Subscribe now

UN Delays Nepal's LDC Graduation Until 2029

Nepal is going to stay on the list as a “least developed country” until 2029, three years longer than was anticipated, after the UN General Assembly approved the request. Trade preferences and other support that would otherwise have expired this November will stay in place during the extension. Bangladesh, which made the same request alongside with Nepal, was granted the same delay. Kathmandu said that it needed more time to get its house in order before the change and is Nepal's second reprieve. The UN previously postponed graduation after the 2015 earthquake, then gave the country five more years to prepare because of Covid.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (earlier graduation delays), myRepublica (Foreign Ministry announcement)

Supreme Court Steps Aside From Fixer Probe

The Supreme Court's full court will not investigate justices who have been connected to alleged fixer Inam Sapkota, and will instead leave the matter to unnamed "relevant authorities." The Constitution gives Parliament the power to impeach Supreme Court justices, and the ruling RSP has told lawmakers to start proceedings despite claims from a spokesman who said the party hadn’t made any decisions about who, exactly, it wanted to target.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (full court decision), myRepublica (impeachment threshold), myRepublica (Phuyal's leave), The Kathmandu Post (parliamentary procedure)

Anti-Graft Commission Charges Former PM

The anti-graft commission has charged former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, Nepali Congress leader Minendra Rijal and 95 other people over a land swap that it claims cost the state Rs 735 million ($4.8 million). Rijal Canning and Company got an exemption from land limits on the condition that it run a fruit business in Sunsari and Morang, but then if failed to do so. Madhav Nepal's Cabinet instead allegedly allowed the company to swap two expensive plots in Biratnagar for less-valuable land in Banigama.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (97 defendants), Ratopati (Khadka suspension)

Advertisement:

Police, PMO Trade Blame for Journo Detentions

Plainclothes police detained three Kathmandu journalists, setting off a public round of blame, even thought they were released after a few hours. The men detained were Dhiraj Basnet of DNA Khabar, Shobhraj Baral of Motive News and Bishwamani Subedi of Nepal Press. Subedi had reported that police chief Dan Bahadur Karki was under pressure to resign. Police spokesman Abinarayan Kafle said the Cyber Bureau acted after the Prime Minister's Office raised concerns about misleading reports. Prime Minister Balendra Shah's office said it knew nothing in advance and that Shah was the one who ordered the men’s release.

Read more: Nepali Times (detentions and denials), The Kathmandu Post (meeting before the raids), Online Khabar (Press Council response)

Mahakali Canal Dry as India Withholds Water

A 28-kilometer canal that’s was built to irrigate 5,000 hectares in Kanchanpur has been dry since a trial four years ago. The Mahakali Treaty requires India to send water through the Tanakpur Barrage, but the Indian company running it says “no can do,” as it needs a go-ahead from Delhi. Nepal has spent Rs 10.74 billion ($71 million) on the third phase of the canal project and wants the PM to bring the stalled water release issue up during his expected upcoming visit to India.

Read more: myRepublica

Bank Profits Up Nearly 46% as Provisions Decline

Nepal's 20 commercial banks were able to increase their combined first-quarter profit by nearly 46 percent from a year earlier, to Rs 19.14 billion ($126 million). Smaller loan-loss provisions and cheaper deposits were the biggest tailwinds, even as interest income remained soft after years of tepid lending. Provisions nearly halved to Rs 10.99 billion ($72 million) as loan recovery improved. Nabil Bank was the industry leader, reporting Rs 2.55 billion ($17 million) in profit. Standard Chartered, Himalayan Bank and Prime Commercial Bank all reported declines.

Read more: myRepublica (bad-loan levels), myRepublica (lending slowdown)

Helicopters Collide Near Everest, Killing Passenger

An Indian passenger was killed when a Fishtail Air helicopter and an Air Dynasty helicopter collided while (attempting a) landing at Pheriche in Solukhumbu. A New Zealand passenger and the Fishtail pilot were injured. This appears to be Nepal's first midair helicopter collision. The Air Dynasty helicopter's rotor hit the Fishtail cabin windows. Pheriche is outside the Lukla control tower's coverage, so pilots need to coordinate landings between themselves and early reports suggest miscommunication between the pilots.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (victims and injuries), Online Khabar (air-safety gaps)

E-Procurement Back After Breach and Three Arrests

Nepal has restarted its e-GP bidding system more than two months after hackers were able to access (supposedly) confidential bids. The replacement, built by a government-owned software center, now encrypts proposals. In the meantime, agencies had made a return to paper forms, some of which were pilfered and have further resulted in the arrest of three people who are accused of changing financial proposals before bids opened.

Read more: Ratopati (new security features), myRepublica (arrests and allegations)

Supreme Court Orders Regs for Cannabis

The Supreme Court has given the government three months to come up with rules to license cannabis cultivation for medical, scientific and industrial uses. The rules must encompass production, processing, storage, sales and trade, in addition with being explicit about how to monitor unlicensed activity. The 1976 Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act already allows for some regulated cultivation, but a series of governments never got around to actually writing all the rules. Recreational use will remain illegal - the court rejected full decriminalization and kicked that decision back to Parliament.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (petition and treaty context), Nepyork (judges and penalties), Times of India (earlier reform efforts)

WB: Extreme Poverty Down to 2.4 Percent

The share of Nepalis living on less than $3 a day dropped from nearly three in four in the year 1995 to just 2.4 percent in 2022, the World Bank said. Although this ise remarkable progress, more than half of the country still lives below the $8.30-a-day benchmark for upper-middle-income countries. Nepal's calculations show a less-rosy tale, however, with almost one in five people living below the national poverty line of Rs 72,908 ($480) a year in per-person consumption.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Malaysia Stops Nepali Hiring Over Dispute, Fraud

Malaysia has stopped taking new Nepali workers while the two governments fight over recruitment agencies. The Malaysian foreign worker system has not registered any medical checks since mid-October and that’s blocked the issuance of visas. Malaysia wants 25 principal agencies (each with 10 affiliates), to manage the recruitment process, but Kathmandu hasn’t approved them and wants the old system kept in place until the countries can come to a new agreement. Malaysia took 132,000 Nepalis last fiscal year and is responsible for about a fifth of Nepal's remittances. As far as the stop to the medical test is concerned, police say an unauthorized charge on medical tests for more than 750,000 Malaysia-bound workers resulted in Rs 1.69 billion ($11 million) being sent to Bestinet’s account in Malaysia. The Central Investigation Bureau has already arrested four people on fraud and organized crime charges.

Read more: Ratopati (dispute), Online Khabar (Medical Fees)

UN Reserves $21.6M for Bhotekoshi Recovery

The UN loss and damage fund has provisionally set aside $21.6 million for Nepal's Bhotekoshi-Trishuli flood recovery, which will be the first allocation the fund has ever made (to any country). Oversight fees will eat up $1.6 million, so the balance of $20 million will be availble for projects. Nepal still has to file a full proposal for the board to consider in December, and no payment date has been promised. It’s a tidy sum, but will fall well short of what the government thinks will end up costing $4.71 billion.

Read more: Mongabay (first allocation), The Hindu (funding gap), Spotlight Nepal (other climate funding), The Kathmandu Post (recovery needs)

Advertisement:

Private Flood Losses Up To $521 Million

The National Planning Commission estimates that the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli flood has resulted in Rs 79.17 billion ($521 million) in private losses in four districts. Households are going be bear the brunt of the damage, estimated at Rs 69 billion ($454 million), and businesses have been penciled in for Rs 9.69 billion ($64 million) of losses. More than half of the 6,817 impacted households are in Nuwakot. A National Assembly committee has been set up to take a look at three flood-damaged districts in early November for further assessment.

Read more: The Annapurna Express (loss breakdown), Online Khabar (committee inspection)

Indian Imports to Avoid Winter Load-Shedding

The Nepal Electricity Authority plans to import 1,154 MW from India through this winter, which is almost half the expected peak demand. Its managing director has ruled out load-shedding in favor of the purchases. Floods and landslides have reduced existing generation, and the authority has reduced supply to factories by about 300 MW. Despite the Nepalese announcement of their plans, to date India has approved only 654 MW through December, AND the existing permitted hours specifically exclude Nepal’s evening peak. New Delhi is expected to review the January allocation sometime during the month of December.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Trekking Permits Suspended on Cyclone Arnab

Immigration officials have suspended trekking permits for restricted high-altitude areas from tomorrow through October 31 as Cyclone Arnab gets closer. They fear that heavy snow could cause avalanches, and officials have told trekkers with permits to delay their trips or stop in safe places. The heaviest rain is forecast from tomorrow night through Saturday afternoon. Lower down the mountain(s), meteorologists are also working to try and get farmers to bring forward some of their rice harvest before the storm or wait until it passes.

Read more: NDTV (permit suspension), The Rising Nepal (trekker advisory), The Kathmandu Post (storm timing), myRepublica (rainfall forecast)

Cabinet Backs Bill for Budhigandaki Hydro

The Cabinet has approved drafting a bill to create a development authority for the 1,200 MW Budhigandaki hydropower project. If it comes to pass, it means another change of course for a project that’s already expected to cost Rs 260 billion ($1.7 billion). The previous budget called for a public-private partnership, and the Energy Ministry had told the project company to use a financing plan approved by the interim government. A ministry official warned that setting up an authority would take “considerable” time.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Court Voids ID Mandate, Orders Data Protection

In a rare win for sanity and the public, banks are no longer able to refuse customers who don’t have a national ID. The Supreme Court struck down a Nepal Rastra Bank order that made the ID required for the opening or renewing of accounts. The court also ordered the government to come up with a dedicated data protection law, while suggesting that biometric checks should return only a yes or no answer to an identity check.

Read more: Biometricupdate

Most Gov’t Sites Back Online After PHP Shutdown

A central patch has brought most government websites back online after officials shut them down while they took time to patch critical flaws in the PHP (computer) scripting language. No successful attack on a Nepali site has been reported to date. The Medical Education Commission's website and the Nagarik App are still offline while officials work with their vendors to apply the same fixes.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (restoration timeline), The Kathmandu Post (CVE severity), The Kathmandu Post (patched sites)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Rasuwa Floods Damage 27 Hydropower Projects

Floods in Rasuwa have brought damage to 27 hydropower projects and their transmission cables. Twelve projects were active and generating power, 15 of them were still under construction. Estimated losses are Rs 150 billion ($987 million), which is more than 90 percent of the Nepal Electricity Authority's entire revenue last fiscal year. The Rasuwagadhi plant has flooded three times in 15 months, most recently after a rock and ice avalanche on Langtang Lirung in August. The government thinks it can keep its target of 30,000 MW by 2035, but water expert Ajaya Dixit says the repeated damage should be cause for Nepal to reconsider the goal.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Investment Board Clears Upper Karnali Construction

Investment Board Nepal has given the go-ahead to India's GMR Group so that they can start building the 900 MW Upper Karnali Hydropower Project. The developer has five years to finish the project, but they say they are waiting to begin until they get the official letter in their hands. GMR said India's IREDA had given a positive indication on its request for an INR 65 billion loan (Rs 103.94 billion, $684 million) to support the build. Nepali banks have also given preliminary approval for Rs 20 billion ($132 million) of financing. GMR's stake has been reduced from 73 percent to 34 percent to equal the share that’s held by India's state-owned SJVN.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Inflation 6.34 Percent as Floods Raise Food Prices

Nepal's consumer inflation was reported to be 6.34 percent in mid-September, which is more than triple the rate it was a year ago and continuing to move the wrong way as it is even up from 5.96 percent in mid-August. Disruptions from floods and landslides helped drive the increase.

Read more: myRepublica (inflation by province), Asian News Network (apple shipping costs)

Advertisement:

China Reopens Tatopani for Three Days

China has reopened Tatopani for Dashain imports, although maybe only for three days since no commitment has been made to restart regular trade. Chinese Ambassador Zhang Maoming told Nepal’s Commerce Minister Deepak Kumar Sah that a longer reopening would need an assessment of security, logistics and landslide risks. Nepali officials say Beijing is worried about Tibetan refugees crossing the border and taking part in anti-China activity in the area.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Beijing's security concerns), Tibetanreview (border policy history), The Kathmandu Post (stranded festival cargo)

UN Fund Weighs Flood Recovery Money

The board of the UN's Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage is expected to vote tomorrow on setting aside $20 million for Nepal to support recovery from the August floods that killed more than 1,400. The motion is expected to pass and would be the first time the fund has set aside money for a specific disaster. Nepali officials say the amount is not enough, and will be mostly symbolic when measured up against the government's $4.78 billion reconstruction estimate. Kathmandu will be required to put forward a proposal for board approval. The entire fund has only $350 million available and it is currently considering about 180 requests worth $2.8 billion. The Cabinet has declared five areas in Gorkha, Dhading and Baglung disaster zones for three months. In Gorkha, the Budhi Gandaki flood swept away 200 homes and five bridges, damaged three hydropower plants and left at least six people missing. Families of up to four people who get housing that’s outside the government shelters that have been set up will be able to get Rs 15,000 ($99) a month for six months, plus Rs 2,000 ($13) for each additional family member. The Nepali Army has airlifted 1,044 people, including 70 foreigners. The Cabinet also accepted emergency grants of 298 million yen from Japan and 20 million euros from Germany.

Read more: Climatechangenews (proposed funding), Ua News (board meeting), myRepublica (COP31 priorities), myRepublica (Nepal's aid request), France 24 (UN recovery view), AFP (climate context), myRepublica (disaster-zone relief), myRepublica (airlift totals)

Health Federation Chief Arrested for Worker Fees

Police have picked up and arrested Nepal Health Professionals Federation president Kailash Khadka and three other medical service providers on charges of fraud and organized crime. The Central Investigation Bureau claims that they collected an extra "biomedical service charge" from workers that were on their way to Malaysia, although Labor Ministry officials say the charges had been properly approved. The Department of Foreign Employment has also (separately) issued arrest warrants for operators of the 25 agencies Malaysia chose as its main recruiters. Malaysia told Kathmandu that beginning November 6 it is only going to accept workers through agencies already registered in its system.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Remittances Rise, New Labor Approvals Fall

Remittances were up almost a quarter (23.9%) early in fiscal 2026/27, at Rs 436.36 billion ($2.87 billion). New approvals for foreign employment fell to about 78,000 from 90,000 a year earlier, and re-entry approvals for returning workers were up to about 52,000 from the previous 46,000.

Read more: myRepublica

Nepal and World Bank Explore Quake Bond

Nepal and the World Bank have agreed to explore a catastrophe bond that could result in the provision of up to $190 million in the aftermath of a “major” earthquake. The fully collateralized bond could give Kathmandu quick access to recovery money, although nobody hopes the fund will ever need to be tapped. The World Bank is going to look into the structure in concert with the government and market players to see if the thing might be viable, but there’s been no talk yet about cost or anything resembling a specific timeline.

Read more: Reuters (government mandate), Businessinsurance (possible bond size)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Flood Leaves Five Missing, Wrecks Hydropower Camp

A landslide dammed a tributary of the Budhi Gandaki River in northern Gorkha before dawn on Sunday resulting in a flood that left five people missing, wrecked the highway bridge between Gorkha and Dhading, and swept away the camp and equipment of the 341-megawatt Budhi Gandaki hydropower project. The army moved more than 400 people to safety by helicopter and on foot, including foreign trekkers on the Manaslu circuit. An early disaster authority report found that locals warned one another by phone and Facebook more than an hour before the authority sent its first message to emergency responders at 6 a.m. Nearly 5,000 households in northern Gorkha are still without power.

