Timeline of India C 2004-2006
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2004 Jan
1, A Pakistani airline flew from Lahore to New Delhi and back,
re-establishing a commercial link that was cut by a war scare in
2002.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 3, India's PM Atal
Bihari Vajpayee made a historic visit to Pakistan ahead of a key
South Asian summit, greeted with a warm handshake by PM Zafarullah
Khan Jamali. The airport ceremony would have been unimaginable just
one year ago.
(AP, 1/3/04)
2004 Jan 3, In eastern India
unidentified gunmen stormed a village and shot to death five
so-called "untouchables."
(AP, 1/3/04)
2004 Jan 5, Pakistan's
President Pervez Musharraf held much-anticipated, face-to-face talks
with Indian leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the sidelines of a South
Asian summit.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 6, India and Pakistan
agreed on talks to formally tackle all issues including Kashmir.
(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 8, India unveiled a
broad range of tax cuts.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A6)
2004 Jan 15, India and
Pakistan, resumed rail services across their border. The frontier
had been closed for 2 years.
(SFC, 1/16/04, p.A16)
2004 Jan 16, In Bombay, India,
activists gathered for the 6-day World Social Forum. The meeting,
which attracts activists, political workers and intellectuals from
around the world, is meant to be a counterpoint to the World
Economic Forum in Switzerland later this month.
(AP, 1/17/04)
2004 Jan 17, Indian soldiers
and Islamic rebels clashed in disputed Kashmir in two separate
gunbattles that killed eight guerrillas and two paramilitary
soldiers.
(AP, 1/17/04)
2004 Jan 21, The 6-day World
Social Forum ended in Bombay, India, as thousands marching against
the Iraq war. Some 80,000 people from a hundred countries
participated in the forum.
(SFC, 1/22/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 23, A fire tore
through a wedding hall in southern India, killing 45 people,
including the groom, and injuring the bride and dozens of guests.
(AP, 1/23/04)
2004 Feb 15, In India a boat
carrying villagers returning from a picnic capsized in the Ganges
River. 17 people were missing and believed drowned.
(AP, 2/15/04)
2004 Feb 16, India and Pakistan
began historic meetings aimed at preparing for a sustained peace
dialogue on Kashmir and other disputes.
(AP, 2/16/04)
2004 Feb 17, India and Pakistan
reached a broad agreement on the timetable for sustained peace talks
on disputed Kashmir and other tough issues separating the South
Asian neighbors.
(AP, 2/17/04)
2004 Feb 23, In India an
explosion and fire at India's main space center killed at least six
people. The accident took place at the solid propellant fuel plant
at the government's Dhawan Space Center, on Sriharikota Island just
off India's southeastern coast.
(AP, 2/23/04)
2004 Feb 27, In eastern India a
high speed passenger train crashed into a crowded bus, killing at
least 9 people and injuring 41 others.
(AP, 2/27/04)
2004 Mar 1, In eastern India a
motorboat packed with players and spectators heading to a cricket
match capsized, and police said 20 people were feared dead.
(AP, 3/1/04)
2004 Mar 3, In India's
Jammu-Kashmir state a suspected militant with explosives on his body
grabbed a guard's rifle and opened fire in a jail courtyard, setting
off a shootout that killed six people as well as himself.
(AP, 3/3/04)
2004 Mar 10, India's cricketers
arrived for their first full tour of Pakistan in 14 years.
(AP, 3/10/04)
2004 Mar 13, In Pakistan the
India cricket team beat a Pakistan team at Karachi's National
Stadium in a match that came down to the final ball.
(SSFC, 3/14/04, p.A15)
2004 Mar 15, The Bill Gates
Foundation donated $47 million to private agencies carrying out AIDS
prevention programs in India.
(SFC, 3/16/04, p.A2)
2004 Mar 20, In Kashmir a
remote-controlled bomb hidden in a motorbike exploded as an Indian
army convoy passed over a bridge, killing two soldiers and wounding
40 others.
(AP, 3/20/04)
2004 Mar 24, In India's
northeast Assam state heavily armed separatist militants killed 21
villagers from a rival ethnic group in three attacks.
(AP, 3/24/04)
2004 Mar 25, An Indian court
sentenced four Pakistanis to death for "waging war" against India
after they were caught smuggling the deadly explosive RDX into the
country in 1999.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Apr 1, India began
distributing AIDS drugs to 100,000 people. An estimated 4.6 million
were infected.
(SFC, 4/2/04, p.A15)
2004 Apr 2, In India a crowded
bus veered off a mountain road and fell into a ravine in
Jammu-Kashmir state, killing 34 passengers and injuring 35 others.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, Two Indian Air
Force fighter jets went missing and were believed to have crashed
during routine flights over Kashmir.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 4, In India suspected
Islamic extremists stormed a police station in the city of Karachi
and killed 5 police, forcing their victims to recite Quranic verses
before shooting them.
(AP, 4/4/04)
2004 Apr 7, In India a land
mine killed at least 26 policemen in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
Communist guerrillas, calling for a boycott of India's national
elections, were suspected.
(AP, 4/8/04)
2004 Apr 8, In Indian-held
Kashmir a grenade explosion and gunfire at an election rally killed
9 people and wounded at least 60, including the state's tourism and
finance ministers.
(AP, 4/8/04)(WSJ, 4/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 11, Easter. Sikhs
celebrated Vaisakhi, their New Year and commemoration of 17th
century Guru Gobind Singh. They claimed about 20 million followers
worldwide.
(AP, 4/11/04)(SFC, 4/12/04, p.B5)
2004 Apr 11, The British Sunday
Times reported that an Indian steel tycoon paid $128 million for a
mansion in London, breaking the world record for the most expensive
house purchase.
(AP, 4/12/04)
2004 Apr 12, A senior
government minister said India will not deploy peacekeeping troops
in Iraq without a mandate from the United Nations because the
situation there is "not favorable."
(AP, 4/12/04)
2004 Apr 12, In Lucknow, India,
thousands of people crowding into a park for a politician's birthday
celebration and to receive free saris stampeded, killing 21 women
and children.
(AP, 4/12/04)
2004 Apr 17, Soundarya (32), an
Indian movie star, and three other people were killed when their
plane crashed in southern India minutes after takeoff.
(AP, 4/17/04)
2004 Apr 19, The annual
environmental Goldman Prizes were awarded in SF. Winners included
Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla of India for their work following
the Bhopal catastrophe.
(SFC, 4/19/04, p.B5)
2004 Apr 20, Elections began in
India for the 1st of 5 stages culminating May 10. India's general
elections implemented the use of computerized voting machines.
(WSJ, 4/19/04, p.A1)(AP, 4/22/04)
2004 Apr 21, Chile said it
would begin negotiating a free-trade pact with India beginning in
August. It would at first be limited to commerce in goods.
(WSJ, 4/22/04, p.A17)
2004 Apr, India unveiled its
Cold Start program, a new offensive doctrine intended to allow it to
mobilize quickly and undertake limited retaliatory attacks on its
neighbor, without crossing Pakistan's nuclear threshold.
(www.defence.pk/forums/india-defence/11950-indias-cold-start.html)
2004 May 10, In India exit
polls showed PM Vajpayee’s coalition government was far short of a
majority needed to control Parliament.
(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A7)
2004 May 11, India's stock
market suffered its deepest plunge in four years due to fears the
government's liberal economic policies might falter if the prime
minister's ruling alliance fails to get a majority in Parliament, as
predicted by exit polls.
(AP, 5/11/04)
2004 May 13, India's opposition
Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi (57) captured the most seats in
parliamentary elections, a stunning defeat for PM Atal Bihari
Vajpayee. Congress won 145 of 543 seats.
(AP, 5/12/04)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.45)
2004 May 17, India's stock
market took the biggest one-day plunge in its 129-year history as
investors panicked over how communist parties would influence the
new government. An investigation followed into the alleged murky
dealings by a dozen foreign firms.
(AP, 5/17/04)(Econ, 5/28/05, p.76)
2004 May 18, Sonia Gandhi
announced she would "humbly decline" to be the next prime minister
of India. Manmohan Singh (71), a respected Oxford-educated
economist, was reported to be Gandhi's choice to become PM.
(AP, 5/18/04)
2004 May 19, Sonia Gandhi
announced that her Congress party had elected economist Manmohan
Singh (71) as the next prime minister of India.
(AP, 5/19/04)
2004 May 23, In India's portion
of Kashmir suspected Islamic militants blew up a military bus,
killing at least 33 soldiers and relatives, and wounding 15.
(AP, 5/23/04)(SFC, 5/24/04, p.A7)
2004 May, India’s Congress
party named Palaniappan Chidambaram as finance minister.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.42)
2004 May, In India Laloo Prasad
Yadav, former chief minister of Bihar state, was named railways
minister.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.38)
2004 Jun 7, In eastern India a
boat crowded mainly with women and children capsized in a river,
with at least 40 people feared dead.
(AP, 6/7/04)
2004 Jun 12, In Iraq gunmen
killed Bassam Salih Kubba, a deputy foreign minister as he went to
work in Baghdad.
(AP, 6/12/04)
2004 Jun 16, In India a
passenger train derailed after smashing into boulders on a bridge,
killing at least 20 people and injuring 50. The engine of the
Bombay-bound Matsyagandha Express jumped the tracks and plunged off
the bridge.
(AP, 6/16/04)
2004 Jun 20, India and Pakistan
announced they would establish a new hot line to alert each other of
potential nuclear accidents or threats.
(AP, 6/20/04)
2004 Jun 24, In India a bomb
exploded in a crowded bus, killing at least five people and
critically wounding 17 in the northeastern state of Assam.
(AP, 6/24/04)
2004 Jun 25, It was reported
that India has been able to conquer its famine of food, but still
suffered from a “famine of jobs.”
(WSJ, 6/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Jun 26, In
Indian-controlled Kashmir suspected Islamic rebels raided a village
and shot to death 12 Muslims while they slept.
(AP, 6/26/04)
2004 Jul 1, India’s Fiscal
Responsibility and Budget Management Act took effect. It required
the government to cut the fiscal deficit by 0.3% of GDP annually
until 2009.
(WSJ, 1/12/05, p.A9)
2004 Jul 2, Reva Electric Car,
an Indian company that has launched the country's first electric
car, has received 500 orders from Britain and plans to build
environment-friendly mini-buses and small taxis. Its cheapest
version costs 250,000 rupees (US$ 5,500). The company has sold more
than 600 cars in India.
(AP, 7/2/04)
2004 Jul 2, In India’s Bihar
state gunmen killed 10 people in the latest outburst of caste
violence.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, In the Indian
portion of Kashmir a mountain gunbattle, a time bomb hidden in a
fruit seller's hand cart and a grenade lobbed in a busy market
killed 8 people and wounded 44.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 5, It was reported
that India was logging nearly 1000 new AIDS cases a month and that
there were an estimated 5.1 million people infected with HIV.
(SFC, 7/5/04, p.A8)(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 5, In India a
landslide swept a busload of pilgrims into a river in Uttaranchal
killing at least 18 people and leaving hundreds of others stranded
deep in the Himalayas.
(Reuters, 7/7/04)
2004 Jul 11, Suspected Muslim
guerrillas sliced off the nose, ears and tongue of Mariam Begum, a
14-year-old girl in Indian Kashmir, believing her to be an informer
for the Indian army. Elsewhere in Kashmir, 16 Muslim rebels and four
soldiers were killed in separate gun battles over the weekend.
(Reuters, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 12, Monsoon floods
continued to wreak havoc across South Asia, killing 37 more people
and forcing millions to flee their homes or seek emergency shelter.
Flooding has killed 36 people in Bangladesh this year. A total of 47
people have died in Nepal since June. In India a total of 158 people
have died in flooding since the beginning of June.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 15, In Kumbakonam,
southern India, a short circuit ignited a thatched roof and fire
raged through the Lord Krishna Middle School, killing 94 children
and injuring more than 100. The children were trapped inside a
locked building. In 2006 an inquiry commission found that a mixture
of avarice, dishonesty and a blatant disregard of safety standards
caused the devastating fire.
(AP, 7/17/04)(SFC, 7/17/04, p.A3)(Reuters,
9/4/06)
2004 Jul 17, Monsoon rains
submerged new areas of Bangladesh and India, killing at least 13
people, as the death toll from flooding in South Asia rose to more
than 400.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 19, Indian Foreign
Minister Natwar Singh said he would push for progress in talks to
promote better ties with Pakistan when he meets Pakistani leaders
this week.
(AP, 7/19/04)
2004 Jul 20, Monsoon floods,
tornadoes and rains roared through already inundated villages in
South Asia, killing 42 more people. 15 died in Bangladesh and 27 in
India. Fresh rains in Asia took the rainy season death toll to
nearly 800.
(AP, 7/21/04)(Reuters, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 24, In India Coal and
Mines Minister Shibu Soren resigned after an arrest warrant was
issued against him on charges of inciting arson and violence during
a rally in 1975.
(Reuters, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 28, Muslims and Hindus
burned buildings and clashed with police in a third day of sectarian
riots in the western Indian town of Verawal, throwing acid at
officers who shot at the crowd. The unrest has left two dead and
more than a dozen wounded.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Jul 31, Flood-weakened
riverbanks in South Asia collapsed around villages, pushing the
death toll from this season's monsoons above 1,500 and stranding
more than 30 million people.
(AP, 8/1/04)
2004 Aug 4, In Kashmir Muslim
militants killed nine Indian troopers in an attack on a paramilitary
camp, just hours before India and Pakistan, which both claim the
region, began a round of peace talks.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2004 Aug 5, The death toll from
monsoons in Bangladesh and India reached 1,823.
(SFC, 8/5/04, p.A10)
2004 Aug 8, The death toll from
monsoons in South Asia reached 1,972. At least 1,152 have died in
India, 691 in Bangladesh, 124 in Nepal and 5 in Pakistan.
(AP, 8/8/04)(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 9, The death toll from
this season's monsoon rains across South Asia passed 2,000, as
authorities in India reported that 39 bodies were found floating in
receding flood waters and four children were killed when a house
collapsed.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 13, In Calcutta a man
convicted of raping and killing a schoolgirl was executed, becoming
the first person hanged for their crimes in India in nearly a
decade. Apartment guard Dhananjoy Chatterjee (42) was executed for
the 1990 rape and murder of a teenage schoolgirl.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 15, In northeast India
a bomb exploded during an Independence Day parade in Dhemaji,
killing 18 people, including schoolchildren.
(AP, 8/15/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.34)
2004 Aug 16, Kamala Markandaya
(79), Indian novelist, died. Her books focused on rural life,
interracial relationships and conflicting Eastern and Western
values.
(SFC, 12/28/04, p.D12)
2004 Aug 17, A US research
institute said India is projected to outpace China and become the
world's most populous country by 2050, growing by 50 percent in the
next 46 years to reach more than 1.6 billion people.
(AP, 8/17/04)
2004 Aug 18, Indian shares slid
as oil prices surged to a new high of $47 a barrel, threatening
domestic demand and growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 24, In India a 4-day
strike by truckers over a new tax paralyzed the movement of goods.
Employees of state-owned banks launched a strike over pay.
