POST REPORT PROGRAMMES OF THE DAY - epaper-archive …epaper-archive-01.ekantipur.com/epaper/the-kathmandu-post/2016-01... · to ban futsal. KATHMANDU: Within 24 hours of imposing

Taskforces continue talksKATHMANDU: Taskforces formed by the ruling, oppo-sition and Madesh-based parties have started work to iron out differences on 11-point demand put forth by the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha, but Friday’s meet-ing failed to make any headway. Taskforce mem-bers, however, said negotia-tions will continue to reach an agreement before January 19. (PR)

DAO rescinds order to ban futsalKATHMANDU: Within 24 hours of imposing a ban on futsal activities, the Kathmandu District Administration Office on Friday rescinded the order, largely due to intense criti-cism from several quarters. The decision to lift ban fol-lows a meeting between the local administration and futsal entrepreneurs. (PR)

NEWS DIGEST

If managed well, traditional taps could meet 27 pc of daily demandPRAHLAD RIJALLALITPUR, JAN 15

Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City (LSMC) has decided to acquire land around source areas of stone spouts to con-serve water resources.

According to a research report published in the Journal of the Institute of Engineering by Govinda Poudel, these stone spouts built centuries ago can serve as the second largest source of water, if allowed to oper-ate effectively, as they can fulfil 27 percent of daily demand. The rest of the demand is fulfilled by the

Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL), private and public wells, water tankers and rain.

Currently, there are 61 stone spouts in the city and 39 of them are in working condition, discharging around 14 million litres of water per day in Lalitpur alone in wet days. According to data, the demand of water in Lalitpur stands over 40

million litres a day (MLD) and the KUKL has been able to supply little over 30 MLD in wet season and around 20 MLD in dry season.

“The municipality has passed a land acquisition policy to preserve tradition-al spouts as they could still serve as a source of water for millions of residents,” said Rudra Gautam, senior engineer at LSMC.

According to Gautam, water level around tradition-al stone spouts in Lalitpur has gone down in recent years because of unman-aged human encroachment, which has blocked inlets and outlets of major ponds which feed water to the stone spouts. The con-crete-floored settlements around ponds hinder absorption of rainwater, Gautam said.

“We are working on tech-

nical details and estimating the financial cost for the land acquisition and will start the process after addressing all the technical aspects,” said Gautam.

Lalitpur is considered to be one of the most affected areas in the Valley where 54,581 households perennial-ly face water crisis and have to rely on stone spouts.

Chandra Subas Shakya, an employee at the heritage department in the munici-pality, said that although the land area to be acquired was small, there are hurdles galore when it comes to acquiring land, as locals have been demanding com-pensation. And without reo-pening the blocked inlets and outlets around the major ponds, it is nearly impossible to pump water into traditional spouts, he said.

Lalitpur to turn to stone spoutsQ U E N C H I N G T H I RST

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horns locked

n Bulls fight during the Maghe Sakranti festival celebrations at Tallukachandani in Nuwakot district on Friday. Bullfighting is organised every year on Magh 1. POST PHOTO: HEMANTA SHRESTHA

Rebuilding campaign set to kick-start today

A woman fills up a jerry can from a traditional stone spout in Lalitpur. POST FILE PHOTO

Will ensure citizenship through mother: BasnetPRATICHYA DULALKATHMANDU, JAN 15

Home Minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet has promised that he will issue circulars to his respective offices to issue citizenship certificates in the spirit of the new constitution.

Minister Basnet made the pledge after hearing out the youths who have not been able to obtain citizenship cards despite the constitutional guarantee that a child born to either a Nepali father ‘or’ mother will be eligible to get citizenship by decent.

Thousands will benefit if Minister Basnet keeps his word.

According to Census 2011, there are 161,231 widowers and 498,606 widows (around 0.65 million single parents) in the country. There are an esti-mated 23,000 divorced and 40,000 separated couples. The current constitutional provi-sion bars women from passing on citizenship to their chil-dren. For a woman to pass on citizenship to her child, as per the citizenship law, she needs to prove that the whereabouts of her husband are unknown. The provision is silent about a single male parent when it comes to passing on citizen-ship certificate.

“We have three years to make new laws in line with

the constitution; but we can-not make youngsters wait for such a long time to obtain something as vital as citizen-ship certificate,” said Minister Basnet. “I will issue circulars to all district administration offices to issue citizenship to children born to either a Nepali father ‘or’ mother.”

The interim constitution had guaranteed citizenship in the name of mother back in 2007, which was more liberal than the current constitution.

Despite the constitution ensuring citizenship through mother, Shiwani Kharel, a 21-year old student from Baneshwor and her brother Srijan, have not been able to get citizenship certificates, in the lack of which they are at risk of being rendered state-less. Srijan told Minister Basnet that despite the consti-tution ensuring that children of either a Nepali father ‘or’

mother are eligible for citizen-ship by descent, they have not been able to acquire their citi-zenship.

“Officials at the Kathmandu District Administration asked me to wait until laws and reg-ulations related to citizenship are formulated,” said Srijan. “I have already waited for three years. For how long do I have to wait to become a Nepali citizen?” wondered Srijan.

Law practitioners also briefed the home minster on various laws that need to be amended to ensure that Nepali mothers can pass on citizenship to their children.

According to advocate Sabin Shrestha, a child of a Nepali woman with a foreign spouse will have to be born in Nepal, which contradicts the constitution which does not say the child has to be ‘born in Nepal.’

We have three years to make new laws in line with

the constitution; but we cannot make youngsters wait for such a long time

to obtain citizenshipSHAKTI BASNETHOME MINISTER

[ ]

POST REPORT KATHMANDU, JAN 15

Almost nine months after the devastating earthquake and amid criticism for the delay, post-earthquake reconstruc-tion will formally begin on Saturday, with the President laying foundation stone of a heritage site and the prime minister unveiling a construc-tion design for a resident set-tlement in Lalitpur.

Saturday’s formal start of post-quake reconstruction coincides with National Earthquake Safety Day, a day that Nepal marks every year as a reminder of the 1934 earthquake that killed around 8,000 people.

T h e N a t i o n a l Reconstruction Authority (NRA), the central body responsible for reconstruc-tion of quake-destroyed hous-es and infrastructure, said Saturday’s event would mark the symbolic start to reinforce government’s commitment to rebuild.

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari is scheduled to lay the foundation stone of a tem-

ple destroyed on the premises of Ranipokhari in Kathmandu at 11:56am, the time when the earthquake struck the coun-try on April 25, killing nearly 9,000 people and affecting one third of the 28 million Nepalis.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli will unveil a design for a Bungamati settlement in Lalitpur at 2:24pm on Saturday. The time has been chosen to mark the anniversa-ry of the 1934 quake.

Bungamati, located about 10 kilometres south of

Kathmandu, is one of the 52 traditional settlements in Kathmandu Valley.

The seventh century settle-ment of 6,000 people was destroyed in the April 25 earthquake. Out of 1,351 hous-es in the town, 851 were destroyed and 315 were par-tially damaged.

According to the NRA, Karyabinayak Municipality will rebuild Bungamati and the Department of Archaeology and Kathmandu Municipality will reconstruct

Ranipokhari area. Before announcing the

reconstruction campaign, NRA Chief Executive Officer Sushil Gyewali had inspected both the sites. The reconstruc-tion of quake-destroyed hous-es and infrastructure was delayed for months, largely due to a wrangling among major parties over who should be appointed the chief of the construction body.

The actual reconstruction process, however, will begin on April 24, on the eve of the first anniversary of the April earthquake, once the authori-ty receives a detailed damage assessment report. The authority is deploying over 1,500 engineers to all quake-af-fected districts to take detailed surveys.

The government has already allocated Rs 74 billion for reconstruction, and inter-national donors have pledged more than $4 billion for Nepal’s rebuilding efforts. According to the authority, it is in a position to mobilise more than $200 million at the moment for starting reconstruction.

POST-QUAKE

RECONSTRUCTION

PROGRAMMES OF THE DAYn President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will lay foundation stone of a temple

destroyed on the premises of Ranipokhari in Kathmandu at 11:56am, the time when the earthquake struck the country on April 25, killing nearly 9,000 people and affecting one third of 28 million.

n Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli will unveil a design for a Bungamati settlement in Lalitpur at 2:24pm on Saturday. The time has been chosen to mark the anniversary of the 1934 earthquake

Actual work will begin on April 24, on the eve of the

first anniversary of the quake

18TH NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE SAFETY

DAY SPECIAL

Money II, III, IV

thekathmandu postnews 02Saturday, January 16, 2016

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Maghe Sakranti celebrated across countryPOST REPORTKATHMANDU, JAN 15

Maghe Sankranti was observed across the country on Friday with much fan-fare. The festival observed on the first day of Nepali month of Magh marks the end of winter when friends and families feast on ghee, chaku, yam, sel roti, sweet potato, sesame ladoos, among other, delicacies.

“Maghe Sakranti marks the beginning of spring season. It is the time to cele-brate good health,” said renowned culturalist Satya Mohan Joshi.

On this day, devotees throng the rivers close to their homes and take holy dip, also known as Makar snan. Doing so, it is believed, frees one from various dis-eases and brings positivity and purity.

Maghe Sakranti is similar to solstice festivals in other religious traditions. Maghe Sakranti is also known as Makar Sakranti, because it is believed that the sun enters the astrological sign of Makar from Dhanu on this day.

The Tharu community cel-ebrate Maghe Sakranti as Maghi festival, their new year. The Tharus, who tradi-tionally worked as bonded labourers, used to observe Maghi as the day when the indenture with their employ-ers was renewed.

After the bonded labour system was outlawed, the Tharu community started observing the festival as the day of their emancipation.

The Tharu people in Kathmandu organised a fair

in Tundikhel to celebrate Maghi. They showcased their cultural dances like Maghauta, Jhumara, Lathi, Hurdangwa and Mahutiya.

The Newar community in Kathmandu Valley call Maghe Sakranti “Ghyo-Chaku Sanun”, the day cele-brated by eating ghee and chaku. On this day, married daughters are invited at their parental homes to cele-brate the festival together.

Nuwakot stages bullfighting matchesPOST REPORTNUWAKOT, JAN 15

Hundreds of people observed the annual bullfighting match in Betrawati, a village situat-ed at the border of Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts on the occasion of Maghe

Sakranti on Friday. A sim-ilar event was also organ-ised in Taruka-5.

This year, eight pairs of bulls clashed in Betrawati. Speaking at the gathering, Suroj Lawati, chairperson of the Gosainkunda Youth Club, said they have been organising the event to

preserve their centu-ries-old culture. “The festi-val is believed to have been initiated to celebrate the treaty reached between Nepal and Tibet following a war two centuries ago,” he said.

Locals said bullfighting event is helpful in promot-

ing tourism in the region as it draws people from various districts such as Chitwan, Dhading, Kathmandu and Lalitpur.

Besides bullfight, organ-isers also held cock fight-ing and various cultural shows to entertain the visitors.

4,000 footfalls on first day of fairPOST REPORTKATHMANDU, JAN 15

Around 4,000 people visited the first day of Australia New Zealand Edu Fair-2016 at Hotel Annapurna in Kathmandu on Friday.

The fair, organised by One UP Events Management Solutions, featured over three dozen academic institutions from Australia and New Zealand.

According to the organis-ers, the fair is a perfect place for students to receive first-hand information about col-leges and universities in Australia and New Zealand.

"Only top universities and their local consultancies are featured in the event," said Ravi Shankar Jha, manager of One Up Events Management Solutions.

"This way the students won't have to visit from one consultancy to another," Jha added.

Australia and New Zealand are among the most sought after academic destinations for Nepali students.

Around 8,500 students received No Objection Letter (NOL) for Australia last fiscal year. Similarly, over 500 stu-dents received the NOL for New Zealand.

Water crisis in Gorkha school

SUDIP KAINIGORKHA, JAN 15

Manakamana Deaf Residential School at Taksar in Gorkha Municipality has been carrying drinking water via vehicles from the Daraudi river, as water sources in the nearby area have dried up.

The school has been using tractors and trucks on a daily basis to bring water from the river which is 10 kilometres from the school.

Anil Amgai, headmaster of the school, said water sources have dried up since the devas-tating earthquake and that the school has been left with no option than to fetch water from the river. "We are using medicines to treat the water that we bring from the river to make it fit for drink-ing,” he said.

Locals also said they have no any other option than to bringing water from the river

for drinking purpose. Construction of a water pro-ject in the village has been obstructed for a long time due to disputes. The project con-struction was stalled after locals of Bakrang vandalised a water tank and destroyed pipeline following disputes between villagers over using water sources of Dipling. Local Rudra Magar said locals are reeling under acute short-age of water in Taksar area due to the delay in project construction.

Narayan Prasad Acharya, chief of Division Office of Drinking Water, however, said the project construction has resumed after problems were resolved. "The villagers have agreed to provide water after discussions," Acharya said.

The project aims to distrib-ute water to 331 households of wards number 8 and 9 of Gorkha Municipality within two years.

US aid for building crisis mgmt centrePOST REPORT KATHMANDU, JAN 15

The US Embassy in Kathmandu, in partnership with the government of Nepal, broke ground on a $1.2 million Regional Crisis Management Centre (RCMC) and warehouse on Friday in observance of Nepal Earthquake Safety Day.

The RCMC is funded by the US government and is sched-uled to be completed by March 2017 at the Nepal Army Chaunni Barracks in Kathmandu, according to a statement issued by the US Embassy in Kathmandu.

In the event of a disaster, civilian and military person-

nel will staff the RCMC to organise relief, search and rescue, and post-disaster activities (such as debris removal).

The RCMC and warehouse will enable civil-military part-ners to better coordinate response and communication, as well as provide assistance and materials to affected local population during a disaster, the statement added.

The warehouse portion of the RCMC will store emergen-cy supplies and equipment for first responders.

The United States remains committed to supporting the Government of Nepal’s efforts in disaster preparedness, read the statement.

n Students load water on a truck from a local river.

australia new zealand edu fair

thekathmandu post news03 Saturday, January 16, 2016

Two killed in tractor accidentTANAHUN: Two persons died on the spot in a trac-tor accident at Arunodaya-6 in the dis-trict on Friday. The deceased have been identified as 28-year-old Raju Bhatchhetri, a trac-tor driver of Syangja, and helper Punam Nepali, 19, of Udayapur district. (PR)

PM did as he pleased: DPMPARBAT: Deputy PM and Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi said on Friday that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli provided extravagant benefits to his advisers, experts and personal sec-retaries without discuss-ing it in the Cabinet. Rayamajhi said they will investigate into the unu-sual perks provided to the staff at the PM’s Office. (PR)

Dhading Admin Office picketedDHADING: Earthquake survivors of Jiwanpur picketed the District Administration Office in Dhading on Thursday demanding relief cash and other facilities from the state. People dis-placed from 472 house-holds reached the district headquarters as they were also deprived of their ID cards. They com-plained that the govern-ment had been apathetic to their plight. (PR)

Man dies, swine flu blamedTANAHUN: A man, who was said to have tested positive for the A (H1N1) virus popularly known as swine flu, died at TU Teaching Hospital in the Capital on Thursday. The deceased has been identi-fied as 36-year-old Yusuf Miya from Damauli. He had breathed his last at the TUTH, Maharajgunj. His body was brought to Damauli from Kath-mandu on Friday. (PR)

NEWS DIGEST

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Court bars NA’s biscuit buy bidPOST REPORTKATHMANDU, JAN 15

The Patan Appellate Court has directed the Nepali Army (NA) not to procure ‘High Energy Biscuits’ from Pashupati Biscuits Industries, saying that the agreement for the procurement violated the spirit of the Public Procurement Act.

