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If you follow Nepali content on TikTok, you might have heard songs by Arjun Sapkota. The 24-year-old is one of the well-known musicians of the Nepali music industry. As the youngest music composer of Nepal, almost all his songs are inspired by Nepali folk music. Sapkota says he always wanted to become a singer and he had a keen interest in folk music. For the past decade, he has been trying to make this genre of music popular among Nepali youths. Brought up in Nawalparasi, Sapkota grew up listening to folk music. “It was a huge part of my childhood,” he says. “Every one of us would be humming a song while doing chores or during our free time. It kept our house lively,” he adds. It helped that his family members loved folk music. They would hum a tune while doing household chores. His uncle, Yagya Sapkota, is one of the prominent folk singers of Nepal. His father, despite not being a singer by profession, had a good knowledge of folk music too. “He sang when he could, and taught me a lot about folk music,” he says. Sapkota can’t pinpoint exactly when he became interested in folk music but says it was at a young age.  “In school, we were frequently asked what we wanted to be when we grew up and my answer never changed. I knew I wanted to become a singer,” he says. And he never shied away from performing in public. “From singing bhajans with community members to performing at school programs, I never missed any opportunity,” he adds. He often spent days teaching himself about folk music through YouTube, and tried to incorporate those learnings each time he performed. However, his professional journey as a singer started in 2013, when he recorded a song called ‘Ratlai Sathi Jun Chha’, written and composed by his uncle. Although Sapkota was used to singing with a microphone, he says recording at a studio was a completely different experience for him. “I wasn’t scared since singing was my passion. But the experience was quite overwhelming at first,” he says. The response he got for his first song was unexpected. “I didn’t know I would be getting so much positive feedback,” he says. It fueled his drive to become a songwriter and composer. “My work was appreciated and that made me want to work harder and become better,” he says. Six years later, in 2019, he released his first composition called ‘Banki Chari’, which he performed himself. “Now, I write, compose, and sing my songs,” he says. Sapkota says he likes to experiment with his music. “Although folk music is the primary genre I work with, I like to compose the same music using different instruments that’s not normally used in folk music,” he says. Sometimes, his music has a touch of western tunes too. It’s not that Sapkota doesn’t like working on other genres. Time and again, he says, he tries and learns to sing other songs. “I enjoy singing as a whole, and there aren’t any forms of music that I dislike,” he adds, “But I will not stop working on folk music,” he says, and there is a reason for that. It’s only recently that folk music is gaining its popularity among youths. Sapkota wants to work on reviving the youth’s interest in folk music so that the genre will get the platform it deserves among Nepalis and the music industry. Though Sapkota doesn’t think folk music will fade away since it’s got its roots in our culture and tradition, he believes there is definitely a need to give it more attention. “If you think about it, every Nepali festival has some kind of folk music dedicated to it. There will always be people listening to that music and singing those songs,” he says, adding folk music has a lot of scope for growth in Nepal and that he hopes to see more youths interested in the genre so that it gets the platform it deserves. Sapkota confesses he isn’t much of a planner and, for the future, he intends to just go with the flow and do what he is doing. But he will work on his skills and try to become better, he says. “I consider myself lucky to be where I am today. I’ve gotten so much fame at a young age. I don’t want to take it for granted,” he says.

