‘Politicians have failed to keep their promise’

RSS

KATHMANDU, Jan 20: Minister for Women,Children and Social Welfare Rajendra Kharel has said that despondency is large among the people as the politicians have failed to work in consonance with the promise made to the people before the restoration of democracy.

Speaking at the installation function of the Leo Club of Kathmandu Manaslu here on Saturday, minister Kharel said that the politicians should work for welfare of the people.

He urged social service organizations like the Lions Club to also extend their area of work and generate awareness against the menace of terrorism.

Lions international district 325 B Governor Bodh Bahadur Raut Chhetri and ex-minister and former governor of lions international Dr Yadav Prasad Panta stressed that all the Nepali people have an important role to play for societal upliftment.

Lundup Dorje Lama, Shamba Raj Bandey, Prabhat Kumar Joshi and KIshav Marhattha commented on a joint working paper entitled "Terrorism and the role of the youth" presented by newly-installed Leo President Anup Pandey and Treasurer Naina Amatya.

President of Leo Club, Kholne, Mahendra Shrestha presided over the programme.

Dr Nepali passes away

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 20: Dr Gopal Singh Nepali, the scholar of ethno-sociology of the Himayalan tribes, died at the age of 76 Sunday Morning, family sources said.

"Nepali died today morning at 9.30 at Breach Candy Hospital of Bombay while he was undergoing a heart operation," said the sources. He is survived by wife, a son and a daughter.

Born in 1926 in Kathmandu, Nepali spent most of his time in India studying in University of Bombay, from where he did doctorate in the detail ethnographic and sociological study of the Newars.

Malla K Sundar, the co-ordinator of Nepalbhasha Action Committee said that the loss of Nepal is irreparable.

"He was a gentle, sober and deep-thinking old man," said Malla, remembering his meeting with Nepali some three years ago.

"His book ‘The Newars’, published in 1988 is considered as the widest and deepest book ever written systematically about the origin and distribution of the Newar community," said Dr Chunda Bajracharya, a cultural expert.

Kashinath Tamot, the department chief of Central Department of Nepalbhasa of Tribhuvan University said Nepali was perhaps the first scholar who spent most of his life in doing research on the society, religion and ethnology of the Newars.

After doing doctorate, he taught in Sri JJ College of Architecture as an assistant lecturer, in University of Gorakhpur as lecturer of Sociology, in Banaras Hindu University as a lecturer of Sociology. He also held directorship of Centre of Study of Nepal of BHU and then remained a professor of Centre of Himayalan Studies at University of Northern Bengal for two years.

He started teaching in Central Department of Sociology in TU some three years ago.

‘Culture of Kumari - Virgin Worship in Nepal’ is Nepali’s another famous book, written with Michael R Allen.

Resigned to fate under the Pipal Bot

It’s a clear winter afternoon. New Road is bustling with people from all walks of life. Under the Pipal Bot, 43-year-old Hem Bahadur Thapa, a boot polisher, is awaiting his clients. Thapa is wearing a dirty sweater which once used to be white, and his tattered jeans has seen better days. Beside him is a wooden box, that all-important seat for his customers.

For the last 20 years, Thapa has been at his job under the ageless Pipal Bot. For the last 20 years, he has been vying with the other dozen or so polishers working under that tree. On a good day, he can earn 300 rupees, on a bad day 100. Hailing from Chitlang of Makawanpur district, and now living in Koteshwor, Thapa says not many people are interested these days to polish their shoes unlike in the good old days when business was brisk. Thapa once had a dream of working in a foreign country, now he is resigned to his fate under the Pipal Bot.

Perina Pathak of The Kathmandu Post talked to Thapa recently. Excerpts –

How did you get into boot polishing?

Thapa : When I was trying to go to Qatar for employment, I was deceived by an agent. I was jobless, and had a close friend who was into boot polishing. It was from him I learnt the job.

What was the kind of job you originally wanted to do?

I came to the capital with my friend who influenced me to seek employment in a foreign country. But fate took me to this street.

