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ATM fraud racket busted

KATHMANDU: Metropolitan Police Crime Division today arrested two brothers long involved in duplicating ATM cards and withdrawing hefty amounts from accounts.

The arrestees are identified Sabin Rimal (26) and Ritesh Rimal (22) of Kalikasthan, Kathmandu- 32. 

According to MPCD, the duo had managed to withdraw more than Rs 4.82 million by duplicating ATM cards issued by Nabil Bank in the Capital. 

“Preliminary investigation shows that Rimal brothers withdrew Rs 4,825,350 from the accounts of 12 depositors of Nabil Bank,” DSP AM Chandra Dhami informed. 

For this, they would go to a few ATM counters of the Himalayan Bank that were not fitted with surveillance camera to ‘keep their identity secret’.

It has been revealed that Sabin is a former employee at the ATM section of the central office of Nabil Bank in Durbar Marg where he worked for 17 months. 

“I stole pin numbers of ATM cards issued to depositors when I quit the job in the bank and operated the racket,” Sabin conceded. 

Police have seized 12 data encoding machines, an ID card printer, 24 laptop computers, a scanner, 16 discs, 73 blank ATM cards, 273 visa electronic cards of Nabil Bank, and a huge cache of Nabil master debit cards, Nabil local credit cards, Laxmi bank credit cards, Nabil Nari Bachat debit cards and Rs 334,500. 

The equipment were procured from Bangkok, the racketeers said. 

During interrogation, Rimal brothers said they were working in tandem with international hackers.

Source HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

Woman GIVES BIRTH INSIDE A HELICOPTER

A woman has given birth inside a helicopter of Fistail Air, which was en route to Kathmandu from Humla.

Kamala Aidi of Darma VDC in Humla, who was being brought to Kathmandu after pre-delivery complications, gave birth to a baby boy just before the AJI (AS350B3) helicopter landed at the Kathmandu airport Tuesday.

After landing, she was helped by a medic crew before being transported to the hospital.

According to Fistail air, this is the second child birth on board its helicopter. On 14 February last year, one Roshani Acharya had given birth to a child on board the chopper

21-yr-old arrested for harassing girls on Facebook

The Metropolitan Police Crime Division on Monday arrested Shyam Prasad Timilsina, a 12th grader at Cambridge College, Kalanki for creating Facebook accounts of girls of his acquaintance and posting illicit videos.

The 21-year-old of Kavre had even added friends and relatives of the girls in the fake accounts as friends and posted low-down contents.

The media writes quoting the police that offender Timilsina has created a fake Facebook account to take revenge on the unidentified woman by trying to end their “relationship”.  Timilsina has even posted the mobile phone numbers of her and other girls from her cell phone asking people to contact them for “physical relationship”.

After a number of complaints about fake accounts from victimized girls received, police traced Timilsina. It is also found to have sent obscene text messages from Nepal Telecom’s free Web SMS service to various girls

Anybody who give information on King Birendra’s property to get reward

The Nepal Trust which was founded on November 22, 2007, has announced rewards for those giving information related to the movable and immovable property owned by late King Birendra and his family inside and outside the country.

Under-secretary of the Trust, Birendra Bahadur Baniya said the Trust has so far found records of 6,244 ropani of land owned by the late royal family members of which ownership of 1,179 ropani has already been transferred to the trust.

Likewise, 44,116 pound sterling and around 120 million rupees has been deposited at the accounts of the Trust.

New domestic airport near Capital mulled

A dramatic surge in the movement of international and domestic aircraft at Tribhuvan International Airport has compelled the government to explore an alternative airport near Kathmandu to handle domestic carriers.

The Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) has formally announced developing an alternative domestic airport either in Panchkhaal or Banepa.

“An initial survey conducted at both the sites has shown Nangidanda of Banepa more feasible,” said Tourism Minister Lokendra Bista Magar at a press meet here on Tuesday.

According to Bista, the proposed domestic airport will have 1,200-m runway and would be constructed at the appropriate site after the final survey is completed.

According to TIA officials, domestic airlines’ busy schedule, particularly mountain flights’, and increased flight frequency of international airlines have resulted in heavy traffic congestion at TIA. The country’s sole international airport is currently handling over 385 flights daily.

In a bid to reduce TIA’s traffic congestion and develop air transport infrastructure, the government is currently working on a second international airport and three regional international airports outside Kathmandu. The government is upgrading Gautam Buddha Airport, Bhairahawa, and Janakpur Airport as regional international airports, while a new regional international airport has been planned in Pokhara. The government also intends to start commercial operation of the second international airport in Nighgadh, Bara, within five years.

According to Bista, the government is planning to allocate over Rs 1 billion for upgradation of different airports in remote areas in the current fiscal year.

