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Saptari Killings was purely Human Rights Violation by the state

Rayznews reported " On March 5th four United Democratic Madhesi Front cadets have been killed in a firing by Police trying to dis...

Sunday, June 22, 2014

No Freedom of expression in Nepal: Criminalization of freedom of expression



Criminalization of freedom of expression is an evolving problem that has been an issue of study and discussion. Especially in  developing countries due to lack proper policies and mechanism law is being misinterpreted in causing  by the government. The question that evolves here is whether the government wants to act like a regulator or facilitator?  Understanding the situation different laws and regulations are created to facilitate the public under various provisions of social welfare. For having clarity in understanding these provisions, these core values are segmented in various international laws.

In-fact, in today's world of globalization when there are no boundaries, any type of un-justice in and against is marked by standardization.  

The Nepal police has confirmed that they will arrest anyone who would be writing against them. In recent practice people have been arrested just for commenting or opining in social media site like facebook.
Under the Interim Constitution of Nepal secures the right of every Nepali citizen to freedom of expression and right to speak.
It is a sad thing, but how the government agencies are using the law to slack normal public instead of fighting criminals.

The article 47 of the Nepal Eletronic Act 2068  says
Publication of illegal materials in electronic form: (1) If any person publishes or displays any material in the electronic media including computer, internet which are prohibited to publish or display by the prevailing law or which may be contrary to the public morality or decent behavior or any types of materials which may spread hate or jealousy against anyone or which may jeopardize the harmonious relations subsisting among the peoples of various castes, tribes and communities shall be liable to the punishment with the fine not exceeding One Hundred Thousand Rupees or with the imprisonment not exceeding five years or with both.
(2) If any person commits an offense referred to in Sub-section (1) time to time he/she shall be liable to the punishment for each time with one and one half percent of the punishment of the previous punishment.

Abed El Rahman was arrested for commenting on a Facebook status and was put under police remand for 20 days. He had commented on a journalist’s facebook post of a story, ‘Improving security in Saptari’. Rahman on May 31 had commented as ‘how he to pay Nrs 50,000(USD 500) to bring back his looted motorcycle.’ He was released on Friday under the order of the Kathmandu District Court against the deposit of Nrs 5 thousand rupees (50 USD). The Saptari Nepal Police arrested Rahman under article 47 of Nepal Electronic Transaction Act 2063 for 5 years imprisonment and Nrs 0.1 Million (1000 USD) fine.

Similarly, in another case, Raju Prasad Sah was arrested for commenting against the current Home Minister Bam Dev Gautam, quoting him, “He should be shot in his back” on a photo that was shared on the official facebook page of the national daily. The Story was covered by a national Daily Naya Patrika that featured the photo of the current Home Minister of Nepal crossing the freeway neglecting public safety rules at a midday on a busy road.

CRUX
The government agencies trying to regulate  voices of people online is certainly not a proactive move. We live in democracy and in a democracy every individual has the right to speak and freedom of expression. Any individual getting arrested just for the sake of his statement that too in a social networking site is not acceptable. Criminalization in freedom of speech is not a scenario of  law, but it's a topic of discussion and research. The rigidity of the government agencies in understanding the law shows the wrong use of power and authority.    

Our Interim Constitution secures the basic rights of every citizen of Nepal, regardless of who he/she is.

EVERY INDIVIDUAL HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Female Lawmaker assaulted what an irony every day hundreds of women live this



A news Published in the Himalayan Times dated  2014-06-11, reported that, " An unidentified man on Wednesday afternoon assaulted a female lawmaker  Rita Shahi,  representing Nepali Congress, right under the nose of the Constituent Assembly (CA) building in Baneshwor. Lawmaker Rita Shahi underwent a verbal spat with a fellow passenger in a tempo in which she was travelling. Later, when Shahi was preparing to get off the vehicle at her stop, the man thrashed her and ran away."

The next day, it made it to the news. The third day the crook was nabbed by #NepalPolice and was brought by the book.
My question is, there are 100s of Nepali women who get #sexuallyAssaulted #sexuallyHarressed in public transportations everyday and does anyone care?
Nobody cares!
So why this partiality, why is Nepal police more focused about a lawmaker and prioritizes power, status and symbol. Isn't a public service organization suppose to give priority to law and public first.

Why does normal public the tax payers  and citizen come in their least priority?

 Why is our system so power centered where the taxpayers are least bothered?
Are we suppose to be happy that something has happened or do we think its time things should change regardless of how these issues should be taken in consideration by Nepal police?

