The Election Commission sent an 11-page note with a covering letter to the Law Ministry on February 17, making it quite implicit that it was difficult to hold the third round of polling in Assam on February 20, commission sources said.

Fifteen persons were killed and 125 injured,13 of them seriously, in an accident involving two passenger trains between Howrah and Liluah stations of Eastern Railway.

The country will save between Rs 350 and Rs 400 crore in the import of crude oil.

This is the front page of The Indian Express published on March 15, 1983.

This is the front page of The Indian Express published on March 14, 1983.

This is the front page of The Indian Express published on March 13, 1983.

While the seventh non-aligned conference was still stuck on the question of the venue of the next summit, behind-the-scene consultations have brought about a compromise on the Diego Garcia issue.

Pakistan President GenERAL Ziaul Haq said that India and Pakistan should find a “just settlement of the problem of Jammu and Kashmir” in the spirit of improvement in the climate of relations between the two countries.

The highlight of the day was the compromise worked out by the special group set up to tackle differences on the Afghanistan question.

Addressing the non-aligned summit, the prime minister Indira Gandhi made an impassioned appeal to Iran and Iraq to end their “tragic” war.

Presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers have arrived in New Delhi to see Indira Gandhi take over from President Fidel Castro.

The Kampuchean seat at the seventh non-aligned summit will remain vacant.  This emerged after a day-long meeting of the foreign ministers of the non-aligned nations where the contentious question was sought to be thrashed out.

Almost the entire Brahmaputra valley was handed over to the army by Assam’s state administration, shaken by a fresh outbreak of communal violence that claimed 39 more lives.

The question was not formally taken up on the floor but formed the subject of intensive consultations behind the scenes.

The Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, increased excise duty on a wide range of items including paper and paper boards, man-made fibre and filament yarns and aerated water and revised upwards the corporate tax structure.

Indira Gandhi thanked the Sikhs of Delhi for supporting the Congress (I) in the elections. Akali Dal president Harchand Singh Longowal branded the move as “fraud”.

The seventh non-aligned conference taking place in New Delhi early next month will come out with an impassioned plea for nuclear disarmament.

The Centre has asked the Punjab government to strengthen its intelligence agencies and patrolling of sensitive parts of major towns. The Union home ministry has sent this advice to the state government in the wake of threats by extremists.

At least 50 bodies were found there in the burnt ruins of Bengali houses. Assamese-immigrant clashes claimed more lives in the Kaliabor, Rupahihat and Samaguri areas of Nowgong district.

This is the front page of The Indian Express published on February 23, 1983.

In both Houses, members stood in silence as a mark of respect to those killed in the riots.

The penultimate round of what has now become a four-phase polling ended with extremely thin voting.

Five non-communist opposition parties will boycott the President’s address to the joint session of Parliament.