Saturday, July 15, 2006

Ten members added into the interim constitution draft committee

An informal meeting of the government and Maoist negotiating teams on Saturday has agreed to add ten more members to the Interim Constitution Drafting Committee raising the total number to 16.

The newly added members of the committee include advocate Agni Karel, Advocate Pushpa Bhushal, Advocate Sushila Karki, Chhatra Kumari Gurung, Shanta Rai, Sunil Prajapati, Parshu Ram Jha, Chandeshwor Shrestha and Kumar Yonjan Tamang. The negotiating teams said they have agreed to add one more person, preferably an advocate, from the Dalit community.

A six-member draft committee was formed under the chairmanship of former Supreme Court Justice Laxman Prasad Aryal on June 16. Other members of the committee included president of Nepal Bar Association Shambhu Thapa, Harihar Dahal, Mahadev Yadav, Sindhu Nath Pyakurel and Khimlal Devkota.

During their meeting held at the Peace Secretariat within Singha Durbar, both the sides also extend the duration of the draft committee until the end of July. Formed on June 16, the committee had started its working formally on July 5. Indigenous communities, dalits and women had criticized its formation and demanded equitable representation of all sectors in the committee.

The talks held on Saturday was also attended by members of peace talks monitoring team namely Dr Devendra Raj Panday, Padma Ratna Tuladhar, Daman Nath Dhungana and Dr Mathura Prasad Shrestha.

On Friday, senior leaders of Nepali Congress, CPN (UML) and CPN (Maoist) agreed to hold second round of “summit level talks” on July 21 to sort out differences that have cropped up in the implementation of eight-point agreement reached between the two sides last month

No comments: