His Majesty graces Samyak Mahadan

By Perina Pathak

KATHMANDU, Jan 14:Hundreds of residents of the capital city Monday visited the vicinity of the historic stupa of Swayambhunath, where His Majesty King Gyanendra was present for the traditional Samyak Mahadan, and offered prayers to the King, who is worshipped by the country’s Hindus and Buddhists as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.

Though the Samyak Mahadan invitation was offered personally by Ram Kumari Manandhar, a 68-year-old Buddhist woman of the historic city, the Swayambhunath foothills was crowded with hundreds of people, among them the capital’s Newari Buddhists, onlookers and tourists.

No sooner had the King arrived at Bhuikhel, the venue for Monday’s ceremony, at around 2 p.m., the Pancha Kanyas dressed in traditional attires welcomed him and the members of the Buddhist family offered him garlands while ushering him to the throne.

And, as the traditional musical bands played music at the tightly guarded but extremely colourful venue, the Danpati (donor) Manandhar washed the King’s feet with holy water, presenting him a traditional silver jar that was decorated with gold.

Prior to that, the member secretary of the Samyak Mahadan Main Organizing Committee, Jagadish Manandhar, Ram Kumari’s brother, read out the contents of a Danpatra in Newari, which said: "I am organizing this Samyak Mahadan for human welfare and world peace…"

After the King accepted the Danpatra that was presented to him, the Danpati Manandhar, assisted by her family members, offered the Samyak Bhojan consisting of 84 varieties of food and drinks to the King, who appeared delighted.

After the Bhojan, the King, together with the Manandhars, went around the venue that had idols of 88 deities that are common to Hinduism and Buddhism, before a contingent of the Royal Nepal Army presented a 31-gun salute. The King also worshipped Lord Dipankar or Addhi Buddha, on whose honour the ceremony was organized.

After today’s special ceremony of offering puja to the King, King Gyanendra offered puja to all the 88 deities and especially to the idol of Dipankar Buddha.

"After the puja performance and having prasad, jatra (procession) will be taken out," says Babu Raj Buddhacharya, who is participating in the Samyak Mahadhan for the fifth time. "All these deities will be carried from Swoyambhu through Nardevi, Tyangal, Ason, Indrachowk, Makhan, Jaysidewal, Bhimsensthan and to the home of Dipankar, Deauchhya at local Kilagal."

Monday, being the second and the most important day of the four-day festival, concludes after the devout receive prasads and participate in a colourful festival or jatra. Earlier on the day, the 88 deities were brought to the venue followed by a colourful procession.

Tonight the deities’ idols will be taken to Kilagal in the capital city, while that of Dipankar will be restored to its original place atop the Swayambhu hill tomorrow.

The festival date back to time immemorial and there is no mention of the actual date when the tradition actually started.

Prior to this, such a festival was organized jointly 50 years ago by Bhakta Bir Singh Tuladhar, Akal Man Singh Tuladhar, Ratna Man Singh Tuladhar, and Siddhi Man Singh Tuladhar in presence of Late King Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah Dev.

Parties for end to emergency soon

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 14:The joint meeting of various political parties, including the ruling Nepali Congress and main opposition CPN (UML), agreed here today to initiate a political process to bring the state of emergency to an end at the earliest.

The meeting also decided to prepare a report on the country’s situation after the declaration of state of emergency and hand it over to the Prime Minister and Home Minister, one of the participants of the meeting said.

This political process would also help lead them to the broader democratic alliance, said Benup Raj Prasai, secretary of NC parliamentary party.

All the major political parties have prepared separate reports on nation’s situation after the emergency, which will now be compiled as one report and submitted to the government, according to Hridayesh Tripathi, a participant from Nepal Sadbhawana Party (NSP).

The parties had recently formed their own committees to monitor the situation developed after the imposition of emergency. The ruling party called Monday’s meeting at its parliamentary office and asked all the parties to submit their reports at the meeting.

The committees of Nepali Congress and the CPN (UML) have already submitted their reports while the report from CPN (ML) is yet to be compiled.

And the reports from NSP and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) are still to come, said parliamentarian Bir Bahadur Singh of CPN (UML). "The next meeting will be held in another two or three days to prepare the common report."

Singh also said that the process for a joint monitoring would begin only after getting the response from the Prime Minister and Home Minister.

