Mody's maya and Buddha's Nandi

It was the year of Modi in Gujarat and Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, as 2007 draws to a close. The Congress suffered a setback in the Gujarat assembly elections even as uncertainty over the civilian nuclear deal with the US continued to nag the UPA Government. Poll triumphs in Gujarat and Himachal gave the much-needed moral philip to the BJP.

West Bengal’s simmering turn of events was a real test of ideology and integrity in politics and public life. The protests in Nandigram over land acquisition for industrial needs, followed by killings with alleged state accomplice, fuelled debate on the Left’s paradigm shift favouring industrialisation. The mysterious murder of Kolkata’s graphic designer Razwanur Rahman who dared to marry the daughter of a rich businessman shook the state with the High Court ordering a CBI probe.

The year also saw the judiciary handing out sentences in some high profile cases including the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, sending actor Sanjay Dutt and several others to jail. Former cabinet minister and Jharkhand leader Shibu Soren was sentenced and then acquitted. The year also witnessed the sentencing of the accused in cases popular in public sentiment — the Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo cases.

In a record of sorts, courts of law awarded life imprisonment to accused involved in an assortment of long pending cases — Amarmani Tripathi in the Madhumita murder case, the Coimbatore bomb blast case, Kanpur’s riots case and Delhi’s infamous police encounter at Connaught Place. 

Once again, the secular fabric of the country was tampered with blasts at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and the Dargah-e-Sharif at Ajmer.

Climate talk was given impetus with the Nobel prize for peace being given to the international panel on global warming headed by Dr R K Pauchori of the TERI, Delhi.  Following is the diary of events in 2007...

January 24
Mumbai: Deepa Mehta's  Water, a story about the plight of Hindu widows in 1930s whose shooting in India had to be scrapped following protests from the Sangh Parivar outfits, is nominated for the Oscar Awards in the Best Foreign Film category from Canada.

New Delhi: Stepping up civil nuclear cooperation with India, Russia agrees to build four atomic reactors in Tamil Nadu at the yet-to-be identified sites under landmark agreements reached on President Vladimir Putin’s two-day visit.

January 27
Superstar Amitabh Bacchan is honoured with France’s highest civilian award Legion d’honneur for his contribution to Indian and international culture.

Mumbai: Legendary music director O P Nayyar, 81, best known for his classic songs like Jhumka Gira re and Pukarta Chala Hoon Main, dies of cardiac arret at his home in Thane.

February 5
New Delhi:  The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal gives its final verdict under which Tamil Nadu will get 192 tmcft water from Karnataka which threatens to go to court against it.

New Delhi: The Group of Ministers recommends 50 per cent Foreign Direct Investment in higher education, paving the way for foreign universities to set up their campuses in India.

February 12
Nagpur: The CBI pleads with a designated court in Bhandara district of Maharashtra seeking discharge of 35 of the 47 people arrested in the Khairlanji Dalit family massacre case, as there is no case against them.

February 13
New Delhi: India and China set up a hotline between their foreign ministers and decide to liberalise visa regimes as part of initiatives to strengthen their ties.

February 14
New Delhi: The government announces a complete ban on export of wheat and milk as a measure to check inflation, which touched 6.5 per cent.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court refuses to grant any interim relief to the Kerala government, which had challenged the Kerala High Court’s decision to lift a ban imposed on sale of Pepsi and Coke in the state.
New Delhi: Petroleum Minister Murli Deora announces cut in petrol and  diesel prices by Rs 2 and Rs 1 per litre respectively.

February 26
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav wins a motion of trust by voice vote in the Assembly in the absence of entire opposition.

February 27
Chandigarh/Dehradun: Congress, ousted from power by Akali Dal-BJP combine in Punjab and by BJP in Uttarakhand, emerges the single largest party in a hung verdict in Manipur.

February 28
Mohali: Parkash Singh Badal sworn in as Chief Minister for a record fourth time, heading an 18-member Akali Dal-BJP coalition.

March 3
New Delhi: The NSCN-IM holds first formal parleys with the Centre since top rebel leader Thuingaleng Muivah visited the country in December 2006. The two sides agreed to continue discussions to find a solution to the insurgency in Nagaland.

March 4
Jamshedpur: Naxals gun down Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Lok Sabha MP Sunil Mahato in an attack  during a football match organised to mark the Holi festival, about 40km from here.

March 8
Dehradun: BJP’s B C Khanduri, who led BJP to a victory in the Assembly elections, is sworn in as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand.

March 9
Jodhpur: India-born businessman Arun Nayar ties the knot for the second time with British model Liz Hurley according to traditional Hindu customs at the Umaid Bhawan Palace here.

