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| Stego's FAQ on Nepal travel v.3 - Polemics on social, political & ecologic issues 2/2 |
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Keywords: Polemic
From: Arbin Sherchan <[email protected]>
| Date: 96.05.05 | (Id.: 29) |
Child workers in Nepal : 3 million % in carpet industries : 0.76% [official estimates] to 50% [NGO estimates] wage rate : Rs. 350 - Rs. 700/month Carpet Export to the US, 1992 : $17 million
The report points out different survey procedures that might have given different estimation of child labor in Nepal. Outlines are given for the surveys done by the HMG, Child Worker in Nepal Concerned Center (CWIN), and by Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI).
"Child weavers generally work in unhealthy conditions. According CWIN's 1992 report which extensively documents children's health in the carpet industry, health hazards include swollen knuckles, arthritis, eye strain, and lung diseases. Moreover, 32 percent of those interviewed were frequently sexually abused by male co-workers, naikes, and factory managers. CWIN maintains that among the 5000 to 7000 Nepalis girls between 10 and 20 years old who are sold to brothels in India every year, many are trafficked via carpet factories. Many young carpet girls in Kathmandu are also forced into prostitution."
"The Constitution of Nepal stipulates that children shall not be employed in factories, mines, or similar hazardous work. Children's Rights and Welfare Act 1992, defines child as a person who has not reached the age of 16...."
I would welcome any comments.
Arbin
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Swarthmore College * E-mail :<[email protected]>
(610) 690 4683 * Talk :<[email protected]>
<http://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/~sherchan/personal/index.html>
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Keywords: Polemic
From: Per Löwdin <[email protected]>
| Date: 96.05.06 | (Id.: 219) |
>Child workers in Nepal : 3 million
This number seems absurd to me. Distinctions must be made between different types of work. In rural Nepal, that is most of Nepal, children help their parents in the agricultural work. In my experience people adapt the tasks asigned to children in accord with the child�s age and ability. The tiniest will just carry half a kilo of whatever is harvested, or a sickle, or some minor burden. Whereas teenage kids may carry rather heavy loads, etc. Most of this labour is for the family. It follows the seasons. In rice transplanting times everyone is on the fields. Other seasons there is little to do. As long as this work is kept within limits, and do not prevent the children from going to school, it is difficult to critise. I even think the kids enjoy it. Rice harvest can be a splendid outing, although it also hard work, especially for adults. It is flatly wrong to classify this as illegitimate exploitation of children.
However, there is also illegitimate exploitation. Poor parents send of their children to be servants or next to unpaid labour. They are fed and clothed and the wage goes to the parents or to pay their debts etc. Apparently there is also some children working in the carpet industry involountarily.
I think with regard to child labour that it has to judged from case to case and that the decisive thing has to be the childs own will. Most nepali children do not mind working with their parents in the fields during the peaks of the agricultural peak seasons. Nor do they mind watching the goats or the buffaloes, though it would be better for them to be in school. On the other hand none (or few) would volountarily go to work as servants in Kathmandu or in India. So that must be ruled out. Industrial weaving of carpets must also be ruled out. On the other hand young girls using spare time to weave on a carpet at home in the village may be OK if they like to do it. It is not easy to draw border lines. Presently, there is a debate in Denmark about a European Union directive which intends to ban employing children completely. The danes are protesting because a lot of kids earn their pocket money by delivering news papers. Few can see any harm in that.
Keywords: Polemic, Culture & Religion
From: Gopal Dongol <[email protected]>
| Date: 97.01.01 | (Id.: 129) |
Everest belongs to Nepal. Similarly my chinese friend was also taught in the school that it belongs to China. Now who is right?
Before China took over Tibet Nepal never had to worry about the border problem. It was almost like a "no man's land" kind of hostile territory with very few scattered settlements and pastureland in the high altitudinale valleys. It was a open border between Tibet and Nepal. The actual demarcation line never existed. Later on after China took over Tibet, Nepal had a very hard time in settling the border dispute and one of the area was Mt. Everest.
