Namaste, diaspora family. It’s been a week of things stopping and things soaring; the agencies that send Nepalis abroad have downed tools entirely, gold has blown past Rs 300,000 a tola with festival season still weeks away, and Sher Bahadur Deuba is booked on a Thursday flight home into a money-laundering investigation he left behind in February. There’s grief in here too: the tribute runs for Broad Peak are still going. Let’s get into it.
🌍 Diaspora & Globalisation
The Recruitment Pipeline Grinds to a Halt
For the first time in years, the machinery that moves Nepalis abroad has simply stopped. The Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies suspended all overseas recruitment from 7 August, after a 15-day ultimatum to the government expired without movement. Their 15-point list is long, withdraw disciplinary action against 771 manpower companies, build a “scientific” service-fee structure, amend the Foreign Employment Act 2007, replace the widely ignored “free visa, free ticket” policy, rein in airfares, and post labour attachés wherever 5,000 or more Nepalis work. The immediate trigger was blunter: Rs 50,000 fines slapped on 39 agencies on 4 August for routing workers through Indian airports. The freeze lands on an already shrinking flow, 406,404 new labour permits in FY 2025-26, down 19.7% on the previous year. (The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post)
San Francisco’s Consulate Closes for Good
If you’re on the US West Coast and have paperwork pending, this one is urgent. The Consulate General of Nepal in San Francisco issued its final public notice on 7 August: every passport, visa and consular service ends on 31 August, with permanent closure from 1 September. Anyone who filed on or before 6 July has been urged to collect their passport before the shutters come down. The closure is part of a wider Foreign Ministry decision to shut several diplomatic missions, and it leaves one of the largest concentrations of Nepalis in America i.e. California with no local post at all. At a moment when US immigration paperwork errors carry unusually high stakes, that is not a small loss. (Nepal News)
In Brief: Three stories about the cost of leaving, and where Nepalis are leaving to.
A Kathmandu Post investigation from Rukum East traced two families who spent Rs 13.5 million and over Rs 10 million each paying around Rs 8.5 million in agent fees alone to route their sons to the US via Dubai and Brazil. Both young men arrived in January 2025 and were detained; both have now spent roughly 19 months inside. Agent fees for the “donkey route” have climbed from around Rs 800,000 to Rs 1 million a decade ago to nearly Rs 10 million today. (The Kathmandu Post)
Shanta Kumar Shrestha, 36, of Sindhupalchok and Nischal Tamang, 25, of Chitwan were killed by a train in Bacău, Romania in the early hours of Sunday 2 August, while crossing the tracks with colleagues to reach a 24-hour store. Two others survived. Romania is now a major European destination for Nepali workers, European permits have risen 21-fold in a decade, and the Gulf’s share of Nepali migration has fallen to 64%. (Nepal News, Nepali Times)
The NRNA European Regional Conference opened in Dublin on 10 August, gathering community leaders and national coordination council representatives from across the continent, timely, given that Europe is now where the diaspora is growing fastest. (Nepal News)
🏛️ Politics & Governance
Deuba Comes Home, and the Congress Fight Reopens
Sher Bahadur Deuba lands at Tribhuvan International at 12:25 on 13 August, five and a half months after leaving on 25 February. The timing was deliberately moved from a late-night slot so his supporters could fill the airport in daylight. He returns with the Department of Money Laundering Investigation still pursuing him and his wife, former foreign minister Arzu Rana Deuba, arrest warrants were issued on 7 April, Interpol declined Nepal Police’s Red Notice requests, and the Supreme Court then blocked execution of the warrants on jurisdictional grounds. Days earlier, the same court reopened the war over who actually leads the Nepali Congress, granting a review of the April ruling that recognised Gagan Thapa as president. Thapa stays in post for now, but the Deuba camp has shelved its breakay-party plan and is calling for the convention process to pause until the court rules, with ward conventions due to begin on 18 August. (The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post)
Balen Shah Finally Opens the Door
Since taking office on 27 March, Prime Minister Balendra Shah had refused to meet foreign ambassadors one-to-one, an unusual, deliberate freeze that became a running question about whether an outsider could run a conventional foreign policy. On 11 August it ended. Shah received Indian Ambassador Naveen Srivastava and Chinese Ambassador Zhang Maoming in separate meetings at Singha Durbar, and both arrived carrying invitations from their prime ministers. Talks with India covered unblocking stalled Indian-funded projects, the Janakpur–Ayodhya rail link and Buddhist circuit connections; talks with China covered development partnership and Beijing’s “sensitivities.” Srivastava added a personal nudge: “Since I am retiring at the end of September, it would be a great pleasure if you visit India by then.” Shah committed to nothing beyond going “at an appropriate time.” (The Kathmandu Post)
In Brief: A missing treaty, a backroom carve-up, and four names entered into the national record.
Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal told parliament on 10 August that the government has no clear information on whether Nepal even holds official copies of the 1816 Sugauli Treaty or the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Searches of the national archives, the Department of Archaeology and the Narayanhiti Palace Museum turned up nothing. The treaty is the documentary foundation of every Nepali claim over Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura. (The Kathmandu Post)
KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” issued a five-point directive on 11 August setting out how they will share provincial power, governments formed on assembly seat share, ministries distributed proportionally, the party without the chief ministership picking first. Under the three-point agreement reported on 7 August that sits behind it, UML leads Koshi, Bagmati and Lumbini and the CPN leads Karnali and Sudurpashchim, with Madhesh and Gandaki still unsettled. (Khabarhub, Spotlight Nepal)
The cabinet on 11 August declared four people killed in last month’s Tarai unrest as martyrs: Om Prakash Mehta, Jaya Prakash Mehta and Rabindra Kumar Mehta of Sunsari, and 15-year-old Ganesh Kumar Yadav of Siraha. A Himal Southasian investigation found the Armed Police Force discharged roughly 25 live rounds during the 26 July confrontation in Dewanganj. Curfews and restrictions remain in force in Sunsari and other towns across Madhesh. (myRepublica, Himal Southasian)
💸 Economy & Development
Gold Blows Past Rs 300,000 a Tola
If you were planning to send money home for jewellery this festival season, brace yourself. Fine gold hit Rs 307,900 per tola on 11 August, up Rs 6,400 in a single day, and up Rs 11,000 across just three trading days. The metal climbed back above the Rs 300,000 mark on Sunday 9 August, jumping Rs 4,800 in a single session, and has kept going. Silver moved with it, reaching Rs 4,780 a tola. At Nepal Rastra Bank’s selling rate of Rs 152.79 to the dollar on 10 August, a single tola of fine gold now costs about USD 2,015. For remittance-receiving households, where gold has always been the default savings vehicle and the standard wedding and Dashain gift, this is a genuine squeeze arriving at precisely the wrong moment on the calendar. (Nepal News)
The Cooperative Depositors Nobody Is Counting
The government has started paying savers back, but only at the 29 cooperatives formally declared “troubled.” The National Campaign for the Protection of Cooperative Depositors says 619 cooperatives have affected members and more than 500 have stopped returning deposits entirely without ever being classified, which means their savers have no route to a refund at all. Since May, the Problematic Cooperatives Management Committee has returned or settled Rs 710 million for around 11,000 depositors, prioritising the smallest balances. The scale of what sits behind it is sobering: a parliamentary investigation found 40 cooperatives alone carried Rs 87.89 billion in liabilities, including Rs 71.30 billion of public deposits. Police have arrested 669 people over cooperative embezzlement in a decade; 1,540 suspects remain absconding. A great deal of that trapped money is remittance money, parked by families chasing better interest than the banks offered. (The Kathmandu Post)
In Brief: Where the money went, and where it isn’t going.
