A timeline of the Indian Subcontinent/ IIIWorld News | History | Editor (Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi) |
See also A timeline of ancient India
See also A timeline of British India Jan 1947: Communal riots move to Punjab, where Sikhs join Hindus to fight Muslims and tens of thousands die during the year, setting off a mass migration of tens of millions of people Mar 1947: India hosts the Asian Relations Conference with 28 countries (including both China and Tibet, the colonies of Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, seven republics of the Soviet Union, Korea, Nepal, Burma/Myanmar, Ceylon/Sri Lanka and Afghanistan as well as the Arab League and Palestinian Jews) and Nehru announces the policy of "non-alignment" (neutral in the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union) Jun 1947: Lord Mountbatten announces the partition of the colony in two independent countries, India and Pakistan Aug 1947: The British leave India, Pakistan becomes officially independent under governor Jinnah and India becomes independent under prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, leading a government that contains ministers from five religions and from all corners of India, including a woman and two untouchables, while Rajendra Prasad (of the Kayastha caste) is elected president, a largely ceremonial post Oct 1947: The maharaja of Kashmir (ruling over Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley and the Hindu-dominated Jammu region) signs to become part of India but, following rioting by the Muslim majority in Kashmir, Pakistani tribal militias attack India and occupy part of Kashmir 1947: One million people die in communal violence due to the partition that also causes an exodus of more than 14 million people 1947: The population of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, is 450,000 1947: Maulana Abdul Haq establishes the Deobandi Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Haqqania in Pakistan Jan 1948: Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by a Hindu extremist and India temporarily bans the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) considering them responsible for inciting to violence Feb 1948: Bhalchandra Trimbak Ranadive, a Brahman, is elected president of the Communist Party of India 1948: Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the prime minister of Pakistan (a shiite), dies and is succeeded by Liaquat Ali Khan 1948: India refuses to allow the plebiscite in Kashmir and Kashmir separatism is born (40,000 people will die in 55 years) 1948: Ceylon becomes independent and the government of Don Stephen Senanayake revokes the citizenship of the Tamil minority Mar 1948: Pakistan invades and annexes the Kalat state and renames it Balochistan 1948: Hector Abhayavardhana and others found the Socialist Party of India 1948: India creates an atomic energy agency under Homi Bhabha Mar 1948: Sheikh Abdullah is appointed prime minister of Kashmir Sep 1948: India invades and annexes Hyderabad, still ruled by the oldest Muslim dynasty in India, while the Communist Party of India tries to start a revolution in Telengana 1949: To quell an uprising, India invades the independent country of Sikkim 1949: India creates the State of Rajasthan is by merging Rajput princely states of Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer 1949: Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai quits the Justice Party and founds the Dravidian separatist party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ("Dravidian Progress Federation") 1949: India signs a treaty with Bhutan to conduct its foreign policy Oct 1949: Angami Zapu Phizo becomes the leader of the separatist Naga National Council of northeast India Dec 1949: Riots in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) force 1.7 million Hindus to fled to India Dec 1949: France surrenders Pondicherry to India 1950: The first Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) is founded in Kharagpur 1950: India's population is 350 million Jan 1950: India adopts its first constitution (drafted under the chaimanship of the untouchable Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar) that bans caste-based discrimination, grants women the right to vote, adopts Hindi as the national language with English allowed for 15 more years, Oct 1950: China invades and annexes Tibet, causing an exodus of refugees to India 1951: Pakistan's leader Liaquat Ali Khan is assassinated by an Afghan, while general Muhammad Ayub Khan is appointed chief of the army 1951: Syama Prasad Mookerjee founds the Hindu nationalist party Jana Sangh 1951: The dalit Ambedkar founds the Scheduled Caste Federation (1951) 1951: Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani founds the socialist-leaning Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP) in India Sep 1951: Nehru is elected president of the Congress Party 1951: India's first five-year plan, modeled after the Soviet Union 1951: Solomon Bandaranaike founds the left-wing Sri Lanka Freedom Party Sep 1951: The Union Muslim League is formed in India 1952: India holds the first general elections (176 million people entitled to vote of which 85% are illiterate), won by the Congress Party with 45% of the votes (74% of the seats) 1952: Mother Theresa (Yugoslavia-born missionary nun Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) founds the Nirmal Hriday Home for the Dying in Calcutta, India 1952: Mohan Mittal founds a steel business (later Ispat) in Kolkata, India Dec 1952: Potti Sriramulu dies in a hunger strike, riots erupt and the Indian government grants Telugu speakers the state of Andhra 1953: Nepalese sherpa Tenzing Norgaj is the first person to climb Mt Everest (guiding New Zealand's tourist Edmund Hillary) 1953: The Tungabhadra dam opens 1953: Mohammed Daoud is appointed prime minister of Afghanistan 1953: India creates the state of Andhra Pradesh by merging the Central Provinces and Telangana Aug 1953: Accused of plotting for independence, Kashmir's prime minister Sheikh Abdullah is fired and jailed and replaced by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed Oct 1953: India inaugurates the state of Andhra Pradesh for Telugu speakers Feb 1954: The USA signs a treaty with Pakistan thereby becoming the main provider of military goods and training for Pakistan 1954: Nehru and Mao sign the "Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence" between India and China Apr 1954: India and China sign a treaty of friendship and India recognizes Chinese rule over Tibet Sep 1954: Angami Zapu Phizo declares the independence of Nagaland from India 1955: Polygamy is abolished in India by the Hindu Marriage Act designed by Ambedkar (but it only applies to Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, not to Muslims) 1955: Nehru delivers a speech advocating "socialistic pattern of society" 1955: The Indian government commits to a socialist society 1955: The dalit Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar converts to Buddhism and founds the Bharatiya Bauddha Mahasabha (Buddhist Society of India), also known as neo-Buddhism 1956: Pakistan enacts a new constitution and becomes an Islamic republic 1956: India creates the states of Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Mysore (later renamed Karnataka) 1956: India's second five-year plan is largely designed by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis for rapid industrialization with steel, coal, shipbuilding, nuclear and aerospace reserved to state enterprises 1956: Prime minister Nehru of India, Nasser of Egypt and Tito of Yugoslavia pledge a neutral stance between communism and capitalism and found the Non-Aligned Movement 1956: The left-wing Sinhalese nationalist (and Buddhist) party gains power and Solomon Bandaranaike becomes prime minister 1956: Nand Kishore Ruia founds the iron-ore export company Essar in Chennai, India 1956: India opens the first nuclear reactor of Asia, the Apsata, with uranium from Britain 1956: Fazal Ali's States Reorganisation Commission redraws the Indian states along linguistic lines with new states such as Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Madras State (later renamed Tamil Nadu) and Mysore State (later renamed Karnataka), and enlarged states such as Punjab, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Bombay/Mumbai state Dec 1956: Angami Zapu Phizo flees from India to East Pakistan/Bangladesh 1957: India annexes Kashmir 1957: The dalit Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar founds the Republican Party of India of Buddhist inspiration 1957: The Communist Party of India wins Kerala state's elections and forms the first democratically elected communist government 1957: India builds its first digital computer< TIFRAC, at the TIFR in Mumbai Sep 1957: The "Mundhra scandal" erupts, the first major case of government corruption in India 1958: General Ayyub Khan takes over Pakistan's government in a coup 1958: Oman cedes Gwadar to Pakistan 1958: Oman surrenders Gawdar to Pakistan 1958: Baloch nationalists stage an uprising against Pakistan 1958: Pakistani general Ayub Khan, to stop the United Party of East Pakistan from winning elections, seizes power and dissolvesparliament 1959: An Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) is founded in Kanpur and affiliated with nine USA universities 1959: Homi Sethna sets up a plutonium plant in Trombay, designed and constructed entirely by Indian scientists Mar 1959: The Dalai Lama flees Chinese-occupied Tibet for India 1959: Steel plants built by Germany (Rourkela in Odisha), Britain (Durgapur in West Bengal) and Soviet Union (Bhilai in Chhattisgarh) begin to operate May 1959: Chakravarti Rajagopalachari founds the conservative capitalist-leaning Swatantra Party Sep 1959: Sri Lanka's prime minister Solomon Bandaranaike is assassinated by a Buddhist monk Oct 1959: Chinese troops kill nine Indian soldiers in a contested border area Jul 1959: Following riots, India deposes the communist government of Kerala state 1960: King Mahendra seizes power in Nepal 1960: East Asia ties sub-Saharan Africa for the lowest GDP per capita in the world 1960: The nuclear reactor CIRUS (Canada India Reactor Utility Services) supplied by Canada in 1954, goes live at Trombay 1960: Tara Singh launches a campaign for a Punjabi-speaking state 1960: Sirimavo Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka becomes the world's first female prime minister, the first woman ever to run a democratic country May 1960: India splits Bombay state into Maharashtra and Gujarat states Jun 1960: Riots erupt in Assam against East Bengali refugees 1961: Pakistani president Ayub Khan signs a cooperation pact with the USA to counterbalance Soviet influence in India Jan 1961: Religious riots in Jabalpur after a Hindu girl is raped by Muslim men Dec 1961: India invades the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu TM, ®, Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. 1962: Pakistan signs a border treaty with China 1962: Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution", introduces IR8, a semi-dwarf rice variety, that solves the problem of famine in India 1962: Baloch nationalists stage another uprising against Pakistan 1962: Ayub Khan enacts a new constitution for Pakistan, opposed by Mujibur Rahman's Awami League in East Pakistan and by and by Ali Bhutto's People's Party in West Pakistan Oct 1962: China attacks India in Ladaq and in the northeast frontier killing 2000 Indian soldiers 1963: Kumar Patel invents the laser 1963: The Bhakra dam opens, second highest in the world 1963: Mohammed Daoud is removed as prime minister of Afghanistan by king Zahir Shah Apr 1964: Sheikh Abdullah is released from prison and begins negotiations with Pakistan over Kashmir on behalf of Nehru 1964: The plutonium reprocessing plant Phoenix goes live (with help from the USA) May 1964: Indian prime minister Nehru dies and is replaced by Lal Bahadur Shastri 1964: The Hindu religious organization Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is founded 1965: East Pakistan enacts the "Enemy Property" law aimed at confiscating assetts from non-Muslim minorities 1965: During a wave of political and economic reforms, king Zahir Shah of Afghanistan grants free elections Feb 1965: Following anti-Hindi demonstrations in the south, English is retained as the neutral language of India Jan 1965: the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan is founded (the Communist Party) Mar 1965: Sheikh Abdullah is jailed for meeting with Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai Aug 1965: Pakistan, with approval from China, attacks India's Kashmir, leading to the largest tank battle since World War II (10,000 soldiers die, mostly Indian) but neither country wins anything Jan 1966: Shastri dies and Indira Gandhi, daughter of Nehru, becomes prime minister of India, the second woman to be appointed to run a democratic country Mar 1966: The Mizo National Front stages an insurrection in eastern India Mar 1966: Punjab, until then a Hindi-majority state, is partitioned so that it becomes a Sikh-dominated Punjabi-speaking state, and a new Hindi-speaking state is created, Himachal Pradesh Apr 1966: A bomb by the Naga rebels kills 45 train passengers Jun 1966: India's political cartoonist Balasaheb Thackeray founds the Hindu nationalist movement Shiv Sena Mar 1967: Maoists from Naxalbari (Naxalites) led by Krishak Samiti stage demonstrations and begin a guerrilla war in West Bengal, followed by Maoist groups in Telengana and Srikakulam, who fight against landlords and landowners, affiliated with Charu Majumdar's Communist Party Marxist Leninist (CPIML) 1967: Congress loses elections in Chennai (to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, led by Tamil movie star Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran), in Kerala (to the Communist Party) and in West Bengal (to a union of leftist parties), and in other states anti-Congress alliances are formed, the Samyukta Vidhayak Dal (SVD) May 1967: India elects a Muslim president, Zakir Hussain, a largely ceremonial post Mar 1968: Sheikh Abdullah is released from prison 1969: Pakistani leader Ayyub Khan is succeeded by another general, Yahya Khan 1969: India's Tata appoints Faqir Chand Kohli in charge of computer services 1969: Ghulam Azam becomes the leader of Bangladesh's main Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party 1969: Indira Gandhi nationalizes the banks of India Aug 1969: Varahagiri Venkata Giri is elected president of India, a largely ceremonial post Sep 1969: Hindus and Muslims riot in Ahmadabad (1,000 die, mostly Muslims) Nov 1969: Indira Gandhi is expelled from the Congress and the party splits in Congress (Organisation), basically the old establishment, and Gandhi's own Congress (Requisition) Dec 1969: India creates the state of Meghalaya out of Assam Dec 1970: In the first democratic elections in Pakistan, the secular and democratic Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (a Shiite) wins the majority of votes in West Pakistan, while the secessionist Awami League of Mujibur Rahman wins the elections in East Pakistan, with the latter getting overall more votes Dec 1970: General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan seizes power in Pakistan following Ayub's resignations 1970: Om Prakash Jindal opens a steel plant at Hisar, India Jan 1971: A general strike is called in East Pakistan because West Pakistan refuses to accept the results of the election Mar 1971: Indira Gandhi's Congress (R) wins a landslide victory in national elections, following which Gandhi abolishes all princely privileges Mar 1971: The Pakistani army under general Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan, supported by both Richard Nixon (USA) and Mao (China), attacks the university of East Pakistan and eventually massacres more than one million East Pakistani intellectuals, Hindus and assorted civilians, and rapes tens of thousands of women, while 8 million people (mostly Hindus) flee from Bangladesh into India Jul 1971: Pakistan forms the province of Balochistan uniting the old princely states of the region, the old High Commissione's State and Gwadar Aug 1971: India signs a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union 1971: The Sinhalese Maoist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) movement foments political riots Dec 1971: West Pakistan attacks India in both Bengal and Kashmir but is defeated by India, the first victory by Hindus over Muslims in centuries, and East Pakistan separates from West Pakistan and becomes the independent country of Bangladesh under the rule of Mujibur Rahman, Yahya Khan resigns and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto