In what looks like a game of tug of war, locals of various towns of four Terai districts have been staging demonstrations following the government decision to withdraw its decision to establish Integrated Administrative Service Centres (IASC) in those towns.

While offices and business in Jaleshwar, headquarter of Mahottari district opened on Tuesday after a ‘bandh’ for two-and-half weeks, locals of Bardibas, Hariaun, Chandranigahapur and Nijgadh have shut down market, educational institutions and disrupted traffic in the district for a third consecutive day Thursday. Their demand is that the government should stick to its decision of establishing IASC at Bardibas of Mahottari, Hariaun of Sarlahi, Chandranigahapur of Rautahat and Nijgadh of Bara.

The government had withdrawn its decision following violent protests by locals in Jaleshwar and the headquarters of the districts in consideration.

A Struggle Committee led by Terai Madhesh Loktantrik Party leader Ram Krishna Mahato has announced to continue the strike unless the government sticks to its decision of establishing IASC outside district headquarters in all four districts. Hundreds of commuters traveling on the highway have been stranded due to the strike. nepalnews.com ta Feb 05 09

Minister for Information and Communication Krishna Badadur Mahara said on Wednesday that the government has accorded top priority to expansion of telecom services in the rural areas.

Minister for Information and Communication Krishna Bahadur Mahara
While inaugurating the fifth anniversary of the Nepal Telecom (NT), he said, “The government is well aware of the fact that access to telecommunications is the fundamental right of people.”

Minister Mahara also asked the NT officials to take initiations towards bridging the technological divide between urban and rural Nepal.

Speaking at the same occasion, Amar Nath Singh, managing director, NT, informed that the NT is all geared up to expand the telephone and internet services to the viable remote areas across the country through KU band VSAT technology.

According to the NT, it is planning to introduce “Next Generation Network (NGN)” technology to replace the existing PSDTN technology. Voice, data and video service can be operated via the NGN service. nepalnews.com Feb 5 09

Senior leaders of major political parties have agreed that Nepal should adopt a unique model of federalism that binds its people together. At a programme organised by Society for Constitutional and Parliamentary Exercise in the capital on Wednesday, leaders of Nepali Congress (NC), CPN (UML), United CPN (Maoists) and Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP) said that federalism and constitution should be appropriate to the society and geography of Nepal.

Ex-prime minister and president of Nepali Congress Girija Prasad Koirala (2nd from left) puts forth his opinion during an interaction programme on the view of political parties on the new constitution, Wednesday, Feb 04 09. Madhav Kumar Nepal-CPN-UML, Dinanath Sharma-CPN (United Maoists), Surya Bahadur Thapa-RJP and other politicians also spoke at the programme. nepalnews.com/NPA

Ex-prime minister and president of Nepali Congress Girija Prasad Koirala (2nd…
President of NC and former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said national integrity and national unity should be the key factors of federalism and that it should touch the lives of people and bind them together. “Nepalese federalism should adopt the model of proportional representation at the centre and decentralisation of power,” he said.

Stressing on the need of democracy as basis of constitution Koirala added, “The constitution should address democratic values, human rights, freedom of press and individual liberty.”

Chairman of the Constitutional Committee and senior leader of the CPN (UML) Madhav Kumar Nepal said that he had proposed 17 points including supremacy of constitution, rule of law, human rights, press freedom, secular state, and federalism, among others for the new constitution. “All political parties parties should agree on those fundamental points,” he said.

Stressing that Nepal’s constitution should be unique, spokesperson of United CPN (Maoists) Dina Nath Sharma said that his party was willing to accept multiparty democracy, periodic elections and independent judiciary as the fundamentals of the new constitution.

Chairman of Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP) Surya Bahadur Thapa suggested that the country’s geographical situation should be considered while developing a new political system. Direct election of an executive prime minister or president in a country like Nepal is impossible, he said.

Accusing the ruling parties of engrossing in strengthening their parties rather than focusing on constitution drafting, Thapa expressed skepticism about the timely completion of the constitution. nepalnews.com ta Feb 05 09

Journalist Rishi Dhamala has been detained by police on Tuesday. According to Superintendent of Police Navaraj Silwal he has been detained not as a journalist but for his alleged connection in criminal activities.

