UPDATE NEPAL SCORES 126 RUNS IN ACC TWENTY20 CHAMPIONSHIP`

UPDATE NEPAL SCORES 126 RUNS IN ACC TWENTY20 CHAMPIONSHIP

Kathmandu, 6 Dec.: Nepal batted first and scored 126 runs against Kuwait in the ACC Twenty-20 Cricket Championship Tuesday.
Nepal lost the toss and batted first.
Skipper Paras Khadka was out for a duck.
Openers Subash Khakurel and Anil Mandal scored 49 runs
Nepal is fourth in Group B with a won and a loss.
Nepal must win to keep its semi-final hope alive.
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nac employee murdered
Kathmandu, 6 Dec.: Govinda Dhungana, 27, was found dead
with stab injuries in the neck near Pepsicola in the capital
Tuesday morning.
Dhungana was a Nepal Airlines Corporation employee.
Three persons have been arrested for questioning.
The murder is the second in Lalitpur and the capital four days.
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NT ATTEMPTS TO REGAIN TOP POSITION
Kathmandu, 6 Dec.: Nepal Telecom has committed to clinch the No 1 spot again. It had lost the top position to Ncell, the first private sector GSM mobile service operator in the country, a few months ago, The Kathmandu Post writes.
For this, NT has initiated the process of adding 10 million new subscribers. The telephony service provider has already completed the bidding process to purchase equipment for adding 10 million GSM lines and the evaluation process of the bids is on.
“We are looking forward to regain the number one spot in the GSM segment,” Amar Nath Singh, the managing director of Nepal Telecom, told a press meet.
“We failed to work as per the demands of our customers and we lagged behind to a competitor in the past in the GSM segment, but we will make every effort to clinch the No 1 position again.”
The NT added 500,000 new GSM mobile service subscribers in the first four months of the current fiscal year. It aims to add a total of 1.23 million GSM subscribers this fiscal year—2011/12. Likewise, the company has said that 285,882 subscribers have been provided with the GPRS internet service in the first four months. Amid complaints about inferior quality of telecom services, Singh said the company was working on various techniques to better the quality of mobile phone service in the Kathmandu valley.
The NT has already replaced BTS towers that use the old technology with BTS that has new technologies, consume less energy and has a high capacity.
The telephony service provider has continued the process of Radio Frequency Optimisation and has set up a maintenance control centre to make the maintenance work of BTS towers more effective.
“The maintenance control centre will help us evaluate the overall activities related with the maintenance work,” Singh said.
The NT has also continued fitting batteries with high capacities throughout the country to address problems faced by the general people at the time of power outage.
The company has also introduced equipment that will help in the payment of bills of the post paid mobile connections, ADSL and PSTN through a recharge card. Currently, the device is being assessed by the NT.
“The service is expected to be available within the next two months,” Surendra Prasad Thike, the deputy managing director of NT, said. He added that top-up recharge cards and an electronic PIN-less recharge system was made public as per the company’s plan to bring it into practice within this fiscal year.
The top-up recharge cards come in the denomination of Rs 10 to Rs 1,000. “This will address the demand for recharge cards with less amount of money,” Thike said.
In a bid to manage the traffic and maintain quality during times of huge mass meetings, the NT has brought in three BTS vans. According to the NT, the vehicles are currently being equipped with BTS and other required devices. The vehicles have been bought from ALP Inter Corporation, Thailand. NT has signed an agreement with the company to purchase 13 BTS vans. “Of the13 vans, eight will have less capacity, while five of them will have higher capacities,” Thike said. Once the van is ready, they will be installed at various places as per the requirement.
In the first three months of the current fiscal year, the company collected revenue worth Rs 8.25 billion. NT has targeted to collect Rs 31 billion in the current fiscal year. According to Singh, NT aims to earn a net profit of Rs 12 billion. “Last year, the company successfully generated a net profit or Rs 10.7 billion. The way collections have remained so far, it seems that the figures will be pulled off easily,” Singh said.
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DOZEN MINISTRIES UNDER PM SCANNER
Kathmandu 6 Dec.: Concerned over the ever growing complaints about corruption, financial irregularities, delay in public work, unnecessary transfer of government employees and lack of good governance, Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has kept over 12 ministries and departments in their corruption watch list by monitoring their activities, AnilGiri writes in The Kathamandu Post.
The National Vigilance Centre and the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) are also keeping a tab on the activities of these government organisations.
About two weeks ago, Bhattarai had summoned the CIAA Secretary Bhagawati Kumar Kafle and urged him to keep an eye on these "corruption-ridden" entities and take prompt action.
Those under scrutiny include the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Health and Supplies, Ministry of Local Development, Ministry of Forest and Soil Conversation and the Ministry of Finance. The Department of Foreign Employment, Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Department of Roads, Nepal Oil Corporation, various revenues offices, Central Passport Office, Department of Immigration and Department of Land Reforms and its branch office across the Valley are also unde the scanner.
The PMO is receiving hundreds of complaints every week against these ministries, their ministers and the departments and their heads through "Hello Sarkar" (a direct complaint filing service at the PMO).
“In the last week of September, the PMO had asked eight line ministries to check rampant corruption and provide immediate relief to the public,” a secretary at the PMO said.
However, most of these directives went unheard and, now, a new wave of damaging complaints is being lodged against other ministries, ministers and government entities, the secretary said.
“The PM is committed to a policy of zero tolerance of corruption, but we cannot reveal all the ways and means of keeping an eye at this stage as investigations are still underway,” an aide to the PM said.
Bhattarai himself is handling most of the complaints and directly intervening and looking into them in many cases, while senior officials at the PMO are kept in the dark. Among the hundreds of complaints, most are related to corruption or irregularities in service delivery.
Last Week, Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index ranked Nepal the second most corrupt country in South Asia after Afghanistan.
Bhattarai has been seeking advice from experts on ways to deal with the menace. On Monday, the PM solicited ideas to curb corruption in his meeting with former secretaries Bhoj Raj Pokhrel, Surya Nath Uphadhaya, civil activist Dev Raj Dahal and officials of Transparency International, among others. “I am planning to wage a war against corruption,” the PM said during the interaction. “I will not let anyone found guilty go scot-free.”
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