ANIL GIRIKATHMANDU, OCT 18

It has been a little over two years since Nepal and China elevated bilateral ties to “strategic partnership”.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded his Nepal visit on October 13, 2019, a joint communiqué issued by both sides said they “decided to, on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, Charter of the United Nations and principles of good neighbourliness, elevate Nepal-China Comprehensive Partnership of Cooperation Featuring Ever-lasting Friendship to Strategic Partnership of Cooperation.”

This was the first time a joint com-muniqué issued by Nepal and China ever mentioned the phrase “strategic partnership”. But many wondered then what actually it entailed.

Two years down the line, for-eign affairs experts and analysts are still wondering what “strate-gic partnership” between Nepal and China really means.

In the last two years, two sides have never sat and discussed the possible blueprint of the “strate-gic partnership” which was aimed at “development and pros-perity” and neither side has dis-cussed how to execute the agree-ments and pacts signed during Xi’s visit to Nepal, first by a

Chinese president in 23 years.At least two senior government offi-

cials told the Post that the status of the implementation of the accords and agreements reached during the four high-level visits in the last five years between the two countries, which were supposed to effect consid-erable shifts in Nepal-China ties, is in “a very pathetic state”.

One tangible development since Xi’s visit was in December last year when Kathmandu and Beijing jointly announced the new height of Mt Everest—at 8,848.86 metres—some-thing that had remained contentious between the two countries. Even though there has been a flurry of vis-its from Beijing to Kathmandu over the last two years, there is nothing that can be described as something that consolidates the “strategic part-nership” between the two countries, officials and analysts say.

The “strategic partnership” was for development and prosperity, accord-ing to Leela Mani Paudyal, a former ambassador to China.

“The major objective of the strate-gic partnership was to strengthen and develop the country and fix the devel-opmental agenda. Due to Covid-19, we could not make progress in some fields. But in terms of development per se, we could not execute some accords and agreements.” >> Continued on page 2

Two years since Xi’s visit, Nepal-China ‘strategic partnership’ remains an enigmaDuring Xi’s Nepal visit in 2019, the two countries made some big announcements, but there has been little progress.

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Post Photo: Prakash Chandra timilsena

A woman enjoys a zip line ride at Chandragiri on Monday. The facility on the south-western rim of Kathmandu came into operation last month.

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PARBAT PORTELJHAPA, OCT 18

In May 2020, Nabaraj BK, of Jajarkot, a midwestern hill district in Nepal, had gone to the neighbouring district of Rukum (West) with a group of friends.

Nabaraj, 23, was in love with a girl from Rukum (West). He wanted to meet the girl and get married. But as soon as the group of young men reached the village, the girl’s family and relatives took Nabaraj under control. They lynched Nabaraj and his five friends and dumped their bodies into the Bheri river on the night of May 23.

The girl’s family and relatives were not happy that Nabaraj was a Dalit. The girl belonged to a so-called upper caste.

The trial for the Rukum (West) mass murder is still underway, more than a year since the incident. The families of the victims are getting increasingly worried if justice will ever be delivered.

To create pressure to fast-track the case, Nabaraj’s relatives had recently visited Kathmandu with some uncomfortable questions: “Should we do to the culprits what they have done to Nabaraj? Is this what the state wants us to do?”

The Rukum (West) tragedy cannot be undone now, but timely justice could have perhaps redressed the wrong done to Nabaraj and his family, as well as to his five friends and their families.

Dalits in Nepal have suffered for generations at the hands of so-called upper-caste people and they continue to face atrocities even in today’s day and age. Caste-based discrimination is still rife in Nepal even after efforts—and the legislation—to end it.

The lynching incident in Rukum

(West) took place exactly nine years after the legislature passed the Bill on Caste-Based Discrimination and Untouchability.

On May 24, 2011, the Bill on Caste-Based Discrimination and Untouchability, designed to end dis-criminatory practices aimed at those considered to be members of the Dalit community, was passed by Nepal’s leg-islature. The legislation prohibits any discrimination against anyone based on caste and treatment of any individ-uals as Dalits.

What complicated the Rukum (West) case further was its swift polit-icisation.

Several national and local political leaders threw their weight behind those accused of murdering Nabaraj and his five friends at Soti village in Chaurjahari Municipality-8 of the dis-trict. In an attempt to get the accused off the hook, Janardan Sharma, a law-maker from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), manipulated the facts while addressing Parliament.

Sharma is currently finance minister in the Sher Bahadur Deuba government.

Not only did Sharma dismiss the fact that Nabaraj and his friends were lynched, he also claimed that they had died after jumping into the Bheri river.

Sharma was elected to Parliament from Rukum (West).

One of the main accused in the Rukum (West) lynching is Dambar Malla, a ward chair of Chaurjahari Municipality and is affiliated to Sharma’s party. Apart from Sharma, Chaurjahari Municipality’s Mayor Bishal Sharma and Gopal Sharma, a member of Karnali Provincial Assembly, also actively lobbied for Malla’s release.

>> Continued on page 2

Despite laws in place, justice still out of reach for Dalits in NepalAs discrimination and deaths continue, experts say law needs amendment to lift the burden of proof off victims.

Post illustration: krishna GoPal shrestha

The lynching of Nabaraj BK of Jajarkot is an emblematic case of caste-based violence.

Colin Powell, former US secretary of state, dies at 84Washington: Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants who became a US war hero and the first Black secretary of state but saw his legacy tarnished when he made the case for war in Iraq in 2003, died on Monday of Covid-19 complications. He was 84. The retired four-star general and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who served four presidents made his reputation as a man of honour distant from the political fray—an asset in the corridors of power. “General Powell is an American hero, an American example, and a great American story,” George W Bush said as he announced Powell’s nomination as secretary of state in 2000. “In direct-ness of speech, his towering integrity, his deep respect for our democracy, and his soldier’s sense of duty and honor, Colin Powell demonstrates ... qualities that will make him a great representative of all the people of this country.” (Details on Pg 6)

Vibrio cholerae responsible for diarrhoeal outbreak in Kapilvastu, test confirmsKathManDU: Days after a diarrhoeal outbreak in Krishnanagar Municipality in Kapilvastu, the Ministry of Health and Population has confirmed the presence of Vibrio cholerae 01 Ogawa serotype in stool samples of the patients. At least four people including three minors–seven- and two-year-old boys and a five-year-old girl–died in wards 7, 8 and 9 of the municipality in the first week of October. Another deceased was a 45-year-old man. Stool samples of four patients were tested at the pro-vincial Public Health Laboratory in Lumbini Province and National Public Health Laboratory in Kathmandu. “The tests performed at both laboratories confirmed Vibrio cholerae 01 Ogawa serotype in stool samples,” said a press statement by the Health Ministry issued on Sunday. (Details on Pg 3)

Oil exports may suffer after India slashes import dutyKathManDU: Nepal’s edible oil exports to India may take a hit as reduced import duty by the southern neigh-bour may boost overseas buying by Indian traders themselves, insiders said. Last Wednesday, the Indian gov-ernment slashed import duty on crude palm oil to 2.5 from 10 percent, and on crude soybean oil and crude sunflower oil to 2.5 from 7.5 percent. The lower taxes could bring down prices of edible oils in India and increase consumption, prompting Indian traders to source the products themselves and dent Nepal’s largest export, insiders said. The base import tax on refined grades of palm, soy-bean and sunflower oil has declined to 32.5 from 37.5 percent. With the waiver, the total tax will be 24.75 per-cent with 2.5 percent base import duty and other taxes. (Details on Pg 5)

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021 | 02

NATiONAl

>> Continued from page 1The Sharma duo has strong

political links with top leaders in Kathmandu, and one of them, Mayor Sharma, is also a relative of Malla.

Krishna Khanal, a political scientist, says caste-based dis-crimination is not just a legal issue.

“It is a reflection of discrimi-natory social structure and practices. The courts may pro-vide justice to some victims in some individual cases, but that does not end the systemic injus-tice Dalits are facing,” said Khanal.

“To end this injustice, politi-cal parties need to make strong and progressive interventions to uproot the main causes of untouchability. But today’s political parties and leaders are not driven towards it. They have not been honest about their own causes.”

Dalit activists and rights defenders say Nabaraj’s is not an isolated case. Dalits are dis-criminated against in every part of the country, and caste discrimination is rife even in Kathmandu, Nepal’s federal capital.

A case of caste-based discrim-ination in Kathmandu made headlines in June-July this year.

Rupa Sunar, a journalist, had visited the house of Saraswati Pradhan, a resident of Babarmahal in Kathmandu, looking for a flat to rent. Pradhan initially agreed to rent out the flat, but she backtracked upon learning that Rupa was a Dalit. Rupa lodged a police com-plaint against Pradhan for dis-criminating against her on the basis of her caste. Pradhan was arrested on June 20.

Once again, the case quickly became political. Krishna Gopal Shrestha, a CPN-UML leader, who was education minister then, went to the police office to receive Pradhan when she was released. Shrestha escorted Pradhan to her house in his official vehicle.

A minister’s act of siding

with a person accused of caste-based discrimination was viewed as an attempt to influ-ence police investigation, and he was heavily criticised in the press and social media. UML chair KP Sharma Oli, who was then prime minister, made a public statement: “I warn all to not discriminate against any-one on the basis of their caste, and to not protect anyone who is accused of committing such crimes.”

Oli, however, did not take action against Shrestha.

“If the prime minister was genuinely concerned, he should have removed Shrestha from his ministerial post,” said Shyam Bishwakarma, an advocate. Rupa’s complaint against Pradhan was misinterpreted by some groups as a conspiracy to defame the Newar community.

“It was made out to be a Dalit versus Newar case,” said Bishwakarma. “It was a deliber-ate attempt to fuel caste-based discrimination.”

Alarming statistics Police data show that 63 Dalits have been murdered in eight districts of Province 2 in the last two years. But in most cases, the perpetrators have not been punished.

“Political interference is the main reason why most perpetra-tors get off the hook,” said Bhola Paswan, an activist.

The number of cases related to caste-based discrimination has been on the rise over the years.

In the fiscal year 2019/20, a total of 49 cases of caste-based discrimination were registered at the National Human Rights Commission. During the first Covid-19 lockdown, as many as 753 cases of caste-based dis-crimination, including 34 mur-ders of Dalits, were reported across the country. Most victims were women and children.

The annual report of the National Human Rights Commission for the fiscal year 2019/20 shows that 60 cases of human rights violations against Dalits were reported during the first lockdown. Most of these cases (31 percent) were related to caste-based discrimination, 20 percent about abuse of Dalits, 15 percent about murders of Dalits, 15 percent were related to hunger and 12 percent were related to Covid-19. Similarly, 7 percent cases were related to rape and murder of Dalit women and girls and 3 percent to abuse on social media.

In the fiscal year 2019/20, National Dalit Commission received 25 cases of caste-based

discrimination. Most of these cases (32 percent) were related to caste-based discrimination and insult, 28 percent to physi-cal assault on Dalits, and 16 per-cent to murder of Dalits for marrying non-Dalits. Likewise, 12 percent of the cases were related to violation of Dalit rights, 8 percent to social dis-crimination, rape and murder, and 4 percent were related to threats to a Dalit settlement.

