6 inch (15 cm) outside diameter, oil-cooled cables, traversing the Grand Coulee Dam throughout. An example of a heavy cable for power transmission.

Fire test in Sweden, showing rapid fire spread through burning of cable jackets. Of great importance for cables used in installations.

500,000 circular mil (254 mm²) single conductor power cable

A cable is most often two or more wires running side by side and bonded, twisted or braided together to form a single assembly, but can also refer to a heavy strong rope. In mechanics cables, otherwise known as wire ropes, are used for lifting, hauling and towing or conveying force through tension. In electrical engineering cables are used to carry electric currents. An optical cable contains one or more optical fibers in a protective jacket that supports the fibers.

Electric cables discussed here are mainly meant for installation in buildings and industrial sites. For power transmission at distances greater than a few kilometres see high-voltage cable, power cables and HVDC.

History[link]

Ropes made of multiple strands of natural fibers such as hemp, sisal, manila, and cotton have been used for millennia for hoisting and hauling. By the 19th century, deepening of mines and construction of large ships increased demand for stronger cables. Invention of improved steelmaking techniques made high-quality steel available at lower cost, and so wire ropes became common in mining and other industrial applications. By the middle of the 19th century, manufacture of large submarine telegraph cables was done using machines similar to those used for manufacture of mechanical cables.

In the 19th century and early 20th century, electrical cable was often insulated using cloth, rubber and paper. Plastic materials are generally used today, except for high-reliability power cables.

Electrical cables[link]

Electrical cables may be made more flexible by stranding the wires. In this process, smaller individual wires are twisted or braided together to produce larger wires that are more flexible than solid wires of similar size. Bunching small wires before concentric stranding adds the most flexibility. Copper wires in a cable may be bare, or they may be plated with a thin layer of another metal, most often tin but sometimes gold, silver or some other material. Tin, gold, and silver are much less prone to oxidation than copper, which may lengthen wire life, and makes soldering easier. Tinning is also used to provide lubrication between strands. Tinning was used to help removal of rubber insulation. Tight lays during stranding makes the cable extensible (CBA - as in telephone handset cords).

Cables can be securely fastened and organized, such as by using trunking, cable trays, cable ties or cable lacing. Continuous-flex or flexible cables used in moving applications within cable carriers can be secured using strain relief devices or cable ties.

At high frequencies, current tends to run along the surface of the conductor. This is known as the skin effect.

Cables and electromagnetic fields[link]

Coaxial cable.

Twisted pair cabling

Any current-carrying conductor, including a cable, radiates an electromagnetic field. Likewise, any conductor or cable will pick up energy from any existing electromagnetic field around it. These effects are often undesirable, in the first case amounting to unwanted transmission of energy which may adversely affect nearby equipment or other parts of the same piece of equipment; and in the second case, unwanted pickup of noise which may mask the desired signal being carried by the cable, or, if the cable is carrying power supply or control voltages, pollute them to such an extent as to cause equipment malfunction.

The first solution to these problems is to keep cable lengths in buildings short, since pick up and transmission are essentially proportional to the length of the cable. The second solution is to route cables away from trouble. Beyond this, there are particular cable designs that minimize electromagnetic pickup and transmission. Three of the principal design techniques are shielding, coaxial geometry, and twisted-pair geometry.

Shielding makes use of the electrical principle of the Faraday cage. The cable is encased for its entire length in foil or wire mesh. All wires running inside this shielding layer will be to a large extent decoupled from external electric fields, particularly if the shield is connected to a point of constant voltage, such as earth. Simple shielding of this type is not greatly effective against low-frequency magnetic fields, however - such as magnetic "hum" from a nearby power transformer. A grounded shield on cables operating at 2.5 kV or more gathers leakage current and capacitive current, protecting people from electric shock and equalizing stress on the cable insulation.

Coaxial design helps to further reduce low-frequency magnetic transmission and pickup. In this design the foil or mesh shield has a circular cross section and the inner conductor is exactly at its center. This causes the voltages induced by a magnetic field between the shield and the core conductor to consist of two nearly equal magnitudes which cancel each other.