Why were you not able to go to Qatar?

That friend of mine who had promised me to help get a job in Qatar deceived me. When I reached Kathmandu, I had Rs 500,000 with me, which came from selling all my inherited property. But when we were staying together in a rented room in Kathmandu, my friend robbed me off all the money while I was sleeping and flew to Qatar.

Is your earning enough to meet all the needs?

We have to somehow manage. The earning is not good to lead a luxurious life, but it’s good enough for simple living.

Do you only do polishing?

We maintain and polish shoes. I can do all that a shoemaker does, but here we don’t do all that.

What kind of people are your customers?

Mostly the regular customers come here. But sometime some thugs come who get their shoes polished, and run away without paying anything.

What you like to do most?

I enjoy listening to music while working. I read all the daily papers except English ones because I don’t understand it. I wish daily papers were cheap so that I could buy some of my favourite papers—Kantipur and Rajdhani.

When I was in class five at Chitlang, I learned ABCD, and by the time I was ten, I could write simple sentences in English. But now I know nothing about the English language. I think English is a very necessary language, so I have admitted my children to an English school.

Four killed, 44 injured in Birgunj and Dang

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 20: At least four people were killed while 44 others sustained injuries in five separate road accidents in Birgunj and Dang in the last 12 hours, according to the police from the respective districts.

Four people were killed while seven others injured in four separate road accidents on the 25-kilometre section of Pathlaiya-Birgunj road on Saturday. A driver intoxicated with alcohol had caused three accidents one after the other.

According to the police a driver of Jyoti Group, Kush Bahadur Gurung, on his way to Birgunj in a Tata mobile van, hit two persons travelling in a bicycle. When the driver was rushing the injured to Birgunj for treatment, his vehicle collided again with a three-wheeler and hit the owner of the three-wheeler. As intoxicated he was, the driver could not control his vehicle and happened to hit another person at Birgunj Ghantaghar on his way to a local hospital.

Gurung was immediately arrested at Ghantaghar after he caused three accidents one after the another. Among the four injured, two of them succumbed to their injuries on the way to Kathmandu for treatment. One of those killed in the accident has been identified as Hamid Miya from Belwa VDC in Parsa district. Three others who died in the accidents were yet to be identified.

In yet another road accident, two Indian women were killed yesterday when a Indian reserve bus overturned in Simara. The deceased have been identified as Raj Kumari Devi, 28, and Hasina Devi, 35, according to the police.

Meanwhile, our reporter from Dang reported that 37 people sustained injuries when a passenger bus on its way to Korwang from Tulsipur met with an accident at Kumalgadhi village of Hekuli VDC-7 today.

Condition of the five of the injured was reported to be critical, said Inspector Sudeep Yadav in Tulsipur. Two people were rushed to Nepalgunj while the rest were undergoing treatment at a Mahendra Hospital in Ghorahi, the district headquarters of Dang.

The police said that the bus overturned because it was overloaded.

Jail children get a new life

By Madhav Dhungana

BHAIRAHAWA, Jan 20: Maya Gurung is a convict at Tansen jail, and also a mother. Her son was growing up in the jail until a British trust took the boy under its wings, and took care of all his needs. When the boy came visiting his mother some time ago, Gurung couldn’t help her tears seeing her son in good clothes. "I can’t believe this," said the mother.

Gurung’s son is among 32 Nepali children who are being provided for by the British charity organisation, Ester Benjamin Trust. All these children once were living in jails with their convict mothers.

The man behind the Trust is British citizen Philip Holmes who set it up after his childless wife committed suicide. Holmes is a colonel and a dentist. He became interested in Nepal because of a British Army Captain, Khem Gurung, who used to tutor him in Nepali language.

Captain Gurung says Holmes gave up his army career and began a philanthropic life after the death of his wife. When Philip visited Nepal for the first time in 1999, it was brought to his notice that there were several kids wallowing in the country’s jails because they were born to mothers who were serving sentences. Philip then decided that rescuing these children would be his vocation.

