Heritage preservation is a resource-intensive activity nested among other processes in the public administration, related to identity building and touristic product enhancement. Strategies and schemata associated with heritage preservation sprang in the western world after WWII and they have been adapted, in the form of ‘heritage management’, in various contexts with questionable effectiveness regarding sustainability. Our paper discusses the case of the post-earthquake cultural, social and political landscape of the World Heritage Site of Kathmandu valley in Nepal. By reviewing the bibliography and drawing upon various case studies of post-earthquake heritage restoration, we focus on the traditional ways of managing human and cultural resources in the area as related to the modern national heritage management mechanism. We also examine how traditional practices, re-interpreted into a modern context, can point towards inclusive and sustainable forms of collaboration based on the commons. We shed light on the elements of an emerging management system that could protect the vulnerable monuments through community participation, adapted to the challenging realities of the Nepalese heritage and its stakeholders.

Almost two decades after the first initiative towards e-Governance through the IT policy of 2000, Nepal has so far struggled with implementation of e-Governance due to political instability and the digital divide caused by socio-economic issues such as lack of infrastructure, low-income level and low-literacy rate among others. However, this case study showed that with trend towards foreign labour, Nepal has seen a huge demand for communication resulting in improvement in the communication infrastructure. With access to mobile technology, possibility of citizen reach and interaction through the means of mobile communication has become realisable. The case study shows that Nepal is mGov-ready but is still missing out on making a larger developmental impact through mGov due to issue within the leadership and the role of international agencies not complementing the process in the larger picture. It is necessary for the government of Nepal to take advantage of witnessed mGov-readiness by developing policy towards focusing on mobile-oriented citizen reach and interaction processes for e-Governance.

This essay compares key essays on Buddhism by B.R. Ambedkar and Jürgen Habermas vis-à-vis the issue of Buddhism, wealth, and privilege, and the respective statements again to what the Buddha taught, from a Theravada perspective. In doing so, it can be seen that Buddhism does not indeed endorse privilege in this world—but what seems to be privilege and inherited wealth are actual merits from a former life. Since these come with their own dangers, viz. attachment and not putting wealth to good use, wealth may be nice but not more. That someone is better than someone else because of birth and inheritance rather than action is, however, established as completely non-Buddhist, again and again, even by the Buddha himself.

At a juncture where various streams questioning the role of ICT in democratic governance have joined, this paper explores how a traditional South Asian institution – the Guthi – is rejuvenated, if not resuscitated, by ICT, especially – but not only – by the Communication aspect, prompted by a cataclysmic event, and also propelled towards global normative priorities. The case came to attention after the major earthquake of 2015 in Nepal. The Guthi, the traditional institution of cooperative self-governance prevalent primarily amongst the Newars of Kathmandu Valley, was in serious decline and the earthquake laid bare the void it had left behind. Leveraging on ICT and following their traditions, the communities put forward the case for their participation in rebuilding efforts. Especially this, but also those possibilities in general, “spun off” new iterations of the Guthi: neo-Guthis, sub-Guthis, and quasi-Guthis. We argue that much of the criticism that is levelled against the Guthi today ignores these and solely focuses on the ancient, guthis. As we put forth, it was the reaction to the demand of the time as well as utilizing the tools available, and even adapting the organization(s) to do so, that enabled the rejuvenation of an indigenous institution.

This article discusses key historical architectural structures in Cambodia and Nepal—the dharmasālā of King Jayavarman VII (c. 1122–1218 CE) and sattal (also known as sattra) structure from Licchavi-era Nepal (c. 450–750 CE). These structures have served a variety of purposes for their local communities in the past and continue to fulfill similar roles even today. In historical Asian cities, the central role of these structures, which were evidently influenced by Buddhism, highlights the importance that the community infrastructure had within Buddhism. Such infrastructure not only brought communities together but also served the needs of the saṅgha. Mentions of halls as “mote halls” are not rare within the Buddhist literature either, with mentions of great assembly halls, or santhāgāra, where the members of the community gathered to discuss matters of social and political interest. A notable hall described in the Jātaka is Mahosadha’s great hall from Māhā-ummagga-jataka. These halls, which are central in the concept of urban settlements and their authority within the Buddhist idea of governance, are a form of community-oriented “commons” infrastructures that can be looked at as “third places” that foster action and speech for public participation in governance. This, we propose, should be seen as a crucial element of Buddhist governance.

We endorse policymakers’ efforts to address the negative consequences of the attention economy’s technology but add that these approaches are often limited in their criticism of the systemic context of human attention. Starting from Buddhist philosophy, we advocate a broader approach: an ‘ecology of attending’ that centers on conceptualizing, designing, and using attention (1) in an embedded way and (2) focused on the alleviating of suffering. With ‘embedded’ we mean that attention is not a neutral, isolated mechanism but a meaning-engendering part of an ‘ecology’ of bodily, sociotechnical and moral frameworks. With ‘focused on the alleviation of suffering’ we mean that we explicitly move away from the (often implicit) conception of attention as a tool for gratifying desires. We analyze existing inquiries in these directions and urge them to be intensified and integrated. As to the design and function of our technological environment, we propose three questions for further research: How can technology help to acknowledge us as ‘ecological’ beings, rather than as self-sufficient individuals? How can technology help to raise awareness of our moral framework? And how can technology increase the conditions for ‘attending’ to the alleviation of suffering, by substituting our covert self-driven moral framework with an ecologically attending one? We believe in the urgency of transforming the inhumane attention economy sociotechnical system into a humane ecology of attending, and in our ability to contribute to it.