Read more: Reuters (missing breakdown), Abcnews (helicopter rescues), myRepublica (power outage), The Kathmandu Post (river gauge), The Kathmandu Post (warning gap)

E-Passport Contractor Threatens Shutdown Over Unpaid Dues

Muehlbauer ID Services, the German company running Nepal's e-passport systems, has given the government until Monday to pay Rs 300 million ($2 million) or get a service shutdown. The company said it has not been paid since winning the contract last year and had previously set two other “deadlines”. Veridos prints the passports but needs Muehlbauer's systems to process applicants. The Department of Passports claims that its holding back payment because the anti-corruption commission has charged 18 people in the procurement case, including local representatives of both companies.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Forty Five Days to Declare Flood Missing Dead

The president has given an ordinance to reduce the mandated wait to declare missing disaster victims dead from 12 years to about 45 days. Under the old law, someone who disappeared in the August 26 Bhotekoshi glacier-collapse flood could not be legally declared dead until 2038. Without death certificates, families have been unable to get compensation or settle property. More than 5,000 people are still missing, including hundreds of foreigners.

Read more: Straits Times

Advertisement:

Bhotekoshi Recovery Plan Stalls

The Finance Ministry is sitting on an as-yet unapproved Rs 559.17 billion ($3.68 billion) recovery plan for the Bhotekoshi corridor six-plus weeks after the disaster. Funding is unsettled, field teams are still calculating the damage. The flood broke the main trade route to China and damaged 35 of the 41 bridges between Miteri and Malekhu, completely destroying 32 of them. The disaster authority is currently looking into plans for transitional shelters for displaced families in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading.

Read more: The Annapurna Express (hydropower damage), Nepali Times (health care access)

Gagan Thapa Keeps Congress Presidency With 94 Percent

Gagan Thapa kept the Nepali Congress presidency with 6,584 votes to Shyam Krishna Khadgi's 375, the largest margin in party history. Chandra Bhandari and Madhu Acharya won the two open vice presidencies. Former president Sher Bahadur Deuba is outside Thapa's camp and is chasing a separate convention process even though more than 30 former allies have joined Thapa. The Election Commission recognized the leadership chosen at Thapa's special convention in January, but a legal challenge remains ongoing.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (central committee expansion), Spotlight Nepal (other officeholders), The Kathmandu Post (vote count)

Police Probe Fixer Tied to Ex-Chief Justice

Police allege that Inam Sapkota, a little-known 30-year-old, was the go-between for officers wanting promotions and people facing court cases. Investigators found repeated calls to him on former Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana's phone. Sapkota's WhatsApp chats and call records also show contact with senior police officers, judges, politicians, and lawyers. Sapkota admitted making the contacts, but police have not yet been able to confirm that he delivered any favors.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (airport questioning), The Kathmandu Post (Basnet arrest)

IMF Sees 2026 Growth Slowing to 3.6 Percent

The IMF expects Nepal's economic growth to slow from an estimated 4.4 percent in 2025 to a more restrained 3.6 percent this year. The worse news is that it is expecting only a slight recovery to 3.7 percent for next year. The IMF expects inflation to drop to 3.1 percent this year before rising again to 5.8 percent next year, with higher oil prices and energy disruptions the biggest risks for a country that remains dependent on imported fuel.

Read more: The Annapurna Express

Police Bust Gold Smelter, Arrest Three Chinese

Police arrested three Chinese nationals and took possession of 21.75 kilograms of gold worth Rs 546 million ($3.6 million) from a rented house in Budhanilkantha. Officers found smelting, casting, and weighing equipment as well as molten gold and finished bars. Police aren’t sure how the gold got into Nepal by air or land, nor have they found the Thamel hotel that the suspects named as its destination. It’s a decent haul, but part of an ongoing pattern - authorities have seized 579 kilograms of smuggled gold and arrested 768 people over the past decade.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (supply-demand gap), myRepublica (2022 case)

Kathmandu-Dhangadhi Flight Costs More Than a Ticket to Delhi

A 50-minute flight from Kathmandu to Dhangadhi costs Rs 22,180 ($146). A flight to New Delhi takes more than twice as long but costs only Rs 15,367 ($101). The government-set maximum fare on the western route has doubled since 2014. Fares follow supply-demand curves and naturally go up during festivals and when floods and landslides close roads, when passengers have no reasonable alternative, but that appears to be a “problem” that some are trying to legislate away.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Immigration Brings Foreigner-Tracking Database Nationwide

Hotels, airlines, banks, telecom companies, travel businesses, and tourist guides throughout Nepal are now able to enter foreigners' details directly into the immigration department's database. The system, which has run in the Kathmandu Valley since January 2025, tracks where visitors stay and travel. Officials say it will help locate people missing after disasters. Nepal has deported 540 foreigners so far this year (they only kicked out 459 in all of 2025). Sixty-one of this year's deportations involved immigration violations like overstaying.

Read more: myRepublica

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Nepal Ends Flood Search With 5,285 Still Missing

Nepal has ended the search for 5,285 people still missing after the August Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster. Official counts list at least 1,453 dead. The government is working out how to declare more of those missing “dead” so that families can settle insurance claims and manage bank accounts. The energy minister told parliament that more than 800 workers at 12 damaged hydropower projects are still unaccounted for, and a disaster council has recommended Rs 559 billion ($3.7 billion) for reconstruction, a figure that will need Finance Ministry approval.

Read more: Reuters (legal status of the missing), Spotlight Nepal (reconstruction proposal), Independent (missing hydropower workers), myRepublica (international recovery appeal), Times of India (missing foreign nationals)

World Bank Cuts Growth Forecast to 3.7 Percent

The World Bank expects Nepal's economy to grow 3.7 percent in the fiscal year ending in mid-July 2027 as flood damage weighs on industry and services. It foresees a rebound to 5.2 percent the year after that; the government's target remains 6 percent. The bank estimates direct physical damage at $1.66 billion, a little below the government's early $1.81 billion estimate.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (growth and damage estimates), Spotlight Nepal (recovery outlook)

China Pitches Korala as Tatopani Stays Shut

China has proposed turning Korala in Mustang into an international border crossing, but Kathmandu wants Tatopani reopened first. Nepal says its road to Tatopani is ready, but Beijing has given no indication of a reopening date. Korala is difficult to use in winter, and freight there reportedly costs almost twice as much as at Tatopani or Kerung. Rasuwa and Tatopani handled just over a fifth of Nepal's imports from China in the past year.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Korala proposal), Online Khabar (Tatopani negotiations), UN (trade disruption)

Advertisement:

India Restores Power Export Access for Four Projects

Four Nepali hydropower projects can again sell a combined 98 MW to India after New Delhi renewed approvals that had been allowed to expire during the peak export season. Nepal normally exports about 600 MW a day to India, but the August flood knocked out projects with 431.1 MW of capacity. The Nepal Electricity Authority wants Lower Modi to replace the damaged Devighat plant in bilateral sales; India has not approved the change. Damage at Trishuli and Chilime has also brought a stop to Nepal's power exports to Bangladesh.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (renewed export approvals)

Stalled Aviation Bills Derail January EU Safety Goal

Parliament was prorogued hours after two bills arrived in the lower house to split Nepal's aviation regulator from its airport operator. Neither passed, and lawmakers aren’t going to be back in session until winter. The delay will make the government's goal of leaving the EU air safety list by mid-January 2027 effectively unreachable. Nepal plans to try and get an international safety audit in May, but the necessary laws need to be put in place six months in advance of an audit.

Read more: Reuters (regulator conflict), The Kathmandu Post (legislative and audit timetable)

Himalaya Airlines Owes KTM $4.1 Million

Himalaya Airlines owes Tribhuvan International Airport Rs 629 million ($4.1 million), including Rs 440 million ($2.9 million) in passenger service fees that it’s already collected from passengers. The Nepal-Tibet joint venture says accumulated losses are Rs 15 billion ($99 million). Nepal's aviation regulator can begin suspension proceedings if it decides that the unpaid balance is “doubtful” debt.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

$50 Million to Drain Four Glacial Lakes

Nepal plans to lower four dangerous glacial lakes through a $50 million project backed by the Green Climate Fund, the UN Development Program and the government. Thulagi, Lower Barun, Lumding Tsho and Hongu II sit between 4,050 and 5,483 meters above sea level. Engineers will design gated outlets and canals to release water gradually into nearby rivers. Studies begin this fiscal year, and the project could take six years.

Read more: Reuters (project design and elevations), Sky (climate financing context)

Civil Service Bill Creates Abrupt Retirement Cutoff

Nepal's Federal Civil Service Bill would raise the standard retirement age from 58 to 60, but a one-time transition rule would immediately retire employees who are at least 55 or have already finished 30 years of service. The Public Service Commission squawked, but the government kept the provision in place and then added pension protection for workers forced out before the age of 58. Parliament won’t have time to debate the bill before its winter session, so we’ll see what comes of it then.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Balen Takes Nepal's Flood Case to the UN

Prime Minister Balendra Shah used his first UN General Assembly address to present last month's Bhotekoshi-Trishuli flood as a warning about climate risk. At least 1,400 people are confirmed dead and more than 6,000 remain missing. Shah said reconstruction could cost the equivalent of about 10 percent of Nepal's economy, and made sure to mention that the country produces less than 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Shah proposed that Nepal, India and China share satellite data, monitor glacial lakes and coordinate cross-border warnings. He also asked for grants instead of more debt. Nepal has requested the $20 million maximum from the Loss and Damage Fund (which is a pittance when measured against an initial damage estimate of $5 billion). The World Bank has offered $170 million in emergency financing, and the United States has thus far promised $31 million for recovery.

Separately, Nepal has asked China to help restore the flood-damaged road to the Rasuwagadhi-Kerung border crossing. Crews are building a temporary road along the existing route, which is a vital link for people in Rasuwa. Beijing will consider helping after Nepal submits a detailed proposal, the Chinese ambassador said.

Read more: Reuters, AP News, South China Morning Post, myRepublica, Ratopati, myRepublica

Police Hold Former Chief Justice Without Warrant

Plainclothes officers took former chief justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana from his home shortly after midnight Sunday without bothering to even flash a warrant. Police then released him 12 hours later without filing a case, saying they moved him for his safety after an unidentified group sent a threatening text. A government spokesperson denied that Rana had been arrested.

The explanation has raised some eyebrows.

Read more: myRepublica, The Kathmandu Post, Spotlight Nepal, The Kathmandu Post, myRepublica

Indian Screening at TIA Lacks a Paper Trail

Indian personnel have screened passengers boarding Air India and IndiGo flights at Tribhuvan International Airport since service resumed after the 1999 hijacking of flight IC814. Six to eight screeners handle each departure, including pat-downs on the apron, bu no Nepali agency has produced an agreement authorizing the practice. When Kantipur asked for it, the Tourism Ministry, Home Ministry and Civil Aviation Authority all pointed to one another. An Indian minister told Parliament in 2000 that airlines needed “extra security measures” but didn’t say who would run the checks.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Advertisement:

Fast Track Slips to 2030

The Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track is now due in April 2030, the third extension since the Nepali Army took charge in 2017 with a four-year target. Only about half the work is done. The estimated cost has climbed from Rs 85 billion ($559 million) to Rs 213 billion ($1.4 billion), and officials are warning that its likely to rise by another Rs 20 billion ($131 million).

Read more: myRepublica

Fuel Import Bill Up 73 Percent

Nepal spent Rs 65.49 billion ($431 million) on petroleum imports in the first two months of this fiscal year, which is a rather hefty 73 percent more than in the year-earlier period. Fuel made up about 16 percent of imports as the trade deficit grew 26 percent. Traders blamed higher crude prices, a stronger dollar and increased volume.

Read more: myRepublica

Parliament Puts Attendance Online

A trial website tracking lawmakers' attendance has pulled in more than 100,000 curious visitors in its first days. RSP lawmaker Sobha Khanal was a star, showing 97 percent attendance, while former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal pulled up the rear with a less-impressive 17 percent. The full site is expected to take advantage of the use of biometric logins and cover both houses in addition to all 16 parliamentary committees.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Missing Count Passes 6,600

The disaster authority again revised their count of the missing up to 6,150 from 5,179 after further reports from affected districts. Combined with Tibet's figures, the toll from the August 26 Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster is (so far) 1,446 dead and at least 6,669 missing. Rescuers pulled five bodies from Chilime's underground powerhouse in Rasuwa, arrived at by hand-digging the final stretch after excavators could go no farther, and five more from the Audit-3 tunnel at Upper Trishuli-1. In Kathmandu, hydropower workers' families protested outside the prime minister's office, saying authorities only bothered to send a small excavator by helicopter in the first week, and failed to do anything more meaningful.

Read more: Times of India (Indian Army rescuers), Twincities (mourning origins), Explorersweb (debris flow mechanics)

Shah Heads to UNGA with Climate, Flood Agenda

Prime Minister Balendra Shah took a regular Qatar Airways flight to Doha on Tuesday evening, with no red carpet, no guard of honor and no cabinet colleagues to see him off. He will address the UN General Assembly's General Debate tomorrow, his first major international outing since taking office in March, and plans to raise a claim to climate compensation and the August 26 Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster. Shah is due back September 26.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (foreign minister meetings), Khabarhub (delegation size), The Rising Nepal (constitutional basis), Desh Sanchar (departure time)

Wagle Takes $2.68 Billion Flood Bill to Doha

Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle is headed to Doha on September 28 for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank's governors meeting, then will be in Bangkok on October 12 for the IMF and World Bank annual meetings. Stops in New York and Washington are still being considered. He will be bringing a Rs 408 billion ($2.68 billion) damage estimate from the August 26 Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster (see lead story). The Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund has so far collected almost $90 million in donations. The UN's Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, was built for this kind of disaster, but has yet to come together at a board meeting with the power to release money, even though it’s been three weeks since Kathmandu's formal appeal on August 31. Its next scheduled session begins December 15.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (reconstruction cost forecast), Climatechangenews (FRLD pledge caps)

Advertisement:

Thirteen Ambassadors from 4,400 Applicants

Nishchal Nath Pandey will be headed to India, Kalyan Raj Sharma to China, and Chiran Jung Thapa to Washington. These are some of the marquee names from the list of 13 ambassadors that Cabinet picked Friday from a pool that started with 4,400 applicants. The list, a mix of academics, security specialists and development hands, will also send retired Nepal Army chief Gaurav Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana to London and Sharu Joshi to Berlin. Nine more ambassadorships are waiting on Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal's return from the 81st UN General Assembly in New York.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Shah Asks Anwar to Break Recruiter Syndicates

Prime Minister Balendra Shah checked in with Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim on Tuesday and asked him to get his labor minister into direct talks with the Nepali labor minister on taking apart syndicates and middlemen that have been routing Nepalese workers into Malaysia. Anwar said he agreed with Shah's view and promised to "immediately instruct" his labor minister to find a "concrete solution." Some 400,000 Nepalese workers are in Malaysia, making the country the third-largest labor source there after Bangladesh (900,000) and Indonesia (550,000).

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Cooperative Loan Ceiling Down Three Points

Cooperatives are no longer allowed to charge more than 13 percent on loans (that’s down from 16 percent), after a directive from the Office of the Cooperatives Registrar. The spread between savings and loan rates is limited to 6 percentage points, and penalty charges can’t be more than 5 percent of outstanding interest. Separate administrative, service, renewal and form fees are also banned, since all loan costs need to be inside the headline rate. Cooperatives are required to post their rates publicly and cannot offer different terms to board members, staff or ordinary savers for the same product.

