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 That the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sec­toral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) has been unable to come up with a governing charter in over two decades of its existence is no coincidence. The member coun­tries—initially Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand, which were later joined by Bhutan and Nepal—seemingly wanted to build a vibrant economic bridge between South Asia and Southeast Asia, two of the fastest growing regions in the world. But for most of its existence BIMSTEC was badly neglected.

Then there was SAARC. As things stand, SAARC is the least integrated region in the world, with inter-country trade within SAARC accounting for less than six percent of the total foreign trade of the eight-member states. The concept of South Asian Free Trade Area, though much discussed, could never be implemented, as India and Pakistan continued to lock horns over even seemingly inconsequential issues. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at some point seems to have concluded that it is futile to expect a more connected South Asia via SAARC, so long as Pakistan is a part of it.

And so the moribund BIMSTEC was revived in 2014, the year it held its third heads-of-state summit, and the year its secretariat was finally established in Dhaka. If SAARC could not unite South Asia, perhaps a forum like BIMSTEC, minus Pakistan, and minus SAARC’s ‘unanimous decision’ provision, was better placed to enhance regional trade and connectivity. But this is a gamble.

As the fourth BIMSTEC summit ends in Kathmandu, the seven-member states have agreed to enhance trade through land and water ways, to collectively fight ter­rorism, to draft the long-delayed charter, to establish a regional fund and to boost customs cooperation. The charter, when ready, will add clarity about BIMSTEC’s purpose. More than that, if the forum can for instance facilitate the extension of India-Myanmar-Thailand highway all the way to Nepal, it could herald a sea of change in Nepal’s development. But will the securi­ty-minded India be ready to open up its territories for such an undertaking? What will greater anti-terrorism cooperation entail? And what happens to SAARC now? Even though India is uncommitted, other countries in South Asia still set great store by SAARC. The fourth summit brought some clarity on BIMSTEC and on regional cooperation. But perhaps not enough.

World Cup winner Ronaldo has reached a deal to buy 51 per cent of La Liga club Valladolid a regional daily reported on Saturday, citing "sources close to the operation." 

El Norte de Castilla, which is based in Valladolid said Ronaldo was paying 30 million euros ($34.8 million) and would complete the deal next week. 

"The Brazilian star reached an agreement with Carlos Suarez, owner of more than 60 per cent of the shares of the company, on Thursday evening," the newspaper wrote. 
Ronaldo's press secretary, David Espinar, told AFP by email that he was not prepared to comment on the story. 
The Spanish media have been reporting the former Real Madrid and Barcelona striker's interest in Valladolid round the time the club won promotion back to the Spanish first division in May. 

The newspaper said Ronaldo was attracted by the way the club is being run and that the takeover would not "lead to great changes in the club structure" and that Suarez, who has run the club for 17 years, would continue as president and Sergio Gonzalez would remain head coach. 

"Ronaldo does not want to be the visible head and prefers to stay in the background," the newspaper wrote. 
The report said the two sides had tried to negotiate as discretely as possible to avoid having an impact on the club's dealings in the summer transfer window, which closed on Friday. 

Ronaldo, who is 41, was the tournament's top scorer as Brazil won the World Cup in 2002 and was also part of the winning squad in 1994. His long list of individual honours include winning the FIFA player of the year three times and the Ballon D'Or twice. "Il Fenomeno" retired in 2011. AFP

Following the government's decision to use the social networking sites to make dialogue with people effective and address their grievance promptly, the government agencies have expedited the use of the social media. 

All the 21 ministries including the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers are using this new technology in the field of information and communications. All the ministries have created their official facebook and twitter accounts, and responding to people's concern directly. The concerned ministers, state minister and their secretariat too have been using the social media to disseminate official information and holding interaction with the users. 

'Hello Sarkar' by the OPMCM is a very popular twitter handle which has been linking all the government agencies, as it responds to the public grievances and concerns. A total of 110 government agencies have been officially using twitter, according to Coordinator of Hello Sarkar Pradyumna Upadhyaya. More than two thousand government agencies are required to make use of the social networking sites to reach out to the people. 

