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N E PA L S L A R G E S T S E L L I N G E N G L I S H D A I LY

Vol XXIV No 314 | 12+4 Pages

WORLD

PAGE 11

SPORTS

money

IS claims Turkey
nightclub attack

Nepal crash out of

semi-finals

PM orders shot in the arm

for national pride projects

PAGE 9

PAGE 5

Bhoko Ghar in its

last week

LIFE & STYLE

constitution amendment bill

when quake leaves village dry

Supreme Court declines

to issue interim order
DEWAN RAI
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

n A tractor and a jeep on the Netrawati riverbank at Salyantar in Dhading used to ferry water. Tankers are doing a brisk business these days
as most of the water sources in the village dried up following the Gorka Earthquake. Villagers buy water not only for household purposes
but also for reconstruction of their houses. Out of the 2,300 households in Salyantar, 2,200 were affected by the quakes. Many of them are
rebuilding their homes. (Report on Pg4) 
POST PHOTO: HARIHAR SINGH RATHOUR

Ruling parties see opportunity

to table amendment proposal
TIKA R PRADHAN
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

Following
the
Supreme
Courts refusal to issue a stay
order against the constitution
amendment bill, the ruling
Nepali Congress and CPN
(Maoist Centre) have said they
will table the bill in
Parliament. They have also
urged the main opposition,
CPN-UML, to allow the parliamentary proceedings.
Welcoming the apex court
ruling, Deputy Prime Minister
and
Home
Minister
Bimalendra Nidhi said the
UMLs stance on amendment
bill had proved insignificant so it should not obstruct
the House any more.
According
to
leaders
involved in negotiations, the
UML has urged the government to wait until the mass
meeting of the opposition parties on Friday.
NC leader and Minister for
Physical Infrastructure and
Transport Ramesh Lekhak

TUESDAY,JANUARY 3, 2017 (19-O9-2073)

Lekhak: Since the court

says the House should be
allowed to exercise its
sovereign right, MPs should
get to decide on bill
urged the opposition to allow
deliberations on the amendment bill as well as the election-related bills.
Now that the court has
also made it clear that the
House should be allowed to
exercise its sovereign right,
parliamentarians should be
allowed to decide the fate of
all the bills, he said, adding
that the ruling coalition was
ready to accept any decision
taken by Parliament on the
amendment bill.
We have been hearing that
the opposition has what it
takes to foil the amendments
since a two-thirds majority is
required in Parliament to pass
the bill, he said. If that is

Order supports our claim: UML

KATHMANDU: The CPN-UML
has said its stance on
amendment bill was validated by the Supreme
Courts verdict. Subas
Nembang, UML Standing
Committee member and
deputy leader of
its
Parliamentary Party, said
the order has established
the opposition parties
claim that amendments
related to the provincial
boundaries are invalid
until the state assemblies
are elected.
According to him, the
court has allowed the government to conduct the parliamentary process, but not
alter the provincial boundaries. The main opposition

the case, why doesnt the UML

just defeat the amendment bill
in Parliament?
Maoist Centre sources said

has yet to decide its move in

response to the court denying a stay order on constitution amendment. UML
Chief Whip Bhanubhakta
Dhakal said the party has to
discuss within and among
other parties about their
next move.
The ruling has put moral
pressure on the UML that
has been restricting the
government from tabling
the amendment proposal
since November 29 claiming that the proposal was
unconstitutional.
UML Secretary Pradip
Gyawali, however, said
the
obstruction
was
likely to continue on
Tuesday as well.

The Supreme Court has

cleared the way for the government to table the second
constitution amendment bill
in Parliament for deliberation
by declining to issue an interim order against the preparations to forward the proposal.
A division bench of Chief
Justice Sushila Karki and
Justice
Ishwor
Prasad
Khatiwada
on
Monday
declined to issue an interim
order against the governments move to amend the
constitution citing the principle of separation of powers.
The court said that it would
not be judicious to prevent
Parliament from using its
wisdom in the legislation
process.
Responding to two writ petitions filed separately by
Advocate Tikadhwaj Khadka
and five others including
Bishnu Bahadur Raut, the
bench said Parliament is solely authorised to make and
amend laws.
Fundamentally, the state
organ authorised to formulate
laws after holding discussion

THE APEX COURT SAYS

It is not judicious to prevent

Parliament from using its wisdom in formulation of legislation.

n Fundamentally, the state organ
authorised to formulate laws
after holding discussions on
bills is Parliament.
on the bills is Parliament,
read the verdict. As per the
principle of separation of
powers as well as the principle, norms and provisions
adopted by the constitution,
Parliament reserves the right
to examine and determine the
appropriateness of the bill as
per the constitution.
Petitioners had demanded
the amendment bill be withdrawn without delay claiming
that the governments move
was against the letter and
spirit of the constitution.

As per the principle of separa-

tion of powers as well as the

principle, norms and provisions
adopted by the constitution,
Parliament reserves the right to
examine and determine the
appropriateness of the bill as
per the constitution.

They argued that the bill contradicts Article 274 (4) and
should be invalid. As per the
provision, consent of the concerned provincial assembly is
required while redrawing
their boundaries.
The bill registered in the
Parliament Secretariat seeks
to revise the boundaries of
some provinces. The CPNUML vehemently opposes the
move and has been organising
protest programmes across
the country to press the ruling
parties to withdraw the bill.

The petitioners also argued

that the government should
follow the provision of Article
295 in resolving the boundary
debate. The article states that
the government can constitute a federal commission to
settle issues of provincial
boundaries.
The court rules that it
would be prudent to consider
all the provisions while
amending as well as implementing the constitution.
The apex court, however,
has cautioned that if the laws
formulated are inconsistent
with the constitution, the
court could declare them
unacceptable through judicial
review.
The verdict should be
taken as interpretation of the
constitution to act in the spirit of the constitution, said
Advocate Govinda Bandi. He
argued that the verdict has set
the criteria for amendment
and implementation of the
constitution. The court said
that the constitutional provision should be understood in
its entirety, not in part. The
amendment
proposal
should also be taken in the
same way.

the government would table

the proposal as soon as
Speaker Onasari Gharti manages time for the same.

Parties stick to their guns

SARIN GHIMIRE
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

Major parties failed once

again on Monday to make
headway for ending the prolonged impasse in Parliament,
with the ruling coalition and
the main opposition sticking
to their guns.
Though the three parties
Nepali Congress, CPN Maoist

(Centre) and CPN-UML

acknowledged the need for
holding local, provincial and
federal
elections
by
November-December,
the
House proceedings were
obstructed after UML chairman KP Sharma Oli reiterated his stance of withdrawing
the constitution amendment
bill first.
During a meeting held at

Singha
Durbar,
senior
leaders of the ruling parties
are said to have urged the
main opposition to allow
Parliament to resume later
in the day, suggesting that
they could register a note of
dissent or defeat the amendment bill.
Oli, however, said his party
was firm on its bottom line.
>> CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

E L E C T R I C I T Y G E N E R AT I O N

NEA assures regular supply despite shortfall

Power output
halves as water
levels dip
BIBEK SUBEDI
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

Hydroelectricity generation
in the country has dipped
by almost 50 percent, as
water level in most of the
river basins is falling due to
the dry season.
The decline in electricity
generation, however, will
not lead to resumption of
power cuts in Kathmandu
Valley in January, the Nepal
Electricity Authority (NEA)
has said.
The countrys electricity
generation stands at 850
megawatt in the rainy season. However, the output
now hovers around 450MW

largely because of the dry

winter, according to the
state-owned power utility.
Electricity generation
falls drastically during winter because most of the
hydroelectric projects in
the country are run-of-theriver type.
The only power plants
with reservoir are
Kulekhani I and II. These
projects generate a total of
92MW power. But other projects in the country have
seen up to 50 percent reduction in output.
Electricity generation at
the 144MW Kali Gandaki
Hydropower Project, the
countrys largest, has fallen
45 percent to 80MW, said
NEA Spokesperson Prabal
Adhikari.
Generation at the 70MW
Middle Marshyangdi
Hydropower Project has

come down to 40MW, while

Marshyangdi Hydropower
Project, which has the
capacity to generate 69 megawatts, is churning out 45
MW power. Likewise, electricity generation at the
60MW Khimti Hydropower
Project has gone down to
40MW. The water level will
continue to decrease until
March.
To bridge the gap, Nepal
is currently importing
120MW electricity from the
Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur
cross-border transmission
line. The country plans to
import additional 40MW of
electricity from India
through this line beginning
March when upgradation
works at the Dhalkebar substation will be completed.
The utility is also planning to import additional 50
megawatts via the Kataiya-

Kushwaha transmission
line. Currently, 120MW electricity is being imported
through the facility.
The countrys peak electricity demand hovers
around 1200MW. With
imports of around 350MW
from India and domestic
output of around 450MW,
the NEA has 800 megawatts
to supply across the country.
Despite this shortfall, the
NEA says there will be no
power cuts in the Valley in
January while load-shedding hours will not go up in
other parts of the country.
The NEA has currently
managed to eliminate
power outages from the
Valley and reduce power
cuts in other parts of the
country by denying power
to energy-guzzling industries during the peak
hours5pm to 8pm.

C M Y K

the kathmandu post 02

news

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Let investigation
against graft
continue: Koirala

brush against the law

POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

A crusher is seen cleaning chips at Nakhu River in Lele VDC, Lalitpur, on Monday. Despite the government ban, many crushers are still operating in the Valley.

CNP, NA launch special

patrol ahead of milestone
RASTRIYA SAMACHAR SAMITI
CHITWAN, JAN 2

As the Chitwan National Park

is poised to mark 1,000 days of
zero poaching on January 26,
the park authority and the
Nepal Army are working
together to ensure no animals
are hunted down in the run-up
to the milestone.
The CNP and the NA have
come up with Operation
Mega Hunt under which the
NA is assigned the task of
coordinating an extensive
patrolling mission inside
the park.
The mission kicked off on
December 30 with the NA setting up six patrolling units
and base camps to cover
the parks territory, said
Mahdav Thapa of the NAs
Shree Jung Battalion based
inside the CNP.
One hundred NA soldiers
from the Shree Jung Battalion
Mahendra
Battalion,
Bharatpur; Barakh Battalion,
Birgunj; and Indrabaksh
Battalion, Rautahat have been
deployed for the mission. The
patrolling units are also
assisted by trained canines.
Thapa said a military intellegence support group has
been set up to help the
patrolling teams.
The NA has also set up five
companies at Amaltari, Babai,
Meghauli,
Sauraha
and
Khagendra Malli to monitor
the patrolling using Real
Time Patrol Monitoring
System.
Thapa
said
patrolling the park was impor-

1,000 days of zero poaching

Pregnant rhino found dead in Nawalparasi

NABIN PAUDEL
NAWALPARASI, JAN 2

A one-horned rhino was

found dead in a corn field at
Gaidakot-7 in Nawalparasi
district on Monday.
There was a ruckus
amongst the locals after
they saw the rhino near the
settlement. However, they
realised that the pachyderm
was dead as it did not react to
the noises.
Senior veterinarian at the
Chitwan National Park
(CNP) Kamal Gaire, referring to a postmortem report,
said the rhino died of electric shock. The beast might
have been electrocuted in the
electric fencing installed by
farmers to protect their
crops from wild animals,
said Gaire, adding that the
dead rhino was about 20-22
years old and pregnant.
Assistant warden at the
CNP Binaya Kumar Mishra,
however, said there were no
proofs of electric shock in
the incident site and that the
rhino might have died while
tant at this time of the year
when the poachers are usually
active during this period.
To help the NA teams, the
CNP has also mobilised its

it was devouring corn plants.

An investigation is on. We
expect to learn about the
exact reason of its death
when a report will be
released in a week, he
added.
The important body parts,
including horn and hoofs,
were taken out in the pres-

ence of representatives of
the District Forest Office,
Nepal Army, Nepal Police
and CNP. The carcass was
later buried on the premises
of the Sector Forest Office in
Kawasoti.
The death of the endangered rhino has alarmed the
CNP, which has been cele-

own patrolling troops comprising the park staff and

local youths.
Ram Chandra Kandel, the
parks conservation officer,

said as many as 150 patrols are

being conducted daily on foot,
bicycles, motorcycles, jeeps,
elephants and boats. They
cover nearly 1,500 km area in

brating zero rhino poaching

years for the past two years.
According to the CNP
data, 14 rhinos died in the
park area in the last fiscal
year. Only one of them died
of old age, while others died
due to electric shock, forest
fire, attacks by other beasts
and poisoning.
a days, he added. The CNP has
also installed close-circuit television cameras at 10 points
inside the park that are considered sensitive.

POST PHOTO:KESHAV THAPA

Nepali
Congress
leader
Shekhar Koirala has called on
the major parties to allow the
Commission for Investigation
of Abuse of Authority to disclose what suspended CIAA
chief Lokman Singh Karki
called an extensive report on
corruption cases of high profile politicians before his fate
is decided by Parliament.
Claiming that the report
has cases related to several
leaders of major political
parties, Koirala said it was
necessary to publicise the
so-called report to tame the
politicians.
If Lokman has to go so be
it. But the system will have to
be allowed to work. If that
isnt the case, politicians like
us will have no fear, Koirala

Minister Nidhi applauds

APF role in border security
RASTRIYA SAMACHAR SAMITI
RASUWA, JAN 2

Deputy
Prime
Minister
Bimalendra Nidhi has praised
the Armed Police Force (APF)
for its role in the strengthening of border security.
Inaugurating newly constructed infrastructures of
the APF border security
battalion at Dhunche of
Rasuwa on Monday, DPM
Nidhi who is also the Home
Minister said the government
was thankful to the APF for
its contribution to border
security, security of customs
offices and disaster rescue
works, despite limited human
resources.
On the occasion, he direct-

Six structuresquarters
for APF personnel, an office
building and a kitchen
were built at a cost
of Rs 24.3 million
ed the district-based security
mechanism to remain dedicated to ensuring security in the
district, asked the security
personnel to perform their
duty confidently.
The construction of six
infrastructure which include
quarters for APF personnel,
an office building and a kitchen cost Rs 24.3 million.
After the inaugural session,

KATHMANDU, JAN 2

After online application system, the Department of

Passport is launching a
mobile
application
on
Tuesday that will further
ease the passport application
process.
Foreign Minister Prakash
Sharan Mahat will be launching the mobile app at a function to be organised on the
department premises.

Service seekers can install

the app, download the form
and fill out the personal
details before submission
The DoP has successfully
tested the Nepal Passport app.
Service seekers can install the
app, download the application
form and fill out the personal
details before submission.
Once submitted, the app

will generate a barcode which

service seekers can take with
them while visiting the
department for final processing of the application.
After receiving the barcode,
applicants can take an
appointment through the app
for clicking photos, to pay the
bill or to collect the passport.
At present, service seekers
cannot pay the passport fees
online. We are going to introduce such services in the near
future, said an official.

Minister Nidhi held a separate meeting the civil service

employees here and the Nepali
Congress (NC) cadres as well.
During his meeting with
bureaucracy, he took stock of
the progress on ongoing development endeavours and
post-earthquake reconstruction efforts and a security situation in the district.
Rasuwas Chief
District
Officer Somendra Neupane
apprised him about this.
Though the Minister was
scheduled visit to bordering
Timure area, the trip was cancelled due to adverse weather.
He returned to the Capital
directly from Dhunche, the
district-based security mechanism said.

Parties stick to
their guns

3 ARRESTED
FOR BYPASSING
CALLS

>> CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

KATHMANDU, JAN 2

We will continue to obstruct

the House until the government withdraws the amendment bill. Once the bill is
taken back, the House proceedings will automatically
resume and the country will
head to the polls, the former
prime minister told reporters
after the meeting.
Prime Minister Pushpa
Kamal Dahal and Narayan
Kaji Shrestha from the Maoist
Centre, NCs Sher Bahadur
Deuba and Ram Chandra
Poudel, and Bamdev Gautam
and Oli from the UML attended the meeting.

The UML has been obstructing House business, ever since

the government registered the
statute amendment bill in
Parliament on November 29,
claiming that it was not in the
best interest of the people.
The NC and Maoist Centre, in
separate meetings with the
Samyukta
Loktantrik
Madhesi Morcha on Friday
and Saturday, respectively,
had pledged to table the bill on
Monday despite the opposition standing in the way.
NC senior leader Ram
Chandra Poudel said they
would hold more rounds of
dialogue for sorting the issue.

Govt to launch mobile app

for passport application
POST REPORT

said during a programme in

the Capital on Monday.
As many as 157 lawmakers
from the CPN (Maoist Centre)
and the CPN-UML registered
the impeachment motion
against
Karki
at
the
Parliament Secretariat on
October 19. The NC, whose
vote would be decisive in passing or rejecting the motion,
has said it would take a decision on the issue once the
impeachment recommendation committee presents its
findings. Koirala asserted that
Karkis report, which is yet
to be disclosed, has found
leaders from the NC, the
Maoist Centre and the UML
engaged in corruption.
In that case, we should not
be running away from the
CIAA chief. In fact, if my
name is on the list, I will also
face it, said Koirala.

n (From left) Prime Minister and Chairman of CPN (Maoist Centre)

Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba,
senior leader of NC Ram Chandra Poudel and Chairman of CPN-UML
KP Sharma Oli during a meeting at Singha Durbar in Kathmandu
on Monday. 
POST PHOTO: NIMESH JANG RAI

POST REPORT
The Central Investigation
Bureau of the Nepal Police
has arrested three persons on
the charge of bypassing telephone calls from different
places in a crackdown against
the national and international
racket.
According to a Nepal Police
statement, a special team have
arrested Rakesh Giri of
Lalitpur, Ganesh Basnet of
Rukum, currently living in
Koteshwor, Kathmandu and
Shiva Chandra Roka of
Rukum, living in Kaski,
Pokhara who was assisting
Giri from Pokhara in bypassing calls. Police also lodged
separate cases against the
three.
The police have seized 32
ports in Kathmandu and 64
ports from Pokhara which
were used for the purpose.
The bureau made public
both Giria and Basnet in
Kathmandu on Monday.
On the occasion, CIB chief
Deputy Inspector General
Nabaraj Silwal said that incidents of call bypass have
increased in Nepal in recent
period. He said that people get
involved in such racket time
and again due to the lure of
quick income and weak
provision in the Telecommunications Act.
The bureau has so far
arrested 141 people, including
31 foreigners, on the charge of
bypassing calls and seized Rs
11.68 billion from them.

