As crisis looms, foreign airlines refuel elsewhere

Sep 30, 2015- Most international airlines serving Nepal have changed aircraft and their refueling points after being informed by Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) that it would be halting refueling services at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) from Tuesday.
TIA authorities have barred foreign carriers from taking fuel at TIA citing a worsening jet fuel crisis caused by the unofficial trade embargo imposed by India. Airport officials said that the tough decision followed strong requests from NOC.
The first casualty of the decision was China Southern Airlines which has cancelled its flights to Nepal until October 10. According to travel agencies, most east-bound flights have decided to stop in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Kolkata to refuel on their return flight. West-bound flights have decided to stop for fuel in Lucknow. Airline officials said that changing the refueling point would result in an extra financial burden of at least $8,000 per flight.
Dragon Air, Korean Air, Malaysian Airlines, Malindo Air and other carriers have decided to refuel in Dhaka. Silk Air will stop its return flight in Kolkata. Likewise, Fly Dubai, Air Arabia and Oman Air will be stopping in Lucknow to refuel. Turkish Airlines will stop in Delhi. Osho World Travel Nepal said that some foreign carriers had decided to fly different aircraft on their Nepal service. Etihad Airways that used to make two daily flights using a narrow-body jet has decided to fly a wide-body jet and carry return fuel.
Similarly, Qatar Airways has decided to fly wide-body aircraft and carry return fuel. Air China will be using a wide-body aircraft on the Chengdu-Kathmandu flight and a narrow-body jet on the Lhasa-Kathmandu route.
Turkish, Dragon, Korean, Air Asia, Thai and Qatar fly wide-body aircraft on the Nepal sector. Air Asia’s A330 aircraft can accommodate up to 377 passengers, while the highest seating capacity of Bhutan-based Druk Air’s narrow-body aircraft A319 is 114 passengers.
“None of the airlines flying narrow-body jets from India, Bangladesh or Bhutan has been affected by the latest decision,” said Deepak Basnet, ticketing executive of Osho World Travel Nepal. “The decision has affected airlines flying narrow-body jets on flights lasting more than three hours.”   
Basnet said that TIA had been hit by refueling problems during the height of the travel season when Nepali migrant workers return in hordes to celebrate the Dashain and Tihar festivals which start in October.
He added that inbound flights on the Middle East and Malaysia sectors were almost 90 percent booked for October. Likewise, bookings on China Southern for the festive season have crossed 80 percent.
“The October-November period is also Nepal’s peak tourist season. However, due to the violent activities and strikes in the Tarai, most tourists have postponed their Nepal trips till November,” Basnet said. “There have also been some cancellations from potential visitors.”  
Dhiraj Chandra Shrestha, deputy sales manager of China Southern, said that they had been flying a 115-seater A319 on the Kathmandu-Guangzhou route which cannot carry a full load of passengers, cargo and a full load of fuel. “So we have decided to cancel our flights effective from Tuesday till October 10 due to lack of jet fuel in Nepal,” Shrestha said, adding that passengers who had booked seats would be rerouted or their money would be fully refunded. He said that the airline would remain in a wait and see mode until October 10. “We have also been discussing with Bangladesh to provide refueling facilities.”
Homework begins on airlifting jet fuel
The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) on Tuesday said that it had started homework to airlift jet fuel from the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, using Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) jets. NOC Managing Director Gopal Bahadur Khadka said it will become easier to airlift jet fuel from Dhaka due to the proximity. He, however, said that airlifting other products like petrol and diesel would not be feasible due to the cost 

