DEATH TOLL IN ACCHAM BUS ACCIDENT RISES TO 16

DEATH TOLL IN ACCHAM BUS ACCIDENT INCREASES TO 16 UPDATE

Kathmandu, 4 May: Sixteen persons died and 17 others were seriously injured when a night bus fell 300 meters off a road at Accham in the far-West Wednesday morning.
Seventeen seriously injured are undergoing treatment a hospital in neighbouring Doti.
Search and rescue teams are working at the accident site.
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GOVT. PROMISES NORMAL FUEL SUPPLY FROM WEDNESDAY

Kathmandu, 4 May: India has agreed to guarantee Rs. 3 billion credit for the import of POL products, Commerce Secretary Purusottam Ojha said.
New Delhi was responding to a government request for such a guarantee.
Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) will be receiving 4,600 kiloliters of fuel every day from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) from Wednesday.
Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) is also extending a Rs 2 billion loan for fuel import, Secretary Ojha said.
The loan was sought from the EPF—a state-controlled body-- amid reluctance from other financial institutions to extend such a huge loan. ]
The developments come amid fuel shortages and reluctance of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to supply POL products without settlement of dues creating shortages.
Officials said supply of fuel in the market should be normalized from Wednesday.
Long queues of motorists and motorcyclists wait for hours at filling stations to fill their tanks.
No effort has been made to curb corruption at the NOC- the state monopoly that imports and distributed POL products.
The communist government is reluctant to increases fuel prices as import bills rise with increase in oil prices in the international market.
Government-- which has yet to take firm root—doesn’t to take an unpopular step of hiking price.
Influential, including ministers, continue to bleed NOC by taking free fuel; they could take an exemplary move by refusing to collect free fuel to ride smaller vehicles that use less fuel to help NOC save money.
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ELECTION FOR OFFICE BEARERS OF FJN

Kathmandu, 4 May: Election for office bearers of Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) began Wednesday on the second day of 23rd general convention of the umbrella organization of journalists in the capital.
Five persons are contesting the presidency to lead the Federation for the next three years.
They are: Shiva Gaule, Kedar Koirala, Poshan KC, Dambar Giri and Chandra Kamati.
Candidates are being supported by major political parties as in the past.
Thirty-one office bearers are being elected.
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MEDIA GOOGLE

“Extending the CA term is just deceiving the people. If political parties wish to be accountable to the people, they have to go for polls.”

(RPP-Nepal Chairman Kamal Thapa, The Himalayan Times, 4 May)
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67 JUMPED INTO ARUN RIVER IN FIRST MASS SUICIDE IN 1941
Kathmandu 4 May: She gave voice to the voiceless -- women, lower castes, the exploited -- when the entire country cowered to Rana rulers. She married thrice when widow marriage was an unpardonable offense, Bikash Sanguaula writes in Republica..

She confronted rulers in person demanding dharma-rajya (good governance). She was jailed for attempting immolation as a sign of protest against the regime, thereby becoming the first woman in the country known to have been jailed for political beliefs.

And on July 14, 1941 -- when aged between 73 to 81 -- she threw herself into the Arun River to bring shame to the regime. Sixty-seven of her disciples followed suit. The bodies were never found.

For seventy years since the country´s biggest mass suicide, Yogmaya Neupane´s story has languished in obscurity. Even in her home district, Bhojpur, she was little more than a myth.

But what was just a popular myth until ten years ago is now increasingly being established as a fact, according to Professor Michael Hutt, who on Tuesday presented an outline of Yogmaya´s biography in an attempt to establish facts of her life.

“She was born between 1860 and 1868 in Simle, Bhojpur. There are still 14 Neupane households in the village. All are very clear about Yogmaya´s place in their lineage,” said Hutt, Professor of Nepali and Himalayan Studies at School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

Makings of a Rebel

According to facts presented by Hutt, Yogmaya, whose given name was Mayadevi, was the only daughter of her parents, who also had two sons younger to her.

She was married to a Koirala boy when she was aged between five and nine. The boy died soon after marriage. Following traditions prevalent back then, Yogmaya was thereafter considered inauspicious by her in-laws. She spent several difficult years with them until finally fleeing to her Maiti (maternal home) after deciding to reject the unhappy fate of a widow. Her parents informed her in-laws that she was with them. But the in-laws weren´t interested in taking her back.

What followed was Yogmaya´s first serious attack on social traditions. She eloped with a Brahmin boy to Assam. But her second husband also died, and she married yet again. She is believed to have given birth to a daughter from her third marriage.

Between 1903 and 1916, Yogmaya renounced the institution of marriage, traveled to holy places and returned to her home district to lead the life of an ascetic. For the rest of her life, she was a permanent resident of Majuwabesi, Bhojpur, where she set up an ashram and observed extreme austerity.

She is believed to have meditated in a cave, naked and without food, for months. Wrapped in just a single piece of cloth, she had the appearance of a man.

Word spread of the powers she was believed to have been blessed with in reward for leading an austere life and she earned hundreds of disciples who called her Shakti Hajoor and Shakti Maya. Many of her followers were from the dalit community.

Challenging Ranas

Yogmaya, whose utterances are carefully yet incompletely preserved in Sarvartha Yogbani published from Assam after her death, condemned caste discrimination and corrupt Brahmins, moneylenders, jagirdars, and the rulers.

She sent petitions to Bir Shumsher, Chandra Shumsher and Juddha Shumsher demanding alms and dharma-rajya. She warned the rulers that apocalypse was near for them.

