Events in the year 2021 in India for real time basis.
Incumbents Government of India
Post Name President of India Ram Nath Kovind Vice-President of India Chairman of Rajya Sabha Venkaiah Naidu Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi Chief Justice of India Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana Speaker of the Lok Sabha Om Birla Chief Election Commissioner of India Sushil Chandra Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat ( Vacant since 8 December 2021)Lok Sabha17th Lok Sabha
State Governments
StateGovernorChief MinisterPolitical AllianceChief JusticeAndhra PradeshBiswabhusan HarichandanYS Jagan Mohan ReddyRegionalArup Kumar GoswamiArunachal PradeshPema KhanduBJPN.D.A.Sudhanshu Dhulia (Gauhati High Court)AssamHimanta Biswa SarmaBJPN.D.A.Sudhanshu Dhulia (Gauhati High Court)BiharPhagu ChauhanNitish KumarJD(U)N.D.A.Sanjay Karol (Patna High Court)ChhattisgarhBhupesh BaghelINCU.P.A.P. R. Ramachandra MenonGoaPramod SawantBJPN.D.A.Dipankar DattaGujaratBhupendra PatelBJPN.D.A.Vikram NathHaryanaManohar Lal KhattarBJPN.D.A.Ravi Shankar JhaHimachal PradeshJai Ram ThakurBJPN.D.A.L. Narayana SwamyJharkhandHemant SorenJMMU.P.A.Ravi RanjanKarnatakaThawar Chand GehlotBasavaraj BommaiBJPN.D.A.Ritu Raj AwasthiKeralaArif Mohammad KhanPinarayi VijayanCPI(M)RegionalS. ManikumarMadhya PradeshLalji TandonShivraj Singh ChouhanBJPN.D.A.Mohammad RafiqMaharashtraBhagat Singh KoshyariUddhav ThackerayShivsenaU.P.A.Dipankar DattaManipurN. Biren SinghBJPN.D.A.Ramalingam SudhakarMeghalayaConrad SangmaNPPN.D.A.Biswanath SomadderMizoramZoramthangaMNFN.D.A.Sudhanshu DhuliaNagalandNeiphiu RioNDPPN.D.A.Sudhanshu DhuliaOdishaNaveen PatnaikBJDRegionalS. MuralidharPunjabBhagwant MannAam Admi Party (AAP)RegionalRavi Shankar JhaRajasthanAshok GehlotINCU.P.A.Indrajit MahantySikkimPrem Singh TamangSKMN.D.A.Jitendra Kumar MaheshwariTamil NaduM. K. StalinDMKU.P.A.TelanganaK. Chandrashekar RaoTRSFederal FrontHima KohliTripuraBiplab Kumar DebBJPN.D.A.Akil KureshiUttar PradeshYogi AdityanathBJPN.D.A.Govind MathurUttarakhandBaby Rani MauryaPushkar Singh DhamiBJPN.D.A.Raghvendra Singh ChauhanWest BengalJagdeep DhankharMamata BanerjeeAITCFederal FrontPrakash Shrivastava
Events January.. 1 January – India begins its two-year tenure (2021–22) as a non-permanent member of the UNSC. 2 January – India approves two coronavirus vaccines, Bharat Biotech's "Covaxin" and the Oxford/AstraZeneca "Covishield", for emergency use. Experts raised questions over the efficacy of Covaxin and a lack of transparency in trials. 3 January - Former Indian national cricket team captain Sourav Ganguly suffered a mild cardiac arrest. Social media criticism rose against Adani Wilmar Group's Fortune Edible Oil brand's healthy heart advertisement campaign of which Ganguly is a brand ambassador. The company pulled down the advertisements featuring Ganguly following the criticism and trolls. 4 January – Instant messaging app WhatsApp announced a new amendment in their privacy policies and data sharing norms. This led to massive outrage against the app and an exodus to alternative applications by users in India. The announcement that WhatsApp will share data with their parent company Facebook led to a surge in the user bases of applications like Signal. 12 January – The Supreme Court issues a stay order thereby suspending the implementation of the three new farm laws in the wake of the ongoing farmer protests. 14 January – Former NDTV journalist Nidhi Razdan announced that she fell prey to a serious phishing attack in 2020 that came as a job offer for a teaching position at Harvard University. 16 January – The Indian Government begins a mass vaccination campaign for COVID-19. The vaccine for preventing COVID-19 is prepared by Bharat Biotech. A 500-page transcript of WhatsApp chat between Arnab Goswami and former Broadcast Audience Research Council CEO Partho Dasgupta was leaked to media. The transcripts revealed that Arnab Goswami was privy to top secret information regarding 2019 Balakot airstrike and 2019 Pulwama attack. It also carried derogatory remarks made by Arnab Goswami on political activists, opposition leaders, media persons like Navika Kumar, celebrity like Kangana Ranaut etc. 21 January Five people are killed in a fire at the Serum Institute of India Building, Pune.
26 January – The 72nd Republic Day Parade took place in New Delhi. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, no foreign head of state served as the chief guest. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, cancelled his appearance due to the pandemic. A massive tractor rally took place in Delhi as part of the farmers' protest against new farm bills. There was ensuing violence and a serious law and order situation that followed the rally, and the Delhi Police alleged that an illegal flag hoisting took place at Red Fort by Deep Sidhu. There were massive crack down by security agencies on farmers, journalists, etc. followed by internet shutdowns in Delhi.
