Word: maha
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...native word meaning noble and aristocratic. Plans for the rechristening proceeded apace until an academic pointed out that the word was probably derived from Sanskrit. Fine, its proponents said, Sanskrit is a non- imperialist language. Yes, replied the scholar, but Maharlika was most likely derived from the words maha lingam, meaning "great phallus." That was the end of the campaign...
...Rangoon, one of Southeast Asia's more dilapidated capitals, workmen are busily scrubbing years of grime from the curbstones. Newly painted red-and- white pavement glistens, and gardeners are trimming shrubs in Maha Bandoola Park, next to the Sule Pagoda. All that effort by Burma's seven-week-old military government is part of an official campaign to "Keep Rangoon Pleasant." The cleanup is an attempt to polish the military's tarnished image -- and that has doomed it from the start. "They think we will like them if they clean up the city," says a shop clerk on Merchant Street...
...predominantly Hindu Tamil minority hijacked a bus and headed for Anuradhapura, a city largely inhabited by Buddhist Sinhalese. As the guerrillas drove into the city's crowded main bus station, they opened fire with automatic weapons, killing about 100 men, women and children. Then they drove to the Sri Maha Bodhiya, a sacred Buddhist site, and fired indiscriminately into a crowd that included nuns and monks. The rebels continued on to Sri Lanka's northwest coast, attacking a police station and a game sanctuary on the way, and may have escaped by boat to India, where the Tamil Nadu state...
...attacking the Sri Maha Bodhiya, the site of a sacred 2,200-year-old bo tree said to have grown from a sapling of the tree under which Buddha found enlightenment, the guerrillas seemed almost eager to provoke retaliation. It did not take long. In the bloodiest strike, assailants boarded a ferry off the northern coast of Sri Lanka, near Jaffna, and hacked 39 Tamils to death with axes, swords and knives. The Sri Lankan navy has denied accusations that it was involved in the slaughter; the same day, police surprised Tamil rebels hiding in a cave in the Eastern...
Although the Maha rashtra government dis tributed a photograph showing Gandhi inaugurating the talent fund, the Prime Minister had not approved the use of her name. Two months ago, she wrote Antulay ordering him to remove her name from the trust. In an impassioned 50-min. speech to the state legislative assembly, Antulay admitted using her name without authorization. His excuse: "I thought I would be able to persuade Mrs. Gandhi to give her permission." But that, he insisted, was his only mistake. He declared that all the money had been used for the public good...