NEW DELHI, Dec 30: The year witnessed a change in India’s political guard with BJP unseating the Congress by notching up 281 of the 545 Lok Sabha seats. Narendra Modi was sworn is as the country’s 15th Prime Minister.
The states of Jharkahand, Maharashtra and Haryana witnessed a regime change and Jammu and Kashmir saw a hung Parliament in the recent elections.
A pleasant surprise of the year was child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi being conferred the Nobel Laureate. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malviya were chosen for the Bharat Ratna.
In Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP who became Chief Minister resigned after a very short stint of 49 days in power. In Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Jayalalitha was convicted and jailed on corruption charges.
The country made space history with its successful launch of the Mars Orbiter Mission. One of the worst floods devastated Jammu and Kashmir and the year ended on a grim note with the militant attack on tribals in Assam villages.
Following is the diary of events for the year.
Jan 1: New Delhi: India scraps the scam-tainted Rs 3,600 crore VVIP helicopter deal with Anglo-Italian firm AgustaWestland, nearly a year after allegations surfaced that kickbacks to the tune of Rs 360 crore were paid to bag the contract.
Jan 1: New Delhi: Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag, who is tipped to be the next Army Chief, takes over as the Vice-Chief of the Army Staff.
Jan 2: New Delhi: The minority Aam Aadmi Party government crosses the first hurdle in the Delhi Assembly when its confidence motion sailed through easily with the backing of the members of Congress, JD(U) and an independent.
Jan 3: New Delhi: Following the December 16, 2012 gangrape incident, Delhi Police in a landmark decision announces that charge sheets in rape cases will be filed within 20 days to ensure speedy justice to victims.
Jan 4: New Delhi: A team of senior Indian officials leaves for Sudan, which is witnessing ethnic conflict that has killed at least 1,000 people so far.
Jan 5: New Delhi: Delhi Minister Rakhi Birla escapes unhurt in an attack on her car by unknown persons in Mangolpuri.
Jan 5: New Delhi: Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hails the successful launch of GSLV D5 satellite
Jan 6: New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party disapproves of its
leader Prashant Bhushan’s comment on carrying out a referendum for deployment of Army in Jammu and Kashmir after it touched off a major controversy
Jan 6: New Delhi: Manipur’s M Khayingthei and Mizoram’s Ramdinthara, who lost their lives while trying to save friends from drowning, are among three persons selected for ‘Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak’.
Jan 8: Ghaziabad: Activists of a fringe right-wing group attacks and vandalises the Aam Aadmi Party headquarters in Kaushambi here protesting against the controversial remarks of its senior leader Prashant Bhushan on the presence of security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
Jan 8: New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee assures Bhutan that India will continue to support capacity-building efforts in the neighbouring country.
Jan 8: Thane: Nine passengers are charred to death in their sleep when a blaze ripped through three coaches of Bandra-Dehradun Express in Thane district in the wee hours, ten days after a fire mishap in a train leaves 26 people dead.
Jan 9: New Delhi: Mahatma Gandhi’s grand-daughter Ela Gandhi, Australian senator of Indian origin Lisa Maria Singh and Ramkrishna Mission in Fiji are among the 13 recipients of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award conferred.
Jan 9: New Delhi: The anti-corruption helpline, by Delhi Government, receives nearly 4,000 calls in first seven hours of its operation.
Jan 10: New Delhi: Senior Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade indicted for visa fraud and making false statements by a grand jury in the US, returns.
Jan 11: New Delhi: Justice Swatanter Kumar, a former Supreme Court judge, sends a legal notice to certain media organisations demanding apology for publicising allegations of sexual harassment levelled against him by a law intern.
Jan 11: New Delhi: Chaos prevailed at the first ‘janta darbar’ by AAP government forcing Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to leave the venue mid-way.
Jan 14: New Delhi: Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti comes under attack from ally Congress and opposition BJP which demand his removal over his being indicted by a court for “tampering of evidence” in a case in which he had appeared as a lawyer.
Jan 15: New Delhi: A 51-year-old Danish tourist has been allegedly robbed and gangraped at knife-point near New Delhi railway station.
Jan 15: New Delhi: India and Pakistan discuss “impediments” hampering the normalisation of trade ties, in a bid to remove them and move forward.
Jan 16: Aam Aadmi Party MLA Vinod Kumar Binny mounts a shrill attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by calling him a “dictator” and accused his government of cheating people, prompting the party to threaten disciplinary action against the legislator.
