Events diary of the hindu 2012

1. EVENTS 2012 – NATIONAL JANUARY TO DECEMBER
JANUARY
Jan. 2: Eleven school children and their van driver are killed after the vehicle collides with a truck in
dense fog on the Saha-Shahabad road near Ambala in Haryana.
Jan. 3: Explore and rejuvenate traditional systems of knowledge, says Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh inaugurating the 99th annual session of the Indian Science Congress in Bhubaneswar.
Bharatanatyam exponent Padma Subrahmanyam is presented the first „Natya Kala Acharya‟ Award
at the inauguration of the 6th Dance Festival of the Music Academy, Chennai.
Jan. 4: Bishna Ram Bishnoi, one of the prime accused in the nurse Bhanwari Devi rape and murder
case is held by the Pune police near Lonavala.
Jan. 6: The Supreme Court directs Rajesh Talwar and Nupur Talwar to face trial in the case of
murder of their daughter Aarushi on May 16, 2008, at Noida.
Senior Indian diplomat D. Bala Venkatesh Verma is given the first S.K.Singh award at a function in
New Delhi.
Jan. 8: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announces right of franchise to NRIs at the 10th Pravasi
Bharatiya Divas inaugural in Jaipur. New pension and life insurance fund for overseas Indians.
Jan. 9: President Pratibha Patil presents the “Pravasi Bharatiya Samman” to the Trinidad & Tobago
Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar and 14 others at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas valedictory.
Six researchers from five science streams are honoured with the Infosys Prize-2011 at a function in
Bangalore.
Jan. 10: The Centre notifies 100 per cent foreign direct investment in single brand retail.
Jan. 16: A major fire breaks out in Khalsa Mahal, part of the Chepauk Palace in
Chennai, destroying the offices of the Directorates of Social Welfare and Industries
and Commerce and leaving a fire officer dead.
Jan. 20: Vodafone wins Rs. 11,000-crore tax case in Supreme Court.
Jan. 23: Sunil Verma, a key-accused in the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission
scam in Uttar Pradesh, is found dead at his residence in Lucknow.
Jan. 24: The five-day Jaipur Literature Festival ends without Salman Rushdie‘s video
conference following protest.

2. Jan. 25: Eight persons are killed and more than 30 persons injured in a freak mishap
as Santosh Mane, a bus driver, goes on the rampage in Pune.
Norway agrees to hand over Abhigyan (3) and Aishwarya (1) taken under protective
care by Child Welfare Services in 2011 to uncle Arunabhash Bhattacharya who is to be
their primary caregiver till the kids turn 18.
Bhupen Hazarika, Mario de Miranda (both posthumously), T. V. Rajeswar prominent
among five Padma Vibhushan awardees. Hindi actors Dharmendra, Shabana Azmi,
painter Jatin Das and Carnatic musicians T. V. Gopalakrishnan and M. S.
Gopalakrishnan, Mira Nair, N. Vittal and Ronen Sen prominent among 27 awarded
Padma Bhushan.
Padma Shri awarded to 77 persons.
Jan. 26: Dazzling display of cultural heritage marks the 63rd Republic Day
celebrations. For the first time, the IAF contingent is led by a woman flight Lt. Sneha
Shekhawhat. The Ashok Chakra is awarded posthumously to Lt. Navdeep Singh for his
supreme sacrifice in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2011.
Kerala Governor and former Chief Minister of Pondicherry M.O.H. Farook (74) dies at
a hospital in Chennai.
Jan. 28: An estimated 82 per cent of the electorate cast votes in Manipur Assembly
elections marred by militant violence that claims five lives in Chandel district.
Jan. 30: Andhra Pradesh Home Secretary B. P. Acharya is arrested by the CBI in
Hyderabad for his role in irregularities in allotment of plots for villas in the project of
Dubai-based real estate developer Emaar.
Punjab and Uttarakhand record a turnout of over 77 and 70 per cent in Assembly
elections.
A Rs.1,000-crore housing project for the Thane Cyclone-hit districts such as Cuddalore
and Villupuram highlight of the Tamil Nadu Governor K. Rosaiah‘s address to the
Assembly.
Jan. 31: The Supreme Court dismisses plea for a further probe into the
disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
FEBRUARY
Feb. 1: The Supreme Court declares unconstitutional Section 27(3) of the Arms Act
which provides for mandatory death penalty to an accused.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gives nod for setting up a National Council for
Senior Citizens.

3. Feb. 2: The Supreme Court says sale of 2G spectrum by the UPA government is illegal
and cancels all 122 telecom licences allotted on or after January 10, 2008 to 11
companies. Spectrum to be resold by auction.
Feb. 3: Veteran environmental filmmaker Mike Pandey is honoured with the V.
Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival
2012.
The Centre notifies proposal to set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre.
Feb. 4: The Tamil Nadu Assembly passes bill seeking establishment of the Tamil Nadu
National Law School in Srirangam. A massive farm package for Thane-hit farmers of
Cuddalore and Villupuram is unveiled.
Feb. 7: Three Karnataka Ministers are caught watching pornography on mobile phone
in the Assembly.
Feb. 8: The beleaguered Karnataka Ministers, Laxman Savadi, J. Krishna Palemar and
C. C. Patil, ―voluntarily‖ resign.
The Karnataka Advocate-General B. V. Acharya resigns post, but to continue as Special
Public Prosecutor in the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief
Minister Jayalalithaa.
The Gujarat High Court pulls up the Narendra Modi government ―for inaction and
negligence‖ during the 2002 post-Godhra riots. SIT frees Modi of all charges in the
2002 pogrom against Muslims.
Sixtytwo per cent turnout in phase I of U.P. Assembly polls.
Feb. 9: A student stabs to death R. Uma Maheswari (39), a teacher in a classroom at
the St. Mary‘s Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School on Armenian Street, Chennai.
Kartam Surya, face of the Salwa Judum, is killed in an ambush in Chhattisgarh‘s
Sukma district.
Feb. 10: The Bombay High Court confirms the death sentence of three Lashkar-e-Taiba
operatives — Ashrat Shafiq Ansari, Mohammad Hanif Abdul Rahim Sayyed and his
wife Fahmida Sayyed — accused of the twin blasts in Mumbai on August 25, 2003.
Feb. 11: Fiftynine per cent of the voters cast ballots in phase II of Uttar Pradesh
Assembly elections.
Feb. 13: Tal Yehoshua Koren, Israeli diplomat is seriously injured after a magnetic
explosive device fixed to her car by a motorcyclist goes off near the 7, Race Course
Road residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.

4. Feb. 14: Karnataka‘s Minister for Higher Education Dr. V. S. Acharya (71) dies
following an acute myocardial infarction in Bangalore.
Twentytwo writers and poets are honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Awards for 2011
at the Festival of Letters in New Delhi.
Feb. 15: The third phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls registers 57.25 per cent
voting.
Two fishermen are killed in firing by Italian naval personnel stationed on an oil
tankerEnrica Lexie in the contiguous sea zone off Ambalapuzha in Kerala.
Feb. 16: The Supreme Court stays Abu Salem‘s trial in two cases.
Feb. 19: Kerala police arrest two Italian marines suspected to have fired shots killing
two fishermen.
The fourth phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls records 57.20 per cent turnout.
Feb. 23 : Fiftynine per cent polling in phase V of U.P. Assembly elections.
Feb. 25: At least 174 shops are gutted after a portion of Bangalore‘s iconic Russell
Market in Shivaji Nagar is ravaged in a major fire.
Feb. 26: A massive forest fire (that raged for four days) wreaks havoc at Nagarahole
National Park in Karnataka.
Feb. 27: The Supreme Court directs the Centre to set up a ‗special committee‘ forthwith
for interlinking of rivers.
Sensex tumbles by 477.82 points recording its biggest fall in five months.
Feb. 28: Mixed response to nationwide one-day general strike against the Centre‘s
―neo-liberal economic and anti-labour‖ policies.
Ballots cast in sixth phase of U.P. Assembly polls.
MARCH
March 2: The Supreme Court appoints Justice H.S. Bedi as Chairman of the
Monitoring Authority to probe all cases of fake encounter deaths in Gujarat from 2003
to 2006.
March 3 : Eastern Army Commander Lieutenant General Bikram Singh is named the
next Chief of the Army Staff.

5. The CBI arrests the former Uttar Pradesh Family Welfare Minister Babu Singh
Kushwaha in the National Rural Health Mission Scam.
The last phase of Assembly polls in U.P. registers 59.16 per cent voting.
Eightytwo per cent voting in Goa Assembly polls.
March 5: A freelance journalist Syed Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi is arrested for attack
on Israeli diplomat, at Lodhi Road in South Delhi.
March 6: Samajwadi Party sweeps Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. The Shiromani Akali
Dal-BJP combine retains power in Punjab. In Goa, the BJP ousts the Congress from
power. The Congress forges ahead in Uttarakhand and secures absolute majority in
Manipur by bagging 42 seats in the 60-member House.
March 7: The Byari debut feature film Byari shares the Best Film Award with Marathi
film Deool at the 59th National Film Awards. Vidya Balan bags Best Actress Award for
the biopic The Dirty Picture . Tamil Film Azhagarsamiyin Kuthirai gets best popular
film award.
March 9: Manohar Parrikar is sworn in Goa Chief Minister at a public ceremony in
Camapal, Goa.
March 12: The President Pratibha Patil announces a proposal to set up a separate
Department of Disability Affairs during her address to the joint session of Parliament.
March 13: Vijay Bahuguna of the Congress is sworn in as Uttarakhand Chief Minister
at a simple ceremony in Dehra Dun.
March 14: Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi hikes passenger fares for the first time in
eight years, while presenting the Railway Budget for 2012-13, with an outlay of Rs.
60,100 crore, the highest ever.
Parkash Singh Badal is sworn in Punjab Chief Minister for a record fifth time. Sukhbir
Singh is sworn in Deputy Chief Minister.
Okram Ibobi Singh is sworn in Manipur Chief Minister for the third consecutive term.
March 15: Akhilesh Yadav is sworn in Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
A Pakistani judicial commission arrives in Mumbai to record the statements of four
witnesses in the November 26, 2008 terror attacks in the city.
March 16: The Finance Minister announces token relief to taxpayers presenting the
Union Budget for 2012-13 in Parliament. Across – the - board hike in excise duty and
service tax.

6. March 19: The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa gives nod for Kudankulam
Nuclear Power Plant.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh forwards Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi‘s
resignation to President Pratibha Patil.
March 20: Work resumes at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project site for the first time
in nearly five-and-a-half months.
Union Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy takes over as Railway Minister.
A Pune Court awards death sentence to two for the November 1, 2007 rape and murder
of a BPO employee Jyotikumari Choudhary.
March 21: The AIADMK pulls off an emphatic win in Sankarankoil Assembly
byelection. The congress is routed in all seven Assembly constituencies in Andhra
Pradesh.
Goa Tourism Minister and BJP leader Matanhy Saldanha (64), dies of cardiac arrest in
Panaji.
Nod for Mahindra Satyam merger with Tech Mahindra.
March 22: Railway Minister Mukul Roy rolls back the fare hike, except for high-end
class.
Union Ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh, Rajiv Shukla, Mukul Roy, BSP chief Mayawati
and BJP leader Arun Jaitley are elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha.
March 23: The Union Cabinet gives nod for credit guarantee fund to give a push to
housing for low-income groups. Nod for Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 giving
women share in husband‘s property after divorce.
March 25: Maoists free Italian tourist Claudio Colangelo after holding him hostage for
11 days.
Chief of the Army Chief General V.K. Singh alleges during an exclusive interview toThe
Hindu that he was offered a Rs 14-crore bribe by an equipment lobbyist for purchasing
sub-standard trucks.
March 26: Tamil Nadu Finance Minister O.Pannerselvam presents a growth-oriented
budget.
March 28: The Union government stays the execution of Balwant Singh Rajoana in
connection with the killing of the former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh on August
31, 1995.

