August | Weird and Funny World | Weird and Funny World

Article Contest

We at blog.xnepali.com have started to accept guest articles to be published in the blog. Best 2 articles selected from every 10 published articles will be awarded gift certificates.

Article Contest Rules

Articles should be sent to this email address:

Articles should reach us by ~~September 30~~ October 31, 2009.

Two winners will be selected from the first 10 (ten) published articles. If more than 10 articles are received remaining articles will compete in the next cycle of selection.

First prize - a gift certificate equivalent of NRs 1000
Second prize - a gift certificate equivalent of NRs 500.

For authors living in foreign countries, winning prize can be sent by either of the following two methods:
- Equivalent amounts sent through PayPal.
- Or gift certificate sent to the relative or friends in Nepal
Article:
- Article can be any non-fiction topic that informs, teaches or amuses the reader.
- The topic should be related to Nepal. It can be any of essay, investigative article, human interest article, personal experiences, travel article etc.
- Length – maximum of 1000 words with no minimum words limit
- The article should be original and unpublished.
- The article should be written either in English or Nepali language.
- Text can be written in any text editors but should be sent in format that can be read in text editors like Notepad.
- Please use photos and illustrations as required. The photos and illustration should be the authors own creation or should hold written permission from the original creator.
- Photos and illustration should be sent in JPG format. Other format picture will be converted in JPG format for publication. Sizes and resolution could be changed before publication.
- One author can participate with more than one article – but only one article from an author can be considered for competition at one time.
- Articles can refer other websites but in-line links can not be more than one external link. If links to other websites are absolutely necessary, reference list can be provided at the bottom of the article.
- Advertising products or services and self promoting articles will not be accepted
Rights on article:
- The articles will be published in the xnepali.com or its sister websites. Other than that, the author shall hold all the rights on the article and illustrations. We might consider publishing the articles in paper form in later stage. We however will seek permission from the author if we decide to do so.
Selection Procedure:

The article will be initially evaluated by the Article Evaluation Committee (AEC) to decide on which of the four categories the article falls in:
1. Good for publication
2. Good for publication after minor editing
3. Good for publication after major editing
4. Not good for publication
An email will be sent to every article authors stating the decision made by the AEC. Further instruction will be attached if further editing or alteration is required on the article. The article falling in the category 4 will be returned to the author..

Initial evaluation will be made within one week of receiving the application. Publication however might take some time depending on publication queue.

Depending on the number of articles received, a maximum of 1 (one) article will be published on a week.

AEC is responsible for selection of article for publication (not for the selection of winners). Article Selection Committee (ASC) will be formed to select the winners.

The decision of the AEC and ASC will be final and it couldn’t be debated upon.

The winners will be selected based on the evaluation criteria developed by the ASC.

Each published articles will have ‘vote’ buttons to vote for and against the article. Visitor vote might be one of the evaluation criteria with a certain weightage.
Evaluation criteria and weightage:
- - Originality (25%)
  - Organization of information (25%)
  - Presentation (25%)
  - Number of votes received from site visitors (25%)
Article Evaluation Committee (AEC) members
- - Editor, blog.xnepali.com – Anand Sharma
  - Administrators forum.xnepali.com
Article Selection Committee (ASC) members will consist of AEC members and some guest bloggers to be announced after the publication of 10 guest articles and before the start of the winner selection process.

Winners will be announced after one month of the publication of the 10th guest article. Remaining articles will be eligible for the next competition and the contest will continue as long as we receive guest articles for publication.

Incoming search terms:
Sarangi – the Nepali Musical Instrument

Sarangi is a stringed instrument played by traditional ‘Gaine’ or ‘Gandarbha’ community of Nepal. The Indo-Aryan ethnic group mainly from central hilly region of Nepal makes a living by singing a type of folk song and narrative tales commonly known as ‘Gaine Geet’ or ‘Gandarva Geet’.

It is believed that Sarangi originated from Nepal. The simplistic design of the instrument made it easy to be manufactured and maintained locally. It is sad that search of sarangi in the internet lands us to Indian musical instrument which is quite different from the Nepali version. Encyclopedias and dictionaries like Britannica, Wikipedia (there is a page for Nepali sarangi however), Farlex, and Oxford Dictionary don’t mention Nepali Sarangi at all.