becomes prime minister of Pakistan 1972: King Mahendra of Nepal dies and is succeeded by Birendra 1972: Pakistan begins a covert nuclear program 1972: Indian-born MIT-graduate Narendra Patni founds Data Conversion (later Patni) in the USA with back-office operations in Pune 1972: Ceylon changes its name to Sri Lanka and becomes a socialist republic 1972: MIT-graduate Narendra Patni founds Data Conversion (later renamed Patni Computer Systems) with offices both in Boston (USA) and Pune (India) 1972: Sibghatullah Mujaddedi founds the Islamic movement Jamiat-e-Ulamae Mohammadi in Afghanistan 1972: Television programming begins in Mumbai 1973: Sardar Daud, the king's cousin, stages a coup that ends the monarchy of Afghanistan 1973: India renames Mysore state into Karnataka 1973: Mohammed Daoud seizes power in Afghanistan with a coup with help from the communists 1973: Baloch nationalists stage a third uprising against Pakistan Oct 1973: A bus crash kills 74 people in Hazaribagh, Bihar, India 1974: 28,000 people die in floods in Bangladesh Jan 1974: Students rise up in Gujarat and Bihar against political corruption Jun 1974: Jayaprakash Narayan leads the students of Bihar on a march for "total revolution" 1974: Pakistan recognizes Bangladesh 1974: Tata obtains a software contract from BUrroughs, the first major software project offsources by the USA to India 1974: Pakistan's parliament declares Ahmadis to be non-Muslims May 1974: India detonates an underground nuclear weapon, largely the brainchild of nuclear scientist Raja Rammana Sep 1974: Sikkim votes overwhelmingly to join India 1975: Bangladesh's president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family are assassinated in a military coup led by general Zia Rahman 1975: India launches its first satellite 1975: 372 miners die in India's Chasnala colliery disaster Feb 1975: Sheikh Abdullah becomes the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir 1975: Mohammed Daoud removes the communists from the Afghan government 1975: Persecuted by Afghan's dictator Sardar Daud, Islamic fundamentalists affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood such as Gulbuddin Hikmetyar and Ahmad Shah Masud flee to Pakistan where they are protected by Jamiat-e-Islami and armed by the paramilitary Frontier Corps of Naseerullah Babar Jun 1975: Embroiled in scandals, Indira Gandhi declares a state of emergency, under which her political foes are imprisoned (36 thousand people), constitutional rights abrogated, and the press placed under censorship 1975: Azim Premji's Bangalore-based Wipro starts selling the first computer made in India Apr 1976: ore than 200 squatters die when the Indian government tries to demolish a slum in Delhi 1976: Mir Hazar Ramkhani forms the Balochistan People's Liberation Front in Pakistan Sep 1976: To curb population growth, Sanjay Gandhi initiates a program of forced sterilization 1976: Pakistan founds the Engineering Research Laboratory (ERL) presided by Abdul Wadeer Khan (later renamed KRL) 1976: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam is founded in Sri Lanka to protect the rights of the Tamil minority and wins the elections in Tamil-dominated regions 1977: Former general Ziaur Rahman seizes power in Bangladesh and Bangladesh enacts a new constitution and becomes an Islamic republic, while Shanti Bahini founds the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti (PCJSS) and leads the Jumma, Chakma and other tribal people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in a rebellion against against the government of Bangladesh Mar 1977: Indira Gandhi returns India to democracy but her party loses the elections to the Janata Party formed by a coalition of Morarji Desai's Congress (Organization), Charan Singh's Bharatiya Lok Dal, the Socialist Party and the untouchable Jagjivan Ram, the leader of the Scheduled Castes, and Morarji Desai (a Brahman) becomes the new prime minister; the leftist parties win in West Bengal (and will remain in power for decades) and Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran's new party wins in Tamil Nadu May 1977: Nine dalit are burned to death in Bihar state 1977: Pakistan quells the rebellion in Balochistan (after 8,000 people died) TM, ®, Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Jul 1977: The corrupt but secular government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (a Shiite) is overthrown by a military coup led by general Zia ul-Haq, a Sunni fundamentalist who reinstates public hangings, death by stoning and public beatings according to Islamic law 1977: Boom of newspapers thanks to the end of censorship and to the arrival of modern printing technology 1977: 57 foreign firms, including IBM, close down their Indian plants rather than meet Indian demands for some degree of Indian ownership 1977: Sheikh Abdullah wins fair elections in Kashmir, the only elections not to be rigged by India between 1947 and 2002 1978: The Karakoram Highway linking Pakistan and China is opened, thereby increasing trade and military cooperation between the two countries Jan 1978: Jimmy Carter (USA) visits India and speaks at parliament 1978: Maumoon Abdul Gayoom is appointed president in the Maldives 1978: The exiled Islamist leader Sibghatullah Mujaddedi founds Afghanistan's National Liberation Front in Pakistan (Jabhai Milli Nejate Afghanistan) and the Afghani government retaliates by killing more than 70 members of his family 1978: Karnataka State's agency Keonics establishes Electronics City in Bangalore, India 1978: The "Electronic City" is founded in Bangalore, India 1978: Sri Lanka becomes a presidential republic and Junius Richard Jayawardene is appointed president replacing prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike with Ranasinghe Premadasa 1978: Youstol Dispage 1978: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), tolerated by the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, conducts the first terrorist attack in Sri Lanka Apr 1978: the Communist Party of Afghanistan stages a coup and removes Daud from power Apr 1978: Mohammed Daoud is toppled by a communist coup in Afghanistan and the leader of the Communist Party, Nur-Mohammed Taraki, is appointed president with vice-presidents Babrak Karmal and Hafizullah Amin, and political purges kill more than 10,000 people in 18 months Apr 1978: Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale leads Sikh nationalists in a campaign of intimidation and assassination against the Nirankari sect Apr 1978: Sixteen people (mostly Sikhs) are killed in riots pitting Sikhs against the Sant Nirankari Mission at Amritsar in India's Punjab Apr 1978: Sikh separatists Talwinder Singh Parmar and Sukhdev Singh Babbar found the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) to create the Sikh nation of Khalistan in the Indian state of Punjab Mar 1979: The Soviet Union bombs pro-democracy rebels in Afghanistan, killing more than 10,000 people 1979: The communist government of West Bengal in India kills thousands of Dalit refugees from Bangladesh of the Namashudra community in Marichjhapi Oct 1979: Jayaprakash Narayan dies September 1979: Amin overthrows Taraki in Afghanistan December 1979: Soviet troops invade Afghanistan, kill Amin and install Babrak Karmal as president 1979: Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is hanged in Pakistan, a Shiite leader hanged by a Sunni leader (Muhammad Zia ul-Haq) Mar 1979: Sibghatullah Mujaddedi calls for a popular uprising against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan 1979: The United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) is founded in Assam to fight against Indian rule 1979: The All Assam Students Union leads anti-Bengali and anti-Muslim strikes and demonstrations Dec 1979: The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, murders the president and installs Babrak Karmal as president Dec 1979: After former Afghan president Taraki is assassinated by order of president Amin, Soviet troops invade Afghanistan, kill Amin and install Babrak Karmal as president 1980: the USA uses Pakistan to help rebels fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan 1980: India passes the USA as the country that produces the most films Dec 1980: There are 1.4 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan 1980: Harchand Singh Longowal is elected president of the Akali Dal party that represents the Sikhs of Punjab 1980: Mohammad Najibullah becomes the head of the Afghan secret police (KHAD) that creates concentration camps and liquidates thousands of political enemies 1980: Wipro, to fill a gap after IBM left India, hires Sridhar Mitta who sets up offices in Bangalore to make computers 1980: "mujaheddin" and volunteers from the Arab world, led by Saudi scion Osama bin Laden, organize the resistance against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan 1980: Indira Gandhi, now allied with Charan Singh, wins elections and is returned to prime minister Mar 1980: A bus crash kills 32 people in Krishnanagar, West Bengal, India Apr 1980: Baba Gurbachan Singh, leader of the Sant Nirankari Mission, is assassinated Jun 1980: A bus crash kills 58 people in Bilaspur, Madhya Pradesh, India Jun 1980: A bus crash kills 90 people in Mirpur, Kashmir of Pakistan Nov 1980: A bus crash kills 40 people in Dholpur, Rajasthan, India Dec 1980: Jana Sangh members found the Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party Mar 1981: Bangladeshi troops kill at least 4,000 tribal people of the Chittagong Hill Tracks and Bangladesh's president Ziaur Rahman is assassinated in that region by his own troops 1981: The USA and Pakistan sign a treaty of alliance that includes military aid to Pakistan 1981: Infosys is founded in Bangalore by Patni employee Narayana Murthy 1981: Mukesh Ambani joins his family's business Reliance in India 1981: East Asia has the highest poverty rate in the world Apr 1981: A bus crash kills 61 Hindu pilgrims in Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh, India Jul 1981: A bus crash kills 32 people in Kawanpui, Mizoram, India Aug 1981: A bus crash kills 43 people in Pithorgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India Oct 1981: A bus crash kills 40 people in Simla, Himachal Pradesh, India 1982: Bangladesh is ruled by general Ershad, an Islamic fundamentalist who eventually declares Islam as the state religion Feb 1982: Naga rebels kill 22 Indian soldiers Mar 1982: The actor Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao founds the Telugu-nationalist party Telugu Desam in Hyderabad 1982: Pakistan recruits, trains and arms Islamic fighters from more than 40 countries with funds from the USA and Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the first "global jihad" 1982: China provides Pakistan with the design of a nuclear bomb and weapons-grade uranium Dec 1982: A bus crash kills 45 people at Brahmanbari in Bangladesh 1983: the Tamil issue becomes a military issue after confrontation between Tamil tigers and the army leaves hundreds dead 1983: Pakistani activist Asma Jahangir is arrested for campaigning in favor of women's rights and democracy 1983: India wins cricket's World Cup and cricket becomes the national sport Feb 1983: Hundreds of Muslims are killed by Hindu mobs in Assam Jul 1983: Velupillai Prabhakaran leads the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in Sri Lanka fighting for Tamil independence following riots targeting Tamils in Colombo which followed the killing of 13 Sri Lankan soldiers Oct 1983: Sikh nationalists kill six Hindu passengers on a bus in Punjab state 1983: Hamid Karzai moves from India to Pakistan and joins Sibghatullah Mujaddedi's National Liberation Front of Afghanistan Jan 1983: Rama Rao is elected chief minister of Andhra Pradesh 1983: Anil Ambani joins his family's business Reliance in India Feb 1983: Lalung tribespeople in the Indian state of Assam massacre more than two thousand people during a six-hour period, mainly Bangladeshi Muslims ("Nellie massacre") Jan 1984: A bus crash kills 80 people in Rapar, Punjab, India 1984: While fighting the Sikh secessionist movement of Jarnail Singh Bindranwale in Punjab, Indian troops destroy the holy Sikh shrine of the "Golden Temple" Jun 1984: While fighting the Sikh secessionist movement of Jarnail Singh Bindranwale, Indian troops destroy the holy Sikh shrine of the "Golden Temple" in Amritsar (hundreds of Sikh terrorists and Indian troops die) Aug 1984: A bus crash kills 40 people in Ingraj Bazar, West Bengal, India Sep 1984: A bus crash kills 42 in Uttar Pradesh, India Oct 1984: Indira Gandhi is assassinated by Sikh bodyguards and is succeeded by her son Rajiv while more than 3,000 Sikhs are assassinated around the country (mainly in Delhi) by Hindu mobs Dec 1984: A leak at the Union Carbide pesticides plant in Bhopal causes 14,000 deaths 1984: Pakistan enacts laws that bar the Ahmadis from calling themselves or behaving as Muslims, preaching their faith and using Islamic terms for their places of worship and religious rituals. 1984: The untouchable Kanshi Ram founds the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to serve the untouchables/dalits Jun 1985: Sikh militants plant a bomb on an Air India flight out of Canada killing all 329 passengers 1985: The media expose the alliance between politicians and organized crime in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar Mar 1985: The finance minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh enacts reforms to liberalize the economy thereby launching an economic boom Apr 1985: The case of Shah Bano, a woman whose husband refuses to pay alimony based on Islamic law, exposes the double standard in the Indian justice system (a Muslim woman has fewer rights than a woman of any other religion) Jul 1985: India's prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and Longowal of the Akali Dal party sign an agreement to end the Punjabi insurrection Aug 1985: Longowal is assassinated by Sikh extremists Sep 1985: Haq Nawaz Jhangvi founds Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Wahabi organization that aims at turning Pakistan into a purely Sunni nation by expelling or exterminating all Shiites Dec 1985: India's prime minister Rajiv Gandhi signs an agreement with the All Assam Students Union to end the insurrection in Assam and the movement changes name to Asom Gana Parishad and wins state elections 1985: Hafiz Saeed and Zaffar Iqbal, two teachers of Islamic Studies at University of Engineering and Technology in Pakistan, form the Islamic missionary movement Jamaat-ud-Dawa Jan 1986: A bus crash kills 49 people in Navsari, Gujarat, India 1986: The Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) assassinate more than 100 people 1986: India begins to build a 3000-km border fence around Bangladesh Feb 1986: Hindus begin to worship a Hindu shrine, believed to be the birthplace of Ram, in Ayodhya that is located inside a mosque, while the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) demand the construction of a grand temple to replace the mosque Apr 1986: A bus crash kills 44 people in Kathgodam, Uttarakhand, India May 1986: India adopts the Muslim Women's Bill that sets different legal standards for Muslim women than for other women Jun 1986: India signs a peace agreement with Laldenga of the Mizo National Front granting statehood to Mizoram May 1986: Babrak Karmal is replaced as president of Afghanistan by Mohammad Najibullah, appointed by the Soviet Union 1986: Ali Bhutto's daughter Benazir returns to Pakistan from exile 1986: Patni obtains the first contract from a USA company (Data General) for offsourcing software to India 1986: Sunil Mittal founds the telecom company Bharti Telecom Limited in India 1986: Pakistan introduces the death penalty for "blasphemy" against the Islamic religion 1986: Ethnic cleansing of Hindus by radical Sikhs in Punjab increases and Sikhs also set off bombs in Indian cities to kill Sikhs so that Sikhs would seek revenge on Hindus Oct 1986: A bus and train crash kills 35 people in Landhi, Karachi, Pakistan Nov 1986: A bus crash kills 33 people in Murshidabad, West Bengal, India Dec 1986: Sikh militants attack a bus and kill 24 Hindus near Khuda in India's Punjab 1987: First suicide bombing by a Tiger in Sri Lanka 1987: Roop Kanwar is burnt alive on her husband’s funeral pyre In India's Deorala 1987: India rigs elections in Kashmir 1987: Vishwanath Pratap Singh is removed from his position after investigating cases of corruption and the Bofors scandal reveals more corruption in Rajiv Gandhi's government Jan 1987: National television of India begins broadcasting the Ramayana, its most successful show yet Jul 1987: A bus crash kills 39 people in Dakpatthar, Uttar Pradesh, India Jul 1987: