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Seven persons including three Nepalis died in an avalanche at Chomgo in East Sikkim of India. According to a statement issued by the Sikkim government, the avalanche hit the Gangtok Natula JNM road at 11:10 am on Tuesday. The deceased Nepalis have been identified as Shiva Prasad Lamichhane and Ashika Dhakal (22) of Chitwan and Muna Sah (29) of Rupandehi. Similarly, Shaurav Raya Chaudhary (29), Pritam Matte (38) of West Bengal, Bal Singh (32) and six-year-old Rebika Singh also died in the incident, SP Tenzing Loden Lepcha of Sikkim said. All of them were tourists. Likewise, three Nepalis were injured in the incident. The injured have been identified as Gita Sapkota (40), Jyoti Gurung (38) and Ramesh Khanal (43). They are undergoing treatment at the Gangtok-based STNM Hospital.    

Former President Donald Trumppleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in Manhattan criminal court Tuesday afternoon, CNN reported.

Trump surrendered and was placed under arrest Tuesday before he was arraigned in a historic and unprecedented court appearance, in which the former president heard the charges against him for the first time. While the arraignment was routine, the case is now poised to linger over Trump's 2024 candidacy as he fights the charges both in court and in public.

Prosecutors alleged that Trump sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election through a hush money scheme with payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has denied the affairs.

Trump was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, including an illegal payment of $130,000 that was ordered by the defendant to suppress the negative information that would hurt his campaign, prosecutors alleged.

Trump "repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election," according to the charging documents.

After the arraignment, Trump immediately flew back to Florida. He held an event with his supporters Tuesday evening at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where Trump made his public case against the indictment and previewed how he intends to fight against the charges politically as he runs again for the White House in 2024.

While he was warned by Judge Juan Merchan during Tuesday's arraignment not to make comments that could "jeopardize the rule of law" or create civil unrest, Trump railed later that evening against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge himself, according to CNN.

"I never thought anything like this could happen in America, never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it," Trump said.

"It's an insult to our country," he added.

The indictment returned last week by a grand jury against Trump was unsealed Tuesday and provided the public -- and Trump's legal team -- with the first details about the specific charges he will face.

The indictment was quickly criticized by Trump's Republican allies, and even some legal experts raised questions about the case. CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig said that prosecutors will have to make their case that Trump committed felonies and not misdemeanors by showing that the falsified records were used to conceal another crime, which was not identified in the indictment.

"One of the complicated legal questions here is in order to bump that up from a misdemeanor to a felony you have to show that those records were falsified to commit some other crime, some second crime," Honig said. "You heard the defense lawyers, I think, rightly, complaining about that."

Bragg said at a news conference after the arraignment that the indictment did not specify what laws Trump broke because "the law does not so require."

Bragg highlighted one law that Trump allegedly broke during the conference: "New York state election law -- what makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means." He also mentioned violations of a federal election law capping contribution limits, CNN reported.

The evidence, Bragg said, will be "borne out in a public courtroom in downtown Manhattan," he said.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 5. 20 points to close at 1,866.68 points on Tuesday. Similarly, the sensitive index dropped by 0. 73 points to close at 351. 97 points. A total of 2,971,947-unit shares of 264 companies were traded for Rs 917 billion. Meanwhile, Kalinchowk Darshan Limited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 9. 98 percent. Likewise, Prabhu Bank Debenture was the top loser with its price dropped by 9.29 percent. At the end of the day, the total market capitalization stood at Rs 2. 70 trillion.

Struggling to provide electricity to industries, the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has continued to cut power in the industrial zones in Terai. Particularly, the government-owned power utility has not been able to transmit power to the western Terai region during peak hours. Because of weak transmission infrastructure, NEA has been failing to take electricity from the eastern side of the country to the western side even though the country has been importing electricity in the winter from India by using the 400kV Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur transmission line. Besides poor local transmission infrastructure,  equally poor cross-border transmission infrastructure has also prevented the country from trading power through with about a dozen low-capacity cross-border lines whose capacity ranges from 33kV to 132kV. Nepal and India agreed to upgrade these low-capacity power lines to boost electricity trading during the 10th joint secretary-level Joint Working Group and the secretary-level Joint Steering Committee held in Jaipur, India on February 17-18. There has been certain progress in upgrading low-capacity lines. “Construction of a second circuit of 132kV Kataiya-Kusaha cross-border transmission line has already been completed,” said a senior official of NEA.  “It should be charged with electricity soon  which has not happened yet.” Likewise, Nepal has already completed constructing a second circuit of the 132kV Parwanipur-Raxaul power line. “The Indian side has notified us that they are constructing an inter-connection of the line between Old Raxaul and New Raxaul area as a part of the construction of a second circuit of the cross-border line,” the official said. Particularly, industries based in the Birgunj area are suffering due to power cuts in the winter as Nepal has not been able to buy extra power from Bihar while Nepal cannot transmit additional power brought through the Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur transmission line to the Birgunj area because of poor transmission infrastructure. In the last meeting, both sides agreed to improve the capacity of the Raxaul-Parwanipur power line by May this year. Likewise, Nepal has already built the Nepal section of the proposed  132 kV cross-border line between Mainaiya (Butwal)—New Nautanwa (India). “India has also decided to build part of the proposed power line on their side,” the NEA official said. During the last bilateral meeting in India, they had agreed to complete the new Butwal-Mainahiya power line by September this year. Similarly,  Nepal has already issued a tender for constructing a new 132 kV cross-border power line between the Nepalgunj-Nayantara line where a 33 kV line is available, according to the NEA. “The Indian government has also decided to build part of this cross-border line on its territory,” the NEA official said. The capacity of the Nepalgunj-Nantarapower line will also be improved by September this year. The two countries agreed to trade 70MW-80MW through the 132kV Tanakpur-Mahendranagar Cross Border Line. Currently, Nepal has only been importing power through this power line. Except for 400 kV  Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur, all other transmission lines have been used for trading power exclusively via government-to-government agreements.  The NEA official said improvement in these low-capacity power lines would pave the way for more cross-border power trade. “We can also address power supply problems in certain areas of the country due to poor domestic transmission infrastructure,” the official said.

