102 KILLED BY FLOODS, LANDLIDES IN FUVE MONTHS Kathmandu, 24 Sept.:: One hundred and two people were killed and 43 others have been missing in floods and landslides triggered by incessant rains over the last five months, RSS reports. This information was given out by Ekmani Nepal, assistant spokesman at the Ministry of Home Affairs, in the regular spokesman-journalists meet organized at the Ministry of Information and Communications here today. He said 33 people died due to diarrhoea while 89 died due to lightning. Assistant spokesman Nepal also said that the Council of Ministers on August 27 made a decision to create 1,041 various posts in the Nepal Police to implement the Action Plan for Maintaining Gender Balance in the Nepal Police, 2010. Spokesman at the Ministry of Defence Dwarika Prasad Acharya said that 173 people were treated for snakebites at the Nepal Army´s snake bite treatment centres in different places of the country in the last month. Assistant spokesman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr Durga Bahadur Subedi, said the ministry collected revenue worth Rs 180.5 million in the last month from passports and travel documents it issued in that period. Under Secretary at the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Diwas Acahrya, said that the ministry issued Rs 16,950,000 as ex-gratia compensation to the next of kin of the 113 Nepali workers who died in course of employment abroad in the last two months period. Nnnn PM CLAIMS PARTIES WILL COMROMISE SOON Kathmandu, 24 Sept. Prime Minister Dr Bbauram Bhattarai has said political parties would give an outlet to the country from the present confusion by reaching compromise on the election process soon, RSS reports.. Giving away the Hem-Sunil Risky Television Journalism Award instituted by the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ), Nepal Television chapter amidst a function here today, he said the political parties are gradually beginning to come on the side of the fresh election to the Constituent Assembly brought by the present government after the Constituent Assembly could not issue a new constitution. The country would get the political outlet from the new election to the Constituent Assembly alone and this election is going to be a sort of referendum on the side of change, the prime minister said. He also made it clear that the country could no longer withstand any kind of conflict or confrontation. Prime Minister Bhattarai stated that the government was committed to transforming Nepal Television into an autonomous and public broadcasting body and taking all the television channels to the digital technology by 2017. He remarked that the journalism sector has become challenging in terms of the associated risks as well as anomalies. Minister for Information and Communications, Raj Kishor Yadav said that since the country is in a phase of change and reconstruction, the media sector should fulfill this historic responsibility from its place. He added that the government would not interfere in the government media but it might take steps of some kind since they have not been able to move forward in tune with the times. Although the government is ready to change Nepal Television into a public broadcasting entity, but a plan is also needed regarding how to operate broadcasting institutions after the country goes federal in future, he said. On the occasion, Prime Minister Bhattarai handed over this year's the Hem-Sunil Risky Television Journalism Award to reporter with the News24 Television channel, Ram Sybhak Mahato and cameraperson Keshav Niraula. The award carries a purse of Rs 25,000. The award is instituted to the memory of Hemraj Bhandari and Sunil Kumar Singh, two journalists from Nepal Television, who were among a group of prominent conservationists including the then Minister of State for Forests, Gopal Rai, who died in a helicopter crash at Ghunsa in Taplejung district in September six years back. Mahato and Niraula were awarded for covering the intervention on the media during the indigenous nationalities' agitation on May 20, 2012. nnnn