 |
Speaker Subas Nemwang inaugurating National Marwari Conference.
|
THIS YEAR’S SCHOOL LEAVING CERTIFICATE (SLC) examination will start from April 4, according to the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE). The annual school passing out examination will be conducted from April 4 till April 12. The exam has been scheduled to start from 7:30 am in the morning. This year, the government will be holding SLC in a new format as it has decided to include the syllabus only of class ten. In the previous years, SLC used to cover syllabi of both class 9 and 10.
THE NEPAL ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY (NEA) has increased the number of hours of load shedding from the existing two and a half hours a week to eight hours from Sunday (January 7). Beginning Sunday, every household will face three days of load shedding every week. Twice, the load shedding will be imposed in the evening hours from 5 pm till 7:30 pm. Once a week, the load shedding will be imposed in the morning hours from 5 am till 8 am. This was informed by Sher Singh Bhat, director of load distribution center of the NEA. Outside the valley, the evening load shedding hours has been fixed as between 6 pm till 8:30 pm and morning hours has been fixed as between 6 am till 9 am.
FREED KAMAIYAS WHO HAD BEEN STAGING demonstrations in the capital for the past few days have called off their strike after the government agreed to immediately take steps to provide land to 14,000 freed Kamaiyas. They will also be provided with Rs 10,000 (to build house) and 35 cubic feet of wood. The meeting between the government officials and freed Kamaiyas facilitated by the parliamentary Natural Resource Management, on Thursday (January 4), reached this agreement.
AS THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, on Wednesday (January 3), passed the Third Amendment of Nepal Drinking Water Act, the decks are now clear to allow the distribution of drinking water in the Kathmandu Valley to private sector. The bill was passed by majority of the parliament. Some MPs belonging to People’s Front Nepal (KC) and Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) opposed it saying that consumers would be hurt by rising cost. As per the bill, a separate Drinking Water Board will be formed to take over the responsibility of distributing water in the valley from Nepal Water Supply Corporation (NWSC). A foreign company will be handed over the management of the board under contract.
DUBUR NEPAL HAS CLOSED DOWN its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project that was running greenhouse nursery in Banepa claiming that it was facing threats by the Maoists. At a press conference organized on Wednesday (January 3), chief executive officer of the company Udayan Ganguly said, “Owing to recent threats, unreasonable demands and disruptive activities of Maoists, Dabur Nepal has decided to shut down the operations at the greenhouse.” According to the company, Maoists came to the nursery in Banepa on December 21 and misbehaved with the women workers. The company had invested Rs 100 million in the project that employed 60-80 women. The company has said that it has informed Nepal government and Indian embassy about the Maoist threat. The company is one of the biggest multinational working in Nepal with the annual transactions over Rs 3 billion. It pays annual revenue of Rs 250 million to the government.
THE HOME MINISTRY HAS ASKED the protestors not to organize their programs in the area of Singhdurbar and Baluwatar. Announcing that these are prohibited zones, the Ministry has urged protestors to stay away from them. The Ministry’s appeal has come after the police made a series of arrests and resorted to lathicharge to control the crowd of protesters in these two areas.
FRUSTRATED BY INCESSANT DEMANDS raised by the local people, the Melamchi Drinking Water Development Committee has decided to stop all works. The committee has said that the people were raising demands that are not related with the project. Since last ten days, the local people had obstructed the activities of Melamchi project putting forth various demands like electrification of the villages, jobs for everyone, building of educational and health facilities and compensation to local people whose houses have been damaged. Melamchi project has been running very slowly due to frequent obstructions. The project is currently estimated to complete by 2012. It aims to deliver 170 million liters of water everyday. It is being constructed with the financial assistance of donors like Asian Development Bank (ADB).