February
7 February – 2021 Uttarakhand flood. 13 February – A 6.3 magnitude earthquake occurred in Tajikistan. Tremors were felt in parts of North India, including Delhi. 14 February – A 22 year old Indian environmentalist from Bangalore, Disha Ravi, was arrested by the Delhi Police on sedition charges. The police alleged that Ravi edited and circulated a document (toolkit) tweeted by Greta Thunberg relating to the 2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest. 23 February - A Delhi court granted bail to Disha Ravi, citing the toolkit she shared as 'innocuous'. 24 February – The Motera cricket stadium in Ahmedabad was renamed as Narendra Modi Stadium. It is the world largest cricket stadium with a seating capacity of 132,000.
March 4 March – Heavily polluted Bellandur Lake in Bangalore catches fire. 20 March – Dattatreya Hosabale is elected as the General Secretary of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. 26 March – 2021 Mumbai hospital fire.
April 1 April – The Gujarat Assembly amends the Freedom of Religion Act, 2003, bringing in stringent provisions against forcible conversion through marriage or allurement, with the intention of targeting "love jihad". Gujarat became the 3rd state to do so, after Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh passed similar bills in 2020. 3 April – 2021 Sukma-Bijapur attack. 8 April – A French online journal Mediapart came out with an investigative journalism piece on the Rafale deal controversy, based on an investigation by the French anti-corruption agency Agence Francaise Anticorruption (AFA). In the report, Mediapart alleged that the jet manufacturer had paid nearly one million Euros to an Indian middleman. 15 April – Adani Ports & SEZ removed from S&P Dow Jones Sustainability Indices due to links and shared financial interests that group have with Tatmadaw that carried out 2021 Myanmar coup d'état. 23 April – Virar hospital fire. A viral video emerged from Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha, showing a dead body falling off a running ambulance draws criticism. 24 April – 25 COVID-19 patients die in Jaipur Golden Hospital, Delhi after the hospital runs out of their oxygen supply. 27 April – The total number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the country cross 2 lakh. However, this is the official figure, with gross amounts of under-reporting suspected. 28 April – 2021 Assam earthquake. 29 April – A Supreme Court of India bench presided by Justice Uday U. Lalit refused a Central Bureau of Investigation probe on the controversial death of Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh Kalikho Pul. 30 April - A Special Bench of Justices Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, L. Nageswara Rao and Shripathi Ravindra Bhat warned State governments and police against clamping down on the spread of information or calls for help through social media from citizens affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The bench also questioned lack of equity in vaccine pricing in India.
May 1 May - Bharuch hospital fire. 2 May - In a joint statement, opposition party leaders asked the Union government to focus all its attention on ensuring uninterrupted oxygen supply to hospitals across the country. 4 May - Twitter permanently suspends the account of Kangana Ranaut for hateful posts about the post poll violence in West Bengal. Delhi High Court issues show cause notice for contempt of court to Government of India on grounds of not meeting court's direction to supply requisite Oxygen for hospitals in Delhi. 5 May – Supreme Court of India strikes down the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018 which extends reservation to the Maratha community in public education and employment and upheld the Indra Sawhney & Others v. Union of India verdict and One Hundred and Second Amendment of the Constitution of India. 6 May – Union Minister V. Muraleedharan's convoy attacked at West Bengal. 10 May – Nearly 150 decomposed and bloated Human Dead bodies were found floating in River Ganges at Chausa, Buxar district, Bihar. It is believed that these bodies belonged to under-reported death cases of COVID-19 pandemic from neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh. 12 May – Thousands of dead bodies are found floating or washing up the shore of the river Ganges. The corpses also include people that died due to COVID-19. In a joint letter to Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, twelve opposition parties urged the government to start a free universal mass vaccination program in India. The letter also urged Modi to repeal the farm bills, scrap the Central Vista Redevelopment Project and provide food grains to people.
17 May - Cyclone Tauktae hits India, resulting in at least 90 deaths. More than 70 people die due to the capsizing of two barges, P-305 and Gal Contractor, housing crew involved in works at the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's Mumbai High Field. The accident happened because the barge contractor ignored Cyclone Tauktae warnings issued by the India Meteorological Department. 21 May It was reported that Air India was subjected to a cyberattack whereas the personal details of about 4.5 million customers around the world were compromised, including passports, credit card details, birth dates, names and ticket information. 13 Maoists killed in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra in an operation carried out by C-60 commandos. 23 May – Fugitive Indian diamond trader Mehul Choksi, who committed the Punjab National Bank Scam, is arrested in Dominica. 25 May – Protests in Lakshadweep against Union territory administrator Praful Khoda Patel by the Save Lakshadweep campaign intensified following controversial decisions and laws passed by Patel. His decision to shut all dairy farms on the island, ban beef on the Muslim majority island, remove non-vegetarian food items from Midday Meals provided in schools, implement the Goonda act (Anti-social Activities Regulation Bill, 2021) in islands with 'zero criminal cases' to crack down dissent against the Citizenship Amendment Act, shift the islands logistics from Cochin Port and Beypore port to New Mangalore Port, violation of COVID-19 protocols etc. raised sentiments against the administrator on the island. 26 May – Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Yaas affects Odisha and West Bengal. 28 May – Lakshadweep administration issues an order to deploy government officials in fishing boats. The decision invited huge outcry and criticism. 29 May – An audio clip of a telephone conversation between social activist H.M. Santhosh and staff of A.V. Hospital Basavanagudi surfaces in the media. In light of the audio clip, the Karnataka Congress alleged a "vaccine selling scam" against L. A. Ravi Subramanya, Member of the Legislative Assembly from Basavanagudi (Vidhana Sabha constituency) who is the uncle of Tejasvi Surya. 31 May – West Bengal Chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, who was trapped in an appointment tussle between the Union government and the Government of West Bengal, resigned.
June 1 June – Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal was admitted to AIIMS, Delhi due to post-Covid complications.