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Basant Raj Mishra, a pioneering figure in Nepal’s tourism industry and the founder and executive chairperson of Temple Tiger Group of Companies, passed away on Sunday morning while receiving treatment for dengue at Norvic Hospital, Kathmandu. He was 71.

Born on 20 Feb 1953, in Kathmandu, Mishra attended Padmodaya School before graduating from Patan Campus in Lalitpur. With a passion for entrepreneurship, he traveled to Europe after his studies to take courses in business management and marketing. 

Reflecting on his journey in The Annapurna Express’s ‘ApEx Pioneer’ column, he once said, “I was born into a family with a bureaucratic background, but a government job never appealed to me. My interest was rather in business, to start something of my own.”

Mishra’s insights into life and work were profound. “Europe taught me that work is vital, not just for income but also to establish your identity. Ultimately, what matters is not how much you earn but who you are.” This perspective guided his career, as he began working in tourism in 1977, eventually founding the Temple Tiger Group of Companies 11 years later, one of the first businesses to promote sustainable and responsible tourism in Nepal.

This visionary’s contributions went beyond entrepreneurship. He was a former chairperson of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Nepal Chapter and a PATA Life Member, and played a pivotal role in linking Nepal with international tourism circles. His goal was always to establish Nepal as a stand-alone tourism destination. “When I was starting, many tourists visited Nepal through Indian travel agencies, which considered Nepal an extension of their own country. My goal was to make Nepal a stand-alone destination,” Mishra said in the interview.

Mishra’s nephew, Pius Raj Mishra, described his uncle in the ‘ApEx Pioneer’ column as a man who lived by the mantra ‘work is worship’. He noted, “Hard work has given him global recognition as a successful tourism entrepreneur and conservationist. Even in our own family, everyone rushes to him for help and advice.”

A colleague, Sanjay Nepal also reflected on Mishra’s character in the same interview, saying, “In tourism, many people are double-tongued, but he is what he is. If he is angry, he will show it to you. He is also open-minded, a quality that many lack. Most importantly, he is a determined learner. To this day, he calls me for suggestions.”

Mishra’s impact on conservation tourism in Nepal was groundbreaking. As he said, “Shifting to conservation tourism was my best career decision. In light of the prevalent climate change, Nepal has always been at the forefront of travel practices that minimize environmental waste, encourage conservation and educate travelers on the environment.” He often remarked that ‘Nepal is the Africa of South Asia’ when it came to wildlife tourism, emphasizing the country’s role in promoting sustainable travel.

Mishra was also the founding director of the Nepal Tourism Board, an entity established  in 1998 to foster private-public partnerships in tourism promotion. His leadership helped transform Nepal into a global example of successful conservation, adventure and wildlife tourism.

Despite facing numerous challenges, including the closure of hotels inside national parks, Mishra’s adaptability and resilience were key to his enduring success. “I have overcome many odds to succeed in this sector,” he said. “There are new setbacks and challenges every other day, but I can deal with them as I am a very adaptable creature.”

Mishra’s legacy as a global ambassador for Nepali tourism will continue to inspire future generations.

He is survived by his wife, Jyanu Mishra, his son, Brajesh Raj Mishra—and his contributions to the tourism and hospitality industries. 

His last rites were performed on Sunday noon at Pashupati Aryaghat. His visionary leadership, commitment to sustainable tourism and passion for promoting Nepal’s identity on the world stage will be remembered for years to come.

Birth: March 14, 1942

Death: November 19, 2023

Krishna Bikram Nembang, who spearheaded an armed revolution against the 1960 royal coup, has died. He was 82. 

At the heart of the tumultuous events of December 1960, Nembang, then studying in Darjeeling, stood against King Mahendra's coup and protested the incarceration of Nepali Congress leader BP Koirala. After returning to Nepal, he became an unwavering force, writing leaflets to enlighten the public about the injustices and advocating passionately for democracy.

Born in Panchthar district, Nembang was involved in politics from his school days. During his teens, he had stood up against the Rana regime.

Though a committed member of the Nepali Congress, Nembang chose a life of service over power. He made his name as a historian and researcher. He used to say that he had lived three lives: of a student, a revolutionary and a historian.

He penned his experience and the situation of the 1960 revolution in his book ‘Satra Saalko Krantiko Samjhana,’ vividly detailing how the revolutionary fighters under his leadership confiscated the weapons from the police who were traveling via the Sukiya jungle. He also wrote about the culture and history of the Kirat people.

Nembang also possessed an extensive knowledge on human development, social development and geography. His writings delved into the depths of history, exploring Indus and Ganges civilizations, and offering detailed insights into Rigveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda, and Samaveda.

