Bangla EC for further ease in emergency

Dhaka, Sept. 7: Ahead of the third round of talks with political parties in the run-up to the December polls, the Bangladesh Election Commission has said it would ask the interim government to further ease the state of emergency.

"They (EC) assured us of securing government’s permission to hold national councils and invite at least ten thousand delegates from across the country...Which is marred by emergency rule," former Jatiya Party president H.M. Ershad said at the end of talks with the commission late on Saturday.

EC officials substantiated Mr Ershad’s remarks saying the commission agreed to ask the caretaker government to relax the state of emergency allowing political parties to hold national councils ahead of the parliamentary poll. The emergency rules do not allow political parties to hold meetings of over two hundred people in open space.

—PTI

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Bonded labourers released by Nepal

Kathmandu, Sept. 7: Nepal’s Maoist-led government has decided to free some 100,000 bonded farm labourers who have been serving their moneylender-landlords without pay in various parts of far-west Nepal.

The decision to abolish the ‘Haliya’ system was taken at a Cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on Saturday, minister for peace and reconstruction Janardan Sharma said. The government has also announced that it would waive the loans these farm labourers had taken. Haliya is a kind of debt bondage system prevalent in some remote areas of western Nepal in which poor farmers who take loans from others work freely in their land.

The Haliyas were organising a series of protest demonstrations in the capital for the last two weeks demanding their emancipation and a proper rehabilitation package. —PTI