Parliament is ‘mature’: Speaker

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 21 -Speaker Taranath Ranabhat today said that the Parliament has shown
maturity in these ten years of democratic exercise.

"All the parties have emerged mature and exhibited an absolute solidarity when there were any
attacks on democracy," he said assessing the recently concluded session of the Parliament."

Ranabhat said that the kind of solidarity that was displayed by various parties in the Parliament
when there were attacks on democracy should be exercised even to resolve problems like Maoist
insurgency and corruption.

Referring to the Mohan Niraula episode, in which Niraula allegedly declared that he was ready to
shoot the Prime Minister if he was ordered to do so, Ranabhat said, "whenever there have been
attacks on democracy, all the parties have been sensitive and stood on the same platform to
defend it and that kind of solidarity is necessary to solve the problem of Maoist insurgency and
control corruption."

Ranabhat lauded the Prime Minister for having confessed that there are "smugglers" in political
parties and the Parliament as well adding, "if the Prime Minister can identify and acknowledge
that there are smugglers he would surely be able to initiate actions against them." He was
speaking at a programme organized to evaluate the outcome of eighteenth session of the
Parliament.

Chairman of the Upper House Dr Mohammad Mohasin said the parliamentary session this time
neither had discussions over the problem of Maoist insurgency nor did it seek ways to resolve it.

He also said that the role of the Upper House had not been clear, which just made the need for
Bills to be passed by the Upper House a mandatory ritual.

"The role of Upper House should be more like a filter which can identify the loopholes in the Bills
and suggest ways to reform it so that the need to change the Acts would not arise soon as the
Bills get the status of law."

"The Upper House always gets lesser time to decide over a Bill and there cannot be substantial
discussions over it," said Mohassin, who chided the government for deciding to prorogue the
session in a haste.

Leader of the main opposition Madhav Kumar Nepal blamed the Prime Minister for trying to run
away from possible embarrassment that was likely to come from his own "party lawmakers."

"The abrupt end of the session has pushed the important Bills to wait for at least six months
before they get passed," said Nepal. "These Bills should have been passed even if the House
needed to go on for a few more days."

The Bills that have been pushed aside by the abrupt end of the session on Friday are -- the Bill
brought to Emancipate Kamaiyas, Bill to give women equal right over their parental property and
the Bill to regulate the activities of the political parties.

Three anti-corruption Bills that were registered - to strengthen the CIAA, establish special court
to look into corruption cases and a department associating the special police and revenue
investigation department that would be directly overseen by the Prime Minister, have also been
sidelined by the prorogation of Parliament.

Political bodies raise hell over Paras case

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 21 - Political organisations today held various protest programmes to further
pressure the Palace and the government to take stern action against Prince Paras Shah for his
alleged involvement in the murder of musician Praveen Gurung on Aug 12.

All Nepal National Free Student Union (ANNFSU) held a signature campaign against the Prince
in the capital, according to the Union which is the student wing of the Communist Party of Nepal
(Marxist Leninist). "More than 280 thousands signatures have been collected," states the press
release issued by the Union.

ANNFSU intends to collect 500 thousands signatures by Aug 22 and hand them over to the
Palace on the same day, urging it to prosecute the Prince and to provide ample compensation to
Gurung’s family, states the press release.

Meanwhile, National Democratic Front, another left-leaning political organisation also held a
protest rally and a mass meet in the capital against Prince Paras. The organisation said that
they too would hold more protest campaigns against the Prince till he is prosecuted.

Dumping site near TIA: How safe ?

By Surendra Phuyal

KATHMANDU, Aug 21 - Just as Buddha Air’s Captain Anil Shrestha and Co-pilot Niru Shrestha
lowered the aircraft while attempting to land at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) Sunday
afternoon, a flock of birds suddenly appeared in front of them.

In order to avert the impending bird hit, they even tried to take evasive action. "But nope...one of
them ended up hitting the aircraft’s nose although we tried hard not to touch them," Captain
Shrestha says, recalling the "challenging moment" in the sky. "We later detected a small hole
there."

