PM Girija Prasad Koirala releasing a book entitled Nepali Shabdasagar by Basant Kumar Sharma Nepal on Tuesday.

Linguists' concern over endangered languages

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KATHMANDU, March 13- With an aim to preserve, develop and revitalise the moribund and near-extinction languages, the National Symposium on language death or suicide was held here today.

Eminent linguists and scholars from different parts of the world were present at the symposium. Everyone who participated in the discussion expressed their concerns over the languages that are extinct or near - extinction. They discussed about how the languages that are on the verge of extinction can be preserved and revitalised.

Nepal is deemed as the multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious country. Nepal has a rich linguistic and cultural heritage, how this can be preserved was thoroughly discussed in the programme.

According to the paper presented in the symposium by Steve Watters who was representing Central Department of Linguistics, Tribhuvan University, there are about 128 dialects in Nepal and 100 of them are endangered. Among that 100 of the dialects 10 of them are moribund or nearly extinct. Likewise, the paper also says Nepal faces huge task in documentation and potential revitalisation.

The paper has comprehensively described the need to preserve and revitalise the dialects, which are on the verge of extinction. According to the paper, languages express identity; languages are the repositories of history; languages contribute to the sum of human knowledge and languages are interesting in themselves are the reasons why it is important to preserve the near-extinct dialects.

In the programme, different queries were raised related to rights of the community rather than the rights of an individual.

The symposium was inaugurated by Keshar Man Rokka, Assistant Minister for Local Development. "Many of the dialects in Nepal are obscured and it is a high time to bring them into mainstream," Minister Rokka said.

Likewise, Prof Dr Tej Ratna Kansakar also expressed great concerns over the near-extinct languages. He said that Nepal can be taken as the research centre to study the Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages. He said if researches on those languages are done extensively, which are on the verge of extinction,they could be preserved.

Also present at the symposium were foreign scholars related to linguistics like Peter Laws ,Bryan K.Varenkamp, Nancy J. Caplow, Brigette Huber, Thomas E. Pen Sueyoshi Toba and Bryan Maddox.

Nane Annan inspects Maiti Nepal

KATHMANDU, March 13 (PR)- The visiting dignitary, Nane Annan, wife of United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan, went on an inspection visit to Maiti Nepal today and expressed her heart- felt sympathy to the women and girls returned from brothels in India.

Mrs Annan said,"Global proliferation of women trafficking and sexual abuses are serious problems and need a collective international efforts to address the phenomenon".

She also assured Maiti Nepal to raise the trafficking problem at the international level and appraise the UN Secretary General of the plight of the helpless girls.

Bharati Silwal, Assistant Representative of United Nations Development Programme and second officer of executive branch of the United Nations Missel Fanjo and other representatives were also present during the visit.

One dies, 55 affected by rabies in Kalikot

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KALIKOT, March 13 - A local youth has died after he was bitten by a mad dog and 55 others have been affected by rabies in this district.

Devi Lal Aidi, 30, of Khardu village in Ramnakot VDC, located about 34 miles north-east of the district headquarters, was bitten by a mad dog as he was coming home from India. He died last Thursday, three days after he reached home, according to Kalikot District Public Health Office.

When the dog bit him on the head, Aidi was scared of water, attacked anyone whom he met, released froth from mouth and kissed people. As his family members sought help from the traditional faith healers he could not receive treatment and died after three days.

The District Public Healht Office lacks any facility of vaccine, the office has requested the Communicable Disease Control Division to send the anti-rabies vaccine for the treatment of the affected people, according to officiating chief of the office, Mohammed Ozair Alam.

If the anti-rabies vaccine is not available soon in the district, the disease will be transmitted by the 55 people to hundreds of others who happen to come into their contact, warn the officials.

Mentally-ill man beaten to death

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BHOJPUR, March 13 - Local people bludgeoned one mentally-ill man to death after he attacked one female traditional healer to death in a local temple on Friday, according to a report received here.

Mentally-ill Pradeep Rai, 37, from Kaule VDC-1 struck healer, Pasang Devi Sherpa, 38, from Wasing Tharpu VDC-9, to death with a piece of firewood while she was treating his illness.

No sooner healer Sherpa lay down on the ground, other people gathered at the temple beat Rai to death by tying him on a pole.

