Boost for electric transport: China donating 20 electric buses

Kathmandu, December 15. The Chinese government is donating 20 electric buses to Nepal for use in the Kathmandu Valley, at a time when the country has been reeling under a shortage of petroleum products resulting from the Indian blockade. Sajha Yatayat will use the modern buses for mass transport.

Spokesperson for Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Gyanendra Karki, told Onlinekhabar: The Chinese government is giving 20 electric buses to Nepal through the Local Development Ministry.

These vehicles are meant for the KMC, which will use them for mass transport in the Kathmandu Valley through Sajha.

These buses can be operated by recharging batteries. A team from the KMC is heading to China for signing an agreement to this effect.

Meanwhile, the KMC is also making preparations to buy 10 more electric buses from China. In all, Nepal will bring in 30 electric buses from the northern neighbour.

According to Karki, the metropolis will operate these buses through Sajha Yatayat.

Karki said: We will not operate these buses. Sajha has the relevant experience, so these vehicles will operate under Sajha.

The buses will operate on trial basis at a time when there are talks about giving priority to electric vehicles amid a shortage of fuel resulting from the Indian blockade.

For promoting the use of electric vehicles, China has been imposing up to 67 per cent tax on petroleum products.

China has already given 1300 KL of petrol and is also donating induction stoves to Nepal.

Source: Sabkura

Nepal received Rs 59 for post-quake work, but not a paisa spent

Kathmandu, December 15. The government has received Rs 59 billion out of the Rs 440 billion pledged by donors during the international donors’ conference on post-quake reconstruction few months ago. But not even a single paisa has been utilised so far.

Madhu Kumar Marasini, joint-secretary at Ministry of Finance, said that as of December 14, 2015, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, China, International Monteray Fund (IMF) and Germany have signed agreements to back their pre-announced pledges.

According to Marasini, who heads the Foreign Aid division, the Japanese government will soon sign an agreement with the Nepali government to provide Rs 22.9 billion in assistance.

However, not a single paisa of the money has been spent, says the Ministry of Finance. The reason: the hi-level reconstruction authority which is supposed to carry out reconstruction work has not been formed yet.

Government figures show that Nepal needs Rs 700 billion to carry out reconstruction of structures affected by the April quakes. On June 25, 2015, the government hosted an international seminar in Kathmandu where donors pledged to provide Rs 440 billion to Nepal for reconstruction.

Source: Sabkura

One million diabetics in Nepal

14 Dec, Kathmandu: The number of eye patients has been increasing with the corresponding increase in the number of diabetics due to the change in lifestyle and food habits in the country, according to doctors.

It is said the number of people losing eyesight due to the various eye problems related to diabetes is also on the rise. There is high chance of eye problem developing in people with diabetes. There are around one million diabetics in the country at present.

Doctors say that people with diabetes have two times more probability of developing eye problem and 25 times greater risk of blindness. Likewise, there is more risk of a child born of a diabetic woman having diabetes.

“Diabetes has been seen even in people at a younger age due to the habit of spending luxurious lifestyle among the people and the change in food culture in the country, which is a matter of concern,” said senior ophthalmologist Dr OK Malla. He advised diabetics to have regular eye check-ups.

As per the data provided by the International Diabetes Association, nearly five per cent blindness among people globally results from diabetes. Thirteen per cent of the blindness in Nepal is due to diabetes.

In this backdrop, Vice President of Nepal Diabetes Association, Dr Madhur Dev Bhattarai, underlines the need of undertaking a country-wide programme for prevention of blindness due to diabetes. He also pointed out to the dearth of technology and human resources to cope with the increasing number of diabetic eye patients in the country. RSS

Source: Sabkura

Problems could appear in SLC letter grading system

KATHMANDU: Stating that the letter grading system in the School Leaving Certificate Examinations (SLC) introduced by the Ministry of Education was ill-prepared, educationists have claimed that implementation part of the new system was challenging.

The Ministry on Thursday had decided to implement the letter grading system in the SLC examinations- a concept proposed by the World Bank meant for reforms in education.

Educationist Dr Bidyanath Koirala argued that the new step was taken in the name of improving education’s quality under the duress of the Word Bank without studying Nepal’s educational system.

He said that the grading system would be irrelevant if the students getting lower grades were not able to earn the higher studies in their desired subjects.

