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N E PA L’ S L A R G E S T S E L L I N G E N G L I S H D A I LY
Vol XXIV No 201 | 12+4 Pages
Life & style
page 5
world
page 12
money
Nefta to travel
to Dubai
Merkel in trouble after election
debacle for her pro-refugee stance
Pouille stuns Nadal
in five-set thriller
Buddha Air approved to
provide MRO services
page 9
sports
local level restructuring recommendations
tradition clashes with new reality
Delayed reports from
districts may push
mid-Oct submission
BINOD GHIMIRE
KATHMANDU, SEPT 5
People lug the lingo for Indra Jatra at New Road in Kathmandu on Monday, creating a traffic jam. The wooden pole will be erected to
begin the eight-day festival worshipping the rain god Indra on September 13. The lingo brought from Chitapol, Suryabinayak, on Sunday
will remain in Bhotahati for four days before it is taken to Hanumandhoka for the traditional ritual. POST PHOTO: PRAKASH CHANDRA TIMILSENA
n
‘Serial
killer’ in
police net
ABADHESH KUMAR JHA
RAJBIRAJ, SEPT 5
Saptari Police on Monday
made public a suspected
serial killer
who
was
nabbed at the
Tribhuvan
International
Airport
in
K at h m a n d u
on Sunday.
Rais Miya
a
k
a
Mohammad
Mustakim, a notorious
Indian criminal, has
been charged with murdering seven persons.
Superintendent of Police
Bhim Prasad Dhakal said
a police team from
Saptari, based on a tipoff, detained Rais with
the help of the TIA police
while he was attempting
to board a flight. A Nepali
passport
numbered
07656643 was also seized
from him.
Rais, a permanent resident of Madhubani district in the Indian state
of Bihar, was wanted for
four murders in Saptari
and three in Sunsari. He
had been staying in
Saraswor, Saptari.
According to police, a
group of
assailants
including Rais murdered
Sahabud Miya and his
daughter-in-law Sagira
Khatun of Saptari in
2012. He is also accused
of killing Dulari Devi
Sah and Nirmala Devi
Sah in the district the following
year.
Police
claimed that Rais was
also involved in the murder of three family members in Inaruwa, the district headquarters of
Sunsari. Investigating
officers said his motive
was money. Rais would
take loans from people on
various pretexts and kill
the lender later, said SP
Dhakal. Rais murdered
them to free himself
from having to repay the
loan, said police.
He had taken Rs276,000
from Sahabud, pledging
to
free
his
son
Mohammad Alam from
prison. Alam was doing
time in Rajbiraj Prison
on a murder charge.
Police said preliminary
probe showed Rais had
acquired the citizenship
from Siraha district.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016 (21-o5-2073)
india visit
Dahal to secure funds
for Hulaki Road works
PRITHVI MAN SHRESTHA
KATHMANDU, SEPT 5
Nepal and India are expected
to sign letters of exchange
(LoE) for the construction of
Hulaki Road (postal highways) during the upcoming
India visit of Prime Minister
Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
PM Dahal, speaking at a
meeting of the Parliamentary
Development
Committee
on Monday, said a new deal
will be signed on postal
roads during his visit to
New Delhi.
As per the new understanding, an Indian grant of IRs5
billion (NRs8 billion) will be
n Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal in a meeting of the
Development Committee of Parliament on Monday. PM’s foreign visits
may overshadow
domestic priorities
ANIL GIRI
KATHMANDU, SEPT 5
At a time when domestic
commitments and compulsions weigh on Prime
Minister Pushpa Kamal
Dahal, his five back-to-back
foreign
trips
until
November will stretch him
further to deliver on his
promises.
Apart from regular business, the PM has an all-important task of implementing the constitution, holding local level elections and
speeding up the delayed
post-earthquake
reconstruction. Leaders from the
ruling and opposition parties say the PM should
spare time from foreign visits for the pressing domestic priorities. The main
opposition CPN-UML is
concerned that internal
engagements
n
Four-day official visit to
n
Leaves for UN General
n
Will attend Second Asian
India from September 15
Assembly on September 19
Cooperative Summit in
Thailand on October 8-10
n Leaves for Islamabad to
attend 19th Saarc Summit
on November 9 and 10
n Participates in the annual
BRICS Summit in India on
November 15 and 16
issues should not be overshadowed by Dahal’s foreign engagements.
The PM is embarking on
a four-day official visit to
India
beginning
on
September 15. He will leave
for New York on September
19 to attend the United
Nations General Assembly.
>> Continued on page 4
RSS
Prime
Minister
Pushpa
Kamal Dahal on Monday reiterated that the Local Level
Restructuring Commission
(LLRC) would table its report
next month and the local elections would be held by March
next year.
In a meeting of the
Development Committee of
Parliament, Dahal said the
government was committed to
holding elections of the new
local bodies within the given
timeframe.
However, considering the
delays by the technical committees at the district level in
submitting their reports, it is
highly unlikely that the commission will submit its report
on the stipulated time.
As requested by the government, the LLRC had agreed to
submit its final recommendations by mid-October if its
technical committees submitted their reports by Augustend. But one week past the
deadline, only 16 districts
have submitted their reports
while the remaining 59 districts are yet to finalise their
reports owing to disputes at
the local level.
The commission, in its preliminary report, has proposed
565 local units. It had directed
the technical committees to
make final recommendations
within the parameters in consultation with the parties.
However, political differences over the number has
hampered works at the central
level. While the Nepali
Congress and the Madhesbased parties say the number
is too low, the CPN-UML and
the Rastriya Prajatantra
Party-Nepal are for further
decreasing the numbers.
“We are putting in our
whole effort to finalise the recommendations by mid-Octo-
ber,” said Balananda Poudel,
chairman of the commission.
But the delay in receiving
reports from the districts suggests meeting the deadline
will be tough.
Among the 16 districts
which have submitted their
reports, hardly half a dozen
including Dang, Rolpa and
Kanchanpur have proposed
decreasing the number of
local units while the remaining districts are for increasing
their numbers.
The delay in the LLRC
report will directly affect the
government’s schedule for
holding the local polls. The
Election Commission has said
it needs at least four months
for the preparations. If the
LLRC report is not submitted
by mid-October, it is not possible to meet the election deadline of March.
Poudel said the government
and the parties should help
the technical committees to
Madhesi parties
want amendment
tabled pronto
KATHMANDU :
The
Madhes-based parties
have said the government should table a constitution
amendment
proposal regardless of
the main opposition
CPN-UML’s position on
resolving the disputes.
(Details on Pg3)
submit their reports as soon
as possible if they want the
recommendations on time.
The LLRC was formed in
March as mandated by Article
295 (3) of the constitution to
restructure the local bodies.
Though the commission’s tenure ends in March next year, it
has been urged to submit its
final recommendations by
mid-October for the sake of
the elections.
used for 11 postal roads while
Nepal will finance the other
six road stretches.
The two countries had
signed a memorandum of
understanding on the project
during the visit of erstwhile
Prime Minister KP Sharma
Oli to India in February. The
signing of the LoE is expected
to expedite the construction
of the much-talked about
Postal Road whose development has been marred by multiple issues.
India
had
committed
IRs 5 billion for the construction of the 518km road
that links the southern border
to the headquarters of
Tarai districts in the first
phase.
However, due to increased
costs caused by the delay in
constructing as well as their
planned upgradation to double lane, the amount will not
be enough for the construction of the 17 roads.
“There has been consensus
with the Indian side that
Nepal will appoint contractor
even for the roads which will
be constructed with the
Indian aid while the southern
neighbour will appoint the
consultant,” said Sanjaya
Shrestha, deputy director general of the foreign cooperation branch at the Department
of Roads.
The National Highways and
Infrastructure Development
Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) of
India will work as the consultant for the project.
As
the
contractors
appointed earlier by India ran
away without making any
headway in the construction
of the road sections, Nepal
had been asking the Indian
side to allow it to choose
the contractor following
Nepal’s public procurement
procedure.
Nepal plans to seek
India’s help also for the second phase of the project
under which around 1,000km
of the road from the East to
the West will be constructed.
The government estimates
the cost of the second
phase of works to be around
Rs30 billion.
During
Indian
PM
Narendra Modi’s visit to
Nepal in August 2014, the
prime ministers of the two
countries had directed their
concerned authorities to work
on the second phase of the
construction.
C M Y K
news
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
thekathmandu post 02
Police book
118 taxis
for fleecing
passengers
stranded
POST REPORT
LALITPUR, SEPT 5
Traffic police have booked 118
taxis for overcharging passengers in the past week, with
many of them found tampering with fare meters.
Cabbies found tampering
with fare meters may face a
fine of Rs 5,000.
The Metropolitan Traffic
Police Division had launched
a campaign against scrupulous taxis last week, following
complaints from passengers.
The District Traffic Police
Office, Lalitpur has set up
10 designated taxi stands
and deployed 15 traffic
personnel in civvies for
inspection at those places
n Tourists stranded along the Beni-Jomsom stretch after floods swept away one motorable and a suspension bridges across the Begkhola stream four days ago. Even the foot trail was obstructed after the incident. The trail reopened after tourists and
trekkers, aided by the Nepal Red Cross Society, built a makeshift bridge across the stream on Monday. Vehicular movement, however, is yet to resume. Post Photo: GHANSHYAM KHADKA
Govt prepares to up housing grant
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, SEPT 5
The government is making
final preparations to increase
the private housing reconstruction grant from existing
Rs200,000 to Rs300,000 to each
household, along with an
additional Rs200,000 as a soft
loan to over 700,000 earthquake-affected households in
14 most-affected districts.
Addressing the meeting of
the Development Committee
under
the
LegislatureParliament on Monday, Prime
Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal
assured that the government
is committed to help the
quake-affected families to
rebuild the damaged houses
by increasing the housing
grant by an additional
Rs100,000. He also said the
government would seek sup-
port from donors and development partners to fill the funding shortfall of around Rs80
billion for rebuilding.
“I am serious about increasing the grant assistance. I will
talk with donors and development partners for the additional funding for reconstruction,” Rabindra Adhikari,
of
the
chairperson
Development
Committee,
quoted PM Dahal as saying at
a meeting to follow-up on the
direction from the committee
last Thursday to summon the
prime minister to discuss
over the delay in overall
reconstruction activities.
The parliamentary committee had decided to invite PM
Dahal to discuss about the
concerns of poor local governance, lack of trained human
resources and funding gap to
effectively reach out to the
affected families.
“There is already a funding
gap in reconstruction. The
government should immediately identify the funding
sources to meet the need of
providing an additional
Rs100,000 as housing grant to
each
earthquake-affected
household as expressed by
Prime Minister Dahal,” says
Adhikari.
According to Adhikari,
there is already a huge funding gap of Rs488 billion out of
the total estimated cost of
Rs838
billion
for
the
post-earthquake
recovery
works in the country as per
the five-year document on
Post
Disaster
Need
Assessment prepared by the
N at i o n a l
Planning
Commission (NPC). Various
donors have pledged to provide Rs350 billion for recon-
India to replace pellet guns
with chilli-filled shells
post-quake
Reconstruction
PM Dahal reiterates
government’s commitment
to help the quake-affected
by increasing the grant by
an additional Rs100,000
struction out of total Rs838
billion estimates.
“The committee directs the
government and its line ministries, along with NRA and
NPC to arrange an additional
funding required providing
Rs300,000 as housing grant to
each affected household,”
Russia plans
to start
large-scale
war games
Reuters
added Adhikari.
During the same meeting
on Monday, the concerned
authorities have agreed to
address the concerns of land
ownership required for the
grant assistance for squatters,
landless families and those
living in public and guthi
land, and release the grant
assistance to the true beneficiaries.
The NRA has deposited the
first tranche of the rebuilding
aid amounting to Rs50,000 to
275,932 households--more than
50 percent of the total identified beneficiaries from 11 districts as of Monday. Similarly,
413,452 out of the total 533,182
households identified so far
have signed a tripartite agreement for the rebuilding aid.
“The signing of agreement
and release of funds is moving positively in the recent
days. It is a good sign,” says
Adhikari.
Following the Development
Committee’s directive, the
NRA has formed a Quick
Response team to carry out
field inspection of the progress being made on reconstruction works. Each NRA
regional office has formed
committees at local level
chaired by secretaries of
re s p e c t ive
Vi l l a g e
Development Committees to
address the complaints filed
by the affected families.
The detailed damage assessment of quake-destroyed
houses in Kathmandu Valley
is under way. The authority
has so far assessed 72,000 out
of around 123,000 houses damaged by the earthquakes. The
distribution of the first
installment of the rebuilding
aid to the affected households
will start soon after the completion of the assessment,
to
NRA
according
Spokesperson Ram Prasad
Thapaliya. Besides, the damage assessment and distribution of the reconstruction aid
to the identified beneficiaries
in 14-most affected districts,
the NRA has also initiated the
damage assessment in 17
remaining districts through
the Central Bureau of
Statistics.
Presenting the progress
report on reconstruction
activities,
NRA
Chief
Executive Sushil Gyewali
shared that the government
has released Rs10.24 billion to
provide the first tranche of
rebuilding aid to 200,472
households. Likewise, an
additional Rs168 billion has
been allocated for reconstruction this fiscal year.
Jhamsikhel British School
Street Fest on Sept 10
POST REPORT
LALITPUR, SEPT 5
Jhamsikhel Youth Club and
The
British
School
Kathmandu will be organising the “Jhamsikhel British
School Street Festival 2016” on
September 10.
Chairman of the club
Sandan Thapa Magar told a
press meet on Monday that
the British School Kathmandu
is co-organising the festival
this year to mark the school’s
Organisers say the streets
of Jhamsikhel along with
the premises of The British
School will showcase food
and recreational stalls
50th anniversary. The festival
will have many attractions,
including Lok Dohori concert
featuring Komal Oli, Badri
Pangeni and Prity Ale, rock
concert featuring Mukti and
Revival, Anuprastha and
Cobweb, and standup comedy
by Raja Rajendra, Sandeep
Chettri, Purna Thapa and
Ravi Dangol, the club said in a
statement.
The streets of Jhamsikhel
along with the premises of
The British School will showcase food and recreational
stalls, Thapa Magar said. The
club will also honour veteran
marathoner
Baikuntha
Manadhar on the day.
The rule stipulates that
taxis should go on meter for a
distance over 2km, but many
taxi drivers are often found
reluctant to travel short journeys on meter.
According to Sitaram
Hachhethu, chief of District
Traffic Police Office, Lalitpur,
cabbies swindle passengers
mainly in hospital areas, bus
stations, party venues and
cinema halls.
“We have been closely monitoring taxis to ensure that
they don’t take advantage during
emergencies
and
non-availability of public
vehicles,” he said
The traffic office in the district has set up 10 designated
taxi points at Satdobato, B&B
Hospital, Gwarko, Patan
Hospital,
Lagankhel,
Jawalakhel, Mangalbazar,
Patan
Dhoka,
Mahalaxmisthan
and
Kupondole. Fifteen traffic
police in civil dress have been
deployed for inspection at
these places.
The flag-down taxi fare is
Rs14 with Rs36 for each additional kilometre travelled during the daytime. At night, the
flag-down charge is fixed at
Rs21 with Rs54 for each additional kilometre Hachhethu
said,
cases
related
to
meter-tempering has been
referred to the Nepal Bureau
of Standards and Metrology
for legal action.
Ex-minister
Gupta held
KATHMANDU: Former Minister
Shyam Sundar Gupta has
been arrested again on extortion charge from Lalitpur on
Monday. Police said that
Gupta was remanded to fourday judicial custody following
a court order. A preliminary
investigation found Gupta
had made calls to extort
money and issued threats to
abduct if the money was not
paid. Earlier, the former minister for supplies, was convincted of abducting businessman Pawan Sanghai. He
was released on July 18, 2015
after serving three and a half
years. (PR)
MOSCOW, Sept 5
n Indian policemen patrol a street following a protest in Srinagar, against the recent killings in
Kashmir in this photo dated August 30. Reuters
SRINAGAR (India), Sept 5
Indian security forces will
use shells full of a chilli
compound as an alternative
to shotgun pellets, to control
crowds in Kashmir, the interior minister said on
Monday, after widespread
use of the weapons wounded
thousands and inflamed
public anger.
More than 3,800 people
have been wounded and one
killed by shotgun pellets
since protests against Indian
rule erupted in the disputed
territory in early July, with
more than 100 left partially
or fully blinded, official figures show.
Doctors say most cases go
unreported, and critics want
the government to use less
harmful ammunition.
“The committee has given
its suggestions and the alternative of the non-lethal
weapon has been suggested
as PAVA shells,” Home
Minister Rajnath Singh told
reporters as he led an
all-party delegation to
Srinagar, the summer capi-
tal of India’s northernmost
Jammu and
state of
Kashmir.
He said security forces
would begin using the shells,
made of a compound found
naturally in chilli powder,
after a panel of experts
decided they were sometimes a better alternative to
pellet guns.
The chilli compound,
when fired, is thought to
cause severe irritation and
temporarily immobilise the
target.
“I think that won’t result
in the death of anyone.
Since yesterday, 1,000 shells
have already arrived here,”
said Singh, a senior figure in
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s nationalist ruling
party.
Although pellet guns are
designed as a non-lethal
weapon, police officers have
told Reuters that security
forces are often forced to use
them at close range to protect themselves from mob
attacks.
India is struggling to contain the worst unrest in
Muslim-majority Kashmir
REUTERS
since 2010, and Singh’s trip
to Srinagar appeared to
make little headway in
resolving a crisis that has
left 73 people dead, 71 of
them civilians.
On Sunday, separatist
leader Syed Ali Shah
Geelani turned delegation
members away at the door
of his home, where he is
under house arrest.
Singh said India was
“pained” by the unrest in
Kashmir, but lashed out
at separatists for refusing
to talk.
erupted
in
Protests
Kashmir after security forces killed a popular separatist leader on July 8, catching New Delhi off guard.
Thousands of stone-pelting locals take to the streets
almost every day in the protests, led largely by young
people without an obvious
leader, complicating Indian
efforts to tackle them.
