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Tida Wiwattada is a certified instructor and a specialist at Biotouch International Beauty Academy. With more than 15 years of experience in this field, she has been serving as a founder and director of Biotouch Thailand. Founded in 1980 in California, Biotouch is a leading manufacturer of permanent and semi-permanent beauty products. The company sells its products in 77 countries and has trained over one lakh technicians worldwide. Biotouch Thailand was established in 2013 to produce technicians in Southeast Asia. Tida believes women and beauty complement each other like two puzzle pieces. Ramkala Khadka talked with Wiwattada about the scope of permanent makeup and expanding beauty entrepreneurship while she was in Nepal for a beauty seminar conducted by Zoom Beauty Academy. Is this your first visit to Nepal? How does it feel to be here? It's my second visit, actually. In September, I was here for the first time. Back then, I did not understand things and people much, but tried to adjust. This time, I feel more comfortable. I really love this country. Lots of places here are really interesting. People here are so nice, kind and caring. You were here for a beauty seminar organized by Zoom Beauty Academy. Why do you think this kind of seminar is important for Nepali beauticians? Beauty techniques are quite popular around the world. In Nepal, some techniques are still new. So, this type of seminar helps raise awareness about the field. This is a very good opportunity for those wanting to start a career in this sector or start a business. Cosmetics is not just about patting makeup products on the face or hair on a daily basis. It has become more of a business. Permanent makeup, Hollywood shimmer eyebrow, ice lips contouring, scalp micro pigmentation and eyebrow mapping techniques are very popular worldwide. By attending the seminar, beauticians learnt those techniques and gained confidence to introduce some services in their business. Equipped with new techniques, they will get more customers. You have attended several seminars and beauty events in many countries. What differences did you observe between Nepali beauticians and beauticians from other parts of the world? In a space of 10 years, I have attended almost 400 seminars in Thailand and other parts of the world. I went to Vietnam more than 20 times, apart from visiting a number of other countries, including the Philippines, Singapore, India, the UAE and Great Britain. In Thailand alone, we have conducted more than 200 seminars like this. I see a lot of opportunities for beauticians in Nepal. We are here to share our experience and knowledge. Nepali women can start a new career in permanent makeup, which is a new field in itself. In course of time, this field might become quite popular here as well. This kind of technique or service is very popular worldwide. The beauty industry is expanding in Nepal as well. Can Nepali beauticians get more profit by providing these services? First of all, I believe in knowledge and training. You have to learn proper ways of doing business, get good training in every field. That's why I encourage my students to learn right from the basics. If you learn using the right method, you can start with confidence. If you depend on social media for knowledge and skills, you won't get the details. Nepal is a really nice country and lots of foreign tourists come here. If Nepali beauticians are properly trained, they can provide the right kind of services by maintaining safety standards. That's why, I think this seminar will help makeup artists grow their businesses further. You mean promoting the beauty sector helps in promoting tourism in Nepal? That's right because again permanent makeup is really popular around the world. In Thailand, 15 years on, permanent makeup is still popular. In Nepal, very few people know about permanent makeup, but it doesn't mean it's not popular. If you start this business and provide satisfactory services to the customers, you will be popular. If your service is world class, foreigners will also visit the country for their own benefit. Permanent makeup technique is a new concept for us. Please explain what it is. Permanent makeup is the evolution of beauty. Somehow it’s not only beauty, we can enhance the looks and look more beautiful. Some people might have health issues. We can help them look more confident. For example, people who contracted cancer might not have eyebrows. We can also help people who have contracted breast cancer. Permanent makeup can help such