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We’ve read hundreds of arti­cles describing the miserable condition of the Maoist guerillas, the state security personnel, and ordinary citizens alike. But not much has been written about the journalists who were tortured, disappeared or brutally murdered during the war, and even less about their families who continue to live with the wounds that may never heal. Children of the slain journalists not only lost a parent but also an opportunity for a hap­py childhood.

With the government paying little attention to these children, an unnamed organization under The Asian Journalist Association has been financing their education since the war ended with the help of funds from the Australian Press Association.

We tried to interview some of these children to find out their current situation and their aspi­rations for the future, but most of them chose to stay mum because of security concerns. Only two were willing to speak on record.

Dev Kumar Acharya and Navraj Sharma were two of the journal­ists murdered during the war. Their children who, despite hav­ing to overcome trauma since a tender age, are still fighting for justice for their families.

Born in Jhapa, Trishna Acharya is the second daughter of Dev Kumar Acharya, who worked in several newspapers like ‘Janaastha’, ‘Janad­isha’, and ‘Swadhin Samwad’. Acha­rya was abducted on 23 July 2002 on the accusation of being a Maoist and his corpse was delivered to the family the following day. “When we got his dead body, his thumbs were mutilated and it was clear that he was hung upside down and tortured for an entire day,” says Trishna. Then began the struggle for her family as they had to face social ostracism and even rape threats. A small cottage industry of light snacks on which the family depended was also seized. Trishna left the village with a traumatized brother, an agonized mother, and a confused elder sister.

Trishna then came in contact with the organization under the Asian Journalist Association which assisted her financially to pursue her studies. She recently com­pleted her Masters of Arts degree from Tribhuvan University with a gold medal. “My father dreamt of becoming a gold medalist and was working on his Master’s thesis just prior to his murder, so I dedicated my medal to him,” says Trishna.

Her case was filed with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in September 2014 with the assistance of the organization itself.

“My family members—and even my nephew—still get threats. All I want now is to regain the identi­ty and dignity that my family lost years ago. I want to be the last girl with a tragic story like mine,” says Trishna.

Born in Kalikot, Sangita is the second daughter of Navraj Sharma, who is considered the first journalist killed during the insurgency. He was the editor of a weekly named ‘Kadam’ and also worked at a radio station. Sharma was well liked in the community and his murder came as a complete shock.

“There was a program in my village from where lots of men including my father were abducted. All were released except my father,” says Sangi­ta. What makes the case more disturbing is the fact that the reason behind the abduction and murder of her father is still unknown. After the passing away of her mother a few years later, Sangita came in contact with the organization which then helped her pursue her studies.

She is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in business management and is in her sec­ond year. She wants to work in the banking sector, but is also considering a career in the civil service. Her two siblings have been taken under the wings of the SOS Children Village at San­othimi where they are pursuing their studies.

Sangita’s case has also been registered with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but justice has proved elusive so far.

Besides Trishna and Sangita, the organization currently sup­ports 24 other children of con­flict victims. But with the fund­ing from the Australian Press Association coming to an end in 2020, the children’s future is far from secure. “Even when the funding stops, we’ve decided to personally contribute to edu­cate these children,” says one of the two chairmen of the orga­nization, who prefers to work quietly and remain anonymous.

But the question of how long these children can depend on an NGO remains unanswered. The state has a responsibility to take care of these children who have already suffered so much O

Millions have been squandered from the Prime Minister Employment Program due to poor planning and improper implementation. Many local units of Province 5 have spent an inordinate amount of money in just clearing weeds. About Rs 500 million has been spent on various programs that have no clear long-term impact. Program officials blame hasty planning.

Rs 7 million has been spent just in weeding gardens and cleaning roads in Tilottama municipality in the district of Rupandehi. Earlier too, a cleaning program with a budget of Rs 5 million was organized in the
municipality. “Even after the program was completed, we had to employ people for cleaning and clearing weeds in order to spend the allocated budget,” says Devendra Gyawali, a municipal officer. The majority of the 236 people employed in Tilottama municipality were women, who cleared weeds in Butwal’s
Belhiya road.

The PM employment program has a provision that allows the hiring of laborers in various municipal programs. However, Tilottama municipality has wasted a lot of money in seemingly pointless work. According to Madhav Giri, the coordinator of the employment program in the municipality, Rs 4.4 million has been spent on wages alone. Rs 5.5 million was spent by the municipality on cleaning the city, planting trees and clearing up a field. Laying drains, maintaining health posts and constructing hospital roads are the only tasks the municipality has invested in that have meaningful long-term impact.

Gaumukhi rural municipality in the district of Pyuthan has also spent Rs 3.6 million on gratuitous activities. As many as 600 people were employed and Rs 3.6 million spent by this rural municipality in just nine days to exhaust the allocated budget. In nine local units in Pyuthan, more than 2,500 people—of whom 70 percent are women—have been employed.