Govt studying options to airlift aviation fuel

Oct 1, 2015- The government on Wednesday formed a committee to recommend options to fly in aviation fuel for domestic airlines amid mounting fears that the country’s airlines could be grounded for lack of fuel.
Surface transportation has been largely crippled due to gasoline shortages and a long-running agitation in the southern Tarai belt that has cut off major highways.  The seven-member panel under the coordination of Tourism Joint Secretary Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane has been told to submit its recommendations by 11am on Thursday.
International airlines serving Nepal have already been told to carry return fuel as they will not be able to refuel at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu which is fresh out of stock.
As the store of aviation fuel kept for domestic airlines has started to go down at a faster rate with a sudden rise in the number of air travellers, the government is worried that domestic carriers could be immobilized on the eve of the festival season in Nepal. The daily fuel requirement of domestic airlines stands at 50,000 litres.
Suresh Acharya, joint secretary of the Tourism Ministry, said that a meeting held between the Home and Supplies ministries, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) and Nepal Airlines Corpora-tion (NAC) discussed three options to forestall an expected aviation turbine fuel (ATF) crisis by bringing fuel by air.
The first option discussed was to use Russian Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft, a heavy transport jet, that can transport up to 50 kilolitres of fuel. Using Mi-17 helicopters to transport fuel from cross-border points to oil depots in the Tarai where domestic aircraft can refuel. An Mi-17 can ferry up to 4 tonnes of fuel.
The third option proposed at the meeting was to request China and the US Air Force to airlift jet fuel. The meeting has also decided to request Nepali private helicopter companies to transport fuel. Likewise, the option to use NAC’s jets to airlift fuel has been kept open.
“The committee has been directed to conduct a study of the technical and financial aspects of airlifting fuel,” said Acharya, adding that the plan submitted by the committee would be tabled at higher levels of the government. After the government approves the scheme, formal talks will be held with the parties concerned. Most international airlines serving Nepal have changed aircraft and their refuelling points after being informed by Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) that it would be halting refuelling services at TIA from Tuesday.
There are 25 international airlines currently serving Nepal, and they make 70 take-offs and landing daily.
TIA authorities have barred foreign carriers from taking fuel at TIA citing a worsening jet fuel crisis caused by the unofficial trade embargo imposed by India. Airport officials said that the tough decision followed strong requests from NOC. The national flag carrier has also been mulling instructing its east-bound aircraft to refuel in Kolkata and Dhaka, Bangladesh on the return flight. Likewise, west-bound flights will be told to halt in Delhi and Lucknow to refuel while returning.
“We don’t have refuelling problems for our Delhi flights, but we need to explore refuelling options for our flights to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Doha,” said NAC Spokesperson Ram Hari Sharma. “As our inbound flights are fully booked due to the Dashain rush, we cannot off-load passengers or cargo.” He said making stops at airports en route would lead to an additional financial burden of nearly $10,000 per flight.
Meanwhile, Indian media reported Indian carriers had made no changes to their schedule to Kathmandu. Air India, Jet Airways and IndiGo operate flights to Nepal. “We will do double uplift for the Kathmandu flight. It will restrict the allowed payload on the flight,” an IndiGo spokesperson told the Indian media.
The airline’s fuel requirement on the Delhi-Kathmandu route is 9 tonnes, while on the return flight, it is 7 tonnes.
“Jet Airways flights from Delhi and Mumbai may have reduced passenger and cargo carrying capacity to cater to additional fuel uplift. We are constantly monitoring the situation and guests are being duly informed,” a Jet Airways spokesperson tsaid.

Here are 5 ways Nepalis are trying to deal with the fuel crisis

Tirek Manandhar/ PANC BIKES

Sep 30, 2015- The shortage of petrol, due to a blockade on essential supplies to Nepal,  is making daily commute difficult for Nepalis. But citizens have come up with creative ideas, many social media-based, to tackle the crisis and help one another. 

Here are a few! 

1)    Seatkhalicha.com

Through crowdsourcing, 'Seatkhalicha' offers a way to register a vacant seat so they can match someone in need of a ride with someone who is willing to offer a lift. By providing  details, you register your vacant seat. 

