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President Donald Trump said he would speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday as he pushes to end the war in Ukraine, Associated Press reported. 

The U.S. leader disclosed the upcoming conversation to reporters while flying from Florida to Washington on Air Force One on Sunday evening.

“We will see if we have something to announce maybe by Tuesday. I will be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday,” Trump said. “A lot of work’s been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end.”

Any such conversation could be a pivot point in the conflict and an opportunity for Trump to continue reorienting American foreign policy. European allies are wary of Trump’s affinity for Putin and his hardline stance toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who faced sharp criticism when he visited the Oval Office a little more than two weeks ago.

Although Russia failed in its initial goal to topple Ukraine with its invasion three years ago, it still controls large swaths of the country.

Trump said land and power plants are part of the conversation around bringing the war to a close, according to the Associated Press. 

“We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” he said.

Trump described it as “dividing up certain assets.”

Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff recently visited Moscow to advance negotiations, and he said earlier Sunday that a call between Trump and Putin could come soon.

During his conversation with reporters on Air Force One, Trump said he was pushing forward with his plans for tariffs on April 2 despite recent disruption in the stock market and nervousness about the economic impact.

 “April 2 is a liberating day for our country,” he said. “We’re getting back some of the wealth that very, very foolish presidents gave away because they had no clue what they were doing.”

Trump has occasionally changed course on some tariff plans, such as with Mexico, but he said he had no intention to do so when it comes to reciprocal tariffs, Associated Press reported. 

 “They charge us and we charge them,” he said. “Then in addition to that, on autos, on steel, on aluminum, we’re going to have some additional tariffs.”

The 46th Central Secretariat meeting of the CPN-UML is taking place today.

According to UML's Publicity Department chief Rajendra Gautam, the meeting will be held to discuss the evolving political development and internal life of the party.

The meeting will be held at the UML central office in Chyasal, Lalitpur at 1 pm. 

Party chair KP Sharma Oli will preside over the meeting.

The National Examinations Board, Office of the Controller of Examinations has completed all preparations for the Secondary Education Examination.

Controller of Examinations at the Office of the Controller of Examinations, Grade 10 Nandalal Paudel, shared that all preparations have been completed for the SEE examination kicking off simultaneously across the country from March 20.

All necessary materials, including question papers, symbol numbers and answer sheets have reached every district for the examination, according to the Board.

Examination Controller Paudel said, "A total of 464,785 students had appeared in the SEE examination last year (2080). Number of students in this year's examination has increased by 49,286 to 5,14,071. The office has set up 2,079 examination centers across the country for this year's SEE examination.

There will be one assistant superintendent in an examination center with up to 150 students while one invigilator equivalent to 20 students will be deployed in the examination.

This time three out-of-school centers, including child improvement centers and prison have been determined for the SEE.

Paudel further said arrangements have been made to give the examination to the students from two jails in Kathmandu and Dailekh and a child care home in Bhaktapur.

This year the SEE is scheduled to begin on March 20 and conclude on April 1. The exam will be held from 8 am to 11 am, the office of the examination controller informed.

The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling, Associated Press reported.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.”

The acronym refers to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual proclamation that was released Saturday

In a court filing Sunday, the Department of Justice, which has appealed Boasberg’s decision, said it would not use the Trump proclamation he blocked for further deportations if his decision is not overturned.

Trump sidestepped a question over whether his administration violated a court order while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening.

“I don’t know. You have to speak to the lawyers about that,” he said, although he defended the deportations. “I can tell you this. These were bad people.”

Asked about invoking presidential powers used in times of war, Trump said, “This is a time of war,” describing the influx of criminal migrants as “an invasion.”

Trump’s allies were gleeful over the results.

“Oopsie…Too late,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who agreed to house about 300 immigrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his country’s prisons, wrote on the social media site X above an article about Boasberg’s ruling. That post was recirculated by White House communications director Steven Cheung, according to the Associated Press. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated an earlier deal with Bukele to house immigrants, posted on the site: “We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said that Boasberg’s verbal directive to turn around the planes was not technically part of his final order but that the Trump administration clearly violated the “spirit” of it.

