Kathmandu, April 5: Chief whip of the CPN-UML Bharat Mohan Adhikari has objected to the proroguing of the parliamentary session without first finding ways to solve various problems including white terror spread by the ruling party in Rautahat district. In a press statement today, Mr Adhikari on behalf of the party thanked the RPP, Rastriya Janamorcha, Nepal Sadbhawana Party, Samyukta Janamorcha and the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party for their clear views put across in Parliament for resolving this problem.
Kathmandu, April 5: The meeting of the Nepali Congress Parliamentary Party is scheduled to take place at 8:00 a.m. on April 9 at the Prime Minister’s residence.
This is stated in the notice issued by the NC Parliamentary Party secretary Benup Prasain.
Kathmandu, april 5: Ambassador of Japan to Nepal Mitsuaki Kojima paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala at his office at Singha Durbar today.
Matters relating to bilateral ties and mutual interest were discussed on the occasion.
Kathmandu, April 5: President of Cuba Fidel Castro has congratulated Mr Girija Prasad Koirala on his assumption of the high office of the Prime Minister of Nepal.
In his congratulatory message President Castro said he had been pleased on Mr Koirala acceding to the post of Prime Minister of Nepal.
The Cuban president extended to Premier Koirala hearty congratulations and best wishes in the fulfilment of his important duties.
In the message, President Castro said, “He looks forward to Mr Koirala’s mandate marking a period of enhancement of mutually advantageous relations of friendship and co-operation between the people of the two countries.”
The forthcoming South Summit would be an excellent occasion for us to meet and examine issues affecting our two countries today and would provide a space for reflection and concerted action, he added.
Kathmandu, Apr.5: Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala hosted a reception in honour of the participants of the Export Promotion Meeting-2000 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this evening.
The Deputy Prime Minister, the ministers, the heads of diplomatic missions, the participants of various countries, industrialists, businessmen and other distinguished persons were present on the occasion.
Kathmandu, April 5: His Majesty the King has prorogued the 17th session of both the Houses of the Parliament from 8:00 p.m. today.
Speaker Taranath Ranabhat and Chairman Dr. Mohammad Mohsin read out communications to this effect received from the Royal Palace at the meetings of the House of Representatives and National Assembly respectively.
Kathmandu, April 5: Dawa Yangji Sherpa fear taxi drivers in Kathmandu than to climb Mt Everest.
Dawa says, “Sagarmatha is innocent, it does not cheat anybody. It is beautiful and I don’t fear it much. But I wish to remain away from Kathmandu and the its drivers.”
A team of Dawa Mingma Yangji Sherpa, Dolma Sherpa and Kesang Diki Sherpa led by Lakpa Sherpa is departing here soon after receiving a national flag from the Prime Minister.
Born 21 years ago in Solukhumbu, Ms. Dawa had come to Kathmandu two years ago. She had opened a tea shop with the money taken from her own parents at the age of 16 at a small village in Solu. With the money earned from the shop, she paid off the loans her parents had taken.
Talking to RSS, she said, “Kathmandu allured me when I heard the stories of its glamour from my friends.
When asked how she felt upon arriving here, Ms. Dawa added, “Kathmandu is always enveloped with the blankets of smoke. Everywhere vehicles are seen plying on the roads. I found no faces familiar to me. In fact, Solu is much more beautiful than Kathmandu”
When I first arrived here, I took a taxi at Naxal for Mitra Park. I could not guess where the taxi driver was taking me. When I asked why it took so much time to reach my place, he said to my astonishment, “you seem to be a newcomer. I will make a round for you.”
“I took off my ear rings and put it inside my pockets. Then, he proposed marriage to me,” she further said.
Dilli Bazaar girls campus organised a reception in honour of a mountaineers expedition team here today.
CPN-UML standing committee member Ishwor Pokhrel said courage of these five women shows that if there is a strong willpower there is nothing that cannot be achieved.
Former speaker Damannath Dhungana spoke of the need for Nepal to take leadership of mountaineering tourism.
Chairman of the Sushma Memorial Trust Sujata Koirala which sponsored the programme, campus chief Ram Prasad Dahal and others also expressed their views at the function chaired by MP Homnath Dahal.
Kathmandu, Apr.5: A digitalised database covering 51 per cent of the Bhutanese refugees in seven camps in eastern Nepal has it that above 99.83 per cent of them have documentary evidences that they are Bhutanese citizens.
Association of Human Rights Activists, Bhutan (AHURA, Bhutan), a Bhutanese Human Rights organisation in exile, surveyed 4,553 Bhutanese refugee families to prepare the database – loaded in compact disk released here today.
“Up to 95 per cent have either both the citizenship papers and legal land and property holding documents in their possession,” said Ratan Gazmere, Chief Co-ordinator of AHURA, Bhutan in a press meet here. “Only 0.17 per cent did not have any papers due to seizure by government authorities, loss or theft.”
The findings comes at a time when Nepal and Bhutan are engaged in working out the modalities to verify the around 100,000 Bhutanese refugees in the UNHCR-maintained camps. The two Himalayan Kingdoms had agreed in 1993 to categorise the refugees into four groups – Bonafide Bhutanese citizens, Bhutanese who have emigrated, Non-Bhutanese, and Bhutanese who have committed crimes.
“The contents of our database put a question mark to the categorisation of the refugees since all of them are found to be genuine Bhutanese refugees,” said Gazmere who will be highlighting the database in the ongoing 56th session of the United Nations Commission of Human Rights meeting in Geneva next week.
The summary report of the database, according to AHURA, will also be made available in its websitehttp:ahurabht.tripod.com The survey findings have shown that the refugees in the camps have different documentary evidences including citizenship certificates, identity cards, tax receipts, land and property documents – all issued by the Bhutanese government – some even dating back to 1890’s.
