Badri Acharya is currently at the helm of the public health office in Pokhara, a prominent city within Nepal's Himalayan region and a renowned tourist hotspot.
Three notable events have boosted the democratic process in Southeast Asia in recent decades. The fall of the Marcos regime in 1986, the
Reformasi that shifted Indonesian politics in the late 1990s, and Aung San Suu Kyi's victory over the military junta in Myanmar. However, today Marcos' son is president of the Philippines, Indonesian presidential candidates want to centralize power again, and Myanmar is embroiled in an armed conflict.
What is going on in the region, and what does this mean for democracy?
A Rohingya woman tells a forum of peer counselors the story of her divorce. A survivor of domestic abuse, she has started a new life alone with her daughter. She has weathered a storm of neighbors telling her she was the problem. Now, she provides the support she didn’t have to other women like her.
Torrential monsoon rains have left the people, especially women, in crisis as they are still grappling to recover from the last year’s floods in Pakistan.
“We are yet to return to normal lives after devastation caused by severe rains in June 2002 when the new series of rains have started only to further aggravate our problems,” Jannat Bibi, a resident of Kalam in the Swat Valley, told IPS.
Democracy is declining in Southeast Asia. The Cambodian prime minister will hand over his office to his son later this month, after rigged elections. Meanwhile, Thailand's largest political party is kept from power.
As torrential rains, cloudbursts, floods, and landslides continue to wreak colossal damage and claim lives in Himachal Pradesh, India’s Himalayan foothill provinces. The question everyone is asking is: why is this happening?
Seema Devi is a 39-year-old woman hailing from India's northeastern state of Assam. She lives in a village called Milonpur, a small hamlet with no more than 1 000 inhabitants. While most men from the village, including Devi's husband, move to cities and towns in search of work, women are left behind to take care of the house and kids.
The title shouldn’t fool you: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is one of the world’s
longest-ruling autocrats. A political survivor, this former military commander had been bolted to his chair since 1985, presiding over what he turned into a de facto one-party system – and now apparently a dynastic regime.
In Asia, freedom of the press continues to erode, especially in authoritarian regimes where journalists are often targeted in broad daylight.
When this Indian Ocean- island gained independence from Britain in 1948 after some 450 years of colonial rule under three western powers, it was simply named the “Dominion of Ceylon”.
As Dipak Subedi was organizing a vaccination programme against the human papillomavirus (HPV) in the city of Bharatpur in Chitwan district of southern Nepal he was getting phone calls from neighbouring districts asking if he had extra doses available — people were willing to travel for hours to get their girls vaccinated against HPV, which causes cervical cancer, the deadliest form of cancer for women in Nepal.
This year, India surpassed China as the world’s
most populous nation. China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2035, but its population will likely
continue to decline, while India’s will continue to grow.
Nepal is the latest country to join the global wave of marriage equality. On 28 June, its Supreme Court ruled that the government must immediately offer temporary registration of same-sex marriages, pending a change in the law.
Around 200 couples reportedly sought to register as soon as the court judgment was made.
“Listen to your body, and if there is anything strange happening, do not ignore it,” is the advice of 57-year-old Afshan Bhurgri, a cancer survivor.
The needs of Afghanistan’s children and families are immense. So are the efforts of those supporting them: teams of community workers made up of family members, teachers in community-based schools, vaccinators, and health workers working around the clock to bring life-saving services in the face of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
Blue tourism, widely referred to as Coastal or Maritime tourism, is a distinct idea from traditional tourism, which capitalizes on a country's ocean, sea, or coastal region.
“The problems transgender people face start from their homes as their parents, especially fathers and brothers, look them down upon and disrespect them,” says 20-year-old Pari Gul.
Countries with falling population growth face twin dilemmas: Ensuring their aging population live healthy and fulfilling lives and removing barriers to parenthood.
This was the focus of a recent workshop in Thailand reviewing the ICPD30 process and preparation for the Summit for the Future slated for next year (2024).
The world faces a disaster emergency, yet nowhere is the threat more immediate than in Asia and the Pacific. Ours is a region where climate change-induced disasters are becoming more frequent and intense. Since 1970, two million people have lost their lives to disasters.
Baba Jan, 60, a farmer in Badghis Province in Afghanistan has been forced to leave his home, not because of the war but due to the worst drought he has ever experienced. It is the second time this year he has been forced to leave his cherished home and life in the rural area for capital city, Kabul.
When President Ferdinand Marcos was running an authoritarian regime in the Philippines (1965-1986), he was once asked about rumors of rigged elections in his country.
“I promised I will give you the right to vote,” he said, according to a joke circulating at that time, “But I did not say anything about counting those votes”