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A truck carrying chemicals used in drugs caught fire in Dhading on Tuesday.

The truck (Na 4 Kha 8617) was heading towards Kathmandu from Sunauli of Rupandehi when it suddenly caught fire at Banchhetar in Gajuri Rural Municipality-6 of Dhading district this morning.

Sushil BK, the driver of the truck, surmised that the incident might have occurred after the chemical canisters collided with each other when the truck was moving.

A fire engine has been called from Dhunibesi Municipality to put off the fire, said Ganesh Lal Shrestha, Chairman of Gajuri Rural Municipality.

Thousands of devotees from various parts of Kathmandu and neighboring districts thronged Balaju Park this morning to take part in the traditional ritual shower at Baisdhara.

The festival, also known as Balaju Baisdhara (Phuti Pun) Mela, is celebrated on the Baisakh Shukla Purnima every year.

It is believed that taking a holy bath at Baisdhara (22 stone spouts) would heal various diseases.

Organizers expect that 230, 000 people would participate in the annual festival.

As the climate crisis is taking a toll on people and the planet with an increasing number of severe incidents, the research and studies have also been continued with focus on how the world could adopt better climate actions and minimize emergencies in number and scale.

One of the measures the researchers have underlined lately is collective initiatives with a blend of indigenous knowledge and use of modern technology so that climate actions could be made more participatory and result-oriented.

A recent report published by UNDP Accelerator Labs and the Nesta analyzed the cases from the Global South showing how 'collective intelligence' is applied to fulfill gaps in climate adaptation and mitigation.

The report, 'Untapped: Collective Intelligence for Climate Action', implies 'collective intelligence' as a synergic approach where data, people and technology work in tandem. "At its simplest, the 'collective intelligence' can be understood as the enhanced capacity that is created when people work together, often with the help of technology, to mobilize a wider range of information, ideas and insights." It further argues the collective intelligence is resulted from a combination of these factors where it ensures more than the sum of their parts.

With this, the document has kept in center human experiences, traditional practices and exchange of knowledge on dealing with climate adversities, which can be further optimized by the use of modern technology, including artificial intelligence (AI). The concept of citizen scientist is optimized by it.

"AI is being applied to help make sense from and use large volumes of data, while generative AI techniques are transforming the nature of content and knowledge generation," the report underlined.

As per study document, there is a 'Bioleft' platform in South America, which is facilitating farmers to know about climate resilient crops as the platform is informing about open-source repositories of local seed varieties and collaborative seed breeding among them. "The platform enables geo-referencing of seeds and records their transfer under an official Bioleft license," the report mentioned. 

Similarly, in another case of climate smart agriculture, the story about Water-Associated Infectious Diseases in India is mentioned as a 'rare example of disease surveillance for waterborne diseases'. This scheme applies Smartphone App to map vulnerability at community like cholera occurrence and other waterborne disease. The information about the sanitary condition of people is available through data crowd-sourcing with the use of App.

'DengueChat' is another digital initiative put in place in the Latin American project, which the report says, 'applies citizen science' to control disease outbreaks at a hyper local level'.

The tech initiative to protect biodiversity is also showcased in the document. The 'CyberTracker Kalahari' focused in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, adopted indigenous knowledge and practices on biodiversity are monitored.

The report also briefly mentions Nepal in relation to use of technology on land management data. "In Nepal, government representatives have committed to exploring the use of the LANDex tool for official data collection. These tools provide groups that are typically overlooked in local land management disputes with the means to build an evidence base to help them make their case with decision makers or other stakeholders," it added.

 The report is coauthored by Aleks Berditchevskaia, Alex Albert, Kathy Peach, Gina Lucarelli, and Alberto Cottica.

Songwriter Dr Hemanta Khatiwada’s book of Hindi songs ‘Kaisa Maan Mastana Pyare” has been published.

In this book, Khatiwada has included mainly the songs about love and romance.  

There are 200 Hindi songs in this book. The book has 200 pages. The price of this book is INR 200.

The songs are written differently from the popular tradition of love songs.

“Love is not a surficial subject; it has its own philosophy and I also prefer writing love songs by connecting with the philosophy,” Khatiwada said.

I hope that the book published by Om Publications Delhi will be popular among the Indian readers.

The composition and presentation of the songs are artistic and symbolic.

The words are simple but the emotions carried by the songs are heavy. In his songs, the physiology of love has been described in a unique way.

He has also written some songs about marriage.

Various forms of love have been explained from different angles in the songs written in this book.

This book has become a collection of romantic songs. The lyrics of the songs have helped increase the weight of the book.

Dozens of songs of Khatiwada are popular and he is the youngest songwriter of Nepal.