{"id":6130,"date":"2006-05-28T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-28T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2006\/05\/28\/2006-05-28-hindus-protest-nepal-s-declaration-as-secular-state\/"},"modified":"2006-05-28T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-28T12:00:00","slug":"2006-05-28-hindus-protest-nepal-s-declaration-as-secular-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2006\/05\/28\/2006-05-28-hindus-protest-nepal-s-declaration-as-secular-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindus Protest Nepal&#8217;s Declaration as Secular State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.gulf-times.com\/site\/topics\/article.asp?cu_no=2&#038;item_no=88212&#038;version=1&#038;template_id=44&#038;parent_id=24\">www.gulf-times.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">KATHMANDU, NEPAL, May 25, 2006:  Nepal has been declared a secular state by the parliament of the multi-party government that King Gyanendra handed power over to in April of this year.  The announcement has sparked protests by thousands of Nepalis who want Nepal to remain the world&#8217;s only Hindu kingdom.  Shiva Patel, a resident of Birgunj, said, &#8220;More than 5,000 people burned tires and logs, and blocked roads in Birgunj, about 150 km south of Kathmandu.&#8221;  Local journalist Govind Devkota added, &#8220;Shouting &#8216;Jay Shree Ram!&#8217;, demonstrators obliged shops to pull down shutters and forced vehicles off the streets.  They are demanding that Nepal be declared a Hindu nation.  It&#8217;s peaceful so far, but could turn violent.&#8221;  The news release explained, &#8220;About 80% of Nepal&#8217;s 26mn people are Hindus and 11% Buddhists.  In April, King Gyanendra bowed to weeks of pro-democracy protests and handed power to a multi-party government after almost 15 months of absolute rule that drew worldwide condemnation.  He also reinstated the parliament disbanded in 2002.  The parliament quickly moved to curb the king&#8217;s powers, took control of the army and declared Nepal a secular nation.  Meanwhile, Nepal&#8217;s new government headed by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has formed a team to open negotiations with Maoists, three weeks after announcing a ceasefire and asking the guerrillas to come for talks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.gulf-times.com KATHMANDU, NEPAL, May 25, 2006: Nepal has been declared a secular state by the parliament of the multi-party government,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}