SMOKING AT PUBLIC PLACES BANNED FROM SUNDAY

FIRST MAOIST VICE-CHAIRMAN SAYS PEACE PROCESS AND CONSTITUTION SHOULD BE CONCLUDED

Kathmandu, 7 Aug.: First Maoist Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya said peace process and constitution should be concluded by the 31 August deadline
“All have to effort for this. The constitution has to be promulgated,” he told Radio Nepal Sunday morning .
“If there is no constitution, political parties have to find an outlet,” he added..
“Our party has decided to push peace process and constitution drafting. The peace process should move ahead.”
Baidya denied he was against concluding the peace process and constitution drafting being bracketed as a hardliner in UCPN (Maoist).
“It’s not true peace process and constitution drafting should not be concluded,” he told the state-radio.
But Baidya called for an honourable integration of 19,000 plus former Maoist combatants in 28 cantonments and satellite camps.
“There should be political discussion and honourable integration,” Baidya said referring to former Maoist fighters.
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WATER FLOW BEGINS TO RECEDE ON SAPTA KOSI

Kathmandu,7 Aug.: Water flow volume began to fall Sunday after the highest flow of the year was recorded overnight at 222,000 cusecs on Sapta Kosi
Thirty-one of 54 sluices of Kosi barrage were opened across to
release the water
A danger alert was issued to alert people of settlements along thee river.
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BAN ON PUBLIC SMOKING COMES INTO EFFECT

Kathmandu, 7 Aug.: Ban on smoking comes into effect Sunday with the enforcement of Tobacco and an Regulation Act-2068.
Those who defy the ban can be fined Rs 100 to Rs 100,000.
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NEPAL IN U-19 CRICKET WORLD CUP 2012

Kathmandu, 7 Aug.: Nepal Saturday qualified for the U-19 Cricket World Cup 2012 to be hosted by Australia and New Zealand after a 10-wicket win over Ireland in Dublin Saturday.
Nepal earlier defeated Afghanistan, Kenya,Vanuatu and Namibia and lost to Scotland and Canada; it will play Papua New Guinea Monday.
Nepal batted first and scored 187 runs losing seven wickets in a rain-affected match.
Home team Ireland was restricted to 175 runs.
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NEPAL PLAYS INDIA MONDAY IN SAFF U-16 CHAMPIONSHIP

Kathmandu, 7 Aug.: Nepal plays India in semi-final Monday of SAFF U16 Championship at Dashrath Rangashala after trouncing Sri Lanka 6-0 top Group B.
Nepal topped Group B on goal average scoring
Nepal scored altogether six goals without conceding a goal while Bangladesh also scored six goals but conceded two goals.
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NEPSE INDEX DROPS MARGINALLY

Kathmandu, 7 Aug.: Nepse index dropped marginally 1.17 points Thursday at the end of five-day trading
The market opened at 358.67 points Sunday and closed at 357.64 points Thursday.
Altogether 828,625 shares were traded in the week for Rs 128.9 million—a 4.21 trade volume increase compared to the previous week.
Indices of commercial banks, hotels, finance companies and manufacturing sector dropped 3.75, 4.52, 3.08 and 0.11 points respectively.
Bank of Kathmandu shares were traded for Rs.20.5 million.
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MEDIA GOOGLE

“To categorize the PLA personnel without any agreement on the modality and standard norms would be like making preparations to cook rice without rice at hand.”

(Maoist leader CP Gajurel, Republica, 7 Aug.)
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SPECIAL ENVOY OF CHINESE PRESIDENT HU JINTAO ARRIVING

Kathmandu, 7 Aug.: Chinese President Hu Jintao is sending a senior leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) as his special envoy to Nepal at a time when the northern neighbor has been showing increasing concern over its security interests in the country, Purna Basnet writes in Republica from Hong Kong.

A jumbo team of four dozen officials led by CPC standing committee member Zhou Yongkang is landing in Kathmandu on August 16.
Yongkang, who is currently serving as the ninth ranked member of the powerful standing committee, will be the highest ranking Chinese official to visit Nepal since Jia Qunglin, who ranks the fourth in the committee. During his meeting with the newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Narayankaji Shrestha on Friday, Chinese ambassador to Nepal, Yong Houlan talked about China´s security interests in Nepal and briefed Shrestha about the forthcoming visit of the Chinese team.

Sources say Nepal police, coinciding with the Houlan-Shrestha talks, took one “dubious” representative of Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama in Kathmandu under control on Friday and asked him about “anti-China activities” in Nepal.

During his three-day Nepal visit, Zhou is scheduled to meet President Dr Ram Baran Yadav, Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, and Nepali Congress (NC) President Sushil Koirala, among others.

Zhou is the head of the Central Political and Legislative Committee, an organ directing the central government legal policy and the legislative agenda. During his term as the security minister from 2003 and 2007, Zhou was also a member of the high-level committee to oversee Tibet affairs. He was the secretary of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee before becoming the public security minister.

