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Competition is rife in today’s world that is struggling to overcome the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and several other adversities like international tensions.   

Millions of people are struggling for well-paid jobs in a knowledge-based society and want high living standards. Of course, a good education is a prerequisite for getting a good job, but it is hardly enough. Factors like technical-practical skills, knowledge and relevant experience also matter a lot when it comes to landing a job, plum or not.

Today’s job market requires that an ideal candidate has adequate skills, training, relevant experiences and a sound academic background, among other factors.   

Even if a candidate in question has an excellent academic background, s/he often has to be content with a junior position in the absence of relevant skills/expertise and experience.   

Technical skills should be given top priority while hiring for technical jobs, whereas knowledge of diverse areas (general knowledge) should be a major criterion for candidates wishing to join public service. 

By conducting an interview, interest, aptitude and creativity of a candidate wishing to land a job can be assessed along with academic qualification. By the way, non-academic life skills like driving also enhance the prospects of job-seekers.

While selecting a candidate, appropriate standard/principle/medium should be employed with an eye also on criteria like academic qualification, accountability, personality, punctuality, honesty, a pragmatic bent of mind as well as technical skills. 

An academic degree is the result  of one’s hard-work and  patience. But an education system should not dissociate itself from practical aspects of life. Degrees without practical experiences cannot be  useful enough in today’s job market that requires diverse skills and expertise.  

Individuals with high degrees lacking skills to complete a simple task do not bode well for an education system. 

A job market requires candidates who are smart, capable,  educated, experienced, focused and laborious.

While education gives an individual theoretical knowledge and analytical skills to show why something does not work, experience teaches that ‘doing  a thing in a certain way does not work’. 

No doubt a medical student can be a better doctor and management student a better manager because universities design courses catering to the needs of respective sectors. Generally, an academically qualified person can obtain related practical skills better and  earlier in a relevant field of  work. Hence, academic degree, internship, dissertations based on field survey and positive  thinking with a well working  attitude  should be the job.

Traditionally, obtaining an academic degree has been our main priority, while recent years have seen a shift in priority toward acquiring skills and expertise. 

An ideal candidate should have skills and expertise along with an excellent academic background. Different philosophers have offered their nuggets of wisdom on theoretical and practical knowledge. There’s no doubt that candidates need different skill sets to stay relevant in today’s job market.
Big multinationals like Google, Facebook and Amazon, for example, are hiring  people with adequate  skills rather than academic degrees. This is because there is no guarantee that those holding academic degrees will be able to solve problems facing the real world.

The country’s education sector should be  overhauled with a greater emphasis on vocational education. Our university education must accord top priority to fields like agriculture, fisheries, forestry and rural technology with a vision to modernize them as per our needs. Social science programs must be launched at universities after conducting surveys on the country’s human resources requirement.    

Summing up, in the post-Covid era, increased focus should be on honing professional expertise and skills through education and training for effectively fighting adverse impacts resulting from the pandemic.

The author is a former Deputy Executive Director of TEPC under the  Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies

Thirty-three years since Nepal discarded absolute monarchy and 15 years since Nepal became a federal republic, the country has seen a few events and incidents that bring about regime change alone does not bring prosperity and happiness.

The number of people who showed up at the recent demonstrations led by Durga Prasai is one indicator, traditional political parties losing their popularity is another. People crowding at former king Gyanendra Shah's events cannot be overlooked either. 

When the Maoists started their protest in the 90's, how many people believed that it would eventually uproot monarchy? The then system underestimated the power of the people and a growing desire to see a new Nepal that would embrace a broader sense of freedom and inclusion. Although the revolution was started by the Maoists, people from all walks of life and political parties joined in because of some regressive actions taken by the then king. Failing to gain the confidence of the people and overpowered by the opposing force, the king finally gave up. 

Although positive changes have happened in these years, the ordinary citizens do not feel their expectations of the 'new Nepal' have been met. Almost 8 percent of the Nepali population (as per the 2021 census) live abroad. Reports say more than 3000 people leave the country daily to work in foreign lands. More than 100,000 students left the country in the last year alone for higher studies. Ask any urban student what their plans are and they will share their desire to go abroad. Did we envision this to happen in the new Nepal? 

