
USSR is no more but the bridges it built in Nepal remain and they continue to make lives of millions of Nepali people easier. I have traveled in the east-west highway several times but I must admit that I had never noticed these bridge signs and didn’t know that Soviets built these bridges (saw three of them) until Peter spotted them on our way to Rhautahat from Janakpur.
20/21 June: Any talk about development aid can spark a huge and passionate debate about pros, cons of the aid and if and how it should be delivered. In an aid-dependent country like Nepal mechanism through which the aid money is disbursed and delivered matters a lot. This can make or break a society. Or, make some people very dissatisfied with the donors as is the case in Nepal. I do believe Nepal will, unfortunately, remain an aid-dependent country for at least a decade to come because of the way things are now. Of course, it’s better to be in a position where we don’t need aid. But we are not in such a position now. So I think aid is needed. That’s my personal opinion. I am a big supporter of aid in infrastructure projects rather than in something that can be loosely termed as ‘capacity building’ (whatever that is). Continue reading