Ovi Lehti

Youth Revolutions in South Asia: Explaining Nepal’s Breakthrough and Bangladesh’s Setback By Habib Siddiqui

The political upheavals in South Asia over the past couple of years have revealed a striking generational shift. In Nepal, Gen Z activists and organizers achieved a peaceful electoral victory that reshaped the country’s political landscape.

In Bangladesh, the same generation—fresh from toppling the autocratic Hasina regime on August 5, 2024—entered the 2026 election with high expectations. The Awami League (AL)that ruled the countrysince 2008 by consolidating power through fraudulent means and repressions of political opponents, was banned from taking part in the polls. Pre‑election surveys suggested that the National Citizen Party (NCP), a youth‑driven movement, would perform strongly, especially in the 11‑party alliance with Jamaat‑e‑Islami (JI). The JI-led 11-party alliance was projected to secure at least half the seats, as young voters (18–37 years old) who make up 44 per cent of the electorate were likely to determine the outcome, along with undecided voters. Meanwhile, nearly 48 per cent of AL voters were shifting to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), long tainted by corruption and dynastic politics.

However, the results defied expectations. The 11‑party JI–NCP alliance won a total of 77 seats: JI secured 68, NCP managed only 6, and the remaining seats went to smaller coalition partners.The BNP, in contrast, won a landslide 212 seats, giving it a two-thirds majority.Voter turnout was low, with only 59.44 percent of eligible voterscasting ballots. Many observers described the outcome as “election engineering,” while others suggested that AL supporters shifted their votes to the BNP, often viewed as the old regime’s B-team.

Yet even with these structural distortions, the central question remains: why did Nepal’s Gen Z succeed where Bangladesh’s Gen Z stumbled? And what lessons can Bangladeshi youth draw from Nepal’s example?

This essay explores three dimensions of the contrast: organizational strategy, political culture, and institutional environment.

1. Organizational strategy: Nepal’s cohesion vs. Bangladesh’s fragmentation

One of the clearest differences lies in how youth movements organized themselves.

Nepal: Unified, disciplined, and strategically patient

Nepal’s Gen Z activists spent years building networks across universities, civil society groups, and local communities. Their rise was not sudden; it was the culmination of:

Grassroots organizing that reached rural and urban voters alike
Clear messaging centred on anti-corruption, transparency, and generational renewal
Internal discipline, avoiding public infighting or factionalism
Strategic alliances that did not dilute their identity or autonomy

Crucially, Nepal’s youth movement understood that electoral success requires more than moral legitimacy. It requires infrastructure—polling agents, legal teams, media outreach, and voter‑mobilization machinery. They built these patiently.

Bangladesh: A movement without a machine

Bangladesh’s Gen Z, despite their revolutionary energy, lacked the organizational depth needed for a national election. Their success in toppling the Hasina regime created a sense of momentum, but not necessarily a durable political structure.

Several weaknesses became apparent:

NCP was new, untested, and organizationally thin
Alliance with JI overshadowed NCP’s identity, making it appear junior and dependent
Youth activists were more comfortable with protest politics than electoral logistics
Polling agents and vote protection mechanisms were insufficient, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation

Even if election engineering occurred, the absence of a robust electoral machine made it easier for opponents to exploit weaknesses.

2. Political culture: Nepal’s openness vs. Bangladesh’s entrenched partisanship

Nepal: A society ready for generational change

Nepal’s political culture has long been fluid. The monarchy’s fall, the Maoist insurgency, and repeated constitutional transformations created a public accustomed to political experimentation. Voters were willing to give young leaders a chance because:

Traditional parties had exhausted public patience
Youth leaders articulated a hopeful, forward looking narrative
The electorate saw generational change as a national necessity

In short, Nepalese society was primed for a peaceful youth takeover.

Bangladesh: A society polarized by decades of two‑party dominance

Bangladesh’s political culture is far more rigid. For over three decades, politics has been dominated by two dynastic parties—Awami League and BNP—whose rivalry shaped every institution, from bureaucracy to media to local administration.

