1955 EDGE OF BORDER

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1947-2008-India-Roundup

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM:

Satyagrahis march towards the

Indian border in Goa in 1954

REWIND

Nehru’s foreign policy was opposed to the continuance of colonial rule anywhere. This meant reclaiming parts of the country still languishing under foreign yoke. Things came to a head when unarmed satyagrahis were fired upon by Portuguese authorities in Goa, which dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar had described as “a light of the West in lands of Orient”. An enraged India asked the Portugal government to close their legation in Delhi and its consulates in other cities. The Indian consulate-general in Goa was withdrawn on September 1.

FIRST CUT

• HEC-2M, the first computer in the country, was installed in Calcutta.
• Bharat Petroleum became the first company to marked liquid petroleum gas for home use.
• General Maharaj Rajandra Sinhji became the first person to hold the rank of Chief of Army Staff.
• State Bank of India, formed in July, became the first Indian bank to be nationalised.

CODE-BREAKER

Despite differences between the prime minister and president, the Hindu law was modernized with a series of acts reforming laws on marriage, succession, guardianship and adoption, passed over two years.

DID YOU KNOW

The crowd that turned up to hear Jawaharlal Nehru speak at Moscow’s Gorky Park was so large that the venue had to be shifted to the Dynamo Moscow Football Stadium.

“ONLY SCIENCE CAN SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF HUNGER.”

“A NEW India can be built, not merely by the brilliance of a score or hundreds of people but by the cooperative hard work of the millions,” said Jawaharlal Nehru, while pouring the first bucket of concrete into the foundation of the Bhakra Dam. It was one of the most ambitious projects in India. At 680 feet, the dam was the second largest in the world with water that would irrigate 7.4 million acres of land.

15

Was the minimum age of marriage fixed for women after the Hindu Marriage Act was passed.

Down the Road With Ray

Filmmaker Satyajit Ray produced the first film in the Apu Trilogy, Pather Panchali, (Song of the Road), which went on to win the National Award. Pandit Ravi Shankar recorded the music for the film in a non-stop session of 11 hours.

ELSEWHERE…

• Clarton-Schwerdt and Schaffer discovered the polio virus.
• President Juan Peron of Argentina was ousted and military leaders confiscated his wife Eva Peon’s body.
• Actor James Dean died in a collision.
• Rosa Parks (below) was arrested in Alabama as she refused to move to the back of a bus, sparking off the civil rights movement.

Courtesy By India Today