people by enhancing their looks. People take a lot of time to draw eyebrows. Permanent makeup helps them by saving their time and making them prettier. If you use permanent eyebrows, it’s going to stay around six months to a year or two. So, this technology is more customer-friendly. It's not only about eyebrows, it's about your body as a whole. It has become a desirable choice for those who want to save time from traditional makeup routine and achieve long-lasting beauty results. In Nepal, do you see a great scope for permanent makeup and baby glow techniques? Yeah! Both of them are getting more popular day by day. Many clients are looking for the service. You can have groovy skin using a technique, without applying makeup. For reasons like this, a lot of people find this technique quite interesting. People are shifting from chemical to herbal makeup products. How can we address their concerns about possible side effects of permanent makeup? For permanent makeup, there are products from different brands in the market. There are right kinds of products for skin and hair, products that are safe to use. Our company, Biotouch, has also brought different products to the market. We can use it for people having health issues like cancer. We have been in the market for over 42 years. We never had problems. While applying permanent makeup, we use pigment tested in Europe and the US (by USFDA). Our products don’t have toxic materials. They don’t harm the skin and also do not cause cancer. Have you thought of expanding your products here in Nepal? So far now, we are cooperating with Zoom Beauty Academy. Those looking for services, training and products can contact Zoom. Beauty brings confidence to all people. Every woman or man loves to look good. When men get older, for example, eyebrows may be gone for some reason. We can make eyebrows look better. It's not about man or woman, everyone can look better and more confident from outside and inside using our products. In our daily life, what should we do to take care of our skin and hair? First of all, you should eat good food and sleep well. Food has a vital role in keeping skin healthy. Then comes treatment and techniques to look better. Also for the skin, we have a technique, we call it water shy cover glass skin. This convenient technique gives your skin a glow without makeup. What type of food do you suggest for healthy skin and hair? I observed that a lot of Nepali people love to eat vegetables. That is very good for skin and hair. The greens help with generation of new skin, along with fruit and water. Another important tip: Wash your face every day and apply some kind of moisturizing cream. These days, children and adults are suffering from hair loss. Your tips on stopping hair loss? This problem is pervasive not only in Nepal but all over the world. We got this problem after Covid. You need a lot of vitamins, maybe from food or from supplements to grow new hair and skin. We have solutions both for men and women. We call it SMP (scalp micropigmentation). Using this technique, we create the falling-off-the-hair-look giving an impression of puffy hair. There is a growing entrepreneurship in the beauty sector. How can we make it more competitive in the global market? I have been to many countries for training.  These visits have helped me gather knowledge for myself and my academy. That's how I feel. The quest for beauty is a never-ending one. That's why, we never stop learning. Despite having a lot of experience, I never stop learning. New techniques are on the cards, offering us a lot of opportunities in this field. If you have adequate knowledge, you can start a business anywhere in the world. By learning new techniques, you can grow your business. Everyone is looking for services that make them look good. Like in Thailand, we have a lot of students here. These people want to learn the skills, techniques and start their own business or career in a matter of months. Pollution is a great problem everywhere. How can we make our skin and hair safe from pollutants? Pollution also damages the skin. I think the situation here is no different from Thailand. Because in Thailand also, there are lots of cars and construction of high-rise buildings is going on. So, we have a lot of pollution. Here are a few tips: Before going out, wash your face. The sun is going to burn your skin, so put on sunscreen and clean it up after coming back. Clean up your face after each outing even if you have not applied the makeup. And choose beauty products based on the type of skin—normal, oily or dry, etc.

