When the cbi, on January 16, sought permission to charge sheet top political leaders in the Jain Hawala case, it swept in its dragnet three Cabinet ministers of the Narasimha Rao Government—Balram Jakhar, V.C. Shukla and Madhavrao Scindia—as well as opposition leaders like L.K. Advani and Sharad Yadav. Hawala broker S.K. Jain’s diaries revealed that over the years he had transacted with at least 115 persons, working as a middleman on deals for multinational power companies.
THE JHARKHAND TRAP
Former Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shailendra mahato filed public interest litigation in Delhi alleging that P.V. Narasimha Rao, Satish Sharma, Buta Singh, Bhajan Lal and others had bribed jmm and breakaway Janata Dal leaders to vote in favour of the minority Congress government in the no-confidence motion it faced in 1993. The cbi looked into the matter in earnest only after Rao left office.
A LONG WAIT
Leader Paes brought India
FIRST CUT
- The bjp secured 160 seats in the Lok Sabha elections to emerge as the single largest party in the house.
- The first lung transplantation in
- The Krem Um Lawan, the longest (6,381 m) and deepest (106.8 m) cave in the Indian subcontinent, was discovered in Meghalaya by an Indo-German expedition.
DID YOU KNOW
In the 1996 World Cup, held jointly by India , Pakistan and Sri Lanka
“THE RAO GOVERNMENT IS NON-FUNCTIONAL.”
P.V. Narasimha Rao
Rival Congressman N.D. Tiwari might have said so, but despite political complications like Ayodhya, Rao managed to ride through a whole five-year term, banking on his classic trait of not acting until forced to do so. But when the Jain Hawala scandal blew up, followed by Shailendra Mahato’s allegations in the jmm bribery case and renewed activity in the St Kitt’s forgery case of 1990, it was all over, both for him and the Congress.TWO PMs, ONE YEAR
Politics, in 1996, was a fickle game indeed. In what became a mockery of the high office, two men took lath as prime minister, each faltering in time. After the hung Parliament, first it was Atal Bihari Vajpayee trying for a majority as his government was put to vote. But the bjp’s calculations went awry, and the party was unable to make it past the 200 mark. Less than two hours after Vajpayee tendered his resignation, the President summoned H.D. Deve Gowda to lead the United Front to Government. For Gowda, who led the new 13-party coalition, prime minister ship was a question of just taking the path of least resistance and side-stepping key elements of the United Front’s radical new agenda.Lalu Prasad Yadav
On the ordering of a probe into the Rs 950-crore fodder scam
“The People will judge whether. I am involved in the loot or the one who busted the racket.”
ROUGH CUT
When Shekhar Kapur reconstructed the story of a rape victim who took up arms against the caste system, Bandit Queen met with stiff resistance both from the censors and from the subject herself, Phoolan Devi. It was released in
ELSEWHERE…
- In
- A truck laden with explosives rammed into the main gates of the Central Bank in
- Over 100 Lebanese civilians were killed after Israeli forces shelled the United Nations refugee compound in Qana (above).
- Thunderstorms and a tornado killed 600 in
89 was
Courtesy By India
