Govt officials set to skip Geneva UN rights meet

WORLD
Indian President says
country will launch
its first mission to
Mars this year
5
Kathmandu, Friday, February 22, 2013 (11/11/2069) Nepal Sambat 1133
20 dead, scores
injured in India
‘terror attack’
Indian police and forensics officials at the site
of a bomb blast at Dilshuk Nagar in
Hyderabad, India, on Thursday. AFP/RSS
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
HYDERABAD, FEB 21
AT least 20 people were killed and more than 50
wounded when bombs ripped through a crowded
suburb of the Indian city of Hyderabad on Thursday
in what police called an act of terrorism.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed punishment
of those responsible for the "dastardly
act," which came with the nation on alert after the
recent hanging of a separatist unleashed protests in
the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.
The bombs targeted a mainly Hindu district in
Hyderabad, a southern hub of India's computing
industry which has a large Muslim population. The
Australian and Indian cricket teams are due to play
there in a match starting on March 2.
Doctors struggled to treat a stream of wounded
victims as bloodied patients lay on stretchers at
nearby hospitals and anguished relatives clamoured
for news of their loved ones, an AFP photographer
saw. At least two devices went off in the
evening explosions, and bomb-disposal experts
were trying to defuse three more unexploded
devices, police said.
"This is a terror attack for sure," Hyderabad
deputy inspector of police Shiv Kumar told AFP,
while adding there had been no claim of responsibility.
Twenty people died in the attack and 54 people
were wounded, 35 seriously, he said.
"This is a dastardly act and the guilty will not go
unpunished," Prime Minister Singh said of the
attacks, the most serious to hit India since 13 people
died in a 2011 bombing outside the High Court
in the capital New Delhi.
But Singh, speaking in New Delhi, also
appealed for "calm" in the aftermath of the
Hyderabad blasts.
BINOD GHIMIRE
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
OVER half a million people
have filed applications for
permanent teaching positions
across the country.
On January 4, the Teachers
Service Commission (TSC) had invited
applications for 13,135 vacant
posts of school-level teachers for the
first time in 17 years.
Thursday was the deadline for
the applications invited from
people between the ages of 18 and 40
with intermediate or bachelors
degrees in education.
Joint Secretary at the TSC
Khagendra Nepal said around
550,000 candidates have applied at
District Education Offices in all the
75 districts of the country.
After an acute shortage of permanent
teachers in the country, the government
last November decided to
call for open competition for 12,876
posts and later increased the number
to 13,115—7,956 in the primary, 2,993
in lower secondary and 2,286 in the
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Govt officials set to skip
Geneva UN rights meet
ANIL GIRI
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
AS Nepal’s human rights
record comes under increasing
scrutiny from international
quarters, senior Nepali
government officials, including
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister
for Foreign Affairs Narayan Kaji
Shrestha, Chief Secretary Lilamani
Poudel and Foreign Secretary Durga
Bhattarai, are all set to skip the
crucial 22nd session of the UN Human
Rights Council that will begin in
Geneva next week.
DPM Shrestha confirmed that no
senior government official will be
leading a Nepali delegation to the
council due to the changing political
scenario in the country.
For the past several years, according
to the importance of the theme of
the annual human rights meet, either
the foreign minister or the chief
secretary had been leading a Nepali
delegation.
According to officials involved in
the human rights sector in the country,
this time around, Nepal’s poor
OP-ED
Guaranteeing
Madhesis the right
to vote is the state’s
responsibility
6
Constitutional, legal
hurdles delay deal
BHADRA SHARMA &
PRANAB KHAREL
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
AMID speculations over
whether Chief Justice (CJ)
Khil Raj Regmi will lead an
election government, top
negotiators privy to political
developments
said the CJ is
positive on
the proposal.
Negotiators said a deal
on the CJ-led election government
may be struck
within a couple of days.
“The CJ is positive about
leading an election government,
but constitutional
and legal hurdles are hindering
a deal,” said CPN-UML
Vice-chairperson Bam Dev
Gautam. Sources said consultations
held by major
parties with lawyers on
Thursday were part of their
agreement with Regmi.
Multiple sources said that
550,000 in race for 13,000 posts
secondary level—after assessing
the need.
Though the Ministry of
Education had been planning to hold
an internal competition targeting
only temporary teachers, the same
could not materialise as a new Act
forwarded as ordinance to the
President’s office was rejected.
TEACHERS’ VACANCY
The government has not
announced vacancies for teachers
since 1995, resulting in a shortage of
around 40,000 permanent teachers
for around 38,000 schools from the
primary to the secondary level across
the country.
The TSC has scheduled the examinations
for the primary, lower secondary
and secondary levels on
August 25, 26 and 27 respectively.
According to Nepal, results of the
written test will be announced in
September, while interviews will be
held by the first week of November.
“We are planning to publish the final
results by mid-November,” he said.
CJ-LED GOVT
human rights record is likely to dominate
the meeting as the country has
failed to address several outstanding
the CJ and top leaders of the
major political parties had
agreed on Wednesday to
hold separate legal consultations
on how to remove
constitutional and legal difficulties.
The parties, in their
meeting with the head of the
judiciary, made serious
attempts to
allay Regmi’s
doubts. The
parties,
through the Cabinet, have
also agreed to ask President
Ram Baran Yadav to remove
constitutional difficulties.
Regmi is said to be
under pressure from both
his colleagues and the Nepal
Bar Association, an umbrella
organisation of lawyers, to
not head the government.
The NBA has stood against
the idea, arguing it would
compromise on the principle
of separation of powers.
CJ CONTD ON PG 4
All the answer sheets will be
coded before being dispatched for
checking and decoded while publishing
the results.
Of the total positions, 45 percent
are reserved for females, Madhesis,
janajatis and other marginalised
communities. Around 29,000
applications are from Kathmandu
district alone.
Those who have completed their
intermediate or bachelors degrees
from the education stream and have
teaching licences are eligible for the
posts. Those from other faculties
should have undergone 10 months of
teachers’ training along with a
teaching licence.
According to TSC records, around
700,000 people in the country have
acquired teaching licences.
The government is working to get
rid of temporary teachers by 2014
and will only initiate the recruitment
process for permanent positions
afterwards. Government data show
that around 24,000 temporary teachers
are working in public schools
across the country.
Shrestha Poudel
Officials say Nepal's poor
rights record is likely to
dominate the meeting and
this has led to officials
avoiding participation
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Bhattarai
issues and this has led to officials
avoiding participation.
After the three senior government
officials refused to attend the meet,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA)
instructed its Geneva-based
Ambassador Shanker Bairagi and
Paris-based Nepali diplomat Ram
Babu Dhakal to lead the delegation
and defend Nepal’s position.
Chief Secretary Poudel was asked
to lead the Nepali delegation after
DPM Shrestha rejected the idea.
GENEVA CONTD ON PG 4
CABINET
DECISION
Conflict, stir
victims to get
loan waiver
Vol XXI No 005 | 12+4 Pages | www.ekantipur.com
Passports go missing;
employment agencies
fear they’ll be misused
ROSHAN SEDHAI
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
OVER 200 passports of Nepali
migrant workers, most of
which with work visa for Saudi
Arabia, disappeared
under
mysterious circumstances
while they were
being brought
back to the country
from Bangladesh
on February 8.
The owner of
recruiting agency
Memorial Overseas,
Lok Prasad Aryal, had
been carrying the passports
sent by nine manpower
companies. Work visas for
Saudi Arabia are stamped
in Bangladesh in the absence
of the Gulf country’s embassy
in Nepal.
“They (passports) were in
my luggage when I boarded a
Biman Bangladesh plane for
Kathmandu. However, they
I
were not there by the time I
arrived at the Tribhuvan
International Airport in
Kathmandu,” Aryal told the
Post over telephone from
Bangladesh.
He said there were
around 110 passports
with visas, 25 without
them and 60 driving
licences.
To save extra
costs, manpower
agencies usually
assign one specific
person to take
the passport
back to the
country after they
are stamped.
Two of the nine manpower
agencies in question—World
Wide Manpower Agency and
KL International—have
claimed that at least three
individuals have entered
Saudi Arabia with the
lost passports.
PASSPORT CONTD ON PG 4

2 THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
VISUAL STIMULUS
A female artist at work in Kupondole, Lalitpur, on Thursday. The artwork aims to raise awareness on
malaria. POST PHOTO: LAXMI PD NGAKHUSI
Paras health shows no sign of progress
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
RAMCHANDRA GIRI
MALAYSIA, FEB 21
FORMER crown
prince Paras
Shah remains
under intensive
care in a
Thailand hospital
as he showed
no sign of
progress.
Shah’s friend Sunil Khadka said
on Thursday that Shah is still
Sapana is Nepal’s
Cedaw candidate
THE government
has selected human
rights activist and
former Constituent
Assembly member
Sapana Pradhan Malla as
Nepal’s candidate for the
Convention for the
Elimination of
Discrimination Against
Women’s (Cedaw) 2015-
2018 term.
In 2010, Pradhan Malla
had registered her candidacy
for the same post but
was defeated by a narrow
margin. Thursday’s Cabinet
meeting decided to register
her candidature. Elections
for Cedaw, which will take
place towards the end of
2014 in New York, will pick
23 members from countries
that are party to the
convention.
“This is an important
high-powered platform.
The 23-member expert
group is a big stage for
women empowerment and
justice,” said a senior foreign
ministry official.
During the Cabinet
meeting, some ministers
expressed reservations over
Pradhan Malla’s nomina-
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unconscious and on ventilator. He
was admitted to Samitivej Hospital
in Bangkok on Tuesday after he suffered
a cardiac arrest. Shah has a
history of heart disease—he underwent
a surgery after suffering a mild
attack in September 2007.
“Doctors attending him say
they cannot say anything about his
health condition yet,” Khadka said.
A CT scan performed on Shah’s
brain on Thursday showed a mild
form of infection, as earlier. Doctors
could conduct a magnetic reso-
tion, raising
questions over
why only candidates
affiliated to
the CPN-UML
were being
picked repeated-
Some ministers
expressed
reservations over
her nomination,
raising questions
over why only
candidates
affiliated to
UML were being
picked
repeatedly
ly. “I defended Pradhan
Malla at the Cabinet meeting
as a well-known face in
the international arena for
defending women’s rights,”
said Deputy Prime Minister
and Minister for Foreign
Affairs Narayan Kaji
Shrestha.
Whereabouts of
kidnapped youth
still unknown
BHUSAN YADAV
BIRGUNJ, FEB 21
BIRGUNJ police are yet to
locate the whereabouts of
21-year-old Brijesh Mahato
who was allegedly kidnapped
from his Birgunj
home on December 11 last
year.
Deputy Superintendent
of Police Rajendra
Bista said search
teams have been
mobilised in other
districts after the
initial investigation
showed that
Brijesh was being
held hostage within
the country.
Five days after Brijesh’s
abduction, an unidentified
person had called his family
and demanded Rs 1.5
million in ransom. The
caller had demanded the
family to deliver the money
at bordering Indian town of
Raxaul.
Asarfi Mahato, Brijesh’s
father, said he does not
have the money demanded
by the abductors for his
SAMIK KHAREL
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
THE ongoing road expansion
drive in Kathmandu is facing a
host of criticism after authorities
proposed a plan to demolish a
government school building while
sparing a five star hotel.
According to new expansion
plan, a Shanti Vidya Griha School
building will be demolished to save
the Malla Hotel. The original proposal
had planned to demolish the
Lainchaur-facing facades of both the
school and the hotel. Now, the
school will have to bear the brunt of
the expansion in order to compromise
for the hotel’s encroachment of
public space.
While the original plan had mandated
that this Lainchaur road
nance imaging (MRI) to probe for
infection and injury if there are any.
Irregular heartbeat of the
patient, however, could create difficulty
in the MRI process, a source
said.
Meanwhile, Shah’s wife and former
crown princess Himani is
expected to arrive in Bangkok on
Thursday night. Shah’s sister
Prerana Singh, cousin Puja Shahi
and her husband Rajiv Shahi,
among others, arrived on
Wednesday to be by his side.
son’s release. “How was I to
manage that kind of money
on such short notice?” he
said.
The entire Mahato
family was in Basantapur
when Brijesh was abducted
from their home. Brijesh
was last seen by some of
the neighbours leaving
with four men on a motorcycle.
“We contacted
his friends and
called our relatives
inquiring about
Brijesh, but no one
had any idea where
he was. So we went
to police for assistance.
There is no news
about him so far,” Asarfi
said.
Birgunj residents have
been terrorised by growing
number of abduction cases
of late. Five months ago,
17-year-old Raju Prajapati
was kidnapped from
Ghantaghar. His status
remains unknown even
though his family already
paid Rs 1 million ransom to
the abductors.
stretch would be expanded by 22
meters, the expansion has been
reduced to 18 meters.
According to the expansion master
plan, from the centre, both sides
of the road have to be nine meters,
which would demolish around one
metre each from the hotel and the
school premises. However, authorities
have now planned to shift the
expansion track and only demolish
parts of the public school, leaving
the hotel intact.
According to Kathmandu Valley
Town Development Implementation
Committee (KVTDIC) Chief Bhai Kaji
Tiwari, the original plan was
changed to avoid paying a huge
amount as compensation to the
hotel if its structures were demolished.
“The road expansion drive has
always been hit by a cash crunch. We
Nepal to set up residential
missions in Bahrain, Oman
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
WITH a view to addressing
grievances of thousands of
Nepali migrants working
and living in Oman and Bahrain, the
government on Thursday decided to
open residential missions in these two
countries.
Bahrain is host to an estimated
40,000 Nepalis, while the Nepali
population in Oman has crossed the
30,000 mark.
Thursday’s Cabinet meeting also
decided to open Consulate General
offices in the Chinese city of
Guangzhou and Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah.
Owing to the growing trade between
China and Nepal, the Nepali business
community had long been demanding
a consulate in Guangzhou. Similarly,
Nepalis in Saudi Arabia, along with the
foreign employment sector, had been
demanding a consulate in Jeddah as
the Nepali mission in Riyadh has long
been unable to address problems
faced by the growing number of Nepali
workers. The meeting also decided to
establish diplomatic relations with
Uzbekistan and Samoa.
Currently, the Nepali Embassy in
Doha, Qatar, is mandated to look
after Bahrain, whereas the Nepali
Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
looks after Oman.
“Oman and Bahrain have recently
emerged as favoured destinations for
foreign employment. Keeping this in
mind, the government decided to
open missions in these two countries,”
Minister for Information and
Communication Raj Kishor Yadav said
after the Cabinet meeting.
The government will send requests
to the respective countries—Oman,
Bahrain, China and Saudi Arabia—
seeking permission to set up the missions
and consulate offices.
Currently, Nepal has 29 residential
missions abroad, including two permanent
ones in New York and
Geneva, and three consulate general
offices in Lhasa, China; Kolkata, India
and Hong Kong.
Last year in April, a panel led by a
joint secretary at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (MoFA) had recommended
that new missions be established
in Oman, Bahrain, Spain,
Portugal, Italy, Indonesia, Turkey,
Bhutan, Afghanistan and the Maldives,
along with three consulate offices in
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Mumbai, India
and Guangzhou, China on mid- and
short-term basis. Owing to a significant
rise in the Nepali population in
Oman and Bahrain, the panel had suggested
immediate opening of the missions
there.
The Cabinet also approved changing
the name of the Ministry of
Physical Planning and Works to the
Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and
Transportation. The meeting further
endorsed the working procedure of the
proposed distribution of poverty identity
cards and formed a committee
under Minister for Tourism and Civil
Aviation Post Bahadur Bogati to celebrate
the diamond jubilee of the first
ascent of Mt Everest.
The Cabinet decided to waive
loans taken by peasants and endorsed
a work plan to this effect. It also waived
land registration fees of Rs 2.966 million
for the GP Koirala Foundation in
Mandikatar, Kathmandu.
Cops arrest overseas employment agent
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
POLICE arrested Rabin Silwal, an overseas
employment agent charged with
multiple cases of fraud.
Silwal, 34, was arrested on
Tuesday by the Central Investigation
Bureau (CIB) from his Kapan-based
residence. He was presented
before the Kathmandu District Court
Kantipur journalist Ganesh Rai (right) receives ‘Rastra Matrabhasa Sewa Puraskar’ at a function in
Lalitpur on Thursday to mark International Mother Language Day. The award, handed out by Ministry of
Federal Affairs and Local Development, carries a purse of Rs 15,000. POST PHOTO: SANJOG MANANDHAR
Plan to save hotel, demolish school comes under lash
The road expansion
drive has always
been hit by a cash
crunch. We cannot
afford to pay such a
large amount to the
hotel, which will be
in millions
cannot afford to pay such a large
amount to the hotel, which will be in
millions,” said Tiwari.
Tiwari further argued that the
CABINET DECISIONS
Consulate General offices in
Guangzhou, China and
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, will
also be opened
Diplomatic relations with
Uzbekistan and Samoa to
be established
Reames Ministry of Physical
Planning and Works as
Ministry of Physical
Infrastructure and
Transportation
Okays working procedure
for poverty identity card
distribution
Forms panel to celebrate
the diamond jubilee of the
first ascent of Mt Everest
Currently, Nepal has
29 residential
missions, including
two permanent ones
in New York and
Geneva
(KDC) on Thursday, police said.
Silwal had been convicted of
separate fraud cases against Keshav
Bahadur Rana and Dhan Bahadur
Tamang but had been absconding.
According to police, Silwal cheated
clients by falsely assuring them
of employment in foreign countries,
including South Korea and
New Zealand.
The KDC had slapped Silwal with a
new plan would also protect the
Amrit Science Campus’ main building.
“We had planned demolishing
the northern side, which also
includes the Amrit Science Campus
hostel,” he said.
After the expansion, the Shanti
Vidya Griha’s prime source of
income, its rented shutters, will be
demolished. Tiwari said that the
school will be compensated to the
tune of around Rs 1.8 million to
build new shutters inside their compound.
The Vidya Griha is ranked
among the best public schools in the
country.
However, students have objected
to the decision and are seeking support
from student unions. Nepal
Student Union (NSU) leaders
claimed that the road expansion
hasn’t been fair. “Our help was
fine of Rs 100,000 for a complaint
filed by Rana on February 5, 2008.
In a separate case filed by Tamang,
the KDC again fined Silwal
Rs 450,000 on January 21, 2009.
After Silwal failed to comply
with both rulings, Tamang had
filed another case at the Appellate
Court, which, on March 10,
2011, charged Silwal with a
Rs 250,000 fine.
sought by these young students. This
expansion design isn’t fair. The
authorities are planning save the
elites at the cost of a government
school,” said Leela Ballabh Dahal,
NSU central committee member.
In order to save the Malla Hotel’s
infrastructure, the open Lainchaur
grounds will also be affected. “They
have planned to move utility poles
into the Lainchaur grounds to save
the hotel,” said Dahal. If the expansion
is conducted fairly by sticking
to the original blueprint, the Malla
Hotel will lose around nine annas of
land, he said.
“We cannot let this happen. If
the plan is not fairly implemented,
we will stage protests against the
Kathmandu Metropolitan City” said
Dahal. The Lainchaur strip of road is
prime property with high land value.

THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
Congress leaders prod party
honchos against CJ-led govt
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
THE second rung leaders of
the Nepali Congress on
Thursday reached out to the
party leadership and warned them
not to compromise democratic
norms and values, and the principle
of separation of powers while
accepting Chief Justice Khil Raj
Regmi as the head of the to-beformed
election government.
At least two dozen Central
Working Committee (CWC) members
led by former Deputy Prime
Minister Sujata Koirala had
reached the residences of party
President Sushil Koirala and Senior
Leader Sher Bahadur Deuba to ask
them not to ignore the party decision.
The party had instructed the
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
A DAY after the major political
parties formally asked
Chief Justice Khil Raj Regmi
to head an election government,
senior leaders,
including Prime Minister
Baburam Bhattarai, held
consultations with the legal
fraternity on Thursday concerning
the handing over of
executive authorities to the
incumbent head of the
judiciary.
The legal consultation
came after CJ Regmi
expressed reservations over
a number of issues put
forth by the parties. At the
meet, lawyers diverged on
whether the CJ could be
made head of government
citing conflicting provisions
in the Interim
leadership not to compromise on
democratic ideals and go against
the principle of separation of powers
while accepting CJ Regmi as the
head of an election government.
“We asked both the leaders
not to cross the party’s mandate,”
said NC CWC member Chandra
Bhandari.
According to Shanker
Bhandari, another CWC member,
they questioned the acumen of the
party leadership that it had grossly
failed to address serious issues
such as democracy, nationality and
party ideology.
During the meeting with party
leaders, President Koirala assured
that no compromise would be
made against the party line and
democratic values. “To accept the
CJ as the election government head
Lawyers suggest Cabinet under Regmi possible
Constitution. Article 106 of
the constitution states that
a sitting justice can be
deputed on matters of
national concern upon
consent from the Judicial
Council, a constitutional
body mandated to deal
with the transfer, promotion
and other policy issues
concerning judges.
Advocate Borno Bahadur
Karki advised that the CJ
could be given authority to
head the election government
citing this provision.
However, Advocate
Purnaman Shakya maintained
that the provision
calls for deputation but
does not envision the transfer
of executive authority.
Shakya said that the proposed
political mechanism
involving top political leaders
should not interfere in
All the lawyers
invited for talks,
however, did not
agree the move
would be lawful
the workings of the election
government and that the
executive authority should
be vested in the government.
CJ Regmi, however,
has told parties that he will
require complete independence
of the poll government
from the political
mechanism.
Advocate Raman
Shrestha told the meeting
that a political declaration
would be necessary even if
was a compulsion but we will not
compromise the basic norms and
values of democracy while accepting
the proposal.” But Koirala did
not elaborate the compulsion he
had faced.
The duo tried to persuade the
dissatisfied leaders saying that
‘they were enough informed
about the challenges confronting
democracy and nationality in case
the CJ led the new electoral government
in the given circumstances.’
The party leadership never calculated
the intent of the proposal,
said Chandra.
In the meeting with Deuba, the
leaders expressed the same kind of
reservation that they did with
Koirala and drew his attention that
the move could invite a serious
constitutional crisis if the CJ was
the parties are considering
removing constitutional
difficulties by evoking
Article 158. “If there is a
political declaration, then
the Supreme Court cannot
interfere even if the decision
to appoint the CJ as
executive head is challenged
before it,” Shrestha
told the Post.
Former Attorney
General Mahadev Yadav
maintained that even
removing constitutional
difficulties may not suffice
and suggested amending
the constitution based on
political consensus. “One
can remove constitutional
difficulties but the provision
to make chief justice
the executive head is not
envisioned by the Interim
Constitution,” said Yadav.
CPN-UML Vice-chair-
given the helm of the government.
Deuba also admitted that
getting the CJ to lead a poll
government was out of compulsion
and that the party may rethink
it if it undermined the party ideology,
democratic values and was
against the spirit of the separation
of powers.
“To safeguard democracy and
nationality, NC is ready to go for
an agitation but it will not
compromise at any cost,” Deuba
told his juniors.
“I admit that it was a mistake to
accept the CJ as the head of the
new government and the feeling is
shared by the party rank and file. To
take a call on the election government,
we need to convene a CWC
meeting at the earliest,” Shanker
quoted Deuba as saying.
man Bam Dev Gautam,
who attended Thursday’s
meeting, told the Post that
the lawyers said that nothing
can prevent the parties
from seeking the people’s
mandate. Gautam, who
sounded optimistic about
parties’ securing a deal on a
CJ-led government, said
that the Cabinet would forward
an ordinance to
President Ram Baran Yadav
asking him to remove constitutional
difficulties.
The Nepal Bar
Association, an umbrella
organisation of lawyers,
was not invited to
Thursday’s legal discussion
by parties as it has stood
against the CJ-led government,
arguing that such an
appointment would breach
the principle of separation
of power.
16 stolen vehicles seized
SYANGJA: The District Police Office, Syangja
seized 16 illegal jeeps operating in rural
areas. The vehicles were impounded as they
were brought in by evading taxes and
3
installing duplicate engines, police said.
The DPO is preparing to send the vehicles
to the Department of Revenue Investigation
for action. Deputy Superintendent of
Police Somendra Singh Rathaur said
the four-wheelers were seized after they were
proven as stolen. (PR)

