PRABINFO

The undeclared economic blockade imposed in Nepal by India is now in its third week. I wish Nepalese government had responded timely and effectively to these matters which have put daily lives into a grueling test for its citizens. Only Nepali news agencies have been publishing the original stories about the ongoing political unrest in certain regions and the embargo. Also, different solidarity movements have helped Nepali people fight back the bossy attitude of the Indian Government. On the contrary, the roles of international news agencies have been quite ineffective in delivering the right message and information about current issues in Nepal. The sole role of media is to speak out the truth. It is not true that citing an authority is bringing out the true story to the public. Especially in case of politics, where matters can never be analyzed forthright, ‘citing and authority’ can be highly refutable. Now, in the case of the embargo imposed in Nepal by India against the treaties...

A 14 years old Muslim kid, an engineering enthusiast, brought to school his home-made clock to show to his teacher. Despite being applauded for his creation, he was arrested by the police because the teacher thought the device was suspicious. One glimpse of the device will not knock in your head what exactly it is. It is a tangle of wires, some boards and other electrical connections. It could have been a bomb, or a clock or any device that has not yet been invented. Ahmed’s clock. An electrical device made by a Muslim kid does not necessarily mean it is a bomb. The job the teachers had in hand was just a simple interrogation with Ahmed eliciting the device details and a meticulous assessment of the device. The obfuscating device would eventually turn out to impose no harm. But wait. There is another more important question here. Would the case have been different, had the inventing kid been white? I think straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will not make a good answer. While the frantic rea...

Just as I was flipping through multifarious channels in search of something worth-watching, I was led to the BBC channel which was airing a documentary covering the astounding aspects of Mumbai city. India, being a neighbor to my home land and a country set to become an epitome of development, technological advancement and economic utopia never ceases to dumbfound me. The documentary I watched was about a small service provided by the Dabbawalas in the Mumbai city. The English translation of Dabbawala is ‘Lunchbox delivery person’. A lunchbox is called Dabba in Hindi. The reason I called this service small despite its large coverage in the city area is that it has a small function. Nonetheless, the service is deemed very important in the bustling city where over-loaded trains are the key means of commuting on daily basis. During its peak hours in the office-rush time, it’s a humongous task just to get into the train let alone carry a huge lunchbox with you. This small service that I...

ROSHAN KARKI Last Christmas, I gave away my spit but the very next month, the DNA results came back making me feel: Not-So-Special “Who am I?” This selfie question often reverberates in my head, even more so at times when my Nepali identity (ego) is questioned, challenged, or brushed aside by an Indian stamp far away from home. Over the years, this insecurity has been fueled by overtones of ethnic federalism—an idea entrenched on differences we possess as Nepalis, along the lines of caste, creed, color, and culture. The ambiguous talks on identity issues by journalists, scholars, and op-ed writers from Nepal have done little to ease my dilemma. The question resurfaced again in one of those Chiya-Chats at my Alma Mater in Connecticut among the most diverse, passionate, and intelligent Nepali students I’ve ever interacted with. Beyond the usual fervor of Mount Everest and Buddha, we seemed perplexed about our Nepali identity: whether to associate with our country, align with our eth...

Banging my head against the couch placed in the drawing room, I was murmuring unusual things. I thought those were murmurs, but it was just a feeling given by hodgepodge of random thoughts running in my mind. There was desperation to take a glance at something. My mind was completely dazed, not by the bangs but by the same thoughts. My shudder went too strong making it hard for me to stay firm. At the same time, I glanced back into my past and wondered how great it would have been like if I had got a chance to reorient it. The thought was like a powerful virus capable of reproduction a thousand times each second. Its effect was all over my body in seconds. My hands and feet were icy, and my lower jaw was fighting with the upper one. My gaze was uninterrupted like that of a perished guy, and something had stuck in my neck which I wasn’t able to gulp down. My thoughts were still within me, intact and unspoken of. I couldn’t know what to do. Every thought and idea was tangled like...