Jan 17: New Delhi: Sunanda Pushkar, who was upset over an alleged extra-marital affair between her minister husband Shashi Tharoor and a Pakistani journalist, was found dead in a five-star hotel room which police suspect may be a case of suicide.
Jan 17: New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh joins other political leaders to condole the death of actress Suchitra Sen, saying she had “graceful cinematic presence.”
Jan 19: 18 people are killed and over 40 injured in a stampede as thousands of mourners converged to pay their last respects to the spiritual leader of the Dawoodi Bohra community Syedna Burhanuddin
Jan 21: New Delhi: Drug overdose appears to be the cause of the mysterious death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Union Minister Shashi Tharoor, according to the findings of doctors of AIIMS who conducted the autopsy on her.
Jan 21: New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs rejects Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s claim that a Ugandan official had met his Law minister Somnath Bharti in connection with an alleged sex racket.
Jan 22 Hyderabad: Akkineni Nageswara Rao, who scaled the peaks of Telugu cinema rivalling N T Rama Rao in stature between 50s and 70s, dies of cancer.
Jan 23: New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee gives seven more days to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly till January 30 to discuss and debate the draft Telangana bill before returning it to the Centre which promised to table the legislation in the upcoming session of Parliament.
Jan 24: Jammu: In a controversial decision, the Army closes the infamous Pathribal encounter case saying it has found no evidence against its men, drawing angry reaction from Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah
Jan 25: New Delhi: Noted scientist R A Mashelkar and Yoga Guru B K S Iyengar are chosen for this year’s Padma Vibhushan, while cine star Kamala Haasan, author Ruskin Bond and late former Chief Justice J S Verma were selected for Padma Bhushan
Jan 25: Three personnel of the armed forces have been selected this year for the Kirti Chakra, the second highest peace time gallantry award, for their acts of bravery on the Line of Control (LoC), anti-maoist operation and relief operation in flood-hit Uttarakhand, respectively.
Jan 26: New Delhi: Cracking the whip, the Aam Aadmi Party expels its rebel MLA Binod Kumar Binny, ten days after he called Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal a “dictator”.
Jan 26: New Delhi: Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is
the Chief Guest at the 65th Republic Day parade becoming the first premier from that country to grace the occasion.
Jan 27: New Delhi: The Jain community becomes the sixth religious group accorded with the minority status following a notification issued by the Centre.
Jan 28: New Delhi: Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge is given additional charge of Social Justice and Empowerment ministry following the resignation of Kumari Selja.
Jan 29: New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejects BJP leader Arun Jaitley’s contention that government flouted rules by issuing an advertisement inviting applications for posts of Lokpal chairman and members were illegal.
Jan 30: New Delhi: The Union Cabinet gave its approval to a bill that seeks to give wakf properties the status of public premises and make unauthorised occupation of waqf land a criminal offence.
Jan 30: New Delhi: Government suspends the ambitious scheme to pay LPG subsidy in cash to consumers directly but raises the quota of subsidised cooking gas to 12 cylinders per household in a year.
Jan 31: Dehradun: Vijay Bahuguna resigns as Uttarakhand Chief Minister.
Jan 31: New Delhi: Government orders magisterial inquiry into death of Nido Tania, son of a Congress leader from Arunachal Pradesh, who was allegedly beaten up by some shopkeepers in Lajpat Nagar area of South Delhi.
Feb 1: Dehradun: Harish Rawat, a Union Minister, is sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Uttarakhand.
Feb 1: Panaji/New Delhi: A last-minute withdrawal of consent by the Goa government for holding an international music festival has sparked a diplomatic row, with the Russian Embassy terming the decision as an “insolent and starkly unfriendly gesture” of the state authorities.
Feb 2: New Delhi: An amphibious vessel is damaged when it ran aground off the coast of Vishakhapatnam.
Feb 2: New Delhi: Two Manipuri women are allegedly molested and beaten up by some men who hurled racist abuses at them in South Delhi.
Feb 3: New Delhi: Following up on its agreement with CPI, the AIADMK works out an alliance with CPI(M) to fight the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu as efforts to cobble a non-BJP, non-Congress front gained momentum.
Feb 3: New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announces projects including a National Mission on High Performance Computing and a Neutrino-based Observatory in Tamil Nadu with an outlay of about Rs 9,000 crore.
Feb 4: New Delhi: Iconic cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and
eminent scientist Prof C N R Rao are conferred with the country’s highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna.
