2002 in India

See also: 2001 in India, other events of 2002, 2003 in India and the Timeline of Indian history.

January 9

The government announces that it is laying landmines along the entire length of its 2,800-km border with Pakistan.

January 10

800 protestors are arrested in a large-scale illegal protest against the local Communist government of West Bengal, which brings the state to a standstill. The authorities there had outlawed "disruptive" protests at the end of 2001.

Mid-January

Direct flights to China are set to resume for the first time in 40 years after diplomatic talks between the two countries.

January 16

Archaeologists announce the discovery of ancient man-made structures off the Gujarati coast which could be as many as 9,500 years old - 5,500 years older than the ancient Harappan civilization whose remains are found around the same region.

January 22

Five policemen are killed and 20 other people injured when Islamic militants attack an American cultural centre in Kolkata. Police arrest at least 50 suspects in the wake of the incident. The government immediately accuses its Pakistani counterpart of involvement in the attack.

Late January

The government is roundly criticized for testing a short-range version of its Agni ballistic missile on January 25, the day before the country's national day, at a time when military tensions with Pakistan remain high.

February 3

Russia gives its full backing to India over the Kashmir dispute with neighbouring Pakistan.

Mid-February

The Cellular Operators Association announces that the ownership of mobile phones in India rocketed by 75% in the previous year. Almost 6 million Indians now own mobile phones.

February 24

The BJP loses control of state governments in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttaranchal (east of Delhi) according to election results released this day. The BJP is expected to retain a role in a coalition in Uttar Pradesh (the most populous state in India), whereas the Punjab and Uttaranchal state legislatures are now dominated by the opposition Congress party.

February 28

Violent sectarian clashes break out in the Gujarati city of Ahmadabad leaving over 500 Muslims and Hindus dead. The riots came after the death the previous day of 58 Hindus whose train was deliberately set on fire by Muslim militants in Godhra, near Vadodara (the exact circumstances remain unclear). Those victims were said to be supporters of the extremist Hindi group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), who had been traveling from the Ayodhya region, near the border with Nepal. VHP has been campaigning for the construction of a Hindu temple on the controversial Ayodhya site following the destruction of an ancient mosque there in 1992. Violence rages on through March, claiming hundreds of lives, most of them Muslim. (See also 2002 Gujarat violence.)

February 28

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha presents the 2002-03 budget. Amongst its major features are a 4.8% increase in defense spending and a 5% surcharge on income tax to pay for this.

March 2

Jayaram Jayalalitha returns to power in Tamil Nadu as chief minister. In December 2001 an appeals court had quashed her October 2000 corruption conviction that disqualified her from standing for election.

March 3

The speaker of the Lok Sabha, Ganti Mohana Chandra Balayogi, is killed in a helicopter crash in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. He was the first low-caste Dalit to be elected to the post.

March 6

Novelist Arundhati Roy, a high-profile campaigner against the Narmada river dams project, is sentenced by the Supreme Court to one day in prison for contempt of court because of an affidavit she had written criticizing the court.

March 8

President's rule is imposed on the northern state of Uttar Pradesh as no party could command a majority after the recent elections.

March 15

9,000 suspected Hindu hardliners are arrested, including 8,000 in Mumbai alone, in a massive crackdown aimed at preventing further interreligious violence. Tensions are high surrounding attempts to construct a new Hindu temple on the site of the Ayodhya mosque, which was destroyed by Hindu extremists in 1992.

March 15

The New Delhi High Court overturns the October 2000 corruption conviction of former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.

March 25

Police arrest Yasin Malik, leader of the separatist Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), in Srinagar.

March 26

The government pushes through its controversial Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) bill in a rare joint session of both houses of parliament, only the third since independence. In separate sessions, the Lok Sabha had passed the bill on March 18 but it was defeated in the Rajya Sabha on March 21.

April 4

On his first visit to Gujarat since the violence there began, Prime Minister Vajpayee makes an impassioned speech appealing to the Hindu and Muslim communities to end the violence, saying that the "shameful events" in Gujarat are a "blot" on India.

April 16

Up to 10 million public sector workers, including 32,000 employees of state-owned banks, hold a one-day strike against government privatization plans.

April 18

India signs a deal to buy a $146 million weapon-seeking radar system built by the U.S. company Raytheon. It is the first significant U.S. arms sale to India for a decade.

April 29

Minister for Coal and Mines Ram Vilas Paswan resigns on the issue of the Gujarat violence, which he says has "tarnished India's image" while the government's role appears to be that of a "silent spectator". He pulls his Lok Janshakti Party out of the ruling National Democratic Alliance coalition.

May 3

The stalemate in Uttar Pradesh is resolved when Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party is sworn in as chief minister, in a coalition with the BJP.

May 10

Manohar Joshi of the Shiv Sena party is elected speaker of the Lok Sabha.

May 14

An attack by militants on an army base in Kashmir, in which 34 people are killed, leads to sharply rising tensions with Pakistan. On May 15 Vajpayee says in the Lok Sabha: "We will have to retaliate." Fears increase that the situation might escalate into a nuclear exchange.

May 21

Moderate Kashmiri separatist leader Abdul Ghani Lone is assassinated. On the same day Vajpayee begins a five-day visit to Kashmir. In a martial speech on May 22 he says that "a new chapter of victory and triumph will be written in the history books soon".

May 23

Indian paratroops complete a two-week exercise with U.S. forces south of New Delhi.

May 31

Both the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the U.S. State Department issue unprecedented advice to their citizens living in India to leave the country.

June

Tensions between India and Pakistan are reduced largely as a result of international pressure. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf assures visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that the cessation of cross-border infiltration will be made "permanent" and "irreversible". On June 20 Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes says that infiltration has "nearly ended". Analysts note, however, that some 3,000 indigenous and Pakistani militants are already inside Indian-controlled Kashmir, and violent incidents continue on a daily basis. On June 9 police in Srinagar arrest Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the hardline Islamist Jamaat-i-Islami party and a prominent leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

June 22

Ashok Singhal, leader of the fundamentalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), announces that the VHP is no longer bound by its earlier promise to the government to await a court ruling before embarking on the construction of a temple to the god Rama on the site of the destroyed Babri mosque at Ayodhya.

July 1

Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha exchange their portfolios in a cabinet reshuffle. The BJP installs Venkaiah Naidu as party president, replacing Jana Krishnamurthi who becomes justice minister.

July 15

An electoral college composed of the members of both houses of the federal parliament and of all state assemblies elects A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim and prominent missile scientist, president of India. He was supported by the ruling NDA coalition as well as the opposition Congress and most other parties.

July 27

Vice President Krishan Kant dies of a heart attack. On August 12 Bhairon Singh Shekhawat is elected vice president.

August 25

Notorious bandit Veerappan abducts a former minister of Karnataka, Hannur Nagappa, threatening to behead him unless the state governments of Karnataka and neighbouring Tamil Nadu release imprisoned Tamil separatists.

August 28

Chief magistrate Rameshwar Kotha of the Bhopal High Court rejects the federal Central Bureau of Investigation's attempt to reduce charges against the former chairman of the U.S. Union Carbide company, Warren Anderson, for responsibility for the 1984 chemical plant disaster at Bhopal. Kotha asks the government to bring extradition proceedings without delay, but it is thought that the government is reluctant to do so for fear of alienating the U.S. business community.