Milestones
COMPLIED BY R. KRITHIKA
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Highlighting some of the major events that created history.
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1947
August 15: India is independent; Jawaharlal Nehru is first Prime Minister.
October 22: Tribals from North West Frontier invade Kashmir.
October 26: Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir signs Instrument of Accession with India.
November 9: Junagadh accedes to India. Nawab flees to Pakistan.
September 13: Indian army goes to Hyderabad to subdue Razakars.
September 17: The Nizam of Hyderabad joins the Indian Union.
1948
January 1: The Kashmir issue is placed before the United Nations.
January 30: Nathuram Godse assassinates Mahatma Gandhi at a prayer meeting in New Delhi.
1949
January 1: UN Security Council ceasefire in Kashmir.
November 26: Indian Constituent Assembly adopts the new Constitution.
1950
January 25: India’s Election Commission is established.
January 26: India’s Constitution is promulgated. India is a republic; Dr. Rajendra Prasad is President.
1951
April 14: Vinoba Bhave begins the Bhoodan Movement.
1952
India’s first general elections with universal adult suffrage. The Congress wins; Nehru remains PM.
October 19: Potti Sriramulu begins fast for Andhra state. He dies on December 15.
December: India’s first Five Year Plan is tabled in Parliament.
1953
January 29: First Backward Classes Commission set up.
October 1: The new state of Andhra is formed comprising 16 Telugu speaking districts of Madras province.
1956
November 1: Reorganisation of the states on linguistic basis begins with States Reorganisation Act.
1957
April 5: The Communist Party of India forms the first democratically elected communist government in Kerala. E.M.S. Namboodiripad is elected Chief Minister.
1959
September: Doordarshan makes a small beginning with an experimental telecast in Delhi. Daily telecast began in 1965.
1961
December 12: Indian troops begin Operation Vijay in Portuguese territories of Goa, Daman and Diu. Goa joins India on December 19.
1962
October 20: China invades India along the Himalayan border.
November 21: Unilateral ceasefire.
1964
May 27: Nehru dies. Lal Bahadur Shastri suceeds him as PM.
1965
The Narmada Valley Development Project involving development of 30 large dams, 135 medium dams and 3,000 small dams, begins.
January 26: Hindi becomes India’s official language.
August 5/6: After months of border skirmishes, Pakistan’s Operation Gibraltar begins the second Indo-Pak war.
September 23: India and Pakistan agree to a ceasefire.
December 1: The Border Security Force is formed.
1966
January 10: Indian PM Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan sign the Tashkent Declaration.
January 11: PM Shastri dies of a heart attack in Tashkent.
January 19: Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi takes over as PM. Bal Thackeray forms the Shiv Sena.
1967
Elections. Congress loses in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and West Bengal.
May 25: A Maoist-inspired rebellion begins in Naxalbari, West Bengal. The term Naxalite originated from this village.
1969
The Indian National Congress formally splits into two factions: one led by Indira Gandhi and the other by Morarji Desai.
1971
December 3: Third Indo-Pak War as a result of Bangladesh’s struggle with Pakistan. Unilateral ceasefire on December 16.
1972
September 9: India introduces a Wildlife Protection Act banning hunting of tigers, capture and sale of bears and catching of snakes.
1973
April 1: Project Tiger is introduced to save the tiger.
1974
May 18: India’s first nuclear test is carried out at Pokhran, Rajasthan.
1975
April 19: Aryabhatta is the first Indian satellite in Earth’s orbit.
May 16: India annexes Sikkim and it became India’s 22nd state.
June 26: Indira Gandhi declares a state of emergency.
1977
January 23: Elections. The Janata Party forms the first non-Congress government in independent India.
March 24: Emergency ends. Morarji Desai is Prime Minister.
1978
Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 amended. Age of consent is 18 for women and 21 for men.
1979
June 7: Bhaskara 1, India’s First low orbit Earth Observation Satellite, is launched.
July 28: Charan Singh takes oath as India’s sixth Prime Minister.
This year also sees the beginning of the six-year Assam Agitation.
1980
January 7: Indira Gandhi’s Congress–I sweeps the polls.
June 23: Sanjay Gandhi dies in a plane crash.
April 24: Nirankari leader Gurbachan Singh murdered. Sikh leader Bhindranwale is implicated.
1981
September 9: Jagat Narain, of the Hind Samachar Group, is shot dead. Bhindranwale is arrested on September 21 and released on bail on October 15. Bhindranwale moves into the Golden Temple.
1982
January 18: Led by Datta Samant, the workers of Bombay’s textile mills begin their strike for increase of minimum wages. The strike lasts almost two years.
1983
February 18: The simmering conflict between the Assamese and non-Assamese results in a massacre of Bengali Muslims in Nellie.
1984
April 13: Kanshi Ram founds the Bahujan Samaj Party.
