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On Feb 8, police arrested Abdul Rashid, a 25-year-old man from India’s Bahraich, with 200 grams of brown sugar. Rashid was car­rying the drug in four plas­tic bags concealed inside his helmet.A joint patrol of Nepal Police’s Narcotics Control Bureau and Area Police Office Jamunaha had nabbed Rashid on his motorbike at Jamunaha near the border. He was on his way to the western Nepali town of Nepalgunj.

According to Police Super­intendent Bir Bahadur Oli, Rashid was a regular smug­gler of the contraband. He was planning to send half of the confiscated amount to Pokhara and half to Kath­mandu. When local online portals broke the news, his buyers went out of contact. “I don’t know their where­abouts. They fled when the news about my arrest sur­faced,” Rashid told the police.

The Narcotics Bureau had opened its Nepalgunj branch in 1994. The amount seized on Feb 4 was the largest to be confiscated from a person in a day since the establishment of the branch, according to Oli.

Police records show that confiscation of illegal drugs has increased in the district since 2011. Also on the morn­ing of Feb 4, Bishnu Giri from Tikapur Municipality-1 of Kailali district was caught along with his brother, carry­ing 18 grams of brown sugar. A police patrol on the highway had nabbed the duo.

On 8 December 2012, Indian national Mohammad Salman Khan was arrested from erst­while Bhawanipur VDC in possession of 110 grams of brown sugar. After that, on 30 October 2018, another Indian national, Sahare Alam, 19, was arrested from Chaulika Chowk of Nepalgunj along with 89 grams of the contraband.

Among the people arrested with large quantities of brown sugar in the past few years, most are Indian nationals. They are all traders of the con­traband.

According to police inspec­tor Bir Bahadur Thapa, chief of narcotics branch Nepalgunj, 200 grams is a big quantity to be confiscated from a per­son. “The Feb 4 arrest is sig­nificant,” he told APEX. The district police in Banke have already seized 2,163 grams of brown sugar since 2016/17. This fiscal year, 2019/20, the police have already seized 608 grams of brown sugar.

The police have arrested 1,025 persons in the past four years for their involvement in the trade. Court cases have been filed against 639. Accord­ing to SP Oli, “The police are serious about controlling nar­cotics trade. All those guilty will have to face action.”

As per the Narcotics Control Act 1976, a person trading up to 25 grams of any contraband will face imprisonment from 5 to 10 years, or a fine ranging from Rs 5,000 to 25,000, or both. Those trading 100 grams or more will face 15 years to life imprisonment, or a fine ranging from Rs 500,000 to 2.5 million, or both O

The price of garlic shot up from previous month’s Rs 245 per kilo to Rs 555 this week. The unexpected rise in the price of the popular kitchen ingredient, which is known for its immunity-boost­ing properties, comes at a time when other vegetables are getting cheaper, according to the Kalimati Fruits and Veg­etable Market Development Board.Likewise, drug dealers say the price of disposable face masks has surged from a retail price of Rs 500 per packet to a wholesale price of Rs 800.

The reason behind both price hikes is the same: the unfolding coronavirus crisis.

The outbreak has affected people’s lives as well as tour­ist arrivals in Nepal. Experts fear the health crisis spread­ing out from northern neigh­bor China may harm the national economy. Nepal’s private sector is mostly con­cerned with its likely impact on tourism.

“Tourist arrivals in January were down by half compared to the same period last year. We foresee an extreme impact of coronavirus in tourism and the Visit Nepal campaign,” says Satish Kumar More, Pres­ident of Confederation of Nep­alese Industries (CNI).

Chinese contractors work­ing in Nepal are yet to return from China after celebrating Chinese New Year (January 25) in their hometowns. Pri­vate sector representatives fear that projects may be delayed.

According to Bhuwan Kumar Dahal, president of Nepal Bankers’ Association, the banking sector could also be badly hit. “Hotels and other hospitality businesses will be harmed,” he says. “So we may lose income from tour­ism.” China is a major source country for Nepal’s tourism dollars. Banks are concerned that they may lose their invest­ments in hospitality and avi­ation due to the coronavirus tourist slump.

“Hotels in Pokhara are already in trouble,” says another banker. “With the fall in number of Chinese tourists, the revenue of travel and air­line companies will go down as well.”

Banks last year increased their investment in hospitality and aviation anticipating good turnout during Visit Nepal 2020. “Banks have invested even in reopening closed hotels,” says another banker, adding that such investment may not bear fruit in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

Hari Bhakta Sharma, former CNI president, also thinks the virus scare may invite a finan­cial crisis. “Our manufactur­ing is dependent on imported raw material. As China cuts down exports of raw material used for medicines, fertiliz­ers, pesticides and the like, our industries may face prob­lems,” he says.

There is also a risk of gen­eral inflation. Nepal imports electrical items, readymade garments, shoes and other consumer products from China. If supply from China decreases and Nepal has to import from third countries, the products may become more costly.

