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Prime Minister and Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba and CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal held a meeting on Sunday. During the meeting at the Prime Minister's official residence, Baluwatar, matters related to the seat allocation in the House of Representatives and Province Assembly election among others were discussed, it has been said. It may be noted that the government has announced to conduct the voting for the twin elections on November 20 in a single phase. The top leaders of two major political parties met when a task force formed by the five ruling parties as per the agreement for an electoral alliance remained active for drafting a modality of the consensus.  NC leader Krishna Prasad Sitaula leads the taskforce. According to Govinda Pariyar, Press Chief to Prime Minister Deuba, party leaders are expected to remain busy in several rounds of talks and discussions throughout the day today in view of the elections.

There is a possibility of light to moderate rain with thunder and lightning in some parts of the country today. According to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, there is chance of light rain with thunder and lightning at few places of Province 1, Bagmati, Madhes, Gandaki and Lumbini Provinces today. Meanwhile, the weather forecasting division has said that the minimum temperature of Kathmandu Valley today will remain at 20.4 degrees and the maximum temperature at 29.0 degrees Celsius. Similarly, today the lowest minimum temperature is 15.3 degrees in Jumla and the maximum temperature is 35.0 degrees Celsius in Dipayal.

Heritage sites and tourist areas in Kathmandu were cleaned as a part of the ‘Clean Nepal, Green Nepal’ campaign. The campaign saw some 300 participants including Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Jeevan Ram Shrestha, Tourism Secretary Suresh Adhikari and the CEO of the Nepal Tourism Board Dr Dhananjay Regmi as well as local community engaging in cleaning of the heritage sites and tourist spots. The campaign has been launched by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation while today’s program was organized by the Ministry in association with the Nepal Tourism Board and Thamel Tourism Development Council. During the cleanup program, Basantapur, Asan and Thamel areas were cleaned using broom, gloves and traditional floor scrubber among others, shared Board’s senior director Hikmat Singh Aiyer. The campaign is part of the 73-point strategy issued by the Ministry to revive COVID-19-affected tourism sector of the country. All the heritage sites across the country will be cleaned gradually under the campaign for tourism promotion, added Aiyer. Council’s president Bhabishwor Sharma was hopeful that such activity would aid in revival of tourism in the country. The Council would honor those significantly contributing in this sanitation drive of Thamel, shared Sharma.

The Sudurpaschim Province Government has announced a public holiday today on the occasion of Gaura Parba. A meeting of the Council of the Ministers of the Sudurpaschim Province Government held Thursday decided to announce a public holiday for today in all the government and public institutions in the province, Spokesperson at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Law Bishnu Dutta Awasthi said. Earlier, different social organizations and political parties had criticized the provincial government for curtailing the public holiday being given on the occasion of Gaura Parba. Meanwhile, all nine local levels in the district of Kanchanpur have given a public holiday on Gaura Parba. Gaura Parba is a major festival of the Sudurpaschim Province and it is believed that Gauri Devi or Parbati got married to Lord Shiva Maheshwar as she observed fasting with devotion to get Lord Shiva. Since then, this festival is being observed in memory of the marriage of Gauri Devi and Lord Shiva Maheshwar. On the first day of the festival, the married women mark the beginning of the festival by soaking five types of grains in water in a copper pot. The collection of the five grains including wheat, peas, and black gram is known as Biruda in the local dialect. And, Biruda is received as Prasad. As per the tradition, the second day is a day of fasting during which the women prepare the portraits of Gaura Devi or goddess in the wee hours by visiting the source of water or well.

Vehicular movement along the Narayangharh-Muglin in Chitwan district has been obstructed from 8:00 this morning following landslides in two different places. DSP Bijay Raj Pandit of the District Police Office, Chitwan said that landslides at Kerabari and Atharakilo of the road section disrupted the vehicular movement. The landslides in both the areas are still taking place due to torrential rainfall. DSP Pandit said that coordination is going to clear the landslide and resume the traffic. A large number of vehicles have been stranded midway.

Weather across the country is likely to remain partly to generally cloudy throughout the day today with the possibility of light to moderate rainfall at many places of the country, according to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. The Department said that there is a chance of heavy rain at one or two places of Gandaki, Lumbini and Sudurpaschim provinces in the next 24 hours. People in those provinces have been asked to apply measures as daily life and transportation is likely to be affected due to flooding, landslide and soil-erosion due to heavy rain. Likewise, weather across the nation will remain partly to generally cloudy with the chance of light to moderate rainfall with thunderstorm and lightning at few places of Province 1, Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini provinces and at one or two places of the remaining provinces tonight. As per the latest details of Meteorological Forecasting Division, today's minimum temperature of the Kathmandu Valley is recorded at 20.8 degree Celsius and maximum temperature at 27.8 degree Celsius.

The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has said that it has to pay Rs 21 billion till August to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for the purchase of petroleum products. The amount to be paid to the IOC has gone up after the NOC failed to pay on time due to a heavy loss in the sale of petroleum products for a long. NOC's Spokesperson Binitmani Upadhyay said that accessible supply of petroleum products by clearing the dues to the IOC is a challenge for NOC. The government had doled out Rs 7 billion in loan to the NOC some weeks ago as the NOC had no money to purchase petroleum products after its reserve funds remained empty. Likewise, NOC had taken Rs 3 billion in loan from Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) to ensure easy supply of petroleum products. Meanwhile, the NOC has hiked the price of diesel and kerosene from Thursday midnight. Now, the diesel and kerosene will cost Rs 178 from Rs 172 per liter. However, the price of other petroleum products including cooking gas, petrol and aviation fuel is unchanged. The NOC claimed that it will witness Rs 610 million loss in a month even after the latest price adjustment on petroleum goods. The price of petroleum products has again started to go up in the international market for the past two weeks though it was in the decreasing trend in the previous weeks.

The CPN-UML has directed its subordinate committees to recommend the name of candidates within September 7 for the elections to the House of Representatives and Province Assembly scheduled for November 20. Inter-party directives issued by party Chairperson KP Sharma Oli on August 31 to the decisions of the fourth central committee meeting held on August 26 and 27 has determined September 7 as the deadline for the recommendation of candidates. The district and province committees should recommend the name of candidates to the centre with opinion in the recommendation of the party's constituency committee. Name of candidates should be recommended towards the proportional representation electoral system on the basis of inclusiveness and name of three candidates including a woman should be recommended from central level of party’s people's organisation.