House approves property rights Bill amid protests
Bill also legalizes abortion under specific cases

By Binaj Gurubacharya

KATHMANDU, Oct 9 – Amid boycott by the main opposition CPN-UML and protests by other smaller opposition parties, the House of Representatives today approved the 11th Amendment to the Muluki Ain (Civil Code) which purports to grant a semblance of property rights to daughters.

The same Bill also legalises abortion under certain cases, overturning the complete ban on abortion hitherto in effect. The new law would help control the high maternal mortality in Nepal, half of which is blamed on unsafe abortion

The passage of the Bill however did not go down well with the communist opposition which decried the government’s backtracking on a key provision which granted daughters right to keep parental property even after getting married. Despite promises the governing Nepali Congress later back tracked on the provision, firing the opposition’s ire.

"The Bill is against the rights given by the Constitution and there is no point in getting such a Bill through Parliament," CPN-UML’s Asta Laxmi Shakya said before all the lawmakers from the party boycotted the House proceedings in protest.

Lawmakers of the National People’s Front and United People’s Front shouted slogans while Rastriya Prajatantra Party did not participate in the protests.

The Bill was presented for voting by Minister Chiranjivi Wagle on behalf of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who also holds the Ministry for Women, Children and Social Welfare.

The Bill that was adopted today by the Lower House still has some way to go before it becomes law. The Upper House has also to pass it, and finally King Gyanendra must grant the royal assent before the Bill becomes law. Only then can daughters stake equal claim on parental property.

The existing laws says that women have to be 35 years old and remain unmarried until that point if they are to stake claim on parental property. But once married, the property has to be returned. Now women will be able to get their share once they become adult. They do not have to remain unmarried till the age of 35.

The provision on abortion as prescribed in the Bill enables women to abort up to 12 weeks of pregnancy with their husband’s consent. In the case of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, pregnancy up to 18 weeks may be terminated.

In the cases where pregnancy poses danger to the physical and mental health of mothers or if medical reports prove that foetuses are damaged leading to the birth of a disabled child, abortion is permitted in any time with the consent of the pregnant woman.

However, if in case anyone is found testing to find the sex of the foetus with the intention of aborting, they could face three-to-six months of prison sentence and if abortion is carried out on the basis of sex of the foetus then the punishment is additional one year.

This is to discourage the growing discriminatory practice in the society to give preference to male child over the females and abort if found the child could be a girl.

"This trend that follows the western culture would only start sexual anomalies in the society," Angur Baba Joshi, a right-to-life activist told The Kathmandu Post. "It is not an issue that should have been decided so easily but rather there should have been a national referendum."

Activists like Joshi argue against the idea of legalising abortion and say it is equal to legalising the killing of human being. They say abortion violates the human rights of the unborn baby. But supporters of the Bill, and there are many here, interpret abortion as women’s fundamental right — a right to choose — and women should not be deprived of it.

Nepal remains one of only eight countries in the world that not only deprives women their right to choose but also criminalizes women for having abortions.

While the exact number who have served prison terms for abortion is unavailable, it is estimated that anywhere from 20 per cent up to two-thirds of the women presently incarcerated here have been convicted of undergoing an illegal abortion.

Meanwhile, the women’s department of the All Nepal National Free Student Union torched a copy of the Bill in Kathmandu to register their protest against the "incomplete" Bill. The activists also accused the government of continuing discriminatory practices against women.

Government against compromise on land ceiling

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Oct 9 – The debate on the government’s controversial Land Reforms Bill began today as the government side insisted they would not budge from the ceiling set by them on ownership of land.

The parliamentary Natural Resources and Means Committee began debate on the Bill proposing amendment to the Land Reforms Act of 1964 that followed "revolutionary land reforms" announced by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

"The Bill presented by the government reflects the view of the government and it will stick with it," said Tek Bahadur Chokhyal, Chief Whip of the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) indicating the government would not compromise.

In the Bill, the government proposes that people in the Kathmandu Valley will be able to own as much as 30 ropanies of land compared to the inhabitants of the Terai region in the south who will have land no more than 11 bigas or 143 ropanis.

The rest of the people in the hills and the mountainous region, which covers most of the country, would have the right to own 75 ropanis at the most.

"There could be changes in other clauses of the Bill but the government is not ready to change the ceiling set on the proposed Bill," said Chairman of the Committee Lekhnath Acharya, who is also a lawmaker from the NC.

