Submit your Article

The Nepali rulers confined to Kathmandu neglected Limpiyadhura, Lipukeh, and Kalapani area from the very beginning. In time, the Indian Army occupied this area following the 1962 India-China War. Due to vested interests, Nepali rulers never opposed the illegal occupation. Despite having legal proofs, it never raised the issue publicly. But after over 60 years, Nepal is now trying to get back its territory. As India also claims the same territory, the dispute is likely to escalate. Unless Nepal convinces India logically, it will not agree to return the land; Nepal needs to channel its resources wisely to convince India. 

Separately, the open border issue has become more confrontational than accommodative. The 1,880-km open border become more troublesome for Nepal compared to India, which is much larger than Nepal in terms of population and economy. Both countries have a migrant workforce from the other, but the Indian establishment presents it as if Nepal’s economy is solely dependent on the money its workers send from India. Quite the contrary: a recent report reveals that Indian laborers take home Rs 300 billion every year in remittances from Nepal. Besides, India imports large quantities of natural resources, herbs, and minerals from Nepal, and sends back finished goods. The trade deficit between the two countries is vast, in India’s favor. 

Being landlocked, Nepal has suffered many trade embargoes for political reasons. The Indian hegemony has made Nepal turn to China for trade diversity, which has been wrongly interpreted by the Indian establishment as Nepal playing China card. Ridiculously, Indian defense minister and army chief have tagged Nepal’s claim over the Kalapani region as coming from China.

India claims to be giving shelter to over five million Nepali citizens. But Nepal gives shelter to even more Indian citizens, thanks to the open border. After the Maoist rebellion in around 2006-07, four million Indians acquired Nepali citizenship. Under the National Register of Citizens mandated by the 2003 amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955, India is planning to deport non-Indians residing in the country after 2014. Many Nepalis could also be deported under this provision. If so, Nepal will have to manage them. It may need to copy the Indian provision of citizenship only after seven years of marriage, as has been proposed.  

Although Nepal is rich in natural resources, it cannot utilize them as a result of its inability to create a competitive market. Due to the open border and Nepal’s inability to control cross-border smuggling, Indian products monopolize Nepali markets. The Roti Beti (‘bread and daughter’) and Khun ka Rista (‘blood relations’) rhetoric dominate the border areas that are mostly populated by Indian migrants. The whole politics in the Tarai region is based on open border. That is why even the Eminent Persons Group report is pending execution. 

There are two ways Indians look at Nepal: through the British East India Company lens that Nehru inherited, and through the Hindu lens. The Nehru doctrine is popular among Indian bureaucrats who see the Himalayas as a natural barrier to China. Tibet is considered a buffer against invading forces from Central Asia and even China. This doctrine seeks US support in countering China if it invades South Asia. Indian bureaucrats try to influence the ruling BJP on it. The Hindu lens is a bit different, as it tries to impose religious dogma and make Nepal a satellite state like Bhutan. Both schools of thought have a common goal, only their modus operandi is different.

Nepal is the oldest country in South Asia with full independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Due to vested interest of its autocratic rulers to prolong their regime with the support of neighbors, it has fallen into trap many times. This also resulted in Indian occupation of Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh, and Kalapani. Otherwise, why didn’t anyone try to reclaim the lost territories in all these years even though Nepal had plenty of evidence in its favor? 

To get back captured territories, India needs to be persuaded on talks. The Modi government is likely to adopt a policy of ‘silent diplomacy’ against Nepal so as to exhaust it. In that case, Nepal needs to use its soft powers by integrating the country's intellectual, political, economic, and military powers. Tactful diplomacy is the way to go about it. 

The author is a scholar of security and strategic studies 

How has Nepal preserved its independence for over 250 years despite its precarious geopolitical positioning? Multiple factors may be at play, their importance ranked in line with your political persuasion and understanding of international relations. Traditionally, one such factor was the ability of Nepali rulers to maintain a delicate balance between India and China. Whenever Nepal felt threatened by India (or by British India), it sought Chinese support to protect its sovereignty, and vice versa. When, at the end of the 1940s, Kathmandu felt this balance was proving untenable, it looked to Western powers for help.

In this process, after the British (1816), in 1947 the US became only the second country to establish diplomatic relations with Nepal, followed by France (1949) and the Russian federation (1956). The US was also the second country to recognize Nepal as a sovereign entity, again after the British. The latter-day Rana rulers realized their rule in Nepal could be prolonged only with a third-country support. It was also the only way to ensure Nepal’s continued independence between India and China, both of which sought to consolidate their territories around the time of Indian independence in 1947.

Rulers of a country precariously sandwiched, not just between two growing powers but between two civilizations, have to, perforce, be flexible in their foreign dealings. Fixed notions and ideologies are of little use for Nepali rulers who need to be perpetually on their toes. Yet we now have a communist government that exhibits a clear bias in favor of its ideological cousin to the north. 