The following year the retired colonel registered a non-governmental organisation, Nepal Child Welfare Organisation, with the help of Captain Khem Gurung and another retired Captain Indra Gurung. This organisation, sponsored by the British Trust, began taking up the cause of children growing up in jails.

"Initially the parents were afraid to give us their children, but later they started understanding our motives," says Indra Gurung. But he says the process of getting the children out of the jails is long and tedious. Now the Trust is providing shelter and other basic amenities to 32 children of above 3 years who had once lived in jails. These children are from jails of Tansen, Tulsipur, Kathmandu and other towns.

Holmes visits the children once a year. "I couldn’t have child from my marital life but now I have 32 children, he said on a recent visit. "I feel very happy when I see the happy faces of these children."

A few other foreigners have been visiting the organisation with an interest to help, says Indra Gurung. He says they now have plans to support even those children leading a poor life outside the jails.

According to a government report three months ago, there are 64 children growing up in jails in different parts of the country.

No aprons, it’s now school uniforms

By K. P. Ghimire

KHAIRA (Deukhuri), Dang, Jan 20: These girls once used to work as domestic help in the numerous households of Nepal’s towns. Now they are back home, and are in schools—something that would have been unthinkable not so long ago.

They are the Kamlari girls, the daughters of bonded labourers or Kamaiyas. Hundreds of them are now in school uniforms. Life is now different from what it was when they had to abide by yearly contracts whereby their fathers sold them to masters in the towns who treated them as their whims chose.

The non-governmental organisation behind these girls getting a fresh start is appropriately called Friends of Helpless Children (FHC). FHC began its work with 32 Kamlari girls of Gobardigha VDC-9 in Deukhuri Valley. These girls had just returned home from working as housemaids in the towns. That was four years ago, but luckily for them, Kantipur daily did a report on their plight which fell to the notice of the FHC.

The girls began going to schools two years ago, says Pradip Sharma, FHC member. Books were distributed free, and the girls were also made aware of the inhumanity of the bonded labour system.

The FHC has also spread the campaign to other parts of Deukhuri, and some 148 Kamlari girls recently finished the "special coaching classes" conducted by the FHC, and have been enrolled in government schools, says Secretary Som Paneru.

Every year, the FHC distributes free clothes, tiffin boxes, books and kerosene oil ("for burning the midnight oil") to the girls.

"They also provide us support if we want to earn, " says Shyamkali, a Kamlari girl, who benefitted from the campaign.

FHC now has plans to give education to 1000 girls within the next four years.

Income tax regulation discussed

RSS

BUTWAL, Jan 20: The Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and the Butwal Chamber of Commerce and Industry jointly organised a discussion programme on the Income Tax Regulations-2058 B.S. here on Saturday.

At the programme, the participants pointed out that as the Income Tax Regulation-2058 B.S. was incomplete, there is a need for formulating other supportive regulations.

Complaining that various kinds of impractical and illegal taxes have been levied in the pretext of raising revenue, the participants expressed dismay that the suggestions of the FNCCI have not been taken into account while formulating the Income Tax Regulation Bill. They also alleged that there is also ambiguity in the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme(VDIS).

President of Butwal Chamber of Commerce and Industry Arjun Man Sainju spoke of the need for carrying out extensive study regarding clarity in the acts, regulations and directives prior to starting industries and businesses.

Advocate Dhundi Raj Wagle stressed the need for clarity of thought among the legislators, enforcement agencies and industrialists and businessmen. Lecturer Dr. Ishwar Gautam said that the guidelines should be clear for the implementation of the regulations.

Director General of the internal revenue department Lalmani Joshi urged the participants to provide constructive and valid suggestions to the government for effective implementation of the Income Tax Regulations. The representatives of Nawalparasi, Taulihawa, Krishna Nagar, Gulmi, Palpa, Tulsipur, Dang, Nepalgunj, Bhairahawa and Butwal Chambers of Commerce and Industry also took part in the discussions.