India deploys troops in Sri Lanka in a peacekeeping mission Sep 1987: A Rajput woman, Roop Kunwar, commits ritual suicide after her husband's death and fanatical Hindus erect a temple in her honor in Rajastan Oct 1987: Indian troops attack Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers Oct 1987: A bus crash kills 64 people near Al-Kufaytah in Sudan Dec 1987: A bus and train crash kills 67 children on the outskirts Cairo in Egypt 1987: India sends a peace-keeping force to broker a truce between the army and the Tamil tigers (1,200 Indian soldiers will die) 1987: the Tamil Tigers start using suicide bombers 1987: Abdul Wadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb (after stealing nuclear secrets from Holland), begins contacts with Iran to sell nuclear secrets Dec 1987: 30 people in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu kill themselves after the death of M.G. Ramachandran, the state’s chief minister and a former movie star 1988: Political violence claims the lives of thousands in Sri Lanka before and after national elections 1988: Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, aka Fadl, publishes the jihadist manual "The Essential Guide for Preparation" in Pakistan 1988: The leader of the untouchables, Jagjivan Ram, dies Feb 1988: A truck crash kills 70 people near Jeremie in Haiti Mar 1988: India tests its first surface-to-surface missile Apr 1988: A us crash kills 42 people near Mueang Chainat in Thailand May 1988: A bus crash kills 27 people near Carrollton in Kentucky Sep 1988: A bus crash kills 67 people in Sangrur district, Punjab, India Oct 1988: A bus crash kills 50 people in Guwahati, Assam, India Oct 1988: A bus crash kills 43 people in Shaanxi province 1988: Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)'s general Hamid Gul forms IJI(Islami Jamhuri Ittehad-Islamic democratic front), an anti-USA group of religious organizations Sep 1988: Like his mother Rajiv Gandhi introduces a law to limit the freedom of the press Oct 1988: Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Janata Party form a new party, Janata Dal 1988: an Indian ferry capsizes on the Ganges River, killing over 400 people 1988: The Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) signs an agreement with the government of India to end the insurrection 1988: Zia, the US ambassador and top Pakistan army officials die in a mysterious air crash 1988: Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's daughter Benazir wins the general elections in Pakistan, but real power rests with general Mirza Aslam Beg and the military's protege, Nawaz Sharif, who is assigned the state of Punjab 1988: Millions of people in India are left homeless during massive floods 1988: Gautam Adani opens a trading house in India 1988: Akbar Bugti is appointed chief minister of Balochistan in Pakistan 1988: Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan, creates Al Qaeda, a worldwide alliance of (mainly Arab) fundamentalist militants, based on the teachings of Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahab 1988: Maulana Abdul ul-Haq dies and his son Maulana Sami ul Haq becomes the chancellor of Darul Uloom Haqqania, where a number of future Taliban study Jan 1989: A bus and train collision kills 51 people in Ahungalle, Sri Lanka February 1989: the Soviet Union withdraws from Afghanistan (1.3 million Afghans and 12 thousand Soviet soldiers have died, five million Afghans have fled the country) 1989: Ranasinghe Premadasa is elected president of Sri Lanka 1989: the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) wins elections in Bihar (and will remain in power for decades) 1989: Rajiv Gandhi is the first Indian prime minister to visit Pakistan 1989: Kashmir separatists of the JKLF (Kashmir Liberation Front), trained in Pakistan, take up arms against India and kill more than 50 people May 1989: A bus crash kills 45 people in Jauja, Peru Jun 1989: A bus crash kills 50 people near Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir, India Sep 1989: A bus crash kills 21 students in Alton, Texas Dec 1989: A bus crash kills 35 people near Kempsey in Australia 1989: Pakistan inaugurates the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi 1989: The Soviet Union withdraws from Afghanistan and Sibghatullah Mujaddedi becomes Afghanistan's new president 1989: Narendra Dabholkar founds the Committee for Eradication of Blind Faith to combat superstition in India Aug 1989: Singh enacts the recommendations of the Mandal Report that 27% of all vacancies in government positions be allocated to some lower castes, causing a wave of self-immolations by Brahmin students Nov 1989: Congress loses the elections in India and Singh is elected prime minister by a coalition of Janata Dal, BJP and communists Oct 1989: Benazir Bhutto fires Hamid Gul, the main architect of Pakistan's involvement in the anti-India insurrection in Kashmir (Note: i stopped listing bus crashes after 1989 - just too many) 1990: Indian troops are withdrawn from Sri Lanka after more than 1000 Indian soldiers have died ("India's Vietnam") 1990: The separatist group Hizbul Mujahideen is founded in India-controlled Kashmir, and thousands of people are killed by India over two years Sep 1990: More than 150 students are killed at Eastern University in Sri Lanka 1990: After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the USA imposes sanctions on Pakistan as punishment for its nuclear program Aug 1990: Benazir Bhutto is removed from prime minister of Pakistan, on charges of incompetence and corruption 1990: Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League wins elections in Pakistan and Sharif becomes its new prime minister 1990: Indian troops leave Sri Lanka 1990: the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) is founded by Lalit Debbarma to fight for Tripura's secession from India 1990: Pakistan passes a law (based on the holy book of the Muslims, the Quran) that a criminal can settle his crime with the victim by paying money, a law that helps many wealthy criminals to avoid trial 1990: Shiite militants assassinate the founder of Sipah-e-Sahaba, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi 1990: Islamic militants of Pakistan led by Hafiz Saeed form the Islamist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba to fight India, basically the military wing of Jamaat-ud-Dawa Sep 1990: Lal Krishna Advani of the BJP leads a five-week march by Hindus on Ayodhya that is stopped by the police (about 20 people die) Nov 1990: Singh resigns as prime minister of India Dec 1990: Riaz Basra of Sipah-e-Sahaba kills the Iranian consul in Lahore, Sadiq Ganji, whom they consider a Shiite agitator TM, ®, Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. 1991: Nepal holds its first democratic elections that herald an age of political instability (eleven governments in eleven years) Jun 1991: A special Indian tribunal deals with water issues (Kaveri river) between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu 1991: The Indian army attacks Sikh strongholds in Punjab killing more than 3,300 civilians 1991: During the electoral campaign Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by Tamil separatists, Congress wins elections and Narasimha Rao becomes prime minister, and finance minister Manmohan Singh launches a program of economic liberalization 1991: In Bangladesh, president Ershad is sentenced to jail for corruption and Begum Khaleda Zia, widow of Zia Rahman, becomes prime minister 1991: A tsunami kills 138,000 people in Bangladesh 1991: The Indian government sets up the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) to promote software exports and opens the first park in the Electronics City of Bangalore 1991: Om Prakash Jindal splits between his children the steel and power conglomerate that he built in India 1991: Wipro wins a software contract from a US customer that interacts via the Internet 1991: Literacy rate in India is 64% for men and 39% for women, while for Sri Lanka it is 94% and 89% Dec 1992: Hindu extremists destroy the 16th century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, causing riots that kill 2000 people 1992: Tamil tigers kill dozens of Muslims in Sri Lanka 1992: India produces 189 Hindi films, 180 Tamil films, 153 Telugu films, 92 Kannada films, 90 Malayam films, 42 Bengal films, 25 Marathi films 1992: Burhanuddin Rabbani is elected president of Afghanistan but civil war erupts between Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Masud, Rabbani's defense minister, and Pakistan-supported Gulbuddin Hikmetyar's militias 1992: Pakistan begins missile cooperation with North Korea 1993: The USA outsources the management of its credit-card business to its Indian office led by Roman Roy, the first major project of business-process outsourcing to India 1993: Mullah Omar, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and other Afghans Islamists found the Taliban 1993: Punjab returns to democratic rule after 20,000 people have been killed in the ten-year insurrection 1993: Muslims and Hindus riot in Mumbai (800 people died) 1993: Separatist rebels of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) kill 100 Muslims at the Bansbari refugee camp of India's north-eastern Assam state 1993: The USA adds Pakistan to the list of countries sponsoring terrorism Jan 1993: Hikmetyar's militias, supported by Pakistan, lay siege to Afghanistan's capital Kabul Mar 1993: Bombs set by Islamic fundamentalists destroys the Mumbai stock exchange and other buildings, killing 257 people, in retaliation for the demolition of a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya by Hindu fundamentalists 1993: Sharif resigns as prime minister of Pakistan and Benazir Bhutto wins national elections again 1993: A bombing campaign by Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka kills even president Premadasa 1993: India adopts amendments to the constitution that mandate the creation of local governments (city, town, village) 1994: Muslim separatists of Hizbul Mujahideen plant bombs in Kashmir, killing dozens, while foreign fighters join their ranks Mar 1994: Rajendra Singh, from a backward caste, becomes president of the RSS 1994: ICICI Bank is established Nov 1994: Nepal's Marxist-Leninist party wins the majority of votes in parliamentary elections, and Man Mohan Adhikari becomes the first communist in the world to be democratically elected prime minister 1994: India liberalizes its telecom industry 1994: Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga is elected (female) president of Sri Lanka and appoints her mother Sirimavo Bandaranaike as prime minister 1994: Pakistan helps the Taliban, Afghan fighters bred in the madrassas of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, launch an invasion of Kandahar in Afghanistan from Pakistan 1995: Abdul Wadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, begins contacts with North Korea to sell nuclear secrets 1995: Azam Tariq, a Pakistani Sunny cleric leader of the Islamist party Sipah-i-Sahaba, publicly calls for attacks on Shiites in Pakistan 1995: Youstol Dispage 1995: Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari profits from a sale of Mirages by French aerospace company Dassault to Pakistan, the most visible of the bribes he received while his wife was in power 1995: A suicide bomber (the first one in Pakistan's history) kills 15 people at the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad 1995: The Essar Group run by Nand Kishore Ruia's sons Shashi and Ravi Ruia is an Indian conglomerate that extends from shipping to steel, oil, power and telecommunications 1995: Lakshmi Mittal, the son of Mohan Mittal, founds his own steel business, LNM Group (later Mittal Steel) Feb 1996: Nepal's Maoist party (not the Marxist-Leninist one), led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka "Prachanda"), begins an armed insurrection against Nepal's monarchy 1996: Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto grants universal adult suffrage in Pakistan, but the FATA remains off-limits to political parties 1996: China has 56,678 kms of rail lines, India has 62,915 kms September 1996: With help from Osama bin Laden the Taliban militia, inspired by the writings of Sayyid Qutb and the teachings of Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahab, dislodges the mujahedin government from Afghanistan, executes Mohammad Najibullah (first castrated and then hanged) and installs one of the most fundamentalistic Muslim governments in the world 1996: Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is removed again on charges of corruption 1996: Riaz Basra breaks away from Sipah-e-Sahaba and founds the radical Sunni movement Lashkar-e-Jhangvi 1996: The Pakistani-backed Taliban capture Afghanistan's capital Kabul, opposed by the Northern Alliance of Masud 1996: Hikmetyar is defeated by the Taliban and goes into exile in Iran 1996: Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, wins the elections in Bangladesh 1996: Tamil rebels bomb the capital of Sri Lanka 1996: No party wins elections in India and a coalition of non-BJP parties, the United Front, forms a government led by Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal 1996: Malik Ishaq and others found the Sunni movement Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Pakistan Sep 1996: More than 200 people are killed in fighting between Shiites and Sunnis in Kurram, Pakistan 1997: The Muslim League wins general elections in Pakistan and Nawaz Sharif is elected prime minister of Pakistan 1997: A wave of kidnappings in the tiny Indian state of Tripura (1394 between 1997 and 2000) 1997: A dalit, K. R. Narayanan, is elected president of India 1997: Pakistan arrests Malik Ishaq, founder of the Islamist movement Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, for the murder of 70 people Dec 1997: Ranvir Sena members, fighting left-wing militants, kill 61 people in India's Bihar 1997: Mother Theresa (Yugoslavia-born missionary nun Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) dies in India 1997: Sunni extremists assassinate 75 Shiite leaders in Pakistan 1997: 1997: Bangladesh and the PCJSS sign the Chittagong Hill Tracts peace accord, ending a 20-year insurrection 1998: Pakistan's top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan provides North Korea with nuclear technology in exchange for missile technology Mar 1998: The Nationalist Party BJP wins India's elections and Atal Behari Vajpayee becomes prime minister Apr 1998: Pakistan tests a medium-range missile 1998: India creates two new states for the Adivasis, Jharkhand and Chattisgarth 1998: The Taliban, under the command of Abdullah Dadullah, massacre Shiites in Afghanistan 1998: India launches the "National Highways Development Project" May 1998: India and Pakistan conduct nuclear tests (the first Hindu and the first Islamic atomic bombs) 1998: Massive floods in Bangladesh 1998: 211 die in a train collision in India's Punjab 1998: a Muslim fundamentalist, Tablighi Muslim Rafiq Tarar, is elected president of Pakistan 1998: Tata introduces India's first passenger car 1998: Gautam Adani buys India's port of Mundra and creates a "special economic zone" of 100 sqkm for his diversified financial empire 1998: The Italian-born Sonia Gandhi is elected president of the Congress Party 1999: The Taliban assassinate Pashtun leader Abdul Ahad Karzai in Pakistan and several other Afghan exiles with complicity from Pakistan's secret services 1999: At least eight Taliban ministers are graduates of Haq’s madrasah Darul Uloom Haqqania and dozens of this madrasah's graduates serve as Taliban governors, military commanders, judges and bureaucrats 1999: Azim Premji is the richest person in India and Wipro has the highest market capitalization in India 1999: Benazir Bhutto is sentenced to jail in absentia May 1999: India fights a brief war in Kashmir to dislodge Pakistani and Kashmiri fighters who, supported by Pakistan's general Pervez Musharraf, have occupied strategic peaks in Kashmir (2000 Pakistanis die, 500 Indian soldiers die) 1999: Mizoram passes Kerala as India's most literate state Oct 1999: Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif is overthrown in a military coup led by general Pervez Musharraf 1999: A cyclone devastates the Indian state of Orissa killing 10,000 people 1999: 285 die in a train collision near Kolkata 1999: During India's economic boom of the 1990s the fastest growing state was Gujarat (9.5% yearly), followed by Maharashtra (8%) and Tamil Nadu (6.2%) Jul 1999: Mohammad Sayeed leaves the Congress Party and founds the People's Democratic Party Dec 1999: Kashmiri militants supported by Pakistan's secret services hijack an Indian airplane and hold 160 passengers hostages