In 1936, she traveled to the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu where Juddha Shumsher came seeking blessings from her. She is believed to have demanded from him, “Truth! Dharma! Alms!”

The demands are interpreted today primarily as those for good governance and privileges that only male ascetics were entitled to back then.

Juddha Shumsher is believed to have assured her that the demands would be met.

But the assurance didn´t translate into action and Yogmaya, along with 204 of her followers, most of them Brahmins, made plans for mass immolation in order to put the weight of the deaths on the ruler´s conscience. Before they could commit immolation, they were arrested and jailed in Dhankuta and Bhojpur. Yogmaya was released four months later.

After being convinced that reforms weren´t forthcoming, Yogmaya and her 67 followers hurled themselves into a raging Arun River in their final act of rebellion on July 14, 1941.

They are believed to have hollered while taking the plunge, “May the unjust Rana government be destroyed! May dharma be established!”

Seventy years after the mass sacrifice, Yogmaya´s statue was unveiled in Bhojpur on March 8, 2011, to mark the International Women´s Day. Feminists owned her as the first among them in the country. It was a latest bead in the thread that is leading to her iconization as Nepal´s first female revolutionary.

“My plea to Nepal´s historians and social scholars is for further research,” said Hutt. “How did she not appear in standard history of Nepal for sixty years?”
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NRB RECOMMENDS POLICE ACTION AGAINST GORKHA DEVELOPMENT BANK EXECUTIVES

Kathmandu, 4 May: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has asked Nepal Police to investigate and take action against former board members of Gurkha Development Bank (GDB), who were found involved in lending irregularities that led to rapid deterioration of the bank´s financial health, Republica reports.

Former executive chairman D B Bomjan and board members Ramesh Tamang, Meena Shrestha, Nirmal Gurung, Dhan Prasad Rai, Mahesh Prasad Rijal, Sanjeev Kumar Mishra and Dinesh Shakya, among others, are in the list that the central bank forwarded to the police.

“We have forwarded the names of more than a dozen former board members and top managers of GDB to Nepal Police to initiate action against them for flouting banking rule,” said NRB spokesperson Bhaskar Mani Gyawali.

The board meeting of the central bank held on Tuesday decided to take action against those involved in irregularities while issuing loans, inflicting loss to depositors as well as shareholders, as per the Banking Offense and Punishment Act.

Those involved in irregularities also include former general manager Rajendra Das Shresha, credit chief Dipak Rana Magar, former board member Prabin Naulakha and managing director of Mentha Products Rakesh Kumar Adukiya.

If proven guilty, police can put them behind bars for as much as three years, apart from fines, according to Banking Offense and Punishment Act.

Not only promoters and senior staffers, NRB has also sought action against borrowers Jiban Ghimire and Sanjeev K Agrawal. They are loans defaulters and were found to have taken loans through unfair means.

NRB has also asked the police to investigate and take action against Ruchi Jadojia and Punam Khetan, directors of Krishi Pemura -- an institutional investor in the bank -- for their possible involvement in irregularities.

Gyawali told Republica that the central bank has already forwarded a letter to this effect to Nepal Police via Ministry of Finance.

The central bank has further requested the government to freeze passport of loan defaulters Ghimire and Agrawal, directors of Krishi Premura Jadojia and Khetan, former general manager Shrestha and former board member Prabin Naulakha.

“We have decided to freeze bank accounts, lockers, saving certificates, fixed and current assets and shares held by these people,” said Gyawali.

The board Tuesday also decided to take action against guarantors of those people.

NRB had GDB a ´troubled bank´ more than a month ago, citing poor governance and subsequent deterioration of its financial health. As per the instruction of the central bank, GDB elected a new six-member board of director earlier this month through its special general meeting.
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LOCALS OPPPOSE GAURISHANKAR CONSERVATION AREA DECLARATION
Kathmandu, 4 May: Community Forest Users Struggle Committee formed by locals of 22 VDCs of Ramechhap, Dolakha and Sindhupalchowk districts, today said they would obstruct work to establish the newly declared Gaurishanker Conservation Area (GCA), The Himalayan Times reports.

The government had declared GCA from the Cabinet meeting on climate change held at the base camp of Mount Everest on December 4, 2009 and entrusted management of the same to National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) in July 2010.

“Despite continued protests from locals, the government turned a deaf ear to our voice, so the struggle committee will not let the agency work in that area,” said Bhola Khatiwada, secretary of the struggle committee. The community says its rights will be curbed once the conservation area is set in place, as they will not be allowed to use the forest for any purpose.

The erstwhile Madhav Kumar Nepal-led government had given the responsibility of GCA to NTNC as per the proposal of the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation. GCA covers an area of 2,179 square km.

NTNC says the protests are unnecessary as the declaration had followed consultations with the communities. Besides, establishment of the conservation area will not curtail the rights of local communities. “The conservation area will help promote livelihood of people

rather than curtail their rights,” said Juddha

Bahadur Gurung, Member Secretary, NTNC.

The struggle committee said it is preparing to move the court as the declaration violates rules and curtailing the rights of communities on the forests. “We will go to court and obstruct all NTNC work in the area,” said Khatiwada.

NTNC has already established a small office in Dolakha, which plans to develop the area along the model of Annapurna Conservation Area.

“The major aim of having a conservation area is to increase the flow of tourists and promote the livelihood of people in and around the conservation area. NTNC will manage the area hand in hand with the communities,” said Gurung.
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