Former CEC TN Seshan, who transformed the Election Commission into a powerful institution, also fought to establish the poll body chief's supremacy over two fellow commissioners. He took the battle all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the multi-member Commission and ruled that the CEC could not have the final word just because he headed it.
Saudi Arabia highlighted its role as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques while alleging that the Houthis had fired a drone at Mecca. It was just a century ago that the Sauds defeated the Hashemites, descendants of Prophet Muhammad, and took control of Mecca and Medina.
The 9/11 attacks, which mark 25 years today, involved four hijacked aircraft, but one plane, Flight 93, never reached the intended target of the al-Qaida terrorists. Alerted through phone calls, Tom Burnett and fellow passengers fought back, which stopped another attack on Washington.
When Raja Dahir, Sindh's last Hindu King, fell to the Arab forces of Muhammad bin Qasim in 712, some women chose the fire while others were taken captive. Amid actor Swara Bhasker's criticism of Jauhar, a look at a medieval chronicle that reveals what the women believed awaited them if they embraced fire and if they didn't.
China reportedly didn't provide early warning to Nepal about the flash floods in the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli river system, which has killed hundreds. In 1975, China hid the news of the collapse of the Banqiao Iron Dam and 61 other dams on a single night, that drowned 26,000 people and led to the deaths of 2.3 lakh more.
Centuries before critical minerals became the currency of power, Indian craftsmen mastered a steel coveted by kings and warriors thousands of kilometres away. Even Prophet Muhammad used a sword made in India. Such was the fame of blades made from Indian steel that the Prophet was praised using that as a metaphor.
Lord Mountbatten, the last British Viceroy to India, fixed August 15 for the transfer of power to Indians, but seers objected to the date as inauspicious. Jawaharlal Nehru, the to-be first Indian Prime Minister, found a middle path. And that's why India got freedom at midnight.
K2's deadliest disaster unfolded on August 1, 2008, when a summit push by 30 climbers from across the world turned into a fight for survival. The recent Broad Peak avalanche that killed celebrated British-Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja, has renewed focus on the perilous Karakoram range. Here's how the ill-fated expedition unfolded 18 years ago.
Home-taught by a father who distrusted Western education, India's first education minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, laid the foundations of Independent India's modern education system. Azad's story is one of self-learning, nation-building, and institutions like IITs and AIIMS that he helped set up, that continue to shape generations of Indians.
Two decades after the Pokhran-I nuclear test in 1974, India was ready to test again in 1995. But American spy satellites spotted unusual activity at Pokhran before it could. This is why PM PV Narasimha Rao withheld the final clearance, and the move helped pave the way for the successful Pokhran-II tests three years later.
Five years after Independence, Gandhian leader and activist Potti Sriramulu began a fast until death demanding a separate state for Telugu-speaking people. His death after 58 days of fast forced PM Jawaharlal Nehru to act and declare the formation of the Andhra State, the first on linguistic lines.
Nearly eight decades before the PM Narendra Modi-led government suspended the 1960s Indus Waters Treaty, the government of East Punjab in 1948 stopped the headworks at the Upper Bari Doab Canal, part of the Indus system. The crisis forced the architect of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, to negotiate with India.
It is commonly accepted that Akbar won the Battle of Haldighati. But did Maharana Pratap win the war? A fresh reading of the 450-year-old battle amid US President Donald Trump's repeated claims that the US won the war against Iran.
One of history's greatest ironies unfolded in 1948. Weapons originally designed for Hitler's Nazi Germany, which killed nearly 6 million Jews, ended up helping defend the newly formed Jewish state of Israel. Jews sourced Nazi-era weapons and planes from Czechoslovakia, and beat back the armies of five Arab states.
Days after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, Golden Temple managers invited Brigadier General Reginald Dyer and honoured him with a siropa and kirpan. The priests even urged the 'Butcher of Amritsar' to become a Sikh and agreed to waive the requirement of unshorn hair when he said he could not follow it as a serving British officer.
As reports suggest, former West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee could lose control of the Trinamool Congress she founded. There's an intriguing parallel. Former PM Indira Gandhi was expelled from her party twice. Once while she was in power. This is what she did and how she emerged a winner both times.
As Mumbai demolishes slums from Garib Nagar to Goregaon, an old debate has returned. Did Sunil Dutt protect the poor, or help institutionalise Mumbai's slum politics? Here's a look at how Dutt's Partition trauma, Congress's patronage and suburban migration reshaped Bandra, and Mumbai's politics itself.
As Pakistan moved dangerously close to an "Islamic bomb" in the early 1980s, India and Israel explored a covert strike on Kahuta to prevent it from having a nuclear weapon. But why did PM Indira Gandhi call off the mission?
In 1985, Khalistani terrorists in the US wanted to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi during his first visit to the country. Software engineer-turned-terrorist Gurpratap Singh Birk and his aides attended a terror camp in the US. But the terrorists got distracted by then Haryana CM Bhajan Lal. The LTTE assassinated Rajiv six years later.
When India faced a balance-of-payments crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 1991 airlifted nearly 47,000 kg of gold to England to raise a $405-million emergency loan and prevent a sovereign default. The shipment, carried out in secrecy and under tight security, was one of the defining moments that paved the way for India's economic reforms.
