RNAC bosses sent to judicial custody

By Pramod Poudel

KATHMANDU, June 13 - Former RNAC chairman Hari Bhakta Shrestha, Board member Tirtha Lal Shrestha and four others were taken to Nakkhu Jail after they failed to deposit the bail as demanded by the judges of the Patan Appellate Court.

Passing the judgement, the division bench judges Buddhikant Mainali and Bhoop Dhoj Adhikari demanded a bail of Rs 40 million from former chairman Shrestha and Rs 35 million from the Board member Shrestha, while other board members Siddha Raj Joshi and Gauri Nath Sharma were asked for Rs 2.5 million as bail and Finance Department’s Upendra Prasad Upadhyaya and Corporate Department’s Pushkar Wagle were asked for a bail of Rs 1.3 million.

After hearing the court’s decision, the Shrestha duo and Joshi said that the court’s such decision was "very unexpected" and declared that they could in no way furnish the asked bail amount.

But the other three who were ready to deposit the bail also could not do so even as the court remained open until 7:30 p.m. in the evening. The trio are likely to submit the bail amount on Friday.

The court had passed the judgement in accordance with the clause 27 (4) of the Corruption Control Act-2017 BS (Nepali Calender) considering the defendants’ accountability and responsibility to their post, and on the basis of the evidences received so far.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed a case on May 25 against 10 people that included a former minister and two Lauda Air executives. Of the ten, only six were produced before the court. Ex-minister for Civil Aviation Tarini Datt Chataut and R R Upadhyaya, the then RNAC marketing director, remain absconding since the CIAA had charge-sheeted them. Now the court has summoned them, giving them a period of one month.

Two Lauda Air executives Andrea Molineri and Omar Lenz, who were also charge-sheeted in the case have been summoned through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The CIAA had charge-sheeted the accused contending that the decision to lease the Lauda Air jet was arrived at with malafide intentions which has caused the national carrier a direct loss of over Rs 389 million. The CIAA had asked the court to recover the loss from the accused as penalty.

Earlier the defense lawyers had asserted that the CIAA should have first charge-sheeted the Cabinet as the inherent "Condition Precedent" in the agreement paper clearly required the approval from both the concerned government authorities. They had argued that the government had approved the foreign exchange for the lease of the Lauda jet. They had argued that it is not within CIAA’s jurisdiction to examine whether RNAC was in need of the fourth plane and that it had no jurisdiction on RNAC’s policy level decisions. The defense lawyers had even argued that there existed no clear policy regarding the leasing of the jet.

Earlier, government lawyers Dinesh Hari Adhikari, Surya Koirala (a CIAA official as well), Dron Raj Regmi and Narayan Poudel representing the CIAA had argued that the agreement with the Lauda Air was very insecure as there was no approval of the concerned governments as required in the agreement.

"The Commission’s directives have barred leasing of aircraft without the tender process and that RNAC leasing the Lauda jet through direct negotiations was illegal," the CIAA’s lawyers had argued.

They also asserted that negotiation with the Lauda Air for the fourth jet was not necessary after the renewal of the lease agreement with China South West Airlines (CSWA). The lawyers reiterated that RNAC’s Board had only demanded foreign currency for the jet lease and not approval for the agreement from the Cabinet.

US asks Govt to free detained journalists

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KATHMANDU, June 13 – The government attorney today wrapped up the recording of statements of two Kantipur Publications executives in preparation for their next court appearance on Friday.

Kantipur Publications Managing Director Kailash Sirohiya and Director Binod Raj Gyawali recorded their statements at the government attorney’s office today, a day after a special court ordered that charges be filed by Friday morning. The duo have been held in detention with editor of Kantipur Yuvaraj Ghimire since June 6 for the publication of an opinion article by a rebel leader.

Ghimire’s statement was recorded yesterday during a lengthy session immediately after the Special Court ordered that the government file charges by Friday morning, rejecting the government’s request of a 25-day judicial remand.

In related developments, the US State Department has again called for the release of the three Kantipur journalists. According a transcript obtained here of the press briefing by State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher, the US has reiterated its concern over the arrests of the three journalists.

"Clearly we are concerned about this situation (continued detention)," Boucher said at a press briefing yesterday at the US State Department. "Their arraignment, we understand, has been postponed...because of an official holiday. The Embassy does intend to send a representative to the arraignment. We are following this case closely and we have urged the Government of Nepal to free the journalists We consider free press to be an essential element of a healthy democracy. In recent years, Nepali press has become much more independent in its reporting, and we have seen that independence as a good sign for Nepal’s future."

Meanwhile, other organizations are also calling for the immediate release of the journalists. The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in a letter to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, said the CPJ is "very concerned about the continued detention of the three journalists. We call for their immediate and unconditional release."