Read more: myRepublica

Property Values Double, as Deal Count Flat

Real estate transactions were worth Rs 720.86 billion ($4.74 billion) in fiscal year 2025/26, which is a heady 86.7 percent above last year’s tally. The number of deals was up just 4.74 percent. Kathmandu was at the forefront of the rebound, with transactions in the metro up 155.74 percent in the fourth quarter, followed by Lalitpur at 136.92 percent and Pokhara at 108.71 percent. Bagmati Province reported a 175.33 percent rise in transaction value, which was the steepest provincial increase versus Madhesh's 31.98 percent, the lowest. Capital gains tax collection went up 63 percent in the quarter. Bank lending to real estate was up 6.93 percent, far below the 86.7 percent rise in transaction value.

Read more: The Annapurna Express

Anti-Graft Body Files More, Wins Less

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority reported more than 40,500 complaints in fiscal year 2025-26, its biggest caseload in years, but the conviction rate at the Special Court fell to just over half, which is down from a 65.24 percent success rate two years ago. The anti-graft body is now appealing 104 Special Court verdicts to the Supreme Court and has filed three review petitions. Former chief commissioner Suryanath Upadhyay said the numbers show that the CIAA needs to make sure evidence is properly collected and established before it files cases - more isn’t necessarily better.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Constitution at 11, Amendment Debate Sharpens

The 2015 constitution saw its 11th anniversary on September 20, and political leaders are split over whether to protect, review or rewrite it. President Ramchandra Paudel said there needs to be “full implementation” of existing provisions and stronger constitutional bodies, and Prime Minister Balendra Shah said that even the best charter "becomes a piece of paper if those entrusted with implementing it are not honest." The provinces continue to complain that Kathmandu has kept powers that were meant to be shared, federal civil service and police arrangements remain unfinished, and intergovernmental dispute councils rarely meet.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (leader), myRepublica (245 articles proposal), The Kathmandu Post

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Bhotekoshi Flood Leaves a $2 Billion Bill

The National Planning Commission's Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment has calculated total losses from the August 26 Bhotekoshi floods at Rs 408 billion ($2.68 billion). More than two-thirds of that amount, or about $1.97 billion, are expected to fall on the shoulders of private businesses, homes and privately owned infrastructure instead of the state. Hotels and restaurants have suffered the worst damage. The Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund has collected Rs 13.23 billion ($87 million), of which the government has already released Rs 1 billion ($6.6 million), sent via the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. A separate Post-Disaster Needs Assessment is now underway to further refine public and private financing needs.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (recovery package), myRepublica (fund breakdown)

India Sends 654 MW to Plug Flood Gap

New Delhi has approved up to 654 MW of extra power exports through the end of this calendar year to run 18 hours a day from midnight to 6pm over the Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar (up to 600 MW) and Tanakpur-Mahendranagar (54 MW) lines. The extra supply is expected to fill a 350-400 MW hole left by the Bhotekoshi disaster which knocked out several hydropower projects including Trishuli 3A, Devighat and the Nepal’s largest solar farm, the Nuwakot Solar Electricity Project. Kulekhani's reservoir-based cascade, normally reserved for winter, has been running all three powerhouses around the clock since the flood, and as a result is draining Indra Sarobar by up 10 centimetres a day more than monsoon inflows are able to refill it. India says exports from January 2027 onward will be reviewed in December, so Kathmandu's dry-season problems are still a question mark until the new year.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (costs), Spotlight Nepal (2027 review), The Kathmandu Post (reservoir levels)

Bailey Bridges Roll In, Army Flies Drones Out

The flood death toll has risen to 1,356. Almost 5,000 are still missing and 84,000 remain displaced. India has so far sent eight relief flights, more than 130 tonnes of supplies, and 54 rescue and forensic experts. It has also started trucking in parts for three Bailey bridges to allow for easier transport. France has sent shelter and medical supplies through the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism. Now that so many roads and bridges are gone and helicopters tied up in search and rescue, the Nepali Army is flying drones to get relief into some stranded communities.

Read more: Reuters, Iom, myRepublica, The Kathmandu Post, The Annapurna Express

Advertisement:

Krishnabhir Reopens on Shaky Ground

The Prithvi Highway's collapsed Krishnabhir stretch will reopen for two-way traffic on the first of next month. It will make use of a roughly 250-metre track cut into the slope above the wreckage where the Bhotekoshi flood has destroyed the roadbed. Infrastructure Minister Sunil Lamsal told Kantipur that "Krishnabhir could slide again," which is why crews are also paving a 12ish-km bypass connecting the Benighat and Fishling bridges before Dashain. A tunnel study will follow after the monsoon has passed.

Read more: Ratopati (geotechnical tests), The Kathmandu Post (bypass construction), myRepublica (industry minister meeting)

Korala Crossing Picks Up the China Trade

Korala customs took in Rs 1.5 billion ($9.9 million) in the 15 days after the Bhotekoshi flood shut the Rasuwagadhi and Tatopani crossings, and the Nechung office in Lomanthang is clearing about 50 containers a day, which is ten times the normal volume. The cargo is being rerouted from the two shuttered points from as far away as Shigatse and Lhasa. Nepal's side of the border is still making use of temporary facilities.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Property Deals Nearly Double

Real estate transactions were Rs 720 billion ($4.74 billion) through fiscal year 2025/26, which can be compared to the Rs 386 billion ($2.54 billion) in the year before. The fourth quarter brought in Rs 275 billion ($1.81 billion), which is also more than double the Rs 127.61 billion ($839.5 million) from a year earlier. Bagmati Province, which is home to Kathmandu, led the rise, with transaction values up 175 percent and land area under deal up 50 percent in Q4. Capital gains tax from property deals helped fill government coffers by increasing 63 percent. Bank lending to real estate crept up 7 percent, which is similar to the previous year's pace of 6 percent growth.

Read more: Online Khabar

Kathmandu Puts Malaysia Recruiter List on Notice

Nepal's Department of Foreign Employment has given 275 recruitment agencies seven days to explain how they made the cut. The department wants to know who recommended and approved the selections, whether the arrangement squeezes out competition from Nepal's licensed agencies, and whether any illegal money changed hands to get a spot. Since August 22, DoFE has stopped clearing demand letters filed through these agencies, and recruitment is only allowed under quotas that Malaysia gave before that date. The foreign ministry has sent a diplomatic note asking Kuala Lumpur to go back to the previous system, and the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies is bringing its complaint to the ILO.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Parliament Targets Shorter NRB Governor Term

The Finance Committee has proposed cutting the Nepal Rastra Bank governor's term from five years to three, with the Cabinet given the power to decide whether to grant a two-year extension or not based on performance. Deputy governor terms and those of three independent directors would be under the same reset rules. Every governor since the 2002 Nepal Rastra Bank Act has served a full five-year term. Former governor Yubaraj Khatiwada, who weathered pressure from both the government and anti-graft investigators during his tenure, said the proposal was a recipe for "short-term and unstable" leadership at the central bank.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Smart Licenses Stall on Provincial Delays

Since August 1, the Security Printing Center has stopped issuing smart driving licenses, as it waits for agreements that are needed from each of the seven provinces before printing can restart. Only Madhesh Province has done anything to date, and even that has simply been an extension of last year's deal instead of coming up with a new contract. The other provinces have sent nothing. The Department of Transport Management says that it’s fast-tracking files for migrant workers and students who already passed their road tests, but that's a workaround, not a fix. Deputy Secretary Gopalraj Timilsina says printing will be allowed to restart once all the provinces report their allocated budgets and exact license numbers.

Read more: Ratopati

Chitwan Highway Upgrade Open for Bids

International bidding opened September 4 to widen the 70-km Narayangadh-Hetauda highway to four lanes. The centerpiece of the rebuild will be a two-km flyover through Tikauli forest that will have traffic running overhead on pillars so that wildlife can cross unmolested below. The ADB is bankrolling the Rs 5.5 billion ($36 million) structure with a Rs 3 billion ($19.7 million) grant and concessional loans are expected to cover the rest. The bidding will take more than seven months before contracts are signed, after which winning contractors will have three and a half years to complete their work. Seven bridges are also planned along the route.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Kathmandu Bills the World for Bhotekoshi Flood

Nepal has told the UN's Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage it wants climate reparations, not aid, as it claims that industrialized emitters bear a "moral and legal obligation" for the Bhotekoshi disaster. The reparations claim is being run in parallel to a donor drive that includes a $49.6 million UN flash appeal. Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal is going public with the reparations line and has told his ministry to work diplomatic channels for grants instead of loans. A Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment has pegging the rebuild bill at more than Rs 400 billion ($2.6 billion) and it seems likely that the final figure will be at least a third higher than that, even.

Read more: Nepali Times, The Kathmandu Post, Online Khabar, The Kathmandu Post

Trishuli Tunnel Gives Up Survivors

Rescuers pulled two men alive from a flooded tunnel at the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower project on Friday, nine days after they went missing in the August 26 Bhotekoshi flood; a Chinese worker was later freed from a tunnel at Upper Trishuli-1 by a joint Nepal-South Korea team, and a 64-year-old woman was dug out of a mud-buried house in Nuwakot. A mechanical foreman at the 60-megawatt plant, said as many as 40 to 45 people may have been inside when the flood came tearing through it, which for unexplained reasons, is far more than the expected shift of four to six. About 500 of the roughly 900 missing hydropower workers are thought to be trapped in tunnels in a dozen locations, where Indian, Chinese, South Korean and US teams are working through debris with thermal drones and explosives to try and free them. Nepal's disaster authority says the confirmed death toll was 1,357 (as of yesterday), with 5,326 still missing, including 587 foreign nationals.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post, The Rising Nepal, The Annapurna Express, The Guardian

Flood Claims Skyrocket as Cell Towers Stay Down

Non-life insurers have reported more than Rs 26 billion ($171 million) in claims so far from the Bhotekoshi disaster, a figure the of course will continue to rise once life and accident policies are counted. The regulator has waived normal documentation rules and allowed insurers put forward up to half of the value of assessed losses instead of waiting for the standard two-month payout window. Telecom operators are counting the toll also. Nepal Telecom says it lost 83 towers, Ncell lost 27. Ncell thinks direct damage is going to be more than Rs 90 million ($592,000), but while its been damaging and expensive, the Prime Minister told parliament 95 percent of telecom service has already been restored.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (payout timeline), The Kathmandu Post (fiber cable damage)

Advertisement:

Flood Bill to Complicate LDC Exit

Change Initiative thinks flood losses will be about $1.95 billion (that’s a hefty 4.3% of GDP), but has banded their estimate as being from $1.38 billion to $2.70 billion. The bill is due shortly months before Nepal is (was?) scheduled to graduate from Least Developed Country status on November 24. The research group wants the UN Committee for Development Policy to re-calculate its vulnerability math using interim data before the General Assembly signs off, and has floated the idea of "graduation-with-conditions," which might allow for continued access to cheap financing and climate support until reconstruction milestones are met.

Read more: The Himalayan Times

Damaged Dams Drag the Hydropower Index Down

Roughly a dozen hydropower projects along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers took flood damage, but only about half of them belong to companies listed on NEPSE (including Rasuwagadhi, Chilime, Mailung Khola and Trishuli 3B). Most listed hydropower companies suffered no direct physical damage, but that fact hasn't stopped the hydropower sub-index from shedding about 65 points since the disaster, dragging insurers bracing for claims along with it and pulling the NEPSE index down around 16 points. Hydropower makes up about 17.5 percent of NEPSE's market cap (111 listed companies). Banking, financial services and insurance make up another 51.8 percent.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Sauraha Empties Out Over a Flood It Never Saw

Sauraha's Jungle Safari Lodge has 34 rooms and, most nights this week, has found most of them empty. Chitwan's Regional Hotel Association says occupancy across the district is below 5 percent, a collapse driven by the international coverage that followed the disaster, despite the fact that the floods never made it that far. Royal Tulip Chitwan, a 65-room property run by KTM Hospitality, has lost 80 percent of its bookings. Flights from Kathmandu to Bharatpur continue to run normally, and alternate routes including the Tribhuvan Highway and the Hetauda-Kulekhani road are able to bypass the washed-out Krishnabhir part of the Prithvi Highway. Sauraha's 125 hotels, built to handle 8,000 visitors a day, are despairing as they watch peak season pass with a "handful of Chinese tourists," and little else.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

China Discloses Little on Gyirong Flood Numbers

Twelve days after the flood, Nepal has identified more than 1,350 dead and continues to track thousands missing, with DNA samples collected from 1,181 bodies and 1,195 relatives. Chinese authorities, on the other hand, took five days to share that 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for on their side of the border. Foreign journalists waited more than a week for a chaperoned visit to Gyirong. The International Campaign for Tibet says at least 300 homes were destroyed in Gyirong, that relocated villagers' communications with the outside world have been "extremely limited and curtailed," and that the toll is likely much higher than Chinese officials have been willing to share thus far.

Read more: AP News (missing workers), NPR, myRepublica (DNA identification)

PM Shah Takes the UNGA Podium

Prime Minister Balendra Shah will leave for New York on September 22, taking the UN General Assembly slot that the Cabinet had previously given to the Foreign Minister (before the disaster). The PM will address the Assembly on September 24. Nepali Congress president Gagan Thapa wants Shah to go beyond the loss-and-damage appeal and lean on glacier science, saying Nepal's claims "need to be based on scientific studies" and should also target grant-based climate finance (see also the first story, above). Shah will return home on September 25, finishing out his first trip abroad since taking charge on March 27.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (COP31 Türkiye dates), myRepublica (prior PM precedents)

Oli Walks Free, Gen Z Reforms Stall

Nepal had its first Gen Z Martyrs' Day on September 8 with a nationwide public holiday for the 76 that were killed in last year's uprising. Former PM KP Sharma Oli and ex-Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak, arrested in late March on culpable homicide charges, spent about 13 days in custody before the Supreme Court ordered them released. Five months later, both are free on personal recognisance, with no charges filed and no evidence disclosed. The Gen Z Council that was promised in the December 10-point agreement still hasn't been convened and an independent review found only 38 of the Balen Shah administration's first 100 commitments have been implemented to date

Read more: Online Khabar, Spotlight Nepal (holiday declaration), The Kathmandu Post (38 of 100 commitments), Online Khabar (Prachanda), Spotlight Nepal (Karki's advice)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

The news out of Nepal this week is largely about the disaster. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.

Satellite Imagery Pins Flood on Langtang Glacier

Satellite imagery from Planet Labs has settled the question of what happened above Rasuwa on August 26. A 600-meter-wide section of glacier and rock broke free at 5,200 meters on Langtang Lirung’s north face, fell 1,200 meters, and sent ice and debris into the Lhende Khola. The collapse generated a seismic event of magnitude 5.2, which the US Geological Survey first read as a 4.4 earthquake before revising its call. The debris blocked the river, then suddenly was unblocked, sending the flood downstream. The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, working off imagery shared by the Chinese side, says the event was a combination of ice avalanche, permafrost movement and rockslide. A full technical assessment is still pending.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (climate change risk), Nepali Times (infrastructure damage), The Kathmandu Post (cross-border warning systems)

2025 Findings Unimplemented, Disaster Follows

A July 8, 2025 flood on the Bhotekoshi left 18 people missing and destroyed the Miteri Friendship Bridge, causing Rasuwa’s district disaster committee to file a report calling for a cross-border early warning system with China, mapping of glacial lakes, and drainage structures to be built on high-risk lakes. On August 26, 2026, with no cross-border warning system, no glacial lake mapping, and no drainage structures in place, the river tore through a 42-kilometer stretch of the Betrawati-Rasuwagadhi road and caused widespread devastation. Ashish Gajurel, chair of the House of Representatives Development Committee, said last year’s flood “had already given a strong warning.” The report had several actionable recommendations, but none had been implemented.