A twisted pair has two wires of a cable twisted around each other. This can be demonstrated by putting one end of a pair of wires in a hand drill and turning while maintaining moderate tension on the line. Where the interfering signal has a wave length that is long compared to the pitch of the twisted pair, alternate lengths of wires develop opposing voltages, tending to cancel the effect of the interference.

Fire protection[link]

In building construction, electrical cable jacket material is a potential source of fuel for fires. To limit the spread of fire along cable jacketing, one may use cable coating materials or one may use cables with jacketing that is inherently fire retardant. The plastic covering on some metal clad cables may be stripped off at installation to reduce the fuel source for fires. Inorganic coatings and boxes around cables safeguard the adjacent areas from the fire threat associated with unprotected cable jacketing. However, this fire protection also traps heat generated from conductor losses, so the protection must be thin.

There are two methods of providing fire protection to a cable:

1. Insulation material is deliberately added with fire retardant materials
2. The copper conductor itself is covered with mineral insulation (MICC cables)

Electrical cable types[link]

Basic cable types are as follows:

Shape

• Ribbon cable

Construction

Based on construction and cable properties, they can be sorted into the following:

• Coaxial cable
• Mineral-insulated copper-clad cable
• Twinax cable
• Flexible cables
• Non-metallic sheathed cable (or nonmetallic building wire, NM, NM-B)^[1]
• Metallic sheathed cable (or armored cable, AC, or BX)^[1]
• Multicore cable (consist of more than one wire and is covered by cable jacket)
• Shielded cable
• Single cable (from time to time this name is used for wire)
• Twisted pair
• Twisting cable

Special

• Arresting cable
• Bowden cable
• Heliax cable
• Direct-buried cable
• Heavy-lift cable
• Elevator cable

Application[link]

A 250V, 16A electrical cable on a reel.

• Audiovisual cable
• Bowden cable for bicycle
• Communications cable
• Computer cable
• Mechanical cable
• Sensing cable^[2]
• Submersible cable
• Wire rope (wire cable)

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• R. M. Black, The History of Electric Wires and Cables, Peter Pergrinus, London 1983 ISBN 0-86341-001-4
• BICC Cables Ltd, "Electric Cables Handbook", WileyBlackwell; London 3rd Edition edition 1997, ISBN 0-632-04075-0

External links[link]

Look up cable in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cables

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi
File:Rajiv Gandhi, PM of India official portrait from the PM of India website.jpg
6th Prime Minister of India
In office 31 October 1984 – 2 December 1989
President	Zail Singh Ramaswamy Venkataraman
Preceded by	Indira Gandhi
Succeeded by	Vishwanath Pratap Singh
Minister of External Affairs
In office 25 July 1987 – 25 June 1988
Preceded by	Narayan Dutt Tiwari
Succeeded by	Narasimha Rao
In office 31 October 1984 – 25 September 1985
Preceded by	Indira Gandhi
Succeeded by	Bali Ram Bhagat
Minister of Finance
In office 24 January 1987 – 25 July 1987
Preceded by	Vishwanath Pratap Singh
Succeeded by	Narayan Dutt Tiwari
Minister of Defence
In office 25 September 1985 – 24 January 1987
Preceded by	Narasimha Rao
Succeeded by	Vishwanath Pratap Singh
Personal details
Born	(1944-08-20)20 August 1944 Bombay, British India
Died	21 May 1991(1991-05-21) (aged 46) Sriperumbudur, India
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse(s)	Sonia Gandhi
Children	Rahul Priyanka
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge Imperial College, London
Religion	Hinduism
Signature

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi /ˈrɑːdʒiːv ˈɡɑːndiː/ ( pronunciation (help·info); 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was the sixth Prime Minister of India (1984–1989). He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.

