10 Important Events that we missed in our 1000th Post

--By Sagar Satapathy, Editor-in-Chief

We are surprised to see the overwhelming response to our 1000th post, "25 Most Significant Events in India (Post-Independence)". While most readers showered praise on the list, some readers pointed us towards the missing events that should have been there. There were a few who did not agree to some of the listings. We value our readers' opinion. Keeping our readers' feedbacks in mind, we have come up with another list of 10 important events that we missed in our 1000th article. Here you go:

1) Anti-Hindi Movement - 1960s

The Anti-Hindi movement in Tamil Nadu in the 1960s, divided the people in South and North. The sentiment is still there. It was a language conflict, but almost threatened to divide the nation. The agitation that began by Periyar in 1937-38, took a dangerous shape on January 26, 1965, when the anti-Hindi DMK declared the Republic Day as a day of Mourning in the South. The agitators were protesting Indian Government's attempts to establish Hindi as the sole Official language of India. Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C N Annadurai led the anti-Hindi movement in the 1960s.

To some extent, their agitation was justified. India always takes pride in unity in diversity. Every state or region has its own culture and language. But when it comes to national unity, they always show solidarity with each other. Imposition of Hindi as the official language was not the right step for the growth and unity of the country.

The agitation and anti-Hindi movement continued till 1965 and finally, there was a consensus. India ended up having 15 "Official Languages" and no sole "National Language". While English and Hindi remained two official languages of the Union, all states were allowed to have their own official language. As a result, many states have adopted their regional language and English as the official languages. Ironically, English was the major beneficiary in this conflict.

2) Nationalisation of Banks - 1969

Banking is integral part of India's monetary policy and without it Indian Economy won't be able to survive even for a day. The banking sector reforms in India began in 1949 with the enactment of the Banking Regulation Act. In 1955, India's largest bank, State Bank of India was nationalised. The subsidiaries of the SBI were nationalised in 1959. However, it was in 1969, the banking sector witnessed a great surge.

Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi brought drastical reforms in the banking sector, by nationalising 14 banks on July 19, 1969. These banks were mostly owned and managed by businessmen. In the year 1980, seven more banks were nationalised.

3) Introduction of Electronic Voting Machines - 1998

Elections in India have been largely controversial, because of the use of ballot papers. While miscreants used to snatch ballot papers and vote for their own candidates, some corrupt officials found rigging the elections in ruling party's favour. However, 1998 witnessed a revolution in Electoral Reforms. For the first time in India, Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were used in some state elections.

The EVM consists of two units that are interlinked. The first one is a ballot unit which a voter uses to cast his vote, and the other is a control unit used by the polling officials. This unique system reduced the chances of rigging and tampering. Although there are still some concerns over the reliability of these machines, it has been a huge success, which streamlined the voting and counting process to a great extent. Earlier, the counting process used to take 24 - 72 hours. However, now we get the complete result in a few hours. In the 2004 Elections, EVMs were used all over the country.

4) Amrtya Sen receiving Nobel Prize - 1999

After Rabindra Nath Tagore and C V Raman, Amrtya Sen was the only Indian citizen to receive a Nobel Prize. Although people of Indian origin, Hargobind Khorana, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Amartya Sen and V S Naipul won nobel prizes, they had accepted foreign citizenships before receiving the coveted award.

Indian citizen Mother Teresa and resident citizen Dalai Lama too received the Nobel Prize, but they were of foreign origin. Here, we do not belittle the contribution of Mother Teresa to Indian society. She was the saviour of poor and downtrodden and we salute her. Although Amrtya Sen holds a dual citizenship, he is the only Indian-born citizen to win the Nobel Prize post-independence. Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1999.

5) Kandahar Hijack (IC-814) - 1999

The hijacking of Indian Airlines IC-814 flight was an unfortunate incident that every Indian wants to forget. The flight, which was coming from Kathmandu to Delhi, was hijacked by five dreaded terrorists on December 24, 1999 within Indian airspace. After a brief stay at Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai, the hijackers took the plane to Kandahar. The Taliban government refused to allow any commando operation to resuce the hostages, with their tacit support to the hijackers. The hijackers had stabbed 25-year old Rupen Katyal, who later succumbed to his injuries. Rupen who was traveling with his newly-wed wife, allegedly resisted the hijackers.