According to Samata Foundation, a non-governmen-tal organisation working for Dalit rights, 18 Dalits have been murdered because of their caste within the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the same period, 27 Dalits have been beat-en because of their caste, 14 Dalit women have been raped, three Dalit women suffered attempted rape, seven have faced abuse for marrying non-Dalits, two others have been abused because of their love affairs with non-Dalits, and one woman was forced to abort her child. Six were forced to commit suicide.

“Some argue that caste-based discrimination has declined in urban areas, which is totally false. Discrimination has not decreased; it has only changed its form,” said Bishwa Bhakta Dulal, who goes by one name Aahuti, a public intellectual and writer.

Political interference in investigationYamkala Acharya of Mai Municipality-2 in Ilam district could not pay final tributes to her father last year. She has been ostracised by her family for the last 12 years. Her ‘crime’ was marrying Ratna Bahadur Bishwakarma, a Dalit.

“When I heard that my father had passed away, I wanted to attend his funeral rites. But I was not allowed to even step onto the front yard of the house

where I was born,” says Acharya.

Acharya lodged a complaint against her brother Tikaram Acharya, Parbati Acharya and neighbour Laxmi Dangal. Police arrested them on the charge of discriminating against Acharya.

But Acharya’s maternal aunt Bishnu Maya Rimal, deputy mayor of Mai Municipality, used her political clout to dis-miss the case, she said. Elected on a ticket from the CPN-UML, Rimal is also the coordinator of the judicial committee of Mai Municipality.

“My aunt is a communist, and her political ideology opposes caste-based discrimination. But she is the one who discriminat-ed against me,” said Acharya.

According to Acharya, she was pressured to withdraw the case by Rimal and other local political leaders.

“Even those who spoke in my favour were threatened,” she said.

Eventually, the District Court of Ilam released the accused on Rs15,000 bail each.

Dalits face discrimination not just when they are alive, but also after their death. Sambar Bahadur Sunar is an example.

A resident of Pokhara Ward 16, Sambar died while working abroad. His body was sent back home in a coffin. When his body was taken to a local cremation site for funeral rites, local Chhetri people were up in arms. They created obstacles in Sambar’s exequies saying it was their cremation site, and Dalits could not be cremated there.

On April 26, 2020, Sambar Bahadur’s family lodged a police complaint against those who obstructed his funeral rites. Police, however, refused to register the complaint under pressure from local political leaders, including a Provincial Assembly member of Gandaki

elected for the UML. Police reg-istered the case only after an instruction from the National Human Rights Commission.

An indifferent stateAccording to the Caste-Based Discrimination and Untouchability (Offence and Punishment) Act, 2011, a person found guilty of even insinuating that someone is from a “lower caste” can face three years of imprisonment, or a fine of up to Rs 25,000. However, in a country with such a progressive law against caste-based discrimina-tion, Dalits are not only facing abuse due to their caste but are also being killed. Most Dalits are economically deprived and lack political connections, so they do not get justice even when their family members are killed. Political parties and lead-ers themselves protect those accused of discriminating against Dalits based on their caste.

“As long as we hope that caste-based discrimination will go away gradually, Dalits will con-tinue to be subjected to this crime,” said Pradip Pariyar, executive director of the Samata Foundation. “The state appara-tus is often unwilling to investi-gate caste-based discrimination and punish the guilty in most cases, and Dalits often have to launch protests for justice.”

Advocate Prakash Nepali said it is always difficult to gather enough evidence in cases of caste-based discrimination.

“Most victims do not get jus-tice because they are unable to gather evidence,” he said. “So the law needs to be amended to lift this burden of proof off the victims. When someone is charged with caste-based dis-crimination, it should be their responsibility to prove other-wise. Also, the guilty should be jailed for up to five years.”

According to the Samata Foundation, in the decade after the enactment of the Caste-Based Discrimination and Untouchability (Offence and Punishment) Act, 2011, as many as 91 hearings on cases of caste-based discrimination have been concluded by various district courts and the accused have got clean chits in 88 cases.

“What this means is that Dalits do not get justice in most cases,” said Nepali.

Man Bahadur BK, a former government secretary, said the law against caste-based discrim-ination has not encouraged Dalits to seek legal remedy. In the first 10 years of the law, only 340 cases of caste-based dis-crimination were registered in

courts. “The law has not been effec-

tive in delivering justice to Dalits,” he said.

In most cases, victims are afraid to file cases in courts fearing repercussions and recrimination. Dalit rights activists say police are unwill-ing to register complaints in most cases, which deters the victims from fighting for jus-tice. Victims face abuse, threats and even social alienation when they seek justice, which stops many from going to courts.

“Even after the victims have lodged police complaints, they face pressure to reconcile with their abusers,” said BK, the for-mer secretary. “Caste-based dis-crimination is a punishable offence, and there should be no room for reconciliation in such cases.”

Activists say Nepal’s political parties have done next to noth-ing when it comes to fighting against caste-based discrimina-tion. Political parties are domi-nated by non-Dalits, especially the so-called upper-caste people, according to them.

Parties often influence the investigation of criminal cases related to caste-based discrimi-nation to protect the accused, especially those so-called upper-caste people who have personal and political links with them. So most of the accused never get punished, and the victims con-tinue to face injustice.

Min Bishwakarma, a former minister and Nepali Congress leader, says caste-based discrim-ination was an important agen-da during the first convention of his party, which took place in Janakpur in 1952.

In that convention, the Nepali Congress passed a resolution to abolish caste-based discrimina-tion and fight against any force that perpetuates injustice. The party also circulated its stance about untouchability and caste-based discrimination to its dis-trict committees.

“Unfortunately, many leaders of our party not only approve of untouchability but also do not hesitate to protect those accused of caste-based discrimination,” said Bishwakarma, who was a member of the drafting commit-tee of the 2007 Interim Constitution.

Communists are no better, say activists and analysts.

According to political scien-tist Khanal, political parties should have introduced strong and progressive policies to end caste-based discrimination when they were most powerful and popular.

“Nepali Congress could have

done it in 1990. The CPN-UML could have done so when their popularity rating was at an all-time high during their nine-month rule. The Maoists could have done it when they were the most powerful political force after the 2006 peace accord,” said Khanal. “But they all failed to end caste-based discrimina-tion once and for all.”

Khanal also finds fault with the judiciary.

“A few justices and judges might be progressive about the caste system, but the overall system of judiciary is conserva-tive,” said Khanal. “Those who are at the helm of police and other administrations are also conservative, when it comes to caste and caste-based discrimination.”

Rajendra Maharjan, an author and political analyst, stresses the need for a strong civic movement.

“Political parties were expect-ed to deal with caste-based dis-crimination as a political agen-da, but they are instead politi-cising criminal cases related to it,” said Maharjan. “Dalit organisations have also reduced themselves to puppets of politi-cal parties. Without order, instruction or hints from their political masters, these Dalit organisations do not issue a statement even on a public issue.”

According to Maharjan, only if Dalit organisations free them-selves from calculative political parties and spearhead a move-ment in collaboration with non-Dalit communities, can they turn their issues into a political agenda for their emancipation.

“Political parties continue to busy themselves with pow-er-sharing games unless they face powerful resistance from civil society groups,” said Maharjan. “There is no alterna-tive to a strong civic movement to check-mate political parties, ensure justice for the victims of caste-based discrimination, and practically abolish this system-ic injustice.”

Devraj Bishwakarma, chair of the National Dalit Commission, stresses the need for making the law against caste-based discrimination more stringent.

“For many in the law-enforce-ment agencies, caste-based dis-crimination is normal,” he said, adding, “So they do not act with sincerity to deliver justice to the victims.”

(This report has been prepared for Nepal Investigative Multimedia Journalism Network in collaboration with Chiranjivi Ghimire and Sanjita Devkota.)

Despite laws in place, justice still out of reach for Dalits in Nepal

Nationwide vitamin A and deworming campaign on October 24 and 25Supplementation drives have reduced deaths among children, health experts say.ARJUN POUDELKATHMANDU, OCT 18

The Ministry of Health and Population is conducting a two-day nationwide campaign to administer vitamin A supplements and deworming tablets on children under five years of age on October 24 and 25.

The campaign will be crucial in preventing many childhood diseas-es and reducing the mortality rate among children under five.

“This is a very crucial campaign and no children should be deprived of the vitamin supplement and deworming tablets,” said Kedar Parajuli, chief of the nutrition sec-tion at the Family Welfare Division under the Department of Health Services.

“We urge all parents of children under five to make sure that their children receive vitamin A supple-ment and deworming tablets from the distribution points in their localities.”

The ministry aims to administer vitamin A supplement to over 2.75 million children aged between six months and five years. Over 2.4 mil-lion children above 12 months will be given the deworming tablets.

“All preparation including orien-tation training for female communi-ty health volunteers and other health workers have been complet-ed, and we have also supplied vita-min A and deworming tablets to all local units,” said Parajuli. More than 51,000 female community health volunteers serving through-out the country will be deployed for the campaign. The Health Ministry has been conducting the campaign twice every year—in April and in October—since 2003.

It is because of supplementation campaigns like these that the night

blindness problems among chil-dren, which used to be very high until two decades ago, have been almost eliminated, said Parajuli.

The vitamin A campaign is a suc-cess story in Nepal, as it has helped tackle the issue of vitamin A defi-ciency among children, which used to be a major public health problem in the country. It is estimated that regular supplementation cam-paigns have reduced deaths among children under five by 23 percent.

These supplementation pro-grammes, officials say, have the cov-erage rates of over 94 percent, the highest among all health campaigns run in the country. But in 2020, a lot of children may have missed out on vitamin A supplementation and deworming because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The United Nations Children’s Fund in its report said that world-wide only two out of five children received the life-saving benefit of

vitamin A supplementation in 2020. Child health experts say that vita-

min A supplementation campaigns are important for the overall growth of children and for protecting them from various infectious diseases.

According to the World Health Organisation, vitamin A deficiency causes visual impairment (night blindness) and vulnerability to illnesses like measles and diar-rhoea among children. The supple-ment boosts immunity and ensures children’s natural growth.

“It is a proven fact that vitamin A supplementation reduces 23 percent of the under five child mortality rate,” said Dr Shyam Raj Upreti, a former director at the erstwhile Child Health Division and now known as Family Welfare Division. “Well-nourished children have stronger immunity, which helps to fight infections. Malnourished children are always at risk of infections.”

post illustration deepak gautam

post file photo

The Ministry of Health and Population aims to administer vitamin A supplement to over 2.75 million children aged between six months and five years.

>> Continued from page 1That said, several accords and agree-

ments signed even before Xi’s visit have also failed to make any progress.

Elevating the Nepal-China ties to the “strategic partnership” was in the mak-ing ever since KP Sharma Oli visited Beijing in 2016, hot on the heels of an Indian border blockade. During his visit to Beijing while serving his first stint as prime minister, Oli signed a slew of agreements including the Transit and Transportation Agreement as per which China had agreed to provide its seven sea and land ports for Nepal to use for third-country trade.

