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The government is supposed to create jobs for its citizens. To do so, our own government in Nepal has to specialize in the sectors with high export potential. For instance, it has the potential to export purified drinking water to the Middle East, hydropower to India and Bangladesh, and Himalayan herbs throughout the world.

But no government, either on the left or the right, has had a genuine agenda with which to make Nepal prosperous. Each government has rather made the country more and more dependent on export of human resources, emptying rural homes. The majority of these migrants are semi-skilled and unskilled and they have been migrating in great numbers to the Middle East and East Asian countries, while the relatively more skilled, educated, and talented ones are going to Australia, Europe, America, and Canada.

According to the World Bank, Nepal is getting an average yearly remittance of $1.7 billion, from $0 in 1976 to a maximum of $7.9 billion in 2018. In other words, we are a remittance dependent country.

Remittance helps sustain the Nepali economy in times of conflict and political chaos. Banks get liquidity. Government revenues increase and in turn, remittance helps to pull the economy out of debt trap (a situation of spending more than earning). In a state of conflict and political instability that has prevailed in the country since 1990, remittances are the source of economic lifeline for the poor, helping lift millions of them out of poverty. To an extent, it facilitates poor children in going to school, resulting in significant increase in child enrolment both in public and private schools. Nepal is also facing a large gap in international payments, which makes the balance of payments unfavorable. Remittance can correct this unfavorable situation.

There are dark aspects to remittance as well. First, the economy could face a real exchange rate depreciation, which of course will make the economy less competitive internationally. Second, it may undermine the incentive to work and can slow economic growth. Third, it increases household expenditure on consumer goods as consumption increases with an increase with remittance inflow.

Also read: Nepal as a bridge between India and China

The greater part of the remittance coming into Nepal has been spent on consumption. The rest is being invested in the city-centric real estate and ornaments, making the urban real estate more expensive. In comparison, there is little investment in human resource development and other productive sectors.

This tendency increases the import of consumer goods. This trend, if continued, may make the economy over-dependent on remittance.

Fourth, migrants are seeing their families break apart, and divorces are increasing with increasing physical distance between husbands and wives. This is putting a severe strain on social harmony. 

Fifth, migrants incur great risks in working abroad and they have to toil to save enough to pay back their loans, while also helping maintain the livelihood of their families.

Sixth, the departure of both skilled and unskilled human resources creates labor shortages in Nepal. Finally, the deaths of Nepali migrant workers in foreign lands is becoming a growing problem: three to four dead bodies of migrant workers arrive in mortuary boxes at Kathmandu airport every day.

The dark side of the remittance economy of Nepal thus outweighs the bright side. The country is importing more and more. Exports are nominal in the context of imports. In 2020, exports and imports as a percent of GDP were 6.8 and 33.9 respectively, showing that imports are six times exports. Thus, in this context, remittance becoming the heart of the Nepali economy—which was 1.5 percent of GDP in the 1990s to 24.4 percent of the GDP in the 2010s, an increase of 16 times over the period in consideration—is fraught with risk.

As the unproductive sector absorbs the major chunk of remittance, continuation of this trend can push the Nepali economy towards a crisis. There is also a risk of discontinuity of remittance as it depends on labor demand in the global market.

Any fall in labor demand in the global markets would not only make the economy less sustainable but also increase the risk of an economic failure. In order to save the economy from these grave consequences, the government should design plans, programs, and policies to mobilize remittance in productive sectors. Let us use this money to create jobs on our own soil. 

The author is a professor of economics at Tribhuvan University 

In 2014 the people of Crimea, in a well-organized democratic referendum, decided to join the Russian Federation against the background of the civil war in Ukraine. They voted to preserve peace and stability on the peninsula. 

Unfortunately, seven years after the successful development of Crimea, Russia’s efforts to secure international recognition of the current status of the peninsula are resisted by the collective view of the Western partners that the “annexation of Crimea is contrary to international law.” The legal arguments, references to the people’s democratic and free well as well as to similar cases in other nations’ history suggest hypocrisy and arrogant mentorship.

