Young Communist League members beat up a pregnant woman and her mother-in-law in Dang on Thursday because they had a dispute with her husband, Republica reports:

Maoist Young Communist League (YCL) workers mercilessly beat up a pregnant woman in Baghmare VDC of Dang district on Thursday evening over their enmity with her husband. Pushpa Nepali, 24, and her mother-in-law were beaten up by a group of about 12 YCL cadres in their own house.

Pushpa's husband Man Bahadur Pariyar is the village unit secretary of Tarun Dal -- youth wing of the Nepali Congress. A few days ago, Man Bahadur had appealed to the administration to stop timber smuggling taking place in the district. Thereafter, the Maoists had been harassing him and threatening him.

Nepali has suffered from bruising all over her body, and YCL has denied any involvement in the beating.

In Kathmandu, Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital doctors, who stopped providing non-emergency medical services few days ago, have threatened to halt emergency services as well. Also from Republica:

Resident doctors, who are on the warpath for the past one week in solidarity with medical students who boycotted entrance exams held on March 13 and 14 for post graduate studies in medicine, will stay off the hospital from Tuesday.

According to Manoj Kumar Poudel, the president of Free Students Union (FSU) at TUTH, resident doctors will work only till Monday. “No resident doctor will work from Tuesday so as to further press our demands,” Poudel told myrepublica.com.

They have demanded a fair probe into the alleged irregularities by Dr Sayami and the cancellation of the entrance exams as well. Nepal Medical Council (NMC) has already invalidated the controversial entrance exams and recommended to the Tribhuvan University (TU) to scrap it.

We don’t want to bring you down on Friday, so here is some good news. After two months of wrangling, the cabinet has finally agreed to appoint Yubaraj Khatiwada as the governer of Nepal Rastra Bank. The Himalayan Times writes:

The Cabinet meeting on Friday formally decided to appoint Yubaraj Khatiwada to the post of Nepal Rastra Bank governor ending an extended dispute on the contentious issue.

The Cabinet meet also appointed Bidhyadhar Mallik as the vice chairperson of the Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF).

Similarly, the meeting also resolved the controversial issue of printing the Machine Readable Passports (MRPs). It decided to entrust the responsibility of printing the MRPs to India after holding bilateral talks between the two countries.

Is that still good news? International Civil Aviation Organisation wants all countries to use machine readable passports by 1 April. But, the Public Accounts Committee had rejected Deputy Prime Minister Sujata Koirala’s proposal to give the contract to Indian company saying it was the most expensive option. It had also asked the Foreign Ministry to reactive earlier bidding process which was halted unexpectedly.