Pashupati Biscuits Industries is a subsidiary of the Chaudhary Group.

Issuing an interim order in response to a writ filed by Pemba Sherpa of Mark Suppliers, a division bench of Judges Til Prasad Shrestha and Saranga Subedi on Thursday directed the Army not to implement the agree-ment unless a final decision on the case is made.

The NA on December 13 had reached an agreement with Pashupati Biscuits Industries sans bidding to buy biscuits needed for around 100,000 personnel.

As per the deal worth around Rs 1.6 billion, the Duhabi-based company was to supply biscuits from January 15, 2016 to January 14, 2019.

In the agreement, the Army has claimed that the Pashupati Biscuits Industries was select-ed as it was the only company in the country which could

produce ‘High Energy Biscuits”. The national defence force claimed that around Rs400 million would have been saved had the pro-curement been done directly with the company.

“… it is against the princi-ple of transparency and credi-bility, therefore don’t imple-ment the agreement until the final verdict,” reads the deci-sion of the Appellate Court issued in the name of NA.

The court said the agree-ment is against Clause 41 (1) of Public Procurement Act 2006, which makes bidding mandatory to procure any-thing that costs more than Rs6 million.

The court has said the NA wrongly interpreted the Act while reaching the agreement with the biscuit company.

Army ordered not to procure from Pashupati IndustriesAgreement contravenes Clause 41 (1) of Public Procurement Act that

makes bidding mandatory for deals worth over Rs6m

CONG TO OPEN GEN ASSEMBLY AT DASHARATH STADIUM

POST REPORTKATHMANDU, JAN 15

The Nepali Congress has picked Dasharath Stadium at Tripureshwor to hold the inaugural event of its upcom-ing 13th General Convention.

The NC is holding its gener-al convention on March 3-6. “The stadium has been booked,” said Bhimsen Das Pradhan, who heads the jam-boree preparation committee.

The party will hold its closed-door session at Bhrikuti Mandap. The Central Working Committee of the NC has formed 13 subcommittees to oversee and manage the event, which will elect a new leadership for the party.

Indian cops in Nepal to nab ‘fugitive’LAXMI SAHBARA, JAN 15

A team of Indian police per-sonnel in civvies entered Nepal pretending to visit Gadhimai Temple and tried to arrest an Indian national in Kalaiya on Thursday.

Sources said the Indian police team comprising around eight officials reached Janaki Hall Chowk in the Bara district headquarters and went to a retail store belonging to Pappu Sah alias Mitthu, who is said to be a “most wanted” fugitive in India.

Though Pappu tried to escape upon seeing them, the plain-clothed personnel held him for a few minutes before his parents shouted for help saying that some people were trying to kidnap their son. Pappu managed to flee after local residents arrived there

and rounded up the “captors”.The Indian police produced

their identity cards and explained that they were try-ing to arrest Pappu as he was a fugitive. They were later escorted by Nepal Police per-sonnel who had intervened.

Nepal Police released the Indian cops after phone con-versations with Indian offi-

cials at Sitamadi in India. According to the Indian police, Pappu is charged with three murders and two abduc-tions. Police, however, said he could have been arrested had the Indian police coordinated with them.

Binod Prasad Sah, a wit-ness, said they could not rec-ognise the Indian personnel at

first. “If they had not dis-closed their identity, the situa-tion might have become tense,” he said, adding that the locals were unaware of Pappu’s criminal background. Pappu had arrived in Kalaiya five days ago and his parents had been operating the shop for the past couple of years.

DSP Meghraj Joshi of the Armed Police Force said the Indian police entered Nepal easily due to the open border.

Matiarwa locals said the security situation in the bor-der area has been lax in the past six months. Nepali forces stationed on the border said security meetings between officials of the two countries have not been held. Locals, however, said the APF person-nel are not patrolling the bor-der area in the manner the Indian Sashastra Seema Bal was working on the other side of the border.

Study: As least 45 red pandas in Rara Park

POST REPORTMUGU/ROLPA, JAN 15

At least 45 red pandas have been found in Rara National Park. The endangered arbo-real (tree living) mammals were spotted in Nijar, Bulbule Chuchumare, Mili and Chhahare areas of the park, said Chandrajang Hamal, a researcher.

Hamal was part of the research team studying the life and habitat of the red panda in the park. The research was supported by the National Trust of Nature Conservation and the Red Panda Network.

Officiating Conservation Officer Laxmi Narayan Shah said there are an esti-mated 100 red pandas in the park. A formal count has not been conducted till date.

Red pandas have also been spotted in the remote Gaam village in Rolpa district.

Locals reported the presence of red pandas in the forest near the village after a vil-lager captured the animal and brought it to the village.

A team from the District Police Office and the District Forest Office visited the vil-lage and retrieved the cap-tured animal.

Chief District Officer Mitra Lal Sharma said they will release the animal to its habitat after conducting an health examination.

Red pandas are found in subtropical and temperate forests of Nepal, India, Bhutan, northern Myanmar and southwestern China.

n A red panda spotted in the Rara area. PHOTO COURTESY: HARI P SHARMA

NC chief Koirala skips President’s lunch partyPOST REPORTKATHMANDU, JAN 15

Nepali Congress President Sushil Koirala skipped a lunch organised by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on the occasion of Maghe Sakranti on Friday.

The President had invited top leaders of all political par-ties represented in Legislature-Parliament to her residence in order to exchange greetings.

Former Prime Minister and senior Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba also did not participate in the event. NC Vice-president Ram Chandra Poudel, however, attended the programme.

Koirala had also skipped a

similar gathering organised by President Bhandari earlier.

It was just a political gath-ering, said UCPN (Maoist) Vice-chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha, who was present in the gathering. He said a few political matters were also discussed on the occasion.

Sources said the President had made telephone conversa-tion with Koirala twice but

the latter expressed inability to attend the programme say-ing that he was suffering from asthma.

During the luncheon meet-ing, president also inquired leaders about latest political situations of the country as well as ongoing talks between the government and the agi-tating Madhes-based parties and its possible outcomes.

MAHENDRANAGAR: The Indian border security force, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), has said the situa-tion on the Nepal-India bor-der in the Far West is calm-er than other regions.

In a meeting with Nepal’s Armed Police Force (APF) in Kanchanpur on Thursday, senior SSB offi-cials said there were no

obstructions in the border areas of the far-western region. “There is calm and normalcy in the western border areas,” SSB Deputy Inspector General KP Singh told the meeting. APF DIG Suraj Kumar Shrestha attended the meeting from Nepal’s side. The two sides have agreed to work jointly to repair border pillars. (PR)

SSB says western areas calm

n Sushil Koiralan Bidhya Devi Bhandari

thekathmandu postvariety 04Saturday, January 16, 2016

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ARIES [March 21-April 19] Chase money and pay bills—great luck accompanies you! Now your luck does a 180—be cautious with legal, travel, career matters and (over)exertion. If you take care, you’ll be fine. Home, children/parent relations, gardening, nutrition, security, real estate and retirement issues draw your attention Thursday to Saturday. Friday morning holds disruptions and disagree-ments. This pm brings quiet progress and co-operation. Saturday, possible true love.

GEMINI [May 21-June 20] Lie low, recuperate, contemplate and deal with confidential matters—the week is filled with luck in dealing with government, institutions, charities and spiritual matters. Your energy and charisma soar—but remember, don’t start new projects nor relationships before January 25. Use these two days to conquer long-standing problems. Realise co-operation, finances and social zones are disrupted—again, start nothing. Call or visit friends.

LEO [July 23-August 22] Be a homebody, Leo. Money, repairs, children, security, affec-tion, retirement dreams—all meet splendid luck. Expect friends, flirtations, entertainment, and happiness. But don’t do anything practical. Remember, too, that you should not start any new pro-jects nor relationships before January 25. Retreat, lie low, contem-plate—be charitable, spiritual, and deal with civil servants, institu-tions and large corporations. Your good luck holds here.

LIBRA [September 23-October 22] Sunday/Monday brings secrets, rewards investigation. Finances, crucial health matters, lifestyle, sexual intimacy, all are highlighted. Remember, don’t start a new project nor rela-tionship before January 25. Luck deserts you here, so step carefully, after consideration. A sudden partner disruption pos-sible. Be ambitious pre-dawn Thursday to noon Saturday—except for Friday morning, this is a smooth, productive time. Friends, party time, Saturday night!

SAGITTARIUS [November 22-December 21] The emphasis continues on money, earnings, shopping, clients, your possessions, and sensual attractions—but only until Wednesday, when a new trend (travel and friends) arrives. Tackle chores and protect your daily health. Avoid belligerent people, be diplomatic and co-operative. Don’t stick your neck out either day. Life’s hidden, sexy, and powerful side emerges. You can win fine agreements about domestic matters, love, dealings with government—but avoid Friday morning to Saturday night—meet someone, express affection.

AQUARIUS [January 20-February 18] You’re still held back by low energy and a quiescent charisma. But your month of setbacks and quietude ends, when a month of ‘Aquarius First!’ starts. Your luck is high, especially in career-money, investment/debt,and, despite your lowered cha-risma, intimacy. Spouse, kids, nature—all bless you. But romance (and creativity, speculation, pleasure pursuits) don’t meet the same fate—a series of glitches, confusion, bored friends and stress beg you to seek a better time.

PISCES [February 19-March 20] Have fun Sunday/Monday, Pisces, talk, re-establish friendly contacts and any semi-romantic ties. Your luck’s high, and any travel, errands or friendly meetings will go splendidly. Your home seems all topsy-turvy Tuesday/Wednesday— advance cautiously, avoid arguments, and don’t stick any forks in the electric outlet. Passion visits pre-dawn Thursday to Saturday—plunge into romance, or pleasure or speculative projects (NOT new ones).

TAURUS [April 20-May 20]Your energy and charisma soar, and your luck is superb. Remember, don’t start any new projects nor relationships—so use your great effectiveness these two days to further ongoing projects or to reprise the past. Both days need care—a bad time to ask the boss for a raise. Don’t buy anything major (nor invest). Watch your wallet/purse. Friends call, trips amuse, errands get done—double check facts, figures, addresses, etc, especially if handling paperwork. Spend a happy pm at home.

CANCER [June 21-July 22] Remember, Cancer, start no brand new projects nor relation-ships before January 25. Wishes can come true. Your popularity soars, friendly romance winks at you (an old flame might be ready to re-visit the past) you feel optimistic, and life’s grand! Splendid luck accompanies you, especially in relationships—light and serious. But retreat, rest and contemplate. Be quiet, keep a low profile, to escape the problems flying around.

SCORPIO [October 23-November 21] Start nothing new, ventures nor relationships, before January 25. This week you shift gears downward, from hectic activity to relative rest. Sunday/Monday bless relationships with luck and affection. Almost everything succeeds if it touches on relation-ships, negotiation, relocation, or dealing with the public. Life’s hidden side emerges—and now luck deserts you. So take care with investigations. Otherwise, enjoy, love, and communicate!

AstralReflections

KANTIPURTV

KANTIPUR FMCAPRICORN [December 22-January 19]

Your energy and charisma remain high, but still, avoid starting new projects or relationships before January 25. Sunday/Monday bring romance, creative and speculative urges, beauty and pleasure. Your luck is high, especially Monday. You could fall in love, or make someone love you. Remember, stick to old, past or ongoing flames. Protect your health, eat and dress sensibly. Friday morning starts a lucky stretch, enabling you to obtain co-operation, to see opportunities clearly (don’t leap yet!).

VIRGO [August 23-September 22] An old flame might re-appear. A mellow, wise mood flows through you, Virgo. Your luck soars, especially in love, intellectu-al pursuits, education, far travel, international affairs, publishing and cultural venues—and in communicating with a spouse or associate. Handle glitches, barriers with a steady, optimistic tone. You’ll survive! Your mood brightens pre-dawn Thursday to noon Saturday. Good partnership vibes, popularity with your friends, optimism, entertainment, friendly romance—these bring happiness.

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1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2. The Revenant

3. Daddy’s Home

4. The Forest

5. Sisters

6. The Hateful Eight

7. The Big Short

8. Alvin and the Chipmunks:

The Road Chip

9. Joy

10. Concussion

(SOURCE: IMDB)

1. Sorry, by Justin Bieber

2. Hello, by Adele

3. Love Yourself, by Justin

Bieber

4. Hotline Bling, by Drake

5. Stressed Out, by twenty one

pilots

6. Same Old Love, by Selena

Gomez

7. Stitches, by Shawn Mendes

8. What Do You Mean?, by

Justin Bieber

9. Here, by Alessia Cara

10. Like I’m Gonna Lose You, by

Meghan Trainor Featuring

John Legend

(SOURCE: BILLBOARD)

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Revolution Cafe, AmritMarg, Thamel, away from busy crowed street, offers great music, fast wi-fi and wide menu with rea-sonable prices. Operation hours: 7 am to 10 pm, contact: 4433630

Every Friday Evening from 7:00 pm onwards at Shambala Garden Café, Hotel Shangri~La only @ Rs.2000 Nett per per-son and live performance by Ciney Gurung. For more details and Reservation: 4412999

Escape, relax and get in shape @ Hyatt Regency. Embark on a personal well-being at Club Oasis. Remember us for Tennis, sauna, Jacuzzi, swimming, fitness centre and Beauty Salon. Contact: 4491234

Learn cardio, gym, aerobics, zumba, spa, boxing, kick-boxing, b-boying, bollywood dance at Oyster Spa and Fitness Club, Sinamangal. Time: Sunday to Friday from 5 am to 8 pm. Contact: 4110554

Jasmine Fitness Club and Spa, Fully equipped gym and spa; Zumba, aerobics and cardio classes; therapeutic massage; beauty parlour and men’s salon. Tripureshwor; Contact: 4117120

Women Skill Development Resource Centre: Join free training for Straw Art, Sewing and Skill Development (for 2 hours, 4 hours and 7days), Suryabinayak, contact 9849426628

Yoga detox and Ayurveda treatments and retreats every day at Himalayan Peace & Wellness Centre, Park Village Hotel. Get 10% discount on all Ayurvedic treatments. Contact: 980106661

Krishnarpan—a specialty Nepali Restaurant at Dwarika’s, 6 courses to 22 courses Nepali meal served. Opening Time: 6 pm-11 pm. Prior reservations required, contact: 4479448

The Italian restaurant serves authentic Italian cuisines in an elegant ambi-ence for both lunch and dinner. Timings: Lunch: 1230-1445 hrs, Dinner: 1900-2245 hrs, Contact: 427399, at Soaltee Crowne Plaza

Savour the cardamom and saffron spice, slow-cooked kebabs and kormas at Indian restaurant serving Awadhi cuisine. contact: 427399, at Soaltee Crowne Plaza

China Garden offers delectable dishes from across Asia, including Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese. Timings: Lunch: 1230-1445 hrs, Dinner: 1900-2245 hrs, contact: 427399 at Soaltee Crowne Plaza

Garden Terrace offers an authentic world cuisine, providing diners with the unique experience of observing their selected dish-es being prepared by chefs. Contact: 427399 at Soaltee Crowne Plaza

Kaiser Cafe Restaurant & Bar at The Garden of Dreams, opening time: 9 am till 9 pm, offers an international cafe menu serv-ing breakfast, lunch, dinner, specialty tea’s, coffees and pastries, contact: 4425341

Embers Bar, Pulchowk, in all its sophistica-tion and glory is happy to announce Happy Hours every 6-7pm. It will be hosting a Barbeque night every Friday from 6:30-9:30pm

Mako’s offers traditional Japanese food served. Don’t miss out on Mako’s special Tempuras, and green tea ice cream, Time: 11: 30-14:30 & 19:00-22:00, contact: 4479448

Manny’s Eatery and bar introduces a spe-

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The Toran, an ideal location for all day loung-ing and informal dining offers multi-cuisines. Contact: Dwarika’s Hotel, 4479488

Weekends brunch @ Hyatt Regency—treat yourself with a lavish buffet lunch, splash by the swimming pool or laze around outdoor, Jacuzzi, all for just Rs 2300 plus taxes per person. Contact: 4491234

Special Saturday Brunch at The Café & Garden, The Everest Hotel 1200-1600 hrs; Ph 4780100

We serve nothing but the finest Arabica coffees at great value prices at Barista Lavazza Coffee Restaurant, Lazimpat, Contact: 4005123/4005124

Bourbon Room, Lal Durbar Marg is open for

lunch from 12 noon. Enjoy affordable and deli-cious meals starting from Rs 99! We are cur-rently offering Indian & chinese combos along with momos. Call: 4441703

Enjoy a Barbecue Buffet at the Radisson Hotel, wide selection of mixed fresh grills and vegetables together with a choice of salads and a delicious dessert buffet at a rate of Rs. 1,350 plus taxes per person. Contact: 4411818

Latin—Gypsy Jazz at The Corner Bar, Radisson Hotel, Kathmandu with Hari Maharjan feat Monsif Mzibiri, 7 pm onwards, Wednesdays & Fridays. Contact: 4411818

Sandwich and Crepes: Taste the sandwich-es and crepes at The Lounge from 11 am to 6 pm everyday. For further details call Hyatt Regency at 4491234.

