The butter- girl who has a larger fan base than the greatest stars of Indian Cinema, made her debut in 1966. The brainchild of Sylvester daCunha, the Amul Girl has pro-actively participated in all of India’s leading discussions. With witty remarks of her own, she has an opinion on everything in India. She may be a thumb-shaped cartoon but in her own utterly-butterly way she has entered the lives of most of the Indians and is a face of trust. Through the Amul Girl, the brand has positioned itself in the image of an average Indian Citizen. This is why the girl is such an icon, she celebrates what India as a whole celebrates. Here are 50 years of India through with Amul advertisements:
Image Courtesy: Amul
1978: History was created when Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay became the first physician in India (and second in the world after British physicians Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards) to perform the In vitro fertilization resulting in a test tube baby “Durga” (Kanupriya Agarwal) on October 3, 1978.
Image Courtesy: Amul
1979: Indian Railways introduces cushioned seats in the First Class Compartments of trains.
1980: Moscow Olympics- The Amul Girl demanded a Gold medal from Indian players, just like the rest of the country. It was the years India won a gold in Hockey.
1983: India wins 1983 Cricket World Cup. The final of 1983, Prudential Cup was held at Lord’s Cricket Ground on June 25. For West Indies, it was their third successive world cup final, for India it was its first world cup final. Kapil Dev took the winning catch, this event contributed to an era where cricket became India’s religion.
1991: Economic Liberalisation of India- Prime Minister Narasimha Rao along with the then Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh introduced economic reforms which not only did away with “licence raj” but opened India to foreign investors and markets.
1997: India celebrates 50 years of Independence. On August 15, 1997, India celebrated 50 years of being an independent nation.
1998: Pokhran II Tests- On May 11, 1998, India conducted the second Pokhran test, a good 24 years after the first one and declared itself a Nuclear Power. The tests were conducted jointly by DRDO and AEC. Project Managers for this monumental project were Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and Head of DRDO and Dr. R. Chidambaram, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Atomic Energy.
2000: Dot-com Bubble was an economic phase which saw a rise in companies adopting internet for businesses. The rise of the bubble started in 1996 and reached its peak in the year 2000, leading to the introduction of the “dot-com” companies in the market. However, the bubble declined rapidly between 2000-2002, leading to the shutting down of several businesses.
2005: In June 2005, the Government of India enacted a monumental Act called the Right to Information Act. This act was recognized as a citizen’s right, it also made the system more transparent and encouraged citizens into taking more interest in the processes of the country.
2008: In October 2008, ISRO successfully launched its first probe to the moon, called Chandrayan. This mission made India the 5th country and ISRO the 6th agency to launch an orbiter to the moon. In August 2009, almost a year after entering the lunar orbit and suffering through several technical glitches, Chandrayan’s mission was ended. Despite the technical glitches the mission achieved 95% of its set objectives in just 312 days.
2010: Commonwealth Games, New Delhi- New Delhi hosted the CommonWealth games from October 3, 2010, to October 14, 2010. India won 101 Gold medals, including 38 Gold Medals. India finished the games second, behind Australia.
2011: 28 years after India won the Cricket World Cup at Lord’s Stadium, India won the title for a second time at Wankhede Stadium on April 2, 2011. This win led to an era of India being the top country in all three cricket formats namely, Test, T-20 and ODI.
2012: On May 12, 2012, both houses of the Indian Parliament convened for a special sitting to celebrate the 60 years journey of the Parliament. The brand on this occasion released a minimal yet intelligent commentary on the dissonance and chaos the Indian Parliament reflects on most days.
2013: Mangalyaan or MOM was launched in 2013 to orbit Mars, making India the fourth country in the world with an inter-planetary mission. India also became Asia’s first country to have an interplanetary mission. The Mangalyaan entered Mars’ orbit in 2014 and has been successfully orbiting Mars since then. The total cost of the mission was around 450 crores, making it the least expensive space mission to date.
2016: On November 8, 2016, the Prime Minister of India declared that all INR 500 & INR 1000 notes would be of no value starting midnight. This declaration led to the largest demonetisation movement in the world. It also propelled India to digital banking and e-commerce. RBI’s instructions to banks and citizens for depositing old currency notes changed for nearly 50 times in less than 3 months. It also led to the largest economic experiment in the world. A year later, this experiment still has divided views on its success.
2017: For the first time in India, a team of six women navy officers, set sail from Goa in September 2017 on INSV Tarini to circumnavigate the globe; covering a distance of 21600 nautical miles in 8 months.
