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W I T H O U T F E A R O R F A V O U RNepal’s largest selling English dailyPrinted simultaneously in Kathmandu, Biratnagar, Bharatpur and Nepalgunj

Vol XXIX No. 179 | 8 pages | Rs.5Monday, August 16, 2021 | 32-04-2078

34.5 C 14.0 CNepalgunj Jomsom

O O

Post Photo: hEMANtA shREsthA

Kantipur Editor Umesh Chauhan (left) moderates a session participated by Finance Minister Janardan Sharma, Minendra Rijal, Bimala Rai Paudyal, Shekhar Golchha and Bhogendra Jha at the Kantipur Economic Summit 2021 in the Capital on Sunday. (Report on page 5)

ARJUN POUDELKATHMANDU, AUG 15

Over 50 percent of the country’s popu-lation has already been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19, according to a preliminary report of a large-scale seroprevalence study car-ried out by the Ministry of Health and Population.

The nationwide study carried out in 76 of the 77 districts of the country, except for Manang, in July, with tech-nical as well as financial support from the World Health Organisation, has found that the majority of the popula-tion in densely populated cities across the country has antibodies for the coronavirus.

“A preliminary report of the study shows that over 50 percent of the coun-try’s population was found to have antibodies against the coronavirus,” an official at the Health Ministry told the Post on condition of anonymity.

Antibodies are found in people who are already infected with the coronavi-rus or have been vaccinated.

“About 97 percent of the work of the seroprevalence survey has been com-pleted and preliminary findings show a large percentage of the population has Covid-19 antibodies,” Dr Krishna Prasad Paudel, spokesperson for the Health Ministry, told the Post. “Though the final report is yet to be prepared, a significant portion of the population, which could be 50 percent, already has coronavirus antibodies.”

As blood samples were collected

randomly for the study, samples of the vaccinated population were also included.

According to the latest data of the Ministry of Health, 4,684,509 people, or 15.61 percent of the country’s total population, have taken the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine while 3,364,157, or 11.21 percent, have been fully vaccinated.

Serology tests look for either immu-noglobulin M (IgM) or immunoglobu-lin G (IgG), the two antibodies against the coronavirus.

Immunoglobulin M is the first anti-body developed by the immune sys-tem, and can be detected in the blood-stream within a week or two after infection or after a few weeks of vacci-nation. Immunoglobulin G, mean-while, is detected only after two weeks.

Blood samples of over 13,500 people, chosen randomly, were collected and tested at the National Public Health Laboratory for antibodies.

The Central Bureau of Statistics helped in choosing the samples to make the collection more scientific, according to Paudel, who is also the director of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division.

Public health experts, however, cautioned that this does not mean that herd immunity, a situation when a large portion of the population becomes immune to a disease, is close to being achieved and that there still is a need to continue with safety precautions.

>> Continued on page 2

REUtERsKABUL, AUG 15

Afghanistan’s Taliban entered the capital Kabul on Sunday and Western-backed President Ashraf Ghani left the country, with the insurgents say-ing they were seeking complete power.

Two officials from the militant Islamist group told Reuters there would be no transitional government following their lighting sweep across Afghanistan that led back to the capi-tal two decades after the Taliban was overthrown by US-led forces.

Taliban fighters entered the presi-dential palace and took control of it,

two senior Taliban commanders in Kabul said. The Afghan government did not confirm this.

American diplomats were evacuat-ed from their embassy by helicopter to the airport as local Afghan forces, trained for years and equipped by the United States and others for billions of dollars, melted away.

Ghani’s destination was uncertain: a senior Interior Ministry official said he had left for Tajikistan, while a Foreign Ministry official said his loca-tion was unknown and the Taliban said it was checking his whereabouts.

Some local social media users branded him a “coward” for leaving

them in chaos.Taliban fighters reached

Kabul “from all sides”, the sen-ior Interior Ministry official told Reuters and there were some reports of sporadic gunfire around the city.

A Kabul hospital said more than 40 people wounded in clash-es on the outskirts were being treated, but there did not appear to be major fighting.

It was not clear yet how power would be transferred.

The Taliban said it was waiting for the Western-backed government to surrender peacefully.

“Taliban fighters are to be on stand-by on all entrances of Kabul until a peaceful and satisfactory transfer of power is agreed,” said spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

The government’s acting interior minister, Abdul Sattar Mirzakawal, said power would be handed over to a transitional administration.

“There won’t be an attack on the city, it is agreed that there will be a peaceful handover,” he tweeted.

Many Afghans fear the Taliban will return to past harsh practices in their imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law. During their 1996-2001 rule, women could not work and punishments such as stoning, whipping and hanging were administered.

The militants sought to project a more moderate face, promising to respect women’s rights and protect both foreigners and Afghans.

“We assure the people, particularly in the city of Kabul, that their proper-ties, their lives are safe,” he told the BBC, saying a transfer of power was expected in days.

Many of Kabul’s streets were choked by cars and people either try-ing to rush home or reach the airport, residents said.

“Some people have left their keys in the car and have started walking to the airport,” one resident told Reuters. Another said: “People are all going home in fear of fighting.”

Early on Sunday, refugees from Taliban-controlled provinces were seen unloading belongings from taxis and families stood outside embassy gates, while the city’s downtown was packed with people stocking up on supplies.

US officials said diplomats were being ferried by helicopters to the airport from its embassy in the forti-fied Wazir Akbar Khan district. An official for the transatlantic NATO alliance said several European Union staff had moved to a safer location in Kabul. US troops were still arriving at the airport, amid concern heavily armed Afghan security contractors could “mutiny” because they have not been assured Washington is commit-ted to evacuating them, a person familiar with the issue said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Washington that the embassy was being moved to the air-port and has a list of people to get out of harm’s way.

Asked if images of helicopters ferrying personnel were evocative of the United States’ departure from Vietnam in 1975, Blinken told ABC news: “Let’s take a step back. This is manifestly not Saigon.”

A NATO official said the alliance was helping to secure the airport and that a political solution was “now more urgent than ever”.

Russia said it saw no need to evacu-ate its embassy for the time being.

>> Continued on page 6

Half of the population already exposed to the virus, new study says

Taliban want full power after return to Afghanistan capital with lightning sweep

Experts caution against interpreting the number as achieving herd immunity and call for taking precautionary measures and scaling up vaccination.

Taliban fighters say they have entered presidential palace and seized control as President Ashraf Ghani flees.

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MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021 | 02

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Post Photo: KEshAV thAPA

Women wash clothes at a stone spout at Bagalamukhi, Lalitpur on Sunday.

BriefiNG

Cantilever bridge left unused after floods swept away approach wayThe trail should be repaired to ease transportation of food and daily essentials, locals say. HARIRAM UPRETYGORKHA, AUG 15

A cantilever bridge that was built along the cliff of Yarubagar in north-ern Gorkha has been left unused after the flooded Budhigandaki river swept away the approach trail one and half months ago.

“The bridge has been left unused as there is no other way to reach it,” said Bel Bahadur Ghale of Yarubagar. “One has to use a rope to reach the bridge, which is very risky. We don’t know when the bridge will come to use.”

Floods in the Budhigandaki river had swept away around a 100 metres of the foot trail on the southern side of the bridge.

Ward Chairman of Dharche Rural Municipality-1 Dilip Gurung says the flood-ravaged way to the cantilever bridge should be repaired at the earli-est to ease the import of goods and daily essentials.

“People are using alternative ways along the river bank but the banks are approachable only when the water level in the river is low. Around 240

metres of the foot trail should be repaired so that people and mules can cross the area through the cantilever bridge,” said Gurung. “The local gov-ernment does not have the budget to carry out the repair works. The feder-al and provincial governments should provide assistance for it.”

According to Gurung, a temporary path has been built after the risk of food crisis increased in Chumanubri Rural Municipality, which is still dis-connected from road networks. Local residents still have to rely on mules to carry food grains and daily essentials.

After the July 21 flood damaged the foot trail, the locals had to carry food grains and daily essentials to their villages.

“It took around two weeks to con-struct the temporary path at the cost of Rs 800,000. However, we have yet to provide wages to the workers,” said Gurung. “We have demanded a budget from the provincial government for the work.”

Meanwhile, Chumanubri and Dharche rural municipalities have taken the responsibility to repair the

damaged foot trail. “One hundred and seventy pieces of

gabion boxes have been used to con-struct the temporary path. Mules can also make their way through the new trail, which has made it easier to transport food grains and daily essen-tials to villages now,” said Gurung.

On Wednesday, a team of geologists from the National Disaster Management Authority inspected the damaged Yarubagar and Manaslu foot trail area.

“Locals and people’s representa-tives requested the team to repair the damaged foot trail at the earliest,” said Dhan Bahadur Gurung, chair-man of Chumanubri Rural Municipality.

The 195-metre-long cantilever bridge was constructed by drilling the rocky cliff of Yarubagar with the sup-port of the UK Department for International Development in 2016. There used to be wooden bridges in Yarubagar but they were swept away by the flooded Budhigandaki river in 2014, cutting off the northern villages from the district headquarters.

>> Continued from page 1

They say even if the seroprevalence study shows that the majority of the population has natural immunity or is already exposed to the virus, antibod-ies gained from an infection do not last long and this is shown by multiple international studies.

“I think the result of the seropreva-lence study should be taken with caution,” Dr Biraj Karmacharya, an epidemiologist, told the Post. “Even if 50 percent of the population has already been exposed to the coro-navirus, the remaining 50 percent is still at high risk of contracting the virus. Authorities should therefore focus on protecting those popula-tions.”

Further, as the virus continues to mutate and more dangerous variants are emerging, risk has not lessened and people already exposed to the coronavirus or those inoculated could get infected again, doctors say.

It is not known yet for which coro-navirus variant the antibodies have been detected in the samples tested. The Delta variant, first found in India in December last year, has been the most prevalent among Nepalis.

Karmacharya, who also heads the Department of Community Programmes at Dhulikhel Hospital, said all members of his family are currently infected with the virus even though some of them had already been vaccinated.

“Within three days all of my family members got infected. The Delta vari-ant, which has been wreaking havoc throughout the globe, could be respon-sible,” said Karmacharya. “We should not forget what is happening in the United States of America.”

Despite the fact that more than 50 percent of the total population in the United States has been fully vaccinat-ed, over 70,000 people are getting infected every day of late.

Similarly, a study carried out in New Delhi in February had shown that 56 percent of the population of the Indian capital had antibodies but it became among the worst affected areas when the second wave hit the country in March.

