Dr Ram Saran Mahat | |
---|---|
रामशरण महत | |
Mahat speaking in a program on women's participation | |
Ministry of Finance | |
In office 25 February 2014 –12 October 2015 | |
President | Ram Baran Yadav |
Prime Minister | Sushil Koirala |
Vice President | Paramananda Jha |
Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
In office 1999–2000 | |
Preceded by | Krishna Prasad Bhattarai (as prime minister) |
Succeeded by | Chakra Bastola |
Personal details | |
Born | Kabilas–8,Nuwakot,Nepal | 1 January 1951
Political party | Nepali Congress |
Spouse | Roshana Mahat |
Children | Raxak Mahat and Agya Mahat |
Parents |
|
Residence | Maharajgunj kathmandu |
Awards | Best Finance Minister, [1] Francis Humbert Humphrey Award for Leadership Role in the Public Service |
![]() | This article may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view .(June 2021) |
Ram Sharan Mahat was the Finance Minister of Nepal under the government led by Sushil Koirala. [2] [3]
Mahat represented Nepali Congress in the parliament for four consecutive term and currently a parliamentarian from Nuwakot -2. [4]
He was a member of the 2nd Nepalese Constituent Assembly. He won the Nuwakot–2 seat in 2013 Nepalese Constituent Assembly election from the Nepali Congress. [5] [6]
Mahat was born to a middle-class family in Nuwakot, Nepal on 1 January 1951. He is the eldest of seven children of Khadga Bahadur Mahat and Tol Kumari Mahat.
He passed the School Leaving Certificate at the age of 13 in 1964. Ram Sharan Mahat got his master's degree in Economics from Tribhuvan University in 1972. He was gold medalist in his college and university life. Following graduation from college at the age of 17, Mahat worked as a high school headmaster in Lamjung district of Nepal. He briefly worked as a lecturer in economics, at the Department of Tribhuvan University. Despite being selected for scholarship, he was denied an opportunity to go abroad for advanced studies by the Panchayat government because of his political background. Instead, he was incarcerated for two years (1973–75) under Security Act without any charge sheet. After his release, he went to Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune, India in 1976 for his Ph.D under a Government of India scholarship. He completed his degree in 1979.
Mahat was also a recipient of US Government's Hubert Humphrey Fellowship 1987/88 and was associated with the School of International Studies of the American University, Washington DC, US. He was a recipient of the Francis Humbert Humphrey Award for leadership role in the public service by the USIA and the Institute of International Education, USA. He is an honorary fellow of the University of Connecticut/Bridgeport.
Mahat joined the UN service in 1980, and served at UNDP office in Kathmandu, New York and Pakistan. In his last assignment, he coordinated UNDP cross border humanitarian programme in Afghanistan (1989-1990). After the restoration of democratic politics in Nepal 1990, he left the UNDP job to join electoral politics in his country.
Political career
Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat, a senior leader of Nepali Congress, combines a rare background of an active politician and a technocrat. Born in a middle-class family in Nuwakot district of rural Nepal, he became politically active since early student days. He was imprisoned at the age of 14 while participating in a student demonstration. One of the leading student activists in his college and university days in Nepal, he was imprisoned several times by the autocratic monarchial regime in the sixties and seventies. After graduating in 1968 with a gold medal, he taught in a secondary school in a remote Lamjung district and became its headmaster at the age of 19. In 1971, he became the General Secretary of Nepal Students Union, the largest students association affiliated with Nepali Congress – outlawed by the autocratic regime from 1961 until 1990.
He campaigned actively for multiparty democracy in Nepal during the national referendum of 1980. He subsequently joined UNDP/Nepal as a programme officer and subsequently served as Area Officer in UNDP Headquarters Asia and Pacific Bureau in New York. After losing the parliamentary elections from constituent-1 of Nuwakot district in 1991, he was appointed the Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Nepal. He then served as the deputy chairman of the National Planning Commission of Nepal for three years (1991-1993). He was elected Member of Parliament first time in 1993 from constituent-2 of Nuwakot district, which he has successfully retained to date. He won that seat for the fourth time in the November 2013 general election for the Constituent Assembly/Parliament.
A man of integrity and believer of probity and transparency in public life, he has voluntarily resigned as Finance Minister from cabinet twice. The first time in 1997 to facilitate judicial investigation, when the opposition raised question about his foreign exchange accounts in a NEW York Bank. He was acquitted of the charge and subsequently reinstated to his position. The second time he resigned in 2002 protesting the Prime Minister's unexpected announcement to dissolve the parliament.
Following the royal takeover of political power in 2002, he actively participated in Nepal's 'anti-regression movement', which culminated in the mass uprising of April 2006 leading eventually to the abolition of monarchy. He was the Finance Minister of the first national unity government formed afterwards, which eventually included the ex Maoist rebels also.
In Nepal's turbulent political transition following the decade-long Maoist insurgency in Nepal, Mahat also served as member of the Special Committee for the Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Army Combatants, which saw the successful resolution in 2013 on the future of some 17,000 former combatants.
He has also served in the board of trustees of the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok (1993/4).
Mahat has several publications to his credit, including the widely acclaimed book In Defence of Democracy: Dynamics and Fault lines of Nepal's Political Economy (2005).
Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multiracial, multicultural, multi-religious, and multilingual country. The most spoken language is Nepali followed by several other ethnic languages.
The politics of Nepal functions within the framework of a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and their cabinet, while legislative power is vested in the Parliament.
The Kingdom of Nepal was a Hindu kingdom in South Asia, formed in 1768 by the expansion of the Gorkha Kingdom, which lasted until 2008 when the kingdom became the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. It was also known as the Gorkha Empire, or sometimes Asal Hindustan. Founded by King Prithvi Narayan Shah, a Gorkha monarch who claimed to be of Khas Thakuri origin, it existed for 240 years until the abolition of the Nepalese monarchy in 2008. During this period, Nepal was formally under the rule of the Shah dynasty, which exercised varying degrees of power during the kingdom's existence.
