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Want to earn a little on the side while you explore your hobby? Why not take up blogging?

Outside Nepal, there are folks who are pursuing viable careers as bloggers. Some, like Harsh Agrawal from India with his award-winning blog ShoutMeLoud.com, have even become global celebrities. But professional blogging is still in its infancy in Nepal.

Ganesh Karki, who started blogging in 2008, says being a blogger at the time was something completely new. He used to write poems in Nepali and found they had a big audience online. “I started seeing it as an income source,” he says. He regularly updates contents on paniphoto.com and ujyaalopato.com and claims to earn $150-200 a month through his blogs.

Does blogging have a scope in Nepal? “If you are ready to put in some effort, it can be an additional source of income and, if you are any good, you get recognized globally,” Karki says.

Mahesh Gautam, who started blogging a year ago, runs three blogging websites—theviralstars.com, tecktruck.com, and nepalientertainment.com. On an average, he earns around Rs 10,000 a month from them. “They allow me to cover some of my monthly expenses,” he says. Of his three sites, the first two are in English while the third is in Nepali. 

Bikash Rai, another blogger at nepalitrends.com, started out by sharing his knowledge of trending topics. He says, “Blogging has scope if you can cover global topics. But, really, it can be on any topic if you are ready to work hard to popularize your blogs.”

Google AdSense is the most common (though not for blogs in Nepali) source of revenue for Nepali bloggers. You earn a certain amount when visitors click on ads on your website. 

Besides AdSense, backlink selling, and sponsored content (ads from different companies) are other viable income sources for Nepali bloggers.  

Rai says he earns Rs. 15,000 a month on average working only in his free time. But income is not fixed and depends on such factors as traffic, ads, and other sponsored content.

You can also do affiliate marketing on a commission basis as well as instant articles. “Affiliate marketing is best for tech-related blogs. For instant articles, you have to connect your website to a Facebook page,” Rai adds. 

Shankar Kapri, a blogger at meronotice.com, says he has earned $200 in two months by blogging. “The income depends on your effort and traffic,” he adds. 

How does the blogger get the generated income? Facebook makes the deposits in your bank account. Google used to pay through Western Union but has started directly depositing money in your bank account as well. Some international clients even pay through PayPal.

But as PayPal is not available in Nepal. Rai has found a way out though. He adds, “In that case, I channel my income through my friends abroad.”

“Only good traffic earns good money,” is the mantra bloggers live by. But the blogs targeting Nepali audiences find it hard to get traffic, not the least because Google ads don’t apply in the case of Nepali blogs.

And the competition is tough. “Your blogs must be unique and the very best,” says Rai. 

Lack of knowledge about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another problem. “Many bloggers neglect SEO and their contents don’t reach target audience,” says Aakash Karki, an SEO consultant for bloggers. SEO is compulsory to rank in Google and get traffic. “When someone searches related content on Google and doesn’t find your blog, your site doesn’t get visitors, simple as that,” he says.

Nor, for that matter, are Nepalis used to the idea of blogging. “They are more into news website and largely in the dark about blogging,” says Ganesh Karki. He says most Nepali bloggers are irregulars, just like him. As his content is in Nepali and competition has increased, it is not generating the income it used to.

So there are plenty of obstacles for would-be Nepali bloggers. Right now, it appears to be a good source of additional income if you have something else going on the side. It may be a tougher sell as a full-time career option. 

This is a tragic story from Dhorpatan west of Baglung district where floods and landslides this year have killed 17 people while 21 went missing. Some have lost their entire families, while others are left only with children. Many have become squatters overnight, with nothing left of their own.

It was difficult to identify the deceased from the September 2 floods as their newly-unearthed bodies had rotten. This delayed their last rites.

As if losing his young son to the floods was not enough, Tul Bahadur BK of Dhorpatan-9 found that his 22-year-old son Narayan BK was mistakenly buried. “My head spun when I found out that my son had been buried by some other family,” he says.

The incident came to light after it was discovered that local police had handed over Narayan’s body to the family of another person—32-year old Prem Pun—who had also gone missing in the area. After Narayan’s body was handed over to Prem’s family by mistake, they buried it at Burtiwang Ghat on the same day. The next morning the police found Prem’s real body. The body was also handed over to the Pun family after postmortem. The family entered the real Prem Pun this time. But this deprived Narayan’s family the right to perform his last rites or even to see his deceased body one last time.

BK says he came to know about his son’s burial only after the completion of Prem Pun’s funeral. “Now it’s hard for us to accept that he is dead. We would have somehow accepted his death had we seen his deceased body. That chance of closure has now been denied to us,” says BK.

Even though he realizes that similar ages and body structures of the two dead youths might have led to the confusion, BK still finds it hard to come to terms with the incident. He is also livid with the police for handing over the first unearthed body to Pun’s family without informing him. “A family had to perform the last rites of their son twice and I did not even get to perform them even once for my own son. How should I console my family now?” he asks. BK has shaved his head after it was ascertained that his son’s body had been cremated. To compound his misery, his daughter-in-law and granddaughter are still missing from the September 2 flood.

The floods washed away 80 houses in Dhorpatan. Some evacuees are now living with relatives, while others are putting up in cattle sheds and makeshift tents.