2. Carpoolktm.com 

Another instance of crowdsourcing, this web app allows you to enter a ‘pick up’ and “drop off” information with two buttons ‘Ask’ and ‘Offer’ 

3. Facebook Groups and Twitter Hashtags. 

A Facebook Group titled ‘Carpool Kathmandu’ has already gathered over 10,000 followers. This page matches people who are willing to offer rides with those who need a ride.  “Let us make this forum warm, welcoming and safe for everyone to use. If someone only wants to offer ride to women, let them do that. You see at least someone is being helped,” reads a post on the page.

 

People have also been using #SayYesToLifts and #HelpNepal to help one another.

 

4. Cycle around the city 

Due to the lack of fuel, a lot of people have taken to cycling to work.  Promoters of a cycle friendly city have also been carrying out rallies to promote cycling around the city. Gaurav Shrestha  who is a part of the campaign ‘Kathmandu Cycle City 2020’  says he has been receiving a lot of phone calls from people who want to buy bicycles. 

Photo: Facebook.com/GauravShrestha 

5.  Men's Room Reloaded

Men’s Room Reloaded, a Facebook Group, has started a campaign in which people paste MRR’s stickers on their bikes, or put on a MRR tee-shirt or a badge. People can wave at bikes carrying this sticker, and they will be helped. The campaign specifically states that they will prioritise children, elderly and women

3-day fuel sale restriction on pvt vehicles

Oct 1, 2015- The government has imposed a three-day ban on sales of fuel to private vehicles. Beginning Thursday, fuel supplies will be limited to emergency services, public transport, security forces, food supply and medical services.
A joint meeting of Home Ministry, Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), Commerce Ministry and security agencies on Wednesday took the decision amid the worsening fuel crisis.   The government has come up with the move after the petroleum shortage gripped the country following the ‘unofficial blockade’ imposed by India on vital supplies.
“We will not be selling fuel to the private vehicles, both two- and four-wheelers,” said NOC spokesperson Deepak Baral.
 According to the NOC, trucks, tippers and mini-trucks will also be not eligible to receive the petroleum. “However, the restriction will not be applicable to vehicles used for food supplies, medical services, media and public transportation,” Baral said, adding that the fuel distribution will be as per the quota fixed by the government.
The government began rationing fuel supplies on Monday.
Under the provision, owner of a two-wheeler will be provided three litres of petrol per week; a private four-wheeler will get 10 litres per week; public vehicles are being provided 10-30 litres every alternate day.
“The provision will be revised depending on the supply situation,” said Baral.

Around 40 vehicles enter Nepal through Bhairahawa entry point

Sep 28, 2015- India has been releasing a limited number Nepal-bound freights since Sunday from its Sunauli point after the officials at Bhairahawa customs continuously urged their Indian counterparts to release the Nepal-bound freights.

India, which had been sending perishable goods like potatoes, fruits and onion for the past four days, released around 40 vehicles, including two fuel tankers and two LP gas bullets on Sunday.

On Monday, two dozens of trucks carrying vegetable, fruits and industrial raw materials were released by India until 2 pm. But it did not release any fuel tankers today.

Bhairahawa Customs Chief Lawanya Dhakal said that he directly contacted Indian customs officials and inquired why the fuel tankers were not released. In response, the Indian officials assured of immediately sending eight fuel tankers and three LP gas bullets.

Chief Dhakal also said they have been sending representatives to Indian customs office for pressurising them to send essential goods to Nepal.

Meanwhile, the cadres and leaders of agitating Madhesi Morcha staged demonstration from no-man’s land today. A group that headed from Nepal to resist the protest was stopped by security personnel from going near the border. Tension surrounded the border area after both the groups engaged in confrontation for few moments. Later, the Madhesi Morcha’s programme ended and the protestors headed towards India, it has been reported.

History through her eyes

Sep 25, 2015- The sky lit up on the evening of Sunday, September 20, as Nepal became the youngest republic in the world. The noise of the firecrackers that exploded above the ceremony venue drifted through the air and made its way into the home of an 80-year-old woman in Old Baneshwor. 