Jog Mehar Shrestha of RPP said the report from the party was about to complete and would be handed over to the NC monitoring team as soon as possible.

This will later pave the way for the joint monitoring team, with representatives from all the major political parties, to visit different districts to monitor the situation after the government declared the state of emergency on November 26 to quell the Maoist insurgency.

UML urges govt to revamp economy

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 14:Concerned over the sorry state of economy, the Communist Party of Nepal–Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) has urged the government to revamp the economy.

Issuing a press release, the CPN-UML has said that the despite the government’s target of accomplishing 6.5 per cent economic growth during the current fiscal year, it seems unlikely that the growth rate will exceed even 2.5 per cent.

Stating that the declined exports, put at a decelerated growth of 8.3 per cent, and downturn in imports has revealed that the economy is in a dire state, the release has asked the government to expedite reform measures to boost the economy.

"At a time when the economy is passing through recession and when the nation requires to enhance productivity, cut down in the development budget would lead the economy on a downturn," the release notes.

CPN-UML’s indication was on the slashing of development expenditure to meet the increased regular expenditure for security purposes. CPN UML has even flayed the government’s decision to announce a supplementary budget, stating that it is against the norms of the parliamentary system.

"Meager growth rate of revenue put at 7.1 per cent along with soaring general expenditure during the first five months of the current fiscal year has culminated in the negative revenue mobilization for the first time in the history of the country," the release states.

"5.2 per cent growth rate of the foreign grant mobilization against the targeted growth of 46 per cent and decline in the foreign aid mobilization reveals the government’s seriousness in fiscal management," the release further notes.

CPN UML has attributed the ineffective government policies as the core reason behind declined economic performance.

Nepal elected CIRDAP Chairman

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 14: The twenty-second regular meeting of the executive committee of the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) which started here in the capital today elected Nepal and Malaysia as Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively of the organisation for a period of one year.

Today’s secretary level meeting drafted the 3rd CIRPD six-year working plan for 2002-2007. Several issues including poverty alleviation research and techniques, decentralisation, good governance and gender equality, training and research programmes, selection of pilot projects and their implementation among others were proposed in the drafted plan.

Earlier addressing the inaugural session of the meeting Minister of Local Development Chiranjibi Wagle said that CIRDAP has been a common forum to share the problems, constrains and also a platform for reaching common solutions for all the member countries. Wagle added that the government of Nepal has been familiar with the various activities of CIRDAP and is quite receptive to replicating the success stories, innovative projects and programmes devised by the organisation.

CIRDAP is a regional, inter-governmental autonomous organisation established in 1979 by the member countries of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations with thirteen member countries at present. It also has a sub-regional office in Jakarta, Indonesia called SOCSEA or Sub –Regional Office of CIRDAP for Southeast Asia.

The organisation over the years has been focusing in programmes aimed at rural poverty eradication in the Asia Pacific region and has come forward with number of innovative programmes relating to women empowerment, micro-finance, social mobilisation, rural development and environment management for sustainable development.

Speaking on the same function Director General of CIRDAP Dr Mya Maung mentioned that the organisation had, since its inception, successfully initiated a total of 245 projects of which 75 were research projects, 33 action research/pilot projects and 34 information and communication projects. He also informed that the discussion to formulate the 3rd CIRDAP Six-Year Plan in the Kathmandu meeting would "spell out the thrusts, programme priorities and activities of the Centre for the next six years".

Chairperson of the inaugural session Faujia Nasreen, Ambassador of Pakistan to Nepal, discussing the importance and relevance of CIRDAP said, "presence of representatives of the Asia Pacific region is not only reflective of the pivotal role of rural development in the growth of our countries; it also indicates the commitment these regions have in the integration of rural strategy as an instrument for poverty alleviation."

Secretary at the Ministry of Local Development Uday Raj Soti and Executive Director of Local Development Training Centre Dr. Yangya Adhikary also addressed the function.

Among the thirteen member-countries that are taking part in the meeting respectively are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Thamel restaurants begin relying on locals

By Tashi Dolma Thinley

KATHMANDU, Jan. 14:Shiresh Rana, who is studying in the United Kingdom, is here on a holiday. And what better holiday than going out with friends to hang around in Thamel.

Rana too went out with his friends for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Thamel. But he did not get the response as he expected. The waiters at the restaurant gave him a cold shoulder when they asked for a menu.

