Himal Southasian announces suspension of its publication

One of South Asia’s first regional news and analysis magazines will be suspending operations after 29 years of publication. Himal Southasian announced in an online note today that it will shut shop owing to what appears to be a clampdown by the Nepali state.

Himal directly cites “non-cooperation by regulatory state agencies in Nepal” as one of the reasons and says it is not through a direct attack or overt censorship but through “the use of the arms of bureaucracy” that the state has paralysed its functioning. You can read the complete note here.

The magazine, however, will stay operational till November 2016 to meet all its “outstanding obligations before suspension of operations”.

Early this year Himal Editor Kanak Mani Dixit was arrested on charges of corruption. This was viewed by many in the journalist community as a witch-hunt against Dixit and Himal. The magazine describes itself as “Independent, non-nationalist, pan-regionalist”. Needless to say, many readers took to Twitter to bemoan the development.