Today’s history: Inder Kumar Gujral became the 12th PM of the country, it was said after waking up from sleep – wake up, you have to become the Prime Minister

On this day in 1997, Inder Kumar Gujral became the 12th Prime Minister of the country. At that time there was an era of coalition governments at the Center and before Gujral, a coalition government was running under the leadership of HD Deve Gowda. This government was supported by the Congress, but only 10 months after Deve Gowda became the Prime Minister, the Congress withdrew support and the government fell.

After this, discussions started on many names for the next Prime Minister. In the meeting of the coalition parties, it was decided to make Inder Kumar Gujral as the Prime Minister. Gujral was sleeping at his house at the time of the meeting. The leaders of the coalition reached his house and woke Gujral and said – wake up, now you have to become the Prime Minister.

Finally, on 21 April 1997, Gujral took oath as the Prime Minister. Gujral was in the PM post till 19 March 1998.

Gujral was born in Punjab, Pakistan
Inder Kumar Gujral was born on 4 December 1919 in Jhelum, Punjab, Pakistan. Gujral’s parents were freedom fighters. Tej Gujral had obtained MA, PhD and DLit degrees in his studies since childhood.

He married Sheela Gujral on 26 May 1945. Inder Kumar Gujral died on 30 November 2012 after a prolonged illness.

1 lakh 70 thousand Indians were ‘airlifted’
Gujral had been the foreign minister in the VP Singh and Chandrashekhar governments. It was during Gujral’s tenure as foreign minister that the Gulf War broke out between Iraq and Kuwait. During this, he succeeded in bringing back 1 lakh 70 thousand Indians stranded there by plane back to the country safely.

It is considered the largest operation of its kind in the world. This operation was later made into Akshay Kumar starrer ‘Airlift’. Even before becoming the Prime Minister, Gujral was the External Affairs Minister in the Deve Gowda government.

The ministry was snatched away after the rift with Sanjay Gandhi
Gujral was the Minister of Information and Broadcasting in the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency. Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay Gandhi asked Gujral to censor the news read in All India Radio, but Gujral refused to obey the order. After this there was a rift between the two and the very next day the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting was snatched from Gujral’s hands.

2013- ‘Super computer’ Shakuntala Devi passed away
It would be almost impossible for any human to do the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers orally without a pen-copy or calculator, but Shakuntala Devi, popularly known as Human Computer, did this work in just 28 seconds. For this reason his name is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Born on 4 November 1929 in a Kannada family, Shakuntala Devi’s father used to perform tricks in the circus. This remarkable talent of Shakuntala was recognized by her father at the age of three when Shakuntala was playing cards with him. When she was five years old, she started solving maths problems easily.

In 1977, Shakuntala Devi was asked to calculate the 23rd root of 201 at the University of Dallas. When such a difficult question was given to him, there was silence in the whole hall. After 50 seconds, Shakuntala Devi surprised everyone by solving the question.

Shakuntala Devi was married to Paritosh Banerjee in 1960. They had a daughter named Anupama Banerjee.

Shakuntala Devi died on 21 April 2013 in Bengaluru at the age of 83. In July 2020, her biopic ‘Shakuntala Devi’ was released, in which Vidya Balan played her character.

Important events of April 21 in the history of the country and the world: