HELLO NEPAL

  The Himalayan Times 24 February 2022 MCC deal: Yes or No There is no denial that foreign aid has played a crucial role in Nepal's overall development. Nepal has been receiving foreign aid mainly in the form of grant, loan, technical assistance and humanitarian aid since the 1950s. Since then, the volume of foreign aid in different forms continued to grow in volume depending upon the number of development projects planned and implemented in different parts of the country with the objective of uplifting the livelihood of the common people by investing in the different sectors including hydropower. With regard to bilateral support, Nepal has been receiving aid from the government of Australia, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the USA, and the UK. In the case of multilateral donors, Nepal has been a recipient of the Asian Development (ADB), European Union (EU), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Lab...

  The Himalayan Times 17 February 2022 Harming judiciary supremacy Nepal continues to suffer from dirty political game played by irresponsible political parties and their senior leaders for the last several years as if the country belongs to them. They dethroned the king unconstitutionally in 2062/63 when the common people did not know that the people’s movement was nothing but a foul political game played by the same group of senior leaders to serve their own political interest.  Following the completion of three tiers of general election being held as per the constitution, the then almost two-third majority government led by K.P.Oli could not even stand for a full five-year term because of the dirty in-house political game played by his own party senior leaders. In other words, his way of running the government and the party was not palatable to his senior fellow comrades. He tried to dissolve the house twice to give lessons to his fellow comrades, which was invalida...

The Himalayan Times 3 February 2022 Crack in the coalition Politically, Nepal is passing through a precarious situation following the Oli led government’s ouster and installation of the Deuba led coalition government through the Supreme Court verdict bypassing the constitution and undermining the supremacy of the Parliament. Since then, the House has been frequently disrupted by the UML lawmakers opposing the Speaker’s dubious role for being biased towards the coalition government by not promptly taking actions against the 14 UML lawmakers who were expelled, including Madhav Nepal. This daily house disruptions has almost paralysed the smooth functioning of the Parliament, failing to authenticate a number of ordinances presented by the Oli led government and the coalition government. The coalition government of five-party alliance has not been able to meet the people’s expectation with its performance for the last six months. For any political party with a different political ...

The Himalayan Times 27 January 2022 Flaws in the constitution? Constitution of Nepal 2015 is the present governing Constitution of Nepal, which came into effect on September 20, 2015, replacing the Interim Constitution of 2007. Nepal entered into the new political era with the promulgation of this constitution. In doing so, it has formally ended centralized and unitary system of governance, and established a people centered democratic republic federal state. The people of Nepal have become the ultimate sovereign power of the nation. The Constitution introduces a competitive multi-party democratic system, civic freedom, fundamental rights, human rights, periodic elections, voting rights, full freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary. It provides a vision of a prosperous nation, built on principles of socialism, the rule of law, democratic values, durable peace, good governance and sustainable development. Having said these about the constitution, the five-party coal...

  The Himalayan Times 20 January 2022 COVID and corruption More than 200 countries, including Nepal, around the world have been affected by the COVID-19 for the last two years with more than 300 million confirmed cases and more than five million deaths as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its recent news bulletin. Now, the new variant Omicron, which originated in South Africa, has started creating panic in the people in many countries, including Nepal where the number of infected cases seem to be gradually increasing. WHO opines that COVID can spread through small liquid particles, which range from larger respiratory droplets to smaller aerosols released when an infected person coughs, sneezes, speaks, sings or breathes. It spreads mainly between people who are in close contact with each other, typically within 1 metre. It can also spread in poorly ventilated and/or crowded indoor settings where aerosols remain suspended in the air or travel farther than 1 ...

  The Himalayan Times 6 January 2020 Parties’ conventions Nepal and the people saw a series of major political parties’ general conventions in the recent days, generating both expectations and frustrations from the outcome of the conventions. In line with their parties’ constitution and the requirement of the Election Commission, all the political parties are supposed to hold their general conventions every four to five years depending on their constitutional provisions. Peoples’ major concern and curiosity were on the outcome of the UML, RPP, NC and CPN-MC conventions, who wanted to see the senior leaders of these major parties replaced by the second-rung leaders. This, however, did not happen in the three major political parties, except in the RPP “Party conventions of UML, RPP, NC and MC” (THT, January 4, Page 4). UML’s Bhim Rawal showed courage by challenging his boss K.P.Oli but failed to garner a sizable number of votes against the later which indicated that the major...