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The national flag carrier, Nepal Airlines, has decided to conduct three flights in a week from Kathmandu to Narita, Japan from May 1. Currently, two flights are conducted in a week to Narita.

The NA is conducting the flights on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday.

In a press release issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), there will be 140 passengers on the flight conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday while only 120 on Friday. It added that passengers’ demand was growing in the wake of the subsided state of COVID-19.

The airfare for Kathmandu-Narita is Rs 152,000 including tax in business class and Rs 119,000 in economy class. If anyone is found selling the ticket taking more than fixed airfare, he/she would be taken action, CAAN made it clear.

The seventh memorial day of the Gorkha earthquake is being observed across the country by organizing various programs.

On 25 April, 2015, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit the country with its epicenter in Gorkha’s Barpak.

The disaster killed approximately 9,000 people and injured over 22,000 others. It damaged over 800,000 private houses and 1500 cultural heritages.

Districts including Gorkha, Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kavrepalanchok, Sindhupalchok, Dolakha, Ramechhap, Nuwakot, Dhading, Rasuwa, Makawanpur, Sindhuli and Okhaldhunga—were affected the most by the quake.

Observation of the quake memorial day aims to make people aware about earthquake safety, it has been said.

The Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) has resumed distributing water of the Melamchi River in the Kathmandu Valley from today.

Minister for Water Supply, Umakant Chaudhary  inaugurated the re-distribution by turning on a valve at Kathamandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) Baneshwor branch office today.

According to the KUKL, it plans to supply 50 million litres of water pumped from the Sindhupalchowk-based Melamchi River.

The water will be supplied from just two KUKL branches at Mahankal Chaur and New Baneshwor today and the distribution coverage will be extended gradually.

Melamchi water supplies got halted due to rain-caused damages on the project in last July.

On the occasion, Minister Chaudhary said the water supplies resorted as per the commitments he made while assuming the post.

As he said, some of the damaged water project structures are yet to be resorted and the supply was made possible through the diversion technology for the time being.

The minister informed the Asian Development Bank, the development partner of Nepal, is carrying out a study in detail in regard with damages on the source's upper coastal area.

He said the project structures damaged by the massive flooding on June 1 last year will be repaired in coordination of all the agencies concerned after the study report is submitted. "An early warning system has been installed at the project site in Melamchi to prevent flood damages," he said.

Ministry secretary Suresh Acharya shared that water has been brought from the Melamchi river through a temporary process for the time being.

Water would be distributed from 10 reservoirs in the Kathmandu Valley. He added that water from the Bagmati river would be distributed if the Melamchi project tunnel had to be closed during the monsoon.

Kathmandu Upatyaka Water Supply Management Board executive director Sanjeev Bikram Rana said unlike last year water from the Melamchi would be distributed to Bhaktapur as well this time. As he said, water would be distributed to every house in a gap of one or two days.

Chief of the Project Implementation Directorate, Rajendra Sapkota informed that the Directorate has constructed the structures necessary for supplying water from Sundarijal to the houses of the consumers. According to him, the construction of the required structures has been completed.

KUKL chief executive officer Milan Shakya said although water was supplied for some time last year, it had to be stopped due to the damages caused by the massive flooding last year. He said the people are now hopeful of getting uninterrupted supply of water.

KUKL Baneshwor Branch chief Narayan Karna said the Branch has informed consumers about the distribution of water by publishing the time schedule.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has pledged to support Nepal in strengthening its health emergency preparedness and priorities of health sector.

Minister for Health and Population Birodh Khatiwada said this at a press meet organised here today to share information about WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus' recent three-day goodwill visit to Nepal and discussions held in course of the visit. The WHO Director General's visit concluded on Saturday.

Nepal received commitments from the WHO for the establishment of a maternity and child health cooperation center focused on oncology, for the development of Vector Borne Disease Training and Research Center as the WHO Southeast Asian Regional Center, for manufacturing of emergency drugs, for the establishment of health industry relating to surgery and for opportunities and capacity enhancement of Nepali health experts.

