area, experts say, strongly suggests transboundary factors like glacial lake bursts, avalanches or damming floods. This is a sobering reason for alarm about the present level of cross-border cooperation on early warning systems and disaster preparedness.

Nepal has treated transboundary climate hazards as environmental or diplomatic afterthoughts for too long. However, with their increasing frequency and intensity—fueled by climate change—it is time to treat them as national security risks worthy of diplomatic urgency and institutional overhaul.

Nepal and China share trade and infrastructure ties but with a remarkable lack of coordinated disaster risk management. The lack of an effective, real-time information-sharing system between the two countries significantly undermines Nepal's preparedness or response to such disasters. The Rasuwa flash flood would have been less deadly if Nepal had been alerted on time and offered data from the Chinese side.

The government is right to engage the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to resume damaged infrastructure and reopen border points. However, what Nepal needs now is an official and binding mechanism with China for sharing climate and disaster data—particularly pertaining to glacial lake behavior, river flow and weather patterns in Tibet.

The Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Home, and Environment must work together to institutionalize cross-border climate risk cooperation with China and other neighbors, perhaps through multilateral forums.

Nepal must also invest in its own satellite monitoring capability, early warning dissemination and localized disaster preparedness, especially along border regions. The needs for trained human resources, reliable equipment and community-based alert systems have never been more pressing.

We are confronted with a new era of transboundary climate threats. Confronting them requires not just salvation in a crisis, but political will, regional collaboration, and investment in infrastructure and science over the long haul. The cost of inaction, as we have seen yet again, is measured in lives lost and futures destroyed.

Let us stop thinking of disasters as arbitrary calamities and start thinking of them as predictable consequences of a warming planet—and plan accordingly.

At this time of a fiscal year, Nepal witnesses a kind of development frenzy hardly seen at other times. Earth-movers operate longer than usual and youths from different political parties and their myriad sister organizations sweat it out even in the rains, building motorable roads, canals, rural roads and what not with a sense of urgency and commitment that’s rarely seen in the life of this laid-back nation.

One wonders as to how long will it actually take for this country to take giant leaps on the path of (sustainable?) development if our energetic actors were to dedicate themselves to the cause of national development—and not individual development marked by ever-swelling bank accounts and personal as well as family fortunes, notable changes in what used to be a modest lifestyle, etc—like this round the year.
Those familiar with the ‘developments’ in Nepal know well that the development frenzy mentioned above lays bare an ugly face of development—that of a rigged development at play.

More often than not, the idea behind the frenzied work is to gobble up budget allocated for development/maintenance of infrastructure like roads, canals toward the fag end of a fiscal year when rains, floods and landslides wreak havoc throughout the country, making it clear that the hurried works won’t last long.There is every reason to suspect a food chain at work with monies small and big going to every actor involved in such projects based on their prominence. 

That the state agencies tasked with cleansing the system by launching a crackdown on such practices have hardly done so should be a matter of serious concern, especially for the taxpayer.

While irregularities in development works are a matter of serious concern, equally concerning is a very limited capacity of our state apparatuses to spend the budget earmarked for development. 

Data speak for themselves.
The government has not been able to spend even half of the development budget allocated for the fiscal year 2024-25, which comes to a close in mid-July. Of the Rs 3.52trn allotted for development works, the government has managed to spend a paltry Rs 1.64trn (46.59 percent) as of July 2 and one needs no expert to speculate about the quality of work conducted with the taxpayer’s hard-earned money. 

What’s more, the worrisome trend over the years is that an increasing share of the budget is going toward meeting administrative expenses like pay and perks for government employees, and repayment of foreign loans, at the expense of development. 

One more thing: Over the years in Nepal, development has become synonymous with road construction and maintenance, often undermining the fact that development brings destruction and displacement also.  

This calls for an increased focus on sustainable development, a serious and continuous development audit, and stringent action against big and small fish involved in corrupt ‘development practices’. 

Time to steer Nepal in that direction has indeed come.

Nine months ago, a rain-swollen Roshi swept away a 12-km Nepalthok-Chaukidanda section of the BP highway, a lifeline linking districts in eastern Tarai with midhill districts.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster that rendered hundreds homeless, marooned thousands of travelers headed to the Kathmandu valley from the southern plains and vice-versa for days on end while three patients died in ambulances for want of treatment. Such was the situation that several people had to be rescued via air. 

Sadly, the government appears to have forgotten about the calamitous situation altogether. 

Completed with Japanese assistance amounting to Rs 20 billion (approx) about a decade ago after 20 years of struggle, this vital link was facilitating trade with both of Nepal’s neighbors and changing the economic fortunes of districts in east Tarai as well as midhill like Mahottari, Dhanusha, Kavre, Ramechhap, Sindhuli, Okhaldhunga, Udayapur and Solukhumbu.

Bazaars and settlements located along the artery were doing brisk business by operating hotels, charging stations for electric vehicles, small industries that produced mouthwatering indigenous sweetmeats like khuwa and kurauni made using milk sourced from local farms, so on and so forth.

With the road still in bad shape, these businesses are bleeding dry, not to mention inconveniences facing lakhs of people traveling between the valley and the southern plains.

For repairing a vital lifeline that connects different parts of a country, bolsters national unity, gives a lease of life to subnational economies that contribute to the national economy big time, nine months is a pretty long time. But the government appears least bothered about repairing the artery and ensuring its full operation at the earliest. If that were not the case, it would have completed the works well before the monsoon. 

All that the government appears to have done with regard to the highway repair works during this period is build a diversion in its feeble bid to escape the wrath of a mighty Roshi and keep the movement of people and goods going, partially.

But the diversion becomes quite perilous whenever it rains. Still, a large number of people have no option except to tread the road that is quite prone to disasters like landslides and floods.

Aware of this situation, lawmakers representing Ramechhap and Sindhuli districts, among others, have drawn the attention of the government, particularly of the Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport, to little avail.

At the time of its construction, there were vociferous demands that the artery in question was too narrow and a wider road was necessary to connect the valley with eastern parts of the country and give the national economy a turnaround. Ironically, the government has not bothered to allocate even a penny for the repair and maintenance of this vital lifeline. 

A scarred highway reflects very poorly on the performance of a government that, critics say, has been long on rhetoric, short on action. Let the highway in bad shape be an eyeopener, prompting this administration with a comfortable majority in the parliament to perform like a well-oiled machine, on the highway and beyond.