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Annapurna Media Network organized a cycle rally to mark World Cancer Day on Saturday. A total of 1, 500 people participated in the event titled ‘Annapurna Ride for Life-2023’. The organizer distributed various prizes to the participants through lucky draw. Saying that all the contestants played an important role to raise awareness against cancer, all of them were made eligible for the lucky draw contests. Sujit Lama won the Gosaikunda helicopter round trip through a lucky draw. Under which, a couple will receive a round trip to Gosaikunda, an important pilgrimage site for Hindus, from Simrik Helicopter. Similarly, Anil Sigdel will get the facility of one-night stay at the Chandragiri Hills Resort. Under which, a couple will get the facility of one-day stay at the Chandragiri Hills with dinner. The Punchbike distributed cycling jackets among other materials to 10 people. Manju Shakya, Rajendra Bajracharya, Sapana Bajracharya, Rameshwor Ghimire, Santoshmani Baidhya, Sujesh Maharjan, Deepak Bajracharya, Rabi Manandhar and Pemba Tsering Lama won the cycling materials. Likewise, The Foodmandu provided food packages to 10 people. Jibesh Shrestha, Suraj Khadka, Ranjit Bogati, Ram Chandra GC, Sachin Shrestha, Nitij Raj Bhandari, Abhisekh Shrestha, Samsad Alam, Shekhar Tamrakar and Janak Tiwari won the food packages. Rajesh Maharjan, Amu Raj Bhandari and Laxman Dangol won one year's subscription of the Annapurna Express daily and Dev Raj KC, Narayan Kumar Shrestha and Mukesh Kumar Shah will get the Annapurna Post daily for one year. Annapurna Media Network Director Sachan Thapa, editor-in-chief Akhanda Bhandari, Deputy General Manager Bikash Shrestha, Politburo Chief of the Annapurna Post Narendra Saud and Finance Head Sunil Poudel among others distributed prizes to the participants.    

The government has been forced to manage an extra budget than the allocated amount for repaying the internal debt in the current fiscal year with the liabilities to the domestic creditors increasing along with the rise in interest rate amid a liquidity crunch in the market. The government increased the budget for internal loans payment by nearly 60 percent for FY 2022/23 but that will not be enough for domestic debt liability for the current fiscal year. “We have estimated more than Rs 20 billion in the additional budget for the current fiscal year to repay the internal loans, both principal and interest,” said a senior official of the Public Debt Management Office (PDMO). The government has allocated Rs 134.32 billion allocated for internal debt servicing, of which Rs 43.73 billion has been allocated for paying the interest on the internal loans for this fiscal year. The allocated budget for domestic debt servicing is higher by 58.17 percent compared to the total repayment the government made to the domestic creditors in FY 2021/22. The government had spent Rs 84.9 billion in domestic debt servicing in the last fiscal year, according to the PDMO. With an arrangement of over Rs 20 billion for repaying the domestic debt, the government will be paying almost double what it paid in the last fiscal year for domestic debt servicing. The allocated budget has not been enough for repaying domestic debt at a time when it has been seeing a sharp drop in revenue collection. As of February 1, the government’s revenue collection stood at Rs 480.28 billion in FY 2022/23, which is far less than the collection of Rs 574.27 billion during the same period last fiscal year. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Finance in a press statement admitted that the government’s resource is under pressure because of a number of factors including increased liability for social security, salary, and pension as well as the inadequacy of budgetary allocation for debt payment due to the increased interest rate of domestic debts. The ministry also announced a number of measures to reduce recurrent expenditure and budgetary allocation for non-essential projects. The PDMO official said that the allocated budget for domestic debt repayment would be inadequate because the government had to pay more in interest than estimated during the first half of the current fiscal year. “The interest rate to be paid to the subscribers of the government’s development bonds reached as high as 12 percent in December and January,” said the official, adding that it increased the interest to be paid to the creditors. According to the official, in the second quarter of the current fiscal year, the interest of the government bonds has come down to 7-8 percent. The government has allocated Rs 43.73 billion for paying interest on domestic loans for the current fiscal year. It spent Rs 37.58 billion to repay the interest to the domestic creditors in the last fiscal year. The government's both internal and external debt has been on the rise for the last few fiscal years. Along with the rise in overall debt, the amount to be allocated for repaying the loans has also increased. There has been a sharp rise in domestic debt in recent years with the government requiring more resources to implement federalism and tackle major crises like the earthquake, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The government’s outstanding internal loans reached as high as Rs 957.61 billion as of the first quarter of the current fiscal, up from just Rs 391.16 billion in FY 2017/18, according to the PDMO. Rising debt liabilities over the last few years also forced the government to allocate more and more budgetary allocations for repayment.

The Parsa National Park office has filed a case against 49 people including two province lawmakers involved in wildlife poaching. The office filed the case against Province lawmaker Pramod Kumar Jayaswal of Parsa 3 (A), Province lawmaker Shyam Khadka of Kathmandu 5 (B), former chairman of Sakhuwa Prasauni Rural Municipality of Parsa Pradeep Jayaswal among 49 people on January 21. Though province lawmaker Jayaswal was elected as an independent lawmaker, he joined the Janata Samajbadi Party a few days ago. Khadka is an elected lawmaker from the Nepali Congress. Former rural municipality chairman Jayaswal is also a leader of the Janata Samajbadi Party. The Jayaswal duo are brothers. Surya Khadka, Information Officer at the Parsa National Park said that a case has has been filed against province lawmakers Jayaswal duo and Khadka, former rural municipality chairman Jayaswal and Sanjeeb Shahi in accordance with the National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act 2029 (27) concluding that they played the role of accomplices in wildlife poaching. Khadka said that they will be sentenced to half of the punishment meted out to the offenders. There is a provision to punish the offenders with a fine of Rs 20, 000 to 50, 000 or imprisonment of six months to one year or both.  