Rosemary Kitchen and Coffee shop, Thamel, opening hours: 7:00 am to 10:00 pm offers an International cuisine in reason-able prices. Contact 01-4267554

Out-of-Africa Lunch amid rural splendor: Sat & Sun from 1130 to 1630 hours at The Watering Hole, Indrawati River Valley. For prior reservation contact: [email protected]

Tibetan Gyakok for Lunch & Dinner every day at The Mandarin, The Everest Hotel ph: 4780100 ext: 7811

Make your weekend more exciting with family and friends with sumptuous Satey, Dimsums, Mangolian Barbecue and Pasta at The Cafe from 12:30 noon to 4:00 pm. Call: Hyatt Regency, at 4491234

The most delightfully awesome chicken momos & yummy rich chocolate cake on this part of the planet @ Just Baked Bakery & Cafe, Battisputali, offering much more spe-cialties at affordable price.

Daily Buffet with a complimentary glass of house wine at The Café, The Everest Hotel, Lunch: 12 to 3 pm and dinner: 6:30 to 10:30 pm. Ph: 4780100

Enjoy snacks and drinks from 4:00 pm to 11:00 pm every day and nightly live music from “The Corner Band” except Tuesday and Saturday from 7 pm to 11:00 pm at Corner Bar, Radisson Hotel. Contact: 4411818

Every Friday BBQ from 7:00 pm at Fusion Bar & Pool side at Dwarika’s Hotel with live band “Dinesh Rai and Sound of Mind”. Price Rs 1600/ includes BBQ dinner and a can of beer or a soft drink. Contact: 4479448

Hotel Narayani Complex, Pulchowk, Lalitpur presents Shabnam & Cannabiz Band every Wednesday and Rashmi & Kitcha Band every Friday, 7:30 PM onwards @ Absolute bar P Ltd; Contact: 5521408

Starry Night BBQ—every Friday Evening from 7:00 pm at Shambala Garden Café, Hotel, Shangri~La only @ Rs 1799 net per person and live performance by Ciney Gurung. Contact: 4412999

Enjoy live DJ nights, on every Sunday chill out/ ambient, Wednesday tech/ funk house & Friday psy/ proggy/ full on from 6:00 pm to 10 pm at garden and 7:00 pm onwards at club at Funky Buddha Resturant & Bar, contact: 4700091

Set within the historic Garden of Dreams, the Kaiser Cafe Restaurant and Bar, Thamel, offers a continental menu and serves as an atmospheric venue for anything from a quiet coffee or intimate meal. Contact: 442534

Trisara offers food and drinks along with good music and great times. Sunday- Live Music by Barbeque Night, Monday, Wednesday-by Positive vibes, Tuesday, Saturday-By Jyovan Bhuju, Friday-Live Music by Dexterous

Experience The Last Resort, the perfect place for family fun adventure and relaxation. Special packages for residents. Contact: 4700525/ 4701247 or mail us at [email protected]

Asia World Travel Pvt Ltd presents fascinat-ing luxury escapades to amazing destinations: Prague, Ladakh, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Mount Kailash and Panchpokhari in North East Nepal. Contact: 6222604

Jungle Safari Lodge, Sauraha Chitwan offers 2 Nights 3 Days package only for Rs 6500 per person. Suman 9851008399

Much needed getaway—1 night/2 day package @ Hyatt Regency. Enjoy luxury stay of a five star hotel for a couple with breakfast and access to spa facilities for just Rs 9999 plus taxes per person only. Contact: 4491234

Experience the Gyakok @ Shambala Garden, Hotel Shangri~la only @ Nrs.1700 Nett per person and Nrs.3000 Nett for cou-ple. For more details and reservation: 4412999

5:00 Shuvprabhat+ Bhaktisur

5:30 Kundali+ Aatma Gyan

6:30 Jyotish+ Manthan

6:40 Sky Shop7:00 Kantipur

Samachar8:00 Kantipur News8:30 Rise N Shine 9:00 Headline News 9:05 Quiz Mania 310:00 Kantipur

Samachar10:30 Score Board11:00 Headline News11:05 Samakon 212:00 Kantipur

Samachar12:30 Music Mela1:00 Headline News1:05 Ditha Sab1:30 Frame By Frame2:00 Movie5:00 HeadlineNews5:05 Call Kantipur

Reloaded6:00 Kantipur News6:30 Countdown

Kantipur (Pop)7:00 Kantipur

Samachar7:30 Infoplus8:00 Kantipur

Samachar9:00 Uddhyam9:30 Pariwartan

10:30 Kantipur News11:00 Kantipur

Samachar11:30 Countdown

Kantipur (Pop)12:00 Call Kantipur

REPEATED1:00 Kantipur News

Repeated1:30 Kilo Tango Mike2:00 Kantipur

Samachar Repeat 1

2:30 Music Summit3:00 Kantipur

Samachar Repeat 2

3:30 Pariwartan4:30 Kilo Tango Mike

FANKOQFX Kumari 8:30 AM/2:45 PM/6:30 PM

QFX Civil Mall 8:45 AM/2:30 PM/3:15 PM/6:15 PM QFX Jai Nepal 9:00 AM/12:00 PM/3:00 PM/6:00 PM

WAZIRQFX Civil Mall 8:30 AM/12:00 PM/3:00 PM/7:00 PM

QFX Kumari 8:45 AM/11:45 AM

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE ROAD CHIP (HW)QFX Civil Mall 9:00 AM/11:30 AM/4:30 PM

QFX Kumari 2:15 PM/7:15 PM

KAFAL PAKYOQFX Kumari 11:30 AM/4:30 PM

BAJIRAO MASTANI QFX Civil Mall 11:45 AM

DADDYS HOMEQFX Civil Mall 6:00 PM

F

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00:00 Non Stop Songs

01:00 Non -Stop Hindi

Songs

02:00 Non -Stop Nepali

Pop/Adhunik

Songs

04:00 Non Stop

Bhajan

05:00 Bhakti Anusthan

06:30 Kantipur Diary

07:00 Abhibyakti

07:30 Manabta Ka Lagi

Hatemalo

08:00 Kantipur Diary

08:05 Bigyan Prabidhi

08:30 Cyber Time

09:00 Kantipur Diary

09:10 Traffic Update

09:15 The Talk

10:00 Kantipur Diary

10:05 Games People

Play

11:00 Kantipur Diary

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12:00 Kantipur Diary

12:10 Celibrity Hour

13:00 Kantipur Diary

13:05 Century

Top Ten

14:00 Kantipur Diary

14:05 Surakchit Aawas

15:00 Kantipur Diary

15:15 The Game Show

16:00 Quick Fix

17:00 Kantipur Diary

17:05 Health

Hot Line

18:00 Adha Akash

18:30 Kantipur Diary

18:55 Khoj

19:00 Nep-Hop Show

20:00 Kantipur Diary

20:05 Abhimat The

Vertic

21:00 Kantipur Diary

21:30 Hello Mithila

23:00 Rock

Machine

PAGE 5 | SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2016 (02-10-2072)onsaturdayonsaturday

C M Y K

kathmandupost.ekantipur.com

MANISH GAUTAM

Sedar Tamang basks in the sun, wearing a casual shirt and half-pants, at the prem-ises of the Rehabilitation Centre of the National

Disability Fund at Exhibition Road, Kathmandu. He gets up and hops towards a prosthetic leg lying in a corner. He fetches the artificial leg and wraps the cut-end of his left leg with a white stretchable cloth. Directing what remains of his leg inside the frame, he pulls the cloth tightly, and fastens it. He, then, puts a belt around his body, and slowly, and forcibly, begins to take a walk. Tamang is learning to walk all over again.

Tamang, originally from Rasuwa, is now residing in a guesthouse

near the rehabilitation cen-tre. It has been 12 days since Tamang got a new leg, and he has been trying hard to adapt to a new life. Tamang is among the 40 people who have registered at the Rehabilitation Centre to receive pros-thetics after losing their limbs to the April 25 earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. On the day of the quake, Tamang was strolling with his two sons when the ground shook. As a stream of boulders and stones began falling towards his direction, he clutched his sons and took to the ground. Everything else is hazy. He would later learn that his left leg was almost severed by the fast-falling boulders set loose by the quake. His elder son suffered an injury to the head, while the younger son sus-tained some hip injuries. The sons, to his relief, have recuperated.

Tamang, who comes from a his-torically marginalised commu-nity with little access to the state apparatus, is, at the moment, not sure how he will take his life forward. Before the disaster, he worked as a labourer—

sometimes carrying stones, some-times essential goods. He owned a small piece of land and the crops sustained his family for a few months a year. “At least, I used to have land, however little it was. But even that was swept away by the landslip dur-ing the quakes,” laments Tamang.

Now slowly learning a new life, Tamang takes slow steps with his new leg and rediscovers his balance, he has little hopes of getting a better job—his condition no longer allow-ing him to haul goods. To add to his woes, his home in Rasuwa is at least an hour's walk from the last bus stop. Making the arduous uphill journey is not an option anymore. “I have to fig-ure out a way. My life will never be the same, but hopefully I can still make something out of it,” says Tamang.

Sat alongside Tamang is Ramesh Khatri of Basi, Dailekh, who lost both his lower limbs to the quakes. Khatri worked as a waiter at the Bhumeshwor Guest House, New Bus Park and was trapped under the rub-ble when the building collapsed. It would be 12 hours before he was res-cued, and when he was rushed to the Tribhuwan University Teaching Hospital, the doctors had little other options than performing a double amputation.

For the past five days, Khatri has also been learning to walk with his new bendable prosthetics. So far, Khatri believes that he will be able to adapt to the new devices.

“I want to study now. I dropped out of eighth grade in Dailekh, but now I want to resume my studies here,”

said Khatri. Given the geographical ruggedness, he believes he cannot go back to his village and live there per-manently. Like Tamang, Khatri says he will figure-out a way to make a living in Kathmandu.

For Tamang and Khatri, these assistive devices are becoming cru-cial parts of their lives; its absence could severely deplete the choices they could make in life. Although, their disability would still curtail their choices, these assistive devices now allow them to perform day-to-day chores.

Shree Ram Panta, Manager at the Centre, said all these devices are provided for free to the earthquake victims. He believes it will be at least two months before all the

amputees get their assistive devices. Then, it will require at least a month of rigorous rehabilitation at the Centre for them to adapt their body to the prosthetics. At the rehab, they labour to walk on a short ramp with metal-frame supports on either side. Once they can make it through this section, they are asked to walk on a set of mock stairs, slopes and rough surfaces. If there are any corrections to be made to the devices, they are done at the centre itself.

Yet, people with amputations and spinal injury and other forms of dis-abilities have a higher chance of

being pushed further into poverty. Disability and poverty reinforce each other and assistive devices, for now, look set to present them with more choices in life. v

PRATICHYA DULAL & GARIMA CHAULAGAIN

For Bindabasini Kansakar, just heading out of her house can often turn into an ordeal. Nearly three years after she was attacked with acid at her par-ents’ Hetauda store, the

22 year old is still struggling to return to a ‘normal’ life. Layers of oint-ments, medicine and scarves—now essentials of her wardrobe—do not hide the scars that run more than just skin deep. “How can it be all nor-mal?” she says, “the bandages and masks still turn heads wherever I go. Even after all these years.”

Readjusting is not even a priority for 17-year-old Sangita Magar, the target of the 2015 Basantapur acid attack. She has spent the last one year training herself to see the world through a small section of her right eye. Sangita lost the use of her left eye, nose and ear to the attack and now lives her life “a day at a time”. For her, returning to good health is the top most priority now. “I first

need to be able to see and walk prop-erly,” she says.

Easy walk for perpetratorsThe attack, she feels, has left her bit-ter—particularly in light of the

10-year sentence handed out to her attacker Jiwan BK by the Kathmandu District Court in December. Before October 2015, Nepal’s legal system did not even have provisions for acid attacks—which were instead lumped

with other injuries caused by fires. The former laws, amended last in 1986, had the provision to fine attack-ers with Rs 2,000 and up to four months of imprisonment.

On October 1, 2015, the then presi-dent Ram Baran Yadav authenticated a bill that amended the laws governing gender equality and end-ing gender violence. The amendment created new laws for acid attacks which are now punishable by up to eight years imprisonment and Rs 3, 00,000 in fines—the full amount of which is provided to the victim as compensation.

Yet, the new laws come as little solace to Sangita. “He will be free to restart his life in 10 years, while these scars will stay with me forever,” she says.

Bindabasini’s alleged attacker, Dilip Raj Keshari, 30, was never brought to book and continues to remain at large. The only help she received to date is a computer train-ing course and Rs 35,000 provided by Burn Violence Survivors-Nepal, an NGO. Yet, even if her attacker was

nabbed and brought to trial, the com-pensation would not even make a dent on her rising medical expenses. The long road to recoveryBindabasini has had 10 reconstruc-tive surgeries since the attack, and has been making modest recoveries, even though her life is largely limit-ed to shuttling from one hospital to another. After four rounds of plastic surgery at Nepal Medical College, her family opted to seek treatment at Devadoss Multi Speciality Hospital in Tamil Nadu, India. She now has to make the long travel to the South Indian state every two months, incur-ring up to Rs 3,00,000 with every trip on tickets, complex surgeries and sedatives.

“I draw strength from my family,” she says, “they are the reason I am even able to talk to you today.”