At a pharmacy in Tripureshwor, Kathmandu, the number of people coming with complaints of flu, skin rashes, stomach aches, and other common ailments has doubled in the past year. The pharmacist there says that people skimp on doctor’s consultation fees whenever they can, especially since a less than five-minute visit sets them back by almost a thousand rupees. Sarina Lama, 45, who was at one of the pharmacies in the area to buy some antidiarrheal medicine for her teenage daughter, says she hasn’t been to a hospital in the past five years or so. Every time someone in her family of five falls sick, a local pharmacist is consulted. She also has a nurse in her neighborhood whom she sometimes asks for advice when a fever shows no signs of abating or a cough won’t go away. Rai realizes how risky that is. The last time her nine-year-old son was ill she was up all night, for several nights in a row, as he was ‘making strange noises’ in his sleep. She was contemplating taking him to the hospital, wondering if she could ask her employer for an advance, when the wheezing stopped and she heaved a sigh of relief. “A doctor’s appointment would have created havoc in our monthly budget since he would have run ten different tests. We would, most probably, have had to cut back on some basic things like eggs, meat, or petrol for my scooter,” says Rai, a salesperson who works from ten in the morning to seven in the evening six days a week at a retail store in Mid-Baneshwor, Kathmandu. In February 2021, the Nepal Medical Association (NMA) doubled doctor’s fees. It shot up to Rs 825 from Rs 450 per consultation. It’s likely to go up again. The NMA and the Association of Private Health Institutions of Nepal released a joint statement informing people about the increment due to inflation. According to the government’s rules, doctor’s fees can be revised every two years. Most people ApEx spoke to said going to the doctors is expensive. At most hospitals, they will order a battery of often unnecessary tests, sometimes even asking patients to repeat a few blood works for confirmation. People also say that as the prices go up, the quality of the service deteriorates. The wait is long, and doctors spend just a few minutes with each patient, sometimes even openly discussing their case in front of other patients. A reputed hospital in Thapathali, Kathmandu, is notorious for sending people inside the doctor’s office in droves. Though this violates the medical code of ethics, doctors can be seen talking to and examining patient number one while patient number two waits for his turn on the bench right behind him and another lurks by the door, ready to step in as soon as patient number one gets up from the stool. Sanjit Chaudhary, pharmacist at Alka Hospital Pharmacy in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, says people seem to rely on over-the-counter medication rather than visiting a doctor. Sometimes, the condition worsens and they are left with no option but to spend thousands on treatment. This, he says, wouldn’t be the case if healthcare was affordable and people didn’t have to shell our hundreds of rupees for a two-minute chat with a doctor. “People tend to adopt a wait and watch approach when they are ill. If their condition worsens, they spend a few more days trying out different over-the-counter medications. There is this hesitation to go see a doctor right away,” says Chaudhary. This, people ApEx spoke to at a few hospitals in Thapathali, Kathmandu, and Jawalakhel, Lalitpur say, is because of how expensive a hospital visit is as well as the fact that the testing process before the actual treatment is tedious. Despite how expensive private hospitals are, they lack proper facilities. You are made to go from one building to another and the queue is long. Everywhere you go, you are told to wait. “You don’t want to come to a hospital unless you absolutely have to,” says a 62-year-old resident of Kupondole who was at a hospital in Thapathali, Kathmandu, for his annual checkup. He confessed he wouldn’t have come if his son and daughter in-law hadn’t been after him. He, on the condition of anonymity, says he has been coming to the hospital for five years and while it has always been expensive, it’s even more ridiculous now. “Worse, the hospital charged around Rs 700 extra during the Covid-19 pandemic. Apparently, it was for all the precautionary measures they were taking,” he says. Hospital and physician prices are often extremely high and vary across institutions. These arbitrary high prices are a major driver of the increasingly unaffordable health care costs. For example, a Vitamin D blood test costs Rs 4,500 at a hospital in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, while the same costs Rs 2,700 at a reputed lab a two-minute walk away from it. Forty-two-year-old Goma Raut, who has been running a retail store in Battisputali, Kathmandu, for the past eight years, says everything is expensive and healthcare even more so. “If we fall ill, we have no option but to surrender to our fates,” she says. Raut laments that the government only takes from its people and doesn’t provide anything in return. “There are rules we must follow and taxes that we must pay while the government does as it pleases,” she says. “Is it even monitoring how private hospitals are run?” Renuka Thapa, 49, who works as a maid, took up two additional jobs after her husband’s death due to Covid. This means she has to work at five different homes every day. She doesn’t have a single day off. Though she has managed to pay off the loans she took to foot her husband’s medical bills, she has no savings. The money she makes is spent on rent and food. She struggles to pay her children’s school fees. Her eldest son has asthma and she worries about what she will do if he falls ill and she has to take him to the hospital. “I can’t afford healthcare on top of all our daily expenses. It’s way too costly,” she says, adding most doctors don’t even attend to their patients properly. Government-run hospitals are poorly managed and private hospitals seem to bill you for the air you breathe while you are there, she adds. An ophthalmologist who has been practicing for over 40 years refused to hike his fees when it went up from Rs 450 to Rs 850 in 2021. Many of his patients wouldn’t be able to spend an additional Rs 500 per visit, he said. Six months ago, he started charging Rs 650 but he says that is as high as he will ever go, even when he spends at least 10 minutes with a patient. But not all medical practitioners think that way and that’s perhaps where the problem lies.  

