10 Paisa - Birendra Bir Bikram FAO

This piece was struck as part of the FAO coin program, a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization initiative that ran through the 1970s and into the 1980s, encouraging member nations to issue coins with agricultural themes as a form of soft diplomacy around global food security. Nepal participated across multiple denominations. The 1979 issue falls squarely within Birendra's early reign, a period when the Panchayat system still governed political life in Kathmandu — a partyless structure that would survive until the 1990 People's Movement forced constitutional monarchy.