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The CPN-UML lawmakers obstructed the Parliament meeting on Sunday. The main opposition party has demanded that Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal furnish clarification over his remarks with the Nepali journalists in India where he had said that Nepal can swap Kalapani and Lipulek with India by providing a route to Phulbari port in Bangladesh. Soon after the commencement of the meeting, UML lawmaker Padam Giri demanded that Prime Minister Dahal give answers in the Parliament on the issue. While taking to journalists during his visit to India, Prime Minister Dahal, who is also the Chairman of the CPN (Maoist Center), had said that discussions were also held with the Indian side about the option of swapping the Kalapani area to get land access to Bangladesh. The UML has strongly objected to the remarks of the Prime Minister. The party has warned of not allowing the Parliament to proceed with its business until the Prime Minister gives answer to his remarks. The UML has concluded that the recent visit of Prime Minister Dahal to India was not fruitful.    

The CPN-UML lawmakers have obstructed the Parliament on Sunday arguing that President Ram Chandra Paudel authenticated the Citizenship Bill in an unconstitutional way. UML Chief Whip Padam Giri said that they were forced to obstruct the meeting as President Paudel certified the Citizenship Bill in an unconstitutional way. “We were preparing to discuss the budget presented by the government. But unfortunately, the government breached the Constitution. Millions of Nepalis are facing problems due to lack of citizenship. But the Citizenship Bill should be authenticated constitutionally. The government does not want to follow the Constitution,” he said. Leader Giri said that the certified Citizenship Bill should be kept inactive and should be tabled in the Parliament.  

A meeting of the Parliament has been scheduled for 11 am on Sunday. The meeting to be held in the Parliament building in New Baneshwor will discuss the annual budget of the government. Finance Minister Prakash Saran Mahat had presented the annual budget of the government on May 29. The CPN-UML is preparing to obstruct the Parliament meeting before starting the discussions on the budget. The main opposition is preparing to obstruct the meeting claiming that Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, during his four-day visit to India, made a statement against the interest of the country. Prime Minister Dahal had made a controversial statement that the option of giving Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh to India can also be discussed if the direct route to Bangladesh is given to Nepal. He said so while speaking to Nepali journalists in New Delhi on Friday. A Parliamentary Party meeting of the UML held in New Baneshwor on Saturday had decided to seek answers from the Prime Minister in the Parliament regarding the issues like not being able to raise the border problem and discuss the EPG report during his visit to India. Prime Minister Dahal had said that a discussion on the new option has started to resolve the problem of Kalapani. During the government led by the then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, the Parliament of Nepal amended the Constitution and included Kalapani, Lipulek and Limpiyadhura in its map. The meeting concluded that the recent visit of the Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to India was not fruitful, UML Parliamentary Party Chief Whip Padam Giri said.  

At least 288 people have been killed and 803 injured after two passenger trains collided in the eastern Indian state of Odisha – the country’s deadliest rail disaster in more than 20 years, The Guardian reported.

The Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata in West Bengal to Chennai in Tamil Nadu, was going about 80mph (130km/h) when it collided with a stationary freight train at about 7pm on Friday, causing it to derail.

Carriages from the freight train then hit two coaches from the Howrah Superfast Express train, which was travelling in the opposite direction, according to South Eastern Railway, resulting in the deadly pile-up.

Rajesh Kumar, the senior deputy commercial manager of South Eastern Railway, said the Coromandel Express had changed tracks, which led to the incident, and that the reason would be investigated.

The death toll was expected to increase as more bodies were recovered from the wreckage and overturned carriages, said the state chief secretary, Pradeep Jena. More than 200 ambulances were called to the scene in Odisha’s Balasore district and 100 additional doctors, on top of 80 already there, had been mobilised, he added. About 850 people had been taken to hospital, according to The Guardian.

“The rescue work is continuing on a war footing,” Jena said. “Additional medical equipment and drugs at hospitals where victims are being treated are also being taken care of.”

Rescue teams were mobilised from Odisha’s capital of Bhubaneswar and Kolkata in West Bengal, said the federal minister for railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw, as well as from the National Disaster Response Force, state government teams and the air force. Hundreds of fire department personnel, police officers and sniffer dogs were also involved.

Images from the scene showed hundreds of rescuers climbing up the mangled wreckage of the trains as they worked frantically overnight to find survivors.

