| Events |
Periods |
| War with Pakistan over disputed territory of Kashmir |
1948 |
| Congress Party wins first general elections under leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru |
1951-52 |
| India loses brief border war with China |
1962 |
| Death of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru |
1964 |
| Second war with Pakistan over Kashmir |
1965 |
| Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi becomes prime minister |
1966 |
| Third war with Pakistan over creation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan |
1971 |
| Twenty-year treaty of friendship signed with Soviet Union |
1971 |
| India explodes first nuclear device in underground test |
1974 |
| Indira Gandhi declares state of emergency after being found guilty of electoral malpractice |
1975 |
| Nearly 1,000 political opponents imprisoned and programme of compulsory birth control introduced |
1975-1977 |
| Indira Gandhi's Congress Party loses general elections |
1977 |
| Indira Gandhi returns to power heading Congress party splinter group, Congress (Indira) |
1980 |
| Troops storm Golden Temple - Sikhs' most holy shrine - to flush out Sikh militants pressing for self-rule |
1984 |
| Indira Gandhi assassinated by Sikh bodyguards, following which her son, Rajiv, takes over |
1984 |
| December - Gas leak at Union Carbide pesticides plant in Bhopal. Thousands are killed immediately, many more subsequently die or are left disabled |
1984 |
| India deploys troops for peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict |
1987 |
| Falling public support leads to Congress defeat in general election |
1989 |
| Indian troops withdrawn from Sri Lanka |
1990 |
| Muslim separatist groups begin campaign of violence in Kashmir |
1990 |
| Rajiv Gandhi assassinated by suicide bomber sympathetic to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers |
1991 |
| Economic reform programme begun by Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao |
1991 |
| Hindu extremists demolish mosque in Ayodhya, triggering widespread Hindu-Muslim violence |
1992 |
| Congress suffers worst ever electoral defeat as Hindu nationalist BJP emerges as largest single party |
1996 |
| BJP forms coalition government under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee |
1998 |
| India carries out nuclear tests, leading to widespread international condemnation |
1998 |
| February - Vajpayee makes historic bus trip to Pakistan to meet Premier Nawaz Sharif and to sign bilateral Lahore peace declaration |
1999 |
| Tension in Kashmir leads to brief war with Pakistan-backed forces in the icy heights around Kargil in Indian-held Kashmir |
1999 |
| October - Cyclone devastates eastern state of Orissa, leaving at least 10,000 dead |
1999 |
| May - India marks the birth of its billionth citizen |
2000 |
| US President Bill Clinton makes a groundbreaking visit to improve ties |
2000 |
| January - Massive earthquakes hit the western state of Gujarat, leaving at least 30,000 dead |
2001 |
| April - 16 Indian and three Bangladeshi soldiers are killed in border clashes |
2001 |
| A high-powered rocket is launched, propelling India into the club of countries able to fire big satellites deep into space |
2001 |
| July - Vajpayee meets Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in the first summit between the two neighbours in more than two years. It ends without a breakthrough because of differences over Kashmir |
2001 |
| September - US lifts sanctions which it imposed against India and Pakistan after they staged nuclear tests in 1998. The move is seen as a reward for their support for the US-led anti-terror campaign |
2001 |
| October - India fires on Pakistani military posts in the heaviest firing along the dividing line of control in Kashmir for almost a yea |
2001 |
| December - Suicide squad attacks parliament in New Delhi, killing several police. The five gunmen die in the assault |
2001 |
| December - India imposes sanctions against Pakistan, to force it to take action against two Kashmir militant groups blamed for the suicide attack on parliament. Pakistan retaliates with similar sanctions, and bans the groups in January |
2001 |
| December - India, Pakistan mass troops on common border amid mounting fears of a looming war |
2001 |
| January - India successfully test-fires a nuclear-capable ballistic missile - the Agni - off its eastern coast |
2002 |
| February - Inter-religious bloodshed breaks out after 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya are killed in a train fire in Godhra, Gujarat. More than 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, die in subsequent violence. |
2002 |
| May - Pakistan test-fires three medium-range surface-to-surface Ghauri missiles, which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. War of words between Indian and Pakistani leaders intensifies. Actual war seems imminent |
2002 |
| June - UK, US urge their citizens to leave India and Pakistan, while maintaining diplomatic offensive to avert war |
2002 |
