A Nepali man celebrates the end of monarchy outside the convention hall where Nepal's newly elected Constituent Assembly (CA) is meeting, in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, on May 28, 2008. The first meeting of CA was held on Wednesday to declare Nepal a federal democratic republic. (Xinhua/Bimal Gautam)

The first meeting of Constituent Assembly that sat late at Wednesday night, at the International Conference Center (ICC) of capital Kathmandu has declared Nepal a federal democratic republic.

The much awaited first CA meeting, although was scheduled for Wednesday morning, was delayed by more than 10 hours as top political party leaders at Baluwatar, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's official residence in Nepali capital Kathmandu, failed to reach consensus over the issues of power sharing, nomination of 26 CA members and power segregation of the President and the Prime Minister.

While the intense talks was going on, hundreds of CA members gathered for the first meeting had to desperately wait in the ICC premises. Although there were supposed to be 601 CA members for the meeting, 26 of them are yet to be finalized from the recommendation procedure and interestingly, most of them were seen busy on their mobile phones, trying to reach their fellow party leaders to learn about the latest development in Baluwatar.