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Fifty-four African nations have called on UN Human Rights Council to have an urgent debate on police brutality and racially inspired human rights violations. The letter asks for the debate to be held next week.

The militarization of the police and imprisonment of African-Americans go back to slavery. White supremacy—the notion of white culture being supreme over others—is part of the hegemonic cultural narrative of the US. This narrative has enabled militarized violence over minority groups, including Native Americans and Latinos.

Black Lives Matter has opened the door. The UN should now open an extended investigation into America’s crimes against humanity. Since the end of the Second World War, the deep state and military-industrial complex of the US has terrorized the globe. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Cambodia to Laos, the same logic of white supremacy and economic and technological domination has led to the deaths of millions. Cuba, Iran and North Korea suffer and starve under the US economic sanctions.

America has been implicated in the conflicts in the Gulf, the Middle East and Africa, with mercenary troops and friendly nations acting as fronts for proxy wars.

Agencies such as the CIA have carried out assassinations and torture. But the CIA is a known institution. More sinister are the covert agencies whose purposes are unknown, conducting scientific experiments with no ethical guidelines.

Scientists are already capable of wiring up people’s brains to computers, with the purpose of downloading thoughts. If mobilized against opponents, this technology would bring about perpetual slavery through mind-control. This is a violation of bodily integrity that even the slaveholders of the 18^th century could not have imagined. And yet Elon Musk’s Neuralink is a reality, celebrated as a tech “innovation” that will change the world. The inherent fascistic nature of the tech-industrial complex has done little to harm him or other tech magnates. Tesla’s stocks continue to rise exponentially behind smoke and mirrors of Wall Street. We are made to think of this as a social good, not the acme of the fascist panopticon.

In April 2015, the Large Hadron Collider, based in CERN, Geneva, “accelerated protons to the fastest speed ever attained on Earth,” Symmetry Magazine reported. Superconducting magnets were involved, 6.5 TeV of energy was generated. At the same time, a powerful quake shook Nepal, killing 10,000, injuring 22,000 (me amongst them), and making 400,000 homeless. America contributed $531 million to the Large Hadron Collider project. Around 1,700 American scientists worked on the LHC research, more than any other nation’s, says CERN’s website. These two events are connected. This is not a matter to be dismissed as “conspiracy theory,” although that strategy has worked brilliantly in the past. Now the time has come for careful legal investigation through the auspices of international institutions. 

All these crimes against humanity were enabled by the propaganda of the US as a human rights defender, a fierce supporter of democracy, and a beacon of freedom. None of this is true. Democratic regimes were removed via coups and brutal military dictatorships put in their places, as in Latin America. The true purpose was to remove indigenous people from their land and have that land be taken over by multinational corporations of America.

America has used China’s state violence against Uighurs to protest the dangers of Chinese fascism. While chilling, it doesn’t compare to what America is doing. One million Uyghurs are incarcerated in Xinjiang re-education camps. “In 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34 percent, of the total 6.8 million correctional population,” says the NAACP’s criminal justice fact sheet.

With Black Lives Matter mass protests, the world has spoken: the racialized violence of the American state must end.

African-Americans face the possibility of being choked, electro-shocked or killed as they go about their lives. A white policeman can kill a black man or woman, in their own homes or while going about their daily business, at any time.

We have no idea how many times this same kind of impunity has played out internationally, in deserts of Afghanistan and darkened streets of Iraq with no cameras present. How many people have the Americans killed, covertly and overtly, with technology as yet un-explicated in law books? How many people has it driven to suicide?

America’s narrative of its own ethical goodness has silenced all opposition. An institution as aware of international law as the UN sees no legal doorway to the crimes against humanity committed by the American troops, agents and covert institutions over 75 years. Now the time has come to take apart that myth. The UN must work together to put every single war crimes criminal before the long arm of the law. It is time for the trial of the century to start.

Dennis Adonis in his article Digital Disruption: Cause and Effect defines digital disruption in commerce “as a radical break from the existing processes in an industry due to new internet-enabled business models that are shaking up established industry structures”. Pretty much the same applies to the education industry. The education industry of Nepal is at an accelerated pace of digital disruption, and teachers are mentally unprepared to adopt digital technologies in the teaching-learning process. Schools, colleges, and universities are undecided on whether to adopt a new digital platform to serve students, or wait for a new normal to resume traditional teaching methods. 

During this lockdown, I took 50 online classes for nearly 200 MBA students. I also spent 10 hours training 32 graduate-level teachers, and another 10 hours training 150 secondary level teachers to use Virtual Learning Management Systems and techniques, which are a must for fruitful online interaction with students. I am also a daily witness of my son’s online classes. On this basis, I can say that we are close to adopting a fully digital, or a hybrid model that includes both digital as well as traditional ways.