The main opposition CPN-UML is proposing that the ceiling be set at 58.5 ropanies in the Terai region, 20 ropanis in the hilly region including the Kathmandu Valley and 80 ropanis in the Himalayan region.

However, for the land inside the perimeters of the Kathmandu Metropolis, land ceiling be set at 10 ropanis and in any other municipality the ceiling be set at 20 ropanies. But if the number of family members exceed six or more, additional 2 ropanies per family member in the Kathmandu Valley would be included but 10 ropanies in the rest of the country would be added to the ceiling set.

CPN-UML is also suggesting that the number in a family be set at five so that there is consistency while determining the land ceiling. Present laws say that a family consists of husband, wife and sons who are under 16 and daughters who are under the age of 35 if they are still unmarried. A son after he reaches the age of 16 is considered an adult and a different family with legal rights to own property.

"The definition of family members has remained vague so we are suggesting that there be a standard fixed at five people in a family," said CPN-UML’s Prem Bahadur Singh.

"There should have been scientific rationale behind the ceiling fixed by the government based on the Badal report which was prepared after much research, investigation and consultations with experts," said Gokarna Bista of the CPN-UML.

India bars Nepali agro-products

Post Report

BIRATNAGAR, Oct 9 – Dozens of trucks laden with Nepali agro-products were barred from entering the Indian territory by the Indian authorities in Jogbani border here saying that there is no plant quarantine check post to check the products entering the Indian market.

The Indian authorities banned the import of 26 major agro products from Nepal and have made it clear that they would not let the products enter their market until the products were "properly" checked, concerned businessmen here said.

As a result of this, many trucks loaded with the products returned back to Biratnagar. The automobiles later entered India through Kakarvitta, another entry point to India in eastern Nepal.

The products that were denied entry by the Indian authorities include wheat, tea, flour, spices, fruits, tea, furniture, animal feed, vegetable ghee etc. The Indian side informed that since plant quarantine check post has not been established at the Jogbani border point the agro-products could not be allowed.

Definition of terrorism sought

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KATHMANDU, Oct 9 - Nepal could play a major role in getting the United Nations and the South Asian countries define terrorism and help institutionalise the ongoing campaign against it, various experts on foreign affairs said today.

Speaking during a face to face programme organized here today by the Reporter’s Club experts including former foreign ministers Kamal Thapa and Sailendra Kumar Upadhyaya, CPN-UML leader Jhal Nath Khanal and former SAARC Secretary General Yadav Kant Silwal stressed the necessity of United Nations defining terrorism.

Former SAARC Secretary General Silwal even suggested that Nepal could call an extraordinary meeting of SAARC in order to define terrorism in a regional way. He also said that Nepal should raise its voice for UN involvement in the fight against terrorism.

Former foreign minister Sailendra Kumar Upadhyaya expressed fear that if UN was not involved in the ongoing campaign led by the United States in Afghanistan, then there always would be a danger of any big country attacking smaller countries in the name of terrorism. At the same time Upadhyaya also said that since the Maoists were fighting for a political cause, they in no way can be termed terrorists.

A leader of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Kamal Thapa said that his party fully supported the Government decision to back the United States in its "war against terrorism". Saying that it was terrorism more than foreign aggression that could endanger Nepal’s sovereignty in the long run, Thapa pointed out that every country made its foreign policy keeping its interest in mind.

Thapa further laid stress on institutionalising the ongoing campaign against terrorism and said that a country like Nepal could play a major role in not letting it fizzle out after some time.

Jhala Nath Khanal, a leader of the CPN-UML speaking in a different note, said that the ongoing campaign against terrorism should be strictly limited on what is being said.

Khanal went on to say that the September 11 attacks in the United States were due to "inequality in the world system" and that it needed to be changed by changing socio-economic structure of the world if terrorism is to be eradicated at all.

Special Education for disabled yet to take off in far-flung districts

By Kiran Chapagain

KATHMANDU, Oct 9 - Like the other programmes envisaged in the past Five Year Plans, most of the plans related to Special Education that are made in the Ninth Five Year Plan have remained unimplemented. And this has directly affected the country’s disabled community of approximately 2.4 million. The Ninth Five Years Plan is running in its final or the fifth year currently.

The Plan has proposed Special Education programmes for the disabled people as part of the ‘Education for All’ and ‘School for All’ and a number of other schemes. However, experts closely following the developments say that like the other targets the government’s plan to increase disable literacy rate to five percent by 2002 has remained in limbo.