In April, 2019, a little over a year after Oli returned to power, the two countries signed the protocol on implementing the Trade and Transit Agreement. But the two countries have not been able to develop even the standard operating pro-cedure for implementing the transit agreement.

The agreement was touted a game-changer for Nepal, as it would have broken the country’s near-complete dependence on India for third-country trade. The agreement was seen as a pre-cursor to what is dubbed “strategic part-nership”. To back that plan, there were other agreements between the two coun-tries, including the Belt and Road Initiative, which was signed in May 2017.

“[But] we could not bring a single cargo via Chinese sea and land ports after signing the protocol,” said Paudyal, who served as Nepal’s ambassador in Beijing from 2016 to 2020.

Even two years after the announce-ment of the “strategic partnership”, it continues to be something of an enigma.

Analysts say no one knew two years ago what the “strategic partnership” meant and no one really knows what it means today. Over the last two years, Nepal’s politics, however, has undergone a sea change. When Xi visited Nepal, flying from India on his way to Beijing, Nepal was governed by the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), a communist behemoth created by the unison engi-neered by China between the CPN-UML and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre).

But the infighting in the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) reached a tip-ping point and its split could not be stopped despite Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi personally visiting the top leaders. The party split in March this year as per a Supreme Court order. The Supreme Court in July defenestrated Oli from office and directed Nepali Congress

President Sher Bahadur Deuba’s appointment as new prime minister. The Deuba government decided to form a committee “to study boundary issues” with China, which were dismissed by the previous Oli government.

Bilateral ties between Nepal and China have not hit any low that could be a cause for concern, say observers. But when it comes to the “strategic partner-ship”, they say there is not much to talk about.

Rupak Sapkota, deputy executive director at the Institute of Foreign Affairs, says ties, or the strategic part-nership for that matter, get stronger based on how the two countries move forward their agreements and accords.

“The status of Nepal-China ties is not bad, but it’s true that in the wake of rapid political developments, there has not been much progress on the agree-ments the two countries had signed,” Sapkota told the Post.

According to him, various other fac-tors have also come into play over the last few years.

“That the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world is known to everyone,” said Sapkota. “This led to some unease in ties between the United States and China. There was some closeness growing between the United States and India, just as the latter was having some border issues with China.”

Nepal unwittingly fell into geopoliti-cal games in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the United States made a push for the Indo-Pacific Strategy, a security alliance believed to have been created to counter China’s growing influence.

Officials say the pandemic basically played the spoilsport, but there certainly could have been some groundwork for moving the agreements forwards, even if at a slow pace.

“I never heard or got sincere instruc-tions in the last years to execute the past agreements and pacts,” said a govern-ment secretary who wished to remain anonymous citing the sensitivity of the matter. “Time and again, foreign minis-ters, foreign secretaries and oftentimes, some political leaders did commit to executing the agreements and pacts dur-ing virtual meetings in the time of the pandemic, but there has been no sub-stantive progress.”

According to the secretary, the imple-mentation of the pacts and agreements signed in the last four visits between Kathmandu and Beijing, including the BRI, has been poor and none of the min-

istries has taken them seriously.“The major achievement was we joint-

ly announced the new height of Mt Everest,” he said.

When Nepal and China announced that the bilateral ties had been elevated to “strategic partnership”, some believed it could have some security and military components. But there has been no clar-ity on that aspect as of now. The Treaty on the Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters was one of the instru-ments signed between Nepal and China during Xi’s visit. But the text of the trea-ty has not been made public yet.

Rajan Bhattarai, a CPN-UML leader who served as Oli’s foreign relations adviser, said the Covid-19 pandemic cre-ated some problems after Xi’s visit.

“We could not make tangible progress in infrastructure-related projects which were signed during the visit of President Xi,” Bhattarai admitted. “But we have completed several paperworks on the accords and agreements. If we could not show any concrete results, that’s because of the pandemic. It is true that projects under the infrastructure segment could not make any significant progress but we are hopeful that there will be good progress soon.”

Now that the current government led by Deuba itself is struggling, there are concerns if some tangible progress can be seen in the near future. Deuba is lead-ing a coalition, which is a medley of parties that have divergent views and ideologies.

The fact that Nepal could not utilise the Rs56 billion in grants announced by the Chinese President Xi during the del-egation-level talks with President Bidya Devi Bhandari on October 12, 2019 also makes many wonder whether the ties have indeed been elevated to the “strate-gic partnership.”

Some, however, say not all is lost. “President Bhandari keeps on follow-

ing up on what was agreed upon,” said Tika Dhakal, a senior press expert to the President. “It is the government of Nepal that should push for the imple-mentation of the accords.”

Sapkota, the deputy executive director at the Institute of Foreign Affairs, said Nepal-China ties have remained good.

“Beijing’s continued cooperation with Nepal in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and its support to the govern-ment’s vaccination drives are great examples of how the two countries’ bilateral relations stand,” Sapkota told the Post. “Nepal-China relations are on an upward trajectory.”

Two years since Xi’s visit, Nepal-China ...

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03 | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021

NATiONAl

BRiEfiNg Vibrio cholerae responsible for diarrhoeal outbreak in Kapilvastu, test confirmsARJUN POUDEL KATHMANDU, OCT 18

Days after a diarrhoeal outbreak in Krishnanagar Municipality in Kapilvastu, the Ministry of Health and Population has confirmed the presence of Vibrio cholerae 01 Ogawa serotype in stool samples of the patients.

At least four people including three minors–seven- and two-year-old boys and a five-year-old girl–died in wards 7, 8 and 9 of the municipality in the first week of October. Another deceased was a 45-year-old man.

Stool samples of four patients were tested at the provincial Public Health Laboratory in Lumbini Province and National Public Health Laboratory in Kathmandu.

“The tests performed at both labora-tories confirmed Vibrio cholerae 01 Ogawa serotype in stool samples,” said a press statement by the Health Ministry issued on Sunday.

E. coli bacteria have also been detected in drinking water samples of the disease-hit areas.

The Health Ministry said 15 water samples were collected in coordina-tion with the World Health Organisation Nepal on different dates and sent to laboratories for tests.

Cholera is a highly infectious dis-ease that causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting, which causes dehydration and can lead to death within a few hours if left untreated. Escherichia coli, or E. coli, are bacteria that nor-mally live in the intestines of people and animals. Most types of E. coli are harmless and even help keep the digestive tract healthy. But some strains can cause diarrhoea when one eats or drinks contaminated food and water.

So far, 885 people have been infected with the diarrheal disease in Krishnanagar Municipality and of them, 25 have been receiving treat-ment at various hospitals, according to the Health Ministry.

Earlier on October 7, samples of drinking water and stools of the infected people from wards 7, 8 and 9 of the municipality were sent to Kathmandu for tests after the Lumbini Provincial Hospital could not confirm

the cause of the outbreak.Cholera continues to be a major

killer in many poor countries which lack safe drinking water and proper sanitation infrastructure.

Nepal is also a cholera endemic country as cases of infection of the disease are detected every year. The disease also continues to be reported in Kathmandu Valley.

Doctors say poor sanitation and contaminated drinking water are the main factors for a cholera outbreak.

“It is very unfortunate that four people died of diarrhoeal disease,” said Dr Baburam Marasini, former director at the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division. “Due to the failure of the authorities concerned to ensure safe drinking water, hundreds of people are getting infected and sev-eral die every year because of diar-rhoea and cholera.”

Several agencies of the government

including those under the Health Ministry, Ministry of Water Supply and Sanitation, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and non-gov-ernmental agencies spend millions of rupees every year on water and sanita-tion. However, they have not brought the desired results.

According to Marasini, launching awareness drives against water-borne diseases and ensuring safe drinking water are the only ways to save people

from dying of water-borne diseases, including cholera.

The World Health Organisation says cholera is a global threat to pub-lic health and an indicator of inequal-ity and a lack of social development.

The UN health agency says that a multifaceted approach is key to controlling cholera and reducing deaths.

A combination of surveillance, water, sanitation and hygiene, social mobilisation, treatment and oral chol-era vaccine are required to contain the spread of the infection.

“There is a need to raise awareness and make more efforts to control water-borne diseases. Authorities con-cerned seem to take diseases like diar-rhoea and cholera lightly,” said Marasini. “How can water-borne dis-ease be a small issue, when thousands of people get infected and many die from it.”

E. coli bacteria have also been detected in the water samples of the disease-hit areas.

Post file Photo: Manoj Paudel

As many as 885 people got infected with the diarrhoeal disease in Krishnanagar. Of them, 25 have been receiving care at various hospitals.

Post Photo: anish RegMi

A woman prepares to set up her curio shop at Basantapur square in Kathmandu on Monday.

Poor sanitation and contaminated water are main factors for a cholera outbreak, doctors say.

Province 2 on top again with highest number of civil service job applicantsOfficial attribute the high numbers to the policy of inclusion and relatively large population of the province.PRITHVI MAN SHRESTHAKATHMANDU, OCT 18

In continuation of the past trend, the Public Service Commission received the largest number of applications for civil service jobs from Province 2 districts also in the last fiscal year 2020-21.

A statement issued by the commission after submitting its Annual Report 2020-21 to President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Monday, said the commission received the largest number of applications from Province 2. Within the province, Saptari, Sarlahi, Dhanusha, Siraha and Mahottari districts topped the chart in terms of the number of applications.

The commission has not mentioned the exact number of applicants from Province 2, which has eight districts. The commission had received a total of 566,617 applications for both open and internal competitions.

The domination of applications from Province 2, however, is not a new phe-nomenon. In fact, the commission has been receiving good numbers of applica-tions for civil service jobs for several years, according to the commission’s data. Even in the fiscal year 2019-20, the province topped the list in number of people applying for civil service jobs.

According to the Public Service Commission’s annual report for 2019-20, 23.57 percent of total applications for public service jobs were from Province 2. Province 5, with 17.06 percent, was a distant second. There is a dominant presence of Madhesis in Province 2. Officials and experts believe that this may be a sign that the reservation sys-tem in the country is working.

“The number of applicants from the province is high also because its popula-tion is high,” said Madhav Regmi, chair-person of the commission. According to the 2011 census, the population of Province 2 is 5.4 million—highest after Bagmati, which is home to 5.52 million people. “In the government service, there are certain technical positions for which the Madhesi population has con-siderable interest,” said Regmi.

According to him, the growing inter-est of the people in the civil service is also fuelled by the inclusion policy adopted by Nepal since 2007. The Civil Service Act 2007 necessitates 45 percent recruits in the civil service to come from marginalised communities and women. The provision was made in line with the

commitments made by the major politi-cal parties while resolving the Maoist insurgency and the Madhes movement.

As per the law, while filling the vacan-cies for section officer positions, 70 per-cent of the vacancies are filled through competition and the rest through promo-tions. Under the competition category, 45 percent of the total seats are set aside for a separate competition among different clusters of communities from historical-ly marginalised groups.

As per the law, under the inclusion quota, 33 percent seats are reserved for women, 27 percent for indigenous nationalities, 22 percent for Madhesis, 9 percent for Dalits, 5 percent for the disa-bled, and 4 percent for backward regions. The remaining 55 percent of seats are filled through open competition.