The president of Reporters’ Club, Dhamala was arrested by police in plain clothes from his office in Putalisadak yesterday evening. Police has said the details will be made public only after the completion of investigation.

According to unofficial reports, Dhamala has been arrested for his alleged connection with the Hindu extremist group Ranavir Sena, which had claimed its responsibility in blasts near the Constituent Assembly and in the airport. nepalnews.com Feb 04 09

Concluding that the party’s base in the Terai plains is shrinking, the Unified CPN (Maoist) leadership is currently working on a new ‘Madhesh policy’, holding discussions with experts and party leaders from the region.

On Sunday, the Maoist central secretariat discussed the programmes and policies that could come in handy in consolidating the party’s position in the Terai as well to address the grievances of a section of party leaders and cadres from the Terai that the leadership has ignored the issues concerning Terai.

According to Maoist spokesperson Dina Nath Sharma, the secretariat has given the responsibility to devise the Madhesh policy to party chairman and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal after consultions with various sides.

Next meeting of the secretariat will take up Dahal’s document on Madhesh policy.

Today’s secretariat meeting held at Dahal’s official residence in Baluwatar also decided to launch various development programmes to Terai. Sharma said committees would be formed at different levels for implementing the development programmes.

The Maoist leadership is also known to have decided to agree disgruntled party leader Matrika Yadav, not to rebel against the party. Former minister Yadav, who has boycotted successive meetings of the party, has threatened to quit and float a new party. nepalnews.com mk Feb 01 09

Dr. Andreas SchildDr. Andreas Schild, a Swiss national, is the Director General of Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a regional knowledge development and learning hub which has been working persistently for the past 25 years to assist people of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Mountain (HKH) region to understand the effects of globalization and climate change on the stability of fragile mountain ecosystems and the livelihoods they provide.

In his career spanning 30 years Dr Schild, who is trained as a historian and sociologist, has worked in various multilateral development agencies in countries as challenging as Afghanistan and North Korea. For his outstanding lifetime contribution to the cause of the Himalayan Environment, Dr Schild received the prestigious First Sir Edmund Hillary Himalayan Environment Award in 2008. Having first arrived in Nepal in the 70s as head of a Swiss development agency, Dr Schild through his extensive involvement in the development works here understands the special status of Nepal in this region. In an interview with Anand Gurung of Nepalnews.com, the self-proclaimed “mountain man” talks about ICIMOD’s pioneering works that have contributed immensely to sustainable mountain development.

When you first arrived in Nepal to work for a Swiss development agency you must have gone to various parts of the country and had an opportunity to closely know and understand the mountain and hill communities of the country. Tell us, what changes have you found in their conditions now from what they were in those days?

Yes, I did a lot of traveling mainly in the hill and mountain areas during the 70s, as most of the projects run by the Swiss agency that I was involved in back then were exclusively focused in those areas. Although my work here at ICIMOD gives me little time to travel around the country, I recently went to the areas that I visited during those days to see first hand what kind of changes have arrived there. To tell you frankly, I was positively impressed by what I saw.

For instance, there were some places which hardly had any forests when I visited them for the first time and some low-lying areas had very poor pastures. Now when I go there I am walking through forests and the pastures are also lush green. At that time the girls and women of the village brought fodder and fire-wood by walking very far. But now you see in front of every house a pile of dry wood. These may be simple things, but something you’ll not have seen 30 years ago. Similarly, you also see that electricity has reached many rural parts of the country and with it some notable developments. You see villagers more involved in agroforestry, fisheries, animal farming, and beekeeping apart from traditional agricultural practices to earn their livelihood. They have managed to greatly improve their living standard because of this and now have better access to health, education and other basic services. All in all, I must say the changes I saw were positive. But I cannot say if this is representative for the whole country. I believe however change has taken place much faster in the cities and mountain people are much more exposed to what is happening outside Nepal through seasonal and other migration. This is a source of potential, but also of frustration and disappointment.