Nepal’s foreign currency reserves cold also be battered. Both Chinese aid and tourist arrivals will go down, caus­ing Nepal to lose foreign cur­rency income. This adds to the worry because Nepal Rastra Bank has already projected foreign currency income to decrease in its annual mon­etary policy this year. Bank officials say Nepal’s ability to purchase goods from abroad maybe affected by the virus outbreak

Little knowledge is dangerous. Perhaps this adage is no truer than in the case of the MCC compact. Everyone is talking about it. Asks a taxi-driver in Kathmandu: “Is it true that America will launch missiles against China from Nepal after its passage of the MCC?” A coffee-shop owner in Teenkune questions as curiously: “Will Nepal lose its inde­pendence if it signs the MCC?” A Nepali TV channel conducts an MCC debate with rockets and missiles shown flying in the background. How did we come to this?The unsettled debate over whether the MCC compact is a part of the ‘military’ Indo-Pacific Strategy—an imperial American construct targeted against China, in the eyes of many ruling party leaders—is one contributing factor. Thanks to the paranoia this debate has fanned, speculations about American boots marching on Nepali soil naturally follow. But whether or not the compact is related to the IPS, the way the issue has been handled by the ruling party is immature. Yet perhaps it was also inevitable that such an ‘imperial agenda’ would be used to fight proxy wars inside a communist party.

The much ado about the compact could have been avoided had our government been honest. With the American offi­cials themselves admitting the MCC is part of the IPS, why does the NCP government have to lie to its own people? Why not rather have the guts to argue that it really does not matter whether the MCC is a part of the IPS because it is in our national interest? After all, even if we are to go by the government’s own diversification policy, greater American engagement in Nepal will help balance India and China—always dangerous for a small landlocked country to exclu­sively rely on its giant neighbors.

The Americans have themselves contributed to the sus­picions by so strongly lobbying in the compact’s favor and giving muddled answers over its IPS link. Having made their case, why not let the sovereign government apparatus of Nepal settle it? And what is the harm in unequivocally saying that, yes, the compact is a part of the IPS, which, in fact, is the overarching American foreign policy formulation for the Indo-Pacific region?

Even some NCP leaders who were initially skeptical of the compact have come around to seeing its benefits, and it is likely to be eventually passed. But the unfolding MCC fiasco also offers an important lesson. It is dangerous to politicize a foreign policy issue—and one related to the world’s sole superpower at that—for partisan gains, and mislead the public.

After listening to those in the know, it seems the MCC agreement was signed in keeping with Nepali laws. There maybe grander ‘American designs’ behind it. But then the same speculation could be made of China’s BRI or India’s ‘Neighborhood First’. Again, I am not asking for blind accep­tance of the compact, as I am also only a learner on the subject. If you too are interested in it, don’t be satisfied by superficial answers—dig a little deep.

In past six months, District Police, Banke has docu­mented the cases of 159 missing women, 52 of them minors. There is a common cause behind their disappear­ance: elopement.“Most complaints are related to girls eloping. As those below 20 years cannot legally marry, they run away from home to get hitched. Par­ents lodge complaints when their daughters go missing,” says Superintendent of Police Bir Bahadur Oli, chief of Banke Police. “They return after turning 20, many with their babies.”

The girls and young women cross the border and reach Indian towns where they get married, according to Oli. Police records show that fam­ilies do not accept the mar­riage at first, but gradually, short of options, they start doing so.

“As parents oppose mar­riage, children run away,” Oli adds. “Fearing punishment for underage marriage, many parents do not report to the police even when their chil­dren return.”

Banke is a district where child marriage is rampant. According to the 2011 Popu­lation Census, 66.08 percent marriages in Banke involved underage participants. Mean­while, another survey of a local non-profit Social Aware­ness Concern Form showed that the underage marriages in 2019 involved 80.79 percent of all girls and 60.92 percent of all boys.

The survey showed that in the Nepalgunj Sub-metropoli­tan and in Rapti Sonari Village Council as many as 83.16 per­cent of the marrying women were underage.

The police have stepped up efforts to control child mar­riage in the district. There are many child and teenage girl clubs that report to police when they come to know of any child marriage. Acting on those reports, the police last year stopped 35 marriages in Nepalgunj Sub-metropolitan City and Janaki Rural Munic­ipality. But this year, no child marriage has been reported yet.

Maiti Nepal, an organiza­tion working to stop traffick­ing-in-person, had received complaints of 869 missing women last year. Of them, 239 were under 18. Keshab Koirala, an official with the organization, suspects most of them run away to marry, as many of the girls rescued from the bordering areas and Indian towns were found to have married before age. “They are at risk of being sold in India,” Koirala says.

The organization had res­cued 347 girls last year. “We rescued 21 girls in a single lot at Jamunaha border point. They were mostly between 14 and 18, and from Salyan and Rukum districts,” Koirala adds.

Three of the girls rescued by Maiti Nepal in India were sold by their boyfriends. “They lure uneducated girls with a promise of marriage, and the educated ones with nice jobs,” Koirala says. “When the girls go to India without their parents, there is a greater risk of them being sold”