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The Law, Justice and Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives endorsed the TRC bill on Thursday.

A meeting of the Committee held in Singha Durbar on Thursday endorsed the bill to Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act, 2071.

The political parties had forged an agreement on the disputed issues of the bill by forming a task force.

With the agreement on the disputed issues, the bill moved ahead after 18 years.

During the meeting, Committee President Bimala Subedi informed that the bill was endorsed unanimously.

She said that she would urge the Speaker to make arrangements to table the bill in the Parliament.

Subedi said that the bill is very important as the Nepali people have been waiting for it for a long time.

In the meantime, she remembered the late CPN-UML leader and former Speaker Subash Nembang.

She expressed her belief that the bill would provide justice as it is victim-friendly.

Bangladesh is set to get a new, interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus on Thursday, after weeks of tumultuous student protests forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India, Reuters reported.

Yunus, 84, Bangladesh’s only Nobel laureate and a harsh critic of Hasina, was recommended for the job by the student protesters who led the campaign against Hasina.

He was expected to be sworn in as chief adviser along with a team of advisers later on Thursday in an interim government which the army chief said may include 15 members, although discussions on the names continued till late on Wednesday.

Hasina’s Awami League party was not involved in all-party discussions led by army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, who announced Hasina’s resignation on Monday.

Her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy said in a Facebook post late on Wednesday that the party had not given up yet and was ready to hold talks with opponents and the administration.

“I had said my family will no longer be involved in politics but the way our party leaders and workers are being attacked, we cannot give up,” Joy said, according to Reuters.

Yunus is known as the ‘banker to the poor’ and was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for founding a bank that pioneered fighting poverty with small loans to needy borrowers.

He is due to arrive in the capital Dhaka from Paris on Thursday, where he had been receiving medical treatment.

“I’m looking forward to going back home and see what’s happening there and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble that we’re in,” Yunus said before he boarded a flight on Wednesday evening.

Hasina’s dramatic exit on Monday from the country she ruled for four terms - and was reelected to a fifth in January - triggered jubilation and violence across Bangladesh, as crowds stormed and ransacked her official residence unopposed.

She fled to neighbouring India where she is taking shelter at an air base near the capital New Delhi.

Student protests against quotas for government jobs spiralled in July, killing about 300 people and injuring thousands, as demonstrations were met with a violent crackdown that was criticised internationally although the government denied using excessive force.

The protests were fuelled by tough economic conditions and political repression as well.

After years of strong growth as the garment industry expanded, the $450 billion economy struggled with costly imports, inflation and unemployment and the government had sought a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

Yunus and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Hasina’s main political opponent, called for calm and an end to violence on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

“No destruction, revenge or vengeance,” said Hasina’s arch rival and BNP leader Khaleda Zia, 78, in a video address from her hospital bed to hundreds of her supporters at a rally in Dhaka on Wednesday.

Zia, who was released from house arrest on Tuesday, and her exiled son Tarique Rahman, addressed the rally and called for national elections to be held within three months.

On Wednesday, a court overturned Yunus’ conviction in a labour case in which he was handed a six-month jail sentence in January. Yunus had called his prosecution political, part of a campaign by Hasina to quash dissent.

“Let us make the best use of our new victory,” Yunus said.

The Nepal government has called for the Oman government to consider establishing its Embassy in Kathmandu.

Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal made the request in a meeting with the high-ranking officials of Oman on Wednesday.

In the first meeting of the Nepal-Oman Bilateral Consultation Mechanism held in Muscat, Foreign Secretary Lamsal emphasized on the need for collaboration in the areas of mutual interests.

During the meeting, the leaders of the delegation reviewed the whole gamut of bilateral relations and expressed satisfaction on the excellent state of relations existing between Nepal and Oman since 1977, informed the Muscat-based Nepali Embassy.

They discussed the bilateral relations and agreed to promote cooperation encompassing all sectors, especially the exchange of high-level visits, trade, investment, economic cooperation, agriculture, energy, tourism, labor and foreign employment, culture, education and direct air connectivity.