Read more: Online Khabar (2025 report recommendations), myRepublica (climate fund financing)

Glacier Flood Wipes Out a Tenth of the Grid

A glacier collapse above Rasuwa on August 26 sent floodwater tearing through the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli valleys, destroying 12 hydropower and solar plants with a combined 431.1 megawatts and battering 15 more under construction (good for another 470 megawatts or so). The damage means a loss of about a tenth of Nepal’s installed capacity. Rasuwagadhi, only recently back online after last year's flood on the same river, went down again alongside Chilime, Devighat and a 220kV substation in Nuwakot, cutting power to Rasuwa district. NEA is preparing to run the Sanjen plant in "isolated mode," (that means disconnected from the national grid). Over the 12 damaged operating sites, more than 600 hydropower workers remained unaccounted for as of Sunday evening.

Read more: myRepublica (district outages), myRepublica (Sanjen restoration), myRepublica (rescue operations), Al Jazeera (death toll, damages)

Advertisement:

Barrier Lake Breaches Above Bhotekoshi

A barrier lake near the Chhochen Khola-Purepu Tsangpo confluence on the Nepal-China border has breached, Rasuwa's chief district officer said Friday, threatening a fresh water rise down the Bhotekoshi. China's Ministry of Water Resources had put the lake's volume at roughly 2 million cubic metres as of Thursday, with another 3 million expected to flow in over three days. Authorities are preparing aerial reconnaissance using helicopters stationed in Dhunche and Rasuwa. The breach comes after, and is separate from the August 26 flood.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (rescue deployment), The Kathmandu Post (Rasuwa flood damage), The Kathmandu Post (flood simulations)

Flood Gauges Stayed Green

The gauge at Rasuwagadhi recorded the Bhote Kosi at 1.62 metres, low and falling, at 8:40am on August 26. Minutes later a glacier-triggered debris flow destroyed it. Every station downstream died the same way, each one below its Amber warning threshold. By the time the wave reached Devghat, 170km downstream on the Narayani, it peaked at 6.57m, still under the 7.3m Amber line. The first station to register the danger was Malekhu, 100km downstream, at 11:20am, nearly three hours after the flood crossed the border, when water rose almost four metres between two ten-minute readings and crossed the Red alert mark. The network measures how high a river climbs, calibrated on decades of monsoon rainfall, not how fast a debris wall moves through a gorge. There is still no real-time data arrangement with China, whose glaciers triggered the collapse.

Read more: Nepali Times (budget cuts), The Kathmandu Post (NDRRMA delay), The Kathmandu Post (municipality death toll), myRepublica (Nepal-China framework), The Kathmandu Post (GLOF history)

Flood Bill Could Reach $5 Billion

The Finance Minister told Reuters the country may need up to $5 billion to rebuild after the flood, though he said the figure is preliminary. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority thinks the initial infrastructure losses are Rs 200 billion ($1.3 billion) but that’s surely a fraction of the full rebuild estimate. Roughly 15,000 houses have been destroyed and hydropower projects in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha and Chitwan have been badly damaged. Commercial banks are looking at at least Rs 10 billion ($66 million) of exposure. Four of nine bank-financed hydropower projects took a hit, with Rs 7.5 billion ($49 million) tied to those plants and another Rs 2.5 billion ($16 million) lent to residents and businesses in the three affected districts. The government has not allocated a separate disaster response budget for this fiscal year and says it will approach donors once the needs assessment is complete.

Read more: myRepublica, The Kathmandu Post, myRepublica, The Annapurna Express, myRepublica

Seven-Day Wait to Enter Flooded Tunnels

Roughly 900 workers have been out of since the flood hit 11 hydropower sites along the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli corridor. Independent Power Producers' Association members say they were forced to wait seven days for government permission before they were allowed to enter flooded tunnels. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority blamed "geographical conditions and complexity" in addition to a “shortage of resources” for the delay. The Army puts confirmed rescues at 279, IPPAN says 361, but neither number has moved much over the past few days.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (site-by-site rescue counts), The Kathmandu Post (Rs64bn damages), Ratopati (delay criticism), Online Khabar (minister quotes)

Foreign Tunnel Teams Join Bhotekoshi Search

Indian and Chinese tunnel rescue teams are working damaged hydropower sites alongside the Army. India is working at Chilime and Langtang, and China is at Upper Trishuli 3A. A South Korean team has arrived, and Singapore is sending a Disaster Victim Identification unit. Kathmandu has asked international partners for LiDAR, Bailey bridges, DNA testing kits, and high-capacity drones. More than 21,000 personnel from the Army, Police, and Armed Police Force are currently in the field.

Read more: The Rising Nepal (rehabilitation outlook), Spotlight Nepal (site-by-site deployment)

Korala Left Holding China's Trade Line

China closed the Tatopani crossing on Saturday, August 29 because of a landslide risk on the Nepali side at Liping after the August 26 flood swept away Rasuwagadhi's Timure settlement along with its customs, immigration and police offices. That leaves Korala in Mustang, a high-altitude pass with nothing like the capacity of the other two, as the only working overland link to Chinese goods. Traders are looking at the longer Kolkata sea route as backup, and officials in Lhasa say trucks and containers stuck in Kerung may get rerouted through Korala too. Consul General Laxmi Niraula says Tatopani will open again once the landslide threat in Liping is under control. Rebuilding customs offices near Timure, officials say, will take months.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (import volume stats), The Kathmandu Post (customs revenue impact), myRepublica (stranded citizens repatriation)

Kathmandu Fuel on a Detour

A section of the Prithvi Highway collapsed at Krishnabhir on August 30, forcing Nepal Oil Corporation to reroute Kathmandu-bound tankers onto the 107km Naubise-Hetauda stretch of the Tribhuvan Highway or the 92km Lalitpur-Hetauda run along the Kanti Highway. NOC says its Amlekhgunj stockpile is still able to get to the valley in about six hours.

Read more: myRepublica

Drones Deliver Aid, Then Retrieve Bodies

Airlift Technology's drones delivered food and medicine to flood-cut villages in Dhading and Nuwakot last week, then did what rescuers couldn't do by airlifting seven bodies from Benighat-3 to Benighat-5. In Devighat-3, an AI-enabled drone communicated with survivors by asking by loudspeaker whether they had water, food or medicine, then radioed back what they needed to rescue crews.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

CIAA Probes Three Ex-PMs' Gatekeepers

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority has begun asset probes into the personal secretaries of former prime ministers KP Sharma Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, after the Department of Money Laundering Investigation kicked the cases upstairs. A team of civil servants and police has written to more than 20 agencies, including Nepal Rastra Bank and land revenue offices, to try and get records on shares, vehicles, land and buildings. Bhanu Deuba has been given a 13-page disclosure form covering bank accounts, loans, foreign travel, family property and company investments. The probe follows last year's Gen Z protests, during which the Deuba couple was assaulted at home and Nepali and foreign currencies were found at their residence before it was set on fire.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Pokhara Airport Gets Second International Route

Pokhara tourism operators met UAE Ambassador Abdulla Saeed Mubarak Jarwan Al Shamsi this week to shore up commitments ahead of flydubai’s daily Dubai service, launching September 23 with bookings now open through March 26, next year. It will be the second scheduled international route from an airport that opened three years ago. The first, Himalaya Airlines’ Lhasa service, was launched in March 2025 and has been suspended because of low demand. flydubai connects to more than 250 destinations, and Pokhara Tourism Council’s immediate past president Pom Narayan Shrestha says the meeting was mostly centered on figuring out how to make the route last, since Himalaya Airlines wasn’t able to crack that nut.

Read more: The Rising Nepal

Advertisement:

Kathmandu Chases Council Seat as Rapporteur Waits

Bernard Duhaime, the UN Special Rapporteur on transitional justice, has heard nothing from Kathmandu since he proposed a November 17-27 visit three months ago. The Balendra Shah government cancelled his June trip after sacking the leadership of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons in early May, and it still hasn't started the appointment process to replace them. Normally a job like that (the replacement, that is) takes about six months.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Agnipath Talks Resume as India Army Chief Visits

India's new army chief General Dhiraj Seth spent four days in Kathmandu last week, collecting an honorary Nepal Army generalship from President Ramchandra Poudel and paying a courtesy call on the Prime Minister (who also happens to hold the defence portfolio). It was Seth's first foreign visit since taking over in June, and the first private audience Shah has granted a foreign military figure since he took office in March. Agnipath recruitment for Gorkha soldiers, frozen since 2022, was a hot topic, and both sides said they wanted a "collaborative and consultative approach," without explaining what that might entail.

Read more: Hindustan Times

497 Blank Passports Still Missing

A chargesheet meant to settle one case of five Tibetan refugees traveling on Nepali papers has reopened a much bigger can of worms. Three of the documents, serial numbers A-026225 through A-026227, can be connected back to a batch of 500 blank travel documents that (mysteriously?) vanished from the Foreign Ministry's Store Section in 2009. Only three have ever re-surfaced. The Central Bureau of Investigation says it has now opened an investigation into the other 497. Who took them, and where they ended up, is still unknown.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Medical Council Hunts Ghost Faculty

The Nepal Medical Council has pulled together a committee to review credentials for the up-to 500 foreign doctors (mostly Indian) registered to teach at private medical colleges, after finding one cleared to work in Nepal was still employed back home. Officials think that colleges fly the doctors in only for Medical Education Commission monitoring visits. Those visits help set the number of how many MBBS seats a college can offer, but the thinking is after the visits the colleges let the doctors return home and students go untaught. Students have complained that listed faculty never show up to teach.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Supreme Court Orders Dairy Farmer Payments

The Supreme Court of Nepal has told the government to build a system to guarantee that dairy farmers get paid on time. The order comes as a result of a case in which farmers were (when the case was first filed) owed around Rs7 billion ($46 million). Private companies under the Dairy Industry Association and Nepal Dairy Association made up roughly Rs6 billion ($39.5 million) of that, and the state-run Dairy Development Corporation owed another Rs900 million ($5.9 million). The court found no evidence that tripartite agreements reached in March and June 2024 between government, industry and farmers had regularised the payment cycle or done anything to clear the backlog.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Khanal Recasts US Ties Around Capital Over Aid

Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal used a Kathmandu seminar that was intended to celebrate 250 years of US independence to pitch a rewrite of the relationship toward less aid and more capital. He identified three targets, led by American venture funding for Nepali IT talent, joint hydropower and cross-border transmission projects, in addition to diaspora capital and skills flowing back through Nepali-Americans in the US. No dollar figures, project list, or American counterpart response came with his speech. The pitch comes as Nepal gets prepared to graduate from Least Developed Country status.

Read more: Radionepalonline

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Nepal Kept One Copy of the State

Auditor General Toyam Raya told the Public Accounts Committee last week that fires during the September 8-9 protests last year destroyed records at 179 public organizations, including about one million land documents. Government transactions worth Rs 148 billion ($973 million) are now, as a result, apparently unaudited. Bank statements and government software can show that money moved, but proof that it moved legally burned with the files. Lawmakers rejected the idea that missing paper should excuse missing audits. One system survived intact - that’s the Integrated Data Management Centre in Singha Durbar which was able to keep its core databases online, with a recovery site in Hetauda holding records for Nepal Rastra Bank, the Home Ministry, police, the company registry, the Nagarik App, and all 753 local governments. The Supreme Court had no similar system of backups.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

USAID Left Gaur and Newborn Deaths Returned

Gaur had cut neonatal deaths to zero before Washington dissolved USAID last year and removed the maternal health outreach workers who identified dangerous pregnancies early. Within months, newborns were dying again. Kabita Mukhiya spent weeks bleeding and swollen in her home outside Gaur before an aunt got her to a hospital, where doctors told her the baby she carried had died. Kabita then died too. The US State Department says it still supports maternal and child health programs in Nepal, without letting anyone know how much is invested or through whom.

Read more: AP News, AP News

Kathmandu Leaves Washington, Beijing and Delhi Posts Empty

Twenty-one ambassadorial posts are vacant or in transition, including Nepal's three most consequential relationships. Washington and Beijing have had no resident envoy since October 17, when the Karki government recalled 17 political appointees named by the Oli administration the previous July. Delhi lost its ambassador on April 5, less than two weeks into Balendra Shah's term, in addition to envoys for Australia, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Denmark and South Africa. Seven career diplomats saw their four-year terms expire on July 21 and are now operating on an interim status as Kathmandu stalls on replacements. Missions in Brazil, Denmark and South Africa were already set for closure in the May 29 budget speech.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Advertisement:

Finance Ministry Holds MCA-Nepal's Extension Letter

MCA-Nepal sent a one-year extension request to the Finance Ministry in mid-May, asking it to forward the letter to Millennium Challenge Corporation headquarters in Washington. Three months later, the letter has not been sent onward. The delay is a compounding of previous setbacks, including the October 2023 cancellation of bids for the compact's 315-km transmission line and Trump's July 2025 pause on US foreign assistance. The $747 million package is still due to finish by August 30, 2028. A senior finance ministry official confirmed the request had arrived and said it remained under discussion. An MCA-Nepal board member said MCC headquarters was “positive” about allowing the extension.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Banks Profit From Recoveries, Not New Credit

Nepal's 20 commercial banks booked Rs 69.78 billion ($459 million) in net profit for the fiscal year ended mid-July, which is up about a third from Rs 52.79 billion ($347 million). The economy remains weak and excess liquidity has remained dogged for a third year. Nepal Bankers' Association president Santosh Koirala said loan disbursement grew only marginally and that profits came largely from bad-loan recoveries and provision reversals.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

One Buffalo Deal Flattered Last Year's FDI

Foreign investment commitments fell to Rs 3.77 billion ($24.8 million) in the first month of fiscal year 2026/27, down from Rs 24.10 billion ($158.6 million) a year earlier, even though approved projects were increased from 127 to 191. The gap is mostly thanks to one 2025 approval, a Rs 20.45 billion ($134.5 million) processed buffalo meat factory to serve the China market. No similar large project appeared this year. Without that deal, the pipeline looks thinner but broader. IT made up 128 approved firms but only Rs 569.8 million ($3.7 million) in promised capital; 33 tourism projects drew Rs 1.63 billion ($10.7 million).

Read more: Online Khabar

Karnali Waits While Ministers Fly

Salyan's district hospital is sanctioned for eight specialists and has one. Maternity services have been suspended for a month for lack of a gynecologist, and the chief physician went on leave a week ago, leaving the hospital dependent on doctors hired under scholarship contracts. In nearby Rukum West, the situation is no better. The two hospitals each have 15 official beds but run up to 40 and see more than 200 patients a day between them. In Kathmandu, Nepali Congress Chief Whip Basana Thapa told Parliament the government spent between Rs 3 million ($19,700) and Rs 3.5 million ($23,000) to airlift a minister home for treatment, and families in Karnali are still waiting for basic care.

