At least 47 people have been killed by a bomb that apparently targeted policeman praying in a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan.
The mosque is within the tightly-guarded police headquarters area.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said “terrorists want to create fear by targeting those who perform the duty of defending Pakistan”.
No group has said it carried out the attack, but it has been linked to the Pakistan Taliban.
The group ended a ceasefire in November, and violence has been on the rise since.
Kathmandu — The Election Commission of Nepal has set the date for the election of the President on March 9th and the Vice President on March 17th.
The Commission will announce the election program and send a written message to the Council of Ministers through the Chief Secretary of the government.
The current President’s term is ending on March 12.
Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya said that based on the decision, the Commission will announce the election program today.
The Commission will send a written message to the Council of Ministers through the Chief Secretary of the Government of Nepal.
Kathmandu — Victoria Nuland, Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs of the US Department of State, has arrived in Nepal. This is the first high-level visit from America after the formation of the new government in Nepal.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nuland is scheduled to stay in Nepal for two days. According to information provided by the American Embassy in Nepal, during her visit, she will meet with senior political leaders in Nepal. She will conduct political meetings with leaders including Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda and Foreign Minister Vimala Rai Paudyal.
She will also observe the government of America’s support for the reconstruction of Nepal and some cultural heritage sites.
London — UK agricultural farms have stopped hiring workers from Nepal due to concerns that the UK’s immigration system is exposing the workers to exploitation. Five licensed recruitment companies have publicly announced or informed the Financial Times that they will not hire workers from Nepal this year.
This sudden halt in recruitment from Nepal, where almost 10% of seasonal workers came from in 2022, risks worsening the already severe labor shortage on British farms. Last year, millions of pounds worth of crops were left to rot because of a lack of workers to harvest them. In 2022, the number of Nepalese workers arriving through the UK’s seasonal worker scheme increased to 2,472 due to Brexit and the Ukraine war, making farms more dependent on workers from outside Europe. However, the surge in Nepalese workers raised concerns from campaigners who claimed that workers from Asia were being charged excessive recruitment fees by job-finding agencies in their home country, making it difficult for the workers to pay off their debts and afford basic needs.
Some of the world’s biggest academic journal publishers have banned or curbed their authors from using the advanced chatbot, ChatGPT. Because the bot uses information from the internet to produce highly readable answers to questions, the publishers are worried that inaccurate or plagiarised work could enter the pages of academic literature.
Several researchers have already listed the chatbot as a co-author on academic studies, and some publishers have moved to ban this practice. But the editor-in-chief of Science, one of the top scientific journals in the world, has gone a step further and forbidden any use of text from the program in submitted papers.
It’s not surprising the use of such chatbots is of interest to academic publishers. Our recent study, published in Finance Research Letters, showed ChatGPT could be used to write a finance paper that would be accepted for an academic journal. Although the bot performed better in some areas than in others, adding in our own expertise helped overcome the program’s limitations in the eyes of journal reviewers.
However, we argue that publishers and researchers should not necessarily see ChatGPT as a threat but rather as a potentially important aide for research – a low-cost or even free electronic assistant.
Our thinking was: if it’s easy to get good outcomes from ChatGPT by simply using it, maybe there’s something extra we can do to turn these good results into great ones.
We first asked ChatGPT to generate the standard four parts of a research study: research idea, literature review (an evaluation of previous academic research on the same topic), dataset, and suggestions for testing and examination. We specified only the broad subject and that the output should be capable of being published in “a good finance journal”.
This was version one of how we chose to use ChatGPT. For version two, we pasted into the ChatGPT window just under 200 abstracts (summaries) of relevant, existing research studies.
We then asked that the program take these into account when creating the four research stages. Finally, for version three, we added “domain expertise” — input from academic researchers. We read the answers produced by the computer program and made suggestions for improvements. In doing so, we integrated our expertise with that of ChatGPT.