The ministry has also planned to install precision approach path indicator (PAPI) at Tumlingtar and Simikot airports and VOR/DME at Nepalgunj, Simira, and Gautam Buddha airports. Simira Airport will be upgraded for night facilities within two months.

Installing remote control air-to-ground network in the eastern region in order to ensure better communication facilities for aircraft are among the ministry’s plans. Initial work on installing new radar in Bhattedanda, Lalitpur will be started soon, Magar said.(Source:ekantipur)

Marsyangdi Power House close for maintenance

Chief of the power house Chandra Shekhar Chaudhary informed that marsyangdi  power house, Hydropower Project at Anbukhaireni VDC of Tanahun district has been shut down for four days.

The 69 MW capacity power house has been closed in order to construct doors at dam areas.  Due to decrease of water level in marsyangdi river the power house has been generating electricity around 60 MW only.

Nepal Army plane missing

 A Nepal Army plane (RAN-49 BN2T) en route to Kathmandu from Nepalgunj has gone out of contact since 7 pm, Tuesday, Avenus TV reported.

It is suspected that the plane has met with an accident at Gowad-9, Baglung, the TV added.

However, News 24 TV said the plane was carrying six passengers including a doctor and patient
Source Kathmandu Post

Buddha Air to fly to Varanasi from March

Buddha Air has announced that it will be starting its Kathmandu-Varanasi service from March 1, 2012 as part of the drive to expand its international network.
The carrier said it would be operating four weekly flights (Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday). Varanasi lies in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and is regarded as a holy city by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains.
“The objective of connecting Varanasi is the route’s prospects as it is a pilgrimage site and there are also business and education opportunities,” said Buddha Air in a press release.
On Jan 7, the carrier began operating flights to Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, as its second international destination after Bhutan. It began commercial flights to Paro, Bhutan with an 18-seater Beechcraft 1900D on Aug 23, 2010.
Buddha Air went international after 14 years of domestic service. It is the first foreign airline to serve Bhutan. (Source kantipur)

Gurkha Soldier VIJAY RAI killed in Afghanistan

A Gurkha soldier serving in the British Army has been killed in Afghanistan's Helmand province on Saturday.

However, the soldier from the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles, BBC quoted taskforce Helmand spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Mackenzie as saying that the soldier received a fatal gunshot wound while protecting a checkpoint.

The incident in Nahr-e Saraj takes to 383 the number of British forces killed in Afghanistan in the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, the British Embassy in Kathmandu has confirmed this casualty without disclosing the identity of the dead soldier.

It was the first fatalit in Afghanistan for almost a month. SOURCE  nepalnews.com

Fuel prices go up for fifth time this year

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has hiked petroleum prices for the fifth time this year. The state-owned monopoly jacked up the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene by Rs 3 per litre each effective from Monday. Similarly, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has become dearer by Rs 75 per cylinder.

Petrol now costs Rs. 88 per litre, diesel Rs 68.50 per litre, kerosene Rs 68.50 per litre and LPG Rs 1,325 per cylinder.

NOC said that a rise in international prices and increased road maintenance and upgrading charges levied on petrol and diesel by the government had forced it to raise the rates. The government recently doubled the road maintenance and upgrading charge on petrol to Rs 4 per litre and on diesel to Rs 2 per litre. NOC managing director Digambar Jha said that the international price of crude oil was US$ 74 per barrel in July when NOC last revised fuel prices. “The price has risen to US$ 90 in the last five months.”

Similarly, the price of LPG in the international market was US$ 590 per ton in September which soared to US$ 783 in December, Jha added.

The price hike means NOC will collect monthly profits of Rs 30 million from petrol, Rs 110 million from kerosene and Rs 30 million from aviation fuel. However, the corporation will be incurring monthly losses of Rs 200 million on LPG and Rs 140 million on diesel. “In total, we will be losing Rs 170 million each month,” Jha said. NOC said the government’s decision to double the road maintenance charge had added Rs 28.44 and Rs 11.56 to the price of a litre of petrol and diesel respectively. The government will now be taking in Rs 180 million each month as road maintenance charge. Similarly, the government will be collecting Rs 149 on each cylinder of LPG.

Prem Lal Maharjan, chairperson of the National Consumers Forum, said that the government’s decision to double the road maintenance charge was not reasonable. “The government is fuelling inflation when consumers are already suffering from double-digit price rises,” he added.

“Everyone knows about the condition of the roads. The government is collecting Rs 20 million each day in the name of road maintenance, but it has been doing nothing,” Maharjan said. “The hefty tax levied on LPG shows how the  government is increasing the burden on the people.”

Phoolko Ankhama Released

by Pawas Manandhar

The release of Ani Choying’s book Phoolko Ankhama was a major success, with the book selling out on just the second day of its release. The autobiographical that talks about Choying’s childhood and her decision to become a nun, is written in a simple yet evocative prose with references to her early life as well as her motivations.