7. March 29: The fourth summit of BRICS in New Delhi begins process to set up a bank
and inks two pacts to ease trade among each other.
K.N. Ramajeyam, younger brother of K.N. Nehru, former Tamil Nadu Transport
Minister is murdered after being abducted from Thillai Nagar in Tiruchi.
The Lok Sabha passes the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2010.
March 30: Punjab Minister Bibi Jagir Kaur gets five-year prison term for forcibly
causing her daughter‘s miscarriage almost 12 years ago; resigns from the Cabinet.
March 31: Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy takes over as the CPI General Secretary from
Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan who was at the helm for 16 years, at the party‘s 21st
Congress in Patna.
A school principal Rupam Pathak is convicted in the murder of BJP MLA Raj Kishore
Kesari on January 4, 2011 in Bihar‘s Purnea district.
APRIL
April 2: The Securities and Exchange Board of India allows listing of stock exchanges.
April 4: President Pratibha Patil presents the Padma awards at a ceremony at
Rashtrapati Bhavan.
April 8: Terror a major issue by which Indian people will judge progress in ties, says
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during talks with Pakistan President Asif Ali
Zardari, in New Delhi.
April 9: Prakash Karat is re-elected CPI(M) general secretary at the 20th party
Congress in Kozhikode.
The Supreme Court grants bail to Pakistani microbiologist Mohammad Khalil Chisti
serving lifer in the Ajmer jail in a murder case.
April 10: SIT finds no proof against Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, says
Ahmedabad court. Closure report filed in the 2002 Gulberg Society massacre case.
April 11: Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal Chairman, N.P. Singh resigns on health
grounds after holding the post for about 16 years.
Battered Baby Neha Afreen dies at the Vani Vilas Hospital, Bangalore after a cardiac
arrest.
Pakistani microbiologist Mohammad Khalil Chisti is freed on bail from Rajasthan‘s
Ajmer Central jail.

8. April 12: The Supreme Court upholds the constitutional validity of the Right of
Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.
Italian court operator Bosusco Paolo is freed by naxalites after being held captive for
29 days, in Kandhamal district, Odisha.
April 13: India decides in principle to allow FDI from Pakistan. Both nations also agree
to allow opening of bank branches.
Ambikesh Mahapatra, a professor of Kolkata‘s Jadavpur University is arrested for
allegedly circulating defamatory e-mails directed at West Bengal Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee.
April 14: India and Pakistan agree on a roadmap for allowing trade through the land
route — Attari-Wagah. To give fillip to trade through new Integrated Checkpost.
April 19: Nuclear-capable Agni-V is successfully test launched from a rail mobile
launcher from the Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast propelling India into elite ICBM
club.
April 21: Cadres of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) kidnap Alex Paul
Menon, Collector of Sukma district, Chhattisgarh after killing two personal security
guards.
April 24: The Rajya Sabha passes the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory
Education (Amendment) Bill, 2010 that widens the net for disabled children.
The two Bhattacharya children land in Delhi after being kept in foster care for almost a
year by authorities in Norway.
April 26: Odisha MLA Jhina Hikaka, kidnapped by Maoists more than a month ago is
freed on the outskirts of Balipeta village in Koraput district.
India‘s first indigenously built all-weather Radar Imaging Satellite, RISAT-1 is injected
into orbit by the PSLV C-19 after lift-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in
Sriharikota.
April 27: The former BJP president Bangaru Laxman is convicted of taking bribe to
facilitate government contracts.
The grand old lady of Indian theatre Zohra Segal turns 100.
April 28: Former SPG Chief B.V. Wanchoo is appointed Goa Governor and former
Madhya Pradesh Minister, Aziz Qureshi, Governor of Uttarakhand, Margaret Alva is
shifted to Rajasthan.

9. Bangaru Laxman is sentenced to four years‘ RI on corruption charges by a Special CBI
Court in New Delhi.
April 30: Nupur Talwar, an accused in the 2008 murder of her daughter Aarushi and
domestic help Hemraj is sent to jail after rejection of her bail plea.
Bangaru Laxman quits the BJP‘s national executive.
MAY
May 2: The Supreme Court allows the Italian ship Enrica Lexie to leave India setting
aside the Kerala High Court‘s order.
May 3: Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon is freed by Maoists in the Bastar forests
ending a 12-day hostage crisis.
The Dadasaheb Phalke Award is conferred on veteran Bengali actor Soumitra
Chatterjee by the Vice-President Hamid Ansari at the 59th National Film Awards 2012
in New Delhi. Marathi film Deool and Byari share the best feature film award. Vidya
Balan bags Best Actress award for her role in The Dirty Picture . Girish Kulkarni bags
Best Actor Award (Deool ).
A CBI court in Ranchi convicts 69 persons and acquits 16 in the multi-crore fodder
scam, at the end of a 16-year-long trial.
May 4: A Special Fast Track Court in Anand, Gujarat awards lifer to nine persons in
the 2002 Ode riots case. Thirtyone are freed.
Sensex tanks 320 points to close at 16831.08.
Tamil writer Ashokamitran is chosen for the 6th NTR National Literary Award.
AIIMS graduate Shena Aggarwal tops the Civil Services Examination 2011. Rukmani
Riar, a postgraduate from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences secures the second
rank.
A Bill to repeal the Tamil Nadu Legislative Council Act, 2010 is introduced in the Rajya
Sabha.
May 5: Italian ship Enrica Lexie detained off Kochi since February 15 following the
killing of two fishermen is allowed to sail out of Indian waters.
May 7: Lok Sabha passes the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill, 2012.
The Supreme Court suspends the life sentence of CPI (Maoist) activist Narayan Sanyal
and grants him bail.

10. May 8: West Bengal confers the first ‗Bishesh Rabindra Puraskar‘ on Rabindra Sangeet
exponent Dwijen Mukhopadhyay to mark the conclusion of the 150th birth
anniversary celebrations of the Nobel laureate.
May 9: Parliament passes the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education
(Amendment) Bill, 2012 with passage of the measure in the Lok Sabha.
May 10: The Supreme Court allows Pakistani microbiologist Mohammad Khalil Chishti
jailed in Ajmer for the past 20 years in a murder case to visit his country.
May 11: Furore in Parliament over derogatory 1949 cartoon on Ambedkar.
Government bans the caricature contained in an NCERT book for 11th standard.
May 13: Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first sitting
of Parliament. President Pratibha Patil releases a book.
May 15: The former Telecom Minister A. Raja is granted bail by a special CBI court in
New Delhi after spending nearly 15 months in the Tihar Central Jail.
May 16: Sensex tumbles by 298.6 points to close at 16030.09 triggered by the eurozone
crisis.
May 20: S. P. Mahantesh, Deputy Director of Cooperative Audit and whistleblower on
irregular land allotments in Karnataka dies of injuries he suffered after a murderous
attack in Bangalore five days ago.
Eminent actor Suchitra Sen is honoured with West Bengal‘s highest award Banga
Bibhusan.
May 22: Twentyfive persons are killed as the Bangalore-bound Hampi Express rams a
stationary goods train near the Penukonda station in Anantapur district, Andhra
Pradesh.
The Lok Sabha passes the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011.
Parliament nod for The Copyright Act (Amendment) Bill, 2012, that entitles artistes to
life-long royalty.
May 23: The rupee touches an all-time low of 50.22 against the dollar.
Sensex closes below the 16000-mark.
The Mamata Banerjee government announces scrapping of the Special Economic
Zones.
May 27: The CBI arrests YSR Congress president and Kadapa MP Y. S. Jaganmohan
Reddy in a disproportionate assets case.

11. May 28: The Andhra Pradesh High Court quashes the Centre‘s 4.5 per cent quota for
Minorities carved out of the 27 percent reservation for the OBCs.
May 29: A special court in Mumbai grants bail to seven accused in the Adarsh Housing
Society case as the CBI fails to file chargesheet.
Gulf, EU residents are allowed to invest in stock markets. Qualified Foreign Investors
to bring up to $1 billion in debt market.
May 31: The Union Cabinet gives nod for the National Telecom Policy 2012. Number
portability allowed.
General Bikram Singh assumes office as the Chief of the Army Staff in New Delhi.
JUNE
June 1: Brahmeshwar Singh alias ‗Mukhiyaji‘, chief of the Ranvir Sena is shot dead at
Katira Mohalla, 71 km from Patna, in the Bhojpur district headquarters town of Ara.
June 2: Massimilliano Lattore and Salvatore Girone, the two Italian marines arrested
for the killing of two Kerala fishermen are freed on bail after spending 105 days in
custody.
June 4: Cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar is sworn is as Rajya Sabha member.
June 5: Vice-Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi is named the next Chief of the Naval
Staff.
June 6: Election Commissioner Veeravalli Sundaram Sampath is appointed as the
Chief Election Commissioner.
Planet Venus transits the Sun, the last such celestial event of this century.
Sensex gains 433.66 points to close at 16454.30.
June 8: The trial in the Aarushi murder case begins at a Ghaziabad court.
June 11: V.S. Sampath assumes office as the Chief Election Commissioner.
June 13: Five persons, including the owner of Sri Padmapriya Kalyana Mahal in
Srirangam, Tiruchi are convicted for the death of 64 persons on January 23, 2004
during a fire mishap at the hall.
June 14: Pascal Mazurier, a French diplomat, is held by the Bangalore police on
charges of raping his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

12. June 15: The Congress suffers a setback as it loses 18 seats in the byelections to the
Assemblies in 10 States and the Nellore Lok Sabha seat in Andhra Pradesh. In Tamil
Nadu, the AIADMK wins the Pudukottai Assembly seat.
June 20: The former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma quits the NCP and to contest
presidential polls with NDA support.
Conjoined twins Stuti and Aradhana are separated after a 12-hour complex surgery at
the Missionary Hospital in Padhar of Betul district, Madhya Pradesh.
June 21: Five persons are killed in a towering inferno that engulfs Mantralaya, the
Maharashtra Secretariat. Many offices, including that of the Chief Minister and the
Deputy Chief Minister are gutted.
Mahi (4) dies of asphyxia after falling into a 70-foot borewell at Kasan village in
Gurgaon.
June 22: The Calcutta High Court strikes down the Singur Land Rehabilitation and
Development Act, 2011, terming it ―unconstitutional and void.‖
June 25: A fire destroys the 200-year-old shrine of Dastageer Sahib at Khanyar in
Srinagar. The relics of the 11th century preacher Ghausul-Azam are safe.
Suspected Lakshar-e-Toiba terrorist Abu Jindal alias Sayyed Zabiuddin Ansari who
played a key role in the November 26, 2008 Mumbai attacks is held by the New Delhi
Police after being deported by Saudi Arabia.
A trial court in Shimla frames graft charges against the Union Minister for Small,
Micro and Medium Industries Virbhadra Singh.
June 26: Pranab Mukherjee steps down as the Union Finance Minister. Prime Minister
Manmohan singh takes over the portfolio.
Union Minister Virbhadra Singh resigns.
June 28: Surjeet Singh (69) is freed after spending three decades in Pakistani prisons
on spying charges and crosses the zero line at the Wagah-Attari joint check-post along
the border in Amritsar.
June 29: Leela Samson is back as director of the Kalakshetra Foundation. She had quit
the post on April 12 amid pressure from a section of the board.
Sensex shoots up by 439 points to close at 17429.98, its biggest single-day gain in 2012.
JULY
July 1: Floods, landslips leave 77 dead in Assam.

