Ram Baran Yadav was the First President of Nepal from the duration 23 July 2008 to 29 October 2015. Previously he served as Minister of Health from 1999 to 2001 and was General Secretary of the Nepali Congress party. He is Nepal's first President following the declaration of a republic in 2008. Ram Baran Yadav was born to Thani Yadav and Ram Rati Yadav on 4 February 1948 at Sapahi Village Development Committee (VDC) Ward No. 9, Dhanusa district of Nepal. He is an ethnic Maithil. Yadav received an MBBS from Calcutta Medical College, in Kolkata, India, a DCP from the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine in Kolkata, and an MD from PGIMER in Chandigarh, India. He was married to Julekha Yadav, now deceased. Yadav was elected as the first President of Nepal in a second round of voting on 21 July 2008. He received 308 out of the 590 votes cast in the Constituent Assembly, defeating Ram Raja Prasad Singh, who had been nominated by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), in the second round of voting.