Seven buried alive in Kalikot landslide

Kathmandu, 31 Aug.:. Seven members of a family and guests were killed overnight at 11.30 when a landslide buried them in their sleep at … in Kalikot.
Five children were among the dead.
The village in five hours walk from district headquarters,
Nnnn

UML lawmaker arrested

Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: UML lawmaker Doll BahadurKarki was arrested by a special team of CIAA for taking a promising people jobs in police.
Karki is also chief of Chettri Samaj promoting interests of the community.
Speaker Subash Nemwang was informed of the arrest
Nnnn

Govt. to amend finance act

Kathmandu, 31 Aug.; The cabinet approved a bill Monday to the finance act 2009/10 to be registered Tuesday in parliament which isn’t in session.
The bill will be tables in the legislature 5 September—the day elections will be held the sixth time to elect a prime minister.
The amended bill will empower government to regulate and raise tariff on gold import and other goods.
The government hasn’t presented the annual budget 2010/11
in parliament even until the end of August because of a deadlock between ruling parties and. Main opposition Maoists.
Nnnn

Two Tibetans arrested

Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: Tibetan leaders Kelsaig Deldup,33, and Tashi Dawa, 23, were arrested in the capital Monday.
They are actively involved in anti-China activities, according to police.
Deldup is chairman of New Age Network.
Nnnn

Valley disposal again disrupted

Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: Disposal of tons of Valley garbage was again disrupted Tuesday a week after municipal authorities began cleaing the streets of the thee cities following a three-point 65th agreement with Sisdole residents landfill site in Nuwakot.
Residents of Ratomato in the district turned back 10 trucks of garbage demanding facilities like Sisdole residents from the Valley’s municipal authorities.
Nnnn

Niranjan Bhattarai dead

Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: Former Ambassador to Pakistan Niranjan Bhattarai, 71, died Sunday.
The retired career diplomat was fluent in Chinese.
He left behind a wife and three sons.
Nnnn

Terai militant shot dead
Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: Arjun Pandit, Parsa district in-charge of Madesh Muki Tigers (Rajan group) was shot dead in a police encounter in the district Sunday night.
Police raided a house where bombs were being manufactured.
Nnnn
Army, UNMIN chief hold discussions
Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: Army Chief Gen. Chatraman Singh Gurung Monday held discussions with UNMIN Chief Karin Landgren at army headquarters.
Gurung told Landgren as an army contributing troops for UN peacekeeping operations, Nepal Army (NA) regarded UN neutrality and impartiality highly.
The meeting came at a time when NA is dissatisfied with UNMIN operations and has even asked the government to send back the UN political agency.
NA has boycotted three consecutive meetings of the joint monitoring coordination committee headed by UNMIN and consisting of NA and PLA representatives after the agency said the army violated a comprehensive peace agreement by recruitment to fill in vacancies approved by the supreme court.
nnnn

Former Crown Princess Himani in Dolakha

Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: Former Crown Princess Himani is to inaugurate a drinking project constructed by Rashtriya Sarokar Manch Nepal and distribute pipes and tanks in Dolakha where she will offer puja at Bageshwori and Tripirasundari temples.
She is staying a t a resort in Charikot where she arrived Monday.
Himani has become active in social service after her husband former Crown Prince announced he returned home from Singapore to activate monarchy that was toppled two years ago.
nnnn
Sujata Koirala to talk ‘media meddling’ with Sood
Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala on Monday said she will hold talks with the Indian Ambassador on the controversial press statement issued by the embassy, which the media fraternity here has said violates press freedom, The Kathmandu Post reports from Biratnagar..

Koirala’s response comes at a time when some Indian media outlets have been accusing the Nepali media of intensifying a campaign against Indian joint ventures and distorting the Indian embassy’s concerns.

In a press meet organised by the Morang chapter of Nepal Press Union at her residence in Biratnagar, Koirala said, “After returning to the capital, I will discuss this problem with Indian Ambassador Rakesh Sood.”

She said no one should meddle in the affairs of the media.

She, however, added that the media should be equally responsible and avoid dissemination of wrong information.

Drawing upon her father, the late Girija Prasad Koirala’s life-long struggle for press freedom, Koirala said she will follow in the footsteps of her father as “democracy will be meaningless without press freedom.”

Koirala, who is also the deputy prime minister, noted that things like insects found in packets of juice produced by the Indian joint venture Dabur would do no good to Nepali as well as Indian consumers.

In response to journalists’ query on the increasing intervention of the Indian Embassy in Nepali media, Koirala said she will discuss the issue with the ambassador.
nnnn
Nepal, India security talks
Kathmandu, 31 Aug,: Security officials of Nepal and India have agreed to exchange information in order to check criminal activities taking place in the bordering area, RSS reports from Bhairahawa.
An agreement to this end was reached at a meeting of security officers of Nepal and India held at Sunauli of India on Monday.
At the meeting agreement was reached on matters relating to control of trans-border crimes, smuggling of arms and illegal drugs among other issues of border security, Chief District Officer (CDO) of Rupandehi Taranath Gautam said.
An agreement was also reached to inspect the encroachment of the no-man's-land and the border pillars, and to restore them back to order, he said.
Nnnn

India to take on Nepali FM stations in border region

Kathmandu, 31 Aug.: The Indian government is shortly setting up FM radio services at the Nepal-India border in Bihar to counter the popularity Nepali channels enjoy in the region, according to the Times of India report printed in The Himalayan Times..

The report published on Monday said the Indian government had last cleared a proposal to set up FM radio relay centres in Bihar’s border districts of Bettiah, Motihari and Madhubani.

Stating that Nepali FM radio is very popular in the villages of these districts, the newspaper quoted an official as explaining, "People are not able to tune in to Indian radio stations, but they are able to connect to Nepalese radio stations easily.”

The daily also said that security agencies had twice warned the government that Nepali FM stations could be misused by Maoists — or even Pak militants — for anti-India propaganda.

The Indian information and broadcasting ministry recently approved expenditure of Rs 100 crore to strengthen Indian transmission signals at the Jammu and Kashmir border to ensure that the signals are stronger than anything beamed from the other side, the daily quoted a ministry official as saying.

Apart from improving transmission and transformer capacity at the border, the ministry has also asked Doordarshan and AIR officials to plan and mount programmes on a regular basis to counter any foreign misinformation campaign, it said quoting a senior intelligence official.
Nnnn

MEDIA GOOGLE

“The NC has sacrificed a lot to bring the Maoists to the mainstream and legalize their politics. Now we cannot surrender by providing them whatever they want in a series.”

(NC Acting President Sushil Koirala, The Himalayan Times, 31 Aug.)

“Some are accusing the UML of standing in the way of government formation by staying neutral in the voting, but I want to refute them. The two candidates are the ones who have been held the country hostage.”

(UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal, Republica, 31 Aug.)
nnnn