1958 GRAFT CRAFT

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1947-2008-India-Roundup

For the first time, a financial scam rocked Independent India. Governmental corruption made headlines when Feroze Gandhi, MP from Rae Bareily and husband of Indira Gandhi, brought to the notice of the Parliament an investment of Rs 1.24 crore by the newly nationalized Life Insurance Corporation in stock speculator Haridas Mundra’s sinking companies, calling it “a conspiracy to beguile the Corporation of its funds”. Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari was forced to quit after the commission of inquiry headed by Justice M.C. Chagla found that his principal aide, Finance Secretary H.M. Patel, had ordered the deal. After his arrest, Mundhra, whom Feroze called the “mystery man of India’s business underworld”, revealed he had contributed to the Congress party coffers. The inquiry was intended to serve as a “corrective to administrators all over the country”, but sadly, that was never to happen.

CARAVAN LEADER

Dismissed by M.A. Jinnah as a Muslim showboy and elevated by Nehru as the caravan leader, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was crucial to the Congress in the early days of Partition when there was unease over minorities. Independent India’s first education minister, who died in 1958 of a stroke, is still remembered as a permanent statement against the ‘two nation’ notion.

FIRST CUT

• for the first time, two technical squadrons were added to the National Cadet Corps’ air wing.
• the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was passed by the Parliament.

Filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak wrote the screenplay for Bimal Roy’s famous reincarnation drama Madhumati, starring thespian Dilip Kumar and Vyjayantghimala.

“I HAVE ALWAYS STOOD FOR JUSTICE FOR MY PEOPLE.”

Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah

He wasn’t called Sher-i-Kashmir for nothing. Released in January. Sheikh Abdullah was jailed in April on false charges of complicity with Pakistan. He became prime minister of Kashmir in 1948, but was dismissed in 1953 after rumours that he, in a conversation with Americal politician Adlai Stevenson, had offered J&K as a base for United States to operate from, against the USSR, in exchange for recognition of an ‘independent’ Kashmir. Jailed for 11 years, he was exiled in 1971 for 18 months. He became the chief minister of J&K in 1977 and remained in the post till his death in 1982.

Passage to India

Harold Macmillan became the first British prime minister to visit India after Independence. Time magazine reported, “Macmillan took with him the cheering knowledge that the British are today more popular in India than ever before.”

A 1928 CHEVROLET AND MADHUBALA

“Babu samjho ishare, horn pukare”; “Hum thay who thi, who thi hum thay”—Kishore Kumar yodeled and danced and laughed his way through Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, a kooky romantic ensemble comedy starring the Kumar brothers (Ashok, Annop and Kishore). A 1928 Chevrolet and the luminous Madhubala made this Satyen Bose movie a classic.

ELSEWHERE…

• Hungary’s Communist regime charged Imre Nagy with treason for leading the revolution and executed him.
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was released.
• Boris Pasternak (below) won the Nobel Prize in Literature through soviet authorities pressured him into relinquishing it.
• Explorer I, the first US satellite, successfully orbited the earth.
• Nine thousand scientists of 43 nations petitioned the UN for a nuclear test ban.

1,200

Dollars is what Mehboob Khan, his wife Sardar and Nargis got as foreign exchange allowance from the government for attending the Oscars, where Mother India was nominated, only to be beaten by Fellini's Nights of Cabiria.

Courtesy By India Today