1983 SIMMERING FIRES

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1947-2008-India-Roundup

The tension between indigenous Assamese and immigrants from Bangladesh had been building for some time in the run-up to the 1983 assembly elections in Assam. Led by the All Assam students Union, sporadic violence continued to erupt, culminating in the horrific events on February 18, at Nellie in Nagaon District, when a blood-thirsty mob went on a killing spree, leaving 3,000 dead in less than 24 hours. The trigger may have been ethnic but politics played a major role, with elections been forced on the state in the midst of a wide-spread anti-outsider agitation.

FOR NAM'S SAKE

India played host to the high and mighty of the world when the Seventh Non-Aligned Summit (nam) was held in Delhi between March 7 and 12. Over 100 member-nations participated in the summit and later in the year, leaders from across the world converged on the city for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

“WE ARE NOT A BRANCH OFFICE OF THE CONGRESS".
N.T. Rama Rao
So said Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao when he became the second South Indian film star to be made chief minister, sweeping the Andhra Pradesh polls, winning 202 out of 294 seats. Rao, who often played Hindu deities in Telugu films, founded the Telugu Desam Party in 1982 “to protect the honour and self-respect” of 60 million Telugu-speaking people—the spark was Rajiv Gandhi’s insult of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister T.Anjaiah, when he went to Hyderabad airport to welcome him. NTR effortlessly rode his screen popularity to power in 1983, making Andhra Pradesh one of the few states in India at the time not swamped by the Congress wave.

INDIA: 183; WEST INDIES: 140 ALL OUT
Kapil Dev led his men to one of World Cup cricket’s biggest upset when India, perennial underdogs, beat Clive Lloyd’s mighty West Indies in the finals at Lord’s.

ELSEWHERE…

Island-wide anti-Tamil riots broke out in Sri Lanka in retaliation to the deaths of soldiers the day before and over 400 people died. This marked the beginning of the civil war in Sri Lanka.
Cosmos 1402, a Russian nuclear powered satellite launched in 1982, fell into the Indian Ocean.
An explosives-laden truck crashed into the US Marine barracks (below) near Beirut airport in Lebanon. The bomb killed 241 Marines and injured 80

31.5 lakh was the number of people in line for a telephone connection in India. Even the poor services—in Kolkata, every seventh phone was normally out of order—didn’t deter people from applying for a connection.

Courtesy By Indian Today