We need change in action......

Friday, June 13, 2014

World Cup Fever 2014 in Nepal


With the FIFA World Cup 2014 running people are going simply crazy here in Nepal. The shops selling the official jerseys are running out of stock and the demand of official jersey is growing day by day. Everywhere in the streets and roads people can be seen wearing their favorite team jersey.

What old or young? All aged people  in their own passion are coming up with innovative ideas of promoting their team.






  

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Quality of Internet in Nepal

The Internet has become an integral part of our life. We use it in second, but today due to lack of standardization it is getting costlier as well as we have no clue about how it is being charged. 

From the fastest 3G service of any service providers (Ncell and NTC) money sweeps away in seconds, people have no idea about what is happening?  

Currently there are 7,788,001 GPRS  users while NT’s CDMA comes second with 192,632 users and WiMax service from NT has total 7,859 users. NT leads to 52 percent of entire market share on the internet, while Ncell has 46 percent. UTL and other ISPs have 1 percent of market shares each.

“WE WANT QUALITY IN TERMS OF STANDARDIZATION OF SERVICE AND RESOURCE UTILIZATION”

We want a definite mechanism in monitoring the bandwidth. Apart from that we all use broadband service in our homes. Most of the times, the Internet Service Providers (ISP) fail to acknowledge the rights of consumers in terms of providing better service and quality. 
At the beginning, we are promised with good customer service and quality bandwidth, but when it comes to real operation things don’t work the way it should be. 

Though the internet penetration rate has increased to 29.78 (Source: NTA’s second quarterly report) but the quality of service and customer service remains unchanged. The  bad customer service and hectic processes still hinder client at times of need when the internet has an error or problem. 

Customers and clients have to face a lot of problems in terms of troubleshooting and solving the errors. In-fact they have to waste their time, money and resource.  

Standardization of internet in Nepal is a must in terms of quality and resources. 
"Don't Keep your silence, Speak up and raise your voice 

If your ISP is not listening to you then its their problem its not yours. When you pay money its your right to get the promised bandwidth and internet service.

You have every right to demand #quality_of_service for the money that you pay.

Standardization is a must ....................

http://www.change.org/petitions/nepal-telecommunications-authority-standardization-in-quality-of-service-of-the-internet-in-nepal

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Customer service and professionalism that's what we lack in Nepal



You might be stunned by the fact that customer service in Nepal means to have a phone number and a person to entertain your calls. There will be no troubleshooting process, but someone will be picking up your call just for the sake of listening and then you are left with the error and problem to think about why you choose this service. You might then think about all the promotional campaign and their discount offers that gave you relief or motivation, but still it makes you feel the pain of not satisfying your objectives. 

Thinking endlessly, if you are smart then you would probably pull some strings to use your contact, only then things can roll or else you are left behind with the problem to repent why you choose this service.

This is the major case of multinational companies that are running their industry in Nepal. Especially the service industry that requires more customer service has been severely suffering with this disease of lack of professionalism. Though Nepal is moving towards globalization, but major the banks and service industry lack the concept of customer service and its performance.

Clients are getting bad feedback or they are not being followed up or it turns out to be a rude reply etc. All these actions are happening due to lack of enthusiasm, pressure and poor corporate culture where the Customer Service Representative (CSR) either skips the call or keeps it on hold due to less priority. His priority decreases in view of lack of motivation either directly from the leadership or corporate culture that is being practiced.

This is resulting in more bad publicity and marketing which is costing the company more in terms of resources and investment which they fail to realize. 

Having a million dollar campaign for marketing and spending less in the motivation of the CSR, certainly makes the Organization marketing strategy no worth or a big loss. 


Leadership, motivation and regular monitoring mechanism keep the customer service at top notch if any of this lacks then the circles breaches in resulting laziness, no motivation, ignorance and carelessness.
One thing that all marketing managers and Chief Executive Officer need to consider is the timely evaluation of customer service performance. It needs to be checked regularly and has to be updated with proper mechanism and protocol.

If this is not done on a regular basis, there is no point in having a customer service. An inefficient customer service that prioritizes in low results has no use and no performance. In-fact, it acts like a liability that builds pressure and spreads like fire engulfing the organizational culture with the zero performance.

So efficient customer service is a concept of motivating your CSR to work more effectively in marketing your brand with more precise and accurate approach. 

Mouth to mouth marketing is something that works like wonders and no marketing campaign can beat that and just by making your customer service effective and efficient you can increase your credibility as well as market yourself with high motivation to get optimum performance. 

