UML DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE SEEKS CLARIFICATION Kathmandu, 6 July: UML’s central disciplinary committee has sought explanation from janajati and indigenous leaders in one week Wednesday. The leaders were charged for ‘groupism and undesired activities’. Janajatis and Madeshi leaders demanded have been lobbying for single ethnic provinces opposed by the establishment which has proposed seven multi-ethnic nnnn SAARC COMMERCE SECRETARIES MEET MID-JULY Kathmandu, 6 July: Commerce secretaries of eight SAARC countries meet for a two-day conference 14 July to discuss enhancing trade in South Asia The meeting will also discuss drafts of agreements for investment and trade.. nnnn MEDIA GOOGLE “The PM saying that he was the son of a farmer was a lie and part of his drama. “If we don’t learn a lesson from the current scarcity and plan something for the next year, we will face the same problem again,” (NC leader Gagan Thapa protesting non-availability of fertilizers, The Himalayan Times, 6 July) nnnn INIGENOUS GROUPS TO LAUNCH A PARTY Kathmandu, 6 July: A two-day national gathering of ethnic leaders and activists concluded on Thursday after deciding to form a new party of indigenous people, most likely on August 9, which is International Day of the World´s Indigenous Peoples, Gani Ansari writes in Republica.. "The gathering concluded that it is essential to form a new political party based on social justice, equality and human rights," said Professor Krishna Bhattachan, a participant in the national gathering, about the decision of the national gathering. Asked when the indigenous leaders would form the new political party, Bhattachan said, "We will work to form the new party on August 9, but it may be delayed two to four months as there will be rigorous discussion on the issue." He stated that a taskforce of ethnic leaders and activists would work on the formation of the new party. According to Bhattachan, the ethnic leaders and activists concluded that the Constituent Assembly can be reinstated only if the parties agree to single identity-based federalism. "There will be no point reinstating the CA if the political parties do not first forge consensus on single ethnicity-based federal states," he said about the decision of the gathering. Indigenous leaders who attended the meet said that the gathering also decided to urge the indigenous communities to socially boycott political parties and leaders who oppose single identity-based federalism. Treasurer of Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) Dandu Sherpa said the gathering concluded that the major political parties must take them into confidence while reaching any decision on federalism. "No political agreement would be acceptable to us if it is forged among political parties in the absence of indigenous leaders," Sherpa told Republica. Similarly, the indigenous leaders demanded that a new constitution must be promulgated through the CA. "We won´t accept a new constitution promulgated from beyond the CA," Bhattachan told Republica. Sherpa said that they would expose anti-single ethnicity-based federalism forces at the grassroots. "We decided to expose political parties and leaders that are against single ethnicity-based federalism," he maintained. The decisions are scheduled to be made public in the declaration of the two-day national gathering amid a press conference at the NEFIN central office in Lalitpur, Friday morning. nnnn ________________________________________ PLA INTEGRATION DISRUPTED Kathmandu, 6 July: The integration process in the cantonments at Talbanda and Dudhauli could not start on Thursday either as the combatants refused to take part, expressing dissatisfaction over the selection process, Kiran Chapagain Republica reports. Even in the cantonments where the process has started the combatants are not happy over the selection process they have to go through, saying it is no different from the one applied for regular recruitment by the national army. The question now arises: What does the process that has upset the former Maoist fighters involve? Nepal Army Spokesperson Ramindra Chhetri says the integration has been carried out as per the seven-point agreement reached among major political parties last November. • NC, UML concerned over integration "The integration has been carried out as per the agreement and as per the standard norms of the Nepal Army. Waiver have been allowed only on education, age and marital status, as agreed by the parties," said Chhetri. According to the NA, an ex-Maoist combatant aspiring to join the national army at officer level will have to pass as many as 16 tests, including physical and academic tests. Similarly, former Maoist fighters aspiring to join other ranks in the national army will have to pass 10 tests. However, the conditions for female officers and recruits are different. The process of selecting ex-combatants for officer level ranks begins with registration of the applications supported by academic records and citizenship. They will be eligible for physical tests only if they have the required academic background -- intermediate level in this particular selection case-- and meet the criteria for age waiver of 27 years. Besides, they should weigh 50 kg, with a height of 5 feet 3 inches. The former combatants will have to pass physical tests comprising push ups (10 times), sit ups (15), chin ups (3), completion of a two-mile run in 17 minutes and 300 meters in 55 seconds. The successful candidates will then face a 30-minute IQ test. In addition, there will be tests of English, mathematics and Nepali for three hours each, followed by a test of general knowledge. The next test comprises three types of psychological tests -- for technical officer, group tasking officer and interviewing officer. Finally, the candidate will face a board interview. The candidate will then undergo an 18-month training. Combatants aspiring to join other ranks will face slightly different and fewer tests. As they have to face the process applicable for regular recruitments, many former combatants question whether they are being recruited or integrated, according to reports filed by our correspondents from different cantonments. But the NA spokesperson begs to differ. "It is integration as per the seven-point agreement among political parties because it is being carried out exclusively among ex-Maoist combatants and waiver on three issues has been given to them. No such waiver is given in regular recruitment," argued