FNJ to stage protest for journalists’ job security, rights

KATHMANDU, JUNE 29

A meeting of the office-bearers and members of the Federation of Nepali Journalists in Kathmandu today decided to stage a massive protest at Babarmahal on July 3 calling for job security and the rights of working journalists.

The FNJ stated that this demonstration was being organised with reference to the warning with a deadline that it had submitted to media houses earlier.

The meeting was chaired by FNJ president Govinda Acharya. It made a serious assessment of the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic on the media industry and the professional security of working journalists. The meeting concluded that complicated problems were seen such as expulsion of working journalists, keeping them on unpaid leave, deducting their salary, denying working environment and not giving any job responsibility during the lockdown period.

The umbrella organisation of journalists had already decided earlier to wage a strong movement for the protection of the rights and interests of working journalists.

The schedule for protest programmes are: organising impromptu sit-in protest, picketing and installing black banners at media houses where such problems have been seen, beginning from July 4, states a press statement issued by FNJ General Secretary Ramesh Bista.

The FNJ has decided to urge the government, the Parliament, professional organisations, United Nations Organisations, International Federation of Journalists, International Labour Organisation and the international community for solidarity in their demand for job security of working journalists.

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A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 30, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.

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MCC ratification deadline ends today

KATHMANDU, JUNE 29

A day before the deadline for parliamentary ratification of the Millennium Challenge Corporation agreement ends, the Embassy of United States in Nepal today issued a press release stating that delay in ratification of MCC’s Nepal compact had denied benefits of more jobs and increased economic growth for nearly 23 million Nepalis.

Accepting this grant is Nepal’s choice, but the availability of the funding is not open-ended, the US embassy said, adding that tangible, near-term steps in Nepal were necessary to ensure the continued viability of the programme.

“The United States is aware that Nepal’s Parliament has not yet ratified the MCC’s Nepal compact. Ratification is the next step needed to proceed with the $500 million grant, which the two countries signed in September 2017 and which Nepal committed to ratifying by September 2019,” US Embassy said in its release.

US Embassy said the Government of Nepal and MCC had worked together continuously since 2012 under multiple governments, representing all major political parties, to develop the compact programme.

“This compact will build electric transmission infrastructure and perform road maintenance activities and directly benefit 23 million Nepalis.

The projects funded by the compact are priorities identified by Nepal during the nearly three years of project design to benefit the people of Nepal,” the embassy added.

MCC is a committed partner having successfully partnered with nearly 30 countries worldwide on 37 grant agreements of several hundred million dollars, totaling $13 billion.

These grants have helped lift millions of people from poverty by catalysing investment and economic growth and have supported partner countries’ sovereignty, the US Embassy stated.

MCC’s transparency as a development partner is also recognised globally, and this year MCC was once again ranked the top bilateral donor in the Aid Transparency Index, the United States Embassy added.

The United States and Nepal share a 73-year partnership working together in many sectors.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 30, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.

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Parliamentary panel passes Federal Civil Service Bill

KATHMANDU, JUNE 29

State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the House of Representatives has passed the Federal Civil Service Bill.

The bill was passed by the panel despite the note of dissent from some ruling party lawmakers. The bill has proposed new retirement age for government employees. As per the bill, the employees can work till 60 years of age. However, those who turn 59 by 2022, can take voluntary retirement.

Similarly, the bill proposes to change the existing provision of 55 per cent seats for open competition and 45 per cent seats for reservation quota in the civil service examinations by making it 51 per cent and 49 per cent respectively.

The bill has also proposed reservation for the Khas-Arya, Muslims and Tharus. The bill also has the provision for province chief secretary’ appointment by the federal civil service commission.

However, the province secretary and administrative officer of the local levels will be appointed by the province civil service commission.

The committee has rejected the government proposal to appoint province chief secretary, province secretary and executives of the local levels by the federal civil service commission.

Committee Chair Sashi Shrestha had put the bill for a decision after committee members put their views on the report prepared by the committee’s secretariat.

Pampha Bhusal, Yasoda Subedi, Janardan Sharma and Maheshwor Jung Gahatraj among other lawmakers seconded the entire report whereas some other members expressed their differences with some points and provisions of the report.

The bill also proposes performance agreement of employees and makes a provision for deducting salary equivalent to 10 days if the employees delay work and give trouble to service seekers.

Similarly, the bill proposes to stop contract-based appointment of employees except for subject experts.

Speaking at the meeting, Minister of Federal Affairs and General Administration Hridayesh Tripathi argued that the committee should listen to the government’s opinion on topics related to the appointment of province chief secretary, secretary and administrative officers of the local levels.