The digitalised database has the details of around 50,000 refugees including their names, their address in Bhutan, present refugee camp address, family structure, the date when they were evicted from the Dragon Kingdom, documentary evidences to prove their Bhutanese citizenship, among others.
Minute details like the refugees’ house numbers, land-property measurements, among others, have also been included. Of the surveyed refugees, 22,000 have been found under 18 years of age.
Also included in the database are the details about the six southern Bhutanese districts from where most of the refugees were evicted. The blocks, villages, houses under the refugees’ names, among other details, within these districts have been well-documented.
“The families included in this survey have had to leave behind more than 5,000 houses, 30,000 acres of land and property and other mobile and immobile property whose present market value would run into millions of US Dollars,” states a press statement of AHURA.
The database has also included detailed information on what led to refugees leave their homelands. Of the total interviewed refugee families, 57 per cent were found to have been forced to leave Bhutan, often under gun-point or with serious threat to life. They were also compelled to sign voluntary migration forms. “Most of the people filling the voluntary migration forms are those from interior districts and villages from where fleeing to safety is impossible,” said Gazmere.
Chirang, one of the interior districts, alone claims 23 per cent the total refugees who were forced to sign the migration forms, the database shows.
Besides bringing out the digitialised facts and figures, AHURA also released a book “Bhutan: A Shangri-La without Human Rights” here today.
Kathmandu, Apr. 5: “His Majesty’s Government is at the final stage of establishing an independent National Human Rights Commission,” Minister for Foreign Affairs Chakra Prasad Bastola said while addressing the 56th session of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva Tuesday.
Minister Bastola said, “the United Nations, ever since its inception, has been instrumental in shaping the desire of the international community in matters of protecting and preserving human rights.”
Referring to enhanced people’s awareness on human rights as a result of the rapid development taking place in the field of communications technology, he said that human rights had been recognised as universal values.
Stating that human beings should have the opportunity to enjoy their rights without fear and pursue their lives in a befitting manner, the Foreign Minister said that as this had not been the case on many occasions, international community should redouble its effort to address this problem.
“Human rights enshrined in various instruments cannot be fully enjoyed in an environment where extreme poverty persists,” Minister Bastola said, adding that investment in the human resources development and social sector and creating safety nets for the most vulnerable groups of the society was a must for reducing poverty.
Noting that the choice of the topic “Poverty and the enjoyment of human rights” as the theme for the special dialogue during the ongoing session of the commission was very pertinent, he called for debt relief measures and generous economic assistance to the least developed and landlocked countries including Nepal to make all sets of human rights an enjoyable reality.
His Majesty’s Government (hmg) was fully committed to the promotion and protection of human rights and a party to the sixteen human rights instruments, Foreign Minister Bastola said, adding: “The present constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal guarantees the basic law, constitutional monarchy, multi-party democracy, independence of judiciary and fundamental human rights as the basic structure of the constitution which are not subject to amendment.”
Abolition of the death penalty and legislative initiatives to eliminate inequality between men and women in matters of inheritance were some of the other steps being undertaken by hmg in recent times, he noted.
Trafficking in children, young women and child labour had been a serious problem in our region including Nepal and though Nepal had adopted various measures to check the menace, innocent people had often been prey to unscrupulous elements due to extreme poverty and lack of awareness, he added.
Minister Bastola also had a meeting with the un secretary general Mr Kofi Annan, according the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Nepal to the un.
Minister Bastola also informed the Commission that hmg of Nepal was going to host the Asia-Pacific conference on the use of children’s soldiers in Kathmandu from May 15 to 18, 2000.
Kathmandu, Apr. 5: Ilam (Puwa Khola) hydel project has started power production on commercial basis following phase-wise successful test operation of various equipment installed at its power house.
The power generated from the project has been fed into the central grid since April 4.
All the equipment including turbine generator, governor, switching system and transformers were recently instatted in the two units of project implemented with the joint investment of His Majesty’s Government and Nepal Electricity Authority. The power house is now manned by the technicians of NEA.
According to the project chief Bishnu Bahadur Singh, all the tasks concerning design, construction supervision and quality control had been completed with internal resources and indigenous technology.
A 4-metres heigh and 30-metre long barrage has been constructed under the project.
The waters of Puwakhola has been diverted through the 2.5-km underground tunnel to the head tank and reservoir constructed at Golakharka on the bank of Mai River. The reservior stretching over 925 square feet has a capacity of 2,000 cubic metres.
The power house releases the waters to the Mai River through a 30-metre long tail race.
The project is to generate on an average 4.8 crores kilowatt hour electricity annually.
The 4-km-long 33 kv transmission line built up to the Ilam terminal has been linked up with the national grid system.
The entire project will entail a cost of around 15.5 million us dollar, 25 per cent of which is to be borne by hmg and the rest by nea.
The per unit cost of its power generation is Rs. 2.80 and the total investment in the project is expected to be recovered within next 5-6 years.
The project under construction is of run-of-river type and its environmental pollution factor is negligible.
In order to improve the surrounding environment of the project, tree plantation has been carried out and a follow-up is now underway with the help of the local consultant.
With the operation of the project, it will help significantly in the setting up of cottage and small industries, tea processing industries, production of fruits and vegetable in the locality.
The project provided a 3-month house wiring training to some 20 local persons who were affected in one way or other by the project.
The major contractors for the civil engineering work of barrage, tunnel and power house are China national water resources and hydro power engineering corporation and Laxmi Shrestha Power Company of Nepal.
The construction of gates and penstock pipes were completed under the hydro mechanical work by Nepal Hydro and Electric Company Pvt. Ltd., Butwal and installation of turbines, generators and switches under electro-mechanical works by the Hongphang Electric Corporation, China.