“Besides the policy of inclusion, greater emphasis given to knowledge rather than the Nepali language also increased the interest of Madhesi youths in civil service jobs,” said Gajendra Thakur, secretary at the Economic Affairs Ministry in Province 2.

Thakur, who hails from Mahottari, said earlier the Nepali language was prioritised when they were contesting for civil service jobs. “People from Madhesh were not familiar with the idi-oms in Nepali language and failing to give the meaning of such idioms could be a great disadvantage for Madhesi can-didates,” he said.

According to him, now an examinee can write answers in either English or Nepali or both and this has made a big difference in participation and success rate of Madheshi applicants.

“Lately, Madhesi youths are seeing that their friends have been landing gov-ernment jobs so more Madhesi people have been applying for government jobs,” said Thakur. The overall share of the Madhesi community in the civil ser-vice remains sizable. According to the Inclusion Watch, a journal published by Samabeshi Foundation, in April 2013, 15.18 percent of the total civil servants were from Madhesi communities.

According to Department of Civil Personnel Records, 15.31 percent of Madhesis are employed under the unclassified category, 13.9 percent under non-gazetted, 18.76 percent are gazetted third class, 10.34 percent are gazetted second class, 10 percent are gazetted first class, and two percent are employed under the special class.

40 dead in road accidents in two weeks

BARA: Road accidents were signifi-cantly high during the Dashain festi-val in Province 2. According to the Province Traffic Police Office in Pathalaiya, as many as 258 road acci-dents were reported in eight districts of the province over two weeks’ peri-od, in which 40 people died and 408 others got injured. Speeding, drink driving and overcrowding of vehicles are the leading causes of these road accidents, police said.

Woman dies after falling over electric fenceKAKARBHITTA: A 54-year-old woman was electrocuted after she fell over an electric fence installed to chase away wild elephants at Bhadrapur Municipality-10, Jhapa, on Monday. Police identified the deceased as Kalpana Rai Pauriya. She must have tripped and fallen over the electric fence set up around her own house to keep away wild elephants.

Legal practitioners demand to shift high court in HetaudaHETAUDA: Legal practitioners have demanded that Patan High Court in Lalitpur be moved to Hetauda, the headquarters of Bagmati Province. Advocate Madan Dahal said since the Administration of Justice Act 2016 clearly states that high courts must be based at the provincial headquar-ters, Patan High Court should be moved to Hetauda. The legal practi-tioners argue that the provincial headquarters in one place but the high court in another place is against the spirit of the constitution.

Foreign hunters at Dhorpatan in quest for Naur and JharalOne has to pay a total of Rs375,000 to hunt a Naur in the hunting reserve.GHANSHYAM KHADKAMYAGDI, OCT 18

Game hunting enthusiasts from various countries have set off for Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve, the only hunting reserve of the country, after receiving permits from the authorities.

“Seven hunters from four tourist agencies have received permits to hunt seven Himalayan blue sheep [Naur] and five Himalayan tahrs [Jharal] in the first hunting season of the year [fiscal year],” said Birendra Prasad Kandel, the chief conservation officer at the reserve.

According to him, the hunters having permits will hunt the animals in the designated blocks from October 2 to December 11.

The park said that a hunting expedition including two hunters headed towards their designated block while others were all set to

arrive at the reserve. The first hunt-ing season closes in December. And the second season runs from mid-Feb-ruary to mid-April.

The Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation has issued permits to hunt seven Himalayan blue sheep and five Himalayan tahrs through competitive bids.

Himalaya Safari, Himalayan Wildlife, Tax and Trail and Travel Expedition have received ‘hunting booking license’ for seven hunters.

According to the reserve, the tourist agencies had bid between Rs180,000 and Rs195,000 to hunt each Himalayan blue sheep and Rs80,000 to Rs100,000 to kill each Himalayan tahr. The hunter should pay an addi-tional amount for hunting license, block reservation and the hunting duration. The reserve office says one has to pay a total of Rs375,000 to hunt a Himalayan blue sheep.

The Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve

sprawls over 1,325 square kilometres in the Dhaulagiri Himal range of Rukum (East), Myagdi and Baglung districts. It was established in 1983 and was gazetted four years later. The reserve is divided into six blocks for hunting purposes. Approximately one-thirds of the reserve area is flat grass land, locally known as Patan, one-thirds comprises forests and hills whereas the remaining one-thirds is buffer zone.

The reserve is home to 32 species of mammals and 130 bird species. According to the reserve office, there are around 852 Himalayan blue sheep and 200 Himalayan tahrs in the reserve forests.

Snow leopard, Himalayan black bear, barking deer, spotted deer, red panda, wild boar, Himalayan goral among other wildlife are also found in the reserve but their hunt-ing is prohibited.

According to Kandel, two game

hunters from Mexico, two from Ukraine, two from France and one from Russia have received permits to hunt Himalayan blue sheep and Himalayan tahrs this year.

“Two Mexican hunters have permission to hunt at Dogadi and Seng blocks in Rukum (East) while the Ukrainians hunt at Gustung block of Baglung. Two French nationals have received permission to hunt at Seng and Phagune blocks of Rukum (East) while the Russian hunts in Sundaha block of Baglung district,” Kandel informed.

Himalayan blue sheep is the major attraction for the hunters.

The hunters with permits can enter their hunting blocks only after receiving permission from the reserve office to enter the forests along with a liaison officer.

“The hunters are not allowed to kill baby and female animals,” said Kandel.

Rains damage ripe paddy crops in several districtsPOST REPORTDHANGADHI, BIRENDRANAGAR & LUMBINI, OCT 18

Heavy rains since Sunday have destroyed harvest-ready paddy crops in several districts of Sudurpaschim, Lumbini, Karnali and Gandaki provinces.

Farmers are worried after unsea-sonal rains ruined their crops. Agriculture officials, who had predict-ed good paddy harvest this season due to adequate monsoon rainfall, said the recent rains could dent the expected rice output as well as the quality.

Narayan Saud, a farmer of Bhimdutta Municipality in Kanchanpur, was anticipating a boun-tiful harvest this year. He had recently cut the paddy crops and was planning to thresh them on Monday. But Sunday’s rainfall damaged the crops.

“The crops are submerged in rain-waters. They will start germinating if it continues to rain. The rains have ruined everything,” said Saud.

Rains have also damaged paddy crops in other parts of Kanchanpur and Kailali districts. Many farmers had left the freshly cut crops out in their fields before threshing them.

“Around five percent of paddy crops planted in Kanchanpur district may have been damaged by the recent rains,” said Dil Bahadur Bista, the chief at Agriculture Knowledge Centre in Kanchanpur.

According to him, the paddy was planted in around 50,000 hectares of land in the district, and the expected output was around four metric tonnes per hectare. “We had expected that the paddy production in the district would increase by 10 to 15 percent this year compared to last year,” said Bista.

In Kailali district, farmer Krishna Chaudhary was particularly sad, because he had lost all his paddy crops during last year’s flooding.

“After last year’s disaster, I was hoping this year would be good,” said Chaudhary, a resident of Bhajani Municipality. Hundreds of farmers like Chaudhary have lost their paddy crops to rains in Kailali.

Rains also damaged paddy crops in Baitadi, Kapilvastu, Banke, Bardiya, Rupandehi, Dang, Jumla, Surkhet, Kaski, Nawalparasi (East), Syangja, Parbat and Tanahun, among other districts. (With inputs from our local correspondents)

Post Photo

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021 | 04

OpiniOn

The World Bank, a behemoth of an organisation that provides tens of bil-lions of dollars in aid to mostly devel-oping countries, is in the middle of one of its biggest scandals since being founded in 1944. The crux of the crisis relates to its Doing Business Index, which ranks the ease of opening and operating companies in 190 countries. In September 2021, an investigation alleged that senior leadership at the bank manipulated the index’s data in response to pressure from China and Saudi Arabia.

The scandal has already caused the bank to suspend publication of the index and prompted calls for further investigations. Some have also demanded the resignations of officials identified in the report, such as Kristalina Georgieva, who was for-merly CEO at the World Bank and now heads the International Monetary Fund. On October 11, 2021, the IMF—which along with the World Bank is currently holding its annual meeting in Washington—said it would leave Georgieva in her job.

I’m a comparative legal scholar who studies the rule of law in multilateral institutions like the World Bank. As I show in my forthcoming book on the topic, I believe the real problem here is less about whether or not officials meddled, and more about the problem-atic role the Doing Business Index and similar indicators play in aid to devel-oping countries.

Everyone wants to winThe World Bank’s Doing Business Index ranks countries around the world across 11 different economic indicators, such as registering proper-ty and paying taxes, and has become an authoritative source for interna-tional business and funding decisions since its inception in 2002. It’s akin to US News and World Report’s rank-ings of colleges, countries and other categories.

A change in a country’s rankings can have a huge impact on how much money it receives from foreign inves-tors. The World Bank has found that a 1 percent point improvement in a

country’s overall Doing Business score correlates with US$250 million to $500 million in additional foreign direct investment.

The main idea behind the ranking system was that it would be very simple for politicians, journalists and others to use, and therefore publicity surrounding it would prompt reforms. “The main advantage of showing a single rank,” according to a 2005 World Bank staff report, is “as in sports, once you start keeping score everyone wants to win.”

And in effect, even though the World Bank technically has no mandate to guide countries’ regulatory regimes,

in practice its index has had signifi-cant influence on how governments behave. For example, countries in Latin America and Africa have restructured their entire corporate governance regimes to fit Doing Business’ one-size-fits-all reforms. But this wide influence has a negative side, as it serves as an incen-tive for governments to try to “game the system—or corrupt it,” as The Washington Post editorial board put it recently.

Problems with doing businessThe most recent Doing Business scandal began around June 2020,

when employees began spotting data irregularities in two recent reports.

In January 2021, the law firm WilmerHale was asked to investigate. On September 15, Wilmerhale said it found that senior World Bank leader-ship pressured employees to improve China’s Doing Business ranking in the 2018 report as it sought Beijing’s support for a major capital injection. The law firm also found problems with changes to rankings of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan in the 2020 report but didn’t blame senior leaders directly.

But a big part of the problem here is that the rankings incentivise this kind of behaviour, often because not all countries can enact the market-friend-ly legal reforms required to rise up. One way they can do this is by paying the World Bank fees for “reimbursable advisory services,” such as advice on how to better implement the kinds of reforms it favours. Of course, it is not hard to see the potential for institu-tional conflict of interest and corrup-tion here. The report noted that both China and Saudi Arabia made extensive use of these contracts while pressuring bank officials to change their rankings.

The bigger concerns about the Doing Business Index is more funda-mental. Comparative legal scholars, including me, have found that the legal reforms favoured by the index always appear biased in favour of systems based on common law followed by countries such as the US and UK.

For instance, France, one of the world’s largest economies operating under a civil legal code, has performed rather poorly in the initial rankings because of low scores on the “register-ing property” and “getting credit” metrics. And, in turn, that means countries such as Algeria, Lebanon and Indonesia that built legal systems based on France or other non-Anglo legal traditions are also unfairly hurt by the rankings. The rankings have been controversial since their very launch. Joseph Stiglitz, who was chief

economist at the World Bank in the late 1990s, said in a recent op-ed that he thought it was a “terrible product” from the beginning.

