PM rejects Acharya’s resignation

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KATHMANDU, March 30 – Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has rejected Defense Minister Mahesh Acharya’s resignation and has urged Acharya to stay in the government.

Acharya, a close aide of PM Koirala, was given an additional portfolio of Defense Ministry following the growing misunderstanding between the police and army on security issue.

Acharya had resigned Thursday on moral grounds after the Supreme Court reinstated Dr Tilak Rawal as the governor of the Nepal Rastra Bank. The government had unceremoniously sacked Dr Rawal from the post of the Governor during the tenure of Mahesh Acharya as Finance Minister last August.

After submitting his resignation, Acharya had said, "As the departmental minister I take the responsibility behind Dr Rawal’s sacking…and since the Supreme Court has reinstated him I am quitting the government on the principle of morality."

Japan extends Rs 3.29 billion loan for Melamchi project

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KATHMANDU, March 30 – The Japanese Government today extended an important component of foreign assistance for Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) under which Nepal will get a loan assistance of Rs 3.29 billion from Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

Notes to this effect were signed and exchanged today between Japanese Ambassador Mitsuaki Kojima and Finance Secretary Dr Bimal Koirala on behalf of their respective governments, says a press release issued here today by Embassy of Japan.

The loan amount will be utilized to construct a Water Treatment Plant at Mahakal village near Sundarijal, north-east of Kathmandu. The treatment plant will obtain water from the tailrace of the tunnel constructed under the Melamchi Diversion Scheme component. In this facility, the water will be converted into WHO-standard potable water through treatment process, which includes aeration, sedimentation, and rapid filtration among others.

The Japanese Government expects that the Water Treatment Plant facilities will greatly help to reduce the cases of waterborne disease in the Kathmandu Valley, the release says.

At present waterborne diseases have been most prevalent forms of illness diagnosed among the out-patients at hospitals.

The project is one of the most important ones to be implemented under loan assistance of the Japanese Overseas Development Agency. It is hoped that this project will be yet another milestone in the cordial relationship of friendship and cooperation between Japan and Nepal, adds the release.

With this component of foreign assistance cleared away for the MWSP, the dream of the Kathmandu Valley population for clean and adequate drinking water supply comes nearer.

MSWP once completed will be able to supply water round-the-clock to the Kathmandu households. It is expected to pipe in about 170 million litres of water to the tenaciously water-shortage Kathmandu Valley. However, even if everything goes right, Kathmanduites will have to wait for at least next five years to consume the Melamchi water. Likewise the perennial water supply will not be without cost. With the completion of the project, water tariff is expected to go up by three folds afflicting a burden to mainly low-income families of the Valley.

The US$ 464 million project (approximately Rs 33.18 billion) is being jointly financed by Asian Development Bank, Norwegian Aid Agency (NORAD), Nordic Development Fund (NDF), Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and the World Bank. Nepal government will bear 115 million dollar of the cost.

Though ADB, the lead donor agency in MWSP has already agreed to extend US$ 120 million component of the loan and other prospective donor agencies have committed to extend support, The World Bank is yet to commit US$ 15 million component. There was even a rumor that the Bank could withdraw its hand from the project.

However, addressing a program this week, the World Bank officials said they are still willing to fund the project and the dialogue was going on with the government.

Bomb hoax delays IA flights

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KATHMANDU, March 30 – Two Indian Airlines flights bound for Kolkata and Varanasi were delayed for over two hours due to a bomb hoax call that was received at Tribhuvan International Airport today, according to Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) officials at the airport.

The hoax call came at the Terminal Duty Office at 3.22 p.m. Refusing to identify himself, the caller spoke in Hindi and asked the TDO staff to hold up the flights, IC 748 (Kolkata) and IC 751 (Varanasi) as bombs were placed on them. "If the planes fly, then you people will be responsible for the passengers’ death," the hoax caller was quoted as warning. The New Delhi-bound IC 814 had already taken off by that time.

Airport security officials swung to action and immediately informed the flight crew of the aircraft about the threat. Bomb Squad of Barrack 14, the army barrack at the airport, was informed of the development. After a search that lasted a little over two hours, the officials concluded that it was nothing more than a hoax call.

A Civil Aviation official told The Kathmandu Post that these threat calls were normal in international airports around the world.

The overall delay was five hours for the Kolkata flight and the Varanasi bound was delayed by three hours and 40 minutes as per their scheduled departure time. Airport officials said that the planes landed safely at Kolkata and Varanasi airports. They also revealed that no passenger had cancelled their tickets despite the knowledge of hoax call.

After the planes took off at about 5.45 p.m., the airport top brass closeted for the security de-briefing that takes place whenever such threat calls are received. The meeting was going on when The Kathmandu Post contacted airport officials for the information. The high-level meeting was attended by General Manager of the TIA, chiefs of Barrack 14, airport police and Vigilance Department and CAAN security officials.

An Indian Airlines official, who arrived late for the de-briefing, declined to make any comments when he was asked about the hoax call today.

NC MPs’ conflicting views on regular House business

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KATHMANDU, March 30 – The House of Representatives today witnessed conflicting opinions from the ruling lawmakers on whether the House could conduct regular business after the opposition boycotted the House.

Like other days in the current Winter Session of the parliament, the opposition boycotted the House yet again as soon as the Speaker opened the proceedings. The ruling party MPs were speaking after today’s boycott.

Arjun Jung Bahadur Singh of the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) said that he had not heard any instance of parliament conducting regular business in the absence of opposition parties. Singh added that it was the government’s responsibility to take the opposition into its confidence and ensure smooth functioning of the House.