(WSJ, 8/25/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 26, In India a
passenger bus and another carrying paramilitary soldiers and their
families were blown up in separate explosions in the
insurgency-wracked Assam state, killing four people and wounding 39.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 28, Five Hindu
pilgrims were killed and 14 others injured in a stampede at a river
bathing festival in southern India.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug 30, India's top
commercial bank, State Bank of India (SBI), hiked its fixed rates
for home loans in what analysts saw as an indication other interest
rates in Asia's fourth-largest economy are headed higher. The
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said insufficient rainfall and
uncertainty about the price of crude oil, the country's biggest
import item, posed downside risks to growth in Asia's fourth-largest
economy.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Sep 4, India's PM Singh
said his government was ready to talk to any militant group,
including those in Kashmir, abandoning previous preconditions that
the rebels must first disarm.
(AP, 9/4/04)
2004 Sep 6, India and Pakistan
ended 2-day talks to settle their dispute over Kashmir. Yasin Malik,
the chairman of pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front
(JKLF), said the dispute could not be settled unless residents of
the region are included in talks. India’s Natwar Singh and
Pakistan’s Khurshid Kasuri closed the 1st stage of an 8-part
“composite” dialogue.
(AFP, 9/6/04)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.38)
2004 Sep 7, British oil
exploration firm Cairn Energy, which has announced a series of oil
discoveries in India, said that oil in place in the Mangala field
was estimated to reach one billion barrels, with recoverable
reserves of 100-320 million barrels.
(AFP, 9/7/04)
2004 Sep 8, India and Pakistan
opened up their countries to cross-border group tourism for the
first time and announced a series of high-level contacts to push
forward the peace process.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 15, India and
Bangladesh ended a two-day meeting in Dhaka without any
breakthroughs on the sharing of water from common rivers.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 18, India said the US
had lifted export restrictions on equipment for India's commercial
space program and nuclear power facilities.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 18, Indian troops shot
dead 14 Islamic militants in clashes across Indian-administered
Kashmir, while suspected rebels killed four civilians.
(AP, 9/18/04)
2004 Sep 19, In India flooding
in the densely populated West Bengal has swamped hundreds of
villages, killing three people and making more than 650,000
homeless.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 20, India's space
agency said it successfully launched the nation's first satellite
for educational services.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 21, In India incessant
rains caused flash floods that knocked down houses and killed at
least 33 people in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, Indian officials
said they have fenced nearly 40 percent of the porous border with
Bangladesh and would fence the entire frontier by March 2006 to
prevent movement of insurgents, illegal immigrants and smuggling.
(Reuters, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, In India's
mountainous northeast 10 people, including a state government
minister and two lawmakers, were killed in a helicopter crash.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, Four Islamic
militants were killed in a clash with Indian troops along the
disputed border in Kashmir on the eve of a summit between the two
countries' leaders.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep, In India the People’s
War Group merged with the Maoist Communist Center to form the CPI
(Maoist) party under Muppala Lakshmana Rao (aka Ganapathi). Also
known as Naxalites, the Maoists were most active in Chhattisgarh
state.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.38)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.45)
2004 Oct 1, India's Border
Security Force (BSF) asked Bangladeshi authorities to hand over 126
Indian insurgents, including top leaders of guerrilla groups it says
are based in the neighboring country.
(Reuters, 10/1/04)
2004 Oct 1, A violent Maoist
rebel group proposed a seven-point peace agreement to the government
of a southern Indian state at their first-ever talks to end an
insurgency in which thousands of people have been killed.
(AP, 10/1/04)
2004 Oct 2, In northeast India
a spate of bombings and gun attacks in crowded public places killed
73 people in markets and a railroad station across Assam and
Nagaland states.
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.A8)(AP, 10/2/05)
2004 Oct 3, In northeast India
suspected separatists in Assam state bombed a crowded market, a tea
plantation and other sites, killing seven people in a second day of
explosions and gun attacks that have left at least 57 dead and more
than 100 wounded.
(AP, 10/3/04)
2004 Oct 4, Suspected
separatist rebels attacked sleeping villagers in northeastern India,
killing six in a third day of explosions and gun attacks that have
left at least 63 people dead.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, In India at least
10 people were killed and seven wounded in a fresh bout of militant
violence in the restive northeastern state of Assam.
(AFP, 10/5/04)
2004 Oct 7, In Kashmir 4
Islamic militants were killed by Indian forces while rebels killed a
paramilitary soldier and critically wounded a pro-India political
activist.
(AP, 10/7/04)
2004 Oct 10, In India at least
62 bodies were recovered after flash floods in Assam state, taking
the death toll from fresh flooding in the past three days to 88.
(AP, 10/10/04)
2004 Oct 16, In India the
ruling Congress party won power in Maharashtra, a victory that will
boost the fortunes of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi's party and
strengthen PM Manmohan Singh's minority national coalition.
(AP, 10/16/04)
2004 Oct 18, In India Koose
Muniswamy Veerappan (52), the country’s most-wanted bandit, was shot
to death in Tamil Nadu state.
(SFC, 10/19/04, p.A3)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.88)
2004 Oct 20, Senior Indian and
Chinese officials met in New Delhi, India, to discuss a long-running
border dispute between the two countries.
(AFP, 10/20/04)
2004 Oct 20, The EU revamped
its trade rules. Nations with more than 15% of European market share
of any goods were set to lose their discounted tariffs. China and
India were expected to be the main losers.
(WSJ, 10/20/04, p.A15)
2004 Oct 26, India’s central
bank announced it was raising its overnight repo rate for the first
time in more than four years, citing concerns about a sharp rise in
inflation in Asia's fourth-largest economy. The rate went up .25% to
4.75%.
(AP, 10/26/04)(WSJ, 10/27/04, p.A15)
2004 Nov 2, State-run Indian
Oil Corp (IOC), the country's largest refiner, said it had signed an
agreement with Iran's Petropars to bid for a $3 billion project to
develop a gas field and set up a liquefaction plant in Iran.
(AP, 11/2/04)
2004 Nov 3, Indian troops
killed five Islamic militants in a fierce gunbattle in
insurgency-hit Kashmir after the rebels barricaded themselves inside
a mosque.
(AP, 11/3/04)
2004 Nov 7, Kashmiri
separatists gave a cautious welcome on to India's offer to allow
them to visit Pakistan. Thousands of people in Indian Kashmir staged
a protest, alleging that soldiers had raped a 10-year-old girl and
her mother.
(Reuters, 11/7/04)
2004 Nov 11, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh announced a reduction in troops in disputed Kashmir in a fresh
initiative to push forward a fraying peace process with Pakistan.
(AP, 11/11/04)
2004 Nov 13, In New Delhi,
India, a stampede at the main railway station killed at least five
people and injured seven.
(AP, 11/13/04)
2004 Nov 16, India said its
army will start reducing the number of troops in revolt-hit
Kashmir to coincide with a visit to the state by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh. Military experts estimate that India has
about 250,000 troops in Kashmir.
(AP, 11/16/04)
2004 Nov 17, India's PM
Manmohan Singh paid a rare visit to the divided Himalayan region of
Kashmir, marking the start of a partial troop withdrawal that has
been hailed by rival Pakistan as an important step in easing
tensions. Pakistan's powerful Islamic parties dismissed the partial
pullout of Indian troops from Indian-administered Kashmir as
tokenistic "eyewash", saying a plebiscite was the only solution to
the half-century dispute. India began pulling an estimated 40k of
some 500k soldiers from Kashmir.
(AP, 11/17/04)(AFP, 11/17/04)(WSJ, 11/18/04,
p.A1)
2004 Nov 19, Intel Corp., the
world's largest computer chip maker, said it would spend $40 million
to expand in the southern Indian city of Bangalore over the next two
years.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Nov 20, India pulled out
around 3,000 troops from Kashmir.
(AP, 11/20/04)
2004 Nov 23, In Kashmir
suspected Muslim rebels shot dead five people in overnight attacks.
(AP, 11/23/04)
2004 Nov 23, Pakistani Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz arrived in India to help push forward a
fragile peace process.
(AP, 11/23/04)
2004 Nov 27, In India Aga Khan,
billionaire spiritual leader of the world's 15 million Shia Ismaili
Muslims, presented the triennial Aga Khan awards for architecture.
(AP, 11/27/04)
2004 Nov 28, In central India
at least 16 people were killed when they were run over by a speeding
train after getting off another train on a parallel line.
(Reuters, 11/28/04)
2004 Dec 1, Encore Software
Ltd., one of the makers of India's cheap hand-held computer, the
Simputer, forecast a surge in orders to 50,000 units next year.
(AP, 12/1/04)
2004 Dec 3, India's foreign
exchange reserves vaulted $3.8 billion in the week through Dec. 3 to
a record $130.72 billion, as foreign capital poured into Asia's
fourth-biggest economy and the dollar slid against the euro.
(Reuters, 12/11/04)
2004 Dec 9, Indian officials
cautioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that a proposed US sale
of military hardware worth $1.2 billion to Pakistan could damage a
fragile peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors and harm
India-US relations.
(AP, 12/9/04)
2004 Dec 14, In northern India
2 passenger trains collided head-on, killing at least 27 people and
injuring 60 in Punjab.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 14, In India at least
one person was killed and 50 wounded in a string of grenade attacks
launched by separatist rebels across the volatile northeastern state
of Assam.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 21, India’s parliament
tabled the Employment Guarantee Act, which planned to give one
member of every poor family at least 100 days of work at minimum
wage on public works projects.
(Econ, 1/1/05, p.28)
2004 Dec 23, P.V. Narasimha Rao
(b.1921), India’s former Prime Minister (1991-1996). died. His
free-market economic reforms in 1991 launched India's shift from a
bankrupt nation hobbled by socialist policies into a regional
economic power.
(AP, 12/23/04)
2004 Dec 26, India issued a
presidential decree to bring its patent laws into compliance with
commitments under the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement.
(AP, 12/26/04)
2004 Dec 26, The world's most
powerful earthquake in 40 years triggered massive tidal waves that
slammed into villages and seaside resorts across southern and
southeast Asia. The initial estimated death toll of 9,000 soon rose
to some 230,000 people in 14 countries. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake
was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2
temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964. The epicenter was
located 155 miles south-southeast of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh
province on Sumatra, and six miles under the seabed of the Indian
Ocean. In Indonesia at least 166,320 people were killed.
Bangladesh reported 2 killed; India: at least 9,691 deaths:
thousands were missing and possibly dead in India's remote Andaman
and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia: At least 101,318 people were killed
on Sumatra island and small islands off its coast. Kenya reported 1
killed. Malaysia: At least 68 people, including an unknown number of
foreign tourists, were dead. Myanmar: At least 90 people were
killed. Sri Lanka: At least 30,680 were killed in government and
rebel controlled areas. The Maldives, an archipelago of 1,190
low-lying coral islands and a tiny population of 280,000, at least
82 people were killed and missing. At least 42 islands were
flattened in the low-lying atoll nation. Somalia: At least 298 were
killed. Tanzania: At least 10 killed. Thailand: The confirmed death
toll for Thailand reached 5,322, but many suspected Myanmar migrants
were not counted.
(SFC, 12/28/04, p.A1)(AP, 12/30/04)(SSFC, 1/2/05,
p.A12)(AP, 1/7/05)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.41)(AP, 12/25/09)
2004 Dec 27, The foreign
secretaries of nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan began two-day
talks that will include their first formal dialogue on disputed
Kashmir since they launched a peace process a year ago.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Dec 27, Poisonous liquor
sold by an illegal alcohol bar in India's financial capital killed
at least 51 people and sent nearly 100 others to hospital over two
days, prompting citywide raids on alcohol vendors.
(AP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 28, India and Pakistan
concluded a 2-day dialogue on their dispute over Kashmir.
(SFC, 12/29/04, p.A3)
2004 The publication of
Professor James W. Laine's book "Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic
India" infuriated hardline Hindu groups in the western state of
Maharashtra, who claimed Laine was questioning Shivaji's parentage.
(Reuters, 4/9/07)
2004 India’s Supreme Court
issued a statement regarding activities in protected areas. This was
based on a February 2002 order regarding the protection of some 600
national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. The 2004 statement included
a ban on razing that created a major problem for herders, especially
the Raika class of herders in Rajasthan, where 83% of the country’s
camels were raised.
(SSFC, 9/9/07, p.A32)(http://tinyurl.com/3bzzgc)
2004 India planned to have its
first nuclear-powered submarine completed.
(SFC, 6/27/98, p.A13)
2004 In India electronic
trading began in agricultural futures. In 2007 the NCDEX and MCX
faced charges that trading in commodities futures encouraged
hoarding and raised prices.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.72)
2004 Sunil Bharti Mittal,
Indian businessman, launched FieldFreshFoods, a $50 million 50/50
joint venture with ELRO, an investment company founded by the
Rothschild family. His aim was to turn India into a global preferred
food basket.
(Econ, 11/12/05, p.70)
2004 Mohan Murjani with local
partners opened his 1st Tommy Hilfiger store in India.
(WSJ, 3/27/07, p.A1)
2004 In India the Chennai-based
NGO called Center for the Development of Disadvantaged People
introduced a new rat trap that quickly improved living conditions
for members of the Irula tribe of southern Tamil Nadu state, an
impoverished community of some 3 million people. The new traps
decreased health risks and increased the rat catcher’s average to
15-20 rats per day vs. 4-5 using older methods.
(SSFC, 1/6/08, p.A13)
2004 In India Vedanta Resources
of London constructed a $900 million bauxite refinery at the foot of
the Niyamgiri Hills in eastern Orissa state, where there was an
estimated 73 million tons of bauxite. A legal battle with the local
Dongria Kond tribe delayed mining and bauxite was imported.
(SFC, 2/22/08, p.A13)
2004 Laloo Prasad Yadav
(b.1947) began serving as Minister of Railways in the ruling United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. He continued as the minister
until 2009. Yadav and the Rashtrija Janata Dal party (RJD) also
ruled Bihar state (1990-2005). Nitish Kumar served as his
predecessor at Indian Railways.
(Econ, 1/30/10,
p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalu_Prasad_Yadav)
2004 In India Lavasa Corp,
65-percent owned by infrastructure giant Hindustan Construction
Corp, began work on a $31-billion planned city near Pune. In 2010
India’s environmental ministry said the developers began building
without getting environmental clearance. Lavasa argued it was not
required to seek clearance.
(AFP, 10/15/11)
2004 India’s annual death rate
due to train accidents was about 3,500.
(SFC, 11/12/04, p.W1)
2005 Jan 1, India was forecast
for 7.5% annual GDP growth with a population at 1.1 billion and GDP
per head at $640.
(Econ, 1/1/05, p.91)
2005 Jan 3, India’s death toll
from the Dec 26 tsunami was expected to top 15,000.
(AP, 1/3/05)
2005 Jan 3, J.N. Dixit (68),
India’s national security advisor, died in New Delhi.
(SFC, 1/6/05, p.B7)
2005 Jan 8, Indian security
forces killed the last rebel holed up inside a government office in
Kashmir, ending a two-day battle during which guerrillas took over
the building and set it on fire with dozens of employees inside.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 10, India’s Supreme
Court granted bail to Jayendra Saraswathi, one of Hinduism's most
venerated clerics, after he spent nearly two months in jail in
connection with the murder of a temple official. Former monastery
official Sankaraman, said to be a bitter critic of the top cleric,
was hacked to death in an ancient temple in Kanchi in September.