According to international experts in the field, such persistence is explained by the fact that Crimea remains a convenient tool for some Western nations including the United States to put pressure on Russia for their own competitive benefit. 

The “double standards” practices against the likes of China and Russia, which are often based on misleading or blatantly false allegations, hamper the steady development of the world political situation, thereby endangering whole regions. 

One of the most convincing examples of the dual approach is the contradictory positions of the western countries on Crimea and the issue of German reunification. In both cases, the legal status of a certain territory was changed strictly based on the conclusion of international treaties (the German Reunification Treaty of 29 September 1990 and the Treaty on the Accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation of 18 March 2014) between two sovereign states.

It is important to note that unlike the reunification of Russia and Crimea following a free and voluntary expression of the will of the Crimean people at the all-Crimean Referendum, no referendum was held in East Germany for the accession to West Germany.  

Also read: How South Asian states are managing Chinese influence 

It is also important to point out that by refusing to recognize the right of the Crimean people to self-determination, the German establishment “forgets” that Russia, understanding the importance of democracy in international relations, supported Germans’ right to self-determination during the reunification of Germany in 1990.   

One of the key theses of those opposing the return of Crimea to Russia is the Crimean Tatar issue and the violation of human rights in Crimea. However, the rights of national and religious minorities in Russian Crimea are carefully protected. 

The reunification with Russia allowed for the better protection of the rights of all the national and religious groups on the peninsula: the Crimean Constitution nowadays has three State languages (Russia, Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian) with the education being provided in all these tongues, according to the people’s choice. In the Russian Crimea (compared to the Ukrainian) the policy of language equality and diversity is established at the legislative level. 

Today, in contrast to the Ukrainian period, there is a public Crimean Tatar TV channel “Millet/People” as well as a radio channel “Vatan/Motherland”. Religious freedom is also preserved and respected. Since 2014 more than 40 new mosques have been built in Crimea. The construction of the 4,000-capacity Main Cathedral Mosque is being finalized.

The perfect example of the double standards used by the United States and its allies is the active broadcasting of the persecution of Hizb ut-Tahrir members by the European media and their sympathy for convicted criminals. It is highly suspicious that these media have covered the questionable reputation of this radical terrorist organization, which is banned not only in Russia, but also in Germany, Turkey and most Muslim nations. 

All in all, the numerous occasions of selective ignorance that the United States, the EU, and their allies persistently demonstrate towards the Crimean issue goes against the spirit of democracy and human rights. The free choice of the Crimean people to join the Russian Federation made at the legal referendum should be heard and respected. 

The views are the writer’s and do not represent the newspaper

Over the past one decade, Nepal has striven to transform itself from a traditional buffer state into a new economic corridor—a vibrant bridge—between its two immediate neighbors. Being landlocked is no more a curse. The idea of bridging India and China is logical, given the increasing volume of India-China trade. Both the countries are striving for rapid economic growth even as there are serious differences, including border disputes, between them.  

India-China trade is increasing but the mode of transport is lengthy and cumbersome, especially marine transport from the east coast of China to Indian ports. No alternative land trade route has been identified beside the Nathu-La Pass, which too is inconvenient due to its high altitude and recent India-China border disputes. In comparison, the route from the northern Indian state of Bihar to the proposed Kerung dry port at Nepal-China border of TAR is only 265 km. Its use could save a lot of time and transport costs for India and China.

Nepal and China are in agreement on this. Moreover, the Trade and Transit and BRI agreement with China has boosted Nepal’s transit aspirations. The transit agreement with China allows Nepal use of seven Chinese transit points—four seaports and three land-ports—for third-country trade. Also, during Prime Minister KP Oli’s state visit to China in June 2018, Nepal agreed to intensify the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative to enhance connectivity through ports, roads, railways, aviation and communications—all within the overarching framework of the Trans-Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network.

