SAFG medalists honoured

-By a Post Reporter 

KATHMANDU, Jan 11 -After a long wait, the  government eventually  made an announcement of   its much touted “surprise package” for the medal winning Nepali sportspersons of the 8th South Asian Federation (SAF) Games during the felicitation ceremony that was organised at Dashrath stadium on Tuesday.

The chief guest, Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai while distributing certificates and cash rewards presented by various institutions to the players, said the government would make an arrangement of a sports village and every single  gold medalists in the SAF Games would be a beneficiary of the government scheme that plans to provide the medalists with a piece of land.

He promised the 31 gold medalists “permanent jobs” while assuring a job priority to other medal winners. He also said that the government would confer special concessions to all medal winners on road and air transport fares as well as avail telephone facilities on reduced rates. Neither the Prime Prime Minister nor other officials, however, gave any specific information regarding the “package.”

“Where will the athletes be given the promised land and when?” queried a bewildered gold medalist. “The government should have mentioned specifically what the package means.” Athletes fear the officials could once again be taking them for a ride. SAF Games after all gave tremendous mileage to the government.

The players also looked dejected at the government’s discriminatory policy.

“Those who won silver and bronze are sad to learn that they have only been assured of job priority,” remarked Deepak Amatya, the captain of the silver medal winning Nepali football team.

While the shooting instructor, Dhruba Shah while talking to TKP, said what government has earmarked for gold medalists was great but expressed an opinion that the government ought to have done something for the others too.

While declaring the government would not like to take all the credit for the success of the Games, the Prime Minister said the country is abuzz with new excitement after the Games.

Minister for Youth, Sports and Culture, Sharat Singh Bhandari said the outstanding achievement of the athletes at the SAF Games had further strengthened the belief of national unity. He also declared the National Unity Day would be observed with special programmes every year.

The President of Nepal Olympic Committee, Rukma Shamsher Rana while declaring the 8th SAF Games as a success, both for the organisers and athletes, said Nepal’s successful hosting of the Games was even appreciated by the IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch.

The Member-Secretary of the National Sports Council, Binod Shankar Palikhe said that the felicitation programme brought delight to the entire sports community.

President of the Federation of Nepal Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Pradeep Kumar Shrestha informed that the federation would also be felicitating the medal winners on April 10.

No road tax, demand transporters

KATHMANDU, Jan 11 (PR) - Transport entrepreneurs east of the Narayani river today warned that they would not pay any road tax to municipalities on and after Magh 1 (February 15).

This was stated in a press release issued to our Dharan-based reporter Tuesday by the Syndicate of the Federation of Nepalese Transport Entrepreneurs based east of the Narayani river. Nepal’s central and eastern regions lie east of the river.

Local Self-governance Act 2055 (1997) has cancelled all kinds of taxes, including the indiscriminately levied vehicle taxes,  previously charged by the municipalities.

The warning came a day after the Federation’s Kathmandu based executives requested the municipalities across the country to stop levying vehicle taxes for all types of vehicles in keeping with the Act.

The release added, “If the municipalities do not take heed of our pleas, all the vehicles will be stopped by the side the tax-bars.”

New Social Studies stirs up debate

- By Yogendra Bista

KATHMANDU, Jan 11 - The recently introduced new curriculum for the high school subject of “Social Studies” has ignited much controversy among teachers, schools and parents.

The curriculum, introduced from this academic year for class nine, is unlike any in the past. Under the new curriculum, Social Studies encompasses subjects such as Economics, Maths, Geography, History, Culture, Civics and many more while in the past it used to denote only history and geography.

It also comes loaded with practical and research-oriented assignments in a bid to infuse creativity into the classroom where rote-learning method is still in vogue in many schools.

While that attribute is also part of the controversy, the most noise is being raised over the curriculum’s unique content: almost all the different subjects are laid down in summaries. There are no detailed discussions on a particular subject, personality or event.

The emphasis, as a result, is on creativity in teaching and learning. Teachers and students have to be creative to understand a chapter.

While such creativity is part of the government’s new model of education for high school students, the leap in curriculum quality has not gone down well. Critics say, creativity ought to be introduced in small doses rather than in one big leap.

“The new curriculum has been hastily implemented,” says Tikaram Sharma, Principal of Little Stars Academy of Kathmandu.

President of Private and Boarding Schools Organisations, Nepal, (PABSON), Rajesh Khadka also has similar opinion about the implementation though he refrained from making adverse remarks about the course itself.

PABSON, after the introduction of the new curriculum, has started a crash course for teachers to learn how to teach the new course.

However, there are also those in the education sector who are supportive of the new curriculum. One such person is Ramesh Gautam, headmaster of Padmodaya High School.

“I extend my full support to the new curriculum,” he said. “It will arouse creativity among the students.”  Kalpana Aryal, Social Studies teacher from Galaxy Public School finds nothing worrying or problematic in the subject either.

Geeta Rana, the President of National PABSAN, another private boarding school organisation, is also supportive of the curriculum, rejecting all doubts.   While teachers debate the merits or demerits of the curriculum, students who actually have to sit down for exams under the new course appear to have weathered the change without much problem.

Except for the lack of time to accomplish all the practical and research, says Arjun Rijal, a ninth grader at LRI School, the course is fine. Sabina Raut, another student of the same class from Saraswati Vidya Mandir feels that the practical activities are rather high in standard for the lot of average students but then that is how it ought to be.        

