INDIA SINCE

INDIA SINCE


1961
• Goa is liberated from Portuguese rule (19 December). This follows an
arms build-up in Goa by the Portuguese and mass arrests of those
demanding its merger with India. The last provocation is an attack by
Portuguese soldiers on an Indian village. Major General J.P. Candeth
is appointed Military Governor of Goa after the takeover. Daman and
Diu also surrender the same night.
• Goa Operations end thirty-six hours after the troops of the 17th
Indian Division begin moving into Goa. At 6 a.m. the Portuguese
garrison in Panjim, the capital of Goa, surrenders and the garrisons
at Daman and Diu follow suit a few hours later. Major General Kenneth
Candeth, commander of the Indian troops takes charge as military
Governor. Indian armed forces lose eight men in the Goa Operations.
Four of these are sailors who landed on Anjadev island to find that
the white flag shown by the Portuguese was a ruse.
• India participates in the first Non-Aligned summit at Belgrade
chaired by President Tito of Yugoslavia. Twenty-five nations
participate.
• Queen Elizabeth of the united Kingdom visits India (21 January).
• The Constitution (10th Amendment) Act incorporates the Portuguese
enclave of Dadra and Nagar Haveli as a Union territory.
• The Dowry Prohibition Act or the Anti-Dowry Act is passed. (It is
amended in 1984 and 1986).
• Indian Navy's first aircraft carrier, INS vikrant, in commissioned
in Belfast (4 March).
• The Indian Air Force participates in the United Nation action in
Congo, the such operation supported by the Air Force.
• Captain Gurbachan Singh Salaria, Gorkha Rifles, is awarded the Param
Vir Chakra (posthumous) for gallantry in Congo (December).
• The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, is established by the
Government of India in collaboration with the British government under
the name College of Engineering and Technology. (See 1963)
• R.K. Narayan's The Guide becomes the first work of fiction in
English to win the Sahity Akademi Award. His The Man Eater of Malgudi
is also published this year.
• Thakurbadi, Tagore's ancestral house at jorasanko, is made into an
art museum, founded by Rabindra Bharati University.
1962
• Prime Minister Neharu contested Lok Sabha elections from the Phulpur
constituency in both 1962 and 1957. In 1952 he had contested from
Allahabad. In 1962, Nehru defeated the socialist leader Dr Ram Manohar
Lohia by 80,000 votes.
• Violet Alva becomes deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, The first
woman presiding officer in any chamber of Parliament.
• Chinese troops violate the MacMahon line (8 September) and launch an
attack on Indian territory (20 October). They acquire Towang (25
October), Walong in the Lohit division, Jang in NEFA (16 November) and
Bomdila (18 November), before declaring a unilateral ceasefire on 22
November. The President declares a state of Emergency in the country
(26 October) and Prime Minister Krishna Menon resigns (7 November).
Y.C. Chavan is later sworn in as Union defence minister (21 November).
• The Constitution (12th Amendment) Act incorporates Goa, Daman and
Diu as part of the Indian Union.
• The Birla Planetarium, Calcutta, the second largest planetarium in
the world, is built.
• Hindustan Antibiotics Limited becomes the first company in the
country to manufacture streptomycin.
• American architect Louis Kahn is invited to design the Indian
Institute of Management building at Ahmedabad.
• Mother Teresa of the Missionaries of Charity of Calcutta gets the
1962 Ramon Magsaysay award for the promotion of international
understanding (5 August).
1963
• Kamraj Plan: The Congress Working Committee unanimously approved of
a proposal by the chief minister of Madras, K. Kammraj, stating that
'Senior congressmen who are in government should voluntarily
relinquish their ministerial posts and offer themselves for full-time
organizational work.' (10 August). The resolution resulted in many
chief ministers and Central ministers spontaneously giving in their
resignations and offering themselves to shoulder responsibilities of
the regarding these offers of resignations. The 'party before post'
idea resulted in the approval of resignations of six chief ministers
and six Central Cabinet ministers. These were Morarji Desai, Jagjivan
Ram, Lal Bahadur Shastre, S. K. Patil, B. Gopala Reddi and D. L.
Shrimali from the Cabinet, The chief ministers who vacated posts were
K. Kamraj (Madras), B. Patnaik (Orissa), Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed (Jammu
and kashmir), Binodanand jha (Bihar), C.B. Gupta (Uttar Pradesh) and
B.R. Mandloi (Madhya Pradesh).
1964
• Communist Party of India splits into CPI and CPI (M) (11 April).
• The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is set up.
• The finance minister inaugurates the Unit Trust of India (1 July),
hailing it as one of the important devices that will usher socialism
in the country.
• India wins the hockey gold at Tokyo Olympics (23 October). The
legendary Udham Singh plays in his fourth Olympic games and claims his
fourth Olympic medal―the highest by any Indian. Gurbachan Singh
Randhawa qualifies for the 110m hurdles and sets a timing which is
stll an Indian record. He finishes fifth.
1965
• Balwantrai Mehta, chief minister of Gujarat, dies in a plane mishap
(19 September). It is reported y the prime minister that the plane is
shot down by Pakistani forces. Hitendra Desai is sworn in as caretaker
chief minister (20 September).
• General Thimayya dies in Cyprus while commanding the UN Peace
Keeping Force (18 December).
• Kandla port is inaugurated as a free trade zone (7 March).
1966
• A three-man commission, headed by Justice. J.C. Shah of the Supreme
Court, is appointed to demarcate the boundaries of the new states in
the Punjab region (April). The Boundary Commission submits its report
on 31 May. Punjab is divided into Punjab, Haryana and Himachal
Pradesh. Chandigarh is both a Union territory and the joint capital of
Punjab and Haryana.
• Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ayub Khan sing Tashkent Accord between India
and Pakistan for the peaceful settlement of relations between the two
nations after the 1965 war (10 January).
• Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares open the 10,004-feet-long son
Bridge (Asia's longest), named Jawahar Setu (5 February).
• H. J. Bhabha, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, dies in an
Air-India plane crash on Mont Blanc, near Geneva (24 January).
• Reita Faria of Bombay is crowned Miss World (18 November).
1967
• The Constitution (21st Amendment) Act includes Sindhi language in
the Eighth Schedule of the constitution.
1968
• Indian-born Dr Hargobind Khorana shares the Nobel Prize for
physiology and medicine for his work on interpreting the genetic code
and its function in protein synthesis (16 October).
1969
• Madras state is officially renamed Tamil Nadu (14 January) to
coincide with Pongal, the harvest festival.
• The first superfast train, the New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani, averaging
130 kilometres an hour, is introduced.
• The first Rajdhani Express between Delhi and Howrah is introduced.