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The identities of the passengers who were in the aircraft belonging to Yeti Airlines have been ascertained. There were 68 passengers—60 Nepali nationals and eight foreign ones and four crew members including Captains Kamal KC and Anju Khatiwada were on board the aircraft when it crashed. Three of the passengers were infants, three minors, and three incapacitated people. ALSO READ: Yeti Airlines plane carrying 68 passengers crashes in Pokhara The Nepali passengers have been identified as Kisan Acharya, Nishanta Acharya, Shaligram Acharya, Sadakat Alimiya, Purna Bahadur Gurung, Jitendra Bahadur Kunwar, Alina Bandro and Anisha Baniya, Slok Bhatta, Nira Chhantyal, Aashima Gurung, Anusha Gurung, Belman Gurung, Bijaya Kumar Gurung, Jiban Kala Gurung, Maya Gurung, Lucky Gurung, Shiva Kumar Gurung, Sita Gurung, Yamuna Gurung, Yasmin Gurung, Rabin Hamal, Sanjaya Jiasawal, Sonu Jaisawal, Rachana Kafle, Sita Kumari Khadka, Anil Kumar Rajbhar, Bhagawati Kunwar, Abishek Kushwaha, Om Maya Gurung, Susma Pandey, Hari Pariyar, Laxmi Pariyar, Rita Pariyar, Arun Paudel, Laxmi Paudel, Prasiddhi Paudel, Tribhuvan Paudel and Pojan Rana, Sabina Rayamajhi, Rajan Sapkota, Anil Shahi, Sangita Shahi, Jamuna Sharma, Bishal Sharma, Yubaraj Sharma, Mohan Shrestha, Dr Shona Diwakar, Bandana Sunsar, Rajusingh Thakuri, Churna Thapa, Ganesh Thapa and Lawaraj Timilsina. Likewise, the children have been identified as Krish Pariyar, Prasiddhi Paudel and Aayurdhi Sharma, and identities of three infants are yet to be established. The foreign nationals have been identified as Love Mayron, IIurii Lygin, Victor Lygin, Jannetsandra Palavecino, Victoria Altunina, Elena Banduro, Ruan Calum Crighton and Alexandre Isidore.  

Two helicopters have been deployed to the Yeti Airlines plane crash site in Pokhara to carry out rescue operations. In a statement issued by the Search and Rescue Coordination Center of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), NALX and NALA choppers have been deployed from Pokhara. The Center said that more helicopters have been kept on standby in Pokhara and Kathmandu to carry out and search rescue operations. It further said that rescue operations are being carried out with the help of Nepal Army, Armed Police Force and Nepal Police personnel. According to the Center, there were 53 Nepalis, four crew members, five Indian nationals, four Russian nationals and two Korean nationals on the ill-fated aircraft. Similarly, one Argentinian, one Irish and one French national were also on the plane. The crew members were Captains Kamal KC and Anju Khatiwada while flight attendants were Srijana Hongchun and Oshin Ale Magar. According to Yeti Airlines spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula, the aircraft with call sign ATR-72 that took off from Kathmandu to Pokhara at 10: 33 am today crashed between the old airport and the Pokhara International Airport at 10: 50 am. ALSO READ: PM Dahal calls emergency Cabinet meeting following plane crash in Pokhara  

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has called an emergency Cabinet meeting following the Yeti Airlines plane crash in Pokhara on Sunday. Expressing his sadness over the plane crash, Prime Minister Dahal has directed the Home Ministry, security agencies and all the government bodies to carry out immediate rescue operations.  

काठमाडौंबाट यात्रु लिएर पोखराका लागि उडेको यती एयरलाइन्सको एएनसी एटीआर ७२ जहाजको दुखद र त्रासदीपूर्ण दुर्घटनाप्रति गहिरो दुख व्यक्त गर्दछु। प्रभावकारी उद्दारमा लाग्न सुरक्षाकर्मी, नेपाल सरकार सम्पूर्ण निकाय र आम जनसमुदायमा हार्दिक अपील गर्दछु।

— ☭ Comrade Prachanda (@cmprachanda) January 15, 2023

A Yeti Airlines plane carrying 68 passengers crashed in Pokhara on Sunday. The plane with call sign ATR-72 took off from Kathmandu to Pokhara at 10: 33 am today, police said. According to Sudarshan Bartaula, spokesperson of the Yeti Airlines, there were two pilots, two air hostesses and 68 passengers on board the ill-fated aircraft that crashed between the old airport and the Pokhara International Airport this morning. He said that there were 10 foreign passengers on the plane. Chief District Officer of Kaski district Tek Bahadur Karki said that he has directed the health facilities to be on high alert. More details about the incident are awaited.    

Former skipper of Nepal national cricket team, Sandeep Lamichhane, who was arrested on the charge of raping a minor girl, has been released from jail after posting a bail of Rs 2 million. Saroj Krishna Ghimire, lawmaker of Lamichhane, confirmed the release of the former national cricket team captain. The Patan High Court on Thursday ordered the concerned authority to release Lamichhane. A joint bench of Justi Dhruva Raj Nanda and Ramesh Dhakal today granted Lamichhane the bail. He has been barred from leaving Nepal. A 17-year-old girl had filed a rape complaint against Lamichhane at the Metropolitan Police Circle, Gaushala when he was abroad to play Caribbean Premier League (CPL) from Jamaica Tallawahs. According to the complaint, Lamichhane had allegedly taken the girl to various places in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur on August 21 and raped her in a hotel room the same night.  

