''Letting people freedom to choose names, surnames, religion and everything a Nepali is entitled to is going to be among many socio-political reforms I am going to pursue (no, not limited to cyber-activism !).'' ..Nepeji, I believe we already have this freedom in Nepal. I chose to have slightly different surname to my father when I applied for my citizenship and I know a number of people who have completely different surname to their fathers (eg Nepali, Nepal etc). Ashuji above also pointed out that dalits from western Nepal start afresh with different surname when they migrate to a different place. As for religion, I'm sure one will not have much difficulty taking up the religion of her/his liking. So, I guess we need more than just the freedom to choose our surname etc. We already have law in place which makes discrimination on the basis of caste/ religion etc illegal. However, I think what we need's a strong zero tolerance policy against those who break the law. We need right people in the relevant authorities to implement the law and take strong actions so that the law's not just limited on the paper, which's the mostly the case at the moment. And of course government needs to take initiatives to improve socio-economic status of dalits and implement education system which will encourage children to understand from early age that everyone is equal regardless of their caste, religious status etc. I have no doubt that the influence of caste system in Nepal is diminishing and it will continue to diminish with time. After 100s of years of practice, it's not going to radically change overnight.