We then requested a panel of 32 reviewers each review one version of how ChatGPT can be used to generate an academic study. Reviewers were asked to rate whether the output was sufficiently comprehensive, correct, and whether it made a contribution sufficiently novel for it to be published in a “good” academic finance journal.
The big take-home lesson was that all these studies were generally considered acceptable by the expert reviewers. This is rather astounding: a chatbot was deemed capable of generating quality academic research ideas. This raises fundamental questions around the meaning of creativity and ownership of creative ideas — questions to which nobody yet has solid answers.
The results also highlight some potential strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT. We found that different research sections were rated differently. The research idea and the dataset tended to be rated highly. There was a lower, but still acceptable, rating for the literature reviews and testing suggestions.
Our suspicion here is that ChatGPT is particularly strong at taking a set of external texts and connecting them (the essence of a research idea), or taking easily identifiable sections from one document and adjusting them (an example is the data summary — an easily identifiable “text chunk” in most research studies).
A relative weakness of the platform became apparent when the task was more complex – when there are too many stages to the conceptual process. Literature reviews and testing tend to fall into this category. ChatGPT tended to be good at some of these steps but not all of them. This seems to have been picked up by the reviewers.
We were, however, able to overcome these limitations in our most advanced version (version three), where we worked with ChatGPT to come up with acceptable outcomes. All sections of the advanced research study were then rated highly by reviewers, which suggests the role of academic researchers is not dead yet.
ChatGPT is a tool. In our study, we showed that, with some care, it can be used to generate an acceptable finance research study. Even without care, it generates plausible work.
This has some clear ethical implications. Research integrity is already a pressing problem in academia and websites such as RetractionWatch convey a steady stream of fake, plagiarised, and just plain wrong, research studies. Might ChatGPT make this problem even worse?
It might, is the short answer. But there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. The technology will also only get better (and quickly). How exactly we might acknowledge and police the role of ChatGPT in research is a bigger question for another day. But our findings are also useful in this regard – by finding that the ChatGPT study version with researcher expertise is superior, we show the input of human researchers is still vital in acceptable research.
For now, we think that researchers should see ChatGPT as an aide, not a threat. It may particularly be an aide for groups of researchers who tend to lack the financial resources for traditional (human) research assistance: emerging economy researchers, graduate students and early career researchers. It’s just possible that ChatGPT (and similar programs) could help democratise the research process.
But researchers need to be aware of the ban on its use in the preparation of journal papers. It’s clear that there are drastically different views of this technology, so it will need to be used with care.
Kathmandu : The Supreme Court of Nepal on Friday annulled the status of Home Minister Ravi Lamichhane as a member of parliament citing that the citizenship he had to contend the election was not valid.
SC’s certiorari order rendered Home Minister Lamichhane’s posts both as lawmaker and minister void.
A constitutional bench comprised of acting Chief Justice Hari Krishna Karki, justices Bishwambhar Prasad Shrestha, Ishwar Prasad Katiwada, Dr. Ananda Mohan Bhattarai and Anil Kumar Sinha issued the verdict.
With the decision of SC, Lamichhane has been dismissed from the post of Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister.
SC has found Lamichhane guilty in the case of citizenship and passport.
Lamichhane was elected a member of the House of Representatives (HoR) from Chitwan 2 and appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister a month ago.
Lamichhane is also the president of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) which has 20 lawmakers in the 275-member House.
Meanwhile, RSS adds that, the constitutional bench of Supreme Court issued the verdict to this regard after hearing the case on Lamichhane’s acquisition of Nepali citizenship and the US passport.
With the SC verdict, by-election is to be held in constituency no 2 of Chitwan, the Rising Nepal writes.
The verdict read, “After giving up the US citizenship, Lamichhane was not found adhering to the legal process to acquire the Nepali citizenship again. So, he did not deserve to be the candidate of the member of House of Representatives nor could hold the lawmaker’s post. With this, a certiorari order is issued as per Article 133 (b and c) and Article 137 of Constitution of Nepal by scrapping all activities as making Lamichhane an election candidate, announcing his election victory, and conferring him the certificate.”
