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This is the first episode of our new micro-series: Nepal Now: Right Now.

These pieces will fill the gap between regular full episodes of the show, which are published every two weeks. About 5 minutes long, they will be published on alternate weeks and will focus on past and upcoming episodes — including listener feedback — sharing news about migration and Nepal, and anything else relevant to Nepal Now.

Let us know what you think of this new addition to the show, and about this first episode in particular.

Resources

Article quoting Nepal's Prime Minister Dahal on youth migration

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Hi everyone. I’m Marty Logan. Thank you for choosing to listen to Nepal Now: On the Move from the literally millions of podcasts available. This is our third episode since we shifted the show’s focus to migration — to, from, and within Nepal. And, I gotta say: I’m biting my nails waiting for feedback from you listeners — especially long-time fans. Good, bad or indifferent, I want to hear it. Your responses are the best way for me to see how I might improve the show. So please take a minute to leave a comment on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn, email me at nepalnowpod(at)gmail.com, or leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

Today we’re speaking with another returnee to Nepal, but one with a much different story than what we heard from baker/entrepreneur Aanchal last week. We’re calling her Sushma, which is not her real name, because she has received threats from people who were involved in sending her to work in Kuwait. Sushma has filed a report with police, but nothing had come of it as of March 31st. The good news is that she is back home with her children, who she was very worried about, and taking medication.

Sushma left her village in Nepal’s Karnali region last November, and within a month was in Dubai, waiting to be taken to a job in Kuwait. She arrived there after a month but stayed only 3 months because she fell ill — but not before being threatened with harm if she didn’t go back to work. She also saw another worker being hit by a house owner, had her phone taken away, and was told by employers in another house that she couldn’t leave because “We bought you.”

Back in Nepal, Sushma, who didn’t attend school as a child and used to earn money in her village by manually breaking stones, is now saddled with a huge debt after her family mortgaged land to pay the agent for her ticket home. But given what she experienced in her brief stay in Kuwait, that seems far better than other possible outcomes.

This is the first episode where I worked with an interpreter, Pranika Koyu, who was in the studio with Sushma and I. She did an amazing job, but occasionally you might hear that I left out a voice when I shouldn’t have. That and any other editing errors are mine. A couple other notes: you’ll hear us talk about lakhs of money: 1 lakh is 100,000 Nepali rupees, which is about $750. Sushma says sometimes that the agent demanded 3 lakhs, 50,000 rupees for her return; other times she says 3 lakhs 20,000. We settled on the last amount. Finally, near the end of our conversation I ask Sushma about something I had heard earlier in the day about her police case. I deliberately deleted the name of the person who told me, for the same security reasons.

Just one more thing: I recently found out that there are two versions of the show on Apple Podcasts. I have no idea how that happened but it means I need to delete one. The choice is easy: one has all the episodes and one has fewer; one has

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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

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Hi everyone. I'm Marty Logan. Thank you for listening to Nepal Now: On the Move. 

Let me know what you think of this episode, and if you have ideas for future guests. My email is [email protected]. I’ve done about 10 interviews to date for the show and I can see that it’s going to be much more difficult to find female guests than male ones, so please do send me tips about women who I might speak to. As a bit of a teaser, the people you’re going to hear from in future episodes have, for example: 

• Gone to study in Canada
• Migrated to work in Kuwait but had to return early and is now taking legal action against the people who sent them there
• Voluntarily left a rising career in Oman to return to Nepal to share the country’s cultural values with their child
• Worked for some months in the US, then some months in Nepal, and continues to go back and forth regularly.

The Covid-19 lockdown in New Delhi forced Aanchal Dutt to develop baking skills in order to satisfy her sweet tooth. Anxieties about her parents living hundreds of kilometres away in her hometown Surkhet, pushed her to give up life in the mega-city she had known from childhood to open a bakery in the small town once the restrictions had passed. 

Aanchal is one of a very small minority of Nepalis who are immigrating to the country instead of emigrating. But her/their story is important to hear if Nepal is to slow the now torrential flow of people leaving the country for what they hear are better opportunities abroad. 

Since I’ve been working on this revamped show, I’m quite sure that Aanchal is the only young Nepali I’ve met who hasn’t wanted to migrate and has actually returned here. The Cake House is now thriving, as a family affair, which I’m happy to say I witnessed when I was in Surkhet. (Btw, if you need a recommendation, the favourite sweet is cheesecake). Aanchal has also fallen in love with an alternative school that practises an holistic approach to learning, and is teaching English there. She says she understands why young people are leaving the country, but passionately urges them to return to help build a better Nepal.

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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

Send us a text

Hi everyone. Thanks for listening to this first episode of Nepal Now: On the Move. I know there are literally millions of podcasts out there competing for your listening time, so I appreciate that you chose this one.

