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There is a lot of talk of infra­structure in Nepal-China dealings, as was the case during President Xi Jinping’s recent Nepal trip. There is the trans-Himalayan railway, a much desired infrastructure project after India’s blockade on Nepal. There are hydropower projects of mega-scope, billions of dollars and thousands of megawatts, in the pipeline. China has always been a big builder of roads in Nepal, and with the BRI this is definitely in the equation. Invest­ment in cement factories is also a big one.As we invest billions of dollars every year on roads that wash away each monsoon, the viability of roads in mountain areas has become even more questionable to me as the years progress. It is clear ropeways, which require much less invasive infrastructure and which can be quickly rebuilt in the case of a natural disaster, has been neglected and wiped off the Nepali policy map for decades.

We need to revive the idea of goods-carrying ropeways, which in the long run may be more sus­tainable and viable than a railway through extremely mountainous areas of Tibet and Nepal. The cost of maintaining a railway would be astronomical. Nepal will be stuck with a White Elephant which takes us more money to maintain than it brings in. There is no doubt the lines would erode over a few win­ter seasons and which may never repaired later, due to Nepal’s lack of trained technicians. A ropeway on the other hand would always be operational, and require mini­mal maintenance.

Our main goal is to bring and take goods, not people, from Chi­na. After I saw a Chinese man in a motorcycle with a Chinese num­ber plate and army costume wan­dering in Dhulikhel, it occurred to me that bringing in people from the border areas might not be such a great idea. We should limit tourism to high end and middle class tourists who come by plane.

Hydropower projects, especial­ly on the mega-scale that China is talking about, is contested for environmental reasons. Nepal has fragile mountains, whose ecology has to be carefully stewarded. Nepal is also a democratic coun­try and it’s not easy to empty habited lands—the lands have to be bought, and with speculators rushing to the proposed sites and buying up land cheaply from vil­lagers, the government is faced with a big gold-rush crowd waiting to cash in on their dividends when the hydropower projects com­mence. This means more costs for Nepal, and which is one of the issues which stall these projects. All of these have to be resolved before the projects can be put in operation.

With global climate change and rivers running dry, the other due diligence that Nepal should do is look at how viable these projects will be in 20 or 30 years, when we may have much less water due to climate change melting our gla­ciers and ending the spring melt which feeds the rivers.

A more viable policy issue to discuss with China in the day of climate change might be better management of Himalayan riv­ers, including ways to ensure their longevity. Also the two countries should discuss the pos­sibilities that those rivers could one day dry up, leaving a lot of highland communities with very little water. How would they sur­vive?

What are indigenous local methods of water conservation which could stall this possibility? How can China support those initiatives so that rivers are con­served on both sides of the bor­der? These sustainable conserva­tion issues should also be on the agenda, although they are not as glamorous as the prospect of a huge hydropower dam.

Nomadic communities on both sides of the border should be able to graze their sheep and yaks in the way they have done for centu­ries. These indigenous people are the stewards of the land, and they know how to keep the ecology in balance. They should be treat­ed with respect and acknowl­edged for their knowledge of stewardship.

This is first of a three-part article on Nepal-China relations

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is faced with a serious selection headache as injuries take their toll on his Red Devils squad. United could be without eight players against Leicester this weekend due to injury and illness, hampering their chances of making a fast start after the international break. High on the list of fitness concerns is summer signing Aaron Wan-Bisska, with the right-back forced to withdraw from the England squad due to a back problem. Wan-Bissaka has been one of United’s better performers so far this season and it remains to be seen if the 21-year-old will be risked as Solskjaer hunts just his second win of the campaign.

Fidgeting with a white cane and appearing nervous, he was struggling to cross the road. I had seen him earlier at the train station. He was waiting for everyone who got off the train to leave before he moved. When a young woman offered help, he answered: “I know where I am going. I just need to go across the street”. The woman asked if he wanted to grab her arm. I heard this conversation clearly because I also intended to help this visually impaired person and was standing close by. I crossed the street after them and saw the man enter the New York Pizza by my residence.

After a while, I saw him trying to cross the street again from the opposite direction. He must be heading back home after the pizza dinner, I thought. The traffic light was quickly turning green and I made my mind to help him cross the street and grabbed his arm. He shrugged my hands off and said, “I can manage”. I was awestruck by his reaction because he was struggling to cross the street (in my view) and I had seen him accept help earlier.

“They are like that here!” my friend said after seeing me embarrassed. “They want to feel independent,” he added. “Yes, but I should have asked if he needed help before grabbing his arm?” I thought aloud. Perhaps he felt pitied. Perhaps he felt his ability was overlooked when someone grabbed his arm without even asking if he needed help. Perhaps he felt that a stranger tried to control his body and movements because of his limitation. He would probably have appreciated my help if I had asked him before deciding on my own that he needed help. I had earlier seen him get help and I thought he needed help again. But he hadn’t seen me. When I placed myself in his shoes, I realized how vulnerable one could be without eyesight. I would also not be comfortable to have someone grab my arm without a word, and worse, without my consent.

