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Many Nepali Hindus are observing the Mahashivaratri festival by offering prayers to and worshiping Lord Shiva today, on Falgun Krishna Chaturdashi (the fourth day of the waning moon in the month of Falgun), as per the lunar calendar.

According to the Nepal Calendar Determination Committee, Brahma took the form of Shiva in the midnight of Krishna Chaturdashi of Falgun. So this day is observed with prayers, pooja, and visit to Lord Shiva's shrines. Hindus believe that the observation of the Mahashivaratri brings peace and prosperity to one's life.

From early morning today, devotees take bath in rivers and ponds, visit Lord Shiva's shrines and pay homage.

The day is regarded as the most favourite day of Lord Shiva, who it is believed to bring happiness in the hearts of those living in difficulty.

Fasting is observed by some on the day and the night is observed with a vigil (jagram), celebrating Shiva.

People also make fire at home, on public squares and at temples, chant hymns and take prasad on the occasion.

Classical dances are performed at Kailashkut and Kirateshwor of Pashupati area in Kathmandu.

The Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu is thronged by devotees from across the country and neighbouring India.

Meanwhile, Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) has said it has made special arrangement to facilitate the visitors.

The District Administration Office clamped a curfew in Surkhet, provincial capital of Karnali Province, after the protests against the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) turned violent.

The DAO decided to clamp the curfew after the demonstrators vandalised and torched party offices of various parties and police posts.

The curfew will be clamped from 8:15 pm on Monday till 7 pm on Tuesday.

Deadly with extreme weather now, climate change is about to get so much worse. It is likely going to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier and way more dangerous in the next 18 years with an “unavoidable” increase in risks, a new United Nations science report says, Associated Press reported.

And after that watch out. 

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report said Monday if human-caused global warming isn’t limited to just another couple tenths of a degree, an Earth now struck regularly by deadly heat, fires, floods and drought in future decades will degrade in 127 ways with some being “potentially irreversible.” 

“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health,” says the major report designed to guide world leaders in their efforts to curb climate change. Delaying cuts in heat-trapping carbon emissions and waiting on adapting to warming’s impacts, it warns, “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

Today’s children who may still be alive in the year 2100 are going to experience four times more climate extremes than they do now even with only a few more tenths of a degree of warming over today’s heat. But if temperatures increase nearly 2 more degrees Celsius from now (3.4 degrees Fahrenheit) they would feel five times the floods, storms, drought and heat waves, according to the collection of scientists at the IPCC.

Already at least 3.3 billion people’s daily lives “are highly vulnerable to climate change” and 15 times more likely to die from extreme weather, the report says. Large numbers of people are being displaced by worsening weather extremes. And the world’s poor are being hit by far the hardest, it says. 

More people are going to die each year from heat waves, diseases, extreme weather, air pollution and starvation because of global warming, the report says. Just how many people die depends on how much heat-trapping gas from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas gets spewed into the air and how the world adapts to an ever-hotter world, scientists say.

“Climate change is killing people,” said co-author Helen Adams of King’s College London. “Yes, things are bad, but actually the future depends on us, not the climate.”

With every tenth of a degree of warming, many more people die from heat stress, heart and lung problems from heat and air pollution, infectious diseases, illnesses from mosquitoes and starvation, the authors say. 

The report lists mounting dangers to people, plants, animals, ecosystems and economies, with people at risk in the millions and billions and potential damages in the trillions of dollars. The report highlights people being displaced from homes, places becoming uninhabitable, the number of species dwindling, coral disappearing, ice shrinking and rising and increasingly oxygen-depleted and acidic oceans. 

Some of these risks can still be prevented or lessened with prompt action. 

“Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.”

Nepal logged 180 new Covid-19 cases and one death on Monday.

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,116,371. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,936. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 5,218 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 119 returned positive. Likewise, 3 ,123 people underwent antigen tests, of which 61 tested positive.

The Ministry said that 400 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

As of today, there are 8,235 active cases in the country. 

The Ministry said that 8,021 people are staying in home isolation while 214 are in institutionalized isolation.