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Nepali Congress leader Ram Sharan Mahat said that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact is in the interest of Nepali people.

He said so during a meeting of the party’s executive committee held on Thursday.

Leader Mahat said that MCC is appropriate for the construction of transmission lines, substations and roads in Nepal.

“The MCC project is a very important draft for Nepal. Nepali Congress should play a vital role to endorse the MCC from the Parliament,” Shashanka Koirala said while talking to journalists after the meeting.

During the meeting, the leaders also discussed upcoming local level elections and sister organisations.

He said that Nepal Congress should contest the local elections without forging alliance with any parties.

Nepal logged 1, 369 new Covid-19 cases and 12 deaths on Thursday. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 8,880 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 1,013 returned positive. Likewise, 3,000 people underwent antigen tests, of which 365 tested positive.

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,170,986. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,864.

The Ministry said that 2,238 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley reported 239 new cases today.

According to the Ministry, 235 cases are reported in Kathmandu, 64 in Lalitpur and 30 in Bhaktapur.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 11.96 points to close at 2,801.56 points on Thursday.

Similarly, the sensitive dropped by 1.70 points to close at 527.28 points.

A total of 6,950,838 units of the shares of 227 companies were traded for Rs 3.82 billion.

Meanwhile, Nabil Equity Fund was the top gainer today with its price surging by 2. 76 percent. Likewise, Mithila Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 4 percent.

At the end of the day, the total market capitalisation stood at Rs 3.95 trillion.

The country faces a huge trade deficit of Rs 880 billion in the first six months of the current fiscal year.  

In a half-year report made public by the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) on Wednesday, noticeable import is the reason behind the soaring trade deficit.

The trade loss in total goods is 46.6 percent. The loss however decreased by 5.8 percent as compared to the same period last year. In the review period, the export-import ratio has reached 11.9 percent. It was 9.2 percent in the same period last fiscal.

In these six months, imports worth Rs 191 billion was made from India, while such import in the same period of the last fiscal year was R 83.1 billion. However, the export of total goods in these six months amounted to Rs 118 billion.

Similarly, in the review period, net foreign direct investment recorded increase by 48.1 percent, thereby reaching Rs 11.34 billion.

The balance of payment is at a loss of Rs 241.23 billion. In the same period of the corresponding year, BoP loss was at Rs 124.92 billion.

Moreover, the remittance inflow decreased by 5.5 percent, thereby reaching Rs 468.45 billion in this period. RSS

Two leaders of the ruling coalition—CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Nepal said that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) cannot be endorsed in its current form.

They said so during a meeting with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba in Baluwatar on Thursday.

Dahal and Nepal said that the MCC compact should not be endorsed in its existing form without addressing the issues raised by the people.

The Prime Minister has been piling pressure on the leaders of the coalition to endorse the MCC.

Prime Minister Deuba had also sought support of the main opposition CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and Janata Samajbadi Party Chairman Mahantha Thakur for the parliamentary ratification of the MCC.

The United States has given the government of Nepal a deadline of February 28 to pass the MCC.

Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal held a meeting in Baluwatar on Thursday.

During the meeting, the top guns of the major political parties discussed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), local level elections and House obstructions among other issues.

On the occasion, PM Deuba opined that the MCC should be tabled in the Parliament as soon as possible.

Dahal and Nepal, however, said that the MCC should not be endorsed in the status quo without addressing the issues raised by the leaders on the compact.

PM Deuba is in favour of endorsing the MCC agreement from the Parliament promptly.

But Speaker Agni Sapkota has been expressing his reluctance to table the MCC in the Parliament.

Earlier on September 11, PM Deuba had sent a commitment letter to the MCC headquarters requesting for four to five months to secure the required majority in the House of Representatives for the ratification of the compact.

Dahal, however, has been piling pressure on the Prime Minister to take the decision on the MCC only after the local elections.

PM Deuba told Dahal that the issue of MCC should be resolved from the Parliament.

Reminding Dahal that the United States has given the government of Nepal a deadline of February 28 to endorse the compact from the Parliament, PM Deuba said that they should find the way out at the earliest, the Baluwatar source said.

Of late, the Prime Minister has started holding discussions with the main opposition CPN-UML and other political parties seeking support  in MCC endorsement from the Parliament.

