January

Jan 1: Veteran actor-writer Kader Khan passed away due to prolonged illness at the age of 81 on December 31, his son Sarfaraz confirmed.

Jan 3: The Supreme Court expressed strong dissatisfaction over the rescue efforts to trace 15 people trapped inside a mine in Meghalaya for 22 days, telling the state government to bring them out dead or alive.

Jan 4: Lok Sabha passed a Bill to amend the Aadhaar Act and two related laws which will allow individuals to offer voluntarily biometric ID as a means of identity verification for obtaining services such as opening a bank account and procuring a mobile phone connection.

Jan 5: The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have agreed to an alliance in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Jan 6: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman hit back at Congress president Rahul Gandhi after he accused her of lying in Parliament about procurement orders worth Rs 1 lakh crore for state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

Jan 8: In a jolt to the Centre, the Supreme Court reinstated Alok Verma as CBI director quashing its unprecedented “overnight” order in which he was stripped of his power and sent on leave along with his deputy after they traded corruption charges sparking a bitter feud.

Jan 9: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held talks with her Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif on a range of key bilateral and regional issues, including the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and the implementation of the Chabahar port project.

Jan 11: India and the US discussed ways to expand bilateral cooperation on defence and foreign policy issues and exchanged views on regional developments as stakeholders for a free, open, inclusive and peaceful Indo-Pacific.

Jan 13: Left out of the SP-BSP pre-poll tie-up in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress announced that it would go it alone in all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the upcoming general election.

Jan 14: Nearly three years after former JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others were accused of raising anti-India slogans, the Delhi Police charged them with sedition.

Jan 16: Former chief minister Sheila Dikshit took charge as the president of the Delhi Congress at a ceremony that was marred by controversy over the presence of Jagdish Tytler, an accused in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Jan 17: The CBI has taken into custody six people, including Sports Authority of India (SAI) director and three officials, in connection with a case of alleged corruption.

Jan 21: The Congress distanced itself from the London press conference wherein a self-proclaimed Indian cyber expert claimed electronic voting machines can be hacked and the 2014 general election was “rigged”, and demanded a probe into the allegations.

Jan 23: Ending years of fevered speculation, Gandhi family scion Priyanka Gandhi Vadra formally entered politics with her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi appointing her as general secretary for Uttar Pradesh East, which also comprises Lok Sabha seats of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Jan 24: India successfully launched Microsat-R, a military satellite on board its Polar rocket PSLV C44, from the Sriharikota spaceport, in the first mission for the ISRO in 2019.

Jan 25: Former president Pranab Mukherjee, Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader Nanaji Deshmukh and singer Bhupen Hazarika will be conferred with the Bharat Ratna - the country’s highest civilian award - the government announced.

Jan 26: Lawyer Gautam Khaitan, an accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a fresh case of alleged possession of black money and money laundering.

Jan 28: Congress president Rahul Gandhi promised his party would ensure “minimum income guarantee” for every poor person if it comes to power at the Centre, echoing the ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan coined by his grandmother Indira Gandhi during the 1971 general election, which she won.

Jan 29: George Fernandes, a lifelong socialist despite his political adventurism that included Cabinet posts in two ideologically opposite governments where he ousted Coca-Cola in 1977 and oversaw the Kargil War in 1999, passes away. He was 88.

Jan 30: An independent inquiry panel indicted former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar for violating regulations, with the bank deciding to stop all her unpaid retirement benefits and recover bonuses paid since 2009, an embarrassment for the lender which had given the once high-flying banker a clean chit in the Videocon loan case in 2018.

Jan 31: Amid a raging controversy, the government said it has not finalised the survey on labour force, which reportedly showed that the unemployment rate in the country hit a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18.

February

Feb 1: Making a big populist push in its final Budget before the election, the Narendra Modi government exempted people with an earning of up to Rs 5 lakh from payment of income tax, announced an annual cash dole-out of Rs 6,000 to small farmers and provided a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to workers in the unorganised sector.

Feb 2: Ending speculation, the government appointed former Madhya Pradesh Police chief Rishi Kumar Shukla as the CBI director, weeks after the controversial removal of Alok Kumar Verma from the post.

Feb 3: Six people died after nine coaches of the Delhi-bound Seemanchal Express derailed in Vaishali district of Bihar.

Feb 4: A political firestorm raged as Mamata Banerjee’s sit-in protest against the CBI’s bid to question Kolkata police chief in chit fund scam cases entered the second day, with the West Bengal chief minister declaring her agitation to save the “Constitution and country” will go on and she was ready to face the consequences.

Feb 5: The Supreme Court rapped the Centre over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, observing it is “hell bent” on stalling the process by seeking suspension during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls citing non-availability of security forces.

Feb 6: The death toll due to swine flu in Delhi has risen to six, even as 74 fresh cases of the HINI virus were recorded, taking the total number of people affected by the disease in the city this year to 1,093, according to a report of the Directorate General of Health Services.

Feb 9: The death toll in the hooch tragedy that hit two adjoining districts in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh rose to at least 61 with more people dying of the spurious liquor they drank at a Haridwar village.

Feb 11: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra made her debut in Uttar Pradesh’s political arena as Congress general secretary with a grand road show, raising hopes of a turnaround in the party’s fortunes.

Feb 12: A massive fire engulfed a hotel in central Delhi’s congested Karol Bagh area, killing 17 people, including two people who jumped off the building in a desperate bid to save themselves.

Feb 13: Moving forward on a united anti-BJP front for the Lok Sabha election, top opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee agreed to work together to prepare a common minimum programme to oust the Modi government and to consider forging a pre-poll alliance.

