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Nepal is home to three species of bears, namely the Black bear, Brown bear and the Sloth bear distributed across Himalayan, mountain and Tarai regions, respectively. Among these three members of the Ursidae family, Sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), commonly called ‘Kathe Bhal’ in Nepal, is facing existential crisis highlighting the need for more tailored conservation actions.

Distribution and biology

Sloth bears are found primarily in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. In Nepal, Sloth bears are distributed along the Tarai and Chure regions of Nepal mostly below the 1,500 meter elevation range. Sloth bears inhabit different habitat ranges, including grassland, moist evergreen forest, riverine forest and Sal forest.

Sloth bears are omnivorous, primarily feeding on termites, ants and insects. They use their front teeth to dig for catching their food, which makes them myrmecophagy mammals. Sloth bears also feed on fruits, flowers and climb trees to hunt for honeycombs. By consuming the termites and ants, this species helps balance the ecosystem apart from helping with seed dispersal, regeneration of plants and creating suitable conditions for seed germination. Furthermore, it also supports the structure and composition of forests.  

Conservation

Though nationally-endangered, sloth bears have yet to get conservation attention in Nepal. Most of Nepal’s sloth bears inhabit Chitwan National Park enjoying a protected habitat, apart from Parsa National Park, Bardiya National Park, Banke National Park and Suklaphanta National Park, forests in Dhanusha and Deukhuri valley in Dang and Triyuga forest in eastern Nepal, which is the second largest habitat of the species in the country. 

As many of these habitats are near the sites with high human population density, the frequency of encounters between the species and the humans is high. Such encounters are largely undocumented. Increasing dependency of communities on natural resources, especially on forests in the Tarai region, has caused a decline in the population of this mammal. 

Anthropogenic threats including habitat loss—due to fragmentation and deforestation—overharvesting and use as dancing bears are leading causes of this decline. 

Furthermore, body parts of this species are in demand internationally for ‘medicinal purposes’ and this factor is triggering the trapping, hunting and trafficking of the species’ body parts. 

The species seems to be moving toward the core area of the jungle due to an increasing exploitation of resources in its habitat. 

Recent instances of the species’ extirpation in Bangladesh, Bhutan and Suklaphanta National Park of Nepal suggest the need for an appropriate conservation action plan.

Normally in our country, charismatic species like the Tiger, Rhino and the Elephant have been prioritized for conservation, while the rest live in the shadows. Nevertheless, conservation is the process that must emphasize conserving biodiversity and embracing the ecosystem as an entire system, demonstrating that it is not selective toward any particular species. 

But our conservation rules and regulations seem to be species-oriented, despite the fact that every species has a role to maintain the ecosystem and that declination and increasing extirpation of the species are signs of an unfavorable ecosystem. Many of the records of Sloth bears in Nepal are from the studies targeted at other species, where records of Sloth bears are captured as a by-catch. Besides, the CNP species study hardly covers unprotected areas. Despite being in the threatened category, Sloth bear has not been prioritized for its study and conservation.

Generally, Sloths bear a sense of insecurity during accidental appearances/encounters with humans, so they try to defend themselves. Because of this behavior, local communities feel that these bears are harmful, so they even seek to kill the mammals by trapping them. 

Sloth bears enjoy some protection at both international and national levels as they fall under appendix I of CITES that seeks to protect the species from threats related to trafficking. Furthermore, Oct 12 is celebrated as the Sloth Bear Day with the aim to promote its remarkable ecological role. Defeating the negative perception and spreading awareness on the importance of this species in maintaining the ecological balance should be our main focus. 

Understanding the prey-predator relationship, trophic cascade should be prioritized to create suitable habitat for particular species. 

Developing a corridor between its habitat and enhancing coexistence should be a top priority at the community level, which has direct connection with the species. This can be done by involving communities for conservation on the basis of their indigenous knowledge.

It is certain that many of us imagine a society without crimes. Every day, we learn about the occurrences of crimes and profoundly wish that they would stop. We make comments on social media, challenge the government via petitions and rallies, publish articles reminding the public of the looming danger and about the government about its failure to maintain the rule of law. However, history has not been so kind as to crystallize this utopian desire. 

