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Welcome to Nepal Now: Right Now, a weekly micro-episode where we share news about the show and what's happening in migration as it affects Nepal.

First, I want to give a shout out to listener Sikhar for his persistence. He wrote and suggested a guest to me. And somehow I couldn't figure out how I could link that guest and their work with this, podcast on migration. And so I wrote back to him. He wrote back to me and very clearly spelled it out. And so I finally got it. So thank you very much again, Sikhar, for, um, for sticking with it and making me understand what you were suggesting.

This week I'll be recording two interviews. The first will be with a migration expert. We'll be talking about women migrant workers. And in particular, we'll be discussing the Sushma case. You might remember Sushma, whose episode we aired a few weeks back. She went to Kuwait and had to come back early.

Also this week, there's  a traveling government consultation that's happening, on the government's draft labor migration policy.  Hopefully some of the proposals that they present will make things better for migrant workers like Sushma.

The second interview I'm doing this week is with a couple who are both applying to go work in South Korea. I met and talked to the husband when he had just finished his first exam. But they're both applying to go, which is quite unusual, I think. And what makes their story even more unique is that they met as migrant workers in Saudi Arabia before COVID.

Also in the news this week and last, there have been protests by family members of migrants  who were recruited to go work in Russia and nearby countries and then taken into the Russian army. And a number of Nepalese now have died while serving in the Russian army and more are there trying to get back and have appealed to the government to help them come back. I even read a report this week that some of those recruits were let go from the army and then stuck in this kind of no man's land near the border with Ukraine and Russia, never made it out and have now been forced to go back into the army and continue serving.

Also in the news this week, in Nepali Times, they're running a series on internal migration from the eastern hills down to the plains, a migration caused by drought and climate change, also. If you're interested, I'll put the links to these stories in the notes to this episode.

Resources

Article on migrants stuck in Russia

Nepali Times reporting on drought and internal migration

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Music by audionautix.com.

Thank you to Himal Media in Patan Dhoka for the use of their studio.