HELLO NEPAL

The Kathmandu Post 25 June 2017 FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS About one and half years ago, the government formed a high level commission to draft the Health Profession Education Policy (HPEP). Despite its recommendations to fix the fee for students who wanted to pursue the faculty of medicine, the government was dilly-dallying to do so. As a result, the medical colleges were charging exorbitant sums for MBBS and post graduate courses. Tribhuvan University has finally fixed fees amounting to Rs, 3.1 million for MD/MS programmes and has instructed the Institution of Medicine (IOM) to charge the fees accordingly (“Rs. 3.1m fee set for MD/MS courses” June 22, Page 3). However, the challenge for both TU and IoM is whether the medical colleges will abide by this rule. Any colleges found to be still charging exorbitant fees should be lawfully punished. Likewise, the fees for the MBBS course also need to be fixed immediately so that studying medicine will be affordable for aspiring

The Himalayan Times 22 June 2017 It’s time to shut down It was encouraging news that the government is finally on the course of shutting down the National Trading Ltd (NTL) after realizing that the NTL is eating up people’s tax paid money in the name of meeting its operational costs which was supposed to be covered from its profit margin “Govt on course to shut National Trading Ltd (THT, July 20, Page 1) rather than government pouring in it billions of rupees to keep it afloat. It was running on a huge loss for many years due to bad management and institutionalised corruption. There was no proper supervision and monitoring system from the government to ensure that the NTL was properly managed and run in a business-like manner. It was not surprising to know that the NTL has outstanding loans amounting to 1.4 billion rupees that it owes to the government and financial institutions. Why did the government have to wait for so many years to make decision of its closure? Likew

The Kathmandu Post 18 June 2017  Bravo Janardan It was encouraging to read that the Minister for Home Affairs Janardan Sharma is going to end political interference in security forces (“Will end political interference in security bodies: Sharma” June 16, Page 2). He has earned a lot of credibility for ending load shedding in the Kathmandu Valley while he was the Minister for Energy and Water Resources. Now, he has another opportunity to fulfil his promise by discouraging and ending political interference in the security agencies within the next seven months. In the past, minister for home affairs misused their authorities and demoralized security forces. It was sad to see the high ranking police personnel filing petitions in the Supreme Court against the high handedness of the political leaders. Sharma says that promotions will be based on performance; officials will not be promoted on the basis of pressure from politicians. He has also instructed police officials not to

The Himalayan Times 15 June 2017 Volatile scenario The Rastriya Janta Party Nepal (RJP-N) missed the deadline, June 13, set by the Election Commission for submitting documents required for participating in the second phase of local level elections “RJP-N misses EC deadline to submit documents (THT, 13 June, Page1). This indicates that the Deuba led government needs to be cautiously tackled the political situation. If it fails to bring disgruntled Madhes based political parties on board and make them participate in the upcoming local level election, the country may face problems.   It’s been almost 21 months since the new constitution was promulgated. Since then, Madhes based parties are protesting against some elements of the new constitution and asking the government for their amendment. Last year, the government had amended the constitution without taking them into confidence. Now, there does not seem enough time on hand for the government to amend the constitut

The Kathmandu Post 11 June 2017 DEUBA’S CHALLENGE   Sher Bahadur Deuba’s patience for the last 12 years to become the Prime Minister for the fourth time has finally borne fruit (“Deuba elected PM for fourth time” June 7, Page 1). His previous premiership remains controversial- he was removed twice from his premiership by the then King Gyanendra citing incompetency. He was also criticized for registering impeachment motion against Chief Justice Sushila Karki.  Many challenges lie ahead for him and his government, particularly holding three levels of elections and amending the constitution to bring disgruntled Madhes based parties on board. Developing effective local governance by empowering elected local bodies, expediting reconstruction of the earthquake ravaged structures and providing relief to the quake victims, attracting foreign and national investors and concluding the transitional phase will remain other major challenges for his government.  Mainta

The Himalayan Times 8 June 2017 Conserve environment The World Environment Day was observed in Nepal by organizing various programmes on Tuesday, June 5. It is observed every year on this day by the government, I/NGOs, schools and other concerned organizations putting up different slogans “School students observe Environment Day” (THT,   June 6, Page 2). However, it seems that not much has been done much from the government and other stakeholders looking at the degrading environment conditions. Most of the forests have been deforested causing massive land slides and flooding in the low lands destroying farming lands and resulting in human casualties.  The concept of community forestry programme started in late 90’s was one of the most effective efforts of the government with the involvement of user groups. It was a pioneer concept in the forestry sector “Conserve for future, says president” (THT, June 6, Page 2). Some of the donor organizations had wholeheartedly

Kathmandu Post 4 June 2017 POLITICAL ACUMEN It is unfortunate to see political parties bargaining for their own interests rather than for the nation’s. After the second people’s movement, parties wasted almost 11 years in political bickering and they were not able to hold local level elections for almost 20 years. However, the Dahal-led government should be credited for successfully holding the first phase of local level elections in three provinces. The second phase of local elections in the remaining four provinces were scheduled to be held on June 15 but have been deferred until June 28 (‘Phase II local polls to be held on June 28’, May 31, Page 1). This will help the Election Commission (EC) complete all the necessary preparations and will enable the Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN) to officially register its party in the EC and obtain its election symbol.   The RJPN seems undecided about participating in the polls (‘RJP-N fallen between two stools’, May 31, Page

The Himalayan Times 1 June 2017 Optimistic budget It seems that the 2017/18 budget of Rs. 1,278.99 billion presented by the care taker government is too high considering the low spending capacity of the government machinery. In the last 10 and half months, government has been able to spend only 52 per cent of its 2016/17 budget. However, it has increased its next year’s budget by 21.9 percent higher than this year’s budget keeping in mind the federal set up of the country in line with the new constitution “Budget priorities federal structure” (THT, May 30, Page 1). The government deserves appreciation for its commitment to implement the new constitution by allocating necessary budget for the rural, provincial and central level of governments. The only concern of this huge amount of budget is whether the nation will be able to afford at a time when it has to fully depend on its internal revenue to be collected from different kinds of taxes and donors contribution. Lookin