Spokesperson Chhetri. Maoist leader and former deputy commander of the ex-Maoist army Janardan Sharma said that there are also other technical issues relating to the integration process. He said the ex-combatants have faced problems relating to age and education. As a significant number of ex-combatants have two ages -- one in the identity cards issued by UNMIN during their verification and another in their citizenship certificates. According to Balananda Sharma, coordinator of the Special Committee secretariat, the problem of age arose as many combatants made out their citizenship papers after their verification by UNMIN. He said these combatants will be disqualified automatically during integration. Similarly, former combatants recorded a particular level of education with UNMIN but they failed to produce supporting certificates. "The problem lies with the seven-point agreement [signed last November]," said Sharma, "There has been no effort at any level to resolve the problems at this moment." Nnnn SOCIAL PROBLEMS CREATED BY REMITTANCES FROM MADESHI WORKERS Kathmandu, 6 July: The Madhes region may have made great strides in infrastructure development of late, but it certainly has come at a price, Ram Kumar Kamat writes in The Himalayan Times.. Increased remittance from the Gulf have helped Madhes see rapid construction of concrete houses, but with this family tension, disintegration and social problems too are leaking through these concrete jungles. A 51-page report published by Third Alliance, an NGO, says while remittance has helped some families become self-reliant, if not affluent, it has also weakened the agricultural economy of the country’s bread basket. The Gulf countries have become a lucrative destination for youth from Madhes as they can earn between Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000, a quantum jump from a meagre Rs 200 daily wage at home. The rush for Gulf countries, concludes the report, has resulted in shortage of skilled and unskilled labourers, causing the reason to depend more on imports from India for basic agro products like wheat, rice, potatoes and onions. According to Living Standard Survey, 56 per cent of Madhes households receive 89,000 per family per year out of which 78.1 per cent is spent on daily needs, 7.1 per cent to pay back loans and 4.5 per cent to build houses. The percentage of savings is only 2.4 per cent. “Thus, foreign remittance cannot support much the long-term sustainable development of the Madhesi society,” the study concludes. The findings add that joint family that has been a basic constituent unit of traditional Madhesi society is on the verge of disintegration as a result of remittance related family feuds and anomalies. “A migrant worker’s father and wife both are seen to claim control over the money sent by him,” cites the report. “There is increasing number of sexual promiscuity; divorce and remarriage by females in villages.” The report has suggested encouraging creative use of remittance; protection and promotion of indigenous, discouraging domestic violence and addressing the linguistic barriers faced by the Madhesi youth leaving for foreign employment. Shri Govind Shah, a specialist on policy, ecology and environment analysis, says remittance is only good for the banks and the government, but not for society. He says both Madhes and hill regions are witnessing acute shortage of labourers which is ultimately decreasing the agricultural yields. “Remittance is not being spent on development. The worst effect of migration is that it is disintegrating social fabrics which will do more harm than the good to the country in the long run,” Shah argues. The Third Alliance prepared the report after six months’ research. Nnnn NOC DELAY IN DISTRIBUTING COLOURED GAS CYLINDERS Kathmandu, 6 July: Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has said that it will take some more months for it to introduce Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders in different colours for domestic and industrial use, The Himalayan Times reports.. The Office of the Prime Minister had, a month back, directed NOC to introduce LPG cylinders with separate colours for domestic and industrial use. NOC has already directed all bottling plants to introduce blue cylinders for industrial use, said NOC spokesperson Mukunda Prasad Dhungel. “The process to separate the colour is time consuming.” Bottling plants have to first collect cylinders from consumers to introduce a separate colour, he said, adding that normally only 33 per cent of cylinders come to the bottling plants at a time for a refill. It will take around three to four months to complete the process of introducing cylinders with a different colour for industrial use, added Dhungel. Nepal Oil Corporation has directed all bottling plants to change the colour of 50 per cent of the cylinders they own to blue for industrial utilisation, according to him. NOC took the decision of separating 50 per cent cylinders into blue after bottling plants said that a total of 50 per cent LPG is used by the industrial sector, he informed. However, the smooth implementation of the directive of the Office of the Prime Minister is not possible, he said. “Bottling plants which had been claiming that there was nearly 50 per cent industrial use of cooking gas have started to change their tone after the directive from the Office of the Prime Minister,” he said, adding that bottling plants have started claiming that the industrial use of LPG covers only 10 per cent of total consumption. The Office of the Prime Minister had taken the decision thinking that the effective implementation of the directive would help check the misuse of domestic LPG cylinders. Earlier, the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies and NOC had agreed to introduce a 19-kg blue colour cylinder for industrial purpose. Later, without giving any reason, the ministry and the corporation backtracked from their decision and took another decision of separating the colour of the existing 14.2 kg red colour cylinders, which have been used for domestic use into blue for industrial use. Nnnn OPINION INCARNATION OF CONRADICTIONS Kathmandu, 6 July: Baburam Bhattarai, who has been hobbling as interim prime minister, is pathetically reduced to adding to the "number" of days in office so that he could come nearer to completing a year in office. He has had almost nothing to do in the days after the June 27 dissolution of the Constituent Assembly whose demise ironically restored