Nepal can leapfrog legacy technology and networks and follow many emerging economies to rapidly improve digital connectivity across the country. In fact, several efforts from both the government and the private sector are underway to expand digital connectivity, provide customers with more value, and encourage more technology-enabled innovation and entrepreneurship. The regulatory and policy environment must reflect these aspirations and goals. Reforms and institutional design need to focus on methods to expand and maximize consumer welfare. How can Nepal improve connectivity to benefit more people at the base of the pyramid? I discuss three priority areas to start with, focusing mainly on the end consumer and a human-centric perspective. Coverage and quality Nepali companies and the government have made considerable progress over the past decade to improve internet connectivity. Telecommunication services grew over the pandemic and the government, through the Rural Telecom Development Fund (RTDF), began investing to expand coverage to households and institutions such as government offices, schools, and hospitals. Households subscribing to fixed broadband increased from 7 percent in 2018 to 33 percent by the end of 2021; almost 90 percent of those were fiber optic connections.  According to the 2021 census data, 73 percent of households have a phone, 38 percent have internet access, and 15 percent have a computer or a laptop. At the same time, differences in telecom coverage and device ownership between urban and rural areas are stark; women and other vulnerable members in households typically have less access to a phone, leave alone the internet. Nepal is yet to meet its goal of 90 percent broadband penetration. Infrastructure sharing is one area that can improve coverage and quality of broadband networks, while maximizing citizen welfare. In the same way, the Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA), Nepal’s telecommunications regulatory authority, has introduced and set interconnection charge and protocol among wireless voice operators and enabled voice interoperability, similar regulations are now vital. Rather than engaging in costly tower building, regulations can encourage wireless operators to lease and share tower infrastructure with each other. They can then improve the coverage and quality quickly and cheaply. If fixed broadband players share their infrastructure, they can collectively invest in high-speed fiber optic networks in more areas of the country. A new telecommunications act may open pathways to enabling these new models, while also mobilizing private investment. With the guiding principle of consumer welfare, this can have a massive impact on accelerating high-quality internet coverage. Affordability When it comes to entry-level data plans, Nepali telecommunication and internet services are within the affordability standards of the UN Broadband Commission at 5 percent of average monthly income (GNI per capita). The commission has introduced 2025 targets for entry level plans (at least 1GB) to be less than 2 percent of monthly GNI per capita.  According to the Alliance for Affordable Internet, Nepal is within the affordability threshold for fixed and wireless broadband, but the country can do better.  If operational issues and costs hampering the sector are reduced, savings could be passed directly to end-consumers. However, mobile broadband data costs are relatively higher per unit in comparison to fixed broadband. If Nepal is to achieve wireless data affordability targets, we need to incentivize more competition and investment into the wireless telecom sector. Importantly, the government must accept that telecommunications infrastructure, unlike large projects in energy, require regular investment and upgrade because of the advancements in the underlying technologies that enable the network. Policy reforms related to local ownership requirements and licensing fees must reflect goals to expand competition and encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) to help improve the country’s wireless network, service quality, and next-generation capabilities. These upgrades will help Nepal to hit the UN Broadband Commission’s 2025 goals. In fixed broadband, on the other hand, data costs have been driven lower because Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been able to piggyback off affordable equipment and the Nepal Electricity Authority’s (NEA) established electricity distribution infrastructure. However, investments have been overlapping. Industry players point out that existing fixed-broadband service coverage in Nepal could have been achieved with half or even quarter of the current accumulated aggregate level of capital expenditure. Again, savings made through sharing of infrastructure could be passed to consumers. Two other features of Nepal’s internet sectors are the relatively high international internet costs because of insufficient collective bargaining from our service providers, as well as excessively high government taxes on internet service providers. Both are contributing to creating a sector that may be