Internet on Independence Day (1995)

IC814 hijack (1999)
Indian Airlines flight 814 with 180 people on board was hijacked by a group of men in ski masks, later linked to al Qaeda
Shortly after it took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport onChristmas eve 1999, Indian Airlines flight 814 with 180 people on board was hijacked by a group of men in ski masks, later linked to al Qaeda. Over the next five hours, the flight attempted to land in several airports for refuelling, including an aborted attempt in Amritsar and a successful one in Lahore, and finally reached Kandahar. With public sentiment strongly in favour of rescuing the passengers, New Delhi agreed to release three notorious terrorists – including Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Maulana Massod Azhar – after nearly a week of negotiations. The incident underlined the unreliability of the Taliban regime, which was in control of Afghanistan and appeared to have done everything in its power to help the hijackers, including deploying armed soldiers on the tarmac to prevent a covert operation. The episode led to an overhaul of India’s security procedures and brought home the horrors of modern-day terrorism – although the world would only wake up to these later.
India’s population touches a billion (2000)
At 5.05am on May 11, 2000, India's billionth baby was born at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital. India marked the birth of Aastha Arora, the daughter of Anjana and Ashok Arora, with frenzied television coverage and some fears of a burgeoning population, although subsequent decades proved that concerns about an explosion in population were overblown. India’s population levels have since reached replacement or below replacement levels in several states. The landmark of one billion, which placed India behind only China, also underlined the challenges that the country would face in the decades to come -- generating meaningful employment for its large pool of working-age people, creating the conditions for their socio-economic growth and expanding government capacity to take advantage of the demographic dividend.