Kashmir, claimed in full
but ruled in part by India
and Pakistan, has been at
the heart of nearly seven
decades of hostility between
the neighbours.
The Russian Defence Ministry
said on Monday a longplanned major military exercise
involving
annexed
Crimea and Russia’s Black
Sea and Caspian fleets had got
underway, and that 12,500
troops would take part.
The exercise -- called
Caucasus 2016 -- follows a period of heightened tension
between Russia and Ukraine
after Moscow accused Kiev of
sending saboteurs into the
peninsula to carry out a series
of bombings. Kiev has flatly
denied that.
Russia conducted a series
of nationwide spot combat
readiness checks in the runup to the exercise and practiced swiftly moving military
hardware and troops to
Crimea as part of a logistics
exercise last month.
The Defence Ministry
described Caucasus 2016,
which it said would run until
Sept. 10, as the last major military training exercise of the
year.
It said the war games,
which are being held across
Russia’s entire southern military district, would test commanders’ ability to plan, prepare and conduct military
action and to coordinate different types of troops.
An unspecified number of
aircraft would take part, along
with Russia’s Black Sea and
Caspian Fleets, armoured
units and infantry and paratroopers, it said.
in recognition of outstanding contribution
n President Bidhya Devi Bhandari hands over the honorary doctorate degree to litterateur Jahamk Ghimire—conferred on her by the
Madhya Paschimanchal University—during a convocation ceremony held at City Hall in Kathmandu on Monday. Also present at the
programme were Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Education Minister Dhani Ram Poudel. CM
RSS
Y K
03
thekathmandu post
news
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Morcha: Forward
amendment, care
not for CPN-UML
offerings
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, SEPT 5
n
Votive offerings made by devotees are put on display at the Kamaladi Ganesh temple on the occasion of Ganesh Chauthi in Kathmandu on Monday.
Post Photo: nimesh jang rai
Govt breaching statute provision on
purpose, says House committee
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, SEPT 5
Sushil Kumar Shrestha,
chairman of the Social Justice
and Human Rights Committee
of Parliament, has lambasted
the government for disregarding annual report of the
National Human Rights
Commission in a clear breach
of constitution.
Presenting a committee’s
report on Monday, Shrestha
told Parliament that the government has been breaching
the constitutional provision
and Parliament regulation
“on purpose”.
“We have been presenting
an
incomplete
report
since we have not been
able to incorporate the issues
raised by national rights
body,”
said
Shrestha,
“The government never
deemed it necessary to discuss the NHRC report.
It is a shame that the government, which is supposed to
maintain law and order has
been breaching the constitution and Parliament regulation for years.”
Government criticised for
disregarding annual reports
of the National Human
Rights Commission
The government has been
ignoring the recommendations made by the constitutional body ever since its
establishment in 2000.
In the 16-year history
of the national rights watchdog, no NHRC report has
ever made it to Parliament
scribe honoured
for discussion.
Article 294 of the constitution states that the constitutional body submits its annual
reports to the President, who
will forward it to Parliament
through the prime minister
for discussion.
The
commission
has
recommended action against
more than 738 rights violators. However, the government has implemented less
than 14 percent of the recommendations, mostly related to
compensation.
The government has not
taken action against any
official or individual who violated human rights in the
country.
“Parliament rule also
stipulates that the NHRC
report be discussed and implemented,” said Shrestha, “The
government has made mockery of the rule of law by violating the constitution and
other rules.”
The government has been
ignoring the agendas of
human
rights
despite
repeated requests from the
committee.
Madhes-based parties have
said that the government
should table the amendment
proposal regardless of the
main opposition CPN-UML’s
position on resolving the disputes over the constitution.
Objecting to the government’s plans to table the
amendment proposal only
after receiving green signal
from the UML, the regional
parties have said that the
alleged non-cooperation from
the UML should not hinder
the amendment related works.
Madhesi leaders said that
the government should first
forward a proposal to resolve
the row over the constitution
before approaching the UML
for support.
The governing Maoist
Centre and Nepali Congress,
which had earlier pledged to
register the amendment proposal regardless of the UML’s
stance, are now saying that
the support of the second largest party was necessary for
the purpose.
NC President Sher Bahadur
Deuba on Sunday said that the
amendment proposal would
be tabled with support of
the UML.
“How can you blame UML
when the government has not
put forward any proposal of
its own? What is stopping the
ruling parties to bring forward its proposal,” said
Sadbhawana Party Chairman
Rajendra Mahato.
But it is still too early to
doubt on the sincerity of the
government, Mahato said,
adding that Prime Minister
Pushpa
Kamal
Dahal
appeared positive about
tabling the proposal soon.
“Last week, PM Dahal
told me that the government
would initiate the negotiation
soon. I hope that they will
stick to their words,” said
Mahato.
Justify statute revision: Oli
KATHMANDU: Former prime
minister and CPN-UML
Chairman KP Sharma Oli
on Monday questioned the
“significance” of amending
the statute.
Addressing the media at
Tribhuvan International
Airport upon his arrival
from Thailand, Oli urged
the government to clarify
the significance of amend-
The
Madhesi
Parties
are dissatisfied with PM
Dahal after he did not put
forth the government’s position on the list of changes the
parties had recommended in
the informal discussions.
During a meeting with PM
Dahal last week, Madhesi
leaders had forwarded their
position to find a consensus
on the disputed issues of the
constitution.
Co-chairman
of
the
Sanghiya Samajbadi ForumNepal Rajendra Shrestha said
that they would wait for a
government decision for some
more time.
“We supported this government after UML refused to
address our concerns. The
ruling parties should not step
back from the commitments
made in the three-point agreement with the Gathabandan,”
said Shrestha.
The government is working
to form a panel to negotiate on
the disputed issues of the constitution to register the proposal within self-imposed
deadline of October-end.
The Sanghiya Gathabandan, an alliance of Madhesi
and Janajati forces, on
Monday formed a committee
to negotiate on the disputed
issues of the constitution.
The governing parties want
to engage the UML from the
beginning of the negotiation
process to ensure broader
ing the constitution.
“Constitution is not subject to amendment under
someone’s pressure or provocation and against the
national interest,” Oli said,
adding that the government
has already amended the
constitution as per the
demands of the Madhesi
parties. “I am not aware of
their other demands.” (PR)
ownership, as they fear obstacles from the opposition in
Parliament.
Registering the amendment
proposal is just the first step
towards addressing the concerns raised by the agitating
Madhesi and Janajati forces.
But UML’s support in
Parliament will be crucial for
its endorsement.
The UML has not ruled
out the possibility of the
amendment, but has been
insisting that the major
parties should justify its significance. UML leaders have
said that the party would
make its position clear after
going through a draft of
amendment.
“We would first see
the draft of the proposed
amendment before making
comment. The government
should let us know what
it is planning to do and why,”
UML leader Agni Kharel told
the Post.
There is a serious gulf
between the major parties
over the need of revision of
federal boundaries--one of the
key demands of the agitating
Madhes-based parties. The
Samyukta
Loktantrik
Madhesi Morcha, an alliance
of
seven
Madhes-based
parties, has long been
calling for a revision of provincial boundaries with at
least two provinces in the
Tarai plains.
Chief Justice for stern law
against human trafficking
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, SEPT 5
Chief Justice Sushila Karki
has said that the country
should issue stern law to curb
human trafficking.
The existing Act against
human trafficking should be
amended to introduce stringent punishment, she said
a
function
addressing
that was organised in the
Capital on the occasion
of
ninth National Day
Against Human Trafficking
on Monday.
Besides issuing strong law,
the chief justice said, there
should also be an extensive
awareness
campaign
to
inform people about human
trafficking.
Ranju Kumari Jha, presi-
Ranju Jha, chairperson of
parliament committee for
women and children, calls
for collaboration from all
sides to fight trafficking
dent of Women, Children,
Senior Citizen and Social
Welfare
Committee
0f
L e g i s l a t u r e - P a rl i a m e n t ,
called for collaboration from
all sides in a fight against
human trafficking.
She said that effective
awareness campaign against
human trafficking is particularly necessary in rural areas
of the country.
A total of 15 social organisations, in coordination of the
Ministry of Women, Children
and Social Welfare, will be
observing the National Day
Against Human Trafficking
by organising a week-long
public
awareness
programmes.
Kathmandu
Post
The
reporter Pratichya Dulal,
Gorkhapatra daily’s Sita
Sharma, and Radio Nepal’s
Chandra
Baniya
were
also honoured at the programme for their reporting
on the subject of human trafficking.
According to a report
issued by the National Human
Rights Commission, around
10,000 persons were trafficked
in 2015. Human trafficking
cases, the report states, rose
by 15 percent following the
Gorkha Earthquake.
n The Kathmandu Post reporter Pratichya Dulal is honoured by Chief Justice Sushila Karki (right)
on the National Day Against Human Trafficking in the Capital on Monday. Post Photo
US Assistant
Secy BISWAL
concludes
Nepal visit
Post Report
Kathmandu, Sept 5
US Assistant Secretary of
State for South and Central
Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal
concluded a two-day visit to
Nepal on Monday.
Biswal discussed the challenges and opportunities facing Nepal, ranging from transitional justice to elections
during her meetings with
political, business, and civic
leaders, the US Embassy said
in a statement on Monday. She
met with Prime Minister
Dahal and other government
officials to encourage continued cooperation between the
United States and Nepal.
During the visit, Biswal also
inspected earthquake reconstruction progress, talked
about economic opportunities
and discussed other areas
where the US could assist.
C M Y K
news digest
Ex-medical
official faces
graft charge
Kathmandu: The
Commission for
Investigation of Abuse
of Authority (CIAA)
Monday filed a corruption case against Dr Ram
Shankar Thakur, a
retired medical superintendent, at the Special
Court. According to the
CIAA, Thakur had
amassed wealth through
illegal means during his
term as a civil servant.
The CIAA has sought Rs
11.827 million in fine
from Thakur. (RSS)
Writ petition filed
seeking poll data
Kathmandu: A writ petition was filed at the
Supreme Court on
Monday, seeking an
order requiring the concerned authorities to
declare the date of the
elections of Federal
House of Representatives
and the Provincial
Assemblies. Petitioners,
including Dr Chandra
Kant Gyawali, Bimal
Gyawali, Liladhar
Upadhyaya and Shashi
Kumar Karki, have
named the Office of the
Prime Minister and
Council of Ministers and
Legislature-Parliament
as the defendants. (RSS)
Dailekh finalises
demarcation
Dailekh: Dailekh has
finally sorted out the discourse over demarcation
of local units to be carried out under the local
body restructuring plan.
An all-party meeting on
Sunday prepared a draft
on demarcation of local
units, proposing five
municipalities and three
village municipalities in
the district.
Recommendations and
feedback from the district residents were considered while making the
decision, a meeting representative said. The
members of Rastriya
Janamorcha did not
attend the meeting, citing its differing views
regarding federalism.
Public feedbacks were
also sought to decide the
issue. (RSS)
One killed in
road accident
Morang: An elderly person was killed in a road
accident in Biratnagar-8
in Morang on Monday.
The victim was identified as Bhojraj Koirala,
66, of Biratnagar-4.
Koirala’s scooter was hit
by a tanker with Indian
number plate (WB 11
A8286) that was heading
towards Rani from
Itahari. The tanker driver is absconding, police
said. (RSS)
thekathmandu post 04
news
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Nepal reiterates
its commitment
to fight NCDs
MANISH GAUTAM
COLOMBO (SRI LANKA), SEPT 5
Health Minister Gagan Thapa
has reiterated Nepal’s commitment to fight non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Addressing the regional
committee meeting attended
by the health ministers and
delegates from 11 nations of
the South-East Asia Region of
World Health Organisation,
Thapa said recent surveys
conducted by the Ministry of
Health (MoH) show that there
is a high-burden of NCDs in
Nepal, causing 51 percent of
total deaths in 2010 and 60
percent in 2014.
“These surveys showed that
cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, oral diseases,
mental disorders and traffic
accidents are common NCDs
in Nepal,” Thapa said.
He also highlighted the
efforts made by the MoH to
curb the NCDs.
The
health
minister
informed the meeting that
Nepal has enacted a legislation in 2011 to control
production, sale and consumption of tobacco.
“Through series of amendments since then, we have
Health Minister Thapa calls
for support from the WHO
and development partners
to fight non-communicable
diseases in Nepal
made our anti-tobacco legislation even more stringent
with current requirements to
cover 90 percent of the tobacco products packaging with
health warnings, which is one
of the highest in the world,”
he said.
He also highlighted that
cooperation of intergovernmental agencies is vital to
fight NCDs. “It is beyond the
scope of Ministry of Health to
address all these factors that
determine health and well-being of people,” Thapa said.
“We currently have in place
multi-sectoral action plans for
NCDs, nutrition and road
safety that involve different
government ministries and
agencies.”
Minister Thapa also urged
for the support of WHO and
other development partners to
tackle NCDs and work out
innovative healthcare financing modalities.
Three delegates from
Nepal, including Dr Padam
Bahadur Chand and Dr Kiran
Regmi, chief specialists at
MoH, and Mahendra Shrestha,
chief of Policy, Planning and
International Cooperation
Division (PPICD), are accompanying Minister Thapa.
The Regional committee
meeting began on Monday in
Colombo and is attended by
ministers and delegates
from Nepal, Bangladesh,
Bhutan,
DPR
Korea,
India, Indonesia, Maldives,
Sri
Lanka,
Myanmar,
Thailand and Timor-Leste.
The programme, which will
be held till September 9, has
adopted Colombo Declaration
to fight non-communicable
disease.
“As part of the declaration
health ministers pledged to
undertake targeted screening
for early diagnosis, as well as
to increase health guidance
and counselling to promote
healthy choices and self-care.
Ensuring appropriate treatment, robust follow-up, management of referrals and
focusing on and expanding
NCD services to the high-risk
population are key parts of
the declaration,” a WHO statement said.
38 families displaced in
Taplejung landslides
ANANDA GAUTAM
n From right: Editor of Garrisoned Minds, Laxmi Murthy; journalist Deepak Adhikari, Commissioner of National Human Rights Commission
Mohna Ansari, former Maoist combatant Leela Sharma, and columnist Deepak Thapa at the book launch in Lalitpur on Monday. Post Photo
Book about lives of South Asia’s
women combatants launched
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, SEPT 5
Garrisoned Minds, a book
which reflects on the lives of
women combatants including
former Maoist combatants
and other conflict zones
in South Asia, was launched
on Monday.
The book explores the
impact of militarisation on
the lives of women in four
conflict-affected zones of
South Asia: Pakistan’s frontier provinces which share a
border with Afghanistan;
Nepal during and after its decade-long civil war; Northeast
India under the shadow of
AFSPA; and the Kashmir valley amidst the overwhelming
presence of the Indian army.
Twelve journalists have
3 women died
of delivery
complications
in one week
POST REPORT
TAPLEJUNG, SEPT 5
JAJARKOT, SEPT 5
Recent landslides have displaced 38 families in Taplejung
Municipality, according to the
District Disaster Management
Committee.
The displaced families are
taking shelter at Horizon
Boarding School building in
Hiti for the past four days.
Chief
District
Officer
Chakrapani Pandey said
they are planning to resettle
victims.
He said that the DDMC has
distributed Rs 10,000 each to
the families whose homes
were destroyed and Rs 5,000
each to the families whose
homes were damaged in the
disaster.
Besides, the DDMC has also
provided Rs 100, 000 each to
the families who lost their
loved ones.
Four persons, including
three of a family, were buried
to death in landslides that
Three pregnant women have
died of delivery complications
in Jajarkot in a week.
Mankumari Bohora, 28, of
Ragda-4, Ramita Budha, 19, of
Pajaru-3, and Basanta Kami
of Nayakbada-2 died while
giving birth, health officials
said on Monday. The major
cause of their death was
excessive blood loss.
Health posts in rural villages do not have resources nor
expert manpower to deal with
complications related to child
delivery, said Lila Shah, auxiliary health worker at
Nayabada Health Post.
The problem has been compounded because most pregnant women in the district do
not visit health posts for delivery. They are brought to
health posts only if there are
complications. Shah said saving both mother and baby is
difficult in complicated cases.
n
A landslide-hit area in Taplejung.
struck Taplejung Municipality
on Friday night. Dozens of
cattle were also killed.
One of the landslide
survivors, Lalit Bahadur
Bishwokarma, said there are
continuous landslides in some
parts of the municipality.
Two persons drown
BIRATNAGAR: Two persons
drowned in separate incidents
in Udayapur and Syangja dis-
POST PHOTO
tricts in the last 24 hours.
Police said 18-year-old Pun
Rai of Bhayaldanda-3 in
Udayapur died after being
swept away while trying to
cross the Andheri stream on
Sunday. In Syangja, 18-yearold
Arjun
Bhattarai
of
Tulasibhanjyang-8
went
missing after drowning in a
water dam of Andhikhola
Hydropower
Project
on
Monday, said police.
contributed in the making of
the book.
Deepak Adhikari, one of
the four contributors from
Nepal, said that the peace process had left the so- called disqualified combatants in the
lurch, and many of them,
especially women, are living
a disillusioned life after failing to get integrated in the
Nepal Army.
“During my research I
found that the way the Maoist
combatants who could not get
reintegrated felt as though
they were nowhere people.
They are still struggling to get
the reins of their life,” said
Adhikari. The fact that a
chunk of women combatants
were left out in the reintegration process was also stressed
by Leela Sharma a former
People’s Liberation Army
(PLA) soldier.
“Only 105 women were
qualified to join the Nepal
Army while the total number
estimated then was 3,000.
Moreover, the compensation
was provided in just monetary
package. But these disqualified soldiers were not provided socio-psycho counselling or
life skill trainings to start a
new life after living a life of
guerilla warriors for a decade,” said Sharma.
Sharma pointed out that
when the Maoists entered the
peace process in November
2006, the number of PLA fighters was around 30,000. But
verifications carried out by
the United Mission in Nepal
(Unmin) disqualified over
10,000 from getting integrated
Rs 50k cannot
build a house:
Quake victims
ANISH TIWARI
SINDHUPALCHOK, SEPT 5
Although
the
National
Reconstruction
Authority
(NRA) Sub-regional Office in
Sindhupalchok has distributed the first tranche of the
housing reconstruction grant
(Rs 50,000) to 2,214 earthquake
affected families in the district, the quake survivors
have not started to construct
new homes.