A crime is an act or an omission which is defined as a crime by the criminal law of the land, bearing certain penalties upon the wrongdoer leading to a prosecution by the state. This general meaning has three elements: an act or an omission, definition by the criminal law and prescription of penalties. The absence of any one element does not amount to a crime. 

The above concept, which is endorsed by countless criminologists, is however controversial. Lucia Zedner in her book Criminal Justice (2004) criticizes the culture of defining crimes and associating punishments with them to be “remote from the social world.” She points out the obvious threat that if the criminal law does not ‘define’ crimes, there would be no crimes at all. 

In this article, I will focus on ‘criminal acts’. One of the tools to unravel the mystery behind crimes is the psychoanalytic theory propounded by the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Freud assumed that an individual’s personality had three components: id, ego, and superego. He claimed that at an individual’s birth, their psychic energy resides in the id. It is the irrational and impulsive part which compels the person to satisfy their biological needs. That is why infants cry when they are hungry, or they wet themselves. 

When infants become toddlers, they develop cognition and critical thinking skills. It signifies the development of the ego which motivates them to discover rational and realistic ways of satisfying their needs. At this stage, they ask their parents to feed them and do not cry like they used to. Between three to six years of age, they develop the superego i.e., their internalized moral standards (conscience). They attain these moral standards mostly through their parents. These standards keep individuals civil and disciplined in society. The superego acts as a bridge between id’s gratifications and ego’s rational means of satisfying those gratifications. It emanates guilt and shame within individuals when they engage in condemnable acts. These tools of psychoanalytic theory enable us to contemplate, in a way, why an individual would commit a crime. The absence of a dynamic balance between these elements leads to deviant acts such as crimes. 

Let us remind ourselves of the abysmal social conditions of the Nepali society, particularly about homicide. It was reported by a daily newspaper on 8 Dec 2019 that 6,233 cases of murder were reported in the fiscal year 2018/19. The reasons could be as trivial as a fit of rage or as complex as a conspired killing. Unlike crimes like theft, robbery, simple hurt, where victims survive, heal, and try to get their life back to normalcy, homicide decimates all chances of persons functioning again. News like these cause people to doubt their surroundings and challenge their security. The death of people generates a ripple effect that disrupts the psychological barrier of the entire nation. 

A psychoanalyst would attribute the causes of this atrocity to factors such as intense rage, suppressed anger, unresolved antagonism, and such. I will share a generalized scenario as to how those Freudian standards come into play.

Let us assume that person A harbors a strong animosity towards another person B. Communication could help solve the tension; however, many people struggle to communicate so they rather keep things to themselves. Alternately, some people generate so much hostility that they view violence as the last resort. Thus, they set the crime in motion. They lose patience, self-control, and enjoy their false sense of gratification. It is only after the completion of the crime that the perpetrator starts thinking about the consequences. 

When person A develops a strong animosity towards person B, they will seek vengeance to satisfy their id. A’s ego will communicate with their id about rational methods to attain this satisfaction. The ego will evaluate whether it will bring about desired outcomes. In this situation, their superego will compute the pros and cons of settling down the matter via violence. 

This can proceed in two ways. If A has a strong superego, then they will either let the matter go or talk to B about it in a civilized way. If A has a fragile superego, then they will seek out immoral and inhumane methods of satisfying their id. One of the ways they will seek, is killing. Their level of conscience and self-control plummet to such a stunted level that they can no longer evaluate the consequences of their acts. It is certain that a part of their conscience will tell them to stop but their urge to satisfy their id becomes immense enough to neglect all the consequences. Thus, they will materialize their criminal intent.

How can we resolve this issue? When I think about it, there is an absence of adequate moral education from both the parents and the school. Parents and schools educate children about good manners to children and penalize them for misconduct. Since the superego proves to be the strongest of the three, it must be robust.

How can we make it robust? While we focus on academics, we must also learn to become patient, cognizant and moral. Our society emphasizes on teaching children about moral and humane notions, through holy texts like the Ved, the Tripitak, the Quran, the Bible and more. These are not merely books but guidance towards a civil and virtuous life. 

