We think of ourselves first

Laxmi Prasad Devkota

This morning a young writer came to me and expressed his eager desire to go into Rapti Valley where the Government of Nepal has been perfunctorily implementing a grand agricultural project. He said he had adventured into that valley in pursuance of my own suggestions. I recalled the day on which I had suggested Agriculture as the best possible course for us people here who wished to earn some honey- money without the magnetising capital necessary to attract it into out empty pockets. The majority of valley gentlemen, I had then explained, were a puzzled and overstrained class, with grabbing or profiteering instincts highly pronounced; but helpless to operate them in the absence of capital for investment in any field. We maintained a very precarious prestige by running out of breath every festival period; and our desire to make a small fortune for comfortable living landed us after a course of bitter frustrations in other fields in a government office where, very ill-paid and grumbling. We rubbed our calm palms together after a six-hour, regular prison duty about the worm eaten desks. We could not shake ourselves out of it for fear if the shock of sudden domestic unbalancing as the insistent demand of the daily cold oven could not be out off for a single reason. There was something like hereditary in out natural propensity to look up towards the secretariat as the most proximate, the most accessible of places of employment to keep the wolf from our door. And a position would be procurable by just a cleaver wire-pulling through a court favourite or a genuflection before a master of state job charities. The immediate and the proximate enslaved our spirits and barred the line for our wider and remoter visions. The train of my arguments, and the healthy analysis of the general situations among us, came back to me, as he made reference to the convincing speech I made that day, urging him to venture into the Rapti Valley for a preliminary inspection of possibilities. I remember how I had harangued him and accused his species of wanting in a strong effort of will and the spirit of healthy adventure. Business, I had explained, was uncertain and hazardous on the principles of honesty and sincerity in unwary and the inexperienced. Couldn’t the half-starved state of our government servant fit himself with a shake off one or other of the state programs for national developments in our new democratic vision? I had expatiated upon the natural superiority of Agriculture over other occupation; for was it not milking the Earth? Was it not the most natural of human operations, the most ancient and the most necessary? Did not conduce to healthier life in the open air? Was not a poet, of all men, most fitted by nature for it? Could not go into the most intimate communions with nature herself? Well: that was a day of inspired oratory, which had thoroughly, convinced my fellow writer. We had finished by indulging mutually in the poetic vision of a writer’s colony in that blessed region of natural beauties.

He was the writer of small brochure entitled ‘Government Employment’ in the days of the Under Payee’s Agitation, then a clerk on Rs. 17 per mensem, a sum which kept him starved with his family for three weeks. He is now an employee in the Nepal Radio at Rs. 100 or so per mensum, a pay nearly seven times higher than the original one. He said he had been in the said valley on a leave. He had inspected the land, and found it cultivatable with profit for us. Provided the water supply was assured. I asked him facetiously whether a man was not always on the verge of ninety-nine, and whether from the evils of starvation he did not intended to jump into the worse ones of surfeiture. He replied with a smile that people of our sort should never dream of affording to be guilty of that. We had certain discussions following during which I had the occasion to remark how we thought of the nation in any of the dreams or schemes that we entertained or sought to promulgate or implement. I went off into another price of oratory again on the evils of our general habits that made us self-centred would be profiteers without harmonising our actions of our principles to the spirit of state program or National Schemes.

I have dwelt long on that morning talk for the healthy spirit implied in it. Ourselves first is perfectly true of me as much as of any other censure. We must think of ourselves first. It is probable question for political and sociological science whether an underdeveloped state, maintained by money and gun-power, can have the right to expect thinking in terms fit of its individuals whom it has neither fed, clothed or employed profitably for itself. The Nepalese adapt form to the effect that a loaf is baked on both sides. Is it immortal, is it unintelligent to aspire to live where death by starvation is the general social law? To drive off the continually recurring wolf is the goal of lives in general. And of those who surfeit, goal is extension of affluence for future security. For there is no moral edict, no social sanction, no legal ban on indulgence is acquisition for luxury and power. Shall we not then, one and all, first think in terms of ourselves? Life, the poor ones cry! More life, wail the rich. And an amoral philosopher can find no fault in this operation of the vital instincts.

