Bill Gates: How to Fix Capitalism

TIME Magazine editor Richard Stengel discusses creative capitalism with Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates.

Making Capitalism More Creative

Capitalism has improved the lives of billions of people — something that's easy to forget at a time of great economic uncertainty. But it has left out billions more. They have great needs, but they can't express those needs in ways that matter to markets. So they are stuck in poverty, suffer from preventable diseases and never have a chance to make the most of their lives. Governments and nonprofit groups have an irreplaceable role in helping them, but it will take too long if they try to do it alone. It is mainly corporations that have the skills to make...

Read more: Making Capitalism More Creative 

In Search of Yarsagumba: A Short Documentary

After watching this short documentary "In Search of Yarsagumba" by Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Biosources, I could not remain without writing this blog post. I heard about a mystical medicinal power of Yarsagumba for the first time when I was in my middle school. But, I had no clue about how it looks like, how it test, and whether it has real medicinal properties! I didn't bother much myself to know more about this mysterious plant. It didn't catch my attention, in fact not only mine but majority of Nepalese people, until the Maoist armed conflict reached its peak. The plant came to controversy and took headlines of newspaper/TV not because of its biological properties but its use by Maoist to fund their civil war. This highly prized plant also caught media's attention due to the reports of conflicts between local collector and outside in the harvest time. Recently, Yarsagumba is near to the edge of the extinction due to overharvesting in Nepal (I guess in Tibet too). Local people do not have scientific knowledge and the government too does not have any program to educate people for its sustainable utilization. 

Japan’s Crisis is a ‘Buying Opportunity’ for Investors

While Japan, the world's third-largest economy is battling to control nuclear crisis aftermath of devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit, Billionaire Warren Buffett told on Monday that the present crisis would not change Japan’s economic future and the global economic growth won’t slow down. Indeed, Buffett in his speech in South Korea called the current crisis a “buying opportunity” for shares in Japanese companies to international investors. He further went to say “…if I owned Japanese stocks, I would certainly not be selling them….”

Buffett : Japan is a buying opportunity (Reuters Video)

My Thought on Controlling Population Migration from Rural to Urban Areas in Nepal

Migration of people from village to city is becoming an epidemic problem in Nepal. With a lack of proper urban planning, mass migration of people creating a serious housing problem in cities and livelihood issues in rural areas. Eventually, unplanned population migration adversely affects economic development of our nation. Danchi (団地), a housing system implemented in postwar Japan could be a good model for Nepal to manage the influx of people in urban and sub-urban areas. Danchi is a multi-unit apartment complex and Kathmandu is an excellent candidate for this housing system. Similarly, development of residential areas in villages make easy to develop infrastructures and provide basic needs to people living in rural areas.

We have to revolutionize our agriculture practice for sustainable development of rural areas in order to minimize population migration from village to city . Currently, our agriculture practice is still in a pre-medieval stage. People in village spend their time just keeping one cow and couple of goats (this is just a typical example)...or planting some small plots of land. This is just waste of time and their efforts. In order to increase productivity, agriculture practices should be done in large scale with modern equipment and technology. The increase in productivity and availability of basic services--housing, water, electricity, education, health etc., inspire them stay where they are, and eventually, help improve national economy.