4 THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
newsdigest
Unesco project on right to
information launched
KATHMANDU: Unesco launched
the European Union-funded project
“Empowering people to enjoy their
right to information for greater
accountability of Nepal’s power
holders” on Wednesday. The EU has
donated 290,000 euros for the
365,000 euro project. The project
will contribute to transparent and
inclusive decision-making processes
and democratic practices within
political institutions along with
their increased media-responsiveness,
Unesco said.
‘Banished’ schoolteacher
seeks justice
KHOTANG: A woman of Badahare
VDC-4 in the district sought help
from Chief District Officer Dipak
Raj Nepal on Thursday, claiming
that she had been kicked out of her
village. Kalpana Katuwal, 31, said
she was banished from the village
by locals, including Bhadra
Bahadur Basnet, Secretary of
Durchhim VDC, on January 30 on
‘moral grounds’. Kalpana, who is
now living in Ubu, Okhaldhunga
district, was dismissed as a reliefquota
teacher from a primary
school in Kalika Mahadevsthan.
Later, the District Education Office
deputed her at Laxmi Secondary
School in Khokseli. Kalpana, however,
has not assumed her duty,
saying that chairman of both
schools is Basnet.
Boy found murdered
RAUTAHAT: A seven-year-old boy
was found murdered in a sugarcane
field at Karkach Karmaiya-9 in the
district on Thursday evening.
Shivaji Raya, son of Binod Raya, was
found dead with his throat slit.
Meanwhile, police arrested two
persons in connection with the
incident.
Four extortionists held
BANKE: Police arrested four extortionists
with a pistol, its ammunitions
and sharp weapons from
Munnipur area in the district on
Wednesday. The arrestees—Hajarat
Ali Sai and Mohammad Harun
Khan of Bashudevpupr and Kadir
Sai and Najir Ali Sai of Belhari—
were made public in the District
Police Office on Thursday. Police
claimed they extorted businesspersons
and locals in the area. (PR)
weather watch
FORECAST: Partly cloudy with chances of brief
light rain at one or two places in the western
regions.Mainly fair in the rest of the country.
PLACES MAX MIN RAINFAL
TEMP ( 0 C) TEMP ( 0 C) (MM)
Dadeldhura 18.5 5.5 0.0
Dipayal 25.4 8.6 0.0
Dhangadi 23.7 10.6 0.0
Birendranagar 26.2 9.0 0.0
Nepalgunj 25.6 9.7 0.0
Jumla 17.0 -3.0 0.0
Dang 24.0 9.0 0.0
Pokhara 23.3 8.5 0.0
Bhairahawa 26.5 10.7 0.0
Simra 27.5 na 0.0
Kathmandu 24.5 5.2 0.0
Okhaldhunga 19.4 na 0.0
Taplejung 18.2 4.2 0.0
Dhankuta 23.2 7.5 0.0
Biratnagar 29.1 13.5 0.0
Jomsom 10.6 -0.5 0.0*
Dharan 27.8 14.1 0.0*
Source: Meteorological forecasting Division, Department of Hydrology and
Meteorology, Kathmandu
16 Sajha buses arrive
SAMIK KHAREL
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
WITH the arrival of 16
new buses in the
Capital, the eagerlyawaited
Sajha bus service will
soon be plying the streets of
Kathmandu. The green chassis
of the buses will be ornamented
with cream to match the
same look it had when the
Sajha Yatayat was first initiated
in 1964. The bus service will
come into operation in mid-
March, after route permits are
approved.
According to Kanak Mani
Dixit, chairman of Sajha
Cooperatives, the service will
restart on a modest scale. “We
hope to relieve traffic congestion
in the trunk routes of the
Kathmandu-Lalitpur sector
and also provide exemplary
transport services,” said Dixit
in a press statement.
The main goals of the service
are to increase the use of
public transport and reduce
pollution, he said.
The newly purchased buses
are complaint with Euro III
emission standards and boast
55 seats with 15 additional
strap-hangers for standing passengers.
The buses were manu-
Dalits’ hunger strike
for right to water
KHAGENDRA AWASTHI
BAITADI, FEB 21
A DALIT family at Sittad VDC-9
in Baitadi launched an indefinite
hunger strike in front of the
District Administration Office
(DAO) on Thursday, saying that
they were barred from using a
public water tap.
Hariram Sarki, his wife and
three children protested after
the family, along with 10 other
Dalit families, was reportedly
denied access to the facility.
Hariram said non-Dalit
members, including Tekraj
Bhatta of neighbouring
Bhachera, had been using the
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
INSPECTOR General of Nepal
Police (IGP) Kuber Singh Rana and
US Ambassador to Nepal Peter W
Bodde jointly inaugurated four
buildings for Nepal Police in
Biratnagar on Thursday.
The new buildings—a cafeteria,
a block of classrooms, a women’s
barracks at the Nepal Police
Regional Training Centre and the
Rani border station—were all
funded by the US government
through its Department of Justice,
said a statement issued by the US
Embassy in Kathmandu.
POST PHOTO
tap solely, depriving them of
water. “The local administration
had instructed us to use the tap.
However, we were threatened in
the village,” he said.
Hariram added that they do
not let them use the tap as there
is only one tank. The water supply
system was constructed with
Rs 135,000 from Sittad VDC.
Bhatta lodged a complaint
with the local administration
last year, saying that Dalits were
using the tap they had been
using. Dattaram Badu of the
DAO said his office has asked
the Dalits to file a case in the
court after it failed to resolve the
problem.
US aid for Nepal Police
These facilities will help
train a new generation of police
in a well-equipped and professional
environment, the statement
said.
The US Department of Justice
spent approximately $750,000 on
building and equipping the three
Regional Training Centre buildings
and the border station.
“The United States has been a
strong supporter of the Nepal
Police and we’ve long recognised
the professionalism and dedication
of the Nepali men and women who
serve in law enforcement,” said
Ambassador Bodde at the inaugural
programme.
factured by Tata motors in
India and travelled to
Kathmandu from Goa. The
buses also have
automated doors for entrance
and exit with two CCTV cameras
and display screens for
advertisements, public notices
and entertainment.
The cooperative has been
outsourcing for drivers and
conductors via the Subidha
Sewa Pvt Ltd and has been pri-
SHIVA PURI
RAUTAHAT, FEB 21
THE Rautahat District Development
Committee (DDC) has been charged
with illegally releasing millions of
rupees for development projects.
Joint-secretary at the Ministry of
Local Development Dinesh Thapaliya
said that although the ministry had
delegated only the District Technical
Office (DTO) to carry out project
works, the Rautahat DDC had flouted
CJ FROM PG 1
In the meeting with the
parties, Regmi asked leaders
to make clear their
position on the deadline to
hold Constituent Assembly
polls, unanimous backing
amid dissenting voices in
the Nepali Congress and
the CPN-UML regarding
his leadership and the idea
of controlling the poll government
through a highlevel
political mechanism.
An aide to Prime
oritising women for these
positions.
Sajha buses will operate
along two routes—Harihar
Bhawan-Tripureshwor-
Ranipokhari-Kamalpokhari-
Gaushala-Koteshwor-
Satdobato-Lagankhel (16.5km)
and Satdobato-Lagankhel-
Jawalakhel-Tripureshwor-
Teku-Kalimati-Kalanki
(16.4km). The buses will charge
government-assigned fares for
public transport.
Sajha Yatayat, the Valley’s
pioneering bus service, halted
services in 2002 due to
politicisation and overstaffing.
The company is now under
new management and was
established as a cooperative in
2011 with an executive board
elected from the general
body members.
the regulation. Local Development
Officer (LDO) Narayan Prasad
Sapkota, in collusion with some DTO
employees, released around Rs 25
million to Sah Construction Sewa for
the construction of two bridges and
six road stretches, according to
Thapaliya.
The projects are part of the Rural
Access Improvement and
Decentralisation Project supported
by the World Bank. “Only the DTO
should have been authorised to
Minister Baburam
Bhattarai said Regmi is
concerned about a writ
petition subjudice in the
Supreme Court that has
challenged his appointment
as executive head
and sought a court order to
appoint a poll government
under either an ex-chief
justice or an independent
candidate. A hearing on
the writ is scheduled for
Friday. “CJ Regmi wanted
to hold consultations on
the implications of the
Sanghiya Loktantrik Morcha cadres take out an
anti-government rally in Birgunj on Thursday.
POST PHOTO: SHANKAR ACHARYA
Rautahat DDC faces graft charges
Regmi seeks parties’ unanimous support
‘Officials may be
grilled in Geneva’
GENEVA FROM PG 1
However, Poudel also refused and instructed Foreign
Secretary Bhattarai to lead the Nepali team. Later,
Bhattarai was also advised against attending the meet
and the baton was passed on to Ambassador Bairagi, an
official privy to the developments told the Post.
“There is no difference between sending a foreign
secretary or assigning an ambassador to lead the delegation,”
DPM Shrestha told the Post.
According to multiple
sources, besides the imple-
mentation of Nepal’s human
rights commitments and compensation
to victims, the
Nepali delegation will be
grilled over issues like the failure
to set up a transitional justice
mechanism, statelessness,
investigations into the murder
of Dailekh-based journalist
Dekendra Thapa, growing
cases of violence against
women and the government’s
failure to address the situation.
Authorities say
failure to send
officials could
mean that govt
is not ready to
defend its
rights record
Some 30,000 documents on serious violations of
international law during the 10-year Maoist conflict,
released last October by the UN Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and
the arrest of Nepal Army Col Kumar Lama by British
authorities are also likely to feature in the discussions.
“All preparations were ready, but all of a sudden,
officials refused to attend the meeting,” said a MoFA
official. Nepal’s failure to field a team of political leaders
or high-level bureaucrats in the meeting could mean that
the country is not ready when it comes to defending
rights issues that will be raised, officials said.
“We will definitely face an embarrassing situation in
Geneva,” said another official.
writ,” said an aide to the
PM. He said that even the
government was awaiting
the development on the
petition and would take
further decisions accordingly.
After separate consultations
with the CJ and
legal experts, parties have
made up their mind to face
any situation that may
arise after appointing the
CJ as the executive head.
“As the legislature parliament,
the only peoples’
elected institution, has
PASSPORT FROM PG 1
“We have confirmed
that two individuals have
entered Saudi with the
lost passports processed
by our agency,” Pushpa
Bhandari, the owner of
World Wide
International, told the
Post over telephone from
Dhaka. According to him,
trans-national human
traffickers may have got
hold of the passports and
that they used them to
smuggle Bangladeshis to
Saudi Arabia.
The other lost passports
were processed by
Memorial Overseas
Services, Nabil Overseas,
Meridian Overseas,
Oxford Management
System Pvt Ltd,
Friendship Manpower
Cosultancy, Equator
International and
Al-Summit Manpower.
Manpower agencies
claim the human traffickers
pay around Rs 150,000
for a Nepali passport.
They said they have often
found that those passports
with visas had been
sold to Bangladeshi
nationals for 600,000 taka
(over Rs 600,000).
Nepal police have
arrested over 100
Bangladeshi nationals in
the past few months
for misusing Nepali
passports.
According to the
police, foreign nationals
with criminal records
tend to steal passports of
different nations and
different routes.
Aryal has not
informed the Nepali mis-
release the budget as per the decision
of the ministry,” Thapaliya said. Raj
Kishore Sah of the DTO also confirmed
that the budget had been
released unlawfully.
LDO Sapkota, however, argued
that the authority to release the budget
had been given to the DDC and he
had acted accordingly. According to
the DDC, altogether eight development
projects worth around Rs 167
million are currently under way in the
district.
already been dissolved, no
force can hinder us from
filling up such a vacuum by
seeking the peoples’ mandate,”
said Gautam.
Meanwhile, PM
Bhattarai said the interaction
with legal experts was
useful. “The doctrine of
necessity must be adopted
to solve current problems.
The CJ must be assured,”
Bhattarai tweeted after
holding consultations with
legal experts at his official
residence on Thursday.
‘Human traffickers
may get hold of
lost passports’
sion in Saudi Arabia, the
Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and the
Department of Foreign
Employment of the lost
passports.
“I have informed only
the Nepal Association of
Foreign Employment
Agencies (NAFEA) of the
matter. I will inform all
the offices concerned by
Sunday,” said Aryal.
NAFEA Chairman Bal
Bahadur Tamang said the
passports could have
been misused, mainly by
Bangladeshi nationals.
“During my recent
visit to Bangladesh, I
found it very insecure
carrying passports with
me, as there have been
incidents when people
have been robbed of the
documents while the
passports have later
found to be misused.
“Nepal’s foreign
employment industry
could land in deep trouble
if Nepali passports are
misused,” Tamang said.
He added that he has
informed senior police
officials and secretaries of
the dangers of such a
thing happening.
Acting chief of the
passport division at the
Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Yadav Khanal,
said they usually receive
complaints of a few passports
getting lost.
“So far, we have not
heard of
anyone losing so many
passports at one go.
There might be some
bad intention here. We
will look into the matter,”
he said.

Nato to bid farewell to Panetta,
seeks new military chief
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta will get a fond
farewell from his Nato colleagues as the alliance
looks for a new supreme military commander.
Panetta, 74, had expected to bow out earlier but his
replacement, Chuck Hagel, has had a rough ride so
far in the US Senate which has delayed a vote on
President Barack Obama’s nominee over parts of
his otherwise distinguished record.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DAMASCUS, FEB 21
ACAR bombing near Syria's
ruling party headquarters in
Damascus killed 53 people
on Thursday, according to state
media, while mortar rounds
exploded near the army's central
command in the city.
It was the third straight day of
attacks on the center of the capital,
among the deepest and fiercest on
the heart of Bashar Assad’s seat of
power during the civil war.
The car bombing was the deadliest
attack inside Damascus in
nine months and within hours, two
other bombings and a mortar
attack on the military compound
followed.
While no one group has
claimed responsibility, the attacks
suggest that rebel fighters who
have gotten bogged down in
their attempts to storm the
capital are resorting to guerrilla
tactics to loosen Assad’s grip on
the capital.
The day’s deadliest attack
struck a main street on the edge of
central Mazraa neighbourhood,
near the headquarters of Assad’s
Baath party and the Russian
Embassy, as well as a mosque, a
hospital and a school.
TV footage of the blast site
showed firemen dousing a flaming
car with hoses and lifeless and dismembered
bodies blown into the
grass of a nearby park. The state
news service, SANA, published
photos showing a large crater in the
newsdigest
7 killed in mosque attack
GARISSA: Gunmen armed with AK-
47 rifles opened fire at a mosque in
Kenya’s east, killing seven people,
an official said on Thursday, in an
attack less than two weeks before
Kenya’s national presidential vote.
USAID chief in Mogadishu
MOGADISHU: The administrator of
the US Agency for International
Development is in Mogadishu for
talks with top Somali officials. The
visit on Thursday by Rajiv Shah
makes him the highest ranking US
administration official to visit
Mogadishu in years.
UK men guilty of bomb plot
LONDON: Three young British
Muslims were convicted on
Thursday of plotting terrorist bomb
attacks that prosecutors said were
intended to be bigger than the 2005
London transit bombings. A
London jury found Irfan Khalid,
Irfan Naseer and Ashik Ali guilty of
being central figures in the foiled
plot to explode knapsack bombs in
crowded areas. (Agencies)
middle of the rubble-strewn street
and charred cars holding blackened
bodies.
Witnesses at the scene said a
car exploded at a security checkpoint
between the Russian
Embassy and the central headquarters
of Assad’s ruling party.
“It was huge. Everything in the
shop turned upside down,” one
local resident said. He said three of
his employees were injured by flying
glass that killed a young girl
who was walking by when the blast
hit. “I pulled her inside the shop
but she was almost gone. We couldn’t
save her. She was hit in the
stomach and head,” he said, speak-
KATHMANDU, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013 | WWW.EKANTIPUR.COM
IVF guidelines raise
age limit to 42
COUPLES struggling to have a baby should
get fertility treatment more quickly and older
women should gain access to IVF, new NHS
guidelines say. IVF should be offered after two
years of failed attempts, not the current three,
says the National Institute for Health and
Clinical Excellence. In 2011, nearly 14,000
women became pregnant through IVF.
Damascus car bomb kills 53 PRESS
ing on condition of anonymity for
fear of retribution for speaking with
foreign media.
Ambulances rushed to the
scene of the blast, which shattered
windows and sent up a huge cloud
of smoke visible throughout much
of the city, witnesses said.
State TV called it a “terrorist”
attack by a suicide bomber. It said
at least 53 people were killed and
more than 200 wounded.
The Britain-based activist
group the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said at least 42 people
were killed, most of them civilians.
Some members of the Syrian
security forces were also killed, it
said. There was no way to immediately
reconcile the differing death
tolls.
The bombing appeared to be
the second most deadly in the
Syrian capital since the uprising
against Assad began 23 months
ago. Fifty-five people were killed in
the first, a double suicide bombing
outside of an intelligence building
in May, 2012.
Russia’s state owned RIA
Novosti news agency quoted a
Russian Embassy official as saying
the Embassy building had been
damaged in the blast but no one
was hurt.
In a separate attack, Syrian
state TV said mortar shells exploded
near the Syrian Army General
Command in central Damascus,
causing no casualties. The station
said the building was empty
because it was under renovation.
China ex-leader ‘not cooperating’ in probe
Details of Bo’s
condition and
whereabouts
have been kept
under wraps
since his downfall
SYRIA UNREST
REUTERS
BEIJING, FEB 21
DISGRACED former senior
Chinese leader Bo Xilai is
refusing to cooperate with a
government investigation
into him and has staged
hunger strikes in protest
and at one point was
treated in hospital, sources
with knowledge of the
matter said.
Almost a year after Bo’s
fall from grace under a
cloud of lurid accusations
about corruption, abuse of
power and murder, the government
has given no
definitive time frame for
Pak accuses envoy
to US of blasphemy AGENCE
REUTERS
MULTAN, FEB 21
PAKISTANI police accused the
country’s ambassador to the
United States on Thursday of
blasphemy, a crime that carries
the death penalty,
in connection with a
2010 TV talk show,
they said.
The accusation
against Ambassador
Sherry Rehman is the
latest in a string of
controversial blasphemy
cases in Pakistan, a
largely Muslim nation
whose name translates as
Land of the Pure.
According to Pakistan’s
blasphemy laws, anyone
found to have uttered words
derogatory to the Prophet
Muhammad can be put to
death. Those who are accused
are sometimes lynched
by mobs even before they
reach court.
Sherry Rehman
when he will face court, and
has not even announced
formal charges.
Bo was ousted from his
post as Communist Party
chief in the southwestern
city of Chongqing last year
following his wife’s murder
of a British businessman,
Neil Heywood.
Before that, Bo, 63, had
been widely tipped to be
promoted to the party’s elite
inner core. His downfall
came after his estranged
police chief, Wang Lijun,
fled briefly to a US consulate
last February and
accused Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai,
of poisoning Heywood.
Rehman has already faced
death threats from militants
after calling for reforms to the
country’s anti-blasphemy law,
according to court documents.
Two politicians who suggested
reforming the law were assassinated.
The case against
Rehman was brought
by businessman
Muhammad Faheem
Gill, 31, who said that
the comments
Rehman made about
the law on the
Pakistani talk show in
2010 were blasphemous.
Gill went to the
Supreme Court with his complaint
after police refused to
register it. The court ordered
police in the central Pakistani
city of Multan to investigate.
Rehman, a prominent
member of the ruling Pakistan
People’s Party, was appointed
as ambassador to the United
States in November 2011.
Gu and Wang have both
since been convicted and
jailed. No criminal charges
against Bo have been
revealed but the ruling
Communist party has
accused him in statements
carried by the official
Xinhua news agency of corruption
and of bending the
law to hush up Heywood’s
killing. Two independent
sources with ties to the family
said Bo’s trial was likely
to be delayed until after an
annual full session of parliament
and its top advisory
body in March because he
was not physically fit.
“He was on hunger
India strike
day-2 hits life
FRANCE PRESSE
NEW DELHI, FEB 21
OPERATIONS at India’s
public-sector banks and
many factories were hit for a
second straight day by a
general strike called to
protest against the government’s
pro-market reforms.
The Associated
Chambers of Commerce
and Industry estimated losses
from the two-day stoppage
at 260 billion rupees
($4.8 billion).
Eleven unions called the
walkout in protest against
the measures which they
condemned as “anti-poor”
and said were likely to cost
jobs and raise prices. While
the impact of the stoppage
was felt mainly in heavily
unionised state-run institutions,
analysts said it underscored
discontent among
workers. Leaders of two
main leftist parties said they
were boycotting the opening
session of parliament on
Thursday in solidarity with
the strikers.
strike twice and force fed,”
one source said. It was
unclear how long the
hunger strike lasted.
“He was not tortured,
but fell ill and was taken to a
hospital in Beijing for treatment,”
the source said,
declining to provide details
of Bo’s condition and
whereabouts which have
been kept under wraps
since his downfall.
The stability-obsessed
ruling party is determined
to prevent anything, including
Bo’s trial, from disrupting
the final steps of Vice
President Xi Jinping’s ascent
to becoming top leader.
Prince Philip cracks
Filipino nurse joke
THE Duke of Edinburgh told a nurse from the
Philippines that her country must be “half empty”
because so many of her compatriots have come to
the UK to work for the NHS. He made the remark
during a visit to Luton and Dunstable Hospital.
The 91-year-old royal was said to be in a “jovial”
mood and asked when the hospital would get a
helipad to save him a journey by car.
India Mars mission this year
TRUST OF INDIA
NEW DELHI, FEB 21
INDIA will launch its first
space mission to Mars this
year, President Pranab
Mukherjee said on Thursday.
“Several space missions
are planned for 2013, including
India’s first mission to
Mars and the launch of our
first navigational satellite,”
Mukherjee said in his maiden
address to the joint sitting
of Parliament at the start of
the Budget session.
The Indian Space
Research Organisation will
also put in orbit the first of its
seven satellites
of the Indian
R e g i o n a l
Navigation
Satellite System
(IRNSS). The
system is India’s
version of the
Global Positioning System.
The Mars Orbiter mission,
scheduled for launch in
October, will look for signature
of life and reasons for
loss of atmosphere on the red
planet.
Under the mission, India
will put in orbit a spacecraft
using the Polar Satellite
Launch Vehicle. The satellite
5
will undertake a 300-day
journey to Mars and is
expected to be put into the
Martian orbit in September
next year. Mukherjee said the
space programme epitomised
India’s scientific
achievements and benefits
the country in a number of
areas.
“The launch of the Polar
Satellite Launch Vehicle on
September 9, 2012 marked
our 100th space mission.
India’s first remote sensing
satellite RISAT-1, with allweather
imaging capability,
was also launched in 2012,”
he said.

