By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Jan. 25: Printed 55 years ago, and presumed lost, the rare launching copy of The Rising Nepal published by Gorkhapatra Sansthan has been found.
The historical newspaper copy was recovered from the personal archive of one of the founding editors of the daily, Krishna Bhakta Shrestha.
Shrestha handed over the rare document to Madan Puraskar Library on Sunday.
The Rising Nepal, the first English language broadsheet daily of the nation, was launched on Thursday, 16 December 1965 (Poush 1, 2022 Bikram Sambat). Barun Shumsher Rana was the founding editor of the daily. It was priced at 15 paisa.
At a gathering in his Mandikhatar residence, Shrestha handed over the historical first copy signed by the then Crown Prince of Nepal Birendra Shah, to Chairman of Madan Puraskar Guthi and a former editor of The Rising Nepal, Kunda Dixit.
A copy of the document was made available to TRN Editor-in-Chief Bhimsen Thapaliya at the handing over meeting.
Shrestha said that it may not be possible to preserve the copy in personal archive forever. “So I decided to hand it over to an institution that can be trusted.”
Shrestha had served as an editor of TRN and Gorkhapatra and chief editor of literary monthly Madhuparka before becoming the general manager of Gorkhapatra Sansthan.
Dixit said that this document provided by Shrestha makes the collection of Madan Purasakar Library complete as we have almost all issues of The Rising Nepal in our collection.
One of the founding editors of The Rising Nepal, Aditya Man Shrestha, at the TRN-Day 2019 function, had said that only three signed copies of the first issue of The Rising Nepal were there but they were not found anywhere. 
He had suggested that the copy might be at Madan Puraskar Library which has a rare collection of various publications. Upon inquiry, Kunda Dixit in December said that it was not in its collection because the library’s collection priority was mainly for Nepali language publications.
At the 55th anniversary function of The Rising Nepal held at the Sansthan on December 16, former Editor-in-Chief of the daily, P. Kharel, had suggested that a copy of TRN’s
first issue could have been in
personal collection of Krishna Bhakta Shrestha.
This suggestion of Kharel proved to be an important tip as it led to the ultimate discovery of the rare copy.
On January 4, contact was established with Shrestha who said, “Yes, I have a copy of the first issue of The Rising Nepal.”
A moment of disappointment came when Shrestha made a search and could not find the copy. It was misplaced.
Despite his physical disability, Shrestha continued the search. Recently, he was able to give the good news that the TRN’s first copy was finally found. He said he had decided to hand it over to Madan Puraskar Library.