until India releases Harkat's leaders Maulana Masood Azhar and Sajjad Afghani 1999: Nationalist Hindu agitator Dinanath Batra is appointed in charge of sanitizing school textbooks Mar 2000: Pakistani-based Islamic Fundamentalists (probably of Lashkar-e-Taiba) kill 36 Sikhs in the Kashmiri village of Chittisinghpura while US president Bill Clinton is visiting India 2000: Baloch separatists in Pakistan begin a bombing campaign in 2000 2000: There are 340,000 software engineers in India, about 20% women 2000: Three new states are created bringing the total to 28 May 2000: The population of India is one billion 2000: India's male stars in the Hindu film industry are Muslims (Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan) 2000: Pakistan has 30,000 madrasas (up from 136 in 1947) 2000: The Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran offers peace talks to the Sri Lankan government 2000: 62% of India's exports of software go to the USA Apr 2000: Former Pakistani prime minister Sharif is jailed for treason Sep 2000: The Afghan Taliban capture Masud's stronghold in the north thanks to an army that includes many foreigners (Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Chechens, Arabs, Filipinos) 2000: Musharraf appoints Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court 2000: Atheist writer Avijit Roy starts the Bangla-language blog Mukto-mona (Free Mind) 2000: Masood Azhar founds Jaish-e Mohammad in Pakistan to fight India in Kashmir 2001: King Birendra of Nepal and his entire family are killed by a crown prince, and Gyanendra becomes the new king 2001: Life expectancy in India is 64 2001: Since 1990 about 12,000 civilians have died in Kashmir, mostly Hindus killed by Islamic militants, and Indian troops have killed about 13,000 militants Mar 2001: the Islamic government of Afghanistan destroys the 1500 year-old Buddha statues of Bamiyan 2001: in retaliation for Osama bin Laden's terrorism, the USA invades Afghanistan, removes both the Taliban and Al Qaeda from power, and installs Hamid Karzai as president 2001: Nepal's king Gyanendra declares a state of emergency in Nepal after dozens are killed by Maoists 2001: An earthquakes kills 30,000 people in the Indian state of Gujarat 2001: Skirmishes between the Indian and Bangladeshi armies leave 20 soldiers dead Jul 2001: More than 80 people are killed in Kashmir by Islamic fighters while the Pakistani president Musharraf is in India for peace talks Sep 2001: Two Tunisian terrorists of Al Qaeda, coming from Pakistan, kill Masud in Afghanistan Sep 2001: Terrorists of Al Qaeda based in Afghanistan carry out attacks against the USA Oct 2001: The USA begins a bombing campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan Oct 2001: Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) becomes chief minister of Gujarat Oct 2001: Kashmiri militants explode a car bomb in Srinagar (the capital of India's Kashmir) that kills 29 people Dec 2001: The Northern Alliance under general Dostum massacres thousands of Taliban prisoners at Qala Jangi, Afghanistan, while Pakistani agents and Arab terrorists who were fighting alongside the Taliban are airlifted out of the country by Pakistan Dec 2001: The USA expels the last Taliban from Afghanistan and appoints Hamid Karzai as new president (12,000 Taliban have been killed and 4,000 Afghan civilians versus only 1 US casualty) Dec 2001: Islamic suicide bombers of Jaish-e Mohammad from Pakistan attack India's Parliament in New Delhi but the police prevents the massacre 2001: Pakistan has 6,870 madrassas (up from 245 at the time of independence) 2001: Several bombs kill more than 30 people in Bangladesh 2001: Khaleda Zia wins the election in Bangladesh but her government soon become mired in corruption scandals 2001: Ranil Wickremesinghe wins Sri Lanka's elections and becomes prime minister after campaigning on a peace platform 2001: the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage at Allahabad draws at least 20 million pilgrims 2001: Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels attack the Colombo airport, killing 18 people and destroying half of the national airline fleet 2001: More than one thousand people are killed by political violence in northeast India 2002: Raids by Maoist rebels leave 127 people dead in Nepal 2002: Mohammad Sayeed becomes the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir 2002: Iran expels Gulbuddin Hikmetyar who settles in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan, where he becomes an ally of the Taliban 2002: Following the death of 57 Hinuds in a fire on a train set off by Muslim cleric Maulana Hussain Umarij, ethnic rioting erupts in Gujarat that kills 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, mainly by members of the VHP 2002: Peace talks begin between Sri Lanka's prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Tamil rebels (the civil war has killed over 64,000 people) 2002: Islamic militants increase attacks on Kashmir and other Indian states but Kashmir holds its first fair elections since 1977 and Congress wins electing Mohammed Saeed as chief minister Oct 2002: Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam wins elections in the northwestern provinces and in Balochistan of Pakistan, and becomes a protector of the Taliban in Balochistan and of the Haqqani fighters in the northwest 2002: Baloch nationalists launch a fourth uprising against Pakistan Apr 2002: In the first four months of 2002 Sunni Pakistani militias kill 17 doctors, 4 lawyers, 5 journalists, 4 teachers and 16 government officials of the Shiite minority in Karachi alone 2002: Pakistan bans Lashkar-e-Taiba but the organization continues to raise funds through its charity arm, Jamaat-ud-Dawa Jun 2002: In retaliation for a perceived clan offence, three men sodomize the 12-year old Shaqoor Bib and six men rape his sister Mukhataran Mai in the village of Meerwala, Pakistan, and then parade the woman naked in front of hundreds of onlookers 2002: the first democratic elections are held in Pakistan since 1999 and Zafarullah Khan Jamali becomes prime minister but Musharraf retains real power 2002: Hindu priest Yogi Adityanath of the Bharatiya Janata Party founds the Hindu Youth Force militia 2017: Yogi Adityanath is elected chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state Jan 2003: The Taliban fight a battle with US troops, the first battle since the Taliban regrouped in Pakistan 2003: Bangalore in India has more software engineers than Silicon Valley, but they mostly work for US companies 2003: A woman, Mayawati, becomes the new leader of the BSP, the first prominent Indian woman to come from the lower castes 2003: Islamic terrorists execute 24 Hindu civilians in Kashmir 2003: Pakistani politician Javed Piracha from Peshawar wins the release from jail of 300 suspected Arab teerrorists and facilitates the repatriation to their countries 2003: India vaccinates 165 million children to eradicate polio 2003: Tripura separatist rebels kill 22 Bengali villagers 2003: Members of the Sunni terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi kill eleven police officers of the Shia community in Balochistan, Pakistan 2003: A ferry capzised in Bangladesh killing over 400 people 2003: 34 people are killed by separatists in northeastern India 2003: more than 50 people are killed in two bomb attacks in Mumbai by the Islamic group "Students Islamic Movement of India" (SIMI) affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba 2003: Azam Tariq, a Pakistani Sunny cleric leader of the pro-Taliban party Sipah-i-Sahaba, is killed 2003: Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf survives two assassination attempts by Al Qaeda and organized by Amjad Hussain Farooqi of Jaish-e-Muhammed Oct 2003: Britain and the USA intercept a shipment from Pakistan's nuclear scientist Khan to Libya of equipment to build nuclear weapons 2004: Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, confesses on tv that he helped Iran, Libya and North Korea acquire nuclear technology Feb 2004: Abdul Qadeer Khan confesses on live Pakistani television to having illegally proliferated nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea Jul 2004: Punjab unilaterally decides not to share the waters of its rivers with Rajastan 2004: Hamid Karzai wins free democratic elections in Afghanistan Mar 2004: Pakistan's Frontier Corps are defeated by Al Qaeda in a battle inside northwestern Pakistan's FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) May 2004: Pakistani militants start using suicide attacks in a co-ordinated manner with the attacks on Karachi that kill 100 people 2004: The war between Maoist rebels and the Nepalese army leaves hundreds of people dead 2004: The party of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga wins elections in Sri Lanka against the party of prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapakse is appointed prime minister 2004: Pakistan carries out a 12-day military offensive in South Waziristan on the border with Afghanistan to dislodge Al Waeda and Taliban fighters 2004: Despite an economic boom, a third of Indians live on less than a dollar a day TM, ®, Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. 2004: A coalition led by the Congress Party wins national elections but its leader, Catholic Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, lets Manmohan Singh, a Sikh, become India's new prime minister in a coalition with the Communist Party 2004: Bangalore has 150,000 software engineers, more than the Silicon Valley in California 2004: 29 Indians are killed in Kashmir by a bomb planted by Islamic separatists 2004: a ferry sinks in Bangladesh killing about 160 people 2004: Maoist rebels control 68 of Nepal's 75 districts 2004: ten people are killed in a bomb blast in Quetta, Pakistan 2004: tsunamis caused by one of the strongest earthquakes in history (9.0 magnitude) kill thousands in Southeast Asia 2004: India becomes the largest recipient of Japanese aid 2004: Bangladesh sets up a paramilitary unit, the Rapid Action Battalion Jan 2005: Balochis fight the army in Pakistan 2005: Newsweek magazine reports that guards at Guantanamo desecrated the Quran, a news that sparks deadly riots in Afghanistan and anti-USA protests in many Islamic countries 2005: A suicide bombing kills more than 20 people in an Afghan mosque Dec 2005: Balochis try to assassinate Pakistan's president Musharraf, who retaliates with a campaign that kills hundreds of Balochis 2005: more than 30 people are killed in a bomb blast at the Fatehpu shrine in Pakistan 2005: More than 50% of all jobs outsourced by Silicon Valley companies go to India 2005: China and India sign a treaty in which China gives up any claim on the state of Sikkim 2005: A bomb blast at a Muslim shrine in Pakistan's capital Islamabad kills at least 20 people 2005: an bomb by Hizbul Mujahideen kills nine Indian soldiers in Kashmir 2005: An earthquake in Kashmir causes 80,500 dead, mostly in Pakistan 2005: Pakistan expels foreign Islamic students, who frequently support terrorism 2005: Pakistan launches its first long-range nuclear-capable missile and its first cruise missile 2005: Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar is assassinated by members of the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) 2005: 350 bombs planted by Islamic fundamentalists of Jamayetul Mujahedin detonate in Bangladesh 2005: Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka agree to hold direct talks with the government 2005: Asif Chotto, head of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi that killed hundreds of Pakistani shiites, is arrested 2005: bombs set by Kashmiri militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba kill 59 people in New Delhi Nov 2005: Maoists (Naxalites) kill 24 police officers in India 2005: Muslims in Sangla Hill (Punjab) destroy two Catholic churches and two schools because they think that someone has burned a copy of the Quran 2005: Sri Lanka's prime minister Mahinda Rajapakse wins presidential elections and appoints his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa as minister of defense 2005: Seven people are killed by Islamic terrorists of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen in Bangladesh, the first suicide bombing in the country's history 2005: 669 people are killed in 2005 in violence related to the Maoist insurgency of the Naxalites 2005: the USA and India sign a nuclear agreement 2005: 33.6% of India's population (370 million people) makes less than $1 a day 2005: The Ambani brothers of India split their business empire 2005: More than 1,400 people are killed in Afghanistan, the worst toll since the USA ousted the Taliban Apr 2005: A bus link opens between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir 2006: 21 people die in a car bomb attack on a market in southern Afghanistan 2006: 23 shiites are killed by a suicide bomber in Pakistan Jan 2006: a US drone kills five Al Qaeda members inside Pakistan May 2006: The Taliban, led by Abdullah Dadullah, launch an offensive in Afghanistan that will kill more than 400 police officers 2006: The Pakistani army kills the leader of Balochistan's resistance, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti 2006: Maoists (Naxalites) kill 25 people in India 2006: Bangladesh arrests Abdur Rahman, leader of terrorist organization Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Aug 2006: Balochistan's separatist leader Akbar Bugti is killed by Pakistan, causing riots in Balochistan 2006: Lakshmi Mittal's Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal is world's largest steel-maker 2006: bombs kill more than 20 people in Varanasi 2006: 25 Muslims are killed in Pakistan during fights between rival factions 2006: 47 people are killed in a suspected suicide bomb attack at a Sunni religious gathering in Karachi, Pakistan 2006: Massive pro-democracy protests in Nepal lead to a peace agreement between Nepal's government and the Maoist rebels sign 2006: Tamil Tiger rebels sink a Sri Lanka navy gunboat in a sea battle that leaves at least 45 people dead 2006: 58 people die when a bus hits a landmine in Sri Lanka Aug 2006: Pakistan kills 33 Baloch rebels including Nawab Akbar Bugti, but his grandson Brahumdagh Bugti flees to Afghanistan Jul 2006: Multiple terrorist bombs in Mumbai kill more than 200 people while Islamists kill Hindu tourists in Kashmir, and India accuses Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI of planning the attacks and the Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba of carrying them out 2006: Government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels fight on three fronts in Sri Lanka despite the 2002 ceasefire agreement 2006: Government troops kill 17 aid workers in Sri Lanka 2006: Bombs kill 37 people in a Muslim town of western India, Malegaon 2006: at least 99 soldiers are killed by a suicide attack in northern Sri Lanka 2006: Bangladeshi President Iajuddin Ahmed is sworn in as head of an interim government after the political parties cannot resolve a national crisis 2006: A Pakistani air raid kills 80 taleban in a madrasa 2006: more than 4,000 people are killed in Afghanistan, both insurgents, soldiers and civilians Sep 2006: Pakistan and the Taliban based in the FATA sign a peace treaty that allows the Taliban to expand their operations inside Pakistan 2006: Taliban militants adopt the suicide attacks used by insurgents in Iraq and launch 78 suicide bombings across Afghanistan in the first nine months, killing close to 200 people May 2007: More than 2,300 people die in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan in the first five months of 2007 2007: About 26% of Indians still live under the poverty line, mostly in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh Jul 2007: More than 100 NATO soldiers are killed by Taliban in Afghanistan during the first seven months of 2007 2007: the Taliban unleash a campaign against schools in Afghanistan that kills 147 students and teachers, and closes 590 schools out of the 680 that the USA has built 2007: Bangladesh's interim government bans both Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina Wajed from the country, blaming them for the country's political chaos 2007: A Chinese-built port opens in Gawdar, Pakistan Jan 2007: A suicide bomber kills 15 people at a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan 2007: Indian paramilitary troops are killed by separatist rebels in India's state of Manipur Feb 2007: Bombs kill 68 people on a Pakistan-bound train in northern India (Samjhauta Express massacre) Jul 2007: Pakistanis storm the Red Mosque of Islamabad killing more than 100 people while chief cleric Abdul Aziz tries to flee dressed in a woman's burqa