Backwards drawn towards sterilization

-By a Post Reporter

MORANG, Jan 1 - Backward people of Hoklabari VDC have been attracted towards sterilization, the permanent family planning method, after the VDC office announced special facilities to such people.

Chairman of the VDC Yogendra Basnet told The Kathmandu Post that the VDC office had announced that it would waive all the taxes to the people of the backward community who underwent vasectomy operation and produced the certificate to the VDC office.

Chairman Basnet said there was visible impact of sterilization on the people of backward communities and they generally had a large number of children. Therefore, these facilities were given to these people to have the desired impact and help reduce the rate of population growth though in a limited scale.

“The financial loss which the VDC office has to incur as a result of these facilities will be met through other sources”, Basnet added.

The VDC chairman also informed that the backward community people were attracted to vasectomy operation as a means of permanent family planning after these economic incentives.

Maoist supporters arrested

BIRATNAGAR, Jan 1 (PR) - Sixty women from Nepal Women’s Organisation (Revolutionary), sister organisation of Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) were arrested today.

At a programme, Women’s Liberation and Direction of the Movement organised by the group of 60 women from Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari were arrested. The women had attacked police with stones and put sand in the eyes of police. This is the first time such a large number of Maoist supporters have been arrested in Morang.

According to police, central and local leaders are amongst those arrested. However, the names of the arrested were not given. The police has seized papers with the party’s long-term plans.

Border talks inconclusive

-By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Jan 1 - The talks on the border area of Nepal and India has ended without any achievement.

According to an official who was present at the talks, no new agenda were put forward and the talks ended without reaching to any conclusion. Officials from Morang district and Indian officials from Araria district of Bihar were present at the talks.

The authorities from both the countries meet every four month to discuss on problems of border encroachment, robbery, smuggling and to seek solutions to these problems.

The meeting has decided to investigate the land encroachment in Dasgaja area and mobilise police force of both the countries to control criminal activities.

 Priorities were given to agenda set in the earlier meetings, said the official. “There was no agenda on topics we had to discuss,” said Kalyan Kumar Timilsina, Superintendent of Police present at the meeting.

However, the meeting decided to give special attention to the issue of land encroachment in Dasgaja area. The meeting concluded with the decision to let surveyers investigate and give a decision on the encroachment of land around the Luna river in Morang and Jange Pillar in Jhapa.

Charriot procession for brotherhood

-By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Jan 1 - Brahma Kumaris Rajyoga Center, Nepal is organizing Shree Pashupatinath Rath Yatra (chariot procession) on tomorrow with a view to promoting the popularizing the spiritual practices and experiences of essential unity and brotherhood of mankind under the universal fatherhood of one incorporeal God, states a release issued here today.

According to the release, Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai is scheduled to launch the Shree Pashupatinath Rath Yatra procession amidst a special function at the Open Theater Tundikhel, Kathmandu at 9:00 am on January 3, 2000, Prime Minister Bhattarai will be the chief guest of the talk programme on “Entering the Golden Age Through Spiritual Impowerment” organized by Brahma Kumaris Rajyoga Center on the same occasion.

After the launching, Rath Yatra procession will make a round of various places of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Thimi, Lalitpur and Kirtipur on the same day.

The Rath Yatra,   which covers a distance of about 3,000 kilometers, will reach international headquarters of Brahma Kumaris at Mt. Abu Rajasthan, India on February 8, 2000. The Rath Yatra will pass through nine major towns of Nepal and 32 various towns of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan of India.

A total of 22 Rath Yatras from various renowned pilgrimages of Jyotirlingam temples of Shiva in Nepal and India will reach at Mt Abu on Feb 8, covering a distance of 66,000 km and providing spiritual message to about 330 million people of thousands of villages, towns and cities of Nepal and India, the release adds.

Dispute in Morang campus resolved

MORANG, Jan 1 (PR) - The week-long academic confusion and administrative dispute in Mahendra Morang Multiple Campus in Biratnagar has been resolved.

Following the suspension of Campus Chief Dr Upendra Koirala by the Tribhuvan University Vice-Chancellor, there were two acting campus chiefs and students had resorted to slogan shouting the closing of the campus creating confusion in the campus.

Dr Koirala had filed a case with the Supreme Court against the T.U. Executive Council. When the Supreme Court issued an interim order in the name of the council Dr. Koirala was empowered to function as campus chief by the council.

Teachers of the campus have charged that the controversy had been created as a result of the conflict between campus chief Koirala and University Teachers’ Association. Following the tension between the campus chief and university teachers, the campus has been closed more than a dozen times.

The University Teachers’ Association had charged that the campus chief has indulged in financial irregularities, undermined the prestige of the association and politicised the campus administration. Rejecting the charges  Dr Koirala has filed a defamation case against the association with Morang District Court.

Doctor taken into custody for assisting abortion

-By a Post Reporter

MORANG, Jan 1 - Sunsari District Court has remanded into custody Dr Binod Kamat of Charity Hospital of Duhabi on the charge of causing abortion.

According to Duhabi Police Office, Dr Kamat had terminated the pregnancy of Bishnu Kumari Rai of Belbari VDC in Morang district at Chaudhari Medical Hall of Duhabi about a month ago. He had also cut down the intestine of uterus in the course of aborting her 5-month-old fetus. Bishnu Kukmari who is now in a critical condition is unmarried.

The court has ordered the release of the owner of the Medical Hall Mulchand Chaudhari, Bishnu Kumari Rai,who had come for abortion, and Mani Kumar Rai on a bail of 13 thousand rupees each, and nurses who helped in abortion on a bail of 10 thousand rupees each, according to police. 

Police have arrested nurse Meera Pokhrel, ANM Kuku Tamang, Medical Hall owner Mulchand Chaudhari and Mani Kumar Rai who brought her for abortion.

The uterus of the woman who had come for abortion had been badly damaged and she is undergoing treatment in Koshi Zonal Hospital in a serious condition after her intestine was cut off.

Satar community resorts to farming

-By a Post Reporter

MORANG, Jan 1 - People of Satar community, one of the backward communities living in this district, have been gradually giving up their traditional profession of hunting.

They complain that they were compelled to give up their traditional profession because forests are depleting and wild animals and birds are becoming scarce.

There are 10 thousand people of Satar community in this district. As the wild birds and animals are not easily available they are gradually attracted to agriculture and other professions.

Munsi Makhdi, a Satar, says “As birds and wild animals like jackals are difficult to come across, we are now drawn to agriculture and other small professions.”

However, they have not deserted the occupation of killing mice, catching fish and crabs. Munsi also complains that they were unable to properly look after their landed property and get a good economic return from their land as they were wholly engrossed in their traditional profession. They used to entrust their land to other people for cultivation and consequently they are finding it difficult to release their land from their clutches. Thus they are becoming poorer and poorer every day.

As the Satar used to take their children along with them for hunting, their children have remained ignorant due to the lack of schooling. Their children generally move about with bows and arrows for hunting.

Satars, the simple and straight forward people, have now started to work as wage earners and are engaging in agricultural activities though many have lost their land because they have not been able to recover their land mortgaged by them in the past.