"CPJ is especially concerned that Ghimire, Sirohiya and Gyawali have been denied access to the telephone since last Friday, when a BBC reporter interviewed Ghimire via cellular phone. As a non-partisan organization dedicated to the defense of our colleagues around the world, CPJ is deeply disturbed that the Nepali government has deprived three journalists of their liberty for publishing politically controversial views...It is therefore incomprehensible to us that the peaceful expression of an opinion could ever be classified as crime."

From Japan too, there are reports of similar expressions of concern. On Wednesday, dozens of non-governmental organizations in Japan which are actively engaged in development work in Nepal have also protested the arrests of the journalists.

According to a report dispatched from Tokyo, the Nippon NGO Network for Nepal, comprising 52 Japanese NGOs, said it sent a letter to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala expressing "grave concern" over the muzzling of the country’s press. "We also hope that with all due haste freedom of speech will be restored...," the network said in the appeal.

Meanwhile back in Kathmandu, dozens of rights activists belonging to a dozen local Human Rights organizations marched in the Capital demanding the freedom of the Kantipur journalists.

Probe report today, says Minister

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KATHMANDU, June 13 - The government today said it was "optimistic" that the much-awaited probe committee report on the June 1 Royal Palace massacre would be made public tomorrow.

Speaking to journalists in the Capital Wednesday, several high-ranking cabinet ministers expressed optimism that the report could come out on Thursday.

Said Minister for Tourism, Culture and Civil Aviation Omkar Prasad Shrestha, "We are optimistic that the high level probe committee report being submitted to His Majesty King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, will be made public on Thursday."

Minister Shrestha’s statements contradicts information given out by high ranking government officials yesterday. In a report carried by this newspaper yesterday, those officials had said that the report, though would be handed over to the King on Thursday, might not be made public till Monday. The reason, they said, was the 13th day rituals of His Late Majesty King Dipendra, which is being marked on Saturday.

"The committee so far has not yet requested for more time...I am optimistic that the report will come tomorrow," Minister Shrestha told the press. "The report will even be posted on the internet."

The two-member committee comprising Chief Justice Kesav Prasad Upadhyay and Speaker of the House of Representatives Taranath Ranabhat has already been given more time to investigate the Royal massacre that claimed the lives of King Birendra and nine other members of the Royal family on June 1. The committee is due to present its report to His Majesty’s tomorrow.

According to Minister Shrestha, the commission will publicize the report once King Gyanendra gives the go ahead. "It is again the committee who will make the report public...I believe it will take place tomorrow," he said.

When asked how the government was going to handle the people’s mood after the report goes public, Minister Shrestha implied that he was assured that the people would not react negatively to the report of such a "significant" government commission.

"There is no way that a higher status commission than this could be formed. What to do? We cannot bring back the dead to speak the truth. Neither can we ask Lord Pashupatinath to name us the killer," he said.

During the meet, when asked why the number of tourists coming into Nepal had declined, Minister Shrestha said: "If I tell you the fact, it will be very very bitter...but its because of the Indian media."

Speaking at the same function, Defence Minister Mahesh Acharya reiterated the government request to the international media to refrain from "dis-informing the people."

"Report incidents fairly, freely...but please do not dis-inform the people," he said. "The issues are being brought out by the inquiry commission soon."

Meanwhile, the Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN) today has requested the international media not to "portray the wrong image of Nepal as an insecure tourist destination."

"Nepal Tourism Board and Hotel Association of Nepal has jointly established an emergency cell to take care of tourists for their transportation and managing their hotel...We would also like to assure that we are bound to inform our tourists through our tour operators and travel agencies not to travel to Nepal if the situation in the country is not favourable for the safety of the tourists," a release issued by HAN states.

RPP, NSP to hold talks with other parties

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KATHMANDU, June 13 – The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Nepal Sadbhavana Party will hold a second round of discussions with all political parties on how to achieve a minimum understanding "in this hour of grave national crisis", RPP spokesperson said today.

Speaking to The Kathmandu Post, Kamal Thapa said that it was of paramount importance to bring the situation back to normal first, "the one that prevailed before the June 1 Royal Palace massacre". He added that it was not a time to indulge in normal politics and insisted that "the path of confrontation at this time should be avoided by all means". He added that the party president Surya Bahadur Thapa had already held discussions with all the major parties and the second round was expected in a day or two.

When asked if his party would allow smooth functioning of the coming budget session, the RPP leader replied that the 20th Session was still far away and his party was yet to decide on the issue.

The 19th Session of the parliament was disrupted by the opposition, including the RPP, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala for his alleged complicity in the controversial Lauda jet lease deal.

