Traffic resumes on Prithvi Highway

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CHITWAN, April 27- Traffic resumed on the Prithvi Highway at 11 AM, Friday, after a 17-hour interruption following landslides in three different sites triggered by massive rainfalls on Wednesday and Thursday.

Vehicles to and from the capital were stranded along the highway when the early monsoon rains brought about landslides at a place 3 kms east of Mugling, Fishling and Krishnabhir.

Vehicular transport continued when heavy equipment from the Divisional Road Office at Bharatpur were able to remove the mounds of landmass, an engineer at the Divisional Office, Tulasi Prasad Sitaula, said.

The removal of the heaps of fresh landslides was delayed due to the vehicular traffic jam, which extended to several kilometres.

Chataut hands over passport to CIAA

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KATHMANDU, April 27 – Former Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Tarini Datt Chataut submitted his passport to the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) today as per CIAA’s Thursday order.

Hem Prakash Chataut, son of the Minister, submitted the passport to Commissioner Basudev Lamichhane, who is probing the controversial RNAC-Lauda Air deal, at 12.40 p.m. The former minister has also been barred from travelling outside the Valley without the prior permission of the constitutional body. Surprisingly, the junior Chataut came in a government vehicle, Ba 1 Jha 3507.

While Hari Bhakta Shrestha, former RNAC boss and the Board member Tirthalal Shrestha spent their second night in detention at the District Police Office at Hanumandhoka. They said that they are trying to deposit the bail amount.

The Shrestha duo will now have to spend at least three more nights in custody with Saturday and Sunday being public holidays.

CIAA Thursday ordered their detention under Clause 19.4 of the CIAA Act "for causing losses to RNAC for their action".

Since early morning, the relatives of both the Shresthas were seen making the rounds of both the Hanumandhoka and the CIAA office. The former RNAC chief told The Kathmandu Post that he was trying to manage the bail amount or a guarantor. "I am finding it difficult to contact all my well-wishers and to furnish the bail," said Shrestha.

Tirthalal’s brothers and relatives too said that they were trying to make the necessary arrangements for his release.

The Shrestha duo were taken into police custody on Thursday upon the instruction of the CIAA after they failed to submit a bail amount of Rs 50 million each or papers of immovable assets worth the amount.

They were asked to submit the bail amount "as they were found, on first-hand basis, to be involved in irregularities in the Lauda Air deal". The former Executive Chairman Shrestha had signed the B-767 jet lease deal on RNAC’s behalf while Board member Shrestha had signed as a witness on September 27, 2000 in Vienna, Austria. The plane jet landed at the Tribhuvan International Airport on December 1.

According to an official at the CIAA, the two officials could be kept in police custody for 90 days if they fail to provide the bail. The CIAA Act, however, is silent as to what would happen if they failed to submit bail within the 90-day deadline.

The official also said that the two Shresthas could be instantly released if they submitted either the cash or bank guarantee of the equal amount with an "open date", that is, no limitation on the time. However, if they submit documents of their immovable properties, then CIAA could itself assess or ask someone to do so on its behalf. That could take a few days to accomplish.

Once the bail requirements are fulfilled, then the CIAA would file cases at the Patan Appellate Court and return the cash or the documents to the accused as soon as they receive application from them to return their deposits.

Meanwhile, a CIAA source told The Kathmandu Post that the constitutional anti-corruption body would bring more people into book soon. But the source did not hint who these people would be.

‘PM should have resigned’

KATHMANDU- Madhav Kumar Nepal, leader of the main opposition and General Secretary of CPN-UML addressing a program here today said that Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala must resign since the CIAA had taken action against one of the then Cabinet ministers.

"Since the CIAA had implicated the Cabinet, the Prime Minister should have already resigned."

General Secretary Nepal also said that the Koirala government should quit as it has been proved to be working beyond the constitution by the recent Supreme Court decision. Seven-member bench of the Supreme Court unanimously decided this week that some sections of the Citizenship Bill contradict provisions of the present Constitution.

Patients at Bir Hospital suffer due to strike

By Pragya Ghimire

KATHMANDU, April 27 - Hundreds of nurses working in the country’s oldest state-run Bir Hospital stayed away from their duty that even brought into halt the emergency ward that is supposed to run around-the-clock.