Norman monks revive ancient beer tradition

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
SAINT-WANDRILLE-RANON, JAN 2

Behind the centuries-old

stone walls of a Benedictine
monastery
in
northern
France, monks are busy bringing a long-lost tradition back
to life.
Between prayer, Gregorian
chants and spiritual reflection, they work on producing
Frances only truly monastic
beer.
For me its a major event,
one of the most important
since I began my career in
1973, said French beer expert
Herve Marziou, who advised
the monks as they resurrected

the venerable trade at the

Abbey of Saint-Wandrille.
Nestled in the green heart
of Normandy between Le
Havre and Rouen, the monastery began selling a precursor
of the beer in August before
launching its definitive brew
in early December.
Now the beersold to help
restore the monastery cloistersis flowing steadily and
receiving high marks in the
craft beer market.
The feedback is good,
said Marziou, 69.
Some 25,000 half-litre (pint)
bottles at 4.50 euros (dollars)
each have already been sold at
the abbeys shop, at other

monasteries,
online
or
through speciality stores.
This is the only beer currently produced in France by
monks in their own monastery, the abbey proudly says
on its website.
The Saint-Wandrille monastery, founded in 649 and ravaged successively by Viking
incursions, the wars of religion
and
the
French
Revolution, has been largely
destroyed and rebuilt over the
centuries.
Monastic beers flourish
among neighbouring countries, especially Belgium. But
in recent memory Frances
only abbey beer brewed onsite

by monks was that of the SeptFons abbey in central France,

which stopped production in
1935. Benedictine monks are
bound by Saint Benedicts
sixth-century
Rule
for
Monasteries that says: To
truly be a monk one must
work with his hands.
At Saint-Wandrille, monks
produced beeswax furniture
polish before launching a copying business in the 1970s
which they dropped after failing to keep up with the technology.
The monks cast about for
another activity to raise
money before seizing, in
August 2014, on the idea of a

return to brewing, recounts

29-year-old Brother Benoit, in
charge of public relations.
Two of the monasterys 30
monks took up the challenge,
Brother Matthieu, 31, and
70-year-old Brother Christian,
who sought out training at an
agricultural high school in
Douai, near the border with
Belgium.
Upon their return, they
experimented using a brewing kit they were given by
British friends during a trip
by a group of Saint-Wandrille
monks to Quarr Abbey, a
Benedictine monastery on the
Isle of Wight.
They then formed a com-

mittee that came to an agreement on the desired taste

bitter but not too bitterand
colour, a caramel pitched
between blond and amber.
At the end of 2015, the
monks took the plunge, taking
out a 750,000 euro bank loan to
buy the necessary equipment.
Their goal is to produce
80,000 litres a year from an
operation that employs the
two brewers plus packers and
a sales force.
The label declares an alcohol content of 6.5 percentit
would have been hard to guarantee a figure of 6.49 percent
in honour of the abbeys
founding year.

CM

Y K

03

the kathmandu post

news

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Morcha
protests for
constitution
amendment
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

The Madhes-based parties on

Monday demonstrated in various places across the country,
pressing the government to
forward the constitution
amendment bill without further delay.
The agitating forces took
out protest rallies in Parsa,
Kapilvastu,
Nawalparasi,
Rautahat, Dhanusha, Siraha,
Saptari and Kathmandu districts, demanding charter
revision before announcing
the local elections.
The protesters chanted slogans and displayed placards
against the governments election plans before amendment
while denouncing the CPNUML for pushing the country
towards communal strife.
Madhesi leaders said the
demonstration was organised
to counter the UMLs protest
against constitution amendment. The main opposition
UML has been spearheading a
protest in the western region
demanding that the government roll back the amendment bill tabled in Parliament
on September 29.
The UMLs stance against
the constitution is both
undemocratic and unconstitutional. It appears hell bent on
leaving constitution implementation in disarray and
pushing the country towards
uncertainty. It would be really
unfortunate if it doesnt
rethink on its position, said
Sadbhawana Party Chairman
Rajendra Mahato.
Despite assurances of passing the amendment bill from
Prime
Minister
Pushpa
Kamal Dahal and key leaders
of the ruling coalition,
Madhesi leaders doubt if that

MEDIA SOCIETY
TAKES SERIOUS
EXCEPTION TO
OBSTRUCTION AT
MEDIA HOUSES
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

happens despite growing

opposition against the bill.
The opposition bench with
more than one third of parliamentarians has stood firm
against the bill.
Some Madhesi leaders have
described Mondays demonstration as a rehearsal to a
full blown protest to ensure
the amendments. They said
that top leaders of the
Samyukta
Loktantrik
Madhesi Morcha are in talks
with the Janajati and Tharu
groups to launch a joint protest. Tharu groups, which are
also in protest against disintegration of the Tharu clusters
in the proposed state demarcation, do not appear keen to
form an alliance with the
Madhesi parties. Moreover,
the Tharu leaders who were at
the forefront of the 2015 protest against constitution
promulgation that claimed
more than 60 lives, fear counter protests such as those seen
in Butwal, Nawalparasi and
Bhairahawa.

RPP Chairman Thapa

calls for consensus
KANCHANPUR:
Rastriya
Prajatantra Party (RPP)
Central Chairman Kamal
Thapa has urged leaders of
major parties to forge consensus on major agendas before
forwarding the constitution
amendment bill
Speaking at a press meet
organised by the Media Nepal,
Kanchanpur chapter on
Monday, Thapa, however,
warned that pushing the bill
in its existing form would be
counterproductive. Thapa
stated the genuine demands
of the Tarai-centric parties
should be addressed. (RSS)

Lawmakers of the opposition parties obstruct the meeting of Parliament in New Baneshwor, Kathmandu. 

POST PHOTO: SHALIGRAM TIWARI

House obstruction crosses a month

POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

The Legislature-Parliament
has become dysfunctional for
a month due to the obstruction by the opposition parties,
hampering discussion on crucial election-related bills and
the impeachment motion
against Lokman Singh Karki,
the suspended chief of the
Commission for Investigation
of Abuse of Authority.
As an attempt to address
the concerns of the Madhesi

parties, the government on

November 29 registered a bill
proposing amendments to five
articles and two annexes of
the constitution.
The opposition parties
maintain that the amendment
proposal is unconstitutional
and
against
national
interests. They have been
obstructing the House since
December
1
demanding
withdrawal of the amendment bill.
The meeting has been
obstructed for over a dozen

times by nine parties led by

the main opposition CPNUML. Despite several rounds
of negotiations and directives
from Speaker Onasari Gharti,
the parties have yet to reach
an understanding for resuming Parliament.
The House meeting scheduled for 1pm Monday was
deferred till 4pm but the
Speaker postponed it until
Tuesday as the deadlock continued.
The
continued
obstruction has hindered discussion on the crucial elec-

tion-related bills and impeachment motion, Speaker Gharti

told the House, asking the
opposition to end the obstruction. Holding election on
time will become more and
more difficult if the obstruction continuous, she warned.
Though the ruling alliance
had assured the Madhesi parties of tabling the amendment
bill on Tuesday, it is not possible without using marshals.
But such a move could further
deteriorate the souring relationship between the ruling

and opposition alliances.

The opposition parties
say that withdrawal of the
amendment proposal is the
bottom line for allowing
Parliament to function.
Out of the 30 parties represented in Parliament, nine
parties with a total of 201 lawmakers are against the
amendment.
The impeachment motion
against Karki has been pending in Parliament for two-anda-half months while two poll
bills have also been stuck.

The Nepal Media Society, an

umbrella organisation of private publications and television broadcasters, has taken a
serious exception to an act of
various interest groups in
spreading rumours against
some media houses halting
their operations.
Issuing a press statement
on Monday, the society has
also expressed concerns over
the unnecessary legal obstacle from the government
into the operations of media
houses.
Everyone is aware that the
government is targeting the
media industry which is
already suffering due to political instability, devastating
earthquake and months-long
blockade, NMS Chairman
Puskar Lal Shrestha said in
the statement.
Besides, the industry is
continuously bothered by
untimely
Communication
Acts, laws and directives that
are issued to serve the motive
of some interest group, the
statement read.
Media sector will not
accept any obstacles that are
issued going against the established norms.
The society has expressed a
serious concern over the
threat to obstruct the distribution of the newspapers of
Kantipur Publications in
the name of pressuring for
hiking perks and benefits of
the part-time and daily wage
staffers working at the publications circulation department.
Referring to the existing
legal provisions under the
regulations of the respective
media houses that guide the
pay and perks of such staffers,
the society has requested the
concerned sides to immediately stop the obstruction in the
media houses on any pretext
and resolve the issue through
dialogue.

C M Y K

the kathmandu post 04

news

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

KATHMANDU: COMMUTERS NIGHTMARE

1) People scramble to get inside a micro-van in Ratnapark, one of the busiest and most crowded spots to board passenger vehicles in Kathmandu. 2) People cling onto the door of an overcrowded bus in Koteshwor, Kathmandu. 3) Passengers crowd the isle of a bus, a common sight in buses
that ply the streets of Kathmandu Valley. 4) People waiting for vehicles spill into the street near Bhrikutimandap. 5 & 6) An elderly woman and a disabled student wait for a public transport at Ratnapark.
POST PHOTOS: NIMESH JANG RAI
n

Water tanker operators

doing brisk business in
quake-hit Salyantar
HARIHAR SINGH RATHOUR
DHADING, JAN 2

Commercial water tankers

are doing a brisk business in
Salyantar VDC, Dhading,
these days. After most of the
water sources in the village
dried up following the earthquakes of 2015, the locals have
been relying on water transported from the Netrawati
river.
Nine tankers have been ferrying water to Salyantar on a
daily basis, for which the villagers are paying transport
fare of Re 1 per litre. The villagers are not just paying the
tankers to supply water for
drinking purpose. Most of the
villagers are also paying the
tankers to supply water that
they need to construct their
homes.
Out of 2,300 households in
Salyantar, 2,200 were affected
by earthquakes. Many of
them lost their homes in the
disaster and they are currently constructing new homes.
Phadikanta Chahatkuli, a
quake victim and former secretary of Salyantar VDC, said
he had never imagined that
one day he would have to pay
for water in the village.
For people like me who
lost their homes in the earthquake, we have no alternative
but to buy water. I think the
cost of water will be the same

A tanker bought by Ishwor Burlakoti, a local school teacher, to start a water supply business. 

as that of construction materials by the time the house is

completed, he said.
When Ishwor Burlakoti, a
local teacher, saw water tanker operators making up to Rs
8,000 profit a day, he was
tempted by the idea of buying
a second-hand tanker and
starting his own water transportation business.
He visited the district headquarters and got himself an
oil tanker, for it could transport more water than ordinary water tankers operating
in his village.
Today, Burlakotis tanker
makes up to seven trips in a

day, supplying water to the

villagers from the Netrawati
river. On a good day, he earns
up to Rs 40,000.
Like Burlakoti, Sanju
Shrestha is also in water
transportation business. He
says his primary clients are
the villagers who are constructing homes.
Constructing a simple
house needs around 2,100
litres of water and if every
earthquake-affected families
are to build simple houses,
they will have to spend around
Rs 46.2 million just for water,
he said.
The water shortage is not

2 dead, 50 hurt in bus crash

POST REPORT
BARA, JAN 2

A bus carrying picnickers

plunged off a bridge over the
Dudhaura stream along
Pathalaiya-Nijgadh
road
stretch in Bara district on
Sunday night, killing two persons. More than 50 others
were injured.
The bus (Na 3 Kha 7668) was
returning to Parwanipur of
Sarlahi district from Martyr
Memorial Park at Hetauda in
Makwanpur district.
The
students
of

Parwanipur-based
Dim
Higher Secondary School had
reserved the bus for the New
Years picnic.
Rabin Bajyu, 15, of
Parwanipur-1 and Sandesh
Basnet, 20, of Parwanipur-5
died in the accident. Their
bodies
were
taken
to
Sub-regional Hospital in
Birgunj for postmortem,
according to police.
Police said the injured passengers were receiving treatment at Tarai Hospital in
Simara and Gandak Hospital
in Birgunj.

4 Nepalis among 6 dead

in India jeep accident

BAITADI: A jeep accident in the

Indian state of Uttarakhand
on Sunday killed six people,
including four Nepalis. The
deceased Nepalis were the
members of a same family
from Sharmali VDC in
Baitadi. They were identified
as Govinda Saud, his brother
Basudev, sister-in-law Gomati
Devi, and five-year-old nephew Aayush. They were travelling to their ancestral home in
Doti when the jeep crashed.

POST PHOTO

limited in Salyantar VDC

alone. There are dozens of
places, particularly in the central region of Dhading,
including the district headquarters Charikot and the
VDCs of Katunje, Maidi,
Nalang and Kebalpur, that are
also reeling under water
shortage.
Jhanak Narayan Shrestha,
a social activist, said the problem of water in the district
has mostly affected the earthquake-affected families. He
added that the pipelines
installed by the government
were useless as most of the
water sources have dried up.

SNOWFALL IN
UPPER KALIKOT

KALIKOT: The high-altitude

region in Kalikot district witnessed snowfall on Monday
afternoon, affecting the daily
life there. Police said the
snowfall affected life in Rupsa,
Mumra, Dhaulagoha, Khin,
Odanuk, Chilkhya, Jubitha
and Rachuli VDCs.
Most of the schools were
closed as a result of snowfall
and
cold
temperature.
Snowfalls were also reported
in several parts of Khotang
and Nuwakot districts on
Monday. (PR)

Private drugs sellers syndicate blocks

procurement for hospital pharmacy
BHUSAN YADAV
BIRGUNJ, JAN 2

A syndicate of private pharmacies has allegedly intervened to block the medicines

procurement process for the
in-house pharmacy of
Narayani Sub Regional
Hospital in Birgunj, Parsa.
The hospital administration had invited a tender to
procure medicines for its
pharmacy after the Ministry
of Health released Rs 2 million to purchase medicines
two months ago. However,
the tender call was not
responded by any party.
A hospital source said the
Narayani chapter of Nepal
Pharmaceutical Association
(NPA) intervened to stop the
procurement process by
issuing a statement to medicines suppliers, asking them
not to respond to the tender
call. The statement was
reportedly signed by Pappu
Kumar Jha, the NPA genera
secretary.
Ramesh Chaudhary, the
hospitals
information
officer, said the hospital was
unable to purchase medicines because the tender call
did not receive any response.
There are several private
pharmacies on and around
the hospital premises. These
pharmacies are said to be
run by the individuals who

DR PANTA
DHANGADHI, JAN 2

are close to the NPA and the

members of the Hospital
Development Employees
Union. The source said by
obstructing the supply of
medicines to the hospital
pharmacy, the privately-run
pharmacies are making
sure that their business is
not ruined, because medicines are sold at much
cheaper prices by hospital
pharmacies.
Inside the hospital compound alone, there are at
least a dozen private pharmacies. One hospital official
said that these pharmacies
are still operating even
though their contract with
the hospital has long
expired. He added that the
operators of these pharmacies were under protection

of local political parties and

the hospital administration
had no power to evict them.

Medicine shortage
in Jajarkot
JAJARKOT: Most of the health
facilities in Jajarkot district
are reeling under the shortage of essential medicines
that the government has categorised as free-of-cost.
Patients are compelled to
pay for the otherwise free
medicines at private pharmacies because of the shortage. A health worker said
the District Health Office
has not supplied the medicines for the last six months..
There are 30 health posts,
three primary health centres and one hospital in
Jajarkot. (PR)

New York finds a lotta love

for new train line stops
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
NEW YORK, JAN 2

Sure, they can be brusque at

times. But New Yorkers
hearts nearly melted Sunday
when they got a load of the
biggest subway line expansion in 50 years.
Its beautiful, its clean, its
bright. And so far, nobody has
seen any rats on the tracks!
quipped Jay Lerman, a skin
doctor.
When they talked about it
in the 50s they talked about
$500 million. Now, its 60 years
on and $4 billion later. But its
here! said the neighborhood
resident, referring to the $4.4
billion pricetag.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and
Governor Andrew Cuomo

were there for the opening late

Saturday of three new stations that extend the Second
Avenue subway train from
63rd to 96th Streets up to the
posh Upper East Side.
At midday Sunday, the
smartphone-wielding general
public rushed in to get a look.
And it was a sight to behold,
in a city with an older system
known for its share of darkness and rodents in the track
beds. We have been talking
about the opening of the stations the way we were talking
about the coming of the
Messiahwhichever comes
first! laughed retired attorney Ken Klein.
It has been a difficult 2016
for New Yorkers and its a nice
start to 2017, he said refer-

ring to the election of

President-elect
Donald
Trump, a New Yorker.
For Tyler Robbins, it looks
like Paris!
They did a beautiful job,
raved the young father who
was bringing his 10-month-old
on the train for the first time.
He said he previously had
avoided the subway due to not
enough elevators and filth.
Angel Aviles, a comic book
artist, was also impressed,
after construction jolted his
apartment for ages.
Now the rumble will be
from the trains. And its more
comforting than a dynamite
sound! he said. Its nice to
see that New York is
starting to catch up with
European cities.

DoF condemns murder of forest guard

POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, JAN 2

The government has condemned the killing of Ganesh

Bahadur Shahi, a forest security guard deployed at the
District Forest Office in
Taplejung. Shahi, a native of
Dasera VDC in Jajarkot, was
found brutally murdered by a
local man over a land bounda-

ry dispute on Sunday.
Condemning the act of killing its on-duty official, the
Department of Forests (DoF)
said in a statement on Monday
asked the concerned authority for a thorough investigation into the incident and take
action against the culprit.
According
to
DoF
Spokesperson Chandra Man
Dongol, the concerned author-

ity has taken the incident seriously and will arrange for a
special financial support to
the bereaved family.
A media report on Sunday
quoted Ram Bahadur KC, deputy superintendent of police
in Taplejung saying, Sabin
Limbu , a local from the
Khokling VDC in the district
attacked Shahi who had come
to settle a dispute over land

THARUHAT
ANNOUNCES
PROTEST FOR
SEPARATE
THARU STATE

that was allegedly claimed by

a local community forest.
Limbu, Shahi, representatives of the community
forest and other villagers had
gathered at the house of
Bishnulal Panta to sort out
the disagreement on Sunday
morning.
According to witnesses,
Limbu snatched a khukuri
from a villager in the middle

of the meeting and chased

Shahi. The villagers later
found Shahis decapitated
body nearly 150 metres from
Pantas house.
The DoF has also appealed
to all the concerned forest
authorities and representatives of the community forestry users groups to continue
carrying out their regular
duties.