For Sangita, her skin hasn’t sof-tened up to even begin surgical pro-cedures. Her mother, Chunni Magar, has had to quit her job at a catering company to tend to her daughter. “She wanted to go to medical school and become a nurse,” Chunni says, “now she cannot even go to the bathroom by herself.”

According to psychiatrist Dr Nishita Pathak, victims need a lot of positives while on their road to recovery. “Friends and family are central; they need to continuously encourage and motivate the victims. When dealing with long-term rehabilitations like these, little everyday victo-ries make the difference,” she says. Eventually, they will also need good counsel-lors as they readjust back into society.

One hurdle at a timeThree years on, Bindabasini, contin-ues to labour through life. Having not had any psychologi-cal counselling after the attacks, she is still strug-gling to move on. She was r e c e n t l y offered a spot at a local radio station for a programme on acid a t t a c k awareness. But even

though she remains resolved to recover, she doesn’t feel she is quite there yet. She declined the offer.

Sangita’s plans for the future also have been put “on hold”. Although she was able to appear for her SLC examinations, her fragile medical condition has meant that college, at the moment, is out of question. Once an avid Karateka, Sangita proudly shows the medals she had accrued before the attacks. She will never be able to fully partake in the sport again.

“I can’t change what has happened but would like to change it to some-thing better,” says Sangita, “the past 11 months have been excruciating, but I am learning that life, now, is about tackling one hurdle at a time.” Giving up is not an option. “Letting go of the dreams I used to have is the beginning of the end. I can take on life in fear, or I can take it on with courage. I pick cour-age,” she says. v

A NEW HOPEDisability and poverty reinforce each other, but assistive devices could help enhance capabilities of victims who lost limbs during the April earthquakes

ONE DAY AT A TIME

Acid attack victims struggle on their long road to recovery

The only help Bindabasini has received to date is a computer training course and Rs 35,000 provided by Burn Violence Survivors-Nepal, an NGO

POST PHOTOS: GARIMA CHAULAGAIN

n Sangita at her home in Basantapur, Kathmandu.

n Ramesh Khatri and Sedar Tamang.

n Sangita, a Karate enthusiast, displays medals accrued before the attack.

n Bindabasini pulls up a picture of her before the 2013 acid attack.

Subedi and a talented cast successfully drag Malini, a play written more than a century ago, into the realm of the contemporary post-dramatic in a rare act of daring

KURCHI DAS GUPTA

Theatre Village was the site for yet another exciting produc-tion. This time, surprisingly, it was one of Rabindranath Tagore’s lesser known plays,

Malini. Lesser known to a bangla or Indian readership perhaps but very much a part of the discourse in Nepal because the English transla-tion of Malini has found a place in the national +2 curriculum here.

The moment of catastrophe in Malini came to him, says Rabindranath, much like a staged performance in a dream. His subcon-scious apparently threw up a scene (while he was sleeping during a stay in London), in which he found two lifelong friends fighting an ideologi-

cal battle that ended in one killing the other. He later developed it into Malini in 1896. Though Rabindranath was a self-professed fan of the unruly Shakespearean flamboyance, this particular play moves along a more tightly knit structure that is reminiscent of clas-sical Greek tragedy, mostly because of its adherence to the three Aristotelian unities. One may also remember that the play Bisarjan (Sacrifice), yet another burning cri-tique of intolerance and violence, preceded Malini.

Malini, a young Hindu princess, relinquishes the religion of her fore-fathers to take refuge in Buddhism—an act that causes immense uproar in the kingdom and sends it reeling to the brink of armed rebellion,

from where Malini (whose name somewhat predictably means ‘she who tends the garden’) retrieves it through her fearless empathy and compassion, only to have it jeopard-ised by an invading army raised by the righteous rebel, Khemankar on whom Malini seems to have kindled a liking. Thankfully Khemankar is tattled upon by Supriya, his child-hood friend and now Malini’s faith-ful follower. The King dutifully has Khemankar imprisoned and the two childhood friends, or brothers almost, meet on stage—in a situa-tional archetype—to thrash out their ideological differences. Expectedly, one loses his life in the hands of the other. Unexpectedly Malini, the prin-cess, who remains on stage for a major portion of the play’s temporal schema but remains curiously aloof from its dramatic movement, beseeches her father to forgive the surviving murderer and it is here, through her Buddhism inspired compassion, that the play deviates from an relentless, classically ‘trag-ic’ trajectory and problematises the matrix of power within which the text otherwise operates.

In the original text, the epony-mous character of Malini is simulta-neously detached and submissive enough to be able to channel Rabindranath’s abiding preoccupa-tion with what he believed to be the universal human capacity for self-ef-facing compassion, nonviolence and tolerance. In contrast, the text’s action pointedly privileges Supriya and Khemankar as its two major players, the protagonist and antago-nist respectively. Director Bimal Subedi works with a sharply edited but adequate Nepali translation (by Jeebesh Rayamajhi) made from an edited English translation of the original bangla. But minutes into the play, the audience is left in little doubt that Subedi has relinquished all servitude to the dramatic text as Malini comes alive in a breathtaking

scenic discourse involving performa-tive action, advanced light and sound technology, digital projections and a futuristic set.

Subedi and a talented cast has suc-cessfully dragged Malini, a play writ-ten more than a century ago, into the realm of the contemporary post-dra-matic in a rare act of daring. Having wrenched the dramatic narrative from the grasp of mere representa-tion, they have charged it with a per-formative immediacy that makes the play’s content eerily relevant to the issues that impregnate our reality today. The actors cease to be mimet-ic, signifying material conveying a distant playwright’s vision and

instead open out the text to new perspectives and understandings. The dialogue, often delivered with a stony deliberation, often transforms itself into sound objects that supple-ment the visual and aural experi-ence. Malini, much stronger than in the original, is aptly processed by Rojita Buddhacharya’s bodily ges-tures and speech acts. But it is Sujan Oli, who steals the show as Khemankar. It must be noted that among all the performers, it was Buddhacharya and Oli that succeed-ed in moving the furthest from simu-lation of emotions and forced us out of our roles of a passive audience/viewer and into an active engage-ment with the play.

The actors were apparently

allowed a lot of leeway to arrive at and devise their own vision of the characters and Oli embodies Khemankar with a suave touch. Shravan Rana’s Supriya is adequate but somewhat pales in comparison. Interestingly, Oli and Rana seem to have taken on the archetypical duel between good and evil—yet another divergence from the original. Rabindranath’s text allowed ample space for both Khemankar and Supriya to be eminently ‘grievable’ entities, each confident in his ideo-logical consistency. Dilip Rana Bhat’s performance is a little sub-dued as a head of state but may be intentionally so given the fact that he embodied the collapsed roles of both the King and the Queen. Saroj Aryal was adept as the symbolic Brahman and a reflective surface for Malini—a role that again had col-lapsed multiple entities of the origi-nal text.

The performance makes imagina-tive use of tropes like the catwalk, in which Buddhacharya self-conscious-ly explores the theme of commodifi-cation and the male gaze. Elements of staging were of course central to the production, as is expected of any post-dramatic effort, and a lot of content and context was conveyed through visual projections and aural resonances. Movements and gestures were intentionally non-rep-resentative and often flowed seam-lessly into the fluidity of dance. Visual quotations from familiar dra-matic and cinematic classics were interestingly woven in through ges-tural resonances.

Theatre Village has been recently tiptoeing around the possible reality of post-dramatic performance by staging poststructuralist texts like Sanjeev Uprety’s Makai Ko Arkai Kheti. I am happy to note that Malini has successfully turned into proba-bly the first and very relevant step towards taking theatre beyond the dramatic in Nepal. v

PREENA SHRESTHA

Brooklyn is sweet—very, very sweet. And, for once, surprising even myself, I don’t mean that in any sort of disparaging way: this peri-od film by director John Crowley (Boy A, Closed Circuit) is the kind

of sincere, moving feel-gooder that is capable of resonating across demo-graphics. Basically a coming-of-age tale about a young woman off to start a new life in an unfamiliar world, leaving behind everything she’s ever known, and the many ways in which she is transformed by the journey, Brooklyn—adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby from Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel of the same name—might not have too much going on in terms of the sort of high-stakes drama that we’re generally used to seeing in immigrant stories, but it’s so intimate in scope, and so well-crafted,

that you’re drawn in all the same. And there’s no question that a huge chunk of the credit for the film’s effectiveness really must go to its young lead, Saoirse Ronan; the actress absolutely hits all the right notes, a strong and beautifully-re-strained performance that gives the film a believable emotional core and prevents it from drifting into unpalatable saccha-rinity the way it could very well have if someone lesser had been cast.

It’s the early 50s, and we’re in the town of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, southeast Ireland, where Eilis Lacey (Ronan) is trying to get to grips with the trip she must soon take to the United States, one that will very likely be one-way. You see, life in Enniscorthy might have been decent enough thus far for her and her little family—comprising moth-er Mary (Jane Brennan) and elder sister Rose (Fiona Glascott)—but there’s a dis-tinct lack of prospects here in terms of employment, and Rose is determined that Eilis get a chance to do something more than mind the cash register at the grumpy local trader’s like she does now. And so it is that she’s booked her sister passage to New York, where a kindly old family acquaintance, Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), has promised to help Eilis find work and a place to stay.

So it’s off across the Atlantic for our pale-eyed heroine, whose awful initial bout with seasickness on the boat soon turns into one of homesickness as she finally docks at Ellis Island, and takes in

her new, alien surrounds. Even though Brooklyn might be packed with Irish immigrants—her landlady (Julie Walters) among them—and her job at a department store under a hawk-eyed supervisor (Mad Men’s Jessica Paré, characteristically wooden) isn’t all that bad, Eilis can’t help be miserable and lonely, yearning all the time to be back home. But, as Father Flood reminds her, “Homesickness is like most sicknesses. It will pass.” And sure enough, she begins to settle in, helped in no small part by the night-time bookkeeping classes she’s enrolled in, not to mention her budding romance with a nice young Italian fella, Tony (Emory Cohen). But just as Eilis has started feeling like she’s found some semblance of purpose and belonging in Brooklyn, she is suddenly called back to Ireland, and must now make a choice: whether to continue try-ing to find her place in a foreign land, or

to succumb to the seductive embrace of all that is familiar and safe.

Brooklyn has been gorgeously shot. And there’s a fun interplay between the plot and the visual style, where you’ll notice subtle changes in palette as the story progresses—paralleling Eilis’ gradual gaining of self-assurance, no doubt—going from a subdued, desaturat-ed tone early on to warmer, happier, richer hues in later parts. The produc-tion design well succeeds in evoking the look and feel of the era and context in which in the film is set, and the cos-tumes are spot on, an array of bright-hued poufy dresses, cat-eye sunglasses and chest-high pants.

Unlike a lot of period dramas, however, the film doesn’t let an obses-sion with aesthetic detailing overpower the substance of the story, which, despite being set in such a specific time and place, is ultimately very universal.

The act of leaving home, whatever the reason for such a move, is always bitter-sweet—something most of us can relate to. On one hand, there’s the pain that comes of severing ties with an old life, one that—as bad as it might’ve been—is usually the only one you’ve known. Then there’s the anxiety of trying to fit

in elsewhere, of having to learn new things and unlearn others, reinvent yourself. But even when you do adapt, and even start to become excited about new possibilities, there’s often a nagging sense of guilt and loss associated with moving on. Crowley’s film captures poignantly that dance between going forward and being tugged back, and the feeling that whatever you do, you can

never truly cut yourself off from where you’ve come from.

What is also great about Brooklyn is that it avoids most of the clichés films on displacement and migration tend to latch onto: Eilis is not your typical tragic figure, and the push and pull factors acting upon her decisions aren’t typical either: she isn’t running from war or poverty, she’s just looking for better opportunities. In refusing to overly sensationalise both her triumphs and her challenges, and in its willing-ness to focus on the mundane, the film manages to feel a lot more real than you’d expect. Our heroine might be walking the tightrope between child-hood and adulthood, but instead of reverting to the expected dramatic ‘mile-stones’, it proceeds with refreshing looseness. Not to imply that there is no drama here; the last third of the film, with Eilis wavering over her decision, is particular tense, for instance.

Brooklyn does, however, threaten to trip over into sappiness every now and then, and would probably have grated a bit with its sometimes too-cheery, life-af-firming outlook if not for the cast, pri-marily its lead star. Ronan is the heart and soul of the film, using those guile-

less, transparent blue eyes to scale such expressive heights as to abso-lute mesmerise. The actress has c o n s i s t e n t l y impressed in most roles we’ve seen her in over the years, remarkably con-trolled—whether it was as the vindictive young girl in Atonement, an otherworldly watcher in The Lovely Bones, or even in that short stint in 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. In possession of such delicate features capable of registering a wide range of emotions, she wholly comes into her own in Brooklyn, domi-nating the screen. Complementing hers

is a sincere performance by Cohen as her awkward-ly-charming beau, along with a talented group of supporting acts like Broadbent, Walters and Domhnall Gleeson, among others.

I’ll be honest with you: there isn’t much going on in Brooklyn at any given time, and it’s not the sort of film that offers all that much food for thought. But straightforward and simple though it may seem, and lack-ing in the sort of epic, sweeping moments that you expect of a film on subject like this, it manages to be moving and affective thanks to great vis-uals, a script that relies heavily on emotional nuance, and an actress who more than delivers. v

the arts 06Saturday, January 16, 2016

C M Y K

Brooklyn

4/5Director: John Crowley

Actors: Saoirse Ronan, Emory CohenGenre: Period drama

reel run

John Crowley’s Brooklyn might not have too much going on in terms of the sort of high-stakes drama that we’re generally used to seeing in immigrant stories, but it’s so intimate in scope, and so well-crafted, that you’re drawn in all the same

Where the heart isthekathmandu post

Lead actress Saoirse Ronan is the heart and soul of the film, using those guileless, transparent blue eyes to scale such expressive heights as to absolute

mesmerise… She wholly comes into her own here, dominating the screen

scap

es

She who tends the garden

The eponymous character of Malini is simultaneously detached and submissive enough to be able to channel Rabindranath’s abiding

preoccupation with what he believed to be the universal

human capacity for self-effacing compassion

thekathmandu post expression07 Saturday, January 16, 2016

C M Y K

TEXT AND PHOTOS: LAUREN PETERSON

Upon my arrival to Kathmandu, I assumed, based on my largely superficial postulations, that the women of Nepal were similar to the women I was accustomed to back in the United States. Among

other things, these women dressed in western fashion, travelled alone, and were granted rights by the government. As a US citizen, and as someone familiar with relative gender impartiality, I took this parity as one less custom to which I had to adjust to in Nepal.

Not soon after my arrival, however, I

found myself further outside the city, and faced with the less-publicised lives of the common Nepali woman, unveiling great contradiction in the expectations of women living in close proximity of the Kathmandu Valley; outside of the city were women acting under a wide spectrum of roles, yet none advantaging from the wildly progressive efforts in the city. These areas, and the women living within them, appeared to be living in something of a time warp.

