Dabur Nepal under lockout threat again

Irish Sun

Thursday 28th August, 2008

(IANS)

Indian ayurvedic medicine giant Dabur, whose Nepal subsidiary faced Maoists' wrath for sponsoring the country's biggest beauty pageant Miss Nepal, is now facing a lockout threat by labourers.

Trade union leader Rajesh Thakur issued a press statement Wednesday at the Dabur Nepal factory in Rampur ...

The union is demanding a 10 percent bonus, failing which, it said, the factory would be shut down from Sunday.

It is also rejecting the profit figures made public by Dabur Nepal last week.

While company authorities put the profit figure for last fiscal at NRS 25.6 million, the union says it is not the actual figure and is demanding that the 'real' profit be made public.

It also said that though it had placed the demands before the Indian company last week, they were not heeded.

Meanwhile, business sources said the Maoists had been sending warning letters to several organisations with direct or indirect Indian investment, asking them not to hire employees from India at a higher salary than Nepali employees.

The Himalayan Times daily, the newspaper with the largest number of Indian employees in India, had received the warning along with some five-star hotels.

In the past, when the Maoists were waging an armed war against the state, they had forced India's Taj Group to end its association with Kathmandu's five-star Hotel de l'Annapurna.

The new threats come even as Maoist supremo Prachanda took oath of office as prime minister this month and promised to usher in an economic revolution.

Prachanda also said that his government would encourage foreign investors.

Dabur Nepal is one of the largest tax-paying companies of the Himalayan republic as well as its biggest exporter.

Comments on this story

All these incidents including the Maoist leader’s China trip will lead to further straining of relations with southern neighbor, India. In view of the way Prachanda, widely known as the 'butcher of the Himalayas' came to power by massacring thousands of innocent Nepalese, it is not unnatural for him to confront the curse of destiny. Despite his obsequious prostration before the Chinese leaders, Beijing visibly snubbed him by even asking his delegation to pay the bill of the hotel where they stayed during the murderer-in-chief’s visit to that country. The bunch of murderers, that the Prachanda government is, can hardly bring Nepal’s strained relations with neighboring countries to an even keel. Long intoxicated by the blood of Nepalese, Maoist thugs seem to have been suffering from ominous hallucinations. Had it not been for the abhorrent servitude of NC leader Girija Koirala, the most abominable creature of Nepalese politics, Maoist terrorists would have never succeeded to grab power. Once in power, they are now confronted with hydra-headed problems the resolution of which demands a high level of political acumen and a deep sense of statesmanship. Maoist murderers might be extraordinary in torturing and bludgeoning innocent people to death. When it comes to political acumen and statesmanship, they are woefully naive. All this indicates that the newly-formed government of terrorists is not going to last long. Its days are numbered. Whoever comes in succession should not forget the poignant call of the tears of Nepalese whose kiths and kins were murdered by the Maoist thugs for no reason at all: 'Put those murderers on trial and give justice to the deceased'.

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