Consent is the key, I think. What do you do when there are women standing on public bus when you are seated? Do you leave the seat for them or not? I often hear this posed as a dilemma. If you don’t leave the seat it could be a sign of disrespect. If you leave the seat and the woman refuses to take it responding that she is able to stand, it could be embarrassing. Kasto afthyaro! J gareni nahuni! (“How difficult! There’s no right way out!”) I have often heard. Now I think the right thing to do would be to politely ask the woman if she would like to take the seat and leave it only if she accepts the offer. The same would apply in case of a visually impaired person, or a physically challenged person, or an older person. I feel that showing sensitivity towards the other individual and respecting their choice is paramount in all situations including while offering help.

We should practice sensitivity towards others in our homes too. I have seen spouses answering the questions posed to their partners and making decisions for partners without their consent. The same goes for a child in social situations where the parents give little or no consideration to the choices of the child and decide on their behalf. This is not sensitive and in many instances can be disempowering for the other person. But people also often make decisions for those who they think do not make decisions by themselves or are incapable of doing so.

In the context of disability, too, able-bodied people might see people with disabilities as being weaker than themselves and impose their “self-constructed” ability to reach out to them without their desire/consent. On the one hand, those who take decisions for others may see the act of decision-making as an added responsibility. On the other hand, people who are not allowed their share in decision -making may see themselves as incapable and thus be trapped in such self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecy.

The key is to cultivate sensitivity towards the other person, to empathize—place yourself in their shoes and keep their best interest at the center of every action. And, as the saying goes, only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. Individuals are themselves their best judges by the virtue of living their lives—experts by experience. So the best help anyone can give to another person is to be sensitive to ask how they can be helped and only offer the help they need or desire. The good news is that sensitivity can be cultivated. Cultivating sensitivity can begin with being sensitive to your partner, your child or your parents, and its scope can be expanded with the presence of mind, and constant practice.

 Nepal has an image prob­lem when it comes to assuring investors. Years of conflict, instability, and a rent-seeking mentality in gener­al are an open secret that both domestic and foreign investors know all too well about. Just announcing Nepal is open for business isn’t enough; it needs to be demonstrated through action that Nepal actually has a busi­ness-friendly government and environment.

To be clear, foreign investors aren’t looking for a cakewalk; what they expect is a degree of certainty that even in the worst-case scenario, they won’t entirely lose their investments.

On the one hand, the govern­ment wants foreign investors to come here in droves, yet it appears reluctant to allow them to make profits and repatriate them back to their home coun­tries. Historically, such reluc­tance stems from our society’s deeply ingrained mistrust of the private sector, which in turn per­haps has its roots in the Marx­ist and socialist orientation of all major political parties. That mistrust remains pervasive both in government and civil society circles.

Strangely enough, we also toler­ate and perpetuate the monopoly of a few private entities and seek to shield them from competition, as reflected partly in the negative list of the Foreign Investment and Transfer of Technology Act 2019. Ideally, the negative list should be used to protect an industry unique to the country or critical to national security, identity or culture; this doesn’t mean a sec­tor should be deprived of foreign expertise or finance.

Public works

On financing public infrastruc­ture, our official obsession with grants and free money is the biggest impediment to crowding in of development finance. We should seek grants where they are available and advantageous, yet we need to be mindful of the strings they come attached with. For instance, any bilateral grant to, say, upgrade an airport infrastructure comes with con­ditions to use equipment man­ufactured by the companies of that donor country. While for the short-term, the upgrade may come free, in the long run, the cost of parts replacement ends up being very expensive for the receiving country.

The government has identified different modes of financing pub­lic infrastructure, including gov­ernment-to-government (G2G) agreements and public private partnerships (PPP), yet the civil service remains inherently skep­tical of the private sector. Per­haps the failure of the private sector to pull off the Kathman­du-Hetauda Tunnel expressway and Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track may have reinforced the govern­ment’s mistrust. But at the same time, the government has done very little to examine its own role in ensuring that the project did not take off.

Foreign sponsors and lenders look for sovereign guarantee, particularly in funding infra­structure projects. After all, the private sector is here to make profits. But often the implied assumption in both our official approach and media narratives fed by officials is that it should be done as a service. The lan­guage used by officials unwitting­ly sends the message that Nepal is doing investors a favor by allow­ing them to invest here in the first place.

Despite two investment sum­mits and ongoing regulatory reforms, Nepal’s image is not going to change overnight. But it will help if government lead­ers work as champions of key projects where they demon­strate change in the way of doing business.

Success stories

A successful demonstration project in public infrastructure under different financing modal­ities will go a long way in proving to investors that Nepal means business—and thereby helping to generate funding for the coun­try’s huge infrastructure needs over time. For instance, rath­er than listing 20 projects, the government should identify one infrastructure project each to be built under the PPP and G2G models and see through its imple­mentation within a specific time frame. This can be an airport, an expressway, a sewage treatment plant, or a metro rail. It can also be something small, a hospital or street lighting.

Words of failure may spread faster than those of success. But success stories do travel and reach investors far and wide. Therefore demonstrating both intent and success is important—and this can only be done by walking the talk.