TERAI OUTFIT LEADER SHSOT DEAD

Kathmandu. 26 Sept.: Ishtiyak Ahmed Muslman, central committee member of Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha was shot dead Friday night at Gonaha near Bhairahawa.
He was killed in retaliatory firing by police.
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NEPAL TURKEY AIR AGREEEMT

Kathmandu, 26 Sept.: Nepal and Turkey have signed an agreement in Ankara to begin direct air service between the two countries.
Fourteen weekly flights can be operated between the two countries,
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Majority for Sushil camp likely

Kathmandu, 26 Sept: As counting for the votes progressed, at a rather slower pace than expected, the final composition of the Nepali Congress (NC) Central Working Committee (CWC) has become more or less clear, The Kathmandu Post reports.
Though the counting for 39 seats was not complete by 8 pm on Saturday (the time counting was stopped for the day), the picture it gave pointed to a comfortable majority for party President Sushil Koirala’s camp with approximately 55 percent of the seats in the CWC.

The final outcome is also likely to see a return of a majority of old faces. The consolation for Deuba camp is that more new faces have returned there. For the 25 seats in the open contest, the Sushil camp is leading in 14 while the Deuba group is holding on to 11 seats. For the 14 zonal seats, the establishment faction has maintained a lead in nine seats. In the seats reserved for marginalised groups and nationalities, the Deuba faction has already grabbed 12 seats, while 10 establishment candidates have become victorious. If the present lead remains unchanged, the final tally would give the Sushil camp a total of 33 and the Deuba camp 28.

Among the declared winners for the remaining five reserved seats on Saturday, Bishnu Raj Angdambe and Sita Gurung won from the Deuba camp, while Suryaman Gurung, Dhan Raj Gurung and Ratna Sherchan won from the Sushil faction.

Familiar faces leading the vote count include Arjun Narsingh KC, Ram Chandra Poudel, Gagan Thapa, Sujata Koirala, Shekhar Koirala, Ram Sharan Mahat, and Shashank Koirala from the establishment faction, while Khum Bahadur Khadka, Pradeep Giri, Bal Krishna Khand, Minendra Rijal and Prakash Sharan Mahat are leading in the Deuba faction.

If the leads are anything to go by, the CWC will be dominated by a majority of old hands.

The “third faction” has so far failed to win a place on the NC’s top table. Former Foreign Minister Chakra Prasad Bastola, a third front candidate, who was expected to win, was trailing too.

Counting will resume at 8 a.m. on Sunday.



Candiates leading in open competition

Arjun Narsingh KC

Gagan Thapa

Pradip Giri

Khum Bahadur Khadka

Shashank Koirala

Ram Chandra Poudel

Suajata Koirala

Ram Sharan Mahat

N P Saud

Mahesh Acharya

Bal Krishna Khad

Prakash Sharan Mahat

Gopal Man Shrestha

Minendra Rijal

Shekhar Koirala

Krishna Sitaula

Purna Bahadur Khadka

Chandra Bhandari

Narayan Khadka

Gyanendra Bahadur Karki

Kul Bahadur Gurung

Bal Bahadur KC

G P Chiring Lama

Shankhar Bhadari

Gobinda Raj Joshi



Zonal seats

1. Mechi - Narendra Bikram Nembang

2. Koshi - Amod Prasad Upadhya

3. Sagarmatha - Ram Kumar Chaudhary

4. Janakpur- Ananda Prasad Dhungana

5. Bagmati - Nabindra Raj Joshi

6. Narayani- Ramesh Rijal

7. Gandaki - Surendra Pandey

8. Lumbini - Krishna Chandra Nepal

9. Dhaulagiri - Arjun Joshi

10. Rapti - Dipak Giri

11. Karnali - Jiwan Bahadur Shahi

12. Bheri - Kishor Singh Rathor

13. Seti - Badri Pandey

14. Mahakali - Dilendra Prasad Badu

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PM NEPAL EXPRESSES CONCERN
Kathmandu, 26 Sept. : Prime Minister Madav Kumar Nepal has expressed concern towards the security of business community members here on Monday, RSS reports from Parsa..

The Prime Minister poured out such concern while meeting a delegation of Birgunj Chamber of Commerce and Industry at Hotel Viswa.

On the occasion, Prime Minister Nepal pledged that he is ready to take any steps in favour of industrialists so as to make investment-friendly environment in the country, informed Birgunj Chamber Chair Om Prakash Sikariya after the meeting with the Prime Minister.

