Regional workshop begins
Skilled manpower productive force for development: Upadhyaya

Lalitpur, Jan. 8 (RSS): Minister for Education and Sports Amod Prasad Upadhyaya has said that a developing country like Nepal is faced with newer types of challenges in the light of the new avenues of development opened up by information technology and vocational education.

Minister for Education Upadhyaya was inaugurating the "regional workshop on developing an accreditation system for Technical Education and Training (TET)" jointly organised by the Colombo Plan Staff College for Technician Education, Manila, and the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT), here today.

Stating His Majesty’s Government has given emphasis to the development of skilled manpower for the sake of the economic development of the country, Minister Upadhyaya stressed the need of technical education and vocational training as a way to resolve the growing unemployment problem.

Vice-chairman of CTEVT Saroj Devkota, speaking from the chair, said that the council has been coordinating the various vocational education trainings conducted by the government and the private sector.

He said that the workshop seminar would prepare a directory for evaluating the standard and usefulness of training offered by the training providers.

Director of the Colombo Plan Staff College for Technician Education Dr. Bernardo F. Adiviso underscored the need for giving emphasis to technical and vocational education, saying that only skilled technical manpower can be a productive force for national development.

CTEVT Director and Curriculum Coordinator Dr. Tanka Nath Sharma expressed the hope that the workshop would help set out the parameters of technical and vocational training in the absence of such an evaluation system in Nepal till now.

The regional workshop is being participated in by some 33 persons from 14 countries of the Asia Pacific region and it is to continue till January 19.

Meanwhile, addressing a 5-day workshop organised by Department of Education, Sanothimi, Minister Upadhyaya said that the time has already arrived for all working in the educational sector to make the existing system efficient in order to face the challenges before the country today.

He said, "All those engaged in the education sector from the centre to the district level should make a joint endeavour to mobilise the limited available resources in the country and derive maximum advantage by making preparations in advance to complete specified programmes within the stipulated time".

Stating that as education is a topic of public concern and the programmes launched could not yield the desired results if the participation of the children of the people could not be ensured in educational programmes, he said that taking these facts into consideration, the draft amendment to the education act had made provisions for the representation of guardians in school governing bodies.

Education directors and district education officers of the Eastern and Central Development Regions shed light on current educational issues.

District education officers and section officers of the two regions are attending the workshop.

‘Enhance mutual goodwill’

Inaruwa, Jan. 8 (RSS): Nepal Sadvawana Party president Gajendra Narayan Singh has said that political parties should act in time to resolve the problem of communal differences rising in the country.

Addressing a meet organised in protest against mistreatment meted out to Nepali citizens of the Terai, Mr Singh accused students organisations of the national political parties of being involved in such mistreatment in Kathmandu.

Demanding that the parties make an apology in public, Mr Singh also said that his party is also demanding replacement of the commission constituted by the government to investigate the incidents with a judicial commission.

Vice-president Badri Prasad Mandal said the people of the Terai are also citizens of Nepal and it is not proper for the government to become a mere onlooker at their mistreatment.

Various other speakers also pointed out the need to maintain communal goodwill at the programme chaired by Kishore Kumar Biswas.

Earlier, a protest rally taken out by the party’s Sunsari district committee went round various parts of Inaruwa town.

‘UNESCO ideals key to progress’

Kathmandu, Jan. 8 (RSS): Deputy Speaker Chitralekha Yadav, at a discussion programme on humanitarian values and the ideals of UNESCO hosted here today by the school cooperation council affiliated to UNESCO, said that human greatness lies in striving to becoming good rather than to become great.

She said that the educational, scientific and social ideals as visualised by UNESCO were extremely useful for the development of society today.

Educationist Dr. Trailokya Nath Upreti said that the human spirit within a person motivates him towards good works.

Council president Ramesh Prasad Gautam presided over the programme.

Govt. firm to control bird hazards at airport

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Jan.8:  Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Varun Prasad Shrestha said today that the government has accorded high priority to control bird hazards at the airports of the country.

Shrestha expressed the view while addressing the opening ceremony of a two-day workshop on "Wildlife Hazard Management at Airports" which opened here today.

Shrestha, who is also the chairman of a high-level committee formed to make a master plan to prevent bird strikes at the airports, further said the workshop would be helpful in preparing an integrated programme to tackle bird hazards.

Speaking at the workshop, Lalit Bikram Shah, Regional Director of Asia Pacific Office of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), said that all the airports must meet the standard as set by the ICAO so as to free them from the danger of bird strikes.

