Dozens held in Nepal for trying to enforce strikes

Police in Nepal arrested dozens of protesters yesterday after they attempted to enforce strikes in three cities including the capital Kathmandu over the government’s alleged failure to compensate people displaced by a major road expansion project.
Seventy protesters were arrested in Kathmandu and six in the neighbouring city of Lalitpur, said Sharad Chand, a senior police officer in Kathmandu, after they tried to block roads and force shops to close.
“We have organised the strike to protest against the displacement of hundreds of people, who haven’t been compensated by the government,” said the Kathmandu Valley Road Expansion Victim Struggle Committee, which organised the strike.
“It (the government) has also violated an interim order from the Supreme Court to suspend the expansion of roads,” the group, a coalition of two dozen groups based in the valley,
added.
Nepalese authorities began to expand and upgrade around 80km of roads in the Kathmandu Valley, home to four million people, in 2012.
But people forced to move because of the expansion have complained that the authorities failed to compensate them.
Yesterday, most offices and schools were closed because of the strikes, while the valley’s normally gridlocked traffic was flowing as most public transport wasn’t running.
Speaker seek consensus: Nepal Parliament Speaker Onsari Gharti Magar yesterday requested Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to forge consensus with the opposition parties before the next session of parliament, the media reported.
The Speaker, who went to the Prime Minister’s residence in Baluwatar, made the request in order to resume the House meetings, which had been disrupted since November 29, the Himalayan Times reported.
In response, Dahal expressed his commitment to end the stalemate and forge consensus with the agitating political parties.
Meanwhile, the leading political parties have begun fresh talks after the Supreme Court’s order to let parliament endorse the second constitution amendment bill.
The main opposition Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist also hinted it would not obstruct the house meetings anymore.
The Speaker also held separate meetings with the leaders of other political parties to make her request for running the House.
Next House meeting has been scheduled for January 8.