HELLO NEPAL

Who is to blame for this ? It is not unusual for the common people to bear the brunt of the sky rocketed market prices of daily consumable goods even during the normal situation due to lack of proper supervision and monitoring mechanism of the government. Now, due to continuous lockdown for the last three months, the situation has been favourable for both the whole sellers and retailers to inflate the prices of all the cereal foods, edible oils and vegetables in the local market.   But, surprisingly this time, the whole sellers claim that the prices of the daily consumable goods have gone down by 10 to 15% owing to easing lockdown. However, the retailers continue to rob the people by inflating the prices citing increase in wholesale prices and costly transportation.    In fact, it is the responsibility of the local level government to inspect the market but not even a single market inspection has been conducted till date,and unscrupulous traders...

Confused parents and guardians All the government and private colleges and schools are closed for the last three and half months due to corona virus threat and not so sure how long they will remain closed. Until now, there is no government's clearly defined policy or directives regarding the management and operation of these institutions. As a result, most of the private colleges and schools   have started running online classes for their students in their own   ways. There are both pros and cons about the online classes.  The Kathmandu Post has wonderfully explained about the messy situation in its today’s (June 24/2020) editorial. The Private and Boarding Schools’ Organisation Nepal (PABSON) and the National Private and Boarding Schools’ Association Nepal (N-PABSAN) on Sunday issued a joint statement asking guardians to pay the tuition fees of their wards for Chaitra (March/April) and thereafter. The new fad of online learning that schools have foll...

Punish corrupts lawfully It seems that some ministers and their secretaries of the K.P. Oli led government are engaged in pocketing millions of rupees taking undue advantage of the   COVID-19 pandemic. What a shame? Procuring medicines and health equipment worth millions of rupees bypassing the existing norms of government's procurement policy and guidelines does indicate that there were some serious irregularities.  It was encouraging to know that the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has opened a formal investigation into possible corruption over the process that the government officials procured essential medicines and health products at inflated prices, taking undue advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, none of the past recommendations of PAC on a number of corruption cases were implemented by the government.  The government rolled out rapid testing across the country on April 7, without waiting for validity testing from the N...

Discriminatory decision? The amendment bill pertaining to citizenship act is due to be finalized in the Parliament for the last two years. Both the ruling party and opposition are trying to amend the act for their own political benefits which has been the main reason for delaying the amendment bill to get passed through the Parliament. According to Clause 5.1 of the Citizenship Act, foreign women are immediately eligible for citizenship upon marriage to a Nepali man while there are no provisions for a foreign man who marries a Nepali woman, requiring foreign men to spend a minimum of 15 years in Nepal before being eligible to apply for naturalised citizenship.   A few days ago,  the parliamentary State Affairs and Good Governance Committee provided the political parties with five days to come to a decision. Keeping this in mind, the Nepal Communist Party’s Secretariat, which has all nine male members, decided that foreign women married to Nepali men wo...

Supreme Court Order It was not surprising to know the government being ordered by the Supreme Court (SC) to use Foreign Employment Welfare Fund (FEWF) to repatriate Nepali migrant workers stranded in different parts of the globe especially in the Gulf Countries due to outbreak of Corona Virus.  Had the government used its common sense to use FEWF for bringing them to their homeland rather than asking them to bear airfares two to three times more than the usual fare, people would not have to knock SC's door. This order has given a great relief to the migrant workers who were living abroad in a highly vulnerable conditions. The Foreign Employment Act, 2007 clearly stipulates the criteria for mobilising the fund, explicitly taking into consideration the situation of ‘return and repatriation’ of Nepali migrant workers as one of the conditions for mobilising the welfare fund. More than Rs 6 billion has been collected in the FEWF, and its purpose is to utilise the money when ...

 Historic event It was wonderful to see all the 258 lawmakers belonging to different political parties unanimously voted for the amendment of the constitution to update the Nepal map following India's unilateral decision to include disputed land- Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani in its recently published map. Four lawmakers from the 275-strong House have been suspended, either on corruption charges or criminal offenses, while 12 others were absent during the vote. The bill needed 184 votes, two thirds of the Lower House, once the Upper House endorses this amendment bill, it will be forwarded to the President for her authentication.  This historic event will remain incomplete if the government will fail to diplomatically solve this long outstanding national problem with India. If the Indian government had not build the motor-able road on the disputed land and unilaterally published map showing disputed lands on it, perhaps, our government would have remained dorm...

Face saving decision? It was good to know that the government decided to ease lockdown effective June 12/2020 citing difficulties faced by the people and many other financial, social and productive sectors due to eighty days lockdown. However, I am not so sure whether the government was compelled to ease lockdown soon after the traders in different parts of the country started flouting government’s lockdown blaming it for not bringing out any relief packages?       I am nervous looking at the rapid increase in the number of infected persons in different parts of the country. And, in the other hand, people have not seen maintaining social distancing and wearing face masks in the crowded places following the government's decision of easing lockdown. This is definitely a very scary situation.  Can the government and its concerned machinery handle the situation if it becomes pandemic due to easing lockdown and negligence on the part of the people? ...