New Delhi: Eminent Kashmiri poet Rehman Rahi wins prestigious Jnanpith award for the year 2004.

April 1
New Delhi: Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major becomes the first helicopter pilot to don the mantle of Chief of the Air Staff.

April 3
New Delhi: The SAARC summit opens here with India unilaterally announcing measures to open its market to poor South Asian neighbours with duty-free access and liberalising visa regime showing the way to make the grouping effective for the people in the region.

April 5
New Delhi: Former Chief Justice of India P N Bhagwati, eminent economist Raja Chelliah, Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi and Bharti telecom Chairman Sunil Mittal are honoured with the prestigious Padma awards.

April 12
Balasore: India successfully test-fires its most powerful nuclear capable intermediate range ballistic missile Agni-III from the Interim Test Range (ITR) at Wheeler’s Island off the Orissa coast.

April 20
Mumbai: Bollywood’s hottest stars, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, enter into matrimony, amidst much fanfare.

April 21
New Delhi: India is setting up a satellite earth station at its research base in Antarctica to enhance communication links with the mainland.

April 22
Balasore, Orissa: The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, jointly developed by India and Russia, is successfully tested from a range at Chandipur near here.

April 23
Sriharikota, AP: India enters the global commercial launch market with ISRO’s workhorse launch vehicle PSLV-C8 successfully placing 352-kg Italian astronomical satellite AGILE into a 550 km circular orbit after lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

Bangalore: A special CBI court sentences Abdul KarimTelgi, prime accused in fake stamp paper scam, and four of his associates to 10 years RI.

April 30
New Delhi: The Gujarat Government admits before the Supreme Court that Kauser Bi, wife of fake encounter victim Sohrabuddin Sheikh, has been killed and her body burnt.

New Delhi: Mohd Afzal, the Jaish-e-Mohammed militant sentenced to death for plotting attack on Parliament in 2001 withdraws his petition in which he had sought an end to his solitary confinement in Tihar Jail.

May 4
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Health Minister P K Sreemathi and seven medical personnel face charges of culpable homicide not amounting in murder in connection with the death of 38 new-born babies at a government hospital.

May 8
New Delhi: Doctors claim to have performed the world’s first successful simultaneous liver and kidney transplants on 15-year-old Ganesh Nehru by using organs from two live donors.

May 13
Lucknow: Ushering in a single party rule after 14 years, BSP chief Mayawati assumes power in Uttar Pradesh heading a 50-member jumbo ministry inducting several persons from the upper castes, reflecting the rainbow coalition she stitched to get an absolute majority in the elections.

May 18
Hyderabad: Terror struck during Friday prayers at the historic Mecca mosque when a powerful bomb rips through a gathering of thousands, killing nine persons and sparking protests that left three more dead in police firing.

May 27
New Delhi: The CPM suspends  octogenarian Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and party’s state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan from its polit bureau, the highest policy making body, for violating the party’s norms by airing their differences in public.

May 28
New Delhi: A surge in share prices of his group companies turns Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani the only trillionaire in the country with over Rs 1,00,000 crore of wealth through his shar eholdings.

June 5
Panaji: Congress and its pre-poll ally NCP set to retain power in Goa winning 19 seats, just two short of a majority, in the elections to the 40-member Assembly that threw up a fractured verdict.

June 21
New Delhi: India welcomes the inclusion of the 3,000year-old manuscripts of the Rig Veda by UNESCO in its cultural list for posterity.

June 28
New Delhi: The 17th century Mughal marvel, Red Fort, is included in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites.
New Delhi: WHO announces a special award for Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss for his contribution to control tobacco consumption in India.

June 30
Jaipur: Senior BJP leader and former Delhi Chief  Minister Sahib Singh Verma dies in a road accident in Alwar district of Rajasthan.

July 7
Bhagalpur: A trial court sentences 14 convicts, to life imprisonment in the 1989 Bhagalpur communal riots' case for the massacre of 116 Muslims at Logain village.

July 8
New Delhi: Former prime minister Chandra Shekhar, a socialist who strongly opposed policies of liberalisation and personality politics and headed a minority governmentat the Centre brief, died after a prolonged battle with blood cancer.

July 9
Raipur: At least 24 securitymen, including 16 CRPF personnel, and 20 Maoists were killed in a deadly gunbattles in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.

July 14
Bhopal: Almost five years after her arrest in Portugal, Bollywood starlet Monica Bedi, a court here acquits her in a fake passport case.