“Upon request of the distributor, we have placed a second print run order to the press,” confirmed Kiran Shrestha of Nepa-laya, adding that they had to go for a second print after the book had sold out. The book is a Nepali translation of the original published in French back in 2008 by Oh! Editions and has since, been published in 12 languages: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, English, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Slovenian and Hungarian. The Nepali edition was translated by Girish Giri and is distributed by Education Book House.

One in two Nepalis has access to telephone

One in two Nepalis now has access to basic telecom services including mobile service. According to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), tele-density has reached more than 50 percent from 1.47 percent a decade ago.

The latest statistics of the NTA show that the country’s telecom subscriber base has increased to 13.51 million. According to a preliminary report of the National Population Census 2011, the country’s total population is 26.62 million. “Based on the census report, telecom density has already crossed 50 percent,” said NTA spokesperson Kailash Prasad Neupane. The NTA said that it would publish its management information system (MIS) report based on the latest population of the country from the next issue. Till now, it has been measuring tele-density on the basis of the projected population of 28.58 million.

Based on this figure, the country’s total tele-density stands at 47.27 percent. Telecom density includes the penetration rate of 2.94 in fixed line, 41.70 percent in mobile service and 2.63 percent in the others category. Tele-density is the number of telephone lines per 100 inhabitants in a particular country or territory.

Ten years ago in 2001, Nepal’s tele-density was 1.39 percent in fixed line and 0.08 percent in mobile telephony service. The increment over the last decade has been attributed to a rapid growth in the wireless communication sector following the entry of private operators. The tele-density was 0.1 percent in 1981 and 0.4 percent in 1991, according to International Telecommunication Union.

The GSM mobile service that was launched in 1999 by Nepal Telecom changed the whole scenario. Even though it was expensive earlier, the entry of private players brought a paradigm shift, making mobile service accessible and cheaper.

With three major players—Nepal Telecom, Ncell and United Telecom—fighting for supremacy, prices have become affordable leading to an increase in the subscriber base. Launching of pre-paid mobile service, reduced tariff resulting from competition and availability of cheaper handsets have played a big role in increasing the country’s tele-density status.

Telecom experts said Nepal could achieve more provided there are sound policies and infrastructure sharing is done. “There is a huge potential for more progress in the sector by using the Rs 3 billion available in the Rural Telecommunication Development Fund and sharing infrastructure,” said an official at the authority. “However, work on this front has not moved ahead as anticipated.”

As of mid-August this year, mobile services are being used by 11.91 million people, fixed line service by 840,828 and 753,213 persons have subscribed to LM and GMPCAS services. Nepal Telecom has a total subscriber base of 6.83 million, Ncell 5.84 million, United Telecom 578,435 subscribers and three other small operators 252,026. (Source : ekantipur)

Don’t block roads for VIPs: PM

Gurkhas at risk

Ready to rock: More than 17,000 young Nepalis took the doko test last year in an attempt to win one of 230 places in the Gurkhas Photo: GETTY IMAGES

For nearly a century, it has been a test that has wrung a smile from even the most sadistic British Army recruiting sergeant. Weighed down with 58lb of rocks, would-be members of the Gurkha Regiment run three miles up a Himalayan mountain track, bearing their load not in a rucksack but in a doko, a wicker basket carried only via a strap across the forehead.

By Colin Freeman in Kathmandu

Like thousands of other young Nepalis hoping to succeed in this summer's annual intake, Sundar Adhikara, 20, has already trained hard enough to complete the doko test within the requisite 48 minutes: his best, so far, is 35. Yet now another obstacle is looming to his dream of joining the historic regiment – Nepal's newly elected government wants to scrap it altogether.

The threat comes from the country's powerful Maoists, who swept to office in April amid growing discontent at the poverty that entry into the Gurkhas has long provided an escape route from. Last week they abolished the 240-year-old monarchy, ordering King Gyanendra to vacate his palace in downtown Kathmandu. But royalty is not the only institution at odds with their far-Left agenda: they also view the Gurkhas as a "militia" from the imperial age.

"Shameful activities like the employment of Nepalis in foreign armed services like the British Gurkhas need to be stopped," declared a pledge in the Maoist election manifesto. "All Nepalis should take up respectful and useful jobs inside the country itself."

However, with the average Nepali earning less than £300 a year, there is little popular support for dismantling the Gurkhas, who have traditionally enjoyed huge status among their fellow countrymen.

Just how coveted the regiment is becomes clear from the application rates to the British Army's official recruitment centre in the mountain-ringed city of Pokhara. Last year, more than 17,000 Nepalese youths applied for just 230 places.

So great, indeed, is the competition for places that a thriving industry now exists in private colleges that groom would-be recruits for the intake test – the equivalent of the "crammers" that help students get into Oxford and Cambridge.

