Activist for women's rights voted 1st female president

Nepalese lawmakers elected a longtime women's rights campaigner as the country's first female president on Wednesday, as the Himalayan nation pushes for more gender equality in politics and work life.

Bidhya Devi Bhandari, the 54-year-old deputy leader of Nepal's Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist-Leninist, had lobbied actively for the new constitution to require that either the president or vice-president be a woman.

Nepal has been trying to shift from a traditionally male-dominated society, where women are mostly limited to working at homes or on farms, to one in which women have equal access to opportunities and legal rights.