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We don’t want to turn this beautiful planet, the only living planet, into one huge waste dump, do we?

Facts first. 

Global pollution is rising due to rapid economic growth, population increases, and insufficient environmental management, the World Bank states: This poses serious health risks for people and ecosystems, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.  Contributing to these challenges, the global economy relies on deeply intertwined supply chains, sustained by more than 100bn tons of raw materials entering the system each year. Intensive material consumption depletes natural resources and causes negative environmental impacts at every stage of the product lifecycle. Global waste is expected to increase to 3.4bn tons by 2050.

Pollution undermines sustainable economic growth, exacerbates poverty and inequality in both urban and rural areas, and significantly contributes to climate change. As the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death, pollution is estimated to result in several times more deaths than from AIDS, TB and malaria combined. 

Much of the summer that has just passed by witnessed worsening air pollution levels, choking a large section of the national population due to wildfires, drought conditions, emissions from vehicles that run on dirty fuels and emissions from beyond the national borders. This should have come as a wakeup call for the federal government, prompting increased investments in firefighting equipment, enforcement of stringent emission control measures and serious steps toward a green economy.

Melting Himalayas, polluted water bodies, rising temperatures, rapid losses of flora and fauna, lungs craving for a breath of fresh air and ever-growing waste dumps—they all point toward a climate emergency. 

Granted that we as a nation have a nominal carbon footprint, but we still need to take some serious steps to curb pollution pervading the air, water, ether and land. While the major onus is on our governments at the center, provinces and locals to curb pollution within the national jurisdictions, we as a people should also desist from activities that contribute to this scourge. 

How about honking less and less? How about minimizing the use of plastics? How about turning down the volume of our audiovisual systems? How about curbing the use of vehicles that run on dirty fuels? 

And how about having indoor plants? Pollution control cannot wait. Let’s join hands against this scourge.

Most of the motorized vehicles operating in Nepal bear hand-written number plates, a unique practice in this day and age of digital technology.

The government of Nepal wants to switch to embossed number plates as part of the concept of a Digital Nepal and plans to install 2.5m embossed plates in as many vehicles out of 4m vehicles in operation across the country.

As per a revised agreement with the government, a US-Bangla joint venture company tasked with installing the new plates has to install 2.49m embossed plates in the first phase—within November 27 this year.

But stakeholders like transporters, commoners, linguistic rights groups and data security specialists have a lot of reservations regarding the government plan.

For their part, transporters have urged the public not to switch to embossed plates till the government addresses their concerns, including practical difficulties involved and the lack of supporting infrastructure. They have warned that the government will be solely to blame for the consequences if it tries to enforce its will.

Other concerns include a tardy service, high charges associated with installation of embossed plates, the use of English language instead of Nepali, given that traditional number plates are in Nepali, and data security of motorists, bikers and drivers in a day and age where technology has become a double-edged sword. Also, there’s a feeling among members of the public that the use of English language in number plates is part of a sinister design to undermine and discourage the use of Nepali, the official national language of Nepal that uses the Devnagari script.

The government’s intent to enforce the embossed system, come hell or high water, with no regard for public concerns has made the citizenry more suspicious vis-à-vis the former’s designs, perceived or otherwise.

Granted that the new system is likely to contribute to traffic management, curb theft of vehicles,  lead to the recovery of stolen vehicles and improve road safety. Instead of a top-down approach, the government should have taken a bottom-up approach, sensitizing the people about this technology, its benefits and shortcomings, and bothered to address the concerns of the stakeholders to a maximum possible extent. The government, instead, chose to impose its plan in a manner befitting benevolent dictators, who impose their ‘pious wishes’ on the citizenry every now and then.  

It's time for the government to eat the humble pie once again and address the concerns of the stakeholders by giving up its my way or highway attitude. 

The federal capital looks like the protest capital of Nepal, with protests of all sorts becoming a part and parcel of daily life. Just months after teachers and non-teaching staff of government schools launched a strident protest for the fulfillment of their ‘just demands’, teachers and principals of private schools have started hitting the streets of Kathmandu with their own set of demands.