“Not even one percent of
the quake survivors has started to build new homes after
receiving
the
amount,”
Bhuwaneshor Lamichhane,
chief of the NRA sub-regional
office, said.
Lamichhane added that the
office has already signed the
aid agreement with 64,998
families in the district.
Many of the quake-affected
families are still staying
under
temporary
huts.
Bishnuraj
Khadka
of
Lagarche, who received Rs
50,000 from the NRA to rebuild
a house, said he has deposited
the amount in bank.
“The money is not sufficient to build a house. Most of
the earthquake-affected families have no idea what to do
with so little money,” he said.
Meanwhile, some families
have constructed homes on
their own expenses.
Shyam Lal Tamang of
Chautara Municipality said
his family rebuilt a new house
according to the government
design using local construction materials.
“When we started rebuilding, we were not sure if or
when the government was
going to provide us the housing aid,” he said.
According to the NRA sub
regional
office,
78,537
quake-affected families in the
district are on the housing
reconstruction aid list.
“We will start the inspection after all families have
received the first instalment
of the aid,” said Lamichhane.
48,658 families get aid
GORKHA: The Gorkha District
Development
Committee
(DDC) has deposited the first
tranche of housing reconstruction grant to the bank
accounts of 48,658 quake
affected families. We have
deposited Rs 50,000 to the
bank accounts of the victims,
said a DDC official. The DDC
has been coordinating with
the VDC officers to sign housing grant agreements with the
quake-affected
remaining
families in the district.
in the Nepal Army.
The essays on the book
range from evocative accounts
of women’s personal lives
during combat in Nepal and
while travelling through the
changing political landscape
of Manipur, to detailed explorations of violent restrictions
imposed on specific communities, such as the Hazaras of
Pakistan, the dancing girls of
Swat Valley, or the ostracised
widows of counter-insurgents
in Kashmir. They represent
the lived realities of a diverse
set of women forced to come
to terms with horrific circumstances, and determined to
wage peace.
Darshan Karki, Sewa
Bhattarai and Trishna Rana
are the other contributors
from Nepal.
PM’s foreign
visits may
overshadow
domestic ...
>> Continued from page 1
After returning from the
UNGA, he will attend the
Second Asian Cooperative
Summit in Thailand on
October 8-10. Nepal recently
became a member of the
Asian Cooperative Dialogue
and officials said that the
PM’s participation in the summit is a must. Thai
Ambassador Vutti Vuttisant
on Monday handed over an
invitation to Dahal to attend
the summit.
Maoist Centre leader
Shrestha says though some
visits seem important, the
PM should focus more on
domestic priorities
After this, PM Dahal will
have some time to mind
domestic works before he
leaves for Islamabad to participate in the 19th Summit of
Saarc, of which Nepal is the
current chair. Pakistan hosts
the summit on November 9
and 10. Dahal will participate
in the eighth Annual BRICS
(Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa) Summit in
India on November 15 and 16.
As the current chair, the
PM has to be involved in several meetings and briefings of
the Saarc.
This schedule does not
include other visits to and
from India and China. Nepal
is also preparing to host presidents from India and China.
President
Bidhya
Devi
Bhandari is embarking on an
official visit to the southern
neighbour.
It is surely a challenging
time for the PM and a lot
depends on how he manages
his time and strikes a balance
between diplomacy and
administration, said CPN
(Maoist
Centre)
leader
Narayan Kaji Shrestha.
Though some visits seem to be
important, the PM should
focus more on domestic priorities, he added.
UML Vice-chairman Bhim
Rawal advises Dahal not to
spend too much of his time on
foreign trips but focus on
domestic duties.
C M Y K
world
kathmandu post
the
PG 05 | Tuesday,September 6,2016
Sarkozy faces trial threat
A French state prosecutor has recommended
ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy stand trial over
alleged irregularities in the funding of his failed
2012 re-election campaign, a judicial source said
on Monday. The recommendation casts a pall
over Sarkozy’s bid to become president again in a
contest scheduled for next April.
news digest
At least two dead
in Israeli building
site collapse
JERUSALEM: A parking
garage under construction collapsed in Tel Aviv
on Monday, killing at
least two people and
trapping several others
under the debris, rescue
services said. Some 20
people were treated for
injuries. The cause of
the collapse was not
immediately known, and
several hours after the
structure came down in
a plume of dust, police
said about four people
were still missing and
believed trapped under
the debris. The incident
occurred in the Tel Aviv
neighbourhood of Ramat
Hahayal adjacent to a
hospital and buildings
housing high-tech offices
and restaurants.
Gabon oppn chief
calls for general
strike after
disputed poll
LIBREVILLE: Gabon’s
opposition leader Jean
Ping called on Monday
for a general strike to
protest against what he
said was a fraudulent
re-election victory by
President Ali Bongo.
Ping, who says he is now
the leader of the Central
African nation, said in a
statement on his website
that his fight was not
over, even as calm
returned to the capital
following deadly riots
last week. “I ask you
from today onward not
to use violence but to
resist by blocking the
country’s economy,” he
said in the statement,
addressing all Gabonese.
President Ali Bongo has
dismissed allegations of
vote fixing.
NKorea missiles
flies into Japan
air defence zone
SEOUL: All three ballistic
missiles launched by
North Korea on Monday
were medium-range
Rodong-class and flew
about 1,000 km, South
Korea’s military said.
At least one of the missiles fell into Japan’s Air
Defence Identification
Zone, a South Korean
military official said by
telephone. The launches
were likely a show of
force by the North’s military timed to coincide
with the Group of 20
leaders’ summit taking
place in China, the
South’s Office of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff
said separate in a
(Agencies)
statement.
kathmandupost.ekantipur.com
Satellite owner seeks $50m
Israel PM mulls talks with Abbas
Israel’s Space Communication Ltd said on Sunday
it could seek $50 million or a free flight from Elon
Musk’s SpaceX after a Spacecom communications
satellite was destroyed last week by an explosion
at SpaceX’s Florida launch site. The company said
that Spacecom also could collect $205 million
from Israel Aerospace Industries.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering
an offer by Russian President Vladimir Putin to
host talks in Moscow between the Israeli leader
and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
Netanyahu’s office said on Monday. A spokesman for Abbas, who is on a visit to Europe,
declined immediate comment.
Dozens killed in
Syria explosions
ganapathy revelry
US, Russia make little progress towards a ceasefire
Reuters
BEIRUT/HANGZHOU (China), Sept 5
Explosions
in
government-controlled areas of
Syria and a province held by
Kurdish militia killed dozens
on Monday, while the United
States and Russia failed to
make concrete progress
towards a ceasefire.
Six explosions hit west of
the capital Damascus, in the
government-held cities of
Homs and Tartous—which
hosts a Russian military
base—and
the
Kurdishcontrolled northeastern province of Hasaka between 8 am
and 9 am (0500-0600 GMT),
state media and a monitor
said.
It was not clear if the blasts
were linked and there was no
immediate claim of responsibility. More than five years of
civil war have cut Syria into a
patchwork of territories held
by the government and an
often competing array of
armed factions, including
Kurdish militia fighters, a
loose coalition of rebels
groups, and Islamic State.
The United States and
Russia have been trying to
broker a new truce after a
cessation of hostilities agreed
At the G20 summit in China, they discussed getting
humanitarian aid into the country, reducing violence,
and cooperating on combating militant groups,
according to officials
in February unravelled within weeks, with Washington
accusing Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad’s forces of
violating the pact.
Their efforts were complicated on Sunday as government forces and their allies
again laid siege to rebel-held
eastern Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war which
Assad is determined to fully
recapture. His gains have
relied heavily on Russian air
support since September last
year. US President Barack
Obama and Russian President
Vladimir Putin had a
longer-than-expected discussion of about 90 minutes on
Monday about whether, and
how, they could agree a deal, a
senior US administration official said.
Meeting at the G20 summit
in China, they discussed getting humanitarian aid into
the country, reducing violence, and cooperating on
combating militant groups,
the official said. But in talks
earlier on Monday, US
Secretary of State John Kerry
and Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov were unable to
come to terms on a ceasefire
for the second time in two
weeks, with US officials
stressing they would walk
away if a pact could not be
reached soon.
“If an agreement can be
reached, we want to do so
urgently, because of the
humanitarian
situation.
However, we must ensure that
it is an effective agreement,”
the official said.
Russia says it cannot agree
to a deal unless opposition
fighters, backed by the United
States and Middle East allies,
are separated from al Qaedalinked militants they overlap
with in some areas.
For Washington, the priority is stabilising Syria so as to
destroy Islamic State, which
controls territory both there
and in neighbouring Iraq.
Radical democrats
gain foothold in HK
Protest threat
as ex-UN chief
visits myanmar
Reuters
Agence France-Presse
HONG KONG, Sept 5
Several
pro-independence
candidates won seats in Hong
Kong’s legislative election
which saw a record turnout in
the Chinese-controlled city on
Sunday, a result likely to further
strain
ties
with
Communist Party rulers in
Beijing.
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy opposition also kept its crucial one-third veto bloc in the
70-seat Legislative Council
over major legislation and
public funding that has helped
check China’s influence.
The vote, which ushered in
a new crop of legislators
including a 23-year-old former
protest leader who vowed to
“fight”
the
Chinese
Communist Party, underscores growing frustration
with how Beijing has handled
its “special administrative
region” and marks a significant turning point.
The former British colony
was handed back to China in
1997 under a “one country, two
systems” agreement that
promised to maintain the
global financial hub’s freedoms and separate laws for at
least 50 years, but gave ultimate control to Beijing.
have
Beijing
officials
repeatedly warned Hong Kong
not to stray too far and
Chinese leaders will now have
to decide how to respond.
There was no immediate reaction in official Chinese media
to the election results.
Despite the disqualification
of six pro-democracy election
candidates from the election
in July on the grounds that
they backed independence, at
least five “localists” and
younger democratic newcomers won seats, including one
of the leaders from the mass
democracy protests of 2014,
Nathan Law.
Localists put the interests
of Hong Kong before those of
Beijing. “I’m quite shocked,”
said Law, 23. “We inherit some
spirit from the movement and
I hope that can continue in the
future... We still have to unite
in order to have stronger
power to fight the Chinese
Communist Party.”
Sunday’s vote was the first
major election since the student-led “Umbrella Revolution” protests of 2014 that
blocked roads for 79 days in
which Beijing gave no ground.
YANGON, Sept 5
Buddhist hardliners threatened on Monday to stage protests against a visit by former
UN chief Kofi Annan to
Myanmar’s
strife-tor n
Rakhine state, where tens of
thousands
of
stateless
Rohingya Muslims languish
in displacement camps.
Aung San Suu Kyi has
asked Annan to head an
advisory commission to recommend how her government
can narrow bitter sectarian
divides in the western state.
Rakhine has suffered
deadly anti-Muslim violence
since 2012 and the Rohingya
question remains incendiary
in
Buddhist-majority
Myanmar.
Their plight has also seen
Suu Kyi’s reputation as a
rights defender tarnished.
Myanmar
nationalists
insist the million-strong
group are illegal immigrants
from Bangladesh and refuse to
use the word “Rohingya”,
instead
labelling
them
“Bengalis”.
Annan told reporters he
intends to be impartial in his
peace and reconciliation bid.
n An Indian Hindu devotee carries his son in front of a statue of the Hindu god Ganesh during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Amritsar
on Monday. The Ganesh Chaturthi festival, a popular 11-day religious festival which is annually celebrated across India, runs this year from
September 5-15, and culminates with the immersion of idols of Ganesh in the Arabian Sea and local water bodies. AFP/RSS
Merkel in trouble after
election debacle for her
pro-refugee stance
Reuters
BERLIN, Sept 5
A humiliating state election
defeat for Angela Merkel in
her own backyard on Sunday
and another drubbing that
looms in two weeks in Berlin
are casting an ominous shadow over the Chancellor’s
hopes of winning—or even
running—for a fourth term in
2017.
Analysts expect Merkel to
weather the storm brewing
over the debacle in the rural
state
of
MecklenburgVorpommern on Sunday,
where
her
Christian
Democrats (CDU) fell to a
shock third place behind the
centre-left Social Democrats
(SPD) and the upstart anti-immigrant Alternative for
Germany (AfD) party.
But
the
chancellor,
whose towering approval ratings had long carried her
party to victories at the polls
over the last 11 years, has suddenly turned into a liability
amid a frightening fall in
support. Conservatives, who
feel they have a lock on power
after ruling the country for 47
of the last 65 years, are blaming Merkel’s pro-refugee
stance for their mounting
losses.
The AfD latched onto the
issue with a vengeance following the arrival of one million
refugees in the last year and
turned it into a battering ram
n Angela Merkel
against Merkel, who made a
lonely decision a year ago to
open the gates for people fleeing war and turmoil.
“People will see this as the
start
of
the
‘Kanzlerdaemmerung’ (twilight of the chancellor),” said
Gero Neugebauer, political
scientist at Berlin’s Free
University, of the defeat in her
home district.
“If a lot of CDU members
start seeing this defeat as
Merkel’s fault, and members
of parliament start seeing her
as a danger for the party and
their own jobs in next year,
the whole situation could
escalate out of control. If the
AfD beats the CDU again in
two weeks in Berlin, things
could get ugly fast.”
Discontent over Merkel’s
welcoming of refugees has
spread even to the rural
northeastern corner of the
country in a state that has the
fewest number of foreigners
in Germany. There are only
20,000 refugees there and just
65,004 of the state’s 1.6 million
residents are foreigners.
A recent poll showed her
approval rating fell from 67
percent to a five-year low of 45
percent. Her conservatives
would win just 33 percent,
down from 41 percent a year
ago, according to the Infratest
Dimap poll by ARD TV.
That would cost 30 of the
310 MPs their jobs next year.
“The only issue voters care
about right now is (Merkel’s)
irresponsible migrant policies,” said Leif-Erik Holm, the
the AfD in
leader of
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
“It’s not what people want. I
think this is the beginning of
the end of Merkel.”
It has suddenly become
unclear whether Merkel will
even get the chance to run for
a fourth term. According to a
Der Spiegel magazine report,
she has postponed an
announcement about her candidacy due to resistance from
her Bavarian sister party, the
Christian Social Union.
There have been persistent
rumours that CSU leader
Horst Seehofer is considering
running. He has demanded
that Merkel put limits on the
numbers of refugees. The
CSU seized on Sunday’s rout
as more evidence Merkel
needs to change.
“We need a limit on refugees and quicker deportations,” said Andreas Scheuer,
deputy leader of the CSU, told
Der Tagesspiegel daily.
Singapore
expects Zika
to spread as
cases tops 250
Agence France-Presse
SINGAPORE, Sept 5
The number of cases of the
mosquito-borne Zika virus in
Singapore reached 258 on
Monday, with health authorities warning it is no longer
contained in one part of the
city-state and likely to spread
further.
In a joint statement, the
Ministry of Health and the
National
Environment
Agency confirmed 16 new
cases, four of which were not
linked to existing cluster
areas. “Over time, we expect
Zika cases to emerge in more
areas given the presence of
the Aedes mosquitoes here,”
the statement said.
Zika is spread by the Aedes
mosquito, which also spreads
dengue fever. “MOH and the
National
Environment
Agency (NEA) will therefore
adjust our strategies to manage Zika in the same way that
we deal with dengue.”
Despite having one of the
highest standards of healthcare in Asia, dengue is endemic in tropical Singapore which
sees high rainfall and humid
weather,
ideal
mosquito-breeding conditions.
Most of the confirmed Zika
cases have been centred
around the adjacent suburbs
of Aljunied and Paya Lebar.
Many of those initially
infected were foreign workers
on a condominium construction project, whom health
authorities say are more suspectible because they live and
work in close proximity.
a p l a c e f o r r e j u v e n at i o n
Kabul’s once battle-scarred zoo roars back to life
Agence France-Presse
KABUL, Sept 5
Its scarred lion Marjan was
for years a symbol of Afghan
survival.
Now, more than a decade after
his death, Afghanistan remains
battered by war but Kabul zoo is
buzzing again—a haven for
women, children and young lovers in a capital city that has little
public space for anyone but men.
The carnival of animal life
may be a mundane affair compared to other places, but it
seems like an anomaly in Kabul,
a war-scarred city benighted by
post-traumatic stress, which still
faces a high risk of insurgent
attacks.
Men with children, women in
blue burqas, crowds of young students—girls and boys—come to
this haven to relax.
“My wife and I have come here
to take a break and forget our
pain and sorrows,” explains
Mohammad Ali Akbari, a resident of southern Ghazni province, one of the worst hit by the
Taliban insurgency.
“My wife is a bit sick. I
brought her here so she can
breathe fresh air and enjoy the
normal things of life,” he adds, as
his wife gazes at a bear inside
a cage.
Children peer through a wire
mesh fence, amused by monkeys
swinging their tails and frolicking from one tree to another, as
some of them imitate their
whoops and barks.
Loud music emanates from the
zoo canteen near an aviary with
pheasants and other birds, as
families huddled in conversation
around burgers, fries and canned
sodas. Other picnickers seek res-
pite from the scorching afternoon
heat under the shade of trees,
while enjoying platters of cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon. Blushing young lovers sit on
a bench opposite the gazelle cage,
seeking an escape from prying
eyes in a city where harassment
is otherwise commonplace.
The Kabul zoo—the only one in
the country—is located in the
heart of the Afghan capital, surrounded by a dense warren of
muddy flat-topped houses.
Before the 1992-1995 civil war,
the zoo was home to many exotic
animals.
But most of them were either
killed or escaped as mortar
rounds slammed into the zoo during fighting, leaving only a bear
with a nose injured by children
who jabbed it with a stick, a scattering of monkeys, an assortment
of birds of prey—and Marjan,
n A file photo shows an Afghan zoo employee feeding a deer in an enclosure at
Kabul Zoo in Kabul. the showpiece lion who was
blinded by a grenade blast in
1993. Many of the smaller and
AFP/RSS
tamer animals, such as sheep and
goats, were stolen for food. More
exotic creatures, such as rare spe-
cies of birds, were sold on the
black market or smuggled out of
the country.
