Help tourism industry

Tourism is the fastest growing industry and a major foreign exchange earner. Despite this fact, it has also to be noted that the government has not yet given the priority this sector actually deserves. This state of affairs is mainly because the government lacks a long term vision and plans to develop tourism. If the country’s tourism industry had sufficient networking and effective marketing abroad, and if RNAC had been able to fill up the vacuum created by the suspension of Indian Airlines operations after the December 24 hijacking of its aircraft tourism would not have been hit so badly. In terms of infrastructure development also, the country still has a long way to go. The government can do most in this area, but unfortunately there is little to credit the government with in this regard. At the policy level also, measures to facilitate visa provision and extension to visitors have not been so forthcoming. Nor is there any visa provision for those who frequently travel to Nepal. This apart, the government has also failed to curb the illegal operation of unregistered companies which have not only hampered the quality of service but also harmed revenue collection.

Tourism industry, which provides jobs to more than 200 thousand people, contributes 24 percent to country’s foreign exchange and a mere 4 percent to the Gross Domestic Product. Because the prospects are great, the government should be serious about encouraging the travel and tourism trade. Instead, the government has imposed advance tax on airline tickets, visas and on import equipment related to the tourism industry.

Since the day India withdrew Indian Airlines flights, tourism has stagnated. Unfortunately, the government was unable to provide any alternative service to IA to cater the vast Indian tourists and foreigners who travel to Nepal through India. This no doubt shows that the government has paid no attention to the tourism industry. The high cost of double entry visa, exorbitant electricity tariff, shortage of water, additional imposition of VAT, etc are other factors that work against the interest of the tourism industry. The government has indeed done nothing by way of giving incentives. It is indeed surprising that even after 27 years in operation, RNAC does not have more than two planes for international flights. This is no way to bring in tourists.

The government has no option but to develop infrastructure, improve the service and make the policy measures more flexible for tourists. It cannot go on imposing taxes only at a time when the country lacks infrastructural facilities. It is high time the government did something to introduce measures that can provide rebate on unnecessary tax, improve procedures for getting visa and develop infrastructure. Unless the government looks into these aspects and acts on them, the tourism industry will continue to suffer.

Whither newspapers in Nepal ?

By P Kharel

It has become almost a fashion in some narrow circles in the capital city these days to talk of writing an obituary on newspapers in Nepal. Nothing could be more absurd. These prophets of gloom and doom are bound to be proved wrong by the boom that can be brought about in the country’s printscape. Among their arguments is that the Internet and the rest of the new technology are set to make mind-boggling inroads into Nepali print journalism, reducing the latter’s state of relevance as demands for newspapers slide and fall.

No doubt, newspapers and magazines in the developed world and some fast developing countries are finding it an increasingly tough task to maintain their circulation figures. Many news publications have had to fold up for good and others are already feeling the tremors in their battle for survival. Launching new publications is an extremely rare event.

Absurd: Is a similar climate of declining newspaper circulation just round the corner in Nepal? Far from so. At least, the next several decades are assured of bright prospects, chiefly because of the kingdom’s underdeveloped status. The country is a long way off from the sort of economic prosperity and other conditions of dizzying development drive recorded by developed countries since decades or even earlier.

Newspaper readership in the developed world is on the decline simply because people there are able to afford an array of media services. They have a choice of multiple channels of TV and radio news. News and current affairs programmes cover a significant volume of airtime while an average family owns several TV and radio sets. Specialisation and diversification in the news media have also fragmented the audience, i.e. readers, listeners and viewers, and augmented the battle for attention of news consumers.

Audiences and listeners normally do not consider the news services as outright partisan and hence a high degree of credibility of radio and TV channels. Literacy is 99 per cent. With the ageing population on the rise, newspapers struggle to retain their existing readership, with the upper rung of the ageing population taking less and less interest in reading. Local programmes are high in content on radio and TV.

The Internet is no threat to the print media. It does open up an ocean of avenues for information and knowledge but does not create any serious threat to news publications. The decline of newspaper circulation in the West is not due to the Internet. The principal cause is the high purchasing power that makes it affordable for people to avail of a wide range of media services for their leisure, pleasure and information needs.

Nepal’s case is quite different. All we have is Radio Nepal for radio news and Nepal Television for television news, as has always been the case since broadcast journalism made its entry into the kingdom. NTV, whatever its plan for going satellite soon, will continue to be constricted by the fact that barely 12 per cent of the actual households have access to electricity.

Moreover, only the most naive will consider a single local (national) TV news channel as adequate for a multilingual, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural democratic society of 23 million people. Things might change a bit in the ensuing years thanks to the demands for pluralism also in the field of electronic media.

