# 1979 in India

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Events in the year 1979 in the Republic of India.

## Incumbents

* President of India – Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
* Prime Minister of India – Morarji Desai until 28 July, Charan Singh
* Vice President of India – B.D. Jatti until 30 August; Mohammad Hidayatullah
* Chief Justice of India – Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud

### Governors

* Andhra Pradesh – K.C. Abraham
* Assam – L. P. Singh
* Bihar –
** until 31 January: Jagannath Kaushal
** 31 January-20 September: K.B.N. Singh
** starting 20 September: Akhlaqur Rahman Kidwai
* Gujarat – Sharda Mukherjee
* Haryana – Harcharan Singh Brar (until 9 December), Surjit Singh Sandhawalia (starting 10 December)
* Himachal Pradesh – Amin ud-din Ahmad Khan
* Jammu and Kashmir – L. K. Jha
* Karnataka – Govind Narain
* Kerala – Jothi Venkatachalam
* Madhya Pradesh – C. M. Poonacha
* Maharashtra – Sri Sadiq Ali
* Manipur – L.P. Singh
* Meghalaya – L.P. Singh
* Nagaland – L.P. Singh
* Odisha – Bhagwat Dayal Sharma
* Punjab – Jaisukh Lal Hathi
* Rajasthan – Raghukul Tilak
* Sikkim – B. B. Lal
* Tamil Nadu – Prabhudas Patwari
* Tripura – L. P. Singh
* Uttar Pradesh – Ganpatrao Devji Tapase
* West Bengal – Anthony Lancelot Dias (until 6 November), Tribhuvana Narayana Singh (starting 6 November)

## Events

* National income - ₹1,235,622 million
* 1 January – President of India makes official the decision to set up the Mandal Commission
* 22 January – 12 Iranian students who claimed to be members of the Iranian Islamic Students Association laid siege to the Iranian consulate at Churchgate.
* 31 January – The police under direction of Jyoti Basu, Chief Minister of Communist Party of India (Marxist) -led government of West Bengal, surrounds and opens fire on unarmed refugee settlement of Morichjhapi island in Sunderbans, West Bengal. (Marichjhapi massacre)
* 13 May – a tropical cyclone hits Coastal Andhra and destroys 7 lakh homes and affects 40 lakh people.
* 1 June – Vizianagaram district is formed in Andhra Pradesh.
* 27 June – CISF conflict at Bokaro
* 2 July – Athi Varadhar came out after 40 years in Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Kanchipuram.
* 3 July – A cargo ship named MV Kairali owned by Kerala Shipping Corporation went missing on its journey carrying iron ore from Mormugao to Rostock.
* 28 July – Charan Singh of Bharatiya Lok Dal, coalition partner of Janata Party became Prime Minister of India with outside support of Congress (I).
* 11 August – Morvi dam burst, the worst flood disaster in independent India, happens in Gujarat, killing 1500-15000 people
* 12 October – C. H. Mohammed Koya sworn in as Chief minister of Kerala. He is the first Muslim League leader to become Chief Minister of an Indian state.
* 10 December – Mother Teresa was awarded Nobel Peace Prize at Oslo.

## Births
### January to June

* 1 January – Vidya Balan, actress.
* 3 January – Gul Panag, actress
* Bipasha Basu7 January – Bipasha Basu, actress and model.
* 16 January – Climax Lawrence, footballer
* 2 February – Shamita Shetty, actress
* 26 February – Premgi Amaren, playback singer, composer, songwriter, actor and comedian.
* 28 February – Srikanth
* 24 March – Emraan Hashmi, actor.
* 8 April – Amit Trivedi, music director, singer, film scorer
* 28 April – Sharman Joshi, actorEmraan Hashmi
* 23 May – Divya Palat, actress.
* 10 June – D. K. Ravi, late IAS officer. (d. 2015)
* 12 June – Tottempudi Gopichand, actor.
* 18 June – A. L. Vijay, film director.
* 20 June – Renedy Singh, footballer.

### July to December

* 19 July – Malavika, actress.
* 27 July – Vamshi Paidipally, film director.
* 29 July – Hard Kaur, rapper
* 2 August – Devi Sri Prasad, music composer and singer.
* 10 August – Shabir Ahluwalia, television actor
* 31 August – Yuvan Shankar Raja, film composer and singer.
* 1 September – Aamir Ali, actor
* 11 September – Tulip Joshi, model and actress.
* 14 September – Kamya Panjabi, actress.
* 18 September – Vinay Rai, actor.
* 27 September – B Chandrakala, Indian Administrative Service officer.
* 7 October – Narain, actor.
* 23 October – Prabhas, actor.
* 4 November – Lazarus Barla, field hockey player.
* 7 November – Raima Sen, actress
* 18 November – Neeti Mohan, singer
* 20 November – Shalini, actress and child artist.
* 3 December – Konkona Sen Sharma, actress
* 14 December – Samit Basu, novelist.
* 30 December – Kausalya, actress.

## Deaths

* 9 February – Banaphool, author, playwright and poet (b. 1899).
* 19 May – Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, novelist, literary historian, essayist, critic and scholar (b. 1907).
* 18 August – Vasantrao Phulsing Naik, Politician, Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra (b. 1913)
* 3 December – Dhyan Chand, field hockey player (b. 1905).
* 8 October – Jayaprakash Narayan, political activist (b. 1902)
* 20 October – D.K.Sapru, character actor. (b. 1916).