Report in The Kathmandu Post, June 10, 2023Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that his government has no intention to curtail the Election Commission’s autonomy. He said the government did not want to scrap the district election offices, but was just managing them differently, to cut costs. The government, through its budget for the fiscal year 2023-2024, had announced that the district election offices would be scrapped and the election-related work would be conducted…
Posts published in “Nepal”
by Sangam Prasain in The Kathmandu Post, June 10, 2023Around 500,000 Nepalis are already leaving the country to enter the international labour market every year. What would happen if this stream turned into a flood of 1 million departures and the country became short-handed? That is a distinct possibility considering that more than 660,000 persons had received labour permits as of the first 10 months of the fiscal year, and that figure does not include…
By Nishan Khatiwada in The Kathmandu Post, June 10, 2023Only recently, the CPN-UML removed the age limit of 70 years for leaders to hold an executive post, making its 71-year-old chair KP Sharma Oli eligible to helm the party for another tenure. That, however, is contingent on the party removing its two-term rule as well. The UML had introduced a two-term limit for the holder of an executive post in the party’s eighth general convention…
by Binod Ghimire in The Kathmandu Post, June 10, 2023Revoking last week’s decision of its administration to scrap a writ petition of former child Maoist combatants, the Supreme Court has ordered its staffers to register the petition that demands prosecution of the then Maoist supreme commander Pushpa Kamal Dahal, now the country’s prime minister, and the then ‘people’s government’ chief Baburam Bhattarai, who also is a former prime minister. A single bench of Justice Anand…
By Binod Ghimire in The Kathmandu Post, June 09, 2023The government has ignored the National Human Rights Commission’s recommendation to investigate Janata Samajbadi Party chair Upendra Yadav among 129 others in connection with the 2007 Gaur massacre. The constitutional human rights watchdog on January 7 had asked government agencies through the Prime Minister’s Office to probe the heinous crime and take action against Yadav and others, if found guilty. The commission also demanded the progress…
According to police cyber bureau, 110 cases of sexual abuse against children were reported in the past 11 months.Nepal not doing enough to tackle online child abuseby Anup Ojha in The Kathmandu Post, June 9, 2023Seven months ago, a woman in her mid-twenties sexually abused her nine-year-old sister. She also took pictures, made abusive videos by stripping the sister naked and sent it to her boyfriend, via Gmail. In the same week, while she was…
By Anil Giri in The Kathmandu Post, June 09, 2023Balendra Shah, the mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, has placed a map of ‘Greater Nepal’ in his chamber as a symbolic counter to India’s placing of the ‘Akhand Bharat’ mural in its new parliamentary building in New Delhi. Mayor Shah, who has been elected by Kathmandu’s voters and who had taken the oath of office and secrecy as per the constitution of Nepal, is accountable to…
Report in The Kathmandu Post, June 8, 2023Lawyers representing the defendants in the Bhutanese refugee scam started a debate on Wednesday questioning the ‘selective’ prosecution in the case. After government lawyers concluded their arguments on Tuesday on whether to remand the defendants in the Bhutanese refugee scam, those representing the defendants presented their arguments. They argued that the defendants have been charged without adequate evidence and only based on the statements of a select few…
By Tika R Pradhan in The Kathmandu Post, June 07, 2023After Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said he will form a special high-level mechanism to investigate the assets of those in power since 1990, legal experts say a similar mechanism is necessary to bring reforms in the judiciary. Some of them say the effort should be made by the chief justice himself as the government cannot do so, as that could be a breach of…
By Deo Narayan Sah in The Kathmandu Post, June 07, 2023Two CPN (Maoist Centre) ministers in Koshi Province resigned from their posts on Tuesday, following the party’s decision to withdraw its support to Chief Minister Hikmat Kumar Karki. Minister for Physical Infrastructure Development Durga Prasad Chapagain and Minister for Tourism, Forest and Environment Jeevan Acharya tendered their resignations to the chief minister. Chapagain and Acharya were appointed as the provincial ministers on January 9. Earlier…
By Parbat Portel in The Kathmandu Post, June 07, 2023The writer is the Jhapa correspondent for Kantipur Publications.Demand for Nepali tea is rising in the Indian market as production has slipped across the border. Nepali tea traders say Indian tea estates are going through a lean period as the tea bushes there have reached the end of their life cycles. Most of the plants are 80 years old, and some are more than 100 years…