KATHMANDU: Nepal has made improvement to reduce hunger with a score of 19.1 in the 2022 Global Hunger Index (GHI), a drop from 21.2 in 2014.
The country is ranked 81st out of the 121 countries, ahead of some South Asian countries, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. However, it is behind Sri Lanka which is ranked 64th with 13.6 points. India’s position has depleted because it fell to 107th position with 29.1 points. Similarly, Bangladesh is ranked 84th with 19.6, while Pakistan 99th with 26.1. Afghanistan is ranked 1.9th with 29.9.
The GHI report was published jointly by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe amid a function here organised by the NGO Federation of Nepal. The index less than 10 points reflect low hunger, and between 10 and 19.9 moderate hunger. Similarly, from 20 to 34.9 indicates serious hunger, and from 35 to 49.9 alarming. Above 50 reveals extremely alarming.
The aim of the GHI is to trigger action to end hunger around the world, it has been shared. As the 2022 Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows, Nepal scoring 19.1 on the GHI signifies that it has a moderate level of hunger. It has continued to do improvements on the GHI scores over the past 22 years. Nepal scored 37 on the GHI Trend in 2000. The score dropped to 30 in 2007, 21.2 in 2014 and 19.1 in 2022.
Although Nepal has done some progress in reducing hunger, it is not satisfactory, said Dr Yamuna Ghale, food security expert. GHI scores are calculated based on a formula combining four indicators—undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality—that together capture the multidimensional nature of hunger, she said.
When we look at data of stunting rates regionally, there is a grim picture, she said. Stunting rates vary across the provinces with the range of 22.6 and 22.9 percent in Gandaki and Bagmati Provinces respectively, and the figure jumps to more than double being at 47.8 percent in Karnali Province. This is not a matter of satisfaction, she said.
Likewise, children consuming foods rich in iron and iron supplements are low across provinces. According to her, Province 1 and 2 have the lowest percentage in the case of women and children respectively. Women and children in Province 1 and 2 were also found the most anemic in the country, which could be due to less or no iron intakes, she said.
Cooperation, coordination and collaboration among related stakeholders, ensuring localized, sustainable, inclusive and resilient food system and understanding relevant stakeholders in the realization of human rights to food could be a way out, she suggested.
Similarly, alignment with legal provisions including gender responsiveness, establishment of responsive institutions, capacitating legislators and the government and ensuring target provisions like gender, geography, vulnerabilities, emergencies and market shocks could be pathways, according to her.
RSS
Kathmandu — Shree Panchami also known as Basanta Panchami is being celebrated today across the country by worshipping Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, wisdom, learning, art, music and culture.
The day is very special for students and new learners. Students take early bath, observe the mass Saraswati Puja in schools, visit temples and listen to Basanta Shrawan.
Many educational institutions arrange special prayers or pujas in the morning to seek blessing of the goddess. Poetic and musical gatherings are held in some communities in reverence of Saraswati.
Many families mark this day by sitting with young children, encouraging them to write their first words with their fingers, while some just study or create music together.
Goddess Saraswati is worshiped with various names such as Bharati, Sharada, Jagatmata, Bageshwari, Kaumari, Baradayani and Kamdhenu.
People from Hindu and Sikh communities, mainly in Nepal and eastern India, observe this festival.
It is believed that the festival marks the beginning of the spring season.
All necessary preparation for the event has been made, the office shared.
History of the festival
There are numerous folk tales linked with the auspicious day, on the basis of the region. The most widely known story is that of Kalidasa, the legendary poet. The story talks about Kalidasa, a mere simpleton, who is tricked into marrying a princess who does not respect him. The poet tries to take his life because of this, but just before he can do it, goddess Saraswati appears in front of him. He is asked to take a dip in the river, and when he emerges from the water, he becomes an intelligent, cultured and knowledgeable person. He eventually becomes a renowned poet. Thus, devotees pray to the goddess to bestow the gift of knowledge on them.