Around each corner were women fos-tering unions within families, women showcasing inexhaustible work ethics, and women with inimitable composure

and a sense of gratitude. Rural Nepali women had gained the type of ‘equali-ty’—an equality of women’s stratifica-tion and malleability within their com-munity—that, in more urban areas, is often a forced job done from the top down. In the case of the rural women of Nepal, however, this ‘equality’ was driv-en by the necessity for such an adjust-ment, and was not limited to the women’s ability to comply. In these conditions, gender is indiscriminate—or if not so arbitrary to the women living in these areas—still highlights the adaptability of women when there are few opportunities to be anything but. v

Outside the Valley are women acting under a wide spectrum of roles, yet they are not benifiting from the wildly progressive trends of the urban centres

Beyond the city

n A woman working with corn in Dampus.

n A woman sells her produce on the streets of Pokhara.

n A woman gives fodder to goats at Chundevi, Lalitpur.

n A woman and her husband sit working with green onions in Thimi.

n A woman works in a vegetable field in Thimi.

n Two women mind a range of crops, planting seeds and shaping the soil in Thimi.

n A woman heads toward the field for a day of work in Budhanilkantha.

n A woman entertains and distracts her son in Sankhu.

n A woman carries firewood while talking on her cell phone in Pokhara.

n Two women load gravel at a construction site in Bandipur.

n A woman weaving straw mats in Dhampus.

n A woman works as a boat paddler in Fewa Lake in Pokhara.

thekathmandu postas it is 08Saturday, January 16, 2016

from the ashes

Madhes Aandolan is a mere representative of the larger problem ailing the countryABHINAWA DEVKOTA

Madhes Aandolan seems to have come to a halt, at least for the time being, with the arrival of winter. And although it might still be a bit premature to gauge the success of the aandolan, it

must be credited with exposing the fault lines that divide residents of the hills from those living in the plains and start-ing a wider debate on equality, political representation and Nepali nationalism.

Predictably, the debate on nationalism and national identity of the Madhesi people provoked much anger among the ruling class, prompting some to define the movement as a separatist agen-da and forcing others to skip the issue without giving it a deeper thought. Even among the Madhesi leadership, only few, including Mahanta Thakur, unequivocally spoke of Madhes as a sepa-rate nation having its own set of languag-es, culture and a glorious past predating Khas rulers.

However controversial might it sound, this demand for a Madhesi nation is not devoid of merit. A nation simply stands for an aggregate of people sharing a com-mon identity, culture, and geographical territory. Going by this logic, it makes no sense to argue against the Madhesi demand for a separate nation to safe-guard their identity, either within the boundary of Nepal or outside it.

More pressing is the reason why they have decided to call themselves one. And this can only be understood in light of other similar movements that have taken place the world over.

The two World Wars that took place in the twentieth century not just reshaped the boundaries of continental Europe,

they also gave way to the espousal of val-ues based on equality and justice and made them universal. Soon after, popular nationalistic struggles brought an end to the colonial rule throughout much of the Southern hemisphere. But it did not just end there.

While European colonialism might have ended, many people still find them-selves ostracised by their rulers at home. Be it the oppressive Indian policies in Kashmir and the North East, the throt-tling of the Baloch freedom struggle in Pakistan, the struggle of Muslim minori-ty against majority Christians in Nigeria, or just the opposite in Sudan, people who have felt left out or marginalised by the system that has been manipulated to

enrich and benefit the few, have taken over the idea of nationalism to challenge the hegemony.

It is in this context that the current agitation in Madhes be best understood. That some among them are talking about their nation and national identity (which is their birth right), should not concern us as much as the fact that they are using the logic of nationalism to fight a state that does not have an iota of respect for them. In other words, their demand for recognition pales in front of the problems that require immediate solution.

Sadly, Madhes Aandolan is a mere rep-resentative of the larger problem ailing the country--that of rampant corruption, unequal distribution of resources and flagrant nepotism. Communities like the Dalits; those belonging to different ethnic groups like the Tamangs, Chepangs and Majhis and religious minorities like Muslims have equally been left out by our political system.

This is where federalism comes in. By divesting power from the centre, which

has traditionally been dominated by hill-based Bahuns and Chettris, and sharing it with constituent political units, which are meant to promote the wellbeing of those belonging to different ethnic groups, it cannot only ensure that the rewards of development get distributed more evenly, it can also help quell the longing for separate nations.

Nationalism, as the recently deceased Benedict Anderson put it, is ‘imaginary’ as much as those living outside the boundary of one’s village or not belong-ing to one’s friends-and-family circle, and hence not participating in everyday interaction with the person, occupy an imaginary realm in the person’s mind. But at the heart of this so-called ‘imagi-nary nationalism’ are real-world con-cerns: identity, camaraderie, participa-tion in different socio-cultural activities, meaningful economic involvement and exercise of certain rights and privileges.

The seed of rebellion is sown when people are deprived of these opportuni-ties. The heavy-handedness with which the state has treated the Tarai agitation, or its attitude when it comes to quake victims, the majority of whom are from lower caste or different ethnic groups, does not spell well for the future of the country.

History serves us with m u l t i p l e examples of what happens when the popular will is thwarted and peo-ple belonging to a certain race, caste, creed or ethnicity are left behind. Despite all the efforts of General Franco to quell the Basque rebellion, it is still going strong. South Sudan has separated from the North. Nigeria, despite all its petrodollars, is on the verge of becoming a failed state. Iraq, despite Saddam’s heavy handedness, will never be one.

If the gross neglect and intransigent atti-tude of the state per-sists, it would not come as a surprise if one day the numer-ous ethnic groups populating this country start demanding separate nations for them-selves. v

C M Y K

MALATI

On Sunday, the Chief District Officer of Gulmi, Pradeep Raj Kandel, was crowned the Integrity Idol of 2015. The award is conferred annually to a government official who

reforms the institution he is working in and makes bureaucracy a little more efficient. In the districts he worked in, Kandel has been credited with making the process of finding documents in a government office fast and hassle free. He also intro-duced schemes such as ‘each one, teach one’, wherein a government official under his command sponsors the education of at least one child.

The concept of the Integrity Idol is commendable. It appreciates and pro-motes the selfless acts of government officials (two so far: the first ever winner was Gyan Mani Nepal, a District Education Officer). But it

also brings to the fore the fact that such acts are rare and such govern-ment officials few. It demonstrates the absurdity of a non-government organisation (Accountability Lab in this case) having to find and award officials who should not need any outside reinforcements to do their job in the first place. That an award has to be created to show that not every bureaucrat is corrupt only indicates how tainted our system is.

Not that anyone needed any hint. Every speaker at the podium on that day began by emphasising the differ-ence between the award nominees and the majority of government offi-cials. Any individual walking into a government office knows how a mole of a problem is turned into a hill and how only money or someone you know at the office seems to eliminate the ‘problem’. And everyone has laughed at the hypocrisy of the slogan for this year’s Civil Service Day:

Nijamati sewako sapana: Samriddha Nepal ko rachana (The dream of a civil servant: To create a prosperous Nepal.)

The problem then is what do we do about those who are corrupt, who openly and shamelessly ask for ‘chiya kharcha’. Just over a week before the announcement of the Integrity Idol, news of the CDO of Gorkha partici-pating in a party organised by police personnel who secretly traded the goods meant for the earthquake affected made the round. He was named and ‘shamed’, but that was about it when it came to the consequences. There are countless others—big and small—who keep misusing their powers and profiting off them. Everyone knows why the big names are attached to the National Reconstruction Auth-

ority, tasked with overseeing and implementing the post- earthquake recovery plans. Everyone knows why they cringe when the government demands every organisation to route their funds for reconstruction through it.

Since the recovery work ‘began’, I personally have the knowledge of at

least one government official explicitly demanding

money (in hundreds of thousands) to approve the reconstruction plan of a non-government organi-sation. The money he demanded could have

helped renovate a small public building. But I can-

not tell you who that person is. Even revealing who, I know

might be enough to shut down

the project, creating a domino effect, whose ultimate victims will be the earthquake affected. It’s a world gone topsy-turvy where the corrupt ones have the clean chit and the others are forced to play by their rules.

Here is a bigger problem: I can tell you who that person is and it will have no impact whatsoever. He is a small fish, as they say, but not so small that he does not have the capac-ity to bring others down if he slides down, which means he has a safety net. He must have demanded the

‘commission fee’ on behalf of other officials as well. The money has to lubricate everyone around him or the wisdom goes: he wouldn’t dare. Alternatively, I could file an anony-mous complaint with the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, but we know how ‘clean’ and ‘unbiased’ the Commission is. It will hold on to the file for as long the official serves its purpose. Besides, it will be my words against his.

What do we do then? We could wait for the political willpower to clean up the system, but that might be a long wait. Or, we could forget how powerless we have become and cele-brate the rare gems that the Integrity Idol honours, hoping against hope that the award inspires others to be the officials the slogans portray them to be. v

What do we do then? We could wait for the political willpower

to clean up the system, but that might be a long wait

That an award has to be created to show that not every bureaucrat is corrupt only indicates how tainted our system is

Idols we would like

By divesting power from the centre and sharing it with constituent

political units, federalism can ensure that rewards of development

get distributed more evenly

chiy

a ch

arch

a

THE BEGINNING OF AN END

GUFFADI

No Oil Corporation (NOC) is a role model for all organisations in the country. NOC knows how to treat its employees. NOC will take care of its employees as long as they work together and steal and then sell fuel to

pumps that will give them more chiya kharcha than the rest. As long as you don’t rock the boat and continue to help each other, NOC will reward its employees with bonuses.

Why can’t our state enterprises hire competent people? Even if the board hires one, the trade unions at these state enterprises revolt and padlock the offices of the new hakim saheb or make his or her life miserable by either slacking off or ignoring the directives of the people at the top. First of all, to get a job at one of our public enterprises you need to have as much source-force as possible. If you have the right connec-tions then you are more than likely to get a job at one of our debt-ridden state enterprises. But most of the time, even if you know the right peo-ple, you will still have to fork out bribes to final-ly get the job. Where does all the money go? The fixer who knows how to get you the job will take his or her cut. Then he or she will have to pay the hakim sahebs, and then the hakim sahebs will then have to share his cut with the personal assistant of the mantri who heads the concerned ministry. The personal assistant then will keep some and give the rest to the mantri’s spouse.

NOC owes billions of rupees to our incompe-tent government and financial institutions, but it still wants to award its staff with bonuses. It plans to distribute Rs 900 million in bonuses to its corrupt staff. Why can’t these eggheads pay off the debts, clear the accounts and then hand out money the remaining money? It seems that our state enterprises need to learn a thing or two about accounting and how to keep their books right.

It seems that every enterprise in this land, both public and private, have two different books. One book is needed to show the state and pay minimal or no taxes, and one for themselves, so that they can distribute the loot to their employees or partners. The two things common between our pri-vate and public enter-prises is: evading taxes and vol-

untaringly paying our netas. This is the only country in the world where

the corrupt ones cannot be fired and are rarely punished with fines and jail term. Instead, they are proud to have managed to loot millions and even billions of rupees.

Gopal Khadka is not ashamed of his corrupt deeds. After all, he has paid millions of rupees in kickbacks to our politicians and he will con-tinue to stay at NOC and make millions more for himself and our clowns. NOC does not care about international market prices. Oil prices are now at their lowest in more than a decade but our state enterprise continues to rip us off.

It’s been more than four months and the peo-ple have been facing shortages of cooking gas and fuel. Our government officials and politicians con-tinue to get fuel supplies while the people have to stay in queue for days and even months to get half-filled cooking gas and a few liters of fuel.

The problem is not only with NOC. Look at our No Electricity Authority (NEA). We continue to pay our utility bills even though we have to bear with the load shedding and once-a-week supply of water from our Khanepani folks. Our state enterprises and government agencies are all the same. We have yet to find a government agency that really works for the people. Our civil servants are not servants of the country. They are the masters. And we are the serfs.

Our netas are not leaders. They are loafers who will sell everything in this land for their own financial gain. It doesn’t make any differ-ence to them that the country is going down the drain. After all, their princelings will get to enjoy the ill-gotten riches for generations. Majority of netas have sent their kids abroad for further studies. While most of the Nepalis strug-gle to pay their tuition fees, our princelings either get full scholarship or are funded by the blood money earned by their corrupt parents.

We expect our netas to be honest, compassion-ate and have high moral principles. Our expecta-tions have never been met. Instead, we have a bunch of thieves masquerading as leaders. Our politicians are not worried about the hundreds of thousands of folks living in tents in the cold winter. Our politicians are not worried about the millions suffering from shortages of everything. Our politicians are not worried that with the way we are moving forward, we will probably have barely an hour of electricity a day in the future. Our politicians are only worried about how to make their next million.

Our student unions won’t stand up and take to the streets to demand an end to the political cri-sis. Baidya Ba and Biplab seem to be on vaca-tion. Our three major political parties only know how to pull each other’s leg. The only person who is worried about the Nepali people seems to be our Gyanu Uncle. But he should have done his best then when he had the chance. If only Gyanu Uncle had then announced that he would not take a paisa from the state but instead dole out billions of rupees of his own money every year to the people then he would still be ruling the country. But it’s never too late.

Those who have been in power have never thought about their legacies. They seem to live

in the present and enjoy it to the fullest. But how will history remember them? All our clowns will be remembered as a corrupt band of thieves. We should ask the children of our Emirs: how do they feel about their parents and the luxurious lifestyle they lead by starving and suffocating the dreams and hopes of millions of Nepalis? v

Those who have been in power have never thought about their legacies. They seem to live in the present and enjoy it

Emirs of Nepalheads and tales

NOC owes billions of rupees to our incompetent government and financial institutions, but it still wants to award its staff with bonuses

thekathmandu post books09 Saturday, January 16, 2016

C M Y K

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

HARDCOVER FICTION

B E S T - S E L L E R L I S T

For the week ending January 15

1 Between the World and

Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coate

2 Thomas Jefferson and

the Tripoli Pirates, by

Brian Kilmeade and

Don Yaeger

3 Killing Reagan, by Bill

O’Reilly and Martin

Dugard

4 Humans of New York:

Stories, by Brandon

Stanto

5 Binge, by Tyler Oakley

1 All the Light We

Cannot See, by

Anthony Doer

2 The Girl on the

Train, by Paula

Hawkins

3 Rogue Lawyer, by

John Grisham

4 See Me, by Nicho-

las Sparks

5 The Bazaar of

Bad Dreams, by

Stephen King

LESLIE JAMISON

In the past 15 years, I’ve worked as a juice barista, a Gap clerk, an assistant to an asylum lawyer and then to an Emerson scholar and then to a mean spirited self-help

guru; I’ve worked as an office temp, a SAT tutor, an innkeeper, a medical actor, and a teacher at six different universities. The fantasy that “mak-ing it” as a writer will render other jobs financially unnecessary is usually just that—a fantasy.

So the notion of having jobs “before” I was a writer doesn’t quite ring true for me, because I’ve had most of my jobs while I was a writer

— an identity category that I define by sustained commitment rather than publication. The experience of working and writing hasn’t been sequential but simultaneous: less like an evolutionary arc, more like a juggling trick.

Just before my first book was pub-lished, I worked at a small bakery in Iowa City called Deluxe; and after my first book was published, I worked there just as I had before. I worked 10-hour shifts, two or three days a week. I loved the rhythm of a long shift, carrying the shop from opening to close: first the baking and arrange-ment of morning pastries, muffins still steaming in their wrappers; then

the early burst of coffee orders and the hump of midday production—

baking off 100 squirrels, 200 leaves, 80 pumpkins (I worked the cookie beat) — then dipping and decorating, boxing up orders for afternoon pick-up, taking quarters from the damp palms of eight-year-olds and handing over chocolate chip cookies in wax paper; finally the mellowing light of late afternoon, flipping the CLOSED sign, wiping crumbs from the table and mopping the floors.

