The Kathmandu Post - 27 May, 2024 (2024)

JANAKPUR,
The then administrative officer of the Dhanusha District Administration Office has said the signature on the copy of Kantipur Media Group Chairman Kailash Sirohiya’s citizenship certificate is authentic and his own.
Police on Tuesday arrested Sirohiya from his Kathmandu office and brought him to Janakpur for investigation based on a complaint filed by Indrajit Mahato, a cadre of Rastriya Swatantra Party of Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane. Mahato has accused Sirohiya of providing wrong information to obtain citizenship.
Sirohiya has been in judicial custody in Janakpur for the past six days.
On Saturday, police in Dhanusha interrogated Kashiraj Dahal, who was administrative officer in the district 24 years ago, on the issue. During the interrogation, Dahal said the sign on Sirohiya’s citizenship copy was his own and was issued based on the original document.
This happened as some people have questioned the authenticity of the signatory and other details of the citizenship document.
This clarifies a major point of confusion over the copy of the citizenship certificate obtained by Sirohiya in 2000.
Sirohiya, who obtained his citizenship by descent on September 10, 1979, obtained its duplicate copy from the administration on September 14, 2000. Dahal was the district administrative officer at the latter date and he had signed the copy of the citizenship.
As the police recorded his statement on Saturday, Dahal made it clear that he had signed and issued the citizenship copy. Dahal retired from the government service as joint secretary of the home ministry a few months ago.
Police arrested Sirohiya and started investigation stating that another person Shivaji Sahu Teli was also given a citizenship certificate with the same number.
“I issued the duplicate copy in the name of Kailash Sirohiya in September 2000, based on the original certificate issued earlier and the signature is mine,” he told the police during the interrogation, according to a source privy to the development.
Superintendent of Police Bhuwaneshwar Tiwari confirmed that they have recorded the then administrative officer Dahal’s statement. However, he declined to give details. He asked the Post to contact the spokesperson of the district police office, DSP Ranjan Awale. The spokesperson, however, could not be reached.

KATHMANDU,
Both chambers of the federal parliament on Sunday passed the government’s policies and programme for the next fiscal year, 2024-25, amid protest by the main opposition Nepali Congress.
Despite the Congress obstructing the House of Representatives, Speaker Devraj Ghimire conducted the discussion on the policies and programmes, which was later passed by a majority of lawmakers. Before the session passed the motion, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal responded to lawmakers’ queries during the discussion on the policies and programmes presented by President Ramchandra Paudel on May 14.
“I feel a little uneasy answering these queries amidst the obstruction,” Prime Minister Dahal said. “Efforts are being made to end this impasse and I am holding talks with the leader of the main opposition party.”
Before the House meeting, Prime Minister Dahal had reached the residence of Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba. “I am in discussions on ending the Parliament deadlock with the Congress president,” Dahal said, addressing the Parliament meeting. “The disruption of Parliament will end soon.”
The government has a constitutional obligation to present the fiscal budget to a joint meeting of the House and the National Assembly on Jestha 15 [May 28 this year]. It is not yet clear how the Congress will present itself on the day Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun reads out the national budget.
The House of Representatives discussed the policies and programmes for over an hour amid protests by Congress lawmakers. Prem Suwal of the Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party and Chitra Bahadur KC of the Rastriya Janamorcha proposed amendments to the policies and programmes, only to be refused by the House later.
For the last two months, the Congress has been obstructing Parliament, demanding a parliamentary committee to investigate Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Rabi Lamichhane over his alleged involvement in the embezzlement of cooperative funds.
The Congress began protests soon after Lamichhane’s appointment as the home minister. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who broke a year-long alliance with the Congress, joined hands with the CPN-UML and the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) on March 4 and subsequently appointed Lamichhane the home minister.
The main opposition has been demanding a parliamentary probe into Lamichhane’s alleged involvement in embezzling cooperatives deposits, arguing that government agencies can’t independently investigate the home minister.
The winter session of Parliament was prorogued on April 14 amid the Congress’ obstruction. The party gave continuity to its obstruction the day the budget session commenced on May 10.
The party had even announced to obstruct the presentation of the government’s policies and programmes by the President on May 14, but it lifted the obstruction for the day to allow the President to present the document.
Gyanendra Bahadur Shahi, chief whip of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), speaking on behalf of the opposition parties in the House of Representatives on Sunday, urged Home Minister Lamichhane not to shy away from a parliamentary inquiry even if it meant his name would be mentioned in the terms of reference.
“Let the parliamentary committee be formed. If you are guilty, you will be punished. If proven innocent, you could rejoin the Cabinet as the home minister,” Shahi said.
“It is strange that an arrest warrant has been issued against RPP lawmaker Geeta Basnet of the same House, but not Lamichhane, though the allegations labelled against both are the same,” said Shahi. “Law should be equal for all. If an arrest warrant can be issued against Geeta Basnet, it can also be issued against Lamichhane.”
The Nawalpur District Court on April 30 issued an arrest warrant against lawmaker Basnet on charges of cooperative fraud. The court’s decision came after a complaint was registered against Basnet over her involvement in embezzling funds from the Nawalpur-based Chhipchhipe Savings and Credit Cooperative. Basnet’s group allegedly misused around 15 million rupees from the cooperatives.
Basnet is at large after the issuance of the arrest warrant against her.
Though the Congress leaders have been pressing for a probe committee, the ruling parties have declined to specifically mention Lamichhane’s name while formulating the terms and reference of the proposed committee. They, however, want to define the committee’s jurisdiction such that it can investigate issues of cooperatives broadly.
“Parliamentary probe committee cannot be constituted without mentioning the name of the person who is accused of embezzling cooperatives funds,” Chitra Bahadur KC, chair of the Rastriya Janamorcha Party, told journalists on the Parliament premises.
Janardan Sharma, a CPN (Maoist Centre) lawmaker, told the House meeting that big political crises and challenges were brewing in the country. “Therefore, national consensus is needed to address the issues,” he said.
“The logjam in Parliament will bring more trouble to the country and add to public fury,” said Sharma. “I appeal to everyone to take the initiative to break the deadlock.”

