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 .The Nepal Communist Party has virtual control over all three tiers of government. It has over two-thirds majority in the federal parliament, and runs six of the seven provinces as well as most local units. It was precisely with this intent that the two biggest communist forces had formally united over four months ago. At the time, the two co-chairmen, KP Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, had assured their skeptical countrymen that rather than wrangling they would work together as ‘co-pilots’ of the same airplane. It has not been a smooth flight. Dahal wasted no time in projecting himself as the prime minister-in-waiting, even as he was eerily silent on the many criticisms that came the way of the Oli government. Oli for his part has ruled both the country and his party by diktat. Dahal seems to have taken after Oli on this. Disenchantment among the rank and file is growing. This displeasure with the party leadership was evi­dent most recently after the selection of the NCP provincial in-charges (with the largely ceremonial role of overall party management in the province) and provincial committee chairpersons (who enjoy most executive powers).

The party statute confers this selection right on the 45-member standing committee. The committee members were thus aghast when the nine-member secretariat, under the effective control of the two co-chairmen, announced the names of these province-level officials—without informing the committee. Interestingly, four leaders close to Dahal and three close to Oli were made provincial committee chairper­sons; contenders from other factions were sidelined.

Meanwhile, those close to Dahal say he has already had a ‘serious discussion’ with Oli about the government’s inability to meet public expectation. They say he is as yet not angling for the post of prime minister or party chairman. He will go with the status quo for the first two years of Oli’s prime ministership. After that, “all bets are off”.

But even if Dahal is patient enough to bide his time, other party colleagues are getting antsy. Senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal has grown progressively distant from Oli. Another senior leader Jhalanath Khanal has always been uncomfortable with the terms of party unification. Narayan Kaji Shrestha has resigned as spokesperson. And Ram Baha­dur Thapa, the Maoist home minister, seems intent on under­mining his prime minister every step of the way.

When the prime minister touches down on TIA on October 4 after an extended foreign trip he will have his hands full trying to paper over the growing cracks in the party edifice.

The third edition of the Kathmandu Blues and Roots music festival is all set to take place this Saturday, Sept 29, at the Tangalwood premises. This time, the orga­nizers promise a bigger and better edition of Kathmandu’s homegrown homage to the music from the Americas. With an international act The Well, all the way from the US, the Kathmandu Blues and Roots this year boasts of a versatile lineup of local musicians tak­ing the stage to play the blues. Nepal’s folk-blues legends Mukti and Revival will be headlining the event with Newaz, TMR Trio, Illusion, Kathmandu Cats and Millions Addicts—the winners of the Blues and Roots online contest—slated to perform at the all-day affair.

The event, organized by Tarang Entertainment, will begin at 12:30 pm with the tra­ditional Gulan Baja from Ason opening the event. The Distin­guished Gentleman’s Ride hap­pening on the same day is also sharing the Tangalwood venue and the riders of the DGR are expected to merge into the audi­ence of Blues and Roots, making it even grander.

Tickets (Rs 300 each) to the event can be purchased at the door  

 If you are looking for a quiet week­end getaway then Om Adhyay Retreat Resort in Tistung-Pa­lung is the place to be! Located 65 km north of Kathmandu, it is an adventurous four-hour drive. Try to avoid the bumpy Kulekhani road though. Instead take the one that goes from Naubisey to Daman (on the old road to Hetauda). On the way to Daman, there are plenty of pointers to the hotel. Meanwhile, en route, you can enjoy some ultra-clean air, which is increasingly a luxury for people in Kathmandu. When you reach the hotel, which was established in 2015, you will find peace and serenity. The place is nice and quiet, too, with farms on three sides and a hill on one, and with the calming sound of waterfall in the backdrop to boot.

The name Om Adhyay sug­gests a meditative retreat, and the place seems to reflect this. Even if a noisy group is in the vicinity, you will easily find a corner inside the spacious property where you can be by yourself.

There are 42 tents with very good mattresses in case you want to experience living in one, while you have all modern amenities at your doorstep. You can also hire a tent to set it up in the hills nearby. What’s more, these tents are Rs 300 cheaper than normal room fares in the resort!

