Monday, August 29

Winners at 2011 MTV VMAs: Stars Who Shone, Rocked and Emerged [Photos]

It was a breakout night for Odd Future's Tyler, the Creator,
who nabbed the best new artist award at the MTV 2011
Video Music Awards for his music video Yonkers, but it
was Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Adele who grabbed
maximum number of awards at the show.
Katy Perry's "Fireworks" was named the Video of the Year,
while her sci-fi fantasia "E.T." with Kanye West won the
Best Collaboration. Lady Gaga's "Born This Way"
brought her two Moon Men, one as the Best Female Video
and the other one as the Best Video with a Message.
During the whole event, Gaga dressed as Jo Calderone, her "male alter ego."
Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," directed by Sam Brown, won maximum number
of behind-the-scene awards including direction, editing, art direction, and
cinematography.
The winners' list also featured popular names like Britney Spears, Nicki Minaj,
Justin Bieber and Foo Fighters.
Here is the full list of winners:
VIDEO OF THE YEAR: Katy Perry, "Fireworks"
BEST FEMALE VIDEO: Lady Gaga, "Born This Way"
BEST NEW ARTIST: Tyler, The Creator, "Yonkers"
BEST MALE VIDEO: Justin Bieber, "U Smile"
BEST COLLABORATION: Katy Perry featuring Kanye West, "E.T."
BEST HIP-HOP VIDEO: Nicki Minaj, "Super Bass"
BEST ROCK VIDEO: Foo Fighters, "Walk"
BEST POP VIDEO: Britney Spears, "Till the World Ends"
BEST VIDEO WITH A MESSAGE: Lady Gaga, "Born This Way"
BEST DIRECTOR: Adele, "Rolling in the Deep" (Director: Sam Brown)
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY: Beyoncé, "Run the World (Girls)"
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Katy Perry featuring Kanye West, "E.T."
BEST ART DIRECTION: Adele, "Rolling in the Deep"
BEST EDITING: Adele, "Rolling in the Deep"
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Adele, "Rolling in the Deep"
Check out photos of the stars below.


Singer Katy Perry
Singer Katy Perry poses for photographers after winning video of the year for
"Firework", Best Collaboration, and Best Special Effects at the 2011 MTV Video
Music Awards in Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
Singer Lady Gaga
Singer Lady Gaga, dressed as a man, performs "You and I" at the 2011 MTV 
Video Music Awards in Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Rapper 'Tyler, The Creator'
Rapper 'Tyler, The Creator' announces singer Nicki Minaj as winner of the Best
Hip Hop video, at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles August 28,
2011.
Source: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Singer Britney Spears
Singer Britney Spears arrives at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in 
Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
Beyonce
Beyonce shows her baby bump after performing "Love On Top" at the 
2011 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles August 28, 2011. 
Beyonce and her husband, rapper Jay-Z, will be expecting their first 
child next spring.
Source: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Singer Bruno Mars
Singer Bruno Mars performs during a Amy Winehouse tribute at the 2011
MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS
Singer Nicki Manaj
Singer Nicki Manaj poses at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in 
Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
Singer Justin Bieber
Singer Justin Bieber, holding a snake in his hand, kisses Selena Gomez as 
they arrive at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS
Singer Katy Perry and husband, actor Russell Brand
Singer Katy Perry and husband, actor Russell Brand, arrive at the 2011
MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
MTV reality series "Jersey Shore" star Jenni "JWOww" Farley poses with her boyfriend Roger
MTV reality series "Jersey Shore" star Jenni "JWOww" Farley poses 
with her boyfriend Roger at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in 
Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi
Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi from the MTV reality series "Jersey Shore", 
poses at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
Kim Kardashian
Socialite and television personality Kim Kardashian presents the
best male video award at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in 
Los Angeles, August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Singer Miley Cyrus
Singer Miley Cyrus arrives at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in
Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
Actress Katie Holmes
Actress Katie Holmes smiles as she arrives at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in 
Los Angeles August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS
Actor Taylor Lautner
Actor Taylor Lautner arrives at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles
August 28, 2011.
Source: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
This article is copyrighted by International Business Times, the business news leader

Source : ibtimes

Planet Made of Diamonds Discovered

(Photo: Reuters/Handout)
An exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard in an undated image courtesy of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

The universe contains many wonders, but scientists have discovered something that defies the imagination: a planet made of diamonds.
The carbon-based planet is denser than any previously discovered. A diamond forms when carbon is put under immense pressure, so scientists speculate that the conditions are right for much of the planet to be crystalline -- in other words, a giant celestial diamond.

"The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon -- i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star," Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne told Reuters.
Located about 4,000 light years away in the constellation Serpens, the planet is in a tight orbit around a type of tiny dead neutron star known as a pulsar, completing its revolution around the pulsar every two hours and 10 minutes. Pulsars regularly emit bursts of radiation , which allowed scientists to detect this one, called PSR J1719-1438. They realized that the radiation beams were being modulated by a small planet, which then led them to the "diamond planet." 

The scientists' measurements indicate that the planet has slightly more mass than Jupiter, but is 20 times as dense. It is also lacking in lighter elements like helium and hydrogen. This confluence of extraordinary factors led them to believe they had stumbled across something unprecedented. Researchers involved were not certain what the planet would look like up close.
"In terms of what it would look like, I don't know, I could even speculate," said Ben Stappers of the University of Manchester. "I don't imagine that a picture of a very shiny object is what we're looking at here."
"It's highly speculative, but if you shine a light on it, I can't see any reason why it wouldn't sparkle like a diamond," Travis Metcalfe of the National Center for Atmospheric Research said to New Scientist.
An international research team comprised of scientists from Australia, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States made the discovery by using a 64-meter radio telescope in Parkes, Australia.

Source: 

MTV Video Music Awards: Tyler, The Creator, the Best New Artist

The audience went crazy at the MTV Video Music Awards with Tyler, The Creator, winning the best new artist award. He was the true show stealer.
"Yo, I'm excited as f--- right now, yo," he said at Sunday night's awards. "I wanted this sh-- since I was nine. I'm about to cry. This is for my little brother Earl. "
The 20-year-old has already become the heartthrob of millions around the globe. To win the award, he faced stiff competition from fellow Best New Artist nominees, Big Sean ("My Last," featuring Chris Brown), Foster the People ("Pumped Up Kicks"), Kreayshawn ("Gucci Gucci") and Wiz Khalifa ("Black and Yellow").
On a more somber mood, Amy Winehouse was remembered with a star-studded tribute to the late singer.
It was Russell Brand who started the tribute for her when he shared his memories of Winehouse. "She was a genius," he said.
Tony Bennett, for his part, stressed on her contribution to jazz music.
"Our family is honored that the VMAs are giving Amy this wonderful tribute," her father, Mitch Winehouse, said in a statement.
Scheduled performers in the Awards night included Lady Gaga, Chris Brown, Lil Wayne and Pitbull.

Source: ibtimes

Taylor Lautner Not Sure How to Top MTV Movie Award “Best Kiss” with Robert Pattinson



Taylor Lautner had a quick chat with MTV before the MTV Video Music Awards tonight. Taylor admitted that he was in fact kissed by Robert Pattinson at this year’s MTV Movie Awards when Rob and Kristen Stewart went up to accept the award for “Best Kiss”. Taylor went on to say that he had no idea how they can top this year’s stunt.
“Oh, I was definitely kissed by,” he clarified to MTV News during the VMAs’ black-carpet pre-show. “It was quite a shocker.”
So, can it be done? Who’s to say? He’s not one to prepare much for awards shows, as he let us know at the Teen Choice Awards a few weeks ago, saying, “It’s really hard to prepare, so it’s kind of like you just show up here, have fun.”
This time around, Lautner is on hand to present an award at the show a few weeks before his new thriller, “Abduction,” hits theaters. Perhaps some of his fellow presenters — like Nicki Minaj, Drake, Joe Jonas and Jared Leto — can assist in the making of a true Video Music Award moment.
For his part, though, Lautner isn’t making any promises. He’ll be proceeding into the Nokia Theatre with caution, his eyes peeled, his lips guarded.
On whether he could top the Movie Awards’ show-stopping moment, he said, “I honestly have no idea. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Source: twilightersanonymous

Tuesday, August 23

Martin Luther King memorial unveiled on National Mall

The new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is shown in Washington August 22, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