The Ministry has decided to categorise the students in nine grades including A+, A, B+, B, C+, C, D, E and N under the letter grading system. N stands for ‘not graded’.

“It would be acceptable only if students are allowed to sit for entrance exams in their desired subjects and the selection process was done based on merit list,” he added.

Likewise, Acting Examinations Controller of Higher Secondary Education Board (HSEB) Santosh Aryal said that some problems would obviously arise after implementing the new system. He said that students getting lower than grade ‘C’ would have hard times to get enrolled in science faculty.

Source: sabkura

Quake survivors hit hard with increasing cold

Melamchi, Nov 16: People in the northern part of Sindhupalchowk district, whose houses suffered complete damage during the Gorkha earthquake, are facing problems with the increasing cold.
The quake-hit folks in uphill VDCs in the districts such as Helambu, Gunsa, Bhotang and Selang are worried for a warm shelter as the increasing cold starts taking toll on them.
Furthermore, the porous roof has added to the worries of those residing in temporary shelters, including under the tarpaulin sheets, following the quake.
Elderly persons and children have been most affected due to the fall in temperature as they are prone to pneumonia and common cold among others.
Moreover, the schools in these VDCs have started receiving fewer students and market have seen seemingly less movement due to the cold, according to Kumar Baset, Assistant Secretary at Thangpalkote VDC.
Poshan Prasad Dahal, a quake survivor, said that lately the leaking roof above worries him how to live through winter as the autumn has already set in. RSS

source:sabkura

Nepali industries lost Rs 200 billion past 100 days

Entrepreneurs said the Nepali industrial sector has incurred a whopping loss of Rs 200 billion in the agitation ongoing in the Madhes for the past 100 days.

At an interaction on condition of Nepal’s industries during blockade held by Media International here in the Capital today, Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI)’s Industry Committee Chairman Umesh Lal Shrestha, National Trade Association Chairman Nayan Bahadur Chhetri and Remittance Association Chairman Devi Prasad Bhattachan claimed the loss was so huge.

They appealed to the government to create an environment allowing the industries to resume operation.

Speaking at the event, Minister for Industry Som Prasad Pandey on Monday stressed the need for ushering the country forward on a path of self-dependence.

Minister Pandey insisted on introducing new views and planning in agriculture and hydro power sector, and urged the neighbouring countries to facilitate Nepal’s transit facility.

The Association of Pharmaceutical Producers of Nepal’s Senior Vice-Chairman Deepak Prasad Dahal attributed the problems emerging in the medicine sector to the government’s open market policy.

Nepali industries Problems

On the occasion, coffee traders pointed out that they were facing difficulties in processing produced coffees due to shortage of raw materials.

Footwear Association Vice Chairman Krishna Prasad Funyal said the lack of raw materials had forced the shutdown of many companies while Nepal Bottled Water Association Chairman Subash Bhandari said 50 per cent of water industries were shut due to shortage of fuel products.

source: sabkura

Google ending Gmail? Google Starts Migrating Users To a All New Inbox

Google tests potential Gmail replacement, Inbox by Gmail

It seems that Google is planning  a quiet funeral for its veritable Gmail service. Since past weeks users have been receiving a notification by Google that its experimental ‘Inbox By Gmail’ service has now replaced their Gmail account.

The pop-up appears when Inbox users login and states “Thanks for trying Inbox! To make it easier we’ve updated Gmail to redirect you here”.  Even the old familiar inbox.google.com url has disappeared and now Inbox instead resides at gmail.com.

Inbox by Gmail, which Forbes reports offers more tech-savvy features like smart recognition of photos and documents, Google is now giving them the option to opt out. Some Gmail users are reportedly signing in and being redirected to inbox.google.com and given the option to stay.

Forbes also notes that Google has given the option of staying in the old format to users.  Any user who doesn’t want Inbox to replace Gmail has the option to “Turn it Off” which pushes both services back to their dedicated domains.

Inbox was introduced in October 2014 and seems to hold that Inbox is now ready for actual deployment among Gmail users. Upto now Inbox by Gmail was seen to run concurrently with Gmail but now it seems, it see Inbox as a replacement for Gmail rather than the separate service.

Interestingly, another website, 9to5 Google says that it has been performing this quiet migration for some time. And the results have been quite positive for Inbox by Gmail. So there you have it, sometime by end of 2016 we may have to say goodbye to Gmail.