characterized with low financial viability and little incentive for innovation. Value-added services (VAS) While the overarching investment focus of the government is currently on hardware infrastructure and connectivity, value-added services can further advance the goal of internet coverage. I am referring less to the legal definition of VAS under the telecommunications act, a category under which most ISPs fall into, but in general to services that can complement internet and voice telecom services. VAS are enhanced or improved services provided over telecommunication networks other than core network services. These are services from content providers, network aggregators, application providers, etc. In Nepal (rural areas and urban peripheries in particular), there is a need for services that contribute toward socio-economic development. With greater internet access, more people have signed on to social media and now have better access to information. By producing and monetizing online digital content, many Nepalis have also started doing well in the Creator Economy. However, connectivity goals must also focus on enhancing financial literacy and cybersecurity, better health and educational outcomes, and more opportunities for entrepreneurship. Rural broadband programs currently under execution in Nepal provide free physical broadband connections and free internet access; they are great starter programs to digitally connect more of the population. But Nepal needs internet access to improve tangible socio-economic indicators and contribute to economic prosperity. It is remarkable that the average 35-year-old woman in Nepal's mid-hills can go online and use Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube today. However, she and her family should also be able to use digital financial services, tele-health services, online education for the children, and improve marketability of whatever the family produces. Conclusion In the past few years, significant effort in Nepal has gone toward improving access to internet connectivity. This is a welcome effort, and one that needs to continue. Policymakers and regulators exploring reforms to the telecom sector and other sectors focused on service-delivery must place consumer welfare as the guiding principle for these reforms. Such focus can make regulations more dynamic and forward-looking, especially for industries prone to disruption. The author, a Senior Fellow with the Nepal Economic Forum, leads Digital Chautari, a platform to facilitate conversations on creating a Digital Nepal     

The government has brought an ordinance to take action against loan sharks. President Ram Chandra Paudel issued the ordinance presented by the government on Wednesday. The President’s Office said that Paudel issued the Ordinance to Amend Some Nepal Acts Related to the Civil Code 2080. A cabinet meeting on Tuesday had decided to send the ordinance to the president to resolve the problems of loan shark victims. The government has introduced an ordinance to criminalize loan sharking and make it legally punishable. Bringing the ordinance, the government is amending the Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Code, Civil Code, and Civil Procedure Code. The government has already formed a commission to address the loan sharking issue. A cabinet meeting on April 3 had formed the commission under the leadership of the former Chairman of the Special Court, Gauri Bahadur Karki. Former Assistant Inspector General of Nepal Police Uttam Bahadur Subedi and former Deputy Attorney General Ganesh Babu Aryal are the other members of the commission. The Karki-led commission has recently requested that loan shark victims submit their applications to the commission. Issuing a notice last Thursday, the commission requested the victims of predatory lending to file their applications within 15 days starting from Sunday. The commission has said that victims can register their applications online or through district administration offices with the necessary proof. The commission, formed as per a five-point agreement reached with loan shark victims on April 1, has been given three months to prepare a report and recommend solutions to resolve the problems of loan shark victims. The commission has opened its office in Janakpur, the capital of Madhesh Province, as it will be easier for the victims to share their problems. Most of the loan shark victims are from districts of the Terai region. The government and the victims on April 1, had also reached an agreement to expedite the process to amend the laws to criminalize unscrupulous lending. Currently, loan sharking is essentially categorized as an offense under the civil code. In this condition, the victims have to fight the deep-pocketed loan sharks alone. However, the acts of blackmailing, extortion, and other exploitations in the guise of loan sharking fall under criminal offenses. A report prepared by a task force formed by the government last year after a similar agitation launched by loan shark victims pointed out how the case filed by the loan sharks against the borrowers put the borrowers at a disadvantage.