1979 in India

1979 in India
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.
Law
Births
January to June
1 January Vidya Balan, actress.
7 January – Bipasha Basu, actress and model.
26 February - Premgi Amaren, playback singer, composer, songwriter, actor and comedian.
28 February – Srikanth
24 March – Emraan Hashmi, actor.
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.
July to December
19 July Malavika, actress.
27 July Vamshi Paidipally, film director.
2 August Devi Sri Prasad, music composer and singer.
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.
20 November Shalini, actress and child artist.
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).
See also
List of Bollywood films of 1979
References
India
Years of the 20th century in India
1970s in India
1979 in Asia