Temba Chhiri honoured

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KATHMANDU, June 26 - Madhav Kumar Nepal, General Secretary of CPN-UML felicitated Temba Chhiri Sherpa, the youngest Mount Everesteer, amid a programme organised here in Kathmandu, today.

The felicitation programme was organised by CPN-UML affiliated Dolakha - Kathmandu Samparka Manch (Dolakha-Kathmandu Contact Forum).

Speaking at the programme lawmakers duo, Ananda Prasad Pokharel and Pashupati Chaulagain demanded the government’s attention to help Temba Chhiri for his future education and livelihood.

On the occasion, General Secretary Nepal handed over a felicitation letter to Temba Chhiri awarded by the organisers.

NGOs urged to be service-oriented

BUTWAL, June 26 (RSS)- Majority of the speakers at a day-long workshop seminar on Non-Governmental Social Movement: Realities and Challenges organized here Sunday by the NGOs Federation Nepal Rupandehi branch, pointed out that the state should adopt clear policies, rules and concept regarding the management, programmes, social responsib-ilities and transparency of the NGOs which is being widely debated at present.

Although the participants appreciated the NGOs for fulfilling the challenging role in local capacity-building and skill development, uptimum utilization of local resources, social mobilization, equitable distrib-ution of resources and promotion of human rights and social justice, they also stressed the need for the NGOs to adopt self-regulatory process in connection with their working methods and transparency.

The participants concluded that the NGOs should under no circumstances be involved in the inter-party power politics and their main concern and objective should be the welfare of the people and the community and how to empower them.

Deputy Mayor of Siddharthanagar Municipality Hari Adhikari, Dr Gitu Giri and chief of Butwal Multiple Campus Ananda Man Shakya urged the NGOs to be more service-oriented.

Western regional member of the NGO Federation Siddhi Charan Bhattarai, intellectual Balkrishna Bhattarai, All Nepal Women’s Association Rupandehi district president Pushpanjali Upadhyaya, convenor of the Children’s Welfare Centre Indra Dahal and Federation’s district treasurer Mukti Ram Pokharel also expressed their views at the seminar.

President of Rupandehi district NGO Federation Santosh Raj Pandey chaired the seminar.

RNAC refunds ticket fare

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KHANDBARI, June 26 - Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC), the national flag carrier of Nepal, today finally returned the money of the passengers of its six flights after it cancelled the flights for several times.

The RNAC chief of Tumblingtar Airport Tejnath Ranabhat said that the complains of the passengers were massive as the only notice from the capital he gets is about cancellation of flights from Kathmandu. "It is quite difficult working here," he said.

Airways is the only means of transportation to the hilly region.

So much so, the local representatives, going to vote in the Wednesday’s Upper House meeting also preferred to walk to Dhankuta than waiting for the plane to take them to the election centre. Sankhuwasabha District Development Committee Chairman Tulsi Prasad Neupane said walking is better than waiting for the plane in vain.

Apart from the state-owned airlines, two other private airlines also had routine flights to Tumlingtar Airport but they also stopped flying to this hilly region fearing technical problems.

Concern raised over Khanal’s re-arrest

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KATHMANDU, June 26 - The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) today expressed its concern over the re-arrest of Asha Khanal without arrest warrant even after the Appellate Court, Pokhara had ordered for her release.

The plain clothes policemen waiting outside the Kathmandu district court’s premises had re-arrested Khanal last week. She was in detention in Bhadragol Jail at Sundhara for nearly a month.

Issuing a press release, NHRC has asked the government to make public the situation of Khanal.

Earlier the court had released Khanal six times, but each time the court released her, the police had re-arrested her.

Meanwhile in Mahendranagar, police re-arrested Pushkar Sharma who was released by the District Court here on Tuesday. Police had arrested Sharma outside the court premises. The police had even mistreated journalist who had been to the court for reporting.

Sharma was arrested earlier five months ago as a Maoist suspect despite the Appellate Court then had ordered for his release.

Police into social service in Maoist-hit Rolpa

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ROLPA, June 26 - Local people have started developing positive attitude towards the policemen after they involved themselves in community services in this Maoist hit remote hill district in the mid-western region.

Apart from their regular duty of ensuring public security, the policemen have also spared their time for community welfare programmes in the district headquarters and its neighbourhoods in order to regain their lost image.

Locals first could not believe in themselves when the policemen held a free of charge health camp at Haleri-based health centre and provided with medicine to the locals.

In the beginning, people were not ready to have their health checked up at the camp organised by the police that had arrived there by helicopter with medics and medical supply.

But the locals spontaneously came out of the Maoist controlled area and took advantage of the once-in-a-blue-moon health camp opportunity.

