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Notice (8): Undefined variable: file [APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 60]Code Context// $file = 'http://aabhiyan:QUVLg8Wzs2F7G9N7@nepalstock.com.np/api/indexdata.xml';if(!$xml = simplexml_load_file($file)){$viewFile = '/var/www/html/newbusinessage.com/app/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp' $dataForView = array( 'articles' => array( (int) 0 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ) ), 'current_user' => null, 'logged_in' => false ) $articles = array( (int) 0 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1512', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Hydro Resource ‘Curse’ To ‘Boon’', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The term ‘resource curse’ describes Nepal’s current economic woes. ‘Resource Curse’ refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Politicians and bureaucrats individually are interested in exacting rent while issuing license for the use of natural resources. The government too is happy from the royalty it can exact in this process. So, they all ignore the development of other sectors. The business community too diverts itself out of other business and concentrates on the game of getting license for one or other natural resource, and worse still, they involve in the selling these licenses at higher price than actually developing the projects. </div> <div> </div> <div> Resource curse context thus explains the ongoing problem in the development of hydropower. The country has been reeling under massive power outage problem in spite of availability of abundant water resources. </div> <div> </div> <div> Every economic sector has already started to suffer due to regular power outage problem. Heavy load shedding has increased cost of production of domestic industries that are already hit hard by several other problems including labour unrest and forceful donation drive of the political parties. </div> <div> </div> <div> The cost of power intensive industry has risen four times due to diesel or coal generated electricity cost, according industrialists. Private sector often says the country is fast losing its competitiveness due to rising production cost. Similarly, many other opportunities could have been opened if there was sufficient energy supply to run industries. </div> <div> </div> <div> The country has, however, a long way to go to completely tap the hydropower potential. Successive government has been failing to introduce stable and transparent policy in the hydropower regime. Similarly, the private sector and concerned parties are yet to put sincere effort for the growth of hydropower sector. </div> <div> </div> <div> The existing hydropower development models, laws as well as our mindset of both the government and some players of private sector are considered to be the major hurdles to tap hydropower potential. So, the government should review and make necessary changes in the existing models and laws. Some consensus to some handful projects is not a long term solution. If such strategy is to be resorted for a few projects, there must be a good reason. For example, it may be used as the initial big push required to jump start development of this sector. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should be visionary and should take investors into confidence. As the investment in hydropower is for the long-term, the government should ensure policy and interest rate stability for decades, not for a few years, for such projects. </div> <div> </div> <div> Current bureaucracy, however, wants to create hurdles and just keep the existing problems to create space for corruption. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should learn from past experiences in hydro sector and should put its effort to pave the way for big projects. Couple of big projects should be brought in the stream anyhow. Otherwise the country will further plunge into power crisis. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should ensure policy stability to complete the so called ‘super six’ and other projects that are already licensed and in which the promoters are enthusiastic. Completion of a few hydro projects in speedy manner can accelerate economic activities in the country. The country will not lose much in the long run if it provides incentives to companies who want to take risk by investing in hydro sector at present. The government should take initiative for fast converting the natural resources into productive economic assets to convert ‘resource curse’ into ‘resource boon’. Otherwise, the ongoing anomalies associated with the ‘resource curse’ will continue.</div> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-29', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The term ‘resource curse’ describes Nepal’s current economic woes. ‘Resource Curse’ refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes.', 'sortorder' => '1373', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1464', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Business Education Takes A Big Leap', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">Business education in Nepal is almost six decades. Since then, both under the auspices of the government and in private ownership, management education has grown in Nepal by leaps and bounds, though not always with a firm focus on quality. Much of the growth has happened either to have another fiefdom of some well-connected academics under the government umbrella, and even more as another business proposition for earliest possible profits by the private institutes. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Hence, while the good, the bad and the ugly have co-existed; and while the Nepali, the Indian, the Western and other Asian universities jostled for space in the domain of B-education, there was no independent initiative towards rating, ranking, benchmarking business education in this nation. </div> <div> </div> <div> Hence, when on July 19 last (Sravan 4), New Business Age organized the Everest Bank National B-Schools Rating-Ranking-Awards 2013 at Radisson Hotel in Kathmandu, it was rightfully hailed as “path-breaking, essential, historical and auspicious” by various front-ranking guests who graced the occasion and gave away the awards. Going beyond awards, there are larger issues that need to be looked into ahead. </div> <div> </div> <div> First, while there are a few good government institutes, it is now established that expansion of management education can largely be done efficiently and effectively by the private sector if it is done with a long-term vision and not short term profitability. Allowing permissions, resources, and standards support from the government to the better private initiatives from people with expertise and resources is the need of the hour. </div> <div> </div> <div> Second, even the monolithic Tribhuvan University, already stretched beyond limits, needs a complete re-look at its management education. Some colleges under TU should be allowed to grow into independet purely management universities. </div> <div> </div> <div> Third, the private sector in its exigency of admissions and revenue has largely focused on the input side of the education, and much lower on the output side. Hence, while aggressive admission driven branding is seen plastered all across the city, there is hardly any long-term effective communication, far less blending of experiential and virtual learning with brick-and-mortar business education. </div> <div> </div> <div> Fourth, research, even in its applied form, seems to be the biggest casualty of business education in a hurry. Applied research, market viability studies, drawing up relevant case-studies etc can make business education really market-friendly. However, except a couple of institutes, these are rarely practiced. </div> <div> </div> <div> Fifth, the tie-ups, associations and affiliations of foreign universities are a good way for positioning and marketing, but have not been used effectively for collaborative research, productive faculty and students’ exchange programs, and long-term value addition. </div> <div> </div> <div> Sixth, the synergy between business and business education is also a rarity. Hardly any concrete projects of market survey, feasibility studies etc are being given by the business bodies to management institutes. </div> <div> </div> <div> Finally, the entire process of rating-ranking-awards showed that several good institutes, suffering from the mindset of ‘me being the best’, often avoid being voluntarily benchmarked against one another and being rated by independent bodies. Good is never afraid of being quizzed. </div> <div> However, one needs to emphatically note that management education in this country, including that of tourism and hospitality niche, has taken deep roots and may perhaps come next only to India in the region, and is poised for a big leap forward in quality and sustainability.</div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-22', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'Business education in Nepal is almost six decades. Since then, both under the auspices of the government and in private ownership, management education has grown in Nepal by leaps and bounds, though not always with a firm focus on quality.', 'sortorder' => '1325', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1422', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Losing Currency', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The sharp decline in the value of the Nepali rupee in recent days has led to a clamour for the government to do something. This time, Nepal’s current currency depreciation has been created not due to Nepal’s own reason but due to pegged exchange rate with Indian currency. So, it is high time that the government dares to decide to discontinue pegged exchange rate with Indian currency. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Though the continuous fall of the value of rupee has raised serious concern in India itself and the Indian government may do something to control the value of Indian rupee, Nepal should not just wait India’s action. It should do something on its own, if it is following an independent monetary policy. Otherwise, it may do better by declaring the Indian repee as its legal tender. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government and business community have had very little discourse about the problem and possible way out to control rupee depreciation. </div> <div> </div> <div> Countries with their currency pegged with another country’s currency are normally known to have weak capital markets and financial regulating mechanisms. In such a scenario, the peg helps create stability in the economy. Citing these very reasons, policymakers, politicians and even business community in Nepal have always favoured to have the pegged exchange rate with Indian Currency. </div> <div> </div> <div> But the recent massive depreciation of Indian currency has thrown all these logics out of the window and the situation calls for a serious debate on whether Nepali rupee should maintain the peg system. </div> <div> </div> <div> Theoretically, devaluation of currency is beneficial for exports, but in Nepal’s case that theory cannot apply as the country is heavily dependent on imports to meet consumer demand as well as for industrial raw material. Nepal exported merchandise worth Rs 69.93 billion during eleven months of 2012-13 while it imported goods worth Rs 508.60 billion, according to Current Macroeconomic Situation of Nepal released by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). </div> <div> </div> <div> The data clearly shows that Nepal has huge trade deficit and depreciation of rupees will have much more adverse impact on Nepali economy than would be the case in a country with relatively better trade balance. </div> <div> </div> <div> The pegging regime has both advantages and disadvantages. It helps to keep the fragile economy stable. But one never knows the real economic scenario of the country under such fixed exchange system. The Mundell-Fleming model, best known for its anti-pegged exchange rate philosophy, says that fixed exchange rate system restricts the effectiveness of having an independent monetary policy to achieve macroeconomic stability. </div> <div> </div> <div> In light of the Indian currency crisis, Nepal is desperately looking for best option to keep Nepali rupee stable. It is difficult to find a good solution to it as long as the pegged exchange rate system is not done away.