NIRANJAN MAN SINGH BASNEYT NEW CHIEF OF PROTOCOL

NEW CHIEF OF PROTOCOL
Kathmandu, 10 April: Niranjan Man Singh Basneyt has been appointed chief of protocol to replace Muktinath Bhatta whohas been appointed ambassador to Denmark.
Basneyt was director at SAAR headquarters.
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FNCCI DAY BEING OBSERVED
Kathmandu, 10 April; FNCCI Day is being observed Thursday on its
anniversary.
Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry has been observing the day for the last 12 years.
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EIGHT-YEAR GIRL RAPED BY A 13-YEAR-OLD
Kathmandu, 10 April: Eight-year-old Krishna Nepali was raped and murdered Kharala VDC-1 in Kailali, published reports said Tuesday.
Nara Bahadr Saud, 1, of the same village, has been arrested.
The girl’s body was recovered from a nearby jungle.
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MEDIA GOOGLE
"From what I understand, the structure won't change much. Tinkering with the structure will not be in its best interest. It is about the integration of Maoists, and finding the best possible way they can be assimilated and made to work in the democratic way of the Nepal Army.
"Whenever the Nepal government and the Nepal Army want, it [arms] will come. It is the decision of the Government of Nepal. We are ready to offer any assistance." The Hindu
(Indian Army Chief VK Singh, The Kathmandu Post, 0 April)
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PM’s CITY CLEAN-UP DRIVE COLLECTS DIRT INSTEAD
Kathmandu, 10 April:: Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai’s clean-up drive, launched on Sunday as part of his larger pet project “National Volunteer Campaign”, seems to have gathered more dirt in the Kathmandu Metropolitan City. KMC officials claimed there has been an embezzlement of Rs 1.2 million in the procurement of gloves and masks alone, Binod Ghimere, Nirjana Sharma write in The Kathmandu Post.
.Officials at the KMC, which was authorised to carry out the project, pointed fingers at KMC Chief Kedar Adhikari for sanctioning the deal to purchase gloves, masks and other items at rates many times higher than their actual market price in a clear breach of the procurement law.
“The act of providing the contract worth around two million rupees to little-known traders without a tender process clearly shows that there is irregularity,” said a KMC official requesting anonymity.
“There could be a high scale corruption as the details of other items purchased are yet to emerge.”
Sources also revealed that the KMC had bypassed the law by closing the deal with little-known retailers.
The KMC had signed the purchase deal with Kundan Singh of Jun Tara Suppliers and Prakash Pokhrel of an undisclosed retailer. Neither are among the 22 authorised dealers of masks and gloves in the country, according to Ramendra Neupane of Nepal Chemical and Medical Suppliers Association.
Prime Minister’s Political Advisor Devendra Poudel said they have not received any official information about alleged corruption in the National volunteer Campaign.
“However, there has been negative publicity about a good initiation of government,” he said.
The Post on Saturday had run a news story revealing the possible misappropriation of funds in the clean-up programme.
Adhikari, however, defends their action saying that the KMC could not follow the procedure as outlined in the Public Procurement Act-2007 because of time constraint.”The Cabinet took the decision and instructed us to prepare everything at short notice,” he said. “Singh and Pokhrel are KMC’s approved suppliers.”
The suppliers, however, conceded that they had no capacity to meet
such a huge order and borrowed the items from actual dealers in credit.
“We have not received the payment yet,” said Singh.
The KMC on April 5 purchased 30,000 pieces of mask at the rate of Rs 17 and 30,000 pairs of gloves at the rate of Rs 30. Similarly, the KMC printed 350,000 pieces of pamphlets at the rate of Rs 1 per sheet on an average.
However, the gloves are available at Rs 5 a pair and masks at Rs 3.20 each in the market, while the pamphlets can be printed at Rs 0.6 on an average. The KMC is expected to spend around Rs 20 million in the week long programme that concludes on Wednesday.
KMC chief flying out on state funds
KATHMANDU: At a time when the KMC’s clean-up campaign is facing a corruption charge, KMC Executive Chief Kedar Bahadur Adhikari is planning for foreign trips shortly.
