At least three people have been injured when police baton charged protesting customers at the Nepali Army petrol pump at Bhadrakali Monday morning.

The scuffle occurred after the customers started demonstrating saying they did not get fuel for their vehicles even after waiting for hours in queue.

Hundreds of vehicles queue up at the pump daily due to the shortage of POL products in the market. The Indian Oil Corporation has decreased the supply of POL asking the Nepal Oil Corporation to pay the dues.

After the incident, the area has been brought under control by the police.

Labour Minister to the United Arab Emirates Dr Ali Bin Abdullah Al-Kaabi arrived in Kathmandu on a three-day official visit of Nepal Monday.

Nepal and UAE are likely to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) relating to manpower export during UAE’s Labour Minister visit, foreign ministry sources said.

The UAE is one of the most attractive destinations for millions of migrant workers from various countries, including Nepal.

The MoU is going to be signed at a time when there are reports of Nepalese migrant workers not getting proper salary, service benefits, medical facilities in the UAE have appeared.

This is the first time any UAE labour minister is visiting Nepal.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan foreign minister Rohitta Bogollagama has left for Lumbini, the birth place of Gautama Buddha, today. He is set to return to Kathmandu in the evening. As Sri Lanka is a predominantly a Buddhist country, Bogollangama is believed to be going there on a personal pilgrimage. He is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala Tuesday, the last day of his Nepal sojourn.

The first sitting of the interim parliament’s summer session at the parliament secretariat was held today, albeit lasting for only a short while.

Immediately after the house session began, Speaker Subash Nemwang informed the lawmakers that the government would present its programmes and police on Wednesday afternoon.

Addressing the opening session, Nemwang asked the parliamentarians to involve themselves in the campaign for holding the constituent assembly elections successfully and educating the voters on the mixed electoral system. Nemwang then announced that the next sitting of the parliament would be held on Wednesday at 3 p.m.

Besides passing the programmes and policies of the government, budget for the next fiscal year and giving mandate for the three-year interim plan, the summer session of the parliament also plans to endorse many important legislatives including the Right to Information Bill, Working Journalist amendment bill and bill on formation of the constituent assembly court.

One person was killed and five others injured when a school bus hit a microbus in Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Monday afternoon.

One Surya Poudel, who was critically injured when the microbus he was traveling in was hit by the bus belonging to Ujjwal Shishu Niketan at around 3:30 pm, died while undergoing treatment.

Five injured passengers of the microbus are undergoing treatment at Bir Hospital.

Today’s cabinet meeting failed to finalise the new list of ambassadorial nominees with the Maoist side wanting to completely revise the earlier list.

According to minister for Industries, Commerce and Supplies Rajendra Mahato, today’s cabinet meeting did discuss the nomination of 14 ambassadors, but there was no consensus on the issue. He said the Maoist ministers expressed strong objection to the earlier list, which could not get through parliamentary hearing last week and was later sent back to the cabinet.

Mahato hinted that his party, Nepal Sadbhawana Party (Anandi Devi), was also not happy with the nominations made by the earlier seven-party government.

Next cabinet meeting is expected to finalise the ambassadorial nominations. The Maoist party, which has demanded its share in ‘A’ category nations like India, United States, Russia and China, is yet to name its candidates.

Sources say the seven parties have set aside Australia, France, South Korea and Denmark for the Maoists, but the latter have demanded at least one ‘A’ category nation.

Following the Maoist objection, the Parliamentary Special Hearing Committee had on Thursday denied hearing on the nominations and asked the government to come up with a new list by July 04.

14 Nepali diplomatic missions abroad remain without ambassadors for over a year now.

The Special Court on Monday ordered the suspended Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), Bijay Nath Bhattarai, to appear before the court within 15 days to record his statement regarding the corruption case filed against him by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA).

A bench of justices Bhupdhoj Adhikari, Komal Nath Sharma and Cholendra Shumsher Rana gave the order.

The court also granted a bail amount of Rs 50,000 to NRB Executive Director Surendra Man Pradhan, a co-accused in the multi-crore rupees scam. He walked free after paying the bail amount.

The CIAA in its charge-sheet has said the two NRB bosses embezzled Rs 24.5 million in terminating the contract of the consultant in the Rs 195 million Financial Sector Reforms Programme run with foreign aid.

While police presented Pradhan at the hearing on Sunday, Bhattarai has been avoiding arrest.

The two remain suspended following the filing of case by the anti-graft body.

A senior leader of Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) has said that they will re-launch their Madhes movement if the government does not fulfill their demands.

MJF vice president Kishore Kumar Bishwas said that the government must fulfill their demands for fully proportional representation based electoral system for Constituent Assembly elections. If not, he warned, the MJF will not allow the elections to be held.

Speaking at a talk programme in the capital on Saturday, Bishwas said MJF could abandon talks if their demands are not met and launch Jana Andolan III from mid-July.

At the same programme, Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies and leader of Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP-Anandidevi) Rajendra Mahato urged everyone to help conduct CA elections. He said Madhesis should utilise the elections.

Singh’s Revelation

Meanwhile, a well known republican leader Ram Raja Prasad Singh made a startling revelation at the interaction at the Reporters’ Club on Saturday. He claimed that he was recently offered to lead the joint front to separate Terai from Nepal.

Singh said he refused the offer, which he said was made at a meeting in Darbhanga of Bihar, India on May 11. He said representatives from MJF, NSP-A, both factions of Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha, Madhesi Tigers, and others were present at the meeting.

Singh said he believes in united Nepal and asked people to rise above communal divide. Singh also demanded that fully PR system rather than mixed system should be adopted for CA elections.

The central working committee meeting of Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP) has concluded that the overall situation of the country is very disorderly.

The meeting approved the political report tabled by party president Surya Bahadur Thapa, which states that the situation of peace and security has further worsened.

It has concluded that despite expectations that joining of government by Maoists could improve the situation, the reality has been quite to the contrary.

The party has asked for creation of fully free, fair and fearless environment for the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections.

The party has asked the government to create such environment within next one to one and a half month.

Continuing the bullish trend during the week, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index registered a historic record of 591.65 points on Thursday with strong performance of major indices and investors purchasing shares like never before, according to the weekly trading analysis.

The Nepse opened at 583.44 points on Sunday, and continued to climb all through the week and closed at an impressive 591.65 points, a new historic high for weekly closing on Thursday, the last day of stock trading.

The weekly turnover, however, decreased this week to Rs 257 million with 624,893 unit shares traded through 1,796 transactions, against last week’s figure of Rs 270.2 million through the trading of 690,834 shares. Out of the total 77 listed companies, 68 companies saw their transactions this week. The group wise share trading analysis shows that all major groups including commercial banks, the other and insurance groups each posted an impressive growth.

Stock analysts said that this succession of growth can be attributed to increase in share prices of commercial banks including other leading scrips.

Minister for Information and Communication Krishna Bahadur Mahara said on Saturday that special code-of-conduct would be introduced for journalists in order to make the ‘mission of the constituent assembly successful’.

Asking journalists to work towards making constituent assembly election a success, he informed that the government plans to “bring together private and government journalists and media persons”. He didn’t elaborate what he really meant by that.

He also claimed that both private and government media are “not free”, as the “private ones are swayed by their business interests and the government media is tightly controlled by the government”.