NEPAL: The latest ruler to wear the plumed, bejewelled crown of Nepal is a dour former businessman who favours Christian Dior sunglasses and military uniforms, listens to Indian love songs and consults astrologers about auspicious times to travel, according to Nepali journalists, diplomats and government officials.
The king leads one of the world's oldest and most exotic royal houses, a secretive Hindu dynasty that claims to be divinely ordained.
In 1990, Nepal became a constitutional monarchy, with an elected parliament and prime minister. But King Gyanendra put that system on hold when he assumed powers of direct rule on February 1st, 2005, defending the move as necessary to defeat the Maoists.
The Shah dynasty to which he belongs dates to 1769, when a regional ruler named Prithvi Narayan Shah led an army down from the hills and conquered the ancient city of Kathmandu. Nepalis traditionally worshipped their rulers as incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu.
Educated at English- language schools in India and Nepal, Gyanendra spent most of his adult life tending to his business interests, including tea plantations, tobacco companies and a five-star Kathmandu hotel, and running a nature conservation trust.
He ascended the throne in 2001 when his predecessor and elder brother, King Birendra, and nine other members of the royal family were shot dead in the palace, apparently by Birendra's deranged and intoxicated son, who then committed suicide. - (LA Times-Washington Post)