She bid me farewell and waved. She did not say me a word, but it was what I realized her inner heart wanted to utter. She just kept smiling, standing at the edge of her front yard. I waved back, but said nothing, just as she did. Kanchi, as they called her, was a pretty little girl of 9. I met her in Bhumidada, a village situated in Karnali district. I was there, along with three other friends to collect different data of students from the village schools. All of us loved social works. With the motto of serving people, especially from remote villages, we had assembled together, back in 2005, to establish a social service organization. On my journey to Bhumidada, I was fed up with the hassles that had come into my way. But, as soon as I got there, I found it to be a picturesque place, so I helped myself take its photo saving it into my heart. The scenes had made an impression on me. Something more impressive was unnoticed in the villagers by me. Their hospitability was compelli...

The woods are even darker by night than they are by day. Shadows lurk among the trees, waiting for a foolish prey. No light, no peace can be found here, only fear and pain and everlasting darkness. Hellish screams fill the night, and the worst thing is, you are alone. In these woods there is a house. The house is old, built in the time of the now dead, and left by men to be haunted by the harsh wind, the shadows from the world beyond, and the cold breaths of times long past. You find yourself in front of this house, and the worst thing is, you are alone. As you enter the building, built of rotting wood and crumbling stone, the chill you feel is not from the cold. The once heavy curtains are now shreds of cloth, the glass windows no longer provide you with glimpses of the outside world, as dust and dirt have spoiled the view. What furniture there is left looks ready to fall apart, and you don’t dare touch it, afraid of what evil it will awaken. And the worst thing is, you are alone...

Age is not only measured in years. Personally, I’m three houses, approximately 6,000 songs, and 1,825 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches old. I can also measure my life in trips to the airport. Each time I fly, one more trip documents my life. When I was six airport trips old, my mother, sister, and I drove to Kennedy Airport to fly to England, where my father was waiting at our new home. As the grown-ups around me shed tears, I could barely contain my excitement about our “vacation,” unable to grasp what moving across the Atlantic Ocean really meant. Eight hours, three airplane meals, and zero hours of sleep later, I arrived at Heathrow Airport, now seven airport trips old. England holds my greatest memories. There I learned to read, which introduced me to the world of literature, a world I escape to whenever given the chance. I saw firsthand how people’s attitudes can make all the difference – my family was dropped headfirst into British society, but fell onto a pillow of hospitality...

ATUL POKHAREL “If I can do it, it’ll help us cure cancer,” he said as he stood in the lobby of a building at Harvard University. “So, you’re trying to understand how DNA repairs itself?” I attempted to sum up what I had understood so far. “Yes, more specifically, I’m trying to design a molecular probe to…” He continued to explain his research, taking me deeper into a newly explored world of DNA, proteins, and enzymes called Chemical Biology. As he spoke, his face lit up and his hands assumed one fluid posture after another. While his eyes looked at me, I doubt it was my face that he saw. By the time he was done, the garland of scientific terms that he had strung together into Nepali sentences had touched something deep. This is a young man, I told myself, who is creating the future of Nepali research. I must speak to him again. That was the first of many conversations with Dr. Uddhav Shigdel, a scientist at Harvard University. At 30, his accomplishments are already beyond ...

On the morning of August 15, 2003, I awoke to the alarming sound of gun shots. A moment of sinister silence followed; my skin tightened, and in the dark corners of my mind I could already envision what had just taken place. With tears impairing my sight and fright impeding my thoughts, I speedily stumbled and staggered my way down the stairs, out of the house and onto the road. The scene I saw there that morning changed my life. On the indifferent dirt road, in a pool of blood lay the body of my uncle, dead. Three young Maoist rebels had just taken the life of this army colonel outside his own house. Lying flat on the street, he had died in the same uniform that his father and grandfather before him had once worn for their country. Weak and still breathless, I stood there watching as the rest of the family, army-men, and pedestrians dragged his motionless corpse into the army jeep, hoping against hope that he would come back to life. The three bullets in his chest not only killed my...