6
EDITORIAL
Road to elections
Major parties need to reach out to give
smaller parties political ownership
ALTHOUGH the major political parties seem closer
to a deal on elections than they have been for the
past eight months, it is still unclear whether the
Chief Justice will agree to take up leadership of the election
government. While all of the nation’s attention is
focused on this issue, what has received far less attention
is that there are political factors that could still block elections.
In particular, there are many small political parties
that feel left out from the current negotiation process. The
larger parties in all likelihood assume that once they sort
out a deal, it will be easy to get the smaller parties on
board. This may be generally true. After all, many of the
smaller parties also have a lot to gain from elections. But
there are certain political groups that may not be as easy
to negotiate with. The larger parties would do well to start
negotiating with them soon if they want elections by June.
One major problem that has often been commented
on is the issue of re-delineating constituencies and updating
voter rolls. This could be a major problem, especially
in the Tarai. Many of the Madhesi parties that are currently
in government seem to have no problem with the current
plans of the larger parties. But there are some
Madhesi groups that might not be so amenable. Upendra
Yadav’s party, which still enjoys considerable support in
the Tarai, is a case in point. If his group feels excluded
from negotiations, it could well raise an agitation in the
Tarai and refuse to participate in elections unless Madhesi
concerns such as the re-delineation of constituencies are
conducted. This in turn may cause the Madhesi parties in
government to set their own preconditions for participating
in elections. The larger parties need to start addressing
these concerns as soon as possible.
The other party that will likely cause problems is the
breakaway Maoist party led by Mohan Baidya. This party
is facing internal problems regarding their future strategy.
Its leaders also feel left out of the negotiating process and
are aggrieved. If they continue to feel this way, it is possible
that they will do all they can to thwart an election deal.
They may even engage in acts of violence and intimidation
to prevent elections. In order to prevent this, the big
parties need to reach out to them and listen to their concerns.
Efforts need to be made to convince them that
there is no other option but to hold elections. Given their
common history, it would be best if Maoist Chairman
Pushpa Kamal Dahal deals with Baidya in private. There
are many challenges that need to be overcome if elections
are to be held in June. The major parties need to be aware
and address all of them if they are genuinely committed to
holding elections.
WE in Nepal have given more
importance to the SLC
examination than is actually
necessary. The SLC has become
almost the first indicator of education.
Obviously, a huge fear and anxiety is
associated with the SLC. Because of
HEM RAI Hemrai21@yahoo.com
our social schooling, we have a
propensity to judge a student on the
basis of the grades he or she secures in
the examination but not on the basis
of his or her competency.
In the process of moving up from
grade one to grade 10, one has likely
accumulated lots of experience of
appearing in examinations. Students
are usually frightened, intimidated
and even terrorised by the words like
‘terminal examinations’ and ‘final
examinations’ in one way or the other.
There is tough and sometimes cutthroat
competition at present in the
education sector. Different schools
and students prepare for the SLC differently.
The expectations of parents,
Learning
a little
the student’s own ambition and norms
of the society open up different paths
of progress, but at the same time, that
may create huge tension and contradictions.
Psychologically, exam-phobia
is such a problem that affects the tender
mind of the youth both physically
and mentally.
Students who have set goals to do
well in the SLC work hard year-long.
But examination time brings about the
feelings of fear, tension, anxiety and
uncertainty. Students often lose their
appetite and suffer from other problems
like insomnia, headache, fatigue
and fever. Anxiety actually makes the
filter that is inside our brain, in
between the receiving and production
areas, more active in blocking the
channels between star shaped cells
and pyramid shaped cells. As a result,
the students’ memory power may
become even weaker.
Many students become the victim
of depression when they do not score
high marks in the examination in spite
of their hard work. Our social structure
and schooling is such that one is considered
to be an intelligent or a dull
student on the basis of the marks one
obtains in examinations. This mounts
a huge pressure on students.
Examinations thus become a factor of
intense fear for the students and not a
MADHESIS should not be seen
as the spoilers of the election.
But the voter list and the constituency
are two real substantive things
that need to be sorted out. Making a
compromise on these issues can be sui-
DIPENDRA JHA
cidal for the United Democratic
Madhesi Front (UDMF). The Madhesi
political representation would be narrowed
in the upcoming election as one
in every three persons would be disenfranchised
in Madhes districts. Almost
three million missing voters are from
the Tarai among the 4.6 million eligible
voters who have not been registered in
the citizenship-based voter list.
If polls are not held according to the
2008 election voter list, a large number
of Madhesi leaders would be badly
affected and so will be the voters. Jay
Ram Yadav’s victory in Upendra Yadav’s
constituency in Mornag in the by-election
is a clear example to support this
argument. In every constituency in the
Tarai, about 10,000 eligible voters are
supposedly missing from the voter list.
The picture is pretty much clear if you
compare the latest Census data of the
eligible voters with the district voter registration
data mentioned in the book
Voter Registration System in Nepal by
Ayodhee Prasad Yadav, (pages 89, 90, 91
and 92). Look at the missing voters’ percent
on a district-wise basis—Morang
29.67 percent, Sunsari 32 percent,
Rauthat 34.5 percent, Bara 32.08 percent,
Parsa 35.08 percent, Nawalparasi
28.64 percent, Rupendhi 37.15 percent,
Kapilbastu 36.55 percent, Saralahi 34.64
percent, Mahottari 31.45 percent and
Dhanusha 31.93 percent.
About 33 percent of eligible voters or
100, 000 voters will be barred from
enjoying their rights to vote in the election.
This gap in the voter registration is
also justified by the Dhanapati
Upadhaya Commission, formed by the
Government of Nepal in 1995 to address
statelessness. That shows that more
than 3.4 million people were stateless
due to the lack of citizenship certificates.
On November 3, 2010 the Supreme
Voters and constituencies
Guaranteeing Madhesis the right to vote to participate in
political affairs is an important responsibility of the state
Court denied the petitioner’s request to
overrule the Election Commission’s citizenship
certificate requirement to be
eligible to register to vote. The court
holds that the EC’s November 2 amendment
provides a remedy for those
Nepalis without citizenship certificates.
On December 23, 2010, the Supreme
Court rules that the ECN can: 1) prepare
new voter rolls, as opposed to only
updating the current rolls; 2) register
Nepalis who are 16- and 17-years old; 3)
collect personal details for the government’s
national identity card project;
and 4) collect photographs as part of the
registration procedure.
However, in the final decision in
February 2011, the Supreme Court ruled
that: 1) only citizenship certificates
could prove eligibility for registering to
vote; 2) if the validity of a citizenship
certificate was in question, other government-issued
documents could be
proffered to confirm its legitimacy, but
they could not establish eligibility for
registration; and 3) the Ministry of
Home Affairs must distribute citizenship
certificates to those who do not
have them. As per the SC directive, can
the government distribute citizenship to
4.6 million eligible voters who have not
registered in the citizenship-based voter
identity card within two months? If not,
requiring the citizenship certificate for
voting is against the fundamental principle
of right to voting because there is
extensive discrimination against
Madhesis in getting access to the citizenship
certificate.
For the 2008 elections the EC had
registered 17.6 million voters, but current
figures stand at 11 million. The
large number of voters to be registered
under the new system decreased in the
absence of citizenship certificates. Here,
it is important to remember that the 22point
agreement between the
Government of Nepal and the Madhesi
People’s Right Forum on August 30, 2007
which assured that the former would
“end all aspects of discrimination
against Madhesis so as to create an environment
inclusive of Madhesis and all
Nepali people in the national mainstream.”
Then PM Girija Prasad Koirala
signed the agreement to “solve problems
related to citizenship by redeploying
the Citizenship Distribution Teams
to the villages for easy and accessible
distribution of the citizenship certificates.”
The problem is not only in the Tarai.
SLC phobia
THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
A large number of people in the hilly
region are facing a similar problem.
Thus this is not an issue of who is Pahadi
and Madhesi; it is a question of the fundamental
political right of an individual,
who is eligible to get citizenship but still
does not possess the card, who consequently
will miss the opportunity to cast
his or her vote in the upcoming election.
The latest Census report also shows
that the ratio of population has
increased in Tarai from 49 percent to 51
percent meaning there’s reason also to
increase the number of constituencies.
One constituency is needed to be added
in Tarai districts such as Sarlahi,
Rautahat, Jhapa, Rupandehi and
Sunsari. Right to vote is the essence of
democracy. But it is difficult to understand
why the UML and Nepali
Congress, and even the UCPN (Maoist),
oppose the UMDF proposal to give
legality to the old voter registration list
and increase more constituencies in the
Tarai.
“There is a widespread complaint
that thousands of Indians received
Nepali citizenship certificate,” they say.
If that’s true, who did that? The majority
of them are hill-Brahmin Chief District
Officers (CDOs) who made money out
of the citizenship business. Where is
their so-called ‘national loyalty’ when
they distributed the citizenship to
Indians? For the CDOs’ faults and weak
control mechanisms, genuine Madhesis
cannot be punished. These people had
voted in the past elections without citizenship.
How can the faulty laws stop
them in future from enjoying the same
right?
Another allegation is that “the
Madhesis want to give citizenship cer-
A few steps could easily cut away at all the stress and fear associated with the SLC
PRAYASH RAJ KOIRALA
THE public buses in Bangalore are often as
packed as the public transport in
Kathmandu. There are also rare occasions
where I have felt like being in Kathmandu when
I had to stay squeezed inside the bus and smell
the horrible sweat of a person beside me.
However, it is more comfortable travelling
around in the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport
Corporation (BMTC) buses rather than in the
public vehicles around Kathmandu — the difference
of one being public and the other being privately
owned.
The buses that run around Bangalore are
managed by the Karnataka state government;
whereas, the buses around Kathmandu are
under the control o the businessmen and the
private transport organisations. Thus, the state
managed transport is service oriented and here,
the privately owned transport of our country is
profit oriented. However, there are a lot of things
which can be learnt from the transport system of
our neighbouring nation and can be implemented
in order to improvise the transport system of
Kathmandu.
The greatest difference is
that, in Kathmandu, the
buses run after the passengers.
To the contrary, people
have to run after the buses in Bangalore. There is
no one who comes out of the bus at each bus
stop or at the door banging the doors and inviting
the passengers in Bangalore. A bus only stops
only if there is someone to drop off or if there is
someone waiting at the bus stop. This has helped
POST PHOTO
postplatform
means to evaluate what they’ve learnt.
To combat SLC phobia, first of all,
it is essential to control the fear of
examinations. No external factor can
help the students in this respect. How
can one control this fear? The best way
to do it is through preparation. If one is
well prepared and confident, then worries
and anxiety will take up less room
in the mind. A balanced and nutritious
diet is also really important. An empty
stomach only fuels fear and anxiety.
Food rich in iron and protein (amala,
chana- gram, raharko daal, dry fruits,
including almonds) should be included
in the diet as they are considered
‘brain foods’. A glass of cold water after
every hour of study can act as a quick
refreshing agent. Recently, it has been
proved scientifically that water can be
regarded as brain food too.
Self confidence is the main key to
success in life. That also goes for
examinations. Now the question arises:
how can one build up self confidence?
As far as I am concerned, the
best and the only way to gain self-confidence
is to study the curriculum
deeply and fully by strictly following a
time table set by the students themselves.
Relying on guess papers or
guide books available in the market is
perhaps one of the worst ways to prepare
for the SLC. A throrough under-
to avoid the traffic jams on the places where the
roads are small.
The effort of the state in order to avoid the
incidents of sexual harassments of girls is praise
worthy. Almost 40 percent of the seats in the
front part of the buses are the reservation seat for
females. The open space beside the reserved
seats in the front is only for the females to stand
comfortably. Moreover,
there is a separate door for
females to get into the bus
so that they can avoid the
touching and pushing of ill-mannered mans
during the rush hours.
Regular users of buses can benefit from the
system of ‘Buss Pass’. Anyone can get a bus pass
from the conductor of the bus paying reasonable
charges. These passes allow us to travel around
tificates to as many Indians as possible
so that these foreigners could be a
promising vote-bank for them.” But just
look at the economic boom in Bihar: no
Bihari will be interested anymore in
coming to the poor and insecure region
of Nepal Tarai. These types of stereotypical
Mahendrabadi thoughts have no
substantive rationality.
If the United Democratic Madhesi
Front (UMDF) compromise on these
two genuine issues, they will lose their
legitimacy in the Madhesi constituencies.
They would be co-opted into the
political polarisation of the status quo,
the power-seekers and opportunists. It
does not matter whether the election is
held in June or November. But guaranteeing
the right to vote to participate in
political affairs for all citizens is an
important responsibility of the state.
The principles of universal and equal
suffrage such as the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, prohibits unreasonable
limitations of an individual’s rights to
vote. Restricting the Madhesi population
who are willing to vote using socalled
legal, administrative and practical
obstacles are not justified on any
grounds. It is hard to get official records
in a short span of time. Documents like
birth and marriage certificates, residency,
housing, land and property records
are needed to acquire citizenship and
getting them takes time. That’s why we
need to accept the 2008 voter registration
list that took into account the situation
of the Madhesis, including their
lack of access to citizenship certificates.
Jha is an advocate at the Supreme Court
standing of the entire curriculum will
go much further in giving students the
confidence boost they need.
Otherwise, they will forever be worrying
about whether the questions in the
guess paper will appear in the actual
examination or not.
Once one actually makes it to the
exam hall how then do you solve the
problems and answer the questions?
This is a million dollar question. Prior
to writing answers students should
properly understand the questions
first. Reading all the questions with a
cool mind (perhaps take several long
breaths from the nose) is very important
so you know what it is exactly you
are being asked to. Another really
important thing is always to start with
questions that are easy or which the
student feels comfortable answering.
Trying to tackle the hard ones first
means that there might not be enough
time at the end to answer the easy
ones or that all the mental energy is
already spent trying to answer the long
and hard questions first.
The SLC is not an iron gate. It is
simply an exam and the sooner students
can internalise this, the better
they are likely to perform in it.
Rai is associated with the Career Building
International Academy
in any of the BMTC buses for free for a day (with
a day pass) or for a month (with a monthly pass).
Moreover, students who regularly use the public
bus to get to the school or college from their residence
can also benefit with special bus pass for
students. There are several other bus passes for
the physically challenge people and disabled
people.
Special attention has been made towards the
safely of the passengers by keeping an automatic
door lock system. Thus, the passengers can get
down the bus only after acknowledging the driver
at designated bus stops.
Many of these systems of Bangalore are
feasible for Kathmandu too. These small changes
can definitely make a huge difference and ease
the transport problems faced by the
Kathmanduties.

THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
MEDIA should be neutral, unbiased
and free I reiterate in my Mass
Communication and Journalism
class as 17-year old girls look at me with
eager eyes, with ambitions to become journalists,
reporters and media personalities.
They expect to understand the complexities
of the media, soaking in the syllabus and
thinking that they have learnt enough to
handle one of the most dangerous professions
in the world.
I may sound dramatic, but hear me out.
I had to begin a new topic in my Mass
Communication and Journalism class about
Press Freedom. We began the class as usual
with a discussion about press history; how, if
we look back into the pages of history, we
find that the Nepali press was not free—not
under the autocratic Rana rule or the first
stint at democracy in the 1950s; not under
30 years of Panchayat or 1990s democracy
that followed and not under former king
Gyanendra’s autocratic rule. Today, the
media is still not truly free as we move forward
on our third attempt at institutionalising
democracy.
One only has to remember a couple of
years ago when journalist Khilanath Dhakal
who was brutally beaten up by UML’s sister
wing Youth force members. Just recently, the
Nepal Republic Media office at Sundhara
was vandalised by a mob claiming to be Shiv
Shena cadres. Then, the murder case of
Dailekh-based journalist Dekendra Thapa
surfaced who was tortured and buried alive
by the Maoists during the insurgency. Prime
Minister Baburam Bhattarai was vehemently
criticised for his order to withdraw the
case against the accused murderers, which
he later denied. That was reminiscent of
bygone days of undemocratic practice.
There were even reports of journalists fleeing
Dailekh as they were threatened by the
ruling party.
Forget in history, even the last few
months have been testing times for press
freedom. By press freedom we understand
that the reporters are free to report on any
issue without the fear of repercussions.
In democracy, the press plays the balancing
role. It plays the role of an adversary
to the government if the government is on
the wrong side or doing wrong deeds;
whereas it doesn’t fail to point out commendable
efforts of the government for
public welfare. The press should ideally fol-
JUST A COUP
THIS blind move to draw the judiciary
into the political leadership is
tantamount to a coup (“CJ dissatisfied
with 9-pt deal,” February 19,
Online). Long live Nepali democracy.
Manohar Thapa
Bangkok, Thailand
_______________________
The legitimacy of the new government
will not be based on the
Shaping minds
There’s little correlation between what we study
in press theory and its applicability in reality
KARISHMA KARKI
low the social responsibility theory, which
states that press is free and practices responsible
journalism.
However, in the context of Nepali media
today, the government and the ruling party
are still clearly trying to suppress any media,
which is critical of them. Any policy that
curbs press freedom is readily passed. The
most recent example is the one window
advertisement policy; in which the government
decides which media institution will
get its advertisement.
We see that in the US freedom of press is
outlined in the first amendment itself. I am
not saying we be like the US which clearly
follows the Libertarian theory of press where
press is free to report on any matter: byproducts
of which are the unethical contents
in American media (not all).
We all know that with freedom comes
great responsibility. There are regulatory
bodies such as the Press Council of Nepal,
which gives ethical guidelines and codes of
conducts on how the press should act. Not
to forget the fact that reporters themselves
are involved in activities of extortion in
which they demand money or other items
from people with threats of defamation.
Then there are some who plant fictional stories,
and some who, for monetary gains, are
willing to write about people giving them
instant fame. Time and again we have witnessed
the shift in Nepali press theory from
authoritarian, during the Rana period, to
Libertarian in our short-lived democracy.
Now for the big question: is our media shape
shifting towards the communist theory?
In the communist theory of press the
communist party believes that no institution
is above the party, including the press; it
prevents the press as well as individuals
from being critical towards the party. The
most suitable examples are China and North
Korea. We can draw a parallel to the threat
the Maoist party gave to Kantipur reporters
and of those journalists who had to flee
Dailekh because of threats to their life.
Journalists in Nepal need to tread safely.
By the looks of it, the Nepali press is heading
towards a direction in which in order to be
safe, journalists have to pick up neutral
topics which do not criticise the
government or any political party. Then
there will be no constant worry of security or
pressure from anybody. Or, journalists can
be uncritical of the government, appease
the political parties and then exist securely.
But doesn’t that violate the public’s right to
information?
Now to my dilemma, if aforementioned
theories and facts are the current reality or
going to be a scene for the future, then am I
being honest in telling my students that the
press is the fourth estate of the country; that
it is the watchdog of the society?
Karki teaches Mass Communications at St. Mary’s
High School in Kathmandu
Interim Constitution. What, then, will
it be based on? It will not have popular
legitimacy. For that, there should
be a popular movement to form a
new government irrespective of what
the constitution says, just as Jana
Andolan 2 succeeded in restoring the
defunct parliament although it went
against the then constitution.
Therefore, the appointment of the
Chief Justice as prime minister can
only be considered a coup.
Gopilal Chaudhary
Bardiya
_______________________
The CJ is completely right in his
skepticism since the political parties
want to keep the steering wheel
with them and make the CJ drive
the state bus in the direction they
want to go. This will turn the whole
idea of an independent election government
into a joke—in other words,
a farce. The parties should give the
new government a free hand to conduct
the election in a free, fair, and
fearless manner. Then only will the
POST PHOTO
Nepali people trust the election
results. Chief Justice Regmi
should not accept the post with
strings attached by the selfish
political parties.
Kbm
Satdobato
_______________________
Chief Justice Regmi, do not make this
mistake and lead a government that
is opposed by so many Nepalis. It’s
not a unanimous decision but only
the decision of four parties. What
about other parties and other peoples’
wishes and views? CJ Regmi,
please be careful, do not bring dishonour
to your name.
Dipendra Gywali
Pokhara
KANTIPUR TO THE
RESCUE
IT would have been much better if
Kantipur would have vowed to
uphold Nepali nationalism
Why we love beautiful things
LANCE HOSEY
GREAT design, the management expert
Gary Hamel once said, is like Justice
Potter Stewart’s famous definition of
pornography—you know it when you see it.
You want it, too: brain scan studies reveal that
the sight of an attractive product can trigger
the part of the motor cerebellum that governs
hand movement. Instinctively, we reach out
for attractive things; beauty literally moves us.
Yet, while we are drawn to good design, as
Hamel points out, we’re not quite sure why.
This is starting to change. A revolution in
the science of design is already under way, and
most people, including designers, aren’t even
aware of it.
Take colour. Last year, German
researchers found that just glancing at shades
of green can boost creativity and motivation.
It’s not hard to guess why: We associate verdant
colours with food-bearing vegetation—
hues that promise nourishment.
This could partly explain why window
views of landscapes, research shows, can
speed patient recovery in hospitals, aid learning
in classrooms and spur productivity in the
workplace. In studies of call centers, for example,
workers who could see the outdoors completed
tasks 6 to 7 percent more efficiently
than those who couldn’t, generating an annual
savings of nearly $3,000 per employee.
In some cases the same effect can happen
with a photographic or even painted mural,
whether or not it looks like an actual view of
the outdoors. Corporations invest heavily to
understand what incentivizes employees, and
it turns out that a little colour and a mural
could do the trick.
Simple geometry is leading to similar revelations.
For more than 2,000 years, philosophers,
mathematicians and artists have marveled
at the unique properties of the “golden
rectangle”: Subtract a square from a golden
rectangle, and what remains is another golden
VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
Kantipur Publications Pvt. Ltd., Kantipur Complex, Subidhanagar P. B. No. 8559, Kathmandu; Nepal Phone: 4480100, Fax: 977-1-4466320, e-mail: kpost@kantipur.com.np
Simple geometry is leading to design revelations
(“Kantipur to do all it can to uphold
democratic norms,” February 19,
Page 1). Otherwise, who will you
felicitate for protecting Nepali
democracy? All top political leaders
in Nepal, including GP Koirala, have
shown anti-democracy tendencies.
Kantipur’s promise to protect Nepali
nationalism would have been much
better and relevant in the present
context.
Sandesh Sapkota
Dhading
GALTUNG’S
THOUGHTS
I FULLY agree with the views of Prof
Galtung and admire his ideas on
so many ‘cracies’ prevalent in
contemporary Nepal—minus
democracy (“Nepal is turning into a
technocracy,” February 18, Page 6).
He puts a lot of stress on negative
and positive peace and ‘cultural’ violence
in his literature. His opinion on
the need to lift up the bottom in
rectangle, and so on and so on—an infinite
spiral. These so-called magical proportions
(about 5 by 8) are common in the shapes of
books, television sets and credit cards, and
they provide the underlying structure for
some of the most beloved designs in history:
the facades of the Parthenon and Notre Dame,
the face of the “Mona Lisa,” the Stradivarius
violin and the original iPod. Experiments
going back to the 19th century repeatedly
It should come as no
surprise that good design
can have dramatic
effects. We think of great
design as art, not science,
a mysterious gift from
the gods, not something
that results just from
diligent study
show that people invariably prefer images in
these proportions, but no one has known why.
Then, in 2009, a Duke University professor
demonstrated that our eyes can scan an image
fastest when its shape is a golden rectangle.
For instance, it’s the ideal layout of a paragraph
of text, the one most conducive to reading
and retention. This simple shape speeds
up our ability to perceive the world, and without
realizing it, we employ it wherever we can.
Certain patterns also have universal
appeal. Natural fractals—irregular, self-similar
geometry—occur virtually everywhere in
Nepal is laudable. All prominent
actors keep on promising to lift up
the bottom but have failed significantly
till date.
Vidyadhar Mallik
Battisputali, Kathmandu
_______________________
Yes, inequality is the main problem
in this country. Every culture and
society within this nation should be
respected. There is no need to accept
the travesty called the caste system.
Bijay
Pokhara
_______________________
It seems foreigners know very
well the root cause or the ‘key problem’
that gives way to all other issues
in Nepal—inequality within the
country.
Dev Rai
US
_______________________
Prof Galtung’s interview politely
7
nature: in coastlines and riverways, in
snowflakes and leaf veins, even in our own
lungs. In recent years, physicists have found
that people invariably prefer a certain mathematical
density of fractals—not too thick, not
too sparse. The theory is that this particular
pattern echoes the shapes of trees, specifically
the acacia, on the African savanna, the place
stored in our genetic memory from the cradle
of the human race. To paraphrase one biologist,
beauty is in the genes of the beholder—
home is where the genome is.
Life magazine named Jackson Pollock “the
greatest living painter in the United States” in
1949 when he was creating canvases now
known to conform to the optimal fractal density
(about 1.3 on a scale of 1 to 2 from void to
solid). Could Pollock’s late paintings result
from his lifelong effort to excavate an image
buried in all of our brains?
We respond so dramatically to this pattern
that it can reduce stress levels by as much as
60 percent—just by being in our field of vision.
One researcher has calculated that since
Americans spend $300 billion a year dealing
with stress-related illness, the economic benefits
of these shapes, widely applied, could be
in the billions.
It should come as no surprise that good
design, often in very subtle ways, can have
such dramatic effects. After all, bad design
works the other way: Poorly designed computers
can injure your wrists, awkward chairs
can strain your back and over-bright lighting
and computer screens can fatigue your eyes.
We think of great design as art, not science,
a mysterious gift from the gods, not
something that results just from diligent and
informed study. But if every designer understood
more about the mathematics of attraction,
the mechanics of affection, all design—
from houses to cellphones to offices and cars
—could both look good and be good for you.
—©2013 The New York Times
overlooks the horrible fact that Nepal
is also now a kleptocracy—a thieves’
paradise in other words. All but a tiny
portion of donor money, government
grants and other foreign aid is stolen,
thieved, pilfered and sucked into private
pockets in return for nothing.
This is done through hidden commissions,
inflated pricing, counterfeit
invoicing, grossly inflated consulting
fees, bribes, back handers,
and so on.
Peter
Sydney, Australia
_______________________
It is worth considering that even a
foreign social scientist such as Prof
Galtung can show such a deep
understanding of Nepal's social and
political problems. I wish so-called
Nepali intellectuals and leaders
would at least show this kind of
understanding and act according to
it in order to get this ill-fated country
out of its present turmoil.
Dilli Sharma
Baglung

