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Nepal today stands at an important turning point. Across the country, especially among younger generations, frustration is growing against corruption, policy paralysis, and an economic system that has left Nepal heavily dependent on imports, remittances, and external vulnerabilities. The rise of reform-oriented civic voices and new political narratives reflects a deeper aspiration: people want a Nepal that is economically confident, institutionally accountable, and capable of protecting citizens from recurring crises.

Yet Nepal’s economy remains dangerously exposed to external shocks. A conflict in the Middle East immediately affects transport costs in Kathmandu. Fuel disruptions abroad suddenly increase the prices of food, medicine, and daily essentials inside Nepal. Decisions made in New Delhi or Beijing can directly influence inflation, supply chains, and market stability across the country within days.

This is not merely an economic issue—it is a strategic vulnerability.

The recent tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran once again exposed how fragile import-dependent economies can become during geopolitical crises. Fuel prices surged across the region, transportation costs increased sharply, and inflation spread rapidly into smaller economies like Nepal. Businesses faced uncertainty, logistics became expensive, and households immediately felt the pressure. What made the situation more alarming was the widening fuel price disparity between Nepal and India. Diesel prices in Kathmandu rose dramatically higher than corresponding prices in Delhi, despite Nepal’s overwhelming dependence on imported petroleum routed through India. This gap is particularly concerning because diesel powers transportation, agriculture, construction, and industrial activity. When diesel prices rise sharply, the cost of almost everything rises with it.

Years ago, fuel price differences between Nepal and India were not this extreme. Today, however, Nepal often appears trapped between external dependency and internal inefficiency. This raises a serious question: why does Nepal still lack strong economic diplomacy capable of negotiating strategic economic safeguards during global instability? Economic diplomacy is often misunderstood in Nepal as simply an extension of foreign policy. In reality, it is one of the most powerful tools modern states use to protect national economic interests. Countries aggressively negotiate trade advantages, secure energy arrangements, attract industries, expand exports, and build strategic partnerships through coordinated economic diplomacy.

Nepal, despite being strategically located between two major economies, still behaves too passively in this domain. Diplomatic missions frequently remain focused on protocol and administrative functions while economic priorities receive limited attention. Meanwhile, neighboring countries are aggressively pursuing free trade agreements, export diversification, industrial relocation opportunities, and long-term energy security arrangements.

Nepal cannot afford to remain reactive while the global economy becomes increasingly competitive and geopolitically fragmented.

The country’s relationship with India and China should therefore be approached strategically. India remains Nepal’s largest trade partner, transit route, and energy supplier. China offers opportunities for infrastructure development, technology cooperation, and market diversification. Nepal’s objective should not be to choose between the two, but to engage both with maturity and strategic clarity. A stable Nepal benefits both neighbors. Excessive inflation, prolonged economic stress, or supply disruptions inside Nepal eventually create wider regional consequences. Nepal therefore has every right to use diplomatic channels more assertively to negotiate smoother supply coordination, emergency energy cooperation, transit facilitation, and price stabilization mechanisms during global disruptions.

However, diplomacy abroad cannot succeed if governance at home remains weak.

One of Nepal’s greatest problems is not the absence of policies. The country already possesses multiple foreign policy frameworks, trade strategies, and development plans. The real problem lies in execution failure. Institutions often lack coordination, accountability, urgency, and performance measurement. Many diplomatic missions do not have dedicated economic units focused solely on trade, investment, tourism, and technology partnerships.

This institutional inertia must change.

Nepal urgently needs professional economic diplomacy teams within major diplomatic missions. Diplomatic success should no longer be measured only through ceremonial engagements. It should also be evaluated through measurable outcomes such as foreign investment attracted, export markets expanded, tourism partnerships secured, and technology cooperation initiated. The country must also modernize its economic diplomacy agenda. Traditional diplomacy focused mainly on aid and political relations is insufficient today. Nepal should actively pursue technology transfer, climate financing, renewable energy cooperation, startup ecosystem development, and cross-border electricity trade. The future global economy will increasingly revolve around technology, sustainability, and strategic supply chains. Nepal must position itself accordingly.

