2065: A year of surprises

By all accounts, the year 2065 in the Nepali Calendar has been most eventful in the country's political history. The turn of events throughout the year took all and sundry by surprise.

The historic Constituent Assembly (CA) election results were a complete surprise. The CPN (Maoist) emerged as the dominant force in the 601-member Assembly. 'Mainstream' political parties -- the grand old Nepali Congress and CPN-UML -- were relegated to second and third positions respectively. UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned on moral grounds ending his 14-year-reign.

Nepal palace massacre tale gets new twist

Nepal National
Wednesday 8th April, 2009
(IANS)

Nepal's deposed playboy crown prince Paras has opened a Pandora's box with his claim that his cousin Dipendra had been contemplating the assassination of the king and queen of Nepal for over a year. 

Now a former royal aide has rejected the allegations, saying that he was sacked for not circulating the same story.

Mero Mobile to invest $250m

KATHMANDU, April 6 - Spice Nepal, the operator of Mero Mobile, will invest US$ 250 million in the next two years to provide better coverage and services to Nepali consumers, the company announced Sunday.

Petroleum supply resumes in capital

KATHMANDU, April 4 - Following the agreement with the government, the transport entrepreneurs resumed the supply of petroleum products from Saturday.

The petroleum transport entrepreneurs agreed to resume supply after the government on Friday agreed not to prohibit the old tankers from carrying oil.

Follow up on Paras’s claim over Royal Massacre reasons

“King Birendra and Crown Prince Deependra both had liked German weapon” 

Former Crown Prince Paras Shah has claimed that the then King Birendra and the then Crown Prince Deependra had differences over the choice of German rifle or American rifle for the Nepal Army (NA). He, one of the witnesses of the dreadful royal massacre in 2001, further claimed that the differences over the multimillion dollar arms deal instigated the crown prince to assassin his father and the rest of the family before killing himself. Is this the truth? “No,” says Bibek Kumar Shah, the army secretary at the Royal Palace at the time of massacre, “It is completely untrue to say that there was rift between King Birendra and Prince Deependra regarding the purchase of German G36 rifle.”

40,000-yr elephant footprint in Valley

A team of geologists and sedimentologists from Japan and Tribhuvan University (TU) have discovered 40,000 and 24,000 years old footprints of elephants respectively on two separate soil sediments in Kathmandu Valley.

Paras says he will return to lead Nepal through votes

Ex-Crown Prince Paras Shah revealed that he left Kathmandu because of differences with his father former King Gyanendra and insecurity following the political change that abolished monarchy in the country. In the interviews with The New Paper, tabloid published from Singapore, Paras who has been living in Singapore since July last year after the monarchy was abolished in May, said, “I left Kathmandu (the capital) because it was not safe then for me. I did not get along with my father at the time.” In Tuesday’s issue of The New Paper, the ex-crown prince who has won an ill-fame in