Parties agreed in 23 points

Even as the big three parties claimed they have reached 23-point understanding to break the political deadlock, they have decided to confer with representatives of civil society on Sunday before endorsing the same through seven party meeting.
The agreement to confer with the civil society gathering was reached as a compromise on Maoist demand for roundtable meet. The Nepali Congress (NC) and Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) rejected the roundtable demand but agreed to confer with a gathering of civil society.
Following the meeting of top leaders of NC, UML and Maoists, on Saturday, they called a civil society leader Padma Ratna Tuladhar and requested him to organise an interaction.
“Since the leaders said they needed to confer with civil society on some important matters, we have called a civil society gathering at 11 am on Sunday at Hotel Himalaya,” he said.
He said that civil society representatives will listen to the decision of three parties and give their opinions.

Nepal Telecom's shares to be floated at Rs 600

There has been a decision to sell the shares of Nepal Telecom (NT) at the minimum rate of Rs 600 each, reports said.
The government had fixed the minimum rate after seeing investors' eagerness to buy the shares of this most profitable state-owned enterprise.
The share value was fixed to float shares amounting to Rs 1.5 billion (10 percent of NT's total share) to the general public, according to Kantipur Daily. NT officials said this was done to lessen government's ownership in the largest telecommunication service provider in the country. The Ankit Mulya of NT's shares is Rs 100. Finance secretary Bidhyadhar Mallik affirmed that the government has reached the decision to sell the telecom's share at the minimum rate of Rs 600 each. The government would make at least 9 billion rupees from this.
The government is doing necessary preparation for it so as to float the shares to the public by April this year.
Similarly, along with the general public, NT has also decided to float its shares worth Rs 750 million (5 percent shares) to its employees

businessman Murarka freed by abductor's

Businessman Mahesh Murarka, CEO of Pashupati Paints, returned home safely on Saturday, five days after being abducted by an unidentified criminal gang from Baneshwor area while returning home. family sources said that Murarka came back home alone at about 9pm. They however did not disclose further details, only adding that he is physically all right but in little bit of mental stress. Murarka was abducted while he was traveling in his car with license plate number Ba 3 Cha 3298. A blue vehicle had intercepted his car at Maitidevi area. Soon an armed group dragged his driver out of the car and took Muraka along with the vehicle. But the car was later found abandoned at Pingalasthan in the same evening.

China to provide loan of Rs 13 billion

The Chinese government is going to provide a loan of Rs 13 billion at concessional interest rate.
“The Chinese government has moved forward with the process of providing the concessional loan,” Nepalese ambassador to China, Tanka Karki told today.
The loan totaling $200 million will be used to build Upper Trishuli hydropower project and other development programmes.