An eight-member team of the KMC officials led by Adhikari is set to leave for the Philippines to attend a conference on disaster management taking place from April 23 to 28. A highly-placed source at the KMC said that Devendra Dangol, Rachana Shrestha, Dhanapati Sapkota, Kiran Bhattarai, Ganga Dhar Gautam and Noor Nidhi Sharma are to join the KMC chief on the visit. Upon return from the Philippines, Adhikari is scheduled to go on another tour, to the United States, in the first week of May.
A source claimed that Adhikari has sought an approval of the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD) for a visit that will be financed by the KMC. “That is to please the MoLD officials,” quipped a representative of the all-party mechanism at the KMC.
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DOCTOR’S PLAN TO SAVE RAHUTES
Kathmandu, 10 April: After reading news reports about decreasing population of the nomadic Raute tribe due to various illnesses and unsafe delivery, a doctor has launched a medical campaign to improve their health condition in Dang, Durgalal KC writes in The Kathmandu Post from Dang.
As part of the campaign, Dr Sushil Koirala, who works in a tuberculosis hospital in the district, held a health check-up camp in a Raute settlement at Chisapani in Tulsipur Municipality-10 on Monday.
He also distributed some medicines and essential goods such as brushes, toothpastes, soap, mosquito nets, bed sheets, quilts and clothes for women. Koirala, who purchased the essential goods and medicines spending his three months’ salary, said he initiated the campaign so that the community keeps in touch with health facilities.
“I am engaged in social work keeping aside my regular job for some months as I am encouraged to help the community after reading news reports about their decreasing population,” he said. “I hope the campaign will aware the Rautes of their health,” said Koirala, adding that he will visit the settlement from time to time to find whether their health has improved.
Though reluctant in the beginning, the Rautes expressed happiness to receive the materials and get checked up. “We are happy to get medical treatment form a doctor even in the forest,” said chieftain of the community Surya Narayan Shahi, adding that many people in his community had died due to lack of timely treatment earlier.
Koirala said most of the Rautes were suffering from physical problems such as high blood pressure and pain in the back bone and joints. He said that health condition of post-natal women is also pathetic.
Satya Devi Adhikari, chairperson of an organisation working for the community, said frequent health check-up camps like this will play a great role in preserving the community. “Only three out of 10 infants survive on an average in the community because of unsafe delivery. So, saving the lives of children and mothers is a challenge due to their difficult lifestyle in forest,” she said. The population of the community has declined from 238 in 2007 to only 131 now.
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EMBARASSING GOVT, REBEL MAOISTS DEMAND TRANSPARENCY AT
CAMPS WITH FOMER FIGHTERS
Kathmandu, 10 April:
The combatants’ integration process could not take place even on Monday as their commanders were absent from the cantonments.
The task could not resume in the absence of the commanders who were participating in their meeting in Kathmandu called by the Maoist headquarters on the matter.
According to our correspondents, teams of the Army Integration Special Committee secretariat were in cantonments to vacate them and hand over the arms to the government by mid-April after giving the second chance to choose voluntary retirement and integration in Nepal Army to combatants.
The AISC secretariat coordinator Bala Nanda Sharma led a team that reached the third division in Saktikhor of Chitwan on Saturday but the task could not progress till now. However, one of the members of the team Madhu Bilas Pandit said the process would start from Tuesday.
"If the task starts from tomorrow, we can meet the deadline," he said.
Meanwhile, retired combatants sat at the main gate of cantonments demanding transparency of financial matters. They warned the cantonment vacating process would be obstructed before the financial matter was made transparent. However, the combatants in cantonments forced them the retired combatants to leave the place in 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, our Dhangadi correspondent wrote, the farewell of voluntarily retiring combatants could not take place on Monday at the seventh division of Kailali.
The combatants did not participate in the process stating that the commanders were not present there, informed AISC secretariat member Gopal Singh Bohara.
In the 7th division, 1759 combatants had CHOSEN INTEGRATION.
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