(Reuters, 1/10/05)
2005 Jan 10, A bus driver
apparently lost control of his vehicle and it plunged into a canal
killing 57 people in southern India.
(AP, 1/10/05)
2005 Jan 20, Chile, the world's
biggest copper producer, and India, the world's biggest grains
producer, agreed to launch talks to reduce import tariffs on some
goods to boost bilateral trade.
(AP, 1/20/05)
2005 Jan 22, In India actress
Parveen Babi, who played the siren in dozens of Bollywood films, was
found dead at her suburban Bombay apartment. Babi, famed for her
unconventional western looks, starred in more than 50 Hindi films
mostly in the 1970s and early 1980s.
(AP, 1/22/05)
2005 Jan 23, Police said
suspected leftist rebels ambushed a candidate for the legislature in
India's eastern state of Bihar, killing him and three supporters.
Maoist rebels in Bihar have called for a boycott of next month's
vote.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 24, China and India
opened a first round of "strategic dialogue", as their regional and
international influence surges despite a nagging border dispute.
(AFP, 1/24/05)
2005 Jan 24, In India P.
Ravindra, former state minister and TDP leader, was gunned down
outside the party office in Anantpur town. Mobs torched nearly 100
state-run buses and hurled stones at government buildings in Andhra
Pradesh after an opposition politician was shot dead.
(AP, 1/24/05)
2005 Jan 25, In western India
thousands of Hindus panicked during a religious procession, when
fire broke out in roadside stalls. The resulting stampede killed at
least 258 people near the village of Wai.
(AP, 1/25/05)(AP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 27, India has decided
to open the main airport in disputed Kashmir to international
flights to draw more tourists to the scenic Himalayan region.
(Reuters, 1/27/05)
2005 Jan 28, India took a major
step to reform its financial sector and boost the country's stock
markets by allowing non-government pension funds to invest up to 5
percent of their portfolios in equities.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2005 Jan 31, Kamal Nath,
India’s Commerce and Industry Minister, said the Indian parliament
will shortly ratify new legislation protecting drug patents, paving
the way for the country to become a major pharmaceutical research
centre.
(AP, 1/31/05)
2005 Jan, India’s oil minister
Mani Shankar Aiyar persuaded Bangladesh in principle to become
partner in an pipeline to bring gas from Myanmar to India.
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.42)
2005 Feb 2, India’s Finance
Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said India has raised the interest
rate for its largest pension fund, the Employees Provident Fund
(EPF), to 9.5%. India raised the foreign investment cap in telecoms
companies to 74% from 49%.
(Reuters, 2/2/05)
2005 Feb 3, In central India at
least 25 people were killed when a passenger train collided with a
tractor pulling a trailer full of people.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb 16, India and Pakistan
agreed to start a bus service across a ceasefire line dividing the
disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir beginning on Apr 7.
(Reuters, 2/16/05)(Econ, 2/19/05, p.39)
2005 Feb 23, India and Pakistan
agreed to cut red tape and ease barriers that hamper bilateral
trade.
(AP, 2/23/05)
2005 Feb 23, In India 4 people
were killed in police firing and a blast in Jharkhand and Bihar in
the final round of assembly elections.
(AP, 2/23/05)
2005 Feb 24, India’s cabinet
lifted restraints on foreign ownership of some real estate projects.
A minimum of 25 acres was established with requirements for
development of infrastructure prior to resale.
(WSJ, 2/25/05, p.A16)
2005 Feb 25, Mrs. Israel Sima
Bakhar won the Mrs. World 2005 pageant at Amby Valley, 140
kilometers ( 87 miles) north of Bombay, India. Forty-one contestants
from across the globe participated in the pageant, held first time
in India.
(AP, 2/25/05)
2005 Feb 28, India's
communist-backed coalition government unveiled a budget aimed at
boosting growth to help the rural poor but warned this would be at
the expense of tackling a bloated deficit.
(AP, 2/28/05)
2005 Mar 4, India approved
cultivation of genetically modified cotton in its fertile northern
region, rejecting demands from anti-biotechnology activists.
(AP, 3/4/05)
2005 Mar 4, President Hugo
Chavez said Venezuela wants to supply crude oil to India, Asia's
third-biggest consumer, under a long-term agreement.
(AP, 3/4/05)
2005 Mar 5, India’s Finance
Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the government would try to
ensure economic growth of over 7 percent and urged the Reserve Bank
of India (RBI) to maintain benign interest rates, now at
three-decade lows, to promote investment.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 5, India clinched a
deal to operate a Venezuelan oilfield and import the output as
Asia's third largest consumer and the world's No.5 oil exporter
vowed to strengthen ties.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 5, The governor of the
lawless Indian eastern state of Bihar recommended federal rule in
the province as no political grouping could muster the required
numbers to form a government in polls last month. This ended control
by the Yadav family.
(AP, 3/6/05)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.45)
2005 Mar 11, In India
separatist rebels threw three grenades in the troubled state of
Assam, killing three people.
(Reuters, 3/11/05)
2005 Mar 12, In India 16 people
were drowned and nine were feared dead in Gujarat when a bus fell
into a canal after the driver lost control.
(AP, 3/13/05)
2005 Mar 13, In India at least
19 people were killed and 15 injured when a bus skidded off a
mountain road into a deep gorge in Uttaranchal.
(AP, 3/13/05)
2005 Mar 15, Pakistan issued
release orders for 589 Indian prisoners as a gesture of goodwill
towards New Delhi.
(Reuters, 3/15/05)
2005 Mar 18, The US State
Department said it had denied a diplomatic visa to the Hindu
nationalist chief minister of Gujarat state, Narendra Modi, and
revoked his existing tourist/business visa under the U.S.
Immigration and Nationality Act due to his role in religious riots
in 2002.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, Hindu nationalists
set fire to a PepsiCo warehouse in western India to protest the US
denial of a visa for a top state official due to his role in
religious riots in 2002.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 21, India’s PM
Manmohan Singh vowed to do whatever is necessary to sustain economic
growth of between 7 and 8 percent to help the 260 million Indians
living in poverty.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, India’s foreign
ministry in New Delhi said very young and elderly Pakistanis
visiting India will receive visas on arrival from April 1.
(Reuters, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 22, Pakistan released
564 Indians, mostly fisherman, from its prisons in a goodwill
gesture toward neighboring India.
(AP, 3/22/05)
2005 Mar 22, India said it has
reached a basic agreement with Japan on the joint development of
natural gas off the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal.
(AFP, 3/26/05)
2005 Mar 25, India announced
that it has agreed with the United States to a series of steps to
boost defense and energy ties.
(Reuters, 3/26/05)
2005 Mar 30, In India shops
kept their shutters down as striking traders said they would step up
their protest against a new value-added tax (VAT) due to take effect
on April 1.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 31, India's PM said
India and Mauritius are moving toward a free trade agreement to
boost the island's threatened trade portfolio and help India tap
into African markets.
(AP, 3/31/05)
2005 Apr 4, Maoist rebel
leaders in southern India said they had given up on efforts to make
peace, blaming local police for mounting violence since a truce
collapsed more than three months ago.
(AP, 4/4/05)
2005 Apr 5, Rebels opposed to a
bus link joining parts of Kashmir controlled by rivals India and
Pakistan set off bombs and fought gun battles with troops, two days
before the service was due to start.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 6, In India police
beat up hundreds of people protesting against the razing of their
homes by the government in the country's financial hub, Bombay.
Authorities flattened an estimated 90,000 shanties in the city early
in January. The slum clearance drive has left more than 300,000
people homeless.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 7, Passengers on
historic bus trips between the Pakistani and Indian portions of
Kashmir crossed a bridge spanning the de facto border, voyages both
sides hope will lead to lasting peace on the subcontinent. Kashmiris
walked across the “Peace Bridge,” on the Line of Control between
India and Pakistan.
(AP, 4/7/05)(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 9, Chinese PM Wen
Jiabao arrived in Bangalore on the last leg of a 4 nation South Asia
tour for talks with Indian leaders expected to boost trade and
narrow differences.
(AFP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 9-10, In India at
least 58 Hindu pilgrims were drowned overnight during a ritual
bathing when the gates of a dam several kilometers upriver were
opened by officials unaware of the religious festival on the Narmada
River in Madhya Pradesh state.
(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 11, India and China
agreed to form a strategic partnership to end a border dispute and
boost trade in a deal marking a major shift in relations between the
Asian giants.
(AP, 4/11/05)
2005 Apr 13, Top border
officials of India and Bangladesh meet in Dhaka to discuss thorny
issues including New Delhi's plan to fence off the frontier and
Dhaka's claim that India harbors Bangladeshi militants.
(Reuters, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 13, Britain and India
agreed to more than double the number of flights between the two
nations, opening up dozens of lucrative new routes for airlines.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 13, Japan and India
took a first step to a possible free trade deal with an agreement to
spend a year looking at the effects of a pact on the two major Asian
economies.
(AFP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, India freed 24
Pakistani prisoners in an apparent response to similar gestures by
Islamabad ahead of President Pervez Musharraf's visit to New Delhi.
(AP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 14, India and the
United States signed an "Open Skies" aviation agreement allowing
each other's carriers to operate as many flights as they want
between the two countries.
(AFP, 4/14/05)
2005 Apr 16, Indian troops shot
dead 7 Muslim rebels, including 2 commanders of Kashmir's main rebel
group as Pakistani Pres. Pervez Musharraf visited India for the
first time in 4 years.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 16, Pakistan's Pres.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf arrived in India to discuss the Kashmir
dispute in an effort to ease five decades of hostility.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 17, The leaders of
India and Pakistan agreed to work to roll back their military
deployments on a Himalayan glacier that is claimed by both countries
and believed to be the world's highest battlefield, concluding the
first day of talks intended to push forward a 15-month-old peace
process.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 18, India and Pakistan
agreed to open up the militarized frontier dividing Kashmir, capping
a landmark visit to New Delhi by President Pervez Musharraf.
(Reuters, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 19, India and its
eastern neighbor Bangladesh traded blame over a weekend border clash
that killed an Indian military officer and two Bangladeshi
villagers.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 21, In western India a
passenger train departing from a pilgrimage site slammed into a
parked cargo train, throwing cars off the tracks and killing at
least 24 people.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 22, Indian Foreign
Minister Natwar Singh met Nepal's King Gyanendra on the fringes of
an international summit in Jakarta and pushed for a restoration of
democracy.
(AFP, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 23, Two Bangladeshi
farmers were shot dead by Indian border forces in the latest in a
spate of frontier clashes.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 23, Indian troops
killed four Islamic rebel infiltrators who sneaked across the
heavily fortified frontier dividing Indian and Pakistan held
Kashmir.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 25, Indian troops
killed 6 Islamic militants in a mountainous Kashmir district
bordering the Pakistani-zone of the divided state, while suspected
rebels hanged to death a civilian.
(AFP, 4/26/05)
2005 Apr 27, Indian troops
killed nine suspected Islamic militants in three separate clashes in
Indian-controlled Kashmir.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr 28, India’s central
bank raised its key interest rate to 5% to stem inflation.
(WSJ, 4/29/05, p.A15)
2005 Apr 28, Indian troops shot
dead four Muslim rebels who infiltrated into Indian Kashmir from the
Pakistani-zone of the divided state.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, India signed a
pact with the United Nations to combat HIV infections among military
personnel after defense authorities sounded a health alert last
week.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, The head of
India's new task force, fighting to save the nation's dwindling
stock of tigers, said the big cats were on the verge of extinction,
because of rampant poaching for their body parts.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 29, Japanese PM
Junichiro Koizumi wooed India, aiming to build a partnership with
New Delhi to cope with the growing clout of China in a changing
continent.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 May 3, In
Indian-controlled Kashmir suspected rebels killed six people in
attacks, while at least six militants died in an overnight gunbattle
with soldiers.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 6, An Indian federal
probe into disappearing tigers in a state-protected reserve has
found the entire population of big cats has been wiped out by
poachers. "The special investigation team in its preliminary
assessment report has indicated that there was no evidence to prove
the presence of tigers in Sariska (national park)."
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 7, In central India
about 200 Maoist rebels, some armed with AK-47 assault rifles,
attacked a mining unit of Hindalco Industries, India's largest
aluminium and copper producer, shutting down its operations.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 8, In India the number
of rare bacterial meningitis cases in New Delhi rose by at least 30
over the last 24 hours with 15 confirmed deaths from the disease.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 May 10, In central India a
man with a sword cut off the hands of a government social worker for
trying to stop child marriages. The attack on the woman highlighted
the difficulty of ending the centuries-old practice in the region.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 11, India and Pakistan
agreed to start a bus service between the cities of Lahore and
Amritsar, and share information on fishermen in each other's
custody.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 13, In India's
southern Andhra Pradesh state police shot dead six opposition party
supporters, sparking a riot in which hundreds of political activists
stoned to death a policeman and burned cars and trucks.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 14, In Indian Kashmir
suspected Muslim rebels shot dead the brother of an ex-militant who
became a moderate separatist leader.
(AFP, 5/14/05)
2005 May 16, In southern India
firecrackers illegally stored in a home in Hassan exploded, killing
eight people.
(AP, 5/16/05)
2005 May 17, In northern India
a bus carrying a wedding party fell into a mountain gorge, killing
37 people and injuring 20 others.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 22, In India bombs
tore through 2 cinemas in New Delhi showing a film considered
offensive by some Sikhs.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 25, In India Sunil
Dutt (75), sports minister and former Bollywood icon, died after a
heart attack.
(Reuters, 5/25/05)
2005 May 26, India and Pakistan
exchanged ideas on ending a two-decade-old military standoff on
Kashmir's Siachen glacier, as senior defense officials began a
two-day meeting.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 26, In northeastern
India mudslides killed at least 14 people, burying them alive as
they slept in Nagaland state.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 27, Talks between
India and Pakistan to break their two-decade-old stand-off on
Kashmir's Siachen glacier, the world's highest battlefield, ended in
apparent deadlock.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 Jun 2, Chinese, Indian and
Russian foreign ministers, meeting in Vladivostok, agreed to
intensify joint work against terrorism and underscored their common
approach to international affairs.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 3, Thai Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in New Delhi, India, for talks on a free
trade agreement and civil aviation liberalization.
(AFP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 5, Five suspected
Islamic militants were killed in an ongoing gunbattle with troops in
Indian Kashmir's Rajouri district.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 7, Lal Krishna Advani
(77), India's most prominent Hindu nationalist, quit as head of the
country's main opposition party following criticism of his kind
words for the founding father of Pakistan, a man reviled in India.
His resignation as president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, also
made it official that India's Hindu political movement was
splintering.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Jun 8, In India a bus hit
a high voltage wire, killing 11 passengers and injuring 15 others in
the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 10, In India
opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani agreed to stay on as president
of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, three days after
resigning over his comments on the founder of Pakistan.
(Reuters, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 13, In India officials
said at least 275 people have died from sunstroke and dehydration in
northern India and neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh so far this
summer, as high temperatures sweep the region ahead of the monsoon.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 16, India allowed
foreign funds to invest in local news publications, widening the
potential investor base within a 26 percent ceiling on foreign
ownership. Foreign firms were allowed to own 100% of non-news
publications.