The Nepali Congress is the oldest democratic socialist political party in Nepal and the largest party in the country. The party has 870,106 members as of the party's 14th general convention in December 2021 making them the largest party by membership in Nepal. Currently the party has started online membership since the emergence of youth leaders in vital post to bring youths into the party.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, is a Nepalese politician currently serving as the Prime Minister of Nepal. He previously held the prime ministerial post from 2008 to 2009 as the first prime minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, and again from 2016 to 2017. He was elected as prime minister for the third time in 2022, following that year's elections.
The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) (Nepali: नेपाल कम्युनिष्ट पार्टी (एकीकृत मार्क्सवादी-लेनिनवादी), romanized: nēpāla kamyuniṣṭa pārṭī (ēkīkr̥ta mārksavādī-lēninavādī); abbr. CPN (UML)) is a communist political party in Nepal. The party emerged as one of the major parties in Nepal after the end of the Panchayat era.
Sher Bahadur Deuba is a Nepali politician and former prime minister of Nepal. He has also been serving as the president of the Nepali Congress since 2016. Deuba has served five terms as prime minister and is the Member of Parliament for the parliamentary constituency of Dadeldhura 1.
Nepal Ratna Girija Prasad Koirala, affectionately known as Girija Babu, was a Nepalese politician. He headed the Nepali Congress and served as the Prime Minister of Nepal on four occasions, including from 1991 to 1994, 1998 to 1999, 2000 to 2001, and 2006 to 2008. He was the Acting Head of State of Nepal between January 2007 and July 2008 as the country transitioned from a monarchy to a republic.
Tribhuvan University is a public university located in Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal. Established in 1959, TU is the oldest and the largest university in Nepal. The college offers 1000 undergraduate and 500 postgraduate programs across a wide range of disciplines. Additionally, the institution has 62 constituent campuses and over 1080 affiliated colleges across the country.
Madhav Kumar Nepal, is a Nepalese politician and former Prime Minister of Nepal. He served as Prime Minister of Nepal from 25 May 2009 to 6 February 2011 for nearly two years.
Upendra Yadav is a Nepalese politician who served as the chairman of the People's Socialist Party, Nepal from 2020 until 2023.
Dev Gurung is a Nepalese politician, belonging to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Gurung became Minister of Law and Justice on 22 August 2008. And on 20 August 2022 he became General Secretary of Communist party of Nepal (Maoist) In 2002, B.S., Gurung became the president of the All Nepal National Free Students Union.
Ram Baran Yadav is a Nepali politician and physician who served as the first president of Nepal from 23 July 2008 to 29 October 2015, following the declaration of republic in 2008. Previously he served as Minister of Health from 1999 to 2001 and general secretary of the Nepali Congress.
Arjun Narasingha K.C., also known as ANKC, is a Nepali politician and former professor, currently serving as a Member of Parliament (MP) from Nuwakot representing the Nepali Congress Party. KC has served as minister five times in different coalition governments holding Education, Health, Housing & Physical Planning and Urban Development portfolios. He most recently served as the Minister of Urban Development in the Second Dahal Cabinet from 2016 to 2017. KC has been elected to the national legislature a total of four times from his constituency of Nuwakot.
Nabindra Raj Joshi was a Nepali politician and former minister for industry. Joshi joined politics as a student, becoming the general secretary of Nepal Students Union in 1986. After the re-establishment of democracy, he was elected deputy mayor of Kathmandu, serving from 1992 to 1997. After the 2006 revolution, he was twice elected to the constituent assembly, in 2008 and 2013. He was the minister of industry from 2016 to 2017 in the coalition government of Communist Party of Nepal and Nepali Congress under the leadership of Pushpa Kamal Dahal. In the 2017 general election, he lost to Jeevan Ram Shrestha of CPN UML whom he had defeated in the previous elections.
Constituent Assembly elections were held in Nepal on 19 November 2013. The vote was repeatedly delayed, having previously been planned for 22 November 2012 following the dissolution of the 1st Constituent Assembly on 27 May 2012, but it was put off by the election commission. The Nepali Congress emerged as the largest party in the 2nd Nepalese Constituent Assembly, winning 196 of the 575 elected seats.
Narahari Acharya, a central member of Nepali Congress, assumed the post of the Minister of Law, Justice, Constituent Assembly, Parliamentary Affairs and Peace and Reconstruction on 25 February 2014 under Sushil Koirala-led government.
Mahat is an Ekthariya chhetri surname among Nepalese, of Khasa heritage. The name may have originated when one of the Jumli Malla kings in medieval times made his younger brother, Dharma Malla, chief of staff in the army. This granted Dharma Malla the title of Mahat, and as a result, his descendants started using 'Mahat' as their surnames.
Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat is the current spokesperson of the Nepali Congress. He is currently appointed as the Minister of Finance since 31 March 2023. He was also the former minister for Foreign Affairs of Nepal and assumed his office on 26 August 2016. Born in the Nuwakot district of Nepal on 5 November 1959, Mahat has had an active political career of more than three decades.
Hit Bahadur Tamang is a Nepali politician and a member of the House of Representatives of the federal parliament of Nepal. He was elected from Nuwakot-1 constituency representing CPN MC of the left alliance, defeating senior Nepali Congress leader, ex-finance minister Ram Saran Mahat. He was elected by a margin of 8,553 votes, receiving 36,473 votes to Mahat's 27,920. He had been a candidate from Nuwakot in both the constituent assembly elections of 2008 and 2013 but lost to Mahat both times.