According to UNESCO, globally about 1.6 billion children, which account for 91 percent of all learners, are currently affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Nepal’s over 7 million school-going children and additional university students have also been severely affected by the closure of educational institutions. When the government started lockdown on March 24, Nepal was already on the tail end of the school year, thus the first three weeks of the closure didn’t have a significant impact on students’ learning activities.

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.

NEW YORK – After the 2007-09 financial crisis, the imbalances and risks pervading the global economy were exacerbated by policy mistakes. So, rather than address the structural problems that the financial collapse and ensuing recession revealed, governments mostly kicked the can down the road, creating major downside risks that made another crisis inevitable. And now that it has arrived, the risks are growing even more acute. Unfortunately, even if the Greater Recession leads to a lackluster U-shaped recovery this year, an L-shaped “Greater Depression” will follow later in this decade, owing to ten ominous and risky trends.

Hi everyone, my name is Nepal. COVID-19 has forced me to take sick days. I am on my 35th sick leave, and it has been extended to May 7th.

Cadbury was her favorite. I used to buy one for her as soon as I landed at Biratnagar Airport;  exactly like she did for me when I was a child. The role now reversed. I never went home without meeting her. I would give her a kiss and she would say: Why kiss this old wrinkly cheek! And she would laugh.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has badly hit diplomacy. Several international diplomatic conclaves, conferences, and high-level diplomatic trips are on pause. Diplomats are being asked to stay at home. Meeting rooms in the Foreign Ministries and Embassies see no human presence. Most of the international organizations such as United Nations, European Union, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have moved online, using the digital platforms to conduct the meetings.

HONG KONG – There is nothing like a pandemic to expose systemic differences. For China and the United States, which were locked in an ideologically driven competition even before the COVID-19 crisis, those differences are stark. But the two countries have at least one thing in common: when this is all over, they will need to rethink their social contracts.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a global crisis that will continue for many months. It is already transforming social and economic life while altering the practice of politics and government. For Nepal, one of a relatively small group of countries that remains classified as a least developed country, the long-term impact of the crisis is likely to be exacerbated by perennial vulnerabilities and a legacy of poor policy choices regarding the national interest.

The Government of Nepal is not doing enough to support its migrant workers. Multiple confusions loom around the diaspora, hoping the Nepal government to sort them out. The precarious example of Kuwait paints Nepal’s despondent approach of handling foreign employment amidst the COVID-19 crisis.

Today (April 25) marks fifth anniversary 2015 earthquake in Nepal and the memories on it are still fresh for me.  Back then, I was working in the Department of Asian Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China.