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The government is to spend Rs 9 billion through Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) in the next fiscal year 2022/23.

According to the Finance Ministry, the government has allocated Rs 9. 27 billion for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project in the next fiscal year.

The project has got a budget of Rs 4. 29 billion in the current fiscal year.

The MCC was endorsed by the Parliament this year.

Out of the budget set for the year, Rs 8. 91 will be a US grant.

According to the Ministry, Rs 365.6 will be recovered from the sources of the Nepal government.

The money of this project will be spent for capital purposes. 
 

The May 13 local elections were a bit of an upset for the CPN-UML, relegating the party to a distant second spot behind the ruling Nepali Congress (NC). It took an electoral alliance of five parties—Congress, CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal, and Rastriya Janamorcha Party—to cut the UML down to size. 

Nepali Congress won 329 (43.8 percent) local unit chief seats (chairperson/mayor) while UML had to contend with 205 seats (27.3 percent). The Maoist Center came out third with 121 seats (16.1 percent).  

The UML, which had won 294 top seats in the 2017 elections, lost 89 seats. This defeat largely owed to a split in the party—with the Madhav Nepal faction forming the Unified Socialist in August 2021—and the five-party electoral alliance.   

Though the Congress has won most number of local unit chief seats, the UML still got the highest number of combined votes cast for seven different posts (mayor/chairperson, deputy mayor/ vice-chairperson, ward chairperson, women member, Dalit women member, and two open members). A total of 75.8m votes were cast for all seven posts, and the UML garnered 25.8m of them. This was 34.13 percent of the total votes. 

This number could vary as the Election Commission has not published the detailed data of Triyuga Municipality, Udayapur district, while a re-election was also held in Budiganga Municipality, Bajura district.

The UML had received 21.4m votes in all the seven posts in the 2017 election. The total number of voters this time was 3.66m more than in the previous election. 

Overall, the NC received 847,994 fewer votes than the UML this time. 

The Congress candidate for all the seven posts got 25m (33 percent) of the total votes. The party had received 28.74m votes in 2017.

The Maoist party increased its seat numbers this time, but their vote count fell by 1.8m. The party received 10.1m (13.65 percent) of the total votes this time. 

According to the Election Commission, out of 17.7m voters, 12.1m (68.7 percent) cast their votes this time, of which about 1.3m votes were invalid.

The results were expected

Meena Poudel
Political analyst

It was obvious that the Nepali Congress would do better in this election, and nobody has gained more from the coalition than Congress. The split of the then Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and the CPN-UML also helped.

The split in the UML and the party’s poor leadership at the local level in its previous tenure also contributed to the loss.

Also, the gung-ho attitude of UML Chairman KP Oli also cost the party many neutral voters. 

But remember that the organizational strength of the UML remains formidable, as was indicated by the party getting more votes than any of the other parties.

As for the Maoist Center, the five-party coalition, as well as Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s role in national politics, won the party a few extra seats. 

When the previous government led by the UML’s Oli dissolved the House of Representatives, Dahal played a cooperative role in protecting democracy. 

This narrative has also helped the Maoist party. Whether we like him or not, he has been a kingmaker.

Query

I am a 22-year-old student who struggles to maintain a healthy relationship, be it with friends, dates or family members. Even the smallest thing they do or say affects me and I start crying. I know this behavior is linked to my terrible experiences in the past. It would be of great help if I knew how to manage my emotions and get over my past trauma. I don’t want to hurt the people around me. —N.G.  

Answer by Krishangi, Counselor at Happy Minds 

Your past is what shapes you. So bad past experiences make you build walls around yourself as a defense against getting hurt again. Your past experiences probably trigger you in your current life situations, making you bitter to other people as well. This causes confusion among those people who are in your life right now. 

First, you have to understand why and what about your past is affecting your present. Take some time out for yourself every night to journal your feelings, write down the situations that have hurt you and how they affected you in the past and in the present. Once you become aware of those issues, your emotions will be clearer to you.  

When you become aware of what has hurt you and shaped you in a negative manner, you can slowly start working on bringing your wall and defenses down. You being guarded might have been helpful at one point, but it doesn’t serve any purpose now. If anything, it is only affecting your loved ones.  

You can start by breaking your wall one brick at a time. It is essential not to feel pressured in this process. You should know that you won’t be fine overnight. You might feel a lot of emotions, good and bad, while taking this step. Also know that being emotional is not a weakness; you can always use it as strength to overcome hurdles. Letting go of the negative past experiences can be a very difficult start, but everyday is a new day. 

Something very simple like talking to a friend, family member or a counselor about your thoughts might also help you process your emotions and see things with a different perspective. Bottling up your feelings can suffocate you from within, causing you to make rash or irrational decisions, which could push away your loved ones. I suggest that you share your thoughts and feelings. It will make you feel lighter.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 18. 26 points to close at 2,112.47 points on Thursday.

Similarly, the sensitive index dropped by 3. 81 points to close at 410. 66 points.

A total of 3, 566, 819 units of the shares of 227 companies were traded for Rs 1. 16 billion.

At the end of the day, the total market capitalisation stood at Rs 3.00 trillion.

Tara Air has halted its Pokhara-Jomsom-Pokhara flights for a week.

Tara Air halted the flights after the 9N-AET Canadian-made DHC-6-300 Twin Otter plane crashed at Sanosware in Mustang district on Monday, killing 22 persons including three crew members. Senior pilot Prabhakar Ghimire was one of the crew members who was killed in the incident.

Also Read: Nepal plane crash: All 19 passengers, crew dead, officials confirm

Issuing a statement on Thursday, Tara Air spokesperson said that the regular flights have been halted from June 2 to 10 due to special reasons.

Also Read: Nepal Tara Air plane crash: Black box recovered

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's Foreign Affairs Department chief Vijay Chauthaiwale expressed his confidence that Nepal-India relations would further strengthened in the days to come.

He said so during a meeting with Nepali Ambassador to India Shankar Sharma in New Delhi.

"I am glad that I met you," Chauthaiwale said, adding,"I am confident that the Nepal-India relations will be further strengthened in your term."

Earlier, Ambassador Sharma through Twitter said that he was happy to meet Chauthaiwale. He further said that Chauthaiwale was a close friend and well-wisher of Nepal.

The bodies of 22 persons, who died in a plane crash in northern part of Nepal, have been handed over to their relatives after conducting postmortem at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) on Thursday.

The bodies were airlifted to Kathmandu on Sunday and Monday.

The Twin Otter aircraft of Tara Air, which took off from Pokhara to  Jomsom at 9: 55 am on Sunday, lost contact with the air traffic control office at 10: 10 am.

The plane was found crashed at Sanosware in Mustang district of Nepal on Monday.

There were 22 people including two German nationals, four Indians and 13 Nepali nationals on board the ill-fated aircraft when the incident occurred. No one survived the incident.

According to the Civil Aviation Office, Pokhara, the deceased have been identified as Indian nationals Vaibhavi Bandekar, Ashok Kumar Tripathy, Dhanush Tripathy and Ritika Tripathy, Nepali nationals Indra Bahadur Gole, Purushottam Gole, Raj Kumar Gole, Basanta Lama, Ganesh Narayan Shrestha, Rabina Shrestha, Rashmi Shrestha, Rojina Shrestha, Prakash Sunuwar, Makar Bahadur Tamang, Ram Maya Tamang, Suku Maya Tamang and Tulusa Devi Tamang and German nationals Meike Grit Graf and Uwe Willner.

Following the incident, the government formed a five-member commission under the headship of senior Aeronautical Engineer Ratish Chandra Lal Suman to investigate the crash.

Captain Dipu Jwarchan, Senior Maintenance Engineer Upendra Lal Shrestha, Senior Meteorologist Mani Ratna Shakya and Joint Secretary at the Ministry Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane are the other members of the commission.

Tension ran high in Dhomboji Chok (Birendra Chok) in Nepalgunj on Thursday after the police administration intervened in an attempt to install the half-figure statue of late King Birendra.

Police fired a few shells of tear gas and bullets in the air to take the situation under control.

The statue of King Birendra was pulled down during the second people’s movement in 2006.

Later, the national flag was installed in the place by removing the statue of King Birendra.

Independent activists and Rastriya Prajatantra Party cadres and loyalists removed the national flag and installed the statue of King Birendra today.

Police have already removed the statue of King Birendra from that place.