(AP, 6/16/05)(Econ, 3/1/08, p.44)
2005 Jun 18, Reliance, India's
largest private sector conglomerate, said the $24 billion group
would be split between Anil and Mukesh Ambani in a deal brokered by
their mother.
(AP, 6/19/05)(WSJ, 6/20/05, p.A13)(Econ, 6/25/05,
p.58)
2005 Jun 20, India raised
retail petrol and diesel prices by about 7 percent, the first
increase since November.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 20, India approved a
free-trade agreement with Singapore.
(WSJ, 6/21/05, p.A14)
2005 Jun 22, South Asia endured
one of its hottest summers on record and at least 375 people were
reported to have died from sunstroke and dehydration in a month-long
heat wave sweeping India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 24, India refused
permission for Pakistan's information minister, who once sheltered
anti-Indian Kashmiri separatists, to visit its part of Kashmir on a
new "peace bus".
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 24, In India's portion
of Kashmir Islamic militants triggered a car bomb by remote control
as an army convoy drove past a popular park, killing 9 soldiers and
wounding 22 other people.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, India said police
forces have destroyed one of the largest Mynamarese rebel bases in
India, deep in the mountainous jungles of the remote northeast. Some
200 guerrillas and supporters living in the Chin National Army camp
fled before the attack.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, Gujarat's chief
minister said Gujarat Petroleum Corp (GSPC) has made the India’s
biggest gas discovery 20 trillion cubic feet, worth $50 billion off
the southeast coast.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 28, Stung by a recent
scandal that rocked India's booming business processing industry,
the government announced that it will tighten laws to prevent cyber
crime and ensure data secrecy.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, In India 2 workers
were killed and up to 12 others were believed trapped after a tunnel
they were building to bring water to a village north of Bombay
collapsed in a landslide triggered by heavy rain.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun, In India the Salwa
Judum, an anti-Maoist group, formed in southern Chhattisgarh state.
It soon became an arm of the government to fight Naxalite rebels.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.39)
2005 Jun, India's tsunami-hit
Andaman islands signed a tourist deal with Thailand’s resort town of
Phuket. Environmentalists slammed the deal saying such a move would
destroy the fragile ecology of the Andaman and Nicobar islands and
encourage the sex trade.
(Reuters, 8/3/05)
2005 Jul 2, Indian police
detained close to 600 protesters as they demonstrated against moves
to start the dredging of a controversial sea channel through the
island chain between India and Sri Lanka.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, In the southern
Indian state of Tamil Nadu at least 20 people were killed and 15
others injured in a blaze at a fireworks factory.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, Raging monsoons
continued to submerge vast swaths of Indian countryside and forced
the evacuation of half a million people.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 3, In India's Gujarat
state the death toll from floods was raised to 132 people, where 25
million people were affected by the floods.
(AFP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 5, In India a suicide
bomber blew up a security fence and gunmen used the breach to storm
the Ram Janmabhoomi shrine complex in Ayodhya, setting off a
two-hour gunbattle that left all six attackers dead. A Hindu mob
razed a mosque at the site on Dec 6, 1992. Police later said that
the 5 gunmen who attacked the site in Uttar Pradesh state were
Islamic militants who came from Pakistan, adding that two
gun-runners linked to the assault have been arrested in Kashmir.
(AP, 7/5/05)(WSJ, 7/6/05, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 10, In India suspected
Naga rebels bombed an army convoy, killing two soldiers and
critically wounding six others in Manipur.
(Reuters, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 12, India’s Supreme
Court scrapped a controversial immigration law, making it easier for
authorities to crack down on illegal aliens, a move likely to curb
Bangladeshi migrants in the country's northeast.
(Reuters, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 13, In India an
Islamic trust claimed ownership of the Taj Mahal and demanded a
slice of tourist revenue from the 17th-century monument to love, but
the government-run group charged with its upkeep vowed to challenge
that claim in court.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 14, Indian troops
recovered the bodies of 5 Islamic militants as they hunted rebels
high in the rugged Himalayas in northern Indian Kashmir. 7 people
died in other violence. A spokesman identified one of the slain
rebels as Abu Lukman, a senior member of the region's main rebel
group Hizbul Mujahedin.
(AFP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 15, In India hardline
Hindu activists broke the windows of a cinema, burned posters and
shouted "traitor" in protests against leading actor Salman Khan who
Indian media said had boasted of links with the underworld.
(Reuters, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 18, President Bush
told India's PM Singh he wants to expand economic and diplomatic
ties between the two countries but was expected to pledge only token
help for India's nuclear energy technology. America agreed to grant
India “full civil nuclear energy cooperation.”
(AP, 7/18/05)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.37)
2005 Jul 20, In India the
Chattisgarh state government said it will begin supplying arms to
tribespeople who have formed vigilante groups to protect themselves
from attacks by Maoist rebels.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, In Indian Kashmir
2 bus passengers were killed and three were wounded when they were
caught in an exchange of fire between militants and soldiers.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 24, Indian troops in
Kashmir killed 3 innocent teenagers after troops mistook them for
militants. Demonstrations followed among angry Kashmiri Muslims in
Jammu and Kashmir, largely Hindu India's only Muslim-majority state.
(Reuters, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 24, A 7.2 earthquake
hit India's southern Andaman and Nicobar Islands and part of
Indonesia. No tsunami came, and no injuries or damage were reported.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, Indian army said
it had shot dead five militants in Kupwara district of Kashmir when
they were trying to sneak into India from the Pakistani side.
(Reuters, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, In India violence
erupted when about 1,000 angry Honda workers protested the dismissal
of four colleagues in Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, In India women and
men armed with truncheons and stones attacked police in Gurgaon
where violent clashes between protesting Honda workers and police a
day earlier reportedly injured 700 people.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 25, Indian and
Pakistani trucks laden with goods rolled across the border for the
first time in 50 years.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, The heaviest
rainfall ever recorded in India shut down the financial hub Bombay,
snapped communication lines and closed airports. Officials said at
least 633 people had died across India in two months of monsoon
downpours.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, There was a
massive fire on an oil platform in India's biggest oil field. Ships
and helicopters rescued more than 350 survivors. 10 people were
confirmed dead with several still missing.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, In India
opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani was charged in court with
inciting religious riots that triggered the razing of a mosque in
1992 and left thousands dead.
(Reuters, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, Record-breaking
rains paralyzed Bombay and its surrounding state. B.M. Kulkarni,
head of Maharashtra state's police emergency control room, said that
273 people had died in Mumbai and at least 513 in other parts of the
state.
(AFP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, A bomb exploded on
a crowded passenger train in northern India, killing at least seven
people and injuring 50.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 29, In western India
the death toll from record monsoon rains approached 900.
(AFP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 30, In India the
discovery of more bodies pushed the death toll from this week's
monsoon floods in Bombay to more than 850. Officials warned it will
likely rise to around 1,000.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 31, In India
authorities warned residents to remain home after new heavy rains
pounded Bombay and the surrounding state, as the official death toll
from last week's record-breaking monsoon rains hit 910.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul, In India officials in
Bangalore began enforcing the “Licensing and Controlling of Public
Entertainment Order.” Bars, cabarets and establishments with live
bands were closed. “The legislature was worried that such places are
corrupting the minds of the young.”
(WSJ, 11/7/05, p.A12)
2005 Jul, VSNL, India’s top
operator of int’l. calls, said it would buy Teleglobe, the world’s
largest int’l. wholesale VOIP carrier. Telecom firms around the
world were reported to be migrating to voice over internet protocol.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.53)
2005 Aug 4, India’s Supreme
Court upheld a lower court's death sentence on Mohammed Afzal, a
resident of south Kashmir. Afzal was found guilty of involvement in
the December 2001 parliament raid in which five gunmen killed nine
people before being shot dead.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, India's PM Manmohan
Singh took charge of a nationwide program to save the endangered
Bengal tiger, the national animal that experts say is threatened by
poachers and angry villagers.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, Police in Kashmir
detained at least 10 protesters as hundreds demonstrated against the
death sentence handed out to a Kashmiri Muslim for a raid on the
country's parliament four years ago.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 6, India airlifted
tons of food and medicines to Manipur where tribesmen campaigning
for a separate homeland have blocked roads and cut off supplies for
nearly 2 months. Naga tribesmen living in Manipur began the blockade
on June 19, leading to a severe shortage of food and fuel in the
state's capital Imphal.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 6, India and Pakistan
agreed to set up a telephone hotline to prevent accidental nuclear
conflict and also agreed to notify each other before testing
ballistic missiles.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 7, In India's
northeast Assam state suspected separatist rebels blew up a crucial
oil pipeline and nearby homes, shutting down operations.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 8, India and Pakistan
agreed to extend a two-year-old cease-fire in disputed Kashmir, but
did not discuss the question of reducing their military presence
there.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, In eastern India
suspected rebels launched renewed attacks overnight on pipelines,
leaving oil operations in the remote region in critical shape.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 11, Manmohan Singh,
India's first Sikh prime minister, apologized for riots two decades
ago that killed nearly 3,000 Sikhs and were blamed on the Congress.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Indian officials
said waterborne diseases have killed at least 46 people in Bombay in
the past four days following widespread floods in the city last
month.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 12, Victims of India's
1984 anti-Sikh riots rejected apologies from Premier Manmohan Singh
and vowed to intensify demands for the prosecution of politicians
blamed for the massacre that claimed 4,000 lives.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, Suspected Islamic
militants raided a remote mountain village in India's Jammu-Kashmir
state and attacked 2 Hindu families as they dined together, killing
5 people.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 13, It was reported
that Delhi’s water board (DJB) planned a $246 million water project
with $140 million financed by the World Bank. As in many Indian
cities 16 million people in Delhi suffered chronic water shortages.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.53)
2005 Aug 13, The death toll in
India from water-borne diseases following floods in Bombay and
surrounding areas two weeks ago rose to at least 125.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 13, In Indian Kashmir
9 people died in fresh fighting. Troops intensified search
operations ahead of India's Aug 15 Independence Day, which
separatists observe as a "black day".
(AFP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 16, A top Indian
official said Indian and Chinese oil firms will sign agreements
aimed at bidding jointly for foreign oil and gas projects and
reducing cut-throat competition.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 17, India’s Andhra
Pradesh state banned a violent Maoist rebel group, two days after
rebels killed 10 people, including a lawmaker and bureaucrat.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 17, Researchers from
Greenpeace Int’l reported that toxic waste from electronic devices
discarded in the US and dismantled in China and India was posing a
sever problem around Guiyu, China, and New Delhi, India.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.C3)
2005 Aug 18, In India the death
toll in an encephalitis outbreak in Uttar Pradesh rose to 90 with
more deaths being reported due to the water-born disease.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 19, India’s Wadia
group, an industrial conglomerate best known for its textile brand
Bombay Dyeing, said it will launch a low-cost airline in October and
is in talks with Airbus and Boeing Co. to buy 50 new jets over the
next five to seven years.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 19, Indian troops
opened fire on Bangladeshi workers and soldiers to stop them
building a river embankment close to the border. Bangladeshi troops
fired back.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 20, Bangladeshi and
Indian border guards negotiated a ceasefire, halting a gunbattle
that flared over disputed construction work along the frontier.
(Reuters, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Indian troops shot
dead a Hindu fighting for the biggest Islamic separatist rebel group
in Indian Kashmir.
(AFP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Paul Wolfowitz on
his first visit to India as World Bank president said the World Bank
would lend up to $3 billion a year over the next three years to
India for various development programs. The Bank lent $2.9 billion
to India in the financial year to June 2005, more than double $1.4
billion lent the year before, making Asia's third-largest economy
the multilateral lending institution's largest borrower.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 21, Bangladeshi and
Indian border officials resolved a dispute over embankment building
on a river cutting across their frontier that led to heavy firing by
border troops.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 23, India’s Lok Sabha
approved legislation which seeks to guarantee 100 days of employment
a year to every rural household across the country.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, In India an
apartment building collapse in downtown Bombay, killed 11 people,
injured 17 and left more than a dozen trapped under the rubble.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 24, Officials in India
said the death toll from an outbreak of encephalitis in Uttar
Pradesh has increased to 178, with more than 60 deaths reported in
the past five days.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 25, In India more than
two dozen people died of encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh, taking the
toll from an outbreak in the region over 200.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 26, India’s
Maharashtra government planned to ban most plastic bags, blaming
them for choking drains and causing floods a month ago that left
more than 1,000 people dead.
(Reuters, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, In India nearly
5,000 people held a rally as shops and businesses shut down in
Amritsar, the hometown of Sarabjeet Singh facing death by hanging in
Pakistan for allegedly spying. They demanded clemency and his
immediate return home.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, In India 24 people
were drowned when flash floods inundated hundreds of villages around
a commercial town in Uttar Pradesh.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 26, In Indian Kashmir
at least 15 people, including three soldiers, were wounded when
suspected Islamist rebels threw five grenades at different places in
Sopore. 4 people, including 2 militants, were killed in separate
shootouts across the region in the past 24 hours.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 28, India’s PM
Manmohan Singh, the first Indian premier to visit Afghanistan in
nearly 3 decades, pledged with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to
battle terrorism amid rising violence in the war-battered country.
(AFP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 30, India and Pakistan
agreed to release hundreds of fishermen and other civilians in each
other's jails, a goodwill measure that comes as part of a peace
process between the two countries.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug, A program began in
New Delhi, India, to place $10 microchips inside stray cattle to
track their status and fine negligent owners. The program was the
brain-child of Ashish Anand (35).
(WSJ, 1/10/06, p.A6)
2005 Sep 3, In eastern India 23
policemen and a civilian were killed in a powerful landmine blast
triggered by suspected Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh state.
(Reuters, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 5, Kashmir's main
political separatist alliance started peace talks with the Indian
prime minister, seeking trust and an easing of harsh military
controls in the troubled region.
(Reuters, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 7, In India the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was notified. It guaranteed
all rural households 100 days of employment a year.
(Econ, 3/20/10,
p.50)(www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/node/255264)
2005 Sep 9, Indian border
guards killed 3 Bangladeshi villagers after they had strayed across
the border near the eastern Bangladesh town of Akhaura. India and
Bangladesh share a 4,095-kilometre (2,539-mile) border, which India
is busy fencing in a bid to cut the level of illegal immigration.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 12, President Jacques
Chirac, following a weeklong hospital stay, met with India's PM
Singh.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 15, In the eastern
Indian state of Bihar a fire engulfed three illegal firecracker
factories in a village, killing at least 30 people.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, In northeastern
India a fire broke out in a damaged oil well, and Russian experts
were summoned to inspect the site.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 16, India's government
ordered the state railway to accomplish the seemingly impossible:
revamp the network, one of the world's largest, and get rid of the
bugs, rats, filth and surly workers.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 19, India said it
would increase vaccine production to protect against future
outbreaks of Japanese encephalitis as the death toll from the
disease rose to 765 in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The
encephalitis is transmitted from pigs to humans by mosquitoes.
