On The World Bank's "Climate Investment Opportunities in South Asia: Nepal" Paper

Paper can be found here: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/342611515582029095/Climate-investment-opportunities-in-South-Asia-Nepal

What happens to the investment fund amount if it is suddenly found to be insufficient? While we can expect the World Bank's projections of investment amounts (totaling $46 billion in Nepal regarding climate-related projects) to be the result of careful study and testing, it does not play the role first of a developer and then of a financial “bank.” As a bank, its resources are spent on obtaining accurate numbers for the funds. But it does not recognize that a degree of inaccuracy features in all calculations.

The World Bank is precisely a stabilizing entity when it comes to investment in the poor world. That means that it is first a bank oriented towards financial stability; by firmly listing the precise amounts of investment in Nepal, it decides the amount of funds that will be spent in Nepal. But even its second goal is not development for the communities in Nepal, but rather a modification to societal entities depending on how firmly it wishes to align itself with its initial projections of investment funds. Perhaps the World Bank's help is not always certain, while the amount of funds spent on investment is fully certain to the World Bank, and a significant part of its power is oriented towards not changing that projected amount at any cost.

Why haven't the funds listed in this report also contained a margin for times of emergency, or an affirmation of miscalculation in the modeling used? Perhaps because the World Bank does not decide the amount based on what is needed in Nepal, but what funds have arrived to it, what money it can make available for Nepal with absolute 100% certainty. There is another “space,” perhaps even outside the World Bank offices, where the numbers are discussed along with the margin for error and such.

It is important to decide which “layer” of calculations is fully accurate and which isn't. Perhaps $46 billion will certainly arrive to Nepal, but that the $10 billion spent on electric vehicles/transport is a more inaccurate figure? Where in its work as a bank that manages funds is the World Bank autonomous from its sources of funding?

On IMF's Macroeconomic Indicators Concerning Oil Imports to Nepal

IMF's Report Found Here: http://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Countries/ResRep/NPL/Macroindicators/charts-january-2018.ashx?la=en

A January 2018 report on macroeconomic indicators in Nepal published by the IMF contains the division between “oil imports” and “non-oil imports.” On first reading, this appears a division purely based on two different kinds of imports, that is, between two independent variables. However, the very specification of “oil” and its opposition with the vague “non-oil” variable reveals an international supply-chain that is not properly specialized when it arrives to Nepal, as is clearly evident in the vague collecting of every import besides oil within the “non-oil” bracket.

As a result, a problem is the impossibility, in the very event of rendering non-oil imports “visible” to someone like a customs officer for instance, of evaluating each individual imported object on its own. Perhaps an accounting of the objects (their number, their price) occurs, but there is no deeper contemplation of their qualities and purpose right at the point/border before they enter Nepal and the Nepali market.

Also as a result, the Nepali market cannot "anticipate" which objects are being imported based on the customs processes that occur at its border; the broadest division between oil and non-oil characterizes the whole presentation of imported objects in Nepal in too important a way. It is in light of this problem that the increase in oil imports, which according to the IMF report seems to be a real trend in Nepal in recent years, must be thought of. For the increase in oil imports could mean that any attempt at differentiating the objects within the non-oil group may be ignored.

On India's “Sharp Power” Over Nepal

Article can be found here: http://setopati.net/setopati-blog/116332

In setopati.net, Kundan Kumar Jha writes of the concept of “sharp power” as it applies to Nepal; sharp power being a “tactic” using techniques of “pressure, bullying and deception." This criticism of India's approach to Nepal favors only a Nepali narrative which portrays Nepal as an independent entity which has the capacity to reveal what India is doing, thinking, feeling and deciding about Nepali politics. This kind of analysis of Indian power and “tactic” is very tricky if we consider the Indian perspective on Nepal for a moment, because for India Nepal is firstly not an object to be dominated, but a remote entity, one which it does not know about, and also, an entity that does not know about India. Even this graphic concept of “sharp power” will most likely not be a damning criticism of India, but something which simply demonstrates that we do not know Indian power and tactics too well.

The Indian state is powerful, but faces a challenge in the form of remoteness of certain places from its development projects. Indeed, even within territorial India this seems to be an enduring problem for it. When the Indian state, or any developmental gesture coming from an Indian entity at the “center” of Indian power, acts to fund a project or solve a dispute, its first appearance makes a lasting mark, because it comes with an awareness that it is remote from most places, it has developed without the participation of the periphery; it is too self-conscious as a new thing, a marvel, when it does its work; its place of speaking is from the billboards on the roads. Nepal also features in Indian halls of power as a remote place, and primarily not as an independent and resistive nation-state. Thus, the way we think of Indian power has to change: it is not going to impose a harmful and deceptive tactic as the final expression of its power and force, but it will be present in the billboards of Nepal, its leaders' posters will speak from the walls of bus-stops and so on. Other than that, the visit of Indian political figures to Nepal is the fullest extent of what Indian power over Nepal will look like. There is thus no need for a graphic concept like “sharp power" to support a narrative that tries to show Indian power in Nepal as intensifying in an observable way.

There is of course an ongoing attempt to fight this remoteness between India and Nepal, but largely from the Indian side. When a political figure from India visits Nepal, it is in an attempt to show that Nepal is not remote, that it is familiar, that the flight from Delhi is comfortable and takes hardly more than an hour. There is a comfort demonstrated, as if Indians have thought about Nepal as an entity whose very core identity will be defined and constructed in relation to their own. This knowing of Nepal is not reliant on a cultural or religious affinity, but from a direct physical proximity, from the steady growth of Indian involvement in Nepal as its remoteness is tackled bit by bit. But when a Nepali political figure visits India, there is no attempt at fighting remoteness for the sake of development and other benefits; instead, Nepalis think they are either submitting to India or resisting it regarding India's stance on whatever the current political events occurring in Nepal, as if the concept of “independence” applies very strictly even between neighboring countries.

On PM Oli's Choosing of a Finance Minister

Prime Minister Oli has chosen a finance minister and an industry, commerce and supplies minister (source: setopati.net) today. The importance and unpredictability associated with finance and commerce would suggest that the ministers that go into ministries related to finance and commerce are themselves predictable, orderly and such. This could be a reflection of personal character, but also the current status and aspirations of the political party that they represent. Is this rationale apparent in PM Oli's choices today? That the finance ministry itself won't “dissolve” is evidence of a basic order in Nepali politics, but it may not be evidence of a system wide order and predictability, only that some “elements” in the political system are, or behave, in an orderly and predictable manner.

Furthermore, a study on the history of the finance ministry and other Nepali ministries is needed to evaluate their endurance; given that there is no prominent existing administrative element that actively sustains and manages the division of ministries on a day to day basis, the endurance of a ministry seems dependent on how it originated: What events led to its origin? Can we even say that some ministry like the finance ministry had an “origin” which is fully the result of Nepali politics, when its main task seems to be to act as a stable and predictable element in the wider  financial system?

What is the endurance of the ministries, given that they arose it seems not from a day to day delaying of their end, but from an elaborate planned project, which means that their endurance is projected, for five, ten or fifteen years, given the measurement of their capacity to withstand resistance or challenges? In an unpredictable field like finance, a field which needs as much stability and predictability as possible, is it the case that the ending of the finance ministry is extremely accurately defined?