KATHMANDU: Swadharma is a collection of teachings of Swami Govindanath Bharati — popularly known as Shivapuri Baba — a Hindu saint who reportedly lived from 1826 to 1963.

The book has documented Shivapuri Baba’s teachings in Nepali to his desciples in the form of questions-sanswers on various topis like wealth, devotion, duty, responsibility and education.

Swadharma starts with Baba’s brief biography. Born in Kerala, India as Jayanthan Nambudiripad in 1826, he became a seeker of truth at the age of 18. He was one of the first spiritual teachers to travel to the West but spent the last decades of his life in Nepal.

Shivapuri Baba was blessed with a very long life as according to the book he was 137 years old at the time of his death.

According to the Shivapuri Baba, as human beings we have three principal duties; physical duty that consists mainly in maintaining body and mind through proper livelihood including the obligation to help one’s dependents to accomplish the same; moral duty that consists in remaining sensitive to the obligation to seek the truth 24 hours a day and spiritual duty.

If one attends carefully to the first two duties for a decade, one could naturally become able to fulfill the third duty. “Physical discipline brings pleasure, moral discipline gives us serenity wheras apiritual discipline yields deep peace and ultimate happiness,” he taught his disciples.

Shivapuri Baba meditated in the forest of Shivpuri in Kathmandu for long making it easier for his desciples to call him Shivpuri Baba and died on January 28, 1963 at the age of 137 in Dhrubsthali near Pashupati. Thousands of his disciples till date

visit his Samadisthal to

pay homage to the great saint. — HNS

Reforms and land

KATHMANDU: One of the most debated agenda in the recent times in Nepal is land reforms, though it started immediately after 1950 revolution. The access to land, value of land and inequility in ownership of land are some of the burning and at the same time more controvercial issues while discussing land reforms in Nepal that Land Reforms in Nepal has focused into.

Dr Jagannatha Adhikari, a research scholar, has in seven chapters in a small book — Land Reforms in Nepal (Problems and Prospects) — has tried to restart the debate on the issue of land reforms in Nepal. “The time is opportune as the country is writing new Constitution,” thinks the author. And he is right as good land reforms can contribute to the sustainable peace in the country. Though successive governments have been in the past also tried to do something or the other, noone has been successful in reforming land.

This short book has covered a lots of areas in land reforms — from historical backgrounds to the agrarian reforms, relationships between agricultural productivity and land reforms, experiences of land reforms in other countries and — but not in depth. However, it might help start broad debate on land reforms.

Life with radio

KATHMANDU: Martin Chautari has published Swatantra Redioko Ek Dasak (A Decade of Free Radio) that looks into the development of frequency modulation (FM) radios in the

past decade. FM radios took the information-hungry Nepali society by strom. It is one of the much-adored means of communication and information in Nepal.

Radio has always been a cheap means of information in a country that has no connectivity with its own capital. Around 290 FM radios are registered in the country, writes Devraj Humagain in the book. Over half of them are operational at present since 2054 BS, when Radio Sagarmatha started its broadcasting as the first FM radio in Nepal.

In the last decade the FM radios have played various roles — not always positive — apart from only dissiminating information. It has also been a vehicle for change in society that has seen a sea change in the past one decade.

However, quantitative growth of FM radios could not ensure the qualitative growth.

“Listeners used to search radio stations earlier, but today radios are in search of listeners,” rightly says Gopal Guragain, a radio veteran.

The government apathy, issue of ownership, community versus commercialisation, lack of trained manpower and need to change according to the time are some of the hurdles that have stalled the growth of FM radios in the recent days. Its high time the government, FM radios and community bring clarity on these issues that will help grow the FM radios for the change in the society.