Thapa said that the parties could defer on their fight against corruption or any other issue, but not when "the Monarchy, the multi-party democracy and the Constitution were under attack from different quarters". He declined to elaborate such attack.

However, Hridyesh Tripathi, the General Secretary of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP) said that if any party made smooth functioning of the Budget Session as a pre-condition to reach understanding during the current crisis, "the process would fall through". He too admitted that past issues should be kept at abeyance for a time being. The politics will take its own course in due time, he said.

As far as the coming session was concerned, Tripathi added that the central committee of the NSP would sit before that and take a decision. However, Tripathi reiterated the party’s position of opposing the Armed Police Force ordinance. The government had to re-promulgate the ordinance as it could not be passed in the last session.

Madhav Kumar Nepal, the General Secretary of the main opposition Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and Narhari Acharya, the spokesperson of the Nepali Congress could not be reached for their comments despite several attempts.

Census progresses to 45 districts

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KATHMANDU, June 13 - Despite obstruction by the Maoist rebels in a number of western hilly districts, the Tenth National Census has progressed into 45 districts so far.

However, many people in some of these districts have complained that the Census supervisors have not reached their home to collect data. Such complains came even from Bhaktapur, a district adjoining to the Capital city.

"No one related to Census has come to us," said Laxmi Prajapati, resident of Madhyapur, Thimi municipality. Laxmi’s family, which makes its living by selling vegetables, is probably among those families which lie below the poverty line.

"We have heard about the on-going Census but the people deputed to collect data are yet to show up in our area," Prajapati says.

Similarly, Ashaman Duwal of Bhaktapur municipality, expressed concern over supervisors’ negligence. " This Census can affect polices intended for us and can make a difference in our lives in the long run if it is conducted properly," said Duwal. " Till now no Census officials have arrived here to collect data."

However, Rabi Prasad Kayastha, Deputy Director of Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) denied such claims. "Since the supervisors are well-trained, I don’t think they have deliberately left out some families," said Kayastha.

If we come across such cases we will correct it thoroughly, said he. He further said that CBS is doing its best to make this Census a success by collecting authentic data.

Government has allocated about 280 million rupees for this Census. However, CBS have been claiming that, the allocated budget by the government is not sufficient. They say that, to make this Census a success, at least 300 million is required.

The Census in the remaining 30 districts including the Capital will begin from June 15. One of the tough challenges ahead for CBS is to send supervisors and enumerators in the Maoist affected areas.

To overcome this obstacle, CBS is seeking help from the Royal Nepal Army. "In the Maoists affected districts, the army helicopters are supplying the required materials for the Census," said an official at CBS.

After the family listings supervisors themselves are responsible for the sampling. Enumerators will conduct data collection according to the sampling done by the supervisors. Over 25,000 enumerators have already been selected for the second phase. Almost all of the enumerators are teachers of the local primary schools.

Barbers have no qualm going dry next few months

By Seema A. Adhikari

KATHMANDU, June 13 Paradoxical it may sound, but a host of businesses mostly barbers, caps and goggles-sellers among others thrived during the period that saw Nepal smudged in a catastrophe that brought many tears, pain and anguish.

Amidst such a mournful time for all businesses, these trivial businesses achieved bumper profits and sales of astronomical proportion. Around 90,000 barbers not only kept themselves busy shaving heads of tens of thousands of mourners in the aftermath of the June 1 Royal massacre, but also raked in a lot of moolah.

But the other side of the story, they assert, is that they may have to remain jobless for at least another two months, although there is no dearth of money (in their lockers). It may take a long time to heal the affect of the Royal carnage, but these barbers have no qualms of having to remain idle for another two months.

Anirudra Prasad Thakur, former general secretary of Nepal Barber Association said, "Money is not the issue here, it is the expression of love and respect". While most barbers said they made good money during the shaving sprees, others complain that as they had offered their services free-of-cost and fear running dry in the days to come.

Meanwhile, response shown by the cap sellers in the capital city reveals yet another unprecedented windfall. The caps market, which skyrocketed initially, took a nose-dived with the imposition of the curfew.

Dharma Bansi Tuladhar, who runs a store at Kel Tole in the Capital, sold approximately 900 caps during the week. Around 300 people crowded his shop daily to buy Bhadgauley Topis .

Navin Shrestha who runs a cap house at Ason said he sold some "army-size caps" worth Rs 25000 in two days. "People unusually flocked on Wednesday and Thursday, when curfew was lifted," he said.

Along with the sudden upsurge in the sale of Bhadgauley topis, goggles business also boomed last week, along with the sale of Royal Family portraits at every nooks and corners of the city.

