Kathmandu, September 19, 2006

While the most exciting festival of the Hindus, Dashain, is yet to knock on our doors, some enthusiastic astrologers are all prepared to celebrate Tihar from tomorrow, calling it the “genuine date” for the festival.

Needless to say, the group has celebrated Dashain as it falls well ahead of Tihar. For the group, which has been lobbying for several years for the preponement of the Bikram Calendar, the “actual” Tihar starts tomorrow.

According to them, Kag Tihar falls on September 20, Kukur Tihar and Laxmi Puja on September 21, Gai Puja on September 22, Mhapuja on September 23 and Bhaitika on September 24 this year. “We can’t wait for the world to celebrate Tihar.

We are celebrating it this week according to our calendar,” said Hari Narayan Malla, an astrologer and activist, who says the prevalent calendar has been delayed by a month due to the changing positions of the sun and the stars.

The group led by Malla has filed an application at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, seeking the formation of a study team to check the validity of the fundamentals proposed by the group and urged the government to make necessary changes in the Bikram Calendar, the official calendar of Nepal.

“As the year 2064 is a ‘year of confusion’, we have demanded that the government recognise the year as Bal MukundaYear.” “From this year onwards, the government must name the changed calendar as the Nepal Bikram Calendar,” he said, calling on the government to provide a month’s salary to its employees to celebrate the introduction of a revised calendar.

Sunsari folk repent killing of dolphin

Locals of Mohar tole of Dumraha-3 in Sunsari, who did not know dolphins were an endangered fish species, are repenting for having killed a dolphin.

They had killed dolphin in the Sera River on Saturday. “A person told us we had killed one of the rarest fish species. We would not have killed it had we known that it was an endangered fish species,” said Ram Sewak Chaudhari of Dumraha-3.

Locals killed the dolphin weighing 100 kg and distributed its among themselves. Our cadres took the head and tails of the endangered species, said Maoist district secretary, Hari Basnet, adding that the dolphin was killed due to the laxity of the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve (KTWR).

There are four more dolphins in the Sunsari river, locals said, adding they came there from the Ganges.

Gangetic dolphins are found only in the Koshi River, but they have not been officially counted since 1998, said a ranger at the KTWR, Pashupati Adhikari, adding that there were 22 dolphins in the River in the year 1998.

According to Rabin Ghimire, a social worker of Prakashpur VDC, gangetic dolphins are found in the southern parts of the Koshi.