By Nepal News Correspondent
Kathmandu, Feb 23:
Leader of the Nepali Congress and convenor of the high-level panel to resolve the Maoist insurgency Sher Bahadur Deuba called Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) to denounce violence and killing and come to negotiating table to resolve the problems related to insurgency.
Deuba issued a press statement today and asked the Maoist insurgents to join mainstream politics and carry out activities for the development of the nation and consolidation of democracy.
” It is the duty of all to safeguard and promote national interest, democracy and development in the country for which we should work together peacefully”, he said.
Nepal is known as a peaceful country in the world and incidents of violence and killings only damage the image of the nation, he said.
He also appreciated the indication given by the Maoist leadership for talks with the government.
By Nepal News Correspondent
Kathmandu, Feb 23:
One cop and 18 Maoist guerillas were killed in two separate incidents in Rukum, about 450 kilometer from Kathmandu, Tuesday.
The incidents took place in Khaulachheran and Sukedaha villages of Rukum district.
Police killed 12 guerillas in Sukedaha and 6 in Khaula Chherna village.
They were killed in an encounter with police.
According to police, all the insurgents were in combat uniform. Police also seized nine rifles from the guerillas.
One police personnel was also killed in the encounter with the Maoist guerillas in the same district. The cop who was killed is identified as Ganesh Khatri.
According to police the incidents took place about 0100 hrs Tuesday.
Other details are not known.
Kathmandu, Feb. 22:State Minister for Education Rajendra Kharel has said that education, the much prioritised sector of the government, is inevitable for all round development of the country.
All the concerned individuals and organisations should contribute for the promotion of Nepal’s education system, which is the backbone of national development, he said at a press conference organised by the ministry here this afternoon.
Education Secretary Jayaram Giri said that the government gave first priority to the basic and primary education and second to the technical and vocational education. “The government has established 15 technical schools at various part of the country to make the nation’s education system more result oriented.”
The government achieved positive results from its investment in education, especially the primary level, a ministry press release distributed earlier said. “Yet there is a lot more to do to bring about qualitative reforms at all levels of education.”
According to the press release, the government has a policy to make the country’s education standard, productive and creative so as to match with the development process. Everyone concerned should think of how to free education from politics, the release said. “We should sort out the problems, if any, and find solutions to them.”
The government has committed to move ahead with the slogan “The Values of Democratic Education: Employment, Development and Humanity” to make the education employment oriented, development oriented and humanity oriented as per the democratic norms and values, the release said.
Kathmandu, Feb. 22:A two-day seminar on “Exhibition Management and Productivity” was organised by the National Productivity and Economic Development Centre (NPEDC) and the Nepal Pavilion Company.
Minister for Commerce and Industry Omkar Prasad Shrestha inaugurating the meeting said, “our efforts have concentrated on production side alone and neglected the marketing part”, stressing that the products on exhibition should be identified and should be available in good supply. The minister commended holding of exhibitions to promote trade as direct marketing reduces the role of middle-men.
The seminar participated in by 50 participants from different private limited companies is organised with the objective to examine the problems exporters are facing in exporting their products. The seminar is being conducted with technical experts services from Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), Japan where Makoto Aki form Osaka International Trade Fair Commission presented a paper on Exhibition Management and Productivity.
The seminar aims at discussing the promotion of Nepalese products in the overseas market, how to build contacts between the Nepalese and overseas traders, exploring and expanding the overseas trade and identifying the demand of Nepalese products in overseas market.
Nepalgunj, Feb. 22:The shutters are down. The Chok Bazar at Tribhuvan Chok, the city centre of Nepalganj, is yet to wake up as the winter chill breaks the day in the western town. The streets are quite. The sun pierces the thick morning fog.
Kallu Dapali leads in a group of 13 men, all from his village in Bihar state of India, where the labourers wait eagerly for offers of manual works at construction sites. If luck favours, all the 13 men will be hired in a single place, which will make their stay in this town easier and cheaper because they can arrange a common kitchen. If not, every individual will have to hunt for works in different places that could pay less for harder toils.
By 6:45 in the morning Chock Bazar is crowded with people eager to sell labour. Men and women, both young and elderly, are pouring in from all corners of the “lebar thiha”, meaning Place for Labourers. From there the contractors pick up labourers. The crowd of mainly unskilled labourers at lebar thiha depends on masons to find works in construction sites where building contractors subcontract works. “Here, masons are like sweets attracting flies,” says Salim Pathan. “As soon as a mason enters this lebar thiha, labourers gather around him.”
There are far too many workers compared to the area and the number of works one would trip over, says Pathan, also a mason.
