With 2,059 cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the past one day, Nepal’s coronavirus case tally hit 100,676 on Friday. Sharing the country’s COVID-19 situation at a virtual press meet, Jageshwar Gautam, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population, said that 2,059 new cases of coronavirus were detected through 13,279 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests conducted at various labs across the country in the past 24 hours. The Kathmandu Valley, which has emerged as a hotspot for the virus, recorded 1,409 cases in the past one day.
Nearly 3,000 Nepal Army (NA) personnel have been infected with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as of Friday. According to the Public Relations Directorate of Nepal Army, a total of 2,988 NA personnel have tested positive for the COVID-19 so far. On Friday alone, 19 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed among army personnel.
eSewa has suffered a massive data breach, exposing email addresses, phone numbers and passwords and other details of an undetermined number of its users. The latest breach that compromises the data of at least two dozen eSewa users also exposes the vulnerability of data at the online payment service provider that runs mobile wallet allowing its users to make fund transfers as well as online and offline payment through mobile phones or websites.
Republica Morning Brief: Oct 18
The demands presented by senior orthopedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC are politically driven, and are not just related to bringing reforms in the medical education sector of the country, a Cabinet minister has claimed. Talking to Republica’s premium show #2030, Minister for Education, Science and Technology, Giriraj Mani Pokharel said that the demands raised by Dr KC are not limited to medical reforms and are rather driven by political interests. The remarks of Minister Pokharel come in the wake of the government refusing to hold talks with Dr KC.
Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Yogesh Bhattarai and Indian Ambassador to Nepal, Vinay Mohan Kwatra have discussed the resumption of flights between the two countries. The service has remained suspended following the nationwide lockdown in Nepal in March. In a meeting on Friday, they talked about issuing air route permits from the Bhairahawa, Nepalgunj and Mahendranagar checkpoints.
Bharat Raj Paudyal has been promoted as the new foreign secretary. A recent Cabinet meeting decided to promote Paudyal, the senior-most joint secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), to the post of foreign secretary. The newly-appointed foreign secretary assumed his office on Friday. He is the 24th foreign secretary of the Government of Nepal. Paudyal is a career diplomat, who served as Nepal’s ambassador to Pakistan from 2012 to 2016. He has served as Nepal's diplomat in various capacities both at home and abroad in his career that began in 1987. In his capacity as the Director General of the Department of Passport under MoFA, Paudyal played an instrumental role to introduce Machine Readable Passport (MRP) in Nepal in December 2010.
The Kathmandu-Tarai/Madhesh Fast Track project, which is listed as a national pride project, has achieved a very minimum physical progress. The physical progress of the project, which the government started in the fiscal year 2016/17 with an aim to complete its construction within four years, has been very disappointing. According to the predetermined schedule, the project should have completed more than two thirds of the construction works as of now. But the project has achieved only 11 percent overall progress.