The Tharuhat Tharuwan

Struggle Committee has
announced various protest
programmes to press for a
separate Tharuhat state in the
western part of Tarai.
The committee has called
for incorporating all Tharu
community dominated districts in the western Tarai
into one single Tharuhat state
by amending the constitution.
Organising a press meet in
Dhangadhi,
Kailali,
on
Tuesday, the committee
unveiled its protest plan that
includes organising regional
gathering of Tharu people,
various
awareness
programmes, mass meetings in
different districts and general
strikes in the coming days.
The
committee
also
announced that the protests
will be organised under the
banner
of
Kailali,
Kanchanpur
Tharuhat
Tharuwan
Struggle
Committee.
Prabhat Kumar Chaudhary,
coordinator of the committee,
said the government should
present the proposal in the
Parliament to include both
Kailali and Kanchanpur in
Province 5 along with the constitution amendment proposal
registered in Parliament.
He said that the Tharu community was organising a decisive protest this time.
Krishna Kumar Chaudhary,
the committees Kailali coordinator, warned of disrupting
the three-level elections if
they are conducted without
fulfilling their demand.
The Tharu leaders also
demanded withdrawal of the
cases filed against their people in connection to the
Tikapur carnage of 24 August,
2015 and compensation to the
families of the victims.

DETONATORS
RECOVERED
IN CAVE
POST REPORT
GORKHA, JAN 2

A huge cache of detonators

was discovered in a forest cave
at Swanra VDC-9 in Gorkha
on Tuesday. According to the
District Police Office (DPO),
3,941 electronic detonators
were found in the cave by a
cattle herder. Superintendent
of Police Janak Raj Pandey
said the detonators were
wrapped in sacks and stored
inside a case.
He suspected that the detonators were hidden by the former Maoist rebels during the
insurgency period. Stray
improvised explosive device
had been recovered in the
same VDC three years ago.
C M Y K

world
kathmandu post
the

PG 05 | TUESDAY,JANUARY3,2017

Daughter of Choi Soon-sil arrested

The daughter of the woman at the centre of a presidential scandal in South Korea has been arrested in
Denmark, say South Korean police. Chung Yoo-ra,
20, is accused of staying in Denmark illegally,
they said. They have requested her extradition.
Her mother is accused of using her friendship
with President Park Geun-hye for personal gain.

NEWS DIGEST
Horrific Thai road
smash kills 25
BANGKOK: A minivan and
a pickup truck both
packed with passengers
collided in eastern
Thailand on Monday,
killing 25 people in a harrowing reminder of the
countrys notoriously
dangerous roads. Police
said the minivan driver
lost control and ploughed
through a central reservation into oncoming
traffic in the eastern
province of Chonburi.
Both vehicles burst into
flames. Twenty-five people were killed in the
road accident, Police
Lieutenant Colonel Wiroj
Jamjamras at Ban Bueng
provincial police station
told AFP, adding two toddlers were among the
dead. The victims were
killed by fire or the
impact, he added. Wiroj
said 15 people were
inside the minivan while
12 passengers were
packed into the pickup
truck. Two were injured
but are expected to survive, he added. Footage
broadcast on Channel 3
showed firefighters tackling the burning, twisted
wreckage of the two
vehicles. Despite relatively good infrastructure,
Thailand has the worlds
second most dangerous
roads in terms of per
capita deaths, according
to data collected by the
WHO in a 2015 report.

Frances Hollande
in Iraq to review
war on IS

BAGHDAD: French
President Francois
Hollande arrived in
Baghdad Monday to meet
the French forces helping Iraq in the fight
against the Islamic State
group and to hold talks
with top officials.
Hollande had already
visited in 2014 and
remains the most prominent head of state to
come to Iraq since the
launch two and half
years ago of a US-led
coalition against the
jihadists. The French
president, who is travelling with Defence
Minister Jean-Yves Le
Drian, will also stop in
the autonomous northern region of Kurdistan
during his one-day visit.
France is the second contributor to the US-led
coalition that has carried
out thousands of air
strikes against IS in Iraq
and Syria and provided
military equipment,
training and advice to
Iraqi forces. Since it
joined the US in the coalition in September 2014,
France has 14 Rafale
fighter jets that are stationed in Jordan and the
UAE and taking part in
coalition operations.

Kuwait sentences
parents to death
for killing toddler
KUWAIT CITY: A court in
Kuwait on Monday sentenced a couple to death
after finding them guilty
of torturing their threeyear-old daughter until
she died, it said in a
statement. The parents,
both Kuwaitis, were
arrested in May and
accused of beating and
torturing the girl until
she died and then keeping her body in a freezer
for a week. The court
statement only gave the
verdict but, according to
media reports at the time
of their arrest, they had
been annoyed by their
daughters constant crying. The father, Salem
Buhan, 26, and mother,
Amira Hussein, 23,
were charged with
murder after police
found burn marks on
the shoulders and legs of
the toddlers body,
according to the interior
ministry. 
(AGENCIES)

kathmandupost.ekantipur.com

Expelled diplomats reach Moscow

Corbyn could quit before next polls

A plane carrying 35 diplomats expelled from the

United States over Russias alleged meddling in
the US presidential election arrived in Moscow
early Monday, Russian state television reported.
A Russian Il-96 plane carrying the diplomats and
their families landed at Moscows Vnukovo airport
at 2:05 am local time (23:05 GMT).

The leader of Britains opposition Labour

party, Jeremy Corbyn, could step down
before the next national election in 2020
if its poor opinion poll ratings do not
improve, the head of its biggest union
backer said in an interview published
on Monday.

IS claims Turkey
nightclub attack

family outing

n Statement says attack was act of revenge

REUTERS
CAIRO/ISTANBUL, JAN 2

Islamic State claimed responsibility on Monday for a New

Years Day mass shooting in a
packed Istanbul nightclub
that killed 39 people, an attack
carried out by a lone gunman
who remains at large.
It described the Reina
nightclub, where many foreigners as well as Turks were
killed, as a gathering point for
Christians celebrating their
apostate holiday. The
attack, it said, was revenge for
Turkish military involvement
in Syria. The apostate
Turkish government should
know that the blood of
Muslims shed with airplanes
and artillery fire will, with
Gods permission, ignite a fire
in their own land, the Islamic
State declaration said.
There was no immediate
comment from Turkish officials. The jihadist group has
been blamed for at least half a
dozen attacks on civilian targets in Turkey over the past 18
months but, other than targeted assassinations, this is the
first time it has directly
claimed any of them. It made
the statement on one of its
Telegram channels, a method
used after attacks elsewhere.
Nato member Turkey is
part of the US-led coalition

against Islamic State and

launched an incursion into
neighbouring Syria in August
to drive the radical Sunni militants from its borders, sending in tanks and special forces
backed by fighter jets.
Nationals of Saudi Arabia,
Morocco, Lebanon, Libya,
Israel, India, a TurkishBelgian dual citizen and a
Franco-Tunisian woman were
among those killed at the
exclusive nightclub on the
shores of the Bosphorus
waterway. Twenty-five of the
dead were foreigners, according to the state-run Anadolu
news agency.
Police distributed a hazy
black-and-white photo of the
alleged gunman taken from
security footage. State broadcaster TRT Haber said eight
people had been detained in
Istanbul.
The authorities believe the
attacker may be from a
Central Asian nation and suspect he had links to Islamic
State, the Hurriyet newspaper
said. It said he may be from
the same cell responsible for a
gun-and-bomb attack on
Istanbuls main airport in
June, in which 45 people were
killed and hundreds wounded.
The attack at Reina, popular with Turkish celebrities
and wealthy visitors, shook
Turkey as it tries to recover

n People lay flowers in front of the Reina night club in Istanbul on

Monday, a day after a gunman killed 39 people.

AFP/RSS

from a failed July coup and a

series of deadly bombings in
Istanbul and elsewhere, some
blamed on Islamic State, others claimed by Kurdish militants. Around 600 people were
thought to be inside when the
gunman shot dead a policeman and civilian at the door,
forcing his way in then opening fire with an automatic
assault rifle. Witnesses said
he shouted Allahu Akbar
(God is Greatest).
In a statement hours after
the
shooting,
President
Tayyip Erdogan said such
attacks aimed to create chaos
and destabilise the country.

Baghdad suicide
car bomb blast
kills 32

BAGHDAD: A suicide car bomb

attack in a densely-populated
neighbourhood of Baghdad
on Monday killed at least 32
people and left dozens wounded, police and hospital officials said.
The Islamic State group
claimed responsibility for the
attack. The jihadist organisation took responsibility for
the blast in Sadr City via its
propaganda agency Amaq,
claiming the martyrdom
operation had killed around
40 people.
Many of the victims were
daily labourers waiting for
jobs at an intersection in Sadr
City, a sprawling majority
Shiite neighbourhood in the
northeast of the capital that
has been repeatedly targeted.
Pictures posted on social
media shortly after the explosion showed a huge plume of
black smoke billowing into
the sky and seriously injured
people being evacuated.
According to a police colonel, at least 32 people were
killed and 61 wounded in the
blast, the second major attack
in Baghdad in three days.
Frances Hollande in Iraq to
review war on IS. (AFP)

n A man and his daughter ride a sledge after snowfall in a park in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday. 

OBAMA TO
GIVE FAREWELL
ADDRESS
ON JAN 10
REUTERS
HONOLULU, JAN 2

US President Barack Obama

will deliver a farewell address
on Jan. 10 to reflect on his
time in office and say thank
you to his supporters, he said
in an email statement released
on Monday.
Obama, noting that the first
president of the United States,
George Washington, had
penned a farewell address in
1796, said he would deliver his
speech in his hometown of
Chicago.
Im thinking about (the
remarks) as a chance to say
thank you for this amazing
journey, to celebrate the ways
youve changed this country
for the better these past eight
years, and to offer some
thoughts on where we all go
from here, he said.
Republican
Donald
Trump will be sworn in to
office on Jan 20.

Indian court bans politicians from

using religion, caste to win votes
REUTERS
NEW DELHI, JAN 2

Indias top court on Monday

prohibited politicians from
using religion and caste to
garner votes, a verdict that
could force political parties to
change their strategy in
upcoming elections.
No politician can seek vote
in the name of caste, creed or
religion, said Chief Justice
TS
Thakur
in
an
order, adding that election

process must be a secular

exercise.
India is officially secular
but political parties have traditionally used religion and
caste as the main criteria to
select candidates and to
appeal to voters.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modis ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) has for
years
fought
elections
on a Hindu nationalist
agenda, with party members
in the past being accused of

making anti-Muslim statements to polarise Hindu

voters.
The court ruling comes just
weeks ahead of a state election in Uttar Pradesh, Indias
most populous state where the
two issues of religion and
caste generally dominate campaigns.
Results of the election will
be important for Modis
expected bid for a second term
in 2019. State elections are
also due this year in the states

of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa

and Manipur.
The Supreme Court, ruling
on a petition filed by a politician in 1996, wrote in its opinion that the secular ethos of
the constitution had to be protected.
The majority view of the
seven-judge Supreme Court
bench held that elections
would be void if a politician
made an appeal for votes
on the basis of religious
sentiment.

REUTERS

Israel PM to be
quizzed over
gifts from
businessmen
REUTERS
JERUSALEM, JAN 2

Police are expected to question Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu at his official residence in Jerusalem on
Monday on suspicion of
receiving gifts from businessmen in breach of his role as a
public servant, Israeli media
reported.
The move was authorised
by Attorney-General Avichai
Mandelblit, who decided after
a preliminary probe that there
was sufficient evidence for a
criminal
investigation,
Haaretz newspaper reported.
The questioning will take
place on Monday evening,
Israel Radio said.
The police and Justice
Ministry would not confirm
when the interview would
take place or the nature of the
investigation, details of which
have appeared in the media in
recent days. Netanyahus
office has denied any wrongdoing. All the supposed
affairs will turn out to be fiction, his family spokesman
said on Monday. We are
repeating: there will be nothing, because there is nothing.
Photographers
were
camped outside the heavily
guarded residence, hoping to
get pictures of investigators
arriving. Black screens were
erected inside the gates of the
property to block the view.
Haaretz and other newspapers said the probe related to
gifts worth hundreds of
thousands of shekels ($1=3.85
shekels) given to Netanyahu

n Benjamin Netanyahu

by Israeli and foreign businessmen.

Channel 2, a commercial
network, said the investigation was one of two cases now
open against the prime minister, although it said details of
the second remained unclear.
Netanyahu, 67, has been in
power on and off since 1996.
He is currently in his fourth
term as prime minister and
will become Israels longest-serving leader if he stays
in office until the end of next
year.
He and his wife, Sara, have
weathered several scandals
over the years, including
investigations into the misuse
of state funds and an audit of
the familys spending on
everything from laundry to
ice cream. They have denied
any wrongdoing.
Netanyahu is not the first
prime minister to be questioned in a criminal case.
Ehud Olmert, who held
office from 2006 to 2009, is
currently serving 18 months
in
prison
after
being
convicted of breach of trust
and bribery in 2014.

TURKEY, RUSSIA
AIR RAIDS
DESTROY IS
TARGETS: ARMY
REUTERS
ANKARA/PARIS, JAN 2

Turkish warplanes and artillery have struck Islamic State

targets in Syria, killing 22 of
the groups militants, while
Russian aircraft hit jihadists
near the Islamic Statecontrolled town of al-Bab,
Turkeys military said on
Monday.
In a round-up of its military operations over the past
24 hours in support of rebels
in northern Syria, the army
said the Russian aircraft
destroyed Islamic State targets in the area of Dayr Kak,
8km southwest of al-Bab.
The Turkish military operation, dubbed Euphrates
Shield, was launched more
than four months ago to drive
Islamic State militants away
from the border region and in
recent weeks the forces have
been besieging the town of
al-Bab.
France, meanwhile, has
called on Russia to stop military action in Syria and
respect a fragile ceasefire
seeking to end nearly six
years of war.
We resolutely condemn
everything Russia could do in
Syria that would contribute to
a continuation of fighting,
Prime Minister Bernard
Cazeneuve said on France
Inter radio.
The truce deal, which was
welcomed unanimously by
the United Nations Security
Council, has been repeatedly
violated since it began, with
warring sides trading the
blame. Rebels on Saturday
warned they would abandon
the truce if the government
side continued to violate it,
asking the Russians to rein in
army and militia attacks in
the valley by 8:00 pm.

R E I N T E G R AT I O N C H A L L E N G E

Colombias war traumas leave deep mental scars

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
BOGOTA, JAN 2

Colombian rebels may be preparing to lay down their guns, but the
nation faces a deeper challenge to
heal itself: treating mental illnesses stemming from the trauma of a
half-century war.
The 260,000 people killed and
60,000 missing in the civil conflict
are quantified in official statisticsbut uncounted millions still
suffer the psychological scars.
Mariaa pseudonym which the
woman agreed to use for this
storywas a small girl when
fighting between the government
and leftist Farc rebels struck the
village near her familys farm.
Now 49, she speaks in a scarcely
audible voice about the horrors
she lived through and the fear that
stalks her to this day.
I still live in a state of anxie-

ty, she told AFP in her gloomy

apartment, in a back courtyard on
the outskirts of Bogota.
Her father narrowly survived
an attack by the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc),
who targeted him because he
refused to join their ranks. I was
six years old. I was always afraid,
said Maria. We had to spend
every night in the village because
the guerrillas used to venture up
to the farm to kill people.
Colombias government last
month pushed through Congress a
peace accord meant to end the
52-year conflicta controversial
move since it made concessions to
Farc members blamed for atrocities.
The rebels promised to disarm
and compensate victims. But the
deal contains few details on how
to treat those traumatized by the
war. The 300-page text includes a

few lines calling for emotional

recovery measures to help
relieve victims suffering.
Under the accord, the government commits to improving psychological social care, without

indicating how much it might

spend on it.
The International Committee of
the Red Cross has warned that
unresolved traumas can spawn
fresh violence. The victims bear

the scars of violence also in their

minds, it warned in a report in
October.
After a childhood of fear, Maria
ran away from an abusive husband. She was penniless and had
an ill son to care for.
She ended up working for the
Colombian Self-Defense Units
(AUC), right-wing paramilitaries
armed by wealthy landowners to
fight the leftist guerrillas.
I made their meals and washed
their clothes, she said, scraping a
fingernail nervously on the table.
I never asked where they were
from or what they were doing.
Even though she says she never
used a weapon, Maria ended up
being listed as a member of the
AUC when the government
ordered their disbandment in
2006. Though she now lives four
hours away from her home region
by road, she still fears the para-

militaries left-wing foes might

one day catch up with her.
There were a lot of rumors
that all the people who had
worked with them were going to
be killed, she said.
That makes me afraid.
The war started in 1964 when
the Farc launched an uprising to
fight for peasant land rights.
It drew in various groups who
carved up the country between
government- and rebel-held zones
and fought each other to the
death, massacring and kidnapping. Drawing a line between
who is the victim and who is the
aggressor is very complex, said
Joshua Mitrotti, head of the
Colombian Reintegration Agency.
The agency helps settle former
fighters back into civilian life,
working alongside the public
health sector to provide them with
psychological counseling.

C M Y K

the kathmandu post 06

editorial

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Foreign policy flux

Since 1993

ED I T OR I A L

As long as our leaders seek patronage from foreign powers, Nepal can only exercise limited sovereignty

Money to burn

gamut of engagement is incomparable to

that of India. And it is unlikely to change
significantly in the foreseeable future unless
there is a frequent repetition of Indian
follies like the imposition of blockades.

Fears harboured by critics of

CDP seem to be coming true

ost of the lawmakers in the countrys

eastern region have proposed spending
grants provided under the Constituency
Development Programme to build
temples and pilgrims rest houses or to
support local clubs. This is an indication
that Members of Parliament are intent on
channelling taxpayers money into unproductive areas that will not have much positive
socio-economic impact.
The Constituency Development Programme
was introduced to enable lawmakers to support
development works in their electoral constituencies. But most of the lawmakers across the
country use a big chunk of the money made
available through the programme to build or
renovate temples, construct pilgrims rest
houses, or support religious groups.
The government is extending Rs5 million to
each of the approximately 600 lawmakers
under this programme this fiscal year, up from
Rs2 million in the last fiscal year. This means
around Rs3 billion of taxpayers money will be
spent fiscal year on funding pet projects of
elected politicians, as against about Rs1.2 billion in the last fiscal year.
The size of the grant was expanded despite
criticisms that a big chunk of the money would
be used to build small projects mainly to secure
ones vote bank, rather than to meet greater
development aspirations of the people.
Unfortunately, fears harboured by the critics
are apparently turning out to be true.
The government has long been promoting
pork-barrel politics in the country by allowing
lawmakers to fund small, meaningless projects. It is partly because of this tendency that
the size of the recurrent budget has been
inflating over the years, posing a threat to the
countrys financial health. This kind of influence of political patronage on the government
is not good for a country like Nepal that still
depends on foreign grants and loans to meet its
annual expenses. If this trend continues, fiscal
risk will only heighten.
Of course, lawmakers will oppose any government move to curtail funding for their projects because of their fears of becoming unpopular or losing voters support. But the government cannot continue to promote such activities. That will eventually widen fiscal deficit,
forcing the government to increase its reliance
on domestic loans and foreign aid.
It is high time lawmakers realised that their
main task is to work as watchdogs of society
and monitor the governments activities, not to
collude with the executive body to serve vested
interests and score political points.

