150 TOURISTS STRANDED AFTER HEAVY SNOWFALL

CONSENSUS SOON SAYS MINISTER RAYAMAJHI
Kathmandu, 16 Jan : Minister for Local Development Top Bahadur Rayamajhi has revealed that the secret meetings of political parties will help strike a deal for peace and constitution
writing soon, RSS reports from Gulmi.

One after another consensus will be forged as the parties are holding internal homework, Rayamajhi said at a news conference organized by the Federation of Nepalis Journalists (FNJ).

Minister Rayamajhi said the deal of consensus will be made public one after another as the political parties and the government has agreed on many issues.

In a separate context, the Local Development Minister said preparations were underway to constitute the local bodies based on parties´ votes received in the Constituent Assembly (CA) election.

Holding election of the local level was the best way but it was not possible right this time and there is no other alternative to this, Rayamajhi said, "The Ministry is holding discussions regarding its standard, procedures and process."

Rayamajhi who is also the Maoist Standing Committee member said that the party would launch the people´s struggle programs to exert pressure if constitution writing process was hindered, adding that the contentious issues in the Maoist party were resolved following the latest move of party leaders.
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150 TOURISTS STRANDED AFTER HEAVY SNOWFALL

Kathmandu, 16 Jan.: As many as 150 tourists have been stranded in famous tourism site, Ghorepani, due to incessant snowfall, RSS reports from Myagdi.

Tourists who reached the site via Nayapul of Kaski a week ago have been in the state of nowhere because of continuous snowfall in the area.

Though off-season, daily around 200 tourists are visiting the famous place, said Hotel Entrepreneurs Association, Ghorapani.

Tourists are not in a position to go outside from the hotel owing to the cold caused by torrential snowfall.
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29 NEPALIS, 14 INDIANS WITH BIG HAUL OF FORGED NEPALI PASSPORTS
Kathmandu, 16 Jan : The Department of Immigration (DoI) has seized 43 forged Nepali hand-written passports used by both Nepali and Indian nationals in the month of December, 2011, Shreejana Shrestha writes in Republica..

This is the biggest seizure of forged passports in a month, officials said. Around 95 people were arrested till November, 2011 for possessing forged passports. The number of such seizures in 2010 was just 48.

All, 29 Nepali and 14 Indian nationals, were arrested at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA). DoI said the original photographs in the passports were tampered with.

Of those arrested, 31 are female. Most of the females had been sent to Kuwait and Saudi Arab for employment, DoI study confirmed.
“We have found that 90 percent of the women arrested for possessing fake passports are from poor families with no other breadwinner in the house,” said Ganesh Bahadur Adhikari, an official at DoI.

DoI has filed cases against all arrested. However, no person involved in the passport forgery racket has been arrested so far as the victims don’t have adequate information about them.

Anju Lama, 36, who possessed a fake passport in the name of Menuka Rawat and sent to Kuwait in 2010, during DoI interrogation said, “The details in this passport are not mine, the passport belongs to Menuka Rawat.” She said she was handed the fake passport by a person named Shankar Lama but she doesn’t have enough information about him.

Anju, who is originally from Jajarkot, was arrested at TIA on December 17, 2011.

The DoI officials argued that the porous Indo-Nepal border is the main reason behind forgery of passports. “Nepali passport holders in Kathmandu shouldn’t be allowed to take flights from Delhi,” they opined.
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