| July - Retired scientist and architect of India's missile programme APJ Abdul Kalam is elected president |
2002 |
| August - At least 50 people are killed in two simultaneous bomb blasts in Bombay |
2003 |
| November - India matches Pakistan's declaration of a Kashmir ceasefire |
2003 |
| December - India, Pakistan agree to resume direct air links and to allow overflights |
2003 |
| January - Groundbreaking meeting held between government and moderate Kashmir separatists |
2004 |
| May - Surprise victory for Congress Party in general elections. Manmohan Singh is sworn in as prime minister |
2004 |
| September - India, along with Brazil, Germany and Japan, launches an application for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council |
2004 |
| November - India begins to withdraw some of its troops from Kashmir |
2004 |
| December - Thousands are killed when waves of the Asian Tsunami devastates coastal communities in the south and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands |
2004 |
| 7 April - Bus services, the first in 60 years, operate between Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir and Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-administered Kashmir |
2005 |
| More than 1,000 people are killed in floods and landslides caused by monsoon rains in Mumbai (Bombay) and Maharashtra region |
2005 |
| October - Bombs kill 62 people in Delhi. A little-known Kashmiri group says it is behind the attacks |
2005 |
| February - India's largest-ever rural jobs scheme is launched, aimed at lifting around 60 million families out of poverty |
2006 |
| March - US and India sign a nuclear agreement during a visit by US President George W Bush. The US gives India access to civilian nuclear technology while India agrees to greater scrutiny for its nuclear programme |
2006 |
| 11 July - More than 180 people are killed in bomb attacks on rush-hour trains in Mumbai. Investigators blame Islamic militants based in Pakistan |
2006 |
| 8 September - Explosions outside a mosque in the western town of Malegaon kill at least 31 people |
2006 |
| November - Hu Jintao makes the first visit to India by a Chinese president in a decade |
2006 |
| December - US President George W Bush approves a controversial law allowing India to buy US nuclear reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years |
2006 |
| 18 February - 68 passengers, most of them Pakistanis, are killed by bomb blasts and a blaze on a train travelling from New Delhi to the Pakistani city of Lahore |
2007 |
| February - India and Pakistan sign an agreement aimed at reducing the risk of accidental nuclear war |
2007 |
| March - Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh state kill more than 50 policemen in a dawn attack |
2007 |
| April - India's first commercial space rocket is launched, carrying an Italian satellite |
2007 |
| May - At least nine people are killed in a bomb explosion at the main mosque in Hyderabad. Several others are killed in subsequent rioting |
2007 |
| May - Government announces its strongest economic growth figures for 20 years - 9.4% in the year to March |
2007 |
| July - Pratibha Patil becomes first woman to be elected president of India |
2007 |
| July - Congress-led coalition survives vote of confidence brought after left-wing parties withdraw their support over controversial nuclear cooperation deal with US |
2008 |
| July - Series of explosions kills 49 in Ahmedabad, in Gujarat state. The little-known militant Islamist group Indian Mujahideen claims responsibility |
2008 |
| October - Following approval by the US Congress, President George W Bush signs into law a nuclear deal with India, which ends a three-decade ban on US nuclear trade with Delhi |
2008 |
| India successfully launches its first mission to the moon, the unmanned lunar probe Chandrayaan-1 |
2008 |
| November - Nearly 200 people are killed and hundreds injured in a series of co-ordinated attacks by gunmen on the main tourist and business area of India's financial capital Mumbai |
2008 |
| December - India announces "pause" in peace process with Pakistan. Indian cricket team cancels planned tour of Pakistan |
2008 |
| February - India and Russia sign deals worth $700m, according to which Moscow will supply uranium to Delhi |
2009 |
| May - Resounding general election victory gives governing Congress-led alliance of PM Manmohan Singh an enhanced position in parliament, only 11 seats short of an absolute majority |
2009 |
| July - Pakistani, Indian premiers pledge to work together to fight terror irrespective of progress on improving broader ties |
2009 |
| A Dehli court rules that homosexual intercourse between consenting adults is not criminal, overturning a 148-year-old colonial law |
2009 |
| December - The government says it will allow a new state, Telangana, to be carved out of part of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Violent protests for and against break out |
2009 |
| February - Bomb explosion in a restaurant popular with tourists in Pune, in the western state of Maharashtra, kills 16 people |