Feb 5: Kolkata: Narendra Modi attacks Third Front grouping saying such an alliance would make India a “third rate” country and people should banish them from politics forever.
Feb 5: New Delhi: Expelled AAP MLA Vinod Kumar Binny announces withdrawing support to the Delhi Government and accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of being “more dangerous” than a corrupt person who is telling “lies” and “deceiving” people.
Feb 7: New Delhi: Cross-voting by Left and Congress MLAs help Trinamool Congress gain an extra seat in West Bengal while a similar action by Congress MLAs in Andhra Pradesh saw TRS making its debut in Rajya Sabha as high drama marked the polls to the upper House in the two states.
Feb 7: New Delhi: Union Cabinet clears the Telangana Bill which is set to be introduced in Parliament.
Feb 8: New Delhi: A 14-year-old girl from Manipur is allegedly raped by her landlord’s son in Munirka area sparking off protests in the national capital.
Feb 9: New Delhi: A recommendation to President Pranab Mukherjee by the Union Home Ministry for introduction of the Telangana Bill in Parliament–likely on Tuesday–is sent through the Prime Minister’s Office.
Feb 10: New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal rejects Lt Governor Najeeb Jung’s call to revisit his decision to hold a special session of Delhi assembly for the passage of Jan Lokpal Bill.
Feb 10: New Delhi: Government decides to give two additional attempts to civil services aspirants, with consequential age relaxation to all categories of candidates of the exam conducted by Union Public Service Commission.
Feb 10: New Delhi: India and China hold a meet between their Special Representatives on the contentious boundary issue that was preceded by talks under the working mechanism on border affairs in which additional confidence building measures and steps for maintaining peace and tranquility are discussed.
Feb 11: New Delhi: China says border talks with India have yielded “initial results”, enabling the two neighbours to properly handle their differences over the vexed boundary issue and maintain peace along the frontier.
Feb 11: New Delhi: Congress expels six Lok Sabha MPs from the Seemandhra region who had given notices of no-confidence motion against the government over their opposition to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Feb 11: New Delhi: Independent MLA Rambir Shokeen formally withdraws support to Arvind Kejriwal led Delhi government, bringing down the strength to 35 in the 70-member house.
Feb 11: New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal orders filing of an FIR against Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily, former minister Murli Deora and RIL chief Mukesh Ambani for alleged collusion in the hike in prices of natural gas from KG basin.
Feb 12: New Delhi: Food Minister K V Thomas calls Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar a backstabber for raising a banner of “revolt” against Congress President Sonia Gandhi in 1999 on the issue of her foreign origin.
Feb 12: New Delhi: Passenger fares and freight rates are left untouched in the interim rail budget, which talks about plans about involvement of private sector and FDI as part of efforts to modernise the largest transport network in the country.
Feb 13: New Delhi: Unprecedented pandemonium marked by fisticuffs, pepper spraying and breaking of mike is witnessed in Lok Sabha as the government introduced the controversial Telangana bill.
Feb 13: New Delhi: Delhi Assembly witnesses unprecedented chaotic scenes on the first day of a special session as BJP and Congress MLAs joined hands in disrupting proceedings by throwing files, destroying mikes, flagging banners and trooping to the well demanding Law Minister Somnath Bharti’s resignation over the midnight raid episode.
Feb 13: Chennai: Balu Mahendra, who won him several national awards for films like ‘Moondram Pirai'(Sadma),’Veedu’ and ‘Olangal’, dies at a private hospital due to cardiac arrest following prolonged illness.
Feb 14: New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal resigns after suffering a defeat in the assembly on the Jan Lokpal Bill
Feb 16: Sirsa (Har): A 45-year-old man allegedly hurls a shoe at Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda during a public meeting in Dabwali town.
Feb 16: Mumbai: Senior IPS officer Rakesh Maria, who was heading the Maharashtra ATS, takes charge as Mumbai Police Commissioner.
Feb 16: Banihal: Thirteen people are killed and 34 injured, some of them seriously, when a mini-bus in which they were travelling plunges into a gorge in Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir.
Feb 17: New Delhi: YSRCP chief Jaganmohan Reddy stages a protest and courted arrest, while accusing the Congress of engineering the pepper spray episode in Parliament.
Feb 18: New Delhi: Lok Sabha TV went blank for the entire
90 minutes when the controversial bill to carve out Telangana as the 29th state, by splitting Andhra Pradesh Telangana Bill was being passed in the House.
