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Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Dilendra Prasad Badu and Speaker Agni Sapkota held a meeting at the Parliament Secretariat in New Baneshwor on Sunday.

During the meeting, Minister Badu proposed Speaker Sapkota to table the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in the Parliament, Speaker Sapkota’s press advisor Shreedhar Neupane said.

Neuapne said that Minister Badu urged Speaker Sapkota to table the MCC in the Parliament meeting scheduled for February 9.

In response, Sapkota said that there is no conducive environment to table the MCC in the Parliament.

The MCC headquarters has given the government of Nepal a deadline of February 28 to endorse the MCC compact.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and main opposition CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli held a meeting in Baluwatar today to discuss MCC among other contemporary political issues.

Schools in Nepal on Sunday demanded the government open up physical classes that were shut down for weeks as the number of COVID-19 cases began to decline, Associated Press reported.

Teachers say online education was limited to only a small part of the population living in the urban parts of the Himalayan country while a majority of students were being deprived of their chance to learn.

The number of coronavirus cases fueled by the omicron variant has peaked in the past weeks but was declining in the last few days.

“We are ready to open the schools, students are eager to get back, guardians are willing to send their children and the number of virus cases are on the decline so there is no reason for the government to continue the ban on schools,” said Tika Ram Puri, president of the Private and Boarding Schools Organization Nepal.

Puri said they want schools to reopen by next week.

“The standard of education is deteriorating and students are getting the wrong idea about education in the country because of the long and frequent shutdown of schools,” said Sangina Gomja, high school science teacher. “Students in the villages haven’t had much education in the past two years.”

Students across Nepal lined up to pray at the temple of a Hindu goddess on Sunday as the country celebrated the annual Basant Panchami festival that marks the arrival of the spring season.

The goddess Saraswati is considered to be the deity of wisdom, knowledge and learning. Students would normally be celebrating the festival in their schools but this year they were all at home.

“Schools should open soon because we students have so much problems like disruptive internet, power cuts, disturbances at home and we are not able to study well,” said 12th grade student Rubita Karki. “Schools need to open up but there should be safety measures like mandatory face masks and the use of sanitizers.”

Some students were still worried.

Apsara Shrestha, a college student majoring in social works, said that the coronavirus was still a concern and was against the reopening of schools. “What if students fall sick or even die?”

Nepal has fully vaccinated 52% of the population that includes students and children aged 12 and above. It has reported more than 1 confirmed million coronavirus cases and 11,803 deaths since the pandemic began.

The government imposed tough restrictions last month as virus cases set a record. Schools were shut down, citizens ordered to carry vaccination cards in public, religious festival banned and theaters closed. Malls, markets and restaurants were allowed to serve only a small number of customers wearing masks. No date was given for the lifting of restrictions.

The government also limited road traffic, with bans on alternating days for vehicles with odd or even license plates.

Nepal logged 1, 386 new Covid-19 cases and 11 deaths on Sunday. 

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,100,689. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,614. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 6,443 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 1,183 returned positive. Likewise, 2,808 people underwent antigen tests, of which 203 tested positive.

The Ministry said that 8,704 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

As of today, there are 45,248 active cases in the country. 

The Ministry said that 43,932 people are staying in home isolation while 1, 316 are in institutionalized isolation.

Among them, 268 are in the Intensive Care Unit while 46 are on ventilators.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 40.57 points to close at 2,836.17 points on Sunday.

Similarly, the sensitive dropped by 7.73 points to close at 531. 92 points.

A total of 10,651,754 units of the shares of 228 companies were traded for Rs 5.83 billion.

Meanwhile, Nepal Hydro Developers Limited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 8.08 percent. Likewise, Wean Nepal Laghubitta Sanstha Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 10 percent.

At the end of the day, the total market capitalisation stood at Rs 4.00 trillion.

Police on Sunday arrested three cadres of Youth Association Nepal (YAN), youth wing of the main opposition CPN-UML, for releasing black balloons outside the office of the Chief Minister in Gandaki Province.

The detainees have been identified as photo journalist Sanjay Shakya, Hari Adhikari and Tshering Phonchuk Thakuri.

Gandaki Province Chairman and YAN Central Secretary Mahendra Gurung said that they released the balloons as per the circular issued by the Association.

YAN representatives of Gandaki and Kaski Provinces and Centre released the balloons this afternoon.

They demanded that the government roll back its decision to hike the price of petroleum products.

Police on Saturday arrested two Indian nationals with 15 gram brown sugar from Mechinagar, Jhapa.

The arrestees have been identified as Mohammad Sultan (25) and Ranjit Ganesh (27) of Chunilal village in Darjeeling, India, DSP Basanta Pathak, Spokesperson of the District Police Office, Jhapa said.

A patrol team from Jamirgadhi Police Post and Armed Police Force (BOP), Jamirgadhi arrested them with the banned substance yesterday.

Police said that they have taken the duo have been kept at the Area Police Office, Dhulabari for further investigation. RSS

The Karnali Province government is preparing to send a helicopter to rescue those people trapped by snowfall at different parts of Gagra alpine in Jumla.

Chief Minister Jeevan Bahadur Shahi has taken initiations to rescue 55 people left stranded at Gagra.

“We are reported that snow up to five feet has piled up at Gagra and the situations provided no ground for the helicopter to land in. We are going to drop foodstuffs at the site immediately to save them from hunger,” he said.

According to one Surat Bahadur Shahi of Tatopani Rural Municipality-8 of Jumla, 55 people were left stranded at Gagra, Adiodar, Khotisalla and Dhwani Patan. They had been there to collect Setak Chini (Moringa Oleifera), locally known as Khiraula.

As Shahi reported, his family member Jaikuwanra and Mun Bahadur Rawat of Barhagaun, Tatopani-6 have already frozen to death in the snow.

Jumla’s Chief District Officer Bijaya Prasai said the efforts were on to rescue them in the coordination of the Tatopani Rural Municipality and the Province government.

According to Rural Municipality chief administrative officer Milan Poudyal, they tried to reach the people trapped in snow with food and other materials to save them from cold, but in vain. RSS

Russia has in place about 70% of the combat power it believes it would need for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and is sending more battalion tactical groups to the border with its neighbor, two US officials said on Saturday.

In the last two weeks, the number of battalion tactical groups in the border region has risen to 83 from 60 as of Friday and 14 more are in transit, the officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.

As to the timing of an invasion, the ground is expected to reach peak freeze around Feb. 15, the officials said, allowing for off-road mechanized transit by Russian military units. Such conditions would continue until the end of March.

That timeline and the growing number and capability of Russian forces close to Ukraine could suggest the window for diplomacy is shutting.

The US officials did not provide evidence to back up their estimates of Russia's forces.

As Russia masses more than 100,000 troops near the border, it has said it is not planning an invasion but could take unspecified military action if its security demands are not met. Those include a promise that NATO will never admit Ukraine, a demand Washington and NATO have said is unacceptable.

Washington believes Russia may choose other options than a full-scale invasion, including a limited incursion, and does not believe President Vladimir Putin had made a final decision, the officials said.

But they said Putin is putting in place a force that can execute all scenarios.

If Russia were to invade the capital of Kyiv, it could fall within a couple of days, the US officials said.

A full-scale invasion would cause major casualties, one of the officials said.

Ukraine could suffer 5,000 to 25,000 troop casualties, while Russia's troop casualties could be between 3,000 and 10,000, and civilian casualties could range from 25,000 to 50,000, according to US estimates, the official said.

A full invasion would also prompt the flight of millions of refugees and internally displaced persons in Europe, Washington believes.