The zoo has since undergone a
slow and painful reconstruction,
now housing around 600 animals,
many of them gifted by countries
such as India and China.
“It is now more than a zoo,”
said Aziz Gul Saqib, who has
served as director for more than
a decade.
“Families feel safe here. They
see the zoo as a place for rejuvenation,” he told AFP, adding that
last year more than 700,000 people
visited the zoo, including 50,000
students.
The zoo, he said, earned 17 million Afghanis ($250,000) last year
from ticket sales and other revenues, making it self-sustainable.
It is equipped with hi-tech surveillance cameras and loudspeakers—often used to chide those
who tease the animals.
“It is very important to teach
people about wildlife because
exotic animals in Afghanistan
are on the verge of extinction,”
Saqib said.
Marjan was seen as a symbol
of Afghanistan’s national survival after living through coups,
invasions, the grenade attack
which scarred his face and blinded him, civil war and the hardline Taliban era which ended in
2001.
He died in 2002 and is now buried in the zoo, but his bronze statue greets visitors at the entrance
with many visitors posing beside
it for selfies and photographs.
A new Marjan made headlines
around the world when AFP
found him in 2014, living on the
roof of a compound in the
upmarket Taimani district of
the capital.
C M Y K
thekathmandu post 06
editorial
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Waiting for a rainy day
Since 1993
ED I T OR I A L
The human trail
Productive use of Foreign Employment Welfare Fund will go a long way in solving problems faced by migrant workers
Among many reasons
why Nepali migrants suffer
from exploitation and abuse in
destination countries is
the burden of debt that
they face back home
Improving economic conditions in the
country is key to curbing trafficking
Y
esterday, the country marked the National Day
against Human Trafficking. Although the day has
been observed for the past nine years, the scourge
of trafficking remains rife in Nepal. Around 16,500
of our citizens were trafficked in the past two years,
according to a report released by the National Human
Rights Commission earlier this year. People, mostly
unmarried women and children, are being trafficked in
the name of employment, education and marriage
among others from the country.
The government has been well aware of the prevalence of trafficking in the country and state agencies
seem to be making efforts towards curbing it. According
to the 2016 US Department of State’s annual Trafficking
in Persons report, Nepal’s efforts to combat modern-day slavery have been satisfactory, and although
the country does not fully meet the minimum standards
for the elimination of trafficking, it is making significant strides to do so. While releasing the report in New
York this July, the US Secretary of State John Kerry
honoured a Nepali Superintendent of Police Kiran
Bajracharya as this year’s anti-trafficking hero. While
the initiatives of the Nepal government are commendable, it still has a long way to go before trafficking is
stopped.
Human trafficking is a very complicated issue for a
developing country where poverty is widespread and
economic opportunities are scarce. The fact that our
economy is highly dependent on remittance speaks
volumes about the attraction of foreign employment.
So in many cases, people themselves approach traffickers in the hope of getting good jobs abroad. They pay
hefty amounts to reach the destination countries. Some
even undertake perilous journeys through some of the
world’s most dangerous routes. Sadly, quite a few of
them end up falling prey to abuse.
There are not as many studies on the traffickers as
there are on the trafficked. A recent study entitled
‘Imprisoned Traffickers in Kathmandu Valley’ by the
Centre of Strategic Knowledge has revealed that penalties for human trafficking have increased significantly
over the past decade, making trafficking a high-risk,
low-profit enterprise in Nepal. The 2007 Human
Trafficking Transportation and Control Act prescribes
up to 20 years imprisonment and Rs200,000 fine for a
single offense.
But although trafficking may not be a profitable business, especially for the foot soldiers of the trafficking
ring, perpetrators do not seem to be aware of this fact
and their ‘business’ has not declined. Many of the traffickers may just be looking for an easy way out to make
ends meet. More research is required to better understand what motivates traffickers.
While awareness programmes will help reduce the
problem of human trafficking, they definitely will not
eliminate it. Stricter enforcement of the law and constant vigilance are still required. However, any solution
must not only focus on controlling trafficking, but also
on improving the country’s economic conditions in
order to fight poverty and provide employment
opportunities to the people so that they are not lured by
unscrupulous traffickers.
SAMIK ADHIKARI
@AdhikariSamik
T
he Foreign Employment Welfare Fund
(FEWF), created by collecting money
from every outbound international
labour migrant, currently has a
capital base of Rs3.5 billion according
to official sources. If every migrant
is considered an equal shareholder in the
fund, the FEWF has a paid-up capital equivalent to some of the largest banks in Nepal
such as Himalayan Bank and Nabil Bank.
The question then is: how has the government managed that money and what has
been done with it?
The answer is disappointing on many
counts. Yes, the government has used a fraction of the money towards important causes.
For example, it has given compensation to
families of migrant workers who lose their
lives abroad, or provided treatment to workers who get injured. However, the Foreign
Employment Promotion Board (FEPB),
responsible for managing the fund, has also
used itto purchase vehicles for ambassadors
and dignitaries, to finance foreign trips of
its officials, and even to decorate its
premises. This sort of blatant misuse of the
funds, which is meant to help migrant
workers toiling hard to keep their families
and our economy afloat, raises important
questions aboutthe funds’ management.
Skills dilemma
A small portion of the money from the fund
was used to provide vocational training to
around 3,500 aspiring Nepali migrants last
year. While this is certainly a well-intentioned step towards creating a skilled pool of
migrant workers, the actual impact of these
training programmes on migrants’ skills
remains uncertain.
Consider the steps taken by the migrant
workers from when they decide to leave to
the time before departure. On average,
this process takes three to four months.
Usually, a village agent helps the migrants
in getting the paperwork done, puts them
in touch with a recruitment agency, and
helps them navigate a complex process that
starts in the village and involves more than
a couple of trips to major cities. By this time,
E
ight years after the 2008 global financial crisis,
all major economic powers still cannot guarantee a sustainable recovery for the world.
The annual meeting of the G20 bears witness to the shared will and joint efforts of the
leading developed and developing economies in
the world. All countries have so far remained
steadfast in their agreement to hold a defensive
line for the globalist agenda.
The global financial crisis has cast a very
long shadow, with growing income inequality in
many places and corporations holding onto
their capital instead of investing, and judging
from the rising protectionism, along with some
ideologically-charged rhetoric, from various
political forces, there are some who seem willing to set back or spoil the globalization process.
That is why the G20 created, alongside its
annual summit, a business leaders’ meeting,
called the Business 20. That is also why the G20
needs not just a business leaders’ meeting, but
also a distilled vision of common concerns and
necessary actions, which is what President Xi
Jinping delivered in his keynote speech at the
B20 Summit on Saturday.
The foreign guests can see for themselves
through Hangzhou, the host city of the G20 and
B20 summits, how China has become a leader of
growth, as the city is home to many new businesses and new management models. As Xi said
it is an unprecedented achievement for a country
with such a large population to realize modernization. The more businesses are created, the more
they spread from developed to under-developed
areas. In the process, obsolete industries are
phased out and new ones emerge, jobs are created,
and cities such as Hangzhou become vibrant.
The same process can also prove true elsewhere in the world.
Greener pastures
The Foreign Employment Act of 2007 has a
special prescription on how the foreign
RAJIN RANJIT
C
omputerised reservation systems were
developed in the 1950s to keep track of
airline seat booking and fare information. Initially they were internal systems, but were soon made available to
travel agents. Their use spread rapidly after
deregulation of airline pricing in the US
in1978. The development of dynamically
adjusted pricing is often credited to Robert
Crandall of American Airlines as a
response to the rise of discount airline
PEOPLExpress in the early 1980s. The complexity and opaqueness of airline pricing
has grown over time. As a result, the ‘yield
management’ system employed by airlines
for pricing has become one of the most
arcane and complex information systems
on the planet, and one with a very large economic component. Airline pricing represents a great challenge to modern economic
analysis because it is so distant from the
‘law of one price’ level of analysis.
‘Dynamic pricing’, or setting flexible
prices for products or services based on
current market demand, has become common practice in several industries such as
travel, entertainment and retail. This pricing strategy changes as per competitor pricing besides supply and demand. The aviation industry worldwide has been using this
strategy to make sure that there is not a
single unoccupied seat. This has strong correlation with yield management, and is the
most sensitive and tough job today in aviation industry.
In Nepal, it is a different story altogether.
The ministry and its relevant departments
still control airline pricing systems. Since
we moved into a new phase of electronic
ticketing during the last decade, lots of
changes have taken place in its mecha-
nisms. We are slowly catching up with the
global trend of dynamic fare mechanism
but with restrictions fixed by the authorities. It is a common trend now to observe
fare changes frequently. We will call the
practice of charging different customers
distinct mark-ups over marginal cost based
on the time of purchase ‘dynamic pricing’
rather than ‘dynamic price discrimination’.
Single class and fare systems on domestic
trunk sectors are now on the verge of
extinction. Every sector has its own set of
classes with different fare categories and
rules which have to be accepted by the passenger at the time of purchase.
It is a global practice and phenomenon to
apply very strict rules and regulations to
cheaper fares as compared to higher fares.
Airlines in our country are facing sharp
criticism over these issues. It is not uncommon for such issues to emerge while our
mechanisation process is still in the primitive stage, and we are still adapting
and trying to follow global trends. All mechanisms are in the restricted and controlled
sphere of the authorities here in our context, and this has made it tougher to balance the two scenarios.
High competition
Is my price competitive? This is the key
question that inventory managers and airline executives ask themselves every day.
The Internet created price transparency on
a scale unheard of in the past. Every client,
even if he eventually buys his ticket from a
travel agent, checks the Internet first or
other available sources like mobile applications and SMS. Moreover, the competition is
only a mouse-click away. This environment
punishes uncompetitive airlines very quickly. In our context, uncompetitive airlines
are those that do not react to market changes quickly and accurately resulting in low
yield due to unoccupied seats. In the
absence of a decisive support system, airlines will have to employ a high number of
pricing analysts at much cost and without a
guarantee that they will find all the relevant pricing changes, recommend the right
Voice Of The People
Kantipur Publications Pvt. Ltd., Kantipur Complex, Subidhanagar P. B. No. 8559, Kathmandu; Nepal
Phone: 5135000, Fax: 977-1-5135057, e-mail: [email protected]
Mobilise foreign aid
None of the captains spoke their
mind on requesting Indian or other
international auto giants to start a
manufacturing or assembly plant in
this grandiose Republic (‘Auto captains speak their mind’, August
31, Money I). Just imagine how
cheap it would be if Nepal started
manufacturing vehicles. Customers
would not have to pay 24 lakhs for a
Adhikari, a graduate of Harvard
University’s MPA/ID programme, is a
researcher at Unicef, Nepal
Dynamic pricing is followed globally, but in Nepal the government controls airfares
are not dented.
Manohar Shrestha, via email
Auto plant
employment welfare fund can be used. One
of the provisions is about the repatriation of
foreign workers upon their return. The
FEPB is planning on providing livelihood
support through loans to returning migrants
by using the money from the fund. But that
has not been implemented yet. Part of why
such a scheme is not operational yet
is that migration from Nepal to labour
receiving countries is often circular.
Migrants return home only to find a lack of
investment opportunities for the capital that
they bring back. Eventually, this starts
another migration cycle. Therefore, although
providing entrepreneurial loans to returnees is in theory an excellent idea, Nepal’s
investment climate is a severe constraint for
migrants willing to embark on such a venture.
One provision that is not in the Foreign
Employment Act of 2007 is regarding
migrant loans before departure. It is now
well accepted that more than 50 percent of
Nepali labour migrants borrow money from
local moneylenders to finance their trip
abroad. In a majority of these cases, they
pay exorbitant interest rates, ranging
from 30 to 60 percent. Simple calculations
reveal that it takes migrants around
four to six months of foreign employment
Price of the ticket
w orld v ie w
Starting point
An unprecedented achievement for a
country with such a large population
the migrant, who has typically borrowed
money from a moneylender in the village, is
so desperate to go abroad that he tries to
bypass every other bureaucratic hurdle in as
little time as possible. Even the supposedly
helpful and short pre-departure orientation
is regarded as another burdensome formality. Hence, adding a coherent vocational
training programme into that window of
three to four months is like pouring rice in a
sack full of holes.
Instead, one might argue that it is better if
such skills training programmes target individuals who have not started the migration
process. There are certainly ways to incorporate vocational and language training programmes through village development committees and local schools. But there has to be
a proper assessment of the demand for such
skills. The lack of Arabic language institutes in the country, even when several million Nepali migrants are in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, suggests that Nepali migrants do not consider
knowing Arabic as an essential skill in their
repertoire before departure.
just to pay off the interest on their loans.
Since most migrant contracts are for two
years, workers face huge opportunity costs
on the money they spend to pay interest.
They could instead be using that money to
send their kids to school, provide healthcare
for their family or invest on productive
assets back home.
Now consider that a small portion of the
money from the FEWF is used to provide
loans for migration to the poorest of
migrants. Even if they pay 15-20 percent
interest rate on that loan, it frees up a significant portion of their savings abroad for
productive use back home.
The government did try to encourage private banks to lend to migrants in the past
without any collateral by insuring 75 percent of the default amounts. However, due to
the lack of repayment enforcing mechanisms, 90 percent of the borrowers defaulted. The screening process for the scheme
also suffered from nepotism and corruption.
Instead, the government should use a
small portion of the money from the FEWF
to subsidise private providers in conducting
a pilot of a targeted migrant loan scheme
without insuring any default amounts, and
letthe provider figure out ways to minimise
default rates. The benefit of designing a successful scheme for thousands of potential
migrants outweighs any cost of a small pilot
proving to be unsuccessful.
Among many reasons why Nepali
migrants suffer from exploitation and abuse
in destination countries is the burden of
debt that they face back home. A migrant
loan scheme utilising the pool of money
from the FEWF has the potential to create a
win-win situation for potential migrant
workers and private providers. Only waiting
for a rainy day to utilise the fund might lead
to a scenario where FEPB officials have all
the umbrellas while the migrants are the
ones who get continuously drenched.
car that costs 6 lakhs in India. Apart
from keeping money within the country, the auto industry could provide
gainful employment to thousands of
Qatar-bound migrants.
Our auto captains, who are basically what Dahal once described as ‘punjipati dalals’, would not take the
headache of producing cars here,
would they? It does not matter to
them if the autos came from Madras
or the Moon as long as their profits
The development of transportation,
health, education and hydropower
will not be possible without foreign
aid (‘Welcome foreign aid’, August
30, Page 6). However, attracting foreign investment and mobilising it
towards productive industry, infrastructure development and industrialisation in association with private
sector is even more challenging.
Foreign investment inflow is petering
out due to red tape, energy crisis and
decision and distribute price changes to all
sales channels.
Most airlines accept a compromise
between cost and benefit; they employ fewer
pricing analysts, and as a result, have
delayed and imperfect reactions to their
competitors’ pricing changes. Generally, it
is understood that designing a pricing strategy requires creativity which is an art in
itself. Changes in consumer market trends,
macroeconomic changes, market segmentation, airline revenue and profit force inventory managers to constantly monitor the
effectiveness of their current pricing strategy and make timely adjustments.
Consistent maintenance of an effective
pricing strategy is not a simple task. The
most common trap is straight pricing competition that not only hurts the individual
airline but the industry as a whole.
National development
Inventory managers have to review several
hundred daily price changes using very
primitive transactional applications to find
out what is happening in the market.
Currently, the applications available with
political instability. Nepal should
create a more investment friendly
environment in the country if it
wants to attract investors.
Umesh Thapa, via email
HARSH REALITY
It seems that the incumbent
government led by PM Pushpa
Kamal Dahal Prachanda is competing rather than delivering something
for the welfare of the country (‘Fast
track construction by Nepal was
my idea: PM Dahal’, August 30,
Page 1). Most of our politicians do
not prefer working hard in silence.
Instead, they tend to make unnecessary noise. They only have expertise
in delivering false promises and
extravagant claims. The rhetoric of
political slogans have surpassed the
limit while the nation and people
have been traumatised by the
political instability, mental chaos
and never-ending turmoil in the
country.
It is high time that our level-headed ones fulfilled their overwhelming
promises. The root cause for the escalation of our troubles and woes is
clear: politicans promise everything
but deliver nothing. This is the harsh
reality of our country.
Sanjog Karki, Palpa
most airlines in our context do not have
mechanisms to tailor price changes to the
needs of individual analysts, do not provide
decision support functionality and are not
connected to the price change distribution
systems. Hence, the necessity of employing
an army of inventory managers who sift
through daily price changes, make decisions (or recommendations) based on their
knowledge and experience and pass them to
another department for distribution.
Airlines have done a commendable
job of catching up with global practices,
and most importantly, providing sustainable and cheap fares to passengers to accelerate and boost the country’s economic development. We must admit that we are still
very far behind in terms of global technology and methodology, and the authorities
and policymakers should promote and back
up the sincere efforts being made by airlines in this area so that the development of
whole aviation industry will not suffer in
the long run.
Ranjit is Director of Management
Information System at Buddha Air
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C M Y K
07 thekathmandu post
op-ed
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
You’re how old?
Bilateral ties
The myth that older
workers crowd
out younger ones
is called the “lump
of labor” fallacy,
and economists have
debunked it
countless times
ASHTON APPLEWHITE
I
n
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Dahal should seize the historic opportunity to
shape Nepal’s long-term relations with India
KAMAL DEV BHATTARAI
T
hrough his special envoy
Bimalendra
Nidhi,
Prime
Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal
has conveyed to Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi the new
government’s readiness for constitutional amendment to address the
demands of the Madhesis and
Janajatis. Dahal highlighted this
message in his letter to Modi because
he believes that India will be happy if
issues related to the Madhes are
resolved. Obviously, demands of the
Madhes-based parties should be
addressed without any delay. Dahal
also conveyed to his Indian counterpart that high-level visits between the
two countries and development are
other two priorities of the present
government.