ACHYUT WAGLE

onnecting the dots of some of last

weeks incidents may help frame a
tentative view on Nepals foreign policy
realities, challenges and opportunities:
Foreign Minister Prakash Saran
Mahat hastily called a press conference to defend himself from the allegation
that visiting Chinese Communist Party
Politburo member Liu Qibao cancelled his
meeting with Nepali Congress President
Sher Bahadur Deuba, reportedly angered by
Mahat playing cosy host to his Mongolian
counterpart in Kathmandu. In recent
months, China and Mongolia are at loggerheads over Dalai Lamas visit to Mongolia.
There were media reports that the
foreign ministry is working to redefine
Nepals foreign policy to align it with the
changed regional and global context. It is
also said to be charting benchmarks to
ensure that ambassadorial appointments
are based on some form of merit.
A London-based Nepali journalist
lamented that Nepal is off the international radar screen. Therefore, international
news media are interested, if at all, only in
stories on mountaineering, tourism,
disasters, Tibetan refugee movements or
human trafficking, not Nepali politics.
Clichd phrase
Most of Nepals diplomatic moves, like
hosting the Mongolian foreign minister in
Kathmandu to the utter dislike of China,
do not follow any foreign policy norm or
framework. The fact of the matter is that
Nepal does not have a foreign policy that is
up-to-date, realistically articulated, pragmatic and that serves national objectives.
And despite repeated tall claims about
Nepals global reach and importance,
entire diplomatic energy is exhausted in
managing largely reactive concerns of
the two powerful and gigantic neighbours.
Balanced diplomacy is a misnomer.
Three-fourth of Nepals total trade (including informal) takes place with India. There
is complete dependence on India for supply
of essential commodities including petroleum, 90 percent dependence for transit
and, currently, more than 50 percent
dependence for electricity supply. Nepali
political leaders of all hues have often
sought favour from the Indian establishment for their regime security or to gain
power. Of late, Chinese strategic interests,
investments, exports and tourist flows in
Nepal are growing fast. But the entire

Historical realm
The coinage of the phrase balanced diplomacy appears to have a historical legacy
of a neutral foreign policy articulated for
the first time by BP Koirala in 1959. Koirala,
at a time of heightened cold war tensions
and rise of Maos communism in China,
had sought to stay away not only from
armed blocs like the NATO or the Warsaw
Pact, but also from ideological leanings
towards capitalism or communism.
The paradigm of neutrality had global
connotations. The non-aligned movement,
of which Koirala himself was a prominent
figure, provided a face to this particular
form of neutrality. This legacy was carried
over by king Mahendra in the heydays of
the partyless Panchayat polity. The term
balanced crept in when king Birendra used
his Zone of Peace proposal as the main
weapon of Nepals foreign policy for 15 years
since his coronation in 1976. The term
balanced apparently has a shrunken scope
as compared to neutrality. The reinstatement of democracy in 1990 also failed to
correct this fallacy, which pushed Nepal to
the current predicament of weighing each
of her diplomatic acts to balance one
neighbour against the other.
It is interesting that from a vulnerable and
poor country like Nepal, its powerful neighbours have a number of rather impossible
expectations and (perceived) security
threats. Often diverging interests of India
and China and their increased competition
to expand eco-political influence in the
region have left Nepal in a state of indecisiveness and directionlessness. It increasingly appears impossible to please both. As
such, the platitude of a balancing act or
balanced diplomacy is unlikely to achieve
Nepals foreign policy objectives.
Specific objectives
The objectives of Nepals foreign policy
spelt out so far are to enhance international dignity and to maintain the countrys
sovereignty, integrity and independence.
There is little to contest these verbose and
practically flimsy statements. But Nepal
has ceased to make its presence felt in the
international arena, let alone exert influence to serve its national interests or
enhance its dignity. The growing imperviousness of the international community to
even severe crises like the economic blockade is indication enough that Nepal is left
only to the mercy of its two neighbours.
And the oft-vented anger of these neighbours, like the recent one by China for the
present governments alleged tilt to India

and, by India for the Nepali leaderships failure to accommodate provisions in new constitution as suggested by New Delhi, has led
to further chaos in Nepali foreign policy.
No doubt, Nepal clearly needs a departure in its foreign policy in all aspects of
articulation, goal-setting and execution.
First among such departures must be from
the balanced diplomacy approach.
Country-specific strategies must now be
devised. Only this will stop the feigned
anger and neglect by our neighbours to
make Nepali decision-makers capitulate to
their will. To reassure both our
neighbours, particularly about their genuine security concerns, its crucial that
governance at home is credible. That is
why foreign policy is called a mere
extension of domestic policy.
The second objective must be to make
economic diplomacy an overarching goal
of foreign policy. Instead of expending
resources on commodities with diseconomies of scale and limited competitive or
comparative advantage, diplomatic focus
should mainly be on harnessing Nepals
water recourses and generating hydropower. It is high time we rethought our patterns
of labour export and our diplomatic manoeuvrability vis-a-vis destination countries.
Third, Nepals focus must be on manag-

n a praiseworthy feat, the government is distributing more than 36 crore textbooks to more
than 4 crore students of primary and secondary schools, ebtedayee and dakhil madrasas
and technical institutions across the country.
And for the first time, it will provide about
25,000 children from ethnic communities with
pre-primary textbooks in five ethnic languages, Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Sadri and Garo.
Moreover, about 9,000 braille books will be
given to visually impaired students.
Printing so many textbooks and dispatching
those to educational institutions so that students get new textbooks for free on the first
morning of the New Year are no mean accomplishments. The initiative which the government started in 2010 is significant as it is likely to encourage many parents in the rural
areas who cannot afford to buy books to send
their children to school. What could be a better gift to a student than a set of textbooks
fresh off the press?
It is encouraging to see the government put
such high emphasis on education which is the
main driver of a nations progress. Thanks to
several government initiatives, enrolment in
schools has been going up at a steady rate. We
have achieved the quantity; the challenge now
is to ensure quality which remains a matter of
concern. More resources should be allocated
to teachers training and improving the
condition of classrooms.

A cashless economy and digital platforms are the way to go, but we have to prepare well for the transition

hile crossing the Nepal-India border

at Kakarvitta in Jhapa, my driver
tells me how the demonetisation
decision by India has impacted
people in the bordering towns in
Nepal. After Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi in a televised address to
the nation announced the demonitisation
of the 500- and 1000-rupee Indian notes,
his country has gone in a frenzy. The decision was first presented as a drive to bring
out black money; then it transitioned into
making India cashless and helping the
poor. The Reserve Bank of India, its central bank, continued to issue circulars at
the same pace as everyday newspapers.
People who hail Modi as the saviour of
their country continued to defend the disarray over the move and argued that the
change is a short-term pain for a longterm gain. Modis critics, on the other
hand, found a good opportunity to take on
a prime minister who has a comfortable
majority in parliament for the first time
in 30 years and who is making firm decisions to change India and its economy.
My driver continued to share the story
of how difficult it was for people who
depended on cash. He spoke of how
Indians were crossing the border to Nepal
for daily wage work because they needed

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

The political appointments of ambassadors seem to be parties share of the

spoils of democracy (Quota row
delays ambassador appointments,
December 29, Page 3). Are they
extracting their dues for their mutual
support for the government? Shouldnt
they be going for the best person for

fines. In India, the fact that the majority

of the networks are managed by stateowned banks, which are controlled by the
state, prevented them from challenging
their regulators as there was surely conflict of interest. If the banking system
was not dominated by state-owned banks,
perhaps banks would have raised a hue
and cry over the way demonetisation
was implemented.

SUJEEV SHAKYA
www.sujeevshakya.com

Kantipur Publications Pvt. Ltd., Kantipur Complex, Subidhanagar P. B. No. 8559, Kathmandu; Nepal
Phone: 5135000, Fax: 977-1-5135057, e-mail: [email protected]

SPOILS OF DEMOCRACY

Wagle, a founding editor of the

economic daily Arthik Abhiyan, is
an eco-political analyst

The future of cash

W OR L DV I EW
Free textbooks
It is encouraging to see the government
put such high emphasis on education

ing neighbourly relations. Such management acumen must come from the political
class. As long as the Nepali political class
continues to seek patronage from the
neighbours and other foreign powers,
Nepal can exercise only limited sovereignty.
And economic diplomacy will continue to be
practised as begging-bowl diplomacy.
As far as reform in foreign service is
concerned, there already are quite a few
good reports, but they are not implemented. There is no need for another task force
or study panel to prepare similar reports.
Existing reports have recommended that
proven and demonstrated qualification be
made the basis of ambassadorial appointment, and that missions are opened after a
proper need assessment and provided with
adequate human and financial resources
to make them effective. Regular training to
upgrade the skills of foreign service
personnel is always crucial, but it is a
completely ignored area. Although Nepal
has its diplomatic limitations as a small
and poor country, there is no reason for it
to be off the global diplomatic radar screen
if we chose to work right.

the job of an ambassador? Ranjit Rae,

a Congress appointee, had been
approved for continuity as the ambassador by the Bharatiya Janta Party. It
was the same with the former Reserve
Bank of Indias governor until he
resigned on his own. Why is it that our
parties want to induct their own kith
and kin in various positions as soon as
they climb to the government? How

cash to buy essentials. Tourism has also

been impacted; Nepali tourists cannot
visit neighbouring areas in India and
Indian tourists cannot visit parts of Nepal
as the bulk of the transactions took place
in cash. During my travel, I had to choose
a travel agency that gave me a vehicle in
exchange for payment in Nepali rupees,
and rather than staying in hotels that do
not accept cards, I stayed with friends.
Some of the people in Kakarvitta told me
that the people across the border have
been suffering more than we Nepalis
suffered during the blockade.
Culture and policy
It is a challenge when policy does not consider the culture that a society or a nation
believes in. The South Asian culture likes
finding ways around rules and laws more
than following them. Many religious and
social norms are easily broken. There are

can they be sure that their recommendations and appointments are good? Is
knowledge and language looked for, or is
it fawning and ingratiation? These parties will push this country down the ladder in world ranking by sending mediocre people in diplomatic assignment.
Manohar Shrestha, via email

HAPPY NEW YEAR

The bygone year has been positive in

many aspects (2016: A year when
signs of recovery emerged,
January 1, Money I). Past is past.

people who interpret religious scripts for

you and find easy ways of getting around
the rituals. Similarly, everyone is finding
ways around demonetisation rather than
following the rule. But then weak infrastructure also prevents proper enforcement of the rule. How can banks work on
automated systems when they do not have
a good internet connection? How will
internet connections work when the
power supply is erratic? How will power
supply work well when electricity theft is
something that is acceptable in society?
Social media were awash with photos of
long queues in front of ATMs and banks
as people spend hours to withdraw a few
thousands rupees. When there is no method to check on ATM efficiency, how can
you rely on the system to deliver? In South
Africa, the ATMs are wired to the Central
Bank and if the ATM downtime is higher
than 1 percent, the banks have to pay

But we should learn lessons from past

mistakes when moving forward to 2017.
Substantive amount of work has
been done in sectors like trade and
commerce, hydroelectricity, foreign
direct investment, energy, infrastructure development, etc. It is great that
a decade-long load-shedding problem

A wake-up call
The issue about implementation has many
dimensions. As people are talking about
mobile wallets and cashless transfers, the
fundamentals of individuals identity also
need to be worked on. For instance, a
study revealed that when biometric cards
were being issued in India, in many places, village elites came forward and
ensured that one out of the 10 fingers used
for identification was theirs, so that if the
person had to do anything with the card,
the village elite would be required for the
one finger.
In Nepal, perhaps it is a good time to
look at policy structures and work on
what we can learn from Indias demonetisation drive. It is a wake-up call for financial institutions to ensure that they invest
enough in security systems and that hesitant customers are convinced about using
the various digital platforms. There is little trust in the system. Our quest of creating Nepali ways of doing things instead
of following global systems will have to
change. Yes, going cashless and using digital platforms are the future, but we have
to prepare well for the transition. There
are lessons from the Indian experiment. I
hope we can learn the relevant ones.

has been ended, which is a good signal

for the countrys progress in the
long run.
However, it is quite sad that the
earthquake victims are still not experiencing normalcy in their lives.
Therefore, immediate action in reconstruction is the need of the hour. Let
us make this year more productive
than the last one by working hard, no
matter what we do. Lets have more
supportive rather than a self-centred
attitude when it comes to shaping
our nation .
Saroj Wagle, Bara

WRITE TO US
We value
your words.
Send us your
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and letters for
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pages
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C M Y K

07 the kathmandu post

op-ed

What do we know?

Better luck next year

Madhesis will remember 2016 for the endless
political dialogue that yielded little

DIPENDRA JHA

he year 2016 brought big hope as

Madhesi forces mellowed and
abandoned extreme measures of
protest to champion their cause.
CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Olis
government fell after ignoring the genuine demands of Madhesis, indigenous
nationalities, Dalits, women, Muslims and
Tharus. The current government
registered a constitution amendment bill
in Parliament Secretariat to address
Madhesi issues, but it is still pending as
the UML has been obstructing its passage.
No end in sight
Madhesis will remember 2016 as the year
when they waited expectantly to hear the
good news of a constitutional amendment
as their leaders held endless talks with the
leaders of the ruling parties but nothing
happened. The UML has been blasting the
bill saying that some leaders of the Nepali
Congress (NC) and the CPN (Maoist
Centre) themselves are against it.
Although Prime Minister Dahal always
assured Madhesi leaders that he was
ready to address their major demands,
they got nothing substantial from the
Baluwatar meetings. If one has to sum up
the achievements of Madhesis and other
marginalised communities in 2016, one
would have to say that they attained little
besides getting to attend many meetings.
Many Tharu youths were forced to flee
their homes as a result of the incidents in
Tikapur, Kailali on August 24, 2015.
Petitions were filed at the Supreme Court
on behalf of 23 Tharus. Its been four
months since an order was passed, but
they are still awaiting the full details of
the case. It looks like Tharus of Tikapur
will never get a fair and timely trial. The
National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC) hasnt published its report even
after all these months.
Madhesis will also always remember
the time when the then prime minister Oli
rebuked NHRC spokesperson Mohna
Ansari for presenting a report at the
Universal Periodic Review of the United
Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva
which criticised the use of force by the
state during the Madhes movement and
discriminatory constitutional provisions
regarding citizenship. Oli backed down
following a public outcry.
The struggle continues
The year 2016 can be remembered as the
year when Tharus, Madhesis, indigenous
nationalities and Dalits felt that they were
ready and capable to fight for their identity, autonomy and equal rights. The ruling

class, however, seems to have adopted a

policy not to give up the privileges that they
have been monopolising in the state organs.
This ruling class is determined not to give
equal rights to marginalised communities.
The conflict between the increased assertion capacity of marginalised communities
and the conservative stand of the ruling
group to keep their power intact will continue in 2017. Sometimes, marginalised communities will deliver a punch at the ruling
class, and sometimes it will be the other way
around. The two groups will keep delivering
and receiving blows alternately. Political
commentator CK Lal has often said that the
status quo will be maintained in Nepal for
the next 15 years, meaning there will be no
new cycle of a big conflict nor will there be
any progressive change.
Although some people tried to defame
the intellectuals among the marginalised
communities by employing various tricks,
they were not successful in their attempts.
We should remember a Hindi adage
Satya pareshan ho sakt hai lekin parajit
nahi which means truth triumphs in the
end. Anyway, only cowards attempt to
attack from behind. Those who are capable confront their adversaries head on. I
mean that capable people should sit down
with those with whom they have ideological differences and try to debate on the
issues. This is the method that people
should follow in a democracy. Either you
convince your opponents or you should be
ready to be convinced by them. But you
dont resort to dirty tricks to defame your
opponents.
Not so fruitful
We also need to remember that the government introduced various bills in 2016
to create toothless commissions which
were tasked with protecting the rights of
Madhesis, Tharus, indigenous nationalities and Muslims. For the marginalised
groups, these commissions can be
compared to a cat without teeth that can
only meow but cannot bite. These
commissions were included in the
constitution as a lollipop for marginalised
communities when they came out on the
streets to oppose the promulgation of the
constitution.
Madhesis and Tharus want the current
political problems to end as soon as
possible so that the victims of the Madhes
movement, martyrs and the Tharu
families that were displaced after the
Tikapur incident including the families
of the police personnel who were killed in
it can get relief and justice. Lets hope that
forces that are trying to polarise the two
communities, Pahadis and Madhesis, and
trying to portray Madhesis as Indians will
be defeated in 2017. Let us also hope that
political parties will join hands to
implement the constitution to pave the way
for economic progress and prosperity.
Jha is a practicing lawyer
at the Supreme Court

