World Day Against Child Labor: How SAARC can lead the fight against child labor in South Asia

Among its many objectives, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established to protect and promote the rights

Let us rewrite the story on plastic pollution

Every year on World Environment Day, I take a moment to pause and reflect on the environmental challenges we face and the choices we make every

Panama hosted a crucial Climate Week. Can Kathmandu follow suit?

As I am writing this piece, if someone wants to follow the latest developments on climate negotiations governance, Nepal is

Disconnected: Youth, AI, and Nepal’s parliamentary void

The debates in Nepal’s parliament feel like they’re stuck in a time warp. The language, the concerns, the political theater

When the earth shook, the service remained steady: Leading through ruins

On April 25, 2015, Nepal was struck by a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake — the worst disaster to hit the country

Justice for Prem Chalaune: High court upholds the verdict of sentencing his attackers to jail

Professor Chalaune had written to the embassies of the US and Australia in Kathmandu in December requesting the latter to deport his attackers.

Kathmandu: Patan High Court on Tuesday upheld the verdict of Kathmandu district court on punishment for the perpetrators of attack on Prem Chalaune, the Tribhuvan University professor who was brutally attacked by students affiliated with ruling Nepali Congress in 2020.  Chalaune, who sustained serious injuries on his head and other body parts and who was hospitalized for over a month, struggled for justice for months on end, the efforts which the government of the day, particularly the ministers of Nepali Congress, tried to scuttle by withdrawing the case against the perpetrators.  Thanks to the Supreme Court which ordered the government not to withdraw the case, paving the way for the district court to continue the proceedings.

The district court verdict, however, does not seem to have served justice to Chalaune as two of the convicts have made to the US and Australia by making fraudulent documents, according to Chalaune.  Chalaune drew the attention of the US and Australian embassies in Kathmandu toward this matter by writing letters to the ambassadors of these countries in December. In the letter he requested the envoys to facilitate deportation of those convicts to Nepal.

“The high court verdict serves as a partial justice to me,” professor Chalaune wrote on his social media post. “The convicts must be jailed.”

[Related: Open letters to the ambassadors of the US and Australia by a victim of brutal assault]