Photo: Gagan Thapa conversing with the attendees of meeting Photo Courtesy: Shila Parajuli On 17^th July, Friday, local authorities held meeting regarding the suggestion collection from public on the draft of new constitution in the Deerwalk premises. Gagan Thapa, a member of Executive Committee of Nepali Congress Party, started the program by advocating to the public that in any election area, meetings are meant to be conducted regularly so that people can raise their problems to their leaders. He was not happy because representatives of all the wards were not present. Thapa mentioned, “The Constitution Assembly has come up with a draft of constitution. There is online platform where people can suggest improving the laws mentioned in the draft.” He added, “Nepal Government has even come up with the plan to collect suggestions from people manually. People can drop their suggestions for their respective areas.” He also asked people to cooperate because the Constituent Assembly (Committee on Citizen Relation and Public Opinion) has only given fifteen days to collect the public opinion. He made it clear to the attendees of the meeting that it would be nice if organizations like civil societies conduct program among themselves first and give Constituent Assembly the conclusions that is collected in their internal discussions. At least one program to collect suggestion should be conducted in one election area. Since Kathmandu is a densely populated city and people from almost all the election are here, four programs will be conducted. Those programs are scheduled as July 20, 2015 @ Golfutatar starts at 7:30 am July 20, 2015 @ Kapan starts at 2:30 pm July 21, 2015 @ Mitrapark starts at 7:30 am July 21, 2015 @ Kamal Pokhari starts at 2:30 pm The suggestion time is total of four to five hours at each place. Outside the valley, there is only one suggestion place per election area. After Gagan Thapa’s speech, the program was continued by the Chairman of the program, Rajan Bhattarai. The program lasted for about an hour.

It is duty of every responsible citizen to give their suggestions. With the help of the suggestions provided by the people our country can get better constitution which will lead our country to the development highway.