Leaders sold beautiful promises to the younger generation only to see them leaving the country. But the departure did not happen overnight. They saw the queues at the international airport, outside embassies of foreign countries, manpower agencies, language centers and police departments. They overlooked the indicators. Instead, they kept signing more agreements to send the workforce out of the country. How hard is it for the rulers to understand that lack of jobs and lack of respectable pay are driving people out of the country? Do they fear the void it's going to create in the national workforce? Do they believe the outgoing population would return? Well, I don't think so!

To make matters worse, the same group of political parties and leaders who united to overthrow a regime are going regressive. Freedom of expression is a key right in a democracy and trying to curb that right does not go well. Banning of TikTok is a simple example that shows that the present rulers are not democratic but regressive. This reminds me of the time when king Gyanendra Shah took power in February 2005 and tried to impose censorship in the media. It cost him his throne eventually. 

The rulers of this country must read these signs that have been visible through data and the masses that gather, although infrequently. They must be able to respect people's concerns, create decent employment, and bring tangible changes in order for the people to keep their hopes alive in the country and the democratic system that it has. We have come a long way in the last three decades and going back to an era that does not value freedom of expression will not be beneficial to anyone.

For a country like Nepal, where authorities have political and politically personal priorities to meet, there are limited contributions and advocations to make in global and even regional platforms. They can neither influence interceptive response nor alleviative fight against forest fire. Nevertheless, there are still numerous actions, and more importantly, responsibilities to administer at the local level that can prove to be significant to reduce the impact. The easiest thing that we can do is to talk about it. Obviously, not to the point where the talk starts traumatizing people, but up to the point where the talk makes people think that it is dangerous, its occurrence is inevitable, it can happen again, but it can be dealt with. There should be discussions, from the kitchen corner and local tea shop to the media, and from Chautari to Singha Durbar, about what can happen and how.

It has been a few months now since the catastrophic, but not unexpected, fire caravan passed through our forests. So, let’s talk about this. Talk helps to process the gravity of post-disaster trauma, enhances perception towards the fire, triggers a ‘blame game’ dominos among stakeholders, and eventually raises voice to a ‘Kathmandu Standard’ frequency that is audible to at least one Department or Responsible Authority. It was a pity that nobody took responsibility to give victims and burnt forests a horizon to look up for relief and rehabilitation. But who actually was going to take responsibility for the wildfire anyway? Department of Forest? National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority? Locals? God? No one? 

Talks ignite mass thinking, and eventually, mass awareness. Such awareness on fire anatomy is the simplest yet the most significant way to fight fire. Anatomically, fire is made up of three components: heat, fuel, and oxygen. They collectively make a fire triangle. Getting rid of one of them will break the fire chain and stop any fire. In a natural environment, it is rather impossible to remove oxygen from the fire triangle, therefore, heat and fuel are two components that can be manipulated to break the fire triangle. 

If we break down the fire triangle into a fire equation, there are numerous dependent and independent variables that influence forest fires. The forests’ species composition is one of the variables for fire occurrence, and in return the fire regime and frequency of occurrence dictate back the forest composition. Unlike other fire-dependent forests (such as in Australia), our forests don’t possess a defined fire regime. The species aren’t fire dependent; they neither encourage the fire to ignite and spread nor rehabilitate from extensive damages after the fire. Even though such periodic and recurring fire events are not attributes of our forests, they do occur, mostly during the dry season before monsoon.

Climate change, however, is the one that drastically influences the equation. In the current context, it is no speculatation to say that climate change is considerably the strongest variable for the increasing trend of forest fires globally, including in Nepal. The elongated dry seasons, irregular precipitation, and spiking rise in temperature have made forest fires inconsistently frequent and catastrophic. Such uncharacteristic fires not only burn down the existing forest resources but also facilitate weed infestation and alter the historical species composition of native forests. In the hilly and mountainous frame of reference, the challenging landscape is another strong variable that brutally facilitates fire spreading and impedes firefighting. 

It is, nonetheless, not right to blame climate change for everything that goes wrong in the forest and alleviate ourselves from the equation. That’s because almost all forest fires in Nepal are anthropogenically induced. Such fires are most likely to burst out in the proximity of settlements given the common sources of heat are pre-cultivation preparation burns, post-harvest residue burns, unsmothered campfires, cigarette butts, and other religious and recreational fires. In addition, increased migration patterns triggered by climatic vulnerabilities have created a circle of increasing forest cover, increasing fuel load, increasing risk of catastrophic fire events, and eventually increasing the migration. Since fires start in the vicinity of settlements, serious damages to settlements are foreseen, including fatalities, injuries, property and crop damage, and exposure of communities to socio-economic vulnerability and psychological trauma. 

