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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.

Opposition parties have criticized the government’s estimate of income and expenditure for the upcoming fiscal year 2022-23 as they termed it guided by a distributive approach. 

Taking part in the deliberations on the budget during a session of the House of Representatives (HoR) today, CPN-UML lawmaker Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal said the allocation of budget to respond the issues of landless people was positive, but it was focused on election and guided by the distributive mindset.  

Hridayesh Tripathi from the same party questioned the government to further clarify its plan to provide a contribution-based pension. As he assessed, farmers would not be directly beneficial from the announcement for increasing investment in agriculture.  

Rajendra Lingden of Rastriya Prajatantra Party said that the budget seemed not capable of intervening in a rising market price.  As he claimed, “The budget focused on elections and the distribution will not bring a substantive change in people’s life.”

Questioning the sources of income, he said the budget based on foreign aid and loans lacked a ground for implementation.   

Meanwhile, Rastriya Janamorcha’s Durga Poudel was of the opinion that just distribution of land was the requirement to promote agricultural production.  She pressed for national independence, sovereignty and interest while accepting foreign aid.  

As the lawmaker stressed, the government should take measures for protecting domestic industries. Drawing the government’s attention toward no allocation of specific budget for combating increasing violence against women, she demanded the government bear responsibility of livelihood of rape survivors.

The Chinese military has said it conducted a “combat readiness patrol” in the sea and airspace around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, Aljazeera reported.

In a statement, the People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theatre Command said the exercises had taken place in recent days and were “a necessary action” against what it described as “US-Taiwan collusion”.

“Recently, the United States has frequently made moves on the Taiwan issue, saying one thing and doing another, instigating support for Taiwan independence forces, which will push Taiwan into a dangerous situation,” the command added in a statement on Wednesday.

Taiwan this week reported the largest incursion by Chinese aircraft into its Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) since January with 30 planes, most of them fighter jets, entering the southwest of the ADIZ.

The incident took place as Tammy Duckworth, a US Senator, was visiting the island, according to Aljazeera.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that Beijing had “lodged solemn representations” with the US about her visit.

“We urge relevant US politicians to earnestly abide by the one-China principle, and immediately stop official exchanges with Taiwan in any form and refrain from sending any wrong signals to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces,” Zhao told a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon, according to the state-run Global Times.

“China will continue to take forceful measures to resolutely safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, a Beijing body, also warned in a press conference that it was “very dangerous” for the US to “connive in the separatist activities conducted by Taiwan secessionists”.

Known formally as the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan lies about 161 kilometres (100 miles) off the coast of mainland China. Once colonised by Japan, Chinese nationalists fled to the island after losing the civil war to the communists who established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing, Aljazeera reported.

The ROC continued to claim to represent all of China and even had a seat on the United Nations Security Council until 1971 when most countries, including the US, began to switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing instead of Taipei.

Since then, the US, under the Taiwan Relations Act, has been mandated to “preserve and promote extensive, close and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people of Taiwan”.

Washington also takes a more ambiguous view of “One China”.

For Beijing, “One China” is the pretext for its claim that Taiwan is simply a province of the mainland and not an independent state.

For the US, however, Taiwan’s status remains undetermined, according to Aljazeera.

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended a presidential pardongranted to a former legislator close to the Rajapaksa family convicted of murdering a rival politician and ordered his immediate return to jail in a landmark verdict, according to local media, Aljazeera reported.

A three-judge bench asked the police to arrest Duminda Silva, a former member of parliament who was facing the death penalty for a 2011 murder but was freed last June after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa granted him an amnesty.

The pardon drew widespread criticism, including from the United Nations human rights office and the United States ambassador in Sri Lanka, who said it undermined the rule of law in the South Asian nation, which is emerging from decades of war.

“The court fixed a further hearing for September 1, but wanted the police to carry out the interim order of arresting Duminda Silva and return him to jail,” a court official said.

He said the decision was given following an unprecedented challenge to the presidential pardon, according to Aljazeera.

Hirunika Premachandra, the daughter of former legislator Bharatha Lakshman – who was shot dead by Silva and his associates, filed the petition saying his release was illegal.

“This decision of the Supreme Court is historic,” Premachandra told the AFP news agency.

“No one has challenged a presidential pardon before and I am very pleased that the court has demonstrated its independence.”