raidilip, You are right that people are crucial part. No denying of it. For example, two other countries which occupy significant strategic position are Egypt (the shortest path to go to Europe from Asia is suez canal, o/w you have to go around Africa, via South Africa in the way Vasoc DeGama et al travelled long ago) and Panama (the shortest path to go from eastern America to western part of America, o/w should travel via Chile which used to be norm before the construction of Panama canal). But both Egypt and Panama are not able to benefit from their strategic location for various reason. Nepal is poor for several reasons: one was there were no schools until 50 years ago, and we had this remarkably unstable period for last fifty years. Our students don't go to school anymore, go to strikes and there is always some reason for revolution. We don't have oil, we don't have minerals, o/w evenwithout education we could be rich like Saudi Arabia or Brunei. The only reason why were not like the poorest countries of the world was due to lack of ethnic conflict, which we might soon get anyway. Rahulbhai, I am not sure about Mahendra Malla. I knew that Pratap Malla had etched one French word in his famous shilalekh (I think it was sth like L'AMBERT or something like that, and I don't know the meaning). When Venetian priests reached KTM in seventeenth century, they apparently sent a mail to their friends back home, saying how surprised they were to see a beautiful city in the midst of those mountains. The city, they claimed, was as rich as Venice. I wouldn't doubt. With less population, he business opportunity provided by Bhim Malla's attack of Tibet, the contract to make all gold and silver coins of Tibet had made KTM very rich at one point of time during Malla era.