So what is ICIMOD doing for sustainable development of the Hindu-Kush Himalayan (HKH) region?

We have been criticized in the past for only focusing on the environmental aspects of the mountains. However, we believe that mountains without the mountain people are not going to be sustainable. We can only achieve the goal of sustainable development through the interaction of environment and society. That’s why we have created a special program for supporting sustainable livelihoods in the mountains. The main idea behind the program is to convey that our findings are having a positive impact on the development of the mountain areas and the people. Having said this, I would like to remind you here that we are not a poverty reduction organization. We want to explore options and create more opportunities in the mountains, and of course hope this will help in poverty reduction efforts. Our main aim is not only to conserve the mountain system but also to make sure that the livelihoods in the mountain areas are sustainable and that the resources are available in a sustainable way. It also means developing new opportunities for income generation for the mountain communities and management of the resources available to them.

Tell us how ICIMOD’s work in the Himalayas has enhanced upstream/downstream relationships?

To put it simply, our mission is to work for the good of the mountain ecology with the aim of having a positive impact on people’s lives. We believe that if you can show the importance of mountain ecosystems in securing the sustainability of both uplands and lowlands then there is a good opportunity for enhancing the living standards of people from both areas. So we are promoting understanding of major environmental challenges, and helping mountain communities adapt to them by creating new opportunities, while all the time addressing upstream/downstream issues for a sound mountain ecosystem.

What has been the pioneering work of ICIMOD in the 25 years of its operation?

In the initial years we concentrated more on convincing people that there is a potential for mountain development. Then in the next phase ICIMOD concentrated on developing typical mountain technologies for improving the living standards of mountain populations. However, our emphasis has always been on protecting the fragile mountain ecosystem while going about the task so that it ultimately benefits the mountain population as well as people living downstream.

For example, ICIMOD has played an important role in promoting mountain tourism, mountain risk engineering, use of seabuckthorn, and beekeeping in the past to enhance livelihood opportunities in the Himalayan region. People nowadays are not aware that seabuckthorn and mountain risk engineering were originally promoted by ICIMOD and that it was only later that the non-government organizations picked them up and used them successfully, not only in Nepal but also in the region. We’ve also helped to document and promote the experiences of micro-hydro projects for mountains, including developing ‘how to do’ manuals. And we have helped many farmers groups and development organizations to understand and learn new approaches from natural terracing to compost making and water harvesting at our Demonstration and Training Centre at Godavari. This apart, we have introduced innovative projects that have played an important role in biodiversity conservation in the region.

The non-government organizations with whom we work very closely have been very good in absorbing the technologies we have introduced in the past and have spread them at the grass roots level in a much better way than we could do.

How great are the risks of climate change in the Himalayan region? And how well are you preparing the mountain people against the eventual outcome?

Due to receding of glaciers and loss of permafrost, we have an increase in the number of glacial lakes in the Himalayan region. With the increase of glacial lakes, the probability of glacial lake outburst floods has also increased and, concurrently, the loss of glaciers will have serious implications for downstream water resources. This has very clearly increased risks and hazards for millions of people in both regions and we think one of the main roles is to make them aware of this great environmental challenge that we are facing. At the same time we propose measures diminishing these risks. This is just the tip of an iceberg, there is also the whole situation of changing conditions for agriculture, crops that can no longer be grown successfully, new crops that can be introduced, types of housing that are no longer appropriate, and so on. In pasture land, for example, we observe the invasion of new species. Moreover, the erratic availability of water due to changing rain patterns will have long term consequences on the food security and livelihoods of the mountain people.

So our main focus is on disseminating a clear message about climate change. At the same time our role is also to see how the mountain people have traditionally defended themselves from such risks. These challenges in the mountains are not new. The mountain people have always coped with them with great resilience and we want to help them apply these approaches to mitigate the risks of climate change in the Himalayan region, to safeguard the well-being of the mountain communities themselves and to save the beautiful but fragile mountain ecosystem as well. nepalnews.com Jan 13 09

In his written reply to the Supreme Court (SC), Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that the recently introduced five percent additional education tax on private schools is aimed at affluent parents.

