Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (Nepali: ज्ञानेन्द्र शाह; Jñānendra Śāh; born 7 July 1947) was the last King of Nepal from 2001 to 2008. As a child, he was also briefly king from 1950 to 1951, when his grandfather, Tribhuvan, went into exile in India with the rest of his family. Following the Nepalese royal massacre in 2001, he again became king.

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, assuring that it would be a temporary situation to suppress the Maoist insurgency. In the face of broad opposition, he restored the previous parliament in April 2006. His reign ended approximately two years later, when the Nepalese Constituent Assembly declared Nepal a republic and abolished the monarchy.

Gyanendra was born in the old Narayanhity Royal Palace, Kathmandu, as the second son of Crown Prince Mahendra and his first wife, Crown Princess Indra. After his birth, his father was told by a court astrologer not to look at his newborn son because it would bring him bad luck, so Gyanendra was sent to live with his grandmother.

In November 1950, during a political plot, both his father and his grandfather King Tribhuvan, along with other royals, fled to India, leaving the young Prince Gyanendra as the only male member of the royal family in Nepal. He was brought back to the capital Kathmandu by the Prime Minister Mohan Shamsher, who had him declared King on 7 November 1950. Not only was Gyanendra crowned, but coins were issued in his name. The Rana Prime Minister provided a 300,000 rupee annual budget as expenditure for the King. After opposition to the hereditary rule of the Rana Prime Ministers from India, a deal was reached in January 1951, and Gyanendra's grandfather King Tribhuvan returned to Nepal and resumed the throne. The actions of the Rana regime to depose his grandfather and place Gyanendra on the throne were internationally recognized.

...
Wikipedia