Hundreds of patients who are either admitted or are visiting for medical aid have been forced to turn back or wait for the strike to end.

Some of the patients who are admitted with serious conditions were forced to look for other hospitals. However, it was the poor people who suffered the most since the private hospitals that charge an arm and a leg for services are beyond the reach of these average Nepalis.

The striking nurses have threatened to escalate their protest programs from Saturday if their demand for allowance raise among others is not met by then.

More than a hundred staff nurses staged a sit-in at the hospital premises demanding that the government retain the allowance facility that they had been receiving before the last year’s salary increment by the government.

Besides their increment in allowance, the nurses are demanding free of cost treatment to those patients who are unable to afford charges and drinking water in the hospital.

All 362 beds in the hospital wards, including the emergency department, were deprived of nursing services in the hospital. Both the patients hospitalized and visiting doctors suffered due to the strike at the hospital that is visited by hundreds of people every day.

"My child is breathing only because of the oxygen input. But the nurses never came next to my child to give the prescribed medicine. I never knew that nurses could be so cruel," said Basanta Thapa from Sindhupalchowk who has come here to have his only daughter Sanu Thapa cured.

Saraswati Tamang, 32, mother of Sita Tamang, says, "My daughter is undergoing serious burn case treatment but is suffering extreme pain due to the lack of intensive nursing care."

"The working hours has increased to 60 hours a week but the demand of 50 per cent allowance of the total salary scale is negotiated to 12.5 per cent only because it is provided from higher to lower level staffs," said Durga Shrestha, 35, a Senior Nurse. "But at the last moment hospital administration lingered the demand of allowance and the negotiation failed."

Laxmi Chitrakar, Senior Nurse working for the past 25 years, says, "If the administration does not fulfil the legal demand, nurses will continue the strike and stop all 24 hours emergency duty."

Ram Kumar Shrestha, Director and Member Secretary of Bir Hospital, called nurses strike an inhuman act and the nurses who have pledged to serve patients were denying the rights.

Dr. Shom Nath Aryal, Special Secretary at the Health Ministry, said that demands of striking staff are not all justifiable so after discussion and amendment only the demands can be fulfilled by the concerned authorities.

Bastola inspects refugee verification

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BHADRAPUR, Jhapa, April 27 - Foreign Minister Chakra Prasad Bastola today inspected the Damak-based office of the Nepal-Bhutan Joint Verification Team (JVT) and acquired information from authorities about the Bhutanese refugee verification process.

Nepali team leader Sushil Jung Rana and Bhutanese counterpart Sonam Tenzin appraised the minister about the verification process.

While inspecting the office, he acquired information about the number of refugees already verified over the last month.

Authorities from both countries began the long-standing refugee verification process on March 26. The team has so far verified only 1,380 people from 233 families languishing in the Khudunabari refugee camp.

There were eight families brought here from the camp, located about 45 km north of the JVT office, present for verification when Bastola inspected the intricate process.

He, however, did not directly talk to them and the refugees either, said SB Subba, Chairman of the Bhutanese Refugee Repatriation Committee.

This is the first time that the Nepali Foreign Minister has visited the JVT field office since the refugee verification began a month ago.

Refugee leaders have taken Bastola’s visit to the JVT office as meaningful in view of the rather slow pace of verification.

The leaders have expressed their serious concerns over the snail’s pace of verification. If the pace of verification continues, the refugee leaders suspect that it would take another six years to verify all over 15,000 families, languishing in seven camps in eastern Nepal over a decade. The Bhutanese refugees of Nepali origin were forcibly evicted from Druk regime from their motherland under the ethnic cleansing policy.

SGN Heart Center Lacks fund

By Shree Ram Subedi

KATHMANDU, April 27 - Heart patients who dream of affordable cure at country’s only government-run heart center are desperate now. And so are the medical as well as administrative staffs of the five-year-old Shahid Ganglal National Heart Center (SGNHC), Maharajgunj.

The first Cath-lab of the country worth Rs. 50 million installed to carryout angiogram is yet to resume service and remains out of order since it suffered a technical snag nine months ago. Only two patients manage to get angiogram done before it broke down.

"I have not been told what is going on about angiogram," says Surya B. Gurung, a heart patient who returned home without treatment last July.

The Hospital carried out angiogram first time in Nepal last July with the catheterization equipment as granted by Australia.

