UPDATE ON KOSI, MAHAKALI RIVER FLOW
Kathmandu, 21 July: Flow of water on Kosi river fell to 193,725 cusecs per second Thursday morning, Radio Nepal reported.
But danger continues as 26 of 56 sluice gates have been opened to release water.
The river has started spurs
Water flow in Mahakali river increased to 205,000 cusecs Thursday morning after heavy rainfall in catchments for two days
Local administration has started moving along the bank to safer places in Kanchanpur.
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CHINA ASSIST FOR BUILDING BORDER FACILITY
Kathmandu, 21 July: China Wednesday offered Nepal a Rs. 260 million grant for construction of Tatopani frontier station inspection project along the border with Tibet.
Ambassador Yang Houllan and Finance Secretary Krishna Hari Banskota said the agreement.
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PROF. SURENDRA SINGH KC DEAD
Kathmandu, 21 July: Prof. Surendra Singh KC is dead.
He was 86.
The death was announced by
his family Thursday.
He was suffering tongue cancer.
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SOUTH KOREAN AID FOR UPGRADING FACILITIES AT CUSTOMS ENTRY POINTS
Kathmandu, 21 July: South Korean gave Nepal a Rs 354.2 million assistance for upgrading facilities at customs entry points Thirsday.
Finance ministry announced the assist.
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HOME MINISTRY DELEGATION VISITING CHINA
Kathmandu, 21 July: A home ministry team led by Joint Secretary Bhola Shibakoti is leaving for China soon, Kantipur reports
Nepal Police team is led by DIG Parshuram Khatri.
A home ministry team of two dozen officials just returned from China.
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THREE BRIGADIERS’PROMOTIONS RECOMMENDED
Kathmandu, 21 July: Promotions of Brigadier Generals Ramesh Bista, Victor SJB Rana and Mahesh Karki to major generals have been recommended by Nepal Army, a published report said.
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RUKMA SHUMSHERE PROLONGS INDIA STAY DESPITE RECALL
Kathmandu, 21 July; Nepal’s Ambassador to India Rukma Sumsher Rana has delayed his return to Nepal—ignoring a 30-day recall period which elapsed earlier this week, The Kathmandu Post reports.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) had sent a letter to the ambassador on June 19 asking him to return to Kathmandu within a month for his alleged ‘non-cooperation with the government.’ Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav had even gone public, accusing Rana of not cooperating with the government and slamming him for failing to appear in Kathmandu during the recent Nepal trip of Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna.
Sources told the Post that Rana has asked for some grace time for packing and other logistic arrangements to return and that MoFA has extended his stay by another couple of weeks. Rana was given 7-10 days’ grace time for returning to Kathmandu. However, the government has not yet made arrangements about Rana’s successor. “Let him return first, then we will expedite talks about his successor,” Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Milan Raj Tuladhar said.
Sources also said that Rana had pleaded with Nepali Congress President Sushil Koirala during the latter’s recent trip to New Delhi to help him stay on in the job. “We heard some NC leaders conveyed to him not to return to Kathmandu, given the fragile political situation,” added sources.
Answering the queries of lawmakers during a recent meeting of the Parliamentary Hearing Special Committee, Foreign Secretary Madan Kumar Bhattarai, however, claimed that Rana was recalled in accordance with the directive of the parliamentary committee.
The parliamentary committee on International Relations and Human Rights had directed the Madhav Nepal-led government in January to recall Rana at the earliest after the high drama of the Real Juice scandal. Neither the erstwhile government nor the incumbent Jhala Nath Khanal government showed the least urgency to implement the directive of the parliamentary committee. The government’s decision to recall the ambassador came only after five months of the committee’s directive. Rana was appointed ambassador to India on a quota of the then ruling Nepali Congress in October 2009.
Meanwhile, Rana said that he will return to Kathmandu in August. “I am left with some unfinished work. I plan to go back home sometime in August after completing my remaining work,” he told the Post.
After the recall period elapsed, the rights and facilities enjoyed by Rana as an ambassador have ended formally and legally. “However, if an ambassador continues to stay on beyond the recall date, he/she cannot be forcibly deprived of the facilities,” a MoFA official said from Kathmandu, requesting not to be named. “It’s more a matter of the ambassador’s morality,” he added.
