PARTY LEADERS DISREGARD SPEAKER REQUEST AND GO ABROAD

PARTY LEADERS WHO ARE SPECIAL COMMITTEE
MEMBERS RETURN HOME,
Kathmandu, 11 Nov.: Three out of five members of the prime minister-headed Special Committee have returned home from their US trip. Two meetings of the cross-party committee were postponed and one ended inconclusively after majority of the members were unavailable early this week.
Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat (NC), Communication Minister and Chairman of MJFL Jayaprakash Prasad Gupta and Jitendra Dev of MJFL returned home this week after foreign trips.
They are members of a special committee for the integration,
resettlement and supervision chaired by Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai for 19,000 plus former Maoist combatants.
They went abroad even as preliminary work for the integration
of Maoists has to be completed by 23 November.
CPN-UML General Secretary Ishwor Pokharel, who is also special committee member, is in Qatar and Dr. Minendra Rijal (NC) is accompanying Maoist Chairman on his New York visit for discussions with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Top party leaders went abroad even as Speaker
Subash Nemwanghas asked lawmakers in a general
appeal to stay home to complete the integration and constitution drafting by 30 November.
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SEARCH FOR BUDDHA MATERNAAL HOME
Kathmandu, 11 Nov.: The Department of Archaeology (DoA) and Lumbini Development Trust (LDT) in unison are trying to ascertain whether Lumbini-based Devdaha was the maternal home of Gautam Buddha, Ankit Adhikari writes in The Kathmandu Post..
Although there are a number of folklores and old travelogues pontificating that Devdaha was the place where Buddha himself and his father King Sudhdhodhan got married, no inscriptions or coins have ever been found in the area to establish this claim.
The matter has shrouded in mystery since the fifth century after an archaeologist named Fasyan first mentioned in his travelogue that the maternal kingdom of Buddha and Sudhdhod-han was the Kwaliyar state (now called Devdaha).
According to Prakash Darnal, chief of National Archives under DoA, archaeologists and travellers including Fasyan (in fifth century), Wehn Sang (in seventh century) and Hoey ( in 1962) have mentioned this fact in their writings.
As cross cousin marriage was popular then, some archaeologists have also dropped a hint that Buddha’s mother Mayadevi and his wife Yasodhara came from the same family in Kwaliyar.
According to ancient scriptures, Kwaliyar was a neighbouring state of Kapilvastu between Lumbini’s Rohini River in the east and Narayani River in the west—an area that matches up with the location of present day Devdaha.
In their efforts to find out the remains of the palace of Buddha’s in-laws and maternal relatives, DoA and LDT had initiated an excavation on March 14 last year.
However, as the excavation process started too late and just ahead of the monsoon, the process got halted on April 14 and was postponed for the next year. Winter season is considered the best time to carry out excavations. The excavation process resumed on October 13 last month.
The “unverified ruins” of old bricks and foundations can be found in four different locations of Devdaha, Kanyamai, Bairimai, Bhawanipur and Khayar Danda, all worshipped as religious shrines by Buddhists these days.
According to Himal Upreti, a archaeologist with the Lumbini trust, who is involved in the ongoing excavation, all four locations have equal chances of turning out as the palace of Buddha’s maternal uncles.
Out of the four locations, excavation is being carried out only at Kanyamai. The Archaeo-logy Department and Lumbini trust will excavate the three other areas after completing Kanyam-ai excavation this year.
“We have unveiled some horizontally erected wall structures and old bricks so far,” said Upreti, adding that the evidences gathered so far are not enough to establish that Kanyamai was the place where the Kwaliyar palace located.
Darnal, who is also involved in the excavation from DoA’s side, said the exact palace of Buddha’s maternal uncles can be found with evidences only after successful excavation in all the four locations.
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GOVT. AMENDNG NATIONAL HOUSING POLICY


Kathmandu, 11 Nov.: The government is gearing up to revise the National Housing Policy 1996 so as to make housing facilities accessible to the urban poor and better manage the urbanisation process, The Kathmandu Post reports..
According to the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, the revised policy will address problems experienced in land plotting, real estate, leasing property, rehabilitation of squatters or people affected by natural disasters and managing the urban poor.
The National Planning Commission (NPC) is likely to approve the proposed amendment to the policy soon. After the NPC nod, the proposal will be forwarded to the Cabinet for final approval.
“As people are experiencing several problems in managing these issues, we are coming with a revised policy to address them,” said Suresh Prakash Acharya, joint secretary at the ministry. The existing policy does not incorporate these issues as they are relatively new phenomenon in the country.
Demand for housing units has been growing with the rise in population. Two decades ago, the country’s population was at 18.4 million, but now, it has reached 26.6 million, according to a preliminary report of the National Census 2011. Mainly, cities are getting more unmanageable because of international migration and lack of proper housing facilities in accordance with the increasing number of urban poor.
Recently, the ministry had held discussions with NPC on the policy revision. “The policy will be revised soon as necessary consultations with NPC have already been completed,” said Acharya, joint secretary at the ministry.
The revised policy will also devise a mechanism to regulate land plotting and discourage haphazard plotting without ensuring proper road and drinking water facilities.
For the last ten years, there has been a significant rise in the number of housing and apartment projects, but such projects have failed to attract urban poor. “With the modification in the policy, the government will also be able to expand its ongoing People’s Housing programme,” said Acharya, adding that the new policy will come up with ideas of providing easy home loans to the urban poor.
Following the increase in migration to urban areas, the trend of living in rented houses has gone up. According to the National Census 1991, only 2 percent of the total population of 18.4 million lived in rented houses. The country had 3 million housing units then. But now, although the number of housing units has increased to 4.8 million, an estimated 8 percent of the total 26.6 million population lives in rented homes.
“Around 35 percent of the Kathmandu Valley’s population lives in rented homes,” said Achayra. According to the preliminary report of the National Census 2011, the Valley is home to 2.51 million people.
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