The second angiography machine worth Rs. 50 million rupees that had arrived in January is still in the warehouse of the Hospital along with the anathesia machine and ECG monitor among others.

"There are equipments worth Rs 90.50 million stored at the warehouse," claims doctors at the center.

The deep frustration that reigns at the hospital does not stop here. Hospital officials claim that the government discriminates when it comes to allocating funds. The BP Memorial Cancer Hospital, at Bharatpur, which has almost all necessary infrastructures, gets 75 percent of the total health tax fund where as SGNHC gets precious little out of it, if any, the official claimed.

The employees alleged that since the hospital was launched by CPN-UML led government in 1995, the present government has continued to ignore its upkeep.

SGNHC has also been victim of its Executive Director Dr Damodar Pokhrel’s vested interest, say the hospital staffs. They allege that Dr Pokheral is deliberately trying to delay the resumption of angiogram service because of his association with the only private heart centre in Kathmandu.

They argue that the private heart center provides angiogram service at Rs. 28,000 whereas SGNHC is working to reduce the present cost of Rs. 20,000 by half when the service is resumed. " In such case, clearly the private heart centre would be severely affected," argue they.

But Dr Pokhrel refutes the allegations made by his own staff.

The allegation of me favouring private health center is baseless, says he.

"A person of my stature even can’t imagine doing this" he argued.

" I have done my best to develop the hospital and the 2 cath-labs and other facilities are examples of my sincere effort," said Dr Pokhrel.

He added that the government, despite giving repeated assurances, has not provided Rs. 20 million it promised some four months ago.

It could take at least two and half months before the services can be resumed. A coronary angiogram is a special x-ray test done to find clogged artery and see if the patients need treatment such as angioplasty, coronary artery bypass surgery or medical therapy.

Narayangadh pushes hard to curb flesh trade

By Krishna Bhandari

NARAYANGADH, Chitwan, April 27 - Only two decades ago, Narayangadh was almost an isolated semi-urban centre catering to the needs of only local people from around the extended villages of Chitwan district.

Construction of Prithvi Highway, that effectively connected it to the capital town and a bridge over the Narayani river that linked it to the western part of the kingdom changed the face of Narayangadh for once and all.

The town at the tri-junction of the west, east and the capital town developed into a major commercial and transportation hub. With big industries, businesses, transportation companies and hotels, came the flesh trade. Within a short span of time this town, settled along the banks of the mighty Narayani River, has outstripped its competitors in flesh trade.

Locals say that people from other parts of the country - sometimes even from India - spend nights in this town simply to gratify their physical urge.

A policeman assigned at Ward Police Office in Narayangadh said that prostitutes from other districts find this busy town a conducive and highly profitable place to operate their trade.

A 14-year old minor girl, Maya (name changed), from neighbouring district of Nawalparasi, admits that almost all the hotels here, big or small, provide rooms for prostitution- a major source of their income.

A research conducted by General Welfare Academy (GWA), a non-governmental organisation working to raise awareness among the commercial sex workers, especially about the HIV/AIDS reveals four types of women engaged in the age-old trade- professional sex workers, irregular ones, women whose husbands are away from home and college girls.

There are estimated 300 professional sex workers operating in this illegal yet booming industry, according to GWA statistics.

"You can find it at every nook and corner of the town," says Ram Hari Neupane, field officer of GWA.

Neupane, citing the GWA study, claimed that more than 80 per cent of the married women indulged in this infamous business were found to be the ones rejected by their husbands. Age-wise, these women can be classified between 14 to 40 years of age, he says.

There is also every chance that this commercial sex is insecure. The GWA study also showed that only 61 per cent of the total male clients having sex were ready to use condoms.

Keeping in mind the gravity and vulnerability of the organised flesh trade, a number of social organisations and police have agreed to join hands to contain the trade.

A co-ordination committee comprising the social organisations and police has been constituted with a view to controlling the social crimes - women trafficking, drug abuses and open selling of alcohol in the market.

The co-ordination committee would decide what sort of actions it would take against the sex workers and the restaurant owner running such trade, said Kasturi Shrestha, chairperson of the recently formed committee.

"We have raided some of the suspected hotels and restaurants in the town based on the tips-off from the social organisations and individuals," says Police Inspector Raju Babu Shrestha.

