BICMERAL LEGISLATURE AT CENTER

Kathmandu, 1 March: An agreement was reached Tuesday on a bicameral legislature at the center at a five-member sub-committee on constitution drafting headed by Chairman Prachanda.
There’ll be unicameral legislature at provinces in a proposed federal structure, Maoist leader Deb Gurung said.
The sub-committee formed Monday under the main constitution drafting committee held discussions on a legislative structure,
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FIRE DESTROYS 20 HOUSES IN BANKE

Kathmandu, 1 March: A fire overnight destroyed 20 houses at Gangapur in Banke causing widespread damage.
All houses in the settlement were reduced to cinders.
There were no human casualties.
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FORMER CROWN PRINCE VISITS KRISHNA PRASAD BHATTARAI

Kathmandu, 1 March: Former Crown Prince Paras visited ailing Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, 87, at Norvic Hospital Monday afternoon.
The former prime minister is undergoing treatment for bronchitis, conjunctive heart failure and chronic renal failure.
Paras spent more than 20 minutes at the hospital and inquired about Bhattarai’s condition.
Dr. Shyam Bahadur Pandey said Bhattarai can’t be discharged as yet.
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WOMAN APPOINTED JOINT SECRETARY IN FOREIGN MINISTRY

Kathmandu, 1 March: Seba Adhikari was selected joint secretary at the foreign ministry Monday through open competition conducted by the public service commission.
She joined the foreign ministry one year ago as undersecretary after transfer from the ministry of general administration.
Bindha Shah was the highest ranking woman career diplomat; she served as Royal Nepalese Ambassador to India.
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LAXMAN THARU ELECTED TO THARU BODY

Kathmandu, 1 March: Laxman Tharu was elected chairman of Tharuwat autonomous state council by the two-day first general convention that concluded at Tikapur Sunday.
A 105-member working committee was also formed.
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TERAI GROUP FORMSLDDIALOGUE TEAM

Kathmandu, 1 March: Madesh Mukti Tigers—a terai group—announced a dialogue team for negotiations with government.
The six-member team is headed by Tiger’s Coordinator Raman Singh.
The group has split into two.
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FIRE ENGULFS COMPANY IN OMAN WITH NEPALI WORKERS

Kathmandu, 1 March: Fifty Nepali workers have been taken to Muscat from Swar in Oman where Lulu supermarket laws set ablaze Sunday by protestors, Kantipur reports.
‘All Nepalis are well,” said Netra Prasad Pathak over telephone.
Insecurity has increased in Oman after swelling protests.
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DIPENDRA PURUSH DHAKAL APPOINTED FUND MANAGER

Kathmandu, 1 March: Retired secretary Dipendra Purush Dhakal has been appointed fund manager of peace trust secretariat under peace ministry, Kantipur reports
The peace ministry made the appointment for proper use of money in the fund at the request of donors.
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JAMKATTEL DEFIES PARTY

Kathmandu, 1 March: Salikram Jamkattel, chairman of the dissolved Akhil Nepal Trade Union Revolutionary had defied Maoist party standing committee decision to dissolve a working committee under him, Nagarik reports.
Jamkattel was appointed convener of a general convention.
He said he’ll not abide by the party decision insisting the committee elected by the fourth general convention will hold the fifth general convention and handover responsibility.
Jamkattel told a meeting of office bearers convened by General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa Monday at Paris Danda to discuss the dispute the Maoist trade union, the standing committee decision wasn’t acceptable.
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NAC RELENTS, GIVES BANK ACOUNT NUMBER TO AIRBUS

Kathmandu, 1 March: After a month’s hesitation, Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), Monday gave its account number to Airbus which wanted to refund $750,000 to the state airline.
The money was surety paid by former CEO Sugat Ratna Kansakar for the purchase of two Airbuses.
CIAA has charged Kansakar and other NAC executives for financial irregularities in releasing the money.
Officiating CEO O.B. Gurung forwarded the bank account number to the European aircraft manufacturer.
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PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE SUMMONS REVENUE OFFICIAL

Kathmandu, 1 March: Parliament’s public account committee has summoned the director general of the revenue investigation department Tuesday to probe collection of dues from casinos.
Eight of 10 casinos were threatened with closure following failure to pay dues to government.
Casino Rad, Casino Venus, Casino Grand and Casino Shangri-La settled dues Monday, The Himalayan Times reports.
Casino Anna appeared before Inland revenue Office Monday to pay its due, it could pay the due.
“We will pay our dues by Tuesday,” an official at the casino said.
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MEDIA GOOGLE

“China is in the first year of its 12th five-year plan this year and in the near future, it will allocate more development assistance to Nepal. It has listed Nepal as an aid priority country and assured that it will release more aid to Nepal.”

