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This year’s Secondary Education Examination (SEE) results, when they were first released on June 23, were bad enough. This first significant marker of academic credentials and cognitive abilities of students in Nepal once again showed a huge gulf in the quality of education being offered by private and public schools. Of the 451,532 regular examinees, the vast majority of the students who got the highest grades (A+ and A) were from private schools, while most of those who got the lowest grades (D and D+) were from public schools. This is a persistent trend and recent changes in exam patterns seem to have had little effect in the overall results.

Then, on June 24, the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE) that administers SEE, brought out another set of ‘correct’ results. Apparently, it had forgotten to include the weightage of practical examinations in the grades of some examinees. Also, due to a ‘technical error’ some students who were at the higher end of a particular range were mistakenly given a grade at the lower end of the range—for instance a student in the 3.65-4.0 (A+) range with a GPA of 4.0 was instead given a GPA of 3.65. Shockingly, when questioned, instead of owing up their mistake, the officials at the OCE could not stop congratulating themselves for daring to publish the ‘right results’ the very next day!

We understand that those at the office as well as students and common folks alike will take some time to get used to the SEE. It was only last year that it replaced the old mark-based School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examinations. Nonetheless, the OCE officials must surely have been aware that far too many students and their parents take the SEE exams very seriously. (One student has in fact already committed suicide due to her unexpectedly poor SEE results.) Still, the results of around 9,000 examinees (perhaps even more) were badly botched, subjecting them and their worried parents to great anxiety.

The cavalier attitude of the OCE officers leaves a lot to be desired. Those who refuse to own up their mistakes, nay, blunders, have no right to be employed in an office which by its nature calls for a high level of accountability. There are two broad lessons from the latest SEE saga. One, our public school education system is in need of a thorough overhaul. Two, unless those who were careless with SEE results this time are made liable for their action, with sackings if need be, we can expect similar botch-jobs in the future as well.

 To try to explain away the failings of Nepali Congress, the main opposition, by saying that it is a ‘divided house’, would be unfair on the previous generations of its lead­ers. Congress has always been a divided house, right from its founding in 1950, when the strong personalities of BP Koirala and Subarna Shumsher Rana repeatedly clashed over the party’s future course. Its other founding fathers like Tanka Prasad Acharya, Dilli Raman Regmi and Ganesh Man Singh were also frequently quarrelling. After the 1990 political change, feuding started between Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Girija Prasad Koirala. Then, in 2002, the breakaway faction of Sher Bahadur Deuba would form a separate party. It is true that current senior leaders like Deuba, Ram Chandra Poudel and Krishna Prasad Sitaula are constantly at loggerheads. Relatively younger leaders like Gagan Thapa and Biswo Prakash Sharma are vying for greater space, even as the old guard looks to hang on. But again that is nothing new. Also, even when divided along personality lines Con­gress had been able to play the role of an effective opposition to previous post-1990 communist governments.

That the party is failing in its role as an opposition is evi­dent enough. For instance when the communist government presented its annual policies and programs, curiously, it was the MPs of the ruling parties who were criticizing it in the par­liament, and not opposition MPs. Moreover, Congress leaders have not grown tired of invoking the specter of ‘communist dictatorship’, which in any case has been a hard-sell, rather than do what they are supposed to: take up people’s liveli­hood issues and hold the government to account.

“Congress is yet to emerge from the state of shock resulting from its humiliating electoral defeat,” says Bishnu Sapkota, a political analyst. “This shock seems to have bred an inferior­ity complex among the Congress rank and file, which makes them reactive rather than proactive.”

Perhaps this defeated mindset explains why Nepali Con­gress, instead of setting the agenda as the main opposition, finds itself in an uncomfortable position whereby its leaders are having to take up the course recommended by the hand­ful of anti-establishment voices expressed in popular media.

Right now the country has no option but to rely on Con­gress to play the role of a responsible and responsive opposi­tion in other to keep the government honest. This is the time for Congress leaders and MPs to set aside differences and collectively work to enhance the party’s opposition role. If not, both the country and their political careers will suffer o

Weekly Editorial Cartoon

If you don’t mind the dusty and muddy roads and tight-screwed traffic jams to get there, Boudha is the place to chill out. The calm, meditative aura of the Boudhanath Stupa lifts up your spirits and so does the food from the various cafes and restaurants all around.Patio 747, located 70 meters east of the Boudhan­ath gate, is one such eatery that is getting all the attention. This multi-cuisine restaurant serves a vari­ety of tasty dishes, from Indian to Continental cui­sines, combined with a multi-option menu of local and domestic spirits, cocktails, mocktails, shooters and other non-alcoholic beverages. The restaurant also has its own offerings of pastries, cakes and des­serts at moderate prices. It has a spacious parking too, which is a luxury in Boudha. Patio 747 does not exactly have a proper patio, as the name suggests, but it’s one comfy outlet with delicious food for sure.