Jun 2007: A USA strike kills more than 80 civilians in Chora, Afghanistan 2007: a bomb by Balochistan rebels kills at least 15 people in Quetta 2007: Maoist rebels ("Naxalites") kill 50 police officers in India's state Chhattisgarh, bringing the total victims of the Naxalites to 6,000 since their insurgency started in the late 1960s 2007: 16 civilians are killed in a bus explosion in Sri Lanka 2007: Pakistani cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz calls for suicide bombings against the government of general Musharraf 2007: Pakistan experiences 56 suicide bombings in 2007 up from 6 the previous year 2007: suicide bombers strike repeatedly in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, some targeting Chinese workers in Pakistan Jul 2007: 73 students and clerics are killed in clashes between security forces and militants (led by cleric Abdul Aziz) holed in the Lal Masjid/ Red Mosque of Islamabad, Pakistan (after they take eight Chinese women hostage), and hundreds of people are killed in subsequent bombings by Islamists Jun 2007: more than 1,000 people are killed in Afghanistan in june alone, including at least 700 insurgents and 200 civilians Jul 2007: Pakistan cancels the treaty with the Taliban and launches an offensive in the FATA 2007: train service between India and Bangladesh is resumed after 42 years 2007: Pratibha Patil becomes India's first female president 2007: 42 people are killed in Hyderabad (India) by two twin bombings credited to the Islamic fundamentalist Indian Mujahideen 2007: 25 people are killed near Islamabad (Pakistan) by two suicide bombers 2007: Pakistan is rocked by demonstrations led by the lawyers' movement and by supporters of former leaders Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, all demanding a return to democratic rule 2007: Pakistan's literacy rate is 54%, with female literacy at less than 30%, but Pakistan has 12,000 Islamic schools (madrasas) 2007: A bomb kills 16 people in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo Oct 2007: A bomb kills six people in a cinema in Ludhiana (Punjab) and the police blame Babbar Khalsa International activists Dec 2007: Suicide bombers of Baitullah Meshud's Pakistani Taliban kill more than 140 people at Benazir Bhutto's welcome event in Karachi and weeks later kill her (Pakistan) 2007: India's per-capita GDP is $800 2007: India's GDP grows by 9.4% December 2007: a Taliban suicide bomber kills 70 people in north Afghanistan including six members of Parliament 2007: 480 people are killed in 129 suicide bombings in Afghanistan during 2007 Mar 2007: Musharraf fires chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry causing nationwide protests by judges 2007: For the first time more civilians are killed in Pakistan than in Afghanistan by Islamic militants 2007: Australia, India, Japan and the USA form the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) Sep 2007: 26 police officers are killed near Islamabad (Pakistan) by two suicide bombers and an entire convoy of Frontier Corps is kidnapped by the Taliban of Baitullah Mahsud Jan 2008: A suicide bomber in the Pakistani city of Lahore kills 19 police officers Feb 2008: The USA orders the destruction of thousands of documents about Pakistani nuclear scientist Khan's illegal dealings that have been discovered in Switzerland 2008: Tamil Tigers blow up a bus in Sri Lanka killing 23 people after the government ends the truce with the rebels 2008: the PPP of the late Benazir Bhutto and the PML-N of Nawaz Sharif win parliamentary elections in Pakistan and nominate Yousaf Raza Gilani to be the new prime minister 2008: 11 Maoist rebels die in a battle with Indian troops in the state of Chhattisgarh 2008: Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, has de facto created an independent Islamic republic at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan, 2008: The USA carries out more than 20 bombins inside Pakistani territory to kill Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders Feb 2008: three suicide bombings in three days rock Pakistan Mar 2008: Bhutan holds its first democratic elections and Jigmi Kinley is elected prime minister Mar 2008: Indian car manufacturer Tata buys Jaguar Apr 2008: Maoist rebels led by Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) win the first free parliamentary elections in Nepal, enact a new constitution that ends the monarchy and appoint Ram Baran Yadavcalled as president Apr 2008: A bomb on a bus in Sri Lanka kills 26 people Apr 2008: Pakistan's secret services try to assassinate Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai at a parade in Kabul May 2008: 63 people are killed by bombs set by Indian Mujahideen in Jaipur, India June 2008: a USA air strike kills 11 Pakistani soldiers July 2008: A suicide bomber of Sirajuddin Haqqani's Taliban kills 54 people in an attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan July 2008: Indian inflation hits 12% July 2008: Dozens of bombs by the Indian Mujahideen kill 49 people in Ahmedabad, an attack blamed by India on Mohammed Arif Sheikh's Indian Mujahideen movement August 2008: Two suicide bombers kill 64 workers of an arms factory in Pakistan August 2008: Former Maoist rebel Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) is appointed prime minister of Nepal August 2008: Following the killing of Hindu preacher Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati (by Maoists), Hindu extremists launch a campaign against Christians in Eastern India (30 people killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed in Kandhamal alone) August 2008: A USA airstrike in Azizabad (western Afghanistan) kills 92 civilians August 2008: Maoist rebels kill seven police officers in East India August 2008: Protests by lawyers force general Musharraf to resign as president of Pakistan September 2008: Asif Ali Zardari, widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, wins Pakistan's presidential election September 2008: Five bombs set by Indian Mujahideen in shopping areas of New Delhi kill 26 people September 2008: A suicide bomber kills 53 people at the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital Islamabad September 2008: Suicide attacks kill 1,188 in Pakistan between july 2007 and september 2008 September 2008: 168 people die in a stampede at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur, India September 2008: Pakistan appoints a new head of the ISI (intelligence services), Ahmed Shujaa Pasha October 2008: A suicide bomber kills more than 25 people in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka October 2008: Collapse of the stock market both in India and Pakistan September 2008: 54 people are killed in an attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan September 2008: Suicide attacks kill 1,188 people in Pakistan between july 2007 and september 2008 October 2008: More than 70 people are killed in a series of bomb explosions in Assam, India, blamed on the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam October 2008: A Taliban suicide bomber kills 110 people the Orakzai region of northwestern Pakista, mostly Shiite Muslims November 2008: Maldives' first democratically elected Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner, takes office, replacing Gayoom, the longest-ruling head of government in Asia November 2008: Pakistani-based Islamic extremists of Lashkar-e-Taiba reporting to Zakiur Lakhvi kill 164 people in several coordinated attacks in Mumbai, plus nine of the terrorists (only Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab survives) December 2008: More than 30 people are killed by a Taliban suicide bomber in a Pakistani border town that fought the Taliban December 2008: A Taliban suicide bomber kills 16 people including 13 schoolchildren in a town at the border with Pakistan December 2008: The party of Sheikh Hasina Wajed wins a huge majority in Bangladesh's elections aimed at restoring civilian rule while the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami loses all its seats 2008: Mumbai generates 5% of India's GDP 2008: Pakistan overtakes Iraq and Afghanistan in suicide-bomb deaths after 61 attacks in one year that killed 889 people, up from 56 suicide attacks in 2007, bringing the total since 2002 to 140 august 2008: more then 3,700 people are killed in fighting in Afghanistan in the first eight months of 2008 sep 2008: NATO killed 3,200 civilians in Afghanistan from 2005 to mid 2008 Dec 2008: 2,000 civilians are killed in Afghanistan during 2008, 39% killed by NATO Mar 2009: Pakistan' government reappoints Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as chief justice of the Supreme Court May 2009: A USA air strike on Granai (in the western district of Bala Baluk) kills 147 Afghan civilians Oct 2009: There are more than 100,000 NATO troops (including about 68,000 USA soldiers) in Afghanistan alongside 200,000 Afghan soldiers fighting less than 25,000 Taliban Jan 2009: The Sri Lankan army takes Jaffna, the capital of the Tamil separatists Jan 2009: Under new president Obama the USA continues missile strikes against Baitullah Meshud's Pakistani Taliban Feb 2009: The government of Pakistan surrenders the border region of the Swat Valley to the Taliban who impose Islamic law Feb 2009: Bangladesh's border security force, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), stage a mutiny to protest low salaries that results in the killing of 74 people Feb 2009: A suicide bomber kills more than 25 people at a funeral procession in Dera Ismail Khan in north-west Pakistan Mar 2009: A suicide bomber kills more than 50 people at a mosque near Jamrud in north-west Pakistan Apr 2009: Three suicide bombs in 24 hours in Pakistan, including an attack on a Shiite mosque in Islamabad that kills 26 people Apr 2009: Islamic law is enacted over Swat Valley, a region of Pakistan controlled by the Taliban of Maulana Fazlullah May 2009: A USA air strike on Granai (in the western district of Bala Baluk) kills 147 Afghan civilians May 2009: The Pakistani army begins an offensive against the Taliban of Maulana Fazlullah that sends more than one million people fleeing to refugee camps May 2009: Tamil Tigers' leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is killed by the army in Sri Lanka, and the civil war comes to an end after 40,000 Tamil civilians are killed in the last few weeks May 2009: 23 people are killed and 200 injured by a suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan May 2009: A US airstraike in the Afghan town of Granai kills more than 100 civilians Jun 2009: A suicide bomber kills 38 people at a mosque near Upper Dir in north-west Pakistan, and a suicide attack on a luxury hotel in Peshawar kills 12 people, causing Pakistani villagers to take up arms against the Taliban June 2009: Pakistan releases from jail the founder and spiritual leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, that India accuses of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks Jul 2009: Maoists kill 27 police officers in the state of Chhattisgarh Jul 2009: Sikh Indian politician Rulda Singh is assassinated Jul 2009: Muslim mobs attack the Christian minority of Gojra Pakistan, mob burning nearly 40 houses and a church and killing 8 Christians Aug 2009: Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan orchestrates riots in Gorja against against Pakistan's Christians Aug 2009: A USA drone kills Pakistani Taliban's chief Baitullah Mahsud Aug 2009: Maulana Ali Sher Hyderi, chief of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, is assassinated Sep 2009: More than 30 Shiites are killed by a suicide bomber in Astarzai (Pakistan) claimed by Lahskar-e-Jhangvi Oct 2009: The Taliban bomb a market in Peshawar (Pakistan) Killing 52 people Oct 2009: Maoists kill 17 police officers in Maharashtra state of India Oct 2009: Taliban suicide bombers kill more than 350 people in Pakistan in the first three weeks of october, and the Pakistani army begins an offensive in South Waziristan Oct 2009: There are more than 100,000 NATO troops (including about 68,000 USA soldiers) in Afghanistan alongside 200,000 Afghan soldiers fighting less than 25,000 Taliban Oct 2009: About 400 civilians have been killed between january and october by NATO operations in Afghanistan Dec 2009: Bombs kill 36 people at a market in Lahore, Pakistan Dec 2009: 22 people are killed in a bomb attack in the central Pakistani town of Dera Ghazi Khan Dec 2009: 43 Shiites are killed in a suicide bomb attack by the Pakistani Taliban of Asmatullah Bhittani in Karachi, Pakistani Dec 2009: NATO bombings kill eight schoolchildren in Kunar and seven civilians in Helmand province while a suicide bombing kills seven C.I.A. officers in Khost province, Afghanistan Dec 2009: A suicide bomb attack at a volleyball pitch kills 93 people in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan Dec 2009: 2412 civilians are killed in Afghanistan and 3021 in Pakistan during 2009 2009: Anil Ambani and Mukesh Ambani of India are the 6th and 7th richest persons in the world, having built Reliance into a business conglomerate 2009: India's Infosys sets up the largest corporate university in the world at Mysore 2009: USA drones carry out 53 strikes inside Pakistan, killing 520 people 2009: 25,092 housewives kill themselves in one year in India 2009: The peak of terrorism in Pakistan, with 2586 attacks that kill 3021 people Jan 2010: Sri Lanka holds the first nationwide election since the end of the civil war, won by Mahinda Rajapakse, who then proceeds to jail his rival Sarath Fonseka 2010: Bangladesh's death squad Rapid Action Battalion is suspected in the extra-judician executions of more than 500 people, notably members of the Islamist movement Jumatul Mujahideen Bangladesh Jan 2010: Three USA soldiers are killed in Pakistan by the Pakistani Taliban, the first USA casualties inside Pakistan Feb 2010: A bomb by Indian Mujaheddin at the German Bakery in Pune kills 17 people Feb 2010: A US drone kills 23 civilians, including 7 women and two toddlers, in Afghanistan's Oruzgan Province Mar 2010: A Taliban suicide attack kills more than 40 supporters of the secular Awami National Party in Northwestern Pakistan Apr 2010: Naxalites kill 76 police officers in India's Chhattisgarh state May 2010: Naxalites blow up a bus killing 23 people in India's Chhattisgarh state May 2010: The Jnaneshwari Express train derails in India's West Bengal killing 148 passengers May 2010: The Pakistani Taliban attack two mosques of the Ahmadi sect in Lahore, killing about 70 people and no government official attends the funerals May 2010: The Calcutta-Mumbai train is derailed in West Bengal by Maoist terrorists causing a crash that kills 71 people Jun 2010: The USA discovers $1 trillion of minerals in Afghanistan Jun 2010: Maoists kill 26 policemen in Chhattisgarh Jun 2010: More than 1,250 civilians are killed in Afghanistan in the first six months of 2010, 76% by the insurgents Jun 2010: Nepal's prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal is forced to resign by the Maoist opposition, leaving the country in a political deadlock Jul 2010: A suicide attack on a Sufi shrine in Lahore, Pakistan, kills 40 people Jul 2010: More than 100 people are killed by a suicide bombing at an anti-Taliban meeting in Yakaghund, Pakistan Jul 2010: A USA strike kills 52 civilians in Afghanistan Jul 2010: More than 90,000 secret USA military records about the Afghanistan war are leaked to a website Aug 2010: Indian troops kill seven protesters in Indian-controlled Kashmir Aug 2010: Monsoon floods kill about 1,500 people in Pakistan and leave 7 million people homeless Aug 2010: The Taliban sentence to death a couple guilty of loving each other in Afghanistan and hundreds of Muslims carry out the execution Sep 2010: Indian police kill 15 Muslims rioting in Kashmir Oct 2010: Russia and USA conduct their first joint operation in Afghanistan to destroy drug laboratories Oct 2010: Balochi leader Brahumdagh Bugti, hunted by Pakistan, flees Afghanistan to Europe Nov 2010: 67 people are killed by a suicide bomb attack on a mosque in north-west Pakistan and 15 people are killed by a bomb in Karachi against an anti-terrorist agency Nov 2010: A Christian, Asia Bibi, is sentenced to death in Pakistan for insulting the founder of the Islamic religion Dec 2010: Two Taliban suicide bombers kill 50 people in Ghalanai, northwest Pakistan Dec 2010: A suicide car bomber of a Sunni militant group kills 11 people in Hangu, north-west Pakistan Dec 2010: Dozens die in a battle between Pakistani soldiers and Taliban rebels near Pakistan's frontier with Afghanista Dec 2010: A female suicide bomber kills more than 40 people from a tribe opposed to the Taliban in Khar, northwestern Pakistan 2010: In 2010 the