BS@50: The story of India in 50 Business Standard headlines since 1975

From declaration of Emergency by Indira Gandhi to Narendra Modi's third consecutive victory in LS polls, a collage of events through 50 Business Standard headlines since 1975

1. June 25, 1975

Democracy interrupted: Citing internal and external threats to the country, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has a state of emergency declared across India. It lasts 21 months, until March 21, 1977

2. January 16, 1978

Losing currency: The Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government demonetises banknotes of Rs 1,000, Rs 5,000, and Rs 10,000 under the High Denomination Bank Notes (Demonetisation) Ordinance, resulting in long queues outside banks. History would repeat itself 38 years later

3. July 12, 1982

It takes a village: One of the earliest financial inclusion institutions, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) gets down to work to promote rural development through credit, infrastructure, and various schemes

4. October 31, 1984

Shock and disbelief: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards at her residence in New Delhi in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star. Soon after, anti-Sikh riots break out even as her son, Rajiv Gandhi, is sworn in as prime minister

5. January 1, 1986

Market moment: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) launches the Sensex, and the market opens the new year with a bang. The base year is taken as 1979. It is now known as the

S&P BSE Sensex

6. 1990

Student wrath: Thousands of students hit the streets after Prime Minister VP Singh announces on August 7, 1990, that Other Backward Classes would get a 27% reservation in central government and PSU jobs. On September 19, Rajiv Goswami, a Delhi University student, attempts self-immolation, becoming the face of the anti-Mandal agitation

7. 1991

Country in crisis:  India pledges a portion of its gold reserves as collateral to the IMF to secure an emergency loan to tide over a foreign exchange crisis and avoid defaulting on payments

8. July 23, 1991

Heads-up: Ahead of the historic 1991-92 Budget and the new industrial policy, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh indicates at a meeting of the Congress Working Committee that ‘harsh measures’ had become imperative as the government had inherited a ‘grim’ economic situation

9. July 24, 1991

Liberating changes: It is the Budget — PV Narasimha Rao government’s first — that would transform India. Through a speech that lasts over an hour and a half, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh opens up India’s economy and introduces wide-ranging economic reforms that would free the industry of Licence Raj

10. January 30, 1992

Power to the regulator: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) becomes a statutory body with Parliament passing the Sebi Act. The government had established Sebi as a non-statutory body through a resolution on April 12, 1988, to regulate the securities market

11. April 28, 1992

Dalal Street con: BSE Sensex falls by 12.77% after the Harshad Mehta scam comes to light. Mehta, a stockbroker referred to as the ‘Big Bull’, is found to have used bank funds to rig share prices. A parliamentary committee is formed to look into the matter. Mehta dies in 2001 with many cases still to be concluded

12. January 22, 1993

Bigger play: RBI issues guidelines for licensing of new banks in the private sector; 10 new banks are set up in the private sector

13. November 1, 1993

Private investment: First private sector mutual fund (Kothari Pioneer, now Franklin Templeton) launches its first two schemes. It sets the stage for the private sector’s entry in the Indian mutual fund (MF) industry, which was until then the monopoly of government-owned Unit Trust of India (UTI)

14. February 28, 1997

One for the common Indian: Finance Minister P Chidambaram delivers a stellar Budget. This ‘Dream Budget’ brings down the personal income tax rate from 40% to 30% — the highest cut. Several surcharges and royalty rates are also slashed

15. April 1, 1999

Ringing in the future: The New Telecom Policy (NTP) 1999 lays the foundation for a futuristic communication era in India. The policy heralds convergence, with lines between information technology, telecom and media blurring

16. October 11, 1999

Vote of confidence: Sensex breaches the 5,000 mark for the first time, with the BJP-led coalition crossing the majority mark in the 13th Lok Sabha elections

17. April 3, 2000

Defining limits: With several foreign brokerage firms waiting to enter the Indian market, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority gets down to discussing how much space to allow them

18. March 30, 2001

Scam 2.0: The Ketan Parekh scam, the biggest after Harshad Mehta, is unearthed. The Mumbai-based stock broker is accused of rigging prices of certain securities, also known as K-10, between 1998 and 2001, using funds borrowed from banks. He is also accused of insider trading and teaming up with company directors to inflate stock prices. Sebi bans him and his associate companies from trading in stocks for 14 years

19. July 9, 2001

Pick & choose: Stock options are launched on the BSE. This allows investors to buy or sell stocks at a specific price within a specific date. The launch is the result of reports from committees headed by LC Gupta and JR Varma, which laid the ground for regulatory framework for the derivatives market in India

20. November 14, 2001

Short circuit: The Enron scandal hits the Indian power sector. The American energy trading company had set up power generation plants in emerging markets, including in India (Dabhol). The controversies around it touch the highest political levels in India and the US

21. January 8, 2002

Aim to outperform: ETFs are  launched on the NSE. These are basket of securities that are traded on an exchange and have a lower transaction cost. It starts when the first ETF by Nippon India Mutual fund or the erstwhile Benchmark Asset Management Company is launched in India on the Nifty 50 index

22. May 31, 2002

A breather:  In a relief to the corporate world, the controversial Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (Fera) is replaced by the Foreign Exchange Management Act, aimed at creating a more favourable environment for investment and trade

23. May 17, 2004

The deep trough: The BSE Sensex plunges 15.52% — its largest single-day fall in history (in percentage terms). It is triggered by the unexpected defeat of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the elections and the meltdown of stock markets in the emerging market economies

24. September 15,  2008

Ripple effect: The tsunami in the US financial markets following the stunning sell-out of the 94-year-old Merrill Lynch and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers rocks the Indian stock markets

