Calendar 2001

03/1 Nine cops indicted by Srikrishna Commission in ’93 Mumbairiots probe.

04/1 Maiden flight of Light Combat Aircraft.

09/1 Kumbh Mela starts. Bollywood financier Bharat Shah arrested.

15/1 Farooq Abdullah survives grenade attack..

16/1 Suicide squad storms Srinagar airport, all six LeT men killed.

17/1 Agni II, 2,000-km IRBM, test-fired.

21/1 VHP announces Ayodhya temple construction date: March 12, 2002.

24/1 J&K ceasefire instituted at the start of Ramzan extended tillFeb 26.

25/1 Over 20 million people bathe at the Kumbh. Northern Irelandsecretary Peter Mandelson resigns from UK cabinet following allegations that he helpedSrichand Hinduja get UK passport.Lata Mangeshkar, Ustad Bismillah Khan awarded BharatRatna.

26/1 Gujarat earthquake, 7.9 on Richter scale.

27/1 Bollywood actor Salman Khan charged in 1998 poaching case.

31/1 CBI chargesheets seven people, including former SGPC chief BibiJagir Kaur, in the alleged murder of Bibi’s daughter Harpreet in April 2000.

05/2 PMK pulls out of  NDA.

07/2 Pakistani military regime says elections before October 12, 2002.

09/2 LeT militants storm J&K Police HQ, 6 killed.

13/2 Centre decides to ban Fashion TV4. Manipur CM W.N. Singh resigns.

15/2 Radhabinod Koijam is new Manipur CM.

21/2 Sterlite Industries bags Balco.

25/2 Supreme Court contempt notice to Medha Patkar, Arundhati Roy.

28/2 Yashwant Sinha’s fourth Budget gets corporates upbeat.

04/3 6 killed in attack on army camp in J&K. Congress splits inBengal. Eight legislators, three AICC members join Trinamul.

08/3 Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed.

09/3 29 people, including 25 cops, injured as communal violence hitsparts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra following rumours over the burning of pages of theQuran in Delhi.

11/3 P. Gopichand wins All-England Badminton Open title.

13/3 Tehelka lifts the lid off defence deals. BJP president Bangaru Laxmanresigns.

14/3 Mamata Banerjee threatens to quit, seeks Fernandes’ ouster.

15/3 Fernandes resigns. Jaya Jaitly quits as Samata Party chief.

16/3 Probe ordered into defence scandal. Trinamul pulls out of NDA.

18/3 Jaswant Singh also takes charge of defence portfolio.

19/3 Pakistan rules out signing CTBT. Courtney Walsh first bowler to get500 wickets.

20/3 Nitish Kumar gets charge of Railways.

21/3 CBI FIR against Sonia’s secretary Vincent George indisproportionate assets case.

22/3 Robert Blackwill named US Ambassador to India. India win Test seriesagainst Australia 2-1.

23/3 Mir falls to Earth after 15 years in space.

30/3 Ketan Parekh arrested in Madhavpura Co-op Bank scam.

02/4 Maoist rebels kill 38 policemen in Nepal.

03/4 K.C. Pant appointed mediator in talks with Kashmiri militant groups.

04/4 Bill moved in US Congress to lift sanctions against India.

05/4 Govt invites Kashmiri militants for talks without pre-conditions.

07/4 Clinton meets Vajpayee in the US.

10/4 AGP joins NDA. ‘Demolition of Babri Masjid unfortunate’,Advani tells Liberhan Commission.

12/4 Pak diplomat Mohammad Arshad Cheema held with RDX in Nepal.

17/4 BMS barbs strike deep: Vajpayee offers to step down. BangladeshRifles troops kill 16 BSF men in Assam.

18/4 GSLV-D1 blasts off.

24/4 Jayalalitha’s nomination rejected in all four constituencieswhere she filed papers.

26/4 Hurriyat rejects Centre’s talks offer on Kashmir.

27/4 N.K. Singh, officer on special duty in the PMO, shifted to PlanningCommission.

28/4 US businessman Dennis Tito blasts off into space in a Russianrocket, world’s first space tourist.

01/5 India under US ‘Special 301’ watchlist for violation ofintellectual property rights.

03/5 Deendar Anjuman banned, accused of engineering bomb blasts inMay-July 2000 in church premises in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Goa.

05/5 Fardeen Khan arrested on charges of possessing cocaine.

06/5 Plot to kill Tehelka CEO Tarun Tejpal foiled. MEA website hacked.  John Paul II becomes first Pope to set foot in a mosque, visits Omayyad Mosque inDamascus, Syria.

07/5 Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi win US Open men’s doubles.

09/5 Defence production opened to private sector.

