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Many Nepali Hindus are observing the Mahashivaratri festival by offering prayers to and worshiping Lord Shiva today, on Falgun Krishna Chaturdashi (the fourth day of the waning moon in the month of Falgun), as per the lunar calendar.

According to the Nepal Calendar Determination Committee, Brahma took the form of Shiva in the midnight of Krishna Chaturdashi of Falgun. So this day is observed with prayers, pooja, and visit to Lord Shiva's shrines. Hindus believe that the observation of the Mahashivaratri brings peace and prosperity to one's life.

From early morning today, devotees take bath in rivers and ponds, visit Lord Shiva's shrines and pay homage.

The day is regarded as the most favourite day of Lord Shiva, who it is believed to bring happiness in the hearts of those living in difficulty.

Fasting is observed by some on the day and the night is observed with a vigil (jagram), celebrating Shiva.

People also make fire at home, on public squares and at temples, chant hymns and take prasad on the occasion.

Classical dances are performed at Kailashkut and Kirateshwor of Pashupati area in Kathmandu.

The Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu is thronged by devotees from across the country and neighbouring India.

Meanwhile, Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) has said it has made special arrangement to facilitate the visitors.

Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s second-largest city on Monday, rocking a residential neighborhood, and closed in on the capital, Kyiv, in a 40-mile convoy of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles, as talks aimed at stopping the fighting yielded only an agreement to keep talking, Associated Press reported.

The country’s embattled president said the stepped-up shelling was aimed at forcing him into concessions.

“I believe Russia is trying to put pressure (on Ukraine) with this simple method,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday in a video address. He did not offer details of the hourslong talks that took place earlier, but said that Kyiv was not prepared to make concessions “when one side is hitting each other with rocket artillery.”

Amid ever-growing international condemnation, Russia found itself increasingly isolated five days into its invasion, while also facing unexpectedly fierce resistance on the ground in Ukraine and economic havoc at home.

For the second day in a row, the Kremlin raised the specter of nuclear war, announcing that its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and long-range bombers had all been put on high alert, following President Vladimir Putin’s orders over the weekend.

Stepping up his rhetoric, Putin denounced the U.S. and its allies as an “empire of lies.”

Meanwhile, an embattled Ukraine moved to solidify its ties to the West by applying to join the European Union — a largely symbolic move for now, but one that is unlikely to sit well with Putin, who has long accused the U.S. of trying to pull Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit.

A top Putin aide and head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that the first talks held between the two sides since the invasion lasted nearly five hours and that the envoys “found certain points on which common positions could be foreseen.” He said they agreed to continue the discussions in the coming days.

Peeved over the Nepalese Parliament’s approval of the US-funded USD 500 million grant agreement despite its persistent opposition, a concerned China said on Monday that Washington should not undermine the sovereignty of other countries through “coercive diplomacy”, The Print reported.

Much to the surprise of Beijing, Nepal’s Parliament on Sunday ratified the contentious US-funded USD 500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact along with an Interpretive Declaration a day ahead of the February 28 deadline set by Washington, ending months of debates, protests and polarisation in the Himalayan nation.

“We noted the decision and the declaration by the Nepalese parliament,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing here in response to questions from the official media about the Interpretive Declaration, which was passed along with the US aid highlighting Nepal’s sovereignty.

Senior leader of the ruling Nepali Congress Ram Chandra Poudel has said that the declaration includes the statements that the MCC is not part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, Nepal’s constitution will be above any provisions of the MCC and the country will perceive it purely as economic assistance.

“China has stressed repeatedly that international formal cooperation should follow the principle of mutual respect, equal treatment and fully respect the sovereignty of the country concerned and the will of its people,” Wang said.

“It should not interfere in other country’s internal affairs to engage in coercive diplomacy, undermine other sovereignty and interest out of selfish interests,” he said, adding that Beijing always supported Nepal choosing an independent path of development.

The MCC is a bilateral United States foreign aid agency established by the US Congress in 2004. It is an independent agency separate from the State Department and USAID.

The District Administration Office clamped a curfew in Surkhet, provincial capital of Karnali Province, after the protests against the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) turned violent.

The DAO decided to clamp the curfew after the demonstrators vandalised and torched party offices of various parties and police posts.