The hijacking was carried out by the hijackers with the support of Taliban and Al Qaeda. The Taliban encircled the plane with tanks and heavily armed guards to stop any forcible storming by Indian Special Forces. The Indian government tried to delay the negotiation process in a bid to frustrate the hijackers (it has been a global strategy). But media outcry and the relatives of the hostages, made things difficult for the government.

After eight days of hijack of the plane, then Indian Foregin Minister Jaswant Singh went to Kandahar to hand over the dreaded criminals Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to the hijackers to seek the release of the hostages.

It was a dark chapter in Indian history, as the entire episode further boosted the confidence of the militants. One of the hijackers was allegedly killed while taking part in the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. The released terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar later formed Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has been highly active in terror activities in India. The nation is still paying a price for that nightmarish episode.

6) Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam as President of India - 2002

Dr. Abul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam or popularly known as Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam was the first non-political President of India. He assumed charge on July 25, 2002. During his tenure at the office, he opened the President House to public. As the pioneer of India's nuclear programme, Kalam had received highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna in 1997.

Dr. Kalam was a hero of the masses. He worked a lot for the growth and development of children. Dr. Kalam was referred as the People's President, who always received support from the public, but failed to win the trust of our corrupt politicians. When the entire nation favored a second term for Dr. Kalam, the political parties turned against him and refused to elect him for one more time.

7) Low Airfare Flights launched by Air Deccan - 2003

India's private airline carrier, Air Deccan created history, when it launched the lowest airfare flights in the country. Air Deccan started a revolution in airline industry and fulfilled the dreams of millions of Indians. "We will be the Udupi hotels of the airline business," declared Captain Gopinath, founder promoter and CEO of the Air Deccan, on the eve of the launch of the low airfare flights on August 23, 2003. Since then, there was no looking back for his airlines.

Today, Air Deccan covers almost all important small and big cities in India. Cost of a ticket is not more than an IInd Class AC train fare, which is really amazing. Many other airlines such as Indigo and SpiceJet have followed suit and now offer cheap flight tickets. The competition between the airlines has benefited the passengers to a great extent. Traveling by Air no longer remains a dream for the middle class people in the country.

8) Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore winning Olympics Silver Medal - 2004

A medal in Olympics still remains a dream for most Indian Athletes. India had won 8 golds, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals in Olympics men's hockey between 1928 and 1980. However, individuals had less success when it comes to win an Olympic medal. After Independence, India managed to win only three bronze medals in Olympic Games - K D Jadhav (1952), Leander Paes (1996) and Karnam Malleswari (2000). India's moment of glory came, when at the 2004 Athens Olympics, India's Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore created history by winning India's first individual silver medal. He achieved this milestone at the Men's Double Trap Shooting event.

Rathore is currently employed with the Indian Army. He received the Arjuna Award and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna for his spectacular performance. In addition, he received Padma Shri and the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM).

9) Infosys enters NASDAQ 100 - 2006

India's premier IT Company Infosys Technologies, created history by becoming the first Indian company to enter the elite group of Nasdaq 100. Some people may term it as individual company achievement. But in the era of globalization and economic reforms, it was a historic achievement for Indian Industry. Infosys set a good precedent for other Indian companies.

10) Launch of Tata Nano - 2008

The launch of Tata's Rs. 1 lakh car - Tata Nano is one of the most significant events in India. During a glittering function at Pragati Maidan on January 10, 2008, Ratan Tata unveiled the Rs. 1 lakh (US$ 2,500) Tata Nano. The car, touted as the world's cheapest car, will be available in Indian market in mid-October. Tata Nano will target the middle class people in India who can't afford the higher cost cars that start from the range of $5000.

We will soon come up with another list that will feature the top ten revolutionary movements in India (Post-Independence).