State leaders | Age of satraps
If the centre cannot hold, things fall apart—goes the line. But the colossal figures who rose across the Indian map were a sign of a rainbow nation, a democracy speaking many languages
Sports | The one and the many
India began clocking international wins in individual sports like never before: shooters, weight-lifters and tennis players led the charge
Trends | Out with the old, in with the internet
In this decade of technology, sex, war and unbridled capitalism, India was caught up in a whirl of change and yet managed to preserve the past
The disasters | The earth trembled
Tsunami. Supercyclone. Monster quake. Coastal India was the worst hit in a series of natural disasters that exacted a devastating toll from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. The only positive: governments learnt to hone their emergency response systems
Cricket | True grit
The golden team forged under Ganguly’s captaincy fought opponents on green pitches, and fought them on dusty bowls. Unlike past greats, it never surrendered easily
Entertainment | Hit, hit hurray
In-flight entertainment? Yes, all of a sudden in the mid-’90s, Indian pop culture was all global in look, feel, conception and theme, Bollywood took an outbound flight. And Bhangra was blaring on the world’s public address systems
The oddballs | Big bizarre
It was not only the miracles of technology that touched India. As unpoliced as the internet, human minds were increasingly seduced by the paranormal—Ganesha drinking milk, prehominids stalking Delhi...
Technology | Hello, future
Once that first mobile call was made—and the enter button pressed on the first internet search—there was no looking back for India
Security | The wrath yatra
The decade of progress was greyed by smoke and ash from riots, blasts and suicide attacks—a dark undertow that reminded India its inner demons had yet to be tamed
Global eye | Tremors far afield
The old order changed, terror came home to roost, and no one was safe anymore, not even Uncle Sam
Security | Illusion of peace
A warlike general turned into a surprise peddler of solutions to history’s problems. India, too, had a gifted pacifist in Vajpayee. But it was too fraught a time for even the boldest entrepreneurs of peace
Security | A war to end the century
As the leaders sued for peace in Lahore, the Pak army was playing saboteur. The battle to reclaim the high ground on the Kargil road needed howitzers, tactical chutzpah and plenty of fallen heroes
Security | The nuke shield
Pokhran-II announced India as a nuclear weapons state. It did bring in some recriminations and sanctions, but India shrugged it off. It was now a bona fide member of the nuclear club
The kingmaker | Game of thrones
Sitaram Kesri, backroom badshah and emblem of power without responsibility, was just a device. Through his caprices, a federal polity was being birthed
Coalition era | Fragments of a vision
Rao, Gowda, Gujral, three times Vajpayee, and then Manmohan. In an era of fragile coalitions, India found a new synthesis in Vajpayee
A pulsating panorama
The 1995-2005 decade was perhaps politically the most complex since Independence. We kept our lens razor-sharp through the reign of five prime ministers as single-party dominance gave way to coalition compulsions
1995-2005 | The great churn
The seeming chaos and fragmentation in the polity in the 1995-2005 decade turned out a creative burst from which emerged future patterns.