Rajiv Gandhi was the eldest son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi. He went to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later at Imperial College London, but did not complete a degree at either. At Cambridge he met the Italian-born Antonia Albina Maino, then a waitress in a restaurant, whom he later married. After dropping out of university, he became a professional pilot for Indian Airlines. He remained aloof from politics, despite his family's political prominence. It was only following the death of his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi in 1980 that Rajiv entered politics. Following the assassination of his mother in 1984 after Operation Blue Star, the Indian National Congress party leaders nominated him to be Prime Minister.

Rajiv Gandhi led the Congress to a major election victory in 1984 soon after, amassing the largest majority ever seen in the Indian Parliament, the Congress party winning 411 seats out of 542. He began dismantling the License Raj – government quotas, tariffs and permit regulations on economic activity – modernised the telecommunications industry, the education system, expanded science and technology initiatives and improved relations with the United States.^[1]

In 1988, Rajiv reversed the coup in Maldives antagonising the militant Tamil outfits such as PLOTE.^[2] He was also responsible for first intervening and then sending Indian troops (Indian Peace Keeping Force or IPKF) for peace efforts in Sri Lanka in 1987, which soon ended in open conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group.^[3] In mid-1987, his alleged Bofors scandal broke his honest, corruption-free image and resulted in a major defeat for his party in the 1989 elections.

Rajiv Gandhi remained Congress President until the elections in 1991. While campaigning, he was assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers) group. His widow Sonia Gandhi became the leader of the Congress party in 1998, and led the party to victory in the 2004 elections. His son Rahul Gandhi is a Member of Parliament and the General Secretary of All India Congress Committee.^[4]

Rajiv Gandhi was posthumously awarded the Highest National Award of India, Bharat Ratna (1991), joining a list of 40 luminaries, including Indira Gandhi.^[5]

Rajiv Gandhi was an active amateur radio operator, and used the callsign VU2RG.^[6] He also founded INTACH in 1984 that seeks to preserve India's art and cultural heritage.

Early life and career[link]

Rajiv Gandhi was born into India's most famous political family. His grandfather was the Indian independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, who was India's first Prime Minister after independence. Rajiv is not related to Mahatma Gandhi, although they share the same surname. Rajiv's father, Feroze, was one of the younger members of the Indian National Congress party, and had befriended the young Indira, and also her mother Kamala Nehru, while working on party affairs at Allahabad. Subsequently, Indira and Feroze grew closer to each other while in England, and they married, despite initial objections from Jawaharlal due to his religion (Zoroastrianism).^[7]

Rajiv was born in 1944 in Mumbai, during a time when both his parents were in and out of British prisons. In August 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru became the prime minister of independent India, and the family settled in Allahabad, and then at Lucknow, where Feroze became the editor of The National Herald newspaper (founded by Motilal Nehru). However, the marriage was faltering and, in 1949, Indira and the two sons moved to Delhi to live with Jawaharlal, ostensibly so that Indira could assist her father in his duties, acting as official hostess, and helping run the huge residence. Meanwhile, Feroze continued alone in Lucknow. Nonetheless, in 1952, Indira helped Feroze manage his campaign for elections to the first Parliament of India from Rae Bareli.

After becoming an MP, Feroze Gandhi also moved to Delhi, but "Indira continued to stay with her father, thus putting the final seal on the separation."^[8] Relations were strained further when Feroze challenged corruption within the Congress leadership over the Haridas Mundhra scandal. Jawaharlal suggested that the matter be resolved in private, but Feroze insisted on taking the case directly to parliament:

"The Parliament must exercise vigilance and control over the biggest and most powerful financial institution it has created, the Life Insurance Corporation of India, whose misapplication of public funds we shall scrutinise today." Feroze Gandhi, Speech in Parliament, 16 December 1957.^[9]

The scandal, and its investigation by justice M C Chagla, lead to the resignation of one of Nehru's key allies, finance minister T.T. Krishnamachari, further alienating Feroze from Jawaharlal.

After Feroze Gandhi had a heart attack in 1958, the family was reconciled briefly when they vacationed in Kashmir. However, Feroze died soon afterwards from a second heart attack in 1960.

