Jawaharlal Nehru salutes the flag as he becomes independent India's first prime minister on August 15, 1947 during the Independence Day ceremony at Red Fort, New Delhi, India. 

1983  – India won the Cricket World Cup

India won the Cricket World Cup for the first time, 25th June, 1983. It was India's first cricket World Cup win. In the final match, they defeated West Indies who were considered the most fearsome team in the world at that time.

2005 – Right To Information act came into force

The Official Secrets Act, 1923, did not allow disclosure of information. The launch of RTI Act has relaxed such rules and helped people to acquire any information they want from government officials. It was truly a feather in the cap of Indian Democracy, and gave India one of the most transparent governance systems in the world.

2006 – Reopening of Nathu la

Though the decision has received mixed reviews, the step was expected to play an important role in the relations of the two countries. In spite of not meeting the expectations, the agreements between the two nations limit trade across the pass to 29 types of goods from India and 15 from the Chinese side. The opening also shortens the travel distance to important Hindu  and Buddhist  pilgrimage sites in the region.

2007  Indian spacecraft SRE 1 successfully completes a twelve-day orbital test flight

The achievement made India one of the few nations to return a craft from orbit. SRE 1 is an Indian experimental spacecraft which was launched on January 10, 2007 from Sriharikota by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). It remained in orbit for 12 days and then re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. 

2008 – Abhinav Bindra won gold in Olympics

On August 11, 2008, Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the 10m Air Rifle event at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He became the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games.

2009 – Right To Education Act approved

The law came into effect all across India except Jammu & Kashmir on April 1, 2010. The RTE Act makes education as a fundamental right of every child and bridges the gap between different classes of society. It requires all private schools to reserve 25 percent seats for poor children. There might be some hitches in implementation in a vast country like India. But the passage of a landmark rule like this marked a giant step forward for the nation 

2010 – India won 101 medals in Common Wealth Games

For the first time in the history of the Games, India won over 100 medals in total and stood in second position, after Australia. India won a gold medal in athletics after 52 years when Krishna Poonia won a Gold in Women’s Discus Throw.

2011 – Anna Hazare’s anti corruption movement

Anna was ranked as the most influential person in Mumbai by a national daily newspaper. The initiative gathered a huge number of people, making it a one-of-its-kind event in decades. It was also one of those rare events that demonstrated what is possible if the world’s largest democracy woke up to take the reins in its hands.

2012 – Western Ghats Designated as World Heritage Site by UNESCO

The range that starts at Gujarat is approximately 1,600 km long and ends at the southern tip of India in Kanyakumari.  The area plays host to around 5,000 species of flowering plants, 139 mammal species, 508 bird species, 179 amphibian species and 288 freshwater fish species. It is also believed that many undiscovered species live in the Western Ghats and at least 325 globally threatened species are also found here.

2013 – Launch of Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan 

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan is a space probe orbiting Mars that was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Apart from that ISRO also launched 20 satellites at the same time which was another huge feat. In fact, the Mangalyaan mission was budgeted at 4.5bn rupees ($74m), which, by Western standards, is staggeringly cheap

2014 – Polio Eradication

India’s last polio case was reported in West Bengal in January 2011 when a young girl was paralyzed by polio. Since then no other such case has been reported.. India which comprises of 17 percent of world population saw polio being eradicated from the country and life expectancy grow to 68.89 years which was only 32 years at time of independence. 

Massive unemployment, scarcity of capital and low rate of capital formation and under-developed infrastructure are the other characteristics of Indian economy which make India one of the poorest nations in the world. It is important to mention here that much of India’s growth over the last few decades came from services-led expansion which saw both wages and employment rise. The expansion of India’s middle class is a result of the services-led growth which contributed greatly to GDP growth but employs less than 30 per cent of the population. Hence the ‘India shinning’ projections by the government, based on revised base year and upgraded accounting indicators, are not the real pointers of Indian people’s economic growth and prosperity. Jobless growth, steady decline in Gross Value Addition, decline in industrial growth and falling credit growth are a cause of concern for the government. India ranks poorly at 131 out of 188 nations in The United Nation’s Human Development Index, which measures levels of healthcare, education and standard of living.