Read more: Asian News Network, myRepublica

TPS Ends for 7,000 Nepalis in the US

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered Nepalis on Temporary Protected Status to leave the United States or to expect deportation, ending a safeguard that was first given after the April 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people. About 12,700 Nepalis once held TPS, and roughly 5,500 have converted to green cards over the past decade. The remainder will lose both legal residency and work permits. Nepalis are among nationals from twelve other countries, including Haiti, Honduras, Somalia, Venezuela and Afghanistan, who have been swept into termination notices. DHS told affected individuals to make immediate arrangements to leave the country.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Sudurpaschim Spends Rs 140M, Passes Nothing

Sudurpaschim Provincial Assembly spent Rs 140.2 million ($922,000) in fiscal 2025-26 on salaries, staff, meetings, vehicles and fuel, but passed zero full bills. The provincial government registered two full bills and three amendments; only the two amendments cleared (they were related to local service formation and secretariat housekeeping). Nine bills, including two full bills carried over from the previous fiscal year, are still stuck, most of them in committee. The assembly met 30 times over three sessions. The province has also failed to endorse its budget for fiscal 2026-27, leaving government spending frozen.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Ncell Officials Face Rs 95B Bill

Nepal's Central Investigation Bureau wants Rs 95 billion ($625 million) recovered and 22 people prosecuted, nine of them Ncell officials and two from Nepal Investment Mega Bank, over the auction of bankrupt Smart Telecom's assets. Police say the deal was rigged by way of collusion between the bank and Ncell. Former Nepal Telecommunications Authority chairman Bhupendra Bhandari was arrested on July 30. The recommendation comes as a separate government committee, chaired by former Auditor General Tanka Mani Sharma Dangal, published findings on Ncell's ownership history, including a December 2023 sale from Axiata to Spectralite UK that the committee says never got the legally required approvals.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (CIB charges), The Annapurna Express (share transfers)

Silver Outspends Gold in Nepal for the First Time

Silver imports were up 366 percent to Rs 32.74 billion ($215 million) in the fiscal year ended mid-July, tiptoeing past gold's Rs 29.15 billion ($192 million) for the first time. Silver shipments more than doubled to 104.29 tonnes as gold shrank 6.17 percent to 1.52 tonnes as its price kept climbing, reaching Rs 307,900 ($2,026) per tola on Monday. Dealers say most of the silver arrived as granules, not bars, and was snapped up by small investors chasing quick gains after prices roughly doubled between October and January, thinking it was a cheaper bet than gold once stocks and property stopped delivering.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (import origin breakdown), Online Khabar (daily price move)

Advertisement:

Tibetan Studies Conference Forced Online

Kathmandu University spent months preparing to host the 17th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, but now it won't happen on campus. Chief Secretary Govinda Bahadur Karkee called Vice-Chancellor Rishikesh Wagle, Registrar Rajeev Shrestha and HiCAS's Sagar Sharma last Monday and asked for cancellation because of security concerns, after Chinese Ambassador Zhang Maoming met senior officials to stoke worries that pro-Tibet activists could turn the conference into a protest platform. IATS acting president Françoise Robin and secretary general Ulrike Roesler had written to Education Minister Sasmit Pokharel to warn them that the change would damage the university's academic standing and hurt Nepal's reputation, tourism and academic collaborations. A Western diplomat reportedly suggested Kathmandu reverse course and let Nepali citizens exercise freedom of expression to no avail. The week-long gathering will now run entirely online.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Nepal Can't Find Its India Treaties

Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal told Parliament on Monday that the government is unable to confirm whether it holds the original 1816 Sugauli Treaty or the 1950 Peace and Friendship Treaty with India. The two documents are the ones that underpin Nepal's western and southern boundaries. Some papers are at the National Archives, he said, but nobody has verified they are the formal treaty texts. The admission comes five years after Kathmandu used Sugauli-era evidence to redraw the official map in 2020 to include Limpiyadhura and Kalapani, territory India still holds. Delhi's response, delivered by external affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, mentioned "existing bilateral mechanisms" for any disagreements.

Read more: myRepublica (lawmaker inquiry), Ratopati (Modi invite)

Cooking Gas Vanishes Again

Imports were holding steady at 41,294 tonnes by August 8, but for some reason, cooking gas disappeared from shelves within weeks of Nepal Oil Corporation restoring full 14.2 kg cylinder sales on June 15. The Home Ministry has ordered police to guard Kathmandu Valley depots after Industry Minister Gauri Kumari Yadav asked for security at monitoring sites. In Rautahat, Chief District Officer Dinesh Sagar Bhusal inspected 17 dealers, finding reduced stocks but no evidence of black marketing. Officials blame consumers rushing back with empty cylinders they had held during four months of half-cylinder rationing, not cuts in Indian supply.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (cylinder circulation), myRepublica (security deployment), The Himalayan Times (police officers)

China Border Delays Squeeze EV Imports

The NAIMA Nepal Mobility Expo opened at Bhrikutimandap on Tuesday. NAIMA president Ritu Singh Vaidya says the bottleneck isn't demand, it's Tatopani and Rasuwagadhi, where vehicles must be unloaded, inspected and fitted with regulatory stickers before being reloaded for onward transport, adding cost and delay to anything coming in from China. Vaidya wants any MRP system customs is considering to be practical and predictable before the festive buying season, which is traditionally the industry's peak stretch for sales.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Shah Meets With India and China Envoys

PM Balendra Shah met foreign ambassadors individually for the first time since taking office, receiving Indian Ambassador Naveen Srivastava and then Chinese Ambassador Zhang Maoming hours apart on Monday at Singha Durbar. Srivastava brought greetings from Narendra Modi and posted on X about an "engaging and productive exchange" on the India-Nepal partnership. Zhang's session followed, with the Prime Minister's Office readout containing near-identical language about deepening "historic ties" and expanding cooperation in areas of mutual interest. Shah had earlier declined meetings, saying that at the time they were against diplomatic protocol.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (China envoy meeting), myRepublica (Srivastava), The Kathmandu Post

Congress Rivals Meet for 30, Leave Empty-Handed

Nepali Congress President Gagan Thapa and dissident leader Shekhar Koirala met on Tuesday for just 30 minutes, but left with no agreement on who runs the party. Shortly after, Shashank Koirala's faction sent letters to Thapa, the Central Working Committee, and the Election Commission demanding a freeze on all organizational, policy, political, and financial decisions with long-term impact as the Supreme Court reviews a leadership dispute filed by former President Sher Bahadur Deuba and Acting President Purna Bahadur Khadka.

Read more: Nepal News (freeze demand), Ratopati (meeting timeline), Khabarhub (Deuba return)

House Moves Intelligence Agency Into PMO

The House of Representatives on Monday passed the Nepal Special Service Act amendment moving the National Investigation Department out of the Home Ministry and into the Prime Minister's Office, over opposition objections that the intelligence body should stay put.

Read more: Nepal News, Khabarhub (Sugauli Treaty response), Firstpost (Brics summit backdrop)

Rs 250 Purchase Wins Tax Lottery

A shopper who spent Rs 250 ($1.64) at Shiva Krishna General Store in Punarbas Municipality, Kanchanpur, took home the Inland Revenue Department's Rs 1 million ($6,579) bumper prize in the first draw of the Taxpayer Incentive Gift Programme, which rewards consumers for demanding receipts for purchases. Fifteen others won Rs 100,000 ($658) (each) in daily draws. QR payers are entered automatically but must keep their receipts; cash buyers have to ask for a PAN or VAT bill and upload it to the department's website to get a lottery coupon.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Army Restarts Hetauda Textile Looms

Forty soldiers and technicians from the Nepal Army's Directorate of Military Materiel Production spent 40 days clearing rust, overhauling power supply and servicing looms that have been idle since 2002. On Saturday, Hetauda Textile Industry ran cloth through the machines for the first time in nearly a quarter century, on a Rs 3 million ($19,700) emergency budget the Industry Ministry approved for the job. The factory still needs new machinery and a real investment plan before the looms run for profit rather than as a proof of concept. The Cabinet approved the revival on July 2.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Recruiters Stop Foreign Labor Approvals

Nepal's foreign employment agencies stopped processing labor approvals Friday after a 15-day ultimatum to the government expired without an answer. They want penalties against manpower companies reversed and a transparent service fee structure to replace the largely unenforced "free visa, free ticket" policy. Workers routinely pay between Rs 300,000 ($1,970) and Rs 500,000 ($3,290) out of pocket despite rules that bar charges for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Malaysia. New labor approvals were already down almost a fifth compared to last fiscal year, (that’s a drop of ~100k workers), in a sector tied to roughly 64 percent of Nepali households and that provides remittances worth about a third of GDP.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Europe migration), myRepublica (NAFEA leadership), The Kathmandu Post (remittance)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Avalanche Kills Nimsdai and Five Nepali Guides

An avalanche on Pakistan's 8,051-metre Broad Peak on July 31 killed six of Nepal's most decorated high-altitude guides, including Nirmal Purja, the Elite Exped founder who led the first winter ascent of K2 in January 2021. Gyaljen Sherpa, who held a Guinness World Record for summiting Kanchenjunga three times in a single season, and Kili Pemba Sherpa, who had been one of the ten climbers on that 2021 K2 team, were among the dead, along with three other senior guides. Nepali tourism entrepreneurs say the private sector had rescue pilots and aircraft ready to mobilize but were held up waiting on diplomatic coordination and official authorization from Kathmandu. The government has not said when or whether it will open an inquiry into the response.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (victims' careers), Thetourismtimes (government appeal)

Home Minister Signs 34 Points, Denies All of Them

Home Minister Sudan Gurung inked a 13-point deal in Janakpur on August 1 with the United Hindu Front and Hindu Samrat Sena, the last of 34 points agreed in Sunsari, Siraha and Dhanusha in three days. Point one commits the government to an all-party talk within three months on declaring Nepal a Hindu state again, a demand from groups whose wider charter also called for auditing madrasa finances and deporting "Rohingya, Bangladeshi and Pakistani infiltrators." Within a day, Dhanusha's Chief District Officer Prem Prasad Luitel, despite being “in the room”, was telling reporters no agreement existed at all, only a memorandum "received" along with demands "listened to." Nepal's constitution still makes a claim that the country is secular.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (six-point memorandum), myRepublica, myRepublica (12-point charter), Nepal News (13-point measures), myRepublica (curfew lifted)

Washington's Visa Bond Turns Permanent

The US State Department's visa bond pilot, launched August 20, 2025, became permanent this Monday, with the ceiling for Nepali B1/B2 applicants raised from $15,000 to $20,000, more than ten times domestic annual per capita income. Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal spent the past four months trying to press visiting US officials to drop Nepal from the 50-country list, apparently to no avail. Washington justifies then rates by referring to overstay rates, document fraud, and weak identity verification. Consular officers are expected to default to a $15,000 bond, refundable if travelers leave on time, but the money must be posted in full before the visa is issued, and the applicant finds out the amount only at the interview.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (bond tier structure), The Kathmandu Post (applicant impact story), Nepal News (pilot program stats)

Advertisement:

Riyadh Freezes Visas After Nepal Shutters Centre

Saudi Arabia's embassy stopped processing work visas for laborers in five categories (loading and unloading, portering, cart operation and construction), after authorities shuttered the Industrial Training Institute in Basundhara last Wednesday for running Skill Verification Programme tests without legal authorization. The institute's operator, Sai Vision Pvt Ltd, had been charging workers Rs 10,000 ($66) for a process built around a $50 exam fee, with no legal channel for workers or recruiters to pay Saudi authorities directly. Somewhat bizarrely, perhaps, the labour ministry says the SVP programme has not been suspended, just the institute running it.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Government Ditches Lowest-Bidder Rule

Nepal has scrapped the lowest-bidder rule that’s been the measure of public works contracts for nineteen years, replacing it with a formula that awards contracts to whoever bids closest to the average of the remaining bids. The Second Amendment to the Public Procurement Act took effect July 16 after an unusual path. A presidential ordinance in April was fast-tracked around Parliament's two-house process and converted into law in July. On a contract estimated at Rs 100 million ($658,000), a firm bidding a genuine 28 percent below estimate, on lower overheads and owned machinery, would lose to a rival quoting Rs 96 million ($632,000) because that number would be closer to the pack's average of Rs 92.4 million ($608,000). The Federation of Contractors' Associations of Nepal has welcomed the change, saying it will be a fix for reckless underbidding that’s resulted in stalled projects.

Read more: myRepublica

IN Groupe Called Back After Losing ID Contract

Nepal's National Identity Management Information System has been glitching since early July, and IN Groupe technicians flown in from France are working on it. New applicants get a National Identity Number but no approval to go along with it, leaving 13 agencies including the Department of Passports, private banks and immigration accepting manual confirmation pages as a workaround. On May 8, the government cancelled the global tender for NIDMIS operation and maintenance, calling it a matter of digital sovereignty, and chose to run it in-house. Director general Krishna Poudel says full restoration is expected next week. That is the same week the central bank's amendment makes the ID card mandatory for eKYC on digital payments. Two weeks ago the government also handed IN Groupe a direct-procurement deal for 10 million ABIS biometric licences, bypassing normal tender rules.

Read more: Biometricupdate (printed cards), The Kathmandu Post (in-house concerns)

100 Days of Silence

Prime Minister Balendra Shah's first 100 days in office have brought no press conferences, no ministry access for reporters, and an advertising squeeze on private media. Editors at a prominent online portal killed a piece comparing Shah to Kazi Lhendup Dorjee, the Sikkimese leader who oversaw his kingdom's 1975 merger into India, after a colleague warned it would "invite retaliation" from Rastriya Swatantra Party supporters, who have organized campaigns against critical outlets before. The article had been prompted by Shah's May 31 remark in Parliament that "not only India but Nepal too has encroached upon Indian territories in many places." No government official called. No formal warning was issued. The piece died on an editor's desk.

Read more: Newslaundry

FM Joint Secretary Arrested in Passport Scam

Nepal Police's Central Investigation Bureau arrested Foreign Ministry Joint Secretary Pushparaj Bhattarai this week over more than 500 blank travel documents he handled at the Passport Division in 2008-2009. Three of the docs allegedly went to Tibetans falsely identified as refugees bound for Germany. The case has been on the shelf, dormant, since July 2011, when the German Embassy in Kathmandu flagged five suspicious documents issued in 2009. The signatures belong to branch officer Ram Prasad Subedi, now also a Joint Secretary and currently Nepal's Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva. Bhattarai told investigators someone must have "imitated and misused" his signature.

Read more: Online Khabar

Bucharest Beats Bahrain as Migrant Magnet

Romania has become the springboard of choice for workers headed to Europe, part of a 21-fold rise in labour migration to the continent over the past decade. Of the 792,187 labour permits issued in FY 2025/26, 93,508 went to European destinations, more than 53,000 of them new permits, and the Gulf's share fell from 77% to 64% as workers shy away from conflict risk while eyeing Europe's higher wages and shot at permanent residency. Remittances were $14.59 billion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year, a record, even as the RSP-led government promised 1.2 million new jobs at home over five years. An EU-commissioned report from Nepal Economic Forum notes that recruitment rules still treat Gulf-bound and Europe-bound migrants the same, leaving newer arrivals paying Gulf-level fees for European-level jobs.

