The concept of NEPALI THINK TANK

Special note: Some parts of this article have been temporarily removed.

WHY Think Tank needed?

It appears essentially urgent to unite all the university trained Nepalis to brainstorm on the future of Nepal. We are increasingly worried about the ongoing crisis particularly in politics, economics, and public administration. The future of country is uncertain and unpredictable, keeping at stake the future of hundreds of thousands of students. Mired in dirty politics, corrupt bureaucracy, impunity, and Asia’s lowest per capita income and highest income inequality, the country has stopped moving forward, with no significant progress in areas April movement of 2006 hoped for. At this historical juncture the country is passing through, it is of utmost importance to work together for common good.

BOTTOMLINE: The future of Nepal should be ruled by educated and qualified Nepalis. Ideas should be well respected. People should be rightly informed.

Plans:

countrywide tour, collection of people’s views and experiences, surveys and interaction programs, speeches at randomly selected schools and colleges. bottom-up approach.

WHAT we will NOT do –

We will NOT do any kind of protests, either silent demonstration or noisy protests- blaming at politicians.

We will NOT try to be media icons. We will keep low profile till we complete our first mission (as stated in plans 2013).

We will NOT create a Facebook page virtually to get so many likes from internet elites.

WHY?

Problem is not with politicians, but with society. The societal structure we are in is to blame for all this. As long as the wrong practices in society prevail, change is not possible. Change should come from the way parents behave with their kids, the way teachers behave with their students, textbooks taught in schools, and the materials media transmit.*

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*explanation: 

1. the way parents behave with their kids- instead of saying to their kids to make aim of becoming doctors and engineers, they should teach them how to be good and responsible citizens. Good manners are important. They should teach their kids to respect the learnt person, not the rich. They should be able to relay a message from childhood that corruption is a disease which keeps the society and country always backward. They should inspire their kids to learn new things. Inspiration, encouragement, right information, and opportunity are the leading factors to shape the future of each child.

HOW to- community based awareness programs, organized by volunteers of think tank

2. the way teachers behave with their students- students should be loved, not warned. The traditional way of treating school kids as a police does is not going to work anymore. It makes kids arrogant and hostile. Criminal behavior has roots in school. Next, in the process of learning, kids should be encouraged to make a sentence of their own, not force them to rote memorize. Creativity starts to ruin from school.

HOW to- local counseling to school teachers by think tank members.

3. textbooks taught in schools- depending on the economic situation of students, they should be given opportunity to take vocational trainings (mechanic, plumber, electrician, etc) so that they get easy employment than turn educated unemployed later.

HOW to- interaction programs with educationists and curriculum developers. If necessary, forming vocational institutes.

4. materials media transmit- given the sensitivity of media, the selection of materials it transmit is highly important. Even a minor mistake in transmission of inappropriate material can be too misleading. Instead of urban centric and politics based journalism, if media can bring materials to make people aware of civic responsibilities- many of social problems can be avoided. Depending on the necessity of society (say, improvement of agriculture in villages), media should produce materials for the public benefit. Even a small degree of philanthropy can have a significant effect in changing society.

HOW to- if other journalists think like Rabindra Mishra, it’s not that difficult. Trainings to journalists and local correspondents of media.

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The problems start from home, school, society, and media. Cure should be sought there. Politicians and bureaucrats are just the products of them. It’s too stupid to blame them. Protests against them hardly show any insightful judgement.

We won’t work closely with media- because we believe they are one of the problems. Given the current standard of media, we cannot expect much from them. Also, we have to reach thousands of people where media don’t reach.

We don’t expect much from internet revolution in a country where less than 10% of the population have access to internet and which has several hours of power cut off (loadshedding). Sad truth (annoying though) is those who use internet are so much addicted to Facebook that they are simply reluctant to leave their computers and get to work in the ground. Working with public,  identifying their problems, and searching an alternative solution to persisting problems is not as easy as pressing a like button in a Facebook page or liking or commenting on somebody’s status saying s/he cares about the country.

HOW will we work?

We will bring together the best minds of Nepal studying/teaching/working in different parts of the world (Prospective list will be added after we receive feedbacks from you). Apart from this, we will coordinate with foreign graduates and foreign professors who care about Nepal, and have done some research here.*

*(Examples- Richard Peet, Professor at Clark university, who teaches Political Economy of Development, wrote a review of Dr Baburam Bhattarai’s book and is examining the political development of Nepal; Nat Adams, graduate student at Lund University’s master program in International Development and Management, who researched on prospects of agricultural development in Nepal)

WHO can join us?

We call for entirely research based movement. Knowledge in Political Science, Economics, Public Administration and/or Development issues is a minimum requirement to join this think tank. Formal qualification preferred but not required. People from non-social science background can also join, but it is important that they bear some informal knowledge in social science.