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When the world watched the first coronation

King Charles III will be crowned Saturday at Westminster Abbey in an event full of all the pageantry Britain can muster.

Enrobed clergymen will hand over the medieval symbols of power — the rod, the scepter and the orb. Brass bands and soldiers in bearskin hats will troop through the streets. And the new king and queen will presumably end the day on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to wave to the cheering crowds.

All this has happened before. Decades ago, back in 1953. 

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned as the 39th monarch and it was the world's first televised coronation. It was the first time that people were witness to the grandeur of a monarch. 

 

 

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Video: PM Modi hugs, touches feet of 98-year-old BJP veteran in Bengal

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hugged and honoured 98-year-old Makhanlal Sarkar, one of the earliest and senior most members of the BJP. The scene unfolded on the stage ahead of Suvendu Adhikari's swearing-in as West Bengal's Chief Minister in Kolkata. PM Modi also touched Sarkar's feet and presented a shawl to him as a mark of respect. In 1952, Sarkar was arrested in Kashmir while he was accompanying Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee as the latter was marching to hoist the tricolour there. BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya described the elderly party leader as "one of the earliest grassroots figures associated with the nationalist movement in post-Independence India."

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