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Nepal defeated the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by six wickets in their first match of the ACC Women’s T20 Asia Cup on Friday.

The match was held at the Dambulla International Stadium in Sri Lanka.

Chasing the target of 116 runs, Nepal made it in 16.1 overs at the loss of four wickets.

Samjhana Khadka was the top scorer for Nepal with 72 runs. She hit 11 fours in her 45-ball innings.

Likewise, Rubina Chhetri scored 10 runs while other batters failed to score in double digits.

For the UAE, Kavisha Egodage took three wickets while Lavanya Kenny claimed one wicket.

Invited to bat first after losing the toss, the UAE scored 115 runs at the loss of eight wickets in 20 overs.

Indu Barma took the highest three wickets for Nepal. Kritika Marasini, Sabnam Rai and Kabita Joshi claimed one wicket each.

Nepal will play their second match against Pakistan on July 21.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli faces a complex situation of challenges and opportunities as he begins his fourth stint as the Prime Minister. His ability to become Prime Minister with the support of one of those forces is his political victory. Oli’s most significant advantage in his fourth term lies in parliamentary politics as he enjoys a near two-thirds majority in the lower house. This offers him an opportunity to break the political deadlock that has hampered Nepal's progress and to address pressing national issues.

He also has formidable challenges to tackle. Foremost among these is the need to revitalize an economy battered by global headwinds and domestic instability. Oli must come up with programs and policies that stimulate growth, boost investor confidence, attract investment and create jobs, while also managing inflation and fiscal pressures. Another critical task is completing the transitional justice process. For this, he will need to work closely with the main opposition CPN (Maoist Center)—one of the parties to the decade-long insurgency. Oli needs to demonstrate statesmanship by ensuring a fair and comprehensive approach that addresses the concerns of conflict victims while also bringing perpetrators to book.

Oli also faces a daunting task of balancing relations with Nepal’s giant neighbors, India and China. His relationship with India soured in the latter stage of his second term. He needs to make every possible effort to improve ties with the southern neighbor, which also happens to be the country’s largest trading partner. Oli must take a consistent and balanced approach that safeguards Nepal’s interests while maintaining cordial ties with both powers. This extends to managing relations with other international partners, including the United States.

Oli must work to foster cordial relations with other political parties. While his collaboration with NC gives him numerical strength, he needs to foster cooperation and mend ties with other parties who are wary of him, given his past attempts at dissolving parliament. He also needs to build trust with state institutions. The septuagenarian can steer the country toward stability and progress by learning from past mistakes, embracing a collaborative approach and focusing on national priorities.

Dear readers,

This week, KP Sharma Oli, chairperson of CPN-UML, was sworn in as prime minister for the fourth time in his decades-long political career. He first became prime minister in 2015 during India’s economic blockade, led a communist government in 2018 with support from more than two-thirds of the parliament, and briefly served again in 2021.

Oli had not expected to return to power so soon. If the alliance between CPN (Maoist Center) and UML had continued, Pushpa Kamal Dahal might have handed power to Oli after two years. However, by allying with the largest party in the Parliament, the Nepali Congress, Oli returned to power this week. According to their agreement, he will hand over power to NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba after two years. Initially, the NC and UML had mooted a national unity government with the Maoist Center. The plan was to let Dahal lead for an additional year, then hand over to Oli, who would eventually pass the leadership back to Deuba. This proposal fell through as the NC and UML doubted Dahal. Including all major parties in a national unity government would have been ideal. 

Soon after his appointment Prime Minister Oli formed a 22-member cabinet without the delays seen in the past, which is a positive start. But the cabinet has faced scrutiny for its poor representation of women, Dalits and other marginalized communities. The new government's main priorities are stability, economic recovery and constitutional amendments. However, the agreement between the NC and UML has not been publicized, and the coalition has yet to present its Common Minimum Program (CMP). Oli is expected to outline the government’s policies and priorities during his address to the parliament on July 21, while seeking a vote of confidence. 

Major powers, including India, the US and China, have congratulated Oli on his appointment. Foreign ambassadors in Kathmandu are also visiting Singhadurbar to congratulate the new ministers. These powers are keenly awaiting the NC-UML coalition’s foreign policy blueprint. Observers are interested in how the two parties, with differing views on some issues, align their positions to present a unified message on bilateral and global matters. In the past, the UML has criticized the NC for failing to balance relations between India and China. 

