Word: rana
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Considering the way the Rana family of Nepal came to power 104 years ago, it was scarcely surprising last week to find that the Ranas had won another match against Nepal's royal family. Watching their beaten King fly away in an Indian government airplane, the good people of Kathmandu could shake their turbaned heads and murmur the Nepalese equivalent for: "They never come back...
...Ranas won the championship of Nepal in a gory elimination tournament in 1846. The reigning monarch at that time was Rajendra Bikram Sahi, a blue-blooded Rajput (Hindu warrior caste) and a descendant of Vishnu the Lifesaver. For all that, the King was nuttier than a pecan tree in October. He and the Queen persuaded one of their generals, Jung Bahadur Rana, to murder their Prime Minister, who happened to be Jung Bahadur's uncle. Then Jung Bahadur helped the King murder the Queen's lover. She was put out about this, but not at the King...
Since then, as anyone would expect, the Kings of Nepal have been Kings in name only, and the Ranas have been hereditary Prime Ministers. They made a good thing out of it. Half of Nepal's $10,000,000 state revenue finds its way to members of the Rana family. One Rana is said to own 300,000 acres of land, which would be a big farm even in Texas, but is enormous in the Himalaya-topped little land of Nepal...
While New Delhi spoke, Nepal's Prime Minister Maharaja Mohun Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana, 64, a devout feudalist,*was journeying from the little Himalayan kingdom (6,000,000 pop.; 54,000 sq. mi.) to republican India. It took him 15 days by foot, horseback and palanquin over windswept ranges to reach an Indian railhead. A special train bore him on to New Delhi, where Nehru waited. In black cap and brown leather churidar, Rana stepped down onto a red carpet. He put his right foot first, to insure an auspicious beginning and end for his visit. Nehru welcomed...
...week-long round of mutual expressions of good will followed the pageantry of welcome. The betrothal of Rana's granddaughter to a Kashmiri prince was announced. Before going home, the guest of honor will receive a diamond-studded sword from India's Defense Minister Sardar Baldev Singh-an earnest of more up-to-date military aid to come...