Six months on

Will new political actors reshape the system they have entered, or be reshaped by it?

Six months after smoke filled Kathmandu’s streets and a government fell within 30 hours of a deadly Gen Z-led protest in the capital, Nepal appears calmer. The barricades are gone, and the streets are quieter. Former Kathmandu mayor Balen Shah was sworn in as the country’s new Prime Minister on Friday, amid significant fanfare, having ridden the wave and spirit of the Gen Z movement. But little about Nepal’s politics feels resolved.