At the same time, domestic governance reform remains the foundation of successful economic diplomacy. Foreign investors closely observe whether a country offers policy consistency, administrative efficiency, legal predictability, and infrastructure readiness. No amount of international promotion can compensate for domestic institutional disorder. Anti-corruption reform, regulatory stability, and administrative modernization are therefore essential parts of economic diplomacy itself. In this context, Nepal should also rethink how local governance contributes to economic development. An interesting lesson can be drawn from India’s district administration model. District Collectors and District Magistrates are often expected to actively facilitate economic activity, industrial growth, and revenue mobilization within their jurisdictions.

Nepal’s district administration remains far more limited in this regard. Chief District Officers primarily focus on law and order responsibilities while economic development functions remain fragmented across agencies. Nepal could benefit from redesigning district governance so that local administrations are partly accountable for revenue enhancement, business facilitation, tourism promotion, employment generation, and industrial coordination. Such reforms could gradually create healthy competition among districts to attract investment and improve economic performance.

Nepal must also prepare for a more competitive global environment as the country graduates from Least Developed Country status. Certain preferential protections and trade advantages will gradually diminish. Nepal will require stronger legal capacity, trade negotiation expertise, and international commercial diplomacy to compete effectively. Ultimately, Nepal’s economic future will depend not only on domestic politics but on whether the country develops the confidence and competence to defend its economic interests internationally. The world is entering an era where geopolitics increasingly shapes economics. Supply chains are becoming strategic. Energy security is becoming political. Inflation is becoming globalized.

Countries that fail to negotiate proactively will repeatedly suffer external shocks.

Nepal therefore faces a defining choice. It can continue operating with reactive policies and passive diplomacy, or it can build a new model centered around strategic economic diplomacy, institutional accountability, and national economic resilience. The aspirations emerging from Nepal’s younger generation are not unrealistic. Citizens are demanding a state that functions effectively, negotiates confidently, and protects the economic dignity of its people. In the years ahead, economic diplomacy may become the difference between a Nepal that remains permanently vulnerable and a Nepal that finally becomes economically sovereign.

Terms like algorithm, digital proxy war, and AI have dominated Nepal's media, Gauri Bahadur Karki's report, and even the opening session of Parliament in recent times. Casual tea-shop conversations and academic discussions are no exception. Viewed optimistically, this ongoing discourse has helped many people become acquainted with these technical concepts, their real-world impact, and their attendant risks.

Social media platforms have become a central source of news and information for the general public. User engagement has steadily shifted from text to graphic illustrations to multimedia content such as reels.

To go deeper: literacy, at its most basic, is the ability to read and write—and it lays the foundation for digital literacy. But digital literacy means something far broader. It is not simply the ability to read and write—it is the capacity, acquired through experience or education, to use digital tools to verify and critically question dubious information encountered while scrolling a social media feed or swiping through reels.

In Nepal, millions of digitally inexperienced people with easy internet access are not failing the internet—the internet's algorithms are failing them. For an uninformed, digitally illiterate user, a new algorithmic design principle for social media platforms could change that.

During the GenZ protests and Nepal's 2026 elections, manipulated videos of political leaders circulated widely on Facebook and TikTok—mob lynching footage, doctored screenshots, and digitally altered content accumulating thousands of reactions and shares before fact-checkers could respond. The AI-generated deepfake videos were fabricated and false, but the damage was real. These instances of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news point to a systemic crisis. Nepal has more than 16.6m internet users (approximately 56 percent of its population), yet assessments by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) suggest that only 30 to 35 percent possess digital literacy. That leaves an estimated 10 to 12m people navigating a digital environment they are ill-equipped to evaluate rationally, one that is curated and orchestrated by algorithms that exploit that very vulnerability.

The engagement-based algorithm is the problem

Social media platforms do not offer an accurate representation of the world—they present a curated, commercially optimized version of it. Despite their proprietary differences, the dominant platforms share one central design principle: engagement. Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram are governed by recommendation engines trained to maximize time spent, clicks, shares, and reactions. Research published in Science by Vosoughi, Roy, and Aral in 2018 demonstrated conclusively that false information spreads faster across social media than factual information, because false content tends to be more emotionally provocative. Provocation and drama are precisely the ingredients that maximize engagement. And in doing so, they affect human psychology at a hormonal level, stimulating not just dopamine (associated with pleasure and reward) but also cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline (which heightens anxiety, fear, and a sense of threat).

The consequence is that for an uninformed user in Nepal—someone who accesses the internet primarily through a mobile phone and has received no formal digital education—the information environment is shaped entirely by a mathematical equation indifferent to truth, balance, or safety, and designed only to maximize profit through engagement-driven advertising. Over time, this produces what is known as an "echo chamber": a reinforcing loop in which users see only content that confirms their existing beliefs. Author and tech activist Eli Pariser describes the same phenomenon as a “filter bubble.”