"Director General Tedros has his concern over the National Public Health Laboratory," the Minister said, adding that the WHO chief had expressed his interest for assisting Nepal in the development of an advance genomic lab, for getting required equipment and for the tests.

More, the WHO high-level delegation responded to issues put forth before it by Nepal positively and pledged to take them towards implementation phase with the preparation of a required action plan. Nepal has the WHO support and cooperation in its health sector.

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus paid a courtesy call on President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Friday.

During the meeting held at the Office of the President in Shital Niwas today morning, President Bhandari extended thankfulness to the visiting WHO Director-General for evenly distributing vaccines against COVID-19 to all countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Health Organization’s leader and his delegation arrived in Nepal on Thursday on a three-day official visit to Nepal at the invitation of Minister for Health and Population Birodh Khatiwada.

According to President Bhandari’s press advisor Tika Dhakal, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros briefed Bhandari about their contribution to the health sector and commended Nepal’s success in vaccinating as many as people against COVID-19.

Expressing his interest in the health policy of Nepal, the visiting top leader of the United Nations’ Health Agency appraised the President of WHO’s assistance to Nepal, informed Dhakal.

The WHO high official has already held meetings with the National Assembly Chairperson Ganesh Prasad Timalsina, Health Minister Khatiwada and Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Narayan Khadka on Thursday.

His delegation includes Dr Poonam Khetrapal, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia, and other high-ranking officials of the WHO.

Nepal has witnessed an increase in export by 69.44 per cent in the last nine months of the current fiscal year 2021/22 as compared to last year.

According to the statistics unveiled by the Department of Customs, the export of domestic products since mid-July, 2021 to mid-April was recorded at over Rs 160.57 billion against over Rs 94.76 billion during the same period last year.

Similarly, import has also witnessed an increase of 31.97 per cent in the first nine months of the current fiscal year against last year which amounts to over Rs 1466.66 billion.

Import of foreign goods and food items worth Rs 1,111.39 billion was recorded during the same period last fiscal year.

Trade deficit up by 28 per cent

Likewise, the trade deficit went up by 28.47 per cent to over Rs 1450 billion during the first nine months of the current fiscal year against Rs 1016.62 billion during the same period last fiscal year.

Similarly, the country’s foreign trade in the first nine months of the current fiscal year increased by 34.91 per cent.

During this period, the country witnessed the foreign trade worth Rs 1627 billion according to the Department of Customs. The data shows that during the corresponding period last fiscal year, foreign trade worth Rs 1206 was reported.

According to the trade statistics of the first nine months of the current fiscal unveiled by the Department, Nepal imported petroleum products that include diesel, petrol and cooking gas worth Rs 200 billion. Diesel has the highest contribution to the import as the country had to pay over Rs 105 billion for its import alone followed by over Rs 47.23 billion for petrol.

LPG (cooking gas) worth over Rs 45.34 billion was imported during the period. Similarly, soybean oil worth Rs 45.58 billion, palm oil worth over Rs 32.4 billion, vaccines worth over Rs 31.85 billion and gold worth over Rs 28.54 billion were imported during nine months.

Import from 162 countries

As per the data, goods worth over Rs 1,466 billion were imported from 162 countries during the first nine months.

Nepal imported goods of the highest amount worth Rs 917 billion from India while it exported goods worth Rs 127 billion during the nine months. Nepal bears a trade deficit amounting to Rs 773 billion with India during the period.

China is the second-largest trade partner of Nepal and Nepal imported goods worth over Rs 211 billion from China whereas it exported Rs 628 billion during the first nine months. Nepal has a trade deficit amounting to Rs 210 billion with China.

The entire preparations have been completed for the Secondary Education Examination (SEE), 2078 BS scheduled to kick off at 8 am from tomorrow across the country.

It may be noted that the National Examinations Board had recognized schools' internal assessments of students for SEE results of two consecutive previous years (2076 and 2077 BS) due to COVID-19 crisis.

