Submit your Article

The vote counts of Nov 20 elections are over. The Election Commission is likely to make an official announcement of the results sometime next week.  Nepali voters this time have dealt a surprise blow to the major political parties, particularly those championing communist ideology. CPN-UML, a prominent leftist party that had won 80 seats under first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system in 2017 elections, secured just 44 seats this time. The party also dropped its seat numbers under the proportional representation category (PR), securing just 34 slots. It had won 41 PR seats in the previous elections. UML’s only consolation is that it got the largest number of PR votes.  The poll outcome was even worse for CPN (Maoist Center). The party that had won 36 FPTP seats in 2017 elections could not even eke out half the number this time. Its strength also took a hit under the PR vote count.   After the 2017 elections, the UML and Maoist together had 174 seats in the 275-member House of Representative. The combined seats won by all the communist parties, including the CPN (Unified Socialist) and Rastriya Janamorcha, cannot even form a simple majority this time. Political analyst Puranjan Acharya says big communist parties like the UML and Maoist Center lost a substantial number of votes this time due to party splits and intra-party betrayal.  “Other reasons behind their downward spiral is their failure to deliver when they were in power after the 2017 polls.”  Although Nepali Congress fared better to become the largest party, there is no reason to rejoice. It won 57 FPTP seats (34 more than last time) but dropped the PR numbers winning only 32 seats against 40 in 2017.   Analyst Chandra Dev Bhatta says the rise of the middle-class is also a major reason behind the fall of communist parties in Nepal.  “When they were in power, they failed to convert their high-sounding rhetoric into a reality,” he says. “The decline of communist forces is a global phenomenon. The power of the red flag is fading.”   The only parties to get the last laugh were the newly formed Rastriya Swatantra Party and the Hindu right-wing Rastriya Prajatantra Party. They drew votes from all three major parties—NC, UML and Maoists. They will have a critical role in the government formation process.

Nepal Telecom has been incurring a daily loss of around Rs 9m because of its outdated billing processing system. The convergent real time billing system that is currently in use doesn’t account for 10 percent of the total daily call bills, which is around Rs 90m. An official says despite the heavy revenue loss, the telecom management is not in favor of discontinuing the faulty system. In fact, some senior officials in the management are bent on upgrading the existing billing system instead of getting a new one. “With the cost of upgrading the CRTB, the telecom could easily buy the latest system,” says the official. The current billing system was bought from AsianInfo, a China-based telecommunications service provider, and runs on software developed by Oracle. A highly placed source at telecom says that Nepal-based agents for these two companies, Araniko and World Distribution Nepal, have colluded with the senior management officials of the telecom company to continue the existing billing system. It is said Sunil Poudel, the managing director of telecom, and some senior political leaders are also involved in the scheme, so that AsianInfo can continue to provide hardware support. The source tells ApEx that the telecom is planning to allocate Rs 3bn to upgrade its existing billing system. “If you get the latest billing system from the world’s leading company, it should cost not more than Rs 3.5bn,” says the source. “AsianInfo is not even on the list of top telecommunication solution provider companies, so why is this company getting an undue favor?” Although a board meeting of the telecom in July last year had decided to invite a tender for procurement of a billing system, the management has refused to implement the decision. “The current system could crash anytime, but Poudel and other senior officials are not ready to introduce a new billing system,” says the source. “Nepal Telecom is losing billions in revenue due to the vested interest of a few senior officials, politicians and businesspersons.” For now plans to upgrade the existing billing system have been halted at the directive of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority. The anti-graft body has already conducted its preliminary investigation into potential irregularities that might have taken place when the telecom decided to upgrade the existing billing system. Based on the investigation, the commission has directed the telecom to cease the process of upgrading its billing system. “The commission has instructed Nepal Telecom to follow due procedure and invite a tender for billing system procurement,” says Shyam Prasad Bhandari, spokesperson at the commission.

