Nations first President

Ram Baran Yadav (born February 4, 1948) is the current President of Nepal. He was elected in July 2008 and is the country's first President. He previously served as Minister of Health and as General Secretary of the Nepali Congress party. Yadav was born in Sapahi VDC-9, Dhanusa. The son of Thani and Ramrati Yadav, he studied medicine in the Calcutta Medical College and the School of Tropical Medicine of the University of Calcutta in India. As per the decision of Nepali Congress to contest in local body election, Dr Yadav contested for the chairman of Ward No. 9 of Sapahi Panchayat in 1987 and was elected unanimously. After securing membership of Panchayat as a prerequisite to contest district chairmanship election Yadav contested for chairman of district Panchayat election in 1987, but he lost. Yadav was arrested during the Jana Andolan in 1990 and jailed for three months, but was released with the establishment of multi-party democracy. Yadav was the Minister of State for Health in the 1991-1994 Nepali Congress government. He was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1999 election as a candidate of the Nepali Congress. After that election, he became Minister of Health. In May 2007, Yadav's residence in Janakpur was attacked by militants of the Janatantric Tarai Mukti Morcha (JTMM). The JTMM put up a seizure notice at the house, hoisted their flags at it and detonated a bomb. Yadav contested the Dhanusa-5 constituency in the April 2008 Constituent Assembly election. He won the seat obtaining 10392 votes. Yadav was elected as the first President of Nepal in a second round of voting on July 21, 2008. He received 308 out of the 590 votes cast in the Constituent Assembly defeating Ram Raja Prasad Singh, who had been nominated by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in a second round of voting.