Martin Luther King Jr stood 30 feet tall on the National Mall as a memorial to him was unveiled on Monday morning -- the first memorial on the Mall not dedicated to a war, president or white man.
Fifteen years after a Congressional Joint Resolution in 1996 to establish a memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor King, the four-acre site on the Tidal Basin between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials opened to the public for the first time.
"From a geometrical standpoint it's on a direct line between the Lincoln Memorial and Jefferson Memorial," said Bill Line, spokesman for the National Park Service. "The brains and essence of our country (Thomas Jefferson), and Abe Lincoln, the greater uniter."
Visitors will walk through two massive white granite halves of the "Mountain of Despair" to reach the "Stone of Hope," from which the sculpture of King emerges.
The winning design from an international contest was inspired by the line from King's "I Have a Dream" speech, "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope."
Behind King's sculpture, on either side of the mountain, is a 450-foot-long wall inscribed with 14 quotations from the famous orator's speeches, sermons, and writings.
King faces Jefferson wearing clothes that fade into the granite above his feet. His arms are folded, with one hand holding his rolled-up Dream speech, according to sculptor Master Lei Yixin, who is a Chinese citizen.
"Dr. King's vision is still living, in our minds; we still miss him, we still need him," said Yixin through a translator, calling the sculpture the most important of his life, technically and emotionally. "I am trying to present Dr. King as ready to step out ... this is King's spirit, to judge people from their character, not race, color or background."
Yixin and a team carved and assembled the stone and mountain from 159 blocks of Atlantic Green granite and Kenoran Sage granite from North America, as well as granite from Asia.
The memorial will be presented to President Barack Obama and dedicated in a celebration on Sunday August 28, marking the anniversary of the Dream speech delivered from the steps of the nearby Lincoln Memorial 48 years ago.
King, the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize and the leader of the American Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, led a peaceful march on Washington in 1963. A crowd of 250,000 heard his DREAM speech at the march, five years before his assassination in Memphis in 1968.
A joint venture team broke ground on the site nearly five years ago, and the "Build the Dream" Campaign of the National Memorial Project Foundation, headed by President and CEO Harry Johnson, has raised $112 of the $120 million needed.
The team consists of ROMA Design Group, the winner of the competition to design the memorial; architectural and engineering firm McKissack & McKissack; Turner Construction Company; Tompkins Builders, Inc. and the Gilford Corporation.
"Dr. King championed a movement that draws from the deep well of America's potential for opportunity," said Johnson, a lawyer and former president of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. Kingbelonged to the fraternity.
The chief executive of architecture firm McKissack & McKissack, Deryl McKissack, said that her great-great grandfather was a slave who learned the building trade from his overseer.
"Dr. King changed people's minds, and now an African American woman can own a company and be a part of these projects -- I just feel great everyday when I wake up."
The expression of King's sculpture was created from a collage of images that covered all four walls of Yixin's studio. King's mouth is a grim line, his brow is furrowed and his gaze intense as he looks off into the distance.
One visitor to the new memorial said she believes King would be pleased if he could see how far the United States has come since the 1960s.
"He would be ecstatic because President Obama is in the White House and that is a huge step," said Nydria Humphries, who hung on the fence outside before the memorial opened to the the public. She wore a T-shirt with an eagle and the stripes of the American flag.
"That's all MLK stood for," said Humphries, who is currently looking for work. "If we can just learn to live together, then we all can have a better life."

Source: Reuters

HP Touchpad tablet plummets to $99, sells like gangbusters

HP Touchpad: $99 fire-sale price ignites huge demand for the webOS tablet. Get 'em while you can. 

HP Touchpad + $99 price tag = too good for many shoppers to pass up. The discounted tablet sold like hotcakes this weekend.
HP.com

 The HP Touchpad found its sweet spot: $99.

 Hewlett-Packard threw in the towel last week, announcing it would discontinue the HP Touchpad tablet after only seven weeks on that market. Ouch. Conventional wisdom after the news said, "stay away from the TouchPad!" App developers will ignore it. HP will likely stop supporting it. And at $400 or $500, the Touchpad is a touch sell compared to the iPad and Android tablets. Unless you're a collector of tech curiosities, just walk away.

Apparently, HP heard the crowd and acted fast. Rather than bury tablets in the desert Atari ET style, HP announced a fire sale over the weekend. The company's website listed the 16 GB model at $100 and the 32 GB version at $150. The plan worked.
RELATED: 10 most intriguing tablets of 2011
"Due to the significant price reduction, we experienced overwhelming demand for the product and are temporarily out of inventory," said HP's website Monday morning. "Please enter your email address below to be notified as soon as we have them back in stock."
Retailers followed suit, eager to empty their own warehouses before everyone forgets about the Touchpad. According to slickdeals.net, the deal hunters were fast and furious.
Amazon's Lightning Deal sold out of 16 GB models in 25 minutes. The 32 GB went in 4 minutes.
Fry's: Sold out. J&R: Sold out. MicroCenter: Sold out. Office Max: Sold Out. Radio Shack: Sold out. Sam's Club: Sold out. Target: Sold out.
Walmart is sold out online, but some location still allow for in-store pickup (for now, at least.)
So, will this swell of interest revive the HP tablet? Unlikely. The manufacturing experts at iSuppli estimated that the parts inside a Touchpad cost $306. Tack on the cost of designing, programming, shipping, supporting, and hiring Russell Brand to do the marketing. This sudden sale tried to stop a bad problem from getting worse, not to turn a crummy situation into a good one.
But here's the better question: Will this swell of interest revive webOS? Remember that moments before HP discontinued the Touchpad and all other webOS devices, Stephen DeWitt, HP's head of webOS, said that the company was very interested in licensing the operating system for cars and kitchen appliances.
"We're looking at expanding the base and bringing to the webOS community an ecosystem that inspires developers out there," Mr. DeWitt told the Wall Street Journal in an August 16 article. (HP axed the Touchpad on August 18.)
It's possible that DeWitt was simply out of the loop, that he didn't know HP planned to slash his budget dramatically the very same week that he spoke to the Journal. It's also possible that HP really does plan to keep webOS alive, but living on other people's hardware. This weekend proved that webOS can be popular, if priced appropriately.

Source: csmonitor.com

Monday, August 15

Google agrees to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion

Google Inc. is looking to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in what would be the company's largest acquisition to date.
Motorola Mobility is one of the biggest hardware supporters for Google's Android mobile operating system, making both smartphones and a tablet computer, called the Xoom, that run on the software.
The deal would also give Google a hardware-manufacturing business, possibly to compete better with rival Apple Inc., which makes both the hardware and software for products such as the iPhone and the iPad tablet.
Google said that its $12.5-billion price would be a premium of 63% over the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday and that the proposed purchase was unanimously approved by the boards of directors at both tech firms.
In the proposed deal, Motorola Mobility would remain a licensee of Android and Android would remain open and available for use by other hardware manufacturers at no cost, as it is now. Google said it would run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.
"We expect that this combination will enable us to break new ground for the Android ecosystem," said Andy Rubin, who as Google's senior vice president of mobile oversees Android. "However, our vision for Android is unchanged and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open-source community. We will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices."
Google is currently being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department for its dominance in advertising, search and possibly other businesses. Android is the most widely used smartphone OS in the world and its usage is still growing, so federal regulators are likely to look into possible antitrust concerns with the deal.
Larry Page, Google's CEO, made his case for the deal in a company blog post, noting that Google would benefit from owning patents held by Motorola as it has been fighting against what he called "anti-competitive patent attacks on Android." These efforts, Page said, included the teaming up of Microsoft and Apple to buy mobile tech patents from the bankrupt Canadian firm Nortel.
"The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to 'protect competition and innovation in the open source software community' and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction," Page said. "Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies."
The takeover is also subject to approval by regulators in the European Union and Motorola Mobility’s stockholders. Google said it hopes to see the purchase approved and finalized by the end of 2011 or early 2012.

Source: latimesblogs.latimes

Sunday, August 14

The events that defined 2011 in India - Widescreen: India 2011

 

2011 has been marked by lows and highs, gains and losses, anguish and exhilaration, despair and triumph. This has been the year that fearless whistle-blowers forced corruption out of the cracks. The year of the Jan Lokpal Bill. The year that terror reminded us of the tenacity we must summon up to fight it. The year that the World Cup came home. In telling pictures, we look at the events that defined 2011 in India.

God’s own stampede?
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi
On the night of January 14, pilgrims flocking to the hill shrine of Swami Ayyappan in Sabarimala, Kerala, were returning after witnessing the Makara Jyothi, believed to be a celestial phenomenon, when a stampede broke out in mysterious circumstances. One version of the story maintains that an SUV broke down amid the crowd of people that was trying to catch a bus and toppled over, while another holds that a collision between an autorickshaw and another vehicle triggered the stampede. Either way, it turned out to be the most horrific freak accident involving Sabarimala pilgrims in recent times, with 104 lives lost and nearly as many pilgrims injured. The dead and injured hailed from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. This was the third accident to occur during the Makara Jyothi festival and raised questions about the effective management of crowds by police and the temple authorities. About 50 million pilgrims visit Sabarimala every year in India’s largest annual pilgrimage.


