KATHMANDU: This past week a third Nepali was named as one of the Ramon Magsaysay awardees. We all rejoiced. Yet who was this Ramon Magsaysay in whose memory an award was set up that is considered Asia’s Nobel?

Ramon Del Fierro Magsaysay (1907-1957) was the president of the Philippines (1953-1957). His objective was to improve the lot of his fellow Filipinos and he approached the task with selfless devotion. He was convinced that the government, to last and to be sound, must have integrity and reflect the will of the people.

Nepali winners:

Recorder of history

Mahesh Chandra Regmi’s research and translation service, started in 1957, was a new kind of enterprise for Nepal. His weekly Nepal Press Digest became an effective journal of contemporary reporting within the kingdom. It was a valued source for diplomats in Kathmandu and vital for the United Nations and other organisations seeking to assist in Nepal’s progress. The Regmi Research Series, printed for “private study and research” on a subscription basis, was opening chapters of Nepal’s past to her own and international scholars. Regmi also produced three major scholarly works. His commitment was to understand, explain and further the lot of the Nepali peasants whose farms beneath the Himalayas remain the foundation of Nepali society.

In electing Mahesh Chandra Regmi to receive the 1977 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognised his chronicling of Nepal’s past and present, enabling his people to discover their origins and delineating national options.

Wall newspaperman

Born in 1942, Bharat Koirala was educated at Tribhuvan University, Katmandu and became a newspaperman. Koirala led Gorakhapatra publishing house, and practiced “a heavy dose of self-censorship”. Even so, he managed to expand the domain of the press. He encouraged his young reporters to write good stories and shielded them when the results offended someone in power.

In 1984, Koirala established the Nepal Press Institute. In 1985, he helped form the Nepal Forum for Environmental Journalists. After leaving Gorakhapatra in 1986, Koirala turned his attention to Nepal’s rural world, where half the districts had no access to national newspapers. To fill the gap, he began mounting huge billboard-style newspapers on walls in rural towns. With funding from the Agricultural Development Bank, these popular “wall newspapers” soon proliferated in Nepal’s remote hill districts.

When a democratic revolution overtook Nepal in 1990, Koirala played an important role in the transition to greater press freedom. He focused his hopes on radio as it “transcends literacy”. Leading a consortium of four NGOs, Koirala launched Sagarmatha, Nepal’s first private FM radio station.

In electing Koirala to receive the 2002 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the board of trustees recognised his developing professional journalism in Nepal and unleashing the democratising powers of a free media.

Dr Sight

Dr Ruit was born in a mountain area of Nepal so poor and remote that the nearest school was 11 days away, by foot. Diligence brought him a scholarship to be educated in India. Upon completing medical school, he returned to Nepal as a government health officer. Following an assignment with WHO Nepal Blindness Survey in 1980, he completed a residency in ophthalmology. Later, in Australia, he learned from Dr Fred Hollows the latest techniques in cataract microsurgery using implanted intraocular lenses. By 1988, he was introducing the new techniques in Nepal.

With backing from Nepal Eye Programme Australia, he began trekking to Nepal’s far-flung towns to conduct eye camps, on-the-spot surgeries, hundreds at a time. Dr Ruit devised techniques to achieve hospital-quality standards of precision and sterility under makeshift conditions. These included his famous suture-less procedure that speeds cataract surgery and reduces patients’ recovery time.

Ruit opened the Tilganga Eye Centre in 1994. It has become the hub of an ambitious expansion of eye-care services. It manages six regional eye-care centres in Nepal. It operates Nepal’s only successful eye bank. It also manufactures high-quality intraocular lenses for surgery and makes these once-exorbitant implants available to needy recipients in some 50 countries. Ruit’s mobile eye camps have expanded to China, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and even to North Korea.

In electing Dr Ruit to receive the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding, the board of trustees recognises his placing Nepal at the forefront of developing safe, effective, and economical procedures for cataract surgery, enabling the needlessly blind in even the poorest countries to see again.

The award:

In April 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award was established by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund based in New York City. The prize was created to commemorate late president of the Philippines and to perpetuate his example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. Today, the awards programme is managed by a board of trustees composed of nine Philippine citizens serving staggered four-year terms. An appointed president oversees the full-time administration of the programme.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation recognises and honours individuals and organisations in Asia regardless of race, creed, sex, or nationality, who have achieved distinction in their respective fields and have helped others generously without anticipating public recognition. The awards are given in five categories: government service; public service; community leadership; journalism, literature, and creative communication arts; peace and international understanding. In the 2000 Magsaysay Awards Presentation Ceremonies, the Foundation announced the creation of a sixth Award category, Emergent Leadership.