RAUTES ON MONEY COLLECTION DRIVE Kathmandu, 4 July: Rautes, the wandering tribes in the country, have moved to the cities to collect money for the celebration of the coming Sune Sakranti festival, RSS reports from Chitwan. . The 5-member Raute team led by assistant leader Shivaraj Sahi collected the money from Bharatpur Municipality, Chitwan on Wednesday. "As leader Muktibal became sick this time, I led the team to collect money," said assistant leader Shivraj. While coming to the city, they brought different wooden items to exchange with money. From the Bharatpur municipality alone, they were donated Rs 9,000. The Rautes are currently staying at Narkhola area of Danipang VDC of Dang district. They were ferried to Narayangadh by a bus free of cost. Nnnn ________________________________________ UPDATE GOVT. POSSIBLE DECISION ON TIA CHALLENGED AT SUPREME COURT Kathmandu, 4 July: A writ petition has been filed at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, demanding to scrap the government's decision to hand over the tasks of management and upgrading of the Tribhuvan International Airport to an Indian Company without bidding. Advocates trio Shree Prasad Pandit, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Bhupal Basnet jointly filed the writ petition at the SC and demanded a certiorari order against the decision of the caretaker government, arguing that the decision was against the welfare of the country and against legal provisions. The writ, filed by making the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers as the defendants, also seeks the SC order against further activities of the secretive agreement on the TIA management. The agreement violated Article 156 of the interim constitution that demands such decision be endorsed by the parliament. Meanwhile, general secretary of the CPN-Maoist, Ram Bahadur Thapa has said the government decision to hand over management of the TIA to an Indian company was against the national interest. With this decision, the government has served as an Indian agent, he blamed. Speaking at a press meet organized by the Revolutionary Journalists' Association in the capital today, general secretary Thapa accused the UCPN-Maoist of transforming itself into the CPN-UML. nnnn