Kathmandu, May 7

Nepal Sports Journalists Forum felicitated senior sports Journalist Gopal Basnet with the NSJF journalism Honour here today.

Vice-president of Federation of Nepali Journalists Anita Bindu, senior sports journalist Shyam Chitrakar and President of NSJF Ajay Phuyal handed over the felicitation letter and Rs 10,000 to Basnet during the opening ceremony of NSJF’s 12th Annual General Meeting.

Basnet, who started his sports journalist career from state-run Gorkhapatra four decades ago, is currently associated with Himalayan TV. He was the member of the team that started sports programmes in Radio Nepal and Nepal TV.

Basnet thanked the NSJF for the honour. “Sports journalists were doing good but there are areas to improve,” said Basnet. “The spirit of journalists have taken this beat at this level.”

FNJ Vice-president Bindu lauded NSJF as the active Associate Member. “I felt honoured to be a part of this programme and I would like to thank the NSJF for providing me with the opportunity of felicitating one of the senior sports journalists,” she added.

Meanwhile, the AGM elected an 11-member central executive committee headed by Mahesh Acharya of The Himalayan Times for the next three years. Durganath Subedi (NTV) was elected as the first Vice-president, while Sanjeeb Shilpakar (NTV) and Shreelochan Rajopadhyay (Naya Patrika) were elected as the vice-presidents. Prakash Timalsina (Nagarik), Raju Ghising (Kantipur) and Prajwal Oli (Republica) were elected the General Secretary, and Treasurer respectively.

Likewise, Kamal Khatri (Nagarik), Adarsha Dhakal (The Kathmandu Post), Govinda Regmi (Annapurna Post) and Anjan Khadka (The Rising Nepal) were elected as Members in the new committee, which includes Immediate Past President Ajay Phuyal and AIPS-Asia Treasurer Niranjan Rajbanshi as the ex officio members.

All the officials except for two vice-presidents were elected unopposed. The committee will get its full shape after the nomination of three members. Earlier, the AGM approved the annual reports of general secretary and treasurer apart from amending the statute.