</div> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-15', 'modified' => '2013-07-15', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The sharp decline in the value of the Nepali rupee in recent days has led to a clamour for the government to do something.', 'sortorder' => '1284', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1350', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Civil Servant’s Salary', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> <span style="font-size: 12px;">Like every year, July is the budget time, and the debate about pay hike of government employees has started as usual. </span></p> <p> The government will revise the existing pay scale of all the government employees, according to the Finance Ministry. However, there is still problem with the resource generation, to manage the increase. </p> <p> It is understood that the salary the government gives to civil servants is in no way satisfactory as the amount is not sufficient to sustain a family decently. But the proposal to give the government staffers a raise is opposed by tax payers. </p> <p> The government employees are far ahead in demanding increment in salaries but they are reluctant to deliver public service efficiently. On the other hand, government employees are often criticized for institutionalizing corruption. </p> <p> In this regard, both the government and the employees should justify the decision of pay and perks increment. Since the salary to governement staff is paid from the people’s money, any increment in such salary will have an extra burden to the people. </p> <p> The government should start focusing on other aspects of reform along with salary revision. First of all, the efficiency of the employees should be enhanced and the number of employees should be reduced. The saving so generated can be used to pay more to the remaining employees. </p> <p> Similarly, the government should seek alternative way of paying pension. Currently, the pension scheme has become a burden to the government. Every year the number of retired government employees has been increasing, and the law requires paying pension to them throughout their life and ever beyond. </p> <p> The government should bring participatory pension scheme to save the State from future financial disaster. </p> <p> Reform in performance of government employees is also very necessary. None of the government agency has been successful to regulate the concerned sector at present, putting consumers at the receiving end. Increment in salary without commitment of employees is unjustifiable. </p> <p> The government should also introduce the carrot-and-stick approach to encourage government employees to do the best. Independent evaluation of jobs performed by civil servants is urgent to discourage the trend of cheating. Otherwise, salary increment will merely add burden on the entire economy.</p> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-08', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'Like every year, July is the budget time, and the debate about pay hike of government employees has started as usual.', 'sortorder' => '1212', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1263', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'NPC And Periodic Plan', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The National Planning Commission (NPC) has now endorsed the approach paper of the Three- Year (2013-16) plan with revenue and expenditure projections of the Central and State governments. </span></p> <p> Designed with an objective of upgrading Nepal within 2022 to a developing country from the current status of least developed country, the approach paper aims to attain an average 6 percent economic growth annually over the period. However, calculations show that the country needs to achieve average 7 percent growth to attain the target of becoming a developing country within 2022. </p> <p> The proposed plan also aims to decrease the poverty rate to 18 percent from the current 23.8 percent. </p> <p> The government expenditure projected is about Rs 1.4 trillion in the next three years, of which Rs 11 billion will be mobilized as state revenue generated within the country. The rest will be arranged from foreign aid and internal loans. </p> <p> How realistic are the targets?In the recent years, NPC has been often criticized for being only mouth-piece of political parties rather than engaging in the rigorous analysis of country’s economic situation. </p> <p> Instead of formulating down-to-earth plan, the commission seems to tend to agenda of the political parties which are in power. </p> <p> According to its mandate, NPC is the advisory body for formulating development plans and policies in the country and it should explore and allocate resources for economic development and work as a central agency for monitoring and evaluation of development plans, policies and programmes. </p> <p> However, influence from powerful politicians, nepotism and favouritism while formulating plan and ignorance to the grassroots problems are often attributed as a weakness of the commission. Unrealistic targets often suffer from aforementioned weaknesses. The commission leadership should be serious to avoid such weaknesses. Otherwise, its plan will be nothing more than a day dream.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-01', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The National Planning Commission (NPC) has now endorsed the approach paper of the Three- Year (2013-16) plan with revenue and expenditure projections of the Central and State governments. .', 'sortorder' => '1125', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1212', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Clarion Call For School Reforms', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> Office of the controller of Examination recently published School Leaving Certificate (SLC) results with the pass percentage of 41.57 which is the lowest for the last eight years. This has further accentuated the question mark on our school education system. </p> <p> According to the Ministry of Finance, the budget on education sector reached to Rs 63.91 billion in the current fiscal year from only Rs 27 million in the fiscal year 2006-07. Most of this money went to the public schools and they are the ones that fared badly also this year. </p> <p> It is general knowledge that teachers at public schools are more active in politics and they are normally absent in the classrooms. </p> <p> The solution may be running public schools in Principal-Agent Model in which the payoff to the principal depends on an action taken by the agent. The principal cannot contract for the action, but can compensate the agent based on some observable signal that is correlated with the action. Here the principals are parents of the students and the agents are the teachers. If these principals have rights to decide the pay offs (salary and perks) to the agents according to the observable signals (results and change in behaviours of students), the SLC results can be expected to improve significantly. </p> <p> The fact that those public schools that are managed by the community have far better results consistently year after year lends further weight to this argument. The conclusion: Let’s hand over all public schools to the communities. Another problem related to SLC results is the frustration it causes to those who fail. This has resulted into cases of suicides as well. One solution to this is to speed up the implementation of the already adopted plan to make grade 12 exams as the school graduation level. </p> <p> Next is to introduce a system of issuing certificates to the students on the basis of the number of subjects they have passed. If a student is good in fine arts but is weak in mathematics, he can be thus allowed to go to his profession without the stigma of ‘SLC failed’.<br /> <br /> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-06-30', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'new business age from the editor news & articles, from the editor news & articles from new business age nepal, from the editor headlines from nepal, current and latest from the editor news from nepal, economic news from nepal, nepali from the editor economic news and events, ongoing from the edi', 'description' => 'new business age from the editor news & articles, from the editor news & articles from new business age nepal, from the editor headlines from nepal, current and latest from the editor news from nepal, economic news from nepal, nepali from the editor economic news and events, ongoing from the editor news of nepal', 'sortorder' => '1074', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1148', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'HS Education In Nepal: The Next Leap', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> The project on Everest National Higher Secondary Schools Rating-Ranking-Awards 2013 gave the New Business Age - Aarthik Abhiyan family an opportunity to know the standards of HS education in Nepal and its best practitioners from a close quarter. <br /> <br /> It is truly heartening to see that HS education has spread across the country reasonably well. The entry of the private entrepreneurs and corporate houses in the education sector has evolved quite emphatically since 2000 in Nepal. Along with HSEB based education, Western A-level education has also evolved in the country. And, unlike neighbouring India, Nepal is providing for multiple specializations at the HS level itself: Humanities, Sciences, Commerce, Management, Hotel & Tourism Management. This contributes to early professional orientation of the students. <br /> <br /> However, there are several areas that need special care and concern in the country at the earliest. The community based education or the government funded and controlled education needs to upgrade itself technologically with e-learning and modern teaching tools, and technically with faculty learning to use the same and move to interactive mode of teaching than traditional classroom learning. This sector of school education runs on tax-payers’ money and for the less privileged classes. Their usual lackadaisical approach (though there are some good exceptions) and large-scale political involvement of teachers even at the cost of academics, lead to poverty of education for the children coming from lower income group families. <br /> <br /> Also, encouraging corporate houses or private schools to adopt a community school and bring in new technologies for students and training of faculty as corporate social responsibility will be a welcome idea indeed. As for the private sector schools, in urban Nepal, they are the foundation of HS Education as is obvious during our study. And there are various standards of the same: some with good infra-structure and faculty, some much poorer. What is noteworthy is that there is a new crop of good quality schools that are emerging and they do not shy away from reaching out to their audiences through modern branding and marketing techniques. <br /> <br /> What needs to be considered here is that there must be strictly enforceable minimum standards of academics, infra-structure, co-curricular activities, library and teaching resources, campus size and facilities, faculty size and quality etc. Many schools have part time and visiting faculty in a larger number than regular full time teachers which is globally unacceptable. <br /> <br /> Also, as in several other nations, including India, private schools should keep a certain percentage of their seats for full and half free admissions, purely for children from economically challenged background only. Adopting a community school in the neighbourhood is another healthy practice. However, we must remember that the revenue of private schools is from the students and their guardians and hence the first responsibility of these schools is to their ‘clients’. Stake-holder satisfaction must surely be ensured first and that cannot be just completing the syllabus and ensuring pass percentage. <br /> <br /> The performance of a good school, private or aided, must now move from just classroom teaching and pass percentage, to a much advanced multi-pronged approach. There should be inputs like faculty number and quality, sports and cultural facilities, modern teaching tools and e-learning, coaching for higher professional educational after Plus 2, community outreach, special care for weak students and integrating parents in the system. And there should be output factors like pass percentage and divisions, awards won in sports and ECA activities, collaborations and visits, community impact around the school. All of these leading to the holistic growth of the child committed to knowing, doing and being.<br /> <br /> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-06-25', 'modified' => '2013-06-25', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'sortorder' => '1011', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ) ) $current_user = null $logged_in = falseinclude - APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 60 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::_renderElement() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 1224 View::element() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 418 include - APP/View/Articles/index.ctp, line 157 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 473 Controller::render() - CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php, line 968 Dispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 200 Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 167 [main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 117
