April 27 RBI cuts its key interest rate.

• The Prevention of Terrorism Act, POTA was invoked against arrested editor of Tamil magazine Nakkeeran, RR Gopal, making him the first journalist to be charged under the act.

• RSS ideolouge KN Govindacharya virtually severed his ties with the BJP after attacking the centre on its handling of the Iraqi issue and its economic reform policies.
• Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee arrives in Srinagar on a two-day visit to the valley.

• The first indigenously built stealth frigate "Shivalik" constructed by the Mazagon Dock Limited, MDL was launched in Mumbai.
• Michael Arthur has been appointed the new British High Commissioner to India to succeed Sir Rob Young. He is expected to assume charge in October.
• At a rally in Srinagar, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee extended hand of friendship to Pakistan.

• Air-India has temporarily suspended its flights from Delhi and Hyderabad to Singapore due to SARS and due to Indian Pilots’ Guild’s decision not to operate flights to Singapore.

• India has reopened its embassy in Iraq with MC Pandey, taking over as Charge D’ Affaires.
• Defence Minister George Fernades, accompanied by a 16 member delegation, left for China to promote greater trust and goodwill between the two Asian neighbours.
• Cricketer Virendra Sahwag and Delhi Metro MD, E Sreedharan along with Anandi, an NGO that helped Gujarat’s riot victims has been featured on the cover of Time magazine’s annual edition of Asian Heroes.

• US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill resigned from the post to resume his academic career at Harvard University.

 April 22

• The CBI chargesheeted former Minister Sheila Kaul, and her two personal staff members in a housing scam of 1996.

• The US has invited Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to accept the Clean Cities International Partner of the Year Award on behalf of the people of Delhi for the "progressive and successful CNG transport programme". The award ceremony will be held on May 21^st in California.
• 40 people including 14 women were killed and over 700 injured when a high-velocity storm devastated eight villages in Dhubri District in Assam.

• The policy of issuing passports in 35 days irrespective of police verification has been reversed. Applicants will now have to wait for verification however long it takes.
• Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj met all State health secretaries and decided to set up a Centre-State joint action group to tackle the SARS threat in the country.
• Delhi High Court awarded approximately Rs.20 crore in dameges to the families of those killed and injured in the June 1997 Uphaar Cinema fire accident.

• The Union Cabinet approved the setting up of a National Commission for Children along the lines of the Women’s Commission.
• In Jammu and Kashmir, militants killed 14 people and injured over 50 in separate incidents across the State.

• A pioneer in graphic journalism Kul Bhushan Kumar popularly known as KBK passed away in Delhi.

• The indigenously built Pilotless Target Aircraft ‘Lakshya’ was successfully test flown from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur-on-Sea at Balasore.

• Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali broke the ice, responding to Prime Minister Vajpayee’s fresh offer for a dialogue with a phone call.

• The Reserve Bank of India cut its key interest rate to the lowest level since 1971.
• India successfully test-fired for the second time in a month, the medium range surface-to-surface missile, Prithvi.
• Thirteen militants and six security force personnel were killed in a gun battle in Doda District of Jammu and Kashmir.

• Twenty one top athletes pronounced guilty of taking banned substances at last year’s Hyderabad National Games.
• Finance Minister Jaswant Singh decided to put off the implementation of Value-Added Tax , VAT for the time being.
• The CBI arrested the former Delhi High Court Judge Shameet Mukharjee for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore DDA corruption scam.

• The US has put a price tag of up to $200,000 on the head of Iraqi President Saddam Hussain, whose regime was brought to an end by the US-led war.

• US led forces searching for Saddam Hussain and his aides captured his half-brother and former head of Iraqi intelligence, Barzan Ibrahim Hasan in Baghdad.

• Abu Dhabi TV broadcast footage of Saddam Hussain and his son Qusay addressing a crowd in Baghdad on April 9- the day the city fell to coalition forces.
• Amid mounting protests demanding that the US-led coalition leave Iraq quickly, the Opposition leader, Ahmad Chalabi, promised that power would begin to be transferred to Iraqis within weeks.
• The US has for the first time confessed that its efforts to get Pakistan to end terrorist infiltration into Kashmir have failed. Richard Haass, director of policy planning, said the US would keep pressuring Pakistan to end the border infiltration.
• The British Prime Minister Tony Blair says that ending cross-border infiltration is essential to stop violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

• After witnessing the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, key Arab Countries now want the US and British forces to leave the country.
• Pakistan has rejected criticism from the US that it has not done enough to control incursions into Jammu and Kashmir.
• The US has asked Pakistan to join a stabilisataion force, which Washington is setting up for peacekeeping duties in Iraq.

• China’s Health Minister and the Mayor of Beijing were sacked in the wake of criticism blaming China for mishandling SARS outbreak.
• China, which has the world’s largest number of Main Battle Tanks, is currently developing a lethal ‘super tank’.

• The LTTE suspended its six month long negotiations with Sri Lankan Government for the time being.
• The retired US Lt. Gen. Jay Garner arrived in the Baghdad to oversee Iraq's reconstruction.

• Historian Romila Thapar has been appointed to the prestigious Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress.
• For the first time Pakistan has agreed to allow international chemical weapons inspectors check its industrial site.

• US Secretary of State Colin Powell said, France will suffer the consequences for having opposed Washington over the Iraq war.

• The Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf termed the latest peace initiative made by the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee a good offer.

• An Army helicopter crashed into a mountain in Pakistan killing all the 13 military personnel on board.

• A link between Saddam regime and Bin Laden’s Al Quaeda network has been found in Iraqi intelligence documents.

• Pakistan’s journalist-turned diplomat Maleeha Lodhi has been appointed the country’s new High Commissioner to Britain.

• In a setback to India’s efforts to bring back Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi to stand trial in the Bofors case, Malaysia’s highest court rejected its request for a review of a ruling dismissing its plea for his extradition.

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