HLF helped releasing 23 inmates

Kathmandu, Aug 13: Hidden Life Foundation (HLF) has helped secure the release of 23 inmates from various six districts.

The organisation, which helps to release unjustly imprisoned individuals, was successful to free the inmates in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Palpa, Butwal and Kavre.

Founder of the foundation Vivek Upadhyay informed that the organisation had assisted to settle the released individuals in the society.

“We provide various skill based training in order to enable them to earn money through entrepreneurship. We train them on knitting, candle making, bakery and ice cream making, electric and electronic, paper recycle, cutting and cushion and handicraft,” he said.

He stated that many people were forced to serve jail term just because they couldn’t pay the fine of just Rs. 3,000.

The HFL hopes to visit all central prison of Nepal to assess the conditions of the inmates and instill them a feeling that they are not alone.

Karuna Pudasainee, co-founder of the Foundation said that they have been planning to develop entrepreneurship skills to help the released prisoners to make them mentally and financially strong.

“We also aim to provide skills development trainings inside the prison. It will help the prisoners to find work immediately when they are released from the prison,” she said.

There are 17,423 inmates in the prisons across the country. The country has 74 prisons in 72 districts with a capacity to accommodate only 10,433 inmates. 

CSD celebrates silver jubilee

Kathmandu, Aug 12: Centre of Self-Help Development (CSD) celebrated silver jubilee of its establishment on Friday.

It felicitated the founding members of the company and organizations that extended financial assistance for the first Micro-Finance Members Summit organized a couple of months back.

Governor of the Nepal Rastra Bank Dr. Chiranjivi Nepal handed over plaques and letters of appreciation to the personalities and organizations.

Dr. Nepal appreciated the microfinance for their role in helping the people to get out of poverty. He noted CSD’s role in poverty reduction.

He urged the microfinance institutions not to work for profit but for the benefit of people at the rural and remote areas.

“If you want to earn huge profit the microfinance sector is not for you. Banks are the trustee of public money therefore you need to be more transparent, positive and service oriented,” he maintained.

NRB deputy governor Chintamani Siwakoti also criticized the microfinance institutions for deviating from the objectives of the business.

He informed that the central bank had received about 115 applications seeking license to run microfinance institutions.

“Increased number of microfinance companies increased the duplication in lending. A recent research has found out that a single client had received loan from nine microfinance companies,” he said.

He informed that the microfinance companies in the country had mobilized Rs. 20 billion deposits and Rs. 60 billion loans.

CSD chairman Shankar Man Shrestha highlighted the achievements of the company and said that it would continue to work in the remote areas to reduce the poverty.

Governor urges for collaboration to fight cyber crimes

Kathmadu, Aug 12: Nepal Rastra Bank Governor Dr. Chiranjivi Nepal Friday urged all the concerned stakeholders both from the government and private sector to work together in order to fight the threats on cyber security.

Addressing a seminar on ‘Cyber risks and security’ organized by the Nepal Bankers’ Association (NBA) and KPMG India, Dr. Nepal said, “The risks from the cyber have made the financial sector more vulnerable. As the cyber has no border and limitation, attackers can launch attack from any part of the world.”

He stated that being a Least Developed Country (LDC) didn’t mean that Nepal was less vulnerable to the cyber attacks and crimes.

However, he claimed that the central bank was very sensitive about the cyber crime issues and was planning to bring out circulars and directives to address the pertinent issues of the sector soon in the future.

“The NRB has been promoting better use of technology and applications of adequate security in the banks and financial institutions,” he maintained.

Ajit Regmi, deputy director of the NRB informed that the central bank had a dedicated department to licensing and regulating e-payment system.

Ananda Raj Khanal, director of Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) said that the telecommunication sector regulator was working to protect the cyberspace for both the government and people.

“We are formulating cyber security policy as per the guidelines of the International Telecommunication Union. It will include institutional setup to fight with the cyber crime, saving the vulnerable groups and strategies for raising awareness,” he informed.

He claimed that by the end of the current fiscal year the country would have a new cyber law.

Superintendent of Nepal Police Rabin Basnet informed that crypto currency was creating problems and the concerned agencies should be enabled to fight the crime.

A crypto currency or digital currency is a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and to control the creation of additional units of currency.

He said that there was less reporting from the banks and financial institutions of the electronic frauds and crimes.

Chief operating officer of Bank of Kathmandu Lumbini Prabin Chhetri said that all transaction and activities in the banking and financial sector must be monitored. “Technical risks are minimum as it is proven however we must apply caution in operation.”

Chief executive officer of the Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Joseph Silvanus stated that there was not insurance cover for the loss occurred due to cyber crimes.

Kunal Pande and Atul Gupta from KPMG India presented papers on cyber risks and security in the seminar.

They presented the details of potential threats in the cyber space and ways to be fight them. 

Nepal-India joint investment in Jewellery

Kathmandu, Aug 7: The Federation of Nepal Gold Silver Gem and Jewellery Associations has forged an agreement with the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), India for joint venture business and technology investment to promote Nepalese jewellery industry.

The GJEPC is an initiative set up by the Indian Commerce Ministry in 1966 to promote the Indian gem and jewellery products which represents about 6,000 exporters in the sector.

The Federation is a national level private sector organization of gem and jewellery business in Nepal. 

A meeting between the delegation of Nepalese gems and jewellery businesspersons led by Federation’s president Ramesh Maharjan and Indian delegation led by GJEPC chairman Prabin Shankar Pandey has consented to help to promote Nepalese gems and jewelry product and industry.

According to a press statement issued by the Federation, both the parties had agreed for a joint venture to establish a ‘Jewellery Promotion Zone” in Nepal.