The Health Ministry had carried out a seroprevalence survey in September 2020 also, which showed that one in eight people, or 13 percent of the population, had been exposed to the coronavirus. And in some districts, the figure was as high

as 28 percent.Doctors say that the seroprevalence

survey provides data on the preva-lence of the coronavirus in communi-ties, and helps authorities prepare strategies—locate hotspots and take necessary measures to contain the spread of the virus.

“The findings of the seroprevalence study should help authorities priori-tise population groups for inoculation and take measures in the areas which have been less exposed to the virus,” Dr Prabhat Adhikari, an infectious disease and critical care expert, told the Post.

Hospitals have reported a surge in admissions of serious Covid-19 patients and oxygen manufactures have said that the demand for the life-saving gas has doubled over the past week as a semblance of normalcy has returned although some restrictions are still in place in infection hotspots like Kathmandu Valley.

On Sunday, the Health Ministry reported that 1,793 people tested posi-tive for the coronavirus in 8,088 poly-merase chain reaction tests and an additional 419 tested positive in 4,018 antigen tests. The number of active cases stands at 39,298.

With 33 deaths reported on Sunday, the Covid-19 toll has reached 10,292 since the pandemic began in January last year.

Public health experts say that sero-prevalence studies should be carried out on a regular basis, as they provide insights into the extent of the infec-tion in the population and help plan the fight against the pandemic accord-ingly.

Authorities concerned can take a call on where to enforce restrictive measures and increase the availabili-ty of infrastructure such as hospital beds, intensive care unit beds, ventila-tors, isolation wards, and oxygen sup-ply, according to them.

“Whatever the findings of the study, risks of infection are increasing and preventive measures are still relevant,” Dr Sher Bahadur Pun, chief of the Clinical Research Unit at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, told the Post. “If the number of new cases keeps growing at the current pace, health facilities will be overwhelmed soon and we have not forgotten what we saw during the peak of the second wave.”

Half of the population already exposed to ...

Man arrested on rape chargeGULMI: Police have arrested a 36-year-old man from Kaligandaki Rural Municipality in Gulmi district on the charge of raping a four-year-old girl. Security personnel from Bhutunga Police Post detained the suspect and brought him to the district headquar-ters on Friday evening. “Detailed investigation into the incident is underway,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Purushottam Prasad Pandey.

Covid-19 cases up in Nawalparasi (East)NAWALPARASI (EAST): The number of Covid-19 patients has been increasing in Nawalparasi district in the last one week. Chhabi Subedi, information officer at the District Hospital, said, “The District Hospital in Nawalparasi (East) receives five to seven coronavirus patients on a daily basis. The rate of infection has doubled now.” According to the data of the District Health Office in Nawalparasi (East), there are 749 active cases of Covid-19 in the district.

Security personnel deployed to destroy marijuana plants LAMJUNG: The District Administration Office in Lamjung has launched a campaign to destroy marijuana plants in the district. Security per-sonnel, in coordination with local people’s representatives, have been deployed in various settlements to destroy marijuana plants. “Besides destroying the plants, we have also been informing people that growing marijuana is illegal,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Krishna Bahadur Karki.

Geological study finds 13 settlements of Bahrabise at high risk of landslides, floodsThe study team has recommended the relocation of 5,000 households in several settlements that are at risk.

ANISH TIWARISINDHUPALCHOK, AUG 15

A geological study conducted recently in Bahrabise Municipality has point-ed out that 13 settlements of the local unit are at high risk of landslides and floods.

A six-member technical team, including geologists Lekh Prasad Bhatta and Govinda Pathak, visited more than 50 settlements of the municipality for the geological study.

“Thirteen settlements in wards 1 to 9 in Bahrabise Municipality are at high risk of landslides and floods. These settlements should be relocated as soon as possible to protect lives and properties,” Bhatta told the Post.

The geologists from the National Disaster Management Authority in Kathmandu conducted the study with the technical support of Pratibaddha Pariyojana, a project working in Sindhupalchok district to mitigate the risk of natural disasters.

The technical team has listed around 5,000 households of 13 settle-ments, including Nagpuje, Karthali, Jambu, Bukam and Sotang, as being at high risk of landslides and recom-mended the authorities concerned to take initiatives for their relocation.

“Based on the report of the techni-cal team, a team of geologists and professors will soon visit the affected areas. The team will carry out another detailed geological study and submit its reports to the government,” said Sita Bhujel, the district advocacy coor-dinator of the project.

Following the geological study in Bahrabise Municipality, the technical team is now working in various wards of Bhotekoshi Rural Municipality, another landslide-hit local unit in the district.

According to Sushila Pakhrin, the deputy mayor of Bahrabise Municipality, around 100 families have been shifted to safer locations this year, as their houses are at high risk of landslides and floods. They are now taking shelter under tents at var-ious locations.

“The geological survey was conducted to identify the settlements at risk of natural disaster. Efforts are underway to shift the endangered settlements to safer places,”

said Pakhrin.Sindhupalchok is one of the hard-

est-hit districts by natural disasters. A

devastating landslide had swept away Nagpuje and BK Tole of Ghumthang in Bahrabise Municipality Ward No 7 on September 13, 2020, in which 15 villagers were killed while 16 others are still missing. Likewise, two people were killed and 17 others had gone missing when another landslide struck Jambu in Bahrabise Ward No 5 on July 9 of the same year.

In the last year alone, as many as 73 people died in different landslides in Bahrabise Municipality, Melamchi Municipality, Bhotekoshi Rural Municipality and Jugal Rural

Municipality in the district while for-ty-two people went missing. In 2014, the Jure landslide killed 145 people.

This year, the flooded Melamchi river wreaked havoc in Helambu and Melamchi areas, killing at least five people while 20 others are still miss-ing. The floods and landslides destroyed around 300 houses and dis-placed hundreds of families. The risk of floods and landslides in the area has not decreased yet, as multiple landslides have been reported in Bhemathang and other places above the settlements.

Post Photo: ANIsh tIWARI

a six-member technical team visited more than 50 settlements of Bahrabise municipality for the geological study.

Around 100 endangered families in Bahrabise have been shifted to safer locations this year.

Timber worth millions missing from Kapilvastu community forestMANOJ PAUDELKAPILVASTU, AUG 15

Over 900 cubic feet of timber logs have been missing from the Shringighat Community Forest area in Banganga Municipality since the last two weeks.

Shringighat Community Forest, which covers wards 1, 3, 4 and 5 of Banganga Municipality, is one of the largest community forests in Kapilvastu district.

Initially, information about the missing logs was kept hidden by the community forest consumer commit-tee. The incident came to light only after some forest employees disclosed the information.

A team of technicians from Motipur Sub Division Forest Office found 939.44 cubic feet of logs missing while tallying the wood cutting records in the field. The record shows that 882 cubic feet of sal logs and 56 cubic feet of Asana, Karman and Kusum logs are missing from the field depot. Those logs were stamped and registered, said forest officials.

On March 6, 2020, the Division Forest Office in Kapilvastu had grant-ed permission to the Shringighat Community Forest Consumers Group to cut down 27,508 cubic feet of wood from the community forest.

Krishna Gopal Koju and Ganesh Bahadur Singh Thakuri, forest con-sumers of Banganga Ward No. 4, had received a contract to transport, unload, collect and pile timber at the field depot.

On May 28, 2020, the then govern-ment ordered forest offices to keep the logs inside the forest until further notice. Then after, works related to transportation and measurement of woods came to a halt.

On January 27, the government scrapped the decision and contractors started to transport logs that were cut and recorded from the forest areas to the field depots.

Since June, timber logs from the Shringighat Community Forest have been brought to the field depot in Madhuban Dham, a part of Shringighat Community Forest around six kilometres from the north-ern part of Pawar Community Forest in Arghakhanchi.

Forest technicians had then con-ducted a field measurement of the logs at the field depot.

“The timber logs were found miss-ing when the technicians were meas-uring logs at the field depot,” said

Umesh Kumar Shah, assistant forest officer of Motipur Sub Division Forest Office. “The logs might have gone missing while they were being trans-ported to the field depot or inside the forest.”

The community forest users’ com-mittee is responsible for managing timber in the forest. However, office bearers of the users’ committee and the individuals responsible for manag-ing timber remained tight-lipped about the stolen timber.

After information about the miss-ing logs came to light, the division forest office instructed the forest users’ committee to form a probe committee and investigate the case. A five-member committee headed by Krishna Paudel, the secretary of the forest users’ committee, was formed as per the direction of the for-est office.

The committee submitted its pre-liminary report a few days ago stating that logs were stolen from the commu-nity forest. But the report does not mention how and from where the logs were stolen. And the report does not state who is responsible for the inci-dent.

The forest consumers suspect that the probe committee prepared such an incomplete report to protect the guilty.

“The report does not show who was responsible for the missing timber. The case of timber theft will continue unless the guilty are punished,” said a consumer preferring anonymity.

As per the valuation of the commu-nity forest users’ committee, the sto-len logs cost around Rs 700,000 based on its minimum rate fixed while sell-ing the timber to consumers. However, its market price is more than three fold.

The community forest users’ committee claims that incidents of timber theft are rife in the district since the government imposed a ban on the collection, transportation and sale of timber from the communi-ty forest.

Meanwhile, Renu Sen, the chairper-son of the community forest consumers’ committee, said, “The contractors who were given responsibility for logging could not complete their work on time. The government later banned the logging and transportation of timber in the community forest. Since the forest guards provide security in the forest area during day time, the timber could have been stolen at night.” sh

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03 | MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021

NATiONAl

Maoist party fears becoming irrelevant, stresses reforms

TIKA R PRADHANKATHMANDU, AUG 15

The first central committee meeting of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) held after it was revived on March 7 by the Supreme Court has concluded that the party has become irrelevant as it is no dif-ferent from the other political parties.

While concluding the meeting, Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who has been leading the party for the last three decades, said the Maoist party will lose its significance unless it improves on its ongoing activities.

Dahal said that his party may look alright but it is not different from other “bourgeois reactionary parties”.

“If we continue with our current activities, this party will be of no use. Communist parties in the world have fallen,” a central committee member quoted Dahal as saying at the meeting. “If we cannot be honest with our class and principles, we should rather involve ourselves in research or write books by dissolving the party.”

Dahal’s candid statement has impressed many of the central com-mittee, though they are not yet convinced that the party’s leadership will change or reform itself.