My name is Marty Logan. I’m a Canadian journalist who has lived in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu on and off since 2005. You can reach me with feedback on anything you hear on Nepal Now or ideas for guests at nepalnowpod(at)gmail.com.

If you’re not familiar with the show, Nepal Now has been around for a while — I published more than 60 episodes from June 2020 to June 2023. And here we are again.

Why am I back? you might be wondering. You can listen to the new trailer for a full explanation. The short answer is that I think I still have something to contribute to informing people — both Nepalis and foreigners — about this country and I think I’ve found a way to make it more engaging.

To jump right in, today we’re speaking with Prem Awasthi. Prem worked for the United Nations in Nepal for 18 years, dealing with the growing number of humanitarian emergencies in the country. In December 2023 he moved to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. I caught up with him just hours before his flight left Kathmandu. We talked about the many practicalities of going as well as why he was leaving, and if it’s a good thing that so many people are migrating from Nepal. 

Support the show

Help steer the future of Nepal Now as it moves to Canada in October 2025.
Fill out the survey. It takes just 5 minutes.

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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

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Hi everyone. Welcome to Nepal Now, whose new title is Nepal Now: On the Move, for reasons I’ll explain shortly. Thanks for choosing this show from among the more than 2 million podcasts now competing for your ears.

I’m back! And since my last episode was titled Thank you and goodbye! I guess I should explain. But first, if you don’t know me, my name is Marty Logan. I’ve been a journalist for more than 30 years, in my native Canada, Malaysia and Nepal, where my wife is from. We’ve lived here since 2016 and before that from 2005 to 2010, when I worked with the UN human rights office. Since 2016 I’ve been reporting regularly about health and human rights issues; I started Nepal Now in June 2020 and uploaded my last episode in June 2023.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about reviving the show ever since recording that ‘final’ episode. I even kept paying to host it all this time, although I wasn’t uploading new episodes. I did that partly because I felt like I still had things to say. And also, I know that a small, but steadily growing, number of people were listening. That, I realized, is something special: that some people will devote time in their very full lives to pay attention to what I have to say.

I also thought that with a new format I could share information in a more engaging way. After three decades as a journalist, I believe more strongly than ever that almost everyone wants to hear stories. They’re happy learning something new but happiest if that content is presented in an engaging way – to put it simply, a story about people that has a narrative arc. So in this series I want to talk about migration — which is a mammoth issue in today’s Nepal, with social, cultural, and political impacts that go beyond the economic ones we usually hear about — AND I want to make it more entertaining.

And finally, honestly, I admit that I am happy performing. Hosting a podcast is a type of performance, and I enjoy asking questions and trying to make a connection with a guest in the short amount of time that we have together. Ideally this season I’ll be speaking with people multiple times – as they prepare to leave Nepal (or in some cases return here) and then at least once after they’ve arrived.

Of course, migration is nothing new for Nepal. Gurkha soldiers are one of the country’s best known exports, and have been joining the UK and Indian armies, and other forces, since the early 19th century. But the scale of today’s migration is awe-inspiring, and to many people, troubling. We will talk to the Nepalis making those trips, and others linked to the migration phenomenon, to try and make sense of this mass movement

By the way, we covered migration in the second episode

Support the show

Help steer the future of Nepal Now as it moves to Canada in October 2025.
Fill out the survey. It takes just 5 minutes.

Show your love by sending this episode to someone who you think might be interested or by sharing it on social media:

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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

Send us a text

Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me for this new episode of Nepal Now. I’m Marty Logan.

You might have noticed that this is an extra short episode. Frankly, that’s because it will be the last one. After 3 years I’m saying goodbye. Why? Put simply, I don’t have the energy to keep the show going any more.

I didn’t want to announce this at the end of the last full episode, because then I wouldn’t have had the chance to say this: Thanks to all of you who are listening and to everyone who ‘tuned in’ for one or more of the 64 episodes. I hope you took something away from the experience. I certainly did. I ‘met’ a lot of people, most of them online, as you do in this globalized world in the era of Covid-19. I especially appreciate the chats I had with younger guests — which is most of them : -). I think their approach to life rubbed off on me a little, and that’s a good thing.

If I have one regret it’s that I wish Nepal Now had been a little more entertaining, as opposed to informative. My journalism, mainly reporting on women and children’s health and on human rights, often focuses on serious topics but, personally, I appreciate a good laugh. Looking back, I think that I should have included more of them in this work... Next time, I hope.

