Tourism year 2011 of Nepal

Our country Nepal is a treasury of geographical, cultural, archaeological and natural gift. So we are celebrating this year 2011 as tourism year to attract more than more tourists. Nepal’s main resources are hydropower and tourism. If we can well management and mobilization of these two resources, our economic and social development growth can listed as a developed country within next 10 years. To be success of tourism year, Nepal Government also should make a perfect policy and they have to know that how to make a visit of tourist as a long visit. They have to promote and publicity of world’s highest mountain Mount Everest, Lord Buddha’s birth place Lumbani and other tour destination. The Nepalese who live in abroad can also publicity about Nepal with great responsibility. Ten years of civil war has been end before few years. First of all we have to remove the negative opinion about Nepal among the world community. We have to assured the tourist that Nepal is a totally secured destination of world. The major and small political parties also should make constitution on time and peace process must to be implementation as soon as possible.

Why we bear load shedding?

I am not a supporter of any political parties. I am totally an independent citizen of Nepal. Even I had voted to Maoist in election of constitutional assembly after peace process. Because I hoped that if Maoist will come into government, the country will get exit from many problems. Now I fill that my all dreams come nightmare. I don’t know about load shedding before guerrilla war of Maoist in Nepal. Now a day I am bearing load shedding up to 16 hour in a day. I ask that who create this situation. Somebody says that these all happened by corrupt Nepal Government, some body says that these all happened by political interfere into Nepal Electricity Authority. But so far as I know Nepal’s Maoist also should be a big responsible for this crisis. They did not only destroy their enemy but also stopped developed and developing structure of hydro power plant in period of war. The civil war continued up to more than ten years. We could not build up any new structure of hydro power within this period. Likewise we could not stop the population growth and their needs. So we are suffering of power crisis now.

Child Labor in Nepal

Nepalese law says: A child is a person who has not completed 16 years of age. Law says, to work in Nepal as a child, you must be at least 14 years old, and that you can work for no more than six hours, and you must not work during 6 p.m. to 6.a.m. hours, you must get a break of 30 minutes after 3 hours of work, and nobody should pressure you to work. The above law is only written in pages but never enforced. Millions of Nepali kids are employed by their moms and dads for household works to help them all day long instead of attending a school and getting education. Nepal does not punish parents if they fail to send their kids to school starting from a certain age. For example, in the U.S. parents can go to jail if they don't send their kids to school from as early as five years of age. Many kids work in factories such as carpet factories, coal mines, in stone quarries, in house and road constructions, as an assistant to bus driver and/or bus conductor, as a dishwasher in restaurants, and also as a servant in thousands of mid class to rich class Nepalese homes. Of all the kids working in Nepal most of them are as young as 11 years old, by the law, it means they shouldn't be working at all. First of all, Nepali Kids don't have the rights to live and grow in a peaceful environment as the county's a decade old war continues. Official records indicate that about 500 innocent kids have died in the war conflict and millions are affected by the war. Many have lost their parents or someone in the family, or have parents unable to make ends meet. Extreme hardship life pushes the Nepali kids into labor.

Nightmare of Ten Years of Civil War in Nepal

Nepal is the birth country of the peace loving Lord `Lord Buddha'. Ironically such a peace loving country was at war for more than 10 years. The war was between the Maoist gorillas and then the Nepal Army, Nepal Police. Maoists wanted their own communist republic while Nepal Army fought back taking the Maoists as terrorists of the nation. Even America did not give a clean cheat from terrorist till date. More than 13,000 Nepalese have died since the war began in February 13, 1996. Nepal army consists of an army of about 40,000 troops while Maoist gorillas have 7,000 to 10,000 active fighters throughout. Nepal. Extreme geographical conditions of the country make fighting difficult. Trapped in the middle, many poor Nepalese are abused by the Nepal Army and the Maoist Gorillas. Tourism has been hampered many fold by the civil war. Amnesty International reports that due to civil war, prostitution in Nepal has increased due to children being abused and raped by army and gorillas. Maoist forces have abducted, tortured and killed civilians. Majority of Nepalese do not support either side except the side of peace. Most want to see a dialogue between the two parties so peace can prevail. But peace process did not conclude till date.

Problem of Pollution in Kathmandu

Nepal has beautiful scenes of valleys, snow-capped mountains, lush green forests, holy temples, elegant huts, and wonderful smiles of Nepalese. Nepal also has disgusting scenes of pollution particularly in city areas. Dust and smoke in the winds, paper and plastic littering everywhere, over flown garbage containers, and spittle makes up the most of the city experience in Nepal. As vehicle emission is the main source of pollution, its level are highest during peak traffic hours and at place where traffic density is highest. The major hot spots for air pollution in Kathmandu are Sundhara, Singha Durbar, Kalimati, Ranipokhari, Lainchaur, Indra Chowk, Bir Hospital, Thamel, Asan, Ratna Park Putalisadak, Koteshor, Maharajgunj, Kalnki, Baneshor etc. Recently, when a Tourism agency conducted a survey among returning tourists and asked them to name one thing that had disturbed them most during their stay in Nepal, most of them invariably pointed to the air pollution in Kathmandu valley. Most cities in Nepal have air, water and noise pollution. Vehicle emission is a major source of air pollution in cities like Kathmandu. Recently Nepal Government has declared year 2011 is Tourism Year and planning to build up many structure. Hopefully situation will be better in future.