“We discussed at length that our party in its present form is not neces-sary as there are many similar ones,” said Lekhnath Neupane, a central committee member. “Top leaders have promised to reform themselves to

bring change in the party.”He, however, said that the party

leaders would believe the words only after the top leaders start acting accordingly.

The meeting concluded that the party would be able to find a way to reform itself before the upcoming national conference scheduled for January 25-27 next year.

During the two-day long meeting, leaders raised a host of issues for bringing reforms to the party. They suggested that the party could be developed into a centre of the left par-ties but for that the leaders need to change their existing behaviour.

The party also concluded that the risk of regression still exists therefore it needs to work honestly to imple-ment the constitution.

“Although the regressive moves of the previous [Oli] government have been defeated, such risks have not gone away completely,” said Narayan Kaji Shrestha, party’s spokesperson, following the meeting held at a party palace.

The central committee meeting of the Maoist Centre was the continua-tion of the one that was held on March 15-16 after the court’s verdict.

The March meeting had decided to retain the 200 central members who were included during the merger with UML in May 2018. Among them there are only 179 members but the party has amended the statute to increase it to 299.

Chairman Dahal had presented an eight-page political document on Saturday and eight groups had presented their views on it Sunday.

Dahal had proposed that the exist-ing coalition of leftist and democratic parties would continue until the upcoming polls but the leaders have questioned whether that would be the right thing to do.

“The meeting has amended Dahal’s proposal saying that the alliance would continue to safeguard the con-stitution and democracy,” said Neupane.

The Dahal-led Maoist party has long been lobbying for a directly-elected President but due to its weakened strength in the second Constituent Assembly, the party was unable to enshrine the idea in the constitution. But the central committee meeting has again called for a directly-elected presidential system and a proportion-al representation election system say-ing they are needed for resolving the existing problems in governance. However, the issue has not been high-lighted citing that it could affect the existing alliance of the left and demo-cratic forces.

The meeting endorsed Dahal’s polit-ical document with some corrections and the party’s statute. As per the interim party statute, the party will now have 299-strong central commit-tee, a 100-member politburo and a 33-member Standing Committee. Now the Maoist party will have office-bear-ers including vice-chairperson, gener-al secretary, deputy general secretary and secretary like in the CPN-UML.

The party, which waged a dec-ade-long insurgency to bring change in society, has also decided to make its party committees inclusive with 35 percent women, 15 percent Dalits and at least 20 percent youths.

In line with the federal system, the party has decided to change the exist-ing executive district committees into district coordination committees and further empower the committees in provinces and local units.

According to insiders, the party has decided to form a mechanism to sup-port the party’s ministers serving in the federal and provincial govern-ments to help them perform better. “We have decided to focus on educa-tion, health and the programmes for the peasants,” said a central commit-tee member asking not to be named.

One million applicants affected as driving licence tests yet to resume Department of Transport Management says it can’t conduct the tests without receiving a nod from Covid-19 Crisis Management Centre.ANUP OJHAKATHMANDU, AUG 15

Just a week before the prohibitory orders were imposed in Kathmandu Valley, Nirmala Ghimire had bought a new scooter to ease her commute to her office from her apartment at Kalanki.

She used to commute by public transport earlier. By getting the scoot-er, Ghimire thought she was reducing her risk of catching the coronavirus.

The 26-year-old says she had learned to ride before buying the scooter and was prepared to take the test for a two-wheeler licence.

But she could not take the test as the Department of Transport Management was not conducting the test.

Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the department has not issued new driving licences since March last year. Although the department opened online applications for driving licenc-es in mid-January this year, it has not yet conducted the driving trials.

Ghimire says she was compelled to ride her scooter to work without licence when Kathmandu Valley was under strict prohibitory orders and public vehicles were not allowed to operate.

“I had a travel pass issued by my office but no licence,” she said. “I was stopped by traffic police more than six times during the prohibitory orders and every time I managed to get off after showing the pass issued by my office.”

Mina Khadga has a similar experi-ence of riding her scooter to work without a licence during the lockdown last year.

The 25-year-old had got a new scoot-er just before the lockdown and applied for a licence. She too is wait-ing for the transport department to resume the tests for driving licence.

“I have been stopped twice by traffic police. When they asked whether I have a licence, I told them confidently that I have it. Luckily, they didn’t both-er to see,” said Khadga, who lives at Bakhundole.

Khadga feels bad about having to lie about having a licence. But she also says she had no choice since travelling by public transport is not safe.

Her application for a licence was not processed as the transport depart-

ment closed its services soon after she had applied.

According to the department, around 7,000 licence applications have been pending for a year.

In nearly four months from mid-Jan-uary until the prohibitory orders were imposed this year, the department has resumed services such as licence renewal, vehicle registration and tax collection. However, the process of issuing new driving licences remains suspended.

Loknath Bhusal, spokesperson of the department, said in the past 15 months, an estimated 1 million people haven’t been able to get their driving licences.

“We can’t resume our service with-out receiving a nod from the Covid-19 Crisis Management Centre,” said Bhusal.

Among the people who are unable to get driving licences are students going abroad for further studies and migrant workers.

Rayan Sunuwar of Gothatar has applied for a college in the United Kingdom. He expects to get his visa this month.

“One of my relatives who lives in the

UK has advised me to get a licence, but it’s impossible,” the 21-year-old said.

Bhusal, the spokesperson for the transport department, says currently they can only renew the licences of those people who are going abroad.

The halt in the services has left the buyers of two-wheelers and other vehicles frustrated. It has also caused many people like Ghimire and Khadga to drive without a licence, because they do not feel safe travelling in pub-lic vehicles, where Covid safety proto-cols are rarely followed.

“Even though you can ride well and own a vehicle, the authorities do not give you a licence under the pretext of the pandemic,” said Ghimire. “The government should find an alterna-tive. Everything is open these days. I don’t understand why the transport department is not conducting the test when new vehicles are being sold every day.”

Nepal imported 208,793 two-wheel-ers worth Rs18.76 billion in the fiscal year 2019-20, according to the Department of Customs, while their number reached 355,959, which cost Rs33.19 billion, in the fiscal year 2020-21.

Party’s central committee meet warns Maoist Centre could turn into a reactionary party.

Post file Photo

Transport department has not conducted driving licence tests since March last year.

Post file Photo

Dahal presented an eight-page political document at the meeting.

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MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021 | 04

OpiNiON

The Nepal Rastra Bank, Nepal’s central bank, published its monetary policy for the fiscal year 2021/22 on August 13. Earlier, it was on course to make it pub-lic in the third week of July. The delay was due to the change in government. After the Supreme Court on July 12 reinstated the dissolved House of Representatives and ordered Sher Bahadur Deuba to be appointed as new prime minister, KP Sharma Oli resigned on the 13th. Deuba took the oath of office the same day, appointing Janardan Sharma of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center) as finance minister. A new coalition gov-ernment and a new finance minister meant a possible change in fiscal policy, which the monetary policy supposedly needed to accommodate.

The 165 lawmakers that voted for Deuba in the reinstated parliament belong to a disparate group. Besides Deuba’s party, Nepali Congress, law-makers from the CPN (Maoist Center), the main opposition within the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), both factions of the

Janata Samajbadi Party, and the Rastriya Janamorcha supported him. In essence, he has many sides to please while Cabinet portfolios are limited. Budget is one other tool he can use. On August 10, Minister Sharma told Parliament that the government is revising the budget presented by Bishnu Prasad Paudel, his predecessor. By convention, the Nepal Rastra Bank tries to incorporate a new budget in its monetary policy. But it does not have to.

Objectives of the Nepal Rastra BankAs per the Nepal Rastra Bank Act, 2002, (1) the objectives of the bank are: (a) to formulate, and manage, monetary and foreign exchange policy needed to maintain price and balance of payment stability for the achievement of eco-nomic stability and sustainable devel-opment of the economy; (b) to raise public confidence toward the banking and financial system by making the sectors stable and by increasing access to financial services; (c) to develop a secure, healthy and efficient payment system. (2) The bank, without adversely impacting the objectives outlined in subsection 1, will extend cooperation to the government of Nepal in the implementation of eco-nomic policy.

Sub-section 2 under section 4 is vague, but nowhere does it say that the bank needs to consult the government. Here is the issue: The bank’s sev-en-member board of directors is chaired by the governor—currently, Maha Prasad Adhikari, who began his five-year term in April last year. Secretary of finance and two deputy governors fill up three slots. The other three members are government appoin-tees from among renowned persons in the fields of economics, money, bank-

ing, finance, commerce, management, and commercial law and from among deputy governors. The finance secre-tary also chairs a three-member com-mittee to recommend three names to fill the governor’s post. The board’s decisions are majority-based.

The presence of the finance secre-tary can create conflict. He is a bureau-crat but will, in all probability, toe the line of whoever is in power. In the cur-rent government, the main parties involved—Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Center), Janata Samajbadi Party, and the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led faction within CPN (UML)—all adhere to different political philoso-phies and have their own sets of prior-ities. Deep down, they all want to win the next election. The party in power would like to go to the voters and brag that the country did well under its lead-ership. The primary focus is growth—at any cost. Central bankers, on the other hand, need to seek maximum employment with as keen a focus on price stability.

Fiscal versus monetaryWe often hear of politicians clashing with central bankers—in emerging economies as well as developed ones. In March, the Turkish lira collapsed 15 percent after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sacked the country’s central bank governor. Naci Agbal had been raising interest rates as inflation was running above 15 percent. Erdogan the politician could not stomach tighter monetary policy. Or take India, where Urjit Patel resigned as Reserve Bank of India governor in December 2018 over differences with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the latter, ahead of elections, sought to increase govern-ment spending by transferring some of

the central bank’s $132 billion in cash reserves.

Even the world’s leading economies are not immune to this controversy. In the US in 2019 and early 2020, President Donald Trump openly and routinely urged Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to lower rates, even using derogatory Twitter posts. In the nineties, Chairman Alan Greenspan was blamed by President George Bush for his 1992 loss to President Bill Clinton for not lowering interest rates enough during the 1990-1991 recession. Such actions only give fodder to critics who question Fed’s independence. In Japan, the Bank of Japan was criti-cised in late 2012 for making markets wait longer than usual for a monetary policy announcement; critics regularly point out that the bank is subject to political interference.