THE MENU

Chef’s Special:

- Grilled Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

- Chicken Pasta Salad

- Chicken Sizzler

Opening hours: 10 am - 9 pm

Location: Boudha

Cards: Not Accepted

Reservations:Call 01-4482747

In association with Metropole—a French organization that pro­motes international artistic exchanges and collective creation—Alliance Française Kathmandu had on May 11 launched a (still ongoing) photo exhibit, ‘Nepali Por­traits & Landscapes’. Held after a photography workshop by Eric Huynh in April, the exhibit dis­played the best shot of each participant. At the launch, visitors had the opportunity to get their own portraits cap­tured by Huynh.

Eric Huynh is a French photographer who takes the images of human beings who are going about their daily lives. His portraits have been exhibited all over the world: France, the US, Vietnam, and Brazil, among other places.

The beauty of the exhibi­tion: each display photo has a different story, depending on the perspective of the person looking at it.

The exhibition, being held inside the premises of Alliance Francaise Kath­mandu, Pulchowk, runs through June 29.

Non-Fiction

HOW TO BE HUMAN: LIFE LESSONS FROM BUDDY HIRANI

Manjeet Hirani

Publisher: Ebury Press

Published: January 2018

Pages: 156, Hardcover

They say, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. That idiom holds true quite literally in the case of ‘How To Be Human’ because the cover is nice and thus misleading. The only good thing about the book is that the chapters are short so you don’t have to suffer for too long. Also, the illustrations that accom­pany the chapters are fun to look at, making reading the badly writ­ten (and edited) somewhat preachy chapters just about bearable.‘How To Be Human’ is basically about what Bollywood director Raj­kumar Hirani’s wife Manjeet Hirani, who is a pilot and motivational speaker, has learnt in and of life so far through her dog, Buddy, who was, if anyone remembers, Anuskha Sharma’s depressed dog in the 2014 movie PK, featuring Aamir Khan.

Though Manjeet was scared of dogs and would have never allowed one into her house, she couldn’t say no when her husband sent a six-week-old pup to their son, Vir. Earlier named Nikku, the pup then became Buddy because the Hiranis felt Nikku didn’t suit his vibrant, always-up-to-something personality.

As Manjeet got close to Buddy, she claims to have learnt invaluable les­sons from him. She started writing blog posts on Buddy and his shenan­igans and, as someone who with a keen interest in philosophy, she then found herself comparing his ways to people’s habits and wondering what Buddy would do in certain situa­tions. ‘How To Be Human’ was the result of that contemplation.

As delightful as that idea sounds, and despite great reviews from Ranbir Kapoor and John Abra­ham, and a gushy foreword by Dia Mirza, ‘How To Be Human’ is not a book you will enjoy because the writing is sloppy and erratic. Although the author starts each chapter by singing praises about Buddy, it eventually leads to a rant and then ends with her telling you what you should and shouldn’t do or how you can make the world a better place.

Sometimes Manjeet manages to bring Buddy back in at the end of the chapter as an afterthought, having forgotten all about him while she went on and on about politics, health, society, and what not. It’s almost like she suddenly remembers that the theme of the book is ‘Life Lessons from Buddy Hirani’ and she can’t afford to digress anymore and has to quickly wrap up the chapter too.

It’s this erratic nature of the book, apart from the shoddy writing, that leaves you with a bad aftertaste, making you wonder why you picked up the book in the first place. Or maybe you can blame Ranbir Kapoor for that, whose two sentences on the cover are the only nicely written ones in the entire book.

In 1956, Sunar Gurung was return­ing to his hometown of Ngawal in Manang after completing a year-long trading spree that spanned over Nepal, India, Burma and Thailand, among other countries. Although a citizen of Nepal, the government of Nepal hadn't yet allowed its citizens to travel abroad unless they were members of the royal family or of the British Gurkha regiment or were highly influential individuals with travel exemptions granted by the King. In the case of Gurung, he wasn’t any of the above. So the only way a Nepali like him could travel to distant countries was via an Indian passport.In the case of the people of Manang (Manange), there were many inhabitants who had settled in Shillong and parts of Assam in India. This allowed every Manange who visited India to get an Indi­an passport using the address and information of the other Mananges who were already living in India. Gurung was no different and now wielding an Indian passport, he traveled all over South Asia, which a common Nepali citizen in the 1940s could only dream about.