“Countries received good ratings for low corporate taxes and weak labour regulations,” he wrote. “The numbers were always squishy, with small changes in the data having potentially large effects on the rank-ings. Countries were inevitably upset when seemingly arbitrary decisions caused them to slide in the rankings.”

In other words, the Doing Business Index ends up pushing countries toward a shareholder-focused corpo-rate and business model moulded on US-style capitalism. This is at odds with many other models, such as those in Japan and Germany that put more emphasis on workers and social goals like gender equality. Corporate gov-ernance scholars have found these may be better models for some coun-tries than US-style capitalism.

Does it deserve to die?The recent scandal underscores the degree to which the index doesn’t square with the bank’s wider purpose. The World Bank’s stated mission is to “end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity.” It was set up in the wake of the Second World War to achieve this mission through financing agreements with developing countries.

The Doing Business Index fails in this purpose because it compels gov-ernments to commit to “transplanted” legal reforms that may not be right for those countries, and in fact may end up backfiring and delivering bad out-comes for residents.

I’m not sure whether the index “deserves to die” or should be reformed and shifted to another insti-tution, such as a university, but I do believe its time at the World Bank is likely coming to an end.

Nicola is Professor of Law at the Washington College of Law, American University.

— The Conversation

In New Delhi, when I went to get a new sim card for my phone as the old one had expired since it had not been used since the pandemic, I was surprisingly told that you needed to have a visa to be able to get it. I saw the electronic form used by the vendor on his mobile, and there was a provision that could not be over-ridden. So, I was stuck with no sim card. Then I realised that data while roaming was not working, and I could not use the free wifi at New Delhi air-port as the one-time password was not working through a Nepal number.

I was with electronic tickets, all forms stored in the cloud. I could not enter the airport as I had no printed ticket, and all documents were in the cloud and I could not access any-thing. We may be used to so much digital stuff during the pandemic, but it seems keeping printouts for back-up is still essential. I wrote to many concerned agencies on the sim card issue, and I hope they will take this

seriously as you cannot be talking about neighbourhood first and then ask for visas!

New travel environmentAirports are just getting back to nor-mal; and people whose jobs are secure, pandemic or no pandemic, are upset they are getting back to normal. Government staff, people in security and other fixed tenure job holders, who kept their jobs during the pandemic and will not lose them if there are sub-sequent waves, are unhappy things are getting back to normal. I have been shuttling the past couple of weeks, and they are complaining things are getting back to normal. They have not changed their ways and do not want to adhere to the new normal. For instance, one would show one’s boarding pass across the glass partition, but they want to touch and feel it. When I told them that you should avoid touching hundreds of boarding passes and smart phones, he sternly told me that “corona is gone”!

It would be best to get ready for air-ports that can be super hot like the one in Bhadrapur and have no air-condi-tioning and dilapidated ceiling fans. Mosquitoes improve your travel experi-ence as per the airport regulators of Nepal, so do not forget to carry repel-lent sprays. There are generally no good places to eat at airports in Nepal, so be prepared with food and drinks. You are not sure how many hours your flight can be delayed, and it is not easy to travel in and out of airports unless you are one of the VIPs. Of course, do not drink too much water or get to try the local fare; the toilets at the domes-tic airports are sinus treatment centres

that you would like to avoid!There are QR codes and bar codes on

everything; but in Nepal, they are never scanned or used by anyone. They go back to writing by hand or not checking at all. There is the great Covid-19 Crisis Management Centre (CCMC) form we all have to fill up when departing, but it never seems to be limited. It takes a while to fill the form. It has a wonderful section where you are asked your last 30-day travel history, and there are no options for flights, though there are options for “walking”. In Nepal, people have very little expectation from the government, and they will only com-plain when things go down the drain, as happened in the case of vac-cine certification.

In a country with the highest per capita VIPs, people don’t care as they are above the rules, so they can get away without bothering to do anything. Exactly two years ago, I volunteered to manage crowds at the airport, which I wrote about. I was assured of improve-ments, but they never seemed to have happened. We could read the frustra-tions of entrepreneur and author Jiba Lamichhane on his Facebook wall, and he also responded to authorities who got back to him, but it’s just temporary. So one has to be ready for queues, delays and challenges one can only meditate through.

Of course, some companies have been able to transform. At the Oberoi Grand in Kolkata, the entire experi-ence was made contactless apart from getting the key! Similarly, there are airlines like Qatar Airways that manage to reduce the stress

while travelling during these times.

Memorable experiencesIn my column a month ago, we had discussed reviving tourism and focus-ing on experience; but for this one, the key issue we need to address is having competition and pushing collusion out. At Kathmandu’s international airport, you have a new option with the opening of a lounge by the Soaltee Hotel! Hopefully, domestic airlines will also give competitive differential services for their frequent fliers. I have not received any communication from air-lines that allows membership. There are no membership categories nor any priority counters.

An airline staffer made an interest-ing remark, “In Nepal, if you have lounges in a domestic airport, they will be like VIP lounges.” They will be packed with VIPs in a country where people can push their way through to get privileges. Indeed, we have the highest number of former ministers or government institution heads that change with each government, and there have been 30 governments in the last 30 years! So airline and hotel businesses may have to collude with each other for good reasons in creating good experiences at domestic airports that will earn them loyal cus-tomers rather than get together over pushing loyalty.

Travelling is back. At Doha airport, there are more people than we have seen in previous months, and United States airports are seeing more passengers. Travelling is all about memorable experiences, and we need some good ones!

‘Doing Business’ index scandal

SUJEEV SHAKYA

Travelling is not the sameEDiTORiAL

Recipe for maladiesLining up at the doctor’s right after festivals is no

fun. It is time we reconsidered the way we eat.

post file photo: hemanta shrestha

Airports are just getting back to normal, and some people are upset about that.

Almost every Nepali festival is a gastronomical affair of huge proportions. There seems to be a consensus among a wide number of Nepalis that festivals are a time to eat well and eat a lot. We like to keep our taste buds happy during the celebrations. But in doing so, we often invite gastrointestinal disasters during or right after the feast. Considering the health complications that follow festivals, it is about time we reconsidered our culinary options as well as the very idea of eating during the parties.

The culture of unrestrained eating during festivals means that we end up accumulating extraordinary amounts of sugar, cholesterol and protein within a short span. Dashain is almost over, and Tihar and Chhath are just around the cor-ner. For non-vegetarians, festivals like Dashain and Tihar are a time to eat huge amounts of meat. The fact that the con-sumption of red meat, laced with huge amounts of spices, is often a special affair during festivals means that it leads to complications ranging from gastritis to heartburn. With a fairly wide variety of sweets and dairy products available, vegetarians are not too far away when it comes to eating too much during festivals.

As a result, the post-festival time becomes a nightmare for health workers ranging from rheumatologists to cardiolo-gists and hepatologists to diabetologists. It is, therefore, time to consider what health complications we have invited upon ourselves during the festival gone by, and what we can do to eat safely in the festivals next. Taking care of health during fests does not in any way mean giving up on eating altogether. Rather, it means choosing healthier alternatives to food items that are known to cause acute and chronic health complications.

The sheer surge in demand for food during festivals means that there is a higher risk of adulterated or contaminated food being available in the market. Combine that with the huge portions that we eat during festivals, and we have a rec-ipe for disaster. A significant section of the population may consider it normal to eat unhealthy varieties and amounts of food during festivals—after all, what are festivals for if not overeating even if that may mean getting sick later on? But there is no point in continuing with the tradition of replicat-ing gastrointestinal and related complications for want of awareness and alacrity.

Doctors and food scientists say it makes more sense to eat and gift fruits and dried fruits rather than sweets and meat, for we would certainly not like to invite dietary compli-cations to ourselves, our friends or our relatives. Those who can afford or access can go for sugar-free alternatives for sweets, while non-vegetarians can opt for white meat or aquatic food. There is no dearth of options for those who are keen to seek healthy eating alternatives. The idea is to cele-brate festivals in a way that strikes a balance between merry-making and staying healthy the morning and weeks after. After all, lining up at the doctor’s right after festivals is no fun, is it?

Reforms favoured by the index seem biased in favour of law followed by countries like the US and the UK.

FERNANDA G NICOLA

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ThE OThER

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05 | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021

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Oil exports may suffer after India slashes import dutyKRISHANA PRASAINKATHMANDU, OCT 18

Nepal’s edible oil exports to India may take a hit as reduced import duty by the southern neighbour may boost overseas buying by Indian traders themselves, insiders said.

Last Wednesday, the Indian govern-ment slashed import duty on crude palm oil to 2.5 from 10 percent, and on crude soybean oil and crude sunflow-er oil to 2.5 from 7.5 percent.

The lower taxes could bring down prices of edible oils in India and increase consumption, prompting Indian traders to source the products themselves and dent Nepal’s largest export, insiders said. The base import tax on refined grades of palm, soy-bean and sunflower oil has declined to 32.5 from 37.5 percent.

With the tax waiver on import of crude palm, soybean and sunflower oil, the total tax will be 24.75 percent with 2.5 percent base import duty and other taxes. Refined palm, soybean and sunflower oil are subject to 35.75 percent total tax.

Exports of edible oil, particularly soybean, to India have been rising in

recent years mainly due to differences in customs duty between the two countries, according to industry insiders.

“With the waiver on customs duty, the export of soybean oil will face a similar fall as palm oil did. The drop in taxes means the exported refined oil will not be able to compete in the Indian market,” said trade economist Posh Raj Pandey. “The traders who were taking advantage of the differ-ence in customs duty will not be able to do so from now onwards.”

He added that for Nepali traders or exporters, extra export charges are levied on the edible oils which make them more expensive.

According to Indian media, edible oil industry body Solvent Extractors Association expected that retail prices of cooking oils, which are ruling at a very high level, could now come down by up to Rs15 per litre. The government has been slashing duty rates on both crude and refined oils

since February. This will be the fifth such intervention to control prices

Edible oils are Nepal’s largest exportable commodities even though it produces little soybean of its own. Despite the high value of the ship-ments, the country’s economy reaps little benefit from the trade, experts say. India is second to China in terms of consumption of edible oils.

Tariff exemptions on Nepali exports to India under the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement give domestic traders an advantage. Countries outside South Asia are slapped with tariffs of 45 percent on soybean oil.

Trade experts said that importing crude oil with zero tariff privilege and exporting it to India with zero traffic privilege enables Nepali trad-

ers to enjoy a net profit of 45 per-cent, excluding other profits.

“The reduction in the tax structure will sharply slash the

profit margin,” said Pandey.According to the Trade and Export

Promotion Centre, the country export-ed soybean oil worth Rs53.65 billion in the last fiscal year 2020-21, a 322.7 per-cent year-on-year jump.

In the previous fiscal year, soybean oil exports amounted to only Rs12.69 billion. The country imported crude soybean oil valued at Rs53.38 billion in the last fiscal year. Soybean oil ship-ments accounted for 38 percent of the country’s total exports.

