Kathmandu, January 3, 2008

CPN-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal said today they could not take decisions on many important issues as the coordination committee of the seven-party alliance did not meet due to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s “reluctance” to attend it.

According to the 23-point agreement reached on December 23 among the partners of the alliance, the leaders had agreed to form the highlevel coordination committee comprising top leaders of the alliance to effectively run the government. “I was asked to convene the committee’s first meeting on Tuesday but it was rescheduled for Wednesday.

The meeting was rescheduled today morning but we could not hold the meet due to PM’s unavailability,” Nepal said after addressing the 21st year of founding of the National People’s Cultural Forum. He said it was meaningless to hold such a meeting without the PM’s presence. He said the committee was supposed to decide on venues and dates of the seven joint rallies of the alliance across the country, reach a consensus on the poll date, finalise criteria for the formation of six commissions and a monitoring committee of comprehensive peace accord.

He said these works needed to be done on time to create a conducive environment for the April polls. Nepal also said the Maoists’ repeated highhandedness against cadres of his party posed a serious problem in forging an electoral alliance among the Leftist forces. “The Maoist cadres beat up our cadres in Kavre and Pokhara recently and forcefully collected Rs 2.7 million as donation from teachers in Parbat district.

Kids give soap factories run for money

Doti, January 3, 2008

Science works wonders. Fired by techniques learnt during their science classes, students in Mahakali secondary school located in Mudegaun of Doti district are bright-eyed, and squeaky clean.

Thanks to their science classes, they don’t need to buy soap from the local Achel bazaar. Instead, they manufacture their own soap with the same money that they might have been spending on buying it. Science teacher Chhatra Bahadur Jora said the students became proficient in making soap meant for bathing and washing after just a week’s training in the school science laboratory.

Another teacher, Padam Raj Joshi, said most of the teachers in the school were using soapmanufactured by the students. “It costs less, and makes the skin, hands and feet softer and smoother,” said Joshi. Class X student Lal Bahadur Nepali said the students have made different kinds of moulds for the soap and the soaps come in interesting shapes.

The students use vanaspati ghee, salt, baking soda and sodium hydroxide for making the soaps. Another student, Ramesh Bogati, said all the ingredients were available but sodium hydroxide was a bit difficult to get. Bogati said the soaps were easy to make.