Feb 22: Mumbai: A group of NCP activists barge into the Aam Aadmi Party office in suburban Andheri, tear and burn posters of Arvind Kejriwal and also burn his effigy.
Feb 22: Election Commission has put in place an expenditure monitoring mechanism for curbing misuse of money power during general elections.
Feb 24: Patna/New Delhi: High drama unfolded in the RJD with 13 of the 22 party MLAs in Bihar announcing they have quit the party in a jolt to Lalu Prasad but six of them later claim they are not part of the breakaway faction.
Feb 24: New Delhi: India and China agree on a slew of measures, including holding of joint Army exercise this year and strengthening maritime security cooperation while maintaining peace and tranquility on the dispute border.
Feb 24: New Delhi: India and Canada hold talks on a range of bilateral and international issues and decide to expand ties in diverse sectors including health, audio-visual co-production and skill development.
Feb 25: New Delhi: 11 Left and secular parties come together claiming to be the alternative and vow to defeat both Congress and BJP.
Feb 26: New Delhi: India and Russia hold wide-ranging talks on nuclear, space, energy and economic cooperation and agreed to finalise the long-pending deal for the third and fourth reactors of Kudankulam power plant soon.
Feb 26: India and Saudi Arabia ink a defence cooperation pact to take their strategic partnership further in areas of security.
Feb 26: New Delhi: Navy Chief Admiral D K Joshi quits quit taking moral responsibility.
Feb 27: New Delhi: BJP and LJP stitch a pre-poll alliance with the Ram Vilas Paswan-led party returning to the NDA fold, 12 years after it quit over Gujarat riots.
Feb 27: New Delhi: India and Israel sign three agreements to strengthen the efforts in the war against terror and beef up bilateral security relations.
Feb 28: New Delhi: The Cabinet gives mandate to the 7th Pay Commission for revising salaries of over 50 lakh central government employees and remuneration of 30 lakh pensioners.
Feb 28: The Centre raises dearness allowance to 100 per cent, from 90 per cent, benefiting its 50 lakh employees and 30 lakh pensioners.
Feb 28: New Delhi: A week after Kiran Kumar Reddy resigned as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, the Centre decides to impose President’s Rule in the state while announcing a few sops for the Seemandhra region which has been opposing creation of Telangana state.
Mar 1: New Delhi: The Bill to carve out Telangana received the assent of President Pranab Mukherjee who also signed the proclamation to impose central rule in Andhra Pradesh.
Mar 1: New Delhi: Government clears an ordinance making penal provisions more stringent to deter people committing crimes against members of SCs and STs .
Mar 1: New Delhi: A new potential scam has emerged with Defence Minister A K Antony ordering a CBI probe into allegations of bribery into a Rs 10,000 crore deal for supply of aircraft engines to state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) by London-based Rolls Royce company.
Mar 4: New Delhi: Sheila Dikshit, a former three-term Chief Minister of Delhi, is appointed Governor of Kerala
Mar 4: New Delhi: Calling him “chor”, man from Gwalior threw ink on the face of Sahara chief Subrata Roy when he was brought to the Supreme Court
Mar 5: New Delhi/Lucknow: AAP workers fights running battles with BJP activists outside the saffron party headquarters in Delhi and Lucknow hours and Arvind Kejriwal’s car was damaged in Gujarat in retaliation to protests against his brief detention in the state.
Mar 6: Meerut/Srinagar: Around 60 Kashmiri college students studying in Meerut are charged with sedition by Uttar Pradesh police for cheering Pakistan’s victory against India during a recent cricket match.
Mar 6: Election Commission introduces e-filing of affidavits by candidates for the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.
Mar 7: Mumbai/New Delhi: The Indian Navy is hit by mishap with leakage of a deadly gas on an under-construction warship claiming the life of a Commander and hospitalisation of two others
Mar 8: Visakhapatnam: One civilian worker was killed and two were injured in an accident at the under-construction nuclear submarine at the shipbuilding centre of Eastern Naval Command (ENC).
Mar 8: New Delhi: Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Yogendra Yadav’s face is smeared with ink during an event at Jantar Mantar here by a 28-year-old man who was later roughed up by AAP supporters.
Mar 9: Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi: Congress in Kerala opens formal dialogues with RSP a day after it quit LDF.
