At least five people died in flood-related incidents in Morang and Kailali districts on Tuesday.

In Morang, two persons were swept away by the swelling Sindhiya Khola while another person was drowned in floodwaters in Jhodahat. In the same district, one person was swept away by Bakraha River.

Similarly, one villager got drowned in floodwater in Lalbojhi of the far-western Kailali district.

More than 80 people have already lost their lives in floods and landslides across the country.

The Ministry of Education has unveiled its plans, programmes and budget for the current fiscal year 2007/08.

At a press meet on Saturday, Minister for Education and Sports Pradeep Nepal introduced 32-point policy. The policy aims to make 104,000 more people literate and provide post-literacy education to 50,000 people.

The Ministry policy also aims to expand the campaign to hand over schools to community during this period.

The policy also promises subsidies to the community-managed schools or those that are in the process of being handed over in the recruitment of 8000 teachers at primary level, 2500 teachers at lower secondary level and 1500 teachers at secondary level.

“Such teachers will be appointed through open competition. The school management committees will give priority to women, Dalit and disabled when making such appointments,” said Nepal. He informed that the government will provide grant up to Rs 645,000 to community-run schools if they are interested in constructing school buildings in cost partnership basis.

“In order to bring in uniformity in the operation and control of the universities, we are preparing to introduce an Umbrella Act,” he said, adding that the government would set up one university each in far west and mid west region as well as initiate efforts to convert Rampur Agriculture Campus in Chitwan into Agriculture and Forestry University within this fiscal year.

Nearly 80,000 people of 16,000 families have been displaced due to floods and landslides in different parts of the country.

According to the Home Ministry’s Central Natural Disaster Rescue and Relief Coordination Centre, altogether 72 people have died in floods and landslides. Officials said the government had speeded up the rescue and relief efforts in the flood-hit areas in Terai districts with the help of security agencies and other organisations.

Four Nepal Army helicopters and one each helicopter from the UNMIN and Simrik Air are being mobilised for distribution of relief materials in flood-hit areas in Terai.

Officials also informed that the relief amount for the families of the victims of natural calamities had been increased to Rs 25,000 each from the earlier Rs 15,000.

At least nine flood-related deaths were reported Sunday alone. Reports said four persons died in Siraha, two each in Mahottari and Bara while the body of a child missing in floods in Rautahat was recovered today.

Additionally, there were unconfirmed reports of five children of a same family in Nawalparasi being swept away in floods.

Nepali Congress MP Dilli Raj Sharma has passed away on Sunday morning in Lamjung.

The lawmaker hailing from Parbat district number two constituency, Sharma, died of heart attack at Lamjung community hospital. He was 60 years old. He is survived by his wife and one son.

Sharma had gone to Lamjung in order to inspect local jails along with a team of MPs and other activists.

Sharma’s body is being brought to Kathmandu this afternoon. His body will be kept at NC party headquarters in Sanepa for paying last tributes.

Speaker of the interim parliament Subas Nemwang has expressed shock and grief over the death of Sharma. The parliament is expected to pass a condolence proposal expressing sorrow at his death, on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the meeting of Nepali Congress parliamentary party taking place at Baluwatar on Sunday morning also expressed sorrow at Sharma’s death. The meeting was organised to discuss the unification of Congress, among other issues.

Repeated warning from Nepal Rastra Bank and trade analysts that the bullish trend seen at the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) from the past some months was ‘unjustified rise’ and that it had overheated due to ‘rumour-driven trend’ and possible manipulation in share prices of commercial banks seems to have finally worked as the stock market saw a massive slow-down in its growth, gaining only 0.18 points this week.

The Nepse index opened at 687.65 points at the beginning of the week and ended at 687.83 points on Thursday, the last day of trading. According to trade analysts, the same commercial banks which had contributed towards skyrocketing share prices had pulled the index down.

The weekly turnover stood at Rs 392.4 million with 591,776 units of shares having been traded throughout the week, against last week’s figure of Rs 393.5 million through the trading of 506,943 unit shares.

The group wise share trading analysis shows that commercial banks’ group were the losers while the hotel, hydropower and insurance groups reported strong growth.

The commercial bank group, which was persistently driving the whole stock market up for the past weeks, registered a fall of 5.51 points. The group’s index closed at 774.04 points, down from 779.55 points.

On the other hand, the hydropower group registered an impressive growth of 31.53 points to close at 998.44 points. The group, which had gained a whopping three-digit growth last week, has begun its trading at 966.51 points this week.

Likewise, the insurance group, too, managed a double-digit growth of 23.50 points.

At a time when political parties are facing all sorts of criticisms for not being able to make a conducive environment for election to constituent assembly, CPN-UML, one of the main coalition partners, has started to ‘appease’ Madhesis or people of terai origin for votes.

