Submit your Article

Saraswoti Nepali, who has been pitching for the rights of the marginalized communities in Nepal, has received the United States Department of State's 'Global Anti-Racism Champions Award (GARC)' for this year.

The Kathmandu-based US Embassy said that the award has been conferred on Nepali as the Chairperson of Dalit Samaj Bikas Munch in recognition of her more than two-decade advocacy for the human rights of excluded groups, poor and people with disability in Nepal.

It has been learnt that many Dalit families of rural western districts of Nepal have obtained legal right over the land ownership as a result of her efforts.

Chairperson Nepali has won several cases against the caste-based discrimination in the pursuit of justice.

Her contribution to the campaign of dignity and equality is an epitome of courage and dedication.

The death toll from recent flooding in and around China’s capital Beijing has risen to 33, including five rescuers, while 18 other people remain missing, officials said, as much of the country’s north remains threatened by ongoing heavy rainfall, Aljazeera reported.

Record downpours have hit China’s capital in recent weeks, damaging infrastructure and deluging swaths of the city’s suburbs and surrounding areas.

Officials said on Wednesday that 33 people had died and 18 others were missing after the recent bad weather in Beijing, mainly due to flooding and buildings collapsing.

Days of heavy rain hit areas in Beijing’s mountainous western outskirts especially hard, causing the collapse of 59,000 homes, damage to almost 150,000 others and flooding of more than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of cropland, the city’s government said on Wednesday.

Many roads were also damaged, along with more than 100 bridges, Xia Linmao, a Beijing vice mayor, said at a news conference, according to Aljazeera.

“I would like to express my deep condolences to those who died in the line of duty and the unfortunate victims,” Linmao told reporters, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said Typhoon Doksuri hit China more than a week ago but the extent of the devastation brought by flooding and building collapses is emerging only now.

“This is the worst natural disaster to high the capital in years. The last time a storm of this scale occurred was in 2012,” Yu said, noting that areas hit hardest more than a decade ago – when almost 80 people died – were against the worst affected by the recent typhoon.

“Difficult questions are now being raised as to why lessons from that previous storm were not learned, and why buildings and roads were not reinforced, and why this damage has happened yet again,” Yu said.

Other parts of China have also seen heavy flooding, with many reported killed by flood waters across northern China, which has been battered by heavy rain since late July, disrupting the lives of millions.

Officials in Beijing said last week that 147 deaths or disappearances last month were caused by natural disasters. Of those, 142 were caused by flooding or other geological calamities, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said, Aljazeera reported.

In Hebei province, which neighbours Beijing, 15 were reported to have died and 22 were missing. And in northeastern Jilin, 14 died and one person was reported missing on Sunday.

Further north in Heilongjiang, state media reported that dozens of rivers had seen water levels rise above “warning markers” in recent days.

China’s deadliest and most destructive floods in recent history were in 1998, when 4,150 people died, most of them along the Yangtze River.

In 2021, more than 300 people died in the central province of Henan. Record rainfall inundated the provincial capital of Zhengzhou in July of that year, turning streets into rushing rivers and flooding at least part of a subway line.

Other areas in China are also suffering from the scorching summer heat and drought, which is threatening residents’ health and crop harvest.

Police have nabbed two persons for sexually harassing a juvenile through social media.

The Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police made public Samir Tamang and Suresh Tamang of Indrawati Municipality in Sindhupalchowk for sexually harassing a minor girl through social networking sites.

The duo had befriended the juvenile through Facebook and were falsely trapped in a love affair. 

Later, they were found to have morphed the photo of the minor girl with lewd pictures, circulating them across the social networking sites.

They were also charged with torturing the girl through video-calls, said Spokesperson and Superintendent of Police (SP), Pashupati Kumar Ray.

In a case filed in the District Court, Kathmandu against the duo demanding maximum action against them under the Electronic Transaction Act-2063 BS, the court remanded both accused in custody for five days for further investigation.

Doctors at Nepalgunj Medical College Teaching Hospital have removed a one kilogram tumor from the uterus of a female patient. The surgery was performed by a team led by gynecologist Dr Yubaraj Karki.

“Her tumor weighed 1.7 kg. There were other 10-12 tumors of 10 grams to 300 grams. All of them have been removed by surgery,” said Dr Karki. 

The patient, who hails from Rajapur Municipality, Bardiya, had been living with the tumors for the past five years at least. Doctors in Kathmandu had discovered a tumor in her body during an ultrasound examination four years earlier. 

“The doctors had said that there was a tumor when I was pregnant with my son. The stomach used to ache when the child was growing inside me. My lower abdomen used to ache a lot,” recalled the woman.

She was advised to undergo a surgery to get her tumor removed, but she could not afford the fee at the time. She finally decided to seek medical help after suffering severe stomach pain and profuse menstrual bleeding. Considering her financial background, the hospital decided to perform the surgery for free. The Annapurna Post, sister publication of The Annapurna Express, also played a crucial role to facilitate her surgery. 

“I got a new life after the surgery,” said the woman, thanking everyone who helped her get a free surgery.  

Kumar Adhikari, head of the hospital administration, said in case of poor patients, the hospital has been conducting surgeries with discounts ranging from 10 percent to 100 percent.

He also informed that the hospital has given free health services to 9,171 people from Banke, Bardia, Kailali, Dang and Surkhet districts in the fiscal year 2022/23.
“We gave discounts worth Rs 26.5m on surgeries, health checkups, ICU, NICU, beds and medicines in the fiscal year 2022/23,” said Adhikari.