Say "Yak Cheese"
Nepali Times ईspecial 15 -21 May 2026 #1311
Disclaimer: This newsletter has been drafted by Natural Intelligence (NI).
Talk of the town this week is Nepal’s prime minister appearing in a yak cheese commercial. Balen has more than 5 million followers on antisocial media, and his cheesy post immediately went bacterial. (Which is natural because of the action of the Lactococcus lactis microbes that kickstart the fermentation process in cheese-making.)
This also hints at what we can expect if we amend Nepal’s Constitution to have a directly-elected President. But thanks to that valuable plug from the highest office in the land, Langtang’s yak farmers finally have something to cheer about. The country may finally have a छुर्पी surplus so we can export more dog chew to earn $$$ & €€€, and narrow Nepal’s trade deficit.
But why stop at cheese? There are many other products the PMO can promote to boost the national economy. Nepal is ranked 80th in the UN’s World Hunger Index this year. This is a long overdue recognition of the rapid strides this country has taken in ensuring Junk Food for All by 2030.
Regardless of whether Nepal graduates to Middle Kingdom Status, the average per capita consumption of cheese balls, potato chips, cracker curls, soda drinks, and instant noodles is growing exponentially — ensuring economic growth and increased girth for the average Nepali.
It is thanks to the advertising budget of the kurkure industrial complex, that we in the media can peddle this junk, and ram our opinions down your throats. (This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Sagarmatha Doughnuts. Slogan: ‘You Got the Dough? We Got the Nuts.’)
Prime Minister Balen also handles the Defence Ministry portfolio, and as a tribute to his rapper background the formerly-royal Nepal Army has released a recruitment promotion video that you can watch here (if you have not already) which does full justice to the blood-curdling “Ayo Gorkhali!” cry. Nothing like this to warm our nationalist cockles.
It is difficult to keep up with the everyday antics in Parliament and at the PMO. But we try. The big news last week was the prime minister going AWOL while President Ram Chandra Poudel was delivering the government’s policy address to Parliament. We may actually be reading too much into this. PM may have had to rush off for the yak cheese photo shoot.
Whatever the reason, Special Correspondent Shristi Karki puts things in perspective in her page 1 report Yes, Prime Minister? Anup Tamu contributes the front page toon with his ubiquitous owl motif, showing how the premier managed to sneak in his man as chief justice by changing the voting rules through ordinance in the Constitutional Council.
In the page 2 Editorial, Sonia Awale evaluates the RSP government’s effort to cleanse the policy (It is Never All Black or White). Her conclusion: ‘Not all old is bad, not all new is good. New leaders bring fresh ideas, while older leaders can have integrity and experience. Not everyone with political affiliation is tainted, just as apolitical individuals can be untested and incompetent.’
In other news: investigative journalist Mohan Mainali pores through government data to find that the divorce case rate in Nepal has doubled in the past five years, with a cluster of districts around Pokhara having the most marriages falling apart (Why Do Kathmandu and Myagdi Have the Highest Divorce Rates? page 10-11).
Last week was Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday, and researcher Bibek Raj Shrestha recalls an encounter with the renowned nature broadcaster seven years ago at Cambridge. How to balance nature conservation with livelihoods is still the big question for Nepal (A Difficult Question for David Attenborough, page 5).
In his monthly column Drive Line, Arnav Upadhyay looks at the reasons why Nepal has one of the highest highway fatality rates in the world (Another Bus Plunges off the Road, page 4).
This year is it is 30 years since the start of the Maoist insurgency and 20 years after it ended in 2006. Memories of the war are fading, but time does not heal the trauma for survivors and families of victims.
In the latest in our series marking the anniversaries this year, I interview Nanimaiya Dahal and her daughter Sona who was 19 days old when her father was killed in a Maoist ambush of a bus in Jiri (Remembering a Forgotten War, page 9).
May 15 was International Day of Families for which I review *The Cross-Cultural Parenting Playbook* by Czech-Nepali-American author Sangita Shresthova. It is a guide for families in an increasingly multicultural world (Growing Up with Blended Identities, page 10).
The centrefold this week profiles three exhibitions. Social L Pande reviews an exhibition of Nepali carpet art in Frankfurt, Vishad Raj Onta visited an exhibition featuring mountain architecture from the Himalaya and Andes, and Sudiksha Tuladhar profiles Artudio in Kathmandu that blends art with education and community.
Off I go to the Dairy Corporation in Lainchour to buy yak cheese before stock run out.
Kunda Dixit