Ideally, politics and central banking should be like oil and water. But we do not live in a perfect world. The issue is crucial in markets such as Nepal’s that are just getting off the ground. Governments that do not acknowledge the significance of the central bank’s independence will sooner or later face a revolt in markets. From this perspec-tive, the 2016 second amendment of the Nepal Rastra Bank Act added section 106 C, which states that (1) the govern-ment of Nepal may give directives to the bank as relates to currency, bank-ing, and finance and that (2) it will be the bank’s duty to abide by those. This is a huge red flag, as it gives politicians ample space to interfere. This section should be deleted, and the finance sec-retary should not be a part of the board.

Pandey talks markets, money and mac-roeconomics on hedgopia.com.

Most of the “geopolitical” threats, real or confected, that capture headlines in the West nowadays are exogenous—emanating from China, Russia, Iran, and so forth. But others lie within the world’s democracies. Among these are the US Republican Party’s embrace of Trumpian authoritarianism, which is eroding the country’s democracy, and the possibility that new unanticipated variants of populism will take hold around the world.

One new variant of populism might involve hostility toward both costly green policies and vaccination against Covid-19. And it would be driven by a combination of genuine concerns about pocketbook issues and the kinds of conspiratorial lunacy that thrive on the internet.

Anti-green populism is particularly likely to flourish in the more fossil fuel-dependent economies of Central and Eastern Europe, in response to the European Union’s new strategy for reducing greenhouse gases by 55 per-cent by 2030. Indeed, the so-called Fit for 55 plan would seem to call for the whole-sale remodeling of these economies.

Consider Poland, which generates 70 percent of its energy from coal and receives additional supplies through a gas pipeline from Russia. Coal is espe-cially abundant in southern Poland, where it is used to fuel giant power stations that provide industry with cheap electricity.

If it is to meet EU emissions targets, Poland is going to have to decarbonise more extensively and rapidly than any-

one else. The government recently set an ambitious goal of reducing the pro-portion of coal in the country’s energy mix from 70 percent to 11 percent by 2040. But that will have massive impli-cations for mining, which employs some 100,000 heavily unionised and politically influential workers.

Moreover, with little wind or sun-shine in winter, Poland is ill suited for renewable-energy deployment. Instead, it has set its sights on “solu-tions” like nuclear power and the “Baltic Pipe” gas pipeline—subsidised by the European Commission to the tune of €215 million ($251 million)—to import gas from Norway via Denmark.

But neither of these options has gone down well in Germany. If Poland’s efforts to align with EU poli-cy put it at loggerheads with key neighbors and trade partners, it will be damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. The conditions are set for a thriving anti-green populism.

Yet this populist threat is hardly limited to Central and Eastern Europe. Opposition to climate action could just as easily spread to Europe’s more established democracies if costly items like air source heat pumps and smart meters are rendered technologi-cally redundant, or if vehicles with internal combustion engines are forced off the road by government fiat.

In fact, France was briefly the epi-center of an anti-green backlash in Europe, with the rambunctious gilets jaunes (yellow vest) protests that began in 2018. Angry citizens who rely on cars to get around their country districts eventually forced President Emmanuel Macron to rescind a new tax on diesel fuel. They had a point, considering that the infrastructure for more expensive electric vehicles sim-ply does not exist in France (or any-where else).

More recently, a significant share of this cohort seems to have joined with militant anti-vaxxers (many of them on the far right) who have adopted various libertarian poses propagated on the internet. This confluence of grievance may have traction, especial-ly as more conventional populist movements have begun to take a bat-tering, notably in Hungary, Poland,

Slovenia, and elsewhere. People have grown weary of authoritarianism, corruption, and divisiveness during the pandemic—a crisis that was gross-ly mishandled by populist govern-ments, in particular. The likes of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán are the elite, not some anti-sys-temic opposition to it.

Opposition to vaccination is as old as inoculation itself. The English city of Leicester used to be a hotbed of it. In 1885, 100,000 people there attended an anti-vaccination rally, complete with a child’s coffin and an effigy of Edward Jenner, the pioneer of small-pox vaccination. Such movements were often based on a fusion of funda-mentalist Christianity (which opposed

interference in God’s work) and suspi-cion of powers being arrogated by the modern state, which made vaccina-tion mandatory for infants or children entering school.

The only unique contribution of our current age is the role of social media in amplifying the views of crank medics and scientists, as hap-pened after The Lancet published (and then retracted) Andrew Wakefield’s false claims that there is a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

Nowadays, any online search of vaccines immediately reveals a dis-proportionate number of anti-vacci-nation sites, as well as pernicious guff claiming that the barring of unvacci-

nated youth from nightclubs is akin to Jews being sent to Auschwitz. Versions of that analogy have long appeared in the British Daily Telegraph, courtesy of its dogmatical-ly libertarian commentators, who have made common cause with the likes of the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), Italy’s homegrown fascist movement. Any enemy of the EU is their best friend by default. Although the overwhelming majority of Italians support the government’s green pass initiative, Fratelli’s leader, Giorgia Meloni, loudly does not.

In the homeland of Louis Pasteur, such militants are particularly exer-cised by the government’s vac-cine-passport rules, which exclude the

unvaccinated from concerts, cinemas, museums, swimming pools, theatres, and restaurants where 50 people or more are gathered. More trouble may ensue if nurses (only 50-58 percent of whom are vaccinated) are prevented from working until they receive two doses; or if railway workers raise objections about having to enforce vaccine-passport rules on local and commuter trains. No job should involve the risk of being headbutted or punched in the face.

It was perhaps inevitable that the parasitic populist right would latch onto these issues. Although Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally party has typically hedged her bets, her former right-hand man, Florian Philipott, was very vocal at the biggest of the many anti-vaccine rallies in July. These are growing in size by the month, with 200,000 attending the first one in August. This “movement” flourishes among the semi-educated in small towns and in cities like Marseille, where obdurate pastis guz-zlers and religious immigrant commu-nities also contribute to its ranks.

However, it is worth stressing that 62 percent of the silent majority in France supports vaccine passports, and 70 percent want all hospital and care-home workers to be fully vacci-nated. That is probably why Macron has stuck to his guns: he hopes that rationality will prevail and that any increase in economic activity will ben-efit his campaign in 2022. Let’s hope he is right.

Still, one can see the outlines of an emerging political fusion between irrationality and pocketbook issues. As anti-vaxxers and anti-greens join forces, any number of stray populist demagogues might seek to lead such a movement. That underscores the importance of UN initiatives such as Team Halo, which has brought togeth-er scientists to publicise the impor-tance of vaccines, especially on social media platforms.

Michael Burleigh, a senior fellow at LSE Ideas, is the author, most recently, of Populism: Before and After the Pandemic (Hurst 2021).

— Project Syndicate

A dangerous new variant of populism

Ideally, politics and central banking should be like oil and water.

Paban Raj Pandey

Why we need an independent central bankEDiTORiAL

Earlier this month, the death of Jaya Singh Dhami in the remote Darchula district shook the nation. While investiga-tions are underway to ascertain if a member of India’s Sashastra Seema Bal detached the metal cable from a tree just when Dhami was about to make it across the Mahakali River, the incident exposes how villagers in remote regions of Nepal continue to live in a state of statelessness. For the lack of a bridge, people are forced to cross rivers using tuins, unsafe boats, tubes, and wooden planks, and recurrent reports of lives lost while attempting to cross the river are worrisome.

Limi village in the remote Humla district is one such exam-ple. Every monsoon, the Karnali River swells up and cuts the villagers’ access to the district headquarters of Simikot. Without a bridge, villagers swim or wade across the river by forming a human chain. An alternative route across a stream does not have a bridge, and repeated pleas for a bridge have remained unanswered, forcing people to risk their lives or wait until the water level recedes in December. For some 1,100 residents of Limi that covers Til, Jang and Halji villages, this is an annual event that disrupts their lives and puts them in a precarious situation. But the story is not limited to Limi; it reverberates across the country where access remains limit-ed throughout seasons. It does not only impede socioeconom-ic development but also kills people.

Several studies and the government’s own experiences have shown that bridges play an essential role in improving people’s lives and boosting the rural economy. Schools see increased attendance. People seek professional medical advice at health posts and have access to hospitals and public services. Businesses mushroom, creating jobs and trading opportunities as bridges connect people and markets. With all the positive socioeconomic indicators, there is no doubt that building bridges is the most cost-effective rural infra-structure development to achieve cross-sector development goals.

Millions of Nepalis use bridges every day to make their way to schools, health posts, markets and district headquar-ters or the nearest bus stop that connects them to national highways. Because of bridges, the face of rural Nepal, espe-cially in the hill and mountainous regions, has changed, opening up the rural population’s access to essential services and markets, which have contributed significantly to all the hard-won gains in socioeconomic and infrastructure develop-ment to date. And thanks to the Swiss Development Cooperation, the iconic trail bridges have heralded more changes in people’s lives than anything else and paved the way for all other development initiatives to follow. But five decades on, bridges remain imperative to save lives and con-nect the rural community to the world.

Most of Nepal’s development challenges have time-tested, easily replicable indigenous solutions, provided there is a political will to implement the fundamental principles of economic growth through strategic policies and budget allo-cation. Building bridges with homegrown experts is a cost-ef-fective investment and policy framework for the government to ensure equal opportunities for citizens. Unlike view tow-ers, welcome gates and other unnecessary concrete struc-tures that are an eyesore and a total waste of taxpayers’ money, bridges serve both design and function while improv-ing rural connectivity. To remote Nepal and its population, bridges are a boon for the people and a lifeline that the gov-ernment must extend for inclusive development.

Build bridgesThe government should invest in bridges rather

than useless view towers.

ShutterStock

People have grown weary of authoritarianism, corruption, and divisiveness during the pandemic.

