These are some of the best stories from The Kathmandu Post (March 12, 2020). Women learn to make face masks at the Social Welfare Council Office of Lalitpur Metropolitan City. Photo Courtesy: Gyani Shova Manandhar
These are some of the best stories from The Kathmandu Post (March 12, 2020).
Ruling party is undecided and Speaker is reluctant, leaving the House without Deputy Speaker
It has been more than a month and a half since Agni Sapkota was elected the Speaker, but there are no signs of when the House of Representatives will get its Deputy Speaker.
The constitution requires the Speaker and Deputy Speaker to be from different parties and genders. The Deputy Speaker chairs the House when the Speaker is absent for any reason.
According to sources, the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP), from which Sapkota was elected Speaker, has yet to take a decision on the Deputy Speaker on the grounds that there won’t be any problem since the Speaker is there to chair the House.
With Oli likely to be out of commission for longer, concerns about governance remain
Before going to the hospital for his second kidney transplant, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, in a video message, said that he had “put in place all the measures” to deal with day-to-day governance. But a week since Oli went into surgery, those measures have yet to come into effect as governance and politics have all but come to a halt. Oli did not even bother to name an officiating prime minister, leaving no one in charge of state affairs while he is convalescing.
After a successful surgery, Oli is currently recuperating, but on Tuesday, doctors said that it would take at least six months for the prime minister to be able to properly resume his work.
Financially free abroad, socially constrained at home
Rojina Gurung knew exactly what she needed to do to alleviate her family’s financial insecurity. Interest on a loan that she and her husband had taken for her mother-in-law’s medical operations was piling up and her husband’s job as a bus driver did not provide an adequate income to both pay off the loan and provide for daily expenses. Although Gurung was self-employed as a tailor, the majority of her time was spent as a homemaker. So, in 2015, just before the earthquakes struck, Gurung decided to try her luck as a labour migrant in the United Arab Emirates.
In the UAE, Gurung worked as domestic help to a family of five, looking after three children along with cleaning and cooking. She earned around Rs30,000 per month, a salary that was enough to financially support her family back home and also save some money.
There are 129 land crossings with India and China. Only 41 will get health desks
In a bid to screen people entering Nepal from neighbouring India and China, the Ministry of Health and Population is working to set up at least 41 health desks at various land crossing points.
Of the 129 land crossing points with the southern and northern neighbours, health desks will be set up at 41 busy crossing points in view of the global Covid-19 outbreak, according to the ministry.
In a bid to address a shortage of surgical masks amid the increasing Covid-19 fears, the Lalitpur Metropolitan City is set to manufacture cloth masks in all of its 29 wards and distribute to each household at a minimal cost, beginning Friday.
People in the City can purchase the cloth masks made up of pure cotton in a price range of Rs5 to Rs7.
9.6°C Kathmandu
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