Anu Anwar is a Ph.D. candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, US. He is also a fellow at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. Kamal Dev Bhattarai of ApEx spoke to him with a focus on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s third tenure and its implication in the neighborhood policy and other international issues. How do you evaluate Xi Jinping’s neighborhood policy since he came to power in 2013? Xi Jinping’s neighborhood policy can be characterized into two categories—cooperation and appeasement on the west and confrontation and resistance on the east. In the west, China is touting the Belt and Road Initiative as the principal umbrella under which Xi Jinping organized his foreign policy with neighbors. Relations with its neighbor on the northwest and southwest are principled on connectivity, development, and people-to-people ties. For example, in a speech in Mongolia in 2014, Xi noted “a good neighbor is more valuable than gold” and showed a sign of compromise to make peace on its outer periphery. On the contrary, Xi’s neighborhood policy in the southeast is principled on sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national rejuvenation slogan. Clearly, China has shown an uncompromising and firm stance on issues that it perceives in its core national interest. Whether the question of the South China Sea, Taiwan or India, China has taken a more assertive stance, and Xi himself has shown reluctance to follow his predecessor's “hide-bide” dictum. His pattern of action suggests he has concluded China is too big to hide now, and therefore assertiveness is the only chance it has to continue its ascendance. Do you think there will be any changes in his neighborhood policy in his third term? The Chinese Communist Party is a mysterious black box. It's always hard to anticipate the party’s precise policy direction, but I think the general trend of China’s neighborhood policy will remain unchanged. Beijing may take further positive steps to stabilize its relations with the US. I think it will even be willing to make significant concessions to the US. But I also think that China will try to isolate its US policies from its policies in other domains, including neighborhood policy. The so-called fang (relaxing) and shou (tightening) cycle suggests Xi’s third term might be more inclined to relaxing its policy toward the West in general. But it is less likely to succeed as the West now sees China as more of a competitor than a prospective partner. So, the prospects for status quo ante vis-à-vis US-China relations remain slim. How do you see the growing US-China rivalry in South Asia and where does India stand on it? In South Asia, there are two ways to understand the US-China rivalry. First is the misleading way of looking at South Asia as a synonym of India. Many get tempted to see the region that way, but this analysis misses the fact that South Asia consists of eight countries. This clearly underappreciates the power and strategic value of seven other countries of the region. If we see it in a superficial way, it appears as though in the US-China competition, India is increasingly aligning with the US, though with significant reservation on how far and how much substance that alignment could bring for the US and its allies. But if we take a careful look, not a single country in South Asia supports India’s regional leadership. These countries are resistant to coercive tactics that India deploys, and they see India as a bigger concern for them than China. But they generally appreciate US-extended engagement in the region. The problem is that India doesn’t welcome extra-regional power in the region, and that includes the US. This makes the US regional approach in South Asia complicated and really doesn’t advance US regional objectives. What is your take on the engagement of South Asian countries with China, particularly on BRI?  South Asian countries generally welcome extra-regional powers to play a greater role, as India, despite being the largest in terms of size, lacks resources. India’s economy is just a fraction of China’s. In terms of modernization, India is at least three decades behind China. Still, India is perhaps the only major country in Asia that opposes the BRI, yet interestingly, it takes the highest amount of loan from Beijing-based AIIB. The rest of the South Asian countries are in dire need of the kind of assistance that China’s BRI offers such as infrastructure, physical and visible development, connectivity, and investment in industries. However, I do not see that South Asian countries, in general, have any particular affinity to China. They are just acting in their own national interest. If other extra-regional powers such as the United States could offer a better deal on those fronts, South Asian countries would prefer US investment. Sadly, there are no substantial offers, except only from Japan, which is playing some sort of balancing act against China’s inroads. However, South Asian countries are also cautious of the excessive reliance on China. Sri Lanka is not a good example when they think of extensive engagement with China. Smaller countries in this region are feeling the heat of great power rivalry, what are your suggestions for small countries in the conduct of their foreign policy? Every country is feeling the heat, regardless of how big or small they are. Australia is not a small country, but it is experiencing the consequences for taking a strong stance against China. Truth is, if a country’s national power is significantly weaker than either China or the US, it will certainly suffer. As Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere reminded us decades ago with an African proverb: “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers”. Seeing from this lens, some observers are trying to define this competition only in security terms and argue that in a shooting war, no one else really matters much, except the great powers. Maybe there is some truth to the argument, but the fact remains that in the era of proliferation of strategic nuclear weapons, direct military confrontation between great powers is highly unlikely. And this is where the opportunity as well as danger lies for the non-great powers. If the rivalry turns into a confrontation, great powers will fight but that fight will take place beyond their own borders, essentially in a third country. For example, what is going on right now in Ukraine. However, there is a way out for non-great powers. They could blunt the pressure from both the US and China by attracting more secondary states into their own orbit. They could form an alliance, even if informally, among themselves and decide not to take either side. In the end, each country has to care about its national interest first. Secondary states’ national power is weaker than either China or the US when compared on a one-to-one basis, but they can put up a strong resistance if they could form a coalition. ASEAN has so far shown considerable success in that direction. During the Cold War, the Non-Aligned Movement also showed that. Not taking sides serves the best interest of non-great powers. But in this current world order, how this will unfold, is yet to be seen.