There has been a flurry of visits by Chinese officials to Nepal lately as the northern neighbor is becoming increasingly concerned over its security interests in Nepal. Just four months ago, some one-and-a-half dozen senior army officials led by Chinese Army chief Chen Bingde had visited Nepal. Beijing appointed security expert Yong Houlan as the ambassador to Nepal after Chen´s visit.

The activities by the supporters of the exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama and the “US interests” on the Tibetan refugees are said to be the major Chinese concerns in Nepal.

According to sources, Zhou will also discuss feasibility of Chinese investments in Nepal. The high-level visit, which follows the announcement by Chinese NGO Asia pacific Exchange and Cooperation to invest Rs 225 billion to make Lumbini a “Special Development Zone”, has been taken with special interest. Sources from Beijing say Zhou is likely to make some proposals on the controversial investment in Lumbini, birthplace of Lord Buddha.

“Zhou will discuss the peace process, constitution drafting, security in Tibet, and various development projects, including that of Lumbini with Nepali Officials,” said a Chinese official assigned to see the South Asian affairs.

CPC standing committee member and chief of the Chinese People´s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Jia Qunglin had visited Nepal in December 2003.

Jia, who holds the fourth position in the Standing Committee, is also the chief of high level committee to oversee Tibet affairs. No Chinese president or prime minister has visited Nepal in recent times. President Jiang Zemim visited Nepal in 1996 and Premier Zhu Ronji in 2001.
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NEPALI FIRST TO WATER ON MARS

Kathmandu, 7 Aug 7: A Nepali undergraduate geophysics student at the University of Arizona, USA was the first to spot signs of possible flowing water during the warmer months on Mars that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced through a press conference on Thursday, Prem Dhakal writes in Republica.

Lujendra Ojha, 21, of Mhepi, Kathmandu, who studied at Galaxy Public School till eighth grade before moving to Arizona with his geologist father Dr Tank Ojha five years ago, is co-author of a new study in the journal Science which has suggested possible presence of briny water on the Martian surface.

“We knew that he was very interested in research work but realized how big he has made it only after the world media queued up to talk to him after the NASA revelation,” said Lujendra´s elder sister Jaika Pathak over the phone from Tucson, Arizona. Born in Kathmandu, Lujendra studied at Adarsha Yoghari School at Lainchour till fourth grade and was an average student while in Nepal, Jaika said.

“But he improved after coming to the US and had topped Arizona state in SAT scores before joining the university,” Jaika, a PhD in entomology, added. Hailing from Hinnekanda, Mahadevsthan in Doti, Dr Tank Ojha was a scientist with the Department of Mines and Geology before leaving for the United States along with his family after landing a job as research scientist at the University of Arizona.

An undergraduate intern at the university´s Department of Planetary Sciences, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Lujendra stumbled upon the discovery while working on an independent project with Professor Alfred McEwen, lead author of the study. University of Arizona researcher Colin Dundas, a collaborator in the study, was interested in gullies on Mars which may be remnants of past water activity, a CNN blog by Elizabeth Landau says, and the researchers were looking for seasonal changes in those gullies.

Scientists announced at the NASA press conference that they had detected dozens of slopes across the southern hemisphere of the planet where previously undetected dark streaks come and go with the seasons. When the planet heats up, the streaks appear and expand downhill. When it gets cold, the streaks disappear.
The Washington Post reported: “The dark streaks were initially noticed by a student at the school in images sent back by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The pixelated images were taken as far back as 2007, but with so much data coming in from space missions, they had remained unstudied. McEwan suggested that the student - geophysics junior Lujendra Ojha - examine over time the locations with streaks, and Ojha found that the streaks changed dramatically by season.”

“Lujendra has been working for me while an undergraduate student, producing digital terrain models for stereo images, and asked for an idea for an independent study. I suggested analyzing stereo pairs acquired months apart in time to look for any changes, and he found these slope flows in one location, that were present in the earlier image, then disappeared,” Professor McEwen told Republica through an email.

“I suggested he look for more of these and he did so and performed various analysis tasks such as extracting temperatures and slope profiles. He has participated in all phases of the study and made very important contributions in addition to the initial discovery,” Professor McEwen acknowledged.

"I was baffled when I first saw those features in the images after I had run them through my algorithm. We soon realized they were different from slope streaks that had been observed before. These are highly seasonal, and we observed some of them had grown by more than 200 meters (650 feet) in a matter of just two Earth months." MSNBC has quoted Lujendra as saying.

McEwen´s team took months of research to figure out what it could be and there should be extensive further research to even prove that this is definitely proof of water. “And from that, we can move on: OK if this is water, what are the chances that life could be in these kinds of surroundings?" the CNN blog quotes him as contemplating.

Lujendra is excited by the new discovery that may well be a significant step in establishing the possibility of life on Mars. "That would be exciting. That´s kind of like the holy grail of science: To find our neighbor, to find life on some other planet," the CNN blog quotes him as saying.
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