BRIEFS (Spotlight Weekly)

Flowers on display at Floriculture Trade Fair-2000 organized by Floriculture Association of Nepal (FAMN) at Bhrikutimandap, Kathmandu

A `DHARMASHALA' (PILGRIMS REST HOUSE) has been constructed at Lumbini, the birth place of Lord Buddha, at a cost of nearly Rs 14.3 million with assistance from Myanmar. The two-storey building can accommodate 100 people at a time. Minister for Religious Affairs of Myanmar Aung Khin and Minister of State for Health Tirtha Ram Dangol jointly inaugurated the building amidst a ceremony last week. The Minister duo also laid the foundation stone of an auditorium to be constructed at the premise.

AVCO International Private Limited, the authorized dealer for Hyundai Motor Company, Korea and Hyundai Motor India Limited has launched Hyundai Santro car in Nepal. According to R.P. Pradhan, Chairman of AVCO, the Santro is compatible to the Euro I standard and Nepal Vehicle Mass Emission Standard 2056. The car is specially designed to meet the tough road conditions of South Asia, said Pradhan.

POLICE HAVE HANDED OVER an elephant tooth, estimated by experts to be millions of years old, to the Department of Archaeology in the capital. According to Police, the tooth was discovered at the house of a local resident when raided for a suspected drug smuggler in Putalisadak last month. Nepali scientists, using the radio dating method, estimated the tooth to be somewhere between one to three million year old. Inspector General of Police Achyut Krishna Kharel handed over the Jaw to chief of the Department amidst a function last week. The tooth was collected from a forest in Dhanusha district. Experts said the tooth belonged to an elephant, archidiskodon planiffrons, that existed during a period between one to three million years ago.

THE BRITISH EMBASSY IN KATHMANDU has refuted a news story that British government was making preparations to recruit some 1,000 new troops to increase the number of its Gurkha troops. The embassy said the British Army intends to recruit two new squadrons, one each for Queen's Gurkha Engineer Regiment and the Queen's Gurkha signals Regiment. "This will lead to a modest overall increase of approximately 300 soldiers in the number of Gurkhas serving in the British Army and is due to be completed in the next three years," the embassy said.

TEN PEOPLE, ALL NEPALI NATIONALS, died in two separate road accidents within the last 24 hours, reports said. According to Police, seven out of ten persons traveling in a jeep died when the jeep fell nearly 500 feet off the road at Jordhara in western district of Palpa on Wednesday. Five people died on the spot whereas two more died while undergoing treatment at a nearby hospital in Tansen, district headquarters of Palpa. Out of three injured people, one is said to be in a critical condition. The jeep was travelling from Syangja in western Nepal to Butwal, a major business center in the same region. In yet another accident, three persons died when a truck they were traveling in collided with a huge stone near Fisling at Prithvi highway and fell into the Narayani River on Tuesday night.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS GRANTED permission to set up a total of 560 joint venture industries, in collaboration with foreign investors, at an investment of about Rs 60 billion over the last one decade, RSS news agency reported. According to the Department of Industry, only 154 joint ventures had received permission in between 1991-95 whereas the number of industries getting permission rose to around 60 per year afterwards, the report said. The largest number of joint venture companies (255) belongs to the manufacturing sector. On the country-wise basis, Indian investors top the list with 171 joint ventures. The Department, however, did not say how many of the industries that received permission actually set up their enterprises and how many of them have started productions.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS DECIDED to open a residential Royal Nepali embassy at Doha in Qatar, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. The embassy, which will be headed by an ambassador will start functioning soon, the Ministry said. Thousands of Nepali workers are working in Gulf countries including Qatar. Officials say the opening up of the new embassy in Qatar will help safeguard Nepali workers' interests in the area.

A LATEST REPORT ASSESSING DEVELOPMENT programs targeted at poverty reduction in Nepal has said that the two decades of development has bypassed the rural population in the country. Poverty Report 2000 published by the United Nations Development Program here on Tuesday said nearly half of the population in Nepal lived on less than one dollar per day, more than 42 percent people living below the poverty line, according to official estimates made in 1996. Income poverty in Nepal has increased since late 1970s, most in the rural areas, the report said. Resident Representative of the UNDP in Nepal, Dr. Henning Karcher, said decentralization combined with social mobilization could significantly contribute to creation of wealth and growth through micro-enterprises, among others.

CIVIL SERVANTS TOP THE LIST Of corrupt in Nepal said a survey conducted by a private media group last year, reports said today. According to the survey conducted by Media Services International (MSI), a Kathmandu-based media consultancy, out of nearly 1200 respondents 21 percent said government employees were the most corrupt followed by parliamentarians and politician (20 percent), ministers (19 percent) and policemen (18 percent). An overwhelming 98 percent of the respondents said they believed that there was rampant corruption in the country. Among those who replied in affirmative, more than half said corruption was very high. Interestingly, 75 percent of the interviewees admitted that they had given bribes to someone at least once and 33 percent of them said legal action could be the most effective way to contain corruption. The survey was conducted in various parts of the country in July last year, the organization said.

IN THE FIRST EIGHT MONTHS of the current fiscal year 1999/2000, both the budgetary deficit and trade deficit have widened tremendously, a report published by the central bank said. According to Nepal Rastra Bank, a budget deficit of Rs 5568.6 million has been recorded during the review period, which is more than 91 percent higher than that over the same period last year. Acceleration in development expenditure and sluggish growth in government revenue is the main reason behind the expanding budget deficit, the Bank said. Similarly, trade deficit widened by nearly 20 percent this year to Rs 36806.5 million mainly due to large volume of imports compared to exports. The balance of payment over the first six months of the current fiscal year, however, remains favorable by Rs 5792.6 million, the report said.

Heinrich - Boll Foundation's regional office organized a fourday (28 April — 1 May 2000) South Asian Project Partner Meeting 2000 at Kathmandu. Representatives from many Asian countries, and also from Holland and Germany participated. Bhabani Sengupta, Vandara Shiva, Anand Kumar Among other's from India. Dr. Tanvir Ahmed Khan from Pakistan, Prof Dilara Chaudhary from Bangladesh; Dr Jan Pieterse from Holland and Gerald Haefner, two time member of German Parliament from Germany were some of the noted participant. Members of Green Nepal Party and Green Peace and Good Governance Foundation from Nepal were also invited to participate. The meeting held lively discussions on participatory or representative democracy W.T.O and Defense Budgets. Many other interesting topics were also discussed. Roshan Dhunjibhoy, the regional head of HBF assured the participants that such meetings would be held quite often at changed venues.