A beauty contest for manpower agencies? Having lost his battle to impose a lottery system in the selection of workers, Minister Panth -- whose biggest worry now obviously seems to be finding ways to send unemployed and unemployable UML karya-kartas out on "bai.deshik rojgaar" -- goes on a charm offensive to reward (gasp, choke!) "the 10 best manpower agencies". When it's up to the government to decide which the "best" manpower agencies are, and then spend public resources as if those were the minister's own sampati, expect Panth and his colleagues to rig the game by playing favorites. Let the government stick to its primary task of regulating the 'manpower' industry. And let the market, with all its impersonality, reward that industry's best performers. Then again, what does Minister Panth -- whose political rhetoric is as outdated as a Remington typewriter -- know about basic economics? oohi ashu ******************* Best manpower agencies to be awarded POST REPORT KATHMANDU, Nov 19 - Minister for Labor and Transport Management Raghuji Pant has stated that the government will be awarding 10 best manpower agencies for the first time based on their overall performance. "A committee has been established under chairmanship of Director General of Department of Labor and Employment Promotion, Pratap Kumar Pathak, to formulate necessary criteria required to initiate the selection process," he said. "We are in the final phase of preparations and the names will be announced very soon," he added. He also said that the government was mulling over designating the best agencies with the status of ?commercially important persons? or ?industrialists?, in order to boost the morale of agents who have been contributing in economic development of the country."Moreover, the government is also planning to give enough freedom to manpower agencies in decision-making processes by limiting its role to that of a facilitator and a regulator," the minister said. He was addressing 7th Anniversary of Around the World Services (AWS), an overseas employment consultant agency, in Kathmandu today. Speaking on the occasion, Chairman of AWS, Dan Bahadur Tamang, said that at a time when foreign employment has become a compulsion for many a citizens, foreign employment agencies should not only focus on making easy money but should concentrate on delivering quality service to all job aspirants. He also informed that Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies is establishing a fund for children of those parents who are killed during their work tenure in foreign land. A fund of Rs 70,000 raised by Leo Club of Kathmandu Kingdom was also donated for treatment of 12 year old Bimal Nepali, during the program. Nepali, who is suffering from blood cancer, is being treated at Tribhuwan University Teaching Hospital at Maharajgunj.