Even a Raja must bow to the law
AFP PHOTO/Prakash Singh
AFP PHOTO/Prakash Singh

The arrest of Andimuthu Raja by the Central Bureau of Investigation February 2 marked a significant turn in the investigation into the 2G spectrum scam. During Raja’s tenure as Cabinet Minister for Communication and Information Technology in 2007-08, the government issued 122 new telecom licenses. These licenses were acquired in violation of rules and provisions. Bribes were paid to favor certain players who had suppressed facts, had no experience in the telecom sector, or were otherwise ineligible to be awarded licenses. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s report held Raja accountable for the sale of 2G spectrum at 2001 rates in 2008. Despite the overwhelming demand for Raja’s ouster, he clung on with support from party chief M Karunanidhi. Eventually, he resigned from the Union Cabinet in November 2010. In 2011, an investigation headed by retired judge Shivraj Patil found Raja guilty of “procedural lapses” in the sale of 2G spectrum. The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate further estimated that Raja had amassed up to Rs 3,000 crore in bribes. Raja’s dubious achievement made the cover story of TIME magazine, which ranked the 2G spectrum scam just after Watergate on the list of “Top 10 Abuses of Power”.
This time for Sachin
AP Photo/Gurinder Osan
AP Photo/Gurinder Osan

When India opened its 2011 ICC World Cup campaign, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni declared that he wanted to win the coveted trophy for the tournament’s most seasoned campaigner, Sachin Tendulkar. Though India opened its account with an emphatic win over co-hosts Bangladesh, the rest of the tournament turned into an anxious roller-coaster ride as India salvaged only a tie against England and lost to South Africa. Eventually, India demolished sworn rivals Pakistan in a thrilling semi-final at Mohali and beat Sri Lanka in the final at Mumbai. For Tendulkar, who scored 482 runs in the tournament, the cricket-besotted nation’s moment of glory was extra-sweet. Cricket’s cup of cheer had finally come home after 28 years.

Soldier of conscience
AP Photo/Kevin Frayer
AP Photo/Kevin Frayer

Social activist and anti-corruption crusader Kisan Baburao Hazare, popularly known as Anna Hazare, became the face of a momentous public campaign to revive the Jan Lokpal Bill. Also known as the Citizen’s Ombudsman Bill, the first Jan Lokpal Bill was introduced by advocate Shanti Bhushan in 1968 and introduced in the fourth Lok Sabha the following year. Though the Bill was tabled subsequently on nine occasions, it was never passed. Forty-two years after its introduction, the campaign for the Bill’s revival in 2011 has been accompanied by a groundswell of public support. Drafted by former Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde, the Bill was championed by Hazare, yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan (son of the Bill’s first campaigner), RTI campaigner Arvind Kejriwal and others. The Government of India, which rejected the Hazare camp’s draft of the Jan Lokpal Bill, introduced a revised Bill for the tenth time during the Monsoon Session of the Parliament. In response Hazare announced that he will go on an indefinite fast from August 16 in protest against the government’s tabling of a “weak” Bill.

The people’s doctor walks free
AFP PHOTO
AFP PHOTO

Dr Binayak Sen, pediatrician, public health activist and national vice president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties who was accused of sedition by the Chhattisgarh government, was granted bail by the Supreme Court of India. Sen had been working in the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh offering free public healthcare. The doctor, who had worked with the government on health sector reform, strongly criticized its anti-Naxalite operations for human rights violation. In May 2007 he was arrested for his alleged support of the outlaws under evidence of his meetings with Naxalite leaders. The global community including a section of the medical fraternity expressed outrage at Sen’s imprisonment while human rights watchdogs condemned it as a politically motivated move. Amnesty International described Sen as a prisoner of conscience and said his incarceration amounted to contravention of human rights and international law. Nobel laureates from around the world wrote to the President of India and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as well as the Chhattisgarh state government, pleading for Sen’s release. Though the doctor was granted bail in 2009, he was charged with sedition in 2010 in Raipur and kept in solitary confinement. April 15, the Supreme Court of India granted bail to Binayak Sen, rejecting the charges of sedition against him.

Sathya Sai Baba attains samadhi
AFP PHOTO/ Dibyangshu Sarkar
AFP PHOTO/ Dibyangshu Sarkar

Sathya Sai Baba counted among his devotees India’s most influential politicians (including former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee), sportspersons (including Sachin Tendulkar), industrialists and film personalities. Hailed as a godman by his followers, who by some estimates number nearly 100 million all over the world, he became an icon for spirituality, philanthropy and education. Puttaparthi, the small Andhra Pradesh town where he was born Sathyanarayana Raju in 1926, became a magnet for his flock. Here, Sai Baba established a charitable multi-specialty hospital, schools, an airport and a university. Controversy over his powers to materialize foodstuff, gold and other objects from thin air made him the target of rationalists who ascribed such phenomena to sleight of hand and mass hysteria of enraptured devotees. In later years, his establishment came under attack over allegations of sexual abuse. However, no charges were framed. Sathya Sai Baba, who claimed to be a reincarnation of the mystic Sai Baba of Shirdi who died eight years before he was born, had predicted his own death in 2019 but died this year on April 24. He had also predicted that he would reincarnate in 2023 in a Karnataka village, though his followers believe he might return as early as next year. Following his death, his trust has been embroiled in controversy over alleged unaccounted wealth. In three rounds of inventory, nearly Rs 59 crore worth of gold, silver and cash have been recovered from various institutions under the Sathya Sai Trust.
Game’s up for Kalmadi
AP Photo
AP Photo
When Suresh Kalmadi pulled off the controversy-dogged Commonwealth Games in Delhi last year, he perhaps imagined that the worst was behind him. As chairman of the Organizing Committee he was accused of doling out contracts to favored parties at exorbitant rates. An Indian Air Force pilot decorated with eight medals during his career, he joined politics after an early retirement and became president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Youth Congress. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Pune in 1996 and 2004 (previously, he had served three Rajya Sabha terms from 1982 to 1996 and subsequently in 1998) and served as Minister for Railways from 1995 to 1996 in the cabinet of former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. Kalmadi was chairman of the Indian Olympic Association for four terms. Calls for his arrest grew louder after reports of irregularities in the award of contracts for the 2010 Commonwealth Games flooded the media. At the CWG closing ceremony Kalmadi was booed by spectators and sidelined by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. He was also not invited to the Prime Minister’s ceremony to honor Indian athletes after the Games. The Central Vigilance Commission ordered an inquiry into Kalmadi’s alleged irregularities though he claimed to be innocent. In November he was dismissed as Secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party. April 25, the CBI arrested Kalmadi for awarding illegal contracts to a Swiss firm for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, incurring losses to the national exchequer amounting to Rs 95 crore. The Congress Party suspended his membership and he was sacked as President of the Indian Olympic Association. Kalmadi is currently lodged in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail where controversy keeps up with him.

A wind of change named Didi
AFP PHOTO/Dibyangshu Sarkar
AFP PHOTO/Dibyangshu Sarkar

A former Congress party worker, Mamata Banerjee served as a minister of state under Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao in 1991 and resigned over differences with the party’s image in 1993. In 1997 she broke away to establish the All India Trinamool Congress, which became a thorn in the flesh of the incumbent Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had retained West Bengal under its charismatic ideologue Jyoti Basu from 1977 to 2000, and thereafter under chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya until 2011. Banerjee, who served two terms as Union Railway Minister – first under the NDA coalition led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and later in the UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh – set the ball rolling by appeasing her home state with her railway policies. After TMC suffered setbacks in 2005, she focused on state politics and the party made inroads by winning the 2009 municipal elections in Kolkata and thereafter performed well in the 2009 parliamentary elections. Banerjee continued to heckle the CPI(M) government over industrialization policies, first forcing the Tata group to abandon its proposed project at Singur and subsequently opposing the creation of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Nandigram until it was shelved. July 21, her party swept into power in West Bengal, ending the CPI(M)’s 34-year rule. Didi, as she is known to her people, was sworn in as Chief Minister on May 20.

It’s Amma once more
AFP PHOTO/Dibyangshu Sarkar
AFP PHOTO/Dibyangshu Sarkar

The arrest of former telecom minister A Raja in the 2G spectrum scam broke the back of the DMK government in Tamil Nadu and weakened its hold at the centre. To boot, wheelchair-bound paterfamilias M Karunanidhi’s peace had been unsettled by his warring sons Stalin and Alagiri, estranged nephews Kalanidhi and Dayanidhi, and his imprisoned daughter Kanimozhi. With the DMK being its own undertaker, the stage was set for J Jayalalithaa to breeze in for a third term as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Amma, as she is known to her followers, has previously held the post twice under the banner of the AIADMK, the party founded by her political mentor and former Chief Minister M G Ramachandran. The Tamil cinema idol and the former actress shared a vibrant onscreen chemistry for many years.

