1991 REMAINS OF THE DAY

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Former prime minister and front-runner in the 1991 polls, Rajiv Gandhi was killed by an ltte suicide bomber at an election rally in Sriperumbudur. Fired by a new optimism and unburdened of the ipkf debacle, Gandhi never saw it coming as the bespectacled Thenmuli Rajaratnam garlanded him and bent, ostensibly to touch his feet—except that she was bending only to detonate the bombbelt she was wearing under her salwar kameez. A dream was over, and a nightmare had just begun. The ltte’s ipkf score had been settled. In blood.

• “I HAVE THE PM’S MANDATE”
  
  
  Manmohan Singh
  So said Oxford-educated finance minister Manmohan Singh. He promised to think big and he did. In July, as loans burgeoned and the public sector lay defunct, it took this mild-mannered academic to give the economy the kind of shock therapy it needed. Doing away with industrial licencing, relaxing investment norms and devaluing the rupee to more realistic market levels—this was Singh’s bitter pill for India’s anaemic economy. When he pushed the most radical policy rethink ever, saying, “The world must know India has changed”, Singh, for once, won a unanimous, if begrudging, agreement.
  
  
  
  
  FIRST CUT
  
  The world’s first railroad hospital, the Jeevan Rekha (Lifeline Express), set off on July 16. the train, with coaches donated by the Indian Railways, was operated by the Impact India Foundation.
• P.V. Narasimha Rao liberalized India’s protectionist economy in reaction to a severe foreign exchange crisis.
• President’s rule lifted from Punjab after five years to make way for elections in 1992.

DID YOU KNOW

Chandra Sekhar was India’s shortest-serving prime minister, with the exception of A.B. Vajpayee’s 13-day coalition of 1996. Holding office for seven months, Shekhar resigned on March 6, 1991 after the Congress withdrew support.


DISMANTLING LICENCE RAJ





The New Industrial Policy of July 1991 was released, freeing most sectors of the economy of licencing obstacles. Sector like aviation were opened to private players for the first time.





DEATHLY DESTRUCTION


On October 20, a low-intensity earth-quake hit the Garwhal hills. Measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale, it lasted less then a minute. But when the earth stopped quaking, most of Uttarkashi, Tehri and Chamoli were devastated, with at least 1,000 dead in Uttarkashi alone, and over 42,000 destroyed.




PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE

Bollywood moved into hte bedroom and dispensed wouth blushing rosebuds and twittering birds as Govined Nihalani made a bold attempt at exploring infidelity with Drishti. Dimple Kapadia and Shekar Kapur played a couple exploring extra marital affairs thata lead to a breakdown of their marriage.



ATAL BHIHARI VAJPAYEE BJP LEADER

" The present Muslim generation is not to be punished for what their forefathers did."

ELSEWHERE...

• The pesian Gulf War (below) beagan as the Us led a 30 - nation coalition to liberate Kuwait from iraq.


• Germany formally regained complete independence after the four post-Workd War ll occupying powers france, the United kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union -- relinquished all remaining rights.


• Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union for almost seven years and executive president for nearly two, stepped down from office as the Soviet Union broke up into Russia and the cis.
  
  $975 million was India's foreign exchange reserve ata the peak of the July forex crisis. At the time, India had to swap 20 tonne of its gold in the Swiss market. Later, it also shipped an additional 46 tonne of gold to London as collataeral.

Courtesy By India Today