Udit Narayan Jha

Udit Narayan Jha was born on 1 December 1955 in an ethnic Maithil Brahmin family to Nepalese national Harekrishna Jha and Indian national Bhuvaneshwari Jha. When his acceptance of the Padma Shri led to criticism in Nepal, he told the Nepalese daily Kantipur that he was "from Nepal but his mother's home was in Bihar." In a 2017 interview with the Indian magazine Outlook, he clarified that he was born in Baisi, a village in Bihar, and clarified that his father Harekrishna was a native of Nepal. In September 2018, at a ceremony held by the Bihar Jharkhand Association of North America, he stated that he identifies as a Bihari.