India’s Picasso dies in exile
AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis

In his lifetime Maqbool Fida Husain courted celebrity, controversy and Bollywood’s most beauteous women. India’s most celebrated painter rose to fame in the 1940s, when at 25 he joined the Progressive Artists’ Group founded by Francis Newton Souza and exhibited solo at Zurich, Switzerland. In 2008, his diptych Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12 fetched a record-smashing $1.6 million at Christies. Also reputed as a printmaker, photographer and filmmaker, Husain made four films including Gaja Gamini (with muse Madhuri Dixit) and Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities (inspired by actor Tabu). His paintings depicting Mother India and Hindu goddesses in the nude invited the wrath of right-wing groups and a slew of court cases. Hounded, he sought refuge in Qatar and renounced his Indian citizenship. Husain, who had been decorated with the Padma Shri and the Padma Vibhushan among other awards, expressed a strong desire to return to his homeland despite the arrest warrants pending against him. Those wishes remained unfulfilled when he died in London June 9, aged 95. Upon his death fellow painter Akbar Padamsee remarked, “It’s a pity that a painter as important as Husain had to die outside his own country because of a crowd of miscreants.”

Who owns the temple jewels?
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi

The discovery of precious stones, jewelry and valuables from five secret chambers around the sanctum sanctorum of Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala triggered a nationwide debate when it was announced that the wealth amounted to approximately Rs 1 trillion ($22 billion), making the temple the richest religious institution in India. The six vaults, which had not been opened in about 150 years, are believed to contain treasure dating back 500 years. The Supreme Court ordered the vaults of the temple to be inventoried after a petitioner filed a suit raising doubts over how the trust overseeing the temple’s management would take responsibility for the treasure. One of the vaults, as yet unopened, is believed to contain unaccounted wealth. The panel auditing the vault encountered an iron wall with a lock fashioned like a snake, triggering fears that opening it might incur the deity’s wrath. Its opening has been stayed by the Supreme Court on a plea filed by the legal heir of the royal family of Travancore, which has traditionally controlled the management of the temple as servants of the presiding deity, Sree Padmanabha. The Supreme Court stayed a ruling by the Kerala High Court, which ordered the state government to take over the temple and its assets. The case has reignited legal debate surrounding heritage treasure in India, as under present provisions any right to treasure of heritage value rests with the central government. While some politicians have argued that the treasure should be used to revive the cash-strapped state economy, experts contend that it should be preserved in a museum in or outside the temple premises.

It’s official: India has 17 percent of earthlings
AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade
AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

As of March 31, India’s population went up to 1.21 billion. Second only to China in number of people, India now has 17.5 percent of the world's people occupying 2.4 percent of the planet’s surface area. India added 181 million people since 2001 (approximately the population of Brazil) and Uttar Pradesh alone has 200 million people. By 2030, India is expected to overtake China, raising concerns over employment, political instability and access to resources such as water, food, real estate and energy.



70 die, 300 hurt in year’s worst train accident
AFP PHOTO


Fatehpur, about 150 km south of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, saw the worst train accident of the year on July 10. Fifteen coaches of the Delhi-bound Howrah-Kalka Mail, which was traveling at 108 kmph, derailed killing a total of 70 people and injuring 300. Then Railway Minister Mukul Roy refused to heed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s instruction to visit the sites of the accidents (another train derailment following a bomb blast in Guwahati claimed one life and injured 40 people). Roy, who is from the Trinamool Congress headed by Mamata Banerjee, was reported as saying, “There is no need for me to go now.” He was replaced by Dinesh Dwivedi, who rushed to Fatehpur hours after taking over the portfolio.

Mumbai relives terror nightmare
AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade
AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

It took the worst kind of wake-up call imaginable to make the gaping holes in Mumbai’s security preparedness embarrassingly public. The July 13 serial blasts at the Opera House, Zaveri Bazaar and Dadar West localities of India’s most populous city left 26 people dead and 130 injured. The ninth terror attack targeting the city since 1993 reignited acrimonious debate over national security policy. While it brought back the ghosts of 26/11, it also sent other Indian metros, which have been terrorist targets in the last decade, into a tizzy of panic and provoked questions on the readiness of our cities to defend themselves against future attacks.





Yeddy, unsteady… go!
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi

After surviving numerous attempts to unseat him from power, and keeping his detractors and party bosses guessing for months on end, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa finally stepped down on July 31. His exit came in the wake of a report by an anti-corruption panel led by former Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde that indicted the chief minister, former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and serving ministers in an enormous bribery scandal involving the granting of mining contracts. A recalcitrant Yeddyurappa, who refused to step down until forced to do so by the BJP top brass, called the shots even on his way out: He played a key role in instating his successor Sadananda Gowda.

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India @ 64 - A visual chronology of post-Independence India

August 15, India completes 64 years of freedom. In this visual chronology of post-Independence India, we choose the moments that stood out in each year of the nation’s triumphant, troubled history.

 

1947 - Tryst with destiny

AP

Eleven days before August 15, 1947, Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten (center), Jawaharlal Nehru (extreme left) and Mohammad Ali Jinnah (right) prepare for the transfer of power from the British Crown. A notional picture of a divided nation comprising India and Pakistan, as distinct from the agglomeration of princely states and provinces administered by the Raj, came into being during these deliberations. Nehru represented the Indian National Congress while Jinnah stood for the Muslim League, which demanded a separate sovereign state for Muslims. Although the British were in favor of a united Indian subcontinent and the 1946 Cabinet Mission attempted to reach a compromise between the Congress and the Muslim League, neither Nehru nor Jinnah agreed to its proposal for a decentralized state with power vested in local governments. August 14, 1947, the dominion of Pakistan (which then included East Pakistan) declared independence from the British Crown. At midnight the following day, India followed suit with Nehru famously heralding our tryst with destiny.

1947 - Train to Pakistan

AP

As British India was cloven in two, the birth pangs of nationhood were followed by separation anxiety. The first train to Pakistan, which ran from Delhi to Lahore, was flagged off in August 1947 in a climate of warmth and bonhomie. However, as massive population exchanges took place between the two young nations, tensions ran high and fanned communal passions aflame. As people were plucked out of their homes and forced to cart their families and belongings to the strange new land across the newly drawn border, they came under attack from brigands and hired thugs. Both fledgling governments were ill equipped to deal with such massive migrations, displacement and violence driven by communal sentiments. About 10 million people are believed to have been displaced, and over a million are estimated to have died during the Partition. Sixty-four years later, the scars of Partition live on in public memory, even though the descendants of those affected by it have few physical memories of the event.

1948-49 – A prodigal son’s patricide
AP









Nathuram Vinayak Godse (extreme left) and Narayan Apte (center), members of the extremist outfit Hindu Mahasabha, blamed Mahatma Gandhi for conceding Pakistan to the Muslims. Godse and Apte had been part of previous unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Gandhi. On January 29, 1948, the two men reached Delhi Railway Station and checked into the retiring room. Financed by their organization, they had purchased a Beretta .38 semi-automatic pistol. The next morning Godse approached Gandhi as he was heading to a prayer meeting and bowed before him. At point blank range, the assassin fired three shots and the Mahatma collapsed to the ground. Gandhi, breathing his last, is believed to have uttered the words, “Hai Ram”. Announcing Bapu’s death to the nation, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said, “The light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere.” Godse and Apte were executed in November 1949.

1950 – Glory to the republic
AFP

On January 26, 1950, the 34th and last Governor-General of India Chakravarti Rajagopalachari read out a proclamation announcing the birth of the Republic of India. The Constitution of India came into effect, declaring India as a sovereign, democratic and secular state. Until this day, India was a dominion under the British Commonwealth acknowledging George VI as King and Emperor. Dr Rajendra Prasad (in picture, right) took oath as the President of the new republic. Interestingly, despite the newly proclaimed status India did not renounce allegiance to the British Commonwealth. As the Manchester Guardian observed on January 26, 1950, India regarded the Commonwealth as a “political machinery used to promote peace and economic advancement.”

1950 – The first missionary of charity
AP

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, an Albanian nun, came to Darjeeling, India in 1929 with the Sisters of Loreto. She learned Bengali and took the name Teresa upon being initiated into the order. While the nuns at the Loreto Convent were engaged in teaching, Teresa was moved by the poverty she witnessed around her. Traveling by train to Kolkata (then Calcutta), she experienced the epiphany that was to become her life’s mission – to devote her life to the service of the poorest of the poor. On October 7, 1950, Teresa established her own congregation, the Missionaries of Charity, in Kolkata after receiving permission from the Vatican to do so. Its purpose was to care for “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." She abandoned her nun’s habit and adopted a white sari with a blue border, which continues to be worn by members of her order. Started with 13 members, the Missionaries of Charity have more than 4,000 nuns today running hospices and orphanages around the world.