13. July 3: The Union Cabinet clears Rs.25-crore plan to airlift 350 tonnes of toxic waste
from Bhopal.
July 4: The CBI files chargesheets against the former Maharashtra Chief Minister
Ashok Chavan and 12 others in the Adarsh Housing Society case.
July 5: Aradhana who was separated from her conjoined sister Stuti dies after twice
suffering cardiac arrest in Betul, M.P.
Altogether 538 animals, including 13 rhinos are killed as floods wreak havoc on the
Kaziranga National Park in Assam.
July 6: The Supreme Court quashes FIR against former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister
Mayawati in disproportionate assets case.
President Pratibha Patil is enrolled biometrically in the National Population Register
at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.
July 8 : Karnataka Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda hands over resignation to BJP
president Nitin Gadkari.
July 9: The Bombay High Court acquits five accused and upholds life term for four in
the 2002 Best Bakery case.
A girl is molested outside a pub in full public view in Guwahati, Assam by a group of
persons.
Votes are cast in presidential polls.
July 12: Jagadish Shettar is sworn in as Karnataka Chief Minister. K.S. Eshwarappa
and R. Ashok become Deputy Chief Ministers.
July 13: The most wanted idol and antique items smuggler Subhash Chandra Kapur
arrested last October in Germany is brought to Chennai.
July 18: Rajesh Khanna (70), Hindi cinema‘s first real superstar dies in Mumbai,
following prolonged illness.
A general manager is killed and 100 managers injured in unprecedented violence at
Maruti Suzuki‘s Manesar plant in Haryana over the suspension of a lineman.
July 20: Assam police arrest Gaurab Jyoti Neog, a journalist with New Live TV Channel
for allegedly instigating the molestation of a girl.
July 21: Maruti Suzuki India Limited declares an indefinite lockout at its Manesar
plant.

14. About 36,000 flee homes in Assam‘s Kokrajhar district following Bodo-Muslim clashes
that leave 12 dead.
July 22: Pranab Kumar Mukherjee is declared elected President. He defeats the
former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma by 3,97,776 value votes.
July 23: Shoot-at-sight orders in Kokrajhar district, following unabated violence. Toll
touches 20.
Amarjyoti Kalita, the key accused in the Guwahati molestation case is arrested in
Varanasi.
July 24: Army is called out in Assam as violence escalates in Kokrajhar, Chirang and
Dubri districts. Rail link snapped and 1.7 lakh people move to relief camps.
July 25: Pranab Mukherjee is sworn in President in the Central Hall of Parliament.
July 28: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits flood-hit Assam and announces
Rs.300 crore in Central aid.
July 29: Seventyfour per cent polling in the first-ever elections to the Gorkha
Territorial Administration Sabha in West Bengal.
July 30: A fire aboard the Chennai-bound Tamil Nadu Express in Nellore leaves 32
dead.
The Northern Grid crashes in one of the worst outages in more than a decade plunging
eight States into darkness.
July 31: In the second massive breakdown, 21 States plunge into darkness as three
grids collapse.
P.Chidambaram is back as Finance Minister. Sushil Kumar Shinde becomes Home
Minister and Veerappa Moily given additional charge of Power.
The Madras High Court stays Leela Samson‘s reappointment as Director of
Kalakshetra Foundation.
AUGUST
Aug. 1: Four low-intensity blasts rock the busy Junglee Maharaj Road in Pune.
The Supreme Court acquits three persons, including Sanjeev Nanda in the January 10,
1999 BMW hit-and-run case in which six persons died.
Aug. 4: The newly-elected members of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration
Sabha are sworn in at a function in Darjeeling.

15. The former Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel and former Union Minister
Kashiram Rana quit the BJP.
Aug. 5: Haryana Minister of State for Home and Youth Affairs Gopal Goyal Kanda
resigns following the registration of a case in connection with the suicide in New Delhi
of Geetika Sharma, a former staff of an airline owned by him.
Aug. 6: Fiza Anuradha Bali, estranged second wife of the former Haryana Deputy Chief
Minister, Chander Mohan, is found dead in her house in Mohali town of Punjab‘s
Ajitgarh district.
Anna Hazare disbands Team Anna.
Aug. 7: Hamid Ansari is re-elected Vice-President, thus becoming the second person to
get a second consecutive term after S. Radhakrishnan.
India becomes first destination in Asia to receive the state-of-the-art Lufthansa Boeing
747-8 International after it touches down at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in
New Delhi to a water cannon salute.
Aug. 11: Hamid Ansari is sworn in as Vice-President for a second term.
Two persons are killed and more than 50 injured as a protest against Assam riots
turns violent in Azad Maidan, Mumbai. Amar Jawan memorial desecrated.
Aug. 14: The Union Minister for Science and Technology and former Maharashtra
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh (67) dies at a Chennai hospital.
B. V. Acharya, Special Public Prosecutor in the disproportionate assets against Tamil
Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, quits post.
Aug. 15: Lack of political consensus to blame for slow economic growth, says the Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh in his address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red
Fort in New Delhi on the 66th Independence Day.
Aug. 17: The CAG report tabled in Parliament points finger at Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh for discrepancies that led to loss of Rs. 1.86-lakh crore in coal blocks
allocation during 2004-09.
Aug. 19: The 20th Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award is conferred on D.R.
Mehta, founder and chief patron of the Bhagwan Mahavir Sahayata Samiti, Jaipur.
Aug. 21: Maruti Suzuki resumes production at its Manesar plant in Gurgaon.
Aug. 24: The Supreme Court extends stay of verdict in the Singur land case providing
respite to the West Bengal government.

16. Aug. 29: The Supreme Court confirms death sentence awarded to Ajmal Kasab, the
prime accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Mayaben Kodnani, former Minister in the Narendra Modi Cabinet and former Bajrang
Dal convener Babu Bajrangi among 31 persons convicted by a special court in
Ahmedabad in the February 28, 2002 Naroda-Patiya massacre case in which 97
Muslims were killed.
Aug. 30: Nine IAF personnel are killed as two helicopters collide in mid-air in
Gujarat‘s Saurashtra region.
Aug. 31: The Supreme Court directs Sahara group to refund Rs. 24,400 crore collected
from 2.21 crore depositors.
All convicts in the Naroda-Patiya riots case, including BJP MLA Mayaben Kodnani are
sentenced to lifer by a special court in Ahmedabad.
The Madras High Court gives nod for the commissioning of Units I & II of the
Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant.
Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi takes charge as the 21st Chief of the Naval Staff.
SEPTEMBER
Sept. 3: The Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010
and two other Bills passed without debate in the Lok Sabha. Bill to eliminate manual
scavenging introduced. Normal functioning of Parliament hit for the ninth day.
Sept. 4: The CBI registers five cases in Coalgate. Names Congress MP Vijay Darda in
one case and conducts searches in 11 cities.
Sept. 5: Thirtyeight persons are killed and 67 injured after an explosion at a
firecrackers unit in Mudalipatti near Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu‘s Virudhunagar district.
Sept. 7: The monsoon session of Parliament comes to an unceremonious end.
Kerala High Court directs the State government to pay former ISRO scientist S. R.
Nambi Narayanan an interim compensation of Rs. 10 lakh for keeping him in illegal
police custody in connection with a 1994 espionage case.
Sensex surges by over 337 points to close at 17683.73.
Sept. 8: The judiciary must keep reinventing itself, says the President Pranab
Mukherjee delivering the valedictory address at the sesquicentennial (150 years)
celebrations of the Madras High Court.

17. The first of Air India‘s advanced Boeing 787 Dreamliner touches down at the Indira
Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi to a water cannon salute.
Aseem Trivedi, awarding winning political cartoonist is arrested by the Mumbai police
on sedition, cybercrime charges.
Sept. 9: A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle blasts off from Sriharikota and places in orbit
two foreign satellites on ISRO‘s 100th mission.
Verghese Kurien (90), father of the ―White Revolution‖ and founder of the cooperative
dairy movement in the country, dies in a hospital at Nadiad, Gujarat.
Sept. 10: One fisherman is killed in police firing in Tuticorin as the protest against the
Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project turns violent.
Sept. 12: Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi is freed after being granted bail by the Bombay
High Court, a day before.
Sept. 13: The Supreme Court refuses to stay loading of fuel at the Kudankulam nuclear
plant in Tamil Nadu. Agrees to examine risk factor.
Sept. 14: The Centre allows 51 per cent foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail,
100 per cent in single brand retail and 49 per cent in civil aviation.
Sensex gains 443.11 points to close at 18464.27, the highest close since July 2011.
Navraj Kwatra (65) photographer-son of famous writer Amrita Pritam is found
murdered at his apartment in Borivali, Mumbai.
The U.S. Consulate in Chennai is attacked during a protest against American
filmInnocence of Muslims .
Sept. 15: Pratish Datta, a visually challenged student is awarded the Professor
Jagadish Chandra Bose Memorial Gold Medal for the best academic performance at
the 58th convocation of IIT Kharagpur.
Sept. 17: The Supreme Court grants bail to Nupur Talwar in the Aarushi-Hemraj
murder case.
Sept. 18: The Trinamool Congress withdraws support to the UPA government.
Copies of The Hindu dated January 21, 1966 found in a diplomatic bag which went
down with an Air India aircraft 46 years ago in the French Alps are put on display at
the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.
Sept. 19: The Cauvery River Authority fails to resolve the issue of sharing of the waters.
Tamil Nadu to approach Supreme Court.

18. Sept. 20: The UPA Government notifies the guidelines for FDI in retail, civil aviation
and broadcasting unfazed by the Opposition sponsored bandh.
A.S. Panneerselvan, Executive Director of Panos South Asia, takes over as The
Hindu’sthird Readers‘ Editor.
The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy is launched on the occasion of the
134th anniversary of the founding of the daily.
Sept. 21: G. Kasturi (87), the former Editor of The Hindu , dies at his home in Chennai.
Trinamool Congress Ministers quit the Union Cabinet.
Sept. 22 : Rain wreaks havoc in Assam leaving thousands marooned in Tinsukia
district. Floodwaters submerge 35 per cent area of the Kaziranga National Park.
Six Ministers of the Congress in the West Bengal government resign their posts.
Sept. 24: Trial begins in the Kumbakonam School fire tragedy on July 16, 2004 that left
94 dead.
The Union Cabinet gives nod for the one rank, one pension scheme for ex-servicemen.
Sept. 25: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar
resigns. All 15 NCP Ministers and five Ministers of State too quit.
Nupur Talwar is freed on bail from the Dasna jail in Ghaziabad.
Sept. 26: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh presents the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar
Award for 2011 to 11 young scientists in New Delhi. CSIR announces research
fellowships for scientists aged above 70.
Sept. 28: Sharad Pawar asks Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan to accept
Ajit Pawar‘s resignation. All other NCP Ministers asked to resume duty.
The Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia retires.
Sept. 29: Justice Altamas Kabir is sworn in the 39th Chief Justice of India by the
President Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker D. Jayakumar resigns post.
Sept. 30: K. Vijay Kumar retires as CRPF Director–General.
OCTOBER
Oct. 2: India Against Corruption announces the launch of a party in New Delhi.

