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Transport entrepreneurs and drivers on Thursday staged a protest in the Capital putting forth nine-point demand.

The taxi drivers have staged the protest in front of the New Baneshwor-based Transport Management Department at the call of the Majdoor Driver Independent Struggle Committee.

The have demanded that Indian vehicles operating in Nepali territory be banned, the work of snatching keys and abusing drivers be stopped by managing taxi stands in the Kathmandu Valley, embossed number written in English be replaced with Nepali and international policy be implemented by maintaining the same taxi fare across the country among others.

Similarly, they have also demanded that the government bear all the treatment costs of the people injured in the accident from third party insurance and provide Rs 2.5 million to the families of those who died in the road mishap.

They have also demanded that the vehicles with white, yellow, green, blue, red and black number plates be treated equally.

The price of gold has dropped by Rs 700 per tola in the domestic market on Thursday.

According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the yellow bullion is being traded at Rs 111, 300 per tola today. It was traded at Rs 112, 000 per tola on Wednesday

Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 110, 750 per tola.

Similarly, the price of silver has dropped by Rs 10 and is being traded at Rs 1,380 per tola today.  

With the onset of monsoon since June 14, the water-induced disaster has so far affected 50 districts of the country.

According to the Home Ministry, as many as 41 people have so far died and 31 disappeared in the monsoon-induced disaster, including floods and landslides.

Home Ministry's Disaster and Conflict Management Division Chief, Joint-Secretary Mahadev Pantha, said that at least 55 people were injured in the incidents of natural calamities in the districts.

According to him, loss of lives has been reported in 20 out of 50 disaster-hit districts. Those losing lives are from 20 districts.

Likewise, people from six districts, including Sankhuwasabha, Taplejung, Panchthar, Dolakha, Makawanpur and Mahottari, went missing in the water-related disaster, Panthi said.

As per the data provided by the Ministry, 55 people from 28 districts have sustained injuries.

In the incidents, a total of 130 houses were completely damaged while 193 houses partially

A huge loss of lives and properties was reported in the eastern districts of Nepal, including Panchthar, Sankhuwasabha and Taplejung.

The incidents of intermittent downpours during the monsoon triggered floods and landslides in different districts. Some districts have yet to witness rainfall in the monsoon.

The Madhes Province government on Wednesday decided to provide Rs 1 million to carry out relief and rescue operations in eight districts of the province.

A meeting of the Province Disaster Management Executive Committee presided over by Province Minister for Home, Communications and Law Mohammad Samim decided to provide the money to distribute relief to the flood survivors.

Minister Samim said that the province took the decision to immediately send the relief amount to the district administration office in all eight districts to purchase relief and rescue materials.

"There is a problem of flooding and inundation in all eight districts of the province. Keeping this in mind, a decision has been made to immediately provide the relief amount to the disaster management committees headed by chief district officers,” he said.

"Besides, the provincial mechanism has also decided to collect and distribute relief through one door system", Minister Samim shared.

The meeting also discussed the measures to make relief and rescue works effective and establish good coordination among security agencies and stakeholders.

The incessant rain for the past couple of days has affected normal life in Madhes. 

Police have recovered six home-made guns in Baglung.

A team deployed from the Hatiya Police Post seized five home-made guns while another team from the Narethanti Police Post recovered one on Wednesday.

Information Officer at the District Police Office, DSP Madan KC said that a patrol police team recovered a gun from Janaekata Community Forest at Galkot Municipality-1 and five unaccounted guns in a den at Bhagawatisthan-3.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

Saraswoti Nepali, who has been pitching for the rights of the marginalized communities in Nepal, has received the United States Department of State's 'Global Anti-Racism Champions Award (GARC)' for this year.

The Kathmandu-based US Embassy said that the award has been conferred on Nepali as the Chairperson of Dalit Samaj Bikas Munch in recognition of her more than two-decade advocacy for the human rights of excluded groups, poor and people with disability in Nepal.

It has been learnt that many Dalit families of rural western districts of Nepal have obtained legal right over the land ownership as a result of her efforts.

Chairperson Nepali has won several cases against the caste-based discrimination in the pursuit of justice.

Her contribution to the campaign of dignity and equality is an epitome of courage and dedication.

The death toll from recent flooding in and around China’s capital Beijing has risen to 33, including five rescuers, while 18 other people remain missing, officials said, as much of the country’s north remains threatened by ongoing heavy rainfall, Aljazeera reported.

Record downpours have hit China’s capital in recent weeks, damaging infrastructure and deluging swaths of the city’s suburbs and surrounding areas.

Officials said on Wednesday that 33 people had died and 18 others were missing after the recent bad weather in Beijing, mainly due to flooding and buildings collapsing.

Days of heavy rain hit areas in Beijing’s mountainous western outskirts especially hard, causing the collapse of 59,000 homes, damage to almost 150,000 others and flooding of more than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of cropland, the city’s government said on Wednesday.

Many roads were also damaged, along with more than 100 bridges, Xia Linmao, a Beijing vice mayor, said at a news conference, according to Aljazeera.

“I would like to express my deep condolences to those who died in the line of duty and the unfortunate victims,” Linmao told reporters, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said Typhoon Doksuri hit China more than a week ago but the extent of the devastation brought by flooding and building collapses is emerging only now.

“This is the worst natural disaster to high the capital in years. The last time a storm of this scale occurred was in 2012,” Yu said, noting that areas hit hardest more than a decade ago – when almost 80 people died – were against the worst affected by the recent typhoon.

“Difficult questions are now being raised as to why lessons from that previous storm were not learned, and why buildings and roads were not reinforced, and why this damage has happened yet again,” Yu said.

Other parts of China have also seen heavy flooding, with many reported killed by flood waters across northern China, which has been battered by heavy rain since late July, disrupting the lives of millions.

Officials in Beijing said last week that 147 deaths or disappearances last month were caused by natural disasters. Of those, 142 were caused by flooding or other geological calamities, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said, Aljazeera reported.

In Hebei province, which neighbours Beijing, 15 were reported to have died and 22 were missing. And in northeastern Jilin, 14 died and one person was reported missing on Sunday.

Further north in Heilongjiang, state media reported that dozens of rivers had seen water levels rise above “warning markers” in recent days.

China’s deadliest and most destructive floods in recent history were in 1998, when 4,150 people died, most of them along the Yangtze River.

In 2021, more than 300 people died in the central province of Henan. Record rainfall inundated the provincial capital of Zhengzhou in July of that year, turning streets into rushing rivers and flooding at least part of a subway line.

Other areas in China are also suffering from the scorching summer heat and drought, which is threatening residents’ health and crop harvest.

Police have nabbed two persons for sexually harassing a juvenile through social media.

The Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police made public Samir Tamang and Suresh Tamang of Indrawati Municipality in Sindhupalchowk for sexually harassing a minor girl through social networking sites.

The duo had befriended the juvenile through Facebook and were falsely trapped in a love affair. 

Later, they were found to have morphed the photo of the minor girl with lewd pictures, circulating them across the social networking sites.

They were also charged with torturing the girl through video-calls, said Spokesperson and Superintendent of Police (SP), Pashupati Kumar Ray.

In a case filed in the District Court, Kathmandu against the duo demanding maximum action against them under the Electronic Transaction Act-2063 BS, the court remanded both accused in custody for five days for further investigation.