Central bank to exchange new banknotes from next week

The central bank will exchange the old bank notes with the new ones for Dashain festival from September 13.
According to the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the exchange of old banknotes with crisp new bills of smaller denominations through the branch offices of Nepal Bank, Rastriya Banijya Bank and Agricultural Development Bank. However, the public can avail new currency notes worth only Rs 20,000 from the outlets of these banks.
According to the central bank, people can exchange banknotes from Nepal Bank's New Road, Balaju, Patan Industrial Estate, Kirtipur and Bhaktapur branch offices; and Rastriya Banijya Bank's Singhdurbar Plaza Bhawan, Teku, New Baneshwar, Sano Thimi, Bishal Bazaar and Naxal branches, while Agriculture Development Bank's Gaushala, Koteshwar, Ramshah Path, Ratnapark and Mangal Bazaar branch offices will also distribute new bank notes to the public.
Similarly, the central bank will also provide exchange service through its own exchange counters from September 13.
People can exchange small denominated bills of up to Rs 27,000 per person. "One can get crisp bills of only 100-piece bundle of Rs 5, Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 50 and Rs 100 denominations," the central bank informed, adding that it has reduced the upper limit of cash that an individual can exchange this year. "Last year, the NRB had provided exchange facility for up to Rs 32,000 per person."
The demand for new banknotes goes up in the festive season due to customary practice of offering new banknotes while giving blessings, the central bank has been providing exchange service to the public.
The central bank has also said that it would provide exchange facility to constitutional bodies and other government agencies from September 7 to September 15. Representatives of constitutional bodies, various offices of the government, public corporations, Nepal Army, Nepal Police and Armed Police Force, among others, can get new bank notes by producing official recommendation letters.
According to the central bank, the exchange facility of new notes will also be available from the private financial institutions.
Joint spokesperson of the central bank Rajendra Pandit said that private banks and financial institutions can exchange notes from the currency management division of the central bank from Wednesday (September 6) onward.

With 22 per cent population, South Asia has only 1.3 per cent of world’s income

While South Asia houses 22 per cent of the world’s population, the region, however, has only 1.3 per cent of the world’s income, according to a report.
Sharing some of the findings of the triennial report on the poverty scenario in South Asian countries – produced by the Nepal-based South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) – released at the Institute for Development Communication (IDC), today regional coordinator of SAAPE Prof Netra Timsina, said that the idea that the market will correct imbalances through demand and supply has led to the gradual withdrawal of the state from publicly providing services such as education and health.
A Chandigarh-based study circle, ‘Dialogue Highway’, in collaboration with the IDC, facilitated the release of the report.
"The SAAPE report, in its essence, brings out the failure of South Asian countries to lift their masses out of poverty and withdrawal of the state from providing basic needs such as food, education, health and safety to the people at the margins,” Dialogue Highway managing trustee Devinder Sharma said.
SAAPE is a regional platform of civil society organisations, social movements and people’s network fighting against the structural causes of poverty and social injustice in the region and beyond.
While launching its fifth Poverty Report, SAAPE, which has been publishing the triennial South Asia Poverty Report since 2003, questioned the existing development paradigm. This report is a knowledge document that brings out the commonality of experiences of all South Asian countries.
Punjabi University vice chancellor Prof BS Ghuman said that the report should form the part of the policy planning. "A social audit of poverty alleviation programmes should also be included in the process to assess the results of poverty eradication," he said, adding that the policy should not be top down but participatory.
In a scholarly exposition, IDC director Dr Pramod Kumar said the state had been usurped by the market and the people at the margins do not have a voice.

Alleged Dawood Ibrahim aide becomes a mayoral candidate in Birgunj

A man alleged to have close ties to fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is a mayoral candidate in Birgunj sub–metropolitan city.
Today the main opposition party CPN-UML announced Basaruddhin Ansari’s candidature for the third phase of local polls that is slated for September 18.
Ansari – a controversial figure who owns National Medical College in Birgunj and Kathmandu – is believed to be close to Dawood, the notorious don. It is alleged that Dawood has invested millions of rupees into the colleges that Ansari owns.
After Ansari’s candidature was announced, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba instructed Tribhuvan University (TU) to scrap the affiliation of National College – that has neither students nor faculty, students or patients – at a rented apartment building at Anam Nagar in Kathmandu. The CPN-UML chairman KP Oli, however, immediately hit back, calling the decision 'unfair' and 'unjust'.
According to reports, the Indian embassy in Kathmandu has made several correspondents to the government through the ministry of foreign affairs to probe Ansari’s properties.
In its letter, the embassy has written that it has credible information that National Medical College, Birgunj received a large investment from Dawood, and under the UN Security Council Resolution number 1526, the property should be seized.
Following the embassy’s request some 12 years ago, the foreign ministry had forwarded the letter to the ministry of home affairs.
The government had – after the request from the Indian embassy – formed a probe committee but Ansari refused to assist them, saying that they did not have authority to probe his property and threatened to move the Supreme Court.
However, according to Ansari, he has long faced similar charges and claimed he was feeling 'insecure' as a mayoral candidate, though he did not disclose the reason for feeling threatened. 