July 16
Mumbai: Death sentences are pronounced for Abdul Ghani Ismail Turk, Mohammad Mushtaq Musa Tarani in the 1993 serial blasts case, the first such punishment awarded by a special court.

July 20
Mumbai: Iqbal Yusuf Shaikh, who planted a bomb in the 1993 serial blasts is sentenced to death, taking to seven the number of persons awarded capital punishment in the case.

July 21
New Delhi: Harry Potter fans across the country snap up copies of the final volume of the book, which broke all records to register a sale of over 1.7 lakh copies on the first day of its release.

July 25
New Delhi: Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India’s firstwoman President with pomp and ceremony.

July 26
New Delhi: Lt Gen Deepak Kapoor, a veteran of the 1971 war with Pakistan who commanded the army's largest and most sensitive northern command  for two years, is named as the next Chief of Army Staff.

July 27
Chandigarh: Six persons are convicted by a special courthere for the 1995 assassination of Chief Minister Beant Singh, who was credited with having a major hand in wiping out terrorism in Punjab.

Mumbai: Yakub Memon, a brother of prime absconding accused Tiger Memon, is sentenced to death for his role in the 1993 serial blasts while two of his siblings are awarded life imprisonment by a special court.

Aug 9
New Delhi: Noted film-maker Shyam Benegal is honoured with the coveted Dadasaheb Phalke Award by the government in appreciation of his “outstanding contribution” to Indian cinema.

Aug 11
New Delhi: Mohammad Hamid Ansari is sworn-in as the 13th Vice President at an impressive ceremony.

Aug 13
New Delhi: Two army officers who built up a reputation for hunting down foreign militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir, Capt R Harshan and Col Vasanth Venugopal, are posthumously honoured with the Ashok Chakra, the country’s highest gallantry award.

Aug 19
New Delhi: The Left parties serve an ultimatum to the government on the Indo-US nuclear deal by warning it of “serious consequences” of operationalising it, but stops short of withdrawing support to the UPA coalition.

Sept 29
Mumbai: Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Hindi feature film Eklavya, India's official entry for the Oscar award, gets into a legal tangle with the Bombay High Court observing that prima facie the selection of the movie appeared to be biased.

October 1
Attari Check Post, Amritsar: For the first time in the history of India and Pakistan, crossborder movement of trucks begins with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal flagging off the first load of tomatoes to Pakistan.

October 4
Mughalsarai, UP: Fifteen women are killed and 48 people injured in a stampede  on an overbridge in Mughalsarai station, India’s biggest railway junction.

October 9
New Delhi: Karnataka is brought under central rule after collapse of the JD(S)-BJP coalition government.

October 11
Ajmer: Terror strikes the highly-revered Sufi shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti when a bomb goes off inside the complex killing two persons and injuring 28 as thousands of Muslims were breaking their Ramzan fast.

October 13
Ludhiana: Terror strikes Ludhiana when at least six men are killed and 30 others injured in a blast in one of the three cinema halls in a multiplex located in a busy shopping area of this industrial town in Punjab.

October 16
New Delhi: Holding that police have no right to take away the life of even a desperate criminal except in an actual encounter, a court convicts 10 policemen, including a seniorofficial, for gunning down two businessmen in the 1997 Connaught shootout case.

October 19
New Delhi: CBI registers a murder case against industrialist Ashok Todi of involvement in the killing of computer graphics teacher Rizwanur Rehman who was found dead under mysterious circumstances.

October 24
Dehradun: Former Uttar Pradesh minister Amarmani Tripathi and his wife are sentenced to life after they were convicted in the murder of his pregnant lover and young poetess Madhumita Shukla.

Kanpur: Fifteen persons including a lawyer accused of burning nine persons alive in the communal riots that broke out here after the demolition of the Babri Mosque in December, 1992 are sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court.

October 25
New Delhi: India's indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) ‘Tejas’ successfully testfires for the first time a close combat air-to-air missile off the Goa coast.

October 27
Giridih, Jharkhand: Maoists kill 17 people, including former chief minister Babulal Marandi’s son at Chilkhadiah village in Giridih district of Jharkhand.

October 29
Ahmedabad: Eight persons including a  BJP panchayat leader are sentenced to life by a Godhra court for murdering seven members of a family including two minor girls who were also gangraped in one of the most shocking post-Godhra riots cases in Gujarat. Oct 30

Coimbatore: The 43 convicts awarded life terms inconnection with the Coimbatore bomb blasts leaving 58 persons dead escape the gallows due to mitigating circumstances including inadequate legal assistance.

November 7
Bangalore: After a gruelling 27-hour surgery, doctors successfully remove the extra limbs from a two-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs.