DILIP POUDEL BAGLUNG, Aug 10: How do you feel if you have to buy a two-way bus ticket that costs around Rs 500 just to reach the district headquarters to pay monthly electricity tariff of Rs 80? Thousands of people, especially from villages such as Kushmishera, Binamare, Damek, Sarkuwa, Arjewa, Jaidi, Chhisti, Rangkhani, Raydanda, Amalachaur, Narayansthan and Painyupata VDCs in southern remote belt of the district, are compelled to live with this irony- as the Nepal Electricity Authority has no revenue collection centers in the region. The residents of Kushmishera VDC, the southernmost part of the district are affected the most as they are compelled to pay up to Rs 500 to reach the district headquarters just to pay the bill. And if they do not make it on time-that is before the NEA´s revenue counters close-they will have to bear the extra burden of lodging and food. The Secretary of Kushmishera VDC Durga Prasad Sharma complains that their repeated appeals to the state-run au...

How did the long-established-superstition barring a girl from several activities during menstruation emerge in Nepal? Nepal is not a developed country.There are superstitions everywhere. Even we, educated ones are deviated to superstitions at certain degree, let alone the illiterate ones. There is a social rule here that a girl during menstruation, should not go and touch the kitchenware and foods directly. They are not allowed to touch stuffs related to gods for they are considered to be “impure” during menstruation. Also, they are not allowed to touch a male person with “janai”, a sacred bunch of threads worn by every male person who has attended a special occasion called “bratabandha”. These are just superstitions, which, for our victory over evil are to be be neglected. No one has pondered how this came to practice in Nepalese societies, except following them. It actually began while taking into note the health and cleanliness of our body. There were no techniques to prevent flo...

Why are Muslims so cruel compared to others? Muslims got evolved in the deserts where, some decades ago, it was impossible for people to find food and other things to live with. There was no vegetation and is not today either. But there used to live some sort of animals which Muslims used to feed upon. This was the only way they got food to survive and survival is the most common desire of any person or creature in the world. This caused frequent killings of animals there for food. Continuously, doing this for years and years, they got accustomed  to it and had developed within themselves a cruel heart. Also this fact supports the abundance of oil in the deserts. The skeletons of the animals killed eventually turned out to be what we call the most important fuel today. This is just my opinion about the topic and I do not intend to hurt any Muslim person by this article.

NIRDISHTHA RAJ SAPKOTA The busy, bustling city of Kathmandu. The houses, all of them lived in, all of them teeming with life and activity. I must say that I’ve grown to love the houses of Kathmandu and its people. I must say that Kathmandu has a certain charm to it and no, it has nothing to do with the nightlife. Being a teenager, people tend to jump into conclusions and I’m just trying to say that I love Kathmandu for everything it is except a few things, like pollution. Imagine a developed Nepal, from Mechi to Mahakali, every nook and cranny developed with load shedding and water scarcity taking the back seat. No more people dying of diarrhea, no more discrimination and no more crises of daily necessities. Such a wonderful thought! Imagine eco friendly cities all over Nepal. Imagine Nepal selling electricity to countries and imagine our country not suffering from financial crunches and an unstable political scenario. The developed Nepal will see decentralization and people w...

It’s derived from Latin  loquor,  to speak. Soliloquy: It mean a speech to oneself as its formed of  solus,  alone and  loquor.   It makes us clear about soliloquize, soliloquist and others. Circumlocution: It has the same root:  loquor.  circum  means around, so its meaning is talking around and not directly. Also be clear about next word circumlocutory.

Astronaut: astron  (Star) like in Astronomy and nautical/nautes (related to sailing, ships or navigation) like in Aeronautical. Cosmonaut: kosmos( Universe) and nautical/nautes (related to sailing, ships or navigation) like in Aeronautical.

Honorable chairman, chief guest, board members, principal, vice-principal, respected dignitaries from the different walks of life, teachers, parents and my dear friends. I am glad to stand amongst you to express my views on the auspicious occasion of 13 th  school anniversary. So far I know, this school was established in 2055 B.S. with the sole aim of imparting quality education by some of the intellectuals of this district. Therefore, it is working for the academic excellence and personality development among its students from its inception. Glorious history of board first, third and district toppers certainly point that the school is heading at the right direction. Last year, too, was glorious for us as Saugat Adhikari, an ex-student here obtained district second position. We’ve heard different rumors against our school in the market but I, as a student representative, would like to call them baseless and superstitious. The school is a non-profit motive and it is catering...