BRIEFS (Spotlight Weekly)

THE STATE-OWNED NEPAL OIL CORPORATION (NOC) and Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. have reached into an agreement on supplies of petroleum products. The agreement will cover the period of nine months (July 1, 2001 to March 31, 2002) only as the Indian government will be decontrolling the import of all kinds of petroleum products since April 1, 2001. Under the next agreement, that will cover a period of five years, Nepal will provide India with imported crude oil, which will be refined at Indian refineries before being forwarded to Nepal. According to NOC, Nepal currently consumes 60,000 liters of petrol, 350,000 kilo liters of petrol, 350,000 kilo liters of diesel, 350,000 kilo liters of kerosene, 66,000 kilo liters of aviation fuel and 50,000 tonnes of cooking gas every year. The consumption rate of petroleum products is growing by almost 10 percent every year in the country, officials said.

ALL THE SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT organs of the government participated in an unprecedented seminar on the ongoing Internal Security and Development Programs (ISDP) in Nepalgunj of Banke district on Saturday. The seminar was participated by top officials from the police, army, National Planning Commission, District Development Committee, among others. The ISDP program has been implemented in Maoist-affected districts including Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan, Gorkha, Jajarkot, Pyuthan and Kalikot. Several working and strategic papers were presented by military and administrative officials at the seminar. In the papers, the government has indicated that it would employ army only as shield against any disturbance to the development projects.

THE LAST WEEK ALSO WITNESSED THE Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) lose 3.77 points in a gradual slump it has been experiencing for some time. On the first day of business last week, the NEPSE had opened at 331.05 points. As it came to the closing day, the point had come down to 327.28.

THREE REBELS FROM THE MAOIST GROUP HAVE been shot dead in an encounter with the police on July 2 evening in Siuna village located 25 km north of Manma, the district headquarter of Kalikot, police say. According to the Chief District Officer Mukunda Prasad Dhakal, the Maoists were killed during their clash with the Siuna-based police striking force that was on its regular patrol. Meanwhile, the rebels hurled a bomb at the Balaju Textile Mill in Kathmandu on Tuesday afternoon. The bomb went off during the lunch hour when there were no workers inside the factory. Property worth more than two million rupees were destroyed by the explosion. This is the first attack by the rebels in the Balaju industrial estate. In a separate incident, another banner-bomb exploded in Bafal area the same afternoon. The bomb was strewn in a banner portraying Maoist slogans and was similar to the one discovered in Kel Tole last week. No one was hurt in the incident. According to the police, although three white pouches were hung in the banner only one contained explosive while the other two were filled with mud.

THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT HAS EXTENDED a grant assistance worth Rs 1.12 billion for Debt Relief Measures as well as the for the project to improve road intersections in Kathmandu city. According to the press release about the agreement, the grant is the first lot of grant assistance provided by the Japanese government in Japan's fiscal year 2001. The nearly half amount of the grant will be utilized under Debt Relief Measures to procure commodities such as construction materials, fertilizers, petroleum products, medicine, transportation related equipment and other development related materials.

THE 183RD MEETING OF THE NATIONAL Planning Commission (NPC) held at its secretariat in Singhdurbar on Tuesday and chaired by its Chairman Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala decided to approve the draft of the mid term review of the current Ninth Plan and make it public. Likewise, the meeting also agreed to take necessary steps to prepare the approach paper for the Tenth Plan. The approach paper has been decided to be forwarded to the National Development Council meeting after it is prepared.

ACCORDING TO A STATEMENT BY THE Home Ministry, the government has distributed money worth Rs 100 million in the last one year as the financial assistance to different individuals. The assisted individuals include former Chief Justice, former ministers, their relatives, senior bureaucrats, politicians and so on. Former CJ Biswonath Upadhyaya, former minister Mohammad Aftab Alam, chairman of Nepal Sadbhavana Party Gajendra Narayan Singh are some of the individuals who have bagged the assistance. Most of them have bagged the assistance for medical reasons. Sanctioning of such amounts need cabinet approval and is released by the Finance Ministry.

IN WHAT IS SEEN AS A BIG BOOST to the government's multi-billion rupees Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF), the British agency Department for International Development (DFID) has expressed commitment to extend grant assistance of around 50 million British pound to the PAF. According to the Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Prithvi Raj Ligal, the understanding to this effect has already been reached and that the commission is awaiting a final agreement. Meanwhile, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), too, has expressed commitment to make a substantial contribution to the fund. Ligal said that the government would also increase its contribution to the fund. The forthcoming budget will further add o existing annual allotment of Rs 100 million to the fund. The fund is a broad-based plan introduced to counter the worsening poverty situation in the country.