Naya Shakti flays govt decision to award Budhi Gandaki Project to Chinese company

Baburam Bhattarai-led Naya Shakti Nepal has said that the decision of Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government to award the contract to construct Budhi Gandaki Hydropower Project to China’s Gezhouba Group Corporation was against the nation’s interest.

Issuing a statement on Thursday, the party criticised the government arguing that the decision to hand over the contract to construct 1200 MW project to the Chinese company was condemnable.

Bhattarai, who is also a former Prime Minister, said that the government awarded the project to the Chinese company like a blank cheque.

The party has also demanded that the government immediately scrap the agreement signed with the Chinese company.

The government on June 4 had signed a contract agreement of the project with the Chinese company.

Energy Minister Janardan Sharma and a representative from the Chinese company had signed the agreement paper for the construction of 1200MW project.

A Cabinet meeting on May 23 had approved the Energy Ministry’s proposal in principle to let the Chinese company build the 1,200 MW project under the engineering, procurement, construction and finance (EPCF) model of project development.

Comments

Acharya appointed to NOC’s top post

The government has given the responsibility of the executive director of Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) to Joint Secretary at Ministry of Supplies (MoS), Prem Prasad Acharya.A ministerial-level meeting at MoS today decided to give the responsibility of NOC’s top post to Acharya until further notice, according to Urmila KC, undersecretary at MoS. The post of executive director at NOC had become vacant after the government, on Monday, sacked the then executive director of the corporation Gopal Bahadur Khadka for his alleged involvement in financial irregularities while procuring land for the development of petroleum infrastructure.

‘Clean India’ mission not ending manual scavenging, activists say

MUMBAI: A flagship government program to modernise India’s sanitation has failed to tackle the practice of low caste women clearing faeces by hand, and has even exacerbated the problem by building toilets not connected to water supplies, campaigners say. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission, with much fanfare after he took office in 2014, sweeping a Delhi street with a broom. Since then, thousands of toilets have been built across the country.But Dalit communities, especially women, are still forced to be manual scavengers, a euphemism for clearing faeces from dry toilets and open drains by hand, despite laws to end the practice. The workers have it harder now, activists said. “Swachh Bharat has diverted attention from ending manual scavenging, and makes it seem like the whole country is cleaning. But if that’s the case, then why are people still dying in septic tanks,” said activist Bezwada Wilson. “There is also no dis...

US trio win Nobel for finding Einstein’s gravitational waves

STOCKHOLM/LONDON: Three US scientists won the 2017 Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday for opening up a new era of astronomy by detecting gravitational waves, ripples in space and time foreseen by Albert Einstein a century ago. The work of Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne crowned half a century of experimental efforts by scientists and engineers.Measuring gravitational waves offers a new way to observe the cosmos, helping scientists explore the nature of mysterious objects including black holes and neutron stars. It may also provide insight into the universe’s very earliest moments. The first detection of the waves created a scientific sensation when it was announced early last year and the teams involved in the discovery had been widely seen as favourites for Tuesday’s prize. “We now witness the dawn of a new field: gravitational wave astronomy,” Nils Martensson, acting chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics, told reporters. “This will teach us about the ...

Nepalinews

Search This Blog