For the first time ever, Nepal imported more silver than gold by value, Rs 32.74 billion against Rs 29.15 billion in the fiscal year to mid-July, with silver volumes up 108% to 104.29 tonnes while gold volumes actually fell. The largest single share, roughly a third, came from Dubai, cleared through customs as “silver powder.” (The Kathmandu Post)
Nepse lost Rs 70 billion in market value over the week, sliding 35.45 points to 2,650.09 as 11 of 13 sub-indices fell. Only hydropower and trading finished up. As analyst Ajay Singh Thapa put it, “over the past three or four years, investors have not received adequate returns.” (The Kathmandu Post)
76,172 Nepalis have applied for 7,002 jobs in South Korea under the Employment Permit System, nearly 11 applicants per position. That ratio tells you most of what you need to know about the state of the domestic labour market. (Nepal News)
⭐ Social & Cultural
Still Mourning Broad Peak
Two weeks on, Nepal has not stopped grieving. On Saturday 8 August, hundreds ran a 5K from Baluwakhani Community Park to Bouddhanath Stupa, organised by Nepal Marathon, in tribute to the climbers killed in the 30 July avalanche on Broad Peak in Pakistan. There was a butter-lamp vigil and a two-minute silence. Among the dead are Nirmal Purja, the most globally recognised Nepali climber of his generation, whose funeral will be held in the UK, along with Nima Sherpa, Nawang Thindu Sherpa, Pur Bahadur Gurung, Kili Pemba Sherpa and Gyalu Sherpa. “All those who died in the Broad Peak avalanche are our national heroes,” said organiser Ayush Tamang. The mountains gave up other secrets this week too: melting snow at Yalung Ri in the Rolwaling range exposed five bodies from the November 2025 avalanche, including guides Padam Tamang and Mer Karki. (Nepal News, The Kathmandu Post)
Nepali Football Is Literally Going Hungry
This is the story that should make every one of us wince. FIFA’s suspension of ANFA, imposed in late June over third-party interference, has cut off funding to four Goal Project academies housing more than 100 children, 21 at Satdobato, 30 in Butwal, 29 in Rautahat, 30 in Dharan. One academy employee described the result plainly: “Students who ate chickpeas and eggs before training now have only tea and biscuits.” Butwal’s acting director Shankar Malla said it had been over three months since they paid the grocer, with school fees due before Dashain. The clock is running on something bigger, too: unless the suspension lifts by 30 September, Nepal misses the SAFF Championship in Bangladesh, having played every one of the 14 editions held so far, it would be the country’s first absence. Five major football events have already been forfeited this year. The deadlock is procedural, between ANFA and the National Sports Council. The cost is not. (OnlineKhabar, The Kathmandu Post)
In Brief: A comeback, a first, and a warning.
Sandeep Lamichhane is back as ODI captain, named to lead Nepal at the ACC Premier Cup in Malaysia from 30 August, his first national captaincy since 2022. He replaces Rohit Paudel, who won 31 of 63 matches in charge. Lamichhane remains Nepal’s leading ODI wicket-taker with 154 in 77 matches, though he went wicketless on the recent Netherlands tour. (The Kathmandu Post)
Horaa Esports have qualified for the PUBG Mobile World Cup grand finals in Paris, 14–16 August, finishing fourth in their group. They have already secured roughly Rs 90 million just by reaching the final 16, from a USD 3.025 million prize pool. Something to actually watch this weekend. (The Kathmandu Post)
Monsoon watch: heavy rain on 10 August blocked the BP, Mechi, Araniko and Mid-Hill highways among others, with night movement restricted on the BP. Separately, Japanese encephalitis has killed nine and infected 37 in under a month, mostly in Koshi. Vaccination campaigns in 11 high-burden districts are delayed to April 2027 by procurement problems, worth knowing if you’re travelling to the Tarai. (Radio Nepal, The Kathmandu Post)
Let’s connect
Enjoying this issue? 📩 Share it with a friend & let’s keep Nepalis worldwide in the loop! Got thoughts? Hit reply, we’re all ears! Or let us know what you think via our Feedback form or follow us on Facebook | LinkedIn
P.S. Got a story or issue you’d like us to cover next week? Drop us a reply, we’re building this space together.
About Nepali Diaspora Digest:
The Nepali Diaspora Digest connects the global Nepali community with curated news, insights, and stories that matter most. Join us as we celebrate and explore the diverse voices and achievements of Nepalis worldwide.
Partner shout out
belayat.uk: helping Nepalis connect in the UK on jobs, housing, events and finding local Nepali owned businesses
