Life after SLC

This year, out of total 547,165 students appearing in the SLC exam, 41.57 percent has passed the examination, known as the 'Iron Gate' among the students. Congratulation to fresh SLC graduates and Best of Luck to those who failed to enter through the gate for exempted SLC exam.

Obviously, now the students will start thronging in colleges to get information about higher studies. Basically, it is important to decide on the subject to be pursued for your studies and future career visiting any college inquiry. Most students who pass SLC are confused about their future academic course. This is happening mainly because of friends' influence and parent pressure.

Students can take advice from friends and family, however they must make the final decision themselves based on interest, capability and future scope competitive domestic and international labour market. Academicians opined that the students should examine the educational background of the past 10 years and opt for a course in +2 based on their performance in class 10. There will be no use opting for science if student is weak in math.

NTA fails to take decision on its annual programme

KATHMANDU, JUN 10 -The Nepal Telecommunica-tions Authority (NTA) has failed to take any decision on its annual programme for the next fiscal year as its board meeting has not taken place for nearly two months.

After its decision to grant unified license to Smart Telecom was challenged in the Supreme Court, the NTA board has remained passive on taking any further decision. Another court case against the appointment of its chairman Digambar Jha is also pending in the court after an interim order against the appointment.

The Ministry of Information of Communications has authorised the NTA board to take decisions in the absence of a chairman by activating clause 60 of the Telecommunications Act that gives the power to remove difficulties and hurdles in the implementation of the Act.

“As the board meeting has not been held, we have been unable to present and get our annual programme approved,” said NTA Director Purushottam Khanal.

Two firms issued LoI for study on shortening Mid-Hill Highway

KATHMANDU, JUN 09 -The government has issued the letter of intention (LoI) to two consultants for conducting a feasibility study on reducing the length of the Mid-Hill Highway.

The Department of Roads has said it will soon sign a contract with the consultants and come up with a new alignment plan for the national priority project within a year.

The two firms are Integrated Developments and Research Services (IDRS) and Beam Consultant. They will carry out the study in two packages. Under the package one, IDRS has proposed to conduct the study of the East section from Pokhara at Rs 1.76 million, excluding VAT. And, Beam has proposed to study the section West from Pokhara at Rs 7.27 million, according to the department.

The current length of the highway is 1,776 km, and many of its sections are overlapped with existing roads. The government, for the last two years, has been planning to cut the length of the highway by at least 300 km, adopting new alignments and tunnels wherever possible.

Handset shortage hits NT’s IP-CDMA project

KATHMANDU, JUN 04 -Nepal Telecom’s (NT) plan to distribute new mobile lines under its new IP-CDMA project has hit snag due to the shortage of handsets compatible with the technology. Even as the company targets to sell 300,000 Removable User Identity Module (RUIM) cards by the end of the current fiscal year, it has not been able to intensify its distribution plan.

NT’s RUIM cards require separate handsets that support voice and data service in IP-CDMA network.
The state-owned company had signed agreement with authorised dealers of Samsung and Alcatel to supply handsets and sell bundling with RUIM cards. But Samsung’s IP-CDMA handset is not compatible with NT’s RUIM card and Alcatel’s bidding handset has become obsolete.

NT so far has distributed around 145,000 RUIM cards—a majority of which includes distribution to existing customers who replaced their old CDMA mobile RUIM cards, according to Rajesh Joshi, joint spokesperson for NT.Old CDMA lines used to support either voice or data service only. Joshi said the new RUIM card has the capacity to provide voice and high speed data service too.