8
Ponting to lead
Mumbai Indians
FORMER Australia skipper Ricky Ponting
will replace Harbhajan Singh as captain of
the Mumbai Indians for the sixth edition of
the Indian Premier League, starting April 3.
Ponting, who retired from international
cricket late last year, was bought by
Mumbai Indians at a base price of
$400,000 during the IPL players’ auction
held in Chennai earlier this month.
ROB HUGHES
LONDON, FEB 21
SO how does a faded Milan,
whose owner sold the
club’s best assets last summer
and gave the coach
journeymen players instead,
put Barcelona on the brink of
elimination from the
Champions League?
Two Ghanaians, Kevin-
Prince Boateng and Sulley
Muntari, struck fine
opportunist goals. No Barcelona
player—not Lionel Messi, Xavi
Hernández, Andrés Iniesta or
any of them—reached their
level or was allowed to in Milan’s
San Siro stadium on Wednesday.
When it was over, with the
Italian squad in shock at leading
2-0 against the best club side on
earth, Milan Coach Massimo
Allegri lauded his employer, the
team president Silvio
Berlusconi.
Some diplomat is Allegri.
“We dedicate this to the
president,” he said, “because
he has given me a team I can
work with.”
They are a team divested of
their previously talismanic
striker, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and
their top defender, Thiago Silva,
who both joined Paris Saint-
Germain before the season got
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN, FEB 21
LANCE Armstrong won’t interview
under oath with the US Anti-
Doping Agency to reveal all he
knows about doping in cycling, his
attorney said on Wednesday.
USADA officials told Armstrong
he must speak with them if he
wanted to reduce his lifetime ban
from sports. Under their offer,
Wednesday was the deadline for
him to agree to the interview.
Armstrong attorney Tim
Herman said that, after two months
of negotiations, the disgraced
cyclist refused to participate in a
process designed “only to demonize
selected individuals.”
Armstrong said previously he
under way. At the same time,
Milan removed a lot of big
names from their payroll:
Gennaro Gattuso, Clarence
Seedorf, Pippo Inzaghi and
Alessandro Nesta. Maybe that is
the key to what Allegri was
talking about, a clearing out of
ageing players, and, in
Ibrahimovic’s case, of a self-centred
leader, that allowed the
coach to restructure the team to
his own ideals.
Allegri had claimed, before
the Wednesday match, that he
frequently discusses tactics with
the owner. And Berlusconi,
taking his case through the
media as ever, had given the
coach the solution to beating
Barcelona: Mark Lionel Messi
tightly at all times, and don’t
give Barcelona’s finest
was willing to participate in an
international effort to clean up a
sport that was based mostly in
Europe. USADA chief executive
Travis Tygart said it had expected
Armstrong would agree to talk and
would be “moving on” without him.
“Over the last few weeks he has
led us to believe that he wanted to
come in and assist USADA, but was
worried of potential criminal and
civil liability if he did so,” Tygart
said. “Today we learned from the
media that Mr. Armstrong is choosing
not to come in and be truthful
and that he will not take the opportunity
to work toward righting his
wrongs in sport.”
For more than a decade,
Armstrong denied using performance-enhancing
drugs. But last
year, the USADA released a report
that detailed extensive doping on
his seven Tour de France-winning
teams and stripped him of those
titles. Armstrong admitted last
month that he doped. He still faces
several legal challenges.
Armstrong was the subject of a
two-year federal grand jury investigation
that was dropped a year ago
without an indictment, but the
Department of Justice is still
considering whether to join a
federal whistle-blower lawsuit filed
by former Armstrong teammate
Floyd Landis.
individual an inch of freedom.
Messi, it is true, had one of
his very rare off nights. He
seldom got into the Milan
penalty box, and he never got in
a shot, much less threaten to
score a goal.
For that, and for the
suppression of Xavi’s creative
passing and for the minimization
of Iniesta’s great dribbling
skills, we must thank the
president? For unleashing good,
strong, hungry talents, like
Stephan El Shaarawy, who was
tireless in his running, and even
an older one, Giampaolo
Pazzini, who was brave and
smart as he stood in for Mario
Balotelli, who cannot suit up for
Milan because he previously
played in the tournament for
Manchester City?
Should we thank Berlusconi
for the team discipline that was
led by Massimo Ambrosini and
followed through by every
man in Milan’s black and red
striped shirts?
“We played in a certain way
tonight, but against Barcelona
you have to play like that,” said
Ambrosini, the captain. “Maybe
it’s not aesthetically beautiful,
it’s not very nice to watch,” he
added. “They force you to play
like that, and history teaches us
that Barcelona were eliminated
KATHMANDU, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013 | WWW.EKANTIPUR.COM
Pistorius contract
suspended by Nike
US sportswear giant Nike has suspended
its contract with Oscar Pistorius, who is
accused of murdering his girlfriend.
“We believe Oscar Pistorius should be
afforded due process and we will continue
to monitor the situation closely,” a
Nike spokesman said. It recently pulled
ads that featured Mr Pistorius and the
line, “I am the bullet in the chamber”.
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
in this competition only by
teams who faced them in a
certain way.”
He spoke of the Italian way,
the solidarity of keeping the
defense and the midfield so
tightly together that there is no
space for Barça’s renowned
passing and moving to go anywhere.
Ambrosini also spoke of the
luck that contributed to the first
goal, and then the “very nice”
second one.
The luck was misjudged by
Barcelona players, and by most
of the audience. It had seemed,
after a Milan free kick ricocheted
first off the Barcelona
defender Jordi Alba and then off
Milan’s Cristian Zapata, that the
ball struck Zapata’s hand.
In fact, as seen in slowmotion
replay, Zapata had taken
the full force of the shot in his
face. From there, it fell to
Boateng, who drove it handsomely
into the net.
In shock and losing rhythm,
Barcelona could get little help
from thier bench. It has been
said, even from within their
DEEPAK Thapa Magar won the title
of the CMS Open golf tournament at
the par-67 Royal Nepal Golf Club
on Thursday.
Thapa Magar carded one-under 66
for a total score of two-under 199 to
register two-stroke win over defending
champion and Nepal No 1 pro Shiva
Ram Shrestha in the eighth event under
the Surya Nepal Golf Tour 2012-13.
This is Thapa Magar’s 10th career
title and equalled Deepak Acharya’s tally
to share the second position. Shiva Ram
is atop with 20 career titles.
Shiva Ram shot three-under 64 for a
total of even-par 201 to finish second,
while fellow RNGC pros Rabi Khadka
(66) and Sanjay Lama (66) shared the
third position with the score of two-over
203. Thapa Magar won the cheque of
Rs 100,000, while Shiva Ram earned
72,000. Rabi and Sanjay received
Rs 48,000 each.
The tournament—sponsored by
International Society for Medical
Education (ISME) Pvt Ltd—is the largest
among the locally organised events in
terms of cash purse, which amounts to
Rs 500,000. The tournament will come
to its end on Saturday following the twoday
amateur event at the RNGC. Junior
Tournament was held on Monday.
Three others, Surya Prasad Sharma
(68), Toran Bikram Shahi (67) and Ram
Thapa (67) finished tied fifth at 207.
They got Rs 25,000 each.
Ramesh Nagarkoti produced the
camp, that Barca have such an
intelligent group of players that
they can think for and manage
themselves, regardless whether
their coach, Tito Vilanova, is in
New York for cancer treatment.
Wednesday, perhaps, was
when the coach might have
made adjustments to help his
men out of an impasse.
But, in pursuing the equaliser,
Barcelona left themselves
short in defense and exposed to
the crucial second goal. Milan
hit the Catalans with the perfect
counterattack.
M’Baye Niang had come on
with the freshness of youth to
put pressure on Barcelona’s
Carles Puyol on the right.
Having won the ball, Niang fluently
passed it to El Shaarawy,
whose own touch was brief but
sublime. The Italian simply
helped the ball on its way, with
the deftest of flicks, into the
path of Muntari.
And then the Ghanaian—
who had spent some time at a
financially doomed English
club, Portsmouth, and spent
months this season battling a
Wenger’s job safe
despite CL defeat
ARSENE Wenger will attend Arsenal’s
monthly board meeting on Thursday but
his future is not on the agenda. It is
understood the club have no intention of
sacking Wenger, even if they fail to qualify
for next season’s Champions League.
The manager retains the unequivocal
support of majority shareholder Stan
Kroenke and his fellow directors.
Milan bring Barca down to the ground
In fact, as seen in
slow-motion replay,
Milan’s Cristian
Zapata had taken
the full force of the
shot in his face, not
on his hand
AC Milan’s Riccardo Montolivo (centre) walks next to Barcelona’s Lionel Messi (left) and Daniel
Alves as they lie on the pitch following a tackle, at the San Siro stadium on Wednesday. REUTERS
Armstrong denies an
interview with USADA
AC Milan’s goal scorers Kevin Prince Boateng (left) and Sulley Muntari celebrate after winning
their Champions League round of 16 first leg match against Barcelona. AP/RSS
knee injury—applied the final
hammer blow to Barça. Muntari
met the ball with a volley, with
his left foot almost as high as his
knee, and struck it inside the far
post at a ferocious, but sweetly
timed, speed. It was all over, bar
the talking.
Barcelona’s players
admitted they thought they had
control of the match, and they
can blame neither the field conditions
nor the Scottish referee.
And they acknowledge that
they are staring at elimination
from a tournament they were
favourites to win (again).
Barça require three goals,
and since their defense is never
airtight, possibly four, to come
through in the second leg on
March 12.
And Milan? “We played as a
team, and we listened to our
coach,” concluded Muntari.
— © 2013 The New York Times
CL RESULTS
Galatasaray 1 - 1 Schalke 04
AC Milan 2 - 0 Barcelona
Deepak wins CMS Open Golf title
Winner of CMS Open golf tournament
Deepak Thapa Magar plays a
shot during the third and final day of
the tournament at RNGC on
Thursday. POST PHOTO
card of three-under 64 to finish eighth at
210, while Yelamber Singh Adhikari and
CB Bhandari shared the ninth position
at 211.
Thapa Magar began the day with
two-shot cushion over amateur Dinesh
Prajapati and four ahead of Shiva Ram,
Rabi and Sanjay along with amateur
Tashi Tshiring.
He came under pressure from the
beginning when he suffered double
bogey on the first hole but hung on to
win the title. After suffering a bogey on
the eight, Thapa Magar carded a birdie
on the ninth to take the turn at two-over
35. On the back nine, Thapa Magar carded
a birdie on the 10th and sank an eagle
on the 13th to finish the last nine holes
at three-under 31.
Shiva Ram, who at one stage had
taken one-stroke lead, failed to keep
the momentum going. He took the turn
at three-under 30 with the help of
birdies on the second, fourth and sixth
holes. On the even-par back nine, he
suffered a double bogey on the 11th
against birdies on the 10th and 18th
holes.
Dhana Thapa and Mani Rai shared
the 11th position at 213, whereas
Deepak Acharya came 13th with the
score of 214. Umesh Nagarkoti was 14th
at 215, while Jaya Ram Shrestha and
Ramesh Adhikari shared the 15th
position at 217.
In Amateur section, Dinesh
Prajapati won the title with the total
score of seven-over 208. Dinesh carded
six-over 73 on the final day to register
one-shot victory over Michael Rai.
Matchfixing
suspect
detained
in Milan
REUTERS
MILAN, FEB 21
ITALIAN police arrested a fugitive
Slovenian associate of alleged
football matchfixing kingpin Tan
Seet Eng on Thursday after he flew
in from Singapore to hand himself
over, they said in a statement.
The man, identified as 31-yearold
Admir Suljic, arrived at Milan’s
Malpensa airport in the early hours
to find police waiting for him after a
tip-off by Singapore authorities.
Police said in a statement that
Suljic, who is accused of “criminal
association aimed at sporting fraud”,
had bought a one-way ticket with
the intention of surrendering to the
authorities.
He had been on the run since
December 2011 and is considered a
“key element” in Italy’s ‘Last Bet’
probe into match-fixing between
2009 and 2011. Police said Suljic
would be taken to a prison in the city
of Cremona.
Police said in a
statement that Suljic,
who is accused of
‘criminal association
aimed at sporting
fraud’, had bought a
one-way ticket with
the intention of
surrendering to the
authorities
“His direct involvement in the
international criminal group, made
of Singapore nationals and people
from the Balkans, has emerged from
the investigation,” the police statement
said.
Italian prosecutors have accused
Tan, also known as Dan Tan, of
heading an organisation to fix football
matches worldwide and Italian
police have issued an arrest warrant
for him.
A joint inquiry by Europol, the
European anti-crime agency, and
national prosecutors identified
about 680 suspicious matches
including qualifying games for the
World Cup and European
Championships, and for Europe’s
Champions League.
MATCH-FIXING CONFERENCE
INTERPOL chief Ronald Noble,
speaking at a conference in Kuala
Lumpur on combating match-fixing,
said Suljic was part of Singapore
national Tan’s network.
The international police body
has declined to say if it has declared
Tan an internationally wanted person,
but an Italian judicial source
said INTERPOL had pooled together
investigations launched by authorities
in countries including Italy,
Germany, Spain and Turkey.
Singapore says he is not wanted
there, but that it is working with
European authorities investigating
the syndicate.
Singapore police said on
Thursday a team of four officers
would be sent to INTERPOL within
the next two weeks to assist in
matchfixing investigations and that
the city-state remained “committed”
in the fight against matchfixing.
Singapore allows suspects to be
sent only to countries with which it
has an extradition treaty. Germany
has such a treaty with Singapore but
Italy, which made the original complaint
about matchfixers manipulating
Italian games, does not.

THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
India look to re-establish invincibility at home
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
CHENNAI, FEB 21
SHRUGGING off disappointments
from the last season,
India will seek to reaffirm their
supremacy on home soil when
they take on a new-look
Australian side in the first
cricket Test on Friday in what
promises to a thrilling fourmatch
series.
The Indian team under
Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s leadership
will ideally look to reestablish
their invincibility at
home—which has largely been
dented by their 1-2 Test series
defeat against England last
year.
Australia, on the other
hand, will be happy to emulate
England and considering that
they have come with a no-so
experienced side will make it
even more praiseworthy.
India versus Australia series
over the years have had some
memorable matches and one
would expect that it won’t be
any different this time around.
While someone like Sachin
Tendulkar would like to face
the challenges thrown by Peter
Siddle, Mitchell Starc and
James Pattinson head on, the
sportsdigest
Machhindra in semi-finals
SAPTARI: Man of the match Dennis
Ngolo’s late strike parachuted NMB
Machhindra Club into the
semi-finals of the Rumpum Gold Cup
as they cemented a hard-fought 2-1
victory over Armed Police Force,
Pathiwara in Rajbiraj on Thursday.
Ngolo sealed the victory for
Machhindra with his 65th minute
scorcher after Suman Ale had
cancelled Karna Limbu’s early lead.
Limbu had put Machhindra ahead
just five minutes into the game.
Wilson Hoops basketball
KATHMANDU: Baba and Shridiwa
will strive for the title of the girls’
category in the Wilson Hoops
Inter-school basketball tournament
after the former had escaped with a
narrow 8-7 win over Wilson and the
latter had grasped a 13-8 win over
KISC on Thursday. The tournament
being held at the basketball premises
of Wilson School saw the hosts two
steps away from defending title of the
senior boys’ as they reached the last
four after realising a 42-36 win over
Ullens. Meanwhile, Wilson, Neric,
Greenwich and Maha Manjushree
sailed into the semi-finals in the
junior boys’ category.
Schalke doubt Drogba inclusion
MUNICH: Bundesliga side Schalke 04
have lodged a protest with Uefa over
Galatasaray striker Didier Drogba’s
participation in their 1-1 Champions
League draw. “There are doubts
about the validity of the permission
to play Drogba,” the German club
said on their official Twitter account.
Drugs use ‘should be allowed’
LONDON: British heavyweight
champion David Price’s next
opponent Tony Thompson believes
doping in sport should be legalised
because “only the good guys are
following the rules”. Two-time world
title challenger Thompson, 41, faces
Price in Liverpool on Saturday.
REUTERS
DUBAI, FEB 21
SAMANTHA Stosur’s season of
woe continued at the Dubai
Championships when she
crashed out in the quarter-finals
following a 6-2 6-4 defeat by
Italian Roberta Vinci on
Thursday.
The Australian has lost more
matches than she has won this
year, with her win-loss record
standing at 5-7, after she
produced an error-strewn
performance under the
searing desert sun that left
her frequently yelling in
frustration.
Vinci, 30, broke in the opening
game and was always in
control against a player who has
failed to win a title since triumphing
at the US Open in
September 2011.
The Italian has now beaten
top-10 ranked players in successive
matches—she defeated
Angelique Kerber on
PREVIEW: INDIA V AUSTRALIA, FIRST TEST
(From left) Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the team coach Duncan Fletcher and
Sachin Tendulkar during a practice session. AFP/RSS
likes of Phil Hughes, Matthew
Wade, Ed Cowan and David
Warner will aim at successfully
negotiating the spin threat of
Ravichandran Ashwin,
Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan
Ojha.
Australia announced their
playing XI 48 hours prior to the
start of the game and predictably
kept only one specialist
spinner in Nathan Lyon in
their line-up. The visitors will
have a three-pronged pace
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
UJJWAL Singh’s goal secured
Himalayan Club a 1-0 victory against
Sambhunath Youth Club in the semifinal
match played in Saptari in the
Ncell Youth Cup U-15 Football
Tournament, organised by All Nepal
Football Association (Anfa) and
sponsored by Ncell, on Thursday.
Dolakha United’s Samrat
Manandhar scored a hat-trick to
silence Chanauwati Youth Club 6-0
in Dolakha. In the other matches,
Kharidhunga Youth Club, Makaibari
Sewa Samaj and Alpine Team managed
a 1-0 victory against
Dhuwapani, Kalinchowk and Mount
Valley respectively.
The opening match in Udayapur
between Swornim Bal Club and
Triyuga Little Flowers advanced to
penalties after a 2-2 full time score,
where the former won 3-2.
In Dang, Newroad Youth Club
hammered Leo Youth Club 3-0. Sagar
Malla, Suraj KC and Jitendra Oli
scored a goal apiece for Newroad.
Likewise, Kishan Chaudhari’s fourgoal
flurry secured Madhyapaschim
Prahari Club an 8-0 victory against
Mechikali Youth Club. Saroj KC contributed
a hat-trick while Sanjeev Oli
scored a single for Madhyapaschim.
Wednesday—and has yet to
drop a set in Dubai.
World number nine Stosur
towered over the diminutive
Vinci, but she was guilty of
trying to be too aggressive,
clubbing a succession of backhand
returns into the net.
Vinci, part of world No 1
doubles pairing along with
compatriot Sara Errani, is a percentage
player, relying more on
her opponent’s mistakes than
going for winners herself and
Stosur’s approach played into
the Italian’s hands.
Serving at 4-2 down, Stosur
ran to the net but Vinci, world
No.17, played an angled backhand
dropshot winner for a
break point.
The Italian duly converted
after Stosur, backpedalling from
the net, hit a smash long. Stosur
then surrendered the set with
another errant backhand.
The Australian broke for the
first time early in the second set,
but the Italian responded with
an immediate break back.
Vinci will now meet her
friend Errani or Russian Nadia
Petrova in Friday’s semi-final.
attack led by Siddle while
Moises Henriques beat Glenn
Maxwell to a ‘Baggy Green’
mainly because of his ability to
bowl seam-up as Shane Watson
will be playing purely as a
batsman.
Amit Chaudhari scored twice as
Eleven Club beat Samyukta Youth
Club 2-1 in Sunsari.
Additionally, in the match played
in Siraha, Narendra Yadav’s strike
gave Siraha Solace Club a 1-0 win
over Mauwai Youth Sports Club.
Shivashakti Youth Club defeated
Manav Adhikar Club 4-1 in Sindhuli.
Suraj Kuwar, Nimesh Dhami, Sanjay
Kumar and Kiran Dhami scored a
goal each for Shivashakti. Blue
Alpine Youth Club also secured a 4-1
win over Siddhathali Youth Club.
Single goals from Niran
Chaudhari and Karan Chaudhari
provided Trisul Club with a 2-0 win
over Nepal Khelkud Club in Bara.
Meanwhile, Sonu Gupta’s lone goal
secured a 1-0 victory for Kalaiya Club
against Trishakti Youth Club.
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
The Indians however have
some brainstorming to do
before selecting their playing
XI. Among the slots that will be
up for grabs, the foremost will
be that of Virender Sehwag’s
opening partner.
As of now Murali Vijay
looks to be the frontrunner to
partner Sehwag on former’s
home turf. What goes in Vijay’s
favour will be his century in the
Irani Trophy and his experience
of having played 12 Tests.
Interestingly, his only century
has come against Australia in
Bangalore, during India’s last
home series back in 2010.
Delhi opener Shikhar
Dhawan has had a good season
and has played a lot alongside
Sehwag for his state and zonal
side. The fact that Dhawan is a
left-hander Could come into
consideration as the team
management might opt for a
left-right combination.
Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin
Tendulkar and Virat Kohli are
automatic choices in the middle-order
as they take the slots
from No 3 to 5. This could well
be Tendulkar’s last duel with
the Aussies and he would like
to cap it with another memorable
show.
Ujjwal sends Himalayan into final
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
WORLD Football Governing
Body, Fifa had highly praised
Sahara Football Club’s
endeavour of safeguarding the
future of street kids through
the medium of football.
Rating the video, made by
the team of FIFA.com and FIFA
TV, as the video of the week,
Fifa had acknowledged the
contribution made by the club
towards reintegrating the street
children back into the society
Aussie Stosur extends miserable
run with Dubai Open exit
Australia’s Samantha Stosur
returns the ball to Italy’s
Roberta Vinci in their
quarter-final match. AFP/RSS
NCELL U-15 CUP
Nima Tamang’s lone
goal gave Knight
Chess Club a 1-0 win
over Munal Club
in Jhapa
Fifa praises Sahara’s endeavour
The academy caters
to more than 20
disadvantaged kids
as an ‘exemplary’ social work.
“Sahara Football Academy
in the Pokhara region seeks to
offer fresh hope to street
children, using football as a
way to open up new opportunities
and reintegration into
the community,” Fifa had stat-
In Sarlahi, Lalbandhi Sports Club
beat Akashdip Youth Club 2-1. In the
other match Gaurishankar Youth
Club defeated Fuljor Youth Club 3-1.
Thal Bahadur’s single goal provided
Bandehi Mai Youth Club a 1-0
win over Yuwa Sarokar Club in
Dhanusha. In the other match,
Unnatishil Youth Club pummeled
Manimandap Club 3-0.
In Ilam, Aayam Club defeated
Gems Club 2-0. Samir Tamang and
Mangesh Rai scored for Aayam.
Sanil Thapa and Bhim Thapa
scored a goal each in Young Boys FC
2-0 victory against Gorkha Boys Club
in Rupandehi. Pharsa Ticket Youth
Club also managed a 2-0 win over
Nawa Yuwa Sanskritik Pariwar.
Rising Star Club B drew 1-1
against Friendship Youth Club in
Nawalparasi. Similarly, Sundar
Piyami Club drew 1-1 against Taruka
Club in Nuwakot while the match
between Victorian Teenage Boys and
Treaty Club ended goalless.
Nima Tamang’s lone strike gave
Knight Chess Club a 1-0 win over
Munal Club in Jhapa.
In the first match played in
Bhaktapur, United FC defeated
Ganesh Youth Club 3-0. Nepal
Krantikari Youth Club managed
a 2-1 win over Pandubajar
Friendship Club.
ed in its website. Organising an
annual Aaha Cup, Sahara
Club invests the revenue from
the tournament into the
protection of the unprivileged
children.
The academy currently
caters to more than 20
disadvantaged kids, focusing
on training sessions and educational
programmes.
The academy also provides
accommodation for the young
people, bringing them in off
the streets and into a safer
environment.
Kunwar nets 19
in Innovative win
INNOVATIVE, Pushpa Sadan, Rarahill,
Times International and Greenhill won
their respective matches in the U-14
National Inter-school basketball championship
on Thursday.
Ajay Kunwar’s prolific 19 points
ensured a comfortable win for Innovative
as they brushed aside the challenge of
Navajeevan with a 37-18 scoreline at the
basketball court of National Sports
Council. Pushpa Sadan made a light work
of Om Gyan with an impending 39-9 win
in the tournament organised by Nepal
Basketball Association.
Rarahill had no hard time disappointing
Baylor Academy after Suraj Thingle
had netted 12 points in their 37-17 win
while Times had to burn every ounce of
energy to grasp a narrow 20-19 win over
Valley Public and Green Land toiled hard
to emerge victorious over Deneb School
with a 31-29 win.
In the girls’ category, Everest, Daffodil
and Angels’ Heart thumped their
respective opponents. Everest battered
Campion 16-2, Daffodil pounced
Innovative 22-4 and Angels’ Heart
hammered Baba School 16-2.
PISTORIUS MURDER TRIAL
THE NEW YORK TIMES
PRETORIA, FEB 21
THE South Africa police
replaced the lead investigator
in the Oscar Pistorius
homicide case on Thursday after
embarrassing revelations that he
was under investigation himself
for seven criminal charges of
attempted murder.
The decision by the national
police commissioner to remove the
investigator, Hilton Botha, was the
latest in a series of abrupt twists and
setbacks in the prosecution of
Mr. Pistorius, the double amputee
track star accused of killing his girlfriend.
It caused a further delay in
the defendant’s hearing on his
request to go free on bail in the case
that has riveted South Africa and
much of the world.
The commissioner, Riah
Phiyega, said Mr. Botha would be
relieved by Lt. Gen Vinesh Moonoo,
whom Ms. Phiyega described as the
country’s “top detective,” The
Associated Press reported.
The attempted-murder accusations
hanging over Mr. Botha only
compounded questions about his
work on the Pistorius case. Under
cross-examination on Wednesday,
Mr. Botha was forced to acknowledge
sloppy police work and to concede
that he could not rule out Mr.
Pistorius’s version of events in the
shooting death of his girlfriend
based on the existing evidence.
“The poor quality of evidence
presented by chief investigating
officer Botha exposed the disastrous
shortcomings in the state’s case,”
Mr. Pistorius’s defense lawyer, Barry
Roux, said on Thursday.
The courtroom itself became
part of the drama on Thursday
when the magistrate hearing the
case ordered an abrupt and brief
suspension because of an
unexplained “threat to the court.”
The case was later adjourned
until Friday.
While the prosecution has
accused Mr. Pistorius, 26, of premeditated
murder in the killing, Mr.
Pistorius has said he opened fire
through a locked bathroom door
thinking there was an intruder in his
home in a gated community and
had no intention of killing his girlfriend,
Reeva Steenkamp, 29, a
9
Oscar detective
replaced in
chagrin setback
The courtroom itself
became part of the
drama when the
magistrate ordered
an abrupt and brief
suspension
model and law-school graduate.
When the bail hearing resumed
on Thursday - Mr. Pistorius’s fourth
court appearance since the shooting
on Feb. 14 - the chief prosecutor,
Gerrie Nel, began by acknowledging
the attempted murder charges
against Mr. Botha, but said prosecutors
did not realize that the case had
been reinstated when Mr. Botha testified
against Mr. Pistorius on
Wednesday.
Mr. Nel went on to assail Mr.
Pistorius’s defense of his actions in
the early hours of Thursday one
week ago, when, the athlete has
said, he did not realize
Ms. Steenkamp was no longer in
bed as he rose to investigate the
supposed intruder, shouting to her
to call the police.
“You want to protect her, but
you don’t even look at her. You don’t
even ask: Reeva, are you all right?”
Mr. Nel said. “His version is so
improbable.”
Earlier, the hearing dwelt for
some time on the absence of urine
from Ms. Steenkamp’s bladder when
she died, consistent, the defense
said, with the suggestion that she
simply went to the toilet rather than
fled from Mr. Pistorius after an argument
as the prosecution asserts.

10 THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
EVENTOGRAPH LAUGH OUT LOUD
TODAY’S HOROSCOPE
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
***
Your emotions are all up in the air today - but there’s nothing
wrong with that! It’s a good time for you to ask yourself what
you really want and to see if you can plot a path to that point.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
***
Try to talk things over with your friends - they may or may not
know what’s really going on, but your ability to communicate is
heightened, and that is something. Things should be clearer
tonight.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21)
***
Your finances are still in need of attention - so it’s a good thing
that your energy today is just right for handling such matters.
Things can get better, but only if you push yourself a little.
CANCER (June 22-July 22)
****
You’ve got twice as much energy as usual - so make the most
of it and see if you can get twice as much done or have twice
as much fun! You may have to deal with a new person, but it
should be a good time.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
**
You need to make sure that you’re in charge of your emotions
today - it’s hard to handle life otherwise! People may just have to
wait for you to collect yourself before you can proceed with them.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
****
Try to organise your thoughts a little better - and yes, that is possible!
Your mental energy is perfect for putting things and ideas
in the right boxes, then remembering where to find them later.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
***
You need to chill out a little about your routines and schedules -
they are certainly important, but they are just as certainly flexible.
Deal with little interruptions with grace and style.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
***
Push for your own agenda today - you’re sure to get a little closer
to what you really want. Your personal energy is strong
enough that you can influence others from a distance.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
**
You feel somewhat at odds with your people today - things are
getting weird for you, but that just means that you’re in need of
some alone time. Think things through and you should feel better
really soon!
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
**
You’ve got issues - who doesn’t? You just need to focus on
whatever is closest and feels most important, or you are sure to
find yourself mired in the muck in the near future. Tap your
practical nature!
AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18)
**
You can’t treat today’s problems with logic - or at least not
exclusively! Tap into your emotional side and see if you can
unleash some of that power. It can’t hurt, and it’s likely to help
quite a bit!
PISCES (February 19-March 20)
****
Listen to your heart now - it’s pushing you in the right direction,
especially when it comes to romance! That could mean you’re
breaking off something that’s not working or pushing for something
even sweeter!
“I SEE YOU went crazy at the big summer
clearance sale,” Wanda comments, as she looks
at all the bags of merchandise her friend, Carol
just brought home from the store. “You got that
right … I almost bought their elevator ‘cause it
was marked down.”
…………………………………………………………………….
One night a teenage girl brought her new
boyfriend home to meet her parents, and they
were appalled by his appearance: leather jacket,
motorcycle boots, tattoos and pierced nose.
Later, the parents pulled their daughter aside
and confessed their concern. “Dear,” said the
mother diplomatically, “he doesn’t seem very
nice.” “Oh please, Mom,” replied the daughter, “if
he wasn’t nice, why would he be doing 500
hours of community service?”
FOOD AND DRINKS
Krishnarpan—a specialty Nepali Restaurant at
Dwarika’s, 6 courses to 22 courses Nepali meal
served. Opening Time: 6 pm-11 pm. Prior reservations
required, contact: 4479448
Taste sandwiches and crepes at The Lounge from 11
am to 6 pm everyday. Contact: Hyatt Regency
Kathmandu at 4491234.
The Italian restaurant serves authentic Italian
cuisines in an elegant ambience for both lunch and
dinner. Timings: Lunch: 1230-1445 hrs, Dinner:
1900-2245 hrs, Contact: 427399, Extn 6510 at
Soaltee Crowne Plaza, Kathmandu
Savor the cardamom and saffron spice, slow-cooked
kebabs and kormas at Indian restaurant serving
Awadhi cuisine. Timings: Dinner: 1900-2245 hrs,
contact: 427399, Extn 6520, at Soaltee Crowne
Plaza, Kathmandu
China Garden offers delectable dishes from across
Asia, including Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and
Chinese. Timings: Lunch: 1230-1445 hrs, Dinner:
1900-2245 hrs, contact: 427399 Extn 6540, at
Soaltee Crowne Plaza, Kathmandu
Garden Terrace offers an authentic world cuisine ie
Indian, Nepali, Oriental, Italian, Continental etc, with
different live cooking stations providing diners with the
unique experience of observing their selected dishes
being freshly prepared by chefs. Contact: 427399,
Extn 6560, at Soaltee Crowne Plaza, Kathmandu
Kaiser Cafe Restaurant & Bar at The Garden of
Dreams, opening time: 9: 00 till 22:00, offers an international
cafe menu serving breakfast, lunch, dinner,
specialty tea’s, coffees and pastries, contact:
4479448
Tibetan Gyakok for Lunch & Dinner every day at The
Mandarin, The Everest Hotel ph: 4780100 ext: 7811
Daily Buffet with a complimentary glass of house wine
at The Café, The Everest Hotel, Lunch 1200- 1500 hrs
and Dinner 1830-2230hrs. Ph: 4780100 Ext: 7411
Special Saturday Brunch at The Café & Garden, The
Everest Hotel 1200-1600 hrs; Ph 4780100 ext: 7811
Sandwich and Crepes: Taste the sandwiches and
crepes at The Lounge from 11:00am to 6:00pm
everyday. For further details call Hyatt Regency
Kathmandu at 4491234.
Mako’s offers traditional Japanese food served within
a warm and stylish setting, don’t miss out on
Mako’s special Tempuras, and also the green tea ice
cream, Opening Time: 11: 30-14:30 & 19:00-22:00,
contact: 4479448
Manny’s Eatery and bar introduces a special lunch
package that is affordable, tasty, nutritious and quick
enough to fit your lunch break, Jawalakhel,
Shaligram complex, 5536919
Out-of-Africa Lunch amid rural splendor: Sat &
Sun from 1130 to 1630 hours. Enjoy Nepali & Newari
delicacies. Munch on exotic gundruk bhatmas with
Bacardi or Campari. Listen to Ten Years After, The
Grateful Dead, Cream etc at The Watering Hole,
Indrawati River Valley. For prior reservation contact:
indrawatiresort@gmail.com
CROSSWORD
STRIPS
DILBERT
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE
GARFIELD
The Toran, an ideal location for all day lounging and
informal dining offers continental cuisines. It is opened
throughout the day from early morning breakfast to
dinner. Contact: Dwarika’s Hotel, Sales and
Marketing—4479488.
The Dwarika’s Thali brings you the simple yet sublime
flavours of Nepal’s favourite dish. Stop over for lunch
& enjoy Nepali cuisne, hospitality and heritage at
the Dwarika’s Hotel, 3 course meal just for Rs1199/plus
10% service charge and 13% vat, per person,
contact: 4479488
Enjoy Biryani with Kebab, Western Grill Items and
Pasta with baked dishes this weekend at The Café
from 12:30 noon to 4:00 pm, buffet lunch for just Rs
1600 excluding applicable taxes. Call: Hyatt
Regency, Kathmandu at 4491234, Ext: 5223
Make your weekend more exciting with family and
friends with sumptuous Satey, Dimsums, Mangolian
Barbecue and Pasta at The Cafe from 12:30 noon to
4:00 pm, buffet lunch for just Rs 1600 excluding
applicable taxes. Call: Hyatt Regency, Kathmandu at
4491234, Ext: 5223
Smoky Charcoal and Hot Stone BBQ Dinner at
Splash Bar and Grill, Radisson Hotel Kathmandu
from 14th September onwards every Friday at Rs
1199 plus taxes from 18:30 hrs to 22:00 hrs. Contact:
4411818, Ext 1302
Come and experience BBQ BRUNCH BAZAAR
every Saturday at poolside garden from 12:00-2:30
pm and make your gourmet journey memorable, contact:
4451212, fax: 4450002
We serve nothing but the finest Arabica coffees at
great value prices. Our cheerful and interactive
trained brew master makes guests coffee breaks lasted
just a little bit longer. We open from 9:00 am to
9:00 pm. To share our cup of joy please visit: Barista
Lavazza Coffee Restaurant, Lazimpat, Uttar
Dhoka, Contact: 01 4005123/4005124
Enjoy every Friday with a special Nepali BBQ at
The Dwarika’s Hotel with many Live Cooking
Stations themed on Newari Cuisines, Live music with
bonfire & a can of Carlsberg beer, or Local Spirit 30 ml,
or a soft drink, or a bottle of mineral water. Time: 7 pm
till 10 pm, price: NRs 1600/- plus 10% Service
Charge, per person. Prior reservations required, contact:
4479488 or sales@dwarikas.com
Bourbon Room, Lal Durbar Marg is now open for
lunch every day from 12 noon. Enjoy affordable and
delicious meals from our lunch menu starting from Rs
99! We are currently offering Indian & chinese combos
along with momos and kathi rolls. 20% discount is
available in food items and bar menus from 12
noon till 3 pm. Also, lunch delivery is available with
prior notice in the immediate vicinity. Call: 4441703
Saturday Brunch, 10:30 am till 3:30 pm, at Park
Village Resort, Budhanilkantha@ special introductory
price of Rs 999/- per person all inclusive. Lucky
draw—one of the main attraction. Contact: 4375280
The most delightfully awesome chicken momos &
yummy rich chocolate cake on this part of the planet
@ Just Baked Bakery & Cafe, Battisputali, offering
much more specialties at affordable price.
MUSIC
Live music by SIGN Band every week except
SU DOKU
Tuesdays and Saturdays, 7:30 pm onwards at The
Corner Bar, Radisson Hotel Kathmandu, Lazimpat.
Contact: 4411818, Ext 1301 / 1330
Live music at Jazzabell Café every Wednesday and
Friday with great food, drink and old friends from 6 pm
every Friday. Jazzabell Cafe, Jhamsikhel, Patan,
contact: 2114075
Every Friday BBQ from 7:00 pm at Fusion Bar &
Pool side at Dwarika’s Hotel with live band “Dinesh
Rai and Sound of Mind”. Price Rs 1500/- plus 10%
Service Charge per person, includes BBQ dinner and a
can of beer or a soft drink. Contact: 4479448
LIVE Gazal with authentic Indian food for dinner at Far
Pavilion except Tuesday, The Everest Hotel ph:
4780100, ext: 7811
Live Music 7:00-10: 30 pm by Rapsodi trio band
except Monday & Happy hour 30 % discount at
Bugles & Tigers, Gurkha Bar from 5 to 7 pm, The
Everest Hotel, 4780100, ext: 7811
Hotel Narayani Complex, Pulchowk, Lalitpur presents
Shabnam & Cannabiz Band every Wednesday
and Rashmi & Kitcha Band every Friday, 7:30 PM
onwards @ Absolute bar P Ltd; Contact: 5521408,
5549504, abar@wlink.com.np
Bubbly Brunch—every Saturday from 11 am to 3 pm
@ Shambala Garden & Club Sundhara where you
can enjoy Live Shawarma & Pasta only @ Rs 1100
Nett per person (Includes a glass of Sparkling Wine).
Contact: Hotel Shangri~La, Kathmandu at
4412999, Extn 7520, 7515
Starry Night BBQ—every Friday Evening from 7:00 pm
GRAFFITI WORD GAME
FILMS
CHHADKE
QFX Jai Nepal: 9:30AM/
12:30/ 3:30/ 6:30 PM
QFX Civil Mall: 8:00/
9:00AM/ 11:15/ 12:00/
3:00/ 6:00/ 9:00 PM
QFX Kumari: 8:00AM/
8:45/ 11:00/ 2:15/
5:15/ 8:15 PM
ZILA
GAZIABAD
QFX Kumari: 2:00/
5:30 PM
QFX Civil Mall: 11:00
AM/ 2:15 / 5:30/
8:45 PM
A GOOD DAY
TO DIE HARD
QFX Kumari: 11:45/
8:30 PM
QFX Civil Mall: 8:30AM/
2:15/ 7:45 PM
SPECIAL 26
QFX Civil Mall: 4:45 PM
at Shambala Garden Café, Hotel, Shangri~La only @
Rs 1299 Nett per person and live performance by
Ciney Gurung. Contact: 4412999, Extn 7520, 7515
Oriental Buffet with live Jazz music, every Friday evening
7 pm onwards at Earthwatch Restaurant at Park
Village Resort @ Rs 999/- per person.Contact: 4375280
GETAWAY
Experience your holiday at Grand Norling Hotel,
Gokarna. One night and two days at Rs 4500 and two
nights and three days at Rs 7000,residential package at Rs
30000 per month.Contact: 4910193,4910296,4910295
Jungle Safari Lodge, Sauraha introduces New
Offer of 2 Nights/ 3 Days Package at Rs 5555 per
person, for Nepalese Citizen Only. The offer includes
elephant safari, cultural programme, canoeing,
visit to elephant breeding centre, 2 breakfasts, 2
Lunches, 2 dinners, accomodation in deluxe A/C
Room, two way tourist bus services. Contact: Suman
Ghimire @ 9851116181/ 4444999
Overnight Package and Great Escape Package available
at The Dwarika’s Himalayan Shangri-La Village
Resort, Dhulikhel for local residents. Contact 447948
Fulbari’s Domestic Tourism Promotion Package @
Rs 6500 nett per person, Package Includes: 2 night/ 3
days deluxe accommodation on bed & breakfast basis,
one special dinner, welcome drinks, free tennis, swimming
pool and gym, attractive discount on Spa, Golf &
other services. Contact 4461918, 4462248 & email:
resv@fulbari.com.np, sales@fulbari.com.np
Experience The Last Resort, the perfect place for
family fun adventure and relaxation. Special packages
RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT
KANTIPUR TV
5:00 Bhakti Sur
5:45 Shuvarambha/ Kundali
6:30 Swami Haridas Baba
Prabachan
7:00 Kantipur Samachar
8:00 Samachar Time
8:30 Kantipur News
8:30 Samachar Time
9:00 Disanirdesh
10:00 Kantipur Samachar
10:30 Kantipur Aaja
11:00 Headline News
11:05 Music Mela
11:30 Infoplus
12:00 Kantipur Samachar
12:30 Kantipur Tiffin Box
1:00 Headline News
1:05 Disanirdesh
2:30 Rise and Shine
3:00 Headline News
3:05 Sajha Sawal
4:00 Kantipur Samachar
4:30 New Entry
5:00 Headline News
5:05 Call Kantipur Reloaded
6:00 Kantipur News
6:30 Quiz Mania
7:00 Kantipur Samachar
7:30 Ghum Gham
8:00 Kantipur Samachar
9:00 Hijo Aaja Ka Kura
09:30 Frame by Frame
for residents. Contact: 4700525/ 4701247 or mail us
at info@thelastresort.com.np
Asia World invites all music aficionados to join us on
a lifetime experience of 3 days of thumping, throbbing
and heart-pumping musical extravaganzas at Isle of
Wight from June 13 to 16, 2013. Listen to The Stone
Roses, Bon Jovi, The Killers and many more. Also,
enjoy stopover in Dubai to satiate your thirst for
shopping, desert adventures and fine gourmet cuisine
or in Thailand for clubbing, merry-making, shopping
and snorkeling in Bangkok and Phi Phi Island.
Contact: info@asiaworldholidays.com today
Hotel Tibet International, Boudha -Experience
Nepalese warmth with a touch of Tibetan hospitality in
our Re-opening discount for rooms & restaurant.
Savior authentic Tibetan cum Chinese cuisine. Call:
4488188 or email sales@hoteltibetintl.com.np,
website: www.hoteltibetintl.com.np
Experience your holiday at Kingfisher Jungle Resort at
Shukranagar, Meghauli Chitwan. One night and two
days at Rs 3500 and two nights and three days at Rs
6000.Elephant safari,Canoeing and Nature walk fee paid
at the resort pickup and drop to Narayanghat. Residential
package at Rs 30,000 per month. Contact: Rudra Raj
Dotel- 9849059295, 4260329, 056694490
Nestled in the boarder of Royal Chitwan National Park
and medieval Tharu Village, Maruni Sanctuary Lodge
offer special winter package including jungle activities 2
nights 3 days @ Rs 9,999 per person on twin sharing
basis. Contact: Prajina—9841792225, 4700632
MISCELLANEOUS
The Image Park invites you to a 7-day photography
Yesterday’s Solution
10:00 Kantipur Aaja
10:30 Kantipur News
11:00 Kantipur Samachar
11:30 Hijo Aaja Ka Kura
12:00 Call Kantipur Repeated
1:00 Kantipur News
Repeated
1:30 Ghum Gham
2:00 Kantipur Samachar
Repeated 1
2:30 Kantipur Aaja
3:00 Kantipur Samachar
Repeated 2
3:30 Hijo Aaja Ka Kura
4:00 Frame by Frame
5:00 Kantipur Aaja
04:00 Bhajan
05:00 Bhakti Anusthan
06:30 Kantipur Diary
07:00 The Headliners
07:30 Sanchharika Radio
Magazine
08:00 Kantipur Diary
08:05 The Weekender
09:00 Traffic Update Janata
Sanga Prahari
09:30 Thank God It’s Friday
10:00 Kantipur Diary
10:05 New Releases
11:00 Kantipur Diary
11:05 Fair & Lovely Femina
12:00 Kantipur Diary
12:10 Lunch With Laurisa
13:00 Kantipur Diary
13:05 Ke Chha Nepal
14:00 Kantipur Diary
14:05 Sau - Rai
15:00 Kantipur Diary
15:15 Kurmure Request Zone
16:00 Kantipur Diary
16:05 Guna Cine Quiz /
Mofasal Ka Chahana
16: 30 Physio Therapy (Sahara
Health Care)
17:00 Kantipur Diary
17:05 Fanatic Friday
18:00 Nature Talks/ Farak
Rang Haru
18:30 Kantipur Diary
18:55 Khoj
19:00 Tell Via Cell
20:00 Kantipur Diary
20:05 Wheel No Tension
21:00 Kantipur Diary
21:30 Club Mix
23:00 Aaja Dheki Arko Aaja
Saama
workshop where, you will learn from how to click with
camera to post-production of your images. Sessions
from February 27- March 5, from 7 - 9 am. Fee: Rs
2,999, contact: 9841240341 / 9841497639
MIND AND BODY
Dynamic Health Group: Join free classes every
Saturday to learn about Reiki, Yoga, Meditation,
Quantum Science and Healthy Life Styles,Suryabinayak,
Bhaktapur, Contact: 9841393760 OR 9803791114
Women Skill Development Resource Centre: Join
free training for Straw Art, Sewing and Skill
Development (for 2 hours, 4 hours and 7days),
Suryabinayak, Bhaktapur, Contact 9849426628
Meditation Session and Satsang: Benefit yourself
with free meditation session to heal your body and
mind, and discover the right path towards the fulfillment
of life. Every Saturday morning at 8 am at
Mind Body Library, Babarmahal. Contact:
4102025, www.fb.com/mindbodylibrary
Korea Alternative Hospital announces Winter
Massage Package. The Rs 1500 package includes a
2 hour massage and a complimentary hot coffee and
specialised medical massage at Rs 3000, contact:
2298259, 9813 595563, Bagdol 4, Ring Road
Introductory 25 % discount on all treatments
at Himalayan Wellness Centre, the SPA at Park
Village Resort, Budhanilkantha. Contact:
Taruna/Umesh-4375280
The Art of Living foundation is organising an advance
course in the presence of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar from
Feb 25-28 at UWTC, Tripureshwor

