Kathmandu, June 22, 2006

The five-member High Level Judicial Investigation Commission headed by Krishna Jung Rayamajhi today asked the government to put 13 individuals, including few members of the former government, under surveillance.

Their interrogation is scheduled to begin very soon. “Cases have been filed against those individuals and the commission needs to question them.

The government should ensure that they are available for interrogation,” said a member of the commission requesting anonymity. “The interrogation will start tomorrow or latest by day after tomorrow,” he said.

It is understood that Sharad Chandra Shah, who was a keyadvisor to the King, left for Bangkok on Wednesday.

The 13 individuals are: Dr Tulsi Giri, former vice-chairman of the government led by the King, Kamal Thapa, former home minister; Niranjan Thapa, former minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs; Badri Mandal, former minister for land reform and management, Tanka Dhakal, former minister for information and communication, Salim Miya Ansari, former minister for forest and soil conservation, Shrish SJB Rana, former information and communication minister; Senate Shrestha, former minister of state for education and sports, Jagat Gauchan, former minister of state for for education and sports, Nikshya SJB Rana, former minister of state for Health and Population, Sacchit SJB Rana, former member of the Raj Parishad Standing Committee, Bharat Keshar Simha, Aide-de-camp to the King, and Sharad Chandra Shah, the key advisor to the King.

Govt should not own any media, says FNJ

General secretary of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) Mahendra Bista today demanded that the government owned media be made public institutions.

“No government should own the media in the 21st century, specially in a country like Nepal, where there is a strong possibility of the government and the parties in power making the media their mouthpiece at the cost of the taxpayers’ money,” he said.

Bista was addressing an interaction at Martin Chautari. The government currently owns Gorkhapatra Corporation, Nepal Television, Radio Nepal and Rastriya Samachar Samiti. Bista said the transformation process must begin as soon as possible and the new institutions, to be owned by the public, should be transparent.

According to him, the transformation of the state-owned media to public ones has been a major demand of the FNJ for the past several years. He, however, said that the government-owned bodies should not be dissolved.

“They should instead be handed over to more professional teams who are more sincere to the readers or audiences than the parties.” He further said that government-leaning private media will not last long.