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House of Representatives Speaker Devraj Ghimire and National Assembly Chairman Ganesh Prasad Timilsina met President Ram Chandra Paudel on Friday.

During the meeting, President Paudel expressed his concern over the continuous obstruction in the Parliament.

Earlier on Thursday, President Paudel had held a meeting with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

They had briefed the President about the House deadlock and the role of political parties.

Ghimire and Timilsina had urged the President to take an initiative to convince the opposition parties to lift the obstruction as the guardian.

They urged President Paudel to hold a discussion with all the political parties as the guardian.

In response, President Paudel said that all the parties should be united to protect the Constitution.

Following the request of Ghimire and Timilsina, President Paudel assured that he will hold a discussion with the political parties to end the House deadlock.

The main opposition CPN-UML has been obstructing the Parliament proceedings demanding formation of a high-level probe committee to investigate the latest gold smuggling case.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Friday held a discussion with the ministers and secretaries regarding making the labor market of Nepal decorous and safe.

During the meeting held at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers in Singha Durbar this morning, they held a discussion on important issues such as the problems being faced by the Nepalis in foreign employment, ways to resolve them and to manage labor market within the country, the Prime Minister’s Secretariat said.

The discussion was also held to affiliate the workers to the social security fund.

A formal program will be organized on August 16 for the same.

Saying that the Nepalis have been facing various problems in the course of foreign employment, the Prime Minister directed the ministers and secretaries to carry out a broader study and present a proposal of long-term solution in the next meeting.

Deputy Prime Minister Purna Bahadur Khadka, Finance Minister Prakash Saran Mahat, Employment and Social Security Minister Sharad Singh Bhandari, Nepali government Chief Secretary Baikuntha Aryal, Finance Secretary and Labor Secretary among others were present in the meeting.

Police on Thursday evening seized the counterfeit notes from Changunarayan area of Bhaktapur.

A joint police team deployed from Metropolitan Police Circle, Thankot and Police Range Changunarayan confiscated the fake notes worth Rs 1.5 million.

Police said that they have arrested nine persons for their alleged involvement in the transaction of fake notes.  

Acting on a tip-off, the police team carried out a raid at the rented room of Arjun Subedi and recovered the fake notes, Superintendent of Police (SP) Prajit KC said.

A 41-year-old man from Hetauda Sub-Metropolitan City-12 died of dengue fever while receiving treatment at the Chitwan Medical College. 

According to the Information Officer at Health Office Ram KC, the patient died on Thursday in the course of treatment.

This is the first recorded death caused due to dengue fever in the district in the current fiscal year.

KC said that, so far, the district has recorded 53 cases of dengue from 532 sample tests.

The United States has returned 40 illegally exported wooden artifacts to Nepal.

The Embassy of Nepal in Washington DC said that it returned 40 wooden artifacts received from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to Nepal.

It is said that the Department of Archaeology of Nepal will receive the artifacts in Kathmandu on Saturday.

Those illegally exported artifacts of Nepal were confiscated in Hawaii by the United States Customs and Border Protection in August 2010.

The government of Nepal had officially requested the US government to return the artifacts to Nepal in 2011.

The Embassy of Nepal in Washington DC had received the artifacts on May 11, 2023.

"Four, out of 39 engraved and painted wooden panels and a carved wooden shrine, were randomly selected for display during the handover ceremony. The Embassy of Nepal had displayed these artifacts again during Nepal tourism promotion program organized at the Embassy on August 1," according to a press statement issued by the Embassy of Nepal.

The Embassy has thanked all the US government agencies and individuals in these efforts.

With this shipment, the Embassy has so far returned 47 artifacts of historical, cultural, and religious importance to Nepal since April 2022.

Nilanthi Samaranayake is a visiting expert at the US Institute of Peace and an adjunct fellow at the East-West Center in Washington. She has 25 years of experience in the nonprofit research sector. Most recently, she served as director of the strategy and policy analysis program at CNA, where she led a team conducting multidisciplinary research and analysis for civilian and military leaders. Before joining CNA, Samaranayake analyzed public opinion at the Pew Research Center and completed a fellowship at the National Bureau of Asian Research.

Her work focuses on regional security in the Indian Ocean, smaller South Asian countries, non-traditional security issues, and US alliances and partnerships. Kamal Dev Bhattarai  of ApEx spoke with her on China-US contestation and implications for the South Asian Countries like Nepal. The views expressed are solely hers and not of any organization that she is affiliated with.

How do you see the US-China contest in South Asia?

Smaller South Asian countries are increasingly expressing concerns about maintaining their sovereignty and independence amid strategic tensions between large powers. Nepal, for example, was caught in this situation as a smaller state during the debate over the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). What should be a straight-forward effort to help meet development needs can quickly become politicized due to the backdrop of strategic competition. This pattern was seen in Sri Lanka with the MCC as well, but with a different outcome. The US withdrew its $480m offer.

It has been more than one year since the Biden administration came up with an Indo-pacific strategy, how are South Asian countries responding to it?

To understand how Smaller South Asian countries are responding to the Indo-Pacific Strategy, I recommend reading a recent East-West Center series with experts from Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka directly commenting on their own country’s responses. I served as a guest editor for the series.

The United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy identifies India as a major defense partner and discusses how the US will support India’s regional leadership. The strategy, however, does not mention any of the Smaller South Asian countries. This is an oversight that US officials may want to address in a future update because it represents a disconnect between US strategy and policy. In fact, a review of US policy in the region shows that Washington has clear interests and engagements with Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives along multiple lines, such as economics, development, security, and democratic governance. It even has common interests with Bhutan despite their lack of formal diplomatic relations.