The point of concern, however, is
that some incidents and speeches of
top leaders are determining our bilateral relations. In the past few years,
temporary issues are becoming the
yardsticks with which the strength of
bilateral ties are measured. For example, it seems that relations between
Nepal and India soured only because
the previous prime minister KP Oli
was not ready to address the demands
of the Madhes-based parties. And
bilateral ties have improved now as
the new government is ready to
address those demands. Relations
between the new government and
India can once again turn sour if
there is no progress in addressing the
demands. It is clear that India believes
turmoil in the Madhes will heighten
its security concerns, so it wants an
early solution to the Madhes-crisis.
1950 treaty
However, the Madhes should not be a
dominating factor in determining the
age-old relations between the two
countries. Similarly, a change in government, some incidents on the border and transient events should not
determine overall bilateral relations.
Instead of merely giving an impression that he has a good relationship
with India, Dahal should concentrate
on keeping bilateral ties cordial over
the long haul. He should prepare a
vision paper on how the relationship
between the two countries can
assume a normal course despite some
momentary setbacks. Dahal has a historic opportunity to shape Nepal’s
long-term relations with India.
Hitherto, the Peace and Friendship
Treaty of 1950 is the main basis of
relations between the two countries.
All successive governments after
1993 are raising this issue with the
Indian side. They have been arguing
that there is a need to amend the treaty to make it equally beneficial for the
two countries.
This means that all the major parties are ready to amend the treaty.
Now, Dahal’s task is to hold talks with
the major parties and prepare a draft
proposal on how Nepal wants to
amend the treaty. Indian policymakers and diplomats, however, claim
that Nepal is not implementing the
key provisions of the treaty.
The proposal prepared on the basis
of all-party consensus should be
handed over to Indian Prime Minister
Modi. There is now an Eminent
A change in government,
some incidents on
the border and transient
events should not
determine our overall bilateral
relations with India
Persons Group set up to review the
entire gamut of Nepal-India relations
and it will suggest ways to amend the
treaty. But without a clear political
blueprint, it cannot function properly.
While India is suggesting that Nepal
bring a proposal on treaty amendment, Nepal is not doing so.
Investment climate
Dahal should also take some concrete
steps to bring more Indian investment into the country. India is pressing for the implementation of
Bilateral Investment Protection and
Promotion Agreement (BIPPA)
signed between the two countries five
years ago. We should welcome Indian
investment in big projects without
undermining our national interests.
In the meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee (IGC)
between the commerce Secretaries of
the two countries, the Indian side
raised the issue of security of Indian
investment in Nepal. Another prominent agenda is the export of Nepali
goods in India. The meeting of the
IGC in 2013 and 2016 ended without
making much headway. This issue
should be resolved through a high-level political dialogue between the
countries during the official visits.
The Indian side has urged the
Nepali side to make labour laws
strong so as to prevent frequent protests and disturbances in industrial
areas. Dahal has rightly conveyed to
the Indian side that he wants to focus
on development this time, and he
needs to assure them that there is a
good investment climate in Nepal. He
should tell the Indian leadership that
Nepal needs massive investment from
both India and China. At the same
time, he needs to convey that India’s
security concerns will be addressed.
Outstanding issues
The long-pending border dispute,
which has always been a cause of
friction between Nepal and India,
should be resolved at the earliest.
India and Bangladesh resolved their
boundary dispute last year. Nepal and
India should also work to resolve the
Kalapani and Susta disputes through
high-level dialogue. In 2014, both
sides agreed to resolve the boundary
dispute through talks at the foreign
secretary level, but there has not been
any progress.
In his proposed nine-month tenure,
Dahal could at least lay a foundation
of a new kind of bilateral relations.
Nepal-India ties should be confined to
the relationship between the parties
that form the government in the two
countries. But the initial signs are
not promising. It appears that Dahal
just wants to get some support from
India to provide additional amount to
the earthquake victims and raise his
popularity in Nepal.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, who came to power in 2014 with
a landslide election victory, is keen to
make relations with neighbouring
countries vibrant. For Nepal, it would
be easier to resolve outstanding
issues with India when a strong Modiled government is in power. Modi has
reportedly told Nepali leaders to
come up with a clear vision on treaty
amendment. Nidhi’s visit has laid the
groundwork for a candid and open
discussion. Nepal should seize the
opportunity to resolve outstanding
issues with India and take bilateral
relations to new heights.
Bhattarai is The Kathmandu
Post’s Delhi correspondent
t might not seem that Hillary Clinton
and Donald J. Trump have much in
common. But they share something
important with each other and with a
whole lot of their fellow citizens. Both
are job seekers. And at ages 68 and 70,
respectively, they’re part of a large
group of Americans who are radically
upending the concept of retirement.
In 2016, almost 20 percent of
Americans 65 and older are working.
Some of them want to; many need to.
The demise of traditional pensions
means that many people have to keep
earning in their 60s and 70s to maintain
a decent standard of living.
These older people represent a vast
well of productive and creative potential. Veteran workers can bring deep
knowledge to the table, as well as wellhoned interpersonal skills, better judgment than the less experienced and a
more balanced perspective. They
embody a natural resource that’s
increasing: the social capital of millions of healthy, educated adults.
Why, then, are well over a million and
a half Americans over 50, people
with decades of life ahead of them, unable to find work? The underlying reason
isn’t personal, it’s structural. It’s the
result of a network of attitudes and
institutional practices that we can no
longer ignore.
The problem is ageism—discrimination on the basis of age. A dumb and
destructive obsession with youth so
extreme that experience has become a
liability. In Silicon Valley, engineers
are getting Botox and hair transplants
before interviews—and these are
skilled, educated, white guys in their
20s, so imagine the effect further down
the food chain.
Age discrimination in employment
is illegal, but two-thirds of older job
seekers report encountering it. At 64,
I’m fortunate not to have been one of
them, as I work at the American
Museum of Natural History, a truly allage-friendly employer.
I write about ageism, though, so I
hear stories all the time. The 51-year-old
Uber driver taking me to Los Angeles
International Airport at dawn a few
weeks ago told me about a marketing
position he thought he was eminently
qualified for. He did his homework and
nailed the interview. On his way out of
the building he overheard, “Yeah, he’s
perfect, but he’s too old.”
I’m lucky enough to get my tech support from JK Scheinberg, the engineer
at Apple who led the effort that moved
the Mac to Intel processors. A little restless after retiring in 2008, at 54, he figured he’d be a great fit for a position at
an Apple store Genius Bar, despite being
twice as old as anyone else at the group
interview. “On the way out, all three of
the interviewers singled me out and
said, ‘We’ll be in touch,’ ” he said. “I
never heard back.”
Recruiters say people with more than
three years of work experience need not
apply. Ads call for “digital natives,” as if
playing video games as a kid is proof of
competence. Résumés go unread, as
Christina Economos, a science educator
with more than 40 years of experience
developing curriculum, has learned. “I
don’t even get a reply—or they
just say, ‘We’ve found someone more
suited,’ ” she said. “I feel that my experience, skill set, work ethic, are being
dismissed just because of my age. It’s
really a blow, since I still feel like a vital
human being.”
A 2016 study by the National Bureau
of Economic Research found “robust”
evidence that age discrimination in the
workplace starts earlier for women and
never relents. The pay gap kicks in
early, at age 32, when women start getting passed over for promotion.
Discouraged and diminished, many
older Americans stop looking for work
entirely. They become economically
dependent, contributing to the
misperception that older people are a
burden to society, but it’s not by choice.
How are older people supposed to
remain self-sufficient if they’re forced
out of the job market?
Not one negative stereotype about
older workers holds up under scrutiny.
Abundant data show that they’re reliable, handle stress well, master new
skills and are the most engaged of all
workers when offered the chance to
grow and advance on the job. Older people might take longer to accomplish a
given task, but they make fewer mistakes. They take longer to recover from
Age segregation
impoverishes us, because it
cuts us off from most
of humanity and because the
exchange of skills
and stories across generations
is the natural
order of things
injury but hurt themselves less often.
It’s a wash. Motivation and effort affect
output far more than age does.
Age prejudice—assuming that someone is too old or too young to handle a task
or take on a responsibility—cramps prospects for everyone, old or young.
Millennials, who are criticized for having
“no work ethic” and “needing to have
their hands held,” have trouble getting a
foothold in the job market. Unless we
tackle age bias, they too are likely to
become less employable through no fault
of their own, and sooner than they
might think. The Age Discrimination in
Employment Act kicks in at 40.
The myth that older workers crowd
out younger ones is called the “lump of
labor” fallacy, and economists have
debunked it countless times. When jobs
are scarce, this is true in the narrowest
sense, but that’s a labor market problem, not a too-many-old-people problem.
A 2012 Pew Charitable Trusts study
of employment rates over the last 40
years found rates for younger and older
workers to be positively correlated. In
other words, as more older workers
stayed on the job, the employment rate
and number of hours worked also
improved for younger people.
Progressive companies know the ben-
efits of workplace diversity. A friend in
work force policy calls this the “shoe
test”: look under the table, and if everyone’s wearing the same kind of shoes,
whether wingtips or flip-flops, you’ve
got a problem. It’s blindingly obvious
that age belongs alongside race,
gender, ability and sexual orientation as
a criterion for diversity—not only
because it’s the ethical path but also
because age discrimination hurts productivity and profits.
Being part of a mixed-age team can
be challenging. Betsy Martens was 55
when she landed a job as an information
architect at a start-up during the heady
days of the tech boom. Decades older
than most of the staff, she found it
invigorating. “When it came time to
talk about the music we loved, the books
we’d read, the movies we saw and the
life experiences we’d had, we were on
different planets, but we were all
open-minded enough to find these differences intriguing,” she told me. Things
shifted during an argument with her
boss, “when he said exasperatedly, ‘You
sound just like my mother.’ That was the
moment the pin pricked the balloon.”
“Culture fit” gets bandied about in
this context—the idea that people in an
organization should share attitudes,
backgrounds and working styles. That
can mean rejecting people who “aren’t
like us.” Age, however, is a far less reliable indicator of shared values or interests than class, gender, race or income
level. Discomfort at reaching across an
age gap is one of the sorry consequences of living in a profoundly age-segregated society. The Cornell gerontologist
Karl Pillemer says that Americans are
more likely to have a friend of a different race than one who is 10 years older
or younger than they are.
Age segregation impoverishes us,
because it cuts us off from most of
humanity and because the exchange of
skills and stories across generations is
the natural order of things. In the
United States, ageism has subverted it.
What is achieving age diversity going
to take? Nothing less than a mass movement like the women’s movement,
which made people aware that “personal problems”—like being perceived as
incompetent, or being paid less, or getting passed over for promotion—were
actually widely shared political problems that required collective action.
The critical starting point is to
acknowledge our own prejudice: internalized bias like “I’m too old for that
job,” and that directed at others, like
“It’s going to take me forever to bring
that old guy up to speed.” Confronting
ageism means making friends of all
ages. It means pointing out bias when
you encounter it (when everyone at a
meeting is the same age, for example).
Confronting ageism means joining
forces. It means seeing older people
not as alien and “other,” but as us—
future us, that is.
—©2016The New YOrk TImes
Local difficulties
There is a huge gap between people’s expectations and the delivery of public services
education, along with some
developmental activities. But the
government bodies have failed to
address these needs.
MANISHA LAMSAL
T
he people of every democratic state have the right to
expect basic public services
from the government.
Moreover, with significant
political change in the country,
Nepali people, especially from
the remote areas, have developed
huge expectations from both the
central and local governments.
Their hopes have soared even
more since the country decided
to go federal. Unfortunately,
there is a huge gap between people’s expectations and the delivery of public services.
The expectations and needs of
the people from the remote areas
are mostly limited to basic services for sustaining their livelihood such as drinking water,
food security, road facilities and
A VDC in Kalikot
For instance, the Dhaulagoha
VDC in Kalikot is populated with
7,111 people (50.30 percent male
and 49.61 percent female) but
there is no road or any other
modern infrastructure in the
area. The whole VDC has only 85
irregular water taps, one high
school, and one health post. Most
of the people in the VDC transport goods from the district headquarters by carrying them on
their back and walking for
almost two whole days, as they
cannot afford to pay Rs30 to 35
per kg to use a mule. Various
reports from different institutions reveal that among the five
districts of the Karnali zone,
Kalikot gets the highest amount
of government budget. But no
concerned body has tried to find
out where the amount has been
spent and how.
Aamkoila Rokaya from the
VDC believes that she is illiterate
and incapable of leading a fulfilled life because of the lack of
roads, schools and other infrastructure in the area. So she feels
the government has been biased
and unjust to the people of her
village. Almost everyone in the
VDC has a similar story to tell. It
is evident that owing to the lack
of public services, the people of
the VDC are struggling to survive. Due to the state’s apathy,
not only is it difficult for the
people to sustain their livelihood
but their faith in the government
is also eroding. Failure to provide adequate public services
despite the budget allocation
raises serious questions about
the work of the local and central
governments.
Autonomous structures
The activities of formulating and
implementing development plans
come under the responsibility of
the local government. The local
government officials are there to
use the budget to address the
needs of the people in the region
as stated in the Local Self
Governance Act (LSGA), 1999.
The fact that people are suffering
from general inefficiency, inaccessibility and insensitivity of
the local authorities is appalling.
Even if the officials are present
in the offices, they do not make
appropriate and adequate efforts
to provide services. And when
they are unable to provide services, they do not explain to the people the reason behind it. Officials
often excuse themselves by saying that they are bound by certain rules and regulations or lack
the required authority, even
though they have been appointed
precisely to fulfil the needs of
the people. Similarly, the Chief
District Office and Local
Development Office are the most
powerful and autonomous bodies
in any district as mentioned in
the LSGA, but they are not using
their power and authority to
improve the situation of the local
people. Expectations for better
services have become a kind of
mirage for the people as the services they need are nowhere in
sight and the responsible bodies
are not making any visible
efforts.
Hence, there clearly is a significant gap between the service
providers and the service seekers, or between the duty bearers
and the right holders. People are
losing faith in both the central
and local governments, leading
to a rapid erosion of trust
towards the government structures and their performance.
Even though LSGA mentions
that local government structures
are autonomous, this has not
been the case in practice. It is
quite probable that the budget
received by these bodies is being
misused. It is urgent to improve
the roles and responsibilities of
the local level officials to meet
the needs of the local people.
Lamsal holds a
master’s in Sociology
from Tribhuvan University
C M Y K
et cetera
kathmandu post
the
kathmandupost.ekantipur.com
PG 08 | Tuesday,September 6,2016
Nepal’s first opera
One World Theatre is presenting a contemporary
Western opera, Arjuna’s Dillema, which is based on
the ancient Hindu epic, the Bhagavad Gita, and
the poetry of Kabir. The show is currently on at
the Patan Museum, everyday at 7 pm, and will
continue till Sept 11. For reservations, contact:
9803047148.
Raining frogs
Get effective
Artist Shrawan Kumar Maharjan is
putting up his second solo
exhibition, titled The Frogs, a unique
collection of mini frogs, which reflect
human figures and their behaviour. The
exhibit will be held at The Taragaon
Museum and will run until Sept 11.
Franklin Covey Nepal is set to host a three-day
workshop on the book by Dr Stephen R Covey’s
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This
workshop aims to provide tools to make organisations and individuals more effective. The workshop will take place at Hotel Radisson, Lazimpat,
from Sept 18 at 9:30 am and Sept 20 at 5:30 pm.
PC Build 102: Filling
in your PC Case
Now that the motherboard is installed, here is how to bring
the rest of the components together for your home-built PC
Staying true
agonyaunt
Dear Aunt,
I am a 20-year-old male studying bachelor’s here in
Kathmandu. I am currently into my
second year and my studies are
going well. For the past few months,
I have come to like a girl. She is really nice and we talk quite a lot. I have
also been helping her with her studies as she is a class junior to me.
However, the problem here is that I
already have a girlfriend back home
in Pokhara. We have had a very good
relationship and we still talk
frequently. I am also familiar with
her family and we have had a pretty
serious long-term relationship. But
now, I find myself in a quandary. I
don’t want to break my girlfriend’s
heart, but I also find myself really
attracted to this girl at my college. I
don’t know what to do.
—Stuck between two
Into a shell
Dear Aunt,
I recently moved to the Valley to pursue my A levels. I have some serious
family issues and have a lot of
expectations on my shoulders to
succeed. During my school
days, I used to be very popular in my class and was
liked by all my teachers.
However, since moving
to Kathmandu, I have
found myself
Dear Silent guy,
While it is great that you are committed to your studies and seem to
be taking quite a burden on your
still-young shoulders, shutting yourself to half of the world’s population
can never be a healthy decision,
regardless of how focused you are.
Balance in life is really important.
Your social life plays as big a role in
your overall happiness as your
academic and intellectual life does.
It sounds like you used to be a very
personable young man and being
sociable is important to you. So why
shut out what comes so naturally to
you? If anything, being too introverted will only add to your anxieties and will in turn disrupt your
focus. It seems to be doing so
already. Let loose a bit and make
friends. Having a good social support
system
around you
will only help
you in the
future.
freewheelin
Ankit Tuladhar
Style
and
Power
The two new
150cc Vespas add
power to the
brand’s already
unique salability
V
espa remains one of the best
selling scooters in the country
today, despite its hefty price tag
when compared to other rides
available in the market. With
Vespa being a statement of
style, its avid fans have ensured that
the Vespa 125 VXL and the S models
remain a much sought after vehicle
among the urban youth. Now, the
company has launched two new, bigger, more powerful models, the 150
VXL and the 150 SXL, hoping to capitalise on the brand’s unique salability. Here is how the two new entrants
performed in our review:
Styling
While the 150 VXL and the SXL retain
the great Vespa look, they look quite
similar to the 125cc variations. As
all Vespas, the new models come
with a great deal of chrome work
on the body which gives it a premium look. Vespa has introduced
new shades that differentiate it
from the older models, there are
Prajesh Sjb Rana
I
n the previous article, we plugged
the CPU and RAM into the motherboard and screwed in the
motherboard into the PC Case.
