Tashi Tewa

                   A few years back, some of us in Kathmandu decided to do something against the increasing number of a robbery happening in various remote and marginalized sections of Dolpo. Tragedy in a remote village continues to affect many of us. Mainly due to various circumstances mainly affected by structural exclusion, we ended up in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal.  If I remember correctly, there were around six of us who gathered and discussed what we should do. Utmost safety of our villagers was our top priority though we always wanted our robbed statues back again in our ‘gomba’ (monastery). Thanks to the identification of some help, we succeeded to meet a senior most Nepali police officer several times, a Home Minister, a Director of UNESCO, and a government official at National Archaeology Department. Every time we met them, we repeated our problems, and concerns, and a written list of demands.  Pic (from the Internet): Shey Monastery pres

       Dho-Tarap (now falls in Dolpo Buddha Rural Municipality) was imagined as a central administrative center by Dolpo-pa for a Dolpo Autonomous State. Geographically located somewhat at a center of those scattered dolpo communities from Phoksumdo, Saldang to Tinje and Mukot, historically Dho-Tarap is also the place where the main leader, Chikyab used to organize the annual gathering and meeting to settle local conflicts and disputes. In addition, compared to Vijer, Saldang, Tinje and Chharka, Dho-Tarap is also somewhat closer to Dunai, the district headquarter. The present ongoing road construction connecting Nepal with China vis-a-vis Dho and Tinje further makes this area strategic. Therefore, Dho-Tarap falls among these webs of culture, geography and development in Dolpo and Dolpa, the biggest district. Still under the context of centralized state, why and whose political conspiracy led to the region's failure to claim DAS? Will we ever question and seek answers especiall

It was June 14, 2014 when two Dolpo locals were killed by the state security officials in Dho-Tarap (currently falls in Dolpo Buddha Rural Municipality). In addition, nearly ten locals were caught and later put in prison in Suligaadh, Dunai (one of the prison in the Army Camp of Dolpa) where they were also tortured and threatened not to speak anything against the state. Consequently, many delegations and protests nearly for four months led by locals also in Kathmandu somewhat failed to convince the state to provide justice to deceased and their family. Kantipur national media and its two media person even for the first time went to Dho (at-least 500 kms away from Kathmandu) itself and later analysed the violence and injustices happened to locals. One of the noted scholar including Deepak Thapa and CK Lal later even wrote about the particular incident. Here is the link of the article written by former: http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/printedition/news/2014-06-18/death-

There will be few people around who might not think PhD study as something a huge deal and some might think it is a huge deal. Atleast for me, it has been a big deal and as per my experience, it has taken many years preparing for me to start it. I thought of first writing about it once I got my application in Washington University accepted.   “Who gets a chance to study PhD abroad, generally from Nepal? Obviously Brahmin and Chhetris who easily have a good access in Kathmandu.” I will never disagree with such statement considering not only because it comes out from one of the senior scholar who has worked in Nepal for the last two decades. It also justifies how I have experienced the academic and research culture also in Kathmandu even for a short duration. I might write about this in detail later but here I will attempt to share what I feel might help especially Indigenous and Dalits students to know the tedious process of PhD application. That interaction from the scholar further