Thus a smart marketing campaign is the campaign where the whole chain of marketing strategy fits the circle of promotion, production, performance and pleasure of the clients. 

Customer’s satisfaction can only be attained when your own staffs are happy and working in the most efficient and effective way.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Media publicity in un-necessary way SSP Kharel a hero or a Villan

SSP kharel donating Nrs 25,000 to the help Nepal Network to Rabindra Mishra 


These days’ social networking sites are flooded with the messages of SSP Kharel's controversy or SSP Kharel saving campaigns. The issue hit me so much that I started Investigating and within seconds, I had the answers why, what and how people were being misinterpreted.

Ramesh Kharel was recently summoned a transferred order by the Home ministry from his current post of Chief of Metropolitan Police Kathmandu to Police headquarters. According to various sources, SSP Ramesh Kharel’s transferred order was issued in view of his negligent behavior that he had shown in a public event at Mahendra Police club. During that event, SSP Ramesh Kharel remarked that some of the incumbent DIGs were trying to bribe the government ministers and other senior politicians for their promotions where Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mahendra Pandey was the chief guest. With such statement a panel of 3 members’ investigation team was set up under DIG Bigyan Raj Sharma for further investigation. The committee founded SSP Kharel guilty and had forwarded immediate action against him.
It has been reported that under the recommendation of the probe, SSP Kharel has been transferred to Police Headquarters for his careless behavior.

Though there has been many groups and events started in facebook in favor of SSP Kharel, people need to know the reality. It’s time when the public needs to be aware about the truth. Just because there are more supporters of Kharel, he cannot by pass the rules and regulation of his position and popularity. He doesn’t have the right to speak anything and everything in public.

 Police is an important institution and its representative cannot speak carelessly or cannot be indiscipline. It’s against their rule of duty as well as against their work culture. Their pride and honor is to serve the public not to act like a hero.  I think being responsible is more important in civil service than to cashing your popularity. Your duty is to serve the public and one should follow the culture and line of duty rather than being careless because when you are responsible only then you can prevent the wrong doers and motivate others.

Ganatantra Diwas 2070 / Republican day Nepal May 29 2014




Nepal was added as the latest edition in the Federal Republican list. For most of the citizens they barely know what a republican day stands for, in-fact most of the people celebrate this day as a national holiday to dose off from their daily work and pressure.   

But on real grounds Nepal being declared a Federal Republic has no meaning to its existence. We neither practice the meaning nor do we have the legal rights. In any democratic system, people are considered the optimal power point, but here in Nepal the practice has been opposite.


People have been said to be the focusing point, but they have not been given the power. Their power have been taken away by their so called political leaders. These political leaders in absence of a political culture are practicing nepotism, corruption, manipulation, favoritism, criminalization etc. in the name of politics and public. The real meaning of federalism or republican means giving public the ultimate power to rights and justice of rule of law.

Looking back at present situation it has already been 6 years, since Nepal started its journey towards a new system, but still after six long years and billions of rupees being invested. We have not even been able to get our constitution. The constitution making process proves to be a joke that ridiculously appears as a cartoon or a discussion of illogical ideas with no ending  that has no meaning?

What’s the use when we elect and send these political leaders to make constitution and they are not even capable of making one?           


The country where the people or public have no voice and where the political leaders are the superior power there is #nodemocracy . It is just a formality of so called hypocrisy.....
In real democracy people have absolute power or mandate to choose and not being imposed......... 
Happy 
#ganatrantradiwas

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

World Heritage site being ignored

During the ending of  every fiscal year places are ripped off just for the sake and in the name of maintenance. In the name of emptying the remaining budget, construction  takes its peak. The metropolitan city and its management are something that is more political than public oriented.    



Apart from that in the absence of proper traffic management the world heritage site suffers traffic congestion, and parking problem.

 

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Modi makes it clear Nepal and India relationship will flourish in BJP's regime




India is buzzing with the General Election 2014 and with the trauma of results the Indian Congress Party has no option except to keep silence and to resign from the respected post on moral ground where the practice has been well seen and felt. Yes, The Bharatiya Janta Party(BJP) has nailed the Indian General Election of 2014 held to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha, electing members of the  543 parliamentary constituencies of India. It has been tagged the world’s longest election running in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014.
According to the Election Commission of India, around 814.5 million people were  eligible for voting where the voter population increased by  100 million since the last general election in 2009.