The CPN-UML has left the government in Madhes Province. The ministers participating in the government from the CPN-UML submitted the resignation letter to Chief Minister Saroj Kumar Yadav. UML Madhes Province Parliamentary Party leader and Minister for Physical Infrastructure Development Saroj Kumar Yadav said that four ministers and one state minister resigned from the government. But the UML has decided not to withdraw the support extended to the government. Chief Minister Yadav removed the UML ministers from the government after the party left the government following a new power equation at the center. Minister for Physical Infrastructure Development Saroj Kumar Yadav, Minister for Women, Children, Youth and Sports Mohammad Jaid Alam, Minister for Home Affairs and Communications Satrudhan Prasad Singh, Minister for Law Raj Kumar Lekhi and State Minister for Home Affairs and Communications Keshav Raya tendered their resignation. Chief Minister Yadav has accepted the resignation of all the five ministers and also divided the ministries held by them.  

As the country's economy goes through a downturn, the cases related to banking offenses have surged in the current fiscal year. From large businesses to small businesses, as well as individuals have been struggling to pay their dues and fulfill financial obligations on time, which according to Nepal Police has resulted in a rise in banking offense cases. According to the data obtained from Nepal Police, 6,483 cases of banking offenses with the amount equal to Rs 8.57bn have been registered till mid-March 2023. The data show there have already been more banking fraud cases registered in the first eight months of FY 2022/23 than in FY 2021/22. According to Nepal Police, a total of 5,416 cases of banking fraud were registered in the last fiscal year. The majority of banking offense cases are related to cheque bounces. In this fiscal also, 99 percent of banking offense cases are of bad cheques. Of the total 6,483 banking fraud cases, 6,422 were related to bad cheques. As per the Banking Offense and Punishment Act, 2008, the non-payment of a written cheque three times due to the account holder’s failure to maintain the amount mentioned on the cheque is counted as a banking offense. The second most registered banking offense cases are of the cooperative institutions where the depositors have been denied to withdraw their deposited money. Experts attribute the rise in banking fraud to the current economic crisis. There has been an interruption in the flow of money in the market due to a prolonged liquidity crunch as well as the slowdown in aggregate demand. In addition, banks and financial institutions' higher interest rates have also hit small businesses hard. Companies and individuals issue cheques of a certain date to settle their business and personal transactions. However, due to the recent downturn in business, the ability of companies and individuals to pay their creditors has weakened. People often issue bad cheques to their creditors to avoid a difficult situation. Nepal Police Spokesperson Poshraj Pokharel said that the number of banking fraud cases has increased due to the recent economic crisis. According to police data, cases related to banking fraud have been increasing every year. There were only 755 banking offense cases registered by the Nepal Police in FY 2017/18 which continued to surge in the next two fiscal years. But there was some decline in the registration of fraud cases in FY 2020/21. However, in the last two years, banking offense cases have again started to increase. Along with the cases, the monetary amount of banking fraud has also surged. Banking offense cases

Finance Minister Prakash Saran Mahat on Monday met with stakeholders of the capital market including the Chairman of the Securities Board of Nepal (Sebon) and a delegation of stock investors, brokers and merchant bankers to discuss the issues and the ways to resolve the problems. Nevertheless, this initiative of the newly appointed finance minister failed to raise the confidence of weary investors as the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) plunged by 16.67 points on the second trading day of the week. Mahat first met the group of stock investors with whom he assured them of taking concrete steps to uplift the morale of the capital market. Then, he sat down with Sebon Chairman Ramesh Kumar Hamal and instructed him to bring forward concrete plans to reform the capital market. Unlike the appointment of Bishnu Poudel as finance minister in December 2022, the appointment of  Mahat has received a cold response from the stock market so far. The stock market lost 36.67 points in the two trading days after Mahat took charge of the Ministry of Finance. While the new finance minister is trying to bolster the morale of the private sector and stock investors, the stock market is yet to respond positively. The daily turnover also decreased on Monday compared to Sunday. Nepse recorded a daily turnover of Rs 920.24m on Monday against Rs 1.20bn on Sunday. On Monday, the Nepse opened at 1,888.61 points and hit an intraday high of 1,891.76 points before rising to the intraday low of 1,866.16 points and settling at 1,871.88 points. Along with the daily turnover, the number of trade shares also decreased on Monday. The number of shares traded decreased to 2.82m scripts from 3.78m on Sunday. Except for the trading sub-index, all the sub-indices turned red on Monday with the hydropower sub-index losing the most. Nabil Bank had the highest turnover of Rs 30.62m closing at a market price of Rs 589.9 per share. The shares of the Global IME Bank were the most traded on Monday.  

The price of gold has increased by Rs 1, 000 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 109, 000 per tola today. The gold was traded at Rs 108, 000 per tola on Monday. Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 108, 500 per tola. It was traded at Rs 107, 500. Similarly, the price of silver has increased by Rs 10 and is being traded at Rs 1,400 per tola today.