Submit your Article

Nepal logged 5, 583 new Covid-19 cases and nine deaths on Tuesday. 

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,088,251. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,752. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 10,776 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 3,657 returned positive. Likewise, 6,898 people underwent antigen tests, of which 1,926 tested positive.

The Ministry said that 8,267 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

As of today, there are 74,532 active cases in the country. 

The Ministry said that 871,165 infected people have recovered from the disease so far.

The Ministry said that 73,178 people are staying in home isolation while 1, 475 are in institutionalized isolation.

Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley reported 1, 907 new cases today.

According to the Ministry, 1,404 cases are reported in Kathmandu, 304 in Lalitpur and 195 in Bhaktapur.

The Election Commission has asked Rs 12 billion with the government to hold the local level elections. 

During a meeting held at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar on Tuesday, the Election Commission office bearers said that it would cost around Rs 12 billion if the elections are held in 753 local units in one phase. 

The Election Commission said that the budget will be spent on the salaries, allowances and daily allowances among others of the people deployed in the elections.  

The poll body said that mthan Rs 8 billion was spent in the elections held in 2017.

India's government will step up spending to 39.45 trillion rupees ($529.7 billion) in the coming fiscal year to build public infrastructure and drive economic growth, it said on Tuesday, but it involves a wider fiscal deficit than targeted and record borrowing, Reuters reported.

Asia's third-largest economy has been on the mend after the government lifted mobility measures in June to curb the spread of coronavirus, after contracting 6.6% in the previous fiscal year.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presenting the annual budget to parliament, said total government spending in the 2022/23 fiscal year beginning in April will be 4.6% more than the current year.

Trillions of rupees will be allocated to expressways, affordable housing and solar manufacturing to put growth on a firmer footing, she said.

Growth is estimated to be 9.2% for 2021/2022, coming off the low base and slowing to 8 to 8.5% in the coming fiscal year, still the fastest among the world's major economies.

The recovery from the pandemic has been swift but incomplete, officials say. Private consumption has been hampered by a lack of jobs, depleted household balance sheets and wider income inequalities.

Sitharaman said public investment must continue to take the lead and pump prime private investment and demand.

"The economy has shown strong resilience to come out of the effects of the pandemic with high growth. However, we need to sustain that level to make up for the setback of 2020/21," she said.

She announced spending of 200 billion rupees ($2.68 billion) for a highway expansion programme and said 400 new trains would be manufactured over the next three years.

The fiscal deficit for the current year would be 6.9% of GDP, slightly more than the 6.8% targeted earlier, Sitharaman said, drawing concern in the bond market.

For the next fiscal year, India is targeting a deficit of 6.4% of GDP, hoping to build on higher tax revenues and privatisation of state firms including a share sale of giant insurer Life Insurance Corporation.

“It’s a big bang budget, but depends on where one stands on the bang perimeter. The massive ramp-up of capital spending and focus on infrastructure cements the budget’s credentials as a firmly growth-oriented one," said Aurodeep Nandi, India Economist and Vice President at Nomura.

The 10-year benchmark bond yield surged 22 basis points to 6.87% from its pre-budget level, hitting levels last seen in early July 2019, while the rupee weakened to 74.8650 per dollar from 74.55.

Gross borrowing for 2022/23 was raised 40% to 14.95 trillion rupees. Gross borrowing by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has more than doubled during the pandemic as New Delhi went on a spending spree to cushion the economy and provide relief to poor.

"The sharp rise in bond yields after the budget announcement is testament to the surprise for bond markets, which now will need to absorb this large borrowing," said Nandi.

The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 stock index (.NSEI) gave up some early gains to trade 0.76% higher at 17,472.35 by 0809 GMT, while the S&P BSE Sensex (.BSESN) was up 0.88% at 58,522.42.

LESS AMBITIOUS ON PRIVATISATION

The government sharply reduced its plans about privatisation of state-run companies after political criticism and market turmoil, expecting to raise 650 billion rupees from the privatisation programme next fiscal year, lower than the revised 780 billion target for the current fiscal year.

