In News: Marking Lal Bahadur Shastri’s birth anniversary, Prime Minister of India and President Draupadi of India paid tributes to the former PM at Vijay Ghat.
About:
Lal Bahadur Shastri was the 2nd Prime Minister of India from 1964 to 1966 and 6th Home Minister of India from 1961 to 1963. He was also the railways minister (1951–56).
He was born on 2 October 1904 and left his education to join the non-cooperation movement.
He worked for the betterment of the Harijans at Muzaffarpur and dropped his caste-derived surname of “Srivastava“.
Shastri’s thoughts were influenced by Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Annie Besant.
He served as the president of Servants of the People Society (Lok Sevak Mandal), founded by Lala Lajpat Rai and held prominent positions in Indian National Congress.
He promoted the White Revolution by supporting the Amul milk co-operative of Anand, Gujarat and creating the National Dairy Development Board.
He also promoted the Green Revolution in India in 1965. This led to an increase in food grain production, especially in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
He won great popularity for his firmness on the outbreak of hostilities with neighbouring Pakistan (1965) over the disputed Kashmir region.
He died of a heart attack after signing a “no-war” agreement with Pres. Ayub Khan of Pakistan and was succeeded as prime minister by Indira Gandhi