USA launches more than 100 drone attacks in Pakistani territories, the highest number ever, up from 22 in 2009 2010: Between 2008 and 2010 more than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Pakistan by Islamic militants 2010: Between 2008 and 2010 more than 10,000 civilians and police officers have been killed in Afghanistan by Taliban 2010: India's Bharti Airtel is the 5th largest telecom operator in the world 2010: The population of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, is 18 million 2010: Lakshmi Mittal is the richest person in Europe 2010: Pakistan arrests Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Jan 2011: Pakistan's religious organizations applaude the killing of Punjab's governor Salman Taseer, who campaigned against the blasphemy law, and 1,000 young lawyers offer to represent the killer 2011: Since 2000 Indian border guards have killed nearly 1,000 Bangladeshi trying to enter India illegally Feb 2011: NATO strike kills 65 civilians in Afghanistan Mar 2011: Pakistan's only Christian minister Shahbaz Bhatti is assassinated Mar 2011: Several people are killed by fanatical Muslims in Afghanistan protesting against the burning of a religious book in the USA Mar 2011: A USA drone kills 40 people in Pakistan Indian exports of goods are double exports of services at about $250 billion Apr 2011: Five of the six men who raped Mukhataran Mai are released in Pakistan Apr 2011: Despite India's economic boom, 22% babies are born with low birth weight, 42.5% of children under five are underweight, 48% are stunted, 19.8% wasted and 69.5% (between 6 months-5 years) are anemic, more than 1.4 million babies die before their first birthday and about 0.6 million children die in the next 4 years Apr 2011: US forces kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan May 2011: Pakistan's investigative journalist Saleem Shahzad is murdered after disclosing infiltrations by Islamic terrorists into the military Jun 2011: The leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, Ilyas Kashmiri, is killed by a USA drone in Pakistan 2011: Hundreds of people are killed by Taliban terrorists and their allies in Pakistan Jul 2011: Afghan president's brother Ahmad Wali Karzai is assassinated, the latest in a series of assassinations of senior politicians and security commanders Jul 2011: Three bombs by the Indian Mujahideen kill more than 20 people in Mumbai 2011: The USA has 413 billionaires, China has 115 billionaires, Russia 101, India 55, Germany 52, Britain 32, Brazil 30, and Japan 26 2011: India's exports of goods are double the exports of services (textiles and agricultural products account for less than 20%) Jul 2011: More than 300 people are killed in Karachi (Pakistan) in july alone, mostly by ethnic violence Aug 2011: The Taliban down a US helicopter killing 30 US soldiers Aug 2011: Anna Hazare leads protests against corruption in India Aug 2011: A suicide bomber from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) kills 52 people at the Jamrud mosque over a tribal conflict in the Tirah valley Aug 2011: Taliban from Afghanistan kill 25 police and soldiers in Pakistan Aug 2011: Al-Qaeda's operations chief Atiyah Abd al-Rahman is killed in Pakistan by a USA drone strike Aug 2011: Nepal's parliament elects Baburam Bhattarai of the Maoist party as prime minister Aug 2011: Pakistan has had almost 300 suicide bombings since september 2011, killing more than 4,600 people Sep 2011: Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami claims responsibility for a bomb at a courthouse in New Delhi, India Sep 2011: Following the arrest in Quetta of senior Al Qaeda leader Younis al-Mauritani, a suicide bomber targets Pakistan's Frontier Corps, killing 30 people Sep 2011: Fighters of Sirajuddin Haqqani's Taliban supported by Pakistan's spy agency stage an attack on the USA embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan Sep 2011: A suicide attack on a funeral in northwest Pakistan kills 45 members an anti-Taliban militia Sep 2011: A Taliban suicide bomber kills former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, now in charge of peace talks with the Taliban Oct 2011: The world's population is 7 billion up from 1 billion in 1850 and less than 3 billion in 1950. Oct 2011: Pakistani cricket hero Imran Khan leads a massive anti-USA rally in Lahore Dec 2011: Inspired by Lashkar-e-Taiba's leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's ISI, and Pakistani cricket hero Imran Khan a new political front, Difa-e-Pakistan (Defence of Pakistan Council), organizes anti-USA protests in Pakistan Nov 2011: The USA strikes a Pakistani army checkpoint killing 26 soldiers Nov 2011: Australia, that already exports to mainland China, votes to overturn its long-standing ban on exporting uranium to India Dec 2011: At least 58 people, mostly Shiites, are killed by Sunni terrorists in Afghanistan Dec 2011: Almost 100 people die in a fire at a hospital in Kolkata, India 2011: The last case of polio in India Jan 2012: A bomb targeting a militia opposed to the Pakistani Taliban kills 30 people in Jamrud in the Khyber tribal region of Pakistan Jan 2012: A bomb targeting Shiites kills 17 people in Khanpur, Pakistan Feb 2012: Maldives' president Mohamed Nasheed is forced to resign by street demonstrations Feb 2012: A suicide bomber kills 34 people in Parachinar in northwest Pakistan Mar 2012: A USA soldier kills 16 Afghanistan civilians, including nine children and three women Mar 2012: A suicide bomber targeting anti-Taliban politician Khushdil Khan kills 15 people in Peshawar, Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistan's killing of 39 militants Apr 2012: The USA offers a $10 million reward for the capture of Lashkar-e-Taiba's leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who lives freely in Pakistan Apr 2012: More than 117 soldiers are buried by an avalanche near the Siachen glacier (the world's highest battlefield) in the disputed Kashmir region Apr 2012: Labor activist Aminul Islam is killed in Bangladesh, while the country has become the second largest exporter of textiles in the world after China Apr 2012: India launches a long-range missile and joins the ICBM club with the USA, Russia, China, France, Britain and Israel Apr 2012: A ferry in north-eastern India's Assam state capsizes in bad weather killing more than 100 passengers May 2012: A NATO strike kills 18 civilians in Afghanistan May 2012: Pakistan convict of treason Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped locate Osama bin Laden May 2012: A Taliban bomb kills 18 people on a bus carrying government officials in Peshawar Jun 2012: Afghan Taliban kill 13 Pakistani soldiers inside Pakistan Jul 2012: Hundreds of people burn a man alive for blasphemy in Pakistan Jul 2012: The world's largest blackout ever leaves 22 of India's 28 states, an area whose population is nearly 700 million, without power Aug 2012: Badruddin Haqqani is killed in a US drone strike Aug 2012: Fearing violence against ethnic minorities, scared by social networking sites, thousands of migrants flee the cities of Bangalore and Pune Sep 2012: More than 240 people are killed in a factory fire in Karachi, Pakistan Sep 2012: Dozens of people are killed in Pakistan during violent protests against an anti-Islamic amateur video posted online in the USA and Pakistan's railways minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour offers a bounty for killing the filmmaker Nov 2012: A suicide bomber kills more than 40 people at a mosque in the northern Afghanistani city of Maymana Nov 2012: A suicide bomber kills 23 people at a Shia Muslim procession in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi Nov 2012: More than 100 people die in a fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh Nov 2012: Two bombs by the Taliban kill 12 Shiites in the Pakistani city of Dera Ismail Khan Nov 2012: Seven students and a prominent cleric from the Maulana Ismail seminary are killed by Sunni extremists in Karachi, Pakistan Dec 2012: 16 people are killed in a car bomb explosion at a market in the Khyber tribal region of north-west Pakistan Dec 2012: A bomb targeting buses carrying Shia Muslim pilgrims in southwest Pakistan kills at least 19 people Dec 2012: Seven charity workers, six of them women, are killed by Islamists in Northwestern Pakistan near a children's community centre Dec 2012: The death of an Indian student after being gang-raped and tortured on a private bus in New Delhi, nicknamed India's 'rape capital' prompts street protests across the country Dec 2012: Jyoti Singh Pandey is gang-raped and killed in Delhi, causing widespread protests around India 2012: in 2012 India's imports of weapons from Russia double in value, accounting for almost 80% of India's arm imports, including a nuclear-powered submarine 2012: 20% of girls in Bangladesh are married before their 15th birthday Jan 2013: Attacks by Pakistan's group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi kill more than 90 Shiites in the provincial capital Quetta of Balochistan Feb 2013: 21 people are killed by a suicide bomb attack outside a Shiite mosque in the north-western Pakistani town of Hangu, while the Pakistan Taliban attack an army checkpoint in in the northwestern town of Serai Naurang killing 13 soldiers and 10 civilians, and a bomb targeting Shiites in Quetta kills at least 78 people Feb 2013: Jamaat-e-Islami's leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi is sentenced to death in Bangladesh for collaboration with Pakistan and mass killings and rape during the liberation war of 1971 Feb 2013: Bombs kill 16 people in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad Mar 2013: Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a leader the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, is sentenced to death on charges including murder, rape and torture during the war of independence in 1971, triggering a national strike and violent protests in Bangladesh Mar 2013: A bomb in a Shiite area of the Pakistani city of Karachi kills about 40 people Mar 2013: Five Indian soldiers are killed in Kashmir by Hizb-ul Mujahideen Apr 2013: A man kills nine women with an axe in the village of Balrampur in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh Apr 2013: 72 people die when a eight-story building constructed illegally in the Mumbai suburb of Thane collapses Apr 2013: The Pakistani army and Ansar-e-Islam, which is allied with pro-government tribesmen, fight the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Islam in the Tirah Valley of northwestern Pakistan Apr 2013: The collapse of a garment factory kills 1,127 people in Dhaka, Bangladesh Apr 2013: Taliban's leader Mullah Omar dies May 2013: At least seven people are killed in clashes between police and the Islamists of Hefazat-e Islam in Dhaka, Bangladesh May 2013: Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League wins national elections, marking the country's first transition from one elected government to another Jun 2013: A Taliban suicide bomb attack in downtown Kabul kills 16 people Jun 2013: At least 27 people are killed in a suicide bomb attack at a funeral in north-west Pakistan Jun 2013: The USA announces peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan Jun 2013: At least 30 people are killed when a suicide bomber targets a Shiite mosque in Quetta, and 18 are killed in an attack targeting security forces in Peshawar, Pakistan Jul 2013: 17 people are killed by a US drone in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan of Pakistan Jul 2013: Jamaat-e-Islami's former leader Ghulam Azam is sentenced to 90 years in jail in Bangladesh for collaboration with Pakistan and mass killings and rape during the liberation war of 1971 Jul 2013: 22 children die after eating a pesticide-tainted free school meal in the Indian state of Bihar, causing riots by the villagers Aug 2013: The separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) abducts a bus and kills 13 passengers from the Punjab Aug 2013: A suicide bomber kills at least 28 people at a funeral procession in Pakistan's city Quetta and the following day nine people are killed as gunmen open fire outside a mosque Aug 2013: Indian launches its first home-built aircraft carrier Aug 2013: Taliban attacks kill 12 civilians in Afghanistan Aug 2013: India arrests Yasin Bhatka, the head of India's Islamists Sep 2013: Narendra Dabholkar is murdered in India Sep 2013: Nine people are killed by a bomb in the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur Sep 2013: Pakistan releases Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is willing to negotiate with Afghanistan's government Sep 2013: Two suicide bombers of the Taliban-affiliated Jandullah group kill 81 people at a Christian church in Peshawar (Pakistan) and a car bomb in a Peshawar market kills 33 people Oct 2013: A stampede during a Hindu festival in Madhya Pradesh kills 89 people Oct 2013: A politician of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and at least seven other people are killed in a suicide blast in north-west Pakistan Oct 2013: A roadside bomb south of the Afghan capital Kabul kills 18 people on their way to a wedding, mostly women and children Oct 2013: Bombs in Patna kill six people at a rally by India's candidate Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Oct 2013: Pakistan reveals that 317 US drone strikes since 2008 have killed 2,160 militants and 67 civilians Oct 2013: The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, is killed by a US drone, and is succeeded by Mullah Fazlullah Nov 2013: The Indian stock market hits a record high Nov 2013: A court in Bangladesh sentences about 150 soldiers to death over the border guard mutiny of 2009 2013: India's growth rate slows down to 5% from 9% of 2011 with inflation at 10% Dec 2013: Arvind Kejriwal's one-year old Aam Admi (Common Man) party (AAP) wins state elections in Delhi on a program to fight corruption in India Dec 2013: India's supreme court reinstates a ban on homosexuality 2013: 3400 soldiers of the NATO-led alliance have died in Afghanistan since 2001 2013: Almost 3,000 civilians are killed in Afghanistan in 2013, a 14% increase over the previous year 2013: A Bangladeshi militant group affiliated to al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam, publishes a list of 84 "atheist bloggers" 2013: Abdulla Yameen wins presidential elections in the Maldives and succeeds Mohamed Nasheed Jan 2014: Bangladesh holds parliamentary elections amid opposition protests that kill more than 100 people Jan 2014: A suicide bomb attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners in the Afghan capital Kabul kills 21 people Jan 2014: A suicide bomber kills 13 people near Pakistan's army headquarters in Rawalpindi and a remote bomb kills six police officers and child during polio vaccination north of Peshawar Jan 2014: Delhi's chief minister Arvind Kejriwal organizes a mass sit-in to protest against his own police force Jan 2014: Aitzaz Shaheed, a schoolchild, sacrifices his life to stop a suicide bomber from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Pakistan Feb 2014: A car bomb by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) kills 13 policemen in Pakistan's Karachi Feb 2014: Under pressure from Hindu nationalists, Penguin destroys all copies of Wendy Doniger's book "The Hindus" in India Feb 2014: India creates a new state, Telangana, out of the inland area of Andhra Pradesh with Hyderabad remaining the capital of both states for ten years Mar 2014: Gunmen from Ahrarul Hind, a splinter faction from the Taliban, kill at least 11 people in an attack at a court in the Pakistani capital Islamabad Mar 2014: Nepal's parliament elects Sushil Koirala of the Congress Party as prime minister Mar 2014: Maoists kills 16 policemen in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh Mar 2014: The Pakistani Taliban kill 18 people in an attack on a Pakistani police station Mar 2014: The Afghan Taliban kill 9 people in an attack on an Kabul police station Mar 2014: The USA arrests Ukrainian tycoon Dmitry Firtash for having paid bribes to the Indian government Apr 2014: A bomb by separatists of Balochistan kills 14 train passengers in Pakistan Apr 2014: Bombs by Maoists kill 12 people in the eastern Indian state of Chhattisgarh during national elections Apr 2014: The Jamia Hafsa Madrassa, an Islamic seminary for women in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, names its library after Osama Bin Laden Apr 2014: Separatist rebels of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) kill 10 non-Bodo people in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam May 2014: Separatist rebels of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) kill 32 