Mar 10: Chennai: the DMK announces candidates for the 35 seats it would contest in the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, denying ticket to party supremo’s son M K Alagiri while renominating 2G scam accused A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran.
Mar 11: Raipur: Maoists ambush a security patrol killing 16 people including 11 of the CRPF in a daring daytime attack in the Sukma district of Chhattisgarh.
Mar 12: New Delhi: The formal process for the longest nine-phased general elections to 16th Lok Sabha is set in motion with the President issuing notification for polling in six constituencies of Bihar on April 10.
Mar 12: The much-hyped joint rally of Mamata Banerjee and Anna Hazare here turns out to be a disappointing affair with the anti-corruption crusader giving it a miss, triggering a blame game.
Mar 13: New Delhi: CBI carries out searches at 15 locations, including the residence of National Spot Exchange Limited promoter Jignesh Shah for alleged cheating in the investments of public sector undertaking PEC causing a loss of Rs 12 crore to the exchequer.
Mar 13: New Delhi: India deploys four warships along with six aircraft including the latest special surveillance P-8I plane and three helicopters under the ‘Operation Searchlight’ to rescue the missing Malaysian plane.
Mar 13:New Delhi: India welcomes a US court dismissing visa fraud charges against senior diplomat Devyani Khobragade
Mar 15 :New Delhi: Narendra Modi will contest the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, BJP announces.
Mar 15: New Delhi: President issues notification for second and third phases of Lok Sabha elections
Mar 18: New Delhi: The government under late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the then army leadership’s “Forward Policy” has been blamed for India’s humiliating defeat in the 1962 war against China in a top secret report accessed by an Australian journalist.
Mar 18: New Delhi: Environment Ministry issues draft notification on Western Ghats declaring an area of 56,825 sq km of the hills as ecologically sensitive.
Mar 18: New Delhi: An Italian court bars India barred it from encashing bank guarantees worth over Rs 2,360 crore of AgustaWestland as part of the penalties imposed after scrapping the scam-tainted Rs 3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal.
Mar 19: New Delhi: Khushwant Singh died here today at the age of 99.
Mar 23: New Delhi/Hubli(Kar): BJP is left red-faced as it inducts Pramod Muthalik, the controversial chief of Sri Rama Sene linked with the attack on women at a pub in Mangalore in 2009, only to dump him within hours after opposition from within and severe flak from other parties.
Mar 23: New Delhi: The viscera report of Sunanda Pushkar,
Union Minister Shashi Tharoor’s wife who died under mysterious circumstances two months ago, hints towards drug poisoning.
Mar 23: New Delhi: Top Indian Mujahideen terrorist Zia Ur Rehman alias Waqas, a Pakistani national wanted in connection with several bombings, and three associates are arrested from Rajasthan by Delhi Police.
Mar 24: New Delhi: Delhi Police arrests Indian Mujahideen chief of Indian Operations Tehsin Akhtar alias Monu, who was wanted in a number of bombings in the country, from near Kakarvitta Indo-Nepal border in Darjeeling.
Mar 25: New Delhi: Over Rs 80 crore of cash seized so far by the Election Commission appointed teams with Andhra Pradesh topping the list.
Mar 26: Lucknow: Two Indian Mujahideen terrorists from Pakistan have been arrested from Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Mar 28: Janglote (Kathua): Heavily-armed suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants from Pakistan in combat uniform stricke in Jammu region in twin audacious attacks, killing three people including a soldier guarding an Army camp gate.
Mar 28: New Delhi/Jaipur: A recently acquired C-130J military transport plane, one of the most modern US-made aircraft, crashes near Gwalior, killing all the five crew members.
Mar 29: New Delhi: Senior leader Jaswant Singh was expelled from BJP after he refused to withdraw his nomination as an independent candidate against the party’s official nominee in Rajasthan’s Barmer Lok Sabha constituency
Mar 31: US Ambassador to India Nancy Powell resigns in the midst of general elections in India.
Apr 2: New Delhi: Pitching for a nuclear weapon free world, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposes a global convention for ‘no-first-use’ of atomic arsenal to make the world a saferplace.
Apr 2: New Delhi: In its first major action in the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam, the Enforcement Directorate attaches assets worth Rs 60 crore belonging to former Uttar Pradesh Minister Babu Singh Kushwaha and others under money laundering laws.
Apr 3: New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party vows to bring an effective Jan Lokpal in manifesto released that also promised to bring down the minimum age to contest polls from 25 to 21 besides carrying out reforms in electoral and justice delivery system.