Now that the motherboard has
been properly mounted into the
case, we need to install all the other
components in the case before installing the power supply. I recommend
installing the power supply at the end
because they have thick cables that
would be best dealt with after all the
other cables have been properly managed. So, make sure you have
everything you need to connect your
components to your motherboard:
SATA cables for your hard drives and
optical drives, Philips-head screwdrivers and zip-ties.
Once you have everything ready,
start by installing your hard drives.
Usually on the front end of your case,
you’ll see hard drive trays. Modern
cases come with actual trays that you
can pull out of the case, install you
hard drives on them and then mount
the tray on to the case. Open up both
sides on your case and find small
holes on your hard drive bays on both
sides of the case. Carefully slide in
your drive and align the holes on
your bay to the holes on your drive.
Once aligned, quickly find the screws
that came with your motherboard
and screw them on by hand to keep
the hard drive in position. Do this for
both sides, two screws on the front
and two at the back. Once the hard
drive has been properly mounted, use
your Philips-head screwdriver to
tighten them; I would suggest you
tighten them as hard as you can
because you don’t want your hard
drive to vibrate during use. Make
sure you use all four screws and
screw them on as tightly as possible.
Once you’re screwed on your hard
drives, install your optical drive in a
similar manner. After all of your
drives have been installed, find SATA
cables to connect them to your motherboard. SATA cables have flat connectors behind an L shaped hole.
They usually come in colours of red
but can be found in other shades as
well. They usually have a metal locking pin on the top side of the connector to hold the wire in place. Take
these cables and plug one end on to
the back on your drive and the other
end on your motherboard. The SATA
trays on your motherboard can be
easily identified, they have similar L
shaped connectors and are usually
marked with SATA followed by a
number. If you’re installing multiple
hard drives and optical drives,
make sure the hard drive you want
to boot off of is plugged into the first
SATA port on your motherboard, it’s
usually marked as SATA 1 or SATA 0.
Also, in you have multiple hard
drives, plug in the hard drives before
optical drives.
While earlier IDE drives would
have master and slave jumpers to
identify which drive is on a higher
priority list, my disclaimer here
would be not to mess around with
any jumpers that you might find on
your SATA drive. Also, if you have a
Solid State Drive (SSD), then I would
recommend installing this drive as
your primary boot drive (in the first
shades that overlap. However, some
of the new colours for the 150 VXL
and the SXL are very attractive, particularly with the matte paint work.
Much like its smaller sibling, the
VXL gets the chrome pillion
grabrails, while the SXL passes up on
feature. The main visual contrast
between the 125 and the 150 is the
speedometre, the 125 had a simple
SATA slot). You want to install SSD
Drives as your boot drive primarily
because they have higher data transfer speeds, noticeably faster speeds
that will be obvious when you’re
running your operating system off
of them.
After you’ve installed all of your
drives and connected them to your
motherboard via a SATA cable, start
installing the graphics card.
Installing the graphics card is fairly
simple because all you need to do is
plug it into the PCI-e slot. Before you
install the card through, figure out
the slot on the case that the card
aligns with and break off the metal
protector with your screw driver. If
you have a thick card that takes up
two of the slots, break off the coverings for both of these slots. Notice
that the PCI-e slot on your motherboard has an arm sticking out at the
end, this arm is there to hold the card
in place. So when you install the
card, make sure that the card sits
comfortably in the slot and that the
arm makes an audible click after
its been installed. The
front of the graphics
card should stick
that slides into the PCI-e slot). Install
both of your cards into the respective
PCI-e slots and just clip on the SLI
bridge into the SLI connectors of
both cards.
After you’ve installed your drives
and your graphics card, your PC is
ready to start up. But you’ll also need
to make sure that your case’s electronics are connected to the motherboard. Things like the power button,
reset button and front mounted headphone jacks and USB ports won’t
work if you don’t connect the case
with the motherboard. Find thin
sockets jutting out of your case and
read what’s written on them. There
should be cables labelled, ‘power’,
‘reset’, ‘audio’ and ‘USB’. Now,
installing these could be tricky
because you need to figure out the
polarity of these connecters and line
them so that they plug into the positive and negative ends of the
ports on your motherboard.
For this, find the manual for your moth-
erboard and figure out where these
power, reset, audio and usb ports are
on your motherboard. Also figure out
the positive and negative pins on
these ports and align them to the ‘+’
and ‘-’ signs found on the connectors
of your PC case. The connecting pins
look like two individual pins for the
power and reset buttons while audio
and USB might have additional pins.
Make sure you plug them in correctly
through, take help from the motherboard manual. There will also be
connectors for the power and HD led,
make sure you connect these in the
proper ports as well.
After you’ve connected all the
wires to the motherboard, grab the
zip-ties and start tying all of your
wires together. If you can attach
these wires on to your case with the
help of the ties, do so. You don’t
want
wires
dangling
around with the
fans start moving inside the
computer. If
you can, route
all your wires
through
the
back side of
your PC Case, so
that the front end
of the case does
not look messy and
you
can
easily
unplug any device
you don’t
need
in
the future.
Do not skip
this
step
because this will
make
dealing
with thick power-supply cables so
much easier for you
when you install it.
Your project is almost at its
end now and all you need to
install now is the power supply.
Follow this space for information
on how to plug in your final component and finally firing up a computer
you’ve built with your own hands.
Performance
Vespas, in earnest, were never about
the power and performance, but are
universally popular for their premium feel and cultural status as a style
symbol. The 150cc motor, on the new
models, produces 11.6Bhp at 7000
RPM and 11.5 NM of torque at 5500
RPM. The pick-up isn’t as fast as you
would expect, yet once you get moving, the torque draw was quite
strong. There isn’t much difference in the performance between
the 125 and the new 150 as they
are differentiated by just 1 BHP
and 1NM of torque. And while
the distinction between the two
is not monumental, the 150cc
variations will guzzle more fuel.
You will feel slight vibrations
while riding in moderate
speeds, particularly once your
move north of 40km/ph,
despite the fact that it is a
four-stroke motor.
handles most of what is thrown its
way with ease. The wider tire provides more stability and grip and the
nimble handling means you can easily filter through busy roads and tight
sections. You do sit higher than other
scooters, which might be a concern
for some shorter riders. While
stopping isn’t an issue, the disc
brakes upfront did lack initial bite
and felt slightly wooden. The single-sided swing arms and the single-sided forks make the ride quality
a bit harsh but it is something that
can be easily lived with.
out the back of
your case and there
should be a screw hole on
your case and the metal IO
bar on your card, align both of
these in place and screw the card
into place. If you’re installing multiple graphics cards, you will also need
a SLI bridge to sync your cards. You
should see an SLI connector on the
top of your card (opposite the side
dial with just the time in digital format, however, the new models have
just the speedometre in analog, while
the fuel gage and time are shown in
digital format. The 150 might not
look different from the 125, but it still
is quite the sight out on
the streets.
Ride and handling
The ride quality of the new 150
variations is very good and it
technopolis
Dear Stuck between two,
Long distance relationships, like the
one you have with your girlfriend in
Pokhara, can be difficult and testing.
Particularly when moving to a new
city, as you have, it is quite natural
that you gravitate towards people
that you like, as you try to make new
friends. When the person you love is
not around all the time, it is easy to
try and substitute or project the validation you get from relationships
onto others who are around you at
present. But that is the very beauty
of long distance relationships, if you
give it the chance: It needs constant
nurturing and rejuvenation. It
sounds like you were quite invested
in your relationship and that it has
just lost its sheen to distance. If that
is the case, your Aunt would advise
you to rediscover the spark you once
shared. Maybe a spontaneous bus to
Pokhara is in the offing? You will be
attracted to a lot of people in life, but
not all attractions amount to love
that is fulfilling and nourishing.
growing increasingly introverted. My social anxieties stem
out my fear of losing my academic
focus and as a result I have completely shut myself off from girls. I
haven’t even talked to any girls from
my class yet, because I think it
might just end up distracting me.
Am I making a good decision?
—The silent guy
Verdict
If you are looking into buying a
Vespa, the introduction of the 150 has
made it even harder to decide whether to go with the more powerful 150 or
the slightly-less powerful but more
fuel efficient 125 version. If you want
better mileage and value for money I
would recommend the 125 over the
150, but if you want to go all out, it
has to be the 150 VXL or the 150 SXL.
The VXL 150 costs Rs 295,946, and the
SXL 150 costs Rs 305,946.
C M Y K
life&style
kathmandu post
the
PG 09 | Tuesday,September 6,2016
Buzz Aldrin in Nepal
BORN TODAY
American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second
human to walk on the moon, landed at the
Tribhuwan International Airport for a
five-day visit. As part of the trip,
Aldrin will be visiting Lumbini before
speaking at the Nepal Academy Hall in
the Capital on Thursday.
British actor Idris Elba is 44
kathmandupost.ekantipur.com
Sonakshi’s Akira flying at BO
British singer Max George is 28
Swedish singer Ariel is 28
American wrestler Braun Strowman is 33
American musician Mark Scott Travis is 55
Actress Sonakshi Sinha’s action-packed
avatar in Akira is having a steady run at the
box-office. The film has amassed INRs
10.45 crore in two days of its release.
Directed by filmmaker AR Murugadoss,
Akira—the duo’s second film
together—released on Friday.
250 artists
to exhibit
at the NAC
Post Report
Kathmandu, Sept 5
I
Nefta to travel
to Dubai
The announcement
of the awards show,
scheduled for
December, sparks
conversation about
on whether overseas
shows are viable
Post Report
Kathmandu, Sept 5
T
he ninth Nefta (Nepal Film
Technicians’ Awards) is scheduled to be held on December 23
in Dubai, organisers made an
official announcement during a
press meet held in the Capital on
Sunday. The announcement coincided with the unveiling of the upcoming event’s logo, and saw a healthy
debate among the speakers on the
value of taking Nepali awards shows
abroad.
Coltrane
‘appalled’ by
historical abuse
BBC
London, Sept 5
T
he actor plays a fictional celebrity
who is accused of historical sex
crimes in drama National
Treasure, which begins later this
month. Referring to real-life revela-
The event, which saw participation
of a host of personalities from the
Nepali film industry, also spoke to
issues such as globalising the Nepali
film industry and the authenticity of
organising the show overseas.
Speaking during the event, veteran
director and actor Nir Shah talked
about the significance of organising
awards shows like Nefta and elaborated how it has succeeded in boosting the morale of those involved in
the film industry. “Nepali film industry has come a long way from its
humble beginnings. The first time
Nefta was organised was while the
industry was still to find its footing,
economically and aesthetically. It had
at the time brought a new surge of
hope among those with Nepali film
fraternity. Now with the Awards travelling overseas, we have something
more to hope for: the globalisation of
the Nepali film industry. I hope
Nefta’s quest to globalise Nepali cinema will prove fruitful.”
While, speaking at the event,
Santosh Shrestha, of the Advertising
Agency of Nepal (AAN), questioned
whether the awards being held overseas would help globalise the film
tions, he said: “Every day another
story [comes out], and I think it
appalls all of us.”
He said he believed appearing in
the series was “an important thing to
do”. He said: “The power of drama is
you can deal with these things in a
way that the judiciary, the police and
Parliament can’t, or seem unable to.”
The actor said he had avoided
meeting Jimmy Savile, who was
found to be a serial abuser who had
preyed on children and adults over
several decades.
“I never wanted to meet him. I
always thought he was creepy,”
Coltrane said. “The big question is,
what kind of culture was going on
that he got away with it for as long as
he did?” At least 72 people were sexually abused by Savile in connection
with his work at the BBC, and the
corporation missed opportunities to
stop his abuse because of a “culture
of fear”, the Dame Janet Smith
review concluded earlier this year.
Coltrane said he hoped advances in
communication and technology
meant similar abuse would be less
likely to occur now.
“With the way electronics and
social media [are], hopefully it won’t
happen again, that you could not get
away with it these days. That’s what
you’d hope,” he said. Asked whether
it was a difficult decision to appear in
the show, Coltrane said: “Not once I
read the script.”
The drama’s screenplay was written by Jack Thorne, who also wrote
Harry Potter and The Cursed Child.
industry. He appealed to the organisers to “focus more on the quality of
the award than the venue.”
In the same vein, Raj Kumar Rai,
of the Nepal Film Development
Board, highlighted the potential negatives of an overseas award show. “In
recent years, when the award was
organised in countries like Malaysia
and Qatar, the negative aspects came to
the fore. We are concerned. If Nefta
does not rise above the prior allegations it has received in the past years,
there is no point in taking the award
show overseas,” he said, but did not
elaborate on the said allegations.
“It has to be understood that organising Nefta overseas is not just for
cheap popularity,” said Pushkar
Lama, the chairperson of Nefta, in
defense of the organisers, “It is to
foster the film industry’s rising popularity overseas. There is possibility
that by taking the award show overseas, where a significant portion of
Nepali populace is working, we can
expand our market and eventually
globalise it.”
This will be Nefta’s third overseas
awards show. The UAE is one of the
major hubs for Nepali migrant workers.
nternational Watercolour Society
Nepal will be hosting a watercolour
exhibition in November, the organisers announced in the Capital on
Sunday. The exhibition, which will be
held at the Nepal Art Council, is slated to feature artworks by 250 artists
from 40 different countries.
International Watercolour Society,
which is located in 80 different countries around the globe, has been
actively helping Nepal through artist
collaborations and various charities.
Speaking about the forthcoming
exhibit, the chairperson of the
International Watercolour Society
Nepal, NB Gurung, said, “The exhibition is being organised with the aim
of promoting Nepali art, culture and
artists to the global market”.
The artists from, among other
countries, the US, China, India,
Spain, Australia, Thailand are slated
to feature in the November exhibition. “As there will be 200 foreign and
50 Nepali artists participating in the
exhibit, it will be a great opportunity
to showcase Nepali art to the world,”
said the vice-chairperson of
International Watercolour Society
Nepal, Lalkaji Lama.
Along with the exhibit, there will
also be a two-day Open Air Art
Workshop at the popular tourism outpost in Ghandruk, Kaski.
Chairperson Gurung further
added, “It will not only provide us
with an opportunity to promote
Nepali art but also tourism and culture; we hope the event will be a
milestone in the sector of tourism,
art and culture.”
Representing Nepal at the event
will be veterans such as Madan
Chitrakar, Ragini Upadhyaya, and
Durga Baral, among others.
Big B pens touching
letter to granddaughters
Press Trust of India
Mumbai, Sept 5
M
egastar Amitabh Bachchanhas
penned a heartfelt letter to his
granddaughters Navya and
Aaradhya, telling them to be
independent and strong women as
they grow up.
Navya, 18, is the daughter of
Bachchan’s daughter Shweta, while
four-year-old Aaradhya is his son
Abhishek’s child.
Bachchan wrote that the two girls
enjoy the luxury of a rich legacy but
being the fairer sex, they are bound
to face judgments and opposition
from the society. Nothing, however,
should bog them down, said the actor.
“You both carry a very valuable
legacy on your tender shoulders —
Aaradhya, the legacy of your
great-grandfather, Dr Harivansh Rai
Bachchan, and Navya, the legacy of
your great-grandfather Shri H P
Nanda.
“Both your great-grandfathers
gave your present surnames celebrated fame, dignity and recognition.
Both of you maybe a Nanda or a
Bachchan, but you are also girls,
women! Because you are women people will force their thinking, their
boundaries on you. They will tell you
how to dress, how to behave, who you
can meet and where you can go. Don’t
live in the shadows of people’s judgement.”
The 73-year-old star further wrote
that both of them should choose their
own path, one which is dictated by
their choices not the world’s.
Quake photos
exhibited in Dublin
NABIN POKHAREL
Dublin, Sept 5
A
photo exhibition was held at the
Phoenix Park in Dublin on
Sunday to mark the 16th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relationship between
Nepal and Ireland. The exhibit—
titled Visit Nepal Photo Exhibition
and held to commemorate NepalIreland Day—also included photographs taken by Irish tourists in
Nepal during last year’s earthquakes.
The event saw the presence of
Sharad Raj Aran, acting Nepali
ambassador to Ireland; Lord
Mayor of Dublin Brendan Carr;
Dipesh Man Shakya, chairperson of
Nepal Ireland Society; and coordinator of NRNA Europe Kul Acharya,
among others.
Speaking during the event, Aran
said, “What makes this exhibition
poignant is not just the chaos captured in the photographs but also the
scenic beauty of Nepal that shines
through the devastation.”
“Nepal-Ireland Day helps to
strengthen the bond the two nations
share, to expand the mutual relationship between the people of two
nations, and also to promote the
Nepali arts and culture,” he added.
The event also featured cultural
performances such as the traditional
Panche Baaja, and renditions of
Nepali and Irish songs.
Mel Gibson in
‘survival’ mode
Reuters
Venice, Sept 5
M
el Gibson called his relationship
with Hollywood “survival” as he
prepared for the Venice film festival premiere of a war drama
that marks his directorial comeback after a turbulent decade in his
personal life.
The Oscar winner’s troubled years
began in 2006, when he was arrested
for drunk driving and responded
with an anti-Semitic tirade. That led
to headlines around the world, tarnished his reputation and set back a
remarkable career that had made
him one of Hollywood’s highest paid
actors, directors and producers.
But in Venice the 60-year-old is set
to premiere Hacksaw Ridge, a gripping war epic about a pacifist during
World War II that cannot but move.
The film tells the true story of
Desmond Doss, an army medic who
refused to bear arms but later
received the Medal of Honour for
saving 75 of his comrades. The movie
is screening in the out-of-competition section in Venice.
“It’s a man in the worst situation possible, in the midst of hell
on earth, and he goes into that struggle armed with nothing than faith
and conviction, and he sticks by
those things and does something
extraordinary... that inspired me,”
Gibson said.
The Lethal Weapon actor and
maker of action thriller Apocalypto
said he hoped the movie would result
in more attention being paid to veterans returning from conflict.
Asked about working with Gibson,
Garfield said he was “like a good dad
on set or a good mom, with that kind
of wonderful nurturing instinct
where you feel like you can do no
wrong even when you’re already
doing a lot of wrong”.
The festival ends on Sept 10.
Gansta rap pioneer dies
The New York Times
Los Angeles, Sept 5
J
erry Heller, a veteran music manager who helped introduce NWA
to the masses and promoted gangsta rap to a mainstream audience,
has died aged 75.