Education[link]

At the time of his father's death, Rajiv was away at a private boarding school for boys: initially at the Welham Boys' School and later The Doon School, both located in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. He was sent to London in 1961 to study his A-levels. In 1962, he was offered a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, to study engineering. Rajiv stayed at Cambridge until 1965 and just like his mother, he dropped out of university and did not appear in the final Tripos examinations.^{[citation needed]} In 1966, he was offered and took up a place at Imperial College London, but after a year left that course also without a degree.

In January of 1965, he met Italian Antonia (Sonia) Maino in Varsity restaurant in Cambridge, where she worked as a waitress. Antonia was studying English at Lennox School of Languages (which was not associated with the University of Cambridge). Rajiv and Sonia were married in 1968 in India.

Rajiv began working for Indian Airlines as a professional pilot while his mother became Prime Minister in 1966. He exhibited no interest in politics and did not live regularly with his mother in Delhi at the Prime Minister's residence. In 1970, his wife gave birth to their first child Rahul Gandhi, and in 1972, to Priyanka Gandhi, their second. Even as Rajiv remained aloof in politics, his younger brother Sanjay became a close advisor to their mother.

Entry into politics[link]

Following his younger brother's death in 1980, Gandhi was pressured by Indian National Congress party politicians and his mother to enter politics. He and his wife were both opposed to the idea, and he even publicly stated that he would not contest for his brother's seat. Nevertheless, he eventually announced his candidacy for Parliament. His entry was criticised by many in the press, public and opposition political parties. He fought his first election from Amethi Loksabha seat. In this by-election, he defeated Lokdal leader Sharad Yadav by more than 200,000 votes.

Elected to Sanjay's Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh state in February 1981, Gandhi became an important political advisor to his mother. It was widely perceived that Indira Gandhi was grooming Rajiv for the prime minister's job, and he soon became the president of the Youth Congress – the Congress party's youth wing.

Premiership[link]

Rajiv Gandhi (right) in 1984.

Gandhi was in West Bengal when his mother, Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984 by two of her Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, to avenge the military attack on the Harmandir Sahib (Sikhism's holiest shrine, also called "The Golden Temple") during Operation Blue Star. Top Congress leaders, as well as President Zail Singh pressed Rajiv to become India's Prime Minister, within hours of his mother's assassination by two of her Sikh bodyguards. Commenting on the anti-Sikh riots in the national capital Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi said, "When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes";^[10] a statement for which he was widely criticised. Many Congress politicians were accused of orchestrating the violence.^[11] Soon after assuming office, Rajiv asked President Zail Singh to dissolve Parliament and hold fresh elections, as the Lok Sabha completed its five year term. Rajiv Gandhi also officially became the President of the Congress party. The Congress party won a landslide victory – with the largest majority in history of Indian Parliament^[12]— giving Gandhi absolute control of government. He also benefited from his youth and a general perception of being Mr. Clean, or free of a background in corrupt politics. Rajiv thus revived hopes and enthusiasm amongst the Indian public for the Congress.^[13]

Economic policy[link]

He increased government support for science and technology and associated industries, and reduced import quotas, taxes and tariffs on technology-based industries, especially computers, airlines, defence and telecommunications. He introduced measures significantly reducing the License Raj, allowing businesses and individuals to purchase capital, consumer goods and import without bureaucratic restrictions.^[1] In 1986, he announced a National Policy on Education to modernise and expand higher education programs across India. He founded the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya System in 1986 which is a Central government based institution that concentrates on the upliftment of the rural section of the society providing them free residential education from 6th till 12 grade.^[14] His efforts created MTNL in 1986, and his public call offices, better known as PCOs, helped spread telephones in rural areas.^[15]

Foreign policy[link]

Gandhi began leading in a direction significantly different from his mother's socialism. He improved bilateral relations with the United States – long strained owing to Indira's socialism and close friendship with the USSR — and expanded economic and scientific cooperation.^[16] During his state visit to the Soviet Union he met with Premier Nikolai Tikhonov, Andrey Gromyko of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Security policy[link]

Rajiv Gandhi (left) congratulates an Indian Army explorer for reaching the South Pole.