Nagarik Unmukti Party lawmaker Arun Chaudhary, who was arrested from Kohalpur of Banke on Thursday, has been sent to jail. He was produced before the Kailali District Court on Friday. Around 12 years ago, the Kailali District Court had sentenced Chaudhary to six months in jail for torching a tractor. He was sent to the jail as per the same order. Chaudhary was apprehended while he was hiding in Chisapani area of Baijanath Rural Municipality-1, Banke. He was elected as a member of the House of Representatives from Kailali-2 by securing 21, 871 votes. Police said that Chaudhary was nabbed as he has yet to serve the jail term associated with a 12-year-old arson case.

The price of gold has dropped by Rs 1, 400 per tola in the domestic market on Friday. According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the yellow bullion is being traded at Rs 106, 100 per tola today. The yellow metal was traded at Rs 107, 500 per tola on Thursday. Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 105, 600 per tola. It was traded at Rs 107, 000 per tola. Similarly, the price of silver has dropped by Rs 30 and is being traded at Rs 1,365 per tola today.

Two persons died when two trucks collided with each other in Jhapa on Friday. The deceased have been identified as truck (Na 3 Kha 8311) driver Madan Chaudhary (45) of Ramdhuni Municipality-7, Sunsari and the assistant driver of the same truck, the District Police Office, Jhapa said. The identity of the assistant driver has not been ascertained yet. The truck (Na 6 Kha 8895) heading towards east from west collided head-on with the truck (Na 3 Kha 8311) at Dharampur in Shivasatachhi Municipality-1 along the East-West Highway this morning. The driver and the assistant driver died on the spot, police said.  

A little over a month since its formation, and the potpourri coalition government of Prime Minister Puspha Kamal Dahal is already hobbling. Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane has resigned over a citizenship controversy, Rastriya Prajatantra Party is talking about Hindu state revival and doing away with federalism, and the coalition linchpin, CPN-UML, is suspicious that Dahal might not support its presidential candidate. Truth be told, there was little expectation from this incongruous coalition. To win public confidence, Dahal and his ministers tried to appear proactive and on the ball soon after taking charge of their respective ministries. The prime minister famously chided the government secretaries for sluggish service delivery and issued a slew of instructions to improve the bureaucracy. Now, here we are. Service delivery in government offices is still the same, mind-numbingly slow, full of red-tape and rigmarole. Meanwhile, the prime minister and his Cabinet members are preoccupied with intra-party and inter-party issues—good governance and progress be damned. Mistrust is growing between Prime Minister Dahal and UML leader KP Sharma Oli over the presidential candidate. Oli wants a UML pick for the job, but Dahal appears disinclined to grant the former’s wish. Then there is a dispute with the RSP, which is insisting that the party has the right to retain the Home Ministry portfolio even after Lamichhane’s departure. This government has lost its bearings, and there are doubts about its longevity. There are also murmurs about the formation of a new coalition between Dahal’s CPN (Maoist Center) and the main opposition, the Nepali Congress. Conflicting messages from the Maoist party regarding the continuation of the current coalition clearly show that Prime Minister Dahal and his party are mired in uncertainty. The prime minister appears uncomfortable about working with Oli in the long run. When the government’s lifespan is in question, no wonder the bureaucracy will brush off its directives. A vacillating prime minister is not helping anyone, certainly not the country and its people. It’s about time Prime Minister Dahal made his position clear about the type of coalition he wants to lead well before the public gives up on him.  

With the domestic stock market going through a bearish run over the last one year, there has been a big decline in the income of commercial banks from share trading. Banks' income from share trading has decreased by 31.60 percent in the first half of the current fiscal year. As per the unaudited financial reports of 22 commercial banks for the second quarter, they have earned Rs 2.99 billion in income from share trading till mid-January of FY 2022/23, which is Rs 1.91 billion less than in the same period of FY 2021/22. Commercial banks earned Rs 4.37 billion from share trading in the first half of the last fiscal year. Bankers say income from share trading declined as the stock market has been in the bear territory for over the last one year. In the first half of FY 2021/22, the stock market had a bullish run with the Nepse Index reaching an all-time high of 3198.19 points. As the market was on an upward trend, banks managed to earn high profits by trading shares. In the first six months of the current fiscal year, Standard Chartered Bank earned the highest income from share trading. The bank has earned Rs 264.1 million from share trading. The Global IME Bank is in second place with Rs 262.2 million. Likewise, Nabil Bank is in third place with Rs 256.5 million. In terms of income from share trading, Nepal Bank is in the last place with Rs 27.4 million. While the average share trading income of banks has decreased in this fiscal, three banks have recorded growth. Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB), Machhapuchhre Bank, and Nepal SBI Bank have recorded growth in their income from share trading. The RBB's share trading income has increased by 464 percent in FY 2022/23. In the first six months of FY 2021/22, the RBB had only Rs 32 million from share trading. The bank has earned Rs 198.7 million in this fiscal year. Likewise, the income of Machhapuchhre Bank from share trading has increased by 20 percent this year. The bank earned Rs 144.41 million in the first half of the last fiscal which increased to Rs 172.9 million in this fiscal. Nepal SBI Bank's income has also increased by 42 percent. The bank, which earned Rs 115.8 million from share trading in the first half of the last fiscal, earned Rs 164.2 million in this fiscal.