The Associated Press reported
that Mr Heller’s cousin, Gary Ballen,
said he died in a hospital after he
had a heart attack while driving.
Mr Heller and Eric Wright, the
rapper known as Eazy-E, founded
Ruthless Records in 1987. A year
later, the label released Straight
Outta Compton, the debut album by
the rap group NWA, whose members, in addition to Eazy-E, were
DrDre and Ice Cube, soon to become
major figures in hip-hop, as well as
DJ Yella and MC Ren.
The album was a hit and helped
propel West Coast gangsta rap into
the national spotlight—and into the
centre of controversy. Some people
said the lyrics of NWA and other
gangsta rappers glorified violence,
while others said they simply reflected the reality of black urban life.
NWA’s success was short-lived. Ice
Cube left in 1989, and the group,
which Mr Heller managed, broke up
in 1991 amid accusations of mismanagement. Mr Heller remained close
to Eazy-E, but Dr Dre and Ice Cube
criticized Mr Heller publicly.
Straight Outta Compton, F Gary
Gray’swell-received 2015 film about
NWA, also presented Mr Heller, who
was played by Paul Giamatti, in a
harshly negative light. Mr Heller
complained that he was depicted as
“the ‘bad guy’ in the movie who is
solely responsible for the demise of
NWA” and who withheld money
from the group. He sued NBC
Universal, which released the movie,
and more than a dozen others
associated with it for defamation, seeking $35 million in
actual damages and $75 million in punitive damages.
A judge dismissed
most of the lawsuit
in June.
C M Y K
variety
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
thekathmandu post
10
TODAY’SHOROSCOPE
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
***
You will start to see real positive change in a troubled relationship
today—and it might be in a direction you weren’t expecting.
Expect to have many more discussions about your future
together, because things are no longer going to be the same.
u
d
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
*****
If you have been struggling with planning an event or party,
it’s time to cut yourself some slack. Get a team of your favourite
people together to help you out and things will start to feel fun
again!
GEMINI (May 21-June 21)
***
You may be feeling extra sensitive to criticism right now,
so if you need a place to feel safe and completely
accepted for who you are, turn to your family for the comfort
you need.
CANCER (June 22-July 22)
****
You’ve got a lot of things going on, but today is the perfect day to
clean up all the tasks on your list! First, you have got to delegate
as much as you can to family members, co-workers or
friends—it’s not cheating, it’s smart management.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
***
Watch out for people who are giving you bright smiles today—
they may be concealing something behind their back that they
will reveal only when it’s late. Trust is something that needs to be
earned right now, so don’t dive right in with anything unknown.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
****
Cloudy days are going to be far behind you for a while—today
things are crystal-clear and easy to navigate! You will have all the
time you need to organize your plans and get back in touch with
someone you’ve been playing phone tag with for far too long.
Yesterday’s Solution
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WORD GAME
GRAFFITI
s
s
w
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LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
****
If you need to deliver some negative news to someone today,
take them out to lunch or dinner to discuss things. You two need
to talk this thing out, and figure out how things should move
forward. Oh, and you should pick up the tab!
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
***
A tough challenge lies ahead of you today, but everything will be
fine if you just take your time with things. Don’t think of all the
many different details at once—you will only get overwhelmed!
And whatever you do, don’t make any specific promises.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
***
Being cheerful is always nice, but today someone else’s optimism
is going to bug you for some reason. Maybe you’re just so set on
being grumpy that you don’t want to talked out of it. Or maybe
this Cheerful Charlie just rubs you the wrong way in general.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
*****
It’s a wise idea to team up today—whatever you want to do will be
more enjoyable and more rewarding if you do it with someone
else. Combining forces is always a good way to get further faster—and have loads of fun while you’re at it.
DILBERT
RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT
AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18)
****
Today, when you find yourself in situations that usually make you
nervous, take a moment to gather your thoughts. Try to stay loose
and you’ll feel more grounded—you’ll be able to see that you have
no reason to feel intimidated or uncomfortable.
PISCES (February 19-March 20)
***
It might not sound logical, but the more you keep your distance
from one of your troubled friends, the healthier your relationship
with them will be. They are going through some dramas that you
should not become a part of.
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One day, I ate three plates of beans. When I got home, my husband
said he had a surprise for dinner tonight. So he blindfolded me. He
asked me not to touch the blindfold until he returned and went to
answer the call when it ringed. Because of the beans I had consumed
the pressure was becoming unbearable, so I farted. It was loud, and
smelled like a fertiliser truck running over a skunk! Then, shifting to
the other leg, I farted more. The stink was worse. I went on releasing
atomic bombs like this. Then I heard my husband coming, so I fanned
the air a few more times with napkin and placed it on my lap. When
he returned he asked me if I had peaked through the blindfold, and I
assured him I had not. At this point, he removed the blindfold, and
twelve dinner guests seated around the table, with their hands to
their noses, chorused, “Happy Birthday!”
5:00 Bhaktisur/Amrit Bani
6:00JeevanBigyan/
Jyotish Manthan
6:40Skyshop
7:00 Kantipur Samachar
8:00 Kantipur News
8:30 Rise N Shine
9:00 Headline News
9:05 Marga Darshan
10:00 Kantipur Samachar
10:30 Market Updates
11:00 Headline News
11:05 Here I Come
11:30 What The Flop
12:00 Kantipur Samachar
12:30 Ditha Sab
1:00 Headline News
1:05 Harke Haldar
1:30Feature
2:00 Kantipur Samachar
2:30 Rise N Shine
3:00 Headline News
3:05Fireside
4:00 Kantipur Samachar
4:30 New Entry
5:00 Headline News
5:05 Call Kantipur
Reloaded
6:00 Kantipur News
6:30Feature
7:00 Kantipur Samachar
7:30 Market Updates
8:00 Kantipur Samachar
9:00Uddhyam
9:30Sarokar
10:30 Kantipur News
11:00 Kantipur Samachar
11:30 Market Updates
12:00 Call Kantipur
1:00 Kantipur News
1:30Uddhyam
2:00 Kantipur Samachar
2:30Feature
3:00 Kantipur Samachar
3:30Sarokar
4:30Uddhyam
00:00 Non-stop Hindi songs
01:00 Non -stop Nepali
Pop/Adhunik songs
02:00 Non- stop Bhajan
05:00 Bhakti Anusthan
06:30 Kantipur Diary
07:00 The Headliners
07:30 Kanuni Bahas ra
Paramarsha
08:00 Kantipur Diary
08:05 Jump Start
09:00 Kantipur Diary
09:15 Traffic Update
09:20 Glamour N Guff
10:00
10:05
11:00
11:05
12:00
12:10
13:00
13:05
14:00
14:05
15:00
15:15
16:05 Kantipur All Qure
17:00 Kantipur Diary
17:05Sangalo
18:00Nepalaya
18:30 Kantipur Diary
18:55Khoj
19:00 Loud (X-treme
Show)
20:00 Kantipur Diary
20:05 Show Time
21:00 Kantipur Diary
21:30 Kaljayi Geet
Sangeet
23:00 Global Connection
Kantipur Diary
Music & More
Kamtipur Diary
Filmi Parade
Kantipur Diary
Jeevan Sathi
Kantipur Diary
Ke Chha Nepal
Kantipur Diary
Ke Chha Nepal
Kantipur Diary
Shrejana Ka
Samjhana Haru
16:00 Kantipur Diary
Savour the cardamom and saffron spice,
slow-cooked kebabs and kormas at Indian
restaurant serving Awadhi cuisine.
contact: 427399, at Soaltee Crowne Plaza
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GARFIELD
AKIRA
QFX Jai Nepal: 12:00/15:15/18:30
QFX Civil Mall: 12:15/15:30/18:45
QFX LABIM Mall: 12:30/15:00/18:45
QFX Kumari: 11:45/18:15
F
I
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BIR BIKRAM
QFX Civil Mall: 11:45/15:00/18:15
QFX Kumari: 12:15/15:15
QFX LABIM Mall: 12:15/18:30
CHAPALI HEIGHT 2
QFX LABIM Mall: 12:00
QFX Civil Mall: 15:15
QFX Kumari: 18:00
M
MEHANIC: RESURRECTION
S
A FLYING JATT
QFX LABIM Mall: 15:45/19:00
QFX Civil Mall: 18:00
QFX Civil Mall: 12:00
LAAL JODI
QFX Kumari: 15:00
PETES DRAGON
QFX LABIM Mall: 16:15
Dip yourself at probably the best pool in the
town at Park Village Resort. Rate: Rs. 1500
for adults & 1300 for children and includes
french fries, free Wi-Fi & 20% discount on
Food & Beverage. Contact: 9801033114
Weekends brunch @ Hyatt Regency—treat
yourself with a lavish buffet lunch, splash by
the swimming pool or laze around outdoor,
Jacuzzi, all for just Rs 2300 plus taxes per
person. Contact: 4491234
Sandwich and Crepes: Taste the sandwiches and crepes at The Lounge from 11 am to 6
pm everyday. For further details call Hyatt
Regency at 4491234.
Enjoy live DJ nights, on every Sunday chill out/
ambient, Wednesday tech/ funk house & Friday
psy/ proggy/ full on from 6:00 pm to 10 pm at
garden and 7:00 pm onwards at club at Funky
Buddha Resturant & Bar, contact: 4700091
Krishnarpan—a specialty Nepali Restaurant
at Dwarika’s, 6 courses to 22 courses Nepali
meal served. Opening Time: 6 pm-11 pm. Prior
reservations required, contact: 4479448
China Garden offers delectable dishes from
across Asia, including Japanese, Korean,
Vietnamese and Chinese. Timings: Lunch:
1230-1445 hrs, Dinner: 1900-2245 hrs,
contact: 427399 at Soaltee Crowne Plaza
Relax and Unwind this summer at
Waterfront Resort, Sedi Height, Pokhara @
Rs. 6000 Nett per night on Bed & Breakfast
basis. Contact: 9801133378 / 9849143552
We serve nothing but the finest Arabica
coffees at great value prices at Barista
Lavazza Coffee Restaurant, Lazimpat,
Contact: 4005123/4005124
Rosemary Kitchen and Coffee shop,
Thamel, opening hours: 7:00 am to 10:00
pm offers an International cuisine in reasonable prices. Contact 01-4267554
Enjoy snacks and drinks from 4:00 pm to
11:00 pm every day and nightly live music
from “The Corner Band” except Tuesday and
Saturday from 7 pm to 11:00 pm at Corner
Bar, Radisson Hotel. Contact: 4411818
Set within the historic Garden of Dreams, the
Kaiser Cafe Restaurant and Bar, Thamel, offers
a continental menu and serves as an atmospheric
venue for anything from a quiet coffee or intimate
meal. Contact: 442534
Jasmine Fitness Club and Spa, Fully
equipped gym and spa; Zumba, aerobics and
cardio classes; therapeutic massage; beauty
parlour and men’s salon. Tripureshwor;
Contact: 4117120
The Italian restaurant serves authentic
Italian cuisines in an elegant ambience for
both lunch and dinner. Timings: Lunch:
1230-1445 hrs, Dinner: 1900-2245 hrs,
Contact: 427399, at Soaltee Crowne Plaza
Garden Terrace offers an authentic world
cuisine, providing diners with the unique
experience of observing their selected dishes being prepared by chefs. Contact:
427399 at Soaltee Crowne Plaza
Mako’s offers traditional Japanese food
served. Don’t miss out on Mako’s special
Tempuras, and green tea ice cream, Time: 11:
30-14:30 & 19:00-22:00, contact: 4479448
Bourbon Room, Lal Durbar Marg is open for
lunch from 12 noon. Enjoy affordable and delicious meals starting from Rs 99! We are currently offering Indian & chinese combos along
with momos. Call: 4441703
Out-of-Africa Lunch amid rural splendor:
Sat & Sun from 1130 to 1630 hours at The
Watering Hole, Indrawati River Valley.
For prior reservation contact: [email protected]
Every Friday BBQ from 7:00 pm at Fusion
Bar & Pool side at Dwarika’s Hotel with live
band “Dinesh Rai and Sound of Mind”. Price Rs
1600/ includes BBQ dinner and a can of beer
or a soft drink. Contact: 4479448
Trisara offers food and drinks along
with good music and great times. Sunday- Live
Music by Barbeque Night, Monday, Wednesdayby Positive vibes, Tuesday, Saturday-By Jyovan
Bhuju, Friday-Live Music by Dexterous
Ayurveda Health Home has been providing
ayurvedic treatments/ massages,
sirodhara & counseling for stress, detox &
rehabilitation. Dhapasi, Kathmandu:
01-4358761, Lakeside Pokhara 061-463205
Every Friday evening enjoy Starry Night
BBQ from 7 pm onwards at Shambala
Garden Café at Hotel Shangri La with live
musical performance by Ciney Gurung.
Contact: 4412999
Kaiser Cafe Restaurant & Bar at The
Garden of Dreams, opening time: 9 am till 9
pm, offers an international cafe menu serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, specialty tea’s,
coffees and pastries, contact: 4425341
Manny’s Eatery and bar introduces a special lunch package that is affordable, tasty,
nutritious and quick enough to fit your lunch
break, Jawalakhel, Shaligram complex,
5536919
Enjoy a Barbecue Buffet at the Radisson
Hotel, wide selection of mixed fresh grills and
vegetables together with a choice of salads and
a delicious dessert buffet at a rate of Rs. 1,350
plus taxes per person. Contact: 4411818
Make your weekend more exciting with
family and friends with sumptuous Satey,
Dimsums, Mangolian Barbecue and Pasta at
The Cafe from 12:30 noon to 4:00 pm. Call:
Hyatt Regency, at 4491234
Hotel Narayani Complex, Pulchowk, Lalitpur
presents Shabnam & Cannabiz Band every
Wednesday and Rashmi & Kitcha Band every
Friday, 7:30 PM onwards @ Absolute bar P Ltd;
Contact: 5521408
Enjoy Bubbly Brunch every Saturday from 11
am to 3 pm at Shambala Gardena and Club
Sundhara. Contact: 4412999
Embers Bar, Pulchowk, in all its sophistication and glory is happy to announce
Happy Hours every 6-7pm. It will be
hosting a Barbeque night every Friday from
6:30-9:30pm
The Toran, an ideal location for all day lounging and informal dining offers multi-cuisines.
Contact: Dwarika’s Hotel, 4479488
Latin—Gypsy Jazz at The Corner Bar,
Radisson Hotel, Kathmandu with Hari
Maharjan feat Monsif Mzibiri, 7 pm onwards,
Wednesdays & Fridays. Contact: 4411818
The most delightfully awesome chicken
momos & yummy rich chocolate cake on this
part of the planet @ Just Baked Bakery &
Cafe, Battisputali, offering much more specialties at affordable price.
Starry Night BBQ—every Friday Evening from
7:00 pm at Shambala Garden Café, Hotel,
Shangri~La only @ Rs 1799 net per person
and live performance by Ciney Gurung.
Contact: 4412999
Revolution Cafe, AmritMarg, Thamel, away
from busy crowed street, offers great
music, fast wi-fi and wide menu with reasonable prices. Operation hours: 7 am to 10
pm, contact: 4433630
Learn cardio, gym, aerobics, zumba, spa,
boxing, kick-boxing, b-boying, bollywood
dance at Oyster Spa and Fitness Club,
Sinamangal. Time: Sunday to Friday from 5
am to 8 pm. Contact: 4110554
Experience The Last Resort, the perfect
place for family fun adventure and relaxation.
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C M Y K
sports
kathmandu post
the
PG 11
sports digest
Nepal taste
victory, finally
KATHMANDU: Nepal
recorded double wins in
the third round of the
42nd Chess Olympiad in
Baku, Azerbaijan on
Monday. Both men’s and
women’s team secured
identical 4-0 fourth
round victories. The
men’s team comprising
of Keshav Shrestha,
Sajin Maharjan,
Bhupendra Niraula and
Bilam Lal Nepali all beat
the US Virgin Isles opponents. The Nepali women’s team of Shanta
Thapa, Shindiria Joshi,
Sujana Lohani and
Ashmita Adhikari
beat their Swaziland
opponents. Both the
men’s and women’s team
had lost their first two
round games. (PR)
Searching for an Ambrose: Walsh
Beckenbauer undergoes surgery
Bowling coach Courtney Walsh is keen to help
Bangladesh produce a pacer duo in the mould of him
and his compatriot Curtly Ambrose who had forged a
world-beating pair in the 1990s. The 53-year-old
Jamaican wants to be more like a mentor than a conventional coach. “If I can get a second Ambrose from
Bangladesh, I will be happy,” said Walsh.
German football great Franz Beckenbauer underwent
open heart bypass surgery on Saturday in an operation
scheduled long before Swiss authorities opened criminal proceedings against him last week, Germany’s Bild
newspaper reported Monday. The newspaper said
Beckenbauer, 70, was still at his home in Salzburg,
Austria when authorities carried out a search.
Criminal case against Dhoni quashed
The Supreme Court on Monday quashed a criminal
case against India’s limited overs cricket captain
MS Dhoni for being depicted as Lord Vishnu on the
cover of a business magazine. The petitioner had
filed the criminal case alleging that depicting
Dhoni as Lord Vishnu in commercial context has
hurt the sentiments of the people.
Mueller, Kimmich goals
secure Germany victory
world cup qualifiers
Results
Group C
0-1 Azerbaijan
0-0 NIreland
0-3Germany
Group E
Kazakhstan 2-2Poland
1-0Armenia
Denmark
Romania
1-1Montenegro
Group F
0-1England
Slovakia
Lithuania
2-2Slovenia
1-5Scotland
Malta
San Marino
Czech Rep
Norway
Chandbagh close
to double title
KATHMANDU: The
Chandbagh School closed
in on double championship title on Monday
after their boys’ and
girls’ teams made it to
the finals of seventh
Pabson Mid-region Interschool Basketball
Championships. Their
boys’ team beat
Marvellous 40-35 to set
up the title clash with
Asian Public School, a
47-29 winner over
Martyrs. The Chandbagh
girls’ defeated Hems 18-14
to set the final battle
with Bhrihaspati
Vidyasadan. (PR)
kathmandupost.ekantipur.com
TUESDAY,SEPTEMBER 6,2016
n Germany midfielder Thomas Mueller (left) vies for the ball with Norway Havard Nordtveit during their
2018 World Cup qualifying match in Oslo Sunday. Agence France-Presse
OSLO, Sept 5
Bayern Munich teammates
Thomas Mueller and Joshua
Kimmich fired title-holders
Germany to a commanding 3-0
win away to Norway in their
opening 2018 World Cup quali-
fier on Sunday.