Many local level governments have also been active in the social media to further deepen their contact, communications and relations with the people. Naraha rural municipality of Siraha is one example when it recently announced the beginning of the 'poor household ID card distribution' through it twitter account. 
PM Oli in Twitter 

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has been very active of late in twitter. He has been sharing the government's decision and related information immediately through his official twitter handle. He has also been issuing directives to the concerned authorities to address the people's grievances. As of late, Prime Minister Oli has been tweeting in five different languages. 
Techno-friendly local governments 

The newly formed local governments too are found very active in making maximum use of the latest technology. With a very short span of their formation, the 753 local governments have already instituted their respective websites and also open facebook and twitter accounts. Some local level governments have gone a step ahead to also develop mobile applications. RSS

 Rupandehi’s Siddhart­hanagar municipality has been accused of impos­ing ‘unscientific taxes’. It is indeed curious that the retail vegetable sellers are being charged more than estab­lished businesses

.The municipality has recently set a new tax rate for the current fiscal. According to the new list, the munici­pality will charge Rs 7.65 daily (Rs 2,800 a year) from food wholesalers. In comparison, vegetable sellers in the local farmers’ market have to pay Rs 37 daily. As the farmers’ market is held twice a week, their total yearly tax outlay comes to Rs 3,640. But other industries and businesses which earn profits in lakhs are having to fork out much less.

In most areas of the municipality, tax rates have increased, by as much as 900 percent. While the taxes imposed on Lumbini Rana Ambika Eye Hospital of ward number 3 has not increased, the municipality has increased taxes on a private medical col­lege by a whopping 900 per­cent. The medical college had to pay Rs 5,000 last year; this year, it pays Rs 50,000.

Similarly, wholesale cloth­ing stores that had to pay Rs 1,000 last year will now have to pay Rs 5,000, an increase of 400 percent. Likewise, last year, the retail clothing stores had to pay Rs 600. After taxes levied on them increased by 317 percent, they now will have to pay Rs 2,500.

Those who sell vegetables in baskets at the farmers’ mar­ket will now have to pay Rs 30, compared to Rs 25 earlier. For other vegetable sellers the levy has gone up from Rs 30 to Rs 35. Sellers in farmers’ mar­ket rue that even though the taxes have increased, there has been no improvement in the facilities provided by the municipality to improve the market.

Abadh Bihari, who sells veg­etables, complains that high taxes have created problems for him. He says he is paying as much as Rs 120 in daily taxes, even though the municipality claims it is collecting only Rs 35 a day from such sellers.

Ramu Kandu has a similar story. For his daily quota of 15 kilos of garlic he has to pay Rs 100 in taxes. “I do not even earn a profit of Rs 100!” he complains.

The increased municipal taxes have been met with growing protests, being orga­nized by big and small busi­nesses alike. The main Rupan­dehi trade body has even sent a memorandum to the mayor of the municipality. Organiza­tion chairman Narayan Prasad Bhandari expressed his ire at the increase of taxes for small businessmen by 400-500 per­cent. He said the municipality had ignored their suggestion to limit tax increase to 20-25 percent. The businessmen have warned that they would have to start an anti-tax move­ment if adjustments are not made soon.

 Speaking at the opening of the fourth Bay of Bengal Initia­tive for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooper­ation (BIMSTEC) Summit in Kathmandu, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli said SAARC and BIMSTEC are complementary and there is no reason they cannot simultaneously succeed. He was clearly trying to assuage fear among smaller SAARC states like Nepal and Bhutan that India is promoting BIMS­TEC in lieu of SAARC. As these smaller countries see it, the reason SAARC has not succeeded is two-fold: one, India and Pakistan’s failure to agree on anything substantial and two, India’s traditional apprehension that other SAARC countries were somehow ‘ganging up’ against it.

The feeling is that India, as by far the biggest country in SAARC, both militarily and economically, and as a fulcrum around which most other SAARC countries operate, could have done more to promote regional trade and connectiv­ity, for instance by unconditionally backing the idea of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA). Even if Pakistan was obstructing regional integration, why was India then not keen on sub-regional initiatives? For instance it could have earned itself a lot of goodwill in Nepal by agreeing to let the landlocked country trade directly with Bangladesh, which is just 27 km from the eastern Nepali border?

India’s apparent reluctance to do even bare minimum to boost regional trade and connectivity in turn fueled skep­ticism about whether it was really committed to a more integrated, interdependent South Asia. And this is the same skepticism other countries have when it is now promoting BIMSTEC, comprised of five countries on the Bay of Ben­gal plus the landlocked Bhutan and Nepal. After ignoring BIMSTEC for over two decades, why the sudden change of heart? Perhaps there is a broader geostrategic component to BIMSTEC as well.

