Nepal

Nepal’s political order was transformed by the violent uprising of September 2025. A government decision to block 26 social-media platforms helped trigger protests amid wider anger over corruption, nepotism and political governance. At least 76 people were killed, and Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli resigned. The election held on 5 March 2026 gave the Rastriya Swatantra Party 182 of the 275 seats in the House of Representatives, and Balendra Shah took office as Prime Minister on 27 March. More than a dozen media organisations were attacked during the unrest. The premises of Kantipur and Annapurna were set ablaze, while the Public Service Broadcasting Nepal complex inside Singha Durbar, including Radio Nepal and Nepal Television facilities, was vandalised and partly torched. Freedom Forum reported that staff prevented a major fire at Nepal Television and that broadcasting continued.

The first months of the new government brought no clear reversal of the deterioration. In April, content creator Roshan Pokharel was arrested in Panchthar under the Electronic Transactions Act over posts targeting the new Prime Minister and his family, although he was subsequently released following protests. The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology warned that people and organisations disseminating baseless, false or misleading online material could face action under cybercrime laws. On 30 April, journalists visiting a holding centre in Kirtipur for families displaced from Kathmandu’s riverbank settlements were prevented from interviewing residents and required to delete photographs and recordings, with municipal police citing orders from above. The Electronic Transactions Act, particularly Section 47, continues to be used against journalists and online commentators.

Economic pressure compounds these legal and physical risks. The Kathmandu Post has documented delayed salaries, unexplained dismissals and newsroom reductions across the media sector. Such insecurity weakens journalists’ bargaining position, undermines editorial independence and encourages self-censorship.

Two executive actions in 2026 bore directly on the state-media sector. Through a secretary-level decision dated 31 March and circulated on 1 April, the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers instructed public bodies to place official advertising exclusively through state-owned media, specifically naming Gorkhapatra, Radio Nepal and Nepal Television. The Federation of Nepali Journalists denounced the measure as discriminatory and as a threat to the financial survival of independent media. The International Federation of Journalists subsequently adopted an urgent motion opposing it. On 14 July, the Supreme Court annulled the decision and ordered the authorities not to discriminate against private media in the allocation of public advertising.

Separately, an ordinance issued on 2 May removed 1,594 people appointed to public positions before the new government took office. The dismissals included senior office-holders and board members at Public Service Broadcasting Nepal, Gorkhapatra Sansthan and Rastriya Samachar Samiti, cutting short appointments that had been made for fixed statutory terms. The ordinance later lapsed, having not been endorsed by Parliament within the constitutionally prescribed 60-day period, but dismissals completed while it was in force remained valid.

The State Media Monitor maps three state-media organisations in Nepal, all falling within the portfolio of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology:

• Public Service Broadcasting Nepal, formed through the merger of Radio Nepal and Nepal Television, classified State-Controlled (SC);
• Gorkhapatra Sansthan, publisher of Gorkhapatra and The Rising Nepal, classified State-Controlled (SC);
• Rastriya Samachar Samiti, the national news agency, reclassified in 2026 from State-Controlled to Captured Public (CaPu).

The reclassification of Rastriya Samachar Samiti reflects the available evidence rather than an improvement in its independence. SMM continues to find the agency state-owned, government-governed and editorially captured. It did not, however, identify publicly available audited accounts or equivalent budget evidence demonstrating that qualifying state funding exceeds the more-than-50% threshold required to code the funding dimension as state-controlled. As a result, RSS does not meet all three conditions required for the State-Controlled classification and is instead mapped as Captured Public.

RSS remains especially consequential within Nepal’s information system. The agency says that it supplies news to more than 100 newspapers, radio stations, television services and online outlets. Its editorial orientation can consequently flow into private and local media as well as into the state-owned sector.

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