First, a shoutout to all translators around the world. Thanks to them, those who primarily read in English get to enjoy all sorts of stories from across cultures and countries. Philip Gabriel is an American translator mostly known for his translations of Haruki Murakami’s books (‘Kafka on the Shore’, ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’, ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’, among others) and of works by Nobel Prize-winner Kenzaburō Ōe (‘Somersault’). He also translated one of my absolute favorite books, ‘The Traveling Cat Chronicles’ by Hiro Arikawa—a story about a man and his adopted cat traveling across Japan, as narrated by the cat. I was browsing through a local bookstore when I came across ‘Lonely Castle in the Mirror’ by Mizuki Tsujimura. Apparently, she’s a well-known author of bestselling mystery novels in Japan. But I was reading something else at that moment and had a few more books on my TBR pile at home. I had no intention of buying more books (as readers often tell themselves when they mindlessly enter a bookstore). I was just killing time while my takeaway was getting ready at the restaurant next to it. But I was fascinated by the blurb. And then I found out that Gabriel had translated it. The protagonist Kokoro hasn’t been to school in a while. Her mother is trying to convince her to join a new one but Kokoro just can’t bring herself to step out of the house. Then one day, the mirror in her room starts glowing. Through the mirror, she is transported into a castle where she meets six other children who, for reasons of their own, aren’t going to school either. There they meet the Wolf Queen—a strange girl in a wolf mask—who sets them on a mission: to find the wishing room and the key that unlocks it. The one who does so will be granted a wish, she tells them. It’s an interesting story. It also deals with important issues like bullying and mental health. The writing isn’t bad. The characters are well-fleshed out. But something about the execution of the plot doesn’t feel right. It starts off really slow, with the children getting to know one another and traveling back and forth between their homes and the castle. There’s a laid back approach to storytelling up until more than halfway through the book. And then, suddenly, the writer decides to wrap up the story and rushes through it. There isn’t a natural progression to events. That way, the ending feels forced. Two and a half stars Lonely Castle in the Mirror Mizuki Tsujimura Translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel Published: 2021 Publisher: Penguin Random House UK Pages: 354, Paperback

‘Goodbye’, a movie that was recently released on Netflix, gives us another reason not to believe in box office collections while judging a movie. Written and directed by Vikas Bahl, the Hindi-language family comedy-drama was a box office disaster. But with its OTT release, I’m hoping the movie, its makers, and all those involved in its production get their due respect and recognition. Why am I showering accolades on a movie at the very beginning of a review? Because the team behind ‘Goodbye’ deserves every bit of praise. Goodbye is a family film that centers around a dysfunctional family and the death of a much-loved matriarch. The movie then goes on to explore the dynamics between the family members and the society they belong to. At the start of the movie, we’re introduced to lawyer Tara Bhalla, who is partying at a club after winning her first-ever case. But when she wakes up to the doorbell the next morning, the news she hears shocks her out of all the joviality. She finds out that her mother has passed and that her father Harish Bhalla (Amitabh Bachchan) has been trying to reach her all night. The first phone conversation between the father and the daughter sets the entire tone of the movie. With the exception of a few moments of light-hearted hilarity in between, Goodbye is a somber movie. Yet, it’s not as dark as its subject could have led it to be. After the news of their mother Gayatri’s (Neena Gupta) death makes it to her children, all of them gather at their old house to console their father and prepare for her funeral. This event becomes a coming-of-age spectacle for the audience where they see each character evolve into a different person as s/he struggles to cope with what is clearly a trying time. One look at writer/director Bahl’s filmography will tell you a lot about his capability of telling stories of very normal people in our society. And here, despite their respective stardom, the legend Amitabh Bachchan and the currently popular Rashmika Mandanna (who plays Tara Bhalla) both play ordinary people with ordinary lives which are relatable and understandable. Out of his four children, Harish’s relationship is the most strained only with his daughter Tara. Harish is a strict father who wants to impose his rules and regulations on the family while Tara is the typical rebel who is always at loggerheads with her father’s decisions. This nagging and bickering between the father-daughter duo create the most interesting moments in the movie. The actors playing the respective roles embody the spirit of their characters and give believable performances. The conversations between them feel real and relatable, with the audience seeing the similarities and differences between their personalities. While Bachchan and Mandanna are powerful performers, the rest of the cast, which consists of quite a few new faces, matches up to them. In whatever little flashbacks she appears in, Gupta, as the mother of four grown children and a loving wife to Harish, is a treat to watch on screen. Also, the guest appearance of comedian Sunil Grover as Pandit ji—a philosophical Hindu priest—is something to watch out for in the movie. The major credit for the movie’s beauty, however, should go to the writer/director Bahl. The writing and direction of the film are just too good. Every character shines and scintillates in its respective aspects. Bahl creates a two-hour-long reel run on the death of an ordinary woman who died of natural causes and still keeps the audience glued to their screens. His writing has multiple layers that touch on individuals’ choices, societal norms, and Hindu myths and traditions. The message of the story stays intact despite dealing with such heavy themes. Bahl’s characters—big or small—have identities of their own and that’s what I love about certain filmmakers. They create multiple unique identities in the movie and make it memorable to the audience instead of just shining the spotlight on one or two main characters. Who should watch it? ‘Goodbye’ is a family drama anyone can enjoy with their family or even alone. The movie has some great moments that people can really relate to. If you are the emotional sort, Goodbye can be a real tear-jerker. Genre: Drama Run time: 2hrs 10mins Actors: Amitabh Bachchan, Neena Gupta, Rashmika Mandanna Director: Vikash Bahl Rating: 4 stars