'1981: Key Events

• Mrs Gandhi’s government reverses its pre- Emergency commitment to socialist protectionism in the wake of its new space satellite programme.

• The shift to colour TV pioneers the liberalisation of import licences for unassembled TV kits, assembly and marketing initially being reserved for small businesses.

• India borrows $5 billion from the International Monetary Fund, the biggest such loan in history.

• The art exhibition Place for People (Bhupen Khakhar, Vivan Sundaram, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Nalini Malani, Sudhir Patwardhan) reconstitutes Indian modernism, drawing on popular arts and on figurative elements rather than abstraction.

• India’s first geostationary telecommunications satellite, APPLE (Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment), weighing 670kg, is launched from French Guiana by the European Space Agency.

• Celebration of Indian cinema’s golden jubilee; formation of the short-lived Indian Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (IAMPAS).

• A three-part season tours the USA (billed as a pre-Ray package, a Ray retrospective and a New Indian Cinema programme).

• Special issue on Indian cinema by the Journal for Asian Literature (Washington).

• 36 Chowringhee Lane achieves a commercially viable, English-speaking audience, enhanced by foreign sales.