Digital disruption has changed the administration, as IT is now an integral part of government-funded agencies as well as public and private firms. What kind of changes it will bring to the education industry, is still an open question. The first challenge for education institutions is to prepare for academic operations and support to be provided to students. The second challenge is deciding the digital content to be delivered, and the third, to strategize what to do and what not to. 

As the government has encouraged the use of FM radios, televisions, internet, and other internet-based technologies to engage students, the industry is in a dilemma about the most effective method. There has been no research in this regard. Whatever the means, the challenge for us is to deliver knowledge and skills to students through our patchy internet connectivity and scant resources for online classes. How feasible are online classes in our context, is still a big question.

Are we ready to use innovative technologies and new models to transform our education system? If yes, it is not possible in isolation. Interdependence to transform resources into results, with the ultimate goal of revenue maximization or cost-cutting, is a must among schools and colleges. They must come together to sort out technical tasks to automate functions in digital teaching-learning practices. But the bitter truth is that Nepal lags in digital disruption due to high levels of dependency on foreign applications and service providers. 

It is high time to start believing that learning management systems can be designed, developed, and implemented on our own. For that we need to be capable of implementing and maintaining critical infrastructures and responding to attacks from intruders. A recent attack on websites of our schools and colleges by an India-based company puts a question mark over our preparedness. Also, hacking of private and public sites and information systems are common. 

In the education sector, most service providers specialize in integrating software from global vendors to existing IT infrastructure, for example, Google Classroom, Moodle, Zoom, Microsoft Team, etc. Rarely is a software made in Nepal and made by Nepalis in line with the country's needs. At some point, this kind of dependence is going to be costly for Nepal. Neither is the government focused on open source nor on its own proprietary systems. Software companies are not encouraged on this either. Private consultancies draft new policies and guidelines for clients and assist them in training their staff. The government has no role in this whatsoever. 

There is a need for a paradigm shift in our education system, with IT as its integral part. Skill-based certification courses will be in high demand in the near future. Yet the Ministry of Education continues to make important subjects like mathematics and computer optional. There are many training institutes, software companies, universities, and colleges offering IT courses in Nepal. But is there a mismatch between the content and the competence of trainers and learners and the requirements of the firms. 

The instructors must consider a few things while taking online courses. Start with a few topics and cover them in depth. Cover three topics instead of five, don’t compare online class with traditional class, and keep calibrating your expectations based on student feedback. 

Teachers must be flexible as the same teaching plan and course activities may not work everywhere. A class size of 45 at most is ideal to maintain intimacy with students. Body language is important, so make sure to ask your students to turn on their cameras or the energy level of the class will soon flag. Before starting online class, establish clear norms. 

There is no harm in asking your students to be professionally attired, to keep their phones way, to resist from responding to emails, chats, and social media communication. If we don’t know our students in terms of their academic records, social backgrounds, personal experiences, and hobbies, the probability of failure is high. Encouraging students to share screens increases interactivity, while asking them to summarize content makes them alert and active. But the teaching techniques depend not just on instructor capabilities but also on the type of learning management system adopted.

Before adopting any application software, consider its cost of capital by factoring in the increasing cost of upgrades, licensing, and security maintenance. The education industry has to bear the costs of software, hardware, training, and change management and, most significantly, of reengineering the teaching-learning process. We are rapidly digitizing but failing to develop human and knowledge capital. Is this not a collective responsibility of the government, intellectuals, universities, and colleges to prepare for digital disruption in education systems? The government lacks a clear roadmap on this. Yet this is by no means just government business. 

The author is an engineer and a Senior Assistant Professor and Program Head for BCIS program at Apex College, Mid-Baneshwor, Kathmandu 

How do you respond to the child on the street in New Road who is begging for money? What do you do when he clings to your legs, drags himself, and embarrasses you until you offer money? This is a situation familiar to us. We know many children on the street use cigarette, alcohol or sniff dendrite. If we give them money, they might use it on these harmful substances. So by giving money, we might be doing more harm than good to these children.

But we are charitable and want to help. Also, it is embarrassing when a child clings to your feet and so many people are making faces at you. When I find myself in such a situation, I ask the child what they need the money for and almost unfailingly, they respond ‘for food’. And I offer to buy them food instead of giving money. Some appreciate the gesture and accept food, while some curse me and leave. I accept the curses believing that I did the right thing by preventing my charity from doing harm to this child.

“Charity is a tricky thing. I don’t always know when to offer it and when not,” my wife says. Many others have shared similar confusion. In this opinion piece, I discuss the tricky issue of charity with my current view, and while doing so I also present my earlier views.

Growing up, I had learnt from my parents to be kind and charitable to the poor and needy. Although I don’t recall the reasons they gave me, I believe they were based on the idea of daan leading to punya. And I used to give money to people on the streets who appeared needy and were seeking help. But this changed when I joined Social Work education. I now came across a view where charity wasn’t encouraged.