Japanese encephalitis first surfaced in Uttar Pradesh in 1978. Over
4,000 people have died in the state since the disease first hit. A
quarter of survivors are left disabled.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 19, A severe storm
ripped through southern India, killing at least 18 people and
leaving some 50,000 homeless. Most of the victims were either
electrocuted or died in house collapses as overnight rains triggered
flooding in the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh state.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 21, India said at
least 64 people have died and hundreds of thousands displaced after
powerful storms left a trail of devastation across the Indian and
Bangladeshi coasts in the Bay of Bengal.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 22, In India police
said 4 Maoist rebels were killed in two separate gunbattles with
police in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
(AFP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 24, India's western
state of Gujarat was on flood alert after two days of lashing
monsoon rains that killed at least 15 people.
(AP, 9/24/05)
2005 Sep 29, In India thousands
of airport workers backed by civil servants and state-run bank and
insurance company employees held a one-day nationwide strike to
protest government privatization plans they fear will affect their
jobs.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Sep 29, A bus accident in
India's portion of Kashmir has left 44 people dead and 42 others
injured.
(AP, 9/30/05)
2005 Sep 30, In Meghalaya
state, northeastern India, police opened fire on stone-throwing
students in two towns, killing 12 of them protesting a government
decision to shift a state education board to an area dominated by a
different tribe.
(AP, 9/30/05)
2005 Sep 30, In India at least
14 people died after drinking illegal home-brewed liquor sold at
unauthorized shops in the remote northeast. The death toll was
likely to rise because 61 others were hospitalized after drinking
the noxious brew in Tezpur, a town 110 miles north of Gauhati, the
capital of Assam state.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 3, India and Pakistan
signed a deal requiring them to notify each other of plans for
ballistic missile tests.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In central India at
least 16 people were killed and dozens injured when six cars of a
speeding passenger train derailed.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 4, In India's
northeast 11 people, including five villagers hacked to death by
rival tribesmen, were reported killed. Separatist insurgencies have
raged in Manipur and Assam states for the past two decades.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 8, A 7.6-magnitude
earthquake hit Kashmir near the Pakistan-India border reaching to
Afghanistan. It reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and
flattened an apartment building, killing thousands of people in
India and Pakistan. Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged
between nearly 20,000 and 30,000. The newly reopened "Peace Bridge"
linking the Indian and Pakistani portions of disputed Kashmir nearly
collapsed during the earthquake. The death toll from the quake
reached 87,350. The UN estimated that 3 million people were left
homeless by the earthquake.
(AP, 10/9/05)(SSFC, 10/9/05, p.A1)(AP,
11/8/05)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.44)
2005 Oct 8, In India's eastern
state of Jharkhand Maoist rebels set off a powerful bomb at a jungle
hideout, killing at least 15 policemen including a deputy
commandant.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 9, A UN official said
more than 2.5 million people have been left homeless by the
devastating 7.6-magnitude earthquake that shook India and Pakistan.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 10, India and Pakistan
set aside their often-bitter rivalry when Islamabad accepted an
offer of aid for earthquake victims.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 13, A female suicide
bomber blew herself up minutes before an army convoy was to pass on
a key highway in Indian Kashmir, the first such attack by a woman in
the region's Islamic separatist conflict.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 18, In northeastern
India machete-wielding attackers ambushed a bus and tribal militants
set fire to two villages of a rival group, killing 37 people.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Suspected Islamic
militants killed the education minister of Indian-controlled Kashmir
during a brazen raid days after top insurgents ordered a suspension
of attacks in the aftermath of South Asia's devastating earthquake.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Gen’l. Musharraf
announced that Pakistan was ready to allow Kashmiris to cross the
“line of control,” dividing Indian and Pakistani controlled areas,
to help their families.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.45)
2005 Oct 19, Two strong
aftershocks from the Oct 8 deadly earthquake shook South Asia,
unleashing landslides and setting off another wave of panic among
survivors of the disaster. A new tally from officials in India and
Pakistan pushed the death toll to 79,000.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 28, UK
telecommunications company Vodafone Group PLC said it has bought a
10% stake in India's largest wireless operator Bharti Tele-Ventures
Ltd. for $1.5 billion in cash.
(www.cellular-news.com/story/14603.php)(Econ,
11/12/05, p.70)
2005 Oct 29, In India a series
of explosions shook New Delhi tearing through markets jammed with
shoppers ahead of an upcoming Hindu festival and killing 61 people
and injured more than 200. The Pakistan-based Islamic Inquilab Mahaz
claimed responsibility. In southern India a passenger train plunged
into a rain-swollen river in Veligonda in Andhra Pradesh state,
killing at least 111 people and trapping dozens more inside the
derailed cars.
(AP, 10/31/05)(AP, 10/30/05)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A6)
2005 Oct 30, Pakistan and India
made an unprecedented agreement to open their heavily militarized
border in disputed Kashmir to aid the flow of relief goods and
reunite divided families in the aftermath of South Asia's colossal
earthquake.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Nov 1, Indian communities
around the world celebrated Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights,
which signifies the renewal of life.
(SFC, 10/19/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 2, In Kashmir 6 people
including a suicide bomber were killed and more than a dozen wounded
in a car bomb blast in the Nowgam area on the outskirts of Srinagar.
"The car bomb is our first gift to Ghulam Nabi Azad," who was to be
sworn is as the Kashmir's new chief minister, said Abu Qudama,
spokesman for Jaish-e-Mohammed.
(AP, 11/2/05)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.44)
2005 Nov 6, India’s Sikh PM
Singh and Hindu nationalist opposition leader joined to open
Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in New Delhi, one of the biggest
Hindu temples of modern times, a $45 million pink sandstone shrine
to religious tolerance.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 7, India and Pakistan
opened their frontier in Kashmir for earthquake relief, but police
had to fire tear gas to disperse protesters who were banned from
taking part in the symbolic crossing.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, India's foreign
minister was stripped of his post over allegations that he benefited
illegally from the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq, becoming the
first political casualty of an independent report that revealed
massive corruption in the effort to help Iraqis suffering under
sanctions.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, Nirbhay Singh
Gujjar (64), one of India's most dreaded and colorful bandits, was
shot to death by police in the forests of central India, ending a
nearly three-decade career in crime that included murders,
kidnappings and looting.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 9, K.R. Narayanan
(85), former president of India (1997-2002), died. He was the first
"untouchable" from India's pernicious caste system to occupy the
office in a validation of the nation's democratic roots.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Dhaka,
Bangladesh, a 2-day summit aimed to alleviate poverty and boost
trade and cooperation among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives,
Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Leaders called for greater
cooperation within the region to deal with the aftermath of
disasters like the Kashmir earthquake and last year's devastating
tsunami.
(AFP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 13, Indian police
claimed a breakthrough in the Oct. 29 triple bombings in New Delhi
after arresting an alleged Kashmiri conspirator, and said they have
valuable information that could lead to the capture of four others,
including the bombers.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, In Bangladesh
Indian PM Manmohan Singh told the closing session of the 13th South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit that Afghanistan
is to join SAARC.
(AFP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 14, It was reported
that India's top oil exploration firm, Oil & Natural Gas Corp.,
and the world's largest steel maker, the Netherlands-based Mittal
Group, planned to build an oil refinery in Nigeria. They offered to
invest another $6 billion in building a power plant and railroads
there.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 19, India and Pakistan
opened their disputed border in Kashmir for the first time in 58
years, a temporary measure to allow divided families to check on
each other after the region's devastating earthquake.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 22, In India elections
results left the Rashtrija Janata Dal party (RJD) with just 54 of
243 seats in Bihar’s legislative assembly. Laloo Prasad Yadav
and the RJD had ruled Bihar, a state of 83 million people, since
1990. Bihar elected Nitish Kumar as chief minister.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.50)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.36)
2005 Nov 25, In India more than
60 people were feared drowned after two crowded buses were washed
away in floods in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 26, In India
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a suspected extortioner whose murdered. The
police initially claimed that Sohrabuddin was a terrorist with
Lashkar-e-Toiba connections, and had died while trying to escape.
The killing was orchestrated by senior police officers of the Indian
Police Service, and was allegedly ordered by Gujarat minister for
home Amit Shah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohrabuddin_Sheikh_fake_encounter)
2005 Nov 26, Vijaypat Singhania
(67), an Indian textile millionaire, apparently broke the world
record for the highest flight in a hot air balloon. His son Gautam
Singhania said the 44-ton balloon climbed nearly 70,000 feet. The
previous world record was 64,997 feet, set by Sweden's Per
Lindstrand in Plano, Texas, in June 1988.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov, India’s government
partially freed the market for distressed debt. This allowed
foreigners to take direct stakes of up to 49% in companies managing
distressed assets.
(Econ, 12/10/05, p.84)
2005 Dec 1, Thousands marched
in anti-AIDS rallies in India's plagued northeast, while China
rolled out a campaign targeting millions of migrant workers to mark
World AIDS Day.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 2, India’s hybrid
species of national affiliation called Overseas Citizenship of India
(OCI) became operational. It was made available to anyone who was an
Indian citizen post 1950, and to their children and grandchildren
wherever they were born. The Citizenship (Amendment) Ordinance 2005
was promulgated by the President of India and came into force on 28
June 2005.
(http://tinyurl.com/yxrrhs)(WSJ, 12/15/06,
p.B1)(www.immihelp.com/nri/dual.html)
2005 Dec 3, In India PM
Manmohan Singh unveiled a $23 billion plan to provide basic services
to the country’s growing urban populations.
(WSJ, 12/5/05, p.A18)
2005 Dec 5, In India a freight
train derailed, killing six people and injuring 50 others in a
remote district of eastern Orissa state.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 12, In Kashmir Indian
troops shot dead three Islamic militants, while suspected rebels
shot dead a shopkeeper in revolt-hit Kashmir.
(AFP, 12/12/05)
2005 Dec 16, A 3-day session
held by the UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission ended in
Hyderabad. India said it would not share information on
earthquakes below a magnitude of six on the Richter scale due to
security concerns.
(AFP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, India and Pakistan
agreed to begin work by 2007 on a pipeline to bring natural gas from
Iran, moving ahead with the project despite US disapproval. Iran
hoped to break ground this year on a 1,700 mile, $4 billion natural
gas pipeline to deliver gas across Pakistan to India. The US opposed
the line and threatened sanctions under the 1996 Iran Libya
Sanctions Act (ILSA) law.
(AP, 12/18/05)(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.A4)
2005 Dec 18, In southern India
thousands of flood victims waiting in line for relief vouchers
stampeded into a government-run distribution center, killing at
least 42 people and injuring 37.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 23, India's parliament
voted to expel 11 lawmakers who were caught on camera taking bribes
to raise questions in parliament.
(AP, 12/23/05)
2005 Dec 26, India freed eight
Pakistani prisoners as part of peace efforts between the South Asia
rivals, while the two governments scheduled new talks to resolve
their long-standing dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
(AP, 12/26/05)
2005 Dec 28, In Bangalore,
India, gunmen fired toward a crowd outside a leading science
institute, killing a retired professor and wounding four other
people. On Dec 17, 2011, six people were convicted for their
involvement in the shooting.
(AP, 12/28/05)(AP, 12/17/11)
2005 Dec 28, A bus collided
with a truck on a highway in western India and burst into flames,
killing at least 30 people.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 29, The Indian
government cleared an agreement to set up a free trade area for 7
South Asian countries, in a move expected to more than double the
size of the regional market. The landmark deal to create a South
Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) was signed in Islamabad in January
2004 during a regional summit with January 1, 2006 set as a deadline
for implementation.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2005 Dec 30, Two Indian
soldiers were killed when they stepped on a land mine near the
heavily fortified frontier that divides Kashmir between longtime
rivals India and Pakistan.
(AP, 12/30/05)
2005 Dec, In India phase one of
New Delhi’s 3-stage metro project was completed with the opening of
a 3rd line. Under director Elattuvalapil Sreedharan (73) it was on
budget and nearly 3 years ahead of schedule.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.64)
2005 Thomas Friedman, American
journalist, authored “The World Is Flat.” It described an India of
buzzing entrepreneurs and startups.
(Econ, 10/22/11, SR p.4)
2005 Amartya Sen, 1998 Nobel
Prize winner in economics, authored ”The Argumentative Indian:
Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity.”
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.80)
2005 In India Vijay Mallya,
chairman of Bangalore based United Breweries, launched Kingfisher
Airlines, named after UB’s best-selling beer.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.64)
2005 Suketu Mehta authored
“Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found,” a documentary of life in
Mumbai, India.
(Econ, 4/9/05, p.71)
2005 India planned to begin
production of the Sagarika missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear
warhead and being fired from submarines.
(SFC, 6/27/98, p.A13)
2005 Krishnan Ganesh founded
TutorVista, an Internet service using Indian tutors for Western
students.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.76)
2005 Richard Branson agreed to
an investment in a Bangalore studio with a focus on Indian religion
and mythology. His Virgin Comics LLC followed soon thereafter.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.B4)
xxxx
2006 Jan 1, Officials said a
cold snap sweeping northern India has killed another five homeless
people, taking the toll to 101 since the start of December.
(AFP, 1/1/06)
2006 Jan 2, In India’s Orissa
state police shot and killed 12 tribals who were seeking to block
construction of a steel plant in Kalinga Nagar. Tensions were
heightened after the "tribals hacked to death a senior constable."
Hundreds of protesters, some armed with bows and arrows, soon
blocked a highway to protest the police shooting.
(AFP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 6, An Indian Supreme
Court panel accused France of violating an international treaty on
hazardous waste movement by sending an asbestos-laden warship to be
scrapped in an Indian shipyard.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 7, In India folk
singer Bant Singh lost both arms and a leg in an attack after he
dared to challenge high-caste landlords in his area of the
northwestern state of Punjab who had raped his 17-year-old daughter.
Singh's tenacity and refusal to keep quiet led to the conviction of
the seven men accused of raping his daughter.
(AFP,
2/21/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bant_Singh)
2006 Jan 8, The Indian capital
of Delhi saw its first winter frost in 70 years as a cold wave
sweeping in from the frigid heights of the Himalayas. The death toll
from the cold rose to 137 people in northern India.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 9, Experts urged the
Indian government to enforce laws against prenatal gender checks and
to work to change attitudes after a study showed up to 10 million
female fetuses may have been selectively aborted in India over the
past two decades.
(AP, 1/9/06)
2006 Jan 12, In Lucknow, India,
police said 4 men, who were arrested last week on charges of
spreading homosexuality, were running a secret Internet club for
homosexuals. Homosexuality is illegal in India. Activists called for
their release.
(AP, 1/12/06)
2006 Jan 19, India said that it
had agreed to pay the Czech Republic 20 million dollars to resolve a
trade dispute dating back to the Cold War. The move was announced at
the end of a three-day visit by Czech President Jiri Paroubek.
(AFP, 1/19/06)
2006 Jan 19, In India Jet
Airways confirmed that it has agreed to buy Sahara Airlines for $500
million in cash. In 2005 Jet overtook the government owned Indian
Airlines as India’s largest domestic carrier.
(Econ, 1/21/06, p.60)
2006 Jan 20, In India a bomb
exploded at the entrance of a state-owned petroleum Refinery in the
northeastern state of Assam, leaving 10 people injured.
