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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.

A man died after a car bearing an Indian registration number plate hit a motorbike he was riding on at Simaltandi in Khairhani Municipality-9 of Chitwan.

The deceased has been identified as Bishwas Gurung (21) of Kalika Municipality-4 currently residing at Khairhani Municipality-8.

Police said that the incident occurred when the car (JH 01 DX 7739) heading towards Narayangarh from Lothar hit the motorbike (Bagmati Province 03-005 Pa 2669) coming from the opposite direction.

Critically injured in the incident, Gurung was rushed to the Purano Medical College but breathed his last during the course of treatment last night.

Police said that they have impounded the car and arrested its driver for investigation.

Lionel Messi and Angel di Maria shone as Argentina beat Italy at Wembley in the Finalissima - a renewal of the contest between the champions of Europe and South America, BBC reported.

Messi's run and cross set up the opener for Lautaro Martinez, who then turned provider for Di Maria to chip a second.

Substitute Paulo Dybala rounded off a handsome win in injury time.

Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini played the first half of what was his 118th and final international match.

The contest is the first between the two continental champions in 29 years, according to BBC.

It is a revival of the Artemio Franchi Cup, competed for twice before - in 1985, when France beat Uruguay and in 1993, when Argentina beat Denmark on penalties.

Monkeypox appears to be spreading from person to person in England, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Wednesday (Jun 1), Reuters reported.

The usually mild viral disease, which is endemic in west and central Africa, is understood to spread through close contact. Until early May, cases rarely cropped up outside Africa and were typically linked to travel to there.

"The current outbreak is the first time that the virus has been passed from person to person in England where travel links to an endemic country have not been identified," the agency said.

According to the UKHSA, the majority of cases in the United Kingdom - 132 - are in London, while 111 cases are known to be in gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men (GBMSM). Only two cases are in women.

Recent foreign travel to a number of different countries in Europe within 21 days of symptom onset has been reported by 34 confirmed cases, or about 18 per cent of the 190 cases of the disease that have been confirmed by the United Kingdom as of May 31, according to Reuters.

So far, the UKHSA has identified links to gay bars, saunas and the use of dating apps in Britain and abroad.

"Investigations continue but currently no single factor or exposure that links the cases has been identified," the agency cautioned.

Monkeypox can affect anyone, but many of the most recent diagnoses are the GBMSM community - many of whom live in, or have links to London, said Kevin Fenton, London's regional director for public health.

"As with any new disease outbreak, the risk of stigma and uncertainty is great," he said.

The UKHSA is working with groups including the British Association of Sexual Health and HIV and the dating App Grindr to communicate with sexual health services and the GBMSM community. It is also encouraging the LGBT Consortium and Pride event organisers to help with messaging in the coming weeks.

Monkeypox typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled skin lesions that usually resolve on their own within weeks, but can kill a small fraction of those infected.

UK health authorities are offering Bavarian Nordic's vaccine, Imvanex, to contacts of confirmed or suspected cases.

Cases of monkeypox continue to rise outside Africa, mostly in Europe, and scientists are trying to pin down the reasons behind the spread, Reuters reported.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said it had so far received reports of more than 550 confirmed cases of the viral disease from 30 countries outside of Africa.

Sri Lanka is calling on farmers to grow more rice as it faces its worst economic crisis in more than 70 years, BBC reported.

The country's agriculture minister made the appeal as he said the country's "food situation is becoming worse".

It comes as severe shortages of essentials, including food, helped to push inflation, the rate at which prices rise, to a new record high.

Also on Tuesday, the government raised taxes to help pay for critical purchases, including fuel and food.

The island nation of 22 million people has been hit hard by the pandemic, rising energy prices, and populist tax cuts.

A chronic shortage of foreign currency and soaring inflation has also led to a shortage of medicines, fuel and other essentials.

Agriculture minister Mahinda Amaraweera told journalists "it is clear the food situation is becoming worse".

"We request all farmers to step into their fields in the next five to ten days and cultivate paddy [rice]," he added, according to BBC.

Sri Lankan officials have been looking for ways to boost food production, as Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has warned of severe food shortages by August.

The country is also applying for assistance from a South Asian food bank, which has supplied rice and other goods to countries in need, the Financial Times newspaper reported.

Food commissioner J Krishnamoorthy told the newspaper in an interview that her department had "just started the process" of asking the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) for "food bank assistance".

Ms Krishnamoorthy added that Sri Lanka was seeking around 100,000 metric tonnes of food in the form of donations or subsidised sales.

The SAARC is a grouping of eight countries in South Asia. It includes Sri Lanka and India, which is emerging as one of Sri Lanka's biggest providers of aid, BBC reported.

Sri Lanka's Food Commissioners Department and the SAARC did not immediately respond to BBC requests for comment.

On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan government announced an immediate increase to value added tax (VAT) from 8% to 12%. The move is expected to boost government revenue by 65bn Sri Lankan rupees ($179.9m; £142.7m).

It also said corporate tax would rise in October from 24% to 30%.

Earlier this year, then-Sri Lankan financial minister Ali Sabry told the BBC that he saw a need to raise VAT.

He added that the nation needed $4bn (£3.2bn) over the next eight months to pay for imports of daily essentials.

Also on Tuesday, official figures showed that Sri Lanka's rate of inflation rose to a record 39.1% in May, from a year ago. It had reached a previous high of 29.8% in April.

Inflation reduces the purchasing power of money since more money is now needed to buy the same items.

High rates of inflation mean that unless income increases at the same rate, people are worse off. This may cause them to spend less as they make fewer purchases from businesses.

Last month, Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt for the first time in history, when grace period to come up with $78m of unpaid debt interest payments expired, according to BBC.

Defaults happen when governments are unable to meet some or all of their debt payments to creditors.

It can damage a country's reputation with investors, making it harder for it to borrow the money it needs on international markets, which can further harm confidence in its currency and economy.