KATHMANDU,
Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun on Sunday claimed that the county’s economic indicators are improving, despite the ongoing political turmoil gripping the country just two days before the budget presentation.
The uncertainty surrounding the future of the government has unnerved the country’s economy. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Sunday told Parliament that he prefers not to resort to issuing ordinances to bring the annual budget.
Dahal’s comrade Pun told lawmakers that despite the contraction in the manufacturing and construction sectors, growth in agriculture and services would help the country’s economy grow.
While presenting the Economic Survey for the current financial year 2023-24, Pun said the country would achieve growth of 3.87 percent in the current fiscal year ending mid-July, from 1.95 percent in the last fiscal year.
The survey report, which is generally presented a few days before the budget day, is the government’s analysis of the economy. It generally covers the economic activities of the first eight months of the current fiscal year.
Pun attributed the growth rate to the performance of the agriculture sector, and tourism, which helped boost the accommodation and food services sector.
According to Pun, agriculture output is estimated to grow by 3.05 percent, and the non-agriculture sector by 3.75 percent. In the last fiscal year, the agriculture sector grew by 2.76 percent and the non-agriculture sector by 2.13 percent.
In the current fiscal year, paddy output has been projected to grow by 4.33 percent.
The economic survey said that of the total population, 62 percent are involved in agriculture. However, the contribution of the farm sector to the gross domestic product (GDP) has been steadily dropping.
The service sector’s contribution is growing. In the current fiscal year, the sector’s contribution to the national GDP has been projected at 62.9 percent, followed by agriculture at 24.09 percent and manufacturing at 13 percent.
Consumption has been growing.
The survey said that the contribution of consumption to the GDP had reached 92.4 percent, which means the ratio of savings to GDP is estimated to reach 7.6 percent.
The survey said that slowing capital expenditure and credit disbursem*nt have curtailed overall investment.
According to the survey, the total investment by the private sector and the government has increased by a meagre 2.8 percent, to Rs1.74 trillion.
Despite low investment and poor economic growth, Nepal’s per capita income, however, has been growing.
In the current fiscal year, the per capita national income is projected to grow to $1,456 from $1,405 in the last fiscal year.
The per capita GDP, or the country’s economic output per person, is calculated by dividing a country’s GDP by its population. It has been projected to reach $1,434 in the current fiscal year, up from $1,389 in the last fiscal year.
Finance Minister Pun claimed that inflation is under control. He said the government had kept inflation to 6.08 percent in the first eight months of the current fiscal year. It was 7.93 percent in the same period last fiscal year.
The survey said that banking transactions through digital means and access to finance are rising due to the promotion of financial literacy.
According to the survey, the number of mobile bank users reached 23.78 million in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, while there were 1.87 million internet banking users.
Based on the branches of banks and financial institutions, including microfinance institutions, there are an average of 2,515 people per branch.
The finance minister said the country’s banking system has adequate liquidity, and interest rates are dropping. As of mid-March, the average interest rate on deposits was 6.74 percent, while interest on credit was 10.78 percent. In the same period last fiscal year, the interest rates on deposits and credits were 8.37 percent and 13.03 percent, respectively.
Until mid-March or the first eight month period of the current fiscal year 2023-24, a total of 130,844 borrowers have benefited from concessional loans, amounting to Rs149.30 billion. Most of the loans were mobilised on commercial agriculture and livestock, amounting to Rs107 billion.
The survey said that the capital market has recovered to an extent. Until mid-March, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index reached 2,108.72 points, compared to 1953.06 points in mid-March 2023.
The stock exchange’s market capitalisation climbed to Rs3.31 trillion in the review period, up from Rs2.82 trillion in mid-March 2023.
In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, collection of insurance premiums increased by 4.4 percent, to Rs124.89 billion. Insurance coverage has reached 43.16 percent of the population, including Foreign Employment Term Life Insurance Policies.
As of mid-March, there are 31,450 cooperatives in Nepal, with 7.38 million members. In the review period, deposit mobilisation in cooperatives amounted to Rs478 billion, while credit mobilisation stood at Rs405 billion.
The survey said that until mid-March, the number of Nepali workers receiving approval for foreign employment permits had reached 5.92 million since Nepal started issuing such permits in the mid-1990s
The number of people living below the poverty line has declined to 20.27 percent in 2023. In 2011, this was over 25 percent. According to the survey, 24.66 percent of the poor live in rural areas, and 18.34 percent are in urban areas.
The survey said 1.19 million Nepalis were enrolled in the government’s social security fund as of mid-March, and the number of institutions listed in the fund had reached 18,755.
The national highway’s total length has reached 34,267 km. Of this, 53 percent has been blacktopped, 22.5 percent are gravel roads, and 24.3 percent are dirt roads.
In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, 28 km of road have been added, 190 km of roads have been upgraded to gravel, and 189 km have been blacktopped.
The survey said that the Investment Board Nepal, the Department of Industry, and Cottage and the Small Industry Development Board had approved Rs50.11 billion in investments as of mid-March. Similarly, as of mid-March, the foreign direct investment stock (the amount of money invested from abroad) in Nepal reached Rs478.85 billion. In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, the government has approved foreign direct investment (FDI) worth Rs29.13 billion.
Nepal received 1.01 million foreign tourists in 2023, up 65 percent
from 2022. The average per capita spending of foreign tourists has been recorded at $41, while the average length of a tourist’s stay is 13.2 days, the survey said.
However, there is a big gap between what Nepal earns from foreign tourists and the amount Nepalis spend abroad. Under the travel heading, the gap between travel income and expenses is Rs71.43 billion—Nepal spent more than it earned in the
travel sector.
The survey said Nepal is gradually moving toward becoming self-sufficient in energy. As of mid-March, 97.7 percent of the population had access to electricity, while the country’s total electricity output had reached 3,060 MW.
Climate change has become a burning issue. According to the survey, 90 percent of total crop losses are related
to climate change, and climate change-induced losses range from 10 to 30 percent. The survey said that the National Food Security Storage and SAARC Food Security Store had reserves of 997 tonnes and 8,997 tonnes of food grain, respectively, in the review period.
In the current fiscal year, the demand for chemical fertiliser is estimated to be around 600,000 tonnes.
Out of the total demand, 360,000 tonnes are estimated to be for urea, 220,000 tonnes for DAP, and 20,000 tonnes for potash. In the review period, 270,600 tonnes of chemical fertilisers were imported and sold.
The survey said the irrigation system was extended to an additional 1,640 hectares of land in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, reaching 88.5 percent of the total 1.76 million hectares of irrigable land.
However, of Nepal’s total arable 2.64 million hectares, irrigation coverage has reached 59 percent.
In the review period, the survey said that 45.31 percent of Nepal’s total land is covered with forest, including bushes and buffer zones.
Nepal has only 1.15 doctors and 2.54 hospital nurses for every 1,000 people.
The total number of registered health workers, including doctors and nurses, in the country is 102,686. The total number of health institutions, including 215 hospitals, has reached 7,858.
The survey said that as of mid-March, 35,143 people received free treatment for critical illnesses like cancer, heart disease, and kidney disease. Likewise, 2.39 million people are covered by life insurance.
The survey said that 96.75 percent of the population has access to drinking water. However, only 27.76 percent have access to quality drinking water.
Women’s representation in government services, which was 12 percent a decade and a half ago, has reached 28.5 percent. The highest number of them are in health services, commanding a 49.7 percent share of the total employment.