I was a pretty terrible baker, truth be told: I forgot the oven when I got hung up pulling espresso shots, and my squirrels burned to a crisp; my doughnuts looked like bloated shrimp, floating dead in the deep fryer; I couldn’t ice a cake to save my life. But I loved that job. I loved the people I worked with: the guy who made a pistol out of chilled cinna-mon rolls; the woman whose tan-gents twirled like glorious vines around our giant mixers; and my boss, who never fired me and told me bluntly what I needed to do better— decorate the snowmen faster, bake the muffins longer, don’t incinerate the squirrels! Messing up in a kitch-en taught me more about “construc-tive criticism” than any workshop ever had. I was even an embarrassment off the clock, giving our local paper obvi-ous quotes about our inventory: “People come here for our dough-nuts. They come here to eat them.”

I was humbled by that job, over and over again: humbled by how much I needed to learn, how much I needed to keep learning; how I need-

ed to keep practicing what I kept get-ting wrong. Just because I had pub-lished a book, just because maybe 500 people had bought it, didn’t mean I wouldn’t show up (at 7 am) and suit up (in my apron); and it didn’t mean I wasn’t held accountable to my production list, stuck to the walk-in cooler beside the more ambitious lists of my colleagues.

This is one truth that hasn’t gone away: Whatever happens in my writing, I still have to show up for the rest of my life, whatever that entails —100 gingerbread cookies or a boyfriend with the flu; a student’s last-minute rec letter or my daughter’s musical.

Writing hasn’t felt like getting progressively better at a single task; it’s felt more like stumbling toward the bewildering call of each new project, learning how to be a person who knows nothing; how to arrive on time, put on a bat-ter-smeared apron and show up for whatever happens next. v

Jamison is the author of an essay collection, The Empathy Exams, win-ner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. Her first novel, The Gin Closet

was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for

First Fiction; and her essays and sto-ries have been published in numerous publications, including Harper’s, The

Oxford American, A Public Space and The Believer

—©2016 New York Times

ex libris

MADHUKAR SJB RANA

Nepali diplomacy hit a new watershed in 1978 when, for the first time, India consented to separate transit from trade and treat them as two funda-mentally separate issues. This

had been turned down, adamantly and forcefully, by Indira Gandhi in 1975. This transit treaty of 1978 was a veritable landmark treaty in the history of Nepal, comparable, to my mind, with the Nepal Britain Treaty of 1923. This occurred when Moraji Desai was Prime Minister and Jagat Mehta was the Foreign Secretary and chief negotiator. Given this background, I gladly bought Mehta’s autobiography, out of sheer curiosity and admiration.

The first question that hit me was why he chose the title—tryst betrayed. Nearing the end of the book, the revelation was made—in his final chapter titled, ‘Why has India underperformed after inde-pendence’. Mehta sees Pandit Nehru as “the greatest democratic dictator in history, and twelve years of his prime ministership were largely wasted”. The opportunity lost was a direct result of what he calls the “self hypnosis” that the bureaucracy fell into. It believed in the “Panditji knows best” idea and thus offered no alternative views which eroded pro-fessionalism in diplomacy. The bureaucracy was totally “commit-ted”, as it were. A committed bureau-cracy bodes ill for democracy, the rule of law and strong institutions, which necessitate, as professionals, loyalty to India’s long term interests.

Jagat Mehta struck me as a strong moral and ethical person with an independent mind who believed that sincere volunteerism by the people is the correct path to supplement the state’s role in eradicating poverty and curtailing terrorism in India.

Through his book, it’s clear that he is critical of Nehruism, if not of Nehru himself. By Nehruism, I mean the principle of giving “commanding height” to the state in the arena of development and economy, and copying the Soviet model for econom-ic transformation which cost India dearly in terms of agricultural and rural transformation, as well as human capital development, mass literacy, mass sanitation and mass

electrification.In diplomacy, Mehta considers

India not voting with the other Non-Alignment Movement nations and siding with the Soviet Union in its aggression of Afghanistan in 1980, a blunder. Had it voted with the others, he believes, India would not have handed a dominant role to Pakistan in Afghan affairs. He also feels that strong India-Afghan ties would not have given birth to world terrorism and the likes of Osama bin Laden.

Nehru was correct, thinks Mehta, in going for Non Alignment (NAM) as the tenor of his foreign policy, which had great impact on most developing

nations. But as the Cold War period progressed, it was looked upon by the West as an aid maximising tool. And the way it was carried out “alienated nations whose friendship could have had a positive impact on our pres-ent”. Mehta asserts that NAM was later seen by both sides of the Cold War as a blackmailing tool to play off one against the other. His posting to China led him to believe that exces-

sive friendship with the USSR cost India of China’s goodwill—which was then weakened further with shel-tering the Dalai Lama at Dharmasla.

The book is a must read for our diplomats as they seek to get diverse postings abroad. Jagat Mehta strikes me as a rarest of bureaucrats for his independence, guts, intellectual integrity and analytical acuity. Mehta served in China, Switzerland, Germany and Tanzania. Hopefully, such a memoir will create an appetite amidst our own bureaucrats to pen their experiences for the benefit of posterity. It will go along way to contribute to the institutional memo-

ry for that ministry as well as help us better understand contemporary national affairs. I cannot help feeling that our foreign policy should take good heed of the wisdom of Jagat Mehta, time will bear him out once Indian bureaucrats rise above the quagmire of short term real politics at the cost of the long term interest of India.

For non-diplomats, however, the memoir appears a bit too-labori-ous-a-read if one is unlikely to serve in foreign missions. v

Rana, former Minister of Finance, is a professor at SAIM, Kathmandu

Before I was a writer

Writing hasn’t felt like getting progressively

better at a single task; it’s felt more like

stumbling toward the bewildering call of each new

project, learning how to be a person who knows nothing

The fantasy that ‘making it’ as a writer will render other jobs financially unnecessary is usually just that—a fantasy

Reflections on Jagat S Mehta’s The Tryst Betrayed

THE TRYST BETRAYED Jagat S Mehta Publisher: Penguin Books

Diplomatic memoirs

NEW

BOO

KS

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cosy suburban homes. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.And then she sees

something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s

enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

In his first book published as Pope, and in conjunction with the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis invites all humanity to an intimate and personal dialogue on the subject closest to his heart—mercy—which has long been the cornerstone of his faith and is now the central teaching of his papacy. In this conversation with Vatican reporter Andrea Tornielli, Francis explains—through memories from his youth and moving anecdotes from his experiences as a pastor.

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in cara-vans of trucks and tanks, in planes that

fill the skies and drop bombs upon the inno-cent. When a German captain req-uisitions

Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impos-sible choice after another to keep her family alive.

THE NAME OF GOD IS MERCYAuthor: Pope FrancisPublished by: Random House Publishing Group

THE NIGHTINGALEAuthor: Kristin HannahPublished by: St Martin’s Press

THE GIRL ON THE TRAINAuthor: Paula HawkinsPublished by: Penguin Publishing Group

thekathmandu post 10Saturday, January 16, 2016

C M Y K

world

Who is the true icon of today’s China—Mao or Colonel Sanders?STEPHEN EVANS

There he beams from the wall of every carriage on the under-ground in Beijing—benign, kindly eyes, the helmsman of a great enterprise. His face is everywhere in China, oversee-

ing the citizens on their way to work each morning.

He is the guiding light at the start of the working day and the warmth in the evening after honest toil. His face is also at the centre of Beijing, over-looking the comrades as they visit Tiananmen Square. He is truly the icon of modern China.

I refer, of course, to Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which first came to Beijing in 1987.

Mao Zedong’s image gets official recognition on banknotes, it’s true, but he’s not prominent on walls around the city. You have to look hard. I did go to a Hunan restaurant the other day, specialising in the fabulous, ultra-spicy food from his home region.

The portrait of Mao looked down on our dining table. The waitresses were

dressed as Red Guards and it seemed like a theme restaurant.

But a giant gold-painted statue in Henan, that came to be known as the Mega Mao, drew widespread scorn online and has just been demolished— days after it was erected. An official said it hadn’t been registered and approved.

You can still queue in the fierce cold to see the real thing though, the embalmed Mao Zedong in the Mausoleum on Tiananmen Square. There he lies, encased in his crystal coffin. He looks like he might be at peace with the world, but surely he can’t be because all around him is a world that defies all his hopes.

It is the world of Colonel Sanders, the true face of today’s China. At the last count, there were about 4,900 KFCs in China, serving, of course, what they call “finger-lickin’ good” fried chicken, but also Chinese dishes like congee, a porridge featuring pork, pickles, mush-rooms, egg—a real porridge.

It’s true that “finger-lickin’ good” as a slogan does not have the gravitas of some of Mao’s teachings from the Little Red Book but, on the other hand, KFC is more in tune with the times.

Today’s Beijing is the world of shiny black Mercs, with every speck of dust brushed from the chrome by flunkies in the car park outside ultra-fancy hotels, while the rich greet each other in the warmth inside the opulent building.

I went to a reception the other day where fine French wine was served by men in white gloves at 8:30 in the morning. There were female orna-ments—for that’s how they seemed to be treated—dressed in ball gowns with skimpy, shimmering sequinned tops.

At the centre, China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, estimated to be worth $27bn (£18.7bn). He recently bought a house in London for what the (British) newspapers said was $115m (£80m).

He seemed nice enough but he had all the air of the uber-rich—people stepped forward and did things for him, they second-guessed his next need, taking his empty glass, opening a door, ushering him here, ushering him there, being concerned that everything was exactly right for him. Kowtowing.

No doubt it’s the same wherever the seriously rich gather. But this is com-

munist China. This is not, one imagi-nes, what Mao wanted.

Capitalism and capitalists are adaptable creatures. Over the years they have embraced both the communist party and turbo-capital-ism. The Hurun Research Institute recently reported that one third of the people listed as China’s wealthiest are in the communist party. Many mem-bers of the National People’s Congress, ostensibly China’s parliament, are bil-lionaires, according to the same research.

Mao talked about contradictions in an essay—in 1937 if you want to know —what he called the unity of opposites, though I don’t actually know what on Earth he meant. And Marx talked of the “contradictions of capitalism” which would bring the system down. Contradiction is the right word. Marx’s prediction of the collapse of capitalism has not hap-pened here—instead it’s been revved up to hyper-speed by consumerism, an urgent desire for every designer brand. And yet, 80 percent of the biggest companies remain state-owned. It’s actually a kind of state-cap-italism.

The communist party wants the benefits of capitalism but is now get-ting uneasy about the downside - like crashing stock markets.

Does today’s Chinese communist party revere Mao or Colonel Sanders? Who is the true icon of China? The people seem to like Colonel Sanders. v

—BBC

CLÁR NÍ CHONGHAILE

If 2015 was all about the world draft-ing a blueprint to build a fairer, safer and more prosperous future, this year will be about picking the best tools for the job, with the world

humanitarian summit bringing aid workers together to make those criti-cal decisions.

As head of the summit’s secretariat, Antoine Gérard is the man charged with making sure the May meeting in Istanbul delivers on hopes expressed during years of consultations with humanitarians around the world.

“Let’s hope the summit will set in stone a number of key engagements that show humanity matters; we need to encourage political actors to reaf-firm their adherence to humanitari-

an principles, reaffirm that protec-tion of individuals is absolutely key, and reaffirm that we can deliver dig-nified humanitarian action in time of conflict and avoid any politicisa-tion of aid,” says Gérard.

“We can’t ignore the fact that the people affected by disasters and con-flict have asked us to do much better.”

Speaking in November, Stephen O’Brien, the UN under-secretary gen-eral for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said no single country or organisation could deal with the protracted crises, urban need and fragility that are now the new normal.

“The landscape in which we are operating is changing. We must all adapt and evolve. Business as usual is simply not good enough,” he said.

“Whereas 2015 will be remembered for setting new frameworks, 2016 will be assessed by its ability to start translating these into action.”

Among the priorities for the sum-mit are building resilience in an increasingly fragile world, better preparation for disasters, and giving a bigger role to local NGOs and the pri-vate sector. Another hot issue will be the plight of millions of people driven from their homes by war and poverty.

Forced displacement is now recog-nised as a long-term problem that will only grow as rising seas and higher temperatures force people to leave their homes.

Budgets—and how to make the most of them—will also be discussed in Istanbul. For 2016, the UN has launched its largest appeal, seeking

$20bn (£13bn) to help 87 million peo-ple. That’s a fivefold increase on what it sought in 2005, and comes on the heels of a 2015 appeal that was only 50 percent funded.

Gérard, who previously worked at the UN’s Office for Coordinating Humanitarian Affairs, says he hopes to see clear ideas on how best to use the money that does come in, with emphasis on multi-year funding and longer-term strategies.

Last year, the world adopted the 17 sustainable development goals and 169 targets meant to provide a blue-print for development over the next 15 years, with the overarching aim of leaving no one behind.

The ambitious agenda will cost trillions of dollars and there is broad acceptance that donors and humani-

tarian agencies cannot do it alone, not least because simultaneous crises have left NGOs, and the UN, strug-gling to keep multiple programmes running. At a financing summit ahead of the UN meeting to adopt the sustainable development goals, there was a clear push to increase the role of the private sector. Gérard says it is not just about money.

“We should not only look at the private sector as a source of funds. They should be recognised as key partners of humanitarian action,” he says, noting the role of private firms in organising satellite communications for relief agencies during the Nepal earthquake and in fight-ing Ebola in west Africa. “The private sector is not only seen as a key partner to mobilise additional funding but also, in cer-tain contexts, as a key actor to support the response, facilitate com-munications and the transfer of funds, or logis-tics.”

Local NGOs need to come into the humanitari-an mainstream, Gérard says. “Some of us are say-ing ‘act local, think global’ because at times of emer-gencies mobilisation of global capac-ity can support local action.

“At the time of the Haiyan typhoon in the Philippines we saw the govern-ment taking the lead to ensure more consultation with local actors…there is a recognition that during emergencies, local forces need to be reinforced rather than substituted.”

This call has been taken up by Jan Egeland, the former UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs and now head of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

“I hope the summit can help empower, fund and energise local humanitarian groups understanda-bly angry that, in everything from the Nepal earthquake to resilience building in the Horn of Africa, they are underfunded and neglected, and too much attention is paid to white, male relief workers, like myself, Egeland says” He sees an urgent need to rethink the global response to the plight of nearly 60 million people who have been displaced. He would

like to see a kind of Marshall plan to help host countries cope.

“Where is the leader-ship in all of this? Everybody sees that it is wrong to treat this forev-er as if it was a competi-tion in getting out as many blankets as possi-ble to refugees and civil-ians. It is a crisis of now protection on one side… and secondly it is a ques-tion of sustainability.”