According to the official, MoFA can allow an envoy to continue for a few weeks more if the envoy requests for it. However, in case of prolonged stay which appears to be reluctance to comply with MoFA’s directive, there are instances of the ministry acting strongly and creating an embarrassing situation for the ambassador.
Such a situation occurred when Rana’s predecessor Durgesh Man Singh overstayed, exceeding the recall period during the time of the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government. He returned only after MoFA wrote a second letter expressing serious concern over the delay in his complying with its directive.
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• CIVIL SERVANTS FEEL THREATENED WITH NEW OFFFCIAL DRESS CODE
Kathmandu, 21 July: The government decision to enforce dress code in all its offices does not seem to have gone down well with civil servants, as not many have given a hoot to comply with the rule, The Himalayan Times reports from Pathaliya. .
The government made it mandatory from July 17 that all employees follow dress code — male civil servants either put on daura suruwal, coat, Nepali cap, and black shoes or dark blue suit with white shirt and a tie. In the Tarai, the employees have the leeway to do away with the coat and slip on a jacket instead.
However, there are different schools of thought on uniform.
Officials in the Tarai region are wary of donning government-prescribed uniform, for they say following the decision is more or less equivalent to ‘dressed to get killed’. Their concern is manifestation of deteriorating security situation in the southern plains, with a number of active armed outfits that have been targeting civil servants. The government-designated uniform affrights the civil servants, as it makes them stand out and they can easily fall victim to armed gangs.
“The dress code may bring uniformity but thinking about the uniform makes us wary in the wake of lack of security,” says Ashok Rauniyar, Chairman of Nepal Civil Servant Union, Bara chapter.
Chief of Bara District Revenue Office Jayakanta Jha echoes Rauniyar. Though he appreciates the government move, he says even the thought of slipping into blue suit holds terror for civil servants. CDO Basanta Kumar Upadhyaya, who is the authority to maintain law and security in the district, conceded that the dress rules have unnerved the employees. “I will hold discussions with the stakeholders and see what can be done.” So, for most of the civil servants in Bara, it’s business as usual; they are going to offices as they used to: In the attire of their own choice.
But in some other districts, including in some hill regions, reasons for not abiding by the government decree vary. In Banke, the employees said they were yet to get their uniform tailored as they received the allowance late. VDC Secretary Rights Protection Centre, Banke secretary Dipak Poudel said they were still discussing whether to put on the uniform and run the risk of falling into gangsters’ eyes easily.
In Sankhuwasabha, only 10 per cent of employees were seen sporting the new look. Similar was the situation in Pokhara, Sarlahi and Sankhuwasabha,
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UNAUTHORIZED BUILDINGS BEING PULLED DOWN IN CAPITAL
Kathmandu, 21 July: The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has started pulling down houses and other infrastructures built in violation of the building code and by encroaching on public land, Navin Adhikari reports in The Kathmandu Post reports.
In the first phase of the programme, three houses, one each in Sankhamul, Kalikasthan and Thamel, were demolished on Wednesday. KMC officials, along with bulldozers, reached the sites and demolished the houses, notwithstanding the owners’ protest.
In Sankhamul, a one-storey house recently erected on public land was demolished in the afternoon. In Thamel, metro officials destroyed a house built on another person’s land. At Kalikasthan, an eight-storey house built on unauthorised land was demolished late in the evening.
“We had notified owners of the unlawful constructions. After they failed to correct themselves despite several opportunities, we were compelled to act harsh as the last resort,” said KMC Spokesman Gyanedra Karki.
KMC officials say all such constructions in the Valley will be destroyed in due time. “This is the beginning. There are many such structures in the Valley which we will take action against,” Karki added.
After the July 10 Kathmandu Declaration, which envisions making Kathmandu a prosperous city in near future, KMC has intensified its action on infrastructure management. People have watched this move with scepticism, though. They fear the metropolitan authorities could have taken up this task to overshadow larger problems in the Valley that need immediate addressing. According to the 2009 data of the Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of houses in the metropolis is nearly 200,000.
