Nepal Now: On the move

We're talking with the people migrating from, to, and within this Himalayan country located between China and India. You'll hear from a wide range of Nepali men and women who have chosen to leave the country for better work or education opportunities. Their stories will help you understand what drives people — in Nepal and worldwide — to mortgage their property or borrow huge sums of money to go abroad, often leaving their loved ones behind.

Despite many predictions, migration from Nepal has not slowed in recent years, except briefly during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. About 1 million Nepalis leave every year to work at jobs outside the country. Tens of thousands go abroad to study. Far fewer return to Nepal to settle. The money ('remittances') that workers send home to their families accounts for 25% of the country's GDP, but migration impacts Nepal in many other ways. We'll be learning from migrants, experts and others about the many cultural, social, economic and political impacts of migration.

Your host is Marty Logan, a Canadian journalist who has lived in Nepal's capital Kathmandu off and on since 2005. Marty started the show in 2020 as Nepal Now.

Contributors

Host

Marty Logan

Marty Logan is a Kathmandu-based journalist and the creator of Nepal Now. During most of his career, working in Canada and Asia, he has focused on issues of development, global health and human rights. He has worked as a journalist with the Canadian Press and Reuters news agencies, as a United Nations spokesperson and communications specialist and as a freelancer for outlets including The Globe and Mail, Nepali Times, IPS News, The New Humanitarian and The British Medical Journal.
Marty started Nepal Now as a way to bring more voices and ideas into the usual talk about 'development' heard in Nepal and as a way to have more in-depth conversations about such issues. He recorded the last episode in June 2023 and restarted the show as Nepal Now: On the move, focusing on migration, in March 2024.

https://linktr.ee/martydlogan

Guests

Guest

Aanchal Dutt

Aanchal Dutt returned from New Delhi to be with her family in her hometown of Surkhet during the Covid-19 pandemic. Today she runs a thriving business, The Cake House, and also teaches English at Kopila Valley School.

Guest appearance on:

New Delhi to Surkhet a sweet move for Aanchal Dutt

Guest

Aayush Pokharel

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.

Guest appearance on:

"I'm moving for my future": From Nepal to Canada

Guest

Bharat Adhikari

After more than a decade working in the retail sector in the Persian Gulf countries of Oman and Dubai, Bharat Adhikari and his family decided it was time to come home. He describes the aha! moment when he returned home from work one day and realized that his mother and daughter had almost everything that money could buy to make them happy living overseas – but not a community.
Today he works as Area Sales Manager at SalesBerry department store.

Guest appearance on:

Giving up a career abroad to return home not always a smooth transition

Guest

Dr Rojina Shilpakar

Dr Rojina Shilpakar is a burns surgeon and deputy director at Sushma Koirala Memorial Hospital.

Guest appearance on:

Not a migration story: Dr Rojina Shilpakar

Guest

Kishor Kumar Rai

Kishor Kumar Rai is Head Teacher at Bhanu Jana Secondary School in Phungling, Taplejung District. In 2003 the school teamed up with the Human Practice Foundation to build the IT Academy on its premises.

Guest appearance on:

Mountain district goes global to discourage youth migration

Guest

Prakash Gurung

Prakash Gurung has been applying to work or study abroad since he finished high school, with no luck. Having studied hospitality management college, he seems to be one of those people who could earn enough money to get by in the capital Kathmandu if they found a job, but who think they could do better working overseas, even if it means doing the same work.

Guest appearance on:

'Migrating from Nepal is a tradition'

Guest

Pramod Acharya

Pramod Acharya is an investigative journalist covering migration, including the treatment of Nepali migrant labourers in Persian Gulf countries. His reports on Amazon treatment of workers in its warehouses in Saudi Arabia and about the mistreatment of South Asian labourers building stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar have won multiple awards.

Guest appearance on:

Investigating mistreatment of migrant workers—journalist Pramod Acharya

Guest

Prem Awasthi

Prem Awasthi is a Planning Officer at the United Nations in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Guest appearance on:

Guest

Raj and Sunita Tamang

Raj and Sunita Tamang met while they were both working in Persian Gulf countries. They married and returned to Nepal, and soon after Raj applied to migrate to work in South Korea.

Guest appearance on:

Migrant workers find love amidst struggles

Guest

Sadikshya Bhattarai

Sadikshya Bhattarai is Research Coordinator at the Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility, aka CESLAM, at Social Science Baha in Kathmandu.

Guest appearance on:

Women migrant workers from Nepal: Lift the ban and get positive

Guest

Sagar Shrestha

Sagar Shrestha is Director of the Disaster Management Department at the Nepal Red Cross Society.

Guest appearance on:

Climate change, floods, disaster, migration

Guest

Soham Dhakal

Guest appearance on:

A nomad from Nepal