The World Bank and the UN refugee agency have called for a para-digm shift in the way the world responds to refu-gee crises, warning that the current approach is nearsighted, unsustaina-ble and consigning peo-

ple to poverty. “We’ve been talking around impartiality, neutrality and independence of humanitarian action …there will also be a strong sign at the summit to think better around the humanity we would like to build and leave to future generations,” says Gérard. “We need to make sure we are shielding humanitarian action from politicisation because we have an obli-gation to deliver that sense of humani-ty and rebuild the dignity of individ-uals affected by those crises.” v

—The Guardian

THE FACE YOU CAN’T AVOID IN CHINA

It is the world of Colonel Sanders, the true face of today’s China. At the last count, there were about 4,900 KFCs in China,

serving, of course, what they call ‘finger-lickin’ good’ fried chicken, but also Chinese dishes like congee, a porridge featuring pork,

pickles, mushrooms, egg—a real porridge

The World Bank and the UN refugee agency have called

for a paradigm shift in the way the world responds to

refugee crises, warning that the

current approach is nearsighted,

unsustainable and consigning people

to poverty

‘PEOPLE HIT BY DISASTER WANT US TO DO MUCH BETTER’

sportskathmandu postthe

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2016PG 11 kathmandupost.ekantipur.com

Pele has fresh hip op: Report Brazilian football legend Pele had hip surgery in the United States last month and is still there undergoing physiotherapy, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The Folha de Sao Paulo said surgeons in New York City operated on the 75-year-old to fix a loose hip implant he received in 2012.

Carroll ruled out for a month West Ham United striker Andy Carroll will be sidelined for a month after injuring his hamstring in Tuesday’s 3-1 victory at Bournemouth, the Premier League club revealed on Thursday. “The results of the scan show an injury to his hamstring, which is expected to keep him out of action for a month,” the club said in a statement on their website

Bouchard to play Cornet in finalCanada’s Eugenie Bouchard will play Alize Cornet of France in the final of the Hobart International after overcoming the top remaining seed Dominika Cibulkova in Friday’s semi-final. Bouchard claimed a 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 victory over third seeded Cibulkova of the Slovak Republic in two hours to reach the final. Cornet beat Sweden’s Johanna Larsson 6-1, 6-1.

SPORTS DIGESTEverton confirms Byram approachMUNICH: Everton manag-er Roberto Martinez said on Friday they had made “an approach” to sign full back Sam Byram from Leeds United, amid media reports that a $5.73 million offer had been accepted by the sec-ond tier club. It was widely reported by British media on Thursday that the two clubs had struck a deal and the transfer was close to completion. Yet Martinez, whose side visit champions Chelsea in the Premier League on Saturday, said the move was only at an early stage. (REUTERS)

Celta poised to sign Diaz MADRID: Spanish team Celta Vigo are close to completing the signing of experienced Chile midfielder Marcelo Diaz from Bundesliga side Hamburg SV, the La Liga club said. Diaz, 29, who had a stint at Swiss side FC Basel before joining Hamburg in February last year, arrived in Vigo on Thursday for a medical and to work out the final details of the deal, Celta said. Diaz, who was sidelined by injury last month, has a market value of $2.7 million. (REUTERS)

Korean striker Suk joins PortoLISBON: South Korean striker Suk Hyun-Jun has signed a contract with Porto until June 2020, the Portuguese giants announced. Suk joined from Vitoria de Setubal and his new con-tract has a release fee of 30 million euros. The 24-year-old, whose youth was spent with Ajax, has scored two goals in six international appearanc-es for South Korea. (AFP)

Le Bihan loses rest of seasonNICE: Nice striker Mickael Le Bihan has a fractured shin ruling him out for the rest of the season, the Ligue 1 club said. The 25-year-old will now undergo sur-gery after suffering the injury in September. It had gone unidentified until now. He was the top scorer in Ligue 2 last sea-son with 18 goals for Le Havre before joining Nice just prior to the end of the summer transfer window. (AFP)

C M Y K

Sports delegation from India assures security, hospitality

POST REPORTKATHMANDU, JAN 15

A Indian delegation from Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports on Friday assured proper hospitality and securi-ty to the teams participating in the 12th South Asian Games (SAG) scheduled for February 5-16 in Guwahati and Shillong.

A four-member Indian dele-gation comprising of MP Vincent Hermelinda Pala, SA Games Organising Committee CEO RK Sharma, Under Secretary at the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports AK Singh, and Hockey India Secretary Mohd Mushtaque Ahmad met top Nepali sports officials including Minister for Youth and Sports Satya

Narayan Mandal on Friday. “The primary objective of our visit is to promote ‘peace, pro-gress and prosperity’ through the South Asian Games,” said Pala during a press meet.

“We met will prominent sports figures of Nepal and requested them to come up with maximum participants during the SA Games. Minister Mandal has assured that he will be present in both opening and closing ceremo-ny,” informed Pala. Guwahati will host both the opening and closing ceremonies.

“We were indebted that Nepal is entering in all 23 dis-ciplines including in the Games,” added Pala.” Pala

also said proper care has been taken to address hospitality and security during the Games.

The National Sports Council Member Secretary Keshav Kumar Bista quashed doubts over Nepal’s participa-tion in the regional games. “Even if we have not received the preparation budget in time, we can guarantee you of our participation,” said Bista adding that the ongoing ‘unof-ficial Indian blockade’ has added more woes to their preparations but still hoped for better showing in the Games.

The SA Games features 228 events in 23 sports disciplines.

Apart from Nepal and India, only Sri Lanka have entered in all 23 sports disciplines. The Indian delegation also confirmed the number of participant from each of the eight participating nations. Nepal will field 211 players in men’s and 187 in women’s event, while India have the largest contingent with 275 players in the men’s and 244 in women’s events.

Guwahati will play host to 16 disciplines: athletics, bas-ketball, volleyball, swimming, triathlon, hockey, weightlift-ing, wrestling, squash, shoot-ing, kho kho, kabaddi, hand-ball, cycling and tennis. Shillong will host archery, badminton, boxing, judo, table tennis, taekwondo and wushu.

POST REPORTKATHMANDU, JAN 15

Nepal qualified for the semi-fi-nals of the Bangabandhu Gold Cup finishing run-ners-up to Bangladesh after playing a goalless draw with the hosts at the Bangabandhu National Stadium on Friday.

Nepal were already assured of the last four berth after Sri Lanka defeated Malaysian top-tier side Felda United 2-1 in an early game. The match provided an opportunity for both teams to prove their league stage supremacy and Bangladesh topped Group ‘A’ on superior goal difference. The hosts were tied on five points with Nepal.

Sri Lanka finished third with three points after their only victory in the tourna-ment, while Felda finished winless with two points from two draws. Nepal will take on yet-to-be-decided Group ‘B’ winners, either the U-23 teams from Maldives or Bahrain, in the semi-finals on January 19.

Bangladesh dominated the first 25 minutes. Hemonta Biswas took the ball from mid-field into the danger area but his shot was brilliantly blocked by goalkeeper Bikesh Kuthu in the 12th minute.

Nepal had their first chance when Bimal Gharti Magar was fouled inside the area in

the 26th minute. Aditya Chaudhary took the freekick but his powerful shot went straight to the Bangladesh goalkeeper Ashraful Rana.

If the opening stages of the first half belonged to Bangladesh, Nepal dominated the first 25 minutes of the second half but lacked a proper attack on target. Unmarked Gurung had all the time and space to score when he received a cross from Rabin Shrestha right in front of the area but the midfielder fired wildly.

Bangladesh also had a few chances but Kuthu was at his best to keep Nepal in the game. In a counter-attack, Hemonto came charging in from right flank to feed unmarked Shekhawat Hussain Rony but Kuthu smartly intercepted the ball in the 58th minute.

In the dying moments of the match, Kuthu denied a certain goal for Bangladesh with a diving save to keep out Jamal Bhuyan’s powerful shot from the area.

Nepal enter semi-finals

12th south asian games

n Indian MP Vincent Hermelinda Pala (centre), a member of the Indian delegation from Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, briefs Nepali media on objective of their visit in Kathmandu on Friday. POST PHOTO

STANDINGSTeams P W D L GF GA PTSBangladesh 3 1 2 0 5 3 5Nepal 3 1 2 0 1 0 5Sri Lanka 3 1 0 2 4 6 3Felda 3 0 2 1 2 3 2

Afridi stifles New ZealandAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEWELLINGTON, JAN 15

Pakistan outsmarted New Zealand by stifling their feared batting barrage to win the opening Twenty20 by 16 runs at Eden Park in Auckland on Friday.

One-time bad boy Mohammad Amir may have been the centre of attention in his comeback game, but it was Shahid Afridi’s astute captaincy and the miserly bowling by Imad Wasim that made the difference. With no warm up game to acclima-tise, Pakistan were rather run shy at the top and tail of their innings but still man-aged 171-8. But apart from a quickfire 46 off 27 by Colin Munro, and a stubborn 70 by Kane Williamson, New Zealand had no answer to the Pakistan attack and were all out on the last ball of their innings for 155.

When Munro was at the crease New Zealand raced to 89-1 in 10 overs. But his dis-missal started a dramatic collapse in which five wick-ets fell for 19 runs. Afridi bowled a two-wicket maiden to finish with 2-26 to go with three catches while Imad Wasim took 1-18 off his four overs with nine of those runs coming in one over.

Wahab Riaz took two wick-ets in the final over to finish with 3-34, and Amir marked his return to international cricket after a five-year ban for spot-fixing with 1-31.

New Zealand pin a lot of their scoring hopes on open-er Martin Guptill (2) but only faced three balls before he was run out. New Zealand lost patience with the tight Pakistan field settings and accurate bowling and Williamson’s eagerness for a quick single in the second over cost Guptill his wicket. Williamson batted through until the final over but with-

out being able to dictate the pace of the game and his 70 coming off 60 deliveries.

Mohammad Hafeez set up the Pakistan innings with 61

off 47 but the real damage for Pakistan came in a brief cameo by man-of-the-match Afridi in which he belted 23 off eight balls. Umar Akmal’s

24 off 14 and Imad’s 18 off nine also helped boost Pakistan total. Adam Milne took 4-37 while Mitchell Santner 2-14 for Kiwis.

HCA knock NPC outPOST REPORTKATHMANDU, JAN 15

Himalayan Cricket Academy (HCA) ousted Nepal Police Club (NPC) from the first National Inter-club Youth Twenty20 Cricket Championship on Friday.

At the TU grounds, HCA hammered the departmental side by eight wickets to reach the quarter-finals. In another match SS Events rode on a half century from Subash Khakurel to beat Nacchetra Sport Club of Nuwakot by 30 runs, while Baluwatar Cricket Club (BCC) beat Makwanpur Cricket Club of Hetauda by nine wickets at the Pulchowk Engineering College grounds.

NPC were bundled out for just 73 runs in 17.5 overs with only Siddhant Lohani making a notably contribution, scor-ing 33-ball 34. Bhupendra Thapa then smashed 47 not

out off 38 balls guiding HCA to 74-2 in 12.1 overs. Thapa shared 67-run second wicket stand with Sandeep Zora (18). Earlier, man-of-the-match Yagyaman Kumal took 3-20, while Bhuwan Karki and Abhinash Bohora had two scalps apiece.

SS made a modest 139-3 and restricted Nachhetra for 109-8 with Puspa Thapa taking 3-21. Rajesh Rimal (21) and Biraj

Man Singh Dangol (20) were the notable scorers for Nachhetra. SS events were struggling at 58-3 before Khakurel and Thapa rescued their team with an unbeaten 81-run stand. National team w i c k e t k e e p e r - b a t s m a n Khakurel made 65 off 54 with nine fours, while man-of-the-match Thapa gave an allround performance making 40 off 32 with five boundaries.

In Pulchowk, Anup Oli and Sonu Tamang shared seven wickets to skittle out Makwanpur for 45 in 16.2 overs. BCC reached 46-1 in six overs with Sunil Lama (20) and Rabin Joshi (24) putting on an unbeaten 42-run part-nership for the second wicket. Prem Chhetri (10) was the only Makwanpur batsman to make runs in double figures. Oli took 4-15 and Tamang had the figures of 3-10 from their four-over spells.

Kuznetsova wins Sydney finalAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSESYDNEY, JAN 15

Veteran Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova breezed past Monica Puig to win her 16th career title with a straight sets victory in the final of the Sydney International on Friday.

The 25th-ranked Kuznetsova took just 55 min-utes to claim a 6-0, 6-2 victory over the 94th-ranked Puerto Rican in a one-sided final at Ken Rosewall Arena. The 30-year-old, who was making her 11th appearance at the Sydney tournament, served at a high 69 percent with eight aces and broke Puig’s serve five times.

It capped a memorable tour-nament for Kuznetsova, who upset world No 2 Simona Halep in a rain-interrupted semi-final earlier on Friday 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 6-3 in two hours 44 minutes. It was a great tonic for the experienced Russian ahead of next week’s Australian Open in Melbourne where she will face Daniela Hantuchova in the opening round.

“It was not the easy sched-ule for me with doubles matches, with rain delays,

with tough match with Simona this morning and last night,” Kuznetsova said. “I’m really happy. I want to keep focused for Australian Open. I

don’t remember all my 16 finals right now, but I went out there and I felt like it was not even necessary to hit the ball that hard, because even if I

put a ball back she wouldn’t get to the winner.”

Puig had an easy ride into only her second WTA final when Swiss eighth seed Belinda Bencic retired with an illness after losing the opening set 6-0. Bencic was ill overnight and battled the match just to make it to the court and conceded as soon as Puig romped away with the first set.

Bencic is the third player to withdraw from Sydney because of illness. Defending champion Petra Kvitova pulled out with a gastrointes-tinal illness before even hit-ting a ball and Angelique Kerber withdrew after win-ning her first round match also with a stomach bug. Rain seriously disrupted the tour-nament’s programme on Thursday and the two wom-en’s semi-finals were held over until Friday with Halep leading 5-4 when play was sus-pended.

Puig resumed on Friday leading 4-0 over Bencic in the first set and only played two more games to take the set before her opponent pulled out of the match citing a stom-ach illness. It was Puig’s first final in two years.

n Shahid Afridi of Pakistan celebrates after taking the wicket of Luke Ronchi of New Zealand during their first Twenty20 cricket at Eden Park in Auckland on Friday. AFP/RSS

pakistan-new zealand t20

n Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia celebrates after winning the Sydney International tennis tournament title on Friday. AP

n Yagyaman Kumal

CHILE IN HUNT FOR NEW COACHAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE SANTIAGO, JAN 15

Copa America winners Chile are looking for a new coach after the national federation called a halt on Thursday to its negotiations with Jorge Sampaoli, a Chilean official announced.

The federation’s Gaspar Goycoolea said after four meetings the federation had taken the view that “it was impossible to reach an agree-ment” with the Argentine manager. “Unfortunately there’s no possibility of mak-ing progress, taking into account Jorge Sampaoli’s pub-lically stated wish to leave the ship,” he said in Santiago. Sampaoli had been giving mixed signals about his future as coach of La Roja this week.

On Monday, he hit out at reports in the local media linking him to tax evasion and holding an offshore bank account. “In this atmosphere, I don’t want to work or live any more in this country,” Sampaoli had told Chilean website Faro Deportivo. He claimed he was being held “hostage” by his contract which had a $6 million buy out clause. Sampaoli, under contract until 2018, said it was impossible for him to pay that sum. Then on Wednesday he appeared to backtrack, telling: “It’s not true that I don’t want to live or work in Chile. On the contrary I want to dispel this misunderstanding.”

If Sampaoli confirms his exit his compatriot Marcelo Bielsacould return to the post he held between 2007-2010.

SummaryPakistan 171-8 in 20 overs (M Hafeez 61, U Akmal 24; A Milne 4-37, M Santner 2-14) defeat New Zealand 155 all out in 20 overs (K Williamson 70, C Munro 56; W Riaz 3-34, S Afridi 2-26) by 16 runsMan-of-the-match: Shahid Afridi (Pakistan)

bangabandhu gold cup

REUTERSJOHANNESBURG, JAN 15

Joe Root and Ben Stokes shared a rapid unbeaten part-nership of 71 to put the brakes on a hostile South African attack and lift England to 162 for four at tea on the second day of the third Test on Friday.