And they point out a number of factors for this: The government bodies that are responsible for implementing the plan lack co-ordination among themselves, that the officials are only good at paying lip service and are negligent, and that the "official attitude" towards the disabled is still "negative".

Says Muniswor Pandey, President of the National Federation of the Disabled (NFD), "Only a handful of programmes envisaged by the Plan has been implemented, whereas the major programmes—such as opening of training institutes for multi-disabled people—have remained unimplemented."

Besides launching Special Education programmes in the places where Compulsory Primary Education Programme (CPEP) has been conducted, the plan has for the first time proposed to introduce institutions to give education and training in all five-development regions for the multiple disabled (people having more than one disabilities). To the disabled people’s utter dismay, however, all the plans continue to remain unimplemented.

The Plan also has a high ambition of increasing the disabled literacy rate up to five percent in the five years’ time. Less than one percent of the disabled people were literate when the plan four years back. "But none of the proposed schemes has started," says Pandey.

However, officials at the Department of Education and the Special Education Council, under the Ministry of Education, the two government bodies responsible for educating the disabled and other people, do not buy arguments that the targets have not been met. They assert that they have done that best, and that "most of the targets have been met".

They also maintain that they have started Special Education in all five districts—Ilam, Parsa, Chitawan, Syangja, and Kailali—where the CPEP is underway. "We have already started special education, as envisaged in the Ninth Plan, in the places where Compulsory Primary Education is underway," said Bishnu Kumar Devkota, Deputy Director at the Department of Education, who is also the head of Special Education Section under the Department.

He also said that no follow-up of the disabled people’s increased literacy rate has been carried out, and that they are yet to evaluate the programmes.

But, for President Pandey evaluation and follow-ups carry no importance. Pandey says, "I do not think the objective is achieved since no work has been done to meet the set objective of increasing the literacy rate to five percent". Adds he, "The concept of Special Education was introduced for the first time way back in 1964, and nearly 40 years down the road we have done little headway."

Another plan yet to be completed is to amend the curriculum for disabled students. It is also limited to the pages of the Plan, say experts. The concerned officials said they have no information about such a curriculum. "No the plan has not yet begun," says Gopal Prasad Kandel, an official at the Special Education Council.

Special Education programme is considered as a model programme intended to educate and uplift the disabled (the physically handicapped, mentally retarded, deaf and the blind). The government, some donor agencies and even the private sector have been running schools to educate the disabled.

According to data made available by Pandey, there are approximately 2.4 million disabled in the country, and no body knows for sure how many of them can read and write. The Department offers education only up to grade five in 228 schools in 35 districts while the council oversees education up to the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) level in 33 schools in 18 districts.

The programme has not yet been implemented in 57 districts.

There is no provision for the disabled to pursue their education in the higher level. Even those willing to pursue their education after SLC have been denied such opportunities. Meanwhile, the government is in dialogue with a Korean University to establish a university meant exclusively for the disabled, according to Gopal Prasad Kandel, an official at the Special Education Council.

Review of 20-plus-year-old vehicle ban urged

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KATHMANDU, Oct 9 - Automobile distributors today demanded that the government review its decision to ban the 20-plus-year-old vehicles from the Kathmandu Valley.

Participating in the 25th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Nepal Automobile Dealers Association, they also urged the government to take concrete steps to improve the quality of the imported petroleum products and roads of the Valley to control the growing air pollution.

Addressing the inaugurating session, Keshar Jung Rayamajhi, Chairman of Raj Sabha Standing Committee highlighted the role of private sector in the economic development of a country and expressed the hope that the existing problems of the automobile dealers can be solved through negotiation.

Lok Manya Golchha, President of the association said that the slowdown of the economic activities of the country has hurt the automobile business and warned that if the government fails to take necessary measures to accelerate the economy, than the domestic as well as foreign investment will be discouraged.

Rajesh Kaji Shrestha, President of Nepal Chamber of Commerce said that automobile industry is playing a remarkable role in the nation building process and urged the government to reduce the current customs duties on the vehicles and its parts to develop domestic vehicle market.

Binod Bahadur Shrestha, first vice president of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry urged the association to strengthen its role in providing better services to the public. He also informed the federation has formed a committee of commodities associations to recommend various solutions to solve existing problems.