“I don’t know if I am happy or sad,” confesses Shanta Shrestha over the phone. "A part of me is happy to see a constitution; but then at the same time, look at what’s happening across the country.”

Whatever it was, the ringing in of the constitution was a significant day for Shrestha, one of the trailblazing feminists of Nepal. It was the start of another chapter in a life that has witnessed all of the important happenings in the last sixty-five years. 

For both those who have and have not heard of Shrestha: she is a living legend. With more than six decades of struggle for freedom, Shrestha, who was close to becoming the vice-president in 2008, is a custodian of Nepal’s history. A revolutionary known for wearing her heart on her sleeves, Shrestha is a witness and an active agent of Nepal’s struggle for democracy and for women's rights. 

“There is one word to describe Shanta didi, and that is ‘revolutionary’,” says Sudha Tripathi, Chairman of a working committee that has been formed under the Shanta Shrestha Trust. “She will fight against everything that is wrong and harms the oppressed.” 

Shanta Shrestha, born in 1935 to revolutionaries Mohan Maya Shrestha and Anandlal, attended one of the first schools in Nepal, Shanti Nikunj. At Shanti Nikunj, under the tutelage of a group of teachers who were fiercely devoted to the idea of democracy and republicanism, Shrestha fostered her dedication towards freedom.  “I have fought for republicanism ever since I understood what it meant,” she says. 

A picture that hangs on one of the walls of her room serves as proof.  It is dated 1947, when the Rana regime was still in control.  In the picture are founding members of the ‘Nepal Women’s Association’ who had gathered under the pretext of a picnic. These women were actually finalising the formation of a women’s organisation to demand their equal rights. 

We are talking of a time when women, once they came of age, were barred from leaving the house without a male member.  This group had broken all rules. 

That very year, women from this association marched to authorities to demand suffrage for women. Shanta Shrestha, barely 12 years old, was the youngest member of the delegation. 

On another wall is another picture, this one dated 1951. In it are two young girls, full of energy, screaming. A young Shanta Shrestha is pumping her fist in the air. The caption reads: “Nepalese girls belonging to the Congress demonstrating against the Rana regime on the arrival of the British Diplomats at the Gauchar Aerodrome.”

When King Tribhuvan escaped to India with his family, his supporters and advocates of democracy had started protesting against the Rana regime.  The police, in an attempt to control the crowds, had taken out their guns.  Shrestha had then gone up to a policeman, grabbed him by his collar, snatched his gun and looked inside the gun: there were no bullets. Upon, realising that it was a false alarm, informed the others.

“No bullets in here. They are trying to trick us. Come back, I had shouted then,” she says, reminiscing those days. “You know, when King Tribhuvan came back, he met us and said that picture of us had brought tears in his eyes--to see girls as young as me fighting for freedom.” 

It wasn’t only the king that took notice. The photograph incident had everyone talking about these revolutionary women and, soon after the aerodrome incident, an arrest warrant was placed on Shrestha, which compelled her to go underground. She resurfaced only several months later, after Nepal was declared a democracy in 1951.

For the next five years, Shrestha was present at every protest with other members of the federation. She remembers the first time when the riot police had to use water cannons. The women were protesting against an alliance formed between the Nepali Congress, the monarchy and the Ranas. “Oh, that was when the police released water cannons. I could feel my skin peeling,” she says.  “How painful it was. But did it deter us from fighting? Not at all."

“Whenever there was a protest, she was there,” says Prayag Raj Singh Suwal, a former minister from the Panchayat era.

The declared democracy did not last long and Nepal slipped into the Panchayat system. After that, Shrestha worked at Radio Nepal for three-and-a-half decades as a program producer. For eight years, she hosted a daily one-hour show on which she discussed women’s issues.“I remember hearing her distinct voice on the radio,” says Dwarika Man Pradhan, who was then a student. He is now one of the five trustees of the Shanta Shrestha Trust. "She couldn’t say the things she wanted to because everything had to be approved by the palace, and all the programs were scripted, but there was sternness in her voice. You couldn’t help but listen to her. You could tell that she was fierce,” says Pradhan.