Perhaps the concerning issue now for Nepal is, in view of making the present government the Preponed Nepal election of 2013 now stand with a question mark of what is called an identity crisis. As far as the Nepal Election is concerned,  the then Khil Raj’s Government was pressured and hugely supported by the then Congress Allianced Indian Government to force the election of the Constituent Assembly (CA) prior the Indian General Election 2014. Now the question is what kinds of effects will it have on the diplomatic relationship and foreign affairs. Will it be treated valid and considered diplomatically correct or will  the BJP lead government try to infiltrate the political alliance government to re-election in Nepal?

Or what kind of role will the  BJP government try to play in the ever changing political scenario of Nepal?

Though, the Nepali political leaders are very optimistic and assured about the  situation, but with the ever changing vulnerable political situation things do not look and sound good.

On one hand political gurus are expecting a huge shift in political power sharing mechanisms whereas on the other BJP has been solely supporting the ideology of Hinduism, Speculating that there are chances of king gaining power can be yet another possibility.

Modi has already declared that Indo Nepal friendship will further flourish in BJP’s regime and he has personally announced to visit Nepal first after his official take over in the government. Nepal’s political leaders do not sound reluctant about BJP winning the election, but  like said political leaders breed on diplomacy and foreign affair that is more diplomatic and  flexible. So lets cross our fingers and wait for things to for the best.  

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Content is not the king SEO is the KING

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As we all know these days Social media and micro blogging sites are getting popular and with that technology and people's perception is also changing.  The bulky text or content which used to flower the online pages has been replaced by crispy text, info graphics, videos and images. The website that use to be full of content and keywords have been transformed into responsive designs with retina display and one page layout highlighting the theme of engagement, reach and immediate conversion. Focusing the new designs,  conversion is the main Mantra. 

It's like people have less time to read, they want information at instance and they want it in graphics than long exaggerating content. By saying this I am not trying to demean the importance of CONTENT but to a level in this world of fast technology people are more grasping the mobile integration and technology in their life business and everywhere.

From smart houses to TVs to smart phones everything is getting smart, even the online website and its content has been tweaked to become more recursive and innovative in every aspect of its navigation and use.

It is a simple formula in the race of survival that if you are not available in mobile then you are nowhere. Your visibility is less and has no meaning if you cannot meet your competition.

Even big companies and brand have made it compulsory to market themselves  adopting new trends like why would news websites like BBC and CNN need social networking sites. In fact reality is in their prime time they pause to say check out faceboook link  and likes in our page.

Perhaps, why would  big brands like Coca Cola or Pepsi need to make a website or join social media, but they have felt the need and presence to be present online because it matter for their brand and marketing name. They want to be present in every aspect of showing their brand value online.

So whether its  Panda or  penguin or humming bird algorithm the concept of todays Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to make your website more informative, qualitative and  more responsive towards the users. Making a fake website or stuffing keywords, or having too many outbound links or referral link is not going to make any difference. What matters is the value of information that is understandable and for that it has no criteria. The trend and presentation might change exploring  the trend of technology and people’s mindset, but the core value will remain the same.
-Simplicity
- Value of information
-User navigation
-Accessibility
-Presentation

It's not about the level or quantity of CONTENT but its about the value and how people are reacting to the presentation. Google algorithm has been changing it's evaluating mechanism, making drastic changes from having a limitation of keywords to proportion of graphic used for outbound links to the use of geo tags to cross linking of social media etc. It has been live examples of how Google is trying to adjust and adapt. Similarly, with all these  changes, what we must understand is with any content or any portal the main thing that matters is originality and presentation.



With globalization and different algorithm, your website is on the verge of constantly being monitored and evaluated by the Google crawlers that checks and updates the cache memory. These memories are stored as tiny bits of data that Google keeps checking and indexing every now and then. The google indexing is not just a scanning process, but it also uses it to cross verify and evaluate the information.

If the Google finds more difference in its crawling caches and indexed files than it directs the website link to various google webmasters as errors. if the errors are not rectified then  it directs the web-links to  Google sandbox that literally shows no visibility and reference no matter how popular your website or blog is.

So one must be very careful about the layout of  information and about changing patterns of design that we all try to do. Google evaluates a website not by its graphical  assortment it evaluates a website by its technical easiness of user navigation, user choices and clicks and genuine traffic and its sources.

Just by giving good design and qualitative content it's not enough, you need to optimize your website according to certain standard with a definite strategy and keywords. Every page needs to be targeted by demographics and optimized.

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