Nepal raStra BaNk

MICHaeL bURLeIGH

C M Y K

05 | MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021

MONeY

GASOliNe wATch

FOReX

US Dollar 119.10

Euro 140.45

Pound Sterling 165.14

Canadian Dollar 95.20

Japanese Yen 10.87

Chinese Yuan 18.39

Qatari Riyal 32.51

Australian Dollar 87.78

Malaysian Ringit 28.11

Saudi Arab Riyal 31.76

Thai Bhat 3.57

Exchange rates fixed by Nepal Rastra Bank

bUlliONPRice PeR TOlA

SoURCE: FENEGoSIDA

Fine Gold Rs 90,700

Silver Rs 1,205

Nepse3,154.33pts

-0.77%

AHPC RLFL NHDL KPCL GLH PROFL-6.04% -6% -5.86% -5.71% -5.65% -5.61%

NIBLPF RHPC SIFC RHPL UPPER NRN-8.54% -8.52% -7.88% -6.34% -6.07% -6.05%

hiGheST lOSeRS

EDBL RURU MEN RMDC HDL HIDCL4.82% 5.03% 5.96% 6.01% 6.02% 6.07%

NBL MMFDB ICFC JBLB ULI KKHC7.31% 8.97% 9.56% 10% 10% 10%

hiGheST GAiNeRS

MODeRATe GAiNeRS

MODeRATe lOSeRS

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नेपाल सरकार

कृषि तथा पशपुन्छी षिकास मन्रालय

कृषि षिभाग

केन्रीय कृषि प्रयोगशाला हररहरभिन, लललतपरु

बोलपर स्िीकृत गने आसयको संसोलित सूचना सूचना प्रकाशशत लमलतिः २०७८/०४/३२

यस प्रयोगशालाबाट लमलत 2078/04/25 मा प्रकाशशत ठेक्का नं. NIRTTP/PCO/MOALD/G/NCB₋(132.1 to 132.10) को बोलपर स्िीकृत गने आसयको सूचनामा लनम्नानसुार संसोिन गररएकोले सम्िशन्ित सबकको ाानकारीका लालग यो सूचना प्रकाशन गररएको छ ।

Slice No. षििरण छनौट भएको बोलपरदाता कबलु गरेको रकम रु.

(भ्याट बाहेक)

7. Supply, Delivery And

Installation Of Laboratory Equipments

Jai Shree Shyam Trading Concern, Kuleshwor, Kathmandu

9,421,000/₋ (चौरानब्बे लाख

एक्काईस हाार रुपकया मार ।

Nepal plans to start road to economic recovery as third wave loomsPRITHVI MAN SHRESTHAKATHMANDU, AUG 15

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Sunday said that the government was working on short, medium and long-term strategies to rehabilitate the economy battered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the looming third wave may impede the economic recovery as the country’s efforts may be complicated by the more contagious variant. A third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is imminent and unavoidable, public health experts, epidemiologists, virol-ogists as well as the Ministry of Health and Population, all agree.

And Prime Minister Deuba has also warned the public of the looming third wave.

Even though the country’s economy was on the road to recovery after the first Covid-19 wave, the second wave that hit the country in April came as a major setback, as the government was forced to impose yet another pro-longed lockdown slowing down eco-nomic activities.

The pandemic has so far claimed over 10,000 lives, which is slightly higher than the number of people killed in the 2015 earthquakes.

As of Friday, the country’s 57 dis-tricts out of 77 are under lockdowns, albeit they are not stricter, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

As a result, the government itself admitted that meeting the expected growth of four percent in the last fis-cal year 2020-21 that ended in mid-July would be challenging.

Even though the cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Deuba on July 13 had decided to introduce a special package to revive the economy within a month, it is yet to announce any package even after the deadline expired.

Speaking virtually at the Kantipur Economic Summit organized by Kantipur Media Group on Sunday, Prime Minister Deuba discussed the priorities of the government under the short-, medium-, and long-term strategies to revive the economy without making any specific announcements.

According to him, vaccination against Covid-19 is the main weapon to fight against this pandemic.

As of Sunday, a total of over 8 mil-lion people have got at least one jab. As many as 4.68 million people have received their first jab while 3.36 mil-lion people have been fully vaccinated,

according to the Ministry of Health and Population.

The country has so far got delivery of 10.8 million vaccine doses from dif-ferent countries. “Additional 10 mil-lion vaccine doses will arrive in the country by mid-October,” said Deuba.

He said that the government would concentrate on introducing appropri-ate relief packages while ensuring economic stability after the vaccina-tion is over.

“Protecting small enterprises, addressing the issues of micro, small and medium enterprises, creating demands for production of large scale industries, ensuring access to people working in the informal sector and protecting the agriculture-based industries are other immediate priori-ties of the government, according to Prime Minister Deuba.

“Likewise, tourism and transporta-tion services, party palaces and department stores will also get relief and people in these sectors will also be prioritized for vaccination,” he said.

In the medium term, economic revival will get priority after the pan-

demic situation improves. Under this strategy, accelerating the

implementation of road projects that would contribute to the employment of the poor, initiating daring legal reforms to attract investment in the employment-centric industrial sector, improving standards of hospitals, enhancing the capacity of local gov-ernments to tackle disasters and developing a national alert system (on disaster) are other priorities of the new government.

The long-term strategy will be based on the conclusion of the study on a broader impact of the pandemic on the economy of specific geographi-cal areas. Based on the study, priority will be given to completing economi-cally transformative projects and improving the quality of education and social security.

Even though the previous govern-ment led by KP Sharma Oli came up with a number of relief measures for Covid-19 affected people and enter-prises through the budget for the cur-rent fiscal year, the new government also decided to introduce a package.

The budget has made provisions for conducting training on handicraft making, plumbing, electronics, cook-ing, beauty care, masonry, and carpeting, among others, for the peo-ple who lost their jobs at home and abroad. It also talks about implement-ing the Prime Minister Employment Programme with necessary revisions to provide at least 100 days of employment.

However, there is no specific provi-sion of relief for the wage-workers even though some of the provisions such as providing free electricity up to 20 units for the period of lock-down and free water up to 20,000 litres per month could provide them some succour.

The monetary policy unveiled by the Nepal Rastra Bank on Friday for the current fiscal year has sought to help enterprises and individuals hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic by extending the deadline of paying loans and offering subsidized loans and refinance facilities.

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma said that the government needed to

support small and large enterprises affected by Covid-19 with policies and financial resources. “The government also needs to support the poor people whose number has grown from an estimated 18 percent,” he said.

Even though Finance Minister Janardan Sharma hinted last week while presenting the White Paper titled ‘Information on Current Economic Situation of Nepal’ on the state of the economy at the House of Representatives that the new govern-ment would introduce a replacement bill to change the current budget in line with new government’s priorities, it appears far from sure.

On Sunday, he hinted at bringing a replacement bill either with the exist-ing provision or with an amendment.

“We are still discussing whether to continue the existing provision of amending it,” said Sharma. Considering the possibility that the bill may not be passed in the House, speculations are rife that the govern-ment is preparing to end the House session and run the state with the ordinance.

But, Sharma said that the govern-ment has not yet considered reintro-ducing the ordinance for the budget. “Introducing an ordinance on a budget is the option only in complicated situ-ations,” he said.

But, the government has promised an economic revival plan which suf-fered one after another setback in the wake of the first and the second waves of Covid-19. Whether he will intro-duce such a plan through an amend-ment to the budget or through any other means, is not clear.

As a result of the nearly four-month-long lockdown to control the spread of the pandemic, the country’s economy suffered a negative growth of 2.1 percent in the fiscal year 2019-20. It was the first time since the fiscal year 1982-83 that the economy contracted.

The Central Bureau of Statistics expected growth of 4 percent in the last fiscal year 2020-21 but the central bank said on Friday in the monetary policy that is hard to achieve.

Amid the third wave of the pandem-ic looming, the central bank has sought to support the enterprises and individuals affected by the pan-demic economically. But, there are concerns that there has been uneven support for enterprises affected by the pandemic.

According to the Economic Activities Study Report 2020-21 ( First Half), as much as 37.7 percent of agri-culture credits went to the borrowers of Bagmati province and 64.8 percent of industrial credit went to the firms of Bagmati province.

Central Bank Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari said that only three percent of the borrowers have taken 50 percent of total loans. According to the central bank, there are a total of 1.7 million borrowers.

As many as 97 percent of the bor-rowers are receiving less than Rs10 million loans from the banks and financial institutions, according to Adhikari.

He, however, said that it was not the cause of concern as it is the reality of the world at large as just 20 borrowers are receiving 16.5 percent of the total loans in India.

“We should not envy the large firms that receive large chunks of loans as they also create a large number of jobs,” he said. “Our main concern should be whether there has been financial access to small entrepre-neurs too.”

Even though the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Deuba on July 13 had decided to introduce a special package to revive the economy within a month, it's yet to announce any package.

India’s Modi to unveil $1.35 trillion infrastructure plan soon

ASSOCIATED PRESSNEW DELHI, AUG 15

India will soon launch a $1.35 trillion national infrastructure plan that will boost the country’s economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Sunday as part of Independence Day celebrations.

Wearing a flowing bright saf-fron-coloured turban, Modi addressed the nation from New Delhi’s 17th cen-

tury Mughal-era Red Fort to mark the 74th anniversary of India’s independence from British rule. He said the infrastructure plan will cre-ate job opportunities for millions of Indian youth.

“It will help local manufacturers turn globally competitive and also develop possibilities of new future economic zones in the country,” he said. India’s economy, pummelled by the coronavirus pandemic, contracted

7.3 percent in the fiscal year that ended in March. Economists fear there will be no rebound similar to the ones seen in the US and other major economies.

In his 90-minute speech, Modi also listed his government’s achievements since 2014 and hailed India’s coronavi-rus vaccination campaign.

“We are proud that we didn’t have to depend on any other country for Covid-19 vaccines. Imagine what would have happened if India didn’t have its own vaccine,” he said.

India has given more than 500 mil-lion doses of vaccines but its vaccina-tion drive has been marred by its slow pace. About 11 percent of eligible adult Indians have been fully vaccinat-ed so far. Modi also said India was committed to meeting targets for the reduction of its carbon footprint. He said his government would invest more in electric mobility, solar energy and “green hydrogen”—which does not emit carbon dioxide—as part of its goal to make India energy independ-ent by 2047.

India celebrates its Independence Day a day after its neighbour Pakistan. The two separate states came into existence as a result of the bloody partition of British India in 1947.

Taliban's rapid gains give investors cause for concern beyond AfghanistanREUTERSLONDON, AUG 15

The Taliban’s rapid advance towards Kabul is not only causing concern about Afghanistan’s future but also about the impact on other countries in the region and their economies.

Iran and then Iraq lie to the west of Afghanistan. Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are to the north. But the immediate focus for financial markets and investors is Pakistan to the east.

Pakistan has a large public debt, a sizeable equity market and is depend-ent on a $6-billion IMF programme. The prospect of years of violence and waves of refugees will add pressure to its fiscal repair plans.

“It is a very troubling situation and unfortunately has set the region back many years,” said Shamaila Khan, head of emerging market debt at AllianceBernstein. “I think the neigh-bouring countries will have to deal with an influx of refugees in the com-ing months/years”.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimates 400,000 Afghans have fled their homes this year. Only a few hundred of these displaced per-sons are known to have fled Afghanistan but the UNHCR estimates there are 2.6 million Afghan refugees worldwide, with 1.4 million in Pakistan and 1 million in Iran.

