One major reason why Melamchi Drinking Water Project has become like a mirage for thirsty Kathmandu is because the political leaders in power have cared little to complete the project on time. We were told, months ago, that over 90 percent of the works have been completed and that it would take just a couple of months to get the water from Melamchi to the houses of residents of Kathmandu Valley.

Acquiring driving license after passing the driving test should be predictable. But vast majority of applicants here have to wait for months on end to get them even though they have completed all the required processes.

With counting still underway as we write this, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is set to return to power in New Delhi with a thumping majority. As of this writing it is leading in over 60 of the 70 seats, with BJP trailing far behind. The Indian National Congress is nowhere to be seen. AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal is all set to return as Delhi’s chief minister for the third consecutive term. Kejriwal’s party highlighted the government’s achievements in reducing electricity bills, improving clinics and government schools.

A company receives a license to operate sand and aggregate depot but runs an asphalt plant at the site instead. It adversely affects people’s health. It badly pollutes the environment and produces excessive noise when the plant is under operation.

It’s more than a month since the outbreak of coronavirus in China.  Death toll is rising, over 800 as of this writing, and more than 35,000 people have been infected so far. Coronavirus outbreak has sent panic across the globe. Meanwhile, many Nepali students and citizens in China have not been able to return home. The videos of these students making appeal to the government of Nepal for making arrangement for their journey back home have gone viral on social media. The government has been criticized for failing to bring them back. As many as 180 Nepali students are learned to have responded to a call by the Nepali Embassy in Beijing for arrangements to return home. Sadly, the government has not been able to bring them back as yet.

In what could be called a major operation in more than a decade, Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed a charge-sheet against 175 individuals at the Special Court on Wednesday in connection with their involvement in illegally registering Lalita Niwas land in the names of various individuals.

Nepal has become self-reliant on poultry products. We no longer have to import eggs and chickens like in the past to fulfill the domestic needs. With this, vast majority of people have access to nutritious food like eggs and chickens. No doubt, this is the result of growing poultry industry in the country.  But at times, it seems, poultry industries and intermediaries have established such cartels and syndicates that they can raise the prices of the poultry products whenever they like. The rising price of poultry products in recent weeks is a case in point.

It has been as we feared. The authorities delegated to conduct screening of passengers entering Nepal at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) failed to screen the passengers coming to Nepal from China on Monday.  The passengers on board the Himalaya Airlines flight, which landed at TIA on Monday, were not screened. It has been learnt that there were no health officials present at the health desk set up there.

The constitution of Nepal promulgated in 2015 has been considered a promising document at home and abroad, in part, because it has enshrined 31 sets of fundamental rights of the citizens. Our list of fundamental rights is comprehensive. These rights—ranging from right to freedom to food security to right of children—can bear fruit only when necessary laws are enacted on time and the required regulations of those laws are put in place. In our case, however, it must be said that both law making and regulations drafting processes have been rather too slow.

While much of the focus of the central committee meeting of Nepal Communist Party (NCP) was centered on MCC grants of the US government and Indo Pacific Strategy, some of the leaders have voiced the concerns of the general public. They have raised the issue of corruption and accountability. They have concluded that many NCP leaders have amassed property illegally and demanded that all their leaders disclose their property details and party should form a powerful commission to probe their property.