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Bollywood star Sunil Setty will star in the upcoming Nepali movie ‘X9’. Director Mukunda Bhatt, known for his film ‘Lappan Chappan’, announced the news through his Facebook.

Along with Shetty, Anmol KC, Pushpa Khadka, and Saugat Malla will also be a part of the film that is being marketed as ‘Nepal’s biggest action thriller’. It will be shot in Canada, Nepal, and some European countries. Produced by Golden Hills Picture, the film will be released sometime next year.

The International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) launched its Covid-19 emergency appeal as soon as the WHO declared coronavirus a public health emergency. It was a measure initiated to aid its National Societies across the world to support governments and vulnerable communities in their fight against the virus.

IFRC’s Head of Country Delegation in Nepal, Azmat Ulla, emphasizes how collaboration between the IFRC, the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) and the Nepal government helped make response efforts more efficient. “The Nepal Red Cross Society has been working closely with the Government of Nepal at various levels and with the help of its volunteers, relief and response have reached many people,” he says. Right through the pandemic, the IFRC and the NRCS have adopted a multi-pronged response to mitigate the pandemic’s damages.

The Nepal government and the Nepal Red Cross Society have had a long running synergy. 

To navigate the pandemic’s challenges, the NRCS worked in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Population to conduct health screenings in various parts of Nepal. In fulfilling its auxiliary function, the NRCS mobilized its extensive network of volunteers, providing technical support where necessary.

Rujina Joshi, Senior Health Program Officer, highlights how response efforts near borders were crucial. “After the country experienced the first wave, it became clear that health screening at the borders was important,” Joshi says.

Ulla speaks of the tricky task of monitoring multiple points of entry and an overwhelming movement of people. Despite such hurdles, NRCS helped set up monitoring posts in two major points of entry in Jhapa and Kailali during the second wave. It also ensured that there was easy access to its ambulances and blood banks, its flagship services.

Also read: Nepal Red Cross Society | Tailoring her way out of financial trouble

During the peak of the second wave, Nepal’s health infrastructure was inundated with Covid-19 patients and demands for vital supplies. Almost $3.5 million was raised to support Nepal Red Cross and its volunteer networks in strategic areas: prevention and dissemination, medical services including the supply of oxygen products, vaccination and socio-economic activities of the most vulnerable. The NRCS supported 154 isolation centers, distributed 291 oxygen concentrators, 600 cylinders and 17 ventilators to MoHP and NRCS’s local chapters. In addition, the NRCS also coordinated with Partner National Societies to collectively use resources more efficiently.

While these are all essential response efforts, Ulla is mindful that procuring and delivering vaccines to people across Nepal is of equal importance. “No one is safe until everyone is. This is why the Red Cross advocates impartial and equitable vaccination,” he says.

Recognizing vaccine inequity, the IFRC calls on governments to increase coverage and equitable use of vaccines. It signed an MoU with ‘Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’ and initiated dialogue early on with the United Nations to vaccinate frontline workers.

While working to procure vaccines, the NRCS was also laying the ground for vaccination awareness. Through radio and television, it was regularly broadcasting PSAs to ensure people had factual information about the vaccines. Ulla highlights examples of how NRCS volunteers have reached even remote areas on awareness activities. According to Joshi, NRCS awareness activities have thus far reached almost 4.8 million people across Nepal. 

The pandemic disrupted normal life for all but its socio-economic ramifications have been crippling particularly for a few groups, such as daily wage workers. For them, staying in during a lockdown means forgoing an opportunity to earn and sustain their livelihood. The NRCS provided economic aid in the form of conditional and unconditional cash assistance and also food packages to more than 23,000 such people.

One area that Ulla wants to work on is creating and strengthening synergies at all levels. “With enormous challenges also come enormous opportunities,” he says. An essential goal of the IFRC is to enhance the capacities of its National Societies. Owing to its difficult topography and the increasingly devastating effects of climate change, Nepal is vulnerable to floods and landslides. Every year, several communities are displaced and many lives are lost. The pandemic adds to the burden. According to Ulla, there is great need to build resilient communities and that is only possible through good partnerships and coordination.