Talking about
delicious dumplings
MOMOS occupy a very important
place in the culinary habits of thousands
of Kathmandu inhabitants.
These delicious dumplings are loved by
Valley denizens, and the sheer number of
eateries that serve only mamachas—
Kathmandu’s own brand of spicy buff
NIRMAL SHARMA
ACTOR/COMEDIAN
NAVYAATA FASHION PARTY AT THE
INTERNATIONAL CLUB
Navyaata magazine, in collaboration with OMG
Theme Events, is organising Navyaata Fashion
Party: Fallen Angels at the International Club in
Sanepa on February 22. The show follows the
successes of Navyaata Fashion Party I and
Navyaata Fashion Party II, which took place in
2011 and 2012, and hopes to be bigger and
better than its predecessors.
The glamorous evening will begin after
6:45 pm and will feature fashion collections
by Tenzin Tseten Bhutia, Bina Ghale, DS
Collections and Odhni. This year, the organisers
say, is all about creating history and
doing what no one has ever done before.
Navaata Fashion Party II hopes to change
Momos are my favourite Nepali dish.
An acquaintance of mine once challenged
me and a couple of other
friends to a momo eating competition.
I was quite excited to take on the
offer. It was an opportunity, rather. I
got to eat a dish that I simply love (as
many of them as I could, in fact), so I
couldn’t have asked for a better challenge
if I’d set it myself. I ended up
eating 66 individual momos then, the
most I’ve eater so far, and also won
the ‘competition’.
My love for momos is such that I’d
even gobble down a few of these delicious
dumplings if someone offered
me a plate even if I’m already full
(laughs). It’s been three decades since
I tasted my first plate of momos.
There’s been no looking back since.
I’ve been enjoying the dish thoroughly
for many years now.
PARAS KHADKA, CRICKETER
HOT & HAPPENING
You may send in event details to tkpbabaal@kantipur.com.np
momos—stands as testament to its popularity
here. That no restaurant business can sustain
itself if it does not have momos on its
menu might sound a bit like exaggeration,
but it’s become a quietly accepted norm in
the food and dining industries.
Like most of us ordinary Joes, Nepali
I don’t remember from when, exactly, but I’ve been eating
momos for a long time now. Momos have become our inofficial
national food because everybody eats them. I am fond of
momos and have eaten varieties of the dish at various outlets in
Kathmandu. I do not have particularly special memory
attached to eating momos, though. I, like many other people
here, eat momos so often that they’re hardly special any more.
MUKTI SHAKYA
MUSICIAN
I am a huge fan of momos. I
have eaten momos in most
parts of the world; in Nepal,
France, the UK, Spain and the
US. Most non-residential
Nepali fans have even told me
that they feel at home when
they listen to Mukti n’ Revival
while eating a plateful of
momos. That is why my
favourite memory of the
band’s New York tour is the
one in which Nepali fans
offered me momos. I have
many more memories from
the old days when I used to
frequent the RC momo centre
in Ranjana Galli. I actually
think that that was the very
place that brought about this
wave of momos in the Valley.
people’s perceptions of the Nepali fashion industry. And
indeed with a unique theme, beautiful clothes and gorgeous
people, the angels will rise and walk the earth. Tickets are
priced at Rs 700 and Rs 1,000 (door sales).
WALL CLIMBING COMPETITION AT THE
ASTREK CLIMBING WALL
Astrek Climbing Wall and NepalSutra are
organising Wall Spiders, a wall climbing competition
for youths between the ages of 14
and 24. The competition will be a two-day
affair beginning on February 22 and ending
on February 23. Astrek Climbing Wall,
Thamel will host the event which is set
to begin at 10 am.
The Nepal Mountaineering
Association, Nepal National Mountain
KATHMANDU, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013 | WWW.EKANTIPUR.COM 11
SUGARIKA KC
MISS NEPAL
celebrities too love their momos (at least
most of them do). As Kathmandu Valley gears
up to celebrate an entire festival dedicated to
this mouth-watering delight, the Post talks to
a cricketer, an actor, a musician and a former
beauty queen about their momo-eating
habits and experiences.
Momos are actually not my first choice
in food because I’m a vegetarian. I
don’t mind eating vegetable momos,
but I’d rather have something else.
I do have quite number of good
memories associated with momos,
though. Once, a long time ago, actually,
we made momos at home. I was
only a kid then. I ate so many of the
momos we made at home that the
adults ended up hungry (I’d left only a
limited amount for them). I also have
bad memories associated with
momos, though. There have been
many times when I’ve been given
non-veg momos at a few restaurants.
And this, in spite of my
reminding them to prepare my
veg momo in a separate steamer,
and not in the same one in which
the non-veg ones are prepared.
Guide Association and International
Federation of Sports Climbing
(IFSC) will be assisting the design
and oversee of the entire
competition. The event has been
sponsored by North Face and Black
Diamond and has an entry fee of Rs
200 (per category). Each climber is
allowed participation in two categories.
For further information, contact:
4419265.
FUNK SOUL GROOVE JAZZ
NIGHT AT THE ELECTRIC PAGODA
The Silver Wind Quartet is all set to
rock Kathmandu with their funk
rhythms at the Electric Pagoda,
DELICIOUSNESS
UNLEASHED
The Bakery Cafe has been celebrating the
city’s fondness for these dumplings for over a
decade now. This year’s Momo Mania festival
is set to take place on February 23
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
THOSE who’ve been away
from Kathmandu for long
will list momos among
one of the things they miss most
about home. Momos have in
fact become part of our
‘Nepaliness’ by now, and no one
would argue to the assertion
that they’re the country’s ‘unofficial
national dish’.
Momos are comfort food for
most of us; and also an easy
option on the menu we resort to
when we don’t know what else
to order. These delicious little
packages of meat or vegetables
wrapped in soft, floury blankets
might have their origins in Tibet,
but we’ve added out own
flavours to the dish here in
Nepal. Distinct masalas and
achaars appear in momos
served all over Kathmandu, and
mamacha drenched in sesame
sauce is perhaps the most popular
lunch food in the Capital.
The city’s ‘momo-culture’ is
something of a wonder in itself,
and the Bakery Cafe has been
celebrating Kathmandu’s fondness
for these dumplings for
over a decade now. This year’s
Momo Mania festival is set to
take place on February 23 at
Bhrikuti Mandap. All those who
call themselves momo lovers
will surely find themselves in the
area as Momo Mania is bound to
serve some of the best momos
in town. What the festival does
wonderfully well is celebrate the
joy of sitting down in front of a
steaming hot plate of momos
and enjoying the delicious food.
Momo Mania has always
boasted a substantial list of
momo varieties, from the traditional
meat and vegetable
options to the daring experiments.
The fish, khuwa (with
chocolate sauce and fresh
cream), chicken tandoori and
buff sui-mai varieties saw huge
crowds lining up to get a taste of
the momos last year. This year
too is bound to be an adventure
in momos, and we can only look
forward to getting a taste of
them all. The festival itself will
begin at 3 pm and loads of variety
will be on offer. There’ll also
be entertainment at the venue:
game stalls, live music and other
performances are bound to
make your experience at Momo
Mania all the more enjoyable.
Tickets cost Rs 650 for adults
and Rs 450 for kids
Thamel on February 22. Funk Soul Groove Jazz
Night will begin at 7 pm, and will feature special Shisha,
electrifying cocktails and Mexican food as other attractions.
For all music lovers in Kathmandu, the Silver Wind
Quartet are certain to make this Friday a truly memorable
one.
OTHER EVENTS
An All-Round Expo, currently taking place at
Bhrikutimandap, will continue till February 25. Stalls
open at 11 am. For details, contact: 4238183,
4259976, or log on to www.directionnepal.com
Carlsberg Tranzit Barbeque Night with Dharmendra
Sewan at Tranzit, Thamel on February 23. 5:45 pm
onwards.
Acoustic Maya Live at the Capital Grill, Bhat Bhateni
on February 23. 6:30 pm onwards.

12 THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
FRIDAY FACES
BEAUTIES ON DUTY
SMS ZONE
DUE to technical problems
with our website, this week’s
SMS messages could not be
decoded. We thank all the
readers for their texts and
apologise for these unforeseen
circumstances. We hope to
recover the messages sent so
far, but we still request our
readers to resend their
answers to last week’s
question:
How did you celebrate
Valentine’s Day this year?
—Editor
NEPAL’S search for its next beauty queen will see a lucky
young lady crowned Miss Nepal at the Fanta Hidden
Treasure Miss Nepal pageant set to take place at Hotel
Annapurna in Durbar Marg on March 15.
This year’s pageant is set to be a challenge for the top 18:
Samikshya Shrestha, Rachana Bharati, Sipora Gurung, Bindu
KC (Chettri), Maya Sawad, Ishani Shrestha, Sujata Balami,
Meghna Shrestha, Shritima Shah, Pratima Giri, Oshima Banu,
Raksha Thapa, Rojisha Shahi, Ashmita Sitoula, Sumi Lama,
Renu Pokhrel, Aishworya Upadhaya and Riju Shrestha. These
ladies have been selected from all parts of the country (a first
in the Miss Nepal pageant’s decade-long history).
All these young girls are vying for the title and the crown,
and the Post wishes them the very best of luck.
In Dharan, Miss Purwanchal participants participate in a
blood donation programme that took place in the city’s
Ghantaghar on Thursday. The 14 young ladies will be
competing in a pageant set to take place on February 24.
Fashionistas at the
Costume Designers
Guild Awards
THE Post looks at some of the leading
ladies from Hollywood who wooed us
with their flare for fashion at the Costume
Designers Guild Awards in Los Angeles on
Tuesday. The awards season concludes with the
Oscars scheduled to take place this Sunday.
From left: The Blind Side and Mirror Mirror’s
Lily Collins, 2001’s Oscar winner for the Best
Actress category, Halle Berry, and Anne
Hathaway, who was honoured with the
spotlight award by the designers guild this year
for her collaboration with costume designers
Published and Printed by Kantipur Publications Pvt. Ltd. Kantipur Complex, Subidhanagar, Kathmandu, Nepal, Phone: 4480100, Fax: 977-1-4466320, e-mail: kpost@kantipur.com.np, Regd. No. 32/048/049, Chairman & Managing Director : Kailash Sirohiya, Director : Swastika Sirohiya, Editor-in-Chief : Akhilesh Upadhyay

Inside
CROSS CURRENCY
USD EUR JPY GBP CHF CAD AUD INR NR
NR 87.5900 115.6451 9.3820 133.1762 94.1170 85.9526 89.6790 1.6015
INR 54.47 71.889 0.584 83.11 58.507 53.49 55.81 0.6244
AUD 0.9759 1.288 0.0104 1.489 1.049 0.958 0.0179 0.0112
CAD 1.0191 1.345 0.0109 1.5537 1.094 1.0438 0.0187 0.0116
CHF 0.9307 1.229 0.0099 1.419 0.9141 0.9533 0.0171 0.0106
GBP 0.6555 0.866 0.007 0.7047 0.6436 0.6716 0.0120 0.0075
JPY 93.22 123.23 142.8571 101.0101 91.7431 96.1538 1.7123 0.1066
EUR 0.7573 0.0081 1.1547 0.8137 0.7435 0.7764 0.0139 0.0086
USD 1.3205 0.0107 1.5256 1.0745 0.9813 1.0247 0.0184 0.0114
HOW TO READ THE TABLE
The chart shows the rates of nine world currencies. Move across the table to find rates of exchange between any two currencies.
One unit of the currency mentioned vertically is worth that amount in the currency mentioned horizontally.
Nari Wedding and
Gift Expo kicks off
The seventh edition of the Nari Wedding and Gift Expo
2013 kicked off at Bhrikutimandap in Kathmandu on
Thursday. Also, the sixth edition of Kopila Children Expo
2013 and Nepal International Consumer Expo (NICE)
2013 too began at the same venue. Organised by
Direction Nepal, the events which will run through
February 25 is expected to attract visitors from diverse
backgrounds. Pg: IV
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
GOVERNMENT expenditure
contracted in the first
half of the current fiscal
year as ministries and other government
authorities delayed
authorising their subordinate
agencies to spend the budget,
according to the mid-term review
of the budget for the current fiscal
year.
Government authorities are
yet to authorise their subordinate
implementing agencies to spend
55.66 percent of the budget, the
report said. As a result, government
expenditure shrank to Rs
104 billion as of first half of the
fiscal year from Rs 111 billion in
the same period a year ago.
As far as the capital expenditure
is concerned, it stood at just
Rs 7.66 billion down over the sixmonth
period — down from Rs
9.56 billion a year ago.
The Finance Ministry said it
authorised ministries and other
agencies to spend the budget
after the President endorsed
budget ordinances. The President
had endorsed two budget ordinances
— first on July 16, 2012,
authorising spending of the onethird
of the last fiscal year’s budget,
and second on November 22,
2012, for two-third budget spending.
According to the budget
review report, the Finance
Ministry authorised ministries
and other government agencies
to spend a total of Rs 267 billion.
But the latter only authorised
their subordinate agencies to
spend just Rs 119 billion — 44.34
percent of the amount authorised
to be spent.
Even several development
programmes and projects are yet
to get approval from the agencies
concerned. First priority (P1)
projects require the National
Planning Commission’s (NPC)
approval for implementation,
FOREX
U.S. Dollar 87.59
Euro 115.65
Pound Sterling 133.18
Swiss Franc 94.12
Australian Dollar 89.68
Canadian Dollar 85.95
Singapore Dollar 70.57
Japanese Yen 9.38
Chinese Yuan 14.04
Saudi Arab Riyal 23.36
Qatari Riyal 24.06
Thai Bhat 2.93
UAE Dihram 23.85
Malaysian Ringit 28.15
South Korean Won 8.06
Exchange rates fixed by Nepal Rastra Bank
PRITHVI MAN SHRESTHA
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
THE government has reintroduced the
policy of waiving off loans of the victims
of the decade-long conflict, people’s
movement and Madhesh movement.
This policy will be applicable to such loanees
of nine government-owned banks and financial
institutions.
A Cabinet meeting on Thursday decided
to waive off loans worth up to Rs 30,000 and
interest of loans up to Rs 100,000 taken from
Agriculture Development Bank Limited
(ADBL), Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB), Sana
Kishan Bikas Bank (SKBB), Nepal Bank
Limited and five Grameen Bikas banks.
The then Maoists-led government
had also introduced a similar policy through
the budget for the fiscal year 2008-09,
waiving off loans up to the same amount of
conflict victims, small farmers and victims of
natural disasters.
“As we have been receiving complaints
that a few victims failed to get benefits of the
government’s programme four years ago, the
new policy has been adopted to enable them
to get the benefits,” said Joint Secretary
Mahesh Dahal, who was recently appointed
as the consul general for Hong Kong.
Private sector for fresh CA polls
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
NINE private sector bodies,
including the Federation of
Nepalese Chambers of
Commerce and Industry (FNCCI),
have said a fresh election is must to
resolve the political stalemate.
Organising a press meet on
Thursday, they underscored the need
for a national consensus government
to hold the new election. “For this,
the main responsibility lies with the
political parties,” they said. “The private
sector once again expresses its
commitment to the democratic system
and free market economy.”
The private sector is of the view
that the constitution should be written
by holding a Constituent
Assembly election through consensus
among the parties. “For this, the
parties should guarantee the election
at the earliest,” they said.
They, however, expressed dissatisfaction
over the proposed ninepoint
deal among the parties, saying
not a single word has been incorporated
in the deal to address the country’s
economic issues. “The private
sector is in favour of holding a fresh
Constituent Assembly election,” said
FNCCI President Suraj Vaidya. “But
economic agendas should not be
ignored.”
The private sector bodies also
stressed for consensus amongst the
parties on the common minimum
economic agenda. They also
demanded timely budget presentation
for the next fiscal year.
“Development work has been stalled
due to the presentation of the budget
without policies and programmes for
the last few years,” they said.
MID-TERM BUDGET REVIEW
Government expenditure
contracts in first half
Page III Asia’s biggest low-cost carrier AirAsia said Thursday its new airline joint venture with India’s
giant tea-to-steel Tata conglomerate may start operations by year-end
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013 | ekantipur.com
Conflict, stir victims to get loan waiver
The provision will be applicable to loanees of nine govt-owned BFIs
FNCCI’s Senior Vice President
Bhaskarraj Raj Karnikar stressed on
the need for consensus among the
parties at the time when the country
has been gripped by rampant corruption,
donation drive, capital flight,
deteriorating rule of law and low production,
among other issues.
Ichha Raj Tamang, president of
Nepal Land and Housing Developers’
Association, said timely election was
only solution to the current political
crisis.
Jay Ram Lamichanne, president
of the Federation of Contractors
Association of Nepal, said the country’s
economic growth has been projected
to fall to 3.8 percent this year,
while inflation is still in double digits.
“The country’s economy is getting
worse by the day as political actors
are concentrated only on their parties’
agenda,” said Lamichanne.
while second and third priority
projects are to be endorsed by the
line ministries.
According to the mid-term
review report, a majority of programmes
and projects under the
Ministry of Urban Development,
Ministry of Education and
Ministry of Irrigation were not
the approved until mid-January.
“A majority of the ministries have
been found failing to get
endorsed their programmes,”
read the report. “This shows that
ministries failed to comply with
authorisation too.”
The finance ministry had
asked ministries and government
agencies to get their programmes
and projects approved by the
NPC or by line ministries —
whichever mode is applicable.
During the review period,
expenditure in foreign-aided
projects has come down by 80.58
percent compared to the figure
during the same period last year,
according to the report.
This provision, however,
is expected to hit
the government-owned
banks’ profitability as
they will only be
compensated for the
waiver of the principal
amount, not interest
Those who were killed and injured during
the ‘people’s war, peoples’ movement’
and Madhesh movement could claim the
benefit until mid-April 2013, according to the
government decision.
The government has also decided it will
compensate the banks for the principle
amount, while the banks themselves should
bear the cost interest and penalty waiver.
This provision, however, is expected to
hit the government-owned banks’ profitability.
A senior ADBL official said he could say
nothing about the possible effects of the government’s
decision on his bank before
receiving the details of the decision.
He, however, said the bank would face
losses if they were forced to waive interest
and penalty of performing loans and the
ones that were taken later. Suspecting that
even non-victims could be the possible beneficiaries
under political pressure at the local
level, he said the criteria should strongly be
implemented.
Four years ago, the government had
compensated the banks with the amount of
the loans waived along with 10 percent interest,
which had been beneficial for government
BFIs. According to a Finance Ministry
source, the government had reimbursed a
total of Rs 6.4 billion under the programme
for years ago. ADBL had received more than
Rs 4 billion, while Nepal Bank Limited
received Rs 250 million, according to bank
officials.
Although the government has claimed
the programme is aimed at offering relief to
the victims, it will have far reaching consequences
for banking institutions, according
to experts. “The biggest impact of such a programme
four years ago was people developed
a tendency of not repaying loans with
hope that the government would waive off
such loans later,” said a central bank official.
“On the other hand, tax collected from the
people, which could have been spent for
development activities, were spent in the
name of benefiting victims.”
The central bank official also said Prime
Minister Baburam Bhattarai’s promise duting
his tenure as finance minister in 2008
that the government would also waive off
loans of the loanees of Grammen Bikas
banks encouraged many borrowers not to
repay loans timely. “As a result, Sudur
Pashchimanchal Grameen Bikas Bank and
Purbanchal Grammen Bikas Bank went into
red,” he said.
Economist Keshav Acharya said
waiving off loans is like injecting marijuana
(ganja) into loanees, which provokes them
not to repay loans. “We had completely
reversed this programme in 2009 by
giving certain benefits to the people
who repaid loans timely,” said Acharya, who
was the chief economic advisor at the
Finance Ministry during the Madhav Kumar
Nepal-led government.
Besides affecting the BFIs’ profitability,
the provision could also lead to the misuse of
government resources given the fact that
families of more than 18,000 people received
relief from the government four years
ago. But only 13,000 were actually killed
during the conflict.