Nepal exported sunflower oil worth Rs2.24 billion in the last fiscal as against Rs104 million in the previ-ous fiscal year. Imports stood at Rs16.24 billion in the last fiscal year. Sunflower oil is basically consumed in the country.

According to the Department of Customs, the country exported soy-bean oil valued at Rs16.48 billion in the first two months of the current fiscal year 2021-22 while imports of crude soybean oil reached Rs15.60 bil-lion during the review period.

The country exported palm oil worth Rs2.6 billion in the first two months of the current fiscal year while imports of crude palm oil stood at Rs6.4 billion during the same period. Nepal’s sunflower oil ship-ments were valued at Rs1.4 billion in the first two months of the current fiscal year while imports came to Rs3.17 billion.

Lower taxes could prompt Indian traders to source the products themselves and dent Nepal’s largest export, insiders say.

PoSt Photo: hARIhAR SINGh RAthoRE

Paddy fields are ready for harvesting along the Sharada river in Salyan.

ShUttERStoCk

China’s economy stumbles on power crunch, property woesREUTERSBEIJING, OCT 18

China’s economy hit its slowest pace of growth in a year in the third quar-ter, hurt by power shortages, supply chain bottlenecks and major wobbles in the property market and raising pressure on policymakers to do more to prop up the faltering recovery.

Data released on Monday showed gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4.9 percent in July-September from a year earlier, the weakest clip since the third quarter of 2020 and missing forecasts.

The world’s second-largest economy is facing several major challenges, including the China Evergrande Group debt crisis, ongoing supply chain delays and a critical electricity crunch, which sent factory output to its weakest since early 2020, when heavy Covid-19 curbs were in place.

“The domestic economic recovery is still unstable and uneven,” said National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) spokesperson Fu Linghui at a briefing in Beijing on Monday.

China’s economy had staged an impressive rebound from last year’s pandemic slump thanks to effective virus containment and hot overseas demand for the country’s manufac-tured goods. But the recovery has lost steam from the blistering 18.3 percent growth clocked in the first quarter of this year.

“In response to the ugly growth numbers we expect in coming months, we think policymakers will take more steps to shore up growth, including ensuring ample liquidity in the inter-bank market, accelerating infrastruc-ture development and relaxing some

aspects of overall credit and real estate policies,” said Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics. A Reuters poll of analysts had expected GDP to rise 5.2 percent in the third quarter.

The weak numbers sent the yuan and most Asian stock markets lower amid broader investor concerns about the world economic recovery.

Global worries about a possible spillover of credit risk from China’s property sector into the wider econo-my have also intensified as major developer China Evergrande Group wrestles with more than $300 billion of debt.

Chinese leaders, fearful that a per-sistent property bubble could under-

mine the country’s long-term ascent, are likely to maintain tough curbs on the sector even as the economy slows, but could soften some tactics as need-ed, policy sources and analysts said.

New construction starts in September slumped for a sixth straight month, NBS data showed, the longest spate of monthly declines since 2015, as cash-strapped develop-ers reined in investment and paused projects following tighter borrowing limits.

Meanwhile, the industrial sector has been hit by power rationing trig-gered by coal shortages, as well as environmental curbs on heavy pol-luters like steel plants and floods over the summer.

Indonesia’s higher coal output target thwarted by heavy rainsREUTERSJAKARTA, OCT 18

Indonesia, the world’s biggest export-er of coal used for power generation, is facing challenges in hitting its out-put target for the fuel because of heavy rains that have slowed activity at key mines in recent months.

Global coal prices have soared to records this year on a recovery in industrial fuel demand and con-strained mine output in top coal con-sumer China.

Indonesia targeted a jump in output and exports to capitalize on the boom, but heavy rains have slowed mine and port operations, mining executives told Reuters.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry in April raised its 2021 out-put target to a record 625 million tonnes, 11 percent higher than 2020 output, from an initial target of 550 million tonnes, with the higher supply intended primarily for exports.

But through September output has risen by only 8.7 percent from a year earlier to an estimated 456.77 million tonnes, energy ministry data showed, while exports dropped 4.6 percent to 230.45 million tonnes compared to last year.

Indonesia’s meteorology agency said half of Indonesian territory, including parts of key coal hubs Kalimantan and Sumatra, have seen the rainy season start earlier this year and with higher intensity.

Agency data showed that parts of Kalimantan registered rain volumes

in August that were twice that month’s average over the 1981-2010 reference period.

“Rains are unusually and very unseasonally heavy, and this has potential to influence output if they persist,” said Dileep Srivastava, direc-tor of the country’s largest coal miner Bumi Resources.

The company is planning to pro-duce between 83 million tonnes to 87 million tonnes this year, compared to 81 million tonnes last year, Srivastava said.

The country’s second-largest coal miner Adaro Energy said it has kept its output target of between 52 million to 54 million tonnes, spokesperson Febriati Nadira said. Adaro produced 54.5 million tonnes in 2020.

“We are optimistic in the prospect of coal business in this second semes-ter but we remain cautious,” she said. In addition to rains, miners have also faced stricter enforcement of so-called domestic market obligations (DMO) that guarantee sufficient coal for local power generators.

The obligations state that miners must sell 25 percent of their output to state electricity firm Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) and 34 miners who missed that target had their export permits suspended earlier this year.

Some have been allowed to resume exports since, but the DMOs remain a key priority for most miners. Our commitment is to meet DMO and pri-oritise supplies against PLN con-tracts,” Bumi’s Srivastava said.

Foxconn bullish on electric vehicle prospects as it shows off three prototypesREUTERSTAIPEI, OCT 18

Taiwan’s Foxconn unveiled its first three electric vehicle prototypes on Monday, underscoring ambitious plans to diversify away from its role of building consumer electronics for Apple Inc and other tech firms.

The vehicles—an SUV, a sedan and a bus—were made by Foxtron, a venture between Foxconn and Taiwanese car maker Yulon Motor Co Ltd.

Foxtron Vice Chairman Tso Chi-sen told reporters that he hoped electric vehicles would be worth a trillion Taiwan dollars to Foxconn in five years time—a figure equivalent to around $35 billion.

Formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, the world’s biggest electronics contract manufacturer aims to become a major player in the global EV market though it concedes it is a novice in the car industry.

It first mentioned its EV ambitions in November 2019 and has moved rela-tively quickly, this year announcing deals to build cars with US startup Fisker Inc and Thailand’s energy group PTT Pcl.

“Hon Hai is ready and no longer the new kid in town,” Foxconn Chairman Liu Young-way told the event timed to mark the birthday of the company’s billionaire founder Terry Gou, who drove the sedan onto the stage to the tune of “Happy Birthday”.

The sedan, which was jointly devel-oped with Italian design firm Pininfarina, will be sold by an unspec-ified carmaker outside Taiwan in the coming years, while the SUV will be sold under one of Yulon’s brands and is scheduled to hit the market in Taiwan in 2023.

The bus, which will carry a Foxtron badge, will start running in several cities in southern Taiwan next year in a partnership with a local transporta-tion service provider.

A Reuters poll of analysts had expected GDP to rise 5.2 percent in the third quarter.

Key coal hubs saw the rainy season start earlier this year.

The world’s biggest electronics contract firm aims to become a major player in the global EV market.

REUtERS

Real estate agents walk along at a residential area in Shanghai, China.

LUK STC SAEF NICSF MLBL NICAD82830.93% 1.06% 1.35% 1.56% 1.99% 2%

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TUeSDAY, OCTOBer 19, 2021 | 06

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Following ASEAN snub, Myanmar junta to free over 5,000 protesters

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEYANGON, OCT 18

Myanmar’s junta chief on Monday announced the release of more than 5,000 people jailed for protesting against a February coup, days after a regional bloc delivered a major snub to the military regime.

There has been chaos in Myanmar since the coup, with more than 1,100 civilians killed in a bloody crackdown on dissent and more than 8,000 arrested, according to a local monitoring group.

More than 7,300 are currently behind bars, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Junta head Min Aung Hlaing said a total of 5,636 prisoners will be freed to mark the Thadingyut festival later in October, without providing details on when they would be freed.

The announcement comes on the heels of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ decision to exclude Min Aung Hlaing from an upcoming summit of the 10-country bloc over his administration’s commitment to defusing the bloody crisis.

Min Aung Hlaing gave no details on who would be included in the list and prison authorities did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

The Democratic Voice of Burma news website said three of its journalists, all held for around six months, had been freed.

Myanmar authorities released more than 2,000 anti-coup protesters from prisons across the country in June, including journalists critical of the military government.

Those still in custody include the American journalist Danny Fenster, who has been held since being arrested on May 24.

Mya Nu, who said her daughter was arrested in April, was one of dozens waiting outside Yangon’s Insein prison after the latest announcement in the hope their loved ones would be among those set free.

“I didn’t get a chance to meet her yet,” she told AFP.

“It’s only through her lawyer that I know she’s in good health,”

More than 1,300 of those due to be released would be freed on the condition they sign agreements promising not to re-offend, according to the junta’s Monday statement.

Such agreements were “basically a form of parole that entails constant menacing surveillance”, David Mathieson, an analyst formerly based in Myanmar, told AFP.

“It doesn’t absolve the SAC [State Administration Council, as the junta dubs itself] of nine months of extreme violence.”

The AAPP monitoring group

slammed the release as a “form of distraction” aimed at foreign governments.

“The intention is not to relax repres-sion,” it said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Foreign ministers from the ASEAN bloc on Friday decided to exclude Min Aung Hlaing, instead choosing to invite a “non-political representative” for Myanmar to the October 26-28 summit.

The organisation, widely criticised as toothless, took a stand after the junta rebuffed requests for a special envoy to meet “all stakeholders” in Myanmar—a phrase seen to include ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The junta slammed the decision, accusing ASEAN of breaching its policy of non-interference in the

domestic affairs of member states.Myanmar, mostly ruled by the mili-

tary since a 1962 coup, has been a thorn in ASEAN’s side since it joined in 1997.

Min Aung Hlaing’s administration has justified its power grab citing alleged vote rigging in last year’s elec-tions, which Suu Kyi’s National

League for Democracy (NLD) party won convincingly.

The coup snuffed out Myanmar’s short-lived dalliance with democracy and the 76-year-old Suu Kyi now faces a raft of charges in a junta court that could see her jailed for decades.

Last week, her chief lawyer said he had been banned by the junta from speaking to journalists, diplomats or international organisations.

The other lawyers on her legal team also faced a similar ban—effectively muzzling the key sources of informa-tion on court proceedings, from which journalists are barred.

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, who has spent much of her life resisting Myanmar’s generals, is scheduled to testify in court for the first time later this month.

Foreign ministers from the ASEAN bloc on Friday decided to exclude junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, instead choosing to invite a ‘non-political representative’ for Myanmar to the October 26-28 summit.

Russia’s coronavirus infections exceed eight millionASSOCIATED PRESSMOSCOW, OCT 18

Russia’s total number of coronavirus infections has topped 8 million, more than 5 percent of the population, and the daily infection toll hit a new record.

The national coronavirus task force said on Monday that 34,325 new infec-tions over the past day raised the pan-demic-long total to 8,027,012. It also said 998 people died of Covid-19 in the previous day, bringing the total number of deaths to 224,310.