November 12
Bangalore: A five-member BJP ministry, headed by B S Yeddyurappa, is sworn in Karnataka. It’s the first time BJP has assumed power in a southern state.

November 16
New Delhi: In a major breakthrough in the nuclear deal standoff, the Left parties relent and gave clearance tothe Government to approach the International Atomic EnergyAgency for working out an India-specific safeguards agreement.

November 27
New Delhi: Karnataka comes under Central rule for the second time in over a month as government prepares for the dissolution of the Assembly in Parliament.

November 28
Jaipur: Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen is moved out of Kolkata and brought to Jaipur, a day after protests by a Muslim outfit in Kolkata, demanding her deportation, turns violent.

November 29
Lucknow: Terror strikes Uttar Pradesh when militants trigger near-simultaneous blasts in court premises in Varanasi, Faizabad and Kanpur killing 15 people and injuring over 80.

December 1
New Delhi: Offended by controversial lyrics in a song in the comeback film Aaja Nachle of actress Madhuri Dixit, Punjab and Haryana governments ban screening of the film and the National Commission for Scheduled Castes also issues summons.

December 2
New Delhi: Supreme Court allows women below the age of 25 to work as bartenders in Delhi, saying the state, instead of prohibiting employment of women in bars, should focus on factoring in ways through which differences on the basis of sex can be eliminated.

Kapadvanj, Gujarat: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi runs into fresh trouble when the Election Commission rapped him for justifying the Sohrabuddin Sheikh killing, even as he appeared to backtrack on his controversial remarks saying fake police encounters are “not acceptable”.

December 6
Nandigram: The CBI recovers half-burnt skull bones and ashes from three graves in Nandigram even as West Bengal’s ruling CPM called the findings of the human remains as “normal”.

December 7
New Delhi: India says it had taken up with Malaysia the issue of alleged mistreatment of people of Indian origin in Kuala Lumpur but evaded on reports of their links with terrorists.

December 12
New Delhi: The Congress gives “detailed reasons” to the Election Commission pointing out that party president Sonia Gandhi has not violated the model code of conduct over her “merchants of death” remark during campaigning for the Gujarat assembly polls.

Gurgaon: An eighth standard student is killed when two classmates allegedly pumped five bullets into him at point blank range in perhaps the first such shooting in a school in the country.

December 16
Raipur: 299 inmates including 105 naxal activists escape from the Dantewada jail in Chattisgarh  after prison guards are overpowered in a daring jailbreak in which three guards and two undertrials are injured.

December 18
Mumbai: Pravin Mahajan sentenced to life imprisonment for the cold blooded murder of his elder brother and senior BJP leader Pramod Mahajan but the prosecution said it would appeal pressing for the maximum death penalty.

December 20
New Delhi/Kolkata: The central government bars controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, living in an undisclosed location in the national capital, from coming out in public or freely meeting people, restrictions described as “house arrest” by her.

New Delhi: Admitting that naxal groups have succeeded in enlarging their base, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asks the states to establish specialised and dedicated forces needed to cripple the “virus”.

December 22
Mumbai: The Bachchan family bids a tearful farewell to Teji Bachchan, who passed away after suffering from prolonged illness.

New Delhi: The Election Commission pulls up Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Sonia Gandhi for violating the model code of conduct by their speeches during the election campaign and expressed displeasure over that.

December 23
Ahmedabad: Narendra Modi powers BJP to a near two-thirds majority in the Gujarat Assembly elections and for a record fourth term giving himself a third stint as Chief Minister.

Lucknow: Two members of Lashkar-e-Taiba suicide squad, who apparently wanted to target Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Narendra Modi, are killed in an encounter with Special Task Force of state police at Dewa road on Lucknow-Barabanki border.

December 25
Phulbani, Orissa: Curfew is imposed in four towns after a youth was killed and six churches and a minister’s house were targeted today in large-scale communal violence and arson in Orissa’s Kandhamal district following an attack on a VHP leader who led an anti-conversion movement.

Ahmedabad: Narendra Modi, who powered BJP to a spectacular victory in the Gujarat Assembly polls, is sworn in as Chief Minister of the state for the third consecutive term.

New Delhi: Curtains came down on the illustrious and sometimes controversial career of India’s first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi with the government finally accepting her voluntary retirement plea.

December 30
Prem Kumar Dhumal, who led BJP to a spectacular victory in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls, was sworn in as chief minister of the state for the second time. A three-time MLA who headed the BJP government in Himachal for the first time from 1998 to 2003, Dhumal is the 16th chief minister of the state since it was formed in 1971.