Morarji Desai

Saturday, Apr 20, 2024 | Last Update : 03:13 PM IST

Cover photo of 'How Prime Ministers Decide,' by Neerja Chowdhury. (Photo by arrangement)

Book Review | Secrets & surprises: Oral testimonies of India’s contemporary history

What Chowdhury unfolds is an engrossing narrative of event, turns out to be a political thriller.

20 Aug 2023 12:15 AM

A PM who tried but failed to stay at the helm

Controversies had followed Desai right from the time he had entered the public arena in the 1920s.

24 Jan 2020 6:29 AM

The country’s highest civilian honour was conferred on Desai in 1991.

Lawyer fined for seeking ex-PM’s award revocation

The court imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 on advocate Jaiswal for filing a “frivolous” petition.

23 Aug 2019 6:23 AM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi (Photo: PTI)

BJP stooped to conquer, Congress must not follow it

The Congress was accused of concentrating too much on caste and community but not, it must be stressed, of fanning communalism.

19 Dec 2017 12:58 AM

The Lovers by Amitava Kumar Aleph, Rs 599

Book review: Making fiction out of nothing at all

The author is a great writer, of non-fiction. Sadly, his hold over what makes for good fiction is lacking.

30 Jul 2017 2:38 AM

Sanjay Gandhi with his mother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, at a rally during the Emergency. (Photo: Sondeep Shankar)

Emergency: The events that led to the ‘dark days’ of 1975-77

JP asked students to boycott classes, leave their schools and colleges for one year and work to mobilise the people for his “total revolution”.

26 Jun 2017 1:02 AM

Leader of the Indian freedom movement and veteran Socialist ‘Lok Naik’ Jayaprakash Narain, who had retired from active politics, came back to the centre-stage, united the opposition and led the campaign against Emergency. His call for ‘total revolution’ excited the campuses and the youth. The Congress led by Indira Gandhi gave in to the combined opposition assault. The Congress got only 153 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in 1977 against 294 of the Janata Party.

When janta embraced the Janata experiment

What was important for us then was the ignominious demise of the hated Emergency and the dawn of a new era.

25 Mar 2017 1:53 AM

Acting President B.D. Jetty swears in Morarji Desai, leader of the Janata Party parliamentary party as Prime Minister to head the first non-Congress Union ministry on March 24, 1977. Mr Desai resigned on July 15, 1979 due to internal bickering in his party.

India’s second tryst

The Janata government also initiated serious moves toward decentralised democracy by appointing a panel headed by Asok Mehta.

25 Mar 2017 1:47 AM

Withdraw Morarji Desai’s Bharat Ratna: Petition

Petitioner claims former Prime Minister was man of double standards.

28 Jan 2017 4:22 AM

Old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes placed in an order that reads BAN in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

Note ban: Legality is questionable

The law permitted withdrawal of a series of banknotes and not the scrapping of an entire denomination.

02 Dec 2016 12:18 AM

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Shobhaa De