Shah informed that ICAO has recorded the data of bird strikes and their impacts on flight safety. He also stressed on the need to pay proper attention to land management, dissemination of information, record system and the improvement of environment to avoid bird strikes.

He said ICAO has developed a Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP) and initiated the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (IUSAP) together to reduce aircraft accident rates.

Addressing the workshop, Medini Prasad Sharma, Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), an autonomous regulatory body to look after the aviation sector of the country, said all concerned agencies and individuals have to actively contribute to flight safety, airport security and environment protection.

Sharma also expressed the hope that the workshop would be instrumental in framing up effective policies to save the airports from wildlife hazards.

He urged all to extend necessary support and cooperation for the implementation of an integrated programme to do away with bird hazards.

Dr. Richard A. Dolbeer, senior scientist with the National Wildlife Research Center of the US Department of Agriculture, said that since the problem of bird strikes is a global one, all the countries need to conduct studies on the issue and focus on habitat management.

Dr. Dolbeer is also the Chairperson of Bird Strike Committee of the USA.

Captain Len Cornier, chief technical advisor to COSCAP-SA, highlighted the activities related to flight safety and manpower development carried out by the organisation.

Ramesh Man Joshi, Deputy Director General of CAAN, said the authority has been doing its best to avert bird strikes at the airports. Joshi also extended a vote of thanks to the participants.

Fifty participants including those from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan are attending the workshop.

Nepal’s eco-tourism: Promotional drive required

Kathmandu, Jan. 8 (RSS): Eco-tourism is suffering a set back in Nepal for lack of publicity and promotional drive despite its growing importance in the international arena and the vast scope it holds in the country.

Apart from this, we are not able to properly develop this industry, the country’s main foreign exchange spinner, which in a way means injustice to the bountiful natural beauty and vast bio-diversity of the country.

There can be no two opinions about Nepal’s varied topography, characterized as it is by the presence of the world’s highest peak, Mount Sagarmatha, and the lowest place which is almost level with sea within a radius of nearly 200 kilometres. Nowhere else is the nature so bountiful in its gift as in Nepal but one needs to know how to use them for income generation.

The environmental variation ranging from the snow-clad Himalayan peaks on the north to the green Terai belt in the south and the splendid diversity of fauna and flora within a very small area and at a short distance is, no doubt, Nepal’s invaluable assets.

Although Nepal occupies 0.1 per cent of the total land mass of the earth, it is very rich in terms of bio-diversity. Nepal is home to more than 2.2 per cent of all the species of flowering plants in the world. Similarly, 1.7 per cent, 2.38 per cent and 2.7 per cent of all the non-flowering plants of the algae, mushroom and lichen species are found in Nepal.

Likewise, Nepal can also boast of 8.5 per cent of all the bird species, 4.2 per cent butterfly species, 2.2 per cent fishes, 1.1 per cent amphibian species, 1.5 per cent reptilian species and 4.5 per cent of all the mammals found in the world. With such a rich bio-diversity, Nepal takes the centre stage for a biological research.

Of the approximately 6,000 species of flowering plants, eight out of the 246 species of flowering plants native to Nepal have become extinct. Similarly, 11 species of birds and three species of mammals have also become extinct.

Against this backdrop, with the objective of protecting the endangered species of animals, His Majesty’s Government of Nepal has provided legal protection to 26 species of mammals, nine species of birds, three species of reptiles and 13 species of plants.

The first attempts at bio-diversity conservation in Nepal started formally with the establishment of the Royal Chitwan National Park in 1973. At present, 18.2 per cent of the total area of the country is under the conservation areas.

Prime Minister and Minister for Forests and Soil Conservation Girija Prasad Koirala, in a message given on the occasion of the World Bio-Diversity Day, has said that although small in terms of area, Nepal is rich in bio-diversity due to its varied topography ranging from the sea level to the world’s highest peak and its climatic variation.

The Prime Minister also said that efforts have been made to include more than 18 per cent of the total land area of the country under the conservation zone in order to preserve the maximum number of ecosystems.

The Prime Minister has said since the conservation of this vast bio-diversity is not possible through the efforts of the government alone, all the citizens of the country, ethnic groups and institutions and organisations should take collective responsibility towards this end.

The diversity among the various plants and animals found in nature is called bio-diversity. These plants and animals have an intricate interdependence. So far approximately 1.7 million species of plants and animals have been identified.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio De Jenerio, the capital of Brazil on June 5, 1992, while expressing grave concern at the deteriorating state of environment on a global scale and the safety of bio-diversity due to this phenomena, felt the need for initiating effective steps and undertake collective measures to check this trend.