BIMSTEC, in this reckoning, is being promoted to isolate the ‘terror sponsoring’ Pakistan and to check China’s growing inroads in South Asia. At the last SAARC Summit in Kath­mandu in 2014, Nepal and Pakistan had even proposed that China be included as a full SAARC member, raising predict­able hackles in New Delhi. India has also looked at China’s catchall Belt and Road Initiative doubtfully, not the least because one of its core components passes through disputed Kashmir territories. To add to these suspicions, following the fourth BIMSTEC Summit, India is playing host to BIMSTEC military exercises. The onus is on Indian leadership to show that it has abandoned its security-centric approach and is now committed to common growth and development of this crucial part of Asia

President Bidya Devi Bhandari has said that the member states of the BIMSTEC should focus on progression that gives quality, clear and direct impact on the life of the people though common efforts. 

Addressing heads of state and government of the Bay of Bengal Multi-sectoral Initiative for Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) member states here today, she expressed the confidence that the summit would be successful in further promoting mutual friendship, unity, understanding and mutual cooperation. 

The arrival of heads of state/governments of BIMSTEC countries have excited and dignified Nepali people, she said, adding, "BIMSTEC has been established as a shared identity of all of us. It is a source of historical, social and cultural identity and civilization". 

With the passage of two decades long journey, the BIMSTEC countries have witnessed enhanced level of mutual cooperation and collaboration. "There are high expectations from the people of Nepal towards BIMSTEC. Our people have started cherishing a sweet dream of prosperity under the shared roof of BIMSTEC". 

In order to materialize the dream, the member states should take strides by further enhancing cordial unity, collaboration and mutual cooperation, she added. 

The Head of the State urged the member states to prepare a clear action plan to forward the projects of trade, investment, energy, tourism after properly utilizing the resources of the respective countries. She also opined for connecting the region through air, water and land routes along with the information technology. 
She focused on eradicating poverty and illiteracy from the region after investing in education, health and other infrastructures sectors. 
President Bhandari stressed on lessening the impact of climate change as it was seen as a common challenge in the region. She said that all should prepare environment conducive to handover a green earth to the next generation. 
On another note, she called for a focus on ending violence against women and empowering women representation in all sectors. 
Also present on the occasion were, Vice President Nanda Bahadur Pun, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli among other VVIPs. RSS

President Bidya Devi Bhandari is hosting the luncheon in honour of the Heads of State and Government of BIMSTEC Member States at Shital Niwas, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Earlier, the Heads of State and Heads of the Government of six other member nations of BIMSTEC had reached the President House, Shital Niwas, for the joint meeting with President Bhandari. The VVIP guests are in Kathmandu to attend the Fourth BIMSTEC Summit to be held here from today. 

President Bhandari's advisor Sushil Pyakurel and the Secretary at the Office of the President Binod KC welcomed the VVIP guests from Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand to the Shital Niwas. 

The Head of State of Nepal will host a lunch reception in honour of the visiting VVIPs. The event will be attended by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and the high-ranking officials from Nepal. RSS

Baitadi district is at high risk of malaria infection these days. 

The district has been recording the increasing number of malaria patients in the last three years, according to the Public Health Office, Baitadi's Health Assistant, Santosh Pandey. 

Several wards in Melauli Municipality, Shivanath Rural Municipality and Pancheshower Rural Municipality in the Upper Swarad areas are at very high risk from this mosquito-borne disease. 

"There are total 40 malaria patients recorded in these places in the recent years," shared Pandey, adding that 33 patients were found in the last year while 7 malaria patients were recorded since April this year. 

According to Pandey, the malaria patients here were diagnosed during the blood test. There's only a modern lab set up at Kesharpur Primary Health Centre which tested the blood of these patients. The nearest health posts had sent the blood samples of the patients to Kesharpur Primary Health Centre for test. 

Pregnant women and children in lower Swarad areas in the district are vulnerable of contracting this disease, said Pandey. 
The locals have received mosquito nets as a preventive measure against malaria that is spread by the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito. Insecticide has also been sprayed in the mosquito infested areas. RSS