Submit your Article

The Election Commission is all set to conduct the National Assembly elections slated for tomorrow. The elections are being held for 19 posts of the National Assembly member.

The entire management of peace and security, health protocol and election centres has been over, according to EC Spokesperson Shaligram Poudel. “All works for the elections except setting up a booth and all-party meeting have been over,” he said, adding that the remaining works would also be done today.

With the beginning of the silence period, the elections publicity have stopped. Security persons, election employees and a team of health workers have been managed. The voting will be conducted from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm Wednesday. There are eight polling stations and 14 centres across the country.

The term of 19 NA members is expiring coming March 4. Among 19, eight are of CPN UML, four of CPN (Unified Socialist), four of Maoist Centre, and three of Nepali Congress. There is the constitutional provision that elections to NA members should be held before 35 days of the expiry of the term. Currently, nine political parties are in the election fray.

According to EC, Nepali Congress, CPN UML, Maoist Centre, CPN (Unified Socialist), Rastriya Janamorcha, Loktantrik Samajbadi Party Nepal, Nepal Workers and Peasants Party, Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal and Rastriya Prajatantra Party are taking part in the election.

There are 2,025 voters for the elections. They are Province Assembly members, local level chiefs and deputy chiefs. It is expected that the voters will reach the polling stations and voting centres by the evening.

There is a quota of seven women, three Dalit, two disabled or minority and seven others for the NA member. There is the constitutional provision that the term of one third of NA members is expired every two years. The upper house of the federal parliament, NA has 59 members.RSS

Justice Ayesha Malik was sworn in as Pakistan's first female Supreme Court judge on  January 24,  a landmark occasion in a country where activists say the law is often wielded against women, The Dawn reported.

She now sits on the bench alongside 16 male colleagues at the apex court.  “It's a huge step forward,” lawyer and women's rights activist Nighat Dad told AFP. “It is history in the making for Pakistan's judiciary.” 

Justice Malik was educated at Harvard University and served as a high court judge in Lahore for the past two decades. She has been credited with rolling back patriarchal legal mores in Punjab.

Last year she outlawed a deeply invasive and medically discredited examination used to determine a woman's level of sexual experience. “She has broken all barriers in the judicial system and it will allow other women in the system to move forward,” said lawyer and women's rights activist Khadija Siddiqi.

“I hope this will lead to more women-centric decisions by the judiciary in the future.”  Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan congratulated Justice Malik and wished her all the best.

As many as 12 staffers of the Office of Chief Minister and Council of Ministers, Social Development Ministry and Agriculture Ministry of Sudurpaschim Province have tested positive for Covid-19.

Five staffers including Acting Chief Secretary Dundi Prasad Niraula of the Office of Chief Minister and Council of Ministers, six staffers of Social Development Ministry and a staffer of Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives have tested positive for Covid-19.

Saying that his cook and driver have also tested positive, Niraula said that his health condition is normal.

Taliban delegates, led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, and Afghan civil society representatives held daylong discussions, focusing on the deepening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, on Sunday in Oslo, Associated Press reported.

The participants “listened patiently to each other's opinions” and exchanged views on the current situation in the country, said a brief Taliban statement after the meeting in the Norwegian capital. It said “a number of Afghan personalities” attended the meeting with Muttaqi’s delegation but did not elaborate.

“They affirmed that Afghanistan is the shared home of all Afghans and stressed that all Afghans need to work together for the political, economic and security prosperity of the country,” the Taliban statement noted. 

The talks marked the beginning of three days of closed-door meetings the Scandinavian country has arranged among the ruling Islamist group, Western government officials and Afghans from a range of fields within civil society.

The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan last August and have since sent their delegates to China, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia and Turkmenistan for bilateral as well multinational meetings. 

Sunday marked the first time a Taliban delegation was in Europe. 

On Friday, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed that the visit was “not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban. But we must talk to those who, in practice, govern the country today.”

The United States and other Western countries have collectively frozen roughly $10 billion in Afghan central bank’s assets, mostly held in the U.S. Federal Reserve, after the Taliban takeover. 

In his meetings with U.S. and European envoys in Oslo, Muttaqi was expected to renew his government’s demand for the release of the assets as Afghanistan faces an economic collapse and unprecedented increase in humanitarian needs.

Thomas West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, was in the Norwegian capital for the talks with the Taliban delegation. He was accompanied by Rina Amiri, special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights, and officials from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

On Sunday, in a series of tweets, West welcomed Norway’s initiative to bring Afghan civil society and the Taliban together for dialogue, saying civil society leaders are the backbone of healthy and prosperous economies and societies.

“As we seek to address humanitarian crisis together with allies, partners, and relief orgs, we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan,” the U.S. envoy tweeted. 

The U.S. State Department said West’s delegation would discuss “the formation of a representative political system, responses to the urgent humanitarian and economic crises, security and counterterrorism concerns, and human rights, especially education for girls and women.” 

The freezing of assets and financial sanctions on the new Taliban rulers have plunged the fragile Afghan economy into an unprecedented crisis, worsening a humanitarian crisis. On Monday, the Taliban are to begin discussions with Western nation delegates, where the discussion of frozen assets is likely.

The United Nations says it needs $5 billion this year to bring urgent relief to an estimated 24 million people experiencing acute food insecurity, with 9 million of them threatened with famine and as many as 1 million children suffering from "acute severe malnutrition.” 

The U.N. has managed to provide for some liquidity and allowed the new Taliban administration to pay for imports, including electricity, The Associated Press reported. 

Norway is no stranger to sensitive diplomacy and has in the past been involved in peace efforts in several places, including Afghanistan, Colombia, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Mozambique, Myanmar, the Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Syria and Venezuela.

“We are extremely concerned about the grave situation in Afghanistan, where millions of people are facing a full-blown humanitarian disaster,” Huitfeldt said. “We cannot allow the political situation to lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster.”