Mr Adhikara is one of several hundred pupils enrolled at Bull's Gym in Kathmandu, where a banner above the gate promises "British Army physical training and education for potential recruits".

The three-month course, including basic maths and English, costs 20,000 Nepali rupees (£150), a large sum for his family, but well worth the investment if he qualifies for the regiment, where he will earn five times that per month.

"In Nepal, it is a great glory to be in the British Army, the most advanced in the world," he said. "Nobody else from my family has ever joined, and I want to set an example."

Even to get through the door of Bull's Gym, recruits have to meet strict criteria: they must be between 17 and 21, be at least 5ft 2in tall and have no more than two fillings in their teeth.

Trainees then attend two-hour sessions at dawn and dusk daily, studying English and maths and also mastering other fitness benchmarks: 70 sit-ups in two minutes, and 14 chin-ups in a row.

The gym was set up in 1994 by Krishna Kumar Pun, 46, previously a PT instructor as Cpl Pun 62970 of 2/2 Gurkha Regiment.

"I set it up because I knew exactly what recruits would need to learn," he said. "But it isn't just about fitness – recruits will only get in if they have the necessary self-discipline."

The Army's acquaintance with the Gurkhas goes back almost 200 years, when officers were astonished by the toughness of the Nepali mountain fighters who made incursions into colonial territory in India.

Britain co-opted them into its imperial forces, and during the two world wars, the Gurkhas suffered 43,000 casualties and won 26 Victoria Crosses – more than any other regiment. Recently they have seen fierce fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Whether that relationship will now end for ever remains to be seen. In recent weeks, the Maoist politicians appear to have backed off their manifesto pledge, saying the regiment is a subject for "discussion" rather than imminent abolition.

Britain's Ministry of Defence hopes they may eventually decide against it, as does Mr Pun. "This tradition is about 200 years old," he said, pointing with a burly forearm to the photos of successful former pupils that deck his office walls. "It would be nice if it continued."

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Changing trend of Dashain festival

The usually fresh clear sky, the relatively empty roads of Kathmandu and the overcrowded shopping malls and shops at this time of the year reminds us that Dashain is here. It is that time of the year when people celebrating this auspicious festival halt their mundane work and just indulge in merry making.

Dashain  is all about family time, catching up with your relatives and celebrating to continue our traditions. For youngsters, it’s more like having a free time from the hectic schedules and college assignments and simply t give into the festive mood. 

Having a family gathering, playing cards, flying kites and visiting relatives to receive the tika among others is a part of this festival.  But over the years, the way people celebrate Dashain  seems to be changing. However, has this change altered their perception towards this festival as well?

Rakshya Khadka, 19, a college student is of the opinion that the festival of Dashain has changed a lot over the years. As a child, she witnessed a lot of rituals taking place. But with time, the rituals have been cut short and the values attached to it are gradually changing.

Moreover she thinks that it has become more fashion oriented with people flaunting their social status during Dashain time. “It is no more like a family affair since youngsters are lost in their own world and they seem to participate less in the rituals like receiving tika from the elders and visiting the temples. Even if they do, they do it just for the sake of celebrating it,” she adds.



Rakshya feels that the religious aspect has decreased over the years and with it Dashain has lost the charm it had before.

She further explains how for youngsters, Dashain acts as an excuse to excessively indulge in drinking and gambling. “They tend to overlook the religious aspect and they just get carried away.”

But contrary to what Khadka thinks, Pratesh Giri, 24 thinks that Dashain hasn’t changed at all. “No matter how less religious the young people may be, when it comes to Dashain, they do follow the rituals and they never forget its true essence.”

He recalls how every year it’s all about receiving tika from the elders, having a family gathering and relishing the scrumptious food. “The vibrant ambience of Dashain is always there and it is one of the best times of the year as those celebrating it as well as though who cherish the longest break of the year.”

Samesh Joshi, 23, a recent undergraduate came back to the country after completing his studies from the USA last year. “When I came back I was so looking forward to celebrating Dashain. I use to miss the days when I was a kid and thought that it would just be the same,” he explains.

But celebrating Dashain after so many years, he felt that it was not the same anymore. “Many relatives have gone abroad to study and my brother is also not here so last year’s Dashain felt empty. During festival times, you tend to miss your closed ones and it doesn’t feel the same without them.”

Another student, Rashmi Khatiwada, 22, thinks that as a kid Dashain would mean buying new clothes, receiving money but with growing age all that anticipation fades away. “As we grow old, it is more like a responsibility and the fun part is missed out while carrying out all the duties.”

Dashain has a cultural importance and is a festival to bond and strengthen family relations and social harmony.

Rashmi, feels that even though modernization has changed the way people perceive Dashain, one should not forget the religious aspect of it. “Festival like Dashain is our identity, so we should respect it.  The younger generation needs to be more aware about it to keep the traditions alive for the coming years.”