Budget speech likely on July 7

Post Report

KATHMANDU, June 23 – Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat may table the annual budget  estimation for the fiscal year 2001/2002 in the first week of July in the upcoming budget session slated to begin on June 25.

Talking to The Kathmandu Post today Dr Mahat said that he is expecting to table the budget on July 7 or July 8. "However, it is the Speaker Taranath Ranabhat who will finally decide the date for the budget speech," said Dr Mahat.

Since the current fiscal year ends mid-July, the Speaker cannot delay budget speech later than the second week of July. The Speaker will decide the date for the budget speech after the conclusion of debate on the government’s policies and program. His Majesty King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev will address the joint meeting of the parliament on June 29 and unveil His Majesty’s Government’s annual policies and programs.

This will be the first such address by His Majesty the King after he assumed the throne on June 4 after the tragic demise of the then Kings late Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev and late Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev following the Royal Palace massacre on June 1.

Budget speech for the next fiscal year is already due going by the finance ministry’s initial target. The ministry was initially planning to present the budget in the first week of June, provided that the parliament resumed for the budget session. Last year, the government had tabled an estimated expenditure of Rs 91.62 billion rupees for the current fiscal year.

Oppn parties set to stall House session

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KATHMANDU, June 23 - With the 20th Session of parliament drawing nearer, the opposition parties are gearing up to go on the offensive which is likely to repeat the fate of the last session that remained stalled for all the 57 days it tried to conduct business.

This time, however, opposition parties have hinted that though the session might conduct formal business for a few days, it might once again revolve around the call for resignation of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala over his alleged involvement in the infamous Lauda Air deal.

Furthermore, the opposition are now saying that the fate of the coming session now lies on the hands of the government.

"The 20th session is beginning right from where the 19th session had ended...Plus, we have shown enough patience already with the recent turn of events," said K. P. Sharma Oli, Communist Party of Nepal (UML) standing committee member who is also considered the second most powerful leader within the main opposition.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who is also the Minister for Royal Palace Affairs, is also expected to come under fire for the Narayanhiti Palace massacre on June 1 that took the lives of late King Birendra and nine others. Moreover, the opposition parties have also strongly criticized the government for Pubic Security Regulations, 2001 and the arrest of journalists.

"We have been keeping aside our demand for PM Koirala’s resignation just because situations weren’t right (due to national mourning)," Oli said. "Now that even the CIAA has blamed PM Koirala for corruption, there is no other option apart from his resignation now."

Likewise, at an interaction program in the Capital today, leaders from the oppositions CPN-UML, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP) said that "they have agreed to move together ahead, reiterating their demand for PM Koirala’s resignation."

"The justification for demand for PM Koirala’s resignation has already been further proved...We are moving ahead with it in the coming session too," said Subash Nembwang, CPN-UML central committee member, who is also the chairman of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.

"PM Koirala has to be answerable on whether he wants the session to conduct business or not," he added.

Buddhiman Tamang, RPP central committee member, warned that the parliament would be stalled again if the government didn’t concede the opposition demand.

Likewise, Badri Prasad Mandal of NSP accused the government of being "involved in conspiracy" rather than looking for ways to agree upon the opposition demand.

"...If the government involves itself on making the parliament look foolish and lower its prestige then we’ll also resort to stalling the coming session," he said.

Maoists to protest against Regulations

KATHMANDU, June 23 (PR)- The underground Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-Maoist) has announced a series of programmes to protest against the recently announced Public Security Regulations-2001.

A press release issued here today signed by CPN-Maoist President Prachanda states that the government’s move to introduce the Regulations is an attempt to wipe out the rights guaranteed by the Peoples Movement of 1990.

The release states that as part of the series of protest programmes, copies of Regulations would be set on fire on June 25 and thereafter they would go for various publicity protests for 10 consecutive days.

The release also states that their party would stage torch rallies from July 8 to July 11. The release has also warned to stage Nepal Bandh on July 12.

HIV-infected Sharmila is living for a cause

By Tashi D Thinley

KATHMANDU, June 23 - Courage and determination has no limits and nothing can deter them. However mighty the hurdle, the courageous and the determined have always overcome all the odds. Even in the face of death.

One such person is 24-year old Sharmila Rai. She is not an ordinary lady. Not only because of her indomitable courage and never-say-die spirit, but also because she has not many years to live. She has contacted HIV, the precursor to AIDS which has no cure.

But she is not worried about her imminent end, whenever it comes. She is now busy studying in class three in a school. She could have been teaching students of class three herself. Only if a cruel incident had not occurred years ago.

Sharmila was one of many who was misled by people who lured and fascinated her to take the earliest train to Bombay. She was a mere 15-year old girl, naive and yet a brave girl. She went to Bombay in the hope of getting a decent job there.

She did get the job but something that she never even imagined. She was, at that tender age, caught up in the Bombay brothels for seven months. She was later taken to a rehabilitation centre in Bombay where she spent some months, before she, along with 18 other girls, flew back to Nepal with the help of various INGOs.

Back in Nepal, she was taken in INGOs like CWIN and ABC Nepal, where she received numerous counselling and awareness on AIDS. She was told that she had HIV symptoms coupled with tuberculosis. "That was the worst stage of my life; I was on the verge of giving up life and hope" Sharmila said.

