14
Jul 10

I have never

  • Seen an Ocean
  • Been to a swimming pool
  • Flown Overseas
  • Travelled on the roof of a moving bus
  • Jumped Out of a plane or a bridge (Bungee **Scary**)
  • Touched Snow – the real one, not that which is made in a fridge.
  • Seen a 3D Movie
  • Seen an Imax Movie
  • Been on a roller coaster
  • Smoked
  • Gone Serious Trekking – though i live in Nepal
  • Visited a dentist
  • Owned a camera. (not even analog once)
  • Been to a Gym
  • Seen a Lion or Tiger
  • Gone to any serious forest/jungle
  • Applied for US Diversity VISA (99% of Nepalese have probably applied once)
  • Applied for VISA of any country.
  • Gone more than 6 months in any serious day-job
  • Seen any Himesh Reshammiya Movie (this one for Bollywood Fans)
  • Been to any underground concerts.
  • Been to a discotheuqe.
  • Climed on any high speed elevator
  • Been to top floor of any high rise building.
  • Met a Chinese. :-)
  • Had a buffet lunch/dinner.
  • Seen an actual theater play.
  • Used Linux.
  • Owned any Smartphone.
  • Drank Beer (Cant’t stand the smell of that shit)
  • Been on a plane in Nepal (only flew twice in India)
  • Been to any Nepali Airport
  • Had an ICQ account
  • Neither used IRC.
  • Been on TV Camera.
  • Had a Girlfriend. :-)
  • Had a credit card.
  • Celebrated my Birthday
  • Received  gift ever from anyone ( someone send me :( )

And Last one,

I have never been admitted in a hospital.


02
Jul 10

Why 90% of small businesses fail in Nepal?

There’s a tendency in Nepal and a very bad one i must say i.e. whenever a person, anywhere in Nepal thinks of starting a business he or she thinks of Kathmandu. Either it’s an advertising agency, a SME or anything else all they think is starting it in Kathmandu and by starting Kathmandu i mean all they do is target the customer of that only city only.

I think this is the reason for their failure. I have nothing bad about that city but i guess focusing your whole business operation to one city is just pretty bad decision you take on start of your business venture. I do understand Kathmandu is a big city with 3 Million population but you need to look beyond that. Though sparsely spread, Nepal has a population of about 30 Million, if you start your operation from somewhere in the middle of country and focus at least 2 development region then you get a customer base of more than 3 Million.

Let me give you an example

Wlink Communication, the leading ISP of Nepal, though it started from Kathmandu initially but now it has franchises or branches in almost all the cities of Nepal. But what about other ISPs, hardly anyone expect Wlink has even a single subsidiary in any other city., Mercantile used to have in some places but now they don’t seem to be interested in providing Internet to end user.

Subisu, Vianet, etc. etc. Name any one ISP that has countrywide presence. None. You would rather find local ISPs operating in any give city. But not a single ISP expect Wlink which has cross country operation and that is the reason why Wlink earns so much whereas other ISPs have to fight for their survival.

Take my advice, if you are planning to start a SME in Nepal, then ditch Kathmandu. Open your HQ in places like Pokhara, Butwal, Birgunj or Biratnagar and target an entire belt of that region; you will be profitable from day one. There’s a huge market outside Kathmandu which is untapped in every single niche. All you need is to look beyond the Capital and you will find yourself in much better position.


28
Mar 10

Some Good things and a lot of Bad Things

Following is a post from user bikalpapaudel on Mazzako Forum.  I though it was a good review about our condition so i have posted it here.

You wont see anything concrete even for the next 7-8 years. But slight hints? You can get that all the time, provided you look for it.

I don’t see what’s gone so bad as compared to the last 5-6 years. I mean most of the changes we have seen, even the degratory ones; are more or less a consequence of the process we are in; in the context of a country like ours.

You might be thinking so because there’s been no stop in strikes, rallies from dissatisfied masses.
You might be pissed because of Loadshedding.
You might be pissed because of continued debates and pulling-each-other’s legs by politicians.

You might be frustrated looking at how the media goes on and on about politics – the problem, in part, is the media.
Too much highlight on politics and politicians — people pay too much attention to those issues — people get frustrated. To media, politics is masala. Media has corrupted many of us here – Indian news channel jastai hunchha bhanne darr chha malai!

There have been no real restrictions or blockades to the people, no disastrous happenings. All that’s happened are quite obvious during Transition phase for a diverse-people country like ours.

