Six candidates vying for FNJ  leadership

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, May 12: The national convention of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) begins tomorrow in Kathmandu with the theme 'information, security and independence'.

Speaker of the House of Representatives will inaugurate the convention at Hyatt Regency Hotel at Bouddha.

The two-day convention will elect a new 17-member working committee, including regional vice presidents, of the apex body of Nepalese journalists for a three-year term.

Six candidates, including incumbent Suresh Acharya, are contesting for the president of the Federation. The other candidates are Taranath Dahal, Subash Dhakal, Devendra Gautam, Krishna K.C. and Prabhu Narayan Basnet.

The executive committee will be elected by 642 convention delegates elected from district and institutional branches of the Federation.

Karnali Air chopper crashes

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, May 12: A helicopter of Karnali Air crashed at the Mountain Makalu base camp this morning, without injuring its pilot who was alone in the aircraft, the private airlines’ officials said.

The French-built helicopter was destined to rescue a few members of a trekking group in the Makalu Barun area where it crashed at 4,870 metres, severely damaging it. "The helicopter is badly damaged," said Pitambar Bhushal, Operation Assistant Manager of Karnali Air. "It cannot be flown back. Therefore, we will bring back its parts and engines."

Captain Dipak Rana who piloted the five-seater helicopter was safe and sound. Another helicopter of Karnali Airways flew him back with the two members of the trekking group for whom the ill-fated chopper was sent. One of them was Swiss and the other a Nepalese.

Rana miraculously escaped from being hurt in the accident since the helicopter, during the crash, was quite near the ground, according to Captain B.N. Sharma, Chief Pilot of Karnali Air, who flew back Captain Rana from the accident site.

The accident took place due to the windy weather in the highland, Rana is said to have told Sharma. As the atmosphere was warming up with the morning rays of the sun, the hot air was moving upwards while the cold wind was descending. This change caused a gusty wind, pushing the helicopter from the back.

With its balance lost, as the chopper tried to regain power, its rotor-blades hit a small hillock near the base camp. After the blades broke into pieces, the helicopter nose dived and crashed.

The airline has not yet evaluated the loss of the aircraft it had brought brand new one and half years ago. "We will have to work with the Air Transport Support Centre to get all the details," Bhushal said.

A brand new five-seater Ecuriel helicopter, like the one that crashed this morning at the Makalu Base Camp, costs US $ 1.4 million. The aircraft that crashed is insured, according to Karnali Air officials.

It was an Ecuriel helicopter that crashed into Rara Lake in western Nepal late last year killing HRH Princess Prekshya Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah, two other passengers and the pilot. Two others who were travelling in the same aircraft of Fishtail Air had survived the accident.

The Ecuriel helicopter is operated by three domestic airlines. With today’s loss, Karnali Air is left with three such aircraft. Dynasty Air operates two and Fishtail has one after the crash in Rara.

FAO regional meet begins today

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, May 12: Representatives from various nations of Asia and the Pacific region have begun arriving here to attend the 26th Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific that begins tomorrow.

The Kathmandu meeting is one of series of FAO regional conferences in preparation for a gathering of world leaders during the World Food Summit to be held at FAO headquarters in Rome from June 10 – 13.

Australia, Fiji, Marshal Islands, New Zealand, Samao, Soloman Islands and Tonga are sending representatives to the conference that will conclude on May 17, according to FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

Prime Minister of Tonga, HRH Prince Ulukalaka Lavaka Ata, Minister of Resources and Development of Marshall Islands John Silk, Minister of Agriculture, Forest and Fisheries and Meteorology SamoaTuisugaletaua Aliimalemanu, Sofara Aveau and Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Solomon Islands Stephen Paeni, will head their respective country delegations.

The conference will review the state of agriculture and food security in the region. It will also review the implementation of the 1996 World Food Summit plan of action.

Meanwhile, R. B. Singh, Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative of FAO, said that increasing the productivity and incomes of resource-poor agricultural workers who feed Asia and the Pacific is a central goal of FAO in the region.

Addressing a gathering of Asian civil society groups that concluded here today, he said two-thirds of the world’s 800 million undernourished people live in the region.

"To achieve the vital goal for eliminating hunger from the region, FAO is working close with civil society groups," he said.

He said that small and marginal farmers make up the bulk of agricultural households in Asia and the Pacific, which is home to 75 per cent of the world’s farm families.

About 100 representatives of some 80 non-governmental and civil society organisations from 13 Asian countries working in the field of food security and rural poverty met here to formulate regional civil society’s stand on food security issues for the Rome summit.

