In 1991, when PM PV Narasimha Rao named Sharad Pawar the Defence Minister after Congress's election victory, it was Ajit Pawar, a first-time MP, who gave up his Baramati Lok Sabha seat. The move allowed his uncle to contest from Baramati, enter Parliament and continue in the Union Cabinet. But a swap deal was involved too.
After choosing armed struggle over a Gandhian non-violent path, one of India's greatest sons, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, left the country forever in January 1941. Executing a detailed plan, Netaji boarded the Kalka Mail, which is India's oldest express train and would soon complete 160 years.
Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime is facing scrutiny for widespread human rights violations amid weeks-long protests. Thousands have been killed and tens of thousands have been jailed. But it is the same land that gave the world the first charter of human rights around 2,500 years ago. Here's all about the conqueror, Cyrus the Great, who freed slaves, and his Cyrus Cylinder.
Former BCCI president and then ICC chief Jagmohan Dalmiya played a decisive role in Bangladesh becoming the 10th nation to gain Test status through a unanimous vote in June 2000. India strongly backed Bangladesh's case, and that support proved crucial.
The INSV Kaundinya, a sail ship made of stitched wooden planks, is sailing the ancient maritime route from India to Oman. It is named after a Brahmin sailor from Kalinga whose journey in 1st century CE reshaped history. Kaundinya crossed the seas, fought pirates, won a princess's heart and became a part of the founding of Funan, Southeast Asia's earliest known Indianised kingdom.
Some within the NDA flirted with the idea of moving beyond Atal Bihari Vajpayee and running a government without him after he lost the no-confidence motion in 1999. However, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and the MDMK's Vaiko made it clear there would be no NDA without Vajpayee at the helm, recalls the ex-PM's media advisor Ashok Tandon.
The Bondi Beach shooters visited the Philippines to get military-style training from Islamic terrorists, suspect Australian investigators. But how did Islamic terror hubs emerge in the Philippines, a Christian-majority country? From the Muslim-Moro rebellion to the rise of the Abu Sayyaf Group, it is a long history. And the US is partly to blame.
Captain R Gopinath brought Air Deccan in 2003 and introduced the LCC (low-cost carrier) model to India. But he had to sell Air Deccan to Vijay Mallya under pressure from investors after the airline made losses. Gopinath, the pioneer of budget air travel in India, blamed InterGlobe Aviation, IndiGo's parent company, for sabotaging Air Deccan. This is how and why.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in New Delhi on Thursday, the moment inevitably looped back to his very first India trip a quarter-century ago. In 2000, a 47-year-old new Russian president arrived in winter-soaked Delhi to reboot an old partnership. The 2000 visit saw him do a namaste in Parliament, stroll through the Taj Mahal, and deliver a quiet nuclear nudge to India by posing in front of the nuclear reactor for Pokhran tests.
Unlike Punjab or Bengal, where the Partition in 1947 gave parts to India and Pakistan, Sindh went completely to the Islamic nation. Its rivers, cities, and centuries of shared culture left behind and uprooted Sindhi Hindus from their homeland. Why isn't any part of Sindh, which finds mention in India's National Anthem, in India?
While the post-World War 2 Nuremberg Trials of Europe are taught as part of history, nothing much is said about the Asian version—the Tokyo Trials. Also forgotten in India is the role played by Radhabinod Pal, the lone jurist among the 11 judges to dissent and seek the release of Japan's wartime Generals. Revisiting Pal's role in the Tokyo Trials as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, and is gripped by a Russel Crowe-starrer on it.
Vande Mataram represents the soul of India's freedom struggle. However, its provocative use as a slogan at times made Mahatma Gandhi equate it with Allahu Akbar. Despite the opposition from a section of Muslims, Congress leaders knew there couldn't be a better National Song. It was Rabindranath Tagore who separated two stanzas from the six others, and endorsed it as the National Song.
Pakistan, partitioned as an Islamic nation, stained its history shedding blood of Muslim Pathans within a year of its creation. On August 12, 1948, police forces in the regime of Muhammad Ali Jinnah slaughtered 600 Pathan or Pashtun followers of Frontier Gandhi Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan for trying to protest peacefully. Here's all about the Babrra Massacre, also referred to as the "Karbala of the Pashtuns".
Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, all of 21, blew up a series of Pakistani tanks before laying down his life for the country in the 1971 War. When Arun's father, Brigadier ML Khetarpal (Retd) visited Sargodha in 2001, he was hosted by a Pakistani soldier, Khwaja Mohammad Naser. Naser confessed that he was the one who pulled the tank trigger in 1971 that got his son killed.
While Afghanistan and Pakistan were engaged in a war this month, an image showing an India-Afghanistan border pillar from the 1930s went viral. India and Afghanistan shared a small land border through the Wakhan Corridor before Pakistan wedged itself in through treachery and the illegal occupation of Gilgit-Baltistan in 1947.
After Indira Gandhi's assassination, Rajiv Gandhi reportedly had a secret meeting with then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras, resulting in its cadre supporting the Congress in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections despite the BJP's presence. There were at least six secret meetings between Sangh members and the party, including one at the residence of liquor baron Kapil Mohan. The Congress registered the biggest-ever Lok Sabha election victory.
Pakistan minister Khawaja Asif said India was "never truly united except under Aurangzeb". Did the sixth Mughal emperor, under whom the dynasty reached the zenith of territorial dominance, indeed unify India? What's the historical fact?
From the 1970 Black September in Jordan when Pakistani troops under Zia-Ul-Haq's command butchered 25,000 Palestinians, to the brand-new defence pact with Riyadh, Pakistan's generals have long fought for whoever signs the biggest cheques. The latest deal with Saudi Arabia, with a promise of a nuclear shield, is the latest chapter in Rawalpindi's long mercenary ledger.
It was the bravery and military campaign of Zorawar Singh Kahluria, a General of Jammu king Gulab Singh, that first brought Ladakh into the Dogra fold in 1834. The sale of Jammu and Kashmir by the British to Gulab Singh in 1846, and his great-grandson Hari Singh's signing of the treaty of accession in 1947, made Ladakh an integral part of India.
After its humiliating defeat to China in the 1962 war, India turned the tables just a few years later. In two little-known battles in 1967 at Nathu La and Cho La, fought weeks apart, Indian forces pushed back the Chinese and restored a measure of pride. Eighty-eight Indian bravehearts laid down their lives, but the toll on the Chinese side was over 300. This victory cemented India's hold over Sikkim, and shattered China's aura of invincibility.