ACHHAM,
It takes nearly three days for Amrita Nepali, a 70-year-old woman from remote Rahaph in ward 1 of Turmakhand Rural Municipality, to reach the administrative centre of the rural municipality to collect her elderly allowance.
Due to the challenging terrain of the hilly region, people are forced to walk for days for any kind of administrative or bank-related work. Nepali complained that elderly people are the hardest hit when visiting the administrative centre of the rural municipality. “The only bank in the rural municipality is at the administrative centre, so people have no option but to make the arduous journey,” she added.
The government has made it mandatory to distribute social security allowances through the banking system apparently to check irregularities, but elderly people in the remote settlements have been affected due to the government’s decision.
In view of the hardship of senior citizens and people with physical disabilities, some local units in Achham including Turmakhand are attempting to distribute the allowance from the ward office. But it has not been quite effective due to lack of human resources and internet penetration.
Banks have reached the administrative centres of all ten local units of Achham, but citizens of remote areas are still several days away from them. While urban areas are becoming more developed by the day, the remote areas are being left out.
“I use my elderly allowance for daily consumables and medicines, and save some, but now I don’t think I will ever go to the bank to get the money because I don’t think I can walk for three days,” said Nepali.
After the formation of the local units following the 2017 local elections, the government decided to ensure that each local unit has at least one bank branch and that social security allowances are directly sent to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts.
This decision to send the money directly to beneficiaries was made so receivers such as the elderly and disabled will not have to suffer and so the government will be able to monitor every transaction without errors while simultaneously controlling irregularities.
Before the government took such a decision, ward secretaries and other officials of ward offices of local units would distribute social security allowances in cash.
“I wish people like me who are dependent upon the allowances provided by the government should get the allowance easily at our doorsteps so that I wouldn’t have to suffer by travelling for days,” said Nepali.
Amrita Nepali and all the elderly citizens of the country get a monthly allowance for senior citizens of Rs 4,000 per month as a social security grant.
The condition of Dhakari Rural Municipality is also similar to that of Turmakhand. Due to difficult terrain and lack of internet connection at the administrative centre and ward offices, they have not been able to transfer the social security grants directly to beneficiaries.
The topography of wards 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 of the municipality is challenging. As a result, several beneficiaries, especially the elderly and disabled, have stopped visiting the administrative centre to collect their social security allowances. “So we started distributing the allowances from the ward office with the help of bank employees and police personnel,” said Bikram Bohara, the information officer at the rural municipality. “There are at least 15 senior citizens in each ward who are unable even to visit the ward office to receive the allowance. We visit their homes and hand over the cash.”
According to Bohara, the distribution of cash to the beneficiaries has not been regular and it has several challenges. “The bank and the police office have limited manpower. And it is quite risky to carry a huge amount of cash without proper security arrangement,” said Bohara.
Sanphebagar Municipality in collaboration with the local bank, had once distributed the social security allowances at the beneficiaries’ doorsteps. But the municipality could not continue the service.
“We attempted to distribute the allowances through the banking system by visiting the ward offices. But the plan had to be cancelled due to poor internet access. Now, people have to come to Sanphebagar to collect their allowances,” said Rajendra Kunwar, mayor of Sanphebagar Municipality.
“In case of the disabled person, someone with a consent letter from the beneficiary and recommendation from the ward office can collect the allowance on their behalf. However, the beneficiaries often complain to us as it is difficult and costly to visit the administrative centre to collect the allowance,” Kunwar added.
According to him, mainly the people from Khaptad, Patalkot, Budhakot, Devisthan have difficulties receiving the social security allowance.
Dhan Bahadur Thapa, chief administrative officer of Chaurpati Rural Municipality, said that the beneficiaries of 12 villages and settlements located in all seven wards of the rural municipality have to walk for up to three days, risking their lives through narrow foot trails, to visit the administrative centre for the allowances.
“We visit the ward office every three months and distribute the allowances to the beneficiaries who cannot visit the administrative centre. We rely on the local unit officials, bank officials, and security personnel to carry out cash distribution. All expenses, including food, lodging, and travel of the team, are covered by the rural municipality,” said Thapa.

DHANUSHA/NUWAKOT: Four people died in two separate incidents of drowning in Dhanusha and Nuwakot districts on Saturday. Two children, both aged six, drowned while taking bath in a pond in ward 20 of Janakpurdham Sub-Metropolis in Dhanusha district. Police identified the deceased as Shivanandan Mahato, the son of Jaya Narayan Mahato, and Aaditya Paswan, the son of Rakesh Paswan of Devpura Rupaitha. The locals had rescued the victims and rushed them to Provincial Hospital in Janakpur where they were pronounced brought dead. Similarly in Nuwakot, Himal Tamang, aged 18, and Rojan Lama, aged 19, drowned in the Tadi stream. The tragic incident happened while the victims were swimming.

BIRENDRANAGAR: The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on Sunday filed a corruption case at the Special Court against 13 individuals, including the former chief administrative officer of Bheri Ganga Municipality in Surkhet. The anti-graft body has charge-sheeted the then chief administrative officer Kamal Prasad Poudel, accounts officer Man Bahadur Thada, engineer Bijay Kumar Khatri, sub-engineer Motilal Prasad, planning officer Shishir Kumar Khadka, administrative officer Pitambar Paudel, technical assistant Ujjwal Rawat, kharidar (second-class non-gazetted staffer) Santosh Tiwari, accountant Jeevan Somai and assistant accountant Chhabilal Sunar. The CIAA also filed cases against construction companies’ proprietors: Hari Bahadur Budha Chhetri, Navaraj Dhakal, and Bhim Bahadur Budha Chhetri. The anti-graft body filed corruption charges against them at the Special Court on allegations of working in collusion with the firms during the excavation, collection, and sale of riverbed materials in the fiscal year 2019-20. The CIAA has accused them of causing a revenue loss of Rs3.6 million to the state.

TANAHUN: Five Indian nationals were injured in a car accident in ward 1 of Anbukhaireni Rural Municipality of Tanahun district on Sunday morning. The car, bearing an Indian registration number was travelling from Anbukhaireni to Dumre when it lost control and plunged 20 metres from the road, injuring all five passengers. Police said one injured individual is undergoing treatment at Anbukhaireni Hospital, while three are receiving treatment at the Old Medical College in Chitwan. One person has been discharged after treatment.

KATHMANDU,
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority on Sunday filed a corruption case at the Special Court against 13 individuals, including the former chief administrative officer
of Bheri Ganga Municipality in Surkhet.
The anti-graft body charge-sheeted the then chief administrative officer Kamal Prasad Poudel, accounts officer Man Bahadur Thada, engineer Bijay Kumar Khatri, sub-engineer Motilal Prasad, planning officer Shishir Kumar Khadka, administrative officer Pitambar Paudel, technical assistant Ujjwal Rawat, kharidar (second-class non-gazetted officer) Santosh Tiwari, accountant Jeevan Somai and assistant accountant Chhabilal Sunar.
The CIAA also filed cases against the proprietors of construction companies: Hari Bahadur Budha Chhetri, Navaraj Dhakal, and Bhim Bahadur Budha Chhetri.
The anti-graft body filed a case at the Special Court charging them with working in collusion with the firms during the excavation, collection, and sale of riverbed materials in the fiscal year 2019-20. The CIAA has accused them of causing the state to lose Rs3.6 million in revenue.

KATHMANDU,
Over 7,000 children between six and eight years of age are out of school in the Kathmandu district and could miss the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in the ongoing immunisation drive, health authorities estimate.
Officials said they only have an estimation of the number of children in that age bracket but do not know their whereabouts.
“Children in the floating population, of parents working in construction sectors and factories or of those residing in slum settlements, who do not go to school, are the high-risk groups but they could be deprived of the vaccination programme,” said Dr Arjun Sapkota, chief of the Health Office, Kathmandu.
“We will run a vaccination programme in health facilities on the last day of the campaign, but we are unsure if all the children missing the vaccine will get inoculated.”
The Ministry of Health and Population launched a nationwide immunisation drive on Sunday, targeting over 1.46 million children born between April 2016 and October 2018 who have missed the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) due to a global shortage. Those children were administered only Type-1 and Type-3 polio oral vaccines and had missed the Type-2 polio vaccine.
Officials at the Immunisation Section of the Family Welfare Division under the Department of Health Services estimated that thousands of children throughout the country neither go to school nor participate in health care programmes.
“Providing health care services, including routine vaccines, to those populations is the most challenging task,” said Dr Abhiyan Gautam, the section chief. “Chances of those groups missing the services, including the routine vaccines, are always there. We will send health workers to the at-risk areas to find such children.”
Healthworkers found over 74,000 children out of school nationwide during the measles-rubella campaign launched in February.
“We are aware of the children who are out of school,” said Gautam. “Floating population, scattered slums, working-class people, lack of awareness and poor access to health workers are major challenges to health workers. We will send health workers to the areas designated as risk zones.”
Nepal has been polio-free since 2010, but the World Health Organisation officially gave the status on March 27, 2014, after maintaining zero polio cases for three consecutive years.
After introducing the IPV vaccine in September 2014, the country switched to the bivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (bOPV0) from the trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (tOPV).
The trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine contains all three types of poliovirus: Type-1, Type-2, and Type-3. The current oral poliovirus vaccine is made up of live, attenuated poliovirus.
The trivalent poliovirus vaccine was effective against all three types of poliovirus.
However, the Type-2 component of this vaccine can lead to the circulation of vaccine-derived viruses. Its use was linked to a vaccine associated with paralytic polio, a condition in which children develop paralysis.
Nepal became the first country in South Asia to incorporate the IPV vaccine in its routine immunisation programme in line with the UN health body’s endgame strategic plan to eliminate the risk of vaccine-derived poliovirus and phase out all oral polio vaccines in the routine immunisation programme.
IPV consists of inactivated poliovirus strains of all three poliovirus types.
Health officials say that children should continuously receive the bivalent poliovirus vaccine, even if they are administered the IPV vaccine, as the bivalent poliovirus vaccine is also necessary for intestinal immunity, while IPV provides mucosal immunity.
The government’s number one priority is childhood immunisation, under which 13 types of vaccines are given free of charge against a range of diseases, including measles-rubella, pneumonia, tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B, rotavirus, Japanese encephalitis, and typhoid, under the regular immunisation programme.
Regular immunisation is one of the most successful programmes in Nepal, with a high coverage rate. The country has demonstrated remarkable progress in reducing the under-five mortality rate and the regular immunisation programme is credited with that.
However, the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey-2022, carried out by the Ministry of Health and Population, showed that at least four percent of the children aged between 12 and 23 months received no vaccine at all.
This figure was one percent in 2016. The Ministry of Health and Population said that the nationwide vaccine coverage rate for polio is 95 percent.