On Thursday, September 3, the food delivery boys were getting ready for a busy day ahead after a week under strict lockdown. Then they got the dreaded message. Unlike what was being reported, they wouldn’t, after all, be able to make deliveries. To be able to do, they now learned, they had to get the PCR test done, which comes Rs 4,400 a pop. And even if they got the test done, it would be at least three days before they got the report. 

The government has offered next to no support for the restaurants and food delivery services. Instead, the police constantly harass them. On Aug 27, over 90 food delivery service owners and employees were arrested from various places in Kathmandu. This has discouraged established companies, but also put a big dent in the confidence of those starting out in the business.

Anita Timsina, founder of Fooddole, a Kathmandu-based food delivery service started a year ago, shares the bitter experience of her team-members being apprehended. “The way we were picked up without a warrant, it no longer felt like we were living in a democratic country,” she reminisces. Police arrested both office and field staff at Fooddole. Timsina says the police behaved with her staff as if they were criminals. She now wonders if delivering food really is a crime in Nepal.

Komal Niraula, co-founder at One-Eleven, another Kathmandu-based food delivery service started a year ago, speaks of how his startup has already had to shift to a cheaper office. They have also cut production and cut down on deliveries in light of reduced income. 

When he heard about the arrests, Niraula says he felt thoroughly discouraged as a professional. “I am particularly dissatisfied with the prohibition on the delivery of groceries. Moreover, it is not clear who is allowed to do business and who is not,” he adds. 

Sujan Rai, co-founder at Sanohaat, a food delivery service that opened up in June in Jhapa district of Eastern Nepal, says food delivery services are facing an existential crisis. “Forget rewarding us for making people’s lives easier by delivering food, grocery, and other essential stuff to their doorsteps; the government is instead arresting us,” he sighs. Nonetheless, he agrees that it is up to business-owners to ensure their services fully comply with safety measures.

Likewise, Nabin Raj Acharya, Managing Director at Mazzako Food, a Pokhara-based food and local grocery delivery service, feels highly insecure these days.

Mazzako Food had only started its services a month ago after being closed for almost three years. He says online delivery of food items with safety measures and regular monitoring is more secure than people visiting stores individually. 

“By the looks of things, the food delivery business is on the verge of collapse considering how much we have invested in it, often by taking out huge loans. And the government, instead of helping us, seems intent on making our lives harder,” he says. 

All food delivery personnel APEX talked to claimed they were following all necessary health protocols and safety measures. They are regularly taking the body temperature of staffs, making them use masks and hand sanitizers, and taking every precaution to minimize chances of infection.

So what was the reason behind the recent police action in Kathmandu? Spokesperson of the Metropolitan Police Office, SSP Sushil Kumar Yadav, says the police only acted on the administration’s directive. “Moreover, food delivery is not among essential services,” he adds.

Madhawa village in Manara Siswa-10 of Mahottari district lies bang on the Nepal-India border. Half the houses here are in Nepal and the other half in India. The villagers sometimes try to cross the border under the pretext of cutting grass or gathering firewood. The Armed Police Force (APF) personnel stationed at the border checkpoints during the Covid-19 epidemic keep a close watch over them. The Covid-19 infection rate in the village is low due to strict surveillance.

In addition to Madhava, dozens of villages in the eight districts of Province 2, make the 464-km open border. The province has 246 major and minor border checkpoints. AFP Border Outposts (BOPs) have been set up in 53 places to stop cross-border movement. Despite the large number of infections in India, people have been travelling to and fro, making use of the open border. To stop this, security personnel have been patrolling border areas night and day.

The deployed security personnel have not gotten proper masks and sanitizers. No other health equipment is available as well. They have been carrying out their responsibilities by wearing normal masks, goggles, and temporary gloves.

The east-west border area in Siraha, where more than 400 APF personnel are deployed, is 46.5 km-long. BOPs had been up in seven places before the pandemic broke out. During the pandemic, ‘forward observation bases’ were added in five other places. But these bases are only temporary tents without even basic amenities. 

New units have been added in Abhaynagar of Bhagwanpur Municipality, Jhajhapatti of Nawarajpur Municipality, Kusandi, and Budhaura of Siraha Municipality from where the armed police patrol the border.

DSP Mohana Niraula, also the spokesperson of the APF No. 7 Battalion in Hekwa Siraha, says an additional team under the command of the APF Deputy Inspector has been deployed. “In early days, arrangements were made to sleep in tents and go to the nearby base camp for meals,” Niraula adds.

In the PCR tests on 410 armed police personnel deployed on border patrols last month, six came out positive. Niraula informs all six were discharged on August 25 after making full recovery. Out of seven BOPs, only the one in Itatar-4 has its own building. The remaining six are either rented or shared with government offices.

The APF has launched a traffic control program at the border and awareness programs in the villages. DIG Krishna Bhakta Bramhacharya of the AFP Office in Mahottari informs of the urgent need to make people aware and make them ready to fight the pandemic.

“We are trying to spread awareness about mandatory health check-ups for people who have just travelled from India or other countries and are secretly living in our villages and communities,” says DIG Brahmacharya.

The border police are also trying to identify the infected by forming a border monitoring group with the involvement of local people’s representatives.