An eyewitness said that Rai attacked the healer after she demanded a gold-plate for his further treatment. She had already charged more than Rs 80,000 from Rai time and again. Locals said Rai also set her home ablaze before he was beaten to death.

The District Police Office in Bhojpur said that both the dead bodies had been taken to the district headquarters for post-mortem. Police have begun investigation in connection with the incident.

Employees appointed without necessary formalities

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LUMBINI, March 13 - Seventeen people have received temporary appointment and eight people were promoted without fulfilling the necessary formalities in Lumbini Development Fund.

The employees who have received appointment and promotion range from peon to Subba (non-gazetted first class) levels.

The new appointments have been made amidst allegations by different organisations that the Fund has not been able to mobilize its existing employees and therefore it should dismiss excess staff to save unnecessary expenditure.

The new temporary posts were approved by the Fund at its council meeting and the appointments were made last month, according to Lumbini Development Fund.

The office had appointed the employees to the posts on the basis of their application and without completing any of the necessary process, such as advertisement, written and oral examinations, formation of selection committee etc.

Member-secretary of the Lumbini Development Fund, Janak Lal Shrestha, said the new employees were appointed on the basis of Lumbini Development Fund’s Guidelines on Staff Management.

Shrestha claimed that necessary process should be fulfilled for appointing the permanent employees, but not for appointing the temporary employees.

According to the Guidelines, the Fund at its meeting can appoint an officer level employee whereas the member-secretary or a person assigned by him is empowered to appoint the non-officer level employees.

He also added that six officer level and three other level employees are yet to be appointed temporarily.

There are currently 162 employees in the Fund, including 90 permanent employees. Only a few employees were made permanent by fulfilling the necessary formalities, but it is not known how the rest of the 90 permanent staff were made permanent.

Member-secretary Shrestha said the Fund was a fully autonomous body in accordance with its Act of 2042 BS and all the government rules were not applicable to it.

Some of the Fund’s employees have charged that the office was made a recruitment centre to employ people close to the Fund office-bearers.

Shrestha, however, claimed that the recent appointments were made after feeling the necessity for more employees.

Disabled people seek opportunity

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RAUTAHAT, March 13- General apathy toward disabled people, who are determined to make their own living, has a negative effect, say disabled activists here.

Citing one instance of indifference accorded to them, President of Rautahat Disabled Association, Prem Narayan Jha, says, "We’ve invited the Chairman of Chandranigahapur VDCas chief guest in our programmes on eight different occasions, but all in vain."

"If a responsible people’s representative acts toward us in such a manner, you can well imagine the treatment by other people."

In Rautahat alone, there are around 11 thousand disbled people, eighty percent of whom belong to the weaker sections of society. However, income-generating training facilities and other welfare schemes are virtually non-existent here. Worse, the District Education Office has this year even scrapped off adult literacy programmes designed for the disabled.

There is a statutory provision of free education for the disabled, but it is yet to be implemented anywhere in the kingdom. For example, three disabled students at Dhatatol Secondary School in Chandranigahapur are even paying monthly school fees, as do other normal students. The Disabled Association complained about this unfair practice to the District Education Office, mentioning that secondary education is free to everybody in Nepal, including the disabled, but as Jha says, "There was no response from education officials."

Chief District Officer Ananda Prasad Pokhrel, who also happens to be the Chairman of the District Welfare Committee, overseeing the schemes for the disabled, women and other disadvantaged sections of society, says, "Adequate opportunities and love, not pity, will surely make the disabled competent and productive," adding, "To look down upon the disabled is unbecoming of a civilised society."

Technical flaw hinders power supply

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KUSMA, Parbat, March 13 - Electricity from the 14.8 megawatts Modi Khola Hydel Project has shut down for two consecutive days due to technical defects in its power control system, according to the project.

Deputy Manager of the project, Kanhaiya Kumar Manandhar, said that there occurred some technical problems in the control system of the power house all of a sudden on Sunday. He said that he was seeking suggestions from foreign experts through e-mail to correct the technical defects. He said the problem seen in the system would be solved by Thursday.

Inaugurated by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on 9 December 2000, the project has been generating only five MW of energy due to low flow of water in the snow-fed river since the beginning of dry season. The power from the project has been connected to the national power grid at the Pokhara-based sub-station through 132kv transmission lines.