In order to fortify its preparations to handle future outbreaks, the NRCS is already taking steps based on its experience so far, prioritizing the procurement of more funding and essential supplies. 

The NRCS is also preparing for a third wave of Covid-19 as restrictions are lifted and people return home during the festive season. It has been working to scale up border monitoring. After receiving more funding from international donors, the NRCS plans to increase COVID response activities in checkpoints in collaboration with the government and local authorities. It also plans on mobilizing more volunteers to make contact tracing more effective and to explore different capacities with local chapters to improve isolation-center management.

The country's central bank is turning a blind eye to corporate governance flaws in Sanima Bank, despite calling it out in its previous reports, it has been revealed.

The central bank, in its report for the bank two years ago, had said that the bank's big investors, board members and high-ranking officials facilitated big investments in other companies they are associated with.

However, two years after the report, the central bank is yet to take action against the bank, Jana Astha reports. According to the report, the central bank hasn't sent a monitoring mission in the past two years, despite the previous report's flags.  

Also read: Central bank flags NCC Bank’s wrongdoing

The NRB report had said that board members, investors and high-level officials of the bank invested in Sanima Hydropower, Sanima Mai Hydropower and Sanima Life Insurance companies in a possible conflict of interest. It was also found that cash was exchanged between board members, the head of the legal division and other officials.

The central bank has, however, remained mum on the issue. Board members of the central bank agree that action should have been taken against the bank based on the report.

Sanima Bank's CEO Bhuwan Dahal dismissed the report saying that it doesn't cite any provisions mentioned in the central bank's unified directives. He told Jana Astha that such reports don't have any standing.

Paddy farmers across the country have borne huge losses due to unexpected heavy rains immediately after the Dashain festival.

Although the monsoon usually recedes in the final week of September, it left Nepal only in the first week of October this year. Similarly, the westerly winds, which start to dominate the weather system, mostly in western Nepal from around November, set in early this year.

Thousands of farmers in Dang have had to face huge losses due to the rains. “The farmers had already harvested the paddy and were drying it in the sun when the unexpected rainfall started,” says Shyam Lal Chaudhary, a resident of Tulsipur Sub-metropolitan City in Dang.

A total of 39,000 hectares of land was being used for paddy cultivation in Dang this year. Officials hoped that production would increase this year after a fair amount of rainfall during the monsoon season.

“We are seeing rains across the country due to the interaction of the monsoon’s easterly winds and the westerly winds that come into Nepal during the winter,” says Meteorologist Indira Kandel. She says, normally, Nepal would experience dry conditions during the period as both the easterly and westerly winds are weak over Nepali skies and they seldom interact. However, this year, the late withdrawal of the monsoon and the early arrival of westerly winds led the two systems to interact and cause unexpected rainfall, she adds.

Also read: Fear of gods halt Mustang excavation

Paddy output is also expected to decline this year in Tanahun, where the rainfall adversely affected paddy production. “While the paddy being dried in the sun was drenched in the rain. Land on which the crop was being cultivated has been flooded,” says Rajendra Paudel, a resident of Byas Municipality-11.

The story of farmers in Shuklagandaki Municipality is also similar. The town’s head of agriculture Navraj Pandit says drenched harvest produces less grains even when dried in the sun. “We expect output to decline by around 20-25 percent this year,” says Kul Prasad Tiwari, head of Agriculture Knowledge Center, Tanahun.

Paddy farmers in other regions of the country, especially in the Tarai, are also reeling under the same problem. Although a nationwide assessment is yet to be carried out, officials expect national paddy output to fall this year due to the untimely rains.

According to meteorologist Kandel, the system has been moving west and causing rainfall in Nepal’s far-west region. On Monday, October 18, Dadeldhura received 168.8 mm of rain, Dipayal 95.3, and Dhangadhi 80. Alarms have been raised across the region after the Mahakali, a transboundary river between Nepal and India, was flooded due to heavy rains in its catchment area.

