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The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the decision of Kailali District Court and Dipayal High Court to sentence Resham Chaudhary, who was found guilty in the Tikapur incident, to life imprisonment. Hearing the case today, a division bench of Justices Ananda Mohan Bhattarai and Nahakul Subedi concluded that he should be imprisoned for life in the Tikapur incident.. Earlier, the Kailali District Court had convicted Chaudhary in the Tikapur incident and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The defendants of the same incident Sita Ram Chaudhary and Ganga Ram Chaudhary, however, have been acquitted. Similarly, the decision of the Kailali District Court has been upheld in the case of another defendant, Laxman Chaudhary. The Kailali District Court had sentenced him to three years in prison. The Kailai District Court in 2019 handed down a life sentence to 11 people including Chaudhary in connection with the 2015 Tikapur incident in which nine people were killed in a violent clash.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has asked the ruling coalition parties for the written suggestions about the issues to be included in the policy and programs. During a 10-party meeting held in Singha Durbar on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dahal asked for the suggestions to improve the economic situation of the country. Senior leaders of the major political parties gave suggestions in the meeting, CPN (Maoist Center) Chief Whip Hitraj Pandey said. But all could not give the suggestions due to lack of time, Rastriya Janamorcha Party Chairman Chitra Bahadur KC said. “The written suggestions were asked from those leaders who could not get time to speak in the meeting today,” he said.      

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has called a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The prime minister’s Secretariat said that the meeting will be held at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers in Singha Durbar at 4pm today. It has been learnt that the government’s policies and programs, budget, contemporary political issues among others will be discussed in the meeting.  

An 18-year-old gunman has killed three people before police shot him dead outside a church in the state of New Mexico, Aljazeera reported. Several people, including two police officers, were also wounded by the armed teenager who went on a shooting rampage on Monday in a residential area of Farmington, New Mexico, about 290km (180 miles) northwest of Albuquerque, police said. Farmington Deputy Police Chief Baric Crum said in a news briefing that a total of nine people, not counting the suspect, were victims of the shooting, but it was not clear whether that tally included the three people who were killed. Officers responding to several calls about a shooting found “a chaotic scene” where a man was firing at people on a residential street, Crum said. The gunman, identified only as an 18-year-old, was believed to have acted alone, police said. There was no information provided about the three people killed, and no motive was readily apparent. “We are still trying to determine why he was in this neighbourhood,” Crum told reporters. Some of the incident was captured in video footage posted to the social media platform TikTok and confirmed as authentic by Farmington police spokesperson Shanice Gonzales. It shows a man dressed in black pacing around a driveway outside the First Church of Christ Scientist, carrying what appears to be a handgun before he is later seen being shot dead by police in front of the building, according to Aljazeera. The man who apparently was recording the video is heard describing the scene to someone else and referring to the suspect walking in circles beside the church. The two injured officers, one from the Farmington Police Department and one from New Mexico State Police, were listed in stable condition at San Juan Regional Medical Center, according to police.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Speaker Devraj Ghimire held a meeting in Baluwatar on Tuesday. During the meeting, Prime Minister Dahal informed Speaker Ghimire that the government is preparing to unveil its policies and programs on May 19. In response, Speaker Ghimire said that they are in a ready position to bring the policies and programs on May 19. On the occasion, they discussed bills under consideration in the Parliament, budget and policies and programs among other issues, Shekhar Adhikari, press advisor of Speaker Ghimire, said. The parliamentary committees under the House of Representatives have become active from today.    

The price of gold has increased by Rs 100 per tola in the domestic market on Tuesday. According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the precious yellow metal is being traded at Rs 111, 100 per tola today. The gold was traded at Rs 111, 000 per tola on Monday. Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 110, 450 per tola. Similarly, the silver is being traded at Rs 1,375 per tola today.