At Radio Nepal, she went on to establish a worker’s union. “She doesn’t know how to be politically correct. She says whatever is in her mind which might not go well with everyone, but she has the purest heart,” says Pradhan.

Shrestha’s seven decades of experience, political analysis and critique is recorded in the 13 publications to her name, which includes an anthology of 108 poems, a collection of 30 stories, plays, memoirs and reflections.

A picture of Shanta Shrestha during her Radio Nepal days  

 “Her stories are a reflection of what she has seen,” says Sudha Tripathi, who has extensive knowledge on Nepal’s feminist literature. “Stories about oppression, social injustice and the fight for freedom and equality are recurring themes.”

 Two of her books are based on true incidents from during the Maoist insurgency, when she was arrested and kept at the Bhairavnath Battalion after sheltering a Maoist rebel in her house for months. Manu Humagain, a former combatant who is now a member of the National Women’s Commission recalls the days when the movement was its peak. Humagain needed a place to stay. “Who in Kathmandu would let a Maoist stay at that point in time? No one, but, of course, Shanta didi,” she says. “She truly supported women who wanted to revolt against the system.”

Shrestha supported the Nepali Congress for over thirty years, but never became a member of the party. With the Maoists too, she did not join the party (although she does serve as chief advisor to the UCPN-Maoist’s Revolutionary Women association) but admires the movement’s accomplishment of bringing forward women.  “Women really did come to the forefront during the Maoist revolution,” she says. “This has been one of the great achievements of the movement.”

In 2008, Shanta Shrestha, at the age of 73 who was also a member of the interim legislature parliament (independent candidate) filed her nomination to contest for vice president on behalf (of then) CPN-Maoist. She lost to the current vice president Parmanandha Jha.

Since then, she has been living a quiet life. She is visited periodically by admirers and people who want to listen to Nepal’s history from someone who has lived through it.  It was these people--family and friends--who insisted that she open a trust so that her legacy could continue. “I had never really thought about opening a trust, but then people told me that I could inspire women. That is when I decided to go forward with it,” she says, pointing at a huge pile of unpublished work.  

These unpublished writings, stacked next to newspaper cuttings, old photographs, certificates of felicitations, and notes take up a huge space on the fourth floor of a building where Shrestha lives by herself. She never married.

“She is legendary. She is inspirational. In fact, I think she deserves to be the next president of Nepal,” says Bishnu Hari Nepal, a former ambassador to Japan, who has known Shrestha since the 1970s.  Like some of her admirers, Nepal likes to visit "Shanta didi" at times and listen to her. Her eyes light up as she narrates stories from her past. She will talk more about others rather than herself. Of the martyrs we lost, of the secrets meetings of the Praja Parishad--the first attempt to establish an organisation to stand up against the Rana regime, of men and women who were willing to sacrifice their lives for Nepal, of the other trailblazing feminists who sneaked out of their homes to participate in protests. She will also note, with a hint of sadness, of the leaders who promised, but falsely. “I have yet to find a dedicated and committed leader in Nepal,” she says

Meryl Streep says career affected her friendships

AP Photo

Sep 30, 2015- Actress Meryl Streep says she regrets spending less time with her friends due to her busy career.

The "Mamma Mia" actress shared that due to her busy career and her "civic concerns", her relationship with close friends suffered a lot, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

“My friendships suffered from a lack of attention in favour of the time taken up by my family, my career and civic concerns,” the 66-year-old told Time Out magazine.

Also talking about what makes her angry, the Academy Award winner said: "Deliberate ignorance of global warming by the richest, best-educated people and institutions in the world, as if it will not profoundly impact on them, their privileged lives and their families."