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The price of gold has dropped by Rs 100 per tola in the domestic market on Monday.

According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the yellow bullion is being traded at Rs 112, 400 per tola today. It was traded at Rs 112, 500 per tola on Sunday.

Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 111, 850 per tola. It was traded at Rs 111, 950.

Similarly, the silver is being traded at Rs 1,425 per tola today.

Speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR) Devraj Ghimire has called a meeting of the top leaders of three major political parties today in a bid to end the deadlock in the Parliament.

In a meeting to take place at the Office of the Speaker at Singhadurbar, Speaker Ghimire would once again request the ruling and opposition parties' leaders to end deadlock in the Parliament, his secretariat said.

Speaker Ghimire has invited Prime Minister and CPN (Maoist Center) Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal along with Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, main opposition party CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and their chief whips or whips to the meeting today.

The UML has been obstructing the House proceedings demanding formation of a high-level probe committee to investigate the 100 kg gold smuggling case.

The Supreme Court on Sunday issued an order, paving the way for bringing top decision-makers of the time, including former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Baburam Bhattarai, under the purview of police investigation in connection with the Lalita Niwas land-grab—the transfer of ownership of government land located at Baluwatar to individuals. 

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had confirmed earlier that the transfer of the land to individuals began during the prime ministership of Nepal and Bhattarai.  

But the CIAA had exonerated Nepal and Bhattarai in the case, pointing that investigation into the two prime ministers’ cabinet decisions were collective policy decisions that were beyond its jurisdiction. In the wake of reports leveling charges against them in connection with the case, Bhattarai and Nepal had said that they were innocent. 

Sunday’s order came from a division bench of justices Anil Kumar Sinha and Kumar Chudal in response to a habeas corpus petition from Yog Raj Paudel, one of the accused in the scam that has already brought 17 people under its net as a police probe continues. 

The top court instructed that high officials involved in making Cabinet decisions and senior ministry level officials involved in the decision-making process related to the transfer of the government land also be brought under investigation, citing decisions made on 11 April 2010, 14 May 2010, 13 August 2010 and 4 October 2012 without further delay.   

Those implicated in the case so far include Communications Secretary Krishna Bahadur Raut, Bhatbhateni Supermarket Chairman Min Bahadur Gurung, former election commissioner Sudhir Kumar Shah, Dharma Prasad Gautam, Gopal Karki, Shivaji Bhattarai, Ghaman Kumari Karki, Baburaja Maharjan, Ramesh Kumar Pokharel, Dev Narayan Maharjan, Lokhari Ghimire, Dhruba Prasad Aryal, Krishna Bahadur Raut, Yograj Paudel, Narayandas Mishra, Rudra Prasad Shrestha, Bal Krishna Shrestha and Binod Paudel.

Police have found around seven tola gold in an abandoned state at Khodape in Patan Municipality-8 of Baitadi on Sunday.

The yellow metal was recovered from a bus (SuPaPra 02001 Kha 1301) heading towards Darchula from Kathmandu yesterday.

Police said that the gold was recovered from a bag the bus staffers had left at the entry post of the Khadape Police Post.

It has been learnt that the relatives of a local of Patan-8 had sent medicines in the bag from Kathmandu. Police said that they have kept the bag in a secured place.

A team deployed from the Area Police Office, Patan under the command of Inspector Kamal Prasad Chaudhary had recovered the gold. The gold has been taken to the Area Police Office, Patan.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

Bharatpur metropolis has decided to close the schools for five days after an outbreak of conjunctivitis (eye infection).

Issuing a public notice on Sunday, the metropolitan city has decided to close down the operation of all public and private schools.

Municipal Education Officer Mahendra Prasad Poudyal said that all the schools operated in the boundary of the metropolis will remain closed on August 7-11.

The leave will be adjusted from the winter and summer holiday, he said.

The cases of eye infection have been widespread in Chitwan of late.

Ratnanagar Municipality in Chitwan also closed all the schools due to outbreak of the infection.

Issuing a public notice on Sunday, Ratnanagar Municipality has requested the private schools operating classes up to grade 12 to shut their operation from August 7 onwards for a certain period.

The municipality has also asked the schools to conduct eye infection sensitization before it issued a public notice for the closure of schools.

Earlier, Khairahani Municipality in Chitwan had decided to close down educational institutions to check rising cases of eye infection among students.

The municipality decided to shut the schools for Sunday and Monday.

At least three persons were injured when a landslide fell on a moving jeep at Siddababa area along the Butwal-Palpa road section of the Siddhartha Highway on Monday.

According to the Highway Security and Traffic Management Office, Butwal, three persons including the jeep driver sustained injuries when the landslide with boulder fell on the jeep (Lu Cha 2849) in front of Naag Mandir (temple) nearby Siddababa area headbox at Tinau Rural Municipality-3 along the Butwal-Palpa road section this morning.

Bishnu Prasad Pandey, a local, informed that three people including the driver were injured when the landslide fell on the moving jeep.

The injured are undergoing treatment at the Lumbini Provincial Hospital.

The landslide with boulders completely damaged the front part of the jeep, Pandey said.

Though the landslide obstructed the Butwal-Palpa road section for some hours, it has now resumed, the Traffic Management Office, Butwal said.