This view laid out that giving money to the poor encourages begging and makes them depend on others for a living. So I stopped giving money to those on the streets, although I found it difficult to say no to their requests. My training in social work taught me that giving skills, instead of money, was the right thing to do to help the poor. This was in accordance with the perspective that focuses on empowering the marginalized and the vulnerable by providing skills so that they can take care of themselves. The most commonly used example in professional social work is that if you give fish to a hungry person, they will survive for a day but if you teach them how to fish, they will survive every day of their lives. This was what I believed in then.

Relevant in the discussion about ‘to give or not to give charity to the poor’ is the individual vs structural view of poverty. The individual view contends that people are poor because of their laziness or unwillingness to work, whereas the second view highlights that people are poor because of structural issues, for example the socio-economic arrangements. The individual view blames the person for their poverty and thus discourages charity whereas the structural view holds the larger system accountable for the poverty of an individual. After being exposed to this individual vs structural view on poverty, I resumed giving to people in need but with a newer understanding of poverty and charity.

My understanding of charity expanded from giving money to the poor to providing support to the needy and poor including materials, skills, and networks. This understanding corresponds to the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition of charity as “generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering”. My understanding of the poor as helpless and needy expanded to view them as victims of the larger socio-economic system, which needs to be changed in order to address the root causes of poverty. I learnt that each of us can intervene or contribute to bring about change in the system to lift people up from poverty. What we can do depends on where we are and what we are capable of.

There can be various levels and natures of interventions to address poverty, namely, micro, meso, and macro. At a micro level, an individual can help poor people by providing them with basic necessities of life or with skill development. At meso level, too, groups of individuals and organizations can extend similar help. And at the macro level, governments (local, states and central) can provide welfare to the poor through cash transfers, unemployment allowances, subsidized housing, skills development opportunities, employment generation, affirmative action, to name a few.

No matter where we are in the level of intervention, providing charity should be a thoughtful act of helping the poor or needy and not merely an expression of compassion or a daan. Charity should not be limited to acts carried out to feel good but aimed at empowering the poor and needy so that they are not dependent on charitable individuals and organizations. And acts of charity must bring no further harm to those helped.

There is hardly a foreign policy wonk in either Nepal or India who is not publicly in favor of dialogue to resolve the outstanding border dispute. Yet it is also hard to see what the two sides will discuss—much less resolve—if they talk now. The mutual distrust is far too great. The risk is that they will talk more as their country’s aggrieved representatives than as cool-headed negotiators, further complicating matters. 

As Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali has said, Nepal’s bottom-line is the pullout of Indian troops from Kalapani. But at a time of escalating border tensions with China, the Indians will not be ready to withdraw from Kalapani, the strategic outpost that helps them keep a close eye on the PLA garrison in Taklakot. In that case, what other alternative will Nepal offer to India? 

The last thing PM KP Oli—widely criticized for his bungling of the Covid-19 response, and cornered in his own party—wants, is to be seen as compromising on national sovereignty with India. The Nepali blood still aboil, anything short of getting India to fully agree to the new map will be viewed as treason back home. On the other hand, if he can hold his ground against the big brother, Oli will place himself well going into the ruling party’s impending general convention and, after that, the next round of national elections. 

Oli, who returned to power on the back of his resolute stand against the Indian blockade, has no other political card up his sleeve. Even if his government badly botches the Covid-19 response, even if it appears to be profiting from people’s misery, even if it has dashed most public expectations, Oli reckons people will still forgive him if he refuses to blink against India. Traditionally, a strong anti-India posturing has been a foolproof path to power, more so in times of Nepal-India hostilities. 

The more uncompromising the Nepali negotiating team appears on Kalapani, the greater will be the belief among its Indian counterpart that Oli really has sold his soul to China. The Nepali prime minister has not helped his cause with the Indians by belittling India’s national emblem and blaming it for Nepal’s corona crisis. Nepal’s unconditional support for recent China’s actions in Hong Kong will also have been noted. 

If the two sides get talking, the Indians could propose a complete rewriting of bilateral ties—this time with the sole intent of securing India’s security interests. With an end of the ‘special relations’, India won’t be obliged to make any concessions to Nepal. But if they really propose to, say, regulate the open border or cancel visa-free access to Nepali citizens, will the Nepali side be able to accept the proposals? I am unaware of any kind of homework in Nepal on how the country will deal with this kind of monumental change in its foreign policy. 

Nepal-India relations are on the verge of derailment, and it won’t be easy to bring them back on track. One hope could be that, special relations or not, the ever-present threat of China usurping India’s strategic space in the region will make India amenable to compromise, if only partially, in Nepal’s favor. 

But that is a risky bet. China has repeatedly compromised Nepali interests at the altar of its business ties with India. It could do so again. What if India, while it engages Nepal, is simultaneously negotiating with China on Kalapani? PM Oli may think Nepal has China’s back on the region. Verbal assurances aside, where is hard proof?