The curfew will be clamped from 8:15 pm on Monday till 7 pm on Tuesday.

The government has expressed its commitment not to allow Nepali land to be used against any nation.

A Cabinet meeting held on Monday thanked all the parties and lawmakers among others who helped endorse the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and said that the government would not allow Nepali land to be used against neighbouring countries or any nation.

The Cabinet made such a decision at a time when doubts were harbouring about the use of Nepali land against neighboring India and China after the endorsement of the MCC.

"Nepal is committed to not allow Nepali land to be used against India and China among other countries in line with foreign policy of Nepal to maintain friendly relations with all the countries," government spokesperson and Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki said.

Deadly with extreme weather now, climate change is about to get so much worse. It is likely going to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier and way more dangerous in the next 18 years with an “unavoidable” increase in risks, a new United Nations science report says, Associated Press reported.

And after that watch out. 

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report said Monday if human-caused global warming isn’t limited to just another couple tenths of a degree, an Earth now struck regularly by deadly heat, fires, floods and drought in future decades will degrade in 127 ways with some being “potentially irreversible.” 

“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health,” says the major report designed to guide world leaders in their efforts to curb climate change. Delaying cuts in heat-trapping carbon emissions and waiting on adapting to warming’s impacts, it warns, “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

Today’s children who may still be alive in the year 2100 are going to experience four times more climate extremes than they do now even with only a few more tenths of a degree of warming over today’s heat. But if temperatures increase nearly 2 more degrees Celsius from now (3.4 degrees Fahrenheit) they would feel five times the floods, storms, drought and heat waves, according to the collection of scientists at the IPCC.

Already at least 3.3 billion people’s daily lives “are highly vulnerable to climate change” and 15 times more likely to die from extreme weather, the report says. Large numbers of people are being displaced by worsening weather extremes. And the world’s poor are being hit by far the hardest, it says. 

More people are going to die each year from heat waves, diseases, extreme weather, air pollution and starvation because of global warming, the report says. Just how many people die depends on how much heat-trapping gas from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas gets spewed into the air and how the world adapts to an ever-hotter world, scientists say.

“Climate change is killing people,” said co-author Helen Adams of King’s College London. “Yes, things are bad, but actually the future depends on us, not the climate.”

With every tenth of a degree of warming, many more people die from heat stress, heart and lung problems from heat and air pollution, infectious diseases, illnesses from mosquitoes and starvation, the authors say. 

The report lists mounting dangers to people, plants, animals, ecosystems and economies, with people at risk in the millions and billions and potential damages in the trillions of dollars. The report highlights people being displaced from homes, places becoming uninhabitable, the number of species dwindling, coral disappearing, ice shrinking and rising and increasingly oxygen-depleted and acidic oceans. 

Some of these risks can still be prevented or lessened with prompt action. 

“Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.”

Nepal logged 180 new Covid-19 cases and one death on Monday.

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,116,371. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,936. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 5,218 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 119 returned positive. Likewise, 3 ,123 people underwent antigen tests, of which 61 tested positive.

The Ministry said that 400 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

As of today, there are 8,235 active cases in the country. 

The Ministry said that 8,021 people are staying in home isolation while 214 are in institutionalized isolation.

Nepal and India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a long term supply of Urea and DAP fertilizers from India to Nepal under a G2G arrangement.

Shri Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi, Secretary (Chemical and Fertilizers), Government of India from the Indian side and Govinda Prasad Sharma, Secretary (Agriculture and Livestock Development) from the Nepali side signed the MoU.

The virtual meeting to sign and exchange the MoU on Monday in the presence of Shri Mahindra Ray Yadav, Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development, Government of Nepal and Shri Vinay Mohan Kwatra, Ambassador of India to Nepal, officials of the respective Ministries and Embassies of both India and Nepal.

During the meeting Shri Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi highlighted the close and multi-faceted nature of India-Nepal ties and hoped that the MoU will further boost bilateral cooperation in the agriculture sector by supporting Nepal’s economy and food security.

The signing of this MoU is expected to help address the recurring fertilizer shortages in Nepal and enable improved agricultural productivity for the direct benefit of Nepali farmers.

The MoU is yet another milestone in the bilateral economic cooperation and also an important reflection of the priority attached by India to its partnership with Nepal.