RIP Gmail!

source: sabkura

Triathlete scales heights to help women in Nepal

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — You just never know where life is going to take you.

If Albuquerque’s Christine Glidden had not struggled scaling Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro a few years ago, she would not be working so hard today on a project to benefit young women in Nepal.

Glidden’s project, Women to Be, delivers feminine hygiene products to girls in refugee camps and remote and poor areas of Nepal. Such things are taken for granted in more developed parts of the world. But when they are made available in Nepal, they can change, even save, the lives of the young women who live in this South Asian country in the Himalayas.

Glidden traveled to Nepal in 2014 to deliver feminine hygiene kits, containing underwear and sanitary pads, and she will do so again in April of next year. But her journey started in Tanzania.

In 2012, Glidden’s daughter, Jenna, a track star at Cibola High back in the early 2000s, asked her mom to accompany her on a climb of 19,340-foot Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. Glidden was in her early 60s at the time, but she has been a triathlete since 1996 and is probably more fit than most people half her age. Besides, it so happens that her resolution that year was to do things she normally would not attempt.

“When my daughter came to me and said we should climb Kilimanjaro, I just said yes,” Glidden said. “I didn’t even think about it.”

Glidden was wishing she had thought more about it on that day in July 2012 when her climbing party made its push to the summit.

“You start at midnight and climb with headlamps for six hours,” Glidden said. “It is so steep that the Sandias, where I was training, seem flat to me now.”

Glidden made it to the top, but the climb took its toll on her.

“Kilimanjaro was way too hard for me,” she said. “I wanted to do something easier. I decided to go to Nepal and do something in the Himalayas.”

The Himalayas? That’s easier?

“Well, I wasn’t going to try Everest,” Glidden said.

As she was preparing for her expedition to Nepal, Glidden visited with Duka, a woman from Nepal she had met through a mutual friend.

Duka (Glidden prefers not to divulge her friend’s last name) told Glidden about tens of thousands of refugees, members of a Nepali minority, who had been forced out of Bhutan, a country on the eastern edge of the Himalayas, in 1991. Some of these people settled in refugee camps in the south of Nepal.

“Duka lived in a refugee camp for 17 years,” Glidden said. “There was no electricity, no running water. Six people lived to a bamboo shack.”

Duka told Glidden that the young women in these camps did not have access to basic hygiene items.

“Girls without these items can contract infection,” Glidden said. “They stay home to take care of themselves every month. They drop out of school, marry prematurely and begin to have children at an early age. They lead lives of indignity and dependence.”

Glidden said life can be very different for those who do have these items.

“They can go to school every day of the month,” she said. “They learn a skill, marry later, have two fewer children and boost their incomes by 20 to 25 percent. They also speak up against violence and become economic drivers of their villages. They live with dignity and can care for themselves and their families.”

Suddenly, Glidden’s trek to the Himalayas in 2014 became a mission.

“When Duka told me about this situation in this refugee camp, I couldn’t get it out of my mind,” said Glidden, now 64. “I thought, ‘I’m going over there anyway. Now I have something to do.’ ”

She found out about an organization, Days for Girls, that had designed a kit, intended to last up to three years, that contains underwear, sanitary pads, a washcloth and a zipper storage bag.

Glidden managed to get 380 of these kits made, some by Albuquerque volunteers, some in a sewing center in Nepal, in time to take them to a refugee camp during her 2014 expedition.

“In April, my plan is to deliver 1,000 kits to a remote region of Nepal called the Kingdom of Mustang, high in the Himalayas near Tibet,” she said. “It was devastated by the (April 2015) earthquake. The people are very, very poor. There is no store you can go to. I will have a social worker who will guide me and act as interpreter. I will probably have to use horses.”

Again, some of the kits will be made in Albuquerque by volunteers at Ann Silva’s Bernina Sewing Center and the Hipstitch Quilting Store. Three Albuquerque Rotary Clubs – Sandia, Metro and Sunrise – are helping, either with sewing or through donations.

Glidden is also trying to raise money to establish a sewing center in Nepal that will not only make the hygiene kits but also pay Nepali women a living wage to work in the center.