In the meeting, Prime Minister Nepal apprised on the business community that the government is mulling to establish separate industrial security force after holding consultations among the parties

The Prime Minister also articulated his concern over the closure of big industries in Birgunj corridor, informed industrialists, who participated in the meeting.

Business community members drew attention of the Prime Minister regarding security along with various problems they have been facing.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nepal directed Parsa Chief District Officer Nagendra Jha to ensure smooth public service delivery.
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CHINESE GOODS DEARER IN FESTIVE SEASON

Kathmandu, 26 Sept.: A large segment of Nepali consumers who go for cheaper supplies coming from China could have a setback this festive season, Republica reports.
Importers and wholesalers of Chinese goods informed Republica that the prices of such goods will go up at least 15 percent his season—thanks to price hikes by the Chinese suppliers themselves and frequent obstruction of the Arniko highway, the main overland import route.
‘Both internal and external factors have contributed to jack up the prices,” said traders. Among the internal reasons, frequent obstruction of Arniko Highway has caused substantial delay in delivery of shoes and garments—items on high demand during Dasaain, adding cost to importers and wholesalers.
Apart from that, garment prices in China have itself increased 27 to 40 percent, said readymade garment wholesaler Arjun Karki..
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DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS
Kathmandu, 23 Sept.: The recent troubles of two journalists have put the spotlight on the new pains gripping the profession. Not that the tribe ever really had it easy in Nepal. Under the Ranas, the only place where the dissemination of news and views stood a chance was in exile. The dawn of democracy promised to bring a new morning for the fourth estate. Publications competed with politicians to capture the public domain. Newspapers became instruments to attain power as well as places to settle scores after the fall.
With the rise of the Panchayat system, the press and the parties fell together. But a new breed of scribes came up. The joie de vivre of the private-sector papers compensated for the staidness of the government press. Many editors masqueraded as critics of the partyless system, while the real crusaders were hurting.
If the palace press secretariat emerged as the chief national editorial board, it did its job with some semblance of order. In the 1960s, one key official was an academic while another had a degree in journalism. The man at the top during much of the 1970s and 1980s at least came to the job with a letter to the editor published in TIME magazine in defense of the crown.
The year of the referendum brought a new spring. Although the Panchayat system got a decade-long extension, the papers, like the still-banned parties, refused to let go of their freedoms. Opposition grew from within the liberal flank of the Panchayat system and was reflected in the weekly press.
When a pancha-cum-turned journalist was shot, the clumsiness of the perpetrator did not diminish the arrival of the new peril. But you still had legions of boisterous men in safari suits raking in their Dasain allowances and government advertisements, while the real opposition was toiling away. So these latter journalists participated as well as covered the movement to restore multiparty democracy in 1990.
The advent of private-sector media houses brought a new breed of young and enterprising people who tended to consider themselves only behind the king, queen and crown prince in the national order of precedence. (Not Maila Baje’s characterization but an actual assertion by a member of that group, made with a tinge of cynicism.)
Times had changed in less assuring ways. A Maoist editor was one of the early high-profile victims of that convulsion. In the aftermath of the Narayanhity carnage, the editor of the largest daily was arrested for printing an opinion piece by a top Maoist. It was perfidious alright but also provided a critical foray into the geopolitical maneuvering preceding the tragedy.
When a tabloid printed that damaging picture that forced the ostensible subject, an aspiring actress, to commit suicide, the editor’s life seemed to hang in the balance. Shortly thereafter, Nepal turned into an internationally certified death zone for journalists.
Sadly, journalists continue to lose their lives. But the increasing danger is one of a death by a thousand cuts. An editor who also happens to be an advisor to the vice-president, who has not endeared him to anyone, is arrested for having printed an advertisement for recruitment in a banned armed outfit.
Another reporter, visible on the increasingly rancorous water resources beat for a leading daily, is prosecuted for sexually harassing a co-worker. There are just too many holes. The story behind the stories is probably already having a chilling effect in the trade.
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RESULTS OF WHAT IS SOWN
That some of our political leaders are clamoring against what they suddenly see as foreign interference makes dull reading. Every now and then these politicians wake up to note the blatant prevalence of foreign interference. This has been going on since 60 years and will continue to be likewise for long, Trilak Vastavik writes in People’s Review/.
There is little doubt that foreign powers have made Nepal their playground. The Americans want to use the China card through the latter’s soft underbelly, Tibet. For the first five decades since the 1950s, it was communist ideology that the US and its Western allies feared and abhorred. Their fears could be gauged from the manner in which they ostracized their own citizens who gave any hint of calling for greater social welfare measures and benefits for the economically poor class.