1952 – Democracy’s first dance
AFP

Jawaharlal Nehru, who had led the interim government since 1947, was elected in the country’s first parliamentary election in 1952. The Congress Party emerged victorious in the elections, the first test of fledgling democracy. On May 13, Nehru formed the first democratically elected Government of India and assumed office as Prime Minister. Later that year the Prime Minister, seen here on his 65th birthday two years later, unveiled India’s first Five Year Plan.

1954 – The China syndrome
AFP

Before India became independent of British rule, it had little political contact with its northerly neighbor. China had also recently undergone a political upheaval. The incumbent Kuomintang nationalist party had been defeated in a civil war by the People’s Liberation Army, which established the People’s Republic of China. Nehru’s foreign policy began with his government’s recognition of the new republic. In April 1954 Nehru traveled to Peking (as Beijing was then known) where he met Chinese leaders Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong (in pic). April 29 became a red-letter day in the history of Sino-Indian ties for the declaration of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, known as Panchsheel (inspired in part from the Pancasila – the five principles for the foundation of Indonesia as laid out by the nation’s first president Sukarno), which comprised respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. The refrain “Hindi Chini bhai bhai” was common during the 1950s as the two countries ignored the odd border skirmish to maintain peaceful relations. Within a few years, India and China fell out over China’s occupation of Tibet.

1955 – Devdas, the original bizarre love triangle
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Bimal Roy’s Devdas was not the first cinematic adaptation of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel (it was preceded by five versions in various Indian languages) but the 1955 film was path-breaking in its mass appeal. Starring Dilip Kumar as the tragic male protagonist, Suchitra Sen as Parvati (the estranged childhood sweetheart) and Vyjayanthimala as the courtesan Chandramukhi, the bizarre love triangle left an entire nation bewitched. Though the film has been remade amid great hype, no one could surpass Dilip Kumar’s iconic portrayal of the doomed lover, which has since been much emulated, imitated and parodied. Even the bitterest critics agree that Roy’s cinematic technique was leagues ahead of his time. Elsewhere in the Hindi film industry, Raj Kapoor and Nargis stole hearts in Shree 420, and the song “Mera joota hai Japani” symbolized a bold new patriotism.

1956 - Ambedkar embraces Buddhism, spearheads Dalit Buddhist movement
AP

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born into an impoverished family of the Mahar caste and spent his life battling the stigma of untouchability and caste-based discrimination in Indian society. In an era when education was the province of privileged upper castes, he obtained multiple doctorates in law, economics and political science from institutions such as Columbia University and the London School of Economics. As Law Minister in the first Union Cabinet and chairman of the committee appointed to draft the Constitution of India, Ambedkar envisioned a law that provided constitutional guarantees for a wide range of civil liberties including freedom of religion, abolition of untouchability and equal rights for women. The Constituent Assembly adopted it in 1949. However, Ambedkar’s proposal for a Hindu Code guaranteeing equal right to inheritance and property was opposed by a section of Parliament. Disappointed, he resigned. After unsuccessful attempts to contest the Lok Sabha elections as an independent, he turned his focus on Buddhism. Discovering through anthropological research that his Mahar ancestors were in fact Buddhists who were made untouchables by dominant Brahmins, he converted to Buddhism in 1956. He also proceeded to proselytize the faith among 5 lakh supporters. Despite failing health he completed the manuscript of his book, The Buddha and His Dhamma, and died just days later on December 6, 1956. Ambedkar’s philosophy had a profound influence on Indian society and initiated a journey towards equality that continues to date.

1957 – Mother India soothes India’s Kashmir woes
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It was a year of great changes. Even as Kerala ushered into power the first democratically elected Communist government the Kashmir problem rose to a boil with both Pakistan and a section of Kashmiris pressing for a plebiscite to determine the future of the state. However, it was cinema that truly fanned India’s patriotic sentiments. Mother India, a story of grinding poverty directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Sunil Dutt and Nargis, became a national sensation. Nargis played Radha, a poor village woman who rises against odds and sacrifices her own corrupt son in the film’s melodramatic climax. Nargis represented the turbulence of India in the wake of independence. The film’s title was taken from a controversial book by American writer Katherine Mayo that made a disparaging attack on Indian society. Khan, drawing upon Pearl S Buck’s books The Mother and The Good Earth, said that his film’s title was a challenge to Mayo’s “scurrilous work”, declaring the empowerment of Indian women and their triumph over sexual subjugation. Mother India was India’s first official submission to the American Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category and finished among the top five nominees in 1958.

1958 - AFSPA empowers India to kill its children
AFP

Approved by Parliament on September 11, 1958, the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act granted sweeping powers to armed forces in what it defined as “disturbed areas”. Under its provisions, armed forces can search, arrest and shoot to kill on suspicion to preserve public order. The AFSPA was first enforced in Assam and Manipur in 1972 and amended to apply to Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland. Historical compulsion for introducing the Act came amid political challenges in integrating the northeast states into the Indian Union after Independence. Since 1990, the Act has also been applied in Jammu and Kashmir where it has been opposed vociferously. India has been under heavy international pressure to repeal the AFSPA, which the watchdog Human Rights Watch condemned as a "tool of state abuse, oppression and discrimination". Opposition to the AFSPA gained momentum when several women activists protesting against the custodial death of Thangjam Manorama Devi stripped before the Manipur headquarters of the Assam Rifles on July 15, 2004. Four years before that Irom Sharmila, the 39-year-old “Iron Lady of Manipur”, began her indefinite fast, accepting neither food nor water. Jailed for attempting to take her own life, Sharmila has been kept alive with tube-fed and intravenous nutrition. Her decade-long fast has made her the icon of the agitation against the AFSPA.

1959 - Tibetans find a home in India
AFP

Since 1951, the Communist Party of China had declared its hold over Tibet but granted the area relative autonomy under the provisions of the Seventeen Point Agreement. A protest in certain parts of Tibet against the redistribution of land according to socialist norms sparked off fighting that turned into an armed rebellion. The Chinese occupants stepped up the subjugation of the Tibetan people with brutal measures that included killings, rape of women and coercing monks and nuns to have sex in violation of vows of celibacy. An armed rebellion intensified in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, but the Chinese suppressed it. During the uprising the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso escaped to India along with a number of refugees. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru met the Dalai Lama in Mussoorie in 1959 and assured him of protection for his people, offering them land in India to set up settlements in Dharamshala, Bylakuppe and Darjeeling among other places. The Tibetan spiritual leader would go on to establish the Tibetan Government in Exile at Dharamshala. The influx of refugees into India continued for decades thereafter.

1960 – Hamara Bajaj
AFP

In 1960, Bajaj Auto, established in 1945, went public. Just the previous year the company established by visionary industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj had been granted a license to manufacture two- and three-wheelers. While the company initially imported the Vespa 150 under license from Piaggio of Italy, it began production of the Chetak scooter in 1972. Modeled after the Italian Vespa Sprint, the Bajaj Chetak – named for the famous horse of the historical Rajput hero Maharana Pratap – became a household symbol across India. In 1985, a long-running commercial on Doordarshan with the jingle “Hamara Bajaj” cemented its reputation as the people’s scooter. Several scooter models have been rolled out down the ages, but the Chetak became ingrained in culture. In 2009 the company, now among the Forbes 2000, stopped production of the Chetak.

1961 – India marches into Goa

The longest reigning colonial power, the Portuguese had held Goa for 451 years until India wrested it back on December 19, 1961. Starting in 1950, the Government of India had attempted to make diplomatic dialogue with the Portuguese government in Goa, which asserted that the territory was not a colony but an integral part of Portugal. Calls for freedom had begun as early as 1928 when the French-educated Goan nationalist Tristao de Braganza Cunha organized the first independence movement to liberate the colony. Cunha, who was instrumental in coordinating the many disparate freedom movements within Goa, was made a state prisoner and confined first at Fort Aguada, Goa and then at the Peniche prison in Portugal. Cunha died in 1958, by which time the movement to free Goa had built up momentum. In addition to the nonviolent methods adopted by Cunha and his Gandhian supporter Ram Manohar Lohia, groups like the Azad Gomantak Dal and United Front of Goans, supported by the Indian government, used force to attempt to unseat the Portuguese government. After a series of incidents, Indian forces stormed Goa by land, air and sea and liberated the coastal enclave after a 48-hour operation. The Goa episode was hotly debated across the world when a United Nations Security Council draft resolution spearheaded by the United States calling for a ceasefire in Goa was vetoed by the Soviet Union, India’s Cold War ally. India’s ties with Portugal were suspended until they were restored in 1974 after the authoritarian ruler AntĂłnio de Oliveira Salazar’s regime was overthrown in 1968.

