Hisila Yami aka Comrade Parvati

Who is this woman? Why is her name coming up in the news?

That is a picture of Comrade Parvati being interviewed last year. She is in the news because the other day there was a riot by women in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The women are pissed.

They are members of the All Nepal Women's Association (Revolutionary), of which Comrade Parvati used to be the head.
They are rioting because the police didn't like their sit-in demonstration against the government of Nepal. The government was going back on promises made. At one time Comrade Parvati was the head of this organization.
This is from aljazeera:

About 500 women had gathered in front of the president's office in the capital, Kathmandu, on Thursday to demand that he dismiss the head of the army.
A number of the protesters were injured after they were beaten with bamboo sticks as they tried to break through a police cordon around the building.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the communist prime minister, resigned on Monday after Ram Baran Yadav, the president, blocked his attempt to sack the army chief.

From the Gulf News 05/07/09:

Kathmandu: Riot police beat back hundreds of women from Nepal's communist party who protested yesterday in front of the president's house in the capital to demand that he fire the country's army chief.
Nepal's communist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal sparked a national crisis on Monday when he resigned and pulled his party from the ruling coalition in protest over the army chief's failure to integrate former communist rebels into the military.

More on Comrade Parvati:

Here is the wikipedia article on Hisila Yami
Check out this interview with Hisila Yami, Comrade Parvati.
This is the interview with Hisla Yami is from last year's npr story.

In a rare interview, conducted in New Delhi, Comrade Parvati offers her views on why women are drawn to the insurgency, how children are pulled in, too, and why she feels killing is sometimes necessary.