IN BRIEF

Lawyers’ concern

KATHMANDU: Lawyers on Thursday submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet appealing to the government not to authorise the mobile citizenship distribution teams to give away naturalised citizenship certificates. The lawyers claimed that it is the authority of the Home Ministry to distribute the naturalised citizenship certificates as per the Interim Constitution 2007 and Nepal Citizenship Act, 2006 and that any subordinate body under the Ministry cannot exercise the authority. “We have submitted the memorandum along with the signatures of 500 lawyers,” central committee member of the Nepal Bar Association Tika Ram Bhattarai said on Friday. — HNS

Kids missing: Report

LALITPUR: According to a report of the Central Child Welfare Committee, Lalitpur, in the past 45 days alone 302 children have gone missing. Of these only 153 children have been found. Keeping children as domestic workers, lack of awareness on part of parents, kidnapping of children for ransom and abduction of children for taking them to work in circus and kidney transplant are said to be some of the reasons for the disappearance of children. Children found following search and tracing are handed over to the parents or kept at children’s home if their parents are not found, said Executive Director of the Committee, Dipak Sapkota. — RSS

Committee formed

KATHMANDU: The Ministry of Land Reforms and Management has constituted a three-member Task Force to present a report on the basis of petitions regarding misappropriations of incomes of shrines, temples, gumbas, stupas and ponds in various places of the country. The Task Force under the convenorship of Co-Administrator of the Guthi Sansthan, Hem Raj Subedi, has section officers of the Ministry, Bhesh Bahadur Karki and Upendra Kafle as members. — RSS

Meet postponed

KATHMANDU: The Third National General Convention of the Nepal Dalit Association (NDA) which was said to be held in Pokhara on 10th and 11th February, has been postponed and rescheduled in the same place for February 26- 27, the Nepal Dalit Association said. — RSS

Funds provided

KATHMANDU: The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Skill for Employment Project of the Government of Nepal and the Asian Development Bank have provided Rs 7,771,900 to formulate and elaborate Technical Education and Vocational Training (TEVT) Sub-sector policy. According to a press statement issued here on Friday by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the goal of the policy is to revamp the TEVT system to serve the needs of the country.— HNS

Books for prisoners

KATHMANDU: In a statement issued here on Friday, Early Childhood Development Centre (ECDC) has expressed its gratitude towards the Federal Express, the Everest De Cargo, which have provided Rs 9,600 to purchase books and stationeries for child prisoners. For the past two years, the Early Childhood Development Centre has been providing accommodation to the children. — HNS