Dr. Pratyush Nath Upreti

Association of sex and religion is often ignored, author argues as the "best way of sexual teaching". Divine erotica

Pratyush Nath Upreti Recent news from Pokhara, where Parajuli Marg was declared a ‘Chhakka Prohibited Area”—with permission from the Kaski District Administration Office—have yet again brought to light the acceptance of sexual minorities in our society and showed that discrimination by the state continues. In the case of Sunil Babu Pant & Others vs Nepal Government, the Supreme Court of Nepal made a historic decision, ordering the government to recognise a ‘third gender’ and protect the rights of sexual and gender minorities. Certainly the 2007 verdict gave the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community immense confidence to establish their identity in society. But despite legal recognition, they still suffer from societal discrimination and stigma. A few weeks ago, I came upon an unread Facebook message from a Nepal-born Australian citizen, who commented on my previous contribution to The Kathmandu Post titled ‘Criminal Love’ (January 7). The ‘gentle

 If LGBTI people are third gender then who is first and second gender? Is male first and female second gender? Isn’t this another form of discrimination? Or, if ‘male or female’ would be established as first gender, who is second gender? And again, isn’t it discrimination to recognise the ‘homosexual group’ as third gender? What kind of equality is this supposed to be? A queer divide | Opinion | Oped

As a student of Intellectual Property Law, I have often came cross scholars criticizing industry being more influential in International IP negotiation, ignoring the prospects of creating balanced IP regime between developing and developed country which ultimately boost global IP regime. Academia and industry have their own perspectives on IP but some form of collaboration would certainly lead to a sustainable intellectual property regime. On 17th October 2014, I had an opportunity to attend the lecture of Prof. Meir Pugatch, one in the series of expert lectures held in the IPKM programme. It was a great experience for me to hear from an industry person and academic, on how industry and academics can learn from each other in order to improve IP. For me, being from the least-developing country Nepal, where intellectual property rights are treated as neglected stepchildren and where an IP-centric industry as well as IP academics are lacking, it is very fascinating to hear how, in his