Nepal Now

Send us Fan Mail I've really enjoyed making this podcast since 2020, but the time has come for the last episode. After I returned to Canada at the end of last year I was committed to continuing, but I haven't been able to find a strong focus for the show. To me that's the signal that I need to stop, rather than keep making new episodes just to maintain the show. Thanks to everyone w...

Send us Fan Mail Sasmit Pokharel was sworn in as Minister of Education, Science and Technology and Minister of Youth and Sport in the Nepal Government on 26 March. When I interviewed him five years ago he was co-leader of a group of young people dedicated to fighting Nepal's "rape culture".  I never imagined that in a handful of years he would be a senior government leader, which wa...

Send us Fan Mail The number of Nepalis migrating to Canada has zoomed upwards in recent years, many of them first arriving as international students. They came for good education opportunities, free healthcare, and the promise of secure, stable futures. Many are on the path to reaching those goals, but it hasn't been as easy as they imagined.  Researchers Deepa Nagari (Toronto Metropolitan Un...

Send us Fan Mail Bibek Poudel had a very detailed plan for succeeding in Canada. He would graduate from college, then work to gain experience in his IT field, setting himself up as a digital nomad—someone who could get a job and support himself basically anywhere, at any time. Then his luck ran out. On March 1st Bibek flew back to Nepal after five years, without getting permanent residency (PR). B...

Send us Fan Mail Aayush Pokharel is very close to getting his 'invitation' to apply for permanent residency in Canada. It's taken the former student five years to get to this point, and he's had some tough times along the way.  Not surprisingly, he's learned a few things, and has some advice for current students in Nepal contemplating the path that he took. Resources Gover...

Send us Fan Mail It's been more than to months since I posted an episode, so I thought it was about time I was in touch.  I'm speaking from the top of a hill, catching my breath as I look back at the ocean and a large island beyond the harbour. Continuing my walk I can see snow on the local mountain, so it's quite chilly here, for the west coast of Canada.  I've been thinking a...

Send us Fan Mail Today you will hear the last episode that I recorded in Kathmandu. I had long wanted to talk to a representative from a so-called labour receiving country – one that hires some of the hundreds of thousands of Nepali migrant workers who leave home each year to earn their livelihoods abroad. Although it was difficult to speak to someone from an embassy in Kathmandu, I did make conta...

Send us Fan Mail In Monday's Kathmandu Post I read short bios of two of the 19 protesters killed by police in the GenZ demonstration one week ago. Both were from Nepal's Far West — Deepak Singh Saud was from Baitadi district, Subas Bohara from Bajhang. Deepak was 18, Subas 21. I send my condolences to their loved ones.  As you probably know by now, the protest was about much more than th...

Send us Fan Mail Help steer the future of Nepal Now as it moves to Canada in September 2025. Fill out the survey . It takes just 3 minutes.  You might have guessed from the headline for this episode that I am leaving Nepal. It’s a family move actually, back to my home country of Canada. Of course I will miss Nepal, where I’ve now spent 14 years of my life, but I’m confident we’ll be back one day....

Send us Fan Mail The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 21 hit Nepali migrant workers hard. Thousands working in India were blocked from crossing the border into Nepal. Others overseas were laid off and confined to living quarters with little or no food, no money, and no tickets home.   We recorded this episode in the midst of that dark period. While it describes the terrible conditions and uncertainty...

Send us Fan Mail The rise in the numbers of Nepalis migrating to Japan in recent decades has been phenomenal — and I think overshadowed by movement to countries like the US, UK and Australia. Today the Asian country is by far the top destination for students going abroad to earn degrees and, in many cases, a path to settlement in the country.  I doubt that you would ever guess that the origin of t...

Send us Fan Mail Undoubtedly the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign has been a success. In less than five years it has led the identification and return to Nepal of about 160 religious icons — statues, paintings, and more. These were stolen from this country and displayed or stored in public museums and private collections globally since Nepal opened to the world in the 1950s.  Now what? The aim of...

