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.
Nepal Now: On the Move
Nepal Now, Right Now: New micro-episodes
What do you think? Send us a text
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 particular.
Resources
Article quoting Nepal's Prime Minister Dahal on youth migration
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Music by audionautix.com.
Thank you to Himal Media in Patan Dhoka for the use of their studio.
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Marty:Hi, everyone. This is Marty Logan. Welcome to Nepal Now: Right Now. You're probably wondering, what is Nepal Now Right Now? Well, it's my attempt to fill the gap between the regular full episodes of Nepal Now: On the Move, which come out every two weeks. I find that two week gap to be very long. So I'm going to start producing these micro episodes, maximum five minutes long, every second week. So one week you'll have the full episode, then the short episode, and then the following week will be another full episode. So let's see how it goes. I've got this idea from other podcasters who are doing these kind of micro episodes, but I see it as an opportunity to stay in touch, maybe to talk a little bit about what's coming in future episodes and maybe about what happened in the previous episodes, have a conversation about that, share some news about migration that I've been seeing. I want to keep these to five minutes maximum. They'll be very short. So, today, for this first one, I'll mention that yesterday I read an article quoting the Prime Minister, Dahal. who was in Lumbini. And as you know, Lumbini is the birthplace of the Buddha. He was there, and he talked about migration and how he wanted to reduce the number of young people going outside of Nepal to work. And one of the things that he was quoted as saying- now this is an English translation and it wasn't particularly well done- but the idea I got was that he was saying young people today are too restless and they need to practice inner peace and that will keep more of them in country rather than migrating abroad. And of course, my first reaction was, well, no, they need more opportunities here at home. They need more jobs and more study opportunities, so that they don't need to go overseas. But anyway, you can judge for yourself- I'll put a link to that in the notes for this episode. Something else I wanted to mention is that these days I'm traveling a a lot via the ride sharing app Pathao., and I'm meeting a lot of people that way, a lot of young people. And I have to say that almost every person I've met in the last few months is planning to go abroad, which of course is great for the show, but. I'm not sure what it means for the country at large, and we'll be discussing that on this podcast. But it was interesting the other day, I met someone who was planning to go to South Korea, which apparently has a very good, working environment for migrants. And he was telling me that he had just passed one exam, he's got another exam coming up, he's studying the language, and his wife also is studying to go to South Korea so they'd be able to be there together. And then he mentioned also that they had met working abroad in Saudi Arabia prior to COVID. I see this story as a potential episode and I'm really hoping to be able to interview the two of them. and present that to you in coming weeks. In this time, I've found that it's much easier for me to make contact with men who are leaving or coming back than it is for me to hear about women. So please, I'll ask you again if you hear of women who are going abroad or coming back and you can send me a tip about that, I'd really appreciate that. Their stories are obviously important to get as well. You can contact me through all of the usual ways: social media, the email address is nepalnowpod(at)gmail.Com. And there's also voicemail. I'm a bit surprised that no one has left a voicemail, but I'll leave the link in the notes to this show. Finally, I mentioned last week that somehow on Apple Podcasts, we ended up with a duplicate of the show. And last week I deleted one of them. I know that there were 20 subscribers on the books so I may have also deleted that feed for roughly 20 people. That won't be one of you, because you're listening to this now, but if you know of someone else who was listening to the show and they mentioned that they were having a problem finding it, please ask them to go to Apple Podcasts and resubscribe to the show that's there now, and then they'll start getting it again in their feed. So, that's it for this first episode of Nepal Now: Right Now. Hopefully, I've kept it to five minutes. You'll find out very quickly. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you again next week. Bye bye.