Want to enjoy good food at a lively restaurant at an affordable price? Try ‘Fork It’. Located in Baluwatar, Fork It Restaurant and Bar offers modern twists to traditional food, and with an artistic touch to their presentation.

Opened at the start of 2020, the restaurant has soon become a bustling hang-out place. Along with a modern industrial ambience and unique food, the other major attraction of Fork It is the upbeat environment created by live music. All in all, its frisky atmosphere and amazing food make it a perfect Friday-night location. Also on offer are home delivery services.

Fork It

Chef’s Special Dishes:

Crispy Chicken Burger
Lasagna
Flower Chicken Burger

Opening time: 12:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Location:Thisbam Sadak, Baluwatar
Meal for 2 - Rs. 1000
Phone pay - Yes
Reservation - Yes

The Nepali Congress General Convention, now scheduled for November 25-29 in Kathmandu, is likely to be postponed for the fourth time. The party, as stipulated in its charter, must hold the gathering of its biggest decision-making body every four years. The 2015 constitution of Nepal obliges all political parties to complete their general convention every five years. Yet it has been over five-and-a-half years since Nepali Congress held its last convention, in a clear breach of its constitutional obligation.

This inability of the country’s oldest-running democratic party is a bad omen. With even Congress failing to organize its most important gathering on time, other party leaders too could find a handy excuse to postpone their conventions. And excuses are a legion in Congress. Party President Sher Bahadur Deuba has kept putting off the convention fearing that his rivals are in the ascendancy. Covid-19 became another excuse. Now the biggest roadblock is the distribution of party membership, as top NC leaders look to give (and renew) memberships to their close ones while blocking the memberships of those close to rival factions.

Also read: Editorial: Devouring democracy

The bitter membership dispute has delayed NC’s ward and district-level conventions, which in turn has affected the scheduling of the national convention. This failure of the Congress party is indicative, above all, of the lack of internal democracy among Nepali political parties, which continue to be run like fiefs of a handful of leaders. And if these parties cannot practice even a semblance of internal democracy, they can hardly be expected to display better a democratic behavior on the national stage.

The only long-term solution to this perennial problem in Nepali politics is to constitutionally set strict term and age limits on party leadership. Once there is a natural churning of leadership at the top, the practice is bound to trickle down to the lower rungs of the party hierarchy. The question is: Who will take the risk of trying to bell the old cats in the national legislature to amend the constitution to this effect? In the meantime, the likes of Deuba and KP Oli will continue to play fast and loose with legal provisions to prolong their tenures.

Nepali National football team has returned home with the runner-up title from the 13th South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship held in the Maldives. 

The team reached the finals for the first time in 28 years but lost to India 3-0. 

The team landed at the Tribhuvan Airport on the morning of October 18. Members were welcomed by the Minister for Youth and Sports Maheshwor Gahatraj and representatives from the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA). Football lovers and supporters from all over the country, too, came to welcome and congratulate the team. 

The central bank has objected to Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank's decision to appoint three deputy CEOs. The bank, which entered into mergers with a number of development banks, went against the norms in the name of management of senior officials, the central bank has held.

Central bank officials who visited the bank's headquarters two years ago had flagged the issue, but NCC Bank hasn't rectified its decision, clickmandu.com reports. The bank appointed Bandana Pathal and Rewant Kumar Dahal to the position of deputy CEO two years ago. Sandeep Prasad Pandey was appointed to the same post just five days later.

Also read: Nepal SBI Bank misusing employee money

The central bank had directed NCC to consider the bank's size and the volume of its business before adding further financial burden on itself. The bank's decision to form eight different committees of board members has also not gone down well with Nepal Rastra Bank. The central bank requires that at least four such committees be established. But the bank has gone overboard and established eight committees.

The central bank's monitoring mission had also found that the management didn't maintain records of the board members' attendance in board meetings, and of the qualifications of board members. Similarly, all members of the board haven't signed the minutes of board meetings.