A vast majority of buildings in the Valley are believed to have been constructed encroaching upon land not owned legally. One of the prime focuses of Kathmandu Declaration is construction management and city expansion.
“We will not spare any building flouting the law. What we started today won’t end without a broad success,” said Karki. “The number of such structures is high, but those not heeding our call will have to pay heavily.”
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OPINION
FEEL ASHAMED BUT STAY ON
Kathmandu, 21 July: Gokarna Bista tells us he is ashamed of calling himself a minister because of the dishonest assurances political parties are peddling to the people. What makes Bista’s lament less of a laughing matter is the fact that he holds a portfolio that most politicians can only dream of clutching.
But our energy minister, who belongs to the CPN-UML, sees the Nepalese people mired in poverty, lacking enough to eat and deprived of education. Then he sees leaders, who instead of concentrating on the plight of the population, go on making eloquent speeches. Riding a car fluttering the national flag embarrasses him, Maila Baje writes in Nepali Netbook .
Exasperation sounds like a more accurate word. One of the first things Prime Minister Jhal Nath Khanal pledged after taking office was that he would take on the ‘water mafia’ and clear what has long been touted as Nepal’s only road to riches. Accordingly, he named a key loyalist, Bista, to pursue that objective.
At a public function not long ago, Bista accused ‘mafia elements’ of stuffing all those project licenses in their pockets all the while helping to plunge the country deeper into darkness and inertia.
Vowing to do everything possible to end – not merely reduce – the inexorable spate of load-shedding, Bista also ordered a crackdown on pilferage and other forms of leakage. He has also challenged the conventional wisdom that the crisis cannot be addressed without raising the power tariff.
Bista was recently quoted as saying that if the Nepal Electricity Authority could reduce leakage by a mere six percentage points, that would generate about 2.5 billion rupees of additional revenue. In other words, that would almost offset the annual loss incurred by the organization. That piece of information has energized the people to urge Bista to go after the big fish faster.
While remaining upbeat about the prospects of foreign investment in the hydropower sector, Bista says he refuses to wait for others to solve our energy crisis and seeks domestic investment to the extent possible. He wants to encourage local companies to invest in the hydropower through low-interest loans and other incentives.
The energy minister won plaudits from the media across the spectrum for such thinking. Yet his laudable effort to appoint a managing director for the NEA through competition, as opposed to direct political appointment, did not get off to an entirely propitious start.
Then Bista was blamed from within the UML party for acquiescing in the use of the term “people’s war” in the government’s annual policies and programs, which has allowed everybody to divert their attention further away from the task of drafting the new constitution. The upshot: Bista is seething to the point short of self-flagellation.
Maila Baje acknowledges how tempting it is in this situation to demand Bista’s resignation, especially if he continues pressing the humiliation horn any further. But maybe we should let Bista stay in his job and feel sorry for himself.
If his predicament is real, perhaps the pain would go some way toward inflicting collective shame on the government. If Bista is just faking it, he still does have that extra reason to be caustic about himself. After all, how many people are stabbed outside their house a few hours after being appointed minister?
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IN SEARCH FOR NEEDLE HAYSTACK
Kathmandu, 21 July; Nepal has not yet unearthed oil or rich minerals, although we have been told since ages that government efforts to this effect continue. But everyone agrees that trillions of rupees are stashed away in foreign banks in India, Switzerland and other Western countries. So far no effort has been made to trace the ill-gotten wealth back to where it belongs, i.e. Nepali tax payers, Trikal Bastavik writes in People’s Review.
Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) leaders in the 1990s, soon after the restoration of multiparty system of government, talked of going on a treasure hunt and find “enormous” royal treasure supposed to be in the vaults of Swiss banks. The allusion was toward King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya (“Pampha Devi”).
Nepalis waited with great patience for the leaders to do the spade work so that the money thus traced would be utilized in quickening the pace of their living standards. They were taken for a ride without ceremony. For the “democratic” and “progressive” leaders tried to make up for the 30 years they were not in mainstream politics as they had been fighting for the ban on political parties to be lifted.
