Stories you might have missed from today's The Kathmandu Post.

Congress allows Sapkota to run unopposed for Speaker, showing there’s a larger game afoot

The primary opposition Nepali Congress did not field any candidate for Speaker on Tuesday to challenge the Nepal Communist Party’s candidate Agni Sapkota, paving the way for the ruling party leader’s election to the post unopposed. The party is also unlikely to file candidacy for the post of deputy Speaker.

Ruling party co-chairs KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal had reached a deal on Sunday to put up Sapkota for the Speaker of the House of Representatives after month-long negotiations. That deal came a day after Oli, Dahal and Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba decided on officials for the two transitional justice commissions that are tasked with investigating conflict-era cases.

Now that the Congress has allowed Sapkota, who faces a murder charge for a conflict-era killing, to get elected unopposed, party insiders say is part of a larger deal between Oli, Dahal and Deuba.

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Deadline arrives but sugar mills still owe farmers Rs800 million

Earlier this month, when the government promised sugarcane farmers from Sarlahi that their dues would be cleared in three weeks, they didn’t have much to say—except hope that the authorities would keep their word. But as the weeks passed with only a few payments cleared, their hopes started to fade. On Tuesday, January 21, the day of the deadline, farmers were still owed over Rs800 million, and the government had no answers.

Of the total Rs1 billion owed to farmers by various sugar mill owners, they were paid just Rs150 million. Lekhraj Bhatta, the minister for industry, commerce and supplies, said that his ministry will assess the overall progress made so far on Wednesday and then decide on the course of action.

But farmers had seen this coming ever since the deal was struck, given that this is not the first time sugarcane farmers have been duped by sugar mill owners. Since the government rarely takes punitive action against sugar mills who fail to pay farmers for their crops, farmers, who usually take out bank loans to grow sugarcane, are at the receiving end.

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Even as coronavirus cases rise, Kathmandu airport has not implemented mandatory screenings

At a time when many Asian countries have stepped up measures at the international ports of entry to prevent the possible transmission of a new strain of coronavirus, health screening of passengers at the Tribhuvan International Airport, the only international airport in the country, remains voluntary.

A health desk at the airport has simply placed a signboard that urges passengers to contact personnel if they have a fever or other health complications.

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Thirteen years on, Madhes movements, despite some momentum, remain incomplete

When a small group of Madhesi activists from a little-known socio-intellectual organisation burned copies of the interim constitution on January 16, 2007, few could have imagined that their actions would set the entire country down a path of deep structural change.

The spark ignited by the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum and its leader Upendra Yadav would spread across the Madhes. On January 19 that year, 17-year-old Ramesh Mahato was killed during the protests in Lahan. This was the first Madhes movement and it was followed by the second in 2008 and the third in 2015, with each iteration demanding that which Madhesis have long desired—equitable representation for the politics, culture and language of the Madhes. Mahato was later declared a martyr—the first martyr of the Madhes movement—and since January 19 is observed as its anniversary.

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Project developers need to plant in areas with limited forest cover while compensating felling of trees for projects

The government has prioritised plantation in areas with limited forest coverage while planting compensatory trees to offset the deforestation carried out for development projects.

As per the existing laws, developers are asked to plant trees for felling trees while building their projects. However, most of the time, such plantations are done haphazardly in areas where there is already forest coverage.

According to Sindhu Prasad Dhungana, spokesperson for the Ministry of Forest and Environment, such project developers will be asked to plant trees in areas with inadequate forest cover.

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