“Platforms do not show users the real world. They show a mathematically curated version of it, and Nepal's naive users are often vulnerable, unable to tell the difference.”

A probable solution: the discrete balance algorithm

The dominant engagement-based algorithm is sequential and aggregative, each interaction narrows the feed further toward what the platform predicts the user already wants, based on prior behavior. The alternative proposed here is fundamentally different in its logic. I call it a discrete balance algorithm: a non-sequential, counterpoint-driven content recommendation system built around a single guiding principle. If a piece of content presenting one perspective on an issue is shown to a user, a counter-perspective must be recommended alongside it or immediately after.

The logic is deliberately simple. Rather than allowing prior behavior to compound into an ever-tighter ideological tunnel, the algorithm treats each content delivery as a discrete, independent event. A user who watches a TikTok video promoting a particular political party would immediately be served a video of comparable length and production quality from a rival party. A user who reads a Facebook post claiming that a government policy has failed would be shown a post offering evidence that it has succeeded. The algorithm does not adjudicate what is true—it simply insists that no single perspective arrives without its counterpart. The decision about what to believe is returned to the user, where it belongs.

Consider this example: Pluto was the ninth planet in our solar system until the International Astronomical Union (IAU) delisted it in 2006. Under a discrete balance algorithm, an engaging video presenting Pluto as a planet would be followed by equally engaging content explaining its reclassification as a dwarf planet.

A balance-first design corrects biases that were not deliberately programmed but emerged as consequences of engagement optimization. It would help users reach conclusions closer to accuracy, and compensate for the absence of critical digital skills through architectural design rather than relying on formal media literacy training alone.

For a digitally inexperienced population—one where most users have not received media literacy education and cannot independently fact-check what they consume—a balance-first algorithm significantly mitigates the risks of algorithmic manipulation. This is especially pertinent in Nepal's context: the National Population and Housing Census 2021 records a literacy rate of just 76.3 percent, with only an estimated 20 percent of the population possessing digital literacy. Meanwhile, the Nepal Police Cyber Bureau's annual reports show a year-on-year rise in cybercrime—online fraud, OTP scams, fake job recruitment, cryptocurrency manipulation, and fraudulent earning apps. The victims are invariably those naive to the digital environment. These crimes are not incidental—they are triggered by algorithmic manipulation, and their foundation is the most widely used social media platforms.

Social media regulation that does not infringe on freedom of expression, combined with digital literacy education, remains the essential long-term solution for Nepal. Both are necessary in a country where millions of inexperienced users are being misled and defrauded by algorithms designed not to inform them, but to hold them captive through engagement—with consequences for their personal lives and for society at large.

A discrete balance algorithm is not a complete remedy for misinformation, disinformation, or online fraud. What it does is dismantle the curated environment of engagement-first design and ensure that a naive user will encounter the other side—a dissenting opinion, a different angle, an alternative perspective. In a country where algorithmic literacy remains a distant aspiration, that guarantee is no small thing.

In Nepal today, there is a growing feeling that things must change, and change fast. Many people are tired of corruption, political hiring and systems that do not work as they should. In such a moment, when strong and decisive actions are taken, it is natural to feel a sense of relief. Finally, something is moving. Finally, someone is acting. But at the same time, there is also unease. Not everyone is comfortable with the speed, the method or the consequences. This tension is not a weakness. It reflects the complexity of the situation we are in. There are generally two ways societies evolve.

One is gradual, where change happens slowly through learning, participation and institutional development. The other is more abrupt, where leaders try to break existing systems and introduce new rules quickly. Nepal at this moment seems to be experiencing more of the second. This is not surprising. When problems become deeply rooted, slow reform often feels insufficient. People lose patience. They begin to prefer action over discussion. Yet action without process brings its own questions. One example is the use of ordinances to pass decisions without full parliamentary debate. For some, this is necessary to avoid delays and resistance from within the system. For others, it raises concerns about legitimacy.

