The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal ( CAAN ) has requested all international airlines flying wide-body aircraft to Kathmandu airport to restrict their take-off and landing weight to 196 tonnes until September 30.

The aviation regulator body made such a request to the Airlines Operating Committee Nepal (AOCN) in a meeting held here on Friday. Airlines officials said further updates would be given to AOCN after the completion of the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) runway evaluation study being conducted by a Spanish company.

An aircraft has two weight categories—dry operating weight and pay load. Dry operating weight cannot be reduced, but pay load, which has three components—passengers, fuel and cargo—can be brought down.

“Considering the gravity of the situation on the TIA runway, CAAN has responded positively to airlines’ request to not bar wide-body aircraft from landing at the TIA,” said Bharat Kumar Shrestha, the AOCN chairman.

Amid safety concerns after repeated occurrence of cracks on the 46-year-old runway, CAAN had last Monday issued a notice to airlines to find alternatives to their wide-body aircraft (seat capacity above 250) flying into the country’s sole international airport that has a single approach system. CAAN has cited heavy aircraft (up to 299 tonnes) as one of the reasons for the runway to crack very often.

However, the decision was criticised by the travel trade fraternity and freight forwarders association, saying that the move will have multiple effects on the country’s economy. October-November is the peak of Nepal’s festival season and this is the time when thousands of migrant workers and other Nepalis living abroad fly home for Dashain and Tihar.

“As reducing the pay load to 196 tonnes will not affect airlines (except Korean Air and Thai Airways), we will soon ask the airlines to implement the CAAN ’s request so that the runway is not damaged further,” Shrestha said.

As Korean Air and Thai Airways fly Boeing 777, they will be hit the most. Hence, Friday’s meeting decided to make a special request to Korean Air to reschedule its flight to morning or evening and, if possible, change the fleet by bringing in other types of wide-body aircraft. “Thai was also requested to change the fleet type if possible,” airlines officials said. Traffic is thin at the TIA in the mornings and evenings.

Some airlines officials said CAAN ’s decision was harsh as their major business season is almost at hand. However, they said that considering the runway problem and its consequences, they were ready to compromise and restrict their load to some extent.

However, airlines wonder what the report that the Spanish company will prepare by the end of September will have in it. According to CAAN officials, further decision will be taken on the basis of the report to fix the runway problem permanently.

This could also mean closing the airport for international flights for more than three months after September.

As cracks appeared again on the TIA runway on Friday, the airport was closed for 30 minutes to carry out repair works. The airport authority, however, said it did not affect flights too much. A Thai Airways aircraft landing was delayed for 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Hotel Association of Nepal met Civil Aviation Minister Ram Kumar Shrestha and CAAN ’s director general Ratish Chandra Lal Suman and requested them to undertake the repair works without affecting flights.

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Two years since controversy erupted over the ban on Christian burials next to the Pashupati premises, and a viable solution has yet to be implemented, forcing the community to resort to desperate means to lay their dead to rest

Along the banks of the Trishuli in Nuwakot, a jeep is speeding on, tunneling furiously into the night. As the vehicle sails forth like a silent animal, roadside settlements pass by in a blur of mute houses and shuttered shops, interspersed by long stretches of dark nothingness.

It is 11.36 pm when the jeep suddenly swerves into a bend and jerks to a halt, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Miles away from the nearest settlement, there are no visible landmarks or signs of human habitation here—only the Trishuli hissing softly on the left while a thicket of trees looms on the right. The car’s headlights are turned off, and the door on the driver’s side tentatively pushed open. A man steps out, looking around cautiously before indicating to his companions in the car to join him. Two others are soon on their feet beside him, and together, the three approach the car’s back door. It opens to reveal two dead bodies lying next to each other, both covered in some sort of cloth one can’t make out the colour of at this time of night.

The two men carry the dead on their shoulders as they follow the driver, who is walking ahead with a torch in one and two shovels in the other, leading them into the forest. None of them are saying much to the others, heavy breathing and the crunch of pebbles and leaves underfoot the only sounds around.

Once they get to a flimsy clearing amid the trees, shovels are stuck into the ground and earth sent flying as two separate graves are quickly dug. When sizeable openings have been created, the bodies are deposited gently within these and covered once more with chunks of forest floor. It is then a walk back to the car, a sprint past sleeping villages, and back in the direction of Kathmandu from whence they’d come.  Despite what the clandestine nature of this little sojourn might invoke in most imaginations, this was not a chapter out of some gruesome real life murder mystery. In fact, one of the dead comprised of an 83-year-old man who had passed away of heart failure in the Capital; the other a 62-year-old woman whose cancer had metastasised to the point where doctors—even those in India—could not treat her, and had eventually met a protracted end as the disease ate away at her. How did these two end up in the jeep? The answer is fairly simple: They were Christians, and there was no place in the Capital to bury them. At a loss for a viable alternative, this is what most in the Christian community here have been compelled to do ever since the burial ground crisis surfaced in Kathmandu about two years ago—drive bodies outside the Valley and bury them in random spots away from densely-populated settlements, more often without the knowledge of the locals, who would no doubt kick up a fuss if they were to be informed.

Grave problems

“It’s obviously not ideal, but what can we do? We don’t have any other options,” says CB Gahatraj, the chairman of the Federation of National Christian Nepal (FNCN). “We’ve been pushed into a corner.” The dead, he adds, are presently being ferried to Dhading, Trishuli, Rautahat, Sindhupalchowk, and Kavre on most counts, occasionally even as far as Surkhet, to be laid to rest.

Gahatraj despairs of the ‘indignity’ the Christian community has suffered at the hands of concerned government authorities with regard to the burial issue, a denial of religious rights that he says is ironic in a supposedly secular country. “It’s been over two years since we’ve been campaigning for the problem to be addressed, but authorities are still in the process of ‘holding talks’ while we’re left to make our own arrangements,” he says. “What is there to debate?”