He has said that the government’s intention was to obtain tax from families that can afford and use it to help educate students in remote areas and poor families.

The reply says that this is a separate progressive tax and is not at all related with the income tax.

The PM furnished the written reply in response to a writ petition filed against the government’s decision to impose the tax.

Private school operators are enraged and agitated over what they call as imposition of unfair tax. nepalnews.com Dec 17 08

The central committee meeting of the Maoists, Tuesday, concluded by deciding that no two positions should be given for one person.

However, the party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda who is also the prime minister, and coordinator of united revolutionary people’s council Dr. Baburam Bhattarai who is also the finance minister, have been made exceptions.

The CC meeting appointed Dinanath Sharma as the party spokesperson while relieving Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who is also the government spokesperson as Information Minister from that party responsibility.

The meeting also made some changes in the leadership of state committees.

Mohan Baidya Kiran as the chief of party organisation department will be the overall leader of the state committees. nepalnews.com Dec 17 08

Industries based in Parsa and Bara districts have been reeling under a loss of Rs 270 million everyday owing to agitations launched by trade unions, reports The Kathmandu Post.

The workers affiliated to trade unions have unleashed protest demanding a flat increment of Rs 1,300 in their basic remuneration. The entrepreneurs have flatly denied fulfilling the demand raised by labourers terming it as reckless while the trade unions have accused the employers of being reluctant to provide them with their agreed basic facilities.

Notably, the talks initiated between the management and the agitating workers also ended without bearing any fruit on Monday.

It is learnt that a committee has been formed to bridge the rift between the entrepreneurs and the labourers.

Meanwhile, Surya Nepal, a multi-national company that had been closed since Thursday, resumed its operation from Tuesday after the management and representatives of trade unions reached an understanding.

As per the understanding, the company management agreed to provide salary and other allowance of the strike period to the workers.

Similarly, the management expressed readiness to dispel misunderstanding over the agreement reached between the eight workers unions and the FNCCI on November 30.

The FNCCI and the eight workers unions had sealed understanding to fix minimum monthly salary of workers to the tune of Rs 4,600 apart from raising their remuneration as per their grades. nepalnews.com nd Dec 17 08

A team of Indian army personnel arrived in Kathmandu Tuesday looking for a leader of an armed rebel group active in north-eastern Assam and Nagaland state of India, reports Kantipur Daily. The rebel leader is believed to be in a hideout in Kathmandu from the past some time.

Indian army personnel from Assam-based Gurkha Rifles have zeroed in their search for Jwel Garlosa, ‘commander-in-chief’ of an underground ethnic outfit named Dima Halim Dogaha (DHD), in the tourist areas of Kathmandu, the report said. The group is also known as the ‘Black Widows’ and is chiefly involved in carrying out attacks against Indian security personnel including blowing up vital infrastructures like roads and railways in conflict-hit Assam and Nagaland state.

DHD is charged of killing more than 100 security personnel and innocent people in Assam where the group is waging an armed rebellion to carve out a separate state for Dimasa ethnic community in areas of Assam and Nagaland state where they comprise the majority.

It must be noted that undergrounds groups like the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and other rebel groups have been waging a separatist movement in Assam, Nagaland and other north-eastern states of India since decades. Thousands of people have died in their struggle to gain independence from the Indian union.

The Indian army team believes that Garlosa has been running his group from Nepal for the past some time.

“We have reliable information that he (Garlosa) has married a Nepalese girl and has been running a hotel in Thamel or some other parts of Kathmandu,” a member of the Indian army team told Kantipur.

He said they are looking out for Garlosa ‘informally’ as per the information they have received.

“If he is traced we will notify our embassy here and arrest him with the help of Nepal’s security agencies,” he said. “We will then take him with us after fulfilling the necessary legal requirements.”

The government of Nepal has not been formally notified about the arrival of Indian army team.

A senior home ministry official told the daily that he has no information about the arrival of Indian security personnel in Kathmandu, but said that if they seek help then “it will be provided looking at the situation”. nepalnews.com Dec 17 08