Sweeties !

(Innocences abroad on the faces of Angila, Ayushma and Aarju: the combination of holiness and honesty, selflessness and simplicity!)

These are among few sweet daughters in Goettingen. We have seven daughters altogether in Goettingen. Aarju, Aditi, Amisha (Omisha), Angila, Anshu, Ayushma and Cizita. Out of seven, the name of six daughters start with nepali alphabet "AA". All they are pretty and talented in different field of child world. We wish all the happiness in their face! May God provide them all the happiness and enjoyment in their lives. We wish to put photos from other daughters also in our small window towards rest of the world, our Blog. Would you please to send few photos to me or upload yourself into this blog?!

Working in the Forest of Germany

There is the quite a diverse and new experiences for me about working in the Forest of Germany. Since last month, I have been intesively engaged in the collection of samples from three different areas of Germany. These are few photos from the field work at Schorfheide Chorin. The forest areas are intensively being researched for different aspects of forestry. I have been involved on the genetic aspects of Forest. I will upload moree photos and experiences later on...!

TEST your Knowledge on National Geography !

This is the beautiful place in Nepal. I would like to ask you, to write the name of the place. There is the surprise prize for the correct answer.

Nepali Comedian Song !

Educating a people !

By Biswas Baral
This year's School Leaving Certificate (SLC) results, with 68.47 percent students clearing the exams, is the best ever in the annual exams' 75-year-long history. Though doubts linger about the underlying reason behind the better-than-expected outcome — regarding the amount and appropriateness of grace marks, for instance — the educationists deserve a pat on the back. Secondary education reform, especially since 2007, when the government introduced the provision of incorporating only questions from the grade 10 syllabus in SLC question papers, has been particularly effective.
But not all envisaged reforms have produced the desired results. The much-hyped National Literacy Campaign (NLC) launched by the erstwhile UCPN (Maoist)-led government with the aim of making about 2.6 million Nepalis literate has turned out a damp squib. The Non-Formal Education Centre (NFEC), which has been tasked with overseeing the programme, hasn't even been able to pay the teachers working under its watch.
It was strange that NFEC couldn't put together enough money to fund NLC. Notably, for the current fiscal year, the erstwhile Maoist-led government had set aside Rs. 38.98 billion of the total Rs. 236 billion (U.S. $3.5 billion) national budget for education, which amounts to 16.5 percent of total budget, a massive share of the pie by any standard. (The second biggest cut of Rs 15.58 billion went to health.) This begs the question of where all the money is going.
Nonetheless, the Maoist intent, nicely captured in their budget-related slogan of “New Nepal, Learned Nepal” cannot be doubted. And nor can their aim of providing primary education to 91 percent of all Nepalis by the end of the current fiscal year.
But the sad fact remains that Nepal's adult literacy rate hovers around 50 percent — which means nearly half the populace is still uneducated. More problematically, just 60.6 females are educated for every 100 educated males. To this day, there are enormous social constraints which prevent girls from attending school. Most school-age rural girls are involved with household chores and parents are reluctant to take up the tedious work.
The good news is: even small scholarship schemes amounting to no more than a couple of hundred rupees have proven successful at getting girls to school. The provision of free snacks and food ration in return for sending children to school has also been effective in some parts of the country. The government's bid to educate parents on the importance of education, too, seems to be working.
Overall, there are enough reasons not to cut the education sector's share in next year's budget. Certainly not in one of the least developed countries in the world. It is no coincidence that the countries with the best literacy ratios (U.S., Japan, South Korea, Germany, Sweden — all at 99 percent) are also the most developed, while the least educated (most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with under 40 percent literates) are the least developed.
Health and education are increasingly being seen as among people's basic rights, right around the world. Policymakers are realising that higher development and economic goals are nigh on impossible to achieve with an ailing and uneducated population.
As the period of transition lengthens, it will be easy for policymakers
to be distracted by petty demands and lose sight of the bigger picture. But it will be a huge mistake to overlook the growing importance of education in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.
Education will be equally important in maintaining peace and stability in the country. Educated people are tolerant people, and more likely to warm to opposing views than those deprived of the inner light of knowledge. Educated people, more often then not, are employed, and less likely to engage in anti-social activities. Educated people are also far less likely to be swayed by political rhetoric and more likely to demand concrete action and hold their elected representatives accountable. In other words, a healthy and educated people will be the future nation builders.
Noble Prize winning economist Amartya Sen could not have put it in better words when he said, in the course of his Commonwealth education conference 2003 speech in Edinburgh, Scotland: “[H.G.] Wells was not exaggerating when he said, in his Outline of History: 'human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.' If we continue to leave vast sections of the people of the world outside the orbit of education, we make the world not only less just, but also less secure.”
And so with Nepal. For all these reasons (and so many more impossible to enumerate here) education must remain at the top of government priorities at least as long as all Nepalis are not educated and thus equipped with the capacity to see the right from the wrong. To wit: Only an educated populace can ensure long term peace and stability in Nepal.