Warning (2): simplexml_load_file() [<a href='http://php.net/function.simplexml-load-file'>function.simplexml-load-file</a>]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "" [APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 60]file not found!Code Context// $file = 'http://aabhiyan:QUVLg8Wzs2F7G9N7@nepalstock.com.np/api/indexdata.xml';if(!$xml = simplexml_load_file($file)){$viewFile = '/var/www/html/newbusinessage.com/app/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp' $dataForView = array( 'articles' => array( (int) 0 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ) ), 'current_user' => null, 'logged_in' => false ) $articles = array( (int) 0 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1512', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Hydro Resource ‘Curse’ To ‘Boon’', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The term ‘resource curse’ describes Nepal’s current economic woes. ‘Resource Curse’ refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Politicians and bureaucrats individually are interested in exacting rent while issuing license for the use of natural resources. The government too is happy from the royalty it can exact in this process. So, they all ignore the development of other sectors. The business community too diverts itself out of other business and concentrates on the game of getting license for one or other natural resource, and worse still, they involve in the selling these licenses at higher price than actually developing the projects. </div> <div> </div> <div> Resource curse context thus explains the ongoing problem in the development of hydropower. The country has been reeling under massive power outage problem in spite of availability of abundant water resources. </div> <div> </div> <div> Every economic sector has already started to suffer due to regular power outage problem. Heavy load shedding has increased cost of production of domestic industries that are already hit hard by several other problems including labour unrest and forceful donation drive of the political parties. </div> <div> </div> <div> The cost of power intensive industry has risen four times due to diesel or coal generated electricity cost, according industrialists. Private sector often says the country is fast losing its competitiveness due to rising production cost. Similarly, many other opportunities could have been opened if there was sufficient energy supply to run industries. </div> <div> </div> <div> The country has, however, a long way to go to completely tap the hydropower potential. Successive government has been failing to introduce stable and transparent policy in the hydropower regime. Similarly, the private sector and concerned parties are yet to put sincere effort for the growth of hydropower sector. </div> <div> </div> <div> The existing hydropower development models, laws as well as our mindset of both the government and some players of private sector are considered to be the major hurdles to tap hydropower potential. So, the government should review and make necessary changes in the existing models and laws. Some consensus to some handful projects is not a long term solution. If such strategy is to be resorted for a few projects, there must be a good reason. For example, it may be used as the initial big push required to jump start development of this sector. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should be visionary and should take investors into confidence. As the investment in hydropower is for the long-term, the government should ensure policy and interest rate stability for decades, not for a few years, for such projects. </div> <div> </div> <div> Current bureaucracy, however, wants to create hurdles and just keep the existing problems to create space for corruption. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should learn from past experiences in hydro sector and should put its effort to pave the way for big projects. Couple of big projects should be brought in the stream anyhow. Otherwise the country will further plunge into power crisis. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should ensure policy stability to complete the so called ‘super six’ and other projects that are already licensed and in which the promoters are enthusiastic. Completion of a few hydro projects in speedy manner can accelerate economic activities in the country. The country will not lose much in the long run if it provides incentives to companies who want to take risk by investing in hydro sector at present. The government should take initiative for fast converting the natural resources into productive economic assets to convert ‘resource curse’ into ‘resource boon’. Otherwise, the ongoing anomalies associated with the ‘resource curse’ will continue.</div> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-29', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The term ‘resource curse’ describes Nepal’s current economic woes. ‘Resource Curse’ refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes.', 'sortorder' => '1373', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1464', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Business Education Takes A Big Leap', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">Business education in Nepal is almost six decades. Since then, both under the auspices of the government and in private ownership, management education has grown in Nepal by leaps and bounds, though not always with a firm focus on quality. Much of the growth has happened either to have another fiefdom of some well-connected academics under the government umbrella, and even more as another business proposition for earliest possible profits by the private institutes. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Hence, while the good, the bad and the ugly have co-existed; and while the Nepali, the Indian, the Western and other Asian universities jostled for space in the domain of B-education, there was no independent initiative towards rating, ranking, benchmarking business education in this nation. </div> <div> </div> <div> Hence, when on July 19 last (Sravan 4), New Business Age organized the Everest Bank National B-Schools Rating-Ranking-Awards 2013 at Radisson Hotel in Kathmandu, it was rightfully hailed as “path-breaking, essential, historical and auspicious” by various front-ranking guests who graced the occasion and gave away the awards. Going beyond awards, there are larger issues that need to be looked into ahead. </div> <div> </div> <div> First, while there are a few good government institutes, it is now established that expansion of management education can largely be done efficiently and effectively by the private sector if it is done with a long-term vision and not short term profitability. Allowing permissions, resources, and standards support from the government to the better private initiatives from people with expertise and resources is the need of the hour. </div> <div> </div> <div> Second, even the monolithic Tribhuvan University, already stretched beyond limits, needs a complete re-look at its management education. Some colleges under TU should be allowed to grow into independet purely management universities. </div> <div> </div> <div> Third, the private sector in its exigency of admissions and revenue has largely focused on the input side of the education, and much lower on the output side. Hence, while aggressive admission driven branding is seen plastered all across the city, there is hardly any long-term effective communication, far less blending of experiential and virtual learning with brick-and-mortar business education. </div> <div> </div> <div> Fourth, research, even in its applied form, seems to be the biggest casualty of business education in a hurry. Applied research, market viability studies, drawing up relevant case-studies etc can make business education really market-friendly. However, except a couple of institutes, these are rarely practiced. </div> <div> </div> <div> Fifth, the tie-ups, associations and affiliations of foreign universities are a good way for positioning and marketing, but have not been used effectively for collaborative research, productive faculty and students’ exchange programs, and long-term value addition. </div> <div> </div> <div> Sixth, the synergy between business and business education is also a rarity. Hardly any concrete projects of market survey, feasibility studies etc are being given by the business bodies to management institutes. </div> <div> </div> <div> Finally, the entire process of rating-ranking-awards showed that several good institutes, suffering from the mindset of ‘me being the best’, often avoid being voluntarily benchmarked against one another and being rated by independent bodies. Good is never afraid of being quizzed. </div> <div> However, one needs to emphatically note that management education in this country, including that of tourism and hospitality niche, has taken deep roots and may perhaps come next only to India in the region, and is poised for a big leap forward in quality and sustainability.</div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-22', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'Business education in Nepal is almost six decades. Since then, both under the auspices of the government and in private ownership, management education has grown in Nepal by leaps and bounds, though not always with a firm focus on quality.', 'sortorder' => '1325', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1422', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Losing Currency', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The sharp decline in the value of the Nepali rupee in recent days has led to a clamour for the government to do something. This time, Nepal’s current currency depreciation has been created not due to Nepal’s own reason but due to pegged exchange rate with Indian currency. So, it is high time that the government dares to decide to discontinue pegged exchange rate with Indian currency. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Though the continuous fall of the value of rupee has raised serious concern in India itself and the Indian government may do something to control the value of Indian rupee, Nepal should not just wait India’s action. It should do something on its own, if it is following an independent monetary policy. Otherwise, it may do better by declaring the Indian repee as its legal tender. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government and business community have had very little discourse about the problem and possible way out to control rupee depreciation. </div> <div> </div> <div> Countries with their currency pegged with another country’s currency are normally known to have weak capital markets and financial regulating mechanisms. In such a scenario, the peg helps create stability in the economy. Citing these very reasons, policymakers, politicians and even business community in Nepal have always favoured to have the pegged exchange rate with Indian Currency. </div> <div> </div> <div> But the recent massive depreciation of Indian currency has thrown all these logics out of the window and the situation calls for a serious debate on whether Nepali rupee should maintain the peg system. </div> <div> </div> <div> Theoretically, devaluation of currency is beneficial for exports, but in Nepal’s case that theory cannot apply as the country is heavily dependent on imports to meet consumer demand as well as for industrial raw material. Nepal exported merchandise worth Rs 69.93 billion during eleven months of 2012-13 while it imported goods worth Rs 508.60 billion, according to Current Macroeconomic Situation of Nepal released by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). </div> <div> </div> <div> The data clearly shows that Nepal has huge trade deficit and depreciation of rupees will have much more adverse impact on Nepali economy than would be the case in a country with relatively better trade balance. </div> <div> </div> <div> The pegging regime has both advantages and disadvantages. It helps to keep the fragile economy stable. But one never knows the real economic scenario of the country under such fixed exchange system. The Mundell-Fleming model, best known for its anti-pegged exchange rate philosophy, says that fixed exchange rate system restricts the effectiveness of having an independent monetary policy to achieve macroeconomic stability. </div> <div> </div> <div> In light of the Indian currency crisis, Nepal is desperately looking for best option to keep Nepali rupee stable. It is difficult to find a good solution to it as long as the pegged exchange rate system is not done away.