2010 |
| May - The solve surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Ajmal Amir Qasab, is convicted of murder, waging war on India and possessing explosives |
2010 |
| June - A court in Bhopal sentences eight Indians to two years each in jail for "death by negligence" over the 1984 Union Carbide gas plant leak. Thousands died in this, the world's worst industrial accident |
2010 |
| September - Allahabad High Court rules that the disputed holy site of Ayodhya should be divided between Hindus and Muslims; the destruction of a mosque on the site by Hindu extremists in 1992 led to rioting in which about 2,000 people died |
2010 |
| March - Results of 2011 census put India's population at 1.21 billion, an increase of 181 million over ten years |
2011 |
| August - Prominent social activist Anna Hazare stages 12-day hunger strike in Delhi in protest at state corruption |
2011 |
| November - Fourteen people, including a government minister, go on trial on charges for under-selling mobile phone licenses in return for bribes, in one of India's biggest ever corruption scandals |
2011 |
| January - British author Sir Salman Rushdie cancels an appearance at a literary festival in India in response to threats from Islamic extremists who object to his book The Satanic Verses |
2012 |
| June - Police in Delhi arrest Abu Hamza, also known as Syed Zabiuddin - allegedly a key figure in planning the 2008 Mumbai attacks |
2012 |
| July - Pranab Mukherjee from the ruling Congress party is elected president, comfortably beating his rival P.A. Sangma |
2012 |
| August - Court convicts 32 people over the 2002 religious riots in Gujarat, including former state minister Maya Kodnani |
2012 |
| November - Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, the sole surviving gunman of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, is executed in Pune prison. The Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in August |
2012 |
| February - Two explosions in crowded Dilsukhnagar area of central Hyderabad kill 16 people. Police suspect the Indian Mujahideen Islamist armed group |
2013 |
| September - A court sentences four men to death for the gang rape and murder of a student in Delhi the previous December - a case that led to violent protests across India and new laws against rape |
2013 |
| December - The Supreme Court reverses a 2009 Delhi High Court order decriminalising homosexual acts, saying parliament, not the courts, must resolve the issue |
2013 |
| May - The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its candidate for prime minister, Narendra Modi, win parliamentary elections by a landslide |
2014 |
| September - Visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi unveil landmark economic deals. China says it plans to build two industrial parks in India, as part of overall investment of twenty billion dollars in the next five years |
2014 |
| December - India's governing BJP emerges for the first time as a major political player in the disputed Kashmir region after local elections, doubling its seats in the state assembly |
2014 |
| February - The anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), headed by Arvind Kejriwal, wins a stunning victory in Delhi state elections, marking the BJP's first big setback since it triumphed in the 2014 general election |
2015 |
| June - India arrests Naga separatist leader Khumlo Abi Anal over killing of 20 soldiers in ambush on Burmese border |
2015 |
| June - India arrests Naga separatist leader Khumlo Abi Anal over killing of 20 soldiers in ambush on Burmese border |
2015 |
| September - India launches its first space laboratory Astrosat in its biggest project since its Mars orbiter mission in 2014 |
2015 |
| September - Tens of millions of workers take part in a 24-hour strike to demand higher wages and to protest against the government's economic reforms |
2016 |
| September - India signs a billion-dollar defence deal with France to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets |
2016 |
| November - In a surprise announcement, the government withdraws high denomination notes from circulation causing chaotic scenes at banks across the country as customers try to exchange old notes |
2016 |
| January - The government reaches a wide-ranging cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates, with a series of deals on energy, defence, trade and maritime affairs |
2017 |
| May - Launches its so-called "South Asia satellite" from the country's space centre in Andhra Pradesh state. The satellite is designed to improve disaster relief and telecommunication links in the region |
2017 |
| June - Along with Pakistan, India becomes a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an inter-governmental security grouping. India's membership sees the grouping's membership expand into South Asia |
2017 |
| July-August - Row with China over disputed area of Himalayas, where China says Indian troops have been trespassing |
2017 |
Introduction