Muslims in remote villages of India's north-eastern Assam state May 2014: Two landslides destroy the village of Ab Barik. and kill about 2500 people in northeastern Afghanistan May 2014: Members of the dominant Yadav caste rape and hang two teenage Dalit girls in the Indian village of Katra Sadatgunj (Uttar Pradesh state) May 2014: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins national elections in India, the first time that a party gets more votes than Congress, and Narendra Modi becomes the new prime minister of India May 2014: The World Health Organization declares the polio epidemics in Pakistan a global emergency May 2014: A Pakistani woman, Farzana Bibi, is killed by her relatives with bricks and sticks outside Lahore High Court for marrying against their wishes, one of hundreds of women in Pakistan who are killed every year by family members (her husband Muhammad Iqbal admits killing his first wife six years before in order to marry again) Jun 2014: Pakistan Taliban attack the Karachi airport leaving 28 people dead including 10 militants while Pakistan launches an offensive in North Waziristan Jun 2014: India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh is splits in two, with the northern area becoming the 29th state of India, Telangana Jul 2014: A car bomb by the Haqqani network kills 89 people in a market of Afghanistan's Paktika province Sep 2014: Chinese president Xi Jinping and India's prime minister Narendra Modi sign an agreement for China to build high-speed trains and to set up industrial parks in Gujarat and Maharashtra 2014: Bangladesh's economy is twice as big as it was in 2006 Sep 2014: After months of deadlock, Abdullah Abdullah concedes to his rival Ashraf Ghani, a U.S-educated former World Bank official, who becomes Afghanistan's new president and pledges to form a government of national unity Sep 2014: Pakistan's military says it has killed more than 1,000 Islamist militants since launching an offensive in the tribal area of North Waziristan in June Sep 2014: The chief minister of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Jayaram Jayalalitha, is sentenced to jail on corruption charges Sep 2014: India puts a satellite in orbit around Mars Oct 2014: Bangladesh sentences Islamist leader Motiur Rahman Nizami to death Oct 2014: Modi cites Hindu religious texts as proof that plastic surgery and biotechnology existed in ancient India Oct 2014: Nine Pakistanis and seven Indians are killed in Kashmir's border skirmishes Oct 2014: A Pakistani suicide bomber kills at least 55 people at a Pakistan-India border near Lahore Oct 2014: A mob of fanatical Muslims in the town of Kot Radha Kishan in Punjab province kills and burns a Christian couple in Pakistan for desecrating the Islamic religious book Quran 2014: Afghanistan's harvest of opium poppies hits an all-time record, 17% more than in 2013- Nov 2014: A suicide bomber kills more than 45 people at a volleyball tournament in eastern Afghanistan's Yahyakhail district Nov 2014: India's Maoist rebels kill 13 policemen in Chhattisgarh Dec 2014: Al-Qaeda's operation chief Adnan el Shukrijumah is killed in Pakistan Dec 2014: The Pakistani Taliban kill 150 people, 132 of them children, at army-run school in Peshawar Dec 2014: Separatist rebels of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) kill more than 60 people in remote villages of India's north-eastern Assam state Dec 2014: Indian troops in Kashmir kill four Pakistani troops on the border Dec 2014: 3,000 civilians are killed in Afghanistan in 2014 Dec 2014: A Pakistani Taliban attack on an army public school in Peshawar kills 141 people, mostly children and female teachers 2014: Indian politician Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank claims that India conducted nuclear tests more than 100,000 years BC Jan 2015: Sri Lanka's opposition leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa's health minister Maithripala Sirisena, beats his former boss in presidential elections Jan 2015: India privatizes the mining industry Jan 2015: Bangladesh arrests 7,000 opposition activists and kills dozens of protesters Jan 2015: A bomb by the Pakistani Taliban kills 62 people at a Shiite mosque in southern Pakistan Feb 2015: Atheist writer Avijit Roy is murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in Bangladesh Mar 2015: India's Maharashtra state bans beef Mar 2015: A Taliban splinter group bombs two Christian churches in Lahore killing 17 people Mar 2015: A mob of devout Muslims beat a woman to death and then burn her body because she burned copies of the Quran in Afghanistan's capital Kabul Apr 2015: Pakistan releases Zakiur Lakhvi, despite overwhelming evidence that he masterminded the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks Apr 2015: The Taliban kill 18 Afghan soldiers in Badakhshan's Jurm district Apr 2015: A bomb by the Islamic State in Afghanistan kills 33 people in the eastern city of Jalalabad Apr 2015: China and Pakistan unveil a network of roads, railway and pipelines that will connect Gwadar in Pakistan to China's Xinjiang. The projects will give China direct access to the Indian Ocean Apr 2015: An earthquake kills more than 5,000 people in Nepal Apr 2015: Pakistani activist Sabeen Mahmud is assassinated May 2015: At least 8 Indian soldiers are killed by Nagaland separatists May 2015: Bollywood star Salman Khan is finally convicted for driving drunk, running over 6 people, killing one homeless Noor Ullah Khan who was sleeping on the pavement, and running away in 2002, but the sentence is not carried out Jun 2015: The United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia (UNLFW) kills 18 Indian soldiers in in Chandel district of Manipur state and in retaliation Indian troops kill dozens of militants in their camps at the border with Myanmar 2015: Within a few months Islamists kill bloggers Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman Babu and Ananta Bijoy Das in Bangladesh May 2015: The Pakistani Taliban attack a bus and kill 45 Ismaili Shiites in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi Jun 2015: Balochistan rebels in Pakistan attack two buses and kill 19 people Jul 2015: Pakistani police kill Malik Ishaq, head of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the group behind terrorist attacks against Shiites Jul 2015: The Afghan Taliban appoint Akhtar Mansour to succeed Mullah Omar and Siraj Haqqani of the Haqqani network as Mansour's deputy Aug 2015: Niloy Neel is killed by Islamists, the fourth secularist blogger to be killed in eight months Aug 2015: Hindu extremists murder scholar Malleshappa Madivalappa Kalburgi Sep 2015: A blast caused by illegally stored mining explosives in Rajendra Kasawa's restaurant kills 90 people in Petlawad in India's state of Madhya Pradesh Sep 2015: At least 10 people are killed in an explosion at a bus terminal in the Pakistani city of Multan Sep 2015: The Pakistani Taliban kill 20 people in Badaber Nov 2015: Faisal Arefin Dipon, a publisher of secular books, is killed by Islamists in Bangladesh Nov 2015: Nepal elects its first female president, Bidhya Devi Bhandar Dec 2015: After months of Taliban infighting, Akhtar Mansour's militia kills opposition leader Mansour Dadullah, responsible for the killing of ethnic Hazaras. Dec 2015: A Pakistani Taliban suicide bomber kills 26 people in the Northwestern town of Mardan and a Taliban bomb kills 15 people at a market in northwest Pakistan's Parachinar 2015: Four prominent secular bloggers who appeared in Ansar al-Islam's list of "atheist bloggers" are killed in Bangladesh in one year 2015: India's GDP passes Russian's GDP 2015: India and Pakistan join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation with Russia and China and Central Asian countries 2015: India's economy grows 7.3% in 2015 while the economies of the other BRICs are shrinking or slowing down Jan 2016: A bomb planted by Islamic militants kills 14 people outside a polio vaccination centre in the south-western Pakistani city of Quetta Jan 2016: A gun and bomb attack by the Pakistani Taliban on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda leaves 19 people dead Feb 2016: Islamists behead a Hindu priest in northern Bangladesh Mar 2016: A car bomb planted by Pakistan Taliban splinter group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar kills 70 people in a park of Pakistan's Lahore where Christian families are celebrating Easter Apr 2016: An explosion sparked by fireworks kills more than 100 people at a Hindu temple in the Indian state of Kerala Apr 2016: Xulhaz Mannan, a leading gay rights activist, is hacked to death in Bangladesh by Ansar al-Islam May 2016: Islamists kill Sufi spiritual leader Mohammad Shahidullah and Buddhist monk Maung Shue U Chak in Baishari, south-eastern Bangladesh May 2016: Islamist leader Motiur Rahman Nizami is hanged in Bangladesh for helping Pakistan during the 1971 war of independence, the fourth leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party to be executed since Bangladesh set up a war crimes tribunal May 2016: A US drone kills Taliban's leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in Pakistan and the Taliban replace him with Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada Jun 2016: A Hindu priest, Ananda Gopal Ganguly, is murdered by Islamists in Bangladesh Jun 2016: Islamists murder Pakistani Sufi singer Amjad Sabri Jun 2016: In the first six months 5,166 civilians are killed in Afghanistan bringing the total civilian casualty figure since 2009 to 22,941 deaths Jul 2016: A bombing by an ISIS affiliate, Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh, kills 28 people (mostly foreigners) in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka Jul 2016: Indian police kills 36 people in Kashmir to quell protests for the killing of militant Burhan Wani Jul 2016: An ISIS attach kills 64 Shiites in Afghanistan's capital Kabul Jul 2016: An An Islamist group led by Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury attacks a Dhaka bakery resulting in the death of 29 people, the worst terrorist attack in Bangladesh's history. Aug 2016: Bangladesh executes Tamim Chowdhury Sep 2016: A suicide bomber of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar kills 12 people in the northern Pakistani city of Mardan, and four suicide bombers of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar target a Christian neighbourhood near Peshawar Sep 2016: Pakistani militants attack an Indian army base in Kashmir killing 17 soldiers after more than 80 Kashmiris have been killed in anti-Indian protests Oct 2016: 61 people are killed during an attack on a police training academy in Pakistan's city of Quetta Oct 2016: Venezuela's parliament votes to try President Maduro, but the supreme court had ruled that the parliament is illegitimate Nov 2016: A bomb kills 52 people at a Sufi shrine (Shah Noorani) in Pakistan's Balochistan Dec 2016: 16,000 people are killed in Afghanistan's war in 2016 and since the end of NATO operations (dec 2014) 6,545 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan 2016: Bangladesh's economy has grown of average of about 6% yearly over a decade 2016: More than 1,000 women are killed in Pakistan in one year, many of them by male relatives who remain unpunished 2016: 19,765 cases of child rape are registered in India 2016: The Taliban killed more than 8,000 Afghan security forces in 2016 Jan 2017: Under pressure from the USA, Pakistan puts cleric Hafiz Saeed under house arrest, founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa and suspected mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks Feb 2017: An ISIS suicide bombing kills more than 80 people at the Sufi shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, southern Pakistan Mar 2017: The USA bombs ISIS in Afghanistan using the largest non-nuclear bomb ever developed Apr 2017: The Taliban kill 140 Afghan soldiers at a military base in northern Afghanistan Apr 2017: Opposition journalist Yameen Rasheed is murdered in the Maldives Apr 2017: India blocks social media in Kashmir May 2017: An attack by ISIS kills 25 people in Pakistan's Balochistan province May 2017: An attack by ISIS kills 90 people in Afghanistan's capital Kabul Jun 2017: An attack by ISIS kills 150 people in Afghanistan's capital Kabul Jun 2017: 1,600 civilians are killed in Afghanistan in the first half the year Jul 2017: Pakistan's parliament ousts prime minister Nawaz Sharif over corruption charges Jul 2017: Pakistan's parliament ousts prime minister Nawaz Sharif over corruption charges and he is replaced by Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Aug 2017: For the first time in history, Bangladesh's GDP per capita is higher than Pakistan's Oct 2017: Aasia Bibi kills 17 members of her husband's family to escape forced marriage in Pakistan Nov 2017: Pakistan releases cleric Hafiz Saeed, the suspected mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and protests by Khadim Hussain Rizvi's Islamic movement force the government to fire law minister Zahid Hamid, whom protesters accuse of blasphemy Dec 2017: An ISIS suicide bomber kills seven people in a Christian Church of Pakistan's city Quetta Dec 2017: Sri Lanka leases the Hambantota port to China and the surrounding land for 99 years 2017: India's junior education minister Satyapal Singh claims that aeroplanes were first mentioned in the Ramayana 2017: Opium production increases by 65% and 85% is made in Afghanistan Jan 2018: A Taliban suicide bomber kills about 100 people in Afghanistan's capital Kabul Feb 2018: Violence erupts in Sri Lanka against the Muslim minority Apr 2018: Protests spread around India after Hindu right-wing ministers Chowdhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga defend the rapists and murderers of an eight-year old Muslim girl in Kashmir, Asifa Bano May 2018: Indian kills Kasmiri Islamist leader Saddam Paddar Jun 2018: A US drone strike kills the commander of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah Jul 2018: Former prime miniser Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan to face imprisonment for corruption Jul 2018: An ISIS suicide bomber kills 149 people at a campaign rally in Mastung, a city of Pakistan's Balochistan, the second deadliest attack in Pakistan since independence Jun 2018: In the first six months of 2018, the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan reaches the record of 1,692 Jul 2018: Former prime miniser Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan and is sentenced by an anticorruption court to ten years in prison (his daughter Maryam Nawaz to seven years) but allowed to go in exile Jul 2018: False rumors about child kidnappers spread in India on the social network WhatsApp prompt mobs to kill 24 innocent people between April and July Jul 2018: A suicide bombing at a polling station in Quetta kills 31 people during Pakistan's elections Jul 2018: Imran Khan wins Pakistan's elections, helped by the military, and becomes the new prime minister Sep 2018: The Taliban kill record numbers of Afghan security forces Sep 2018: Mohamed Solih wins presidential elections in the Maldives and succeeds Abdulla Yameen Sep 2018: A bus crash kills 57 people in Kondagattu in south India Oct 2018: Sri Lanka's president Maithripala Sirisena fires prime minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and appoints his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa as the country's new prime minister despite mounting accusations of corruption and genocide against the latter Oct 2018: Pakistan releases Asia Bibi, who was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 and sentenced to death Nov 2018: Pakistani cleric Maulana Sami ul-Haq, the "father of the Taliban", is assassinated in the northern city of Rawalpindi. Nov 2018: A bus crash kills 25 people in the Mandya district of southern India Nov 2018: The separatist group Baluchistan Liberation Army, attacks the Chinese consulate in China Nov 2018: A suicide bomber kills 33 people in Kalaya of the Orakzai region of northwestern Pakistan near a seminary for Shiite Muslims Dec 2018: Sri Lanka's prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigns 2018: A child under 16 is raped every 155 minutes in India, and a child under 10 every 13 hours 2018: A record 3,804 civilian deaths in 2018 are recorded in Afghanistan's civil war Jan 2019: Two ordinary women, Bindu Ammini, a 40-year-old law lecturer, and Kanakadurga, a 39-year-old government employee, enter India's Sabarimala Hindu temple in Kerala state, the first women ever to do so, sparking deadly protests across the state Jan 2019: At the annual Indian Science Congress G Nageshwar Rao of Andhra University claims that a demon king from the Ramayana flew airplanes, and