Puja for rain

DAMAK: Farmers of Chulachuli VDC, Ilam on Friday offered prayers to Indra, the rain god, for rain. Damak farmers worshipped Indra at a water source in Jyotishi Paini. Pandit Devi Prasad Bhandari conducted the puja, planted a rice sapling. They also sacrificed duck, chicken and goat. — HNS

Chitwan receives rain

NARAYANGARH: After two weeks of searing heat, Chitwan received heavy rain for over half hour on Friday afternoon. Bharatpur meteorology depar-tment said there was 5.5 mm of rainfall.The maximum temperature was recorded at 37.5 degree Celsius. — HNS

Detainees visited

KATHMANDU: A National Human Rights Commission team met detai-ned political leaders on Friday and said they had not been provided hea-lth check-up facilities or newspapers. The team met NC leaders Narahari Acharya, Tirtha Ram Dangol, NC (D) leader Bal Krishna Khad, People’s Fr-ont Nepal leaders Amik Serchan, Lilamani Pokhrel, Navaraj Subedi. — HNS

Projects bag MEA

Kathmandu: Two projects from Nepal — Nepali villages project and Water Pasteurising Unit for Cooking Stove have won the Mondialogo Engineering Award (MEA) presented by Daimler-Chrysler and UNESCO. — HNS

NEA office bombed

DHANGADHI: The control panel building of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), Dhangadhi was damaged when two Maoists detonated a bomb there on Thursday. It will take at least 10 days to repair the damages and resume power supply. Around 13,000 clients in Kailali and Kanchanpur have been hit. In Bardiya, a group of Maoists seized a fire engine from the Mainapokhar bazaar, on Friday. The fire engine was returning to Gularia from Sorahawa VDC 2. The Maoists forced the driver off the vehicle before taking off in it. — HNS

Food shortage

BHOJPUR: There has been shortage of foodgrain in Bhojpur after the government failed to supply the district’s quota of rice. It received only 800 quintals of rice against its quota of 1,600 quintals. The remaining is stranded at the Nepal Food Corporation office in Biratnagar.

— RSS