It's nice that Nepal Samvat has got its deserved recognition as the national Samvat of the country. However, I find the news pretty unclear about what the role of the newly declared national samvat will be, whether there can exist more than one national samvats, and what the country is going to do with the existing one. The information minister has probably said that the calenders presently in use will continue to remain in use.

Personally, I would prefer the use of the international calender for all practical purposes, rather than having Nepal Samvat replace the role of Bikram Samvat as a practical calender. Meaning, it'd be easier to have NS being used as a symbolic national samvat rather than a practical one appearing in day2day business.  And, with Nepal Samvat taking the status of the national samvat, I don't think we'll be needing Bikram Samvat for any purpose in the long run. It will take a generation or so to effectively switch to a new calender, though.

I'd like to add a note on Chanaa ji's comment  regarding efforts to distort the essence of Nepal Sambat 'projecting it as the Sambat of certain community'. Well, for most of the people other than the valley locals, NS and its celebrations do look like something local to the valley commuity only. This is partly due to the failure of the organizers of the celebrations that go during the NS new year to make them seem more inclusive and of 'national' outlook. For a non-local, the celebrations seem totally intermingled with the language movement, with, for example, rarely any banners and playcards bearing the mesaage in the national language, and any recitals and wishes made in a broader way. The organizers should take care of these things now as it's a national new year. It's difficult to fight perceptions than to fight an intended opposition.

And.. maalpaani ji, I don't understand why anyone would wish to switch to Buddha Samvat, because 'it has been successfully used in Thailand'..

Anyway... happy new year and happy festivities..