'1988: Key Events

• Rajiv Gandhi’s Defamation Bill, seeking to reimpose Emergency-type curbs on the press, is withdrawn following nationwide resistance.

• The National Front of opposition parties is launched in August; the Janata Dal, led by expelled Congress(I) member V. P. Singh, revives the centrist opposition unity of the Emergency, except for the BJP.

• The Bhartiya Kisan Union, led by Mahendra Singh Tikait, the most militant of the rich peasant organisations, organises a major rally at the Boat Club, New Delhi.

• The DMK wins the Tamil Nadu state assembly after M. G. Ramachandran’s death (1987) and the split in his AIADMK. IRS-1A, a remote sensing satellite, is launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the USSR.

• INSAT 1C, launched by the Ariane facility in Kourou, French Guiana, develops snags.

• The journals Cinemaya (A Quarterly on Asian Film) and Deep Focus start.