HELLO NEPAL

CHALLENGES AHEAD Nepal is in the final stage of entering into the federal structure after holding three tiers of elections. Major parties have almost completed nomination of their candidates for the National Assembly. Once the National Assembly elections are held on February 7, the new government likely to be led by the UML boss K.P.Oli will run the country for the next five years. In the mean time, people are closely watching the progress on the unification of the UML and CPN-Maoist Centre as announced by them just before the provincial and federal level elections. There seems to be a number of challenges in the days to come for the new government concerning the operational arrangements of the local level and provincial governments. The devolution of power and authorities from the centre to the local and provincial government will gradually take place in line with the federal structure. Confusions about the operational management of human resources, development and sectora

The Himalayan Times 25 January 2018 Governors in dilemma Soon after the promulgation of new constitution two and half years ago, people were curious and confused about the concept of federalism and had even started wondering about its necessity. There was a sharp division among the political parties and people concerning the importance of federalism. Questions and concerns were raised whether it was feasible to implement in Nepal considering its economical, geographical and demographical structures. There seemed to be hesitation about this concept even among the leaders of the major political parties. Some political parties and experts had even labelled this concept as the imported idea and criticised the major political parties for not being able to block it from being materialized. Nevertheless, the Big Three did not have other alternative than to announce and hold three tiers of elections for the implementation of the constitution. There was no turning back for major

The Kathmandu Post 19 January 2018 FUTURE OF NEPALI CONGRESS Nepal has passed through much political turmoil in the last 70 years due to the internal and external political environment. Democratically elected governments have been thrown out of power citing its poor governance and undemocratic acts. People had to pass through 10 years of ‘people’s war’ with much difficulty. Many people sacrificed their lives in the name of bringing political changes in the country. The Maoists joined mainstream politics. The King was dethroned by the first Constitutional Assembly (CA), which also declared the transformation of the country into a Republic. A second CA was able to draft and promulgate the new constitution.  Three tiers of elections were held in accordance with the new constitution. The left alliance comprising the CPN-UML and the CPN- (Maoist Centre) was able to capture majority seats in the provincial and federal elections. Madhes based parties also performed well in Provi

The Himalayan Times 18 January 2018 Save lives of people Every year in the remote hilly districts, local people, especially elderly and children, used to heavily suffer from natural calamities, water borne diseases, seasonal communicable and non-communicable diseases. Likewise, people in the Tarai districts terribly suffer from cold waves and monsoon floods. Some of them even lose their lives due to lack of awareness, late arrival of state services and irresponsible acts of concerned local government machinery. The common people would not have to suffer so much and not even lose their lives had the government and its concerned authorities acted seriously on time. In Jajarkot, 14 people have already lost their lives due to outbreak of viral fever for the last three weeks. Malnourished children and elderly people have been affected the most. Earlier, a team of health workers dispatched from the Ministry of Health had reached the affected areas two weeks ago and claimed th

The Kathmandu Post 12 January 2018 WORRISOME SITUATION Naming temporary capitals of seven provinces has been a headache for the government. Demonstrations by the local people demanding that their respective districts name the capitals of their provinces are being carried out in several parts of the country. The government has the constitutional responsibility of fixing temporary capitals until the respective state assemblies name their capitals. However, the government seems to be in dilemma when it to taking this step considering the sensitivity and emotions attached with this issue.  Nonetheless, the government does not seem to have other options besides naming the temporary venues at the earliest to help move along the process of federalisation soon after the completion of the national assembly which is scheduled on February 7, 2018 (“Govt to fix temp ‘meeting venues’, not state HQs” January 10, Page 3). Earlier, the government was thinking of inviting all th

The Himalayan Times 11 January 2018 Sluggish act It is not new for the people of Tarai districts to be awfully gripped by cold wave during winter and massively displaced by floods in monsoon every year. The local people face extreme hardship in these seasons. Many of them even lose their lives due to such natural calamities. There can be nothing done to stop these natural calamities. Nonetheless, the number of people dying from such calamities could be minimized if timely precautionary and necessary measures could be taken by the government and the concerned authorities. In Nepal, this does not happen in the need of the hour. It was so sad and unfortunate to know that over two dozen people have already died due to extreme cold in several Tarai districts over the past few days. If the mercury continues to drop, more people will lose lives due to lack of warm clothes, proper foods and appropriate shelters. Now, the government is preparing to give relief to the affecte

The Kathmandu Post 5 January 2018 RESPECT PEOPLE’S VERDICT Almost one month has passed since the completion of provincial and federal level elections. The left alliance comprising the UML and the CPN-Maoist Centre won majority seats in both the elections as compared to democratic forces led by the Nepali Congress. Both the UML and the MC fought the elections with their own election symbol claiming that they would unite and form a single communist party soon after the completion of elections. The people voted them accordingly thinking that there would be political stability in the country once these two communist parties merge into one strong political party. The ongoing political dialogues between these two parties concerning unification have not resulted in any encouraging political results. Looking at the news reports, it seems that there has been problem for both the parties in securing places in the new party and places in the new government (“Maoist Centre for part

The Himalayan Times 4 January 2018 Unscrupulous hospitals Most of the urban people have these days easy access to health delivery facilities due to the establishment of many private hospitals. Thousands of people visit these hospitals everyday seeking treatment for various illnesses. The quality of their services varies depending upon the physical infrastructures, equipment and trained and qualified human resources. People are compelled to visit these private hospitals due to lack of adequate number of public hospitals and inefficient services. The existing public hospitals are not in a position to cater the growing number of population in the urban areas. For these reasons, urban people have no other choices but to visit the private hospitals which have monopoly. However, whether most of the people are able to afford the medical expense bills of these private hospitals or not is another side of available health facilities.  The rates of health services of these private