Feb 14: At least 37 CRPF personnel were killed and five injured in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir when a JeM suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 100 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district.

Feb 16: Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik directed the state police to take “strict action without mercy” against those indulging in violence in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Pulwama in which 40 CRPF personnel died.

Feb 17: The “jobless growth” has slipped into “job-loss growth”, which, together with rural indebtedness and urban chaos, has made the growing number of aspirational youths restless, former prime minister Manmohan Singh said, as he hit out at the government for failing to uplift the economy to its potential.

Feb 18: The BJP’s association with the Shiv Sena goes beyond politics and is bound by a desire to see a strong India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after the two parties agreed to contest the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections together.

Feb 20: The Saudi Arabia-Pakistan joint statement calling for avoiding “politicisation” of the UN listing regime was not directed at India’s efforts to get JeM chief Masood Azhar banned by the global body, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir said, asserting that anyone involved in terror should be proscribed and punished.

Feb 21: India has decided to stop the flow of its share of water to Pakistan from rivers under the Indus Water Treaty, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said in comments that came over a week after the ghastly Pulwama terror attack.

Feb 24: The nation will get a new eternal flame when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the National War Memorial, but Amar Jawan Jyoti will continue as it is an “inseparable” part of the country’s history, defence officials said.

Feb 26: In a pinpointed and swift air strike that lasted less than two minutes, India pounded JeM’s biggest training camp in Pakistan, killing up to 350 terrorists and trainers who were moved there for their protection after the Pulwama attack.

Feb 28: Indian Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthaman downed a F-16 fighter jet of Pakistan Air Force by firing an R-73 air-to-air missile before his MiG-21 Bison was hit during a fierce dogfight.

March

Mar 1: After a suspenseful wait lasting hours, IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman finally returned home from his nearly three-day captivity in Pakistan, a major step towards defusing a near-war situation triggered by India’s retaliation over Pakistan’s continued support for terrorism.

Mar 3: Two LeT militants, five security forces personnel, including a CRPF officer, and a civilian were killed during a 56-hour encounter in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district.

Mar 4: Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa and its wing Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation have not been banned by Pakistan despite its announcement a fortnight ago and the two organisations continue to be only in the list of groups under watch.

Mar 5: India has given proof to the US about the use of F-16 fighters and AMRAAM beyond visual range air-to-air missile by Pakistan during its unsuccessful aerial raid targeting four Indian military installations on February 27, official sources said.

Mar 6: A CISF officer died and several files and documents gutted in a major fire at the office of the social justice ministry in South Delhi’s CGO Complex that also houses other important government offices.

Mar 7: In a significant development, the UN has rejected an appeal of JuD chief Hafiz Saeed to remove his name from its list of banned terrorists, government sources said.

Mar 8: Ahead of the Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a series of development projects in five Uttar Pradesh cities, including his parliamentary constituency Varanasi.

Mar 9: Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani expanded his cabinet by inducting three members, including Congress turncoat Jawahar Chavda, who was rewarded with a ministerial berth a day after he joined the BJP.

Mar 10: The Lok Sabha election will begin on April 11 and continue for over a month till May 19 across seven phases, followed by counting of votes on May 23, the Election Commission announced, kick-starting a mega electoral battle where the BJP will pitch for a re-election of the Modi government amid the Opposition’s efforts for a united fight to unseat it.

Mar 11: The mastermind of the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, which claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel, has been killed in an encounter in south Kashmir’s Tral area, officials said.

Mar 12: India grounded Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft used by the country’s airline companies in light of the Ethopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people.

Mar 13: Congress president Rahul Gandhi promised 33 per cent reservation of government jobs for women and reforms in the Goods and Services Tax if the party-led UPA wins the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Mar 14: India and Pakistan agreed to work towards expeditiously launching the Kartarpur corridor, a decision taken at a meeting held after the recent escalation in tensions between the two countries.

Mar 15: The Supreme Court quashed the life ban imposed by the BCCI on cricketer S. Sreesanth for his alleged involvement in the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal and asked the apex cricket body to reconsider within three months the quantum of punishment.

Mar 16: India will show patience with China for “as long as it takes” but will not compromise its position on firmly dealing with terrorists, government sources said, days after Beijing blocked a fresh move at the UN to designate Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

Mar 17: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who had been battling pancreatic cancer for over a year, died at his private residence. He was 63.

Mar 18: Embattled billionaire Anil Ambani warded off a possible jail term as RCom cleared dues of a Swedish service provider at the eleventh hour with money received from elder brother Mukesh and his wife Nita.

Mar 19: Former Supreme Court judge Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose was appointed as the country’s first Lokpal, the anti-corruption ombudsman.

Mar 20: A special court acquitted Swami Aseemanand and three others in the Samjhauta train blast case that left 68 people, mostly Pakistanis, dead in 2007.

Mar 22: The Congress sought an investigation by the Lokpal into allegations that Rs 1,800 crore bribes were paid by former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to top BJP leadership.

Mar 24: India raised with Pakistan an incident of alleged abduction of two Hindu teenaged girls and their forcible conversion to Islam in Sindh province even as a war of words broke out between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhary over the issue.

Mar 27: India shot down one of its satellites in space with an anti-satellite missile to demonstrate this complex capability, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced, making it only the fourth country to have used such a weapon.

Mar 31: CRPF convoys moving to and from the Kashmir Valley will now be commandeered by a higher SP-rank officer and a single motorcade will not have more than 40 vehicles at any point of time, the paramilitary force has ordered in the wake of the Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 troops during a similar movement.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store