So much depends on it

KATHMANDU, JUN 06 - The rains  will be here in a little more than a week. For Patan’s and Bhaktapur’s denizens, that will provide some reprieve from the dry spell: the groundwater that feeds the ancient stone spouts will at long last get recharged. To prepare the wells for the new season, people in the older cities around the Valley, this week, scrubbed the water spouts, wells and the underground canal system—known as the Raj Kulo (the ‘royal irrigation system’)—as part of the Sithi Nakha festival. The canals connect the spouts to their sources in places as far afield as Tika Bhairab, in the Valley’s south.

Life of the squatters

Introduction

Only a few decades after the British colonised Australia, the wool industry emerged as a central component of Australia's exports. Around 200 years later, this trend continues. What many people do not realise is that the prosperity of this industry has its historical origins in the squatters who grazed sheep on land to which they had no legal rights. This chapter addresses the reasons behind the emergence of the squatters and the problems that they faced, despite later being accommodated by the law.

Squatters pin their hopes on newly elected representatives

KATHMANDU, Dec 28: If it was just for her, anyone in the settlement could provide a little meal. But it is her middle-aged, mentally retarded son for whom the 80-year-old Maili Tamang has to go through hardships throughout the day. 

On the quest for a 'home'

Forty-year-old Hari Kumari Jimba from Sindhuli lives in a tent-like house made of bamboo and plastic on the bank of Bagmati. She sometimes slides the plastic at one end and makes a “window” so that fresh air and sunlight can get in. Her “home” is partitioned with thin slabs into a kitchenette and a bedroom. A few broken utensils, a moldy cupboard, some worn-out chairs and an old bed in a corner are all that it contains.