Debate is not just a procedural step. It is where different voices are heard, where policies are tested, and where unintended consequences can be identified early. When this space is reduced, even well intentioned policies can feel imposed rather than agreed upon. The issue of sukumbasi (informal) settlements shows how difficult this balance is. There are cases where people misuse public land, claiming to be landless when they are not. Addressing this is important. A system cannot function if rules are constantly bypassed. At the same time, there are families who genuinely have no alternative. They live on public land not by choice, but by necessity. When both groups are treated just the same, the line between justice and hardship becomes unclear.

Clearing settlements may solve a structural problem, but it creates a human one if people are left without support. Promises of rehabilitation are important, but they need to be timely, clear and trustworthy. Otherwise, people experience the policy not as reform, but as displacement. 

A similar pattern appears in everyday economic policies. New customs rules on small cross border purchases may be designed to bring discipline and reduce leakage. From a national perspective, this can make sense. But for people living near the border, or those with limited income, these small transactions are part of daily life. They are not exploiting the system. They are surviving within it. A policy that looks minor on paper can feel heavy in practice. This is where rapid change often struggles. It treats society as if it is uniform, but in reality, people experience policies very differently depending on their situation. 

What feels like progress to one group may feel like loss to another. At the same time, relying only on gradual change is not always realistic. In systems where problems are deeply embedded, slow reform can be absorbed, delayed or even quietly resisted. It can create the appearance of change without changing much at all. This is why moments of disruption emerge. They reflect accumulated frustration, not just political ambition. 

So Nepal stands between two pressures. The need to act, and the need to act carefully. In such a moment, the role of citizens also becomes complicated. There is a tendency to think that we must either fully support or strongly oppose. But reality is not so simple. Constant criticism can weaken the momentum needed for reform. It can turn every action into a controversy. At the same time, blind support can remove the checks that keep power accountable. Without questioning, even good intentions can lead to poor outcomes. The challenge is not to choose one side, but to hold both responsibilities at once: To support the need for change, while also asking how that change is being carried out. Another concern is how easily change becomes tied to individuals. When a leader or a small team becomes the symbol of reform, people begin to place their hopes in that person. This can be inspiring, but also risky. Systems should not depend on personalities. If change is not built into institutions, it may not last beyond the current leadership. What is achieved quickly can also disappear quickly. There is also a deeper layer to consider. Society is not only shaped by laws and policies. It is shaped by habits, relationships and shared understandings. These evolve slowly. 

Even the strongest policy cannot immediately change how people think or behave. If this cultural dimension is ignored, reforms may face resistance or fail to take root. Today, this complexity is amplified by the divide between online and offline spaces. Social media often presents issues in extreme terms. People are either for or against. There is little space for nuance. But on the ground, life continues in more complicated ways. People adapt, negotiate and find ways to cope, often outside the simplified narratives we see online.

Nepal today stands at an important turning point. Across the country, especially among younger generations, frustration is growing against corruption, policy paralysis, and an economic system that has left Nepal heavily dependent on imports, remittances, and external vulnerabilities. The rise of reform-oriented civic voices and new political narratives reflects a deeper aspiration: people want a Nepal that is economically confident, institutionally accountable, and capable of protecting citizens from recurring crises.

Yet Nepal’s economy remains dangerously exposed to external shocks. A conflict in the Middle East immediately affects transport costs in Kathmandu. Fuel disruptions abroad suddenly increase the prices of food, medicine, and daily essentials inside Nepal. Decisions made in New Delhi or Beijing can directly influence inflation, supply chains, and market stability across the country within days.

This is not merely an economic issue. It is a strategic vulnerability.

The recent tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran once again exposed how fragile import-dependent economies can become during geopolitical crises. Fuel prices surged across the region, transportation costs increased sharply, and inflation spread rapidly into smaller economies like Nepal. Businesses faced uncertainty, logistics became expensive, and households immediately felt the pressure. What made the situation more alarming was the widening fuel price disparity between Nepal and India. Diesel prices in Kathmandu rose dramatically higher than corresponding prices in Delhi, despite Nepal’s overwhelming dependence on imported petroleum routed through India. This gap is particularly concerning because diesel powers transportation, agriculture, construction, and industrial activity. When diesel prices rise sharply, the cost of almost everything rises with it.

Years ago, fuel price differences between Nepal and India were not this extreme. Today, however, Nepal often appears trapped between external dependency and internal inefficiency. This raises a serious question: why does Nepal still lack strong economic diplomacy capable of negotiating strategic economic safeguards during global instability? Economic diplomacy is often misunderstood in Nepal as simply an extension of foreign policy. In reality, it is one of the most powerful tools modern states use to protect national economic interests. Countries aggressively negotiate trade advantages, secure energy arrangements, attract industries, expand exports, and build strategic partnerships through coordinated economic diplomacy.

