Namaste, diaspora family. This was a heavy week, and the heaviest news lands squarely on our own people: Washington has formally ended Temporary Protected Status for Nepalis, leaving thousands of families who have built lives in America since the 2015 earthquake without legal footing. Closer to home, gold set yet another record, the Nepali Congress is now heading for two rival conventions, and the monsoon has claimed 85 lives. There is better news too, from Guangzhou and from a football pitch. Let’s get into it.
🌍 Diaspora & Globalisation
The US Ends TPS for Nepalis
It’s official, and it is the hardest news this newsletter has carried in a while. On 15 August, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Temporary Protected Status for Nepal is terminated , ending a designation granted on 24 June 2015 in the aftermath of the Gorkha earthquake. Around 12,700 Nepalis held TPS before the phase-out began and roughly 5,500 have since adjusted to permanent residency , which, by simple subtraction, leaves something in the order of 7,000 people exposed. DHS has told those affected to make immediate arrangements to depart the US. Nepal is one of 13 countries named in the same action. The remaining routes , family or employment sponsorship, or asylum , all carry a far higher evidentiary bar. If this touches your family, get proper legal advice now rather than later. (The Kathmandu Post, Nepal News)
Guangzhou Delivers: An 85% Rule and a Rs 1 Trillion Bond
Better news from the 11th NRNA Asia-Pacific Regional Conference, held in Guangzhou from 14 to 16 August. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle announced that the Securities Board of Nepal has drafted amended regulations letting government–NRN joint ventures raise up to 85% of paid-up capital through public offerings denominated in foreign currency. One caveat worth holding onto: the amendment has gone to the finance ministry and still awaits Cabinet approval, so nothing is in force yet. The vehicle is the NRN Nepal Development Fund, targeting a minimum of Rs 10 billion , 5% government, 10% founding promoters, 85% open to diaspora investors, with individual stakes from Rs 100,000 to Rs 100 million. More than 500 delegates also endorsed a “Diaspora Bond” worth Rs 1 trillion annually for infrastructure, and restated the two demands that never go away: NRN citizenship rights, and voting rights for Nepali citizens abroad. Years of lobbying, one Cabinet signature from becoming real. (The Kathmandu Post, Kantipur)
In Brief: The recruitment freeze ends, and two quieter changes that will touch your paperwork.
The recruitment shutdown is over. Agencies called off all protest activity on 17 August after talks with the Ministry of Youth, Labour and Employment, averting a total halt to deployments that was threatened for 23 August. The ministry committed to amending the Foreign Employment Act within two months; new service fees will be set only once that law is revised. Workers currently pay Rs 150,000–500,000 for Gulf and Malaysia placements and up to Rs 1.2 million for Europe. (The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post)
A Passport Act amendment debated on 18 August would let private firms collect biometric data from Nepalis abroad , currently the preserve of embassies. The case for it is stark: Japan’s Nepali population has reached 342,000, up from 97,000 in 2021, yet the embassy has grown from three diplomatic staff at its opening 61 years ago to just four today. RSP lawmaker Rima Bishwakarma warned the bill “lacks clear standards for preventing the misuse of sensitive personal data.” (OnlineKhabar, The Kathmandu Post)
The Foreign Ministry has finalised a Rs 150 million procedure to rescue and repatriate stranded Nepalis, allowing up to Rs 1.2 million per person. It is aimed at those who travelled irregularly and therefore hold no insurance , the group most exposed in Southeast Asian scam compounds, from which around 860 Nepalis were recently rescued in Cambodia. (OnlineKhabar)
🏛️ Politics & Governance
Two Conventions, One Party
The Nepali Congress is now openly heading in two directions at once. Gagan Thapa’s Central Working Committee resolved on 19 August to hold the 15th general convention on 2–5 October, moved back from an earlier 9 September date, deploying 85 election officers across 77 districts with ward conventions now set for 9 September itself. The next day, the Deuba-aligned faction met at Dr Shashank Koirala’s Maharajgunj residence and resolved to petition the court to stop the whole process, arguing it cannot proceed while the Supreme Court rehears the party-legitimacy dispute it agreed on 6 August to review. Thapa’s offer was conciliatory , “If there are concerns about irregularities, bias or doubts over membership, I am ready for an open discussion” , but the machinery on both sides is now moving independently. (The Kathmandu Post, OnlineKhabar)
