🇳🇵Celebrity Drama and the Mountain Queen

Reading Time: 5 minutes~ [June 25- Jul 1, 2024]

Hey There!

New PM? It seems like we might have a new Prime Minister. Late Monday night, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and UML Chairman KP Oli reportedly met to discuss a power-sharing deal. The agreement will replace the current government with a Congress-UML coalition supported by Madesh-based parties. Why split up? Maybe it’s their disagreement over the SEBON chair or the ambassadorial appointments. Maybe it’s related to the recent budget. Or maybe, it’s the arrest of Bechan Jha.

What I do know is that Nepali politics is one big soap opera.

On this week’s Newsletter:

• Jassita Gurung vs Its My Show

• National ID required for everything

• Rise of the Service Sector in Nepal

• Nepali producer with 148 million plays on Spotify

• Mountain Queen to stream on Netflix

The Big Story

Whose Show Is It Anyway?

Last week, we saw some celebrity drama play out in real life.

Here’s a quick summary: Jassita Gurung got mad at Oshin Sitaula, Swastima Khadka, and Samragyee RL Shah for discussing Jassita’s personal life. Oshin, who was hosting, asked several personal questions that created controversy.

🧨 The Questions: Most of the questions were silly (as you’d expect), but this particular question sparked a furious backlash from Jassita and her supporters. So did this one and this one. To top everything off, one of the punishments for not answering the question was to take off a piece of clothing — uh…what?

🤬 The Backlash: As soon as the episode aired, Jassita condemned the host and two actresses via an Instagram post. The actresses apologized by commenting on the same post, but it was too late. The backlash had begun.

⏭️ The Aftermath: Jassita’s post has been liked nearly 50,000 times and has received 5,000 comments. The original video has 7,000 comments and has been viewed a million times. Almost all comments are against Oshin, the two actresses, and Kantipur. Jassita has also (allegedly) blocked Samragyee and reportedly filed a defamation case with the Press Council of Nepal.

So, what were they thinking? Not sure - but I do agree with this person 👇

Nation & Society

National ID required to buy ghar-jagga

🪪 ID Dekhaunu hai: Starting Jan 14, 2025, all real estate transactions will require National IDs, replacing the previous requirement of presenting an original Nagarikta. The card has a chip with a 1GB storage capacity, which can store your driver's license, academic documents, voting card, insurance details, and other information.

Quick Hits ⚡️
Nepal Bhasa (newari) is now available in Google Translate.
Nepal’s literacy rate has now reached 77.4%.
NTC expands 4G service to Annapurna Base Camp.
UML Vice-Chair ‘Badal’s fugitive son arrested in Bouddha.
Police arrest 20 in connection with 3,194 KG of smuggled gold.
Municipality to provide a monthly stipend to third-gender residents.

Economy & Business

Rise of the Service Sector in Nepal

Nepal’s economy has changed significantly over the past decades ⤵

🚜 Agriculture’s contribution has dropped from 60% to 23%
👩🏻‍💼 Service’s contribution has increased from 33% to 63%.
🏭 Industrial’s contribution has remained steady at 12% - 15%.

Within the service sector, information technology shows great promise.

From 2020 to 2022,
📈 IT Exports grew from USD 308 million to USD 515 million
📈 Ave. Rev. per company doubled from USD .96 million to USD 1.9 million.
📈 Contribution to Foreign Exchange reserve grew from 2.9% to 5.5%.

And the government wants to help:
✅ The government intends to export USD 22 Billion within a decade.
✅ It also expects to add 500,000 - 1,000,000 jobs over the same period.

Our take? It’s ambitious but definitely possible.  

Economy & Business

Bangkok to Kathmandu: Bus ma jane?

🚌 Bus Yatra: The Tourist Bus Association has sent an 18-member team to explore bus service between Bangkok and Kathmandu. The route would pass through Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India and enter Nepal through the Kakarbhitta border. The entire journey would be around 3,305 km.

Quick Hits ⚡️
Kuwait plans to increase the Nepali worker quota from 100K to 300K.
inDrive launches delivery service for packages less than 20 KG.
Nepal Airlines attempts to sell planes for the third time.
Nepalis can now make online payments in India.
Foreign companies can take back profits based on self-declaration.
Deputy PM directs embassies to focus on economic diplomacy.

Diaspora Spotlight

Nepali Producer’s Song with Lil Baby Tops Billboard Chart

Aasis Beats has become the first Nepali producer to reach number one on Billboard’s UK Hip Hop/R&B charts.

Aasis worked on the song Band4Band, which features Central Cee and Lil Baby. It has over 148 million plays on Spotify. 

This isn’t Aasis’s first taste of success. In 2020, he worked with Nicky Bondz to produce Satellites, which now has 1.6 million streams on Spotify.

🍄 Chyau Discovered: Nepali Chef Tanka Sapkota has discovered Black Truffles in Portugal for the first time. Sapkota has been on a mission to find these truffles for years.

📻 Canada ka Nepali: Since 2005, 14,110 Nepalis have become Canadian citizens, making Nepal the 55th biggest source of new Canadian citizens. India is the largest at 536K, followed by the Philippines (395K) and China (292K).

🍿 Loki is Hillary: Apple has confirmed that Tom Hiddleston, who plays Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will be playing Sir Edmund Hillary. As of now, casting is still underway for the role of Tenzing Norgay.

Mountain Queen: Available on Netflix on July 31

Mountain Queen, a documentary about 10-time Everest summiteer Lakpa Sherpa, will stream on Netflix on July 31. Lakpa was the first Nepali woman to survive her Everest summit. Although Pasang Lamu was the first to summit Mt. Everest, she tragically died on her way down to base camp.

✶ Summited Everest 10 times
✶ Her sister, Mingma, summited Everest at 15 years of age
✶ Her brother, Mingma Gelu, has also summited Everest multiple times.
✶ All three siblings summited together in 2003 (First summit by 3 siblings)

Mountain Queen will be available on Netflix starting July 31.

Quick Hits ⚡️
Zambian student passes SEE from Nepali school in Tokyo, Japan
300-person Nepali bar open in Sydney, Australia
Nepali Radio Calgary crosses 300 episodes.
Tourism Event held in Bangkok, Thailand
Nepal Festival is being held in Brampton, Canada, on July 7.

Know any stories/news about Nepalis abroad? Reply to feature them!

That’s all for this week!

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See you next Tuesday ✌️

— 5Mins Nepal Team