KASHISH DAS SHRESTHA YADAV IN BIG APPLE: Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav addressing a seminar in New York on Tuesday, also in the picture is Kul Chandra Gautam.

Yadav will be here for a week day, and his schedule is more laid back than Prime Minster Dahal's last week. He followed Dahal's footsteps by addressing the India China Institute at the New School on Tuesday in comfortable English. He emphasized that the Madhes is a region and not an ethnic group, implying that his party works for the national interest.

"Hindi is a lingua franca for us in the Madhesh," he said, "but to me Nepali and Hindi are both second languages." Yadav said he didn't think ethnic federalism would work in Nepal, adding that it needed to be discussed.

Nepal needed capital and technical assistance to develop hydropower, he said adding that Nepal would welcome foreign investment.

Two other speakers at the event were Kul Chandra Gautam, former Assistant Secretary General of the UnitedNations and professor of political science at The New School, Sanjay Ruparelia.