Plan to remove teachers opposed

By a Post Reporter

DOLAKHA, Sept 9 - Teachers have started a sit-in programme in protest against the plan of the District Education Office to sack teachers of the district at a time when there was shortage of teachers in the schools.

Political parties are also opposing the plan of the District Education Office to oust the teachers.

The order of the Ministry of Education to adjust teachers to the necessary posts and remove others who are in excess was received one month ago and the process has already been started. Effort has been made to obtain approval for additional posts from the ministry, but if the approval is not received, 75 teachers will have to be removed, Section Officer Bharat Karki said.

Teachers have stopped going to school after it was clear that their career was at stake. They have started a 'dharna' since Thursday under the aegis of the action committee of the temporary teachers.

Teachers' meeting has been convened by Nepal Teachers' Association President Bal Krishna Sharma and Secretary Nav Raj Neupane to draw up special programme to oppose the plan.

Meanwhile, Nepali Congress District Committee met on Thursday and decided to " take initiative for creating an environment unfavourable for the removal of the teachers" and has submitted a memorandum to the District Education Office, Committee President Tara Bahadur Koirala told the journalists at a press conference organised the same day.

"It was the work of the employees of the District Education Office to appoint teachers in excess of the posts sanctioned by the ministry involving themselves in illegal financial dealings for their personal benefit and created the situation of removal of teachers from their posts. They should not be allowed to create uncertainty in education sector. The party will launch a movement if teachers were sacked," Koirala said.

Similarly, CPN (UML) secretary and MP Anand Prasad Pokhrel and CPN (ML) member Rajendra Manandhar said their parties had also decided to oppose the plan to remove teachers, they told The Kathmandu Post.

There are 350 government schools, one thousand 60 teachers and 42 thousand 19 students in primary schools of Dolakha district.

According to the Education Act,there is a shortage of 141 teachers than the required number to teach in primary level and 121 teachers shortage in lower secondary level. But all these posts have not been sanctioned by the government.

Plan to remove teachers opposed

By a Post Reporter

DOLAKHA, Sept 9 - Teachers have started a sit-in programme in protest against the plan of the District Education Office to sack teachers of the district at a time when there was shortage of teachers in the schools.

Political parties are also opposing the plan of the District Education Office to oust the teachers.

The order of the Ministry of Education to adjust teachers to the necessary posts and remove others who are in excess was received one month ago and the process has already been started. Effort has been made to obtain approval for additional posts from the ministry, but if the approval is not received, 75 teachers will have to be removed, Section Officer Bharat Karki said.

Teachers have stopped going to school after it was clear that their career was at stake. They have started a 'dharna' since Thursday under the aegis of the action committee of the temporary teachers.

Teachers' meeting has been convened by Nepal Teachers' Association President Bal Krishna Sharma and Secretary Nav Raj Neupane to draw up special programme to oppose the plan.

Meanwhile, Nepali Congress District Committee met on Thursday and decided to " take initiative for creating an environment unfavourable for the removal of the teachers" and has submitted a memorandum to the District Education Office, Committee President Tara Bahadur Koirala told the journalists at a press conference organised the same day.

"It was the work of the employees of the District Education Office to appoint teachers in excess of the posts sanctioned by the ministry involving themselves in illegal financial dealings for their personal benefit and created the situation of removal of teachers from their posts. They should not be allowed to create uncertainty in education sector. The party will launch a movement if teachers were sacked," Koirala said.

Similarly, CPN (UML) secretary and MP Anand Prasad Pokhrel and CPN (ML) member Rajendra Manandhar said their parties had also decided to oppose the plan to remove teachers, they told The Kathmandu Post.

There are 350 government schools, one thousand 60 teachers and 42 thousand 19 students in primary schools of Dolakha district.

According to the Education Act,there is a shortage of 141 teachers than the required number to teach in primary level and 121 teachers shortage in lower secondary level. But all these posts have not been sanctioned by the government.

Man eats monkey to recover from TB

By a Post Reporter

CHUMLINGTAR, Chitwan Sept 9 - Ram Kumar Pandey, 22 of Chumlingtar from Darechowk VDC-2 ate meat of a black monkey last year, hoping that he would be recovered from tuberculosis which attacked him in 1996.However, the monkey's meat did not help him.

Pandey came to know that he had already come to a multi-drug-resistance (MDR) stage of TB which is too expensive to cure.

Despite the nationwide campaign against TB and government's policy of free distribution of medicines to wipe out the disease from all over the country over a couple of decades, people of the remote hills just do not have faith on largesse of modern medicine available on their door-steps, the nearest health posts.

