Every year, Nepal becomes awash with vermillion powder as Hindus celebrate Sindoor Jatra to welcome the arrival of spring and Nepalese new year
Continue reading...Category Archives: Nepal
Severe Nepal thunderstorm leaves 25 dead, hundreds injured
Death toll may increase as rescuers contend with heavy rain and uprooted power lines
More than two dozen people have been killed in a severe thunderstorm that swept through parts of southern Nepal and hundreds more were injured, police and officials said.
Nepal’s prime minister KP Sharma Oli wrote in a tweet that 25 people had been killed on Sunday, and around 400 were injured.
Continue reading...‘Slowly the craze will come’: the off-piste plan to get Nepal skiing
Entrepreneurs aiming to set up Nepal’s first ski resort are undeterred by difficult terrain and lack of state support
Along the single icy road leading through the village of Kuri, high in the hills of eastern Nepal, tourists stop to stare at a pair of skis. “Is it a skateboard?” asks one. “Maybe they are ice skates,” suggests another. “No idea,” they agree, before walking off gingerly along the slippery track.
Nepal may have the highest mountains in the world, but you are about as likely to see a skier here as you are a yeti. Nepal sent no athletes to the Winter Olympics last year, and there is not a single ski resort in the country.
Continue reading...‘My boyfriend sold one of my kidneys – then he sold me’: trafficking in Nepal
A checkpoint along the Nepal-India border has become has one of the world’s busiest human trafficking routes. Now it is being policed by survivors who try to spot other potential victims
It is midday in Bhairchawa, one of the 23 official border checkpoints between Nepal and India. Each day, up to 100,000 people cross under the stone arch separating the two countries. Some are on foot, others in trucks or on bikes, mopeds and rickshaws. Amid the chaos – the people, the dust, the noise of traffic and honking of horns – are the guardians: women who, having survived the horrors of human trafficking, now spend every day trying to spot potential victims and their exploiters among the crowds.
One of the women on duty today is Pema. While we talk, her eyes remain fixed on the crowds, scanning the throngs of people moving slowly across the checkpoint.
Continue reading...Young woman dies in fourth ‘period hut’ tragedy this year in Nepal
Smoke inhalation thought to have killed 21-year-old exiled during menstruation despite ban on custom
A 21-year-old woman has been become the fourth person known to have died this year as a result of the illegal practice of chhaupadi, whereby menstruating women in Nepal are banished from their homes and forced to sleep in huts.
Parbati Bogati, from the western Doti district, is thought to have died from smoke inhalation while sleeping in a small, windowless hut. She was discovered by her mother-in-law on Thursday morning.
Continue reading...Hopefuls pay out thousands of rupees to chase Gurkha glory in Nepal | Pete Pattisson
Training academies – and unscrupulous agents – are cashing in on young men preparing for this month’s feared ‘doko race’ to secure a lucrative British army job
Long before the sun rises above the towering Himalayan peaks that overlook Pokhara in central Nepal, scores of young men gather in the dark on the edge of the town to train for the race of a lifetime.
At the starter’s signal, they charge off, first heaving a 25kg sack of sand into a “doko” wicker basket on their backs, and then starting a gruelling 5km race up the steep mountainside. Finish in less than 46 minutes and they have a chance to join the Gurkhas, the legendary brigade of the British army.
Continue reading...Destroy ‘period huts’ or forget state support: Nepal moves to end practice
After the custom of consigning menstruating women to outdoor sheds claimed three more lives, a new system of penalties offers hope of change
Chhaupadi, the practice of banishing girls and women to a hut or shed when they have their periods, is common in Dilu Bhandari’s village in Nepal.
But two months ago Bhandari, a 26-year-old mother of four, watched as her husband destroyed the tiny hut in which she had previously been sent to live once a month. The family had been told by local authorities that if she continued to observe the custom, they would no longer receive state food support. Forced to choose between a food allowance for her twin boys and abandoning the traditional practice, the choice was effectively made for them.
Continue reading...Mother and two boys suffocate in Nepal’s latest ‘period hut’ tragedy
Practice of banishing women to small outbuildings during periods claims further victims despite country declaring practice illegal
A woman and her two sons have suffocated to death in a windowless shed to which they were banished in the latest tragedy linked to the illegal practice of chhaupadi, whereby women in Nepal are forced to sleep in “period huts”.
Police said Amba Bohara, 35, had spent four days in the cowshed with her sons Ramit, nine, and Suresh, 12, when her father-in-law discovered their bodies on Wednesday morning.
Continue reading...Bodies of Nepal climbers delayed by mountain’s remoteness
Rescuers retrieved the bodies of five South Korean climber... . Officials unload the bodies after a helicopter carrying bodies of those killed in Gurja Himal mountain arrives at the Teaching hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Oct. 14, 2018.
Deuba becomes sole candidate for Nepal PM
"We as of now comfortable majority", said outgoing Deputy PM and Minister for Home Affairs Bimalendra Nidhi after Deuba filed his candidacy at around 11:30am. The Parliament Secretariat has published the schedule for the election of Prime Minister on Friday.