Doctor's plan to save Rautes

After reading news reports about decreasing population of the nomadic Raute tribe due to various illnesses and unsafe delivery, a doctor has launched a medical campaign to improve their health condition in Dang.
As part of the campaign, Dr Sushil Koirala, who works in a tuberculosis hospital in the district, held a health check-up camp in a Raute settlement at Chisapani in Tulsipur Municipality-10 on Monday.
He also distributed some medicines and essential goods such as brushes, toothpastes, soap, mosquito nets, bed sheets, quilts and clothes for women. Koirala, who purchased the essential goods and medicines spending his three months’ salary, said he initiated the campaign so that the community keeps in touch with health facilities.
“I am engaged in social work keeping aside my regular job for some months as I am encouraged to help the community after reading news reports about their decreasing population,” he said. “I hope the campaign will aware the Rautes of their health,” said Koirala, adding that he will visit the settlement from time to time to find whether their health has improved.
Though reluctant in the beginning, the Rautes expressed happiness to receive the materials and get checked up. “We are happy to get medical treatment form a doctor even in the forest,” said chieftain of the community Surya Narayan Shahi, adding that many people in his community had died due to lack of timely treatment earlier.
Koirala said most of the Rautes were suffering from physical problems such as high blood pressure and pain in the back bone and joints. He said that health condition of post-natal women is also pathetic.

Satya Devi Adhikari, chairperson of an organisation working for the community, said frequent health check-up camps like this will play a great role in preserving the community. “Only three out of 10 infants survive on an average in the community because of unsafe delivery. So, saving the lives of children and mothers is a challenge due to their difficult lifestyle in forest,” she said. The population of the community has declined from 238 in 2007 to only 131 now.

Tiger Hill

I thing everybody knows the Tiger hill. I have been there before two month with my friends. At that time we did visit all of the Darjeeling. Among the Darjeeling I liked tiger hill from there we saw excellent view and very good sunrise from there. I have been many view point and sunrise point among them I liked Tiger hill.   

Yoga

Yoga is popular in the world as well as in Nepal. The people easily take part of this program. The number of the yoga’s people increasing day by day. Young, adult, old all kind of man and women are doing yoga everyday and they are getting benefit from this yoga meditation.   

Mount Everest

The Tibetan word for Everest is Chomolungma, which means ‘Mother of the Universe,’ and the Nepali name Sagarmatha means ‘Goddess of the Sky.’ Both are perfectly fitting, as there is no other mountain as grand as Everest,” Greenfield has quoted Peter Friedman, a trip expert.

According to government statistics, over 3,000 climbers have scaled Everest since it was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Sherpa in 1953. Annually, over 32,000 tourists visit the Everest region, for trekking and expedition. Particularly, the Khumbu or Everest region has two tourist seasons—March-April-May in spring and September-October-November in autumn. The region receives highest mountaineers and trekkers in spring

Buddha boy

Followers of ‘Buddha boy’ Ram Bahadur Bomjan have been accused of holding two women, one a Slovak, captive.
It is learnt that members of the Bodhi Srawan Dharma Sangh, an association formed to oversee Bomjan’s security, have held the women for ‘practicing witchcraft’ and disturbing Bomjan’s meditation.
Bomjan has been meditating in the Halkhoriya forest of Ratanpuri VDC in Bara district for the past seven years. Though the identities of the women have not been established officially, people claiming to know them said the woman from Slovakia is named Marichi while the second woman is Mata Aani, said to be from Sindhupalchowk.
A person involved with the Sangh said the two women have been “detained” for practicing witchcraft and trying to disrupt the meditation. Marichi had arrived in Nepal 11 months ago, seeking audience with Bomjan. She stayed in a local hotel for some time before moving to a monastery in Simara. The other woman, meanwhile, had been living in the Halkhoriya region for a while. Police said they received a report about the missing women a couple of days ago and that investigations are underway.

“We interrogated one Jash Bahadur Waiba of the Sangh. He told us that the two women would be made public on Wednesday,” said police inspector Krishna Prasad Sharma. Two days after the Slovak woman went missing, two Sangh members had arrived at the monastery and taken away her laptop and clothes, said a person involved in the conservation of the monastery. Some locals claimed having seen Marichi riding pillion on a motorcycle with two Sangh members to the direction of Bomjan’s meditation spot

Biggest solar storm in years is bombarding earth now

The biggest solar storm in five years is battering our planet right now, and may cause disruptions to satellites, power grids and communications networks over the next 24 hours, space weather experts say.

Two strong solar flares erupted from the surface of the sun late Tuesday (March 6), blasting a wave of plasma and charged particles toward Earth. After speeding through space at 4 million mph, this eruption of material — called a coronal mass ejection (CME) — should be hitting Earth now.

The storm is expected to create strong disruptions due to an odd combination of intense magnetic, radio and radiation emissions, making it the strongest overall solar storm since December 2006, even though the flare that triggered it was not the largest, space weather officials said.

The CME reached Earth this morning at about 5:45 a.m. EST (1045 GMT), according to officials at the Space Weather Prediction Center, which is jointly managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service. While the CME did not hit Earth head-on, the material delivered a glancing blow to the planet, and energetic particles will continue to interact with Earth's magnetic field over the course of the day.

The CME will likely trigger geomagnetic and solar radiation storms today, which could interfere with satellites in space and power grids on the ground, said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at NOAA. Aircraft that fly over the Earth's polar caps may potentially experience communications issues as well, and some commercial airliners have already taken precautionary steps, Kunches said.

"There is the potential for induced currents in power grids," Kunches told reporters Wednesday. "Power grid operators have all been alerted. It could start to cause some unwanted induced currents."

The effects of this solar storm will likely last for 24 hours, and may possibly linger into Friday (March 9), Kunches said.

"Such a CME could result in a severe geomagnetic storm, causing aurora at low latitudes, with possible disruption to high frequency radio communication, global positioning systems (GPS), and power grids," NASA scientists said in a statement.

Experts also predict that the magnetic storm will likely enhance normal aurora displays (also known as the northern and southern lights). As the effects of the CME bombard Earth, these stunning light shows will be especially visible for people where it is currently night, though the full moon of March, which also occurs Thursday, may interfere with the display.

"Skywatchers at all latitudes should be alert for auroras," astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on his website Spaceweather.com, which regularly monitors space weather events.

Chaturman Gurung

Chaturman Gurung, a porter from Khewang VDC in the district, has never seen a break from his mundane job. Neither does he hope for such a chance in the future. Gurung, 64, started this profession in 1971 when he went to Ilam with some friends to carry goods of local traders. Since then, he is into this job. “One born into a poor

family has to struggle for survival like me. I do not think that I would get rid of this profession in this life,” he said.

“I would only have a chance to meet my family once a week while working in Ilam. Nowadays, I return home in the evening after work, and I am satisfied with it,” Gurung said.

He said that he used to receive Rs 50 paisa per kg for carrying goods for a day's walking distance when he started the job, but now he gets Rs 20 per kg for the same distance. Gurung remembers how he would carry a load of up to 80 kg when he was young. “But with my growing age, I hardly carry load of 50 kg now,” he said, adding that sometime he carries up to 60 kg of load, which makes him difficult to walk uphill.

Gurung had to go through difficult days in course of his job. “It was 15 years ago when I was seriously injured after falling on the ground while carrying load. Then I was bedridden for 15 days,” he said, adding that he had never confronted such a situation thereafter.

Gurung, the father of four sons and two daughters, earns Rs 1,000 a day on average. He now lives with his youngest son while his two sons are in Malaysia and one has settled down in the village. Gurung said he would continue his job until his strength allows him to do so