LAL BAHADUR SHASTRI

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Context: The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has paid floral tributes to former Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri Ji on his Jayanti at Vijay Ghat.

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He was born on 2nd October, 1904 in Mughalsarai in Uttar Pradesh.
Participated in the freedom movement since 1930.
He joined the Kashi VidyaPeeth in Varanasi, one of the many national institutions set up in defiance of the British rule.
He was minister in the Union Cabinet from 1951 to 1956 when he resigned taking responsibility for the railway accident and later from 1957-1964.
He was India’s second Prime Minister (1964-66).
While India was still recovering from the economic implications of the war with China (1962), failed monsoons, drought and serious food crisis presented a grave challenge. The country also faced a war with Pakistan in 1965.
Shastri’s famous slogan ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’, symbolised the country’s resolve to face both these challenges.
Shastri’s Prime Ministership came to an abrupt end on 10th January 1966, when he suddenly expired in Tashkent, then in USSR and currently the capital of Uzbekistan. He was there to discuss and sign an agreement (Tashkent Agreement) with Muhammad Ayub Khan, the then President of Pakistan, to end the war.
He was the first person to be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna (1966).