In 1985, Khalistani terrorists in the US wanted to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi during his first visit to the country. Software engineer-turned-terrorist Gurpratap Singh Birk and his aides attended a terror camp in the US. But the terrorists got distracted by then Haryana CM Bhajan Lal. The LTTE assassinated Rajiv six years later.
When India faced a balance-of-payments crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 1991 airlifted nearly 47,000 kg of gold to England to raise a $405-million emergency loan and prevent a sovereign default. The shipment, carried out in secrecy and under tight security, was one of the defining moments that paved the way for India's economic reforms.
Indian military commanders have repeatedly reminded us that Operation Sindoor against Pakistan is still on. There's another Indian military operation against Pakistan which has been going on for 42 years. Operation Meghdoot, which began in April 1984 in one of the world's harshest battlefields, doesn't have an end date. Here's why.
Ancient Indian mariners worshipped a Yemeni island and brought it back home as a deity. The island of Socotra, near East Africa, is believed to have manifested as Sikotar Mata, a sea goddess worshipped in Gujarat even today. Socotra was a vital refuge in the Arabian Sea for maritime traders, over 2,000 km from home.
It has been 500 years since the first Battle of Panipat was fought, and it is remembered mainly for the first use of cannons in India, and the beginning of the Mughal empire. However, some literature suggests that the conquest was built not only on gunpowder and cavalry, but on civilians caught between his and Ibrahim Lodi's armies.
The Indian Railways network, which marked its 173rd anniversary on Thursday, started with a 33-km Bombay-Thane line. Calcutta, the British Raj's capital, would have got India's first passenger train, but everything changed after a wrong turn by a ship and a shipwreck.
The Iranian Embassy in South Africa likened Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to Genghis Khan, invoking him to condemn the destruction caused by the war on Iran. It was Mongol leader Genghis Khan and his armies, who ran over and destroyed much of the early Islamic kingdoms, massacring millions of Muslims across Iran and Central Asia.
It was Kerala that saw the first elected Communist government in the world in 1957. However, an Education Bill brought about its downfall. A Nair leader converted a Church protest into a mass movement that was seized by Indira Gandhi to get the EMS Namboodiripad-led government dismissed.
History says that military might cannot guarantee victory, especially when leaders misread a nation's resolve. Amid the US' war with Iran, let's take a look back at one of America's most humiliating defeats, in which the force it backed surrendered within 72 hours.
Critical oil and gas infrastructure is being targeted in the war in the Middle East. It raises fears of an environmental crisis, much like during the Gulf War of 1991, when Iraqi forces set fire to more than 750 Kuwaiti oil wells. The soot and smoke travelled thousands of kilometres and resulted in black rain as far as the Himalayas.
Iran has populated the Strait of Hormuz, a key energy route, with sea mines. The 1971 War saw the most significant use of sea mines since World War Two in which India sank over 100,000 tonnes of Pakistani shipping. The marine mines helped India choke Pakistan's supply lines in the Ganga delta.
Pakistan's only Nobel laureate, Abdus Salam, helped build the foundations of the country's nuclear programme. Because he belonged to the Ahmadiyya sect, his religious identity was stripped away, and his legacy was erased in Pakistan. Islamabad boasts of its nuclear weapons, but gives no credit to Salam.
A BJP MP has demanded that New Delhi be named Indraprastha. But how did Indraprastha, associated with the Pandavas of Mahabharata, get the name Delhi? The etymological roots can be traced back to over 2,000 years ago to Raja Dhillu. Here's how India's National Capital got various names through the ages, till New Delhi stuck.
Two events have brought Bangladesh's Constitution back into focus. The recent elections that made Tarique Rahman the Prime Minister, and the approval of the July Charter referendum, mandating fresh constitutional changes. It was Tarique's father, Ziaur Rahman, who altered the original secular framework and legalised religion-based politics. Now Bangladesh's Constitution straddles a duality.
Alan Shepard's playful experiment captured something equally important about exploration: the unmistakably human urge to improvise, joke, and celebrate achievement, even 3,80,000 kilometers from Earth.
In the eastern Himalayas, Tawang used to be a loosely administered frontier region even after the 1914 Shimla Convention placed it in the British-Indian territory. Mao Zedong's annexation of Tibet in 1950 rang alarm bells for India. Then, Major Bob Khathing Ralengnao, a Manipuri Naga officer, achieved what the British could not. He hoisted the Indian Tricolour in Tawang on February 14, 1951, and integrated it with India, without firing a single shot.
In 1991, when PM PV Narasimha Rao named Sharad Pawar the Defence Minister after Congress's election victory, it was Ajit Pawar, a first-time MP, who gave up his Baramati Lok Sabha seat. The move allowed his uncle to contest from Baramati, enter Parliament and continue in the Union Cabinet. But a swap deal was involved too.
After choosing armed struggle over a Gandhian non-violent path, one of India's greatest sons, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, left the country forever in January 1941. Executing a detailed plan, Netaji boarded the Kalka Mail, which is India's oldest express train and would soon complete 160 years.
Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime is facing scrutiny for widespread human rights violations amid weeks-long protests. Thousands have been killed and tens of thousands have been jailed. But it is the same land that gave the world the first charter of human rights around 2,500 years ago. Here's all about the conqueror, Cyrus the Great, who freed slaves, and his Cyrus Cylinder.
Former BCCI president and then ICC chief Jagmohan Dalmiya played a decisive role in Bangladesh becoming the 10th nation to gain Test status through a unanimous vote in June 2000. India strongly backed Bangladesh's case, and that support proved crucial.
