बल्ल बल्ल मन्त्रीमन्डलले पास गरेछ त नि गाँठे! Cabinet approves Maila's song as national anthem The government has approved the anthem written by poet Byakul Maila as the new National Anthem of Nepal. Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Prithivi Subba Gurung informed that the cabinet selected the same song as the country's new national anthem. On November 30 last year, the national anthem selection task team had selected the song written by Maila, alias, Pradeep Kumar Rai as the new national anthem. However due to disputes over the background of Maila and some words used in the song, there was no further progress. The new National Anthem was selected from a total of 1,272 different songs submitted from across the country. The minister also informed that musicians Ambar Gurung and Nhyu Bajracharya have been given responsibility to compose music for the song. However, Maila was not formally informed by the government about this till Thursday evening. "I knew it through friends. There has been no formal information about the selection from the ministry," he added. Poet Maila was born in the Hilepani village of Okhaldhunga district 34 years ago. Maila, who holds a Bachelor's degree in Law and a Master's in Public Administration has been serving the Nepali literature for the last one and a half decades. He has written dozens of songs, poems, haikus and is also the editor of Nepali Geet Sangraha (a collection of Nepali songs) and literary magazines like Barbhanjyang. He had actively participated in the April Movement. The National Anthem is two stanzas long and each stanza has four lines. There are altogether 47 words in the new National Anthem. The restored House of Representatives in its May 18 Proclamation declared the existing national anthem null and void and decided to develop a new one. nepalnews.com pb Apr 20 07 http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/apr/apr20/news01.php