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Newly elected Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City Balen Shah held a meeting with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba at the latter's residence in Baluwatar on Wednesday.

Congratulating Shah on his election to the top post of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Prime Minister Deuba expressed his commitment that the government and Nepali Congress will help in the good works of the Metropolitan City.

"You did a miracle. I am happy. You will have our full support during the five year term," he said.

Saying that the Nepali Congress has a majority in the executive of the metropolis, Deuba said that the party would help him in the development works.

"Use any kind of measures to manage the waste. You will have the support of the center, government, ministry and Department of Roads," the Prime Minister said.

In response, Mayor Shah said that he is ready to move ahead in coordination with the Nepali Congress in the metropolis.

The Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) has urged the government of Japan to consider industrial investment in Nepal.

In a meeting with Japanese Ambassador to Nepal Yutaka Kikuta by the Chamber’s delegation today, Chamber’s President Rajendra Malla urged the Japanese government to create enabling environment for Japanese investment in Nepal’s hydropower, road and tourism sector.

President Malla shared, “Nepal has recently made a number of policy reforms to provide security to foreign investment. The government of Nepal has announced in its recently unveiled budget for upcoming fiscal year that it would provide land on lease for 50 years. We are committed towards providing security to Japan’s investment in Nepal.”

He urged the Japanese envoy to Nepal to set up industries in Nepal to manufacture products that were high in demand abroad and are used domestically to help reduce trade deficit with between Nepal and Japan.

Stating that the land price and labour cost were less costly in Nepal, Malla appealed with the Japanese Ambassador to consider setting up factories in Nepal and to trade with India and China among others.

“We would like to further advance ties between Nepal and Japan through commercial activities,” he said.

It’s been 66 years since Nepal and Japan entered diplomatic relations. Japanese government has been extending its financial and technical support to Nepal through various donor agencies such as JICA and others.

Furthermore, Malla appraised Japanese envoy Yutaka that the government of Nepal had highly prioritized agriculture sector in the forthcoming budget and requested the Japanese Ambassador to take initiative to introduce Japanese technology to Nepal’s agriculture sector.

During the meeting, Japanese envoy Yutaka said that the bilateral ties between Japan and Nepal was ‘historic’ and ‘strong’ and the Japanese government wanted to bring it further closer at people-to-people level.

He also reaffirmed his commitment to continuation of collaboration with Nepal in socio-economic level.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reportedly dispatched 30 warplanes to the vicinity of the island of Taiwan on Monday, the same day a US senator arrived on the island for a surprise visit, and also at the same time the US Navy was holding dual carrier drills not far away from the region, Global Times reported.

With most of the aircraft involved being fighter jets, the PLA practiced the seizure of air superiority and aerial strikes in a simulation of reunification-by-force, thus warning the parties involved in the US-Taiwan collusion that the PLA has the capacity to launch a lightning-quick assault that would end the Taiwan question once and for all when necessary, experts said on Tuesday.

The 30 PLA warplanes featured in the mission were two KJ-500 early warning aircraft, four Y-8 electronic intelligence aircraft, a Y-8 electronic warfare aircraft, a Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, six J-16 fighter jets, eight J-11 fighter jets, four J-10 fighter jets, two Su-35 fighter jets and two Su-30 fighter jets. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s self-proclaimed southwest air defense identification zone between the Dongsha Islands and the Taiwan island on Monday, said Taiwan’s defense authority on Monday.@, according to Global Times.

This was the second largest PLA aircraft activity in 2022, after 39 sorties on January 23. It also marked the first time in a long period that the PLA Air Force’s Su-35 has made a public reappearance, observers said.

On the same day, US Senator Tammy Duckworth and her delegation arrived on the island of Taiwan for a surprise three-day visit, media on the island reported. Duckworth is reportedly scheduled to meet with Taiwan’s regional leader Tsai Ing-wen and others on Tuesday.

The PLA warplane activities also came shortly after two US aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Ronald Reagan, reportedly held drills on Saturday and Sunday in waters to the southeast of Okinawa, a strategic location analysts said is a main maritime battlefield if the US militarily intervenes in a possible conflict across the Taiwan Straits.

While the PLA aircraft sorties are part of the regular drills, they are also pointed at Taiwan secessionists and external interference forces like the US, analysts said.

Most of the PLA warplanes dispatched in the drills were fighter jets, and the rest were special-mission aircraft. This means the PLA likely rehearsed the seizure of air superiority from the island’s air force and the US carrier-borne aviation force, a Beijing-based military expert told the Global Times on Tuesday, requesting anonymity, Global Times reported.

Some of the fighter jets tend to being pure air superiority fighters, like the J-11 and the Su-35, while some others tend to being more of a multi-role type that can also launch attacks on ground and maritime targets, like the J-16 and the Su-30, the expert said. The expert noted that the special-mission aircraft can provide command and control as well as intelligence and electronic warfare support.

All types of aircraft will join combat, and that is why they all need to train in drills, the expert said.

It is possible that Taiwan’s defense authority failed to identify all PLA aircraft under strong electronic interference or because of stealth capabilities from warplanes like the J-20, observers said.

Flight data released by Taiwan showed that the PLA likely practiced several waves of non-stop aerial strikes, Zheng Jian, director of the National Taiwan Studies Association and chair professor at the Taiwan Research Institute of Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Drills like this tell the island that when the PLA makes a real move, it will likely be a sudden attack that can put an end to the Taiwan question once and for all, Zheng said. If and when that happens, there would be even more warplanes, in addition to forces on the ground, at sea and in cyberspace, he said, according to Global Times.

The PLA staged in May at least two more large-scale drills around the island of Taiwan targeting collusive US-Taiwan activities, according to official announcements made by the PLA.

Lawmakers taking part in the general deliberations on the annual estimate of income and expenditure (budget) for fiscal year 2022-23 in a session of the National Assembly today insisted on an objective analysis of the budget.

Jitendra Narayan Dev of the Nepali Congress said the budget should not be criticized for the sake of criticism alone. He insisted on developing a culture of calling a spade a spade while commenting on the budget.

He argued that there is interrelation between the principles, policies and programmes of the government and the budget. The budget emphasizes on attracting the foreign direct investment, defining the private sector as the engine of development and on research and innovation.

CPN (Unified Socialist)'s Dr Beduram Bhusal said the first budget of the coalition government is better than the budgets of the past few years. The budget talks about transformation of agriculture and bringing about economic transformation through cooperatives, private and public sectors, he pointed out. 

CPN (Maoist Center)'s Ganga Kumari Belbase opined that the slogan of economic stability, promotion of entrepreneurship and inclusive development contained in the budget were relevant ones. "It is a positive aspect of the budget that it has laid emphasis on making the country self-sufficient in agriculture by facilitating irrigation, fertilizer and seed to farmers," she added.

Besides, the budget has incentivized small, cottage and big industries and it should not be criticized for the sake of it.

CPN (UML) lawmaker Devendra Dahal said the government should not include 'unfeasible' programmes in the budget as the coming year is the election year and there is risk of an economic crisis. 

Pramila Kumari, Shekhar Kumar Singh, Tula Kumar Bishwokarma, Sumitra BC, Nara Bahadur Bista, Ram Chandra Rai, Jaga Prasad Sharma, Bhagawati Neupane, Maya Prasad Sharma, Bina Pokhrel and Narayan Dutta Mishra, among the lawmakers also put their views on several aspects of the budget.