Asia’s first digital battlefield: When the screen became the street in Nepal

Nepal’s hardy hillsmen are regarded as among the most famous mercenaries of our times, leading the charge when Britain asserted its rights over the Falklands and participating in every war India’s military has fought since Independence. In peacetime, they guard vital installations, including in Singapore and Brunei.

Who would have thought that they would turn so ferociously on their own government,

turning a protest over access to social media into a battlefield

– literally, in this case. I covered the first People’s Movement that ousted the absolute monarchy of the late King Birendra Bikram Shah in 1990, and the second movement that persuaded his younger brother and successor King Gyanendra to leave the palace and become an ordinary civilian.