Nepal, world’s youngest Republic, on Monday elected its first president, Dr. Ram Baran Yadav, of the Nepali Congress (NC). Yadav defeated his nearest rival from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). The Constituent Assembly on May 20 abolished the 240-year-old Shah monarchy and decided Nepal would be a federal democratic republic.
A medical doctor by profession, Yadav spent more than two decades in hospitals in south Nepal’s Terai region before joining the movement for restoration of democracy in Nepal as a full-time politician in the 1990s. He is a widower with two sons and a daughter.
Although a Madhesi, he stood firm against the demands of a single autonomous Madhesh state, claimed by some Madhesh-based political parties and played an important role to calm down the agitation that broke out in the southern plains of the country last year.
“He said he would never support the politics of ethnicity. ‘It is nonsense to have a single Madhesh (state) because different colors of people live there. The Madhesi people want their right, not a separate territory,’ he said.
“The 64-year-old president was born into a middle class farmer family in the southern plains of Terai, Sapahi village of Dhanusa district, some 125 km south of the Nepali capital of Kathmandu. Yadav was elected to the legislature in 1999, and once served as the state minister, and minister for health in the cabinet in the 1990s led by the Nepali Congress.” More here…
Nepal, as big as Iowa state in the US, is sandwiched between India and China and home to world famous Mt Everest. It is one of the most poor countries in the world. More here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.