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Nepal is located in what was once known as the Himalayan Goitre Belt and once had one of the highest prevalence's of iodine deficiency disorders in the world. However, through a well‐executed universal salt iodization program implemented over the past 25 years, it has achieved optimal iodine intake for its population, effectively eliminating the adverse consequences of iodine deficiency disorders. A comprehensive review of policy and legislation, surveys, and program reports was undertaken to examine the key elements contributing to the success of this program. The paper reviews the origins and maturation of salt iodization in Nepal, as well as trends in the coverage of iodized salt, the iodine content in salt, and population iodine status over the past two decades. The paper describes critical components of the program including advocacy efforts, trade issues with India, the role of the Salt Trading Corporation, monitoring, and periodic program reviews. The paper discusses the recent findings from the 2016 national micronutrient survey demonstrating the success of the salt iodization program and describes emerging challenges facing the program in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unipolar international order led by the USA has given way to a multipolar order with the emergence of China as a great power competitor. According to many commentators, the deterioration of Sino–US relations in recent years heralds a "new Cold War." The new Cold War differs from its namesake in many respects, and in this paper we focus on its novel territorial logic. Containing the USSR was the overriding objective of American foreign policy for nearly four decades, but in contrast, the USA and China are engaged in geopolitical‐economic competition to integrate territory into value chains anchored by their domestic lead firms through the financing and construction of transnational infrastructure (e.g., transportation networks and regional energy grids). We show this competition poses risks as well as opportunities for small states to articulate and realise spatial objectives. We present cases from Nepal and Laos that demonstrate that by hedging between China and the USA and its partners, their governments are able to pursue spatial objectives. In order to achieve them, however, they must implement significant reforms or state restructuring. The result is the emergence of what we term the 21st‐century infrastructure state, which seeks to mobilise foreign capital for infrastructure projects designed to enhance transnational connectivity. The "rise" of China has precipitated a multipolar international order and, according to some commentators, heightened US–China tension heralds a "new" Cold War. In this context, small states hedge between the USA and its partners and China, as they pursue longstanding state spatial objectives. This necessitates state restructuring, which in some cases leads to the emergence of the 21st‐century infrastructure state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways in which environmental threats are socially constructed and the implications of such environmental securitisation. Specifically, the paper focuses on the issue of river development and water allocation between states of international transboundary river basins. Building on recent studies that attempt to refine securitisation theory of the Copenhagen School and applying hydropolitical power analysis, the paper takes a sociological understanding of the securitisation of shared waters. Using the case study of the Tanakpur Barrage project on the Mahakali River between Nepal and India in the Ganges River basin, it shows how securitisation discourse framed the shared river as a threat that posed detrimental flooding to both territories. It is argued that the Indian government effectively used its technical and institutional expertise to frame the discourse. Hydropolitical power analysis helps explain how compliance to the project agreement - a necessary measure to avert hydrological crisis, as argued by the Indian government - was gained from the Nepali government. The implications of securitising shared rivers on water resources management and basin-wide governance are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the circulation of humanitarian ideas, materials, and actions in a non-biomedical and non-Judeo-Christian context: Sowa Rigpa or Tibetan medical camps in India and Nepal. Through these camps, practitioners and patients alike often overtly articulate Sowa Rigpa medicine as part of a broader humanitarian "good" motivated by a Buddhist-inflected ethics of compassion and a moral economy of care, diverging from mainstream public health and conventional humanitarian projects. Three ethnographic case studies demonstrate how micro-political interactions at camps engage with ethical and religious imaginaries. We show how the ordinary ethics of Sowa Rigpa humanitarianism gain distinct political meaning in contrast to non-Tibetan forms of aid, reconfiguring the relationship between Buddhism, essential medicines, moral economies, and politics. While Sowa Rigpa as a medical system operates transnationally, these camps are organized around local logics of emergent care, employing narratives of "charity" and Buddhist compassion when addressing health needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]