Meanwhile, some municipalities in Rupandehi have still not shown an interest in implementing the PM employment program. Chief administrative officer Khyam Bahadur Thapa of Siddharthanagar municipality says, “Most of the municipality’s structures are concrete. Here the only work that needs to be focused on are cleaning and afforestation. Clearing weeds, just for the purpose of employing people and spending the budget, cannot be justified,” he says.

Many have criticized the PM employment program, arguing that billions of rupees are being spent for cheap popularity. Central member of the Nepal Bar Association Shiv Raj Pandit says that the criteria for selecting an unemployed person for a job is flawed. “There isn’t much difference between giving away money to someone and employing them for clearing weeds,” he says. He adds that the lives of the unemployed won’t improve unless the PM employment program is linked to productive activities. “The program is good, but because the implementation was not effective, it has been unable to bring about positive changes. We need to do better in the upcoming fiscal,” he says.

“Hokum!” George Orwell would scoff at the idea of sports as a tool of diplomacy. “At the international level sport frankly mimic warfare,” he wrote in his celebrated 1945 essay ‘The sporting spirit’. At the international level, “even a leisurely game like cricket, demanding grace rather than strength, can cause much ill-will.” He was at the time referring to the infamous 1932-33 Bodyline series between England and Australia, when the English team tried to bounce out Don Bradman and company by bowling into their bodies, delivery after short-pitched delivery. But Orwell could as well have been speaking about modern-day India-Pakistan cricket rivalry.

Traditionally, Indian and Pakistani teams have been at loggerheads, each trying to demolish the other in every match they occasionally play against each other. Who can forget the Aamir Sohail-Venkatesh Prasad run-in at the 1996 World Cup? Or the simmering atmosphere of the first post-Kargil India-Pak match in Manchester in 1999? Or Sachin Tendulkar cutting Shoaib Akhtar for a six at the 2003 World Cup? Yet the most recent World Cup clash between the two was a bit of an exception.

Even as Indo-Pak ties remain strained, the two teams were rather civil to each other when they met in the round-robin stage of the 2019 World Cup. The ever-irascible Indian captain Virat Kohli seemed determined to control his emotions. On the tournament’s eve, Babar Azam, the best Pakistani batsman, had expressed his desire to emulate the international success of Kohli, his cricketing idol. In the match itself, when Kohli thought he had nicked a ball (he hadn’t), he walked off, a rarity in modern-day cricket. It was far from a ‘war’ that the Twitterati were expecting.

The US and China famously began their rapprochement in 1971 by playing Ping-Pong. The two Koreas march together in the Olympics as a mark of amity. In cricket, India hosts all of Afghanistan’s home games, which has done more to buttress India-Afghan ties than decades of the more traditional diplomacy. Likewise, when Sandeep Lamichhane appears in the IPL, our knee-jerk anti-Indianism takes a backseat, as we cannot help but ponder the many similarities between Nepalis and Indians.

The ace leg-spinner has done a lot to break the stereotype of Nepalis as ‘chowkidars’ in India. There could as such be few better goodwill ambassadors of Nepal to India. It’s easy to latch onto prejudices from afar. Friendship requires more interactions to flourish. Anecdotally, one of the first American sportspersons to visit China in 1971 was shocked at how much the Chinese resembled the Americans: “The people are just like us. They are real, they’re genuine, they got feeling!”

Of course, sports can both unite and divide. Some sports fans are so rabidly xenophobic that they have to demean players from other cultures. African footballers playing in the Nepali football league are subjected to awful racial chants. The treatment of any Indian football or cricket team visiting Nepal is no different. Yet when we see a Nepali player like Lamichhane easily mingle and bond with Indian players, our perception of the Indians changes, and vice-versa. As in cricket, so in life.

The Home Ministry has stopped the celebrations of the Dalai Lama’s 84th birthday that falls on July 6, Saturday. The celebrations were to be held at the Mustang Samaj Monastery in Swayambhu, Kathmandu.

The District Administration Office Kathmandu rejected the request of the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office at Lazimpath that it be allowed to hold the annual celebrations. The office says no anti-China activity will be allowed on Nepali soil.

“The Tibetan community had asked for our permission for the celebrations. We did not give the permit,” said Ram Prasad Acharya, Kathmandu’s Chief District Administrative Officer.

A representative of the Tibetan spiritual leader and the coordinator of the Tibetan refugee camps in Nepal Tsultrim Gyatso said: “We did not organize the program with a political motive. It is objectionable to stop a program that was being held on the basis of our religious beliefs.”

The Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office had invited the ambassadors of the US, the UK, Japan and other European countries to the program.