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Vehicular movement along the Palpa-Butwal road section of the Siddhartha Highway has been obstructed following a landslide near Siddhababa Temple of Palpa on Sunday.

The Dobhan Police Post, Papla said technicians, dozers and excavators of Siddhababa Tunnel Construction Company China State Corporation have been mobilized to remove the landslide debris.

The construction company China State Corporation has been working continuously even in the rainy season.

Technicians have assumed that the landslide might have occurred due to the vibration of the machine.

Palpa police said that it would take some time to clear the debris.

Hundreds of vehicles leaving for Palpa, Gulmi, Syangja, Arghakhanchi, Parbat, Baglung and Kaski among others places have been stranded halfway following the landslide.

Siddharth Highway is the main highway to connect Pokhara from the Indian border Sunauli.

The Narayangadh-Muglin road section has been obstructed yet again today following a landslide near Kalikhola of Ichchhakamana Rural Municipality-6.

According to DSP Bijay Raj Pandit, spokesperson at the District Police Office, Chitwan, the landslide occurred at 9 am today, obstructing the vehicular movement.

He said that the efforts are on to resume the traffic by removing the landslide debris.

Vehicular movement along the road section has remained frequently disrupted due to the landslides time and again.

The World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is being marked today by organizing various programs in Nepal.

The international day is spectacular to raise awareness towards eliminating human trafficking and call on governments, law enforcement agencies and stakeholders to enhance their commitment to that end.

The day is being observed this year with the theme 'Reach every victim of trafficking, leave no one behind'.

In the context of trafficking in persons, leaving people behind means failing to end the exploitation of trafficking victims, failing to support victim-survivors once they are free from their traffickers, and leaving identifiable groups vulnerable to traffickers.

Trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad.

Almost every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims.

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs, the UN noted.

The World Day against Trafficking in Persons was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/68\192.

According to the United Nations, global crises, conflicts, and the climate emergency are escalating trafficking risks. Displacement and socio-economic inequalities are impacting millions of people worldwide, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers.

Those who lack legal status, live in poverty, have limited access to education, healthcare, or decent work, face discrimination, violence, or abuse, or come from marginalized communities are often the primary targets of traffickers.

Globally, national responses, particularly in developing States, appear to be deteriorating, the UN agency stated.  Detection rates fell by 11% in 2020 and convictions plummeted by 27%, illustrating a worldwide slowdown in the criminal justice response to trafficking.

The COVID-19 pandemic also changed the characteristics of trafficking, pushing it further underground and potentially increasing the dangers to victims by making the crime less likely to come to the attention of the authorities. In fact, 41% of victims who manage to escape their ordeal reach out to the authorities on their own initiative – another clear sign that anti-trafficking responses are falling short.

According to the National Report, 2076 of the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizen, lately women and children are being increasingly trafficked in different countries of Asia, Arab, Africa, Europe and America.

With the expansion of the human trafficking dimension, it has posed a serious challenge to prevent and control the crime associated with trafficking in persons.

Stakeholders have laid emphasis on amending and framing the laws for the control of human trafficking.

"Nepal's existing law is not adequate and practical to prevent and check human trafficking in persons, socialist Meena Poudel said, adding, "Its dimension has been expanded. Now men are also becoming vulnerable to trafficking".

Waste management in Kathmandu Valley is a big problem. It generates 1,200 metric tonnes of solid waste everyday, where only a few gets recycled. More than 700 metric tonnes of solid waste end up at Banchare Danda landfill site, with around 300 garbage trucks dumping waste there on a daily basis. 

The purpose of the landfill, initially, was for the disposal of solid waste that can neither be recycled. That amounts to around 30 percent of the total waste the valley generates. But sadly, that’s not the case. From degradable to non-degradable waste, everything is disposed of at Banchare Danda landfill site.

There are municipalities like Waling (Syangja) and Tilottama (Rupandehi) that have done a commendable job in managing their solid waste. Their waste management sites do not even emit foul smells. Dhundi Raj Pathak, solid waste management expert, says that the same kind of management can be replicated in the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC). “All we need to do is replicate the same mechanism on a larger scale, and the first place to start would be to ask every household to segregate their waste into degradables and non-biodegradables.” 

Around two years back, KMC had asked Kathmandu’s households to segregate their waste before dumping it in a garbage truck. A fine of Rs 500 was also imposed. Pathak says the initiation was good, but the problem was on how the city workers handled the segregated waste. Everything got dumped into the same garbage truck and ended up in landfills despite segregation. Eventually, people stopped segregating their household waste. 

What Kathmandu needs right now is a proper plan for the disposal of segregated waste, that can be brought into implementation as quickly as possible. For that, the city authority needs to convince every household to segregate their waste. 

KMC Spokesperson Nabin Manandhar says they are already on it. “We will be running awareness campaigns and training in every ward to segregate and collect waste.” 

This time, he adds, the city will not be imposing fines. 

“The plan is to achieve zero waste within Kathmandu,” says Manandhar. “We have completed a one year study on managing solid waste, and we are planning to create a model where every waste material is utilized.” 

There is a plan to convert organic waste into manure and biogas, and sell the dry waste to recyclers. Furthermore, the city is also planning to convert some of the dry waste into coal that can be used in brick and cement factories. To manage biodegradable waste, the city is planning to set up a plant at its garbage collection center in Teku. The facility will convert organic waste into fertilizers and biogas. 

“We can’t say when this plan will be operational, but we have taken the starting steps,” says Manandhar. 

Waste collected from Kathmandu Valley, Kakani, and Banepa end up at Banchare Danda landfill site. Rabin Man Shrestha, chief of KMC’s Environment Management Department, says if each municipality, including the ones in Kathmandu, takes responsibility for the waste they produce, it would be easier for the city to manage the waste. 

“It’s always the Kathmandu Metropolitan City that gets blamed for the situation at Sisdol and Banchare Danda, when there are other municipalities contributing to the problem,” he says. 

He claims 55 percent of the total waste generated in the city will be managed once the plan to convert organic wastes into fertilizer and biogas is realized.  

There are no plans to manage non-degradable waste though. In 2013, the KMC  had invited a tender for the management of non-degradable waste. No one applied. Over the years, the KMC officials have also taken several foreign cities to better understand how they are managing their solid waste. They gathered a lot of knowledge about waste management, but the city never took the step to implement that knowledge.  

“The plans are limited to the paper. For things to progress, the tender process that the city activated a decade ago must conclude,” says Pathak, the solid waste management expert. “Only then, the city could start by setting up a material recovery facility to segregate non-degradable waste before selling it to independent buyers or recyclers.” 

If the plans were to be put in action immediately, Pathak believes that the facilities needed for solid waste management can be up and running in approximately three years. 

“We don’t need any pilot programs to test, because we  have had multiple tests already,” he says.