The Ayodhya firing describes the occasion when the Uttar Pradesh police opened fire at civilians because they were heading to demolish the Babri Masjid on two separate days, 30 October 1990 and 2 November 1990, in the aftermath of the Ram Rath Yatra. The civilians were religious volunteers, or kar sevaks, assembled near the Ram Janmabhoomi site at Ayodhya. The state government’s official records report that at least 8 to
Vijaya Raje Scindia (12 October 1919 – 25 January 2001), born Lekha Divyeshwari Devi in Nepal and known popularly as the Rajmata of Gwalior in India, was a prominent Indian political personality. In the days of the British Raj, as consort of the last ruling Maharaja of Gwalior, Jivajirao Scindia, she ranked among the highest royal figures of the land. In later life, she became a politician of considerable
On 5 July 2005, five terrorists attacked the makeshift Ram temple at the site of destroyed Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India. All five were shot dead in the ensuing gunfight with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), while one civilian died in the grenade attack that the attackers launched in order to breach the cordoned wall. The CRPF suffered three casualties, two of whom were
In law, a legal person is any person or ‘thing’ (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for the term “legal person” is that some legal persons are not people: companies and corporations are “persons” legally speaking (they can legally do most
Raghuvaṃśa (Devanagari: रघुवंशम्, lit. ‘lineage of Raghu’) is a Sanskrit epic poem (mahakavya) by the celebrated Sanskrit poet Kalidasa. Though an exact date of composition is unknown, the poet is presumed to have flourished in the 5th century CE.[1] It narrates, in 19 sargas (cantos), the stories related to the Raghu dynasty, namely the family of Dilipa and his descendants up to Agnivarna, who include Raghu, Dasharatha and Rama. The
Manmohan Singh Liberhan (born 11 November 1938) is a retired Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, India. For 17 years he headed the Liberhan Ayodhya Commission of Inquiry, which prepared a report on the Babri Mosque demolition. Career Liberhan was formerly the Advocate General for the north-Indian state of Haryana. He was soon thereafter elevated as a permanent
Mahant Digvijaynath (born Swaroop Singh Ranawat; 1894–1969) was the mahant (lit. ’head priest’), of the Gorakhnath Math in Gorakhpur, India. He was also a Hindu nationalist activist and a politician of the Hindu Mahasabha, who was arrested for inflaming passions among Hindus against Mahatma Gandhi. Nath played a leading role in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1949, which culminated in the placing of Rama idols inside the Babri Masjid, in an effort to
The Vishnu Hari inscription (or Hari-Vishnu inscription) is the name given to a Sanskrit language inscription found in the Uttar Pradesh state of India. It records the construction of a temple by Anayachandra, a feudatory of the king named Govindachandra, and also contains a eulogy of Anayachandra’s dynasty. Its date portion is missing, and its authenticity has been a matter of controversy.
William Finch (died 1613) was an English merchant in the service of the East India Company (EIC). He travelled to India along with Captain Hawkins during the reign of the Mughal emperor Jehangir. The two of them attended on the emperor at the Mughal court and established trade relations between England and India. Finch subsequently explored various cities in India and
Romila Thapar (born 30 November 1931) is an Indian historian. Her principal area of study is ancient India, a field in which she is pre-eminent. Thapar is a Professor of Ancient History, Emerita, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Thapar’s special contribution is the use of social-historical methods to understand change in the mid-first millennium BCE in northern