Kathmandu,
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission on Sunday said the arrest of Kantipur Media Group Chairman Kailash Sirohiya was a result of a political vendetta.
“This is a staged drama of political vendetta against the media. Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane is misusing his political power gained overnight to silence the media which has been publishing a series of his wrongdoings and his active and conscious engagement in the embezzlement of millions of rupees from cooperatives,” it said in a statement.
“The real reason is not the irregularities in the citizenship card of Sirohiya, but a message to the media to stop publishing against Home Minister Lamichhane. And it is not going to stop here. It will continue, and other media organisations are going to be targeted for petty reasons to silence them.”
The AHRC said it believes that the international community and donor agencies to Nepal must act now and immediately vet the key members of the current government, especially Home Minister Lamichhane and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
Otherwise, political impunity and corruption will remain unabated in Nepal, it said.
“They have made a mockery of the press, the fourth organ of the state, by undermining national and international calls to respect press freedom and the right to free speech,” reads the statement.
The AHRC said Home Minister Lamichhane must resign and that investigations must be conducted into his involvement in the embezzlement of funds from the cooperatives and his earlier misuse of dual citizenships and passports.
“Home Minister Lamichhane is not above the law of the country, and there is no reason for him to enjoy any special treatment. He must face the law and prove himself not guilty, if at all,” it said.
The AHRC has urged the Nepal government ‘to immediately stop its naked and lowly circus’ and release Sirohiya. “Our organisation does not believe that the ongoing investigation against Sirohiya should stop, but it must fall under nationally and internationally practised standard procedures and laws,” it said.

KATHMANDU,
Representatives from various sectors and professions have criticised the arrest of Kantipur Media Group Chairman Kailash Sirohiya.
They termed it as an attempt not only to muzzle the media but also to suppress the voices from other critical communities such as film, civil society and the intellectual society.
Filmmaker Manoj Pandit described it as an attempt to frighten the society just like an antagonist in a movie creates terror in the society to establish oneself.
He said that the Sirohiya arrest should be looked at in a broader picture. “As a filmmaker, I think that if the ‘antagonist’ succeeds to establish himself, he will terrorise the entire society,” Pandit said in an interaction organised by the Kantipur chapter of the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) on Sunday.
Border expert Buddhi Narayan Shrestha said that the incident of armed security personnel arresting the chairman of a media company, that too from his workplace, was a matter of serious concern. “Also the allegations levelled against him are completely baseless,” he said. “It is not only me but also reputed international organisations such as International Federation of Journalists, Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Border and the Society of Professional Journalists have said so.”
He said that journalist-turned politician Lamichhane had shown arrogance after his overnight rise to power. “He thought that he could intimidate anyone, so independent people like us should stand united against such acts.”
Rights activist and writer Mitra Pariyar said that he supports the media organisation in its fight as the society needs independent media like the KMG because they give space to critical voices. “This is clearly a vengeance from the home minister and this is the beginning of the end of his populist politics,” he said.
Researcher Rita Sah said some people were trying to divide the society in this case as well. She said the allegation levelled against KMG chair Sirohiya was not new for her as the trend of looking at the people from Madheshi community in a suspicious way in terms of their citizenship has become a common trend in the country.
She said that there is no confusion at all that the authorities arrested Sirohiya clearly with an objective to intimidate the Kantipur media house. “They may come up with other charges as well, so be prepared even for that,” Sah added.
Raj Kumar Mahato, secretary of Mahottari chapter of the FNJ, said that the arrest is one of the representative cases of how people from the Madheshi community are troubled under one pretext or the other. “It is so unfortunate that a Nepali citizen has been compelled to go to Janakpur to prove that he is a Nepali citizen,” Mahato said. “Madhesh has been supplying foodgrains to Kathmandu for ages but the capital city has always humiliated the Madhesh.”
Researcher Ramesh Parajuli said that Sirohiya was arrested clearly out of revenge. It clearly indicates that the state attack in Nepal’s media has started which is very concerning, he said.
Human rights and constitutional lawyer Raju Prasad Chapagain described the cases as a conflict between press and state agencies. “In this conflict, the press must emerge stronger,” he said. He criticised Nepali media for failing to raise the issue of conflict of interest when Lamichhane was appointed home minister because he was given the home ministry when the issue of Lamichhane holding passports of two countries was sub-judice.
Photojournalist Bikas Rauniyar, journalist Ramesh Bhusal, writer Yug Pathak, researchers JB Bishwakarma and Pranab Kharel, and filmmaker Kiran BK, among others, expressed solidarity in the fight and suggested not to surrender to state highhandedness.

If you don’t have children, you are not necessarily infertile. Perhaps you don’t want one, for whatever reason. Yet the Nepali society continues to treat couples without children as odd, and somehow medically defective. And in a still highly patriarchal setup like Nepal’s, the blame for childlessness invariably falls on women. They get asked intrusive questions about their reproductive health. Often, men in such childless unions are asked to remarry so that they can have babies and take the family lineage forward. According to a 2020 study, Nepali couples are often put under pressure into having a child in the first year of their marriage, even when both husband and wife don’t want a baby. Even if one or the other member of a couple is infertile, another research in West Africa suggests, infertility in itself is not a cause for women’s anguish, it’s also what is known as the Social Pressure for Pregnancy (SSP). Most women who failed to conceive cited external pressure from families and society as the main cause of their distress.
As is the case in much of the world, the fertility rate in Nepal has been on a steady decline. For instance, in the two decades since 2002, there was a 50 percent dip in the country’s fertility rate. Greater awareness on family planning, increasing literacy and the rise in the number of families where both partners earn are responsible for this decline. So, again, many couples are not having children mostly out of choice. Yet women in particular continue to be under incredible social pressure to have babies, with women’s agency over their own bodies constantly undermined by their larger family and friend circles. Let’s face it, Nepal is still a men’s country where women and girls are routinely abused, verbally if not physically. When they face sexual assault, it becomes the women’s responsibility to establish guilt, even as the idea of consent is broadly defined in favour of the male perpetrator. There are far fewer women in decision-making roles, both in public and private sectors, again because of entrenched bias against women’s leadership qualities.
It is hardly a surprise that whenever the chhaupadi huts are brought down in western Nepal, they come right back up. There could be no better example of society’s attempt to control women, including their sexual and reproductive lives. Things are not so bad for women in urban parts of Nepal, but it is far from satisfactory. Women are expected to have more children, yet most organisations offer little in terms of maternity leave. It is good that the government is preparing to extend maternity leave to six months from the current provision of 14 weeks. Such progressive policies will help women better juggle work and family. They should also help Nepal avert the kind of sharp decline in population fast-ageing countries like Japan and China are now witnessing. But, at the end of the day, it is the women who should decide whether or not they want to have babies and how many. In a progressive society, they should get the environment to do so.

