UN Assistant Secretary General and UNDP Assistant Administrator Kanni Wignaraja is currently in Nepal to discuss UNDP's ongoing and future collaboration with the Government of Nepal, development partners and stakeholders to firmly anchor the UN agency's next Five-year Country Program (2023-2027). The UNDP’s Country Program aims at supporting Nepal to tackle the impacts of climate change and contribute to the long-term sustainable development of Nepal. On the sideline of her marathon meetings and other engagements, Republica's Kosh Raj Koirala talked to her to understand the UNDP's priorities, support measures for the countries that are hit hard by the impact of climate change and other concurrent issues that UNDP is working on. Excerpts:

Nepal and the Philippines may be geographically far apart, but these two countries share many similarities that bring them together. Despite limited bilateral interactions, people to people relations between the two countries are already strong. As both the countries are largely agrarian-based economies and major sources of migrant workers for Gulf countries, they also share common issues and concerns at the regional and global levels. Republica talked to the Non-resident Ambassador of the Philippines to Nepal, Ramon S Bagatsing, Jr to understand the current state of the bilateral relations between Nepal and the Philippines, potential areas of mutually beneficial cooperation and ways to further enhance bilateral relations between the two countries.

As social media platforms have emerged as an important tool of election campaign, the EC equally faces a newer challenge to contain misinformation, disinformation and hate speech and ensure effective implementation of the election code of conduct this time.

Dr Biswo Nath Poudel is the Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC), an advisory body for formulating development plans and policies of the government. Dr Poudel holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr Nishchal N Pandey is the Director of the Center for South Asian Studies, a Kathmandu-based think-tank. Previously, he served as the Executive Director of the Institute of Foreign Affairs (IFA) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr Pandey was also an International Research committee member of the Regional Center for Strategic Studies (RCSS), Colombo. He keeps a close tab on the developments that pertain to the South Asian region and their implications for Nepal. As Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is leaving for New Delhi on a three-day official visit to India on Friday, Republica's Kosh Raj Koirala sat with him to understand the significance of the visit and the priorities and concerns Nepal should raise. Excerpts:

We are in touch with our Nepali counterparts. I couldn't agree more with you that sports is a powerful binder – and cricket fans in our two countries share similar views about the role of this sport in bringing our two countries closer. We are exploring different possibilities to enhance our cooperation in the field of sports, particularly cricket.

KATHMANDU, April 4: Kikuta Yutaka is the newly-appointed ambassador of Japan to Nepal. Diplomat Kikuta Yutaka who was serving at Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been appointed as the ambassador for Nepal.

Nepal’s Constitution has some great provisions to advance women’s rights, particularly to support the significant increase in women’s representation and participation in all spheres of government.

KATHMANDU, Jan 28: Chief Executive Officer of Teach for Nepal, Swastika Shrestha has said that their organization is willing to hand over their model of recruiting young people in government schools to the government  as the model seems to be working pretty efficiently in enhancing the performance of both the schools and the students.

KATHMANDU, Jan 22: Ghimire Yubraj, a theatre artist, has said that theatres are one of best mediums to introduce reforms in society.