Gross National Holiday Index (GNHI)
Nepali Times ईspecial 2 - 8 January 2026 #1292
Dear Taxpayers and Dodgers,
There are only a few things that we as Nepalis can be genuinely proud of on the international stage. Mt Everest is one, Buddha was born in Nepal is another, and more recently it is the GenZ upheaval. We also are proud of our unique double triangle flag and have the only time zone that has a 15 min difference with adjacent ones.
Now, we have another feather in our cap: Insider Monkey has just published a list of the countries with the most official holidays. And guess what, they put Nepal as Numero Uno.
While we bask in that glory, I will let you in on a secret that you should not blurt out to strangers since it is a matter of national security: we only have one-day weekends, so actually Nepal #1 on the list of countries with the fewest overall holidays.
Either way, we come out on top.
The wellbeing of a country can be gauged by how much leisure time an average citizen has to laze about. Taxpayers in industrialised nations are so productive that they pay those who do not pay taxes.
We have long holidays for Dasain-Tihar-Chhat, five new years, and nationwide shutdowns on Democracy Day, Constitution Day, Republic Day and People’s War Day. Even Holi is a holiday. And in 2020 we got the whole year off.
Bhutan has Gross National Happiness (GNH) and we can beat them by being even happier with our own Gross National Holiday Index (GNHI). Just look at the economic impact of so many holidays: having more days off means a drastic reduction in Nepal’s petroleum imports, this reduces our carbon footprint and saves the Himalaya from melting.
More holidays also means less corruption. Fewer bribes can actually take place if there are fewer days for under the table transactions to happen. This improves our ranking in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index — we will graduate from being the second most corrupt country in South Asia to being the third most corrupt.
The reason there are so many holidays marking political milestones is because every ten years or so Nepal goes through a major upheaval: 1950, 1960, 1980, 1990, 2006, 2015, 2025. If we measured revolutions per minute (RPM) Nepal’d probably be right up there among Top 10 countries.
Sudikhsa Tuladhar has drawn up a timeline of the half-finished rebellions in our nation’s recent history (Nepal’s Incomplete Revolutions, page 9).
In my Editorial on page 2, I remind readers that 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Accord that ended the Maoist conflict and the 30th anniversary of the beginning of that insurgency in 1996 (Not Ever Again).
On page 1, Shristi Karki looks at the year ahead, and forecasts that the elections in March will be a battle between the UML-NC-NCP and the BRK (Balen-Rabi-Karki) alliance (Old vs New in 2026).
Looking back at history, Ajaya Dixit presents the result of his research into past cholera epidemics in Kathmandu, and how a particularly deadly one in 1885 that killed one-fifth of Kathmandu’s population of 50,000 prompted the Rana regime to bring in British engineers to install a modern water supply system that is working to this day (Life in a Time of Cholera, page 10-11).
The centrefold this week carries reviews by Sonia Awale of two recent books that look at the heritage conservation work in Patan and Panauti. (Yala, Save Panauti’s Murals, page 6-7).
All this and much more online content and videos on https://nepalitimes.com/. If you have praise or comments on any of the above content, please jot them briefly in the comment section on the story page or online. We’d love to have your feedback.
Till next week,
Kunda Dixit