Word: rana
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...only Hindu monarch; of a heart attack; in Bharatpur, Nepal. Though he was a member of Nepal's royal dynasty, Mahendra was kept a palace prisoner for the first 30 years of his life because real power in his country had long since fallen to the aristocratic Rana family. In 1951, Mahendra and his father King Tribhuvan led a popular revolution that ousted the Ranas, and four years later Mahendra succeeded to both the throne and control of the government. He proved to be adept at foreign affairs and kept Nepal in wary nonalignment between its two powerful neighbors...
...Crown Prince Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Deva, 24. He will not only succeed his father some day as monarch but also, the Nepalese believe, as the reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. The prince's bride, and also his second cousin, was Crown Princess Aishwarya Rajya Laxmi Devi Rana, 20, a member of the family that ruled...
...came to $9.5 million-no mean effort for a country whose 10 million people get by on a yearly per capita income of $77. In Katmandu, roads were widened and repaved, street lamps were installed, and Nepalese workmen painted over everything in sight, including the bronze statues of the Rana prime ministers. A new $2 million royal palace was rushed to completion to dazzle an anticipated crush of 3,000 foreign guests. The Nepalese cleared out the shaggiest of the Western hippies, who come to Katmandu to get high on the altitude and cheap hash, and they brought in more...
Show of Hands. Mahendra, 41, revered as a reincarnation of Vishnu and also known as King of Kings, Five Times Godly, Valorous Warrior, Divine Emperor, ascended his throne in 1955. It had been secured for him by his father, who four years earlier toppled the prolific and powerful Rana family, which had ruled Nepal for a century. The young King was filled with democratic good intentions. A poet as well as a pragmatic politician, he personally edited a constitution for his 9,000,000 people (91 % illiterate) and gave his consent to Nepal's first national election...
Prime Minister Nehru righteously castigated Mahendra's behavior as a "setback to democracy." But the leader of the Nepali exiles in Calcutta is not quite as democratic as Nehru might have wished. He is General Subarna Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, a member of Nepal's deposed, autocratic old ruling family. Since last December, under his command, the rebels have mounted dozens of armed attacks on Nepali villages and police posts. Typically, a few score guerrillas will pop out of the jungle, bloodlessly seize a town, run up the Nepali flag with a picture of Subarna, loot the local...