Another barber, Anil Yadav at Minbhawan expressed similar optimism for the service when he had to hire more barbers to meet the surge of clients swarming his saloon. He says that the love these barbers had for their king found vent in shaving the head on charity sometimes. "We paid tribute to the living heritage of our nation, the incarnation of Lord Vishnu," he said.

When asked about the effect that will have on their business, with such a large number have had their head shaved, some barber said, "It will be slow business for next fifteen days, after that the clients will require the trimming and our income will bounce back again."

"Even if my business incurs losses, I will not mind because I did it for my beloved King," said tearful Devendra Thakur, shaving a client at Babarmahal. "We can go hungry for few days for our beloved King and Queen," he adds.

"This is just an indication of how dear the Royal Family was to everyone. Not only the literate or the privileged were the ones worried about the loss, but also people of all trade came together in times of sorrow and pain. Besides, all of them were united during this tumultuous time praying for the eternal peace of the departed souls, who left behind millions of orphaned Nepali people.

KMC begins assigning new house numbers

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KATHMANDU, June 13 - Around 3,000 buildings situated in central Kathmandu are getting new house numbers in accordance with the newly implemented Metric Addressing System (MAS), Kathmandu Metropolitan City officials said.

"All the official works of the first phase have been complete. Because of the recent disturbances in normal life, the house number and street name distribution could begin only from next week," said Dwarika Shrestha, the senior infrastructure engineer of Kathmandu Valley Mapping Programme (KVMP), the institution of KMC, which is studying and implementing the new addressing system.

Blue plates are to be distributed to the households and each houseowner will have to pay Rs 100 to get that number, KVMP officials said.

In the first phase, the address numbers will be distributed in the central sector of the Capital city’s ward No 1, 5, 11, 31 and 33 — the area stretching from Tundikhel to Dhobikhola. The city is divided into six sectors — West, North Core, South Core, Central, North and West for this purpose.

KVMP started collecting basic data around a year ago, to provide the citizens with one uniform house numbering system all over the metropolis. The address system of the Capital city has already been changed twice in last three decades.

This system distributes house numbers to the houses according to their distance in metre from the originating point of the street to the houses’ main entrance. The houses on the right hand side get even numbers and those of the left hand sides get odd number. The North South street has its originating point on their South end and those of East West has its on their East end.

Shrestha of KVMP said that in previous systems, though they were easy to distribute, becomes difficult when the number of houses increase. "But here, we don’t give number in sequence. The distance from one point determines the house number. For example if one person’s house is 25 metres away from the street point, it means his house number is 25," he said.

Likewise, the MAS also carried out the task of regulating the street names. The names were provided to MAS by the ward offices, after holding meetings with the local people. "Giving name to the streets is one important part of MAP. It took more time than we planned because we have lots of traditional names and efforts were made to keep those names unchanged," he said.

To complete this addressing task, the roads of Kathmandu are classified into four classes : Path, Sadak, Marga and Galli. Paths have over 14 metre breadth and gallis are ones which are too narrow to pass a car. Names were not given to the street shorter than 50 metres.

Surveying for addressing has been complete in all wards except ward No. 13, 14 and 15. There are 35 wards in KMC.

Gastro toll climbs to 13 in Doti

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DOTI, June 13 - Death toll from gastro-enteritis seven Village Development Committees (VDC) of this far western hill district has climbed to 13 over the last weekend, according to the District Hospital.

The hospital said that more than 600 people have been affected by the communicable disease that usually grips the entire community as a result of poor sanitation.

The District Hospital said that people from the VDCs such as Tilaji, Khatiwada, Mahadevsthan, Bajhak Kani, Daha Kalikasthan, Lamikhal, Kalikasthan and some of the wards of the Dipayal-Silgadhi Municipality have been affected the most by the disease.

A large number of people from remote villages have been rushing to the hospital for cure of the disease, the hospital source said.

The Health Officer at the District Public Health Office, Kehar Singh Godar, said many people suffered from the disease had to be rushed to the district hospital as more than 100 health workers’ posts in many rural health centres have remained vacant for a long time.

Godar, however, said several medical teams had been mobilised to gastroenteritis affected areas along with medicine despite the shortage of adequate human resources and medicine.

Health workers assigned to the rural areas said that they were helpless to deal with the growing number of the patients due to the unavailability of adequate medical supply.

Kalikasthan VDC Chairman, Chandra Nath Ojha, said that his and other neighbouring VDCs arranged medicine to the victims by mobilising their own local resources.

Chief District Officer, Taranath Gautam, said that they were planning to hire additional health workers from outside on contract basis to tackle the epidemic.

He added that he had already requested the Health Ministry to supply more medicine keeping in view the seriousness of the situation.

Health Officer Godar said that epidemic of the communicable diseases like gastroenteritis could be easily controlled if locals remained cautious about their health and hygiene, especially during the rainy season.