Overnight, the most vociferous of the politicians transformed themselves into a new class, with lifestyles changing overnight because of the wealth they acquired with dazzling speed, whose source, however, is yet to be disclosed. Little surprise then that they stopped mentioning anything related to investigating foreign accounts of Nepalis. Everyone, including politicians, agrees that corruption is rampant. But no serious effort has been made to investigate.
Some leaders, in private, admit that they had creamed off “some money” but only for the sake of party coffers. It has been more than 20 years and yet virtually nothing has been done to nab and punish the big sharks. Chiranjivi Wagle is a small fry and an exception. During the splits in UML and Nepali Congress, names were mentioned freely to accuse one another of corruption and other misdeeds.
The very media that chronicled the crime against the nation during those times stood mum before the splits and after the reunifications. It was only to be expected of that section of the Fourth Estate that follows party lines without question.
As for the civil society leaders, the less said the better it is. One fortunate development is that they have been exposed badly for their ulterior motive and craving for publicity. No one takes them seriously now. If they draw any crowd of a few hundred, it is their own coterie and some NGOs, often funded by INGOs willing to offer “transport allowance” or expenses for “snacks”.
The past 15 years have witnessed great national losses, killings and destruction. Crime has paid off well in numerous cases. The last five years has shown that impunity is the new currency in Nepal. The donor community functions in worse than dubious manner: corrupting politicians through NGOs set up by their wards or family members.
India and Pakistan have learnt great lessons from the plight of Nepal. New Delhi and Islamabad have been stepping up their watch on NGO activities. New Delhi had always been suspicious of the funding agencies but it is learnt to have doubled its efforts now. In all probability, it is the result of what happened in Nepal as a consequence of the mushrooming NGOs in the recent years. Issues like foreign policy, human rights, ethnic communities, national defense, and law and order constitute the core areas of “sensitivity”. A senior leader of Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party told a Nepali leader last month, “Your leaders have been corrupted by INGOs. This is only the start. You will have more problems in the days ahead.”
The spurt in lethal weapons is another development, what with over 110 armed groups identified by the government. Non-state actors come into play creating havoc when underground activity is fueled by supply of arms from the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Security situations in the two Indian border states have, however, improved. Criminal gangs are feeling the heat of the investigations and government actions. A significant number of their unutilized weapons are believed to have made way to the hands of criminal gangs and underground groups in Nepal.
The government of the republic of Nepal is aware of the development but lacks the desire to address it appropriately. Expecting otherwise would be preposterous in view of the fact that almost governments since the interim government headed by Krishna Prasad Bhattarai have withdrawn many criminal cases and issued pardons to numerous others who were convicted by the court of law and were serving jail sentences. Such nexus would make any analyst least surprised if selective measures were taken to deal with crime and punishment.
According to well-placed security personnel, “There are actually eight armed underground groups or so, mostly operating in Mahottari, Siraha, Rautahat and Saptari. They have links with some politicians who receive regular payments from these bands that promise to support them during elections. This is an open secret but everyone seems to be in the game of maintaining silence because it suits them fine.”
The culture of violence that gained ground during the 10-year Maoist insurgency has fostered during the transition period of more than five years. A sense of security found in earlier times has deteriorated. People hesitate to make such comparison to avoid being accused of praising the partyless Panchayat or the constitutional role of the monarchy.
Politicians, as a result, play on such public fear. This makes true of the saying that the people of a nation get the government they deserve. Politicians, therefore, find it an easy game in enriching themselves through corrupt practices and allowing impunity to go unchecked.
Gauri Pradhan, a member of the National Human Rights Commission, told a gathering recently: “People feel that crime today can one day be recognized as honor for ‘struggle’.”
Indeed, crime today is rewarded as political achievement, as has been the case with some of the political parties that rule the roost in the Republic of Nepal presently.
Who will be the ones to come to the rescue of the hapless Nepalis living under uncivilized conditions? Nay, not Daman Nath Dhunagana, Nar Hari Acahrya, Gangan Thapa, foreign paid “political analysts,” civil society leaders or “senior journalists” moonlighting with donor agencies. We need people with boundless integrity, principled stand and genuine desire to serve the people with all energy. Time should tell, if we have such leaders.
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