19. Oct. 3: The EC announces elections to the Assemblies of Gujarat (December 13 and 17)
and Himachal Pradesh (November 4).
A gender-sensitive Parliament can ―more insightfully‖ address social problems faced
by women, says President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurating the seventh meeting of
Women Speakers of Parliament, in New Delhi.
Oct. 4: The Manmohan Singh government raises the FDI cap in the insurance sector,
opens up the pension sector to foreign investment.
Sensex breaches the 19000 mark and closes at 19058.15.
Oct. 5: The Supreme Court stays all mining operations in Goa.
Oct. 6: The Cauvery Basin districts and Bangalore observe a shutdown in protest
against the release of Cauvery waters to Tamil Nadu.
Oct. 8: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rules out a stay or review of the decision of
the Cauvery River Authority to release water to Tamil Nadu.
Columnist and one-time playback singer Varsha Bhosle, daughter of legendary singer
Asha Bhosle is found dead at her Peddar Road residence in Mumbai.
Oct. 10: P. Dhanapal is unanimously elected Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Assembly, the
first Dalit to hold the office since 1955.
Oct. 11: Suvarna Soudha, the second Secretariat building in Karnataka, is inaugurated
by President Pranab Mukherjee in Belgaum.
Oct. 13: President Pranab Mukherjee‘s son Abhijit Mukherjee scrapes through in
Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency. In Tehri, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay
Bahugana‘s son Saket Bahuguna loses to the BJP‘s Maharani Mala Rajlaxmi Shah.
The Rajasthan government appoints The Hindu’s senior journalist Sunny Sebastian as
the Vice-Chancellor of the newly created Harideo Joshi University of Journalism and
Mass Communication.
Oct. 16: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledges $50 million for biodiversity
conservation for what he called the ―Hyderabad Pledge‖addressing the 11th
Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Oct. 17: Pranay Sahay is appointed CRPF Director-General.
The Karnataka High Court grants bail to French diplomat Pascal Mazurier arrested for
―sexually abusing‖ his daughter.

20. Oct. 19: Aman Sethi , The Hindu’s Correspondent in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is declared
winner of The Economist Crossword Book Award 2011 for his book, A Free Man .
Oct. 20: Kingfisher Airlines‘ licence is suspended.
The Union government launches an Aadhaar- enabled service delivery system at Dudu
town near Jaipur in Rajasthan. Bali Bai of Kurawad village in Udaipur district gets the
21st crore Aadhaar card.
Oct. 23: Sunil Gangopadhyay (78), Sahitya Akademi president dies at his South
Kolkata residence following heart attack.
Oct. 25: Actor Waheeda Rahman is conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award at
the closing function of the 14th Mumbai Film Festival. Miss Lovely bags the best film
award.
Small screen‘s big star Jaspal Bhatti (57) of Flop Show fame dies in a road accident in
Punjab.
Kingfisher Airlines lifts lockout.
Oct. 26: S.M. Krishna resigns as External Affairs Minister.
India, Spain ink pact in defence cooperation after talks between Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and King of Spain Juan Carlos I.
Oct. 28: Salman Khurshid is named External Affairs Minister. Pawan Kumar Bansal
becomes the first Congress Railway Minister in 17 years. S.Jaipal Reddy is moved from
Petroleum and Natural Gas to S&T.
Oct. 31: Cyclone Nilam spares Chennai city, but makes landfall near Mamallapuram.
Earlier , gusty winds drag a cargo ship MT Prathiba Cauvery and it runs aground off
Elliots Beach, Besant Nagar.
Cable television goes digital in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
NOVEMBER
Nov. 1: Coast Guard commandos rescue all the 15 crew members on board MT
Pratibha Cauvery that remains stranded off the Chennai coast.
Former Punjab Minister Bibi Jagir Kaur imprisoned for the mysterious death of her
daughter is granted bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Union Cabinet nod to give ex-servicemen status for retired paramilitary personnel.

21. Nov. 2: Senior TDP leader and former Union Minister, Yerran Naidu (55), dies after
his car collides with a lorry at Ranasthalam in Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh.
Cameroon is admitted as the 20th member of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for
Regional Cooperation and the U.S. becomes a dialogue partner at the ministerial
meeting of the grouping in Gurgaon.
Nov. 4: About 75 per cent of the voters cast ballots in Himachal Pradesh Assembly
polls.
Nov. 5: Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam are battered in the rain fury
and crops on over 15 lakh acres suffer damage.
Nov. 6: India and Canada finalise mechanism on shipping Canadian uranium to New
Delhi after Manmohan Singh – Stephen Harper talks. Social security agreement
signed.
Nov. 7: Veteran (CPIM) leader Samar Mukherjee turns 100.
Nov. 8: The Andhra Pradesh High Court sets aside the BCCI‘s lifetime ban on former
Indian cricket captain Azharuddin for ‗match-fixing‘.
Three Dalit colonies near Naikkankottai in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu are
attacked by a rampaging mob of caste Hindus.
Cyrus P. Mistry is appointed Chairman of Tata Power.
Nov. 9: The Supreme Court stays proceedings on all petitions in the 2G spectrum
allocation scam pending before the Delhi High Court.
Nov. 11: The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen withdraws both from the UPA coalition at
the Centre and the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh.
Nov. 14: Friendship should be based on people, not governments, says the Myanmar
opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi after delivering the Nehru Memorial Lecture
on the 123rd birth anniversary of Jawarharlal Nehru, in New Delhi.
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, comes into force.
Nov. 15: Former Union Minister Krishna Chandra Pant (81) dies at his New Delhi
residence.
Nov. 17: Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray (86), dies at his residence ‗Matoshree‘ in
Mumbai of cardiac arrest.

22. Business tycoon Gurdeep Singh aka Ponty Chadha and his younger brother are killed
in a fierce exchange of fire at a farmhouse in Chattarpur area in South Delhi following
a property dispute.
Nov. 18: Bal Thackeray cremated with full state honours at Mumbai‘s Shivaji Park. The
city observes a shutdown. A hospital in Thane ransacked following an FB post
questioning the bandh.
Nov. 19: Shaheen Dhada and Renu Srinivasan of Palghar in Mumbai‘s Thane district
are held briefly by police the former for her post on Facebook questioning the bandh
following Bal Thackeray‘s death and the latter for ‗liking‘ it.
Nov. 21: Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of the 26/11 Mumbai terror
attacks is hanged in Pune‘s Yerwada jail.
Nov. 22: The Trinamool Congress‘s attempt to bring a no-confidence motion against
the UPA government in Lok Sabha fails.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former President of Brazil is presented the Indira
Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, 2010 at the Rashtrapati
Bhavan.
The Borlaug Award 2012 goes to K.V. Prabhu and Ashok Singh, scientists at the Indian
Agriculture Research Institute.
Nov. 23: The Infosys Science Foundation announces the winners of the fourth Infosys
Prize for research, across six categories, including in Humanities for the first time.
Nov. 24: Arvind Kejriwal and his team christen their political party ―Aam Aadmi
Party‖ and adopt a constitution at a meeting of the National Council in New Delhi.
The Siva Prasad Barooah National Award for Journalism 2011 is presented to veteran
journalist M. S. Prabhakara in Guwahati.
Nov. 25: The BJP suspends Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani.
Nov. 27: Zee News editor Sudhir Chaudhary and Zee Business editor Samir Ahluwalia
are arrested in New Delhi.
Nov. 29: Talks between Chief Ministers of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in Bangalore to
break the deadlock on the Cauvery water dispute fails.
Nov. 30: Inder Kumar Gujral (92), former Prime Minister (April 21, 1997 – March 19,
1998) dies at a Gurgaon hospital of multiple organ failure. Union Cabinet declares
seven-day state mourning

23. The former Karnataka Chief Minister B.S.Yeddyurappa quits the BJP and resigns as
MLA. Formally joins Karnataka Janata Paksha.
The President Pranab Mukherjee comes down heavily on the growing trend of
disruption of proceedings of Parliament and State Assemblies during his speech at the
diamond jubilee celebrations of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in Chennai.
DECEMBER
Dec. 1: Chief Justice of Nepal Khil Raj Regmi and Justice V.R.Sirpurkar, Chairman of
the Competition Appellate Tribunal are among the winners of the International Jurists
Awards and National Law Day Awards.
Dec. 2: Andhra Pradesh Assembly passes the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled
Caste/Scheduled Tribe Sub-Plan Planning, Allocation and Utilisation of Financial
Resources Bill, 2012 making it the first state in the country to have such legislation .
Dec. 5: The UPA manages to defeat the Opposition motion on FDI in retail in the Lok
Sabha after the BSP and the SP members stage a walkout.
Dec. 6: Karnataka orders release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
Dec. 7: The UPA government wins the vote on the policy on FDI in multibrand retail in
Rajya Sabha with the SP staging a walkout and the BSP voting against the motion.
A Kamrup court sentences to two years RI the 11 convicted in G.S.Road molestation
case in which a gang misbehaved with a girl in the Assam capital Guwahati.
Ajit Pawar is sworn in as Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister .
Dec. 9: The Karnataka government stops Cauvery water release and files a petition
before the Cauvery River Authority.
Dec. 12: The Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the epoch-making art festival, opens at Fort
Kochi.
Microbiologist Mohammed Khaleel Chisti, involved in a 1992 case of murder in Ajmer,
is freed by the Supreme Court and allowed to go back to Pakistan.
Dec. 13: Bill for providing the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes with quota in
promotion in government jobs tabled in the Rajya Sabha.
The Union Cabinet nod for a watered down version of proposal creating a new Cabinet
Committee in Investment. Nod for amendments to the Judicial Standards and
Accountability Bill.
A record 68 per cent turnout is registered in phase I of Gujarat Assembly polls.

24. Dec. 14: India and Pakistan formalise the historic visa agreement signed in September.
Amar Chitra Katha launches a graphic novel on M.S.Subbulakshmi at the Narada Gana
Sabha in Chennai.
Dec. 15: My eyes now set on reforms in GAAR, IT and pharma sectors, says Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh at the 85th annual general meeting of the FCCI in New
Delhi. Naina Lal Kidwai takes over as the first woman president.
Dec. 16: A 23-year-old girl battles for life at Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi after
being gang-raped in a moving bus and thrown out along with her male friend on
National Highway-8.
Dec. 17: Rajya Sabha passes by a huge majority the 117th Constitutional Amendment
Bill providing for quota in government job promotions for SC /ST employees.
A staggering 70 per cent polling is recorded in phase II of Gujarat Assembly elections.
Zee News editor Sudhir Chaudhary and Zee Business editor Samir Ahluwalia are
granted bail by a sessions court in New Delhi.
Six trainer aircraft and a helicopter used by the Chief Minister are gutted in a major
fire in a hangar at the Begumpet airport in Hyderabad.
Dec. 18: The Lok sabha passes the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2011.
Cyrus P. Mistry is formally appointed Tata Sons Chariman.
Dec. 20: Narendra Modi sweeps back to power in Gujarat for the third time in a row.
In Himachal Pradesh, Congress comes back to power winning 36 of the 68 Assembly
seats.
The BJP and the SP block the quota bill in the Lok Sabha which adjourns sine die .
Booker-nominated Jeet Thayil and Bengali novelist Subrata Mukhopadhyaya among
24 selected for the 2012 Sahitya Akademi Awards.
India, ASEAN finalise the FTA in services and investments at the plenary session of
India-ASEAN commemorative summit in New Delhi.
Dec. 21: The Raman Singh government enacts the Chhattisgarh Food Security Act,
2012.
Flight Cadet R.K. Herojit Singh from Manipur paralysed below the waist following a
mishap is cleared for commissioning into the IAF.

25. Music director Ilayaraja among 36 chosen for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards
2012.
Dec. 22: Students lay siege to Rastrapati Bhavan in New Delhi braving police action
seeking justice for rape victims.
Dijwamani Thangjam, a journalist is killed in police firing while covering the strike in
Manipur seeking the arrest of an NSCN functionary for misbehaving with an actress.
Dec. 24: India, Russia sign 10 deals, among them a Kremlin-backed $2 billion
investment fund after Manmohan Singh-Putin talks in New Delhi.
Dec. 25: Virbhadra Singh is sworn in Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister at a function in
Shimla.
Seven persons are killed in an explosion at a firecrackers unit at Parakallur village in
Mecheri, Salem.
Dec. 26: The gangrape victim is flown to Singapore .
Narendra Modi is sworn in Gujarat Chief Minister.
Dec. 28: Ratan Naval Tata steps down as Tata Group Chairman.
Dec. 29: The gangrape victim dies at a hospital in Singapore.
Manohar Singh one of the accused in the 2006 Malegaon blasts is held in Madhya
Pradesh.
Dec. 30: The U.P. girl is cremated at the Dwarka crematorium in New Delhi.
Dec. 31: Cyrus P. Mistry takes over as Tata Group Chairman.
JANUARY to DECEMBER INTERNATIONAL EVENTS 2012 –
INTERNATIONAL
JANUARY
Jan. 1: The world rings in New Year with a spectacular string of fireworks, with Pacific Islands
being the first to usher in celebrations
A magnitude 7 earthquake rocks Japan.