Nepal, despite being strategically located between two major economies, still behaves too passively in this domain. Diplomatic missions frequently remain focused on protocol and administrative functions while economic priorities receive limited attention. Meanwhile, neighboring countries are aggressively pursuing free trade agreements, export diversification, industrial relocation opportunities, and long-term energy security arrangements.

Nepal cannot afford to remain reactive while the global economy becomes increasingly competitive and geopolitically fragmented.

The country’s relationship with India and China should therefore be approached strategically. India remains Nepal’s largest trade partner, transit route, and energy supplier. China offers opportunities for infrastructure development, technology cooperation, and market diversification. Nepal’s objective should not be to choose between the two, but to engage both with maturity and strategic clarity. A stable Nepal benefits both neighbors. Excessive inflation, prolonged economic stress, or supply disruptions inside Nepal eventually create wider regional consequences. Nepal therefore has every right to use diplomatic channels more assertively to negotiate smoother supply coordination, emergency energy cooperation, transit facilitation, and price stabilization mechanisms during global disruptions.

However, diplomacy abroad cannot succeed if governance at home remains weak.

One of Nepal’s greatest problems is not the absence of policies. The country already possesses multiple foreign policy frameworks, trade strategies, and development plans. The real problem lies in execution failure. Institutions often lack coordination, accountability, urgency, and performance measurement. Many diplomatic missions do not have dedicated economic units focused solely on trade, investment, tourism, and technology partnerships.

This institutional inertia must change.

Nepal urgently needs professional economic diplomacy teams within major diplomatic missions. Diplomatic success should no longer be measured only through ceremonial engagements. It should also be evaluated through measurable outcomes such as foreign investment attracted, export markets expanded, tourism partnerships secured, and technology cooperation initiated. The country must also modernize its economic diplomacy agenda. Traditional diplomacy focused mainly on aid and political relations is insufficient today. Nepal should actively pursue technology transfer, climate financing, renewable energy cooperation, startup ecosystem development, and cross-border electricity trade. The future global economy will increasingly revolve around technology, sustainability, and strategic supply chains. Nepal must position itself accordingly.

At the same time, domestic governance reform remains the foundation of successful economic diplomacy. Foreign investors closely observe whether a country offers policy consistency, administrative efficiency, legal predictability, and infrastructure readiness. No amount of international promotion can compensate for domestic institutional disorder. Anti-corruption reform, regulatory stability, and administrative modernization are therefore essential parts of economic diplomacy itself. In this context, Nepal should also rethink how local governance contributes to economic development. An interesting lesson can be drawn from India’s district administration model. District Collectors and District Magistrates are often expected to actively facilitate economic activity, industrial growth, and revenue mobilization within their jurisdictions.

Nepal’s district administration remains far more limited in this regard. Chief District Officers primarily focus on law and orderresponsibilities while economic development functions remain fragmented across agencies. Nepal could benefit from redesigning district governance so that local administrations are partly accountable for revenue enhancement, business facilitation, tourism promotion, employment generation, and industrial coordination. Such reforms could gradually create healthy competition among districts to attract investment and improve economic performance.

Nepal must also prepare for a more competitive global environment as the country graduates from Least Developed Country status. Certain preferential protections and trade advantages will gradually diminish. Nepal will require stronger legal capacity, trade negotiation expertise, and international commercial diplomacy to compete effectively. Ultimately, Nepal’s economic future will depend not only on domestic politics but on whether the country develops the confidence and competence to defend its economic interests internationally. The world is entering an era where geopolitics increasingly shapes economics. Supply chains are becoming strategic. Energy security is becoming political. Inflation is becoming globalized.

Countries that fail to negotiate proactively will repeatedly suffer external shocks.

Nepal therefore faces a defining choice. It can continue operating with reactive policies and passive diplomacy, or it can build a new model centered around strategic economic diplomacy, institutional accountability, and national economic resilience. The aspirations emerging from Nepal’s younger generation are not unrealistic. Citizens are demanding a state that functions effectively, negotiates confidently, and protects the economic dignity of its people. In the years ahead, economic diplomacy may become the difference between a Nepal that remains permanently vulnerable and a Nepal that finally becomes economically sovereign.