Indian Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda’s 10-month-old coalition government fell after being routed in a vote of confidence, raising the prospect of the second general elections within a year. Gowda, 64, immediately left the house for the presidential palace and handed in his resignation, but was asked by President Shankar Dayal Sharma to carry on until new arrangements could be made. Sharma is expected to call other parties from the hung house to form a new government or order fresh polls in the world’s largest democracy. The margin of defeat — 292 votes to 158, with six absentees — was a blow to the United Front coalition, which commanded 180 members in the outgoing house. Gowda, who solemnly shook hands with opposition leaders after the humiliating defeat, bowed out of office after his coalition failed to reach a last-ditch deal with the Congress (I) party.Gowda’s exit marked the end of a 12-day drama that began when the Congress, which had propped up the government since June 1996, unexpectedly withdrew its crucial parliamentary support.
Other important events:
1843 Britain separates Gambia from Sierra Leone as a crown colony.
1899 Treaty ending Spanish-American War comes into effect.
1957 Great Britain comes to agreement with Singapore, giving its independence.
1961 Nigeria imposes total boycott on trade with South Africa.
1970 Apollo 13 blasts off on a mission to the moon that is disrupted when an explosion cripples the spacecraft.
1979 Idi Amin is deposed as President of Uganda, Yusufu Lule forms the new government.
1983 Al Dhafra air base is inaugurated in the UAE.
1984 Konstantin Chernenko is appointed by parliament as Soviet leader.
1985 Albanian leader Enver Hoxha dies at the age of 76.
1990 Angolan government agrees to begin peace talks with rebel group Unita in Portugal.
1991 UN Security Council announces a formal end to the Gulf War.
1992 The Yugoslav army seizes the town of Modrica, Bosnia, sending thousands of refugees fleeing toward Tuzla.
1993 Despite appeals for calm, two whites are burnt to death in South Africa by a black crowd.
1994 US President Bill Clinton orders trade sanctions against Taiwan over trafficking in endangered tiger and rhinoceros parts.
1999 India test fires Agni II missile, the first missile test in five years.
2006 Centre-left economist Romano Prodi emerges the winner of Italy’s election by a razor-thin margin.
2007 Knowledge Village launches the Dubai International Academic City.
2008 French troops capture six pirates after they released 30 hostages who were aboard a tourist yacht off Somalia’s coast.
2010 Sudan holds first multiparty elections in a quarter-century.
2011 France begins to enforce ban on Islamic face veils in public.
2012 Algeria’s first president Ahmad Bin Bella dies at the age of 95.
2013 Mahmudur Rahman, editor of Amar Desh, the mouthpiece of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is arrested for sedition and inciting religious tension.
2015 US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro head towards historic talks in Panama.
2016 UAE issues Child Rights Law to protect children across the UAE from negligence, mistreatment and exploitation.
