Our constitution has envisioned bicameral legislature with the House of Representatives as the lower house and the National Assembly as the upper house. Upper House, among other things, is also meant for ensuring the balanced representation. According to the constitution, in the 59-member National Assembly, 56 members are elected by ensuring representation of at least three women, one Dalit and one from persons with disabilities or minorities, from each State by an electoral college composed of members of provincial assembly and chairpersons and vice-chairpersons of the local bodies.

That Chhaupadi system—whereby girls and women are secluded during menstruation for days and are forced to live in dangerous sheds—is a human cruelty is no brainer. This has resulted in huge social, psychological and physical harm on women. They have suffered isolation, poor hygiene, sexual abuse and even deaths while adhering to this extremely harmful traditional practice.

Ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) leaders look headed toward scuttling the 500 million dollar American grant largely on the basis of misinformation and rhetoric. NCP has remained a divided house on Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) grant assistance of the US government. While a section of leaders, mostly representing former UML, has stood in favour of endorsing MCC agreement from the parliament, those aligned with former Maoist faction seem resolutely opposed to the idea. It was hoped that the task force formed by NCP to study the matter and make the recommendations to the government would come up with the needed solution. It did not. As a matter fact, the task force, which submitted its recommendations to the government on February 21, seems to have made the matters worse, when it suggested that the government should not endorse MCC without revising the contract.  The government has been hesitant to even start deliberations on MCC after the task force submitted its report.

Black-marketing amid fear of coronavirus

As we celebrate the International Women's Day today, there is a lot to reflect where and how the world, including Nepal, is failing to treat women with respect and why the biases and injustice happening to half of the world's population must be done away with, once and for all.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has been admitted to the Kidney Transplantation Unit at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) to undergo a second kidney transplant, which is scheduled for today. The PM has been suffering from kidney trouble and has been visiting hospitals abroad for checkups and undergoing regular dialysis inside the country.

A youth threw shoes at Chairperson of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Pushpa Kamal Dahal at City Hall in Kathmandu on Sunday. Dahal narrowly escaped the attack. The incident occurred when Dahal was coming back to his seat after making a speech at the program organized to mark the first death anniversary of communist leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari.

There is a reason to panic about COVID-19.  The disease that originated from Wuhan of China in late December last year has claimed over 2900 lives and infected over 98,000 people worldwide (the toll is ever rising).  The infection that was limited to China and few other countries until recently has now spread to over 60 countries across the globe.  From Japan to South Korea, to the UK to the US to Iran, COVID-19 seems to have reached every corner of the globe.

Government’s open protection for a business group close to the ruling party has become a matter of serious public concern recently. Its undue favor for Yeti Group and various companies associated with it, for example, has not only brought the disgrace on the government but also Yeti Group is becoming synonymous with misrule and policy corruption.  The government allowed it to use several prime public properties including Nepal Trust property worth billions of rupees from Kathmandu to the Everest Base Camp for business.  Yeti Group managed to transfer the ownership of land inside the Sagarmatha National Park to its name to establish Kongde View Resort.

Nepal Communist Party (NCP) is once again embroiled in intra-party feud. Differences among top leaders, including KP Sharma Oli, Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal, have surfaced, and it is likely to impact our political stability. Nepalis voted for stability and development. But the party’s infighting exposed personal ambitions above everything else. Recent political developments are deeply troubling for the country. Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has not shied away from venting his frustration over the government’s inability to pass MCC, and resolve some outstanding issues within the party.