Replying to South Africa’s first-innings total of 313, Root scored the first half century of the match and was unbeat-en on 60 with Stokes on 38 at the interval. Hardus Viljoen took the wicket of England captain Alastair Cook with his first ball in Test cricket and there were wickets for Kagiso Rabada and Morne Morkel as South Africa unleashed a barrage of pace to put England in trouble at 91-4. But Root and Stokes, two of England’s most exciting young players, lifted the stran-glehold as the touring side, 1-0 up in the series, plundered 135 runs in the afternoon session.

Earlier, Alex Hales, who has been struggling with a stom-ach virus, went for one when he edged Rabada to AB de Villiers at second slip and Cook’s poor form continued after edging Viljoen’s first ball down the leg side to be caught by wicketkeeper Dane Vilas for 18. Nick Compton was caught in the slips by Dean Elgar off Rabada for 26 just after he and Root had put together a 50-run partnership for the third wicket. James Taylor departed for seven, caught at short leg by Temba Bavuma off Morkel for seven.

South Africa had resumed on 267-7 overnight and England removed Chris Morris and Rabada for the addition of only 14 runs, both caught by wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow off Stuart Broad and James Anderson, who claimed his first wicket after toiling for 22 overs without success. But debutant Viljoen, who hit a boundary from the first ball he faced as a test batsman,

and Morkel frustrated the bowlers by adding 32 runs in six overs for the last wicket.

Bairstow dropped an easy catch off Anderson which denied him a chance to equal the world record of seven dis-missals in an innings. Anderson’s follow-through after the delivery led him to encroach on the wicket and having been warned twice for running on the pitch, he was removed from the England attack by umpire Aleem Dar after an acrimonious exchange between the pair.

He had bowled just two balls of his over and Stokes was brought on to complete it, finishing off the innings with his first ball when Morkel edged to Cook at first slip to give the all-rounder his 50th test wicket. South Africa’s total was the lowest for a test innings in which all the batsmen reached double figures.

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thekathmandu postsports 12Saturday, January 16, 2016

SPORTS DIGESTCity agree terms for Caceres SYDNEY: Premier League giants Manchester City agreed terms for the transfer of Australian A-League star Anthony Caceres, his club Central Coast Mariners said on Friday. “The Central Coast Mariners can con-firm that the club has agreed to terms with Premier League club Man City for the transfer of 23-year-old midfielder Caceres that will take immediate effect,” the club said. Caceres made 62 appearances for the Mariners follow-ing his A-League debut in 2012. (AFP)

Bangladesh beat ZimbabweKHULNA: Bangladesh defeated Zimbabwe by four wickets in the first Twenty20 international to take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series in Khulna on Friday. Sabbir Rahman made the top score 46 for the Tigers as Bangladesh reached 166-4 in 18.4 overs after restricting Zimbabwe to 163-7 at the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium. (AFP)

Harrison top pick in MLSWASHINGTON: England’s Jack Harrison was taken by Chicago with the first pick in Thursday’s Major League Soccer SuperDraft, but the 19-year-old Bolton striker ended up with New York City FC. New York City made a trade with the Fire for Harrison, send-ing money and fourth overall pick Brandon Vincent to Chicago dur-ing the event in subur-ban Baltimore. Two weeks earlier, MLS denied New York’s claim on Harrison as a home-grown player for his prep school time in Manhattan. (AFP)

Black Cats hire N’Doye on loan LONDON: Sunderland have signed Senegal striker Dame N’Doye on loan from Trabzonspor until the end of the sea-son, the struggling Premier League club said on Thursday. Black Cats boss Sam Allardyce moved for N’Doye to bol-ster his attacking options as he tries to haul Sunderland out of the relegation zone. The 30-year-old was judged a good fit because he has previous Premier League experience with Hull City last season, scoring five goals in 15 appear-ances before moving to Turkey in August. (AFP)

Espanyol face sanctions BARCELONA: La Liga side Espanyol face sanctions from Spain’s anti-vio-lence commission for offensive chants and ban-ners aimed at Barcelona players in the side’s Copa del Rey meeting on Wednesday. The final of a series of three bad-tem-pered Catalan derbies in 12 days saw the Espanyol fans target Colombian popstar Shakira--the partner of Barca defend-er Gerard Pique--Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez. Barca won the game 2-0 to enter last eight. (AFP)

(C.R.P.D.) - 3/052/053

SummaryEngland 162-4 (J Root 60 not out, B Stokes 38 not out; K Rabada 2-31) trail South Africa 313 (D Elgar 46, H Amla 40; B Stokes 3-53, S Finn 2-50, S Broad 2-82) by 151 runs at tea on second day

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSELONDON, JAN 15

Wayne Rooney plans to send Jurgen Klopp into another frus-trated touchline frenzy by ruin-ing the Liverpool manager’s first taste of his club’s bitter rivalry with Manchester United.

Klopp has proved a volatile presence during a series of touchline rows with rival manag-ers since taking charge earlier this season and the fiery German’s antics will bear watch-ing closely in one of the most explosive fixtures on the Premier League calendar. From the CS gas attack by a Liverpool fan on Manchester United players and staff at Anfield in 1986, to Liverpool striker Luis Suarez racially abusing United’s Patrice Evra in 2011, few meetings between these ancient enemies have passed off without a notable

outpouring of hatred. The two most decorated clubs

in England, with 38 league titles between them, relish jousting for silverware. Yet this season they find themselves cut adrift from the title race—United are nine points away from leaders Arsenal with Liverpool a further three behind—and that should make the yearning for the consolation of local bragging rights even greater at Anfield on Sunday.

Into the maelstrom of derby enmity steps Klopp, who has already fallen out with Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce, West Brom chief Tony Pulis and Chelsea assistant coach Jose Morais. United would love noth-ing more than to make Klopp hopping mad again on Sunday but after squandering the lead late in a 3-3 draw at Newcastle United on Tuesday, captain Rooney says his team must play

with the kind of composure often lacking in this fixture.

“You can score as many goals as you want, but if you keep con-ceding goals, then it’s a problem,” he said. “They were silly goals to concede at Newcastle and they were avoidable. We have to keep trying to get that balance right.”

Liverpool, beaten in their last

three meetings with United including a 3-1 loss at Old Trafford this season—also con-ceded three times in midweek, but finished more satisfied than United after Joe Allen’s last-gasp goal rescued a 3-3 draw with Arsenal. “It was a crazy game, a crazy night,” Liverpool defender Kolo Toure said.

“In the next game coming up against United, we need to show more power defensively,” added Toure. “United scored three in their last game, and so did we. They conceded three, and so did we. It’s going to be another big game for us. These are the kind of games you can win if you are strong mentally.”

That late Liverpool leveller was a blow to Arsenal’s bid to win the title for the first time since 2004, but Gunners midfield-er Aaron Ramsey expects them to bounce back at Stoke City on Sunday. “We have a tough game coming up against Stoke and we haven’t found it easy the last few times we have been there but we

will be looking to get back to win-ning ways,” Ramsey said after scoring at Anfield. Arsenal are ahead of second-placed Leicester only on goal difference after Claudio Ranieri’s team main-tained their surprise challenge with a 1-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.

The Foxes head to bottom-of-the-table Aston Villa, who won in midweek for the first time since the opening day of the season, with Ranieri aiming to keep his relatively small squad fresh for the run-in. Third-placed Manchester City lie just three points behind Arsenal and Leicester and Martin Demichelis expects the title race to remain a tight contest. At the other end of the table, second-bottom Newcastle face fifth-placed West Ham and third-bottom Sunderland travel to fourth-placed Tottenham.

Rooney plans to ruin Klopp’s first taste of bitter rivalryE N G L I S H P R E M I E R L E AGU E

Sharma ton goes in vain AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEBRISBANE, JAN 15

Australia set a new record run chase at the Gabba in Brisbane on Friday as they cruised to a seven wicket victory over India in the second one day international (ODI).

After Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and chose to bat, the visitors finished their 50 overs at 308-8, thanks largely to a second successive century from opener Rohit Sharma (124), following his 171 not out in the first ODI in Perth on Tuesday. But the total always looked too small to defend on a flat Gabba wicket and once Australia’s openers Aaron Finch and Shaun Marsh put on a 145-run stand, the result never looked in doubt.

Finch and Marsh both

scored 71 while captain Steve Smith (46) and George Bailey (76 not out) continued their good form as they guided Australia towards the victory total. India had some hope when Smith was bowled by Umesh Yadav going for an ugly heave with the score on 244, but Bailey and Maxwell put on 65 runs from only 49 balls to see Australia home with six balls to spare.

It was the second big run chase of the series and came three days after Australia chased down 309 to win in Perth. “We’ve always got con-fidence we can chase down any total,” Finch said. “Compared to our bowling lineup our batting is quite experienced.”

India looked to be well in the game as the two Australian openers started slowly. The

Indian bowling was far tighter than it had been in Perth and the required run rate began to

creep up. But after the first drinks break the Australians began to attack.

Finch brought up his 50 in the 21st over and Marsh in the 22nd as the two openers began to accelerate. Finch raced to 71 then tried to smash left arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja over mid-off only to be caught bril-liantly in the deep by a diving Ajinkya Rahane. Marsh, who was dropped three times in his innings, fell soon after when Ishant Sharma squared him up and he got a leading edge to Virat Kohli at cover. But Smith and Bailey calmly went about their work and batted India out of the game.

Dhoni conceded his pace bowlers were struggling with the Australian conditions. “On a wicket like this and with this outfield, they don’t get any reverse swing as such, so you have to hit the deck hard and you have to consist-ently hit areas,” he said. “The moment you make an error the batsmen take advantage.”

Earlier Sharma’s golden run continued with a chance-less century. He enjoyed big partnerships of 125 with Kohli (59) and 121 with Rahane (89) as the Indians punished a below-par Australian attack. Although the score was the biggest by an international team in ODIs at the Gabba, the Indians looked headed for a much bigger total until they lost a clatter of wickets in the final few overs.

Dhoni said India had tried to pick up the pace in the last 10 overs to put pressure on the home side. “We tried our best to score, but at the end of the day it’s execution and I feel in the last 10 overs they bowled well,” he said.

“It’s always a difficult one because when you keep losing wickets it become more and more difficult for new bats-men to come and in and straight away play the big shot, especially when the bowlers are executing their plans.”

The two teams move to Melbourne where India must win on Sunday to keep the series alive.

n India’s Rohit Sharma plays a shot against Australia during their second One Day International match in Brisbane, Australia on Friday. AP

n The opener hits 124 in India’s 308-8 n Bailey steers Australia to seven-wicket victory

india-australia odiSummary

Australia 309-3 in 49 overs (G Bailey 76 not out, A Finch 71, S Marsh 71; R Jadeja 1-50, I Sharma 1-60) defeat India 308-8 in 50 overs (R Sharma 124, A Rahane 89; J Faulkner 2-64, J Paris 1-40) by seven wicketsMan-of-the-match: Rohit Sharma (India)

FixturesOn SaturdaySpurs vs Sunderland (1830 NST)

Bournemouth vs Norwich (2045 NST)

Chelsea vs Everton (2045 NST)

Man City vs Palace (2045 NST)

Newcastle vs West Ham (2045 NST)

Southampton vs West Brom (2045 NST)

Villa vs Leicester (2315 NST)

On SundayLiverpool vs Man United (1950 NST)

Stoke vs Arsenal (2200 NST)

Atletico, Valencia qualifyAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE MADRID, JAN 15

Atletico Madrid bounced back from a difficult day for the club off the field to book their place in the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey with a 3-0 win over Rayo Vallecano.

Fifa handed the Liga lead-ers and Real Madrid one-year transfer ban to take effect from July on Thursday for alleged irregularities in the signing of minors. But unlike Real, who were expelled from the Cup earlier in the competi-tion for fielding an ineligible player, Atletico could at least console themselves with a place in the last eight.

Angel Correa’s stunning strike in off the underside of the bar brought an uneventful first half to life six minutes before the break. With the tie still evenly balanced after a 1-1 draw in the first leg, coach Diego Simeone introduced top scorer Antoine Griezmann from the bench 20 minutes from time. And for the fifth game in a row, one of

Simeone’s substitutes scored as Griezmann forced the ball home from close range 10 min-utes later. Griezmann then added his 16th goal of the sea-son in stoppage time as he beat Rayo goalkeeper Yoel to a long ball before slotting into an empty net.

Gary Neville’s Valencia also cruised into the quar-ter-finals with a 3-0 win away to Granada to seal a 7-0 aggre-gate win. Neville is yet to taste victory in La Liga in five attempts since taking charge last month, but has now won each of his three Cup ties. Neville named an experimen-tal side, but was rewarded for giving youth its chance as Wilfried Zahibo netted his first goal for the club just before half-time.

Paco Alcacer made it 2-0 within seconds of coming on as a substitute before Pablo Piatti added the third five minutes from time.

Madrid clubs to appeal one-year transfer ban

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEMADRID, JAN 15

Spanish giants Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid reacted angrily to being slapped with a one-year ban on regis-tering new players by Fifa on Thursday, announcing their intention to appeal.

Both clubs were sanc-tioned for their transfer dealings in foreign players under the age of 18. “Real Madrid will appeal this deci-sion by Fifa to all sports authorities, considering it absolutely inadmissable,” Real said in a lengthy state-ment on their website in which they challenged the legitimacy of Fifa’s reason-ing for the ban. Under inter-national football rules, play-ers under 18 cannot be trans-ferred to another country, except in limited circum-stances and then need the approval of a special Fifa committee.

Real and Atletico were also fined $358,000 and

$895,000 respectively and given 90 days in which to regularise the situation of all minor players concerned. According to Real Madrid, any foreign players under the age of 18 were correctly registered with the Spanish Football Federation, who in turn lodged the registra-tions with Fifa.

Atletico also announced they will appeal, although president Enrique Cerezo insisted they would be able to cope with a ban. “We will appeal, we think we are right and I think this is unjust,” he said. “Not being able to sign is a problem because the seasons are very long and you always need

players. Fortunately, we have a good and big squad with young players that can overcome these two win-dows without signings.” Both clubs have until the end of the month to register new players before the ban takes effect. The sanction is similar to the one served by European champions Barcelona in 2015.

Barca were initially banned in April 2014, but managed to delay the sanc-tion taking effect until the transfer windows in January and the summer of 2015 by launching an ulti-mately unsuccessful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). By delaying the ban, Barca were able to sign the likes of Luis Suarez and Ivan Rakitic in the sum-mer of 2014 to propel them to a treble of La Liga, Champions League and Copa del Rey, a route poten-tially open to both clubs depending on how quickly CAS can hear their appeals.

copa del rey

n Wayne Rooney

n Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann (left) celebrates with teammate Oliver Torres after scoring a goal against Rayo Vallecano during their Copa del Rey match in Madrid on Thursday. AFP/RSS

Real and Atletico Madrid were sanctioned for

their transfer dealings in foreign players under

the age of 18

Root, Stokes fire up England

south africa-england test

n Joe Root

ResultsGranada 0-3 Valencia 3 (Valencia win 7-0 on agg)

Atletico 3-0 Rayo (Atletico win 4-1 on agg)