Rajiv authorised an extensive police and Army campaign to contain terrorism in Punjab. A state of martial law existed in the Punjab state, and civil liberties, commerce and tourism were greatly disrupted.^[17] There are many accusations of human rights violations by police officials as well as by the militants during this period. It is alleged that even as the situation in Punjab came under control, the Indian government was offering arms and training to the LTTE rebels fighting the government of Sri Lanka. The Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed by Rajiv Gandhi and the Sri Lankan President J.R.Jayewardene, in Colombo on 29 July 1987. The very next day, on 30 July 1987, Rajiv Gandhi was assaulted on the head with a rifle butt by a young Sinhalese naval cadet named Vijayamunige Rohana de Silva, while receiving the honour guard. The intended assault on the back of Rajiv Gandhi's head however glanced off his shoulder. Though the embarrassed Sri Lankan President Junius Richard Jayewardene initially attempted to pass off the bizarre assault as "Rajiv tripped a little and slightly lost his balance", Rajiv Gandhi while en route to New Delhi asserted to J.N. Dixit "Of course, I was hit." Rajiv's government also suffered a major setback when its efforts to arbitrate between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE rebels backfired^{[citation needed]}.

With his speech while addressing the Joint Session of the US Congress and India, he famously said, "India is an old country, but a young nation; and like the young everywhere, we are impatient. I am young and I too have a dream. I dream of an India, strong, independent, self reliant and in the forefront of the front ranks of the nations of the world in the service of mankind."^[18]

Controversies[link]

Anti Sikh riots[link]

This refers to the statement of Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister at a Boat Club rally 19-days after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, which read as “Some riots took place in the country following the murder of Indiraji. We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken. But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little.”^[19]

This statement sent a wrong signal to the authorities, who adopted a callous approach of not allowing the truth to come out despite the government setting up probe panels one after the other, including two full fledged judicial commissions, the first headed by retired Chief Justice of India Ranganath Misra and the second by a former apex court judge G.T. Nanavati. According to the authors of the book titled – “When a Tree Shook Delhi” written by senior advocate H.S. Phoolka and co-author, journalist Manoj Mitta (who have based the details of the book mainly on evidence produced before the nine panels and trial courts and high courts in the form of sworn affidavits by hundreds of witnesses). Based on eyewitness accounts the book said that instead of targeting the aggressors the police cracked down on the Sikh victims, who had been defending their properties when they were attacked by hooligans led by local Congress leaders.^[19]

Bofors scandal[link]

Gandhi's finance minister, V. P. Singh, uncovered compromising details about government and political corruption, to the consternation of Congress leaders. Transferred to the Defence ministry, Singh uncovered what became known as the Bofors scandal, involving tens of millions of dollars – concerned alleged payoffs by the Swedish Bofors arms company through Italian businessman and Gandhi family associate Ottavio Quattrocchi, in return for Indian contracts. Upon the uncovering of the scandal, Singh was dismissed from office, and later from Congress membership. Rajiv Gandhi himself was later personally implicated in the scandal when the investigation was continued by Narasimhan Ram and Chitra Subramaniam of The Hindu newspaper. This shattered his image as an honest politician; he was posthumously cleared over this allegation in 2004, however.^[20]

Singh's image as an exposer of government corruption made him very popular with the public^{[citation needed]}, and opposition parties united under his name to form the Janata Dal coalition. In the 1989 elections, the Congress suffered a major setback. With the support of Indian communists and the Bharatiya Janata Party, Singh and his Janata Dal formed a government. Gandhi became the Leader of the Opposition, while remaining Congress president. While some believe that Rajiv and Congress leaders influenced the collapse of V. P. Singh's government in October 1990 by promising support to Chandra Shekhar, a high-ranking leader in the Janata Dal, sufficient internal contradictions existed, within the ruling coalition, especially over the controversial reservation issue, to cause a fall of government. Rajiv's Congress offered outside support briefly to Chandra Sekhar, who became Prime Minister. They withdrew their support in 1991, however, and fresh elections were announced.

Sri Lanka policy[link]

Rajiv Gandhi at New Delhi in 1989.