The death toll is minutely lower than the record 1,002 tallied on Saturday, but shows the country continuing to struggle with the virus as vaccination rates remain low.

Russian authorities have tried to speed up the pace of vaccinations with lotteries, bonuses and other incentives, but widespread vaccine scepticism and conflicting signals from officials stymied the efforts. The task force said on Monday that about 45 million Russians, or 32 percent of the country’s nearly 146 million people, are fully vaccinated.

Despite the mounting toll, the Kremlin has ruled out a new nationwide lockdown like the one early on in the pandemic that badly hurt the economy, eroding President Vladimir Putin’s popularity. Instead, it has dele-gated the power to enforce coronavirus restrictions to regional authorities.

Some of Russia’s 85 regions have restricted attendance at large public events and limited access to theatres, restaurants and other venues. However, daily life is going on largely as normal in Moscow, St Petersburg and many other Russian cities.

The highest concentrations of cases are mostly in comparatively urban-ised western Russia and in the devel-oped areas along the Pacific Coast such as Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, but the sparsely populated Siberian region of Sakha and Chukotka in the extreme northeast also show high case rates of more than 150 infections per 100,000 people over a seven-day period.

Russia’s coronavirus death toll is Europe’s largest. The official record ranks Russia as having the fifth-most pandemic deaths in the world following the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico.

However, state statistics agency Rosstat, which also counts deaths in which the virus wasn’t considered the main cause, has reported a much higher pandemic death toll—about 418,000 people with Covid-19 as of August.

Colin Powell: War hero, historymaker haunted by Iraq

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEWASHINGTON, OCT 18

Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants who became a US war hero and the first Black secretary of state but saw his legacy tarnished when he made the case for war in Iraq in 2003, died on Monday of Covid-19 complications. He was 84.

The retired four-star general and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who served four presidents made his reputation as a man of honour distant from the political fray—an asset in the corridors of power.

“General Powell is an American hero, an American example, and a great American story,” George W Bush said as he announced Powell’s nomination as secretary of state in 2000.

“In directness of speech, his tow-ering integrity, his deep respect for our democracy, and his soldier’s sense of duty and honour, Colin Powell demonstrates ... qualities that will make him a great repre-sentative of all the people of this country.”

But he found it hard to live down his infamous February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council about the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq—the evidence he presented was later proven to be false.

“It’s a blot... and will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now,” Powell said in a 2005 interview with ABC News.

Born April 5, 1937 in Harlem, Powell’s “American Journey”— the title of his autobiography—started in New York, where he grew up and earned a degree in geology.

He also participated in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) in college, and upon his graduation in June 1958, he received a commission as a second

lieutenant in the US Army, and was posted in what was then West Germany. Powell completed two tours of duty in Vietnam—in 1962-63 as one of John F Kennedy’s thou-sands of military advisors, and again in 1968-69 to investigate the My Lai massacre.

He earned a Purple Heart, but also faced questions about the tone of his report into the hundreds of deaths at My Lai, which to some seemed to dismiss any claims of wrongdoing.

“I was in a unit that was respon-sible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened,” he told inter-viewer Larry King in 2004.

“So, in war, these sorts of horri-ble things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored.”

Back in Washington, he quickly rose through the ranks to the pin-nacle of the national security estab-lishment, serving Ronald Reagan as national security advisor, and both George HW Bush and Bill Clinton as chairman of the Joint

Chiefs from 1989-93.Powell’s experiences in Vietnam

as a young soldier led him to devel-op the so-called “Powell Doctrine,” which said that if the United States must intervene in a foreign con-flict, it should deploy overwhelm-ing force based on clear political objectives.

For many Americans, he was the public face of the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

Powell was initially lukewarm about going into the country, but his reputation soared in the after-math of the blitzkrieg that ejected Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.

For a while, he even considered a run for the presidency.

But after retiring from the army in 1993, Powell devoted himself to working on behalf of disadvan-taged young people as chairman of America’s Promise, a youth advoca-cy group.

For a while, he fended off new questions on his desire for public office, until George W Bush came

calling for the popular military man to lead the State Department as the 65th secretary of state.

“I hope it will give inspiration to young African Americans,” Powell said in his nomination acceptance speech in 2000, telling them: “There are no limitations upon you.”

His four years at Foggy Bottom (2001-04) were forever marked by the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Beforehand, Powell sought a more prudent policy, struggling for traction against hawks in the Bush cabinet while trying to sway allies for their support—all to no avail.

He defended his support for the invasion until the very end of his tenure, and has endured the criti-cism ever since.

“I knew I didn’t have any choice,” Powell told The New York Times in July 2020. “What choice did I have? He’s the president.”

Powell freely admitted his liberal social views made him a strange bedfellow for many Republicans, though the party was often happy to hold him up as an example of its inclusivity.

“I’m still a Republican. And I think the Republican Party needs me more than the Democratic Party needs me,” he told MSNBC in 2014.

“You can be a Republican and still feel strongly about issues such as immigration and improving our education system and doing some-thing about some of the social prob-lems that exist in our society and our country.”

But since 2008, he has endorsed Democrats for the presidency, twice backing Barack Obama, and then Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

Powell earned a number of civil-ian honours, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom — twice from Bush Senior and Clinton.

He married his wife Alma in 1962. They had three children: Michael, Linda and Annemarie.

He defended his support for Iraq invasion until the very end of his tenure, and endured the criticism ever since.

AFP/RSS

People wait outside Insein Prison in Yangon on Monday as authorities announced more than 5,000 people jailed for protesting against a February coup which ousted the civilian government would be released.

Junta released more than 2,000 anti-coup protesters from prisons across the country in June.

AFP/RSS

In this 2003 photo, Powell holds up a vial that he said was the size that could be used to hold anthrax as he addresses the United Nations Security Council in New York.

More than 20 dead after floods in south IndiaKOCHI: Leaders in the south Indian state of Kerala opened near-overflow-ing dams on Monday, after at least 22 people died when heavy rains lashed the state over the weekend. Rainfall across the state led to flash floods and landslides in several areas, with the Indian army and navy called out to rescue residents. Opening dams could reduce the risk of potentially cata-strophic overflows like those partly blamed for the state’s worst floods in a century in 2018, when at least 400 people were killed and 200,000 dis-placed. But by releasing water down-stream, the move could also worsen the situation in areas already experi-encing floods. Authorities have already opened smaller dams to pre-vent flooding, while state Power Minister K Krishnankutty said in a statement the Idukki dam, the state’s largest, will also be opened if the rains continue. At least 13 people were killed by a landslide in Kuttikkal village.

Russia cuts diplomatic ties with NATO in latest rowMOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow was suspending its mission to NATO and closing the Western mil-itary bloc’s liaison mission in Russia, in a new diplomatic row. “We are sus-pending the work of our official mis-sion to NATO, including the work of our military representative from November 1 or it could take a few more days,” Lavrov told reporters. Lavrov said that Russia would also be ending the alliance’s liaison mis-sion—established in 2002 and hosted at the Belgian embassy—and infor-mation office in Moscow. The bloc’s information office was established in Moscow in 2001 to improve under-standing between NATO and Russia. The latest row comes after NATO ear-lier this month stripped accredita-tions of eight members of the Russian mission to the alliance, describing them as “undeclared Russian intelligence officers”.

US watching China’s weapons development, Austin saysTBILISI: US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday Washington was closely watching China’s develop-ment of advanced weapons systems, while declining to comment directly on a report that Beijing had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. The Chinese foreign ministry denied the report in the Financial Times newspaper, which said Beijing had launched a rocket in July carrying a hypersonic glide weapon. Beijing said it was a space vehicle, not a missile. The United States and Russia have both tested hypersonic weapons, usu-ally defined as missiles which fly more than five times the speed of sound, in a race for a new generation of weapons that are harder to detect and block. (AGENCIES)

Russia’s death toll is Europe’s largest at 224,310.

OBiTUArY

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07 | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021

SpORTS | MEDlEY

YESTERDAY’S SOlUTiOn

CROSSwORD

HOROSCOpE

SUDOkU

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19) ***Allow yourself to cultivate some much-needed downtime today. The alignment helps you focus on your living space, family connections, and underlying emotional issues. Tuesday’s skies makes it an ideal day to feel good around home.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18) ***

The universe is giving you the tools you need to do some smooth talking. Tuesday’s alignment makes it easy to turn on the charm in group settings or when it comes to patching up rocky friendships, providing confidence to your self-expression.

PISCES (February 19-March 20) ****Send your attention towards your self-confi-dence today. Today’s cosmic landscape encour-ages you to reconnect with your dormant abili-ties and talents. Tuesday’s skies makes it easy to feel good and apply your creative potency.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) ****You’re here to reclaim your personal power and potency. Tuesday’s skies remind you to honor this innate desire for self-reclamation. It’s an ideal day to pamper yourself, prioritize your needs, and state your story to the world.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) ***

Tuesday’s skies call for some much-needed, restorative alone time. The alignment encourag-es you to decompress through gentle exercise or low-key, solo activities. The day makes it easy to maintain a good mood and strike an emotional equilibrium.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21) ***

Your extroverted twin is seeking some stage time today. Tuesday’s skies encourages you to reconnect with your cherished group of people who share similar interests. Today’s alignment offers a big-picture, positive mindset to enjoy.

CANCER (June 22-July 22) ***It’s critical to establish an emotionally support-ive home base. Once you have that, you’re ready to devote yourself to a career path. The align-ment today encourages you to consider your ambitions and chip away at large-scale projects.

LEO (July 23-August 22) ***

Stretch yourself beyond your known limits. You’re concerned with breaking up stagnant routines and finding a sense of adventure today. Tuesday’s skies makes it an ideal day for roman-tic flirtations and creative activation.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22) ***It’s okay if you need to take a beat and get some things off your chest. The day encourages you to acknowledge where you’re feeling wounded. Tuesday’s skies makes it easy to smooth over ruffled feathers on the home front.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22) ***Send your focus to the close relationships in your world. The universe is encouraging you to take a hard look at the narratives swirling around in that arena. It’s easier to form connec-tions and tighten bonds if things have gotten rocky.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21) ****

Let yourself get into an organized workflow today. To feel your best, it’s critical that you give yourself things to accomplish today. Today’s alignment encourages you to focus on produc-tive measures, exercise, and balancing out your body.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21) *****Pleasure reigns supreme under Tuesday’s skies. Save the mundane labor and obligations for another day. What you need is a good time, and the universe is more than willing to provide. It’s an ideal time to find your creative spotlight.

Post Photo: hemanta shrestha

Nepal captain Kiran Kumar Limbu (left), along with other national football team members, acknowledge supporters upon their arrival at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on Monday. The SAFF Championship runners-up Nepali team returned home from the Maldives, where they lost 3-0 to India in their first ever final appearance in the tournament. The government of Nepal has decided to reward the team members with Rs500,000 each and coaching staff with Rs300,000 each.

Tottenham spoil Newcastle’s Saudi partyAgence FrAnce-PresseNEWCASTLE, OCT 18

Newcastle’s new dawn under the own-ership of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund got off to a disappointing start as Tottenham silenced St James’ Park with a 3-2 win on Sunday.

