ENTRY OT BISHWO BANDHU THAPA HAS EMERGIZED RPP-NEPAL SAYS CHAIRMAN KAMAL THAPA Kathmandu, 4 June: Senior politician Bishwo Bandhu Thapa has joined the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, RSS reports. .With experience of nearly seven decades in Nepali politics, he was once the general secretary of the Nepali Congress. Lately, Thapa was coordinator of the panel for the unification of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party and the Rastriya Janashakti Party. RPP-N Chairman Kamal Thapa welcomed senior leader Thapa at a programme on Monday. Chairman Thapa said the entry of senior politician Thapa had energised RPP-Nepal. He said the country at present is in need of a strong alternative democratic force. Chairman Thapa demanded dissolution of the High Level Political Mechanism for free and fair Constituent Assembly elections. Bishwo Bandhu said formation of a government under Chief Justice is a bid to weaken the multi-party system. He said it’s high time to work together for protecting the country and democracy. Nnnn GOVT. TALKS TEAM WITH KAMLARIS Kathmandu, 4 June: Government Monday formed with five member talks with protesting kamlaris protesting what the Tharu former child workers said were excesses against the, Protests are centered in the capital and the far-West. The Office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers (OPMCM) formed the dialogue team. Upendra Prasad Adhikari, joint-secretary at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, I coordinator. The Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour and Employment and the Ministry of Land Reform and Management are also in the talks team. freed kamlaris threatened to close down 22 terai districts and stage and resume a sit-in in front of Singha Durbar Tuesday. nnnn the Tarai for an indefinite period against the suppression of their peaceful protest. Chandra Kumar Chaudhary, president of Tharu Kalyankarini Sabha, said they will give continue to their protest and gherao Singha Durbar tomorrow. CAPITAL TEMPERATURE TUESDAY Kathmandu, 4 June: Capital’s Tuesday morning temperature is expected to be 18 degrees Celsius. Mercury is expected to rise to 27 degrees on a rainy afternoon. Nnnn FOUR SECTORS PRIORITIZED FOR DEVELOPMENT Kathmandu, 4 June: The National Planning Commission (NPC), the apex policy making body of the government, has prioritized four sectors, including infrastructure and agriculture, in the upcoming three-year plan with the target of upgrading the country from the status of Least Development Country (LDC) to Developing Country by 2022, Prabhajar GHimere writes in Republica.. The preceding three-year plan had set the target of achieving developing country status by 2030. Officials of the NPC said draft of the concept paper prepared for the next three fiscal years has identified those four sectors as crucial for economic development and for upgrading to the developing country status. Gopi Mainali, joint secretary at the NPC, said the concept paper envisages prioritizing programs focused on development of infrastructure, agriculture and economic sectors; human resource development and effective use of public resources. “We have prioritized those sectors that can play significant role in upgrade Nepal´s status to developing country from LDC by 2022,” Mainali told Republica on Monday. “We have reduced the focus areas to four from seven identified in the earlier three-year plan so that we can concentrate effectively on them.” Under the infrastructure sector, the concept paper, which is under discussion with stakeholders, has emphasized on developing energy, roads, and communications. Similarly, focus under the agriculture and economic sectors will be on farm commercialization, tourism, industries and trade. Likewise under the human resource development program proposed in the draft, the government aims enhance skill and capacity of available manpower to increase competitiveness. At a time when the government agencies have been failing to utilize the allocated budget, the concept paper envisages making officials responsible in implementation of the designed programs. “Though we have not specified the number of jobs that we will generate during the plan period, we have estimated that we should generate at least 150,000 jobs per year,” said Mainali. According to conservative estimate, around 415,000 youths enter the labor markets every year. Of them, around 300,000 leave for greener pastures abroad. “We can´t enhance effective utilization of budget until and unless we set up institutional capacity and effective mechanism to ensure better performance in program implementation side. So, the concept paper has attempted to make concerned official more responsible,” added Mainali. He further added that the four priority sectors will get as much