Then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa opposed the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord, but accepted it due to pressure from then President Junius Richard Jayewardene. In January 1989 Premadasa was elected President and on a platform that promised that the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) leave within three months.^[21] In the 1989 elections, both the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and United National Party wanted the IPKF to withdraw, and they got 95 percent of the vote.

The police action was unpopular in India as well, especially in Tamil Nadu, as India was fighting the Tamil separatists.

Gandhi refused to withdraw the IPKF, believing that the only way to end the civil war was to politically force Premadasa and militarily force the LTTE to accept the accord.

Rajiv had concluded a rather empty visit to Sri Lanka; this was just after the Indian Peace Keeping Force (a contingent of India armed forces sent to Sri Lanka to help with their battle against Tamil insurgents) had been recalled and there was a good deal of resentment that Indian troops had been deployed there.

During the ceremonial send off, he had to perform the usual inspection of the guard of honour at the airport. As he was doing so, a naval rating (sailor), who was part of the guard of honour contingent, reversed his rifle and tried to hit Rajiv on the head with it. Had he succeeded it may well have proved fatal. More than anything else it was Rajiv's own agility and quick reflexes that saved him. He darted to one side and at the same time the officer in charge of the guard of honour leapt at the man and pushed him aside, an act that caused the blow to lose some of its force. Nevertheless the rifle struck Rajiv a glancing blow on his shoulder. A split second later one of his Special Protection Group (that look after Indian VIP's security) men grabbed the rating and threw him to the ground.

In December 1989, Singh was elected Prime Minister and completed the pullout. The IPKF operation killed over 1100 Indian soldiers, 5000 Tamil civilians and cost over 10000 crores.^[22][23]

Shah Bano case[link]

In 1985, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favour of Muslim divorcee Shah Bano, declaring that her husband should give her alimony. Muslim fundamentalists in India treated it as an encroachment in Muslim Personal Law and protested against it. Gandhi agreed to their demands.^[24] In 1986, the Congress (I) party, which had an absolute majority in Parliament at the time, passed an act that nullified the Supreme Court's judgement in the Shah Bano case. This was viewed by many in India, including the Bharatiya Janata Party as appeasement of Muslims.

Allegations of black money[link]

In November 1991, the Schweizer Illustrierte (Swiss Illustrated) magazine published an article on black money held in secret accounts by Imelda Marcos and 14 other rulers of Third World countries. Citing McKinsey as a source, the article stated that Rajiv Gandhi held 2.5 billion Swiss Francs in secret Indian accounts in Switzerland.^[25][26] Several leaders of opposition parties in India have raised the issue citing the Schweizer Illustrierte article. In December 1991, Amal Datta raised the issue in the Indian Parliament – the then speaker of the Lok Sabha, Shivraj Patil, expunged Rajiv Gandhi's name from the proceedings.^[27] In December 2011, Subramanian Swamy wrote a letter to the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation which cited the article, asking him to take action on black money accounts of the Gandhi family.^[28] On 29 December 2011, Ram Jethmalani made an indirect reference to the issue in the Rajya Sabha, calling it a shame that one of India's former Prime Ministers was named by a Swiss magazine. This was met by uproar and a demand for withdrawal of the remark by the ruling Congress party members.^[29]

Allegations of funding from KGB[link]

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (February 2012)

In 1992, two Indian newspapers, the Times of India and The Hindu, published reports alleging that Rajiv Gandhi had received funds from the KGB.^[27][30] The Russian government confirmed this disclosure and defended the payments as necessary for the Soviet ideological interest.^[31] In their 1994 book The State Within a State, the journalists Yevgenia Albats and Catherine Fitzpatrick quoted a letter signed by Viktor Chebrikov in the 1980s, the then-head of the KGB. The letter says that the KGB maintained contact with Rajiv Gandhi, who expressed his gratitude to the KGB for benefits accruing to his family from commercial dealings of a controlled firm, and a considerable portion of funds obtained from this channel were used to support his party.^[32] Albats later revealed that in December 1985, Chebrikov had asked for authorisation from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to make payments to family members of Rajiv Gandhi including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.^[27][31] The payments were authorised by a resolution and endorsed by the USSR Council of Ministers, and had been coming since 1971.^[31] In December 2001, Subramanian Swamy filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court, acting on which the court ordered CBI to ascertain the truth of the allegations in May 2002. After two years, the CBI told the Court that Russia would not entertain such queries without a registered FIR.^[31]