Good Things that have happened.
The things that have massively changed for the good in the past few years.

- Totally unaligned parties go into agreement: 12 bunde samajhdaari. Very phenomenal, even looking back.
- Jana-andolan
- Constituent Assembly election. A great achievement in itself.

- King being overthrown: let’s not go into the goods or the bads, but a change like that is phenomenal.
- The common man can voice out his/her dissatisfaction towards the authority. Unlike the past.

- The deprived masses being aware: a very big achievement again. Madhes aandolan, dalit and janajaatis, tharus, kirats.

- Maoist & Nepal army organization/re-allocation/integration process underway. Another indicator that things haven’t been completely damaged.

Even concerning other sectors, I do see development.
- We have a friggin ~10 national broadcast TV channels now!
- Look at the number of FM radios!
- Internet. The penetration is increasing and you can at least get online from all 75 districts! North Korea does not even have a single ISP. The condition is similar in Bhutan. And China – tyaako internet bhanda ta malai hamrai thik.
- Common man can still monetarily survive, if he works. It’s not like Zimbawe. Even poor people rarely die out of hunger — it’s not like India!

A very important thing to consider. DO NOT COMPARE OUR PACE WITH OTHERS. Sure we lag behind, but we have not gone back! [Let me remind you, countries do go back. Pakistan ma din dinai manchhe mariraako chha. Iraq dhwasta bho. Africa ma kati country ustai chha.]

We are just slower — it’s kind of obvious considering the political/constitutional mess we have been through in our past and are still sorting.

We should not expect a lot in this transitional phase. We should not expect an unnatural pace for things to get sorted.

As for loadshedding — that can be blamed on everyone who has had power the last 50 years. Tetro varsha samma overhead banai rakhnu pardaina? Demand ta badhi halchha ni.
Nepalma ta loadshedding jaile dekhi nai chha — kasko galti bhanne? Dosh dine nai ho bhane pani aajako shaasan bhanda pani pahile pahile ko shaasan lai chai baru dosh dina milchha hola.

Tara tyo ni nagarum, kasailai dosh nadium. Aile ko loadshedding hami sabai ko samasya ho. Hami sabai le afulai hune harm minimize garna aru alternatives khojnu parchha.

Sorry bikalpapaudel, didnt take your permission before posting it. I hope you wont mind it. :)


20
Mar 10

RIP GPK

Girja Prasad Koirala died On Saturday at around 12:10 PM. He has been one of the most controversial figure of Nepali Politics for last 25 years. Some praised his far-sightedness, some said he was a crook, corrupt and was the reason for Nepal’s current situation but whatever be your thought he was the one who was holding the Nepali Politics with one hand. The current question after his demise which arises in Nepal is: What will happen now? Here’s what i think:

It will be shifted. I can sense it. Maoist will be the sole force now. No one can challenge them. NC is going to break. Sujata is too opportunist. I saw her giggling on the TV right behind her father’s immortal body. Deuba is too weak to face Prachanda and Baburam and no other leader in NC has support of their own activist.

Now it is only a matter of time and we will see whether Prachanda is true leader or just a fake. If he has the caliber then he alone will lead from the front.

Though i voted for UML in CA but i don’t believe them especially MKN. If he had slightest of leadership quality he wound not have taken the PM’s oath after loosing the election. They are just retard.

One more thing can happen, few new leaders can come in front like those of the likes of Gagan Thapa when they see NC breaking apart. I just hope this happens. We want some new bloods to run the country.

I live in Madesh but i don’t support any of the Madesh Badi Dal. They are plain opportunist and corrupt. None of them are fighting for Madeshi People. They even have no idea what madesh wants.

I am just being positive here.

Negatively, Maoist can take over the country dissolving CA and that too with support of Nepal Army. Yes. they can get there support. You never know.

This was first posted as a comment on Nepalivoices.com

Lastly, once again, RIP GPK


09
Jan 10

Freelancing from a third world country

Office starts at 9 PM when rest of the world around you goes to sleep, you as web worker working from your home office prepare with tons of caffeine and boot up your system to say hello to client who have just landed in their offices in North America.

Most of the posts that I see on Freelancing blogs are focused to freelancers in US, UK or any other First world country. But as you say offshore freelancers or web workers who are working from countries like India, China, Philippines, Nepal, etc. have quiet different outlook of web working. We have a different working style and timing as compared to that of freelancers in US or UK. Working for a local client might be an option for most web workers in US or UK but for people working from third world countries have to look out for opportunities on Internet only to find any decent project.

