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Making sense of China is never easy. The obsequious domestic media in China churns out little news of value. At best, you have partial, often-biased informa­tion trickling out through the western media. So what is it? Has the Chinese state been able to mount an unprecedented campaign against coronavirus that any other country would struggle to match? Or has the top-down communist model badly botched the initial coronavirus response, trying to keep it hush-hush until it got out of hand? It’s hard to find a definite answer either way.Likewise, did the Chinese put pressure on Nepal govern­ment not to evacuate its students in Wuhan, or were our government officials more concerned about Chinese goodwill than the health of its citizens? The governments of Pakistan and Cambodia, in a show of unstinting trust in the Chinese government, refused to repatriate their students from Wuhan. In Nepal’s case, whatever the government was plan­ning, public pressure forced its hand, and it is now bringing back Nepali students.

While individuals are the ends in themselves in democ­racies, in autocracies individual liberties are often tram­pled with to serve the greater national cause. The liber­al-minded folks in Nepal are worried about China and its influence in a democratic Nepal. A respected aca­demic with some experience in dealing with Chinese offi­cials recently asked this author whether deadly viruses like SARS and coronavirus were originating in China because the Chinese scientists were experimenting with biological weapons.

Given China’s characteristic opacity, a question naturally arises: How much do we know China? Will we have to pay dearly if we embrace the Chinese without understanding their true nature? Yet this also assumes that we know democracies like the US and India better. But do we? Does the micromanagement India has overseen in Nepal over the past two decades inspire any more confidence in the ‘largest democracy in the world’? Or the way the Americans have relentlessly pursued their geopolitical interests in Nepal since the 1950s make us trust ‘the strongest democracy in the world’ any more?

China is neither good nor bad on the international stage. It is only pursuing its interests, just like any other country. As Constantino Xavier of Bookings India likes to say, “Thank you, China!” He thanks China for waking India up from its “colonial slumber” and making it realize that it just cannot boss around small countries in the neighborhood—while idly sitting on its bilateral projects—when these countries now have the Chinese option.

We cannot change our neighbors. Nepal will continue to have to deal with the one-party state for the foreseeable future and there is no option to increasing our engagement with China to decrease the over-dependence on India. Again, the choice will not always be easy. But as the Bangla­deshi ambassador Mashfee Binte Shams hinted to us in an interview this week, what Nepal should do is develop more self-confidence in dealing with varied external actors, not pick and choose between external powers. Who knows when we will need whom!

It’s wonderful that Nepal is bringing back its students from Wuhan. That is its right, and also the right thing to do. We are not, and don’t want to be, China’s Pakistan or Cambodia.

 I am not here to talk about divorce between a husband and a wife or between part­ners, but our divorce with ourselves. Divorce means the end of association. It involves parting away and distancing from people and situations. We may or may not have done that with our partners, but most of us do that with ourselves most of the time. Once a saint went to meet a disciple. The disciple’s daughter said her father was out at the cobbler’s to mend shoes. But the saint could hear the sound of a bell ringing and smell the aro­ma of incense sticks. After a while the disciple came out of a room and said, "My daughter lied to you, I was doing puja."

The saint said, “No, your daughter said the right thing. You were not in the house when I came.”

Actually, inside the puja room, the father’s mind had wandered off and he was thinking about going to the cobbler’s to get his shoes mended. His body was there and his hands were ringing the bell. But his mind was not there. Both the daugh­ter and the saint could read his mind from distance. His mind and body were not together. So, the disciple was not fully there.

This is the story for most of us most of the time. Our body is at one place, it is doing one thing, and the mind is someplace else. They are sep­arated and disjointed. They are divorced.

Why are we not in unity with ourselves? Why are we fragmented? Where is the harmony? Perhaps we have never thought about it.

When things fall in place and when they sync, we call it harmony. But our mind and body are not in harmony. We all talk about coherence and integrity in life. As body and mind together constitute our life, they must have a coher­ent relationship. But that is not the case, and we are not aware of it.

If body is the vehicle, mind is the driver. For the drive to be smooth and safe, the driv­er needs to know about the vehicle and be in tune with it when driving. If the driver does one thing and the vehi­cle another, then an accident is bound to happen.

If we equate the act of driving with the act of liv­ing, then the lack of concord between the vehicle and the driver—the body and the mind—is sure to put us in trouble. This trouble comes either in the form of bodily or mental suffering.

The Indian yogic science is the science of living in harmony. The practice of physical postures of yoga is about bringing the mind and body together. In the Chinese tradition, there are centuries-old practices of tai chi and qigong to establish that harmony.

These elaborate practices may require some time to learn. We can start by bring­ing our minds to the thing our body is doing, and converse­ly telling our bodies to go with what the mind is doing. When we start aligning our thoughts and actions thus, we start on the path of living with ease.

 There is not a single country that has been built by men alone. Right around the world, women have played a big role in eco­nomic development. It’s no different in Nepal. Time has thus come for Nepali women to step forward and show the way. If we look around, we see women are making it to leader­ship positions in different areas of the economy. However, in the field of economics as an academic discipline, we see only a few women leaders. Students think twice before they take up this subject as it is technical and difficult too. I see that students from science background do well in economics. You need to feel comfortable with mathematics and statistics to suc­ceed in economics.

One major ailment of our aca­demia is that we are degree-oriented rather than knowledge-oriented. But for women, securing a good degree is not enough. We need to be active in social activities as well, which will give us exposure and help build good network. But it is not easy to balance studies and social activities.

