Do you recall seeing headlines like these? Nepali scientist invents Corona vaccine. Barsha Raut supports India on border dispute issues. Donald Trump says to India to give Nepali territory back.

PARIS – The small landlocked Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, which lies between China and India, is not only a tourist mecca. The country has also long pioneered the concept of “gross national happiness” (GNH), which its architects regard as far more comprehensive and accurate than the conventional measure of an economy, gross national product, or GNP.

In the midst of every crisis, lies a great opportunity and every crisis adds courage. The world is dealing with an unprecedented health, economic and social crisis in a century. Health systems and businesses are being challenged. The power sector has been hard hit, as demand has fallen globally. Europe’s power prices have collapsed at the heart of the crisis, even turned negative in some countries.

“Silent coronavirus” is widespread in Nepal. Almost all individuals infected with coronaviruses were found with no symptoms at all.

Coronavirus pandemic has engulfed almost all countries around the world. The number of infected person and subsequent death has reached almost 6.7 million and 400 thousand respectively and the number is on rise with every passing day. It is still uncertain when this annihilation will stop and the people will return to their normal life.

In January 2020, several European news outlets, including The Daily Telegraph, reported that a famous set of antique jewellery were offered for ransom on the dark web. The diamond studded pieces worth almost a billion dollars were looted from a museum in Dresden in 2019. It was reported that Israeli investigators were offered a few of the pieces as a ransom. The messages on the dark web also claimed that it would be futile to try to identify and locate them. The ransom was also to be paid off in Bitcoin, a digital currency.

CAMBRIDGE – In my recent study of 14 presidents since 1945, Do Morals Matter, I found that Americans want a moral foreign policy, but have been torn over what that means. Americans often see their country as exceptional because we define our identity not by ethnicity, but rather by ideas about a liberal vision of a society and way of life based on political, economic, and cultural freedom. President Donald Trump’s administration has departed from that tradition.

“If you have pissed them off, you have commanded their attention”, seems to be the settled wisdom of our time. Liberal restraint is out of vogue while instigating anger is the new fad. Though somewhat reprehensible tactic and mentally exhausting, it is shrewd. But it has its limitations.

Agriculture in Nepal has slow growth over a protracted period despite a number of policies and strategic approaches being followed in the past. The Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP), unveiled in 1995 with a 20‐year vision, adopted a Green Revolution‐type approach based on massive investments on key inputs such as irrigation, fertilizers and rural roads to be focused on high potential areas. Based on it, the Government of Nepal (GoN) has formulated several broader policy frameworks since then. Of these, Agriculture Development Strategy (ADS) and National Agriculture Policy 2061 (NAP 2004) remain main policy documents to date. All these policies are judged to be sound in design but have suffered greatly in implementation. In many cases, they lacked the supporting legislation and resources for implementation.

According to UNESCO, around 1.5 billion students are out of school in over 165 countries affected by the pandemic. In China, the government is working at an unprecedented scale and speed with private platform providers to continue classes. At least 260 million students from elementary to high school have signed up for on-line platforms during the epidemic. Across the globe, governments have taken initiatives to combat the challenges thrown in by the Covid-19. Japan was one of the first countries to shut down schools from beginning of March affecting around 13 million children. In the first week of April, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh launched 'DigiLep Learning Enhancement Program' to ensure that learning of the students does not get affected while the schools remain shut. It relied heavily on WhatsApp. Countries soon figured a way to keep engaging their children, to minimize the damage done by closure of schools.