According to Nepal Labour Force Survey 1998/99 released last month, 1.7 million people work in informal sector outside agriculture in the country. A report prepared by International Labour Organisation’s South Asia Multidisciplinary Advisory Team (SAAT) in 1997 states that the Terai region accommodates highest percentage of daily wage labourers (35 per cent) among all the three ecological regions in Nepal.
Since mountains and the hilly regions create virtually no job opportunities, workers throng the plain to find wage paying jobs in the southern plains. The National Census 1991, estimates that 0.44 million people migrated to Terai between 1971 and 1981 from mountains and the hills permanently. The region also bears the burden of seasonal and temporary migratory workers. According to Population Monograph of Nepal, Terai’s share of employed labour force increased to 39 per cent in 1991 from 32 per cent in 1971, while the other two regions saw declines in their share of employed population during the same period.
The influx of migratory labourers is pushing the wage rate to minimum, say local labourers. Workers are becoming more vulnerable to exploitation and underpayment. “We are too many labourers here. Sometimes the chief mason who hires us on sub-contract basis pays less than what has been originally agreed upon,” says Laungi Tharu. “If we do not comply, they have nothing to lose, but we will have to find another mason to hire us,” says Tharu who comes from an adjoining village of Nepalgunj. She claims that she is normally paid Rs. 80 for a day’s work, but sometimes she has to satisfy herself with only Rs. 60 for same work.
The Terai’s job market perhaps has already reached the “point of exhaustion,” as the 1997 report of SAAT cautioned. However, the inter-regional migration of workers alone is not threatening the exhaustion labour absorption capacity of the region. The increasing unemployment rate in Bihar is pushing the Terai’s labour market to exhaustion point even faster.
“The Deshis or labourers should go back home,” says Pathan. “They are stealing away our jobs,” he says of the inflow of across-border-movement of workers to Nepalgunj. “They even agree to work for half of what is customarily paid here.” And, that often comes at the cost of Nepalese labourers.
Kathmandu, Feb.22:For its eighth rural electrification project, if Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is looking forward to receiving a US$ 50 million loan from the Asian Development Bank, it will have to make its consumers pay the price — once again raising the power tariff that was increased by around 30 per cent some three months ago.
“How much will be the tariff increase this time will be decided by the end of this fiscal year,” says Bhola Nath Chalise, Managing Director of NEA.
Under the second phase of tariff-hike it had promised to the ADB last year, NEA will yet again have to send up the per unit power price by around 25 percent. The latest increase in November last year, has placed the average power tariff at 6.5 rupees per unit.
“But even before raising the tariff, we will try to make the inhouse correction like bringing down the leakage, collecting arrears, among others,” assures Chalise. “If the idea works, perhaps the raise will be somewhere between 10 and 12 per cent.”
The two phase tariff hike was basically the brainchild of NEA after the multilateral agency stressed on a 50-55 per cent tariff hike in exchange of the loan it has already approved for the rural electrification project.
Understandably, the figure was too high for NEA to send the tariff shooting up at a time. Thus came the idea of the two phase tariff-hike to convince the donor for the US$ 60 million rural electrification project expected to connect around two dozen villages across the Kingdom with the national power grid. ADB’s loan apart, the project has had a green signal for US$ 10 million assistance from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
At the face of it, even if it appears to have been pegged with the eighth rural electrification project, NEA’s commitment to ADB on raising the power tariff dates back to 1996 when it negotiated the 144 MW Kali Gandaki hydropower project with the bank.
Then, the authority, aiming at the US$ 150 million loan from the multilateral agency, agreed to its two covenants: It should send its rate of return at six per cent and its self financing ratio, that has to do with its investment capacity on projects, at 23 per cent.
More than three years down the line, ADB still finds the two conditions unmet. “The raise in the power tariff last November has only covered the inflation since 1996,” says Richard Vokes, Resident Representative of the bank. Before the latest power tariff hike, it was only in May 1996 the price of electricity was increased.
With the second phase of the tariff-rise, the bank believes its two covenants, it had tagged with its loan for Kali Gandaki, will be met. The still under construction run of the river project is estimated to cost above US $ 450 million.
But, with NEA, as claimed by Chalise, trying to pull its socks up in a bid to limit the tariff-hike between 10 and 12 per cent, will the move please ADB? “It all depends on how much progress will be made,” asserts Vokes.
ADB’s satisfaction matters much in the rural electrification project since it has only approved the US $ 150 million loan but is yet to release it. “The loan will flow only after the covenants are met,” says Vokes.
An equal key factor for the project is NEA’s tightening up its own screw. Already marred by its around 25 per cent system loss in its a little above 300 MW installed capacity, the authority continues to be over-burdened with arrears amounting to around Rupees 700 million — two thirds of it owed by municipalities and the rest by the government.