There is no such thing as caste system in the Western world. But they have a rigid class system that stinks raw. The Cold War years saw academics, artistes, writers, entrepreneurs and such other professionals suffer from persecutions of numerous forms for their political views. Quite a few of them were maltreated merely on suspicions and allegations.
In the 1990s, the Berlin Wall was brought down, and East and West Germanys reunited. Perhaps, China would not have attracted much attention by then, considering that the Soviet Union had broken up into a dozen independent states and Beijing had since the 1980s begun adapting market economy with great caution but definite action that produced results. The pressure on Beijing would have been there but not to the extent the Western media and governments have been mounting.
The rise of a communist country emerging as the world No. 2 economy and overtaking Japan this year and, according to the World Bank and American economists, expecting to take the world No. 1 spot within the next two decades gives heartaches to the US and other Western countries. In fact, these countries are at a loss as to how to describe the Chinese success story considering the free market economy that Beijing has begun adopting at great speed to become competitive.
But to say that China has shed its communist ideology would be far from the truth. The West, too, would not like to do that. Likewise, to say that a “communist economy” has guided that country to become the world’s No. 2 economic powerhouse would also be unpalatable.
China’s gradual economic reforms in the last 30 years paid off rich dividends. In less than 20 years the world’s largest population will also be the No. 1 economy, a “communist” system outstripping the very best of capitalists’ capital. The prospect is not very relishing for especially China’s rivals within and outside its immediate region.
With such development, it is no surprise that an Indian lieutenant general responsible for the northwestern state of India’s Kashmir was refused a visa to travel to China last month. This caused an outrage in India’s main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “This is the worst kind of insult inflicted upon India,” reacted a BJP spokesman.
India wanted to protest the presence of Chinese troops in Azad Kashmir recently. Instead of summoning the Chinese ambassador accredited to New Delhi, the Indian government preferred to submit a formal letter to Beijing, for which a Chinese vice-minister gave an audience. That was no warm gesture but then New Delhi could not afford to complain, as it was diplomatically a correct move. The Indian government can reciprocate in like manner but it does not seek to match the Chinese gesture for good or worse.
India and China have border disputes in Kashmir and the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The two countries fought a short war in 1962. The presence of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in India has contributed to an atmosphere of suspicion in Beijing.
Beijing sends strong signals every now and then indicating the level of bilateral ties with New Delhi. Two years ago, the Chinese government summoned the Indian envoy to Beijing at an unearthly hour after 01:00 hours. The Indian government could have used the occasion to protest against the presence of the Chinese troops in Azad Kashmir to summon the Chinese ambassador residing at New Delhi’s Chankyapuri. But it preferred to maintain “quiet diplomacy”.
In fact, South Block is known for parceling out briefings to Delhi-based Indian correspondents and editors at special briefings, known as “deep backgrounder” to attack Beijing’s “undiplomatic” acts. But it preferred maintaining silence to exhibiting valor.
India and China have been recording dramatic growth in bilateral trade in the last decade. But this does not indicate the intensity of the actual state of rivalry and competition between the two neighboring countries that account for one-third of the world’s total population. That every third man or woman on Earth is either a Chinese or an Indian speaks for the potential for cooperation and also underscores difficulties if the two failed to main necessary working relationship.
And in Nepal, political leaders have no qualms of bending over backwards to please foreign forces. Any third rate foreign team or an envoy is given a royal treatment in a country that is supposed to be a republic while the guests unhesitatingly throw to the winds minimum diplomatic niceties. Foreign embassies based in Colombo or Dhaka, let alone Islamabad, dare not issue the sort of statements their counterparts in Kathmandu do as a matter of habit and easily get away with the same.
Any Indian ambassador to Kathmandu has been treating the government and the many obliging political leaders of the host country in a casual manner. The various INGOs that press ahead with their agendas through mushrooming NGOs in Nepal choose to pursue any dubious cause they otherwise would not take up in the rest of South Asia with such audacity. Bangladesh, too, is known for tens of thousands of NGOs but NGOs in Nepal outperform their Bangaldeshi counterparts in this respect.
It was the Marich Man Singh government that first summoned the Indian ambassador to register its protest against government’s policies towards Nepal back in 1989. No other government in a supposedly more democratic set-up has been able to match the action. Judging from the recent trend, the prospect of some government emulating Marich Man is getting remoter than ever before.
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