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The Bala Chaturdashi festival is being observed throughout the country today by commemorating the departed souls.

Devotees have gathered in the Shiva temples including the Pashupatinath Temple since last night to observe the festival.

In the night, they light lamps in commemoration of the departed family members and spend the night observing a vigil. In the wee hours the next day, the devotees sow the Satbeej (seven kinds of grains) along the premises of the shrines this morning. 

The festival formally began on the night of the 13th day of the waning moon in the month of Mangsir and is concluded today by spreading the Satbeej along the premises of shrines of Hindu god Shiva.

A large number of devotees have thronged the Pashupatinath Temple to observe the Bala Chaturdashi festival. Those unable to visit reached the temples of Shiva nearby their residences and localities and observed the festival.

Four houses were destroyed in a fire at Temba Bazaar in Mikkakhola Rural Municipality-4, Taplejung on Tuesday.

Vice Chairman of the rural municipality, Dandu Lama Sherpa, informed that the houses belonging to Indra Kumar Sanwa, Raj Kumar Sanwa, Anil Sanwa, and Bishnu Sanwa were gutted in the fire.

Everything in the houses turned into ashes. However, the human loss was prevented in the fire.

Detailed information on the incident is awaited, according to the District Police Office, Taplejung.

The Weather Forecasting Division has predicted fair weather across the country today.

There is no impact of any noticeable weather system in Nepal at present.

However, it will be partly cloudy in the hilly regions of Koshi, Bagmati, Gandaki and Karnali Provinces in the afternoon.

Few places in the mountainous belt of Koshi Province may have light rains and snowfall.

The weather remains 20-to-22-degree Centigrade maximum in the Kathmandu Valley. The minimum temperature recorded at 5:30 am was 9.4 degrees Centigrade today.

Irrespective of numerous projects and plans forwarded and put in place by government and NGO initiatives on health, sanitation and public awareness in Madhes Province, an appalling fact has been revealed that a local level alone has over 4,000 households without toilet facilities.

Lahan Municipality of Siraha district was found to have no toilets for 4,200 households. It was disclosed after a recent survey conducted by the municipality itself. 

Of 24,700 houses in the municipality, 17 percent were deprived of access to toilets, posing a serious threat to health and sanitation.

Municipality Mayor Mahesh Prasad Chaudhary shared this information by organizing a press conference on Tuesday.

Contradictorily, Lahan Municipality was declared an open defecation free zone in 2017. "It is worrying that such a huge number of households are running without basic needs. Time has come to change the situation by reaching every household," he said.

Dalit, landless, poor and disaster-prone settlements are continuing open defecation. The local level made the preliminary analyses that lack of fecal sludge management center clean water was perpetuating the problem. Even the toilets built earlier were left useless, unrepaired.

Proper places for setting up toilets would be identified for the landless people. Even the settlement of the landless squatters could be changed along with the sanitation facility, he added.

The municipality has further planned to mobilize people's representatives, social activists, community associations, schools and youth groups for three months to visit the houses and remind the people of the need for toilets.

"Toilet is not only for defecation but an indication of health and dignity," Mayor Chaudhary said, adding that the sanitation drive is successful only when it has people's participation.

Meanwhile, World Toilet Day is observed every year on November 19.

Across the globe, 3.4 billion people are still living without safely managed sanitation.