Yet something is lacking. Why is there a significant gap between people’s id, ego, and superego? We shall learn patience and virtues from our cultural roots and teach our children the same. We could also research new knowledge to obtain inner stability. These endeavors do pose as solutions to people’s inner conflicts. However, I still think the answer lies somewhere in being patient and vigilant about consciousness and behavior.

For many decades now we have labored under the delusion that education is something desirable in itself. While this might be true of moral and spiritual education, it is bullheadedness of the worst sort to deny that our education is supposed to provide us with a living. Only when we have placed education in its proper context can we begin to shape it so that through it we achieve the results we desire. Since education as we know it is a source of income, it is best to treat education as a business or an industry, so that we employ the least number of resources to produce the highest possible results.

Those who argue for the state/government to take charge of education usually contend that since education is a basic need, the state should not let it be run by the chaotic mechanisms of the market. By this argument, the state should take charge, like in all failed socialist countries, of food and water, of health, and even of vital industries. This is obviously a faulty argument. By putting education out into the market, we can make sure that schools compete in prices and in quality.

The magic word here is competition. Competition is the most vital ingredient of a free market. All trusts (often referred to as cartels) are anathema to competition. If 20 schools form a cartel to fix prices and fix the curriculum structure, the public is denied the benefits which would result from those 20 schools competing for the favor of a student’s money. Trusts turn markets into one large monopoly and should thus be eradicated by trust laws.

In order to make sure that schools don’t violently revolt against the eradication of their trusts, the legislature must pass laws which forbid the state from interfering with private enterprises—at the very least their prices. Government intervention in fixing price levels has the same exact effect as trusts fixing prices—they turn the market into one big monopoly.

Unions work the same way as trusts but from the opposite direction. While a trust would fix prices in order to eliminate competition between schools, a union of teachers would fix wages in order to eliminate competition between teachers. It is the consumer’s right—in this case a student—to demand that the teacher demanding from him a certain wage has earned that wage through fair competition. Unions thus deserve the same treatment as trusts. Again, it is the legislature’s job to satisfy the teacher’s unions that schools don’t form into trusts and hamper the teacher’s ability to negotiate in a free market their wages.

It has been argued that there remains a fringe group in every society which is too marginalized to participate freely in its market operations. This is true but not as abundantly true as we might first suppose. There are two ways through which we can approach this issue. The first is without incentives. If state funded schools are given charge of these marginalized students, there is no reason to suppose that they would not operate inefficiently. The second is with incentives. By tendering the education of these students to private schools (the fund would come from the government, preferably local) we can incentivize private schools to compete for this public fund. This would put the economically marginalized on a far better footing than if they had been subsidized without proper incentives.

Another point of contention has been the treatment of students as market products. Critics argue that while it might be okay to subject an ice-cream to an economic analysis of cost-benefit, it is not moral to do the same to a student. This argument depends on false equivalency. No child is by default a student. His studentship is something he acquires for his future benefit—much like a child born in Sparta would acquire military training. If it is perfectly reasonable to expect a child’s piano instructor to be a competent teacher who can deliver the maximum value in the least amount of time and resource, why is it not reasonable to expect the same of his mathematics instructor? And I ask you, if we are to decrease the effort it takes a child to complete school without compromising the quality of his education, what can we do but allow providers of that education to compete? If parents want their children taught the same syllabus in a lesser number of hours, the schools will gear up towards that task.

Of course, all of this is a discussion of semantics if we cannot produce a free-market economy that can absorb these people. The international sphere, dominated by economic and social freedom borrowed from the West, has made it abundantly clear that what most people want is prosperity. The direction of migration, focused as it is on capitalist countries, has also made clear the direction towards which we consciously or otherwise aspire. What remains is to apply the fundamental tenets of a prosperous economy—a free market, rule of law and a political organization geared towards individual freedom.

Embracing the theme ‘Close the Care Gap’, humanity marked World Cancer Day on Feb 4, sending a grim reminder to Nepal, which finds itself at a critical juncture in the fight against cancer. Cancer stands as a main cause of mortality worldwide, contributing to almost 10m deaths in the year 2020, equating to nearly one in six fatalities. The latest statistics reveal a sobering reality, emphasizing the need for heightened awareness, improved healthcare infrastructure and collaborative efforts to combat this stubborn disease.

