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.

When the news emerged that a Chinese doctor, who had warned his colleagues about an emerging virus, was reprimanded by the Chinese authorities, the West went into a tizzy. The media was quick to criticize China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and how its authoritarian government’s desperate attempt to conceal it had led to the outbreak to reach unprecedented level. Many commented that the steps China was taking, including locking down of an entire city of 11 million and forcing million others to stay indoors, was extreme and ‘draconian’.

NEW YORK – Having fled the country to escape punishment for a statutory-rape conviction in 1977, Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski remains a pariah in the United States. But that doesn’t mean he can’t offer a good read of the place. His latest film, An Officer and a Spy, masterfully captures the febrile atmosphere of a country consumed by lies and conspiracies, led by incendiary demagogues, and betrayed by spineless elites who are too afraid to speak up in defense of national values.

“English is . . . the language of higher education, mass media, information and communication technology, business, tourism, science and medicine,” says the introduction to the recently published English language curriculum for 11th and 12th grades. Built upon this combination of half truths, ignorance, and ideologies, there is another pervasive belief that English is also the language of scientific publication, if not all significant knowledge production in the world. This essay seeks to debunk the latter assumption, going on to discuss the social costs of passively accepting while actively contributing to the conditions behind the assumption, as scholars in developing countries like Nepal are doing increasingly.

Diplomacy in bilateral and multilateral affairs is becoming increasingly complex requiring tact and intelligence. It involves tremendous art of communications and negotiation with a profound knowledge of English language and mastery over a range of topical issues to discuss on the part of negotiators and country representatives. Prime Minister or cabinet ministers such as the foreign minister and secretary of state, consulates and embassies serve as diplomats in implementing Nepal’s foreign policy.

I sometimes stay up past bedtime to watch a cricket match.  Recently I was watching one, and there was a promotional advertisement.    The punch line of the commercial, during Champion’s League football match, was sonamanahhai, you can’t sleep.  The message jolted me back to reality, and I suddenly realized it was way past my bedtime. I shut the TV and went to sleep, assuring myself I could always catch the highlight of the game the next day on TV.