Last April's people's revolution saw the King stripped of his fairly extensive powers (he had had taken direct control of the country in 2005)... he is not particularly popular, especially as many people think he was implicated in some way in the murder of the previous (popular) King (his brother) and various other family members...
Anyways Prachanda and the Maoists are constantly calling for Nepal to be declared a republic and for the king to be stripped of all entitlements... more likely there will be a referendum, which would be interesting as traditionally the royal family were seen as divine incarnations of a Hindu god (not sure which one off hand as I'm not too up on my Hindu gods). So I'm guessing there would be a fair few people (particularly in the Army) who would want to keep the King as monarch.
In the mean time the government is considering how best to nationalise land and property belonging to the Royal family, and has also decided to replace the king's image with that of Mt Everest in Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination notes. In addition the Royal crown in the transparent part of the notes will be replaced by the national flower - rhododendron.
So I wonder what the King is doing? Perhaps trying to liquidize assets and shift them off shore before they can be nationalised?!
Anyways Prachanda and the Maoists are constantly calling for Nepal to be declared a republic and for the king to be stripped of all entitlements... more likely there will be a referendum, which would be interesting as traditionally the royal family were seen as divine incarnations of a Hindu god (not sure which one off hand as I'm not too up on my Hindu gods). So I'm guessing there would be a fair few people (particularly in the Army) who would want to keep the King as monarch.
In the mean time the government is considering how best to nationalise land and property belonging to the Royal family, and has also decided to replace the king's image with that of Mt Everest in Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination notes. In addition the Royal crown in the transparent part of the notes will be replaced by the national flower - rhododendron.
So I wonder what the King is doing? Perhaps trying to liquidize assets and shift them off shore before they can be nationalised?!
No comments:
Post a Comment