My Republica

Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

Subarna Shakya was awarded the title of ‘100 Most Dedicated Professor’ by the World Education Congress. Bimal Pratap Shah is a policy wonk.
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City as a platform to reimagine urban governance

Published On: February 24, 2021 08:00 AM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

Nepal needs new radicalism to thrive in the new Digital Age. Platform thinking creates intersections between local policy-making, democracy, urban activism, and digital living.

Reimagining regulations

Published On: July 11, 2020 11:00 AM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

While the concept of AI politicians has started to dominate the public discourse in many parts of the world, the government of Nepal is still clueless about harnessing the power of the AI to deliver better governance.

Post-pandemic society 5.0

Published On: June 3, 2020 03:20 PM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

As coronavirus continues to spread across the world, many countries have chosen to implement the Wuhan-style lockdown to slow down the spread of infection rates in the population. At the same time, many smart countries have decided to fight the coronavirus without putting in place such strict measures. South Korea did an excellent job of fighting the pandemic by finding a gentle balance between continuing economic activities and containing the epidemic outbreak. Japan declared a state of emergency in hard-hit areas without imposing lockdown. More interestingly, the economic powerhouse is also speeding up the process of transforming the country to “Society 5.0”—a noble idea that is well suited for the post-pandemic world.

Reimagining governance

Published On: April 29, 2020 04:00 PM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

Many countries have implemented lockdown hoping to reverse epidemic growth by decreasing infection numbers to low levels by social distancing the entire population as coronavirus continues to spread globally. As a result, the global economy faces the worst recession since the Great Depression. This has come about because of the overtly hierarchical bureaucratic structures of the World Health Organization (WHO) and most governments around the world are not designed to be agile and responsive to tackle a global pandemic such as COVID-19. There is no denying that the pandemic has exposed a crisis of global governance. Maybe now is the right time to reimagine governance for the hyper globalized, overpopulated, and digitalized world of the 21st century.

Hijacking democracy

Published On: March 5, 2020 08:53 AM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

Algorithms will soon be a big part of human society. It is already being used to determine what people see on online platforms, detect traffic violations on the busy streets of cosmopolitan cities, suggest posts on social media, and fire unproductive employees. The general thinking is that the evaluations made by algorithms are objective and unbiased because they analyze huge amounts of data to make decisions.  This, however, is an incorrect assumption. Since people write software codes, human-biases often transfer in algorithms potentially threatening liberal democracy.

Corruption weakens democracy

Published On: February 10, 2020 09:24 AM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

During the Gettysburg Address in 1863, Abraham Lincoln stated that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.” He must have thought democracy to be the best political system in the world. Albert Camus, a French philosopher trusted democracy to be the protection of the minority. For Harry Fosdick, democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. If Lincoln, Camus, and Fosdick were alive today, they would probably be extremely disappointed to learn that democracy is in an acute crisis as it has failed to deliver on its promises.

Magna Carta 2.0

Published On: November 14, 2018 01:30 AM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

Creators of Internet never wanted the medium to be a hotbed for illegal activities, mass surveillance, child pornography and cyber terrorism

Bureaucracy 2.0

Published On: November 14, 2016 12:35 AM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

Nepal is still stuck with the centralized bureaucratic practices ill suited for rapidly changing technological landscape of the hyper globalized digital world

Commerce 2.0

Published On: August 6, 2016 12:35 AM NPT By: Subarna Shakya and Bimal Pratap Shah

The government has not been able to create a favorable environment to boost e-commerce in Nepal