Submit your Article

The Election Commission (EC) has started printing ballot papers for the local level elections slated for May 13.

In a routine press meet organized by the EC here on Monday, spokesperson Shaligram Sharma shared that the Janak Education Materials Centre, Bhaktapur has been printing the ballot papers.

According to Sharma, a total of 1,940,000 ballot papers of 77 types and 23 rows will be printed for the upcoming local level elections. He informed that ballot papersof 56 rows will be printed for the Kathmandu district while 16 rows will be printed for Dolpa. 

The Commission has already printed 180,000 sets of sample ballot papers to facilitate the political parties in the election campaigns and for voter education. 

The voter list can be obtained from the Commission paying Rs 7,000 for a nationwide voter list and a province-level voter list for Rs 5,000. The official letter from the political party is mandatory to obtain the voter list. 

Similarly, the voter list of the district could be gained for Rs 3,000, Rs 1,000 for municipality level and Rs 500 for ward level. The official letter from a political party or candidate vying in the election is mandatory to get an electronic copy of the voter list. 

The Commission said that it has already implemented directives relating to voter education, election training, and vote counting among others. RSS

The ruling coalition has formed a committee under the headship of Nepali Congress senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel to prepare and monitor the local level elections.

A meeting of the coalition held on Tuesday formed a committee under the leadership of Paudel to prepare and monitor the civic polls scheduled for May 13, CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s press coordinator Surya Kiran Sharma said.

He said that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba briefed the ruling coalition parties on the achievements of his three-day official visit to India.

The prime minister claimed that his visit to India has further strengthened the relationship between the two countries.

The meeting concluded that the head of the government’s visit to India had become successful.

Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushap Kamal Dahal, Janata Samajbadi Federal Council Chairman Baburam Bhattarai, CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal and Nepali Congress senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel among other leaders were present in the meeting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy planned to speak Tuesday to UN Security Council diplomats outraged by growing evidence that Russian forces have deliberated killed civilians, many of them shot in yards, streets and homes, and their bodies left in the open, Associated Press reported.

The withdrawal of Russian troops from towns around Ukraine’s capital revealed the corpses, which led to calls for tougher sanctions against the Kremlin, especially a cutoff of fuel imports from Russia. Germany and France reacted by expelling dozens of Russian diplomats, suggesting they were spies. US President Joe Biden said Russian leader Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes.

“This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous,” Biden said, referring to the town northwest of the capital that was the scene of some of the horrors.

The discovery of bodies in Bucha was expected to be “front and center” at the Security Council session, said Barbara Woodward, the UN ambassador for the United Kingdom, which currently holds the council presidency.

Associated Press journalists in Bucha counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and apparently without weapons, many shot at close range, and some with their hands bound or their flesh burned, according to Associated Press.

After touring neighborhoods of Bucha and speaking to hungry survivors lining up for bread, Zelenskyy pledged in a video address that Ukraine would work with the European Union and the International Criminal Court to identify Russian fighters involved in any atrocities.

“The time will come when every Russian will learn the whole truth about who among their fellow citizens killed, who gave orders, who turned a blind eye to the murders,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the scenes outside Kyiv as a “stage-managed anti-Russian provocation.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the images contained “signs of video forgery and various fakes.”

Russia has similarly rejected previous allegations of atrocities as fabrications on Ukraine’s part, Associated Press reported.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said peace talks will continue with Russia despite accusing Moscow of war crimes and genocide, BBC reported.

Mr Zelensky was speaking in Bucha, near the capital Kyiv, where bodies of civilians were found strewn on the streets after Russian troops withdrew.

The shocking videos and photos sparked outrage around the world and calls for further sanctions against Russia.

Without evidence, Russia said images of atrocities had been staged by Ukraine.

Ukraine started a war crimes investigation after it said the bodies of 410 civilians had been found in areas around Kyiv. Some were discovered in mass graves while others had their hands tied and had apparently been shot at close range.

Wearing a bullet-proof vest and surrounded by Ukrainian soldiers, Mr Zelensky said Russian troops had "treated people worse than animals". "That is real genocide, what you have seen here," he said.

Responding to a question from the BBC on whether it was still possible to talk peace with Russia, Mr Zelensky said: "Yes, because Ukraine must have peace. We are in Europe in the 21st Century. We will continue efforts diplomatically and militarily," according to BBC.

In other developments:

• The International Red Cross said members of a team trying to organise evacuations from the besieged city of Mariupol had been detained by police in the nearby town of Manhush
• Despite pressure from EU, Germany warned that cutting off Russian gas supplies to Europe was not a possibility at the moment
• The UK was expected to push for further international sanctions against Russia as reaction to the evidence of atrocities

In the town of Bucha, witnesses described Russian soldiers firing on men fleeing after refusing to allow them to leave through humanitarian corridors.

At least 20 dead men were found lying in the street, many of them with extensive wounds. Some had been shot through the temple, as if executed, while others had clearly been run over by tanks.

Satellite images taken by Maxar show a 14m (45ft) mass grave in the city near the church of St Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints.

In the nearby village of Motyzhyn, a BBC team were taken to see a shallow grave. Four bodies were visible, and Ukrainian officials said there could be more, BBC reported.

Three of the bodies have been identified as that of the head of the village, Olha Sukhenko, her husband and her son. The fourth has not been identified yet. It is unclear when they were killed.

In Irpin, there is evidence of people being shot at as they tried to flee the commuter town. On 6 March four civilians - a woman, her teenage son, her daughter of around eight years of age, and a family friend - were all killed by mortar fire as they tried to cross a battered bridge.

In an interview with the BBC, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the "Bucha massacre [was] a game changer" but that the "worst was yet to come". He urged Western nations to provide Ukraine with more weapons and impose more sanctions on Russia, according to BBC.