Rajiv Gandhi’s Contributions remembered on his 77th birth anniversary
On 20.08.2021 the entire India has paid rich tributes to Rajiv Gandhi on his 77th birth anniversary.
On this occasion many leaders paid floral tributes at Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial “Vir Bhumi”.
He was born on 20th August 1944. He was the second son of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Feroze Gandhi and his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of independent India.
Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister of India in 1984 at the age of 40 and he ruled the country till 1989. He was the youngest Prime Minister of India.
He became the Prime Minister of India just after the assassination of his mother and the former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. She was assassinated by two of her own bodyguards while she was walking towards her office from an adjoining bungalow.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female LTTE suicide bomber while he was on the way for a public meeting in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991.
Rajiv Gandhi does not have much political and administrative experience when he became the Prime Minister of India.
But the sympathy wave of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, immense political clout Nehru-Gandhi family was having in Indian politics, and the grass root level support of Indian National Congress party across India has widely helped the congress party to win 411 seats in the parliament out of 542.
Ever since Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India, he laid solid foundation to create the revolution of Information Technology (IT) in India and for taking India to 21st century as a high tech country.
To bring down the price of computer mother boards, he has allowed the importers to import fully assembled motherboards and formed a National Informatics Centre to help in importing the computers in India without any technical and administrative hassle.
His encouragement in the computer industry immensely helped in creating millions of software engineers in India. With the support of these highly educated, experienced I.T. Engineers, within a short period India became Superpower in the I.T. Industry. Hundreds thousands of people are now working various I.T. companies in India and across the world.
As he has contributed lot for the growth and development of Information Technology sector, he is widely known as the ‘Father of Information Technology” as well as the “Architect of Digital India”.
Before Rajiv Gandhi was becoming Prime Minister of India, telephone facilities in India was considered only for richer people.
In the intention of providing telephone facilities for the common people across India and to enhance the telecom network facilities to rural areas, Rajiv Gandhi took widespread measures in establishing MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited) in 1986.
To involve the youngsters for the nation building process and to produce more and more young leaders in India, in 1989, Rajiv Gandhi took the initiative in amending the law and lowered the voting rights from 21 to 18. This has helped many youngsters to become Member of Parliament, Member of Legislative Assembly and the members of Panchayat, Municipal and Corporation once their age crossed 18.
Apart from the same, he also taken lot of other initiatives, some of the same are given below:-
- Economic liberalization
- Democratic decentralization
- Co-operative federalism
- Technological advancement
- Resource-based agricultural growth
- Economic reforms
- Supporting Science and Technology and Associated Industries.
- Reduced Taxes and Tariffs on technology based industries, computers, airlines, defense and telecommunications.
Though he ruled the country only 5 years (from 1984 to 1989, but he utilized each and every day to create India as a modern country. Considering his immense contribution towards India’s growth and development, in 1987 he was awarded Barat Ratna.