II
THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
Gold price down Rs 1,115 per 10gm
On Thursday, gold
was trading at
Rs 47,755 per 10 gm
(Rs 55,700 per tola)—
down from
Wednesday’s
Rs 48,870 per 10 gm
(Rs 57,000 per tola).
Silver price dropped
to Rs 917.50 per 10
gm from Rs 891.50
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
WASHINGTON, FEB 21
THE US government vowed
to aggressively combat a
rise in the foreign theft of
trade secrets on Wednesday amid
mounting concerns over recent
hacking attacks allegedly emanating
from China.
A new strategy document
released by the White House did
not explicitly name China,
but warned that foreign governments
and firms had stepped up
efforts to obtain such material,
threatening US economic and
national security.
“We will continue to act vigorously
to combat the theft of US
trade secrets that could be used
by foreign companies or foreign
governments to gain an unfair
economic edge,” the strategy document
says. Such “theft threatens
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
PRICES of gold and silver
declined in the local market
on Thursday as an impact of
the drop in the price in the international
market. The precious
yellow metal price came down by
Rs 1,115 per 10 gm overnight,
while silver lost Rs 26 per 10 gm.
On Thursday, gold was trading
at Rs 47,755 per 10 gm (Rs 55,700
per tola) — down from
Wednesday’s Rs 48,870 per 10 gm
(Rs 57,000 per tola). Silver price
dropped to Rs 917.50 per gm from
Rs 891.50 per 10 gm.
On Wednesday too gold
and silver prices were down
Rs 170 and Rs 8.50 per 10 gm,
respectively.
Bullion dealers attributed
the decline in bullion prices to
American businesses, undermines
national security, and
places the security of the US
economy in jeopardy,” it said,
putting “American jobs at risk.”
The White House vowed to
“apply sustained and coordinated
diplomatic pressure on other
countries to discourage trade
secret theft.”
The strategy was made public
a day after a report by American
Internet security firm Mandiant
said that a Chinese military cyberspy
unit is targeting US and other
foreign firms and organizations
with hacking attacks. A White
House official said that the new
strategy “is not focused on any
one country, nor is it focused on
cybersecurity exclusively, though
cyber does play an important role
in the strategy.”
The plan was unveiled at an
event attended by US Attorney
sluggish demand in the international
market, where stockiests
were selling gold to invest in the
share market.
“Gold price has plunged by Rs
1,300 per tola (11.664 gm)
overnight because of the freefall
in the international market price,”
said Tej Ratna Shakya, immediate
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
‘AARTHIK Udharikaran Ka Bis
Barsha’, a book penned
by Gagendra Budhathoki, a journalist
with Karobar vernacular
daily, was released in Kathmandu
on Thursday.
Former finance minister Ram
Sharan Mahat formally released the
book in the presence of prominent
business leaders and journalists.
The book revolves around the
impact of the economic liberalisation
on the country. The 230-page
book includes 58 articles on diversified
economic issues.
Mahat lauded Budhathoki’s initiative.
He, however, said the situation
‘is not as gloomier’ as presented
in the book. “It is true that the
country has not been successful in
achieving goals as per the expectation
post-liberalisation. But we
should not forget that whatever the
country has achieved on the economic
front so far is the outcome of
the economic liberalisation.
Nepal Chamber of Commerce
Chairman Suresh Kumar Basnet
General Eric Holder, who said the
protection of intellectual property
and trade secrets was a “top priority”
of the administration.
“Particularly in this time of
economic recovery, this work is
more important than it ever has
been before,” Holder said. “The
stakes have never really been
higher. In some industries a single
trade secret can be worth millions
or even billions — billions — of
past president of Nepal Gold and
Silver Dealers’ Association
(Negosida) that fixes price for the
domestic market. According to
Shakya, bullion prices are likely to
decline for few more days in the
domestic market.
In international market, gold
price declined by $46 to $ 1,560 an
Investment Group Bolloré CEO Vincent Bollore presents the electric ‘Bluecar’ in Paris on Thursday. The Bolloré Bluecar
is a small four-seat, three-door electric car designed by Pininfarina and manufactured by Cecomp in Bairo, Italy, under
a join venture owned by Bolloré and Pininfarina called Vehicule Électriques Pininfarina Bolloré . AFP/RSS
Tax hike for foreigners
in Switzerland
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
GENEVA, FEB 21
FOREIGNERS who move to
Switzerland are set to face a
tax hike from January 1, 2016,
according to a Swiss tax
authority timetable published
Wednesday.
Currently, those on the
rich list can opt to pay a lump
sum to the local tax service,
with their spending, rather
than income, being used to
gauge their wealth.
The new rules are set to
expand what is considered
taxable for the super-rich,
and will apply in 2016 to anyone
who moves to the country
as of 2014. Rich foreigners
who already live in
Switzerland will be allowed a
grace period, up to 2020,
before the new rules apply.
Around 5,000 people benefit
from the current system, but
it has raised hackles in
Switzerland because it is only
open to foreigners.
Last year, opponents of
the existing rules launched a
petition to demand that they
be abolished outright. Under
Switzerland’s renowned
system of direct democracy,
opponents managed to
open the way for a referendum
within the next two to
three years.
A handful of Switzerland’s
26 cantons—the equivalent of
US states—have already
decided to abolish their
lump-sum rules outright or
have toughened the criteria.
Swede Ingvar Kamprad—
founder of global furniture
giant Ikea—is one of the bestknown
beneficiaries of the
lump-sum rules.
Kamprad was recently
ranked by Swiss magazine
Bilan as the richest man in
Switzerland, with a net worth
of up to $42 billion.
Journo Budhathoki launches book
US vows to ‘vigorously’ combat trade secret theft
A strategy document
released by the White
House warned foreign
governments and
firms had stepped up
efforts to obtain
such material
BULLION PRICES COMPARED
DATE GOLD PER 10GM SILVER PER 10GM
Feb 21 Rs 47,755 Rs 891.50
Jan 21 Rs 50,240 Rs 973
Dec 21, 2012 Rs 50,000 Rs 943
Nov 24 Rs 53,025 Rs 1,050
Nov 21 Rs 52,125 Rs 1,020
Oct 19 Rs 50,970 Rs 986
Sept 21 Rs 52,300 Rs 1,037
said the book is ‘a must read’ for the
business community.
Budhathoki said the book has
been written in a simple way so as
to make it understandable to all
readers. He said the book summarises
how the country failed to
dollars.” The strategy calls for
greater coordination among different
government agencies, for
the private sector to be better
informed about the risk of
trade secrets theft and for stepping
up intelligence and law
enforcement efforts.
Under Secretary of State
Robert Hormats emphasized that
China was not the only offender,
but said intellectual property and
trade secrets remain a “serious
and troubling issue” in relations
between the two largest
economies. “That’s why cyber
security and the protection of IPR
(Intellectual Property Rights) and
trade secrets are among the main
items that we have discussed with
the Chinese over the years,” he
said at the unveiling event.
China has denied charges of
state-sponsored hacking and said
Mandiant’s claims had “no factual
ounce and silver by $1.10 to
$28.40 an ounce on Thursday.
Shakya said the present market
demand stands at 25 kg a
day. On Nov 24 last year, the gold
price had increased up to Rs
53,025 per 10 gm (Rs 61,850 per
tola) on the strength of international
gains and devaluation of
the Nepali rupee. At that time,
Silver price too had increased to
Rs 1,050 per 10 gm.
SKorea, Japan,
China, end talks
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
TOKYO, FEB 21
JAPAN, China and South Korea ended preparatory
talks in Tokyo Thursday about a possible
free trade agreement, despite tensions about
territorial disputes.
Working-level officials from the three countries
met for two days to prepare for the first
round of negotiations in South Korea on
an FTA, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The first round is expected to be held
between late March and early April, Japanese
media reported.
The three countries agreed at a meeting
of their trade and economy ministers in
Cambodia last November to enter into
free trade talks. The discussions are expected
to hit opposition from Japanese farmers
since a trade pact could allow cheaper
agricultural products like Chinese rice
into Japan.
China and Japan are arguing about
sovereignty over an archipelago in the
East China Sea, while Japan and South
Korea have a longstanding dispute over
ownership of islands in waters between the
two countries.
handle economic liberalisation in
the past 20 years. “I have written
this book keeping in mind the general
people. This book is targeted at
each and every people having interest
on issues related to the national
economy,” he said.
basis”. The latest cyber security
scare has seen firms, including
the New York Times and the Wall
Street Journal, report attacks
believed to emanate from China,
and comes amid mounting concern
over hacking as a military
threat. The latest classified
National Intelligence Estimate
identified China as the country
most aggressively seeking
to penetrate the computer systems
of US businesses and institutions,
the Washington Post
reported this month.
The document, according to
the Post, identifies energy,
finance, information technology,
aerospace and automotive companies
as the most frequent
targets of cyberattacks. Outside
experts have estimated the
damage to the US economy in the
tens of billions of dollars, the
paper said.
SHARES
NEPSE
Nepal Stock Exchange
Singhadurbar Plaza, Kathmandu
February 21, 2013
TRADING INFORMATION TRADING PRICE
SN COMPANY MAX MIN CLOSING NO SHARES
1 Agricultural Dev Bank Ltd 255 244 250 3,237
2 Arun Valley Hydropower Dev Co Ltd 323 318 318 1,396
3 Asian Life Insurance Co Ltd 231 229 230 418
4 Bishal Bazar Co Ltd 1,863 1,825 1,825 564
5 Bhargav Bikash Bank Ltd 103 103 103 1,000
6 Bank of Kathmandu 730 701 719 14,443
7 Butwal Power Co Ltd 799 798 798 700
8 Bishwa Bikas Bank Ltd 136 134 136 230
9 Business Universal Dev Bank Ltd 99 99 99 441
10 Chhimek Laghubitta Bikas Bank Ltd 423 407 407 94
11 City Dev Bank Ltd 166 166 166 87
12 Clean Energy Dev Bank Ltd 168 162 162 3,220
13 Chilime Hydro Power Co 1,199 1,129 1,175 3,672
14 Citizens Bank International Ltd 300 280 291 8,492
15 Everest Bank Ltd 1,590 1,530 1,569 5,779
16 Everest Bank Ltd (Con) Preference 807 801 801 104
17 Garima Bikas Bank Ltd 183 175 183 320
18 Global IME Bank Ltd 485 450 468 13,474
19 Guras Life Insurance Co Ltd 150 145 145 1,060
20 Grand Bank Nepal Ltd 214 200 208 7,557
21 Gaurishankar Dev Bank Ltd 81 80 80 44
22 H & B Dev Bank Ltd 62 61 61 1,000
23 Himalayan Bank Ltd 850 825 850 865
24 Himalayan Gen Insu Co Ltd 195 194 195 134
25 ICFC Fin Ltd 132 132 132 438
26 Infrastructure Dev Bank Ltd 70 68 69 4,202
27 Jyoti Bikas Bank Ltd 83 82 82 260
28 Janata Bank Nepal Ltd 188 180 188 25,321
29 Kaski Fin Ltd 101 100 101 1,639
30 Kailash Bikas Bank Ltd 180 180 180 18,300
31 Kumari Bank Ltd 289 285 285 31,789
32 KIST Bank Ltd 140 135 137 8,950
33 Kamana Bikas Bank Ltd 128 128 128 40
34 Laxmi Bank Ltd 361 352 360 1,190
35 Lumbini General Insurance 116 116 116 100
36 Life Insurance Co Nepal 993 960 993 140
37 Lumbini Bank Ltd 274 259 274 6,840
38 Machhachapuchhre Bank Ltd 247 239 243 7,282
39 Malika Bikash Bank Ltd 136 134 136 1,000
40 Manakamana Dev Bank Ltd 69 68 68 850
41 Muktinath Bikas Bank Ltd 281 278 280 250
42 Nabil Bank Ltd 1,894 1,820 1,850 4,683
43 NABIL Bank Ltd (Pro) Share 1,185 1,170 1,170 901
44 Nepal Bangladesh Bank Ltd 315 298 313 67,998
45 Nepal Bank Ltd 805 780 780 2,252
46 Nepal Credit And Com Bank 208 202 205 7,160
47 Nilgiri Bikas Bank Ltd 129 129 129 30
48 Nepal Investment Bank Ltd 836 805 826 6,500
49 Nerude Laghubita Bikas Bank Ltd 346 346 346 10
50 Nepal Life Insurance Co Ltd 2,045 1,960 2,045 2,320
51 National LifeInsu CoLtd 640 615 627 5,103
52 NMB Bank Ltd 296 275 287 2,450
53 Nepal Doorsanchar Co Ltd 654 643 652 14,810
54 Nirdhan Utthan Bank Ltd 233 233 233 17
55 Oriental Hotel Ltd 128 126 126 670
56 Prime Commercial Bank Ltd 339 317 330 15,045
57 Prime Life Insurance Co Ltd 300 294 296 628
58 Prabhu Fin Co Ltd 144 140 140 429
59 Reliable Fin Ltd 132 130 132 377
60 Shangrila Dev Bank Ltd 129 129 129 200
61 Sanima Bank Ltd 292 277 287 12,763
62 Nepal SBI Bank Ltd 877 848 865 3,423
63 Siddhartha Bank Ltd 331 324 331 639
64 Standard Chartered Bank Ltd 1,989 1,950 1,987 1,383
65 Sewa Bikas Bank Ltd 144 138 138 705
66 Sagarmatha Insurance Co Ltd 1,020 1,010 1,016 897
67 Shikhar Insurance Co Ltd 565 565 565 10
68 Siddhartha Investment Growth Scheme-1 13 12 13 17,400
69 Siddhartha Insurance Ltd 205 205 205 20
70 Surya Life Insurance Co Ltd 170 167 167 70
71 Summit Micro Fin Dev Bank Ltd 184 184 184 10
72 Sunrise Bank Ltd 239 221 236 5,063
73 Subhechha Bikas Bank Ltd 106 106 106 112
74 Supreme Dev Bank Ltd 68 67 67 856
75 Swabalamwan Bikash Bank 345 345 345 229
76 Tourism Dev Bank Ltd 96 95 96 1,050
77 Taragaon Regency Hotel 100 100 100 120
78 Union Fin Ltd 104 102 104 169
79 Unique Fin Ltd 88 88 88 100
80 Vibor Bikas Bank Ltd 88 85 87 3,380
81 Valley Fin Ltd 96 94 94 342
82 Western Dev Bank Ltd 80 79 80 72
83 Zenith Fin Ltd 95 93 93 464
Total Traded Amount Rs.: 137,286,555
Total Traded Shares: 357,782
Total Transactions: 1,238
INDEX CURRENT PTS CHANGE %CHANGE
NEPSE 544.09 4.81 0.8921
Sensitive 142.69 1.31 0.93
Float 37.36 0.215 0.58
HIGHEST GAINERS
Base: 16/07/2006, (Adjusted on 10/04/2007) = 100
MONEY | ekantipur.com
544.09pts
0.89%
LUBL GBBL SRBL NBB MBL MDBL
7.87% 4.57% 4.42% 3.64% 3.40% 3.03%
MODERATE GAINERS
HBL NLICL JBNL SCB RIBSL NLIC
3.03% 2.79% 2.73% 2.42% 2.33% 2.25%
MODERATE LOSERS
MKDBL IDBL PRFL EBLCP GSDBL SLICL
-2.86% -2.82% -2.78% -2.67% -2.44% -2.34%
HIGHEST LOSERS
HBDL AHPC KIST BBC CEDBL SEWA
-3.17% -3% -3.52% -4.00% -4.71% -5.48%
Sub-Indices Current Pts Change %Change
Banking 540.65 7.73 1.4507
Trading 175.99 -6.41 -3.5168
Hotels 669.2 0.56 0.08
Dev Bank 247.76 -1.92 -0.77
Hydro Power 1058.59 0.21 0.02
Finance 253.42 -0.29 -0.11

