Miss Nepal contest falls prey to chaos

South Asia News

Miss Nepal contest falls prey to chaos

Kathmandu, July 9 (IANS) The escalating violence and disruptions during the fag end of King Gyanendra's absolute reign continue to affect Nepal months later with Miss Nepal, the kingdom's best known and most-popular beauty pageant, becoming the latest casualty.

The contest, sponsored by Dabur India's subsidiary and one of Nepal's largest corporates, Dabur Nepal, will not be held this year, the fast moving consumer goods giant said Sunday.

The Dabur Vatika Miss Nepal Pageant 2006, scheduled to be held Aug 5 at the prestigious Birendra International Convention Center in the capital, has now been postponed to January 2007.

This is the second time since its inception in 1994 that the kingdom's oldest beauty pageant has been postponed. Previously, it was not held in 2001 when the king and queen of Nepal, along with their three children and other members of the royal family, were massacred in the palace, plunging the nation into mourning.

'The preparations usually start in April but this year, that was the most turbulent phase in Nepal,' Dabur Nepal's sales and marketing department told IANS.

'The instability continued even in May. It was only in June that things normalised sufficiently for us to think we could have a go at holding the pageant.'

Protests against King Gyanendra's absolute rule peaked in April with continuous street protests for 19 days shutting down the kingdom completely. The highways remained closed, transport came to a standstill and for several days, there were daytime curfew and shoot-on-sight orders.

Though last month the Hidden Treasure, the pageant franchisee in Nepal, announced the August date, in the course of time the organisers and sponsors realised they did not have sufficient time either to hold a 'quality show' or give sufficient grooming time to the first three winners.

The title carries a purse of NRS 100,000 and a Kinetic Nova Scooter, while the first runner-up gets NRS 60,000 and the second runner-up NRS 40,000.

Though the prize money is peanuts compared to the earnings winners make elsewhere, including in southern neighbour India, the biggest incentive is the sponsorship the winners get to participate in international pageants abroad - Miss World, Miss Earth and Miss Asia Pacific International.

However, the silver lining is, though there won't be any Miss Nepal in 2006, a greater opportunity awaits the winner in 2007 when she would represent Nepal at the Miss Universe contest for the first time.

'The Miss Universe show is held in May and Miss Nepal in August,' Dabur Nepal said. 'So we used to miss out on the premier pageant. We had been planning to prepone our show so that eventually we could participate in Miss Universe. We will do that from next year.'

Dabur Nepal breathed fresh life into the cash-strapped pageant in 2002. Since then, they have been sponsoring it for four years in a row.

However, so far no Miss Nepal has made it to the top 10 in Miss World or won any awards there in the different categories. Last year, the introduction of SMS and online voting made winning doubly difficult for Miss Nepal Sugarika KC.

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in Asia and online voting cost $1 - nearly NRS 74.

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Miss Nepal contest falls prey to chaos