</div> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-15', 'modified' => '2013-07-15', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The sharp decline in the value of the Nepali rupee in recent days has led to a clamour for the government to do something.', 'sortorder' => '1284', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1350', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Civil Servant’s Salary', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> <span style="font-size: 12px;">Like every year, July is the budget time, and the debate about pay hike of government employees has started as usual. </span></p> <p> The government will revise the existing pay scale of all the government employees, according to the Finance Ministry. However, there is still problem with the resource generation, to manage the increase. </p> <p> It is understood that the salary the government gives to civil servants is in no way satisfactory as the amount is not sufficient to sustain a family decently. But the proposal to give the government staffers a raise is opposed by tax payers. </p> <p> The government employees are far ahead in demanding increment in salaries but they are reluctant to deliver public service efficiently. On the other hand, government employees are often criticized for institutionalizing corruption. </p> <p> In this regard, both the government and the employees should justify the decision of pay and perks increment. Since the salary to governement staff is paid from the people’s money, any increment in such salary will have an extra burden to the people. </p> <p> The government should start focusing on other aspects of reform along with salary revision. First of all, the efficiency of the employees should be enhanced and the number of employees should be reduced. The saving so generated can be used to pay more to the remaining employees. </p> <p> Similarly, the government should seek alternative way of paying pension. Currently, the pension scheme has become a burden to the government. Every year the number of retired government employees has been increasing, and the law requires paying pension to them throughout their life and ever beyond. </p> <p> The government should bring participatory pension scheme to save the State from future financial disaster. </p> <p> Reform in performance of government employees is also very necessary. None of the government agency has been successful to regulate the concerned sector at present, putting consumers at the receiving end. Increment in salary without commitment of employees is unjustifiable. </p> <p> The government should also introduce the carrot-and-stick approach to encourage government employees to do the best. Independent evaluation of jobs performed by civil servants is urgent to discourage the trend of cheating. Otherwise, salary increment will merely add burden on the entire economy.</p> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-08', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'Like every year, July is the budget time, and the debate about pay hike of government employees has started as usual.', 'sortorder' => '1212', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1263', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'NPC And Periodic Plan', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The National Planning Commission (NPC) has now endorsed the approach paper of the Three- Year (2013-16) plan with revenue and expenditure projections of the Central and State governments. </span></p> <p> Designed with an objective of upgrading Nepal within 2022 to a developing country from the current status of least developed country, the approach paper aims to attain an average 6 percent economic growth annually over the period. However, calculations show that the country needs to achieve average 7 percent growth to attain the target of becoming a developing country within 2022. </p> <p> The proposed plan also aims to decrease the poverty rate to 18 percent from the current 23.8 percent. </p> <p> The government expenditure projected is about Rs 1.4 trillion in the next three years, of which Rs 11 billion will be mobilized as state revenue generated within the country. The rest will be arranged from foreign aid and internal loans. </p> <p> How realistic are the targets?In the recent years, NPC has been often criticized for being only mouth-piece of political parties rather than engaging in the rigorous analysis of country’s economic situation. </p> <p> Instead of formulating down-to-earth plan, the commission seems to tend to agenda of the political parties which are in power. </p> <p> According to its mandate, NPC is the advisory body for formulating development plans and policies in the country and it should explore and allocate resources for economic development and work as a central agency for monitoring and evaluation of development plans, policies and programmes. </p> <p> However, influence from powerful politicians, nepotism and favouritism while formulating plan and ignorance to the grassroots problems are often attributed as a weakness of the commission. Unrealistic targets often suffer from aforementioned weaknesses. The commission leadership should be serious to avoid such weaknesses. Otherwise, its plan will be nothing more than a day dream.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-01', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The National Planning Commission (NPC) has now endorsed the approach paper of the Three- Year (2013-16) plan with revenue and expenditure projections of the Central and State governments. .', 'sortorder' => '1125', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1212', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Clarion Call For School Reforms', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> Office of the controller of Examination recently published School Leaving Certificate (SLC) results with the pass percentage of 41.57 which is the lowest for the last eight years. This has further accentuated the question mark on our school education system. </p> <p> According to the Ministry of Finance, the budget on education sector reached to Rs 63.91 billion in the current fiscal year from only Rs 27 million in the fiscal year 2006-07. Most of this money went to the public schools and they are the ones that fared badly also this year. </p> <p> It is general knowledge that teachers at public schools are more active in politics and they are normally absent in the classrooms. </p> <p> The solution may be running public schools in Principal-Agent Model in which the payoff to the principal depends on an action taken by the agent. The principal cannot contract for the action, but can compensate the agent based on some observable signal that is correlated with the action. Here the principals are parents of the students and the agents are the teachers. If these principals have rights to decide the pay offs (salary and perks) to the agents according to the observable signals (results and change in behaviours of students), the SLC results can be expected to improve significantly. </p> <p> The fact that those public schools that are managed by the community have far better results consistently year after year lends further weight to this argument. The conclusion: Let’s hand over all public schools to the communities. Another problem related to SLC results is the frustration it causes to those who fail. This has resulted into cases of suicides as well. One solution to this is to speed up the implementation of the already adopted plan to make grade 12 exams as the school graduation level. </p> <p> Next is to introduce a system of issuing certificates to the students on the basis of the number of subjects they have passed. If a student is good in fine arts but is weak in mathematics, he can be thus allowed to go to his profession without the stigma of ‘SLC failed’.<br /> <br /> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-06-30', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'new business age from the editor news & articles, from the editor news & articles from new business age nepal, from the editor headlines from nepal, current and latest from the editor news from nepal, economic news from nepal, nepali from the editor economic news and events, ongoing from the edi', 'description' => 'new business age from the editor news & articles, from the editor news & articles from new business age nepal, from the editor headlines from nepal, current and latest from the editor news from nepal, economic news from nepal, nepali from the editor economic news and events, ongoing from the editor news of nepal', 'sortorder' => '1074', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1148', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'HS Education In Nepal: The Next Leap', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> The project on Everest National Higher Secondary Schools Rating-Ranking-Awards 2013 gave the New Business Age - Aarthik Abhiyan family an opportunity to know the standards of HS education in Nepal and its best practitioners from a close quarter. <br /> <br /> It is truly heartening to see that HS education has spread across the country reasonably well. The entry of the private entrepreneurs and corporate houses in the education sector has evolved quite emphatically since 2000 in Nepal. Along with HSEB based education, Western A-level education has also evolved in the country. And, unlike neighbouring India, Nepal is providing for multiple specializations at the HS level itself: Humanities, Sciences, Commerce, Management, Hotel & Tourism Management. This contributes to early professional orientation of the students. <br /> <br /> However, there are several areas that need special care and concern in the country at the earliest. The community based education or the government funded and controlled education needs to upgrade itself technologically with e-learning and modern teaching tools, and technically with faculty learning to use the same and move to interactive mode of teaching than traditional classroom learning. This sector of school education runs on tax-payers’ money and for the less privileged classes. Their usual lackadaisical approach (though there are some good exceptions) and large-scale political involvement of teachers even at the cost of academics, lead to poverty of education for the children coming from lower income group families. <br /> <br /> Also, encouraging corporate houses or private schools to adopt a community school and bring in new technologies for students and training of faculty as corporate social responsibility will be a welcome idea indeed. As for the private sector schools, in urban Nepal, they are the foundation of HS Education as is obvious during our study. And there are various standards of the same: some with good infra-structure and faculty, some much poorer. What is noteworthy is that there is a new crop of good quality schools that are emerging and they do not shy away from reaching out to their audiences through modern branding and marketing techniques. <br /> <br /> What needs to be considered here is that there must be strictly enforceable minimum standards of academics, infra-structure, co-curricular activities, library and teaching resources, campus size and facilities, faculty size and quality etc. Many schools have part time and visiting faculty in a larger number than regular full time teachers which is globally unacceptable. <br /> <br /> Also, as in several other nations, including India, private schools should keep a certain percentage of their seats for full and half free admissions, purely for children from economically challenged background only. Adopting a community school in the neighbourhood is another healthy practice. However, we must remember that the revenue of private schools is from the students and their guardians and hence the first responsibility of these schools is to their ‘clients’. Stake-holder satisfaction must surely be ensured first and that cannot be just completing the syllabus and ensuring pass percentage. <br /> <br /> The performance of a good school, private or aided, must now move from just classroom teaching and pass percentage, to a much advanced multi-pronged approach. There should be inputs like faculty number and quality, sports and cultural facilities, modern teaching tools and e-learning, coaching for higher professional educational after Plus 2, community outreach, special care for weak students and integrating parents in the system. And there should be output factors like pass percentage and divisions, awards won in sports and ECA activities, collaborations and visits, community impact around the school. All of these leading to the holistic growth of the child committed to knowing, doing and being.<br /> <br /> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-06-25', 'modified' => '2013-06-25', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'sortorder' => '1011', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ) ) $current_user = null $logged_in = falsesimplexml_load_file - [internal], line ?? include - APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 60 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::_renderElement() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 1224 View::element() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 418 include - APP/View/Articles/index.ctp, line 157 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 473 Controller::render() - CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php, line 968 Dispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 200 Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 167 [main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 117