The civil society groups demanded recognition of food sovereignty as the basis and principle for food production and consumption including food and agricultural policies. They used countries to adopt an "International Convention on Food Sovereignty" and an "International Code of Conduct on the Right to Food and Resources".

People return to Rolpa as situation improves

By A Staff Reporter

Liwang, May 12: Even as the security forces continue their fight against the Maoists, they are simultaneously carrying out rehabilitation programmes in the villages of Rolpa.

Convinced of the security situation more and more people as well as political workers of political parties are returning to the villages they had fled because of the Maoist terror. Security forces gaining the confidence of the people after their ongoing successes in defeating the terrorists and destroying their bases and shelters.

The security forces are running a health clinic each in Thwang and Gaam Village Development Committees. While the Maoists looted medicines from the health posts, the security forces are distributing medicines for free. Other development works such as irrigation, health, education and herbs production have started in the villages. The administrative machineries have also started functioning in the villages. The destruction and terror tactics of the Maosits had forced them to shift to the district headquarters.

After the forces started rehabilitation programmes for the displaced people in Thwang and Gaam, two hot-beds of the terrorists, the terrorists look unnerved, and unsettled and the spirit of the people are high. The local people have been encouraged to cooperate with the security forces and the administration.

This is a pleasant change of situation in the most heavily affected district. ''Unlike in other Maoist-infested areas of the mid-western development region, where the security forces are not getting the expected cooperation from the people and the political parties, there is no antipathy, but rather comraderie, between the security forces, people and the political parties,'' local political workers say.

They say the Maoists' attack on the temporary base in Gaam last Tuesday was the result of the alarm and the heavy fatalities they suffered after the security forces carried out operations in the two villages.

More importantly, the administration and other offices, such as banks, have begun to open. An official of the Agriculture Development Bank, Liwang branch said, the bank began its operation in Thwang on April 26, and in seven days the bank recovered Rs. 354,000 in loans and interests. The official said the banks had recovered Rs. 30 million in back debts and interest after the Maoists threatened the people not to repay loans to the bank.

Branch manager Jaya Bahadur Kshetri said that with a sense of security returning and administartive apparatuses functioning people have started coming to the bank to repay or get loans. He said loan recovery had also increased. Last year, total recovery was only Rs. 5.4 million, but this year it was Rs. 6.2 million by Chaitra last.

Since the last five years, the Maoists used to forcibly collect land tax. Now the people are paying tax to the land tax office.

District secretary of the CPN-UML Kumar Dashaudi said thousands of people who gathered at the anti-Maoist rallies in Gaam, Thwang, Khumel, Madichaur and Liwang showed that the people desperately wanted freedom from Maoist atrocities.

District President of the Nepali Congress Madhav Acharya said that the people are willing to cooperate with the government. He said the government should immediately provide grants to the schools which have remained closed since last year. "This would boost the confidence of the people for the government" Most of the schools in the Maoist-affected areas have remained closed due to lack of money.

But there will be new challenges for the government. With the political parties organising the terror-stricken people against the terrorists and life gradually returning to normalcy, people are looking for jobs. Thousands of people have lost their livelihood in the last six years since the insurgency began.

Dashaudi said the political parties and the people are demanding for the immediate start of the construction of two roads to connect Sulichaur - Uwa - Thwang and Ghorahi-Tribeni-Madichaur-and Chunawang.

The Nepali Congress district president said, "This would provide a means of livelihood to tens of thousands of people in the short-term, while providing a long-term investment for the development of the district and a bulwark against the Maoists."

Development works in the villages have stopped because the VDCs have not received their grants from the government since the last two years. Even workers of the Holeri-Swargadwari road have not received their wages since last year.

Both of them said that if the government started development works immediately and on a priority basis, this would give the people added incentives to reject the Maoists.

Young people flee to escape terror

By Our Surkhet Correspondent

Surkhet, May 12:   Hounded by Maoist terrorists armed with rifles and socket bombs, young men in the mid-western hills of Nepal are fleeing their homes enmasse to escape terror and from being drafted into the rebels’ army. There are few young people left in these hilly districts, many having already fled to neighbouring India or abroad for work.

"We won’t return until peace is restored, and people can work," said a group of sad youths entering India from Nepalgunj. Dharma Raj Shahi of Kalikot’s Thana was one of them who had left his home along with his father. "The Maoists killed my nephew Raj Bahadur. They were also asking us to join them, but we ran away," said Dharma’s father in tears.