But the SEE for the academic year 2078 BS (2021-22) is taking place with the physical presence of students. Board Chair Mahashram Sharma said general health protocols are to be followed in the exam halls. He said all districts have already received materials required for conducting the exams including question papers and answer sheets.

Controller of SEE Examination, Arjun Rayamajhi informed RSS that there were 2,007 exam centers for SEE across the country. A total of 514,967 students: 257,053 girls and 157,914 boys from 11,615 schools will be attending the exam towards the regular category.

Likewise, 11,454 students will be sitting in the exam for grade improvement that has been halted since the past two years and 14,564 students towards technical streamline will be appearing in the exam.

This time, the least 43 SEE students are from Manang. Similarly, 20 students from a school operated by a Nepali in Japan will be sitting in the exam.

Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya today said the tendency of weakening election integrity and contaminating poll-related activities could not be democratic.

Initiatives have been taken to create conducive environment for holding the May 13 local election in a fair, fearless and disciplined way and such efforts should not be doubted, he said at an event organised today here by the Election Commission. The programme was supported by the Press Council Nepal and the Federation of Nepali Journalists.

"It feels that there have somehow been difficulties in carrying out electoral reforms effectively due to the culture of not entertaining changes and taking them personally," he said.

Electoral reforms have been implemented only after discussion with stakeholders, he clarified. "We have decided to organise the local poll in a single phase and on a single day.

Elections after 1991 have not been held in a single phase and a single day. This could result in organising the poll in a fair, free, impartial way."

He explained, the EC took the risk of allocating election symbols to the parties except those with national recognition to pave the way for them to participate in the election despite a clear legal provision to this effect missing. "The decision was new for us (the EC team)."

According to the Chief Election Commissioner, political parties have been advised that the implementation of the Article 38 (4) that provides women the right to participate in all bodies of the state on the basis of the principle of proportional inclusion and Article 42 which is about the right to social justice would help enhance women's representation, participation and inclusion in the election.

Stating that election was becoming extravagant and the poll ran the risk of being influenced by money and resources instead of party principles and ideologies, he said the EC had fixed a ceiling for election expenditure for the same reason.

He said the Election Code of Conduct was drafted acting on the suggestions from all bodies concerned as the EC hoped to see its effective implementation. "Its monitoring will be carried out through the participation of all bodies concerned.

Acknowledging the contribution of media in taking the nation towards the election process, he urged mediapersons to fully comply with journalists' code of conduct and election code of conduct. "Media houses are expected to prove their professionalism, credibility, independence, fearlessness and to fulfil their responsibility towards citizens."

It has been proposed to ban the supply and consumption of alcoholic products during the electoral silence period to avert any untoward influence among voters, according to Thapaliya.

Council Chairperson Bal Krishna Basnet urged the media to fully abide by the journalists' code of conduct and election code of conduct.

He said, "It is the responsibility of all to follow the code of conduct. Media should play its role in covering the election in a free and fearless environment."

Similarly, FNJ President Bipul Pokharel opined that the media should play a significant role in taking voters to polling stations and helping to hold the election in a fearless manner.

Pokharel further said that journalists should actively show their neutrality during the poll.

On the occasion, an orientation on the issue of election code of conduct and news dissemination was given to photo journalists, online media journalists and journalists writing on election.

Under-Secretary of the EC, Kamal Bhattarai, gave a presentation on the 'Election Code of Conduct-2022 Implementation and Collaboration with Photo Journalists'.

Similarly, photo journalist Bikas Rauniyar gave a presentation on 'Photo Journalism: Past and Future' and photo journalist Bikas Karki on 'Election related News Collection, Reporting and Photo Journalism'.

Likewise, senior journalist Hari Bahadur Thapa presented a working paper on 'Election related News Collection and Reporting', EC Under-secretary Surya Prasad Aryal presented on 'Election Code of Conduct-2022 and media sector' and media expert Kiran Chapagain on 'Prevention of Misinformation and Hate Speech and its possible impacts on election'.