The secret chamber that houses Lord Jagannath's rarest of rare valuables will be opened on Sunday. An attempt to study the chamber in 2018 abruptly ended within 40 minutes. The last time the Bhitara Bhandar was opened was in 1985. From crowns of kings to chests full of treasures, this is what was seen in 1985.
American diplomats in India sent confidential cables to US offices on a rising politician in Gujarat and the dismal performance of a Congress politician. The top secret cables of 2006-07, made public by WikiLeaks, reveal what American officials thought of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, and their probable career trajectories.
The first televised US presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy in 1960 swung the election and changed the course of American history. Such was its impact that it still influences presidential debates, like the one today between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Cricket is considered mostly an immigrant phenomenon in the US, which is taking baby steps towards fulfilling its American Dream. However, cricket was a popular game in the US and the first international match, predating the modern Olympic Games, was played there. Why then did it lose out to baseball?
PV Narasimha Rao is credited to have spearheaded the economic liberalisation of India. Not much is said about his political acumen. The Congress won a similar number of seats in the 1991 election as the BJP won in 2024. Rao silently engineered a split in smaller parties and turned a minority Congress into a majority party in two years.
Narendra Modi has equalled the record of Jawaharlal Nehru in winning his third consecutive term as prime minister. While Nehru had to deal with the regional forces and their ambitions outside his party, Modi would have to be more accommodating to their demands as they helped him win his third term.
JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna has been arrested in the sex tapes case. The case brings back memories of India's first political sex scandal that unfolded in 1977. A scandal involving 40-50 obscene photos of Babu Jagjivan Ram's son, Suresh Ram, with a college girl dashed the senior leader's prime-ministerial dream.
In 2024, the Congress's election manifesto talks about the need for a "re-set of economic policy". It was the party's 1991 manifesto, released by Rajiv Gandhi, which changed the Indian economy forever. It was the result of that manifesto that consumers got options to choose from, from multiple brands of pens to cars.
Karpoori Thakur, the former Bihar CM and champion of social justice, was awarded the Bharat Ratna this year. The questions surrounding his death remain unanswered even after three decades. A yogi who appeared from nowhere and treated Thakur with 13 litres of salt water a day ahead of his death adds to the mystery.
Lahore's Heera Mandi, which Sanjay Leela Bhansali presents in his 'Heeramandi', had a rich culture of the arts due to Mughal patronage. Maharaja Ranjit Singh fell in love with a dancer from Heera Mandi and married her. He bravely embraced backlash and whiplash for his love. Here's the epic story of love from Heera Mandi.
Gold and mangalsutra have been hot topics in the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign. But did you know that Indira Gandhi had ordered a massive treasure hunt, which lasted for five months, in Jaipur's Jaigarh Fort in 1976? Then Pakistan's Prime Minister, Zulfikar Bhutto, wrote to Indira and claimed a share in the Jaipur treasures.
A heated debate is on over wealth redistribution during this Lok Sabha election. Prime Minister and Congress leader Indira Gandhi saw taxation as "a major instrument to achieve greater equality of incomes and wealth". Her government in 1973-74 raised income tax rates to 97.5%, but soon had to withdraw the policy.
Assembly polls will be held in Jammu and Kashmir soon. Against this backdrop, Valley-based leader Sajad Lone spoke about the rigged elections of 1987. The rigging of the polls, which the Congress-National Conference won, became one of the factors behind militancy and terrorism in the Valley. This is the history of the 1987 polls.
The Congress has claimed that the Hindu Mahasabha allied with the Muslim League to run governments in three provinces. Why did the Savarkar-led Mahasabha and the Jinnah-led Muslim League come together despite polar opposite ideologies? Is Congress saying the complete truth?
For a brief period in ancient Syria, the Sun disappeared. A clay tablet unearthed from the ruins in 1948 revealed what happened 3,200 years ago.
Lok Sabha elections were traditionally held in cooler months. In 2004, the BJP government advanced the Lok Sabha polls by months. The advancing of the election and the subsequent stable governments made the exercise a summer affair. The heat was one of the factors that took the shine off 'India Shining'.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi got the Lok Sabha dissolved in 1970 and called for a general election in 1971, 15 months ahead of schedule. Indira was leading a minority government and wanted absolute power. Her decision decoupled the state Assembly polls from the general election.
Bengaluru is facing an acute water shortage. The city in Karnataka was once fed by a thousand lakes, with some dating to the 8th Century and earlier. It is ironic that the city which the lakes helped build, ended up choking them. This is the history of the cascading lakes of Bengaluru.
Indian documentary films have made a big mark at the Academy Awards. However, there was a time when Oscar-nominated filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra didn't have money to travel for the award ceremony in 1979. Documenting the documentary films' journey.
Criticising the DMK government in Tamil Nadu over its Isro ad 'blunder', BJP leader Annamalai recounted an incident from the 1960s when the state lost the opportunity to host Isro's first spaceport because of the inefficiency of a DMK minister. Here's the history of it.