Later on I found out that the actual demarcation line now agreed upon by Nepal and China passes through the top of Everest which means top of Everest belongs to Nepal and China as it is the point of demarcation line.This means China doesn't need nepalese permission to climb Mt.
Everest from Tibetside. Likewise Nepal doesn't need chinese permission to climb Mt.Everest from Nepal side. Is this the fact? Does anybody have a better idea how the demarcation line goes?
Keywords: Polemic, Culture & Religion
From: Chitra Tiwari <[email protected]>
| Date: 97.01.02 | (Id.: 130) |
> This is a very interesting topic to discuss. While in the
> University I happened to talk to a friend about Mt.Everest. I told him it
> belongs to Nepal. To my surprise my another friend from mainland China
>...
Mt. Everest belongs to Nepal. There is no doubt about it. Your Chinese friend is wrong. The problem of Mt. Everest controversy was solved in 1960 during the Prime MInistership of B.P. Koirala in Nepal.
Mt. Everest was disputed by China during the state visit of Chinese Premier Zhou En-Lai in 1960. B.P. disagreed. Zhou tried to outmanoever B.P. by asking that if it belongs to Nepal it must have its own name suggesting that in China it is called Chomolongma(in Tibetan). It was a very shrewed question, indeed, because Nepal had no name of its own in Nepali. Somehow, B.P. advisor's came up with the name "Sagarmatha" and quieted the Chinese. Zhou En-Lai then proposed to settle this controversy by going through the historical records of expeditions. The records showed that the climbers had taken permission from Nepal while climbing from the southern side and from Tibet while climbing from the northern side. As the top of the Everest is bent towards Nepal it was decided that southern slope and the top belonged to Nepal while the northern slope belonged to China (Tibet).
I hope this helps to understand the controversy.
Keywords: Polemic, Culture & Religion
From: Angtam <[email protected]>
| Date: 97.01.02 | (Id.: 131) |
>Gopal Dongol wrote:
>> This is a very interesting topic to discuss. While in the
>> University I happened to talk to a friend about Mt.Everest. I told him it
>> belongs to Nepal. To my surprise my another friend from mainland China
>>...
>Mt. Everest belongs to Nepal. There is no doubt about it. Your Chinese
>friend is wrong. The problem of Mt. Everest controversy was solved in
>1960 during the Prime MInistership of B.P. Koirala in Nepal.
>...
Very interesting.
First of all, you say to Gopal Dongol that "Your Chinese friend is wrong" and then go on to say that the northern slope belonged to China (Tibet).
Clarify what he is wrong at. Does China still need a permissions from Nepal to climb Chomolungma from the northern slope?
Indeed, it was very smart of Zhou to have asked this "shrewd question" as you mentioned. However, in my reading, those advisers in the Nepali side do not get high marks. It is not surprising that the advisers accompanying BP did not know what the people living in the Himalayan range actually called the Everest. It is called Chomolungma for years perhaps since the time they saw the snow piled up on the top.
Your saying "because Nepal had no name of its own in Nepali" is not only full of prejudices but also shows perciptible ignorance about the ethnic groups living in and around the Chomolungma region. May I ask, sir, which Nepal are you referring to when you say "Nepal had no name of its own..."? Had there been anyone in the group of advisers belonging to an ethnic group near and dear to the Chomolungma, or if the advisers had cared to consult the locals, this situation would not have arisen.
We should not allow a situation where a politician or an armchair diplomat/bureaucrat during a talk could not tell you a Nepali name (yet to be defined) for a hilltop or a village, say in Mustang or Dolpo, which he will take as a right to (re)name it to claim it. Ask the locals if you are so damn ignorant about it.
FYI, Chomolungma, a beautiful name, indeed,which is very much embodied into the daily life of people living in that range. It is in their daily worship, happiness, hardship, aspirations and above all an eternal source of inspirations.
Keywords: Polemic, Culture & Religion
From: Shaligram Pokharel <[email protected]>
| Date: 97.01.02 | (Id.: 132) |
To make it short,
Yes, it belonged to Nepal. but not anymore.