The latest protest at Maitighar Mandala comes at a time when the Education, Health and Technology Committee of the House of Representatives is about to pass a Bill on school education.

Unveiling a phasewise protest, the protesters have warned that they will intensify their protest by shutting schools from Aug 25 if the government does not address their demands by then. So, what’s getting the protesters’ goat and pushing them onto the streets of Kathmandu from the classroom? Among the five points of objection, first and foremost is the bill’s intent to make private schools registered under the Company Act ‘nonprofit-oriented’. The removal of provisions on ‘full scholarship (the schools want to distribute scholarships on their own, but are okay with a transparent committee formed with the representation of concerned municipality/rural municipality distributing freeships), the end of the practice of schools supplying things not produced by them (uniform, educational materials, food, etc) and the removal of the rule allowing only students of community schools to enrol in CTEVT courses are among their major demands.

Apparently, the protesters have the backing of ‘umbrella organizations’ of schools such as PABSON, N-PABSON and HISSAN. In the wake of the recent protest, it will be worthwhile, once again, to revisit the preamble of our Constitution, which defines Nepal as an independent, indivisible, sovereign, secular, inclusive, democratic, socialism-oriented, federal democratic republican state.

The Bill may be one more half-hearted attempt of the government to gear toward socialism even as socialism remains an alien concept in different walks of our national life, including education. While the government should better regulate private educational institutions and try every bit to make education affordable for all by reigning in exorbitant fees and other charges (remember, right to education is a fundamental right), and make sure that only deserving candidates get freeships, robbing private schools of sources of profit may bleed them dry, causing the education system to collapse.

In the interest of students, parents and the society at large, the government and the protesters would do well to strive for a negotiated settlement. 

Article 94 of our Constitution states: Except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, no question or resolution shall be presented for decision in a meeting of either House of the Federal Parliament unless one-fourth of the total number of its members are present. For the members of our House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the bicameral Parliament, Aug 13 was just another day, so most of them chose to not attend the day’s meeting.

Subsequently, heeding to a request from a member of the HoR, the Speaker opted for a headcount and found only 66 members present in the 275-member chamber, short of the one-fourth of the total strength mentioned in the charter by three heads. If a request for a headcount had not come his way, would the Speaker have gone ahead with his proposal on deliberations over the Information Technology and Cybersecurity Bill?

Also, is it not the duty of the Speaker to scan the chamber, with or without a request, and see whether the required number of heads are present for discussions on matters at hand? What happened in the HoR on August 13 is nothing new, though. In the past, some big names have made their presence felt in national politics by remaining absent from HoR meetings for a record number of days. When even the stalwarts leading the nation a record number of times do not bother to ‘grace’  the parliament with their presence, there may not be much motivation for other ‘lawmakers’ to show up at the ‘talk shop’.

Also, even if the ‘lawmakers’ are physically present in the chamber, their minds appear elsewhere. A tampered Civil Service Bill making it through the chamber and reports about government plans to amend the law to legalize polygamy raise serious questions about the ‘lawmaking’ capabilities of our lawmakers.  

Besides, how many of our ‘lawmakers’ actually read draft laws, ponder over their short and long-term consequences for the country and the people, and suggest changes? How many of them opt for a vote of conscience rather than yielding to party whips? And how many even dare obstruct the House proceedings in the interest of the nation, rather than standing for powerful vested interests?

Arun Jaitley states: Parliament's job is to conduct discussions. But many a time, Parliament is used to ignoring issues, and in such situations, obstruction of Parliament is in the favour of democracy. Therefore, parliamentary obstruction is not undemocratic.

In the words of BR Ambedkar: However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be good. Wrapping up, the vivid image of a President paying his utmost respect to the Constitution during its promulgation in a very hard time comes to mind. Let this image frozen in time inspire our ‘lawmakers’ to take their duties as people’s representatives—and not as some overlords—more seriously.