1962 – Friends, brothers and enemies

After the 1959 Tibetan Uprising and India’s decision to grant refuge to Tibetans fleeing the Chinese occupation of their homeland, India’s relations with China were simmering. They finally came to a boil over disputes concerning two border areas – Aksai Chin on the border of Kashmir and Xinjiang, and Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India, a consequence of the Chinese refusal to accept the McMahon Line that was drawn in 1914 as the historical border between China and British India. Skirmishes and hostilities escalated as the Chinese built up troops and reinforcements in two places along the disputed border. The Chinese aggression was timed to coincide with the Cuban Missile Crisis in which the United States and the Soviet Union were involved, as this meant both powers would not involve themselves with the happenings in southern Asia. Nehru’s Forward Policy and assertion of the McMahon Line as the boundary was criticized and he lost standing for failing to foresee China’s motives. Defense Minister V K Krishna Menon resigned accepting responsibility for India’s lack of military preparedness. The war called for a review of India’s foreign policy – from ‘brotherly’ ties with China, Nehru began to look west.

1963 – Nagaland joins the Indian family

Nagaland, at the northeastern tip of India, was inducted into India as its 16th state on December 1, 1963. The region was a designated home for 15 officially recognized Naga tribes, many of whom also live in Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Naga tribes had little contact with the outside world until Christian missionaries arrived in the 1870s and over 95 per cent of Naga people have embraced the faith. The British, who annexed Assam following the Treaty of Yandabo after the First Anglo-Burmese War, attempted to reach out to the tribes but conflicts often took place. Even as India announced independence from the British Crown in 1947, the Nagas pressed for a sovereign nation of their own. Talks with the Government of India, which began in June that year with recognition of the Nagas’ right to “self-determination”, continued until 1952 when a rebellion by the Naga National Council, which pressed for secession from India, was crushed by Indian armed forces. In 1962, India assembled the controversial Naga People’s Convention and following an agreement granted statehood to Nagaland in 1963. The move was seen by the rebels as a great betrayal of Naga interests. Since then, Nagaland has had a troubled relationship with the Government of India, although talks have been held periodically after the National Socialist Council of Nagaland was founded by Thuingaleng Muivah, Isaac Swu and S Khaplang in 1970. In the picture above, Naga tribesmen are shown performing the traditional dance on the occasion of the Hornbill festival.

1964 – The passing of Nehru

India’s first prime minister was a troubled man after India’s defeat in the 1962 war with China. Facing criticism internally and losing Congress political strongholds in Kerala in the 1962 election, he took ill and spent his time recuperating in Kashmir. On returning to Delhi he suffered a stroke and later a heart attack. He died on May 27. Despite criticism of some of his policies, Nehru was an acknowledged statesman and visionary who led a young nation out of post-Independence darkness. Interim Prime Minister Gulzarilal Nanda, who had been sworn in, would soon be replaced by his close political confidant Lal Bahadur Shastri.

1965 – War in the subcontinent 


Indians (in picture) celebrate with a seized Pakistani Army tank. India’s military losses in the war with China emboldened Pakistan to attack and lay claim to Kashmir, which it had lost during the Partition of India. After clashes between troops in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, the hostilities intensified in August. Though both sides suffered heavy casualties in land and air battles that extended along Pakistan’s border with Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat, India was perceived as the victor for decisively thwarting the Pakistani attack. A United Nations-mediated ceasefire was enforced and remained in effect till the next war in 1971. Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was hailed as a national hero for the victory, which soothed the memory of the defeat to China.

1966 – The cartoonist who drew ire

On June 19, 1966 Balasaheb Keshav Thackeray, who had started his career as a cartoonist with the Free Press Journal in Mumbai, founded the Shiv Sena. Six years before, Thackeray had started Marmik, a cartoon weekly in which he criticized Gujarati and South Indian laborers in Mumbai whom he accused of usurping jobs that Maharashtrians deserved. His organization was launched to campaign for job security for Maharashtrians. In years to come the Shiv Sena’s ideology and methods would invite strident criticism but it would emerge as a decidedly powerful political entity both in state politics and at the centre, where it would ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
1966 – Women on top


India in 1966 saw her share of ups and downs. Even as India and Pakistan negotiated for peace at Tashkent, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri died thereafter in mysterious circumstances. An Air India flight crashed into Mont Blanc killing 117 people including Homi J Bhabha, chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission. But it was woman power that really swung it for the nation that year. Months after Indira Gandhi was sworn in as India’s first woman Prime Minister, a young medical student floored a Miss World jury with her beauty and wit. For one year Reita Faria wore her crown and then threw it all away to concentrate on completing her medical degree.
1968 – A boy band in India

Though it was much later that an Indian rock band would sing of John, Paul, George and the other guy crossing the universe, the Beatles made a beeline for India in 1968 at the height of their fame. Accompanied by an entourage that included actress and model Mia Farrow, an acolyte of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Fab Four arrived at the Maharishi’s ashram near Rishikesh for what was to be a ten-day course in Transcendental Meditation. Their stay was cut short by the death of manager Brian Epstein. The Beatles went back with mixed feelings – while John Lennon’s initial fascination with the Maharishi turned into disenchantment (he later referred to the Maharishi as a “lecherous womanizer”), George Harrison and his wife were taken in, while McCartney recounted many years later upon the Maharishi’s death that he was a great soul. All said, it was a fertile period in the band’s career as many future hits were penned here, including Ringo Starr’s first composition “Don’t Pass Me By.” Portraits of the Beatles’ stay in India, taken by Paul Saltzman, were released in 2000.
1969 - A train to the capital

In a tumultuous year for Indian politics – the Indian National Congress split into two factions – all eyes were on New Delhi. No surprise then that the Indian Railways introduced a special train connecting the capital with other Indian cities. The first Rajdhani Express left Delhi for Howrah, traversing 1,445 km in under 17 hours. The fully air-conditioned railway coaches are the gold class of Indian Railways and are accorded royal treatment. Today, 21 pairs of Rajdhani trains connect Delhi with state capitals.


1970 – “They say Indira Hatao, I say Garibi Hatao”

Indira Gandhi, fast losing her popularity, ushered in a new era in Indian politics with her epic line, “They say Indira hatao, I say Garibi hatao” in a desperate bid to gain the loyalty of the masses for the elections that she subsequently won in 1971. The slogan, which means “Abolish Poverty”, was later adopted by Rajiv Gandhi. Though the campaign was by no means successful, (only a shocking  4% of the total allocated funds for the campaign actually went into anti-poverty programs), it helped her secure the elections the coming year.

1971 – Bollywood smokes a chillum

Dev Anand, by no means second to showman Raj Kapoor in choosing controversial themes for his films, touched upon the sensitive topic of drugs in a movie that perfectly married the two themes of childhood isolation and the hippie movement. The film became a starring vehicle for the lead heroine, Zeenat Aman (Zeenie baby, as she was called), and was a huge musical and commercial hit.
In keeping with the sub-theme of western influence on India, the soundtrack featured both Hindi and English songs, the robust-voiced Usha Uthup holding up strongly in the English numbers against Asha Bhonsle’s honeyed vocals in the Hindi ones. The mood of the film had strong Warholesque undertones and while sending out an anti-drug message, also celebrated the liberation of the Indian woman from her ghar ki rani stereotype.

1972 – Putting the cat back in the bag

Project Tiger, launched in 1973-74, was India’s first successful conservation venture, aiming at the preservation and protection of the tiger, the national animal, in its natural reserves. There were 40 such reserves in 2008, but the total tiger population had dipped to an alarming 1411, which made the government sit up, take notice and give the movement its second wind three years ago, pledging over US $150 million dollars to the campaign. The 2011 tiger census puts the total figure at 1716, showing a healthy growth of about 20% over the last three years, though poaching of tigers for their skin still continues to pose a problem.

1973 – A landmark year for teenybopper romances

RK Films’ Bobby, the launch pad for star son Rishi Kapoor and rumoured star daughter Dimple Kapadia, featuring a pleasantly plump Dimple complete with love handle and cankles, and tinsel town’s original chocolate lover boy Rishi, was a runaway hit at the box office, riding high on whispers of an off-screen romance between the leads. The movie redefined the love story at the box office and became the inspiration for the onslaught of teenage-romance-set-against-a-backdrop-of-class-divide films. As with all blockbusters, the movie’s soundtrack was a huge hit and enjoys pride of place in the golden era of Bollywood music.

1974 – A pox on India’s health

Six years before smallpox was successfully eradicated from the world, India fell prey to the disease, losing over 15,000 lives in just five months mostly in West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Thousands who survived were either disfigured or blinded. It was one of the worst outbreaks of smallpox in the disease’s history. Ironically, the epidemic occurred in the midst of WHO’s smallpox eradication program.