A very big thank you to all of my guests, young and old, for sharing their time. I will single out the first guest, Nayantara Gurung Kakshapati, who very easily said yes to my invitation — and even loaned me an audio recorder afterwards. Special thanks to Lori, Shayne, Thom and Nicole, for encouraging me to keep going when I got discouraged way too early in this project. And to Suraya for helping me with social media, especially Instagram, where I was a total newbie. My biggest thank you goes to Niku, who was my advisor on all things Nepali, an insightful critic of my first drafts, and my biggest supporter.

This might sound strange given that I’m ending Nepal Now, but I feel like doing this podcast helped to spark my creativity in recent years. I have always enjoyed audio as a medium for journalism and hope to continue using it in my future work. Till then, you can find me on social media and check out my latest work on my Linktree — I’m martydlogan. You will be able to listen to any episodes of the show that you’ve missed on your podcast app until mid-July. After that, they’ll have a home on YouTube — look for @NepalNowPod.

Speaking of chuckles, I want to leave you with an outtake from another podcast I’ve hosted — Strive, by IPS News. 

Bye for now.

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Help steer the future of Nepal Now as it moves to Canada in October 2025.
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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

Send us a text

Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me for this new episode of Nepal Now, the podcast where we highlight different ideas and actions to move the country forward. I’m Marty Logan.

Thanks to those of you who filled out the poll on our last episode, about Jumli Marsi rice. It’s available if you listen on Spotify, and I post a new poll and a question there with each episode. This poll was tricky: Do you think the growing trend of selling nutritious crops instead of consuming them is good for farm families? That contradiction was reflected in the poll’s results, with most people choosing they ‘Didn’t know’ if it was a positive or negative development.

If you’re listening on Spotify look for the poll, and a separate question, that you can answer about this episode. No matter where you hear Nepal Now, you can always send me a comment, or question, to [email protected].

OK, on with today’s chat... I’ve noticed a huge difference in publicity around the topic of mental health since I returned to Nepal in 2016, compared to when I lived here from 2005 to 2010. The subject is highlighted in the news media more regularly, and certainly on social media. Also, there seem to be many more organizations offering mental health education or treatment, both to individuals and to organizations. For example, a couple years ago I interviewed someone from an NGO that is creating quiet spaces it calls ‘counselling rooms’ in schools in some pilot districts. You can find the link to that episode in the notes to this show.

Growing recognition of the importance of mental health might be one of the few positive results of recent disasters, like the 2014 earthquake and the Covid-19 pandemic, notes today’s guest, consultant psychologist Sneha Agarwal Chaudhary. Still, it is alarming that the suicide rate in the country continues to rise steadily.

Sneha and I also chat about a few popular perceptions / conceptions of mental health counselling, like the cost and confidentiality, then turn to discuss particular groups of people who make up the audience of this podcast. These include young people in general as well as those who leave Nepal temporarily to either work or study. I think the main takeaway from our conversation is: If you’re concerned about your mental health, find someone you can talk to. 

As today’s conversation includes talk of suicide – please take special care while listening.

Resources

Nepal National Suicide Prevention Helpline — Telephone 1166

Previous episode on mental health – Training teens on mental health

Nepal Now social links

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Twitter

Support the show

Help steer the future of Nepal Now as it moves to Canada in October 2025.
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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

Send us a text

Hi everyone. Thank you for being here for this new episode of Nepal Now, the podcast where we highlight different ideas and actions to move the country forward. I’m Marty Logan.

Here’s something new — did you know you can listen to Nepal Now on your smart speaker? Just ask Siri, Alexa or whoever you’re talking with to ‘play Nepal Now podcast’ and you’ll hear my voice.

OK, on with this episode, one I really enjoyed because our initial discussion about why the Government of Nepal invested 13 years into improving a strain of rice – even if it is the famous jumli marsi red rice -  mophed into a broader chat about poor farmers growing crops for export instead of for personal consumption.

As its name suggests, the rice is grown in Jumla, a district of the Karnali region in west Nepal, typically described as one of the country’s most remote and poorest areas. I remember going there 17 years ago with the World Food Programme as it helicoptered in rice during an ‘emergency operation’ because prolonged drought had withered crops. But things are slowly improving. For example, a major hospital, Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, is regularly praised for providing services, rather than for the lack of such, which is often the reason rural health facilities make headlines.

Today’s guest, senior scientist and molecular breeder Resham Babu Amagain of the Nepal Agricultural Research Council, tells us that he thinks the livelihoods of poor farmers are also improving, largely because they are now selling what they grow – to Nepal’s middle class, eager to indulge in what they consider nutritious local food. (A 2018 photo of the current prime minister, and his predecessor, dining on jumli marsi helped to cement the rice’s reputation).

Before we play today’s chat, a quick reminder that you can show your appreciation for the work that goes into making Nepal Now clicking on the white ‘support’ button at the middle left of our homepage and making a contribution. If you have any questions or suggestions about this, or about the show in general — feedback on what you hear, an idea for an episode, or anything at all — you can write to me at [email protected].