(AFP, 1/20/06)
2006 Jan 24, India's central
bank raised short-term borrowing rate a quarter percent point to 5.5
percent, citing fears of inflation amid strong economic growth.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 28, Karnataka Governor
T.N. Chaturvedi invited H.D. Kumaraswamy (b.1959), son of former
Indian PM H.D. Deve Gowda, to form the government in the state after
Dharam Singh resigned earlier in the day.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.D.Kumaraswamy)
2006 Jan 28, At least 8 people
were killed in a gunfight between Indian security forces and Kashmir
rebels.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 31, An official said
India's air force was ready to handle civilian air traffic control
as protesting airport workers threatened to strike after the
government opened bids to privatize the two biggest airports.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Jan 31, India and Pakistan
signed an agreement to restart a second cross-border train service
next month, the latest step in peace talks between the nuclear-armed
rivals.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Jan, Mani Shankar Aiyar,
India’s petroleum minister, visited China and signed a series of
cooperation agreements.
(Econ, 1/21/06, p.59)
2006 Feb 3, Indian health
officials reported that over 5,600 new cases of chikungunya, a
crippling and incurable mosquito-born disease, had infected people
on the island of Reunion.
(www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L04459988.htm)
2006 Feb 4, Indian airport
workers called off a four-day anti-privatization strike that had
created chaos at the nation's airports after the government promised
them job security.
(AP, 2/4/06)
2006 Feb 6, India's benchmark
stock index charged past the 10,000 mark for the first time, but
couldn't hold the level and ended at 9,980.42, still a record close.
(AP, 2/6/06)
2006 Feb 7, India’s main market
index closed above 10,000 for the 1st time as the government revised
its economic growth forecast to above 8%.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.58)
2006 Feb 7, A ship with 2,000
tons of donated rice from India arrived in North Korea. The Indian
government has donated humanitarian aid, including food and
medicine, to North Korea on nine occasions since 1995.
(AFP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 10, In northern India
Swami Sadanand Sant Gyaneshwar, a Hindu religious leader, and seven
of his followers were shot and killed near Allahabad in Uttar
Pradesh state.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 18, India confirmed
the H5N1 bird flu virus in chickens. Iran confirmed the virus in
wild swans. Indonesia confirmed its 19th death from the virus.
Germany France and Austria reported more dead birds. Nigeria claimed
to be bringing the virus under control.
(AP, 2/18/06)
2006 Feb 19, French President
Jacques Chirac arrived in India for a whistle-stop visit aimed at
bolstering trade and civilian nuclear cooperation with the emerging
economic powerhouse.
(AP, 2/19/06)
2006 Feb 19, India and France
both confirmed their first outbreak of the deadly strain of bird flu
among fowl. Health officials and farm workers in western India began
slaughtering a half-million birds to check the spread of the
disease.
(AP, 2/19/06)
2006 Feb 19, India's private
Kingfisher Airlines signed a deal to purchase 15 French ATR 72-500
aircraft for 270 million dollars, with the option to buy another 20.
Kingfisher began operations in May and has a 7.6 percent share of
the domestic market.
(AP, 2/19/06)
2006 Feb 19, In western India a
bomb exploded at a railway station in Ahmadabad, injuring at least
13 people.
(AP, 2/19/06)
2006 Feb 24, India and the
United States said they had made some progress toward a landmark
nuclear deal but more work was needed to try and clinch it in time
for President George W. Bush's visit to New Delhi next week.
(AP, 2/24/06)
2006 Feb 25, India reported an
outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in a 2nd state. At least two
infected chickens were discovered at a farm in the Utchal area of
Gujarat.
(AP, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 27, India's PM Singh
outlined a formula on how the government will separate its civilian
and military nuclear programs as it tries to clinch a landmark
nuclear deal with Washington.
(Reuters, 2/27/06)
2006 Feb 28, Palaniappan
Chidambaram, India’s finance minister, unveiled the budget for the
new fiscal year. It forecast growth at 8.1% and included a 7.2%
increase in defense spending to $20 billion.
(WSJ, 3/1/06, p.A6)(Econ, 3/4/06, p.38)
2006 Feb 28, In central India
suspected Maoist militants (Naxalites) attacked a group of trucks
jammed with passengers, killing 23 people and injuring 33.
(AP, 2/28/06)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.45)
2006 Mar 1, In India tens of
thousands of Indians waving black and white flags and chanting
"Death to Bush!" rallied in New Delhi to protest a visit by
President Bush.
(AP, 3/1/06)
2006 Mar 2, On his first trip
to India, President Bush and his Indian counterpart agreed on a
landmark nuclear energy agreement that deepens ties between the
world's oldest and largest democracies.
(AP, 3/2/06)
2006 Mar 3, Anger against U.S.
President George W. Bush swept through parts of India as protesters
burned his effigy and carried posters of Osama bin Laden, and
rioting demonstrators clashed with Hindus in a northern city,
leaving at least one dead.
(AP, 3/3/06)
2006 Mar 4, In India hundreds
of Hindu protesters rampaged through the town of Sanvodem in the
coastal state of Goa, storming a police station, beating officers,
looting Muslim shops and burning vehicles and buildings.
(AP, 3/4/06)
2006 Mar 6, PM John Howard in
New Delhi said Australia will consider selling uranium to India if
it is convinced about New Delhi's commitment to follow global
nuclear safeguards for its civilian atomic reactors.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 7, In Varanasi, India,
explosions rocked a packed railway station and crowded Hindu temple
in Hinduism's holiest city. At least 10 people died in the
explosions at the train station, and five were killed in the blast
at the temple. Five people died overnight in hospitals. Indian
police shot dead Salar, an Islamic militant suspected of links to a
triple bombing. He was found with a pistol and 2.5 kilograms (5.5
pounds) of explosives after he was shot on the outskirts of the
Uttar Pradesh state capital Lucknow, 300 kilometers (190 miles)
north of Varanasi. Varanasi was known as Benares during British
rule.
(AP, 3/8/06)(AFP, 3/8/06)(Econ, 3/11/06, p.38)
2006 Mar 15, A marine
researcher said rising sea temperatures caused by global warming
could kill off the Indian Ocean's coral reefs in the next 50 years,
threatening vital marine life.
(AP, 3/15/06)
2006 Mar 17, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh thanked Russia for its decision to supply uranium to two
fuel-starved Indian nuclear reactors, during a visit to New Delhi by
Russian Premier Mikhail Fradkov.
(AFP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 20, Chairman Michael
Dell, speaking in Bangalore, India, said Dell Inc. plans to double
the number of its employees in India to 20,000 in three years.
(AP, 3/20/06)
2006 Mar 20, Bangladesh PM
Begum Khaleda Zia began his first visit to India in five years.
India and Bangladesh will be trying to rebuild confidence and end
distrust that has crept into their relationship.
(AP, 3/20/06)
2006 Mar 23, In India Sonia
Gandhi, the leader of the governing coalition, stepped down as a
member of Parliament amid inter-party feuding over a once-obscure
election law and a growing controversy about whether she also held
another job.
(AP, 3/23/06)
2006 Mar 24, India's PM invited
Pakistan to join his country in a "treaty of peace, security and
friendship" to end nearly six decades of tension between the
nuclear-armed nations.
(AP, 3/24/06)
2006 Mar 25, In India PM
Manmohan Singh and Iranian Vice-President Rahim Mashaee held talks
in New Delhi during which they stressed the need to strengthen
bilateral ties, particularly in the energy sector.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar, In India a top
government official in Krishna, a district of Andhra Pradesh state,
temporarily shut 50 branch offices of four microfinance institutions
(MFIs), on the grounds of charging exorbitant rates.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.62)
2006 Mar, Rabbinical leaders
announced that some 6,000 members of the Bnei Menashe tribe in
India's northeast were descendants of ancient Israelites or one of
the Biblical 10 lost tribes. In November 200 members of the tribe
moved to Israel.
(AFP, 11/16/06)
2006 Apr 4, Mphasis BFL Ltd.,
an Indian software services company, welcomed a $380 million bid by
Electronic Data Systems for a 52% stake.
(WSJ, 4/5/06, p.B3)
2006 Apr 10, Salman Khan, one
of Bollywood's biggest film stars, was sent to prison for five years
for killing a protected antelope.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 10, In northern India
a fire swept through tents at a trade fair in a consumer electronics
show in the town of Meerut, killing at least 52 people.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 12, An Indian court
struck down a controversial order banning dance bars in the
financial hub of Mumbai, bringing cheers from champions of the
drinking houses.
(AFP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Raj Kumar (77),
Indian movie star, died in Bangalore.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2006 Apr 13, In India
distraught fans smashed cars, burned buses and battled with police
in the southern Indian city of Bangalore after they were prevented
from seeing the body of Rajkumar (77), an Indian film icon who died
this week. 8 people died in the rioting.
(AP, 4/13/06)(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.18)
2006 Apr 14, In India 2 bombs
exploded at New Delhi's main mosque shortly after hundreds of
worshippers offered Friday prayers, injuring at least 13 people.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 16, In India heavily
armed Maoist rebels (Naxalites) killed 10 police officers in an
attack in eastern Chhattisgarh state. The Maoists, who have bases in
11 of India's 29 states, say they are fighting to restore the rights
of neglected tribes and landless farmers.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 Apr 20, In northeastern
India a bus carrying wedding guests veered off a road and plunged
into a lake, killing at least 64 people. Another bus crash later in
the day killed at least 15 people.
(AP, 4/20/06)(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 22, In India Pramod
Mahajan (56), the general secretary of the opposition Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, was shot and critically wounded
by his brother. Pramod Mahajan died from his wounds on May 3.
(AP, 4/23/06)(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 Apr 22, The population of
Kerala, India, was reported to be about 33 million. It boasted over
91% literacy. The per capita income was about half that of Goa,
India’s richest state. Some 3.5 million Keralans worked abroad, 85%
in the Middle East.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.43)
2006 Apr 27, Indian student
doctors staged a one-day strike at state-run hospitals in New Delhi
to protest government plans to boost quotas for the poor in top
education institutes.
(AFP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 29, In central India
13 people abducted by insurgents were found dead but 37 others were
freed. 2 people were found dead a day earlier. Rebels had abducted
52 people from a single village in the district of Dantewada in
Chhattisgarh state on April 25.
(AFP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr, Investigators for
India's monopoly monitors accused US biotech group Monsanto, which
has a tight grip on the GM market, of overpricing its cotton seeds,
charging so-called "technology fees" on seed packets. Indian
government officials said more than 8,900 farmers had died from
suicide in four states since 2001. Rising costs and the failure of a
government minimum pricing policy had contributed to the farmers'
deaths.
(AFP, 4/22/06)
2006 May 1, In western India
police fired bullets and tear gas to disperse battling mobs of
Hindus and Muslims, killing two people as hundreds rioted after
authorities demolished a small Muslim shrine.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, In northern India a
sodium tank exploded at a paper factory, sparking a blaze that
killed at least nine nightshift workers and trapped hundreds more.
One official said 15 people were killed.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 1, In southern India a
truck carrying mangos toppled over, killing 20 workers riding on
board to unload them.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 2, In western India at
least 30 people were killed when a crowded bus veered off a bridge
and plunged into a river. The bus, which had a capacity of 58 but
was carrying 69 passengers, was traveling from Kashimira town to
Thane, near Mumbai.
(AFP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 3, In New Delhi Muslim
separatists met India's prime minister for fresh peace talks on the
future of Kashmir. Hours before the talks were due to begin, four
rebels and three security men died in gunbattles in Kashmir.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, India and Pakistan
agreed to launch a truck service and a second passenger bus route
this summer linking the parts of Kashmir held by each country.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, The guardian of
Budhia Singh, a five-year-old Indian boy who runs 50 kilometers (31
miles) a day, denied media accusations he was flogging him for
personal gain. When Budhia’s father died two years ago, his mother,
a dish washer in Bhubaneswar, was unable to provide for her four
children and sold Budhia to a man for 800 rupees (20 dollars).
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, In northern India,
a driver apparently lost control of his speeding bus, veering off a
bridge into a dry river bed near Rampur, a town in Uttar Pradesh
state. 21 people were killed and 26 were injured.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 4, Palaniappan
Chidambaram, India's finance minister, warned that a slowdown in the
US may trigger a worldwide recession that if "disorderly" will hit
emerging market economies hard. Speaking at the 39th annual meeting
of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), he said global economic growth
continued to depend heavily on the US economy.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 8, Indian voters
braved blistering summer heat as marathon state elections drew to a
close with ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi looking set to
regain her parliamentary seat in a by-election. The death toll from
a heat wave rose to 34.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 11, Indian communists
swept to power in two of five state assembly elections. Sonia
Gandhi, the chief of the ruling Congress party, easily won a
parliamentary by-election.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 13, In central India 4
special police were killed and five people were injured when
hundreds of Maoist rebels stormed a relief centre sheltering those
fleeing guerrilla violence.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 17, Medical services
in many parts of India were in chaos for a sixth day as student
doctor protests intensified over a government plan to boost seats
reserved for the poor in top universities.
(AFP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 20, India announced a
one billion dollar package to revive its tea industry blighted by
plummeting prices and a downturn in exports.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 22, India’s main
market index, the Sensex, set a record for intra-day volatility.
Share prices had fallen by nearly 20% within 2 weeks. The recent
drop was seen as a correction following a 3-year boom.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.70)
2006 May 25, India and Japan
pledged to step up military cooperation, as Tokyo tries to move
closer to the South Asian nation which is seeking to modernize its
armed forces.
(AFP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 25, In Kashmir PM
Manmohan Singh said his country was "committed" to living in harmony
with neighboring rival Pakistan and to resolving the issue of
Kashmir with a lasting peace treaty. As he left militants killed
four people, a man, two women and a child, in an explosion that blew
up a bus carrying Indian tourists.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 29, China and India
pledged to deepen military exchanges during a visit by Indian
Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the latest sign of warming
relations between the neighbors and one-time foes.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, A group of
prominent Indians called for national talks between Maoist rebels
and the government, while also demanding an end to a controversial
anti-rebel campaign in the worst-affected state of Chhattisgarh.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 30, India's government
threatened to fire hundreds of government doctors striking to
protest an affirmative action plan for low-caste Hindus and said
replacements would prop up crippled medical services.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 Jun 1, In eastern India a
land mine thought to have been planted by communist rebels blew up a
police jeep, killing 12 officers from a paramilitary police force.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 4, In India 9 people
died in lightning strikes as the death toll from the early monsoon
hit 118. Some 25,000 people were displaced by flooding.
(AP, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 6, Gas prices in India
rose 9.2%. Diesel prices rose 6.6%. The government left prices of
cooking fuels and liquefied petroleum gas unchanged.
(WSJ, 6/5/06, p.A10)
2006 Jun 7, US communications
giant Motorola announced it is setting up a $100 million
manufacturing facility in India to make mobile phone handsets and
telecom network equipment.
(AFP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 9, India announced a
218-million-dollar economic package to help Nepal's new government
rebuild the troubled Himalayan country.
(AFP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 9, In India at least
five people died and six were injured when a bomb exploded in
crowded marketplace in Gauhati, the main city in northeastern Assam
state. Police blamed the blasts on the outlawed United Liberation
Front of Asom (ULFA) rebel group that has been fighting for an
independent Assamese homeland since 1979.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 10, In India deaths
from the early monsoon storms reached at least 161 and flooding
pushed the number of displaced up to 30,000.
