Need Of Swift Economic Recovery

A recent report of the World Bank has projected Nepal's economic growth by only 0.6 per cent in 2021, which is slightly up from an estimated 0.2 percent in 2020, as extended lockdowns, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, brought the economic activities to a complete standstill for more than 4 months, hitting tourism and industrial sector hard. The report ‘South Asia Economic Focus, Fall 2020: Beaten or Broken? Informality and COVID-19’ further states that South Asia is set to plunge into the worst-ever...

Threat Of New Variant

The recent detection of a new variant of the COVID-19 pandemic in three Nepalis can be taken as a warning for all of us to take extra precautions to prevent its transmission. The infected had arrived in Kathmandu from the United Kingdom (UK) a couple of days back. According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), they include a 28-year-old woman, and two men aged 32 and 67, respectively. Their swaps had been sent to Hong Kong for testing. However, the woman a

First lot of COVID vaccine arrives from India

The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines provided by the Indian government arrived in Kathmandu on Thursday. The Government of India on Wednesday announced to provide 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal under its ‘VaccineMaitri’ programme. The vaccines will be inoculated to the frontline health workers, employees and security personnel in the first phase.

Gyawali for affordable access to virus vaccines

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali has stressed on close cooperation among the members of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) and partnership with private businesses to fight against COVID-19 pandemic. “It is needed to bring all aspects of lives, livelihoods, and economies to normalcy, including the tourism sector. There is an urgent need to ensure easy and affordable access to vaccines and other essential medical items to this end,” he said while addressing the 17th Ministerial...

Supreme Court asks for House dissolution notice

Hearing on the writ petitions filed against the dissolution of the House of Representatives (HoR) continued for the fifth consecutive day on Thursday. Pleadings on three of thirteen writ petitions filed against the dissolution completed on the fifth day and the hearing on the fourth writ began today. Hearing took a pace from Thursday after the Court strictly implemented time limit on pleading. The SC asked the advocates to manage the given time while submitting their documents in the Constitutional...

Forced to climb up tree to make phone connections

Manoj Shrestha wanted to make a phone call to his family from Hilekharka, a tourist destination located at Ward No. 6, in Abukhaireni Rural Municipality in Tanahu district, where he was staying at a homestay. But his mobile phone showed no signal of tower, leaving him unable to make one. When Manoj asked the locals if there was a place nearby where he could get a signal, they showed him a tree, which he was supposed to climb to get the signal. "There was a stair right under the tree to make the...

13 years on, flood victims keep waiting for restoration

“In the name of common people, the country witnessed different governments but nobody cared for us, for our plight so our problems are still unsolved,” Rana said.

Two dalit villages in Bajhang renamed as Lalitpur and Bhaktapur for previous names indicated lowest caste settlement

Lwarwada, the settlement of Bishwokarma and Lwars who have been living a life of extreme poverty, deprivation, and social discrimination, is now called Lalitpur, while Bhulwada, inhabited by the Bhuls (Sharki), is now called Bhaktapur. Hindu social hierarchy system considers Bishwokarma and Sarki as the lowest caste.

336 new cases of COVID-19, 226 recoveries in 24 hours

In 5,030 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the last 24 hours, 336 persons were found infected with SARS-CoV-2.

India hands over one million Covishield vaccines to Nepal

India handed over one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal under grant assistance today.