In Nepal, forests have been extensively exploited for purposes ranging from livelihood support and tourism to industrial entrepreneurship and infrastructural development. From Kharkhadai and Yarsagumba collection to illegal extraction of forest resources, every human maneuver poses a threat of forest fire. People, hence, are the center of problems but also the center of solutions. There are more than 22000 Community Forests in Nepal with hundreds of thousands of locals of Community Forests registered as associated user groups. 

Hypothetically, user groups are managing forests intending to sustainably exploit them in perpetuity. Forests have been managed by traditional users for centuries. There are therefore traditional approaches prevalent for fire management with the localized skill and extensive understanding of their forest. If such traditional skills are incorporated with safety procedures, contemporary science, and professionalized responsibility, it will generate the most effective and methodical package for fire management. Training those user groups will constitute a huge squad of local firefighters; firefighters who won’t wait for the fire to start to fight against it, who fight fire every day. The training could include operational safety procedures, fuel reduction, prescribed burn, and awareness programs. 

At present, we neither have readily available technology nor profuse skilled manpower to modernize firefighting. However, with available local resources and trained volunteers, fire breaks, drenches, rainwater harvest reservoirs, and fire towers could still be engineered. The construction of fire prevention structures and utilization of forest extracts, especially the dead and dry resources could effectively reduce the fuel load and hence axes the vulnerability of forests to a catastrophic event. One of the major headaches, nevertheless, will be the investment in operational tools and safety equipment. But the biggest headache is migration.

As we mentioned earlier, there is a serious consequence of migration on forest fires. The out-migration not only increases the forest area in and around the village but also intrudes on human-nature coexistence. Most if not every household in rural Nepal used to rear cattle. These cattle were cogs for active farmland, rangeland, and forest management. 

Some activities triggered by cattle were grazing, fodder and firewood collection, dry leaves collection for bedding materials, forest trial delineation, and landscaping. The aforementioned activities were the reason why local people comprehended forest geography, composition, physiology, and biodiversity. Everything that was collected from forests eventually ended up in farmland in the form of fences, mulch, and manure that contributed to subsistence farming. The whole phenomenon, hence, established a historical linkage between forests and hand-to-mouth affairs in every family in rural Nepal. Therefore, people worshiped auspicious forests in the name of Bankali, Ban Devi, Deurali, Nagasthan, Chautari, etc., and celebrated auspicious days such as Deurali Puja, Jhakri Puja, Deuli Puja, etc. to pay gratitude to forests and nature. 

Given the cultural structure and composition of rural communities, traditional beliefs and norms had a strong influence on forest management. And then the migration started. Migration, for various significant reasons, enabled poverty reduction, changed the socio-economic activities and livelihood patterns of villages, shuffled the demographic structure, and broke off the traditional land-use motif. Eventually, the inevitable lack of manpower, willpower, and reasons for active intervention in forests led to reduced active forest management in community forests. 

Anyway, when life gives us lemon, we ought to make lemonade. The forest rehabilitation is the consequent lemonade here. We should perform post-fire salvage operations to harvest economically valuable timber and non-timber products before they are exposed to climatic and pathological attacks. All the woods that had their crown, branches, and bark burnt could still have some salvageable wood left on them. The salvage operation also opens space and circumstances for regeneration. In addition, we should also be aware that if we fail to regenerate, weeds and invasive species can call the forest floor their new home. 

In the end, fire predictions, early fire warnings, and smoke detection systems are some important mechanisms to contain the fire and limit its spread. Science has evolved extravagantly in the past few years and has moved the early detection system from terrestrial to air-based and satellite-based systems eventually resulting in extensive, prompt, precise, and reliable information. There are technologies like unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV) for fire predictions and vulnerability mapping. UAVs, famously known as Drones, can do much more than feature on Instagram. The use of Nepali satellites for the study and management of disasters has already been realized at the government level for a while now. However, it will take time to execute the realization into practice. 

Meanwhile, NepaliSat-1 and SanoSat-1 have triggered a hopeful question; whether the use of satellite-based systems for real-time fire detection, monitoring, severity mapping, and risk assessment would be possible with Nepali technology?

