OCTOBER

NATIONAL

01 Actor Shiney Ahuja gets bail months after his arrest for alleged rape of his domestic help.

02 The government renames the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act as the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

04 Floods kill more than 200 people in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

08 A Taliban attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul kills at least 17 and injures 83 people; 17 policemen killed in an encounter with naxalites in Maharashtra.

12 India successfully test fires two medium range Prithvi II missilesin Orissa.

13 Assembly elections held in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh.

14 The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, India’s bio-technology regulator, approves commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) Bt Brinjal.

16 The government gives approval to the Indian Institutes of Management to open their campuses in foreign countries.

20 President Pratibha Patil confers 55th National Film Awards on eminent personalities.

21 Goa Express rams into Mewar Express near Mathura killing at least 22 people.

25 Bhoopinder Singh Hooda is sworn in Haryana Chief Minister for the second consecutive term.

INTERNATIONAL

01 China Celebrates 60 Years of Communist Rule.

02 The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), a grouping of 57 nations, appoints a special envoy on Jammu and Kashmir; Rio de Janeiro wins the right to  host the 2016 Olympic Games, beating Madrid 66 to 32 votes.

05 Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, and Jack W. Szostak win the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine; Panhellenic Socialist Movement wins the Parliamentary elections in Greece.

06 Britain’s Hilary Mantel wins the 2009 Man Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall; The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Charles K. Kao, Willard S.Boyle and George E. Smith.

07 India born American scientist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan along with Thomas A. Steitz, and Ada E. Yonath wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; The discovery of a new ring around Saturn is announced by NASA.

08 Romanian-German novelist Herta Muller wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature.

09 U.S. president Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize; General Motors finalizes a deal to sell Hummer to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company; In an attempt to determine the extent of lunar ice, NASA crashes two unmanned spacecraft into the Moon's south pole.

12 Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson win the Nobel Prize for Economics; Six Uyghurs are sentenced to death over riots in the western region of Xinjiang, China in July.

13 China and Russia sign 40 agreements worth $3.5 billion including one to suppy gas from Siberia to China.

14 The Dow Jones closes above 10,000 points for the first time in more than a year.

15 The U.N. General Assembly elects Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Gabon, Lebanon and Nigeria to the U.N. Security Council as non-vetoholding members; Finland becomes the first country in the world to declare Internet broadband access a legal right.

16 Voters in Botswana take part in a general election; Uruguay becomes the first country to provide a laptop for every child attending state primary school.

17 30,000 troops from the Pakistan Army begin an offensive operation against the Taliban and their allies in South Waziristan; The government of the Maldives holds the world's first underwater Cabinet meeting, to highlight the threat of global warming.

18 Jenson Button wins the 2009 Formula One World Championship in Interlagos, Sao Paulo, Brazil, by finishing fifth in the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix.

20 Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono begins his second term as Indonesia’s first directly elected President; Five students killed in a militant attack at a University in Islamabad.

21 Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev appoints former mayor of Bishkek, Daniyar Usenov, as his new Prime Minister following the resignation of his predecessor, Igor Chudinov.

22 The Microsoft operating system Windows 7 goes on retail sale worldwide.

23 A universal mobile phone charger that works with any handset is approved by the International Telecommunication Union.

24 The ruling National Movement for the Development of Society wins a controversial parliamentary electionin Niger.

25 136 people killed in two car bomb explosions outside the Justice Ministry and government offices in Baghdad, Iraq.

26 President of Tunisia Zine El Abidine Ben Ali wins 90% of votes and his fifth term in the country's general election; Jurelang Zedkaia is elected the 5th President of the Marshall Islands