Speaking on Saturday morning, after rescue efforts had gone on for almost 12 hours, Sudhanshu Sarangi, the director general of the fire department in Odisha, said: “We’re trying to locate bodies that might still be trapped under the mangled compartments. The operations will continue for a few more hours.”

Visiting the incident site on Saturday morning, the railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, promised a “high-level” investigation into what had caused the crash. “A detailed high-level probe would be conducted and the railway safety commissioner would also do an independent inquiry. Right now, the focus is on rescue and relief operations,” he said, the Guardian reported.

At Howrah and Chennai railway stations, desperate relatives gathered hoping for news about survivors. One survivor told local television news he had been sleeping when the crash happened and woke to find himself trapped under about a dozen passengers before crawling out from the carriage with only injuries to his neck and arm.

“When I got out of the train, I saw limbs scattered all around, a leg here, a hand there. Someone’s face was disfigured,” he said.

The recovery in the Nepali tourism sector has continued with the rising numbers of foreign visitors in the country. According to the latest statistics from the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), Nepal welcomed 77,703 foreign visitors in May. The tourist footfall in May 2023 is 99.20 percent compared to May 2019 when 78,329 foreigners visited Nepal. The tourist arrival has surged by 108.42 percent in the first five months of 2023. According to NTB, 404,231 tourists visited Nepal in the first five months of 2023 compared to 193,944 during the same period of 2022. Nepal welcomed 55,074 international visitors in January 73,255 in February, 99,426 in March, and 98,773 in April. While the number of Chinese visitors is gradually improving, Nepal received the highest number of tourists from India, the US, and the United Kingdom in April. According to NTB, 36,575 Indian tourists and 8,545 US visitors came to Nepal in May. The country welcomed 4,667 tourists from China, 2,927 tourists from the United Kingdom, 2,184 from Australia, 2,164 from Bangladesh, and 1,321 from Malaysia. There has been a significant improvement in tourist arrivals this year, but the number is yet to touch the pre-Covid level. Nepal received 498,775 tourists in the first five months of 2019. The arrival of foreigners in the first five months of 2023 is 81.04 percent compared to the same period in 2019. With the easing of travel restrictions and China reponing outbound travel for its citizens, Nepali tourism entrepreneurs are pinning high hopes for 2023. NTB on its 24th anniversary announced that it aims to attract at least one million foreign tourists in 2023. In 2022, tourist arrivals reached over 600,000 without any significant contribution from China. Only 9,595 Chinese tourists visited Nepal in 2022. Tour operators say they are receiving increasing fresh inquiries from major source markets including China. While the FITs (free independent travelers) have already started coming to Nepal, group travelers from the northern neighbor arrived in the second week of April, the first group tour from China after the Covid-19 pandemic. The arrival of 180 Chinese trekkers in Nepal on April 13 has rekindled hopes for Nepal's tourism sector. They were the first of four batches of nearly 8,00 Chinese trekkers to visit Nepal to trek on the Poon Hill trail located some 270 kilometers west of Kathmandu. This visit has come after China included Nepal on a second list of 40 destinations for group tours that Chinese nationals could visit starting from March 15. After the northern neighbor allowed its citizens to visit Nepal, NTB and Nepali travel trade entrepreneurs are visiting various Chinese cities to promote Nepal tourism. Travel trade entrepreneurs say that a significant contribution of Chinese tourists would be required if Nepal wants to meet the target of one million visitors in 2023. Tourist Arrivals

Three persons went missing when a jeep plunged into the Sunkoshi river at Lukun in Golanjor Rural Municipality-7, Sindhuli on Friday. DSP Chiranjibi Dahal of the District Police Office, Sindhuli said the jeep (Ba 1 Jha 7467) carrying employees of the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) was heading towards Khotang from Kathmandu when the incident occurred. It has been learnt that the four people were on board the ill-fated jeep. A person, however, managed to come out of the river safely. The identities of the missing persons are yet to be ascertained. DSP Dahal said that they are searching for the missing persons.