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The government too is happy from the royalty it can exact in this process. So, they all ignore the development of other sectors. The business community too diverts itself out of other business and concentrates on the game of getting license for one or other natural resource, and worse still, they involve in the selling these licenses at higher price than actually developing the projects. </div> <div> </div> <div> Resource curse context thus explains the ongoing problem in the development of hydropower. The country has been reeling under massive power outage problem in spite of availability of abundant water resources. </div> <div> </div> <div> Every economic sector has already started to suffer due to regular power outage problem. Heavy load shedding has increased cost of production of domestic industries that are already hit hard by several other problems including labour unrest and forceful donation drive of the political parties. </div> <div> </div> <div> The cost of power intensive industry has risen four times due to diesel or coal generated electricity cost, according industrialists. Private sector often says the country is fast losing its competitiveness due to rising production cost. Similarly, many other opportunities could have been opened if there was sufficient energy supply to run industries. </div> <div> </div> <div> The country has, however, a long way to go to completely tap the hydropower potential. Successive government has been failing to introduce stable and transparent policy in the hydropower regime. Similarly, the private sector and concerned parties are yet to put sincere effort for the growth of hydropower sector. </div> <div> </div> <div> The existing hydropower development models, laws as well as our mindset of both the government and some players of private sector are considered to be the major hurdles to tap hydropower potential. So, the government should review and make necessary changes in the existing models and laws. Some consensus to some handful projects is not a long term solution. If such strategy is to be resorted for a few projects, there must be a good reason. For example, it may be used as the initial big push required to jump start development of this sector. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should be visionary and should take investors into confidence. As the investment in hydropower is for the long-term, the government should ensure policy and interest rate stability for decades, not for a few years, for such projects. </div> <div> </div> <div> Current bureaucracy, however, wants to create hurdles and just keep the existing problems to create space for corruption. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should learn from past experiences in hydro sector and should put its effort to pave the way for big projects. Couple of big projects should be brought in the stream anyhow. Otherwise the country will further plunge into power crisis. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should ensure policy stability to complete the so called ‘super six’ and other projects that are already licensed and in which the promoters are enthusiastic. Completion of a few hydro projects in speedy manner can accelerate economic activities in the country. The country will not lose much in the long run if it provides incentives to companies who want to take risk by investing in hydro sector at present. The government should take initiative for fast converting the natural resources into productive economic assets to convert ‘resource curse’ into ‘resource boon’. Otherwise, the ongoing anomalies associated with the ‘resource curse’ will continue.</div> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-29', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The term ‘resource curse’ describes Nepal’s current economic woes. ‘Resource Curse’ refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes.', 'sortorder' => '1373', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1464', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Business Education Takes A Big Leap', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">Business education in Nepal is almost six decades. Since then, both under the auspices of the government and in private ownership, management education has grown in Nepal by leaps and bounds, though not always with a firm focus on quality. Much of the growth has happened either to have another fiefdom of some well-connected academics under the government umbrella, and even more as another business proposition for earliest possible profits by the private institutes. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Hence, while the good, the bad and the ugly have co-existed; and while the Nepali, the Indian, the Western and other Asian universities jostled for space in the domain of B-education, there was no independent initiative towards rating, ranking, benchmarking business education in this nation. </div> <div> </div> <div> Hence, when on July 19 last (Sravan 4), New Business Age organized the Everest Bank National B-Schools Rating-Ranking-Awards 2013 at Radisson Hotel in Kathmandu, it was rightfully hailed as “path-breaking, essential, historical and auspicious” by various front-ranking guests who graced the occasion and gave away the awards. Going beyond awards, there are larger issues that need to be looked into ahead. </div> <div> </div> <div> First, while there are a few good government institutes, it is now established that expansion of management education can largely be done efficiently and effectively by the private sector if it is done with a long-term vision and not short term profitability. Allowing permissions, resources, and standards support from the government to the better private initiatives from people with expertise and resources is the need of the hour. </div> <div> </div> <div> Second, even the monolithic Tribhuvan University, already stretched beyond limits, needs a complete re-look at its management education. Some colleges under TU should be allowed to grow into independet purely management universities. </div> <div> </div> <div> Third, the private sector in its exigency of admissions and revenue has largely focused on the input side of the education, and much lower on the output side. Hence, while aggressive admission driven branding is seen plastered all across the city, there is hardly any long-term effective communication, far less blending of experiential and virtual learning with brick-and-mortar business education. </div> <div> </div> <div> Fourth, research, even in its applied form, seems to be the biggest casualty of business education in a hurry. Applied research, market viability studies, drawing up relevant case-studies etc can make business education really market-friendly. However, except a couple of institutes, these are rarely practiced. </div> <div> </div> <div> Fifth, the tie-ups, associations and affiliations of foreign universities are a good way for positioning and marketing, but have not been used effectively for collaborative research, productive faculty and students’ exchange programs, and long-term value addition. </div> <div> </div> <div> Sixth, the synergy between business and business education is also a rarity. Hardly any concrete projects of market survey, feasibility studies etc are being given by the business bodies to management institutes. </div> <div> </div> <div> Finally, the entire process of rating-ranking-awards showed that several good institutes, suffering from the mindset of ‘me being the best’, often avoid being voluntarily benchmarked against one another and being rated by independent bodies. Good is never afraid of being quizzed. </div> <div> However, one needs to emphatically note that management education in this country, including that of tourism and hospitality niche, has taken deep roots and may perhaps come next only to India in the region, and is poised for a big leap forward in quality and sustainability.</div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-22', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'Business education in Nepal is almost six decades. Since then, both under the auspices of the government and in private ownership, management education has grown in Nepal by leaps and bounds, though not always with a firm focus on quality.', 'sortorder' => '1325', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1422', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Losing Currency', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The sharp decline in the value of the Nepali rupee in recent days has led to a clamour for the government to do something. This time, Nepal’s current currency depreciation has been created not due to Nepal’s own reason but due to pegged exchange rate with Indian currency. So, it is high time that the government dares to decide to discontinue pegged exchange rate with Indian currency. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Though the continuous fall of the value of rupee has raised serious concern in India itself and the Indian government may do something to control the value of Indian rupee, Nepal should not just wait India’s action. It should do something on its own, if it is following an independent monetary policy. Otherwise, it may do better by declaring the Indian repee as its legal tender. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government and business community have had very little discourse about the problem and possible way out to control rupee depreciation. </div> <div> </div> <div> Countries with their currency pegged with another country’s currency are normally known to have weak capital markets and financial regulating mechanisms. In such a scenario, the peg helps create stability in the economy. Citing these very reasons, policymakers, politicians and even business community in Nepal have always favoured to have the pegged exchange rate with Indian Currency. </div> <div> </div> <div> But the recent massive depreciation of Indian currency has thrown all these logics out of the window and the situation calls for a serious debate on whether Nepali rupee should maintain the peg system. </div> <div> </div> <div> Theoretically, devaluation of currency is beneficial for exports, but in Nepal’s case that theory cannot apply as the country is heavily dependent on imports to meet consumer demand as well as for industrial raw material. Nepal exported merchandise worth Rs 69.93 billion during eleven months of 2012-13 while it imported goods worth Rs 508.60 billion, according to Current Macroeconomic Situation of Nepal released by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). </div> <div> </div> <div> The data clearly shows that Nepal has huge trade deficit and depreciation of rupees will have much more adverse impact on Nepali economy than would be the case in a country with relatively better trade balance. </div> <div> </div> <div> The pegging regime has both advantages and disadvantages. It helps to keep the fragile economy stable. But one never knows the real economic scenario of the country under such fixed exchange system. The Mundell-Fleming model, best known for its anti-pegged exchange rate philosophy, says that fixed exchange rate system restricts the effectiveness of having an independent monetary policy to achieve macroeconomic stability. </div> <div> </div> <div> In light of the Indian currency crisis, Nepal is desperately looking for best option to keep Nepali rupee stable. It is difficult to find a good solution to it as long as the pegged exchange rate system is not done away.