Ambica Shrestha’s Life Work
Nepali Times ईspecial 19 - 25 July 2024 #1221
Dear Reader,
The print edition of Nepali Times had gone to press at noon on Thursday 18 July when news came that Ambica Shrestha had passed away that morning in a Kathmandu hospital at age 92.
We had to stop press to carry a brief tribute (page 2) to Ambica Di, a heritage champion, exponent of women’s empowerment, philanthropist, and founder of Dwarika’s Hotel, which is named after her husband Dwarika Das Shrestha and is a monument to the preservation of the Kathmandu Valley Civilisation.
Ambica Di also headed the Nepal Heritage Society founded by the late Prabhakar Rana, led the Federation of Business and Professional Women of Nepal and was the Honorary Consul General of Spain to Nepal.
As the founding Chair since 1998 of Himalmedia, the company that publishes Nepali Times and its sister magazine Himal Khabar, Ambica Di was a staunch believer in the freedom of press and a check and balance for Nepal’s democracy.
“Elegance, kindness, serenity, simplicity. A great lady,” wrote the former Brazilian Ambassador to Nepal Marcos Duprat in one of many tributes that have poured in.
In our coverage over the past nearly 25 years, we at Nepali Times and Himal Khabar have been greatly inspired by Ambica Di’s lifelong campaigns for heritage conservation, women’s entrepreneurship and sustainable tourism.
This week’s main story is a deep dive into dams. Reporter Pinki Sris Rana travels to Kulekhani and Tanahu to look at why Nepal needs to build reservoirs to balance year-round electricity and water supply, but why this is fraught with problems of resettlement, geopolitics and the damage dams cause to the ecology. (Page 1, 10-11 and go online to watch an accompanying video.)
In the centrespread on pages 6-7, reporter Anita Bhetwal looks at how the traditional architecture of Mustang with its sloping rammed earth walls and flat roofs is being replaced with concrete because of climate-induced torrential rainfall in an otherwise arid trans-Himalayan district.
Also on a recent visit to Mustang, I met Saroj Tulachan who returned to the apple farm of his ancestors in Tukuche to use techniques he learnt while working for 15 years in Japan to improve his orchard’s productivity. At a time of mass outmigration, this is a story of how just one passionate person can create jobs and reinvigorate Nepal’s rural economy. My profile of Saroj on page 6-7.
On page, 5 Sonia Awale has a conversation with Mr Conservation, Ghana Gurung, the head of World Wildlife Fund Nepal who says that to preserve nature, it is important to protect people's livelihoods.
In his monthly column Borderlines, Chandra Kishore writes from Birganj about how Grade 9 textbooks portray the open India-Nepal border with pseudo-nationalist negativity, and not as being beneficial for citizens of both countries.
Photojournalist Bikas Rauniar takes us on a flashback on page 9 of the way we were with three decades old photographs of Prime Minister K P Oli, foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba and Urban Planning Minister Prakash Man Singh. On their faces, we not only see the passage of time, but also how little Nepali politics has changed in that time.
The editorial this week on page 2 is a light-hearted look by Vishad Raj Onta of the culture of banda and hartal, which thankfully does not happen anymore. Fingers crossed.
See you all next week in this space.
Kunda Dixit.