Now, with the two parties working together, close coordination among the top leadership is essential to avoid contradictory messages. The newly-appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, Arzu Rana Deuba, has pledged to maintain balanced and cordial relations with major powers. Incidentally, Nepal established formal diplomatic relations with the Republic of Kiribati this week. Nepal now has formal diplomatic ties with 183 countries, which is a good thing. We hope Nepal’s diplomacy will further expand and prosper under Deuba’s tenure.

On the economic front, Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index hit a 26-month high and breached the psychological 2,300-point mark this week. The stock market rally coincided with UML Vice-chairperson Bishnu Prasad Poudel’s return to the finance ministry. While this stock market bump bodes well for Paudel, he still has a challenge of addressing some crucial issues, such as increasing capital expenditure, stimulating loan demand, boosting private confidence, and making the market dynamic.

How will the latest coalition government under Prime Minister Oli fare? It is too early to tell but Prime Minister Oli’s one-week in office leaves a lot to be desired. The prime minister has spent his first week attending public functions, rather than channelizing his time and energies on prime ministerial duties, especially at a time when the country is facing several challenges. As the leader of the country, Oli should inspire optimism among the people, restore faith in the government. 

In the coming weeks, people will closely watch the new government’s activities and performance. There is high hope that the government will take initiatives to improve the economy, create jobs, and inspire confidence in the populace about their future.

Meanwhile, out of power, CPN (Maoist Center) leader Dahal has started forming a strong opposition by bringing together fringe communist parties. This week, he organized a meeting with parties including CPN (Unified Socialist) led by Madhav Kumar Nepal. With the NC and UML forming a coalition, the opposition parties are in a weaker position in the parliament. Dahal aims to unite Maoist splinter groups to bolster his influence. When in power, Dahal often disregards these smaller parties, but out of power, he aligns with their agendas. 

In another story this week, a landslide swept away two buses and plunged them into a flood-swollen Trishuli River at Simaltal in Bharatpur Metropolitan City-29, Chitwan district. Of the 65 passengers, three survived, while 62 others were swept away. As of Thursday, authorities have managed to recover 18 bodies. The government has formed a committee to investigate and sought assistance from India, Bangladesh and other countries for rescue operations. 

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the deceased and those still missing in the tragic accident. Let’s hope the search operation is successful, and that the new government comes up with a solution to make our highways safer for travel, particularly during the monsoon season.      

That’s all for this week. 

Plastics have been an inevitable part of our daily life. From dawn to dusk, our hands are full of plastic materials. From the toothbrush to health and beauty products in the morning, and  mobile, laptop, and teacups we use throughout the day, are all made up of plastics. Plastics seem to have confined our daily activities and are playing a crucial role as we humans have been embracing them. Human dynamics would be in trouble if plastics get discarded instantly. The basic needs will crumble and the modern world would seem naked without plastics. Hence, there is no doubt, everything is interweaved in plastics.

Places with no apparent human activities are disturbed by plastic pollution. Plastics and its small particles have reached everywhere from the highest peak, Mt Everest to the bottom of the oceans. The pervasive presence of plastics has the potential to transform our once vibrant world into a lifeless one.

What happens to plastics in the long run?

Eventually, these plastics degrade and break into small pieces and the process continues further like mitosis. This transformation is due to physical, chemical or biological degradation. This process continues at a very slow rate and takes several hundred years depending on the properties of plastics. Even microscopic plastics have the same potential to disrupt the functioning of the environment in which they are present, or even more than their parent form. These microscopic plastics have a name: micro-nano-plastics!

What exactly is microplastics?

Micro-plastics are small particles of plastics having a thickness less than 5 mm. However, there is a misconception among people that microplastic are microscopic only, while they are visible through naked eyes as well. Other forms of microscopic plastics include nano plastics having a thickness less than 1 nanometer, which is approximately 40 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.  These microplastics come from our kitchen while chopping vegetables and fruits and scrape them off from a plastic chopping board or even from food packaging. 

Have you ever heard of a plastic polymer, Teflon? It is used in non-stick cookware. 

Under every circumstance, our habits are generally engrained in plastics which ultimately has caused the expulsion of microplastics in the environment. 