Newspapers in Nepal reach only a small percentage of potential readers due to extremely poor distribution network. Their presence is felt only in the core parts of some urban areas. Were the transport and distribution to be improved, there would be an upsurge in newspaper sales and readership. News publications reach hardly 30 districts within 24 hours. About a third of the country goes virtually without any significant reach of weekly papers, let alone daily newspapers, that come out from Kathmandu. As for local newspapers, one-third of the 75 districts do not have any regular publication.

It will take decades for multiple TV and radio news channels to operate for a significant part of the day, if not round the clock. It will also take years for the electrification programme to reach most corners of the kingdom. Moreover, owning one TV/or radio set is not adequate for a single household to be a strong threat to newspaper sales. It will also take decades for the Nepalese society to be saturated with national/local news outlets.

Crux of the matter: There are, and will be, numerous foreign channels. At the start and the end of the day, however, members of any society will want to know more about their own environs than someone else’s. We are talking of news outlets. Factors like local context and content cannot be ignored.

Firstly, programmes will have to be in languages understood by the general mass. Secondly, the proximity factor vis-a-vis an event should not be overlooked.

As national literacy grows from the existing percentage of 40-45, potential readers can be expected to grow in numbers. Development of various local languages will also enhance the prospects of newspaper sales. Regional newspapers have yet to develop, an area that can be expected to be ventured into in the not too distant future. To reiterate, Nepalese readership can be expected to grow in the next several decades. The reasons for the gradual decline in newspaper circulation and number of publications in the developed nations are different from those in Nepal.

Although the electronic media in developed countries have relentlessly increased their share of advertisement revenue at the expense of their print counterparts, the clout of the print media, far from diminishing, continues to command the pride of place. Print journalism continues to set the general agendas for the electronic media in terms of story ideas and follow-up leads. Decision-makers and opinion leaders take extra note of what the print media have to say on events, issues, institutions and individuals, among other things. The print media in even media-saturated societies continue to make their presence felt in a significant manner.

In Nepal, it will take years for every household to own one radio set each and for electricity to reach almost all households. And that is a long way off. Nothing much to cheer about for an average person but it does hold out bright prospects for the print media. Newspapers and magazines are yet to peak. They can be expected to do so sooner or later.

Bitter experience

By D L Bhandari

With due respect to medical luminaries, let me say I have least faith in doctors. I don’t know whether I will have a second opinion in the years ahead but the initial impression has been guided by prolonged suffering from what is known as dhobi’s itch in pharmaceutical parlance.

As far as I remember, it had come upon me the very year I landed in Kathmandu, in 1985. I still have an impression that it was crow bath which invited protracted scourge for I never wasted much time under the shower. Unless one washes thoroughly after soaping, one is likely to have tinges of soap on the body which bring the dhobis’ itch. Detergent, left on clothes, gives the worst itch.

Suffering no end, I went to a certain doctor who prescribed antibiotics for a whole week and that too in the form of injection. Although I fear the syringe more than axe, I faced the rigour as a last resort. But
believe it or not, the malady soon relapsed but I did not bother to seek further medical attention. Attribute this to the pessimism against medication.

Driven once again to desperation, I visited a doctor 10 years on. This time a dermatologist hoping he might probably do the needful with minimum fuss. Do you know that doctors these days have developed a love for assorted varieties of tests?

Strangely enough it may be said, I was once told to have my head x-rayed when I went to a doctor complaining of having to wear a warm cap before going to sleep. I used to feel cold in the head. I tore off the prescription although it took me nearly 10 years to get rid of the problem. Thankfully enough, I don’t need to wear a cap now.

Coming back to the dermatologist in question, he started questioning me the way cops are known to interrogate offenders. Momentarily, I felt as if I should walk away from him. But the one who has a medical problem tends to repose faith on whoever carries a stethoscope around his neck. In fact, that gentleman was not even carrying one; he had a big lens in his hand probably to minutely look at the affected skin.

Soon I was running out of temper at the way he tended to behave. He was asking whether I had visited any prostitute and whether I had some rashes in my private parts too. Having answered him in the negative of course, I asked him to not to suggest tests but prescribe some medicine if that alone sufficed.

He scribbled something on a piece of paper which took me to the nearest medical store. I took the medicine for the next fifteen days and also applied the prescribed ointment. But nothing happened. That again discouraged me from visiting any doctor.

The remedy, however, came in the form of a vegetable five years on. Walking past roadside greengrocers one day, I picked up a kilogramme of bitter gourd since I love it half-fried. This continued for two months, I suppose.

Later on, although I was unaware of whether I was still under the scourge of my old ailment or not, the fact that I was indeed free from it dawned upon me the day one of the family friends told me that bitter gourd was good for blood purification and hence should be eaten with meals. I had left behind what the doctors could not help me get rid of.