Our Bad Lock

Nepal's half the population lives below the poverty line, and about one third of the population lives without clear water. These are people who do not have access to basic needs such as food, health and education. Half the children are malnourished and under weight. Half the people are jobless in Nepal. Nepal's most of the poor people live in rural areas yet still a huge percentage of poor people struggle in cities trying to make ends meet. Most youth leave for cities to help their parents financially. Many go overseas for employment opportunities while others study in cities and or work there. Those who live in the villages, specially, Kids spend most of their daily life doing house-hold works. Because of the 10 years armed war of Nepal’s Maoist, Nepal's beautiful villages with magnificent mountains and landscape are as empty as ghost town. Those flocked to the cities without financial support end up begging on the streets or find job as a servant taking upon house-hold works of a family in return for food and a shelter. Most poor people including kids in cities work as a servant, dishwasher, bus conductor, porter, painter, waiter/server, and helper in many construction works such as house construction. Those with a little bit of financial support from parents will try to get a job while going to a government college. Most students living in cities like Kathmandu work while they study. In city, living cost is extremely high, and poor to mid-class family struggle to pay off bills such as house rent, food, transportation, phone, water, and electricity. The most popular business in city is opening a street shop. The second most popular business is building a house with lots of rooms for rent - in fact people build their houses with extra rooms for others to rent.

Victim of Corruption in Nepal

If all the politicians of Nepal were to stop their bribery only for few years, Nepal would have enough money to build roads to reach every corner. Now go tell that to Nepalese living in Nepal or abroad, you would be surprised how true your words are. There is a lot of bribery and corruption in Nepal. Among many reasons of rural poverty, some are lack of access to resources and roads. If politicians of Nepal were so serious to develop the nation, the roads to reach every farmers backyard would have decreased the rural poverty by many folds. Due to lack of usable roads, farmers are unable to get agriculture inputs and to sell their products. More than 80% of Nepalese are farmers and most of them live in rural parts of Nepal with little or no access to roads and modern agricultural facilities. The Anti Corruption Commission to punish those who have committed a crime affecting millions of poor Nepalese living without hopes. Lots of Nepalese are keen for results of this Anti Corruption Commission. Majority of people in Nepal are willing to sacrifice their so called loved politicians in return for punishment for their utter selfish corruption crime. There have been many changes on Nepali politicians yet almost all have escaped the trap by making excuses such as lack of evidence, and by the power of their money.

One Night in Katmandu

There has always been prostitution in Nepal. On a few occasions when I have gone for night out in crowed places in Kathmandu, away from residence aria and the like, with friends later at night. It has been obvious that things were going on. Once we went to a dancing bar which was very tame by western standards. The girls dancing were showing no bare flesh and were covered from neck to ankle and dancing in bollywood music, non-provocative fashion but it wasn't traditional Nepali dancing. It was full up with fat, loaded Nepali business men and you could sense what the place was a front for. I didn't like the place at all but it left me with the sense that there was plenty of that stuff going on amongst a certain ilk of seedy people of Kathmandu.I can see that prostitution is happening in thamel area to. I have tried walking into a massage parlor to look for decent massage. So I saw a group of girls sitting in the parlor waiting for their clients. From my point of view, I don’t think that they are professionally trained and their dressing is not too right. I came out of the place without a massage but later spoke to some guys, they told me that sometimes they are being offered 'extra' services and to make matters worst, there are many Chinese in thamel area as well. These Chinese are mainly businessmen (not from the big cities) with Chinese girls behaving too 'intimately' in the public places.

Let's hope our beloved place will not be so badly polluted...

A View of Sex Tourism in Nepal

About ten years ago it has been common among women of certain castes named Badi in far west of Nepal. Mostly they have been catering to Indians and locals. Some Indians, especially truck drivers, have the attitudes of sex tourists. Not much of it that has been visible to foreigners. The only place where it has been really obvious. In traditional codes westerners are pretty low. Unfortunately many Nepali women get enticed to go to India to work and get forced into prostitution and when they come back to Nepal and they continue their new job skills. Kathmandu in the 80's you couldn't even buy porn let alone hookers. Alcohol was not available unless you went to the slum district of Thamel and hit the change shops. But now the scenes have been changed. Thamel today is like a dreamland. Many girls student has come to Kathmandu valley from rural arias of Nepal for their further study of collage level. Some of them are high ambushes and want to be live as a luxurious life and they goes to easy way to make money soon. The easy way is only to be a prostitute. But they are not looking like a prostitute of ten years ago. They always maintain their personality like a sophisticate and every one can not guise about them that which type of women they are. Their first priority is tourist from Europe and North America. Now a day male prostitute also growing up and many female tourists come to Nepal for their sexual satisfaction. Although official policy is to discourage contacts between foreign men and local women. Sex tourism is totally out of the question. All this may have changed with the collapse of traditional values. Still I doubt that the Nepal Government will ever tolerate sex tourism from the west, that Kathmandu will ever be filled with the kind of total losers that populate Pattaya, Goa and certain other spots in South East Asia.

Water supply decreases in Kathmandu valley due to daily power cuts

Drinking water availability in Valley has nearly halved compared to wet season with daily power cuts considerably limiting extraction of groundwater by Nepal Water Supply Corporation. Nepal Water Supply Corporation was depending on its 50 deep tube wells as sources of half the volume of water supplied in Valley till 12 hour in a day power cuts. Groundwater extraction has gone down by 15 to 20 percent due to daily power cuts. Surface sources of drinking water are also fast depleting due to dry winter. When run at full capacity, the 50 deep tube wells can generate 50 million liters daily. The surface sources, which can contribute 100 million liters daily in wet season, are currently supplying only 50 million liters daily. The Valley usually faces acute water scarcity in April, May and June every year. However, the crisis this time has come two months earlier thanks to power cuts. Low pressure in water pipelines makes supply difficult, thus rendering water tankers indispensable. In situations like this, Nepal Water Supply Corporation's 15 water tankers, combined, used to make as many as 100 trips a day in the past. So we can not hope for batter water supply in near future.