Word: indira
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That prospect, however, may be remote. In its 37 years of independence, India has become largely self-sufficient in food production, made great strides toward industrialization, and generally retained the strength of its democratic institutions. Under Indira Gandhi it became the sixth nation to explode a nuclear device and one of the first to launch its own space satellite. Yet India has at the same time remained a nation mired in the bullock-cart age, whose exploding population is expected to reach the billion mark by the end of the century...
Independence itself was won in part through the work of Motilal Nehru, an early and active backer of the concept. He begat Jawaharlal, who served for 17 years as the first Prime Minister of independent India. Jawaharlal begat Indira, who ruled for 16 of the 20 years of the post-Nehru era and, through her marriage, became the namesake, though not a relation, of the country's spiritual conscience, Mahatma Gandhi. Indira, known to many in the nation as Amma (mother), begat Rajiv and then Sanjay. When the prodigal younger son and heir apparent died in a plane crash...
...elections Nehru coasted to one handy victory after another. By 1958, however, the revered Panditji, then 69 and riding the crest of his popularity, wanted to step down. The cries of outrage were so overwhelming that he agreed to continue. Although the widowed Prime Minister retained his shy daughter Indira as one of his most trusted companions and made her president of the Congress Party, he continued to regard a monarchical succession as "undemocratic and undesirable...
...when Nehru's successor Lai Shastri died in 1966, after only 19 months in power, Indira was chosen as Prime Minister. Though self-effacing and inexperienced, she commanded the affectionate support of the country simply by virtue of being the only child of its beloved father figure...
While silencing skeptics by sweeping through two straight election victories, Indira kept her own counsel and chose to live in a house she shared with her two sons, their wives and three grandchildren...