Perhaps no other government in Nepal’s democratic history has as keenly felt the need to diversify away from India. And rightly so. Overreliance on one power is fraught with danger. This applies as much to our relations with India as with China. The 2015-16 blockade created an enormous mass in favor of closer ties with China to balance India. KP Oli-led communist coalition rode to power by cashing on this optics. 

Yet the hard logic of geography—and the cultural and socio-economic similarities it entails—inextricably twines the future of Nepal and India, for better or worse. The goal should thus be to reduce our overreliance on India rather than trying to search for its alternative as our ‘special’ partner. 

Our government issues a statement in favor of China’s crackdown on Hong Kong; our foreign minister is busy rebutting ‘hoaxes’ around the BRI in hit tweets. But when was the last time Nepal issued a statement that was even remotely pro-India? Better, why can’t we be neutral? 

That is not the only problem. Most of the NCP leaders seem to believe that Nepal can do without all other powers bar China. Take the current ruckus over the MCC compact. I have myself been highly skeptical of the MCC process and its murky relations to the ‘military’ Indo-Pacific Strategy. As much as I hesitate to unconditionally support the compact, I am in its favor as good relations with the US are in Nepal’s interest. This is also because the compact is vague enough to be interpreted in our favor.

Ideology cannot come in the way of national interest. India and China are on the brink of an all-out war. What if we are asked to take sides by India (because of the Gurkha regiments) or by China (Oli government’s unconditional backer)? Who will we then ask to get us out of this impossible predicament? Who are our friends besides our two neighbors whose voice counts on the international stage? 

Our future lies not in our confinement within Indian or Chinese spheres but in embodying the spirit of diversification that the Oli government claims—unjustifiably till date—as its central foreign policy plank. 

Fifty-four African nations have called on UN Human Rights Council to have an urgent debate on police brutality and racially inspired human rights violations. The letter asks for the debate to be held next week.

The militarization of the police and imprisonment of African-Americans go back to slavery. White supremacy—the notion of white culture being supreme over others—is part of the hegemonic cultural narrative of the US. This narrative has enabled militarized violence over minority groups, including Native Americans and Latinos.

Black Lives Matter has opened the door. The UN should now open an extended investigation into America’s crimes against humanity. Since the end of the Second World War, the deep state and military-industrial complex of the US has terrorized the globe. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Cambodia to Laos, the same logic of white supremacy and economic and technological domination has led to the deaths of millions. Cuba, Iran and North Korea suffer and starve under the US economic sanctions.

America has been implicated in the conflicts in the Gulf, the Middle East and Africa, with mercenary troops and friendly nations acting as fronts for proxy wars.

Agencies such as the CIA have carried out assassinations and torture. But the CIA is a known institution. More sinister are the covert agencies whose purposes are unknown, conducting scientific experiments with no ethical guidelines.

Scientists are already capable of wiring up people’s brains to computers, with the purpose of downloading thoughts. If mobilized against opponents, this technology would bring about perpetual slavery through mind-control. This is a violation of bodily integrity that even the slaveholders of the 18^th century could not have imagined. And yet Elon Musk’s Neuralink is a reality, celebrated as a tech “innovation” that will change the world. The inherent fascistic nature of the tech-industrial complex has done little to harm him or other tech magnates. Tesla’s stocks continue to rise exponentially behind smoke and mirrors of Wall Street. We are made to think of this as a social good, not the acme of the fascist panopticon.

In April 2015, the Large Hadron Collider, based in CERN, Geneva, “accelerated protons to the fastest speed ever attained on Earth,” Symmetry Magazine reported. Superconducting magnets were involved, 6.5 TeV of energy was generated. At the same time, a powerful quake shook Nepal, killing 10,000, injuring 22,000 (me amongst them), and making 400,000 homeless. America contributed $531 million to the Large Hadron Collider project. Around 1,700 American scientists worked on the LHC research, more than any other nation’s, says CERN’s website. These two events are connected. This is not a matter to be dismissed as “conspiracy theory,” although that strategy has worked brilliantly in the past. Now the time has come for careful legal investigation through the auspices of international institutions. 

All these crimes against humanity were enabled by the propaganda of the US as a human rights defender, a fierce supporter of democracy, and a beacon of freedom. None of this is true. Democratic regimes were removed via coups and brutal military dictatorships put in their places, as in Latin America. The true purpose was to remove indigenous people from their land and have that land be taken over by multinational corporations of America.

America has used China’s state violence against Uighurs to protest the dangers of Chinese fascism. While chilling, it doesn’t compare to what America is doing. One million Uyghurs are incarcerated in Xinjiang re-education camps. “In 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34 percent, of the total 6.8 million correctional population,” says the NAACP’s criminal justice fact sheet.

With Black Lives Matter mass protests, the world has spoken: the racialized violence of the American state must end.

African-Americans face the possibility of being choked, electro-shocked or killed as they go about their lives. A white policeman can kill a black man or woman, in their own homes or while going about their daily business, at any time.

We have no idea how many times this same kind of impunity has played out internationally, in deserts of Afghanistan and darkened streets of Iraq with no cameras present. How many people have the Americans killed, covertly and overtly, with technology as yet un-explicated in law books? How many people has it driven to suicide?