Initially, it had announced it would raise 1.75 trillion rupees this fiscal year. After years of efforts the government succeeded in selling loss-making carrier Air India last month, but failed to move forward on other companies and banks identified for sale.

It is now banking on the IPO of giant insurer Life Insurance Corporation, expected in the next few weeks, to bring revenues and reinvigorate the privatisation programme.

CRYPTOCURRENCY

Sitharaman also said the central bank would introduce a digital currency in the next fiscal year using blockchain and other supporting technology.

"Introduction of a central bank digital currency will give a big boost to the digital economy. A digital currency will also lead to a more efficient and cheaper currency management system," Sitharaman said.

India's central bank has voiced "serious concerns" around private cryptocurrencies on the grounds that these may cause financial instability.

The government and the Election Commission have agreed to hold the civil polls in one phase on May 18 (Wednesday).

During a meeting held on Tuesday, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and ministers along with the office bearers of Election Commission agreed to hold the elections on May 18.

Prime Minister Deuba had proposed to hold the elections on May 18 and the Election Commission also agreed on the date.

Emerging from the meeting, Prime Minister Deuba said that the government would soon announce the date of elections and urged the poll body to make preparations to hold the polls.

“The Government and the Election Commission have agreed to hold the local level elections on May 18. The government will soon announce the date for the poll and urged the Election Commission to make preparations to hold the elections,” PM’s press coordinator Govinda Pariyar said.

Earlier, the Election Commission had proposed the government to hold the elections in two phases—April 27 and May 5.

India and Nepal on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for construction of a motorable Bridge over the Mahakali River connecting Dharchula (India) with Darchula (Nepal) under Indian grant assistance. 

The MoU was signed by Indian Ambassador to Nepal Vinay Moham Kwatra and Secretary at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport of Nepal Rabindra Nath Shrestha in the presence of Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport of Nepal Renu Kumari Yadav amid a programme this afternoon. 

The project will enhance cross-border connectivity between the Sudurpaschim province of Nepal and the Uttarakhand state of India across the Mahakali River.

This is in line with the priority shared by both the governments to expand cross-border connectivity for streamlining commercial, cultural and people-to-people exchanges. 

The construction of the bridge is planned to commence soon.

The government of Israel provided over half million syringes to Nepal to support immunization efforts.

The consignment of 5,63,000 syringes arrived via air freight on Tuesday.

Ambassador of Israel to Nepal Hanan Goder, handed over the syringes to the representatives of the Ministry of Health and Population of Nepal.

 “This is part of the international struggle against the pandemic. Israel is proud to cooperate with the Nepali efforts in this struggle,” Ambassador Goder said.

The Embassy of Israel is happy to share humanitarian aid with the people of Nepal as an act of solidarity between our two nations. We believe that this gesture would contribute to meeting 2022 Vaccination targets and bringing the pandemic under control, read a statement issued today.

Youth Association Nepal, youth wing of the main opposition CPN-UML, on Tuesday filed a case at the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) against Health Minister Birodh Khatiwada. 

Issuing a statement, the YAN has demanded action against Minister Khatiwada among others for embezzling Rs2.4 billion from the state coffers by squandering 2.4 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine. 

“The YAN demanded stringent action against Minister Khatiwada among others for embezzling Rs 2.4 billion from the state coffers,” the statement read. 

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said that the local level elections will be held by May 19.

He said that preparations are underway to hold the elections by the third week of May without amending the constitution and Act. 

Prime Minister Deuba said so during a meeting with the newly elected office bearers of the Nepali Congress Bagmati Province. 

The term of the representative of the local levels is expiring on May 19 as per the Act. 

The Prime Minister said that the election will be held before the expiration of the tenure of the elected people’s representatives. 

 Earlier, the ruling coalition had decided to hold the local elections by mid-June.