UML WOMAN LEADER DEFECTS TO UCON MAOIST Kathmandu, 18 May : CPN-UML Politburo member Urmila Aryal Defected to UCPN Maoist where she was welcomed by Chairman Prachanda Ssaturday. Ram Chandra Jha earlier defected on election year. Actress Rekha Thapa also joined UCON Maoist Saturday. Nnnn UML LAUNCHED ELECTION CAMPAIGN Kathamandu,18 May: CPN-UML Friday launched the ‘party mobilization campaign’ with the aim making the party as the largest political force with clear majority in the upcoming Constituent Assembly (CA) election, The Rising Nepal reports.. According to the party, the month-long campaign would be participated by central committee leaders, members of national representative council and zonal members among others. The party leaders would carry out door to door campaign with party agenda, planning and strategies in all 240 electoral constituencies by dividing into 20 members in each constituency. The party informed that the campaign teams would also carry out 11 works relating to formation of election environment, mobilization of organization, public relations and mobilization, allocation of local issues, security analysis and possibility of forming alliance with other parties during the one month period. The party is set to formulate an election policy based on the report that would be submitted by the teams involved in the campaign. Inaugurating the campaign here, party chairman Jhalanath Khanal said that he would not sit idle until the CPN-UML was established as the largest political party in the CA polls. He said that the victory of CPN-UML was obvious as it was the only party that had clear and concise working direction in Nepali politics “The country cannot head towards development and prosperity as long as status quoists party like Nepali Congress (NC) and ultra leftist party as UCPN-Maoist existed in the political scenario,” said Khanal, adding that the UCPN-Maoist would be only day-dreaming to become the largest party in the CA polls. He also alleged that the Madhes-based parties were the groups formed by the rich landlords of Terai who cared nothing about the people but about themselves only. Khanal urged all political parties to participate in the election and said there was no alternative to this. Leader Pradeep Gyawali said that the CPN-UML also organized one-day central training to the leaders taking part in the campaign in order to yield better results from it. Chairman Khanal, leaders KP Sharma Oli, Bamdev Gautam, Bidhya Bhandari and general secretary Ishwor Pokharel had given training at the programme. Nnnn FOOD PRODUCTION TO FALL EIGHT PERCENT Katthmandu, 19 May: The Ministry of Agriculture Development has projected that the production of food crops will decrease 8 per cent during the current fiscal year as compared to the previous year, The Rising Nepal reports.. The ministry has projected that the production of food crops will be around 8,738,000 metric tonnes during the current fiscal year while the production of foods crops stood at 9,458,000 during the last fiscal year. Speaking at a press meet organized by the MoAD at the ministry Thursday, Dr. Prabhakar Pathak spokesperson at the Ministry said that the production of the foods crops will be declined this year due to unfevourable monsoon in the harvest season of the major crops like paddy, maize and wheat. “The untimely rainfall affected the production of our entire foods croups over the year. However, the our technologies and hybrid seeds also contributed to save the significant declined the foods croups this year”, he said Earlier, the ministry has already projected that the production of paddy and maize will decline by 11 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively during the current fiscal year as compared to the last year. The production of paddy and maize has increased during the last year due to favourable monsoon. The decreased the harvest areas also attributed to decline the total production of foods crops this year, the ministry claimed. The areas of farming also deceased by 4 per cent this year as compared to the last year. A total of 3,344,046 hectares of land covered by crops this year while a total of 3,484,395 hectares land covered by crops last year. The productivity of land also will be decreased by 4 per cent to 2,613 kgs per hectare during the current fiscal year while the productivity of land stood at 2,714 kg per hectare. It expected that the production of paddy will be around 4,504,503 metric tons from the 1,420,570 hectares of paddy farm. During the last fiscal year, paddy output stood at around 5072,249 metric tones. Similarly, it forecast that the production of maize will decrease by 8.3 per cent to 1,999,010 metric tones from the 849,635 hectares planted land during the current fiscal year. However, the production of wheat will increase by 2 per cent to 1,882,220 metric tonnes during the current fiscal year. The wheat produced around 1,846,107 metric tonnes during the last fiscal year. The production millet and buckwheat will decrease by 2.5 per cent and 0.3 per cent to 305,588 metric tonnes and 10,056 metric tonnes during the current fiscal year. The production of barley will increase by 6 per cent to 36,973 metric tonnes during the current fiscal year. nnnn