1975 – The year when controversy ruled

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, then President of India, declared a state of internal emergency upon the advice of then PM Indira Gandhi, thereby granting her full power to rule by decree. It was arguably the most controversial period in independent India’s history. No stranger to controversy herself, Indira Gandhi is said to have brought democracy “to a grinding halt”, in her own words. The almost two-year-long emergency ended in early 1977, with the Janata Party beating Indira’s Congress by a small majority in the general elections, bringing back ‘democracy’ from a bleak period of ‘dictatorship’.

1976 – Pocketful of good intentions

This is one year that India is unlikely to forget. The legal ages of marriage for men and women were declared (21 and 18, respectively) and thousands of married men and women were called to volunteer for vasectomies and tubal ligations to control the burgeoning population. Many were promised plots of land in the NCR region of Delhi if they willingly underwent vasectomies, earning the area the rather unfortunate name of Nasbandi (vasectomy) Colony. Sanjay Gandhi, son of then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, shouldered the majority of the blame for what is seen as a failed program. Inverted red triangles or not, our nation today is home to 17% of the world’s population, 1.21 billion at last count – and still counting…

1977 – At the lotus feet of the Lord


1977 saw the passing of Acharya Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (or the Hare Krishna Movement), who was largely responsible for spreading the message of Vaishnavism in the Western world.  A hugely celebrated spiritual icon, Srila Prabhupada’s final resting place is in Vrindavan, a town that relies largely on the ISKCON movement for its tourist trade. A statue that bears a striking resemblance to the spiritual leader is also found in the temple in Vrindavan. ISKCON, though initially a recipient of rich praise, now sees itself mired in controversy.

1978 – Fertility’s triumph and shame

India’s first test tube baby, Durga (Kanupriya Agarwal) was born after India’s first successful in vitro fertilization, credited to the late physician Subhash Mukhopadhyay. The doctor unfortunately received only posthumous credit, as during his time, he had to battle ostracization and bureaucracy, with the government refusing him the right to attend international conferences. He ultimately committed suicide and became the inspiration for the Tapan Sinha movie, Ek Doctor Ki Maut.

1979 – Nobility wins a Nobel

Sister of Mercy Mother Teresa’s undying kindness and compassion for the downtrodden, the displaced and the diseased was awarded the richly deserved Nobel Peace Prize. Albanian by birth (her native town Skopje is now the capital of Macedonia), she adopted Indian citizenship. Moved by the poverty she witnessed in the wake of the Bengal Famine of 1943 and the communal violence in the aftermath of Partition, she left the Sisters of Loreto to establish her own order, the Missionaries of Charity. In 1952 she established the Kalighat Home for the Dying in Kolkata (then Calcutta), a charitable hospice where the poor could die “a beautiful death”. Before she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, she had already been recognized with the Balzan Prize (1978) and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975).

1980 –India shuttles to the top


Though the year will go down in history as the year of Indira Gandhi’s return to politics and her son Sanjay Gandhi’s controversial death, India took giant leaps in sports. Two triumphs in the international arena set India on the global map. For one, the Indian hockey team won gold at the Moscow Olympics and young badminton star Prakash Padukone, father of starlet Deepika Padukone, became the first Indian to win the All England Badminton Open.

1981 – Standing on the shoulders of 7 giants


Seven unassuming entrepreneurs, with a collective capital of Rs 1,0000 among them, opened an unassuming information technology company in Pune. What used to be Infosys Consultants Pvt Ltd then is today Infosys Limited, one of the proud behemoths in global IT, with offices in 33 countries, boasting of numerous awards and partnerships with top universities and ranking 28 among the world’s IT services providers. N R Narayana Murthy, founder and chairman emeritus of Infosys, continues to be an inspiration to Indian and global entrepreneurs alike 30 years down the line.

1982 – Color me glad

Television and radio separated as broadcast media in 1976, and for the better part of the 1970s, the idiot box was a phenomenon restricted to only seven cities in the country. Indian television programming actually kicked off in the early 1980s and Doordarshan stood tall as the sole channel when in 1982, colour televisions entered the Indian market. Lo and behold, entertainment in Eastman, Deluxe and Technicolor was now available in the comfort of a middle-class home. Crowns and Coronas made way for Solidaires and Keltrons, and television programming received a fillip with epics such as Ramayan, Mahabharat, the Sunday morning cartoon show, the Wednesday evening Chitrahaar and one long-running family drama after another.
1983 – Kapil’s Devils go from underdogs to top dogs

Seen as underdogs going into the tournament with no hopes of clearing the league matches, the Kapil Dev-led Indian cricket team triumphed over all odds, including wagers of 100-1in favour of the Windies in the finals of the World Cup. With a modest score of 183 to defend, the match, and subsequently the trophy, belonged to the Indian medium-pacers. When Balwinder Singh Sandhu swung the ball, Gordon Greenidge had no other choice but to edge it, helping India to its first wicket. WI’s swashbuckling batsmen had a rather meek task of adding runs to the scoreboard in little trickles, but some smart bowling, swift fielding and superlative catches by the Indian team ensured that the Cup belonged to India and India alone on that unforgettable day of June 25, 1983.

1984 – The night of the living dead

Even as the country came to grips with the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, a terrible tragedy struck its people on December 2. As the nation slept, a deadly leak of highly toxic methyl isocyanate gas at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, claimed thousands of lives insidiously. Thousands more succumbed in the days and years ahead and tens of thousands were disabled for life. The Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide continues to fight civil and criminal lawsuits against it for negligence and endangering public life. Warren Anderson, then CEO of UCC, was convicted last year but his conviction is largely seen as a mere rap on the knuckles for a crime of epic proportions.

1985 – Blown apart in mid-air

Kanishka, Air India’s ill-fated Flight 182, en route to Delhi from Montreal, met with a bloody end mid-air. All 329 on board, including 22 Indians, died. Sikh extremism that was consuming India in the wake of Operation Blue Star is said to be the motivation behind the bombing. Sikh separatists are said to have placed explosives inside the plane, blowing it to smithereens just an hour after takeoff.  Investigations carried on for more than 20 years, making it one of the most expensive trials in Canada’s history.

1986 – A black end to Sikh strife


Coming close on the heels of Operation Blue Star during Indira Gandhi’s reign, this two-part attack, labelled Operation Black Thunder, was carried out by ‘Black Cat’ commandoes of the National Security Guards to rid Amritsar’s Golden Temple of Khalistani separatists who were using the holy shrine as a base and refuge. The 1000-member strong team of NSG and BSF personnel stormed the temple and captured over 300 militants, with little collateral damage compared to 1984. Soon after, the Indian Government deemed it illegal to use religious shrines for military and political purposes.

1987 – The day the music died

Kishore Kumar, born Abhas Kumar Ganguly, lent not just his voice to umpteen Bollywood heroes, but his soul as well to Indian cinema. Known as much for his soulful songs as for his peppy musical outbursts, Kishore Kumar was one-third of the trifecta (Mohammed Rafi and Mukesh being the other two) that formed the firm foundation of the golden era in Bollywood music. Hiding behind the façade of an eccentric artiste, this idealist, philosopher and dreamer’s voice was the harbinger of joy to millions, but this very troubled multifaceted personality was very private, famous for his temper tantrums and refused to let go of his inner child well into his old age. He died of a heart attack in 1987.

1988 – The show must go on

India had to say goodbye to yet another stalwart of Indian cinema this year, with Raj Kapoor’s death. Branded as the showman of the millennium, Raj Kapoor had no cinematic equal, though many aspired to (unsuccessfully) walk in his shoes. Hailing from a family of thespians, this controversial actor-filmmaker was responsible for the blossoming of the careers of many leading ladies, literally and figuratively, and had the gumption to stray into uncharted territories of brazen intimacy and nudity on the silver screen. His death ended what many saw as an unapologetic era in Indian cinema, and no Kapoor since then has been able to make the merest speck of a mark as Raj did during his glorious reign.

1989 - A small town’s pride

While India was dealing with the kidnapping of the Union Home Minister’s daughter, Rubaiya Sayeed, and the subsequent drama that unfolded, Kottayam, a small sleepy town in the state of Kerala, was preparing to earn the distinction of being the first town in India with a 100% literacy rate. All 70,000 inhabitants, give or take a few, could read and write, a distinction that today makes Kerala the most literate of all of India’s states.

1990 - Caste inferno engulfs the nation

Rajiv Goswami’s attempt at self-immolation to protest Prime Minister V P Singh’s implementation of the Mandal Commission’s recommendations, sent shock waves through a nation already cleaved by caste. His bravado fanned the flames of protest that had already been lit by Singh’s attempt at raising the reservation quota of students in professional institutions and central universities to 49.5 per cent from 22 per cent. The riots stalled the recommendations in their tracks and were never implemented. Goswami died 14 years later due to liver and kidney related complications that could be traced back to his self-immolation bid.

