Feb 092013
 

Just imagine, “yours school days specially when classes were off, the first day you ride on bicycle or the first day you went for a movie, or the first time you proposed someone at school, at school, hmm wasn’t it too early”.

Really, time flies so fast when it shouldn’t. We only remember the best parts of it and the exceptionally bad ones, if any. Remembering those astonishing memories, it’s hard to believe how long it has been and how time flies. Someone said, “Life is half spent before one knows what it is.”

Time passes by so quickly…change happens all around us everyday weather we like it or not. Enjoy the moment while you can, one day it will just be another memory. 

Sometime we feel like it was just, the day before yesterday that happened, but it’s already a year and more. It was at the beginning of 2003, I came to know bout Clean Energy Nepal and started my involvement as a volunteer and it has already been more that ten years by now.

I have witness revolutionary changes during this period at every stage. At the political level of the country, a beginning of new governing system to the almost failed Constitutional assembly. Retreating of cheap immigrant labor to gulf countries and young inventive minds to western countries are increasing. We passed few decades, framing the structural governing process and there are countries in this world which has every kind of system with every designated individual at the top of power and even they are categorized as developed countries. So is it really the governing systems or also the mind set of the people, your leaders and your citizen that makes the country prosperous. We could have different thought on it?

At my own, I have closely observed a gradual change in color of hair and fairy skin of my parents in these recent years, I could understand their expectation for me, my career and future, which seems normal as every parent does. As time passes, we are loosing contact with many of those school friends and we have limited to a few numbers of colleagues and on the other side there are increasing number of professional circle. Continue reading »

Jun 072012
 

Even though, I regularly manage my emails, this afternoon unread emails counts 169 on my gmail account. This was the remarkable number that I have heard most of the time on workshops, interviews and discussions, along with abbreviation ILO, that makes ILO169.

I was curious about this issue from long ago, just after the number strike my mind, I google it for further information. To my surprise, the first thing I noticed was, Nepal was only country to ratify ILO169 among eight south Asian countries and second countries among Asia-pacific. But I could not find the name of another country of Asia Pacific, which has ratified the convention before Nepal. [Why it was so important for Nepal?] Even though there are a lot of indigenous people in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines haven’t ratified the Convention yet. The official website says that till date only 22 countries have ratified the convention1. [What about the DEVELOPED countries?]

In terms of using the Convention as a dialogue tool to stabilize the country, Bolivia and Guatemala in Latin America are ahead. The percentage of indigenous people in Bolivia is more than half the population, and it is said that the country has actually seen economic empowerment through ensuring indigenous rights. Guatemala is another Latin American country that has moved ahead2. Whereas, indigenous people accounts for 37.2 percent of total national population of Nepal (NEFIN)

The decrease in signatories can be partially attributed to Convention 169’s inclusion of Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination. Many nation-states are apprehensive of such provisions, arguing that Indigenous autonomy undermines their own sovereignty and governance. Most of the nations that have ratified Convention 169 are in Latin America, where enforcement is weak. Three Non-signatories such as Canada and the United States cite the international community’s inability to enforce these international instruments among their reasons for refusing to ratify them3.

Convention 169 recognizes Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination within a nation-state, while setting standards for national governments regarding Indigenous peoples’ economic, socio-cultural and political rights, including the right to a land base. The convention is law within the nation-states that have ratified it4. The government of Nepal ratified the convention on Continue reading »

Mar 152012
 

Collecting my own stories; it gives me great satisfaction. I guess, this is the one important thing that I have learn, a lesson to be satisfied.

Just to start with a famous quote of Mahatma Gandhi, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed”. Similarly a British Prime Minister, Margret Thather once said, “Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.” For me this week was extremely busy, if I remember now every day I missed one commitment and all of them were the personnel commitments. I was unable join a weeding party of two of my classmate, I missed a deadline for scholarship for which I was keen to apply for and many more.

This evening I was googling quotes titled ‘satisfaction’ and found that a French author once said “A man who is always satisfied with himself is seldom so with others, and others as little pleased with him”. This jerks me to think once more and get back to those stories. I know and everyone knows that we do Continue reading »

Mar 102012
 

It had been around 53 days, since I put in writing my earlier piece. And it has been the same 53 days, I was in shortage of cooking gas. Today afternoon, after I came back to my office after the meeting at Ministry of Environment, there was a call from the local gas dealer to be there by next 10-15 minutes to take gas cylinder that was booked for me.

Just a quick flash back of those dry days: many days I prepare breakfast and dinner at office, many days fry rice and momo were home packed, many times just forget or had no time for food and in between these many days I traveled in and outside Nepal.

I am indebted to Ugan dai for those all memorable moments at Delhi, Colombo and diner at Kathmandu. Similarly, I am very thankful to Sanjay and Srini for those beautiful moments and hospitality at Delhi and making arrangement to visit ‘Delhi Book fair’. Also, thanks to Krity and Dr. Sugathapal for taking your all valuable time and taking us for shopping, dinner and Colombo city tour. Oh how can I forget that dinner with Geeta, Thanks you very much- wish you a wonderful marriage life.