26. Jan. 2: Kiaran Stapleton (20) is charged with the murder of Indian student Anuj Bidve in
Manchester.
Jan. 8: The African National Congress celebrates centenary in a $12.3-million commemoration
in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Jan. 9: Indian-American Bobby Jindal begins second term as Louisiana Governor after winning
a landslide victory in the open primary held on January 7.
Jan. 10: Daniel Ortega begins his third term as Nicaragua President.
Jan. 11: Mostafa Ahmade Roshan Behdast (32), an Iranian nuclear scientist at the Natanz
uranium enrichment facility is killed in a bomb attack in Tehran.
Tata Technologies unveils the prototype of $20,000 eMO electric car at the 2012 Detroit Auto
Show.
Jan. 12 : Scientists report the discovery of two more circumbinary planets — Kepler 34 b,
Kepler 35 b.
Jan. 13: Former Myanmar Premier Khin Nyunt and former student activist Min Ko Naing
among 650 political prisoners freed by the government.
Three persons die and several go missing after Costa Concordia, a 114,000-tonne cruise ship
runs aground near the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy.
Jan. 14: Taiwan‟s President Ma Ying-jeou is re-elected for a second term.
Jan. 15: George Clooney bags the Best Actor Award for his role in The Descendants and Meryl
Streep the Best Actress Award for her performance as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady at the
69th Golden Globe Awards at Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.
Jan. 16: Pakistan Supreme Court issues a contempt notice to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
for failure to implement order on money laundering cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
Jan. 17: Mukkaram Khan Atif, a journalist working for the Voice of America is shot dead at a
mosque near his home at Shabqadar town, 35 km from Peshawar.
Jan. 19: The American photographic film pioneer, Eastman Kodak Co, which invented the hand-
held camera files for bankruptcy.
Megaupload.com, one of the world‟s most popular file-sharing sites, is shut down following a
federal indictment in Virginia.
Jan. 20: U.S. Congressional leaders put on hold anti-online piracy legislation following a wave
of protests led by Google and Wikipedia.

27. Jan. 21: Nearly 178 people are killed in coordinated bomb and gun attacks by Islamist radical
group Boko Haram in the Nigerian city of Kano.
Egypt‟s Islamists led by the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood win two-thirds of seats in
Parliament in historic polls held in three stages beginning November 2011.
Dutch teenager Laura Dekker becomes the youngest sailor to complete a solo circumnavigation
of the world.
Jan. 22: Croatia votes to join the European Union in a referendum.
Jan. 23: Islamist MPs take centre stage as Egypt‟s Parliament meets for the first time since the
ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
Wesley Brown (104), the oldest sitting federal judge in the U.S, dies at an assisted living center
in Kansas.
U.S. Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich who led a group of American Marines involved in the killing
of 24 Iraqi residents in Haditha town on November 19, 2005 gets away with a lighter sentence. .
Jan. 29: Civil rights drama The Help wins three prizes at the Screen Actors Guild awards. Jean
Dujardin bags Best Male Actor award for role in The Artist . Viola Davis gets Best Female Actor
award for The Help . Lifetime Achievement Award for Mary Tyler Moore.
FEBRUARY
Feb. 1: A seven-member U.K. Supreme Court bench takes up for hearing WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange‟s plea against a High Court ruling that he can be extradited to Sweden.
At least 74 people are killed and hundreds wounded in a bloodbath at a football stadium in the
Egyptian city of Port Said.
Social networking giant Facebook files an initial public offering which could raise as much as
$10 billion.
Feb. 2: The U.S. indicts Wegelin, the oldest Swiss private bank, for enabling tax fraud by
American taxpayers.
Feb. 3: Kuwait‟s Islamist-led opposition wins a landslide victory in the country‟s snap polls.
Feb. 4: Russia and China veto an Arab League-backed resolution at the U.N. Security Council
calling on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. India along with the U.S. and 12
others back move.
At least 200 people are killed as Syrian forces unleash a barrage of mortars on the city of Homs.

28. Florence Green (110), the last known WWI veteran dies at her home in east England.
Feb. 6: At least 44 persons are killed as a 6.8 magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of
central Philippines.
Queen Elizabeth II celebrates 60th anniversary of her ascension to the British throne.
Feb. 7: Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed resigns in the face of a revolt by the police
forces. Hands over power to Vice-President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik.
Feb. 8: At least 62 persons are killed by Syrian security forces in Homs city.
Feb. 10: At least 25 persons are killed and 175 injured as two huge car bombings rock Aleppo,
Syria.
Jeffrey Zaslow (53) best-selling author and former columnist for The Wall Street Journal is
killed after losing control of his car in Michigan.
Sudan and South Sudan sign a “treaty of non-aggression” on their disputed border in Addis
Abbas.
Feb. 11: American R&B singer Whitney Houston (48) is found dead at the Beverly Hilton Hotel
in California.
Feb. 12: British soul diva Adele makes a clean sweep at the Grammys winning six awards. Foo
Fighters take five Grammys, including best rock song.
French film-maker Michel Hazanavicius‟s black-and-white silent movie The Artist wins all the
top prizes at the 65th British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards. Meryl Streep picks
up the Leading Actress award for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady .
New Maldivian Cabinet‟s sworn in.
The image of Nelson Mandela to appear on South Africa‟s new currency notes to mark the 22nd
anniversary of the anti-apartheid icon‟s release from prison, says President Jacob Zuma in
Pretoria.
Turkmenistan votes in presidential polls.
Greek lawmakers approve harsh new austerity measures even as riots in cities result in injuries to
170 people. Six Cabinet members quit in protest.
Feb. 13: Jordan-born radical preacher Abu Qatada once dubbed “Europe‟s Osama bin Laden” is
freed by a London court after spending six-and-a-half years in jail.

29. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and seven others are honoured with the 2011 National Medal of
Arts and Humanities by the U.S. President Barack Obama at a White House function.
Feb. 15: Iran unveils its first domestically produced, 20 per cent enriched nuclear fuel for the
Tehran Research Reactor.
At least 355 inmates are killed in a fire at a prison in Comayagua, Honduras.
Maldivian President Waheed Hassan Manik names Mohamed Waheeduddin Vice-President.
Feb. 16: Anthony Shahid (43), two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (2004, 2010) and T he
New York Times correspondent, known for his clear-eyed coverage of the Arab Spring, dies in
eastern Syria.
Feb. 17: German President Christian Wulff resigns in a scandal over favours he received before
becoming head of state.
Italian Directors Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani receive the Golden Bear award for their
documentary Caesar Must Die ( Cesare de morire ) at the Berlin film festival. Hungarian
film Just the Wind bags the Silver Bear. Mikkel Boe Folsgaard bags Best Actor Silver Bear
( Royal Affair ). Rachel Mwanza gets Best Actress award ( War Witch ).
Former Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the lone U.S. Marine convicted in the 2005 killings of 24 unarmed
Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha is discharged from service.
Feb. 18: Somalia‟s diaspora leaders sign a deal under the U.N. auspices in the northern town of
Garowe.
Feb. 19: Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times , a veteran war reporter and a French photographer
Remi Ochlik are killed as their house in Baba Amr, a suburb of Homs in Syria comes under
bombardment.
Feb. 21 : Eurozone finance ministry seal a 130-billion-euro ($172 billion) bailout package for
Greece after 13 hours of talks in Brussels.
Feb. 22: The Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd resigns.
At least nine protesters are shot dead in violent protests across Afghanistan over the burning of
copies of the Koran at Bagram airbase.
Researchers have found a flaw in experiment setup that led to the claim that neutrinos travelled
60 nano seconds faster-than-light.
Feb. 25: Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi takes oath as Yemen‟s new President.
At least 98 people are killed in widespread unrest in Syria.

30. Feb. 26: The Artist wins five Academy Awards, including Best Actor (Dean Dujardin, the first
Frenchman to win an Oscar), becoming the first silent film to win Hollywood‟s highest honours
since the original Oscar ceremony 83 years ago.Meryl Streep bags Best Actress Award ( The
Iron Lady ) Christopher Plummer (82), becomes the oldest winner bagging award for Best
Supporting Actor (Beginners ).
Martin Scorsese‟s Paris Adventure Hugo wins five Oscars, all in technical categories.
Asghar Farhadi‟s domestic drama A Separation becomes the first Iranian film to win an Oscar.
Pakistan documentary maker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy‟s film on acid victims Saving Face bags
for the nation its maiden Oscar.
Nepal‟s Chandra Bahadur Dangi (72), who is just 21.5 inches (54.6 cm) is declared the world‟s
shortest living man at a ceremony in Kathmandu.
Syrians cast votes in referendum on a new Constitution.
Feb. 29: James Murdoch quits as executive chairman of News International over allegations that
he tried to cover up the phone hacking scandal at the defunct News of The World.
MARCH
March 2: Iranians cast ballots in parliamentary polls.
At least 38 persons are killed and Marysville town in Kentucky is “wiped off” as tornadoes rip
through central U.S.
Oil Major BP agrees to pay $7.8 billion in a deal with the claimants affected by the spill from
one of its wells in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010.
March 4: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wins Russia‟s presidential election.
At least 150 people are killed and around 1,500 injured in a series of explosions at a munitions
depot in the Congolese capital of Brazzaville.
March 7: Norwegian prosecutors indict Anders Behring Breivik on terror and murder charges
for slaying 77 people on July 22, 2011 in a bomb and shooting rampage.
March 9: Kiribati Cabinet gives nod for a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji‟s main island
Viti Levu to move the populace fearing climate change may wipe off the entire Pacific
archipelago.
Greece persuades majority of private creditors to sign up to the biggest national debt writedown
in history.

31. Israeli air strike kills the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees sparking a sharp cross-
border exchange.
March 11: Sixteen Afghans, including nine children are killed by a rogue American solider Staff
Sergeant Robert Bales who walks off his base and opens fire on houses in two villages of
Panjwayi district, Kandahar.
The toll in the Israel- Palestine skirmish reaches 18 as Tel Aviv carries out four strikes.
March 13: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. announces that it is to cease publication of its print
edition for the first time in more than 200 years.
March 15: Bo Xilai, a politburo member is removed by China‟s leaders following a political
scandal.
March 16: Sachin Tendulkar cracks his hundredth international hundred during the Asia Cup
clash in Mirpur, Bangladesh.
March 19: A motorcycle borne gunman kills a rabbi, his two sons and another child in front of a
Jewish School in the French city of Toulouse.
March 20: Hungarian mathematician Endre Szemeredi is chosen for the 2012 Abel Prize for his
contributions to discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science.
March 22: India votes for a U.S-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka at the United Nations
Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Soliders oust Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure and impose nationwide curfew.
Mohamed Merah, a French „al-Qaeda‟ gunman, the main suspect in the killing of seven persons,
dies at the end of a 32-hour siege in Toulouse.
March 23: Joachim Gauck, a former East German civil rights activist is sworn in the 11th
President of Germany in the Bundestag, the lower House of Parliament.
March 25: Hong Kong appoints as its Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, a businessman with
close ties to China.
Macky Sall wins Senegal‟s presidential polls.
March 26: Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki announces that oil deposits have been discovered in
the country‟s Turkana region.
Titanic Director James Cameron returns to surface after a solo 11 km submarine dive to the
bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific in his specially designed submersible the
Deepsea Challenger.

