Good morning!
Here’s a quick summary of important, ignored and interesting stories from Monday to kickstart your Tuesday.
Important
Another gold medal for Gaurika Singh
Nepal’s teenage swimming sensation Gaurika Singh had already made a record by winning three gold medals in one edition of the South Asian Games on Sunday. She was the first Nepali athlete to achieve the feat. On Monday, the 17-year-old swimmer won one more gold medal to become another athlete to have won the highest number of gold medals in the SAG. Whereas Deepak Bista collected four gold medals from different editions, Singh achieved that status in one SAG.
Meanwhile, Nepal won three other gold medals on Monday, taking the count to 49. The regional event is concluding today.
NCP to hold standing committee meeting after months
After months, the ruling Nepal Communist Party has called a standing committee meeting. A secretariat meeting of the party held on Monday decided to convene the standing committee meeting coming Sunday.
Meanwhile, the meeting also decided to settle all remaining issues related to the merger between the then CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Centre within this week. The party spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha says the meeting has proposed a few amendments to the party statute, which will be finalised after the standing committee endorses them.
Ignored
Koirala okay with extending Deuba’s term by 1.5 years
Nepali Congress general secretary Shashanka Koirala, who represents the Ram Chandra Paudel-led rival faction in the party leadership, has made a statement favouring party president Sher Bahadur Deuba on Monday. Speaking with journalists in Biratnagar, Koirala said Deuba could extend the term of current central working committee by one to one and a half years, and he does not have any problem with it.
The committee’s term is expiring in March 2020, and the party is required to hold a general convention to elect the new leadership. The party statute, however, lets the committee extend the term by one and a half years in maximum.
Ansari wants Parliament to discuss NHRC report
National Human Rights Commission member Mohna Ansari has demanded that the Federal Parliament discuss the annual report of the constitutional human rights watchdog. A day after the commission submitted its annual report for the fiscal year 2018/19 to President Bidya Devi Bhandari, Ansari said such discussions would help people know about functions and recommendations of the commission and put pressure on the government to implement the recommendations.
Of late, the commission has been complaining of the lack of cooperation from the government in implementing its recommendations.
CM urges for international support for Karnali development
Karnali Chief Minister Mahendra Bahadur Shahi has appealed to international donor agencies to extend their support to various development works of the province. He says international support is a must for the speedy development of the country’s least developed province.
Speaking at a meeting with Nepal’s international development partners in Surkhet on Monday, Shahi said his government was ready to work together with the international agencies for the alleviation of poverty, productivity increase, tourism development, and construction of physical infrastructure and power generation projects.
Interesting
After Lalitpur city’s cycle lane project, Kathmandu follows suit
It has been a few days since the Lalitpur Metropolitan City launched a project to construct a cycle lane beside a major road of the city. Now, its neighbour, Kathmandu Metropolitan City is also following suit. The capital city’s local government says it has already finalised a master plan to construct the lane from Maitighar to Koteshwar. The city government’s planning commission vice-chair Saroj Basnet says the commission is consulting experts about the plan and the cycle lane will be ready by the end of this fiscal year (mid-July 2020).
