Kathmandu (dpa) – Transport came to a halt and schools, markets and businesses closed in eastern Nepal on Thursday as an ethnic group called a three-day general strike to demand rights in the new constitution. The Khas Chettri Ekta Samaj, which represents the Chettri ethnic group, wants the government to draw up a new constitution quickly and list them as an indigenous group in it. A strike called by the Far-Western Region Awakening Forum closed transport, markets, factories and schools in nine districts in the west. It is demanding the far-western region be a single federal unit in the new constitution. The strikes came as the main three political parties prepared to discuss the contentious issues in the constitution and the process of army integration later Thursday. Pressure has been mounting on the government because of the lack of progress in drafting the document. The parties are at loggerheads over the election system, the structure of the government and whether the state should be divided into provinces based on geography or ethnicity. The Maoist party and the Nepal Army are yet to agree on the integration of Maoist former combatants into the army. Disputes over the number to be integrated and their rank has slowed the peace process. The Maoists waged a decade-long insurgency from 1996, which ended with the signing of a peace deal in 2006. In 2008, they joined mainstream politics through the Constituent Assembly election. A new constitution was due in 2010 but the Constituent Assembly, which is supposed to draft it, has failed to do so. Its deadline has been extended four times since it first expired in 2010. The latest deadline to draft the document and complete the peace process is May 28. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/8dWAv Tags: Nepal, Strike, Workers Section: Business, East Asia, Latest News