32. March 27: The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accepts the U.N.- Arab League Special Envoy
Kofi Annan‟s six-point peace plan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledges $1 million towards the IAEA‟s Nuclear Security Fund
for 2012-2013 in a statement to the plenary of the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul.
March 29: Arab leaders urge a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis at a landmark
summit in Baghdad.
March 30: Leonid Shebarshin (77) former Soviet spy master is found dead at his flat in
Moscow.
APRIL
April 1: Myanmar votes in historic by-elections for 45 parliamentary seats.
April 3: A Korean–American One Goh guns down seven persons at Oikos University in
Oakland, California.
James Murdoch quits as chairman of British satellite broadcaster BskyB.
April 4: Kuwait–Iraq flights to resume after 20 years.
April 5: Buford, Wyoming, billed as the smallest town in America is sold at an auction for $
900,000 to a Vietnamese national.
April 6: Malawi‟s President Bingu wa Mutharika (78) dies of a heart attack.
April 7: More than 100 people are killed in Syria crackdown on protestors.
Fang Lizhi (76), prominent Chinese dissident dies in exile in the U.S.
April 8: MS Balmoral, called the Titanic Memorial Cruise, sails from Southampton Port to
mark the centenary of the sinking of the White Star liner (on April 15, 1912)
April 10: China Communist Party suspends Politburo member Bo Xilai in the aftermath of
a political scandal.
April 11: Massive earthquakes strike the north Indian Ocean off Indonesia and trigger a
tsunami watch. Tremors felt in many states of India.
April 15: Titanic Memorial Cruise MS Balmoral passengers re-enact the moments before
the sinking of the ship in the North Atlantic.
April 16: The World Bank chooses Korean–born American health expert Jim Yong Kim as
its new president.

33. April 20: At least 127 people are killed after a Pakistan jet crashes while trying to land at
Rawalpindi.
April 21: Charles Colson (80), a Watergate scandal conspirator dies of complications from
a brain haemorrhage at a hospital in Virginia.
April 22: Votes are cast in the first round of French presidential polls.
April 23: The Norwegian District Court in Stavanger announces verdict to hand over the
Bhattacharya children, Abhigyan and Aishwarya to their uncle Arunabhas Bhattacharya.
April 26: Pakistan Supreme Court sentences Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani to
imprisonment till the rising of a seven-judge Bench for contempt of court.
MAY
May 2: A U.K. Court orders extradition of Mohammed Hanif Umerji Patel, an alleged
associate of Dawood Ibrahim, for his role in two cases of terror attacks in Gujarat in 1993.
The Nepal Cabinet resigns in a bid to pave the way for the formation of a national
consensus government.
May 4: Massive defeat for Tories and Liberal Democrats in local polls in Britain.
May 5: Iranians cast ballots in a runoff parliamentary election.
Japan‟s last operating nuclear power reactor at the Hokkaido electric power station shuts
down.
May 6: Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande wins French presidential runoff edging
out incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.
Greek voters cast ballots in parliamentary polls.
May 7: Vladimir Putin is sworn in Russian President for a third term in a glittering
Kremlin ceremony overshadowed by protests against his return.
Syrians cast ballots in the first multiparty Parliament polls.
President Pratibha Patil goes to Pietermaritzburg taking the same train as Mahatma
Gandhi did on June 7, 1893.
May 8: Russian Parliament confirms Dmitry Medvedev‟s appointment as Prime Minister.
May 10: Fiftyfive persons are killed and over 370 wounded after two suicide car bombs rip
through the Syrian capital Damascus.

34. Algerians cast ballots in parliamentary polls.
May 12: The U.N. adopts norms against „land grabbing‟.
May 13: Key Afghan peace negotiator Arsalan Rahmani Daulat is shot dead in Kabul.
May 14: Thirteen Indians, including child actor Taruni Sachdev are killed in Nepal air
crash.
The Dalai Lama is awarded the $1.1 million Templeton Prize at a ceremony at St. Paul‟s
Cathedral, London.
May 15: Francois Hollande is officially inaugurated as the seventh President of France‟s
Fifth Republic. Jean Marc Ayrault named Premier.
Greece abandons a nine-day hunt for a government and calls a new election.
May 16: The former Bosnian-Serb army commander Ratko Mladic indicted for war crimes
goes on trial at the Yugoslav war crimes court in The Hague.
The Cannes Film Festival kicks off with quirky U.S. comedy Moonrise Kingdom .
A new Haitian government under Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe is inaugurated.
May 17: The war crimes trial of Ratko Mladic is halted.
May 19 : Visually-challenged Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng leaves for U.S. after
seeking asylum in the American Mission following escape from house arrest a month ago.
Tamae Watanabe (73) of Japan scales Mount Everest in the process smashing her own
record by repeating her 2002 feat.
Facebook‟s billionaire co-founder Mark Zuckerberg marries long time friend Priscilla
Chan at his home in Palo Alto, California.
May 20: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing
which killed 270 people, dies at his home in Tripoli of cancer.
A strong earthquake rocks northern Italy damaging historic buildings.
May 21: The former Sri Lankan Army Chief Sarath Fonseka, is released from jail
following a presidential pardon. He cannot vote or contest election for the next seven years.
May 22: U.S. company SpaceX becomes the first commercial outfit to launch its own craft
towards the ISS.

35. May 23: Egyptians begin casting ballots in the first free presidential polls since the 1952
revolution that ended the monarchy.
India signs Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline pact in
Avaza,Turkmenistan.
May 24: Nepal Supreme Court stays government proposal to amend interim constitution
and extend the Constituent Assembly‟s term.
Indian Americans sweep the National Geographic Bee, with Rahul Nagvekar from Texas
bagging the first position.
Prototype aircraft Solar Impulse takes to the skies on its first intercontinental flight,
travelling from Switzerland to Morocco.
May 25: California-based SpaceX becomes the first commercial outfit to dock its own
cargo capsule at the ISS.
More than 108 people, including 49 children are killed in Houla, Syria by heavily armed
gunmen.
May 27: Nepal‟s Constituent Assembly is dissolved and fresh polls slated for November 22.
May 28: India and Myanmar sign an MoU to operationalise a $500 million line of credit
announced during President Thein Sein‟s visit to New Delhi in October 2011.
May 30: A U.N.-backed war crimes court in Leidschendam near The Hague sentences
former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 50 years in jail for arming rebels in Sierra
Leone in return for “blood diamonds”.
Britain‟s Supreme Court dismisses WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange‟s appeal against
extradition to Sweden.
May 31: Egypt‟s decades-old state of emergency ends.
Snigdha Nandipati, an Indian-American, and eighth grade student from San Diego,
California is declared the Scripps National Spelling Bee national champion for 2012.
SpaceX Dragon capsule, the world‟s first commercial space cargo carrier returns to Earth
ending the voyage to ISS with a splashdown in the Pacific 800 km off Mexico‟s Baja
California.
Briton Kiaran Stapleton admits to killing of Indian student Anuj Bidve, at the Manchester
Crown Court.
JUNE

36. June 2: The former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is sentenced to lifer for his
complicity in the killing of protesters during the uprising in 2011, following a 10- month
trial. Sons Alaa and Gamal acquitted of corruption charges.
The British Queen‟s diamond jubilee celebrations gets off to a start with ceremonial gun
salutes in London.
Violence in Syria leaves 89 dead, including 57 soldiers.
June 3: Over 153 people are killed after a plane crashes into a residential building in the
Nigerian capital Lagos and catches fire.
Queen‟s Thames pageant in London wows a million-strong crowd.
June 5: The Queen‟s diamond jubilee fete ends with a ceremonial royal carriage procession
through central London.
Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard completes the world‟s first inter continental flight in
Solar Impulse, a giant solar-powered plane and lands in Rabat, Morocco after a 19-hour
voyage.
At least 78 people are killed in the village of al-Qubeir near the embattled city of Hama.
June 6: Riad Hijab is named Syrian Prime Minister. Damascus allows relief to enter four
cities hard hit in the anti-regime uprising.
June 8: Scores of people are feared killed in riots against Muslim Rohingyas and Rakhine
Buddhists in Rakhine State, Myanmar.
June 9: The Eurozone extends a $ 125-billion bailout package for Spain.
Avtar Singh, an ex-Indian Army officer wanted in the March 1996 death of human rights
lawyer Jalil Andrabi in Srinagar, shoots his wife and two children to death in their
California home before committing suicide.
June 12: Elinor Ostrom (78), the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Economics dies of
cancer at the Indiana University Health Bloomington Hospital.
Israeli scientist Daniel Hillel is selected for the 2012 World Food Prize.
June 14: Egypt‟s Supreme Constitutional Court dissolves the Lower House of Parliament.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces steps in to fill the breach.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange loses legal battle against extradition to Sweden after the
British Supreme Court dismisses appeal to reopen the case.

37. June 15: The former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta is found guilty of insider
trading by a Manhattan court after a high-profile trial that began on May 21.
Tightrope walker Nik Wallanda completes the first walk across the Niagara Falls in more
than a century, from a height of 196 feet over the Horseshoe Falls, between the U.S. and
Canada.
June 16: Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud (79), a half-brother of King
Abdullah dies in Geneva.
China sends its first woman Liu Yang into space aboard the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft from
the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in north-western Gansu province.
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi delivers her acceptance speech for the
Nobel Peace Prize she won in 1991 while under house arrest, in Oslo.
June 17: Egyptians cast ballots in presidential runoff.
Greeks cast votes in cliffhanger general elections.
France‟s Socialists win control of Parliament in a runoff vote.
June 18: Saudi Arabian Defence Minister Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz is named the new
Crown Prince.
The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) splits and breakaway faction forms Nepal
Communist Party (Maoist).
Greek conservative leader Antonis Samaras launches coalition talks after his New
Democratic Party emerges top in general polls.
June 19: Pakistan Supreme Court disqualifies Yusuf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister in the
wake of his conviction for contempt in April.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seeks political asylum at the Ecuadorean Embassy in
London.
June 20: The G-20 Declaration at Los Carlos, Mexico emphasises the need for growth,
because, by itself austerity will not solve the debt problem of the Eurozone.
Antonis Samaras is sworn in Greek Prime Minister at the helm of a three-party coalition.
June 22: Raja Parvez Ashraf is elected Pakistan Prime Minister.
Paraguay‟s Senate removes President Fernando Lugo after impeachment. Vice-President
Federico Franco is sworn in as President.

38. June 24: Mohamed Morsy is declared winner of the Egyptian presidential polls.
Lonesome George, the centenarian giant tortoise is found dead at the Galapagos National
Park off Ecuador‟s coast.
June 25: Bangladesh decides to confer the Friends of Bangladesh Award on retired Indian
Army officer Colonel Ashok Tara for his role during the 1971 war.
June 26: Pakistan orders release of Surjeet Singh arrested near the India-Pakistan border
in 1981 and languishing in jail even after the end of his jail term in 2004.
A U.S. Federal Court declares that the U.S.-based Union Carbide Corporation and Warren
Anderson are not liable for damage caused by the toxic wastes dumped in Bhopal, Madhya
Pradesh.
June 27: An end-of-history moment is witnessed by people of Belfast, North Ireland as
Queen Elizabeth II shakes hands with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
At last 149 people are killed in one of the bloodiest days in the 15-month revolt in Syria.
Barclays Bank is fined $ 453 million for alleged financial market manipulation.
June 28: The U. S. Supreme Court upholds a core provision of President Obama‟s
Affordable Healthcare Act.
UNESCO‟s World Heritage Committee votes to include the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem on its list of World Heritage in Danger.
June 29: Eurozone seals a dramatic deal to allow emergency measures to aid crisis-hit Italy
and Spain.
Chinese woman astronaut Liu Yang and two other crew members return to earth after a
13-day mission to an orbiting module.
June 30: Yitzhak Shamir (96), the former Israeli Prime Minister, dies at a nursing home in
Herzliya, Jerusalem after a long illness.
Mohamed Morsy is sworn in as Egypt‟s first elected President.
Hardliner Islamists occupying northern Mali go on the rampage in Timbuktu destroying
ancient tombs of Muslim saints.
JULY
July 1: Mexicans cast votes in presidential polls.

