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KATHMANDU, July 24: Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Sher Bahadur Tamang has resigned following his controversial statement on Nepali female students studying medicine in Bangladesh. He had earlier said that Nepali medical students in Bangladesh were forced to ‘compromise their honor’ in order to get their certificates.

Following the uproar against the statement, the ruling Nepali Communist Party had on Monday evening asked Tamang to tender his resignation. Tamang resigned in a press meet on Tuesday. APEX BUREAU

Hundreds of people are missing and an unknown number dead after a dam collapsed in south-east Laos, state media reported.

The collapse at the hydroelectric dam in Attapeu province late on Monday sent flash floods through six villages, Laos News Agency said.

"Several human lives" were lost and "several hundreds of people [are] missing", it added.

More than 6,600 people have been made homeless by the floods, reports said.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please check BBC.COM

How many restaurants in Kathmandu can boast of a legacy of 50 years of regular operations? A handful, perhaps. One of them is The Ringmo Restaurant at Lazimpat (Opposite City Hotel). The restaurant has been in continuous operation for the past 50 years with the same staff and menu and the same group of regular patrons who swear by its offerings of fast food, Continental, Chinese and Japanese cuisine. Located in one of the oldest buildings in Lazimpat, the white doors and windows of the small eatery are easily missed unless one knows of the restaurant inside or unless someone has recommended it. Inside, the seating arrangement is homely and cozy. The customers get to choose from a fairly priced menu and be served with a smile by “Chyangba dai”, a sexagenarian waiter who has been with the restau­rant since its starting days.

THE MENU

Chef’s Special:

- Syouga Yako

- Grilled Pork Chop

- Cream Caramel

Opening hours

8 am - 9 pm

Location

Lazimpat, Ktm

Cards

Not Accepted

Meal for 2:

Rs 1,000

Reservations:

01-4415327

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) launched the fully automated electronic trading system of shares in the secondary market on July 17, the first day of the new fiscal. Traders, brokers and stakeholders of NEPSE were all agog. On July 3, NEPSE had tested the requi­site software, which would allow inves­tors to post purchase and sales order and provide them online payment, clearing and settlement facilities. The NEPSE Online Trading System (NOTS) had been purchased from YCO Pvt Ltd for Rs 6.4 million and the system was successfully tested by an Indian company, a third party. So far so good.

But when the NOTS came into oper­ation on July 17, few seemed satisfied because it had failed to stem the long bearish trend. This was against the expectation that the new system would increase the number of market partici­pants and also ease trading of existing market players, thereby boosting the market. It wasn’t meant to be. NEPSE slumped to 1,193.39 from 1,200.09 during the trading week of July 15-19.

Although the market indices saw a 12.27 increase on the first working day of the trading week on July 16, the second day saw a decline in the indices by 8.05 points. Then, on July 18, trading was disrupted for two hours due to techni­cal problems at the NEPSE data center and fiber connections, limiting trading to Rs175.37 million, while the NEPSE plunged by 5.54 points.

In fact, the bearish trend in NEPSE had been evident all through the previous fiscal. During the mid-July 2017 to mid-July 2018 period, investors lost Rs 421.69 billion. The share market swooned due to oversupply supply of shares and fall in demand caused by political uncertainty.

The sour investor mood is also reflected in market capitalization. On the last day of the fiscal 2016-17, the market capitalization of traded shares stood at Rs 1,856.82 billion, according to NEPSE. On July 16, the last day of the fiscal 2017-18, the market value of listed shares had decreased to Rs 1,435.13 billion. In the one year, the NEPSE index plunged by 370.13 points, to close at 1,212.36 points on July 16.

Weekly Editorial Cartoon

Non Fiction

THE HAPPINESS PROJECT

Gretchen Rubin

Published: Dec 25, 2015(Revised Edition)

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks

Pages: 368

For some, happiness means a cold glass of beer on a hot sum­mer day. For others, it might be a good cup of coffee and a book to the pitter-patter of rain outside. Sleeping in late during the week­ends is also said to make quite a lot of people extremely happy. What makes you happy today might not do so tomorrow, and what makes one person happy might have no effect whatsoever on someone else. But one thing is certain: We are all in our own little quests for happiness, and the pursuit of happiness is a never-ending one. That is where The Happiness Proj­ect by Gretchen Rubin can come to your rescue. This book is a great read to, in a way, understand hap­piness and try to devise your own pathway to bliss. Rubin, an author, wife and mother of two, felt she had lost her ability to find happiness in day-to-day life despite having everything she could ever want—a loving husband, wonderful kids, good health, and a career she was content with.

