It was just a four-paragraph government order implementing the recommendations of the Mandal Commission, set up in 1978. But for V.P. Singh, the prime minister of a coalition government, it blew the lid off the caste cauldron. With 27 per cent reservation in government jobs, schools and colleges for socially and educationally backward classes, it was a move to cleave the bjp’s Hindu vote bank along caste lines. But it all went wrong as self-immolations and protestor-police battles created mini-Tiananmen Squares across India.
COMING HOME
The ipkf completed its pull-out from Sri Lanka as the last ship left with Indian soldiers.
FIRST CUT
On February 4, Ernakulam in Kerala was declared the first totally literature district in the country. The distinction, fittingly, came in International Literacy Year. Kerala has the highest literacy in the country.
The All Tripura Tiger Force was founded by Lalit Debbarma to fight for Tripura’s secession from India.
According to nuclear weapons specialist L.S. Spector, India, in 1990, had a capacity to produce 15 nuke warheads annually, but had made only 10 at the time.
The Human Torch
Rajiv Goswami, a final-year student in Delhi University, immolating himself on September 15 to protest the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations. He died in 2004.
"BJP HAS PUTSECULARISM IN PROPER PERSPECTIVE.”
Lal Krishna AdvaniWhen L.K. Advani stepped into his rath at Somnath, the temple of his dreams 10,000 km and 30 days away, he sent out the bjp’s most audacious message to the people of India, associating itself with the rss-vhp line, that construction on the Ram Temple would begin on October 30 no matter what. In a final showdown, the bjp withdrew support to the V.P. Singh Government.
TELE-REALISM
The Show Wagle ki Duniya, based on a character by cartoonist R.K. Laxman, was aired on Doordarshan at a time when television sets had already found their way into over two-thirds of India’s homes. In the days of staid sarkari programming, people instantly connected with lead actors Anjan Srivastava and Bharti Achrekar’s middle-class muddles.
ELSEWHERE…
Nelson Mandela (below) was released from Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town, South Africa, where he had been imprisoned for 27 years.
US President George W. Bush and
Soviet Union leader Mikhail signed a treaty to stop manufa
cturing chemical weapons and began reducing stocks.
Iraq invaded
Kuwait, leading to the Gulf War.
Establishing the first ground link between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe since the Ice Age, Channel Tunnel workers from the UK and France met 40 meters beneath the English Channel seabed.
Rs 500 was the value of just one kilogram of Darjeeling tea in auctions for exports on April 30. India is the world’s largest producer of tea—almost all of the fine Darjeeling tea is exported, the major buyers being Russia, Iran and Iraq.
Courtesy By India Today
The Show Wagle ki Duniya, based on a character by cartoonist R.K. Laxman, was aired on Doordarshan at a time when television sets had already found their way into over two-thirds of 