His notable literary works include ‘Diaryma Belayat,’ ‘Aakshep ra Pathak Pratikriya,’ ‘Smiritima BP Andolan,’ and ‘Limbu Itihas: Tibatti, Lepcha, Koch, Sen ra Roy Sambandha.’

Writer Hari Gautam aptly remembers Nembang as a man of morals, a practitioner of non-violence, and a devoted soul who found his life and happiness in the Nepali Congress. For the past decade, he embraced a hermit's life, devoid of anger or hatred.

Nembang breathed his last at the Nepal Cancer Hospital on November 19.

Survived by three sons and four daughters, Nembang's legacy extends beyond the pages of history.

Washington: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the diplomat with the thick glasses and gravelly voice who dominated foreign policy as the United States extricated itself from Vietnam and broke down barriers with China, died Wednesday, his consulting firm said. He was 100.

With his gruff yet commanding presence and behind-the-scenes manipulation of power, Kissinger exerted uncommon influence on global affairs under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, earning both vilification and the Nobel Peace Prize. Decades later, his name still provoked impassioned debate over foreign policy landmarks long past.

Kissinger’s power grew during the turmoil of Watergate, when the politically attuned diplomat assumed a role akin to co-president to the weakened Nixon.

“No doubt my vanity was piqued,” Kissinger later wrote of his expanding influence. “But the dominant emotion was a premonition of catastrophe.”

A Jew who fled Nazi Germany with his family in his teens, Kissinger in his later years cultivated the reputation of respected statesman, giving speeches, offering advice to Republicans and Democrats alike and managing a global consulting business. He turned up in President Donald Trump’s White House on multiple occasions. But Nixon-era documents and tapes, as they trickled out over the years, brought revelations — many in Kissinger’s own words — that sometimes cast him in a harsh light.

Never without his detractors, Kissinger after he left government was dogged by critics who argued that he should be called to account for his policies on Southeast Asia and support of repressive regimes in Latin America.

For eight restless years—first as national security adviser, later as secretary of state, and for a time in the middle holding both titles—Kissinger ranged across the breadth of major foreign policy issues. He conducted the first “shuttle diplomacy” in the quest for Middle East peace. He used secret channels to pursue ties between the United States and China, ending decades of isolation and mutual hostility.

He initiated the Paris negotiations that ultimately provided a face-saving means — a “decent interval,” he called it — to get the United States out of a costly war in Vietnam. Two years later, Saigon fell to the communists.

And he pursued a policy of detente with the Soviet Union that led to arms control agreements and raised the possibility that the tensions of the Cold War and its nuclear threat did not have to last forever.

At age 99, he was still out on tour for his book on leadership. Asked in July 2022 interview with ABC whether he wished he could take back any of his decisions, Kissinger demurred, saying: “I’ve been thinking about these problems all my life. It’s my hobby as well as my occupation. And so the recommendations I made were the best of which I was then capable.”

Even then, he had mixed thoughts on Nixon’s record, saying “his foreign policy has held up and he was quite effective in domestic policy” while allowing that the disgraced president had “permitted himself to be involved in a number of steps that were inappropriate for a president.”

As Kissinger turned 100 in May 2023, his son David wrote in The Washington Post that his father’s centenary “might have an air of inevitability for anyone familiar with his force of character and love of historical symbolism. Not only has he outlived most of his peers, eminent detractors and students, but he has also remained indefatigably active throughout his 90s.”

Asked during a CBS interview in the leadup to his 100th birthday about those who view his conduct of foreign policy over the years as a kind of “criminality,” Kissinger was nothing but dismissive.

“That’s a reflection of their ignorance,” Kissinger said. “It wasn’t conceived that way. It wasn’t conducted that way.”

Kissinger continued his involvement in global affairs even in his last months. He met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in July, as bilateral relations were at a low point. And 50 years after his shuttle diplomacy helped end the 1973 Mideast war, when Israel fended off a surprise attack from Egypt and Syria, Kissinger warned of the risks of that conflict repeating itself after Israel faced a surprise assault by Hamas on Oct 7.

Tributes for Kissinger from prominent USofficials poured in immediately upon word of his death. Former President George W Bush said the US “lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices on foreign affairs” and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Kissinger was “endlessly generous with the wisdom gained over the course of an extraordinary life.”

Kissinger’s consulting firm said he died at his home in Connecticut.

Kissinger was a practitioner of realpolitik — using diplomacy to achieve practical objectives rather than advance lofty ideals. Supporters said his pragmatic bent served U.S. interests; critics saw a Machiavellian approach that ran counter to democratic ideals.

He was castigated for authorizing telephone wiretaps of reporters and his own National Security Council staff to plug news leaks in Nixon’s White House. He was denounced on college campuses for the bombing and allied invasion of Cambodia in April 1970, intended to destroy North Vietnamese supply lines to communist forces in South Vietnam.

