Sagar Dhakal came into the limelight eight years ago by asking the then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, "When will we get a prime minister like the outstanding students in Singapore, America, China, and Britain?"

‘The successful Prime Minister in Britain for 70 years is from Oxford University, but in Nepal we have a Prime Minister who understands our hearts for the past 70 years, when will you be displaced?’, he had asked.

At that time, Deuba’s answer, saying ‘Where will I get Oxford in Nepal’, went viral. In the 2079 BS elections, he himself went to Dadeldhura to challenge Deuba in the parliamentary elections with the aim of displacing him, but could not defeat him.

After the elections held on 21 Falgun after the Gen-G movement, not only Dhakal himself has been elected, but young people with Oxford connections in their educational background have also become MPs. One of them is Sumnima Udas, who became an MP through proportional representation.

After participating in the training organized by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for newly elected MPs, she recalled the class she attended before entering Oxford.

‘I felt the same way when I first went to Oxford, I felt like I had so much responsibility,’ she said, ‘It also felt like corporate training to me, very intense, so much responsibility and accountability, I was also scared.’ Udas studied art history, criticism and conservation at the University of Oxford from 2002 to 2003. Before that, she studied broadcast journalism at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, USA.

The daughter of former diplomat Bhim Udas, she grew up living in 10 countries, including Pakistan, Italy, Switzerland, Jordan, Russia, the US, and Myanmar.

The former South Asia chief of CNN

After completing her studies, she interned on Capitol Hill for Senator Richard G. Luger, who was on the Foreign Relations Committee. She worked as a news assistant for the American news organization CNN from September 2001.

In 2006, she moved from New York to Hong Kong and worked as a program producer. Four years later, she moved to New Delhi, India, and worked in the South Asia Bureau. She covered the December 16, 2012, gang rape on a moving bus in India for CNN.

Six accused were later sentenced to death in India's notorious rape and murder case. The rape and murder of 23-year-old medical student Nirbhaya sparked nationwide protests demanding justice.

After this incident, India's laws against violence against women were reviewed and amended in 2012 to provide for the death penalty for heinous crimes like rape.

She wrote on CNN International's website about her experience reporting on the incident, "That incident sparked a jihad in the debate on violence against women, and awareness also increased. Now women have become brave enough to report not only rape cases, but also crimes like sexual abuse, molestation, stalking, and voyeurism."

Indian law prohibits the disclosure of the names of victims of violence. "But for her family and millions of Indians, she will always be remembered as the name given to her by the media as Nirbhaya, the fearless woman," she said. Udas was promoted to CNN's South Asia bureau chief in 2013.

Announcing Sumnima as bureau chief, CNN International Managing Editor Alana Lee said, “She is a committed journalist who has played a key role in bringing important news to audiences around the world. With her appointment as Delhi correspondent, we look forward to further strengthening our presence in this diverse and dynamic region.”

She was given the responsibility as the world’s attention is focused on India, the world’s largest democracy and emerging economic power, as it heads towards the 2014 elections.

Udas had done important reporting on the bomb blast outside the New Delhi High Court, anti-corruption protests, and slavery in Indian villages. She had also come to Kathmandu to work for CNN when the earthquake hit Nepal.

Rahul Gandhi guest at wedding, a storm in India

Udas, who is now an MP, was also attended by Indian Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at her wedding four years ago. There was a huge controversy in India regarding Gandhi's visit to Kathmandu.

Gandhi, who came to Kathmandu with some of his friends, stayed at the Marriott Hotel in Kathmandu. His father Bhim Udas, who was also a former ambassador to Myanmar, told Kantipur at the time, "We had sent an invitation to Gandhiji to attend his daughter's wedding."

Gandhi also visited the NOD Club in Kathmandu when he came to Kathmandu. After the video there was made public on social media, Amit Malviya, the head of the social media department of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Union Minister Giriraj Singh also criticized it by tweeting.

Malviya had said, "Rahul Gandhi was in a nightclub when the Mumbai attacks happened in 2008, and now he is in a nightclub even when his party is in crisis." The controversy escalated so much that Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had to respond. He had said, ‘Rahul Gandhi is not like Prime Minister Narendra Modi who went to Pakistan without an invitation, Rahul Gandhi went to the friendly country Nepal to attend a friend’s private wedding. Incidentally, that friend is also a journalist.’

Udas got married to businessman Nima Martin Sherpa on 20 Baisakh 2079 BS. There was a reception at the Hyatt Hotel in Boudh on 22 Baisakh, where other VIPs from India also attended. After leaving journalism, Udas was working as the executive director of ‘The Lumbini Museum Initiative’.

‘As a Nepali who grew up in culturally rich cities from Rome to Amman, Moscow to Yangon, Peshawar to New Delhi and Geneva to New York, she always felt that her rich Buddhist and Hindu heritage, dating back thousands of years, was not adequately presented and promoted on the world stage,’ its website says. ‘In 2016, she wrote a letter to the Nepal government proposing to build a state-of-the-art museum at the birthplace of Lord Buddha.’

In September 2018, the Nepal government entrusted the Nepal-based non-profit organization Buddha Foundation with the responsibility of building, designing, curating, managing and operating a world-class museum in Lumbini for the next 35 years.’