Jai Pratap Rana, Nepal Ambassador To United States, 66

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Jai Pratap Rana, Nepal's ambassador to the United States since January
2002, died of sepsis March 16, 2004, at Johns Hopkins University
Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of 66.

A little more than a year into his tenure, Ambassador Rana suffered a
seizure while on a walk. He had been ill ever since, undergoing nine
surgeries in the last 11 months for a benign tumor, said Pravin Rana,
a close associate of the ambassador.

Ambassador Rana served 31 years in his country's foreign service,
including six years as Nepal's ambassador to the United Nations, from
1985 to1991.

He held various posts at the United Nations, including vice president
of the U.N. General Assembly and chairman of a committee on
international security and disarmament.

Upon his retirement in 1992, he became head of the King Mahendra Trust
for Nature Conservation in Nepal. The nongovernmental organization was
established to try to balance rural development with nature
conservancy in the mountainous country in South Asia.

He came out of retirement to fill the U.S. ambassadorship, which had
been vacant for about 18 months.

Ambassador Rana was the son of a colonel in the Nepalese army. He was
born in Tansen, Palpa, a district in southwestern Nepal.

He was educated in Gorakhpur, India, London and the United States. He
studied law and diplomacy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

He joined his country's Ministry of Foreign Service in 1961 and served
at the Royal Nepalese Embassies in London, England, Washington DC, and
New Delhi, India.

P.