Nepal’s cancer landscape

Nepal, which has a population of around 30m, reported 22,008 new cancer cases in 2022. Among these, 9,792 cases affected males, while 12,216 cases impacted females. This alarming figure highlights the widespread impact of cancer on individuals and communities. The age-standardized incidence rate of 81.6 underscores the urgency of addressing the factors contributing to the rising incidence of cancer.

Top cancers and their impact

The top three leading cancers in Nepal, categorized by gender, reveal distinct patterns in the prevalence of the disease. Among males, lung cancer takes the forefront, followed by stomach and lip, oral cavity cancers. In contrast, females grapple predominantly with breast cancer, followed by cervix uteri and lung cancers. When considering both sexes collectively, lung cancer maintains its prominence, with breast and cervix uteri cancers following closely. These statistics highlight the need for gender-specific awareness campaigns, early detection initiatives and targeted healthcare interventions to address the unique challenges posed by different types of cancer in both men and women. These cancers not only affect the physical well-being of individuals but also carry a substantial emotional and economic burden for individual families and the society.

Losses and lessons: 14,704 lives lost

Tragically, 14,704 lives were lost to cancer in 2022, with lung cancer claiming the top spot. The breakdown by gender reveals that 6,936 males and 7,768 females succumbed to the devastating impact of cancer. Among males, lung cancer stands as the leading cause of cancer-related deaths, accounting for a significant 15.6 percent of the mortality rate, whereas lung cancer holds the third position among females, contributing to 7.4 percent of cancer-related deaths. The age-standardized mortality rate of 55.3 signals the urgent need for comprehensive strategies to improve cancer care, early detection and treatment outcomes.

A complex tapestry

The risk factors for cancer and other non-communicable diseases encompass tobacco use, alcohol consumption, an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and exposure to air pollution. A study on the burden and risk factors of cancer suggests that roughly 50 percent of global cancer deaths can potentially be prevented. It is crucial to distinguish risk factors such as smoking and alcohol use from others. Various research studies indicate that a significant 90 percent of lung cancers worldwide are attributable to smoking and tobacco consumption. Cigarette and tobacco smoke emit over seven thousand chemicals, including nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, lead, benzopyrene, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia and nitrosamines. Among these compounds, a minimum of 250 are identified as harmful, with at least 69 of them having the potential to cause cancer. Studies have shown that smoking as well as smokeless tobacco causes mouth, lip, throat, lung and esophagus cancer apart from more than 25 fatal diseases like heart disease, chronic respiratory obstruction and asthma. Research has shown that tobacco causes 20 types of cancer. Smoking can cause cancer in any part of the body. Tobacco use causes cancer of the mouth and throat, esophagus, stomach, bowel, rectum, liver, pancreas, voicebox (throat), trachea, bronchus, kidney, bladder and uterus.

A cancer-free future

In the pursuit of a cancer-free future for Nepal, a multifaceted approach is essential, encompassing key initiatives that address prevention, early detection, treatment, and palliative care forming integral components. Acknowledging that 30-50 percent of cancers are preventable, emphasis is placed on lifestyle choices, including avoiding tobacco and alcohol, maintaining a healthy weight, regular physical activity and a balanced diet. Vaccination against viruses such as HPV and hepatitis B, especially for high-risk groups, adds a crucial layer to preventive measures. 

Early detection, facilitated through awareness, clinical evaluation and timely referrals, significantly enhances the chances of successful treatment and lower morbidity. Screening programs, though effective, require substantial resources. Tailored treatment incorporating surgery, radiotherapy and systemic therapy is pivotal in achieving therapeutic goals, including cure and prolonged life. However, the global availability of comprehensive treatment remains uneven, with disparities between high- and low-income countries. In advanced stages, palliative care becomes essential, emphasizing community-based strategies for pain relief. Access to oral morphine is emphasized to address moderate to severe cancer pain, impacting over 80 percent of terminal-phase patients. The integration of vaccination into this comprehensive framework underscores its role in reducing cancer risk, particularly for virus-related cancers.

As we observe World Cancer Day, the global community must heed Nepal’s call to action. Beyond the statistics lie human stories, families affected, and communities in need. It is imperative to unite in the fight against cancer, offering support, resources and expertise to strengthen Nepal’s healthcare system.