Police said a total of 412 people from Dubring, Jhenam, Sakhi, Bukhi Danda and other neighbourhoods had their health checked up in the one day health camp. Locals said this was the first ever programme launched by the government agency in this insurgency hit district from where the underground Maoist party declared its arms struggle six years ago.

The government’s presence had almost disappeared from the rest of the district except in the district headquarters following the removal of all police outposts from remote villages for fear of their own safety.

In the past, police had launched aggressive campaigns like ‘Rome Operation’ and ‘Kilo Shera Two’ with a view to containing the growing Maoist insurgency. However, the aggressive move turned out to be counter productive to the government itself, locals said.

A police official said that the locals used to terrify and run away at the sight of the policemen in their villages. "We are trying our best to regain our image that was tarnished in the course of our operation," he said requesting anonymity.

Hundreds of people, including the policemen, rebels and civilians, have lost their lives since the beginning of the rebels waged People’s War.

All is not well with Express Postal Delivery Service

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TIKAPUR, June 26 - The Express Postal Delivery Service, started by the Department of Postal Services in Kailali three years ago has proved a failure.

The objective of the service was to help the people avail of the cheap, speedy and quality service as against the costly courier service run by the private sector. However, lack of publicity about the service has been deemed as an important factor for the failure of the service.

The Express Postal Delivery Service, which started to provide service from more than 35 municipalities of the country since the fiscal year 1998-99, are deemed as very cheap as compared with the courier service run by the private sector. However, another reason for the failure of this programme is people’s lack of confidence in the postal system, according to customers.

Although it is far cheaper than the private sector courier service and also registry and parcel services of the Department of Postal Services another reason for the failure of this service is the confusion and lack of clarity in government’s policy, according to employees of the postal department.

The post offices charge minimum Rs 10 for a parcel weighing up to 50 grams and Rs 10 for registry parcel weighing up to 20 grams as against Rs 35 charged by the private sector courier service for all the destinations in the country.

Asked why the service was not popular despite the fact that it was so cheap, District Post Officer Bala Ram Sharma pointed out two main reasons, which included the inability of the postal service to compete with the private courier service and lack of publicity campaign. Consequently, very few customers were aware of the express delivery service run by the Department.

Customers, however, complain that their parcels are not delivered to the concerned party after they were booked. If the service is run speedily and effectively by winning the trust of the people it would increase the government revenue on the one hand and provide relief to the customers with its cheap and quality service on the other, according to customers.

Vegetable farming pays dividend

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SALYAN, June 26 - Farmers in the rural area of Salyan district have been attracted towards vegetable farming.

Farmers are actively engaged in vegetable farming because this occupation has enabled them to buy things of their daily necessities and it has also proved to be the main source of their income.

Farmers are growing seasonal and off-season vegetables. Since there was a lot of profit in the investment made in this occupation about 40 percent of the farmers of the district have been attracted towards this occupation.

About 700 to 1,000 kilograms of vegetables is sold at the district headquarters daily. Most of the vegetables grown in different parts of the district is brought to the district headquarters. All the people derive benefit from the vegetables in this district.

Farmers grew 12,092 metric tons of vegetables from 865 hectares of land during the last fiscal year while their target for the current fiscal year is to grow 14,079 metric tons of vegetables from 1040 hectares of land.

Two weekly markets are held on Tuesday and Friday in Kapurkot, the main vegetable producing centre of this area in view of the increase in vegetable growth. According to Agriculture Development Office, there are many vegetable shops in the district headquarters and other places.

The office has been organising various programmes, such as training , visits, seminars etc. for farmers engaged in vegetable farming for the promotion of vegetable farming, occasinally. similarly, the office has been constructing a hatbazaar (marketing place) at a cost of about Rs 500,000 to develop it as Agricultural product Bazaar Centre. President of the centre at Kapurkot, Bhim Bahadur, has urged the DDC to withdraw the tax on vegetables because farmers were not likely to reap the desired benefit from their vegetable produce as a result of this tax.

Broad daylight robbery !

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LALITPUR, June 26 - In the bright daylight, three unidentified people broke into a idol dealer’s house in the capital valley and looted cash and gold worth nine hundred thousand rupees Monday afternoon.

"They came in a group of three at 2.00 p.m. and looted away all what we have earned in around a decade, " said 53 years old Gyan Bahadur Shakya of Kunlin Khyaa, Purnachadi of Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan City Ward No 20.

He said that they asked us to open the door pretending to be officers of home ministry and started searching the house. They had fake letter from the ministry also.

"At the point of the pistol, they took away Rs 830,000 and some other gold ornaments from our locker," Shakya said.

The police authorities at District Police Office Lalitpur said that the investigation on this case was going on. They have arrested the driver of the taxi they hired.

Lalitpur Mayor Buddhi Raj Bajracharya said that the incident is an example of the poor security management in the city. "The criminal must be arrested as soon as possible," he urged.