I think this is the condition,
King Mahendra, as a condition of supporting the Panchayati regime, signed a friendship treaty with China. That time Tibet was already in China. Then we revised the boarder in late seventees. China gave 'generously' some part of land which now falls mainly in Karnali and Dhaulagiri zone. And to return this generosity, Nepal also gave some portion of land, 'which was not accessible for administration from Nepalese side'. Most of the land were given in the eastern sector. With this arragement, the teritorry was increased to 147 thousand square kilometers from 141,000. But the point is, when Nepal gave the land, it gave the other half of Mt. Everest. Now, Chinese say, Chomolongma is in China and we say Sagarmatha is in Nepal. Both are right, but Mount Everest is divided. I am sure you will get my point here. China does not say Sagarmatha is in China. The only good part on Nepal side is, since it was discovered from the Nepalese side and is more accessible from Nepalese side, it is more popular as the Nepalese peak in the whole world.
Never mind, our politicians have sold Kanchanjunga too, after Sikkim's accession to India.
This is my understanding anyway.
Yours truly
Keywords: Polemic
From: Anil Tuladhar <[email protected]>
| Date: 97.01.11 | (Id.: 190) |
: >
I appreciate your concern and efforts. One great problem with Indians is the lack of knowledge of Nepal. Only a very few indians know that Nepal is a separate country and should be treated like that.
Indians as human beings are wonderful. They are helpful. They are culturally/socially/philosophically very close to us. Only problem they have is that they pretending to be more caring sometimes hurt our feelings by inflicting our sovereignty and independent existence.
I did my bachelor in india so I have more indian friends than nepali friends. They all are wonderful and very warm at heart. I still write letters to then more often than to my nepali friends. But I can never forget the hurting remarks made by some indian professors, friends and officers during my stay in india.
Once I was dining with my indian friends. They were talking about indian film heroes and heroines. I listened to them for a while and then told them about the film industry in nepal. They all looked at me with a great surprise. And exclaimed "Kya Nepal me bhi movie banate hai?" or "What?
Nepal also makes movies?" Then they said that they always treated Nepal either as a part of india or as a very uncivilized village. Nepal making a movie was unthinkable to them. They laughed at me. they treated nepal as a source of prostitutes and bahadurs (gate-keepers, hotel boys) to serve them.
In another incident I met an army officer who came to interview a few selected students for the possible recruitment. He presented a lecture and a slide show. In his lecture he boasted a lot on indian achievement in army force. Then he mentioned about the facility an army engineer gets.
He boasted that the food, money and other facility you get in indian army is much higher than anywhere in the south asian countries. He then laughed mentioning that some country like Nepal can not even imagine to have such facilities for centuries to come.
What a grave insult!
What is the solution?
Keywords: Polemic
From: Angtam <[email protected]>
| Date: 97.01.11 | (Id.: 191) |
>[email protected] (Frank F Kroger) writes:
>>The Indian tourist bureau is running ads for India with a photo of
>>Machapuchare and the Annapurnas (yes they are in Nepal). I saw it in
>>Outside Magazine , October 1996, p 104.
>Since I posted this yesterday I called the Indian tourist bureau. I talked with Mr Ashok Sharma who insists that the photo was take= n in Kumon in the Indian Himalayas.
>After the call I dug up a photo of the mountains in question and I have no doubt that the ad show the Annapurnas. I will call Mr Sh= arma back on
>Monday.
>It is a amazing that a country as big and beautiful as India would use
>pictures of a neighboring country to advertise itself. I suspect that the ad was produced from stock photographs by someone not fa= miliar with the area who assumed without thinking that a photo of "campsite overlooking the Himalayas" must be in India..... the Him= alayas are in India arent they?
>The phone numbers for the office responsible are:
>>Los Angeles 213 380 8855
>>New York 212 586 4901
>>Frank
>...