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

This past year was a reminder of how little any of us can anticipate

PICO IYER

he secret to happiness in almost

any relationship is knowing
what not to say. Ask your new
love about her old loves and
youll learn more than you
want to know, and hear things
youll never be able to unhear.
Start telling your teacher that your
dog ate your homework while
your grandma was being rushed
to the hospital, and hell have even
less patience with you than if you just
say, I blew it.
One reason were advised to
send only brief emails is that too
much information gives the person
at the other end much more to misinterpretor to start chewing over
at 3 a.m. The other is that if you
send a long message, the
person youre writing to may feel
compelled to send an equally long
one back, and then its you whos
twisting and turning on what she
meant by that and and why she
never mentioned Steve.
Or why she never wrote back at
all.We have, of course, been aware
of this danger since the beginning
of time, and yet weve never been
in a position to devour (or deliver)
as much information as we are
today, in the age of 24/7 news
cycles and social media. Weve
never been so tempted, therefore,
to forget that the pool of knowledge is limited; its the pool of
ignorance, speculation and misunderstanding that is infinite.
As we look back on our season of
surprisesfrom Bob Dylans Nobel
Prize to Donald Trumps election
what were being reminded of,
surely, is how very little we know.
On Nov. 7, thanks to more data
than had ever been collected
before, updated every second for 16
months or more, we all knew what
was coming. By midnight the
following day, we realized that all
the data in the world doesnt add
up to real life.
Remember in Othello how the
seasoned warrior is coaxed away
from the realm of knowledge and
into the adjacent territories of
inference and rumor, by his old
friend Iago? The minute he is severed from real life, on the rack of
his own thoughts, declaring Iago
is most honest after Iago has confided to us, I am not what I am,
the noble Moor cant be sure of a
thing. Our pollsters, our pundits,
our sources of newsour knowit-all selveswork much the same
ground, though perhaps with less

malicious intent, to persuade us

that hearsay + opinion + guesswork = truth.
I recently got a crash course in
this realitydont we all nowadays, on dates or job interviews, on
simple social occasions?when I
visited a campus. I was told that
Professor X was going to host me
for dinner, so of course I decided to
check him out online, not least
because I was fairly sure Professor
X would do the same with me. I
needed to show him I had thought
about him beforehand; more than
that, I had to be armed for two
hours of small talk.
As soon as I googled him,
RateMyTeachers.com came up,
and I learned that my host-to-be
was arrogant, ignorant, cruel and
even sadistic. Each entry was more
vicious than the last. Only later did
I wonder whether this character
assassination was a conspiracy
among the few students to whom
hed given a C. I didnt stop to
think that I wouldnt necessarily
trust these 19-year-olds in any
other domain, least of all when
their futures were at stake.
I didnt bother to consider that its
usually those who are most vehemently pursuing an agenda who

take the time and trouble to post

reviews online.
I went into my hosts house on
guardand hardly knew what to
do with the kindly, courteous and
really fun man who stood in front
of me. He no doubt wondered why I
was being so standoffish and
reserved. Or maybe hed come
across reviews of me online and
knew already that Im arrogant,
ignorant and cruel.
Greater access to knowledge is
one of the glories of our age. Even
many of our most materially
deprived neighbors have the
Library of Alexandria, multiplied
by a factor of roughly infinity, in
the palm of their hands, as no generation before ours has had. The
amount of data in our control is
part of what has made our lives
richer and happier than ever
before. On a trip to North Korea
two years ago, after many
years away, I recalled, with a
shock, what it is to be in a sealed,
predigital universe in which you
can know only what youre permitted to know.
Walking around the Potemkin
monuments of Pyongyang, I had to
recall to myself that the glittery,
ultramodern skyscrapers around

me were often stage sets, with

nothing but ghosts on many floors;
the woman in the gleaming subway
car who offered a friendly hello in
English might well have been
ordered to do so by her government, a human prop. The moment I
returned to what I regard as Planet
Earth, I went online, and rejoiced
to come upon what felt like almost
universally acknowledged truths.
But one thing that happens when
we acquire too much knowledge
is that, like Othello, we sometimes
fail to distinguish it from what can
never be known, which may not be
untrue. Another is that were
tempted to lose sight of the distinction between those realms, like science and health, where the more
data we have, the better, and others, like human relations, where
the opposite may be true.
Knowledge comes to seem an
end in itself, and then we gobble it
down and gobble it down without
stopping to realize that its Iago
or that anonymous writer of the
Wikipedia entrywhos serving it
up to us, and that wisdom sometimes depends on seeing how much
knowledge doesnt know and how
much every day is shaped by unexpectedness.
As a boy I was aware that knowledge was the coolest form of power
around; nearly every adolescent
wants to be in the know. What I
couldnt see was that its precisely
in matters of highest importance
love, terror, is there a God, and
why is Iago possessed by the Devil?
that were outside the domain of
knowledge. That the more information we gather, on anyone from
Angelina Jolie to Donald Trump,
the less we seem to know. And that
nobody trustworthy wishes to run
for public office now, in part
because, in the age of knowledge,
no one is unstained before the global jury of the internet.
Anyone reading this essay will
accumulate more knowledge today
than Shakespeare did in his entire
lifetime. But Shakespeare knew
much that its harder for us to see.
As my friends keep telling me
whats going to happen during the
Trump presidency, I remember
everything they were telling me
eight years ago about how
President Obama was going to
change the world. Thank heavens
President Obama was wise enough
sometimes to point out that none
of us even knows whats going to
happen tonight
2016 The New York Times

A dead gorilla became the meme of 2016

SAM JUDAH

is was the face which launched a thousand

memes--so why did Harambe the gorilla capture 2016s collective online psyche?
It was a sad story that could have been
even sadder. In May, a three-year-old child fell
into an enclosure at Cincinnati Zoo. One of the
Western lowland gorillas inside started dragging the boy around.
Fearing that the boys life was in danger, a
zoo worker killed Harambe with a single shot.
The boy escaped without serious injury.
The events were captured on a YouTube
video which has been watched millions
of times.
Harambes death touched off a heated--if
predictable--debate about zoo welfare standards and whether lethal force was necessary.
But what wasnt expected was what came
next. Harambe became memeified. His image
was spread far and wide throughout the internet. He became the subject of serious and
unserious campaigns. And he was even memorialised in song.

It started as a spontaneous and very real outpouring of shock and grief over the killing.
Had I been there, I would have gone into the
enclosure myself, says Frank Paris, one of the
people who used the hashtag #RIPHarambe to
express his sadness. It quickly began to spread
hours after the gorillas death.
Although he lived a few states away
in Los Angeles, Paris, along with many
others, was upset at Cincinnati Zoos decision
to kill the animal.
Of course, thats just one reaction from
someone thousands of miles away, whereas zoo
officials say they were right to take action to
stop any potential serious injury to the boy.
Aside from his canonisation on social media,
there were candlelit vigils for Harambe. There
were also campaigns targeted the boys parents. Some online called for them to be prosecuted for negligence. The boys mother was
cleared of any wrongdoing. That wave of emotion was in turn hijacked by comedians, pranksters and trolls who mocked those who were
making so much of the story.
Then things took a dark turn when the

memes were picked up by the alt-right, an

amorphous but internet savvy white nationalist movement. The gorillas image was used in
racist messages.
But the Harambe phenomenon was also too
large to be totally owned by one fringe group.
Memes comparing Harambe to David Bowie,
Prince and Muhammad Ali have since gone
viral. Hes been the subject of fake news stories, books, comics--and a parody of the Book
of Genesis.
I think it spoke to a level of outrage fatigue.
If youre seeing people freaking out about a
dead gorilla, over say thousands of people
dying in the Syrian refugee crisis, then what
do you do with that anger? says Romano, the
Vox writer.
The only way to sort of express your anger
was to just turn this sort of worship of
Harambe and turn this deep cultural grief
over Harambes death into a meme.
Indeed, not just any meme, but the
meme of 2016.
RIP Harambe.
2016 BBC trending

Bringing the gods home

Nepal needs to actively make repatriation claims of cultural properties trafficked abroad

SAURAV KARKI

hen Dharaharas rubble lied scattered after the massive earthquake, people were taking away
its historical bricks, forcing the
Nepal Police to intervene. It is
but one example of how susceptible to
theft the countrys cultural properties
are. Cultural properties are important
to particular cultural groups as well as
to the state as they are part of the
countrys identity. As such, they have
been a target of belligerents in wars
since early human civilisation.
Modern international law is clear
about dissuading the destruction of
cultural properties during wars. But
the protection of cultural properties
during peacetime remains a daunting
task, with its illicit trade estimated to
be worth up to $6 billion worldwide.
Recognising the increased theft of

cultural properties towards the end of

the 1960s, the Unesco adopted the
Convention on the Means of
Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit
Import, Export and Transfer of
Ownership of Cultural Property in
1970. The Convention requires state
parties to return the cultural property
detained or found in their territory
that had been stolen, or was exported
from another state or the country of
origin without a licence.
Although cultural properties,
regardless of their country of origin,
are considered important to the whole
human civilisation, the post-colonisation practice of states suggests that
cultural properties, however taken
out of the country of origin, need to
be returned.
Nepals plight
Nepals long history and the diverse
cultural groups that have been living
here have endowed it with many cultural properties. However, while Nepal
enjoys this privilege of being culturally rich, many of our cultural properties have, to our dismay, been stolen

and trafficked out of the country.

Peoples affinity with cultural items
in their daily lives and the necessity
for the items to be in publicly
accessible places make Nepals
cultural properties more vulnerable to
theft and illicit trafficking. Further,
lack of adequate resources and
sophisticated machinery adds to the
challenges of preventing theft.
Theft of cultural properties in
Nepal was noticed in the 1960s
along with the growth in the
Hippie culture and tourism. Although
the Ancient Monument Preservation
Act was enacted in 1956 to criminalise
the act of theft or destruction of
cultural properties, Nepal has not
enforced it well.
Nepals practice of documenting its
history has been poor. As a result, we
have to rely on scholarly works to state
our claims. Importantly, Lain Singh
Bangdels Stolen Images of Nepal
(1989) and Jurgen Schicks Gods are
leaving the Country: Art Theft from
Nepal (1997), stand out as important
records of arts and cultural properties
we have lost to trafficking.

Overcoming possible challenges

Nepal had initiated the process
of reclaiming the antiquities that
were being sold at an auction oversees
in 2013. Likewise, Nathalie Bazin,
Chief Curator of the Himalayan
Section at Muse Guimet, France, had
announced that the museum was
willing to return the 12th century
stone statues of Vishnu, Laxmi and
Garuda that were reportedly stolen
from Patan in late 1970s and the 13th
century statue of Shiva-Uma stolen
from Bhaktapur in 1984. Although
there might be hurdles on the way,
Nepal should be proactive in initiating
the repatriation process. According to
the spirit of cultural internationalism, cultural properties belong to the
world and should remain for the world
to see when the country of origin lacks
a mechanism to protect them
from deterioration. However, such
claims do not have legal backups
and practices.
In 2015, the Unesco had urged Nepal
to make inventories to house the antiquities for their protection. With some
urgency and seriousness, this should

not be a problem for a country which

values its cultures to a great extent.
The 1970 Unesco Convention
requires the country of origin
demanding repatriation to compensate an innocent buyer. This
might cause authorities to hesitate
from making repatriation claims
since such compensation may amount
to a huge sum of money. However,
there are a number of cases
where countries holding antiquities
have voluntarily returned them to the
country of origin after the claims
were made.
To make the return of lost and
stolen properties possible, and to
prevent their theft and illegal
trafficking, Nepal first needs to work
on documentation and record-keeping.
Further, it needs to strengthen
security and develop protection
mechanisms around cultural heritage
sites. Nepal should do all it can to
bring the stolen cultural properties
where they belong.
Karki is a student at
Kathmandu School of Law
C M Y K

et cetera
kathmandu post
the

PG 08 | Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Dare venture with Nepathya

Pulsar Nepal is hosting a concert by Nepathya
to mark the grand finale of Pulsar Dare Venture
season 2 at Jawalakhel on Jan 7. The event
will also have finalists competing against
each other for top three positions. Passes for
the event are available at Bajaj showrooms in
Kathmandu.

kathmandupost.ekantipur.com

A tribute to Coldplay

Festival for women

As a tribute to the international rock band,

Coldplay, D. Karmastha will be hosting a rock
concert on Jan 21, 4 pm onwards at
Purple Haze Rock Bar in Thamel. Pre sale
tickets cost Rs 500 and door tickets cost
Rs 700. For more information and to book
tickets, call: 9801116115.

British Council Nepal is hosting a festival,

WOW(Women of the World) Kathmandu at
Staff College, Jawalakhel on Feb 18. The one
day festival celebrating women and girls will
incorporate talks, debates, market, musical
performances and many more. The event
will take place from 11am onwards.

patchy
connection
Prajesh Sjb Rana

ing the MTP driver, point the installation to the driver folder where you
downloaded the driver. Windows
should recognise the driver and
install the MTP driver. Once this is
done, go back to the driver folder
inside the Windows folder and
rename the files that you changed
back to the original filenames. Once
this is done, unplug the device and
plug it back in. This should ensure
that your phone gets recognised by
your computer. If nothing else works,
maybe using AirDroid for wireless
file transfer is the way to go.

I have been hearing a rumour that

a smartphone can explode if you
take calls from some spammers
that show up in red or blue colours. Is this true? Can a phone
really explode after a malicious call?
Charlotte Shrestha
Dear Charlotte,
While it might not be a good idea to
pick up calls from spammers, they,
however, can not affect your phones
hardware. Mobile security, for both
Android and iOS, has developed quite
significantly over the years and
theyre safe enough to not explode
due the injection of some malicious
code into your system. So, while I
would not recommend taking these
calls, you can stay assured that these
calls will not cause your phone to

I own an iPhone 5s and I am wondering how to disable the camera

shutter sound when taking pictures with the phone. I cant see
any options that let me disable
the sound, is there any why that I
can disable the shutter sound?
Gobinda Sharma

explode but they might cause your

phone to malfunction. The rumour is
an internet rumour and should be
taken with a grain of salt, but this
particular rumour does not contain
any truth to it, so I would recommend
ignoring it.

I am using a Samsung Galaxy

smartphone but the phone is not
getting recognised on my
computer. Whenever I connect my
phone to my computer, I get an
error that says MTP failed. What
exactly is MTP and how do I
troubleshoot this problem?

technopolis q&a

Khagendra Thakulla
Dear Khadendra,
Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is a
standard that makes the transfer of
media files easier for your phone.
MTP is an extension of the Picture
Transfer Protocol (PTP) but is a protocol that makes the transfer of
media files such as audio and video
files possible. It is absolutely imperative that MTP works for the transfer
of media files and if MTP is failing
on your system, you need to fix it
before you can transfer media files on
to your device. The primary reason
why youre getting this error is

Dharans
first
intl Film
Festival
18 Nepali and 29
International movies
to be featured in the
course of five days
Pradeep Menagbo
Dharan, Jan 2

haran is hosting its first

International Film Festival from
January 11 to 15 at the BP Koirala
Institute of Health Science auditorium. The festival organised by
All Nepal Film Makers Association
will feature 18 Nepali and 29 interna-

because your computer is not recognising your device as an MTP device,

this is because of a driver error.
Sometimes a quick reinstall of the
driver is enough to fix the issue but if
a driver re-install does not work you
might have to manually fix the issue.
If reinstalling the driver does not
work, try uninstalling the driver
from your device manager and navigate to Windows\system32\drivers.
In this folder, rename two files: wud-

tional movies in the course of five

days.
Speaking at the press meet,
Chairperson of the association, KP
Pathak said, Most of the festivals
are organised in and limited to
Kathmandu. We are organising this
festival to promote Nepali movies
outside the valley as well as to tone
down the massive bolloywood
influence in Dharan. He added,
This event is not just centered for
Dharan but for the whole region.
In Nepali feature film category, the
festival will feature movies like, Min
Bahadur Bhams Kalo Pothi, Manoj
Pandits Chaya, and Himdhatt Tashis
Bhimdatta among others.
Bhojraj Bhats Sunakali, Ganesh
Pandeys Bhagyale Bhachekaharu
will
be
showcased
in
the

frd.sys and winusb.sys with a .bk

suffix. Now, plug in the device and
through the device manager, update
the drivers for you MTP device. If
your system automatically creates
the two files required, then your MTP
device should show up on your computer. If this does not work and if you
get an error while updating the driver, download MTP drivers for your
device from the internet and
unzip the file anywhere. While updat-

documentary category.
International films category consists of movies such as Indian film
maker Samit Kakads Half ticket,
Bangladeshi film maker Asharf
Shishirs Inner Sound, German film
maker
and
Henric
Pescels
See-Oh-Se-Pol among many others.
The festival will include original
and ingenous movies made after 2014
selected by three member selection
committee consisting of Subash
Gajurel, Alok Tiwari and Dabbu
Chhetri.
According to Pathak the festival
saw the submission of more than 200
movies from 26 different nations
while only 47 movies from 16 countries were selected.
The jury members for the festival
include Chinese director Chi Fi,

If your technological devices

are giving you a hard time or if
youre just curious about certain
technological questions,
please drop us an email at
[email protected]
and well try to answer your
questions as best as we can.

French professor Dragan Milikovic,

Bangladeshi documentary and TV
journalist Tasmiha Afrin, and
Laxminath Sharma and Rajesh
Hamal from Nepal. The jury will
announce the winner of the festival
at the end of the five-day fest.
In the International Film category,
Best Feature Film will be awarded
Gautam Buddha award with the cash
purse
worth
$1,000,
Best
Documentary will be awarded Mount
Everest award with the purse of $500
and Best Short Film will be awarded
Rara award with the purse of $300.
In National Film category, Best
Feature Movie will be awarded
Shrijanga award with the purse of Rs
50,000, Best Documentary will be
awarded Ram Prasad award with Rs
30,000 while Best Short Film will be
awarded Rs 20,000 along with
Chaturman Rajbansi award.
The coordinator of the festival as
well as movie director, Keshab
Rayamajhi said that the festival will
help attract more audience for Nepali
movies as well as make movie awards
transparent and neutral. He added,
As international movies will be
shown along with the Nepali movies,
audiences will enjoy a unique
experience.
Movie director Dipak Shrestha
as well as local coordinator of the
fest said, Dharan has received
an opportunity to host this festival
so we are trying our best to make
it very systematic and grand.
We are hoping that this festival
will be able to attract more audience
to theatre and help Nepali movie
industry to flourish.

Dear Aunt,
I am 23 and have been in love with a
wonderful girl for three years now.
Weve had our own share of ups and
downs but we make a lovely couple.
Nobody gets me and accepts me like
she does. Although, I have never
said it out loud, should I spend my
life with anybody I want it to be her.
But, I made a blunder and I think I
might have lost her forever. A mutual friend had been hitting on me for
quite some time now, and my girlfriend was fully aware of it. Because
she was not insecure about the relationship, while she warned me to
not lead the other girl on, she was
never really bothered when I spent
little time with the other girl. She
even teased me about how I
was enjoying the attention.
Everything was fine. However, the
other day we (I and the other girl)
kissed on the spur of the moment
and I regretted it immediately. I
confronted my girlfriend honestly
about the situation but now she
hates me. I dont think shell ever
accept me. What should I do?
Hopeless Romantic
Dear Hopeless Romantic,
Thats definitely a huge blunder.
When somebody trusts you, you

should never take it for granted. I

am sorry to say this but even if
things get better, theyll never go
back to how it used to be before. Its
difficult to build trust back again
once you have broken it. However,
if you are really keen on working
this relationship out, you have to
put in every possible effort into it.
To convince her that you are sincerely apologetic, dont just say
sorry. Make it up to her with gestures that matter. Also, come clean.
Dont flirt around, dont hang out
with girls who are interested in you,
and dont lead them on. If you want
your girlfriend to know that you are
committed to her, let go of the traces of Casanova in you. Communicate
to her as often and as much as possible about how it was a mistake
that youll never repeat. And if she
takes you back, live up to her trust.
However, remember to let go in two
cases. First, if she doesnt want to
take you back no matter what,
accept it as your punishment and
let her be. Dont impose the relationship on heryou dont have
that privilege anymore. Second, if
your heart is still fluttering by,
checking out other girls, its a sign
that you are looking for someone
new. Theres no point of trying to
mend something if youll eventually break it again. Good luck!

agonyaunt

Dear Gobinda,
Disabling the camera shutter
sound is really simple on the iPhone.
What you have to do is open the
camera app and while the camera app
is running, slide the silent toggle
button to the silence side and this
should ensure that the camera does
not make a sound when taking a
photo. If this does not work, you
might have to edit system level codes
to disable this feature. But for that,
you need to jailbreak the phone.
Since Apple does not provide a
dedicated shutter sound option, set
your phone to the silent mode while
taking pictures or just mute the
whole device altogether.