Pakistan’s bond prices have already fallen nearly 8 percent this year, though many financial analysts think this has probably had more to do with delays in it obtaining its latest tranche of IMF money than with the security situation.

Nearly 10,000 Pakistani civilians were killed in attacks between 2010 and 2015 South Asia Terrorism Portal figures show. Those numbers have fall-en since then but there are concerns they will now rise again.

“Another influx of refugees and the spillover of violent groups motivated to destabilise urban areas and infra-structure, particularly, on the western side of Pakistan... could set Pakistan’s recovery and reform story back,” said Hasnain Malik, an analyst at research firm Tellimer. He suggested risk might be reduced if the Taliban were includ-ed in the Afghan government.

Pakistan’s IMF programme is its thirteenth in 30 years and is needed to help the government tackle a public debt of about 90 percent of GDP.

Any Taliban attacks inside Pakistan

could raise security concerns and make it harder for Islamabad to meet targets set by the IMF. At the same time, some investors say, they could increase Pakistan’s strategic impor-tant for the West.

“The IMF is carefully watching the fast-moving situation on the ground in Afghanistan,” a Fund spokesperson said on Friday, adding that it was premature to speculate about what impact the security situation could have on Pakistan.

“If the Taliban takes control [of Afghanistan], Pakistan becomes even more strategically important to the US,” said Kevin Daly, a portfolio man-ager at ABRDN. This, he said, could help keep IMF money flowing.

Kay Van-Petersen, a global macro strategist at Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore, said the impact of the cri-sis in Afghanistan could ultimately spread far wider. Many Afghan refu-gees could seek refuge in Europe, he said, following an earlier influx of migrants, mostly fleeing war or perse-cution in Syria, other Middle Eastern countries and Afghanistan. If the ref-ugees travel via Turkey, he said, they could help Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan make political or financial demands of the European Union.

“Basically it’s a lever for Erdogan to pull with the European Union ...’Pay us to take care of these refugees, or we are just going to let them through’,” he said. This could weigh on the euro and lift Turkey’s lira, he said.

Emerging market watcher Tim Ash at BlueBay Asset Management said that the Taliban’s advances as NATO troops withdrew had dam-aged US credibility and fed into the growing rivalry between Washington and China.

“Comparisons with Vietnam abound,” Ash said, recalling the evac-uation of the last Americans and many South Vietnamese via from the roof of the US embassy as Saigon fell in 1975. “With that feeling of a Saigon moment and the last US helicopter out.

PoST PhoTo : ANGAD DhAkAl

Participants listen to a discussion during the Kantipur Economic Summit 2021 held at Soaltee Hotel in Kathmandu on Sunday.

REUTERS

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inspects the honour guard during Independence Day celebrations at the historic Red Fort in Delhi, India.

Pakistan’s bond prices have already fallen nearly 8 percent this year.

C M Y K

Briefing

MOnDAY, AUgUST 16, 2021 | 06

wOrlD

At least 28 killed in Lebanon fuel tank explosion BEIRUT: At least 28 people were killed and 79 injured when a fuel tank exploded in northern Lebanon early on Sunday, the health ministry said. Military and security sources said that the army had seized a fuel storage tank hidden by black market-eers and was handing out gasoline to residents when the explosion occurred. Lebanon is suffering from a severe fuel shortage, leading to long lines at gas stations and extended blackouts. The disaster happened in the town of Altalil, in the Akkar region that is one of Lebanon’s poorest areas.

Malaysia prime minister Muhyiddin to resignKUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will resign on Monday, news portal Malaysiakini reported, after losing his majority owing to infighting among the ruling coalition. If con-firmed, Muhyiddin’s resignation would end a tumultuous 17 months in office but also bring more uncertain-ty to Malaysia as the country grap-ples with surging Covid-19 cases and an economic downturn. It was not immediately clear who could form the next government.

Death toll from northern Turkey floods rises to 58BOZKURT: Flash floods that have swept through towns in the Turkish Black Sea region have killed 58 people, authorities said on Sunday, in the second natural disaster to strike Turkey this month. The floods brought chaos to northern provinces just as authorities were declaring wildfires had been brought under control after raging through southern coastal regions for two weeks. Forty-eight people died as a result of floods in Kastamonu province, another nine people died in Sinop and one in Bartin. (AGENCIES)

Haiti searches for survivors after quake kills over 300

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEPORT-AU-PRINCE, AUG 15

Rescue workers were scrambling to find survivors after a powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing at least 304 and toppling buildings in the disaster-plagued Caribbean nation still recovering from a devastating 2010 quake.

The epicentre of the tremor, which rattled homes and sent terrified locals fleeing for safety Saturday morning, was about 100 miles (160 kilometres) by road west of the centre of the densely populated capital Port-au-Prince.

Churches, businesses, schools and homes crumbled in the quake that trapped hundreds of victims under rubble and left at least 1,800 people injured, the country’s civil protection agency said.

Rescuers raced against the clock to find survivors, with the agency tweet-ing that efforts by “both professional rescuers and members of the public have led to many people being pulled from the rubble,” adding that already overburdened hospitals continued to receive injured.

Hours after the quake, the agency announced the death toll had jumped to 304, ticking upwards throughout the day from a first report of 29 fatalities.

The quake was felt in much of the Caribbean, emanating from the epicentre at Haiti’s southwestern peninsula.

The civil protection agency said at least 160 people were killed in the country’s South department alone.

“Lots of homes are destroyed, peo-ple are dead and some are at the hospi-tal,” 21-year-old Christella Saint Hilaire, who lives near the epicenter,

told AFP. Hospitals in the regions hardest hit by the quake were already struggling to provide emergency care and at least three were full, according to Jerry Chandler, head of the civil protection agency.

Haiti’s health ministry quickly dispatched personnel and medicine to the southwestern peninsula, but their arrival could be hampered by the insecurity that has for months plagued the poorest country in the Americas.

The United States and other nations swiftly pledged support, with President Joe Biden approving “imme-diate” aid efforts and Haiti’s neigh-bour the Dominican Republic ship-ping 10,000 food rations and medical equipment. UN chief Antonio

Guterres said he was “following the latest unfolding tragedy in Haiti.”

“The UN is working to support res-cue and relief efforts,” he tweeted.

A medical brigade of 253 Cuban doctors deployed in Haiti was trave-ling to treat the injured and adapt a Port-au-Prince hospital until now used for Covid-19 patients, their head said on Cuban television.

In Ecuador, the Quito Fire Department said it was preparing to send a team of 34 personnel special-ized in urban search and rescue.

Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela also offered help while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Haitians “can count on the support of Spain to come through this terrible event.”

Children hospitalised with Covid-19 in US hits record numberREUTERSWASHINGTON, AUG 15

The number of children hospitalised with Covid-19 in the United States hit a record high of just over 1,900 on Saturday, as hospitals across the South were stretched to capacity fighting outbreaks caused by the highly trans-missible Delta variant.

The Delta variant, which is rapidly spreading among mostly the unvacci-nated portion of the US population, has caused hospitalisations to spike in recent weeks, driving up the number of paediatric hospitalisations to 1,902 on Saturday, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Children currently make up about 2.4 percent of the nation’s Covid-19 hospitalisations. Kids under 12 are not eligible to receive the vac-cine, leaving them more vulnerable to infection from the new, highly trans-missible variant.

“This is not last year’s Covid. This one is worse and our children are the ones that are going to be affected by it the most,” Sally Goza, former presi-dent of the American Academy of Paediatrics, told CNN on Saturday.

The numbers of newly hospitalised Covid-19 patients aged 18-29, 30-39 and 40-49 also hit record highs this week, according to data from the US Centres of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The spike in new cases has ramped up tension between conservative state leaders and local districts over wheth-er school children should be required to wear masks as they head back to the classroom this month.

School districts in Florida, Texas and Arizona have mandated that masks be worn in schools, defying orders from their Republican state governors that ban districts from

imposing such rules. The administra-tion of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to withhold funding from districts that impose mask requirements, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott is appealing to the state Supreme Court to overturn Dallas County’s mask mandate, the Dallas Morning News reported on Friday.

A fifth of the nation’s Covid-19 hos-pitalisations are in Florida, where the number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients hit a record 16,100 on Saturday, according to a Reuters tally. More than 90 percent of the state’s intensive care beds are filled, accord-ing to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, came out in support of mandatory vaccination for its members this week. NEA President Becky Pringle said on Saturday that schools should employ every mitigation strategy, from vac-cines to masks, to ensure that students can come back to their classrooms safely this school year.

“Our students under 12 can’t get vaccinated. It’s our responsibility to keep them safe. Keeping them safe means that everyone who can be vac-cinated should be vaccinated,” Pringle told CNN.

The US now has an average of about 129,000 new Covid-19 cases per day, a rate that has doubled in a little over two weeks, according to a Reuters tally. The number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients is at a six-month high, and an average of 600 people are dying each day of Covid-19, double the death rate seen in late July.

Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oregon have report-ed record numbers of Covid-19 hospi-talisations this month, according to a Reuters tally, pushing healthcare sys-tems to operate beyond their capacity.

The latest quake comes just over a month after president Moise was assassinated, shaking a country already battling poverty, spiraling gang violence and Covid-19.

AFP/rss

People search through the rubble of what used to be the Manguier Hotel after the earthquake hit on August 14 in Les Cayes, southwest Haiti.

Government of Nepal

Ministry of Home AffairsArmed Police Force, Nepal Headquarters

Procurement DivisionKathmandu, Nepal

Invitation for Bids (IFB No: APF/NCB/G/05/2078/079)

Date of publication: 2078/04/321. Armed Police Force, Nepal Headquarters (APFN HQ), Procurement Division invites electronic

bids from eligible bidders for the procurement of below mentioned Goods under National competitive bidding procedures specified in Public Procurement Act and Regulations. The name and identification of the contract are as follows:

S.N. Contract ID No. Name of Procurement

Quantity Bid Document Fee (NRs.)

Bid Securi-ty Amount

(NRs.)

1. APF/NC-B/G/01/05/2078/079

Tactical Vest 2500 Pcs 3000/- 175000/-

2. APF/NC-B/G/02/05/2078/079

Rescue Equip-ments

As specified in Bid Document

5000/- 770000/-

2. Eligible Bidders may obtain further information from the office of APFN HQ, Procurement Division, Kathmandu, Tel 01-5249005, email apfprocurement@gmail.com or may visit www.bolpatra.gov.np/egp

3. Bidders have to download the bidding documents for e-submission from PPMO’s e-GP system www.bolpatra.gov.np/egp.

4. Bidders should deposit the bid document fee as mentioned in aforementioned respective column in the following Rajaswa (revenue) account as specified below.