Mingma Norbu Sherpa Memorial Scholarships 2010

In honoring Mingma Norbu Sherpa's legacy in conservation, and in hopes ofinspiring new future conservationists, two Mingma Norbu Sherpa MemorialScholarships will be provided. The scholarships are available for twostudents interested in pursuing a Masters Degree at Lincoln University, NewZealand. Applicants from remote mountain regions and women are encouragedto apply

.1. Number of AwardsTwo Scholarships for two years period (January 2010 to December 2012)2. Fields of StudyMaster in Natural Resource ManagementMaster in Parks, Recreation and Tourism

3. Scholarship BenefitsFully paid tuition coverage for two years.One round trip airfare to New Zealand.Partial contribution to living expenses.

4. RequirementsApplicants must be Nepali nationals, under the age of 35 years, and havecompleted a Bachelors degree in Environmental Sciences, Forestry, Agricultural Sciences or other relevant fields.

Applicant must be able to demonstrate his/her recent English Language
Proficiency by presenting TOEFL scores of 100 iBT, 600 paper, or 250computer, and essay rating (TWE) 5, or an IELTS of 6.5. Lincoln University reserves the right to accept or reject the test scores.The scholarships are intended to support Nepalese who are committed to thefuture of environmental protection and sustainable natural resourcemanagement in Nepal. A two page essay demonstrating track records of havingwork in these areas and commitments for the future must accompany theapplication.5. Application

Dateline: July 17 2009

Completed application with one passport size photograph, resume withcontact information (phone number) and supporting documents must be mailed to: Selection Committee Secretariat, Mingma Norbu Sherpa Memorial Scholarship, P.O. Box 224, Kathmandu, Nepal or email: lisa@mos.com.npOnly short listed candidates will be called for an interview.

International Summer School 2009 in Göttingen, Germany

Dear All,
In case, the following announcements have not reached you, I would like to share with you the Call for Papers (attached) for the Summer-School inGoettingen, Germany, 21 Sept- 02 October 2009 (I am afraid this is during Dashain). In the mean time, please also have a look into the program that weare going to organize in Dehradun, in November 2009 under the following link:
http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/114487.html
For both cases, only the travel back and forth from Nepal will be considered.I am not sure whether I will join the Dehradun event, but for sure I will bein Goettingen during the summer school. It would be nice to meeting you some of you who are not in Goettingen.
I hope you all are doing fine.
Namaste,
Netra
PS: Please share this email to other colleagues who are graduated from Germanuniversities (forestry).

1.02 Billion People are Hungry !

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2009) — World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1,020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).The most recent increase in hunger is not the consequence of poor global harvests but is caused by the world economic crisis that has resulted in lower incomes and increased unemployment. This has reduced access to food by the poor, the UN agency said.
"A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. "The silent hunger crisis — affecting one sixth of all of humanity — poses a serious risk for world peace and security. We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions."
"The present situation of world food insecurity cannot leave us indifferent," he added.
Poor countries, Diouf stressed, "must be given the development, economic and policy tools required to boost their agricultural production and productivity. Investment in agriculture must be increased because for the majority of poor countries a healthy agricultural sector is essential to overcome poverty and hunger and is a pre-requisite for overall economic growth."
"Many of the world's poor and hungry are smallholder farmers in developing countries. Yet they have the potential not only to meet their own needs but to boost food security and catalyse broader economic growth. To unleash this potential and reduce the number of hungry people in the world, governments, supported by the international community, need to protect core investments in agriculture so that smallholder farmers have access not only to seeds and fertilisers but to tailored technologies, infrastructure, rural finance, and markets," said Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
"For most developing countries there is little doubt that investing in smallholder agriculture is the most sustainable safety net, particularly during a time of global economic crisis," Nwanze added. "The rapid march of urgent hunger continues to unleash an enormous humanitarian crisis. The world must pull together to ensure emergency needs are met as long term solutions are advanced," said Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme.
Hunger on the rise