Broken Trust

Sour Sixteen
Dear Aunt,
My sister who is two years younger to me and currently in grade 10
is going through a major heartbreak. Ever since her breakup two
weeks ago, she has shut us all out.
She has deactivated all her social
media, she refuses to talk to her
friends when they call, and she
completely avoids any form of
socialising. I saw her recent
grades, they have deteriorated as
well. Im afraid the heartbreak
might completely engulf her and
lead her to depression. Because,
we dont talk about dating and
relationships with our parents, the
whole responsibility has come
upon me to help her get through
this breakup. My only problem is I
have always been the studious,
no-nonsense kind of girl who has
never ever dated. I have never
experienced similar heartbreak to
pass on wisdom regarding it to my
little sister. What should I tell her?
How can I convince her that shell
get through it?
Raisa
Dear Raisa,
When younger people go through
heartbreaks its both good and bad.
Good because theyll get over it
before they even realise it and bad
because before they actually get
over it the emotions are
fully blown up. To
begin with, even when
she denies she needs
any sympathy, you
might as well go to
her and give her a big
bear hug. Hugs are a
great way of telling
people that they are
loved and you are there

for them without saying anything

at all. It is also fail-safe way because
you are not imposing any wisdom
on her. Wait for her to open up and
tell you everything about what
went wrong and how. Once you
gather all the details, tell her that
breakups are part and parcel of life
and they take place for good. Sure
there are exceptions but most relationships that begin at a young age
of 16 rarely ever endure. When
youre 16 and in love, you feel like
love is all that you need and
whoever you meet is the one. But
thats not the case. When youre 16,
you barely know what you want out
of yourself to expect somebody else
to know, understand, and reciprocate what you want out of them.
When a relationship ends, it ends
for good. It only means that they
are better people waiting for you.
Most love stories that take place in
our teenage come to an end before
we expect it to, and even when we
feel like our life is over, it is only
the beginning. Breakups
should be treated like life and
time savers that teach us
how to choose the right
partner and how
to love them.

C M Y K

life&style
kathmandu post
the

PG 09 | Tuesday, January 3, 2017

kathmandupost.ekantipur.com

Miley-Liam secretly married?

BORN TODAY

Singer-actress Miley Cyrus has sparked speculation

she is married to actor Liam Hemsworth after she
called his family her in-laws on social media. The
couple celebrated the New Years Eve with their
family, including her mother Tish Cyrus, his mother
Leonie Hemsworth, his brother Chris Hemsworth
and wife Elsa Pataky, at a party in New York.

American actor Mel Gibson is 61

Lee wants to create more characters

Canadian athlete Bobby Hull is 78

British musician John Paul Jones is 71
American actor Jason Marsden is 42
German athlete Michael Schumacher is 48

Stan Lee turned 94 last week, but the legendary writer

has no plans to slow down. He says he wants to keep on
creating characters. I plan to keep creating characters
with my company POW! Entertainment. We just launched
a new animated series called Stan Lees Cosmic
Crusaders, a new digital graphic novel God Woke
and our TV show Lucky Man, Lee said.

Bhoko
Ghar in
its last
week
Post Report
Kathmandu, Jan 2

he playBhoko Ghar currently

being showcased at Theatre Mall
at Sundhara, has reached its
final week. The play written by
Govinda
Bahadur
Malla
Gothale and directed by Kedar
Shrestha has been on stage since
December 16.
According to Managing Director
of Theatre Mall Elina Nakarmi, the

play which now has only six stagings

left, has received an overwhelming
response from the audience.
Director Shrestha who also writes
and plays himself has previously
staged dramas like Upiyako
Nibandha, and Man versus Mati.
Shrestha said despite the response
from the audience, they couldnt extend
this play as another play is slated to be
staged right after.
Bhoko Ghar showcases the struggles of a family struggling with pov-

erty and unempolyment.

The lack of resources to meet the
dreams and aspirations is the main
theme of the play.
The play written by Gothale decades ago is still very relevant. With
the change in time, peoples dreams
and aspirations also change and
soar but the struggles still resonate,
said director Shrestha. The play also
uses various signs and symbols resonating the present time to make it
more applicable to present situation.

Sheeran
announces
release of
new material

Daniels on whiny
#OscarsSoWhite
controversy: Stop
complaining
THE GUARDIAN
LOS ANGELES, JAN 2

scar-nominated film-maker Lee

Daniels has criticised the
#OscarsSoWhite controversy,
saying that people need to stop
complaining.
Daniels, whose film Precious made
him only the second black director to
have ever been nominated for an
Oscar, has spoken about his frustration with those who claim the past
two years of all-white nominees is a
clear sign of industry racism.
Go out and do the work, he said

to the New York Times. Oscars so

white! So what? Do your work. Let
your legacy speak and stop complaining, man. Are we really in this for the
awards? He also believes that a
defeatist way of thinking about
Hollywood would have prevented him
from achieving success.
If I had thought that waythat
the world was against meI wouldnt
be here now, he said. These whiny
people that think were owed something are incomprehensible and reprehensible to me. I dont expect
acknowledgment or acceptance from
white America. Im going to be me.

Daniels has since gone onto achieve

success with the hit TV drama Empire
and new show Star, for which he cast a
white actor in the lead to help America
feel more unified. I felt that the country, instinctively, I thought, needed to
heal, he said in a recent interview.
And I thought that this white girl is so
fabulous that black people will embrace
her and white people will embrace her.
The next set of Oscar nominations
will be announced on 24 January, and
experts are predicting a more diverse
set of nominees with Moonlight,
Fences and Hidden Figures all expected to be in the race.

BBC

um said. Walt Disney saw that Tyrus

was able to produce exquisite artwork that did not necessarily look
like the forestbut rather, felt like
the forest. Walts vision for Bambi
and use of Tyrus work still influences films today, it said.
Tyrus Wong only worked at Disney
for three years, moving to Warner
Brothers as a concept artist, designing greeting cards for Hallmark on
the side. After retiring, he turned to
creating hundreds of elaborate bamboo kites, received many awards in
recognition of his work, and became
the subject of a documentary about
his life. Writing about his death, the
documentarys director said with
his passing, we have lost a brilliant
artist, motion picture and animation
legend, Chinese American pioneer,
and hero.
Tyrus always faced adversity
with dignity, courage, and art... he
awed us with his talent, charmed us
with his boyish humour, and moved
us with his humility, generosity, resilience, and big heart.

LOS ANGELES, JAN 2

T
Legendary
cartoonist
Tyrus Wong
dies aged 106

The
force
stays
with
Rogue
One

yrus Wong, the artist whose works

inspired the Disney film Bambi,
has died aged 106. A Chinese immigrant, Mr Wongs vibrant paintings captured Walt Disneys eye and
became the basis of the films distinct style. In a statement, the Walt
Disney Family Museum said his
influence on the artistic composition
of the animated feature Bambi
cannot be overstated.
He died at home surrounded by his
family. Mr Wong emigrated to the
United States from China as a child,
with his fatherleaving behind his
mother and a sister he would never
see again. After studying as an artist,
he began working with Disney in
1938 as an inbetweener, drawing
hundreds of pictures between poses
to create the illusion of motion.
When the film studio began
pre-production on Bambi, he went
home and painted several pictures of
a deer in a forest, the Disney muse-

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
LOS ANGELES, JAN 2

ogue One, the latest chapter

in the Star Wars intergalactic saga, kept a firm grip on
the box office top spot for a
third straight week, industry estimates for North
America showed on Sunday.
The Disney film, the first
stand-alone episode in the
eight-film series, follows the
mission of rebel alliance fighters trying to steal plans to the
Empires feared Death Star.
At this point in the three-day
New Years holiday weekend,
Rogue One has taken in $49.7
million in US and Canadian
theaters, bringing its threeweek total to $441 million,
Exhibitor Relations reported.
Universals animated musi-

Another aspect of the play that

makes it remarkable is the performance of the artists. The play features actors like Aakash Magar,
Shanti Giri, Sudam Shike, Sanjita
Sanji and Abhay Baral who have previously worked in movies like Bijuli
Machile, Fitkiri, Red Monsoon,
Hostel Returns and others along with
various plays.
The play will be staged till
January 7 on Wenesday at 5 pm and
Saturday at 1:30 pm.

cal Sing was the runner-up for a

second straight week, with a
$41.4 million take so far this
weekend and an accumulated
total of $177.3 million.
The actors who voice the cartoon
charactersMatthew
Scarlett
McConaughey,
Johansson
and
Reese
Witherspoonalso do their
own singing.
The Sony sci-fi thriller
Passengers maintained its
third-place position, though far
behind the two leaders, with a
$16.1 million take in its second
week, for total revenues of $61.4
million.
The film stars Jennifer
Lawrence and Chris Pratt as
astronauts who accidentally
awaken from hibernation90
years too earlyduring a deepspace mission.

Carey
shrugs
off
botched New York performance on Twitter
THE GUARDIAN
NEW YORK, JAN 2

A
THE GUARDIAN
LONDON, JAN 2

d Sheeran has announced the end

of his break from music, with
new material due to be released
on Friday.
The singer-songwriter, 25, posted a video on Twitter in which he
waves to fans while smiling and holding up a piece of white A4 paper with
the words New music coming
Friday!! scrawled on it. He then puts
the sheet of paper in his mouth and
drops it.
The star announced a year ago that
he was taking a break to travel
the world and see everything I
missed, but promised fans he would
be back with his third album, which
he called the best thing I have made
so far.
He also announced he would disappear from my phone, emails and all
social media for a while, saying he
had started to see the world
through a screen and not my eyes.
The Thinking Out Loud singer
recently returned to social media,
posting a light blue picture on his
Instagram and Twitter profiles,
prompting speculation that new
music was on the way.
He wrote this years X Factor winners single, When Christmas Comes
Around, which debuted at number
three in the charts.
Sheeran gave his first official
return performance for a charity gig
at the Natural History Museum at the
end of November, days after it was
reported that Princess Beatrice had
accidentally cut his face when a party
prank went wrong as she pretended
to knight the singer James Blunt
with a ceremonial sword.
Showing off a scar on his cheek,
Sheeran told the audience: Its nice
to be back. Ive had a whole year off. I
went to Japan for about a month and
hung out with Japanese people. Got
my face cut open, anyone read about
that?

fter experiencing difficulties

with her New Year performance
in Times Square in New York
City that included stopping singing midway through a song,
Mariah Carey used Twitter to say:
Shit happens.
The singer, performing on Dick
Clarks New Years Rockin Eve with
Ryan Seacrest, on ABC, appeared to
have technical difficulties during her
live performance on Saturday night.
After a brief, flawless Auld Lang
Syne, Careys mood seemed to range
from frustration to resignation as she
struggled with pre-recorded musical
tracks. Telling revelers jammed into
Times Square there had not been a
soundcheck for her hit song Emotions,
she lamented: Were missing some of
these vocals, but it is what it is.
Let the audience sing, she decided, as she paced the stage.
Im trying to be a good sport

here, she said, adding her own sarcastic review of the performance.
That was amazing. The next
song, We Belong Together, went no
better. At times, Carey lowered the
microphone from her mouth and the
music, vocals and all, kept playing,
making it clear she was lip-synching.
Unfortunately there was nothing
she could do to continue with the
performance given the circumstances, spokeswoman Nicole Perna said
on Sunday.
A representative for Dick Clark
productions did not immediately
respond to an email seeking comment. Carey headlined the festivities
in Times Square, where about a million revellers jammed in to greet the
new year.
At 2am on 1 January, apparently
working on the theory that bad publicity is better than no publicity at all,
Carey used social media to say: Shit
happens. Have a happy and healthy
new year everybody! Heres to making more headlines in 2017.

Michaels boyfriend blames

hacker
for
suicide
tweets

Indo-Asian News Service

LONDON, JAN 2

eorge Michaels boyfriend Fadi

Fawaz has denied tweeting that
the late singer attempted suicide
many times. He said his Twitter
account was hacked.
In a statement Fawaz, whose
account has been closed down after
the messages were posted on New
Years Day, said: I am shocked with
whats going on with the Twitter
thing. My Twitter account has been
hacked and closed.
Its a bit scary to be honest. I did
not send those tweets. I woke up at
11.30 a.m. to the news. I am not going
to worry about these things.
A series of tweets appearing on
Fawazs account claimed the singer

killed himself after a number of

attempts at his life.
The tweets said: Not sure who
that nasty close friend of George, but
I was in a relationship with George
Michael till I found him dead in bed.
The only thing George wanted is
to die. He tried numbers of times to
kill himself many times and finally
he managed. We loved each other
very much and were together almost
24 hours a day.
Fawaz used the same account last
week to reveal that he found Michael
dead in bed.
C M Y K

variety

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

the kathmandu post

10

TODAYSHOROSCOPE
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
*****
New beginnings arent just your signs specialty; theyre your very
favourite state of affairs too. Happily, thats exactly whats on the
agenda right now, thanks to an impending career offer that can
only be called sweet.

u
d

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

****
Youre happy with yourself. You always have been, and theres no
reason to think that you wont continue to be. You have, however,
been thinking about introducing a new and improved you to the
world.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21)
****
Youre due for the type of experience that includes the urge
to take yourself somewhere youve never been. If you have a
spontaneous travel companion whos prodding you, that urge
may be irresistible.
CANCER (June 22-July 22)
****
Youve always been known as a private person. Thats the way you
were born and the way youll always be. So when someone
approaches you with a not-so-subtle question about what you have
up your sleeve, dont feel obligated to let them in on your secret.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
***
Nothing short of intense, meaningful conversation will do at the
moment, and anyone who deliberately tries to avoid the issue via
pointless, trivial chitchat will receive their just desserts: a chilly
stare and a fleeting glimpse of the back of your head.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
******
Your chance to turn one of your dreams into a goal and tackle that
goal has now officially arrivedand if youre dealing with the
department of higher education or spiritual quests, youll have all the
heavenly help you could ever ask for to get the show on the road.

Yesterdays Solution

o
k
u
c
r
o
WORD GAME

GRAFFITI

s
s
w
o
r
d

LIBRA (September 23-October 22)

****
Your signs skills as negotiator, mediator and go-between have
been famous for what seems like forever, and with good reason.
You can talk anyone into anything, so long as you believe in your
heart that its the right thing to do.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
***
After days of heavy, intense conversations, youve finally reached
a compromise of sorts. Youll keep talking, but there will be absolutely no arguing. If you cant see eye to eye, youll agree to disagree. Initially, that might not sound like progress but it is.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
****
Every picture tells a story, so go ahead and dig out those old
snapshots of you and that long-lost someone you havent talked
to in forever. Wowlook how much fun you guys had together!
Isnt it a shame you drifted apart? So go ahead and contact them.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
***
Fasten your seatbelt and put your tray table in its upright position.
Youre about to take flightand that applies to every possible corner
of your life, but most especially to affairs of the heart. So if youve
been seeing someone casually, that wont be the case any longer.

DILBERT

RIPLEYS BELIEVE IT OR NOT

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18)

****
If anyone accepts change easily, its youregardless of what type
of change it happens to be, or how or when its due to arrive. So
being told that a major shift in your lifes circumstances is just
around the corner wont frighten you at all.
PISCES (February 19-March 20)
****
Donating time, energy or resources to a cause you care about has
never been a problem for you. Youre amazingly generous, in all those
categories and more. So when youre approached now by someone
who needs something from you, you definitely wont argue about it.

L
A
U
G
H
O
U
T
L
O
U
D
K
A
N
T
I
P
U
R
T
V

K
A
N
T
I
P
U
R
F
M

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi want to see whos best at his

job. So each one goes into the woods, finds a bear, and
attempts to convert it. Later, they all get together. The priest
begins: When I found the bear, I read to him from the catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his
first Communion.
I found a bear by the stream, says the minister, and
preached Gods holy Word. The bear was so mesmerized that
he let me baptize him.
They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a gurney in
a body cast. Looking back, he says, maybe I shouldnt have
started with the circumcision.
5:00 Shuvarambha/

11:00 Headline News

16:30 New Entry

Bhaktisur

11:05 Here I Come

17:00 Headline News

5:30

Radhe Radhe

11:30 What The Flop

17:05 Call Kantipur

6:00

Jeevan Bigyan

12:00 Kantipur Samachar

18:00 Kantipur News

6:30

Jyotish Manthan

12:30 Music Galaxy

18:30 Music Summit

6:40

Sky Shop

13:00 Headline News

19:00 Kantipur Samachar

7:00

Kantipur Samachar

13:05 Twakka Tukka

19:30 Market Watch

8:00

Kantipur News

13:30 Nirbachan Sarokar

20:00 Kantipur Samachar

8:30

Rise and Shine

14:00 Kantipur Samachar

21:00 Baliyo Ghar

9:00

Headline News

14:30 Rise N Shine

21:30 Sarokar

9:05 Fireside

15:00 Headline News

22:30 Kantipur New

10:00 Kantipur Samachar

15:05 Fireside

23:00 Kantipur Samachar

10:30 Market Watch

16:00 Kantipur Samachar

23:30 Market Watch

00:00: Non Stop Nepali

08:05: The Good Morning

15:15: Shreejana Ka

Adhunik Songs
01:00: Non Stop Nepali
pop songs

Show

16:00: Health Hotline

09:10: Traffic Updates

17:05: Sangalo

09:15: Shuffulin

18:00: Nepalaya

Songs

10:05: Glamour

18:30: Kantipur Dairy

Songs
05:00: Bhakti Anusthan

and Guff
11:05: Filmy Parade

20:05: Showtime

12:00: Kantipur

21:00: Kantipur Dairy

Dairy

07:00: The Headliners

12:10: Jeevan Sathi

07:30: Kanuni Bahaas Ra

13:05: Ke cha Nepal

Sangeet

15:00: Kantipur Dairy

23:00: Global Connection

V
E
N
T
O
G
R
A
P
H

I
P
S
GARFIELD

DANGAL

F
I
L
M
S

21.30: Indreni
22:00: Kaljayi Geet

Savour the cardamom and saffron spice,

slow-cooked kebabs and kormas at Indian
restaurant serving Awadhi cuisine.
contact: 427399, at Soaltee Crowne Plaza

19:00: Loud

06:30: Kantipur Dairy

Paramarsha

Samjhana Haru

09:00: Kantipur Dairy

02:00: Non Stop Hindi

04:00: Non Stop Bhajan

S PEARLS BEFORE SWINE

QFX LABIM Mall: 11:00/11:30/14:30/18:00/19:15

QFX Civil Mall: 11:45/14:30/15:30/18:00/19:00
QFX Jai Nepal: 11:30/15:00/18:30
QFX Kumari: 12:00/15:15/19:00

ASSASSINS CREED 3D

QFX LABIM Mall: 11:00/11:30/14:30/18:00/19:15

QFX Civil Mall: 11:45/14:30/15:30/18:00/19:00
QFX Jai Nepal: 11:30/15:00/18:30
QFX Kumari: 12:00/15:15/19:00

PASSENGERS 3D
QFX Civil Mall: 14:00
QFX LABIM Mall: 16:45

JATRA

QFX Kumari: 15:30

MOANA 3D

QFX Civil Mall: 12:00

QFX LABIM Mall: 14:45

Dip yourself at probably the best pool in the

town at Park Village Resort. Rate: Rs. 1500
for adults & 1300 for children and includes
french fries, free Wi-Fi & 20% discount on
Food & Beverage. Contact: 9801033114

Weekends brunch @ Hyatt Regencytreat

yourself with a lavish buffet lunch, splash by
the swimming pool or laze around outdoor,
Jacuzzi, all for just Rs 2300 plus taxes per
person. Contact: 4491234

Sandwich and Crepes: Taste the sandwiches and crepes at The Lounge from 11 am to 6
pm everyday. For further details call Hyatt
Regency at 4491234.