The dispute over burial space for Christians—who make up only about 1.4 percent of the country’s total population—first erupted when the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) decided to bar all non-Hindus from burying their dead in the Bankali forest on the temple’s premises in January of 2011. Sushil Nahata, the then-member secretary of the PADT, explains that the directive had been taken to preserve the sanctity of Hindu ground. “Once the Bankali area had already been taken up by graves, the cemetery was beginning to expand outwards, threatening to encroach on the Hindu shrines in Pashupati,” Nahata says. “It is the government’s duty to ensure that the Christians are allocated a proper and separate burial space.” He adds that as an autonomous body, the PADT would never compromise on retaining the purity of the temple complex, which is included in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites.

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 The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on Friday arrested 35 government officials for allegedly sending 77 migrant workers to Qatar through illegal means last month.

The CIAA arrested 17 staffers from the Department of Foreign Employment and 18 from the Department of Immigration. Six officials, including the director of the DoFE, Ramesh Mainali, were arrested on Wednesday for abusing office.

Sources said DoFE officials had given the final nod to the 77 workers to head for Qatar from three manpower companies—Sanaa International, Progressive Placement and Advance Recruitment. According to the anti-graft body, 34 of the workers have already left for their destinations, while the remaining are on the waiting list.

CIAA officials said three original files having records of the migrant workers have ‘mysteriously disappeared.’ The anti-graft body is investigating the matter on the basis of photocopies of the illegal work permits. Friday’s arrest was made with a view to tracing the original files and finding out who all were involved in the matter.

The CIAA has rounded up all officials at the final work approval division and the labour desk run by the DoFE at the Tribhuvan International Airport. Sources close to the CIAA said high-ranking officials from the Department of Immigration and Nepal Police at the TIA are under tight scrutiny, as, according to them, sending the 34 workers abroad without their involvement would have been impossible. Following the arrests, the DoFE, which is considered one of the busiest public offices, has gone almost empty, affecting day-to-day activities there. This fact has stalled work related to hundreds of workers, mostly awaiting the final approval. Around 1,500 migrant workers visit the Department every day. DoFE officials said they are working to fill the vacuum created by the arrests.

The department has already assigned six officials led by Under Secretary Pradip Subedi to the final approval division. It has also assigned eight officials under Section Officers Riddhi Sitaula and Lava Raj Joshi to the TIA labour desk. “We hope things will get back to normal from Sunday,” DoFE spokesperson Divash Acharya said.

The department also held a meeting with representatives of the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA) later in the day. Although officials did not say why they actually met, sources said senior department officials asked the agencies to ‘cooperate’ in retrieving the three missing files.

NAFEA Chairman Bal Bahadur Tamang said a more transparent system is urgently needed to curb such irregularities. “It is surprising to know that such important files have gone missing from such an important institution. The government must start processing the files online,” he said.

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 Walking through the cold sinister alley

I feel the obscurity engulfing me whole,

The fallen houses, the broken roofs

All of it, makes me think of all the steps I took.

Everything is falling apart

But I still don’t know where I went wrong,

Is it me that’s pushing away the bliss?

I’d never know if I’m not.

I stand in the eye of the hurricane

Preparing myself for the worst.

Even though I’m scared of the muddle,

I walk with my head held high and chin up.



Something behind me moves, and every part of me quivers,

I turn a blind eye and look away from the chaos.

It’s not that I’ve never faced things like this,

I had stood still then, and again, Oh yes I will!

I know the hurricane will pass and so will the night

There’s dawn ready to sneak up, to make things right

Until then, I’m going to be strong, and I’ll fight

Beneath the despair, deep down, I know things will be alright.

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Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the party’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Ravi Shankar Prasad , arrived in Kathmandu on Friday on a three day visit.

Immediately after landing in the Capital, he went to meet Indian Ambassador to Nepal Jayanta Prasad, taking stock of Nepal’s current political situation and the election process.

He will deliver a lecture on ‘Republic of Nepal: Emerging Hope and Scope’, organised by Nepal-Bharat Sahayog Manch on Saturday. He is accompanied by Ajit Kumar who looks dedicatedly Nepal affairs at the BJP, according to the convener of the Manch, Deepak Adhikari.

He will meet President Ram Baran Yadav, Interim Election Council Chairman Khil Raj Regmi, Nepali Congress President Sushil Koirala, and UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, former Prime Ministers Sher Bahadur Deuba, Madhav Kumar Nepal and many others. He is likely to address the media too.

At a time when Nepal is bracing for second Constituent Assembly election, his visit will let Nepali leaders understand BJP’s position.

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The advent of the Silver Tsunami will challenge perceptions about human sexuality and aging in today’s youth oriented society. Photo: MSN Image Library

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The advent of the Silver Tsunami will challenge perceptions about human sexuality and aging in today’s youth oriented society.

10,000 Americans turn 65 each day, resulting in an unprecedented population of older adults in the US.

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According to the National Register of Health Service Psychologists, “One out of every six Americans will be over the age of 65 by the year 2020. In the case of older adults and sexuality, older people are stereotyped as being non-sexual beings who should not, cannot, and do not want to have sex.”

Ageism is “the stereotyping of and discrimination against people simply because of their age,” according to the 2013 Older Adult Sexuality Reference on SeniorSex.org. But it may soon become a stigma of the past.

Our society will be forced to accommodate vast demographic, economic, political and social phenomena, including coming to terms with the fundamental human need of older adults for intimacy.

People who are married have greater frequency of sex than those who are single. WebMD.com, in a 2008 report, highlighted the following statistics:

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