For the grassroots, Dhamala is big. In the villages, he is the unparalleled example of success in Nepali journalism.

For years, journalists have joked about how after offering tika in the Dashain festival, elders blessed them thus: “May you be a big journalist like Rishi Dhamala”.

Other well known journalists have joked about how people in the districts have asked them whether they know Dhamala, and upon receiving a reply in the affirmative, stared back at them with mistrustful eyes that seemed to say: You a friend of Rishi Dhamala? No way!

Such anecdotes, whether factual or fictitious, added an aura of enigma to the man who was born in the remote Jyamrung village of Dhading district in 1975.

Dhamala ran away from his home when he was a student of class five in the village, said his long-time friend and editor of Annapurna Post Jiwendra Simkhada.

“I know him since he was studying in the Janaprabhat Secondary School in Kathmandu,” Simkhada said.

That was during the months leading to the People’s movement of 1990. With his trademark energy, Dhamala played an active role in mobilizing schools in Kathmandu during the movement. During that time, he worked for the daily, Samalochana, as a reporter and also as its paper boy.

Thereafter, he was appointed the manager of Surya monthly, and later helped bring out the Naya Pusta fortnightly. Thereafter, he was involved in tabloids such as Ghatana Ra Bichar, Drishti and Deshanter.

But it was the Reporters’ Club, which he started in 1998, that gave him widespread popularity and influence.

Simkhada said Dhamala went to People’s Campus, but could not say for sure how far he managed academically.

Dhamala is a familiar face in television not because cameras seek him. Rather, it is his knack of being in the right place – next to prime minister, minister, political leader or diplomat – at the right time that ensures him television coverage.

His idiosyncrasies are innumerable. Tabloids frequently carry stories with his by-line, but he actually wrote only a few of them, according to his old friend and journalist Kusum Bhattarai.

“He cannot write as well as professional journalists, and takes help from friends so that he does not miss out on the fundamental job of a journalist: writing. But he was always very strong in getting information,” Bhatttarai said.

Dhamala has always been more interested in the popularity and reach that a journalist can enjoy, rather than the task of writing news stories.

Bhattarai said popularity is Dhamala’s greatest weakness. “He has always wanted to make everyone happy, which is not always possible.”

That is probably why Dhamala accepted the Gorkha Dakshin Bahu from former King Gyanendra at the former palace and then headed straight to an anti-king protest during Gyanendra’s autocratic regime.

His invitation to then Home Minister Kamal Thapa to the Reporters´ Club, which Thapa used to the fullest to justify the former king’s autocratic moves, in the same period, was also widely criticized by his close friends.

After the reinstatement of parliament in 2006, Dhamala faced charges of receiving money from the royal government, which prompted some dailies to boycott the talk programs that are regularly organized at the Reporters´ Club.

“He might have made moral and professional compromises. But I still cannot believe that he had an involvement with a criminal group,” Bhattarai said.

“He is a product, a concoction, of Nepali journalism and politics. We all know that there are many Rishi Dhamalas in Nepal, leading successful lives in various sectors. Imprisoning one will not end the process and the social realities that give birth to people like him.” (source: myrepublica dot com)

Nepal had  reported the first outbreak of the deadly poultry disease, declaring an eastern town adjoining the Indian border quarantined area. The contamination is likely to have come from India.

To keep the disease from spreading, the government has to order the district administration not to allow the transportation of poultry within 10 km of the quarantined town.

Since 1997, the infection has also been reported in humans, especially people who have regular contact with infected birds.

Symptoms of avian influenza in humans range from fever, cough, sore throat, and muscle aches to eye infections, pneumonia, and other severe and life-threatening complications.

According to the World Health Organisation, nearly 250 people have been killed due to bird flu since 2003.
BirdFlu in Human

A possibility that a Poultry Farmer has suffered from this disease has come forth. Santosh Dahal, a poultry farmer from Damak jhapa has been reported to be suffering from BirdFlu by examination of the symtoms though the clinical report has yet not arrived.

One the way back home, I and Samrat spent heck an hour for “Kapan Bangalamukhhi Yatayat”. Damn those bus guys, they didn’t come to serve us. “It’s ok”, we said and headed to Purano Buspark. It was half past 5 maybe, we noticed there was no traffic. Bunch of students there were in front of NEA’s Ratnapark counter. Would “a bunch” accomodate all of them? Why should I care anyway? Ok, Ok, there were around two hundreds with their Union’s Flag and some of them carrying burning candles. Obvious it was, they were there for a protest! Samrat must been in a real hurry, he was well ahead of me. I yelled at him to stop. I didn’t get what those students were saying, or enchanting I must say ( excuse me, I am making them happy ). So I asked him if we could at least make sure what their slogan was. “Prachanda Ko Chamatkar, Desh Bhari Andhakar (Prachanda’s Miracle brought countrywide darkness,.. forget the rhyme, I couldn’t carry it on in the translation..”: hats off to the one who first conceived it.  Nice satire guys, country actually seems sprawled dead by recent 16 hours loadsheddin, or may I say, 8 hours power shedding!!?

Absurdity in the belief of people and reluctance of societies mainly felt in under-developed and developing countries to recognize woman as primary institution of development in the same manner as men are exclusively shameful things to worry about when we hear so much of women empowerment and feminist movement. Our major concern is of Nepal and the condition is disastrous. Women are not singled out when we look at development. Evaluation of woman capabilities and expectation for their dedication and devotion for socio-economic and educational development is still ruled out. Women make an unrecognized contribution to national economies, and gender-biased models of economic, social, educational and cultural development are undermining women equal right to development. Female education is still harassed in remote villages and woman participation in decision making, policy making and economic self-reliance have still been obscured. Women are still made to confine to domestic works and their participation for the development of their self has not been encouraged.

A woman has the right to be happy, she too is guaranteed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She has right to enjoy rights guaranteed to her but accessibility of common woman to pursue their well-being and well living enjoying most important human and woman rights has been discarded by so called superior male community. Government patronage and conservatory laws it has enforced to make sure women live free life with dignity and respect seem to just show off. It seems like woman are treated inhuman and the very show off by government is just to sympathize them from misery and it is, in fact drifting them to much profound agony. Women are underestimated in terms of their biology and to bear all the suffrage are the divine duty assigned to them, claims awkward dominating males. Women are regarded as a child producing machine and are demarcated not to go against this unjust society and violations to better enjoy their liberty, freedom, creativity and capabilities. We should make them sure that their biology is not the hindrance for their self development and we should encourage her that it would be great of her to come up with decision of her life and better enjoy what she want, Let them speak for their self and protest against discrimination. All discriminatory policies that have been hindering woman development need to be curbed.

Sex discrimination is entrenched in all societies throughout the world. A universal violation of woman’s human rights which obstructs development and human right propagation need to be eradicated with every effort of humanity. Women should be let to enjoy cultural, political, economic, social and other dispensable rights guaranteed by international covenants, charters and agreements. The enforcement mechanism should be made stern so as avoid undermining the value of the International covenant on woman rights. Her rights should be made a reality woman development should possess clarity. She have right to dream and pursue them. Let us not go against her free will.