Enjoy live DJ nights, on every Sunday chill out/

ambient, Wednesday tech/ funk house & Friday
psy/ proggy/ full on from 6:00 pm to 10 pm at
garden and 7:00 pm onwards at club at Funky
Buddha Resturant & Bar, contact: 4700091

Krishnarpana specialty Nepali Restaurant

at Dwarikas, 6 courses to 22 courses Nepali
meal served. Opening Time: 6 pm-11 pm. Prior
reservations required, contact: 4479448

China Garden offers delectable dishes from

across Asia, including Japanese, Korean,
Vietnamese and Chinese. Timings: Lunch:
1230-1445 hrs, Dinner: 1900-2245 hrs,
contact: 427399 at Soaltee Crowne Plaza

Relax and Unwind this summer at

Waterfront Resort, Sedi Height, Pokhara @
Rs. 6000 Nett per night on Bed & Breakfast
basis. Contact: 9801133378 / 9849143552

We serve nothing but the finest Arabica

coffees at great value prices at Barista
Lavazza Coffee Restaurant, Lazimpat,
Contact: 4005123/4005124

Rosemary Kitchen and Coffee shop,

Thamel, opening hours: 7:00 am to 10:00
pm offers an International cuisine in reasonable prices. Contact 01-4267554

Enjoy snacks and drinks from 4:00 pm to

11:00 pm every day and nightly live music
from The Corner Band except Tuesday and
Saturday from 7 pm to 11:00 pm at Corner
Bar, Radisson Hotel. Contact: 4411818

Set within the historic Garden of Dreams, the

Kaiser Cafe Restaurant and Bar, Thamel, offers
a continental menu and serves as an atmospheric
venue for anything from a quiet coffee or intimate
meal. Contact: 442534

Jasmine Fitness Club and Spa, Fully

equipped gym and spa; Zumba, aerobics and
cardio classes; therapeutic massage; beauty
parlour and mens salon. Tripureshwor;
Contact: 4117120

The Italian restaurant serves authentic

Italian cuisines in an elegant ambience for
both lunch and dinner. Timings: Lunch:
1230-1445 hrs, Dinner: 1900-2245 hrs,
Contact: 427399, at Soaltee Crowne Plaza

Garden Terrace offers an authentic world

cuisine, providing diners with the unique
experience of observing their selected dishes being prepared by chefs. Contact:
427399 at Soaltee Crowne Plaza

Makos offers traditional Japanese food

served. Dont miss out on Makos special
Tempuras, and green tea ice cream, Time: 11:
30-14:30 & 19:00-22:00, contact: 4479448

Bourbon Room, Lal Durbar Marg is open for

lunch from 12 noon. Enjoy affordable and delicious meals starting from Rs 99! We are currently offering Indian & chinese combos along
with momos. Call: 4441703

Out-of-Africa Lunch amid rural splendor:

Sat & Sun from 1130 to 1630 hours at The
Watering Hole, Indrawati River Valley.
For prior reservation contact: [email protected]

Every Friday BBQ from 7:00 pm at Fusion

Bar & Pool side at Dwarikas Hotel with live
band Dinesh Rai and Sound of Mind. Price Rs
1600/ includes BBQ dinner and a can of beer
or a soft drink. Contact: 4479448

Trisara offers food and drinks along

with good music and great times. Sunday- Live
Music by Barbeque Night, Monday, Wednesdayby Positive vibes, Tuesday, Saturday-By Jyovan
Bhuju, Friday-Live Music by Dexterous

Ayurveda Health Home has been providing

ayurvedic treatments/ massages,
sirodhara & counseling for stress, detox &
rehabilitation. Dhapasi, Kathmandu:
01-4358761, Lakeside Pokhara 061-463205

Every Friday evening enjoy Starry Night

BBQ from 7 pm onwards at Shambala
Garden Caf at Hotel Shangri La with live
musical performance by Ciney Gurung.
Contact: 4412999

Kaiser Cafe Restaurant & Bar at The

Garden of Dreams, opening time: 9 am till 9
pm, offers an international cafe menu serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, specialty teas,
coffees and pastries, contact: 4425341

Mannys Eatery and bar introduces a special lunch package that is affordable, tasty,
nutritious and quick enough to fit your lunch
break, Jawalakhel, Shaligram complex,
5536919

Enjoy a Barbecue Buffet at the Radisson

Hotel, wide selection of mixed fresh grills and
vegetables together with a choice of salads and
a delicious dessert buffet at a rate of Rs. 1,350
plus taxes per person. Contact: 4411818

Make your weekend more exciting with

family and friends with sumptuous Satey,
Dimsums, Mangolian Barbecue and Pasta at
The Cafe from 12:30 noon to 4:00 pm. Call:
Hyatt Regency, at 4491234

Hotel Narayani Complex, Pulchowk, Lalitpur

presents Shabnam & Cannabiz Band every
Wednesday and Rashmi & Kitcha Band every
Friday, 7:30 PM onwards @ Absolute bar P Ltd;
Contact: 5521408

Enjoy Bubbly Brunch every Saturday from 11

am to 3 pm at Shambala Gardena and Club
Sundhara. Contact: 4412999

Embers Bar, Pulchowk, in all its sophistication and glory is happy to announce
Happy Hours every 6-7pm. It will be
hosting a Barbeque night every Friday from
6:30-9:30pm

The Toran, an ideal location for all day lounging and informal dining offers multi-cuisines.
Contact: Dwarikas Hotel, 4479488

LatinGypsy Jazz at The Corner Bar,

Radisson Hotel, Kathmandu with Hari
Maharjan feat Monsif Mzibiri, 7 pm onwards,
Wednesdays & Fridays. Contact: 4411818

The most delightfully awesome chicken

momos & yummy rich chocolate cake on this
part of the planet @ Just Baked Bakery &
Cafe, Battisputali, offering much more specialties at affordable price.

Starry Night BBQevery Friday Evening from

7:00 pm at Shambala Garden Caf, Hotel,
Shangri~La only @ Rs 1799 net per person
and live performance by Ciney Gurung.
Contact: 4412999

Revolution Cafe, AmritMarg, Thamel, away

from busy crowed street, offers great
music, fast wi-fi and wide menu with reasonable prices. Operation hours: 7 am to 10
pm, contact: 4433630

Learn cardio, gym, aerobics, zumba, spa,

boxing, kick-boxing, b-boying, bollywood
dance at Oyster Spa and Fitness Club,
Sinamangal. Time: Sunday to Friday from 5
am to 8 pm. Contact: 4110554

Experience The Last Resort, the perfect

place for family fun adventure and relaxation.
Special packages for residents. Contact:
4700525/ 4701247 or mail us at
[email protected]

Asia World Travel Pvt Ltd presents fascinating luxury escapades to amazing destinations:
Prague, Ladakh, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala
Lumpur, Mount Kailash and Panchpokhari in
North East Nepal. Contact: 6222604

Jungle Safari Lodge, Sauraha Chitwan

offers 2 Nights 3 Days package only for Rs
6500 per person. Suman 9851008399

Much needed getaway1 night/2 day package

@ Hyatt Regency. Enjoy luxury stay of a five
star hotel for a couple with breakfast and
access to spa facilities for just Rs 9999 plus
taxes per person only. Contact: 4491234

Experience the Gyakok @ Shambala

Garden, Hotel Shangri~la only @ Nrs.1700
Nett per person and Nrs.3000 Nett for couple. For more details and reservation:
4412999

Enjoy Gourmet Saturday Brunch with

your family and friends at the Sunrise
Restaurant , Hotel Yak & Yeti from 12-7 pm
every Saturday. Contact: 4248999

Escape, relax and get in shape @ Hyatt

Regency. Embark on a personal well-being at
Club Oasis. Remember us for Tennis, sauna,
Jacuzzi, swimming, fitness centre and Beauty
Salon. Contact: 4491234

Yoga detox and Ayurveda treatments and

retreats every day at Himalayan Peace &
Wellness Centre, Park Village Hotel. Get 10%
discount on all Ayurvedic treatments.
Contact: 980106661

C M Y K

sports
kathmandu post
the

PG11

Tuesday,January3,2017

kathmandupost.ekantipur.com

Not winning title not a disaster

Scorchers sign Bresnan for BBL duty

Pep Guardiola does not believe his first season as

Manchester City manager should be classed as a
failure if he cannot guide the team to Premier
League glory. Guardiola won the league in his first
seasons at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, but his
City side lie 10 points below leaders Chelsea and in
fifth place.

Australias Perth Scorchers have signed English bowling allrounder Tim Bresnan as their international Big
Bash League (BBL) Twenty20 replacement player for
David Willey, the club said on Monday. Bresnan will be
available to play for the Scorchers in their January 11
game against the Brisbane Heat at the Gabba, with
Willey unavailable due to England team commitments.

Feghouli among absentees

Midfielders Sofiane Feghouli of Algeria and
Hakim Ziyech of Morocco and striker Basem
Morsy of Egypt are among notable absentees
from the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations squads. All
failed to find favour as coaches put the final
touches to squads for the tournament, which
starts on January 14.

Nepal crash out of semis

hetauda gold cup

Sankata enter
quarter-finals
Pratap Bista
Hetauda, Jan 2

n Nepali national team players leave the field after losing their semi-final match against hosts India in the Saff Womens Championship in Siliguri on Monday. 

Parbat Portel
Siliguri, Jan 2

Nepal crashed out of the

fourth
Saff
Womens
Championship losing 3-1 to
defending champions India in
the semi-finals here at the
Kanchenjunga Stadium on
Monday.
The loss meant Nepal failed
to make it to the final for the
first time in the tournament
history, having played three
consecutive title matches. In
all three previous final meet-

ings, Nepal had lost to India.

Indumati
Kamala
Dev,
Kathiresan and Sasmita
Malik scored one each for
India. Sabitra Bhandari
pulled one back for Nepal.
Nepal coach
Kumar Thapa
had no qualms over the loss
and kept his held high. We
did not end up as champions
but we played like it. It was
like the final for us and we
were unlucky that we couldnt
progress to the title match. I
am proud of my team and the

BRISBANE, Jan 2

French
Open
champion
Garbine Muguruza finished
off a first-round match for the
first time at the Brisbane
International, and extended
Sam Stosurs unhappy run in
the process with a 7-5, 6-7 (2),
7-5 win on Monday.
The
fourth-seeded
Muguruza saved three set
points in the first and rallied
from a break down in the
third to finish off in 2 hours,
45 minutes on a humid afternoon. In two previous trips to
the season-opening tournament, Muguruza struggled
with injuries and hadnt completed a match. It was a battle, Muguruza said. Stosur
played very well. She served
like a beast. It took three
hours for that battle to see
what happens in the end.
Muguruza beat Stosur in
the French Open semi-finals
last year and went on to beat
then No 1-ranked Serena
Williams in the final to claim
her first major title. The loss
extended a slump for Stosur,
the 32-year-old Australian
who hasnt won a competitive
singles match since the first
round of the U.S. Open in
September
and
hasnt
advanced past the second
round at her home tournament in Queensland state.
No 5 Svetlana Kuznetsova,
No 6 Elina Svitolina and No 8
Roberta Vinci were among the
womens seeds advancing on
Monday. Svitolina, the only
player to beat both Serena
Williams and Angelique
Kerber in 2016, opened with a
6-3, 6-3 win over Olympic
champion Monica Puig.
Kuznetsova beat American
Louisa Chirico 6-2 6-4 and
Vinci was pushed all the way
in a 7-6 (4), 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5) win
over qualifier Kateryna
Bondarenko. American qualifier
Asia
Mohammed
advanced with a 7-6 (5), 6-1 win
over Donna Vekic, and Zhang
Shuai of China beat Laura

bled the lead in the 58th minute taking full advantage of

defensive lapse by rounding
off two Nepali defenders and
chipping over Nepali custodian Anjila Subba.
N e p a l
breathed some
life in the game when they
were awarded a spot kick after
an India defender got her
hands to the ball inside the
penalty area. Bhandari struck
to score her 11th goal of the
tour nament.
However,
Sasmita put the issue beyond

saff womens championship

Muguruza sees
off Stosur
Agence France-Presse

way we played today, said the

former national team and
Manang Marshyangdi Club
midfielder.
India kept Nepals goal
machine Bhandari on check,

who managed to score from

the spot in the 75th minute
when her side was two goals
down. India had taken a 44th
minute lead through Kamala
Devi who scored from the box
after receiving a pass from
Manisha Pana. Indumati dou-

Photo Courtesy: anfa

doubt slamming home in the

84th minute.
Nepal coach Thapa was not
satisfied with the refereeing
in the game. The first goal
should not have been counted
as it was scored clearly from
an offside position, said the
disappointed Nepal coach
Thapa. To add to our misery,
we were denied three penalties. The quality of the referee
was not up to the standard.
Even the opposition coach
was complaining about refereeing, the Nepal coach.

Sankata Club of Kathmandu

pipped Dukestar FC of Bhutan
1-0 to enter the quarter-finals
of the Hetauda Gold Cup football tournament on Monday.
The 84th minute goal from
man-of-the-match
Anil
Gurung separated the two
teams. Gurung converted his
shot from the edge of the area
to set up a clash with
Tribhuvan Army Club on
Wednesday. Sankata protected
the lead thanks largely to
their goalkeeper Bishal
Shrestha who thwarted one
and
only
threatening
Bhutanese attempt on goal
late on.
Sankata coach Sailesh
Karmacharya said they were
unable to field their first
choice players in the tournament as they were playing two
tournaments simultaneously.
We had to field two teams:
one for Kakarbhitta Gold Cup
in Jhapa and one for this tournament, said Karmacharya
trying to defend his teams
battling performance.
Dukestar
coach
Kota
Namage rued on the absence
of their five key players: three
from the national team and
two foreign recruits. Since
we got a late invitation, we did
not have enough time for visa
processing for those players
which definitely weakened
our squad, added the
Dukestar coach.
The eventual champions
will receive Rs 500,000 and
the runners-up will take
home Rs 300,000, while the
best player of the tournament

Siegemund 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3.

In the mens draw, another
of Australias local hopes
went out in the first round
with No 8-seeded David Ferrer
beating error-prone Bernard
Tomic 6-3, 7-5.

Rupandehi enter
last four

KAKARVITTA: RupandehiXI
entered
the
Kakarvbhitta Gold Cup
semi-finals with a 3-1 victory over BRC of Bhutan.
Deepak Rai scored in the
second and 71st minute
of the match before
Ramesh KC pulled one
back for BRC. Laxman
Ruchal sealed the rout
scoring in the dying minutes of the match. Rai
was named the man-ofthe-match. On Tuesday,
Nepal Armed Police
Force CLub will take on
Sankata. (PR)

Eleven Arrows
beat Sherpas

PANCHTHAR:
Eleven
Arrows of Sunsari eased
to a 3-0 victory over
Himalayan Sherpa Club
of Kathmandu in the
eighth Falgunanda Gold
Cup football tournament
on Monday. Nigerian
recruits Samson scored
twice,
while
Peter
scored the other in a comprehensive
Eleven
Arrows victory. BRC of
Bhutan and hosts Fidim
Sporting Club will meet
in tournaments first
semi-final. (PR)

will earn Rs 50,000.

Sahara Club of Pokhara
will take on Delhi United of
India in the quarter-finals on
Tuesday.

n Emilio-Zeballos

Indo-Asian News Service

Rio de Janeiro, Jan 2

Uruguayan defender Emilio

Zeballos has described the
opportunity to represent
Chapecoense as a privilege
as he prepares to begin a oneyear loan spell with the striken Brazilian football club.
The 24-year-old is one of the
first players to arrive at
Chapecoense since a plane
crash killed most of the clubs
players, staff and directors in
November, last year, reports
Xinhua news agency. Its an
honour
to
know
that
Chapecoense had their eyes
on me and it will be a privilege to wear their shirt,
Zeballos said on Sunday.
Zeballos
is
currently
contracted to Uruguays
Defensor, where he has featured at both right back
and centre-back. Others to
have
already
joined
Chapecoense include forward
Rossi Pereira, goalkeeper
Davi,
central
defender
Douglas Grolli and midfielder
Dodo. Seventy-one people
died,
including
19
Chapecoense players, when
the LaMia plane in which
they were travelling crashed
near Medellin, Colombia, on
November 28.

Misbah set to lead

Pakistan in Sydney

nba: battling for the ball

Agence France-Presse
SYDNEY, Jan 2

Rain plays
spoilsports
AUCKLAND: Rain disrupted the first day of the
WTA Auckland Classic
on Monday with only two
matches
completed,
delaying the start of topseed Serena Williamss
campaign.
Williams was forced to
wait nearly three hours
past her scheduled start
time, before her firstround match against
Pauline Parmentier of
France and other night
matches were postponed
because of persistent
rain. The weather has
not been kind to us and
unfortunately we have to
abandon the session
tonight, tournament
director Carl Budge told
the handful of hardy
spectators who braved
the weather.
Former world top-10
Lucie Safarova cruised
through her first match
against fellow Czech
Denisa Allertova 6-1, 6-2,
thanks to her markedly
superior serve. Safarova
fired down seven aces
while Allertova served
up nine double faults. In
the second completed
match, Japans Kurumi
Nara comfortably beat
Antonia Lottner of
Germany 6-2, 6-2.
Fifth seed Kiki Bertens
of the Netherlands was
5-3 up on American
Lauren Davis in their
first set when rain halted
play. (AFP)

Zeballos
eager to wear
Chapecoense
jersey

n Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry (right) drives the ball past Los Angeles Lakers guard DAngelo Russell during their NBA basketball

game in Los Angeles on Sunday. Raptors win 123-114.