Adds the private airlines’ operations director Ghanashyam Acharya: "Had the bird hit the aircraft’s
elevator (which is fixed at the tail part) instead of nose, the consequence would have been
"disastrous".

Well, the "small hole" has been patched up for now, and the U.S.-made Raython Beechcraft
1900-D will most probably start flying from tomorrow "if the paint dries up".

But bird-hits - and disasters - cannot be ruled out along take-off and landing paths at TIA, thanks
largely to the high density of stray bird population around the country’s only international airport
vicinity.

Until last month, airlines pilots would blame the capital’s garbage dump at Gokarna which lies
barely five kilometres north east of TIA for bird hazards.

But now they are deeply concerned that the dump has been shifted to Guheshwori-Gokarna
section of the Bagmati river. Guheshwori lies barely 500 meters away from the northern end of
the runway.

Experts say a garbage dump provides favourable living conditions for larger birds like falcons,
hawks and even eagles who feed mainly on carcasses of dead animals.

Add to it the egrets, pigeons and other aerials that throng TIA’s green grassland in their quest for
roundworms and other insects.

"We often face (bird-related) problems while approaching and taking off from the airport," said
Captain Lucky Shah of Skyline Airways, a private airlines, who has a flying experience of 12
years. "At times we find it really hard to escape them."

Adds another senior pilot Bijay Giri: "Now that the government has shifted the garbage dump from
Gokarna to Guheshwori, the approach and take-off paths have virtually turned into potential
bird-hit threat zone. It’s a crime, a heinous one (to start a garbage dump in the vicinity of an
international airport)."

The successive governments’ moves to randomly select dump sites, according to officials, is
against the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) guidelines and regulations which
explicitly emphasise that garbage dumps should not be constructed within 13-kilometre radius of
an airport.

Giri stresses that the government should at least have involved Civil Aviation Authority while
selecting Guheshwori as a garbage dump. "But it did not, and hence the tension," he says,
declaring that "nothing" has been done to prevent birds from frolicking along the aircraft’s path.

"They are ignoring the birds," he adds. "But who knows one day the same birds will be the cause
of a fatal accident. Everyone here knows only how to cry over spilled milk."

(Giri says he has encountered countless bird-hits during his 18 years of flying career. In one
incident while approaching Patna Airport a few years back, he recalls, a bird even broke a RNAC
Boeing’s windscreen, leaving one of the pilots seriously injured.)

General Manager of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) Rajesh Raj Dali attributes Sunday’s
bird-hit to what he bills unhygienic slaughterhouses that have sprouted around Koteshwor area.

"Similar slaughterhouses are also there around Bouddhanath area; such practice should be
banned," he adds, without dwelling much on the ill-effects of the capital’s brand new dumping site
north of Guheshwori, along the "sacred" Bagmati river bank.

Conflicting reactions over 2-day week off

By Tilak Prasad Pokharel

KATHMANDU, Aug 21 - As the decision to provide two day off in government offices in the Valley
completed one year this week, the public and the government officials have come up with
conflicting reactions.

The government employees say that the decision has been very effective and fruitful; while the
second party - other than the government employees- say that the decision is causing more
troubles to the public.

The Bhattarai-led government had made the decision giving two consecutive days (Saturday and
Sunday) as holidays from August 17 (Bhadra 1) last year.

The decision was estimated to save Rs 120 million for the national treasury each year. Besides
saving fuel for government vehicles and utility costs for the offices, added holidays on Sunday
would also help lessen the traffic and environment pollution, the decision makers had argued.
Government officials now claim that the decision has saved national budget and decreased
environmental pollution in the valley.

"The decision has saved a great deal of electricity bills, telephone bills and fuel for government
automobiles," said Mukunda Prasad Aryal, Secretary at Ministry of General Administration. "The
environmental situation of the Valley has improved a lot."

But the government has not done any evaluation of the effects of the two-day holiday. Neither has
it monitored if the efficiency of its employees has increased.

Since all foreign embassies, diplomatic offices and ministries are in the capital, they need to
have uniformity in their working pattern. The decision has made the work easier," he said.
Embassies, INGOs, courts and some private schools already had two day holiday.

