Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) leader and former Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand has said a serious discussion between the political parties and the King was the need of the hour to resolve the problems of the country.
Speaking at a program in the capital on Saturday, former premier Chand said, “There is no alternative to talks if we expect to solve the problem. If that is so, both sides must go ahead, not lag behind.”
He also reinforced the view that since a solution can be expected only at the end of the much needed consensus among all political forces, there was no point in any delay.
He did not elaborate nor did he comment on the scenario following US President George Bush’s statement.
Meanwhile, speaking at another program in the capital, RPP chairman Pashupati Shumshere JB Rana has said that release of political detainees is a pre-condition for the talks between the King and the political parties.
He further said that the problem dogging the country could be resolved by bringing the Maoists into the mainstream of politics through talks after forming an all-party government with consensus between the King and the political parties.
Three people were seriously injured when a bomb planted by Maoists exploded at Baurakot area of Bajhang district of the far western region.
A press statement issued by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said 50 year old Hausa Singh, her pregnant daughter-in-law Amrita and three year old Rukma were injured in the explosion.
The statement further said that security forces rescued them and sent to District Health Office Chainpur for treatment.
Likewise, Maoists abducted a team of District Health Office officials including doctors who were heading towards Thosae bazaar of Ramechap district for a health camp on March 2.
Maoists also abducted an unarmed army man from Kandae area of Terathum district, the statement added.
A report from western town of Dang said Maoists shot dead a constable of the National Investigation Department, Pushkar Chaudhari, in Tulsipur municipality of Dang district on Saturday.
Maoists had abducted Chaudhari, a resident of Hekuli-6 Dang on Friday.
The dead body of Chaudhari was found at a nursery in Tulsipur municipality-11, Bagartole on Saturday evening.
Meanwhile, a report from eastern town of Biratnagar said Maoists abducted three employees of the area forest office, Jantae.
The abducted employees are ranger Surendra Prashad Yadav, forestry assistant Hem Sagar Neupane and guard Dilli Ram MIshra.
The export of readymade garments, one of the largest foreign currency earners of the Eastern Region, has dropped by around 48 percent during the first six months of this fiscal year, according to newspaper reports.
The latest data of Trade Promotion Center (TPC), Eastern Region shows that readymade garments worth Rs 1.13 billion were exported during that period, down from the export of Rs 2.19 billion in the review period of last year.
With a decline in exports, local industries are facing serious challenges for their survival. Around a dozen industries have downed shutters while four dozen more have reduced production by 50 percent due to lack of access to market, the Kathmandu Post quoted entrepreneurs as saying.
An entrepreneur said the industries in the Eastern Region have a capacity to produce 50 million unit pieces of readymade garments annually, but the actual production is just 20 million unit pieces.
Report quoted Dilip Kumar Aryal, manager at the TPC, as saying that if the government does not take initiatives to explore international markets for readymade garments, the existing industries will be pushed to the brink of closure.
The export of readymade garments decreased by 41 percent in 2005, following the termination of quota free access to Nepalese readymade garments from 1 January 2005.
Likewise, the downward move of the export of Nepalese readymade garments continues in 2006 as well recording a fall of 8 percent in the month of January.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has protested the arrest and ill-treatment of Bhawana Prasain, a woman journalist of monthly Majdur Aawaj, arrested on February 9 on the charges of being a Maoist.
In a statement issued on Friday, the Paris-based press freedom organisation said, “She has been detained since 9 February 2006 and was beaten by police trying to force her to confess membership of the Maoist party.”
Over the past two days, police also arrested Jaya Prakash Gupta and Amar Bahadur Sunar, the statement added.
“Yet again, a journalist has been arrested and accused without any proof of being a Maoist. It is disgraceful to see the police implicated in these acts of torture to force confessions,” the press freedom organisation said.
“We call for Bhawana Prasain’s immediate release,” it added.
The RSF also called for the immediate release of Gupta, editor of the daily Upatyaka Sandhyakalin and the weekly Dishanirdesh, who was arrested on the morning of 3 March and Sunar, correspondent in Dailekh in western Nepal for the government news agency RSS and the national daily Rajdhani, who was arrested by police on 2 March.
The Department for International Development (DFID), United Nations Development Programme and Richmond Fellowship will jointly run a syringe exchange programme (drop in centers) for female drug users of Kathmandu and Lalitpur district, reports said.
Annapurna Post quoted senior programme officer of the UNDP, Imana Lohar, as saying that over 150 female drug users will be distributed syringes through this programme. The user has to submit the used syringe if she wants a new one and one person will be given only two syringes a day, she added.
The seven month long project may be extended if the programme is deemed effective, Lohar said. The organisers said 30 women drug users have already contacted them for the service, with many more expected.
The project aims at reducing the harms of communicable diseases through exchanged syringes. The women drug users will also get counseling on primary health care, safer sex habits and kicking the drug habit.
The number of women drug users has been increasing in the valley, but they are not coming forward to receive treatment due to fear of the society.
Initially the programme aims to provide support to 150 women, but will be extended to cover over 800 men and women drug users in the future.
According to Richmond Fellowship, there are over 500 women drug users in Kathmandu valley. 150 of them use syringe to inject drugs. Research have shown that infection of various diseases is high through transfusion of blood when the same syringe is being used by a number of people. There are around 70,000 drug users in Nepal and 40 percent of them use syringe to inject drugs. A report by Family Health International (FHI) states that 69 percent of injecting drug users in Kathmandu valley have been infected by HIV/AIDS.
The index of Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index showed an increment of two points over the week.
The weekly share trading at the country’s sole secondary market rose to 339.58 points up from 337.58 points.