Basant Panchami takes place on the fifth day (Panchami) of the Magh month of Shukla Paksha every year. The day also marks the start of the preparations for Holi, celebrated 40 days after Saraswati Puja.
Yellow colour is considered significant for the festival as the day is commemorated at a time when vibrant yellow flowers of the ripe mustard plants appear in the crop fields. Many other yellow flowers of the spring season are also offered to the goddess Saraswati.
NEW DELHI: India Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid floral tributes to fallen heroes at the National War Memorial on the occasion of the 74th Republic Day celebrations.
He led the nation in paying solemn tributes to the fallen heroes by laying a wreath.
The Republic Day celebrations commenced with the homage ceremony at the National War Memorial.
PM Modi was received by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on his arrival at the National War Memorial.
The Inter-Services Guards were founded by 7 Soldiers from each service.
This year, the guards will be commanded by an Air Force Officer, Sqn Ldr Akash Ganghas. When the Prime Minister laid the wreath, the Inter-Services Guards presented `Salami Shastra’ followed by ‘Shok Shastra’.
Simultaneously, the buglers sounded the ‘Last Post’. Thereafter, ‘two minutes silence’ was observed, after which the buglers played ‘Rouse’ and the guards presented ‘Salami Shastra’ again.
The Prime Minister then endorsed his remarks in the digital Visitor’s Book of the National War Memorial.
Later, PM Modi and other dignitaries headed to the saluting dais at Rajpath to witness the Republic Day parade.
President Droupadi Murmu will lead the nation in celebrating Republic Day from Kartavya Path, formerly the Raj Path.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is the Chief Guest at the parade, the first Egyptian premier to be invited to the occasion.
Earlier, Prime Minister Modi extended greetings to the nation on the occasion of the 74th Republic Day.
“We wish to move ahead unitedly to make the dreams of the great freedom fighters of the country come true.”
The week-long celebrations commenced on January 23, the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
(ANI)
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN: A United Nations (UN) delegation has warned the Taliban that Afghanistan would be further isolated if it isolates its women, Afghanistan-based news agency Khaama Press reported.
According to The Khaama Press, a high-level UN delegation traveled to Afghanistan this week and met with high-ranking Taliban officials to ensure the protection of women and girls’ rights amid the growing concern over their alienation.
The Taliban was called by UN legal experts to prioritize protecting the rights of women and girls under any circumstance. The international community was also urged to support Afghan women during these critical times.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, the Executive Director of UN Women Sima Bahous, and the Assistant Secretary-General for UN political, peacebuilding, and peace operations Khaled Khiari, were part of the UN delegation visiting Kabul.
The aim of the four-day visit was to observe the situation, engage with de facto authorities and highlight the UN solidarity with the Afghan people, the delegation said in a statement on Friday.
Meanwhile, the senior UN team will share their findings and recommendations with all member states, which may influence global policies towards Afghanistan in the short and long terms, Khaama Press reported.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, as quoted by Khaama Press said: “The recent bans issued by the Taliban caretaker government restricting women and girls from educational institutions and workplaces is of great concern for the UN. Indeed, these restrictions are isolating Afghanistan itself in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis.”
Amid the ongoing violation of the rights of Afghan women under the Taliban regime, Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid recently said in a statement that overturning restrictions against women is not a priority for the group, reported Khaama Press.
The Taliban said that it would not permit any acts that violate Islamic law, and the concerns regarding restrictions on women’s rights will be dealt with according to the established rule of the group in the country.
Mujahid in a statement said that “the Islamic Emirate tries to regulate all matters in accordance with the Islamic Sharia, and the ruling government cannot allow acts against the Sharia in the country,” reported Khaama Press.
The latest action by the Taliban to ban women from working in NGOs generated protests by female university students and women activists in several regions of the country, as well as brought condemnations, globally.