relatively a better degree of peace than what Nepalis had experienced till the late hours of that fateful May 27 when the CA was announced dissolved without doing the task it was assigned to complete in two years and whose members arrogantly had extended the term by two years, by Trikal Vastavik in Reople’s Review. . Many, many people think that Bhattarai's Maoist boss Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka Prachanda, as highly inconsistent, saying one thing one time and another the next time. But Bhattarai has proved to be the Maoist supremo's equal in this respect, although the style is a little different. Among the many times he took about-turns, a few are listed below for recall and conclusion. He was selected by the Panchayati government for studying in India under a scholarship the latter made available to the Nepal government. He went on to gain a degree in Architecture, only to begin preaching the idea that bourgeois education was incapable of meeting the basic needs of Nepali people. He did nothing of note in his field of specialization and took up leftist politics but without raising the sort of slogans he and his party took in the later years. His academic degree was a waste as far as his professional career was concerned. His wife boasts of having "fed" him for years when he did not earn. This would mean most of his life except since 2008 when he was elected member of the Constituent Assembly. He used to wear cheap sandals and shoes, and generally refused to take rides in expensive private cars, as those who knew him from close quarters narrate now. There are interesting tales about such attitudes. He used to also talk about "national interest" and "nationalism," "foreign interference" and "self-reliance." This may sound strange today, given Bhattarai's feet of clay that has not withstood the test of history about what he preached and actually practiced. His lifestyle in the last six years shattered the pretences. Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi enrolled him as a Ph. D scholar. The Indian government granted all the expenses and facilities for the engineer. He pretended to be an expert on regional development just because his dissertation had a title that suggested something on regional development. Now, anyone having done a Ph. D. should be able to tell, on a frank note, that mere holding a degree does not tell all. But Bhattarai strayed into snatching a scholarship from the graces of a benevolent agency and got enrolled as a Ph. D. scholar. On that basis he became the finance minister, as if he was greatly qualified for the same. Nepalis have seen all sorts of individuals supervising the finance ministry. Bhattarai did take an initiative to expand the taxation net and took measures that resulted in higher revenue collections. But that alone does not at all declare that someone is a top-notch financial strategist or an economist. His party colleague Barsha Man Pun is an example as the finance minister who hardly knows anything about the subject but he managed to hold on to his portfolio under the "intellectual prime minister". If he can become a finance minister who else cannot? This, at least, is the conclusion to be drawn from Bhattarai's choice of his government's man with the money. Bhattarai took pride in having drafted the 42-point program/demand issued by his party on the eve of going underground and launching an armed rebellion that claimed 16,000 lives over a period of ten years. Pushpa Kamal Dahal admitted four years ago that he had spent eight and a half years in NOIDA, on the outskirts of the Indian capital New Delhi. Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) leaders, who met with the banned party members, privately narrate who their meetings with the Maoists were arranged with leaders of the group that was declared "terrorist" at home and in the "friendly neighboring" country. Bhattarai also spent most his underground years in NOIDA. If he was near the Indian capital, could his wife Hisila Yami be behind? But the couple prefers this question which has become an embarrassment for the pair. But, then this is not the only issue whose answer they dodge. According to UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, who addressed an audience at a program organised by POLSAN in June, Bhattarai had concluded to him that the five development regions operating since the Partyless Panchayat years were acceptable; for "not everything initiated in the past need be scrapped." Bhattarai is also said to have mentioned that his Ph. D. under Sukh Dev Muni was regional development. But he is now against the five development regions. It seems that a Ph. D., to Bhattarai and his ilk, is to be brandished as a certificate for expertise in everything. Sometimes he describes himself as a student of "political economy"; at other times, he calls himself a student of regional planning. This author has met scores of Maoists who rue that their leaders discouraged them from pursuing higher education that was berated as "bourgeois" education while they themselves had been enrolling their children to such schools and education. A former rebel said, "Under such instructions, we attacked schools and teachers. But now we realize that our own leaders did not practice what they asked us to do." Bhattarai was the first noted politician to announce publicly that he had not craving for hanging his portrait at Singha Durbar along with those of other former prime ministers. A couple of months later he took up the job through a series of manipulations engineered by him and his party promising to form a "consensus" government, which was never destined to be attained. On the eve of his India visit as prime minister, he vowed not to sign anything that would raise a controversy. He came back signing the much-criticized BIPPA which hardly anyone wants. He was reduced to a lame duck premier without forming a consensus cabinet. He said he would not stick to the prime minister's seat if he was not wanted. After the dissolution of the CA, he announced, "I am not prepared to skirt my responsibility to the people." Bhattarai used to vow by the name of Constituent Assembly, yet he did not address it although the CA members had assembled and were awaiting his arrival for more than 12 hours till they were told that the CA was dissolved. Another unpalatable coating is that, like many of his party members, it is interesting that properties in the names of his wife and daughter are not made transparent. nnnn