Information to deposit the cost of bidding document in Bank: Name of the Bank: Rastriya Banijya Bank,Thamel Branch NameofOffice:ArmedPoliceForce,NepalHeadquarters OfficeCodeno.314053507 OfficeAccountno.:1000200010000 Rajaswa (Revenue) Shirshakno:142295. Pre-bid meeting shall be held at APFN HQ, Procurement Division, Halchowk, Kathmandu,

2078/05/20 at 13:00 Hrs.6. Bids must be submitted through PPMO’s e-GP system www.bolpatra.gov.np/egp on or before

12:00 noon on 2078/05/30, Bids received after this deadline will be rejected.7. The bids will be opened in the presence of Bidder's representatives who choose to attend at 13:00

hrs on 2078/05/30 at the office of APFN HQ, Procurement Division. Bids must be valid for a period of 90 days from the date of bid opening and must be accompanied by scanned copy of the bid security in pdf format, amounting to above-mentioned in respective column, which shall be valid for 30 days beyond the validity period of the bid.

8. If Pre-bid meeting date/ last date of opening /or submission falls on a government holiday, then the next working day shall be considered as the scheduled date. In such case the validity period of the bid security shall remain the same as specified for the original last date of bid submission.

9. The purchaser reserves the rights to accept or reject all/Partial bid and to annul the bidding process and reject all Bids at any time prior to contract award, without thereby incurring any liability to the Bidders.

>> Continued from page 1

Earlier on Sunday, the insurgents cap-tured the eastern city of Jalalabad without a fight, giving them control of one of the main highways into land-locked Afghanistan. They also took over the nearby Torkham border post with Pakistan, leaving Kabul airport the only way out of Afghanistan still in government hands.

“Allowing passage to the Taliban was the only way to save civilian lives,” a Jalalabad-based Afghan offi-cial told Reuters.

A video clip distributed by the Taliban showed people cheering and shouting “Allahu Akbar”—God is greatest—as a convoy of pickup trucks entered Jalalabad with fighters bran-dishing machine guns and the white Taliban flag.

Iran said it had set up camps along the Afghan border to provide temporary refuge to Afghans fleeing their country.

Three diplomatic sources said Ali Ahmad Jalali, a US-based academic and former Afghan interior minister, could be named head of an interim administration in Kabul, though it was unclear whether the Taliban had agreed.

In 2009, he was barred from running for president after refusing to give up his US citizenship.

President Joe Biden on Saturday authorised the deployment of 5,000 US troops to help evacuate citizens and ensure an “orderly and safe” draw-down of military personnel.

Biden said his administration had told Taliban officials in talks in Qatar that any action that put US personnel at risk “will be met with a swift and strong US military response.”

He has faced rising domestic criti-cism after sticking to a plan, initiated by his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, to end the US military mission in Afghanistan by August 31.

“An endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me,” Biden said on Saturday.

Taliban want full power after return to Afghanistan capital with lightning sweep

Hong Kong democracy group behind massive protests disbands

ASSOCIATED PRESSHONG KONG, AUG 15

A pro-democracy group that organ-ised some of the biggest protests dur-ing months of political upheaval in Hong Kong in 2019 is dissolving, the group said on Sunday.

The Hong Kong Civil Human Rights Front, made up of a slew of member organizations, said it could no longer operate. The decision comes as the group faces a police investigation for possible violation of a national securi-ty law, according to local media.

The group, which also organized an annual protest march marking the semiautonomous territory’s handover to China in 1997, is the largest to disband amid a sweeping crackdown on dissent in the city. Earlier this week, the city’s largest teachers’ union disbanded in light of what it said were drastic changes in the polit-ical environment.

Rights group Amnesty International expressed its concern over “the pat-tern of self-censorship seen this week.” The London-based organiza-tion said in a statement this “signals a concerning domino effect, as Hong Kong’s draconian national security law has triggered an accelerating dis-appearance of independent civil socie-ty groups from the city.”

The crackdown follows Beijing’s imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong last year. The legis-lation outlaws secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion and has been used to arrest more than 100 pro-democracy figures since it was

first implemented a year ago, as well as the closure of pro-democracy news-paper Apple Daily.

The crackdown has virtually silenced opposition voices in the city—and drawn sanctions from the US against Hong Kong and Chinese government officials.

Former leaders of the Civil Human Rights Front, Figo Chan and Jimmy Sham, are currently in jail on charges related to their activism.

While authorities have said the law would not be applied retroactively, a recent interview with a Hong Kong police commissioner suggested the group was being investigated for hold-ing rallies in the past year.

A statement by Hong Kong police on Sunday said they would continue to spare no effort to investigate whether any organization or individuals vio-lated the national security law and other local laws. It said they would pursue individuals regardless of a group’s disbandment.

Police asked the group to hand over information on its members and activities as well as funding back in April.

Since the national security law was enacted, many unions, associations and political organizations have dis-banded amid concerns that the law could be used to target them.

“Although the Civil Human Rights Front no longer exists today, but we believe that different groups will con-tinue to stick to their ideals, who will not forget their original intentions, and continue to prop up civil society!” the group said in a statement.

AP/rss

In this June 16, 2019 photo, protesters march on the streets against an extradition bill organised by Civil Human Rights Front in Hong Kong.

C M Y K

ReuteRs

Gerd Mueller was suffering from Alzheimer.

07 | MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021

SpOrTS | MeDleY

BriefiNG

Diego Costa joins Brazilian leaders Atletico MineiroSAO PAULO: Former Atletico Madrid and Chelsea striker Diego Costa has signed for Brazilian league leaders Atletico Mineiro, the Belo Horizonte-based club announced on Sunday. The 32-year-old arrives as a free agent after his contract with Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid ended last June. Costa made just seven appear-ances last season, scoring twice. His last taste of action came on December 22, 2020, when he replaced Luis Suarez in the 87th minute of a 2-0 vic-tory against Real Sociedad in La Liga. That marked the end of his second spell with Atletico Madrid, having spent three years with Chelsea in the middle. Atletico Mineiro currently lead the Brazilian league.

Afghanistan, Australia ODI series postponedSYDNEY: Australia’s scheduled One-Day International (ODI) series against Afghanistan in India has been postponed, the cricket boards of the competing countries said on Sunday, leaving players free to fulfill their Indian Premier League (IPL) commitments. The three one-dayers were supposed to take place ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup but that tournament has now been moved to the United Arab Emirates because of the prevalence of Covid-19 in India. The Afghanistan Cricket Board “and Cricket Australia agreed to postpone the tour given the complexities of travel, quarantine periods and a find-ing a suitable location for the match-es given the relocation of the T20 World Cup to the UAE,” the boards said in a statement. The IPL was suspended indefinitely in May after several players and staff tested positive for Covid-19. The remaining matches will be played in the UAE from September 19 to October 15. (AGENCIES)

YeSTerDAY’S SOlUTiON

CrOSSwOrD

HOrOSCOpe

SUDOkU

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19) ****As a Capricorn, you rarely recognize when you need to take a break. Let Monday’s skies remind you of the importance of restorative action, as the moon roams through reflective Sagittarius. Luna’s presence here prioritises quiet retreat.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18) ***

The past year has had you sorting through the people who do and don’t belong in your circle. That story gets touched on today, as the moon roams meanders through far-seeing Sagittarius. Today reconnect with people and form a sense of community.

PISCES (February 19-March 20) ***Give your ambitions your all today, Pisces. The moon’s presence in aspirational Sagittarius has you thinking about your place in the grand scheme of things. What is it you’re wishing to contribute and change about your current career landscape?

ARIES (March 21-April 19) ****You’re hungry for fresh horizons today, Aries. Don’t keep yourself caged up in mundane routines, as the moon roams through exploration-ready Sagittarius. Luna’s presence here encourages you to explore edu-cational fields and embark on adventures.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) ***

Send your focus toward any unspoken feelings stir-ring beneath the surface, Taurus. The moon roams through philosophic Sagittarius, encouraging you to take a look at the big picture story taking place around partnership matters.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21) ****

Monday’s skies send your focus towards the relation-ship stories that have dominated your focus all year, Gemini. The moon’s presence in big hearted Sagittarius asks you to step back and examine these ongoing patterns and changes.

CANCER (June 22-July 22) ***The universe is pushing you to get productive today, Cancer. The moon’s presence in aspirational Sagittarius makes it an ideal day to expend energy towards checking things off your to-do list, recon-necting with your exercise regimen and craft.

LEO (July 23-August 22) ***

Pleasure and playfulness reign supreme under Monday’s cosmic landscape, Leo. The moon’s pres-ence in optimistic Sagittarius encourages you to connect with joyful activities that boost your creative energy. Devote time to the things that bring you joy.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22) ****There’s nothing wrong with pulling away into your own private world today, Virgo. The moon’s presence in thoughtful Sagittarius encourages you to ground down and foster close family connections. It’s an ideal day to keep a low profile.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22) ***Monday’s skies thrust you into action, Libra. The moon cruises through sight-seeing Sagittarius, push-ing you to step out of your comfort zone and find movement. Your mind is hungry for a fresh perspec-tive, so let yourself get lost in a good book.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21) ***

Turn your focus towards your finances today, Scorpio. What changes could you make to strengthen the state of your resources? The moon’s presence in lofty Sagittarius encourages you to dream big with your potential.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21) ***Sagittarius, you have been forced to embrace a new relationship with your body, your health, and your sense of self. The moon’s presence in your sign today doubles down on this unfolding narrative of self-dis-covery. Today, explore your opportunities.

Liverpool off to flying start on Van Dijk’s returnAgence FrAnce-PresseNORWICH, Aug 15

Jurgen Klopp said Virgil van Dijk showed his class in a winning return from injury as Liverpool eased to a 3-0 win at Norwich to open their Premier League season on Saturday.

Diogo Jota, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah were on target for Klopp’s men as they made a promising start to their quest to take back League title from Manchester City.

Van Dijk’s cruciate knee ligament injury derailed the Reds’ title defence last season and the Dutchman looked like his old self as he played full 90 minutes on his return to action. “You could see all his quality, all his class,” said Klopp. “It was hard for him to play the 90, he’ll need an ice bath and he’ll have enough time to recover.”