Even after the fall of the Hasina regime, this entrenched polarization persisted:

Many voters defaulted to familiar party labels
Older generations distrusted new parties
Youth movements struggled to break through the BNP–AL binary
Religious, regional, and class divisions complicated coalition building

In such an environment, Gen Z enthusiasm alone could not overcome decades of political conditioning.

3. Institutional environment: Nepal’s fairer playing field vs. Bangladesh’s structural constraints

Nepal: Institutions allowed competition

Nepal’s electoral institutions—while imperfect—were relatively neutral. The Election Commission, judiciary, and media maintained enough independence to prevent large‑scale manipulation. Youth candidates could compete on a reasonably level field.

Bangladesh: Institutions still shaped by old regimes

Even after the fall of the Hasina regime, Bangladesh’s institutions did not transform overnight. Key challenges remained: the Election Commission’s credibility issues, local administration still influenced by old networks, media ecosystems shaped by decades of political patronage and mostly owned by oligarchs,a highly polarizedandfragile civil sphere, and security forces not fully neutralized.

Compounding these constraints was the fact that the bureaucracy—both administrative and military—remained largely untouched by the revolution. The old guard, many of whom had benefited from the system since at least 2008, continued to occupy key posts. Their presence created a stalemate environment that weakened the interim government and eroded public confidence. The Yunus‑led interim administration, headed by an 85‑year‑old figure with little appetite for sweeping reform, struggled to assert authority or deliver a credible election. With limited time to prepare, the 11‑party JI‑led alliance entered the polls with severe disadvantages. As many analysts observed, transformational change succeeds only when driven by committed agents of the revolution—not by hesitant caretakers or figures perceived as disconnected from the movement’s goals.

In such a landscape, a new party like NCP faced structural disadvantages that Nepal’s youth did not.

What can Bangladeshi Gen Z learn from Nepal

The contrast between the two countries offers several lessons.

a. Build long‑term organizational capacity

Revolutions create openings, but elections require machinery. Bangladeshi youth must invest in:

Local committees
Polling agents
Legal teams
Data analytics
Voter education campaigns

Without these, enthusiasm cannot translate into seats.

b. Maintain a distinct political identity

NCP’s alliance with JI may have diluted its appeal among secular youth and urban middle classes. Nepal’s youth movements succeeded because they remained unambiguously youth‑led.

c. Engage older generations, not just peers

Nepal’s Gen Z built cross‑generational coalitions. Bangladeshi youth must similarly persuade:

Rural elders
Women voters
Religious communities
Working class constituencies

A youth movement cannot win if it speaks only to itself.

d. Prepare for institutional resistance

Bangladesh’s youth must anticipate structural obstacles and develop strategies to counter them—through legal advocacy, election monitoring, and international observation.

e. Shift from protest to governance mindset

Toppling a regime is one skill; governing is another. Nepal’s youth demonstrated readiness to govern. Bangladeshi youth must articulate:

Policy platforms
Economic visions
Governance models
Anti-corruption frameworks

Voters reward clarity and competence.

Conclusion

The divergent outcomes in Nepal and Bangladesh are not simply stories of success and failure. They reflect different political cultures, institutional landscapes, and levels of organizational maturity. Nepal’s Gen Z triumphed because they combined moral legitimacy with strategic discipline. Bangladesh’s Gen Z, despite their courage and revolutionary spirit, entered the electoral arena before building the structures needed to protect their vote and project their message.

Yet the story is far from over. Bangladesh’s youth (aged 15-34 years), constituting roughly 55 per cent of the population, remain the country’s most dynamic force. If they learn from Nepal—by building durable institutions, cultivating broad coalitions, and preparing for the long game with a clear vision, mission, and roadmap—they can still reshape their nation’s future. Ultimately, the next chapter will depend on whether they can transform their movement into a political machine capable of winning not only the streets, but the ballot box.

Dr. Habib Siddiqui is a peace and human rights advocate with a distinguished career in operational excellence. He has successfully led Lean transformation initiatives across four major multinational corporations. His forthcoming book, Operational Excellence in the Process Industry: A Practitioner’s Guide to Lean Six Sigma, offers practical insights for driving efficiency and innovation in complex industrial environments.