Many of our female colleagues report they have to do household chores before coming to university. Our families are still traditional, and women are expected to limit themselves to certain roles. It’s high time that women felt confident of their ability and took up leadership roles out of their homes. A sup­portive environment is needed. If a woman gets respite from household duties, she can certainly do well in her career. We do have some women economists. But they are yet to come to the forefront at the policy level. In my case, I have been asso­ciated with the Central Department of Economics for long, and now I have got the opportunity to lead it as head of department. There was some skepticism about a woman getting the leadership position. But I requested my colleagues to give me a chance to prove myself.

Just like men, women may also fail. But in my assessment, 90 percent of women in leadership roles have done well. Therefore, we should not think that women cannot take a lead­ership position. But being a career woman means your challenge is to balance your career and your home. We are expected to keep the house in order as well.

My department is one of the oldest and biggest in Tribhu­van University. It was estab­lished in 1960; I joined as assistant professor in 1999. When I joined, my senior colleagues used to say that female professors won’t stay here for long. “But you please stay and don’t leave the department,” they often suggested.

When I joined, I was the only woman in the faculty. Some senior female colleagues joined later. They have already retired due to the age bar of 63. Now there is only one woman professor besides me in the 16-member faculty.

Apart from the academia, there is women’s participation in other sectors as well. They are more engaged in informal economy, which is a largely neglected area. It hasn’t received the attention it deserves. We should count it as among major components in both population and economic censuses. Again, women have to play dual roles— as homemakers and as breadwinners. They have shown their competence in both. Women have already shown they can excel not only at national level but also internationally. But their con­tribution to the informal sector cannot be overlooked. We need to translate it into monetary terms. The state is responsible to make it count.

Recently, I saw a thesis related to street vendors, which showed that more women are working as street vendors than are men. There could be various reasons but the number of such women is high. They generate income. We should not forget their contribu­tion to the national economy.

As men are going abroad for jobs these days, women stay back and contribute to economic activities. The number of financial institu­tions and cooperatives is increasing, and they prioritize loans to women. However, there hasn’t been much study on how much these women contribute to the national economy.

On the political front, too, women are well represented. There is reser­vation at the entry level, not at the higher levels. I believe women need to be competitive than seek reser­vations. They should come through open competition and prove their worth instead of choosing the path of reservation. The reservation sys­tem can be enforced for some time, not always. When we seek higher positions, we should be capable. In some cases, women coming from reservation quota have not been able to perform well. We need qual­ified women with dashing personal­ity to inspire others.

The author heads the Central Department of Economics, Tribhuvan University

(As narrated to Kamal Dev Bhattarai)

It was a challenge to introduce dig­ital TV—Direct to Home (DTH)—in Nepal 10 years ago. People were then familiar only with analogue TV and it was hard for us to make them understand digital TV. But there has been a huge change, as 95 percent of the system has been digitalized. This means most people now have a good viewing experience. Along with developments in sci­ence and technology, we have a growing scope in digital platforms. As the market grows, we have more opportunities. According to one data, over 3.5 million digital TV setup boxes have been distributed in Nepal. But there is still a large number of households that do not use digital TV services or any kind of digital platform. One reason could be poverty, another could be the penetration of Indian DTH in the Tarai belt.

A major challenge for us is that TV content is costly. Most of the con­tents are from India. The analogue contents used to be cheaper. But when they went digital, rates and taxes shot up. The only solution was to hike the prices of our services. So the overall condition of the industry is somewhat weak.

Another challenge is people’s changing TV habits. These days fewer people are watching TV due to easy availability of smartphones and internet. The number of hours a person spends watching TV has greatly reduced.

At present, we have an issue over ‘clean-feed’ which the govern­ment has decided to implement from October 23. Once it comes into force, the cost of content will rise further. It will also decrease the number of channels and subscrib­ers, threatening the entire digital TV service providers.

With problems in Nepal, Indian DTH may come to dis­place Nepali DTH, at least in the Tarai belt. Although it is illegal, many households in bordering towns have subscribed to Indian DTH. This may impact advertise­ment revenue in Nepal. When the number of viewers go down, why would businesses spend money on TV ads?

We already hear that television stations are losing advertisement revenue. Concerned authorities are mistaken that clean-feed policy will allow for total control over ads. This will not only harm the service oper­ators but also the entire advertising sector. Without ads, no advertising agency can survive.

We have expressed our worries, but have gotten no satisfactory response. Our industry was not consulted even while drafting the Advertisement Regulation Bill. After the implementation of clean-feed, content providers will defi­nitely charge us more. To recover our losses, we will be left with the only option of passing on the additional cost to our subscribers.

Likewise, there are some chan­nels whose business depends entirely on ads. Sports, news, and religious channels will have hard time after the implementa­tion of clean-feed. We may not be able to broadcast them. In my view, even the government is unsure of the motive behind clean-feed.

As defined in the bill, clean-feed is a provision to prevent ads in foreign channels. In global practice, making foreign channels ad-free is uncommon. It is a regres­sive step brought without proper study. Experts from our industry should have been consulted before drafting the provision. If the gov­ernment is serious about clean-feed, it should not be limited to digital TV. Platforms like YouTube and Facebook also include foreign advertisements. What do we do with them?

In order to deal with the clean-feed policy, we have started around 15 channels through our subsidiar­ies. Other service providers have also started doing so. They will be allowed to run local ads. Likewise, we will soon come up with our own internet services. But still, there are challenges.

We appeal to the government to revise the clean-feed policy and introduce a provision for local ads on it, otherwise it will lead to the ruin of the digital TV industry O

The author is MD, Dish Home

(As told to Prasun Sangroula)