This is the front page of The Indian Express published on October 17, 1984, Forty Years Ago.
The underground Tribal National Volunteers (TNV) struck again, killing four members of a non-tribal family at Katlicherra, about 90 km from Agartala. A gang of armed men stormed into the house of the family and shot dead four inmates. Four others were said to be injured. The gang was led by a self-styled “Lieutenant” Surendra Dev Barman.
No Bail For Akalis
The government will not release all the Akalis including G S Tohra, president, SGPC, against whom there are specific criminal cases and for which they will have to face a trial before special courts. There are over 400 Akali leaders in jails. Some important leaders including the Akali Dal chief Harchand Singh Longowal, the former Punjab chief minister, Prakash Singh Badal, former Union minister Surjit Singh Barnala are detained under the National Security Act.
Five-Year Plan Puzzle
The planners have miraculously reduced the resource gap of the Seventh Five Year Plan from Rs 40,000 crore to a mere Rs 10,000 crore and are now confident of achieving the compound annual rate of growth of 5 per cent in a non-inflationary manner. But mystery surrounds the manner in which this reduction has been achieved and even the panel of economists were not satisfied with the explanation offered by the Planning Commission. Most of the extra resources are to come from profits of public sector undertakings.
Nobel For Tutu
Black South African church leader and anti-apartheid campaigner Bishop Desmond Tutu, 53, was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel committee announced. The committee said Bishop Tutu, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), had been a unifying figure in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.