Cryosphere Call to Action is an open letter for the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28), which is meeting under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Dubai. It is a movement to move forward with both urgency and ambition in mitigation of climate change due to the response of various components of the cryosphere, including glaciers, snow, permafrost, ice sheets and sea ice. The message of the cryosphere to global leaders is 2oC too high as global impacts and damage for each tenth of a degree higher, especially for longer periods, will grow well beyond the limits of adaptation.

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change with the goal to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris in 2015. However, temperature target of 1.5°C is not just a preference compared to 2°C. Instead, it implies that there is a significant difference between the two, suggesting that aiming for a rise in global temperatures of 1.5°C has distinct advantages and avoiding severe environmental impacts and is more imperative than settling for a limit of 2°C. UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts.

Climate-induced disasters are becoming more frequent and severe, with devastating impacts on people and ecosystems around the world. These disasters include heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) and sea level rise. Such events are killing thousands of people each year; causing widespread famine and displacement; destroying homes, businesses, and infrastructure. The 2022 flood submerged one-third of Pakistan, killed 1,739 people, affected 33m people, damaged most of the water systems and economic losses to the tune of $15.2bn (approx). Forty-two people died in the recent GLOF in Sikkim—77 people remain unaccounted for—and damaged hydropower projects, disrupting the generation of 1,200 MW. A flash flood in Mustang in 2023 damaged several houses, bridges and affected farmlands. Besides, the number of cryosphere-related hazards is increasing in the Himalayan region with increased warming in the high mountain region.

Message from the community

International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), a network of senior policy experts and researchers working with governments and organizations, has released the call for action for Cryosphere for COP28. The summary of the call for action is as follows:

“The irreversible global damage caused by Cryosphere loss is already inevitable to some extent. The message is that this insanity cannot and must not continue. COP28, and December 2023 must be when we correct the course. The Cryosphere, encompassing Earth's ice sheets, sea ice, permafrost, polar oceans, glaciers, and snow, is ground zero for climate change. This is primarily due to the straightforward physical phenomenon of ice melting. The warming effect of CO2, predominantly stemming from fossil fuel usage, has already resulted in significant declines in glaciers and ice sheets, contributing to a rise in global sea levels. This phenomenon has also led to diminished water resources due to reduced snowpack, increased emissions of CO2 and methane resulting from thawing permafrost. It is time to carve a line in the snow: Because of what we have learned about the Cryosphere since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, 1.5°C is not merely preferable to 2°C. It is the only option.

The plea at COP28 is for global leaders to acknowledge the stark reality presented by the Cryosphere’s response, asserting that even a 2°C limit is too high. The call is to commit to the Paris Agreement’s “well below 2°C” target, which, in essence, translates to aiming solely for the 1.5°C threshold. If we don’t take decisive action against climate change, the consequences will be severe. Millions of people may be forced to leave their homes due to coastal flooding. We’ll face a shortage of clean water, and the delicate ecosystems in oceans and mountains will be disrupted. This will create long-lasting challenges for future generations. The main issue here is the increasing levels of CO2, reaching unacceptable heights. The scientific community advocates for a comprehensive stocktake with clear guidelines, a pathway to phase out fossil fuels and financial mechanisms to support climate action and adaptation. It’s crucial that we go beyond mere discussion and implement substantial measures to address the far-reaching effects of melting ice. It’s not enough to talk the talk; we must walk the walk.”

Meaning for Nepal

Nepal’s glaciers and snowpack are lifelines for the nation, supplying essential water for drinking, irrigation and hydropower generation. They are acting as a climate regulator and supporting unique ecosystems, including high-altitude forests, alpine meadows and glaciers, contributing to the country’s rich biodiversity. Being rich in cryosphere resources, it is urgent for Nepal to advocate for ambitious and achievable targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, including negotiating for increased financial support in research and development related to cryosphere science and adaptation measures. The funding is crucial for Nepal to understand the impacts of climate change on the cryosphere and develop effective adaptation measures in the high mountain areas. It also necessitates cooperation with other nations on cryosphere protection to learn from shared experiences and adopt best practices. This collaborative approach enhances the effectiveness of cryosphere conservation efforts. Such an effort will enable Nepal to implement the Cryosphere Call to Action effectively.

In this context, the Cryosphere Call to Action at COP28 UAE is a landmark opportunity for Nepal to raise its voice on this issue and address the imminent challenges posed by climate change.