How do you see India’s engagement with South Asian countries in the backdrop of growing US-China competition?

Regarding US-China competition, India is a major actor on its own terms due to its border conflict with China, which has included fatalities. As a result, India has sought to strengthen its relationships with the Smaller South Asian countries as tensions with China have increased in the past few years and as China has developed more active ties with these countries. 

India has conceptual frameworks for organizing its regional engagements such as Neighbourhood First and SAGAR (Security And Growth for All in the Region) in the Indian Ocean. As the US and India are deepening their relationship, underscored by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the US, we also see the US supporting India’s security concerns about China in the Smaller South Asian countries. For example, US officials reportedly met with Sri Lankan leaders after India expressed its objections to Sri Lanka permitting a Chinese ship to visit the controversial Hambantota port last summer.

How do you see the position of South Asian countries in the Russia-Ukraine War?

This is a good question because Russia remains an important actor for Smaller South Asian countries, despite all the attention given to China’s role in South Asia. In March 2022, the UN General Assembly resolution on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka abstained along with India and Pakistan. Bangladesh, in particular, has found itself caught up in the debate over sanctions as it tries to pursue a power plant project with Russia. 

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka tried to enforce the sanctions, but had to back down after Russia suspended passenger flights for four months and affected tourism earnings during the worst of the country’s economic crisis. However, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives have voted at the UN in Ukraine’s favor. This is a strong stance for smaller states to take.

What are your suggestions for a country like Nepal in the conduct of foreign policy in the shifting geopolitical environment?

Nepal is navigating major power rivalry in ways that are similar to other Smaller South Asian countries. Yet its relationship with India is unique in terms of trade, people-to-people ties, and military cooperation. Nepal has arguably the most considerations to make as it manages its foreign policy with large powers.

I think the challenge for Nepal and other Smaller South Asian countries will be to maintain their focus on meeting national-level economic development needs and hitting targets like graduating from least developed country (LDC) status, while minimizing partisan and personality-based infighting in domestic politics to the extent possible.

Like many other words, ‘Parliament’ has more than one meaning. An assembly of a species of nocturnal birds of prey is one of them.  

‘Democracy’ has several strains the world over. But in a real democracy that does not run as per the whims and fancies of a ‘benevolent dictator’, two or one too many such figures, Parliament refers to one of the three organs of the state consisting of elected representatives, whose main task is to make laws. It is but natural for birds of a feather to flock together even at midnight and those populating our Parliament—one of the state organs—show such traits once in a while, not necessarily for the country and the people. Whether such an act is permissible or not, let the ‘Nepali lok’ decide. 

But no dictionary, legal or otherwise, has referred to words like ‘bedlam’, ‘chaos’, ‘anarchy’, ‘setting’  as synonyms of ‘Parliament’. 

In a democracy, the opposition bench has an important role in the Parliament. A strong opposition can do so much to make the government accountable, given that even in democracies that are not under tinpot dictators the executive shows tyrannical tendencies because of its right to exercise legitimate authority or violence over a given territory. 

The Parliament should belong to the opposition in the larger interest of the country and democracy. 

This does not mean, though, that the opposition should not play by the rules. In its conduct within the Parliament and outside, the opposition, as a vanguard of the democratic system, should also uphold the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Its failure to do so will give the government a carte blanche to trample on the principles of separation of powers as well as checks and balances, and turn democracy into ‘demoncracy’. 

For about a fortnight, the main opposition has effectively stalled the Parliament demanding the formation of a high-level parliamentary committee to investigate as to how a 100-kg gold consignment passed through a high-security Tribhuvan International Airport. It has demanded that the Home Minister and the Finance Minister also be brought under the purview of the investigation, reasoning that the Central Investigation Bureau under Nepal Police may not have the wherewithal to grill the sitting ministers. Opposition parties like the Rastriya Swatantra Party and Rastriya Prajatantra Party have also stood in favor of a high-level probe committee. Have they thought about the possible impact of their stance on the morale of the law enforcement? 

On its part, the government has asked that the CIB be given about a month for a credible probe into the case. With both the right and the left flank toughening their respective stances, the House has become a battleground of sorts and the Speaker has not been able to make peace. 

RSP and RPP have made one more point worth pondering over. They have accused the top brass of the three major parties of opting for a ‘setting’, a comfortable arrangement for opening and shutting the House at will.  

It is clear that the powerful troika cannot hold the sovereign body hostage forever. While a free and fair probe into the quintal-heavy gold cargo is important, the Parliament has a number of other important issues to deal with. Throughout the country, rain-induced disasters have wreaked havoc while troubles are brewing in the neighborhood and beyond. They all will have a huge bearing on an ill-governed and instability-plagued country. 

Both the government and the opposition must give up their my way or highway attitude. The Speaker should have read the riot act in time. Still, who else can act as a peacemaker and end this standoff if not him? 

The online service of the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) has been restored and comes into operation from today.

The service has been disrupted since Tuesday as the file server of the FEIMS system has to be migrated.

Department's Information Officer and Director Kabiraj Uprety said that the service has been restored and issuance of work permits has become easier now.

With the restoration of the FEIMS system, the work related to the approval of work permit has been started, the Department has informed the service-recipients through a notice today.

As a result, applications for labor permits can now be registered online, the Department said.