"Why don’t you guys just have the Nepali Dal-Bhat?" was the reply they got instead. This attitude of the waiters not only annoyed them, but also sent the wrong message to them- that Nepalis are not welcome in posh restaurants.

Rana and his friends lament that they seldom feel the Nepalese entrepreneurs have developed the knack of blaming the poor economy of the country. "The restaurant was empty and they could have made some money from us, but they don’t seem like they want to do any business."

But the blame goes to the owners of the restaurants who just do not care about the service. But, there are quite a few number of food joints as well where the service gets the utmost priority.

Many feel that in a country where the economy rely much on tourism and related incomes, one cannot ignore the deteriorating essential services and a lack of proper training to the restaurant attendants has made the matter worse.

"The service will continue to deteriorate if the restaurant owners do not give necessary training to the waiters and managers," says Tejendra Shrestha, president of Restaurant and Bar Association (REBAN). But he also accuses the Nepali customers for being too demanding.

Then it’s not amazing that the customers being demanding as they are paying for everything they get in the restaurants. Not only are they paying the regular bills for the food they eat, they are also paying a 10 percent (of the total bill) as Value Added Tax (VAT) and two percent Tourism Service Charge (TSC).

Some even complains that these restaurants do not deserve to charge VAT and TSC. Krishna Amatya, a bank manager in Thamel, says, "They should not forget that we pay the same for food and equal amount of tax, many of us need to know why do these people hesitate to serve us?"

And the government too had rejected the restaurateurs’ demand for an added 10 percent service tax, which obviously would have cost much to the customers. Keeping this in mind, the government eventually put the restaurant service under the category of "essential service," which prevents the restaurant operators to protest.

But then it seems that many of those in the sector still do not know the meaning of essential service and continue to render the service in a pathetic manner.

This negative attitude of the restaurants is also affecting the tourism sector as a whole because the wrong message the tourists get from these services would obviously sent the wrong signals elsewhere.

And with the number of tourists coming to Nepal going down sharply, many of these restaurants would have to rely on the local customers. This has become more relevant in the context that more and more Nepalis have now developed the habit of eating out.

Most of the restaurateurs do admit that at this point of recession in the tourism sector, the contribution made by Nepali customers is noteworthy. "The Nepali customers are ever increasing," says Chandramani Singh, assistant manager of Food and Beverage at Hotel Yak and Yeti. "This is why, we have been organising food promotion events in our hotel to attract local customers."

While most of the customers visiting the country’s star hotels do not have much of a problem, voices of dissatisfaction and anger is often heard in and around the corners of restaurants, especially in the Thamel area. Thamel, which was earlier the busiest hunt for back-packer tourists, rely on the Nepali customers, despite the cold attitude shown by the restaurant staffs there.

While many sales and service experts say that proper training and a certain level of education is the most important thing in food and beverage business, some stress that it is high time Nepali businessmen make the best out of what is in the country.

Two Maoists killed, 80 surrender

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 14:At least two Maoists were killed and 14 other arrested on Sunday by the joint security forces of Royal Nepal Army(RNA) and Armed Police Force (APF) across the country in their search and destroy operation , said the press statement issued here today by the Defence Ministry.

According to the release the armed forces shot dead two rebels in nursery area of Bardia district following a clash. They are yet to be identified. The security forces also seized two guns from the incident site.

The release has also said that locals in Lalitpur district attacked a Maoist leaving him severely injured. It is learnt that locals collectively fought with the Maoists.

Altogether, 11 suspected rebels were taken into custody throughout the country. Security forces arrested Maoist "terrorists" from five districts, said the release.

Bomb disposal squad in Bungmati area of Lalitpur diffused the "banner bomb" hung allegedly by the Maoists, the release has said.

Armed forces were also able to diffuse the landmines laid by the Maoists in Argali Village Development Committee (VDC), Palpa district. It is learnt that, rebels had laid the explosives weighing 10 kilo each with an intention to kill the devotees who were planning to visit the popular pilgrimage, Ridi on Makar Sankranti.

Similarly, press release issued here today by the Home Ministry said that a sub-inspector was attacked by the "terrorists" in Majhua VDC, Gorkha district. He has been identified as Rajan Bhandari who was in a vacation. It is learnt that he is currently undergoing treatment in one of the hospitals of the capital.

According to the rebel, almost 80 rebels surrendered before the District Administration Office (DAO) in various parts of the country.