Need for a basic national policy on security

By Nishchal N Pandey

Posh areas of Colombo do not resemble as being the capital of an insurgency torn country. The day the Elephant Pass slipped away from the hands of the Sri Lankan army and the day Lt Gen Weerasooriya told reporters that "the troops had made a tactical withdrawal in a bid to save Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE", Majestic City, a highly modern shopping complex in Galle Road, Colombo was buzzing and hustling as usual. This writer did not even know about the serious eventualities that occurred in Sri Lanka until in Kathmandu.

The reason apparently is simple. Even a child born after the start of the separatist movement in the island is today 18 years old with new propositions, ideas and ambitions of his own. The outgrowth of information technology has changed all previous dynamics of socio-political conditions in the society. Hence, young Lankans are increasingly indifferent to daily news of attacks and counterattacks in the northern peninsula. In fact, the island nation otherwise has much going in its favour. Despite the war, it is the richest country in South Asia and with a possible growth rate of 10 percent, it could still become another Singapore.

But not only Sri Lanka, the whole of South Asia is today mired by conflicts, hostilities and infighting with one or the other objective. The Maldives is facing the terror posed by the rising of the seawater and we can observe that it can be just as dangerous as political disturbance. India has problem in Kashmir and Assam, Pakistan has the dilemma of the surge of Muslim fundamentalists, and so does Bangladesh. Bhutan remains unsuccessful in countering the ULFA militancy carrying out activities against India from inside its territory and Nepal faces the formidable task of uplifting the living standard of the people and thereby stopping them from being lured by the Maoists. The solution does not lie just in the name democracy but in consolidation of democracy and good governance.

The Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS) had hosted an extremely timely and useful workshop on the ‘Sources of Conflict in South Asia: Ethnicity, Governance and Environment’ last fortnight that was participated by professionals in mid career from SAARC countries. The main focus as outlined by Maj Gen (Retd) Dipanker Banerjee, Executive Director of RCSS was to scrutinize the various non-military sources of conflict in South Asia that have the capacity to twist into a full-fledged armed military struggle in the future if they are to be left without proper treatment. ‘Not only residual hostility but even the unknown fear keep the South Asian countries far apart and make any meaningful economic or security related cooperation hostage to many imagined slights and suspicion’, he said.

Consequently, a few entities must be made clear. First is that South Asia is known today as the most dangerous place in the world as has been cautioned by President Clinton. And in addition, Nepal and Bhutan might be the only countries in the world that are surrounded by declared nuclear weapons states on all sides with Pakistan, another declared nuke state also close in the vicinity.

Second, which substantially is more crucial is our understanding of the word security. Security is no longer viewed as an exclusive domain of military consideration. It has engrossed a broad, far ranging dimension in the recent days encompassing a profusion of outlets such as the nation in question’s economic sustenance, ethnic harmony, information warfare, migration, environment, its neighbourhood scenario and above all internal threats to its security milieu. The word defence thus naturally accounts for a whole lot of prerequisites and concerns various aspects of nationhood and not just the army and the police. Dr P Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo describing the South Asian scenario in the context of the crisis in his country told this scribe that ‘successive governments have tried to augment their own power rather than empowering the civil society in the whole of South Asia’. Bureaucratic rules have been strengthened just to solidify the rule and not the welfare of the general people, he said.

Ethnicity has turned out to be an important characteristic of security outline because as the Huntington hypothesis goes, ‘The years after the cold war witnessed the beginnings of dramatic changes in peoples’ identities and the symbols of those identities. Global politics began to be reconfigured along cultural lines. In the post cold war world, the most important distinctions among peoples are not ideological, political or economic. They are cultural. Environment, notwithstanding the light vein that it is usually talked about correspondingly possesses the potential of ruining the peaceful and healthy livelihood of the millions of a region and the world together with good governance and its essential tenets, ie, transparency, accountability and corruption-free administration.

We in Nepal sadly have not formulated a basic national policy focusing on these salient areas of statecraft keeping in mind the altering security situation inside the country. This overall national policy is different to the ninth plan of HMG or, for that matter, even distinct to the 20-year vision statement drafted along with the ninth plan. It should bring about the whole gamut of security affiliated understandings in its entirety concentrating not only on controlling armed militancy but likewise in ensuring indictment of corrupt practitioners because causes for violence and confrontation go deeper. We will first have to apprise ourselves on why for instance the Maoist movement started; only then probably will we chalk out techniques to control it. The basic policy should also be backed by a thorough national consensus in order to ensure influence and weightage.

The army and the police are just the components of implementing that collective national will to see the nation flourishing and prospering without being a victim of discord and disorder like in Sri Lanka. Our country is a symphony of different races, castes, religion and economic backdrop. Hence, how we integrate them and provide equal economic openings remains a challenge. It is this in the last analysis that explains and provides solutions to the present and emerging threat perceptions that we may have in our country.