ANOTHER SPLIT IN OFFING IN UCPN MAOIST? \ Kathmandu, 26 March: Maoist Madeshi leader Prbshu Sah told Nepal FM dissidents in UCPN Maoist will launch Madesh Communist Part if regional demands aren’t met. He called for corrections in party policy to address regional demands. UCPN Maoist gained a football in the region bordering India pushing federal and ethnic agenda—now watered down after gaining state power and running government from Singha Durbar twice. Rebels from NC and UML have already quit their parties demanding fedral structure with ethnicity. Fresh Maoist demands come as Maoist Chairman Prachanda declared in Dhanusha he’ll run for re-election in the second constituent assembly from a terai constituency and as CPN Maoist attempts to draw up a common manifesto with Madeshbadi parties for assembly vote. Maoist Spokesman Agni Sapakota said he had no knowledge on a threatened rebellion. The threat to leave the party comes immediately after Vice-chairman Mohan Baidhaya quit and formed CPN Maoist. nnnn MEDIA GOOGLE “We will spare no one of those who try to ruin the country leaning against the army. We will also see can army that is formed to safeguard national sovereignty gets involved in the game to finish national existence.” (Maoist Secretary, Deb Gurung The Rising Nepal, 26 March) “The CPN-Maoist is conspiring to hinder the CA election by obstructing in voters’ list collection procedure.” (UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal is The Rising Nepal, 26 March) Nnnn PROPOSAL TO ENCOURAGE ELECTRIC VEHICLES FINALIZED FINALIZED Kathmandu, 26 March: The policy drafting and technical sub-committees formed to draft a transportation policy in promoting electric vehicles has finalized the draft for a separate transportation policy to promote the electric vehicles in the country, The Rising Nepal reports.. Realizing the need of promoting electric vehicles in the country, the government had formed a 14-member committee led by Director General of Department of Transport Management to make a separate transportation policy to promote such vehicles. The main committee had further formed two committees- policy drafting and technical committee to draft the policy around eight months ago. We have recently submitted the draft of the policy as per our terms of references (TOR) to the main committee, said Danduraj Ghimire, coordinator of the Policy Drafting Sub-committee said. As we have not our own sources for fossil fuel, so the utilization of electric energy in transportation sector is the best option for the sustainability, he said and added that the sub-committees have prepared the policy with required measures to promote the electric vehicles in the country. Chandra Phunyal, director of DoTM informed that the draft of the policy will be finalized by the meeting of the main committee and will be recommended to the government. Ganga Bahadur Thapa, President of National Economic Concern Society (NECS), Nepal, and the consultant and invitee member of the main committee said that NECS has been lobbying for making an environment friendly transportation policy for the last four years. Thapa informed that the policy aims at promoting the domestic production of electric vehicles, convergence of fossil fuel based vehicles into electrical vehicle and operation of electrical vehicles in the country. "Though we face various problems while enforcing the government to introduce environment friendly electric vehicles, now it has got a tremendous momentum," he said. In the lack of supporting policies, some kinds of electric vehicles operated in the Kathmandu Valley have already disappeared and some are still facing existence threat. Though the Nepalese youth entrepreneurs have succeeded to convert the fossils fuel based vehicles into electric ones, the commercial convergence has yet to be started owing to lack of appropriate policy. "We successfully converted the fossils based fuel into electrical ones about 6 years ago but we were compelled to put it in the garage in lack of permission to operate it in the road, Umesh Shrestha, an entrepreneur involved in the conversion, said. nnnn