(PM’s Foreign Relations Advisor Milan Tuladhar, The Kathmandu Post, 1 March)


“The supreme court decision has only legalized the extension of the constituent assembly by one year. It’s hasn’t extended the tenure indefinitely.”

(Nepal Bar Association Chairman Prem Bahadur Khadka, Himal, 1 March)
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CARTER CENTER REFUTES POPULAR CLAIMS

Kathmandu, 1 March: The US-based Carter Center released a report on the youth wings of political parties in Nepal on Monday, suggesting that the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League (YCL) does not have military structure, The Himalayan Times reports.

In the report, the Carter Center said it did not find any shared definition of the term “paramilitary” thus leading to confusion and difficulty in evaluating the Maoist party’s June 2008 agreement to terminate YCL’s paramilitary functioning. “The large majority of YCL sites visited by Carter Center observers did not appear to be organised in a military-style hierarchy. However, observers did find one site in Kaski that was intended to serve as a ‘rapid response force’ and where cadres appeared to be unable to leave without permission from their superiors.”

According to the reporter, the observers found other cases where the YCL cadres were living communally in private and sometimes public building but found no evidence in these cases of a military-style hierarchy. “Regardless of the internal organisation of communal living sites, many government officials, non-Maoist party representatives, and citizens expressed concern that YCL communal living could contribute to local insecurity.”

Saying overall clashes between the youth wings appear to have decreased since the first half of 2010, the report pointed out that the activities of UCPN-Maoist's YCL and the CPN-UML’s Youth Force—the most active youth wings— remain targeted towards financial gain, and their activities continue to have a negative impact on security in many districts.

The Carter Center is an NGO formed by former US President Jimmy Carter through which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work “to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development"
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FIRST NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY ON ANVILRA DAHAL
Kathmandu, 1 March: Increasing foreign interference and infiltration are serious challenges to national security, according to a draft National Security Policy prepared by the government, Phanindra Dahal writes in The Kathmandu Post..

The 37-page document submitted to the State Affairs Committee of the Legislature Parliament for discussion states that increasing foreign interference and infiltration pose serious risk of terrorism.

Prepared by a Cabinet committee led by Defence Minister Bidhya Bhandari last August, the draft is the first document on national security policy prepared by the government after an eight-month long discussion.

The draft defines national security as full protection of geographical, social, political and economic situations of the country and stresses that individual security, individual and public property’s security, national sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interest preservation should be the fundamental principles of Nepal’s security.

“The national security policy should especially address the complexities and sensitivities associated with Nepal’s geography and location,” states the document obtained by the Post. It stresses that maintaining peace and stability, preservation of a federal democratic republican set up and protection of Nepal and Nepali people should be the primary goal of the country’s security apparatus. The key challenges concerning terrorism, the documents states, are smuggling of arms, explosives and drugs, illegal activities undertaken on the pretext of expanding tourism, foreign investment and generation of foreign currencies and cross border criminal activities.

It has outlined a set of policies to curb terrorism, which include regulation of entry and exit points of Nepal, capacity building of security forces and information collection, establishment of security network to ward off the possible use of Nepal’s territory against the interests of any neighbouring countries.

The policy stresses the need for safeguarding the country’s land, water and air routes through capacity building and legal reforms of mechanisms formed to monitor those structures.

National security concern should be given the topmost consideration while signing any agreement, treaty or understanding, adds the policy paper.

The government, the draft policy states, should be free of the pressure of any foreign country while taking decisions on national economy and issues of strategic importance. “The country shouldn’t simply remain a source of raw materials for foreigners.”

The policy also defines responsibilities of Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and National Investigation Department while recommending that the National Security Council should be reformed into a powerful body responsible for formulating counter defence and national security strategies.