“This just incentivizes future courts to be hyper specific in their orders and not give the government any wiggle room,” Vladeck said.

The immigrants were deported after Trump’s declaration of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has been used only three times in U.S. history.

The law, invoked during the War of 1812 and World Wars I and II, requires a president to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

Venezuela’s government in a statement Sunday rejected the use of Trump’s declaration of the law, characterizing it as evocative of “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”

Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation’s economy came undone during the past decade. Trump seized on the gang during his campaign to paint misleading pictures of communities that he contended were “taken over” by what were actually a handful of lawbreakers, Associated Press reported. 

The Trump administration has not identified the immigrants deported, provided any evidence they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua or that they committed any crimes in the United States. It also sent two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang to El Salvador who had been arrested in the United States.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Nepal to strengthen its financial regulations following its recent inclusion on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gray list. The call comes as the IMF approved a $41.8m disbursement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), bringing total disbursements to $289.1m in support of Nepal’s budget and economic recovery efforts.

The ECF arrangement, approved in Jan 2022 for about $372.2m, has facilitated Nepal’s economic recovery while ensuring macroeconomic and financial stability. Despite these efforts, the country faces challenges, including subdued domestic demand and the impact of the Sept 2024 floods.

The IMF projects Nepal’s economic growth at 4.2 percent for FY 2024-25, supported by increased capital spending on reconstruction, an accommodative monetary policy, and additional hydropower generation. Inflation is expected to remain close to the Nepal Rastra Bank’s target of five percent. However, risks such as under-execution of capital spending, financial-sector vulnerabilities, and political instability remain.

Bo Li, Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, acknowledged Nepal’s progress despite political and climate-related disruptions. He emphasized the importance of prudent fiscal policies, revenue mobilization, and structural reforms to sustain growth.

The IMF urged Nepal to continue fiscal consolidation while increasing capital spending and protecting vulnerable populations. It welcomed Nepal’s Domestic Revenue Mobilization Strategy and called for strengthening public investment management and fiscal transparency. On monetary policy, the IMF recommended a cautious, data-driven approach to maintain price and external stability. It also emphasized the need to amend the Nepal Rastra Bank Act to enhance governance and accountability.

The financial sector remains a key concern, with the IMF advising regulatory alignment with international standards and the development of a strategy to address weaknesses in savings and credit cooperatives. The Fund also stressed the urgency of strengthening Nepal’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing framework in light of its FATF gray listing.

The IMF further highlighted the need for structural reforms to enhance the business climate, improve governance, and strengthen anti-corruption institutions. Given Nepal’s vulnerability to natural disasters, it called for resilience-building measures to mitigate climate shocks.

MAK Lubricants marked International Women’s Day by organizing a women’s riders meet and two-wheeler rally under the theme ‘Accelerate Action: Her Day, Her Way’. The event, aimed at empowering female riders and promoting MAK’s high-quality lubricants, saw enthusiastic participation from women across various fields. The rally began at Sipradi Trading’s office in Thapathali, Kathmandu, and concluded at the Satdobato Swimming Complex, Lalitpur. Sipradi Trading, the sole authorized distributor of MAK Lubricants in Nepal, facilitated the event in collaboration with Bharat Petroleum.

The rally was flagged off by Sipradi Trading’s CEO Rajan Babu Shrestha, COO Rajesh Prasad Giri, Vice-president Saurav Raj Thapaliya, Head of Lubricants Department Dinesh KC, and Bharat Petroleum’s Country Head Mihir Jyoti Dutta. Popular female riders and influencers Surakshya KC and Barsha Basnet joined the event, alongside other passionate riders. The program featured games, recreational activities, and awareness sessions on MAK products, including MAK 4T Scootech NXT and MAK 4T NXT, which enhance engine performance and efficiency. The rally concluded with the distribution of certificates to participants and winners of various competitions held during the event.

Once, literature was a space where human existence was laid bare. Writers like Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, and Virginia Woolf used literature as a means of confrontation against society, against fate, against the self. They were not concerned with comfort, nor did they seek to fit their words into a marketable structure. Their works were messy, filled with contradictions, unresolved conflicts, and questions that had no answers. And that is exactly what made them real.