In a mass gathering of Madheshi people living in Kathmandu, Saturday, CPN-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, who himself represents a terai constituency, called on all Madhesis to cast votes in favour of his party and also “engage in publicity campaign’ for the same. Reiterating his previous stance that there is no other option to the constituent assembly election, he asked all Madheshi people gathered there to cast their votes on ‘sun’, the party’s election symbol, during the constituent assembly election scheduled for November 22.

Nepal also used the opportunity to request the armed groups operating in terai to announce a ceasefire and immediately come to the negotiating table. He said that since the constituent assembly is tipped to promote the agenda of state restructuring, there is no meaning of putting any pre-condition before it.

The anarchy in Terai has not only led to increased violence and ethnic tension, but there are also growing number of armed robberies in night buses heading towards eastern districts from Kathmandu.

Early Sunday morning, two passenger buses bound for the east were robbed in Saptari district, on the East-West Highway.

Reports said that a group of about a dozen armed looters forcefully gained entry into two passenger buses along the Khojpur-Amhiya section of the highway; kept the passengers at gunpoint and made away with their cash, wristwatches, mobile phone sets and other belongings.

The passenger buses belonged to Makalu and Sita Travels and were bound for eastern towns of Bhadrapur and Kakadvitta respectively, according to police.

As per initial estimate the robbers made away with 25 mobile sets, 15 Tolas of gold jewelries and Rs 220,000 in cash from the passengers

One passenger named Anamber Khad from Kalyanpur of Sapari district got injured after receiving serious battering as he dared to take on the armed looters single-handedly to resist the looting.

Although the government has said it has intensified relief and rescue operations in flood-hit areas it still hasn’t been quite effective.

As incessant rain continues to aggravate the situation in flood-hit areas of Terai region, government’s rescue works have been seriously affected, leaving the flood victims in serious want of food, safe drinking water, clothes and accommodations.

According to Baman Prasad Nepane, spokesperson at the Home Ministry, the government has intensified the distribution of relief materials in flood and landslides affected areas, but he admitted that bad weather conditions have caused some difficulty in carrying out rescue operations in some districts.

As eastern and central Terai region has witnessed heavy rainfall today morning also rescue teams are facing all sorts of difficulties on the ground.

According to the Department of Meteorology, the downpour will continue as there are still many days left for the monsoon season to end.

In the face of difficulties, the government has deployed the army, Armed Police Force and Nepal Police to carry out rescue operations in flood and landslide affected districts.

More than three dozen people have died in floods, while thousands of families have been displaced in Terai districts. At least 10 deaths were reported on Sunday.

Floods have badly affected life in districts like Jhapa, Morang, Siraha, Sarlahi, Udaypur, Bara, Parsa, Rautahat, Mahottari, Dhanusha and Saptari while western districts like Banke, Bardiya and Kailali have also witnessed death and destruction.

Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress (NC) has constituted Relief and Rescue Committee headed by party general secretary K.B Gurung Sunday in order to intensify rescue efforts in flood-hit areas.

A meeting of NC Central Working Committee (CWC) held at Prime Minister’s residence today morning formed the committee. The committee also decided to collect donations, keep record of the loss of lives and property in floods and landslides and will also mobilise its local activists for providing immediate relief to the victims.

The meeting has also asked the government to intensify rescue efforts in the affected districts.

Meanwhile, the CPN (Maoist) has also directed the party’s youth wing, Young Communist League, to involve in rescue and relief operations in flood-hit areas.

Similarly, the Nepal Medical Association (NMA) has decided to work with the government to mitigate the outbreak of disease in the flood-hit districts.

The association has called on all doctors and health-workers associated with it to be ready to take on the challenge of providing immediate health service in the affected areas.

At least 12 villagers, mostly children, have died in an outbreak of diarrhoea in two VDCs of Salyan district since Thursday.

The deaths were reported in Ward no. 6, 4 and 2 of Kalagaon VDC and Ward no. 4 of Marmaparikanda VDC.

Several others have been suffering from diarrhoea caused by polluted drinking water. Lack of toilets in the villages is causing fast spread of the disease, reports say.

Following complaints of lack of medicines in local health posts, the District Public Health Office has sent a team of health workers to the affected areas with medicines.

An emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers Sunday decided to release Rs 50 million as immediate relief to flood and landslides victims across the country.

The half-hour cabinet meeting held at the Prime Minister’s residence in Baluwatar in the afternoon came up with the decision. Minister for Information and Communication Krishna Bahadur Mahara told reporters that all cabinet members had decided to donate seven percent of their one month salary to the flood victims.

The cabinet meeting also decided to appeal to national and international donors to contribute to the government’s relief efforts.

The emergency cabinet meeting came in the wake of widespread devastation and loss of lives in several Terai districts due to flash floods caused by heavy rainfall over the last few days.