Apr 3: New Delhi: Union Textiles Minister K Sambasiva Rao resignsfrom the Union Cabinet protesting bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, fuelling speculation that he may join BJP.
Apr 4: New Delhi: A New York Police Department officer is
arrested and charged under Arms Act after three bullets were found in his luggage.
Apr 4: New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal attacked by a 19-year-old youth during campaign in Dakshinpuri area of south Delhi, prompting the former Chief Minister to abruptly cancel his roadshow.
Apr 4: New Delhi: The 1992 Babri Mosque demolition was an “act of planned sabotage” and not a by frenzied mob of Hindu outfits, a news portal claims on the basis of a sting operation it had carried over a period of two years.
Apr 6: Bijnore/New Delhi: Narendra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah is in trouble for his “revenge” speech with two FIRs being lodged against him.
Apr 7: Guwahati/Agartala: The long-running Lok Sabha elections–the world’s biggest democratic exercise–gets underway with polling in five of the 14 constituencies in Assam and one of the two in Tripura, drawing a very high turnout of voters.
Apr 9: Vadodara: BJP’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi here in an affidavit filed before the Election Commission showed himself as a married man revealing that his wife’s name is Jashodaben.
Apr 9: Raipur: Over 100 Naxals ambushes a team of security forces in Chhattisgarh’s tribal belt of Bastar on the eve of Lok Sabha polls, killing three commandos of CRPF’s CoBRA battalion and injuring five others including two officers in twin attacks.
Apr 10: New Delhi: High voter turnout marks polling in the first major day of Lok Sabha elections covering 91 constituencies in 14 states and Union Territories.
Apr 11: New Delhi: Cracking the whip on Narendra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah and SP leader Azam Khan, the Election Commission bans them from holding public meetings, processions or roadshows in Uttar Pradesh and asks authorities to initiate criminal proceedings against them.
Apr 12: New Delhi: Seven members of a polling team and five CRPF personnel were among 14 killed as Naxals struck twice in a break of less than an hour, blowing up a bus and an ambulance in Bijapur and Bastar districts of Chhattisgarh.
Apr 14: New Delhi: Congress President Sonia Gandhi appeals to people to defeat “divisive and autocratic” forces which will “destroy” the Indian ethos.
Apr 14: Srinagar: A 20-hour-long gunbattle between two Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants and security forces in the outskirts of Srinagar ends with the killing of both the ultras and injury to two policemen.
Apr 16: New Delhi: Anand Gandhi’s powerful debut ‘Ship of
Theseus’ is declared the best feature film while biopic ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ is named the best popular film at the 61st National Film Awards.
Apr 16: Guwahati: Over 50 passengers were injured, 19 of them seriously, when the engine and 10 coaches of the Dimapur-Kamakhya BG Express derailed at Teghiria in central Assam.
Apr 17: New Delhi: Moderate to high turnout marks the polling in the fifth and biggest round of Lok Sabha elections covering 121 seats across 12 states amidst Maoist violence in Jharkhand where rebels injured four CRPF jawans, blew up a railway track and exploded bombs.
Apr 17: New Delhi: Admiral Robin Dowan took over as the Chief of Naval Staff.
Apr 18: New Delhi: The Election Commission issues a show cause notice to ruling Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav for allegedly threatening school teachers appointed on contract by Uttar Pradesh government to either vote for his party in Lok Sabha polls or risk losing permanent status.
Apr 21: New Delhi/Kolkata: In fresh revelations in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has unearthed that ‘benami’ land and a liquor bar, worth over Rs 60 crore, at prime locations of Kolkata were purchased by laundering investors’ funds.
Apr 23: Varanasi: AAP leader Somnath Bharti is attacked allegedly by BJP workers near Assi ghat while he was returning from a TV show that featured him.
Apr 24: Dumka (Jharkhand): Eight persons – six polling officials and two policemen – are killed and seven others injured when suspected Maoists blew up their vehicle in the district.
Apr 25: Srinagar: A Major and an army jawan are killed in a six-hour gun-battle with three militants holed up in a house in Shopian district of south Kashmir
Apr 26: New Delhi: In the backdrop of a row over yoga guru Ramdev’s ‘honeymoon’ remark against Rahul Gandhi, the Election Commission came out with fresh guidelines against making “malicious” statements about the private life of individuals
Apr 26: New Delhi/Amritsar: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says he is saddened by the decision of his half-brother Daljeet Singh Kohli to join BJP which claimed it reflected people’s anger against the Congress.