Mueller struck in the 16th
minute at the Ullevaal Stadion
in Oslo before Kimmich netted Germany’s second goal on
the stroke of half-time.
Mueller then scored again on
the hour to ensure a winning
start for Joachim Loew’s team
AFP/rss
in Group ‘C’ as the world
champions set off on the road
to the finals in Russia.
Germany top the group
after the opening round of
matches, with Azerbaijan also
claiming a 1-0 victory against
San Marino and Northern
Ireland
holding
Czech
Republic to a 0-0 draw. “We
can always find things to
improve, but generally speaking, we were on the right track
tonight,” Mueller said.
The four-time world champions are trying to become the
first European team since
Italy in 1938 to retain the trophy, and the visitors quickly
took the game to Per-Mathias
Hogmo’s Norway.
Benedikt Hoewedes found
himself in an advanced position inside the Norwegian box
and Mueller’s cutback picked
out the Schalke centre-back
who forced Rune Jarstein to
make an excellent save with
his legs.
But Mueller edged the
Germans ahead on the quarter-hour as the Bayern for-
ward, having fluffed his first
attempt, reacted quickest
amid a chaotic scramble to
shoot beyond Jarstein, the
Norway goalkeeper unable to
keep the ball out as it
squirmed inside the far post.
While Neuer, in his first
game since taking over as fulltime captain following the
retirement
of
Bastian
Schweinsteiger, was largely
untroubled, his opposite number Jarstein tried his best to
keep Norway in the match.
The Hertha Berlin goalkeeper
raced off his line to claw the
ball away from Julian Draxler
as Germany continued to look
dangerous, but Loew’s side
grabbed a deserved second
before the break as Mueller’s
deft touch released Kimmich
to drill a superb low strike
into the corner.
Norway couldn’t have asked
for a much tougher test as
they seek to qualify for a first
major tournament since Euro
2000, and their hosts took
another hit as Mueller headed
Sami Khedira’s cross past
Jarstein early in the second
half. Mueller failed to score
even once during Germany’s
run to the Euro 2016 semi-finals, but the 27-year-old rediscovered his best form in Oslo
as he increased his international goals tally to 34.
Finch, Lynn ruled
out of T20 series
Reuters
MELBOURNE, Sept 5
Australia batsmen Aaron
Finch and Chris Lynn have
been ruled out of the twomatch Twenty20 series in Sri
Lanka with injuries.
Finch broke his right index
finger when fielding in the
final one-day international
(ODI) against the hosts in
Kandy on Sunday, while Lynn
suffered another injury to his
troublesome left shoulder.
Skipper David Warner’s fluent century and a disciplined
effort
powered
bowling
Australia to a five-wicket win
over Sri Lanka in the fifth ODI
in Pallekele as the visitors
took the series 4-1 on Sunday.
Australia, who took an
unassailable 3-1 lead in
Dambulla on Wednesday, rode
on a record 132-run partnership between Warner and
George Bailey (44) to chase
down their 196-run target in 43
overs on a sluggish pitch.
Wi c ke t ke e p e r- b a t s m a n
Matthew Wade would stay on
in Sri Lanka to replace Lynn
for the Twenty20 internationals and George Bailey would
remain for the first before
returning home, Cricket
Australia said.
The shoulder problem is
another cruel blow for 26-yearold Queenslander Lynn,
who made his international
debut with a Twenty20 match
against England in Jan. 2014
but has been limited to five
matches since.
He had surgery for a rotator
n David Warner of Australia
celebrates after scoring a century
against Pakistan during their 5th
ODI in Pallekele on Sunday. AFP/rss
Summary
Australia 199-5 in 43 overs (D Warner
106, G Bailey 44; D Perera 3-51, De
Silva 2-35) beat Sri Lanka 195 in 40.2
overs (D Gunathilaka 39, De Silva 34; M
Starc 3-40, T Head 2-22, A Zampa
2-43) by five wickets
Man-of-the-match: David Warner
Man-of-the-series: George Bailey
Series: Australia win 4-1
cuff problem on the shoulder
in 2014 which wiped out much
of his season and broke down
again the following year with
a similar injury sustained
during a fielding drill.
Australia won the one-day
series 4-1 to shore up top spot
in the world rankings.
C M Y K
sports
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Pouille stuns Nadal
n Djokovic powers past Edmund, Tsonga sees off Sock n Wozniacki, Sevastova advance
Agence France-Presse
Results
NEW YORK, Sept 5
Men’s 4th round
Novak Djokovic (SRB x1) bt Kyle
Edmund (GBR) 6-2, 6-1, 6-4; Jo-Wilfried
Tsonga (FRA x9) bt Jack Sock (USA
x26) 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7/9), 6-2; Lucas
Pouille (FRA x24) bt Rafael Nadal (ESP
x4) 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8/6); Gael
Monfils (FRA x10) bt Marcos Baghdatis
(CYP) 6-3, 6-2, 6-3
Lucas
Pouille
outlasted
14-time Grand Slam champion
Rafael Nadal in a five-set classic on Sunday to lead a trio of
French men into the quarter-finals of the US Open.
Pouille, 22 and ranked 25th
in the world, lived up to the
promise of his quarter-finals
run at Wimbledon, emerging
from a roller-coaster ride with
a 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8/6) triumph over the Spanish superstar. The defeat leaves Nadal—
forced out of the French Open
third round with a wrist injury that also saw him miss
Wimbledon—without at least
one Grand Slam quarter-final
appearance for the first time
since he was a teenaged tour
newcomer in 2004.
Pouille came out firing,
pushing Nadal back with an
array of deep groundstrokes
and angled shots. Fifty-two
winners from Nadal—whose
attacking response saw him
come out a winner on 35 of 48
forays to the net—weren’t
enough. The taut battle came
down to the fifth-set tiebreaker and Nadal, trailing 3-6,
showed his mettle by saving
three match points. Then he
smacked a forehand into the
net to give Pouille one more
chance and the Frenchman
pounced on it with a forehand
that kissed the sideline.
“I fought until the end,”
Nadal said. “There’s things I
could do better, but I had the
right attitude. I needed something more—it was not there
today.” The four-hour, seven-minute contest entranced
the crowd in Arthur Ashe stadium, where Pouille recalled
admiring Nadal as a youngster. Pouille, who has now won
sports digest
Mourinho
convinced me to
join United: Ibra
LONDON: Former Sweden
star Zlatan Ibrahimovic
has revealed that he had
rejected several offers
from English clubs
before deciding to join
Manchester United as he
could not resist the
opportunity to work with
celebrated manager Jose
Mourinho. The 34-yearold, who had played
under Mourinho with
Inter Milan, had earlier
rejected offers from
Arsenal and Manchester
City. But he decided to
join United earlier this
year after leaving French
champions PSG. (IANS)
Bayern include
Goetze brother
BERLIN: Felix Goetze, the
18-year-old younger
brother of Germany star
Mario, has been included
in Bayern Munich’s ‘B’
list of players eligible to
feature for the
Bundesliga giants in the
Champions League. A
central defender with
Bayern’s U-19 side, Felix
had already been invited
to train with the first
team several times last
season by then-coach Pep
Guardiola. Current
coach Carlo Ancelotti
played him three times
during pre-season,
including in a 1-0 win at
home to Manchester
City in July. (AFP)
Gomes back at
Barca with injury
BARCELONA: Barcelona
confirmed that Portuguese midfielder Andre
Gomes has returned to
the club after he suffered
a muscular bruise while
playing for his country.
Barca explained on
Sunday that they will
determine next week
when Gomes can return
to the squad fully fit after
the 23-year-old suffered
injury in Portugal’s 5-0
win over Gibraltar on
Thursday. Argentine star
Lionel Messi returned on
Sunday with pelvic pains
after his national side’s
game against Uruguay
last Thursday. (IANS)
nnn
Women’s 4th round
Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) bt Madison
Keys (USA x8) 6-3, 6-4; Anastasija
Sevastova (LAT) bt Johanna Konta
(GBR x13) 6-4, 7-5; Roberta Vinci (ITA
x7) bt Lesia Tsurenko (UKR) 7-6
(7/5), 6-2; Angelique Kerber
(GER x2) bt Petra Kvitova
(CZE x14) 6-3, 7-5
n Lucas Pouille celebrates after
defeating Rafael Nadal during
their US Open match in New York
on Sunday. three successive five-setters to
reach the last eight, wasn’t
intimidated by the massive
Ashe stage, even though he
only practiced on it last year.
Pouille next tackles 10th-seeded compatriot Gael Monfils, a
6-3, 6-2, 6-3 winner over
AFP/RSS
Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis.
Ninth-seeded Jo-Wilfried
Tsonga also advanced, downing Jack Sock, the last
American man left in the
draw, 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7/9), 6-2. It’s
the first time since 1947 that
three French men have
reached the quarter-finals of
one Grand Slam. The 23-yearold Sock, seeded 26th, hadn’t
faced a break point in surprising 2014 champion Marin
Cilic in the third round.
Against Tsonga he mustered only five aces and was
broken six times by the 2008
Australian Open runner-up,
who has reached at least the
semi-finals of every Grand
Slam except this one. Tsonga
next faces world No 1 and
defending champion Novak
Djokovic, who powered past
84th-ranked Kyle Edmund of
Britain 6-2, 6-1, 6-4.
Edmund looked thoroughly
out-classed until he managed
to put together a run of three
straight games in the third set
that included two breaks of
Djokovic’s serve. But the
Serbian star, who received
on-court treatment on his
right arm—just as he did in
the first round against Jerzy
Janowicz—regrouped quickly
and closed out the match by
breaking Edmund at love.
“Feels great to play a full
match after a weird couple of
days when I didn’t have too
much tennis,” said Djokovic,
who was handed a walkover
into the third round by injured
Czech Jiri Vesely and played
just six games before third
round opponent Mikhail
Youzhny retired hurt.
Meanwhile,
Caroline
Wozniacki, derailed this year
by an ankle injury which sent
her career into a tailspin, and
Anastasija Sevastova, who
quit the sport three years ago,
set up a women’s singles quarter-final duel. Former world
No 1 Wozniacki, the runner-up
in 2009 and 2014, downed
American
eighth
seed
Madison Keys 6-3, 6-4 to make
the last-eight in New York for
a fifth time.
Sevastova became the first
Latvian woman in 22 years to
reach a Grand Slam quarter-finals when she beat
British 13th seed Johanna
Konta 6-4, 7-5. The other quarter-final in the bottom half of
the draw sees German second
seed Angelique Kerber face
Roberta Vinci, the Italian seventh seed. Kerber defeated
Petra Kvitova 6-3, 7-5 while
Vinci enjoyed a 7-6 (7/5), 6-2
win over Lesia Tsurenko of
Ukraine.
(C.R.P.D.) - 3/052/053
thekathmandu post
12
Matuidi says denied move
Associated Press
PARIS, Sept 5
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG)
midfielder Blaise Matuidi
wanted to leave the French
champion during the recent
summer transfer window, but
says his “wish wasn’t granted” because the club blocked
the move.
Matuidi was heavily linked
with a move to Italian champion Juventus as a replacement
for midfielder Paul Pogba,
who was sold to Manchester
United. “There was a concrete
offer,” Matuidi said on Sunday
on French football show
Telefoot. “I did want to leave.
The club decided otherwise
and I had to accept it.”
Matuidi has played more
than 200 games for PSG, helping them win four league
titles and two consecutive
domestic trebles. He has been
one of the club’s key players
in recent seasons under former coach Laurent Blanc,
who was fired before the new
season to make way for
Spanish coach Unai Emery.
Key players have left PSG
this summer, with star striker
Zlatan Ibrahimovic joining
United and versatile defender
David Luiz re-joining Chelsea,
the club that sold him to PSG
in 2014. But Matuidi was kept
on. “It’s true that it was quite
a tricky time, because I had a
wish and that wish wasn’t
granted,” he said.
Under Emery, who joined
after helping Sevilla secure a
third straight Europa League
title, Matuidi has been used as
a substitute in the first three
league games. However,
despite losing his place in the
starting lineup, he believes
Emery played a key role in
keeping him at PSG. “I know
that he has great belief in
me,” said Matuidi, who joined
PSG five years ago. “We have
spoken an awful lot, and I
think he played a very big part
in the wish of the club.”
Matuidi, who has played 52
times for France, has two
years left on his contract.
Son opts for Spurs over country
Agence France-Presse
SEOUL, Sept 5
Son Heung-Min is skipping
South Korea’s 2018 World Cup
qualifier against Syria on
Tuesday to return to England
and get his Tottenham
Hotspur career on track.
The 24-year-old forward
moved from Bayer Leverkusen
in August 2015 for a reported
fee of around £22 million,
making him the most expensive Asian player yet. Despite
high expectations, Son made
just 13 league starts for the
London club and was overshadowed by stars such as
Erik Lamela and Christian
Eriksen, as well as England
internationals Harry Kane
and Dele Alli.
The Korean’s hopes of
becoming a regular starter in
his second season in the
Premier League have not been
helped by a lengthy summer
of international duty. He
spent several weeks with
South Korea for Rio Olympics
and World Cup qualification,
missing all of Tottenham’s
three league games so far and
much of the club’s pre-season.
After playing in last week’s
3-2 World Cup qualifying win
over China, Son confirmed he
will be in London with his
country’s blessing as his
national teammates take on
Syria in Malaysia. South
Korea are letting Son return
early, despite being under no
obligation to do so, after Spurs
released the player for Rio.
It has been a stressful few
months for Son. When the
English season ended in May,
London’s Daily Telegraph
reported that Spurs were
ready to sell the attacker. This
came just nine months after
signing the Korean who had
previously spent six successful seasons in Germany’s top
tier with Hamburg and Bayer
Leverkusen. The rumours
persisted with nore reports in
England and Germany just
before the end of the transfer
window that Wolfsburg made
a £17 million bid for Son.
Clubs do not have to release
players for the Olympics, but
had Son won a medal he could
have been exempted from
South Korea’s compulsory
21-month military service,
potentially extending his
Spurs career or increase the
size of any future transfer fee.
But the medal bid ended in
tears when Son helped Korea
to the quarter-final but missed
three clear chances in a surprise defeat to Honduras.
On Friday, Spurs coach
Mauricio Pochettino included
Son in his 25-man squad for
the Champions League group
games against Monaco, CSKA
Moscow as well as his former
club Bayer Leverkusen.
England progress excites Morgan
n England captain Eoin Morgan (centre) celebrate with teammates after winning the ODI series against
Pakistan in Cardiff, Wales on Sunday. Reuters
CARDIFF, Sept 5
england-pakistan odi series
England limited overs captain
Eoin Morgan said he was
“excited” by his team’s progress in 50-over cricket despite
a season-ending four-wicket
loss to Pakistan on Sunday.
That loss meant England
had to be content with a 4-1
one-day international series
win rather than a first home
5-0 whitewash. It also denied
Morgan’s men, who back in
June tied an ODI with Sri
Lanka in Nottingham before
winning that series, a maiden
unbeaten season in white-ball
cricket ahead of Wednesday’s
lone
Twenty20
against
Pakistan in Manchester.
England may still be fifth in
the International Cricket
Council (ICC) rankings but
they have made significant
progress since their embarrassing first-round exit at last
year’s World Cup in Australia
and New Zealand. And with
England staging both the 2017
Champions Trophy and the
2019 World Cup, it is no longer
fanciful to think they could
win their first major international 50-over trophy within
the next few years.
“We’ve been outstanding,”
said Morgan. “Every game
throughout the series, we’ve
come out with a hunger and
determination to perform at
our best.” England fell short
of what they wanted in making 302-9, with opener Jason
Roy top-scoring with 87 and
Agence France-Presse
Summary
Pakistan 304-6 in 48.2 overs (S
Ahmed 90, S Malik 77; M Wood 2-56, L
Dawson 2-70) beat England 302-9 in
50 overs (J Roy 87, B Stokes 75; H Ali
4-60, M Amir 3-50) by four wickets
Man-of-the-match: Sarfraz Ahmed
Man-of-the-series: Joe Root
Series: England win 4-1
allrounder Ben Stokes contributing an ODI-best 75.
But they were on course for
a whitewash when Pakistan
lost two wickets in one Mark
Wood over to be 77-3. However,
a record fourth-wicket partnership of 163 between wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed (90)
and Shoaib Malik (77) turned
the match Pakistan’s way.
Morgan, though, remained
heartened by England’s commitment to an aggressive
approach in ODI cricket since
their World Cup debacle. “I
think it’s exciting,” he said.
“The attitude and hunger to
want to be better playing in
that manner, I think, sums up
the direction ODI cricket is
going and the talent we have.”
But with world No 1-ranked
Australia also completing a
4-1 series victory away to Sri
Lanka on Sunday, Morgan
denied England—beaten on
home soil in the 2013 final by
India at Edgbaston—were
favourites for next year’s
Champions Trophy. “Australia
are playing some really strong
cricket... South Africa, India
as well,” said the Irishman. “I
know the last Champions
Trophy we played (here), the
pitches were a bit drier than
we thought, and brought in
sub-continent teams. I don’t
think, this far out, you can
label anybody as favourites.”
Man-of-the-match Ahmed,
who also scored Pakistan’s
first ODI hundred at Lord’s in
the second match, was the
leading overall run-scorer in
the series with exactly 300 at
an average of 60. “The way
Sarfraz batted, this whole tour
he’s been exceptional,” said
Pakistan ODI captain Azhar
Ali following a much-needed
win. “He’s been positive and
scoring good runs at No 5, so
we’ve got some good performances but we just need to
bind it together.”
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