New Delhi: Lal Bahadur Shastri, the second Prime Minister of the country and the one who gave the slogan 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan', died on 11 January 1966. Shastri, famous for his clean image and simplicity, took over as Prime Minister on 9 June 1964 after the death of the first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Shastri remained the Prime Minister of the country for about 18 months. Under his leadership, India defeated Pakistan in the 1965 war. He died under mysterious circumstances on the night of 11 January 1966 after signing the agreement to end the war with Pakistan President Ayub Khan in Tashkent.

Shastri's wife was unhappy with the Tashkent Agreement

Shastri was under pressure after the Tashkent Agreement. Experts say that Shastri was being criticized in the country for returning Haji Pir and Tithwal to Pakistan. Senior journalist Kuldeep Nayyar was his media advisor at that time. It was Nayyar who informed Shastri's family about his death. In an interview to the BBC, he said that Shastri's wife was very angry at handing over Haji Pir and Tithwal to Pakistan. She even refused to talk to Shastri over the phone. Shastri was deeply hurt by this.

The next day when the news of Shastri's death came, she was shocked along with the whole country. While many people claim that Shastri ji was killed by poisoning, some people say that he died of a heart attack.

Death of King Constantine

On 11 January 2023, the former and last king of Greece, Constantine, died in Hagia, a private hospital in Athens. Constantine was 82 years old. He ascended the throne as Constantine II in 1964 at the age of 23. He was already very popular due to winning the Olympic gold medal in sailing and his fame increased after becoming king. However, after the military coup in 1967, Constantine fought against the military rulers and had to face exile.

The dictatorship abolished the monarchy in 1973 and the subsequent referendum to restore democracy in 1974 dashed any hope of Constantine's reign again. In the following decades, his visits to Greece became rare and each time he visited, a political storm arose. In the last few years of his life, he managed to settle in his home country. Constantine was born on June 2, 1940 in Athens. His father was Prince Paul and mother was Princess Federica of Hanover.

The sequential details of other important events recorded on 11 January in the history of the country and the world are as follows-

1569: First lottery introduced in England.

1613: Mughal emperor Jahangir allowed the East India Company to set up a factory in Surat.
1922: Insulin was given to diabetes patients for the first time.
1942: Japan captured Kuala Lumpur in the Second World War.
1954: Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, who raised his voice against child labour, was born.
1962: Many villages and cities were buried under huge rocks and ice in the north-western mountainous region of Peru, killing at least two thousand people in the incident.
1966: The then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri died in Tashkent. He had gone there to participate in the summit meeting with Pakistan.
1972: East Germany recognized Bangladesh.
1998: The Algerian government held Islamic extremists responsible for the attacks on two villages. 100 people were killed in these attacks.
2001: Defence agreement between India and Indonesia for the first time.
2021: The Heritage Conservation Committee approved the construction of India's new Parliament House.
2021: Pope Francis changed the rules of the church to allow women to perform other functions including reading the Gospel during prayers. However, no change was made in the rule of not allowing them to become priests.
2023: Hundreds of aircraft movements in the US were halted after a computer malfunction at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).