America’s narrative of its own ethical goodness has silenced all opposition. An institution as aware of international law as the UN sees no legal doorway to the crimes against humanity committed by the American troops, agents and covert institutions over 75 years. Now the time has come to take apart that myth. The UN must work together to put every single war crimes criminal before the long arm of the law. It is time for the trial of the century to start.

Dennis Adonis in his article Digital Disruption: Cause and Effect defines digital disruption in commerce “as a radical break from the existing processes in an industry due to new internet-enabled business models that are shaking up established industry structures”. Pretty much the same applies to the education industry. The education industry of Nepal is at an accelerated pace of digital disruption, and teachers are mentally unprepared to adopt digital technologies in the teaching-learning process. Schools, colleges, and universities are undecided on whether to adopt a new digital platform to serve students, or wait for a new normal to resume traditional teaching methods. 

During this lockdown, I took 50 online classes for nearly 200 MBA students. I also spent 10 hours training 32 graduate-level teachers, and another 10 hours training 150 secondary level teachers to use Virtual Learning Management Systems and techniques, which are a must for fruitful online interaction with students. I am also a daily witness of my son’s online classes. On this basis, I can say that we are close to adopting a fully digital, or a hybrid model that includes both digital as well as traditional ways.

Digital disruption has changed the administration, as IT is now an integral part of government-funded agencies as well as public and private firms. What kind of changes it will bring to the education industry, is still an open question. The first challenge for education institutions is to prepare for academic operations and support to be provided to students. The second challenge is deciding the digital content to be delivered, and the third, to strategize what to do and what not to. 

As the government has encouraged the use of FM radios, televisions, internet, and other internet-based technologies to engage students, the industry is in a dilemma about the most effective method. There has been no research in this regard. Whatever the means, the challenge for us is to deliver knowledge and skills to students through our patchy internet connectivity and scant resources for online classes. How feasible are online classes in our context, is still a big question.

Are we ready to use innovative technologies and new models to transform our education system? If yes, it is not possible in isolation. Interdependence to transform resources into results, with the ultimate goal of revenue maximization or cost-cutting, is a must among schools and colleges. They must come together to sort out technical tasks to automate functions in digital teaching-learning practices. But the bitter truth is that Nepal lags in digital disruption due to high levels of dependency on foreign applications and service providers. 

It is high time to start believing that learning management systems can be designed, developed, and implemented on our own. For that we need to be capable of implementing and maintaining critical infrastructures and responding to attacks from intruders. A recent attack on websites of our schools and colleges by an India-based company puts a question mark over our preparedness. Also, hacking of private and public sites and information systems are common. 

In the education sector, most service providers specialize in integrating software from global vendors to existing IT infrastructure, for example, Google Classroom, Moodle, Zoom, Microsoft Team, etc. Rarely is a software made in Nepal and made by Nepalis in line with the country's needs. At some point, this kind of dependence is going to be costly for Nepal. Neither is the government focused on open source nor on its own proprietary systems. Software companies are not encouraged on this either. Private consultancies draft new policies and guidelines for clients and assist them in training their staff. The government has no role in this whatsoever. 

There is a need for a paradigm shift in our education system, with IT as its integral part. Skill-based certification courses will be in high demand in the near future. Yet the Ministry of Education continues to make important subjects like mathematics and computer optional. There are many training institutes, software companies, universities, and colleges offering IT courses in Nepal. But is there a mismatch between the content and the competence of trainers and learners and the requirements of the firms. 

The instructors must consider a few things while taking online courses. Start with a few topics and cover them in depth. Cover three topics instead of five, don’t compare online class with traditional class, and keep calibrating your expectations based on student feedback. 

Teachers must be flexible as the same teaching plan and course activities may not work everywhere. A class size of 45 at most is ideal to maintain intimacy with students. Body language is important, so make sure to ask your students to turn on their cameras or the energy level of the class will soon flag. Before starting online class, establish clear norms. 

There is no harm in asking your students to be professionally attired, to keep their phones way, to resist from responding to emails, chats, and social media communication. If we don’t know our students in terms of their academic records, social backgrounds, personal experiences, and hobbies, the probability of failure is high. Encouraging students to share screens increases interactivity, while asking them to summarize content makes them alert and active. But the teaching techniques depend not just on instructor capabilities but also on the type of learning management system adopted.

Before adopting any application software, consider its cost of capital by factoring in the increasing cost of upgrades, licensing, and security maintenance. The education industry has to bear the costs of software, hardware, training, and change management and, most significantly, of reengineering the teaching-learning process. We are rapidly digitizing but failing to develop human and knowledge capital. Is this not a collective responsibility of the government, intellectuals, universities, and colleges to prepare for digital disruption in education systems? The government lacks a clear roadmap on this. Yet this is by no means just government business. 

The author is an engineer and a Senior Assistant Professor and Program Head for BCIS program at Apex College, Mid-Baneshwor, Kathmandu