Yak Tales and Takes

 Just to be clear. The new Pokhara Regional International Airport, whatever that means, should never have been built. An eight lane Express-way replete with tunnels et al, linking Pokhara to the newly built Bhairahawa International Airport would have served everyone, including the Nepali economy, much better. That the Chinese stuffed this project down the Government of Nepal’s throat is no secret and much will be said and written about that modus operandi well into the future. Which brings us to Bhairahawa International. That the Asian Development Bank approved loans based on assumptions about concessions that India would make to show their neighborliness is going to be taught in classrooms for a long time. So, now that we have them, what do we do with them? Two spanking new airports and no international flights to anywhere. One could say, “Let’s go look at the business plans again”. But I think if these existed someone would have dusted them off and taken a look by now. Or we co...

Why stop at a ‘Visit Nepal Decade’? Why not a set aside a ‘Decade for Nepal’? While the VND is a welcome move, much needs to be done to make it a reality. Especially challenging will be securing multi-partisan support. And on this hinge the dream. If dreams are all it takes why not conjure up a Decade for Nepal? A decade in which we can aim not just for a USD 7.5 billion in revenue from tourism but in which we can aim to take our GDP to quarter of a trillion United States Dollars. Things are happening around the world, in our own neighborhood, and indeed in Nepal itself that could make all things align for something like this to happen. Companies are moving away from China. They have not all left already but, increasingly, in boardrooms around the world, the refrain is ‘we are not putting any more investment into China,’ and the investors of those companies and their consumers agree. The world’s factory floor of the last sixty years does not look so enticing anymore. This is a re...