Bagmati Flips as the Oli–Dahal Deal Bites
This is the week the Oli–Dahal power-sharing directive of 11 August stopped being a piece of paper. Bagmati Chief Minister Indra Bahadur Baniya of the Nepali Congress resigned on 17 August rather than face a floor test after UML withdrew support; on 20 August, UML’s Kiran Thapa was appointed in his place on the claimed strength of 63 lawmakers , a claim that got RPP’s provincial parliamentary leader expelled, since the party’s central leadership said it had authorised no such support. In Koshi, the Congress pulled its 29 lawmakers to the opposition benches on 19 August, forcing Chief Minister Hikmat Kumar Karki to a confidence vote. The same day, Karnali’s Mangal Bahadur Shahi survived his trust vote 21–13 with two neutral , 21 being the bare minimum in a 40-member assembly , and Sudurpaschim’s Khagaraj Bhatta won more comfortably, 31–15. One province changed hands, three more governments were put to the test, all inside a single week. (The Kathmandu Post, OnlineKhabar, The Kathmandu Post)
In Brief: A religious turn, a summons, and an investigation that reaches the inner offices.
At its national gathering in Sukedhara, the Deuba faction adopted a five-point declaration promoting Sanatan religion as a national identity , replacing a draft that had described Nepal in multi-religious terms with no religious-identity clause. It is a break with the Congress’s secular line, and it drew objections from Bimalendra Nidhi and Krishna Prasad Sitaula. Deuba’s own framing was blunt: “I am a Hindu, I am a Hindu, I am a Hindu.” (The Kathmandu Post, Nepal News)
Speaker Dol Prasad Aryal has scheduled a direct question-and-answer session with Prime Minister Balendra Shah in Parliament for 26 August, resolving the standoff over his absence. Every parliamentary party gets at least one question, with up to 15 more allocated by party strength. Expect him to be pressed on his remark that Nepal had also encroached on Indian territory. (The Kathmandu Post)
The CIAA has widened its asset investigation to the personal secretaries of three former prime ministers , Rajesh Bajracharya (Oli), Bhanu Deuba (Deuba) and Ganga Dahal (Dahal) , writing to more than 20 agencies for banking, property and shareholding records. It is the first sign the accountability drive is reaching the money-handling entourages rather than only the principals. (The Kathmandu Post)
💸 Economy & Development
Gold Breaks Its Record Again
If you thought Rs 300,000 a tola was the ceiling, think again. Fine gold hit Rs 313,400 per tola on 20 August, up an extraordinary Rs 9,300 in a single day from Rs 304,100 the day before, according to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association. Silver climbed to Rs 4,855. The path was not a straight line , gold actually fell Rs 2,700 on 19 August before spiking , but the direction is unmistakable, and it is roughly Rs 5,500 above the record set only nine days earlier. International markets are driving it, with gold quoted around USD 4,512 an ounce. For families financing a wedding or remitting for jewellery ahead of the festivals, the arithmetic keeps getting worse. (Khabarhub, OnlineKhabar)
The IMF’s Verdict: Stable, But Watch the Cooperatives
Nepal has completed its first IMF-supported programme in nearly two decades, and mission chief Sarwat Jahan delivered the assessment on 20 August. The headline numbers are genuinely good: inflation down from 7.7% in FY 2022/23 to 1.7% in the first half of FY 2025/26, and international reserves up from nine months of import cover to more than twelve. She credited modernised monetary policy, stronger bank supervision, fiscal transparency and upgraded anti-money-laundering frameworks , achieved through government transitions, two earthquakes and the floods of 2024 and 2026. But she flagged savings and credit cooperatives as an ongoing vulnerability, which will not surprise anyone who has followed that story, and named private investment, job creation and governance as the unfinished work. “Macroeconomic stability,” she said, is “only a baseline rather than the ultimate destination.” (The Kathmandu Post, Nepal News)
In Brief: Profits without lending, investment without capital, and one very large dam.