Despite all the controversy, however, parents of most students were mostly unaware or knew very little of the new change in the curriculum. Some, however, complained about the late arrival of the new text books.

Meanwhile, government educationists who forced the change, are not concerned about the controversy. They say, some opposition to the change in curriculum was expected. But they were mostly non-committal on an important aspect of the change: the need to train teachers in the new course.

Bhupmani Niraula, the co-ordinator of Social Studies subject committee at the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC), passed on the responsibility for arranging necessary training, to the Secondary Education Development Project(SEDP).

On contacting SEDP, Purna Bahadur Shrestha, its training co-ordinator, admitted that there had been negligible training for teachers but that the SEDP was gearing up to do more.

Meanwhile, Dr. Shreeram Upadhyay, the national consultant on Social Studies subject who also happens to be one of the two authors of the new text book, accuses the concerned HMG bodies for failing to disseminate appropriately the concept behind the new curriculum.     

She expects to scale Everest 

-By Ang Tsering Sherpa 

KATHMANDU - With a better support  system, Nepal would  have been the first country to put a woman on top of the world. By the time Pasang Lhamu Sherpa scaled Mt Everest in 1993, sixteen foreign women had already stepped on the highest point on earth and Nepal lost a claim on history, say native climbers. On May 16, 1975, Japan’s Junko Tabei became the first woman to scale Everest.

Nepali men have at least featured prominently in the mountaineering annals, right from 1953 when Tenzing Norgay Sherpa became the first person, along with Edmund Hillary, to tame the mighty mountain.

Nepali women now say they want to make up for the lost time. Among them are four women who will be taking a shot at Everest this spring.

The Millennium Women Everest Expedition will be led by Lakhpa Sherpa (Tashi village, Sankhuwasabha) and Mingma Yangji Sherpa from Solukhumbu. Other members of the team are Dawa Yangji Sherpa and Dolma Sherpa, both from Solukhumbu.

Always interested in climbing, Dawa first asked her climber-brother Kale Tsering to give her a break three years ago when he was climbing with an Indian woman. “I was rebuked then. I felt very sad. But now I am climbing. I am happy,” says she.

Team member Lakhpa has been climbing for the past seven years. She has scaled Mera Peak, Pisang Peak and other lesser peaks. Mingma is another seasoned climber, with 10 years of experience behind her. Mother of two, she has been accompanying expedition teams as a high-altitude porter and sardar.

“We are fully confident. If the weather permits, we shall indeed reach the top of the world,” says Lakhpa. “Once that happens the question raised by many foreigners - as to why Nepali women do not climb - will be answered,” she adds.

Mingma says the expedition would be a matter of pride for all Nepali women for the millennium. “It is an opportune moment.

The height of Everest has just been increased by 2 meters (now 8850m). “Seven years ago, when I had accompanied Diki Dolma, an Indian mountaineer as a porter, I was questioned why Nepali women could not climb?”

Dawa and Mingma have been training themselves over the last few years in Austria under the aegis of Mountaineering and Rescue Foundation.

Dolma, an IA student now at Saraswati Campus, was in Munich, Germany in 1998 to study hotel management. She had to return half way through her studies when she could not win a scholarship.

Last year Dolma took part in a rock climbing session organised by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) and Outdoor Training for Women organised jointly by Eco Himal and NMA. She has also worked with foreign expeditions on Everest and Makalu.

“Earlier, whenever my father would bring the mountaineering gears, I used to get angry. But now I get very happy,” says she.

Pasang Lhamu made three attempts before succeeding to scale Everest on the fourth attempt. She died on her way back when she was caught in adverse weather conditions. Nimi Sherpa has scaled 7,865-meter Mt Maplang of Europe.

Nimi, who had also been planning scaling the Everest on the occasion of the millennium, has shelved her project for the time as she does not want to compete. She regretted that “foreign women have conquered the mountain but it has been so cumbersome for daughters of the mountain.”

According to Ang Tsering Sherpa, Managing Director of Asian Trekking and the Vice-President of the millennium expedition says the women climbers were well prepared. “We have made the selection according to their skills. They are the ones who showed excellent performances in the training.” Shushma Memorial Trust is the organizer of the expedition.

“This is a field where even men don’t help one another,” says,” says Sonam Gyaljen Sherpa, former NMA president. “If women had been blooded into the field earlier, they would have come a long way by now.”

Abducted man freed

-By a Post Reporter 

KAKARVITTA, Jhapa, Jan 11 - Indian police have nabbed abductors of a Nepali national who was kidnapped in the Indo-Nepal border on January 7, according to police officials here.

The issue has now been settled, they said, adding they had no details. Shanu Kazi Joshi, 56, a businessman from Kathmandu, was released on Sunday. The kidnappers first demanded IRs 10 million in ransom and later scaled down to Rs 400,000.

Police Inspector at the Area Police Office Kakarvitta Dipesh Lohani contacted Panitanki Police Office at the Indo-Nepal border. The police office asked him to get in touch with the police officials in the nearby Indian city of Siliguri. The Sub-inspector at Siliguri office, Pinaki Babu refused to give any information.

The Panitanki Police Office said the abductors had been nabbed but refused to give details.

Abductions of Nepali nationals from border areas by Indian thugs is nothing new. Residents of Birgunj and Biratnagar live under constant terror of Indian abductors who flee with their children to India and make demands for huge ransoms.