Nepal’s exports of palm oil and soybean oil to India could be badly affected after the government hiked the duty on the import of such edible oils in raw forms. Palm and soybean oils are considered among Nepali products with the least value-added, but occupy a chunk of Nepal’s total exports, specifically to India. A decline in the export of edible oils could bring down the country’s overall export to India, with whom Nepal has 65 percent of its international trade. In the Financial Act, 2023 presented to the parliament alongside the federal budget for the fiscal year 2023/24 on May 29, the government hiked duty on the imports of raw soybean and palm oils to 10 percent from one percent currently. Earlier, on 8 Sept 2022, the government reduced the customs duty on the import of edible oils to one percent from 10 percent amending the Financial Act. In a press statement, the Nepal Vegetable Ghee Oil Manufacturers Association said that the government’s decision to hike the duty on the import of raw soybean oil and palm oil will jeopardize the huge investments in the vegetable oil and ghee industry. “If the decision is not corrected, related industries will be shut down affecting the overall economy of the country,” it said. The businesses are subject to income tax of 25 percent including the value-added tax (VAT). According to the association, there are 26 refineries with a fixed and movable capital investment of Rs 100bn. Nepal does not produce raw palm and soybean oils and the oils are imported. Then, they are processed and packaged before selling in the Indian market. The government’s decision to hike the import duty on raw palm and vegetable oils has come at a time exports of their finished items have slumped compared to last fiscal year. Along with the Indian government’s decision to lower duty on the imported raw palm and soybean oils last year, Nepal’s exports of processed vegetable oil faced a setback. According to the Trade and Export Promotion Centre, Nepal’s export of palm oil as of the 10 months of the current fiscal year 2022/23 stood at Rs 18.44bn against Rs 37.94bn during the same period last fiscal year 2021/22. In the last fiscal year, Nepal’s overall export of palm oil was worth Rs 41.06bn. The country exported soybean oil worth Rs 8.46bn in the 10 months of the current fiscal year compared to Rs 45.32bn during the same period last fiscal year, a drop of 81.3 percent. In the last fiscal year, Nepal exported soybean oil worth Rs 48.12bn. Because of the slump in the export of these items, Nepal’s overall export dropped to Rs 130.90bn as of 10 months of this fiscal compared to Rs 173.34bn during the same period of the last fiscal year. The country’s exports of palm and soybean oils suffered ever since India, the main export destination of these two products, lowered tariffs to help tame rising inflation in October 2021. In India, the import duty on crude varieties of palm oil, soybean oil, and sunflower oil is currently zero. However, after taking into account the five percent agri cess and 10 percent social welfare cess, the effective duty on crude varieties of these three edible oils is 5.5 percent. At the start of 2021, effective customs duty on these edible oils was as high as 35.75 percent. Ever since the Indian government removed the import duty on these three types of oil, the tariff advantage Nepali exporters were receiving was gone. In an interview with ApEx in January, Bipin Kabra, owner of Quality Refinery, one of the leading exporters of vegetable and palm oil to India, said Nepal was required to give additional concession to Nepali exporters to outcompete Indian refineries after Nepal lost tariff advantage against India. “In order to restore exports, either India should hike the import duty again or the Nepal government should give us export subsidies,” he had said. India will not be hiking duty on the import of raw soybean and palm oil anytime soon. In late December last year, the Indian government extended the policy of keeping lower tariffs on vegetable oil till March 2024. Government officials and experts say that vegetable oil and palm oil have very low-value additions among Nepali products. But Kabra claimed that there is a value of the addition of as much as 25 percent. “There is a value addition during the refining and packaging process,” he said. “This has helped to grow the packaging industry in Nepal.”

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan welcomed Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal at Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar International Airport in Indore on Friday. PM Dahal, who is on a four-day visit to India, reached Indore, the largest city in Madhya Pradesh of India, via a special flight. He is scheduled to visit the Shree Mahakaleshwar Temple at Ujjain and observe the architecture of the temple. He will stay at the Indore Marriott Hotel. PM Dahal will also hold a meeting with Madhya Pradesh Governor Shri Mangubhai Patel today itself. He will observe the Solid Waste Management Plant in Madhya Pradesh. Chief Minister Chauhan will host a dinner in honor of the Prime Minister today. On Saturday, the Prime Minister will visit the TCS/Infosys Special Economic Zone. He will return home on Saturday. On Thursday, the Prime Minister held a bilateral meeting with his counterpart Narendra Modi and it was followed by the delegation-level meeting. The meeting observed the signing and exchange of multiple agreements of national interest between the two neighbors.