We, poor people, are dreaming continually of becoming living units in a discased or paralysed Body and struggling or to fulfil our dreams. We struggle to live so that the General Body that gives us no impulse may feel the presence of live cells sucking in something out of the general air. We are living apologies for galvanising into action a frame inanel something is wrong at the root. Everyone feels it. We are stunted dwarfish shruds his own symptoms, and to play his own doctor. There is no adequate energy for research. We can keep nothing in reserve after what we do for ourselves to the dictate of our starved moments.

That is what my brother does, with his wonderful intellect shown on the hands. On starvation wages on the Nepal Radio, he is heavily drunk at nights, and indulging in high-flown invectives against false pillars, social illusions, brainlessness and surfeiture. Extremely modern in outlook, and an amateur psychologist, he has no safe landing for his physical feet. He cannot step out of his own suicidal currents. That is an illustrative example for many a fellow brother at Kathmandu. Brains of high level are helpless. Limbs of high strength lie inert. Or if they must be yoked,…( Text courtesy: Janmotsab journal-chief editor).

Women in informal sector

Urmila Shrestha and Meena Shrestha

Background

In a developing country like Nepal, the participation of both women and men are equally important in the all-round development of the nation. Women's role for the sustainable development of the society is extremely important. Their participation in development activities provides various opportunities and options to work in the formal as well as the informal sector. This reduces the level of poverty, improves possibility of child survival, promotes family health and slows down the rate of population growth. Despite these perceived returns, women have been facing acute problems in most of the countries, including Nepal. The traditional culture and social customs highly restrict women’s participation in development activities. Mostly of the women are therefore, forced to live as dependants on men. As  such, they are far behind men in all the important sectors- be it literacy, health or economic activities.

Women’s Role in Development:

 It was mainly after the declaration made of the year 1975 as International Women’s Year by the UN general Assembly and the successful completion of World Women’s Conference in Mexico city that women’s role in different development activities were recognised internationally. In Nepal, certain plans and programs were introduced for the upliftment of women in the Sixth five-year Plan (1980-85) and the Seventh five-year Plan (1985-90). Different Government Departments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were formed with the sole objective of increasing women’s participation in various walks of life. A separate Ministry for Women and Social Welfare was formed during the eighth five-year Plan. But due to the lack of proper implementation very little progress was made. Until this day, the women are hardest hit both in the rural and urban areas. Most of the contributions of the women go unaccounted for. How can higher economic growth be achieved if over 50 per cent of the total population of the country represented by the women are overlooked? Hence, what is needed is to mobilise more and more women, both educated and uneducated, in formal as well as informal sector activities.

Women in Informal Sector:

Now the question arises as to what the formal and informal sectors are in relation to development activities. The Nepalese Labour Act 1992 defines an organised sector as the enterprise that employs at least ten workers. The enterprise employing less than ten workers are unorganised or informal. Informal sector activities include activities related to water fetching, fuel collection, kitchen garden, child caring, micro and tiny crafts like straw mat-making, basket-making, shop operation, petty trading, drawing and painting, tailoring and weaving, knitting and embroidery, agricultural works, goldsmith, iron-smith, shoemaker, carpentry and clay pot-making. According to the information collected by Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) in 37 districts of the country, the women are found mostly engaged in the following activities, apart from the agricultural sector:  Textile, Carpet, Hosiery, Food products, Agro-products, Handicraft items, Restaurant and Hotel, fruit processing, Travel and Tours, Tailoring, Training centres, Stationary and Printing, Soap, Paper and paper products, Poultry, feed and bee keeping, Milling, Household decorative products, Furniture, Beauty Parlour, Consultancy services, Electrical/Electronic goods, Dairy Products, Metal works, Retail shops.

When the above activities are performed in an individual capacity or plied by family members or with the help of few hired labourers with low capital investment, low technology and skill, they are regarded as informal sector activities. In all such activities, the income made by the women in the informal sector is so low that it is hardly enough to maintain their day-to-day requirements in the society.

