r/atrioc

haven't seen them interact in years

*Insert joke here about Big A bouncing on it*

I've recently started watching his vods again and for some reason his audio is really low, like around 50% of what everyone else's is. To the point that I need to raise the volume of my headset to 100%, and the windows audio to 100%, just to be able to hear it comfortably. But, of course, this means that anything else is blowing my ears off.

Is this not an issue for you guys?

https://preview.redd.it/543u2goc73bh1.png?width=746&format=png&auto=webp&s=0dc807e9478c479c88821676edb987b7e49c00e9

Hello, it’s been 100 days since Nepal elected a new leader after the uprising. So, I thought I would give a slight update on where things might be heading. I am mostly going to be talking about economics and things that this community cares about. Though there are massive social changes that are happening which I am so excited about and few I am cautious about. In atrioc’s last video, he mostly only talked about Balendra shah, which is fine ‘cause because of his popularity they won the election. But I want you to introduce someone else. Dr. Swarnim Wagle.. He is like 51-52 and the oldest in the cabinet and our economics guy. And if anything happens, good or bad, praise him or blame him. Before talking about the policy he has proposed, I am just gonna add that before this election, he was trying to run an election through a different party, but they were not letting him. So, he basically went fuck you and went to this new party that was formed. Now, unto his policy.

One of the bill that passed was Alternative Development Finance Mobilization Bill, 2082. Typically infrastructure project can only be funded by government or loans. It would allow Insurance companies, pension funds, and international capital markets to invest in infrastructure project. If you want a really good explanation of this, you should read this: This was only passed in lower house (where they have the majority) but.. in the upper house they do not have a single seat. Typically the upper house doesn’t block bills, but they might this time. The upper house hasn’t vote on it yet. So, we would have to see.

Now, the budget also passed. Few key highlights:

It is approximately Rs 2.124 trillion (the largest in Nepal’s history)

It aims for 7% economic growth and 6% inflation

Out of 2.124 trillion,

   Expenditure accounts -Rs 1,270.58 billion, 59.8 %.

   Capital expenditure  - Rs 431.10 billion, 20.3%

   Financial management (debt repayment) -Rs 422.64 billion , 19.9 percent.

Projected tax revenue:

Rs 1,405.31 billion from domestic tax and non-tax sources,

Rs 61.74 billion in foreign grants.

Rs 247.28 billion from foreign loans and Rs 410 billion from domestic borrowing.

 

Few tax exemptions:

For anyone earning upto 1 million Rs (about 6500usd a year) it’s gonna be taxed at 1%. Customs duties on 273 categories of industrial raw materials has been reduced. There used to be 11 tiers of custom duty, it has been reduced to 7 tiers.

You can read more about it here

There have been talks that he is going to introduce more bills to improve Nepal’s business climate. Bills about insider trading, trying to reduce red tapism, and make it more easy for people to do business and for foreign people to invest in it. Those haven’t been introduced yet, but he has talked about it.

 

Now , currently the biggest thing he needs to do is get us out of FATF grey list. Recently they have issued us a warning that they are going to put us in the black list and if that happens, it would be disastrous.

I am hoping that at least for this, all the political parties can come together, and the upper house doesn’t do politics or else we are done for. This is very much my personal opinion but idk how much 7% economic growth is feasible. Nepal never had this kinda growth, so I am skeptical if it would happen or not. But if it did, I would be the happiest person.

 

Also, during a qna round with the finance minister, an MP talked about the debt in Nepal. And swarnim wagle answered that yes the debt has increased. In 2015, debt to gdp ratio was 25%, now it’s 44%. And he said that they aren’t going to add debt. It’s going to be capped at 50%

 You can ask any nepali speaking person to translate it)

Now, let’s move on to education. Meet our education and sports minister Sasmit Pokharel. He is 30 years old and has a Bachelor of Business Management and Bachelor of Laws.  And the biggest news from here is probably the banning of student unions and trade unions. I am going to tell the arguments of both sides, but before that I want to give you all a bit of cultural context. Before the republic, Nepal used to be a constitutional monarchy (something you see in Britan today). But king had a lot of power, and when the next king came in power, he nullified the constitution, banned political parties and send the leaders into jail. Again, the fight for democracy started. That time student unions were barred, and that helped the fuel the democracy moment. Because of this history, it is seen as pretty bad to ban something, especially anything political. One of the reasons why the parties weren’t banned from contesting in election like what happened in bangladesh. Now, onto the arguments:

 

Critics: They obviously talk about the history and are against banning anything. Also, while the no of MP has reduced of every party, they still have a lot of base in every part of the country which they can mobilize to protest, to oppose etc. And student unions are part of it. While, because RSP is a new party, they do nothave a base, nor the kinda a network that old parties have which would take years to build. So, to reduce the opposition, they are banning it.

 

Supporters: They argue that the student unions have been aliented from the student causes and are just a wing of these political parties. Like when the uprising happened, it was student who protested but they were nowhere to be seen supporting it. But they regularly protest for their respective parties. They continuously threaten school administration that the demands are seen as more partisan than actual demands of youth.

>He warned that our school buses could be burnt if we did not follow directives Source

>Some activists of the Nepal Student Union, the student wing of the ruling Nepali Congress, vandalised the TU Vice Chancellor’s Office Source

Also, stating that this isn’t a complete ban on student unions, they will allow independent and non-partisan student councils instead of these ideological student unions. Source

Also, one thing we have been noticing is that RSP is willing to work with the opposition parties. Be it inviting them for the party convention, and or putting them in position of power. While one side argue that this is bad, they are cozing up to the corrupt parties and why give other people (who according them isn’t qualified) these specific position. While my personal opinion is a lil different. Let’s be honest the same mandate that they got right now isn’t gonna happen whatever they do. We have seen that in Srilanka, Dehli and many other places. Not only that, they do not have a single seat in upper house meaning it can take time to actually get things done. In other cases it have be fine, but in things of FATF grey list, we can’t delay things as we have a deadline to achieve. Not only that, it doesn’t matter if I or you know they are corrupt, they are still part of Nepal politics and will in the coming years. It better to move forward with them than play some dumb ideological purity test.

Also, recently we have crossed the threshold for being a developing country. But the pm said that we wouldn't be graduating for a few years because they are trying to implement economic reforms and they would like the advantages that comes from being LDC for few more years.

And there are so many things to talk about, be it the refunding of cooperative funding victims, the hydropower sector, the move towards AI (let’s see where that goes), few business tycoons have been detained and so many other things. But it has gone way too long. I hope to update you soon with some good news. And please ask any question you might have, though I doubt somebody is reading all that.

 

I haven't seen if he finished the game already or if he never got back to it.

Just wanted to know what happened?