NEW YORK,
The dollar slipped against most major currencies on Friday as traders booked profits after recent gains but the US currency remained well-placed for further advances, supported by strong US economic data that has prompted markets to dial back expectations for interest rate cuts.
Data on Friday showed new orders for key US-manufactured capital goods rebounded more than expected in April and shipments of these goods also increased, suggesting a pickup in business spending on equipment early in the second quarter.
This follows Thursday’s data that showed US business activity in May accelerated to the highest level in just over two years and manufacturers reported surging input prices.
Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting published this week showed a lively debate among policymakers as to whether current rates were sufficiently restrictive to cool inflation.
The dollar was down 0.3 percent at 104.72 against a basket of currencies on Friday, after advancing in five of the last six trading sessions. For the week the index was up 0.2 percent.
The euro was up 0.3 percent at $1.08495 late on Friday.
“Investors are just now taking the opportunity to reflect back on the week and take some profits ... it’s really purely a positioning play,” said Boris Kovacevic, global market strategist at payments company Convera in Vienna. While stronger-than-expected US economic data has led traders to push out the timing of the first Fed rate cut to September, expectations for rate cuts by other central banks have also slipped.
“For as much as expectations of easing from the Federal Reserve have cooled off over the last week, it’s a similar story for central bankers around the world—ECB rate cut changes have also downshifted after lots of official commentary since Monday,” said Helen Given, FX trader at Monex USA in Washington.
Despite Friday’s retreat, the near-term outlook for the dollar was upbeat, analysts said.
“This theme of the US exceptionalism is still playing out,” Convera’s Kovacevic said.
The dollar is up almost 1 percent this week on the Japanese yen to 156.95 yen, even though Japanese government bond yields have climbed too, scaling decade highs and clearing 1 percent at the 10-year tenor. [JP/]
Japan’s core inflation slowed for a second straight month in April, meeting market expectations—and staying above the central bank’s target—at 2.2 percent.
“It’s having very little effect on the yen,” said Martin Whetton, head of financial markets strategy at Westpac in Sydney. “The carry of holding dollars is far juicier,” he said, while policymakers’ rhetoric has also made traders nervous about inflation
and the risk rate cuts would be distant or small.
The pound rose 0.3 percent to $1.27365 on Friday.
Data showed wet weather hit UK consumer spending far more than expected in April, but evidence of sticky inflation, and the surprise announcement this week of a July general election kept sterling near two-month highs.
China started a second day of war games around Taiwan. China’s yuan held steady in the offshore market around 7.2627.
The New Zealand dollar was up 0.4 percent at $0.61225, underpinned by a hawkish shift in outlook from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

STRESA, (Italy),
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday she is trying to
save a part of the global corporate tax deal focused on highly profitable multinational firms, but India is refusing to engage on issues important to US interests.
Yellen told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a G7 finance leaders meeting in Italy that China also has been “all but absent” in the negotiations to finalize “Pillar 1” of the OECD corporate tax deal reached in principle in 2021 that involves 140 countries.
“We are actively engaged in this negotiation,” to meet an end-June deadline for the deal, Yellen said. “We’re committed to doing everything we possibly can to make it work.”
Earlier on Friday, Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti told reporters that the Pillar 1 negotiations were set to fail, citing objections from the US, India and China.
The Pillar 1 negotiations are mainly aimed at reallocating the taxing right on US-based digital giants, allowing about $200 billion of corporate profits to be taxed in the countries where the companies do business.
A second pillar of the tax deal, the 15 percent global minimum tax on corporate profits is separately being implemented by many countries, but the US Congress has not ratified it.
Yellen said there are two “red line” issues for the US in the talks, related to transfer pricing and the “Amount B” system for simplifying the calculation of transfer pricing.
While most countries support the US position on these issues, “we have a problem with India. India will not engage with us,” she said.
A collapse of the Pillar 1 negotiations could prompt the return of digital services taxes in some countries and reignite potential trade tensions.
Prior to the 2021 initial deal, US trade authorities threatened 25 percent tariffs on more than $2 billion worth of imports from Italy, Austria, Britain, France, Spain and Turkey, from cosmetics to handbags. These were put on hold after the countries agreed to suspend their digital taxes while details of the arrangement were worked out.
Italy wants to negotiate an agreement with Washington that would stop these tariffs, which are temporarily frozen until June, while also keeping its levy in place, an Italian official told Reuters on Friday.

KINMEN (Taiwan),
In Taiwan’s Kinmen, less than an hour’s boat ride from the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou, bar owner Powei Lee draws crowds by blending the tiny island’s battle-scared past into co*cktails.
During the height of the Cold War, Chinese and Taiwanese forces regularly clashed over Kinmen - then mostly known in English as Quemoy - and other islets controlled by Taipei along China’s coast.
While today Kinmen is a fashionable tourist destination, drawing visitors to see its endangered otters and stark natural beauty, it has been back in the news after China last week included areas round the island for its latest war games near Taiwan.
Kinmen native Lee’s co*cktails at his Vent Bar showcase Kinmen’s unique flavour, such as the local fire water, Kaoliang, made with sorghum grown on the island.
Lee, 31, has designed one co*cktail inspired by an extensive propaganda campaign which followed fighting in 1958, when Taiwanese forces fended off a Chinese attack on Kinmen, whose closest point is only around 2 km (1.2 miles) from China.
Called “Pick and Eat”, the co*cktail is made with a base of soy milk, ginger and whisky, topped with cookies.
“Back then, the two sides would drop propaganda leaflets, each trying to show that their side was doing better and urging the other to surrender,” he told Reuters.
“One of the things they would do besides the leaflets was to send over supplies like snacks and food, to show that the people were well-fed.”
Taiwan has controlled Kinmen, and the Matsu islands further up the coast, since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taipei in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. No peace treaty has ever been signed.
Old bunkers, many now open to visitors, still dot Kinmen which is home to some 100,000 people, and Taiwan’s military maintains a substantial presence.
“I want them (the visitors) to be able to take away something even more meaningful than just typical souvenirs. If they can really feel that connection to the land, and understand the stories behind it, that’s going to be the best memento they
can have from their time here in Kinmen,” Lee said.
Those visitors may be Taiwanese or from further afield - but generally not Chinese. Regular post-pandemic Chinese tourism to Taiwan has yet to resume, amid bickering between Beijing and Taipei.
Life in Kinmen continued largely as normal during the drills last week, residents said, and flights to and from Taiwan’s main island were not disrupted.
Regarding the potential for conflict, Lee expressed hope against seeing a war.
“The pandemic has already been very disruptive, and a real war would be far worse,” he said.