On account of the paucity of data, it is not known as to how many women in the country are absorbed in the informal sector. But it can be assumed that the number of women involved in the informal sector might be extensive because of the basic characteristics of the informal sector, including: (a) Easy to enter in business with small investment (b) Low scale of operation using local raw materials, (c) Simple skill and technology, (d) Products catered to meet local demand, (e) Lack of legal formalities, (f) Non-existence of income tax, (g) Mostly home location, and (h) Easy to organise (one man show type of management). As per the existing Industrial Policy of HMG/N, if the investment in fixed capital is up to Rs. 200,000.00, such micro or cottage units could be treated as informal sector activities. But the government does not provide any support facilities to such informal sector activities.

According to the ‘National Women Entrepreneur Directors 1997’ prepared and published by Women Entrepreneurs Development Committee of FNCCI, the Nepalese women are engaged in about fifty varieties of enterprises. About 90 per cent of the total economic activity of such activities are in the informal sector, according to the Survey Finding of Centre for Economic and Technical Studies, the estimated informal sector activities in Nepal represent as high as 90 per cent of the total economic activity in the country. In this way, a sizeable section of the women make their living and support their families in the informal sector. But it has some unfavourable implications that impede growth for women development, which are given here under:

v      Low investment and absence of new technology gives marginal income means lower economic status;

v       No competitive strength;

v       Less secure due to no-existence of trade unions that protect the interest and rights of the workers; Neither government nor other concerned institutions provide credit and other supporting facilities which are required for start up, operation and growth of the business;

v      Not capable of determining price for selling their products due to the lack  of training in accounting;

v      and Difficult to establish networks among women’s business circled and develop linkages with industrial and business houses like FNCCI and CCI.

Women and Entreprenuership Development:

It is only recently that the Nepalese women have started coming forward as entrepreneurs and producers running micro, cottage and small type of business enterprise. But working women have to face multiple difficulties. Most of them have failed to receive equal pay for equal work. In some industries, women have to work in a very deplorable condition. Maternity leave is limited. Facilities like childcare are not available. There is a kind of hesitation to promote women even if they are competent. Women are not given a chance in the decision-making process and in mobilising the country’s natural resources, such as land, water and forest. These are the main barriers, which restrict the all-round development of the women in the long-term perspective.

But there are some rooms for the improvement of women in the informal sector. In this modern and competitive world, formal and informal business either run by women or men must be competitive and progressive, otherwise their survival is uncertain. Since women are poor and backward and they started to come forward in the economic activities, it is the main responsibility of the planners of both governmental and non-governmental organisations to innovate and provide necessary programmes for the sustainable development of women. Such programs should focus the following areas:

Recommendations

The following recommendations are made to improve the conditions of the women in the informal sector.

q       Formal education should be encouraged particularly among the girls and women. Pragmatic measures should be undertaken to promote their enrolment in educational institutions for which they need to be provided scholarship on a large scale.

q       Health community base education should be expanded covering family planning, nutrition and movements for generating awareness towards women’s role and approach in the society.

q        Skill-oriented training, on-the-job training in agriculture farming, entreprenuership development training and leadership should be provided to the women.

q       Identifying sector-specific projects, employment opportunities in micro tiny, cottage and small business and industrial enterprises are to be created and expanded massively those help women to earn income for their sustainability.

q       The concerned authorities should provide soft credit and technical know-how.

q       Required protection and supporting facilities for start-up, operation and expansion of business are to be provided.

q       Awareness should be created among the women about the causes and consequences of environmental; problems.

q       The existing Labour Act should be revised o that women working in the informal sector should have access to equal pay for equal work and also for adequate maternity leave.

q       Since higher percentage of Nepalese women (about 94 per cent of the economically active population)

q       Are working in agriculture, they should be guaranteed the fundamental right to sell or mortgage their landed property for the improvement of agricultural activities. Like wise, they must be involved in the decision-making process for utilising water resources for their farming and drinking purposes.