In a surprise move, CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) and other fringe parties have formed a coalition government, consigning the largest party in the Parliament, Nepali Congress, to the opposition bench. NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba is facing criticism over this debacle. Against this backdrop, Pratik Ghimire of ApEx talked to Congress Spokesperson Prakash Sharan Mahat.

How do you see the move of Pushpa Kamal Dahal?

Dahal's bottom line was that he must be the prime minister. In our party too, there were discussions on giving him the first premiership and we offered him the position at last, but he decided to go with the other alliance.

Who is responsible for such a situation?

Some leaders have resorted to social media to pinpoint specific leaders. Our party had officially decided to form a government under our leadership. As the largest party in the parliament, it was natural for us to claim government leadership. So, it is not appropriate to put blame on specific leaders. Yet, our President Sher Bahadur Deuba was lately in favor of keeping the coalition intact by offering Dahal the premiership. 

Why did the Congress not adopt flexibility on power-sharing?

All leaders were on the same page that the party should claim both the president and prime minister. So, Deuba is not solely responsible for the current situation as claimed by the media and even some of our party leaders. There is a tendency to criticize Deuba. We would have faced more scathing criticism from party leaders if we had agreed to support Dahal as the new prime minister. Party leaders should realize that only a united party makes all party leaders strong.

As I said, Deuba was convinced at last that Dahal should get the premiership when the latter went to Balkot to form an alliance with UML. We even contacted Dahal and asked him to return. But Dahal said it was already late as he had made an understanding with the UML.  Congress was flexible on this issue but a few leaders pressed our party president not to give away any of the important positions (to the Maoist party). They would not even participate in meetings and give their opinions publicly, thereby hampering the Congress-led ruling coalition. As a responsible party member, I had suggested to Deuba that we should be flexible to keep the coalition intact and he was positive too.

Being the largest party, Congress didn’t look prepared to be in the opposition. What will your party do now?

Yes, we were not ready as everything was moving in a positive direction. But we now have to review how this situation came about and who is actually responsible.  The current ruling coalition consists of both pro and anti-federalist parties. Pro-monarchy and anti-monarchy forces are also there. This coalition has no ideological consensus, so it might break in the near future and we might return to power.

What role will the Congress play as the main opposition?

Since we are the largest party, we will make our presence felt in the parliament. We will not resort to vandalism and protests as our history doesn’t allow us to do that. In the past, we could not play an effective role as the opposition because we had a few parliamentarians who had won through the first-past-the-post system. This time, we have many of them and we will emerge as an effective opposition. 

With the formation of the new government, the private sector has become active to apprise the country's leadership about the state of the recession-mired economy. On Tuesday a Federation of Nepalese Chambers and Industry (FNCCI) delegation met with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel. Anjan Shrestha, Vice President of FNCCI was also part of the delegation. ApEx talked to Shrestha about the meetings and the demands and suggestions of FNCCI to bring the derailed economy back on track. Excerpts: How do you expect the new government to address the country's economic woes? Revitalizing the economy should be the top priority of the government. Neither the private sector nor the government or the general public can bear the brunt of the crisis anymore. There will be more problems in the economy in the coming days if the problems go unaddressed. Hence, the government needs to pay heed to the suggestions of the private sector and work proactively to resolve the issues. What issues were raised by the FNCCI delegation in the meeting with newly appointed Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Tuesday?  As the country's economy is in crisis, we met the new Prime Minister to apprise him about the state of the economy and private sector. We also suggested possible steps the government should take to bring the economy on the right track. We are surrounded by the liquidity crisis in the market which has led to interest rates remaining persistently higher and has contributed to the sharp contraction in business activities. The money cycle in the market has been badly affected. How serious is the new PM to address the private sector's concerns? The PM told us that he understands the problems surrounding the economy and our concerns and stressed that reviving the economy is the government's first priority. He said the very first meeting of the Council of Ministers has made a special decision in this regard.  FNCCI also met Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel on Tuesday. What was the private sector's main agenda and what was his response? We found that he understands the problems in the economy. He told us that the government and private sector are complementary to each other. We have clearly stated our demands and have suggested ways to end the economic slowdown. We hope the new government will work seriously to take the country’s economy out of the slump.  FNCCI has been strongly demanding the deferral of the guidelines on working capital loans. How does the private sector not want this monetary arrangement to be implemented? The postponement of guidelines on working capital loans is our main demand. Given the current situation where most business activities have almost stagnated, it is not possible to implement the guidelines. So, we have been demanding that its implementation should be deferred by at least two years. What is the current status revenue collection ?  The government's revenue collection has declined mainly due to weakening demands and a slowdown in business activities. The businessmen are struggling to repay the banks' interest rates and loan installments. Hence, our demand is to extend the deadline. Automobiles are one of the major verticals of your business group. The government has recently lifted restrictions on automobile imports. Have importers started to open Letters of Credit (LC) to import vehicles? Importers are gradually opening the LCs after the government lifted import restrictions. However, there is no enthusiasm in the automobile sector at the moment. Except for electric vehicles, the demand is depressed in the market. The automobile business will not bounce back until there is sufficient liquidity in the banking system to finance the auto loans.