Unlike Classical Indian Sarangi, it has four strings and all of them are played. The neck and body of the instrument are made from a single piece of light wood, locally known as Khirro. The body is carved into a hollow frame with two openings. The lower opening is then covered up with dried sheep-skin. Traditionally the fine nerves from sheep’s intestine were woven to get the strings. Horse-tail hair was originally used for the bow string of the Sarangi. These days nylon strings are preferred to the sheep nerves and horse-tail hair. The instrument is placed vertically on the left knee, suspended in front of the body by means of a cord around the left shoulder, and is played with a bow.

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Nepali Movie – Balidaan

Pashupati Records presents
Cinema Nepal’s first movie
Nepali Movie – Balidan
Cast: Hari Bamsha Acharya, Anjana Shrestha (subba), Neer Shah, Madan Krishna Shrestha etc.
Story - Modnath ‘Prashrith’
Part 1

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MaHa – Chiranjivi

Madan Krishna Shrestha and Hari Bamsha Achary‘s most entertaining comedy tele serial.
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Nepali Film – Khalanayak

Nepali Movie – Khalanayak
Cast – Nikhil Upreti, Jharana Thapa, Biraj Bhatta etc.
Direction- Rishi Neupane
Part 1

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93 new species found in Nepal

I was talking about one more addition to the 863 species of birds found in Nepal in my previous post. Recently WWF released a news about 350 more species of living things found in the Eastern Himalayas in the past decade in which 93 of them were found in Nepal. Among the 93 species 40 were plants, 36 mammals, 6 fishes, 2 frogs, 9 reptiles. Not all, but 10 were given a Nepali name ‘nepalenses’.

In Nepal we don’t do much research (don’t have resources) on these things so I suspect it is only a part of a bigger story. Much of the higher Himalaya is highly inaccessible and they should hold much of the unidentified species. As an example, never finding a giant Yeti can suffice on our ability to find all the unspotted species.

Well, that was the discovery of a group formed by WWF.

The group found that almost three-quarters of the discoveries between 1998 and 2008 were plants, including 21 new orchid species. But it also listed 16 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 14 fish, two birds, two mammals and at least 60 new invertebrates. Most of the discoveries have already been reported in peer-reviewed, scientific journals.

If you are interested in reading the full document it can be downloaded in pdf format from panda.org website.

Incoming search terms:
Afanta

Indra Gurung presents Nepali movie – Afanta
Cast – Shreekrishna Shrestha, Niruta Singh, Sunil Thapa, Sushila Rayamajhi, Narayan Tripathi, Pawan Mainali, Indra Gurung etc.

Part 1

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Nepalese models – what are they modeling for ?

What is a model ?

My understanding is that modeling is done to advertise product or service. There can be male or female model but in this article I will refer female models as they are the most sought after (even shaving cream ads feature female models). Wikipedia defines a model as:

A model (from Middle French modèle), sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed for the purpose of displaying and promoting fashion clothing or other products and for advertising or promotional purposes or who poses for works of art.

Again from Wikipedia

The British Association of Model Agents (AMA) says that female models should be around 34-24-34 in (86-61-86 cm) and at least 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) tall.

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Pushkar Shah – the world, eleven years, and Mt. Everest

I have heard about Pushkar Shah in bits and pieces. He was travelling countries on bicycle and now it has summed up to be the World. Yes, he has finished his journey of eleven years to introduce Nepal … in bits and pieces.

November 29, 1998 was the big day Puskar set out on an 11 year journey on a bicycle with NRs 100 (about $1.50) in his pocket. After travelling 150 countries in Asia, North America, South America, Africa, Middle East, and Europe now he has announced that he has completed his journey.

Now he has his ultimate dream :

I would like to climb Mount Everest in 2010 bringing the national flags of all the countries I will have visited by then to the summit.

Let’s wish him luck and we know he would do what he says he will.

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40 years research – 9 Predictors of long life

Get degree, get married, get a grip, and eat healthy if you want to live longer.

The November issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association published the result of a research that started back in 1965. In the article nine factors were identified as good predictors of which 50-plus men would live healthily into their 80s and beyond. The research included nearly 6,000 Japanese-American men living in Hawaii.

Well, getting married and having a degrees might be a bit odd in the list but all other seven indicators are well predictable for living longer.

Men who meet the following criteria are more likely to live longer, according to the study:

- Are married
- Are not overweight
- Have low blood pressure
- Possess a strong grip (indicating overall strength and fitness)
- Have attained a high level of education
- Have low blood sugar
- Avoid heavy drinking
- Do not smoke
- Have a low level of bad cholesterol.

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