They expressed firm commitment to further enhance partnership in mutually agreed areas and to work together toward realizing economic opportunities for mutual benefits apart from creating more opportunities to promote people-to-people engagement.

Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal thanked the Government of Oman for providing employment to more than 21,000 Nepalis and emphasized on providing additional opportunities in view of His Majesty’s Oman Vision 2040 strategy.

She stressed the exploration of the untapped potential in economic, cultural and educational areas and proposed to establish meaningful collaborative partnership including in the private sector.

She further urged the Omani side to explore investment opportunities in Nepal including in hydropower, tourism and collaboration in the green hydrogen sector.

On the occasion, Undersecretary Sheikh Khalifa bin Ali bin Issa Alharthy expressed willingness to promote the cooperation between Nepal and Oman in all the mutually agreed sectors and hoped to conclude the pending MOUs.

He underscored the potential of the bilateral relationship and emphasized upon working together to realize the actual benefits and also mentioned about the positive and hardworking nature of Nepali workers.

Both sides shared views on maintaining the tradition of regular exchange of high-level visits.

They also expressed commitment to cooperate with each other at various multilateral forums including the United Nations.

Both the sides deliberated to enhance the existing state of excellent relations through diversification of engagements in multiple sectors.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary Lamsal paid a courtesy call on Dr Mahad bin Said bin Ali Baowain, Minister of Labor, Sultanate of Oman. Matters related to the mutual cooperation including MoU in the field of labor and human resource exchange, employment opportunity, among others were also discussed.

Nepal-Oman Bilateral Consultations Mechanism was established in 2017.

Next meeting of the mechanism will be held in Kathmandu on mutually convenient dates.

Top leaders of three major parties—Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, and CPN (Maoist Center)—have pledged to endorse the amendment bill related to the Transitional Justice Act through the current session of the House of Representatives. Prime Minister and CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, and CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal made this commitment while receiving a report prepared by a cross-party panel formed to address the contentious issues in the bill, particularly those related to serious human rights violations.

“I consider this a success achieved after the formation of the new government under Prime Minister Oli,” said Dahal after receiving the report. He added, “Now the bill, which is in the parliamentary committee, should be forwarded to the full House and endorsed through this session of Parliament.” A cross-party task force comprising Ramesh Lekhak from NC, Mahesh Bartaula from UML, and Janardhan Sharma from Maoist Center worked hard to forge consensus on the contentious issues of the Enforced Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act. According to Lekhak, who now heads the Ministry of Home Affairs, issues of reconciliation, reparation, and prosecution were addressed while considering the concerns of the victims.

Prime Minister Oli said that consensus was achieved considering the Supreme Court’s 2015 verdict, meeting international standards, and addressing the concerns of the victims. He added that the government would expedite tasks related to appointments in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP), two transitional justice mechanisms formed in 2015. Oli also said that there are no longer any ambiguities or confusions regarding the transitional justice laws. The international community has yet to react to the agreement reached among the three major leaders.

NC President Deuba remarked that Nepal would set an example in the international arena if the transitional justice process is amicably settled. He said that if the task force’s resolutions are endorsed by Parliament and war-era human rights cases are settled, it would send a positive message to the world. The TRC and CIEDP, formed in 2015 to address transitional justice mechanisms, have struggled due to the absence of laws in line with the Supreme Court’s 2015 verdict and international standards.

Over the past 10 years, the two commissions have made some progress. The TRC has registered 63,718 complaints, including 314 related to rape and sexual violence. Similarly, the CIEDP has recorded 3,000 complaints. Both commissions have completed preliminary investigations on some cases. However, in recent years, they have been without heads and members, rendering them virtually defunct. Their tenures are being renewed to prevent complete collapse.

Disputes among parties primarily revolve around how to address serious human rights violations committed during the insurgency era. The international community insists that there should be no amnesty for serious human rights violations. Although the three parties claim to have resolved the disputed issues, it remains to be seen how Parliament, the international community, and most importantly, the conflict victims will respond.