AP

Pakistan captain Misbah-ulHaq said on Monday he will

lead the side in the third Test
against Australia in Sydney,
dismissing suggestions he is
about to retire.
Misbah, 42, raised the possibility following his teams
abject innings defeat in the
second Melbourne Test last
week to lose the series, when
he said he would contemplate
his future and may even retire
before Tuesdays final Test.
But Pakistans most successful skipper on Monday
appeared at the captains
media conference before the
Test to hose down speculation
of his imminent retirement.
Misbah, who has scored a
total of 20 runs in four innings
in the series, said his comments after the innings and
18-run defeat in Melbourne
were triggered by frustration.
That was 2016now its
2017, he said. That is gone,
that is gone. You have to fight
as a sportsman and thats
important for me also. Im

happy that Ive got a very good

family, all the team. The way
they supported me (was appreciated). Everyone, from the
support staff to the players
and theyre up for that (fight),
so Im also up. I need to play at
my best.
Misbah said he was not
thinking about the end of his
international career that
started in 2001, although wellplaced sources said he would
make the final decision about
his playing status once he
returns home to Pakistan.
Misbah now concentrates
only on Test cricket and
retired from one-day internationals after Pakistans defeat
to Australia in the World Cup
quarter-final in 2015.
After the Australia Test
series Pakistan do not have
any Tests scheduled until
April, when they will tour the
West Indies for a four-match
series. Misbahs most immediate assignment after the
Australia series will be in the
United Arab Emirates in the
Pakistan Super League with
Islamabad United, which
starts on February 9.

A f r i c a n Nat i o n s C u p

Portugals Euro heroics to inspire Guinea Bissau

Reuters
BISSAU, Jan 2

Unheralded Guinea Bissau hope to

draw inspiration from former colonial power Portugal, who won the
European Championship six
months ago, as they prepare to
make their debut at the African
Nations Cup finals.
One of the worlds poorest countries and ranked in the bottom 10
in the UNs human development
index, Guinea Bissau caused a sensation in booking a place at the
16-team tournament in Gabon,
where they will meet the hosts in
the opening match in Libreville on
January 14. Team coordinator
Caito Balde says the side want to

continue to surprise the footballing

world at the finals and do what
Portugal did in France in July.
Portugal are an inspiration to
us for what they did at the Euro
2016 in France. Many of the
players in the Guinea Bissau team
have played with many of those
players who have now become
champions of Europe. They have
passed through the best training
school that is Portugal and will
look to show that at the Nations
Cup, he said in an interview
with the Portuguese news
agency Lusa on Sunday.
But Guinea Bissau will still have
to overcome serious problems if
they are to make any impact, not
least their haphazard preparations.

Guinea Bissau will become the

39th country to participate in
the finals since 1957, but were a
Leicester-like long shot when
the preliminaries got underway
Promised government support to
pay for a training camp ahead of
the tournament has not materialised. Instead a preliminary squad
of 26 players has assembled at
Bissaus national stadium daily
since last Thursday for training,
some sessions watched by up
to 5 000 spectators.
It is still not known if a warmup

friendly will be organised for

the team before they depart for
Libreville next week. Long
overdue appearance fees from the
qualifying campaign had been paid
on Friday, Balde said, but his plans
to boost the squad with several
players of Guinea Bissau extraction from around Europe had
fallen through. We called up some
players who made a commitment
that they would play, but at the last
minute they went back on their
word, he said.
But Balde has insisted the small
west African country would field a
strong team. We have assembled
the best players from Guinea.
They have been carefully selected.
The final 23-man squad will be

named on Wednesday.
Guinea Bissau, who had gained
unwanted notoriety as a transit
hub for cocaine smugglers and has
been beset by frequent coup detats
and almost constant political instability, made sure of a place in the
finals by finishing ahead of former
champions Zambia and Congo in
their qualifying group.
They will become the 39th country to participate in the finals since
the first tournament in 1957, but
were a Leicester-like long shot
when the preliminaries got underway, having only previously won
four matches in Nations Cup and
World Cup qualification combined
since first entering international
competition 23 years ago.

C M Y K

sports

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

sports digest
De Minaur gets
wild card
MELBOURNE: Australian
Open organisers have
given 17-year-old Alex De
Minaur and Andrew
Whittington wild-card
entries to the seasons
first Grand Slam tournament. De Minaur beat
top-seeded Mikhail
Kukushkin in the qualifying tournament for the
Brisbane International.
Whittington, 23, achieved
a career-high ranking of
No 170 last November
after winning six ITF
titles and reaching
semi-finals at two ATP
Challenger events. (AP)

Bacsinszky out of
Shenzhen Open

SHENZHEN: Timea
Bacsinszky of
Switzerland on Monday
pulled out from 2017
WTA Shenzhen Open due
to an discomfort in her
left abdomen. The organising committee said
Bacsinszky didnt feel
well in her left abdomen
so she decided to pull out
from the tournament.
The current world No 15
is the fourth seed this
year and was supposed to
play against Camila
Giorgi of Italy in the
first round. Romanias
Ana Bogdan will replace
Bacsinszky in the first
round. (IANS)

Rodriguinho set
for China move

RIO DE JANEIRO: Highlyrated midfielder

Rodriguinho is set to
become the latest
Brazilian footballer to
join the Chinese Super
League, media reports
said. The 28-year-old
Corinthians player has
told his agent of his wish
to relocate to China in
coming weeks, said Uol
Esporte. After loan spells
at Gremio and
Al-Sharjah, Rodriguinho
returned to Corinthians
in 2015 and has since
consolidated his place in
the first-team. He was
clubs second-top scorer
in 2016. (IANS)

(C.R.P.D.) - 3/052/053

the kathmandu post

Giroud gem a work of art: Wenger

Agence France-presse

EPL Results

LONDON, Jan 2

Arsene Wenger hailed Olivier

Girouds stunning strike
against Crystal Palace as a
work of art and one of the top
five Arsenal goals in his
20-year reign.
Girouds mid-air backflicked volley gave Arsenal the
lead at the Emirates Stadium
on Sunday and set them on
course for a 2-0 victory. The
France forwards sumptuous
scorpion-kick
goal
will
undoubtedly rate as one of the
goals of the season, but
Wenger went one step farther
by placing it in the most hallowed of company.
When Arsenal fans talk
about the best goals to grace
their clubs illustrious history,
their thoughts turn to some of
the highlights of the Wenger
eraDennis
Bergkamps
majestic strikes against
Leicester and Newcastle,
Nwankwo Kanus outstanding
effort against Chelsea and
numerous gems from Thierry
Henry.
Wenger
believes
Giroudwho has been on the
bench at times this season
deserves his place among
those greats.
He transformed that goal
into art. It was art because of
the surprise and the beauty of
the moment, Wenger purred.
Every striker is remembered
for one or two or three special
goals, and that will certainly
remain with him forever. He
brings the unexpected and we
all come to football for the
unexpected. People come to
see these goals. Ive been
spoiled in my career with
many great goals and many
great strikers. Bergkamp and
Henry scored special goals,
but this one is certainly in the
top five.
Giroud admitted his goal
carried a large dose of good
fortune and Wenger agreed
that it wasnt something that
could ever be practised on the
training ground. It was
exceptional, said Wenger.
Also because it was at the end
of a fantastic collective movement. After that it is just a
reflex, but a goalscorer is
ready to take a goal with any

Arsenal
Watford

Teams P W D L GF GA PTS
Chelsea
19 16 1 2 42 13 49
Liverpool
19 13 4 2 46 21 43
19 12 4 3 41 19 40
Arsenal
Spurs
19 11 6 2 37 14 39
Man City
19 12 3 4 39 21 39
Man United 19 10 6 3 29 19 36
Everton 19 7 6 6 25 23 27
West Brom 19 7 5 7 25 23 26
Southampton 19 6 6 7 19 22 24
Bournemouth 19 7 3 9 26 31 24
Burnley
19 7 2 10 21 29 23
West Ham 19 6 4 9 23 33 22
Watford 19 6 4 9 23 34 22
Stoke
19 5 6 8 22 32 21
Leicester 19 5 5 9 24 31 20
Middlesbrough 19 4 6 9 17 22 18
Palace
19 4 4 11 29 35 16
Sunderland 19 4 2 13 17 35 14
Hull
19 3 4 12 16 41 13
Swansea
19 3 3 13 21 44 12

n Arsenal's Olivier Giroud (right) vies for the ball with James Tomkins of Crystal Palace during their English Premier League match at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.

part of his body, with his toe

or any other part.
Giroud has endured a difficult season for Arsenal at
times. After being left on the
bench for much of the first
half of the campaign, the
30-year-old has been restored

to the starting lineup for

Arsenals last two matches
and has responded with a late
winner
against
West
Bromwich Albion and now a
goal for the ages. Maybe it is
not enough acknowledged
that Olivier scores important

goals, Wenger said. He

scored against Man United
with an important header, he
scored a late winner against
West Brom.
Girouds heroics gave
Arsenal a welcome lift at the
start of 2017 as they look to

Reuters

CAPE TOWN, Jan 2

SHANGHAI, Jan 2

Brazilian midfielder Oscar

landed in Shanghai on
Monday where the 25-year-old
was set to smash the Asian
transfer record with a reported 60 million euros ($63 million) deal with Shanghai
SIPG.
supporters
Dozens of
chanting club songs swarmed
the former Chelsea player at
the citys Pudong airport.
Oscars arrival in the Chinese
Super League comes ahead of
that of Argentinas former
Manchester United striker
Carlos Tevez, who signed for
Shanghai Shenhua in another
big-money deal last week.
Tevezs transfer fee was 10.5
million euros, according
to the website transfermarkt.
com, which tracks dealings
in the sport, though the
reported two-year contract
of 38 million euros per season
($40 million) makes him
the worlds highest salaried
footballer.
SIPGs general manager on
Monday dismissed concerns
raised by state media of a
market bubble in the superrich Chinese league, arguing
prices have to be higher to
attract players away from big
European leagues.
The league is developing
so of course it will go through
many different stages, Sui
Guoyang said, after escorting
Oscar through a media scrum.
I believe that from now on
the Chinese Super League will
become healthier and more
normal, he added.
Some fans put it more
bluntly. In the end if you do
not pay the money then
nobody would be willing to
come over here, said SIPG
supporter Zou Jiahuo. Oscar
will join fellow Brazilian player Hulk who joined SIPG for a
reported 55 million euros in
July 2016. The pair will be
coached by former Tottenham
Hotspur and Chelsea manager
Andre Villas-Boas.

Chinese swoop
for Belgium intl

n Sri Lankas Lahir Kumar appeals for a LBW decision against South

Africas JP Duminy during the first day of their second Test match in
Cape Town on Monday.
photo courtesy: espncricinfo

bridge the nine-point gap to

Premier League leaders
Chelsea. We were on a good
run and then had two bad
results (before Christmas). It
looks that we have got that out
of our system now, Wenger
said. Chelsea win every sin-

gle game at the moment and

we have just to hang on, you
have to hope the results turn
in our favour.
Palace boss Sam Allardyce,
without a win in his two
matches since replacing Alan
Pardew, is upset by a fixture

An unbeaten 76 from opener

Dean Elgar led a South Africa
fightback as they reached
147-4 at tea on the opening day
of the second Test against Sri
Lanka on Monday.
Captain Faf du Plessis survived a dropped catch to contribute 38 to a 76-run partnership with Elgar as South
Africa lost one wicket in the
second session, having been
69-3 at lunch. Sri Lanka struggled to make further inroads
with Du Plessis the only wicket to fall as he attempted an
expansive drive to Rangana
Heraths left-arm spin and
was caught at first slip by
Angelo Mathews.
Elgar and Du Plessis had
both played measured innings
sprinkled with a few aggres-

south africa-sri lanka 2nd test

Summary

South Africa 147-4 (D Elgar 76*. Du

Plessis 38; L Kumara 2-38, R Herath
1-9) against Sri Lanka at Tea on first
day

sive shots to revive the hosts

after early problems. Du
Plessis was dropped on 31 by
Upul Tharanga off Herath but
the veteran spinner got his
man soon afterwards. Before
lunch, teenage seamer Lahiru
Kumara claimed two quick
scalps, dismissing Hashim
Amla and JP Duminy in the
same over. Amla, continuing
his indifferent form, was
clean bowled for 29 and five
balls later Duminy gloved a
quick leg-side delivery to be
caught after an acrobatic leap

by keeper Kusal Mendis.

Sri Lanka won the toss and
decided to bowl on a green
strip, making an immediate
breakthrough before South
Africa had scored a run with
the fourth ball of the match.
Stephen Cook, who scored a
century and was named man
of the match in the first test in
Port Elizabeth, pushed at a
rising delivery from Suranga
Lakmal and got a faint edge to
Mendis. The 21-year-old had
taken over the gloves from
Dinesh Chandimal, who is
playing but was feeling unwell
at the start of play.
Inconsistent
bowling
allowed Elgar and Amla to
weather the next 21 overs and
establish a 66-run partnership
before the 19-year-old Kumara
was brought into the attack.

n Axel Witsel

BRUSSELS: Chinas buying binge continued into

the New Year with
Tianjin Quanjian FC luring Belgian midfielder
Axel Witsel away from
Zenit Saint Petersburg
with an 18 million euro
annual
pay
packet,
Belgian media reported
on Monday.
Over the four-year deal
Witsel, 28, will pocket 72
million euros ($75 million) in salary at the club
coached by Italian former World Cup winner
Fabio Cannavaro. He
joins the club with immediate effect, Belgian TV
RTBF said. Starting off
his career at Standard
Liege, Witsel moved to
Benfica before joining
Zenit and was linked to a
move to Juventus before
the big money Chinese
bid came in.
The
stalwart
of
Belgiums international
midfield, who has 71 caps
and has scored seven
goals, is the latest capture by a Chinese club
and comes on the heals
of the December deal
that makes Argentinas
Carlos Tevez the highest
salaried player in the
world
at
Shanghai
Shenhua, where he will
earn 38 million euros a
season. (AFP)

2-0 Palace
1-4 Spurs

standings

Record signing Elgar leads South Africa fightback

Oscar lands in
Shanghai
Agence France-Presse

12

Court orders dismissal of BCCI chief

Agence France-Presse
NEW DELHI, Jan 2

Judges on Monday ordered

the dismissal of Indian cricket boards president over the
failure to enact a series of
recommended
reforms,
plunging the games most
powerful body into turmoil.
In a shock ruling, a panel
of Supreme Court judges
said Board of Control for
Cricket in India (BCCI) president Anurag Thakur and its
number two Ajay Shirke
must stand down immediately. Thakur said he would
respect the decision, while
voicing bitterness at the
court for siding with a retired
judge who had been demanding the shake-up in the
BCCIs governance.
The order comes after
judges slapped restrictions
on the BCCIs accounts last
year over its failure to implement a series of reforms recommended by a panel headed
by a former top judge,
Rajendra Mal Lodha.
Crickets massive popularity in India has helped the
BCCI become by far the
wealthiest of all of the
sports national boards, net-

n Anurag Thakur

ting massive money from

sponsorship and TV deals.
But it has also been embroiled
in a series of scandals,
including accusations of corruption
and
match-fixing that
tarnished the Indian
Premier League (IPL)the
boards lucrative Twenty20
competition.
A
corruption
and
match-fixing scandal in the
sixth edition of the IPL in

2013 brought about the downfall of the boards then-president

Narayanaswami
Srinivasan after his son-inlaw was accused of betting

mendations, which included

age limits and term limits on
office-bearers, had triggered
a number of legal battles.
The recent series against
England was nearly
cancelled on the eve
of the first Test as a
result of the funding restrictions.
In a video message posted
on social media, Thakur indicated he would abide by the
verdict while expressing bit-

cricket turmoil in india

on matches. The elevation of
Thakur and Shirke had been
seen as representing a break
with the past.
But the boards reluctance
to implement Lodhas recom-

terness at the decision. For

me, it was not a personal
battle. It was a battle for the
autonomy of the sports
body, said Thakur, who is a
lawmaker for Indias ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party. I
respect the Supreme Court as
any citizen should. Supreme
Court judges feel that BCCI
could do better under retired
judges, I wish them all the
best. I am sure Indian cricket
will do well under their guidance.
Lodha said Thakurs
removal was an inevitable
consequence of the boards
foot-dragging. One should
understand that when the
order of the Supreme Court,
which is the highest court of
the land, has come, it has to
be obeyed by all. It is the law
of the land. Nobody can
escape it, Lodha said.
The judges also ordered
Thakur to explain why he
allegedly lied on oath about
seeking a letter from the
Inter national
Cricket
Council stating that Lodhas
recommendations amounted
to government interference.
They threatened to charge
him with perjury and contempt of court.

REUTERS

list that gives his players little

time to recover before their
crucial clash with fellow
strugglers
Swansea
on
Tuesday. Swansea played on
Saturday so theyve got 24
hours on us. Its unfair, he
said.

Ive shut the

critics up, says
Ibrahimovic

n Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Agence France-Presse
LONDON, Jan 2

Zlatan Ibrahimovic believes

his goal-scoring form for
Manchester United has forced
his critics to eat their words.
There were fears that, aged
35, the former Paris SaintGermain star would struggle
to cope with the ferocious
pace of the Premier League.
But he has risen to the challenge in style, scoring 17 goals
in his first 27 appearances for
the club to keep United within
sight of the Champions
League places.
I feel good, he said in
comments published by several British newspapers on
Monday. I dont know how
many years I have left, but I
am enjoying the football. I
came to the Premier League
and everyone thought it would
not be possible, but like
always, I make them eat their
balls. It gives me a lot of energy, trust me, because they get
paid to talk s*** and I get paid
to play with my feet. Thats
how I enjoy it. Every year they
(Premier League clubs) have
been calling me and it was not
feeling good, so I wanted to
come when everyone thought
I was over.
Ibrahimovic was denied
what would have been his 51st
goal of 2016 when he had a
volley chalked off for a high
foot during Uniteds 2-1 win
over
Middlesbrough
on
Saturday. Referee Lee Masons
decision meant Ibrahimovic
failed to match Lionel Messis
tally for the year, but he
shrugged it off.
Why he whistled, I dont
know. At first he gave the goal
and after 30 seconds, he
changed his mind. There was
not a lot to say to him because
if you open your mouth, they
give you a yellow, he said.

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