Maya’s Bar (pre-release review)

Nepali movie ‘Maya’s Bar’ is releasing on  July 27, 2012. The movie directed by Dinesh DC featuresRajesh Hamal, Gajit Bista, Nisha Adhikari, Karishma Manandhar and Saroj KC in leading roles

The movie features the cinematography of Purushottam Pradhan, fight direction of N.B. Maharjan, music direction of Suresh Adhikari, and editing of Banish Shah.

Story:

Maya’s Bar is the story of Maya (Nisha Adhikari) and her family. Maya lives happily with her husband Gajit and a son, Bishal until they face a financial crisis. To cope with the financial problem Gajit joins fight club as a fighter and Maya joins a dance bar as a dancer. They both work for a company of Trilok Rana (played by Rajesh Hamal). But, both Gajit and Maya are not happy with their spouse’s profession. Gajit and Maya would occasionally express their respective dissatisfaction on Gajit’s work as a fighter and Maya’s work as a dancer. I wouldn’t like to ruin your movie viewing experiences by telling the story and problem that leads to the unexpected death of Maya (oops …).

Source xnepali.com

Shoes With Buddha’s Images Anger Buddhists

First there were images of Hindu Goddess Laxmi printed on bikini bottoms and now a California-based company has come under fire for promoting a range of shoes with the Lord Buddha’s images.

Times of India reports the Tibetan and the Buddhist community are outraged at the shoe company Icon Shoes who even dared to call the collections “Thangka of the Buddha”

Followers of Buddhism across the world have written to the company  to express their disgust  claiming the move to be insensitive. The company’s Facebook page has been flooded with protest notes.  They have also been asked not only to stop selling those products but manufacturing them as well.

Based out of Palm Desert, California, ICON was launched in 1999 by a Hollywood filmmaker and art collector.

Source www.texasnepal.com

Nepali Movie ATM (2012) - When Passionate Love Becomes Lust for Blood

A new Nepali movie named ‘ATM’ has been criticized for vulgar dialogues and sex scenes. Very intimate kissing scenes, suggestive dialogues and scenes including an actress grabbing crotch of a male actor and anactor grabbing the breast of an female actress are some of the visuals in the promotion video that the Nepali society can’t easily digest.

If the promotion video were censored by the censor board of Nepal, all the scenes would have been deleted before it were allowed to be released in public. But, as only the movie is censored before it is screened in theaters, the promo is widely available in internet and the censor board is only an onlooker in this case.

Produced by Kusma Bhudathoki and directed by Yadav Silwal, even the trailer of Nepali movie ATM (2012) features some bold lustful lip-kissing scenes and much dragging of the heroine over a forest floor by perhaps a deranged lover after hints of sex scenes.

The star cast includes Dinesh Karki, Jiya KC, Soniya KC and Sabina Sharma.

The music director of A.T.M. is Santosh Pragadh and the lyricist is Sankar Adhikari. A song with the suggestive title of "Chanchal Jawani" has already created a buzz.

Watch a trailer of ATM.

Source http://filmnepal.net

RESONANCE with Subani Moktan

Subani Moktan is all set to add another feather to her ever growing list of accomplishments. Besides teaching music at the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory, she is a news anchor at News 24 and is also pursuing her MBA degree.

This talented young singer is poised to rock the Nepali music industry by becoming one of the few women to lead a rock band. Her band is called Resonance and features singer and songwriter Subani Moktan on the vocals and keys, Dev Lama on guitars, Pratik Baniya on bass and Rishav Acharya on drums. All these artists have had experience playing with other well established artists and bands around Kathmandu; Subani Moktan  with Supersonic and Rusty Nails and Funky Sisters, Dev Lama with What the Funk, We're Soul'd Out, Pratik Baniya with Contemporary Jazz Combo and Rishav Acharya with Street Life Collective.

Resonance and Subani in particular, are being promoted by Nirakar Yakthumba of 1974 AD. "Very few female Nepali singers in our music industry have or front their own bands. Most remain solo singers, sing on tracks or are pop divas. Subani is very talented, young, good looking and it's about time Nepal gets its next top rock star- why not a girl" says Nirakar. 

 1. You started singing with your sister. Now you are with a band. How was the transition and do you miss her?I have not stopped singing with my sister.