Tamil Nadu scientist Kannan Jagathala Krishnan proposes that gravitational waves be renamed "Narendra Modi Waves", while Ashu Khosla claims that Brahma discovered dinosaurs Feb 2019: 44 Indian paramilitary soldiers are killed in a bomb attack by Islamist militants of Jaish-e Mohammad in Pulwama in India's Kashmir, the deadliest attack on Indian forces in Kashmir since 1989, causing the Indian military to strike targets inside Pakistan and Pakistan to shoot down Indian jets Feb 2019: Saudi Arabia pledges a $20 billion investment in Pakistan Mar 2019: China, on behalf of Pakistan, vetoes a United Nations measure to blacklist Masood Azhar, the founder of Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, responsible for the 2001 attack on India’s parliament, of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and of the 2019 Kashmir attacks Mar 2019: More civilians are killed by Afghan government and US forces than by the Taliban in the first quarter of 2019 Apr 2019: A bomb by Sunni fundamentalists kills at least 16 people in Pakistan's Quetta, mainly targeting the Shiite Hazaras Apr 2019: Multiple suicide bombings kill 259 people at Catholic churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka during Easter, and the government blames Islamists of Mohammed Zaharwan's National Thowheeth Jama'ath Apr 2019: Men set on fire a student, Nusrat Jahan Rafi, who accused her teacher of sexual harassment in Bangladesh and local police spreads false information that the girl killed herself May 2019: Baluchistani separatists in Pakistan kill five people in a hotel built and used by Chinese guests May 2019: India kills Kashmiri separatist Zakir Musa (Zakir Rashid Bhat), who had pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda Jul 2019: A bus crash kills 29 in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh near Agra Jul 2019: Eight innocent people are killed by mobs in Bangladesh over false rumors of child abductions and beheading that spread on social media such as Facebook Jul 2019: India is ranked only 52nd most innovative nations by the World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Index Aug 2019: India abruptly cancels the autonomous status of Kashmir Oct 2019: US troops kill Asim Umar, the head of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, in a raid on a Taliban compound in Afghanistan Oct 2019: At least 74 passengers die when a train travelling from the Pakistani city of Karachi to Rawalpindi catches fire Nov 2019: The Islamist leader of Jamiat Ulema Islam - Fazl (JUI-F), Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehma, organizes protests against the Pakistan's president Nov 2019: Former defense minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa wins presidential elections in Sri Lanka and appoints his older brother and former president Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister Dec 2019: Protests erupt in many Indian cities against Modi's Citizenship Amendment Act that expedites Indian citizenship for non-Muslim illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan (three Muslim countries where religious minorities are persecuted) Dec 2019: University lecturer Junaid Hafeez is sentenced to death in Pakistan for posting opinions about Islam's founder Mohammed on social media Dec 2019: More than 3,400 civilians are killed in Afghanistan's civil war in 2019 Dec 2019: India approves a National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), both of which blatantly discriminate against Muslims Jan 2020: ISIS bombs a mosque in Pakistan's southern city of Quetta killing 15 people Jan 2020: Pakistan arrests Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen, leader of a civil-rights movement who accuses the security forces of extrajudicial killings and kidnappings Feb 2020: Riots between Hindu and Muslims in Delhi over a new "citizenship law" leave 24 dead Feb 2020: The USA and the Taliban sign a deal for the USA to withdraw its troops and for the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, while Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah both claim to have won presidential elections May 2020: India orders a nation-wide lockdown to fight the covid-19 pandemic May 2020: ISIS-Khorasan attacks a maternity ward in Kabul killing 24 people Jun 2020: Chinese troops kill 20 Indian soldiers in the disputed Galwan Valley Jun 2020: Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan calls Osama Bin Laden a "martyr" Jun 2020: India bans Chinese smartphone apps like TikTok (which has 200 million users) and WeChat Jun 2020: The Baluch Liberation Army attacks the Karachi Stock Exchange killing seven people Jul 2020: Taliban violence Intensifies in Northern Afghanistan Aug 2020: A Muslim crowd protests against a "blasphemous" Facebook post in the Indian city of Bangalore Sep 2020: Opposition parties form the Pakistan Democratic Movement and hold large rallies demanding the resignation of prime minister Khan Oct 2020: A terrorist attack kills 8 at a religious school in Pakistan's Peshawar Nov 2020: The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) organizes protests against prime minister Imran Khan, while Nawaz Sharif from exile criticizes Pakistan's two top military officials, army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI's chief Faiz Hameed Nov 2020: ISIS-Khorasan attacks Kabul University, killing 22 teachers and students Nov 2020: Indian farmers march on Delhi to protest agricultural reforms ("Dilli Chalo" protest) Dec 2020: In 2020 the war against the Talian and other Islamists has killed 3,378 armed forces and 1,468 civilians in 2020 2020: 22,372 housewives kill themselves in one year, 14.6% of the total 153,052 recorded suicides 2020: Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only country in the world that still have polio infections Jan 2021: ISIS terrorists kill 11 Shiite coal miners of the Hazara ethnic group in Pakistan's Balochistan Jan 2021: The Taliban kill 239 Afghan soldiers and police officers and 77 civilians in one month Apr 2021: India becomes the epicenter of the covid pandemic Apr 2021: Naxalite-Maoist separatists kill 32 people in Sukma district of India's state Chhattisgarh May 2021: ISIS in Afghanistan kills 24 pregnant women and babies in a maternity ward and kills 90 people at a girls' school, most young girls between the ages of 11 and 15 Jul 2021: Nine Chinese workers are killed in a bus attack in northwestern Pakistan Jul 2021: The Taliban attack the cities of Herat, Lashkar Gah and Kandahar in Afghanistan Aug 2021: The USA withdraws from Afghanistan after 20 years, ending its longest war, and the Taliban rapidly seize power again with little or no resistance from the Afghan government, and ISIS-Khorasan stages a twin bomb attack on people fleeing to the Kabul airport killing 180 including 13 US citizens Aug 2021: A US drone kills 10 innocent people (an aid worker and nine members of his family) in Afghanistan instead of terrorists Oct 2021: Suicide bombers of ISIS in Afghanistan kill about 50 people in a Shiite mosque of Kunduz and 37 in a Shiite mosque of Kandahar Oct 2021: Muslims attack Hindus all over Bangladesh starting in the town of Comilla Nov 2021: An ISIS bombing kills more than 20 people at a military hospital in Afghanistan's Kabul Nov 2021: Bending to one year of protests, Modi repeals the agricultural reforms Dec 2021: Indian soldiers battling separatists in Nagaland kill 13 civilians by mistake 2021: Terrorists carry out 294 attacks in Pakistan killing 388 people Feb 2022: An Islamist bombing kills 57 people in a Shiite mosque of Pakistan's Peshawar Mar 2022: India accidentally fires a missile into Pakistan Mar 2022: Mass protests against Sri Lanka's president Gotabaya Rajapaksa as inflation reaches 17% amid a crisis caused by the national debt Mar 2022: Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan meets with Russia's president Putin in Moscow as Russia is invading Ukraine while at the same time Pakistan's military chief Javed Bajwa meets with European Union officials in Brussels Apr 2022: Pakistan's parliament fires prime minister Imran Khan, who has been moving closer to China and Russia, and replaces him with opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif (Nawaz Sharif's younger brother) after three years of double-digit inflation and while the rupee falls to a historic low of 188 to the dollar Apr 2022: Dozens of people are killed by multiple ISIS bombings in Afghanistan, mostly targeting Shiites Apr 2022: An ISIS suicide bomber kills about 60 people at a Shiite mosque in Pakistan's Peshawar May 2022: As protests continue, Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigns May 2022: India signs the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) with the USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, a trading bloc competing with the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that links 15 Asia-Pacific economies May 2022: The Afghan Taliban launch a campaign to eradicate poppy crops May 2022: The Afghan Taliban ban poppy crops and the production of opium Jul 2022: Sri Lanka's president Rajapaksa resigns after an angry mob storms his palace and parliament replaces him with his ally, the prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe Aug 2022: The State of Gujarat releases from prison 11 Hindu men who raped a Muslim woman in 2008 and the families and a politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party welcome them like heroes Sep 2022: More than 20 people including Taliban cleric Mujib Rahman Ansari are killed by ISIS at a Herat mosque and about 20 people are killed by a suicide bomber at the Kaaj Higher Educational Center in the Shiite area of Kabul Sep 2022: A third of Pakistan is submerged by floodings, killing more than a thousand people, also damaging the ancient ruins of Moenjo-daro Sep 2022: Sri Lanka's inflation hits 70% Sep 2022: ISIS-Khorasan attacks the Russian embassy in Kabul Sep 2022: India overtakes Britain as the world’s fifth-largest economy after the USA, China, Japan and Germany and with a growth rate higher than each of them Oct 2022: Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif, a prominent critic of Pakistan's military, is killed in Kenya by the police Oct 2022: 144 people die after a pedestrian suspension bridge collapses in the town of Morbi in India’s Gujarat state Nov 2022: Pakistan’s ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan survives an assassination attempt Nov 2022: Pakistan’s army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa retires and is succeeded by general Syed Asim Munir Dec 2022: The Pakistan Taliban ends a ceasefire and attacks a police station in the north-western Bannu district but all 33 attackers are killed by the army 2022: Over 30 years the share of Middle Eastern exports going to China and India has climbed from 5% to 26%, while the share sent to Europe and America has fallen from 34% to 16%, with China taking less than 1% of Saudi Arabia's crude oil in 1990 and India less than 3% and those figures being 28% and 12% in 2021 Jan 2023: A suicide attack by the Pakistan Taliban kills more than 100 people at a Peshawar mosque frequented by police Feb 2023: Annual inflation in Pakistan hits 27% and the Pakistani rupee sinks to 275 to the US dollar Apr 2023: India passes China to become the most populous country in the world ith 1.4 billion people May 2023: More than 50 people are killed in India's Manipur state during ethnic violence between the Meitei (Hindus) and the Kuki (Christians) Aug 2023: Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan is imprisoned to serve a three-year jail term for corruption May 2023: More than 270 people are killed in a train collision in Balasore district of India's eastern Odisha state, May 2023: Armed clashes between mostly Hindu Meiteis and largely Christian Kukis break out in India's Manipur state Jun 2023: About 300 people are killed in a train accident near Balasore, in India's eastern state of Odisha Jun 2023: Canada accuses the Modi government of involvement in the assassination of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian territory Jul 2023: More than 40 people are killed by a bomb in Pakistan's northwestern Bajaur district during a rally organised by the Islamist party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Aug 2023: India's unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 lands on the Moon Sep 2023: Maldives' pro-China candidate Mohamed Muizzu wins presidential election, beating incumbent pro-India president Ibrahim Solih Sep 2023: More than 50 are killed by a suicide bomber at a religious festival in Mastung, a district of Pakistan's Balochistan province Oct 2023: Pakistan expels all Afghan refugees Nov 2023: The USA foils an Indian attempt to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun 2023: India's south (Andhta Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana) accounts for about 19.5% of India's population, while the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar 26%, but GDP per person in the south is 4.2 times greater than in the north, and no state in the south is ruled by a BJP politician 2023: Pakistan's external debt is $100bn, one third of it owed to China 2023: Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, has 240 million people, more than any nation bar China, USA and Indonesia, but its GDP per person is one of the lowest in the world (about $1000) Jan 2024: Iran bombs anti-Iranian groups like Jaish al-Adli in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan , and Pakistan retaliates by bombing the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front inside Iran Jan 2024: Indian prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurates a giant Hindu temple in Ayodhya where a 16th-century mosque was destroyed by Hindu mobs in 1992 Jan 2024: Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan is sentenced to futher 10 years in jail for leaking state secrets Jan 2024: Sheikh Hasina's Awami League wins Bangladesh elections again but almost all the leaders of the main opposition party and over 25,000 of its activists have been arrested in the previous months (India's prime minister Narendra Modi congratulates Sheikh Hasina on her victory) Feb 2024: Two bomb explosions near candidates' offices in Pakistan's Balochistan kill 27 people on the eve of Pakistan's general elections Feb 2024: In Pakistan's general election independent candidates backed by jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan win more parliament seats than Nawaz Sharif's party but Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) join together to elect Sharif prime minister and Zardari president Mar 2024: The Maldives sign a military-assistance treaty with China and orders Indian troops to leave the country Mar 2024: Delhi's chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who became famous for fighting corruption, is arrested on corruption charges just before India's national elections Apr 2024: Indian police kill ten Maoist insurgents in Chhattisgarh Jun 2024: Nine people die when Kashmiri militants fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims on the way to the Hindu shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi Jul 2024: More than 120 pilgrims are killed at a religious festival in Hathras district of India's Uttar Pradesh state Jul 2024: Kashmiri separatists kill four Indian soldiers Jul 2024: Students protests erupt against Hasina's government Jul 2024: The Indian rupee falls to a record low of 83.7 to the dollar Aug 2024: Bangladesh's prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigns and flees the country as students protests increase Aug 2024: The Indian rupee falls to a new record low of 84 to the US dollar Aug 2024: The Baloch Liberation Army launches attacks on multiple government installations, targeting police stations and Punjabis, killing at least 73 people Aug 2024: Afghanistan's ruling Taliban codify morality rules that forbid women to speak in public, mandate a beard for men and bans photographing living things Sep 2024: The leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake is elected president of Sri Lanka Oct 2024: Islamists (not Balochi separatists) kill 21 workers in a coal mine of Pakistan's Balochistan TM, ®, Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. |
Main prime ministers of India1947: Jawaharlal Nehru1964: Lal Bahadur Shastri 1966: Indira Gandhi 1984: Rajiv Gandhi 1991: Narasimha Rao 1996: Deve Gowda 1998: Atal Behari Vajpayee 2004: Manmohan Singh 2014: Nerendra Modi See also: A timeline of British India A timeline of ancient India A timeline of Buddhism A timeline of Tibet Other timelines |
(Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi) |