The defeat leaves Newcastle still in the relegation zone without a Premier League win this season.

Expectations on Tyneside are high for a huge injection of funding by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) to transform Newcastle’s fortunes on the field.

PIF governor Yassir Al-Rumayyan was given a hero’s welcome by the 55,000 crowd when he was presented before kick-off.

A jubilant atmosphere was matched by the perfect start for the home side when Callum Wilson headed home Javier Manquillo’s cross inside two minutes.

Al-Rumayyan celebrated wildly in the stands alongside co-owner Amanda Staveley, who has bought a 10 percent stake in the club and been the face of the takeover bid for well over a year.

Staveley said this week her ambi-tion is for the Magpies to become champions of England within the next 10 years. However, the gulf between where Newcastle are and where the new owners want them to go was exposed after their flying start.

Spurs have had a far from ideal

start to the season under new boss Nuno Espirito Santo but in Harry Kane and Son Heung-min they have the star quality Newcastle hope to have in years to come.

Tanguy Ndombele smashed home an equaliser on 17 minutes from Sergio Reguilon’s cross to get the Tottenham revival started. Kane then ended his wait for a Premier League goal this season with a deft lob over Karl Darlow.

“I know there’s been a lot of talk and a lot of noise around me and I

know that’s always the case when you’re used to scoring goals and the ball just doesn’t drop to you some-times,” said Kane.

The game was then stopped for 20 minutes due to a medical emergency for a Newcastle fan. Tottenham’s Reguilon and Eric Dier alerted the need for a defibrillator and the players were taken off the pitch by referee Andre Marriner.

The flow of the game remained the same when it resumed for seven min-utes of first-half stoppage time.

Kane turned provider for Spurs’ third as his low cross was converted by Son sliding in at the far post.

Many expected Newcastle’s consortium of owners to dispense with the services of manager Steve Bruce as one of their first points of business.

The former Manchester United cap-tain was handed a reprieve to take charge of his 1,000th game of his man-agerial career.

But the 60-year-old is deeply unpop-ular among the Newcastle support and was met with persistent chants of “we want Brucey out” and “you’re getting sacked in the morning” during the second half as Spurs continued to dominate.

“If I was believing everything I saw last week, I might not have been here today,” said Bruce. “My job is to get a few results. Unfortunately this year, if you’re a manager in the Premier League and you haven’t won in seven or eight, you come under pressure.”

A red card for Jonjo Shelvey seven minutes from time rounded off a miserable day on the field for Newcastle.

Dier’s comical own goal in the final minute gave the 10 men hope. But Spurs held out to move up to fifth and level on points with fourth-placed Brighton.

Newcastle remain three points adrift of safety and much further from matching the ambitions of their wealthy new owners.

aP/rss

Newcastle remain three points adrift of safety without a Premier League win this season.

The Magpies’ new era under the ownership of Saudi sovereign wealth fund begins with 3-2 defeat against Spurs.

Fati shines again for Barcelona

AssociAted PressMADRID, OCT 18

Ansu Fati is quickly becoming Barcelona’s go-to player in the absence of Lionel Messi.

The 18-year-old Fati made his first start for Barcelona after a long injury layoff on Sunday, scoring a goal and earning his team a penalty as the Catalan club halted their losing streak by rallying to beat Valencia 3-1 in La Liga. Memphis Depay and Philippe Coutinho also scored for Barcelona.

Fati returned to action last month after being sidelined for more than 10 months because of a knee injury, com-ing off the bench in three straight matches before getting his first start on Sunday and giving fans more hope that the club can rebuild around him after Messi’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain.

“We’ve always said we need players like him,” said Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman.

“It was his first start and it was already decided with the doctors that he would only play for about an hour. We don’t want to overwork him in

such an important week for us.”Barcelona were coming off two

defeats before the international break —2-0 at Atletico Madrid in the league and 3-0 at Benfica in the Champions League. They had won only once in their last six matches in all competitions.

Barcelona will next play a critical Champions League game against Dynamo Kyiv on Wednesday and then the first “clasico” of the season against Real Madrid.

The loss extended Valencia’s win-less streak to five matches.

Jose Luis Gaya opened the scoring for the visitors with a powerful long-range shot five minutes into the match at Camp Nou, but Fati equalised from outside the area in the 13th and won the penalty kick converted by Depay in the 41st.

Coutinho sealed the victory from close range in the 85th for his first goal with the Catalan club in nearly a year.

Sevilla rebounded from their first loss of the season with a 1-0 victory at Celta Vigo. Osasuna won 2-1 at Villarreal while Rayo Vallecano beat Elche 2-1 at home.

The 18-year-old scores a goal and earns a penalty in a 3-1 win over Valencia in his first start after a long injury layoff.

Silwal is credited with successfully hosting the SAG five months after his appointment in December 2020.

Sports Council member secretary Silwal to be sacked

sPorts BUreAUKATHMANDU, OCT 18

The government has decided to sack National Sports Council member sec-retary Ramesh Kumar Silwal.

A meeting of the Council of Ministers on Monday directed the Ministry of Youth and Sports to initi-ate the process to relieve him of the duty, said a minister who did not want to be named.

Silwal, appointed on July, 2020 by the erstwhile KP Sharma Oli-led gov-ernment for a four-year tenure, was picked through open competition. But the change in guard led to his sacking. He was fired on the allegation that his performance was unsatisfactory.

The ministry had reportedly sought clarification some two weeks ago, charging him with poor performance. Silwal was among the close confidants of former prime minister Oli. His sacking was widely anticipated following the appointment of Maheshwor Gahatraj, a CPN (Maoist Centre) leader, as the minister for youth and sports.

Silwal is credited with successfully

hosting the sub-continental South Asian Games five months after his appointment in December 2020.

Silwal had been to the Maldives to attend the final of the SAFF Championship between Nepal and India, which Nepal lost 3-0. He was scheduled to return to Kathmandu on Monday evening and could not be reached for comment.

Post file Photo

Ramesh Kumar Silwal

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021 | 08

CUlTURE & lifESTYlE

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Prajesh sjb rana

A

nd we’re back to talking about Facebook after a former employee, Frances Haugen, leaked a myriad of

internal documents of the compa-ny that raised concerns of polari-sation, algorithmic bias, and mis-information. Facebook has con-stantly been under scrutiny for its privacy policies and its role in the propagation of ethnic violence in countries like Myanmar and Ethiopia, just to mention a few recent ones.

In Haugen’s leak, she reveals internal research documents from Facebook that highlight Instagram’s current negative effect on young teenagers while also underscoring how the compa-ny’s algorithm prioritises hateful, polarising, and fake content in an attempt to boost engagement. “But its own research is showing that content that is hateful, that is divi-sive, that is polarising, it’s easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions,” says Hauge in her public appearance on CBS News’ 60 Minutes.

This leak came just after a mas-sive data leak that compromised the personal information of more than 1.5 billion Facebook users. And adding to the company’s woes, it also faced a massive world-wide outage for more than six hours two weeks earlier that affected Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Not only did the outage disrupt communication platforms used by billions of people all around the world, it also demon-strated the overall dependency of internet users on a company that is already facing intense scrutiny and is infamous for its evasive stance on data privacy.

This isn’t anything new for Facebook. Since the massive Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media giant has been under increasing scrutiny around the use of their massive pool of user data. Facebook, with more than 1.9 billion daily active users, has grown into a behemoth of social media. The social implications of such a massive communications network, its policies and algo-

rithms can bear tremendous impact on real-world events like the ones we’ve seen in Myanmar and now in Ethiopia. Facebook has also been blamed for the lack of policing and proliferation of misinformation ranging from the 2016 US Elections to the January 6 storming of the Capitol Building. Facebook’s real-world impact, be it political or social, cannot be ignored anymore as we have wit-nessed with the Haugen leaks.

The leaks published by The Wall Street Journal under ‘The Facebook Files’ covers in-detail what journalists have learned from the leaked documents. One important piece highlights how Facebook was aware of the toxic aspect of Instagram upon teenage girls. The leaked documents revealed that in their internal research, 1 in 3 teenage girls said

that Instagram made them feel more depressed about their own lives and exacerbated body-image issues. Thirteen percent of teen-age girls also disclosed that the app contributed to suicidal idea-tion and suicidal thoughts, and 32 percent stated that they felt worse about their bodies after using Instagram. The documents even went on to report that teens blamed Instagram for the increase in the rate of anxiety and depression. These revelations come on the cusp of Facebook working on an Instagram for kids, which the company has halted in the lieu of the leaks.

Instagram in many ways propa-gates idealised bodies and lavish lifestyles unlike similar apps like TikTok that celebrates performa-tive acts or Snapchat that cele-brates goofy uploads supported by

their quirky face-based filters. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Instagram has become the primary medium for social comparison, and while Facebook officials remain unfazed by what they call inherent social problems, the role that Instagram plays in accentuating these base negative human emotions cannot be undermined.

These allegations hardly come off as a surprise since Facebook has been dodging conversations about privacy and has denied responsibility for fanning ethnic violence or political unrest for years now. Haugen says that inter-nal conversations at Facebook always steered towards gaining astronomical profits over any cost and this usually involved pushing controversial, violent, or radical-ised content to boost engagement.

Results of such boosts have often had real-world implications. Therefore, the most unsettling aspect of this entire debacle is that Facebook, while understand-ing these implications, chose to ignore them for financial growth anyway. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, responded to these allegations by saying that they were “just not true” and that “they didn’t make any sense.”

This leak came just after a data dump of personal information of 1.5 billion Facebook users that appeared in a hacker forum back in September. This leak was not a security breach on Facebook’s servers but a web-scrape of the publicly available information provided through Facebook APIs. With that in mind, the leak didn’t compromise your personal accounts but rather created a data-

base of user’s names, email addresses, locations, phone num-bers that Facebook users can will-ingly put up on the internet. These details are particularly beneficial to a lot of people, including target-ed marketers or even scammers. This information can also be used to launch phishing attacks for more personal information or money. This brings us back to the issue of data privacy. Whether we like it or not, Facebook retains a lot of personal information about its users. On the contrary, an open-source app like Signal only records your phone number while using their service. On the other hand, Facebook Messenger records users’ physical addresses, email addresses, names, phone numbers, user ids, device ids, purchase his-tories, financial information, con-tacts, photos or videos, search his-tory, browsing data, et cetera. The sheer amount of data Facebook pulls off of their users should be a cause for concern.

Hagen has made it to the US Senate with her findings. During the hearing, she did not call for a dismantling of Facebook. For all the negative repercussions, the social media giant has also con-tributed a lot of good. She instead asked for transparency and accountability. Facebook has cre-ated one of the largest privately owned digital communities with little to no regulation that has caused massive impact on the social framework of modern com-munities. “This is not simply a matter of some social media users being angry or unstable, or about one side being radicalised against the other. It is about Facebook choosing to grow at all costs, becoming an almost trillion-dollar company by buying its profits with our safety,” said Hagen at the senate.

The Facebook leak explainedSince the massive Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media giant has been under increasing scrutiny.

Facebook has created one of the largest privately owned digital communities.

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