July 08, 2005

The story about the success of Kathmandu University was very informative (“School Of Success” SPOTLIGHT, July 1). At a time when more and more people are leaving the country for further education, the success story of such institutions should be replicated. We can not only save a lot of resources flowing to the foreign countries, we can also check the trend of brain drain if we open institutions providing world class education in Nepal itself.

Namrata Shrestha
Kalimati

Address Larger Population

While the success of Kathmandu University is laudable, there is a limitation that such institutions can offer to the country (“School Of Success” SPOTLIGHT, July 1). In a country with more than 30 percent people below the poverty line, very small fraction of the population can afford for expensive higher education. The hard reality is that unless we are able to address this larger mass of the populace the overall development of the country cannot be achieved. Instead, there is a fear that such a trend might increase the disparity between the people. So, there is a greater need to introduce programs that can include the poverty ridden population to quality higher education. One of the ways it could be done is by introducing easier loan schemes or providing job opportunities in the college itself.

Kamal Subedi
Baneshwore

Harness The Potential

Your story on hydropower was very convincing (“Key To Prosperity” SPOTLIGHT July 1). There is no doubt that hydropower is the only natural resource that Nepal can harness and use for economic development. The power of numerous rivers flowing downstream can be harnessed and used for industrial development. At a time when the energy price in the world is sky-rocketing Nepal's hydropower can be a boon for national development. Although the installment cost of the hydropower projects is very high, it can be cheap afterwards as it does not require any raw materials.

Jamuna Regmi
Pulchowk

Target For Wider Readership

The article entitled "Not a Drop to Drink" by Keshab Poudel featured on June issue (Vol 24, No. 44) is an interesting piece of writing to keep aware our English readership. However, this kind of writing, particularly on water woes, water conservation, water pollution etc., for our Nepali readership is very significant as only a small percent of our population understands English and gets access to a magazine like Spotlight. Moreover, securing domestic water is women's domain and hence if awareness is not built amongst women, I guess the awareness building process remain incomplete, let alone issues of gender bias.

I was very delighted to know that Sithi festival has been revived realizing the importance of water conservation. As a saying goes "invention is the mother of all necessity", it is good that scarcity teaches us to act towards a conservation process. But, we have to realize the fact that just by praying to Indra (God of rain) we would not be getting water, we need to do some effort to harvest every drop before it sinks. The annual average rainfall of Dahod, Bhavangar district of Gujarat, India, is about 700mm and rainwater harvesting has brought immense change in domestic water availability in the region, where earlier women used to travel often kilometers to collect water. An NGO called Utthan has been involved since past couple of decades to help rural communities secure their water resources through rain water harvesting and has been successful in attaining self-sufficiency in water resources in the district. Why can not we do so when we receive more than 1300mm of annual rainfall? And, roof top rain water harvesting can be easily done in urban areas of Kathmandu to mitigate the crisis to some extent. This is very effective and low cost method and can be proven as an alternative to Melamchi Drinking Water Project, which we do not really know until when we have to wait for the project to proceed.

Bhawana Upadhyay
Gujarat, India