13/5 Landslide victory for AIADMK-led front in TN with 196 of 234 seats.Congress-led UDF sweeps Kerala. Left Front secures sixth in West Bengal. Congress allthe way in Assam.

14/5 Jayalalitha sworn in CM of TN.

18/5 Buddhadeb Bhattacharya sworn in CM of West Bengal.

19/5 Enron serves termination notice on MSEB. Monkey man terrorisesDelhi.

22/5 Taliban makes it mandatory for Hindus to wear yellow identity bands.Three customs officials held, Uzbek smuggling racket busted.

23/5 India invites Musharraf for talks, calls off J&K ceasefire.Allahabad High Court says ‘live-in arrangements are legal’ on a petition filedby Payal alias Kamla Sharma. Air-India MD Michael Mascarenhas suspended on‘corruption’ charges.

25/5 American Erik Weihenmayer is first blind person to conquer MountEverest. MSEB seeks Rs 700-cr compensation from DPC. Race riots in Britain.

29/5 Omar Abdullah survives bid on life.

01/6 Nepal crown prince Dipendra guns down parents King Birendra, QueenAishwarya and six other members of the royal family before killing himself.

02/6 President’s rule imposed in Manipur.

04/6 Army sacks Kargil brigade commander Brigadier Surinder Singh.

08/6 4 killed, 60 hurt in grenade attack on Chrar-e-Sharif shrine. LabourParty led by Tony Blair wins second term.

09/6 Paes-Bhupathi clinch the French Open.

11/6 Oklahoma city bomber Timothy McVeigh executed.

12/6 Hurriyat says militants must avoid taking shelter in religiousplaces.

18/6 Manipur Assembly, government buildings set on fire, Imphal inflamedby mob fury, 13 dead. Musharraf slashes Pakistan defence spending by two billionrupees.

20/6 Musharraf elevates himself to President.

27/6 In exile for 21 years, Khalistan protagonist Dr Jagjit Singh Chauhanarrives in India.

28/6 Milosevic extradited to The Hague. Batata, BPL cellular merger tocreate $2-bn venture.

30/6 Former TN chief minister M. Karunanidhi, Union ministers MurasoliMaran, T.R. Baalu jailed in late night raid.

01/7 Tamil Nadu governor Fatima Beevi sacked.

02/7 UTI puts a six-month halt to all trading in US-64 scheme.

03/7 UTI chairman P.S. Subramanyam resigns.

04/7 Karunanidhi released.

05/7 Peacenik Vikas Singh set free after three years in a Peshawar jail.

06/7 Government rejects Hindujas’ bid for AI, IA.

08/7 Visa restrictions to Pakistan eased.

10/7 India 115th, Pakistan 127th in UN Human Development Index.

11/7 Bangladesh passenger train arrives in India after 36 years. Indianscientists design reusable space plane Avatar for launching satellites into space.

14/7 Musharraf, wife Begum Sehba arrive in Delhi.

16/7 Agra talks reach impasse over Kashmir, no joint declaration. Summitfails.

17/7 M.L. Sondhi sacked as ICCR chief.

20/7 Bestselling author Jeffrey Archer sentenced to four years ofimprisonment for perjury. Musharraf holds press conference in Islamabad, blames Indiasquarely for the Agra failure.

21/7 India commissions highest observatory at Hanle village in Ladakh.

22/7 Sher Singh Deuba is new Nepal premier.

24/7 An LTTE suicide squad attacks civilian Colombo airport, destroysmajority of air fleet.

30/7 Water management expert Rajendra Singh wins Magsaysay Award.Parliament approves President’s Rule in Manipur.

31/7 Stung by Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Nirupam’scriticism of the UTI debacle, Vajpayee offers to resign.

02/8 Kerala cancer research centre accused of testing banned drug onpatients.

04/8 SC bars convicted public servants from holding public office.

05/8 Twenty-six chained mentally-challenged persons charred to death infire at asylum near Erwadi dargah in Tamil Nadu.

07/8 Standard & Poor downgrades India.

09/8 Lashkar-e-Jabbar imposes Islamic dress code on Kashmiri women; acidthrown on faces of two girls.

11/8 Sachin Tendulkar in Sir Donald Bradman’s Dream XI.

16/8 Former Assam CM and AGP leader P.K. Mahanta’s ‘secondmarriage’ with Sanghamitra Bharali creates uproar. Flying Sikh Milkha Singh rejectsArjuna award.

17/8 Cabinet approves three-fold increase in MPs’ salaries.

24/8 Enron threatens US sanctions against India. Keshubhai Patelgovernment in Gujarat tries to bring press under Consumer Protection Act.

27/8 Mamata returns to NDA fold. Cabinet approves Convergence Bill.