</div> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-15', 'modified' => '2013-07-15', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The sharp decline in the value of the Nepali rupee in recent days has led to a clamour for the government to do something.', 'sortorder' => '1284', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1350', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Civil Servant’s Salary', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> <span style="font-size: 12px;">Like every year, July is the budget time, and the debate about pay hike of government employees has started as usual. </span></p> <p> The government will revise the existing pay scale of all the government employees, according to the Finance Ministry. However, there is still problem with the resource generation, to manage the increase. </p> <p> It is understood that the salary the government gives to civil servants is in no way satisfactory as the amount is not sufficient to sustain a family decently. But the proposal to give the government staffers a raise is opposed by tax payers. </p> <p> The government employees are far ahead in demanding increment in salaries but they are reluctant to deliver public service efficiently. On the other hand, government employees are often criticized for institutionalizing corruption. </p> <p> In this regard, both the government and the employees should justify the decision of pay and perks increment. Since the salary to governement staff is paid from the people’s money, any increment in such salary will have an extra burden to the people. </p> <p> The government should start focusing on other aspects of reform along with salary revision. First of all, the efficiency of the employees should be enhanced and the number of employees should be reduced. The saving so generated can be used to pay more to the remaining employees. </p> <p> Similarly, the government should seek alternative way of paying pension. Currently, the pension scheme has become a burden to the government. Every year the number of retired government employees has been increasing, and the law requires paying pension to them throughout their life and ever beyond. </p> <p> The government should bring participatory pension scheme to save the State from future financial disaster. </p> <p> Reform in performance of government employees is also very necessary. None of the government agency has been successful to regulate the concerned sector at present, putting consumers at the receiving end. Increment in salary without commitment of employees is unjustifiable. </p> <p> The government should also introduce the carrot-and-stick approach to encourage government employees to do the best. Independent evaluation of jobs performed by civil servants is urgent to discourage the trend of cheating. Otherwise, salary increment will merely add burden on the entire economy.</p> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-08', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'Like every year, July is the budget time, and the debate about pay hike of government employees has started as usual.', 'sortorder' => '1212', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1263', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'NPC And Periodic Plan', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The National Planning Commission (NPC) has now endorsed the approach paper of the Three- Year (2013-16) plan with revenue and expenditure projections of the Central and State governments. </span></p> <p> Designed with an objective of upgrading Nepal within 2022 to a developing country from the current status of least developed country, the approach paper aims to attain an average 6 percent economic growth annually over the period. However, calculations show that the country needs to achieve average 7 percent growth to attain the target of becoming a developing country within 2022. </p> <p> The proposed plan also aims to decrease the poverty rate to 18 percent from the current 23.8 percent. </p> <p> The government expenditure projected is about Rs 1.4 trillion in the next three years, of which Rs 11 billion will be mobilized as state revenue generated within the country. The rest will be arranged from foreign aid and internal loans. </p> <p> How realistic are the targets?In the recent years, NPC has been often criticized for being only mouth-piece of political parties rather than engaging in the rigorous analysis of country’s economic situation. </p> <p> Instead of formulating down-to-earth plan, the commission seems to tend to agenda of the political parties which are in power. </p> <p> According to its mandate, NPC is the advisory body for formulating development plans and policies in the country and it should explore and allocate resources for economic development and work as a central agency for monitoring and evaluation of development plans, policies and programmes. </p> <p> However, influence from powerful politicians, nepotism and favouritism while formulating plan and ignorance to the grassroots problems are often attributed as a weakness of the commission. Unrealistic targets often suffer from aforementioned weaknesses. The commission leadership should be serious to avoid such weaknesses. Otherwise, its plan will be nothing more than a day dream.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-01', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The National Planning Commission (NPC) has now endorsed the approach paper of the Three- Year (2013-16) plan with revenue and expenditure projections of the Central and State governments. .', 'sortorder' => '1125', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1212', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Clarion Call For School Reforms', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> Office of the controller of Examination recently published School Leaving Certificate (SLC) results with the pass percentage of 41.57 which is the lowest for the last eight years. This has further accentuated the question mark on our school education system. </p> <p> According to the Ministry of Finance, the budget on education sector reached to Rs 63.91 billion in the current fiscal year from only Rs 27 million in the fiscal year 2006-07. Most of this money went to the public schools and they are the ones that fared badly also this year. </p> <p> It is general knowledge that teachers at public schools are more active in politics and they are normally absent in the classrooms. </p> <p> The solution may be running public schools in Principal-Agent Model in which the payoff to the principal depends on an action taken by the agent. The principal cannot contract for the action, but can compensate the agent based on some observable signal that is correlated with the action. Here the principals are parents of the students and the agents are the teachers. If these principals have rights to decide the pay offs (salary and perks) to the agents according to the observable signals (results and change in behaviours of students), the SLC results can be expected to improve significantly. </p> <p> The fact that those public schools that are managed by the community have far better results consistently year after year lends further weight to this argument. The conclusion: Let’s hand over all public schools to the communities. Another problem related to SLC results is the frustration it causes to those who fail. This has resulted into cases of suicides as well. One solution to this is to speed up the implementation of the already adopted plan to make grade 12 exams as the school graduation level. </p> <p> Next is to introduce a system of issuing certificates to the students on the basis of the number of subjects they have passed. If a student is good in fine arts but is weak in mathematics, he can be thus allowed to go to his profession without the stigma of ‘SLC failed’.<br /> <br /> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-06-30', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'new business age from the editor news & articles, from the editor news & articles from new business age nepal, from the editor headlines from nepal, current and latest from the editor news from nepal, economic news from nepal, nepali from the editor economic news and events, ongoing from the edi', 'description' => 'new business age from the editor news & articles, from the editor news & articles from new business age nepal, from the editor headlines from nepal, current and latest from the editor news from nepal, economic news from nepal, nepali from the editor economic news and events, ongoing from the editor news of nepal', 'sortorder' => '1074', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1148', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'HS Education In Nepal: The Next Leap', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> The project on Everest National Higher Secondary Schools Rating-Ranking-Awards 2013 gave the New Business Age - Aarthik Abhiyan family an opportunity to know the standards of HS education in Nepal and its best practitioners from a close quarter. <br /> <br /> It is truly heartening to see that HS education has spread across the country reasonably well. The entry of the private entrepreneurs and corporate houses in the education sector has evolved quite emphatically since 2000 in Nepal. Along with HSEB based education, Western A-level education has also evolved in the country. And, unlike neighbouring India, Nepal is providing for multiple specializations at the HS level itself: Humanities, Sciences, Commerce, Management, Hotel & Tourism Management. This contributes to early professional orientation of the students. <br /> <br /> However, there are several areas that need special care and concern in the country at the earliest. The community based education or the government funded and controlled education needs to upgrade itself technologically with e-learning and modern teaching tools, and technically with faculty learning to use the same and move to interactive mode of teaching than traditional classroom learning. This sector of school education runs on tax-payers’ money and for the less privileged classes. Their usual lackadaisical approach (though there are some good exceptions) and large-scale political involvement of teachers even at the cost of academics, lead to poverty of education for the children coming from lower income group families. <br /> <br /> Also, encouraging corporate houses or private schools to adopt a community school and bring in new technologies for students and training of faculty as corporate social responsibility will be a welcome idea indeed. As for the private sector schools, in urban Nepal, they are the foundation of HS Education as is obvious during our study. And there are various standards of the same: some with good infra-structure and faculty, some much poorer. What is noteworthy is that there is a new crop of good quality schools that are emerging and they do not shy away from reaching out to their audiences through modern branding and marketing techniques. <br /> <br /> What needs to be considered here is that there must be strictly enforceable minimum standards of academics, infra-structure, co-curricular activities, library and teaching resources, campus size and facilities, faculty size and quality etc. Many schools have part time and visiting faculty in a larger number than regular full time teachers which is globally unacceptable. <br /> <br /> Also, as in several other nations, including India, private schools should keep a certain percentage of their seats for full and half free admissions, purely for children from economically challenged background only. Adopting a community school in the neighbourhood is another healthy practice. However, we must remember that the revenue of private schools is from the students and their guardians and hence the first responsibility of these schools is to their ‘clients’. Stake-holder satisfaction must surely be ensured first and that cannot be just completing the syllabus and ensuring pass percentage. <br /> <br /> The performance of a good school, private or aided, must now move from just classroom teaching and pass percentage, to a much advanced multi-pronged approach. There should be inputs like faculty number and quality, sports and cultural facilities, modern teaching tools and e-learning, coaching for higher professional educational after Plus 2, community outreach, special care for weak students and integrating parents in the system. And there should be output factors like pass percentage and divisions, awards won in sports and ECA activities, collaborations and visits, community impact around the school. All of these leading to the holistic growth of the child committed to knowing, doing and being.<br /> <br /> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-06-25', 'modified' => '2013-06-25', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'sortorder' => '1011', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ) ) $current_user = null $logged_in = false $xml = falseinclude - APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 133 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::_renderElement() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 1224 View::element() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 418 include - APP/View/Articles/index.ctp, line 157 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 473 Controller::render() - CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php, line 968 Dispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 200 Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 167 [main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 117
