When Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States, Michelle Obama came to the White House as the first lady along with their two daughters Malia and Sasha. In her book, Becoming, she writes about her life experiences, her childhood and upbringing, and the White House years and several other topics including gender equality, empowerment of women, and health issues.

Becoming, Prisoners of Geography and Oneness With All Life

NEW YORK, Nov 22: Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” has become a massive hit.

Hardly noticed on the world landscape of emerging democracies, lies Nepal. This new republic now has the first government, newly formed this past February, under a secular constitution. It’s route is scattered with the detritus of its becoming a republic, though still a relatively nonviolent path.

BIRGUNJ, May 24: With the quake reconstruction picking up pace in quake-ravaged Nepal of late, production of construction materials within the country too has increased to meet the market demand.

DHARAN, April 26: Dharan has always remained closest Ramesh Rai's heart. Not only because he was born and raised here but also because of the town's very long association with the British Gorkha Army locally known as 'lahure'.

MORANG, March 30: President Bidya Devi Bhandari has broken silence on Dashdhunga accident saying that it is unfortunate not to get any facts revealed till date about the mishap that claimed lives of then General Secretary of the CPN-UML Madan Bhandari and Jeev Raj Ashrit, then in-charge of the party organization.

We live in a country where anyone can dream of becoming anything. From childhood, we are asked about our aims and dreams to be in future.

RUKUM, March 17: After months of affair, Pavitra (name changed) of Sani Bheri Rural Municipality-2, Duli and Dinesh (name changed) of ward no 8 of the same rural municipality decided to turn their young love into marriage when they were still in grade eight. Promising to spend the rest of their lives together, they tied the knot on March 10.

Archaeologists have uncovered new evidence that indicate that early humans were behaving more sophisticatedly, even involved in trading around 100,000 years earlier than previously thought. Experts also believe that dramatic climatic shifts in East Africa may have driven early humans to make rapid advances in developing tools and trade networks.

JUMLA, March 14: Hira Adhikari, 27, died in a road accident along the Karnali Highway this past week. A resident of Guthichaur Rural Municipality, he was hit by a tractor. Eyewitness claim that she was only wounded when the tractor hit her initially, but then the tracker reversed and crushed her to death.

KHOTANG, Jan 12: A month after the successful completion of the parliamentary and provincial elections, the promotional tools and materials used in the election campaigns are yet to be removed from public places in Khotang.

KHOTANG, Jan 11: A month after the successful completion of the parliamentary and provincial elections, the promotional tools and materials used in the election campaigns are yet to be removed from public places in Khotang.

KHOTANG, Jan 10: A month after the successful completion of the parliamentary and provincial elections, the promotional tools and materials used in the election campaigns are yet to be removed from public places in Khotang.

ILAM, Dec 26: Salakpur in Rong Rural Municipality Ward 6 of Ilam district was considered to be hub for orange farming. But not even one decade after the village started farming oranges, 90 percent of the orange trees have dried out.

CHITWAN, Dec 17: The health insurance programme introduced by the government is gaining popularity in the urban areas rather than the rural areas of the district.

BAJHANG, Oct 13:  Two brothers of the same family in Bajhang who had left for India in search of employment have returned back with HIV. The virus has not just been transmitted to their wives but also to one of their children. Being horrified by the result of the blood tests, which showed all of them HIV positive, the two brothers along with their wives and an infant ran away to India all over again instead of taking medicines.

POKHARA, August 27: The efforts to ban unnecessary use of horns in Pokhara-Lekhnath Metropolitan City of Kaski district is paying off as the use of horns in the area is coming under control of late.

KATHMANDU, August 12: The craze for futsal is increasing in the country lately, with people of any age, be them children, youths and elderly, getting attracted to the sport.

CHITWAN, August 3: Kiran Pandey, 25, was returning home to Aam Chowk of Ilam district after three years of foreign employment in Dubai. He had brought clothes and chocolates for kids and some home necessities with the hard-earned money that he earned by sweating in a foreign land. On the way home on Wednesday, the bus he was traveling in (Na 6 Kha 7121) met an accident along Narayanghat-Mugling road section and he narrowly escaped death.

BAGLUNG, July 28:  Unlike a majority of community schools, Shree Janata Higher Secondary School (SJHSS), a community school of Jaimini Municipality-10, Rangkhani, Pahi, has become an exemplary school in the municipality. The school provides quality education and has started technical education which makes it a model school.

RUPANDEHI, April 16: A historic place Lumbini, better known as the birthplace of Gautam Buddha, is becoming the hub of Indian beggars these days.

KATHMANDU, March 20: Everybody in Kathmandu Valley perhaps has had a nasty experience of its chaotic traffic. And, traffic management in the Valley has become knottier every passing year.

Solukhumbu, March 9: The Cho-La Pass at Khumjung in Solukhumbu is becoming riskier in lack of adequate infrastructure.

KATHMANDU, Feb 3: In a crowded microbus at Dholahity, a young man of around 20 seems to be desperate to look outside the window screen to find out where he has reached. But, the black smoke and heavy dust blurs his view and leaves him disoriented for a while. Suddenly, he heard the conductor shouting 'Satdobato!' and rushes toward the door.

CHITWAN, Jan 31: Dr Jaya Shrestha of Bharatpur Cancer Hospital is a nature lover. He recently visited Chitwan National Park to cherish the beauty of nature but was astonished by a sad incident.

CHITWAN, Jan 11: It has been more than two years since the endangered one-horned rhinos of Chitwan National Park (CNP) have not been poached by smugglers. Despite zero poaching of rhinos, their casualty rate has not yet come to an end.

PARSA, Nov 4: CPN (UML) Secretary Yogesh Bhattarai has said the UML, in support of the CPN (Maoist Center), had to move a motion of impeachment against Chief of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) Lokman Singh Karki as he involved himself in making the constitution a failure by exercising a parallel power.

ILAM, Oct 30: The Fikkal Bazaar is donning a hideous look with the delay in the completion of a landfill site, construction of which the Suryodaya Municipality in Ilam started two years ago.

JUMLA, Oct 28: Nepal's biggest lake, Rara, has become a popular destination for both internal and external tourists with access to road reaching there.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 25: Twitter, which was once a darling of the tech industry and went public almost three years ago in an eye-popping IPO, appears to be up for sale.

KATHMANDU, Sept 7: With a steady rise in the number of drugs abusers every year in Nepal, the number of people arrested on the charge of its smuggling is noticeably increasing of late in the country. The statics of the past six years (2011-2015) made available by the Nepal Police show that a total of 15,496 drugs smugglers were arrested in the country in this period.

KATHMANDU, July 25: Rastriya Prajatantra Party and RPP Nepal Samanantar or parallel group is to unite.

As we are bombarded with emails each day, we can’t stop ourselves from constantly scrolling our phone, or get perked up hearing the push button notification sound even when it’s not our working hours.

Our metropolitan is home to a huge number of street animals, especially dogs and cows that feed on feed mostly on the leftovers. Concerns about animal rights and the need to protect them have been raised often by some organization working in this sector, but so far these calls have gone unattended.