Ex-palace staff accept change
February 27, 2009 
POST B. BASNET/DEV KUMAR SUNUWAR
KATHMANDU, Feb 27 – Once they were employees of the powerful royal palace. But with the monarchy gone, the grandeur associated with a job in the palace has vanished. What now stands around them is just a pink palace sans royalties. (Read More)
Squatters find way to rid of river pollution
By DEV KUMAR SUNWAR
Medical brain drain [COVER STORY]
BY NITYA NANDA TIMSINA
KATHMANDU, Jan 6 – It’s a story of scarcity amidst abundance. It’s also a story of how trained and talented manpower from developing countries is being sucked into the developed world, at the cost of lives of the poor. It’s a saga of Nepal’s struggle to retain trained doctors and send them to rural areas against the lure of bright careers and great perks in the western world. (Read More)
Electrifying Change
BY Bikash Thapa / Tula Ram Pandey
She had to walk down steep steps for an hour to reach a watermill near the Baligad river, and sometimes even had to wait in line throughout the night for her turn. (Read More)
Apathy feeds road congestion
KOSH RAJ KOIRALA [KATHMANDU] –
Nobel laureate Amaratya Sen famously said famine is not caused by scarcity of food but by people’s lack of purchasing power. Kathmandu’s worsening traffic congestion is also not caused by growing number of vehicles; instead, it’s a result of government apathy.
As cities grow, so do the number of vehicles. That’s a simple universal phenomenon. The only way to address this challenge is to increase the road network and trained human resources. This is where the government has failed miserably. (Read More)
A tale of two eras
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By Rupak D Sharma
KATHMANDU – 1995
Back in 1995 I was in desperate need of two vehicles. I approached Nabil Bank for a loan to reduce my immediate financial burden. After a cumbersome process, the bank agreed to loan me Rs 2.6 million, which covered almost 70 percent of the price of the vehicles. The interest rate was 15 percent, an exorbitant rate by today’s standards, and I would have to pay back the loan within three years. As a repayment guarantee, I had to submit my land ownership certificate. After the negotiation was sealed I had to wait for another three months for final approval from the bank. The day I got the money I considered myself luck, for, the bank loan was still a prerogative. -Arun Pokharel, Shangri-La Tours
2006 After some thought, one fine morning I decided to buy a car. However, I didn’t want to spend my savings on the automobile. I knew that borrowing from a bank was always one option but I hadn’t made any serious exploration. One day, I went to the Maruti showroom at Thapathali and told them that I wanted to buy a car under bank loan. They told me to come with documents that disclosed my monthly income and 10 percent (of the car’s price) down payment. Exhilarated, I visited the showroom again within a few days. They checked my documents and accepted 10 percent of the car price in cash. In less than an hour I drove my new car home. All preparations for the bank loan were done by the auto dealer. A few days later I visited the bank and signed the loan papers. I had never imagined that borrowing from the bank was this easy.
-Niranjan Sharma, dental surgeon (Read More)
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Govt apathy forces closure of the only Nepal’s model slaughterhouse
BY DEV KUMAR SUNUWAR
KATHMANDU, NOV. 8
With the government failing to implement the Slaughterhouse and Meat Inspection Act-1999, the only international-standard slaughterhouse established with government assistance at Thankot seven years ago is to be shut-down in a month’s time.
The slaughterhouse named “Quality Meat Product Ltd.” was built under the Third Livestock Development Programme (TLDP) of the Ministry of Agriculture. The slaughterhouse was started with the concept of public-private partnership in 2001 with the aim of providing hygienic meat products to Valley dwellers. (Read More)
Khokana village losing its uniqueness
By DEV KUMAR SUNUWAR
KATHMANDU, May 30 – Sixty-five years old Hira Lal Dongol, no more does his past-days business of visiting the market by carrying Kharpan (Basket carrier), nor visits the nearby community run mustard oil mill, even though he happens to be one of its 150 shareholders.
Time was when every single member of household in the village would go to the market with Kharpan on their shoulders daily.This used to be a pleasant moment for everybody then. But those are the days gone by. “Everything has changed now,” said Dongol.
KMC inaction on parking causes traffic woes
DEV KUMAR SUNUWAR
From squatter slum to high-rise
BY DEV KUMAR SUNUWAR
DEV KUMAR SUNUWAR 