Mr. Kroger,
I think your suspicion is correct. It may have been an honest mistake. To some, most snow peaks look the same, even visibly recognizable peaks like Machhapuchhre and Ama Dablam, and it is even worse to untrained eyes when you are looking at the negative to produce positives. That is what it may have happened here as you seem 100% sure of the error. I have not seen the ad. It is good of you to have caught this grave error. You deserve a Go Da Ba.
However, I would not loose sleep over it nor would I spend time trying to convince anyone to change it. If our tourism department is smart enough, or pehaps even one of those thriving travel agencies in Kathmandu, what it ought to do, instead, is to put on another ad elsewhere with full text and picture of the same ad you mentioned and thank them for free advertisement of those mountains which actually are in Nepal. That will bring desired result.
Cheers.
Keywords: Politics, Polemic
From: Padam Sharma <[email protected]>
| Date: 96.02.26 | (Id.: 71) |
>It is great idea to have an open border considering world as our single
>planet and all humanbeings as a single family. However, today's politics
>and economical structures do not allow us such practices yet.
>I talked to many friends, who recently visited in Nepal. According to
>them, Nepal has many problems but Pollution and Indian migrants in Nepal
>are two major issues. I do agree with them. It is time to think, whether
>we shall propose the new policy to close our border with India or not? In
>my opinion we should. We must control the improper flow of the Indian
>migrants to Nepal and vice versa. Otherwise, it will not be too long to
>lose our identity and unique culture in our own country. It is not my
>ultra national thinking, it is ongoing process in Nepal.
If you are looking from the perspective of over crowdedness and pollution in Kathmandu, then Indian migrants do cause a major problem. Why are the migrants in Kathmandu? If we move the carpet and cloth factories from Kathmandu to Terai and stop building houses in Kathmandu would it solve the problem?
By having a one liner survey, you are looking from a very very narrow perspective. Have you considered the total length of southern+eastern+western boarder of Nepal (about 600 miles?) and looked at the possibility of controlling the open land boarder?. Nepal can not even control the annual export of 5000 or so innocent girls who are sold to brothels in India. These girls pass under the nose of custom and police officials at Raxaul.
You only count the effect of "Dhoti-walas" in Kathmandu ignoring how many Daura-Suruwal bahadurs travel to India for employment in the service sector? Do you know how many families in Nepal have inter-marital relationships with Indians? When I say Indians, they also include people of Nepali decent in Darjeeling, Sikkim, Assam, and Dehradun. Do you mean you want them to get a passport to visit their family and friends during Dashain and Tihar?
Some families in Terai have their households in Nepal and cultivated fields in India or vice versa. Do you want to check thier passport every time they want to tend their fields? Many families in our boarder towns have to go to Indian markets and visit Indian doctors and hospitals when they get sick. How much control do you want on these daily across the boarder movement requirements?
I am sorry about throwing questions back at you. Your survey sounds too simplistic and a one liner sound bite solution of a complex economic problem.
I invite my learned friend to write an article articulating your view points. We will have more discussion and then a properly designed survey of the readers would be appropriate. Don't you think so?
Padam Sharma
812 West Divide Ave
Bismarck, ND 5801
701-258-2066 Email: [email protected]
Keywords: Politics, Polemic
From: Padam Sharma <[email protected]>
| Date: 96.03.02 | (Id.: 72) |
Joshi's posting again. Still, I can not comprehend his approach of taking a "yes" and "no" snap poll without analyzing the issue first.
Let us try to understand the problems first:
In the first article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Saroj Joshi) wrote:
>I talked to many friends, who recently visited in Nepal. According to
>them, Nepal has many problems but Pollution and Indian migrants in Nepal
>are two major issues. I do agree with them. It is time to think, whether
>we shall propose the new policy to close our border with India or not? In
>my opinion we should. We must control the improper flow of the Indian
>migrants to Nepal and vice versa. Otherwise, it will not be too long to
>lose our identity and unique culture in our own country.
In the follow up article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Saroj Joshi) wrote:
>Right now
>we are concern to save identity of Nepalese and their Culture and find
>the solution proposing a bilateral program. What I have mentioned is not
>a final solution. You are right it is a complex economical problem. But I
>can see this, as a serious politica, social as well as economical problem.