He said the ministry did not know about the report said to have been agreed upon. “The government respects parliamentary supremacy, but if the bill is moved ahead without agreement, it will merely be confined to intellectual pleasure,” the minister said.

The committee members said the government should accept the panel’s decision as the bill is the Parliament’s property.

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A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 30, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.

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Nepal families face hunger, skip meals as pandemic hits remittances

KATHMANDU: Nepali housewife Shiba Kala Limbu grimaced as she recalled how she went hungry in order to feed her five-year-old daughter after the coronavirus pandemic cost her husband his job as a mason in the Gulf state of Qatar.

The 25-year-old said she had no money for rent after the payments from her husband, Ram Kumar, stopped.

“It is painful,” she said, as she peeled potatoes in a dimly lit kitchen that doubles as her bedroom in the Baniyatar locality of the Nepali capital.

“I skipped several evening meals to save whatever little food I had for my daughter.”

The spread of the deadly respiratory disease caused by the virus has choked economies worldwide and pitched millions of migrant workers out of jobs, leaving them unable to send money home.

More than 56 percent of Nepal’s estimated 5.4 million households receive remittances that are a vital lifeline for families that have no other source of income, official figures show.

Remittances totaled $8.1 billion last year, or more than a quarter of Nepal’s gross domestic product, but are likely to drop 14% in 2020 because of the global recession caused by the virus, as well as a fall in oil prices, the World Bank says.

Millions of Nepali migrants work in the oil-rich Gulf countries and Malaysia.

Remittances are crucial for lower-middle-class families that have moved to city centres and rely on them to pay for rent, groceries, school fees and utilities, said analyst Ganesh Gurung.

“Without remittances these families will get poorer and crimes like human trafficking and prostitution could rise,” said Gurung, an expert on migrant issues at the Nepal Institute of Development Studies think tank.

Limbu, the housewife, used to receive up to 20,000 Nepali rupees ($165) every month before the pandemic.

But in the last six months she has received only 40,000 Nepali rupees from her husband, most of it borrowed from his friends.

“That’s all he has managed to send this year,” she said. “I used some of it to pay for the rent and the rest to buy groceries.”

In the southwestern town of Gajedah, Radha Marasini said her husband, Indra Mani, lost his job as a security guard at a textile factory in India‘s northern city of Ludhiana after the outbreak.

As her income dried up, the 43-year-old had no option but to turn to a local lender and pay crippling interest rates to ensure she and her 15-year-old son can survive.

“If the corona (virus) situation does not improve, we’ll have to eat only one meal a day,” Marasini said.

The virus has caused 13,248 infections and 29 deaths in Nepal.

Some migrants, like Limbu’s husband Ram Kumar, are staying overseas despite the loss of their jobs, in hopes the situation will improve and they can resume work.

“It is traumatic to be away from the family,” Kumar said from Qatar, which plans a limited re-opening of restaurants, beaches and parks from July 1.

“If there was any hope for finding a job in Nepal, I would go.”

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‘No border dispute with China’

Kathmandu, June 29

Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali told the National Assembly that there was no boundary issue with China and pillar 37 and 38 were never erected between Nepal and China as the terrain of the place was very difficult.

Gyawali said that before boundary pillars were erected along the northern border, residents of Rui village and Samagaun used to frequently visit both places but when the border was marked and pillars erected in 1962, households of the two villages were told that Rui village became part of China and the residents were free to choose one of them.

Gyawali said 60 households chose to live in Rui village and 40 in Samagaun and even though they had land possession papers issued by Gorkha district, they never had any problem. He said no land was occupied by China in Gorkha district.

Gyawali said that a fake letter was circulated recently purportedly issued by the Survey Department of Nepal’s Agriculture Ministry, which the Agriculture Ministry and Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already refuted. He said the government was probing how the fake report was prepared and who were behind that. Gyawali said the guilty would be punished for circulating fake reports on the basis of which fake news was also reported saying Nepal’s land was encroached by China in seven districts.

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A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 30, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.

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Talks with India uncertain after Oli rhetoric?

KATHMANDU, JUNE 29

Foreign policy experts and civil society members say that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s allegation that India is plotting to remove him from prime ministership would seriously impair Nepal’s relations with the southern neighbour.

Nepal’s former ambassador to Denmark Vijay Kant Karna said the language that the PM used yesterday against the Indian government was not the kind of language that a friendly country uses against a friendly neighbour.

“In diplomacy, a country takes note of each word used by the head of government of another country,” he said. He added that the PM’s allegation against India didn’t augur well for bilateral relations which were already strained due to border dispute in the north-west.