Send us Fan Mail Talking to Prakash Gurung made me realize that not all migrant workers from Nepal are leaving the country out of necessity. When I interviewed him last year the 26-year-old told me about his failed migration attempts – as both a student and a migrant worker – but I got the sense that he had options in-country as well; he just preferred the idea of leaving. I think there are many p...

Send us Fan Mail Gyanu Adhikari is co-founder of The Record, the online news portal that published from 2014 to 2024. With 10 years’ experience running a media outlet that not only innovated in its content – offering long reads, history series, and podcasts, for example – but also experimented with funding—using a subscriber model—Gyanu has lots to share about media in Nepal.  But surprisingly, he...

Send us Fan Mail If I told you about a 30-year study that has already resulted in 261 research publications, you’d be impressed right? And if I added that the study is based in Chitwan, and co-led by a Nepali, Prof. Dirgha Ghimire? I think you’d be even more enthusiastic. At least I was when I learned about the Chitwan Valley Family Study just a month ago. I’m not sure how I missed it over the pas...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve said it to you listeners more than once: it seems that almost every young person I've met in Nepal in the last couple years was planning to go overseas, or knows someone who's doing so.  Now I have proof, kind of. Yesterday I spoke to a researcher whose team surveyed a high school graduating class. 40% of the students said they want to go study abroad after graduati...

Send us Fan Mail Just like coffee shops, it seems that education consultancies are multiplying faster than rabbits in Kathmandu.  I’ve always wondered why prospective students spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of rupees to have someone fill out their overseas college and university applications for them. After all, if they've made it to Grade 12 or beyond, surely they must be able to d...

Send us Fan Mail It’s been more than a dozen years since Maya Sherpa returned from working in Kuwait. Today she devotes herself to helping other returned female migrant workers readjust to life in Nepal.  One reason why she's so committed to that work is because of the violent reaction she faced, not as a migrant in Kuwait but after she returned to her community in Nepal.  My three takeaways...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everyone. I have to admit that I had a pretty good idea of what this episode was going to be about, how it was going to unfold, as they say.  I was talking to the father of three daughters, grown daughters, all living overseas, and I thought that he and his wife were planning to go live with them in the US, but I was wrong.  You're gonna have to listen to find out exactly...

Send us Fan Mail Khakendra Khatri paid 7 lakh or 700,000 Nepali rupees (about 5,000 USD) for a job in Russia, but soon after arriving he realized that he was being sent to the front line of the Russia-Ukraine war. Desperate, he bribed a commander, and then escaped by walking through a forest overnight with a group of other trafficked Nepalis.  Needing work to feed her children, Sushma found a recr...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everyone. Today we're speaking with Tanka Dhakal, a journalist who’s currently doing a Master’s degree in the US. He’ll tell us about how the targeting of migrants in that country affected a city council meeting he was reporting on. But what I think is even more interesting is Tanka’s personal reaction to that meeting.  But before we get to that, I want to let you know tha...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everyone. I’m sorry for the delay in releasing this episode. In a minute, we’ll get to this week’s chat about how female migrant workers are treated after they return to Nepal, but first I want to share some personal news. My stepfather passed away in December, which changed everything. Like many of us he was a migrant. Born on a farm 90 years ago in northwestern Ontario, the c...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everyone. Today we’re replaying our most popular episode of the year. Like every migration story, it is a unique one. Prem Awasthi moved to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, almost exactly one year ago to start a new job with the United Nations. We talked with him just hours before his plane left Kathmandu, to hear his expectations of this new stage in his life, and the life o...

Send us Fan Mail Pragati Nepali is just 19 but already she has been married, migrated to work in neighbouring India, and then moved to Nepal’s capital Kathmandu for other opportunities. That’s where friends told her about a job in a garment factory in Jordan. When we talked last week she estimated that she might be finished her paperwork and winging toward the Middle Eastern country by mid-Decembe...

Send us Fan Mail Today we’re catching up with Aayush Pokharel, a graduate student in Canada who we first talked to in May. This year, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has severely cut the number of temporary residents it allows into the country, including international students. It also chopped the number of temporary work permits for grad students like Aayush, which are usually fol...