A court out of step with science and humanity by Virginia Robertson

In a decision that feels less like jurisprudence and more like a regression, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors, a practice widely condemned as ineffective, coercive and deeply harmful. The ruling does not merely erase a state safeguard; it sends a message that ideology may now outrank evidence and that vulnerable children can once again be subjected to discredited interventions under the guise of “therapy.”

Let’s be clear about what conversion therapy is and what it is not. It is not therapy in any meaningful clinical sense. It is not grounded in credible science. It is not endorsed by any major medical or psychological association. What it is, instead, is a collection of practices built on the premise that being gay, lesbian or bisexual is a defect to be corrected. That premise has been rejected for decades by the very institutions tasked with understanding human health and behaviour.

Yet the Court’s decision effectively elevates that rejected premise into something permissible, even defensible under constitutional protection. In doing so, it sidesteps not just scientific consensus but basic moral reasoning. When the state steps back from protecting minors, especially in matters of mental health, it is not neutral. It is complicit.

The defenders of this ruling will likely cloak their arguments in the language of liberty: parental rights, religious freedom and free speech. These are serious principles, deserving of protection. But they are not absolute, and they have never been interpreted as a license to harm. Society routinely draws lines when children are at risk, whether in medicine, education or basic welfare. We do not allow parents to deny life-saving treatment based on belief alone. We do not permit professionals to practice methods proven to cause harm. Why, then, should this be any different?

What makes this ruling particularly troubling is not just its outcome but its underlying implication: that sexual orientation is mutable, suspect, or in need of correction. This is not simply a legal stance; it is a cultural signal. It tells LGBTQ youth, already at higher risk for depression, anxiety and suicide that their identities remain negotiable in the eyes of the highest court in the land.

There is also a deeper institutional concern. Courts are not meant to operate in a vacuum of expertise. When decades of research, clinical data and professional consensus converge on a single conclusion that conversion therapy is ineffective and harmful, a decision that ignores that body of knowledge raises uncomfortable questions. Is the Court interpreting the Constitution, or is it selectively filtering reality through an ideological lens?

The damage of this ruling will not be abstract. It will be felt in therapy rooms where children are told they are broken. It will echo in households where parents, emboldened by legal validation, seek to “fix” what was never broken to begin with. And it will linger in the quiet, internal struggles of young people who are forced to reconcile their identities with a system that refuses to fully accept them.

History has a way of judging such moments with clarity that contemporaries often lack. This decision will likely be remembered not as a triumph of freedom, but as a failure of responsibility, a moment when the Court chose to look past both science and compassion.

The question now is not just what the Court has done, but what the rest of the country will do in response.

How To Convince An Addict To Get Help by Stan Popovich

There are many reasons why people who use drugs and alcohol do not get the help they need to overcome their addictions and other issues.

Some family members who see the people they love struggle may have a difficult time in getting them assistance.

As a result, here are seven suggestions on how to convince a person struggling with drugs and alcohol to get help.

1. A family intervention could work: The most popular way to get someone the help they need is to do a family intervention. This is when family members and an interventionist get together with the person to tell them how much they love them and that they need to get some assistance. The person whose having a hard time listens and hopefully they become convinced to get the treatment they need.

2. Get an addiction expert to talk to the person: Another way to convince the person to get help is to get someone who is an expert on drugs and alcohol and have them do a one-on-one talk with the person who is struggling. This person should explain what will happen if they do nothing. This may help convince the individual whose having a difficult time to get some guidance.

3. Use the services of a former addict: Get somebody who used to battle addiction to talk to your friend who needs assistance. A person who used drugs and alcohol in the past could use their past experiences to try to reason with the person you know. He or she might be able to use their insights to convince the individual to seek treatment.

4. Find out why the person won’t get help: Ask the individual who is struggling to list the main reasons why they will not get assistance. It might take a few tries, however try to find out what is stopping your friend from getting treatment. Fear and frustration are huge factors for not getting help.

5. Address the reasons why the individual won’t get help: Once you get the reasons why he or she won’t go to rehab, the next step is to find the ways to address the fears the individual may have. Addressing one’s fears and concerns may convince them to take some action that will get their life back on track.

6. Talk to the person instead of talking at them: Nobody wants to be lectured or yelled at. The person who is suffering is scared and they need help in overcoming their fears and resistance to getting some guidance. Treat others the way you would want to be treated if the roles were reversed.

