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Lee Jae-myung of the liberal Democratic Party has been elected South Korea’s 21st president, according to the National Election Commission. With 94.4 percent of votes counted, Lee secured 48.8 percent, while Kim Moon-soo of the conservative People Power Party received 42.0 percent. Even if all remaining votes are counted for Kim, Lee’s victory is assured, Xinhua reported.

Voter turnout reached 79.4 percent, the highest in 28 years, with over 35m of 44.39m eligible voters participating, including early voters from the previous week.

President Ram Chandra Paudel has called for standing firmly against caste-based untouchability and discrimination.

The President stated this in his message of best wishes on the occasion of the National Day on the Abolition of Caste Discrimination and Untouchability today.

On this occasion, the President wished happiness, peace, and prosperity to all Nepali sisters and brothers residing in the country and abroad, stating that caste-based discrimination is a crime against social, moral, and human dignity.

In the message, he emphasised the need to strengthen national unity with equality by fostering mutual understanding, harmony, and cooperation among all castes and communities to promote social awakening and the development of equality, while firmly standing against caste discrimination and division to make the democratic state system meaningful.

The Head of the State has called on every individual, family, society, government bodies at all three levels, political parties, national and international non-governmental organizations, civil society, and journalists to be more sensitive against untouchability and racial discrimination.

Reminding of the constitutional provisions ensuring the building of society based on social equality and justice, he has stated that may the National Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and Untouchability inspire the relevant bodies to create a significant basis for the gradual end of all forms of discrimination and oppression based on economic, social, political, cultural, and ethnic grounds.

The President expressed that positive changes can be brought about in thinking, working style, customs, and social practices, as well as in behavior, by enhancing mutual unity, reconciliation, and harmony, to reduce the existing racial discrimination and untouchability in social behavior.

President Paudel has expressed his best wishes in the message for everyone to be inspired to build a cultured and equality-based prosperous nation free from racial discrimination and untouchability on the occasion of the National Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and Untouchability.

The National Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and Untouchability is marked on the 21st of the Nepali month of Jesth every year to commemorate the day when the government declared the country a 'caste discrimination-free nation' on Jeth 21, 2063 BS (June 4, 2006).

Transport entrepreneurs, who have brought public transport service to a halt across the country, have called off their protest programs.. 

Following a directive from the federal government, the Gandaki Province government decided to suspend the ride-sharing regulations for a month. 

The transport entrepreneurs had shut down public transportation services in protest against the regulations introduced by the Gandaki Provincegovernment.

An agreement was reached between the federal government and the transport entrepreneurs at midnight on Monday itself. However, transport entrepreneurs waited for the Gandaki provincial government to withdraw the regulations before calling off the strike. 

As a result, despite the agreement, the general public had to suffer with no public transport available.

President of the National Federation of Nepal Transport Entrepreneurs Bijay Swar said that the protest programs have been withdrawn and public transport service resumed from today itself. 

An agreement was reached after repeated talks between high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport Management and transport entrepreneurs on Monday. 

The agreement was forwarded to the Gandaki Province government through the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. 

Based on the recommendation from the federal government, the Gandaki government suspended the regulations for a month.

The Centre for Social Innovation and Foreign Policy (CESIF) organized a seminar on "Terrorism in South Asia and its Implications for Nepal" on June 2, 2025, at Kathmandu. The seminar discussed the persistent threat of terrorism in South Asia and its specific repercussions for Nepal, focusing on Nepal's vulnerabilities and the need for effective countermeasures. 

Speaking in the program, Former Foreign Minister and senior leader of Nepali Congress N.P said that terrorism in South Asia poses a serious spillover risk for Nepal, warning that “vulnerabilities are no longer only at others’ homes—we are also open to them.” 

The foreign minister highlighted systemic flaws in immigration management, referencing past lapses like the IC 814 incident, where Nepal failed to classify the perpetrators as terrorists or coordinate diplomatically with the country of origin of the terrorists. Parliamentarian Raj Kishore Yadav talked about ‘Nepal’s silence’ on the Pahelgam attack as a diplomatic misstep and lamented parliament’s continued failure to frame terrorism as a national issue.  Nepal should have been more assertive and explicitly sided with the victim side, he said. 

Shankar Das Bairagi, former national security advisor and foreign secretary emphasized Nepal’s normative commitments to international conventions but admitted that the implementation gap “depreciates our credibility.” He identified immigration, open border and intelligence as critical vulnerabilities and called for institutional reforms to enhance data sharing and deterrence capabilities. Former Ambassador Dinesh Bhattarai traced the ideological roots of South Asian terrorism to the differences in religion, and statistically noted, Hindus are the clear target. 

Binoj Basnyat, a strategic affairs analyst spoke about shifting nature of warfare in South Asia, shaped by technology, proxy conflicts, and big power rivalries, noting that Nepal’s counterterrorism efforts currently rely heavily on soft diplomacy but lack proactive mechanisms. “We must revisit the way our security is maintained,” he said, emphasizing that Nepal’s experience with past insurgencies does not adequately prepare it for emerging transnational threats. 

Former foreign secretary Madhu Raman Acharya strongly urged Nepal to take a principled stance on regional terrorism, particularly in cases like the Pahelgam attack, stating that “Nepal should have clearly sided with India” and used such incidents as diplomatic openings to build trust with India.