[Movies] So many movies, 2 times I went for ‘Loot’-a nepali record breaker and now also I am just back after watching ‘Kahaani’  a bollyhood thriller. Also there were two more late night hindi movies at Delhi. [Travel] There were also number of travel, started with Mahendranagar-far wet Nepal, Comombo – Srilanka, Delhi and Dhaka. Just forget about the expenses. [Books] Oh, now I have Bhagwatgita and Kuran, Continue reading »

Jan 162012
 

बत्ति कुन वेला हुन्छ, त्यही अनुसार आफु पनि चल्नु पर्नै । हिजो राती धेरै अबेर सम्म बसिएछ, कुन वेला सुतियो थाहाँ नै भएन, घडी हेर्दा त बिहान ९ः४० भई सकेको रहेछ । अर्लाम बजेको पनि पत्तै भएनछ, अर्लाम बन्द गर्ने पनि बानी जस्ते भई सक्यो । अब अफिस जान ढिला हुने भयो भनेर हत्तार हत्तार तयारी गर्न तिर लागे । केहि त खानै प¥यो भनेर, कफि बनाउन लागेको, आजै ग्याँस पनि सकियो । जसो तसो पानी सम्म उमाल्न भ्यईयो । ढिला भएको वेला, आज साईकल होईन, मोटर साईकलमा जानु प¥यो भन्ने लाग्यो । जाडो फेरी पेट्रोल पनि धेरै नभएको, वाईक स्र्टाट गर्न कत्रो जात्रा । दुई तिन वटा ग्याँस पसलहरुमा बुभ्mदै जादा झण्डै एक घण्टा ढिला पुगिएछ अफिसमा ।
बेलुकी घर फर्कदा बाहिर वाटै केहि खानेकुरा लानु प¥यो भनेर, बाटोमा रेस्टुराहरु हेदै ब्याईक ढिला कुदाउदै थिए, दुई तिन वटा रेस्टुराहरु लहरै रहेछ पुरानो बानेस्वरको बाटोमा । मेनु हेदै जादा पिज्जा अलि सजिलो होला जस्तो लाग्यो, “हट ब्रेडको पिज्जा” । अडर गरे, बिल त सेचेको भन्दा अलि धेरै आयो । के हो भाई, घर लाने सामानमा पनि सभिर्स चाँर्ज भनेको, “दाई हाम्रोमा त मेनुमा भएको सबै आईटममा सभिर्स चाँज लाग्छ” भन्छन् भाई त । छेउमा भएका अरु ग्राहकहरुले पनि यस्तो त गर्नु हुदैन नि भन्दै थिए, के मान्थ्यो र, कसैको कुरा सुनेनन । बाहिर निस्किए, ग्याँस लिनलाई पैसा निकाल्न नजिकैको एटिएममा गए

Continue reading »

Oct 052011
 

One of my hobbies that I love is to use new and recently developed applications and technologies. On my last birthday, I was blessed with an ‘iphone’ from my colleague. I was very excited that day; I threw party on the same night when I got my iphone via DHL. Also credit goes to DHL for its service up to my far-flung apartment. And also I am grateful to my friend, that’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me. Otherwise, I would have never got chance to use such a wonderful thing, which would have cost almost six months of my personnel expenses in Nepal. As I remember now, I don’t know how that ‘full iphone-week’ passed; it felt like I was flying-up above Himalayas most of the time. My excitement continued when by the weekend, when my younger sister, studying civil engineering, asked me to find a map of our town on my iphone for her project work. Another hit was when my laureate brother asked me to find the meaning of some familiar Nepalese words, however, either my iphone does not support my language or not I could type on it. The next day I went to a local mobile service center on my town and discussed my problem with them. They tried all the possible solutions they could think of: they connected it with other devices, they installed and uninstalled software, but all of their efforts ruined root and branch.

UN Climate Change meeting @ PanamaNow, while having discussions with the friendly delegates here in Panamá, I realize that the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) has become like my friend (who gave me the iphone) and Climate Technology Centers and Network (CTCN) is like the service center in my town. Sometimes when the technology discussion is about service delivery, these institutions also seem like DHL, who did the hard job of delivering my iphone up to my apartment. Continue reading »

 Posted by on October 5, 2011 at 11:12 pm
Jun 122011
 

Brazil’s second largest city, Rio de Janeiro, witnessed the first ever gathering of environmental campaigners/caretakers and produced an international environmental treaty (UNFCCC) with an objective to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference in 1992. After one and half decades, the discourse took new dimensions in Bali, developing a new road map as a two-year process of finalizing a binding agreement in 2009 in Copenhagen. But brushing aside this huge expectation, Copenhagen only produced a weak political statement titled the ‘Copenhagen accord.’ The summit could not pave a way forward for this global issue.

The road from Copenhagen to Cancun, in 2010, was also not that easy.  Cancun set an excellent example how the outstanding leadership of a host country could effectively shape the discourse. It was a well known fact that many issues were still on the table that are still unresolved, need further discussion and more political willingness.

To my surprise, these climate discourses always opt for places/countries that start with an interesting first letter. Copenhagen was followed by three meetings in Bonn and semi-final at China’s beautiful city Tianjin. Cancun was another important milestone that was also able to keep up trust on UN process. It was then followed by Bangkok and now at Bonn, both the climate capitals of Asia and Europe, respectively. One of the issues that needs resolution here is where will the next intersessional will be held. My opinion is to follow the ritual so go for places that start with initials B, C or D! But of course not Copenhagen!

Now on the way to the match in Durban, termed the “African COP,” many issues Continue reading »