The two-part programme – India: The Modi Question – questions Mr Modi’s leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The first episode was broadcast in the UK on Tuesday, and while it did not air in India, content was shared online, according to government adviser Kanchan Gupta.
He said the government had issued orders to both YouTube and Twitter to block content, using legislation under the country’s information and technology rules. He said both social media companies had complied.
Last week, a spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry termed the BBC documentary a “propaganda piece” meant to push a “discredited narrative”.
Rishi Sunak was asked about the documentary at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday, Sky news reported.
Imran Hussain, Labour MP for Bradford East, asked the PM about claims in the film that the Foreign Office “knew the extent of Mr Modi’s involvement in the Gujarat massacre,” and asked whether Mr Sunak believed Mr Modi was “directly responsible” for the violence that ensued.
The documentary was originally broadcasted in the U.K., but it quickly generated hype in India after unauthorized video clips began circulating on social media platforms, reminding viewers of Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots—and prompting the Indian government this week to block it from being aired on Indian platforms.
ISLAMABAD — Millions of Pakistanis encountered power outage on Monday morning after the power distribution system of the South Asian country broke down, said the ministry of energy.
The energy ministry said in a statement the countrywide power breakdown was triggered after the frequency of the national grid decreased suddenly.
“According to initial reports, the system frequency of the national grid system decreased at 07:34 in the morning, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in the power system,” said the ministry.
The ministry added that efforts were underway on a fast track to restore the system as early as possible.
Local media quoting unanimous officials from the ministry reported that it might take 24 hours to restore the system completely.
According to the local reports, all major cities including the capital Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta have lost power supply completely.
Quetta Electric Supply Company told local media that 22 districts of the country’s southwest Balochistan province are without power. (Xinhua)
Kathmandu: King Charles III of the United Kingdom has sent a message of condolence to Nepal and Nepalis over the Yeti Airlines plane crash on Sunday that killed all 72 members onboard and left the country in a deep shock and mourning.
In a letter addressed to President Bidya Devi Bhandari of Nepal, the British King has said that he and his wife are deeply shocked by the tragic loss of lives following the plane crash. “My wife and I were truly shocked to learn of the utterly tragic loss of life following the plane crash in Pokhara on Sunday,” says the British king in the letter. “Our special thoughts and prayers are with you and the people of Nepal at this time of immeasurable sorrow.”
The British king has said that he and wife are deeply saddened by the heartbreaking incident and they wanted to extend deepest sympathy and condolences to all the bereaved families and to those who have lost their loved ones.
“I remember with the greatest fondness my visits to Nepal and the many remarkable Nepalis I have met both there and around the world. And I know that Nepal is held in the highest regard by many people in the United Kingdom who stand in solidarity with your country at such a time of national mourning,” the king says in the letter.
He has also offered support to Nepal. “Please be assured that you have our most resolute support,” says the king in the letter.
British Ambassador to Nepal Nicola Pollitt has confirmed the letter and said that she has communicated the king’s message to Nepal president. “As a mark of the sadness we all share with Nepal after Sunday’s tragic air crash in Pokhara, I conveyed a message of condolence from His Majesty King Charles to President Bhandari today,” Pollitt wrote on Twitter.
DHAKA — The presidential election of Bangladesh will be held by Feb. 23, the Election Commission (EC)’s secretary Md Jahangir Alam said here on Sunday.
He made the announcement at a news conference Sunday evening at his office, saying the incumbent president Abdul Hamid is not to be re-elected for another term, as the country’s constitution allows a maximum of two terms for a person in the post.
Hamid’s tenure will expire on April 24.
Alam said the schedule for the presidential election will soon be announced. (Xinhua)
NEW DELHI: A BBC documentary that looks into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role during communal riots that wracked the western Indian state of Gujarat in 2002 has been criticized by the Indian government as a “propaganda piece” while the broadcaster has said its two-part series was “rigorously researched.”