Read more: Nepali Times

Rastra Bank Puts a Price on Policy Chaos

A new central bank working paper, the first to build an Economic Policy Uncertainty Index for Nepal, tracked Google search patterns from January 2011 to April 2026 and found that sustained policy confusion can knock up to 10 percent off the Nepse index, cut real imports by 15 percent, shrink private sector credit by 5 percent and shave around 2 percent off GDP. The Nepse reacts fastest, dropping roughly 5 percent right after an uncertainty shock before sliding further if the confusion drags on.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Ministry Opens Applications for Ambassador

Sixteen ambassadorial posts are vacant, including Beijing, Delhi, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. Five more envoys are working on expired terms in Cairo, Manama, Dhaka, Yangon and Nepal's UN mission in Vienna. The Foreign Ministry is reviewing applications from Nepal's first open call for the job, with recommendations expected within two weeks. Embassies in South Africa, Brazil and Denmark were shuttered this fiscal year.

Read more: myRepublica (vacant country list), Ratopati (mission totals)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Rights Groups Allege Pressure on Three Justices

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Commission of Jurists said Friday they have credible information that the executive is pressuring three Supreme Court justices to resign under threat of impeachment. None of the three organizations has published a written report, named a complainant, or identified the justices. Amnesty Nepal director Nirajan Thapaliya said the statement rests on “credible and highly reliable sources” he won’t name. Law Minister Sobita Gautam said the claim is baseless and challenged the groups to substantiate it; RSP General Secretary Bipin Acharya said no impeachment motion was ever contemplated.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Sunsari Clash Kills One; Blackout Probed

A farmer died from a gunshot wound to the abdomen after security forces opened fire on a communal clash in Dewanganj's Kaptanganj market on Sunday night. Nine others were wounded, and 13 security personnel were injured after a dispute over loud Bolbam pilgrimage music turned into a stone-and-spear standoff. The area went dark shortly before APF reinforcements arrived, and a five-member home ministry probe includes a Nepal Electricity Authority representative to figure out if the outage was deliberate. The Prime Minister's Office has given the committee seven days to report.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (curfew), Khabarhub (PMO quotes).

Birgunj Walkout Empties Waiting Rooms

Sixty-eight doctors at Narayani Hospital in Birgunj resigned en masse after a Police Chief Superintendent allegedly shoved doctors back into the Chief District Officer's office during talks meant to defuse an earlier crisis. That crisis started Saturday, when 50-year-old Raj Kumar Patel of Birgunj-25 died in the emergency ward and his relatives vandalized the unit and beat Medical Officer Dr Pramod Ram, who is now being treated in Kathmandu. The Nepal Medical Association responded Tuesday by suspending non-emergency services at hospitals nationwide, leaving only emergency wards open at places including Bir Hospital and Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. The Kathmandu Valley normally sees up to 20,000 outpatient visits on a normal day. The Health Ministry, without naming anyone or setting a deadline, promised legal action against those “responsible.”

Read more: The Himalayan Times (superintendent), myRepublica (ministry statement), The Himalayan Times (OPD scale), The Himalayan Times (NMA demands)

Advertisement:

Trade Deficit Widens to $11.7 Billion

The trade deficit widened a bit more than 16% to Rs 1.78 trillion ($11.7 billion) in FY 2025/26, with imports of Rs 2.096 trillion ($13.8 billion) swamping exports of Rs 315.29 billion ($2.07 billion). Every rupee of exports is now matched by 6.65 rupees of imports. India made up Rs 1.21 trillion ($7.96 billion) of the gap and China another Rs 423 billion ($2.78 billion), with deficits recorded against 134 trading partners. The import habit did feed the treasury, however, as VAT collected at customs saw a 12.78 percent lift to Rs 220 billion ($1.45 billion). VAT from domestic transactions grew 4 percent. This week the government published a five-year plan to increase exports to 20 percent of GDP.

Read more: myRepublica (trade deficit), myRepublica (VAT breakdown)

Nagdhunga Tunnel Opens, Mostly to Ambulances

After eighty(!) months and Rs 24 billion ($158 million), the Nagdhunga-Sisnekhola Tunnel came into operation Monday. For now the only vehicles allowed through are ambulances, fire engines and security convoys, as the Department of Roads is blaming a manpower shortage on the delay of opening the 2.68-kilometer passage to regular traffic. Officials say the tunnel cuts a 30-minute journey to seven minutes. Locals protested the opening, demanding guaranteed water supply, compensation for houses damaged during construction, safe passage and job security. Toll rates are between Rs 60 ($0.40) and Rs 600 ($3.95) based on vehicle size.

Read more: myRepublica (trial period tolls), The Himalayan Times (protester demands)

IN Groupe Gets Biometric Deal Without a Bid

The Cabinet's June 12 decision gives 10 million biometric identification licenses to IN Groupe, a French firm that already supplies Nepal's passports through subsidiary IDEMIA and, after taking over Safran Identity, now owns the company that sold the last batch. No competitive bidding was run. The proposed price is €0.0995 (about $0.11) per license, the same rate set under a March 2019 Cabinet-approved deal, unadjusted for seven years of inflation. Of the total, 1.5 million licenses will be bought directly and 8.5 million through a government-to-government arrangement, with a home ministry negotiation team now working out final terms. The existing licenses, covering fingerprints, iris scans, and facial data tied to national ID cards and passports, are close to expiring, with only a few thousand units left in the department's stock.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Fuel Shock Hits Wholesale Prices

Wholesale inflation was 8.47 percent in mid-June, a 39-month high, after energy prices rose 48.14 percent when US-Israel strikes on Iran sent global oil prices higher. Petrol climbed to Rs219 a litre ($1.44) from Rs156, and diesel to Rs237 ($1.56) from Rs139, before Hormuz tensions eased and pump prices retreated to Rs197 and Rs195. The fuel cost increases have filtered through the supply chain, though. Wholesale prices of basic metals rose 32.20 percent, intermediate goods 14.64 percent, and chemicals 14.75 percent. Nepal Rastra Bank's Gunaraj Bhatta says the pressure is "likely to be passed on to consumers for some time." Retail inflation was reported to be 5.22 percent for the same period.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Pokhara Airport Waives Fees to Lure Airlines

The cabinet has waived parking, landing, and navigation fees in full at Pokhara International Airport through mid-September 2028, in addition to a 50 percent cut on ground-handling charges, three years after the Chinese-built airport opened without a single regular international flight. Flydubai will start a daily Pokhara-Dubai service on September 23, giving the tourism capital its first scheduled connection to a major transit hub and onward routes to Europe and the US. The airport, built on a loan of nearly Rs 22 billion ($145 million), has so far handled only domestic traffic and a handful of chartered international flights to neighboring countries.

Read more: myRepublica

Pact Delivers Karnali, Stalls Two Seats Short

CPN-UML and the Nepal Communist Party put their five-province carve-up in writing on July 25, with Oli’s UML taking Koshi, Bagmati and Lumbini and Prachanda’s NCP getting Karnali and the Far-West. Karnali moved fastest, with NCP’s Mangal Bahadur Shahi claiming the chief minister’s post with UML backing in advance of a planned oath today. Bagmati is stuck. UML’s 25 seats plus NCP’s 26 make 51, which is two short of the 53 needed to take charge in the 104-member assembly. UML is courting the RPP’s 12 seats; the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party, holding 3, has already ruled it out.

Read more: Online Khabar (province carve-up), The Annapurna Express (Shahi oath), The Himalayan Times (RPP talks)

Central Bank Allows Indian Notes Back In

Nepal Rastra Bank has lifted its near decade-long ban on Indian 200-rupee and 500-rupee notes, and will now allow travelers to carry up to INR 25,000 ($291) per person across the border. Only the redesigned bills issued after India's November 9, 2016 demonetization qualify; the old 500-rupee and 1,000-rupee notes that were junked in that exercise remain no bueno. The rule, is intended to make life easier for Indian pilgrims, Nepali workers, and small border traders who've spent nine years working around cash restrictions on an open border. Nepali citizens still can't bring Indian rupees in from a third country, or take them out to one. Foreign visitors are allowed to bring in up to $5,000 without filing a customs declaration.

Read more: Telugutimes, Times of India

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

PM Scraps Tax via Facebook

The 3% equity fee on private education and health services lasted three weeks. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle wrote it into the budget for fiscal year 2026/27, effective Shrawan 1, to fund nutrition programs for Dalit and marginalized children, expand health insurance and improve public schools. Private school, college and hospital operators started protesting as soon as the budget was announce, so on July 21, the PM announced on Facebook that the fee would not be implemented "for now," offering instead a 10% quota of free beds at private hospitals and 10% scholarship seats at private colleges for disadvantaged groups. Wagle says the suspension will needs Cabinet endorsement to take legal effect, since the fee was introduced under Section 18 of the Financial Act. Gen-Z movement leader Rabi Kiran Hamal welcomed the reversal but said that tax policy "cannot be amended through social media announcements," and asked why a major policy call came from the PM's personal Facebook rather than from the Finance Ministry.

Read more: The Himalayan Times, Nepal News, The Rising Nepal, The Kathmandu Post, Online Khabar

Nepal Posts Steepest Peace Score Drop

Nepal fell 26 places to 111th out of 163 countries in the 2026 Global Peace Index, the largest single-year deterioration of any nation, a 9.1 percent collapse the Institute for Economics and Peace says is exceptionally rare. Almost every other situation resulting in a plunge like this involves a civil war, coup or insurgency. The index connects most of the damage to last September's Gen Z unrest, when security forces killed at least 76 people, including police personnel, injured more than 2,000, and saw parliament burned to the ground. Balendra Shah, the rapper-turned-engineer who took office in March as the country's youngest prime minister on the back of that uprising, is now watching the same generation turn on him. Protesters have massed in Kathmandu over riverside evictions, police conduct, and the self-immolation of 25-year-old ride-share driver Ganesh Nepali, who set himself on fire after a dispute with traffic police over a fine he couldn’t afford. Some demonstrators are now demanding Shah's resignation.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (conflict indicators breakdown)

Case Clearance Falls as Courts Rebuild from Arson

The Supreme Court settled less than a third of its caseload in fiscal 2025-26, down from 42% the year before, as the judiciary tries to function without the benefit of 936,000 case files that were burned during the September protests. Twenty-three court premises were damaged (ten were destroyed outright). Hearings were effectively frozen for nearly four months after central servers went down, an outage severe enough to stall courts that didn’t suffer directly from the arson, including the Patan High Court. In Gandaki, recovery teams been able to retreive 3,307 of the 6,126 documents lost, mostly by asking district attorneys and litigants for their copies.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (economic loss), myRepublica (court breakdown)

Advertisement:

Court Punts Ncell Deal to Regulator

The Supreme Court dismissed a writ seeking to void Ncell's 80 percent share transfer, but stopped short of blessing the deal as it gave the Nepal Telecommunications Authority a task of finishing a job that politicians and bureaucrats have dodged for nearly three years. The verdict, published this week, points the Authority to Section 47 of the Telecommunications Act, which lets it fine license violations rather than unwinding them. If Ncell pays a fine and submits the documents the Authority says are still missing, the transaction will get formally recognized. No fine amount has been set, and no timeline was given.

Read more: Ratopati

Usury Becomes a Serious Economic Crime

The Home Minister’s team agreed to classify usury as a serious economic crime, invalidate fraudulent loan documents, and draft a special law within three months, with a tribunal formed to hear cases. The deal comes after weeks of talks after victims marched from Janakpur, and covers forged promissory notes, coerced cheques, and land transfers signed under duress, as well as compensation and a path to get seized property returned to the rightful owners.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (task force timeline), The Kathmandu Post (district recovery statistics)

Foreign Tuition Blows Out Service Trade Balance

The service trade balance flipped from a Rs 9.85 billion ($65 million) surplus in FY 2015-16 to a Rs 90.94 billion ($598 million) deficit in FY 2024-25, mostly because of foreign tuition costs. Nepalis spent Rs 138.48 billion ($911 million) on education abroad last year, at a rising clip of about 18 percent yearly over the past three years. IT services, the sector that was expected (was hoped?) to close the gap, brought in Rs 22.33 billion ($147 million), or 9.36 percent of total service exports.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Rapeseed Rides Reopened Rail to Biratnagar

A CONCOR freight train pulled into Biratnagar's customs yard on Tuesday carrying 1,070 tons of Australian rapeseed in 40 containers, the first third-country cargo to clear Nepal's customs point since June 2023. The shipment travelled a route that barely existed on paper until November 2025, when India's customs board changed their tracking rules to allow rail cargo from Kolkata, Haldia and Visakhapatnam to run to Biratnagar instead of getting stopped at Birgunj. Nepal finalized its part of the arrangements in February. The Morang Trade Organization claims that the resulting freight savings will be up to 40% when compared to road transport costs.

Read more: Daily Sun (Nautanwa route), Spotlight Nepal (Sharada)

Lumbini's Hotel Boom Waits for a Runway

Rupandehi built for a boom that never came as investors sunk Rs 100 billion ($658 million) into roughly 2,100 hotels around Lumbini since the airport there started construction in early 2015. The region is now home to 13 star-rated properties, three of them five-star (Hyatt Palace in Butwal, Tiger Palace in Bhairahawa, and Siddhartha Vilasa), in addition to 10 four-stars built on the promise of direct international flights to Buddha's birthplace. Eleven years later, and the airport still isn't pulling the international traffic investors were promised, leaving roughly 300 large tourist hotels, 700 mid-sized properties, and 1,000 small hotels, farm stays and restaurants competing for a fraction of the visitors the plans assumed.

Read more: myRepublica

Japan's Tunnel Opens But China's Road Stalls

Kathmandu's first road tunnel got its public debut on Saturday, a "Fun Run and Walk" through the Nagdhunga-Sisnekhola bore ahead of trial operations on July 27. Tolls are now set at Rs 65 ($0.43) inbound for cars and Rs 260 ($1.71) for buses and heavy trucks. Motorcycles and pedestrians are barred entry. Ten kilometers away, the Chakrapath expansion has not yet started. Two months after Nepal and China signed an Rs 11 billion ($72 million) agreement on May 16 for the 8.2-kilometer Kalanki-Basundhara stretch, the road is still a field of mud and weeds, with contractor selection still waiting on Chinese authorities under the terms of the grant.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (toll schedule), Ratopati

Monsoon Leaves Seven Highways Shut

Seven highways are completely blocked and 12 more are allowing only partial traffic as landslides and flash floods have pinned down transport. The Mechi, Kanti, Diktel-Bhojpur and Araniko highways are still shut, as is the Tatopani road at Jurikhola in Bhotekoshi Rural Municipality-4, as machinery grinds through debris. Police reported two deaths and 15 injuries over 24 hours, interestingly, snakebites caused both fatalities and 11 of the injuries. With a Bay of Bengal low keeping the monsoon trough parked north of the Tarai, authorities have started to open the Koshi Barrage gates and have placed 21 districts on moderate flood alert.

Read more: myRepublica (landslide locations), The Annapurna Express (spokesperson quotes), Spotlight Nepal (rainfall forecast), Online Khabar (economic loss)

Electricity Dept Gives Survey Permits for 3,211 MW

The Department of Electricity Development issued survey permits for 99 hydropower projects of 3,211 MW and seven solar projects of 311 MW in fiscal year 2082/83, in addition to production permits for 29 hydropower projects of 1,857 MW. That brings the total to 264 hydropower projects with production permits for a combined 12,336 MW, plus transmission survey permits for 581 circuit kilometers in the 220 kV, 132 kV, and 33 kV classes. The department collects roughly Rs 3.5 billion ($23 million) a year in royalties, split between provincial and local governments.