The conference also adopted the international convention of bio-diversity and the convention came into force across the world from December 29, 1993 in different phases.

Chief of the Environment Division at the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation Dr. Udaya Raj Sharma says that works are being undertaken from various sectors at the governmental level for the conservation of bio-diversity, conservation of wild-life as per the provisions of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act and many programmes have been implemented as per the forest act for the conservation of forests.

The process of preparing a data-base of bio-diversity and indigenous knowledge on bio-diversity has been started on the initiatives of His Majesty’s Government for conservation of other forms of bio-diversity other than forest and wildlife, he says.

The bio-diversity data-base, according to Dr. Sharma, contains the names of all the bio-diversity found in a particular ecological region besides keeping a record of the names of all the local people keeping indigenous knowledge about the bio-diversity in their locality.

His Majesty’s Government is working for making necessary arrangements as to how best benefits could be derived from foreigners or a foreign party using this vast bio-diversity recorded in the data-base and persons keeping knowledge on the use of this bio-diversity, Dr. Sharma further says.

Joint-secretary Dr. Sharma informed that His Majesty’s Government has decided to sign the convention on bio-diversity designed to safeguard bio-diversity from the bad effects of genetic modifications on certain species or sub-species of plants and animals and the Royal Nepalese Ambassador to the United Nations would be asked to sign the document in the near future.

Meanwhile, His Majesty’s Government, Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation is learnt to be contemplating on introducing a draft bill designed to regulate and control access to genetic resources in parliament for preservation of the bio-diversity of Nepal and to promote rational use of these resources.

The bill proposes that the ownership over the existing genetic resources found in the Kingdom of Nepal will belong exclusively to the Kingdom of Nepal and the citizens of Nepal.

The proposed bill has also made provisions under which any community, non-governmental organisation or consumers’ group or any other community-based organisation can prepare a bio-diversity register with a record of all the biological resources and the knowledge, skills and traditional practice of any ethnic community or indigenous tribe or the local community on the use of these biological resources.

The proposed bill also provides the institutions or individuals preparing such a bio-diversity register the legal sanction over the intellectual property rights on and the access to the bio-diversity register.

Besides this, this year the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation has prepared a bio-diversity action plan covering the protected forest areas, marsh land, hilly region and the agricultural system.

Likewise, in connection with the long-term conservation and protection of bio-diversity, His Majesty’s Government has recently effected some changes in the forestry development policy and adopted the strategy of developing the forest areas in the middle hills and the mountainous regions as community-owned forests.

Under this strategy, the forests in the Terai, except the large tracts of forest land, would be handed over to the local community as community forest whereas the larger forests would be under the direct management of the district forest office.

VISIT: Bilateral talks to be discussed Bastola off  to Bangladesh

Kathmandu, Jan. 8 (RSS): Minister for Foreign Affairs Chakra Prasad Bastola left here today on a three-day official visit to Bangladesh at the invitation of Foreign Minister of Bangladesh Abdus Smaj Azad. He is heading a five-member Nepalese delegation.

Talking to reporters at the VIP lounge of Tribhuvan International Airport, Foreign Minister Bastola said during the visit, talks will be held on various aspects of the promotion of bilateral relations including matters concerning trade and transit between Nepal and Bangladesh.

Speaking about the ample scope for expanding cooperation in areas of mutual interest between the two very close neighbours, Minister Bastola said the Nepalese delegation will put forward Nepal’s views on the promotion of bilateral and regional cooperation.

Replying to a question about the possibility of Nepal importing gas from Bangladesh, he said this issue will also be raised during the visit.

Bangladesh is a good market for Nepalese agricultural produce like apple and orange but the imposition of high custom duties on Nepalese produce has come in the way of exporting such commodities to that country, he said adding, he will request the government of Bangladesh to consider lowering custom duties on such products from Nepal.

In view of the big possibility of promoting bilateral trade between Nepal and Bangladesh, he is to discuss with the sectors concerned in Bangladesh about the possibilities of promoting bilateral cooperation.

Stating that it is always better to have more than one transit point for landlocked Nepal, he said talks will also be held on making visa arrangements for reaching the Banglabandh port/warehouse more practical.

As Bangladesh is making efforts to facilitate convening of the postponed 11th SAARC summit as soon as possible, he will discuss this matter also with his counterpart there, Minister Bastola said.

He also spoke of the need for Nepal and Bangladesh to persuade India in their own ways towards helping organise the regional summit.

The Foreign Minister also told reporters that he will request the government of Bangladesh to provide more seats and facilities at their universities for Nepalese students, especially students of medicine.