June 1: Operation Blue Star. Indian Army storms the Golden Temple complex to flush out militants. Bhindranwale is killed.
October 31: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for Operation Blue Star. Her son Rajiv Gandhi takes over as Prime Minister. Sikhs are targeted in pogroms all over India, with the worst violence being in Delhi.
December 3: The methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaks from a tank at the UCIL Bhopal plant kills thousands of people.
December: Congress sweeps the polls in the eighth national elections. Rajiv Gandhi is PM.
1985
June 23: Air India Flight 182 is blown up off the coast of Ireland by Sikh terrorists.
April 23: The Supreme Court delivers a landmark judgment in the Shah Bano case leading to the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act in 1986.
July 24: Rajiv Gandhi and Sant Longowal sign the Punjab Accord.
August 20: Sant Longowal killed.
1986
The year saw the outbreak of ethnic violence across India: the Gorkha uprising in Darjeeling; the Bodo revolt in Assam; the tribal-Bengali face-off in Tripura and renewed violence in Punjab as militants re-enter the Golden Temple.
February 1: Ayodhya’s district judge orders opening of locks of Ram Lalla shrine at Babri Masjid.
April 20: Operation Black Thunder begins. NSG commandos storm the Golden Temple.
1987
April 15: Swedish Radio reports that Swedish armament company Bofors paid bribes to Indian leaders and officials to win a contract.
July 29: Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Jayawardene sign Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. The IPKF begins operations soon after.
1988
February 25: Prithvi, the first surface-to-surface missile, test fired.
March 17: First operational remote sensing satellite, IRS-1A, launched.
October: V.P. Singh’s Jan Morcha and Janata Party combine to form the Janata Dal.
1989
May 22: India tests its first medium-range ballistic missile, Agni.
November: General elections. No single party gets a majority. Janata Dal’s V.P. Singh is sworn in as PM.
1990
August 13: V.P. Singh orders implementation of Mandal Commission’s recommendations.
September 20: BJP leader, L.K. Advani, sets out on his rath yatra from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.
November 7: V.P. Singh’s government falls. Chandrashekhar becomes PM.
1991
May 21: Rajiv Gandhi assassinated by a suicide bomber while on election campaign in Sriperumbudur.
June 21: Narasimha Rao is PM; begins economic liberalisation.
1992
December 6: Babri Masjid brought down by Hindu fundamentalists. Riots in U.P., Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam and Karnataka.
December 7: Riots in Mumbai.
1993
March 9: The All Parties Hurriyat Conference is formed in Kashmir.
March 12: Thirteen bombs explode in Mumbai killing about 300.
September 30: An estimated 10,000 die when a 6.4 earthquake struck Latur, Maharashtra.
1995
May 11: The 500-year-old Charar-e-Sharif shrine destroyed by militants during fight with army.
July 4: Kashmiri guerrillas from Al Faran kidnap four foreigners.
1996
April-May: General elections. The BJP is single largest party but without majority. Atal Behari Vajpayee leads a coalition government for 13 days from May 15-28.
May 28: An alliance of 13 parties replaces BJP government and H.D. Deve Gowda is PM.
1997
April 11: Gowda’s government falls.
April 19: I.K. Gujral leads United Front Coalition government.
July 17: K.R. Narayanan becomes the first Dalit President of India.
November 28: Gujral resigns.
1998
March 2: BJP and allies emerge single largest political formation.
March 28: The BJP coalition wins vote of confidence.
May 11: India conducts three underground nuclear tests.
October 14: Amartya Sen wins the Nobel Prize in Economics.
1999
January 22: Australian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his sons burn to death by Bajrang Dal activists in Orissa.
February 20: PM Vajpayee inaugurates a cross-border bus service.
April 17: Vajpayee government loses confidence motion by one vote.
May 25: India launches air strikes in Kargil and Drass regions of Kashmir against suspected Pakistani infiltrators.
July 26: Indian army announces complete eviction of Pakistani intruders from Kargil but Pakistan claims its Army still holds some strategic heights in Kargil.
October 10: Post-elections, majority for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Vajpayee is PM.
October 19: Super cyclone hits Orissa.
December 25: Indian Airlines A-300 Airbus hijacked by Kashmir Harkat ul-Mujahidin.
December 31: Hijackers release passengers after India frees three militants.
2000
March 20: Thirty five Sikhs shot by unidentified gunmen in Chatti Singhpora, Kashmir.
May 11: Officially Indian population touches the one billion mark.
November 8: India’s 27th state Uttaranchal is formed.
November 14: Jharkand, India’s 28th state, comes into being.
2001
January 26: A massive 7.9 earthquake strikes Gujarat.
March 12: Bangaru Laxman, president of BJP, resigns in the wake of bribery scandal.
June 14: Violence in Manipur following agreement between the Centre and the Naga rebel group NSCN to extend four-year-old ceasefire and enlarge it to cover all Naga areas in the North-east.