Flooding in Nepal affecting 680k children: UNICEF

About 1.7 million people, including 680,000 children, have been affected with 352,738 displaced from their homes and are in urgent need of life-saving support due to 'catastrophic' flooding in Nepal, according to a UN agency said.
Likewise, more than 185,126 homes have been damaged or destroyed in addition to 1,958 schools, affecting the education of 253,605 children in Nepal, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said.
About 16 million children across India, Bangladesh and Nepal are in urgent need of life-saving support due to 'catastrophic' flooding in the three South Asian countries. "Millions of children have seen their lives swept away by these devastating floods" said Jean Gough, UNICEF regional director for South Asia. "Children have lost their homes, schools and even friends and loved ones," she said, adding that there is a danger the worst could still be to come as rains continue and flood waters move south.
Weeks of torrential monsoon rains and catastrophic flooding in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh have devastated the lives of millions of children and families. UNICEF estimates that almost 16 million children and their families are in urgent need of life-saving support.
Many areas remain inaccessible due to damage to roads, bridges, railways and airports. The most urgent needs for children are clean water, hygiene supplies to prevent the spread of disease, food supplies and safe places in evacuation centres for children to play, the UN agency said.
The UNICEF is on the ground working in close coordination with respective governments and humanitarian partners from three countries to scale up its responses and respond to immediate needs of affected children and their families.
"Massive damage to school infrastructure and supplies also mean hundreds of thousands of children may miss weeks or months of school" Gough said, adding that getting children back into school is absolutely critical in establishing a sense of stability for children during times of crisis and provides a sense of normality when everything else is being turned upside down.

UK aid support to victims of devastating floods in South Asia

The International Development secretary today announced that the Department for International Development (DfID) is allocating further support to the flood response in Nepal, including by providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene services, as well as support immediate food security needs and health support.
Monsoon flooding and landslides have affected an estimated 8 million and 1.7 million people in Bangladesh and Nepal, respectively.
DfID is allocating £400,000 to the Nepal Red Cross Society in partnership with the British Red Cross and International Federation of the Red Cross for monsoon flood response. Some 75 per cent of the support is earmarked for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), livelihood recovery, and health.
The support will provide safe water supply to over 13,000 people, ensure over 3,000 of those most severely affected receive immediate food and financial support and reach over 2,000 women and girl’s with health supplies.
According to the International Development secretary Priti Patel the devastating flooding in South Asia is truly heart-breaking. "Entire communities have lost their homes, their livelihoods and their loved ones," she asaid, adding that the UK has stepped up to support the region, the pre-positioned relief supplies ensured thousands of people received immediate support and we continue to provide assistance to vulnerable people, who have lost everything. "Today’s announcement will provide clean water and prevent the spread of deadly and crippling diseases, as we continue to work to meet the immediate needs of people on the ground."
The announcement is the latest support the UK has provided to Bangladesh and Nepal. It includes the Humanitarian Staging Area at the capital’s airport in Kathmandu that was built with funding from UK aid and provides one of the main relief coordination centres for the government. UK preparedness support, through Oxfam, is providing immediate relief supplies to 30,000 people for emergency shelter and WASH. DFID is also supporting overall coordination.
The UK will continue to monitor the situation in both countries, and work with their governments to support immediate needs and to help people and communities affected to recover once flooding has receded, it added. "Flooding has also affected India, where the UK continues to monitor the situation, and our thoughts are with those that have been affected."

IBN, Hongshi to seal deal on Sunday

The Investment Board Nepal (IBN) is planning to sign a project investment agreement (PIA) with Hongshi Shivam Cement on Sunday.
Hongshi Shivam Cement is constructing a cement factory in Nawalparasi at a cost of around Rs 37 billion, which is the largest Chinese investment in domestic cement industry and the second largest after Nigeria’s Dangote Cement, which entered Nepal with a $550-million foreign direct investment (FDI) pledge.
The Nepal-China joint venture company has already started construction of the factory at Sardi in Nawalparasi. "It has currently employed 500-600 Nepalis and 500-600 Chinese workers at the factory site,” according to the Board. "The company will start commercial production by May 2018, if things go according to plan."
The cement factory will have a daily cement production capacity of 6,000 tonnes – some 120,000 bags – according to cement company that is planning to double the production to 12,000 tonnes per day in the next five years.
Hongshi Shivam’s production is also expected to substitute cement import from India.
The company also plans to export cement produced at its plant to India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Once the PIA is signed, Hongshi Shivam Cement, despite being a foreign joint venture, will receive the treatment like a domestic company. The PIA will also oblige the government to help the company acquire the land it needs, and build access road and transmission line to the factory and mining sites, according to the Board.
The Board was planning to seal the deal with the Nepal-China joint venture during Chinese vice premier Wang Yang’s visit to Kathmandu. But the visit concluded on Thursday and the agreement could not be signed as Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was about to visit India.
The signing of PIA with Hongshi Shivam Cement will be the first signing of mega agreement after the incumbent chief executive officer Maha Prasad Adhikari has been appointed. And it will  be the third major deal that the Board has sealed after its establishment.
Earlier, in 2014, the Board had signed project development agreements with developers of 900-MW Upper Karnali Hydroelectric Project and 900-MW Arun-3 Hydroelectric Project. Both these agreements were signed when Radhesh Pant was the chief executive of the Board. 

Government, UN signs strategic development assistance framework

National Planning Commission (NPC) and United Nations (UN) Country Team in Nepal signed the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for 2018 -22 at a special function here today.
The UNDAF lays out the development strategy for the UN Country Team in Nepal for the next five years. The $635 million package involving 26 individual UN agencies, spans interventions aimed at assisting in four broad areas including Inclusive Economic Growth; Social Development including Resilience, Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction; and Governance, Rule of Law and Human Rights.
"We are pleased to sign this framework with the UN in Nepal to broadly align with our national priorities as envisioned by the government," said the National Planning Commission (NPC) chair Swarnim Waglé after signing ceremony. "It will contribute to Nepal's ambition to achieve the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development."
Likewise, UN resident coordinator Valerie Julliand, on the occasion, said that the UNDAF shows what the UN can achieve when it works together across agencies and mandates. "The strong alignment of the UNDAF with the national plans, international conventions, and the Constitution of Nepal provides the foundation to support Nepal’s efforts in ensuring that ‘no one is left behind’ as laid out in the Sustainable Development Goals."