Assassination[link]

The stone mosaic that stands at the location where Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur

Rajiv Gandhi's last public meeting was at Sriperumbudur on 21 May 1991, in a village approximately 30 miles from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, where he was assassinated while campaigning for the Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha Congress candidate.^[33] The assassination was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

At 10:10 pm,a woman (later identified as Thenmuli Rajaratnam) approached Rajiv Gandhi in a public meeting and greeted him. She then bent down to touch his feet (an expression of respect among Indians) and detonated a belt laden with 700 grams of RDX explosives tucked under her dress.^[34] The explosion killed Rajiv Gandhi and at least 14 other people. The assassination was caught on film through the lens of a local photographer, whose camera and film were found at the site. The cameraman himself died in the blast but the camera remained intact.

The Rajiv Gandhi Memorial was built at the site recently and is one of the major tourist attractions of the small industrial town.

The Rajiv Gandhi Memorial at Delhi.

The Rajiv Gandhi Memorial at Sriperumbudur.

The Supreme Court judgement, by Judge Thomas, confirmed that the killing was carried out due to personal animosity of the LTTE chief Prabhakaran towards Mr Rajiv Gandhi arising out of his sending the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka and the alleged IPKF atrocities against Srilankan Tamils. However, it should be noted that the Rajiv Gandhi administration had already antagonised other Tamil militant organisations like PLOTE for reversing the military coup in Maldives back in 1988.

The judgment further cites the death of Thileepan in a hunger strike and the suicide by 12 LTTE cadres in a vessel in Oct 1987.

In the Jain Commission report, various people and agencies are named as suspected of having been involved in the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. Among them, the cleric Chandraswami was suspected of involvement, including financing the assassination.^[35][36][37] The interim report of the Jain Commission created a storm when it accused Karunanidhi of a role in the assassination, leading to Congress withdrawing its support for the I. K. Gujral government and fresh elections in 1998. LTTE spokesman Anton Balasingham told the Indian television channel NDTV that the killing was a "great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy which we deeply regret."^[38][39] A memorial christened Veer Bhumi was constructed at his cremation spot in Delhi. In 1992, the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award was instituted by All India Congress Committee (AICC) of the Indian National Congress Party (INC).

The International Airport constructed at Hyderabad has been named Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and was inaugurated by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

Further reading[link]

• Sachi Sri Kantha; Pirabhakaran Phenomenon, Lively Comet Imprint,2005;641 pp (chapters 24 to 35, pp. 207–352, cover in detail the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi)
• "Working with Rajiv Gandhi" by R.D. Pradhan
• Mani Shankar Aiyar "Remembering Rajiv", Rupa, New Delhi, 1992

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	India portal
	Politics portal

• Nehru–Gandhi family
• Political Families of The World
• List of University of London people

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rajiv Gandhi

• A Profile
• Press Brief in
• Supreme Court Judgement by Judge Thomas^{[dead link]}
• Supreme Court Judgement by Judge Quadari^{[dead link]}
• Supreme Court Judgement by Judge Wadhwa^{[dead link]}
• TERRORIST AND DISRUPTIVE ACTIVITIES (PREVENTION) ACT, 1987
• QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database – VU2RG
• Rajiv Gandhi Memorial SEANET Convention

v t e Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru Lal Bahadur Shastri Indira Gandhi Morarji Desai Charan Singh Rajiv Gandhi V. P. Singh Chandra Shekhar P. V. Narasimha Rao Atal Bihari Vajpayee H. D. Deve Gowda I. K. Gujral Manmohan Singh