It's an honour to be in a band  full of extremely talented musicians, and as each of us have different styles and favour different genres; people automatically assume there will be clashes amongst us. But that hasn't happened. We are still young as a band and respect each other immensely. As for my sister, one of the things I miss is that we're likeminded people.

2. What are you expecting out of Resonance?
To be known for our talents, to be successful commercially in the Nepali music industry and to cut an album with original songs besides just gigs and covers.

3. What has having Kunti Moktan as your mother taught you about life and singing?
To go by my guts and stick to my principles in life… stay true to who I am whatever the circumstances may be.

Resonance will put on their very first performance on the 3 August at Moksh in Jhamsikhel, Kathmandu.

source www.wavemag.com.np

Dragonair to fly daily from next month

Dragonair has announced operating daily flights on the Kathmandu-Hong Kong sector from Sept 1. The carrier, which flies thrice weekly on the route, said that daily flights would run for eight months.

Dragonair’s flight leaves Hong Kong at 18:20 Hong Kong time and reaches Kathmandu at 22:30 from Sunday to Friday. The flight then leaves Kathmandu at 23:30 arriving at 06:35 in time for a full day in Hong Kong.

On Saturdays, the timings are 18:55 out of Hong Kong arriving 21:40 in Kathmandu and departing Kathmandu at 22:40 and reaching Hong Kong at 05:45 on Sunday morning. The Sunday to Friday flights involve a stop in Dhaka on the way to Kathmandu, but passengers are not required to leave the aircraft, the carrier said. “The good response of the passengers as well as cargo in Nepal has encouraged the carrier to increase the flight frequency to a daily,” said Thomas Bellamy, Dragonair Manager Nepal.

With a daily flight, Dragonair will offer better convenience for Nepali passengers travelling to and from Hong Kong, as well as to other destinations in China, Japan, Australia, America, Canada, Korea and many more locations worldwide, the carrier said. Dragonair is the sister airline of Cathay Pacific.

The flight will continue to be operated by A330 aircraft.

source ktm2day.com

Tribhuvan Int’l Airport to get two new surveillance radars

Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) is likely to get two new surveillance radars — one at TIA itself replacing the existing one and another at Bhattedanda, Lalitpur — which will help improve reliability and safety of air transport in Nepal.

The first one will work as the primary radar and will have a coverage of 60 nautical miles around the valley and surrounding areas. The second will work as a secondary surveillance radar (SSR) that will give coverage of up to 200 nautical miles.

TIA officials said the coverage of the new SSR would extend up to Nepalgunj in the west and the entire country in the east, north and south. It will enable the radar system to detect and measure the position of aircraft. Currently, the 14-year-old radar system at TIA functions both as the primary and secondary radar system.

While functioning as a secondary radar system, it cannot detect an aircraft’s position when it is flying below 5,000 ft due to hills and mountains. With the secondary radar system at Bhattedanda, the radar system will be able to detect aircraft flying at an altitude of less than 5,000 ft too due to the high altitude of the location.

Despite having the same capacity, the current radar has been failing to locate and detect aircraft below that altitude requiring airports to contact the pilot to find out its location.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is currently undertaking a study of these two projects under its TIA Modernization Project. A five-member technical team led by Hiroyuki Ueda, senior advisor on transport at JICA, has been conducting a detailed study of the projects. The team had arrived on July 27 and is scheduled to finish the study on Aug 23.

Installation of the automated equipment will help TIA to handle the growing air traffic and improve safety and efficiency. “Particularly, the new radar system will enable pilots and air traffic controllers to see displays with highly accurate traffic data, displays that update in real time and don’t degrade with distance or terrain,” said CAAN officials.

The system will also give pilots access to weather services, terrain maps and flight information services.

The radar at TIA was manufactured by Japan’s Toshiba Company in 1998, and it was installed under a grant assistance from the Japanese government. The existing radar was set up at a cost of US$ 34 million. It was last serviced at a cost of Rs 42.5 million on April 8, 2010 after a gap of 12 years even though maintenance is required every seven years.

Officials said that although the radar at TIA is functioning well, sporadic problems have been occurring due to its age. Besides, if a new system is installed, CAAN said it wouldn’t have to bear the high maintenance costs of the old radar and also be freed of the hassle of looking for rare spare parts.

