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9 January - The government announces that it is laying landmines along the entire
length of its 2,800-km border with Pakistan.
10 January - 800 protesters are arrested in a large-scale
illegal protest against the Communist government of West Bengal, which
brings the state to a standstill. The authorities there had
outlawed "disruptive" protests at the end of 2001.
Mid-January - Direct flights to China are set to resume for
the first time in 40 years after diplomatic talks between the two
countries.
16 January - Archaeologists announce the discovery of
ancient man-made structures off the Gujarati coast which could be as many as 9,500
years old - 5,500 years older than the ancient Harappan civilization whose remains are
found around the same region.
22 January - Five policemen are killed and 20 other people
injured when Islamicmilitants attack an American cultural
centre in Kolkata. Police
arrest at least 50 suspects in the wake of the incident. The
government immediately accuses its Pakistani counterpart of
involvement in the attack.
Late January - The government is roundly criticized for testing
a short-range version of its Agni ballistic missile
on January 25, the day before the country's Republic Day, at a time when military
tensions with Pakistan
remain high.
February
3 February - Russia gives
its full backing to India over the Kashmir dispute with neighbouring
Pakistan.
Mid-February - The Cellular Operators Association announces
that the ownership of mobile phones in India rocketed by 75% in
the previous year. Almost 6 million Indians now own mobile
phones.
24 February - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
loses control of state governments in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttaranchal (east of Delhi) according to election results released
this day. The BJP is expected to retain a role in a coalition in
Uttar Pradesh (the most populous state in India), whereas the
Punjab and Uttaranchal state legislatures are now dominated by the
opposition Congress party.
27 February - A series of riots leaves hundreds dead, after 59
Hindu pilgrims die aboard a
train burned by a Muslim mob
in Godhra.
28 February - Violent sectarian clashes break out in the
Gujarati city of Ahmadabad leaving over 500 Muslims and Hindus
dead. The riots came after the death the previous day of 58 Hindus
whose train was deliberately set on fire by Muslim militants in
Godhra, near Vadodara (the exact circumstances remain unclear).
Those victims were said to be supporters of the extremist Hindi
group Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP), who had been traveling from the Ayodhya region, near the border
with Nepal. VHP has been campaigning for the construction of a
Hindu temple on the controversial Ayodhya site following the
destruction of an ancient mosque there in 1992. Violence rages on
through March, claiming hundreds of lives, most of them Muslim.
(See also 2002 Gujarat violence.)
28 February - Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha presents the 2002-03
budget. Amongst its major features are a 4.8% increase in defence
spending and a 5% surcharge on income tax to pay for this.
March
1 March - Continuing violence in Ahmedabad kills 28; police shoot and kill 5
rioters.
2 March - J.
Jayalalithaa returns to power in Tamil Nadu as chief minister. In December
2001, an appeals court had quashed her October 2000 corruption
conviction that disqualified her from standing for election.
3 March - The speaker of the Lok Sabha, Ganti
Mohana Chandra Balayogi, is killed in a helicopter crash in the
southern state of Andhra Pradesh. He was the first low-caste Dalit to be elected to the post.
8 March - President's rule is imposed on the
northern state of Uttar Pradesh as no party could command a
majority after the recent elections.
15 March - 9,000 suspected Hindu hardliners are arrested, including 8,000 in
Mumbai alone, in a massive
crackdown aimed at preventing further interreligious violence.
Tensions are high surrounding attempts to construct a new Hindu
temple on the site of the Ayodhya mosque, which was destroyed by
Hindu extremists in 1992.
26 March - The government pushes through its controversial
Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) bill in a rare joint
session of both houses of parliament, only the third since
independence. In separate sessions, the Lok Sabha had passed the bill on March 18 but
it was defeated in the Rajya Sabha on March 21.
April
4 April - On his first visit to Gujarat since the violence there began,
(See 2002 Gujarat violence) Prime
Minister Vajpayee makes an
impassioned speech appealing to the Hindu and Muslim communities to end the violence, saying
that the "shameful events" in Gujarat are a "blot" on India.
16 April - Up to 10 million public sector workers, including 32,000
employees of state-owned banks, hold a one-day strike against
government privatization plans.
18 April - India signs a deal to buy a $146 million
weapon-seeking radar system built by the U.S. company Raytheon. It is the first significant U.S.
arms sale to India for a decade.
29 April - Minister for Coal and Mines Ram Vilas
Paswan resigns on the issue of the Gujarat violence, which he
says has "tarnished India's image" while the government's role
appears to be that of a "silent spectator". He pulls his Lok
Janshakti Party out of the ruling National Democratic
Alliance coalition.
May
3 May - The stalemate in Uttar Pradesh is resolved when Mayawati of the Bahujan
Samaj Party is sworn in as chief minister, in a coalition with
the BJP.
14 May - An attack by militants on an army base in Kashmir, in which 34 people are
killed, leads to sharply rising tensions with Pakistan. On 15 May,
Vajpayee says in the Lok Sabha: "We will have to retaliate." Fears
increase that the situation might escalate into a nuclear
exchange.
