Ex-PM Sher Kamal Oli
Nepali Times ईspecial 5 - 11 December 2025 #1288
Journalists are human, after all, and they are prone to making mistakes. But in the age of alternative facts, it is our duty to report on those as well.
So, when presstitutes get something wrong, our Code of Journalism Ethics and the Guideline of the Ministry of Truth and Newspeak mandate that we lie low, hope no one notices and quietly correct it on the online version.
Alert subscribers to this newsletter must have noticed that I referred to a ‘Prime Minister Sushila Koirala’ in my last dispatch. That was just my muscle memory on override mode, and Google autocorrect thinking it knows better.
Thankfully not many of you noticed, which means you don’t read this stuff much anyway. Whew. But, as Fr Saubolle taught us in Moral Science class at Godavari, to err is human and forgiveness is the devil’s workshop. Or something to that effect.
No erratum is too small to be correctum. So, it is my duty to convey my sincere apologies to both Hon’ble Prime Minister Karki and former late Prime Minister Koirala, and vow to learn from this mistake so I can go on to make even bigger ones in future.
For example, the three alpha males of the UML, NCP and NC have become prime minister cumulatively 12 times in the past 30 years, and have such identical ideologies that to avoid mixing them up we should just call all of them Sher Kamal Oli. That way we do not have to keep remembering some of these permutations and combinations: Pushpa Bahadur Deuba, Khadga Kamal Dahal, or Sher Prasad Oli.
The Guest Editorial by Rabin Giri of nepalnews.com (Stages of Denial, page 2) adapts Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ theory to analyse how KPO, SBD and PKD are dealing with the shock of the September Storm: denial, anger, bargaining, depression. The question is will they move on to the fifth stage: acceptance. Not much sign of it with only 3 months to go for elections.
This week’s Nepali Times also carries special coverage of GenZ issues. On page 1, Shristi Karki interviews 18-year-old Shantanu Dhakal who was shot through his jaw by police in Itahari on 8 September. He has a large following on TikTok and Instagram and posts regularly about his recovery process, cleaning the tracheostomy pipe in his throat, and his return to college (A New Normal).
The latest instalment (#75) of Diaspora Diaries is by Hiroshi Khanal who migrated to Australia and used his large social media following to launch a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the families of those killed and wounded in September (Things Eventually Work Out, page 10-11).
And in her column Cyberia, Ayusha Chalise, analyses how misinformation has always been a part of the informationsphere, what is different is the velocity with which falsehoods spread (Doomscrolling Democracy, page 11).
Editor Sonia Awale travels to Kavre for a deep dive into the Bodhichitta trade and hiw demand in China for this sacred seed used in prayer beads raises incomes of local farmers, but also encourages criminal activities and exploitation (Sacred Seed Feeds Boom, page 5).
And finally, the cricket fever that has gripped Nepal. We are half-way through the Nepal Premier League, and Vishad Raj Onta spends an entire day at the TU International Cricket Stadium to describe the atmosphere (Cricket Carnival, page 6-7).
More on cricket news week. Keep warm.
Kunda Dixit