People of this Mahabharat range take refuge to hospitals or nearby health posts at the last stage of life when shamen and witch-doctors fail to cure them.

Although Chumlingtar lies near to the country's busiest Prithvi Highway, most of the people here are infected with TB, says a local Rewati Ram Pokharel.

Programme coordinator of Chitwan-based TB eradication office Gyanuram Ghimire says most of the locals are infected with uncurable TB.

Coordinator Ghimire says seven persons have so far been identified to have come to MDR stage of deadly disease in this village with small population. Four out of seven people have already died of the disease, Ghimire says.

One of the main causes of MDR stage at the village is people's conservative attitude and negligence to their health at the early stages of the disease, says Laxmi Raut, In-charge of Darechowk sub-health post.

A person is highly prone to MDR unless he completes a prescribed medical course or does not follow the instructions of medical experts, says TB and Leprosy Assistant Khemaraj Pokharel of district public health in Chitwan.

Besides, it is the MDR patient who can easily transfer TB-germs to a healthy person who can be hardly cured once he is found to be MDR-infected, according to Pokhrel.

Considering the seriousness of area, Nepal Tuberculosis Organisation has planned to collect samples of coughs of all people at the VDC on September 17 and 18.

Regular training given even to local shamen and witch-doctors on TB and other diseases have brought no more significant changes in the attitude of the local people, says Pokharel.

According to a recent statistics from the organisation, a total of 1002 new persons have been identified to have contacted with TB across the district this year. Of the total fresh patients 109 persons have been found to have come to MDR stage.

According to Pushpa Malla, a TB specialist, more than 40 thousand fresh TB patients are recorded across the country every year and more than eight to ten thousand people lose their lives per year. About 20 thousand old TB patients transfer germs of TB to other people every year, says doctor Malla.

Large quantity of hemp confiscated

By a Post Reporter

MAHOTTARI, Sept 9 - Police confiscated here four quintals of hemp worth Rs 7,00,000 at local market from an Indian mafia gang at Bhatauliya VDC of Mahottari, a notorious district for hemp-farming, on an Indian vehicle this morning.

Police, however, could not arrest the gang comprising of four Indians, including a woman as the police personnel engaged themselves to deal with another local mafia gang, who tried to reclaim the vehicle and hemp from the police, police said.

An Indian jeep with the number plate of ML 5-9531 laden with a large chunk of hemp heading east of Bhatauliya VDC was seized along with the smugglers, police said. But all the smugglers managed to run away at a time when the police clashed with the other local mafia. Police opened four rounds of fire in the air to bring the situation under control. The local mafia gang attempted to set fire on the jeep which the smugglers had used for carrying the hemp in a bid to destroy the first-hand evidence, police said.

This is probably the first time in Mahottari that police has been able to seize such a large chunk of hemp from smugglers.

Asked whether some of the employees at the district headquarters persuaded local farmers to do hemp farming, Superintendent of Police Hari Bahadur Thapa said, "Police does not allow anyone to involve in hemp-farming."

Surprise check conducted

NAWALPARASI, Sept 9 (PR) - The District Administration Friday held a surprise check in 10 government offices and found 31 employees including two office chiefs absent.

According to the District Administration, 20 employees of District Animal Health Office including its chief were found absent during the office hour in the surprise check.

Similarly, five employees of Survey Section including the office chief were also absent during the surprise check.

In the same way, six employees of District Post Office were also found absent during the office hour when the surprise check was conducted, according to District Administration.

The District Administration has written to the Departments Concerned to take necessary action against those found absent during the surprise check. Blast at ADB

ILAM,Sept 9 (PR) - An explosion occurred at the main gate of the branch office of Agriculture Development Bank (ADB) located at the district headquarters on Friday night but caused little damage.

It is suspected that the explosion occurred at about 1 a.m. at the gate of the bank which is near the middle of the bazaar and close to the residential houses.

When the fragments found after explosion were examined, it seemed that it was a powerful device but since there was a drizzle all through the night, it did not explode with full force. Government officials said if it had exploded fully, it could have caused considerable damage.

DSP Lal Mani Baral said police were being deployed at night since a few months ago for the security of the bank, but even the police did not know about the explosion.

As the transformer near the bank office used to explode from time to time, they might have ignored the sound of explosion even after they heard it at night, an employee of the bank told The Kathmandu Post.

This is the third time that a bomb was found and second time that explosion occurred in Ilam.