From shocking deaths and horrifying wars to unexpected court decisions and unprecedented protests, 2022 was quite the eventful year. Disease, conflict, protests, economic and natural disasters, accidents, world records, arrests, world cups, you name it and this year seems to have had it. So, on Sunday, as we wake up to the new morning of a new year 2023, let us take a look back at everything we, the country and the world, experienced over the past 365 days.
Those who came and those who left Let us start by acknowledging that there are more of us bidding adieu to the year than there were welcoming it. That is because, on November 15, 2022, the world population reached 8 billion. However, there are a few notable persons absent.
Year 2023 is the first year since 1920 that the world is without celebrated centenarian and polymath Satya Mohan Joshi. The revered historian, culture expert and litterateur passed away at the age of 103 on October 16.
Similarly, the longest reigning monarch in British history and, arguably, a symbol of the post-colonial UK Queen Elizabeth II also left the world this year on September 8. She was 96.
As it left, 2022 also decided to take one of football’s greatest players, the one and only ‘Black Pearl’ Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Famous in his native Brazil and across the world as Pelé, a sporting icon, passed away in São Paulo at the age of 82.
Nepal also lost politician Pradip Giri on August 20. A noted socialist thinker and prominent intellectual, Giri passed away at the age of 74.
The ground shook and so did the House
Earthquakes made an unwelcome return to Nepal this year (although, had they ever really left?).
A 6.6-magnitude tremor shook the residents of Sudurpashchim Province awake at 2.12 am in the morning on November 9. The quake, with its epicentre in the Khaptad National Park, most severely impacted Doti where it killed six people. But, it was felt in the neighbouring districts of Bajhang, Kailali, Kanchanpur, Banke and Rukum (West) as well as in parts of India including New Delhi.
The year 2022 also delivered an equally violent jolt to Nepal’s parliament, or, more accurately, among the parties represented there.
In February, the House of Representatives finally ratified the US grant assistance the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) with an interpretive declaration after years of delay, weeks of discussions and days of demonstrations. Coalition partners Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre) stood on opposite sides of the debate with the former pushing for its endorsement and the latter firmly opposing it. This pushed, which at the time was the ruling alliance, to the brink and ignited heated protests on Kathmandu’s streets.
In June, another American scheme, the State Partnership Programme (SPP) raised questions about the country’s motives in Nepal and the lack of coordination among government bodies. However, it did not progress much as the government decided not to move ahead.
Year of elections, rise of independents
Politically, 2022 was characterised by two things in Nepal – the local, provincial and federal elections and the independents that emerged from them.
The local elections of May 13 gave a hint of the citizens’ discontent with the established political parties and their desire for change. Music personality Balen Shah defeated party candidates like CPN (UML)’s Keshav Sthapit and Congress’s Srijana Singh to become the mayor of the nation’s capital Kathmandu Metropolitan City and social activist Harka Raj Rai (Harka Sampang) secured victory in the mayoral race of Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City.
In the November 20 elections for the House of Representatives (HoR) and provincial assemblies, a whole party bearing the banner ‘independent’ (Swatantra in Nepali) – the Rastriya Swatantra Party – emerged under the leadership of TV presenter-turned-politician Rabi Lamichhane.
The party won 20 seats in the HoR, is part of the present government and its President Lamichhane is the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs.
Of course, Lamichhane got the opportunity to enter government in the first place due to the sudden collapse of the Congress-Maoist partnership. Almost within a matter of hours, an alliance that lasted 17 months disintegrated and a new one under Maoists and UML, part of the same party from 2018 to 2021, formed on Sunday.
This made Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ Nepal’s 44th prime minister on Christmas Day.
In China, President Xi Jinping was re-elected for an unprecedented third term in power. He is the first leader of the Communist Party since Mao Zedong to be re-elected thrice.
War, World Cup and everything in between
Year 2022 shall also be remembered as the year that showed all the devastation a war in a globalised world can unleash. On February 24, Russia officially invaded Ukraine in what it called a ‘special military operation’.
This has disrupted the world economy on a scale not seen since the Second World War, with supply chains disrupted, Europe and the world reeling from energy and food crises and inflation at the highest level it has been for decades.
Nepal has not remained untouched and had to ban the import of luxury goods in February to protect its dwindling foreign currency reserves. The soaring prices of oil also forced the nation to take a long hard look at its dependency on imported fuel and forced it to introduce a two-day weekly leave on Saturdays and Sundays. However, the government revoked it after a month because it did not decrease fuel consumption as expected.
Sri Lanka, considered one of the strongest economies of South Asia, faced a financial collapse that led to severe inflation, daily blackouts and acute shortage of medicine, gas and other essential goods. People began criticising the government for corruption and economic mismanagement and mass protests started in March 2022. Ultimately, the Rajapaksa-family-led government was toppled.
Meanwhile in Nepal, Finance Minister Janardan Sharma resigned in July following reports of him giving outsiders undue access to the national budget before its presentation to the parliament. He was reappointed less than a month later after a parliamentary probe committee failed to find evidence of any wrongdoing.
2022 was also the year a middle eastern nation hosted the FIFA World Cup for the first time. Played in Qatar, it was similarly the first time the World Cup was held in the winter.
However, it was a sporting event mired in controversy, with the British newspaper The Guardian stating in February 2021 that more than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had died in the Gulf nation in the 10 years from 2010 when it won the right to organise the World Cup.
Across the Persian Gulf, protests rocked Iran in the last quarter of 2022. These primarily female-led protests reflect the anger at the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was allegedly tortured and killed by the Morality Police for not wearing her hijab properly.
Accidents, arrests and aviation
Nepal continued witnessing fatal road accidents in 2022 and in May, the country also saw a tragic air crash. On May 29, the Tara Air flight 197 crashed resulting in the death of 22 people on board.
The arrests of cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane and comedian Apoorwa Kshitiz, with the second proving particularly divisive. Lamichhane was arrested for allegedly raping a minor and his case is sub-judice in court. Kshitiz was taken into custody for hurting communal sentiments and his detention sparked fierce discussions around freedom of speech.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ordered the release of Charles Sobhraj, convicted of killing two North American tourists in December 1975. He was released on account of his age and good behaviour after spending 19 years in jail.
On the aviation side of things, Nepal got its second international airport in 2022, nearly 60 years after it got its first one. The Gautam Buddha International Airport, Bhairahawa came into operation in May. The third international airport in the country will come into operation from the first day of 2023 in Pokhara.
There were hopes that the year would also see Nepal removed from the European Union’s aviation blacklist but that did not happen.
There were so many things that happened in 2022 that it would be a fool’s errand to ‘recap’ everything. Already over 1,400 words long, this article has not even mentioned the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v.
Wade, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter that has made him the first person in history to lose US$ 200 billion from his net worth and the UK receiving its first Hindu Prime Minister. Yet, it must be concluded.
The pen must be stopped and the calendar turned for it is the new year. Goodbye 2022. Hello 2023.
Source : TRN,