Please listen now to my chat with Resham Babu Amagain.

Resources

Kathmandu Post story about the improved jumli marsi

Nepali Times article on jumli marsi

Nepal Agricultural Research Council

Nepal Now social links

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Support the show

Help steer the future of Nepal Now as it moves to Canada in October 2025.
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Show your love by sending this episode to someone who you think might be interested or by sharing it on social media:

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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

Send us a text

Hi everyone. Thank you for being here for this new episode of Nepal Now, the podcast where we highlight different ideas and actions to move the country forward. I’m Marty Logan. A quick reminder that you can back the work that goes into creating this show, by clicking on the white ‘support’ button at the middle left of our homepage and making a contribution. If you have any questions or suggestions about this, or about the show in general — feedback on what you hear, an idea for an episode, or anything at all — you can write to me at [email protected].

If you’re at least in your 20s you’ve probably heard of Tootle. It was the first ride-sharing app to operate in Nepal, starting in 2016. Today there is a multitude of competitors, from Pathao to InDriver, Bolt and more. In this episode, Tootle’s founder, Sixit Bhatta, tells us that he’s happy to see how the marketplace has developed since his project to track a bus on its route evolved into one of the country’s earliest forays into the so-called sharing economy. And he adds that he’s moving onto new things. Hint: They’re about as far away from Kathmandu’s traffic jams as he can get, both literally and figuratively.

But you have to wonder how things might have turned out if the government hadn’t delivered a ‘knockout blow’ to his new, local business via a tax bill that today’s ride-sharing ventures, backed by international resources, do not have to face. Sixit is surprisingly philosophical about this, preferring to focus on the ground that Tootle broke. That includes getting customers used to taking a lift from a motorcycle-riding stranger and — for the drivers — losing the ‘shame’ of accepting money for their work.

I think you’ll be surprised at his answer when I ask Sixit for one piece of advice he would give to entrepreneurs just starting out... I was.

Please listen now to my chat with Sixit Bhatta.

Resources

 Book mentioned by Sixit – Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

Tootle Facebook page (not updated)

Nepal Now social links

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Instagram

Twitter

LinkedIn

Thanks as always to Nikunja Nepal for advice and inspiration.

Music: amaretto needs ice ... by urmymuse (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial  (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/urmymuse/57996 Ft: Apoxode 

Support the show

Help steer the future of Nepal Now as it moves to Canada in October 2025.
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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

Send us a text

Hi everyone. Thank you for being here for this new episode of Nepal Now, the podcast where we highlight different ideas and ways of moving the country forward. I’m Marty Logan, a journalist and communicator from Canada who’s lived in Nepal for 11 years.

Before we get into today’s chat, a follow-up from our recent episode about the satire-writing Ass of Nepali Times newspaper. You’ve probably heard about ChatGPT, the AI programme that has become essay-writing students’ new best friend. Well, Nepali Times recently asked ChatGPT to write various types of articles as a demonstration, including an example of Backside, the former column by The Ass. Unlike the straightforward news articles that the AI produced, it is not impressive, illustrating at least one limitation of the software — humour. Check it out at the link in the notes to this episode .

Also, a reminder that you’re now able to support Nepal Now financially — if you wish. Go to our website, nepalnow.buzzsprout.com, then to the black box titled Nepal Now+, where you can click to support the show. I’ve also included the link in the episode notes. If you have any questions or suggestions — about this support, an idea for an episode, or anything at all — you can write to me at [email protected]. Thank you.

Today we’re speaking with Bala Rai, about the programme One School, One Nurse. I thought it started in 2022 but it was actually 4 years earlier, yet to date it’s reached just 1,100 of the tens of thousands of government schools. Still, providing health support and advice to school students — on things like nutrition, menstrual hygiene and mental health — seems like a great use of limited resources. Bala, who is Chief of the Nursing Section, in the Nursing and Social Security Division of the Department of Health, says that expansion will depend on provincial and local governments also footing some of the bills.

I also hope that the three levels of government find ways to adequately compensate the nurses — who are contract, not permanent, employees — so they don’t leave the country for overseas opportunities.

Finally, thank you to Anita Shrestha, who wrote about the One School, One Nurse programme for Himal magazine and suggested I contact Bela Rai for this episode. I’ve linked also to Anita’s article (translated) in the notes.

Resources

Chat GPT’s version of Backside

Anita Shrestha’s article translated in Nepali Times

Support the show

Help steer the future of Nepal Now as it moves to Canada in October 2025.
Fill out the survey. It takes just 5 minutes.

Show your love by sending this episode to someone who you think might be interested or by sharing it on social media:

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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to PEI in Bakhundole for the use of their studios.

Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.