The government signed a compact agreement worth $500 million with the government of the United States of America in September 2017 to build transmission lines, substations and roads in Nepal.

India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh began voting on Thursday in the first of a series of local elections that will be a key test of the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party.

With a population almost as big as that of Brazil, keeping power in the bellwether state would give the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a boost in its bid for a third successive victory at nationwide parliamentary polls due by 2024.

Television footage from polling stations showed queues of people bundled up against the winter cold as they waited to cast their votes.

Defeat in Uttar Pradesh, or in any of the other three states it holds that also stage elections this month, would add to pressure on the Hindu nationalist party amid criticism of high unemployment and its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If the BJP loses, especially in UP, that will be a big setback," said Rahul Verma, a fellow at New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Policy Research. "But you can call this a semi-final. The game in 2024 will be very, very different."

For the main opposition Congress party, led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, the calculation appears more bleak. Of the five states where voting begins this month, it holds only Punjab in the northwest.

"Congress desperately needs to win states, even if it's smaller states, just to get back in the habit of winning. Otherwise they are in trouble," Verma added.

Failure to do so would lead to more questions over the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather have all served as prime ministers but who has struggled to dent Modi's high ratings.

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During campaigning, the BJP has appealed to large Hindu majorities in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Both are home to important holy sites, some of which are disputed by Hindus and minority Muslims.

Opinion polls suggest the party will win the vote in both states, despite some opposition parties seeking to mirror its Hindu-first agenda and appeal to its support base.

"We have seen all political parties playing within the same field of the BJP," said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of a biography of Modi, on the campaign so far. "That is one of their biggest successes."

Congress and activists have criticised the approach, saying that it risks stoking communal tensions that have flared up into deadly violence in the past.

Yogi Adityanath, a hardline Hindu monk who is seeking re-election as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, touted his record on fighting crime, and said that law and order took precedence over religion.

"My government dealt with the issues of corruption," he told a small group of reporters on Monday.

"Law and order has improved markedly and police action during my rule was taken against gangsters and mafia groups without discriminating on the basis of their caste or religion."

Uttar Pradesh, home to around 200 million people, votes in seven phases ending on March 7, while most other states begin polling in the coming days. Counting in the five states begins on March 10, with the results expected soon after.

The BJP faces a challenge from Congress in the northeastern state of Manipur, while in the western state of Goa, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is trying to expand its reach beyond its traditional base of India's capital New Delhi.

The fifth state, Punjab, looks like a close contest between the ruling Congress, AAP and several regional parties.

Query

I'm a 35-year-old male who has been a migraine patient for about five years now. I have heard that migraine also brings many mental health problems in its wake including memory-loss. Recently I have been struggling even to recall familiar names. This didn't happen before and I think it is because of migraine. I want to know if it is something I need to worry about. And what can I do to improve things? -KB

Answer by Dr. Rishav Koirala, Psychiatrist at Grande Hospital 

First, for proper diagnosis and treatment, it is important to know the intensity and frequency of headaches. In rare cases migraine is associated with forgetfulness, which is known as transient global amnesia, but it is not as specific as you have mentioned, i.e. only forgetting familiar names. Forgetfulness is common in anxiety disorders as well as in depression. Over 50 percent of migraine patients have depression and anxiety and more than 80 percent of migraine episodes are precipitated by stress. So we need to explore it to properly address migraine as well as to find the cause of forgetfulness you suffer from. This can be done by visiting a psychiatrist who will treat both. 

As you have had migraine for a long time, it is even more important to address it. Migraine is a major cause of disability as it hampers with your work as well as social life. It must also have hampered your life both directly and indirectly. Being aware of what is really going on will help you with the fear and worry you’re experiencing, and you might be reassured once you know you are being treated.

On a personal level, you can try mindfulness meditation. You can find plenty of 10-30 minute meditation guides on YouTube. Taking some time out to meditate will do wonders for your mental health. 

Another thing you can do is maintain a headache diary. After you have a migraine episode, write down what you did in the 24 hours before the episode: list all your activities and events of the day as well as your food intake. After doing this six or seven times, you may observe common activities that trigger your migraine. An empty stomach, disrupted sleep, and high coffee and alcohol intake can also trigger migraine. But most importantly, you need to talk to an expert before jumping to conclusions.