AUGUST 13, 2008 KATHMANDU, Aug 11 - Indian Ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood on Monday assured the agitating journalts of Delhi-based Nepal-1 Television that he would convey their demands to the management for early resolution to the pestering problems. Indian Embassy in a statement stated that the envoy told the journalists, who had reached the embassy, that their demands, which the management of the channel is aware of, would be conveyed by it, urging early resolution.
Before meeting the Indian envoy, the journalists and other staffers of the Television channel, who have been protesting against the management for the last four weeks to press for their demands, had also staged a sit-in outside the embassy, demanding its intervention in the matter.
The Indian envoy, however, justified that the embassy had no role to play in the dispute, saying that the matter was essentially a labor dispute between the management and the staffers.
He, on the other hand, assured that the embassy could only convey their demands out of respect for the sentiments of the agitating workers and their desire to seek help from the embassy.
Last month, the agitating employees had stopped working in Channel's Kathmandu-based bureau accusing the management of failing to implement the 14-point agreement, reached last year. The demand of the journalists includes appointment
letters to the staffers, salary increment and regular pay, among others.
Talking to the Post, Raj Kumar Regmi, president of Federation of Nepalese Journalists, Nepal One chapter, said it is a humiliating experience for the working journalists to come on the streets to press for their demands.
"But we have no option but to resort to streets as the management has run away cheating Nepali working journalists and employees," Regmi said, urging the government to intervene in the matter and provide compensation .
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