30/8 First-ever World Conference Against Racism opens in Durban.

01/9 Singapore Airlines bows out of Tata-led consortium for A-I.

02/9 Anti-tank guided missile Nag successfully test-fired.

04/9 P.K. Mahanta quits AGP; Bachchan the Tehelka board as director.HP-Compaq merger in San Francisco.

08/9 Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding wins Golden Lion at Venice.

09/9 Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood killed in suicide attack.

11/9 Kamikaze pilots smash three hijacked planes into WTC in New York andthe Pentagon in Washington, thousands killed. SP MLAs resign en masse in UP.

12/9 US wants Osama bin Laden, Taliban says he’s innocent.Musharraf’s help is sought. Sikhs attacked in cases of ‘mistaken identity’.SC declares Sonia Indian citizen.

16/9 Bush says: Wanted Osama, Dead or Alive.

17/9 Lashkar-e-Toiba strikes in Handwara, nine policemen killed.

18/9 Cabinet clears bill to make education a fundamental right.

19/9 Taliban asks for concrete proof of Osama involvement even as USbegins deployment of troops and Musharraf asks India to lay off.

20/9 US war effort christened Operation Noble Eagle.

21/9 Jayalalitha unseated as CM. Proxy Panneerselvam named successor. Indiatest-fires Dhanush missile.

22/9 UAE snaps diplomatic ties with Taliban. Taliban claims to have downedUS plane.

23/9 US lifts sanctions against India, Pakistan. $25-million bountyon Osama’s head.

24/9 Pakistan withdraws staff from mission in Kabul. Osama’sassets frozen. Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV quotes Osama urging Pakistanis to fight anyassault on Afghanistan.

25/9 Saudi Arabia snaps diplomatic ties with Taliban.

26/9 US embassy torched in Kabul. Harkat-ul-Mujahideen assets frozen. 400Taliban defect to Northern Alliance.

27/9 Centre bans SIMI. Government announces paring of stake in Maruti.

29/9 Jagmohan Dalmiya is BCCI chief.

01/10 22 killed, 60 injured in suicide bomber attack on J&K stateassembly.

02/10 Keshubhai Patel resigns as Gujarat CM.

03/10 BNP wins in Bangladesh. Alliance Air plane is ‘hijacked’.

04/10 Narendra Modi succeeds Keshubhai.

05/10 US Senate votes to waive all sanctions against Pakistan.

07/10 Alliance war against Afghanistan begins, Taliban declares jehad.

08/10 Two cases of anthrax reported in Florida. E-mail is 30 years old.

09/10 27 Kalahandi tribals die due to malnutrition.

10/10 S.P. Bharucha is new Chief Justice of India.

11/10 Naipaul bags Nobel Prize for Literature.

12/10 UN, Kofi Annan jointly bag Nobel Peace Prize.

15/10 Fernandes returns as defence minister, despite ongoing inquiry.

16/10 Amitav Ghosh gets $50,000 grand prize at Frankfurt eBook Awards forThe Glass Palace.

21/10 Indians win World junior hockey championship at Hobart.

31/10 US begins carpet-bombing Afghanistan.

01/11 SC bans cigarette smoking in public places across the country.

04/11 Thousands of Dalits embrace Buddhism at ‘Diksha ceremony’organised by the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations and the Lord Buddha Club.

08/11 Maneka Gandhi wins apology in libel suit against Katherine Frank.

09/11 Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam steps down as Principal Scientific Advisor tothe government.

12/11 American Airlines jetliner crashes in NY.

18/11 Maneka Gandhi loses culture portfolio.

19/11Mike Denness punishes six Indian players for breaching ICC code.

24/11 Maoist guerrillas kill 37 army personnel and policemen in Nepal.

25/11 Human embryo cloned.

02/12 Enron files for bankruptcy.

04/12 Jayalalitha acquitted in TANSI, Pleasant Stay Hotel cases.

05/12 PWG, MCC banned under POTO. Hamid Karzai to head six-month interimadministration in Afghanistan.

07/12 Kandahar falls to Northern Alliance.

08/12 Ranil Wickremesinghe is new Sri Lankan PM.

11/12 George Fernandes indicted by CAG in coffin scam. China is WTO’s143rd member.

13/12 Terrorist attack on Indian Parliament.

15/12 India wins Champions Cup hockey. Parliament attack suspects held.

16/12 Tora Bora falls to Alliance guns.

20/12 Anil Kumble gets 300th wicket in Tests.

21/12 Lahore bus, train to be stopped from Jan 1: Govt.

22/12 Hamid Karzai sworn in Afghan PM.

25/12 Jaish head Masood Azhar arrested in Pakistan.

26/12 Lashkar-e- Toiba, Jaish on US terror list.