MONEY | ekantipur.com
Wimax launch for general customers
delayed by three more months
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
NEPAL Telecom (NT) has
said it will take around
three more weeks to make
its WiMax wireless broadband
internet service available for general
customers. As per the company’s
original plan, the service was
supposed to be available by early
January.
This is the second time the
company postponed the launch
the service for general customers
due to the delay in procurement of
Customer Premises Equipment
(CPE), also known as USB dongle.
Prospective customers have to buy
the device to connect their computer
or laptop to the WiMax network.
WiMax is part of the fourth
generation (4G) communications
technology that provides highspeed
internet service and is considered
to be one of the fastest
wireless data services in the country.
Currently, NT is offering this
service on the basis of three volume
based monthly packages —
32GB, 48GB and 60GB — with
focus on only corporate customers.
NT officials said two companies
— Airmax Technology and
BIZLINE
Etihad’s ‘Big Switch’
Unitech Network — that were outsourced
for WiMax service distribution
will start receiving the CPEs
soon from Chinese suppliers. As
per the agreement reached with
NT two months ago, the two companies
were supposed to start distributing
the internet line before
Feb 19. “Procurement of CPEs
delayed as the suppliers sought
more time due to the Chinese New
Year’s holidays,” said Rajesh Joshi,
deputy spokesperson for NT. He
said the service will be made available
within the next three weeks,
i.e. mid-March.
The state-owned telecom utili-
KATHMANDU: Etihad Airways will make its ‘Big
Switch’ to new, state-of-the-art, passenger sales,
website, and check-in systems next week, the
most significant milestone in its $1 billion, tenyear,
deal with Sabre Airline Solutions. The
Passenger Service System (PSS) transformation
project is the most challenging IT and businesscritical
initiative that the Abu Dhabi-based airline
has implemented in its history, the carrier said,
adding it has involved intensive training for 6,700
Etihad Airways and third party staff. The Big
Switch will integrate Etihad Airways’ current PSS
into one platform that will utilise cutting-edge
software across its reservations, inventory,
eCommerce, distribution and departure control
activities. The new Sabre Airline Solutions PSS will
offer significant enhancements to the customer
experience especially in areas such as mobile and
guest communications, the company said in a
statement.
EU clears guarantee for bank
BRUSSELS: European Union watchdogs gave sixmonth
temporary approval on Thursday for an
18-billion-euro ($23.7 billion) French state guarantee
to real-estate bank Credit Immobilier de
France (CIF). The Commission said that the guarantee
was needed to avert contagion in the
French banking system. “This guarantee is necessary
to cover CIF’s urgent liquidity needs and to
give it time to draw up a restructuring or orderly
resolution plan,” a statement said. France has six
months to draw up a restructuring or orderly resolution
plan following the provisional green light,
Brussels underlined. (AFP)
BAE annual net drops 14pc
LONDON: British arms manufacturer BAE
Systems on Thursday said the company’s net
profits dropped to £1.07 billion ($1.63 billion, 1.23
billion euros) last year, a 14-percent drop on 2011.
Group revenue fell seven percent to £17.83 billion
in 2012 compared with a year earlier, BAE
Systems added in an earnings statement, as the
British and US governments tighten their defence
budgets amid global economic strains. The company’s
year was dominated by the collapse of BAE
System’s proposed $45-billion merger with
European aerospace giant EADS. (AFP)
THE NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK, FEB 21
BOEING has developed possible
fixes for the battery problems in
its grounded 787 jets and could
have them back in the air within two
months, industry and federal officials
said Wednesday.
The officials said Boeing has narrowed
down the ways the lithium-ion
batteries on the jetliners could fail, and
believes that adding insulation
between the cells of the batteries and
making other changes would provide
enough assurance that they would be
safe to use.
Raymond L Conner, the president
of Boeing’s commercial airplane division,
plans to propose the fixes in a
Friday meeting with Michael P Huerta,
the head of the Federal Aviation
Administration. Huerta is not expected
to approve the changes immediately,
but the meeting is likely to start a highlevel
discussion on the standards
Boeing needs to meet as it tests the
fixes and seeks to get the planes flying
again.
Boeing’s plan could be a pivotal
moment in the history of the innovative
fuel-efficient planes. Huerta and
regulators around the world grounded
the planes in mid-January after a battery
caught fire on one jet parked at the
Boston airport and smoke forced
another 787 to make an emergency
landing in Japan.
Investigators have not determined
what caused those problems. But
Boeing’s engineers have worked closely
with the FAA and outside experts to
identify ways in which the batteries
could have failed, and Boeing is now
asking the government to sign off on a
calculation that they have now come
up with a safer design.
Given the risks in moving ahead,
federal officials said, the FAA has insisted
behind the scenes that Boeing needed
to come up with changes to prevent
failures at the same time as it proposed
further steps to wall off problems with
the batteries and vent any smoke or fire
ty had signed contracts with the
two companies in a bid to provide
the service in an efficient manner
under a bundling scheme. Based
on the agreement, customers will
get the CPE and the WiMax service
from these companies.
Initially, the companies will set
up 13 customer care centres each
across the country for the sales of
the service and the CPEs with warranty/guarantee.
The centres will
also be responsible to provide
after-sales services to WiMax subscribers.
Formally launched three
months ago, the service is current-
REUTERS
ROME, FEB 21
SENIOR management at Italy’s
state-owned defense group
Finmeccanica met Indian
officials who are looking into
allegations of corruption connected
with their government’s purchase
of a dozen helicopters.
The meeting was “positive”
and will be discussed by
Finmeccanica’s board later in the
day, the company’s new Chief
Executive Officer Alessandro
Pansa said on Thursday.
The Indian delegation is in
Italy to collect evidence on the
outside the planes.
Boeing officials said they had also
hoped to make all the fixes at once
rather than dividing them into temporary
and longer-term changes. By
delaying some changes, Boeing could
have been exposed to more problems.
As a result, one big change under
Boeing’s plan would be to redesign the
batteries to place insulation inside and
around each of the eight cells to minimize
the risk that a short circuit or fire
in one of the cells could spread to the
others, as investigators have said
This is the second
time the company
postponed the launch
of the service for general
customers due to
the delay in procurement
of USB dongle
ly available for corporate customers
of the Kathmandu valley,
Banepa, Dhulikhel, Chautara,
Dolakha, Ramechhap, Chitwan,
Pokhara, Bhairahawa, Butwal,
Palpa, Hetauda, Biratnagar,
Itahari, Dharan, Birtamod,
Dhulabari, Bhadrapur and
Kakkadbhitta.
NT has set a target to distribute
50,000 lines of the service by mid-
July this year, also covering 1,800
VDCs of 38 districts.
NT has been planning to take
the WiMax service across the
country by 2013-end covering all
VDCs and municipalities. The
company has capacity of 200,000
subscribers, and as per NT officials,
around 500 lines have been
distributed so far.
occurred on the battery that caught fire
in Boston on Jan. 7. Boeing might also
adjust how tightly the batteries are
packed.
Boeing would make other changes
within the batteries to reduce the
chance that vibrations, swelling or
moisture could cause problems, industry
officials said. Boeing has already
been testing some of the changes. The
plane maker believes it could rebuild
the batteries by next month on the 50
jets that have been delivered to airlines.
But federal officials are likely to move
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
SHREE Airlines has added
Eurocopter AS350 B3e helicopter
to its fleet in a bid to
consolidate its lead in the
fast-growing helicopter
industry. The 9N-AKG chopper
landed at the Tribhuvan
International Airport on
Thursday.
Manufactured in France,
the six-seater chopper costs
Rs 200 million. With this, the
company has seven helicopters
— six of them being 24seater
Russian-made Mi-17.
Finmeccanica meets Indian
officials on bribery probe
case, which centers on allegations
that Finmeccanica paid bribes
to win a 560 million euro
($750 million) contract for the
sale of 12 helicopters to the Indian
government.
An Italian investigation, which
escalated last week with the arrest
of the then head of Finmeccanica
chairman Giuseppe Orsi, is putting
pressure on the Indian government,
already buffeted by a
string of graft cases. Orsi has
denied any wrongdoing.
It has also become a political
issue in the country ahead of parliamentary
elections on February
24-25. India’s defense ministry has
threatened Finmeccanica unit
AgustaWestland with cancellation
of the helicopter deal unless it
can give assurances that no
bribes were paid.
Finmeccanica has until Friday
to respond to requests made by
Indian authorities. It has said it
would cooperate with them to
clarify the matter.
Finmeccanica’s board meeting
on Thursday is also set to discuss
the long-delayed sale of its
AnsaldoEnergia unit but no
decision on this issue was
expected, a source close to the
matter said. Finmeccanica
declined to comment.
Workers load part of the Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse into a Cargolux cargo aircraft at
Payerne airport in Switzerland on Wednesday. The Boeing will carry Solar Impulse HB-SIA prototype
aircraft to San Francisco for a serie of flights across America from the West to East Coast. AFP/RSS
Shree Airlines, which possesses
the Air Operation
Certificate to fly on the international
routes, is the first
Nepali private airline to operate
with a fully-owned fleet of
five helicopters. “Now, we
have a fleet of seven to remain
the largest fleet of helicopters
in the country,” said Banwari
Lal Mittal, executive chairman,
Shree Airlines. “The new
chopper will be used to cater
to the need of high-end
tourists and pilgrims.”
Besides, it will serve for
mountain flights, search and
rescue operation and medic
III
THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
Shree Airlines adds
new chopper to fleet
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
MUMBAI, FEB 21
ASIA’S biggest low-cost carrier
AirAsia said Thursday its new
airline joint venture with
India’s giant tea-to-steel Tata
conglomerate may start operations
by year-end.
The new budget airline
plans to operate from the
southern Indian city of
Chennai and boost connectivity
between smaller towns for
Indian travellers. The time of
the launch “is in the hands of
the Indian regulator... but
most likely it will start by the
fourth quarter”, AirAsia CEO
Tony Fernandes said.
AirAsia, headquartered in
Kuala Lumpur, aims to invest
between $30-50 million in the
venture, he said, and could
hire up to 300 staff. This is the
first firm commitment of foreign
investment in India’s aviation
sector since the government
last September relaxed
rules to let overseas airlines
take up to a 49 percent stake in
domestic carriers.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad
Airways is in talks to pick up a
stake in Jet Airways, India’s
second largest private airline
by market share, but no deci-
more slowly and demand more tests
and assurances, and the final decision
could rest with Huerta’s supervisors at
the Transportation Department.
Federal officials said that if
the fixes check out, the jets could
start flying again by April. Boeing
will also have to win back the confidence
of the flying public.
Besides taking more steps to prevent
short circuits from occurring,
Boeing’s plan would enclose the bat-
services in the remote areas.
“Nepal being a gateway to
Kailash Mansarovar, there is
huge potential to attract highend
Indian visitors,” said
Mittal. “We have asked the
government to hold government-to-government
level
talks with China to facilitate
Nepali service provider to fly
to Mansarovar.”
The sound-proof chopper
can fly up to 23,000ft. The
Airline has been serving charters
to agencies like the World
Food Program to transport
foods and other logistics to
remote sectors.
Tata-AirAsia airline
JV plans take-off
by year-end
sion has been announced.
AirAsia will hold 49 percent,
Tata Sons—the group’s
holding firm—30 percent and
independent investor Telestar
Tradeplace the balance in the
venture, which was
announced on Wednesday.
AirAsia—through its operations
based in Thailand and
Malaysia—already connects
Southeast Asia with Chennai,
other southern cities like
Bangalore, Tiruchirappalli and
Kochi and Kolkata in the east.
“It will have a fleet of A-
320s. We plan to start with
three to four planes and scale
up quickly after that,”
Fernandes said.
Boeing to propose redesign of 787 battery to US regulator
Boeing believes
adding insulation
between the cells of the
batteries and making
other changes would
provide enough
assurance that they
would be safe to use
POST PHOTO: KIRAN PANDAY
AirAsia,
headquartered
in Kuala Lumpur,
aims to
invest between
$30-50 million
in the venture
tery within a sturdier metal container
and create tubes to vent any hazardous
materials outside the plane. It would
add systems to monitor the activity
inside each cell instead of just the battery
as a whole.
Industry officials said there is
enough space in the electronics bay to
expand the container and add the vent
tubes. Until now, regulators have
focused on the need to pin down the
cause of the battery problems.
But investigators, now weeks
into their work, have been able to find
only limited clues in the charred
remains of the batteries in the
Boston and Japan incidents.
The lithium-ion batteries weigh
less but provide more energy than conventional
batteries, and the 787s make
greater use of them than other planes.
The stakes are substantial for
Boeing, which will have to pay penalties
to some of the airlines that have
been unable to use them. Boeing also
cannot deliver more of the planes while
they are grounded.

IV
THE KATHMANDU POST | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
Nari Wedding and Gift Expo kicks off
Kopila Children Expo, Nepal International Consumer Expo begin too
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, FEB 21
THE seventh edition of the Nari
Wedding and Gift Expo 2013
kicked off at Bhrikutimandap
in Kathmandu on Thursday. Also, the
sixth edition of Kopila Children Expo
2013 and Nepal International
Consumer Expo (NICE) 2013 too
began at the same venue. Organised
by Direction Nepal, the events which
will run through February 25 is
expected to attract visitors from
diverse backgrounds.
“We have been conducting the
wedding and children expo since
2007. A new expo, NICE, has been
added this year. This has made this
event bigger and better,” said
Trilokeshwor Malla, managing director
of Direction Nepal. He added the
addition of the consumer expo has
created a general appeal of the
event and is likely to attract
people from all walks of life. “From
children to grownups, everyone has
got something to look for in the
expo,” Malla said.
Sponsored by the country’s No 1
women’s magazine Nari, a sister pub-
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
HYDERABAD, FEB 21
SUPER luxury car maker Rolls-
Royce may roll out a customised
edition of its
Phantom and Ghost
models for Indian
buyers, a senior
company official
said on Thursday.
“We want to be
ready with the idea
within the next two
months. We are talking
to professionals
and designers. These
discussions take
some time as we
want to ensure the
quality of the product,”
Herfried Hasenoehrl, the
company’s General Manager
(Emerging markets Asia)
told reporters here after officially
launching a dealership
in the city.
“The customised version
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
NEW YORK, FEB 21
SONY unveiled a new generation
PlayStation 4 system on
Wednesday and laid out its
vision for the “future of gaming”
in a world rich with mobile
gadgets and play streamed from the
Internet cloud.
At a press event in New York,
computer entertainment unit chief
Andrew House said PS4 “represents a
significant shift from thinking of
PlayStation as a box or console to
thinking of the PlayStation 4 as a
leading place for play”. Absent from
the event was mention of what plans
the company had regarding films,
music, television shows and other
digital content offered on the PS4.
In a move that was not lost on
observers, there was no glimpse of a
PlayStation 4 at the launch event. “It
was odd that Sony did not show a
physical device,” said Gartner consumer
technologies research director
Brian Blau. “These days, people love
beautiful devices, especially because
lication of Kantipur Publications, the
expo is a one-stop destination for
those planning to marry in the near
future. The seventh edition of the
wedding expo features various products
and services, including apparel,
decorative products, gift items,
handicrafts, accessories, flowers,
jewellery, furniture items, wedding
The wedding expo
features apparel, gift
items, handicrafts,
counselors and match
makers, among others
planners, counsellors, match makers,
boutiques and catering service
providers, among various others, in
60 stalls.
Various companies providing
wedding planning services are offering
a range of packages under which
they arrange traditional marriage
ceremonies as per the social group
and demand of the couples. “We are
Rolls-Royce plans
customised India cars
can be of Phantom and Ghost
series and may not be huge in
number,” he said while refusing
to put a number to it. “In
India what we have seen in the
past, since we really focused
on this market, our
customers have
such high standards
of taste that we need
to get a little bit
more into history.”
Rolls-Royce is
already selling customised
cars in the
Middle East market,
he added. The company
also plans to
add by middle of the
year two more dealerships—in
Chandigarh and
Ahmedabad—in the existing
network of three outlets,”
Hasenoehrl said. Rolls-Royce
had launched Dragon edition
in the Chinese market last year
and it was sold in other markets
also.
of Apple.” Sony spoke ambiguously
about the device, leaving much to the
imagination during a two-hour presentation
aimed primarily at gamem-
offering customised services and this
expo has become a platform for us to
market these services,” Nirmal Raj
Poudel, managing director of
Welcome Advertising, which also
runs Welcome Wedding Event
Management Company.
Likewise, the sixth edition of the
Kopila Children Expo 2013 is being
organised with a motive to create a
akers and players. “They don’t want
to give it all away, which is the nature
of the industry,” Blau said. “Sony
was really trying to get developers
common platform for kids as well as
their parents to learn about various
things in an entertaining way. Various
products and services like educational
software, books, stationery items,
toys, apparel, dolls, face painting,
and winter vacation planning,
among others, are available in the
expo. There are 30 stalls in the
Children Expo.
excited about what is going on.”
PS4 was designed to get to know
players, ideally to the point of being
able to predict which games people
will buy and have them preloaded
and ready to play. It also allows to
gameplay to be broadcast in real
time, letting friends virtually peer
over one another’s shoulders and
gamemakers act as “directors” guiding
players along.
Sony has also given a green light
to building “the most powerful network
for gaming in the world,”
according to David Perry, chief of the
Gaikai cloud gaming company that
Sony purchased last year. Gaikai specializes
in letting people play
videogames streamed from the
Internet “cloud” instead of buying
titles on disks popped into consoles
or computers.
“By combining PlayStation 4,
PlayStation Network and social platforms,
our vision is to create the first
social network with meaning dedicated
to games,” Perry said during
the event. He spoke of letting people
access and play videogames on the
Apart from the regular stalls, the
expo will also host events such as
fancy dress show, handwriting competition,
sports activities, master kid
photo contest, art competition, training
for parents and a seminar on
child psychology. According to
Direction Nepal, the expo, which has
been witnessing enormous success
for the last few editions, is expected
to draw in thousands of visitors.
NICE 2013, on the other hand, is
a mega event conceptualised to bring
international brands, products and
services on a common platform of
opportunities where all the new possibilities
can be shaped for economic
cooperation and solidarity of the
region. Several electronic items,
handicrafts and computer accessories,
among others, have been featured
in 68 stalls at the NICE expo.
According to Malla, the five-day
expos are expected to draw in around
50,000 visitors. “Last year, we saw 25-
30,000 footfalls. Going by the trend,
we are sure to achieve our target this
year,” he said.
Opening hours are 11:00 am
to 6:00 pm and tickets are priced
at Rs 25.
Global tablet sales up 78 percent
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
WASHINGTON, FEB 21
THE global market for tablet computers
surged 78.4 percent last year, with
128 million of the devices shipped, a
survey showed on Thursday.
Research firm IDC said tablets
made up 10.7 percent of the global
market last year for “smart connected
devices,” which include smartphones,
and portable and desktop PCs. Overall,
the market for these devices grew 29
percent to 1.2 billion, according to
IDC, with growth in tablets and smartphones—which
saw a 46 percent
rise—offsetting declines in PC sales.
Although tablet sales sizzled,
they have not yet eclipsed sales of traditional
PCs yet, the figures showed.
Some analysts say that could happen
in the next year or two. IDC
data showed a 3.4 percent drop in
portable PC sales to 202 million
and a 4.1 percent decline in desktop
PC sales to 148.4 million. These were
dwarfed by the 722 million smartphones
sold last year, a figure which
was previously released.
Sony unveils new PlayStation4 video game console
Video game designer Mark Cerny shows the new controler Bioshock 4 as
Sony introduces the PlayStation 4 in New York on Wednesday. AFP/RSS
Smartphones and tablets are
growing at a pace that PCs cannot
keep up with, said IDC analyst Ryan
Reith. “The average selling price for a
tablet declined 15 percent in 2012 to
$461, and we expect that trend to continue
in 2013.”
IDC said smartphone prices averaged
$408 and are generally replaced
more often than other devices. In the
overall market for connected devices,
Samsung rose to the top position with
at least 20 percent of the market in
each category, and an overall market
share of 20.8 percent, overtaking last
year’s leader Apple.
Apple held 18.2 percent of the market
for 2012, up from 16.3 percent in
2011. The maker of the iPhone and
iPad saw 44 percent growth for the year
but was unable to keep pace with
South Korea’s Samsung, which more
than doubled its sales. The number
three company was China-based
Lenovo with a 6.5 percent market
share in all devices, followed by USbased
Hewlett-Packard (4.8 percent)
and Dell (3.2 percent).
IDC said Apple fared better in the
fourth quarter than earlier in the year,
and was boosted by its release of the
iPhone 5 and iPad mini. “The fourth
quarter market share numbers showed
a fairly dramatic resurgence for Apple,”
said IDC’s Bob O’Donnell. “After falling
well behind Samsung early in 2012,
Apple came roaring back in final quarter
of the year... The question moving
forward will be whether or not Apple
can maintain its hit parade against the
juggernaut of Samsung.”
Internet using PS4, smartphones,
tablets or PS Vita handheld devices.
“We are exploring opportunity
enabled by cloud technology with a
long-term vision of making
PlayStation technology available on
any device,” Perry said. “This would
fundamentally change the concept of
game longevity, making any game
new or old available to get up and
running on any device, anywhere.”
Sony needs to adapt to changing
lifestyles while not alienating
videogame lovers devoted to its hardware.
Games on smartphones or
tablets are increasing pressure on
videogame makers to deliver experiences
worth players’ time/money.
A PlaySation App will let iPhones,
iPads or Android-powered smartphones
or tablets be used as “second
screens” augmenting play taking
place on televisions connected to PS4
consoles, according to Sony.
Sony said the PS4 would hit the
market for the year-end holiday season.
The consoles are priced in the
$400 to $500 range, and game titles
hit the market at $60 each.
MONEY | ekantipur.com
MARKET WATCH
RETAIL PRICE
Vegetables Unit Price (Rs)
Red Potato Kg Rs 27
White Potato Kg Rs 25
Onion (Indian) Kg Rs 48
Tomato Small Kg Rs 20
Tomato Big Kg Rs 28
Squash Kg Rs 42
Cabbage Kg Rs 20
Egg Plant Long Kg Rs 48
Green Peas Kg Rs 45
Fruits Unit Price (Rs)
Apple Kg Rs 125
Pomegranate Kg Rs 270
Orange Kg Rs 70
Water Melon Kg Rs 65
Sweet Orange Kg Rs 105
Pineapple 1Pc Rs 95
Cucumber Kg Rs 50
Pear Kg Rs 145
Papaya Kg Rs 60
Banana Doz Rs 55
DAILY COMMODITIES
Pokhreli Rice Kg Rs 55
Jeera Mashino Rice Kg Rs 65
Indian Bashmati Rice Kg Rs 90
Mansuli Rice Kg Rs 55
Sona Rice Kg Rs 45
Beaten Rice (Taichin) Kg Rs 80
Beaten Rice Kg Rs 40
Big Mas Kg Rs 110
Small Mas Kg Rs 100
Big Mung Kg Rs 130
Musuro (No 1) Kg Rs 100
Musuro (No 2) Kg Rs 100
Rahar Kg Rs 120
Chana (Big) Kg Rs 150
Chana (Small) Kg Rs 100
Chilli Powder Kg Rs 240
Jeera Powder Kg Rs 350
Sugar Kg Rs 75
White Soyabean Kg Rs 100
Black Soyabean Kg Rs 100
Fried Mustard Oil lt Rs 240
Soyabean Oil lt Rs 140
Dalda Ghee lt Rs 120
Nepali Ghee lt Rs 550
GASOLINE WATCH
BULLION
INT’L MARKET
PRICE PER 10 GRAMS
Hallmark Gold Rs 47,755
Tejabi Gold Rs 47,540
Silver Rs 891.50
SOURCE: NEGOSIDA
Energy Price (US$) %Change
BRENT CRUDE FUTR (bbl) 117.66 -0.29
GAS OIL FUT (ICE) (MT) 996.50 -0.82
GASOLINE RBOB FUT (gal) 313.45 0.57
NATURAL GAS FUTR (MMBtu) 3.15 -0.32
Agriculture Price (US$) %Change
COCOA FUTURE (MT) 2,144.00 -0.56
COFFEE 'C' FUTURE (lb) 140.2 -0.39
CORN FUTURE (bu) 697 0.61
COTTON NO.2 FUTR (lb) 83.19 0.48
ROUGH RICE (CBOT) (cwt) 15.84 0.73
SOYBEAN FUTURE (bu) 1,414.75 0.44
SOYBEAN MEAL FUTR (T) 408.9 0.66
SOYBEAN OIL FUTR (lb) 52.01 -0.19
SUGAR #11 (WORLD) (lb) 17.74 -0.17
WHEAT FUTURE(CBT) (bu) 748.5 1.11
Industrial Metals Price (US$) %Change
COPPER FUTURE (lb) 375.35 0.03
Precious Metals Price (US$) %Change
GOLD 100 OZ FUTR (t oz) 1,609.50 -1.59
SILVER FUTURE (t oz) 29.85 -1.66