The document recommends deployment of intelligence units in foreign countries for collecting information on national interest and establishment of an information bank to share among security agencies.

Obstructions in maintaining rule of law, corruption, human trafficking, parochial communalism and regionalism, smuggling of drugs and arms and ammunitions are the major challenges to national security.

Then Home Minister Bhim Rawal, Law and Justice Minister Prem Bahadur Singh, Minister for Federal Affairs Minendra Rijal, Minister without portfolio Laxman Lal Karna were the members and Defence Secretary Nabin Kumar Ghimire was the ex-officio member of the committee that prepared the document. Defence policy and internal security policy will be formulated as per the national security policy, the document states.
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1,000 NEPALIS STUCK IN LIBYA
Kathmandu, 1 March : Despite collective efforts by the government, manpower agencies and foreign employer companies to evacuate workers from Libya, around 1,000 Nepalis are still stranded in various parts of the strife-torn North African country, Om Astha Rai writes in Republica.

According to the Nepali embassy in Egypt, which oversees Libya as well, out of a total of 1,985 Nepali migrant workers throughout Libya, over 900 have already left the troubled land.
"They have either reached Nepal or are on their way back," Tirtha Aryal, first secretary at the embassy, told Republica. "However, there are still around 1,000 workers in Libya. We are contacting manpower agencies and employer companies to evacuate them at the earliest."

According to Aryal, 988 workers are yet to escape from Libya, where thousands of locals have been demonstrating against Col Muammar Gaddafi´s regime for the last two weeks. Of them, 746 workers are in Ghat. They reached Libya to work at a construction project run by Ramco Trading and Contracting, a Qatar-based company.

Of them, 194 workers are likely to return Nepal via Sudan, along with migrant workers from other countries.

In Tripoli, the epicenter of the current Libya unrest, a total of 156 workers are still struggling to get through. Similarly, 29 workers are in Misurata, 36 in Sirt and 21 in Batta. According to embassy officials, a group of 20 Nepali workers, who left the Libyan city of Zuwarah Saturday, has made it to Tunisia.

Sluggish rescue irks workers

Hundreds of Nepali workers, who are still stuck in Libya, have vented ire against the government, manpower agencies and foreign employer companies for not acting promptly to rescue them.

"It has been more than 10 days since we asked for help," Uddhab Kathayat of Satdobato in Lalitpur, told Republica over the phone from Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya. "However, no one has rescued us. Every time we call our embassies, officials say they will evacuate us tomorrow. However, tomorrow never comes."

Uddhab, along with 67 other Nepalis, has been hiding in a camp ever since the streets of Benghazi turned into a battlefield. All of them are fearful, especially after an irate mob torched a camp in nearby Zuwarah, forcing 20 workers into entering Tunisia. "After that incident, we have not slept properly," he said. "At least 10 of us stay awake every night to prevent any untoward incident."

Worse, they are all alone. "No one we can complain to is here," he said, adding, "All senior executives of our company have already left Libya, carelessly abandoning us. They had provided rations only for a week. We are likely to run out within a few days. These days, we are eating only once a day."

N. B. Limbu of Tandi village in Morang district, who is in the Libyan capital Tripoli in a group of 48 Nepali workers, said: "We are living on boiled potatoes and rice gruel. No senior official of our company is here to look after us. We are too afraid to go outside for food as the security forces are opening fire every single minute."

Limbu was taken to Tripoli by Ramco Trading and Contracting Company of Qatar. The company had kept him and his friends in a camp outside its construction site. After senior officials of the company fled Libya, it turned out that they were being kept in some one else´s land. "Now, the owner of the land is threatening us to leave," he said. "No one responsible is there to listen to our plight. We urge our government to evacuate us immediately."

