ABSTRACT
The Kingdom of Nepal, located in South Asia, is a landlocked country about the size of the U.S. state of Illinois. Nestled in the rugged Himalayas between two Asian giants, India and China, Nepal is the meeting point of the Indo-Aryan people of India with the Tibeto-Burmese people of the Himalayas. Popular culture views Nepal as a mystical and spiritual destination attracting the likes of tourists and trekkers. The stark reality is that Nepal, whose agriculture is the mainstay of its economy, is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world according to leading economic indicators. Forty-two percent of the population lives below the poverty line. This dismal economic condition, coupled with the country's weakened political institutions and rampant corruption, has paved the way for a Maoist insurgency to flourish in Nepal's rural areas since 1996. The ongoing Maoist insurgency has spread to more than fifty of Nepal's seventy-five districts and has claimed over eight thousand lives.