Whereas good progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily on the rise for the past decade, FAO said. The number of hungry people increased between 1995-97 and 2004-06 in all regions except Latin America and the Caribbean. But even in this region, gains in hunger reduction have been reversed as a result of high food prices and the current global economic downturn.
This year, mainly due to the shocks of the economic crisis combined with often high national food prices, the number of hungry people is expected to grow overall by about 11 percent, FAO projects, drawing on analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Almost all of the world's undernourished live in developing countries. In Asia and the Pacific, an estimated 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger; in Sub-Saharan Africa 265 million; in Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million; in the Near East and North Africa 42 million; and in developed countries 15 million in total.
In the grip of the crisis
The urban poor will probably face the most severe problems in coping with the global recession, because lower export demand and reduced foreign direct investment are more likely to hit urban jobs harder. But rural areas will not be spared. Millions of urban migrants will have to return to the countryside, forcing the rural poor to share the burden in many cases.
Some developing countries are also struggling with the fact that money transfers (remittances) sent from migrants back home have declined substantially this year, causing the loss of foreign exchange and household income. Reduced remittances and a projected decline in official development assistance will further limit the ability of countries to access capital for sustaining production and creating safety nets and social protection schemes for the poor.
Unlike previous crises, developing countries have less room to adjust to the deteriorating economic conditions, because the turmoil is affecting practically all parts of the world more or less simultaneously. The scope for remedial mechanisms, including exchange-rate depreciation and borrowing from international capital markets for example, to adjust to macroeconomic shocks, is more limited in a global crisis.
The economic crisis also comes on the heel of the food and fuel crisis of 2006-08. While food prices in world markets declined over the past months, domestic prices in developing countries came down more slowly. They remained on average 24 percent higher in real terms by the end of 2008 compared to 2006. For poor consumers, who spend up to 60 percent of their incomes on staple foods, this means a strong reduction in their effective purchasing power. It should also be noted that while they declined, international food commodity prices are still 24 percent higher than in 2006 and 33 percent higher than in 2005.
The 2009 hunger report (The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI) will be presented in October.

Britain's 10 richest footballers .... and their wives

They’re young, talented, worshipped by fans and paid millions of pounds. The recession has done little to hit the earning power of Britain’s footballers, with many climbing their way up the Sunday Times rich list. The particularly astute players continue to rake it in with sponsorship deals and a WAG-filled wedding featured in OK! Magazine.
Here are the top ten richest footballers aged under 30.
1. Michael Owen
Worth: £40 millionThis week Owen, 29, accepted a substantial payout from the Daily Express over "incredulous allegations" that his football career was over. The injury-prone star is currently out of contract but he was earning £105,000 a week at Newcastle United. He also has a sponsorship deal with Umbro, netting him £2 million a year.
2. Wayne Rooney
Worth: £35 millionOne can only imagine the life of luxury that baby Rooney will be born into later this year. Wayne and Coleen, who are expecting their first child, are worth a staggering £35 million – not bad for 23 year olds. Manchester United pay Wayne £100,000 a week and he has endorsement deals with Nike, Coca-Cola and EA Sports, the computer games company. Last summer, he signed a £1 million two-year deal to become a global face for Mercedes.
3. Rio Ferdinand
Worth: £30 millionThe Manchester United defender has come a long way since his days growing up on a Peckham council estate. The 30 year old earns £120,000 a week and has a lucrative sponsorship deal with Nike. He also has properties in London, Morocco and the Caribbean.
4. Frank Lampard
Worth: £20 millionLampard, 30, is likely to be financially hit by the split from his ex-fiancé, Elen Rives, who has moved out of their £8.5 million townhouse with their two daughters. He signed a five-year, £140,000-a-week deal with Chelsea in August.
5. Steven Gerrard
Worth: £20 millionLiverpool’s talisman, 28, earns £120,000 a week, and endorsement deals with Adidas and Lucozade add £750,000 a year to his income, giving him annual earnings of at least £7 million. His wife, leading WAG Alex Curran, admitted in February to Tatler that the credit crunch had reined in her spending. “I do my nails myself,” she said. “The nail varnish I’m wearing was only £2 from a bargain bin.”
6. Cristiano Ronaldo
Worth: £18 millionRecently dubbed “Mr. Metrosexual” after being spotted wearing a pink baseball cap with a flower tucked behind his ear, the Manchester United forward can afford to splash out on colourful accessories. The 24 year old has a £120,000-a-week contract and is the face of Coca-Cola and Nike. He has also opened a fashion boutique under the name "CR7" – his initials and shirt number.
7. John Terry
Worth: £17mThe England and Chelsea captain’s mother and mother in law were arrested recently on suspicion of theft, after making off with £800 worth of clothes and groceries from Tesco and Marks & Spencer. It all seemed rather bizarre given that their son is one of the best paid players in the Premier league, earning £130,000 a week.
8. Damien Duff
Worth: £14 millionNotoriously shy Duff does not rake in the cash from magazine deals or sponsorships, but the Newcastle defender has invested in property in Ireland, London and the Caribbean. With a wage of £70,000 a week he can afford a little privacy.
9. Ashley Cole
Worth (with wife Cheryl Cole): £13 million Ashley Cole, aka “Britain’s most hated celebrity”, was recently arrested for being drunk and disorderly whilst wife Cheryl was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief. His marriage may be turbulent but his earning power continues to increase, with a £4 million salary from Chelsea and a lucrative Adidas boot deal.
10. Harry Kewell
Worth: £12 million"Australia's finest football export" now plays for Galatasaray in Istanbul, although he is based in the UK with his former Emmerdale actress wife, Sheree Murphy, and their three children. Kewell left Liverpool last year after five years on £60,000 a week.
By Lauren Thompson