The MoU has been described as the most significant initiative in the history of bilateral cooperation. During President Xi Jinping’s Nepal visit in October 2019, the two sides agreed to implement the MoU. “The two sides agreed to intensify implementation of MoU on cooperation under the BRI within the overarching framework of Trans-Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network with a view to significantly contributing to Nepal’s development agenda,” said the joint communique issued at the end of the visit. Back then the two sides had also agreed to conduct a feasibility study for the cross-border railway, reiterating the commitment to extend cooperation on Kathmandu-Pokhara-Lumbini Railway Project.

Also read: How South Asian states are managing Chinese influence 

India has also agreed to Nepal’s request for an east-west railway line, parallel to the east-west highway, which is now in its preliminary phase of survey and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Besides this, the Indian government has been surveying other railway lines from Raxaul, Jogbani and Jayanagar in Bihar to Birgunj, Biratnagar and Bardibas in Nepal. The railway will link Nautanwa (UP) and Nepalgunj Road, as well as New Jalpaiguri (West Bengal) and Kakarbhitta.

But there is also a strong security component in how India views Nepal; it sees the Himalayas and the ocean as India’s ultimate security perimeters. In this view, Nepal’s Tarai-Madhes is India’s soft belly, which, if penetrated, would expose the whole Indian heartland from Kolkata to Delhi. India sees Nepal as a ‘strategic Himalayan frontier’ against Chinese threat and thinks that the Chinese want to encircle India by developing a rail link from Lhasa to Kathmandu, which in turn is supposedly a part of China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy.

India’s security concerns with Nepal intensified following China’s occupation of Tibet in October 1950, resulting in Nepal having contiguous borders with China. With a possible danger to Nepal’s territorial integrity impinging on its own security, stability in Nepal became a top Indian priority. To meet India’s (and to an extent, also Nepal’s) security concerns, India and Nepal signed the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which has since been the bedrock of Indo-Nepal relations. In 1951, the two countries decided to establish check-posts along Nepal’s border with Tibet, to be jointly manned by Nepali Army personnel and Indian wireless operators. This enabled India to receive intelligence reports on military activities in the north.

Later, the Kathmandu-Kodari road, completed in 1965, connected China and Nepal via a difficult Tibetan route. Indians believed that the Chinese could use the road to breach the Indian heartland. Then came the 1962 India-China border war, multiplying Indian mistrust. Besides that, India is yet to join the BRI initiative, reportedly as the ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’ (CPEC), a BRI centerpiece, passes through the POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir), which India claims as its own.

Also read: Opinion | Nepal losing its Hindu adherents 

In Nepal, the MCC is seen as a counter to the BRI and as a part of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. The MCC was plunged into controversy in Nepal when senior American officials began saying that it is a part of the IPS. Nepali perceptions that the IPS is in direct opposition to China’s BRI have only intensified. On the other hand, China sees friendship with Nepal as vital to its entry into South Asia. China’s strategic move into South Asia and India’s strategic alliance with the US add to these complexities. It is obvious that these new challenges have direct geopolitical, strategic and security impact on Nepal, as India, China and the US fight to increase their leverage, potentially undermining Nepal’s national interests. No wonder the buffer state mentality prevails in Nepal’s relations with India and China, undermining its role as a bridge between the two countries.

The Cold War’s end witnessed greater regional and global economic integration, highlighting that economic cooperation among neighbors fosters political stability, enhancing collective security and easing mistrust. Further, many small countries have found creative ways to capitalize on the large economies of their neighbors, for example Switzerland with Germany and France, Paraguay with Brazil, Canada and Mexico with the US, Laos with Thailand, and Mongolia with China and Russia.

Nepal lies between a shining India and a rising China, with their advanced technologies, big populations, amazing infrastructures, and high-growth markets. Thus the revival of Nepal’s historical entrepôt would be vital in transforming it from land-locked country to a vibrant bridge offering transit facilities to both the economic giants. What we now need is a comprehensive security approach that ties together security and development.