Finally, the women working in informal sector units must be united in group or a kind of association so that they could lobby to the concerned bodies or agencies for the procurement of raw materials and auxiliary materials at the minimum price, efficient transportation, soft credit facilities, technical know-how, and marketing their products.

(Text courtesy: Status of informal sector:the other side of economy of Nepal edited by Dr.H.B.Jha. The publication enjoyed FES support-Chief editor.)

South Asian Perspective

Sharif lawyers challenge court jurisdiction

Kathmandu: Pakistani lawyers defending freshly deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif December 20  challenged the jurisdiction of the Anti-terrorism court, saying the court cannot charge Sharif with the allegation of waging war against Pakistan. Justice Shabir Ahmed said he would hear arguments and take a decision on the defence's application on Tuesday and put off the formal laying of charges against Sharif and six others.

The defence application reportedly said that the government should have first laid out procedures and authorized a court before trying Sharif on charges of waging war against Pakistan -- one of several allegation Sharif faces in the case.

 "Offences against the state...require a mandatory procedure as given in section 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure," the application said. It said under section 196, the initial complaint also cannot be filed with the police unless the government issues certain orders or empowers someone to file the complaint, which the defense said was not done in this case. Sharif's lawyer, Ijaz Battalvi, told the court "there is a serious jurisdiction flaw...this case has to be stopped here."

It is talked that Nawaz Sharif's trial cannot start unless the judge formally lays charges and solicit pleas from the accused. 

Pak arrests Osma men

Kathmandu: The US authorities are reportedly deeply concerned about the possible terrorist attacks by Islamic activists and they have in the meanwhile appreciated Pakistan's crackdown and detention of 200 suspected supporters of Osama bin Laden, experts in Washington said this Sunday writes Saheen Sehbai from the US.

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counter-terrorist operations at the CIA who now works as a security consultant, said December 19 that US law enforcement and intelligence officials were deeply concerned about attacks on US soil as millennium celebrations approach.

Although no White House or State Department reaction was immediately available on the recent arrests made in Pakistan, Cannistraro appreciated Pakistan's sweeping action in an interview to a major TV network on Sunday morning.

 Experts see the Pakistani crackdown as part of the US-led campaign against terrorists all over the world, heightened by the arrest of an Algerian carrying bomb-making material at the US-Canada border and earlier detention of Jordanian suspects in Jordan and Pakistan.

In the meantime the White House said Sunday that a wave of arrests reported in Pakistan at the weekend was aimed at domestic crime and did not appear to be related to an international crackdown on "terrorist" suspects. "They arrested a number of individuals, up to 200, in connection with criminal activity in Pakistan," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said at his daily briefing.

To recall, Pakistan and Jordan said last week they had arrested 14 people -- one in Pakistan and the rest in Jordan -- suspected of belonging to a ring loyal to Afghan-based Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.  Those arrests were one of the reasons Washington issued a worldwide warning earlier this month to Americans about a terrorist threat over the new year period. Jordanian sources say the 13 detained there were planning attacks on tourist and other sites in the kingdom by the end of the year. U.S. officials said the 200 or so arrests in Pakistan may have been related to the killing of a senior Pakistani finance ministry official but gave no further details.

Intl. Family show brings world to Kathmandu

Kathmandu : The Infinity International announced last week two performances of WORLDCOLOR's JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF ASIA for family audiences.

 The show takes audiences on an imaginary plane trip around the world. American musicians Pamela Whitman and Emile Hassan Dyer have collaborated with Nepal's own Shristi in bringing the show to hundreds of thousands of children throughout the United States since last spring.

The December 27 performances will take place at 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm at Kathmandu City Hall and will mark the Nepali Premiere of the multi-media production.

Audience members "visit" Tribal America, Ireland, Senegal, Vietnam, India, Tibet and arrive back in Nepal for a timely millennium message. During their "travels", youth learn about world cultures, the Nobel Peace Prize and the peace messages of world leaders. The acclaimed

program includes audience participation and promises to educate as well as entertain. "Boarding Passes" (admission tickets) are available for 200R (3:00 pm matinee) and 300R and 500R for the evening performances.

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