A reception for Humboldt Scholars and their families by the Honorable President of Germay

Welcome speech by the President of Germany(center) ! His wife (left) and President of Humboldt fundation (right).

We were more than 1200 participants on the annual meeting of Humboldt foundation in Berlin on June 8-10, 2009. The President of Germany, Dr. Horst Köhler, gave a reception for the Humboldt fellows and their families in the garden of President office. Among these participants 613 were research fellow, 324 spouses and more than 300 childrens. All were in the same hotel and it was very big international gathering. The research fellows were from 82 countries. We were two nepalies families there. The other research fellow was Dr. Rameshor Adhakari from the Central Department of Chemistry, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu. He is Assistant Professor. Presently he is Humboldt fellow in Martin Luther University in Halle. He is going back to Nepal in last of July after completion of his research stay in Germany. I am sharing some of the photos of the ceremoney. However, I could not take a picture with the honorable president.

(Dr. H. Bhattarai and Dr. B. Paudel with other Nepalese scholars at the premise of Premises of President's Office, Berlin, Germany!)

International Graduate School Life Science Munich (LSM), Germany

The Graduate School Life Science Munich (LSM) of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich offers an international PhD program in life sciences covering areas of anthropology, biochemistry, cell biology, ecology, evolution, genetics, microbiology, plant sciences, systematics and zoology. The program will be complemented by lectures, seminars and workshops, and provides scientific training in one of Germany’s top universities. Applicants will be selected based on academic qualification, research experience and motivation. The LSM also accepts outstanding students with a Bachelor’s degree, which will be enrolled in a preparatory program (covered by a stipend of 643 Euro per month).
Further Scholarship Information and Application
http://www.lsm.bio.lmu.de

Application Deadline: 30 June 2009

Ph.D. in Agriculture at Goettingen University

Application Deadline: until 15th July for the upcoming winter semester.
“International Ph.D. Program for Agricultural Sciences in Göttingen (IPAG)” at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany. IPAG is designed to provide PhD candidates professional training in one of the following six majors:
-Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology
-Agronomy
-Animal Production
-Management of Natural Resources
-Agribusiness
-Tropical and International Agriculture
The PhD program emphasizes independent research on the part of the participants. The graduate program includes lectures, tutorials, seminars, and methods courses. In addition, IPAG provides training in oral and written communication skills, including scientific writing and publishing, elective courses, and participation in international conferences or workshops. IPAG also emphasizes soft skills like teamwork, problem solving and moderation techniques. The study advisory provides any necessary assistance with regards to courses and logistic matters.
At the end of the PhD program, a doctoral thesis can either be submitted in a traditional format or as a collection of scientific publications: the latter must have been published in internationally recognized journals and be supplemented with a general introduction and a discussion of the results. The degree PhD or, alternatively, Dr. sc. agr. will be awarded after successful defence of the doctoral thesis and publication of the thesis.

Our minister's Chartikala