That “incursion,” as Nixon and Kissinger called it, was blamed by some for contributing to Cambodia’s fall into the hands of Khmer Rouge insurgents who later slaughtered some 2 million Cambodians.

Kissinger, for his part, made it his mission to debunk what he referred to in 2007 as a “prevalent myth”—that he and Nixon had settled in 1972 for peace terms that had been available in 1969 and thus had needlessly prolonged the Vietnam War at the cost of tens of thousands of American lives.

He insisted that the only way to speed up the withdrawal would have been to agree to Hanoi’s demands that the U.S. overthrow the South Vietnamese government and replace it with communist-dominated leadership.

Pudgy and messy, Kissinger incongruously acquired a reputation as a ladies’ man in the staid Nixon administration. Kissinger, who had divorced his first wife in 1964, called women “a diversion, a hobby.” Jill St. John was a frequent companion. But it turned out his real love interest was Nancy Maginnes, a researcher for Nelson Rockefeller whom he married in 1974.

In a 1972 poll of Playboy Club Bunnies, the man dubbed “Super-K” by Newsweek finished first as “the man I would most like to go out on a date with.”

Kissinger’s explanation: “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

Yet Kissinger was reviled by many Americans for his conduct of wartime diplomacy. He was still a lightning rod decades later: In 2015, an appearance by the 91-year-old Kissinger before the Senate Armed Services Committee was disrupted by protesters demanding his arrest for war crimes and calling out his actions in Southeast Asia, Chile and beyond.

Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born in the Bavarian city of Fuerth on May 27, 1923, the son of a schoolteacher. His family left Nazi Germany in 1938 and settled in Manhattan, where Heinz changed his name to Henry.

Kissinger had two children, Elizabeth and David, from his first marriage.

AP

Literary figure Shree Prasad Upadhyay (SP Asa) is no more. He died at the age of 80 on November 15. He was a renowned literary figure who wrote about history and made it interesting.

According to his daughter Uma Ghimire, SP Asa had been suffering from prostate cancer for the past three years. A day before his death, he suffered a brain hemorrhage and was admitted to B&B Hospital in Gwarko. He breathed his last at the Pashupati Aryaghat, leaving behind his wife, three daughters, and a son. His last rites were performed on the day he died.

Asa was born in Sitapaila, Saranpur, and was always interested in reading and writing. He wrote about political issues and historical upheavals including the Rana regime and dethronement of King Gyanendra among others.

Among his varied interests were finding scientific explanations of many of our religious rituals. He gave many fascinating scientific explanations for activities carried about by pundits in various ritualistic ceremonies.

Ek Aankhe, Dui Mukundo, Abhag, Sister Shova, Antim Abhilasha, Doctor D, Mahasamanta, Raktasamman, Ek Babako Jeevani, Dravya Shah, Chitkar, Serofero are some of his published novels. He also dabbled in poetry and has published a few collections as well. He was popular for his social, detective, and historical novels. Loktantra Aghi ko Mahabharat and Nepal ko Pahilo Kotparva are some of his works on history. All in all, he has published more than three dozen books. He also wrote newspaper articles.

He also served as the vice chairman of the National Committee of the World Hindu Federation and was active in the restoration of democracy. He was also involved in politics and a leader of the Nepali Congress in the revolutions that took place in the country.

Asa Pragyan Kendra was established in his name in 2012 and has branches in Sikkim, Assam, and Manipur in India, Canada, United States of America, United Kingdom, and Australia. The center, with assistance from the Nagarjuna Municipality, has published a memorial volume in Upadhyay’s honor.

Post-graduate students in Nepali have written research papers on him. Various authors have written books on his literary life. But his legacy perhaps lies in the fact that he was a kind man, always willing to lend a helping hand. His daughter Uma says he was a support system for the family as well as his relatives and friends.

In his own ways, he was a philanthropist too. He advocated for women’s empowerment and was a staunch supporter of the necessity to educate girls and women. He also used to narrate stories of Shivapuran, Shreemad Bhagwat Saptaha Puran, and Nawah (religious ceremonies) in public and help collect money to construct public buildings.

 “He used to give money to children for their studies,” says his daughter, adding he never shied away from helping others, even when he might not have had enough himself.

Before his death, he had wanted to publish a book on how Palpa’s Rani Mahal was constructed and how girl children were sent to the palaces. But the dream didn’t materialize because of a lack of funds.

For her father’s sake, Uma wishes the government to give literature its due and invest in it so that writers like Upadhyay can wholly immerse themselves in the field.

Born: 30 July 1944

Death: 15 Nov 2023