Karma Sherpa And The NYC Program For The Prime Minister

I just got off the phone with Karma Gyalden Sherpa. It was a half hour conversation.

Karma has been my favorite Nepali in New York City since I showed up in town a few years ago. The Madhesis have to seek an alliance with the Janajatis to achieve equality in Nepal and the Nepali diaspora. He is not one of those "Bahun ko jhola bokne" Janajati/Madhesi, his phrase. I like that about him a lot. He has a warm personality. He has a high emotional intelligence. He has been running the largest, most vibrant Nepali organization in New York City for a few years now.

I missed the meeting yesterday evening where the Adivasi Janajati Mahasangh and the UNDF tried to work out the details for the Prime Minister's program on the 25th. I might have been late: it was to have been my fourth event of the day (Nepali Picnic, Poetry Festival, Science House MeetUp). And I also ended up at the wrong location. But I did meet someone who was on his way back from the meeting. I debriefed him on the sidewalk by the Satya Narayan Mandir in Jackson Heights.

I talked to Tek Gurung on the phone an hour before I talked to Karma. It has been decided Karma will chair the event, and Tek will give the welcome speech. I think that is a happy middle ground.

I also wanted to ask for five minutes of speaking time, but before I brought up the topic Karma said he had made a few decisions as chairperson. One, the emcee will only announce the names of the speakers, otherwise sometimes the emcee's introductory speech ends up longer than the speaker's, there will be few speakers, maybe four or five, each speaker will have a strict time limit, and mostly the program will be a question answer session. The floor will be opened to the general public. He said among the few speakers there will be one Madhesi, one Dalit, only one Janajati. ANTA has been asked to furnish the Madhesi speaker. And that the entire event will be live streamed worldwide on the web.

I said I was very happy with the arrangement, that he had thought everything through. I dropped the topic of seeking five minutes for me. I am happier that I will get a minute during the question and answer session. I am also going to try to meet the Prime Minister at the Columbia University event a few days before that.

Karma and I talked about many other things to do with Madhesi and Janajati rights besides this one event. We concluded by agreeing what the Janajatis of Nepal need is their own political party.

To: The Nepali Ambassador to the UN

Your Excellency Madhuji.

As the president of two organizations Hamro Nepal
(http://hamnep.googlepages.com) and Mission Madhes

(http://missionmadhes.wordpress.com,
http://madhesi.blogspot.com/2009/08/mission-madhes-constitution-draft.html,
http://madhesi.blogspot.com/2009/08/mission-madhes-2.html), as one of
the most active Nepalis in NYC since my arrival in town in the summer
of 2005 (http://nycnepali.googlepages.com), as the only Nepali in
America to have worked full time for Nepal's democracy and social
justice movements (http://demrepubnepal.blogspot.com), as one of the
top Obama volunteers in all of NYC in 2007 and 2008
(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=99952&id=621599484&l=095de686ea,
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=99978&id=621599484&l=5a94b9a0bd,
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=99990&id=621599484&l=f9ccef2b45,
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=100004&id=621599484&l=b7f8684eb7),
and as a personal friend of the Prime Minister
(http://demrepubnepal.blogspot.com/2009/05/time-to-rally-around-madhav-nepal.html,
http://demrepubnepal.blogspot.com/2009/05/madhav-nepal-would-be-great-choice.html .... please find attached an email he sent me a few days before he
became Prime Minister), I would like to request five minutes of
speaking time at the Prime Minister's event on the 26th.

Thank you.

As to ANTA, this is what I said to a friend a few days back.

There are more than 3,000 Madhesis in America. Of those less than 100 are members of ANTA. We have to go beyond ANTA to grow Mission Madhes. Can we get 500 members? That is what we need to ask. I urge you to start with making a list of all Madhesis you personally know who are in America, and get them to work on similar lists.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sherpa: Adopt a village (isiria.wordpress.com)
• Sherpa scales Mount Everest record 19 times (telegraph.co.uk)
• Everest climb is a world-class grunt for two Spokane 60-somethings (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Ex-Nepal PM urges anti-US unity (news.bbc.co.uk)

20 Districts In MPRF's "One Madhes" Republica Kanchanpur, Kailali, Bardiya, Banke, Dang, Kapilvastu, Rupandehi, Nawalparasi, Chitwan, Parsa, Bara, Rautahat, Sarlahi, Mahottari, Dhanusha, Siraha, Saptari, Sunsari, Morang and Jhapa.

Paramendra Bhagat
to chitiz
Aug 25

Tekji.

My bio data.

Paramendra Bhagat is president of a digital democracy organization
called Hamro Nepal that has the largest Nepali mailing list in the
world at over 8500 members. He is now working to launch a global
organization called Mission Madhes. He was one of the most active
Obama volunteers in all of New York City in 2007 and 2008. He came to
the US for college in 1996. Within six months of landing he got
himself elected student body president at the number one liberal arts
college in the South, a record in college history. In Nepal before
that he had been Vice General Secretary to the Nepal Samajwadi Janata
Dal that had split from Gajendra Narayan Singh's Sadbhavana. Hridayesh
Tripathy was General Secretary and Rajendra Mahto was a central
committee member. He runs a blog called Democracy For Nepal that you
might have heard of. He worked full time for Nepal's democracy and
Madhesi movements in 2005, 2006 and half of 2007.

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 10:52 PM, chitiz tamu wrote:
> Parmendra jee,
>
> I would like to wel-come you from Madhese as a speaker on the topic of "New
> Constitution and Burning Issues of Nepal" on Aug 30, Sunday at 11:30 P.M.
> Yak Restaurant, Jackson Height. Please send me your your bio-data within 5
> to 7 sentences.
>
> Thank You,
> Tek Gurung