Today we’re speaking with Soham Dhakal, who first travelled to the US when he was 17 and has been back and forth between the two countries so many times he considers himself a nomad. But before we get to Soham’s story I want to correct something I said last week. Our new text messaging service is not limited: it’s for everyone listening to the show, on any app. Sneak a quick look now to confirm: at the top of the description to this episode – and every episode – you’ll see the words ‘Send us a T...
May 14, 2024•33 min•Season 6Ep. 10
Heard something you really liked, or disliked? You can now let us know by sending a text message directly from the website. In the description of each episode, at the very top left, you'll see a link that says, What do you think? Send a text . Click on that and your messaging app will open on your phone and you can write us a text message, which I think is pretty cool. Full disclosure: it's a US-based number so you won't pay anything if you're texting from the US or Canada; for other places the ...
May 07, 2024•5 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Aayush Pokharel will soon be graduating from his diploma programme in Canada, and so his search for a full-time job has already started. He’ll have three years to work in the country before leaving or applying for permanent residency. For now he says he wants to come back to Nepal. Aayush was one of more than 20,000 young Nepalis officially studying in Canada in 2023, according to one report. That’s almost triple the 7,680 students in 2022, making Canada one of the most popular destinations for ...
May 01, 2024•33 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Welcome to Nepal Now: Right Now, a weekly micro-episode where we share news about the show and what's happening in migration as it affects Nepal. First, I want to give a shout out to listener Sikhar for his persistence. He wrote and suggested a guest to me. And somehow I couldn't figure out how I could link that guest and their work with this, podcast on migration. And so I wrote back to him. He wrote back to me and very clearly spelled it out. And so I finally got it. So thank you very much aga...
Apr 23, 2024•5 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Hi everyone. I’m Marty Logan. Thank you for clicking on this episode of Nepal Now: On the Move, where we speak with some of the huge number of people leaving – and occasionally returning – to this country wedged between India and China. Bharat Adhikari is another former migrant worker who returned to live in Nepal, but his story could hardly be more different than Sushma’s, who we heard from in a previous episode . I chatted recently with Bharat at the Himal Media studio in Patan Dhoka. After mo...
Apr 16, 2024•30 min•Season 6Ep. 6
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 p...
Apr 09, 2024•5 min•Season 6Ep. 5
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 le...
Apr 03, 2024•39 min•Season 6Ep. 4
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 nepalnowpod@gmail.com. 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 exampl...
Mar 20, 2024•39 min•Season 6Ep. 3
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 ...
Mar 05, 2024•30 min•Season 6Ep. 2
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 si...
Mar 05, 2024•6 min•Season 6Ep. 1
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’ f...
Jun 18, 2023•4 min•Season 5Ep. 8
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 famili...
May 22, 2023•32 min•Season 5Ep. 7
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...
May 02, 2023•28 min•Season 5Ep. 6
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 a...
Apr 11, 2023•33 min•Season 5Ep. 5
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, Nepa...
Mar 21, 2023•29 min
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, and I hope you can hear those birds chirping in the background. We just had a light rain so they've come out to celebrate. Before we get into this episode, I want to let you know that you’re now able to support Nepal Now financially — if you wish. Go to our website, nepalnow.buzzsprout.com , then to the narrow black box t...
Mar 08, 2023•51 min•Season 5Ep. 2
You can now support Nepal Now. Hi everyone. This is Marty Logan. Apologies for the long delay between episodes. I finally made it home for the holidays after four years being delayed by Covid and took advantage with a longer than usual break. So, welcome back to Nepal Now, if you’re a return listener; greetings to those of you who are here for the first time. What I’m trying to do with this podcast is highlight some alternatives to the usual routes and ideas about so-called development in Nepal....
Feb 13, 2023•37 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Hi everyone. This is Marty Logan. Welcome to Nepal Now. It’s been an up-and-down year for me, and for the podcast, as I’m sure it has for many of you. But thanks to support from you listeners I’ve been motivated to keep it going. So thank you all for that. These will be my last words through the podcast for 2022, but before I say goodbye I want to ask you to do one more thing. I’ve created a very short survey to help me decide if we should tweak Nepal Now in 2023 and I need your input. I’ve past...
Dec 15, 2022•2 min•Season 4Ep. 17
Welcome to Nepal Now, the podcast where we explore new ideas and innovations to move the country forward. My name is Marty Logan. Thank you for joining me today a in my noisy neighbourhood. It feels like it’s construction season in this part of Kathmandu – but on with the show as they say! Like what seems to be a growing number of Nepalis, Rumee Singh always had an itch to return home and use her abilities to improve her own country. She went overseas to finish her education and then scored a “c...