Throwing barbs at Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala sympathizers, Singh said the opposition was demanding resignation of PM Koirala in a way similar to that of ruling lawmakers, "some of whom are ministers now", who had demanded former PM Krishna Prasad Bhattarai’s resignation over rising corruption.

He was responding to Tanka Prasad Kandel and Ram Baran Yadav who demanded of the Speaker to proceed with the normal business of the House, even without the opposition. Kandel had, in fact, pointed to the fact that since the party has the majority in the House, the Speaker should go ahead with regular business.

Dilli Raj Sharma alleged that there was a "grand design" to paralyse and do away with parliamentary democracy. He charged that the opposition was making a mockery of the parliamentary system in the country. Sharma also accused the opposition of disrupting the House in order to exert pressure on the Commission of Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) that is probing the infamous RNAC-Lauda Air jet lease deal. The opposition has been demanding the PM’s resignation for his alleged complicity in the Lauda jet deal.

The House has been adjourned until Wednesday.

Writ filed at SC

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KATHMANDU, March 30 - Two advocates filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court Friday demanding revocation of those clauses in the Constitution that do not allow a Nepali woman to transfer her citizenship right to her children.

Seeking the revocation, advocates Chandra Kanta Gyawali and Thakur Raman Acharya petitioned that some section of citizenship law based on sex embodied in the Constitution were discriminatory and needed to be abrogated.

According to Clause 9 (1) and (2) of the Constitution 2047, sections 3 (1), 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act, 2020 and the Citizenship regulations 2049’s rule 3, 3(a) and the same regulation’s appendix (1) and (2), it is stated that while obtaining citizenship in pursuant with legal process, a person could only be issued the same if only his father was a Nepali descent and not otherwise.

The advocates resented the "descent" criteria for obtaining citizenship under the earlier version maintaining it is discriminatory that a mother despite holding Nepali citizenship was not entitled to transfer her citizenship to her children.

Seeking the amendment to the law, the advocates petitioned that both the parents holding Nepali citizenship be entitled the equal right to transfer the citizenship right to their children irrespective of sex.

The writ has named the Cabinet Secretariat, Parliamentary Secretariat, Home Ministry, District Administration Offices, Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur as defendants.

‘Power cuts due to tech hitches’

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KATHMANDU, March 30 - Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has said that the recent disruption in electricity supply during the nights are due to "technical problems" that arise while fixing the load of electricity to its consumers.

In a press release issued here today, NEA also states that it has presently been trying to provide undisrupted services through its diesel plants despite the "unnatural" dipping of water level in its Kulekhani reservoir.

It has also requested all customers to consume minimum quantity of electricity in the present dry season to minimize the problem of shortage in electricity supply.

In the past years, NEA has resorted to a scheduled load-shedding after the level of water in its Kulekhani reservoir dipped very low in the dry season.

Love for money, buys daughters’ death

By Prakash Adhikari

NUWAKOT, March 30 - Man Bahadur Tamang (name changed) did what most father would not even dream of doing to his daughter ... he sold her for mere Rs. 30,000 to a brothel in the port city of Bombay.

Five years later, Tamang is a broken man and repenting not because his daughter could not send money back home like many of these women do, but because she is a full-blown HIV/AIDS patient. He has nothing left to do but curse himself for what should not have even crossed his thoughts.

He was tempted to sell off his daughter because he saw his niece send back home few thousand rupees earned in Bombay where she worked as a professional sex worker.

Greed led Tamang to sell his 15-year-old daughter Chandra Maya (name changed) into flesh trade in India so that she too would earn money as his niece had done.

Why did he force his daughter into the life in hell when he had enough land and could feed his children with the food he grew?

"I forcibly sold her despite her protests," Tamang laments, "Now she has been reduced to this pitiable state."

He acknowledges the responsibility of ruining her life. "At that time I saw nothing but money and money," said Tamang during his stay at the district headquarters.

There are estimated 100,000 Nepali women working in brothels in various cities of India. Many of them have been tricked or forcefully sold into the business while some like Chandra Maya are sold off by their guardians, who make the move to bail themselves out of poverty.

Human Rights groups say that most of these women, who say are working against their will, are abused physically and mentally. Many of them also end up contracting deadly sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and AIDS.

"I cannot show even my face to her. I am a disgraced father," he sobs.

Chandra Maya had pleaded with her father to send her to school before she was forced to go to ‘the other country for employment’. "I took her to this abyss, instead of school," he repents.

Chandra Maya, who left her home for the first time with her father to a city she had never visited before, noticed after three days that she had been sold to a brothel.

She said she had to do what the pimps made her to do. "Otherwise they would torture me," Chandra recalls the horrendous days she suffered. On pimp’s order, she had to serve four to five men every day.

Clad only in a kurta surwal and with a meagre amount of travel allowance, Chandra was expelled from the brothel after she was detected with HIV/AIDS virus, about a year and a half ago.

This hill district is notorious for woman trafficking compared to other neighbouring districts surrounding the Kathmandu Valley. Studies have shown that most of the girls are taken to Bombay with the consent of their parents.

Many people from the remote VDCs like Bhalche, Kimtang, Bungtang, Ghyangphedi, Rautbesi, Samundratar, Raluka, Gaon Kharka and Betini - majority of them are Tamangs - send their daughters to India "for the sake of their prestige" in the respective villages.

Studies carried out by various agencies claimed that more than 100 girls and women leave these villages every year to work as sex workers in various brothels of India.

Blood tests conducted recently among the India returnees at different local health centres revealed that four of them were infected with HIV/AIDS and one had already died of the deadly disease.