1991 - The budget that opened up the world

In 1991, after the assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE, a new Congress government headed by P V Narasimha Rao was voted in. India was smack dab in the middle of an extraordinary financial crisis. It had a huge problem with its balance of payments, and foreign exchange reserves had all but depleted. India had to literally pledge the family gold (airlifted to provide guarantee for an IMF loan) to make ends meet. Something had to give. Manmohan Singh, finance minister under Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, presented the interim budget of 1991-92, which rearranged the economic architecture of a nation and ushered in what is often referred to as economic liberalization. Foreign investment in many industries was allowed and peak duty reduced from 300 plus percent to around 50 percent. India shed its much-derided “Hindu rate of growth” and in the subsequent two decades its GDP grew between 6-10 per cent.

1992 - When the roof of secular India fell down

December 6 was one of the darkest days since India gained Independence. The nation’s secular fabric was threatened by the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the contentious mosque located in Ayodhya, the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram. The mosque was demolished by Hindu karsevaks who believed that the mosque was built at the site of Ram’s birth. What followed changed the course of a nation forever. The communal riots that followed between the Hindus and Muslims took the lives of over 2000 people.

1993 - Mumbai blasts scar the nation

Retribution for the destruction of the Babri Masjid was not swift, but that was because revenge had to be planned and plotted. Thirteen coordinated explosions ripped apart Mumbai and changed the psyche of the nation. In all, 257 people died and about 700 suffered injuries. Mumbai would never be the same again. Religious differences simmer and wounds of that fateful day have not healed. Since 1993 numerous other explosions have killed hundreds more in a city that has learned grudgingly to live with violence.

1994 - Queen of the universe

Beauty and brains were in the news again as Sushmita Sen (in picture) and Aishwarya Rai won the Miss Universe and Miss World titles respectively. Yes, there was Reita Faria in 1966, but not many would remember that. The timing of their victories proved beneficial for MNC cosmetic giants to advertise their products. Both Sen and Rai went on to successful careers in modeling and Bollywood.

1995 - Delhi Metro on the rails

The inauguration of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation demonstrated that India could not only boast of launching big projects, and but go ahead and delivering them on time and within the allocated budget. It was one of the biggest achievements of the Delhi government, which was trying very hard to ease pollution and traffic woes that had plagued the capital for long. The secret to its successful launch was its managing director E Sreedharan, who insisted on putting together his own team and demanded no bureaucratic intervention during the execution. The first metro trains would run in 2002.

1996 - India does the moonwalk

Michael Jackson was still near the height of his fame when he visited India in 1996 as part of his ‘History’ tour. He visited Mumbai, where he danced with street urchins, visited Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray at his residence, and even autographed one of his walls!

1997 – Arundhati Roy brings home the Booker

An unknown Kerala-born Indian author won the Booker Prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things just a few months shy of her 36th birthday. Roy has not written another work of fiction since, instead focusing on writing a string of essays on environment and social and political issues. She remains a well-known activist and dissident.

1998 – A jewel for the Nightingale

Among M S Subbulakshmi’s many fans included Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Nidu and Lata Mangeshkar. The doyenne of Carnatic music was awarded the Bharat Ratna (the first singer to receive India’s highest civilian award) for her extraordinary contribution to music. By then Subbulakshmi had stopped all public performances after the death of her husband T Sadasivam.

1999 – The story of a hijacking

Perhaps India needed to learn something from the Israelis: don’t negotiate with terrorists. India, unfortunately, did. And the ghosts of that episode came back to haunt us. On December 24, armed gunmen hijacked Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 just as it entered Indian airspace on its way from Nepal. The plane was force-landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan and after seven days of parleys with the terrorists mediated by the Taliban, India was coerced into releasing militants Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar in exchange for the passengers. This proved a costly mistake. Azhar went on to found Jaish-e-Muhammed, the organization suspected to be behind the 2001 Indian Parliament attack. Sheikh went on to abduct and kill American journalist Daniel Pearl, and there are also strong suspicions about his alleged role in planning the September, 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

2000 – We are the champions

Entering the new millennium, India was pulled in many directions. From the frenzy of the Y2K bug to the formation of the 26th state, from the brigand Veerappan’s kidnap of south Indian megastar Rajkumar to Priyanka Chopra’s win in the international beauty arena, 2000 hinted at a decade that would by no means be uneventful. Worthy of highlight, however, is India’s chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand who beat Lithuanian Alexei Shirov in Tehran to become the FIDE World Chess Champion.

2001 – A nation shaken

On Republic Day, 2001, India awoke to the most catastrophic natural calamity in 50 years. At 8:46 am, Gujarat was hit by an earthquake that lasted two minutes with aftershocks that continued for a month. About 20,000 people were killed, 167,000 injured and 600,000 left homeless. The shockwaves affected an area of 700 kilometers, paralyzing the province. NGOs and charities swung into action, providing essential medical supplies and deploying search and rescue teams. International support poured in and the money was used to rebuild homes, assemble kitchens and provide safe drinking water. It took Gujarat nearly three years to recover from the consequences of the quake, but some losses can never be reclaimed.

2002 – Communal violence tears Gujarat apart
In the eye of the storm again, Gujarat saw violence ravage her streets. Fifty-nine Hindu pilgrims travelling from Ayodhya by train were killed as their coach was set ablaze by a mob in Godhra. In retaliation, a massacre ensued. Muslims and Hindus were killed by the hundreds in enraged communal rioting. Durgahs, mosques, temples and churches were damaged by crowds consumed with hate.

2003 – Lost in space

On February 1, the NASA space shuttle Columbia carrying among six others Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian astronaut, met its tragic end as it disintegrated upon reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. Chawla, born in Karnal, Haryana, studied Aeronautical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh. From humble origins, Kalpana came to represent the success of the middle-class Indian woman. India has named a satellite in her honor while the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur established the Kalpana Chawla Space Technology Cell in her honor.

2004 - The ocean rises

The Indian Ocean earthquake on December 26 caused a tsunami considered to be one of the deadliest in history. The underwater earthquake displaced a great volume of water, creating waves as high as 15 metres, which travelled distances of 5000 kilometres to wreak havoc across 11 nations. In India alone, over 8,800 people were confirmed dead with thousands more still missing. Fishing communities were destroyed and very little is known of the effects of the tsunami on the indigenous tribes of the Andaman islands that date back more than 30,000 years. The tsunami cost India an estimated $1.6 billion, not counting the government’s promise of investment in developing a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean.

2005 - Aam aadmi ka mobile

The mobile phone was still a few steps away from the ever-present device it is today. As users paid for incoming calls and high mobile tariffs and instrument costs kept handsets out of reach of the common man, TRAI’s slashing of tariffs came as good news to mobile phone subscribers in 2005.

2006 - The mountain pass reopens

Nathu La, a mountain pass in the Himalayas connecting the Indian state of Sikkim with China, was sealed after the Sino-India War in 1962. After extensive discussions and numerous bilateral trade agreements, the pass was reopened in 2006, symbolizing the resurrection of relations between the two nations and the hope of bolstering either country’s economy through the revival of trade.

2007 - India’s First Lady

Pratibha Devisingh Patil, the 12th President of India and the first woman to hold the office, was sworn in on July 25. With a degree in Law, and Political Science and Economics, she began her political career at age 27. Patil has represented India in several international forums and has actively worked for the welfare of women, children and underprivileged sections of society.

2008 - Terror in Mumbai

2008 saw several significant events including India’s triumph at the Beijing Olympics, Sachin Tendulkar, Asha Bhonsle and Pranab Mukherjee were awarded the Padma Vibhushan, and Arvind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize. However, in retrospect, the violence of 2008 eclipsed everything else that year. Gujjar unrest in Rajasthan, blasts in Jaipur and Bangalore, and the terror attacks in Mumbai left the country bruised and nearly broken, with wounds that have still not healed.

2009 - Queer Pride

In a landmark move, the Delhi High Court decriminalized homosexuality in India. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was declared as violating the fundamental right to life and liberty, and the right to equality, as guaranteed by the Constitution of India. It marked a day of triumph and celebration for every organization in the country that fought for tolerance and social equality for the LGBT community. For the first time, India participated in the celebration of Queer Pride with events and pride marches planned across the big metros in the country.

2010 - The massacre in Dantewada

In April of 2010, 80 men from the Central Reserve Police Force were brutally ambushed by Maoist rebels near the village of Chintalnar in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. Seventy-five police personnel were killed before reinforcements arrived in what is regarded as one of the most vicious attacks by the Naxals.

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