7. You can’t manage your mental health all by yourself: Fear and anxiety can be difficult to manage and more than likely your friend will need some counseling. Many people think that they can overcome their mental health problems on their own. This is a mistake. A person should admit they have a problem and then seek treatment to start the recovery process.

Stan Popovich is the author of the popular managing fear book, “A Layman’s Guide to Managing Fear”. For more information about Stan’s book and to get some more free mental health advice, please visit Stan’s website at http://www.managingfear.com

Berserk Alert! #098 #Cartoon by Tony Zuvela

Tony Zuvela and his view of the world around us in a constant berserk alert!
For more Berserk Alert! HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

Maples & Oranges #063 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

Taunting oranges in the midst of other fruity links,
constantly spreading the wares of their juicy gloom.

For more Maples & Oranges, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

When law Becomes a Weapon: The Licence to Kill by Javed Akbar

On March 30, 2026, the Israeli Knesset enacted a law imposing the death penalty exclusively upon Palestinians while exempting Israeli citizens. One cannot corrupt justice where justice, in any meaningful and equal sense, has long since ceased to exist. The world has condemned the measure—but condemnation now carries the weary cadence of ritual, not resolve.

The law was championed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, who reportedly celebrated its passage with champagne in the parliamentary chamber after it cleared by 62 votes to 48. “We made history,” he declared on social media, brushing aside mounting international calls for its withdrawal.

The responses have been swift, if not consequential. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has filed an appeal before Israel’s Court. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights condemned the measure as a legislative veil for extrajudicial killing. The UN Human Rights Office has urged its immediate repeal, citing clear violations of international law. Amnesty International described it as a “public display of cruelty, discrimination and utter contempt for human rights,” while the European Union expressed deep concern over its discriminatory character.

Alain Berset called it a “serious regression,” and Canada’s foreign minister, Anita Anand warned that, in practice, it systematically targets Palestinians, reinforcing a pattern that enables settler violence while further dehumanizing an already besieged people.

By reserving the ultimate punishment—death—for one people alone, the state crosses a threshold from discrimination into something colder and more deliberate: the codification of human worth along ethnic lines. It is a law that declares, without equivocation, that Palestinian lives are more expendable, their rights more conditional, their existence more easily extinguished.

Call it what it is: an apartheid law.

Yet even this legal brutality unfolds against a far darker horizon—the devastation of the Gaza Strip. There, amid shattered hospitals, flattened homes, and uncounted graves, a people endures what many across the world now describe as genocide. Entire families have been erased, a society reduced to rubble, a population trapped between siege and bombardment.

Shame on a statute that elevates inequality into doctrine. Shame on those who celebrate it. And shame, too, on a world that has watched the steady erosion of justice—and responded with little more than calibrated disapproval.

For Palestinians—dispossessed, displaced, and denied dignity since the creation of the Israeli state—this is no aberration. It is the latest chapter in a relentless continuum of injustice. That such a measure can be enacted with brazen confidence, even as proceedings unfold before the International Court of Justice, speaks to a stark and unsettling reality: power, unchecked, now presumes itself above the law.

This is not merely legislation; it is a repudiation of the very principles that sustain any claim to civilization. A law that assigns death along ethnic lines is not governance—it is moral collapse, formalized and enforced. No nation that enshrines such a doctrine can credibly invoke the language of justice, democracy, or human rights. It stands outside the bounds of civilized conduct, defiant not only of international law but of the most basic tenets of human conscience. Such a measure is not only indefensible—it is wholly unacceptable to any society that dares to call itself civilized.

Javed Akbar is a freelance writer whose opinion columns have appeared in Toronto Star and numerous digital platforms. He can be reached at: mjavedakbar@gmail.com

A street painted against forgetting by Thanos Kalamidas

Book review: Richard Stanford 'Rainbow Street'

There is a particular kind of writer who does not simply tell stories but listens for them; waits, almost patiently for human experience to reveal itself in its quietest, most unguarded moments. Richard Stanford belongs to that rare category. His work has long carried a distinct sensitivity, a kind of emotional precision that feels less like narration and more like witnessing. It is no surprise then that his presence in Ovi magazine has felt less like a contribution and more like a quiet privilege and for me an honour.