Apr 26: Srinagar: Three militants holed up in a house were killed by security forces in Shopian district of Kashmir.
Apr 27: New Delhi: The new Chief Justice of India, R M
Lodha, says he did not agree with the idea of having fixed tenure for chief justices of high courts and the CJI and favoured continuing with the collegium system for appointment of judges in higher judiciary.
Apr 27: New Delhi: Piecing together the jigsaw of 26/11 Mumbai attacks, NIA records statements of some of the witnesses in connection with the conspiracy hatched by David Headley and others to carry out the terror strikes in 2008.
Apr 28: New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee gave his approval for the dissolution of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly and a fresh proclamation for Central Rule in the state.
Apr 29: Mandi/Palampur: BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi landed in a controversy when he invoked invoked a Kargil martyr’s slogan to pitch for 300 seats for NDA, a statement that was disapproved by the soldier’s family and attacked by political rivals.
Apr 29: New Delhi: Former Chief of the Air Staff Norman Anil Kumar Browne is appointed India’s next Ambassador to Norway.
Apr 30: Ahmedabad/New Delhi: Stoking a huge controversy, Narendra Modi landed himself in a soup by displaying BJP symbol and making a speech in a polling booth in violation of electoral laws following which police filed an FIR against him.
Apr 30: New Delhi: 67-year-old Congress leader Digvijaya Singh took to Twitter to announce his relationship with a woman journalist and plans about marrying her after the social media went viral about it.
May 1: Chennai: Two blasts in quick succession in a passenger train killed a 24-year old woman techie and injured 14 others in the busy Chennai Central Railway station in a suspected terror attack.
May 1: New Delhi: The ongoing Lok Sabha elections are witnessing much more enthusiasm among the electorate with the voter turnout already surpassing the previous records in the 438 constituencies which went to polls so far.
May 2: Guwahati: At least 23 persons, including children and women, were killed and 14 seriously injured by heavily armed NDFB(S) militants in two communally-sensitive districts of Kokrajhar and Baksa of Assam.
May 2: New Delhi: Government re-ignited the ‘snoopgate’ issue allegedly involving Narendra Modi by asserting that a judicial Commission to probe it will be in place by May 16, evoking an angry reaction by BJP which warned of reviewing the “illegitimate” decision if it comes to power.
May 3: New Delhi: The arrest of suspected Indian Mujhaideen terrorist Faizan Ahmed Sultan is expected to throw light on the banned terror group’s operation being handled from Gulf countries.
May 4: Chennai: Security agencies probing twin explosions inside Bangalore-Guwahati Express here find some similarities with Patna blasts last year in which cadres of banned Indian Mujahideen (IM) terror outfit have been arrested.
May 4: New Delhi: Central security agencies have claimed that Pakistan’s ISI had plans to carry out terror attacks on two foreign consulates in India with evidence for this reportedly given by a Sri Lankan national, arrested from Chennai, during his interrogation.
May 5: New Delhi: Prasar Bharati is ready to institute a probe into the controversial editing of Narendra Modi’s interview by Doordarshan but will do so only if the Information and Broadcasting Ministry assures that it would abide by the findings.
May 6: New Delhi: CBI has recorded statements of Defence Minister A K Antony and Prime Minister’s Advisor T K A Nair in a case in which former Army chief Gen V K Singh alleged that a retired senior Army official had offered him a bribe to clear purchase of Tatra trucks from a PSU.
May 6: New Delhi: Amid allegations of largescale rigging and booth capturing in various states, the Election Commission has taken steps like deploying poll tracking teams and activating quick response system to ensure free and fair balloting in the last two phases of Lok Sabha polls.
May 7: New Delhi: After a nine-month-long wait and legal hurdles, new airline AirAsia India was granted the flying licence by aviation regulator DGCA and said it plans to launch flights in about three months with low fares.
May 9: New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee decided not to vote in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in order to express his “neutrality in the political fray”.
May 10: Meerut: Members of two communities clashes over construction of a water kiosk near a mosque in Teergaran area here leaving two persons injured and sparking tension.
May 11: New Delhi: Defence Minister AK Antony has red-flagged a proposal of his own Ministry to continue doing business with the UK-based Rolls Royce, which is facing a CBI probe for allegedly paying bribes and engaging middlemen in contracts for supplying engines to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
May 12: New Delhi: Lok Sabha elections 2014 witnessed the highest-ever turnout with more than 66 per cent of an estimated 814 million voters exercising their franchise.