The author is affiliated with the Institute of Foreign Affairs,  a government think tank under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

An interesting meme about “Lifecycle of a tee-shirt” went viral a couple of years ago across the Indian subcontinent; it was extremely relatable. It showed how in this part of the world a t-shirt is worn on special occasions for some time after its purchase. Then it is worn inside the house, and then, while sleeping. The fourth phase is its use as a replacement for a kitchen towel and finally, it is an integral part of the moping team in the house before it takes the last breath and turns into pieces.

I accept that this is how we have learned to make the best use of the things we have bought; the optimum utility of any given product. I would also like to highlight that this way of lifestyle is not bad at all. Over the last weekend, while having a video call, I saw my SanoAama wearing a sweater that is almost 30-year-old. And I am not kidding because I can recall the year I first saw her wear it, provided that it was the first year she was wearing it.

When I asked her why, the answer was simple and blunt: “Because it is still warm and comfortable, and I keep it clean”. And why should she throw it away? According to research, in 2020, an estimated 18.6 million tons of clothing ended up in landfills. The changing fad has its contribution in filling these landfills. The need to keep up with fashion makes people constantly buy products they hardly use. 

In simple terms, fashion can be defined as a popular and latest style of clothing, hair, accessories, or mannerism. It is a vast spectrum of things but let us narrow it down to clothing and shoes, which are actually basic needs. The Western fashion industry has been hyping sustainable fashion of late. It means the products are designed, manufactured, distributed and used in environmentally friendly ways. But we South Asians have been taught to choke any product to its last breath. 

We proudly accept the lifecycle of the t-shirt, because it is true. Most of the time our purchase is on the basis of our needs (we don’t deny that we all have a good middle-class mentality which helps us decide between need and want). Our color choices don’t go beyond red, blue, gray, and black; these colors camouflage any dirt or stain. Honestly, I am not mocking anyone here. I genuinely think it is a practical approach.

Also read: Opinion | A toot for Tootle 

Where the West is only just starting a thrifting and minimalistic lifestyle, it has long been a part of our culture. Swapping clothes between sisters and friends is nothing new for our community. At least in my circle, the things we are tired of wearing or using, we give to our sisters or cousins. Especially sarees and ethnic wear that we do not wear for more than three-four times—it is rational to give them to someone. It will be new for that person and the life of the dress/shoes will be prolonged. 

Popular thrift stores in the US like Selinsgrove and Goodwill sell used products and use the income generated for philanthropy. I can buy a Ralph Lauren pullover for only $4 in Goodwill, which can be $145 in a store. So what it is second-hand, it is in mint condition and is a beloved women’s brand!

In Nepal, particularly in Kathmandu, most of the new thrift stores are for profit. The in-house culture of swapping and giving away used clothes is now a business model. It can be considered a good initiative for sustainable fashion. Yes, we still look down on the use of second-hand products. Of course, we do have a culture of sharing but it is only inside the family. One thing with thrifting is that you are buying stuff from an unknown user. It is important that the stores properly sterilize them before selling, which is a challenge in Kathmandu with the shortage of water supply. That said, we can still bring them home and wash them before their use.

Why I am saying all this is, sometimes I look at the amount of clothes people purchase and I wonder if they use it. Even I do impulsive buying. And with that, I started practicing one rule, “if it doesn’t fit me for two years, I give it away. If I don’t wear it for three years, I give it away”. I prefer to donate clothes than to give them to someone I know. I offer my friends if they want them. I make sure that if it is unwearable, I would rather make it a mop than donate it. 

This is the smallest thing we can do for the environment. It is okay to wear the same boots for five years until they wear out, it is okay to make the best use of your expensive jacket. This is the real sustainable lifestyle where we are still stylish in our own way and also contribute to saving the environment.