Nepal

Namaste

       Nepal is a land of unparalleled variety. Imagine a rectangle 500 by 150 mi (800 by 240 km), divided lengthwise into three stripes. The northernmost strip is Himalaya, meaning "adobe of snow." and includes eight of the ten highest mountain in the world. The Himalayan region is sparsely settled by people who speak languages of the Tibet o-Burman family and practice Tibetan Buddhism. The southernmost region, called, is an extension of the Gangetic plain of northern India, containing jungles with elephants, rhinoceroses, and tigers. These inhabitants contrast markedly with the yaks and snow leopards less than 100 mi (160 km) to the north. This area is populated by people who speak Indo-European languages and practice Hinduism. Between the two outer strips lies an inteface of hills and valleys. The inhabitants speak languages of both the Tibet o-European and Indo-Europeans families and generally practice Hinduism with many Buddhists, animistic, and shamanic influences. This "religion of the hills" defies categorization. This middle region, the hills, is the unexpected treasure of Nepal.
       Climatically, the country has subtropical, temperate, and alpine regions, determined by elevation .It contains example of most of the vegetation zones of the world.
        The country known as Nepal is a conglomeration of as many  very different ethnic groups, languages, and culture as it is bio geographic regions. This hostile terrain was settled by peoples fleeing invaders  from all directions. They found solace in remote valleys and eventually became incorporated into myraid small kingdoms, until one, Gorkha, led by Prithivi Narayan Shah, politically unified the country in the 1760s. For over a hundred years, until 1951, Nepal was ruled by a sequence of hereditary prime ministers, the Ranas. During this period Nepal was essentially cut off from outside influences. Because of its forbidding mountains to the north and deadly malaria endemic in the terai to the south, Nepal was never successfully invaded by a major power. After an attempt at democracy in 1959, which threatened the status quo, political parties were outlawed; the country was said to be ruled by a system of participatory councils, but real power was vested in the king and his personally chosen secretariat.
      In early 1990, popular support for democracy again surfaced. The movement never had grassroots support through out the country but was lead by students and educated in the large cities. Supported by the quest for democracy through out the world at that time, and the threat of more uprisings, the jana andolan was able to overthrow the monarchical rule with the loss of no more than several hundred lives. In november 1990 a new constitution was adopted, with the king as a constitutional monarch and head if the army but with real power vested in a popularly elected parliament. There have been several elections, at the national and local levels. As in many third world countries, poverty has recently increased, direct result accomplished in the first six years of democracy. One factor is that systems of patronage and corruption that date back at least to the century of Rana rule have been maintained in the political mechanism. Nepali society and politics have change little during this century. But the mood of the country has regressed from optimism to disappointment to frustration to cynicism.
       The economy is one of subsistence agriculture.Nepal has most of the statistical characteristics of the worlds poorest countries in terms of per capita gross domestic product, literacy and infant mortality. The high population growth doubling time is about 30 years- outstrips food production. Another serious problem is deforestation specially in the Terai, where after malaria was controlled forests were cut to clear land for agricultural use, to feed the increasing population. Nepal population is over 20 million, growing at over 2% a year.
       Nepal close to foreigners and foreign influence until 1951, did not officially opened its door to tourists until a few years later. But by 1995, over 3 hundred 50 thousands tourists were visiting the country, and a massive amount of foreign aid was pushing on the road to "development." Major contributors of aid have been India, Japan, Germany, France , china and the United states. Having observe this process over twenty five years, I see development along western European and north American lines as basically exploitive, but this is hidden by euphemisms. Most aid is tide; it requires purchasing products and services from the donor countries, and much funding pays expatriate salaries for work Nepalis could do themselves few projects the disadvantaged. Only 10% of development assistance is said to reach the poor. Much of the funding leaks, finding its way into the pockets of the nouveaux riches-it ha been estimated that anywhere between 10 to over 50% of flows get lost. A look at the burgeoning wealth of the middle lass of in Kathmandu ,where homes cost more than in U.S. cities, attests to this. Thanks to structural adjustments policies carried out as a condition of receiving world bank and international monetary fund loans, which resulted in devaluation of the rupee, foreigners receive values for their their hard currency in Nepal, while the poor there suffer more. One could remark that countries that have had modern "development" are worse off than countries that haven't. Look at Korea, Taiwan, Japan and China as examples of Asian miracles They escaped the development process.

        On the basis of outside advice and funding, Nepal has set aside the largest percentage of any country's land as national parks, a process begun in 1973. Although the concept supposedly creates a haven for  touristic needs, is has conflicted with resident people who have sometimes been resettled far from their homeland wit disastrous results. Discord between the needs of local peoples, with their increasing numbers, and those of business that cater to the tourism industry will continue.
   
      Nepal's greatest economic resource is said to be the hydroelectric potential of its vast rivers fed by the Himalaya. Attempts as massive international development of this treasure have been thward so far, but numerous  small projects electrify parts of the country. India would like to control this asset and use it to power the billion people sitting south. An unrecognized  major asset is the self respect of the hill peasant, who was never subjugated by an external power. He or she works hard and, if away from the development main stream, doesn't dwell on being economically poor. Only near the imbroglio of progress do you find people monetarily much wealthier talking about how poor they are. " Development " teaches poverty.

     Nepal is taken as a lovely and popular country in term of visiting. As we know, Nepal is the second richest country in water resources throughout the world  after Brazil. Nepal is divided into three geographical regions. They are    Himalaya, hilly and terai region. Terai region is taken as granary of crops of Nepal. Green forests, tranquil lakes, snow-capped mountains,etc are the resources of Nepal. it is not only rich in natural resources but also in cultural, religious and historical importance. It is a Hindu country. In Nepal there are many temples and other religious places.  Among them Pashupati nath is one of the most famous temple in the country.Nepal is also a country of villages. Most of the area of the country is occupied by villages. There are 3915 V.D.Cs, 53 municipalities, 4 sub-metropolitan cities and 1 metropolitan city. Most of the people are involved in agriculture. Nepal is said to be a lovely country because of people living here. They are found to be honest, co-operatives, hard working, tust worthy and peace-loving. Nepal also has many species of animals and birds our national bird and animal is Lophophorus and cow.