(SFC, 6/10/06, p.B8)
2006 Jun 12, In Indian Kashmir
at least nine people were killed in a series of attacks, including
one close to a camp housing Hindu pilgrims, while a boy died in
police firing. Suspected Islamic militants shot dead seven Indian
laborers.
(Reuters, 6/12/06)(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 13, Indian shares fell
sharply, with the benchmark index tumbling 4.4% to its lowest point
this year amid declines in global markets.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, Police in northern
India village retrieved 48 bodies after a truck crowded with wedding
guests veered off a mountain road and plunged into a deep gorge in
Uttaranchal state.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 14, India's largest
film festival kicked off in Dubai, as a number of Bollywood stars
descended on this booming Gulf city state where Indians make up the
largest community.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2005 Jun 15, India passed its
Rights for Information Act.
(Econ, 3/12/11,
p.18)(http://rti.gov.in/webactrti.htm)
2006 Jun 16, India's cabinet
gave its approval for signing and ratifying the International
Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.
(AFP, 6/17/06)
2006 Jun 20, A second bus
service rolled between the Indian and Pakistani zones of disputed
Kashmir, a move hailed as a boost for the peace process between the
nuclear-armed rivals.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 21, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh laid the foundation stone for an ambitious $4.2 billion metro
rail scheme to tackle traffic woes in the western economic centre of
Mumbai.
(AFP, 6/21/06)
2006 Jun 22, Environmental
activists warned that unregulated use of mercury in India is putting
millions of people at risk, and the country has now become the
world's second-largest user of the poisonous chemical.
(AP, 6/22/06)
2006 Jun 23, Indian border
guards killed four Bangladesh villagers in two separate shootings.
(AFP, 6/24/06)
2006 Jun 25, Arcelor, based in
Luxembourg, accepted Mittal Steel's 27-billion-euro ($34 billion)
partnership offer. The new group, would be owned 50.6% by Arcelor
shareholders and 49.4% by those of Mittal, of which 43% would be
controlled by the Mittal family of India.
(AP, 6/26/06)(Econ, 7/1/06, p.56)
2006 Jun 28, HSBC said police
had arrested an employee at an HSBC centre in Bangalore, India's
technology hub, for allegedly taking 230,000 pounds from the
accounts of 16 British account holders.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jun 30, PM Manmohan Singh
promised his government will do all it can to help farmers in
India's main cotton belt where crippling debts and falling prices
have pushed many to suicide.
(AFP, 6/30/06)
2006 Jun 30, At least eight
suspected Islamic militants trying to cross into India's portion of
disputed Kashmir from the Pakistani side were killed during a
gunbattle. Federal security forces shot dead music composer
Inayatullah Bhat (31) near his home in Srinagar. The next day at
least two dozen people were hurt as thousands of protesters hurled
bricks and stones in a violent demonstration over his killing.
(AP, 6/30/06)(AFP, 7/1/06)
2006 Jun, India’s government
press department reported that the number of civil and criminal
cases pending before courts has exceeded 30 million, up from 20
million in 1997.
(Econ, 7/1/06, p.40)
2006 Jul 1, India's PM Manmohan
Singh announced an 835-million-dollar relief package to aid farmers
in the country's main cotton belt where crippling debts and falling
prices have led to thousands of suicides. A court convicted three
men of involvement in a 2002 terrorist attack on a Hindu shrine in
western India that killed 33 people, and it sentenced them to death.
(AP, 7/1/06)(AFP, 7/1/06)
2006 Jul 3, In India's
Jammu-Kashmir state clashes between Indian government forces and
suspected Islamic separatist militants killed 13 people.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 5, In India heavy
rains kept schools and colleges shut for a third day and
meteorologists forecast more downpours in Bombay, as the nationwide
death toll rose to more than 250 since the monsoon began in June.
(AP, 7/5/06)
2006 Jul 6, China and India
reopened the 14,000-foot Nathu La pass, an ancient Silk Road pass
high in the Himalayas, more than 40 years after it was shut by war.
(AP, 7/6/06)
2006 Jul 8, In northern India
15 people were killed and eight injured when the bus they were
traveling in plunged into a gorge and fell into Bhagirathi river.
(AFP, 7/8/06)
2006 Jul 9, India test-fired
its nuclear-capable Agni III missile for the first time. The missile
plunged into the Bay of Bengal short of its target. 14 more people
were reported to have died in rain-related incidents in northern
India, taking the nationwide death toll since the beginning of the
monsoon season in May to 286. Supporters of Shiv Sena, a Hindu
fundamentalist party, went on a rampage in Mumbai protesting the
defacing of a statue of Meenatai, the wife of the movement’s
founder, Balasaheb Thackeray.
(AFP, 7/9/06)(AP, 7/10/06)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.39)
2006 Jul 11, In India 8
explosions hit Mumbai's commuter rail network during the evening
rush hour, killing over 200 people and wounding over 500. Police
said Lashkar-e-Taiba was responsible.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.39)(AP, 7/11/07)(WSJ, 12/8/08,
p.A6)
2006 Jul 14, India's PM Singh
said the Bombay train bombers were "supported by elements across the
border" and that Pakistan must rein in terrorists before a peace
process can move ahead.
(AP, 7/14/06)
2006 Jul 15, Police
investigating Bombay's deadly train bombings swept through several
neighborhoods, rounding up more than 300 people for questioning.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 17, In India some 500
suspected communist rebels attacked a government-run relief camp and
two police stations in eastern Chattisgarh state, killing at least
26 villagers. Four rebels also died.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2006 Jul 18, In India
Lashkar-e-Qahhar (Army of Terror), a little-known Islamic militant
group that claimed responsibility for the Bombay train bombings,
warned that it was planning attacks against government and historic
sites in India in an e-mail to an Indian television station. Indian
police called the e-mail a hoax.
(AP, 7/18/06)(AP, 7/19/06)
2006 Jul 18, In India several
telecom operators confirmed that they had blocked a number of Web
sites on orders from India’s Dept. of Telecommunications.
(WSJ, 7/19/06, p.A8)
2006 Jul 20, India arrested
three men in connection with last week's Mumbai bombings that killed
more than 180 men.
(Reuters, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 21, India urged
Pakistan to hand over a top Kashmiri militant as a gesture of its
determination to fight terrorism.
(Reuters, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 23, Police in India
raided a forest hideout for communist rebels in the southern state
of Andhra Pradesh state, killing Burra Chinnaiah, a guerrilla chief,
and at least 7 other people.
(AP, 7/23/06)
2006 Jul 24, A UN report on the
economic impact of HIV/AIDS in India estimated infections there,
currently over 5 million, could increase to 20-25 million by 2010.
(WSJ, 7/24/06, p.A6)
2006 Jul 25, Italian carmaker
Fiat Group and India's Tata Motors Ltd. announced they have signed
an agreement for a joint-venture in India to make passenger
vehicles, engines and transmissions for Indian and overseas markets.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2006 Jul 27, In India police
arrested two more men in connection with Bombay's deadly train
blasts, bringing to eight the number of people detained by
investigators since the explosions killed more than 200 people
earlier this month.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 29, A strike
protesting against a visit by India's president to Indian Kashmir
shut much of the region for a second day, while four soldiers were
reportedly hurt in a rebel attack.
(AFP, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul 30, In India at least
8 people died during heavy monsoon rains at the weekend and more
than 25,000 were evacuated in the western state of Gujarat.
(AFP, 7/30/06)
2006 Aug 1, In northern India a
school bus carrying about 50 children plunged into a canal, killing
at least six children.
(AP, 8/1/06)
2006 Aug 2, India banned
children under the age of 14 from working as domestic servants or at
hotels, tea shops, restaurants and resorts. The labor ministry said
the ban would come into effect from October 10.
(Reuters, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 3, In India federal
MPs demanded a nationwide ban on Pepsi and Coke after the
privately-funded Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said 11
drinks sold by the two US companies contained unacceptable doses of
pesticides.
(AFP, 8/4/06)
2006 Aug 4, In India floods
caused by heavy monsoon rains swept away people and destroyed homes
in the southern coastal area of Andhra Pradesh, killing at least 31
people over the last 2 days.
(AP, 8/4/06)
2006 Aug 6, In India a boat
capsized in a rain-swollen river near New Delhi, leaving 3 people
dead and 27 others missing as the nationwide death toll from the
monsoon rose to at least 359.
(AP, 8/6/06)
2006 Aug 8, Indian officials
said flooding caused by monsoon rains have killed 69 people in
western India in the past three days, and caused tens of thousands
to flee their homes.
(AP, 8/8/06)
2006 Aug 9, Kerala, a southern
Indian state, banned the sale and production of Coke, Pepsi, Sprite
and other soft drinks because of concerns over pesticide
contamination. Four Indian states, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya
Pradesh and Chattisgarh, have already imposed a ban on sale of Coke
and Pepsi at colleges, schools and government offices. Several other
states have said they are examining the issue.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, In India
authorities arrested Pritam Singh, a former army soldier and his
wife, for allegedly aborting female fetuses, several of which were
found dumped in a well behind an illegal clinic in Patran town,
Punjab.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 9, Swollen rivers
swamped thousands of villages and towns across India's south and
west, forcing 4.5 million from their homes as rescuers struggled to
bring them food and drinking water.
(Reuters, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 10, In India 2 more
states banned the sale of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo soft drinks at
government-run schools and colleges over allegations they contain
high levels of pesticides.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 16, In northeast India
a grenade exploded in a Hindu temple, killing at least four people
and leaving 40 others injured, mainly in a stampede that followed
the blast.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 18, The United
Liberation Front of Asom announced that it would stop attacking the
forces of the Indian government, which announced a unilateral
cease-fire Aug. 13. It was the first truce announced by the rebel
group since its formation in 1979.
(AP, 8/19/06)
2006 Aug 20, In India a
Canadian was arrested with illegal drugs worth five million dollars
in New Delhi in what was billed as a major effort to stop narcotics
being shipped to the West. About 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of
ephedrine, hashish and other illegal drugs were seized overnight
from Girdish Singh Toor while he was leading a convoy of vehicles.
(AFP, 8/20/06)
2006 Aug 22, In India police
killed a Pakistani and arrested another in a shootout that
authorities said foiled a terrorist attack in Mumbai, India's
financial capital.
(AP, 8/22/06)
2006 Aug 23, In western India
17 people were killed when a truck overturned and fell into a deep
ditch. Victims were sitting on top of sacks of salt that the truck
was transporting when it overturned into a ditch flooded from recent
monsoon rains.
(AP, 8/23/06)
2006 Aug 27, In western India a
water tank collapsed during a Bharatpur town fair, killing 45 people
who had climbed on top of it to watch a wrestling match.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Aug 28, In India officials
said monsoon rains and flooding have killed at least 130 people in
the western state of Rajasthan, with huge swathes of desert
underwater.
(AP, 8/28/06)
2006 Aug 31, In eastern India
at least 30 people drowned when a crowded boat capsized in the
rain-swollen Ganges River in the state of Bihar.
(AP, 8/31/06)
2006 Aug 31, Indian officials
said more than 11,000 Tamil refugees have fled to India since
January to escape renewed fighting between the Sri Lankan army and
separatist rebels and more are likely to come.
(AFP, 8/31/06)
2006 Aug 31, An internal
investigation concluded that a UN official steered millions of
dollars in contracts to a company owned by the government of his
native India in exchange for favors that included low-rent
apartments.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Aug, In India some 260
million people lived on less than one dollar a day. Nearly half the
country’s children under age six were undernourished and more than
half the women were illiterate. Half the homes in the country had no
electricity.
(Econ, 8/12/06, p.64)
2006 Sep 6, In eastern India 50
miners were killed after an explosion inside a state-owned coal mine
in Jharkhand state.
(AP, 9/7/06)(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 8, In western India 2
bombs rigged to bicycles struck in the crowded streets of the city
of Malegaon, Maharashtra state, as Muslim worshippers were returning
from afternoon prayers At least 37 people were killed and 100
wounded. 8 suspects later arrested for allegedly planting the bombs
were all members of the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or
SIMI. In 2011 seven of nine Muslim men, wrongfully arrested for the
blasts, were released on bail. Two of the men were not released
because of allegations they were involved in a separate series of
explosions on suburban Mumbai trains that also occurred in 2006.
(AP, 9/8/06)(AP, 11/27/06)(SFC, 11/28/08,
p.A6)(AP, 11/16/11)
2006 Sep 13, The presidents of
Brazil and South Africa, at a trilateral trade meeting in Brasilia,
said they supported changes in international rules to allow India to
buy nuclear fuel and reactors from the United States and other
countries. The trio created the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue
Forum (IBSA) in 2003 to promote the interests of their emerging
markets.
(Reuters, 9/13/06)(AFP, 9/14/06)
2006 Sep 14, An Indian federal
minister proposed a 1,000 US dollar incentive to encourage people to
break centuries-old taboos and marry across caste boundaries.
(AFP, 9/14/06)
2006 Sep 16, Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf and Indian PM Manmohan Singh held
"historic" talks on the disputed Kashmir region, on the sidelines of
a developing-world summit in Havana. They also agreed to restart
peace talks suspended since train bombings killed more than 200
people in Mumbai in July.
(AFP, 9/16/06)(AP, 9/16/06)
2006 Sep 19, In India at least
two people were killed and more than 100 detained during violent
protests against a court-ordered crackdown on illegal shops in New
Delhi. At least 20 people were killed in coastal villages in eastern
India after a major storm swept in to the Bay of Bengal and
destroyed hundreds of mud huts.
(AFP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 21, The death toll in
Bangladesh and India rose to at least 95 and nearly 1,000 remained
missing after storms capsized boats, toppled houses and washed away
roads.
(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 22, India’s High Court
overturned a ban on the production and sale of Coca-Cola and Pepsi
soft drinks in the southern Indian state of Kerala, but state
officials said they would seek ways to challenge the decision.
(AP, 9/22/06)
2006 Sep 23, In Indian Kashmir
suspected militants shot dead a man and a woman near Srinagar. A
border guard hurt in a bomb explosion died the next day.
(AFP, 9/24/06)
2006 Sep 23, Indian security
officials in the western desert state of Rajasthan shot dead three
suspected militants who were trying to cross over from Pakistan.
(AP, 9/24/06)
2006 Sep 24, India's federal
government called off a six-week truce with separatist rebels in
Assam and ordered the resumption of military operations in the
northeastern state.
(AP, 9/24/06)
2006 Sep 24, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, attackers stabbed to death Nitesh Kumar Singh, an Indian
medical student, in the latest in a series of hate crimes there.
(AP, 9/25/06)
2006 Sep 29, A senior official
said Indian authorities plan to nearly double the number of
treatment centers providing free drugs and medical care to people
battling HIV/AIDS.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Sep 29, In central India,
higher cast villagers of Khairlanji attacked and brutally killed the
wife of Bhaiyalal Bhotmanje, a low cast Dalit, along with his 2 sons
(19 & 21) and daughter (17). Bhotmanje had left his ancestral
occupation of handling cow carcasses and successfully set up a small
farm causing envy among neighbors. He escaped the attack thinking
his family would not be bothered. Dalit neighborhoods soon exploded
across Maharashtra state as protesters set vehicles and store fronts
on fire.