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The government too is happy from the royalty it can exact in this process. So, they all ignore the development of other sectors. The business community too diverts itself out of other business and concentrates on the game of getting license for one or other natural resource, and worse still, they involve in the selling these licenses at higher price than actually developing the projects. </div> <div> </div> <div> Resource curse context thus explains the ongoing problem in the development of hydropower. The country has been reeling under massive power outage problem in spite of availability of abundant water resources. </div> <div> </div> <div> Every economic sector has already started to suffer due to regular power outage problem. Heavy load shedding has increased cost of production of domestic industries that are already hit hard by several other problems including labour unrest and forceful donation drive of the political parties. </div> <div> </div> <div> The cost of power intensive industry has risen four times due to diesel or coal generated electricity cost, according industrialists. Private sector often says the country is fast losing its competitiveness due to rising production cost. Similarly, many other opportunities could have been opened if there was sufficient energy supply to run industries. </div> <div> </div> <div> The country has, however, a long way to go to completely tap the hydropower potential. Successive government has been failing to introduce stable and transparent policy in the hydropower regime. Similarly, the private sector and concerned parties are yet to put sincere effort for the growth of hydropower sector. </div> <div> </div> <div> The existing hydropower development models, laws as well as our mindset of both the government and some players of private sector are considered to be the major hurdles to tap hydropower potential. So, the government should review and make necessary changes in the existing models and laws. Some consensus to some handful projects is not a long term solution. If such strategy is to be resorted for a few projects, there must be a good reason. For example, it may be used as the initial big push required to jump start development of this sector. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should be visionary and should take investors into confidence. As the investment in hydropower is for the long-term, the government should ensure policy and interest rate stability for decades, not for a few years, for such projects. </div> <div> </div> <div> Current bureaucracy, however, wants to create hurdles and just keep the existing problems to create space for corruption. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should learn from past experiences in hydro sector and should put its effort to pave the way for big projects. Couple of big projects should be brought in the stream anyhow. Otherwise the country will further plunge into power crisis. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government should ensure policy stability to complete the so called ‘super six’ and other projects that are already licensed and in which the promoters are enthusiastic. Completion of a few hydro projects in speedy manner can accelerate economic activities in the country. The country will not lose much in the long run if it provides incentives to companies who want to take risk by investing in hydro sector at present. The government should take initiative for fast converting the natural resources into productive economic assets to convert ‘resource curse’ into ‘resource boon’. Otherwise, the ongoing anomalies associated with the ‘resource curse’ will continue.</div> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-29', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The term ‘resource curse’ describes Nepal’s current economic woes. ‘Resource Curse’ refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes.', 'sortorder' => '1373', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1464', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Business Education Takes A Big Leap', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">Business education in Nepal is almost six decades. Since then, both under the auspices of the government and in private ownership, management education has grown in Nepal by leaps and bounds, though not always with a firm focus on quality. Much of the growth has happened either to have another fiefdom of some well-connected academics under the government umbrella, and even more as another business proposition for earliest possible profits by the private institutes. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Hence, while the good, the bad and the ugly have co-existed; and while the Nepali, the Indian, the Western and other Asian universities jostled for space in the domain of B-education, there was no independent initiative towards rating, ranking, benchmarking business education in this nation. </div> <div> </div> <div> Hence, when on July 19 last (Sravan 4), New Business Age organized the Everest Bank National B-Schools Rating-Ranking-Awards 2013 at Radisson Hotel in Kathmandu, it was rightfully hailed as “path-breaking, essential, historical and auspicious” by various front-ranking guests who graced the occasion and gave away the awards. Going beyond awards, there are larger issues that need to be looked into ahead. </div> <div> </div> <div> First, while there are a few good government institutes, it is now established that expansion of management education can largely be done efficiently and effectively by the private sector if it is done with a long-term vision and not short term profitability. Allowing permissions, resources, and standards support from the government to the better private initiatives from people with expertise and resources is the need of the hour. </div> <div> </div> <div> Second, even the monolithic Tribhuvan University, already stretched beyond limits, needs a complete re-look at its management education. Some colleges under TU should be allowed to grow into independet purely management universities. </div> <div> </div> <div> Third, the private sector in its exigency of admissions and revenue has largely focused on the input side of the education, and much lower on the output side. Hence, while aggressive admission driven branding is seen plastered all across the city, there is hardly any long-term effective communication, far less blending of experiential and virtual learning with brick-and-mortar business education. </div> <div> </div> <div> Fourth, research, even in its applied form, seems to be the biggest casualty of business education in a hurry. Applied research, market viability studies, drawing up relevant case-studies etc can make business education really market-friendly. However, except a couple of institutes, these are rarely practiced. </div> <div> </div> <div> Fifth, the tie-ups, associations and affiliations of foreign universities are a good way for positioning and marketing, but have not been used effectively for collaborative research, productive faculty and students’ exchange programs, and long-term value addition. </div> <div> </div> <div> Sixth, the synergy between business and business education is also a rarity. Hardly any concrete projects of market survey, feasibility studies etc are being given by the business bodies to management institutes. </div> <div> </div> <div> Finally, the entire process of rating-ranking-awards showed that several good institutes, suffering from the mindset of ‘me being the best’, often avoid being voluntarily benchmarked against one another and being rated by independent bodies. Good is never afraid of being quizzed. </div> <div> However, one needs to emphatically note that management education in this country, including that of tourism and hospitality niche, has taken deep roots and may perhaps come next only to India in the region, and is poised for a big leap forward in quality and sustainability.</div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-22', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'Business education in Nepal is almost six decades. Since then, both under the auspices of the government and in private ownership, management education has grown in Nepal by leaps and bounds, though not always with a firm focus on quality.', 'sortorder' => '1325', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1422', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Losing Currency', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<div> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The sharp decline in the value of the Nepali rupee in recent days has led to a clamour for the government to do something. This time, Nepal’s current currency depreciation has been created not due to Nepal’s own reason but due to pegged exchange rate with Indian currency. So, it is high time that the government dares to decide to discontinue pegged exchange rate with Indian currency. </span></div> <div> </div> <div> Though the continuous fall of the value of rupee has raised serious concern in India itself and the Indian government may do something to control the value of Indian rupee, Nepal should not just wait India’s action. It should do something on its own, if it is following an independent monetary policy. Otherwise, it may do better by declaring the Indian repee as its legal tender. </div> <div> </div> <div> The government and business community have had very little discourse about the problem and possible way out to control rupee depreciation. </div> <div> </div> <div> Countries with their currency pegged with another country’s currency are normally known to have weak capital markets and financial regulating mechanisms. In such a scenario, the peg helps create stability in the economy. Citing these very reasons, policymakers, politicians and even business community in Nepal have always favoured to have the pegged exchange rate with Indian Currency. </div> <div> </div> <div> But the recent massive depreciation of Indian currency has thrown all these logics out of the window and the situation calls for a serious debate on whether Nepali rupee should maintain the peg system. </div> <div> </div> <div> Theoretically, devaluation of currency is beneficial for exports, but in Nepal’s case that theory cannot apply as the country is heavily dependent on imports to meet consumer demand as well as for industrial raw material. Nepal exported merchandise worth Rs 69.93 billion during eleven months of 2012-13 while it imported goods worth Rs 508.60 billion, according to Current Macroeconomic Situation of Nepal released by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). </div> <div> </div> <div> The data clearly shows that Nepal has huge trade deficit and depreciation of rupees will have much more adverse impact on Nepali economy than would be the case in a country with relatively better trade balance. </div> <div> </div> <div> The pegging regime has both advantages and disadvantages. It helps to keep the fragile economy stable. But one never knows the real economic scenario of the country under such fixed exchange system. The Mundell-Fleming model, best known for its anti-pegged exchange rate philosophy, says that fixed exchange rate system restricts the effectiveness of having an independent monetary policy to achieve macroeconomic stability. </div> <div> </div> <div> In light of the Indian currency crisis, Nepal is desperately looking for best option to keep Nepali rupee stable. It is difficult to find a good solution to it as long as the pegged exchange rate system is not done away.</div> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-15', 'modified' => '2013-07-15', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The sharp decline in the value of the Nepali rupee in recent days has led to a clamour for the government to do something.', 'sortorder' => '1284', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1350', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Civil Servant’s Salary', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> <span style="font-size: 12px;">Like every year, July is the budget time, and the debate about pay hike of government employees has started as usual. </span></p> <p> The government will revise the existing pay scale of all the government employees, according to the Finance Ministry. However, there is still problem with the resource generation, to manage the increase. </p> <p> It is understood that the salary the government gives to civil servants is in no way satisfactory as the amount is not sufficient to sustain a family decently. But the proposal to give the government staffers a raise is opposed by tax payers. </p> <p> The government employees are far ahead in demanding increment in salaries but they are reluctant to deliver public service efficiently. On the other hand, government employees are often criticized for institutionalizing corruption. </p> <p> In this regard, both the government and the employees should justify the decision of pay and perks increment. Since the salary to governement staff is paid from the people’s money, any increment in such salary will have an extra burden to the people. </p> <p> The government should start focusing on other aspects of reform along with salary revision. First of all, the efficiency of the employees should be enhanced and the number of employees should be reduced. The saving so generated can be used to pay more to the remaining employees. </p> <p> Similarly, the government should seek alternative way of paying pension. Currently, the pension scheme has become a burden to the government. Every year the number of retired government employees has been increasing, and the law requires paying pension to them throughout their life and ever beyond. </p> <p> The government should bring participatory pension scheme to save the State from future financial disaster. </p> <p> Reform in performance of government employees is also very necessary. None of the government agency has been successful to regulate the concerned sector at present, putting consumers at the receiving end. Increment in salary without commitment of employees is unjustifiable. </p> <p> The government should also introduce the carrot-and-stick approach to encourage government employees to do the best. Independent evaluation of jobs performed by civil servants is urgent to discourage the trend of cheating. Otherwise, salary increment will merely add burden on the entire economy.