Nepal’s 20 commercial banks earned Rs 69.78 billion in FY 2025/26, up 32% , but almost entirely from bad-loan recoveries and lower provisioning rather than lending. Net interest income rose just 1%, the non-performing loan ratio worsened to 5.35% from 4.51%, and roughly Rs 1.5 trillion of excess liquidity sits idle while industries run at 42% capacity. As Bankers’ Association president Santosh Koirala put it, the growth is “almost entirely driven by notable recoveries of bad loans.” (The Kathmandu Post)
Foreign investment commitments collapsed 84% in the first month of FY 2026/27 , just Rs 3.77 billion approved, against Rs 24.10 billion a year earlier. The number of projects actually rose to 191 from 127, so the collapse is in ticket size, not appetite: last year’s figure was inflated by a single Rs 20.45 billion meat-processing project with no equivalent this year. IT led on volume with 128 projects. (OnlineKhabar)
The 420 MW Tila-2 project in Kalikot, Karnali reached financial closure on 17 August , Rs 70.07 billion, funded by eleven banks with Everest Bank as lead, expected to generate 2,318.79 GWh a year. Notably, 20% of shares are reserved for project-affected residents and the general public. (The Rising Nepal)
⭐ Social & Cultural
The Monsoon Has Taken 85 Lives
Nepal Police figures released on 15 August put the monsoon death toll at 85 between mid-April and 14 August , 35 in landslides, 26 by lightning, 19 in floods, four in heavy rain and one in an avalanche , with nine missing, 196 injured and 1,735 families affected. The worst single incident was at Thabang in Rolpa, where a landslide destroyed 12 houses in Kotalbara, burying 13 people , 10 bodies recovered, three still missing. Days later a landslide in Jajarkot killed four more and cut off around 150 people, in a district still rebuilding from the November 2023 earthquake that killed 154 across Jajarkot and Rukum West. By 18 August, 691 people from more than 450 households were sheltering in camps in Bheri Municipality, where doctors treated 90 flu and fever patients in a single day. “Rainwater has contaminated almost all drinking water sources,” said public health inspector Nisha Thapa. (The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post)
The Diaspora Paid the Medical Bills
Here is what our community does when the state doesn’t. Aashish Rai, a midfielder from Itahari injured playing for Nepal, was left with a mishandled injury needing rehabilitation in Bangkok and further surgery , while ANFA sat financially paralysed by the FIFA suspension. So overseas Nepali football clubs simply organised the money themselves. Malaysia-based N Penang FC, Himalayan FC and Nepbourne FC raised about Rs 1.2 million; Nepal United FC in Australia gave Rs 81,000; Spice Purbeli FC in Japan has pledged a share of the proceeds from its tournament on 30 August. With a GoFundMe alongside, it has come to roughly Rs 2 million so far. The National Sports Council managed Rs 150,000, with another Rs 100,000 promised. Rai’s response says everything: “What should I make of Rs 150,000?” Meanwhile 19 boys at the ANFA academy hostel in Lalitpur are living on rice, lentils and plain biscuits. (The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post)
In Brief: A world-stage finish, a worsening outbreak, and a farewell.
Horaa Esports finished eighth at the PUBG Mobile World Cup grand finals in Paris, taking 109 points across 18 matches with the placing undecided until the very last game. They banked USD 127,500, about Rs 19.4 million. Better still, Shital Rai , “SleepY” , was named the tournament’s second-place MVP with 31 eliminations, his second consecutive appearance on the World Cup MVP list. (OnlineKhabar, OnlineKhabar)
Japanese encephalitis has now killed at least 16 people, with 63 confirmed cases among 878 acute encephalitis cases across 22 districts, as of 17 August. Jhapa has the most deaths at five. Every one of the 16 who died was unvaccinated, and the outbreak is moving westward. If you have relatives in the Tarai, this is worth a phone call. (Radio Nepal)
Nirmal Purja will be buried in the United Kingdom, where his wife and daughter live, in a service restricted to family, friends and invited guests , expected on 26 August, though the family has not formally announced it. Elite Exped has asked that no independent programmes be organised around it. A private goodbye for a very public man. (Kantipur)
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