In my humble opinion, this is one of the most important threads in Sajha. Thank you for initiating this discussion. Very thoughtful insights from many Sajha friends on what plagues our country. Regrettably, I do not have a real grasp of how federalism will work or should work, neither do I know about people’s current mandate. What I want to talk about, here, is one of the malady of our Madhesi culture. I come from a Madheshi part of our country. Which is why, here, I want to invite my Madhesi friends (not that I want to exclude Pahadi folks) to put forward the Madhesi perspective to my question. Something that gave me restless nights when I had ethos many years back when I was in Nepal. Now I am apathetic to Nepal’s malaise. I feel bad but that’s what I’ve become. I saw grand enthusiasm about CK Raut in my madhesi friend’s social networks. My friends quote him incessantly and support his idea of independent Madhesh. I do not want to go there now (I mean, to that idea of Madhesi independence, not yet). What I want to talk about here is the grand malaise. The Gorilla in the room. “The Daughter”. No – not even the caste system, not the language, not the discrimination that my Madhesi peers had to face from the feudal society etc. I just want to talk about Madhesi “daughter”. It was sad to see how a learned man like CK Raut did not even mention about this grand malaise in our culture. I am not trying to undermine his agenda but I am highlighting a point that to ignore the Madhesi cultural plague of undermining our ‘daughter’s strength’ is disgraceful. The ‘Daughter’ is denigrated. Where are my Madhesi sisters in US, in UK, in Australia? I married my Madhesi wife and brought her in a dependent visa. That’s it. All my Madhesi Doctor, Engineer and Chartered Accountant friends from Madhesh are “males”. All of them married Madhesi daughters and that’s how the ‘female’ Madhesis that I know of came to US, UK and Australia. This might seem trivial and a nonsensical point but one small but cynical observation of my own society. I am not saying that my Pahadi female friends are eulogizing Vagina Monologues in Kennedy Center but pointing out that Madheshi culture is far behind in granting our daughters and mothers the rights they deserve in education, marriage, property rights and sexual expressions compared to rest of other cultures. The ‘Dowry’ is a killer. There are other very similar and pervasive problems that ails our country as a whole - like education, access to finance, job opportunities, health etc. These are universal economic problems irrespective of terai, pahad, himal, khas, bhot, madhes etc. However, in my humble observation the gender based discrimination problem is more deeply seated in Madhesi culture compared to other peer cultures of Nepal. This ails Bihar and UP more compared to rest of the India. Gender discrimination will relatively hurt us more and this cultural aspect of Madhesi society should be first at war rather than a demand for the Federal State. But the Pundits and Mullahs of our society are ill equipped to observe this weakness and I am a coward who cannot even write a logical essay on plight of my sisters in Terai, Pahad and Himal. Your take.