These are some of the best stories from The Kathmandu Post (February 9, 2020).
After Central Committee meeting, Dahal appears to have the upper hand, but Oli has not given up yet
At the final session of the Kantipur Conclave, during a conversation with Sudheer Sharma, editor-in-chief of the Post’s sister paper Kantipur, Pushpa Kamal Dahal spoke confidently, saying he had no desire to become the prime minister anytime soon.
Dahal, in recent times, has appeared much more self-assured, and many believe that his newfound certainty stems from the comfortable grip he has established on the Nepal Communist Party (NCP).
Kantipur Conclave panelists call for a shift in Nepal’s approach to climate change
Nepal needs to change its approach towards the issue of climate change, panelists at the “Mitigating Climate Change-The Big Connector” session on the second day of the Kantipur Conclave said.
Nepal should let go of its narrative that it is only at the receiving end of the impacts of climate change, call out countries aggravating the problem and mobilise the youth to share knowledge with vulnerable communities.
The government has said it will evacuate Nepalis from Hubei, but it has yet to make preparations
A week since Nepalis in China's Hubei province asked the Nepal government to evacuate them, officials in Kathmandu have little idea how the evacuation will progress.
Last Sunday, the Nepali Embassy in Beijing said that it had received requests for evacuation from 180 Nepalis in Hubei, mostly from Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus. The government subsequently pledged to bring the Nepalis back home but in the absence of concrete action, Nepalis in Hubei are getting desperate, especially after seeing numerous other countries, including India, evacuate their citizens.
More Nepalis travelling by air due to cheaper tickets
International passenger numbers at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport dropped for the first time in four years in 2019, but domestic passenger growth remained robust as airfares remain subdued due to intense and rising competition. Domestic airlines dangled cheap tickets to attract 340,727 new passengers last year.
Airport statistics show that domestic passenger traffic increased by a solid 11.96 percent to 3.18 million last year. This translates into an average of 8,735 persons travelling by air daily. A decade ago, there were 1.37 million air travellers in the domestic sector.
Want to get married? First, have an American green card
Gone are the days when matrimonial advertisements would seek “a fair skin, sanskari girl, who can do household chores”. Today, requirements for a life partner are different. Of course, people still want to have their own love story with all the elements of a romantic movie: wooing each other, going away for romantic getaways, and finally marrying each other—the happy ending of their story. But along with wanting a partner ‘who’s everything you ever wanted’, people now have added a new requirement: they want someone who is a permanent resident in a first world country.
23.12°C Kathmandu