She got the dreaded news at a time when AIDS created a panic in the world and people just did not even want to hear the dreaded term AIDS. Society looked down upon them and the victims themselves preferred to put fatal disease under the carpet.

For Sharmila, her world came crashing down. It was a fear of HIV coupled with despair and frustration.

Then a period of counselling and training began for her. She has proved to be a winner, says a doctor who has counselled her for two years. Says Dr Pushpa Bhatt, " Sharmila has acquired high self-esteem and is an independent woman today. I am proud to know her and she has now become an example for other HIV victims and AIDS patients."

Sharmila attends school daily. As her proficiency in English improves, she will be directly promoted to class five. In all probability, she hopes to study till class X.

She is doing all this, and living for a cause : Sharmila wishes to do something worthwhile for many underpriviledged kids back home.

"I have realised the importance of education today. And if I get to study till class X, I wish to go back to my village and teach the children there," says she.

Today, She is a busy woman. Sharmila is an expert hand in cross-stitching, embroidery, knitting and sewing. She now earns a decent income by selling her products.

Besides going to school, she represents AIDS victims in various conferences and gives them emotional support, health tips and personal guidance.

In her own words she tells her friends and sisters, "All human beings have to die one day, so one should not fear death. As long as we live, we should do something worthwhile for others."

Are other HIV victims, AIDS patients and their families and neighbours listening?

Royal Bengal tiger population going up in Terai Parks despite threats

By Surendra Phuyal

KATHMANDU, June 23 - Despite experts’ negative prognosis on the future of tigers worldwide, Nepali conservation officials say that there has been an encouraging rise in the population of the Royal Bengal tiger in the protected areas of the Terai in recent years.

The Royal Bengal tiger population in Nepal’s three major tiger habitats - the Greater Chitwan area including Parsa wildlife reserve, Royal Bardia National Park, and Royal Shukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve - in the Terai plains has gone up by as much as 20 per cent in the last four years, according to a recent count.

The count, carried out by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) in conjunction with several non governmental organizations working for nature conservation, suggests that the Bengal tiger population has climbed to 300-plus, up from around 250 in 1995-1996.

According to figures made available by the Department, the Bengal tiger population has now climbed to 60 from about 50 (in ’95-’96) in the Greater Chitwan forests, 40 from 32 in the Bardia forests and 23 from 16 in the woods of the Shukla Phanta reserve.

While the tiger populations were sparsely distributed in Parsa, Chitwan and Bardia parks, the population density was found highest in the far-western Terai reserve of Shukla Phanta - "one tiger per 10-to-12 sq km area".

The "camera-trap-aided count" was conducted by the Department with financial support from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) - Nepal Program, and with technical support from the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (KMTNC).

"We are pretty sure that more tigers are residing in the lush green forests outside these protected areas mainly in the forests east of Parsa and west of the Bagmati River," says Dr Tirtha Man Maskey, the Director General at the Department. "Virtually no sign of tiger movement was found in the areas east of the Bagmati."

The encouraging population growth trend of the highly endangered cat species is in stark contrast to a prognosis of tiger experts from tiger range countries - such as Russia, China, Malaysia, India - who, during the Chinese Year of the Tiger in 1998, suggested a massive decline in the population of the big cats worldwide.

According to them, the tiger population world wide would dwindle to "less than 500" by the next Chinese Year of the Tiger in 2010, when the magnificent `jungle kings’ would be surviving mainly in a "handful of Indian reserves".

Wildlife experts in Nepal say that the rise in tiger population in Nepal’s parks and reserves does not reflect the status of tigers in the region or the range countries in anyway. "This is just the story of the growth in tiger population in a small patch of forests in the Indian subcontinent," says Narayan Poudel, the Deputy Director and Ecologist at the Department.

Adds Narendra Babu Pradhan, another Ecologist at the Department, who was also involved in the count, "What is true is the fact that despite the growth tigers are under threat in Nepal like elsewhere. The problems are many: continuing habitat destruction and fragmentation, and decline in prey base due to increasing human persecution, and so on."

And there are experts who are cynical about the whole story.

"How can they make such tall claims? Where is the scientific data to substantiate the claims?" fumes an independent wildlife biologist with a leading non-governmental organization working in the field of nature conservation.

The Department officials, however, claim that "there is enough scientific data. We also have photographs of every single tiger residing in the three tiger units (habitats)." Adds Dr Chandra Gurung, Country Representative of the WWF-Nepal: "There is no doubt that the tiger population is going up in our Terai forests. And we are already working to prepare a photo album of all the tigers with individual details."

According to experts over 100,000 tigers belonging to eight subspecies - Royal Bengal, Caspian, Amur, Javan, Bali, Sumatran, South China and Indo-China - roamed the earth at the turn of the last (20th) century. However, this number came down to between 5,200-7,300 at the turn of this (21st) century, which saw the extinction of the two subspecies - Caspian in the 1970s and Bali in the 1940s - and near-extinction of the rest.

While the experts’ prognosis is already gloomy, thanks to rampant deforestation and rising human population, the threat to the tiger’s existence - the animal at the top of food-chain, which is also an indicator of healthy environment - has been exacerbated by unabated poaching. Tigers are killed for bones, claws, pelts and other organs, which are used in making Oriental Chinese Medicines which are consumed by the Chinese communities scattered across the globe.