Nepal Highlights

Five villagers were killed and three others injured in a mud slide in Byasi of the far-western of Bajhang on Thursday. They were buried as lumps of mud fell over them when they were digging clay used for coloring the walls of their homes, reports said. Those killed in the incident have been identified as Chakra Sarki, 45, Kausalya Sarki, 25, Deepak Sarki, 30, Kiti Devi K.C, 32 and 13-yr-old Basanti Devi K.C. The three injured persons have been admitted to a local hospital for treatment.

Kathmandu, Dec 28 People of Gurung (Tamu) community are observing their most important festival, Tamu Lhosar, or New Year, on Thursday amidst much fanfare and celebration across the country and many parts of the world including Hong Kong, Australia, the U.K, and U.S.A. The Gurung community celebrates this festival in the 12 month of the English calendar every year by taking blessings from respected elders and exchanging greetings among each other and friends. Lhosar means "New Year" in English: Lho meaning 'year' and sar meaning 'new'. Some Gurung people also count their age by calculating Lho. On the occasion of Tamu Lhosar, President Dr Ram Baran Yadav extended heartfelt greeting to the Nepali indigenous Gurung community. Scientific evidences have shown December 22 to be the longest night as well as being the coldest. However, the Gurung community believes Paush 15, or December 30, to be the one which is longest and coldest, and by traditi...

Kathmandu, Dec 29 The opposition UCPN (Maoist) party has trashed media reports claiming India trained Nepali Maoist combatants during the armed conflict, terming them "baseless and false". During a programme organized at the Maoist party headquarters in Peris Danda in the capital on Thursday, Maoist party secretary C.P Gajurel refuted the media report, saying that in fact the Maoist party had started "tunnel warfare" against "expansionist India" during that time. "It is out and out baseless and false," he said. The denial from the senior Maoist leader comes a day after India too dismissed as unfounded media reports about Nepali Maoists being trained in India. "We have seen some media reports regarding the training of Nepalese Maoists in India. The reports are baseless and unfounded,' said Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash on Wednesday. The reports were based on a yet to be published book ...

Kathmandu, Dec, 29 The three District Administration Offices (DAOs) of Kathmandu valley – Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur – will start accepting applications for the Machine Readable Passport (MRP) from Nepali citizens of the respective districts from January 2-21. According to the Central Passport Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the applications received in the three DAOs will be sent to the Central Office and then be sent back to the respective DAOs after due processing. The process takes at least six weeks.

Constituent Assembly (CA) members elected from the Far Western Region have expressed dissatisfaction with the government for alloting less budget to the region. The CA members have sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal through the regional administration office lamenting the government had ignored the region, already backward due to the ignorance of the state, by alloting a small proportion of the budget and urged the PM to review the budget CA members of the parties in the government including NC leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, home minister and UML leader Bhim Rawal have also signed the memorandum. Businessmen, civil society members and people of other walks of life from the far western region have also backed the CA members' move. The government has alloted only 8.23 percent of the budget for far-western region.

Dec - 26 A team of Army Integration Special Committee (AISC) Secretariat has gone to Shaktikhor, Chitwan to seek opinion of former combatants of the UCPN (Maoist) affiliated People's Liberation Army (PLA) on army integration and rehabilitation.

President Dr Ram Baran Yadav has called the regular session of the legislature-parliament from January 9. The President summoned the parliament Monday as per the recommendation made by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal. Earlier today, PM Nepal met the President at Shital Niwas and handed over the recommendation. The Prime Minister made the recommendation for the session following separate meetings of major three parties. Both the meetings had ended inconclusively