You can enjoy in-house activities such as snooker, table tennis, vol­leyball, badminton and also relive your childhood by playing slides and swings. There is a plunge pool too, where water flows in from a ‘dhunge dhara’ as you relax. From this place, you can go explore other destina­tions as well; Markhu, Kulekhani, Chitlang, Unamatteshwor Mahadev, Bajra Barahi, Kulekhani and Kunch­hal village are within short distance. Some of them can also be reached on foot, if you prefer to walk it.

The meals at the resort are a tasty affair—the a la carte snacks and the main course “Nepali dal bhat” buffet are both so good you might want to go back just for them. The in-house restaurant also serves var­ious liquors as well as shisha. The staff is friendly and helpful.

Fridays and Saturdays are usually packed so for those days booking should be done three weeks prior, according to Deepak Bidari, the director of the resort. Otherwise, you can book a week ahead or just drop in. One-day stay package here costs around Rs 3,000, which is a good deal considering many facili­ties such as free Wi-Fi.

As this place is cold throughout the year, the best time to visit would be during summer or late summer. Director Bidari says large groups from companies and schools often come visit.

Om Adhyay is recommended for those who want to travel a little dis­tance from Kathmandu for a retreat experience, writers who want some alone time for creative energy to flow and people who want to med­itate. A weekend there promises to be a great retreat for your mind, body and soul. 

 As you sit in the pitch-dark hall of the Sarwanam Theater to watch “Janayudha Jari Cha?” you do not know what exactly to anticipate. But rest assured, this play will meet all your expectations. You will do well to closely watch. The actors are not just on the stage; they may, in the middle of an act, flood towards the audience, making the audience feel as if they are in a battlefield, first-hand witness of the decade-long Maoist rebellion. When the play starts, you get a sense that a lot of energy has gone into it. Everything looks well planned—the actors, stage decoration, and props.

At certain points, you even get goose­bumps, looking at the fantastic stage choreography, the ominous build-up to a climax or sharp dialogue delivery. “We spent five months just practicing. Three months we spent on outdoor training,” reveals Raj Shah, the writer, director and an actor of “Janayudha Jari Cha?”

In just an hour “Janayudha Jari Cha?” successfully shows you how young and patriotic Nepalis fought for their beliefs, the struggles they faced when leaving their families to join the revolu­tion, the pain they felt when they killed someone or when someone they knew died and how, at the end, they felt the sacrifices they made were for nothing as they did not really get what they aimed for—a better Nepal. Shah wrote the play as a homage to the young who died for a cause believed in. “I just want to do justice to the fighters who gave their all for the country,” Shah says. The play will be staged at 5:15 pm every day till October 7 (except on Thursdays) at Sarwanam Theater, Kalikasthan.

 Q. Describe your personality in three words

A. Since I am an extrovert: forthright, vibrant and outgoing

Q. One outfit that you cannot go wrong with

A. LBD (Little Black Dress)

Q. Biggest pet-peeve

A. People who appear too sweet on the face

Q. Three must-have things before leaving the house

A. My phone, mini perfume bottle, sunglasses

Q. Best piece of advice you’ve received

A. “Think before you speak.” I don’t know how to

Q. If you could have coffee with one celebrity who would it be?

      A. Bina Ghale

Pulsar deal with Martyr’s Memorial A-Division League

Bajaj Pulsar has just entered into a title sponsor­ship agreement with the Martyr’s Memorial A-Di­vision League, one of the most prominent football tournaments in the country. The partnership is for three years, as per a statement released by the company. The MOU for the sponsorship was signed this week by Shekhar Golchha, Managing Director of HH Bajaj, and Raj Humagain, Marketing Manager of the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA).

Daraz hosts first seller summit in Kathmandu

Popular e-commerce site Daraz hosted over 650 sellers at the first Seller summit in Kathmandu on September 18. The summit offered vendors looking to sell their products on Nepal’s fastest growing commerce platform an opportunity to learn and discover smarter ways to sell via Daraz. The e-com­merce firm introduced upgraded systems and soft­ware, said the press release.

The new three- step approach aims to improve seller engagement and enhance customer service.