There will be a fundraiser from 4 to 7 p.m. Feb. 20 at Dekker/Perich/Sabatini, 7601 Jefferson NE. Tickets cost $35 and may be purchased by looking for “Women to Be” on Eventbrite.com. For more information, go to www.Women2Be.org or to www.facebook.com/WomenToBe.

source: sabkura

Hidden portrait ‘found under Mona Lisa’, says French scientist

An image of a portrait underneath the Mona Lisa has been found beneath the existing painting using reflective light technology, according to a French scientist.

Pascal Cotte said he has spent more than 10 years using the technology to analyse the painting.
He claims the earlier portrait lies hidden underneath the surface of Leonardo’s most celebrated artwork.
A reconstruction shows another image of a sitter looking off to the side.
The Louvre Museum has declined to comment on his claims because it “was not part of the scientific team”.
Instead of the famous, direct gaze of the painting which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, the image of the sitter also shows no trace of her enigmatic smile, which has intrigued art lovers for more than 500 years.
But Mr Cotte’s claims are controversial and have divided opinion among Leonardo experts.Will Gompertz, Arts Editor

I’m sceptical. It’s perfectly common for an artist to overpaint an image as it is for a client who’s commissioned that artist to ask for changes. So it’s not surprising that there are those underpaintings on the Mona Lisa.
The data that the technology generates is open to interpretation, which needs to be analysed and corroborated by the academic and curatorial community, and not just an individual. I think the Louvre’s decision not to make a comment is telling.
This is the world’s most famous painting which, like a celebrity, always makes for a good story. But in this case I think caution is required.
The scientist, who is the co-founder of Lumiere Technology in Paris, was given access to the painting in 2004 by the Louvre.
He has pioneered a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM), which he used to analyse the Mona Lisa.

It works by “projecting a series of intense lights” on to the painting, Mr Cotte said. A camera then takes measurements of the lights’ reflections and from those measurements, Mr Cotte said he is able to reconstruct what has happened between the layers of the paint.
The Mona Lisa has been the subject of several scientific examinations over more than half a century. More recent techniques include infrared inspections and multi-spectral scanning.
But Mr Cotte has claimed his technique is able to penetrate more deeply into the painting.
He said: “We can now analyse exactly what is happening inside the layers of the paint and we can peel like an onion all the layers of the painting. We can reconstruct all the chronology of the creation of the painting.”

‘Shatter many myths’

Leonardo is believed to have worked on the painting between 1503 and 1517 while working in Florence and later in France.
There has long been debate about the Mona Lisa’s identity. But for centuries, it has been widely believed that she is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant.
But Mr Cotte has claimed his discoveries challenge that theory. He believes the image he has reconstructed underneath the surface of the painting is Leonardo’s original Lisa, and that the portrait named Mona Lisa for more than 500 years is, in fact, a different woman.
He said: “The results shatter many myths and alter our vision of Leonardo’s masterpiece forever.
“When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to Mona Lisa today. This is not the same woman.”
He also claims to have found two more images under the surface of the painting – a shadowy outline of a portrait with a larger head and nose, bigger hands but smaller lips. And he says he has found another Madonna-style image with Leonardo’s etchings of a pearl headdress.

‘Mona Lisa is Lisa’

But Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford, is not convinced.
Professor Kemp said: “They [Cotte’s images] are ingenious in showing what Leonardo may have been thinking about. But the idea that there is that picture as it were hiding underneath the surface is untenable.
“I do not think there are these discrete stages which represent different portraits. I see it as more or less a continuous process of evolution. I am absolutely convinced that the Mona Lisa is Lisa. ”
Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon has made a new BBC documentary called The Secrets of the Mona Lisa, studying historical documents linked to the painting alongside Mr Cotte’s scientific findings.
Mr Graham-Dixon said: “I have no doubt that this is definitely one of the stories of the century.
“There will probably be some reluctance on the part of the authorities at the Louvre in changing the title of the painting because that’s what we’re talking about – it’s goodbye Mona Lisa, she is somebody else.”
Mr Cotte announced the findings of his latest research at a press conference in Shanghai on Tuesday.
They will be included in an exhibition, Da Vinci – The Genius, which features displays of his research on the Mona Lisa over the last 11 years.
The show has travelled around the world and opens in Shanghai this week.
The Secrets of the Mona Lisa is on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on 9 December.

