MID-WEST REGION SECURITY MEET IN NEPALGUNJ Kathmandu, 28 Nov.: A security meeting of the mid-West begins in Nepalgunj Wednesday when the law and order situation in the region will be reviewed. Such meetings are held annually in all five development regions. MOUNTAIN CONFERENCE GETS UNDERWAY Kathmandu, 28 Nov.: A three-day international conference on geological ciences got underway in the capital Wednesday. Participants from 19 countries are participating in the 27th Himalaya, Karkarom, Tibet workshop where 150 scientific papers are being presented by geoscientists, engineers and experts. nnnn ONE KILLED, 26 INJURED IN BARDIYA BUS ACCIDENT Kathmandu, 28 Nov.: Tulisara BK, 60, of Sanoshree died instantly Tuesday when a crowded passenger bus overturned on the Guleriya-Rajapur road in Bardiya. Twenty-six others were injured, The driver has been arrested. Nnnn CAPITAL’S ROAD EXPANSION DRIVE STALLED AMID DIPLOMATIC STANDOFF Kathmandu, 28 Nov.: Kathmandu’s road expansion drive has been stalled ever since a row erupted between the Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA) and seven diplomatic missions, Anil Giri writes in The Kathmandu Post.. The embassies of Russia, China, the USA, Germany, France, Japan and Australia and the government have locked horns over demolishing their walls, allegedly encroaching on the Valley’s roads. They have also allegedly refused to cooperate with the government in the latter’s attempts to resolve the deadlock. According to government officials, the missions have advised that the government either demolish the buildings on the other side of the road or compensate them. The government is, meanwhile, in a fix after several rounds of talks between officials and embassy staff over the last several months ended inconclusively. However, officials said the negotiations are on. “At the official level, we tried our best to end the standoff, but we were unable to reach an understanding with the missions. It now looks as if the higher political level should take the lead to end the logjam, probably the Foreign Secretary, the Foreign Minister or even the Prime Minister. Otherwise, the work will remain stalled,” said a senior government official privy to the affair. The missions are citing Article 22 of the Vienna Convention in their defense. The Article states that “the premises of a mission shall be inviolable. Agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.” The receiving State, Nepal, is under special obligations to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the missions against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace or impairment of its dignity, the Article states. “The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.” The government’s road expansion drive began last year in the Valley. Blacktopping of the newly expanded roads have begun in many areas, except for the Lazimpat-Mahargunj-Baluwatar area, where most of these diplomatic missions are located. The German embassy, meanwhile, is located in Gyaneshwor. The French and the Japanese mission are demanding compensation for the land that will be taken away from them, according to government officials. After several attempts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and the KVDA to strike an understanding failed, Chief Secretary Lilamani Poudel himself is taking the lead to end the protracted stalemate. “To end this row with the diplomatic fraternity, secretary Poudel is calling a meeting with senior government officials who are directly involved in the expansion drive on Thursday,” said another government official. The KVDA has been strictly instructed not to demolish the mission walls without prior instruction from the MoFA. “The missions told us that they sanctioned their land from the MoFA and government offices concerned,” said the official. However, KVDA officials said more than 90 percent of the compound walls built in Kathmandu, either by diplomatic missions or private citizens, were not approved by the land registration office. “Many houses, buildings and diplomatic missions had the land that their buildings stand on approved, but not the land that their compound walls are built on. So we are claiming that these constructions are illegal,” said a KVDA official. The US embassy, for its part, has provided proof that it purchased the land in 2004 and had it approved by government offices prior to constructing its buildings and compound walls. Nnnn EDUCATION TRAGET WON’T BE MET FOR DECADES Kathmandu, 28 Nov.: Going by the current literacy growth rate, it will take over three decades for Nepal to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of 100 percent literacy, actually set for 2015, Binod Ghimre writes in The Kathmandu Post.. According to the National Census 2011 released on Monday, the country’s literacy rate is 65.9 percent, up from the 54.1 percent in 2001. A budget of Rs 265 billion pumped into the academic sector helped achieve the increase of 11.8 percent at an annual rate of 1.18 percent since the last census. The government spends an average of Rs 26.52 billion per annum in the sector. However, around 35 percent of Nepalis are still illiterate. “This shows that millions of rupees from the state coffers have gone down the drain,” education expert Bidhya Nath Koirala told an interaction organised by the Education Journalists’ Network here on Tuesday. Despite free education up to grade 10 and regular adult literacy campaigns, only 15.7 million of the 23.9 million children above five years of age became literate by 2011. Primary education has the highest share in literacy, accounting for 39 percent for the total literate population of Nepal, followed by the secondary level, contributing 20.3 percent. The share of SLC graduates and above is 10.2 percent each. The data also show that just 4.2 percent of the people went through non-formal education . However, the Non Formal Education Centre claims that some four million people between the ages of 15 to 60 are illiterate. “We have added five percent to literacy since the census was taken in July last year,” claimed Bishnu Prasad Mishra, Deputy Director at the Centre. However, Koirala brushed aside Mishra’s argument. Stating that there was duplication in enrolment in the literacy programme, Koirala claimed that the data presented by the centre was not reliable. Assistant spokesperson at the Ministry of Education, Roj Nath Pandey, said the increase in the female and rural literacy rate is a positive sign. The census report shows that female literacy has gone up by 15 percent to 57.4 percent, while the male literacy rate climbed by just 10 percent. Rural literacy increased by around 10 percent in the same period. The same rate is now 62 percent. Now, Nepal ranks fourth in the Saarc region in literacy rate, behind Maldives (95 percent), Sri Lanka (92.5 percent) and India (74.04 percent). nnnn