The BBC says India: the Modi Question “examines the tensions between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority and explores the politics of Mr. Modi in relation to those tensions.” The first part was broadcast in Britain on Tuesday, while the second will be aired next week.
The communal riots erupted in Gujarat when Modi, who became India’s prime minister in 2014, was the state’s chief minister. More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the violence that broke out after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was set on fire, killing dozens.
The documentary highlights an unpublished report that the BBC said it obtained from the British Foreign Office. The report had, according to the broadcaster, raised issues over Modi’s actions during the riots and claims that he was “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity” that enabled the violence.
“The bias, lack of objectivity and continuing colonial mindset is blatantly visible,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told reporters in response to questions at a press briefing Thursday. Questioning the motives behind the documentary, he said it was “designed to push a particular discredited narrative.”
“It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise, the agenda behind it and frankly we do not wish to dignify such efforts,” Bagchi said.
India’s western state of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, right, and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, left, present a garland to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a rally in Mumbai, India, Jan. 19, 2023.
In 2012, an inquiry by India’s Supreme Court had exonerated Modi for any complicity in the riots, including charges that he had told police officers not to restrain the rioters. Last year, the top court also dismissed a petition that questioned his exoneration.
A day after the Indian government’s sharp criticism of the documentary, the BBC said in a statement that the program was “rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards.”
The British broadcaster said that “a wide range of voices, witnesses and experts were approached and we have featured a range of opinions, including responses from people in the BJP [Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party].”
The statement also said that it had offered the Indian government an opportunity to reply to the matters raised in the series, but the government declined.
The BBC statement said the company was “committed to highlighting important issues from around the world.”
In response to a question on the documentary by British lawmaker Imran Hussain in Parliament on Thursday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that “we don’t tolerate persecution anywhere” but added that he “did not agree with the characterization” of the Indian prime minister.
VOA
GENEVA: The U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, has recorded an alarming rise in the death toll of Rohingya refugees while attempting dangerous sea journeys in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal in 2022.
At least 348 people died or disappeared while fleeing Myanmar or Bangladesh by sea last year, making it one of the deadliest years since 2014. That was when more than 700 people reportedly lost their lives or disappeared in a desperate bid for protection from persecution.
The U.N. refugee agency says more than 3,500 Rohingya attempted perilous sea crossings in 2022. Some 700 people made similar journeys the year before.
UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said the dramatic increase in the number of people willing to risk their lives smacks of despair among a population that sees no way out of its misery.
“We are hearing reports, as we mentioned, from Rohingya about this growing sense of desperation and this anxiety about the future. And really no hope for security, for protection,” Mantoo said. “Some of them are willing to reunite with family members. Others, their vulnerabilities are being exploited by traffickers or smugglers luring them with both promises and false hope.”
Mantoo said most of the 39 boats that made the dangerous sea journey last year departed from Myanmar and Bangladesh, highlighting the sense of desperation among Rohingya in those two countries.
In the last two months of 2022, she said four boats carrying more than 450 Rohingya disembarked in Aceh, Indonesia, and another boat carrying 100 people disembarked in Sri Lanka. She said one boat, carrying 180 Rohingya Muslims, is feared to have sunk in early December.
“Calls by UNHCR to maritime authorities in the region to rescue and disembark people in distress have been ignored or have gone unheeded with many boats adrift for weeks … UNHCR repeats its call for prompt search and rescue and timely disembarkation in a place of safety, and for support to countries where Rohingya refugees are disembarked,” Mantoo said.
In August 2017, more than 750,000 Rohingya Muslims subject to violence and persecution in Myanmar fled to Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh. They are living in overcrowded camps along with hundreds of thousands of other refugees who previously had fled from Myanmar.
The UNHCR says conditions in Myanmar have not improved and it is not safe for them to return to a country that views them as illegal immigrants and denies them citizenship.
(VOA)