Rastriya Prajatantra Party General Secretary Bhuwan Pathak has been elected as the Speaker of Bagmati Province. Pathak, a candidate from the ruling coalition, secured 62 votes while 39 cast votes against him. Seven lawmakers remained neutral. Another candidate for the post of Speaker, Shivaraj Adhikari of the Nepali Congress garnered 36 votes. At least 65 lawmakers voted against him. There are 110 members in the Province Assembly. Jagannath Thapaliya, Parliamentary Party leader of the CPN-UML, proposed Pathak’s candidacy while Yuvaraj Dulal of CPN (Maoist Centre) seconded the proposal. Pathak is a lawmaker under Proportional Representation system.      

After the lifting of import restrictions, the Nepali gadget market is gradually seeing the launches of high-end mobile phones. After Apple launched the iPhone 14 series, the market is all set to get another flagship model from the OnePlus 10T. Launched in the global market last year, the OnePlus 10T could not be released in the Nepali market in 2022 due to import restrictions. Smart Talk Pvt Ltd, the national distributor of OnePlus in Nepal, is launching the 10T today. According to the distributor, OnePlus 10T is laden with various top-end specs including Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, a 50 MP triple camera, and a 4,800mAh battery. The phone inherits a unibody design similar to the OnePlus 10 Pro. The OnePlus 10T 5G resembles the OnePlus 10 Pro 5G in terms of camera arrangement, but there is a slight difference: the rear panel of the former bulges a little. The OnePlus 10T 5G has also ditched the alert slider. The OnePlus 10T 5G comes up with a large 6.7 inches Samsung E4 AMOLED display along with a screen resolution of 1080 x 2412 pixels. The smartphone has a 20:9 aspect ratio, 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+, and 10-bit color depth. It is also packed with an under-display, optical fingerprint sensor and face unlock. The phone comes with a triple camera setup which is a combination of a 50MP (Sony IMX766) wide, ultrawide, and macro. The 10T cameras support 10-bit color capture, OnePlus’s Nightscape mode, and offer improved HDR performance. The phone has a 16 MP selfie camera on the front. When it comes to video recording, the rear camera records up to 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, and the front cameras record videos up to 1080p@30fps. The phone has OxygenOS 12.1 based on Android 12. The OnePlus 10T price in Nepal is Rs 94,999 for the 8/128GB variant and Rs 114,999 for the 16/256GB variant. The phone comes in two color options of Jade green and Moonstone Black. The handset is already available for pre-order at the e-commerce portal Daraz.  

Commercial banks will reduce interest rates on deposits effective from Magh (mid-January). With liquidity in the banking sector easing, bankers have decided to reduce interest rates on deposits by 10 percentage points. A meeting of the Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), the association of commercial bank CEOs, on Wednesday decided to reduce the deposit interest rate effective from mid-January. According to this decision, the interest rate for individual fixed deposits for the month of Magh (mid-January to mid-February) will come down to 11 percent from 12.13 percent currently. Similarly, the interest on institutional fixed deposits has also been set at 9 percent from 10.13 percent. The new NBA President Sunil KC said the decision to reduce the interest rate was made according to the guidelines of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). As per NRB's guidelines, banks and financial institutions can reduce the interest rate up to 10 percent. KC, who is the CEO of NMB Bank, was elected for the post of President of the NBA by a special general meeting held on Wednesday after the tenure of Agricultural Development Bank CEO Anil Upadhyaya ended. NBA's decision to slash interest rates came after improvements in deposits in Poush, and the credit-to-deposit (CD) ratio of commercial banks coming down to 86 percent. However, the interest rates on loans will be reduced only from mid-February or mid-March. NBA sources said the bankers decided to reduce interest rates following a request from Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel and Nepal Rastra Bank Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari. The private sector has been protesting against the higher interest rates, arguing that it has made doing business costly for them. After the formation of the new government, the private sector held a series of meetings with the Prime Minister, Finance Minister and NRB Governor where they demanded two things - reduction in interest rates and postponement of guidelines on working capital loans. According to NBA, the base rate will also be revised with the change in the rate of deposits. As the interest rates on deposits and lending are correlated, it will certainly affect the interest rates on loans. As per the NRB data, the banks and financial institutions (BFIs) as of Monday collected deposits worth Rs 5311 billion, an addition of Rs 16 billion in the past five days. Similarly, the total extension of loans stands at Rs 4,778 billion. With the improvement in liquidity position, the CD ratio of banks has come down to an average of 86.65 percent while the interbank rate has also fallen to 6.14 percent from around 8 percent. The central bank had tightened the money supply citing that excessive loans were used to import goods which led the country to a deepening trade deficit and fast depletion of foreign exchange reserves. As a result, the base interest rate increased from around seven percent to up to 11 percent in the past year. Since mid-September, banks have increased their interest rates on fixed deposits by 10 percent to 12.13 percent, while the interest rate on savings accounts is 7.13 percent per annum on average. It has triggered the lending rate to go up to 18 percent a year.