WASHINGTON: Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk has told investors he plans to build a supercomputer dubbed “gigafactory of compute” to support the development of his artificial intelligence startup xAI, an industry news outlet reported Saturday. Musk wants the supercomputer—which will string together 100,000 Nvidia chips—operational by fall 2025, and “will hold himself personally responsible for delivering it on time,” The Information said. The planned supercomputer would be “at least four times the size of the biggest GPU clusters that exist today,” such as those used by Meta to train its AI models, Musk was quoted as saying during a presentation to investors this month. (AFP)

STRESA: G7 finance ministers urged Israel Saturday not to disrupt “vital financial transactions” in the occupied Palestinian territories, following indications it could cut off Palestinian banks. “We call on Israel to take the necessary measures to ensure that correspondent banking services between Israeli and Palestinian banks remain in place, so that vital financial transactions and critical trade and services continue,” read the final statement following the talks in Italy. The G7 ministers who had gathered in Stresa for the two-day finance summit also urged Israel “to release withheld clearance revenues to the Palestinian Authority, in view of its urgent fiscal needs”. (AFP)

WASHINGTON: A tiny NASA satellite was launched Saturday from New Zealand with the mission of improving climate change prediction by measuring heat escaping from Earth’s poles for the first time. “This new information—and we’ve never had it before—will improve our ability to model what’s happening in the poles, what’s happening in climate,” NASA’s earth sciences research director Karen St. Germain told a recent news conference. The satellite, which is the size of a shoe box, was launched by an Electron rocket, built by a company called Rocket Lab, which lifted off from Mahia in the north of New Zealand. (AFP)

LA DÉFENSE: The boss of TotalEnergies told shareholders Friday that new oil fields had to be developed to meet global demand, as the annual meetings of the French energy giant and one of its biggest shareholders were picketed by climate activists. Police said they detained 173 people among hundreds who gathered outside the Paris headquarters of Amundi, one of the world’s biggest investment managers and a major TotalEnergies shareholder. Climate activists also gathered hours before the TotalEnergies annual general meeting opened. (AFP)

KYIV,
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Sunday to attend his peace summit as Ukraine struggles to stave off unrelenting attacks by Russia in its 27-month-old invasion.
Ukraine hopes to host as many countries as possible at Kyiv-led talks in Switzerland next month aimed at uniting global opinion on how to halt the war and piling pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has not been invited.
Zelenskiy spoke in an English-language video recorded in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, inside the charred remains of a printing house that was destroyed on Thursday in a Russian missile strike. He said more than 80 countries would attend.
But it was unclear whether Biden would be there, nor has Beijing, which maintains close ties with Moscow, said whether it would attend. A US official said on Sunday that the United States will participate in the summit, but declined to say who or at what level.
“I am appealing to the leaders of the world who are still aside from the global efforts of the Global Peace Summit—to President Biden, the leader of the United States, and to President Xi, the leader of China,” said Zelenskiy. “Please, show your leadership in advancing the peace—the real peace and not just a pause between the strikes,” he said.
Zelenskiy added that the summit would “show who in the world really wants to end the war.”

LONDON,
All 18-year-olds in Britain will have to perform a year of mandatory military or civilian national service if the governing Conservative Party wins the July 4 national election, the party said Sunday.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to bring back a form of national service for the first time in more than 60 years, seeking to energize his election campaign after a faltering start.
The UK introduced military conscription for men and some women during World War II, and imposed 18 months of mandatory military service for men between 1947 and 1960. Since then Britain has had an all-volunteer military whose size has steadily shrunk.
Under the plan, a small minority of 18-year-olds—30,000 out of an estimated 700,000—would spend 12 months in the military, working in areas such as logistics or cyber defense.
The rest would spend one weekend a month working for charities, community groups, or organizations such as hospitals, the police and the fire service.
Sunak said the program would help “create a shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country.”
It remains unclear how it will be made compulsory. Home Secretary James Cleverly said no one would be forced to serve in the military.

NEW DELHI,
Six newborns have died in a fire at a baby care hospital in India’s capital New Delhi, local authorities said on Sunday.
Television footage showed firefighters attempting to douse the fire which broke out late Saturday night and engulfed the hospital in the eastern part of the city.
The fire department told news agency ANI, in which Reuters owns a minority stake, that six more children were rescued and taken to a different hospital, with one on a ventilator. The fire has since been brought under control. The owner of the baby hospital has fled, Delhi police said.
“The causes of the incident are being investigated and whoever is responsible for this negligence will not be spared,” Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a post on social media platform X.
The fire occurred a day after 27 people were killed in a fire at an entertainment centre in the western state of Gujarat. Local media have reported that two people have been detained in connection with that incident.

AHMEDABAD, India: At least 24 people, including many children, died in a fire that broke out on Saturday evening in a family entertainment venue in the western Indian state of Gujarat, a government official said.
With rescue efforts continuing at the scene in the Rajkot district, the local mayor told Reuters the death toll was expected to rise.
“Our focus is on rescue operations and saving lives. We will ensure strict action is taken against the people who are responsible for this incident,” Mayor Nayana Pedhadiya said.
Television images showed a massive fire engulfing the TRP game zone and thick clouds of smoke emanating from the site. The entire structure was gutted in the blaze. A police official at the local civil hospital said some of the bodies were charred beyond recognition. Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on social media platform X that the local administration was working to provide assistance to those affected.

San Antonio, Texas,
When Balu Natarajan became the first Indian American champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1985, a headline on an Associated Press article read, “Immigrants’ son wins National Spelling Bee,” with the first paragraph noting the champion “speaks his parents’ native Indian language at home.”
Those details would hardly be newsworthy today after a quarter-century of Indian American spelling champs, most of them the offspring of parents who arrived in the United States on student or work visas.
This year’s bee is scheduled to begin Tuesday at a convention center
outside Washington and, as usual, many of the expected contenders are Indian American, including Shradha Rachamreddy, Aryan Khedkar, Bruhat Soma and Ishika Varipilli.
Nearly 70 percent of Indian-born US residents arrived after 2000, according to census data, and that dovetails with the surge in Indian American spelling bee champions. There were two Indian American Scripps winners before 1999. Of the 34 since, 28 have been Indian American, including three straight years of Indian American co-champions and one year (2019) when eight champions were declared, seven of Indian ancestry.
The experiences of first-generation Indian Americans and their spelling bee champion children illustrate the economic success and cultural impact of the nation’s second-largest immigrant group.
As of 2022, there were 3.1 million Indian-born people living in the US, and Indian American households had a median income of $147,000, more than twice the median income of all US households, according to census data. Indian Americans also were more than twice as likely to have college degrees.
Indians received 74 percent of the H-1B visas for specialized occupations approved in fiscal 2021, and a record total of nearly 269,000 students from India were enrolled at US colleges and universities in 2022-23, according to the Institute of International Education.
Those numbers paint a picture of a high-achieving demographic that is well-suited for success in academic competitions. Ganesh Dasari, whose daughter and son each made multiple appearances at the Scripps bee, holds a doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Cambridge and was recruited to the US to work for ExxonMobil on an H-1B visa. He quickly obtained a green card.
“Me and my wife, we came from a similar background. We both benefited from having the education ... so we put a lot of emphasis on educating our kids,” Dasari said. “We basically introduced them to anything academic, and a couple of sports, but clearly there was a bias in our thinking that education is a higher priority than sports.”
In his 2016 address to Congress, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned “spelling bee champions” among his country’s contributions to the US while that year’s co-champs, Nihar Janga and Jairam Hathwar, watched from the gallery.
Even among Indian American spellers, a particular subgroup is overrepresented: families from the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where Telugu is the primary language. Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana, is India’s information-technology hub and the region supplies many H-1B visa recipients.
“Whenever we go to the spelling bee events, everybody speaks that language,” Dasari said. “We realized there are so many people from the same state.”
Deval Shah, the father of last year’s champion, Dev Shah, grew up in the northwestern state of Gujarat and proudly noted Dev was the first spelling bee champion of Gujarati descent. The parents of the 2022 winner, Harini Logan, are from Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Shah is an engineer, his wife is a physician, and both of Harini’s parents were trained as software engineers.
Indian-born parents of kids with an affinity for spelling have a network of similar families to provide guidance and support, as well as access to organizations like the North South Foundation, which offers academic competitions aimed at the Indian diaspora.
“The reason Indian American immigrants really dominate, the main reason is the North South Foundation,” Shah said. When Harini won her first NSF spelling competition, Ganesh Dasari was one of the judges, and “he was literally chasing us down” to tell them “Harini has tremendous potential to be on the national stage,” said Rampriya Logan, Harini’s mother.
Ishika, a 13-year-old from Spring, Texas, who will be competing at Scripps this year for the third time, woke her parents at 6 a.m. the day after she lost a third-grade classroom spelling bee, saying she wanted to participate in more bees. Her mother, an IT manager who immigrated to the US in 2006, then reached out to ask advice from other families from the Houston area whose children were high-level spellers.
The relative wealth and stability of Indian American households could lead observers to conclude their children are benefiting primarily from a privileged upbringing.
The truth is more nuanced, said Devesh Kapur, a professor of South Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a co-author of “The Other One Percent: Indians in America.”
“It is important to note that the children participating in the spelling bee competition come from striving middle-class immigrant families, often in occupations like IT, and not from wealthier Indian American households in finance or tech start-ups or consulting,” Kapur said.
Natarajan, a Chicago-based physician and health care executive, now serves as the volunteer president of the NSF, and he experienced the spelling bee as a parent when his son, Atman Balakrishnan, competed. He said he sometimes feels out of place because he was born in the US and he admires the grit of Indian-born parents and their children.