Nepal which has been selling its electricity to India's day-ahead market since Nov 2021, can now sell electricity to India’s real-time market also. 

Amending the Cross Border Electricity Trade (CBET) rules, the Central Electricity Authority of India has allowed neighboring countries Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Bangladesh to buy or sell electricity through its real-time market.

Until now, the neighboring countries were allowed to trade only in the day-ahead market in the Indian power exchanges. So far, Nepal has got approval to sell 452.6 MW in India’s day-ahead power market, where the price of power is determined a day ahead of trading.

According to the Indian Energy Exchange Ltd (IEX) data, Nepal and Bhutan have traded 4.41bn units of electricity so far in the Indian power exchange. 

The real time market is a segment in the power exchanges that enables buyers and sellers to meet their energy requirement closer to real time operation. The market features a new auction session every half an hour with power to be delivered after 4-time blocks or an hour after gate closure of the auction. The price and quantum of electricity trading is determined through a double-sided closed auction bidding process.

NEA Spokesperson Suresh Bhattarai said this is a welcome move. “Currently, NEA is selling electricity at a competitive price in the day-head market of India. A bid must be made one day before the sale of electricity,” said Bhattarai, “In the real time market, if there is excess electricity in the system, it can be sold immediately.”

While the real time market will provide greater flexibility for cross-border entities for optimally utilizing their resources by procuring power close to real-time basis, Nepal will not benefit from it immediately unless India gives approval to sell more electricity to Indian energy exchange.

“So far, we have been participating only in the day ahead market for selling 452 MW of power. Now we can sell this 452 MW power of 10 projects in any of the two markets or both markets,” NEA official.

Nepal may benefit from it both in import and export of power when there is sudden demand rise or fall. It can be beneficial even when sudden plant outages take place or suddenly rainfall takes place and we have increased generation. “We can transact power by submitting bids 1 hour and 15 minutes prior to actual physical trading under real time market,” he said. 

The latest move by India to allow neighboring countries to enter into the real time market, has come at a time when Nepal is waiting for India’s approval on a number of energy export issues. The NEA has been seeking the approval from the Indian authorities for selling electricity to the Indian market on a short-term and long-term basis. There has also been delay on the part of India to approve NEA’s proposal to export 1,000 MW of electricity from 18 hydel projects. 

Nepal has been requesting the southern neighbor for a long-term power trade deal arguing that an inter-government agreement would lock in the market and end the unpredictability of the Indian market’s availability for electricity from Nepal in the long run.

On the other hand, the much-hyped 25-year-long intergovernmental framework agreement between Nepal and India is yet to be formalized. While officials of both countries sign preliminary agreements during Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s recent India visit, India is delaying the signing of the final agreement which would ensure long-term market access for the Nepal-generated electricity to the Indian market. 

The 25-year agreement is an umbrella agreement that will pave the way for power trading agencies in Nepal and India such as Nepal Electricity Authority and NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited (NVVN) to enter into a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA).  The NEA and NVVN will sign a separate agreement for commercial deals. 

The long-term power deal has become of paramount importance for Nepal with the country’s electricity generation capacity gradually increasing. If the market for Nepali electricity is not ensured, the country faces the risk of electricity spillage every year, especially during the wet season.  

NEA is targeting to export 1,200 MW this wet season to India. The authority has been selling electricity in the day-ahead market of Indian Energy Exchange Limited through daily bidding. Currently, the southern neighbor has allowed Nepal to sell 452.6 MW of electricity generated by 10 hydropower projects in the Indian power market. But the approvals given to the 10 hydropower projects need to be renewed every year.

NEA has reported that it earned Rs 2.83bn from exports from July to the end of the last fiscal year 2021/22 and an additional Rs 8.32bn in fiscal year 2022/23. The authority has set a target of Rs 16bn within the current fiscal following a resumption of exports in May.

The government has initiated phase-wise consultations for legitimately regulating and managing the social networking sites based on the requests and suggestions that have come from the citizen level.

The government has started seeking suggestions through consultations following the demand made by distinguished persons from various walks of life for regulating and managing the social sites citing they have suffered irreparable damages due to the baseless, malicious and slanderous comments against them that appear on the social media.

In this connection, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT) has started consultations with the experts on social sites and electronic media.

The Ministry is preparing for a discussion with the representative of the Meta Company overseeing South Asia on August 10.

Meta Company is the mother organization of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp. It is also holding consultations with social sites operators of Nepal as well.

Press Council Nepal is also holding discussions on this topic.

The use and misuse of social networking sites is on the rise along with the expansion of information and communication technology.

In this scenario, regulating the fake news, misinformation, disinformation and hate speech has emerged as a challenge.

Although the Press Council Nepal has the responsibility of monitoring the media at present, no agency has been legally assigned with the responsibility of monitoring the individual's posts on the social sites.

Political parties' leaders, civil servants, artists, civil society leaders, professors, teachers, businesspersons, social right campaigners and media persons and people from various walks of life have been requesting for bringing legislation for regulating and managing the social sites.

MoCIT spokesperson and Joint Secretary Netra Raj Subedi said the Ministry has started consultations with the stakeholders based on the requests coming from various sectors calling for regulating and managing the social sites.