It all started back in the mid-1960s with Dr Hari Man Shrestha’s PhD thesis at Moscow Energy Institute (incidentally a first technical PhD in Nepal and incidentally where I too a decade later ended up studying under the same grand old man of Soviet hydropower Prof Jaffar Omarovitich Seifulla) where he carried out the seminal ball-park estimate of Nepal’s theoretical hydropower potential putting it at 83,000 MW.
By Dipak Gyawali May 04, 2022
A comprehensive summary of the ills bedeviling industrialists and local entrepreneurs was presented by the Chamber’s president Suyesh Pyakurel, the gist of which lay in the wide gap between the government’s stated policy commitments and their dismal implementation at best and outright reverse practice at worst.
By Dipak Gyawali Apr 06, 2022
King Birendra’s fell on 29th December and Nepal’s founder King Prithvi Narayan Shah’s was celebrated as National Unity Day on 11th January with verve that also served as a public reprimand to the current rulers widely seen as kleptocratic and supine before foreign interests.
By Dipak Gyawali Jan 18, 2022
The criticism of the Supreme Court for this political activism was not just for a blatant partisanship and arrogating unto itself the right of a parliament, but also for its declaring that party decisions and discipline are irrelevant.
By Dipak Gyawali Aug 04, 2021
Wicked problems, on the other hand, come nexused with allied quandaries of concern within multiple disciplines and divergent socio-political interests. They require the generation, or at least recognition, of "uncomfortable knowledge" to arrive at "clumsy solutions" of partial agreements and compromises.
By Dipak Gyawali Jun 30, 2021
At home, although the rest of the family developed relatively mild fever and both wife and mother had to be taken to hospital for chest X-ray and scans, they suffered no high fever or precipitous drop in oxygen levels and hence did not require hospitalization, only medication at home
By Dipak Gyawali Jun 02, 2021
This equating of infrastructure development with roads, to the exclusion of better alternative technologies, continues unabated today: indeed, the UML's 2017 local election manifestos promised rural voters "roads within three minutes walking distance from every home!"
By Dipak Gyawali Apr 14, 2021
Against this sombre backdrop, the Nepal chapter of Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) and its Delhi-based secretariat met in Kathmandu on 1st February to take stock of climate action in Nepal as well as more generally. The picture is not pretty.
By Dipak Gyawali Feb 10, 2021
Despite enjoying a practically two-third majority in parliament, despite a comatose opposition Kangress, and despite a constitution cobbled by themselves in their favour barely five years ago, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks tore apart the two parties, erstwhile UML and Cash Maoists, allegedly united to sweep the elections three years back
By Dipak Gyawali Dec 23, 2020
The slogan of the Monarchists used to be "Raja aau desh bachau!" which is now "Raja lyau desh bachau!" The shift from "aau" to "lyau" is significant: it is no longer "O, King! Come save the country!" but "You incompetent party neo-feudals! You better bring the monarchy back to save the country!"
By Dipak Gyawali Dec 07, 2020
As these lines are being written, news has just come in that Joe Biden has squeaked through to the presidency winning what matters, i.e. majority electoral college votes, ironically on the day of the 103rd Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
By Dipak Gyawali Nov 08, 2020
The history behind the ganja ban, its antecedents and consequences are stories in themselves. A traditional and widespread herb, it has been freely available in South Asian societies for medical, religious and recreational uses since time immemorial.
By Dipak Gyawali Oct 07, 2020
This is where Covid science as currently practiced completely fails me and all who may come into contact with me. First, lockdown, i.e. converting my home into a hospital ICU and me and family members as its patients work only for the upper and upper-middle class and only for the isolation period, which itself is difficult to maintain.
By Dipak Gyawali Sep 02, 2020