This means that India might not be willing to sit for talks to resolve border issues. “If we cannot hold dialogue with India to enhance cooperation in other areas, such as trade, transit, security and river management, then that will be a disadvantage for both of us,” he said. He added that the PM’s latest remarks against India were consistent with his conscious effort to talk ill of India and appease China.

“The PM wants to appease a section of society that equates India-bashing with nationalism.

This was the only reason the prime minister had said that coronavirus coming from India was more lethal than the strain of virus coming from China or Italy,” he added.

Karna said the PM had been provoking India and was going out of the way to appease China, violating the principles of nonaligned movement that Nepal adhered to.

Nepal’s former permanent representative to the United Nations Dinesh Bhattarai said the PM had overstepped diplomatic norms by accusing the entire Indian machinery of conspiring to remove him from power. “We have border disputes with India but that does not mean that the PM, whose word is final on diplomatic issues, should make such inflammatory remarks against a neighbour,” said Bhattarai.

He added that the PM’s remarks could impair Nepal-India relations in the long run. He said the PM’s remarks proved Indian media’s charges of jingoism against the PM.

Former speaker Daman Nath Dhungana said the PM’s speeches reflected the country’s policies, but the remarks Oli made yesterday against India were unceremonious.

“We may have issues with our neighbours, but we cannot use such language to oppose our neighbours,” Dhungana said,adding, “Although we should treat both our neighbours equally, we cannot forget the fact that we have more interactions, as well as dependency for certain things, on India.”

He said the only reason he played the India card was to cling on to power, as he had failed on the governance front.

Senior journalist Kanak Mani Dixit tweeted, “PM KP Oli must be mindful of the need for verbal de-escalation with India, and of how his words will be carried, relayed and interpreted. This is essential from him for the sake of de-escalation on ground at Lipu Lek and mending the overall bilateral Nepal-India relationship.”

Security and foreign policy expert Shreedhar Khatri said Nepal had border dispute with China as well, since border pillars had not been erected in Lamabagar (Dolakha) and Lipulekh areas but the government chose to raise the dispute with India and kept mum on issues with China.

He said though India provoked Nepal to include Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani in the country’s map by ignoring Nepal’s call for dialogue, Nepal needed to show diplomatic maturity and seek negotiated settlement with India in a constructive manner.

“Passage of the constitution amendment bill by both houses was enough to give India the message of Nepal’s political resolve and national unity, but after the bill was passed by both houses, the government should not have proceeded to get it confirmed by the president. That would have given Nepal a chance to have dialogue with India,” Khatri said.

He added, “Dialogue is often held for compromise. But with the constitution already amended to include Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani in Nepal’s emblem, there is no room for dialogue.”

He said countries should avoid making their constitution an issue of bilateral negotiation.

Khatri does not think a dialogue will now happen with India on Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani issue.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 30, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.

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Mee heads Burnley up to eighth with win at Palace

LONDON: Burnley moved up to eighth in the Premier League after a header from captain Ben Mee earned them a 1-0 win at Crystal Palace on Monday.

Sean Dyche’s side move above Arsenal and Sheffield United and on to 45 points, level on points with Tottenham Hotspur, who have played a game less.

Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha shoots at goal, as play resumes behind closed doors following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during the Premier League match between Crystal Palace and Burnley, at Selhurst Park, in London, Britain, on June 29, 2020. Photo: Reuters

Despite being depleted by injuries and with another incomplete and inexperienced substitute bench, Burnley were well on top in the first half with Dwight McNeil influential in a central role.

Palace were stronger after the break but fell behind shortly after the hour mark when Mee launched himself at an Ashley Westwood free-kick and Palace keeper Vicente Guaita could only push the ball in off the post.

Roy Hodgson’s team piled on the pressure in the final minutes but Burnley, who have lost just once in the last ten games, hung on to secure the three points which will give them hope of a push towards possible Europa League qualification.

“There’s a long way to go because of how thin our squad is. There are no excuses though and the mentality is good, the physicality has to remain strong,” said Dyche.

The win was particularly impressive for Burnley who had one fit striker in Matej Vydra and had to bring on reserve centre half Kevin Long when midfielder Jack Cork went down injured.

Dyche has been critical of the club’s chairman Mike Garlick after three players left the club last week when their contracts ran out but he brushed off a question about his future.

“Everyone keeps talking about my future apart from me. I’m getting on with my job as I always do – I’m still here,” he said.

“We have a group that give everything and we saw that again tonight. When you think before lockdown, in the 100 days, the fabric of the club has changed somewhat. We have a group here who will never go under and we have some youngsters here who can see that.”

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