39. Leung Chun-ying is sworn in as Hong Kong‟s third Chief Executive.
The Western Ghats is included in the World Heritage List at a meeting of the World
Heritage Committee in St. Petersburg, Russia.
July 2: Barclays Chairman Marcus Agius resigns over LIBOR row.
July 4: Scientists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin,
Geneva, announce the discovery of a new subatomic particle “consistent” with the long
sought Higgs boson.
July 5: The U.K. bans Indian Mujahideen following a unanimous vote in the House of
Commons.
The Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011 a manmade disaster, says a
parliamentary probe.
July 6: Romanian President Traian Basescu is suspended by Parliament.
July 7: Libyans cast ballots to elect a National Assembly.
July 8: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy orders reinstatement of Parliament.
July 9: Aung San Suu Kyi attends Parliament as a lawmaker for the first time. She took
oath in May.
July 12: Syrian government troops massacre more than 150 people in Treimsa village.
The U.S. imposes additional sanctions on Iran.
July 15: Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, along with two colleagues, takes off
for a second space odyssey on a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
South Africa‟s Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is elected the first woman
head of the African Union in Addis Ababa.
July 17: Britain admits at the London High Court that its colonial forces in Kenya tortured
Mau Mau rebels in the 1950s and 1960s.
July 20: James Eagan Holmes, a masked gunman kills 12 persons at a midnight premiere
of The Dark Knight Rises at a mall in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, Colorado.
Euro nations seal a $ 122 billion bail-out deal for Spanish banks.
July 21: Rajkeshwur Purryag takes oath as the fifth President of Mauritius.

40. At least 37 persons are killed and more than 50,000 displaced after the heaviest rain in 61
years pummels the Chinese capital Beijing.
July 22: Using cells from rat hearts and a seer polymer film, scientists create an artificial
jellyfish.
July 24: The Ghana President John Evans Fifii Atta Mills (68) dies in a hospital in the
capital Accra.
July 25: Kulandei Francis of Tamil Nadu known for pioneering community initiatives is
among this year‟s six winners of Ramon Magsaysay Award.
July 26: Kiaran Stapleton is convicted of killing Indian student Anuj Bidve in Salford,
Manchester on December 26, 2011.
Gu Kailai, wife of purged Chinese Politburo member Bo Xilai is charged with the murder
of British businessman Neil Heywood.
July 27: Kiaran Stapleton gets jail for lifer for the killing of Anuj Bidve.
July 28: Queen Elizabeth II declares open the 30th Olympic Games in London.
At least 168 people are killed in clashes across Syria.
July 30: Romanian President Traian Basescu escapes impeachment after referendum fails
to muster enough support.
July 31: Venezuela becomes member of South America‟s biggest trade bloc Mercosur.
AUGUST
Aug. 1: Somalia‟s Constituent Assembly endorses draft statute.
Aug. 2: The United Nations-Arab League peace envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan announces
resignation.
Aug. 3: Pakistan Supreme Court strikes down contempt law intended to protect Prime
Minister.
The U.N. General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning Syrian violence.
Former Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase is jailed for corruption.
Over 138 skydivers form a massive snowflake formation over Ottawa, Illinois, setting a
world record in vertical skydiving.

41. Aug. 4: The Afghan Parliament votes to dismiss Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak
and Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi charged with inept handling of cross-border
shelling by Pakistan.
South Sudan and Sudan hammer out a deal over oil.
Aug. 5: Six persons are shot dead by Wade Michel Page, a U.S. Army veteran at a
Gurdwara in Oak Creek, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The killer dies of a self-
inflicted gunshot.
Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab joins the anti-regime revolt and reaches Jordan.
Aug. 6: Curiosity, the NASA‟s $2.5 billion nuclear-powered robot lands on Mars and
beams first image.
Aug. 9: Wael al-Halqi is appointed Syrian Prime Minister.
Aug. 11: At least 306 people are killed and 2,500 injured after two earthquakes rock north-
western Iran.
Aug. 12: The Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy orders the retirement of Defence
Minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and Army Chief of Staff Sami Anan.
Aug. 13: Australia‟s Lower House clears bill to allow the transfer of boat people seeking
asylum to Pacific states.
Aug. 15: At least 172 people are killed across Syria, including in air strike in the northern
town of Aazaz.
Aug. 16: Ecuador grants political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The OIC summit in Dubai suspends Syria from the 57-nation grouping.
Aug. 17: Quadruple amputee Philippe Croizon swims between islands in the icy Bering
Strait to cross from America to Asia.
Rimsha Masih (11) a Down‟s Syndrome afflicted Pakistani Christian girl is arrested on
charges of blasphemy.
Aug. 18: China‟s Wen Xia Yu (23), is crowned Miss World 2012 at a glittering ceremony in
the Chinese city of Ordos.
Aug. 19: Prominent Hollywood film director Tony Scott (68), whose signature works
included Top Gun jumps to his death from a bridge in San Pedro, California.
The United Nations winds up mission in Syria.

42. Aug. 20: Gu Kailai, wife of the purged former politburo member, Bo Xilai is awarded a
suspended death sentence for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
Meles Zenawi (57), Ethiopia‟s Prime Minister since 1995 dies after a protracted battle in a
hospital in Brussels.
Aug. 21: Romania‟s Constitutional Court puts President Traian Basescu back in office
after declaring a referendum to impeach him invalid.
Aug. 24: Cyclist Lance Armstrong is stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles and
banned from the sport for life by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for use of banned
substances.
A Norwegian court deems Anders Behring Breivik, the man behind the July 22, 2011
massacre of 77 people, sane and hands down maximum jail term.
Aug. 25: Neil Alden Armstrong (82), first man on the moon, (July 20, 1969) dies of
“complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures”.
Aug. 27: The first recorded human voice that travelled from Earth to Mars and then back
to Earth is released at NASA‟s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Aug. 30: The Syrian crisis should be resolved through an inclusive political process led by
Damascus, says the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurating the XIV Non-Aligned
Movement summit in Tehran.
Aug. 31: Kulandei Francis of India and five others receive the Ramon Magsaysay awards
from the Philippine President Benigno Aquino III at a function in Manila.
Angolans cast ballots in the country‟s third elections since independence in 1975.
SEPTEMBER
Sept. 4: Quebec‟s separatist Parti Quebecois wins the provincial election in the Canadian
province. Pauline Marois elected first woman Premier.
Sept. 6: Sunita Williams sets the record for total cumulative spacewalk time by a woman
astronaut with her sixth spacewalk.
Sept. 7: Sixtyfour persons are killed and more than 700 injured in an earthquake in south-
western China‟s Yunnan and Guizhou provinces.
Pakistan Christian girl Rimsha Masih is granted bail 22 days after being held allegedly for
burning pages of the Koran.

43. Sept. 8: Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney is presented the French Legion of Honour by the
President Francois Hollande.
South Korean director Kim Ki-duk‟s drama Pieta wins the Golden Lion for best film at the
69th Venice Film Festival. The Silver Lion for best director is bagged by Paul Thomas
Anderson for The Master .
Sept. 11: The U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other embassy staff
are killed in an armed mob attack in Benghazi on the 11th anniversary of 9/11.
At least 290 people are killed in a fire at a garment factory in Karachi, Pakistan.
Sept. 12: Dutch voters overwhelmingly vote to power the ruling Liberals in parliamentary
polls, the fifth in just over a decade.
Sept. 13: Boxing champ Muhammad Ali is presented the Liberty Medal for his long-time
role as a heavyweight for civil rights at a function in Philadelphia.
Sept. 19: Space shuttle Endeavour leaves its Florida home port heading to the California
Science Centre in Los Angeles to begin a new mission as a museum exhibit.
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi is presented with the Congressional Gold Medal at a
function at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Sept. 20: A “speech jammer‟‟ created by two Japanese researchers wins the 2012 Ig Noble
Acoustics Prize.
Sept. 25: China unveils its first aircraft carrier, the 300 metre-long Liaoning in the port
city of Dalian.
Sept. 27: The Presidents of Sudan and South Sudan sign pacts to implement a demilitarised
zone after a five-day summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
Afghan human rights activist and former Minister Sima Samar wins the Swedish Right
Livelihood Award.
Sept. 28: Suspended Politburo member Bo Xilai is expelled from the Communist Party of
China for having “seriously violated party disciplines”.
Sept. 29: GSAT-10, India‟s 3.4-tonne spacecraft is launched from the Kourou launch pad
in French Guiana in South America.
Shadman Chowk in Lahore is renamed Bhagat Singh Chowk.
Sept. 30: Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Kuldeep Singh Brar, who led the Operation Blue Star in 1984 is
stabbed near a hotel in Central London.

44. OCTOBER
Oct. 1: The Opposition Georgian Dream coalition led by billionaire businessman Bidzina
Ivanishvili wins 70 per cent votes in Parliamentary polls.
Oct. 5: Australia unveils the Colossal SKA Pathfinder radio telescope at the remote
Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in the western Australian desert.
Oct. 7: Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah issues a decree dissolving the 2009 Parliament,
just over three months since its reinstatement by the constitutional court.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wins yet another re-election, the third in nearly 14
years in office.
Oct. 8: Briton John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan are awarded the 2012 Nobel
Prize for Medicine for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into
embryonic stem cells.
Former Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed is arrested and taken to Male.
Oct. 9: Malala Yousafzai, the 14- year-old peace activist who became the „Voice of girls in
Swat,‟ Pakistan, is shot at and seriously injured by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan while
returning from school in Mingora.
Former Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed is freed after being produced at a
criminal court in Male.
Frenchman Serge Haroche and American David Wineland are awarded the 2012 Physics
Nobel Prize for inventing methods to observe the bizarre properties of the quantum world.
Oct. 10: Russia, Iraq resume military-technical cooperation.
Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka are awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
for having mapped how a family of receptors called G-protein-coupled receptors work.
Oct. 11: The U.N.‟s first International Day of the Girl Child is observed worldwide.
Mo Yan becomes the first writer in China to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Oct. 12: The European Union wins the Nobel Peace Prize for fostering peace in the
continent after World War II.
Oct. 13: The 77,000 kg space shuttle Endeavour begins final mission to the California
Science Center to be the central piece of a new exhibit.

45. Oct. 14: Austrian Skydiver Felix Baumgartner breaks the sound barrier and achieves the
fastest free fall speed, falling at 1,137 kmph from an altitude of 128,097 feet after liftoff
from Roswell, New Mexico.
Oct. 15: American scholars Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd Shapley are awarded the Nobel
Economics prize for their „match-making‟ theory.
The British and Scottish governments sign a historic deal that will allow Scotland to hold
an independence referendum.
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma takes office as the first woman chief of the African Union in
Addis Ababa.
Oct. 16: Vikram Pandit, Indian-American head of Citigroup steps down as CEO.
Hilary Mantel wins this year‟s £50,000 Man Booker Prize for her historical novel Bring Up
The Bodies , thus becoming the first-ever woman and the first living British novelist to win
the award twice.
Oct. 18: Newsweek announces decision to end an 80 -year run as a print magazine at the
year-end and go all-digital.
Oct. 20: Palestinians in the West Bank cast ballots in local elections for their first vote since
2006.
Oct. 21: Kateri Tekakwitha, known as “Lily of Mohawks” becomes the first American
Indian to be conferred sainthood.
Meher Din (90), popularly known as „Uncle Pakistan‟ for his regular presence at the flag-
lowering ceremony at Wagah border dies.
Oct. 22: Lance Armstrong is stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life
by the International Cycling Union for leading a massive doping programme on his teams.
Oct. 24: Mali is readmitted into the African Union after a meeting of the A.U. Peace and
Security Council.
Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs Director and Mckinsey and Company Managing
Partner, convicted of passing on confidential information to jailed hedge fund boss Raj
Rajaratnam receives a two- year jail term and a fine of $5 million.
Oct. 25: WikiLeaks begins releasing „classified files‟ detailing policies for dealing with
detenus in U.S. military prisons.
Oct. 26: China expels disgraced Politburo member Bo Xilai from the National People‟s
Congress or Parliament.