25. January 7, 2009

Sordid saga:  As the Satyam Computer Services scandal — India’s largest corporate fraud until 2010— unravels, its chairman, B Ramalinga Raju, resigns, confessing that the company’s accounts had been manipulated. Sebi estimates the scam to be around Rs 12,320 crore

26. August 12, 2009

The no-go tax reform:  The draft Direct Taxes Code Bill is released. It seeks to simplify the tax regime and replace the Income Tax Act, 1961. It proposes to slash income tax rates, reduce corporate tax and levy wealth tax, among other measures. The code would eventually be junked

27. October 16, 2010

Spoilt sport: After the Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi, end and demands for an investigation mount, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appoints a high-level committee headed by a former Comptroller and Auditor General to look into the allegations of corruption related to the mega sporting event

28. February 2, 2012

Mobile mess: As the 2G spectrum case plays out, India’s top court cancels 122 telecommunication licences awarded to companies in 2008 by then telecom minister A Raja. Raja, who is accused of selling bandwidth at a very low cost, is later acquitted. The CBI has appealed against the acquittal

29. October 20, 2012

Grounded: ‘The king of good times’, Vijay Mallya, fails to live up to the title, and after weeks of uncertainty, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation suspends the licence of his Kingfisher Airlines when it is unable come up with a viable operational and financial revival plan

30. August 28, 2014

Taking account: Banks open a record 15 million accounts against a target of 10 million as Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches a massive financial inclusion programme, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana

31. September 25, 2014

IndiGenius: Launching the ambitious ‘Make in India’ programme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls upon investors to choose India as a manufacturing destination. Though he offers no incentives, he promises to create a business-friendly environment

32. November 27, 2014

Alternative banking: The RBI announces guidelines for setting up payments banks and small banks to attract serious players and push financial inclusion. It allows corporate houses, including telecom players and retail chains, to set up payments banks, but keeps them out of small banks

33. February 28, 2015

Talking taxes: Presenting his first full-year Budget (2015-16), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley does away with wealth tax, but increases the surcharge on the super-rich — those with annual income of Rs 1 crore and above — by 2% to 12%

34. April 11, 2016

Financial revolution: The National Payments Corporation of India unveils the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a next-gen technology in the money transfer space. Making payments becomes as simple as sending a text message on a mobile phone

35. May 11, 2016

Tackling troubled businesses: With Parliament passing the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code comes a single law for dealing with distressed companies, their promoters, creditors, employees and other stakeholders for the first time in India

36. June 27, 2016

Rate-setting: For the first time, a monetary policy committee (MPC), and not just the Reserve Bank of India governor, starts taking a call on the policy rate

37. November 8, 2016

In one fell swoop: Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetises 86% of India’s currency in a surprise late-evening announcement. The move, which scraps currency notes of  Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, is meant to clamp down on black money and counterfeit notes in circulation. Desperate queues form outside banks, reminiscent of the 1978 demonetisation. The RBI issues new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes

38. June 30, 2017

On nation, one tax: After 17 years of brainstorming, the biggest tax reform in independent India, the goods and services tax , is finally rolled out at the midnight hour, with President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressing a button to mark the occasion in the historic central hall of Parliament. Modi terms it “a good and simple tax”

39. May 9, 2018

Kart in mart: In the world’s biggest e-commerce deal, Walmart acquires a 77% stake in Flipkart for $16 billion. Launched by former Amazon employees, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (not related), as an online bookstore, Flipkart had soon become India’s e-commerce poster child

40. December 10, 2018

Unexpected exit: In a rare move, RBI Governor Urjit Patel resigns midway through his three-year term citing ‘personal reasons’. The resignation comes amid reports of a rift between the central bank and the government

41. March 8, 2020

Bank blues:  Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor is arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Days earlier, on March 5, the RBI had imposed a moratorium on the private lender, restricting withdrawals at Rs 50,000, and had also superseded the bank’s board. The moratorium was later removed

42. March 24, 2020

Virus effect: With the Covid-19 threat reaching India and cases rising, the prime minister announces a nationwide lockdown in an attempt to contain the virus. The lockdown, one of the world’s strictest, is later extended

 

43. May 12, 2020

The push: In his fifth address since the Covid-19 outbreak, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces a Rs 20 trillion stimulus package, which is nearly 10% of India’s GDP. Through it, he kickstarts the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan (self-reliant India campaign)

44. September 10, 2020

A new high: Reliance Industries becomes the first Indian company to cross $200 billion in market capitalisation. TCS comes a distant second, at $119 billion

45. July 14, 2021

Giant platter: India’s first startup IPO, of Zomato, is launched. By the time the issue closes, it has been subscribed 38.25 times

46. January 27, 2022

Round trip: The Tatas regain ownership of Air India, 69 years after it was nationalised. The conglomerate promises to turn the loss-making carrier into a world-class airline

47. July 1, 2023

Big gets bigger:  Housing Development Finance Corporation merges with its subsidiary, HDFC Bank, becomes world’s fourth-largest bank

48. May 4, 2022

Anti-climax: India’s largest IPO, of LIC, is launched. At Rs 20,557 crore, the issue size surpasses that of Coal India. The issue garners a record 6.1 mn retail applications but the listing is weak

49. December 23, 2022

Rise and fall: Former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband, Deepak Kochhar, are arrested on money laundering charges involving the bank and Videocon Group

50. June 9, 2024

Hattrick: Narendra Modi takes oath as prime minister for a third consecutive term, this time as the head of a coalition government. In the earlier two full terms, the BJP had enjoyed a majority on its own