Gyanendra, King of Nepal
Gyanendra Shah (Nepali: ज्ञानेन्द्र शाह; Gyānendra Śāha; born 7 July 1947) is the former King of Nepal who reigned from 2001 to 2008. As a child, he was briefly king from 1950 to 1951, when his grandfather, Tribhuvan, took political asylum in India with the rest of his family. His second reign began after the 2001 Nepalese royal massacre. He was deposed by the first session of the Constituent Assembly on 28 May 2008, thereby declaring the nation as the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal and abolishing the 240-year reign of the Shah Dynasty.
Gyanendra's second reign was marked by constitutional turmoil. His predecessor King Birendra had established a constitutional monarchy in which he delegated policy to a representative government. The growing insurgency of the Nepalese Civil War during King Gyanendra's reign interfered with elections of representatives. After several delays in elections, King Gyanendra suspended the constitution and assumed direct authority in February 2005, asserting that it would be a temporary measure to suppress the Maoist insurgency, as the ushering in of democracy in Nepal had led to a fractious, corrupt and incompetent series of governments who were successively incapable to deal with the Maoist insurgency. In the face of broad opposition, he restored the previous parliament in April 2006. His reign ended about two years later.