July 9: India lifts barriers at specific locations along the LoC.
July 25: Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi gunned down in Delhi.
December 13: Five gunmen and a suicide bomber attack the Parliament building in New Delhi.
2002
January 15: Union Cabinet agrees to amend Flag Code to liberalise rules on display of the tricolour.
February 27: Fifty seven people die when a coach of the Faizabad-Ahmedabad Sabarmati Express is set on fire in Godhra, Gujarat.
February 28: At least 140 people killed during Gujarat bandh to protest the Godhra carnage. Violence against Muslims continues for over three months.
July 15: Abdul Kalam is President.
September 24: Terrorist attack on the Akshardham temple, Gujarat.
November 24: Militants attack Raghunath temple in Jammu for the second time in nine months.
2003
January 9: PM Vajpayee announces dual citizenship for people of Indian origin in “certain countries”.
April 18: India’s first indigenously built stealth frigate, Shivalik, is launched in Mumbai.
June: Tata Consultancy Services is India’s first listed IT firm to reach $ 1 billion turnover.
August 13: Fossil of dinosaur found on banks of the Narmada, named Rajasaurus Narmadensis.
October 17: New frog species Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis found in the Western Ghats.
November 25: Ceasefire along Actual Ground Position Line in Siachen begins.
December 6: The Bodo Liberation Tigers lay down arms ending 17 years of struggle in Assam.
2004
April 20: General elections begin.
April 25: INS Tarangini, Navy’s sail ship, returns after historic 485-day round-the-world voyage .
May 22: Manmohan Singh is PM.
July 16: Eighty seven children die when a fire breaks out at the Saraswathi English Medium School in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu.
August 3: A tunnel at the Tehri dam, Uttaranchal, caves in and causes the death of 27 people.
August 20: Bula Chowdhury is the first woman to swim across seven important seas.
September 20: ISRO launches EDUSAT, India’s first exclusive satellite for educational facilities.
October 18: Sandalwood smuggler Veerappan shot in Tamil Nadu.
December 26: A tsunami triggered by a massive undersea earthquake off Sumatra in Indonesia devastates coastal India.
2005
March 30: Mumbai’s Chhatrapathi Shivaji Terminus is on the World Heritage List.
April 7: Historic Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service inaugurated.
May 6: Probe into disappearing tigers in Sariska finds that all tigers have been wiped out by poachers.
July 5: A suicide bomber blows up a security fence and gunmen use the breach to storm the shrine complex in Ayodhya.
August 19: The 131-year-old Bombay Stock Exchange becomes a corporate entity, BSE Ltd.
September 12: India and Pakistan repatriate 583 prisoners at the Attari-Wagah checkpost; the largest peacetime mutual exchange.
October 8: An 7.6 earthquake hits Jammu and Kashmir. The border districts of Kupwara, Baramulla and Poonch bear the brunt.
October 29: Serial blasts rock Delhi. At least 60 persons are killed.
November 7: India and Pakistan open the first post on the LoC, Chakan Da Bagh, for quake relief in Kashmir.
December 11: The trial-run of the first Amritsar-Lahore bus service begins. The first bus is flagged off on January 24, 2006.
December 28: Gunman attacks in IISc,Bangalore. One killed.
2006
January 24: First bus on historic Amritsar-Lahore route flagged off.
February 18: Thar Express from Pakistan arrives in Munabao, Rajasthan, 41 years after disruption of the rail link on the border.
March 2-5: US President George W. Bush visits India. US signs landmark nuclear deal with India.
April 20: Letika Saran becomes Chennai Police Commissioner, the first woman to do so.
May 14: Doctors at AIIMS launch indefinite strike against Centre’s move to raise quota in higher education. Anti-reservation stir spreads to other states too.
June 20: First bus service between Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir and Rawalkot town in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is flagged off from Chakan Da Bagh.
July 11: Eight explosions on Mumbai’s rail network in the evening rush hour cause heavy casualties.
September 8: Two bomb blasts in Malegaon, Maharashtra, kill 31.
October 10: Ban on child labour comes into effect.
October 26: The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2006 comes into effect.
December 4: The West Bengal Assembly abolishes the hand-pulled rickshaw.
December 29: Police recover skeletons of children from a gutter in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
2007
January 31: A new legless amphibian species, geneophis goansis, discovered in the Western Ghats.
February 18: Firebombs explode on the New Delhi-Wagah Samjhauta Express.
March 11: Sri Lankan navy fires on Indian fishermen.
March 14: Police fire on farmers protesting against acquisition of land for SEZ in Nandigram, West Bengal.
May 9: Attack on Tamil newspaper Dinakaran’s office. Three dead.
May 29: Violence in Rajasthan as Gujjars fight for inclusion in list of Scheduled Tribes.
June 28: Red Fort, New Delhi, on World Heritage List.
July 25: Pratibha Patil sworn in as first woman President.
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