PORT MORESBY: More than 670 people are believed to have died after a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea, a UN official told AFP on Sunday as aid workers and villagers braved perilous conditions in their search for survivors. The once-bustling hillside village in Enga province was almost completely obliterated when the landslide struck in the early hours of Friday morning, burying scores of homes and the people sleeping inside them. “There are an estimated 150-plus houses now buried,” said UN migration agency representative Serhan Aktoprak, adding that “670-plus people are assumed dead”. “The situation is terrible with the land still sliding. The water is running and this is creating a massive risk for everyone involved,” added Aktoprak, who oversees teams of emergency workers from Port Moresby. The unforgiving terrain, damaged roads and an outbreak of tribal violence nearby have seriously hamstrung efforts to get help into the disaster zone. More than two days after the landslide rumbled down the face of Mount Mungalo, mud-caked villagers in bare feet are still searching for their loved ones using shovels, axes and other makeshift tools. (AFP)

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have arrested 11 Islamist militants who were involved in the suicide bombing that killed five Chinese engineers in March in the north of the country which borders Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday. The announcement was made at a news conference held by Pakistan’s counter-terrorism chief Rai Tahir along with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi.The arrested men belong to local Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is an umbrella group of dozens of Sunni Islamists and sectarian militant groups. The TTP aims to overthrow the government and replace it with a harsh brand of Islamic law. Tahir said a cellphone which the suicide bomber had been using to communicate with his local handlers led to the arrest of the suspects. The investigation and evidence show the militants had been taking instructions from TTP leaders in Afghanistan, he said.Pakistani military had already said the attack was planned in Afghanistan and that the suicide bomber was also an Afghan national, a charge Kabul denies. (Reuters)

COLOMBO: Wildlife authorities in Sri Lanka on Sunday found seven carcasses of young elephants believed to have drowned in the biggest single loss of the animals in five years. An official said the onset of the southwest monsoon had led to flooding in the elephant habitat in Dimbulagala, around 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of the capital Colombo. “We were alerted by villagers to three young elephants who had drowned last evening, but when we went to the marshy area we found four more,” a regional wildlife official said. He said autopsies will be carried out on the seven carcasses on Monday, but a preliminary investigation suggested that the animals had gotten bogged down in the marsh and drowned. In 2019, seven elephants were similarly found dead in the north-central region of the country. (AFP)

BERLIN,
Granit Xhaka’s early strike was enough for Bayer Leverkusen to win the German Cup final 1-0 over Kaiserslautern for an unbeaten domestic double on Saturday.
Xhaka fired the ball in under the crossbar from distance in the 16th minute. It proved to be enough against second-division Kaiserslautern despite losing defender Odilon Kossounou to a second yellow card just before the break.
Leverkusen won the Bundesliga unbeaten, an historic feat. The only blip on the record of Xabi Alonso’s team this season was losing the Europa League final to Atalanta 3-0 on Wednesday in Dublin. That ended Leverkusen’s record 51-game unbeaten run across all competitions. It was their only loss in 53 games this season.
“The whole journey, the whole season was wonderful,” the Spanish coach said after doubling Leverkusen’s trophy haul in just one season. “What we did this season is unbelievable.”
Alonso and his players ran to their fans after the whistle on Saturday in Berlin’s Olympiastadion. They had supported the team loudly throughout, though were drowned at times by the even more vociferous Kaiserslautern supporters.
They displayed a spectacular tifo of a red devil grasping the trophy in front of a hellish background of fire and brimstone before the game. Flares sending red smoke into the sky embellished the effect—and gave an inkling of what was to come.
The stadium announcer’s repeated requests to stop the pyrotechnics were met with continued indifference. The second half began to a huge fireworks display from the Leverkusen fans.
Despite the smoke above, there was little fire on the field after a long hard season. Kossounou was booked for stopping Kenny Prince Redondo’s break in the third minute, then issued another yellow for a foul on Boris Tomiak in the 44th.
It didn’t stop the Leverkusen machine from grinding out the win. Jeremie Frimpong should have made it 2-0 in the 75th after going past the goalkeeper.
It’s Leverkusen’s second German Cup title after beating Hertha Berlin’s reserve team in the 1993 final. Leverkusen’s other trophy is the 1988 UEFA Cup.

LONDON,
Southampton secured an immediate return to the Premier League on Sunday by beating Leeds 1-0 at Wembley Stadium in the Championship playoff final, the richest one-off match in world football.
An uplift of 140 million pounds ($180 million) in future earnings from broadcast revenue and prize money is guaranteed for the south-coast club thanks to Adam Armstrong’s 24th-minute winner at England’s national stadium.
Southampton are heading back up to the lucrative Premier League alongside Leicester and Ipswich, who took the automatic promotion spots in the Championship.
As for Leeds, whose US ownership group contains major-winning golfers Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, the club’s playoff woes continued.
This is the sixth time Leeds have failed to go up via the post-season series. Making it even more painful is the fact that Leeds finished third in the regular season—three points above fourth-place Southampton—and missed out on automatic promotion after winning only one of their last six games.
Armstrong ran onto a through ball that pierced the Leeds defence and slotted a low finish into the far corner for his 24th league goal of the season for Southampton, who spent the entire game sitting back and playing on the counterattack.
Leeds had no answer, barely troubling Southampton’s five-man defence in what proved to be a tame ending to the season for one of England’s most celebrated clubs who—like Southampton—were relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2022-23 season.
The closest Leeds came was in the 84th minute when substitute Dan James smashed a dipping shot against the crossbar.
It was a third win against Leeds this season for Southampton, who had won their meetings home, away and now at Wembley. Southampton were in the Premier League from 2012-2023, a period notable for the club churning out a raft of talented academy players, following in the footsteps of the likes of Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott.