Is microplastic everywhere?

Delving into five of our basic needs into consideration: air, water, food, clothes and shelter, we can in a way find them exposed with the microplastics. We are already  aware that the air we breathe is massively polluted. According to the research carried out in surface road dust in three cities, higher microplastics were observed in commercial areas like shops and restaurants. Among the study areas, higher concentration of microplastic was observed in Da Nang and Kathmandu as compared to Kusats in surface road dust. Even in the Polar Regions where human dominance is less or absent , plastic pollution levels have been increasing alarmingly. 

Human tissues and organs are contaminated with microplastics. Scientists from the Netherlands found microplastic in human blood with a dominant Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) polymer. A study carried out in the USA proved that microplastics have been transferred through the food chain and food web within the trophic structures. Although microplastics are omnipresent and omnipotent, it is beyond the scope of estimation. It’s all because micro-plastics are heterogeneous and do not have uniform spatial distribution. What do you think are the other reasons? 

Footprint of plastics and microplastics

Plastics have reached wherever humans had left their footprint. Even the arctic region has been facing plastic pollution issues. Among the seven continents, all of the continents are found to have been contaminated by microplastics. Antarctica being one of the globally important regions for carbon sink and indicator region for Climate Change, is potentially under threat due to overwhelming plastic pollution. According to one research carried out in Antarctica, microplastics of nylon and polyethylene polymer were dominant in the benthic macroinvertebrates. This shows that there is a higher probability of transfer of microplastics to higher trophic level through the food web/ food chain. However, a detailed research is missing on distribution, transfer and accumulation of micro-plastics over ecosystems.  

Plastics for birds: Boon or curse?

We’ve been witnessing incidents where fish get entangled in plastic nets and marine animals ingest plastics. Have you ever witnessed such incidents? Maybe not. However, one of my friends shared that she rescued Barn Swallow, a common neighborhood bird near houses in hills of Nepal, from the scrambled polythene bags on a road. You might have seen it atleast on social media. It is evident that bird entanglement occurs in plastic materials. Adding more to this, plastic entanglements are also observed inside the body of birds in guts, stomach, gastro-intestinal tracts, etc. Many researches show the presence of microplastics inside the body of birds. Even the lungs seem to be contaminated by microplastics by inhalation through air according to few researches. Polypropylene, polyethylene, and ethylene vinyl acetate are the major dominant polymer types found in the lungs of avifauna in Japan. Gut obstruction and subsequent starvation are health issues observed in France due to micro-plastics contamination on birds. Ever since, plastics are now nesting materials for birds, majorly in urban areas. The study carried out in Spain found that the rate of mortality and predation was higher in nests made from plastic materials than nests free from plastics. It may herald that Predators get attracted to the vibrant colors of plastics.

Are microplastic harmful?

While delving deeper, exploring the occurrence, abundance, and distribution of microplastics across different layers is a significant advancement. However, it remains crucial to urgently investigate and understand the impact of microplastic contamination on the environment and, ultimately, human health. Some research revealed that humans on longer exposure to micro-plastics through either air, water or food can face a challenge of loss of bone tissue, liver and lungs inflammation and cancer, change in metabolic activities and many abnormalities. The facial products with microplastics can enhance the rate of penetration of UV rays through skin tissues as well. One of the research exposed that even the neurological and reproductive activities get altered if we are exposed to certain chemicals contaminated by plastic polymers. Once the health of humans, the guardian of the Earth, is under threat due to microplastics, the future shall be insane. So, we must call for action as micro-plastics taint its pristine zones and devastate the ecosystem as a whole where the Earth seems to be lifeless.

The global organizer of the World Earth Day has announced the theme as Planet vs Plastics for the year 2024 with the aim of reducing 60 percent of plastics by 2040 and creating a plastic-free Earth. “All this plastic was produced by a petrochemical industry with an abysmal record of toxic emissions, spills, and explosions,” said Denis Hayes, a Chair Emeritus of earthday.org. Although if the plastic production ceased, the remnant plastics over the Earth that have been produced and distributed so far seems very difficult to manage. Attempting to reduce the use of single-use plastics and the application of circular economy is a way further to enhance the green environment. Several advances in the contemporary approach  of 3 R’s principles have been driven drastically by several global environmental issues. One of the reasons is plastic pollution and its solution.