“Installation of a secondary radar was proposed in 1994 when the existing radar was installed at TIA, however, due to multiple reasons, the plan was put on ice,” said Hans Raj Pandey, chief of communications navigation and surveillance (CNS) at CAAN.

“At the request of the government, the process of replacing the old radar at TIA and installing an SSR at Bhattedanda has begun.” Pandey said that the radar would also assist a number of international routes like Trans Himalaya 1 (Bangkok-Kolkata-Nepalgunj-Indek in Pakistan) and Himalaya 2 (Kathmandu-Bagdogra-Guwahati-Silchar-Imphal-Kunming).

Nepal has been pressing for the use of these lucrative airspaces at different aviation forums. TIA’s existing radar cannot provide coverage to the proposed new air routes.

CAAN officials said that the project would be undertaken under a grant assistance of the government of Japan. The combined cost of the projects was estimated to be over Rs 1.5 billion three years ago.

The government had also asked for assistance to build the project during the two-day visit to Nepal of Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba in April. In May, another JICA team was in Kathmandu for an initial inquiry of the project.

During the peak season from September-November, TIA handles more than 70 international aircraft movements and 230 domestic flights movement per day.

Source ekantipur.com

Smart card for bill book‚ licence soon

 The government is planning to introduce the smart card concept in the transport sector after a gap of two years. The Department of Transport Management has decided to introduce smart cards for driving licences and bill books from the current fiscal year. 

The department will call a global tender for the smart card soon, said director general of the department Chandraman Shrestha. “We have regenerated the concept following a directive from the Ministry of Physical Planning, Works and Transport Management,” he said. The ministry has decided to introduce smart cards in mid-July to reform the transport sector.

Earlier, in 2010, minister for labour and transport management Mohamed Aftab Alam had tried to introduce smart cards for licences and bill books. However, the process was halted after the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority suspected irregularities in the process. 

Minister Aftab had formed a committee in the ministry to carry out the bidding process breaching the area of the department. According to law, the department should have started the bidding process. The commission found discrepancies in the process. 

According to Shrestha, the tender process will start in three months and implementation of the smart cards will begin at the end of the current fiscal year. “We are serious about implementing it,” he said, adding that smart cards can be effective in controlling the use of fake driving licences and bill books. 

The Asian Development Bank is providing financial support for the initiative. 

Similarly, the department is also planning to introduce embossed number plates for vehicles. The introduction of embossed number plates will help control criminal activities. “Embossed number plates can’t be changed easily, so it will reduce the use of vehicles in crimes,” he said. 

Former director general of the department Saradchandra Paudel had envisioned the concept three years back. “We have been conducting a feasibility study,” he said, adding it will be implemented this year once the study shows a positive result. Tender will be called soon, he added. 

Nearly 1.4 million vehicles are registered in the country including more than 850,000 motorcycles. The policy will affect vehicles plying across the country. The department is planning to implement the smart card from Bagmati zone where about 50 per cent vehicles are registered. 

Meanwhile, the department has completed building digital record of driving licences and bill books in all its 14 zonal offices. The process was started about a decade back. Similarly, the department has introduced e-billing system for collecting transport revenue — licence or vehicle registration and for renewing them.
Source The Himalayan times

Shristi Shrestha in Top 40 Beach Beauty of Miss World 2012

Shristi Shrestha ranked under top 40 in a beach beauty contest of Miss World 2012 taking place this year in Ordos, China. Shrestha was listed on top of her group under semi finalists for the beach fashion. She stood on top rank of group three which included 12 countries including the host country China.

Shristi Shrestha shared on her official facebook page– “Yayyy made it to the top 40 semi finalists in beach body contest of Miss World 2012!!!! Sooo happyxxxxxx!” 

Breathless Scenes of “Saas”

Popular singer Nima Rumba finally returns with another music video off his album “Rangaun Ki Ma”. The visual for the song “Saas” was released today and has been directed by Pratap Singh.

Sukeko Jiuma LOOREY ko Bal

MANAS GHALE aka LOOREY’s New Debut Album “Sukeko Jiuma LOOREY ko Bal”

Launching soon...................................................................................