'1963: Key Events

• The ‘Kamaraj Plan’, initiated by K. Kamaraj, a senior Congress leader and Chief Minister of Madras, calls for the voluntary resignation of all senior Congress members from government posts in order to concentrate on revitalising the Party. Nehru uses the plan to purge the right wing from his ministry. Morarji Desai, one of the most vocal critics of Nehru’s socialism, accuses him of preparing the rise to power of Indira Gandhi.

• Parliament approves the continued use of English as an official language beyond 1965.

• A 10kg ‘toy rocket’, launched into outer space from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station near Trivandrum, is India’s first space research success.

• The Group 1890, an art exhibition with J. Swaminathan’s manifesto and an introduction by Octavio Paz, becomes the second major show, after the Progressive Artists Group, to redefine an indigenous modernism.

• The Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation (IMPEC) is formed.

• The first Indian Merchant- Ivory film, The Householder.

• Barnouw and Krishnaswamy’s Indian Film is published.

• The Journal of the CTA of South India, a Madras- based monthly, is started; it is probably the first technical film journal in India, and reports on the work of major film technicians in the South.