According to Aryal, 15 Nepali workers employed by an Indian construction company in Tripoli were abandoned on Monday even as the company airlifted its Indian workers. "We are trying to contact the Indian embassy to take up the issue," Aryal told Republica.
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OPINION



NC’s PREDICAMENT





Kathmandu, 1 March: The Nepali Congress has lately found itself facing challenges on several fronts. It is currently negotiating a problem emanating from factionalism within its party even as there is growing polarisation between the major left and non-communist parties outside, which threatens to push the party into political oblivion in the long run, Narayan Upadhaya writes in The Rising Nepal.
The rift within
The rift between the factions led by President Sushil Koirala and senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba has boiled over the brim as the group led by the latter is unhappy with Koirala’s appointment of some office bearers in the central working committee. For fear that the Deuba group might play spoilsport, Koirala, as president of the party, has nominated several central working committee members to bolster his position during the upcoming CWC meeting. The meeting will decide the fate of Koirala’s nominees for the post of vice-president and general secretary.
An irate Deuba, who lost the party president election to Koirala some months ago, is set for a showdown at the CWC meeting, saying that the president cannot trample a dissident’s voice, which, according to him, is a fair one. This incident has exposed the deepening chasm between the two groups.
The nomination of Congress Parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Poudel as the party candidate in the botched up prime ministerial election, in which Poudel failed to win despite 16 rounds of voting, had only heightened the anger of Deuba who had wanted to contest the election but could not do so because Koirala and his allies obstructed his move.
The rising tension between the different groups is set to weaken the party, which by principle should be guided through collective decision-making in the powerful central working committee.
History is ample proof that whenever the Congress faced intra-party disputes, the forces against it saw fertile ground to play against it. Long ago, the rift between BP Koirala and Matrika Prasad Koirala led then King Tibhuvan to undermine the achievement of the democratic movement of 1951. The widening rift and dispute among the leaders later gave King Mahendra a good pretext to ban the political parties and to assume all the state powers himself, sending many top leaders into exile.
After the successful movement of 1990-91, dispute among Girija Prasad Koirala, Ganesh Man Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai surfaced, which led to the creation of the groups of 74 and 36 parliamentarians. The searing tension later forced Koirala to quit the government and dissolve the parliament. The new elections saw the rival communist party, the CPN (UML), and the parties loyal to palace bolstering their position at the cost of the Congress.
When Girija Prasad Koirala was leading the Congress, it was accused of not exercising any democracy in the party. The concept of troika leadership by the three top leaders - Singh, Bhattarai and GPK - was thrown to the wind. As two leaders, Singh and Bhattarai, detached themselves from the party, Deuba came to the front, only to lead the party towards a vertical split.
The incident after the split in the party is known to all - it not only weakened the democratic movement but also empowered then King Gyanendra to usurp power. The threat from the king and rise of the ultra leftist Maoists drove the two Congresses - led by GPK and Deuba - to join forces.
The period after the popular April uprising of 2006, which was instrumental in dumping the monarch, was not very fruitful to the Congress. The election to the Constituent Assembly reduced the party to second position after the Maoists. The defection of important Madhesi leaders to the Madhes-based parties, too, decreased the party’s potentiality and image.
Trouble for the party has multiplied. The nation’s politics has slided into sharp polarisation between the communist and non-communist forces, which recently saw the election of a prime minister from the UML with the backing of the Maoists. Its position in the CA too is not strong enough, and any of its moves, no matter how well intentioned, against the Maoist-UML alliance is likely to be stifled, owing to the number game that is played on the floors of the CA.
Meanwhile, sheer force being used by the Maoists to establish it as a major political power at the grassroots level has also threatened the potentiality of a mass-based party like the Congress. It is felt that the party is slowly losing its battle to the Madhes-based parties in the Terai while failing to attract the people of the hills. Should this trend continue in the future, its position in the national polity would be badly weakened.
Tasks ahead
The Congress now needs to regroup rather than involve itself in fruitless wrangling. The lost bases in the villages, hills and the Terai should be re-won. For this, it must work to stop the growing closeness between the two rival communist parties.
The Congress must quash the discourses of yet another war, revolution and street uprising being used by the Maoists and the design of the former royalists to return the nation to a constitutional monarchy. For this, its senior leaders must mobilise the party in taking along other fellow parties and fellow well wishers. The party will have all the support from the national organisations that believe in democracy and people’s freedom.
To achieve its goal, the party needs to sort out its internal problems so that it can direct its attention and work effectively in resolving the pressing problems of the nation. The success in doing so would certainly consolidate its image as the beacon of Nepali democracy in the future.

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