Division along ideological lines is one of the important markers in contemporary Nepali society. People often box each other under various groups based on party, caste, ethnic, regional and gender lines. Along with these, people are also categorized under professional categories such as the generic terminology of technocrats. It is interesting to note the conspicuous absence of independent or autonomous individual/s or groups. If someone claims to be so, s/he could become a matter of laughing stock.

NEW HAVEN – Not to diminish the superhuman efforts of nurses, doctors, and health-care workers worldwide, but sometimes, no matter how hard one tries, and no matter how selflessly one sacrifices, one stands no chance against a more powerful enemy. The new coronavirus, COVID-19, has proved to be such a foe. Were it not for technology, the battle against it would have been lost by now.

In the wake of COVID-19 epidemic with several thousand infections and thousands of deaths, sanitation alert, particularly hand washing awareness, has sharply increased. Hand-sanitizers have become the buzz words as it’s believed to be one of the crucial defence mechanisms against coronavirus. In Nepal too, due to increasing threat of coronavirus and unquestionable trust toward sanitizer, people are buying it at double price amid shortage. But it’s a surprising fact that the cheap soaps, which are easily available in our local market, are actually the most effective weapons against COVID-19.

A year before Parasite, an American biographical comedy-drama directed by Peter Farrelly won the Academy awards for best picture. The movie follows the concert tour by the distinguished African American pianist and a jazz composer, Don Shirley, through the deep south sometime in 1962. To put this date in perspective, this was before Martin’s Luther King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed discrimination.

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11 after over 118,000 cases of coronavirus were detected in over 110 countries. Though there has not been an outbreak of coronavirus in Nepal, Nepal will face challenges in containing the outbreak, if it occurs. Densely populated cities, inadequate health infrastructure and very few public health initiatives from concerned stakeholders are some of the challenges. Since Nepal does not have adequate health technology to combat the virus, it can create a huge panic if it enters Nepal.

LONDON – South Korea is all the rage these days. Earlier last month, Parasite, from the South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Having read the reviews and seen the film a few days earlier, I was not surprised. Still, for the uninitiated, it is worth noting that this was the first time that a foreign-language film took home the top Oscar. Now, many around the world are eagerly searching for more examples of South Korean coolness—from K-pop to cutting-edge fashion designers.

In a 2018 paper published by International Society for Neurofeedback Research (ISNR), Erik Pepers and Richard Harvey have described various symptoms of digital addiction in a sample of undergraduate students. Identified based on the self-declaration based data of the students, the symptoms include increased loneliness, anxiety and depression.

People across the world were planning and preparing to welcome and celebrate New Year. Following the detection of several respiratory illness cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the first case of COVID-19 on 31 December 2019 in Wuhan city of China.  This not only altered the plans and programs of the New Year celebration across China but also posed threat to Chinese health system as the number of cases surged.  Subsequently, considering the speed and spread of the virus, WHO on January 31, announced global emergency in the global health system.

MANCHESTER – “In the beginning was Napoleon.” So commences the late Thomas Nipperdey’s acclaimed history of nineteenth-century Germany, Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck. But although Nipperdey was referring to Napoleon Bonaparte’s central role in creating modern Europe, in many respects his statement also applies to today’s Middle East.

Agronomy, livestock and horticulture are the three major sub-sectors of agriculture. If we review past developmental efforts of Nepali agriculture, we find that agronomy (a branch of agriculture dealing with field-crop production)   was on the top priority in terms of public sector investment and human resource development followed by livestock.