v t e Indian National Congress Presidents Bonnerjee · Naoroji · Tyabji · Yule · Wedderburn · Mehta · Charlappa · Bonnerjee · Dadabhai Naoroji · Webb · Banerjea · Sayani · Nair · A. M. Bose · Dutt · Chandavarkar · Wacha · Banerjea · L. Ghosh · H. Cotton · Gokhale · Naoroji · R. Ghosh · (1907-1908) Malaviya · Wedderburn · Dar · Mudholkar · Bahadur · B. N. Bose · Sinha · Mazumdar · Besant · Malaviya · Imam · M. Nehru · Rai · C. Vijayaraghavachariar · Khan · Das · M. Ali · A. K. Azad · M. Gandhi · Naidu · Iyengar · Ansari · M. Nehru · J. Nehru · S. V. Patel · Malaviya (1932-1933) · Nellie Sengupta · Rajendra Prasad (1934-1935) · J. Nehru (1936-1937) · S. C. Bose · (1938-1939) · A. K. Azad (1940-1946) · Kripalani · Sitaramayya (1948-1949) · Tandon · J. Nehru (1951-1954) · Dhebar (1955-1959) · I. Gandhi · Reddy (1960-1963) · K. Kamaraj (1964-1967) · S. Nijalingappa (1968-1969) · J. Ram (1970-1971) · D. Sharma (1972-1974) · Baruah (1975-1977) · I. Gandhi (1978-1984) · R. Gandhi (1985-1991) · Narasimha Rao (1992-1996) · Kesri (1996-1998) · S. Gandhi (1998-present) Frontal Organizations Seva Dal · Mahila Congress · Indian Youth Congress · National Students Union of India · Indian National Trade Union Congress Internal Organizations Congress President · Working President · Congress Working Committee · Central Election Committee · All India Congress Committee · Pradesh Congress Committee Pradesh committees Andhra Pradesh PCC · Assam PCC · Bihar PCC · Chhatisgarh PCC · Delhi PCC · Gujarat PCC · Haryana PCC · Himachal Pradesh PCC · Jammu & Kashmir PCC · Jharkhand PCC · Karnataka PCC · Kerala PCC · Maharashtra PCC · Madhya Pradesh PCC · Meghalaya PCC · Mizoram PCC · Mumbai PCC · Nagaland PCC · Orissa PCC · Pondicherry PCC · Punjab PCC · Rajasthan PCC · Tamil Nadu PCC · Tripura PCC · Uttarakhand PCC · Uttar Pradesh PCC · West Bengal PCC History Statewise Election history of Congress Party · Nehru-Gandhi family · Congress Radio · 10 Janpath · The Emergency · Bofors scandal · INA Defence Committee · Indian National Congress (Organisation) · Breakaway parties

v t e Bharat Ratna laureates Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1954) C. Rajagopalachari (1954) C. V. Raman (1954) Bhagwan Das (1955) Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya (1955) Jawaharlal Nehru (1955) Govind Ballabh Pant (1957) Dhondo Keshav Karve (1958) Bidhan Chandra Roy (1961) Purushottam Das Tandon (1961) Dr. Rajendra Prasad (1962) Dr. Zakir Hussain (1963) Pandurang Vaman Kane (1963) Lal Bahadur Shastri (1966) Indira Gandhi (1971) V. V. Giri (1975) K. Kamaraj (1976) Mother Teresa (1980) Acharya Vinoba Bhave (1983) Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987) M. G. Ramachandran (1988) B. R. Ambedkar (1990) Nelson Mandela (1990) Rajiv Gandhi (1991) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1991) Morarji Desai (1991) Abul Kalam Azad (1992) J. R. D. Tata (1992) Satyajit Ray (1992) A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1997) Gulzarilal Nanda (1997) Aruna Asaf Ali (1997) M. S. Subbulakshmi (1998) Chidambaram Subramaniam (1998) Jayaprakash Narayan (1998) Ravi Shankar (1999) Amartya Sen (1999) Gopinath Bordoloi (1999) Lata Mangeshkar (2001) Bismillah Khan (2001) Bhimsen Joshi (2008)