Change of stance by opposition Maoists regarding integration and rehabilitation of former People’s Liberation Army rebels continues to affect the fragile peace process in Nepal.

Two days after UCPN (Maoist) chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ announced possibility of solving the vexed issue within four months, the party did a flip-flop on Friday.

Maoist members of the special committee on integration and rehabilitation of the nearly 19000 former PLA rebels abstained from a meeting to resolve the key issue that has brought the peace process to a standstill.

The Maoists who orchestrated a six-day strike earlier this month are demanding removal of the government and formation of a national unity government led by them before holding any formal talks on the peace process.

Worried at developments, the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) has termed the need to arrive at a consensus among the parties as “extremely urgent”.

Established in January 2007 and entrusted with the task of monitoring arms and personnel of PLA as well as Nepal Army, UNMIN’s tenure has been extended six times till date.

The last extension for a period of four months till September 15, 2010 came on Wednesday. “The Security Council is not happy about the extensions and expects to see positive development,” said UNMIN chief Karin Landgren.

She also expressed concern at the political parties not capitalizing on the conducive environment created last week after Maoists withdrew their strike.

The Security Council has asked the Nepal government as well as UCPN (M) to agree on a time-bound action plan on integration and rehabilitation of Maoist rebels with help from the special committee.

The deadline for drafting a new constitution and tenure of the Constituent Assembly expires on May 28. The country could come under emergency rule if the tenures of both are not extended.

An investigation by environment body Greenpeace has revealed immediate radiation risk to people at a scrapyard in west Delhi’s Mayapuri area where a person died after exposure to radiation last month.

“The investigation has identified hotspots more than 5,000 times natural background radiation,” an expert said after a Greenpeace team visited Mayapuri on Friday morning.

The government had earlier given a clean chit to the scrap yard.

Greenpeace has shared the information with local residents and the concerned authorities.

Police had said the source of the leak last month was a radioactive gamma cell containing Cobalt 60 that was auctioned as scrap by Delhi University’s chemistry department two months ago.

People with more than Rs 10 lakh annual income may not get the tax relief originally proposed in the Direct Taxes Code, as the Finance Ministry is for tweaking slabs across the board to offset concessions elsewhere.

Under the first draft of DTC — which when implemented will replace the archaic Income Tax Act, 1961 — income of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh was to attract tax at the rate of 20 per cent, but the final draft expected by June 15 may propose slapping 30 per cent tax on any income above Rs 10 lakh per annum, according to sources.

This is to make up for the possible concessions the ministry may extend in other areas like exempting long term savings from tax at the time of withdrawal and the way Minimum Alternate Tax is calculated, sources said.

As such, the relief on highest tax slab would not be much, since under the present regime too, 30 per cent tax is imposed on income of more than Rs eight lakh a year.

Sources said the ministry is reworking the August 2009 draft following feedback from stakeholders. Under this, the 10 per cent tax proposed on income up to Rs 10 lakh may now stand scaled down to Rs five lakh a year. And income of Rs five-10 lakh a year would attract 20 per cent tax, although the first draft proposed slapping this rate on Rs 10-25 lakh income.
Further, the ministry might also agree to retain the current provision of following exempt-exempt-exempt (EEE) model for long term savings like provident fund and pension, instead of changing to exempt-exempt-tax (EET). EET model implies that tax would be imposed on long term savings at the time of withdrawal.

On tax exemptions on home loans, on which the first draft is completely silent, sources said that there might be no rebates in the second draft as well, since the individual tax exemption limit on savings like insurance and others is proposed to be hiked to Rs three lakh from the current Rs one lakh.

“This more than compensates” for doing away with tax rebates on the housing loans, the source said.