BRIEFS (Spotlight Weekly)

Crown Prince Dipendra giving awards to the winners of a computer software competition

KING BIRENDRA INAUGURATED an international children's peace mural exhibition, known as KIDS' GUERNICA-2000, at Tundikhel in the capital last week. The exhibition brings together mural paintings drawn by nearly 10,000 children from around the world. The exhibition aims to convey a message of peace from children around the world to people all over the world in the 21st century.†The murals measuring 3.5 meters x 7.8 meters are of the same size as Pablo Picasso's masterpiece GUERNICA.†The KIDS' GUERNICA program was initiated in Japan over the Internet in 1995 by Art Japan Network by inviting children from all over the world to express their messages of peace by painting the murals.†Altogether 54 murals from 18 countries have been painted in five years.

THE MID-WESTERN RURAL Development Bank has extended a loan amounting to Rs 420 million to deprived women living in rural areas in the region. A total of 17,000 women have benefited through the Bank. The loans are distributed through women's groups formed at the local levels. Women groups are also actively involved in capital formation through micro-savings. As of mid-November this year, a total of Rs 26.6 million was collected by the groups in savings. The bank loans have been largely successful in generating income and employment at the local level, said Arjun Babu Tiwari, managing director of the Bank.

THE MAIN OPPOSITION, UNIFIED Marxist-Leninist, condemned the elements willing to give rise to communal violence in the country, vandalism that took place on December 27 and the attack on people from a neighboring country. The party, however, did not clarify its position regarding joining of hands by its student wing with the student organizations of ultra-left political parties including the underground Maoist party.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS announced compensation to families of those killed in police firing during violent protests over alleged remarks by an Indian actor, Hrithik Roshan, in the capital on December 26 and 27. Roshan has already denied of making any such statement. According to the cabinet secretariat, the government will provide Rs 100,000 each as financial assistance to the families of those killed in the incidents. The government will also make due arrangement for medical treatment of those injured in the incidents. At least five people, including two minors, were killed and hundreds injured in two days long clashes in Kathmandu.

MANAKAMANA DARSHAN PVT. Ltd, a company that is running cable car successfully to Manakamana temple in western district of Gorkha, has decided to construct similar operations to Swargadwari, a famous religious site in mid-western Nepal. The proposed four-km long Bhingri-Swargadwari cable car project, expected to cost Rs 460 million, will come into operation within one year, reports said. The project, with 21 towers and 31 cable cars, will take 14 minutes for one way travel and charge a fair of Rs 300 from the passengers. Devotees will have to walk only for 10 minutes to reach the temple situated at a hill top in Piuthan district.

NEPAL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY (NCC) distributed 500 pieces of blankets to former kamaiya families in Mahendranagar on the Christmas eve. NCC representative Suklal Singh said his organization would extend support for health and education to the freed kamaiya children in the future. Thousands of former Kamaiyas are living in make-shift tented camps in far-western Nepal ever since the government declared them free from the debt bondage in July this year. Recent reports said that at least half a dozen children of former kamaiyas died in these camps out of cold. A number of humanitarian agencies have been providing food, clothing and medicines to these families.

FORMER INDIAN PRIME MINISTER Chandra Shekhar, known for his open support to Nepal's pro-democracy movement in 1989-90, faced black flags in eastern Nepal last week from Nepali students who were protesting alleged derogatory remarks by an Indian actor. Local administration had to arrange tight security for the visiting dignitary. Shekhar visited the B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS) in Dharan, constructed with Indian assistance, and also inspected the Krishna Prasad Koirala Services Trust in Morang† district. Late Krishna Prasad Koirala is father of Prime Minister G. P. Koirala.

THE SECOND CONVENTION of SAARC Diploma Engineers' Forum (SDEF) kicked off here last week. Nearly 300 junior engineers from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh are taking part in the two-day convention being organized by the Forum. The convention will discuss ways of promoting brotherhood in the SAARC region and exchanging knowledge on the emerging engineering technologies for the progress of the region