Notice (8): Trying to access array offset on value of type null [APP/View/Articles/view.ctp, line 115]
Notice (8): Trying to access array offset on value of type null [APP/View/Articles/view.ctp, line 115]
Notice (8): Trying to access array offset on value of type null [APP/View/Articles/view.ctp, line 116]

Nepal Political Economic News In Brief (27 January - 02 February 2014)

  3 min 35 sec to read

First Meeting of CA
The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly (CA) began at the CA Building in New Baneshwor at 3 pm on January 22. Surya Bahadur Thapa, the senior-most CA member, chaired the meeting which unanimously endorsed the proposal of CA Regulations 2065 to conduct CA and house business until new regulations is formulated. Welcoming 565 CA members who were sworn in a day before, Thapa stressed on the need to draft the constitution on time. “It is necessary to draft the constitution to make the tenure of the CA members successful. Otherwise, history will deem us irresponsible and a failure,” Thapa said, and wished the members of the second CA success in drafting the statute on time. The meeting also formed a panel of CA members comprising Man Bahadur Bishwokarma, Bikram Pandey, Bidhya Bhandari, Man Kumar Subba, among others, for chairing the CA meeting in Thapa’s absence and until a chairman and vice chairman of the new CA are elected. Thapa announced that the second CA meeting will be held at 1 pm on January 29. The new CA is yet to attain its full shape as 26 CA members to be nominated by the Cabinet are yet to be finalized.
 
Dr KC Ends Fast-Unto-Death
Two days after Tribhuvan University (TU) sacked Dr Sashi Sharma, the newly appointed Dean of Institute of Medicine (IOM), Dr Govinda KC ended his 14-day fast-unto-death at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) on January 24 following a commitment by the government to fulfill his demands. The decision of TU to sack Dr Sharma came amid mounting pressure from various quarters to address the demands of Dr KC, a senior orthopedic of the hospital, who had been on fast-unto-death putting forth a seven-point demand including the removal of Dr Sharma as IoM dean and reinstate former Dean Dr Prakash Sayami. TU executive council had recently appointed Dr Sharma as the IoM Dean after former Dean Dr Prakash Sayami resigned from the post. Dr KC started an indefinite hunger strike soon after Dr Sharma’s appointment as the IoM Dean. Various organizations including Nepal Medical Association expressed solidarity with Dr KC’s fast-unto-death. Around 200 Faculty Doctors of TUTH had resigned en masse on Jan 21 in support of Dr KC’s demands. 
 
Tenure of Prez, Vice Prez till New Constitution: SC
The Supreme Court (SC) on January 23 ordered that the tenure of the incumbent President and Vice President will end only after the promulgation of the new constitution. A single bench of Justice Girish Chandra Lal delivered the verdict. In the verdict, the apex court said that President Dr Ram Baran Yadav and Vice President Parmananda Jha will continue to work in their capacities as it has been clearly mentioned in the constitution. “Article 36(c) of the Interim Constitution says that the tenure of the President will last until the Constituent Assembly promulgates a new constitution. In Article 36(i), similar provision exists about the tenure of the Vice President,” the SC said in its verdict. The SC verdict came in response to a writ petition filed by advocate Om Prakash Aryal demanding new elections for the posts of President and Vice President.
 
Local Body Elections Imperative Now: CEC 
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nilkantha Upreti has said that the local elections have become “imperative and customary” after the Constituent Assembly election. He added that the Election Commission was ready to hold the local election if the soon-to-be-formed government formulated necessary laws and fixed a date for it. “If the dates (for local elections) are announced by the second week of February, we will easily conduct the election within May this year,” the CEC told media persons at a programme in the capital on January 24. He said that the political parties should agree on a date for holding the local elections since the majority of them have committed in their election manifestos to hold such elections within six months after the CA election.

Deprecated (16384): Using key `action` is deprecated, use `url` directly instead. [CORE/Cake/View/Helper/FormHelper.php, line 383]
No comments yet. Be the first one to comment.