Source: sabkura

Nepal in Nat Geo’s Cool List amid tourism gloom

Dec 9, 2015- A drop in hotel bookings, empty airplane seats and fewer trekkers are what Nepal has experienced since the April 25 earthquake and subsequent trade embargo by India that has led to massive losses in the tourism industry this year.

But there is some good news too. Nepal has been included in National Geographic Traveller magazine’s Cool List for 2016. The UK-based popular travel publication has placed Nepal in the sixth spot among 16 cool locations to visit next year.

“Tourist numbers to Nepal plummeted by 85 percent after the devastating earthquakes, but the country is once more open for business and safe to visit, with a new government-backed website providing official updates on affected areas,” said National Geographic Traveller magazine.

“This is a nation that has long relied heavily on tourism, with many visitors lured by the chance to combine volunteerism with an adventure holiday in a stunning landscape.”

Ashok Pokhrel, president of the Nepal Association of Tour Operators, said that National Geographic Traveller magazine was highly popular among adventure travellers, and that the 16 must-see destinations for next year would help motivate them to travel to Nepal.

“Besides, the government should also promote Nepal more aggressively, and a large budget should be set aside for marketing for next year once the political tensions are settled,” he said. The government should lead the industry at this time as the private sector that is on the verge of bankruptcy is not in a position to promote Nepal, he added.

Tourist arrivals plunged 46 percent in the first 10 months as a series of disasters pounded Nepal’s tourism sector, a government report said.

According to a report prepared by the Tourism Ministry, Nepal lost 352,330 arrivals during the review period, hitting foreign exchange earnings and jobs in the industry. The country received 300,325 foreign visitors by air until October, down from 652,655 in the same period last year.

Bad times started for Nepal tourism with the accident of a Turkish Airlines jet at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport in March that led hundreds of potential visitors to cancel their trips.

The next month, the country was struck by a killer quake which destroyed tourism infrastructure, heritage sites and trekking trails. The dreadful event on April 25 set off a mass departure of tourists and a flurry of booking cancellations.

Just as tourism was beginning to recover from the effects of the deadly tremor, a political problems following the promulgation of a much-delayed constitution resulted in a fuel crisis which dealt another blow to the tottering industry. The current scenario is even worse. The trade embargo and resultant fuel shortage has forced hotels and restaurants to shut down, cut down job numbers and reduced the tourist length of stay to all-time lows.  The ministry said that tourists were currently staying for less than six days in Nepal. Last year, the average length of stay was 12.44 days. The average occupancy of hotels plunged below 20 percent in October following the Tarai unrest and fuel crisis. A number of hotels have closed down and others have laid off their workers.

source: sabkura

Nepal face Kiwis in opener

Nepal will open their ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup campaign with a match against New Zealand at Fatullah, Bangladesh on January 28.

The tournament will begin on January 27 with 16 teams 10 Test playing nations and six Associate and Affiliate Member sides Nepal, Afghanistan, Canada, Fiji, Namibia, and Scotland vying for the youth World Cup title in Bangladesh.

The six qualifiers joined the 10 Test playing nations in the World Cup through regional and global qualifying tournament.

The 16 teams have been divided into four groups. Nepal are in Group D along with India, New Zealand and Australia. South Africa, Bangladesh, Scotland and Namibia are in Group A, while Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Canada are in Group B. England, the West Indies, Zimbabwe and Fiji are in Group C.

Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka and Sylhet will host 48 matches of the 19-day tournament, which will begin with the match between defending champions South Africa and hosts Bangladesh in Chittagong.

After the New Zealand match, Nepal will face Australia on January 30, before playing against India in Mirpur on February 1. Top two teams from all the four teams will advance to the Super League from February 5, while the bottom eight teams will fight for Plate Championship from February 4.

The Plate Championship final will be played on February 12, whereas the Super League final will be held on February 14. Before the tournament, all the participating teams will play two practice matches.

Nepal will face Pakistan on January 23 and take on Sri Lanka two days later. Nepal qualified for the U-19 World Cup for the seventh time when they won the global qualifiers held in Malaysia in October.

Nepal, who had qualified for five consecutive editions from 2000-2008 and in 2012, failed to make it to the Finals in 2010 and 2014.

Nepal had entered the Super League round in 2000 edition in New Zealand and won the Plate Championship beating the Black Caps in 2006 in Sri Lanka.

source: sabkura