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Bibek Bhandari
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Bibek Bhandari is a London-based freelance journalist. Before coming to the UK, he worked as a Kathmandu-based correspondent for Republica, Nepal's leading English daily. His experiences also include blogging for the New York-based South Asian Journalists Association and an internship at Rolling Stone India. His work has appeared in The Dallas Morning News, Hindustan Times and The National in the UAE.

Blog Entries by Bibek Bhandari

Jonathan Pryce: 100 Beards, 100 Days

(0) Comments | Posted October 25, 2012 | 12:59 PM

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For the past three months, Jonathan Pryce has been on a hunt. His target: men with beards.

Pryce, a photographer and men's style blogger, scurried through the many neighborhoods where London's stylish stroll -- from Covent Garden to Soho, moving towards...

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Liam Hackett: "It Does Get Better"

(1) Comments | Posted August 6, 2012 | 6:30 PM

Liam Hackett calls his high school days the "worst experience" of his life.

The 15-year-old was bullied and also physically assaulted for which he had to be hospitalized.

The reason: he is gay.

"I was so low that I would walk around with my head down so that...

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Nepal's LGBTI-Rights Movement: Personal Perspectives (AUDIO, PHOTOS)

(5) Comments | Posted July 25, 2012 | 9:41 AM

Jyoti Thapa's feminine features are distinct: her twinkling brown eyes, her slender nose pierced with a shiny nose stud, and her long, black hair add prominence to her slim, well-maintained figure. As she takes a 10-minute walk uphill from a grocery store to her house at Sipadol Village...

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Living Gay: A Perspective from Nepal (Part 1)

(4) Comments | Posted July 19, 2012 | 6:36 PM

For 26 years, he lived as a man.

But in 2008, Krishna Thapa, now known as Jyoti, finally had the courage to live as who he feels: as a woman.

Thapa, now 30, is a transgender woman who identifies herself as third gender, who do not identify themselves as male...

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Nepal to Hold Its First LGBTI Sporting Event

(5) Comments | Posted March 20, 2012 | 6:06 PM

Badri Pun, a former national volleyball athlete, quit sports when he was 22.

Now 37, Pun, also an LGBTI activist based in the capital Kathmandu, says coming out as a "third-gender" has been "the biggest drawback" professionally.

"Because I was different from my team members, I was...

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TCU Kicks Off Spring Break With VITALS

(2) Comments | Posted March 16, 2012 | 1:49 PM

It's spring break time. And Texas Christian University is ready to play some beer pong and flip cup -- both, drinking games -- on its campus.

But instead virgin margaritas will be on the table and students will have a chance to play flip cup and beer...

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The Last Sikh Warrior

(16) Comments | Posted December 13, 2011 | 6:10 AM

On a sleepy Saturday afternoon in Slough, a borough west of London, Nidar Singh Nihang knows how to keep a group of young men awake.

Inside an empty hall of a church in London Road, Singh Nihang is an authoritative figure. As 20 men, most of them from the Sikh...

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Brokeback Everest: Nepal's Film Industry Embraces Gay Romance

(1) Comments | Posted October 18, 2011 | 11:55 AM

Since Courtney Mitchell came to Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1998, the Himalayan nation has witnessed some significant changes.

From the end of a bloody armed conflict, to major political reform that turned the country into one of the world's youngest republics, to a massive social movement that...

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