Read more: Desh Sanchar

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Self-Immolation Sparks Crisis

The death of 25-year-old ride-share driver Ganesh Nepali, who set himself on fire outside Kathmandu's Department of Passports after municipal police clamped his motorcycle and fined him Rs 1,000 ($7), has become the first serious test of Prime Minister Balendra Shah's government. Nepali died at Bir Hospital from burns covering almost two-thirds of his body. After negotiations, the government and Kathmandu Metropolitan City signed a nine-point agreement with the family that promises an independent probe, suspension of the officers involved, a job for Nepali's wife, education support for his daughter, and consideration of martyr status.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post, Times of India, Indiatoday IN

Supreme Court Strikes Down Ad Order

The Supreme Court has struck down the government's April 1 order that limits state advertising to government-owned outlets. The Cabinet also named Umesh Shrestha, formerly editor of Nepal Fact Check, as Press Council chair, replacing Kumar Sharma Acharya, who was removed along with the rest of the board. A protest also took place when drivers parked private vehicles at the main gates of Kantipur in Tinkune, OnlineKhabar in Buddhanagar and Himalaya Television in mid-Baneshwor, then ran away; the Bhat-Bhateni outlet in Anamnagar and Nepali Congress President Gagan Thapa's Ratopul residence were blockaded the same way. The vehicles ended up being parked from 7am until traffic police brought in cranes to get them moved in the afternoon, but interestingly FNJ president Nirmala Sharma is saying the blockades are a state effort, and the federation claims that police stood by as "silent spectators" as it went down.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (ruling justices), Online Khabar (Shrestha background), The Himalayan Times (vehicle ownership)

Floods Shut Rasuwagadhi, Cut Off Three Districts

Chitwan's Narayani Field Office gauge reported 319.8mm of rain in 24 hours and flooding cut roads on three fronts. The Mechi Highway's Golakharka-Rajduwali stretch caved in, cutting Ilam, Panchthar and Taplejung off from Jhapa indefinitely. Both Kathmandu-Hetauda links (the Kanti Lokpath and the Hetauda-Sisneri road) were shut Monday evening as rivers rose and landslide risks grew. At Rasuwagadhi, engineers closed the tunnel gate and stopped generation at the 111 MW plant on Sunday night after a mud-laden flood made its way to the Lhende Khola, almost a year after the river last tore through the dam.

Read more: Online Khabar (rainfall station count), Online Khabar (Bailey bridge tools), The Himalayan Times (closure timing), Spotlight Nepal (crane dispatch)

Advertisement:

Deficit Blown Out

The treasury closed FY 2025/26 with a Rs 344 billion ($2.26 billion) deficit, almost entirely because of a capital spending collapse. Of the Rs 407.88 billion ($2.68 billion) set aside for capital projects, ministries managed to spend Rs 181.59 billion ($1.19 billion) (44.52%), by July 11, 15% points below last year's already weak performance. Recurrent spending flowed a bit more easily - 88% of the Rs 1.181 trillion ($7.76 billion) budget for salaries, pensions and administrative costs went out the door on time. Public debt is Rs 2.961 trillion ($19.5 billion), (44.87% of GDP). Revenue collection missed the mark again also, bringing in Rs 1.184 trillion ($7.78 billion) against a Rs 1.48 trillion ($9.72 billion) goal.

Read more: myRepublica (spending breakdown), myRepublica (past summits)

NEPSE Sheds $592 Million in a Week

Nepal Stock Exchange closed at 2,570.18 on July 13, its lowest showing in eight months, ending a week that wiped Rs 90 billion ($592 million) off market capitalization. All 13 sectoral indices finished the July 6-10 stretch in the red, finance lead the drop at 3 percent. Volume rose as prices fell. Monday's turnover was Rs 7.46 billion ($49 million), and one session during the week saw a 35-month high of Rs 15.54 billion ($102 million).

Read more: myRepublica (company gainers/losers), The Kathmandu Post (analyst outlook), The Himalayan Times (sector breakdown)

Loan-Shark Victims March as Warrants Wait

Roughly 300 loan-shark victims from 35 districts are marching from Janakpur to Kathmandu, making headway of about 25 kilometers a day through monsoon mud and landslides, to demand action the Prime Minister promised on his campaign trail. In Dhanusha district, more than 2,500 complaints and arrest warrants have been issued. Not against the moneylenders (silly you for thinking that!), but against the borrowers.

Read more: myRepublica

Idle Hydro Licensees Put on Notice

Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha told the newly elected IPPAN executive committee that developers who hold hydropower licenses without building anything will be reviewed, categorized, and “dealt with.” Having a license without construction is "unacceptable," he said, and IPPAN should not defend it. No timeline was given for the review. IPPAN presented a 38-point wishlist for PPA reform, private investment in transmission lines, and a more investment-friendly Electricity Act. Shrestha also said that a proposal for an Energy Attaché at Nepal's embassy in New Delhi has already gone to the Foreign Ministry. IPPAN president Mohan Dangi says the private sector could meet the 30,000 MW target within a decade if policy support can be finalized.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

Gandaki Legalizes Cannabis Farming

Gandaki Province Assembly unanimously passed a bill to legalize cannabis cultivation for medicinal and industrial use. It’s the first opening in a prohibition that goes back half a century to 1976. Growers will need a license (five years), CCTV and fencing, as well as a clean drug record for the past decade. Cultivation is expected to be limited to districts designated by the provincial government. A Chief Minister-led steering committee, including the ministers for agriculture, health, industry and forests, in addition to a new Cannabis Cultivation Regulation and Management Unit, will manage permits and compliance. Hitches in the plan include word from researchers who say that commercial licensing and hybrid seed could displace Nepal's undocumented hillside cannabis landraces before they are able to fully catalog them, as well as fear that the law could sit idle unless the provincial government puts forward proper implementation rules in a timely fashion.

Read more: Aninews IN (THC cap), The Kathmandu Post (landrace conservation), myRepublica (violation fines)

Study-Abroad Agents Need Cash Deposit

Cabinet approved two regulations that end years of lax oversight for businesses sending Nepali students overseas. Education consultancies will now be required to post a Rs 2.5 million ($16,400) cash deposit before they can open, foreign ownership is barred (existing foreign-invested firms have a year to transfer to Nepali nationals), and consultancies whose advice results in a student stranded abroad or at an illegal college will now liable for financial damages. The 49 foreign-affiliated colleges already operating in Nepal will get 36 months to prove their partner university is qualified, but the rules include stipulations that mean most will miss. Colleges that fail to get their house in order within the three-year deadline will lose their license.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (licensed consultancy count), The Himalayan Times (event fee rules)

CIB Nabs Resort Chairman

Nepal's CIB arrested Asian Village Resort chairman Shashidhar Sharma over a Rs 480 million ($3.2 million) Prabhu Bank loan taken to build a resort and buy land. Instead of mortgaging the land as required, the company signed an undertaking to do so later and then sent the money to pay off debts of the chairman's relatives and other companines in the group. Investigators have also raised the specter of “suspicious” transactions between Sharma and former Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel, whose has been detained with custody already extended several times.

Read more: Khabarhub

India-Nepal Energy Talks Without Progress

India's Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal and Nepal's Energy Secretary Sarita Dawadi are meeting in Kathmandu to work through the mechanics of January's 10,000 MW long-term export agreement. The Joint Working Group and Joint Steering Committee sessions have so far resulted in the presentation of no new numbers or even an agreed-to schedule, six months after S. Jaishankar's visit produced the “deal,” a renewables MoU, and the inauguration of three cross-border transmission lines.

Read more: Economic Times

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Court Convicts Two in Fake Refugee Scam

Three years after prosecutors filed charges against 30 people, the Kathmandu District Court on Tuesday convicted 23 of them, including former Deputy Prime Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi and former Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand, for a scheme that sold hundreds of Nepalis fake passage to the United States as Bhutanese refugees. Rayamajhi was guilty of organized fraud and crimes against the state; Khand was convicted only as an accomplice, a lesser charge that could mean a lighter sentence when sentencing is handed down on July 13. The convictions also covered former Home Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, security adviser Indrajit Rai, and alleged ringleaders Keshav Prasad Dulal and Sanu Bhandari. Seven defendants walked, including Rayamajhi's son Sanjeev and Pratik Thapa, on “insufficient evidence.” The scam ran for years inside the shell of a legitimate humanitarian program meant for Bhutanese refugees who'd spent decades in eastern Nepal's camps.

Read more: Nepal News (court record fire), The Rising Nepal (Teknath Rijal verdict), Khabarhub (BS filing date), Nepal News (full names list), The Annapurna Express (fraud total amount)

NRB Holds Rates and Orders More Lending

Governor Bishwonath Poudel published a monetary policy for FY 2026/27 that leaves the benchmark rate at 4.5 percent, unchanged for two years, while banks are getting told to expand lending by Rs 652 billion ($4.3 billion) to support the government's 7 percent growth target. Private-sector credit is expected to grow 11 percent, broad money supply 14 percent, and inflation is expected to be limited to 5.5 percent (although that’s a number that’s vulnerable to Indian price pressure and any new flare-up in West Asia). The central bank's economists put growth last year at 3.85 percent, below the 4.2 percent potential, meaning the 7 percent goal requires a jump few forecasters outside Kathmandu are expecting to materialize. Public debt was reported at Rs 2.96 trillion ($19.5 billion) in the first 11 months of FY 2025/26 (44.9 percent of GDP), up from roughly Rs 2.01 trillion ($13.3 billion) four years ago, with only about a third of this year's capital budget spent.

Read more: The Rising Nepal (existing loan base), Ratopati (rate corridor), The Himalayan Times (growth drivers), The Himalayan Times (external vs internal debt)

Government Claims 87% Progress as NEPSE Slides

Spokesperson Sasmit Pokharel told reporters Saturday that Prime Minister Balendra Shah's government has reached 87.2 percent progress on its 100-point governance agenda, with 70 items done, 17 more than four-fifths complete, and 13 lagging. The same period saw the NEPSE index slide from 2,879 to 2,652.93 points, erasing nearly Rs 350 billion ($2.3 billion) in investor wealth as market capitalization dropped from Rs 4.894 trillion ($32.2 billion) to Rs 4.543 trillion ($29.9 billion). The FY 2026/27 budget included no new capital-market measures and no expanded pool of institutional investors. The Cabinet also formed an asset-investigation commission under the Commission of Inquiry Act to look into illegal wealth held by political office-holders and senior officials going back about 20 years.

Read more: Online Khabar (money-laundering cases), myRepublica (agenda breakdown), myRepublica (turnover)

Advertisement:

Ex-NTA Chair Jha Convicted, Basnet Walks

The Special Court convicted former Nepal Telecommunications Authority chairman Digambar Jha and two former members, Dhanraj Gyawali and Tika Upreti, on corruption in the Teramocs procurement case, fining each of them Rs 50,000 ($329) and giving six-12 month jail terms. Seventeen co-defendants walked, including former Communications Minister Mohan Bahadur Basnet and former NTA chair Purushottam Khanal.

Read more: myRepublica

Draft Water Bill Sets 15% River Minimum

A draft Water Resources Bill would replace the 1992 Act and require dam operators to release more water. The draft demands at least 15 percent of a river's minimum flow downstream (up from the 10 percent set by the 2001 Hydropower Development Policy), or the amount specified by an environmental impact assessment, whichever is higher. It also gives the Water and Energy Commission power over river allocation, which with recentralizes decision-making.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (federal-provincial thresholds), Spotlight Nepal (50-point plan), Datacenterdynamics (curtailed power use)

Pokhara Airport Lands Its First International Route

Flydubai and Pokhara tourism operators met Sunday to plot how to keep daily Dubai flights alive once they begin September 23. The route is the first scheduled international service at an airport that's flown nothing but domestic traffic since its Rs 22 billion ($145 million) opening on New Year’s Day, 2023. Flydubai says the route will connect Pokhara to London, New York and Tokyo by way of onward links, and the Pokhara Chamber of Commerce has promised private-sector support to keep the flights viable. No passenger targets were shared.

Read more: myRepublica

ADB Lends $165 Million for Pipes and Paperwork

The Asian Development Bank signed two loan agreements worth $165 million with the finance ministry on July 6, split between $115 million in concessional lending for water supply and sewerage upgrades and $50 million in policy-based lending that’s being tied to customs reform. The water bit will support work in 13 municipalities and is expected to directly benefit more than 850,000 people, mostly in fast-growing towns where sanitation systems haven't kept pace. The customs portion is the second subprogram of the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation Customs and Logistics Reforms Program, and is intended to speed up trade processing and support job creation. No project completion dates were shared.

Read more: The Rising Nepal

Rasuwagadhi Back Online at Two-Thirds Power

The 111 MW Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Project resumed feeding the national grid this month, a year after the July 2025 Lhende River flood tore through it, causing Rs 3.5 billion ($23 million) in damage. A new gate system now filters river water before it hits the tunnel, and the company says the plant can run at full capacity. NEA has it capped at 74 MW anyway, saying domestic demand is too low to run it any harder.

Read more: myRepublica

Monsoon Floods Cut Karnali Supply Routes

The Bheri Corridor has sat closed since July 1, when floodwaters ripped through Rukum Paschim's Rejegar river, and a landslide at Maluwa in Nalagaad municipality has now blocked the Jajarkot-Dolpa road, cutting supply routes across Karnali Province as the monsoon rains keep coming. Home Minister Sudhan Gurung has promised zero monsoon deaths this year, backed by 54 temporary response bases and 16 permanent disaster management units.

Read more: The Annapurna Express (police advisory), The Kathmandu Post (death toll count), The Kathmandu Post (relief fund)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Half a Million Passports Have Nowhere to Go

Fewer than 45,000 passport booklets remain in the Department of Passports vault, with applications running at five to six thousand per day. The government cannot agree on what to do with the 550,000 booklets already sitting in the vault, supplied by German firms Veridos GmbH and Muehlbauer ID Service GmbH and now untouchable because of an ongoing corruption case. The CIAA filed charges against passport department officials and the German companies' local representatives within a week of finishing its investigation, an unusually quick turn for a procurement case this size, and critics are asking whether the PM's Office, which pushed the probe and has been issuing verbal instructions to department officials to cancel the contract, had a hand in the rush. Germany summoned Nepal's acting ambassador in Berlin to complain that the charges rest on assumptions rather than evidence, and warned that cancellation could expose Kathmandu to compensation claims. IDEMIA, the French company that has supplied Nepal's passports since 2010, is preparing to exit within days.

Read more: Ratopati (PMO vs Foreign Ministry), The Kathmandu Post (German diplomatic pressure), Nepal News ($10.13B contract), The Kathmandu Post (July 19 deadline), The Himalayan Times (IDEMIA vs Veridos bid)

Food Paste for the Taking

A government survey of more than a million children aged six months to five years, carried out over three weeks in May, found wasting rates of 12.3% in Madhesh Province, well above the WHO's 10% threshold for "high" and the worst figure in the country. Nationally, 7.8% of children are wasting and 17.4% are underweight. The numbers were shared a little more than a year after USAID's closure shuttered a $72 million, five-year Helen Keller International program that was meant to cover almost 9 million people. The government still stocks Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, the high-calorie paste used to treat acute malnutrition. What stopped was the community outreach, with health workers going door to door, identifying children, and getting families into clinics. Helen Keller has since pulled together almost $5 million from other donors, which is enough money to reach 223,000 people over nine districts.