But somewhere along the way, literature changed. Today, the books that flood the shelves—especially those deemed “bestsellers”—often seem to lack that rawness. They are structured, polished, refined to the point where the discomfort of real human experience is dulled. The rise of genre-based literature has played a huge role in this shift, pushing storytelling towards entertainment rather than introspection. Thriller, romance, fantasy, sci-fi—all of these genres, while capable of producing great literature, have been streamlined into formulas that prioritize readability over depth, satisfaction over struggle, and marketability over meaning.

The literary greats were not obsessed with readability or how many copies they could sell. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment does not spoon-feed the reader a neat resolution—it drags you through the guilt, paranoia, and internal torment of Raskolnikov. Camus’ The Stranger presents a protagonist who feels nothing the way society expects him to, and for that, he is condemned. Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse meanders through thoughts and consciousness, often without a clear direction, because that’s how human minds work. These books are challenging not just in their language but in their themes. They force the reader to wrestle with morality, alienation, the absurdity of life, and the inevitable decay of all things.

Now, compare that to the kind of books that dominate today’s literary market. Most follow clear story arcs—beginning, middle, and end—structured in a way that keeps the reader comfortable. It’s not that complexity has disappeared entirely, but it has been tamed. Even books that explore dark themes often do so in a way that is digestible for a wide audience. They hold the reader’s hand instead of letting them wander into the abyss alone. 

Rise of genre fiction and the death of rawness

A major turning point in the decline of raw literature was the rise of genre-based storytelling. This isn’t to say that all genre fiction is shallow—there have been deeply introspective sci-fi books, psychological thrillers, and poetic fantasy works. But the majority of what gets published under these categories follows rigid formulas.

In romance novels, characters have clear motivations, conflicts, and resolutions. In thrillers, there is an inevitable twist or revelation, and in most cases, the hero triumphs. In fantasy, world-building often takes precedence over existential depth. These genres have been shaped by reader expectations, and because publishers know what sells, they continue to push books that fit into these patterns.

There is an obsession with writing styles that are “clean” and “accessible.” But reality is not clean. Human emotions are not linear. Thoughts are not always beautifully structured. A truly great book should leave you unsettled, questioning, perhaps even changed. It should not just be something you consume; it should be something you wrestle with.

Why do we need unpolished literature?

The world itself is not neatly structured. Life does not follow a traditional narrative.  Life is not a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. People do not always grow, relationships do not always resolve, and meaning is not always found. The greatest literature has always embraced this reality. People act irrationally, events happen without reason, and most of our questions remain unanswered. The greatest literature has always reflected that disorder. It does not try to comfort us; it forces us to confront things we’d rather ignore. 

Books like Notes from Underground (Dostoevsky) or The Plague (Camus) show us the depths of human suffering, self-destruction, and isolation. Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf) immerses us in the fragmented thoughts of a mind burdened by time and memory. These works do not try to make sense of life for us; they simply present it as it is. That is what makes them timeless.

It’s not just that modern books are too polished—it’s that they’ve turned into brain rot. Instead of challenging readers, literature has become a tool for distraction, feeding people easily digestible, surface-level stories that keep them comfortable rather than forcing them to think. Romance tropes are the biggest offender. They are everywhere, infecting even genres that were never meant to be about love. Every story now seems to revolve around predictable relationships, characters written solely to be adored, and emotional payoffs designed to give readers a quick dopamine rush.

Shraddha Acharya

BSc IInd year

Padma Kanya Campus

Let the ocean take me away

To a place far beyond reach

To a land far away

Where noone has a place to be 

where life is laid out in an eternal plane

Where limits have no bounds 

Where dreams come alive

Where mortals come to die

A life in eternal bliss

Sound so pure

The voice of ignorance

Sounds so quiet

But don’t let them see beyond the walls 

Beyond the old wooden door

Don’t let them see the pain

The suffering of the world

Just live in this peaceful place

No violence or war to be heard

Just let the quietness drown you

Just let the nothingness consume you

Arnav Shrestha 

A Level

LA College