MANIPAL HOSPITAL INTERNS O PROTEST Kathmandu, 3 April: Intern doctors at Manipal Medical College, Pokhara, continue their closure of outpatient department inconveniencing patients. Interns have been on protests for nine days demanding perks, including increased salary. Hospital management has informed guardians of demands indicating tough approach hospital to the young doctors. Nnnn i TWO FORMER MAOIST FIGHTERS ARRESTED WITH ANCIENT BDDHA IDOL Kathmandu, 3 April: Two former Maoist combatants were arrested in Kohalpur in the far-West Tuesday attempting to sell an ancient Buddha idol Tuesday in the market. Prem Bahadur Katawal and Govinda Bahadur Chand were arrested by Central Bureau Investigation officials attempting to sell the priceless idol weighing 11 kg. nnnnr . ELECTION COMMISSION CONSIDERING NOV. ASSEMBLY ELECTION Kathmandu, 3 April: The Election Commission is considering to suggest that the government should hold Constituent Assembly elections on any day between November 10 and 22. Peace negotiator Amresh Kumar Singh, who met Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety today, disclosed this to The Himalayan Times, according to Ram Kumar Kamat.. He said the EC wanted to hold polls after November 9, as Chhat festival falls on that day. “It will be difficult to hold polls after November 22 because it starts snowing in the mountain areas after that,” Singh said and added that the time constraints led the election body to think an alternative to June date, which was proposed in the 11-point deal. The EC and the Interim Election Council of Ministers are, however, tight-lipped about a poll date in November. Minister for Information and Communications Madhav Prasad Paudel said the government would soon announce the poll date. Asked if they would announce it after the next Cabinet meeting, the government spokesperson said, “I cannot tell you for sure now.” Chief Election Commissioner Uprety said the government had not yet given the timeline for the elections and would be able to do so shortly after new election laws were enacted. The EC had sent three draft ordinances to the government yesterday. “Once we have the new laws, we will prepare the timeline by evaluating internal and external factors and will give it to the government,” Uprety added. “Even if we have the new laws, I cannot say for sure that we will be able to hold elections by third week of June nor can I deny this possibility,” he said. CEC further said the country needed elections as soon as possible but holding elections without duly completing the voters’ registration would not serve the purpose. “If the elections cannot produce results acceptable to all, then it’s better not to hold them in a hurry,” Uprety added. He clarified that 90 days or shorter period for poll preparation applied only in normal circumstances when elections were held periodically and most of the resources were available within the country. “But we are holding polls at an extra ordinary time. We have to reform a lot of things and we have to bring printing material from foreign countries,” he added. Asked if they would introduce electronic voting machines if the polls were pushed to a date later than June, Uprety replied in the affirmative but said installation of CCTV as sought by CPN-UML at all polling stations would be a costly proposition. “We might use CCTV at some stations but mostly we’ll use other alternatives,” he added. Another Commissioner Ayodhi Prasad Yadav said the EC could rent voting machines from India to use them in the upcoming elections. He said India had assured Nepal to make the machines available for the polls. nnnn GRANDSON TO RETRACE FIRST HISTORIC FLIGHT OVER EVEREST Kathmandu, 3 April: Charles Douglas-Hamilton is on a mission in Nepal — to fulfil a dream to retrace his grandfather’s historic expedition 80 years ago.On April 3, 1933, two aircraft, a Houston-Westland and a Westland-Wallace — both open cockpit bi-planes fitted with Bristol Pegasus SIII engines — made the first manned flights over Everest. The flight took three hours, covered a return distance of 510 km reaching nearly 9,144 m, clearing the mountain by barely a metres. One of the two Scot pilots who created history was Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Marquis of Clydesdale and commander of 602 City of Glasgow squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, the grandfather of Charles Douglas Hamilton; the other was Flight Lieutenant David Fowler McIntyre, Terrence Lee writes in The Himalayan Times. . The historic connection continues to hold significance as the Yeti Airlines Jetstream aircraft is manufactured by the very company founded by McIntyre and Douglas-Hamilton after their Everest adventure – Scottish Aviation Ltd. To commemorate that first flight over Mount Everest, Douglas-Hamilton will be flying in a Yeti Airlines Jetstream-41 around Everest. This trip is not important just for Douglas-Hamilton but for his entire family and aviation pioneers around the world. “I felt that a family member had to represent my grandfather and the family on this day and also to enhance the strong aviation links that exist between Nepal and Scotland,” he says. “It is my first time in Nepal and I am really looking forward to getting on this flight and seeing the mountain and appreciating the sort of risks taken by the expedition pilots in the pursuit of advancing science and British aviation,” says Douglas-Hamilton . “I look forward to approaching the mountain by flight and taking pictures of it as were taken in 1933 just to see the then and now in the pictures.” Douglas-Hamilton says this is the first of many more trips to Nepal. He says, “I will be back to trek with friends and climb some mountains.” Repeating Douglas-Hamilton and McIntyre’s epic journey was made possible by the Prestwick World Festival of Flight, BAE Systems at Prestwick, the successor company to Scottish Aviation, and Yeti Airlines. nnnn