The leading groups including commercial banks, development banks, manufacturing groups, insurance group and finance group posted growth while hotels, trade and others group remained constant.
The Nepse index posted a growth of 7.56 points in previous week.
According to the Nepse, a total of 168,614 units of shares worth Rs 94,962,588 were traded through 1,157 transactions during the week.
A total of 99,313 units of shares worth Rs 49,849,953 were traded through 991 transactions the previous week.
The index of commercial banks group that opened at 375.64 points on Sunday went up to 377.86 points on the closing day.
Likewise, manufacturing group index moved up from 286.32 points to 286.86 points, insurance group reached 343.75 points from 342.05 points and development banks moved up from 280.82 points to 288.50 points.
The weekly trading report shows that the indices of the trading groups, hotel and others remained constant at 148.07, 183.55 and 345.39 points respectively.
Of the total transactions that took place during the week, the commercial banks group captured a total of 79.99 percent share. The development banks had 16.33 percent while the finance group had 1.38 percent share.
The identity card system that was enforced in the Jamunaha check post in the western town of Nepalgunj since November 1st at the Nepal-India border has been ineffective due to lack of proper security arrangement.
The problem emerged after the Jamunaha Police check post was closed following the Maoist attack at the post.
The identity card checking was halted for two weeks following the attack. It then resumed near the custom office from the first week of February, which is not at the border due to security reasons.
Nepal Samacharpatra daily quoted deputy chief of the immigration office Dharma Raj Neupane as saying, “Due to the insecurity in Jamunaha, the identity card check point has been shifted temporarily. Security arrangements are being made in the region and we will soon resume checking the identity cards at the border.”
Neupane further said, “The employees are stationed all day to check the identity cards but if people move along without showing their identity cards, who will stop them? We have stationed our employees to check the identity cards but if the people do not cooperate then we cannot do anything.”
Rajendra Adhikari, chief of the immigration office informed that the preparation for the resumption of the disrupted identity card check at the border is in its final stage. He said, “The administration, security agencies and the concerned authorities have been working to resume the checking.”
The government of Nepal and India had implemented identity card checking system for the first time in Jamunaha checkpoint to stop the illegal activities in the border area.
The Children Welfare Organisation Makwanpur rescued two children, forced to live a miserable life, from an Indian circus.
They were rescued from Royal Circus in the Indian state of Kerala and brought to Hetuda on Thursday.
Report quoted Khot Raj Mainali, chief of Children Welfare Organisation Makwanpur as saying that 12 year old Arun Ghalan of Amlekhgunj in Bara district and 14 year old Durga Maya Rumba of Padampokhari in Makwanpur district were rescued from a circus with the help of various human rights organisation of India.
At a time when the government and the Maoists have been imposing curfews in different parts of the country citing various reasons, local people of Kanchanpur in far western region have also imposed a curfew.
Local people of Krishnapur village of Kanchanpur district, on the initiation of the Navadurga Tole Improvement Committee, declared curfew from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. with effect from March 03, according to reports.
The locals announced the notice of curfew from the local Ghodaghodi FM after the increasing number of robbery and lootings in the area.
The notice stated that those who have to travel during the time of curfew should receive permission from Navadurga Tole Improvement committee or face action.
Though the notice said people violating the curfew will be taken into control for necessary action, it did not mention the type of punishment.
The state-owned Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has doubled the load-shedding hours in the country from the current 17 hours to 35 hours per week per household, effective from Saturday citing high power demand and low generation by power plants.
Under the new arrangement, each household will face load-shedding twice every day, for a total of five hours.
Talking to Nepalnews, spokesperson at the NEA Birendra Pathak said that fast depleting water levels at the storage type Kulekhani-I and Kulekhani-II projects, extremely low output from run-of-river projects, and an abrupt rise in power demand in the Terai region due to fast rising mercury were instrumental in forcing NEA to take this measure.
NEA’s projected power demand for this month was 7.8 million units per day. The actual demand is 8.2 million units. There is a shortage of 1.3 million units per day, he added.
He informed that NEA will review the load shedding hours after analyzing the water level in rivers.
He further informed that there was no hope of addressing the problem immediately as there were no additional power projects in the pipeline except the 70 megawatt Middle Marsyangdi project, expected to be operational by the end of 2007 if everything goes well.
In the second week of January this year, during a meeting between Nepalese officials and officials of the Power Trade Corporation of India held in New Delhi, India had agreed to provide 50 megawatt of electricity to Nepal but Nepal is yet to benefit from the agreement as both the sides are yet to finalize the tariff rate, according to officials.
This is the first time the country will be facing extended load-shedding since the 144 megawatt Kali Gandaki ‘A’ became fully operational in 2002.
The long hour of load shedding is affecting every sector of the country. The industrial sector of the country is facing very hard days due to the long hour of load shedding.
Industrialist Rajendra Kumar Khetan said that the provision of load shedding will increase production cost by 1 to 5 percent, which will reduce competitive strength of Nepalese goods.
“We cannot compete in the regional and global level at a time when we became a part of the regional and global trading arrangements, due to the high production cost and expensive raw material,” he added.
Niranjan Subedi, a Bachelor level student at the Tri-Chandra Multiple Campus, who is preparing for the final year exam slated for next month, said he was facing difficulties in his studies due to the long hours of load shedding.
“Mostly I am affected from the evening load shedding, it has direct negative impact in my study.”
He did not let the chance go to express his dissatisfaction with the government and said, “The government is not serious about the problem of common people and is only devoted to prolong its tenure in the office.”
One of the operators of cyber café at Buddhanagar said her business had gone down drastically in the recent days due to irregular supply of electricity.