Read more: The Guardian

Takes the Bells It Didn't Ring For

After months of inter-agency deadlock, Nepal has agreed to accept six Bell helicopters from Washington under a Rs 15 billion ($100 million) Foreign Military Financing grant, even though the Army has spent considerable effort lobbying for something else. The Prime Minister's Office, Foreign Ministry, Defence Ministry, and Army Headquarters had put forward a counter-proposal in late April asking for aerial cranes and heavy-lift helicopters capable of slinging steel beams, concrete, and HVAC units to remote construction sites instead. The Finance Ministry declined to rule on the substitution, saying in-kind aid was Defence's call, and the ministers traded the matter back and forth until Finance effectively forced Defence's hand. Army chief Ashok Sigdel brokered a compromise after US officials repeatedly raised the issue with both the Army and the defence ministry. The final agreement came only after certain "national security-related" terms were stripped from the US proposal.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Advertisement:

FIFA Gives Nepal a Red Card

FIFA suspended ANFA indefinitely on June 24, stripping Nepal's national and club teams of all international competition rights after the National Sports Council spent months doing the one thing FIFA explicitly forbids. It ran a football federation by government decree. The NSC suspended ANFA's executive committee on March 25, blocked its elections, and kept officials from traveling to the AFC Congress, the FIFA Congress in Vancouver, and the FIFA World Cup opener in Mexico on June 11. FIFA flew delegates to eastern Nepal in March to watch an election that never happened, extended flexibility it rarely offers anyone, and sent warnings for months. By Thursday afternoon, ANFA's Satdobato offices were empty, security guards stringing rope across an entrance where the main gate had been removed for renovation.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (reinstatement conditions), The Kathmandu Post (FIFA member rights lost), myRepublica (NSC response)

Delhi Finds the Wires Full

Nepal and Bangladesh agreed last November to add 20 MW to the 40 MW already flowing between them via Indian transmission lines, with a June 15 start date that came and went. India's Central Electricity Authority told the Nepal Electricity Authority that only 30-40 MW of spare capacity exists on the link, and that squeezing in another 20 MW would leave 15-20 MW of buffer on a line already carrying roughly 3,000 MW of Indian power to Bangladesh. NEA spokesperson Rajan Dhakal says the export isn't technically impossible, but risky enough that India wants the matter kicked to a secretary-level meeting of the Joint Steering Committee.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

Tokyo Dreams Lead to Tokyo Graves

Sixty-seven Nepali citizens died in Japan in the ten months between mid-July 2025 and June 1, 2026, including 25 suicides. Most were student-visa holders moonlighting in construction, Nepal-run restaurants and hotels, and supply companies. Japan caps their working hours at 28 per week, which NRNA Japan secretary Sachin Acharya is not enough time to earn enough to cover rent, food, and tuition. Repatriating a body costs around Rs 1.2 million ($7,900), and the Foreign Employment Board won't cover it because student-visa workers are not registered through formal labour channels. In some cases, the embassy isn't even told after cremation. Nepal is now the second-largest source of foreign students in Japan (behind China), with about 116,000 there by 2025. Around 6,000 Nepal-run hotels and restaurants are thought to be running in Japan.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Wagle Pulls the Plug on the Power Tax

Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle backed off a proposed 5% VAT on electricity on Thursday, telling the House of Representatives the government would lift the 50-unit monthly threshold before any levy kicked in, sparing ~95% of consumers. Taxing clean power, he said, would also contradict Nepal's commitment to the UNFCCC to reach net-zero by 2045. The House has since passed both the Finance Bill and the Public Debt Bill ahead of the 2026/27 budget. Wagle defended the push as overdue formalization of an electricity sector that has absorbed hundreds of billions of rupees in investment, while reminding lawmakers that previous governments ducked the call because it was unpopular.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal (VAT withdrawal), Nepal News (Public Debt Bill)

Eight Days to Spend a Mountain

The government has spent 35% of its Rs 407.88 billion ($2.68 billion) capital budget with eight working days left before payment authority expires on July 9. Reaching even the revised annual target of 61.63% now means burning through Rs 13.52 billion ($89 million) a day; the original target would require an impossible Rs 33.08 billion ($218 million) daily. Revenue is running at its own pace - collections are Rs 1.112 trillion ($7.3 billion), or 75% of target, with a Rs 367.5 billion ($2.42 billion) gap still to close.

Read more: Nepal News (capital spending deadline), The Himalayan Times (revenue breakdown)

One Percent, One Bad Day

A 1% transfer tax on share purchases tucked into the draft Company Act 2026 spooked the market before anyone had time to read the fine print. NEPSE, already six days into a losing streak, fell another 16.54 points on June 29 as 240 companies declined and daily turnover dropped to Rs 2.67 billion ($17.6 million) from Rs 3.94 billion ($25.9 million) in the previous session. The provision was yanked the same afternoon, but the damage had already been done.

Read more: Nepal News (draft Act provisions), myRepublica (sector-level declines)

Monsoon, Bird Flu, and Dead Pigs Arrive on Schedule

The monsoon is barely two weeks old and already 570,000 birds have been culled in 11 districts, and 250 pigs have died of African swine fever in Gorkha. Bird flu, tracked last week to the Central Zoo, has now been confirmed at 82 spots, with the Department of Livestock Services blaming crows as the primary vector. Infected birds can carry H5N1 for up to 21 days and often die in unknown locations, making containment a losing game. Within the Kathmandu Valley, Kirtipur and Kageshwori Manohara are the last municipalities where the outbreak is still active. On the roads, the Besisahar-Chame highway is currently going dark from 6 pm to 6 am daily under a two-week closure order.

Read more: myRepublica (at-risk projections), Online Khabar (culling scale), Online Khabar (farm-level losses), Khabarhub (standby equipment), The Annapurna Express (night closure terms)

The Party of Fresh Starts Can't Start on Time

Rabi Lamichhane's Rastriya Swatantra Party wrapped its first national convention last week having accomplished most of what it set out to do, and a fair bit it didn't. Lamichhane was re-elected president unopposed. What was billed as a three-day convention in Bharatpur ran six days, procedural confusion and rising accommodation costs drove delegates home early, and by the time Friday's office-bearer voting concluded only 1,289 of the more than 4,000 registered delegates were still in the room.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Wagle, social democracy), myRepublica (Lamichhane), Ratopati (oath ceremony)

Airbell's Bill Comes Due

The Department of Money Laundering Investigation has suspended Ajeya Raj Sumargi's passport and reopened a probe into $118.4 million that flowed into Nepal by 2017 through Airbell Services, a Cyprus-registered company, and Zhodar Investments out of the British Virgin Islands. DoMLI opened its detailed investigation in 2018, Nepal Rastra Bank flagged Rs 3.5 billion ($23 million) as suspicious and froze deposits at several commercial banks, and Sumargi withdrew the funds anyway after 2018. Investigators also said that he had pulled out another Rs 8.5 billion ($56 million) that came into Nepal before 2017. The 2019 "Nepal Leaks" investigation by CIJ Nepal and the ICIJ had already named him as an Airbell investor, tracing the company to Magnum House in Cyprus.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Editor Gets Four Months for Crossing the Colonels

Kathmandu District Court sentenced Saroj Mishra, then-editor of Rajdhani Daily, to four months in prison because of a 2023 article headlined "High handedness of three Colonels of Nepali Army." Judge Atmadev Joshi also told Mishra and the paper to pay Rs 250,000 ($1,645) in compensation to complainant Shova Karki, in addition to a Rs 1,000 ($7) fine.

Read more: The Rising Nepal

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Opposition Figures Get Graft Heat Beat

Bishnu Paudel, CPN-UML vice-chair and former finance minister, was arrested Monday and flown to Kathmandu for questioning. Authorities are about to question another former finance minister, Janardan Sharma, who responded on social media by saying he has "always been in favor" of investigating his assets while objecting to what he called a media trial. Both cases are running alongside the Rs 1 billion passport printing probe, which has already put senior passport department officials, the Nepali representative of German contractor Muehlbauer, and a former accounts officer in custody. Former Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba has also been called to “chat” about passport contracts worth Rs 7.5 billion awarded last year to Muehlbauer and Veridos. KP Sharma Oli said Paudel's arrest is a political stunt.

Read more: Newagebd (protest backstory), myRepublica (passport contract), Spotlight Nepal (arrest location)

Nobody Agrees on the Lines

Nepal spent the week arguing about both of its major borders. Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal told parliament on Thursday that the northern frontier with China is not entirely dispute-free, contradicting years of official assurances and acknowledging unresolved questions in Dolakha, Humla, Gorkha, and Kimathanka. The admission was made shortly after his return from Beijing and nearly two decades after the last joint boundary inspection, despite a protocol that demands one every 10 years. In the south, PM Balendra Shah was busy backpedalling clarifying remarks of his own, insisting he had not asked Britain to mediate Nepal's dispute with India, only that Kathmandu would produce British-era evidence if necessary. New Delhi had already rejected any third-party role. Shah says Nepal has proof that Kalapani and Lipulekh belong to Nepal and invited India to produce its own evidence.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (China pillar disputes), Indiatoday IN (Britain mediation denial)

Rulebook Catch-up

RSP closed up its first general convention in Chitwan this week with little suspense about the outcome. Delegates approved a 158-member central committee, a new office-bearer structure, and new gender inclusion rules. The interesting vote was one that wasn't really a vote. The new rule reserves 51 of the 158 central committee seats for direct appointment by party chair Rabi Lamichhane, while also formally creating a "senior leader" position for Balendra Shah, a title he had already been using for months. New candidacy rules add another twist: delegates who propose or endorse a candidate are barred from running themselves, making it harder for challengers to come from the floor.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (office-bearer structure), myRepublica (convention attendance), The Himalayan Times (NHRC indictment)

Advertisement:

Bird Flu Books a Cage at the Zoo

Bird flu has made its way from Nepal's poultry farms to Kathmandu's Central Zoo. The zoo shut indefinitely on Friday after the virus was found in more than a dozen animals, mostly birds but also leopard cats, jungle cats, and civets. The outbreak began in Morang on March 18 and has since gone on to plague 55 poultry farms in 10 districts, forcing the destruction of 479,156 birds, 694,193 eggs, and 182,775 kilograms of feed.

Read more: NDTV (zoo operator), Az (biosecurity response)

Harvest Won’t Wait

India tightened export procedures on Nepali tea on June 15, and brought about expanded quality checks that made factory operations financially unviable almost overnight. More than 50 estates in Ilam and another 30 in Jhapa have shut during the peak first-flush harvest, leaving an estimated 60,000 workers and staff without income as unpicked leaves start to dry out on the bushes. Workers at Giribandhu, Tokla, and Kalika estates said they needed to borrow for food and essentials on credit; younger colleagues are making their way to India or the cities to find new work. This is the harvest that helps determine the year's earnings, so this is likely to be a tough year.

Read more: Asian News Network

Central Bank Wants to See Your Receipts

Nepal Rastra Bank spent three days this month reminding commercial banks who writes the rulebook. One order capped CEO pay at whichever is lower between 0.015 percent of total assets and two percent of average employee expenses over three years, while also limiting performance bonuses to 20 percent of that amount. Another required directors and CEOs to disclose overseas assets, unpaid government dues, beneficial ownership interests, and any criminal or civil cases. A third set overtime at 1.5 times normal pay, rising to double on public holidays and limited to a total of 24 hours a week. The level of detail was notable, extending even to limits on basic perks such as phones, laptops, vehicles, fuel, and drivers (chauffeurs). Bankers have spent years complaining about regulatory overreach, and these new rules are not likely to dim that view.

Read more: Ratopati (dissent), myRepublica (tiered caps)

Trade Gap Growing

Nepal's trade deficit was Rs 1.616 trillion ($10.6 billion) in the first 11 months of FY2025/26, up 15.67 percent from last year. Imports were up 15.16 percent to Rs 1.894 trillion ($12.5 billion); India supplied 58 percent of the figure. Exporters had some bright spots. Cardamom shipments (next story) nearly doubled to Rs 12 billion ($79 million). the country's biggest export is still soybean oil refined from imported raw beans, which made Rs 122.87 billion ($808 million) in export earnings. The exports are growing, which is good news, but the problem is that the import bill is growing faster.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

Cardamom Carries the Export Ledger

One of Nepal's oldest exports is struggling, while one of its oldest spices is picking up the slack. Carpet exports to China dropped 75.63 percent to Rs 214 million ($1.4 million) in the first ten months of FY2024-25 as VAT on raw materials, labour shortages, and cheaper machine-made competition squeezed the sector. Cardamom is on a different track, however, where exports were a record 6,034 tonnes in the first eleven months, earning Rs 12.01 billion ($79 million) as prices held close to Rs 2,500 ($16) per kilogram and demand remained strong from Pakistan and the Middle East (via India). India takes up about 99 percent of Nepal's cardamom exports and then ships much of it elsewhere.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (carpet collapse), The Kathmandu Post (cardamom productivity gap)

Commerce Plans Get Tax Tweaks

The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies published its Commercial Policy Implementation Action Plan 2081 this week, promising warehouse and cold-storage upgrades at the main border crossings, internationally certified quality laboratories, and enforcement of rules requiring public institutions to buy at least 20 percent Nepali goods. Former Finance Secretary Vidyadhar Mallik also brought an old complaint back to life. Mallik, who led a high-level tax reform committee whose recommendations have spent more than two years gathering dust, criticized what he called "midnight changes" to tax rates and ad-hoc exemptions inserted into the Financial Act without full parliamentary scrutiny. One ministry is trying to make the country easier to invest in, but (he says), another keeps fiddling with the fine print.

Read more: myRepublica (action plan), The Kathmandu Post (Mallik)

Rangers Above the Death Zone

For the first time, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee placed rangers at Camp II for the entirety of a climbing season, closing a loophole that let climbers meet their waste quotas with rubbish collected lower down the mountain. The change appears to have worked. A record 90,329 kg of waste was taken out during a spring season that saw 701 climbers on Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse, including 1,226 kg of non-recyclable rubbish recovered from Camp III and the South Col, as well as 210 gas canisters. Climbers were required to bring back 2 kg of waste from above Camp II in addition to the existing 8 kg Base Camp quota. The mountain still has dirtier corners. Next season, the rangers move up to Camp IV.

Read more: The Himalayan Times

The Bulldozers Finally Arrived

Pokhara's long-delayed bus park project took a step forward on Thursday when three excavators began clearing structures from land the city first acquired in the mind 1970’s. About 140 buildings are slated for demolition, including 40 to 45 houses and sheds along the northern side of the Prithvi Highway and nearly 100 more in the southern section. The Bastola Complex was given until Friday before facing the same fate. Informal settlers have been granted the most time. The municipality says no one will be moved until alternative housing is arranged.

Read more: myRepublica

The App That Couldn't

Nepal's National ID download portal went offline less than 24 hours after investigative outlet Khoj Samachar published a report showing security flaws in the verification system. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle's budget for the upcoming fiscal year promises a national AI platform, homegrown social networks, and Nepali alternatives to WhatsApp. The government is still taking applications for some of the country's most senior public positions, including university vice-chancellors, through free Google Forms. The digital future is “on the way,” but it seems that much of the infrastructure didn’t get the memo.

Read more: Eurasia Review (404 aftermath), Nepal News (Google Forms irony)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Nepal Weekly

If you value Nepal Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.