Kathmandu,
Aanand Mishra, the founder and president of the non-profit organisation Creasion (Center for Research and Sustainable Development Nepal), is a development professional, social entrepreneur and an activist with over 20 years of experience in the field. Creasion focuses on environmental protection through recycling, research, emergency response, grassroots initiatives and circular economy projects.
On a typical day, you might see Mishra in his office—friendly and calm, working with his team and offering guidance. He could also be found at climate-smart workshops, working with and mentoring young participants. Watching him interact with his team, it’s evident that he strongly believes in the power of teamwork.
This conviction began when he was around eight years old as he watched his grandfather, a grassroot activist.
As a child, Mishra would hold his grandfather’s warm, calloused fingers and often accompany him to community work and workshops in their village, Tilathi, Saptari.
During a time when village life was marked by strict caste segregation between so-called ‘upper and lower castes’, Mishra’s grandfather, from a Brahmin family, broke these social barriers. He would sit with Dalits, eat with them, build wells for them, and work for the welfare of marginalised people, who were regarded as untouchables by the society. His grandfather believed in forming small teams to help people, convinced that teamwork made overcoming difficulties easier—a belief that Mishra also embraced.
Watching his grandfather work for community welfare always made Mishra happy. “Although I couldn’t understand it fully, I subconsciously promised to do something similar like Nana (maternal grandfather in Maithili) when I grow up,” Mishra recalls. Since then, he has been dedicated to fulfilling that promise.
Around sixth grade, he started a small club with 20 students. They each contributed five rupees to start a reading club, which began with comic books and eventually became a library in 1998.
In seventh grade, he had the chance to participate in a national UNICEF event in Kathmandu.
By eighth grade, on January 1, 2000, UNICEF appointed him as the national president of the child club ‘Baal Chetana Samuha’, the first club in Nepal for minors. As president, he worked for children’s rights. “That’s when my official journey in the social and developmental field began,” he says.
Mishra used to travel regularly between Kathmandu and his village for his work. His mother insisted that he move to Kathmandu for higher education. He agreed and came to Kathmandu in 2004 to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies.
Coming from a small village and a simple school, Mishra struggled to adapt to Kathmandu’s advanced education system and lifestyle. His first two years of bachelor’s were particularly tough. As a Madheshi with Maithili as his mother tongue, he struggled with Nepali and faced discrimination.
“The pain of being an outsider stayed with me.” Motivated by this experience, he discussed his ideas with a few close friends and started Creasion in 2005.
“My goal was simple: to ensure that all youths and students coming to Kathmandu, regardless of their background or district, would have equal opportunities for volunteering, internships, exposure, and a platform to pursue their dreams,” Mishra recalls.
In response to the 2015 earthquake, he launched a program called Rebuild for Change (RFC). Through RFC, they built 1,000 houses, established one climate-smart village, and constructed ten schools. This effort included 55 cement houses in Lele, Burunchuli village, which was the first climate-smart village they created, and 945 temporary metal site (TMS) houses in the worst-affected areas.
Until then, Mishra concentrated on addressing immediate issues and challenges. However, around 2017, individuals from the Coca-Cola Foundation proposed that he continue his work on plastic-related projects, similar to what he had done in 2013. Acknowledging the global significance of plastic waste, Mishra and his team conducted research for two years.
In 2019, with support from the Coca-Cola Foundation, they launched the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) project in Chitwan and initiated waste-smart schools in various parts of the region.
He also started Recycler Saathi, a project to promote recycling. “I thought we could all be friends in developing the habit of recycling and together solving the problem,” Mishra explains. The project was successful, recycling around 5,000 metric tons of plastic.
According to Mishra, the main issue in plastic and waste management in Nepal is the absence of a coherent policy. The government has delegated waste management duties to local municipalities, but they lack sufficient knowledge, training, or resources. Numerous municipalities lack landfill sites and management expertise, and there’s no clear division of responsibilities between provincial and local governments.
“The central government believes their role is complete once they assign responsibilities, but that’s insufficient. There needs to be excellent coordination among all three levels of government. A comprehensive report and study on plastic management, usage, import, and recycling are crucial,” he suggests.
Mishra believes that good plastic should be used appropriately, bad plastic should be minimised, and very harmful plastics, such as multilayered packaging, should be phased out. He emphasises the importance of private businesses joining efforts to address this urgent issue but points out that many prioritise profit, risking the well-being of future generations.
Mishra, a supporter of sustainable development, also feels that Nepal is behind in this area because development is frequently associated with destruction and lacks thorough research. Another challenge is that Nepal is turning into an ‘airport’, with many people focused on leaving. “We need to transform Nepal from an airport into a nurturing home where change can occur. I am optimistic that this transformation can happen,” he says.
“Around 2004 and 2005, I faced subtle yet continuous discrimination for being a Madheshi. Even today, I occasionally
experience it. When people learn my surname and see my face, they often categorise me as an Indian,” Mishra remembers.
Mishra views this discrimination as a global problem, where dominant groups often marginalised minorities. Instead of letting it affect him, he focuses on uplifting marginalised groups through his work.
“In the future, my goal, together with my team, is to reduce plastic pollution and integrate plastic recycling into the circular economy,” Mishra says. His dream is to achieve complete circularity in the recycling industry and create job opportunities that support Nepal’s economy.
Mishra also dreams of recognising the skilled young professionals in Nepal who choose to stay and contribute to the country. “We often complain about youths leaving the country. But what about those who stay? Have we provided them with enough resources and opportunities for growth? Have we thanked them, honoured them, or even given them a pat on the back? We haven’t, and this is crucial. I work with dedicated young individuals and will continue to seek more opportunities for them,” he adds.
He advises young people to support themselves if possible. “See the world by standing on your own feet. You don’t need to travel the globe to gain perspective; sincerely exploring your own roots, village, or country is enough.”

The New York Writers Workshop Kathmandu, which began on May 22, has concluded its workshops across various locations in the Kathmandu Valley. This culminates in the Himalayan Literature Festival, set to kick off today. The festival will continue till Tuesday and will be held at Kathmandu Guest House, Thamel.
Rob Fenn, the ambassador of the UK to Nepal, will formally inaugurate the festival alongside other notable guests, including Tim Tomlinson and Dr Ravi Shankar, co-founder and board member of New York Writers Workshop, respectively.
The first day will start with a ceremony, followed by discussions on topics like ‘Ghazal as Blues’, magazines, and Nepali poetry readings. There will also be talks by renowned figures like K Satchidanandan on ‘Home and Beyond’ and ‘Culture of Silence’.
This festival stands out for its focus on poetry readings, featuring languages like Nepali, Newari, and English. Rajni Mila will lead a session on Nepal Bhasa poetry, while Tony Barnstone will oversee a discussion on translation with experts like Nina Kossman and Yuyutsu Sharma.
Book launches will be a highlight, with around 12 books hitting the shelves, including the latest issue of Pratik magazine. The festival pays tribute to Nepali poet Gopal Prasad Rimal, with his son Madan Rimal speaking about him.
Furthermore, during the festival, the English translations of poet Rimal’s works will be unveiled, along with a stage performance of his poetry by the Garden Theatre Community, under the direction of Che Shankar. On the second day of the festival, there will be a panel discussion focusing on the life and legacy of Gopal Prasad Rimal.
The festival aims to create a dialogue between experts and writers from the Western and Eastern hemispheres. Nepali photographer Bikas Rauniar will discuss the art of photography with Boston-based photographer Julie Williams-Krishnan.
Additionally, there will be significant panels dedicated to Nepali writing. Ken Subedi, head of Media and Publicity for the festival and workshop, will moderate a session featuring Yubaraj Ghimire, Narayan Wagle, Koshraj Koirala, Deepak Sapkota, and Shakuntala Joshi, discussing the role of Nepali literature in Nepalese media.
The festival aims to be a hub for literature enthusiasts, offering a diverse range of discussions on Nepali, Indian, and international writing trends, photography, and performance. Over 100 authors from around the world are expected to attend.