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VOL. 28, NO. 25, April 03, 2009 (Chaitra 21 2065)
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PM Prachanda leaving for his week long tour to Norway and Finland |
PRIME MINISTER PUSHPA KAMAL Dahal ‘Prachanda’ left, Saturday (March 28) for official visit of Norway and Finland. He will return home on April 4. PM Dahal will meet his counterpart Jens Stoltenberg and king of Norway and talk about bilateral issues. He will also visit various hydropower projects in Norway. In Finland, PM Dahal will meet with Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.
PRIME MINISTER PUSHPA KAMAL Dahal ‘Prachanda’ informed the cabinet meeting on Wednesday (March 25) about his decision to extend the Council of Ministers by inducting two members from Tharu and Dalit community. The names of Mahendra Paswan as the Minister for Land Reforms and Ram Charan Chaudhary as the Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare have been submitted to the president for official approval. With this extension, the cabinet now includes 24 ministers. Both Paswan and Chaudhary represent the ruling Unified CPN (Maoist). Paswan represents the Dalit community while Chaudhary is member of the indigenous Tharu community of the Tarai region. Similarly, the cabinet meeting also transferred six government secretaries, including Defense Secretary Baman Prasad Neupane. Ganesh Raj Joshi, who is currently secretary at the National Information Commission, succeeds Neupane who has been sent to reserve pool. Other transferred secretaries included Pratap Kumar Pathak, Shushil Ghimire and Tana Gautam.
FOUR MAIN PARTIES HAVE NAMED their representatives in the 8-member technical committee formed to assist the Army Integration Special Committee (AISC) in integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist People's Liberation Army (PLA). Barshaman Pun and Dr Indrajeet Rai will represent the Unified CPN (Maoist) in the committee while the Nepali Congress has named retired Nepal Army General Balananda Sharma and Shambhuram Simkhada as its representatives. Other members are retired Brigadier General Gopal Singh Bohara and Deepak Prakash Bhatt of CPN-UML and Rama Nanda Mishra and Sadananda Kurmi of Madhesi Janadhikar Forum. The coordinator of the committee is yet to be named. The AISC, which is headed by the Prime Minister, had on March 26 decided to form the technical committee in order to speed up the homework for integration and rehabilitation of the PLA combatants.
THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL has appointed Prof Surya Prasad Subedi as the next UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia. The Council voted unanimously to endorse the nomination made by the President of the HRC to appoint Prof Subedi at its meeting in Geneva on March 25. Speaking at the meeting of the Council in Geneva after the Council decision to appoint Prof Subedi, the Cambodian ambassador to the UN welcomed the appointment and expressed the willingness of his government to cooperate with him in discharging his responsibilities as an independent human rights law expert. Dr Subedi is Professor of International and Human Rights Law at the University of Leeds in England. He also is a Barrister in England, an Advocate in Nepal, and holds a doctoral degree in international law from the University of Oxford, a Master of Laws degree with Distinction from the University of Hull in England and an LLB from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Commenting on his appointment, Prof Subedi said, “I am delighted and honored by the trust and confidence placed in me by such a high level UN body in recognition of my work in the field of international and human rights law.” Since this is a non-residential appointment, Prof Subedi would be working for the UN from his university in England and visiting Cambodia to monitor the human rights situation there and reporting to the UN Human Rights Council.
FORMER KING GYANENDRA SHAH returned from his month-long visit to neighboring nation India on Wednesday (March 25). Ex-King Gyanendra accompanied by his wife Komal, had left for the Indian capital New Delhi on February 25. The former royals had left for Delhi to attend a marriage ceremony of their relative at Bhupal in Madhya Pradesh in India. During his stay in India, ex-King Gyanendra held discussions with some influential Indian leaders including president of Indian National Congress Sonia Gandhi, as well as main opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani. The ex-monarch refused to reply to queries by journalists who had gathered at the Tribhuwan International Airport. Some Maoist leaders had accused him of plotting the revival of monarchy by meeting with Indian leaders. Compiled from reports
OVER 400,000 STUDENTS ACROSS the country are taking the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examination from Wednesday (March 26). According to the office of the Controller of Examinations, 3,64,591 regular students and 47,490 exempted (repeaters) students have registered for the SLC exams this year. The exams beginning at 8 am this morning will be administered from 1405 centers across the country. This year, many Maoist affiliated PLA cadres are also taking the SLC exams from various open schools along with other regular students.
