Nepal’s youngest prime minister takes oath of office

Nepal’s youngest prime minister has taken the oath of office after his party’s landslide election victory earlier this month, following a youth-led uprising that toppled the government in September.

Balendra Shah was appointed prime minister by the country’s president Ram Chandra Paudel after his Rastriya Swatantra Party won nearly two-thirds of the seats in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, in the March 5 polls.

The elaborate swearing-in ceremony was to include Hindu rituals, such as the “shankhnaad”, or blowing of conches, and religious chanting by Hindu priests and Buddhist lamas.

The timing of Mr Shah’s oath taking – at 12.34pm on the day when the Himalayan nation is celebrating Ram Navami – was seen as an auspicious time by Hindu priests based on astrological calculations.

It also fits the “1-2-3-4” numerological pattern. Mr Shah is later scheduled to enter his new office at 14.15pm, which also fits a “14-15” pattern. Hindu priests consider such numerical patterns as auspicious as well.

Mr Shah was born in the capital Kathmandu but his family comes from the Hindu-dominated Terai region of Nepal, near the border with India.

A structural engineer who rose to fame as a rap artist before becoming Kathmandu’s mayor, he leads the Rastriya Swatantra Party, which won about two-thirds of the 275 seats in the bicameral Parliament’s powerful lower House of Representatives.

Mr Shah emerged as a prominent voice during the bloody youth-led uprising in September that toppled the government in the nation of 30 million people, a wave of unrest that left dozens dead.

Although he did not directly participate in the protests, Mr Shah publicly expressed support for the largely Generation Z demonstrators who led the movement.