Van Dijk’s season and hopes of lead-ing the Netherlands as captain at Euro 2020 were ended after a reckless challenge from Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford in a bad-tempered Merseyside derby last October. The 30-year-old signed a new four-year con-tract on Friday to celebrate his return to fitness, but recalled the hard days that followed his clash with Pickford.

“Mentally it’s tough. You go from one day being fully fit to the next day you can’t walk, you’re full of medica-tion, full of pain, you can’t sleep,” he added. “And obviously we were strug-gling last season with more injuries. More injuries on key positions where we couldn’t play our game the way we want to play. In the end the guys did a fantastic job to come third and we want to build on that.”

Norwich stormed back to the top flight at the first time of asking by romping to the Championship title last season, but were given a stark reminder of the gulf they have to bridge to compete at the Premier League level.

Chelsea thump Crystal Palace 3-0Chelsea swept aside Crystal Palace 3-0 on Saturday as the Premier League returned with full crowds.

The European champions Chelsea dispatched Palace in Patrick Vieira’s first match in charge of the Eagles with ease to make their own case. Marcos Alonso’s free-kick and Christian Pulisic’s scuffed finish gave Thomas Tuchel’s men a commanding 2-0 lead before half-time.

Centre-back Trevoh Chalobah then

marked his Premier League debut with a long-range strike to round off the scoring.

Elsewhere, Rafael Benitez went a long way to quieting his doubters at Everton as the Toffees came from behind to beat Southampton 3-1. Adam Armstrong’s opener on his debut for the Saints saw Benitez’s men booed off at half-time at Goodison Park with many of the home fans still unhappy at the appointment of the former Liverpool manager.

But the mood was lifted straight after half-time by Richarlison’s equal-iser before Abdoulaye Doucoure and Dominic Calvert-Lewin ensured Benitez got off to a winning start.

Leicester also secured all three points as Jamie Vardy’s deft flick proved the difference in a 1-0 win over Wolves. The FA Cup winners are once again seen as the biggest threat to the established top four of champions Manchester City, United, Chelsea and Liverpool for a place in the Champions

League next season.Life for Aston Villa without Jack

Grealish got off to a terrible start as Watford celebrated their return to top flight with a 3-2 win at Vicarage Road.

Goals from Emmanuel Dennis, Ismaila Sarr and Cucho Hernandez had the Hornets cruising towards vic-tory. John McGinn pulled a goal back and Danny Ings netted from the penal-ty spot on his debut, but it was too lit-tle, too late for Villa.

The Reds enjoy a 3-0 win over Norwich in their Premier League opener as the Dutch defender plays full 90 minutes on his return after ligament injury.

AP/Rss

Diogo Jota, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah (front) scored for Liverpool in their Premier League match against Norwich at the Carrow Road Stadium in Norwich on Saturday.

Gerd Mueller—prolific striker who set records but battled demons, dies at 75Agence FrAnce-PresseBERLIN, Aug 15

Gerd Mueller’s record of 68 interna-tional goals in 62 games for West Germany earned him the nickname ‘The Bomber’ for his ability to destroy countless defences.

It took Miroslav Klose more than double the amount of games to finally reach the tally of 71 goals, in 137 inter-nationals, to better Mueller’s mark.

In the 1971/72 season, Mueller, who died Sunday aged 75 after battling Alzheimer’s, netted an incredible 40 league goals in 34 games. The jaw-drop-ping German league record stood unchallenged until Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski scored for the 41st time on the final weekend

of last season.Born on November 3, 1945, Mueller’s

career coincided with a golden era for both West German football and the rise of Bayern Munich. He was signed by Bayern, who were then a second division club, in 1964.

His short, stocky frame with a bar-rel-like chest led to club coach Zlatko Cajkovski quipping: “What am I sup-posed to do with a weightlifter?” But Mueller’s powerful legs became the stuff of Bayern folklore—his thighs were a massive 64-centimetres in diameter—and the goals he netted wrote him into the club’s folklore.

As Mueller’s former team-mate Franz Beckenbauer said: “Everything that Bayern has become is due to Gerd Mueller and his goals.”

Before he turned 18, Mueller had progressed through a variety of school and junior teams before joining his local club TSV Nordlingen, for whom he scored a remarkable 180 goals in the 1962/63 season, which attracted Bayern’s attention. In 1965, Mueller, goalkeeper Sepp Maier and Beckenbauer helped Bayern win pro-motion to the Bundesliga. The club never looked back, finishing third in their first season in the top flight and lifting the German Cup, a feat they repeated in 1967, 1969 and 1971.

In 1970, Mueller became the first German to be crowned European Footballer of the Year. Bayern became German champions for the first time in 1969, then won three straight titles in 1972, 1973 and 1974. The mark was

only bettered in May 2016 when Pep Guardiola coached Bayern to a fourth straight Bundesliga title, which has since become nine in consecutive years.

Bayern’s dream team of the 1970s went on to win the European Cup three times in succession from 1974 to 1976. He was the club’s top scorer every season from 1964/65 to 1977/78.

At the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico, Mueller scored 10 goals to finish top scorer, before West Germany went on to win the 1972 European championships. Mueller then wrote himself into German football folklore by scoring the winning goal to seal a 2-1 win in the 1974 World Cup final over the Netherlands in Munich.

In his 62 international appearances,

West Germany enjoyed 45 wins, nine draws and just eight loses. Then abruptly, after becoming a world champion at the age of 28, Mueller announced his retirement. He retired from all football in 1982 and descended into a deep personal crisis, battling alcoholism and depression.

Bayern never forget their goal-scor-ing hero and Uli Hoeness, who was then team manager, helped him to get back on his feet, offering him a job meeting and greeting visitors to the club, then scouting and eventually a role coaching strikers. Mueller earned his coaching licence in 1992 and became head coach of the reserves in 1995/96. He helped nurture current Germany star Thomas Mueller, who was no relation, at Bayern.

MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021 | 08

CUlTUre & lifeSTYle

Published and Printed by Kantipur Publications Pvt. Ltd., Central Business Park, Thapathali, Kathmandu, Nepal, P. B. No. 8559, Phone: 5135000, Fax: 977-1-5135057, e-mail: kpost@kmg.com.np, Regd. No. 32/049/050, Chairman & Managing Director: Kailash Sirohiya, Director: Swastika Sirohiya, Editor: Sanjeev Satgainya

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China’s youth react to gaming curbs with anguish and cunning

DANNI ZHU & BEIYI SEOWBEIJING

i

t is Zhang Yuchen’s last summer break before high school, but events have taken an unwelcome turn—the 14-year-old’s game time has been decimated as

China’s tech firms try to dispel accusations that they are selling “spiritual opium” to the country’s youth.

An edict by gaming giant Tencent means players under 12 can no longer make in-game pur-chases in multiplayer battle smash-hit “Honor of Kings”, while under-18s are locked out after two hours during holidays and one hour on school nights.

“I wanted to cry,” an anguished Zhang said as the news ricocheted across the world’s largest gaming market, which soaked up $20 bil-lion in the first half of this year alone.

“Limiting game time over the holidays means I can’t play (Honor of Kings) to my heart’s content,” he told AFP.

The changes—incontestable and imposed far too quickly for the liking of Zhang and his peer group—have come as a censori-ous state scours the tech scene for signs of any firm growing too big, owning too much data or hav-ing too great a hold over China’s people.

Gaming appears to be the latest target for regulators who have already strafed mega-apps provid-ing ride-hailing, personal finance and online learning, as the Communist Party refines the type of capitalism it wants for society.

State media reports have sin-gled out gaming, with one article calling it “spiritual opium” and another advocating an end to tax breaks for the sector.

‘I have nothing to do’Investors rushed to sell shares in Tencent and rivals NetEase, XD Inc and Bilibili, despite China’s place as the world’s biggest gam-ing market.

In reaction, Tencent this month

dropped the bombshell curbs on playtime, an early sign of broader industry changes to come.

Minors complain that the meas-ures are too sweeping, affecting even teens who have finished their university entrance exams and just want to relax.

“I’m on vacation now and have nothing to do, but I can only play for a short while,” said a 17-year-old student surnamed Li.

“It’s quite upsetting,” she added, noting that older teens have more self-control and should not be forcibly stopped from play-ing. She gets automatically locked out after hitting the two-hour hol-iday limit.

But there are loopholes even with broader curbs, Li added, as playing an hour on different games could still lead to teens gaming for the same hours as

before.Others have circumvented the

policy altogether, by borrowing an adult’s account or using their parents’ mobile phones.

“By borrowing an account now, I can play two to three hours a day and of course, game after 10 pm,” said another 17-year-old student on condition of anonymity.

Some analysts say the reaction to state media reports about gam-

ing may be excessive.“Investors made it a big story

by overreacting,” Ether Yin, part-ner at consultancy Trivium China, told AFP.

“Keeping kids from getting addicted to games has been the policy of the land since 2018.”

‘Why do they have to do this?’To get ahead of public criticism, however, Yin believes other gam-

ing companies will likely roll out their own plans to restrict minors from playing and spending money inside games.

The impact on Tencent, for now, will be “minimal”, given that chil-dren under 16 contribute around three percent of gross billings, said Michael Norris, research and strategy manager at consulting firm AgencyChina.

But with the gaming sector already highly scrutinised, Norris called it “unusual” to single out online gaming, which is regulat-ed, if the concern was an addic-tion.

For now, Tencent’s gaming curbs have claimed unlikely vic-tims—with some parents who game with their children also locked out.

Programmer Peng Jianfei said his 12-year-old son was using his account to play “Honor of Kings” while on summer break when an authentication prompt appeared and the boy entered his own ID number, triggering a block.

“I think such measures can, to an extent, reduce minors’ gaming time,” the 45-year-old said.

“But for now... if I can’t play Tencent’s games, I could always go to NetEase, don’t you think?”

But other parents welcomed the restrictions.

“If children spend too much time on games, it’s bad for their eyesight,” said a 34-year-old moth-er in Beijing surnamed Wang.

Tugging on her arm was her 10-year-old son, an “Honor of Kings” fan who was less enthusi-astic about the changes.

“Mum, say it’s a bad decision!” he said. “Why do they have to do this?”

— Agence France-Presse

A censorious state scours the tech scene for signs of any firm growing too big, owning too much data or having too great a hold over China’s people.

AFP/RSS

State media reports have singled out gaming, with one article calling it ‘spiritual opium’ and another advocating an end to tax breaks for the sector.

Tencent’s gaming curbs have claimed unlikely victims.