What has always distinguished Richard Stanford is not merely his attention to human detail but the way he anchors that detail in time and place. His settings do not serve as backdrops; they breathe, they absorb memory, they bear scars. His prose can be described as photographic but that ...undersells it. A photograph captures a moment; Stanford captures the residue of that moment, the emotional afterimage that lingers long after the scene has passed. His dialogues, in particular, have a way of exposing what characters cannot articulate, allowing the reader to sense the slow, often painful unfolding of the human soul.

With Rainbow Street, Stanford appears to be extending this sensibility into broader, more ambitious terrain. Set in post-war Montréal, the novel presents a deceptively simple premise, a street where each house is painted in bright colours by veterans attempting to reclaim vibrancy after years of monochrome existence. It is an image that risks sentimentality but in Stanford’s hands, it becomes something far more complex. The colours do not conceal trauma; they coexist with it. They are acts of quiet defiance rather than denial.

At the center of the story are Adam Sand and Nicholas Schlott, two figures bound not by blood but by circumstance and emotional necessity. Nicholas, arriving as a three-year-old “without a name and without a past,” is the kind of character who could easily slip into abstraction, a symbol rather than a person. Yet Stanford resists that temptation. Instead, he roots Nicholas firmly in the messy, often uncomfortable realities of neglect and vulnerability. Adam, in turn, is not a savoir but a presence, a flawed, protective force whose care offers Nicholas something fragile but essential, continuity.

Their relationship, spanning two decades becomes the novel’s emotional spine. It is not dramatic in the conventional sense; there are no grand gestures, no sweeping declarations. Rather, it is built from small, cumulative acts of attention and endurance. In this way, Stanford seems less interested in storytelling as spectacle and more in storytelling as accumulation, the slow layering of moments that, together, form a life.

What makes Rainbow Street particularly compelling, at least in concept, is its insistence on community as both refuge and burden. The veterans’ neighborhood, with its bright facades, is not merely a setting but a collective psyche. Each painted house becomes a quiet testimony, a personal negotiation with memory. And yet, beneath this shared attempt at renewal lies an undercurrent of unresolved grief. The street does not heal its inhabitants; it holds them.

Stanford’s work has always suggested that art, at its best, does not resolve suffering but gives it shape. Rainbow Street seems poised to continue that tradition. It is not simply a novel about post-war life, nor is it merely a coming-of-age story. It is, more profoundly, an exploration of how people persist, how they construct meaning, however fragile, in the aftermath of rupture.

In an era that often favors speed and spectacle, Stanford’s deliberate, attentive storytelling feels almost radical. He reminds us that the most enduring narratives are not the loudest ones, but the ones that dare to linger.

Richard Stanford’s Rainbow Street is available at: https://books2read.com/u/3Jd2YB
and Amazon.com: Rainbow Street: 9798385545674: Stanford, Richard: Books

#eBook: Beauty Interrupted by Charles L. Fontenay

The Earthmen were selfish; they obviously wanted to hold the people of Orcti back. But no planet has a monopoly on science or the ability to spy!

Birkala stepped to the open gate and entered the garden. It was a more beautiful garden than even the greatest artists of the world Orcti could arrange, for into Erik's planning had gone the aesthetic tradition of many millennia. The green sun that swam in Orcti's violet sky shone down on foliage and grasses of orange and brown and rust, and so carefully were things placed that even the great silver-and-blue lina flowers did not blare their supremacy over lesser plants, as in most Orcti gardens. They blended with the statuary and foliage, with the walks and the pools, tamely contributing their beauty to the balanced picture of peace and quietude.

Charles Louis Fontenay was born on March 17th, 1917 and died on January 27th, 2007. He was an American journalist and science fiction writer. He wrote science fiction novels and short stories. His Nonfiction includes the biography of the prominent New Deal era politician Estes Kefauver. He was editor of the Nashville Tennessean, among other newspapers, worked with the Associated Press and Gannett News Service. He retired to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he continued to write science fiction until shortly before his death.

First Publsihed 1958
Ovi Publsihing December 2023