ndc meet

HLPM MEETS SATURDAY

Kathmandu, 6 July: A meeting of the HLPM of the Big Three and Madesh Morcha chaired by MJFL Chief Bijaya Kumar Gachedhar meets Saturday after Chairman of the Interim Election Council Khil Raj Regmi asked major political parties to help create an atmosphere for t 19 November second constituent assembly elections.

The body meets after CPN Maoist formally decided to boycott the elections.

HLPM mechanism said it will work to create an election atmosphere committing itself to talks which haven’t been held as yet.

NC and CPN Maoist held inconclusive talks Friday.

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NDC MEETS COCLUDES SATURDAY

Kathmandu, 6 July: A two-day meeting of the National Development

Council (NDC) which began Friday concludes Saturday.

The meeting was convened to collect suggestions for the coming Three-Year-Plan.

Discussions will continue in five Saturday.

Members of the national planning commission are scheduled to addres questions raised at the meeting.

Government presented a proposal to raise the country’s status to a developed country in 10 years.

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TMDP DEMANDS 2008 POLL CODE

Kathmandu, 6 July:  The Tarai Madhes Democratic Party has submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission urging the latter to enforce the code of conduct that was applied during 2008 Constituent Assembly elections, The Himalayan Times reports..

The memorandum states that in democratic, processes for participation in the elections must be simple and flexible. It says the new draft code of conduct that the EC has prepared is against this spirit.

The Madhesi party also urged the EC to make amendments in its work plan so that political parties can come up with the names of their candidates for both the election systems — first-past-the-post and proportional representation systems — simultaneously. “The current work plan of the EC requires the parties to submit the closed list of PR candidates by mid-September. This requirement will make the task of preparing FPTP candidates’ list difficult. We, therefore, urge the EC to amend the work plan so as to enable the parties to submit their closed list around the time FPTP candidates file their nominations,” read the memorandum. The party said the voters’ registration for migrant labourers should remain open till the last hour of elections so that returnees can register their names on the voters’ list.

The TMDP said old voters, who have not acquired citizenship, should have the right to register their names on the voters’ roll. The EC discussed the code of conduct with civil society members today. Former Chief Election Commissioner Bhojraj Pokhrel said he advised the election body to prepare the code of conduct in a way that it is enforceable and acceptable to all.

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            AMID OFFICIAL CONFUSION ON THE MISSING, BEW
DELHI EMBASSY SAYS 100 NEPALIS UNACCOUTED FOR
Kathmandu, 5 July: As the Uttarakhand government of India wrapped up rescue work in the flood -ravaged Badrinath-Kedarnath areas, the New Delhi-based Nepali Embassy has said around 100 Nepalis are still missing in the disaster, Devenra Bhattarai writes in The Kathmandu Post from New Delhi..
In Kathmandu, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arjun Bahadur Thapa, however, said only 50 Nepalis are missing in the flash flood s that hit the north Indian state on June 16.
Among the missing Nepalis listed by the embassy are pilgrims and migrant workers, mainly from the western part of the country. Officials at the embassy said they are unsure about the exact figure of the missing Nepalis.
“We cannot say anything for certain unless the Uttarakhand government makes an official announcement on the number of deaths,” an embassy official in New Delhi said.
Meanwhile, relatives of the missing persons, who arrived in places like Dehradun, Haridwar and Rishikesh are returning home. With all hopes lost of finding their their missing family members alive, they are filing missing reports at local police stations so that the authorities can reach them should they find the dead bodies.
The Nepali embassy said it is still receiving calls from relatives of missing persons from districts like Salyan, Rukum, Rolpa, Dang and Jajarkot. A majority of these callers are looking for their relatives, who were working in Uttarakhand.
As Nepal and India share an open border, there is no knowing how many Nepali workers and pilgrims were caught in the disaster, how many survived and returned home, or how many are still missing .
Some of the missing Nepalis had reportedly reached Mumbai and Himachal Pradesh after surviving the incident, but that does not suggest the number of missing persons will be any less, Pushpa Raj Panday of the Haridwar Nepali Community said. “There are chances that the number of missing Nepalis could be two-fold more than what has been reported so far.”
Acting Nepali Ambassador to India Tirtha Raj Wagle said the embassy has been providing Rs 2,000 each to the survivors of the flood ing to travel back home. The money being provided to the survivors is from the embassy’s donation reserve. The Nepal government has not provided any money to support the rescue and relief of Nepalis in Uttarakhand.
The famous Hindu pilgrimage sites that once attracted a multitude of faithful is enveloped in miasma of hopelessness and desolation.
According to the estimates of the Uttarakhand government, more than 10,000 people died in the disaster, while 3,064 are missing . The government has said it will wait until July 15 before declaring the missing persons dead and begin the process of handing out compensation to the families of the victims.
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CHILD ABUUSED BY TEACHER UNDERGOES EYE
OPERATION;YET TO RECOVER SIGHT
Kathmandu, 6 July: Tears roll down his left cheek as Ajaya Dhobi struggles to open his swollen eye at the operation theatre of the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology (TIO). His father Mikulal awaits anxiously as doctors prepare to operate on Ajaya’s eye left damaged after his teacher beat him up 11 days ago in Banke in Nepalgunj for not doing
his homework, Manish Gautam writes on The Kathmandu Post..
Ajaya is a nursery student at the Bheri Zone English Medium School, Nepalgunj. One of his teachers, Aradhana Rana, hit him in the eye with a textbook on June 23.
Visibly shaken, Mikulal was at a loss when reporters asked him to comment on the corporal punishment, which might lead to the eight-year-old boy losing his left eye sight.
“He is very dear to me. I am appaled at the teacher’s behaviour,” Mikulal said.
“Badly damaged,” doctors said Ajaya’s eye has an infection, resulting in the accumulation of puss. He initially underwent treatment in the Phattebala Eye Hospital in Nepalgunj, where he underwent his first operation on June 24. However, the hospital referred the case to the TIO, saying that a corneal transplant is needed for the child to regain his vision. On Thursday, Ajaya was airlifted to Kathmandu, where he came under the knife again on Friday.
Dr Rita Gurung, who was involved in the operation, said she cannot say anything about the eye sight until Ajaya gets a little better. “We will be able to say anything only after a couple of days,” Dr Gurung said. TIO has decided to bear all the medical expenses for Ajaya, while Child Workers in Nepal, an NGO, will be footing the bills for the family members’ stay in Kathmandu.
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