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Four persons died and one sustained critical injuries when a double cap Hilux met with an accident at Jhupra Khola in Birendranagar Municipality-11 of Surkhet district in the wee hours of Sunday. The vehicle (Ba Pra 01026 Cha 9213) was heading towards Birendranagar from Chinchu of Surkhet when the incident occurred at around 2 am today. The deceased have been identified as driver Sagar Shahi (27) of Birendranagar Municipality-7, Deepak Jung Shahi (33) of Dungeshwor Municipality-5, Dailekh, Babin Shahi (31) of Bhagwatimai Rural Municipality-5, Dailekh and Rajendra BC of Gurans Rural Municipality-3, Dailekh. Birendra Shahi (26) of Gabhairabi Rural Municipality-5, who was seriously injured in the accident, is undergoing treatment at the Karnali Province Hospital. The vehicle fell some 70 meters down the road, police said.

The Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government has taken a full-shape. In the 23-member Council of Ministers, 16 are new faces, which is a welcome move. The newly appointed ministers have rolled out ambitious plans to improve the service delivery of their respective ministries and line agencies. Those who became ministers in the first phase of expansion have already started their work. Prime Minister Dahal, on his part, has already instructed the top brass bureaucrats to bring changes in service delivery within a month. Similarly, Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane and Minister for Infrastructure Development Narayan Kaji Shrestha have been conducting inspection rounds of government agencies. It remains to be seen whether this zeal shown by the government will bring about positive changes. But there is one glaring problem in the Dahal Cabinet that begs attention: appointments of Bikram Bahadur Pandey as Urban Development Minister and Dol Prasad Aryal as Labor, Employment and Social Security Minister. They have been put in charge of the ministries where they have conflicts of interest. Pandey owns a construction contract company, notorious for delaying numerous development projects. The Urban Ministry has vital tasks such as monitoring development projects and taking action against defaulting contractors. With Pandey heading the ministry, there is the obvious question regarding his impartiality. How can citizens be assured that he will not abuse his position to advance his own business or that of his close circle? Similarly, Aryal, who has been given the portfolio of Labor, Employment and Social Security, is a former foreign recruitment agency owner. It is a well-established fact that foreign employment sector is one of the most corrupt in Nepal. As fraud and malpractices are rife in the foreign employment field, the country needs a strong minister who could strictly monitor and take action against unscrupulous agencies and their agents. But the incumbent labor minister himself is a former foreign employment agency operator. One cannot expect him to work for the interest of foreign job aspirants. Elsewhere in the world, potential conflicts of interest are a major point of consideration when someone is appointed to an important post. But successive governments in Nepal have been making controversial appointments. This is not limited to ministries alone. The current parliament also has a sizable presence of industrialists and construction contractors. Prime Minister Dahal, who is holding the prime minister’s office for the third time, should have known better when appointing ministers, as he had faced intense criticism in the past for protecting his landlord and a serial contract defaulter, Sharada Prasad Adhikari. With ministers leading the ministries where they have conflicts of interest and various interest groups trying to influence the law and policy making process, Dahal’s pledge to make citizen-friendly government agencies is already ringing hollow. It will do the prime minister well to keep a close eye on his ministers, because if one of them messes up, the blame will fall squarely on him.

The latest summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was held in Kathmandu in 2014. The next iteration of the biennial regional meeting was supposed to be hosted by Pakistan in Islamabad, but it was postponed indefinitely due to the India-Pakistan tensions. In the nearly four-decade-long SAARC history, this is the first time the summit-level meeting has not taken place for a long time. As though the India-Pakistan rivalry was not enough, Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 has further pushed SAARC’s future into uncertainty. While there has been no summit-level meeting in more than eight years, the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu has been conducting its activities, including holding ministerial-level meetings of the member states in a bid to revive the moribund regional body. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, SAARC representatives made it a point of holding virtual meetings. But now SAARC stares at another potential crisis in a form of leadership vacuum, as the incumbent Secretary General Esala Ruwan Weerakoon approaches the end of his term. Weerakoon, who assumed office on 1 March 2020, will complete his term in March this year. To date there has not been any decision about his successor. This is because it is now Afghanistan’s turn to send a new secretary general. Like the international community, the SAARC member nations have not recognized the Talibans as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. As a SAARC chair, Nepal has been holding consultations with member states to find a solution, albeit without any progress. As the member countries, primarily India, have not shown any interest, Nepal’s efforts alone cannot yield any results. Despite the stalemate-like situation, a couple of options are under discussion. First, asking Bangladesh to recommend secretary general by skipping Afghanistan by rule of alphabetical order. A source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said as Afghanistan’s nomination cannot be accepted under current circumstances, asking Bangladesh to send its representative can be one of the options. The second option is for Nepal, as a SAARC chair, sending a secretary general—most likely a senior official working at the secretariat— until the new arrangement is made. However, as per SAARC charter, all decisions should be taken in consensus. This means a decision taken without Afghanistan’s consent could create a question of legitimacy. Experts say SAARC’s relevance is dying also because India, as the most powerful and influential member state, has turned its back on the regional body and shifted its focus on other regional organizations, like BIMSTEC. Shambhu Ram Simkhada, former Nepali ambassador to the United Nations, is of the view that as a SAARC chair, Nepal should play a proactive role to revive SAARC. He said since some big member countries do not seem interested in keeping the SAARC alive, Nepal has to make its position clear. He added that Nepal’s political leadership should take up this issue with the leadership of other member countries. Initiatives taken from the bureaucratic level, according to Simkhada, cannot yield any substantial result. Some officials want Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to raise the issue of SAARC with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and other senior government officials during his India visit. They also want Foreign Minister Bimala Rai Poudel to do her part. Among other tasks, she also has the responsibility of resolving the problem faced by SAARC. Nepal has always been a strong proponent of regionalism and it was one of the chief architects of SAARC. The country should not give up on the regional body that easily.

Devraj Ghimire of the CPN-UML has been elected as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Out of 268 votes cast today, Ghimire secured 167 votes. His nearest rival Ishwori Neupane of the Nepali Congress obtained 100 votes. Senior member of the Parliament Pashupati Shumsher JB Rana said that one lawmaker remained neutral in the voting. UML’s Subash Nembang proposed Ghimire’s candidacy while Rastriya Prajatantra Party Chairman Rajendra Lingden, Rastriya Swatantra Party Chairman Rabi Lamichhane and CPN (Maoist Center)’s Chief Whip Hitraj Pandey seconded the proposal. Ghimire was elected as a member of the House of Representatives from Jhapa-2. He defeated independent candidate Swagat Nepal by a margin of 2, 297 votes. Born in Taplejung in 2013 BS, Ghimire began his political career as a student leader and was a National Assembly member from 1999 to 2003 BS. The 66-year-old leader is now the UML standing committee member and the party in-charge for Province 1. The Constitution requires the lower house to elect the Speaker within 15 days of the commencement of the first meeting and either Speaker or Deputy Speaker shall be a woman and belong to different parties. Meanwhile, the election for the Deputy Speaker has been scheduled for January 21.