as 80-90 percent of the total budget to be allocated in capital expenditure in the budget for the next fiscal year. In the earlier three-year plan that ends in this fiscal year, the government had identified seven priority areas, including infrastructure, agriculture, education, good governance, environment and national priority projects. Yuba Raj Bhusal, member secretary of NPC, said Nepal has achieved the target in economic indicators and inching closer to achieve the target in social indictors as specified by Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015. “We will start programs of the concept paper from the next budget,” he added. Officials said Nepal needs to make more progress on achieving target of Gross National Product (GNP). The concept paper will be endorsed by the meeting of National Development Council once it is finalized after holding national level discussion. Nnnn POLICE UNABLE TO FIND ADDRESSES OF DONS Kathmandu, 4 June: Not so long ago, the Department of Money Laundering Investigation (DoMLI) initiated action against five dons on the charge of amassing fortunes through illegal means, including criminal activities. But the prosecution process seems to have come to a halt with the Kathmandu District Court (KDC) failing to locate their addresses, The Himalayan Times reports.. “Despite several efforts, we have been unable to locate their residences and serve them Special Court court notices,” Krishna Giri, chief of the Notice Serving Section at the Kathmandu District Court, told reporters. The court has ordered dons appear to appear in court within 30 days after they get the notices. According to Giri, notice serving staff have been making rounds, trying to locate the dons’ residences, but to no avail. “In case of Chakre Milan, Indira Ghale, wife of the don, DoMLI mentioned wrong address in the chargesheet. Because of this, we could not locate the don’s address,” he added. The Special Court had forwarded notices to the KDC, telling it to serve them to the dons based in Kathmandu district. Hira Pandey is tasked with serving notice to Chakre Milan’s wife and Hari Sapkota to Dipak Manange. “I have heard that Manange is out of the country. I could not even locate his house,” Sapkota said. Even if Manange is out of the country, the long arm of the law will get hold of him one day, said Sapkota. “When I went to Thamal looking for his house, I heard that he may return in a few days. I will go there again,” he expressed his confidence. Chudamani Mishra, who is supposed to serve notice to Ganesh Lama, said he could not locate Lama’s house at Ward No 35 of Kathmandu Metropolitan City. “I went searching for his house twice, but failed to locate it,” Mishra added. The MLID had charged five dons — Ganesh Lama, Parshuram Basnet, Chakre Milan, Dipak Manange and Abishekh Giri — with accumulating assets worth Rs 630 million through extortion, commission and other criminal activities. Prosecuting them on the charge on May 19, MLID had sought action against them as per Section 30 (2) of the Money Laundering Act, 2008, which stipulates maximum imprisonment of four years and fine equalling the fortunes they have made illegally. Nnnn PASSPORTS TO RESCUE NEPALIS IN SAUDI ARABIA Kathmandu, 4 June:: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dispatched 5,000 units of passports and travel documents to its embassy in Saudi Arabia, aiming to rescue several Nepalis who are languishing in the Gulf country with illegal status, The Himalayan Times reports.. The Embassy of Nepal in Saudi Arabia has estimated that as many as 90,000 Nepali migrant workers could be labelled illegal if they fail to announce their status and initiate due process to get legal status. Around 700,000 Nepali migrant workers are living in Saudi Arabia — one of the most-preferred destinations for Nepalis to work. “We have received 5,000 copies of ordinary passports from MoFA,” said Harish Chandra Ghimire, Deputy Chief of Mission at the embassy in Riyadh. “We will issue the documents to those who want to earn the legal status and continue working here in Saudi Arabia,” Ghimire said. Those who want to return home will be issued one-way travel document to ensure their safe flight from Saudi Arabia to Nepal. Earlier, the Saudi government had given an opportunity to an estimated 350 million foreigners living or working in the Gulf state illegally to acquire legal status as per Saudi rules by July 3. Changing workplace without informing the employers also can make a migrant worker illegal in Saudi Arabia, and this is one reason many Nepalis are labelled illegal. According to the embassy, others have earned illegal status for overstaying or losing the passports. The embassy said as many as 18,000 Nepalis have declared their illegal status and more than half of them want to return home. Nnnn