21 May - Moderate Kashmiri separatist leader Abdul Ghani
Lone is assassinated. On the same day Vajpayee begins a
five-day visit to Kashmir. In a martial speech on 22 May, he says
that "a new chapter of victory and triumph will be written in the
history books soon".
23 May - Indian paratroops complete a two-week exercise with
U.S. forces south of New Delhi.
31 May - Both the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office and
the U.S. State
Department issue unprecedented advice to their citizens living in
India to leave the country.
June - Tensions between India and Pakistan are reduced largely
as a result of international pressure. Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf assures visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that the
cessation of cross-border infiltration will be made "permanent" and
"irreversible". On June 20, Indian Defense Minister George
Fernandes says that infiltration has "nearly ended". Analysts
note, however, that some 3,000 indigenous and Pakistani militants
are already inside Indian-controlled Kashmir, and violent incidents
continue on a daily basis. On June 9 police in Srinagar arrest Syed
Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the hardline Islamist Jamaat-i-Islami
party and a prominent leader of the All Parties Hurriyat
Conference.
22 June - Ashok
Singhal, leader of the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP), announces that the VHP is no longer bound by
its earlier promise to the government to await a court ruling
before embarking on the construction of a temple to the god Rama on
the site of the destroyed Babri mosque at Ayodhya.
July
1 July - Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Finance Minister
Yashwant Sinha exchange their portfolios in a cabinet reshuffle.
The BJP installs Venkaiah Naidu as party president,
replacing Jana Krishnamurthi who becomes Union
Law Minister.
15 July - An electoral college composed of the members of both
houses of the federal parliament and of all state assemblies elects
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim and prominent
missile scientist, president of India. He was supported by the
ruling NDA coalition as well as the opposition Congress and most
other parties.
27 July - Vice President Krishan Kant dies of a heart attack.
25 August - Notorious bandit Veerappan abducts a former minister of
Karnataka, Hannur Nagappa, threatening to behead him unless the
state governments of Karnataka and neighbouring Tamil Nadu release
imprisoned Tamil separatists.
28 August - Chief magistrate Rameshwar Kotha of the Bhopal High Court rejects the federal
Central Bureau of Investigation's attempt to reduce charges against
the former chairman of the U.S. Union Carbide company, Warren Anderson,
for responsibility for the 1984 chemical plant disaster at Bhopal. Kotha asks the government
to bring extradition proceedings without delay, but it is thought
that the government is reluctant to do so for fear of alienating
the U.S. business community.
September
9 September - At least 119 people are killed in a train crash
in the northeastern state of Bihar when part of the Rajdhani
Express from Kolkata to New Delhi derails on a bridge over the
Dhava river near Aurangabad.
16 September and 24, October 1 and 8 - Elections are held in the state of Jammu and
Kashmir amid an atmosphere of escalating violence. The result
is a surprising defeat of the National
Conference, which was the dominant political force in the state
for over 40 years. A government is formed by the People's Democratic Party and
the Congress. PDP leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is to be
chief minister for three years, followed by Ghulam Nabi
Azad of the Congress for another three years.
24 September-25 September - Two heavily armed gunmen kill at
least 32 people in an attack on a Hindu temple in Gandhinagar, the
capital of Gujarat, before army commandos recapture the temple and
kill the terrorists.
27 September - Sukhoi 30 MKI was inducted in Indian Air
Force
16 October - Defence Minister George Fernandes announces that a
significant number of the million troops deployed since December
2001 on the border with Pakistan will be withdrawn. However, there
will be no reduction in strength along the Line of Control in
Kashmir.
November
15 November - A court in New Delhi finds that there is sufficient
evidence to prosecute the UK based businessmen and brothers
Srichand, Gopichand, and Prakash Hinduja for cheating, conspiracy,
and abetting corruption in the 1986 arms procurement scandal
between India and the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors.
December
3 December-5 December - Russian President Vladimir Putin visits India, holding
talks with Prime Minister Vajpayee and other senior ministers.
8 December - Police confirm they have found the body of H.
Nagappa, the former Karnataka minister kidnapped by Veerappan in
August. Veerappan issues a taped statement saying that Nagappa has
been accidentally killed in a shootout with the police.
12 December - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is
returned to power with a landslide victory in state assembly
elections in Gujarat.
16 December - A special court in New Delhi convicts three
Kashmiri Muslims of planning the attack on the federal parliament
in December 2001. The three men are sentenced to death on December
18.
20 December - Guerrillas of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) kill 18
people in an attack on a police van in the Sanda forests of the
eastern state of Jharkhand. It is said to be a revenge attack
for the death two days earlier of the MCC leader Ishwari
Mahato.
22 December - Narendra Modi is sworn in as the chief
minister of Gujarat for the
second time.
24 December - Prime Minister Vajpayee opens the first stretch
of Delhi's new metro system.
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