Assistant Foreign Minister of Australia Tim Watts arrived on a two-day visit to Nepal. The centerpiece of Watts’ visit is going to be the handover of a 13th century wooden tunala (temple strut) from Ratneshwar Temple at Sulima Square to the local community in a ceremony organized at Patan Museum. The Art Gallery of New South Wales has returned this important artifact to Nepal, and will be represented at the handover by Director Dr Michael Brand, according to a statement issued by the Australian Embassy in Kathmandu this morning. During the visit, Assistant Minister Watts is scheduled to pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Foreign Minister Narayan Prakash Saud. He will convey Australia’s appreciation of its close cooperation with Nepal over 63 years of diplomatic relations and thriving people-to-people linkages. The Nepali community is Australia’s fastest growing migrant population and currently numbers around 130,000, adds the release. The Australian Assistant Minister will also visit BioVac Nepal in Banepa, where academic and research cooperation and technology transfer from Australia has supported BioVac to become a state-of-the-art diagnostic and animal vaccine production facility. He will then visit the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology (TIO). In the past thirty years, the Australian Government and the Fred Hollows Foundation have supported TIO’s work to provide eye care services in Nepal, as well as the manufacture of intraocular lenses for national and global distribution. Likewise, Watts will hand over an Australian-made Portable Altitude Chamber to the Himalayan Rescue Association for its use at the Pheriche Medical Outpost and Everest ER Clinic at Everest Base Camp. It may be noted that Assistant Minister Watts’ visit to Nepal is part of a four-country program that includes his participation in the sixth Indian Ocean Conference in Bangladesh, and bilateral visits to Bhutan and India.  

Ramchandra Lamsal is a Nepali writer, poet, and literary critic. His works include poetry, prose, verses, lexicon, and criticism of Nepali literature. He is best known for his contribution to making the Nepali curriculum and works like ‘Etihasik Bhashavigyan ra Nepali Bhasha’. Babita Shrestha from ApEx talked to Lamsal about his books and literary critiques. Can you please tell us a little about your work?  Lexicography (compiling dictionaries) is a subject that only a few people are familiar with. I have written about the lexicon (vocabularies of different people or languages) present in Nepal. It’s a bulky book of around 400 pages. I wrote a book called ‘Nepali Bhasha Shikshan’ and have worked on language curriculum, textbooks, and teaching methodology. I have also written a teachers’ guide and experimental linguistics. In 2015, I published a children’s book called ‘Hitopadesh Ka Amar Balkatha’, which is a collection of stories on contemporary society. I have published more than 50 books and most of them are for educational textbook curriculum. What work of yours do you think is the most celebrated one? I wrote an epic about Dhading, my hometown, called ‘Dhading Shree’ that covers a variety of topics, including nature, culture, and society in the area. I realized that there weren’t many works that discussed the beauty of Dhading. When I published this, I recall how happy the people from Dhading were and I take pride in the effort I put in. Their appreciation means a lot to me. Another of my well-known works is ‘Kosh Bigyan Ra Nepali Kosh’,  which was published in 1989. Despite the overwhelming amount of lexicons in Nepali literature, nobody knows anything about lexicography. So, in this book, I have written information about the history, different forms of lexicons, and their significance in detail. It’s used a lot by Nepali students. Which genre do you prefer in Nepali literature?  I’m fond of literature that reflects Nepali society. Laxmi Prashad Devkota, Lekhnath Paudyal, Gopal Prasad Rimal, and Dr Naba Raj Lamsal are some of the writers whose works I love to read. Also, I prefer to write more about nature and Nepali society. I’m fond of contemporary literature as they show society through different lenses, unlike literature of the past. What do you have to say about the future of literary criticism? Different critics have different traits and personalities. Taranath Sharma, who was widely known as a literary critic, used to criticize in extreme, in both good and bad ways basing it on his sentiment while Bal Krishna Pokharel did the exact opposite. At present, I believe that creativity in criticism is declining. I have seen some critics who have lost their perseverance. There used to be less work in the past but literary criticism was picking up pace. But now literature has developed in every nook and corner of Nepal, but criticism seems to be less. I’m hoping literary criticism grows along with other forms of literature. Do you have any advice for aspiring critics? To all the critics out there, all I want to say is don’t panic if someone is dissatisfied with your work. You need to continue writing what you think and feel is right to motivate others to write better literature. Criticism is necessary to bring creativity so that a writer can realize his/her weaknesses and do better. So no matter what anyone says, continue with your work. Lamsal’s Picks Agni by Dr Naba Raj Lamsal Agni by Dr Naba Raj Lamsal is one of the books among his three epics—‘Karna’, ‘Dhara’, and ‘Agni’, that captures the plight and suffering of marginalized people in Nepal. Shakuntala by Laxmi Prasad Devkota This is one of the greatest works of Laxmi Prasad Devkota, which was published in the year 1945.