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The festival travel rush is well under way. Every day thousands of people are leaving Kathmandu and other major city areas for their hometowns to celebrate Dashain. But for many people, traveling is often fraught with accident risks. The number of road accidents surges during the Dashain holiday. This is mainly attributed to vehicles carrying passengers beyond their capacity, high speed and reckless driving. The risk is further compounded by the poor state of the road, particularly in the hill and mountain regions. Like in previous festival seasons, this time too the government has implemented a ‘time card’ system to discourage speeding mainly on major highways. Additionally, it has decided not to allow vehicles to carry passengers beyond their capacity. But if past experiences are anything to go by, these measures are hardly implemented or followed. There is always a shortage of public vehicles during the festival time because the number of people traveling is very high. So, the authorities concerned cannot make people not travel in crowded vehicles. People want to reach their homes to celebrate the festival with their loved ones. Moreover, the government has issued travel rules targeting major highways when most accidents during the festival times occur in rural roads. Already in bad shape, the condition of most roads leading to small towns and villages of Nepal are further deteriorated by monsoon rains. These roads are seldom repaired. They have to be rendered completely impassable for the authorities concerned to take notice. What is more, old and outdated vehicles ply these roads, making travel all the more dangerous. The government and its concerned agencies should bear in mind that by just merely issuing some rules and guidelines weeks ahead of the festival cannot prevent road accidents. Instead, they should prepare well in advance, get to the root causes of road accidents that happen during the festival season and implement the safety measures. Rules that are ad hoc and short-term are not going to work, and most definitely not going to prevent road accidents from happening during the festival season.

Kathmandu valley is in the grips of the dengue epidemic. As of Sept 19, the Health Ministry has recorded 17,594 cases and over 20 deaths across the country since May. Over 10,000 infections have been reported in the valley. At this point, many hospitals in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur are overstretched by dengue patients. Government hospitals in particular are being overrun as patient numbers continue to pile up with no signs of letup. By no stretch of imagination, one can come to the conclusion that dengue virus has gained the upper hand over the health authorities. Already, there are reports about a shortage of paracetamol, a common painkiller used to reduce fever of dengue patients. The situation resembles peak Covid-19 times. Then, the government had pledged to ramp up the production of paracetamol and other essential medicines. It did not and here we are, reliving the same nightmare. Public health experts and epidemiologists have already sounded alarm bells about the imminent crisis. If the government and its concerned agencies fail to act swiftly and aggressively, there will be more infections and more deaths. Dengue vectors Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are attacking by swarms, and they have reached almost every corner of the country. Thanks to the extreme effects of climate change, dengue-causing mosquitoes are now stalking high altitude regions, where previously they were uncommon. The government and health authorities should bear in mind that this is just the beginning. There will be more disease outbreaks in future, not just of dengue or Covid-19. Limitations of our healthcare system have already been exposed by Covid-19 and now dengue is doing the same. The vast majority of Nepalis cannot afford private hospitals. Meanwhile, government-run hospitals lack a litany of services, from basic infrastructure to medical equipment to staff strength. The situation is particularly pathetic in rural areas, where health facilities are few and far between and consequently, people are dying for want of proper care. To achieve universal health coverage, Nepal must invest around five percent of its GDP on healthcare. But the government has been spending less than two percent for the same. So long as the government chooses to remain parsimonious about spending on healthcare, our healthcare service will never improve. Nepali citizens will be scrambling to find a hospital bed and proper care, just like they have been doing now.

Suspended Chief Justice Cholendra Rana JBR deserves impeachment for all the malpractices he has committed as the head of the Supreme Court. His testimony before the Parliamentary committee has exposed the extent of corruption in the judiciary. For a long time, there were murmurs of nexus between politicians and justices.  Now, by the account of Rana himself, we know it for fact. There has been no comments from the political leaders regarding the charges against Rana, and their silence speaks volumes. Our judiciary has been bought—there is no other way of putting this. Our judges and justices engage in bargaining before handing down judgments. This episode will further erode people’s trust in the judiciary. A former chief justice has been outed for his corrupt ways. This cannot be easily dismissed. So will our political leaders take extreme measures to clean up the judiciary? Highly doubtful. They are equally responsible for the current mess. Lest it be forgotten, in 2021, parties in both ruling and opposition took to the street and publicly warned the Supreme Court of ‘consequences’ if the ruling on Parliament dissolution by then Prime Minister KP Oli is not delivered in their favor. They knew about the court’s dirty secret and they tried to use it as a bargaining chip. Even in the case of Rana’s impeachment, it has been revealed that top leaders from the ruling parties sent their emissaries to convince the former into tendering his resignation and saving his face. In 2021, a team led by justice Hari Krishna Karki in 2021 submitted a report stating that corruption and irregularities are rampant in the judiciary. It clearly spoke about ‘brokers’ who maintained the line of communication between justices and top leaders of political parties. But nothing came of that damning report. It is high time that someone took steps to reform the judiciary. But, the question is who will lead this reform. The cruel irony is that we need those same political parties to restore the sanctity of the judiciary. True, they are not going to act of their own volition or their conscience.   So, the media and civil society should press them into doing the right thing.

Many things need to be fixed, or torn down for that matter to turn Kathmandu into a livable city. Our myopic politicians and policymakers have left the metropolis a mess. Now, Mayor Balendra Shah has taken upon himself to clean up this mess. It’s a gargantuan task but Kathmandu residents are rallying behind the young mayor. His latest “bulldozer campaign” to enforce building code by demolishing basement shops, spaces actually meant for vehicle parking, has won him plaudits aplenty. Finally, Kathmandu has a leader who can stand up and show some teeth if necessary. Shah has demonstrated that he is not afraid to take drastic measures, even if that meant ruffling the feathers of political and corporate overlords. Surely, most of the ward chairs of Kathmandu are not pleased with Shah, who unlike them was elected as an independent candidate. Political candidates could have never done what Shah is doing, because they work at the bidding of their party leadership who are in cahoots with big businesses and corporations. Things such as infrastructure, transport, education, healthcare and environment determine the livability of a city. Kathmandu ranks among one of the most polluted cities in the world. The perennial waste management problem of Kathmandu continues to worsen, to say nothing of air and water pollution. If drastic and immediate measures are not enforced, Kathmandu will soon become a dangerous city to live in. A message for the city leaders: stand up behind your mayor. For once, Kathmandu appears to have a chance at redeeming itself. Shah does not have a strong political backing. Already, he is facing pushbacks and criticisms. Kathmandu residents and civil society should fully support him at times like these. Shah on his part also needs to amend his ways, because in some places he has been called out for showing rash behavior. While exercising his executive rights, he should be mindful of the constitution and the law. But the bottom line is there should not be any obstructions to his campaign, in any pretext. Shah’s works, though he is still in his early days of his mayoral tenure, show the promise that Kathmandu can do better.