I am a web worker working from Nepal a small country situated in between the giants like India and China. Though many of you may know about this country because of Mt. Everest and Buddha but hardly anyone of you might have an experience with a Nepali web worker, that’s because there are only few dozen people from this 25 million strong country working online as a web worker. Continue reading →


08
Jan 10

How to Make Money Online?

I don’t know why but i get lots of search engine traffic to my blog who come here searching for “make money online” I see that keywords a lot in my stats. I have not written many post using that keywords but still folks come, so i thought i should really write something for them too since i too make money online.

Make Money Online is something which should be top searched term for the last decade but seriously neither Google nor Yahoo came up with it. More and More People have realized that working online and making money from internet is really possible. You want a list of things that you can do online then go Google for it. There are 162,000,000 sites that tell you how to make money online.

Here i am going to show you the real truth behind make money online phobia. Continue reading →


27
Oct 09

In Memory of Geocities: 1994-2009

Yahoo! is pulling down Geocities on October 26, 2009. What does this mean to me. It means a lot. Geocities was the first place where i hosted my first site back in 2003. It’s been 6 years now and i feel nostalgic about it.

Something about Geocities:
GeoCities began in mid-1995 as BHI, which stood for Beverly Hills Internet, a small Web hosting and development company in Southern California.

In January 1999, near the peak of the dot-com bubble, Geocities was purchased by Yahoo! for $3.57 billion in stock, with Yahoo! taking control on May 28.

On April 23, 2009, Yahoo! announced that it would be closing GeoCities, and stopped accepting new registrations, though the existing GeoCities accounts remained active.[3] In late June 2009, Yahoo! updated the GeoCities home page to indicate: “GeoCities is closing on October 26, 2009.” Continue reading →


11
Jun 09

Western Union For Adsense comes to Nepal

You heard it right:

See more info at Google Adsense Blog

I hope now more folks from Nepal will be able to seriously see the online income. Good Step Google. Hope oneday Paypal also becomes full service in Nepal. fingers crossed..

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-countries-go-western-union.html


06
Mar 09

How to Write about Muslims in Media?

I normally don’t pickup content from elsewhere and post it in this blog. But this one i thought was worth adding to this blog. This is an elaboration from Muslimah Media Watch about how to (or not to) write about Muslims and specially Muslims women in media. If anyone out there is listening then please follow these points. For complete post go here.

Rule #1: Don’t assume that Muslim women need to be saved, or that you know how to save them.

Rule #2:Rather than assuming you know what Muslim women’s lives are like, try asking them.

Rule #3: Be careful of who you talk to regarding Islam and/or Muslim women.

Rule #4: Understand that Muslims are just like anyone else in terms of their belief systems.  Not everything a Muslim does has to do with Islam.

Rule #5: Understand that there is no such thing as a “Muslim culture” or “Muslim Language”. Muslims come from a variety of cultures, region and countries and culture is dynamic – it’s constantly changing.

Rule #6: Don’t create a dichotomy between “Muslim” and “Canadian” (or “American,” “British,” etc.), or between “Muslim” and “Western.”

Rule #7: Tone it down! Be mindful of the language you use.

Rule #8: Take responsibility for the consequences of your writing.

Rule #9: Leave the headscarf alone.

Rule #10: And please please don’t act like every Muslim you meet is a terrorist or a fanatic Islamist. There are whole lot of in fact the majority of Muslims around the world are way liberal than you can think of.

The last rule is added by me, since this was one thing i have been feeling lot lately.


18
Feb 09

Attending Wordcamp India 2009

I along with Deelipk will be attending Wordcamp India 2009 which is scheduled to be on 21st and 22nd Feb. 2009 In New Delhi. From the Wordcamp India Site:

A two-day conference which brings together stakeholders and audiences of social media and blogging, centered around WordPress. Two very special guests - Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress & Om Malik of GigaOm are joining us.

finallogoonblackDate : 21st, 22nd Feb’09 (Saturday, Sunday), 9:00am – 6:00pm

Venue : I-1A, Sector 25A
            Noida, U.P. 201301
            India
            Tel: +91 120 244 4711

If you are in Delhi/NCR then why not join us. I am looking forward to the event.