"The system of two weekly off days is a western system. Since Kathmandu is heading towards
westernization, Sunday off is much feasible here," Rishi Kesh Niraula, Chief District Officer of
Jajarkot - a remote and hilly district said.

But the public do not think the decision has increased efficiency or cut down government
expenses. They say the decision has added more hassles to them.

"The decision has reduced one more working day in a week," says a student Jyoti Regmi, "It has
made the civil servants too lazy. Their habits have not changed."

A tourism entrepreneur Ichchha Wagle strongly criticizes the decision. "This decision is not
feasible at all," he says. "The government made the decision without developing proper
administrative mechanism, Wagle says.

Responding to a question about extension of the Sunday-off system outside valley, Niraula said,
"It is not feasible to give Sunday off outside the valley."

"Some workers have to walk for more than two hours to reach their offices which is not feasible
for them to reach there at nine in the morning and go home after five in the evening."

Will CEDAW protocol overcome the Summit?

By Damakant Jayshi

KATHMANDU, Aug 21 - The government has still not responded to the UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan’s letter of 15th May asking heads of governments to declare their intention (by August
1) to sign those treaties and conventions which they are yet to ratify.

An enquiry with Prime Minister’s Secretariat and the UN Desk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
revealed that the government will unveil its intention now at the Millennium Summit at New York
on September 6-8.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala is also going to address the UN General Assembly.

Among the important conventions, Nepal is yet to sign the Optional Protocol to the CEDAW
(Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women).

The Optional Protocol (OP) empowers women to approach the committee of independent experts
that monitors compliance with the Convention for redressal if they are denied access to justice in
their country. However, they must have had exhausted all the legal processes in the concerned
case before taking recourse to OP.

The Protocol empowers the Committee on CEDAW to launch an inquiry into grave or systematic
violations on its own initiative, among other steps.

It is this crucial provision, not available at present to Nepali women, that has remained a block on
the way to getting justice for their violated human rights.

Had the provisions of CEDAW been incorporated by the government in the country’s legal
system, the need for the OP would not have been felt so acutely.

"There are many discriminatory laws in Nepal which violate the women’s human rights here,"
says Sapna Pradhan Malla, advocate and women’s rights activist.

In the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, the government of Nepal,
among 181 countries, had reaffirmed its commitment to human rights instruments, in particular
the CEDAW.

However, five years since the Conference, except for a handful of changes, the Nepali women’s
lot remains the same.

Except for the increased participation of women in the local bodies and a marginal rise in the
number of women parliamentarians (seven in the last House to 12 in the present House of
Representatives), there has been no other positive development, say women rights activists

The 18th session of Parliament came to an end this Friday, and with that ended the slim
chances of adoption of Bill brought to make 11th amendment to the Muluki Ain (Civil Code), 1962
which itself has attracted the maximum number of amendments.

This Bill, first introduced in the 11th session of House of Representatives in 1996, had contained
some of the provisions dealing with women, like punishment for perpetrators of child marriage,
greater punishment for rapists, provision for punishment for paedophile, among others.

But even this opportunity has been lost. The Bill is at present with the Law, Justice and
Parliamentary Committee.

Earlier, the government had presented the Initial Report on CEDAW in June this year. The
Concluding Comments of Committee on CEDAW had noted its concern on the Report thus: The
Committee is concerned that the Government has not taken sufficient action to reflect the
provisions of the Convention in domestic laws, or to amend prevailing discriminatory laws. The
Committee is also concerned about the interpretation of discriminatory laws by the Supreme
Court and the Court’s view that if any laws do not conform with culture and tradition, society will
be disrupted.

The Committee also urges the Government to amend as a matter of priority, discriminatory laws
on property and inheritance, the laws on marriage, nationality and birth registration, the Bonus
Act, and discriminatory criminal laws, including the law on abortion.

What is UN’s role if a country does not comply with the provisions of treaties? One is to
persuade the government through the concerned UN body. And the other ?

"In cases of extreme violation of rights, the UN resorts also to the use of military force or
economic and social sanctions," says Henning Karcher, Resident Representative of UNDP.