From both the articles, it is clear that Mr. Joshi is concerned with pollution by Indian migrants on Nepali environment, culture, politics, and economy. I agree that these concerns and the problems Indian migrants are creating in Nepal are genuine. Mr. Joshi is not alone in suggesting that we should control the flow of Indians coming to Nepal. Dr. Harka Bahadur Gurung, the famous geographer, and others have suggested this in the past.
However, the boundaries of the problem and those of the solutions are different. We all agree that the migrants have caused dramatic environmental effects on resources of Nepal Khaldo - the Kathmandu valley. I have not seen any documentation or heard any murmur of concerns about effect of Indian migrants on other parts of Nepal. To solve the problem of Nepal Khaldo by "closing the boarder" may have its counter effect on people outside the valley. On the other hand, it may do very little to alleviate the environmental problems of Kathmandu.
Why are the Indians in Nepal? and why are Nepalis in India? It is the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty that allows free access to each others country and the gradient of economic potential across the border.
Traditionally, movement of people in Nepal has been mostly north-south, south-north. Nepalis from east and western Nepal go south to Indian markets to sell their wares and services. Indian merchants and laborers come North to Nepal's towns and villages. With the opening of Tribhuwan Rajpath, Indians from Bihar had better access to come to Kathmandu than fellow citizens from east and west.
There are more Indians (mostly from Bihar) in Nepal because the economy of Kathmandu and eastern Nepal is better than adjoining Bihar. On the other hand, more Nepalis from the western part of Nepal go to India because the economy of UP and Delhi are better than ours. Similarly Nepalis from far eastern districts go to Calcutta, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Assam for employment during off seasons.
As any big city in a third world country, the skewed growth of Kathmandu as a metropolitan city was inevitable in the 70's and 80's. The need to provide services to growing population of Kathmandu valley demanded high influx of skilled and unskilled laborers specially in the housing and transportation sector. The growth of tourist industry and the ill-planned textile and carpet enterprises added fuel to the fire. Indians or Nepalis, the high demand of the developing market in Kathmandu would have required influx of so many people.
Environment aside, Mr. Joshi seems to be particularly concerned about the effect of Indian influx on "our identity and unique culture". Just for argument sake, if we assume that the Indian boarder was closed and the labor demand of Kathmandu was fulfilled by our citizens from Terai (who have similar culture as the migrant Indians), how would we have handled the problem? Would the cultural threat still be there? Or let us say they were all pahades from east and west, would there still be a threat to the "unique identity and culture" of Kathmandu?
The uniqueness of the culture of Kathmandu was violated when expansionist Gorkha regime conquered the valley about 300 years ago. Except for causing environmental nuisance and disaster due to their huge number, the migrant Indians only cause a superficial "cultural threat" to the survival of Nepal. On the other hand, the virus of political corruption coming from Indian politico-cultural elites is harming our country to the core.
In this modern day and age, the uniqueness of Nepali culture is degraded at an accelerated rate by the influence of Bollywood, Hollywood, MTV and STV, drugs, corruption, anarchy, and the "culture" of amassing materialistic fortune by unscrupulous means.
We invited Indian capitalists and skilled laborers who brought along more unskilled masses. The confluence of Indians in Kathmandu is the consequence of market forces and our desire to develop Kathmandu into a "modern and metropolitan" city. The migrant Indians are just trying to make a living as millions of Nepalis do in the slums of India. To blame them for our ills and propose solutions by sacrificing them as scapegoats is a cheap political gimmick which could have unmangeable consequences.
By the way, the arrogant Bhutani Drukpas used the same language of preserving "our unique identify and national culture" and violated the human rights of half-a-million people of Nepali decent in Bhutan. Putting artificial barriers to preserve one's culture is not an enlightened and civilized solution.
Padam Sharma
812 West Divide Ave
Bismarck, ND 5801
701-258-2066 Email: [email protected]
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© J. Mário Pires, 4 Mar 97
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