After all, there are some good news in Nepal

After spending a month outside Nepal, I am trying to catch up with the news and the political situation here and despite the gloomy politics, I found some good or at least promising news. Here what I found :

• Upon retirement of the Chief Justice, Nepal will have its first female Chief Justice.  Slowly gender equality is reaching the highest levels of the state. Though having a female president, a female speaker and soon a female Chief Justice are more symbolic accomplishments in terms of gender relation, it is no doubt that there will be, in the long term, a positive spill over effect
• Persons living with disabilities got a priority right to refuel their vehicles in these times of petrol scarcity. I was really surprised to find out this measure that is very progressive in nature. I am wondering who promoted and endorsed it. Great job!
• The Godavari Declaration was announced. There are discussions to create an integrated Metropolitan Town in the Valley, bringing together all the twenty plus local administrations that currently governs, separately and without much coordination, the Valley. According to the Declaration spells out the key principles and aims of this urban integration project. Working on a Greater Kathmandu Metropolis Area will definitely bring efficiencies and new synergies to better plan services and provisions for the citizens. I am thinking of a stronger and better integrated transportation system for example. Kudos to Rudra Singh Tamang the CEO of the Kathmandu Metropolitan Council for pushing in this direction. He was also the one who has been working assiduously to forge a partnership with Sajha Yatayat , the public transportation cooperative in order to bring a  new fleet of disable friendly buses serving town.
• New push towards vocational and technical studies. The Ministry of Education is continuing in its efforts to blend technical studies in the mainstream education system by allowing more and more students to complete the School Leaving Certificate under the so called “technical” category. Moreover the Government is planning to establish vocational school in each constituency.
• Fewer amputations than expected. This is indeed a good news as less people who got injured during the quakes had to lose vital parts of their bodies. This means that health care institutions were very much responsive to the needs of the injured, offering quality standard care solutions.

When I arrived on late Friday last week, it seems that also the political situation was very close to a positive turning point. One week in politics is indeed a very long frame of time and many factors can interplay in changing drastically what seems to be a rosy scenario. Another positive development  is that finally the Reconstruction Authority started working but the fact that we lost important time simply to choose a new CEO is simply too embarrassing to offset any positive feelings towards the reconstruction agency. Hopefully they will make up for the lost time.