Kathmandu, Dec. 30: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has expressed the conviction that the Tamu Lhosar festival will motivate towards moving ahead by protecting and promoting the customs, tradition and culture of the Gurung community.

In a message on the occasion of the New Year and the main festival Tamu Lhosar of the Tamu (Gurung) community today, he said the prevailing diversity including in language, religion, culture and costumes are our invaluable capital.

Stating that Nepal is a country having multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious, and multi-cultural characteristics and the multi-cultural identity is its unique capital, he said, "We should utilize the valuable asset as unity and tolerance, language, religion, culture, and costumes in building a prosperous country. Festivals like this based on various cultures are the unique identity of our national unity, mutual goodwill and tolerance."

The Prime Minister stated in the message that the Constitution of Nepal has ensured topics related to religious freedom and language and culture as fundamental rights. The religious and cultural faiths of various communities have been respected and various languages, scripts, culture, civilization, and cultural heritage have been preserved.

"Unity, goodwill, and tolerance that is intact and followed by keeping democracy, social justice, national unity, independence, national indivisibility and nationalism at the centre is our national uniqueness. We are on a campaign of fulfilling the national aspiration of 'Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali' by internalizing this uniqueness," PM Oli stated in the message

Tamu Lhosar festival is taken as the New Year festival by the Gurung community. In the Gurung language, 'lho' means day and 'chhar' means change. So, the combined form 'Lhosar' means the day of the change in the year.