Digital Divide Could Widen Nepal's Vaccine Divide
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WI THOUT F EAR O R F A V O U R Nepal’s largest selling English daily Vol XXIX No. 169 | 10 pages | Rs.5 O O Printed simultaneously in Kathmandu, Biratnagar, Bharatpur and Nepalgunj 35.2 C 13.7 C Friday, August 06, 2021 | 22-04-2078 Nepalgunj Jomsom Digital divide could widen Nepal’s vaccine divide Mandatory online registration may help address some issues, but it could deprive many of the jabs, experts say. ARJUN POUDEL not wrong in itself, but there is a risk KATHMANDU, AUG 5 of creating a digital divide and it may rather hamper Nepal’s aim to inocu- Bikash Adhikari works as a carpenter late as many people at the earliest. in Kathmandu. His job entails visiting At a time when the government is houses for small repairs and fixing facing questions if it has been able to furniture. He is yet to get vaccinated. ensure equitable distribution of the Adhikari, 31, from Bidur, Nuwakot, vaccines, making online registration does not have a laptop. He owns a mandatory can further deprive many low-end android smartphone just to people without access to the internet— make calls. or knowledge of filling forms online. “I have heard that I have to fill a “We need to take into consideration form online. They say it should be the size of the population that done from a computer or a mobile still lacks access to the internet and phone,” said Adhikari, a school drop- whether everyone can fill the online out. “I don’t know how to do it.” forms,” said Dr Sharad Onta, a public People like Adhikari who cannot health expert. register their names online for “The decision to make online regis- vaccines or those who do not have tration mandatory is like creating a access to the internet could be condition for people for vaccines. This deprived of vaccines against Covid-19, may not help Nepal’s plan to inoculate as the government has decided to all eligible people on time.” make online registration mandatory According to the latest management to get vaccinated. and information report of the Nepal RSS The Health Ministry has asked Telecommunications Authority, inter- Cattle kept at the Stray Cattle Management Centre at Shuklaphanta Municipality in Kanchanpur being herded towards grazing grounds earlier this week. There are 500 stray cattle at the centre. everyone aged 18 and above to register net penetration in Nepal has reached online by logging on to its website. 90.56 percent of the total population The website was launched on with 65.47 percent mobile broadband May 13. Initially, the ministry users. The number of 4G users had had not made an online form reached 7.69 million as of mid-May, mandatory for getting vaccinat- including 2.68 million 4G subscribers INSIDE Ruling, opposition parties ed, as the country was still strug- of Nepal Telecom, 4.8 million sub- gling to secure jabs. scribers of Ncell and 206,393 subscrib- But with vaccine doses trick- ers of Smart Telecom. There are 11.95 Kodari Highway section near ling in, the government has million 3G users in the country. Tatopani caves in, disrupting on collision course after decided to make online forms So far, 1.4 million people have regis- mandatory to help run the vacci- tered themselves online for vaccines. vehicular movement nation campaign smoothly. The number is too low compared to SINDHUPALCHOK: Vehicular movement land commission scrapped Public health experts say the the number of people with access to between Bhotekoshi Rural decision to ask people to register the internet. Municipality in Sindhupalchok dis- themselves online for vaccines is >> Continued on page 2 trict and the China border has been disrupted since past one week after More of the Oli government’s decisions will be scrapped, the road surface started caving in at places like Liping, Kodari and Ghatte. Congress leaders say. Analysts argue that all decisions The highway section was damaged by the rainfall in mid-June and was need not be overturned but there is no system in place. repaired a month later. But the repaired highway lasted only for a The government had on July 27, few days before the surface started to recalled the governors of Gandaki and omegawatches.com develop cracks and cave in. “Workers Lumbini provinces and appointed and technicians are making efforts to Prithvi Man Gurung and Amik repair the damaged section of the Shrechan in their places. highway,” said Bijaya Kumar Mahato, Sherchan was earlier the governor chief at the Division Road Office in of Gandaki province but he had been Charikot. The road repair work, how- replaced by Oli in an attempt to save ever, has not made much progress the chief ministerial position of due to continuous rainfall and land- Prithvi Subba Gurung, a close aide of slides. (Details on Pg 2) his in the CPN-UML. The government