May 12: New Delhi: India and scores of other countries, including Switzerland, have adopted a global declaration for automatic exchange of tax information, Finance Minister P Chidambaram says.
May 13: New Delhi: CBI begins its probe in the over Rs
10,000-crore Saradha chit fund case as its seven-member Special Investigating Team (SIT) started collecting documents pertaining to the cases from four states and other agencies.
May 14: New Delhi: Government announces appointment of Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag, a veteran infantry officer, as the next Army chief to succeed incumbent Gen Bikram Singh after his retirement on July 31.
May 14: Islamabad/New Delhi: The two Indian journalists posted to Pakistan have been virtually expelled by Pakistan government without assigning any reasons.
May 15: Barmer (Raj): Expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh rules out the possibility of returning to the party fold after the election results are out tomorrow, saying this would be a “betrayal” of the people.
May 15: New Delhi: The 23-year-old ban imposed on terror group LTTE has been extended by five years by the Government which the outfit is a threat to India’s sovereignty and integrity.
May 16: New Delhi: Narendra Modi rewrote history storming to power at the Centre with a “triple century”, giving NDA an unexpected 336 seats in the Lok Sabha and BJP an absolute majority on its own for the first time in an election that decimated Congress to its lowest ever tally of 44.
May 16: New Delhi: Accepting responsibility for the party’s worst-ever defeat, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi conceded that the mandate in the Lok Sabha polls was “clearly against” the Congress and says there was “lot for us to think about”.
May 17: New Delhi: US President Barack Obama calls up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh soon after he demitted office and says he was one of the few public leaders whom he “admired” and that he would “miss” working with him on “day-to-day basis.”
May 17: Patna: Drubbed in the Lok Sabha elections and facing dissidence, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar resigns, but did not seek dissolution of the Assembly, injecting a dramatic turn in state politics.
May 18: New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party rules out possibility of it forming government in Delhi again, even as Congress says it would prefer fresh polls to supporting AAP.
May 19: New Delhi: Setting the terms for revival of the composite dialogue process with the Modi government, Pakistan made it clear that India should not shy away from dealing with “contentious” issues like Jammu and Kashmir and not lay down any pre-conditions for talks.
May 19: New Delhi: Shattered by the party’s worst debacle
in the elections, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi offer to resign accepting responsibility but the party unanimously reject it.
May 20: New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal asks Lt Governor Najeeb Jung not to dissolve the Delhi Assembly anytime soon, saying it will hold public meetings across the city to know whether the party should form the government again.
May 20: New Delhi: Marking the arrival of a new era in Indian politics, Narendra Modi is appointed Prime Minister, who says the elections have kindled a “new hope and aspiration” among the common man for whom he dedicated his government.
May 21: New Delhi: A moderate earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale shook Delhi, National Capital Region, Chennai and several parts of eastern and northern India but there were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage to properties.
May 21: New Delhi: Under sharp attack, the Prime Minister’s Office says the twitter account @PMOIndia has been “secured” by the microblogging company and will be handed over to the new dispensation which will take over next week.
May 22: New Delhi: After its severe drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls, Congress dissolves all 14 district and 140 block committees besides other wings in the national capital as part of efforts to revamp the party ahead of next assembly elections.
May 23: New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee strongly condemned the terror attack on the Indian Consulate in Herat and says such attacks will not deter India from assisting Afghanistan in its effort to reconstruct and develop the nation.
May 24: New Delhi/Bangalore: Two key members of Aam Aadmi Party Shazia Ilmi and G R Gopinath today quit citing differences with Arvind Kejriwal’s “jail politics” and lack of “internal democracy” in the party, which is battling internal fissures after the severe electoral drubbing in recent polls.
May 25: New Delhi: After an Italian court partially lifted the freeze and allowed India to encash bank guarantees worth Rs 1,818 crore deposited by AgustaWestland in the VVIP chopper deal, the Defence Ministry today said it will take “immediate steps” to fully recover the amount.
May 26: Sant Kabir Nagar(UP): At least 14 passengers were killed and 95 injured when a Delhi-Gorakhpur express train derailed and rammed into a stationary freight train near a railway station here, with officials saying that the death toll may rise to 40. (AGENCIES)
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