In a series of such marathon raids, police on Thursday arrested two sex workers, with their male clients, and proprietors of the hotels secretly running such an illicit trade.

Police Inspector Shrestha said that the accused were found indulged in such immoral activities with the doors of the restaurant locked from outside. He also revealed that all of the arrested women are married but neglected by their spouses.

Having been arrested by the police, Sapana Gurung (name changed), one of the regular commercial sex workers in the town, disclosed that even people-of-repute had had physical relations with her on a number of occasions.

With the latest attempt of the police and the social organisations to take on this illicit trade, hoteliers have begun to threaten the locals in case they informed the police.

But the locals have not given up. Chairperson of the Nari Utthan Kendra (Woman Empowerment Centre), Durga Shrestha informed that the police raided the restaurant after it received a number of public complaints about the flesh trade.

Police have so far released more than a dozen people (after the beginning of the campaign) involved in prostitution, warning them of severe action in case they were caught again. Police say in absence of specific laws, police cannot take legal action against the people involved in the fledging sex trade.

Jay Trophy Cricket: Kapilbastu take the national title

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KATHMANDU, April 27 - Kapilbastu clinched the 17th Jay Trophy national cricket tournament as they crushed Parsa by four wickets in the final match played today at the Tribhuvan University ground, Kirtipur.

The title has come to Kapilbastu as early as in their second appearance in the Jay Trophy. In the last year’s tournament, their first, they finished second behind Kathmandu - the defending champions this year.

The unpredictable bounce from the pitch in today’s match played spoilsport as 14 wickets fell in a total of 47.4 overs. The wicket was a nightmare for the willow wielders as Parsa batsmen struggled to stay and score on it.

Batting first after losing the all important toss, Parsa batsmen could sum up a paltry 79 runs in 30.4 overs as none of the them seemed to have any clue against the incosistent bounce off the turf. The medium pacers look flatteringly dangerous. The Parsa innings started on a wrong foot as the first wicket fell without anything on board. The batsmen started panicking after that and half of the wickets had already fallen by the time a double digit score was registered.

Except for Jay Prakash Sarraf, none of the batsmen could show any kind of authority over the bowlers. He scored 33 runs off 66 balls. He was the only saving grace in the otherwise dismal Parsa scorecard. He belted a couple of balls to the boundary and lofted two over the fence. Coming in to bat at number five, he batted with a lot of application and was the ninth wicket to fall.

Apart from Sarraf, Bishal Gupta - the number 11 for Parsa - was the only other batsman to reach double figures with a breezy 17 coming off 15 balls. Opening batsman Prakash Sharma played an amazingly slow innings as he scored four funs off 44 balls. The rest of the batting card presented a sorry sight except for the extra coloumn which showed a total of 13 runs - a bonus for the team who could not get much help from its batsmen.

The Kapilbastu bowlers bowled within themselves utilizing help from the pitch. Basant Shahi was the most impressive bowler taking four wickets in his miserly spell of ten overs in which he gave away just 18 runs. Two of his victims were caught and bowled. Close behind Shahi was Basant Regmi who took three for 11 runs from his seven overs. Regmi also took a catch off his own bowling. Vijay Yadav scalped two wickets from his 3.4 overs.

Kapilbastu, could not have asked for a better run chase to become the champions. Kapilbastu batsmen did not let any miracle happen, much against the despair of Parsa fans and comfortably won the match losing just four wickets.

Raju Khadka, the highest scorer for the Kapilbastu outfit, blasted 25 undefeated runs in just 14 balls. He scored most of his runs in boundaries scoring four fours and a six. Sanju Thapa, the opening batsman, chipped in with 20 runs as the Parsa bowlers completed the formality of feeding ball to the bat.

Bishal Gupta was successful in taking two wickets for eight runs from his four overs while Nawab Ali and Rajib Shrestha took one each.

Basant Shahi was awarded man of the match trophy while Jay Prakash Sarraf was adjudged the man of the series for his 119 runs and 11 wickets in the championship which included a hat-trick. Paresh Lohani, last year’s man of the final and century maker in this year’s tourney, bagged the award for the best batsman. Raj Kumar Pradhan of Morang was declared as the best bowler of the championship.

In the match held to decide the third placed team Morang defeated Bara in the match played at Engineering College ground today.