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The Jayanagar-Kurtha railway service will be increased for three days from tomorrow. It will have more trips than the regular ones considering the huge influx of people coming to bathe at the Kamala river on the occasion of Kartik Poornima. Nepal Railway Company has announced untimely train services will be operated on November 7, 8 and 9 at per the convenience of the passengers. Managing Director Niranjan Kumar Jha has issued a notice stating that the untimely service will be operated from Jayanagar to Janakpur for the convenience of the pilgrims who come to bathe in the Kamala River on the occasion of Kartik Poorrnima. During the Kartik Poornima, a large number of pilgrims come from various places in Nepal and even from Indian cities to bathe in the Kamala river. Out of the 70 km railway under construction from Jayanagar to Bardibas in Mahottari, 35 km railway from Jayanagar to Kurtha has been running regularly since it was inaugurated eight months ago. The train service has been running regularly as per the schedule. The train leaves from Jayanagar at 8:30 am and 3:00 pm, while another train leaves from Kurtha at 10:30 am and 5:15 pm. Locals believe that once the train starts operating regularly, tourism, religious areas will develop and the export of local products will increase.

Rape accused Nepal national cricket team captain Sandeep Lamichhane will be kept in the central jail in Sundhara. Following the order of the Kathmandu District Court, Lamichhhane will be kept at the Sundhara-based central jail Jagannath Dewal, Dinesh Mainali, spokesperson at the District Police Office, Kathmandu, said. A government lawyer had filed a charge sheet against Lamichhane at the Kathmandu District Court. A single bench of Justice Madhav Ghimire on Friday had issued an order to keep Nepal’s leg spinner Lamichhane in custody. Earlier, a 17-year-old girl had filed a rape complaint against Lamichhane at the Metropolitan Police Circle, Gaushala when he was abroad to play Caribbean Premier League (CPL) from Jamaica Tallawahs. According to the complaint, Lamichhane had allegedly taken the girl to various places in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur on August 21 and raped her in a hotel room the same night.

The Supreme Court issued an interim order, asking the government not to implement its decision to extend the term of Gandhi Mallikarjun Rao (GMR), an Indian promoter company of the Upper Karnali Hydropower Project. The Cabinet had decided to extend GMR's term by two years. A single bench of SC Justice Ishwor Prasad Khatiwada issued the interim order on Thursday against the Cabinet decision of July 15 early this year.  The term of the GMR had expired three years back. The SC questioned why the Cabinet made the decision on extension of the project while it was earlier decided by the Investment Board. The order has stated that special rights was delegated to the case as per the SC Regulations 2074 since the issue was required to be settled in a speedy manner. The Investment Board of Nepal and GMR had signed the project development agreement seven years ago with two years term. Later, the company was given one more year since the project did not advance as agreed in the contract. Likewise, the Board again had given one more year for financial closure for the Indian company. Since then, no process was applied to continue the contract or maintain continuation of the contract. Last time, the government had extended the tenure of the project based on the recommendation made by a taskforce formed under the leadership of National Planning Commission Vice-Chairman Bishownath Poudel. Ratan Bhandari, an advocate of Nepal’s water resources and energy sector, had filed the writ petition at the SC demanding to scrap the government decision to give more time for GMR.

Most of the child care homes in Nepal have been running without a proper implementation of existing laws that ensure safety of children, a research has found. It further states that most children's homes do not have any paperwork on the admitted children, and there is a huge gap when it comes to authorities monitoring these institutions. The research was conducted by Center for Legal Research and Resource Development (CeLRRd), in collaboration with National Child Rights' Council, ECPAT Luxembourg, and Shakti Samuha, and its findings were presented by lead researcher Kapil Aryal at an event in Kathmandu on Nov 2. The research was conducted in several child care homes (CCH) based in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Chitwan, Kavre, Makwanpur, Dhading, Rasuwa, Pokhara, Gorkha, and Surkhet. According to the findings, there are many child care homes (CCH) that do not have proper documentation of where the children came from. Aryal says 10.4 percent of the care homes admitted to not having any filing system of the admitted children. But this data does have its limitations. According to Aryal, the researchers did not have the jurisdiction to ask for proof of documentation with the remaining 89.4 percent of the child care homes. He and his team suspect that a significant number of children's homes are operating without proper documentation. Furthermore, these institutes also lack proper staff to take care of children living there. “In one of the CCH, we had one person who cooked, cleaned, looked after the children, and is also running the institute,” says Aryal, ensuring no proper care for those children. Some of these orphanages were on the same building as a guest house, exposing many children to exploitation and sexual abuse. “They were also reluctant to let us visit,” he says. The findings also show that most of these institutions lack budget security, good food, and good health services. It does raise a question on how the government has been monitoring these institutions. Aryal says that there is a huge gap in communication between local, provincial and federal government which is why people running these institutions have gone unnoticed. “This lack of competence from the government exposes children to trafficking, sexual exploitations and pedophiles,” he adds. Also, the study says that most of these children are brought to the orphanages despite having a guardian, which can be considered as “orphanage trafficking”. One of the reasons being an excuse for asking for additional funding by showing the increasing number of children living in the institutions. Secondly, according to UNICEF’s report, more than 85 percent of child care homes are located in tourist destinations of Nepal. “This is a way of attracting tourist volunteers, when voluntourism is already illegal in Nepal for the ones holding a tourist visa, and additional fundings,” says Aryal, exposing these children to potential pedophiles. One of the conclusions that came out from this presentation is that there is a huge gap that needs to be filled between to child protection and human trafficking. Nepal still does not recognize ‘orphanage trafficking’ as a form of human trafficking but only as human transportation. “Not being able to address this has left many children we encountered vulnerable,” adds Aryal.