The Record

They appear weak, but the Maoists aligned with ‘Biplab’ haven’t given up

Editor’s note: This is a translation by Niranjan Kunwar of an article from Uttam Kunwar’s anthology, Anubhav ra Anubhuti (Experience and Sensations), first published by Rupayan Press, Kathmandu, in 1981. This essay was first published in the literary magazine Ruprekha in 1976. Just like modern education, magazines started very late in Nepal; the developmental trajectories [...]

Badal and Biplab turn against each other

The history of sexual exploitation of Dalit women

Excesses in military spending

As the Army sets up camp, locals are tense about what costs they will have to bear

Why Devkota’s English essays are still relevant

Navigating Nepali citizenship, Tibetan heritage, and a dependence on China

What happens to the Nepali youth who try to get into the British Gurkha, and fail

In a Newa village south of Lalitpur Municipality, a community grapples with the prospect of monumental change.

Remembering Fr. Stiller, who chose to dedicate his life to Nepal and to the study of Nepali history

Even though hosting the refugees is estimated to cost Bangladesh $2 billion every year

One of the key questions regarding the historical development of the Nepali state pertains to its independence. Even as “native princely states” of the subcontinent—such as those of the Marathas and the Sikhs, with whom the Gorkhalis were in close contact with, and had even attempted a possible alliance to overthrow the incipient East India [...]

Filling a gap in the diplomatic history of Nepal from the Cold War days.

The judgment of events past—the conquest of Gorkhali empire two centuries ago for example—still divides Nepalis. For the critics, the legacy of the conquests are far more indicting than just the brutalities of the battles, evident in the two centuries of state formation, from an extractive agrarian bureaucracy to a communal legal code. Social forces […]

Lessons on living fearlessly from the writer Sulochana Manandhar Dhital

The stage has been set for Nepal’s second phase of local elections in three provinces on June 28, with polling in Province 2 deferred to September 18 amid protests by Madhes-based parties demanding an amendment to the new constitution. That the elections are happening at all after two decades suggests there is overwhelming public desire […]

In the modern scheme, nothing quite compares to the way villages in Nepal grow food. In contrast to the world’s present agricultural landscape of mass monoculture—GPS-directed tractors on thousand-hectare swaths of GMO corn, soybeans, canola, rice—Nepal can feel like a saving grace. Steep, complex geography and the late acceptance of Western influences have kept much […]

Memorialization and politics in Germany seventy-two years after the Second World War.

As the elites profit from natural resources, the poor and marginalized pay the price of conservation with evictions, fines, and jail sentences

The Maoist war molded Kapileshwar Sardar, a leader unthinkable a generation ago. But he is still denied the national stage.

Amid poverty and unemployment, the village reels after police forces killed five Madhesi protesters earlier this month.

Life, politics, and identity in an underappreciated border city

A chronicle of how corruption sabotaged football in Nepal.

In his plan for a National Innovation Center, Mahabir Pun seems to have overlooked something crucial: what it takes to innovate

Local agents, governments, and major multinational corporations are all complicit in the exploitation of migrant workers

A decade has passed since the end of the civil war, but Nepal’s truth and reconciliation program is still suffering from a lack of political will

Violence sparked by the “fast track” constitution still divides the Tharus and Pahadis

Yug Pathak’s play Yuma makes a radical case for women’s liberation

On Nepal’s largest island, Tharu local governance has allowed traditional irrigation practices to survive

In addition to widespread smuggling, there were significant official imports of petrol during the blockade, but officials aren’t saying where it went

America and Nepal seen through each others’ eyes

In 1960 a Nepali officer was shot by Chinese soldiers along the border, causing a heated diplomatic dispute. Decades later, the details of the case are still contentious

A resolution to the disputed territory along Nepal’s northern boundary will come only when India and China agree to demarcate their border

Introduced and translated by Theodore Riccardi, Jr.

Why I burned my country’s new constitution

The effects of two centuries of exploitation in the Tamang heartland are inhibiting its recovery from the earthquake

News from 1953 about the turmoil in Nepal’s Terai still resonates today

In the inner chambers of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly, “upper caste” lawmakers chop off and distort previously agreed provisions for Dalits

What the earthquake revealed about the state of civil-military relations in Nepal

Laprak was heavily damaged during the earthquake; its fate now hangs in the balance

Personal reflections on the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and possible lessons for Nepal

Two visits to the United Kingdom in different eras

Two visits to the United Kingdom in different eras

Thomas Bell kicks off our new Classics series with an introduction to Kamal P. Malla’s timeless essay

In secular Nepal, non-Hindus regularly face police harassment

The human brain is special, just not that special

New research looks into Chinese treatment of Indian Army Gorkha prisoners during the 1962 Sino-Indian War

An afternoon with writer-activist CK Raut during his trial at the Special Court

In a cautionary letter to Baburam Bhattarai, Mary Des Chene urges the self-declared Marxist to abandon the neoliberal path that will turn Nepal into wasteland

Nepal’s labor migration defies easy analysis. Migrant men and women are profoundly changing society, but at what cost?

New research reveals high-level tensions in Kathmandu after the 1964 Khampa raid against the Chinese