With his total earnings of approxi­mately INRs 2,500 in pocket (equiv­alent to US $625 then), a princely sum in those days, Gurung finally headed back to Ngawal, Manang after being away from home for over a year. While crossing Assam on his journey home, he was con­fronted by a group of traders from another large village of Manang who beat him black and blue and robbed him of everything. After weeks of negotiations and involvement of other parties (read: friends and fam­ily members of the perpetuators) the robber-traders agreed to return a paltry Rs 700!

Unable to come to terms with returning home with an amount that would not be nearly enough to pay off his debts nor to feed his fam­ily of six young children, Gurung made the decision to turn around and try his luck again: He would use that Rs 700 to get to Calcutta.

In Calcutta, Gurung would buy local products and seek arbitrage in selling them on the streets across other South-East Asian countries. This involved (and this was true of other traders from Manang as well) selling herbal products amassed in the hilly regions of Nepal and India. With the earnings, he went to Bur­ma to purchase cheap rubies, jade and other precious stones. He then took those stones across the border into Thailand where he would sell some and make the leftovers into jewelry. The finished products were taken to Hong Kong, Singapore and Brunei and sold at a premium.

As with every Manange of his time, Gurung's childhood was spent in abject poverty: No formal school­ing, one meal a day, one food-bowl, a dirty pair of shoes and ragged clothes on his back. With an infer­tile and rocky soil base where only potatoes and buck-wheat grew and with an inhospitable freezing cli­mate, the Mananges could care  less about education or schooling and focused mainly on taking care of their basic needs.

To provide for their families and secure a bright future for them, the Mananges had to indulge in risks larger than any other Nepali of that era could imagine! Based off that need for survival, the male members of the generation prior to Gurung's left Manang and headed to Kathmandu to seek trading and arbitrage opportunities. There they found a huge demand for products easily available in Manang: Tibetan mastiffs, the scent of musk deer and Himalayan herbs. Armed with these items the next time around, they flooded into Kathmandu and sold the goods for a handsome profit.

As time went by, they brain­stormed further and realized a great­er potential lay in doing the same in a large city like Calcutta. Later, they would spread over to Burma, Thai­land, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei and Malaysia, where they sold their Himalayan products, purchased the local products found in each coun­try, and then sold them in another. Incredibly, all this was happening in the 1940s when Nepal was officially a "closed" economy that didn't per­mit its masses to be educated nor allowed its citizens to travel abroad!

Gurung, still distraught over being robbed of his life savings in Assam, ended up in Brunei six months later. One warm evening in 1957, after hawking around his products all day, he and his other trader friends from Manang went to a local park where they partook in physical exercises. That very night, while sleeping on the street as every other Manange trader did in order to save money, Gurung suffered a massive heart attack due to health complications arising from his hard life. He passed away at the tender age of 39 in Band­er Seri Begawan, Brunei.

His body was left abandoned by his petrified friends and relatives who were conducting their business illegally without proper paperwork or visa. Worse, for his family back in Manang, it meant no goodbyes, no tears, and no blood money from the government. Only questions lingered on and so did the sad lives of his six children left to spiral deeper into the web of poverty.

Gurung was my grandfather.

BY KARMA TENZING

Kathmandu: The government is allocating Rs 250 million for the construction of a domes­tic airport at Nagidanda of Kavrepalanchowk district, at a distance of 24 kilometers from the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu. The airport is being constructed in order to relieve the growing pressure on the TIA, which is so far the country’s only interna­tional conduit. The money will be spent by the Ministry for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation on feasibility study and preparing a detained project report.

The new airport, which will handle only domestic flights, is expected to cut air traffic at TIA by up to 31 percent. When the new airport is complete, the bigger international airlines will dock at the TIA, while the smaller planes that ply the domestic routes will dock at the Nagidanda airport.

Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Avi­ation Rabindra Adhikari has been emphasiz­ing the urgent need for an airport that could take some pressure off the TIA ever since he assumed office four months ago. He had even set up a technical team to study the project. The team led by Engineer Kamal Kumar KC had concluded that the burden on the TIA would be significantly reduced with a second airport close by.

But yet another team that was set up by Adhikari to study what could be done to improve the overall civil aviation sector in Nepal had come to the conclusion that the country did not need any airport that catered exclusively to domestic passengers for another five years.

Nonetheless, the government is in a mood to endorse the report of KC’s technical team. According to this team, the construction cost of the Nagidanda airport, with a proposed run­away of 1,202 meters, will come to around Rs 8.5 billion. But if the runway is only 800 meters, the cost will drop to Rs 5.5 billion.

The technical team has said that works can begin, at the earliest, only a year after the formal announcement of airport construction; the airport is expected to take around 4-5 years to compete. When it is ready, small aircraft, aircraft flying to Lukla and helicopters will be directed to this new airport.

By Uttam Kapri