"It is impossible to live in the villages. We will go to Benaras and engage in whatever work we can get," said another young man.

Chairman of Kalikot District Development Committee Deep Bahadur Shahi has written a recommendation letter for them which says they are going to India to work as wage labourers.

"Except for one or two young men affiliated with the Maoists, most young men have gone to India," said a 29-year-old young man who was forced to leave his house to save his life. "I am a rural health worker, but I may have to work as a coolie," said he.

"We have left the women and children behind; we wonder whether the Maoists will leave them alone."

But the Maoists have not spared even the women and children. Sangita Pun, 13, of Salyan’s Kaflechaur and many others were taken away forcefully before the attack on a police post in Surkhet months back. The terrorists made them carry guns and food items.

Sangita has been rescued by the security forces who have also given work to her parents and arranged for their food and shelter. But not everybody can be provided with work and basic amenities. The administration is limited to the district headquarters. So are the representatives. As for the poor people, they are left to fend for themselves or they must leave for the Indian towns to sell their labour cheap.

'Education Act to activate civil society'

Biratnagar, May 12 (RSS):  Minister for Education and Sports Amod Prasad Upadhyaya inaugurated the district education officers' regional seminar organised by Eastern Regional Education Directorate at a function here today.

The seminar is being organised with the objective of reviewing the progress made in implementation of the basic primary education and annual academic programmes and holding discussions for overcoming the problems of education in the districts.

The two-day seminar is being attended by 17 persons including the education officers of 16 districts and the representative of the Primary Education Training Centre.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister Upadhyaya said that arrangements had been made to provide free education at the public primary schools and fix the fees of schools from sixth grade upwards on the basis of the consensus of the guardians and the village education committees.

Upadhyaya said that education plays a vital role in developing the talents of a person and enables the person to make contributions to the development of the society and the nation.

Stating that the seventh amendment in the Education Act had been made on the basis of the consensus among all the political parties represented in the Parliament with the objective of improving the standard of education, Upadhyaya said that the main objective of the Education Act is to activate the civil society in education development works.

At the function chaired by officiating district education officer Ramsarovar Dube, acting Morang district NC president Dilip Sapkota, Binod Dhakal of CPN-UML, Director General of the Department of Education Chuman Singh Basnet, Director of the Eastern Regional Education Directorate Ashok Kumar Aryal, chief district officer Dolakh Bahadur Gurung, campus chief Dr. Upendra Koirala, headmasters Ekaraj Bhattarai and Dilli Pokharel and others expressed their views on the seventh amendment made in the Education Act.

FAO meet aims to eliminate hunger

Kathmandu, May 12 (RSS): Increasing the productivity and incomes of resource poor agricultural workers who feed Asia and the Pacific, yet are hungry themselves, is the central goal of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisational (FAO) in the region, a top FAO official told a gathering of Asian Civil Society groups that concluded here today.

Achieving this objective is vital for eliminating hunger from Asian and the Pacific which has two thirds of the world's about 800 million undernourished people, R B Singh, assistance director general and FAO regional representative for asia and the pacific told the meet. To ensure this FAO is working closely with civil society groups, he added.

About 100 representatives of some 80 Non Governmental and Civil Society Organisations (NGOs/CSOs ) from 13 Asian countries working in the field of food security and rural poverty, met here on 11 and 12 May to formulate regional cicil society's stand on food security issues for 10 to 13 June 2002 World Food Summit at FAO headquarters in Rome.

Equitable access to resource material, institutional and social, is vital for unleasing the tremendous productive potential of the rural poor and is a main objective of FAO's endeavours in the region in the coming years, Dr. Singh said.

The NGO/CSO meeting was held in conjunction with the 26 th FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific, which opens on 13 May in Kathmandu, to take stock of regional progress towards the 1996 World Food Summit goal of reducing by half by the year 2015 the number of hungry people.

In their statement, which is the Asian Civil Society Declaration to WFS the people's group demanded recognition of "food sovereignty as the basis and principle for food production and consumption including food and agricultural policies". They urged countries to adopt an "international convention on food sovereignty" and an" international code of conduct on the right to food and resources".

Taking note of the concerns expressed by the civil society groups, the FAO regional chief asserted that the world food and agriculture agency is striving to ensure that liberalisation of agricultural trade under the new world trade rules does not hurt the interests of developing Asian countries and particularly those of resource poor cultivators. in this context Dr. Singh called for globalisation with a human face.