 It’s been nearly two months since the brutal rape and mur­der of 13-year-old Nirmala Pant of Ultakham, Bhimdatta munici­pality in Kanchanpur district. But Nepal Police has thus far failed to get anywhere close to solving the crime, this despite the police claim to the contrary. “Our investigation has been rig­orous,” says investigation officer in the case Krishna Raj Ojha. “And yet we have been unable to uncover incriminating evidence.”

Bhimdatta locals suspect the police are dilly-dallying so that vital evidence can be tampered with, if that has not already happened.

After all, it has been established that police officials involved in initial investigation had tried to system­atically erase evidence from crime scene. Another established fact is that initial investigation was aimed more at finding a scapegoat than solving the crime.

After Nirmala’s body was dis­covered on July 26, Nepal Police had deployed a probe team from its Central Investigation Bureau, which looks into serious crimes. When this team completed its inves­tigation, in conjunction with local police, it paraded before the pub­lic 41-year-old Dilip Singh Bista, a mentally-challenged person, as the perpetrator of the crime.

But as soon as Bista was present­ed as the prime suspect, the locals erupted in protest. They could not believe a mentally-challenged per­son was capable of pulling off such a meticulously-orchestrated crime.

In the ensuing police firing one person was killed while doz­ens were injured. After this the government formed another investi­gation team under Hari Prasad Main­ali, a joint secretary at the Home Ministry. The Chief District Office of Kanchanpur as well as its head of police were recalled.

As the locals had been arguing all along, Dilip Singh Bista was prov­en innocent when his DNA sample didn’t match the sample collected from the deceased body. The other suspect, Chakradev Badu, was also exonerated on the same ground.

Now the police are reportedly in the process of testing the DNA of the suspended Superintendent of Police of Kanchanpur Dilliraj Bista, who was initially in charge of the investi­gation, as well as the DNA of his son Kiran Bista and one Ayush Bista.

Besides, yet another probe team under CIB’s senior superinten­dent Thakur Prasad Gyawali has been deployed. This is in addition to an expert group of criminolo­gists that has been constituted to look into this crime. Moreover, on Sept 18, a separate ‘ladies team’ under Superintendent of Police Durga Singh was sent to Kanchanpur for investigation.

Nirmala’s family suspects foul play as all these investigations have thus far born no fruit. “It’s been nearly two months and Nirmala’s killers are still at large,” says Laxmi Pant, Nirmala’s step-mother. “We have started doubting if we will ever get justice.” She says the officers who erased evidence must be taken into custody and investigated. “It is vital that we know why they destroyed crucial evidence,” she says.

 As the country marked the third anniversary of the promulgation of the new constitution perhaps no other issue made as many headlines as the real or perceived disputes between the federal and provincial governments. Intentionally or not, the federal government has found it increasingly hard to devolve adequate power and resources to the seven provinces. There are a few reasons for this. One, most of the federal-level ministers and senior bureau­crats, long trained on the old unitary ways, are not used to such devolution. More accustomed to giving directives and having them blindly followed, they are struggling to internalize the fact of decentralization and devolution of decision-making: These days the provincial and local bod­ies have their own executive and legislative organs and the constitution empowers them to deal with most local issues on their own.

Two, the bureaucrats who were supposed to imple­ment the constitution and ensure smooth functioning of the new federation were never prepared for the tran­sition. They got no training or counselling. As such the provincial authorities are having a hard time convinc­ing them work under the new setup. The Chief District Officers for instance still prefer to report to the center rather than to province chiefs. Since many of the new laws to operationalize the federal system have not been formed, the judiciary also finds it easy to adjudicate in favor of the federal government during disputes.

Three, there is still a lot of trust deficit between the center and the lower tiers of government, even though the same coalition runs the federal government as well as all seven provinces. This owes to the fear among the federal leaders that the provincial chiefs perhaps want to establish alternate power centers. The federal government is also being blamed for allowing local and provincial governments to collect their own ‘punitive’ taxes, even though the constitution explicitly allows this. And when the federal government intervenes, it is castigated for usurping the prerogative of the lower tiers.

There are signs that the seven provinces will increasingly work together to secure greater autonomy for themselves. In a way, the provinces feel shortchanged as the federal and local governments between them are seen as making all vital decisions. It could be a while yet before a modus vivendi can be worked out between the center and the provinces.