</p> <div> </div>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-08', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'Like every year, July is the budget time, and the debate about pay hike of government employees has started as usual.', 'sortorder' => '1212', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1263', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'NPC And Periodic Plan', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> <span style="font-size: 12px;">The National Planning Commission (NPC) has now endorsed the approach paper of the Three- Year (2013-16) plan with revenue and expenditure projections of the Central and State governments. </span></p> <p> Designed with an objective of upgrading Nepal within 2022 to a developing country from the current status of least developed country, the approach paper aims to attain an average 6 percent economic growth annually over the period. However, calculations show that the country needs to achieve average 7 percent growth to attain the target of becoming a developing country within 2022. </p> <p> The proposed plan also aims to decrease the poverty rate to 18 percent from the current 23.8 percent. </p> <p> The government expenditure projected is about Rs 1.4 trillion in the next three years, of which Rs 11 billion will be mobilized as state revenue generated within the country. The rest will be arranged from foreign aid and internal loans. </p> <p> How realistic are the targets?In the recent years, NPC has been often criticized for being only mouth-piece of political parties rather than engaging in the rigorous analysis of country’s economic situation. </p> <p> Instead of formulating down-to-earth plan, the commission seems to tend to agenda of the political parties which are in power. </p> <p> According to its mandate, NPC is the advisory body for formulating development plans and policies in the country and it should explore and allocate resources for economic development and work as a central agency for monitoring and evaluation of development plans, policies and programmes. </p> <p> However, influence from powerful politicians, nepotism and favouritism while formulating plan and ignorance to the grassroots problems are often attributed as a weakness of the commission. Unrealistic targets often suffer from aforementioned weaknesses. The commission leadership should be serious to avoid such weaknesses. Otherwise, its plan will be nothing more than a day dream.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-07-01', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'The National Planning Commission (NPC) has now endorsed the approach paper of the Three- Year (2013-16) plan with revenue and expenditure projections of the Central and State governments. .', 'sortorder' => '1125', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1212', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'Clarion Call For School Reforms', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> Office of the controller of Examination recently published School Leaving Certificate (SLC) results with the pass percentage of 41.57 which is the lowest for the last eight years. This has further accentuated the question mark on our school education system. </p> <p> According to the Ministry of Finance, the budget on education sector reached to Rs 63.91 billion in the current fiscal year from only Rs 27 million in the fiscal year 2006-07. Most of this money went to the public schools and they are the ones that fared badly also this year. </p> <p> It is general knowledge that teachers at public schools are more active in politics and they are normally absent in the classrooms. </p> <p> The solution may be running public schools in Principal-Agent Model in which the payoff to the principal depends on an action taken by the agent. The principal cannot contract for the action, but can compensate the agent based on some observable signal that is correlated with the action. Here the principals are parents of the students and the agents are the teachers. If these principals have rights to decide the pay offs (salary and perks) to the agents according to the observable signals (results and change in behaviours of students), the SLC results can be expected to improve significantly. </p> <p> The fact that those public schools that are managed by the community have far better results consistently year after year lends further weight to this argument. The conclusion: Let’s hand over all public schools to the communities. Another problem related to SLC results is the frustration it causes to those who fail. This has resulted into cases of suicides as well. One solution to this is to speed up the implementation of the already adopted plan to make grade 12 exams as the school graduation level. </p> <p> Next is to introduce a system of issuing certificates to the students on the basis of the number of subjects they have passed. If a student is good in fine arts but is weak in mathematics, he can be thus allowed to go to his profession without the stigma of ‘SLC failed’.<br /> <br /> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-06-30', 'modified' => '0000-00-00', 'keywords' => 'new business age from the editor news & articles, from the editor news & articles from new business age nepal, from the editor headlines from nepal, current and latest from the editor news from nepal, economic news from nepal, nepali from the editor economic news and events, ongoing from the edi', 'description' => 'new business age from the editor news & articles, from the editor news & articles from new business age nepal, from the editor headlines from nepal, current and latest from the editor news from nepal, economic news from nepal, nepali from the editor economic news and events, ongoing from the editor news of nepal', 'sortorder' => '1074', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '1148', 'article_category_id' => '144', 'title' => 'HS Education In Nepal: The Next Leap', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => null, 'content' => '<p> The project on Everest National Higher Secondary Schools Rating-Ranking-Awards 2013 gave the New Business Age - Aarthik Abhiyan family an opportunity to know the standards of HS education in Nepal and its best practitioners from a close quarter. <br /> <br /> It is truly heartening to see that HS education has spread across the country reasonably well. The entry of the private entrepreneurs and corporate houses in the education sector has evolved quite emphatically since 2000 in Nepal. Along with HSEB based education, Western A-level education has also evolved in the country. And, unlike neighbouring India, Nepal is providing for multiple specializations at the HS level itself: Humanities, Sciences, Commerce, Management, Hotel & Tourism Management. This contributes to early professional orientation of the students. <br /> <br /> However, there are several areas that need special care and concern in the country at the earliest. The community based education or the government funded and controlled education needs to upgrade itself technologically with e-learning and modern teaching tools, and technically with faculty learning to use the same and move to interactive mode of teaching than traditional classroom learning. This sector of school education runs on tax-payers’ money and for the less privileged classes. Their usual lackadaisical approach (though there are some good exceptions) and large-scale political involvement of teachers even at the cost of academics, lead to poverty of education for the children coming from lower income group families. <br /> <br /> Also, encouraging corporate houses or private schools to adopt a community school and bring in new technologies for students and training of faculty as corporate social responsibility will be a welcome idea indeed. As for the private sector schools, in urban Nepal, they are the foundation of HS Education as is obvious during our study. And there are various standards of the same: some with good infra-structure and faculty, some much poorer. What is noteworthy is that there is a new crop of good quality schools that are emerging and they do not shy away from reaching out to their audiences through modern branding and marketing techniques. <br /> <br /> What needs to be considered here is that there must be strictly enforceable minimum standards of academics, infra-structure, co-curricular activities, library and teaching resources, campus size and facilities, faculty size and quality etc. Many schools have part time and visiting faculty in a larger number than regular full time teachers which is globally unacceptable. <br /> <br /> Also, as in several other nations, including India, private schools should keep a certain percentage of their seats for full and half free admissions, purely for children from economically challenged background only. Adopting a community school in the neighbourhood is another healthy practice. However, we must remember that the revenue of private schools is from the students and their guardians and hence the first responsibility of these schools is to their ‘clients’. Stake-holder satisfaction must surely be ensured first and that cannot be just completing the syllabus and ensuring pass percentage. <br /> <br /> The performance of a good school, private or aided, must now move from just classroom teaching and pass percentage, to a much advanced multi-pronged approach. There should be inputs like faculty number and quality, sports and cultural facilities, modern teaching tools and e-learning, coaching for higher professional educational after Plus 2, community outreach, special care for weak students and integrating parents in the system. And there should be output factors like pass percentage and divisions, awards won in sports and ECA activities, collaborations and visits, community impact around the school. All of these leading to the holistic growth of the child committed to knowing, doing and being.<br /> <br /> </p>', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2013-06-25', 'modified' => '2013-06-25', 'keywords' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'description' => 'the corporate weekly from Nepal, nepali corporate events – news – interviews – reviews, nepali corporate focus, nepali corporate status and news, news from nepali corporate industry, corporate happenings – events – news from nepal', 'sortorder' => '1011', 'image' => null, 'article_date' => '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => false, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '0' ) ) ) $current_user = null $logged_in = false $xml = falsesimplexml_load_file - [internal], line ?? include - APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 133 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::_renderElement() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 1224 View::element() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 418 include - APP/View/Articles/index.ctp, line 157 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 473 Controller::render() - CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php, line 968 Dispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 200 Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 167 [main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 117
| Currency | Unit |
Buy | Sell |
| U.S. Dollar | 1 | 121.23 | 121.83 |
| European Euro | 1 | 131.65 | 132.31 |
| UK Pound Sterling | 1 | 142.47 | 143.18 |
| Swiss Franc | 1 | 124.29 | 124.90 |
| Australian Dollar | 1 | 71.69 | 72.05 |
| Canadian Dollar | 1 | 83.90 | 84.32 |
| Japanese Yen | 10 | 10.94 | 11.00 |
| Chinese Yuan | 1 | 17.17 | 17.26 |
| Saudi Arabian Riyal | 1 | 32.27 | 32.43 |
| UAE Dirham | 1 | 33.01 | 33.17 |
| Malaysian Ringgit | 1 | 27.36 | 27.50 |
| South Korean Won | 100 | 9.77 | 9.82 |
Update: 2020-03-25 | Source: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB)
| Fine Gold | 1 tola | 77000.00 |
| Tejabi Gold | 1 tola | 76700.00 |
| Silver | 1 tola | 720.00 |
Update : 2020-03-25
Source: Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers' Association
| Petrol | 1 Liter | 106.00 |
| Diesel | 1 Liter | 95.00 |
| Kerosene | 1 Liter | 95.00 |
| LP Gas | 1 Cylinder | 1375.00 |
Update : 2020-03-25