However, one day she had an epiphany of sorts when she was on a bus. She felt she was just going through the days without truly enjoying them. Rubin wanted to know what it was that was stopping her from being truly happy, and she decided to devote a year to what she called ‘The Happiness Project’.

The book is the outcome of Rubin’s own experiments in trying to improve her life, one resolution at a time while putting to test classic advice on happiness, from Thoreau to Oprah, to find out what works and what doesn’t. From boosting energy and making time for love to pursing a passion and being lighthearted, Rubin tackles one aspect of her life every month and works on it before moving on to another. This allows you to reflect on your own life and take in little nuggets of wisdom, learning from Rubin’s experiences. You are saved the hit and trail run that Rubin had to go through.

The memoir style writing is what makes The Happiness Project an engaging read and, because Rubin is never preachy, it’s unlike any other self-help book you have ever read. She never tells you what to do.

She just shows you what she did and how it affected her life, and implores you to identify areas in your life that you would like to work on (just like she did) and create your own happiness project in the process. Her book is just a rough guideline to get you started. And, believe us, it works.

For more of Rubin’s advice, you can visit her website that has podcasts and blogs as well. Her other works on happiness include The Four Tendencies, Better than Before, and Happier at Home.

The overflowing of Bhaktapur’s major rivers on July 12 caused widespread flooding in the area, resulting in three deaths and over Rs 120 million worth of damages. As our main story this week shows, the hardest hit in these floods were people from lowest economic strata: those running small retail shops and cottage industries. A week after, they were still struggling to come to terms with the tragedy.

One of them was Lal Lama of Radhe Radhe in Thimi. On the morning of July 12, Lama found his two children floating in the water that had seeped into his small shop. He nearly drowned as well. Barely was he able to save his family. This wasn’t the first time tragedy struck the Lama family. In fact, it had been displaced from its earlier abode in Kavre by the 2015 earthquakes. Most of their belongings destroyed by floods, Lal’s family may have to move again.  

Full story on Here

The slapping of extra c on inter­net services, in addition to a two percent increase in taxes on voice calls, may at the outset seem justified. Way too many hours are wasted every day in useless chats over social media, and the cheaper it gets to call people, the greater the scope for abuse of telephones and mobile phones too. But that would be a myopic view.

In this country of under 29 million people there are over 37 million mobile phone subscriptions. Of course, many subscribe to more than one plan. Yet it is note­worthy that overall internet penetration in Nepal has crossed 61 percent, and at least half the population is believed to carry smartphones. These datasets suggest that people from all walks of life, and from all econom­ic backgrounds, are using internet and mobile phones.

Yes, there is some wastage of time online. But these amenities also create a wealth of opportunities for everyone. With the greater penetration of phones and internet, vegetable farmers in rural areas can now directly negotiate with the wholesalers, thereby cutting out the middlemen who typically pocket 15-20 percent of the sale value. Cheap calls and internet voice ser­vices allow the families to stay in regular touch with their sons and daughters toiling abroad; there can be no substitute for physical presence of your loved ones, but the voice and images transmitted over Skype is the next best thing. TED talks and education courses offered over YouTube make Nepalis more knowledge­able and better prepared for modern job market.

If fact, there are countless other productive and cre­ative uses of internet and phone services. Uganda ear­lier this year imposed a ‘social media tax’, as most of its citizens were using social media platforms to “spread gossip”. In the view of many Ugandans, the real reason for the tax is that the government of President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in office continuously for 32 years, wants to stifle dissent. Could the Nepali govern­ment, which is also increasingly accused of authori­tarian tendencies, also be up to no good? By increas­ing taxes the ruling communist party is in fact going against its own election manifesto.

Rather than luxuries, internet and phones have become modern-day necessities without which it is hard to function. Again, the rich folks will easily be able to afford the extra 13 percent tax. It is the less well-off, the proletariat whose cause the communist party champions, who will struggle to pay.