Kathmandu, Feb. 22:His Majesty the King has accepted the resignations tendered by 11 cabinet ministers late last week, days after Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai’s leadership came under question from 58 MPs of the ruling party.
“The resignations have been accepted in accordance with the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990,” according to a press notice issued today by the Principal Press Secretariat of His Majesty the King.
His Majesty has asked the Prime Minister to look after the portfolios of the five cabinet ministers – Works and Transport Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka, Water Resources Minister Gobinda Raj Joshi, Health Minister Ram Baran Yadav, Law Minister Tarini Dutta Chataut and Forest Minister Mahantha Thakur.
All five ministers, accompanied by three state and three assistant ministers, had resigned en masse on Friday saying they were under moral pressure to do so since 58 Congress legislators had demanded change of their parliamentary leader.
The state ministers who resigned were Surendra Prasad Chaudhary, Ram Bahadur Gurung and Mohammad Aftab Aalam. Likewise, the assistant ministers, who tendered their resignations were Narayan Singh Pun, Surendra Hamal and Narendra Bikram Nembang.
The resignations remained unconfirmed until Monday, when 87 of the 137 members of the Congress Parliamentary Party took part in hectic discussions on the no confidence motion moved against Prime Minister Bhattarai by the rebel MPs.
Bhattarai did not participate in that meeting asking the party to defer yesterday’s discussion, saying he would be able to respond to all charges against him only if the meeting was postponed by a few days.
After over four hours of discussions the Parliamentary Party unanimously agreed to put off the agenda to February 26. This upcoming meeting is expected to finalise the MPs’ demand to change the leadership
By Nepal News Correspondent
Kathmandu, Feb 22:
The main opposition party CPN-UML demonstrated in the street Tuesday against price hike, corruption and deteriorating law and order in the country.
A procession of the CPN-UML leaders and workers began from Ratna Park and went round the city before conversing into mass meeting in Tundhikhel.
Demonstrators chanted slogans against government for what they described as failing to control price hike, corruption and maintaining law and order in the country.
In the mass meeting, senior leaders of CPN-UML rapped the government for failing to solve Nepal’s burning problems.
General secretary of the party Madhav Nepal and senior leader K.P. Oli addressed the mass meeting and said that the present Nepali Congress government failed to carry out development activities and give a clear direction to the nation and people.
Nepal alleged that leaders of the Nepali Congress have indulged in power struggle instead of working for the development of the nation.
By Nepal News Correspondent
Kathmandu, Feb 22:
His Majesty King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev accepted the resignation submitted by five Ministers, 3 Ministers of State and 3 assistant Ministers.
According to Principal Press Secretariat of His Majesty the King, the resignations of eleven ministers were submitted to His Majesty the King through Prime Minister Monday.
The names of ministers who resigned are:
Minister for Works and Transport Khum Bahadur Khadka
Minister for Water Resources Govinda Raj Joshi
Minister for Law and Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Tarini Dutta Chataut
Minister for Health Dr Ram Baran Yadav
Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation Mahanta Thakur
Minister of State for Science and Technology Surendra Chaudhari
Minister of State for Labour Ram Bahadur Gurung
Minister of State for Local Development Mohammad Aftab Alam
Assistant Minister for Commerce Narendra Bikram Nembang
Assistant Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Narayan Singh Pun
Assistant Minister for Land Reforms and Management Surendra Hamal
They had resigned February 16 following the registration of a no-confidence motion by 58 lawmakers of ruling Nepali Congress against Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai.
Fifty-eight lawmakers of the ruling Nepali Congress party registered a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Bhattarai and demanded that leader of NC parliamentary party be changed.
Bhattarai is the leader of NC parliamentary party.
According to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal, leader of parliamentary board of the majority party in parliament automatically becomes the Prime Minister.
If NC parliamentary party changes its leader, Bhattarai would automatically lose his job as Prime Minister.
The meeting of the NC parliamentary party has been called on February 26 to decide the fate of Prime Minister.
Nuwakot, Feb. 21):President of Sushma Koirala Memorial Trust (skmt) Sujata Koirala has inaugurated the Lions Dental Hospital and hospital building at Bidur Municipality ward No. 9 Bagtar.
On the occasion she said “with the construction of the first hospital building in the district on the initiative of the Lions Club and the participation of the youths associated with it, dental treatment is now availble to the people of the area.”
On the occasion, skmt President Koirala also inaugurated a three-day dental camp and five-day eye treatment camp held with the financial co-operation of the Lions Dental Services Centre, Kopundol, and the Lions Club of Himalayas, Patan.
On the occasion, she also honoured social activist Babu Lal Shrestha and Buddhi Lal Shrestha who donated four annas of the land for the building which cost of Rs 600,000.
President of Lions Club of Trishuli, Nuwakot, Shrikrishna Rijal presided over the programme.