The census of 2021 counted 29,164,578 people — the first digital census in Nepal's history, and the first to record a slower growth rate than the one before: the population was not abandoning the country, exactly, but its working-age adults were. Literacy had reached 76% of adults; life expectancy had climbed past 71 years — a figure that in 1950 was barely 35. The average Nepali carried a mobile phone; the average Nepali household received money from someone working abroad.वि.सं. २०७७ को जनगणनाले २,९१,६४,५७८ मानिस गन्यो — नेपालको इतिहासमा पहिलो डिजिटल जनगणना, र अघिल्लोभन्दा कम वृद्धिदर दर्ता गर्ने पहिलो: जनसंख्या देश छोड्दैन — काम गर्न योग्य उमेरका मानिस छोड्दैछन्। साक्षरता वयस्कको ७६% पुग्यो; जीवन प्रत्याशा ७१ वर्ष पार गर्यो — सन् १९५० मा जुन पैँतीस वर्षमात्र थियो। औसत नेपालीसँग मोबाइल फोन छ; औसत नेपाली घरले कसैले विदेशबाट पठाएको पैसा पाउँछ।
The Remittance Stateपरितोषण-राज्य
- ◆Remittances — money sent home by Nepalis abroad — reached roughly one quarter of Nepal's entire GDP, among the highest ratios on Earth.
- ◆Labor migration is the economy's main industry: at peak, more than 2,000 labor permits issued per day, mostly for Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Malaysia.
- ◆The service sector — tourism, remittance-funded construction, banking — dwarfed agriculture, even though two-thirds of households still farm.
- ◆Tourism: 1.19 million arrivals in 2019, the pre-COVID peak; the Annapurna Circuit and Everest Base Camp treks became global industries.
- ◆Politics borrowed the pattern: dozens of prime ministers in under two decades and chronic coalition churn — average government lifespan, under two years.
Pandemic, Floods, Rebuildingमहामारी, बाढी, पुनर्निर्माण
Nepal recorded its first COVID-19 case in January 2020 — a student returned from Wuhan, and the first confirmed case outside China. A nationwide lockdown from 24 March 2020 held the first wave down; the Delta wave of 2021 did not, pushing cremation grounds past their limits. Roughly 12,000 people died of COVID-19 in Nepal. In September 2024, the heaviest monsoon rain in two decades drowned the Bagmati plain and killed more than 200 people around the capital. The republic's recurring lesson: infrastructure — roads, hospitals, drainage, heritage — lags the promises made in every constitution.वि.सं. २०७६ मा नेपालले पहिलो कोभिड-१९ केस दर्ता गर्यो (जनवरी २०२०) — वुहानबाट फर्केका विद्यार्थी, चीनबाहिरकै पहिलो पुष्टि केस। २४ मार्च २०२० देखि देशव्यापी लकडाउनले पहिलो लहर नियन्त्रणमा राख्यो; २०७८ को डेल्टा लहरले नराख्यो — दाहसंस्कार स्थल ओभरलोड भए। नेपालमा लगभग १२,००० कोभिड-मृत्यु भए। वि.सं. २०८१ भदौ-आश्विनमा दुई दशककै सबैभन्दा भारी मनसुनले बागमती भूमि डुबायो, राजधानी क्षेत्रमा २०० भन्दा बढी मारिए। गणतन्त्रको दोहोरिने पाठ: पूर्वाधार — सडक, अस्पताल, नाली, धरोहर — प्रत्येक संविधानले दिएका वाचाभन्दा पछि छ।