11 people held in Fake passport racket, Nepal

It’s not rumor but truth that fake passport are easily available in Nepal. If you have 20 thousand rupees and a photo, a passport could be easily made with in a week, according to the police investigation. Police arrested 11 people on charge of being involved in making fake passport. Police also recovered dozens of fake passport. I investigated the story and two episodes were broadcasted on KTV. The first one on July 28, 2010 and the other one on July 29, 2010. The second day had a special interview with a SSP who was doing this operation.
Video of the first part broadcasted on July 28, 2010. Navigate from 8:30 to 10:45.
Video of the first part broadcasted on July 29, 2010. Navigate from 10:45 to 18:00.

For the first video click here.
For the second video click here.

Government VS Maoists on UNMIN

Differences between Government and Maoists over UNMIN’s mandate has created controversy in Nepal. Government and Maoists have sent two different letters to United Nations, asking for four and six months extension respectively. The major differences is over the mandate of UNMIN. Government wants UNMIN not to monitor Nepal army, which Maoist oppose.

Below is the link of my recent report on KTV on the issue. Navigate the first five minutes.
http://bit.ly/c6OR04

Report Suggests Nepal Terrorism Threat

Even though Nepal is not a safe haven for international terrorists, the United States has cautioned India that Nepal could pose a threat.
A report from the US State Department was made public last week warning India that members of extremist groups could transit from Nepal. The report claimed that Muhammad Omar Madni, a member of the terrorist group Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LT), traveled through Nepal en route to New Delhi in June of last year.

It Works! (Nepal police claim….)

After Maoists rebels laid down their arms to join the Nepalese peace process in 2006, no fewer than 109 separate armed outfits–gangs and rebel groups–sprang up to replace them in the southern plain of Terai, which sits on the border with India.
People ages 16- 35 joined these gangs and were involved in killing, abduction, extortion and even attacks on police posts in some places.
The criminal activity got so bad that, a year ago, businessmen throughout the country–tired and frightened after several kidnaps, murders and ransoms–demanded the government do something, and even the UN described the area as “a tinderbox that could spiral out of control.”
Now, according to the Nepal Police, the Special Security Plan that was implemented has worked.

Nepal Prime Minister resigns

Nepalese Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal submitted his resignation to President Ram Baran Yadav on Wednesday evening. His resignation comes after 13 months in office.

“It is already too late to table the annual policies, program and budget in the Legislature-Parliament,” the 57-year-old prime minister said. “Despite having a clear majority in the House, I decided to tender my resignation, with the hope that peace process and constituent making process will be completed, as it would not be right to keep the nation at indecision and confusion in situation like this.”

Who’s Running Nepal?

It’s two weeks now since Nepal’s political leaders swore that they’d have some kind of consensus to run the country after they missed the May 28th deadline to finish the new constitution. They promised Nepalis that they’d have one done in another year. Meanwhile, they would come up with a plan.

But the plan they came up with includes two tricky parts: first, the integration and rehabilitation of Maoists militants; second, the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.

 Sources say there was an understanding between the parties that if Maoists agreed to start integration process, then the prime minister would resign within five days. And that is the problem. Maoists are saying that the prime minister should resign first, while the ruling parties are saying that Maoists should integrate first.

Video Journalism in the context of Nepal

´Video journalist´ is a journalist who shoots, reports and edits his/her news stories using a laptop in the field or in the newsroom. And this solo journalism is called ´video journalism´. This method is comparatively cheaper than the conventional journalism in use, as video journalist will handle the work of cameraman, visual editor and producer. Michael Rosenblum, a pioneer in video journalism says cost can reduce up to 70 percent.

Video journalist will be able to get closer to the content, avoiding the impersonality that may come with larger crewing. A farmer will be more at ease if a video journalist approaches him rather than a big television crew. Even when one is reporting about drug addicts, a video journalist can uncover in-depth personal story.