46. Oct. 28: Savita Halappanavar, a young dentist of Indian origin dies from septicaemia after
doctors at University Hospital Galway in Dublin, Ireland refuse to perform an abortion,
citing the country‟s strict anti-abortion law.
Oct. 29: Seventeen persons are killed as Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in New Jersey .
Emergencies declared in six states.
Oct. 30: New York takes most of the pounding as Hurricane Sandy wreaks havoc on the
U.S. east coast.
Oct. 31: Decision to rename Lahore‟s Shadman Chowk after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh
put on hold.
NOVEMBER
Nov. 5: Hearing in the March 11 massacre in Afghanistan involving U.S. soldier staff
sergeant Robert Bales that left 16 dead begins at Joint Base Lewis-Mcchord in Washington.
Nov. 6: An impeachment motion is lodged in Parliament against the Sri Lankan Chief
Justice Shirani Bandaranayake.
Nov. 7: Barack Obama wins a second term as U.S. President. Republicans succeed in
holding its grip on the House of Representatives. Democrats retain majority in the Senate.
Dr.Ami Bera becomes only the third Indian-American ever to be elected to the House of
Representatives after winning in California.
Shanthi Gandhi, a great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi is elected to the Kansas House of
Representatives.
Nov. 9: David Petraeus, quits as the CIA Director over an extramarital affair with his
biographer Paula Broadwell.
Nov. 10: World observes „Global Action Day for Malala Yousafzai. Pakistan government
launches a programme to educate three million children, especially girls.
Nov. 11: BBC director-general George Entwistle is forced to resign over his handling of a
report falsely implicating a former advisor to the former Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, in a child abuse scandal.
Nov. 14: An Israeli airstrike on a moving car in Gaza leaves Hamas commander Ahmed al-
Jaabri dead.
The Communist Party of China selects a new Central Committee, marking the end of Hu
Jintao‟s 10-year term as General Secretary.

47. Nov. 15: Xi Jinping is named General Secretary of the Communist Party of China at a
meeting of the 18th Central Committee. Li Keqiang is set to take over as Premier at the
March Parliament session.
British Petroleum „agrees‟ to pay between three and five billion U.S. dollars, thought to be
the largest in U.S. history over criminal charges related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon
disaster.
Nov. 16: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda dissolves the Lower House of
Parliament and elections are set for December 16.
The Lahore High Court bans authorities from going ahead with renaming Shadman
Chowk after Bhagat Singh.
Nov. 17: At least 47 nursery school children are killed after a train smashes into their bus
at a railway crossing in Manfalut near Assuit in Egypt.
Protesters take out a „Never Again‟ march in the Irish capital Dublin and hold a
candlelight vigil outside the Parliament in memory of Savita Halappanavar.
Nov. 19: Ready to expand FTA with ASEAN, says the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at
the 10th ASEAN-India summit at Peace Place in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Nov. 20: The Genral Synod of the Church Of England rejects by a narrow vote a proposal
to appoint women bishops.
Nov. 21: Israel and Hamas agree on a truce ending a week of violence in and around Gaza
Strip that killed 150 people.
Nov. 22: The Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy arms himself with sweeping powers
through a constitutional decree.
Tony Hall, chief executive of the Royal Opera House is appointed the BBC‟s Director-
General.
Nov. 23: Ernest Bai Koroma is sworn in Sierra Leone President after his convincing
reelection victory.
Nov. 25: China successfully conducts landing exercises on its first aircraft carrier the
Liaoning.
Nov. 26 : Eurozone Finance Ministers and the IMF clinch an agreement to reduce Greece‟s
debts after 12 hours of talks in Brussels.
Catalonia‟s fight for statehood and a historic divorce from Spain flounders.

48. Nov. 27: Iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat‟s remains are exhumed in Ramallah eight
years after his death at a French military hospital to determine whether he was poisoned.
Nov. 29: The U.N. General Assembly resoundingly votes making Palestine a non-member
observer state - on same day as partition of Holy Land in 1947.
DECEMBER
Dec. 2: Kuwait elects new parliament under the new one-vote system, the voting for which
was held a day earlier.
Dec. 3: The High Court of Singapore stays the termination order served by the Maldives
Government on GMR Male International Airport Ltd. to exit from the airport project.
Dec. 4: Chandrasekhar Vallabhaneni, an Indian software professional and his wife
Anupama are jailed for 18 months and 15 months by the Oslo District Court for „‟serious
child abuse.‟‟
Typhoon Bopha leaves over 600 dead in the Philippines.
Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. board member Rajat Gupta can remain free on bail
while he appeals his insider-trading conviction, rules an appeals court in New York.
Dec. 6: Maldives can take back Ibrahim Nasir International Airport from GMR, says the
Singapore Court of Appeal.
Dec. 7: Jacintha Saldanha, an Indian-origin nurse of King Edward VII hospital in London
is found dead in her British home two days after a prank call by two Australian DJs led to
revelation of medical details of Duchess of Cambridge Kate William.
Dec. 8: The U.N. meet on climate change in Doha passes a package of pacts to extend the
life of the Kyoto Protocol.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez admits to relapse of cancer and designates Vice-
President Nicolas Maduro as his heir apparent.
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy annuls his November 22 decree.
Dec. 9: Incumbent President John Dramani Mahama is declared the winner of Ghana‟s
presidential polls.
Dec. 10: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari announces the” Malala Fund for Girls‟ Right
to Education”, a $10- million donation for a global war chest.
The Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee honours the European Union with Peace Prize for
2012. Chinese novelist Mo Yan is presented the Nobel Literature Prize.

49. Victoria Ponta is reappointed Romania‟s Prime Minister after the leftist‟s Social
Liberation Union wins up to 60 per cent of votes in parliamentary polls held a day earlier.
Dec. 11: Stephen Hawking wins a $3 million Special Fundamental Physics Prize for a
lifetime of achievements, the most lucrative science prize ever established.
Soldiers arrest Mali‟s Prime Minister Chiekh Modibo Diarra and force him to resign.
Pandit Ravi Shankar (92), renowned sitar maestro, dies in a hospital in San Diego, the U.S.
Dec. 12: North Korea launches a three-stage weather forecast rocket from its Sohae Space
Centre.
Dec. 13: CIA “tortured and sodomised” terror suspect Khaled el-Masri, a German of
Lebanese origin, rules the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights.
Dec. 14: Twentysix persons, including 20 children are killed as Adam Lanza goes on a
shooting spree at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, before
turning the gun on himself.
Envoys from 89 nations sign the first new U.N. telecommunications treaty, since the
Internet age, in Dubai. Fiftyfive do not sign, including the U.S. led bloc of more than 20
nations.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigns, a day after an indictment for breach
of trust is filed against him.
NASA‟s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory ends mission with a well orchestrated
crash on Moon.
Dec. 15: Egyptians cast votes in phase I of the constitutional referendum.
Dec. 16: Security forces five terrorists, part of a team involved in the Peshawar Airport
attack after a fierce gun battle. Five others had died in the initial attack.
Japan‟s Opposition Liberal Democratic Party led by Shinzo Abe sweeps to victory in the
National polls.
Dec. 17: The Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition New Komeito secure two-
third majority in the Japanese Lower House.
Dec. 18: Queen Elizabeth II scripts history by attending a Cabinet meeting at 10, Downing
Street, becoming the first British monarch since 1781 to do so. Part of Antarctica to be
named Queen Elizabeth land.

50. The Irish government announces it will bring in law to allow for abortion in cases where
the mother‟s life is found to be at risk.
Dec. 19: Park Geun-hye is elected South Korea‟s first woman President.
Swiss bank UBS admits to fraud and accepts a $1.5 billion fine for role in manipulating
global benchmark interest rates.
Olivia Culpo of Rhode Island is crowned Miss Universe 2012 at a function in Las Vegas,
Nevada.
The U.S. President Barack Obama is named Time Person of The Year.
Dec. 21: Four persons are killed and many police officers injured in a shooting spree in
Frankstown Township, Pennsylvania. Gunman among dead.
U.S. President Barack Obama nominates Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as
Secretary of State.
The Philippines President Benigno Aquino III signs into law contraception bill.
Dec. 22: Egyptians cast votes in the second phase on the referendum on a constitutional
draft. Vice-President Mahmoud Mekki resigns.
Italy‟s President Giorgio Napolitano dissolves Parliament a day after Prime Minister
Mario Monti‟s resignation.
Dec. 24: The U.N. General Assembly votes to restart debate on a global arms treaty.
The final Newsweek magazine hits the newsstands with an iconic hashtag as a symbol of its
Twitter-era transition to an all-digital format.
Dec. 26: The Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy signs new constitution into law.
Shinzo Abe is sworn in Japanese Prime Minister.
China launches services on the world‟s longest high-speed rail route.
Dec. 28: The U.S. Congress nod for bill extending surveillance law ambit.
The French constitutional court rejects President Hollande‟s 75 per cent IT for high
earners as unfair.
Dec. 30: The Israeli Justice Ministry files indictment of former Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman.

51. diary of events Obituary – jan to dec
JANUARY
Jan. 2: K.J. Sarasa (78), dance guru, in Chennai after a brief illness.
Jan. 8: M.N. Sukumaran Nambiar (64), a member of the BJP National Executive and son of M.N.
Nambiar, due to a cardiac arrest in Chennai.
Jan. 15: Homai Vyarawalla (98), India‟s first woman photojournalist, in Vadodara, Gujarat.
Jan. 10: Gevork Vartanyan (87), Soviet spy, in a Moscow hospital.
Jan. 18: K.V. Balasubramanian (78), former Chief Advertisement Manager of Kasturi & Sons Ltd.,
in Chennai.
Jan. 24 : Sukumar Azhikode (86), Malayalam writer, at a private hospital in Thrissur, Kerala of
cancer.
Jan. 31: A.K. Damodaran, (90), veteran diplomat and writer in New Delhi a prolonged illness.
FEBRUARY
Feb. 6: Sharada Dwivedi (69), Mumbai‟s art and heritage historian, at her home in Mumbai.
Feb. 13: Akhlaq Mohammed Khan (76) (Shahryar), Urdu poet and Jnanpith Awardee in Aligarh.
Feb. 19: S. N. Lakshmi (85), veteran actor of a heart attack in Chennai.
Johan Frederik Staal (82), renowned Indologist, at his home near Chiangmai in Thailand.
MARCH
March 1: Andrew Breitbart (43), American Right‟s online warrior, in Los Angeles.
March 7: Bombay Ravi (86), Hindi and Malayalam music composer, in Mumbai.
March 9: Joy Mukherjee (73), Bollywood veteran actor in a Mumbai hospital after a prolonged
illness.
March 26 : Manik Godghate (75), celebrated Marathi poet and author of cancer at a hospital in
Pune.
APRIL
April 1 : N.K.P. Salve (91), veteran Congress leader and cricket administrator, in New Delhi.