(WSJ, 12/27/07, p.A1)
2006 Sep 30, India’s PM
Manmohan Singh arrived in South Africa to expand trade links and
commemorate the passive resistance movement initiated by Mahatma
Gandhi in the African nation 100 years ago.
(AP, 9/30/06)
2006 Sep 30, A.N. Roy, Mumbai's
police chief, said his team had cracked the July 11 bombing case and
found solid evidence as that “the whole attack was planned by
Pakistan's ISI and carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba and their
operatives in India." ISI or the Inter-Services Intelligence agency
is Pakistan's military spy agency while Lashkar is a frontline
Islamist group fighting against Indian rule in the disputed region
of Kashmir. Pakistan and Lashkar rejected the allegations.
(Reuters, 9/30/06)
2006 Oct 1, India said it will
give Islamabad evidence that Pakistan's spy agency planned the
Mumbai train bombings in July which killed more than 200 people.
(AP, 10/1/06)
2006 Oct 2, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh and South African President Thabo Mbeki signed a sweeping pact
to buttress ties between the regional powerhouses. The Pretoria
agreement was followed by the signing of a pact on cooperation in
education and another between Indian Railways which runs one of the
world's biggest networks and South African railway company Spoornet.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 7, India's army killed
five militants as they tried to sneak into the Indian portion of
Kashmir from Pakistan. Two soldiers were also killed in the
gunbattle. The head of a man from Gund Brath village, abducted the
previous day, was found on a road in nearby Sopore town. The body
was recovered in a different part of the town. A note tied to the
man's head that said he was beheaded because he allegedly worked as
an informer for Indian security forces.
(AP, 10/8/06)
2006 Oct 9, In India Jaya
Jaitley, the president of the opposition Samata (Equality) Party,
was charged with taking a "hefty" kickback in 2000 as part of a
multi-million-dollar defense contract with a state-run Israeli
company.
(AFP, 10/10/06)
2006 Oct 9,
Kanshi Ram (b.1934), founder of India’s Bahujan Samaj Party (1984),
died. The party was founded promote the interests of India’s low
caste Hindus, also known as dalits, or untouchables.
(SFC, 10/10/06, p.B7)
2006 Oct 10, India's Central
Bureau of Investigations (CBI) raided the homes and offices of
defense agents in five cities in connection with four separate cases
of alleged illegal payoffs involving Israel, Russia and South
Africa.
(AFP, 10/10/06)
2006 Oct 10, India’s Supreme
Court ordered wildlife authorities in New Delhi to catch hundreds of
Rhesus macaque monkeys and relocated them thousands of miles away in
the jungles of Madhya Pradesh state.
(SFC, 10/12/06, p.A2)
2006 Oct 10, Britain’s Man
Booker Prize was won by Indian writer Kiran Desai (35) for “The
Inheritance of Loss,” a cross-continental saga that moves from the
Himalayas to NYC.
(SFC, 10/11/06, p.A16)
2006 Oct 11, India’s PM
Manmohan Singh received an honorary law doctorate from the elite
University of Cambridge. The doctorate was conferred on him by
Prince Philip.
(AFP, 10/11/06)
2006 Oct 13, EU and Indian
leaders agreed to boost cooperation in fighting terrorism,
particularly by focusing on improving the flow of intelligence.
(AP, 10/13/06)
2006 Oct 14, Thousands of
low-caste Hindus converted to Buddhism and Christianity on in
protest against new laws in several Indian states that make such
changes of religion difficult.
(Reuters, 10/14/06)
2006 Oct 20, Corus, an
Anglo-Dutch steel-maker, accepted an $8.1 billion buyout bid from
Tata Steel, a smaller Indian firm.
(Econ, 10/28/06, p.74)
2006 Oct 25, In India a crowded
bus veered off a steep mountain road and plunged into the Teesta
River, killing at least 25 people in the northeastern state of
Sikkim.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 26, In India men who
beat, threaten or yell at their wives or live-in girlfriends could
be jailed and fined under a law that took effect. It specifically
targeted the often-tolerated problem of domestic violence.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 31, India's central
bank warned of overheating and juggled interest rates in a mid-term
policy review aimed at keeping prices in check. In southern India a
passenger train crashed into an auto-rickshaw at an unmanned rail
crossing, killing all 18 people in the rickshaw.
(AFP, 10/31/06)(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Oct, In India AT&T
became the first foreign telecom to win a license to operate freely.
This followed a cut in fees and a legal change that allowed foreign
firms to own up to 74% of their Indian subsidiaries.
(Econ, 12/9/06, p.68)
2006 Nov 1, Bangalore, India,
changed its name to Bengaluru, the same as its name in Kannada, the
local language. Bangalore, according to state historians, got its
name from Bendakalooru (the town of boiled beans) after a king
strayed into the area during a hunting trip in the late 14th
century.
(SFC, 11/2/06, p.C1)(AFP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 2, India's army chief
has ordered an investigation into a string of recent incidents of
soldiers fatally shooting their colleagues in India's
insurgency-wracked portion of Kashmir. There have been at least four
cases over the past 10 days of distraught soldiers in Kashmir
shooting colleagues to death, then committing suicide.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 3, In New Delhi,
India, the Bush administration won international approval for US
farmers to use some 5,900 tons of methyl bromide to kill soil pests
in 2008. In 2004 the ozone destroying pesticide was banned by
treaty, except for uses deemed critical.
(SFC, 11/4/06, p.A3)
2006 Nov 5, In northeast India
8-10 people were killed and 20 wounded when two powerful bombs
exploded in Gauhati, the capital of Assam state. Police had killed 3
United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) leaders on Nov 3, and it
looked like a retaliatory strike.
(AP, 11/5/06)
2006 Nov 11, Tyler Walker
Williams, a US citizen and a student of India's national language
Hindi, became the first foreigner to win a student election at
India's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University after mounting a
campaign critical of US foreign policy.
(AP, 11/11/06)
2006 Nov 14, Nuclear-armed
India and Pakistan resumed peace talks with alleged
Pakistan-sponsored terrorism high on the agenda as a car bomb
exploded in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, injuring 16 people.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2006 Nov 14, China’s ambassador
to India set off a flap by reaffirming claim to India’s northeastern
Arunachal Pradesh state on the eve of President Hu Jintao’s visit to
new Delhi.
(WSJ, 11/15/06, p.A1)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.43)
2006 Nov 15, Pakistan's foreign
secretary said India and Pakistan have agreed on measures to combat
terrorism and prevent an accidental nuclear conflict in South Asia
at the first peace talks since a terrorist attack on Mumbai's train
network in July.
(AP, 11/15/06)
2006 Nov 15, China said that it
and India must make "mutual compromises" on the "disputed" issue of
Arunachal Pradesh, and that it was ready to do so.
(www.hindu.com/2006/11/16/stories/2006111605831200.htm)
2006 Nov 19, India successfully
test-fired a medium-range nuclear-capable missile, days after its
rival Pakistan launched a similar missile.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2006 Nov 20, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao arrived in New Delhi for the second visit by a Chinese
president.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 20, In eastern India
an explosion ripped through two cars of a passenger train, killing
at least 8 people and injuring about 60 people.
(AP, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 22, In India a fire
engulfed a locked leather factory in Calcutta, killing at least nine
people who had been trapped inside.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Nov 23, In northeast India
a bomb exploded near a train station, killing two people and
injuring 10 in Gauhati, the capital of Assam state.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 23, In India a Tibetan
activist protesting against Chinese rule in the Himalayan region set
himself on fire outside a hotel where China's president was staying.
An official later said the activist was not seriously injured.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 27, India carried out
its first successful test interception of a ballistic missile, using
a second missile to destroy the incoming rocket.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2006 Nov 29, In India at least
3 people died and dozens were hurt as low-caste Hindus rioted in the
western Indian state of Maharashtra over the vandalism of a statue
of their late leader, B.R. Ambedkar.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Nov 30, Police in India
filed charges against 28 suspects over the Mumbai train blasts in
July that killed 185 people, and alleged the attacks were linked to
Pakistan's spy agency and militant groups. India’s parliament tabled
the Sachar report, which investigated the condition of India’s
Muslims.
(AFP, 11/30/06)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.48)
2006 Nov 30, Indian troops shot
dead four Islamic militants in revolt-hit Kashmir, including a
commander (Ali Baba alias Abu Hufeza) believed to have been involved
in last year's bombings in New Delhi.
(AFP, 12/1/06)
2006 Nov, In India consumer
price inflation rose to almost 7% this year. Finance minister
Palaniappan Chidambaram said the economy will continue to grow by
more than 8% in the next few years.
(Econ, 11/25/06, p.73)
2006 Dec 2, In eastern India at
least 14 soldiers died when a landmine planted by suspected Maoist
guerrillas exploded near the steel-producing town of Bokaro,
Jharkhand state. A colonial-era footbridge collapsed onto railroad
tracks in eastern India, burying a train beneath tons of red rock
and killing at least 34 passengers.
(AFP, 12/2/06)(AP, 12/3/06)
2006 Dec 4, Police in eastern
India were alerted that a container, packed with radioactive
material, had been stolen from a fortified research facility,
prompting a major hunt and fears of contamination. It carried
uranium and radiation and could have an adverse effect in an area of
1.5 kilometers (0.93 mile).
(AFP, 12/23/06)
2006 Dec 5, An Indian court
sentenced Shibu Soren, former cabinet coal minister, to life behind
bars for conspiracy in the abduction and murder of an aide. The
court had found him guilty of the 1994 murder and abduction of his
former private secretary, Shashi Nath Jha, who was allegedly
blackmailing him over a corruption scandal.
(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 5, Pakistan President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf said he is willing to give up its claim to all
of Kashmir if India agrees that the disputed Himalayan region should
become self-governing and largely autonomous. Troops shot dead three
Islamic militants in Indian Kashmir, while 19 civilians were injured
and a guerrilla was killed in a grenade blast.
(AP, 12/5/06)(AFP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 6, Cisco CEO John
Chambers Network said equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. will set up
a center in India to support all aspects of its worldwide
operations.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 9, The US Congress
gave its final approval to landmark legislation allowing export of
civilian nuclear fuel and technology to India for the first time in
30 years. Congress also gave final approval to open 8.3 million
acres of federal waters west of Florida to oil and gas drilling.
(AFP, 12/9/06)(SFC, 12/9/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 11, The Hague-based
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it
has granted the US and Russia a five-year extension to the 2007
deadline for destroying their chemical weapon stockpiles. The
Chemicals Weapons Convention which went into effect in April 1997.
Extensions were also granted to India and Libya as well as one
country that requested anonymity.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 13, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh started a visit to Japan to seek support from the major
civilian atomic power for the controversial US-India nuclear
cooperation pact.
(AP, 12/13/06)
2006 Dec 14, In India a
government minister said ten million girls have been killed by their
parents in India in the past 20 years, either before they were born
or immediately after. A recent UNICEF report said 7,000 fewer girls
are born each day than population models would indicate due to
sex-selected abortions and infanticides.
(Reuters, 12/14/06)(WSJ, 12/15/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 16, Indian health
officials said nearly 30 children have died this month of
mosquito-borne encephalitis in northern India, taking the toll since
July to 401.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 17, Indian officials
said a killer elephant, named after Osama bin Laden by fearful
villagers, was killed by sharpshooters. The animal was blamed for 14
deaths in the northeastern state of Assam.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 18, Manu Sharma, the
son of a wealthy Indian politician, was convicted of murder in the
shooting death of a waitress who refused to serve him a drink, a
case that tested the Indian judiciary's willingness to take on the
powerful elite.
(AP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 18, Pres. Bush signed
H.R. 5682, the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic
Energy Cooperation Act of 2006 (Hyde Act), to let the US share its
nuclear know-how and fuel with India, which continued to refuse to
sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It exempted from certain
requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 a proposed nuclear
agreement for cooperation with India. Robert Gates took the oath as
Pentagon chief.
(www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5682)(SFC, 12/19/06,
p.A16)(WSJ, 12/19/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 19, Tens of thousands
of Indian tribal people, many carrying bows and arrows, gathered in
the impoverished central state of Chhattisgarh to protest against
Maoist rebel violence. Millions of poor tribal people living in
India's remote forests for generations will receive ownership rights
under a new bill approved by Parliament.
(AP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 21, Officials said
Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steelmaker, has signed a $8.7
billion project with the Orissa government to build a steel plant in
the eastern Indian state.
(AP, 12/21/06)
2006 Dec 22, India and Pakistan
started a two-day swap of detained illegal fishermen and immigrants
including children as part of attempts to improve ties between the
nuclear rivals.
(AFP, 12/22/06)
2006 Dec 24, In eastern India a
wild elephant looking for food killed three people and injured 10 in
a forest range in West Bengal state.
(AP, 12/24/06)
2006 Dec 27, A new report said
a third of India’s rural population, or more than 200 million
people, still live on 12 rupees (26 cents) a day or less.
(AFP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 29, In India the
decomposing bodies of several children were found buried behind a
house east of New Delhi. The Noida police said Mohinder Singh
Pandher, the businessman who owned the house, and his servant,
referred to only as Satish, confessed to sexually assaulting and
killing at least 15 impoverished children and women during the past
two years. On Feb 12, 2009, an Indian court sentenced businessman
Moninder Singh Pandher and his servant Surinder Koli to death Friday
for the murder of a young girl one of 19 victims in a case that has
shocked the country.
(AP, 12/29/06)(AP, 12/30/06)(AFP, 2/13/09)
2006 Mihir Bose authored
“Bollywood: A History.”
(Econ, 12/2/06, p.87)
2006 Steve Hamm authored
“Bangalore Tiger: How Indian Tech Upstart WIPRO is Rewriting the
Rules of Global Competition.”
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.80)
2006 Edward Luce authored “In
Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India.”
(Econ, 8/26/06, p.67)
2006 In India the first Jaipur
Literature Festival was held.
(http://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/about-us/the-festival)
2006 In India Sampat Pal (44)
formed the Pink Gang with a handful of women in northern Uttar
Pradesh state to forcefully address abuse, local injustice and
corruption. By 2009 thousands of women had joined the group and
trained themselves to wield bamboo batons.
(SSFC, 6/14/09, p.A6)
2006 Ranbaxy and Dr. Reddy,
Indian generic drug makers, expanded their efforts to create
proprietary drugs. Dr. Reddy hoped to market a diabetes medicine by
2010.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.58)
2006 India’s population was
around 1.1 billion.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.13)
2006 India state of Uttar
Pradesh, with some 170 million people, included 8% of the world’s
poor. If it were a separate country it would be the 6th most
populous in the world.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.13)
2006 The population of India’s
Karnataka state was around 52.73 million.
(WSJ, 9/20/06, p.A4)
2006 India allotted the 2.5
million people of Manipur state $260 million for development.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.50)
2006 It was later estimated
that some 17,000 farmers killed themselves in India this year due to
rising debts and failing crops.
(Econ, 3/8/08, p.48)
2006 Foreign ministers of
Brazil, Russia, India and China began annual meeting as a group. In
2001 Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym BRIC to
describe these 4 developing countries.
(Econ, 4/17/10,
p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC)
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2007
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