has also scrapped the 11 ambassadorial appointments Nepal struggles to buy black made by the Oli government. fungus drug after lowest bidder But the scrapping of the Land- related Problems Resolution turns out to be an Indian firm Commission, headed by Devi Gyawali, KATHMANDU: The government’s effort has especially irked the CPN-UML. to purchase 10,000 vials of Liposomal Gyawali, a leader from Chitwan, was Amphotericin B, the main drug used narrowly defeated by Renu Dahal, to treat mucormycosis, a rare fungal daughter of Maoist Centre chair infection commonly known as ‘black Pushpa Dahal in the Bharatpur fungus’, has faced a roadblock after Metropolitan City mayoral race. The an Indian company emerged as the Maoist Centre had aligned with the lowest bidder amid an export ban on Nepali Congress during the 2017 local the drug by India. Officials at the elections. Department of Health Services said “Serious attention of the CPN-UML that three foreign companies--an has been drawn to the government’s Indian, a Chinese, and a decision to dissolve the commission,” Bangladeshi—have submitted bids to a statement issued by party spokes- supply the medicine for the disease, person, Pradeep Gyawali, on which is life-threatening and painful POST FILE PHOTO Wednesday said. for patients. More than a month and a Sher Bahadur Deuba looks set to overturn “The commission was formed as half since the bid was opened, the many of the Oli government’s decisions. per the constitutional obligations department has been unable to award including right to food (Article 36), the contract to the Indian bidder even ANIL GIRI right to housing (Article 37), rights of though the tender was issued on June KATHMANDU, AUG 5 the Dalits (Article 40), and rights to 15 to procure the medicine under the social justice (Article 42).” exceptional circumstances proce- The Sher Bahadur Deuba government On Thursday, the Youth Association dures as specified in Public continues to overturn the decisions Nepal, a youth wing of the CPN-UML, Procurement Act and Regulations. made by the erstwhile KP Sharma Oli started street protests demanding rev- Officials didn’t reveal the names of government. ocation of the decisions. the companies participating in the The latest in this series was the “The government played foul poli- tender bid. (Details on Pg 5) scrapping of the Land-related tics. It doesn’t want the continuation Problems Resolution Commission on of good work,” Gyawali, the chief of Tuesday. the commission, told the Post. “It was Delta variant challenges And there is more to come. wrong to dissolve the entire commis- China’s lockdown strategy According to leaders of the ruling sion. If the Deuba-government dis- RECORDING OLYMPIC DREAMS SINCE 1932 Nepali Congress party, one of the liked us it could have replaced us with BEIJING: The delta variant is tasks assigned to the seven-member a new team.” challenging China’s costly strategy of panel formed to come up with a com- The UML said that the government Every athlete has a dream. It lives in their heart and it pushes them towards isolating cities, prompting warnings mon minimum programme and rec- is prejudiced against the millions of that Chinese leaders who were confi- ommend names for government landless people and has assaulted victory. At the Olympic Games in Tokyo, these dreams will be given a stage. dent they could keep the coronavirus appointments is also to suggest which their rights and demanded that the This is the moment when inspiration meets performance, when ambition out of the country need a less disrup- of the hundreds of decisions the Oli government correct its decision. tive approach. As the highly conta- government made should be scrapped. With millions of landless in the meets precision, and when the Official Timekeeper OMEGA records it all. gious variant pushes leaders in the “Once the government receives the country, distributing land to them is United States, Australia and else- report of the panel formed by the rul- good political capital. where to renew restrictions, ing parties, the government is going to The Nepali Congress had opposed President Xi Jinping’s government is cancel or scrap hundreds of decisions the formation of the commission fighting the most serious outbreak made by the previous government,” a when it was formed following the since last year’s peak in Wuhan. The leader of the Nepali Congress told the amendment to the Land Act in August ruling Communist Party is reviving Post on condition of anonymity. 2019 saying that commission was tactics that shut down China: Access The panel led by Purna Bahadur formed to distribute land to party to a city of 1.5 million people has Khadka, a general secretary of the leaders and cadres in the name of been cut off, flights cancelled and Nepali Congress has Minendra Rijal landless people.