“The Zone will be used to investigate, excavation and refinement of raw precious and semi-precious stones in Nepal. It will request the concerned government agencies in making cooperation with the private sector for the export promotion of Nepalese gems and jewelleries,” read the statement.

The meeting had also agreed to organize an international level conference on the promotion of Nepalese jewellery, conduct trainings on modern jewellery designing.

“Such initiatives will help to develop jewellery industry in the country and promote Nepalese jewellery in the international market,” said the Federation.

An Indian delegation is scheduled to visit Nepal soon to implement the agreements.

The Nepalese delegation was comprised of president of Nepal Rocks and Minerals Association Bidya Sagar Tamrakar, president of Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association Kisan Sunar and representatives of other organizations and companies.

Meanwhile, the Federation is going to participate in ‘Penang Signature Gold Fair 2016’ which is scheduled to be held from August 10 to 12 in Malaysia.

“We are planning to discuss about the Malaysian investment in Nepalese gems and jewellery sector. As we are planning to organize an international level ‘match maker conference’ in the country the discussion with the Malaysian business community will be fruitful for us,” said Maharjan. 

EC mulling to implement single ballot paper

Kathmandu, Aug 10: Chief Election Commissioner Dr. Ayodhi Prasad Yadav Wednesday said that the election management body was mulling to implement single ballot paper for both first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional representative (PR) elections.

Speaking at an interaction on the bill of Provincial Assembly Election Act, he maintained that as the number of political parties was ever growing, it will be easier to manage the single ballot paper.

According to the Election Commission of Nepal (ECN), the number of political parties registered has crossed 180.

The new bill has proposed a threshold of 1.5 per cent for proportional representation election system. As per the provision, any political party must garner at least 1.5 per cent of total votes cast in order to elect its candidates to the parliament.

This is in line with the House of Representatives Election bill which will be forwarded to the government next week.

The Commission is collecting stakeholders’ opinions and suggestions on the bill.

Although the fringe parties demanded to remove the threshold, big political parties and other experts demanded to raise the threshold percentage to 3 per cent minimum.

They opined that many a political party created problem in election management while the smaller parties claimed that the state should not suppress the alternative ideology that emerge with the new political parties.

Nepal Congress lawmaker Min Bishwokarma said that the threshold was necessary as there was a growing trend to register the political parties just to occupy position at various local level committees and development projects which was having adverse effects in the development works.

Other experts stated that election without threshold would promote caste, religion, ethnicity and region based small parties which might prove counterproductive for the social harmony.

The new bill has proposed 33 per cent women representation in the provincial elections.

If less than required women candidates are elected in the First-Past-the-Post election, the deficit number would be fulfilled by the proportionate representation election by selecting the women candidates from the list furnished by the political parties.

However, CPN-UML leader Raghu Panta asked the Commission to make provision so as to force the political parties to field women candidates in the FPTP elections and experts of various sectors and reputed personalities should be proposed in the PR elections.

Spokesperson of RPP-Nepal Rajaram Shrestha questioned whether the elections could be held on time.

According to the constitutional provisions, the government must hold three elections – local bodies, Provincial Assembly and Federal Parliament – within one and a half years.

The election management body has said that if the government could implement the Report on the Local Bodies Restructuring by mid-September and local election related laws were passed the Legislature-Parliament by the same period.

Addressing the opening ceremony of the two day interaction on Tuesday, Dr. Yadav had made it clear that if the government couldn’t finalize the demarcation of local bodies by the end of this year, elections couldn’t be conducted.

The ECN has forwarded the six election related bills to the government and other five bills are being formulated and being discussed upon. 

Ajay appointed as NBI Chairman

Kathmandu, Aug 10: Chief Executive Officer of Bank of Kathmandu Lumbini Ajay Shrestha has been elected as the chairman of the board of National Banking Institute (NBI).

The meeting of board of directors last week unanimously elected Shrestha as the chairman. He has replaced Shovan Dev pant for the post.

Similarly, executive director of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) Dr. Min Bahadur Shrestha has been appointed as the director of the Institute.

After being elected as the chairman, Shrestha mentioned that he would be fully committed to achieve the goals of the organizations with its mission and vision in coming days by delivering international standard programmes to its stakeholders.

NBI is apex banking academy in the country and is promoted by the NRB, Rural Microfinance Development Center and member banks of Nepal Bankers’ Association. 

Govt for custom reform: FM Mahara

Lalitpur, Aug 11: Finance Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara Thursday directed the employee at the Department of Customs to work with high morale and integrity in order to achieve the target set by the government.

The government has given the revenue target of Rs. 246 billion to the Customs.

Inaugurating a two-day seminar on Customs Management here, he said, “If there are any challenges to the smooth operation of the customs, they will be addressed but we need to make the customs more effective.”

FM Mahara urged the participants to find the way to customs reform and formulate future plans.

Speaking on a different note, he said that the first priority of the government was to implement the constitution and federalism.

Secretary of revenue at the Ministry of Finance Rajan Khanal said that the customs were the major source of revenue collection.

“Trade facilitation should be the priority at the customs. The government is implementing digital technology to make the customs operations more efficient and effective,” he said.

 Director general of the Department, Shishir Kumar Dhungana expressed his commitment to meet the customs revenue target.

He informed that the single window for trade facilitation was under tendering process and would be implement by 2018.

“Last year we installed IP camera at 13 customs offices which has enabled us to monitor the activities there from the central office of the Department and Ministry of Finance. We have given priority to the development of infrastructure related to the customs and trade facilitation,” he said.

Dhungana said that the Department was expediting the digitization process of customs offices.

It had started the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) as piloting from Mechi Customs Offices in the last fiscal year, and it will be expanded to 10 customs offices this year.

According to Dhungana, the seminar would discuss on eight thematic areas related to the customs and diagnose the challenges as well as find solutions to them.