Nov 27, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 16
Thank you for joining me today. I think it’s fair to say that the discussion you’re going to hear raises at least as many questions as it answers. We’re talking about domestic abuse and women who leave Nepal to work abroad. Labour migration is a huge part of the country’s economy and, as I think this episode reveals, it has a major impact on many other aspects of life here. Earlier this century the money that migrant workers sent home accounted for close to 1/3 of Nepal’s entire economy; today i...
Nov 15, 2022•31 min•Season 4Ep. 15
I reached out to Gyanu Adhikari wondering if I had missed the boat. I wanted to speak to him about co-founding The Record, an online news portal that started publishing in 2014, but the website had stopped posting new information this past July. I probably should have contacted him two years earlier, after I started this podcast, but I think as a media person myself I just took the website for granted as another media portal not as an experiment in providing news without advertising and in multi...
Oct 30, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 14
Welcome to Nepal Now, the podcast where we discuss new ideas and approaches to move the country forward. My name is Marty Logan. Thanks for joining me for this episode, which, if you’re counting, is #52. You might be wondering what happened to the video version of the last episode, my chat with Sanjib Chaudhary. Well, that’s a good question. I received a rough cut and suggested two changes — and weeks later I’m still waiting for the updated version. I promise to let you know if it ever appears. ...
Oct 12, 2022•27 min•Season 4Ep. 13
Welcome to Nepal Now, the podcast where we discuss new ideas and approaches to move the country forward. My name is Marty Logan. I hope you don’t mind a slight digression to start. A few weeks ago I met a friend, someone I see every few months. One of the first things he said to me was, 'I see your podcast is on a break'. We chatted for a while and later I realized that I had no idea he kept up with the show. This has happened to me regularly this year: every so often I meet someone who says the...
Sep 21, 2022•25 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Welcome to Nepal Now. My name is Marty Logan. I’m back after a long break – thanks for joining me. Today we’re doing something different. On Aug 21st I was at St. Xavier’s College in Kathmandu, talking with journalism students about podcasting. Actually, I tried to keep the talking part to a minimum — our main task was to create this episode that you’re listening to now. The theme of the session was: When you’re a journalist, how will you do journalism differently? I was impressed with the ideas...
Sep 01, 2022•11 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Welcome to Nepal Now, the podcast where we discuss new ideas and initiatives to move the country forward. My name is Marty Logan. A lot has happened around menstrual health issues in Nepal in recent years. And it seems that all that work is bearing fruit. In its last budget the government pledged to drastically cut the tax and import duty on menstrual hygiene products, while a toolkit created by a group of organizations will soon be distributed in government schools. Today’s guests have taken ve...
Jul 12, 2022•24 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Last Saturday two trucks carrying smuggled fertilizer across the southern border between India and Nepal were seized at Nepal customs. Police took charge and were escorting the trucks to the capital Kathmandu when they were blocked on the highway by desperate farmers in Dhading district, who seized 400 of the 500 bags of fertilizer and vanished, reported the Kathmandu Post. Fertilizer shortages are a perennial issue in Nepal. This year the Russian attack on Ukraine has caused a global shortage, ...
Jun 21, 2022•30 min•Season 4Ep. 9
This is another episode in our series Nepal Then and Now, where we catch up with former guests. Before we do that, I have a request. We know that the show has some dedicated listeners because they’ve been saying really positive things about us, which have been passed on, and it is very encouraging. But, honestly, we need more subscribers in order for the show to be sustainable and to keep producing these episodes. So please, take a minute — two at most — to give us a rating on Apple podcasts . T...
Jun 07, 2022•17 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Today is the second instalment in our series Nepal Then and Now, where we catch up with former guests. We first spoke with Pallavi Payal in mid-2020 about the situation of women in the country during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time she focused on unequal citizenship provisions for women in the country, particularly those living in the southern Madesh region. In today’s chat we’re focused on online violence against women, particularly the torrent of threats of rape and oth...
May 23, 2022•17 min•Season 4Ep. 8
That is the sound of hundreds of students at Tilingatar High School in Tokha Municipality lining up for their midday meal of rice and veggies. This still unfinished concrete school of 1,100 students on the urban edge of the Kathmandu Valley is one among tens of thousands of government schools country wide that serve hot meals to their students. In two more years the midday meal programme (known here as diya khaja) will feed children in all 77 districts, after the remaining 6 districts transition...
May 11, 2022•11 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Today is the first episode in our new series, Nepal Then and Now , where we’ll talk with former guests and catch up on their work and lives. We created the series partly in response to feedback we got in our recent survey — that episodes were too long. If you are one of the listeners who felt that way — or even if you’re not! — please let us know what you think about this approach. I’m really happy that our first guest in the series is filmmaker Deepak Rauniyar. Yes, I consider him a friend but ...
Apr 25, 2022•18 min•Season 4Ep. 6
